Posts by Dave 126

Re: It is NOT paranoia if they really are tracking you and listening to your conversations...

>I have no problem with new tech that helps me but when it is - intentionally or unintentionally - designed and built in such a way that it needs to be replaced, reloaded, updated or whatever more frequently than an "inferior" low-tech equivalent whilst not giving me additional USEFUL functionality then I have to question why "they" think I need to replace something that is doing what *I* need it to do...

The classic example of how not to manage this sort of thing was the drive to CFL light bulbs. What made it really bad was that cheap CFL bulbs are shit - and it was these that were often given away to convince people to switch from incandescent bulbs. People hated having a bulb that took tens of seconds to become bright, especially if they just wanted to illuminate a room for half a minute to fetch something. These days LEDs are very good and though pricier will pay for themselves in months for most applications. However, the adage 'once stung, twice shy' applies, and so many are still unaware that LEDs aren't irritating like CFLs are.

Re: If a multi-billion company can't produce safe mainstream code

>If a multi-billion company can't produce safe mainstream code... ...then how on earth will all these smaller companies produce the same?

The easiest way is to keep things simple. A house could be run on a very simple addressable protocol like DMX, with sensors ( switches, dials, thermostats) and actuators (lights, radiators). Not a lot of coding required, so very little attack surface. And hell, physical access would be required.

Making things wireless introduces a load of security headaches, but a wired solution would be trivial during a new-build or redecoration.

If then someone absolutely must bridge from this network to the wider world, then at least the required gateway would be fairly simple, and thus less difficult to audit.

Re: LIfecycles of tech

>The main problem I see is that the life cycle of technology is pretty short. The phone that your app runs on may well only be a couple of years old before it gets replaced.

Very true. May I propose we use MIDI or DMX? Both standards have been around for 30 years and are in regular use today. The only downside is that for simple applications, there isn't much need for chips from Intel, haha. (I'm being half tongue-in-cheek)

(On a tangential note, I saw a band play in local pub the other day, and the mixing desk was an iPad app (all iPhones and iPads have always had wireless MIDI baked in). The advantage was clear - the band could be mixed from within the audience so that they got the optimum sound. )

Re: The usual arrogance of tech companies

People will be converted eventually, but through seeing, not listening. Most people don't read tech blogs, or become first-adopters of new technology. Instead, they see something at a friend's huse and, if it works as it should, consider getting one if they can see the point of it.

Case in point: Even my dad now has a connected music system of sorts. (Spotify on his phone and laptop, a Chromecast Audio dongle on his amplifier. He'd seen his son-in-law's iPad/Sonos set-up and thought it useful).

Of course the 'analogue' way of doing multi-room audio is just to have one amp, two speakers, and the volume turned up to 11 - you can now hear the music in every room! :)

Re: Skewed results

>the person that couldn't turn their lights on and another that was locked out of his house due to his router being down.

Exactly. If you ask people if they want 'technology', they will be dubious because 'technology' never seems to just work as it should. A bog standard IR controller isn't 'technology' because it will go at least a year without needing a battery change*. When something just works as it should, it is no longer 'technology' because it is now just 'stuff'.

If the survey was re-written without using the words 'smart', 'connected' or 'technology', and instead asked questions such as "Would you like to have a magic floor that never needs cleaning?" I daresay people would say "Yes!" (or "Yes, but what's the catch?" because we all remember the Sorcerer's Apprentice).

*People see a IR-controlled ceiling light as being pretty easy to understand - their long experience of using televisions has trained them. However, my brother-in-law bought an expensive example, and it is unusable because it erroneously responds to signals from a Samsung television controller. WTF? I've seen all manner of heterogeneous home entertainment set-ups, and I've never seen a Sony VCR upset a Panasonic television, or an LG DVD player annoy a Yamaha amplifier. Yet this young IR-controlled lighting company make that product that doesn't play nice with a very common brand of TV. Idiots.

Right o', I'm off to to construct a system of strings and pulleys to control my light switches, window blinds and thermostat from my sofa. I got the idea from some nice chap called Professor Branestawm. I'll try my best to not garrote the cat.

Re: Quite a large pachyderm in the room

>"I guess this is a problem specific to when physicists try to work out geology."

