Subject: Heh, my crazy country

Hi,

In the UK people kick up a fuss when a CD with millions of people's info gets stolen.

Over here the Malaysian Election Commission just sells a CD with 10 million records for less than 0.1 pence per record :), apparently to anyone with the money.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Saturday/National/2159206/Article/index_html

Note that in Malaysia the Identification Card number encodes a fair amount of retrievable information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_identification_number#Malaysia

Wikipedia: The first group of numbers (YYMMDD) are the date of birth. The second group of numbers (SS) represents the place of birth of the holder - the states (01-13), the federal territories (14-16) or the country of origin (60-85)[4]. The last group of numbers (###G) is a serial number in an unidentified pattern which is randomly generated. The last digit (G) is an odd number for a male, while an even number is given for a female

For many important transactions, in theory you need to present your Identification Card physically, which often has your picture on it, but I'm sure there are always "weaker links" for people to get what they want.

p.s. please leave my name out of this, and probably best if you don't publish my email :).

Regards,

Some Bloke

Subject: Journalism or what passes for it.

Have you read Noam Chomsky's work or Bagdikian? They've been warning of this for decades now.

I ran a company called "Wyoming Network." It's still there if you care to look it up, but there is very little left of what it once was.

We did our own news, had our own reporters. We were very small time, but we were good. My philosophy was "first get the story right."

You might recognize that as similar but different to some other larger organizations philosophies.

Our big story was breaking the "Matthew Sheppard" story. One of my former students and his journalism adviser (a friend of mine) let us know about the story. By the time we wrote about it, the AP had already released an incorrect version. Within minutes we had the correct one. But of course, we were small time, and few people wanted to hear from us at first. By the end of it, we were being contact by many new sources (even the BBC, which made me somewhat proud as I used to consider them excellent news source).

Once we became credible we noticed that our "news" was being reported by other outlets. However in our case, it was being reported as if it had been generated by those outlets with no credit given to us.

I was always tempted to run a fake story and catch them in the act, but could never bring myself to do it.

As for me, the only way I can get truly valid news now is to look at a lot of news sources and try and get the real facts based on the diversity of opinions.

I doubt many others go to that effort, but I do have hope.

Thanks for the Inquirer. I enjoy it and it's generally done very well. I hope it runs well without you, and good luck on where ever it is that you head off to.

Gus

Subject: Copy "rights" dont apply to Holywood...

You know it has often seemed to me that crime should be punished based on who you are and not so much what you did. If a policeman commits a crime then it should be considered far more serious than if a child does it. It also seems to me that a teacher that commits rape of a school child is far more deplorable than a drunk teenager. Humans are humans, but in society we should act like we want to be perceived.

So when the music industry sue 12 year old kids thousands of dollars for copying a few songs, how should they be punished for doing the same theft? When the same bodies are persuing HUGE changes in laws, in liberty, in freedoms (and in the very perception of whats right and wrong), what then should be done when they themselves break the exact same rules?

Is it true that hollywood became what it did exactly because the then fledgling movie industry needed a state with lax copyright laws...? Can an industry really be so two faced?

Hmmmm...

Seems the studio responsible for the lord of the rings trilogy has not paid the copyright holders one penny?

Ah the truth will set you free.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91248-1305032,00.html

Glyn Parker

Subject: Energy Star for servers

How about Energy Star for software ? Inefficient software is the main reason for needing multiple or high powered servers...

pdornier

Subject: nvidia and amd antitrust probe

US Department of Justice has a continuing probe into AMD and Nvidia price
fixing and market manipulation. Case ongoing for over a year (started Dec.
2006). Any word on where this stands?

JJ

Subject: Journalism

I used to enjoy this site, but the journalism on here is terrible, stop being so anti microsoft, they are the ones which brought about the development of computing and technology, and you take whatever oppotinity to snub them. For once be a fair and unbias journalists and stop this
rediculous flaming. If you hate microsoft so much, then make a blog, your supposed to broadcast the news not fabricate and manupulate.

Oliver

Subject: Anagram for nvidia ageia

A Gain Via Die

Igor

Subject: Dell charges more for Ubuntu

This proves a wide spread suspicion: MS pays Dell to push Vista out :)

M

Subject: Duh

Is it anywonder... good start it has the most powerfull gfx card off all the consoles... but then they put a dinky little heatsink on it with low airflow. There are numerous websites with fan upgrades for the consoles because this is a Known problem.

MS even made a cooling stand for it, which i think they should give away to all 360 owners. It would prob save them in the long run.
Hot GPU + Hot CPU + Poor cooling design = overheating. MS cant do math to well can they.

