Posts by sig

Apple to support reps: Don't confirm Mac infections

Eh?

You might want to think before posting:

1. Why would Apple, or any company, employ a SALES assistant who disparages their products?

2. You need to marshall your apostrophes: "Macs", not "mac's"

3. You can't *prove* that God doesn't exist.

Dead baby taunting troll feels wrath of law

Casting of stones

If you're being picky about logic, premises are true or not, arguments are valid or not

Scottish iSchool goes 100% iPad

Back to school for you

If you read the article properly you'd have noticed the word 'independent' in 'Scottish independent Christian school'.

I won't mention your "shouldn't of been" offence either...

Beeb, British Museum face smut issues over saucy pot

Better censor my bookcases

Amongst my books covering Classical antiquity I have a few volumes covering Attic red figure and black figure pottery. Plenty of depictions of man-boy love. And Satyr-human interactions too.

I'm assuming then that reprints of these books won't now be permitted?

Sheffield hospitals pay thousands for dodgy software

FAST performs a valuable function

...for disgruntled employees. Along with HMRC, local authorities and relevant regulatory bodies. A 'friend', when unfairly dismissed by a particularly unpleasant employer, called FAST and a few others. The resulting fees, penalties and fines hit five figures. Very satisfying, he said.

Mobe-wielding drivers getting away with it

What about Stroking her Puppies while driving?

I'm sure that wittering on the phone is less hazardous than what I witnessed this morning: lass driving with two puppies on her lap.

Ticket site sorry for pisspoor password wrong

Permission to swear, Sir?

Years ago I was working in third-line support for a major online travel site. A customer had received a password reminder email; problem was that he hadn't set his password to 'youareatw*t' as stated in the email. I was asked to investigate how many customers had 'strong language' in their password. I got to write a report which included a table of sweary words, combinations thereof and numbers of occurences.

Discussing the report in a meeting with the account managers was entertaining.

El Reg insults 'millions of Irish Catholics'

"flug"?

I meant "blood", obviously.

What about the Soviet Bloc?

Cos, like, we won the Cold War yet still the commie banner of flug flutters proudly from your past.

You are disrespecting all the millions of people who didn't die fighting.

India eyes man in space by 2016

Re: Excellent

So, they'll be launching satellites to locate exploitative landlords, indentured workers and areas without access to clean water?

Or maybe those inspired young engineers will go and create relevant products: 'iPoo, locates functioning toilet facilities using superior satellite technology'.

Priorities?

Surely clean water and sanitation for the millions who lack it now should be a priority, not participation in this international willy-waving contest.

West Country pagans tie horses in knots

At least someone's thinking of the children

"if these are children's ponies it is an absolutely awful thing to do"

IT workers told, 'Put down the biscuits, fat boy'

Pedantorama

Actually the US doesn't use the Imperial system of weights and measures since they declared independence before our Weights and Measures Act was passed in 1824. Thus they use the Queen Anne gallon (128 fl oz) rather than the Imperial gallon (160 fl oz), giving them measly pints of beer.

It's a joke, you muppet.

Further explanation for the hard of thinking: A play on 'mano a mano' (i.e. 'hand to hand') with reference to the open-source .net implementation Mono.

Department for Transport pours millions into eTicketing

I for one welcome...

...this.

Down here in Devon we have numerous bus companies; in Plymouth there is competition on many routes but the lack of cross-ticketing means that there is no effective choice if you've bought a return or a pass. Out in the country there isn't the competition (i.e. duplication) on routes but there are plenty of connections to be had between buses from different companies.

One ticket to rule them all, I say.

Fanbois Apple buyers howl over crocked iMacs

@Doug Glass: Biological Sat Nav Needed?

"...the word ApplFAN. It implies a certain fruitiness, has a reference to an Application (App) and points to a certain part of the human body's lower posterior...FANny."

Don't know what you've been getting conjugal with, but in my experience the mons veneris and associated structures are found at the front of the female, not the rear.

'Something may come through' dimensional 'doors' at LHC

Large Hadron Wheelie Bin

We could 'solve' our global waste problem by chucking it through these temporary inter-dimensional holes. CERN: Fly-tipping the universes.

Nikon D3000 digital SLR

Another feature suggestion

How about a cable release socket? It was bad enough back in the Jurassic period when the only option on a Nikon was their expensive electronic release rather than a simple screw-in cable release. Now one has to spend a thousand or more to gain an electronic release socket. On cheaper models the designed solution is the infra-red remote. Bah

Turkish filters block Reg commentards

Wait 'til they join the EU

Then anyone mentioning the Armenian genocide or suggesting that Ataturk was anything less than perfect will be on the receiving end of a European arrest warrant.

