Posts by Rich Bryant

The first rule of Reg Club is...

Rule 7

Chuck Norris is a big girl. No respect.

Microsoft targets developers with 'open' license

Not new

All that stuff is already viewable with Lutz Roeder's Reflector anyway.

UK, Germans, Dutch slam EC Galileo plan

"Unspent"

Largely unspent in the UK because whatever the Ministry of Agriculture is calling this week, back when Margaret "Rosa Klebbs" Becket was in charge, decided to spend an awful amount of money and time implementing a super-groovy IT project to manage the new Single Farm Payments.

Consultants included EDS and Accenture, naturally. The project was never fully delivered. The UK's farmers thus went unpaid (through foot and mouth and various other evils) while out European "partners" gaily collected the dosh and undercut us still further, which helped out the state of British farming no end as I'm sure you can imagine.

The head of the project was unceremoniously sacked, but not before collecting a payoff worth several thousand of the still-unpaid Single Farm Payment and getting another job with Accenture.

Your taxes at work, folks.

China spots 42 new glaciers

@Anarchy

You must be new here or you'd have long ago learned never to even try to read what amanfromMars writes, unless you're deeply bored, stoned or searching for inner wisdom.

Or all of the above.

Ninja she-devils rob Pennsylvania gas station

@Bill Fresher

Sadly true but nothing we should be proud about or admitting in public. And Morely is right that our lardassess don't get to anything like city-shaking size that the US grows 'em to.

I still believe that the original Gojira movies were created after an average Nipponese director had to run in terror from a rampaging Indianapolis roleplayer consuming everything in its path.

Chuck Norris to do battle in El Reg Arena of Death

Yeah, but

Winning Karate titles is like winning a darts tournament. It means you're really good at darts, or karate, neither of which is of any particular use to anybody except as a social activity or a semi-decent workout.

Secondly, the roundhouse kick is the stupidest attack ever invented short of the "Crane" and I highly recommend Chuck try in real life sometime because I'd like to see him cry.

In fact, I'd quite like to MAKE him cry. Are you still looking for volunteers, guys?

Iraq fiasco creeps into NSA surveillance controversy

On the other hand

Great excuse for a Bush Licking sub-headline. We hadn't seen one in a while :)

Warner punts Blunt on MySpace

Hold me back...

because I'm 100% with Mitch Benn on this topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etYvtT7q5XA

Orange to turn pink at Xmas to favour young women

Yet more evidence

That Orange are completely retarded as well providing a service even Virgin Rail would be ashamed of.

My contract ends next month with them. Any recommendations?

US special forces buy electric stealth golf carts

Re: Simple solution

Yeah, handy for any passing Bedouin with low charge on his iPod, too.

MPs slam Defra over rural payments system

On the other hand

On the other hand, it did speed up the ongoing masterplan to turn what remains of British Agriculture into a "Heritage Environment" consisting of golf courses, stately homes, caravan parks for Mrs Becket and barn conversions for wealthy executives.

I mean really, what's a few quid when the payoff is even more bankrupted farmers and ever closer ties with our "European Partners", without whom we would now starve?

Apple slashes iPhone prices

Re: "The Author Of This Work For Microsoft?"

Thanks, that was hilarious.

Do yourself a favour, friend. Look at the balance sheet of both companies. Then do your best to tell me that Microsoft are remotely concerned about Apple in any way. Such a valiant effort effort in self-delusion would probably qualify you for a position with any priesthood or political party but I doubt if it's possible.

Genghis Khan didn't much like gays

Re: Similarities...

"Reincarnation, maybe?"

Nah. Ghengis was actually good at his job.

Apple sells one in six US laptops

FUD?

For once, MS are the victim of deliberate FUD and of course, fanboy ignorance. Vista doesn't really need any more RAM to be "usable" than XP does. It just caches the stuff in advance so you'll rarely see less than 50% memory allocation.

As for Apple laptops (and indeed desktops), i would suspect that they're growing popularity owes an awful lot more to Bootcamp than it ever could to OSX.

Aussie gov anti-porn filter 'useless', says teen

Old fashioned values

I agree with banning porn over browsers. Kids should get their porn in the new version of the way we used to get it. Our was was shoplifting. Theirs must obviously be torrents.

