* Posts by John Smith 19

16327 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

DON'T PANIC: No FM Death Date next month, minister confirms

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

BTW am I right in thinking UK DAB <> Europe DAB?

Something about the encoding?

I think I can sum up the position of a lot of El Reg commentards as

IP digital "radio." YES.

DAB digital radio NO.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Re: Tell you what. Mr. Vaizey...

"..when DAB coverage and signal quality matches or exceeds FM for the vast majority of the country, and the size and cost of the receivers come down to more realistic sizes and levels, then, maybe, you might interest me in getting one of those things."

I think you've missed the one on battery life.

AFAIK DAB eats batteries.

Britain’s forgotten first home computer pioneer: John Miller-Kirkpatrick

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Three is a parallel history to be had here.

Sadly it will never be written.

REVEALED: How YOU PAY extra for iPHONES - even if you DON'T HAVE ONE

John Smith 19 Gold badge
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Re: Message to mobile operators

"Sounds ideal. That way there's no hiding the price of the phone - if punters will pay £500 for an iPhone instead of £140 for a Moto G or £120 for a Lumia 620, then Apple deserves to get the extra. As a consumer, it's nice to have the handset price broken out."

Damm right. That's real competition.

You want new shiny? That's the realcost of it (but you won't be paying it every day of your bill).

Still need it that badly?

UK.gov's web filtering mission creep: Now it plans to block 'extremist' websites

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

"Oh look, now we've got the sheeple fooled, let's see whatelse we can prohit"

F**k em.

I knew this was coming once I saw the list of crap on the "banned" list.

"Esoterica" anyone? Anorexia promotion sites?

this looks like the sort of thing a middle class mum who couldn't program her browser web filter would be worried about.

There's an election coming up. I think the voters of her constituency should show their feelings to Claire Perry her tireless efforts to protect the UK population from itself.

Cow flatulence, gas emissions much worse than thought - boffins

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

for those who'd like to track green house gas emissions you might like to try here

Note that we can date the start of mfg of CFC's very accurately and knowing they are key contributors to Ozone depletion we can say that humans can influence global climate on the scale of a human lifetime (albeit a fairly long one).

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

@McHack

"They use electronic sniffers to check for leaks, they don't sniff for the smell of the additive."

Well good for them.

And welcome to the site. This is only your 3rd post.

Perhaps you might like to look up the safety record of refineries and other chemical plants in the US, (especially Texas)?

Their definition of necessary maintenance can be quite loose.

BTW I'm not anti-capitalism, except by some American standards. I'm anti p**s poor maintenance and safety records.

I hope the difference is not too subtle for you to grasp?

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Trollface

@Faux Science Slayer

Troll with website to promote is still troll

Do not feed.

John Smith 19 Gold badge

"My idea is the genetically engineer the cow out of the process. We just have to splice the gene for converting grass to milk into the grass and fire the cows. Graminacae mammalari would undertake the whole process in one organism"

Unnecessary

IIRC there is a fairly simple supplement to the diet that will cut Methane release in cows. I think its part of why some pasture is bad for cow farts and some is not.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Re: Imaginary atmospheric methane?

"So if the extracted natural gas is never meant to be released into the atmosphere as free methane, why would they count it as methane (greenhouse gas) emissions?"

Perhaps because there is a difference between meant and does

The stuff you burn in stoves and furnaces only smells because it has Mercaptan in it. Actual Metahne can leak without being noticed.

And fixing leaks in oil refineries and plastics plants costs money

When you're dealing with ppm concentrations a "small," as in too-expensive-to-fix leak is all you need to damage the environment.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Re: Serious question

"Why is the answer to our problems always "worse than we thought"? And why is the answer always "stop your way of life" or "pay us more money"?"

You would make a very good point except for one thing.

You're wrong.

As a check over El Reg's climate change stories would show you.

But please, rant on. Your point about vested interested is valid.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Go

Good work

I think we need both the bottom up and the top down approach on occasions.

Note these revise the figures but not necessarily the model for how those gases are produced it may have limited use.

Changing those levels of release, given the power lobbies of both industries, is another matter...

Sinclair's FORGOTTEN Australia-only micro revealed!

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Looks like a One Per Desk to me

Some will say that in an age of smartphones that's not a problem.

