The federal judges didn't uphold that sexting was protected by free speech, but that the DA's deal violated their free speech, as it amounted to a gagging order on protesting their innocence. The judges ruled that as this amounted to coercion to forego their constitutional rights, the entire prosecution was invalid.
Cases get thrown out of court all the time for police procedural errors (failing to read rights, mishandling of evidence etc) and this is the same thing, but with the mishandling at the level of the judiciary.
" Probably just a poorly thought out job advert, although you would have thought this kind of thing would be picked up before publication in this day and age. "
This is precisely the day and age when this sort of thing *wouldn't* be picked up. The immediacy of technology and the false assurances of spell checkers mean there's far more written material out there that hasn't been through the hands of a professional proof-reader.
In a previous day and age, there would have been some sort of "costumer service" between the advertiser and the press and they might have queried the wording.
My parents bought a system built by a private individual who had no OEM agreement with Microsoft. He therefore used a retail package. The computer's a bit gubbed, so they want a new one. Now everyone -- Microsoft, PC World, EVERYONE -- keeps telling them that Windows is restricted to the PC it came with, so they need to buy a new copy. No-one ever asks if it was retail, they just immediately try to sell you more of the same software.
It's next to impossible to buy a PC now without paying Microsoft for something that you may already have or may not want to buy. It's like forcing me to buy new dining room chairs when all I need is the table. It's monopolistic and unfair practice.
Last time I saw an IRA man on the telly, he was identifiable by his black trousers, black jumper, black gloves and black balaclava. The British soldier pointing a gun at him was wearing green, though....
In my day, kids engaged in totally legal play. We had wholesome games like "plundering apples", "lifting stuff from Woolies", "running on the railway tracks", "crawling under the security fence", "building-site hide-and-seek". Some of my favourite toys were obtained in the course of that last one.
Kids today just don't have the same respect for the law.
"the Obama administration ... intends to fund the first phase of its rollout to the tune of $574m"
I hope that $574m includes a good insurance policy, because damned sure the professional people smugglers will be hiring snipers to take out the cameras....
I love how the "Irish" Americans are defining themselves by the same hateful bigotry and mistrust that everyone in Ireland (save a minority) is desperately trying to put behind them.
The deluded lunatics will probably start using car bombs next as a way to express their "ancient Irish culture and heritage". And for full authenticity, their cars will be green and have the ancient blessing "Kiss Me I'm Irish" on a bumper sticker on the back.
And as others have said -- there's orange on the flag. It's a call for unity, not discrimination.
So, they took a bunch of kids who didn't have consoles, gave half of them consoles, that half did worse at school, and they gave the other half consoles at the end.
The problems:
1) It is morally indefensible to conduct a study that has a good chance of having detrimental effects on a child's development. No matter what the results do to better the lot of future generations, harming a child mentally or physically is child abuse. Even assuming they didn't expect to see any obstacles to development, the risk was always there. Morally unacceptable.
2) Having proved the detrimental effects of games console, they still proceeded to issue more free consoles, so they were consciously causing harm to more children. Morally unacceptable.
3) All children entering the study were being offered a console, whether they were the console sample or the control sample. Paying research subjects is considered exploitation as it encourages vulnerable people to subject themselves to harm out of desperation. To a child without a console, a console is the equivalent of a payment of several thousand pounds to an adult. And it gets worse. There are two types of houses without games consoles or gaming PCs: type A is where the parents doesn't want them, and type B is where the parents can't afford them. Type A would not have been agreed to be involved in the experiment... unless the offer of the free console gave the child the leverage to badger the parents into allowing him to take part. The study overturns parental choice and causes harm to the child. Type B are the vulnerable people we're not supposed to pay as it encourages them to put themselves or their children in harm's way. And they have paid them to harm their children. Morally unacceptable.
No child should be allowed to be harmed in the pursuit of knowledge for the greater good, and just because they've not been dissected doesn't mean they haven't been harmed.
Presumably the main thing they're looking for is the number of downloads that are never installed, as people are likely to ignore a failed install and go back to IE without reporting anything.
Why do the Register's camcorder reviews never discuss compression ratios and the potential for editing and processing?
Telling us it's MP4 is all well and good, but how heavily compressed does it go? Will the video degrade into a hellish series of blocks if we run it through Final Cut and reencode it to any form of MPEG? HD's all well and good, but right now I don't know if any given HD device is going to give me better results than an old SD tape camcorder in terms of final picture quality.
I look at the "pocket" HD camcorders and the handheld HD camcorders and despite the big price difference, they seem to have very similar recording times -- are they using the same compression ratios? Are they *good* compression ratios? I don't want to shell out £500 to get superior optics only to find that the software cheats me out of picture quality so that I'd be as well off with a £100 pocket model.
Really, this is what I wanted before the eeePC came out, but I wanted it with some kind of network connection. Now I've got an MP3 player with 2" screen, 7" eeePC and 6" Elonex/Hanvon eReader with QWERTY keyboard. If there was a network port, they might just have a sale, but there isn't, so I'll wait for the Openinkpot project to get my Elonex supported (and work out how to use the USB host socket on the top) and I'll use that for my command line needs.
" In case you have not read a newspaper, listened to the radio or looked at the interwebs for a few years, Twitter is the latest stage in the progression of web formats. It is essentially a type of personal website so easy to update that users are often tempted to do so even when they don't really need to. "
Or in other words, it's like TheRegister, but for people who aren't tech journalists....
Not a biggie. Some people climb hundreds of metres up without safety equipment. Their life, their choice.
2) Overcrowding.
