* Posts by Steve Knox

1972 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jul 2011

British Second World War codebreaker Alan Turing receives Royal pardon

Steve Knox
Mushroom

What A Crock of SHIT

"Grace"? "Mercy"? "Pardon"?

How about "It was a stupid fucking law, written and enforced by ignorant assholes, and the fact that over sixty years later we're just 'pardoning' one of the most prominent victims of this travesty rather that just simply vacating ALL convictions under this COMPLETELY WRONG law shows just how bigoted and stupid we still are."

Want to be a better CIO? Get a twenty-something to show you the ropes

Steve Knox
Holmes

Or...

How about this? (to both AC and the headhunter)

Stop treating people as gender/age/class groups and look at each one as an individual, from which you might actually be able to learn something.

Relax, Obama! Former Microsoft exec tapped to save sick healthcare.gov

Steve Knox
Trollface

What are the odds....

he pulls an Elop, drops all options from the site but Microsoft HealthCare(tm), and eventually gets the exchanges borged by MS?

Google's Dart on target to replace JavaScript? That'll be the day

Steve Knox
FAIL

Translation

Google says its native Dart VM already outperforms its own JavaScript VM in some circumstances.

In other words, even they can't get Dart to outperform JavaScript.

After two full years, they should at least have been able to say that it consistenly outperfomrs JavaScript in most circumstances. And if they could have, they would have.

Steve Knox
Thumb Down

Re: Java

We already have a high-performance, typed, difficult language that runs in Web viewers: Java.

If by difficult, you mean difficult to justify using because of the number and severity of unpatched vulnerabilities, notwithstanding the insane number of updates, then I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Apple's GOLDEN BLING MOBE still the top selling US handset

Steve Knox

I would if I could...

My wife just got a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini on contract. It makes the iPhone 5/5S look like a clunky piece of crap: it's lighter, easier to hold, runs better-looking software on a better-looking screen more smoothly.

If my work allowed Android phones, I'd switch to one in an instant.

'Disruptive, irritating' in-flight cellphone call ban mulled by US Senate

Steve Knox

Mobile Calling Area

I have misgivings at enshrining a nascent social convention in federal law. However, there does need to be some mechanism to allow those who wish to talk to do so without disturbing those who do not wish to hear people talking.

So I propose a dedicated space on airplanes for people who want to talk on their cellphones. In fact, to make it easily accessible, there should be multiple doors; say, two at the front of the plane, two over the wings, and two at the rear of the plane...

Apple fanbois warned: No, Cupertino HASN'T built a Bitcoin mining function into Macs

Steve Knox
Holmes

Re: No sympathy...

You don't need to know unix commandline. You just need a basic understanding of human nature and a tiny bit of common sense. From that it's easy to derive that:

A.) Apple would not have made a bitcoin mining utility which allowed users to take ownership of any bitcoins mined,and

B.) YOU SHOULD NEVER TRUST ANYTHING ON 4CHAN.

I KNOW how to SAVE Microsoft. Give Windows 8 away for FREE – analyst

Steve Knox

Re: Except Apple aren't giving it away for free.

Are you suggesting Google is doing the same by subsidising Acer, Asus, HP, and everyone else manufacturing ChromeBooks?

No, only an idiot would suggest that.

Google makes its money from ads. Android is just another loss leader for their giant advertising and tracking platform.

Quadrillion-dollar finance house spams Reg reader with bankers' private data

Steve Knox

Re: I'm getting pretty sick of this "human error" crap

1. I don't have a '"degree" from some old poly' -- I have 32 years' experience in IT.

2. One of the projects I worked on at the financial institution I work for was setting up and testing an e-mail filter to prevent "human error" from sending out e-mails containing sensitive customer information.

3. I don't believe that system will catch everything (though it would most likely have caught this crap), and I continue to work to improve security and security awareness at my institution, because

4. I don't believe that the false illusion of security benefits anyone. That was my point, not some misguided armchair quarterbacking. Pretty much all IT systems in use today have security flaws, and we don't make progress by dismissing evidence of those flaws as "human error".

Steve Knox
Mushroom

I'm getting pretty sick of this "human error" crap

Sure, EVERY mistake is a human error if you trace back far enough.

Thing is, these organizations are trying to use "human error" as shorthand for "our systems are actually secure", which is what has just been proven to be untrue.

Even discounting the "human error" which occurred, the fact that such an error would be magnified to such an effect indicates just how poorly designed and implemented these systems are.

