Posts by Mike

Batman sues Batman over Batman

Hmmm

Well according the Wiki fountain of Truth, "Batman" is a shortened form of "Bati Raman", the name of a mountain range surrounding said province/town. In Kurdish it is known as Elih or Iluh, so Batman is clearly not the native name for the place.

I think if he wanted to sue, as stated in the article, it should have surfaced when "The Bat Man" became Batman in the corny 60s series, not now. This is a blatant act of desperate cashing in and trying to get free publicity for the area.

The people of Gotham, Nottinghamshire have much to learn.

Now jog on, Turkish straw-grabbers

Copper propositioned woman while 'on the job'

I wonder...

...if his four month sentence will be served in the same cell as the 2 women he provided courteous and personal attention to?

Could be in for some 'hard labour' if so.

Oh, also missed out on 'Going down for 4 months', 'Gets banged up for banging up', etc, etc. I'm sorry, these are just too easy...

The plain grey one with arrows and a number on, please.

Beatles game is go

Please let it be a FPS

Select your character from either Paul, George, John or Ringo pick up a pile of power-boosting LSDs, grab your flaming pies and get out there in the psychedelic world to cause some serious damage.

Use guitars & drumkits to smash up rooms, collect money and awards for no good reason (certainly not musical brilliance) and build up your band to world domination.

Battle evil bosses attempting to destroy your group (The Oko Yono whining beast), or take away all the money and awards you've collected (The one-legged Meather Hills creature)

Eat vegetarian lasagna to restore lost health.

The options are just so out there - bet they go for some shitty Rock Band-style game instead though

Royal Society of Chemistry requests 'Italian Job' ending

Royal School of Chemistry?

Surely this is a physics problem?

Other than getting back some of their more precious chemical element (which if Caine and Co could do, they wouldn't see any of it anyway), what interest do the RSC have in this?

Need a "Where's the Chemistry Angle?" icon now. Bugger. Oh well plan B

Mine's the lab coat

Official who lost secret al-Qaeda report pleads guilty

BBC - the new law enforcers

Well, I presume this is the case seeing as the "fellow passenger", rather than handing said documentation to, oh I dunno, the POLICE, said commuter passed the folder over to Aunty Beeb.

WTF? Now admitted, it needed to be brought to the public's attention that one of our (junior) Public Servants is trying to throw what intelligence (add your own punchline) this nation has into the hands of Johnny Rag-head, but irrespective of the content of the document I'd like to think that if I "inadvertantly" left something in public, it would be handed to the APPROPRIATE authority so I've got a chance of getting it back (and not by seeing it splashed all over the 6 o'Clock news either)

So that's the anonymous commuter covered. Now for Cyril Servant:

So he "inadvertantly" picked up the document then "inadvertantly" left it on a train? For classified information?

This person should be whipped naked through the streets of Northampton for this! £2500 fine? That's probably 2 weeks wages to this numbskull!

One of the two I could believe, but first he didn't mean to take the document, followed immediately on discovering he had (which he must have done to be able to leave it behind) he then manages to not take it with him when he really really now needs to.

Can start to see why our sceptred isle is in the state it's in, if HMG are employing this kind of numpty to manage how our country operates. FFS I could do a better job than this, or at least achieve the same level of incompetence for a lower salary.

Mr Brown, please feel free to send me any job vacancies. I'll try not to leave them on the train.

Pirate symbol, cos our countries been boarded by scurvy knaves in suits and bowler hats, and are robbing us blind.

Trainee teachers score F all in maths tests

Just goes to prove the old saying...

If you can't do, teach.

What is being reported here is that:

1. Teachers who can't do maths are on the rise.

2. Teachers who can't do English are on the rise.

3. The solution is to employ cast-off people who couldn't do the maths to stop the economy going *ping* and have been sacked as a result.

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children???

Perhaps if you want standards to rise in schools, it's time to start making the teaching profession an appealing career option to encourage the better academics to become teachers.

I for one see nothing appealing about the job of teaching (my mother was a teacher and the amount of abuse she used to talk about 20 years ago was bad enough, let alone how it is now)

Until people can be encouraged that it is a good job, you will continue to get the "can't do" grade of educators as the "can do" will continue to look for jobs with greater prospects, remuneration and respect.

