Posts by Pete

Meet Phorm's PR genius

Well said Andy S.

The Register's anti-Brown agenda of late has been disquieting. I'm no fan of how this government has turned out but the Reg has attacked it at times for no discernible reason, giving the impression that the attacks have been wholly politically-motivated, a real shame for my favourite IT site.

Phorm? Truly the enfant horrible of technology, commercialism and the rampant "big brother" mentality. It doesn't surprise me that they're getting together with such a bed-fellow. May all their problems be humongous ones.

Ireland scraps e-voting in favour of 'stupid old pencils'

@ AC (19:02 GMT)

Give over man. The author made his humorous comment in relation to Ahern's original statement. Now we know how wars are started. ;-)

Pirate Bay judge and pro-copyright lobbyist accused of bias

@michael

Fair enough Michael. Let's make a deal then, I won't worry about your spelling and you won't worry about people that comment on Reg articles without reading all the previous comments. Live and let live, eh? ;-)

Hell, I feel as I have to comment on the topic now. For me it is black and white, the judge should have stepped down from the trial due to conflict of interest. The fact that he decided not to is worrying - it shows a severe lack of judgement, with the potential of not only cocking up the whole trial process but also bringing the Swedish justice system into disrepute. Realising that, I imagine that the big Swedish legal cheeses are right now engaging in a damage limitation exercise and trying to tell everyone that it's all a storm in a teacup and that there was no conflict. It isn't and there was. An official rebuke for the judge and a retrial are in order.

@michael

So what's "pepol" then, some form of exotic vegetable only found between the Tigris and the Euphrates? Perhaps you shouldn't have been so keen on pressing that "add to dictionary" button, although it probably felt like the right thing to do at the time. :-)

GPS, swipe cards to monitor Welsh school kids

@Ian Michael Gumby

So you can't offshore lawyers yet? Au contraire. http://abovethelaw.com/2009/04/sacha_baron_cohen_uses_outsour.php

Moderatrix quits El Reg: Latest

Aw, the poor lamb...

Please tell Miss Bee that if she wants a longer break away from the madness that is London, I would be more than welcome to act as host up here in Aberdeen (that's Aberdeen, Scotland for any of our transatlantic cousins whose minds may have immediately wandered away to the plethora of Aberdeens that exist over there). I have a wide selection of teas, a sympathetic ear (I keep it in a jar) and an almighty crush on her. On second thoughts, perhaps you shouldn't tell her that last bit. Just tell her to get on the train.

Google's email service goes down

Re: GFAIL

I hope that your real-life girl has contacted you now that Gmail is once again tits down. However I should warn you that I met one once - more hassle than they're worth lad.

Benjamin Button eyes 13 Oscars

And the answer is:

A. Slumdog Millionaire. Wonderful film. Watch the world fall in love with all things Indian (for a wee while anyway)...

US teen tops himself live online

Holy mackerel

The police were only called in after several hours of this guy lying on his bed after having openly saying he was going to commit suicide and then swallowing pills? Seriously, if this is true then this world is indeed going to pot. We just don't seem to care two hoots about one another any more.

NASA's curious climate capers

England and Ireland

So England and Ireland dropped out of the red zone on the first revised map. Was there some anomaly over Wales then? Or is the author confusing England with the UK or, geographically, Great Britain? That's never been done before now, has it?

BBC's speak you're branes collapses under Brand-Ross sex outrage

The only explanation left...

... this species is amusing itself to death.

Gates predicts 'significant' US recession

Spealling

I try not to criticise people's spelling, after all it's communication that counts old boy, but It's such a long time since I've seen someone get the old led / lead thing wrong. Gave me a warm fuzzy feeling of being back there in school, that's all.

gOS - a Google good OS for your Mum

Just works?

I don't know about you but I would prefer an OS that works really well, rather than one that "just works" (and no more, presumably). Shouldn't they have spent more time on development?