When the event draws too many people, individual risk gives way to collective risk. This event has got so big that one person's slip could hurt a lot of people. This event was originally a small local gathering, and would have happened in many places around the area. It did not evolve for the scale presented now. Marathons have large numbers of participants. Sprints do not. Nature of the game.
If people want to take part in cheese rolling, they should organise their own local event.
So what you're saying is "I am Welsh, I don't speak Welsh, therefore Welsh people don't speak Welsh?" I think you'll find that some actually do. No-one in the UK believes all Welsh people speak Welsh.
And as for less languages...
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."
"The welsh language is a luxury that the country ... can ill afford in these straitened financial times"
I would like to extend this argument to English. The grammatical irregularities, lunatic spelling system and strangulated pronunciation make it a massively inefficient medium of communication, and a luxury we can ill afford. Switching to Esperanto would allow us to get our kids out of school and into the workhouse by the age of 12.
In these straitened financial times, these are the sorts of measures we must take....
The BARB FAQ says that the panel is 5,100 homes, so if they've been selected in a statistically sound manner, we're looking at 51 households.
However, I can't find the "20 cell matrix" that BARB use to check demographics on their website, so there's not even any guarantee that they have properly accounted for Welsh speakers in the survey.
I've frequently heard the criticism that both BARB and RAJAR are devalued by the requirement to be owner occupier in order to participate in the survey, which means the results are biased to middle class viewing habits, and in the case of rural Wales this often means "white settler".
The only way for anyone to fully understand these figures is with confirmation that Welsh language is proportionally represented, and with a plot of viewing figures for all Welsh-language programmes (which will reveal the bias in the sample set -- I'm guessing that we could determine pretty quickly where only one household has a child in a particular age range, for example).
"According to The Guardian, Microsoft plans this year to make programmes and films available in high definition based on its Silverlight tech. But Redmond clearly isn't brave enough to apply its own proprietary software to the rest of its MSN video estate yet."
So the plan is to use well established technology so that people can use the site immediately, so aren't scared off. Then use enhanced content as an incentive to install the otherwise-unnecessary Silverlight player.
Increased complexity in the server farm, but it will drive uptake.
When there's two people in a call, lack of video is no problem. When there's half-a-dozen people in a call, not being able to see each other really gets in the way of conversation. Yet perversely, Skype only lets you video conference in one-to-one calls, because of bandwidth constraints.
I'm studying with the OU, and the online tutorials really are badly hampered by the lack of visual cues (such as "confused face" and "general eagerness to say something"). I also do day work in a virtual team and there's similar problems, coupled with the risk of seeming aggressive when asking something due to lack of facial expressions.
Video will be big once the pipes big enough to cope with multiple streams simultaneously.
Well you know what? I started cycling last year and I bought a map produced by a local cycle advocacy group and it has been invaluable -- it highlights all the hidden back-street cut-throughs that aren't signposted (cos they're not suitable for cars), it highlights all the cycle lanes and dedicated cycle paths that you might miss if you were cycling up a parallel street instead.
It even makes it clear when a footpath isn't open to bikes (information sadly missing from most maps)... or it did before the council changed a lot of routes.
The reason that this is a problem is that Internet Explorer has a very poor record on standards compliance.
The dominance of Windows leads to a dominance of IE, precisely because of the "don't care" crowd.
The dominance of IE (not standards compliant) leads to coding of sites for IE, leading to lock-out of other browsers.
If IE was free for all platforms, this would not be a problem.
However, IE is not available for PS3, Wii, Symbian, Linux, etc etc etc, and this means that IE dominance perpetuates the tying of the internet to Windows PCs.
Mobile technology has made great leaps in recent years, and home TVs are now of a sufficient resolution to cope with a rich browsing experience. Ubiquitous internet is finally becoming a reality, but it is not to Microsoft's commercial benefit to allow this to happen -- WinCE failed to make a solid dent in the set-top-box market, and DTV and Blu-ray technology have introduced an MS-free software stack into the living room. Windows Mobile can ape much of the non-compliant functionality of full fat Windows, so why encourage people to use iPhones, Android phones and the like?
The ballot screen is a clumsy hack, but it is necessary to allow the internet to break free from the desktop and realise its full potential.
Have you seen the Ploenulus yourself? The text you quote is quite different from the version on Google Books:
" Byth ilymmoth ynnocho thuulech antidamaschon
Ys sidobrim thyfel yth chyl ischon them liful "
What is the provenance of the version you quote, and are you aware how the purported meaning of the Phoenician fits into the context of the surrounding Latin?
Or are you merely parroting a largely discredited 18th century fetish that many nations had for the idea of being "the lost tribe of Israel"?
I appreciate that a transflective screen is effectively a single sheet, hence the e-paper tag, but when you talk about e-paper, most people think of persistent e-ink. I certainly did, right up until you started talking about LCDs.
It sounds like a great technology (and I'm hoping they'll release a kit for the original eeePC as I'd love to eke a few more hours out of my battery), but I don't think the term e-paper helps to clarify things for the reader, and incorrect user expectations could lead the tech to a premature grave....
" WRT DRM - why is having a permanent net connection such a trauma now, with always on ADSL? "
You're not a mobile worker, are you? Some of us find that the odd game installed on the company laptop is a good way to while away a couple of hours in a soulless hotel on the edge of a business park. Two days of always-on hotel internet is the same as a month of always-on home internet.
If you actually read the article you've just cited, you'll see that while there was *a* ginger gene in Europe back then, this was not *the* ginger gene -- it was a different gene.