Abu Dhabi emir rescues Thames Estuary mega-windfarm

Farewell to more silverware

Great, more of our essentials being sold off to Johnny Foreigner

Not being Xenophobic, but especially given the article today stating how HMG's defence policy is to "Keep it British" (albeit a flawed ideal as detailed in the article), the idea is to prevent us being compromised by a foreign nation by cutting off our supplies of ammo, parts etc. How then, does it make sense to sell off all our utilities to foreign investors???

What use will Westland/DML etc be as our source of military equipment when Abu Dhabi/France/Russia etc can pull the plug on our electric, turn off our water supplies, stop the gas supplies, etc? Or are we going to build helicopters by hand in the dark whilst eating salads (as we won't have power to cook on)?

At the very least, we'll be wallet-raped once they own all our utilities (cf. "Car Industry" if not convinced), and at worst we'll be significantly compromised by a nation we've fallen out with (and don't say it'd never happen - who'd have thought such a swift change of relations between Iceland and the UK could have occurred?)

Words fail. Please see sketch.

MoD admits data loss bigger than thought

Three heads to roll, please

No more excuses, this is the MoD FFS - if the people in charge of our military and "Official Secrets" can't keep info secure, then they should be bloody penalised! There are at least 3 heads that need to roll.

1. I/C Security at Innsworth. Whichever wuckfit is responsible for the security of a SECURE MILITARY INSTALLATION and allows any goddam numpty to lift hardware out of the building without being able to track who went in there (I have to sign my just for keys every time I go on a military site for low-risk buildings, never mind high-security areas!)

2. I/C Security at EDS. Even if the drive HAS been removed from a secure (supposedly) location, the data retrieved should be inaccessible and/or unreadable as a backup against wuckfit #1. This wuckfit should also have his job/salary/pension/testicles forcibly removed to prevent him (and future generations of him) from being put in such a position again.

3.I/C Security for the MOD. No reason why wuckfits #1 and #2 should be the only ones to suffer. Am fed up of Government departments/officials/ministers being untouchable when the brown sticky hits the white whirly. They get paid huge salaries allegedly as 'responsibility money' so that it focuses the mind to get it right. When they fail, they should be penalised by losing their jobs - risk and reward (reward for continuing to get it right, risk of losing high salary WITHOUT a golden handshake/cushy position on board of big company when they screw up). Boot a few of these buggers, maybe the rest may start to focus on their jobs more, rather than worrying which Commons bar to get sloshed in this week.

Meat Loaf gets Q gong

LMAO

That is all

Revealed: Street View's UK invasion schedule

Typical

once again, a major corporation seems incapable of getting further SW than Weston-Super-Mud.

I'll just have to add them to the list of organizations who believe the entire peninsula to be occupied by straw-chewing sheep-molesting cousin-marrying bumpkins, and thus need to have their board of directors suitably pitchforked into understanding that we do have tarmac-covered highways southwest of Bristol, and very few of them these days still have grass growing up the middle.

Alien, cos that's what the rest of the world seems to think we ooh-arrrrrr.

Slimline Xbox 360 to be named the Pure?

Dubious at best

So it is not even remotely possible that exhibit A here could have been printed on any other printer other than an XBox HQ printer?

It isn't GilZ putting a few random words on a page, printing and then scribbling over it with some incomprehensible daub.

How about a suggestion who the initialled names are: MG - is this Melinda Gates, stepping into hubby's role and taking control of M$' activities perchance?

I would expect something a shade more authentic-looking than this shot to lay claim to first spot - even if this is proved to later be true.

For shame, for shame.

Paris, cos at least she'd get a video while working undercover.

Acer raises UK prices

Same as oil, then

Funny that. Prices are rising because the $ is recovering against the £.

So what happened to all the continual slashing of prices as the $ dropped? I don't recall american goods here being half the price of the states while the pound was strong (the 'merkins just got a bit richer per unit item). We still moreorless had the 1:1 £ to $ ratio (as always). Now that it's recovering, they are using the fact that the ratios are going back to where they were to shunt the prices up 6-8%. Bet our national representitives (Broon, Darlin' etc) will be swinging into action to protect our interests then. Sorry, what? Oh...