But I guess those are just two more "human errors."

Speeding cops, fearsome drops and Death Star shops

Steve Knox

Re: Developers take note!

I play one freemium game. It's a hidden object game called Found.

I' have yet to pay real money for anything, and I've unlocked everything in a little under a year of playing -- strategy is worth as much as actual $$$ in this game.

I know that's not the case with most of them -- that's why I don't play the other freemium games.

Universal Credit: £40 MILLION and counting's been spaffed up the wall on useless IT gear

Steve Knox
Holmes

Re: "£91m in IT assets will be worthless five years from now"

It's pretty obvious.

digital: adj manipulated with a finger or the fingertips.

(from dictionary.com, definition 3)

Clearly this refers to human fingers (+hands) being the driving force in the future. In other words, they recognize the true value of the current system and plan to go back to a manual process. Government being what it is, that will take 5 years.

IBM turns plastic bottles into life-saving 'ninja' MRSA, fungus fighters

Steve Knox

Re: I love science!

> big corporations and governments

Don't get fooled by legal status. These are ALL "government".

Don't be fooled by popular labels. They are ALL corporations.

Spinning rust and tape are DEAD. The future's flash, cache and cloud

Steve Knox

Re: Bandwidth

While I agree with your general point, I think you missed a trick:

...when you need to retrieve a couple of terabytes to search for that email your salesdroid sent confirming some contract clause was ok...

implies a very poor architecture. A sensible archive format with an inexpensive compute node in the cloud would allow you to find that email without retrieving any other data -- run the search in the cloud, filter in the cloud; download final result.

FCC delays spectrum auction to 2015

Steve Knox
Headmaster

Elementary Pronoun Primer

"For the incentive auction to be a success, we must also ensure that the operating systems and software to run it work from the moment the first bid is placed, until the final broadcast station is relocated or repacked."

In the above, the only noun to which it could possibly refer is auction. There is no reference to the spectrum itself. The FCC is not planning to take responsibility for usability of the spectrum, only for the stability of the auction.

Now go to the back of the class and re-read chapter 7 until you understand it.

Steve Knox
Thumb Down

Re: Are they serious?

The money spent on that transition would have been better off going to cable and satellite companies to pay for basic services offered to all for free.

No.

No money is, ever has been, or ever will be, in any way, "better off" going to either cable or satellite companies.

Astroboffins spot HOT, YOUNG GIANT where she doesn't belong

Steve Knox

Re: To put that in perspective.

Voyager 1 has traveled approximately 127 AU, and it's outside the solar system. Provided Voyager continues at its current pace, it will take another 146 years to reach 650AU.

This planet is over 4 times farther from its sun than the farthest any man-made vessel has traveled. You could fit two of our solar systems between this planet and its sun, and still have lots of space.

Big is an understatement.

World's OLDEST human DNA found in leg bone – but that's not the only boning going on...

Steve Knox

@ACs (15:26 and "All Lies")

Yawn. Trolling religion on a tech/science site is so Neanderthal.

If you want to spark a conversation, try writing something interesting or clever.

If you want to spark a controversy, try logging in to a religious site with your actual personal information and re-post your comments there.

Accused Glasshole driver says specs weren't even turned on for traffic stop

Steve Knox

Re: "nothing illegal to be wearing Google Glass"... yet.

...a complete stop before proceeding (ie the wheels stop rotating)

So skidding on slick roads is a complete stop?

It's not the rotation of the wheels; it's the motion of the vehicle. Zero motion is the rule.

The shorthand that the cyclist has to put a foot down is based on physics: balancing a bicycle without rolling forward or backward is practically impossible.

Steve Knox

Not guilty plea for 80 in a 65

I'm guessing the defense will be something along the lines of "it's southern California FFS. Kids' tricycles go over 65mph here."

Steve Knox
Trollface

Re: "nothing illegal to be wearing Google Glass"... yet.

How about making it illegal to be wearing Google Glasses because they're exactly the kind of technology only an asshat would wear?

Hmm... I guess that law would also ban iPhones and anything from Brookstone...

I'm liking this law more and more!

PC market staging a RECOVERY. (Only joking, it's through the floor)

Steve Knox

Re: How many are waiting for Windows 8 to be "retired"? @Steve Knox

I think that modern PCs are used for more than those from 1981.

