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User: stiggle

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Comments · 559

  1. Re:Wait... on UVB-76 Explained · · Score: 1

    And it only decided to eradicate humanity when the humans posed a threat - they wanted to turn it off.

  2. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy on GPS Tracking Without a Warrant Declared Legal · · Score: 1

    Actually your driveway & front path does not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" as it is the access to your property for deliveries and such, unless are gated.
    Easy to avoid - but the car in the garage (once you've moved all the junk out).

  3. Re:Law? on Nokia Siemens Sued For Providing Monitoring Equipment To Iran · · Score: 1

    So an Iranian is suing a Finnish (Nokia Siemens is registered in Finland) company in a US court for actions someone else did in Iran using equipment they legitimately purchased?

    Of course the US courts will allow this because they want to be seen to be "defending democracy" rather than pointing out that they do not have jurisdiction on the case and perhaps the plaintiff should contact the courts in Finland or the EU where the company is based.

  4. Re:I doubt it... on First Review of Avatar Special Edition · · Score: 1

    The company would appeal to the marines to 'protect their interests' just like what happened in Hawaii.

  5. Re:More Details, Firmware Analysis on Samsung Galaxy Tablet Coming In September · · Score: 1

    Support schedule?

    How soon after this is released is Samsung going to stop supporting it. Ask anyone who owns an original Samsung Galaxy phone how long Samsung supported the product for.

  6. Why reuse a bill? on Senate Approves the ______Act Of____ · · Score: 1

    Its one thing I've never understood about US politics & bills in Congress.
    They reuse bills and bolt extra unrelated stuff onto the end of other bills.

    If you want to fund your bridge to nowhere, you shouldn't be allowed to bolt it onto a defence budget bill, a transport bill perhaps. but not defence or anything unrelated to road transport.

    If you're not going to submit a bill then bin it - don't reuse it.
    If you're going to table amendments then make sure they're related to the bill itself and you should only be able to amend the detail and not the substance of the bill. If you don't like the substance then reject the bill completely, bounce it back to the House with the Senates issues and get them to rewrite it.

    Hey, it might even become more democratic that way :-)

  7. Re:Phone home? on Canonical Begins Tracking Ubuntu Installations · · Score: 1

    The script is in Python, the code is only on OEM installations - unless you install it yourself.

    This is probably at the request of the OEM to see how many people keep the installed OS and how many instantly wipe & reinstall.

    So you can check the python script if you install it to see what it does - or install the source package for it and check that.

    Even the article itself gives an example of how to remove it if you don't like the idea of the data being collected.

  8. Re:and... on Google Secret Privacy Document Leaked · · Score: 1

    All you need is for them to think you will pull the trigger.
    If you have a bad enough reputation then it will work.

  9. Re:lemme get this straight on MP Wants Official Email Address Kept Private · · Score: 1

    The emails are from his constituents - channelled through the pressure group.
    If someone in Esher does it - they get Dominic Raab, if someone in Kendal does it then they get Tim Farron.

    Its like collecting signatures - all those people have signed the same letter, just in this case the people send the letters individually to their own MP rather than turning up at Westminster with a box containing all the signatures.

  10. Re:Let me tell you... on Barnes and Noble Bookstore Chain Put In Play · · Score: 1

    I'm sure someone said the same thing about Lehman Brothers being unlikely to fold.
    If they can't afford to run the bricks and mortar stores they have then they will fold. The name might be valuable, but if people like you don't buy stuff from them then they will fold.

  11. Re:If you've nothing to hide... on Facing 16 Years In Prison For Videotaping Police · · Score: 3, Informative

    The undercover trooper threatened the rider twice "get off the bike", "get off the bike" and only identified himself (without showing any identification) as State Police when he'd got up to the bike.

    Surely in all the time they were following the bike, he'd be able to put his badge on somewhere visible, like on a lanyard around his neck, or clipped to his jacket.

    The first words out of the state troopers mouth when he exited the vehicle should have been "State Police, get off the bike".
    Identification first - to show jurisdiction - and then the orders.

    A sensible cop would have taken him down to the station, got a copy of the video footage and then used that to prosecute the guy.

    The police in the UK have used YouTube video as evidence before now on charging people for dangerous driving - the biker had a distinctive jacket which they traced. As it is, this idiot is likely to get off the charges due to incompetency by the cops.

  12. Re:Mistake on US Space Policy Update Urges International Cooperation · · Score: 1

    The orbit of the ISS was also changed from a useful one we could have used as a staging post for further missions, to the mess it is now so it orbits over Russia and is in basically a useless orbit for anything else.

    Also due to the Columbia accident some interesting parts were cancelled - centrifugal base artificial gravity, X-38 CRV (that project got passed to the Air Force to function as what seems to be a returnable spy satellite system.

    International co-operation is good - ESA has shown it can be done. But then the Europeans are already fairly well linked up for co-operation and have been doing it for years on other stuff (Airbus, etc).

  13. Re:Words on Hardware Companies Team Up To Fight Mobile Linux Fragmentation · · Score: 1

    Fight is "action"
    Promote is "passive"

    Both are "marketing"

    Therefore if you want to convey the synergy of the stakeholders within the working group committee then you need to be forthcoming in the policy statement to delineate the competing elements and actively market your intentions.