Why are these companies allowed to have the best of both worlds? It's the same with petrol - when the price of oil rises, pump prices go straight up to reflect the rising cost of the fuel. Yet now the oil price has dropped, we're told "we're still using the more expensive stock, so prices won't drop until the petrol from the cheaper oil hits the pumps".

I guess the question is, what can we do about it other than get wallet-raped?

Paris, cos she's got the solution to all life's problems but acts like she doesn't know.

Price cut doubles Stateside Xbox 360 sales

No sign of one over here then?

Cheers, Bill.

Ivan O'Toole? That's nothing, snorts Hugh Jass

Obvious but true

I know a gentleman by the name of Michael Hunt. Yes he shortens his name the same as I do.

The one with Seymour Butz on the label, please

Oh, nearly forgot...

If this is going to be a recurring story type on here, we need a Bart Simpson icon as well

Academic wants to 'free up' English spelling

Wat ay dik hed

Right, didn't the schools try this before? Then found that once the pupils could spell fo-net-ick-al-ee, they then had to reeducate them to be able to cope with the rest of the english-writing world?

Do I spot some vested interest here? Maybe Mr Phoenetics University bod smells the possibility of getting the lucrative option of re-writing the dictionary?

The english language has survived millennia of additions, invasions and conquests, adapting and evolving gradually whilst becoming one of the most commonplace languages in the world (again thanks to invasions and conquests)

Now some upstart suddenly wants to trash the language and replace it with his own? Well he can write it if he wishes, but as far as I'm concerned, his dictionary can gather dust on the shelf next to the Klingon dictionary and Jedi bible.

Alien, cos I can't understand what the professor just wrote down...

Lockheed demos AI-based roboforce command tech

ED-209, she's a-comin

You have 15 seconds to comply

You have 10 seconds to comply

You have 5 seconds to comply

...

French cough in to filthy restaurants

Karma

As soon as I read this, all I could think of was this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4649007.stm

What goes around comes around Jacques Shit-rag.

How a nation that serves homeless molluscs, amphibian limbs and grand national runners-up could criticize is beyond me anyway - and now it transpires Le Cuisine Magnifique c'est le cuisine merde.

Bon appetit! More like Bon chance!

Miss Hilton, cos it's risky eating out in Paris now...

Prof says fatties a bigger menace than bin Laden

Should shut his cake hole

Right, so porking out is a bigger threat than terrorism?

I can only think of one possible way this could even remotely be true - this would involve a "Mr Creosote with a wafer thin mint"-esque scenario, with said chubber exploding over those nearby.

Other than that how do we (acknowledging I'm not in the waif brigade) pose as big a threat as some disgruntled Allah-lover crying "Jihad" and detonating his Semtex waistcoat?

This sounds like another story of some Fu©ktard professor who's not stepped outside the loving hug of his campus since 1978 trying to commentate on real life.

Oh, and sell a book on it as well. There goes any shred of credibility that may have remained.

Paris, cos she's skinny and has the intellect of a Durham Professor.

Colchester Hospital sacks manager over lost laptop

@Min

"the fowkin bosses should take the can as well, not the single recipient of the punishment. no encryption? that is a bigger crime than taking a laptop on holiday and being relieved of it by a discerning crook."

Not really. If the laptop was kept in a (feasibly) secure location (i.e. work or the home) then encryption shouldn't be necessary. Leaving a company-owned machine in a car while on holiday (why has he got a business machine on his pleasure trip? I can't take my work PC home to play games on during my hols, I had to buy my own) is removing the effective security put in place. What you're suggesting is that we should have multiple levels of security put in place to cover the same issue.

One way to improve this would be to make the employee pay for the laptop. I bought my laptop for use at a voluntary organization and (call me overprotective), but I know exactly where it is at all times - even when driving the car doors are locked and it's never left in the car if I can help it (and if it were, it'd be hidden in the boot or something, not left in plain view). These guys have all the tech provided for them, so they don't care if it gets broken/lost/stolen cos they'll just get a new one (probably even an incentive when they want an upgrade to a new machine)

iPhone apps selling like hot cakes

Refunds?

