Posts by TrishaD

Post-Safe Harbor: Adobe fined for shipping personal info to the US 'without any legal basis'

People still keen to leave the EU?

PayPal freezes 400-job expansion in North Carolina over bonkers religious freedom law

Re: America

"The suicide risk increases after re-assignment surgery, which IMHO demonstrates the false nature of the treatment - it is a mental condition not a physical one; no dissimilar to anorexia and bulimia. The current indulgence in this foolishness is actually harming those most at risk and all for a political point. How low can you go"

You do realise that this is, to put it bluntly, total horseshit?

Suicide risks do not increase after reassignment surgery. The Religious Right and their stooges have recently siezed on the results of a Swedish study and (surprise surprise) misrepresented them. The claim is that suicide risk increases and that levels of criminality remain unchanged. In fact the study took two groups of transsexuals, one group who transitioned in the 1980s when social attitudes and social care for transsexuals less advanced and another group from several years later when Sweden had moved on signifcantly both in terms of social care and social attitudes.

The first group suffered high suicide rates and an unchanged level of criminality. The second group demonstated a significant lowering of both.

Thus demonstrating that if you support transgender individuals sympathetically and treat them as normal human beings rather than as freaks and pariahs, most of their problems go away.

This of course doesnt fit the bigot agenda so they lie about it.

Re: America

This is a classic case of the Religious Right attempting (and succeeding) in invoking moral panic. They've failed in their attempts to control womens' reproductive rights (because, surprise surprise, about half of all voters are women) and failed to prevent equal marriage rights (because, as in most of the Western world, most young Americans dont give a stuff about whether someone's gay or not). They're now focussing on transgender people because we're an easy target.

There's no protection here against perverts any more than the existing protections in law that are in place already, and no amount of ranting by bigots like Big John is going to change that.

In the UK, the Gender Recognition Act has been in place since 2004, granting transsexual people full recognition of their acquired gender (including the right to go to the lav). Number of transsexual people convicted of sexual assault in womens's toilets? None. As in zero.

But this legislation isnt just about transgender people in spite of the Republican Party's attempts to scare the shit out of people. It's about giving individuals and organisations the right to deny services (including medical and health services) to homosexual men and women because their gibbering Mullahs have told them they're sinful. Land of the Free, my arse ....

Police robot duo storm Colorado house, end four-day siege

Re: Indeed. 1 man +1 weapon +*no* hostages = 4 days x 30 officers + 1 house destroyed.

I mean... what IS this? Police Academy 92 or something?

Indiana Jones whips Bond in greatest movie character poll

Re: Limited

"10.The Dude - The Big Lebowski

Never heard of him."

Boy, you're about to enter a world of pain ....

BT: Let us scrap ordinary phone lines. You've all got great internet, right?

Re: One big problem

Here on Salisbury Plain we experience transient power failure at least weekly. We can pretty much guarantee one biggie (6 hrs plus) a year - more in harsh winters.

There is precisely one mobile in our household and I get zero reception in the house and maybe one bar if I'm lucky when I'm outside. Even then, reception fluctuates between none and bad within a period of minutes.

Why is that idiot Osbo continuing with austerity when we know it doesn't work?

Re: Spending money

"There is a benefit to the country from having decent roads over and above the money paid out to tarmac layers. There is no such benefit to be had from increased awareness of the existence of ethnic minority disabled lesbian single mothers."

If we ignore the cliches and the stereotyping, it's arguable that the benefit of such schemes lies in furthering the Public Good.

That may appear a somewhat quaint concept, but it does rather lie at the heart of whether the UK and its Government exist in order to serve the people of this country or whether they exist to serve the interests of the business community.

I'd be the first to accept that a healthy and successful business community contributes greatly to the Public Good but the concept of 'what's good for business is good for the country' seems to me to be a quite nonsensical one.

We affluent IT types can wibble on all we like about welfare dependancy and the evils of employee rights, but if we dont look after the vulnerable in society and provide checks and balances against the powerful exploiting the powerless, then I think we should be questioning why we have a government at all.

PCI council gives up, dumbs down PCI DSS for small business

Re: based on experience of SMEs

Or the major organisation who's retail outlets used to photocopy the front and back of customer's credit cards and put it in their file ......I still wake up with cold sweats over that one.

