Posts by Glyn

Universal thaws out The Thing

@Bad Beaver

You had to go and say his name didn't you! Now he'll be top of the list. The sooner the people in charge of making films realise that the Bay Film Butcher shouldn't be allowed to sell popcorn at a cinema, let alone have anything to do with what's on the screen..

www.lilformers.com has a few things to say about him based on the transformers movie

The IT angle in this article, the classic fight between computer and glass of whiskey...phizt

If only Dave had thought to carry a hip flask in 2001, then there would have been much less hassle

The A-Team flies into Hollywood

@Dukes of Hazzard

I'm in the minority that like the DoH Film. It may have been because the day I was having when I watched it anything was up.

I particularly liked where you could see the car break every time it landed, then the next shot it's carrying on on it's merry way, just like the TV series :P

I second the motion for Jim Carrey as murdoch. Someone here suggested George Clooney for face, though he's probably a bit old, so howzabout David Boreanaz. After seeing Bones I reckon he could do it justice. Christopher Walken as Hannibal, just because!!!

I'ld like to see someone other than a rapper get the Mr T role, it's a bit of a cop out.

User-generated reviews - blessing or bull?

@Joe K

Thanks for the that link, it kept me amused all afternoon.

groupage

I only really take notice of the negative comments

Most negative review points are fairly petty, 100 people saying "I don't like the on button's blue light, it should be red" or something equally banal is easily ignored. 5 people saying that it blew up after 10 minutes is worth taking note of.

The positive reviews tend to enthuse (or should that be euthanise) about things without saying much

Oh and most importantly, never watch the gadget show if you want to find out how good something is. Each occasion I've watched that execrable programme, I've been appalled by it's sheer pointlessness. My 2 favourite/most hated reviews being for the Wii where the bald one leapt around for 2 minutes like a giddy schoolgirl and that was the review, they never showed the Wii doing anything and the other is the MP3 player review where the only judging criteria was "How quick can you copy a track from a CD to the player?" Sound quality, battery life, interface design, capacity, supported playback formats, the colour of the power cable, the length of headphone cables...nope none of these matter. Fools

TV's digital dividend could be superfast broadband

interference

The digital tv signals I've seen all break down into blocks at the slightest whim, which I heard a bloke on the telly say was because the analog signal was interfering/overriding the digital one and this would no longer happen once the analog was turned off

Does this sell off mean that the analog won't be turned off and I'm doomed to blocky pixelated picture forever?

Retired army generals: Spend Trident money on the army

ta

Thanks for that it's reassuring that someone knows what these people are on about and also a little scary.

and my maths was *right* woohoo call Mr Ball and tell him :P

missile count

When this was in the news a while back they said that they were going to make 250 odd new nuclear missiles. We have 4 trident subs each of which has 4 nuclear missiles on board which by my maths = 16 missiles in total, if you have a spare one of each, that's 32, what are the other 220 odd for? Where will they be kept? What is the point in them generally?

I fully accept that I may be missing something here, but my maths is probably right :P

Child porn in the age of teenage 'sexting'

vindictive

What's to stop a girl sending a text/email pic of herself to somebody who's annoyed her, then calling the police?

Reason #34341 for not being a teacher methinx

Church of Scientology seeks 'ban' against HIV+ protesters

funny

"We emailed requests for comment to the Church of Scientology and Graham Berry, lawyer for the protesters, on Wednesday. We'll update this story as and when we hear back from them."

"hear back from them" bwa ha ha

First Windows 7 beta puts fresh face on Vista

@Peter Kay

"What, you mean the same sort of visual crap and menus as you have in XP, until you reset it to the Windows 2000 look?"

Those are the ones

@unattended.xml

Where is unattended.xml hiding?

I've run the search and it just goes round and round (and round and round) not finding it

15. Let me open a search window and do an advanced search straight away without having to put "fgdfgdfgdfgdfgdfgdfgdfgdg" so it instantly fails the search and shows the option

@So where's the button "I'm a developer"...

I second that lot and add

12. Make the folder column show the directory in English. Show it as "c:\windows\system32" not "system32 (c:\windows)"

sense(It doesn't make)

13. The option to remove the dropdown that lets you sort or group by as group by = sort with extra rows = pointless

14. When I say "Apply to folders" I mean "Apply to folders" I don't mean "Apply to folders once" or "Apply to folders till you get bored" or even "Apply to folders until you move the mouse"

Microsoft gives XP another four months to live

Different

I'm trying to get why people say Vista is different. Not wishing to sound like I've used Joe's pluck-a-made-up-stat-from-the-air-ometer, I say most users don't give a tinker's wassit about any internal changes, nor would they notice them. All they have access to is the UI which is taken from 2000 via XP. It looks the same but with poorer functionality and ease-of-use.