This a theoretical question, not being a devotee of the Jesus Phone, but if Mr Jobs and co decide that the application installed on your machine is no longer appropriate and removes it (without permission), does the user get refunded at all?

If I'd paid for any software, I wouldn't expect it to be removed from my usage without some form of recompense! That would amount to obtaining money by deception, surely?

Teens admit to Grand Theft Auto-inspired petrol bombfest

Media fuelling it's own stories?

Of course they were going to say that.

There has been so much propaganda by tree-hugging lefties each time these games come out about the "somebody think of the children" aspects of the game, that when these little shits go bad, of course they're going to be sneaky enough to do it under the guise that "the big bad game that everyone is saying will send kids bad sent us bad, so it's the games fault not ours"

They claim that they learnt how to make molotovs in-game. Well, I've played a good number of the GTA series from original to latest, and unless I've missed something (as pointed out) there are no "build your own" sections of the game (other than taking truck to guy who'll rig it with semtex).

But of course, the media are clammering for these stories, so everyone wins (except the car owners): the media get their "we told you so" story, the kids get to be bad with a ready-made excuse, the lefties get their extra nail in the coffin of freedom (ironic really, that the socialists want to put so many dictatorial controls on us).

Here's the newsflash though. Molotov cocktails existed before GTA. Search for Molotov Cocktail online and I bet there are hundreds of sites with recipe lists (am not gonna confirm that while sat at work tho!).

Oh, and kids were bad more than 10 years ago (i.e. pre-GTA).

Back to blaming internet, television, witches, false gods and having 5-knuckle shuffles for all the evil and suffering in the world, then.

Man buys $1,000 worth of iPhone pixels by accident

Logic lost...

"but most of the rather nasty arguments on here could also be used to justify mugging little old ladies...."

I don't see how - the implication is the "victim" here is stupid enough to pay what the majority of us here see as a ridiculously over-inflated price for something.

In mugging, the victim has no say or conscious choice in the event (OK, maybe a choice of occupying a particular part of the universe at a particular point in time, but even then they don't consciously choose to be in the presence of a mugger), whereas here there's some plank who sees a picture that is priced at $1,000 and opts to press a button marked "buy".

This is the equivalent only of going up to said "little old lady" and saying, "I have a picture of a ruby here. I'll leave it here and stand over there If you want it, put $1000 in the box and you can take it?". No pressure to buy, just put in front of her and left to make her choice - if she agrees to buy it, what would your opinion be then?

And remember, pictures by dead artists sell for a phenomenal amount of money these days... do we say that this is a scam as well?

Cable broadband shines in Virgin Media Q2

Or alternatively...

Now that cable is profitable, maybe they could look at expanding the availabilty to more areas of the country, as well as/instead of just giving those with the fastest lines an even faster one? I'd have cable if it were available in my area as it is faster (on paper, at least) and cheaper (especially when combined with phone/digital.tv).

But I guess it's still just a pipe dream (pun intended)

CGI furnishes filmstar with fur

Reading the profanisaurus?

Wow, so many Viz-isms there. Roger Melly'd be proud of you, lass.

I thought from the title that this was an attempt to appease the anti-fur trade movement by filming scenes without using a genuine fur coat (not a euphemism, I mean the formerly popular posh-totty garment) and superimposing one.

How (pleasantly) wrong can you be?

Paris... does it need explaining??

Ubisoft pirates game fix from pirates

Punish the innocent

The whole market is rife with this...

I bought Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory, which also came with a copy protection on the disc - was fine for XP, but not compatible with 64-bit Vista so I could install but not run the program. Have installed a NoCD patch for the exe and is fine now. Ubisoft only offered the solution of going to the 3rd Party protection maker's website, which contained an update which did sweet FA to help, so yes I had to resort to the 'crackers' to help me out with my legitimate purchase.

Also, does it not bug you that the only place you get those damn awful 'You wouldn't steal a television' anti-piracy ads is on legitimately bought DVDs? I bet it's stripped from the pirated version - so the majority of people being told not to pirate things are the people not pirating things.

Think I'm gonna get me a parrot and some pieces of eight, me hearties... just for the quieter life...