I do quite a lot of work doing due dilligence on SMEs and there's an even split between folks who apply common sense and apply best practice to the best of their abilities and those who think it all involves too much braining ....

Violin acknowledges Valley's hippy roots with Grateful Dead gig lottery

Re: Q: what did one Deadhead say to the other after they ran out of dope?

"they played music" - very debatable"

Really? If you play at all, try playing some stuff off American Beauty.

If you can......

Their chording is complex and difficult. The Dead were always excellent musicians - you cant be that sloppy without knowing what you're doing.

Bye bye, booth babes. IT security catwalk RSA nixes sexy outfits

Re: Christ on a fucking BIKE!

@NotArghGeeCee

Quite so. Bunch of snivelling babies, whining because someone took their toys off them...

Meh ....

It's not easy being Green. But WHY insist we knit our own ties?

Re: It only makes you poorer if you displace a more productive use of your time

Let us assume that I earn 'x' amount of money. If I'm a good little consumer, I'll use that 'x' to purchase goods and services (putting some aside first either to pay my taxes or in savings to pay for all the bits and pieces like a pension and health care that I'd have to pay for if I werent a member of society that believes in tax).

Now that's fine - I have 'x' and spend 'x'. The only problem of course (because that's life) is that I only have 'x' and can only purchase goods and services up to the value of 'x'. If however, I choose to spend my spare time, the time I have after spending time earning 'x', doing my own plumbing, car maintenance, cider making or whatever, then what actually happens is that I dont actually spend all of 'x' and I'm at liberty to spend what's left over buying goods and services that I couldnt afford to buy if I'd not done stuff myself. I can go buy iPads, posh clothes, or whatever. Alternatively I could save the residue and that money becomes available for others to invest on my behalf.

Either way, the market hasnt lost at all, has it?

Stupid humans and their expensive data breaches

Training

“What these statistics demonstrate is that training alone is not the answer,”

I dont think that the problem is that people dont care but that they dont care enough. While training might make people aware, it wont scare the bejazus out of them (which is one of the things that makes people actually think) because they're not personally liable.

Under the Iron Sea: YES, tech and science could SAVE the planet

I dont see what the problem is here...

Given that no-one's given any real evidence to suggest that research is actually being suppressed by the big bad hippies, then surely, if there's a realistic chance that this stuff should work then, in accordance with Tim's very own theories about how economies should operate, shouldnt some bold thrusting go getting venture capitalist types just leap up and offer all of the required funding?

Hi-torque tank engines: EXTREME car hacking with The Register

Hackin' 'n Specials 'n Hotrods

Excellent article and congratulations on a job well done.

A few comments though -

The Bentley Drivers Club do have a great history of building hybrids and specials but they're not the only club to do so and the historic car movement isnt as adverse to the whole idea as might be thought.

Aero engined Specials are pretty much as old as the aero engine itself and there were some heroic Specials built in the Vintage era - consider Parry Thomas' Liberty engined Brooklands Outer Circuit racer and World Land Speed car 'Babs. 27 litre Liberty engine running chain drive to the rear wheels and no front brakes....

The Vintage Sports Car Club have always supported special-building and there are quite a few aero-engined cars running in competition currently, ranging from 27 litre big bangers to smaller cars with lesser engines like Cirrus IIs (ex-Gypsy Moth) at a mere 4.5 litres. The club encourages other hybrids as well.

The 750 Motor Club was founded to support the building and racing of Austin 7 specials and later expanded to cover specials with 1172 cc Ford engines. Its arguable that this club are responsible for the UKs success in F1 - people like Colin Chapman of Lotus and Eric Broadley of Lola both started with the 750 MC building Austin 7 specials...

Its true though that the Classic car community (with the above honourable exceptions) are a bit snooty about hybrids and specials. Which is kind of a shame - most weeks a browse on eBay will come up with at least one or two late 30s-mid 50s saloons that are so shot at as to be beyond economic restoration. And Rover V8s are cheap....

Not sure at that point whether you end up with a Special or a Hot Rod, although to be honest they're pretty much the same thing..

Bona-fide science: Which forms of unusual sex are mainstream?

Re: What a crock!

