Posts by Midas

Portugal’s prosecutor punts P2P case

For once the rule of law trumps gold-digging...

UK.gov blacklists Fujitsu from future contracts - report

The real story

I had to read the comments here to get it...

SOPA from a distance: multiplying the trade threats

SOPA = Racket licensing

Excellent analysis. What's unbelievable is how little impact and comment a reasonable article such as this one gets in comparison with the veiled pro-SOPA defenses of Orlowsky and Asay -- where has El Reg irreverence gone? What's next, a Condé Nast acquisition (like the one who befell on the Wired of yore)?

Acer Iconia A100 7in Android tablet

Rather interested...but that screen angle issue is definitively a deal breaker.

Plus, I really feel the smaller number in that 1024x600 rez spec should be something like 800...

Hell, I'd settle for 768.

So, keep trying Acer -- I'm not parting with my hard earned euros just yet for the sake of your 'almost there' fondleslab.

MS bitch icon and no tablet... for the time being.

IRISnotes Executive 1.0 digital pen

Great concept, but don't you believe that hype...

Over a decade ago I inherited the original IRIS pen line scanning device (connectable to the now elderly parallel port) from a disgruntled user who got fed up with the lack of support that seemed to plague the mother company.

On their behalf, I must confess that to this day I am still impressed with the general quality of the output generated; plus it had the ability to scan barcodes in a time there weren't many devices that could do it.

A few years ago, I again got offered the same kind of device on some festive ephemerid, but now in a USB attachable form.

Want my advice? Forget this!

They'll never update the driver software to correct the million 'paper cuts' it exhibits, that although negligible will merge to drive you up the walls in no time if you try to do some serious work with their product.

They'll also have the nerve to try and charge you for newer versions, which will be mere modern platform iterations of their old software. And they will never, ever provide even an auto-responder answer to any of your desperate emails. There are better holes to throw your money into...

Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

Farewell

Dearest Ms. Bee, never had the privilege of feeling your sting but genuinely believe your input was essential in taming El Reg droves of marauders. I wish you get stuffed too and all the the luck with upcoming endeavors.

So long and thanks for all the fish...

US Supremes deal death blow to class action lawsuits

Neo-feudalism marches on...

... only this time there's no gentry, only faceless corporations.

Victorian cops collar camera cooker

Quis custodiet costodes?

Juvenal comes back to bite constable ass...

Scroogle busted again after Google tweak

I, for 1, welcome it back...

Variety is the spice of life and free competition the essence of capitalism, right?=)

I don't hate Google, but I do hate having my all my eggs in the same basket, especially if that basket is in the hands of an American mega-corporation intent on ruling the (digital) Earth.

I use Scroogle as one of the quicksearch box search engines of Firefox, with the plugin I retrieved from http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html.

I very seldom have to go to Scroogle's site, usually only when something like this interruption happens. So be it as it may, Scroogle is welcome back.

Ask.com kills Bloglines

Yet Another Disgruntled User

I've used Bloglines for years now and like everybody else just because it wasn't Google Reader (Which BTW I've tried time and time again and just can't get used to, not to mention the age old wisdom of not putting all your eggs in just one basket).

It never had the sexiest interface, but it was flexible enough to provide for an enjoyable feed reading experience, with just the right control granularity in order not to be swamped in a avalanche of updates and to be able to archive whatever was interesting enough.

I've also tried a bunch of feed reading clients and sites, but up to now none seems to offer the same level of usability for me. I'm sticking with Netvibes for the moment becuase it seems to be the least obnoxious solution (it does opml import and the reader view is almost usable in a fast computer). And I second coxy in thinking that Ask should rise to the occasion and just release the sauce over at Sourceforge, so at least there would be a possibility that someone would pick up the torch...

I also totally agree with R.Varney comment above on Ask: "you've bought a service that worked, done fuck all with it for years and now killed it. excellent, well done: I am certainly more disposed to use Ask's services now".

Wikileaks founder blasts reopening of rape probe

WTF?

Most of the feedback here is appalling in its baseness and enough to convince any reasonable human being of the existence of a smear campaign against Assange, if not of the remaining suspicions of wrongdoing towards the man.

First he's accused of rape in terms no one really knows about and next all the frustrated scribblers at El Reg elaborate on how to bury the man for real? What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? For chrissakes, that's how you make me believe our so called 'democracy' is doomed...

Zappa's widow loses trademark case over own name

Apologies.

Dear Sarah, I'm sorry to have caught you in my flack -- rest assured it wasn't meant for you at all. As I said, I love El Reg, even if I have to cope with the likes of Orlowski, who seems to gather all the right facts, but has big difficulties grasping the implications -- and then gets a special 'no comments' status when he publishes. I only allowed myself to vent it here, because the matter was somewhat related. Peace!

Righto!