CERN: LHC to fire first proton-smash ray next month

@ Dave & Rob

Thanks for your replies! Obviously it would have been excellent to get down to the underground caverns where the bleeding edge drips with excited hadrons but the visit looks fun and informative anyway (it must be a pretty amazing tour as the four yellow-helmeted individuals on the CERN page look insanely happy). I'd been talking to my host about wanting to pop along to CERN for my birthday so now I can sort something out. There aren't many things that make me feel like a big kid these days but I reckon I'm going to have a ball. Cheers!

P.S. I've just noticed that the form says that 3-4 months' notice is advisable. Wow. I suppose name badges take a while to print these days. That will no doubt scupper my plans as I'm only here for another couple of weeks but what the heck, like a particle at the speed of light I'm not going to let a lot get in my way, and I'll apply anyway and see how it goes.

When worlds collide

Hey, I'm just along the road in Lausanne at the moment. Does anyone know if I can visit CERN and see the boffins at work for myself (i.e. with my own eyes, they don't need to work for me)? It's a pretty momentous experiment and I'd love to be in there at the start before it all goes horribly wrong, some marvellous scientific breakthrough is made or it just whimpers out with a wee bang. Can I? Please? Pretty please? I'll stand in the corner and not say anything, honest.

Clone dog mistress denies she is 'sex in chains' McKinney

Hee hee

There's nought stranger than reality. No doubt about it, this has to be "Better than life". Now, if only I can think hard enough, perhaps I can make some Valkyrie come into existence (I'm not greedy, three or four would do). I could so do with a good end-of-week massage to make up for the crap week I've had. Anyway, what was the article about again?

Note that I've been careful and avoided all use of sarcastic humour in this comment e.g. in calling New Zealanders Australians in order to get back at them for their woeful lack of knowledge of oor Robbie's nationality (oops, wrong article?). I mean I don't want anyone to get upset and think I was serious. If I ever meet up with you David, we can share a few pints together and collectively moan about the way the world is heading. And I promise that I wouldn't even dream of commenting on how ambiguous you were concerning which bridge across the Forth you were talking about. After all, you deserve some slack.

So, back to the point. It's obvious our dear girl only had her charming deceased dog cloned as a prelude to attempting to clone a Mormon Missionary and thus provide herself with a constant supply if any happen to break away from the fluffly but solid restraints. I know, no need to comment, they appear to already clone Mormon Missionaries quite satisfactorily.

Right, horned helmet, large breasts, smell of wolf. Strain Pete, strain!!!

Suprise at spelling snafu sanctions

Dr Smith...

kan fuk off, coz e can.

Seriously, I haven't heard such a lot of wet fermented dribble in a long time. No, we don't have the equivalent of an Academie française to "protect" our language, and English is indeed evolving all the time, which is a wonderful thing. However we do have accepted grammatical and orthographic standards that help us to communicate with each other without too many problems. Just because some people cannot meet these standards, it doesn't mean that we should lower them. How will these people then thrive in a world where there are many people for whom the standards are still important?

In saying that, I know people who just cannot spell many words correctly, no matter how hard they try. It creates a sort of mental block for them. One of my girlfriends in particular had me tearing out my hair in my attempts to show her how to spell words and how to remember they way they were spelt. In the end I gave up, become relaxed about it, and concentrated on enjoying the other pleasures that we could share together. I know that there will always be people like that, but it doesn't mean that we should lower the standards for everybody in general.

Mozilla dishes up teasers for concept browser

Concept browser?

If I want to browse concepts then I'll grab the latest IKEA catalogue, thank you very much.

As for surfacing, I think it simply means talking about things that you've been too nervous, embarrassed, shy or just plain scared to talk about. It's for the sort of folk who go around all day thinking "I've got this great thought for a future browsing project" while furtively glancing around at other people trying to find someone to tell who won't laugh in their face. The planned get-togethers will be full of people who say things like "Thanks Maureen for having surfaced that idea - well done!" while pats on the back and cheers will ensue. Never again will people have to feel guilty about their concept browser thoughts again. The world is undoubtedly heading in the right direction. The future, my friends, is bright.