And you thought the Anglo-American extradition treaty was dodgy...

Magpies hold funerals for fallen feathered friends

The evidence mounts...

...that the Magpie Conspiracy is nearing launch day.

You had all better be ready to welcome your Corvid overlords.

BT to push fibre to 1.5m more homes and businesses

@Brian Miller 1

Would you care to elaborate on my ignorance?

Why bother with cable?

For rural areas in particular, surely it would be cheaper for BT to install WiMAX-type equipment. With a suitable receiver on each building to connect into the existing domestic phone cabling it could also allow BT to rid themselves of the battalions of telegraph poles cluttering up the place.

Welsh yobs clobbered by cross-dressing cage fighters

Please ban humourless twunts like Carl4

That is all. Thank you.

Honda develops motorised unicycle

The photos are always wrong

The publicity photos of all these kinds of device always show a user who's fit and trim; we all know that the key demographic is idle bunters.

Baroness Scotland fined for failing to follow own law

This wouldn't have happened if we had ID cards.

5 zillion quid to save the Baroness 5 thousand. Bargain.

Highways Agency plans new speed cameras

Did they forget to mention a few camera types?

Like the one which records dull-eyed gimmers pulling out of junctions into oncoming traffic; or the one which records taxis parked in cycle lanes; or the one which records driving-while-stupid offenders.

Thought not.

CSI boffins: You can't ID crims from bitemarks on victims

Relevance?

What's this story got to do with evil cyclists or electric cars?

Italian Job sat nav driver cops £900 fine

Obviously he was distracted...

...by a passing cyclist's lycra-clad, non-road-tax-paying, bulging genitalia..

James Martin apologises for cyclist outrage

@the tedious cyclists-pay-nothing AC dullard

Road maintenance, policing and ambulances are covered by Council Tax, business rates, Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT, Excise Duty and every other impost our beloved leaders dream up. There is no hypothecation.

Also, why is Martin apologising for offence caused? Most of the furore has been at his being a plonker, apparently confessing to dangerous behaviour, which he doesn't condone but still engages in.

A phone in every car gains hard-won GSMA support

What about my bicycle?

If I'm hit by some witless texting driver, I'll be in more urgent need of medical attention than a car driver encased in airbags and several tons of steel. Can I have a GSM-GPS notifier-tracker-nanny installed?

UK population to abandon Midlands

Please don't move to the south west

Particularly if you're retired. We've already been priced out of family homes by your kind; families squeezed into rabbit hutches while retired couples rattle around in four bedroom piles (for when the children visit, which they don't because it takes forever to get here). And then you clog the roads with your Honda Jazz driven at 30 regardless. Our village schools close because there aren't enough children, because families leave the village to find somewhere big enough and affordable enough. Those families remaining can't enlarge their homes because you object to every planning application. And even though you don't go to work you still insist on doing all your shopping on Saturday morning. And cut your grass at weekends with your noisy ride-on mower. And wash your car every week even in the middle of winter where the run-off water freezes on the road and makes me crash my motorcycle. And then you complain about the weather - always raining. Perhaps you should have checked the Met Office's statistics before moving and picked Norfolk instead.

Devon force divulges ANPR towns online

DIY Data Collection?

How about a website where one can log the location of Big Brother's tentacles?

Powered robot suits make debut on Tokyo streets

We are Borg

Resistence is futile!

The more people that use these the more will need the upcoming enhanced artificial heart.

Microsoft rubs Web 2.0 noses in SharePoint cash pile

Mixed feelings

I like the idea of SharePoint. I like the decentralisation of control away from corporate communications departments.

As a developer I like being able to develop just a web part, pop it on the server and then let the users deploy it where they like; I like not having to create a Windows application, package it and then deploy it via Citrix. I don't like developing web parts when the inconsistencies in .net and Visual Studio make me feel dim.

I like the Business Data Catalog(ue) for simplicity of data deployment. I hate the Business Data Catalog(ue) for its fragility and its ability to make me feel stupid and tearful. I hate the lack of usable documentation (no, funnily enough I don't want to make data in the Adventure Works database available to all our thousands of users) and the lack of useful error reporting.

As for resellers being left out, I think that many companies would prefer their data to live on servers they control rather than in the Cloud. This would give the resellers an ongoing income stream maintaining the hosting. As always, resellers will find something to sell, even if that's only a feeling of control.

Please don't eat your horse, EU asks owners

Donkey Risotto

I had donkey risotto at a village festa in Italy. It was over-salted so I couldn't tell you whether it was tasty or not.

Reindeer and elk are tasty.

Gov considers website to teach tech skills

How about teaching the basics first?