Of course, if red hair evolved twice in Europe and fair hair once, that suggests that light pigmentation is more than merely "acceptable", but of a real evolutionary advantage -- and that would most likely be vitamin D production, as others have said.
Most people genuinely don't know what they want. The real proof will be one year after the launch of the iPad when someone does a study of the number of books read by an average iPad users (or at least iPad user who bought it planning to use it as an ereader anyway) vs average Kindle/Reader user.
User experience will encourage reading on dedicated ebook readers and discourage it on iPad.
You mark my words (most ebook readers allow annotations, after all)....
After killing two humans, there's no way SeaWorld can claim keeping it is safe.
They have to kill it now, as it's not like there's any vast body of salt water they can release it in to where it will be far away from human beings....
Regulators state it isn't safe and/or doesn't protect data.
Company says it can't afford to make it safe and/or protect data.
It baffles me how companies have got a way with pleading "technology". YouTube is a publisher -- it's a branded site with lots of branded content, but they cry "ISP" when asked to take responsibility for that content.
Chatrooms put people in touch with each other but without any sort of supervision or vettin as would occur in the real world (eg IDing drinkers in pubs). They cry "technology" and they're let off with running a profit without protecting their customers.
Stuff it, guys, off-line computer programmers deal with regulatory constraints all the time. If we write software that doesn't comply with them -- we get fined.
On-line companies ignore regulation, steamroller through, and when someone pops up and points out the flaws they say "it's too expensive to fix". That's a flawed business model, and that's the business's fault.
This technology reads your brain as you carry out the thoughts that trigger the finger movements. It doesn't mean that you don't have to move your fingers, but it does mean that you can still type if your fingers aren't there.
But if your fingers/wrists/arms are very sore rather than missing, these thoughts will still trigger the movements and exacerbate the pain.
(Former sufferer of a (thankfully) mild RSI, still requiring careful management of keying time and posture.)
Most mobile apps are mere mashups of functions in the OS anyway -- it's more configuration than coding.
That was really the original goal of open source software, wasn't it? To remove the need to "reinvent the wheel" in code and just plug all the modules together to achieve the necessary
Back in the early Unix days, this resulted in the various C libraries that we now all take for granted (even if in their ported forms as used by other languages) and all the standard shell utilities that could be scripted together with pipes and redirection.
Modern FOSS has lost its way a bit, producing a lot of monolithic code that has to be heavily refactored to extract individual functions.
Case in point: OpenOffice.org. The GUI, rendering engine and backend are all tied together. Why's this bad? Cos every time they upgrade, the translation projects have to start again or you're stuck on the last version. Why shouldn't you be able to render and edit 3.0 with a 2.0 interface? Sure, you'll not get all the new functionality, but at least you'll be able to both use your own language and read files created in the latest version....
"One day, a relatively simple headset may allow a person to manipulate a cursor and enter text without benefit of such antique interfaces as mouse, keyboard, voice-control or touchscreen - so freeing up his or her hands for critical tasks such as drinking coffee or scratching."
The point is that they are reading instructions to muscles. To drink coffee you have to think about moving your hands appropriately. If you're thinking about drinking coffee, you won't be able to think about typing simultaneously without spilling it!
The current law on books is that every book or periodical that gets published commercially in the UK must be supplied to 5 libraries that hold copies in perpetuity. There is no judgement on suitability. If it's published, it's in. They are just trying to maintain the status quo, and I think that's a good thing. I have seen many websites vanish with only a partial mirror at archive.org . Among the legions of dross at Geocities, there were several gems, including one of the two best internet libraries of Scottish Gaelic song lyrics that were lost.
Then there's the idea of corpus research. Having access to all these tweets and comments would allow language researchers to examine questions like how the internet is changing literacy, and that is a genuinely interesting and important topic.
"We believe that a 50 pence levy placed on fixed telecommunication lines is an ill-directed charge. It will place a disproportionate cost on a majority who will not, or are unable to, reap the benefits of that charge,"
Isn't this pretty much the definition of all government spending? The majority of people pay National Insurance to subsidise the minority who have serious illnesses or long-term unemployment problems. A city dweller who never travels more than 5 miles in his car pays the same road tax as a farmer who lives 50 miles from any major town. An immigrant not educated in this country and with no children is still required to fund UK schools.
It is in the country's interests to maintain a stable rural population, and right now "market forces" are freezing rural people out of broadband, and they are the people most in need of improved communications links.
No amount of tax breaks is going to make rural cabling more profitable than sticking to dense urban centres -- compulsion is the only option.
"I've lost count of the number of times I've seen people forget to manually eject their USB pendrives from a computer before pulling it out of the port."
Most users don't "forget" to do it -- they didn't know in the first place!
So design error one is making it possible.
Design error two is that the OS doesn't pop up a great big flashing error every single time you do it, but gives you a small non-descript dialogue box or balloon, and includes a little checkbox saying "don't show this error again".
Unplugging a device without stopping it first risks data loss, so the user shouldn't be able to ignore it....
Aside from the fact that they don't mention the control group (as others have commented), there is the problem of what "chips" means. Having never heard of this "Aston" place, I thought the prof was saying "crisps" in a funny accent.....
Foreign students!! They all want to blow us up!! When I was at uni I had a classmate from the Middle East, and she killed me with a suicide bomb in a lecture!! One of my classmates had a flatmate from the Middle East -- he killed me with a suicide bomb in the pub!! I was also killed on three separate occasions by foreign students I didn't know entering nightclubs with improvised incendiary devices, and twice in the Scotmid Coop by foreigners bearing bandoliers of hand grenades.
