Posts by Charles Manning

Ask the NSA

If life exists they would be spying on it already.

Re: Sinner

But the Office Ribbon is also sorted out by 3rd party software.... openoffice.org

Apple are pretty happy no doubt

Apple really do get to keep the status quo. They might have given back 34M, but they probably made a lot less from people who only lost a few $ and didn't realise it.

Paying a 34M "tax" on a billion dollar business is just hiss.

Re: people's reaction unexpected? Not at all

Rewind tape to the 1950s and you can see this all over again.

In the 1950s everyone looked forward to a bright new technology-enabled future. Science could do no wrong and everyone wanted to be in on the game. Then in the 1960s technology started to lose its bloom and the anti-techs started to rise. We had Silent Spring and all that building up a picture that technology/science are evil.

Then in 2000 the whole internet revolution really hit its straps. The internet could do no wrong. Internet everything. Web everything whether it makes sense or not. Google is the ultimate part of the web - being able to find stuff. Then the surveillance concerns (always there) became mainstream and people start to worry more about the potential downsides. Now people don't want to be found.

These cycles are just part of human nature. They will continue forever.

deserve to be jailed for contempt [of court]

It depends...

You can only be charged with contempt of court if a judge tells you to do something within his powers to command and you fail to obey.

He cannot command you to wear a pink miniskirt, for example.

Since there is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_and_Wales, it is only the RIPA act that could give the court any teeth.

"See who has more money."

Me for one. My kids too, and most poor people living in India/Africa.

Pretty much anyone has more money than the federal govt, since they have

NEGATIVE 17 trillion odd, and counting.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Re: @Dave 126 - Small Game Hunter

I'm sure you could [ . . . ] them for less than 1000 quid each though.

There is a language and it is immature

There is a Metro language. It's all the new terminology to describe the UI features and the associated verbiage. No more clicking icons, you now swoosh tiles or some such bollocks.

Then they have charms.

Now I can understand having things called charms on My Pink Pony OS designed for 9 year old girls along with other UI elements called sparkles, tassels, gloss and glitter.

But how is any corporate user meant to take it seriously?

If Joe Sixpack phones up tech support and they tell him he needs more charms they will think they're taking the piss. He will go down there and give 'em a right kicking, no doubt with support from HR.

That's the kind of crap that isn't mature yet. They need to take off the lizard marketing pants and put on beige if they want the corporates back again.

We're here to do work. The computer is a tool, not a lifestyle appliance.

With the exta youtube service please!

For an extra $9.99 a month, if your house catches fire an autonomous drone flies a 360 around your house and posts the video on youtube and G+.

Re: @Connor

"found innocent "

They are very seldom found innocent, but they are often found not guilty.

The difference is that guilt needs to be determined above a "beyond reasonable doubt" threshold.

If someone is though most likely guilty, but there is a bit of doubt, then likely they will be found not guilty.

In general, most cases for drink driving are due to procedural issues allowing a shiny-suited lawyer to have evidence dismissed.

Apple not lobbying?

Yet former Vice Pres Al Gore ends up on the Apple board. What business skills could he possibly bring to the table?

Surely Gore is there purely for his influence and connections.

Perhaps you don't need to lobby 2-bit senators if you can just tap into the system elsewhere.

"If there's any problem with ARM it is the fact that every SOC is different."

If there is a problem with Intels it is the fact that SOCs don't exist.

The whole reason all those ARM SOCs do exist is because ARM is easy to design around and is worth designing around.

The reason Intel SOCs don't exist is that Intel keeps all its designs private and plays "Father knows best".

Market forces determine the rest...

Re: Here's what Microsoft needs to do.

C'mon this is MS, they really don't understand how to do things properly.

They know how to do FUD well. They know how to do really cheeseball marketing.

Sense. No place for that around here!

Re: Phablet calling

"I sent a quick email using my iPhone"

It's called creative writing... Lots of detail, even if irrelevant, helps paint a more vivid mental picture.

The assasin drove up slowly in the black Audi, its tyres crunching the gravel..." Black, Audi and crunching gravel sound are all irrelevant.

40C

I have not RTFA, but is 40C just needed at the reactor (fuel cell part) or does the electrolyte have to be stored at 40C too?

Most of these fuel-cell type reactions are exothermic so likely that waste heat could be put to good use.

