Posts by Andus McCoatover

Pirate Bay loses trial: defendants face prison time, hefty fines

TDA

<<1) A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and thief and steal shall be construed accordingly."

So, by this definition, I can take your Aston Martin for a joy ride, return it, and walk away without charge. So, theft is NOT theft if thief returns stolen property?>>

Yep, NOT theft. It's called "TDA" - aka 'touching the dog's arse' - "Taking and Driving Away". The word to pop out at you should've been 'permanently'.

No different to a bloke going for a piss in the boozer, I can't find my fag-lighter, so I use his, and put it back. Theft? Don't think so.

When I had my laptot stolen, I got in indirect contact with him via his friend, told him if he returned it, I'd tell police to drop it. He returned, police dropped. No sweat.

@ Erik Aamot

Dunno.

What if the appeal(s) go(es) in PB's favour? Will the RIAA, etc be crying "Sad day for American justice [Oxymoron alert!]"

You betcha.

Is there a 'Sweden' in USA? Well, a 'little'. It's in Kansas, natch.

@ Danny et.al

<<how's about the fact that most people downloading wouldn't consider buying the product even if they couldn't download? how about all those people that will buy a product after downloading it because they like it?>>

Cory Doctorow had the same opinion when he released his novel "Little Brother" on the internet. Damn good read, for less than a tenner in paperback (imported UK-->Finland), I ordered it. (http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/)

OK, on-screen PDF format's crap (newspaper style, 2 colums to a page), but I think that's the general idea....Same as putting MP3's up, compared to a 'decent' format.

Pirate bay Torrent?

Isn't it possible to make a torrent of a torrent (etc, ad infinitum) which uses The Onion Router for access? Such that sites like Pirate Bay become torrents themselves? No fuc*ker knows where they are?

Dunno - I'm no whiz*.

Just seems the Pigopolists got nasty, having had their noses well-and-truly rubbed in it with the "DVD Jon" episode.

* Moderatrix - Can we have an "I might be talking out of my arse" icon? (T'is Friday, and I've been in my "Living room" for awhile. You know the one, 150 yards away from my bedroom, equipped with pool table, juke box, plasma TV, pretty Vietnamese girl opening a beer for me, etc...)

Jamaica cracks down on 'daggering' after broken todger upswing

Too obvious!

<<There is a loud popping sound, excruciating pain and swelling>>

Doctor, doctor! Can you take away the pain, but leave the swelling??

-Gorrit.

NASA rejects democracy, names ISS node 'Tranquility'

"Get sweaty on the COLBERT"

EUREKA!!! Problem Solved!

As that damn piss-filter can recover airborne moisture*, no sweat!

(Oops...)

*"In more positive developments, it seems that recycling equipment designed to harvest and reprocess astronauts' emitted body moisture from the station atmosphere is working fine" from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/23/new_upa_still_playing_up/

Brazilian ejected as lingerie arouses border staff suspicions

@God I f*cking hate vista

Your Fairy Godfather's just arrived!!

http://www.howtoforge.com/running-ubuntu-on-windows-xp-with-portable-ubuntu

(Might work in Vista. Dunno, haven't tried. I'd rather be forced to pay to get the entire El Reg. staff 'Mullah'd' on a Friday night on my dole money than try that Vista dogpoo).

(Or laid by a Brazilian...Bloke.)

Scareware scammers adopt cold call tactics

Is this the beginning of Downadup??

Just read this, and followed Google.

Couple of posters noted their computer wouldn't shut down 'till the power button was pressed, and - coincidentally - they got a call the same evening from supportonclick. (posts Feb/Mar 09)

http://www.malwarebytes.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=11156 - search for "shut"

Similarly, guy had slow web download, and again a call from "Mahatma "Max" Kote telling him he had a slow download problem...

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1057308.html - search for a post from cyrillic94 (altho' this is from oct. 2008. Was Downadup around then?)

Very odd that.

2+2=0101?

Best post to get rid of them? Try this post: http://games.on.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=162887&sid=271542302b9c76bf341b2a5d3622dd57&start=13

(damn, I should buy shares in a keyboard company...)

