Posts by Anonymous from Mars

Your health, tax, and search data siphoned

This is pretty cool.

This is pretty cool. Auto-suggest has like 37 common combinations per keystroke. It wouldn't be hard to map them all out in real-time.

Texan judge outlaws Word

Ouch

That's harsh.

One simple mistake can make commercial software cost a ton more. :(

Amazon Kindle doomed to repeat Big Brother moment

Hooray!

As the husband of a writer, and barring security concerns, I am actually happy to hear this story and that the writer's rights were successfully protected thanks to technology. :)

Cutting the cord: future mobile broadband tech

Thanks!

Very informative!

Boffins pump out pop-up touchscreen

Hay boffanz

Dear Boffins,

You forgot the 0 in your horrible prototype.

Love,

Everyone with a 0 in their PIN.

Linux weaktops poised for death by smartphone

It's the perfect size.

A phone is too small and a laptop is too big.

End of story.

French record labels sue, um, SourceForge

Comedy goldmine.

Thanks, France, I needed the laugh!

Obama inaugurates YouTube-side chats

Technologically apt?

Technologically apt? In my White House?

It's more common than you think.

Brit couple divorce over Sadville infidelity

Thank you internet

Thank you internet for keeping these people away from me.

Reg readers in Firefox 3 lovefest

Sudden Interstitial Assault

IE6 is mandatory where I work. Sorry.

Undetectable data-stealing trojan nabs 500,000 virtual wallets

Undetectable? Of course!

The article says that the malware is undetectable to its victims, which makes sense, considering that the victims of said malware are going to be people with unpatched machines running with no AV software.

I could imagine a story like this being run on the nightly news programs, but I certainly hope El Reg's readership at least takes basic security steps.

Beatles game is go

BEATLES MMORPG

Come JOIN Sgt. Pepper's LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND!

Experience breathtaking worlds! TRAVEL BACK to the USSR! Stroll down the long and winding road to PENNY LANE. We GUARANTEE you'll never finish exploring the STRAWBERRY FIELDS!

CONVERSE RHYTHMICALLY with ENGAGING NPCs like Lucy, Eleanor Rigby, Jude, and Doctor Robert!

Find EPIC MOUNTS like the YELLOW SUBMARINE!

Play from over 40 character classes, including WALRUS, NOWHERE MAN, POSTMAN, HEARTS CLUB BANDIT, and LITTLE GIRL!

Collect DIAMONDS to ASCEND into the SKY!

Do you want to know a secret? Everybody's got something to hide - they're playing the Beatles MMORPG! Don't wait until you're sixty-four, shout for Beatles MMO now!

And don't forget to get a little help with your friends, too.

Sergey Brin descends from Mount Sinai with Android API

@Almost SFW and I'm surprised...

Taking the middle ground doesn't please anyone. I was eagerly awaiting another Dziuba piece, but this one fell flat.

Either rein it in completely, or don't hold back, Ted.

@Bob Scratchit

Perchance your name comes from a Christma episode of a 90's cartoon?

Blizzard awarded $6m in WoW bot case

If a simple bot can do it...

If a simple bot can do it, then there's obviously a problem with the gameplay.

I'm glad I'm immune to MMORPGs.

TJX hacker breaks ranks with guilty plea

Barred from using computers.

"Barred from using computers." That's like a living death sentence in today's modern world.

No ATM.

No pin pads.

No modern cards.

No mobile phones.

No modern TVs.

No video game consoles.

No CD, DVD, or BD players.

No e-books.

No modern-day appliances.

No job (what, you think you can clock in? HA!)

Start researching the 1960's, because that's how you'll be living (except worse because any modern conveniences have computers inside of them now).

Oh, sorry, you can't even do research. No wikipedia, no public library (the card catalog is on a computer these days, you know). Nope, you can't get the librarian to look it up for you, because that would make him or her an accomplice.

What can you do? Get pissed every day at the pub. Eh, not too bad.

Reg readers rage at comment icon outrage

0.2 is not a title

Needs a web 0.2 icon.

Amazon flash mob mauls Spore DRM

Awesome!

Okay, I lied.

THIS is the only other Spore article I want to read.

The Amazon reviews are gold!

Big and bendy e-ink displays on way

It's about time.

It's about time we got this. Please don't screw it up, guys.

EA Europe struggles squeezing out Spore

I love sandbox games. I hate Spore.

I love sandbox games. I hate Spore. To even call it a game is a laugh.

May this be the only article I ever read about it.

MS preps four critical updates for September

@AC

Because of the massive number of patches that Windows requires, Microsoft came out with patch Tuesday so sysadmins would only have to restart every Windows computer once a month for patching.

Of course, sysadmins still have to restart every Windows computer 20 times a month for crashing.

Employee has no privacy on company computers, US court rules

This was already done before

A US court has already ruled that employees have no privacy on company computers. It happened, like, over a year ago.

NebuAd CEO quits

August was a quiet month

Eagerly awaiting the "NebuAd and Phorm are dead" headline.

Hackintosh maker bites back at Apple

Rooting for Apple to win (lose)

I'm rooting for Apple to win this case because that means I'll see less MacOS.

Date bug kills VMware systems

I lol'd @ The Other Steve

Rarely do I get a good laugh out of the commenters on El Reg, but today, my thanks go out to The Other Steve with this down-to-earth comment:

"For a start, not one in a thousand people have the skills, shit, not one in a thousand programmers have the skills, to read through the source listing of a hypervisor and spot a bug like this, unless it's something really glaringly obvious like a great big commented section that says "THIS CODE WILL CAUSE THE SYSTEM TO FAIL ON AUGUST 12"."

Swedish men left frustrated by state sex aid policy

@Too much Abba

Too much Abba? More like too much Basshunter.