I think you missed my point. Sure, there have been enhancements to the specific methods available (internet, 3D, etc.) but that falls mostly under my statement:

Once the adoption phase was over, growth was driven primarily by the need for new hardware to support the needs of cutting-edge software.

That doesn't change the fact that the PC's job, calculation and communication, hasn't changed; the only thing that's changed is how (and how well) it does it.

Steve Knox

Re: How many are waiting for Windows 8 to be "retired"?

Consumers had 3 years of the option to replace XP with Win7. The problem isn't Windows 8. It's the fact that 32 years down the road, the PC and its spawn are still used for the same basic tasks as when they started.

Once the adoption phase was over, growth was driven primarily by the need for new hardware to support the needs of cutting-edge software. But even with the features and bloat of decades of software development, the hardware has reached the point where a 5-year-old machine is perfectly capable of performing the tasks consumers use PCs for.

Tablets are on the rise because they can perform 99% of those same tasks, can be had for as little as 1/3 the price, and have a "cool" factor.

Solar enthusiasts rays idea of 'leccy farms on MOON, drones

Steve Knox

Re: Dark side of the Moon

The idea of placing solar panels in a belt around the moon is pretty daft, because half of the panels would always be in shade!

But not the same half all the time. The moon only shows one face to the Earth because it's tidally locked, which means that when the moon is between the Earth and the sun, the "dark side" of the moon is lit by the sun.

If it's comparable in cost to build and ship those panels (or ship a robot up to the moon and have it build the panels there?) rather than shoot up satellites with a little over half as many panels and then burn energy maintaining their orbit and ensuring their panels always point directly at the sun, and that they don't collide with the other satellites in geosynchronous orbit, then the moon option is still a contender.

There is no dark side of the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark. -- PF

Steve Knox
Thumb Up

Title

Solar enthusiasts rays idea...

In before some spelling nazi who doesn't get the pun...

WTF is … MU-MIMO?

Steve Knox
Meh

Alas: MU-MIMO only works in the download direction,

Which is going to be over 90% of the traffic with tablets/phones anyway....

How STEVE JOBS saved Apple's bacon with an outstretched ARM

Steve Knox
Boffin

Re: [Some anti-UK prejudice, y'think? — Ed.]

But outliers exist, and the statement in the article:

many people are surprised that ARM is a UK company [Some anti-UK prejudice, y'think? — Ed.]

clearly indicates that these people aren't being asked to guess, they're being told. To be surprised upon being told that a company is a UK company means more than it wouldn't be your first guess -- it means you have trouble even conceiving the possibility.

Bitcoin value breaks $1,000 barrier in FRENZIED HYPEGASM

Steve Knox

Hardly Supporters

The currency has its supporters in government, too. The Federal Election Commission looks likely to allow Bitcoins to be used for election campaign donations and last week the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee held an official discussion about the currency.

Since the goal of both of these organizations w/r/t currencies is to monitor and regulate their use in specific cases, I believe "support" is not the correct description of their attitude. "Exploit" is closer, but not quite right either. Suggestions?

Exotic physics takes an arrow to the knee with new ATLAS results

Steve Knox
Coat

All Is Decay

What does it matter?

Apple stalls iWatch, 12.9-inch iPad from Quanta rumored for mid-2014

Steve Knox
Facepalm

Psychology

"...their number of correct reports is relatively high, even if their percentage of accuracy is not."

Which is all they need to keep getting paid for this nonsense, because people remember the successes, the failures not so much.

This is exactly the psychological loophole exploited by psychics and prophets.

NSW privacy exemption shares personal data with private sector

Steve Knox
Paris Hilton

Am I the only one...

who read that title as "NSFW privacy exemption..."?

US Judge strikes out COMPUTER/HUMAN LOVE patent

Steve Knox

Sounds good...

“Merely directing a computer to perform a function does not transform the computer into a specialized computer. Such a principle would lead to the absurd result of allowing the patenting the computerized use of even the most basic abstract ideas,”

Now how about applying that logic to all software patents?

Berners-Lee: 'Growing tide of surveillance' is destroying the internet

Steve Knox
FAIL

Improperly Implemented Security* is destroying the web

See https://beta.thewebindex.org/

*No, not THAT IIS

PANIC OVER DROOPING house prices hits MEMBER-shaped estate

Steve Knox
Coffee/keyboard

"Who would want to live in the cul-de-sac..."

Indeed!

Google: Hey, devs - grab ahold of our Chromecast pipe and work it

Steve Knox
Coat

Spark is built using Dart, the company’s planed alternative to Javascript...

