* Posts by keithpeter

2057 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jul 2007

Windows 10: Forget Cloudobile, put Security and Privacy First

keithpeter Silver badge

Re: rant-like journalism

"You do not understand how evolution works."

Would that be hardy-weinberg equilibrium or something deeper I should know about? Or simply that cognitive diversity may not have been linked to basic survival > 50kyr ago?

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: rant-like journalism

"I hear some flavors of BSD are supposed to be secure...."

And OpenBSD runs surprisingly well on laptops that are not of the absolute bleeding edge shall we say. Three hours total to check out the source (1.2Gb of it) from the local public CVS (uk adsl over copper) and then compile the kernel, core OS and ports on a 7 year old Thinkpad (dual core). Have pre-ordered Version 5.6 as a donation even if I stick with Linux. Worth forty quid for the man pages alone.

But security can also be had by restricting the connections. See quote below from OA

"Basic things like "what programs are installed" and "what is the hardware configuration of your PC" are generally collected as part of operating system updates and/or automated troubleshooting systems because they provide clear technical benefits in solving technical issues. It would be pretty insane to say "don't collect this info, because NSA"

Could this information not be collected and kept in local storage (a la lennart and his binary logs) then be made available for upload when needed? Can you not ascertain the nature of the packets leaking out of the machine ( a firewall rule based in the upload url springs to mind).

Sway: Microsoft's new Office app doesn't have an Undo function

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Tinderbox

By the end of page 1 of the article I was getting slightly worried - I was thinking what might be on page 2. Add cards within cards, a powerful search function, a set of 'agents' that allow you to do things like 'list all cards with 'do this next week' in the title dated a week ago', hyperlinks between cards? A powerful scripted export template?

...but no Tinderbox is safe. The only reason I would ever run Mac OS again...

I've got a new Linux box, how does it work... WOAH, only asking :-/

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Desktop?

@Ross K

"How does it feel to know you're making Microsoft richer?"

Well, since you ask, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. A court case occured, arguments were presented, a settlement was reached. As I believe in the sovreign right of countries to govern themselves and in the rule of law, and as I generally support the market economy (with bits of regulation as needed) all this is fine by me.

I do find the way the US legal system works a bit odd, but then I imagine people who are used to America would find aspects of Britain a bit strange in just the same way.

I also like the fact that Red Hat is a $1+ billion turnover corporation making reasonable profits from selling services off the back of GPL licenced software. I really hope Canonical gets into some kind of actual profit soon. I believe that SLES does make money as well and that makes me glad. Good quality jobs, economic activity, competition.

Yes, I do have residual concerns over Red Hat's tidal pull on the open source world, and I do wish one of their senior people would sit Mr Poettering down and have a good long chat(*) about the need to stabilise the APIs and affordances for the software associated with systemd so the various upstream projects have a chance to catch up. But, hey, it all works and will do so for some decades, and, for edge cases and people who want to be different, there are viable alternatives.

Ace isn't it?

(*) British for 'sort him out'

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Linux is bad for everybody the way it currently is.

"The BSD's and Debian are ok for a server. But all the gui stuff contains so many linux features which end up having to copied by the BSD's (Which had a clean understandable consistent design up until not too long ago)."

Stock OpenBSD install with cwm set as window manager in the .xinitrc and netsurf(*) as a graphical Web browser on my testing laptop seems pretty clean to me. LaTeX and an editor for document production. mpg123 for music while I work.

Retro GUI could be in this autumn. Read about the tilde club as an example.

(*)Xombero for javascript use, needed to deal with those redirect based wifi access points you see a lot of.

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: It's gotten better.

"(Eventually I got a Linux-owning friend to explain to me that you fix problems like this by logging in from a remote computer, su root and issuing the command e3fsck -f -b 8193 /dev/hda1. How's that for intuitive?)"

These days for most distros you just boot from a live CD and work through a repair menu. Worst case 'touch /forcefsck' from the single user mode prompt.

But I do take the point...

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Desktop?

Seriously, you are crowing about desktop figures?

The Linux kernel runs billions of phones, and the Linux kernel with the GNU userland runs a huge range of devices from your router, HDTV up to and including supercomputing clusters, not to mention Google ChromeOS and backend, F**book, Ebay, Twitter &et Al.