The lack of basic reading, writing and numeracy skills is as much a barrier to effective use of the Web as an inability to point and click. Of course, teaching these in any effective way involves more than just advertising and web sites, so don't expect anything soon.

Site news: Unique commenter handles coming

Display nymous:anonymous ratio

How about displaying a poster's tendency to post anonymously? Some posts ('My employer is evil, though claiming not to be...') I can understand, but others ('WTF?!!!! LOL!!!') I don't see what they might need to hide, save their obvious mental deficiency.

Met 'studies Chinese bugging tactics' for 2012 games

Possible responses

1. Don't take taxis

2. Learn sign language

3. Learn an obscure, extinct language

4. Avoid London

Gordon 'to sacky' Wacky Jacqui

How appropriate...

...that I first saw this news as I passed Plymouth's giant Orwellian telescreen.

We citizens immediately engaged in a spontaneous two-minute hate of the unperson Smith. Well no, actually we didn't, dissuaded as we were by the presence of a CCTV camera on the screen. Who said CCTV doesn't reduce crime?

'Lunatic' Smith doubles ID card costs for Mancunians

Descartes' dilemma solved

"Transporto ergo sum"

Web 0.2 archivists save Geocities from deletion

Wouldn't it be quicker...

...if Yahoo just sent the data to the Archive Team directly? Much like organisations and individuals donating their records to a suitable institution or library.

Not as exciting or newsworthy as the mad download frenzy currently underway though.

Darling banks on offshoring to save UK plc

Sheesh!

The civil servants currently employed pay income tax and national insurance in this country, pay VAT and duties on goods they buy in this country from people who pay income tax and national insurance in this country etc etc.

The offshore workers do none of the above.

The civil servants unemployed in the future won't pay income tax, national insurance, VAT and duties to any great extent. They will however require unemployment and other benefits.

The only winners will be Crapita and the other usual outsourcing suspects.

GM, Segway to unveil iPhone-driven wheelchair e-car

Fatty wagon

Where's the feeding hatch?

Balls saves history lessons from Facebook and Twitter

And here we go again

Every so often a report will declare that children should be taught 'relevant' skills. The government will wait to gauge public reaction before declaring 'only kidding'.

Proponents of this witless pandering to fashion always miss the point that new activities like Twatter and MeSpace are taken up and popularised by people without any relevant training or qualification.

The skills children *need* to be taught are the basic ones: literacy and numeracy. Understanding and critical thinking build on these through science, history, geography, literature, languages, crafts and so on. Music, drama and physical education complete the picture.

Our society and economy needs people who are adaptable, flexible and creative rather than the drones required by the new Statism.

How gov scapegoats systems for man-made errors

I blame the government

1. For insisting on the recording and collation of vast quantities of data about school pupils; this is impractical without a computer-based system.

2. For allowing the creation of ever bigger schools. With 1000 or even 2000 pupils in some secondary schools, 'care' of pupils is impractical without a computer-based system.

3. For loading such a quantity of administration on teachers (see 1. above) that they don't have the time or energy left to get to know their pupils properly.

Moderatrix quits El Reg: Latest

Who's moderating now?

I'm watching my peas and queues.

Ministers spending billions on unlawful databases

re. 'Americans Like Their Popguns... '

"If the Nazis had had effective computer databases, the Holocaust would have been double the damage."

You might want to look into the activities of the Dehomag company in Nazi Germany. An IBM franchise, they supplied punched-card machines to the Nazi state, particularly useful in sorting the population by ethnicity.

There's a photo here: http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/9048-1.htm

Voice analysis trial gives wobbly results

3/10 - can do better

Oh dear, even the Guardian managed a more informative article about this snake oil technology:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/mar/12/voice-risk-analysis-lie-detection-benefits-government-results

MPs told PGP 'incompatible' with Parliament network

Parliament no different from government

In failing to use PKI encryption. The GovConnect secure gateway is an example: set up a dedicated network, parallel mailboxes etc, to allow local and central government to communicate. Far more complex than just issuing certificates etc.

Government use of PKI for secure email would kick start more general use of the technology. Might even help to kill spam. Why doesn't the Passport and Identity Service issue digital certificates along with passports?

But then snooping would be so much harder once we're all encrypting our communications.

Wakefield does a Brum with possessive apostrophes

More preparation for the rise of the machines

Council Functionary: "Apostrophes are not generally used in street names as they can lead to problems and confusion when data is transferred electronically for other uses."

Our robot overlords will be able to find and round us up all the more easily with the apostropes removed.

So instead of painting 'V' everywhere, just add punctuation to defeat the machines.

I for one don't welcome...