Qyiet 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Backscatter Millimeter Wave Naked Scanners Confused By Folds In Clothing

    Qyiet ( profile ), 18 Nov, 2010 @ 07:44pm

    Re: Low dose of radiation.....

    imagine terrorist hackers who modify the firmware to increase the radiation levels

    Wow.. that's a fantastic level of evil. Didn't they say all the images are reviewed remotely? Meaning it's plugged into a network. Forget intercepting drone surveillance, Osama Bin Laden can now kill Americans without leaving Afghanistan. Thanks TSA

  • On the post: How Murdoch's Paywalls Meant Some News It Broke Went Unnoticed & Uncredited

    Qyiet ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2010 @ 03:54pm

    It's a PR Dream

    If you have something you have to announce, but you want to miss the news cycle, instead of throwing it to the press at 5pm on a friday, just drop it to the Times.

    By the time anyone notices it'll be old news.

  • On the post: 30,000 Musical Acts Are Making A Living… But Is That Good Or Bad?

    Qyiet ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2010 @ 01:50pm

    Re: Given the old way of doing things

    I asked wolfram alpha (the source of all maths) and it didn't know that far back. However if the 30,000 acts is correct, and the average size of an act is more than one (probable :) ), then more musicians are employed than were in the low point at 2006. I suspect the average size of an act is more like 2.5 so that would make more musicians employed than the 2001 in peak of the stats wolfram alpha knows of.

    http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=musicians+1990&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit

  • On the post: One Dunkin Donuts Tries To Abolish The Penny… Until Customers Demand It Back

    Qyiet ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2010 @ 03:21pm

    In NZ we don't HAVE a penny

    A while ago we killed both one and two cent coins. And we don't care. If you pay by eftpos you get charged to the cent, if you pay by cash rounding occors, and no-one cares.

    In a second stage of rationalisation 5c coins were also removed. But small coins are so usless that after consulting a friend we had to confirm via the web that they were also dead.

    Kill the usless coins, deploy eftpos everywhere. (for reference 2 cents NZ is approx 1.5 cents US and 5 cents NZ is just under 4 cents US)

  • On the post: One Dunkin Donuts Tries To Abolish The Penny… Until Customers Demand It Back

    Qyiet ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2010 @ 03:21pm

    In NZ we don't HAVE a penny

    A while ago we killed both one and two cent coins. And we don't care. If you pay by eftpos you get charged to the cent, if you pay by cash rounding occors, and no-one cares.

    In a second stage of rationalisation 5c coins were also removed. But small coins are so usless that after consulting a friend we had to confirm via the web that they were also dead.

    Kill the usless coins, deploy eftpos everywhere. (for reference 2 cents NZ is approx 1.5 cents US and 5 cents NZ is just under 4 cents US)

  • On the post: Turns Out TV Cord Cutters Are, In Fact, Young, Educated And Employed

    Qyiet ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2010 @ 03:00pm

    Re: Bogus Backpedaling

    No. When most people hear "dog's breakfast" they think Alpo. They don't think "muddle". Pretty sure that more people think "muddle" given that I had to google "Alpo".

    Urban Dictionary has a clear definition for you, and notes that usage occors less frequently in the US and commonly used in almost every other country that uses english as a primary language. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dog's+breakfast

  • On the post: New Pope Confuses Technology Reality And Fiction

    Qyiet ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 05:42pm

    Re: Re: Or...

    With new technology pope fictionalises reality

  • On the post: New Pope Confuses Technology Reality And Fiction

    Qyiet ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 05:32pm

    I see what happened...

    He thought the preists were only looking at child porn on the net, not abusing little kids.

    Seriously the head of an organisiation that is all about confusing fiction and reality is not the person to be giving advice on this issue.. or is he?

  • On the post: New Pope Confuses Technology Reality And Fiction

    Qyiet ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2010 @ 05:32pm

    I see what happened...

    He thought the preists were only looking at child porn on the net, not abusing little kids.

    Seriously the head of an organisiation that is all about confusing fiction and reality is not the person to be giving advice on this issue.. or is he?

  • On the post: The Difference Between Ideas And Execution — And What's Missing From 'The Social Network'

    Qyiet ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2010 @ 05:35pm

    Old world looking at the new world

    Listening to This Week in Tech on the way to work this morning they (admittedly by quoting another source who I can't remeber) made the same point. The entire framing of the movie was off.

    The comparison they made was of a skilled English playwright in writing about the Americas during its independence. It would all be framed in from the old world view, and while still being a good piece of art.. would often miss the point.