They can be sued!!!

...at least from USA. They didn't put a ™ or © character on their website after "microsoft". (lower case "m" - Numpties)

Go, Redmond lawyer-dogs, GO!!!! Kill!! Maim!!! Disfigure!!!

Who snapped first?

@Mike Richards

<<According to the IPCC none of the CCTV cameras in the area were switched on at the time. And I thought people were being too cynical when they said this would happen.>>

Odd that. Didn't that happen in the Stockwell incident, too? "Workman stood on the cable"

MPs battle to save great British pub

@Pierre, Canada

<<Unless Brits are deficient in the willpower department. Or have particularly cold-sensitive nads.>>

Not the nads, it's just that wearing Long Johns or having a still-warm freshly-clubbed seal cub strapped to each leg looks, well - frankly, silly. Just for a smoke.

Trust that's -35 Centigrade, not Fareinheit. Not that it makes much difference down there. Still well into monkey-welding-tackle territory.

@@ Sarah

Heart - because "I am in love with this writer/commentator, and want to have his/her babies"...... apparently

Don't think about it.

I had the 'experience' of talking to Ms. Bee ( AKA Sara(h) ) on the speaking telephone.

I had to lie down for a while afterwards. She put me back in my box in no uncertain terms. Don't mess with the Moderatrix!!!!

@@@snokers are weak (Smokers, surely?)

So are masturbators.

'Nuff said??

@Graham Marsden

Yep, just tried your survey.

1 person in smoking room (ok, it aint outside, but same idea).

0 persons in pub (I'm the one in the smoking room, using eeepc).

1/0 is infinity. Fuc*ks any other result you can multiply it to. Unless my smoking/drinking has completely 'pan-galactic-gargle-blasted' my few remaining brain cells.

-Getting coat, try same experiment outside.

-(pause)

-Yep, same result.

Prior article - link below this artcile "Beer 4 quid/pint"

Oulu, Finland

Has been €4 (£3.80) for 500ml - LESS than a pint - here for awhile at my local. €5+ in the city, except in 'Happy Hour' - (10:00-16:00 - go figure) where it's €2.80 in a couple of places - one where oddly smoking is still permitted at the table. Of course, you can guess the 'clientele' but it's packed. Till about 16:10, when there's a mass exodus to Peppers, where it's H/H till 17:00. Then bugger off home.

Even in employment, I got about ½ salary compared to what I got in UK.

Since the recession bit - hard, places are pretty deserted. If my local Vietnamese-run boozer didn't have a restaurant/takeaway, they'd be bust.

Only time there's plenty of folks here is at "KELA Payday" (KELA's the dole centre here) and a couple of days after. Then, everyone goes to Lidl to get a "Mäyräkoira" ('badger dog'=12 pack).

Sitting in the pub here all day myself, helping owner get his new WiFi switch working and tidy the network - obviously works now - and I've seen 5 people here from 11:30 till now (14:45). One drank coffee and another water. Very different a couple of years ago.

-Smoking restriction has had a major effect in my opinion, still-smoking pubs are considerably more popular, but that ends in June. The beauty of having both smoking* and non-smoking pubs is that you can SEE a direct correlation that smoking bans kill pubs. It aint subtle, believe me! Forget the BS that the Gummint fed you brits. As I said, it is very obvious. Two pubs side-by side, one allows smoking, one doesn't. Beer same price. Guess which one's practically empty.

A poster above complained about freezing his 'nads off outside, but here we just got above freezing for the first time since November. -10C, -30C not unusual.

Sorry, Moderatrix, but maybe you need to visit more bistro's not boozers.

*they got a 2-year exemption if their air-conditioning met strong criteria. It ends in June for all. Middle of a recession? Nice one, Minister for health Hyssälä!

BT does Italian Job on London traffic lights

Oh, you kill me....

......sent a large thrust borer through a deep level tunnel on Saturday afternoon...

Guess which Icon? Yep, the coffee-stained keyboard, 'natch.

IBM cuts internet comp for work-at-homers

IBM?

Heh. Thought that was an acronym for "I've Been Moved". At last, I can put that on Wikipedia and cite El Reg as the authorative source. That'll guarantee it's online for dozens of milliseconds.

Oh, one thing - when I read "F. Bloggs didn't return our calls before publication", why doesn't El Reg write instead "F. Bloggs couldn't be fuc*ked to reply". Few of them in a week, you'd get serious callbacks! Telegrams, no less!

Japan talks lunar 'bots as commies go hot

@Ru

Bipedal robots are a good idea.

After all, we've known the underlying technology a helluvalot longer than we've understood the wheel.

Bloggers could squeak out of court reporting restrictions

What about the "London Gazette" attack?

IIRC, all the Gummint has to do to promulgate a new restriction is to follow the Hitchhikers Guide as in:

"It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”"

The Gummint's equivalent obvious ploy would be to stick the restriction in the obscure "London Gazette" which I believe that's all they need do to 'inform' the populace. Job done. Bloggers shafted. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat. Which would attract more readers were it written in arabic nowadays.

Happened to me once, when I lived in Leamington Spa. There was a (minor) change to the Amateur Radio licence, which would be in the Gazette, so I went to the library and picked it up. Reading for interest, found the Local Council had hidden a notification they were going to 'double-yellow-road' my street! Found another notice, stapled to a tree in the street. Obfuscated behind a bush.

(We protested to no avail, it was a foregone conclusion)

Which desktop Linux distribution?

As I'm now a Consultant*

I use Ubuntu 8.10. Browse web, get e-mails - Tux Droid lets me know - fill in endless and pointless job application forms, write CV's, introductory letters, it's all I want. PC Compaq 700mhz, 512 meg, 20G HDD, and on the dole. Can't afford owt else. (OK, the eeepc is useful from the pub^H^H^H town but...)

<Eeyore_mode>

*DEFINITION: Unemployed bloke with leather patches on his Tweed jacket, trying to find some crumbs of work from his aged old laptop on his kitchen table in the second half-century of his sad bastard existence. Sigh. Pathetic, that's what it is. Pathetic. Some do, and some don't.

Senior Consultant? As above, but owns a Zimmer frame and a stair-lift. And dribbles.

</Eeyore_mode>

Verizon promises 4G for every American

Nokia and WiMAX call it a day?!?!

Now I know why I got the boot from Nokia Siemens Networks in August 2007 - I was slated to train the WiMAX Flexi basestation/infrastructure to Sprint, et al.....

Plot thickens. Or more accurately congeals. Was it a decision already in the pipeline, me wonders??

Anyone got more on this WiMAX "departure" from Nokia??

Coat, 'cos we don't have a black bin liner icon. Yet.

Carbon capture would create fizzy underground oceans

Puts the Kyber on shipping!

Can't remember where I read, but sometime ago I saw an article - theoretical - about a weapon to kill a warship. Thousands of pipes, drilled with holes, blowing compressed air under a ship. Boyancy down the tubes, ship floats like a brick.

So, if there's so much CO2 in the sea then, all the enemy has to do is release a few tonnes of sugar at the right moment. (Tried for a joke, lobbing a sugar cube into your mate's coke??)

Back to the Kon-Tiki concept, I guess. Except, natch, no smoking on board.

Playmobil Bible faces wrath of lawyers

A day late...

..for an April Fool story?

Shurely thersh shome mishtake..

US judge bars teen 'sexting' charges

Saw ths numpty DA on tv (web-feed)

Think it was "Good Morning America". He looked VERY uncomfortable, but like a true 'merkan, he hadn't the balls to back down and admit he might have overstretched.

Lie and Deny. The new 'Merkan Way.

Epic Fail!!! If this Numpty gets re-elected or prevails in this case, God help America.

Playboy TV offers 'Jacq off' special package

Challenge!!!

When Thorpe was Liberal leader (67-76) wasn't there an expression "I'll be buggered if I vote Liberal"*.

Excellent!