@Abacus

Where does homosexuality rate in relation to having sex with the brain-dead?

p.s - the 17th century called - they want their social attitudes back.

Just TWO climate committee MPs contradict IPCC: The two with SCIENCE degrees

Re: A Physicist and a Chemist

"Apologies for proffering nutrition to an under-bridge dweller"

Thanks for that. You might want to consider that differing views dont constitute trolling even when you disagree with them.

A Physicist and a Chemist

Run through with me what makes membership of either discipline any greater degree of expertise in climate change than any other educated person? Would a degree in Biology make someone more expert regarding the Higgs Boson?

On the other side of the coin however, doesnt Time Yeo have interests in wind farming? And, if so, isnt that a conflict in interests?

Indian techies-in-training face down MAN-EATING LEOPARD - and WIN

Re: Fauna.

"I once found a slug in the office. We put it outside."

Last slug in our office got promoted

Hang On

Where did the 'Man Eater' bit come in?

Ah ... tabloid headline. Enough said.

Kudos however for the 'Cheetah' joke. Nice to see that the techie ability to make crap puns runs across national boundaries.

Adam Afriyie MP: Smart meters are NOT so smart

Re: All these posts, and no one has hinted at the real agenda ..

"Smart meters will allow the supplier to reduce - or disconnect - the supply at will. It's a prelude to two-tier energy supplies, where the rich get nice permanent expensive power, and the poor get a supply that can be cut at a whim."

Actually - no.

Regulations already prevent suppliers from disconnecting supplies until absolutely every avenue for recovering debt has failed. Smart meters wont make any difference to that.

Remote disconnect is actually a smartarse DECC idea - suppliers fought it

Having said all that, I've been involved in smart metering with a major supplier (thank goodness, I'm not anymore) and no, they have little to offer the consumer, certainly not at present. The only major significant advantage that I can see, in theory, is the ability for suppliers to provide cheap tariffs for off-peak usage. So, if you're in a position to schedule use of washing machines, dishwashers etc, for weekends and overnight, you stand (theoretically) to gain.

Its not that big an advantage though, is it?

White? Male? You work in tech? Let us guess ... Twitter? We KNEW it!

Re: Odd

Yes, I think that this is the key to it.

If you think about it logically, equality of opportunity, far from being socialist or communist, is basically just good common sense that should benefit businesses just as much as it does individuals. If, for example, a talented black woman doesnt get the opportunity to make best use of her talents, that's not just a tragedy for her but a wasted opportunity for an intelligent business to make a few bucks.

Similarly if you have any ethnic minority who, as a whole, tend to bump along on the bottom in terms of relevant affluence, that isnt just an issue for that minority, its an issue for society and for business because their potential talents arent being exploited.

So a level playing field makes sense for just about everybody - it's essentially a win-win.

Unfortunately a set of figures like this are bugger all use to man nor beast. If company A employs more women in a senior position than company B is that a sign that they're not looking at the wider talent pool and are discriminating, or is it a sign that company B have already nicked the best, most experienced women in the job pool? Or is it a sign of something else completely? These figures dont help in asking those questions.

Climate: 'An excuse for tax hikes', scientists 'don't know what they're talking about'

Re: People of the world?

"Who, on average, have no education past grade school, believe in magical but invisible deities, and shit in a field every day? Yeah, I trust their opinion on scientific matters!"

World?

No, I think you'll find that's just the US

(the term 'grade school' gave you away. People in glass houses etc......)

Native Americans KILLED AND ATE DUMBO, say archaeologists

Re: But... native people have an affinity with nature

I trust that you're nor for a moment suggesting that the Clovis people (or whoever) hunted those things for fun, are you?

Running around after an n ton pachyderm with big tusks, even with the assistance of a few mates armed with bits of stick with sharp stones tied on the ends, doesnt strike me as being an enterprise you'd take on unless survival was an issue.

Re: Lovable Gomphothere

"That Groundhog's dynamite"

Hey! Where! are! the! white! women! at!? It's! Yahoo!

@Dan1980

"The point is that representation in employment is the end of a long chain of events and the real work needs to go on improving the earlier links - like education. Focusing on the last bit is very much a case of putting the cart before the horse."