Viper

Subject: Elonex laptop CPU

Did a little searching on this one and came up with a possibility. All the other versions of this system describe the CPU as an "Aday5F". There's a version of Linux for the Analog Devices Blackfin CPU, an embedded CPU that runs at the right kind of speed and with on-chip support for the hardware (10/100 ethernet, flash memory controller etc. See here.

SP Todd

Subject: U suck

Big man cause you can diss an aging rock band. Wtf have you done? Moron. Go back to flipping burgers jackass.

Dilbert

Subject: Energ y Star 4.0

This won't be just for servers but will affect GSA and federally funded purchases like schools, research programs, state and local governments that receive federal aid (read nearly every body). Intel is a sure loser out of this deal. Anything with FBDimm will be deader than the knights templer. Target is 30mflops per watt and the watt meter is put at the wall plug. Red Storm is 44mflops/watt so some where around 35 mflops is the magic number. rinky dink benchmarks are excluded in testing.

Use the HPCChallenge suite and Spec perf which have larger than 4kb page files. "t is useful to have benchmarks that are larger than common caches, because SPEC would like to differentiate its benchmarks from "toy benchmarks" that are too easy to run or that simply reflect MHz.'.

EBH

Subject: Complaint

MY MESSAGE IS TO COMPLAIN AS STRONGLY AS POSSIBLE REGARD-ING THE ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE DEPARTMENT OF DELL.

FIRST OF ALL, LET ME SAY, WE OWN NOT ONE, BUT TWO, DELLS--
THE LATEST ONE IS AN XPS 440

THE FIRST WAS BOUGHT BY ME AND FINANCED BY ME. THE SECOND WAS PURCHASED BY MY WIFE THROUGH HER EMPLOYER
PURCHASE PROGAM.

THE PROBLEM CONCERNS THE ONE FINANCED BY ME. I HAD TO
MISS ONE PAYMENT IN JANUARY DUE TO A SEVERE LOSS IN OUR
FAMILY.

I BEGAN TO RECEIVE HARRASSING PHONE CALLS SEVERAL TIMES A
DAY AND TRIED TO TALK TO DELL TELLING THEM I WOULD INCREASE MY PAYMENT IN FEBRUARY.

IN FEBRUARY, I LOOKED AT MY ACCOUNT ONLINE AND PAID ONE
AND A HALF TIMES THE AMOUNT DUE.

WHEN I EXPLAINED THIS TO A RECENT DELL CALLER, I WAS TOLD TO DISREGARD THE ONLINE AMOUNT, BUT RATHER PAY THE STATMENT AMOUNT. SO I WAS $30 PAST DUE. THEY EXPLAINED THAT THEY DID NOT CARE WHAT THE CAUSE OF MY PAST DUE CHARGE, BUT THAT THEY WOULD KEEP CALLING.

TODAY, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, THEY CALLED WHILE I WAS
WATERING MY GARDEN. NOW, I AM A 67-YEAR-OLD MAN WITH
PARKINSON'S WHO HAS TO LIVE ON SOCIAL SECURITY AND MY
ARMY PENSION. I RUSHED TO THE PHONE, SAW THAT IT WAS DELL
CALLING, I JUST TURNED IT OFF, WHICH I WILL HAVE TO DO UNTIL
I MAKE MY NEXT PAYMENT WHICH WILL CATCH ME UP.

WHAT DELL IS DOING IS REDUCING ITS NAME AND REPUTATION TO
SOME LOW-CLASS COLLECTION AGENCY WHICH WILL BREAK ANY
LAW, REGARDLESS OF DAY OR TIME TO REACH A VICTIM.

I LIKE DELL EQUIPMENT, BUT AM ALL THE MORE SORRY THAT WE CHOSE DELL WITH WHICH TO DO BUSINESS.

THANKS FOR HAVING THIS WEB SITE. NEEDLESS TO SAY, DELL
OFFERS NO WAY TO REACH ANY OF THEIR DEPARTMENTS,
ESPECIALLY ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE TO WHICH I MIGHT
WRITE SUCH AN EMAIL WHICH WOULD SURELY BE IGNORED.

THERMON W. COGGINS
TUSTIN, CA

cc:
Michael S. Dell, Board of Directors
Samuel A. Nunn, Jr., Dell Board of Directors
Morton L. Topfer, Dell Board of Directors
Alex J. Mandl, Deil Board of Directors
Michaei A Miles, Dell Board of Directors
Judy C. Lewent, Dell Board of Directors
Thomas W. Luce III, Dell Board of Directors
Klaus S. Luft, Dell Board of Directors
Donald J. Carty, Dell Board of Directors
Wiliam H. Gray III, Dell Board of Directors
Michael H. Jordon, Dell Board of Directors