A wardriving we will go!

There's no need for any analogies

Only accurate descriptions.

If you have a wireless router, you are an unlicensed broadcaster. You are broadcasting data to ANY receiver which is configured to receive it.

If the network is "secured", you are broadcating encrypted data. That data is essentially worthless to anyone who does not have the decryption key.

Therefore, with your wireless router (an RF transmitter), you will always broadcast data while the device is active. The choice as to whether to make that data readable or not is entirely yours.

It is not illegal to receive broadcasts in either the USA or the UK.

So please, stop talking about imaginary "crimes".

Rentokil to set Q Branch on UK's rats

Who are you watching?

"...and laser-armed Rolex Oyster Perpetuals are just a matter of time, and indeed necessity"

Doesn't Bond always wear Omegas?

VoIP glitch leaves users cut off

Wow

amanfromMars is even working on incomprehensible titles now.

New meds?

Girls prefer pink: official

Re: The "explanations" are also pure speculation (as is often the case).

Uh, the pink skintone probably works, especially since mating displays tend to emphasise bits of the individual that are pink regardless of general melanin levels.

I'm certain there are websites about this, should you wish to research it.

Cadbury bows to 'bring back Wispa' net campaign

@Gavin

Uh, while i admire your mastery of internet incoherence and illegibility, and in the vain hope that this was not just a troll, the following should be considered.

Snickers (which is really Marathon, damn you all) is not a Cadbury product. Neither is it a Nestlé product, so "nestle get on this now PLEASE" is probably not going to be useful.

It's a Mars product, made by Masterfoods.

With any luck, Nestlé will never get their hands on Candbury's or Masterfoods. Not merely for the politically correct milk substitute in Africa reasons but because they always bloody ruin everything they take over. Rowntrees are gone, damn them. Probably the first thing they did after sticking their stupid logo on things was to make After Eights cloyingly sweet and inedible.

And everything else is going the same way. Nestlé just make horrible chocolate. I'll continue to support Cadbury's.

Peterborough bloke warned over 'offensive' t-shirt

Well...

I find all this pointless taking of offense extremely offensive. Whoever complained needs to get out more and stop being such a prick.

Not posted anonymously. Feel free to arrest me.

Microsoft sees $1.5bn verdict chucked out

@Steven Knox

Thank god it's not just me, i was starting to worry. Actually, i suspect an impostor, the capitalization in that comment is entirely rational.

Nokia calls Microsoft for DRM software

Why do it?

> WHY OH WHY put Microsoft software into such a nice, reliable OS?

Because of the available market. All Windows PCs will play it. All XBoxen will play it. All WIndows Mobile phones will play it. Both Zunes will play it. Without any hassles or re-encoding.

The alternative was basically iTunes. I expect to see this thread flooded by Macintards any second screaming that it should have been iTunes because Apple's DRM is less evil than Microsoft's or something equally inane.

Given supplier pressure for DRM, Nokia went for the biggest available market. All five "linux on the desktop" guys together would never buy enough music to compete with that!

Disclaimer: I run Solaris.

Miserable Brits declare War on Comfort

Hey Shad

Prove it, ya paranoid hippie liar.

It's pretty easy to show much smokers contribute to Britians economy. To prove it, in fact. Proving any damage we might cause, that's not easy because mostly, it's just hysterical hair-tearing from the "ew, I don't like what you do!" party.

And the Second-hand smoke studies are without exception as flawed as any company's reporting of "losses" from piracy or data-intrusion.

Hey look, i just brought in an IT angle...

Gmail: a short, sharp rant

So...

When did Guy Kewney change his name to Phil Space?

1. User has problem, can't figure out why.

2. User rings up Google, they tell him.

3. User writes page-filling article and probably gets paid by the word.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Google. I don't use Gmail. I think Google do plenty of evil, actually. But this is just user-whining.

HMRC loses landmark tax ruling

Well naturally

Obviously HMRC went after a small business and probably spent millions in attempting to defraud them of their income.