I'm inclined to agree. Measurement of the end result can be useful however. If nothing else, it allows you to do some comparative work..

In the case of the Yahoo results, what struck me was how very low the percentage of black and hispanic technical workers was, in comparison with, for exampe, Visa (a former employer of mine). 10 years ago in their West Coast offices, those percentages were far higher, which would indicate one of two things - either that young black and hispanic kids are not leaving school with the right skills, or that Yahoo arent very good

Re: Credit where credit is due

The problem with measuring representation of those with non-binary gender identifications is that they/we constitute such a small minority that we dont even register statistically.

Anecdotally we seem to do pretty well in IT in general terms but that's as far as I'd go.

Re: Sigh, one subject that drives me ...

"At what point did I say that the fact there are some industries that have females on higher wages than males negated the issue of wage discrepancy? My statement, which you have so conveniently avoided in order to take a sentence out of context, was that equality should be about equality"

If that was indeed the point that you were attempting to make, then use of the porn industry was a lazy example - it's an exceptional situation and using it rather casts a doubt on your attitude here. Hence my remark.

In a forum you're going to get judged by what you say rather than what you dont say or leave out. Unfortunate but there you go...

Re: Sigh, one subject that drives me ...

"At the same time you see complaints, for example, about the difference in salary between men and women, and that it needs to be adjusted, but they never refer to the porn industry where females are paid quite a lot more than males"

Oh well, that's alright then. Nothing to worry about, eh?

I await the inevitable downvotes from other smug white males.

Splash! Three times as much water as ALL of Earth's oceans found TRAPPED underground

Extraction

I have devised a relatively simple means of extracting this water should we ever need it.

What we need to do is to force it out using gas under pressure.

What could possibly go wrong?

Women are too expensive to draw and code – Ubisoft

Re: A dev's p.o.v

"Discrimination against "transexuals" alert!"

No, nio ... I'll just sit here cracking my knuckles and looking menacing ...

Anyway - was this sexist? Almost definitely not by intention. It was however hugely cack-handed (much more so than the 'broad-shouldered bad tranny' comment - speaking as I do as a broad-shouldered tranny). It implyies that 50% of the human population dont really matter. Which I'm pretty sure wasnt his intention. Engage brain before opening mouth would seem good practice.

That aside, there do seem to be quite a lot of female gamers, and quite a lot of those female gamers like to play female avatars. And on the global stage, 'quite a lot'='a lot' at least as far as cash is concerned.

Dumb move.

Facebook wants to LISTEN IN on the songs and vids playing in YOUR living room

Time to dig out the 'Very Best of Mongolian Throat Warbling' CD ....

EBay, you keep using the word 'SECURITY'. I do not think it means what you think it means

Re: no indication of INCREASED fraudulent account activity on eBay

So, if there was no evidence of fraudulent account activity, how did they know they'd been hacked?

This is actually quite an interesting incident and any comment must involve a certain amount of reading between lines. The truth is undoubtedly out there but getting to it may present a challenge. But a bit of speculation seems in order...

So then - if the intrusion happened a couple of months back and it was only detected weeks ago, we have two possibilities - either eBay are truly incompetent to the point of recklessness, or this was a fairly stealthy attack by someone who was actually rather good at this sort of thing. If the latter is true, then my best guess would be some sort of spear-phishing directed at system admin type folks. A bit of homework scanning through LinkedIn would probably produce enough information to send a plausible email containing some sort of zero day attack either as an attachment (old hat) or a link back to a compromised site. Job done, start extracting information and loading up the root kits or whatever.

No conventional security tools are likely to detect this if done well.

At this point, my sympathies are with eBay. Briefly.

However, whatever protection they had over encrypted/hashed passwords was obviously woefully inadequate, assuming of course that passwords were compromised rather than 'might have been' compromised.

Which leads to epic fail on communications. Keeping your mouth shut for a couple of weeks is understandable - get the forensics folks in and crawling all over your logs etc and understand the extent of the problem before you go public is perfectly reasonable.

But - that period should give you enough breathing space to produce a coherent and sensible communications strategy. One that does not consist of vague advice to change your password. Why the hell couldnt some one have written a script to enforce password change at next logon? Not rocket science.

Bad security controls and poor incident management. A classic example of a major organisation not taking information security seriously.

