Posts by RobHib

Tragic really... - Mañana, mañana!

It's a tragedy what's happened to Australian science since the 1960s when I was in high school. Back then, even non technical people and the scientifically illiterate understood that strong science was absolutely essential for both the nation's prosperity and its future.

What's happened in Australia since the '60s is that the perception of science in the mind of the public has fallen dramatically, science today no longer has the status and influence it once had.

I've waxed angrily on the reason for this previously which I won't repeat here. Suffice to say that a country where science understanding amongst politicians is anathema then clearly science will end up on the back foot.

Remember, there's almost no politicians with a background in science in Australia but we've hundreds of lawyers and accountants, so it's obvious science won't be Australia's forte. Now compare this with China where every member of the ruling politburo has either some background in science or engineering.

Mañana, mañana!

No-brainer!

Simply, QNX means higher reliability.

Amen to that!

"Meanwhile, speaking at a meeting of tech industry in Brussels on Thursday, Swedish liberal MEP Cecilia Wikstrom said the entire EU copyright system needs to be overhauled."

Amen to that!

Bloody Turnbull's at it again! (For the sake of damage control would someone cuff him.)

This will probably turn out to be as stupid as Turnbull's other fiasco--that of banning incandescent tungsten light bulbs!

As usual, Turnbull's ideas may be noble but his implementation of them is always stuffed. Here in Oz, a mandatory edict from Turnbull replaced incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents without any proper QA specs etc. The consequences were and still are that a large percentage of them would barely last the nominal length of incandescents (1000 hours instead of the supposed 8000+) without failing*; they had stuff-all EMR radiation suppression thus killed much country AM radio reception; and they cost considerably more than incandescents--both in their manufacture and environmental disposal. There was and is a NET LOSS to everyone including the environment--oh, except for the Chinese manufacturers who laughed all the way to the bank!

I won't dwell here on Trunbull's supposed expertise on the NBN and all things ISP-ish as it's too painful to recall. (He once had shares in OzEmail and thinks himself an expert on all matters internet.)

...But what else can one expect from a lawyer who thinks himself knowledgeable about all things technical.

---

* I've had many of these newer compact fluorescents of Asian manufacture fail between 40 and 100 hours. The older Wotan and Philips ones would easily last well over 15,000 hours.

One Wonders...

One wonders how this mob would ever have managed to put the WWII squadrons of thousands of fighters and bombers into the air let alone land them--and also to do so without any IT at their disposal.

errr.

Poor Danish Diddums

'Design' has always been a way of circumventing shorter patent laws, and 70 years after the designer's death is ridiculously long anyway.

Let's put this into perspective: Levi Strauss--the inventor (designer) of jeans as we know them today--lived from 1829 to 1902 (72), so if this ridiculously long copyright law was in force back in 1902 then the jeans revolution of the 1950s wouldn't have transpired! Just imagine, no manufacturer would have been able to clone 501-style jeans until at least 1972! [..And there'd be no rivets either!]

Now, today many people live well past 72. Let's say Strauss lived to 85 (1915) the jeans revolution couldn't have started until 1985. Frankly, such a notion is just absurd--the reasons are many: stifling innovation to begin with!

In a sensible world, the UK legislators should tell Danish and other like-minded European legislators to go and root themselves (and that's putting it too politely).

Oz - once a democracy.

It's hard to get used to the fact that I now live in country that was once a democracy (and I'm old enough to remember it).

A cleaver and very splendid idea.

I think this is a cleaver and very splendid idea. Gone are the days when techies, nerds and special technical interest groups would meet in local trades/industrial halls on Friday nights to discuss and argue their interests, and we're much the worse off for the loss.

Despite its marvels, the internet is still no real substitute for personal contact. And I can't think of a better way to do this than in a moving venue. It would ensure a much greater intermingling of people than what happens with the frequenters of fixed-location meeting places (that's if we still had them). Moreover, a mobile meeting place that comes to you and eventually returns you home allows for a multitude of new and innovative ways to meet new contacts--the possibilities are enormous (even mobile science demos/lectures to school kids by experts comes to mind).

