Posts by Pete 2

The law is not the answer

> Then we can begin to assert that we own everything we produce, extending copyright rights and practice to our own data.

Having "rights" is fine and dandy ... if you are a law student making an argument in some ivory tower. However when an average guy on (maybe) $50,000 a year tries to assert those rights, up against the corporate might of a $100Bn corporation, there isn't even a smear left on the tracks of the juggernaut that rolls over him.

Recourse to the law is only practical when it is affordable (without ruining either side: win or lose) and there is some degree of symmetry between the means of the parties involved.

So how would an average guy "defend" his rights to his data? The answer is that he can't. Nobody can. As software companies learned with software piracy: once it's out there, you can't stop it. The only way to restrict the proliferation of personal data is to stop it getting "free". One model would be for all personal data to only be available through some sort of personal server (real or virtual) that required specific, tailored access to be granted on a case-by-case basis, by the individual in question.

The problem is that few would wish to take the time to police their data. We already know that personal privacy comes a long way down the list of most people's priorities - as most (rightly or wrongly) don't consider it to have any value and so far they haven't been proved wrong.

Maybe a better solution would be a way of allowing people to declare tabula rasa every few years. Change their online identity, walk away from all the crap that's been written about, or by, them and stop all those dam' cookies from following them around.

The idea was popular in early Jewish/Christian tradition as Jubilee where slaves were freed, debts wiped clean and sins absolved. Maybe the internet needs the same? Though 50 years could be too long an interval - 6 months might be better.

An even costlier mistake?

Following on the back of the mistakes, bad judgment, double counting and wrong assumptions. The root cause must be the inability of so many (all?) of our law-makers, governors and policy makers to have a grasp of basic arithmetic (not even maths). If they had, surely they could have applied the "sniff test" and come to the conclusion that the numbers this guy was bandying around smelt wrong?

Even if they didn't feel confident in blowing the whistle on the whole thing at that point, surely a quick look around and seeing that nobody else was following the UK's lead, would have been a pretty big clue. But I guess our betters are still in a Charge of the Light Brigade mentality, than able to sit down with a calculator and a small slice of common sense.

C the point?

> By point 12 it's hard to take things seriously

Bzzzzt! (“Forced program termination is not allowed ... " not exactly pro-choice, is it?)

Failure is on the cards by point #4 (Hence, the language should be English-based) - there's inclusiveness for you

and by point #10: a program rolls for a 40% chance of ... 40% of being ... and 40% of executing by a ... it seems to be suggesting that in the feminist world things have a 120% chance of doing something.

Although the chance of this language being for real is much closer to 0 than to 120%

P.S. At the time of writing (07:50 UK time, the Bitbucket repository has become unavailable. Maybe it's gone on maternity leave? Leaving all the other languages to pick up its work, for no extra rewards.

On a roll

So this is how Apple gets to patent the wheel

(I wonder how long it took their marketing department to decide what colour it should be?)

So good, it's bad

> mentored by their under-30 employees

So if these sub-30s are so good at IT and busting with great ideas, why aren't they all starting their own businesses?

Ideas are ten-a-penny. Knowing what's trending on FB is worthless. Having the abilty to pick the winners is one in a million and combining that with the skill, determination and money to turn them into a success is incredibly rare.

It's not the code that matters

> about 0.26 per cent of humanity, can code

But how many can debug?

Face mouse

Why not go the whole hog and turn your entire face into an input device?

Scratching your ear could turn up the volume.

A cough could tweet your location

Picking your nose could act like a mouse click - depending on which nostril you choose

and when someone takes offence and smacks you in the mouth - well, that could be the signal to switch off.

Interest-ing

> payday loans firm has received a £175,000 fine

So can they be charged their own rates of interest for every day they're late paying the fine?

The industry's Comet

Distie-hood is no different from being a high-street retailer. If all you're offering is the same stuff that buyers can get online, but cheaper, then you're screwed. And good riddance.

Just because you hide behind a corporate facade doesn't mean you are immune to market forces (or disintermediation, as the effect has been called for at least 25 years) just as your domestic counterparts have already discovered to their cost.

The only companies that haven't cottoned on to the need to add value (or think that having a flashy marketing campaign and a 25% mark-up to pay for it counts as "adding value") are the ones who are either dead, or dying. However, even adding value isn't the same as it used to be. Integrators are finding it tricky, too. Instead of selling individual computers, bundling them together, installing some software and calling it a "system" is also a flawed business model - as so many end-users find that the internet gives them all the knowledge and expertise to do this for themselves.

No competitive disadvantage

> the NSA rifling through service providers' servers was not seen as exacerbating these concerns.

The reason nobody at the top is concerned is because the NSA are shafting every company, equally. It's not as if there is one particular company that is under greater surveillance than any other - the NSA is being (laudably) non-discriminatory over who's privacy they violate. Therefore there's no reason for customers to single out any one company as having more or less of their rights infringed. It doesn't matter where you go, you'll still be spied on.

Of if the NSA is targeting particular organisations, they've done a better job of keeping that fact under wraps.

Hard-learned lesson

When buying technology (for anyone: parent, child, husband,wife, girlfriend, boyfriend or all of these) just bear in mind that as soon as you give someone any present that requires a plug or has an on/off function you are responsible for its correct operation forever.

That includes explaining how it works, getting it set up, telephone support, "emergency" visits to fix any problems, perennial "while you're here, could you show me again .... " each time you visit that person and the ever popular "why does it do .... " followed by the vaguest and impossibly non-technical description you could ever get - and the hopeful and expectant look in the eye of the asker that you won't go home until it's working the way they want it to. Whether that's physically possible or not.