BT opens wallet to send fibre to the home

@JonB

Expand your viewpoint outside the chastity belt of the M25...

The countryside isn't all rolling fields and thatched cottages with 100 acres as a back garden and the neighbours being 2 day's ride away, and I object to your bipolar summary of rural dwellers: we aren't all Teds or Ralphs (a la 'The Fast Show').

I live in a rural area, but in a town with a population of about 13,000. There are several other towns in the area with populations between 10,000-25,000.

My job in the area is with a rather large national software company, who happen to have satellite offices in both urban and rural areas. I have no desire nor intention of upping sticks and moving to the 'big city', leaving behind family, friends, having to sell and buy a home, find a new job, etc etc. in order to get a service on par with the rest of the nation: and after all, I pay the same for my phone line, broadband, tv licence, etc so why should I get an inferior service just because of where I live?

If they can't provide the same service to everyone, then customers in the areas with less service should get a lower price. Otherwise we're subsidising the townies to get the better service - then again, I suppose we should be used to that by now.

@ What is the point?

Suits me. You can keep your 24 down line as you already have a reasonable connection.

They can come add the new tech in my neck-o-the-woods instead where the communication is still done using binder twine and two plastic cups. Maybe we can get a share of the 8Mbps+ action that the rest of the country is able to access but we cannot.

With luck, it'll tie in with the cheap offers that the rest of the country seems to get - am fed up of looking at Broadband options from BT, Orange, Sky etc that says get Broadband TV and talk for £18 a month, only to be told on applying that you aren't in the right part of the country and you can only have the broadband AND it'll cost you £5 extra a month for the privilege

MS DNS patch snuffs net connection for ZoneAlarm users

@ Vista vulnerable???

I think you ought to check your facts before jumping onto the usual Vista-bashing bandwagon - the security bulletin states that Vista 32/64 and Server 2008 are not affected and therefore don't need patching.

So with regard to your witty, insightful comment:

1. Vista must be more secure, as it doesn't need the patch required by previous versions of Windows, and

2. The fact that they've released the patch for XP surely means they haven't dropped support, as they're STILL RELEASING PATCHES.

No wonder you wanted to remain anonymous. Tw@.

Paris, cos she could outsmart you.

Who will be the next Doctor?

It HAS to be..

Was mentioned in Confidential for the Donna-only episode they wanted to blow up the Tardis but weren't budgeted for it. I think they'll do it in the last episode, which means without a time machine to do the time/space travel the only possible choice must be

Chuck Norris

cos even time and space bows to his will.

BTW, I think you'll find Rowan Atkinson already played the Dr in a Children in Need special a few years back.

Oh yeh: skull and crossbones, cos with Chuck in town everyone dies.

Culture of insecurity blamed for HMRC data loss

The only possible outcome

So no one person is to blame - i.e. no-one will be punished for these lapses.

"Ain't guvvernment brilliant. We can do what we like and get our mates to say it's not our fault."

Viva le revolucion

UK prisoners offered data cabling training

Cunning plan by HM Gov

From now on, they can say when they lose all our personal data that it wasn't lost, the network guy must've stolen it

Honest, guv.

Comedy UK social network berates moaning users

Another nail...

in the Faceparty coffin. Good. Hope it goes t*ts up for them and they do end up busking on the streets for spare change.

(Whinge time) I was a member. Under 36. Logged on regularly. Had profile picture. PAID for Cool Tools for about 5 years (more fool me).

My account was STILL wiped (with no justification as far as I'm concerned), with about 4 months left on my Cool Tools. OK, it's only 8 quid I lost (hence not bothering to pursue them), but if they're going to kick people like me who stuck to the rules AND was helping to subsidise their site, then I hope the site sinks into oblivion and drags the "old skool" webmasters with it.

That, or I hope Her Maj's Law Enforcement patrols catch up with the people that kicked out all the "suspected paedophiles" so it could have all the 14 year olds to itself - what's the matter chaps, worried about the competition were ya?

Faceparty RIH (Rot In Hell)

GTA IV website prompts outrage

Little miss DeSchoolmeester

Have just read the article. And the comments. Agree with all about the whole "can't see any CP, SWAT team jump on from great height" etc and this is a desperate attempt to look for a problem that isn't there.

