* Posts by John Parker

59 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Sep 2007

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Spam volumes show massive drop - but why?

John Parker

BitCoins

Lot of them are now mining tiny amounts of BitCoin on the spare CPU cycles, more profitable per machine than spam.

NZ government makes software 'unpatentable' (for now)

John Parker
WTF?

title title title title title title title title title title title title title title title

Peurile I know, but "IPONZ"...? Really? Phonetically they're not doing themselves any favours lol :)

Jobs tells iPhone users to get a grip

John Parker
Happy

official fingering guide

lol @ official 'fingering' guide :)

Fujitsu demos next-gen color e-paper

John Parker
Stop

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

PRS-505 specifications

* Size: 175 × 122 × 8 mm (6.9" × 4.8" × 0.3")

2mm less

McAfee offers cash for clunkers

John Parker

POS

POS == Piece Of S**t, not Point Of Sale :)

'McDonalds' burger-lers making millions

John Parker
Happy

"tarnish the good reputation of McDonalds"

Ha ! Yes they have a very good rep...

Google (finally) pays bounties for Chrome bug reports

John Parker
Thumb Up

$1,337

LEET :)

NuLabour 'Bribo' laptop pops up on eBay

John Parker
Stop

Still completely unnecessary

You can use PCs at any local library for browsing the internet, email, printing documents, writing CVs, jobsearch websites etc.

So why are we sending out loads of free laptops? If the target families had a disabled family member so they cant' get to a local library I could understand, otherwise it's a waste of my tax contributions.

Windows 'openness' hailed in Nintendo game defeat

John Parker
Thumb Up

Homebrew

I only use my DS for emulators - Atari 2600, C64, Speccy, Colecovision, NES, Master System, Megadrive, SNES, Gameboy, NEOGEO... All with complete game sets (Except for the NeoGeo due to storage reasons.

Going to look into sorting out the Amstrad CPC 464 next!

The DS homebrew scene is pretty strong, just like my original XBox which has an even larger suite of emulation goodies (A few N64 games on there running through Surreal64 multiemu)...

With all that coolness, you realise how crap the vast majority of "native" games are :)

RIM BlackBerry Bold 9700

John Parker
Happy

Catty

Yeah my little black and white catty used to always sit on my notepad I'd keep next to the keyboard when I was coding :) I love cats!

Hisense 1080p Media Player

John Parker
Paris Hilton

Ewwww!

"not a name to automatically moisten our nethers"

Ewwwww!

Paris, because she's very au fait with nether regions

Microsoft goes Darwinian with evolutionary tree patent

John Parker
Happy

65536^256

1.0403171640308219849394707105207e+1233 test strings :)

Microsoft apes Spotify with ad-stuffed tune streaming

John Parker
Stop

Not invite only

II've installed Spotify on 3 different machines for friends. In all cases no invite was needed just download and set up a new account.

They must just still be hosting that old invitation page as your providing a direct url to it...?

Ukraine slaps ban on all porn

John Parker
Stop

Blind..?

As David Blunkett is blind, I'm not sure he should factor so significantly in debates regarding sighted media (being incapable of experiencing it). I don't recall sighted people censoring braille porn...

Programmer charged with stealing Wall Street-ware

John Parker
Stop

"The Process" movie...?

@ Anonymous Coward Posted Monday 6th July 2009 23:06 GMT:

I've checked IMDB for all movies made with the title "The Process", and none match the description of a movie about a secret formula...?

Pocket DV cam packs pico projector

John Parker
Stop

Battery consumption

I'd be interested to know how much power is required to maintain this illuminated 50"image... as battery life is already the ongoing problem for all compact mobile devices...

So we watch ten minutes of a video on the cafe wall, then my phone is dead til I can get home to recharge? Can't see people going for that... and if you can only run it at home plugged in, might as well just go for wired TV out through the data cable.

Hmmmm.....not convinced all the tech is in place yet.

Website liable for Google-generated page summary

John Parker
Happy

Ridiculous

This is, as the first poster says, bonkers.

So the judges has ruled that one cannot create a webpage that contains two words that may concievably be placed near eachother if the page is concatenated by an algorithm, with the source words that driver the algorithm, yet to be provided by an unknown human user, if the resulting computer generated "sentence" may offend another unknown human.

