Posts by Red Bren

Bare breast ballot finds scant support in small US town

A noble idea

But unlikely to be taken seriously when GoTopless was founded by Raelians!

Old PCs: When it's time to die

It's the environment, stupid

Not in the green sense but in the application landscape sense.

"Much of the cost of replacement is in the provisioning and roll-out, application licences and end-user training for new applications."

I'd say there is a significant cost in carrying out integration testing to make sure the new kit plays nicely with all the existing applications and equipment. When it (usually) doesn't, you have the knock-on cost of updating legacy systems for no benefit. How many bean counters will fund a rewrite or purchase of new client and server software when business critical apps run fine on old kit with the original OS and there may only be marginal perfomance improvements when you use the latest OS on the latest kit?

Aircraft bombs may mean end to in-flight Wi-Fi, mobile

Practicalities

Isn't a mobile phone in the luggage hold effectively in a faraday cage, therefore unlikely to connect to an operator's (pico)cell? Similarly with wifi? Would you not need to know the SSID and password of the access point in advance?

As for the provenance of the bomb threat, it came at a very convenient moment for certain politicians and securotards, just after airlines question the value and inconsistancy of security measures and just before elections in the US. Also, if you're planning on using explosive parcels to blow up cargo planes mid flight, why would you send them from the middle east to prominent jewish organisations in the US? How can you be sure when to trigger or time the bombs to go off?

Nominet to flog short domains

Doing a lot for charidee

"Where there is more than one applicant...an auction will be held with profits going to the Nominet Trust, a charity."

After we've deducted our overheads of course. You wouldn't believe the cost of 1s and 0s these days. And we have to pay the staff who polish the domains names, those internets don't clean themselves you know. Plus trebles all round for the managers and marketeers that came up with this money making scheme.

If it looks like job creation and customer gouging, then it is job creation and customer gouging, regardless of the charitable donation at the end of it.

Gov may restrict unfair dismissal claim rights

Stick and carrot

Perhaps employers should pay NI contributions at a premium rate for the length of the probabtion period, compensated by a lower rate* once full employment rights kick in? This would discourage sharp practice by unscrupulous employers and reward companies that invest in their staff.

* I know it's optimistic/delusional to expect lower tax.

Gentlemen, start your engines – with your phone!

Solution looking for a problem

Why?!! Unless you can instruct the car to come and collect you, what purpose does this serve?

The obvious drawback is if you are mugged and your phone is stolen. Jonny Deviant has a quick look and finds the car app installed. He uses it to locate your car, unlock it and drive off. You're left nursing your injuries, unable to contact the emergency services or drive yourself to the nearest A&E/police station.

iPhone alarm bug: now it's the UK's turn

No issue with my 3G

This morning's alarms and reminders went off on schedule. I wonder if it's because I haven't updated to iOS 4 yet?

Frenchman cuffed for naughty lip-slip email to MEP

Displaying contempt towards a public servant

It's lucky for us commentards that the UK doesn't have such a law. Yet...

Boffins mount campaign against France's official kilogramme

@James Pickett or should that be Jamie?

"Jubs are pretty much weightless in seawater in my experience"

Have you been overdoing the HRT?

Your laboratory?

"Try to measure the larvae of bed bugs on my laboratory"

Do you mean your bed? What other experiments do you carry out? Actually, no! I don't want to know...

Mine's the white one with the biros in the chest pocket.

Nearly half of top UK firms do not use software escrow

Microsoft could never agree

"Software escrow agreements place the source code of software with a secure third party. A list is drawn up of events that will trigger the release of that code. That list usually includes...failures to adequately support the software..."

The release would be instant!

BA slams stupid security checks

Different problem, different response

Attacks on corporate IT are real, frequent, credible and quantifiable. Locking down the environment is a justifiable response. Fingerprinting and perv-scanning staff would not be.

The "terrorist threats" that are used to justify this security theatre are potential, infrequent, incredible or imaginary. Even at the peak of the PIRA's activity, the attitude was "Give up our way of life and the terrorists win." Now it seems that trying to set fire to your own testicles is enough to strike fear into the authorities.