AC hit on the nail: only Frank (or his underage progeny, as a special allowance) should be liable to collect anything -- the others are only leechers (the real ones).

On a side note why are we able to comment on OUT-LAW.com dispatches, but not on Orlowsky spew (such a this one: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/01/leechers_unloved/)? Maybe the reason is El Reg is engages in an undercover campaign by proxy on behalf of the payturds? It's stuff like this that really pisses me off and drains my love for you guys...

Russian spy ring bust uncovers tech toolkit

Where?

Since I don't read Russian, it's links or GTFO...

World's first waterproof, solar phone unveiled

What a great idea!

Now if they could revamp the design with less chrome and keep it under 100 EUR they could have the netbook analogue killer handset...

'Lenny': Debian for the masses?

Moral Balance

As a long time windows user (still) and a recent (5 years) Linux convert, the violence of these OS debate/wars deeply puzzles me.

For one, I am unable to understand how convict the windows camp can rationally be in their defence of MS practices and products, carrying the burden of knowing all that is public (and partially re-stated here) about them.

On the other hand, even if their designs where really so flawed, how can you so damningly criticize the joint effort of millions of programmers on behalf of the common (computing) good, instead of praising them?

It really tells loads of the modern moral climate.

Guess I'll jump back on my ship now, and go back to where I came from...

EU borders database defenestrated in Prague?

My take on the matter...

Yet another white elephant (of ruinous taxpayer money expenditure) trying to get out of the pond (of total bankruptcy) by delicately jumping over the water lilies (of our debt laden economy)...

Economists: European ancestors are what make you rich

Leviathan

Being an Iberian, I resent the fact that everybody here seems to think that it were the British that set forth the age of exploration.

Truth is, by the time they got there the Portuguese & Spainiards -- and the French and the Dutch, to a lesser extent -- had already done all the work and two centuries had gone by.

Paris, because she has european ancestry (and you'd meet her in World History 101, if ignorance didn't rule nowadays)

MIT boffins crack fusion plasma snag

Other alternatives...

Maybe we could get cheap energy out of the collective flame issued by the brains of those reading BLoad explanations of the hard science behind this...

I doubt we will stop breeding like rats to lower the population to sustainable levels, as much as that would solve the problem instantly -- everybody just seems to think that in the end, those with the bigger army will linger. Although I doubt that too...

Fission is OK for me as long as you find a way of either having the reactors offplanet or sending the waste there -- you could just let the waste fall in to the sun, for a few million years free energy boost.

I had had never heard of the molten salt reactor idea. It looks promising, as long a it is also not nationalised by some -- then we're back at the bigger army scenario.

Oh, and thanks to the Reg and its audience for slowly turning me into a rocket scientist, one article at a time (I'll get there circa the end of the century...).

The dude in the blue environment, for obvious reasons (Green? Who needs green? Forget green!)

Study spanks Adobe Flash for abuses of power

Leviathan

One word for the crowd:

Switch to any decent gecko/webkit based browser that supports flashblock (& adblock -- try http://adblockplus.org/en/, for instance) and it's flash begone! (unless you really need it, in which case it is just a matter of clicking the flash placeholder icon).

The spectacled dude, 'cause he gets it.

Europe tightens rules on police data sharing

Leviathan

Those willing to sacrifice their liberty for security, deserve neither. Franklin

How to destroy the music business

How to revive the corpse...

1. Make ATM like Automat CD Audio dispensers -- connected to the Net with big pipes, so you could choose your twang from a menu and it would get it from a central archive (lossless if you pay more, lossy for a few cents a song) wrap it up in industry grade packaging, and get it charged on your VIsa (but please insure the better part of the payment DOES get to the Creator/Performer);

2. Have the Internet surveyed by an independent artist supported agency in order to determine what is getting (mostly) downloaded and share royalties collected accordingly;

3. Put out a special 0.1% levy on the profits of every media related operation and add that to the (fair) royalties fund;

4. Police the collection agencies to ensure they are collecting for the artists, not for the industry.

You'll have a flourishing industry in no time...

The Joly Roger -- you know why.

Passport and ID card price hike laundered via private sector

Leviathan

Sod it! Everytime big Gov pretends to know better than the people what's good for them, a snake's egg is laid, and all of those will be hatching pretty quickly...

Oh! And a big thanks from continental Europe for another brilliant Britton idea for keeping the Eurocrats in the business of screwing the Europeans -- instead of what they are princely paid for, that is to promote a fairer and better continent for us to live in. If the UK can't make up is mind to fully join the EU, it should just piss off, and not spend time looking for ways to screw the system more than it already is.

Sorry for the outburst, but I had no idea biometric IDs where the UK nulabour brainchild.

