Go right ahead.
Posts by Ed Deckard
81 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Apr 2007
Ultrabook sales 'falling short of targets'
Carphone Warehouse whipped for cheap Jesus mobe ads
The way to do it
is to determine (at their expense) what the actual lowest prices for the products sold were during the period the adverts ran, and then make them refund the difference to every buyer who could have been misled by the adverts (say, everyone who bought an iPhone for the period the adverts ran plus one week).
That should fix their little red wagon.
Obama drops Twitter bombs on debt-ceiling foes

Foreign Aid
Let's clear up a couple of common misconceptions.
Foreign aid as practiced by the USA is not a free gift. Most often it's an incentive for a foreign government. You may question the morality of handing tens of millions of dollars worth of aid a year to the Kingdom of Randomistan or the Republica Bananera Centroamericana in exchange for their cooperation in the War on Terror/War on Drugs but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than invading and occupying.
(Me, I'm all for ending the Wars on Nouns but that's beside the point).
Foreign aid as practiced by the USA is not a cash reward. It's (usually) more in the nature of store credit: "We'll give you $200 million worth of credit but you can only buy items we approve from suppliers we approve at prices they set." A lot of the time the purchases are actually carried out by the US Gov't itself and the goods simply delivered, for example in rearming the Afghan security forces. Effectively it's a subsidy of US industry.
Much of the time, foreign aid as practiced by the USA is not a gift at all. It's simply a low-interest loan. And when the Friendly Tyrant of an Unfriendly Country gets overthrown, guess who gets to pay for the bullets said Friendly Tyrant has been putting in the Unfriendly Natives all these years?
So, yeah, by all means USA should cut foreign aid. After all, it's not like it buys the USA influence way out of proportion to expenditure AND appeases the dirty longhair libruls, right?
Right?
Microsoft loses Supreme patent fight over Word
RAF Eurofighter Typhoons 'beaten by Pakistani F-16s'
Germans completely humourless: Official
Wake up, Linux hippies: No one 'morally obligated' to give back
Microsoft's Word fight opens in US Supreme Court

I guess my point might have gone a bit over your head
If I sue you for patent infringement, I'm claiming I own a particular idea, and that you're using it without my permission.
Your potential defense is (obviously) that
a) You're not actually using the idea in question, (your method is not covered by my patent) or
b) That you actually have my permission (it was included in some licensing agreement, etc and I'm just confused or being a jerk) or
c) I don't actually own the idea (my patent is invalid).
Now, it seems pretty self-evident to me that if I don't actually own the idea (my patent is invalid) you should be able to point that out in court.
Now, you make the argument that by allowing you to claim my patent is invalid in court, you'd be placing the burden of proof on me to prove that my patent is valid. This is the common, natural way in any other kind of lawsuit - the plaintiff (the person making the claim) is supposed to prove their claim is true. I don't see why patent holders should be privileged by the assumptions that they were truthful to the USPTO, and that said office conscientiously only issues absolutely watertight patents. That last one in particular is utterly laughable.
You also claim that this would make suing people for patent infringement more expensive and defense easier, to which I say, that's a huge point in favor of my argument.
New tech lets you drink exhaust fumes
French hacker cuffed after bragging on telly
Fired-up eco-boffin gives it '180 per cent'
Mummy, mummy, there's a nuclear monster!
@TheOtherHobbbes
"I wonder how many Reg readers and staff would volunteer to have a beta source placed near their thyroid, or some other sensitive glands, until they'd accumulated an equivalent."
Set it up, man. Bring the press, some greenies, maybe The Amazing Randi to make sure I'm not palming some potassium iodide. Whatever you want.
How much will you pay me to do it?
I'm serious, btw. You just have to make it worth my time.
Vatican hails hacking culture, Wikis
Facebook Comments kill web freedom

"The cool kids of yesteryear ran Linux. Today, they boot Macs."
Two very different definitions of "cool kids."
I think you'll find the Linux users of yesteryear (and their spiritual descendants today) continue to use Linux. Same for Apple products. The change has been from MS users to the other two groups.
Politically motivated exploits target activists on Google
Patent attack on Google open codec faces 'antitrust probe'

Death to the US patent system!
I have no doubt MPEG-LA will find a few patents held by their members which -could- be read as covering the VP8 codec, video encoding, "moving pictures" and why the hell not, light itself. We need to stop handing overly-general patents out, and we should probably stop handing out patents on non-mechanical ideas entirely.
Hollywood eyes Blade Runner replicants
Dinky Florida machine 'could whup world No 1 computer's ass'
Ambulance dispatch system hit by virus: reports
DEC: The best of systems, the worst of systems
America spared Top Gear Mexican quips
'Tree Octopus' proves journos no smarter than 13-year-old Americans
Documents in Assange rape probe leak onto the net