Prosecutors prep decision on BT-Phorm case

I'm not an expert, but I reckon something

I think the previous administration were keen for BT/Phorm to carry out their trials as the results would be relevant to the IMP. Hence their reluctance to release the Home Office advice that was given to BT and the failure of the police to properly investigate.

As our new government has suddenly seen the light regarding the need for IMP, I don't expect the CPS to bring this to court. Having taken so long to make a decision, possibly hoping that in the meantime everyone had forgotten about it, they may even say too much time has elapsed since the offence was committed for a prosecution to be feasible.

CPS Guidlines

"First, prosecutors judge whether the evidence against the defendant offers a realistic chance of conviction"

On the face of it, this sounds reasonable. There's no point wasting money on a doomed prosecution and it also hinders Plod from using the courts to harass people they don't like. But if the CPS turn a case down, can an individual or organisation bring about a private prosecution?

"Second, they decide if a prosecution would be in the public interest."

What kind of assessment is this? If it isn't in the public interest to prosecute, why is the activity in question deemed illegal?

In combination, these guidelines allow too much room for the state to prevent an inconvenient case such as BT/Phorm from ever reaching court.

Coalition tears up net snoop plan's £2bn price tag

The Securotards want it

So the Securotards will get it. Othewise ACPO/CEOP and their media mouthpices will kick up a stink about being hindered from doing their jobs and that we're soft on paedos/terrorists/immigrants. And no government of whatever colour can argue against that.

Wi-Fi starts getting chummy with its peers

Ad-hoc connections have been part of Wi-Fi since its inception!

Can I have a "Technically Literate" badge please?

Cameron promises boost for tech companies

Define "The best"

Is it the cheapest?, Is it the fastest? We already have access to "cheap, unlimited, superfast broadband" if you listen to the marketing hype. But the real life experience is "expensive compared with some countries, limited by fair use policies, dependent on creaky infrastructure broadband"

Somehow I don't expect the delivery of this promise to be measured against anything useful, such as actual line speeds or volumes of transferred data.

Google: Street View cars grabbed emails, urls, passwords

Go To Jail!

If Google collected encrypted packets, the UK police and courts should demand they decrypt it. As we all know, excuses like "But I don't know the password" are not an acceptable defence. Google should be facing a 3-year stretch of pleasuring Her Majesty.

XP? Thanks for the memories

@DT

For the purpose of this argument I'm treating PCs and Macs as different, in much the same way that Apple did in their advertising. So for the purpose of this discussion, Windows 7 IS the only option as you cannot buy a branded PC from a High Street store with any other version of Windows installed.

I'm not suggesting that companies are not within their rights to only sell the latest version of their product. I am saying it is stretching the truth to claim the new product "has quickly become the <product> of choice" when the old one is no longer available.

Any OS you like, as long as its Window 7

"Windows 7 has had a very positive reception, and it has quickly become the operating system (OS) of choice for consumer and SMB PCs"

As in the Hobson's choice of "Buy a PC with Windows 7 pre-installed" or "Don't buy a PC"?

Yes I know you can mail-order or build a bespoke PC with an alternative OS if you really want. What you can't do is walk into PC World, Tesco or any other High Street seller of branded PCs and buy a one that has an alternative OS (or no OS at all) pre-installed. As that's how the majority of consumers buy a computer, it's stretching the truth to say they chose to buy Windows 7 when it is the only option.

Our Moon is wet and welcoming, says excited NASA

Space Race II

Will the threat of the (commie) Chinese setting up a base there spur the US to go back to the moon?

EU privacy watchdog pans passenger data plans

The new Godwin?

"The United States has every right to demand that if you put someone on an airplane bound for the United States, you will have to disclose to the United States the information it requests about that person"

Does the reverse also apply? Will the US provide the EU with same level of detail for each of its citizens that fly to Europe? Would it not be easier for the US authorities to provide the details of people it didn't want coming in, rather than demanding the details of millions of innocent people and having to trawl through them?

"After the events of September 11, 2001, the reason for that should be obvious."

Why? The aircraft involved were on domestic flights. How would the EU providing PNR data have helped?

