Posts by VinceH

Odds bodkins!

Re: Large Satellites?

With a little thought, the definition could be updated in such a way that allows Pluto to be defined as a planet, but excludes the Moon (and those of other planets).

If we take the proposed definition quoted in the article as a starting point:

"A planet is a sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and that has sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape adequately described by a triaxial ellipsoid regardless of its orbital parameters."

The article notes two requirements from the 2006 definition which are the cause of all Pluto's problems:

* Clearance of all other objects in the same orbit

* Orbits the Sun

The first of these is clearly imperfect because small objects can still exist on the same orbit as larger objects having not been cleared - even larger ones if they're sufficiently distant in that orbit, as this highly scientific documentary makes clear.

Orbiting the Sun is also a problem because it doesn't allow for rogue planets, as noted in the article - and although we think of it as the moon, that time it went rogue (as detailed in this documentary) it should arguably have been considered a planet.

So the definition could perhaps scope out whether or not it is orbiting a larger body, and if so the nature of that body. If it is orbiting a larger body that has never undergone nuclear fusion, it is a moon - otherwise it is a planet.

That makes Pluto the planet, and Charon a moon - and because it doesn't specify that it must be orbiting a larger body, rogue planets can be planets too. If you want to take the barycentre into account, then it is the larger body of those that share a barycentre.

Re: The world will spend US$2.4 trillion on tech...

While that will always be a factor, the big point here is the prediction that software spending will form the lion's share of the total - and if so, that's due to increasing trend for pushing people towards either cloudy crap or onto subscription models for software.

Re: Vacuum

I asked Nature, and it said it was abhorrent.

Re: I once spotted one of these at Schiphol

^ This. Very much this. I sometimes drive home that way and admire the aircraft as I go past, but won't be able to again.

Re: Different email

"I got an email this afternoon from gocardless as I am a customer.

Odd thing is the email was totally different, less alarming and didn't mention the free monitoring. "

I got a different version of the email again - even less alarming than yours; the first three paragraphs were the same as yours, then where yours mentions the file, mine says:

"Our investigation has concluded that none of your data or your customers’ data was affected by this theft. However we believe in transparency and so wanted to inform you of this burglary anyway."

Then finishes with the same apology, and another sentence offering an email address to get in touch.

ISTM they've simply sent out a different email to different customers depending on how they're potentially affected; no data relating to me, name and email address for you, shit like passport number etc for whoever received the version in the El Reg article - and that's why that one gets the free monitoring.

Re: Nasty

"considering it is quite feasible some of the material watched could be private/personal"

Private/personal or not - it will almost certainly be someone's copyright material. Someone should send in Mickey Mouse to deal with them.

Re: More parental fun

"Install RMerlin on an Asus router, and implement a script that resets the wifi password to a random phrase at 10pm each evening..."

Overkill much?

Just get a router that can block a range of IP addresses according a schedule, and block the range you allocate to your kids devices from, say, 10pm until 8am. That way you get to carry on watching Netflix or whatever after they've been consigned to their pit.

Enterprising kids will get around this. These are the children who should be rewarded by being allowed to live.

Wait. Did I say that last bit out loud?

Re: perfectly reasonable?

"A web site only ought to know the window size."

Quite. The 'fingerprint' nature of the information they can give is already bad enough - and this this new feature expands that.

Thankfully #1, I don't use Chrome except on very rare occasions - but even so, thankfully #2 is that I don't use anything with Bluetooth enabled. I suppose I should add "that I know of".

Re: Not that bothered..

"If they were gonna do that , they'd have done it last time - it was only 4 years ago"

There was speculation at the time, and much objection with it, as I recall.

I think that's why they reincarnated The Master as a woman - it makes it that much easier (read: will cause less objection) if they now reincarnate The Doctor as one.

They don't mention a lube allowance or medical cover, but one of the videos does mention being supplied with tissues, and talks about health and safety.

Re: Fire!