I love it when "judges" have no understanding of how technoology works :)

Flip Ultra and Creative Vado pocket camcorders

John Parker
Happy

background interferences

"...background interferences like wind, dogs, small children, Americans, etc."

Ho ho ho :)

Kindle fails to set light to unsold e-book pile

John Parker
Happy

Sony Reader PRS 505

I've got one of these and they are brilliant. Until you've seen a good (the PRS-505 features a much improved screen over the previous years PRS-500 screen) eInk screen, it's hard to imagine. It just looks like actual ink on paper... not backlit LCD/TFT or CRT! Perfectly visible in sunlight, unlike laptop/mobile screens. And the Sony Readers actually look slender and cool too :)

I thought the Kindle looked rather crap to be honest.

US says the next war will be all in our minds

John Parker

"Advances here are likely to come in the form of ... robotic assistants."

"Advances here are likely to come in the form of ... robotic assistants."

Finally, my robot butler :)

Sun opens Java tools in mobile fight back

John Parker
Boffin

multiplatform...

One of the problems (Device build fragmentation) will remain regardless of the language/VM implementation. This is because different handsets all have different capabilities wrt. draw speed, 3D capabilities, real VRAM, available static/dynamic RAM, CPU speed, FPU/not, storage space, persistent record space, to name but a few. The handset manufacturers aren't all going to switch their entire phones to contain a homogeneous hardware specification, just to make app porting easier on whatever VM implementation exists.

UK ISPs agree to menace their filesharing users

John Parker
Coat

Leeching...

From a legal self-protection perspective, this makes leeching much more appealing... unfortuneately if everyone leeches then the p2p system falls down completely!

AFAIK people have only been charged with 'sharing files', or 'uploading'. Or the occasionaly use of the word 'downloading where the hack/PR person/whoever doesn't understand the difference between the two processes. It's only distributing the pirate materials yourself that is the crime, not acquiring them from another distributor...

The guy getting his coat, because he looks more like he's rifling through the inside pockets (for some Elton John CDs), rather than putting it on to leave after a particularly bad joke.

Bluetooth finally reaches ten (years, not users)

John Parker
Coat

Pun time

I guess this means it'll be getting a visit from the (blue)tooth fairy.

Mine's the one with the bluetooth-enabled phone in the pocket.

'Major' Flash Player beta released

John Parker
Dead Vulture

bite code

"The Flash Player 10 beta features a brand-new Just In Time (JIT) engine to load pixel bite code into the Flash Player engine."

Isn't that a rather bad typo for the 'code' section of the Reg?

Canadian toddler dies after VOIP 911 call

John Parker
Black Helicopters

@Chris C - why is it always about *young* people in news

I think it's because PR departments are permanently trying to appeal to the masses - so talking to people in the context of children gets people into mushy, maternal/paternal illogical mode of thinking - hence easier to deliver spin to. They get used to this, and it makes the messengers appear more maternal/paternal and less pragmatic and political too.

We need more CCTV..... why? It will keep our children safe! Oh shit, yeah your right we definitely do need more TV, as priority #1 in the world is keeping my genetic offspring intact etc...

Apple gets into mine-sweeping, missiles and storage

John Parker
Thumb Up

Re: hatred

Hmmm I'm with Ashlee on this one - if you can't show a bit of hatred toward business models reliant on human-killing-machine parts....

Maybe Ben's spelling of "were" is telling as to his intelligence... either that or he's a warmonger :)

Snort coke, shaft the environment, say boffins

John Parker
Happy

"...the UK is one of the world’s largest consumption markets for cocaine..."

"...the UK is one of the world’s largest consumption markets for cocaine..."

...and we do loads of binge drinking too... whatever people say, us Brits don't muck about when it comes to getting leathered :)

Brown: Jack Bauer spook horde to tackle terrorism

John Parker
Alien

mars man related...

By trackSuit:

You may think that Mattie, I couldn't possibly....

"Replace the idle hands and insert NeuREAL Careful Hans dDutch AIgent-assigned work tasks and things will Get BETA. [Test IT and C++]."

Have we got amanfrommars copycat on our hands? Or has amfm changed his name?

Jodrell Bank offloaded on eBay

John Parker
Thumb Up

I'm with Rob Uttley - revenue from Sky sponsorship!