Not at all. The physicists in question did not use the word 'crust', they only mention the surface. The word crust was introduced by this Reg article in error.

That is all.

Re: Lack of critical thinking, methinks ...

>"I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

The Reg made an error in its reporting, and introduced the word 'crust' when it wasn't present in the source material. Just like using Wikipedia, it's important to check the references yourself.

Welcome to the internet.

In partial defence of jake:

This Reg article has used the word 'crust' in error. The authors of the paper did not use the word 'crust', only 'surface'. Jake is correct - the crust took tens of millions of years to form in the first place, and has been recycled through tectonic activity many times since.

That said, jake should know better than to trust the Reg at face value - it's important to check the source material directly.

The purpose of the paper, as the authors intended it, was as a teaching aid for undergraduate students to challenge established views. Feynman would have approved.

Re: What is time

>In principle you can imagine a time difference for instance between your head and limbs

That's actually been shown experimentally! Seriously, physicists as NIST have observed difference in reading between two nuclear clocks, one 0.33 m higher than the other. The difference is as theory predicted, and it is equivilenet to 90 billionths of second over the course of a 79 year lifetime.

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/aluminum-atomic-clock_092310.cfm

Re: Another slice of pi

Hmm, tricky - it either has to work with a TV or monitor you already have, or you have to source a dedicated screen (by which time the cost will probably have defeated the object)

Maybe it can share a monitor, mouse and keyboard with your desktop PC, by means of a KVM switch? It could be used for when you don't want to use your main PC (because of noise, or power usage concerns, perhaps) or when you can't (your main PC is busy doing something).

I can't immediately think of any compelling use for a headless Android device - but if you do, this app called 'AutoStart - No root' does what it says on the tin, going by the reviews.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.autostart&hl=en

Re: Tom Hidlestone?

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Alec Guinness is still my favourite Le Carre adaptation... though I like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Gary Oldman in two recent films, the plots need a bit more space to breathe than a feature-length film can provide.

Being a comparatively recent novel, A Most Delicate Truth could make a good TV series, though perhaps not one for cosy Sunday night viewing - it needs to keep its anger.

Re: May I offer as an example...

I feel Gina Carano would make a better J Bond than Ms Andrerson. Carano, who was a mixed martial artist before her film career, has a presence and muscular power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Carano#Television_and_film_career

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haywire_(film)#Critical_response

Re: James Bond/007 Isn't a Person

>But, I draw a line at there being a "black" James Bond or a "female" James/Jane Bond.

During the cold war, a black James Bond wouldn't make too much sense- he wouldn't be that covert an operative in a Eastern European casino, for example. With the state of the world as it is today, it is easier to imagine places a fictional MI6 could use a black operative. Indeed, Bond's CIA counterpart, Felix, has been black for the last few films.

Heck, a James Bond of Chinese descent could be dead handy for some missions today! (though of course film producers today keep more than an eye on the Chinese cinema market).

Re: Tom Hidlestone?

>What is all this 'Night Manager' rubbish?

Ah, but it was such shiny, good looking rubbish! It wasn't nearly as deep, dark or subtle as a Le Carre novel, but at least it had Tom Hollander in it, reprising his role as 'The Fucker' from The Thick of It.

In support of Idris, this clip from the film Pacific Rim. Idris wears a psuedo-RAF uniform at times. The director asked Idris to use his natural voice for the film (though English, it was his role as a Baltimore gangster in the Wire that really made his name) though in this clip he's generic transatlantic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTV7eZIINs4

He's also driven a Bentley really fast. Though Aston Martin (or a Citreon 2CV) is often asscociated with 007, Fleming had him in Bentley:

http://www.bentleymotors.com/en/world-of-bentley/our-story/news/2015/idris-elba-breaks-historic-flying-mile-speed-record-.html

Re: One film

The Woody Allen James Bond:

"My doctor says I can't have lead enter my body under any circumstances!"

The same film also featured an Ursula Andreas James Bond, and David Niven as the original James Bond, bemoaning the damage to his good name from his masters appointing sex maniacs as his successors.

Re: Bond.

I've recently been watching Elementary, with a Dr Jane Watson - played by Lucy Liu... you get used to it!