Until you lose your phone, or want to transfer that data of course.

'MacGyver' geezer makes 'SHOTGUN, GRENADE' from airport shop tat

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

But watch out or one of those TSA wobblebottoms will sit on you.

And they will need a scraper to get you off the concourse.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

@Don Jefe

*The most potentially dangerous type of DIY person I've ever met are country farmers. A working farm has tools, materials and seclusion and farmers are probably the most ingeniously practical people on Earth.

You might like to look up Frank Herbert's "Committee of the Whole."

You'll see why.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

As if security theatre were *about* security.

In reality it's about :-

1)Making Merkins feel insecure and reinforcing the "US is in a constant state of war with (well someone, although all the most recent US cases have been home brewed) and these "precautions" are necessary, along with a few others (as revealed by Edward Snowden, the dirty rat b**tard) we can't tell you about, but trust us, they are for your safety"

2)Ensuring assorted govt con-tractors get fat contracts.

3) Keeping a large bunch of fairly unemployable people employed (and the US has no govt make work programmes. Really?)

4)Offering opportunities for said employees to supplement their income by stealing anything they fancy while rummaging through your stuff.

Security? Talk to El Al. They've faced real terrorists.

So the theatre will go on until someone starts asking serious questions about the cost.

GCHQ was called in to crack password in Watkins child abuse case

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Meh

Finally the actually manages to arrest *before* they died of old age.

Yes his crimes are monstrous,

As were those of Jimmy Saville

As were those of Cyril Smith.

But then he did not have the protection of a large network of people to cover for and protect him.

If you actually believed the UK are the "Paedo Isles" you'd expect a case like this every day.

And yet that does not happen.

Perhaps there just aren't that many child molesters out there?

Adorable, much-loved SEAHORSES are VICIOUS SLURPING KILLERS

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

I think the "no wake" zone might also be worthy of further study.

It's pretty tricky to design.

Small software firm wins $28.4m after lobbing sueball at Lockheed Martin

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Oh. The old "We happen to have someone developing this already"

Now that we've seen your version.

I hope this holds up on appeal. It's pretty impressive they've got this far.

Rather like MS and the Canadian XML company who built an add in for Word.

Four teachers indicted in Steubenville social media rape case

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

AC@14:54

"Oh, that's right, none."

Actually you're wrong. But you're leading with style, not substance. And I am clearly bolder than you by definition.

"playground-level, over-embellished whining."

That actually sounds like a real grievance. What exactly am I "whining" about, AC?

Perhaps you could articulate it?

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Re: Aha it's the "Mfg, possesion, distribution of CP" that gets them.

"The fact that in general (ignoring this case for a sec) a lot of this is treated as juvenile "crime" at least offers a way out without the horrors of permanent attachment to a sex offenders register - "

That's not what happened in at least one other US case El Reg has reported where it was not rape, just basically sending indecent selfies to BF/GFs

That case went down as Mfg, possession and distribution of CP despite all involved being consenting and no physical behavior.

What it really seems to come down to is a)Is it an election year b)Does the DA want to get reelected c)Does he feel the need to play the "Tough on crime" card quite so hard?

rea

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Childcatcher

Aha it's the "Mfg, possesion, distribution of CP" that gets them.

Because (once again) "The Children (TM)" must be protected (from themselves).

The lack of exceptions to these laws go on making them look more stupid with every passing conviction.

BTW I'm sure I've seen this movie. Several times

NSA spied on 'radicalisers' porn surfing so as to discredit them, reveals Snowden

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Meh

Re: You Better Watch Out...

"Seriously: the revelations get worse and worse as it goes. Next they'll say they track women's credit card usage to tell when their menstrual cycles are when certain stores are visited. (Because you never know when new terrorists are being made in the bedroom.)"

Sweet $deity do you have to go round giving them ideas now?

Joking aside you not be aware of the training given to the German GSG9 anti terrorist unit.

If you have to two terrorists, one man, one women in a room and you have to decide which one to shoot first "shoot the women first.*"

Which I think was also the title of the book.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Coat

Remeber "Hypocrisy is the vaseline of politcal intercourse"

And since this is a British website lets take a moment for the former chair of the Coop Bank, The Rev Paul Flowers, Methodist minister.

Clueless about running a bank.

