Posts by Loyal Commenter

Re: IT'll be fine!

You missed out single mothers. There's certain rampant brexiters who used to have a real thing about them. Deadwood, I'm looking at you...

Re: Transition will continue after 31 Dec 2020...

Boris will push through a new law, using Henry VIII powers, to delay Christmas until a time of his choosing.

Possibly with a few new months between November and December?

Brexitarch? Borisebruary?Jingoly? Your choice...

Re: Am I Stupid or Tired

I would assume that it is possible to forensically retrieve the contents of the storage on the phone. It may then be possible to brute-force the encryption keys, given enough resources. The scale of those resources wouold depend on the encryption mechanism used, and I'm willing to bet Apple have strengthened it since.

Re: They are clearly hoping to push legislation for a backdoor

Pockets? What are you hiding in those? Why isn't it in the clear plastic bag hung around your neck with the zipper down the side marked "for FBI use only"?

Re: "most commonly found on cheap handsets"

Exactly, hence my slightly snarky parenthesised "if you can find the documentation".

As someone who could reasonably be considered to be a well experienced developer, with fairly broad knowledge, I recently had to spend several hours working out how to re-flash a stock ROM onto a certain manufacturer's Android phone becuase they ah dsomehow corrupted the factory install in such a way that prevented an OTA update of Android to the latest version.

Getting to grips with this included such joys as installing Android Studio, working out where adb is installled, fighting my antivirus, which for some reason likes to quarantine adb.exe when it's run, working out that not only do you have to put the android phone into 'developer mode' (the secret tap-10-times hidden menu), but also enable USB debugging in order to successfully connect, before finding the exact right build of the installer for the phone's ROM and hoping it will install...

None of which is well documented, or documented in one place (or at least any place that's easy to find). Microsoft, by comparison, are saintly when it comes to their documentation, and their documentation is crap...

Any non-technical user (or merely moderately technical one) would have given up. It's only through sheer bloody-mindedness that I didn't...

Re: "most commonly found on cheap handsets"

I wonder how many of the 'protected' apps can be removed / replaced by putting the phone into 'developer mode', enabling debug and using ADB from a PC, over a USB cable? There are some fairly powerful things you can do with that if you know what you're doing (and if you can find the documentation).

Google does not control the code that phone makers put on their phone, they all fork base Android

My understanding is that this is not the case. I'm open to being corrected, but my impression is that most phones have the standard Android on them, but that the OS has the faciltiy for the images that get flashed onto a phone's protected OS memory to contain "pre-installed" apps that don't behave in the same way as apps isntalled in the phone's main user memory. To me, the solution here is for Google to remove the ability for such apps to be installed this way, and make the manufacturers put these in the normal 'user-space' on the phone, where they can be removed / updated.

I don't know how this would play with the more low-level things (like HTC's 'sense' UI). Maybe Google could take the apporach that such things on the protected storage need to meet strict criteria and be approved by google before they license the right to use the Android™ name / app store.

Re: UK Government for robbing the EU Schengen Database

Schengen isn't what you think it is, and certainly isnt what the Daily Heil has told you it is...

(disclaimer - "you" here doen't necessarily mean you personally, but signifies a general misunderstanding by the public)

Re: late capitalists

Remember Thalidamide? Only tested on one species, which didn't have a problem with it

That's not strictly correct.

The problem with thalidomide is that the compound in question can exist as two different enantiomers (essentially mirror images). One of these was tested and found the be effective as a treatment for morning sickness. It was duly approved and went into production. When being manufactured in bulk, it turned out to be a lot cheaper to manufacture the mixture of both enantiomers, and the company involved assumed that the other enantiomer would be inactive, or harmless - a lot cheaper to manufacture something of 50% purity, assume the other 50% was harmless and double the dose, than to purify a mixture of enantiomers with almost identical chemical and physical properties. Unfortuantely, it turned out that the other enatiomer wasn't harmless and inactive, but that it causes birth defects. As far as I am aware, the "correct" enantiomer is harmless, and effective, but nobody dares market it now due to teh scandal involved.

This is another good example of why the "free market" requires regulation, and why there are now stringent safety regulations about the purity of medicines. Without regulation for people's safety, free-market capitalism is a race to the bottom, to produce the lowest-quality goods at the cheapest price the market will bear. It makes some people very rich, and everyone else poorer.

Re: late capitalists

This is a good example of why "the market" isn't some golden panacea for all the world's woes, and how some things need to be legislated for.

