2. Stuff that is connected to the internet, make sure you have a non-connected backup system (you know, like there used to be before the internet was invented)
3. That's it.
OK, so when there's an "attack" things happen a bit slower and more inconveniently but it's not going to hurt anyone.
And who cares if FaceTwitterTube+ goes offline. Oh, wait, the sheeple will have to face "real life" TM.
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
@AC 12:49
"What about those police jobs where 'silent response' with no blue lights or sirens is called for?"
Then they are not allowed to speed. If arriving unnoticed is required, arriving at speed would defeat the objective: " 'ang on, what's all these cars screeching to a halt outside all about then?"
Why do so many supposedly intelligent people get so worked up when talking about driving and speeding? Have we been infiltrated by a bunch of Daily Fail readers?
As for the article, the system cannot determine the quality of driving - bad drivers don't all break the speed limit but may drive too fast for wet conditions for example. All the system can do is give the insurance companies another way to avoid paying out since all the box can tell the insurers is whether or not you were breaking the speed limit and if you were, you won't be covered since breaking the limit is illegal.
Of course, the insurance companies will try to make it sound good, pay-as-you-go insurance for example (pay less for quiet times, etc) but it'll still end up as expensive as normal insurance (they'll make sure it does to keep profits up).
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
@AC 12:49
"which specific law of physics is changed by flashing blue lights, sirens, driver training etc?"
I didn't say that the laws of physics changed. When they speed they do so in a way that alerts everyone around them such that there is a clear, unobstructed path for them. There will be no pedestrians, cars, whatever in their way. Breaking the speed limit without the sirens / lights means there's a good chance you'll hit someone / something that wasn't expecting you to be going that fast. Going at 60mph, you'd travel over 100m in the time it takes for someone to cross a road (much further if they're shepherding children / aged / etc). If the crossing is not visible from 100m away, should you be doing 60? And how would you know that it's not OK to do 60? A speed limit perhaps?
...as citizens we agree to abide by the law of the land and the speed limit is part of the law. We do not get to choose which laws apply to us and when (there do appear to be some politicians that have trouble understanding this...).
If you think a speed limit is too low or too high, contact your local council - they have people whose job it is to review roads and make improvements, this also includes junction layouts and anything else you can do to a road.
Motorways are safe because that's how they have been designed. For example:
* There is a barrier between you and oncoming traffic
* There are no pedestrians, cyclists, horses or underpowered motorbikes
* Traffic joins and leaves the motorway at the speed of the traffic on the motorway (i.e. traffic filters onto / off the motorway)
* Relative speeds are quite small
Having condition-dependent limits is a stupid idea as it requires common sense and an amount of judgement not seen in the average driver. Plus, it becomes a subjective limit - what would happen if you think it's safe to do 90 but a police officer thinks the 80 is the most you should be doing?
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
"If you're overtaking a car you want to get past as fast as possible and if that means breaking the speed limit for a few seconds so be it."
That is illegal. You should not start a maneuver that you cannot complete safely. The correct thing to do when overtaking and there's a vehicle in front of you is to brake and pull in behind the thing you were overtaking. Speeding up just increases your chances of hitting the oncoming vehicle, slowing down gives you more time to avoid collisions.
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
But a functioning speedometer is a requirement of a motorised vehicle so you can't use "no [working] speedometer" as an excuse for speeding. Non-motorised vehicles do not need a speedometer.
Is it mandatory for cabinet ministers to have the common sense and intelligence removed upon entering office? So what, exactly, is wrong with Sea Harriers? OK, they're not the latest sexy kit but they work and are cheap. Buy some and with the money saved develop them to address their shortfalls. Of course, when they get the new kit, they'll then dream up reasons to show it off - Olympics Security Theatre anyone? because it'll be so easy to take out that lone terrorist with a backpack bomb with a Eurofighter!
"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
Any simpleton can take stuff apart and put it all back together again! When I were a lad, I had to dig all the parts out of the ground (geology) from the cemetery (with my bare hands!) and then work out how to stick 'em all together (anatomy) timing it with the local weather system (meterology) to get a good lightening storm at just the right point. There were extra marks available for the quality of the gothic architecture (art) in the lab and for the artistic merit of the maniacal laughter (drama).
