remember for a lot of people
"the UK" really means "London and the South East"
3215 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2010
before your very eyes.
We're on a tech site here, so have a fairly good grasp of the issues involved. That leaves the other 95% of society (who, for better or for worse have been allowed the vote) who, when pressed, would probably tell you that Encryption is in New Jersey, and no one made salted hashes like Grandma.
If people like Comey raise the "encryption is bad" meme, and use it in proximity to words like "child porn", "paedophiles", "terrorists", "islamist" enough times, he might just get enough support to get his way.
Furthermore, the process to turn that print into a useable copy is sufficiently complex that it’s highly unlikely to be a threat for anything other than a targeted attack by a sophisticated individual
A process that could be easily devolved to a 3D Printer - which are hardly like rocking horse shit.
If there's an incentive, things will be made simple. Look at the grunts who skim cards, using quite high tech.
and the content is dumbed down beyond belief.
No one under 40 would believe that I learned about Quarks, and the like from a "Horizon" broadcast in the mid-70s (I was 10) on a Saturday afternoon as an alternative to "Grand(fucking - I hated sport)Stand".
A few weeks later there was another Horizon, about the discoveries of ancient humanoid fossils causing scientists to conclude mankind had been around closer to 12,000,000 in some form, rather than the 2,000,000 they believed up to then.
You just never see anything like this nowadays. However you will see loads of pretty shots of sunsets, or mountain ranges, usually with the pretty boy* presenter (Brian Cox) looking upwards, as the camera crew try out their new spinny gear.
*Exceptions made for Alice Roberts though <swoon>.
ITYM US *network* domination. You know. NBC, CBS, Fox (except "House M.D.").
US cable quality has been growing at a frenetic rate. The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Shield, House of Cards.
Hell those are the ones the Mrs and I have watched. There's plenty more which aren't to our taste, but which get shedloads of *critical* praise (as opposed to viewing figures).
it's as far as it'll go for now.
There's everything wrong with the TV Business though. From risk-averse "executives" through to a desire to monetize everything.
The current car-crash that is BBC license fee, VM subscription, Sky Subscription (even if you have VM,. as "Sky Atlantic" is out of your reach[1]), Netflix, Amazon Prime, Blinkbox, [contd page 92]. With loads of middlemen trying to get at your wallet.
If Apple can deliver a single subscription model, that gives me access to all the content I want - even if it's no cheaper than aggregating the individual packages - then I may become a fanboi.
[1]No problem of course. You use the big fat VM pipe to <cough> acquire what you need.
after YES, because of all the subsidies from rUK ?
Has anyone got the calculations of the rebate the rUK will get per capita, if there is a YES vote ? You know. All that extra money you told us you were spending in Scotland you are now not ?
Or is it all bullshit ?
Which is quite a leap from 8.0 But which adds one thing I have wanted for years.
"WiFi Sense" which effectively automates logging in to the myriad of free WiFi APs you collect after a while that always need your email address when you move to a new one (O2 I'm looking at you).
The *only* downside about WP is lack off apps. It actually pisses all over Android (which *still* hasn't sorted out it's Bluetooth integration yet - 2 years after I complained that it still hadn't sorted it's bluetooth integration out).
In this case, very happy to be a ------------------>
anyone heard the term "ignostic" ? John Lloyd mentioned it on a Richard Herring podcast (slight plug).
It's a philosophy which requires terms to be defined, before an answer is given. So in the case of "Do you believe in God ?" terms need to be decided. Beard ? Sandals ? Tall ? Fat ?
Only when terms are defined, can an answer be given. As he put it "you tell me what I don't believe in."
Same with "life". Define terms.
On a similar vein - and just as impressive - was the discovery in London, of a machine to provide water to Roman London (I think it was discovered by the Crossrail team).
It was a series of buckets, on an iron chain, driven (presumably) by donkey power.
Completely and utterly unknown anywhere else in the Roman world, which is why they struggled (with modern technology) to recreate a working model.
Anyone know of Trajans bridge ? Parts of which still stand.
It annoysme when people assume that our ancestors were somehow less clever than us. They weren't. As James Burke so eloquently put it "They just knew different things."
What if they had used a suitcase going out of the country ? How would the poor passenger explain *that* to the security people at the other end.
And if they are doing it with explosives, you can bet they're doing it with drugs.
If I was executed by one of the more draconian regimes for a half grain of heroin planted in my luggage by OzCop inc. I'd be very cross when I got to heaven, and wouldn't enjoy it.
ISTR when Richard "the Hamster" Hammond (he's not a real hamster) did a prog about "could the gunpowder plot have succeeded"[1], they couldn't - for whatever reason - buy enough gunpowder in the UK. Ironically[2] it had to come from Spain. *Very* secretly.
[1]Oh yes, and then some !!!!
[2] Because Guy Fawkes learned his gunpowder skills in Spain.
on what planet would spaffing $100 a pop generate decent apps that people WANT.
Why didn't they give Nationwide [UK building society] £10,000 to develop a windows version of their mobile banking app (which they have no plans to develop any time soon. I have that in writing from their IT director).
Or anyone of the commercial apps that *companies* aren't offering on WP ?
For anyone wondering about the legality of the research, Tentler insisted: "It isn’t [illegal]. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Websense, every antivirus vendor in the world, and Shodan – they all do similar scans."
Never heard that one in court before. He might, just might, want to pay for legal advice right now. He could save an awful lot later ....
There used to be a time (I bet they've fucked it up now) on the A4, from Hounslow to the Chiswick roundabout, where if you got your timing right, you could sail through *every* light on green.
The trick was to start at a red light. And as you set of, accelerate steadily, until you got to 35. Then hold it (the speed limit was 40). If you did this, you'd see every light go green as you approached it. In off-peak conditions I could get from Hounslow to Kensington in 20 minutes.
It took a bit of nerve though, as it meant driving towards a red light at speed, and not slowing down. If you did, you'd start to fall behind, and eventually get caught.
wasn't there a court case a while back where Hoover effectively lost their exclusivity of branding, as it was judged that "Hoover" was synonymous with "vacuum cleaner" ?
Similar to "Blu-Tak" and "Sellotape" ?
Maybe the same is happening to "iPhone" becoming a generic term, rather than a brand.
And although I know it will attract a slew of downvotes, I do find it interesting this phenomenon seems to apply to things which suck or stick.
sod phone manufacturers ... you could have wall to wall Windows phones in every store. Until you have enough *apps* to offer, no-one who can choose their phone will go Windows.
If MS invested a few million to develop, say, 50% of the top 50 apps that are lacking a Windows port, they'd have a much better chance of getting Joe Soap to buy one.
Has El Reg been Geugled ?
I know it existed, as I commented on it ... Now I get a nasty Apache error ..
Gone
The requested resource
/forum/1/2014/08/19/citrix_xen_app_and_desktop_update/
is no longer available on this server and there is no forwarding address. Please remove all references to this resource.
Apache/2.2.22 (Debian) Server at forums.theregister.co.uk Port 80
The reason these megacorps inflate their prices so much is they damn well know, the bigger (i.e. *longer*) a project is, the more likely it will fall between two political camps.
The government that ordered it.
and
The successive government which on balance of probabilities didn't want it.
As soon as the latter happens, then the project will be reviewed, the specification (as was) will be revised to account for the new political reality, and from that point, the project will slowly wither and die.
Look as HS2 .. all the dithering. What sane CEO is going to take any part of that project, without a damn good padding to cover themselves over the potential 2 (and it will over run, so we may have 3 or 4) changes of government ?
I don't know what the answer is, but the problem is politics.