This is bad

The exception to this is as someone has mentioned, the abysmal file handling. I've got a testing website project I made at home on my flashcard. From the card, at home on XP I can edit the files, save, copy, etc. pretty much instantaneously, at work on Vista saving the same file takes it 30 seconds and copying is a "start it off, go and make the tea" job.

This is bad

Despite the popular misconception, held by the kind of people who listen to Radio 1 where anything in the universe 3 weeks old is outtadate, old != bad

'Facebook for Kids' slammed by security researchers

true security

Won't name any names but I was working for a company 3 years ago who had this great plan for a safe kids FB type site with various security features to cross check that kids were kids and they're still nowhere near getting it commercially viable. I really don't think it's possible to do a 100% not-get-your-ass-sued when it goes wrong interactive kids site

Ofcom rules on Clarkson strumpet gag

Frankie

Do any of these people watch Mock the week?

They'd foam at the mouth and die at pretty much everything frankie boyle says

UK e-tailers scurry to scrap dodgy Heavy Metal covers

@art?

If image = painted or image = black-and-white then

art

else

porn

end if

I never realised how much smut art galleries contained until I started going out with an art teacher

Government finally names the day for porn ban

films

Presumably this will apply to films as well as pictures. Wouldn't most action/horror films fall foul of this law, realistic looking harm wise. As for the bit about being able to tell it's acting, yes it's a film, but people harass soap baddies thinking they're really nasty and not just actors

Net pedants dismantle Quantum of Solace

I'm impressed

They managed to notice all that as the film was so dull and utterly depressingly bad that most people in the screening I went to were either asleep or clockwatching waiting for the interminable end.

Story withdrawn

@Chesticles

Apparently it was invented by Kenny Everett according to the radio prog about him in the week

Apparently

Inside Microsoft's 'New Xbox Experience'

@ No need to pay for games?!

AC

A simple answer to the question was all that was required not calling people idiots.

Wokstation

Thanks for answering the question, not blathering on like a fool

thought

As someone in the office pointed out, what's to stop you borrowing a mates game or going down to blockbuster, copying it to your xbox and playing it?

looks

rubbish, I'll stick to the old blades with their satisfying whooshp noise and the pics of Master Chief in the background...which is the only reason I bought the thing in the first place (though bioshock is good too )

Member of HAA since 2000

Halo Addicts Anonymous

Employees sue for unpaid Windows Vista overtime

@WHAT!

"Stop with your vista crap, if your comps can't run, it dont install it, does it really have to be more complex than that?"

I've forwarded your message to our finance and it directors so they can stop buying new computers to run Vista on. New meaning "built with Vista as the target OS" and it runs like a dog.

It's not complex to expect a new computer to run Vista is it?

It's overblown with a flashy UI that's inconsistent and unhelpful.

XP wasn't perfect when it was released but the overall design philosophy behind it wasn't as just plain wrong as the one behind vista, so it started off in a better place.

"Bullshit, Windows 7 is build on vista with fixes/improvements, and you watch how many people say its cool!"

Let's just look at a few things people have thought were cool over the years

steps

spice girls

flared trousers

The Mullet

People say lots of things are cool, that's not really a great indication of what is actually good, more an indication of the stupidity of humans.

I've seen W7 and it's vista with bigger taskbar buttons...wow, I truly feel blessed to know this is the future.

sounds about right

My 3 month old vista machine takes about 10 minutes from switch on until the point it lets me do anything, which has become more noticeable since I've been doing a bit of work on a very old XP based laptop which is ready to go in the aforementioned 90 seconds

Hibernate fails to work on anybody's PC here at work, it either won't come back or doesn't even start

vista, not so much 1 step forward, 2 steps back as 5 steps backward, then keep going backward until you fall over

Gov to Manchester: No new trams without road pricing

@Pad

Look at where the councillors in your area live and where their kids go to school, that's where you'll find the cameras. It is in Stoke anyway (not to mention a rumour that one was put in on a councillors commute route so he could get out of a junction easier)

> 1. There is no Proportional Representation. I have yet to see a “None of the Above” on my ballot sheet. What option do you have exactly when you think that all politicians are lying arseholes that don’t have a flipping clue?

Don't vote, voter apathy isn't because we can't vote by text/email/carrier pigeon it's because most people can't find anyone worth voting for. Another classic example of politicians pretending to be ostriches.