Obvious - tax avoidance! All the money they plow into this can easily be reclaimed as R&D expense and thus get the tax benefits for it (current 225% in UK, i.e. for eavy £100 R&D you can reduce your taxable income by £225). The fact it's a cool project, would create/sustain hi-tech jobs and might actually work in some way is just a big bonus.
I did watch it all. But only in the hope that there might be some redeeming scene that made it all worth the torment. There wasn't. Started low, went downhill rapidly from there.
...all Apple needs to do is address the following points:-
1. Integrate STB and TV and make the software fast and responsive - I'm frequently being greeted with "Please Wait..." messages or very slow redraw times.
2. Make the UI intuitive. Most UIs I've seen have "designed by programmers" written all over them - on my STB it takes four or more clicks to record a program (click V+, select set new recording, select record from TV guide, select All channels, scroll to find program - slow, click to record)
3. Get rid of almost all the buttons on my remote control - really, why are we typing in channel numbers? I'm sure a controller with a click-wheel and a good UI could do everything my 30 button controller could do.
It amazes my that no other TV / STB maker has taken the Apple UI ideas and produced something that has Apple's quality to it.
I did see one remote control many years back that just had a central clickable scroll wheel with a volume rocker to the left and channel change rocker and the right. It was so easy to use.
That equation does not mean that mass increases when there's more energy! It means that the energy in a thing is equal to its mass times c squared. It's one or the other, not both. Energising a flash ram does not increase the mass. The electrons don't get more mass, they just get more energetic (more speed, higher orbit, etc). When I climb some stairs my mass doesn't go up, even though I've gained a whole lot of energy. What do they teach the kids these days!
I've seen many rubbish coders, some had degrees, some PhDs and some didn't have any higher qualifications at all. I've seen some great coders, again, some had degrees and some didn't. From my experience, having a degree is no indication of coding ability. Either you get it or you don't. There's an interesting paper at http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/paper1.pdf.
For added strength, use corrugated cyclinders - smaller version of what you get in a steam engine. I'm sure you could find a group of grey beardy types loosely grouped as a modelling society to knock one up for you for the price of a few pints of real ale. Saw that on WDYTYA last week.
"Now all we need to do is come up with reasonably efficient software that doesn’t waste processor cycles doing not much."
From what I've seen, most graduates have trouble writing a "Hello World" program in less the 50K. Youngsters these days never think about performance since they're used to super fast PCs with lots of RAM. Give them all ZX80s I say.
And to get there we need the best scientists and engineers at the best universities pushing the frontiers towards that goal without the burden of long term debt, heck, let's pay the best to go to university and help solve our future energy needs.
...then there'd only be one car manufacturer (four wheels and moves from A to B), one washing machine machufacturer (box that cleans clothes), one microwave oven manufacturer (box to heat food), etc....
This whole thing is just stupid. Not to mention the stifling of innovation.
...spending a few hours with the SoftIce debugger reverse engineering the Wolfenstein code to work out how it ran and then building my own (superior, of course) renderer that had more features and fixed the 45 degree bug.
The problem with wind is that it is volatile and unpredictable. In an ideal situation, your power generation would match the required demand, but in reality the demand is not constant. You don't just switch off power generators when you don't need them, it takes time. So, if there's a sudden gust of wind, it's not possible to turn down all the other generators in response to the spike in power from the wind farms. In fact, varying the output of a fossil fuel plant might be less efficent than keeping it running at a fixed rate.
So, in the end, wind isn't useful for general supply as it can't be switched on when required, and when it's generating you can't easily turn off other generators. So the best use I guess for wind power is to pump water back up into the reservoirs that feed the hydro electric stations.
the Japanese earthquake is on the same fault line as the New Zealand one that happened recently, known as the "Ring of Fire". This line goes north from Japan, accross to Alaska and down the west coast of the USA. Hold on tight California!
...a simple case of misunderstanding. Someone heard "Opera" and thought they heard "Oprah" and thought the app was a portal for Ms Winfrey's empire, which is certainly not sutable for minors. Come to think of it, it isn't really suitable for anyone.
