Where did the internet all go so quickly?

A further 4 /8's have been allocated in November it seems, so we are down to only 7 /8's left. I understand that when we get to 5 the RIRs get one last /8 each.

This could mean we are literally weeks from an empty IANA pool of IPv4s.

Whats the betting IPv4 will run out before Christmas!

LHR arrivals borked

So wife coming from Cologne...

Their departures web site says not left. Now 18:51...

LHR web site still listing arrival scheduled 18:40 !!!!!

WTF. How thick is that?

Come on guys, join the dots... It is after the expected arrival time *now*, so asserting on schedule for a time in the past is pretty brain dead.

At 19:13 LHR still list as expected 18:40. Who wrote that FFS?

Time for a new DNS system?

What with proposals by SOCA to be able to shut down UK domains without any conviction, we now see this already applies to ICANN based domains. See article.

So, how long before we need a new type of DNS that is somehow designed to avoid any possibility of central control or censorship.

I am sure it must be possible, but it is hard to come up with a way of creating records that are unique without a central body or some sort of delegation. Mind you, we managed it for newsgroups!

I am sure it is possible somehow.

Clearly governments cannot be trusted.

Don't use Nominet .uk domains any more?

[update: my post below is a tad confrontational, and itself somewhat knee jerk. Alex Bligh has produced a much better worded article on why this is so wrong]

Well, we have always been very keen to promote .uk domains managed by Nominet. The contract was always very clear, the domain owner was protected from stupidities of the ISP they were using, the registration process was quick and easy, and the prices were sensible. We liked UK domains and supported Nominet.

But to be honest the extent with which Nominet are colluding with big brother is now making me very concerned.

The latest news suggests proposals that any .uk domain where there are "reasonable grounds to believe they are being used to commit a crime" such as "a request from an identified UK Law Enforcement Agency" could be instantly suspended.

This is mental!

Many popular .uk domains are used to commit a crime. You can guarantee that someone somewhere has used google.co.uk in some way to commit a crime. And of course, hotmail.co.uk will have been used to commit a crime every time anyone sends an email that someone in the country could find menacing (even if the recipient does not).

Bear in mind that many company web sites still fail to include all of the correct details as required by the Companies Act 2009 - that's a crime, so all of those domains could be instantly taken down stopping not only the companies web site but their email and any other services using the domain which could even include their phones these days!

You may think I am being silly here - but when we have a system that can convict someone of a joke on twitter, you realise that perhaps I am not. It's a good thing that twitter don't use a UK domain or proposed laws like this could have taken twitter down completely. You have the crazy situation where someone could complain that an email they got could have been menacing to some hyperthetical older couple and that means the domain used for the email could be suspended as it is used to commit a crime.

Bear in mind the police do not want to investigate and prosecute these frivolous crimes, so requesting Nominet take the domain down would be a quick and easy way of dealing with a complaint from the public.

It is like saying that BT should turn off a whole telephone exchange if anyone uses one of the lines to commit a crime. The implications of suspending a domain can be much more far reaching than just a web page.

Of course some people with no clue (such as many politicians) will wonder why I am ranting on this - surely this is a good thing as it helps stop criminal activity. If they really think that some web site that the establishment don't like will go away because their domain is suspended, they are totally round the bend. The fitwatch example given, using a UK domain to point to a US site would simply be on a .com domain, or a .cx domain or any number of other domains around the world - or better still on a direct IP address URL. I have already said how the whole concept of domain names is diluted now, with people using twitter and facebook namespaces as well as saying "search for xxx". So many people are not using domains now. Changing a web site from one domain to another has effect as fast as the search engines pick it up. So this suggestion is pointless.

Like so many uninformed knee jerk reactions, it has no effect on any crinimals but has huge scope to damage letitimate domain users and companies. Actually, no effect is not true - it creates publicity for the criminals.

If Nominet go ahead with this then we'll stop doing free UK domains with our DSL and start recommending customers use other registries. Nominet should be explaining the complete futility of such proposals not agreeing with them.

I'd love to hear Nominet's side on this one. Lets hope this is just bad reporting and I am wrong about this.

3D WoW?

You can get computer video cards which support 3D. These allow the game to set up two frame buffers for each point of view (left eye and right eye) from the same scene, and alternate frames to the monitor. They also drive 3D shutter glasses.

This does however mean an expensive video card and expensive high frame rate monitor. The good high resolution monitors tend not to have the necessary frame rate.

However, games could do something different. With just a simple software change they could generate a split screen where left and right eye are side by side on the display. This would work with any video card. If they do that, then you can play on your 3D TV. The TV will split the two images and drive the glasses just the same as a feed from Sky or BD. Many games on consoles already do split screen for multi-player - showing a different viewpoints for different players.

WoW, in 3D, on a 55" HD 3D would be moderately cool!
Even if only possible when my wife is away...

So, Blizzard, please can we have a 3D TV mode for WoW? It's a very simple s/w change...

3D

Hmmm... 3D TV and Sky TV, and now I see how some of it works.

First off, yes, the 3D effect works - there is depth. That is the plus point... I seem to be able to watch live football in 3D! (I don't watch football).

Now for the crap...

1. It appears that there is no signal to tell the TV that the feed is 3D - you have to turn on and off 3D mode on the TV. It is thankfully one button. And to be fair you have to put glasses on, so that is not so hard. I think this is a limitation in the Sky box not telling the TV it is 3D to be honest.

2. It appears that a 3D feed is just a squashed picture and another picture on the same frame. I.e. it is not actually two full HD pictures, but two half resolution pictures. Con or what?

3. It appears there is clearly no standard for that, as the TV has top/bottom or side-by-side modes. Sky seem to send side-by-side. So if you watch Sky 3D on a normal TV it is just two images width squashed, side by side on the screen. Seems you can get 3D for free too, so you can try that on a normal TV for a laugh. Arrg! The TV forgets the setting...

4. The TV, a nice (expensive) 55" Sony, is fine I am sure, but I can see the flicker with the active glasses. I expected that this might happen. I have yet to see if I can get used to that. We'll see.

5. This crazy way of sending two pictures for the price of one does have the side effect that existing kit will just work as it is not aware it is doing 3D, just a rather odd picture. So it will just work with a blue ray player, or whatever, that has 3D.

6. The sky box has no clue it is 3D (see above), which means the menus, and the pause logo, and so on, are all seriously screwed up. The sky box needs to know, and to display its menus half width on both sides. I am sure that would be easy for them to do, but they have not done it. Doh!

So, not entirely impressed yet, and shocked that 3D seems to be technically a bodge on normal HDMI.

Company bike

Well, we may not do company cars, but we do company bikes, and I have a nice new one now...

I have actually gone for the classic with 3 speed as I only use 2 gears anyway, and the 5 speed caused too many problems.

But I have gone for the non standard hub dynamo/brake set on the front as the rim dynamo was a pain.

So, well chuffed.