Posts by Robert Carnegie

Re: Lemmings

Batteries help, to make some-of-the-time energy generation useful the rest of the time, and batteries that can drive themselves to where electricity is needed, also will help. It is rather awkward though if you want to be driven somewhere else, does that mean you have to shutdown your house?

If not "traditional" batteries then scary-big capacitors or fuel cells with sustainable or bio fuel generation.

Maybe lighter-than-air hydrogen bag drones - although you'd have to legislate to let them be autonomous. Or invent a new sport (if not already done), para-droning. (Apparently what does exist is "para-gliding in the company of a drone".) And an Uber for where to take it to.

Currently, rural home heating is liable to be oil burning, and quite expensive to keep supplied. The delivery service is a big part of the cost. So...

Re: I am not a developer...

I think it doesn't mean http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/git

but maybe "Generous with Information Technology"

On this occasion, too generous, to the wrong people.

Re: Worth it?

A while back I think the BBC wanted to put video servers in ISPs so you'd get video from there instead of across the Internet. This however might breach net neutrality, giving the BBC an advantage. I don't mind because I like the BBC. I think it didn't catch on, ISPs had a different idea - they would charge the BBC a fee for letting the ISP's customers watch BBC video. I think this hasn't caught on either.

Another catch however is, if I reasonably encrypt everything I do on the Internet then how are you going to cache it?

Still, if this refers to mobile data and maybe to buying specific videos from my phone company outside my ordinary data allowance, then there may be something in that.

Angler's business model is to offer its customers the latest Flash vulnerabilities to exploit, including those recently or even less recently patched by Adobe but still open on user systems. Not to do that would be crimin...hmm. Well, anyway, it seem you get your money's worth. (Disclaimer: for all that I know, The Register made them up.)

Re: Once upon a time...

I don't get the Star Trek reference, but their "deflector dish" makes a fearsome weapon whenever they set it to transmit handwavium radiation on this week's frequency. You could probably shoot satellites down with it. And, no, you'd better not.

Re: I wish

IIRC Bugs Bunny looks good in a dress from the neck down (how? never mind), and has an engaging smile.

Not all bugs with an indicated security dimension are exploitable - that having been said, you don't work on writing an exploit, you close the hole.

There's a problem however if by doing so, lots of people's favourite web site doesn't work with your browser. Not because the site uses the hole (you hope) but because the site doesn't work for whatever reason when you change the code to disable (thing) outright.

So, this can take a long time to resolve.

I'm writing hypothetically.

Australia

Stolen by European criminals from the previous owners. All else follows from that.

Re: @Hugh Pumphrey - Track Stand? Bah.

I also cycle and I also would... react negatively to someone doing that ahead of me.

Probably park my bike on its stand, walk ahead, and blow hard on the guy, sideways. Remount and cycle past the wreckage.

Or, not blow him over, just stand there and mock him.

But doesn't Google have a fleet of deathray satellites in orbit to deal with these situations?

Heck, why don't I??

Maybe not Ayrshire but

Someone's house name caught my attention... it seems to be Gaelic for "Our House". I'm not sure what to make of it. Except maybe to build my own house next door, call it the same thing, and wait for the cheque to come when they win the football pools.

Theoretically, when I have a Twitter account, they're working for me. So, if I want to delete something that I previously published, then that should happen.

If I'm important, people will keep a copy to embarrass me anyway.

If I wasn't important 10 years ago, then what I said then shouldn't be held against me now.

"users not happy that they had to restart their machines"

Boo hoo. The workstation has to be restarted to complete the update. And all those documents? You need to "save" each one with a file name. Not just leave them open, unsaved, and lock your PC every night.

Our PCs tend to decide when to reboot and give you 5 minutes warning if lucky, sometimes just 1. This isn't my policy and I think it goes too far, but it does work.

Re: Let it pass

The Religious Police, in countries where there are Religious Police (and computers), presumably are already rounding up and prosecuting homosexual men and women identified in the data.

If we'd known it would happen (and I suppose we did really) then those of us who disapprove of that kind of policing apparently could have opened accounts in the names of each country's Head of Religious Police and their leading deputies. If we wanted to spend the money.

or

I suppose, a "bootload" of security flaws and/or fixes.

Not too long ago?

NHS started in 1948. Smoking found to cause cancer, 1950 (if not counting questionable research in the actual "Third Reich"). Not a lot of time for advice to smoke to be given.

Is the implication that you can, if you so wish, ask the PRNG how much entropy it has, and, if it's not much, then wait until there is more?

Popping up a dialog box that says "Please type some random gibberish to seed the PRNG properly" may be an option.

And you carefully type "Colorless green sheep graze curiously" every single time, just to see what happens.

Now they've released 40.0

You can try that, but it won't necessarily improve your experience.

There also was a reference to Firefox 38 "Long Term Support", which may work as an update where 39 and 40 aren't available? Maybe with some do-it-yourself-ing?

Have you seen the advert?

If you don't know how to operate your phone or tablet, you can press a button to video call a technician.

I don't know if that's a particular device or a particular phone company or what.

But I think it's that.

Re: Loudspeakers in your lightbulbs sound crap

The light is LED, so, approximately immortal and possibly replaceable, although the manual I'm looking at online indicates that "qualified SENGLED service technician" would have to do it. There also are WEEE instructions for disposal.

It says don't poke things into it, and if your sample has been sent to other reviewers before then they may have done that to find out why.