The Sky sponsership isn't such a bad idea :) isn't it only £80m their short of? Sky could perhaps spare that from their coffers for the image rights of having the Sky_ HD painted on it... then they could use it as the cutscene betweeen shows, and have a web addresss where people could find out more.

Then the other TV companies might even start funding their own scientific projects to compete!

</optimism>

Pentagon rattles sabre at Google's Street View

John Parker
Black Helicopters

Black helicopters

I'd have thought we'd be seeing a higher concentration of black helicopter icons on the comments page really...

Oh well, I'll do my bit.

Pentagon attackers stole 'amazing amount' of sensitive data

John Parker
Stop

I'm with A/C

I'm with A/C on this one - Networked Windows machines in the Pentagom with all this sensitive data on it seems outright unfathomable.

Quake rocks Britain

John Parker
Coat

I bought several coats this evening, butler...

I was so scared last night when it happened, I was literally quaking in my boots. I couldn't get back to sleep so I player a few games of Quake III. Insomnia prevailed, so I had a warm bowl of Quakers Oats cereal. Even so, I was still wide awake, and felt a religious realisation - starting today, I would become a Quaker!

Mine's the one under the falling rubble...

John Parker
Happy

Lol - BBC News guy

OMG just watched the BBC News segment on it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7260000/newsid_7266200/7266244.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1

The first 'man on the street' who was at the epicentre is hilarious. He says something along the lines of: "We felt the earthquake the floor was shaking... first thing we though was that it may have been terrorists".

Ha!

Secret bidder delivers 'open access' to US airwaves

John Parker
Happy

@Shun F

"I am not sure if that sentence is grammatically, or factually, correct."

You might have been better posting your first sentence *after* amanfromMars submitted his post :)

Bank turns London man into RFID-enabled guinea pig

John Parker
Stop

Terrible idea

"[Apacs] believes fraudsters will not be bothered with collecting lots of small sums when they could garner more from other scams. Halifax says all banks will honour money-back guarantees if cards are compromised by fraudsters."

I like the way the concerns of people walking around say the tube, with a battery powered, modified (amplified) for larger distance scanning have been addressed! 'Scammers simply won't be bothered to rip these off.'

It's a terrible idea. I could easily set up a shill business as a sandwich shop or whatever, then make my real, tax free, proper incoming scanning cards on the underground/other busy public place all day, and charging say £9 per hit... even just a hit a minute yields me a healthy £540/hour... or £2160 for a 40 hour week.

Spirit discovers life on Mars

John Parker
Coat

amanfrommars

I hope amanfrommars is reading all the comments about him (from mars via some kind of tunnelling wifi).

Do ya know what amanfrommars's wife is called...?

awomanfrommars.

Mine's the tight-fitting futuristic lycra tunic, with the mobile phone in the shape of a Star Trek communicator badge, if you please. Space-taxi!

Remembering the Commodore SX-64

John Parker
Coat

@spacepiggy

"15 years ago a cow-orker gave me his"

I've never seen a cow being orked before, but I am curious :)

Mine's the patchwork farmer's jerkin with horsehair lining please - no taxi required, I came here on my tractor...

British software pirate faces up to 10 years in jail

John Parker
Boffin

"Cracked it himself"

Yeah he may have cracked it himself, *or*, he may have just typed "acecad" into the eMule search box. Oh, what's this:

ACECAD STRUCAD V11.0-MAGNiTUDE.iso

ACECAD STRUCAD V11.0-MAGNiTUDE.bin

ACECAD STRUCAD V11 dongle emulator.bin

ACECAD STRUCAD V11.0-MAGNiTUDE.nfo

Ah I see, cracked by the hacking team 'MAGNiTUDE' already. So you just have to d/l the iso, and bin, fire up Nero and burn them to a CD-R. Then d/l and install the dongle emulator, and you're running a fully licenced copy.

So am I a top hacker too now I've figured out those most basic steps?

Excuse me sir: there's a rootkit in your master boot record

John Parker
Dead Vulture

@Steve Roper

"I, for one, would gladly go to the public hanging of a malware scammer (as long as he was PROVEN guilty) and throw rotten eggs with the greatest pleasure."

If you were about to be hung (or even already hung), would you be bothered by the eggs, rotten or otherwise..? If I was about to be executed by hanging, I don't even think I'd notice the eggs.