Don't really understand why PR is the answer to everything. Watched an explanation on the telly and it looks like a why of rigging the votes, not to mention you don't get who you vote for, you get someone from the party. Of all my misgivings about the political system, the person who gets most votes in an area winning isn't one of them :)

> 2. Politics is more about body language coaching and avoiding direct questions than it is about caring for the majority of voters concerns. The bribery Hoon is offering is just a tiny example of it.

Answer a question with an answer....bwa ha ha ha ha

> 3. There is no accountability for the people we elect to power failing to deliver on the manifesto they used to gain power in the first place.

Only the next election where you look at what rubbish they're promising you now

advertising

The advertising for the yes campaign is among the most offensive I've ever seen. They all go along the same lines but my personal favourite says "I travel the other way so I won't have to pay it"

Are they deliberately promoting this kind of selfishness or are they hoping to ride a wave of voter apathy in to victory? Obviously they won't be riding the tram as they're on the council so will be exempt from the charge.

I've never seen any advertising for the no campaign.How do they get away with spending council tax money (which is going up) on this piffle.

There was a "business leader" (what ever that means) on the telly a few weeks back and he was saying he wanted it so his employees and customers could get to his place of business without hitting any traffic jams. The problem with that me old chum is everyone else wants the same for their employees & customers. Why are you so special that you get first call on the city's roads?

And another thing.... :P

El Reg seeks top net neologism

wibble

Wasn't wibble invented invented in blackadder goes forth, with a pair of pants on your head and a pencil shoved up each nostril to prove you're crazy.

Which reminds me of blackadder the third's interfrastically, which has been used copiously ever since, round our way

pretty much anything

preceded by fuck

fuckstick

fucknut

fucktard

etc.

etc.

etc.

swearing is good

Chinese TV suspends footie coverage

cctv

Am I the only one who finds that acronym for totalitarian chinese state telly is CCTV???

Police vet live music, DJs for 'terror risk'

@AC

"dumb dumb, dumb dumb, dumb.

Its not every day that you see the stupidest thing you've ever seen"

Wait till tomorrow, the next big dumb idea is just waiting to be sprung

Firefox hits 20% share as testers tickle 'pr0n mode'

pron mode

Doesn't firefox already have these options in the normal settings? True there's no single button you can click but I like the level of customisation possible.

I have it clearing the browser history but keeping the username/passwords, hopefully you'll still be able to do that as the all or nothing setting is just a bit....well....backward

Freesat gets Five

Actually yes

"The reason I was holding back from buying is FINALLY resolved!!!"

I live in a tv reception black hole, channel 4 is a distant dream let alone channel 5 and as there's nothing I really want to watch on most nights as I have no interest in soaps, reality tv and [insert season]watch.

Now that mock the week's finished I only really watch bbc breakfast so I know exactly how late I am for work :P

I do like to watch the US footy on 5, which my mum records for me which if I get one of these I'll now be able to do myself

I've never been able to understand why you can get al-jazera on freesat but not channel 5...or BBC3 home of truly carp comedy and repeats of truly carp comedy

Jezza Clarkson cops flak for 'truckers murder strumpets' gag

stacks

Stacks of uncensored gentleman's literature before the watershed and nothing said about that...wonder what happened to that lot....

Mine's the one with "Dirty old men need love too" on the back

Windows 7 early promise: Passes the Vista test

@ Sean Gray

"It'd just be nice if people were slightly more informed about it so that their complaints didn't sound so stupid."

Informed in what way?

Using Vista at work everyday has me cursing everyday. As I've said before, it's the UI that I hate in both it's Aero and Classic incarnations.

Microsoft's 'ordinary Joe' promises Windows 7 bliss

changing rooms

As long as they give me back the XP explorer and search

I look in a folder, go out, go back again and it's not details anymore it's huge icons with things I never asked for...grouped argh. Do what I say not whatever M$ think I want.

And where as I used to be able to right click on a directory and do a search from that point while carrying on doing something else, I now have to stop, search, go back , accidentally close the window......again <DOH>

if I ever meet the genius('s) behind this it'll be unpleasant for them

and breathe.....

Jacqui Smith resurrects 42-days after Lords rejection

wacki indeed

Why wasn't any of this anti-terror law needed when the various Irish groups were regularly blowing chunks out of the country ?

@ David Wilson

what he said

Scotland Mountain Rescue turns on Ofcom

Priorities

It's a simple equation involving life = cheap and money = everything

That's why you can kill someone and you can be out in 18 months, rob a bank and it's 30 years

'I can see dinosaurs from my back porch'

cool image

"disappointing story... not because of the contents (didn't really read it), I just thought it would have more fun pictures of US politicians in a Flintstones setting. :("

Private Eye had a good one in the other week of bill & hillary as fred & wilma

scary

As for creatism on Day #1 god created light on Day #3 he created the sun, moon and stars. Where was the light coming from for 2 days, glow sticks? matches?