The points system - letting in the educated people to take all the well paid / highly skilled jobs we've got so we don't have to spend money educating our own people!
"Motorists pay the same "general taxation" as cyclists and pedestrians do, and ADDITIONALLY they pay vehicle excise duty, fuel duty, VAT on fuel, motor insurance premium tax, the list goes on."
This would only be true if the cyclist didn't own a car. I guess there are a lot of cyclists that don't own cars, but then there are lots that do (and choose not to use them).
I own a car and cycle to work. So maybe I whould have a sign saying "Own's a car too, be nice to me, I'm making your journey quicker by reducing congestion".
Part of the idea behind fuel duty is to change behaviour - i.e. use public transport / cycle / walk / etc
So, we take a good, big word like vocabulary or lexicon and replace it with two simple words. Now, which book did that idea appear in? What, you want me to go into that room. Ok. Err, why's that rat in a cage?
,,,but if you looked at the drug problem from an economic/business point of view, the options to defeat the criminals is to provide drugs for a cheaper price. The government, being a non-profit organisation, could give the stuff away for nothing (their supply is the stuff they've seized from criminals). No one can make a profit, criminals move onto some other business. This reduces knock-on crimes (theft to pay for habit). Of course, you wouldn't just give drugs to anyone, you'd need to be an addict, and it'd have to be anonymous too. But you'd also be able to say "Look, here's how you get off the stuff". Chances any politician would do anything remotely like this?
...a few years back. I can easily imagine the amount of moaning this move has generated by the employees - enough, perhaps, to power a small town for a long time. The biggest gripe at the time my wife was there was about getting more money to travel further to work, especially as at the time a site midway between Southampton and Portsmouth was being considered. This really annoyed my wife as she had to do a hellish commute along the M27 everyday, and didn't get paid extra for it.
Sometimes, one wonders if people in the public sector have any idea what real work actually is.
"I do believe we will see far fewer incidents" - or, use a statistical phenomonen few people are aware of to make it look like what you're doing is working.
And as we all know, it's not just J9, the whole M25 is in the form of the dark sigil Odegra and is often considered Exhibit A for the existence of Satan!
Please learn about grammar. Your headline makes no sense, unless the ass in question was owned by a woman. It should be: "We've Saved an Ass" or "We've Saved Anapka the Ass".
Register
108 posts • joined Wednesday 13th August 2008 15:42 GMT
Page:
Re: Breaking up something large is PATENTED?
@Neill Barnes: Unless you're German, in which case you try to make every sentence just one big long word.
Steps required to prevent "cyber attacks"
1. Don't connect important stuff to the internet
2. Stuff that is connected to the internet, make sure you have a non-connected backup system (you know, like there used to be before the internet was invented)
3. That's it.
OK, so when there's an "attack" things happen a bit slower and more inconveniently but it's not going to hurt anyone.
And who cares if FaceTwitterTube+ goes offline. Oh, wait, the sheeple will have to face "real life" TM.
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
@AC 12:49
"What about those police jobs where 'silent response' with no blue lights or sirens is called for?"
Then they are not allowed to speed. If arriving unnoticed is required, arriving at speed would defeat the objective: " 'ang on, what's all these cars screeching to a halt outside all about then?"
It's amazing!
Why do so many supposedly intelligent people get so worked up when talking about driving and speeding? Have we been infiltrated by a bunch of Daily Fail readers?
As for the article, the system cannot determine the quality of driving - bad drivers don't all break the speed limit but may drive too fast for wet conditions for example. All the system can do is give the insurance companies another way to avoid paying out since all the box can tell the insurers is whether or not you were breaking the speed limit and if you were, you won't be covered since breaking the limit is illegal.
Of course, the insurance companies will try to make it sound good, pay-as-you-go insurance for example (pay less for quiet times, etc) but it'll still end up as expensive as normal insurance (they'll make sure it does to keep profits up).
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
@AC 12:49
"which specific law of physics is changed by flashing blue lights, sirens, driver training etc?"