"If European authorities wish to risk bringing about a situation in which direct flights from Europe to the United States are no longer possible - instead, people wanting to go to the U.S. would need to go to, say, Newfoundland, and then transfer there - well, it wouldn't hurt the Canadian airport industry to have their bluff called."

It wouldn't hurt the Canadian tourist industry if transit passangers found Canada to be a nicer place to visit than its paranoid neighbour to the south?

Mentioning 11/09 is the new Mentioning Hitler. What do we call this new Godwin Law?

Cameron cocks up UK's defences - and betrays Afghan troops

Pointless?

"The Royal Navy will retain no less than 19 largely pointless frigates and destroyers"

I thought they all had pointy bits? That's how you tell which end is the front...

Vatican confirms Simpsons as Catholics

Simpsons can't be catholic

Their vicar, Reverand Lovejoy, is married. Or perhaps the Vatican is about to announce a massive shift in doctrine?

I'll get my cassock...

YouTube clasps naked dancer to bosom

Titling?

It probably doesn't mean what I think it means...

Top cyber crime cop lied under oath, says judge

Words of advice?

>The Met has applied its weakest sanction - "words of advice" - against him over the affair.

Don't get caught next time!

Gov axes £35bn Severn Barrage tide-energy scheme

Speak your branes

If you love the environment so much, why don't you go live there?

Government(s) spin?

The previous government costed the project at a bargain £15bn because they wanted it to happen. The current government costs the project at an unaffordable £35bn because they want it scrapped.

Independent assessment last year put the cost at £23bn, to take into account a 60% contingency in accordance with treasury rules - http://www.nce.co.uk/severn-barrage-cost-hits-23bn/1340287.article

Who are you going to believe?

iPad tethering does disappearing trick

Gateway Device

"We can't help feeling that anyone using an iPad as a gateway device, providing internet access to their laptop, has rather missed the point"

Its not just laptops that want to share an internet connection. As an example, my TomTom rider used tethering to get traffic updates. It doesn't anymore because iPhones/iPads don't support the Bluetooth DUN profile, TomTom doesn't support the PAN profile, and I'm not paying for an extortionate tethering plan for the sake of a few kilobytes of data.

Man wins $650k for stripper shoe eye snafu

So it's true?

You'll go blind...

Great white sharks menace Blighty

Recycled news

The Sun "reported" the same story in 2007.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article250568.ece

Didn't it turn out to be a hoax?

Manchester cops hit Twitter - spoof feeds fall down stairs

Actually it's 7th

According to http://www.ukcities.co.uk/populations/

London 7.2 Million

Birmingham 992000

Leeds 720000

Sheffield 512000

Bradford 467000

Liverpool 440000

Manchester 420000

Bonfire of the quangos begins

Oh please...

Let OFCOM be on the list...

Branson 'spaceship' successfully falls off mothership

Easy

Just wait at the top of the ladder until the moon next passes by!

At least one was a success

Although it was also very nearly a spectacular failure

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/force-of-nature/episode-guide/series-1/episode-2

Power grid scare stories a 'bunch of hooey'

All the terrorists need to do is

Switch on a load of kettles halfway through Corrie?

Guardian super-blogger flames Reg boffinry desk

The opposite is also true

Please go back to touching yourselves while looking at pictures of Littlejohn and Thatcher, and leave us alone to our pointless bickering about Apple.

PS yes, I know who you are. Apart from anything else, continuing to insinuate that anyone who disagrees with the point of view you have been spoon fed is a Guardian reading socialist - as if there were something inherently wrong with either of those - is a dead give-away.

Your comments are usually worth a read, even when I don't agree. Let's not sink to silly name-calling?

You asked for it...

"what's mostly driving CO2 emissions is the rapid pace of industrial development in several parts of the developing world"

"Do a root cause on that statement and you just might get the point."

Western economies have systematically outsourced their heavy industry and manufacturing to the cheap labour pools in the far east, such as China. While this has had a positive impact on the standard of living for the local population, it hasn't yet raised it to western levels. The vast majority of China's output is still destined for the West, so it is the West's pollution that China is generating by proxy.

It's not over-population in the developing world that's the problem, it's over-consumption in the developed world. Telling people who aren't the problem to stop breeding will fix nothing.