One other point. The website contains the word "lacy", presumably a reference to the clothing style a la "lace-like or made of lace". Mr Welsh-Dutchman has named his daughter "Lacey" (with an "e").

So he is miffed that the website contains 80% of the letters in his daughter's name. Is he serious??? Lets review his worry here:

The fictional website that doesn't exist and shows no images and summons the whole of Liberty City's police force has a string of letters in the middle of the website that sound similar to but are not the same as the first name of his child and several thousands of other children in the world?

Does he wear a tin foil hat and avoid the cracks in pavements? What a fueckweit (am sure Jason will understand this as he doesn't notice the letter "e" in words, apparently)

Microsoft proposes gadget feature disabling tech

Take off the tin foil hats ppl

Typical knee-jerk anti MS reaction as always. I personally welcome the idea I can sit in a restaurant and eat my meal without some jerk shouting down his mobile to someone so loud that he doesn't even need the mobile, or watch a whole film without someone giving a running commentary of it to a friend outside.

For those making the case of the wife/friend/dog dying in front of your eyes and not being able to phone up, please try thinking rationally - it won't be MS who sets the policies of what you can or cannot do, it'll be the particular institution installing the feature. Chances are that "emergency calls" will be always on (like with your mobile phone keypad: even when it's locked, 112 can still be entered and dialled - try it... NO, NOT REALLY!). All that will be blocked is Mrs Smith from being able to phone hubby in the library for the vital task of picking up a bottle of milk en route home.

For those sky-watchers worried someone will hack in and (shock horror) stop you using your mobile, I am sure once the design is in progress, they'll find ways to secure/validate the signal being sent to ensure it is valid for the site in question (a challenge-response system with a public key sent from the mobile phone relay antenna and responding to the wi-fi network would allow the mobile to check the signal was genuine - if not, ignore the restrictions, could be a possibility but I'm not spending hours working it all out - that's their job)

C'mon though, it's just a patent at the moment - wait til there's some meat on the bones before you start rubbishing the idea.

Revenue admits another IT cock-up

It's a virus. Honest.

W32.IT.NuLab has infected the network again...

The economy: A big Arab did it and ran away, claims PM

What is plan B then?

There's a fundamental flaw in the plan though. You say that the price rise will drive us off of fossil fuels and onto... what, exactly? We don't have our new super-green fuel developed yet... and even if it were, how long will it take to roll out worldwide so we can start driving our eco-friendly vehicles safe in the knowledge that there's a refilling point within 100 miles of our current location?

"Oh it'll be here soon" some of the bunny-huggers cry: why is that then? OPEC aren't exactly worried about finding the alternative for their black gold: after all, we've allowed them to charge double for the same amount of stock, so they're not losing out - in fact it suits them cos they can bleed the maximum cash out of their stocks. Why would they turn their back on the oil so they can push out a much cheaper substitute with lower profit margins?

No, there's no point kidding us we should be grateful they're charging us through the nose - there's no benefit to the consumer/world from this. The only people who benefit are HMG, and the Exxon board of directors.

Oh, and incidentally, I thought Alistair "Captain" Darling was in charge of the purse strings now, not Laird Broon?

Broadband bumpkins overtake city surfers

Country bumpkins???

"Obviously there is a bigger percentage of country bumpkins on broadband because there are fewer houses in the countryside (what with their massive million acre 'backyards') compared to the slum dwellling city folk"

A little message to all the "Shitty prickers" out there... just because people live in a rural area, it doesn't mean we all stand around in jerkins and wellies, chewing on straw while debating how our cooows are doing up in t' top field.

There's a lot of technology-based firms out in the rural areas, and a lot of smart people working here (smart because they get to live in a nice, smog-free environment and still do a clever job that brings in the moolah), so don't assume just cos we live outside the M25 chastity belt that we're all thick-as-pig-shit farmers who married our own cousins, OK?

That includes you, Chris Williams. Try stepping outside of the bright lights, big city, and actually go meet some of the people in rural areas before you label us all Bumpkins.

Tosser.

