* Posts by Tom 13

7544 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

US lawyer's email not creative enough for copyright protection

Tom 13

@BristolBachelor: Well, you might be able to get him on the first count,

but the second one is never going to fly. Lawyers in the US are already in so much disrepute it isn't possible to bring any more upon them.

Which means that if you bring suite on both counts, another good lawyer will probably get him off on the first count as well.

Can Bing ride IE and WinPho to Google triumph?

Tom 13

Google took a minimalist approach to the landing page

and won converts by the millions over the bloated MSN page that was once the default page for IE. While Bing is an improvement over MSN, it is still bigger than Google. Most users want a fast loading page because they aren't really spending time on the first page.

Google also spent money and effort working out that about 10 responses is what your typical user wants to see. They made it easy to customize if you want more.

Combine those with a search engine algorithm that pops up what most people want to find, and you've got a number 1 product. If you want to displace the number 1 product, you need to make significant improvements on it. Not 1% or 3%, more like 20%. Essentially enough improvement for it to be worth it for the typical user to bother to change the settings.

And I say that as someone who tries to use other search engines over Google these days.

Tom 13

He works at the Huffers Post

You can't work there and not have a dim view of people. Lousy choice for somebody to quote from the author.

Adobe warns of attacks exploiting critical Flash flaw

Tom 13

No, Word and Flash are the correct places to fix it.

If I'm dealing with a vendor I'm not likely to have their name in my address book, and I'm likely to want whatever document is attached. The problem is hooking the applications directly to the kernel of the OS, which is a MS SOP from their start. It should have been done away with when they released 95. They claimed they were killing it when the released NT. Then they claimed it again when they released Vista. Somehow I doubt they have.

SCO trading suspended in US

Tom 13

If I had that kind of money,

I would have tried to buy out the company long ago and turn whatever IP it might or might not have over to a legal defense fund for Open Source software. As long as it or any of its assets are still kicking around somewhere it's still a zombie waiting to attack again.

Judge flips $625.5m Apple patent payout

Tom 13

Crazy Brit

If you knew the kinds of idiots we have for judges over here you'd want it going to a jury too.

Tom 13

But if you really would have gotten

a billion a piece for each of the patents, it wouldn't be triple dipping. Frankly, I think that's the way it SHOULD be broke out, so that when you get to the judgment phase, if it turns out that the infringement was for only 1 or 2 of the patents you get the either 1 or 2 billion respectively.

McAfee recovers from Sesame Street email filter mix-up

Tom 13

I was going to up vote you, but no you had to go and

rag on Scooby-Doo.

Tom 13

Actually, I think most muppets are smarter

than McAfee network engineers.

US House votes to bar FCC net neut rules

Tom 13

No, net neutrality means whatever whoever is posting

thinks it means. So freetards think it means they get to download their pirated movie at the same priority as a VOIP call.

I'm for the government requiring full disclosure on how the services are provided, but not a damn thing about same are provisioned.

Tom 13

It isn't the usage based billing, traffic shaping, or throttling.

The issue is the ISP not disclosing that they are doing those things and instead falsely selling their services as "UNLIMITED!!!!!!"

MythBusters: Savage and Hyneman detonate truthiness

Tom 13

Actually, I'd say it is one of the MOST scientific shows out there.

The present the myth (hypothesis), outline the testing method, run a small scale test, refine the hypothesis, complete the full scale test, and review the results with one of three possible outcomes, two of which are exactly the same as what scientific work is, the other of which can be considered to roughly correlate to "needs more testing" which is your third scientific outcome.

This show probably does more to entice young people into science than any 10 years of government grants ever has.

Tom 13

Their science on this one is solid.

In point of fact one of the unaired tests run by a contestant was with a parabolic mirror. It works at short distances, but fails at the required distances of 150 or 75 feet. The focal point for the parabolic mirror is too close to shore to have an effect.

http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/01/episode_46_archimedes_death_ra.html

The flat mirrors at irregular distances is a better chance at approximating a parabolic shape focusing at the single point. But I think the engineering required to get the precision alignment of the mirrors makes it impossible for it to have been done in ancient times.