Edinburgh used to be a peaceful city, but since the University started letting in foreign students, you can't walk the streets for fear of being blown up unexpectedly by an angry student suicide squad!!
Samsung UN55B8000 55" LED TV (Widescreen, 1920x1080, HDTV)
LG Electronics 42LH30 42" LCD TV (Widescreen, 1920x1080, HDTV)
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289 posts • joined Wednesday 10th June 2009 13:31 GMT
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The Indomitable Gall
Right to free speech → # ↑
Posted Friday 19th March 2010 10:11 GMT
In Court bars charges against teen who posed semi-nude
You misunderstand.
The federal judges didn't uphold that sexting was protected by free speech, but that the DA's deal violated their free speech, as it amounted to a gagging order on protesting their innocence. The judges ruled that as this amounted to coercion to forego their constitutional rights, the entire prosecution was invalid.
Cases get thrown out of court all the time for police procedural errors (failing to read rights, mishandling of evidence etc) and this is the same thing, but with the mishandling at the level of the judiciary.
The Indomitable Gall
When the pot is boiling.... → #
Posted Thursday 18th March 2010 15:50 GMT
In Hobbit cameras start rolling in July
...just keep throwing stuff in.
The Indomitable Gall
This day and age...? → # ↑
Posted Thursday 18th March 2010 15:20 GMT
In 'Racist' job ad sparks investigation
" Probably just a poorly thought out job advert, although you would have thought this kind of thing would be picked up before publication in this day and age. "
This is precisely the day and age when this sort of thing *wouldn't* be picked up. The immediacy of technology and the false assurances of spell checkers mean there's far more written material out there that hasn't been through the hands of a professional proof-reader.
In a previous day and age, there would have been some sort of "costumer service" between the advertiser and the press and they might have queried the wording.
Not today. Not this day and age.
The Indomitable Gall
Bog off, pizza face. → # ↑
Posted Thursday 18th March 2010 15:11 GMT
In Dell bars Win 7 refunds from Linux lovers
This isn't just a matter of geeks and weirdos.
My parents bought a system built by a private individual who had no OEM agreement with Microsoft. He therefore used a retail package. The computer's a bit gubbed, so they want a new one. Now everyone -- Microsoft, PC World, EVERYONE -- keeps telling them that Windows is restricted to the PC it came with, so they need to buy a new copy. No-one ever asks if it was retail, they just immediately try to sell you more of the same software.
It's next to impossible to buy a PC now without paying Microsoft for something that you may already have or may not want to buy. It's like forcing me to buy new dining room chairs when all I need is the table. It's monopolistic and unfair practice.
The Indomitable Gall
Green? You sure? → # ↑
Posted Thursday 18th March 2010 14:47 GMT
In El Reg insults 'millions of Irish Catholics'
Last time I saw an IRA man on the telly, he was identifiable by his black trousers, black jumper, black gloves and black balaclava. The British soldier pointing a gun at him was wearing green, though....
The Indomitable Gall
Disgraceful! In my day... → #
Posted Thursday 18th March 2010 14:46 GMT
In One in four UK schoolkids admits hacking
In my day, kids engaged in totally legal play. We had wholesome games like "plundering apples", "lifting stuff from Woolies", "running on the railway tracks", "crawling under the security fence", "building-site hide-and-seek". Some of my favourite toys were obtained in the course of that last one.
Kids today just don't have the same respect for the law.
The Indomitable Gall
Potentially expensive mistake... → #
Posted Thursday 18th March 2010 10:49 GMT
In 'Death knell' for Eye-o-Sauron™ US border stare-towers
"the Obama administration ... intends to fund the first phase of its rollout to the tune of $574m"
I hope that $574m includes a good insurance policy, because damned sure the professional people smugglers will be hiring snipers to take out the cameras....
The Indomitable Gall
Begorrah! → #
Posted Thursday 18th March 2010 10:46 GMT
In El Reg insults 'millions of Irish Catholics'
I love how the "Irish" Americans are defining themselves by the same hateful bigotry and mistrust that everyone in Ireland (save a minority) is desperately trying to put behind them.
The deluded lunatics will probably start using car bombs next as a way to express their "ancient Irish culture and heritage". And for full authenticity, their cars will be green and have the ancient blessing "Kiss Me I'm Irish" on a bumper sticker on the back.
And as others have said -- there's orange on the flag. It's a call for unity, not discrimination.
The Indomitable Gall
Moral maze. → #
Posted Wednesday 17th March 2010 11:52 GMT
In Study shows gaming can hinder reading, writing progress
So, they took a bunch of kids who didn't have consoles, gave half of them consoles, that half did worse at school, and they gave the other half consoles at the end.
The problems:
1) It is morally indefensible to conduct a study that has a good chance of having detrimental effects on a child's development. No matter what the results do to better the lot of future generations, harming a child mentally or physically is child abuse. Even assuming they didn't expect to see any obstacles to development, the risk was always there. Morally unacceptable.
2) Having proved the detrimental effects of games console, they still proceeded to issue more free consoles, so they were consciously causing harm to more children. Morally unacceptable.
3) All children entering the study were being offered a console, whether they were the console sample or the control sample. Paying research subjects is considered exploitation as it encourages vulnerable people to subject themselves to harm out of desperation. To a child without a console, a console is the equivalent of a payment of several thousand pounds to an adult. And it gets worse. There are two types of houses without games consoles or gaming PCs: type A is where the parents doesn't want them, and type B is where the parents can't afford them. Type A would not have been agreed to be involved in the experiment... unless the offer of the free console gave the child the leverage to badger the parents into allowing him to take part. The study overturns parental choice and causes harm to the child. Type B are the vulnerable people we're not supposed to pay as it encourages them to put themselves or their children in harm's way. And they have paid them to harm their children. Morally unacceptable.
