Posts by Jeffrey Nonken

"'...is the wrong path forward,' industry body CITA claimed."

Hey, he's absolutely right. The correct path forward is for incumbent service providers to actually compete by offering superior service, instead of abusing the legislature by bribing them to pass laws preventing competition.

And it would be nice if they didn't lock out any further competition. Open up their infrastructure and charge reasonable rates so other businesses can build on them.

Yeah. Our wonderful Congress is looking out for us by putting band-aids on bad laws rather than... I dunno, say, fixing those laws?

Well, at least it's better than nothing.

Obvious to humans?

Only obvious to humans who have learned these things. At 3yo I doubt I'd ever heard of a savannah or the stock market. And were he told an airplane had a nose, my 3yo self would likely imagine a real flesh-and-blood human nose, complete with nostrils, attached to the front. It's easy to dismiss learned facts as "obvious to anybody" when in fact they're only obvious if you know them.

Destroying data in order to save it?

Been there, done that. See "core memory".

Right-o then

Closed is the new open.

My father claims to have attended one of her classes, and described the bits of wire she carried around.

I know. Nobody cares. But it is a personal connection for me, if indirect. Only two degrees.

"And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren't bound by a service agreement or other obligation..."

And if you are, then it's contractual, which is already covered by separate law and doesn't require lame-ass copyright law extensions brought about by regulatory capture.

The only reason for locking a phone in the first place is vendor lock-in, which is what you do when you're too stupid and selfish to understand how customer loyalty works.

It's the last refuge of the incompetent.

Anyway, while I'm glad to see that the White House has managed to pull its head out for a little while, it would be even nicer if it did something a bit more proactive. So far it's just smoke.

Probably already been mentioned, but...

...long extension cord for your car charger. Less convenient than the aforementioned UPS but probably cheaper. :)

The US is SO much better. All we have to do is wade through 55 minutes of commercials for an hour show, and those 5 minutes of actual programming are free! Go us.

Ummmmm

... Let's see. Poor coverage causes poor reception. Poor reception induces your cell phone to boost its signal. This reduces battery life and... Oh!... increases the radiation levels surrounding the cell phone.

I don't know how wide a proximity that affects (that is, other people in the same room) but your kids are going to grow up without parents because you died of cancer before you reached 40. Because that cell phone in your pocket is blasting its signal into your hip at full power. Could be doing interesting things to your potential future children, too. Congratulations.

Why isn't there a tin-foil hat icon? This needs one of those.

Duct tape and ariels

Actually, according to some sources, duct tape was not invented for taping ducts. In fact, it's not very good for taping ducts. I know -- I've tried. Totally and completely useless for taping air conditioning ducting, for example; it falls off in about 10 minutes.

There's some disagreement about its origin but some claim that it was called "duck tape" because of its resemblance to cotton duck, which is a type of fabric.

No waterfowl need apply. But the point is that there's no unquestionable source proving that "duck tape" is incorrect.

As for "ariels", try "aerials" instead. If you're going to split hairs about spelling, first make sure you have your ducts all in a row. Er, I mean ducks.

Retrospect rocks!

It's a nice, clean way to automate your backups. I've been using it for years. Finally switched to removable hard drives as my backup medium when my 5th tape drive died -- DDS3 is so last century.

The key here is "automated". People are lazy, only the most dedicated (or paranoid) will regularly run backups by hand. By automating the system you get to set it up once, then just monitor and tweak it once in a while, swapping media every so often.

Retrospect does well for this.

What's more is that it's cross-platform. I can (and have) backed up Windows, Mac, and Linux clients from the same server. I just wish they'd cut prices a bit on their multi-system licensing. Raising prices sounds like a great way to make more profit, but in the long run it may just lose you customers. And aside from creating CDs and packaging (which is dirt cheap) it's not like the software is a finite resource. Make it cheap enough and hobbyists will buy it in droves, not to mention small businesses.

I was disappointed when I heard that Retrospect 8 was canceled and EMC was talking about dropping it altogether. I'm glad it's still around, and hope that Sonic will do something with it besides let it collect dust.

Anyway, enough babbling! MHO, YMMV.

Pics or it didn't happen!

... Oh wait, never mind.

:)

Nice little titties. Thanks.

Nagging isn't security

Some of us don't consider nagging three extra times before renaming a file to actually be better security. It's just the ILLUSION of better security, and Top Security Firm seems to have been hypnotized into believing the illusion.