Guess it runs pretty smooth, then?

From Dept of REALLY? Sueball lobbed at Apple over crap iOS Maps app

Steve Knox
Boffin

Re: I take it...

Interesting. I've been running several instances of SQL Server (2000, 2005, 2008, 2008R2, and 2012) since 2002 and haven't seen this memory leak issue. Do you have details of the issue and which version was in use?

I do know that SQL Server's default behavior is to retain tables in memory and not release memory once it's been allocated. This is not a leak, however, as the memory is specifically retained for performance purposes and there are ways to configure a memory ceiling to allow for other applications on the same server.

It's possible that your SQL Server operator didn't understand this design and hence a) didn't properly configure the server and/or b) was restarting the server when it was not necessary. But I couldn't say more without specific details. But it could also be that organization was using a configuration I'm not familiar with and ran into an issue I've never seen. I'd be interested in more details if you have them.

Steve Knox

I take it...

the last time you used SQL Server was in 1997...?

Jury: Samsung must cough $290m of $379m Apple wanted - NOT in 5 cent pieces

Steve Knox
Trollface

Re: Yeah, right

"'For Apple, this case has always been about more than patents and money. It has been about fulfilling Steve Jobs' dying wish to crush Android manufacturers one by one."

Dry, cold and volatile: How to survive Mars, and your fellow crew

Steve Knox
Coat

Re: Catch-22?

They are looking for completely sane well-adjusted people willing to take a one-way trip away from almost all of their fellow humans.

One might argue that a willingness, nay a desire, to get away from almost everyone else on this planet is one of the classic symptoms of sanity.

Microsoft touts SCROOGLE merch: Hopes YOU'LL PAY to dump on rival

Steve Knox

Year and a Half Too Late

If they'd tried this a year and a half ago, they could have added trademark infringement to the list of things stupidly wrong with this campaign

RIP scroogle.org

3D printing: 'Third industrial revolution' or a load of old cobblers?

Steve Knox

Backlit Wings

One-off? You should print up a dozen or so of those and use them for wall sconces.

Ballmer: Microsoft stronger without Bing and Xbox tinkering

Steve Knox
Coat

Re: Bing?

What the heck is Bing?

Google it.

Who wants 10TB of FREE cloud storage? Hands down if China is a deal breaker?

Steve Knox
Trollface

One Million Troll Points

to Tencent if they host their archival storage in the US instead of China!

PlayStation 4 BLUE LIGHT OF DEATH blamed on power cords, TV sets, butterflies in China

Steve Knox
Headmaster

Actually,

If I bought a PS 4 and it could brake, that would be news.

If your post were about cars, it would be even bigger news.

Dr Wolfram touts coding language to revolutionise mankind ... just like Wolfram Alpha did

Steve Knox

Re: Live From The Parking Lot At The Silbury Hill Theatre

It could be really useful for those times when you're gathering requirements and the culpr... stakeholder tells you "yeah, it's really simple: you just enter this and out comes that". To get a program generated strictly on the basis of the stakeholder's description could be a rather interesting experience.

10 INPUT "Enter this:", A$

20 IF A$ = "this" GOTO 50

30 PRINT "ERROR. INVALID INPUT."

40 GOTO 10

50 PRINT "that"

If this doesn't terrify you... Google's computers OUTWIT their humans

Steve Knox

Re: The Third Nut

There is no creativity to understand because its is not a thing. It is success in search.

Actually, true creativity is failure in search.

Whovians, your Doctor needs you: Take back the Day from One Direction

Steve Knox

Re: How much is El Reg being paid to push Who ?

More likely Who articles are pushing El Reg readership figures. Worked on you, didn't it?

POWER SOURCE that might END humanity's PROBLEMS: A step forward

Steve Knox
Happy

Re: You can buy Farnsworth-type fusion reactors...

"Good news, everybody!"

Steve Knox

Re: Science

Do you really think that anyone is deliberately choosing the most expensive methods of obtaining energy when all factors are taken into account?

The problem is in the definition of relevant factors. Some posters in this conversation, for example, don't consider long-term environmental damage to be a relevant factor. They also avoid the political cost to decision makers as a relevant factor. This latter one I wish was not relevant, but so long as energy decisions are affected by political processes, it is definitively relevant.

Sadly, economic markets generally do not consider long-term effects a relevant factor either, which is what has led us to this current state.