Incidentally, trains need not be distracting places: years ago, to my great surprise, I got my highest score ever for a physics lab practical by writing up the notes on a train (mostly from memory). I was late in submitting the docs (a not uncommon occurrence) and the deadline for submitting them was 9AM so I had no option other than to write them up (and draw the graphs and diagrams) on the 3/4-hour train trip to uni. The subject was 'transient impulses through electrical networks'--you know, all that Fourier stuff and such.

Orphaned works - a fair system needed.

The only reasonable scheme is for genuine copyright holders rights to respected. Stripping metadata and obfuscating owners of copyrighted material simply violates copyright law.

Trouble is that conservatively 70%+ of all works generated in the 20th C. are genuinely orphaned and that existing copyright holders (of newer works whose rights aren't in question) oppose the freeing up of these old orphaned works as they consider them competition. These rights holders want both their cake and to eat it, which, simply, is double-dipping. And unfortunately double-dipping has been rife since the inception of copyright law.

Genuine orphaned works should be freely available to all, and schemes that pass off 'orphaned rights' to highest bidders for fees to government etc. should be outlawed. They are unfair as they just favour the rich and powerful and deny ordinary users rights of access.

It's unlikely Tor can ever be fully secure.

I've always assumed that using Tor would bring attention to oneself in the same way that sending encrypted emails flags attention.

This story only seems to confirm that fact. Why wouldn't it? Given the Government's original involvement in Tor together with Snowden's revelations etc., it's obvious to me that Tor would be carefully monitored by any and every available means.

Frankly, I just don't believe that one's privacy can ever be truly secure on the net whilst source and destination IP addresses exist in their current form—irrespective of what obfuscation system one uses in the middle.

Seems to me that these days only the stupid and the desperate would be sufficiently foolhardy to transmit incriminating data across the net, irrespective of the means by which it is done.

Oh dear!

For heaven's sake, that's both a huge revelation and a real worry.

Perhaps, without knowing it, that's the reason I stated using Ixquick and other specialist search engines a while ago.

Critical infrastructure? So who's really to blame, eh?

Irvine also explained ASIO's view of the ability to snoop on third-party computers, saying that it's necessary to prevent attacks against critical infrastructure.

Critical infrastructure worked perfectly well and was pretty secure BC--before computers, so why are those who are responsible for such infrastructure allowed to introduce vulnerable computers into its control systems (thus making it vulnerable)?

Moreover, what right do these bastards have to introduce such crappy vulnerable control systems which then, somehow, seemingly, give ASIO an excuse to carry out surveillance (an excuse which otherwise it would not have had)?

Why aren't those who introduce technologies whose consequential outcomes would restrict our fundamental freedoms, actually brought to account BEFORE they're able to introduce them?

In a democracy it ought to be unacceptable (and unlawful) to introduce vulnerable technologies which restrict our freedoms, especially so when there has been no public debate beforehand. (Right, democracy's broken.)

I don't see David Irvine taking the high moral ground on this point either. Why you may well ask! As Denarius rightfully points out "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

Answer: David Irvine does not have to, as no one is!

QED.

Hard to believe.

If these figures are correct (which I find hard to believe) then the only explanation that makes sense is that those who are silly enough to text whilst driving haven't had the sense to stop when the rules came in--only those who know texting whilst driving is extremely dangerous and never did it at any time actually obeyed the rules.

Personally, I find that even using a hands-free two-way transceiver in the car is distracting (as one concentrates on what's being said). As two-way transceiver conversations are generally shorter than mobile phone calls, it only increases my incredulity.

BTW, I've nearly run over several people in the last year or so when they walked out into a busy four-lane road whilst texting on their smartphones completely oblivious of the traffic around them. Are you really expecting me to believe that people become much more aware of their surroundings whilst driving and simultaneously texting? Utter B.S. methinks!

When did science fiction movies ever make scientific sense?

"...violate common sense and laws of physics"

Come on, when did science fiction movies ever make scientific sense? They're not supposed to, after all they're just entertainment.

