Posts by JimmyPage

If they did that in Brum

they'd probably double the average traffic speed.

Drifting OT, but "iPhone" ...

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.

9 *am* to 9 *pm* ?

Surely the other way round would be of more use ?

MS are paying the wrong people ..

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.

I'd call it "Spinal Tap"

because it goes all the way up to 11

Obligatory ? Stewart Lee reference ...

Stewart: "It's very easy to use words and logic to make someone look like they're selfish, simply because they've expressed a position that could be interpreted as that."

Chris: "That's what Julian Assange says."

Stewart: "I bet he does."

In other news

the price of BitCoins goes up ....

Backward compatibility ...

One thing this otherwise excellent article doesn't really address, and is the *real* reason we are where we are.

PC/MS-DOS were inherently flawed, as they were single-user in execution, they had no concept of root and user access. Whoever switched on the machine was king of the hill. And this paradigm carried on throughout the 1980s and 90s - right the way up to Windows 95.

We *could* have had a true multi-user multi-tasking PC/OS combination in 1987. But the second business realised they would have to pay for new software to run on OS/2, the die was cast.

Excellent reading and discussion material for a Friday. It's like being back at Uni ;)

Want to thwart the snoopers ?

You don't "send" mail anymore. You simply post your encrypted message on a usenet server (ask your parents, kids) with the intended recipients public key as the subject.

The recipient can easily find the message from whatever server they use, and download it, decrypt it, and if required, respond the same way.

All the communications in the world in the open, and (assuming you trust the underlying encryption) safe. Sadly, Teresa May will now lose that lovely "meta data" she wants to collect, so she knows who is communicating with who, but that's the price she (and others) will have to pay for abusing their powers in the first place.

Bearing in mind, from a UK perspective, discussion of encrypted mail is moot, since the authorities can simply ask you to decrypt it with the incentive of 2 years (or is it 5 ?) in the big house if you don't.

Human physics !

Many years ago, I read a book (it may have been a siblings schoolbook) which expressed human activity in SI units.

If I remember correctly, the human brain, running at full pelt, can use an incredible 100W ... which is 25% of the total energy a human can expend. Which, if you think about it, means your body has to deliver enough power to your brain to light a 100W light bulb.

When you start to think about the chemistry behind that, it leaves you in wonder at nature. It also puts "technology" squarely in it's place, when you think how much power a CPU takes to badly ape human thinking.

STILL no standard ?

I posted a while ago, to general approval, that there really needs to be an ISO-level standard about how passwords (or more generally identity verification) should be carried out.

At present, you have no idea what happens to that password, once you press "register", or "Login".

Is it hashed and compared. Is it stored in plaintext ?

You have no idea.

If you forget it, can you reset it. Will it be emailed to you, in plain text ?

You have no idea.

I'm starting to think that usernames and password are starting to become obsolete, although the worry is, there's nothing (yet) to replace them.

Is there space in the market, for something you can use on a phone ? Something like a virtual RSA keyfob, where it delivers a verification code based upon your credentials, and something unique stored on the phone ?

Nice placement for El Reg

On the lappie screen

Hmmmm

My wife has MS, and is registered blind (although partially sighted). We went to a national exhibition for aids and adaptations last year, and it seemed every ****er and his dog had some "special" aid, which in reality was a crippled tablet/phablet/phone running Android, with a few custom apps.

All of which was priced about 10x what it would have cost if you wanted the same thing *not* designed for the blind.

The only thing we got which was of any use, was "Cocoons" - a pair of sunglasses which reduce the glare my wife experiences due to the optic neuritis.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, 2 years after I looked into using voice control[1] for android, and deciding to wait until we had a decent phone (not a Wildfire) we get a Moto G (*Brilliant* btw) and I discover that **** all has moved on in the world of Android voice control. It's still pants.

[1]To be fair this is voice control via bluetooth. If you start researching you realise that no one has ever, in the history of the world, wanted to use a BT headset to control their phone. The crushing irony is, my *Windows 8* phone, has seamless BT integration.

