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User: jonbryce

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Comments · 4,419

  1. Re:What about Interstate Highways? on Legal Group Says Unlimited Broadband Promotes Piracy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In Britain, a pretty large proportion of bandwidth is used for iPlayer downloads, which are legal. Youtube is also very popular, and is mostly legal - they have a royalty agreement with the MCPS.

    Most people who don't read slashdot find it very difficult to use peer to peer software and to find reliable downloads that actually are what they say they are without any trojans added.

  2. Re:STFU needs to be heard. on Shuttleworth Suggests 1-Way Valve For User Experience Testing · · Score: 1

    I don't doubt that, but most normal users prefer XP to Vista.

  3. GPL Violation? on Google Serves a Cease-and-Desist On Android Modder · · Score: 0, Troll

    I thought Android was supposed to be Free Software / Open Source Software?

  4. Re:information smuggling? on High-Tech Gadgets Can Pose Problems At Mexican Border · · Score: 1

    The X-Ray will pick it up. Inside a cake is probably the worst place to put it. You would probably be better putting it inside a camera, with some harmless looking snaps in the DCIM folder. If they use the camera to look at the pictures, they most likely won't find anything else.

  5. Re:like those DVDs on How Hardware Makers Come To Violate Free Software Licenses · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's only a problem if you live in one of the tiny minority of countries that recognise software patents. Most countries however recognise copyrights in one form or another, though they differ in when the copyrights expire.

  6. Re:STFU needs to be heard. on Shuttleworth Suggests 1-Way Valve For User Experience Testing · · Score: 1

    I'm still on KDE 3. KDE 4 seems like the free software community's answer to Vista.

  7. Re:We are our own problem. on Shuttleworth Suggests 1-Way Valve For User Experience Testing · · Score: 1

    But what if the problem is that the user is using the wrong software for the task at hand?

    I've seen people who use Excel for pretty much everything, when they should be using Word, Access, an accounts package, a desktop publishing package or some other program.

  8. Re:Revisit this in a year's time on Microsoft Says Google Chrome Frame Makes IE Less Secure · · Score: 1

    An attack page has the choice of using plain vanilla IE rendering, in which case it has the same chance of getting through whether you have the plugin or not, or it could use the plugin, in which case even one vulnerability in the plugin means that having the plugin makes your system less secure.

    Apple do release security updates for Safari from time to time, and some of those relate to the webkit engine that Chrome uses, so I would say there is a pretty good chance of at least one vulnerability in this plugin in the next year.

  9. Re:I've got an idea on Newly Declassified FBI Docs Reveal Predictive Data System · · Score: 1

    Yes, English. If you want to express amounts of money in units other than dollars, you have to type the html code for the currency unit rather than the character on your keyboard.

  10. Re:Dodgy statesmen on Microsoft Tax Dodge At Issue In Washington State · · Score: 1

    There are places in Europe which are tax havens for businesses. Luxembourg is quite popular, as is Ireland. Isle of Man, Jersey, Gurnsey, Channel Islands, Leichtenstein, Andorra and a few other small countries have no Corporate Taxes, as does Gibraltar, but I believe that's changing.

  11. Re:Dodgy statesmen on Microsoft Tax Dodge At Issue In Washington State · · Score: 1

    In Europe they put all their sales through Ireland for much the same reason, even though their sales force works out of offices in England.

  12. Re:iPlayer on Microsoft Awarded Patent For Peer-To-Peer DRM · · Score: 4, Informative

    They've ditched the p2p version. You can now either download .wmv files directly from their servers, or use their Adobe AIR interface to download flash video directly.

    Channel 4 have also pretty much ditched their p2p offering in favour of flash video. ITV never had a p2p offering, but they've ditched their silverlight video in favour of flash video.

    That leaves Sky. They did at one point have a Kontiki p2p offering. They might still do.

  13. Re:Hmm... on US Wants UK Hacker To Pay To Fix Holes He Exposed · · Score: 1

    If he's the one I think he is, he was looking around for evidence of aliens, discovered that the administrator account had no password, went in, had a look round, found no aliens and left a note telling them they needed to set a password on their computer.

  14. Re:trademark on Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food? · · Score: 1

    No, you would patent trademarking.

  15. Re:Trademark the Hamburger on Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food? · · Score: 2, Funny

    1. Hamburg gets a PDO on Hamburger
    2. Attempts to licence to McDonalds
    3. McDonalds starts calling them Beefburgers
    4. No profit

  16. Re:Just like Europe on Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food? · · Score: 2, Informative

    In England, we call them "chips". The things you call chips, we call "crisps".

  17. Re:Well, it appears it was English beforehand... on Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food? · · Score: 1

    Well the haggis animal very definitely lives on the Scottish mountains. That is just some cheap synthetic knock off.

  18. Re:What happens when... on California Publishes Television Efficiency Standards For 2011 · · Score: 1

    I guess you can find models that are available in both the US and Europe - Toyota Prius, Volkswagen Golf and Mini for example, and compare the fuel efficiencies as measured under US rules and EU rules. The point I was making is that Ford manages to make cars in Europe that have comparable fuel efficiencies to those from other manufacturers. They could sell those models in the US if they wanted to, and Americans were prepared to buy them.

    The Volkswagen Golf is often mentioned in the US as one of the most fuel efficient cars around. If you went into a Volkswagen dealer in Europe and asked them for the most efficient car, they would sell you a Polo. That does 74.3 mpg (British gallons, EU measurement rules). There are three cars that are more efficient than that - Seat Ibiza 76.3 mpg (Spanish subsidiary of Volkswagen), Ford Fiesta also 76.3 mpg, and the Smart Fortwo 85.6 mpg. The Golf does 62.8 mpg for comparison.

  19. Re:What happens when... on California Publishes Television Efficiency Standards For 2011 · · Score: 1

    Ford can get 76.3 mpg. http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/NewFiesta/NewFiestaECOnetic
    Although I don't think that model is available in the US.

  20. Re:Why televisions, though? on California Publishes Television Efficiency Standards For 2011 · · Score: 1

    Europe has been mandating more efficient boilers since about 2005. I would have thought that electric heating is 100% efficient.

  21. Re:About time... on California Publishes Television Efficiency Standards For 2011 · · Score: 1

    LCD screens may use less electricity, but Plasma screens use a lot more. Also, screens have got a lot bigger than they used to be, and bigger screens mean more electricity everything else being equal.

  22. Re:Smell of desperation on Pirate Bay Buyer Sued For Bankruptcy · · Score: 1

    But my guess is that this was just a way for a nearly bankrupt company to ramp up the share price temporarily so that certain insiders could sell out before it did go down.

  23. Re:free speech on Mozilla Firefox Not In Violation of US Export Rules · · Score: 1

    Yes it is, due to the First Amendment, and it does make the restrictions very nearly mute except that they already were.

  24. Re:Oblig xkcd... on Mozilla Firefox Not In Violation of US Export Rules · · Score: 1

    And you could still export it anyway. What you had to do was print out the source code, mail it to someone in Europe and have them scan it in and re-compile it.

    Given that Russian cryptographers are at least as good as American ones, what is the point of it anyway?

  25. Re:Some people. on Skype Founders File Copyright Suit Against eBay · · Score: 0, Troll

    You depreciate your assets over their expected useful economic life. Beautiful young women quickly turn into ugly middle aged women, so there is a finite useful life.