In the US, personal data is owned by the person, or more likely company, that has collected it, and the subjects have little to no rights over it. There may be some state laws that tighten things up a bit in places like California, but I doubt these really give people decent rights over their own data. This is the reality of the "free market".

In the EU (of which the UK is still just a part), there are strong protections over the colelction and processing of personal data (under GDPR, and prior to that, to a lesser extent, under the DPA in the UK). People have a right to know what data is colelcted about them, and for what purpose, and for most purposes, clear informed consent is required.

If the data in question had been leaked from a business based in the EU, they would be facing a fine of up to 4% of global annual turnover. In the US, they probably haven't even done anything "wrong". I think a few more of these scandals, and the US will eventually move towards legislating the "market" in personal data, but I'm willing to bet that the protections for citizens there will never be as strong as they are in the EU. Remind me again why so many people seem so keen to run into the welcoming arms of our transataltic cousins, as a subordinate, in preference to those of the EU, as an equal (or even preferred) partner?

Re: late capitalists

Audi: One set of indicator lights for sale, never used.

Re: frustrating genius

The works of the late great Iain (M) Banks are, to me, what modern sci-fi can be; not space-opera, and not generally relying on "future technology" as a mcguffin in place of plot. All good literature is about the characters, not the setting.

Re: Ah, degaussing

I expect the shielded apron was to stop the user’s keys etc trying to exit their clothing and stuff like that

If it was lead shielding, it would have close to zero effect on a magnetic field, what with it being non-ferromagnetic and all that...

...which leads me to wonder what sort of electromagnetic field this thing was giving off; rapid pulses of on-off magentic field might be giving off some whacky high-energy photons that you'd rather not have penetrating your "junk".

Re: Stray magnetic fields...

One of the few times I've really felt it was necessary to interrupt our PhD students chatting amongst themselves was when they were bewailing the wastefulness of leaving the mri magnet on all the time...

Indeed. In a previous life, where I worked with such things (back when a 400 MHz machine was considered cutting edge), I heard stories of what would happen if, for instance someone's keys ended up inside the magnet. The procedure for retrieving them would involve "quenching" the magnet, which involves draining the liquid helium (at -269ºC), allowing the coil to warm up above the critical temperature, removing the errant keys, giving the owner a good kicking, and then cooling the machine back down again, before recalibrating it for use. This would probably take the machine out of commission for several days, and waste a lot of expensive liquid helium, not to mention the potential damage to the magnet, and thermal stress to other components. So, basically, not something you would want to do casually.

Not to mention the idiocy of the idea of wanting to "save costs" by "turning off" the magnet, which when cooled and superconducting, and producing a static field, consumes no energy other than the resources required to keep it cooled.

Re: Erasing hard-drives...

If you need to destroy hard-disks, use a more effective method, like a bench drill and a bucket of bleach. Drill a couple of holes (one at either end) through the case and platters, and then place in the bucket. Pour the bleach over the drives when the bucket is full, and leave overnight. That, or just take them somewhere that has an industrial grinder and shred them into tiny pieces.

Re: On a related topic

One is a secular state with a high standard of living for all, and 100% powered by renewable energy, the other a theocratic republic with high standards of living for only the very few, and fuelled entirely by oil and gas...

I certainly know which one I'd prefer to live in, even if it is dark there for three months of the year...

Re: >>>However, I think you might be missing the point<<<

Was it perhaps the invasive non-native harlequin ladybird?

Re: Now you know what 2020 is going to look like

Pick your sides in the Holy War between Golden Wonder and Walkers.

I'm sure I have never seen a game where you could read "this could cause epilepsy".

There - FTFY, because it's on literally every game that could conceivably do so, and has been for some significant time. Usually, it's on a page in the game instructions, or on the packaging, or on a loading screen, along with other disclaimers, and things like WEEE regulations statements, age ratings, etc. etc.

If you've not seen it, might I suggest that you are suffering from some ultra-rare sort of photosensitive epilepsy that triggers when you see such warnings and causes you to have a very specific seizure that causes you to hit the keyboard in exactly the right way to spout nonsense on the internet. That, or you're an idiot who has not been paying attention.

Re: Client Problem

Try using that idiotic "bunch of 1s and 0s" defence when the cops arrest you for having child pornography on your PC. It won't work then, and it doesn't work now.

