Posts by Tim

Every cloud...

Maybe the UK market will now be flooded with very cheap offers of those awesome Fujitsu convertible tablet PCs.

@ AC, re Green issues

IIRC, some years ago the US changed the coolant in their ICBMs to something CFC-free, so in the event of a global nuclear war there wouldn't be such an impact to the ozone layer.

Strange but true (unless I fell for a hoax...)

Great idea

This actually sounds a great idea, though I cannot see the UK moving over to it.somehow. The UK Govt would probably include an exemption for certain people (such as newspaper editors, politicians, quango members, & friendly party donors) too.

@joe

Have you been there? My reasons would include... (a) average US IT wage is >$72k (b) amazing landscapes to see (c) great cultural diversity (d) cheap housing compared to UK (e) petrol 40p/litre (f) civil liberties taken seriously, and (g), most importantly, some incredible independant eateries. There's more too.

A classic indeed

A temp PA I worked with last year had just spent 6 months at OGC in Norwich. She told us how amazing the place was, nobody seemed to do anything all day, except for her manager who spent literally all his time on a Norwich City FC club forum. Clearly all the gentlemen there were actually busying themselves in the cubicles.

Size...

According to the bulletin on MS site, SP3 is 70MB through Windows Update or 580MB through the Download Centre (which presumably includes the whole os (???)).

Sadly, Windows Update doesn't work on my pc either.

@ Dimitris

Yes, I thought that too.

But was it the NSA behind the Greece case, has there ever been much evidence of that? It's hard to overlook that Vodafone is UK-owned, and a hack of that complexity seems so unlikely to have been carried out by a 3rd party. Oddly enough the whole story got minimal coverage in the UK mainstream press too.

So...

Have this come out now because they are just about to admit that they have lost the discs containing the information on this family?

Actually, the whole grubby exercise is pretty unsurprising. Here in Norwich you used to see the council's CCTV camera pointed into the window of the lingerie dept of M & S. I alerted M & S to this & the council then changed the camera into a globe-type one, so you can't see where it points.

Can't blame them for saying this

It would be a nightmare job trying to intercept traffic & police it. Presumably you'd have to check each p2p packet to see if it was a download/upload of a copyrighted song/movie or if it was just some, er, amateur production which was without copyright. That said, is copyright automatic, and if so can it be waived?

Perhaps more people may like to make a habit of sharing non-copyright material. However, that said, say I take a recording of me playing Bohemian Rhapsody on the spoons, which would presumably be non-copyright, how do engines like the pirate bay pick up it's existence; i.e. how does one create a brand new torrent link? It's probably obvious to many.

time delays

lol @ grow up. who should?

Don't forget that the 1996 regulations require them to make the report public "in the shortest time possible".

In this incident where all parties involved are fully available for interview still, and all parts of the aircraft are fully available for inspection and control systems are basically intact, there should not be the delays in publishing which can arise with more major incidents such as those over water or other difficult terrain, for which the regulations still expect a conclusion within a year.

At last

The Victorian practice of covering table legs has been vindicated.

Before dismissing biofuels...

Don't forget that currently farmers are paid to not grow things by classifying part of their land as "set-aside"; if the expansion of biofuel production is at risk of impacting on food production capability, we should cease the practice of set-aside. It was introduced due to the old grain mountains etc that the EU used to create, but is highly outdated now. Though it is a very lucrative system for the farmer so they would need to be compensated for its removal.

Though Honda & their lobbyists won't like this...

News?

Is this new? I thought I read months ago that the Oyster card had been cracked. Maybe Bruce Schneier mentioned it, or it's somewhere on http://rfidiot.org/ , but I can't spot it on either.

Or maybe I dreamt it. Oh dear.

Maybe

The cybercrime unit would consider spam as one of it's primary targets? It's about time someone did something.

As for the rest, er is this the same Tory party that 6 months ago was proposing to abolish the Data Protection Act? A nice bit of consistency.