And you worry about *desktops*? You are as bad as that boy Lennart.

PS: running Trisquel Linux on an X60. Cheaper than a Chromebook. Haven't had to use a command line yet except for R. The forum is civil and welcoming to newcomers but being a fully libre distribution without proprietary drivers or blobs, OP would almost certainly have to use a USB wifi dongle (Netgear WG111v3 or similar) to be able to connect.

P2S: If Shuttleworth ever pops the Ubuntuphone out I'll be in the queue. I mean the one you can dock and it switches userland so you can do your Office work on a full sized monitor and keyboard. One device. Many uses. See the Rob Pike Setup interview...

http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/

What’s the KEYBOARD SHORTCUT for Delete?! Look in a contextual menu, fool!

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Keyboard commands for select, copy, paste and find

I've drunk a lot of free coffee and gained a (totally undeserved) reputation as a clever chap from showing people CTRL-A, CTRL-C click in the other window CTRL-V.

CTRL-F has helped out many a colleague trying to find a student by name in a long list ordered by reference number. I have brightened people's days with CTRL-Z.

Strange isn't it?

PS:do journalists still have to learn teeline?

(Typing this on the Calm Window Manager on OpenBSD on an old laptop, all keyboard driven. I'm the beginner again in BSD land.).

Universal Credit CRISIS: Howard Shiplee SHIPS OUT of top job

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Basic concept fine...

...just the ongoing farce of implementation coupled with IDS announcing 'smartcards' for claimants that would restrict their spending (what could possibly go wrong with that?)

<ranty bit>

I think that if you have *paid taxes* for (say) 20 years then loose your job, you damn well should be supported at a reasonable % of your past income for some period of time before dropping to a safety net level. I don't like the rhetoric coming from IDS and his colleagues. Being (suddenly) poor is not actually a crime as such, and I don't see why the Conservative Party is becoming so downright Stalinist in this way. Hayek would be amazed at the micromanagement of people's lives involved in these policies.

</ranty bit>

Back on topic, an actually functioning UC system could make it easier to manage a benefit system with a contribution based element.

CURSE YOU, 'streaming' music services! I want a bloody CD

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: have an upvote

"...being a fan of "real" music (ie with very very few exceptions nothing after 1900 - no not a typo 1900)"

Fashions in home listening change, as do fashions in performing. I found

http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/studies/chapters/intro.html

absolutely fascinating (especially the piano chapter). The database of transcriptions of 78s will keep you going for a month or so.

PS: should you decide to venture into the 20th Century, try some Peter Warlock songs and pieces. 'Modern' in structure but 'old' in sound world.

A Norsified Linux for Windows and OS X wobblers

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: 6 Months Worth of Use

"And I'm glad you agree regarding it definitely being beta - now imagine me using that between the hours of 9am to 6pm Mon - Fri for 6 months doing work. It mostly works, it just happens to screw up on the days when the whole world is imploding around me!"

I do try out testing/sid/unstable releases on an old laptop that I use for typing notes on the train. I have a live USB stick with Debian stable in the bag for emergencies so I can get to files on the hard drive and use an RDP session to talk to the work box. I also play around with distros on a spare 2.5" drive. I use recycled Thinkpads and spare caddies are a fiver. Unscrew one screw, pop the drive out, pop the other one in, and you are away.

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: 6 Months Worth of Use

"Get Debian."

@wolfetone

Debian stable, sure, fully agree. But you are not comparing like with like. Jessie/Testing will be 'fun' after the freeze early Nov (depending). Not for production!

Just booted elementaryOS off a live ISO dd'ed onto an old USB stick. Looks very nice, but, as you say, definitely beta.

Open source and the NHS: Two huge disorganised entities without central control

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

About [expletive] time

That is all.

(NHS could lead the world in this)

Why Oracle CEO Larry Ellison had to go ... Except he hasn't

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Not a fan of Ellison.

"God forbid Linux without the steering of Torvalds. I am under no illusion of how control by committee would work out. I wish Beos flourished."

Torvalds steers only the kernel, and does not have to cope with the overhead of running a business. He remains neutral on user space issues other than the occaisional eruption when frustrated by some stupidity (e.g daughter needing admin password to connect to a networked printer). Sensible. Protect one bailiwick.

The rest of your analysis looks fine to me.