Social networking site bans oldies over sex offender fears

Whinge whinge wibble wibble

Majorly p*ssed off doesn't begin to describe.

I joined FP when I was 24, and over the last 6 years I've paid for their 'premium' facilities like CoolTools so you can see more than 10 pages of people per visit and can actually interact with them.

Now I'm 30, mid-way through my current paid subscription, and my account has been cancelled without warning. Now looking at the facts, I'm well under 36, I had profile pics uploaded, I communicated with people on there occasionally (not often as I had a real life to live too, and despite the fact that most of the "people" contacting me were actually adverts for pr0n sites).

But like many others, my account has been binned with no warning and for me, no justification. They've just made a decision that the last 9 quid of my subscription is theirs without having to give me any service for it.

I personally think it's disgusting that they will buy all of the kiddie accounts, but not the accounts of the adults (hmmm, keeping all the kiddies to yourselves eh - and you accuse us of kiddy-fiddling?).

Given they've started boasting they are no longer advert-funded (and I therefore assume they're running purely off subscriptions now) I suspect this could bite them in the arse since I can't see many 16-18s paying for CoolTools, AVS, etc. so killing off their older members could well hit their revenue stream.

Here's hoping, arrogant bar stewards.

A videogame that truly takes the p*ss

Compelling storyline, over 40hours of gameplay

Or maybe not.

One can only assume that the games available for this are somewhat limited in terms of the amount of time you can play since you would only have a limited amount of "flow time"?

Rather like the ol' coin-op machines, I guess - 45 seconds gameplay before you're dead and time to shovel in more coins. I suppose that at least with this machine, you only have to spend a penny :)

The urine-stained trenchcoat with the special front-hatch please

Office 2007 SP1 goes automatic for the people

@ No Thanks

Actually, the enhancement to allow >65536 rows is useful for business processes.

We use spreadsheets to migrate customer data from their old finance system when they purchase the software we write - if you saw the accounts of most mid to large companies, the number of transactions is not an insignificant amount - being able to migrate the data in one go, rather than having to subset the information into lots of smaller imports will be a time saver for us and will remove the risk of accidentally migrating the same transaction twice.

In fact we have also recently had a modification enhancement request from one of our customers to develop our application to use the new xlsx format as the amount of data they wish to export from their software is now exceeding the row limit of the xls format. This information is not physically read/processed by the user, but is often used to integrate data between multiple software packages by extracting from one package and importing into the other.

Don't insinuate all "punters" are idiots because we need or want the scope of our software increased - there are people out there doing much more complex tasks with spreadsheets than just compiling their ratings of their favourite pr0n sites.

Sky plays the victim over Ofcom pay TV rights probe

And this benefits the consumer how?

Unless they force Murdoch.TV to drop their prices significantly for their "premium" channels, I don't see how this is going to benefit us.

There are already signs with Setanta that it'll just cost us more (to watch the Premiership you now need to pay for Sky AND Setanta).

If they split it 4 or 5 ways, I can't see how it would be done cheaper; you've got 4-5 times the staff to pay for the same (or if we're lucky, marginally more) content so it'll just be more snouts in the trough at our expense, no doubt padded out with more inane rubbish that has made Satellite the 200-channel wasteland that it is now.

30 years of Spam - and we ain't finished yet

Re: 11% of who?

The 390 people were selected by a process of sending out a spam email to 100,000 people. Of the 390 that replied, 11% admitted to buying from spam.

5% of those who replied also asked when their commplementury Rollexx watch would be to be despached from Nigeria.

Hope that amuses.

BT bundles MS Office with Linux laptop

BT - Braindead Tw*ts?

So, disregarding the fact they're shipping software that won't even work on the machine it's bundled with (no doubt a ploy to get millions of calls to their premium rate helpline), they're charging £86.35 for MS H&S Office. Yet you can get it on eBuyer for £84.79 inc free delivery. Even Nerd World is only charging a couple of quid more for it.

Nice one, Beattie.

US lag sues over prison crash diet

Weightwatchers

There are millions of people who'd PAY for that kind of diet!

Anyone noticed a load of contradictions in this tho?