Tom 13

OK, I thought I'd seen that episode

but was wondering if it was History channel instead. It was very interesting.

Judge hits police with massive bill over false Operation Ore charges

Tom 13

Don't you mean Hits Taxpayers With Massive Bill?

Not that the victim doesn't deserve the payment and then some, but really, the "police" won't pay anything.

Season of TV shows blown out of cloud... for good

Tom 13

I've worked in an environment where cloud was the only

strategy, and that was before the cloud became The Cloud(TM). In that environment, it is not unreasonable to make the primary storage service provider is producing a backup level which exceeds yours. That does mean checking some details on the contract, but the assuming those were in place, WeR1 is not to blame.

Tom 13
Pirate

In the real world yes. In the world of contracts

you have transferred total responsibility to the cloud company (assuming you've written the contract correctly of course), and can sue them into the modern equivalent of forced servitude, plus make the lawyers rich in the process!

How can you not love that?

Tom 13

I think I'd prefer the "no backups" theory

since the backups should theoretically have had at least one set offsite and disconnected from the cloud. If the ex-employee also managed to get to the offsite backups, that a greater degree of incompetency and even more difficult to fix.

Supply ships used to push ISS clear of sat-smash debris

Tom 13

Fine by me, but then I'm a US citizen.

The question for you is:

Do you really want to always be dependent on whatever wanker may be sitting in the Big House?

They can cut off your connection to that all important link in a New York second. Me, I'd want a back up under the control of my own government. Frankly I'd prefer one under my specific control, but I don't have that much money, so I settle for the next best option.

Photoshopped image scam used in rogue Facebook app trap

Tom 13

But that's not malware,

that's the planned functionality.

RSA explains how attackers breached its systems

Tom 13

I'm with Kipling on this one.

The sins that you do by two and two, you shall pay for one by one.

RSA deserves a complete roasting for their failure, but that doesn't excuse Adobe who likewise deserve full roasting. I might make RSA's fire coal and Adobe grilling brickets, but neither company would enjoy it.

Tom 13

@AC 04-Apr-2011 11:15GMT: True, but frankly

the inmates have been running the asylum on that count for a good 10 years now.

Tom 13

Phished, period.

When your business is security, even to the lowest person in the company, best security practices should be practiced by everyone.

How do you know the mail wasn't from HR? First hint is that it's in your junk mail. That requires closer inspection of the message. Like looking at the headers to see that the message didn't originate from an RSA server. The from address can be forged, but the initiating server header can't be. Moreover, the company should have a better means of distributing files, for just the reason that MS Office docs are notorious for security holes that have the potential to compromise your network. Network shares ought to be the standard and expected means of sharing documents within the company.

Next up, it's RSA, they own the certs. Every stinking email account in the company, including the janitor's, should come with an authentication signature. There are no acceptable excuses when you ARE the top level security company.

AT&T ends illicit handset tethering

Tom 13

Not exactly. They have what amounts to a preliminary agreement.

It still needs to be reviewed by the FCC and frankly, even as a free market conservative, I am doubtful I could sign off on this one.

Fight global warming with Asimov-style Psychohistory - profs

Tom 13

Hard to say. I glanced at the titles on some of the other "papers"

he's written on the Cardiff website, all only since 2008 in widely disparate but clearly fringe-centric areas. It could have been ginned up a while back as part of an elaborate prank. The best ones pull in legitimate websites as well. But as a dot com address, I'm not sure how legitimate it is.

Of course, it could also be legitimate psych research into April Fool's jokes, which would let them get paid for it an allow much more time and money for prank development.

Regardless of what it is, that the question is even raised speaks volumes about both psychology and climate researchers.

Lewis, well he strikes me as the sort who enjoys a good prank and might even be in on it if it is one. But honestly, his article is the bit that most makes me think it is likely for real.

Tom 13

-8 IS larger than -3.

It is not however greater or more than -3. "Larger" is a magnitude, and therefore one takes the absolute value to determine which is greater.

Stop sexing up IT and give Civil Servants Macs, says gov tech boss

Tom 13

Damn! I keep looking at the titles for the April Fool's jokes,

but when I look at the posting dates on the articles, it isn't the right day.