Microsoft's axeman Nadella fills baskets with 2,100 fresh heads

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: It took 18,000 employees to remove a start menu

I may be naive but I imagine any with solid technical skills will find employment reasonably quickly.

Slough isn't fit for humans now, says Amazon. We're going to Shoreditch

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Slough - Paradise on Earth

"...the post industrial, post nuclear war scabbiness of Slough..."

Sounds ace. I shall visit with cameras. Sort of like Сталкер only with Baltis and no dioxins?

FTC: We didn't robocall you and thousands of others asking for bank details. IT'S A TRAP!

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

"...a company operating under the name The Cuban Exchange"

Hawaiian lawyer at all? HST come back from the grave? And where is Don Jeffe when we need him?

Every crowd has a silver lining, truly.

Microsoft's Office Delve wants work to be more like being on Facebook

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

exceptions

"...aims to present Office 365 users with the information that's most relevant to them by using machine learning to analyze their contacts, activity, and data."

I manage by exception.

The things I try to find out on an Intranet are the things I don't usually deal with.

How does the 'Office Graph' model that?

Chelyabinsk-sized SURPRISE asteroid to skim Earth, satnav birds

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

"...sliding past our planet a scant 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) from the surface..."

Roughly 52 Earth cross sections within the 29 000 mile radius from centre.

Pretty close!

Nokia Lumia 530: A Windows Phone... for under £50

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Like the 630 review before it..

Can this phone do wifi only when there is no payg credit left? I was thinking the teenagers would be buying these to bring to College for BBM on the guest wifi. Looks jolly, basics all there, they don't do photographing text much (I send them slides of lessons as pdfs).

If it does turn up in high street shops for less than £50, can anyone post a tutorial on putting the thing on silent?

YES, I have ridden the Unicorn: The Ubuntu Utopic unicorn

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: why?

"I have never seen a Linux desktop that isn't gaudy or in some other way extremely unappetizing"

Gaudy: dwm. No bling. Just an expanse of Zen like pixels with one very small information only panel. No icons. No effects. I used to set the background colour to #33335E

Extremely unappetizing: You'll have to define terms a bit more.

Personally, I'm bucking the trend and using a *default* Debian Wheezy/KDE on my work laptop. Quite nice. Other people can work out how to start programs without long explanations.

EE fails to apologise for HUGE T-Mobile outage that hit Brits on Friday

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

"...to migrate data from the broken fibre to a new cable that was installed near our switch site in West London"

Do you think they might mean 'to direct the flow of data from the broken fibre optic cable to a new cable". Unless they store data in cables.

Was the cable broken by some chap with a visibility jacket and a pneumatic drill by any chance?

Britain's housing crisis: What are we going to do about it?

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Relax rules about what you can rent

"Compulsory standard rental agreement terms that allowed people to make a rental property their home, rather than some kind extended holiday let, might temper the obsession we have with owner-occupation in this country."

Security of tenure, yes.

But at present, in the UK, I *think* there are quite severe limits on what you can convert/use/rent as living space. I *recollect* that our present 'government' said something about relaxing these limits, allowing surplus office blocks/factory units(*)/unusual buildings to be converted into housing. As there are plenty of these standing idle in the area just around the centre of Birmingham I imagine they could be rented basically for the amortised cost of conversion and maintenance plus a reasonable ROI.

Could be fun for younger people and oldies like me who just need about 400 sq. ft. + bathroom/corridor somewhere interesting. Could increase the supply of lower end housing, thus easing pressure on rented/purchased traditional housing. Might lead to genuine 'innovation zones' as a mix of low cost housing and workshop/office space becomes available and small service businesses attracted (genuine 'vibrancy').

Joseph Mitchell was a journalist who moved to New York in the 1930s/40s/50s. When he first moved to NY, he deliberately moved around the neighbourhoods, renting a new appartment each six months or so, because he wanted to explore the city. I'd love to have a vibrant, secure rented sector with sufficient supply to allow that to happen now.

How do we get from where we are now to something like that? What actual policies would need to be implemented and in what order to ensure a transition without huge price spikes and idiotic levels of risk to low income groups?

(*)Subject to checks on certain categories of factory: plating and etching is common round here, very nasty chemicals, might be too expensive to clean up.

