Posts by Charles 9

"Just don't use bloody Windows. it's not difficult to do. If you're serious, don't use it."

Unless you're a serious gamer who happens to do some serious WoW and/or Overwatch or other PC-exclusive top-end game that simply won't run on Linux. So if you're serious about security AND gaming, you can only pick one or the other.

Re: You are explicitly told....

Not if it's same-domained and the site requires a script to run. Part and parcel problem.

Re: You are explicitly told....

What about a secret iframe?

Re: Is it just me

Yes, it'll give an error on a protected asf or wmv file.

Re: Copyright Terms

"Frand should apply and no limitation on retail."

FRAND only applies to PATENTS, and usually only standard-essential patents (SEPs) at that. Otherwise, you're interfering with free commerce.

But none of the networks want to give money to the enemy. They don't want to cooperate. They want to conquer. Plus they don't trust third parties to not go into the business themselves and try to usurp (like Apple, Amazon, and Netflix).

Re: Be reasonable

Besides, I don't think Sky or any other TV provider has much of a choice in the matter. Take the US. Most of the channels available today are owned by one of a few media conglomerates. For example, the premiere sports channel in the US (ESPN) is owned by Disney, which in turn owns multiple channels AND the major broadcaster ABC. In America, if you're a TV provider and you don't pack ESPN in your basic package, you're basically not a TV provider, and Disney knows this, so they always make it a Hobson's Choice. In order to get ESPN, they have to buy rights to the entire block: take it or leave it. And since they basically dare TV companies to Walk on the Sun, guess what the TV providers do in turn.

Re: Be reasonable

Actually, grocery shops CAN stock exclusive stuff if they wish. That's how boutique shops work. It's just not the basic model for supermarkets which depend more on location than selection.

Exclusives are tricky to regulate because it boils down to a simple matter of commerce, and commerce tends to flow better when it's not as fettered.

Re: Satellite or Cable?

"Digital content should be available to purchase on media (or download to storage) and stream, forever once published. No distribution platform should have any exclusivity (Sky was forced to allow Virgin cable to buy re-distribution rights). Content should be universally available simultaneously, the cost of film prints for cinema should no longer apply."

But copyright still applies, and copyright licensing CAN (and is legally allowed, thus why rental houses could exist at all) impose terms. It's a Hobson's Choice, basically: Take It Or Leave It. You either plunk down or Walk on the Sun.

What could a fiver buy you back when an album was a fiver? Always consider inflation when comparing prices.

Re: I'm worried they'll outlaw Kodi in some unenforceable way...

"Please note also that West Midlands police shut down (permanently) pretty much every hydroponics shop in the area in the last couple of years."

Just curious. Why? Marijuana concerns?

The catch is that the air pressure on the surface of Mars is only around 600 Pa. That's near water's Triple Point of 273K & 611Pa. And since the surface temperature of Mars right now is well below 273K, and that the surface temperature has mostly gone UP over history, this would suggest no possibility of liquid water being on Mars (below the Triple Point pressure-wise, a substance would sublimate and deposit directly between solid and vapor as temperature varied). This isn't just a matter of temperature but of pressure as well. In order for liquid water to have existed on the surface of Mars, the atmospheric pressure down there MUST have exceeded 611 Pa at some point. When if ever was it that way, and what were the component gasses that weighed down and provided that pressure?

Re: The dead hand of Obama lives on...

"A rising tide lifts all boats" - Ronald Reagan

Oh? A LEAKY boat sinks.

Re: Program Expansion

But the problem is that you can't expect that from people. People CHEAT, it's part of the human condition to get one up on the other man. Put up an obstacle and people find ways to get past it, guaranteed.

Re: One good thing about Trump...

"No one should starve to death because they can't find a job."

There are twelve starving people on the island but only six coconuts. The spaceship has fuel to get one person to safety but not two. Trying to save everyone just ends up killing everyone. So at some point a decision must be made: you or someone else? Who gets to live, because if you don't decide, the world will simply answer, "none of you."

Re: What this is..

One, there may be nothing left with which to build AND no means to go elsewhere.

Two, YOU may be among the things swept away.

Re: The dead hand of Obama lives on...

"If you don't give poor people any chance to get a decent job and then pay for themselves (including taxes), you're just dooming them to perpetual slavery - and then you will start to pay them subsidies to keep them quiet and avoid revolts.... what is better than? Free education and healthcare, or subsidies to keep the "proles" calm?"

The hardcore would propose the third option: let them starve, and if they rise up, nuke 'em. After all, who needs all the excess baggage? Close the walled garden!

PS. Not my personal sentiment.

Re: That's not nice!

Yes it does matter. Because if there's someone worse than Trump, then the preference would be to stick to the evil you know. Transmetropolitan springs to mind. No one realized there was someone worse than the Beast until the Smiler came along. This seems to echo that situation pretty well: people voting against the known evil and now we have a worse evil.

IOW, there's a douche, and then there's an enema.

Re: Prevent an informed electorate

Is there any trend then for people being likely or unlikely to control bias? Or is it simply inherent to the human condition?

Re: What this is..

Problem is, that runs the risk of YOU not being among the ones still standing, so you're instinctively going to fight it.

Re: Switches with embeded Java

If they can be controlled by a java app (a JAR), then that's exempt from the apocalypse. They just want to get rid of Java in the browser.

Re: call about your accident

"I am considering getting her to change the name she uses to Lancelot Link"

Well, that's something to try, though I happen to recall it. I wonder if I could take a swing with Claude Dibbler.

Just reply you're with BT or a third phone company. Or say they've called a cell phone so wouldn't have wiring issues. See how long they play phone runaround with you.

Re: Congratulations you've won a trip!

Why not just simplify it to a, "Sorry, but I've been declared persona non grata over there."?

Re: Obligatory XKCD

But now try remembering 20 of them. Or perhaps 50. WITHOUT a password manager because you don't actually OWN a computer.

Re: call about your accident

In America we tend to get cold calls by robot. Since they'll persist in spite of anything you do, all you can do is hang up and see if you can block the number in future (at least I haven't yet been cold called from a hidden number, probably because those that do tend to end up being police traced).

Re: "Unless you go the full totalitarian, and run a private security state"

Which would usually then be replied with, "The one whose families face the consequences if they don't do what I say." There are usually other ways to do it as well. Plus as always there's the matter of nukes. No one's had the cojones to actively use them, particularly on their own people, but if Saddam could willing use chemical weapons in his own borders, what's to say?

Re: Email is like a postcard

But what happens when you have to communicate OUTSIDE your domain? Then all bets are off regardless of the method.

Re: "Unless you go the full totalitarian, and run a private security state"

As I understand it, the Constitution is still just a document: Ink on a page, literally. Someone with enough cojones and enough backing could just push that document aside and rule autocratically. That's what a lot of coups are about.

Re: Https

Governments likely control or pwn most of the END nodes, meaning they can probably track you anyway. Remember, they took down Silk Road, an Onion site, so it shows what they can do when they REALLY hate you.

And sometimes the process gets too irksome. If you have to reach for and unlock three different doors just to get in and out of a place you frequently come and go every day, you'd start to consider that excessive, wouldn't you? Especially when you frequently do so with your hands full (where in the job description did it require such people to be jugglers). Security may be a process, but it has to compete with ease of use. Make things too difficult and people are going to go, "Screw this! My livelihood ain't worth this much hoop-jumping!"