I didn't say that the laws of physics changed. When they speed they do so in a way that alerts everyone around them such that there is a clear, unobstructed path for them. There will be no pedestrians, cars, whatever in their way. Breaking the speed limit without the sirens / lights means there's a good chance you'll hit someone / something that wasn't expecting you to be going that fast. Going at 60mph, you'd travel over 100m in the time it takes for someone to cross a road (much further if they're shepherding children / aged / etc). If the crossing is not visible from 100m away, should you be doing 60? And how would you know that it's not OK to do 60? A speed limit perhaps?
The point is...
...as citizens we agree to abide by the law of the land and the speed limit is part of the law. We do not get to choose which laws apply to us and when (there do appear to be some politicians that have trouble understanding this...).
If you think a speed limit is too low or too high, contact your local council - they have people whose job it is to review roads and make improvements, this also includes junction layouts and anything else you can do to a road.
Re: Decades of road safety research
Motorways are safe because that's how they have been designed. For example:
* There is a barrier between you and oncoming traffic
* There are no pedestrians, cyclists, horses or underpowered motorbikes
* Traffic joins and leaves the motorway at the speed of the traffic on the motorway (i.e. traffic filters onto / off the motorway)
* Relative speeds are quite small
Having condition-dependent limits is a stupid idea as it requires common sense and an amount of judgement not seen in the average driver. Plus, it becomes a subjective limit - what would happen if you think it's safe to do 90 but a police officer thinks the 80 is the most you should be doing?
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
"If speed is so dangerous then we must stop all police, fire and ambulance vehicles from exceeding any limit as they are endangering the public"
But when they are speeding, there's those bright flashing blue lights and really loud sirens to warn everyone for miles around that they are there.
Speeding without those lights and sirens should rightly be punishes - lead by example after all.
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
"If you're overtaking a car you want to get past as fast as possible and if that means breaking the speed limit for a few seconds so be it."
That is illegal. You should not start a maneuver that you cannot complete safely. The correct thing to do when overtaking and there's a vehicle in front of you is to brake and pull in behind the thing you were overtaking. Speeding up just increases your chances of hitting the oncoming vehicle, slowing down gives you more time to avoid collisions.
Re: Before anyone says "here comes big brother"...
But a functioning speedometer is a requirement of a motorised vehicle so you can't use "no [working] speedometer" as an excuse for speeding. Non-motorised vehicles do not need a speedometer.
It's all so depressing...
Is it mandatory for cabinet ministers to have the common sense and intelligence removed upon entering office? So what, exactly, is wrong with Sea Harriers? OK, they're not the latest sexy kit but they work and are cheap. Buy some and with the money saved develop them to address their shortfalls. Of course, when they get the new kit, they'll then dream up reasons to show it off - Olympics Security Theatre anyone? because it'll be so easy to take out that lone terrorist with a backpack bomb with a Eurofighter!
"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
Re: When I were a lad .....
Any simpleton can take stuff apart and put it all back together again! When I were a lad, I had to dig all the parts out of the ground (geology) from the cemetery (with my bare hands!) and then work out how to stick 'em all together (anatomy) timing it with the local weather system (meterology) to get a good lightening storm at just the right point. There were extra marks available for the quality of the gothic architecture (art) in the lab and for the artistic merit of the maniacal laughter (drama).
Why are they doing this?
Obvious - tax avoidance! All the money they plow into this can easily be reclaimed as R&D expense and thus get the tax benefits for it (current 225% in UK, i.e. for eavy £100 R&D you can reduce your taxable income by £225). The fact it's a cool project, would create/sustain hi-tech jobs and might actually work in some way is just a big bonus.
Aarrrgghhhhh
It's bad enough verbing the noun, now they're nouning the verb: "here's the announce from..."
Keeping it topical...
Is Windows 8 the iceberg that'll sink Microsoft?
Probably not.
Re: i am amazed
"Thank god for our education system here in the UK, something that appears to be lacking in the US where maybe they need lessons on common sense."
Well, my kids primary school (age 5-11) is now "An Apple School" and they want all the parents to buy their kids iPads.
My nomination...
"Sex Lives of the Potato Men"
I did watch it all. But only in the hope that there might be some redeeming scene that made it all worth the torment. There wasn't. Started low, went downhill rapidly from there.
This had...
...the best multiplayer gamed ever invented. Checkpoint Stampede! How many hours were wasted on that!