Indeed - and I'd highlight those that use faux security warnings as a means of advertising. I'm looking in particular at you McAffee and Adobe, with the crap from the former bundled with some crap that can be downloaded from the latter.

Re: Bad humans ?

"Bingo! see https://xkcd.com/936/ for an opinion on how it SHOULD be done.

Fixed that for you.

And the reason I made that fix because it's an opinion I do not share.

For a start, the end panel's claim that "You've already remembered it" was wrong for me the first time I read it - it was a couple of years of seeing references to (and re-reading) that strip before the example password finally committed itself to my memory.

Then there's the problem that it's just one password, and it's seemingly just a random string of things with no context - so if someone goes to a particular website they use and needs to log in, how do they remember if their password was correcthorsebatterystaple, versus typicalzeusapplemarch which they used on another site, or walletbottlemonksplatter from another, and so on.

IMO, it only potentially solves the problem if we only ever need one password - and people using just one password is a part of the problem under discussion.

Edit: Lest I forget (see the problem?) my own solution is to use KeePass. Can't recommend it enough.

Re: 'I don't believe it' ... (One Foot In The Grave)

"Video games that don't let you skip intro sequences or cut-scenes. Who has patience for this? Most video games don't even let you skip the training levels! Talk about nannying gamers, c'mon!"

In some games, that nannying continues right through to the end - when facing the final bad guy or whatever, instead of simply using the skills, weapons or whatever you've picked up/earned throughout the game, you're told to "Press <particular button> now!" during that final confrontation. React quick enough each time, you win.

Crap.

"Liz can take someone like DJT anytime."

Thunderdome! Two men people enter, one man person leaves!

@Lee D I like your thinking. Ditto @Doctor Syntax - but why stop at just those responsible for signage? And rather than have them in the car, can we strap them to the front, please?

Re: "Mechanical Sympathy" and magic

"So when I turn up, just the mere fact of me standing by them makes them take that little bit more care, and suddenly things work. It isn't magic: but some people prefer to think that than question their own competence at using their own computer."

I get similar but had never thought about why - your analysis of what happens makes a lot of sense, though. I usually explain it away to the users as the computer being afraid of me.

Re: :unsure:

"All the PCs I've cleaned viruses, trojans, rootkits from DID have AV installed."

Ditto...

Except it has always been a long out of date free trial that was part of the manufacturer's default build.

Re: Trump has become more deranged

'Haven't you guys got someone in MI6 adept at eliminating "undesirables"?'

We could tell you that, but then we'd have to kill you.

Re: Why

"Maybe to make sure that it really was the data you thought it was?

If the meta data is broken then you don't actually know what is in the file - has someone tried to delete one file, but another has been selected due to the mixup?"

However, this is years old data, which the affected users believed had been deleted. If the issue was as you suggest, surely there would have been cries - a similar number of years ago - from the same people affected by this reappearance now to say "I deleted this file from DropBox, but this other one appears to have gone instead" ?

Re: Optional

Where I said "Never having been breached means precisely bugger all" there's an implied "in terms of how secure they are" in the sentence. I didn't spell it out because I thought it was obvious from the context. My bad.

Re: Sorry, a little lost now...

I think it must be the dog - and that he's trained it to shit on other people.

Re: Already a rudimentary thing

Wickes "will now link purchases made in store with my online orders where the in store purchase is made with the same payment card as I use on their website."

Yet more tracking of punters aside, one of the main things I take away from that is that Wickes are holding onto your payment card details. I hope they're good at security.

Re: Assange will back out of his word somehow

What I'd like to see is for him come out of the Embassy, end up facing the consequences for skipping bail and/or for the Swedish rape charges... and for the US not to bat an eyelid, and completely ignore him.

Cruel and unusual punishment.

Re: Enough Whining.

""Linux is the way to go -- if you've got work to do."

Unfortunately, while I use a Linux box at home, and can use it for some work, it is absolutely NOT the way to go for the majority of my work - for which, ATM, a Windows computer is needed¹. YMMV, of course.