After that you'll understand why planned obsolescence is such a good thing - and hope that it will hurry up and arrive soon.

An unlikely combination

> work on quantum gravity and the unification of the fundamental physical forces ... organised with the help of Vanity Fair and attended by a bunch of celebs including ...

It's a shame that mention of the camera-hungry will get this event more publicity than an explanation of what the research was about, ever could.

“Scientists should be celebrated as heroes, and we are honored to be part of today’s celebration of the newest winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the Fundamental Physics Prize,”said Anne Wojcicki and Sergey Brin.

+1 to that.

Healer, heal thyself!

> consideration for passengers who would otherwise be subjected to the chatter of others.

So a giant first step in that direction would be to outlaw US politicians - especially ones who appear on TV with half-arsed suggestions, opinions and comments. The ones who spend their whole terms asleep or crawling up to their rich masters sponsors - they're OK (apart from the damage they do to democracy, obv.)

As for the "cure" for all aircraft audio annoyances? Hearos

The perfect combination

> The UK is by quite a long way the place where people spend most online

When you add together the effect of a poor range of shops, with small choices of goods, high in-store prices and lousy parking/access, is it any surprise?

On the brighter side

Sky's hell desk must be raking it in:

BT customers pay 5.1p/min and 13.1p connection. Calls from other providers will vary.

Agile hosting always wins

Time for the fuzz + 7 other outfits to nail 40 infringing websites: 3 months

Time for an owner to register a new site & carry on streaming: 1 hour (guess)

I think we can all work out how this will end.

Master of all I survey

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

And on the same basis, that allows the FTSE Group (an organisation I had previously credited with more common sense) to redefine words willy-nilly, I henceforth declare that day is night, good is bad, tv is quality entertainment and that our politicians are caring, dutiful, honest individuals.

I see no ships!

> "rich in fireballs"

Well, rich in some sort of balls.

We had a supposedly bright comet at the start of the year. Barely visible in the haze of sunset (aircraft contrails look almost the same, are brighter and more plentiful). There was another one a week or two ago that fizzled out and more meteor showers at irregular intervals every year. All of which get hyped by ignorant media, uncritically cut'n'pasting somewhat hysterical press releases from individuals and organisations that should know better.

Now I like a good stargaze as much as the next geek (but please: let's not talk about the BBCs Stargazing Live which contains no stargazing at all). But all the squeaking from over-enthusiastic media types - and the subsequent disappointments have reduced their credibility to an all-time low.

So can we, please, cut down on the media hype? Remember that most people live in overly-lit streets and therefore only ever see orange skies at night - with possibly the Moon and a few of the brightest stars visible.

If you want to promote amateur stargazing, a better line would be: this is what you could see, but since you live in a light polluted city, with almost permanent cloud cover - you don't stand a chance. If you want to see the glory of the starlit night, get your local authorities to turn down the light pollution.

Virtual profits

> swerved a huge corporation tax bill

Maybe FB should convert all their excess cash into Bitcoin. That'll soon reduce their profits and thus, their tax bill.

Oaks from acorns

The thing about importing talent is: what do you do with it, once it's here?

It appears that the government has swallowed the idea of a "magic bullet". That if you have a problem ... if nobody else can help ... that all you need is an "A team" and they'll somehow use their "world-leading talent" to sort you out.

Well, no.

Most of the problems that the UK's IT industry have are nothing to do with IT. So bringing in outsiders to give it a boost won't produce the hoped-for results. The fixes that are needed start with better technical education, move on to recognising the worth of people who can wield a soldering iron (at the right end) or spanner or stack trace, and also address the basic issues of expensive cost-of-living, unworthy management, short-sighted investors, an innovation-stifling environment and a reticence to taking risks and recognsing opportunities.

As a country, the UK is quite capable of producing its own top-quality IT people - rather than sucking the talent out of other countries. But it needs to nuture, grow and reward those people. Not just cover them in fertiliser.

100,000 strikes!

Haven't they hit what they're aiming at yet?

Giveaway

Isn't this a case of buy a cheap item and get a drone for free?

How do Amazon intend to recover their drones, their expensive, highly desirable drones, after they've delivered your goods.

Maybe they'll just drop your package down the chimney? (Wherever that idea came from). Just check for smoke emissions first, please.

I think I've found your problem

> peoples [sic] aged 8-22

IMHO *all* 8 year-olds are crap at parking. Most of them can't even see over the dashboard.

auto-plagiarism?

I think the guy had a lucky escape.

If he had got his article in "print" and then submitted the same piece of work for course assessment he could have set off alarm bells from the college's systems that detect students copying stuff wholesale off t'net.

Obv. having the same name as the submitted work's author could help his case, but it could still lead to some awkward questions and some unwelcome scrutiny. Although any El Reg. in-house editing could be difficult to explain.

Turn the other cheek

> The site could be viewed ... in Chester Cathedral cafe

Sounds like a cheap and highly effective way to attract exactly the kind of people most in need of the church's "guidance" into their fold.

Afterthought: or was this just a case of a reporter who got caught viewing smut at work and used the tired old excuse "it's for an article I'm writing" and then had to follow through?

Blinded by the light

Beaming energy towards earth at any sort of "optical" wavelengths sounds like a great way to kill amateur astronomy stone dead. Whether the energy was beamed from the Moon (easily avoided) or satellites (not so much).

Although radiation densities would (you'd hope) be made safe for normal eyeballs to gaze upwards, the added collecting power of a telescope could make stargazing as hazardous as turning your telescope sunwards. The normal advice given to those who might be tempted to try is "Do not repeat this with your remaining good eye".

It might be a good time to invest in white-stick makers.