Favorite tipple. Crack cocaine, crystal meth and ketamine.

Sysadmin job ad: 'If you don’t mind really bad work-life balance, this is for you'

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Headmaster

@Robert Long 1

"Only because he happened to bring along the greatest dead reckoning navigator in the history of human kind (of course the dude was a Kiwi).""

It's actually "ded" reckoning.

I know. It looks like a spelling mistake, and it is 99% of the time, except here.

It's a contraction. The actual word is deduced reckoning.

I don't know if it's actually true, or if they were a Kiwi however.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

That's the question. Responsibility *without* authority to change is BS

But there is a also what has been called "The sickener factor."

It's designed to discourage you before you start the test. It's to test your determination to succeed, despite apparently insurmountable odds.

Think of it as the inverse Koboyashi Maru scenario.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Re: ..I don't need to apply..

""Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

The story goes that he was inundated with thousands of responses, similar I suppose to the talk of one-way manned missions to Mars in recent days."

Shackleton also managed to get his men back alive

Kobo Arc 10HD: The bookworm's fondleslab?

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

So a book reader with no built in PDF reader and *no* extendible storage.

Because no one would would want to set up collections of (possibly) PDF documents on separate memory cards, right?

Kind of like IDK a library of books for a special purpose.

What is it with companies that go so far and then just turn to s**t?

How STEVE JOBS saved Apple's bacon with an outstretched ARM

John Smith 19 Gold badge
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An interesting recap of history for those who did not live through it.

Thanks for that.

ARM's independence is actually one of it's key assets. it's the fact no one owns them that allows them to license to everyone.

Judge rules investors can sue Meg Whitman and HP over Autonomy

John Smith 19 Gold badge
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Sweet

"it had substantially overpaid for the software firm."

True.

" hundreds of millions of dollars of Autonomy's pre-acquisition revenue had been improperly recorded, that key documents were missing and that "

So the question is why did it pay at all if the paperwork was incomplete and some (at least) was suspect.

Thumbs up for the judge on this.

Let's be clear. HP's decision to buy Autonomy effectively took $10Bn, piled it up and burned it.

It's money that could not be used for more useful tasks within the company.

It's not money that could be used to add to the dividend to stockholders.

I'm Feeling LUCKY OR LAZY™? Chrome gets hands-free voice search

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

@Mephistro

"If you ever, for whatever reason, become a 'person of interest"

Or someone you know

Or someone who knows someone you know.

Or someone who knows someone who knows someone you know.

Funny how that "Person of interest" rule can be quite elastic, is it not?

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Gimp

Now they can collect voice samples as well.

And by extension anyone else who happens to be listening in.

Yay for that.

US puts Assange charge in too-hard basket - report

John Smith 19 Gold badge
WTF?

Note. This is *not* official. Some guy off the record said it to a reporter.

Bet your freedom on such an "Assurance?"

Intel puts fledgling internet telly service up for sale

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Re: USP?

"It has a Powered by Intel badge"

You only think you're joking.

NASA shines a light on rehab plan for crocked Kepler probe

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Thumb Up

I'm fairly sure this *has* been used before

It's tricky and of course means the spacecraft has to limit its attitude but it keeps it working.

Thumbs up as getting it to work (and within 5% of ordinary capability) is pretty good.

Eurocrats recommend right to sue American companies over snooping

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

The US (and Israel for that matter) are viewed as offering *equatl* data protection as the EU

Perhaps those views should also be reviewed.

China: 'JADE RABBIT' will be FOUND ON MOON

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

Has to be said.

They won't be running that on a pair of AA's

ROBOT SWARM positions itself over EARTH ... to probe our magnetic field

John Smith 19 Gold badge
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Interesting for both what it says about the solar wind as well as the Earths magnetic field

Thumbs up for that.

Of course what a 4 pole Earth means for the theory of geomagnetic fields is another question.....

Rare AutoCAD malware rigs drafting machines for follow-up attacks

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

Re: I still find it quite bonkers that AutoCAD uses LISP

""Allow me please: http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_35.html

So did any of the other language interfaces appear?

I think people misunderstood my original comment.

LISP has a reputation of being tricky to implement well (mostly in the garbage collection side) so it's a tough target to implement and (perceived) to be an odd choice for what is likely to be a pretty compute heavy application.