Re: Wrong way to deliver the leaflets...

It didn't really work in the war. Leafletting employees' cars with it, I like. A way to start a conversation, although not one that you get to be there for.

Re: repeat after me

In one episode of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_60_on_the_Sunset_Strip

- Aaron Sorkin's series set inside basically "Saturday Night Live" - a writer under pressure used a stolen joke and got hell for it. It turned out to have been stolen and stolen and stolen, ultimately from the "Studio 60" show. This is fiction.

Bob Monkhouse was perhaps unfairly called "The Thief of Bad Gags" - because that was Milton Berle - Bob collected them but may have not used them. And I've got an autobiographical book by Jasper Carrott where he remembers as a folk club MC going to watch circuit comedians and steal their lines. Including an especially fruitful occasion watching Bob Monkhouse.

But admitting it in print doesn't make it right.

Anything uttered in public can still be copyright, I think - but that doesn't mean that you will be able to stop infringement.

Re: Netherlands

You know what the Netherlands could do with then? Some windmills.

Oh? Really? WELL then.

Tide energy I expect is a sore point...

http://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode allows 50 UK postcode searches.

However the limit is done, it's in the terms of use of the service - so getting around it technically is not the point.

People should publish their own postcode with their address.

Welcome to the 20th century, Ireland.

Just call it "Project Buzzkill".

Re: Goodness.

I'm an IT professional, but when it comes to things like this on a personal computer, I am your wife. Except that I'm single so I'm on my own with this stuff. I want the computer to just work with a minimum of me thinking about it. I don't want to know about packages and go looking for ones that I haven't got. I don't want to have to root out foreign packages. And I don't want to rely on Mint being based on two-year-old Ubuntu and presumably inheriting necessary patches from Ubuntu, which in turn relies on the maintainers of Debian. If the people involved got along with each other then there wouldn't be separate products in the first place. I'm getting old and this is not fun any more.

I also am keyboard disabled and I rely on a touchscreen program that only runs on Windows anyway, so, that's that. I think the programmer who wrote it is dead.

Re: Who stands to gain from such an Exchange being created?

It seems that people who can bet on this exchange going bust benefit from its creation, but that may not be legal either.

Anyway, to most of us it seems that "information" within a stock market is mostly imaginary. Particularly day-traders who hope to read the economic future in the rather random previous daily fluctuation of a price, having been put there by collective activity of people who don't know any more than you do.

Also, does anyone else recall hearing about at least one small enterprise which was shorted to death or nearly so by a powerful speculator - an actual wealth creator crushed by the great money casino? I think it was either in the IT sector or maybe pool noodles or a new kind of table fork, I don't quite remember. But a boon to humanity nevertheless, wasted.

Warning : post may contain nuts

Indeed, the money is about what $ANY_GOVERNMENT_AGENCY spends annually on peanuts.

Which, pedantically, aren't really nuts in fact, but are still liable to make some people extremely unwell.

And possibly that isn't the point. I mean, US.gov can't very well say "We'll give you $20 million a year * if you leave U.S. businesses alone."

* in used nuts. ** eww.

Re: So, Herr Regulator

Kann the Kinder call cron?

At 10pm they should be performing the "sleep" command.

Big retailer / big producer greed

We know about loss leaders. But in the 21st century the clever trick is to pass retail and production costs on to your suppliers of agricultural produce and raw materials, so that what the supplier thought was a good deal for them is less so. Some of it sounds like simply demanding a bribe from your smaller commercial partner for continuing to do business with them, but presumably isn't exactly that because that would be illegal - probably?

Here's an allegation from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30338663

""We will now require you to make an investment payment to support our growth."

As a consumer I have decided not t% support their growth for the time being.

And yes - having the free offer supplied free to shops by the small company that makes the stuff and doesn't have much choice about it, is considered a good wheeze by the retailer - and considered normal. And so is charging rent for space on the best shelves.

Capitalism is literally more horrible than you can imagine.

Re: Mike Ash

I don't know if his blog is running on an Apple-owned server including one where Apple took the company over; if it is then he probably already consented to whatever they want to do with the data, and an opt-out option is a courtesy that is not legally necessary. I don't know that for a fact, but it's how many technology companies operate, and Apple especially. The United Kingdom's Data Protection law may be different, but most likely the data isn't held in the United Kingdom.

Re: Why?

You'd still prefer that the government doesn't know your business. Even your business with the government.

However, "Data Protection Act" type rules that limit how personal data can be held and used generally don't apply to the governments that make the rules. Because why would they limit their powers? To be topical, you need a Magna Carta type constitutional provision for that. A law that limits what even the government can do.

Re: Umm no

Your name and address aren't hugely private. They used to be printed in the phone book. They're also in the electoral roll. A web site claims to know names of 3 people living at my address, which isn't exactly what I expected. Maybe they're using the electoral roll and they don't know about children.

Re: Generally a well written article - but I have one bug bearer

Good luck making purchases, even on eBay, when the server computer that your business runs on died, exploded, got stolen. (Company credit card? Really?) Also, good luck operating your business without it.

If you're just running a window cleaning round then you may not have a separate server at all, but then this article is not for you.

Something similar happened

in [The Hound of the Baskervilles].

So, better forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted, then.

Seconded on patents.

I think they're buying patents that will allow them to close down anyone else making useful mobile devices and software. Including patents that shouldn't even be patents.