If deliberately triggering epileptic fits in others for your own amusement isn't an indication of psychopathy, I don't know what is. Attempting to defend such behaviour puts you firmly in the same bucket, labelled "scum".

There is absolutely no reason a worker in Bangladesh, for instance, should be paid less than a worker in Silicon Valley, for the same work.

Well, actually there is...

Employing someone in e.g. Bangaldesh is cheaper for a couple of reasons:

1) lower overheads such as employment safety, welfare, working hours, etc.

2) lower cost of living for those employees because of lack of building safety standards, food safety standards, etc. and the fact that it is a por country without the resources to raise people out of poverty.

Now, the astute amongst you will realise these are buisness reasons, not moral ones. If you follow them, then the natural pressure will be to either reduce standards in the countries that are losing jobs, or raise them in the ones gaining jobs. Over time, the second of these is more likley to happen, due to the natural flow of capital into poorer countries, but in the shorter term, in the name of "business", certain individuals would like to implement the first in the name of increased profit. They'll do so by preventing unionisation, and extolling the virtues of "competitiveness" amongst other things.

Corporations, as non-human entities, have no morals, which is why legislation has to provide them for them. minimum standards, minimum pay, helath and safety, et al.

Re: Can someone please explain...

Not to nitpick (well actually...) but since when was Corbyn a union leader? If you want to criticise unions here in the UK, you don't need a straw-man argument. Let's start with the brexiter* Len McCluskey instead, and the unreasonable power he seems to wield in the Labour Party without (seemingly) appropriate responsiblities to reflect the opinions or interests of his union members. No need to invoke Corbyn, whose faults lie elsewhere (principally in being a rubbish opposition leader when it comes to actually holding government to account).

*brexit certainly isn't going to improve the lot of union members despite the myriad hollow promises that have been made in its name. Removal (or the possibility of removal) of the strong employment rights gained through EU membership is the start of the slippery slope.

Re: these terms are "divisive and humiliating,"

Can't say I disagree much with what you said, except the bit about "patriarchy". Yes, it's a rather grating term, and often has societal connotations about the person saying it that they might not wish to impart upon themselves, but I think its fair to allow feminists to keep using it until the point where the world is predominantly run by rich old white men. By derogating its use, you are derogating the overall struggle against inequality, and I'm pretty sure you don't mean to do so. Do you?

The only company who beats PF for service and security is DPD and they do this by treating their workers like machines.

I've had real trouble with DPD in the past (principally just not bothering to try to deliver); they seem to have improved in recent years. I think they're the ones who take a picture of the front door they tried to deliver to, so you can see which wrong address it was.

I have come to the conclusion that DPD stands for "Don't Plan to Deliver", but maybe that is too harsh. Perhaps it should be the pleasingly recursive "DPD Partially Deliver".

Re: A moral obligation

I suppose the moral question comes into play when you go into a small independent retailer to try something out. The lines are more blurred when it's a faceless chain store.

I'd have no qualms walking into $high_street_chain or $national_supermarket to check out the quality of an item before buying it online, and many others wouldn't either.

Admittedly, this has led to the demise of many high-street shops (HMV spring to mind), but if they are unable to offer anything more than the ability to pick up a cd and walk away with it right away, then they are going to lose business to an online alternative who don't have the costs of physical premises to maintain. If they haven't had the business sense to transition to an online-only, or mostly-online business model then they have thrown away the inherent advantage they will have had from brand recognition, and existing warehousing infrastructure. Bad luck.

Re: he was told there was "no security problem"

If the app is able to reveal data from someone else's session, the fault is de facto in the back end for allowing the data to be sent, possibly implying that they have no proper auth mechanism. It may be in the app as well, but that just illustrates how shit their developers are.

As any fule kno

CO₂ reacts with water to form carbonic acid (H₂CO₃). You'd have to pump a fair amount of energy in to produce formaldehyde.

I thought the general explanation for why oxygen didn't immediately build up in the atmosphere is becuase it is fairly reactive stuff, and it would react with anything that would have it first. At this point in prehistory, there were a lot fo reduced iron compounds about (Iron suplhide, IIRC), which reacted with free oxygen to produce Iron oxides, hence the preponderance of red sandstone from this epoch, which is coloured with iron (III) oxide, which is more commonly known as rust. As any geologist will tell you, this stuff is so ubiquitous from that time, that it is known as ORS ("Old Red Sandstone"). It forms the walls and buildings of much of Bristol, and also composes large parts of Australia, such as Uluru.