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Comment Most if not all Canadian vendors lack CIQ (Score 1) 249

I don't know why it is the case, but all the big carriers in Canada do not have Carrier IQ installed. I cannot imagine that it's out of concern for the privacy of their clients. There must be some law hiding somewhere preventing it. Something like PIPA or other provincial equivalents?

Rogers (Also Fido, owned by Rogers along with Chatr), Telus (Koodo, Clearnet), Bell (Virgin, Solo), and Videotron do not have CIQ installed on any phones. This covers about 95% of Canadians.

Comment Re:web 101: don't run unknown javascripts (Score 4, Insightful) 262

I tried running with Javascript disabled. Five years ago you could get away with it. Now so many sites, especially with jQuery being so pervasive, simply don't work with JS disabled or you get an ugly broken thing.

I hear the claim, "Well you can run it on trusted sites". What has the site done to earn my trust? Why couldn't a malicious site appear interesting enough to prompt you to turn JS on and thus be attacked. Only a little social engineering can defeat NoScript. Whitelisted sites can become compromised as well.

Comment Re:This has all happened before. (Score 1) 602

Like you, after watching the last season of BSG there is no way I could ever tolerate watching another series written by the same people. In fact, if I ever see "from the writers of Battlestar Galactica" in an advertisement I would see it as a good indication that I probably don't want to watch the show.

I was very let down by the series. It started out great, season 2 was even better, season 3 started the downhill trend but I held hope because the first two seasons were so good but I was sadly mistaken.

AMD

AMD Demos Llano Fusion APU, Radeon 6800 Series 116

MojoKid writes "At a press event for the impending launch of AMD's new Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 series graphics cards, the company took the opportunity to provide an early look at the first, fully functional samples of their upcoming 'Llano' processor, or APU (Applications Processer Unit). For those unfamiliar with Llano, it's 32nm 'Fusion' product that integrates CPU, GPU, and Northbridge functions on a single die. The chip is a low-power derivative of the company's current Phenom II architecture fused with a GPU that will target a wide range of operating environments at speeds of 3GHz or higher. Test systems showed the integrated GPU had no trouble running Alien vs. Predator at a moderate resolution with DirectX 11 features enabled. In terms of the Radeon 6800 series, board shots have been unveiled today, as well as scenes from AMD's upcoming tech demo, Mecha Warrior, showcasing the new graphics technology and advanced effects from the open source Bullet Physics library."

Comment Re:tabs on the same row as address bar (Score 4, Informative) 288

It handles multiple tabs about as poorly as you can expect it to. http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/09/inside-internet-explorer-9-redmond-gets-back-in-the-game.ars/2 (scroll about 1/2 way down)

Basically it just crowds out until the tabs are rendered useless then if helpfully puts scroll arrows after you can't read what's inside the tab anymore.

Comment Comparing this to physical goods is foolish (Score 1) 547

I see posts here about people saying that if a snack product was sold as "up to X amount" that wouldn't fly for consumers.

Of course it wouldn't. If I buy a bag of M&Ms (they happen to be sitting in front of me) it's very easy for Mars Inc. to work out that the bag has 200g in side of it (give or take a gram). If it is 194g, well throw another candy coated nut in it. Ah, 200.5g. Close enough.

Selling access to something that is mostly beyond your control is foolish to try and actually guarantee a speed.. It's like building a wind turbine and being annoyed that it isn't producing the advertised 6.5MW of power on a calm day.

Now what I would like to see would be a standardized speed test that they would be forced to post as an average and make that the big wording. "7.5Mbps AVERAGE* *Average speed may vary, maximum speed of 15Mbps."

Comment My boss got suckered. (Score 3, Interesting) 125

Our domain was up for renewal in September. In July we get a letter from Domain Registry of Canada (Domain Registry of America is their US version). Looking like a normal and official bill, the boss paid it by VISA despite it being nearly 10x what a domain registrar should be charging. The next day I'm going through the paperwork and find the DROC invoice. I'm baffled because they are not our domain registrar. First thing I do is call our real company and confirm that the domain is still locked. I also renewed at the time just to make sure. I then called DROC and after a few minutes on hold I was assured that the charge was cancelled. I contacted VISA the next day and was informed that the charge had been cancelled. They seemed to be pretty routine and mechanical about cancelling people though I imagine a few people never realized they had been suckered.

Moon

LRO Photographs Soviet Lunar Landers From the '70s 24

braindrainbahrain writes "Photographs of the Sea of Crises on the Moon taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show the Soviet lunar landers Luna 20, Luna 23 and Luna 24, which landed on the Moon in the 1970s. In addition to the landers, it is possible to see the tracks made by the Lunokhod lunar rover! The Soviet Lunokhod lunar rover predates the first successful Mars Rover by some 30 years. (Note: Very cool old-style artists' drawings of the Soviet craft at the Wikipedia links above.)"
Space

Space Photos Taken From Shed Stun Astronomers 149

krou writes "Amateur astronomer Peter Shah has stunned astronomers around the world with amazing photos of the universe taken from his garden shed. Shah spent £20,000 on the equipment, hooking up a telescope in his shed to his home computer, and the results are being compared to images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. 'Most men like to putter about in their garden shed,' said Shah, 'but mine is a bit more high tech than most. I have fitted it with a sliding roof so I can sit in comfort and look at the heavens. I have a very modest set up, but it just goes to show that a window to the universe is there for all of us – even with the smallest budgets. I had to be patient and take the images over a period of several months because the skies in Britain are often clouded over and you need clear conditions.' His images include the Monkey's head nebula, M33 Pinwheel Galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy and the Flaming Star Nebula, and are being put together for a book."

Comment Re:NoScript (Score 1) 495

I tried using NoScript for about a month but stopped using it. Often times I would run into a website that was just broken for some reason. Couldn't click on the links, missing elements, no navigation menus, etc. Yes I could just back out of these sites and go elsewhere but a few of them I simply don't have a choice. I have to use the site.

A result of this, I permit the site to run JS. I thought, gee why couldn't a malicious site just look innocent and make it appear that you NEED JS to do anything on the page causing NoScript users to give them permission.

There are also some nice things you can do with JS. While these are low priority compared to some of the risks with javascript it can make some sites a bit nicer to deal with. Yes, there are safer ways to do this stuff but you don't have a choice.

The Internet

CRIA, MPAA Demand Expanded DMCA For Canada 224

An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian Recording Industry Association and the MPAA's Canadian subsidiary are demanding that Canada adopt copyright laws that go beyond even the DMCA. The groups demand anti-circumvention law, three strikes and you're out legislation, and increased secondary liability for websites. The demands come as part of the national copyright consultation in which hundreds of Canadians have spoken out against such reforms."

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