* Posts by JeffyPooh

1244 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Aug 2007

Smartphone running 'Facebook OS' said to debut this week

JeffyPooh
Pint

It'll be a privacy leak...

Every time one makes a telephone call, it'll post the details to your Facebook page: "Bob is calling Becky." "Bob is now calling Barbara, his wife." "Bob is calling Becky again."

Barbara has logged into Facebook. "Barbara is calling Fred, a divorce lawyer..."

Some people forget how Facebook works.

Are the PCs all getting a bit old at your office? You're not alone

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Having no effect on my behaviour

Will Godfrey: "I have no practical need for a tablet device so haven't bought one."

I'm struggling to parse this sentence. It makes no sense, unless we allow the preposterous premise that purchasing decisions for consumer electronics need to be somehow related to a "practical need". Obviously that's not a feasible explanation, so it must be a typo.

"I have no practical need for a tablet device so I bought one of each."

There, I fixed it for you.

Televisions in living rooms now the fastest-growing internet platform

JeffyPooh
Pint

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2!!!

OMG! It's doubled!!!

Want faster fibre? Get rid of the glass

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: I smell a business opportunity!

Neutrinos straight through the Earth's crust/mantle/core. I suggested this last year when the boffins with the loose connector thought that they might have exceeded c. Same financial (il)logic.

Oz shop slaps browsers with $5 just looking fee

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Anyone thinking about shopping there

"...getting the shits..."

Considering the intestinal nature of the problem supposedly addressed by 'Celiac Supplies', that's funny. Extra points if it was intentional.

Nanowires boost photovoltaics sunlight capture by 15X

JeffyPooh
Pint

Fantastic!!

Efficiency will leap from ~40% to ~600%. Wow....

Space probe spies MYSTERY 'Cold Spot' in very fabric of cosmos itself

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Here... the moment this spot was created.

Study the Scrolls? Meh - I was on the committee that wrote them.

Hey, how have you been?

JeffyPooh
Pint

Here... the moment this spot was created.

http://prestontrailcc.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/creation-of-adam.jpg

Hong Kong plans cavernous underground data centres

JeffyPooh
Pint

Why all the hand wringing?

Greater Hong Kong is laced with MTR tunnels and stations, as well as road tunnels. It's not as if they've never ventured underground before. The tone of the article makes it seem that digging an underground space below Hong Kong is something new. Daft.

GoPro accused of using DMCA to take down product review

JeffyPooh
Pint

Based on the TV ads...

Based on the TV ads, I assume that all GoPro Hero cameras come equipped with built-in techno-beat music. Makes them useless for videoing, for example, a wedding.

Voyager goes off a (helio) cliff

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: It's an impressive feat.

"4Khz"

4 kHz.

Caught on camera: Fujitsu touts anti-terrorist pulse-taking tech

JeffyPooh
Pint

Pulse Rate .NE. Terrorism Indicator

Daft, stupid and useless. Because 99.99999999...% of travelers are not terrorists, airports will be neck-deep in False Positives. This is supposed to be common knowledge by now.

New nuke could POWER WORLD UNTIL 2083

JeffyPooh
Pint

Failure modes to be considered...

Consider that the auxiliary containment vault just happens to be half-full of water, either due to unimaginative design combined with years of neglect, or - for example - a tsunami has just flooded it on a day that's just one damn thing after another. Then the freeze plug melts (for whatever reason, perhaps related to the earthquake) and the molten and radioactive salt starts pouring into the underground vault half-full of water. This will result in a steam explosion of biblical proportions, scattering highly radioactive waste and contaminated steam out into the local area and beyond.

Next up for the failure mode lust is the usual failure of the heat exchanger. Leading to a radioactive mess plugging up the turbine. Costing billions.

Calling this conceptual design "fail safe" is not a good start.

Trump, Beyonce and Sarah Palin in toxic doxing

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Re:

Costs .NE. Worth

It's unnecessarily expensive, due to mindless waste and inefficiency. "Aluminium no, do it again in Carbon Fibre. The fan base love a large price tag. Stuff the seats with crumpled cash-as-padding just to add to the price.

The LFA lacks an iPod socket and cup holders. Other that that it's perfect. Except that it's a Toyota (a rubbish badge, even when spelled "Lexus").

Your Opinion May Vary.

Retailer challenges Visa penalty fees in data security dust-up

JeffyPooh
Pint

Packet Sniffing software on the network

So VISA is not enforcing that all POS terminals use encryption before sending the credit card data out over the network? Seriously? What, is it 1986 again?

Signed: G RAYMOND

On International Woman's Day we remember Grace Hopper

JeffyPooh
Pint

"...passed away on New Year's Day 1996..."