The Tramp: low income groups need to have a secure roof over their head if you want your rubbish taken, offices cleaned, children minded, buses driven &c

Euro banks will rip out EVERYTHING and buy proper backend systems ... LOL, fooled ya

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Financial IT spending

"(possibly written by overpaid primadonnas that rode their Ferraris into the sunset some time ago)"

Your average COBOL programming drone in the 1960s/1970s(?) wasn't driving any posh cars. Perhaps a two tone chocolate/burnt orange Vauxhall Viva with tartan seat covers on a finance agreement.

The documentation would exist (I believe they coded from specs) but would include magic numbers and administration codes based on the version of the manual that was current when the code was written.

I suspect the Posh Italian Car brigade were more on the investment banking side and more recently. Perhaps the APL wizards got a Jaguar.

Not arguing with your general point however.

Tramp Icon: I was doing BASIC on a teletype with a modem (that had a dial on the front) at College then. We got to visit a Data Processing Unit once as part of the course. Seriously large tape machines. Very short mini-skirts.

EE accused of silencing customer gripes on social media pages

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Shops?

I just pop into the shop. I choose times when the chap who sold me the phone is in. He does the 'magic phone number' bit and things (only a couple) get sorted.

I'm a low revenue customer (sim only) and I am noticing switching to GPRS a lot as well as another commenter here. I'm OK with that however as voice calls, emails and sms messages seem to get through ok.

Icon: Blackberry Bold user

Brit Sci-Fi author Alastair Reynolds says MS Word 'drives me to distraction'

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Personally ...

"I can imagine that you might do some scripting with VI but 250 pages of Sci-Fi novel sounds a bit dubious."

I don't write books, but study packs in the 30 to 90 page range can be done in 'mark up' quite easily using a text editor and a previewer now and again to check the typesetting.

Best shot: Coffee - how do you brew?

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Moka

"That said, a Moka pot is not really much more hassle."

Three 'cup' size (= 1 decent mug + top up when diluted with hot water) on the hotplate while I boil the porridge. 10 minutes quiet in the garden before the commute and work madness. £18 + a change of 'o' ring each year. No faffing with filters. Don't scrub the top part too much, it should stay a light brown.

Jarvis versus Jarvis: Don't DISRUPT the DISRUPTION GURU!

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Fun

"You've had your fun, mate." -Jarvis

"You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." -Unamed senior security official quoted by Rusbridger[1] shortly before computers destroyed at Guardian HQ.

No comment needed really...

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/guardian-hard-drives_n_3782382.html

The Return of BSOD: Does ANYONE trust Microsoft patches?

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

@LDS was Re: Stupid

"You wanted a specific example of missing hardware support? I gave it to you. But I guess given the price of that hardware you've never seen one..."

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=708673

https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-closed@lists.debian.org/msg444698.html

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ledmon/+bug/1174386

Dell *server*. Would it be those? Looks like fixed upstream.

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Stupid

"...simply because a huge amount of hardware either cannot be used or can only be used with reduced functionality because Linux drivers do not exist."

Specific examples in mind? Or have I just been amazingly lucky for the last five years or so...

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Stupid

"Tell me which distro/version and which app you installed on it, and I will verify."

Kernel panics resulting in a black screen with a hex dump and total lock up are very rare in my experience. The last one I had was a 2.6.x series kernel on a Samsung NC10 netbook. I think it was Ubuntu 10.10 or something. There was an issue with power saving being applied to the rt series wifi driver causing a panic. Resolved in a subsequent kernel update - this was during the pre-release testing period.

It is usually hardware driver based. Not fonts!

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

QA

"Doesn't Microsoft catch errors in their code any more? It would be a lot better than coming up with STOP ?"

The 4k or so redundancies at Redmond (as opposed to the 12k or so at Microsoft owned Nokia) apparently fell mainly on testing and QA staff according to a softie blog whose comments those made redundant were using to let off a bit of steam.

Coincidence?

New voting rules leave innocent Brits at risk of SPAM TSUNAMI

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: When I moved to my borough some 26 years ago...

Likewise Brum council. Letter was quite clear and well laid out, and mail-merged with *my* existing details on already. Not that I'm worth trying to sell anything to.