Acer boss quits after board disses his future strategy

Tom 13

Of course what's clear as mud and what I am the most curious about is

what were the two different plans?

Tom 13

I've always found Acer product to be

solid affordable product. If you can get there stuff and don't want the premium for the HP, Toshiba, Sony, or Dell brands, it will serve you well. Never bleeding edge, but most users don't want that anyway.

Men at Work lose Down Under plagiarism appeal

Tom 13
Unhappy

Hate to say it, but I expect

Oz has a shorter statute of limitations than we do in the US. Every time The Mouse is about to fall into public domain because of how long ago Walt died, Congress passes an extension to the limitation. Last time around it went all the way to SCOTUS who said something to the effect of "this still qualifies as 'limited' but it might not if we hear this case again in 25 years."

TV election debate 'worm' graph found to undermine democracy

Tom 13

No, what you've proved is you need a proper filter on the sample selection,

because it isn't feasible to get a sufficiently large sample. Except that we know from experience that just means you'll get the bias of the filter.

James Cameron to amp up Avatar frame rate

Tom 13

Well then they failed.

All I saw was the trailers and I was offended enough not to pay to see it.

Google to NASA: Open source will not kill you

Tom 13

If Chris wants to see robots blown up,

he needs to watch more of Adam and Jamie.

Microsoft: IE9 not yet 'broadly' available

Tom 13

Fewer than there were people who said

"Ooh, look! A new browser to try."

Tom 13

Re: "as web designers raise the lowest common denominator."

And part of the "fanboi" criticism is that by definition, IE9 can have no affect on the "LCD" because the LCD is [b] still [/b] IE6 which was not available for Vista or Windows, and IE9 won't run on XP.

Tom 13

Were you sick for a week or something?

El Reg has been as ruthlessly covering the IE9 betas as they have been FF. Every time MS had another marketing shindig, someone from El Reg was there for the free food even though they knew they wouldn't be able to kick the tires on IE9. And they dutifully reported the same back on the website. And they announced it when it finally came out as well. FF got the same treatment even without the free food. Every time the flogged another test phase, El Reg flogged them for taking so darn long in development. And then dutifully announced its release, warts and all.

Tom 13

Not necessarily.

I run FF at work and at home. Neither has prompted me to update to 4. In fact, FF prompted for a dot level update instead of 4. I purposely downloaded and installed 4 at home. And even at prompting, it's nothing like the MS "oh shit what happened to my browser" default update configuration - FF ALWAYS asks if you want to download the update first. At work I use IE and FF in equal proportions. At home I mostly use FF, although I also have Opera and Chrome installed.

Don't actually care for the new FF look. Maybe it will grow on me over time.

Tom 13

The huge difference being that despite increasing numbers of MAC and Linux users,

MS still holds a monopoly position in desktop operating systems. And despite their insistent wailing to the contrary, the BROWSER is not part of the OS. At a minimum, it is unsportsmanlike conduct to leverage your monopoly position in the OS market in the Browser market. In most places it is also illegal as well.

FBI asks for help to crack mystery code in 12-year-old murder case

Tom 13

There's an even older and more interesting (from the money point of view)

unsolved code problem out there. Involves some gold from the confederates during the civil war. They even believe the key to the code is the US constitution. Allegedly a group of soldiers were tasked with transporting the gold and were being harried by the north. So they buried the gold then wrote out the manifest and the location in and encrypted form. For the manifest they used numbers to indicate how many letters to count from the last letter used to get to the next. But no one has ever cracked the map algorithm.

Read about that one ages ago in a C-64 computing magazine. The article provided a code substitution program you were supposed to type in and then use to crack the code.

Tom 13

No just a high quality scan.

if you have a transcript the transcript makes assumptions that you will also tend to follow even if you are looking at the scan. Of course he he transposed something during the encryption process, you're pretty much screwed anyway.

BP loses personal details on spill victims

Tom 13
Headmaster

Dear BP

Ya know, even though you failed to follow industry best practices on the rig where the spill happened, I won't hold that too strongly against you. I do actually fault The Big 0 and his response to the spill when it happened, and the failure of his administration to properly oversee your drilling plan because they were all set to give you that safety award and seize a photo op.