Otherwise they might have to do something having their own offices owned offshore, or those "non-residents" so beloved of Gordon Broon and the Broonites.

Sprint boots 200 American patriots for using their phones

Why the UK is not like that

Because the USA is massive, you pillock. Nobody can afford to blanket all of it in RF towers.

Retailers price up Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite

Well....

If the unit is identical over here and over there, couldn't somebody just grab a busted 360 from ebay and use the hopefully non-busted power-brick? Then you could import a US model for £100 less.

Second Life gets its first copyright law suit

No, it isn't and no it didn't.

"Second Life is an online universe which reached mainstream popularity earlier this year."

It's more like a series of online zones. One of the things about a universe is that it's all one piece.

And no, it hasn't got mainstream popularity. 30K simultaneous online users about twice since launch is not mainstream how much Linden Labs lie about their user-figures.

Chinese women crave Bill Gates' sperm

Missing the point

Lester's definitely aiming for a headline-contest winner. The story is unimportant.

Gates loses 'World's richest' crown

re: Carlos Obredor

"Had Snr Obredor won the presidency, Snr Slim would be substantially poorer. Obredor's proposal was for a tax of as much at 75% at the highest level, with "wealth" taxes to boot. And he would have taxed the snot out of large corporations."

And that right there is why he didn't win. You can't threaten to tax corporations and still get elected. See also Murdoch, R.

Feds fiddle as cybertopia burns

Re; Jurisdiction Shopping

"They chose their target, then sought to find something they could be arrested for"

And then prosecuted under "community standards law in Utah". Which by all accounts bans absolutely everything anyway.

A glitch in the Matrix, or a hungry exploit?

The usual

It's just Shub-Internet again. Hit it with a stick.

How furry is it?

Nevertheless

We now have a Register that appears to be interested and furries and Suckat Life. This could never be described as improvement except by the fundamentally unsane, such as furries and Suckat Life players.

And just for Melvin Goodjob's information, i don't use Zenworks. And neither does my wife.

And we should care because...?

Sorry, don't understand the point of this article. So IT-types are attracted to minority hobbies? We already knew that. So some of them are weak-minded enough to start thinking they're really animals and wearing synthetic cuddly-toy outfits? So what? In your own place, do as you please.

Geeks like all sorts of things. Some like RPGs, online or pen&paper. Most read genre fiction of one type or another. Personally, my thing is re-enactment medieval battles. No, not SCA or LARP stuff. The other type, metal weapons, real armour, genuine beatings dished out and received. I'd say a good 70% of those who are involved work or have worked in IT.

Is it the loss-of-plot "I'm really an animal in human form who watches SciFi and eats pizza" stuff that's supposed to be interesting?

Theatre and democracy in Second Life

Seconded

"SL Destiny 2.0 is a domme..."

Who gives a shit? Why are you indulging the Suckat Life crowd with this relentless drivel? Of course, i suspect that there's probably some form of deep irony involved that's too opaque for us mere mortals - i dunno, maybe Destiny Welles looks more like Orson Welles when not flouncing around in Sadville - but whatever it is, you'r e beginning to read like Prokofy Neva's blog. And i think that's the worst insult i could ever pay to any "professionally" written article.

Stop this crap. Go play WoW. Or EVE. Or anything. Just not this endless multiverse bullshit.

FTC sides against Net Neutrality

Re: Do you Brits know what the FTC is?

Brent,

Yeah, we pretty much do. At least, the kind of Brits that read the Register do because it has some relevance our jobs or interests.

For example, you know what the NHS is.

Most British people wouldn't have a clue what the FTC is, but this is a self-selecting group.

UK boffins form nanotech taskforce

One of these days

I'll work out what the hell amanfromMars is on about. I've tried using decryption on his comments, i've tried recombining the oddly capitalised words - surely he has some reason for that? - and i've tried reading them backwards just in case.

No joy.

Can anyone help?

Defamation lawsuit seeks to unmask anonymous cowards

Actually..

> The article admits that nobody ever actually gave away identifying information about the plaintiffs.