The last movie I saw that was vaguely credible was '2001 A Space Odyssey' and that was a long time ago. Truly great movie that it was, it still stretched credulity far past anything the rational mind ought to accept.

A real worry.

Just about every past free trade deal with the US has gone the US's way. Australia found this out with its free trade deal with the US. The US creamed the Oz negotiators over IP, pharmaceuticals etc. and the Australian public has been worse off.

Much experience has shown that it's not possible to negotiate on a level playing field with this bully.

This story is very disconcerting.

Look forward to the 13 TeV setup results.

I'm looking forward to reading reports say late 2016 when the dust settles on the 13 TeV setup results. As is always with science, additional research and time to digest results is necessary and prudent.

Another Australian Telecom Scandal -- And Two Days On Yet There's Only Two Posts?

I picked this up story two days on in 'older stories' and there's still only two posts. Why?

Frankly, I think Australian users of telecommunications services have been and remain shell-shocked. Wireless charges in Australia are nothing other than extortionate--there's simply no other way of putting it.

Let me give you an example: two weeks ago--having temporarily misplaced my mobile phone--I borrowed a prepaid Telstra mobile from a colleague. The account balance when I started was about $14.50, I then added $20. However, unbeknownst to me, the phone's owner checked the account on-line before I added the $20, and realising the balance was low he added a further $40, so the balance was about $74.50.

The balance of that account is now exactly $4.15. So where did $70+ go?

I made two short calls to the phone's owner (even exaggerating, the total time can't have been more than 15 mins), and I made three calls to a client just to organise meeting times (several minutes at most for each call). As this phone doesn't log the call duration, only numbers, I can't provide exact times until I get them from my colleague when he next checks the account.

So you think I'm exaggerating. Well, believe it or not, here's a cross-check:

This prepaid account was opened in Feb 2011 so that makes the account about 3 years 4 months old. Now the phone does log the total outgoing talk/dialled* time since the phone SIM was first used which is :

02:56:05 hours - - Total outgoing call time since new

Essentially 3 hours in 40 months. Now the account is a 30-day prepaid so let's do the sums:

Total monies paid to Telstra: $30 x 40 months ==> $1,200

Total time in minutes (60 + 60 + 56) ==> 176 minutes

Average price per minute of this Telstra prepaid mobile: 1200/176 ==> $6.82 / min.

If I was Euler or Gauss and derived an optimising algorithm/ideal usage path [à la the Königsberg Bridge Problem or such] to optimise call times/versus/persons/versus duration of call etc. (such as ensuring this spare phone was handed around in such a way that the $30/month ran out exactly at the 30-day point and the recharge entered at that point), then I'd guess the cost of the call would be somewhat cheaper.

The fact is one can't run a prepaid monthly by clockwork unless one is C-3PO, so Telstra has yuh by the short and curlies.

Australia needs a Royal Commission into telephone pricing and how deregulation went so horribly wrong. But that will never happen. Why would it when it was the government that fucked up big time. Moreover, many of us saw it coming but were powerless to stop it.

(PhD thesis anyone? Providing a definitive historical account and financial analysis of Australian telecommunications deregulation would have to get someone a PhD and thanks from a very grateful public -- and if you want background info I'll even give you copies of still-disputed accounts with both Telstra and Vodafone which amount to many thousands of dollars.)

El Reg, If Vulture South wants 5-brownie points and a koala stamp, not to mention accolades for the Oz public, it could expose what's really going on behind the Great Australian Telecommunications Fraud. Perhaps we could start a fund to pay whistleblowers to get the real dope on what's going on inside these secretive phone carpetbaggers.

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* There is no internet connection on this phone and total outgoing SMSs since new is only 22, so other charges are negligible for this accounting.

Hard to believe

Hard to believe unless the stats are slanted at back-yard businesses in Asia. Most IT pros know it's too much trouble.

Besides, the BSA has always exaggerated. (As an IT department head, I recall using using their bullshit stats in the early 1990s into frightening management to giving me more money for my IT budget. The BSA's copyright claims are so way-out that even hardened financially-tight-arsed managements will pay up without question.)