It's a real "left field" choice.

And I quite like that.

Apple guru Sir Jony's RED beer can PC raises $980k for AIDS fight

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Coat

Sir Jony Ive's next design project.

Automated driverless taxi design?

"Jony cab, sir."

Bad genes? US watchdog halts 23andMe's handy home DNA test kits

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

I wonder how many people understand the difference between "may" and "will"

Because that's at the core of this.

I think a lot of people are walking around with assorted dodgy genes.

Nothing will happen to them and provided their spouses don't have them nothing will happen to their children. It does mean they should watch certain behaviors and avoid exposure to certain things.

But apparently this is all a bit complicated for a lot of people.

Explaining this seems to be a large part of what "genetic counseling" about.

Scores of profs give hated US patent law an F minus, demand massive rewrite

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

Re: Next, try copyright law

"The term gets extended every time the mouse gets close to public domain. It's all about unrelated commercial interests."

Careful, I think the relevant corp has copyrighted "The Mouse" as well.

NSA-busting secure, open, router seeks cash and code from crowd

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Meh

Not sure how "open sorce" the hardware is.

Anything that ships out of the US above the VHDL level must be viewed as suspect.

And where's the "encryption engine" coming from?

If you're going to be serious about privacy lets do it right.

Why pay more for the illusion of security when you can buy cheap and know you have none (and plan accordingly) ?

Given what Snowden has shown about NSA willingness to compromise US hardware and software companies this is not paranoid, it's merely realistic.

Stretchy capacitive sheaths coming to protect your pay-by-bonk mobe

John Smith 19 Gold badge
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So power source and/or sensor element?

This gives you a 3D capacitive strain gauge.

Which is neat.

Thumbs up for the V0.1 tech.

US and Japanese chip firms team up on MRAM project

John Smith 19 Gold badge
WTF?

"uses magnetic charges rather than electric charge"

So they succeeded in separating out magnetic monopoles on a commercial scale?

Oh really.

I rather doubt it.

OTOH if this delivers 10x the speed....

SCRUBBED: Technical oopsies halt SpaceX's bid for the Money Ring

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Unfortunate but the satellite is still safe and ready for re-launch

I hope their next attempt is more successful.

Meet the BlackBerry wizardry that created its 'better Android than Android'

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Thumb Up

"one of Skype or Instagram even had self-modifying code"

Wow.

That would make one of them the third legitimate use for this technique I've heard of (I gather it's popular with malware writers, but apart from them it's not really clear who else). The othere 2 were the AT&T "Blit" bitmapped graphics terminal and the Apollo Guidance Computer.

The article does not give enough tech detail to understand what they've done. I'm getting (having nosed through Wikipedia)

1)Dalvik is a special JVM. It reads its own file format that is more compact than Java .class files.

2)RIM engineers have ported it.

3)But QNX <> Chrome <>Linux (IIRC Chrome has been formerly forked from Linux)

4)Their hack operates below the kernel function call level and operates right at the software interupt (SWI) instruction level (actual ARM op code) AFAIK a OS kernel call can have multiple SWI calls inside it.

5) But I'm b**gered if I know how.

So thumbs up for the hack, whatever it is.

Only time will tell however if the management manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. :(

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

Re: Well done guys, plenty of overtime coming up

"Based on current form; given that Google have taken baby steps into phone production and that they have all those partners to keep sweet, I'd say that they'll make a point of breaking things for Blackberry on the next release."

The old MS strategy of "Windows ain't done will Lotus won't run?"

Surely not.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Gimp

Re: "If it uses QNX rather than Linux"

"The thing that I have come to dislike is the way I feel spied on by Google and its continuous slurping of data."

Well you are being spied upon by Google.

What happened to the "Iron" build of Chrome without most of the spying?

Haitian snapper humbles photo giants AFP, Getty Images in $1.2m copyright victory

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Thumb Up

I think this is the right decision.

The trouble with a lot of the DMCA is it was written by and for Big Media, like AFP and Getty., often the content "copyright holders."

It's good to see some of the actual content producers (you know, the actual creative types, who in photojournalism may well risk their lives to get a shot).

Thumbs up. I hope he fights the appeal.

Doesn't everyone deserved to have their work (whatever it is) be paid for their work?