1992, not 1996.

Ref: Wiki, backed-up with a cross-check against her official USN Bio page (http://www.history.navy.mil/bios/hopper_grace.htm)

Era of the Pharaohs: Climate was hotter than now, without CO2

JeffyPooh
Pint

"The Most Dangerous Equation" on small sample size applies to the axis of time too...

In short, larger sample sizes (or longer integration periods) tend to smooth out the peaks. Humans have wasted many billions with the misguided 'small schools' movement.

"The Most Dangerous Equation" *must* be taken into account (formally) by the 'Warmists'.

Here's the $4.99 utility that might just have saved Windows 8

JeffyPooh
Pint

Stupidity has a radius

Stupidity has a radius, on the order of 5m. You need to stay about this far away from Stupid or you'll get dragged into its vortex. Try going out for a night on the town with a drunk moron to see where you end up - jail, hospital, morgue...

Windows 8 is stupid. The people behind it are stupid. It's a very stupid concept for a PC. It might not be so stupid on a tablet, but having two versions in one name is stupid. Stupid. Stay away.

I would have bought a new PC about now if MS hadn't ruined it.

Single IPv6 packet kills Kaspersky-protected PCs, fix emerges

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: I really enjoy Kaspersky FAILs

You don't recognize the name Symantec?

JeffyPooh
Pint

I really enjoy Kaspersky FAILs

Smug little b@$tards. LOL.

Symantec and McAfee I merely hate.

Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

JeffyPooh
Pint

I lost interest when 10.0 Grub ate my PC's MBR...

..., nail in the coffin is 10,637 updates per day (just a slight exaggeration). Since I also grow to dislike Windows (because MS management is a bit thick), thank dog for Android/Apple tablets and Apple/Android smart phones.

Farewell, Reg: This hack is hanging up her Apple jacket

JeffyPooh
Pint

ARAF

That's the only Welsh word I know. And then I go ahead and ignore it. Useless!

'Million-strong' zombie army devours Raspberry Pi's crunchy base

JeffyPooh
Pint

Sorry about that...

It was probaby me. I was just trying to get my new $5 Chinese made wifi stick working with my Raspberry Pi. It was acting a bit weird and my kidiots were complaining that the Internet was plugged up solid. I didn't realize it was phoning home from all over the 'net. Sorry.

New evidence: Comets seeded life on Earth

JeffyPooh
Pint

Yeah right...

... 'cause 13.77 billion years is ~so~ much better than 4.5 billion years. [sarcasm off]

Point being, this 'Panspermia' hypothesis is perfectly possible, but perfectly unnecessary.

Life not only evolved on Earth directly (and almost immediately at that), it almost certainly happened multiple times and places in parallel. The first life strain to invent teeth won.

Chemical reactions double in speed for every +10°C. The cold dark vacuum of space is no match for a warm puddle on Earth.

SpaceX rocket reaches orbit but Dragon fails to spit fire

JeffyPooh
Pint

OMG... Have another look at the Mission Patch

Dragon capsule curving off course, away from the ISS in the background.

A wish them good luck. If they can recover it then they'll deserve a cold one.

JeffyPooh

Re: It seems...

I've had the delivery driver arrive on our extensive grounds in a tiny little car (it was dark brown), walk up to me in the front garden, and hand me one of those "You were not home" cards. Very strange.

Squillionaire space tourist offers oldsters a holiday to Mars

JeffyPooh
Pint

Suggestion

Humans left to their own devices will settle into a ~27-hour day. The makes the 501 days into just 445 'days', a savings of roughly 12% for certain daily-cycle supplies.

Will they be able to upload TV shows such as 'Wheeler Dealers'?

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: happening during the 11-year solar minimum

"I thought 2013 was the peak of the cycle."

Thus making 2018 near the bottom of the 11-year (half) cycle.

BBC World Service in a jam as China blocks broadcasts

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: impartial?

BBC WS uses "credibility pieces" (*) that are gently critical of (for example) the Government of the Day to support trust in their gentle propaganda based on an assumption that the Western/UK way of life is better **.

* That's the official name of the slightly-critical items; BBC WS had a whole radio show on the topic (amazingly recursive if you think about it).

** A mostly true statement anyway (except the teeth that tend to look like a direction sign at the North Pole).

So a health boss, a GM veep and Qualcomm's big cheese walk into a bar

JeffyPooh
Pint

Headline: "health boss, a GM veep"

Same thing, isn't it?

Isn't GM very similar to Ferrari in that building cars is merely a sideline? Ferrari uses the commercial road car marketplace to fund their racing team, while GM builds horrid plastic sloth-mobiles to fund their primary purpose: health and pension plans.