It's easy...
...all Apple needs to do is address the following points:-
1. Integrate STB and TV and make the software fast and responsive - I'm frequently being greeted with "Please Wait..." messages or very slow redraw times.
2. Make the UI intuitive. Most UIs I've seen have "designed by programmers" written all over them - on my STB it takes four or more clicks to record a program (click V+, select set new recording, select record from TV guide, select All channels, scroll to find program - slow, click to record)
3. Get rid of almost all the buttons on my remote control - really, why are we typing in channel numbers? I'm sure a controller with a click-wheel and a good UI could do everything my 30 button controller could do.
It amazes my that no other TV / STB maker has taken the Apple UI ideas and produced something that has Apple's quality to it.
I did see one remote control many years back that just had a central clickable scroll wheel with a volume rocker to the left and channel change rocker and the right. It was so easy to use.
How long...
...before we get gaming chairs based on those in Idiocracy (i.e. built in pan)? Probably an iPatent for it somewhere.
Weren't patents...
...supposed to be for non-obvious inventions? Nothing here that a six year old couldn't dream up.
Patents need to die!
Breaking news.....
I've just eaten a banana!
All Apple needs to do is...
...make a TV system that doesn't require a remote control that has far too many buttons on it.
I mean, why do I have to look up in the TV guide the number for a given channel and then type that number in order to view something.
And why is the UI on STBs so damned slow?
It didn't happen...
...unless we see the Playmobile reconstruction!
E=mc2
That equation does not mean that mass increases when there's more energy! It means that the energy in a thing is equal to its mass times c squared. It's one or the other, not both. Energising a flash ram does not increase the mass. The electrons don't get more mass, they just get more energetic (more speed, higher orbit, etc). When I climb some stairs my mass doesn't go up, even though I've gained a whole lot of energy. What do they teach the kids these days!
A great quote on the BBC site...
"Security blogger Graham Cluley grabbed several screenshots of the offending content before it was removed."
Mr Cluley can't be that good if he doesn't know where to get some pr0n on the internet!
Degree != Quality Coder
I've seen many rubbish coders, some had degrees, some PhDs and some didn't have any higher qualifications at all. I've seen some great coders, again, some had degrees and some didn't. From my experience, having a degree is no indication of coding ability. Either you get it or you don't. There's an interesting paper at http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/paper1.pdf.
The Reg Comments. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Metal Cylinders
For added strength, use corrugated cyclinders - smaller version of what you get in a steam engine. I'm sure you could find a group of grey beardy types loosely grouped as a modelling society to knock one up for you for the price of a few pints of real ale. Saw that on WDYTYA last week.
That sums it up
"Now all we need to do is come up with reasonably efficient software that doesn’t waste processor cycles doing not much."
From what I've seen, most graduates have trouble writing a "Hello World" program in less the 50K. Youngsters these days never think about performance since they're used to super fast PCs with lots of RAM. Give them all ZX80s I say.
We need fusion!
And to get there we need the best scientists and engineers at the best universities pushing the frontiers towards that goal without the burden of long term debt, heck, let's pay the best to go to university and help solve our future energy needs.
*Looks at current education*
Oh bugger.
If other manufacturers copied Apple's lead...
...then there'd only be one car manufacturer (four wheels and moves from A to B), one washing machine machufacturer (box that cleans clothes), one microwave oven manufacturer (box to heat food), etc....
This whole thing is just stupid. Not to mention the stifling of innovation.
I remember...
...spending a few hours with the SoftIce debugger reverse engineering the Wolfenstein code to work out how it ran and then building my own (superior, of course) renderer that had more features and fixed the 45 degree bug.
Anyone...
...think of using three airbags has obviously been thinking too much about Eccentrica Gallumbits.
If only it were that simple...
The problem with wind is that it is volatile and unpredictable. In an ideal situation, your power generation would match the required demand, but in reality the demand is not constant. You don't just switch off power generators when you don't need them, it takes time. So, if there's a sudden gust of wind, it's not possible to turn down all the other generators in response to the spike in power from the wind farms. In fact, varying the output of a fossil fuel plant might be less efficent than keeping it running at a fixed rate.