The Black Jack, 'cause I'm beguining to see the point of buccanneers (and citizen militias)

Judge bans European-wide online music rights

Fit summation

@JIM: Stop SHOUTING and go back to bossing your ward: we're talking BUMA, not Burma -- the formely named country renamed by its military dictators to ghastly Myanmar -- and certainly not the BRUMA issued from your foggy head...

As for the newspiece, nothing to see here -- only the real pirates fighting for a piece of the loot...

The Black Jack, 'cause it's fitting.

Real researchers discover 'Music Without Limits'

Fit summation

@Geoff Mackenzie:

I'll second that (old allofmp3.com came real close in the monetized field).

@Ash:

I couldn't have said it better. Thanks for clearing my head.

The alienhead 'cause the truth is in here... Now what was that cupsize?

RIAA ordered to shell out $100k for P2P witch hunt

WTF?

Peanuts for pigopolists... They can sue at will and at close range, if when they blunder they only have to pay a tenth of what they rake in when they hit it right.

Joe PC User doesn't have an army of lawyers on retainer, so the RIAA will always keep the upper hand.

My anger burns in the desert like the proverbial Bush...

Discoverer of LSD dead at 102

My take on the matter...

Farewell! And thanks for all the fish...

Billy Bragg: Why should songwriters starve so others get rich?

Freetards & Tightwads (or just plain retards with big wads...)

There are plenty of laws defending essential human rights or the environments that don't get half the enforcement that copyright does.

Being from continental Europe, I abide to norms with a different and broader scope, not focused solely on the protection of commercial aspects of cultural goods, but granting creator's so called "moral rights" over their works, which encompass the idea that a creator has the perpetual and unsalable right to recognition for his work and that this work can't be altered without his consent and still be attributed to him -- the essential difference between 'droit d'auteur' and copyright.

But I reckon there are good laws and bad laws: I fail to see how a law born in the 17th century to protect the printer's trade and amended in the 19th century to accommodate the newly devised figure of the 'author', while remaining essentially a book trade regulation, really services 21st century creators. As someone else pointed earlier it remains instated because politics are in bed with media corporations, not because the best interest of the public is being cared for.

Jobs, 'cause he knows how to spin it and the media loves him for it...

On Illegality...

@Shakje

For the sake of dimwit freeloaders, please elaborate somewhat further about which aspect of the so called social contract -- or fundamental law, for that matter -- it issues forth that filesharing is more illegal than, let's say, word sharing (as in free communication) or fluid sharing (by consenting adults, that is).

Paris, because she can afford (to go to jail...)

Freetards & Tightwads (or just plain retards with big wads...)

.

"Hey, you can't sell that word! I own it, it's mine.

So is that sound. Stop!"

Notwithstanding the right of creators to benefit from their creations as a way to enhance the production of more culture, the true retards are the ones willing to support the legal fiction that someone can freely annexate what belongs to all and then charge the rest for it.

The nerd is here... but mandatory schooling will suffice, thank you.

.

MPAA copyright punch up knocks out TorrentSpy

Don't believe the hype!

For the general Copytard audience here at El Reg, let's say that we don't condone efforts to equate copyright with creator's defense and retribution -- unless your public monicker is Madonna or Spiderman.

Every piece of evidence clearly shows the RIAA and MPAA don't exist to finace artists, they serve only the industry money grubbing zealots. And one look at the history of copyright shows that it was like that from the begining. The artists only gets paid when there's no other option.

Mine is the one in kevlar, along with the mob squad shield...

EU president sets green plans in stone

My take on the matter...

If one could make nuclear plants 99,99% safe and squash the residual radioactive matter to the absolute minimum, one could then design rocket launchers to lift up those residues and drop them into our sun, killing two rabbits with one stick -- both zero polution and some Sun re-fueling...

Ok, Ok, no pushing, I'm getting into the straight jacket.

Drink-drive chain gang obliged to bury dead alcoholics

Oh my, this looks like redneck pride parade...

That'll be another dead (american) jailbird...

«Standard prisons are definately no deturrent. 3 meals a day, tv, recreation (weights, bball, etc). Some folks in the cities here in the states have it worse outside than in. I know of at least 1 man in town that attempts robery on a bank every fall so he has a place to stay for the winter. I somewhat doubt he'd be so anxious with hard labor awaiting him on the other side.»

That explains a lot about the American Way of Life... Yeah, right! It's not "Kill the poor!" as The Dead Kennedys used to shout, rather reduce them to serfdom in state institutions where all human dignity is denied, exploit every once of free labour you can get out of them, and just expect them to be rehabilitated -- or else, broken, scared senseless, psycopathically enraged or just plain insane, who cares... (for the rest of us, unamericans, just remember that one quarter of the world's prison population is in the US)

Oh yeah! And why shouldn't one treat stray dogs better than humans?

"Home of the brave, land of the free", indeed! Get a passport...