@heystoopid

Those Aussie cops need to learn a bit about handling the news of such, er, mishaps from their Greek colleagues:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2000/11/06/whij06.xml

Opt out

So, how long before the Govt announces an opt out of this, citing security reasons?

a quarter of all drink-related deaths could be prevented by a ten per cent rise in taxes on... ?????

And just how was that statistic derived? Dice? So, howcome in the rest of Europe where the taxes are much lower they don't have these problems?

It's a sad indictment of todays mainstream media that so called experts come up with such shockingly simplistic approaches to complex problems and can publish them as a serious suggestion.

One for the rocket scientists....

So, these missiles, if by chance they were to miss, would they be going fast enough to permanently escape the gravitational field & leave orbit, or would they eventually return to earth? If the latter, how long might it take?

@matt

I don't go in for calling people morons. Howeever, I would point out that contrary to your "nobody has ever said anything about global cooling.", I actually spent two years in the 1980s studying the forthcoming ice age, which was a certainty at the time.

BA still flying them!

So there was definitely a fault with the plane, and BA are still flying them ... what happened to risk assessment?

About that windtunnel...

Ok, I'm not too familiar with current windtunnel design admittedly, however I'm amazed to read "and there have been successful windtunnel tests at Mach 6+.". Some jolly impressive fans there... pics please!

It's not surprising...

Has anyone actually tried choosing equipment based on green criteria? I tried this on a number of printers a while back, bear in mind that the accountants want some objective data for the decision to be based on, and found it next to impossible. Each printer maker has many green claims, but very few facts underlying them, and there is no independant data available from anyone. I even tried the FOE and Greenpeace but they have no data at all, they didn't even have advice on the criteria to consider. From simple facts like expected lifespan and ability to operate on recycled cartridges, to more complex measures of energy used during manufacture - nothing. And as for paper, some say recycled is best, others suggest Forest Stewardship Council approved - however the FSC don't seem to publish their approval criteria or answer emails about it. Surely they're not all just pushing the green badging to try to increase their sales?

Connections?

It is interesting that this new threat has appeared shortly after the disappearance of the Russian Business Network and when the Storm Worm is losing its power too, perhaps there is a connection to one or both. Presumably their operators are in need of a new income source and are among the limited number of people who have the ability and motivation to create this type of threat.

Also, albeit more tenuously, the RBN was believed to be routed through the UK, where this is focussed on too.

@ Nick

AFAIK, few UK cities have those systems yet- but they rely on a transponder;

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/regional/buses/bpf/busprioritythewayahead12/busprioritythewayaheadhtmlve1073?page=8

Presumably, a grabber is all you need. I doubt they bother with encryption either.

Such a shame

Kids shouldn't be deterred from having mobiles. It would deprive us of such wondeful moments as I encountered on an afternoon train from London some 18 months ago. A group of 3 schoolgirls, who I somewhat doubt were from Cheltenham Ladies College, sat down in the next seats to me. They were going away for a girls weekend, which is why they had had already started drinking of course, and their charmingly loud conversation was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a text message ..." aww, I gotta tex' from Rikki already" was announced to the carriage. Then a few moments later "he's missing his mum".

Disgraceful

This shocking and disgraceful event is a flagrant breach of the Data Protection Act and the people and ministers responsible should be prosecuted.

Recent improvements?

Has VMWare improved much in the last couple of years? In 05 I worked on a VMWare project for about 6 months & the most remarkable aspect was the project's exclusion list, e.g. servers that couldn't be virtualised because they were the wrong type, had too much traffic, ran at too high CPU, iirc there were about 20 valid exclusion criteria.

Isn't this dangerous

Who would drive through an urban neighbourhood at night in a car with this fitted? Once it's been cracked , if it hasn't already, it will be like a car delivery service for thieves and worse types.

I bet they don't even try to sell it in Jo'burg either.

But why is it still only by the month?

It's good to be able to buy it online, but why can you only buy a whole month's worth (or only cancel whole months)? As it is online, it should be possible to tax a car for as many days as you need, rather than an arbitrary minimum.

I haven't driven my car on the rad for 10 days, yet there is no way to claim back that unused £5+ worth of tax.