Craigslist supervillain seeks henchmen

Re: Interested

Yes it does. It limits the number of vegetarian goons who may want to work alongside you. The last thing you want, while actively helping the master in his latest plan for world domination, is to get into some long-winded argument about the technicalities of intensive animal farming with the goon next to you. Go on, embrace rubber and make life easier for yourself.

KOGVOS

If they have a position available as Keeper of the Goons and Voice of Sanity then I'll throw my ring into the hat.

Top Jock cop calls for universal DNA database

Re: 'Jock'

I'm proud to be called a "Jock", aren't you? But it does make El Reg appear anglo-centric, or even London-centric. If the bampot in question had been the chief of an English force, would the title have been "Top Limey cop...", or maybe "Top Sassenach cop..."? - I think not. It's bad enough having trolls here without the authors providing their fair share of trolling activity themselves.

As a Scot in exile...

all I can do is agree. What a bampot. Hopefully the idea will be blasted from the sky by the shotguns of common sense and public outrage.

Paris Hilton - the compromised candidate

Paris Hilton... why?

I've tried and tried (many times) to find Paris Hilton attractive and I just don't get it - what do you guys see in her?! She's as bland as a can of supermarket own-brand beans, and nowhere near as tasty. On the other hand Monica Bellucci, now you're talking...

ASA rules against citing 'hits' in ads

@ Kphn Robson

Great, so let's educate the public, but in the meantime, because it takes some people a fair bit of effort to learn, let's allow advertisers to mislead them. Nice one.

Congestion charge means less traffic, more congestion

@ A J Stiles

So you're saying that Ken introduced the Congestion Charge in his fiefdom only in order to drip-feed it into other cities. Seriously? Who told him to? What did he get out of it?

The Congestion Charge was born out of the dual principles of environmentalism (too many cars, congestion and pollution in London) and greed (think of all that money in the coffers). It may not have lessened congestion but it has raised a lot of money. So the car drivers are paying for the pollution that they cause. A result, I would say. Now they just need to work on an effective means of reducing the congestion.

Yahoo! recounts! votes!

How the heck?

A simple thing like a vote count. Where were the checks, the verification of figures, the common sense realisation that something didn't add up? Can we just not concentrate these days? Or do we simply believe in what emerges from the computer as if it were the gospel truth? I'm starting to despair... It must be something in the water.

Gordon Brown's secret life as network admin

@ Anonymous Coward

The chair's legs. Inaminate object. Possessive. Apostrophe. Wow, fancy that. "Its" is the equivalent of "his" or "her". Would you rather put hi's or he'r?

@ Anonymous Coward

No, "Its" doesn't lack an apostrophe in order to avoid confusion with the abbreviation "it's". It lacks an apostrophe simply because it doesn't have one.

South Korean prez turns on the internet

@ Tony and Anonymous Coward

A great big thank you for filling my day with megalomaniac thoughts and humour!

@ Tony

Wow - thank you! Firefox is blocking the popup created by pushing the button though and I'm strangely nervous about unblocking it. I mean, what if it actually works? Wouldn't it upset a lot of people? Do you happen to know of the location of the button to switch it back on again (obviously it exists as the South Korean president used it) - that way I can have one finger on that button while I switch the internet off (if I switch it off and on quickly enough then hopefully no-one will notice) . Ah, the power!

Well I never

I didn't know anyone had turned it off. Where's the switch then?

Profs: Teacher-student relationships key to sex education

@ Tim

"Our sex-education was completely theoretical and there was not one lesson on chatting up!"

Aha - so that's your excuse!

Suck the nipple, sir

Am I not alone in immediately thinking of the Sex Education sketch in Monty Python's "Meaning of Life" when reading this article? Hee hee.

Wanted: Americans to join Al Qaeda

@JonB

As long as you know the right words to shout at the top of your voice while storming the Bastille, no-one needs to spell during the actual revolution itself. And don't worry about the constitution afterwards - it will be written on a Wiki, changeable by all citiziens of the brave new world, and anal spelling types will just come along from time to time and clean it up.

Aux armes, citoyens!

India and Belgium decry Chinese cyber attacks

Last time...

