Posts by auburnman 1230 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Jul 2011
I think the legality of civilian aerial surveillance has yet to be tested, and I'm just guessing but I doubt it would stop a number of farmers anyway.
Being observed on private land by specialist equipment will piss them off whether it is declared lawful or not. Unless the drone has multiple cameras it can't see everywhere - the smart farmers will just down it from behind.
On a slight tangent, as a frequent pedestrian I bloody hate it when you're trying to cross a road and THE ONLY CAR ON THE ROAD stops to let you cross; thanks for slowing both of us down instead of just getting out of my way by continuing your journey. I love crossing in front of a multi-ton death machine driven by someone who has just demonstrated a lack of situational awareness.
Pretty sure you can just buy handset only in most of the non-network shops. My last 2 phones were SIM only unlocked to any network, brand new. Admittedly this was from Play.com so not much use if you're committed to an in store buy - I presume you want to have a tester model in your hand before buying?
While I'm glad that Ofcom are looking into contracts where the payment can be varied, I think we have to admit that some of the blame lies with the lazy public accepting these 'deals'. Nowadays it's fairly easy to buy a sim free handset and get a rolling contract that leaves you free to walk away on short notice.
The networks will grumble for a bit because they don't want to go to the effort of changing their ways, but eventually one of them will do their legwork and offer a tarriff that is 'guaranteed for the life of the contract' (with some legalese caveats protecting their backs) and the rest will follow like an avalanche.
This story reminded me of one of the random events in Masters of Orion 2, when the Galactic News Network reported that one of the Empires had suddenly found a rich Mineral seam. Fingers crossed the Japanese find enough (relatively) easily mined elements, they could use a break.
That's what's confusing me: exactly what is new here? I'm all for nuke power from safe reactors and would love for this to take off, but I'm not seeing what the magic is in this new announcement. I thought our current nuclear 'waste' was only wasted because political constraints prevented it from being reprocessed?
I don't think Boeing would point the finger at anyone else whether or not they can. Right now they will be mega focussed on trying to twist the facts to their world-view where "no fire occurred" and the 'smoke' was a planned safety release. They need everyone to believe this message so they can recertify the planes and get them back in the air before the airlines start cancelling orders/demanding refunds/suing.
I have a theory that Mars is either a spook delivering coded messages via el Reg or a program that's been coded to fool the Turing Test by spouting so much random stuff that no-one engages with it at the level of detail that catches out the subroutines.
...public resources should only ever have been sold off on a use it or lose it contract, with purchasers being obliged to resell spectrum unused after X years. If they can't sell it within Y years of that then it returns to the regulator automatically. Another option could have been a rental model - ongoing payments would certainly have focused profit making companies onto only paying for what they needed and sorted out unwanted spectrum returning to the regulator.
Still, 20/20 hindsight and all that.
We were talking about this the other day at work - what incentive is there in today's era of golden parachutes for CxO's to give a toss whether they succeed or fail? Paid if they do well, paid off with enough money to retire on if they don't, and no-one dare say a word against them in case it reflects badly on share prices. I'm honestly starting to suspect the likes of Gates and Ballmer know that they don't have a clue how to revitalise their cash cow businesses and don't care because they already have more money than they know what to do with.
You joke, but if it's not out there already the black hats are working on it. If victims actually find a downloaded movie on their PC around the same time as the 'ransom' the thought of accidental guilt might just be enough to stress them into caving and paying the 'fine' without thinking it through.
I slagged off Swiftkey last time it was discussed on here... Something must have gone wrong the first time I installed it because I recently tried it again and I couldn't have been more wrong to dismiss it. Psychic is the word - it is so much better than anything else I've tried. Definitely worth a couple of quid.
Sounds like a nice idea, but I hope he takes his other expedition members into account and doesn't overdo it. cooped up in a cramped space station with a wannabe crooner for several months? There's definite potential for his guitar to 'fall' and break.*
*Yes, even in zero g. Call it a spatial anomaly if you want to.
"The use of any apparatus ... for the purpose of interfering with any wireless telegraphy, is an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006"
Assuming AC's quote above is correct, it could be feasible to interpret the rules with focus on the 'interfering' part, i.e. if you're deliberately dicking around with someone else's wireless then you are breaking the law but nullifying your own connection doesn't qualify as interfering as it's your connection to do as you wish. If that's the case you could extend that to a not-spot with the disclaimer that users of the not-spot understand and consent that blocking will occur and hence no 'interference.'
At least they've backed down now, even if they didn't have the stones to admit it was pointless ineffective fiddling in the first place. If they're still determined now could be the time to politely ask them to consider a less intrusive cookie control strategy, like sponsoring Chrome/Firefox extensions that make it easy for the average user.
"Something New" is just another name for novelty unless it gains a track record of being a worthwhile improvement. As you say Sony and Microsoft soon copied the movement bit leaving Nintendo with an underpowered console that didn't have a unique selling point.
Many people did indeed take a punt on the Wii at launch due to it's price (myself included) but the lack of interesting titles after the launch fuss died down is the main reason that Wii's accross the world gather dust in cupboards and no-one has any interest in the new one.
Much easier to handle it as an industrial process. If you have a box that you can fill with liquid semiconductor and later drain the organic sludge that can be turned into fuel, you can scale up to huge boxes and handle the process with tanker lorries and one or two drivers. Getting the equivalent biomass ouput from plants would require manual planting, possibly watering and digging up etc.
But surely if the price reduction/increased demand came about from the sequestration/conversion process, economic pressure would push more and more towards sequestration? Barring a total shift in the way oil is sucked out of the ground, it keeps getting more and more expensive to get at.
There will definitely be unexpected consequences, but if it becomes realistically possible to close the loop and turn our waste fuel products back into fuel with sunlight, then it could be a massive leap forward. Unfortunately this all sounds too good to be true to my ears, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I don't know, I've been seeing some really well formatted and worded phishing emails of late pretending to be Paypal; the only clues were the lack of use of my name and the attempt to get me to click on a link in the email. It was worryingly convincing enough that I thought I could have fallen for it if I'd been sleepy or having an off day. It makes me concerned that the amount of less aware tech users amongst us being scammed could increase.
That's probably why Zuck's suddenly got a stiffy for privacy with the repeated emphasis on only searching stuff that is publicly viewable. Although how long that'll last before someone pulls some supposedly private stuff through hacking/social engineering/incompetent security is anyone's guess.
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