  • On the post: Leaked Report Admits That Hadopi First Strike Accusations Won't Be Reviewed For Accuracy

    Qyiet ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2010 @ 02:55pm

    Re: At a 150,000 per day

    By my maths with 42 million internet users it will take about two years, three months at 50,000 per day to send a takedown to every internet user in france. However I'll bet that there are far less connections than there are users. So mabey 6 months to get one to every internet connection, and 2 years to get everyone banned.

    I expect that this rate of notice publication is going to backfire very badly for the french government.

    http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=it_net_user&idim=country:FRA&dl=en&hl=en&q=number+of+internet+users+in+france

  • On the post: Filmmaker Insists That Only People Whose Livelihood Depends On Copyright Really Understand It

    Qyiet ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2010 @ 01:40pm

    Classic Logical Fallacy

    This is known as special pleading: You can't argue against me because "you don't know.. you weren't there man"

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

  • On the post: USTR Behind ACTA Secrecy; This Is Not The Transparency We Were Promised

    Qyiet ( profile ), 02 Sep, 2010 @ 01:29pm

    Fire them

    Sounds like the administration as told them do A, they have done the opposite of A.

    Just apologise to the other members of ACTA, then fire everyone even tertiarly related to the whole mess. It would make the point to the public, and the other groups dragging their feet that when asked to do A by the administration, you should in fact do A.

  • On the post: Has Microsoft Extinguished Silverlight?

    Qyiet ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2010 @ 04:58pm

    Definatly not dead

    I hear a lot about silverlight in regards to MS Dev work.

    I think it may be that they are looking at using it less as a wrapper for video.

  • On the post: US 27th In Broadband Speeds? Slower Than Kyrgyzstan

    Qyiet ( profile ), 02 Aug, 2010 @ 09:20pm

    27th... we DREAM of 27th

    New Zealand is 43rd.. behind (insert profanity of your choice) Kazakstan! http://twitpic.com/2b56hf

    *sigh*

  • On the post: Australian Newspaper Says The Only Way To Get Its iPad App Is To Subscribe To The Paper Version

    Qyiet ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2010 @ 10:03pm

    It's competing with it's own website.

    The New Zealand Herald (the local paper where I live) announced an iPad version of itself on iPad release day. I downloaded it once to see what it was, then left it alone.. in a pile of dead newspaper apps including NY Times, AP, and Reuters.

    Their web page versions are more useful to me because they come to me via links from other pages/applications.

    I think that the newspapers are not considering value here.. With the iphone apps were often a good substitute for websites. They were an alternate way to present the data well formatted for the small screen. This isn't needed on the iPad, so the value of these apps is marginal at best.

    I have no idea what the SMH app is like, but even if the SMH was my main paper I would be looking for a really good reason to download it at all.

  • On the post: A Paywall… For Obituaries?

    Qyiet ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2010 @ 04:31pm

    Up against the worlds best... they make it less useful

    Twitter is the worlds best obituary service. It's free, and a lot quicker than a website behind a paywall.

    I don't see how they will add value even close to what twitter provides.

  • On the post: Users Revolt Over Blizzard's Requirement Of 'Real Names' In Forum Comments

    Qyiet ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2010 @ 05:24pm

    Is it retroactive?

    As a former WoW player my issue would be if past posts suddenly display a real name rather than an alias.

    This would make it a sort of bait and switch where you posted under an alias to have your real name revealed later. That is very bad karma.

    Otherwise the offical forum is blizzards playground, and they can make whatever rules they want to impliement. If you want to use it well and good, otherwise don't use the official forum, it's not like there are a shortage of others.

    Not sure it's a good call.. but it's blizzard's call to make. Just making it retroactive would make it 'evil'.

  • On the post: Should Managers Care That Employees Are On Facebook And YouTube While At Work?

    Qyiet ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2010 @ 02:03pm

    I am in fact an IT Manager

    We run with as loose a policy as we feel we can. We block streaming services because our data is charged by volume, and it is seldom work related. (users can and do ask for work related exceptions)

    We inspect and block incomingb malware, viruses and ads (essentialy the adblock addin for the enterprise) and thats it.

    If it's a technical issue.. we deal with it. If it's a social issue (eg facebook, ebay or just forum usage) that's the problem of the manager in charge of the employee.

  • On the post: In A World Of Bottom Up Technology, Should IT Support Your iPhone?

    Qyiet ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2010 @ 08:25pm

    If security was your reason for a ban...

    .. and users can join internal networks with an unauthorised device, then you have already failed as an admin.

    We avoid apple's smartphone at my work because it's hard to centrally manage, and expensive on the cellular data (no unlimited plans over here). But there is a lot more lockdown should have already happened if you require the sort of security that would be banning iphones from your system.

    To answer Mike's question: I will setup oddball devices for users in downtime, with a 'if it breaks it's not our problem'. Provided of course the device is not going to create issues with other internal systems.

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