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Why?

If it becomes too intrusive, just cut the blue/green/red/black/whatever wire.

I'd be far more concerned about the yet-another-fricken monthly airtime bill (probably $30- $50 per month).

Look out! Peak wind is coming, warns top Harvard physicist

JeffyPooh
Pint

An element of truth...

"...the amount of energy it would require if it were to build and maintain a colossal worldwide grid of enormous steel and carbon towers sunk into heavy concrete foundations along with the necessary associated world-spanning interconnectors, grid extensions, transport access into remote wilderness etc etc."

The short and mid-term effects of Green power. I hope that some boffin somewhere has checked the sums and made sure that we don't kill ourselves in the mid-term before the long term benefits eventually kick in.

Those windmill factories are *KILLING* the planet!

North Korean citizens told: Socialist haircuts are a thing... go get some

JeffyPooh
Pint

Helpful advice...

The political 'spectrum' is actually closed-in on itself; it's a circle.

The extreme left and the extreme right are perfectly indistinguishable. They're the same exact thing, dangerous lunatics.

The real battle is directly across the circle, moderates versus nut job extremists of any stripe.

This Political Spectrum Is A Damn Circle concept is extremely useful. It explains a lot and helps greatly on many ethics and morals questions.

I hope this helps.

Apple to cough up $100m after kids rinse parents' credit cards on apps

JeffyPooh
Pint

Blaming parents for a combination SmurfBerries scam and ineptitude by Apple?

There was an innocent time before the SmurfBerry scam artists arrived (I'll call them 'scammers' to their kicked-in face if they'd like to discuss it in person). There was a time and iOS version before Apple thoughtfully provided a specific setting to disallow In-App purchases. There was a time when Apple allowed the iTunes password to remain active for 15 minutes.

All of these aligned one fateful day. My kid wanted to get the SmurfBerry app. I'd never heard of spending real money in a child's game - of course Apple would never allow such a thing in the walled garden that is iOS, right? It wasn't ten minutes later that I got an email for the in-app purchase of $2 worth (sic) of SmurfBerries.

So I launched a voice mail missile towards a random telephone line within Apple HQ. They responded the next day with a refund, an apology, and they obviously followed-up with corrective actions.

Blaming the parents for such a subtle series of system design flaws by Apple is utter garbage. I know it's tempting and smells like PCness, but it's still utter mindless tripe.

JeffyPooh
Pint

Badly worded sentence

"...an Apple ID and password is required for purchases on iTunes-linked credit cards but only for fifteen minutes after one signs in."

You mean, "...but only fifteen minutes after one signs in." Delete the "for".

Is world's first space tourist Dennis Tito planning a trip to Mars?

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: While I'm skeptical that they'll pull it off...

Flyby is about 200x simpler than landing.

JeffyPooh
Pint

MC: "TMI complete. Profile nominal. Newton is in control. Your're on the way to Mars!"

Tito to other crew member, "Oh shit. We forgot toilet paper."

Microsoft brings Azure back online

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: 20 goto 10

Their Certificate Expiry Tracking program hasn't yet been ported to Windows 8.

Hands-on with Ubuntu's rudimentary phone and tablet OS

JeffyPooh
Pint

It'll probably delete your Master Boot Record

Based on past experience with 10.0.

Tossers.

Google reveals Glass details in patent application

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Is there a Google Glasses support device hidden in the user's pocket?

Found the answer as to what's built in and what's not.

Inside: wifi, Bluetooth, GPS (!)

Not inside: cellular data modem

So you basically need a mobe in your pocket for any of the online features while you're out and about. And can you imagine trying to accept a free hot spot's browser based terms & conditions, or enter a wifi pass code using only the Glasses? Probably impossible. Wifi := ~25% useful in practice.

Leaving out the cellular modem is no surprise (impossible in 2013). Also avoids another phone bill.

JeffyPooh
Pint

Is there a Google Glasses support device hidden in the user's pocket?

Does the version of the Google Glasses that's available right now come with a little mobile data modem, GPS receiver and data processing box that goes in your pocket? It just seems far more practical to use a low power, short range RF link (Bluetooth or similar) to a mobile Google Glasses support device hidden in your pocket, than to cram a cellular data modem and battery into about 1 cc of space. The Glasses would simply be the user I/O.

I really suspect that there's a mobile-sized device (or your existing mobe) hidden in the user's pocket to make this thing work. If they've managed to make a real and practical version sans 'box-in-pocket' then I'd be very impressed. 'Practical' includes acceptable battery life (one day) and RF performance (works). The future would be well-and-truly here if they've actually done that level of integration and power density.