Snowden leaks show that terrorists are JUST LIKE US

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

50 mile radius

"The Foreign Office provides non-attributable official and personal mobile phones to GCHQ officers while on deployment. Covert mobile phones are equipped with Bluetooth and therefore they must not be switched on or used within a 50-mile radius of GCHQ's Cheltenham HQ, operatives are instructed."

So look out for fairly young looking very inconspicuous chaps and chapesses conspicuously not using mobile phones in Birmingham or in fact most of the West Midlands including the West Coast train line and several small airports?

Or have I misunderstood the 'covert' bit and they are using other phones then?

The tramp: confused as always

Microsoft: Just what the world needs – a $25 Nokia dumbphone

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: An Old Fogey Speaks

"And the van to drive your text message on punched cards over to the house of the recipient?"

Nah, card reader -> paper tape -> Paper tape reader on Telex Terminal set to 'Net' -> Message echoed to as many other Telexes as are connected to the same 'Net'.

My successful (apparently!) birth was apparently announced in several time zones using a similar technique but without the punched cards (late 1950s). Mum's best friend was a Telex operator.

PS: the people who are always nagging me to get on Facebook are the cousins over 70. Us young 'uns have reservations.

£100m DMI omnifail: BBC managers' emails trawled by employment tribunal

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Public money

"In most commercial businesses pissing £100m up the wall for no useful output would actually endanger the future of the business, and probably result in a complete change of both board and IT management."

Or the hiring of gifted accountants who could associate a book value with what deliverables there were at the end of the project.

[I neither agree or disagree with your perception of the quality of the output of the BBC as I do not own a television receiver (see posts further up screen).]

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: At least it's not my money these buffoons are burning

"Got rid of my telly in 2009 and haven't missed it."

I've never owned a broadcast television.

Be aware though that a computer with a broadband connection is classed as 'television receiving apparatus', so I do now pay for a television licence. I did write to my MP about this some years ago. There was some uncertaintly about the exact situation but I decided not to risk possible fine or visits.

Chromebooks to break out of US schools: Netbook 2.0 comeback not just for children

keithpeter Silver badge
Pint

Re: Gaining traction

@Simon Palmer: Sir Gâr Graig?

Wouldn't mind picking your brains in September. I'm not the PHB any more (thank deity) just interested.

keithpeter Silver badge
Linux

Re: There do seem to be a lot of Chromebook haters on here...

"Now, I just have to figure out how to crash these other laptops so I can get my own Chromebook. Probably won't have to wait long until someone downloads a patch that bricks them. Oh noes."

Pop Kubuntu on a usb drive and try it live for a day or two on one of your laptops. Might not boot (UEFI/Secure Boot shenanigans), or might just surprise you.

If no good, just donate/ebay the laptops and buy your Chromebook.

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

when we have calmed down a bit

I have access to a laptop trolley in one of the centres I teach in. We use the laptops about one lesson in four to access mymaths and a few other Web sites, including hegartymaths and themathsteacher along with wolframalpha. So basically a Web browser and flash. I'm planning get students to make a few simple spreadsheets next year to help with algebra (sequences are good on a spreadsheet) and some graph work (XY scatter with a suitable formula and they are away, building the formula themselves helps the understanding).

All of that *could* work on a chromebook as well as on a Windows laptop. I gather the new generation have some local storage and can run some apps offline. Just saying. I have no idea how the total costs would stack up.

I know other teachers use them *sometimes* for Office, but the proper IT lessons use the rooms with actual PCs, chairs and monitors. This is adult ed by the way, not a school or college.

I'm also wondering where you can apply for one of these analyst jobs.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner: Capital is top target for computer thieves, say police

keithpeter Silver badge

Bad typo in first sentence

'Tables' assume should read 'tablets' unless very handy street gangs with vans

Ancient pager tech SMS: It works, it's fab, but wow, get a load of that incoming SPAM

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Hmmm

"...anyone sending a message with 10000 recipients ought to have some kind of permission to do so since it's unlikely to be an invite to the pub to some mates..."

No, but it could be a message to 7,500 or so mobile numbers that has to be sent in a hurry at around 5am to try and prevent wasted journeys through very very bad weather. A quick clean up to get rid of the 10 and 12 digit numbers in the database dump (don't ask) and then a queue of messages via a humble dongle. It worked. I didn't do the clever bit (dongle script).