Can't some wag come out with something better than "Jacq off"? (Although it's pretty good...)

* 'Nuther was "Vote Liberal, or I'll shoot your dog"

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Thorpe#Homosexuality_Scandal

Silicon Graphics goes titsup (again)

synergies, again

Nokia Siemens Networks used it. Then others. Sun/IBM next, maybe? Certainly not Nortel, there's no 'synergy' left.

Of course it's no more than a euphamism for P45/pink Slip/whatever.

Grey squirrels invade Nutt house

@ Nic Brough et al. (NOT for the squeamish)

You mean...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVjhTdgiJN4

http://www.backwoodsbound.com/zsquir17.html

http://101things.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/roast-squirrel/ (looks like the twelve-bore was a bit enthusiastic

Yummy!

Council? Now there's a thought!!!

<<Of course the councils could reclassify them as pests BECAUSE THEY ARE>>

Bet there are more wheelie-bins than squirrels.

So, all council have to do is RFID the little fuc*kers. Then charge 'em for how much crap they excrete. Fine 'em, too for dropping litter like nut shells, and we can get rid of the Council Tax (==Poll Tax, remarketed) once and for all. That'll turn them all to Pykies and Fly-tippers.

Could backfire, tho'. With Britain at its worst, I guess householders with this vermin would get charged for the extra occupancy. Or fined for overcrowding. Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

Only one way...

...to get rid of a mole^H^H^H^H squirrell is to "blow it's Bloody 'ead off!"

may I suggest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fePU5CIHpas for advice?

Alternatively by her own admission, she DIDN'T USE THE KITCHEN SINK!!! That'll fuc*k 'em.

Gets 'em every time. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Busted! Conficker's tell-tale heart uncovered

Look for headless bodies..

..with USB sticks, hung from their own petard, floating down the Moskva River on Wednesday. Aprillia!! (April Fool) Or, Апрель Идиот - more appropriate.

Cunch of Bunts. Give the b'stards some Vogon poetry to write. Death's too good for them.

Tombstone, natch

New ISS piss-recycler still troublesome

Solution!

<<it seems that recycling equipment designed to harvest and reprocess astronauts' emitted body moisture from the station atmosphere is working fine>>

Therefore, why don't they just piss AT it, rather than INTO it? D'ohhhhh.

Rocket Science Icon needed. Wait - I just found one.

Leaving PCs on costing UK business millions

Emissions?

<<the IT and telecom industry generates 2 per cent of world carbon emissions>>

If it were methane emissions, I'd recommend El Reg. cancel the BOFH's membership to Mahatma Kote's fitness^H^H^H^H^H^H^H curry 'clinic'.

That'll save the planet. NOT. He'll find a way around it. (Self-administered death by gas poisoning in a tape safe, indeed...)

Brit D-cell torpedo in icepack-bottom probe

Bin Police

Hope they're recycling. Don't want a visit from the viz's Bottom (probe) Inspectors And I don't mean http://www.flickr.com/photos/markscott/228347839/

Oh, maybe I do. Does El Reg reside anywhere Soho's Winnit (winnett) Street?

('Less they send Paris..OK, ok)

World's first proper flying car makes debut flight

NIIIICE!!!!

Side impact bars? Not needed with two sturdy wings either side, tho' visibility might be shafted...

(http://www.terrafugia.com/images/photogallery/logo/TransitionGasStation.jpg)

Plus, if you can keep that spinny fan at the back going, it'll sure confuse the hell out of Gatso's (not the front-looking ones, sadly)

Don't like the idea of folding wings, however...They just might when least expected.

Can I get one in black (hence the icon...)?

US woman attacks missus with sperm-filled syringe

@Boz

Thanks, but this video can only be seen by 4.85% of the world.

Oh, well. Merkans as behavioing as usual .

(Not @ you, Boz. Just the way protectionism/isolationism works.)

Wow.

Don'tcha just luuve Merkan trailer-trash behaviour. Which is why I watch it.

Cupid Stunts.

Must admit, she obviously had some spunk.