I'm with the Australian aborigines, there was the dream time, then we woke up. Makes more sense than most creation theories and nobody has ever been slaughtered in the name of it :P

Airline industry refuses to be ID card guinea pig

dvla

As to what the data could be used for, the news of the DVLA selling the data they hold for £2.50 a pop which is then used to harass people....that's what.

The data protection act not applying to (mis)government departments apparently

@Dodgy Goings on at ThiefRow

I hope you're taking the proverbial 'cause otherwise you should just get back to reading the Sun

As the items which provide the airline with ID about someone and proof that they're allowed to work are the same as those that'll be used to collect the info for the ID card, what'll be the point?

Any illegals will get their beautifully crafted fake credentials out again and then have a government sanctioned one.

And would people who say that it'll prevent crime all put their crayons down and go and have a nap until sense prevails. Unless a burglar/mugger/murderer drops/gives you their card, it is impossible for an ID card to help solve crime.

Unrelated budgetary question

In the proposed budget for getting the ID card finished, is there money allocated for the card/fingerprint/iris readers that will be needed for every relevant office/shop/entryway? And if all that the card ever gets is a visual inspection, the biometric gumph (and I'lda thunk the chip itself) isn't needed anyway

Royal Navy won't fight pirates 'in case they claim asylum'

Hanging's too good for 'em

Isn't piracy still one of the 3 things you can get hung for in the UK?

So the pirates are successful in getting UK citizenship and then get hung 10 minutes later. Pirates are happy (for a bit), Sun readers are happy and a notice in the job centre "Wanted, hangman, black hood provided" will help bring down the unemployment figures

It's all doubleplus good

eBay changes anger smaller sellers

paypal "you've almost reached the payment limit on your account‏" message

"We've noticed that you've almost reached the payment or 'sending' limit on your PayPal account. Once you've reached your sending limit, you won't be able to buy any more goods on eBay or other online shops with PayPal. There's no need to worry. To lift this limit, you simply need to get Verified."

Anyone else had this rubbish. My mates had one and he's does a lot more transactions than me on it, yet strangely our limits are the same :O

A third of Vista PCs downgraded to XP

@Jonathan Tate

"And as for the UI, I have yet to hear an argument that it's "bad" that isn't correctable by way of either UI configuration or "user (re)configuration". Ever heard of the acronym PEBKAC?"

Yes, the problem is between the keyboard and the chair. It is all my fault, I realise this now, how could I have been so foolish? When I ask click the button "Apply to Folders" I stupidly expect it to do what I ask and apply my configuration to folders.

How patently ridiculous of me to go to a directory, go to another one and when I return, expect it to look like it did when I was there before.

I've been told (whether it's true or not I've not been able to verify) that vista can only hold a small number of individual folders view preferences. Sounds like carp to me.

I sit with 2 people who babble on about how good vista is "look at the flick3d switcher, see how beautiful it is" yet they still spend time cursing and changing views all day, especially when they've opened a 2 inch square dialog box which has extra large icons in it...scroll...scroll...scroll...scroll...scroll

The PEB the UI programmer's KAC and the tester's KAC not at the end user's who expects things to do what it says on the button/checkbox/whatever!

@David Webb

I'm happy with the XP interface because it doesn't insist on changing each directories view every time I go in. Honestly, it's like Russian roulette will I get the useful detail view I had last time or will it have the file name as an icon 1/5 the size of my screen and the startags there for me to ignore.

And when I copy a file I want the "date updated" property to be the date the original was updated, not the date the file was copied.

And...

And...

And...

Unencrypted traveler data laptop disappears then reappears

@In a post-911 world

Just noticed that the WTC bomb date written like that is the yank emergency services number. Think 9/11, think panic? Despite the fact it should be 11/9 but Americans are doodie heads

US court sides with Janet Jackson's breast

hmm

While complaining about Janet (a boob at the best of times) no-one complained about the erectile disfunction products that were pushed in every commercial break and as someone pointed out at the time, no kid ever went to his parents what's that bouncy thing where as I'll bet a mighty 3p that a lot said "Daddy, daddy , what's erectile disfunction"

El Reg tells you what the Highway Code can't

@Bruce Sinton & @AC

"Boy, that is a surprise to me. I spent 11years as a volunteer Ambulance Officer ,and so quite a number of dead people , whose cause of death was speed, and the sudden deceleration when hitting something like a power pole."