Untrue. The thread in question (linked in a previous comment) gives away real names in the very first post. Later, there are statements of intent ("I'll sodomize her repeatedly...") but nothing that indicates conspiracy or actual planning to commit an offence, or indeed defamation - at no point does anyone claim that either plaintiff has an STD; questions are asked regarding "what STDs" they have, which is a different thing.

Filing anonymous suit is pretty stupid when the names are right there, though. I doubt this suit will succeed unless the judge is the more extreme type of neoLuddite godbotherer.

Yahoo!'s pink liberation army a threat to America's youth

Idiots

I laughed. And there is satirical value in noticing that Yahoo! wants to be trendy and thinks the way to be perceived as such is to host a load of non-majority stuff.

It's certainly working on you lot.

AMD chief condemns Intel 'abuses'

Re: Ehem. . . Monopoly?

Yeah, but that doesn't get you headlines or sympathy buys from idiots. Also, it doesn't aid you in winning (probably) spurious court cases.

I am not affiliated with Intel in any way.

Albatron brings Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS in on a budget

Possible HTPC component?

Do we know yet if it's noisy? Or if it is HDCP compliant?

Rufus fights back

A safe place?

Isn't that what the Scary Devil Monastery used to be?

(and shame on any Reg staffer who doesn't know what that is).

Cornish separatists menace Jamie Oliver

On second thoughts

Even though i've already stated that i don't think this is serious, i've now read the other comments.

You nasty, narrow-minded stereotyping little bigots! God, i hope it IS serious and that all your houses are on their list!

Go on, make similar jokes about black people, if you have the balls.

Not serious, but..

No, i doubt if they're serious. But on the other hand, Cornish people can't afford to live in Cornwall anymore - all the houses are too pretty and are snapped up by merchant w^Hbankers as second or often third homes.

My own home village - in Wiltshire, not Cornwall - is now 90% owned by people who do not live there, and i'm not talking about rental properties either - those houses are empty all week. The owners bring food and other items with them from London (usually but not exclusively) and thus do not supplement the local economy.

My best friend, the farm worker, cannot afford to live anywhere near the farm anymore. He has to drive 20 miles every day from the nearest large town.

Something's badly wrong. So no, i doubt if this is serious. But it's certainly a symptom of something which is extremely serious.

UK security industry pleads for closer goverment ties

More Money! More!

"Closer ties" = "open wallets".

These scaremongers just want more money, that's all. The "terrorist threat" is bogus anyway. It's not as if Osama's rockin' the internet from his dialysis machine - unless Steve Jobs launched the new iPiss while i wasn't looking - is it?

What threat? A few botnets and some fishy emails?

End the paranoia society. Tear down the CCTV cameras. Give us our lives back.

HTC Touch Window Mobile 6 smart phone

It's no iPhone?

How can you know it's no iPhone? Is it perhaps because it exists to be tested? What if the iPhone has the exact same faults? Will you revisit this review and say "Nice idea but actually yes, it exactly as good as the iPhone"?

So what's in a URL? The Reg URL?

Both national and global?

Only in the diseased mind of the American web-user. There actually IS a .us hierarchy and you can buy and use domains in that hierarchy.

.com is global and i have no issues with it - until you start getting slagged for not covering enough US issues.

No Zune in Europe until 2008

I imported my Zune

Because Mactards piss me off and i thought i'd try it. If nothing else, it would upset the Applevangelists.

As it happens, i'm very pleased with it. It works. I watch ripped TV series and movies on it's great big screen and see a great picture with far better sound than the iPod ever managed.

The whole 2008 thing doesn't worry me. Why would i want to pay £250 for something i can import for £100? So i can't share music - no biggie. I'd prefer to listen to my own choices anyway.

Best of all, i don't have install iTunes, probably the single worst music controlling interface ever.

Apple's iPhone available on June 29

Wishful thinking

I have nothing in particular against Apple (although i don't and don't want to own any of their products) but it'd be nice to see this fail miserably and never sell more than 50K or so.

Not because i'd like Apple to fail, particularly. Mostly because some guy in a different comments rant claimed that "Apple is not just a different company, it's a different reality" and since i'd have to exert myself to hunt him down and stap him repeatedly in the face, watching his precious fall into Mount Doom is probably the second best option.