Posts by Snake Plissken

Census threatens spies' cover

We are all in this together

Except *your* information is important for us to know but *ours* should be protected.

Card surcharges face super-complaint

RE: prepaid credit cards

Last time I checked, the card that BastardAir do not charge you for is only available from BastardAir. And they charge you £75 for it.

As a frequent BastardAir flyer (not through choice, I hasten to add) I did look into it and figured that even as a regular it wasn't worth getting the prepaid card.

(Thanks to all the add-ons BastardAir pile on, I now fly Aer Lingus - usually an extra fiver each way but worth it for the lack of stress and decent customer service.)

Italian white van man nudges sound barrier

1230kph? Pah.

That is nothing compared to the speeds of twunts in their BMWs and Audis in the outside lane of the M25 most days.

Osborne bids nation fill his Budget portal

How about...

Stop ideological vandalism like selling off the forests and cutting local public services just because they exist. History has proved repeatedly that it doesn't work. Try investing in the economy instead of hacking at it with an axe and expecting business to pick up the pieces.

Judge rebukes 'World's No. 1 Hacker'

"Evans has regularly appeared as a security expert on Fox News"

That should be ringing alarm bells about his competence right there.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Takes from so much else

Cop Mode is just a shinied up Chase HQ and that is nigh on twenty odd years old. The progression/reward system is Burnout. Seacrest County is the hilly bits of Paradise City.

Having said that, the game is massive fun and I haven't really got into the online racing aspect of it yet. The social side of it, with the integration of your friends list, is going to be pure crack as you get close or beat your friends times.

Capita says gov cuts hit hard

Nice to know...

That 500,000 public sector workers will be out of jobs but this bunch expect the consultancy gravy train will keep on rolling.

Knowing the way the world works, these will be the guys picking up fat fees for "advising" on how to get rid of people.

Brits don't want in-flight calling

Sky Marshall already dropped them..

I fly BastardAir regularly (not through choice) and there used to be a great big fanfare on some flights with the plane had been equipped with the mobile facility and some lights would go on saying you could use the phone.

This got dropped a few months ago - you can still see the displays but at no point do they switch on so presumably O'Lairy was annoyed that he wasn't coining in enough cash and decided to kick beggars instead.

Open source PS3 hack code posted

Re: Sony have themselves to blame

"This hack might not have appeared if Sony hadn't dropped support for running Linux on the PS3. As a result they now face the possibility of game piracy."

Oh please. The vast majority of people want to hack their console to play pirated games. People have been trying to crack the PS3 from the moment it came out and very, very few of them are doing it for altruistic reasons.

If this crack hase been downloaded 1000 times, then 999 times it will be use to play games, and the remaining one time for "homebrew" or "curiosity".

And I'm being generous with the 1 out of 1000.

Paris Hilton tweets armed intruder drama

Re: Would that knife be

A pork sword, surely?

Can you get that on the NHS

"adjusted by my chiropractor"? I bet she was.

Twitter's underwear exposed after Google Apps hack

I look forward...

to seeing this on the front page of the Guardian and Daily Telegraph, along all their other Twitter puff pieces.

I suspect I'm in for a long wait.

GPS-guided wreckers flatten wrong house

Hmmm...

How did they manage to demolish a house that presumably was connected up to the mains, gas, water etc without setting the place on fire or flooding it?

One millionth English 'word' is... Web 2.0

If 25,000 repetitions count

Twitter would have made it purely on the Guardian website alone.

ESA chooses British army officer as astronaut

About bloody time

I was at Kennedy Space Center last week (though saw the Atlantis launch from elsewhere) and the lack of British representation is absolutely shocking. Unsurprising, but when you see the pride of the people from the countries working on the various space programmes, it did make me embarassed.

Discovery crew prep for return to Earth

But the really important question is...

Will Spacebat return with them?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/lost-in-space-bat-hitches-ride-on-shuttle-1646093.html

Paris. Because she knows all about getting a free ride.

Ethernet — a networking protocol name for the ages

Noone done this yet?

One Server to rule them all

One Ping to find them

One LAN to bring them all

And in the darkness BIND them

Tolkien Ring Network.

Mine is the one with the orc.

Cebit 09 too dead to trash says Greenpeace

Ouch

You know you are in trouble when Greenpeace declare your event too low profile to bother doing a pointless publicity stunt at. I bet all those students were looking forward to a jolly in Vegas, too.

MPs vote to keep addresses private (theirs, not yours)

Guido Fawkes blog had it right

Given that Jacqui Smith and others are in deep shit for claiming they reside in one place and taking travel allowances, yet actually residing in another, this is a convenient way to hide which address they are claiming expenses for.

Etailer flogs signed Jade Goody biog for £1,000

At this rate

It gets worse, when she finally carks it, she'll be given an estate funeral.

El Reg suffers identity crisis

Stop stealing my abuse

As one of the people who Ms Kiss called an "aggro loner twat" as well as a "twatty commenter", can I just ask El Reg to stop muscling in on my territory? This is no way to treat one of your long term lesbians. Er, readers.

Microsoft trades goodwill for TomTom Linux satisfaction

Sigh...

Just when you think they have learned their lesson, Microsoft load up the shotgun and aim it at their feet.

Wonder if the state of the economy has given the idiot lawyers the opportunity to go "Look! Free money!" without ever wondering about the consequences.

Ryanair trades blows with 'idiot blogger'

@Chad H

"Eventually Ryanair is going to annoy so many people that noone will fly with them anymore..."

To bastardise the old saying "Noone ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the public".

Ryanair seem determined to weed out knowledgeable travellers in any way they can, up to and including downright abuse. They can then fill their planes with those who are too thick to care and too stupid to get off their mobiles for twenty whole seconds and charge them a fortune for things like the seat cushions, the carpet and the air inside the cabin.

Blunkett and ex-CPS chief turn on Home Office

Only one way to describe this

The hypocritical *bastard*.

Jacqui's jihad on web extremism flops

Business as usual

Government minister publicly announces intention to do something, then does nothing of the sort.

About par for the course for this lot. But it gets them some cheap headlines, so job done for Jacqui. I think one of the MPs pointed out to Supreme Leader Brown yesterday that an average of three initiatives a day had been announced to fight the credit crunch.

Now, where was that Monbiot article on the Guardian site taking the piss of Blears... that and the comments was a good read.

Google axed Android multitouch at Apple's request?

Yet again

A company is stifling innovation in a market to protect its own position.

Evesham Technology confirmed dead

What a surprise...

The people who ran out of Time got 4.1 million, creditors and staff go unpaid.

Benjamin Button eyes 13 Oscars

Best picture.

Wall-E should have been nominated. I suspect EVE is going to be *pissed*.

Mandy flies flag for small biz bailout

Why aren't people listening to Vince Cable

I'm no Lib Dem party member, but the man has consistently been right all the way through this mess.

CPS denies support for überdatabase

Hmmm

That wouldn't be the New Labour tactic of spinning someones statements in the press to show support, when they actually mean nothing of the sort. See the recent spat on official statistics.

Swoopo - eBay's (more) evil twin

Hasn't this been around for a while?

I'm sure I've seen this before, possibly a German site. From memory, they were giving away stuff like 100 euro and people were bidding like crazy with their 50 cents.

You've got to admidre their audacity. And the contempt they hold their customers in.

Boeing sets (another) date for first Dreamliner flight

@AC - "shows what happens"

Those damn protectionist EU types, giving state subsidies to their banks and their biggest auto makers.

No! Wait! That wasn't us!

Financial meltdown hits Hilton where it hurts

@Tony

The sheep who pay to get into the clubs don't know the likes of Paris have been paid to go there. They just think it is the latest cool place, so, yes, 25k of extra business is easy.

Bear squeeze blues: How to destroy a bank

@Chris

"5 banks went titsup today. (Fortis, Glitnir, B&B, Wachovia, Fortis). "

That would be four banks then. And I'm not sure I want to trust your maths on anything else.

Net sleuths spot poker site cheat code

@Ashley Pomery

Fairplay - http://www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk/

David Blaine does a Benito Mussolini

Anyone can do this...