<coat/>

Lights out, Britons told - we're running out of power

Effing Big Capacitor.

That's what we need. A big, gimormous fuc*koff capacitor to store the energy.

Like a mountain lake. Scotland's got a few. So has Wales. (England's lake district's maybe a bit low, particularly in the lawn hosing season)

Then, pump the intermittent wind/wave/bovine fart/solar power into it using water, and use turbines on the downflow §.

There. That wasn't hard, was it?

I'm glad I left school at 15. Idiots wouldn't try to tell me how to think if I went to University.

§ I think it's already in operation...

Nokia to fire 1,700 staff

Oh, God, I really feel for my ex-colleagues. Bad indeed.

..That seriously isn't sarcasm, but truth. I know the feeling they're going through, having been through it myself. I'm surviving (just).

<Staff can sign up to resign, voluntarily, from the first of March and the offer remains open until 1,000 staff have signed up or the end of May, whichever is sooner.>

What happened to that nice sweetner? In my calender, this is March, not May...

Norf*, Kristian, "Two-boiled-eggs-in-a Docker's-hankie" if you're reading this, you have my sympaties, my friends.

Sigh.

Beginning of the end.

*Memories 11 years ago of "Norf" coming to Finland for the first time to Helsinki. We almost wet ourselves at the "kick-bikes" on the streets. See

http://www.kickbike.com/easydata/customers/kickbike/files/cross/eq_pinola_large.jpg

(Obviously you need to try a few to get the hang of it...)

ISS spared space junk avoidance manoeuvre

Soyuz's engines???

Aha! - you've solved the problem of the plural for "Soyuz" - for which many thanks.

<<"when the station lowered its altitude to avoid a piece of debris that was set to pass some 1.6 km away from it">>

My problem is, if the Soyuz was glued on (with duck tape, natch) the wrong side - what then? Quick trip to Mars??

How the hell can they find a bit of space junk 200+Km up which is half the size of "the end of my old cigar" == 4 inches, when I can't even find my fuc*king glasses on the sofa???

Skinny, curvy Asus Eee inspired by MacBook Air

@Not a netbook

<<I have a first gen eeepc and its ace for checking my email and talking on skype.>>

Totally agree. Don't understand either why Asus and ilk dropped the eee701-type concept. Now we seem to have laptots that are half the size, fiddlier to use (that's an accepted given) but the same sodding price???

S'pose it's negative status. If I wander around someplace important (in my case, the Dole office) and whip a 701 laptot out of my coat pocket, to show them I've REALLY been looking for a job (Back me up, barman...) they're more likely to give me benefit than if I stroll in with an apparently expensive all-singing etc. state-of-the-fart Mac. (I'm also less likely to get it nicked in the winter, given coat sizes, unless I'm a Brazilian Electrician. Pop it into a tesco budget carrier bag, no-one'll nick *that*!)

Having said that, I set my mate's Acer 1 up (He couldn't use wlan. Pointed him to a switch on the front. <BartSimpsonMode "D'OHHHHHHHH"</BartSimpsonMode> ) Better than my 701, but at €300? My last 701 was €150. It kills the SCC concept. I'd be better with one of those Afro rabbit-ear thingies (XO?) that you get in a packet of breakfast cereal. Except, most african kids have never seen a packet of breakfast cereal.

//and I'd give my left nut to do the wild monkey dance with her

Left Nut Extraction service cheaply available on El Reg.

Just call the BOFH. Job done in no time, and recovery over the weekend in a darkened elevator. Or tape safe - whichever you prefer! "Choice" is our middle name!

Booking not necessary.

More choices than the NHS! No corridors!! No waiting time!!! Offer limited to as long as you're concious!!!!

Cost? Decent curry for BOFH and ashishtant and a few (well, unlimited) pints of lager.

That deal sounds as "Sweet as a Nut"

(Paris suck-sess not guaranteed. But dancing with the rare "Chair-Throwing Wild Monkey" will be arranged. Trip to Redmond at your own expense. Anonymity guaranteed - we don't know who you are. Neither do we fuc*king care.)