Oh well.

I would hope the real test ...

is to permanently bar anyone thick enough to download an alleged VM image from "the security services" from having any say in IT ever again.

The biggest challenge ...

is getting the punters to understand that SMS is *not*,l never has been, and never will be a reliable service.

It's scary the people who *only* send a text in the unwavering belief that it will always be received.

How times change ...

A few years ago, news like this would have generated criticism from the west, along with a long spiel about democracy.

Nowadays, news like this, and the west goes "that's a good idea"

On that note ...

There was an interesting documentary about the Lancaster last week ...

Is it just me, or are the BBC narrowing the window of opportunity to watch things on iPlayer ?

Sorry, I call "bollocks"

very loudly.

My 18yo son, who has an apprenticeship in ICT (and tells everyone he works in IT) had to call me up Saturday night, to "set the internet up" (i.e. explain how to go to Settings, Wireless and Networks, APNs) on his mates phone. They were having a little party with about 10 others, none of whom had the faintest idea (which is why they asked my lad).

zxcv.fm gone

as per title

Another reason

Not to use IE.

Or Windows, in fact.

IcoScript uses the Component Object Model technology in Microsoft Windows to control Internet Explorer to make HTTP requests to remote services. It also uses its own kind of scripting language to perform tasks.

Deja vu ?

every so often, you get stories about "joined up government". They have a brief vogue, and then die down again.

My suspicion is every so often, a new, wet-behind the ears minister dreams up a wheeze, which sounds brilliant.

On paper.

They then take this idea to the civil service (who have seen it all before) who point out that maybe it might not be such a spiffing idea after all, since it would have to apply to the minister, their spouse, their children, and could make life a tad tricky, but that there's a desperate need for international standards around the internet of things, and that the minister would be better serving the government by devoting the next 18 months to that line of work.

Rinse and repeat.

Speed through checkouts ...

MrsPage and I have have been using these fold-up crates to pack our shopping into. Get to the checkout, unload on belt, get to other end, and pack crate (in trolley) faster than the checkout operator can scan them. Really flummoxes the twunts[1] who like to make customers scrabble by not turning on the output belt, as I can take the item from their hand.

Added bonus is box can then be stacked nicely in boot, and not fall over like a collection of bags.

As to scanning items individually, it's the trained procedure. There are numerous lines where items look identical, but aren't ... not only is there the risk of a pricing difference, but also stock control and special offers need to know.

[1]You might think you invented the idea of jerking around with customers, with your youth, haircut, and facial ironmongery, but you don't realise this 45+ duffer used to work in Sainsburys on Saturdays, just like you ...

I have to write *something*

as I need to express my delight as stories like this ->

No mention ...

of how a dropped screw can disappear into a trans-dimensional vortex, never to be seen again ?

Until you walk around barefoot, this is.

Cortana ?

Why, oh why, do I keep reading this as "Cortina" ?

Bring back the Ford Cortina !

How does this square with the mantra of "public transport" ?

In the 90s, I was convinced that MS had two departments, at opposite ends of the building. One was dedicated to *fighting* piracy, and came up with all sorts of whizzy ways to stop it. Their work was then taken across the building to the other team, who made sure it never happened, since some of Microsofts market dominance is undoubtedly based on how "porous" Win 3.1/95 and Office 97 and Visual Studios 4,5 and 6 were.

Certainly at the local level, councils up and down the country have done their damndest to deter private motoring. This is no secret. It's a stated policy. I have an email in reply to my observation that resequencing some local lights would improve the efficiency of the junction. The reply I got basically said that as a means to encourage public transport, anything which made it easier to drive was undesirable.

There are two examples of this in concrete and tarmac in SW Brum, where the A38 passed through Selly Oak and Northfield. The bypass is 5 minutes *longer* than the previous route (a fact locals have twigged, meaning the original route is used to bypass the bypass). This was by *design* not accident.