Seriously. 72 hours in ice. Easy, if you have an understanding of basic science.

And 44 days in a box without food? Sure he did that. And when they covered the sides it was, er, for cleaning or something. Riiiiiight.

Paris - because she's good at getting publicity for sod all as well.

Anonymous hacks Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account

The password

Apparently was "Popcorn"

MS doesn't set world alight with Office Live Workspace

AIUI

You need Office because you edit the Office files locally and save them back to the Live Workspace. You can create RTF/text files via the browser though.

Microsoft breaks IE8 interoperability promise

Am I reading it wrong?

The box below the intranet one says "Display all websites in Compatibility View" and is unticked - therefore any website outside the intranet will be in standards mode by default.

Paris - because I feel like I'm asking a dumb question.

Apple slapped for dodgy ads

Re: Have a break...

If that video is in Flash, the iPhone might not be able to view it.

Oh, the ironing etc.

Nokia unveils N79 and N85 smartphones

Horses for courses. And dogs shag dogs.

Had an N81 for the best part of a year and I love it to bits. Time to look at the N85 I think...

gOS - a Google good OS for your Mum

@AC, Steven Raith

Put more RAM in?

I thought it was evil Windows that was the resource hog around here? I thought Linux will run at the speed of light on anything, down to and including a ZX81.

Red Devil assaults Burnley FC's stadium roof

Ah,

You can always rely on my beloved Clarets to cock it up on a big scale. After the Grauniad put us at dark horses for promotion that was the kiss of death on our season.

Have to laugh at the likes of Simon Riley though. At night you lot still chuck rocks at the moon to try and knock it out of the sky.

Fringe organisers launch inquiry into ticketing fiasco

Considering...

The average Fringe show loses about 4 grand over the weeks of the Festival then there is great scope for minimising your losses through compensation.

"My show 'Me and my mates make whining screeching noises for three hours' would have sold 300 tickets per night if it wasn't for your lousy ticketing system."

Coat? No, I'm leaving early to catch Jocasta TrustFund at the Underbelly. She's less amusing than syphilis, so she'll be on BBC3 in a year.

Project Kangaroo gets more time to defend anti-trust claims

To Sky

Instead of bitching about the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 how about actually providing a similar service?

Oh yeah, you can't. Not because you can't afford it but people would suddenly wonder why they are paying to watch the 35th re-run of the Simpsons. And noone would pay to watch Gladiators.

Having watched plenty of stuff on the iPlayer, ITV.com (F1 coverage and Tour de France) and C4, I wish someone would just shove Sky into a big deep hole.

SQL Server 2008 moves on, wants to stay friends

@AC - Web-enabled

If you'd actually you know, bothered to use some of this stuff instead of hiding behind a bunch of prejudices, you'd find that most recent web-enabled MS stuff is browser independent.

Craigslist supervillain seeks henchmen

Bin dun

Someone tell this guy that we've all seen Dr Horrible and he did it better.

Sony profits down, but PS3 sales up

@Rob Haswell and @Bob

"The PS1 and Triniton were the last two Sony products which really led their markets,"

Apart from the PS2, which I believe has sold over 100 million and continues to sell.

"Historically every console is sold for a loss."

No, not every console. Initially that might be the case for *some* consoles but only for a brief time before economies of scale kick in. According to Sony, it was not only selling each console for a profit but had also paid back its $2 billion development cost by the time it passed 20 million - and that is before software licensing fees.

The maths is simple. The PS3 has cracked 10 million in sales. Say each console has sold for a $50 loss. In order for your loss theory to be true, you've got a $500 million hole in the books somewhere in addition to the $2 billion or so spent developing it.

It is the same with the Wii - a loss on each of 12 million consoles sold should show up somewhere, but Nintendo is rolling in cash.

(Acts of Gord explains it better - http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02.php)

Eye of newt: Inside Google's AdWords auction

@AC

Only in the ElReg comments section can the dangers of Google AdWords be blamed on Microsoft.

Cannibal's legal objection hamstrings German horror film

Wonder if...

He gets royalties for Rammsteins "Mein Teil" then...