    PS. I've been writing crap for management too often the last few weeks - I'm sorry :-)

  14. Re:When News Channels quote Twitter... on Google's Plan To Save the News Through Reinvention · · Score: 1

    You know the TV stations are failing at reporting the news when they're quoting opinions from tweets and reading stuff from other online news sites.

  15. Re:Case in point on NASA Expands Role of International Space Station · · Score: 1

    Its part of Obama's plans to commercialize space.

    Commercialize manned launchers, commercialize the target for those launches.
    If companies start seeing benefits from experiments conducted on their behalf in the ISS, then they will be willing to put more money into extending its life & getting more people up there - which will hopefully bring more money into the space program.

  16. Re:Conclusions from googling.. on Volcano Futures · · Score: 1

    But small planes & helicopters tend to stay below a few thousand feet and so are below the main altitudes for the ash (unless its getting flushed to ground with a rain shower).

  17. Re:Seems perfectly reasonable to me... on In EU, Google Accused of YouTube "Free Ride" · · Score: 1

    Isn't Google already looking at becoming a fibre based ISP in parts of the USA?

  18. Re:Double-dipping is not unheard of on In EU, Google Accused of YouTube "Free Ride" · · Score: 1

    You mean like the **AA collecting a fee from the radio stations, then also demanding a fee from companies who have a radio playing in the background as its a 'public performance'.

  19. Re:Feels like cheating on Another Contender For the Land Speed Record · · Score: 4, Informative

    I used to follow the North American Eagle when they were originally developing their car, but they came across as whining kids complaining about the Brits coming over to break the records in the US and taking the technology back with them, which is odd seeing as Thrust SSC was on the desert at the same time as the Spirit of America team and shared stuff with them. (The SoA should have had the time slot for the run when SSC broke the record, but they let the Brits use it as their car was performing better and they had a chance at the record).

    Probably just complaining because the Thrust SSC data wasn't made available to them to copy - although the Bloodhound SSC data is being made publically available. The thing to remember about Bloodhound is that it is a project primarily to get kids interested in science & engineering again and breaking 1000mph is just an extra.

  20. Re:Truly on Stand and Deliver Teacher Jaime Escalante Dies · · Score: 1

    Here troll - have some food....

    Africans identify themselves by continent, as do Asians.
    "African-American" - 2 continents identifying someone's heritage. I'd have thought if they were using countries then it would be Kenyan-American or Mauritanian-American, etc.

    Not sure what the penguins in Antarctica identify themselves as though.

  21. Re:What gets around Firewalls and AVS? on How To Avoid a Botnet Infection? · · Score: 1

    First of all they need a firewall which doesn't block everything.

    A decent firewall blocks everything, then allows specific stuff through.
    So you block everything - then allow ports 80 & 443 out through a caching proxy, you allow SMTP & IMAP - but only to your own mailservers, etc.

    Incoming connections are either redirected to the company servers or completely blocked.

  22. Re:A false choice, of course... Mass here... on Health Care Reform · · Score: 1

    And after being diagnosed - whats his chances of getting health cover from anyone else?

    I know a number of people who have moved out of mainland USA due to being unable to get health insurance due to medical conditions. Fortunately they were able to move to places where social healthcare is provided.

  23. Re:Google rising. What does Viacom stand to gain? on Google Slams Viacom For Secret YouTube Uploads · · Score: 1

    Some parts of Viacom are thinking long term....

    Watch the clips of The Daily Show on YouTube and you're more likely to watch it on TV to get the whole show as it is rather good. This then increases the advertising revenue for those shows ad slots as the viewer figures increase.

    Same reason why a lot of bands have their music videos up there - watch the video and you're more likely to go see the band or spend money on their merchandise & products.

    Viacom should be thinking of YouTube as a large collection of trailers people explicitly want to go see. Perhaps that's the problem - they're not getting the user info feedback on those people who do watch the trailers.

  24. Re:Easier solution on The Bloodhound Will Stay On the Ground At 1,000 mph · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Its a jet engine pushing it up towards 1000mph, but its a solid fuelled rocket (liquid oxidiser) that pushes it over.
    A lot of their design towards the end of last year was deciding whether to put the Jet over Rocket (JoR) or Rocket over Jet (RoJ) in the tail of the vehicle.

    They decided on the JoR configuration as it provided better stability & airflow through the jet.

    This project is also about getting kids interested in engineering again, and they're making their data publicly available.

    They've been touring with the full size model of the car visiting towns doing workshops with the school kids about the stuff they're doing and experiments & tests the kids can do themselves. They were kind enough to park the car outside my office when they were in my home town.

  25. Re:Another... on Mariposa Botnet Beheaded · · Score: 1

    You won't see a reduction until the ISPs start to be accountable for their users.
    ISP should be pro-active in managing connections - only open up certain ports where the users have requested it.
    eg. SMTP - home users should only be able to connect to port 25 on their ISPs mail server.
    Do home users need remote access to Windows Filesharing? I don't think so, so the ISPs could block those ports by default too.

    The old days of only clueful people connected to the net are long gone (by about 20 years).