I was in Belgium, I ended up being violently ill after eating gnocci in a Brussels restaurant. Cyber attack these Belgianeeses to peeses I say!!!!

EDF circles British nuclear powerplant sites

Maybe...

EDF have simply decided that there is a future in vegetables that glow in the dark?

Swiss ponder the 'dignity of plants'

@dervheid

As one of those rabid lentil-munching vegetarians to which you refer, all I can say is "Death to Plants!!!!"

Why Microhoo! is like, so, totally dead

Satire

@ Neil Hoskins - a dying art form - never! However good satire has always poked (semi-serious) fun at subjects that we are all talking about, or know something about, not some remote subject on a web site that hardly anyone looks at, knows about or in fact cares about. I don't take this article seriously at all but it's about as funny as a slap across the face with a wet herring. Shame. Looking forward to Playmobil later on though. :-)

NZ bank robber stashes loot where the sun don't shine

New Zealand police...

suspect that more of the loot may be hidden up the thief's rear end. When asked by a reporter about the current situation, the Chief of police commented "The last time we looked there was no change".

'Great tits cope well with warming'

Our wonderful language

According to that ever-useful source of information, Wikipedia, in the South West of England the Blue Tit is nick-named "Little Billy Biter". It's fortunate that I have a big billy.

Home Secretary goes crazy on drugs... policy

Women cry for it...

Men die for it. Governments lie for it. Reefer madness.

May the Home Secretary never find a pair of matching socks when she needs them!

Blighty to become old-time Inundation Nation

@heystoopid

If it's not floods, it's sun-caused skin cancer. We're all doomed I tell you!

Floods?

CCTV cameras installed around all the vulnerable areas should nip this one in the bud.

@AC: just let those green activists know that if they're worried about global warming then they should leave their fridge doors open. If only everyone could do this, especially the Chinese because there's an awful lot of them, then we could solve global warming at a stroke. Oh yes, and their freezer doors as well, just to make sure.

I want a baby, coos broody Paris Hilton

I can see the TV programme now

12 babies vying to be Paris Hilton's child, the audience voting one off each week until she gets the one she wants.

Canadian toddler dies after VOIP 911 call

@Spleen

We're all Jock Tamson's bairns. Just because you don't know the family and would certainly never have met them doesn't mean you should throw empathy to the wind. No, I for one don't want tributes, but I would like answers, assurances that this will not happen again and action to be taken if negligence is uncovered.

I do have an interest in the child that died. Of course there are plenty of involuntary deaths but should that mean that we can't feel and express remorse for them? Empathy and compassion are never futile. Here's wishing you a nice day Spleen - try to take good advantage of that precious gift we call life and, if you can, spare just the tiniest of thoughts for those who can no longer take advantage of that gift.

My thoughts...

go to the family concerned. What a tragedy. The 911 service should just work and, in my eyes, whatever the circumstances, the family bears no responsibility whatsoever for what happened. Procedures should have been in place, complete with caller confirmation at the time of the 911 call, to ensure that the ambulance was sent to the correct address. As far as I see it, the company should pay dearly for what was a senseless loss of human life.

Franco robbed Sir Cliff of Eurovision win

What I would like to know is....

Which countries were bribed, and were their television series eventually bought?

A propos, we might slag off good off Espana, but remember what we did to the Pistols' "God Save the Queen" to keep them off numero uno.

The battle of Lesbos: Exclusive combat pic

@Sarah Bee

Titter ye not!

Splendid...

Now any chance of posting a larger resolution form of this pic (and other Playmobil classics) so I can use them as backgrounds on my desktop and thus maintain that "thank god it's Friday" chortle factor feeling all through the week - pretty please?

BOFH: The Boss gets Grandpa Simpson syndrome

Ah, the Burroughs

Haven't heard that name in a while - brought the memories flooding back of the Burroughs B6930. And do the youth of today believe you when you talk about writing your programmes on punch cards and sending them away with an elastic band around them, only to receive them back the next day with a huge red circle on the card containing the line you got wrong... the heck they do. Me, I used to live in cardboard box in t'middle of motorway...