Phorm CEO clashes with Berners-Lee at Parliament

@Tony

Grief, I was a little relieved to realise it hadn't happened. Yet. Last trip to US a couple of years back wasn't far off. Even Finnish TV's getting that way*.

Beauty is, we'll get so imune to it, it'll be like background/traffic noise, NOT subliminal advertising that the admen expect. Bit like racking up the number of CCTV cameras in Britain - the watchers will finally get overload and ignore what they see.

However, when that day finally arrives, all I want to know is how to operate the three seashells in TacoBell....

* One other trick Fin-TV has learned from the US is to increase the volume by 6dB or more during ads. As we live in a quiet block, inhabited by many old folks, we simply MUST turn the TV to mute during advertisements. Otherwise, we've a possibility of eviction. Seriously. Defeats the object of the excercise. Being bored with this, we watch about 2 hours of TV per week. Mostly on public (YLE1 or 2). Golden goose - RIP.

Sounds a bit like..

..this is going the way of Turner's CEO Jamie Kellner who famously said that skipping ads was stealing??

"So, Defendant, how do you plead?"

"Guilty, M'lud"

"Any mitigating circumstances?"

Sorry, M'lud, but the adverts were boring, so I thought I'd give the missus a good 5-minute seeing-to"

TIP! Keep ads shorter, less room for something for wife to moan about...

(OK, it's called Phorn. With a silent 'h'. Isn't it?)

ISS crew flees flying space junk

Sheltering in a Soyuz?

S'OK if there's three bods in the ISS - but what happens when there are six? Two soyuz's? (What the plural for Soyuz is defeats me). Can one carry 6 souls or is it time to sing David Bowie's Space Oddity?

Maybe they should hide under that big piss-convertor that seems to be a white elephant at the moment, seeing as the STS has to bring up an unspecified spare part for it. (Maybe it's a smaller "collection tube" for the jap bloke...?)

<Gorrit.>

Discovery ISS gig go for Wednesday

@Sigh...

Do what us Brits do - "throw a sickie" - i.e., call in sick. Unless you've mouthed off about going to the launch to your boss, in which case, look for a black bin liner* § on your desk the morning after.

*Used to be a glass of brandy and a one-shot revolver, but the world's getting civilised nowadays. Guess a '"pink slip" is the custom this century. Oh, puhleeze don't get me onto those gay duckie's again..

§ Disclaimer - nothing to do with Obama bin Liner, or whats-his-face called nowadays.....

Hydrogen leak grounds Discovery

duck tape?

Is it for those Gay Ducks trying to seriously bond??

Maybe Phil the Greek had a better idea...

"Looks like it (fuse box) was installed by an Indian" (when he presumably meant cowboy)

Duct tape indeed..A closed mouth gathers no feet.

"You've tried the Cowboys, now try the Indians"

See http://en.rian.ru/world/20070813/71203530.html

Mahatma Kote! I'm outta here!! (G'is me gloves, too. It's fuc*king freezing in Oulu)

Homosexuality does for UK blue duck population

Ducks? On Water?

So surely that makes Ben and Jerry a pair of Chocolate River Pilots...

<gorrit>

Inside the world's greatest TV remote

Didn't Nokia (briefly) have this?

<<Developed by an MIT Media Laber who calls herself Lady Ada, miniPOV displays text messages in mid-air when you wave it to and fro, relying on the human eye's persistence of vision. The device contains a single row of eight LEDs, but when moved, different diodes turn on and off in nanoseconds, creating that mid-air message. Or so it seems.>>

I'm sure they made a phone in the last century that, when waved, wrote a 'message'. Pity it died.

Imagine at a footy match, thousands of the things displaying "What a load of Wan*kers". Priceless

Incidentally, I wasn't aware that microcontrollers were capable (yet) of switching led's in nanoseconds. But then I'm practically geriaric, so what do I know?

Court rules airline secret security list is stupid

What about this pilot's tale?

http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-cant-fly-with-nail-clippers.html

That's the problem with hiring RETARDS* for security.

*(My fave word today...)