No child should be allowed to be harmed in the pursuit of knowledge for the greater good, and just because they've not been dissected doesn't mean they haven't been harmed.
The Indomitable Gall
Abandon/abort rate → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 16th March 2010 16:56 GMT
In Google vows to delete Chrome's unique client ID
Presumably the main thing they're looking for is the number of downloads that are never installed, as people are likely to ignore a failed install and go back to IE without reporting anything.
The Indomitable Gall
Passive glasses, dude... → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 16th March 2010 15:44 GMT
In Sky to pack pubs with 3D TVs
The polarising glasses this tech uses are worth about 20 pence each, not 100 squid...
The Indomitable Gall
Hang on, the loonies! → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 16th March 2010 13:27 GMT
In Dedicated Vi device vies for buyers
Surely the real goal here is campfire deathmatch? Network network network! I want to deathmatch!
The Indomitable Gall
Why do ElReg camcorder reviews... → #
Posted Tuesday 16th March 2010 12:50 GMT
In Sony Bloggie
Why do the Register's camcorder reviews never discuss compression ratios and the potential for editing and processing?
Telling us it's MP4 is all well and good, but how heavily compressed does it go? Will the video degrade into a hellish series of blocks if we run it through Final Cut and reencode it to any form of MPEG? HD's all well and good, but right now I don't know if any given HD device is going to give me better results than an old SD tape camcorder in terms of final picture quality.
I look at the "pocket" HD camcorders and the handheld HD camcorders and despite the big price difference, they seem to have very similar recording times -- are they using the same compression ratios? Are they *good* compression ratios? I don't want to shell out £500 to get superior optics only to find that the software cheats me out of picture quality so that I'd be as well off with a £100 pocket model.
Enquiring minds need to know!
The Indomitable Gall
No networking?!? → #
Posted Tuesday 16th March 2010 12:05 GMT
In Dedicated Vi device vies for buyers
Really, this is what I wanted before the eeePC came out, but I wanted it with some kind of network connection. Now I've got an MP3 player with 2" screen, 7" eeePC and 6" Elonex/Hanvon eReader with QWERTY keyboard. If there was a network port, they might just have a sale, but there isn't, so I'll wait for the Openinkpot project to get my Elonex supported (and work out how to use the USB host socket on the top) and I'll use that for my command line needs.
Command line + ePaper = L337.
The Indomitable Gall
In another shocking revelation... → #
Posted Sunday 14th March 2010 02:06 GMT
In Lib Dem candidate admits to unnatural vice
I can exclusively reveal that Winston Churchill was a member of the Liberal Party before joining the Conservatives.
Won't somebody think of the children!
The Indomitable Gall
In other words... → #
Posted Friday 12th March 2010 20:17 GMT
In 'Twitter gives voice to the voiceless' - eg the US President
" In case you have not read a newspaper, listened to the radio or looked at the interwebs for a few years, Twitter is the latest stage in the progression of web formats. It is essentially a type of personal website so easy to update that users are often tempted to do so even when they don't really need to. "
Or in other words, it's like TheRegister, but for people who aren't tech journalists....
What's the Paris Hilton angle?
The Indomitable Gall
Isn't that... → #
Posted Friday 12th March 2010 20:17 GMT
In Giant flying pliers menace West Bromwich
Isn't this just a publicity shot from the next Doctor Who Christmas Special?!?
The Indomitable Gall
H&S → #
Posted Friday 12th March 2010 15:24 GMT
In 'Health and safety killjoys' kill cheese-rolling race
Health and safety has two problems here:
1) Inherent danger involved in the activity.
Not a biggie. Some people climb hundreds of metres up without safety equipment. Their life, their choice.
2) Overcrowding.
When the event draws too many people, individual risk gives way to collective risk. This event has got so big that one person's slip could hurt a lot of people. This event was originally a small local gathering, and would have happened in many places around the area. It did not evolve for the scale presented now. Marathons have large numbers of participants. Sprints do not. Nature of the game.
If people want to take part in cheese rolling, they should organise their own local event.
Lots of small ones is safer than one big one.
The Indomitable Gall
Myth...? → # ↑
Posted Friday 12th March 2010 00:44 GMT
In Zero* welcome for 200 Welsh TV shows - in Wales
So what you're saying is "I am Welsh, I don't speak Welsh, therefore Welsh people don't speak Welsh?" I think you'll find that some actually do. No-one in the UK believes all Welsh people speak Welsh.
And as for less languages...
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."
The Indomitable Gall
My God! What have we done? → #
Posted Thursday 11th March 2010 14:30 GMT
In Mutated genetic supertrout developed in lab
Some supervillian will now apply this to the Great White, and man will finally be confined to land.
Oh, the humanity!
The Indomitable Gall
Agreed. → # ↑
Posted Thursday 11th March 2010 11:04 GMT
In Zero* welcome for 200 Welsh TV shows - in Wales
"The welsh language is a luxury that the country ... can ill afford in these straitened financial times"
I would like to extend this argument to English. The grammatical irregularities, lunatic spelling system and strangulated pronunciation make it a massively inefficient medium of communication, and a luxury we can ill afford. Switching to Esperanto would allow us to get our kids out of school and into the workhouse by the age of 12.
In these straitened financial times, these are the sorts of measures we must take....