</dark_thought>

Mozilla pulls offensive viral campaign

John Parker
Go

@Anon C

"Didn't someone once describe Open Source software as a cancer?"

A cancer on M$'s profit margins...

Nintendo Wii hack opens door to homebrew games

John Parker
Happy

Re: "Nintendo won't be happy"

Of course they won't, however, it's been possible to play backup Wii DVD games for ages using WiiKey and other such modchips.

All this means is that homebrew code can now be run. It hasn't contributed to any kind of piracy problem, as the Wii is already completely hack wrt. playing Wii and GC backups, using a modchip.

So it is cool after all :)

Man uses mobe as modem, rings up £27k phone bill

John Parker
Alert

"mobe"

I thought we weren't supposed to be using the term "mobe", according to the 10 Rules of El Reg Club.

Xbox gamers urged don't get smashed

John Parker
Happy

@Cameron - "Winners Don't Use Drugs"

Ho ho ho :)

I also used to rack up unnerving high scores with my friends on 'Pinball Fantasies' on the Amiga, thru one of those clouds of devilweed smoke ;)

When we weren't stoned, it actually seemed quite a bit harder to maintain such an unshakable, constant focus on the game at hand. Used to work for driving games too...

US fails to reverse online gambling ban

John Parker
Thumb Down

Bad for bots

I played a relatively significant part in coding a PokerBot operation a while back. Boy were we pissed when USA banned online gambling - no more 100,000+ people online at Party/Stars... grrrr... we even had a LobbyCruiser for those in the know ;)

Retailers: Xbox 360 to win next-gen console war

John Parker

Xbox 360 too loud

From what I've read around the net, the new xbox 360's have improved cooling, so they sound like aircraft taking off. So they're a crappy choice for watching HD-DVD movies with, cos ya can't hear the film over the machine noise.

BBC's iPlayer launches Christmas Day

John Parker
Happy

I checked.....

you don't need a TV licence provided you don't use the TV/monitors that you own to watch broadcast material.

I checked, as I download all the stuff I want to watch and stream it to the xbox media centre sat under the old gogglebox. No licence here, and the beeb said it was ok in an email, after I checked with them.

**************************************************************

Dear Mr John

Thank you for your recent enquiry.

The use of television sets, videocassette recorders, set-top boxes or DVD recorders to receive or record television programme services must be covered by an appropriate TV Licence. A licence is also required if a TV-enabled personal computer is used to record or receive television programmes.

If a videocassette recorder, a DVD recorder or a colour television is used, whether separately or together, a Colour TV Licence is required. The use of televisions as monitors solely for computer/video games does not need licensing.

If your television equipment is used to receive or record television programmes, you should buy a TV Licence at once. However, if your equipment is not used to receive or record television programmes, please let me know your address. I will then make sure our records are changed to show you do not need a licence. However, I should advise you to make sure that the television and video are not tuned to receive television broadcasts, it is also advisable to ensure the equipment is not connected to any aerials. One of our Visiting Officers may visit your home to check that the equipment being used does not receive broadcast signals.

I hope this information is helpful.

Yours sincerely

Brian James

TV Licensing

**************************************************************

Canadian runs up $85,000 mobe bill

John Parker
Dead Vulture

no "mobe" !!!

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse, me boyo...."

... and what about the law that you can't use the word "mobe" in an article..?!

'Extortionist' turns Wi-Fi thief to cover tracks

John Parker
Paris Hilton

Altruistic Wifi...

Can't we have a new setting for Wifi routers that is "Free for all" - so if we want to create a little free hotspot we can? Then would-be users will know whether they are taking advantage of an inadvertantly unsecured hotspot, or an intentional bandwidth giveaway party! (PH also likes to party, hence the icon)

New 3D chip transistor may reach 50GHz

John Parker
Boffin

Moore's Law

So does Moore's Law still apply once we've got this new construct in our C/GPUs...?

Auction watchdog says eBay is illegal in France

John Parker
Thumb Up

I'm with the CESMs on this one

I'm with the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys on this one - if only we cuold have this happen in the UK too.

eBay are such arseholes when it comes to holding up their end of Paypal Buyer Protection, they make insurance companies who don't wanna pay out look good.

Ho hum.

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