UK.gov pushes £50,000 fine for online copyright infringement

Limbo of the Lost

So this means the guys who made Limbo of the Lost are now looking at a bill of £50,000,000,000,000, right?

Wünderbra! German policewomen take 'Action Brassiere'

I see box art.

It looks like Sarah Bee is up for a rousing game of Gauntlet!

Ex-Googlers reinvent web search

Since nobody did it yet...

Paris because she's good at reducing loads.

Oops - SF prosecutors put city passwords on public record

@sheesh, louise

You mean "Geez Louise?" (it rhymes)

So what were the passwords?

Doctors: Third babies are the same as patio heaters

Logical step.

See you on the next planet!

Gov pulls plug on prison PlayStations

The old in-out in-out.

If I had a PS3 and I was in prison and barred from playing 18+ games, I'd get something like Barbie Horse Adventures and play it nonstop. I wouldn't say a word to everyone else unless required, just play Barbie's Horse Adventure with the volume as loud as allowed.

American data pimper exposes ad equation

Solution!

Use their medicine against them.

Put on your website's privacy policy that NebuAd / Phorm / etc. must first purchase a license of $5,000 per webpage accessed.

Then, have one of your buddies from an opt-out locale view roughly 1,000 pages of your website.

Finally, sue for $5,000,000.

Problem solved. :D

The FDRs of Green explain the gentle art of planet saving

@Johnathan Tate & @Ste(v?)en Hive

""Economics is not a zero-sum game."

Proof please. Rigorous, and not by micro-economic example, thanks."

The sun. It's freely available for (almost) everyone to harvest energy from, constantly introducing a commodity into the market.

Kind of like MMORPGs and gold. We just don't have the NPC goldsinks.

Paris because she's a goldsink (but possibly not an NPC).

Proof of age system moves net ID a step closer

"Step forward NetIDme. Under cover of a suitably unpronounceable brand name"

"Step forward NetIDme. Under cover of a suitably unpronounceable brand name"

I stared at NetIDme for about 20 seconds, gave up, and decided to call it "Net Dime."

Then I read the above quote. My sentiments exactly!

US nuke missile crew falls asleep on the job

GROUP ONE ZERO

GROUP ONE ZERO

GROUP ONE ZERO

TEXT

TEXT

TEXT

YANKEE HOTEL FOXTRAUT BRAVO INDIA ALPHA GULF SIERRA OHSCAR ZULU NOVEMBYR KILO JULIET

MESSAGE

MESSAGE

REPEAT

Banking Trojan hides in fake Alonso F1 crash story

@Not my PC it won't!

Don't feed the troll, everyone.

Pwnie Awards celebrate best and worst of security

@That "... much publicised but still unspecified DNS cache poisoning vulnerability ..."

Right now you can read it cached, second result.

Scientists ponder future Moon mission activities

Go to the Moon

Yes, yes, go forth, colonize, and get off my planet!

Street-savvy Microsoft tries to pop the pimply face of piracy

The ninth word of the third paragraph on page eight is: Daventry

Don't copy that floppy.

Oz censor, gamers fall out over Fallout 3 ban

Silly.

In other news, the Classification Board is of the opinion that the use of mushrooms in the game has the positive effect of enabling Mario to increase in size. This ability to progress through the game more easily is the incentive to take the drug while the reward is in the character's abilities.

Judge sides with eBay in fake jewelry spat

Hooray

For once, I'm glad eBay won something. The judge must have been competent. This case should have been common sense for two reasons:

-Trademark owners must defend their trademark.

-Content posted by users on websites is the responsibility of the users.

Intel bets millions on speedy DNA sequencing chips

@GATTACA

WAITING IN LINE TO ENTER THE BUILDING

ANNOYED BY TECH TRYING TO FIX THE MACHINE

*PONK* OW

INVALID?!?!

Google releases serialization scheme

Content

You're all surprised because this is how Americans slang it up.

Google plays Hide and Seek with Android SDK

More time means a better product.

I will be ever patient for our Overlord Google to deliver.

Ubuntu trumpets aromatic pistou of borage

That looks delicious!

That looks delicious!

I want everything on the menu!

mmm open source food

Limbo of the Lost music not stolen, claims composer

Wow.

I just finished scouring the corners of the internet to find information about this controversy, and what I found was hilarious, shocking, and mind-numbing.

Steve Bovis even goes as far as to pretend to be a beta-tester AND his daughter in forums. You can tell it's him because of the excessive "..................." and "hahahahahaha" remarks found in posts.

For a good archive of every game he stole from, including side-by-side comparisons:

http://lotl.wikia.com

Seems he's been stealing since 1995.

And dear god, watch the ending movie.

Circuit City reports Q1 loss as US shoppers unplug

@Anya

Circuit City is still gradually weeding out the smart people.

We live in Richmond. My roommate works for their tech support hotline, Firedog. He says it's always a struggle to avoid being the one that gets fired that week (apparently competence can do that).

Just recently he had to train a 65 year-old woman who has never used a computer before how to use their hackeneyed programs. Two weeks ago, he also caught his boss (who had left early because he wasn't feeling well) at an OTB parlor.

On another note, I was one of the people who got canned back in the great employee purge. I learned that I didn't have a job when I came in for work one day and all the workstations at the NOC were gone. All of them.

Lesbians like straight men, researchers find

Bisexuality

I am disappointed in the lack of attention or even acknowledgement of bisexuality by the researchers. That would be very insightful.

A videogame that truly takes the p*ss

Women

"BTW is there a version for the girls? There's discrimination laws you know."

With practice, women can pee standing up just as well as men. The only discrimination is that they haven't tried.

Teapot backdoor probed by German telescope boffins

@Thats Why I work Naked covered in whipped cream

Best first comment ever.

Although the whipped cream might cause a reflection!