The Indomitable Gall
Re: Agreed → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 10th March 2010 19:51 GMT
In Zero* welcome for 200 Welsh TV shows - in Wales
The BARB FAQ says that the panel is 5,100 homes, so if they've been selected in a statistically sound manner, we're looking at 51 households.
However, I can't find the "20 cell matrix" that BARB use to check demographics on their website, so there's not even any guarantee that they have properly accounted for Welsh speakers in the survey.
I've frequently heard the criticism that both BARB and RAJAR are devalued by the requirement to be owner occupier in order to participate in the survey, which means the results are biased to middle class viewing habits, and in the case of rural Wales this often means "white settler".
The only way for anyone to fully understand these figures is with confirmation that Welsh language is proportionally represented, and with a plot of viewing figures for all Welsh-language programmes (which will reveal the bias in the sample set -- I'm guessing that we could determine pretty quickly where only one household has a child in a particular age range, for example).
The Indomitable Gall
Oooh... now that's clever.... → #
Posted Wednesday 10th March 2010 14:32 GMT
In Microsoft whitewashes MSN in latest Web2.0rhea whimsy
"According to The Guardian, Microsoft plans this year to make programmes and films available in high definition based on its Silverlight tech. But Redmond clearly isn't brave enough to apply its own proprietary software to the rest of its MSN video estate yet."
So the plan is to use well established technology so that people can use the site immediately, so aren't scared off. Then use enhanced content as an incentive to install the otherwise-unnecessary Silverlight player.
Increased complexity in the server farm, but it will drive uptake.
The Indomitable Gall
Yes, exactly: teleconferencing. → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 10th March 2010 14:24 GMT
In Cisco 'forever changes internet' with... a router
When there's two people in a call, lack of video is no problem. When there's half-a-dozen people in a call, not being able to see each other really gets in the way of conversation. Yet perversely, Skype only lets you video conference in one-to-one calls, because of bandwidth constraints.
I'm studying with the OU, and the online tutorials really are badly hampered by the lack of visual cues (such as "confused face" and "general eagerness to say something"). I also do day work in a virtual team and there's similar problems, coupled with the risk of seeming aggressive when asking something due to lack of facial expressions.
Video will be big once the pipes big enough to cope with multiple streams simultaneously.
The Indomitable Gall
Re ::shakes head:: → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 10th March 2010 11:58 GMT
In Google goes cycling
Well you know what? I started cycling last year and I bought a map produced by a local cycle advocacy group and it has been invaluable -- it highlights all the hidden back-street cut-throughs that aren't signposted (cos they're not suitable for cars), it highlights all the cycle lanes and dedicated cycle paths that you might miss if you were cycling up a parallel street instead.
It even makes it clear when a footpath isn't open to bikes (information sadly missing from most maps)... or it did before the council changed a lot of routes.
The Indomitable Gall
For the last time... → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 9th March 2010 12:25 GMT
In Microsoft rejiggers EU browser ballot after complaints
The reason that this is a problem is that Internet Explorer has a very poor record on standards compliance.
The dominance of Windows leads to a dominance of IE, precisely because of the "don't care" crowd.
The dominance of IE (not standards compliant) leads to coding of sites for IE, leading to lock-out of other browsers.
If IE was free for all platforms, this would not be a problem.
However, IE is not available for PS3, Wii, Symbian, Linux, etc etc etc, and this means that IE dominance perpetuates the tying of the internet to Windows PCs.
Mobile technology has made great leaps in recent years, and home TVs are now of a sufficient resolution to cope with a rich browsing experience. Ubiquitous internet is finally becoming a reality, but it is not to Microsoft's commercial benefit to allow this to happen -- WinCE failed to make a solid dent in the set-top-box market, and DTV and Blu-ray technology have introduced an MS-free software stack into the living room. Windows Mobile can ape much of the non-compliant functionality of full fat Windows, so why encourage people to use iPhones, Android phones and the like?
The ballot screen is a clumsy hack, but it is necessary to allow the internet to break free from the desktop and realise its full potential.
The Indomitable Gall
Citation... → # ↑
Posted Tuesday 9th March 2010 11:04 GMT
In Crap Scottish weather favours ginger hair
Have you seen the Ploenulus yourself? The text you quote is quite different from the version on Google Books:
" Byth ilymmoth ynnocho thuulech antidamaschon
Ys sidobrim thyfel yth chyl ischon them liful "
What is the provenance of the version you quote, and are you aware how the purported meaning of the Phoenician fits into the context of the surrounding Latin?
Or are you merely parroting a largely discredited 18th century fetish that many nations had for the idea of being "the lost tribe of Israel"?
The Indomitable Gall
Terminological confusion → #
Posted Monday 8th March 2010 21:33 GMT
In Pixel Qi sunlight-readable colour e-paper inbound
I appreciate that a transflective screen is effectively a single sheet, hence the e-paper tag, but when you talk about e-paper, most people think of persistent e-ink. I certainly did, right up until you started talking about LCDs.
It sounds like a great technology (and I'm hoping they'll release a kit for the original eeePC as I'd love to eke a few more hours out of my battery), but I don't think the term e-paper helps to clarify things for the reader, and incorrect user expectations could lead the tech to a premature grave....
The Indomitable Gall
Re: Oh dear → # ↑
Posted Monday 8th March 2010 17:09 GMT
In Ubisoft undone by anti-DRM DDoS storm
" WRT DRM - why is having a permanent net connection such a trauma now, with always on ADSL? "
You're not a mobile worker, are you? Some of us find that the odd game installed on the company laptop is a good way to while away a couple of hours in a soulless hotel on the edge of a business park. Two days of always-on hotel internet is the same as a month of always-on home internet.