Irrelevant
As the Swedish gov't has practically admitted they're only asking for an extradition in order to hold him until the USA is ready to prosecute him for something else entirely, at this point it doesn't matter if Assange is guilty of this particular charge. He'll most likely never be tried for it at all.
If the story was posted for its entertainment value because it's oh-so-ironic, I submit it would be far more ironic and entertaining if the leakers of this particular document got similar treatment as Bradley Manning has for similar conduct.
Raygun dreadnought project reports 'remarkable breakthrough'
Anonymous turns attack drones against fax machines
Default judgement FAIL: ACS:Law muffs up in court
Wikileaks exposes Clinton's cyberspy wish-list
Robot teddy bears attack Alzheimer's
Microsoft assembles unlikely band of brothers against patent trolls
School caretaker jailed for fitting up colleague
Over The Air: Losing drones and forging bus tickets
Boffin-botherer's LHC doomsday case thrown out on appeal
Intel chief: Obama (still) driving US off cliff
Opera: Firefox tab sets? We've had 'em for years
@ heyrick
The funny part is, I really sincerely do prefer Opera. I just can't do without those two little plugins. If Opera offered an equivalent functionality I'd go back to it in an instant.
(Minor quibble with your post: I think "fanbois" with an i is applied to Apple fans; admittedly some of the Opera fans seemingly share their mindset, unfortunately.)
People have no bloody idea about saving energy
GPL scores historic court compliance victory
Firefox market share drops as IE makes slender gain
Apple as a religion: How the iPhone became divine
Rather than religion
I think it's closer to lifestyle choices - militant vegetarianism, political activism of any stripe, etc. - that become the individually defining characteristic to certain personality types.
Apple fanatics get it extra easy because it just requires dropping a little extra cash rather than committing to long-term sacrifices in comfort and convenience
And +1 to the "most of us don't care whose name is on the box as long as we can do what we want to do on it" comments.
Before the iPad, there was the Newton
Judas Phone: more Photoshop tomfoolery

Dear Studentrights,
My understanding (derived entirely from the Reg's coverage) is that this goes beyond the typical reception problems encountered when other phones are held certain ways, and is derived from the antenna not being insulated. The possibility of some kind of assembly issue was also explored early on but has mostly been dropped from the discussion I think.
As you pointed out, the potential problem is mentioned in many phone manuals. Part of the problem is that it's *not* mentioned in the iPhone manual.
Much of the rest is mostly because the company (and some of its fans) have been in deep denial that the problem even exists, making every possible excuse from "it's all in your head" through "you aren't holding it right" to "bars display software bug." Some have even suggested a media conspiracy to harm Apple, because, as we know, journalists *hate* Steve Jobs.
Sincerely,
Ed Deckard
P.S.: Flame icon because I tried very hard not to write one.
eBay whacked with giant patent suit
Seoul police crack down on Holy Water filter prof
Online anonymity fueled 'Web War' on Estonia

Listen, Professor
People are likely to act like jerks if they think they can get away with it.
This is universally acknowledged and trivial.
People are likely to act like jerks if their country/sports team/favorite band/OS of choice is put down.
This is universally acknowledged and trivial.
People are susceptible to peer pressure.
This is universally acknowledged and trivial.
The Great Estonian Internet Kerfuffle has everything to do with the tulip mania.
This is univ - no, wait, what? The tulip mania was a speculative bubble, doubtlessly complete with early pundits babbling in Dutch about the New Economy and the Historical Fact that tulip prices have never, ever gone down!
This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the tulip mania.
'Go veggie to save the planet' UN, EU plans debunked
Energizer battery rechargers still haunted by trojan backdoor
It is Sony's business to know what they distribute.
So either they were amazingly irresponsible in not knowing exactly what the software they distributed does or amazingly irresponsible in distributing it knowingly.
Full disclosure - I do not work and never have worked for Sony or Energizer, any of their competitors or subcontractors. How about you?
US spreads Web2.0rhea to Iran, Sudan, Cuba

Uh
"Recently, in a wide-ranging speech on matters webby, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: "Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century."
Clinton's remarks were aimed most specifically at China, but she also rapped the knuckles of Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam."
I assume she didn't mention these by name, and you just listed countries that restrict said free access to information.
What about Lolstralia?