OkCupid falls out of love with 'anti-gay' Firefox, tells people to see other browsers

Re: Really? Who is tolerant, accepting, and open minded?

"Leave the terms wife, husband, and marriage to the Church."

I'm afraid you're working from a false premise here.

As a C of E prelate (I think it may have been the Bishop of Salisbury) noted prior to the Commons vote, the Christian Church played little or no part in marriages for anyone other than the wealthy or noble until after the 15thC. Not even a blessing. People married outside Church with no religious ceremony as a matter of routine.

The Church does not own marriage. Never has done.

Reading some of the comments on here, you'd think that there were crack squads of screaming queens being deployed to publicly berate anyone using Firefox.

If Eich's position on gay marriage is sufficiently offensive to you to make you stop using Firefox, dont use Firefox.

If it isnt, carry on using it

Nobody's Rights are being compromised, nobody's making people do stuff.

Nobody took his right to free speech away. He can still do what he wants. I can still do what I want. Including not using Firefox.

Crack CERT warriors arrive to save UK from grid-crippling hack attacks

Re: Give me

"Stage 1. hire a few dozen techies

Stage 2. send them to power stations etc

Stage 3. Install dedicated phone lines to grid control

Stage 4. Air gap the power stations control systems from the internet and any internal network

Stage 5. Fill in all the USB slots with glue"

Dont suppose it occured to you that most UK utilities companies have already done that?

The one I work for finished off protecting their power station systems a couple of years ago.

British trolls to face 'tougher penalties' over online abuse

Political Posturing

I think that 6 months in the slammer is a perfectly appropriate maximum punishment and that increasing the penalty wont make the slightest difference - if someone's dumb enough to risk six months, they're probably dumb enough to risk a year or so.

This is political posturing

Boycott Firefox, gay devs urge as Mozilla appoints JavaScript daddy as CEO

@Wanderingone56ish

" You're article's not reporting that they are calling on anyone else to boycott FF, El Reg, only that they're boycotting it themselves - which they're perfectly entitled to do "

Dang it, you read the article - that's Cheating

Bulls hit city streets after alleged Samsung ad shoot hits the fan

@DropBear

Failure to stroke any of my cats results, generally speaking, in a severe mauling and loss of blood. They care little about animal welfare other than their own and they're very good at seeing to that.

MPs blast HMRC for using anti-terrorism laws against whistleblower

Re: Lawmakers and the law

"Hodgey-poos seems to think that once a law is enacted, there is some sort of magical process that makes lawyers read it and think "yes, this is obviously only to be applied in certain, restricted situations - it's not a general-purpose law that could be applied universally". "

Gosh, and here's me thinking that that's what lawyers did for a living.

p.s Hodge is Chair of a Select Committee. This stuff is what she's employed to do. The Select Committee forms part of the system of checks and balances that are supposed to make government agencies accountable to Parliament. Her qualities (or lack of them) as a member of a former government are irrelevant

GIANT FLESH-EATING DEVIL CHICKENS roamed North Dakota

Giant Demon Chickens

I've seen 'em.

1971 it was

They may have been chemically induced

Oxfam, you're full of FAIL. Leave economics to sensible bods

Re: Unless they're from the lucky sperm club they've got negative wealth

"so it's obvious to me that only a select few will have what it takes to "work hard, save and invest wisely"

Oh, I think you'll find that a large number of people have what it takes. Its just that for most of us working hard doesnt provide enough of a surplus to save and invest wisely. Or indeed at all.

I do enjoy reading Tim's articles though. Its rather like being lectured on morality by a Mexican bandit.

Korean credit card companies hit with 90-day, $100m sales ban

Re: taxing the public

I like the Health & Safety analogy. Corporate H&S works pretty well because senior managers become responsible in law.

Many years ago, a new Head of Data Centre was parachuted in from the US to run the site I was working at. I got an appointment with him to discuss Health & Safety. The conversation went...

Him: 'Why do I need to know about this stuff - we've got lawyers to deal with it'

Me: 'In the UK its criminal law and you could go to prison'

Him: 'Tell me about this stuff'

Management dont make coding errors for sure, but they are responsible for their staff and providing the relevant budget to put appropriate controls in place.