The Indomitable Gall
Ginger genes, but... → # ↑
Posted Monday 8th March 2010 17:08 GMT
In Crap Scottish weather favours ginger hair
If you actually read the article you've just cited, you'll see that while there was *a* ginger gene in Europe back then, this was not *the* ginger gene -- it was a different gene.
Of course, if red hair evolved twice in Europe and fair hair once, that suggests that light pigmentation is more than merely "acceptable", but of a real evolutionary advantage -- and that would most likely be vitamin D production, as others have said.
The Indomitable Gall
Stone them, really? → # ↑
Posted Monday 8th March 2010 17:08 GMT
In Crap Scottish weather favours ginger hair
That must mean that gingers are extinct, because ginger is originally a viking trait....
The Indomitable Gall
RAJAR stats → #
Posted Monday 8th March 2010 16:26 GMT
In BBC protects 'unique' 1Xtra listeners from radio cull
How can you discuss RAJAR stats for yoof channels when RAJAR only surveys homeowners, who are most well past 25....?
The Indomitable Gall
To paraphrase: → #
Posted Friday 5th March 2010 18:49 GMT
In E-book buyers favour iPad over Kindle and co.
How do you like your eggs?
The way I don't like them.
Most people genuinely don't know what they want. The real proof will be one year after the launch of the iPad when someone does a study of the number of books read by an average iPad users (or at least iPad user who bought it planning to use it as an ereader anyway) vs average Kindle/Reader user.
User experience will encourage reading on dedicated ebook readers and discourage it on iPad.
You mark my words (most ebook readers allow annotations, after all)....
The Indomitable Gall
Kill! Kill! Kill! → #
Posted Thursday 4th March 2010 14:44 GMT
In SeaWorld killer killer whale must die, Bible insists
After killing two humans, there's no way SeaWorld can claim keeping it is safe.
They have to kill it now, as it's not like there's any vast body of salt water they can release it in to where it will be far away from human beings....
The Indomitable Gall
Story of Web 2.0's life: → #
Posted Thursday 4th March 2010 13:53 GMT
In Street View threatens to throw Eurostrop
Company wants to get into a market.
Company codes a solution.
Regulators state it isn't safe and/or doesn't protect data.
Company says it can't afford to make it safe and/or protect data.
It baffles me how companies have got a way with pleading "technology". YouTube is a publisher -- it's a branded site with lots of branded content, but they cry "ISP" when asked to take responsibility for that content.
Chatrooms put people in touch with each other but without any sort of supervision or vettin as would occur in the real world (eg IDing drinkers in pubs). They cry "technology" and they're let off with running a profit without protecting their customers.
Stuff it, guys, off-line computer programmers deal with regulatory constraints all the time. If we write software that doesn't comply with them -- we get fined.
On-line companies ignore regulation, steamroller through, and when someone pops up and points out the flaws they say "it's too expensive to fix". That's a flawed business model, and that's the business's fault.
No sympathy from me.
The Indomitable Gall
Format conversion...? → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 3rd March 2010 18:12 GMT
In iPhone ego clash costs Flash at Virgin America
"- Transparent PNGs are encoded in JPG with an alpha channel to further optimise size."
This is not good practice, as transcoding from one lossy compressed format to another degrades quality.
This is a mere hack that encourages bad planning and sloppy design.
The Indomitable Gall
You haven't understood → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 3rd March 2010 13:50 GMT
In Typing merely by thinking - plugless brainjack kit invented
This technology reads your brain as you carry out the thoughts that trigger the finger movements. It doesn't mean that you don't have to move your fingers, but it does mean that you can still type if your fingers aren't there.
But if your fingers/wrists/arms are very sore rather than missing, these thoughts will still trigger the movements and exacerbate the pain.
(Former sufferer of a (thankfully) mild RSI, still requiring careful management of keying time and posture.)
The Indomitable Gall
Good point. → # ↑
Posted Wednesday 3rd March 2010 11:00 GMT
In Android app brings in $13K a month
Most mobile apps are mere mashups of functions in the OS anyway -- it's more configuration than coding.
That was really the original goal of open source software, wasn't it? To remove the need to "reinvent the wheel" in code and just plug all the modules together to achieve the necessary
Back in the early Unix days, this resulted in the various C libraries that we now all take for granted (even if in their ported forms as used by other languages) and all the standard shell utilities that could be scripted together with pipes and redirection.
Modern FOSS has lost its way a bit, producing a lot of monolithic code that has to be heavily refactored to extract individual functions.
Case in point: OpenOffice.org. The GUI, rendering engine and backend are all tied together. Why's this bad? Cos every time they upgrade, the translation projects have to start again or you're stuck on the last version. Why shouldn't you be able to render and edit 3.0 with a 2.0 interface? Sure, you'll not get all the new functionality, but at least you'll be able to both use your own language and read files created in the latest version....
The Indomitable Gall
AAAAAAAAARGH! Bad science reporting! → #
Posted Wednesday 3rd March 2010 10:34 GMT
In Typing merely by thinking - plugless brainjack kit invented
"One day, a relatively simple headset may allow a person to manipulate a cursor and enter text without benefit of such antique interfaces as mouse, keyboard, voice-control or touchscreen - so freeing up his or her hands for critical tasks such as drinking coffee or scratching."
The point is that they are reading instructions to muscles. To drink coffee you have to think about moving your hands appropriately. If you're thinking about drinking coffee, you won't be able to think about typing simultaneously without spilling it!