Royal Navy running-jump method confirmed for F-35B

Vast oversimplification

Why not use a big elastic band to help stop the landing aircraft then use the tension to help launch the next one?

Have hordes of sex workers snubbed the Commonwealth games?

Imposters!!!

"The Metropolitan Police are sceptical, urging vigilance, accompanied by a sense of proportion"

That isn't the usual ranting we have come to expect from plod. What have you done with the real Metroplitan Police?

Brits not buying into Freeview HD

Don't upset Uncle Rupert...

...has been OFCOM's motto throughout this debacle.

OFCOM initially said there would be no terrestrial HD, so if you wanted HD, you were stuck with Sky, unless Virgin had cabled your street. After giving Murdoch a few years to corner the market, OFCOM announce a version of terrestrial HD that is not used anywhere else in the world, has hardly any HD channels and isn't compatible with any of the existing HDTVs with digital decoders. So Sky are given another bite of the cherry.

Youth jailed for not handing over encryption password

Fishing trip?

When plods demand access to encrypted data, do they have specify exactly what it is they are looking for? Or can they demand access on the pretext of terrorism/kiddiepron/<insert panic of the day here> and then prosecute if they find something else they don't like?

Perhaps the lad didn't want to reveal details of his drug dealing empire, or the investigation he was doing into corruption in his local force?

UK head of online child protection resigns

We don't need no steenkin' accountability

"I am the law!" says Jim. Turns out he isn't.

Internet firms welcome CEOP chief's exit

Speaking as a parent*

I accept it is MY responsibility to protect my child from the dangers of the world and educate her to deal with them, rather than expecting the state to turn the world into some sanitised tellytubby land.

* I've always wanted to do that.

Man vindicated for videotaping his own traffic stop

To be fair

They all are!

Canada prostitution laws pulverised: politicians apoplectic

@P. Lee

"Have you ever noticed that many fictional prostitution stories are about a "happy hooker", but most news stories about prostitution involve gangs, enforced-poverty, slavery, under-age sex, abuse, drug-taking or people-trafficing? I wonder which reflects reality the most accurately? Does anyone think this would change by legalising a bit of it?"

News, especially bad news, is a sensationalised commodity. Paedo child killer is front page news. Motorist child killer is a statistical footnote. Prostitution may be linked with the activities you mention, but is that because it is criminalised and driven underground? Put it on a legal footing and it becomes much harder for pimps and drug dealers to control and profit from it.

"Banning prostitution isn't about wagging the finger at prostitutes, its about protecting those who would otherwise feel obliged to do things they don't want to do."

I don't really want to have to work for a living, what obliges me to do it is the need to provide for my family. I don't buy into the "Happy hooker" myth, but adding the constant fear of prosecution is hardly going to help those who feel obliged to do something they don't want to.

"Some people think that sex is so special that you shouldn't have to do it you really don't want to."

Some people think sex is so special, you should hardly do it at all, and certainly not for fun.

"Some people think that profiting from other people having sex when they don't want to, might also be wrong."

Some people think the best way to prevent this is to make it legal for sex workers to ply their trade in a safe, controlled environment.

"'Legalise, regulate, tax' makes each one of us a pimp."

Cigarettes and alcohol are legal, regulated and taxed. Does this make us a nation of drug pushers?

Second oldest profession, surely?

Otherwise how would the first prostitute's first customer have paid?

The opposite is true

Allow licensed brothels in non-residential areas and there will be no need for prostitutes to tout on anybody's street corner.

The rest of your post is just nasty.

BT promises biggest ever rural broadband project

I'm not an EU hater

But I can't see the logic of the EU taking UK tax-payers money for the government's failure to prosecute BT/Phorm for snooping on us, then giving a big pile of cash to BT to enable them to extend their snooping network.

Investing in rural broadband is fine. Helping entrench a virtual monopoly for a company accused of invading its customers' privacy is madness.

Open to tender?

The EU plans to fine the UK gov (i.e. tax-payer) for its failure to act in the BT/Phorm debacle.

The EU also plans to subsidise the rural extension of BT's snooping network!

A case of robbing the victims and giving the cash to the criminals?

The Cornish superfast broadband should go through an open-tendering process with BT barred from taking part.