So, the speed didn't kill them, like I said, inadequate stopping distance kills people. Also driving too close kills people, not paying attention to the road kills people, bad weather kills people, etc.etc.etc. Saw a car upside down the other week having chopped down a telegraph pole. Cause of accident, not turning at the corner because he was changing radio station. Speed was irrelevant, maybe if she'd been doing 10 mph then she'd have had time to notice she was all over the road, but if you're going to be taking your eyes off the road through a section of road that a roller coaster would be happy to have, then you've pretty well written your own entry in the Darwin awards.

@AC

"You're an idiot."

It's nice that you can be rational and impersonal about these things

"tell that to the 2 people whom i saw killed by someone driving 45mph in a 30mph zone (one bent double at the knees - forwards even; the other with the back of her head sliced off and her brains spread all over the road)."

Where were these people when they were hit? In the middle of the road, after just stepping out, like the people you see everyday shoving their prams into the road to stop traffic ( had several kid fatalities because of this around here )

Was the driver OTL? Was it raining, was it night, was the driver trying to retrieve that bit of kitkat from down the back of the seat?

RE : Replace GATSOs with average speed checks

"At the risk of casting pearls before swine, I'm not sure if removing cameras will result in a free-for-all, but it makes me wonder what possible motive there is for objecting to speed cameras unless they cramp your style.

A valid objection to the long-established and familiar GATSOs is that they make motorists slam on the breaks on approach then take off again afterwards. Just after the A11 joins the A14 eastbound, there is a GATSO and I often see this behaviour. Elsewhere, where average speed checks are in place people actually keep to the speed limits.

The fact that so many petrol-heads and Jeremy Clarkson wannabes gripe suggests to me that they work and should be left alone."

Are you mad? There's no other explanation for this tripe

It has nothing to do with cramping of style. Watch drivers at any speed camera and see where they're looking, because it's not at the road, it's at the speedometer. Some idiot kid runs out and splat. Would you rather I hit you at 30mph or miss you at 35mph?

We'll ignore the fact that pedestrians should follow the green cross code and shouldn't bitch if they get hit when they've just wandered into the road looking for that really good James Blunt track on their ipod.

When the M6 had the average speed cameras in the roadworks I was left not a little concerned that everyone was watching their speedo and not the road. All it would have taken was one minor slip to have resulted in a massive pile up.

And speed...sorry...safety cameras (revenue cameras more like) do nothing for drivers doing exactly 50mph, exactly on the speed limit, while tailgating behind someone by 5 feet and the person behind them and the person behind them as far as the eye can see. Speeding never killed anyone. Inadequate stopping distance kills people!

What we need is some kind of man or woman in a car to....for want of a better word, police...the roads, maybe if we had someone like that they could monitor and prosecute speeders, driving too close, driving with spotlights on, people with no lane discipline on roundabouts and they could also be used to help with other crimes.

It's a radical idea I know but there's a slight possibility more police on the roads would reduce all manner of dangerous driving, don't you think?

Criminal record checks could hit over 14 million people

Worthless

The CRB check is worthless. From the moment it leaves the printer it is already out of date. That and the CRB check only records people who've been caught.

I knew someone who ran a local youth team for 20 years before being caught, god knows what the total victim count on that was. Now his life's a shambles which is some small comfort I s'pose

Because of the way they've been touted as a panacea, people think of CRB checks as a magic shield that will protect there kids from harm. Many conversations I've had where the subject has arisen have ended up with the other person saying "You wouldn't understand, you're not a parent" [shakes head]

I too have stopped doing volunteer work as have a lot of people I know, which is causing problems with all the local social/scouting/sports teams. The local footy team has only got an adults team but demands everyone involved has a CRB as kids *sometimes* come and watch :S

If anyone can explain that one, lock yourself up in a padded cell

UK abandons train and tube scanners

@MarKMac

"Flawed analogy - people don't have a choice about needing to go into hospital, they do have a choice about how to travel."

We don't have a choice. We don't live near where we work anymore. I've never lived within public transport useable distance from work as there aren't the jobs. And if I had to move everytime I got a new job I'ld be living out of boxes all the time.

I currently live in Stoke and work in Marple, south of Stockport. To get there on public transport would take about 5 hours and involve 3 buses and a train and cost a fortune.

The closest I ever worked to home took me 10 minutes in the car and 2 hours and 3 buses on public transport. If I had to work nights I'd have had to stay there as there were no buses after 11pm.

Unless we revert to grouping companies by town, then we need to travel to work