Suspiciously yours.

Open source app can detect text's authors

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Reverse tool in 3..2..1..

"Reverse tool in 3..2..1.."

Hmmm... AC is using erroneous two-dot ellipses ".." (should be three dots, "..."). Also using posh words "indeed" and "nefarious".

Hey Fred! How are you doing? How's your sister doing?

JeffyPooh
FAIL

The Art of War

Itd be prety easy to spoof by incdluding intentional characrterisics of others.

We've slashed account hijackings by 99.7% - Google

JeffyPooh
Pint

"...attempted sign-ins at a rate of more than 100 accounts per second."

Google Sekurity botnoids need to crack open a copy of 'The Art of War'.

After the first 15 minutes of attempted sign-ins, they should let the hacker into a honeypot if for no other reason than to waste his/her time. The honeypot system would be designed to consume hours and hours of human lifespan while subtly accomplishing nothing whatsoever. Only after a day or two (in the ideal case) should the hacker eventually figure out that he or she has been had.

Samsung under fire over copy-paste bricking

JeffyPooh
Pint

Android/Samsung foibles

Many of my esteemed colleagues have Samsung/Android mobes. They all seem to share the foible that the phone has *SERIOUS* difficulty recovering from weak or zero signal. My co-workers are constantly hanging around the office window, pressing their phones up against the glass, licking them, rubbing them, whimpering, begging and pleading the Android OS to recognize the fact that the signal is back. In contrast, my iPhone has no difficulties whatsoever with disappearing and reappearing service caused by movement around the office where coverage is spotty.

Samsung/Android should Copy and Paste that chunk of Apple code.

Clarkson: 'I WILL find and KILL the spammers who hacked me'

JeffyPooh
Pint

JC makes more in a week than the PoTUS makes in a year

Just sayin'.

Baby-boulder bowling burglar breaks Boulder Apple Store's $100k glass door

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: $100k for a glass door?

The glass door itself was only $5,995. The special pentalobe screws to install it cost the other $94,000.

Russian boffins race to meteorite crash lake as shard prices go sky-high

JeffyPooh
Pint

$33M damage

It'd be ironic (not quite the correct word) if or when the total sales of rock reaches $34M.

Tesla vs Media again as Model S craps out on journo - on the highway

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Question for the crowd

Parax, thanks.

"Gasoline engines ... 35% efficient. ...electric motor ... 90%."

It's bit unfair to isolate the vehicle from the end-to-end environment impact of the entire fuel chain. The gasoline powered car contains its own power station. How does the CO2 emissions per unit distance driven compare assuming that the Telsa is recharged at each night from a coal-powered power station (quite a reasonable assumption for many)?

"In the Tesla 85kWh will get you 300+ miles..."

Apparently not under some typical real world conditions (this being the bone of contention).

Where I see hope is that if the Telsa were improved by just +3dB (x2), that sort of e-car would perfectly practical. As it is now, I don't believe that they are.

On top of this though is that some of us need a much larger five seat car. A practical Tesla (if you can call such an expensive sports car "practical") might be just five years away, but a practical e-E-Class might be 20 years out.

As *all* the car shows have concluded, the future does not lie in packing cars full of mobile phone batteries.

JeffyPooh
Pint

Re: Cold weather and cold batteries

AC: "Opening air ducts does not constitute 'infinite cooling'."

What is this? ...'Failure of Imagination' Week?

The car designer, assuming that he/she has obtained a brain and had it installed, could EASILY arrange for the battery pack to be both highly insulated (so that it would require only a few watts of power to keep it toasty warm on a dark and stormy night), and equipped with selectable air ducts (with uC controlled doors) that could provide effectively ten times more air cooling than would ever be required (effectively "infinite", same as if the battery pack were not insulated at all). The concept of a controllable air system in no way impedes the required cooling. Not even close. 30+dB margin.

The fact that a cold battery pack in the frosty morning is a apparently a real world problem when the electric car is ***still connected to the National Electric Grid*** is crystal clear evidence of just how f-in stupid these car designers really are. Perhaps they all live in Southern California and don't get out much... Daft.

Cold batteries in electric cars is a stupid design flaw that is trivial to fix for 90% of the cases.

Battery temperature should *only* be a limitation in the remaining extreme case where the car is parked away from commercial power for extended durations and there's no sunshine. For example, parked at in the distant cheap parking lot at an Alaskan airport in the dark dead of winter for six weeks. There's nothing much that could be done in such extreme cases, except perhaps to deploy a little windmill, or include a radioisotope thermal generator.