>Firstly, Bond has to be English and posh.

Sean Connery was less English than Idris Elba. Even the version of Bond played by Daniel Craig was Scottish (orphaned, raised in an English boarding school)

Re: How crackable are alien languages?

You could try passwords derived from the Clangers, but I'm not sure how you would enter them.... Whaaawoooowah

Re: Trust No One?

You could always use two password wallets, made by different teams, and combine their output:

passwordpart1passwordpart2

Of course this approach isn't as convenient as using just one password wallet.

Substitution can have a place, as long as it not a common type. e > 3, 1 > l, o > 0 etc are no good.

batteryhorse > cbuudszipstd

'batteryhorse' is easy to remember, and 'advance each letter by one' is easy to remember. cbuudszipstd is slightly less vulnerable to a dictionary attack (though I note that zip is a word, and std is a standard (std!) abbreviation). If we started at batteryhorsestaplepurpleetc, there would be less chance of the output being mainly composed of dictionary words and fragments.

>So brute-forcing it is going to take that much longer.

It really depends upon how the brute-force program is written. It isn't going to start at

aaaaaaa

aaaaaab

aaaaaac... ...zzzzzzz

but will start with commonly used words and combinations - adam, angryant... ...zebra34.

There is no reason the brute-force program isn't using common substations - l0ve, Lov£, l0v3 - if the author of the program has decided (based on analysis of leaked databases of real-world users' passwords) that such an approach will be faster.

Re: Big Thumbs Up!

>yet most trials are for military guys in the field to substitute for a fork lift. How sad.

That application is a better fit for the technology as it is now - fit operators, colleagues on hand to help don the suit, noise, power supply requirements etc. When it is refined, then yeah, it will be suitable for helping people who can't use their limbs.

Re: sounding rocket?

The term was new to me until today - when I read it in another Reg article.

According to Wikipedia, it means the same as 'research rocket', and 'sound' means to probe...

Hence the 'Lambda Sond' (Lambda sensor) grill badge on some older Volvos.

Re: "SIM free" ?

Also, if you buy the phone outright you are covered by the Sales of Goods Act ("This phone has failed, please give me my money back now!") as opposed to having the use of a phone that remains property of EE/O2 until the end of your contract period ("What do you mean I have to wait a fortnight for you to send it off to be repaired?!").

In addition, you can ring your network operator at any time and say "You competitors are offering me the same tariff for less. Please knock a few quid off my monthly bill or I'll leave you for them!"

Re: IPhone fatigue?

Sadly, the trashbat.co.ck website seems to be down... but I have found one image of the Wasp T12 Speechtool, though alas it doesn't show the T12's fold-out twin jogdials for one-the-go MP3 mixing, or its integrated business card printer.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8641/16615827980_f8ca763638.jpg

https://musicfashionperv.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/nathan.jpg

Now, that's a phone!

I'm hoping that George Lucas decides to make Special Edition of Nathan Barley, by using CGI to add hipster beards and sailor tattoos to the characters.

Re: Braiiinssss

>It seem to be more probable to me that this is a treatment for people who were just over the brink after a slightly late resusication than doing a frankenstien.

There are cases of brain damage occurring in a clinical environment - for example brain swelling some hours after admission to hospital. There are even cases of pregnant patients whose brains are dead whose bodies are kept alive for months until the baby they are carrying can be delivered by Ceasarian section.

The article's discussion of people surviving after spending time without breathing was to illustrate the point that 'death' isn't as easy to define as once it was - indeed, last month's National Geographic had an article on this very subject.

You raise a good point about the importance of CPR training. Ideally, the first responder will shout for someone else to call the emergency services whilst they administer CPR immediately. Hollywood and TV gives the impression that five minutes of passionate CPR might revive the patient, but that isn't the case - it's usually done continuously until paramedics arrive, and then only improves the patients chances.

Can anyone provide input about the 999 services being able to pinpoint a mobile phone - in the scenario that the first responder is alone with a patient?

Re: Stupid masochists.

Oooh, you don't want to have a good idea. My grandfather had a good idea once and his toes fell off.

?

Yeah, he thought it would be a good idea to trim his toenails with a scythe.

- Mr Ploppy, Blackadder II