He says they get next to no exercise, yet he said he was feeling giddy when he started exercising. Besides which, a 27-stoner would surely feel giddy do some form of exercise anyhow? (he surely can't be used to it else he wouldn't be 27 stone!)

In summary tho, if he's suffering, so what? At least he isn't dead like his victim. Why do crims think they deserve sympathy for less than perfect conditions (and given he's on 3k calories a day, they're hardly depriving him of food - most squaddie ration boxes only have 3,500 cals and that's for people living in the field and mobile all day with the world on their backs)

Paris, cos she couldn't get enough of what she needed when she was in jail, either

Harman hack horror has blog backing Boris

Disappointed

Damn, I thought you were revealing she was actually living a double life as the ginger German ex-tennis supremo.

Then i re-read the headline

Bugger.

The stab-proof vest with the racquet holder on the back, please

Do biofuels cause famine? EU President opens probe

Is this really so hard to figure out?

So food prices are rising because biofuels are using up crops, thereby reducing the food available.

How come we're still paying our farmers to have a 10% set-aside policy on farms then?

I'll say that again. WE (the taxpayer) are PAYING farmers to NOT grow crops on TEN PERCENT of their land, so that WE (the consumers) can also pay MORE for our food.

Hello? Could HMG please take heads out of trough/sand/arse* and maybe let the farmers grow the extra 1/9th (11%) of produce so at least WE (the British public) don't have to suffer as much as THEM (the rest of the world)

Thanks

*delete as applicable

Google tips hat to St George - finally

@AC[1] & Colin Guthrie

Funny you should have that opinion that we are the great racists.

In my experience (as an Englishman), normally we're the only part of the British Isles that ISN'T allowed to be their home nationality.

If an Irishman, Scotsman or Welshman (no, this isn't the start of a joke) put down 'Irish', 'Scottish' or 'Welsh' then there are no questions asked, as they're showing they're proud of their heritage. If we put down 'English', however, we are frowned at. "You can't put THAT, you have to put 'British'". I know, I've had forms returned for doing it.

Likewise, our parliament (and government) is full of Celtic gents, despite all 3 other factions having their own parliaments/assemblies governing many of their own matters. Can I just enquire how many of YOUR assemblies have English representatives in them? Tell me that, then we'll discuss who the racist nations are, perhaps?

Oh, and @Mike Cranshaw, why would Gordon Brown be backing an English matter? Try listening a little closer and check out his history and I think you may find he's not an Essex boy...

Scottish Government scuppers Lewis wind farm plan

Goddamn treehugging bunnylovers

Are we ever going to win with the veggie brigade?

We burn fossil fuels, so they complain we're destroying the earth with harmful chemicals. So we look at ways to burn sustainable, greener 'biofuels' and we're then accused of starving the 3rd world (despite the fact we could produce enough food as we currently pay farmers to not use 10% of their land).

We then try to put up windfarms, wave turbines, solar panels, etc etc. And we get objections because of "sites of special scientific interest" (wow, a grub lives here that doesn't anywhere else - well, it did til I stamped on it), "sites of outstanding natural beauty" (it's a fucking hill covered in grass - they're surprisingly common you know), or if they can't come up with that, it's because protected birds feed and crap there or cos Tarka the fuckin' Otter can't swim around the wave turbine!

If there are any lentil-munching, sandal-wearing 2CV driving hippies reading this (which I doubt, since this website deals mostly with matters moving us away from living like Stig of the dump), can you enlighten the rest of us what exactly it is we CAN do to make you lot happy (other than letting you try to control and restrict every aspect of our lives)

Ballmer bitch slaps Vista

Some good news at last

Well it works fine on my 'bought-to-use-Vista" PC. OK, copying is still not the zippy task it should be, but it's stable and not too sluggish in working on both of my PCs and my father's too.

But it's good news that MS are saying Vista is not a complete product. On that basis, can I have some money back please? I don't see why I should have paid over £100 for a program that's not done yet. Alternatively, I'm willing to accept a free upgrade to the OS when it is finished, seeing as I paid for a finished OS AND as reward for my years of work beta testing their current offering.

If I'm not eligible for my free upgrade/refund, people should fear Windows 7. If £150-350 is the price for an incomplete OS, how much will they charge when it's ready?