It also doesn't add to security to nag people so incessantly that they get into the habit of reflexively answering "Yes" to every prompt just so they can get things done. I wonder if this report took that into account?

... Not that I have any love for Windows 7. I just dislike it fractionally less than I dislike Vista.

Let's help those industries beat up their own customers

"...new laws designed to protect the music, film and software industries."

Um, and why do they need protecting? They've proven quite able to beat up customers and cheat artists on their own.

Or are we protecting them from their own reactionary stupidity? I'm not sure I need my tax dollars being spent on that. "Adapt or die" is for everybody, not just the dinosaurs.

(Though in this case it's not my own tax dollars that would be spent, seeing as how I live in the U.S. of A. Consider it a metaphorical statement.)

Grammar Nazi here

"...and with who they share this information with."

Um, try: "...and with whom they share this information."

A philosophical question: does calling myself a Grammar Nazi in a comment invoke Godwin's Law? O_o

@Wilkinson et. al.

Read The Fine Article. It said he'd emptied his accounts (and his apartment) PRIOR to the heist. That means "before". So, no, he didn't rip off 11.6m and then pause to do anything.

@Ben Ruset

I happen to like the Sidekick, and until a few days ago I was considering buying an LX. I miss a lot of nice features on my old SKII, starting with the keyboard.

And for the record, I haven't been 13 for 38 years and some months.

Just because you don't find value in something doesn't mean nobody else should either. Thinking otherwise is just arrogant presumption.

Oh deary me

How ever am I going to find thepiratebay.org now?

Over-reaction? No. Not really.

The Secret Service are required to treat ANY death threats to the President as potentially serious.

@censored

That's spelling, not grammar. Though you might be able to make a case for punctuation.

@Simon Dummett

And it happens on humans, too. Then there are those who through birth defects or accident have fewer than the norm. However, the NORM for cats is to have five claws up front, four in back, per paw.

Otherwise the real number is "indeterminate". "If not... well, they have some indeterminate number of claws, naught or more - and know how to use them" just somehow doesn't have the same impact.

@The elephant in the room

Because shopping mall names in South Philly just don't have the same ring.

Gnnnn!

People: It's "viruses", not "virii", fer cryin' out loud!

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/latinlearning/f/virusplural.htm

http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/plural-of-virus.html

...and many others.

*grinds teeth in frustration*

And BTW it's "waive", not "wave". Sorry, this one's not intended to be a rant, just thought I'd mention it.

@Michael C: You know, buying a virus scanner subscription is not the only way to secure a system. And it's not the only way to clean up an infection. In fact, installing a virus scanner after-the-fact is generally useless for any virus worth a damn.

Wiping a system clean and re-installing the OS is VERY affective at removing a virus and does not require a purchase. How do you take a screenshot of that?

Throwing away a system and buying a new one is just as effective and doesn't require the purchase of anti-virus software.

There's also ClamAV.

I find it interesting that your scheme considers proof of the effort to be superior to the actual effort of cleaning up. Beware of unintended consequences, my friend: people WILL game the system. Adding more rules to prevent it will just make a mess of things. Apply the KISS principle here: if you can detect an infection, you can detect when it's been cleaned up. Giving people an "A" for effort is all very friendly but doesn't solve any problems, because the infection is still there, and it complicates the situation by requiring elaborate methods for providing proof and locks out some very effective eradication methods. If the customer wipes out his OS and starts over, and his infection goes away and he stops spamming or botnetting or whatever, by your scheme you would continue to charge him!

What if he decides never to acknowledge your E-mail? He gets a free ride.

It's also a very elaborate scheme for making the ISP keep detailed logs, provide hands-on analysis, notify, verify, and so on.

I think your heart's in the right place but I think you're over-thinking this one. By bending over backwards to give the individual the benefit of the doubt you've put a tremendous amount of effort on the ISP and made it impossible to employ. Don't be so concerned about the rights of the individual that you forget the rights of the community.

Bear traps.

'Nuff said.

@Pain In Arse

"I have WGA running on 3 computers here and to be fair it is invisible to me, even when running off the net. Its not like it was disabling my computer or bugging me for clicks. It seems to me that to sue over it you have to prove some kind of harm. Probably that's why those suits are going nowhere."

Yet another person with the arrogance to assume that if something works for HIM, the problems 30 million other people have cannot possibly be significant.

Hey, guess what? MY notebook battery hasn't blown up. All you folks missing limbs and suffering third degree burns are just whining about nothing.

Enough 'armless jokes...

...They don't have a leg to stand on.