Re: Collect

You seem to think the NSA cares about who is in power and are a presidential play thing that can be used for the president's purposes.

You would be wrong on both counts.

Firstly, the whole R vs D thing is a false dichotomy. Do you want blue Frootloops or Red Frootloops? It really does not matter; you're still getting Frootloops. The NSA, and all other 3-letter organisations, carry on business regardless of who is in power. They really don't care. The false dichotomy is, however, a nice diversion that keeps Joe Public from paying too much attantion.

Secondly, if - and we may as well assume they are - the NSA is gathering info on presidential candidates, that will be for their own use when one gets in power. They will certainly not diluting the power of that information by using it to bolster the other. It makes no sense to try to fiddle the results because the results really don't matter.

And anyone that believes that Obama can stop Merkel's phone being tapped is a fool. The NSA will continue to tap any phone they see fit, regardless of what the prez or anyone alse says.

NSA has got beyond that

It is no longer there to protect the people.

It is no longer there to protect the people in power.

It is now there to protect itself.

Without proper oversight these secretive 3-letter agencies soon become paranoid about the outside world. Everyone else is the enemy and they end up spending vast amounts of their resources protecting themselves.

EMP is way overblown

" One powerful atomic explosion about 50 miles over South Dakota would probably create an EM pulse that knocks out the entire US, lots of Canada, and probably a chunk of Mexico as well... "

Apart from in apocalyptic discussion forumns where the tin foil is plenty, but the physics is little, EMPs just don't work that way. Building and delivering a device needed to cause widespread destruction is beyond the ability of any nation, let alone a rougue state.

The only EMPs to get worried about are solar electromagnetic storms and no amount of NSA spying is going to stop those.

Netting

Far too many people think netting is a benign measure that puts a "fence" between swimmers and sharks.

Not so.

Nets primarily work by entangling and killing the sharks. This is no more ecologically sound than fishing for them with hook or harpoon.

Fixing the foam problem.

You should be able to fix the problem with this stuff...

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12042

It is tape that conducts in the Z axis. Should be able to replace zebra connectors etc quite well.

Re: No passive cooling!

"The NUC (new and old) is very quiet indeed, despite the active cooling"

Until the fan bearings get sad.

When I look at this box I wonder what the hell Intel is really trying to accomplish. There does not seem to be any "killer app" for this device. Intel don't really seem to know either else they would have got the peripheral mix right.

A few people might use these for niche applications, but they require special care and feeding. This is never going to be something that gets bought by Joe Punter.

" XBox was the most favoured name out of a list of possible names"

It makes you wonder how crap the real names were that theshiny-pants marketing lizzards proposed.

Re: Bomb us back to the stone age please

"HIstory has repeatedly shown that any such cull or dieback is more than made up within 2 generations."

Has it really?

It was certainly the case for WWW1 and WW2, but that is because there were other huge changes at the time. Rapid advances in energy, transport, medicine and agriculture - all independent of the war - gave rise to rapid population growth through the 1900s.

Now that agricultural technology & medicine etc are largely stagnated, perhaps a good old ding-dong war might have an impact.

Well they were risks weren't they?

Given all the stigmas and illegality, homosexuals would have been wide open to blackmail.

"Got some nice pics here of you and young Freddie here. Imagine the humiliation your mum would feel if these were given to the police and you were dragged through the courts..."

Remember too that this was soon after the shambols of Guy Burgess and the Cambridge Five too, which would have put the spotlight on homosexuality and spying.

These numbers can be spun both ways...

Sure, to you or me it is bollocks to hype up terrorism so much....

... but others can spin this the other way too:

We've been able to keep terrorist deaths so low through being hyper-vigilant. We need to keep this up or the terrorists will get ahead. We make no excuses for saving so many American Lives.

The fed isn't one entity

If the FBI seize your homeopathic treatments, that doesn't mean the FDA is bound to classify them as medines.

Same deal here, the treasury can view bitcoins as not currency whith the FBI siezes them.

Re: Mahatma Dolt At last

" so SFA to do with the Queen"

Not quite correct.

The Queen is head of state, so it falls on her to say sorry for past deeds of the state.

. Just like the CEO stands up and says sorry when management screw up, it is her job.

Re: They only hit the small enough to jail crowd

"...so the government writes you a fat check, and you can go on your merry way, screwing more people. Nice!!"

... and it's bonuses all around for snr management!