There really does need to be some sort of personal liability associated with Data Protection.

Facebook adds 50+ gender options: Stalking your 'Friends' just got more LGBT-friendly

Re: WTF is Gender Fluid?

If we're listing euphemisms, might I offer 'Gentleman's Trouser Relish'? Coined by a friend, it has a spendidly Steam Punk sort of vibe about it....

Re: And even more ridiculous...

A lot of trans people find 'cis' awkward too.

The trouble is that, lacking a description like 'cisgender', the only other handy term would be 'normal'.

And trans people arent abnormal, we're just different...

As far as I've managed to glean so far, other trans people seem to feel (as I do) that Facebook have gone spectacularly over the top on this one. Most trans people either describe themselves in terms of the gender they identify as (regardless of physical sex), as transsexual, or transgender. 'Transgender' is the widely used generic term, although 'trans *' appears to be becoming popular. Which reflects how many of us are techie/geeky types, I guess.

"Changing gender is simple"

If only ...

Prez Bush email hacker Guccifer is BACK: A-list celebs' inboxes 'raided'

Re: No defence

I do agree. Although I'l also admit to a touch of schadenfreude when it comes to Kitty Kelly's personal details... 'Live by the sword.. ' and all that.

Snowden docs: NSA building encryption-cracking quantum computer

So... what actually happens if NSA do develop a decryption engine that's as capable as people seem to assume it would be?

The decryption of any cryptographic key .... hmmm.

So, at what point to we cease to trust internet banking? Or cease to trust that credit card data used online is in any way protected?

It's one thing to 'own' the internet but another to find that the internet you now own isnt fit for purpose anymore and nobody uses it.

Are we really going to trust everyone employed by or contracted to the NSA not to misuse the information they'd then have access to?

Gay hero super-boffin Turing 'may have been murdered by MI5'

Re: Trishiebunny TrishaD TrishaD Point of Order

"Really? In a forum thread on a rediculous allegation that MI5 killed Turing over sixty years ago?"

Why yes, Matt, really.

If you turn your mind back to what I actually said (rather than some figment of your imagination) I said that, much as I admire him, he'd jumped the shark on this one. I have no interest in what MI5 did over sixty years ago any more than I have any interest in what Peter T did thirty years ago

"What, now we're all homophobic if we're not GLBTI?"

Stop being a dick. I didnt say that. You know I didnt say that. Everyone else knows I didnt say that.

Re: TrishaD TrishaD Point of Order

....." Aw, Trishiebunny, I note you dodge discussing Tatchell's association with the Gay Liberation Front"

Oh, stop being so pathetic, Bryant.... I've not dodged anything. I've no interest in what Peter Tatchell (or anyone else for that matter) was doing 30 years ago. The 1970s and 1980s Trots grew up and got regular jobs years ago. I imagine they're all now moaning about their mortgages and voting Conservative by now. Tatchell's stuck to his human rights guns and whether you agree with him or not, he deserves credit for doing so even if he does get it wrong from time to time.

"Indeed, you steer well clear of discussing Tatchell's history and prefer to seek to stifle me by inferring I must be a homophobe to question Tatchell's motives and behaviour - how hypocritical of you!"

When I said 'you can call me or him a faggot', the 'you' was generic. I'd have thought that was blindingly obvious. I have no idea if you're a homophobe or not - in fact I suspect that you're not. You do strike me as a bit of a prat though, I'm afraid.

Intersex

Ok, I'll bite,,,,

Seeing as how its still more or less Christmas.

There are a number of intersex conditions which may or may not include chromosonal differences but almost all of which result in the presence of ambiguous sexual organs, both internal and external. So, for instance, a person may be born with a penis and a womb. For some time these conditions have been 'treated' by surgery in childhood followed by a hormone regime that the medics consider appropriate for the sex chosen (typically with consent of the parents). Its increasingly common now for the individual concerned to be given time to determine their own gender identity (the physical sex with which they best identify) before surgery takes place, ideally just before puberty. Some individuals now choose to remain intersexed and have no surgery.

Because some intersex people physically present externally as consistent with one sex but have the internal sexual organs of the other, its not totally unknown (though quite rare) for their intersex condition not to be discovered until adulthood.