The Indomitable Gall
Not just the tune... → # ↑
Posted Friday 26th February 2010 13:02 GMT
In Men at Work appeal Down Under plagiarism ruling
Even the lyrics bear a striking resemblance to the Welsh song (although there's no telephone wires or tails on fire in the Welsh blackbird's case).
The Indomitable Gall
But... → # ↑
Posted Thursday 25th February 2010 14:49 GMT
In British Library wants taxpayer to gobble the web
The current law on books is that every book or periodical that gets published commercially in the UK must be supplied to 5 libraries that hold copies in perpetuity. There is no judgement on suitability. If it's published, it's in. They are just trying to maintain the status quo, and I think that's a good thing. I have seen many websites vanish with only a partial mirror at archive.org . Among the legions of dross at Geocities, there were several gems, including one of the two best internet libraries of Scottish Gaelic song lyrics that were lost.
Then there's the idea of corpus research. Having access to all these tweets and comments would allow language researchers to examine questions like how the internet is changing literacy, and that is a genuinely interesting and important topic.
The Indomitable Gall
Uh-huh... → #
Posted Wednesday 24th February 2010 20:58 GMT
In Montblanc's Gandhi pen run out
"£16k says the Beeb, £14,400 according to reports last year."
I think -- and I may be wrong here -- that the rupee is stronger than last year...?
The Indomitable Gall
The full story. → #
Posted Wednesday 24th February 2010 20:58 GMT
In What's on the mind of the Freetard eBookworm?
Immature sexually frustrated nerd reads teenage trash -- number 7.
Wants woman: needs photo for lonely hearts site -- number 9.
Photo not having desired effect: needs to "enhace" his package -- number 2.
Woman bites -- now needs to talk his way round the obvious doctoring -- number 8.
Failed attempts using info from number 1.
Falls back to number 3 for simpler explanation.
As stated, this leads to a domestic situation requiring number 10
Woman goes on line looking for number 4.
In the process she discovers number 6 on the hard drive.
Woman calls power company and broadband provider demanding immediate disconnection.
Man uses remaining battery in laptop and neighbour's unsecured wifi to download number ´5 and restore his access to number 6 and its ilk...
The Indomitable Gall
Dictatorship of the majority...? → #
Posted Tuesday 23rd February 2010 12:01 GMT
In MPs bash broadband tax
"We believe that a 50 pence levy placed on fixed telecommunication lines is an ill-directed charge. It will place a disproportionate cost on a majority who will not, or are unable to, reap the benefits of that charge,"
Isn't this pretty much the definition of all government spending? The majority of people pay National Insurance to subsidise the minority who have serious illnesses or long-term unemployment problems. A city dweller who never travels more than 5 miles in his car pays the same road tax as a farmer who lives 50 miles from any major town. An immigrant not educated in this country and with no children is still required to fund UK schools.
It is in the country's interests to maintain a stable rural population, and right now "market forces" are freezing rural people out of broadband, and they are the people most in need of improved communications links.
No amount of tax breaks is going to make rural cabling more profitable than sticking to dense urban centres -- compulsion is the only option.
The Indomitable Gall
Hate to say it, but... → #
Posted Tuesday 23rd February 2010 11:27 GMT
In Apple strips top shelf, leaves corporate smut in place
I actually see Apple's point on this.
Big names like Playboy do have a bit less of a sleaze factor simply by virtue of being a known brand.
That's brand politics for you.
The Indomitable Gall
Most users...? → # ↑
Posted Monday 22nd February 2010 10:36 GMT
In iPad pitch to the Wall Street Journal laid bare
"I've lost count of the number of times I've seen people forget to manually eject their USB pendrives from a computer before pulling it out of the port."
Most users don't "forget" to do it -- they didn't know in the first place!
So design error one is making it possible.
Design error two is that the OS doesn't pop up a great big flashing error every single time you do it, but gives you a small non-descript dialogue box or balloon, and includes a little checkbox saying "don't show this error again".
Unplugging a device without stopping it first risks data loss, so the user shouldn't be able to ignore it....
The Indomitable Gall
British Weather vs Big Brother → #
Posted Thursday 18th February 2010 16:42 GMT
In 'Optionally manned' spy plane to fly this summer
Pah... Johnny Our-Government won't spy on us that easily -- we have our bally clouds to bally well protect us! Tally ho!!!
The Indomitable Gall
Not racist... → # ↑
Posted Thursday 18th February 2010 16:31 GMT
In Airport scanners face double exposure
No, of course you're not racist... you're just a geriophilic sex-pest.
The Indomitable Gall
Accuracy.... → #
Posted Monday 15th February 2010 14:54 GMT
In Chips make you chipper: Official
Aside from the fact that they don't mention the control group (as others have commented), there is the problem of what "chips" means. Having never heard of this "Aston" place, I thought the prof was saying "crisps" in a funny accent.....
The Indomitable Gall
Quite right too! → #
Posted Friday 12th February 2010 14:31 GMT
In UK universities being broken by border control measures
Foreign students!! They all want to blow us up!! When I was at uni I had a classmate from the Middle East, and she killed me with a suicide bomb in a lecture!! One of my classmates had a flatmate from the Middle East -- he killed me with a suicide bomb in the pub!! I was also killed on three separate occasions by foreign students I didn't know entering nightclubs with improvised incendiary devices, and twice in the Scotmid Coop by foreigners bearing bandoliers of hand grenades.
Edinburgh used to be a peaceful city, but since the University started letting in foreign students, you can't walk the streets for fear of being blown up unexpectedly by an angry student suicide squad!!
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