We have much slicker systems hanging off the Intranet these days. Prior blanket permission could work I imagine.

Amazon smacks back at Hachette in e-book pricing battle: We're doing it for the readers

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: What is Hachette contributing?

"Is it really justified for them to get as much money as the author?"

Paper books will be around for a bit yet so paper needs to get smeared with carbon on an industrial scale and the resulting atoms still need to get shifted.

Having written about 25k words for a published non-fictional project I can say that working with an editor has significant value. Editorial services could be provided by any publisher of course.

Do we *really* want one publisher?

Lawsuit claims SpaceX laid off hundreds without proper notice, pay

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Makes no sense

"Then there is a possibility that SpaceX was exploring a project, the team of specialists failed to deliver on that project so they don't need them anymore."

Isn't that the very definition of a layoff? Or redundancy as we say in UK.

Nuts to your poncey hipster coffees, I want a TESLA ELECTRO-CAFE

keithpeter Silver badge
Coat

Re: or you could go even more downmarket...

The famously amazing Victorian Gothic Icknield St library in Brum does not have wifi, there is a notice directing readers to the Tesco Cafe in the modern complex that you can walk through to. Reasonable speeds.

Upmarketish: Should anyone find themselves in Birmingham New St Station, look for the Coffee Lounge independent cafe just opposite the entrance. Fast wifi, no landing pages, wpa2 password is written in felt tip by the till, better than 1.5 Mbytes/sec mid morning when the hipsters are not in. I just do Americano, tastes fine, comes in a bucket, not too expensive. They do beans on toast as well as all the panini stuff.

Free connections across Brum centre: Plenty of cafes, chain and independent. Central reference library and the ICC both have free wifi. No encryption but you have to negotiate a landing page and that needs noscript disabled for the initial connection. Speeds around 120 kbytes/sec. Mobile connections (G3 is my limit) are variable across the city centre. Some places are effectively Faraday cages, others its rocking.

Outside centre: Midland Arts Centre (MAC) in Cannon Hill Park has free wifi again no encryption but (more sensible) landing page so you can agree terms &c. Around 800 kbytes/sec to 1 Meg bytes sec mid afternoon weekday. Holds up well at weekend. Nice place to sit outside within range.

Amazon 'adware' laden Ubuntu passes ICO's data smell test

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Filthy Lucre

"I did try to answer my own question btw - I cant find any info on their revenue from the Amazon hookup. Weird."

Yes, they keep the numbers really quiet generally. Either the revenue from this feature is peanuts and Canonical are to embarrassed to admit that given the hoo-ha, or its huge and people will then ask why Amazon are paying so much for anonymous random desktop search terms like lett*82014*tax*.odt, with the implications that the search terms are not so...

As others have said, I just started using Debian. Quite like Wheezy.

CIA infosec guru: US govt must buy all zero-days and set them free

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Legends...

"He said that in the intelligence community building plausible false identities is becoming much harder in the digital age and will only get harder. These days it’s a much better solution to steal someone’s identity and use that, Geer opined."

nanowrimo coming up. Interesting idea that one. LegendOMatic to steal from Le Carre. Ebay for IDs. Have bots manufacturing a social media history for agents.

What's the point of the Internet of Things?

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Re: Fishtanks are useless

"Anyway, do him a favour and show him how to setup a webcam, then we can all watch his fish :)"

Crowdsourced fish tank watching. You may just have invented the Next Big Thing

Seriously, as was mentioned up the screen, we need the iot:// protocol with some RFCs. Or it won't really work.

Low power computing: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/08/how-low-power-can-you-go.html

China: Microsoft, don't shy away from our probe

keithpeter Silver badge
Windows

Realpolitik

I suspect this is a lot of politics plus a little bit of a real issue somewhere. The FBI (?) puts out a warrant for the 'arrest' of Chinese army officers associated with cyberwar. China decides to enforce local commercial regulations.

That isn't to say I disagree with the sentiments being expressed above.

The tramp: noodles with fried onion and soy

END your Macbook SHAME: Convert it into a Microsoft SURFACE

keithpeter Silver badge
Coat

Re: Just one question

@ Frankee Llonnygog

"Is it possible to pledge negative amounts on Kickstarter?"

Spread betting on kickstarter options? Bring it on.

Coat icon: I'm off out to pay some bills