1. Currently Windows 7 (though I also have a couple of Windows 8 computers floating around).

Re: Ignorant Brit here

I've got somewhere in the region of a million nephews and nieces, so I hear the Year X references a lot - and while I understand the concept, I still can't equate any given year to what stage that puts them in school in the context of infant/junior/senior school.

(It would be easier to approximate by their age, but I have so many I don't have a clue of their ages - I can only guestimate on that, so I'd be approximating based on an guestimation.)

Re: Facebook?

"This old bollocks.... if you delete your account from Facebook then it's gone."

It's not quite as gone as you might believe. These are the instructions you have to follow to 'delete' your account. (or at least, that's what the instructions were when I did just that, nearly three years ago).

In April 2015, I decided to test just how deleted it was, and went through the steps of setting up a 'new' account - but used the same email address. This was the message I saw.

How could I possibly be able to "regain access" to my old account if "when you delete your account from Facebook then it's gone" ?

Re: Worrying

@Steve Knox

Spot the person who didn't read what I wrote and the link from the article which I helpfully included in my comment. An important point was "the only possible issue is the seller being able to reveal an email address, but even if that wasn't possible, there are simple techniques that could be employed to direct people off site to make that contact."

Simple obfuscation, as LDS mentions in a later post (just above this one) is one such simple method - and while Amazon could make some effort to spot such things, it wouldn't be possible to catch all such attempts, and the scammers also have the possibility of providing more verbose instructions than a simple obfuscated address, which would make it even more difficult for Amazon.

Why did Enterprise get the £400k?

Good question.

When I first read it, prior to reaching that bit, I was thinking the perpetrators sold the details "for hundreds of thousands of pounds" and then received fines of £7,500, £3,000 and £1,200 - therefore suggesting [some] crime does indeed pay.

Then I saw the £400,000 and thought, oh, okay, fair enough.

I initially thought that perhaps prior to any of this ending up in the hands of the law, customers affected by this established for themselves that the ambulance chasers got their contact details from Enterprise's records - so the £400,000 was compensation for damage to their reputation or something like that. (Not that I know what their reputation is like to begin with - I've seen one or two of their adverts, and they're annoying, but that's it.)

However, I then put two and two together, and I may or may not be coming up with five. The perpetrators sold the details sold the details "for hundreds of thousands of pounds" and £400,000 is indeed hundreds of thousands of pounds. I'm therefore now wondering if Enterprise got from them something in the region of the amount they got from the ambulance chasers - i.e. it was data from Enterprise's records so have they, in effect, successfully got the proceeds of the sale of the data?

Re: WTF

But surely, the combination is what matters: Where any published advertising claims "Secure!" and there are any published CVEs for the advertised product, that is evidence that the advertising is a misrepresentation.

I'm not clicking on a Daily Mail link - but looking at the link itself...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2747719/What-happens-tornado-meets-volcano-Footage-reveals-3-300ft-column-gas-fire-swirling-Bardarbunga.html

WTF!? Daily Mail has a science / tech section?

Also, @JetSemSim I was pleased to discover recently that there is a Sharknado 4 (I've seen 1-3) and according to IMDB a #5 is in the works for this year. :)

Re: Optional

Well, at first glance none of the search results (other than to this very site/thread) are sites I read so, no, it's not a hint that the condom escapees who suggest such crap are correct. :)

It's just a coincidence - I thought of it independently, but so have other people before me.

Re: Fixed &c.

Quite.

Obvious advertising opportunity#1 is for L'Oréal's own products: It can detect if the hair is wet or dry, so a conclusion can be made about washing frequency, and advertising can try to increase that (and therefore sales of hair-related L'Oréal products).

Obvious advertising opportunity#2 is for third parties - hairdressers. If the software can track stroke length, over time it can probably be used to approximate how often the user visits the hairdresser - and therefore when strokes reach a certain length start advertising local hairdressers.

The reality of the Internet of Things.