But in the case of this laptop, if I were on the jury I'd award $1 US million apiece to the people listed in the spreadsheet just on general principles.

Sincerely,

Tom 13

New York vows review of AT&T deal

Tom 13

Nope, Feds still rule.

Of course, given the history the New York attorney general office has of ignoring the Constitution except when it suites them, that won't actually stop them from investigating and prosecuting. It just means that when he does proceed, the defendants just go up the appellate chain until the suit gets summarily tossed. Granted, it may need to go all the way to SCOTUS before it gets tossed.

Tom 13

I'm a mobile phone user. It's a luxury, not

a necessity. If you're dumb enough to make it your only phone, that's your problem.

Firefox fans get IE-happy AJAX testing tools

Tom 13

Even when it was initially released, IE6 was a dog

trying to catch Netscape. Only their dominant market position in the OS market, which was illegally leveraged, allowed MS to corner the market. Even if an incompetent judge did let them off the hook.

Why yes, I do hold a grudge when the law is abused, sliced, diced, and shredded.

Google's 'clean' Linux headers: Are they really that dirty?

Tom 13

Even GPL is turning into corollary

lawyers full employment act.

Fire-quenching electric forcefield backpack invented

Tom 13

The theory is still valid for any x0/x02

The first problem is when the fire is in your 02 source, which given the nature of current spacecraft design, is highly likely. The second problem is that even if you put the fire out, if the fire consumes too much of your 02 source, you're still dead before you can land again. You need some minimum amount of braking thrust, and that 02 is critical for that.

Firefox 4 debuts: The last kitchen sink release

Tom 13

It's not so much the juggernaut aspect as it is having an app

that is compiled specifically for the OS. Mozilla I am more forgiving of, but M$ really pissed me off when their default IE client in the 64-bit OS was the 32-bit client and you had to adjust the OS if you wanted to use the 64-bit version by default.

What it takes to get your desktop back up and running

Tom 13

I've never worked in an environment that used roaming profiles.

They've always been shot down as too expensive on the cost of storage + backup side.

So rebuilds have always been a bitch.

I did like Altiris when I worked in a shop that supported it. But at only 450 employees for the company and the small IT staff that goes with it, we were never able to sufficiently optimize the deployments to get build time to less than 4 hours. Images went fast enough and typically included AV and Office suites, but all the custom crap that came afterward still took time and had to be monitored. SAS deployments were the worst: up to 4 different batch files to be run, each dependent on the previous; worst part was that the batch files kicked off pre-installers that in turn kicked of installers, so the batch file exited before the installer finished and you couldn't use the end of the batch file as the signal to start the next install. Then the powers that be wanted the system full patched (including all the applications) when we built it, not waiting to get updated as the patch server applied them over the next several days.

Fukushima explained in crap cartoon

Tom 13

Earthquake plus Tsunami is a well known combination.

Alaska way back when. It was the sheer magnitude of both which was not accounted for.

As for the question of will anybody be around if it gets any bigger than that, in the immediate vicinity, probably not. But there will still be people around outside of that vicinity, and you don't really want the reactors melting down and affecting those people. So yes, going forward designs will need to improve significantly.

That doesn't mean it isn't actually astounding at how well they've handled this incident. The people on the ground in Japan deserve huge kudos for the work and efforts they put into stabilizing the situation.

Google patches Flash bug before Adobe

Tom 13

Actually, his solution would solve the problem.

Mail admins where I worked always tried to train users to save attachments to disk before opening them. This gives the AV software a chance to scan the file before it is opened. As an Outlook shop, it also solves the problem of maroons opening the attached document, editing the crap out of it, saving it, but not as a new file, and then losing all of their changes when they DIDN'T save the email from which they edited the document.

As for your Black Hat alternative, that wouldn't hit me either. I don't open dodgy emails for XXX pics either. So you need a REAL drive-by exploit to nail me. On Windows there are plenty of them out there and I've been nailed by some. Worst one was from an MSN banner ad because I forgot to change the default page to Google before starting IE6 to run MS updates to patch the newly built XP SP3 system. On the upside, since it was brand-spanking new, there was no data loss and the decision to delete partitions and start fresh was easy.