So, in the end, wind isn't useful for general supply as it can't be switched on when required, and when it's generating you can't easily turn off other generators. So the best use I guess for wind power is to pump water back up into the reservoirs that feed the hydro electric stations.
I've not read anywhere but...
the Japanese earthquake is on the same fault line as the New Zealand one that happened recently, known as the "Ring of Fire". This line goes north from Japan, accross to Alaska and down the west coast of the USA. Hold on tight California!
It's obviously...
...a simple case of misunderstanding. Someone heard "Opera" and thought they heard "Oprah" and thought the app was a portal for Ms Winfrey's empire, which is certainly not sutable for minors. Come to think of it, it isn't really suitable for anyone.
Points!
The points system - letting in the educated people to take all the well paid / highly skilled jobs we've got so we don't have to spend money educating our own people!
Taxing
"Motorists pay the same "general taxation" as cyclists and pedestrians do, and ADDITIONALLY they pay vehicle excise duty, fuel duty, VAT on fuel, motor insurance premium tax, the list goes on."
This would only be true if the cyclist didn't own a car. I guess there are a lot of cyclists that don't own cars, but then there are lots that do (and choose not to use them).
I own a car and cycle to work. So maybe I whould have a sign saying "Own's a car too, be nice to me, I'm making your journey quicker by reducing congestion".
Part of the idea behind fuel duty is to change behaviour - i.e. use public transport / cycle / walk / etc
Word Bank
So, we take a good, big word like vocabulary or lexicon and replace it with two simple words. Now, which book did that idea appear in? What, you want me to go into that room. Ok. Err, why's that rat in a cage?
It sounds stupid,,,
,,,but if you looked at the drug problem from an economic/business point of view, the options to defeat the criminals is to provide drugs for a cheaper price. The government, being a non-profit organisation, could give the stuff away for nothing (their supply is the stuff they've seized from criminals). No one can make a profit, criminals move onto some other business. This reduces knock-on crimes (theft to pay for habit). Of course, you wouldn't just give drugs to anyone, you'd need to be an addict, and it'd have to be anonymous too. But you'd also be able to say "Look, here's how you get off the stuff". Chances any politician would do anything remotely like this?
Now, where's that naive optimist icon?
Paranoid?
You'd think the Welsh would be getting quite paranoid by now:-
The Chinese build a new city, twice the size of Wales!
An area the size of Wales was destroyed by forest fire!
In the Amazon rain forest, an area the size of Wales is being chopped down every day!
An area the size of Wales is experiencing severe flooding in Brisbane!
The Indonesian tsunami destroyed an area the size of Wales!
When the big one hits in California, an area of land the size of Wales will dissappear into the sea!
When we stop practising and get on with plan of 'permanent devolution' what will the unit of measure for area become?
Is that...
...bloke in the first two pictures part of the autoclave? He doesn't move between the two photos! Is he a carbon fibre replicant?
My Wife Worked at the OS...
...a few years back. I can easily imagine the amount of moaning this move has generated by the employees - enough, perhaps, to power a small town for a long time. The biggest gripe at the time my wife was there was about getting more money to travel further to work, especially as at the time a site midway between Southampton and Portsmouth was being considered. This really annoyed my wife as she had to do a hellish commute along the M27 everyday, and didn't get paid extra for it.
Sometimes, one wonders if people in the public sector have any idea what real work actually is.
why not!
Because most employees wouldn't know how to spoof a MAC address.
Fined Up To £500K
As long as they don't use the standard ISP definition of 'up to'.
Return to the Mean
"I do believe we will see far fewer incidents" - or, use a statistical phenomonen few people are aware of to make it look like what you're doing is working.
And as we all know, it's not just J9, the whole M25 is in the form of the dark sigil Odegra and is often considered Exhibit A for the existence of Satan!
Nah...
...that's just Hugh Jackman in his bubble*.
* Obscure film reference.
Dear Sun,
Please learn about grammar. Your headline makes no sense, unless the ass in question was owned by a woman. It should be: "We've Saved an Ass" or "We've Saved Anapka the Ass".
That PDF...
...should carry a health warning - it made my eyes bleed looking at it.
Page: