Posts by Pascal Monett

Star Trek XI release knocked back to 2009

What it really means

"the pic's gross potential is greater as a summer tentpole"

actually means :

"it doesn't stand a chance at Xmas, so we're releasing it when the heat waves have totally dulled everyone's brains and they won't notice how bad it is until it's too late"

Really, the total disregard of logic, plot and canon whenever Paramount has produced a Trek film has me quite skeptical that this one will be any better than the previous heaps of doo that litter the franchise' landscape.

A shame, really. I prefer TOS.

Thigh-drive phone charger put through its paces

Charging battlefield equipment

Yeah, I'm sure the thing will work fine while half-submerged in a puddle of mud, or encased in the sands of some desert country. Another fine gadget for soldiers to cuss about.

Then again, the ruggedized version just might save some young man's kneecap when walking past an IED.

Feds bat for Boeing in rendition lawsuit

In other words

The US government has been telling lies since at least 1953 to cover its ass, and the rights of its victims - the very citizens it is supposed to protect - can be damned.

Hmm, now why does that not surprise me ? Why do I feel that absolutely no government has told the truth unless it was tracked into a corner and had no other choice ?

Load of Microsoft software falls off back of lorry

Re: "If these codes are unique and so well known ... "

My God I am soooo in agreement with you !

Brilliantly said.

Automated crack for Windows Live captcha goes wild

I have a new idea

Forget images. Just send a flash-based animation that requires the user to click in a specific are at a specific moment in time. The area to click in will be a color box moving on a white background, and the box goes a different color for the half-second you have to click in it.

The click has to be made with the mouse, and the color should change at every reload.

Click at the wrong time, you're out. Click in the wrong place, you're out.

RIAA chief calls for copyright filters on PCs

Remember the good old days ?

You know, when there was so much Freedom around no one even noticed ? When you could go buy a CD or a game and your only worry was whether it was compatible with your hardware ?

When you could pick up your phone and had zero-minus chance of the DHS listening in on your conversation with your brother/wife/cousin/aunt ?

When companies were actually thankful that you gave them your hard-earned money for something ?

When you could decide to catch a plane half an hour before take-off, and actually be on it in time for the trip ?

When life was normal ?

Ahh, the good old days.

I miss them.

When Google's content network lacks content

I beg your pardon ?

First they say "AdSense for domains allows domain name registrars ... to provide valuable and relevant content on their parked pages,"

Then they say "Parked domain pages generally have no content.."

Sorry, but logic commands those two sentences to be mutually exclusive.

That's like me telling you I only dress in red while wearing white sneakers, black pants and a white shirt.

Will you believe me if I smile ?

US spooks won't get UK census access

"the data would be kept safe"

Of course it would !

On the unencrypted, lame-password-protected hard disk of a laptop lying in the back of an open car parked in front of a train station for the night.

Safe and secure. Move along people, nothing to see here.

US spooks see Sadville as potential terrorist paradise

I am amazed

I am utterly floored by the continuing insistance of so-called "intelligence" gatherers to give to "terrorists" the intent of using mobile phones, internet and other eminently traceable mediums.

Because yes, if you think you are anonymous from government agencies who want to find you, you are sadly mistaken.

So tell me again why true terrorists, intent on wreaking mayhem and causing havoc, would so casually conduct their meetings via an ISP or a phone line, which practically guarantees that they will be overheard, traced and caught ?

Nowadays, using the Post to send a mail to a P.O. box is far safer - there is no way the CIA can read every letter !

I really would appreciate it if these people that are supposed to be in charge of our security could wisen up to the fact that we KNOW this is bull.

A terrorist that uses a mobile phone in enemy territory, or the Internet to post critical operating info, is a dumb terrorist. We need not fear him because he WILL be caught even by semi-competent police forces.

What we need to fear is the professional, competent terrorist that leaves no electronic trail to trace, uses only cash to pay anything needed, does not rent a car and contacts his agents face-to-face in remote or private areas.

Fear those, because we will have a devil of a time catching them without placing a camera in every street, every house, every basement, and putting an agent behind every camera.

Oh wait . .

Critical bugs surge in reduced flaw haul

Indeed

Do the members of this cartoon-sounding "force" wear black suits and have a funny-looking flashlight, perchance ?

Brown plans to admit wiretap evidence in court

"there will be a complex regime of checks and safeguards"

I'll bet there will be, and it will be so complex that there will be a number of ways to go around them perfectly "legally" and still have the "evidence" presented to the court.

As for doctoring a sound recording, I think it is quite a bit more difficult than fixing pixels on a picture. It has something to do with harmonics, and I'm sure an expert of proper qualifications could tell in an instant if the recording had been tampered with.

And, given the poor performance of the doctored pictures we have been presented with, I have no doubt that changing a recording in a believable manner will be far beyond the abilities of the plod charged with the tweak.

On the other hand, faking a recording entirely might be a lot easier to do, and more difficult to spot.

US expat casts ballot from Vienna, wonders if anyone got it

Seems obvious

What to print should be obvious : the unique ID of the vote that has just been cast. That is the only real data that is needed.

With the unique ID, it should be quite easy to trace the vote, find out where it was made and when, and which candidate was voted for. Maybe even the machine it was cast on. If absolutely required, it could probably be traced to who made the vote, but that might be something prohibited by existing law.

In any case, anything other than a unique ID means the system was not properly thought out, and certainly not properly tested.

Frankly, I am appalled that voting systems are still so clearly out of sync with real world requirements.

Then again, they seem to be perfectly in sync with Bush requirements, so I guess that's good enough.

More remote workers squatting next door's broadband

"the internet is becoming safer"

Oh . . my . . God.

Anyone who actually believes that should be slapped with a restraining order forbidding him/her to go anywhere near a keyboard or mouse.

The internet is certainly NOT becoming safer - if only because the skript kiddies of yesteryear have now been replaced by hardened criminals that are intent on getting your money and are ready to do any and everything needed to get there.

Today's spam is not just a useless nuisance in your mailbox and on the network, there is a very good chance that it is actually a possible trojan that seeks to hook into your computer like a parasite and find your banking details.

Same thing with dodgy websites.

Going on the internet is like taking a stroll through the bad part of town at night - in your underwear with your money in hand. If you don't beef up your security measures, you're just begging to get mugged.

Judge sits on Microsoft for two more years

For what it's been worth up to now

That judge could sit on Microsoft for another ten years, I don't see that it's been of any use in the real world.

Of sure, Microsoft has a "compliance" department, which cooks up a new "we're being nice, see ?" press release every now and then that has to be approved by the judge or something.

And ?

Ever since the DoJ lost its balls and forgot to go after Microsoft for what really counted, this whole affair has been just a lot of hot air and a revenue stream for a bunch of lawyers - who are the only ones who have gotten anything out of it.

PayPal buys Israeli security firm

That is the problem

PayPal is not a bank, which is why they can royally screw you by locking your account and you can't do anything about it.

A bank has the obligation of letting you have your money. If the bank suspects fraud, they cannot do anything without alerting the police first (granted, the procedure can be quick, but still, it's not one-sided).

If push gets to shove, with a bank you can always go to your nearest local branch and have a face-to-face discussion with someone who will actually be able to sort things out.

From what I hear about PayPal, not only is there no one to see in person, but PayPal can just ignore you if it feels like it.

Meanwhile, PayPal is getting interest on your money.

I know that Ebay and PayPal work fine for many people, and I'm happy for them. I'm just not willing to risk my money like that.

High Court approves software patents

"looking for a leg-up in the software industry"

Sorry, but if you think allowing patents for software is going to benefit small business, you're clearly not aware of the millions big business puts into the patent box every month.

Heck, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Intel and all the rest - they have dedicated lawyers working in-house ! By the time the small business has tested its product and is ready to patent it, it will be to discover that any number of the big guys already have 20 variations that are patent-pending.

Sorry, but I cannot believe for one second that granting software patents is going to do anything but consolidate the revenues of the pigopolists. If it does help a little guy, we'll be sure to hear about it because it'll be the only case.

Translate my website... bitch

Won't fly far

I'm not on FaceBook or MySpace (but I did get strong-armed into LinkedIn by my boss), but as far as I'm concerned, all these self-centered, gramatically-challenged monkeys who have no doubt that their dribbling is of utmost importance are going to find it quite tedious and irritating to go and translate the self-centered, gramatically-challenged dribblings of others.

I think that this project will end in a collective throwing up of hands and mutterings of disgust.

And @hans : that is without doubt the very best pig-German I have ever read. I almost bust a gut on "das cotton-pickenen Hands in die Pockets muss" !!

Drive-by download menace spreading fast

Won't affect me

As owner of a web site, I am glad to see that my complete lack of java, ActiveX modules and Apache anything in my site code preserves the security of all users who get to my pages - even if they are sufficiently misled to use a prime malware vector such as IE (any flavor).

Heck, I don't even set cookies on my site ! It's pure HTML, all the way.

Of course, I don't attempt to sell anything either, so it's easier to be clean.

As for my own security, I am confident that my browser will not foist a download upon me without a warning, and that I can actually make an intelligent evaluation before clicking on something.

Librarians challenge Web 2.0 youf-work myths

@ Dave Harris

As a Notes developer with 12 years of experience, I just have to thank you for this rare and objective evaluation of the difficulties of Notes integration.

I have heard so many disparaging comments from the Outlook crowd that I just have to acknowledge that the Microsoft interface monopoly has nothing less than a steel grip on the minds of users.

Thank goodness that the future of Notes is being integrated into the backoffice. With the local client gone and everything done by browser, more and more users will benefit from the advantages of Notes without even knowing it.

Skype blocks poison movie peril

That's what you get

When you try and shove the same bunch of features into every single communication tool.

Skype is for voice calls of the Internet. Why oh why should anyone need to search DailyMotion for a video during a call ?

Integrating these features into every comm package ends up with every comm application being vulnerable to the same things - and does not really bring any added value to the package.

Just allow Skype to open a browser on a URL like any other app.

In a few years they'll be telling us we need to be able to search Google on our toaster to get the latest toast recipes. Bollocks !

Dip into concept programming

Dinechin sees the software creation process falling behind the pace of hardware development

Man what a visionary ! So software development hasn't fallen behind yet ? Funny that. I seem to remember that when the 32-bit 386 came out there still wasn't a compiler to develop 16-bit code for the 286. And it took ages to get a proper 32-bit compiler - especially in the absence of the Internet and easy downloads.

So software development got faster then ? Probably. Lots faster because doing a lot less checking. Which explains why we have all those buffer overflows and memory leaks - nobody knows how to do their checks anymore.

Now software development will be slowing down again ? And that is a bad thing, how ? Once upon a time you had to be an engineer to develop code. You painstakingly hunted down bug after bug, taking whole nights to understand just why the code crapped out when a certain condition was met in order to implement the right solution.

Nowadays, any teenager full of acne can start a social web site and code in a bunch of things off the top of his head (or rip off the code from his school project for profit), but if there is a crash, just file the memory dump and forget it.

Memory dump. Does anybody actually remember the days when UNDERSTANDING one was a requirement ?

OOXML marks the spot, says research firm

Chalk up another phony "think tank"

So, Steve "Blowhard" Ballmer has finally wizened up to the fact that everybody knows the Alexis de Toqueville Institute is a just a front for Microsoft opinions, and he decided to change source ?

No problem. Ladies and Gentlemen, we hereby welcome the Burton Group into the very special and select group of Translators of Microsoft Opinions And Reality Be Damned.

Congratulations, Burton Group. You have just destroyed whatever credibility you might have had.

Messenger reveals Mercury's hidden side

A long time ago

A married couple worked hard and put their lives on the line to discover Radium, irradiation and how to detect it. The work of Pierre and Marie Curie ultimately led to X-ray machines, and founded the first stepping stone to what is nowadays nuclear power plants.

At the beginning of their research, not many people were interested. For years their "research" was done in an unused hangar, with a bare minimum in material. But their discovery and the conclusions it yielded were hailed as a great achievement. No one could have guessed it when they started.

If the director of the university where Pierre and Marie Curie worked had decided to forbid their research (and supposing the couple abided by that decision), we just might be still using candlelight today, and nobody would have computers of any kind.

Space research is the same thing. It's long, it's expensive, and Joe Public sees no use for it. But that same Joe Public just might, one day, be able to set foot on other planets because of it. If that is just remotely possible, I say today's research is money well spent.

FDA approves cloned animal products

Cloning clones

This mania we have of trying to keep "perfect" examples of something is not going to be good in the long run. Insisting on implementing genetic traits that never were part of the species' gene pool is most likely to land us in a heap of trouble somewhere down the line.

So now we're going to have penicillin-producing, medicinal drug-dispensing lamb chops ? Somehow I have the inkling that all this perfection is going to be the death of us.

US boffins create darkest material ever

Stealth ?

As in night camo suits ? Just wondering, but if this is really that black, then being a nice gaping black hole under the moon is not exactly what I would call stealthy.

On the other hand, it could be a very good coating for weapons - keep moonshine or streetlight from gleaming on the barrels.

FBI to get UK biometric database hookup?

Anyone can be taken from any country without due process at any time

Isn't that already existing under a different name ? It's called 'kidnapping', I believe. I doubt any country would take kindly to disappearing citizens.

Military industrial complex aims to revamp email

I can't wait

for the hack of the central key database purloining millions of keys. After all, they're supposed to be public keys, aren't they ?

And when all those public keys have been purloined and we find out that they are but 64-bit RCS keys (that take about a day to crack nowadays), what then ?

After all, the military doesn't really have a stellar record in web security on sites that are not supposed to be open to the public, and unless the central key storage is on some platform that is inherently secure (nothing Microsoft then), it'll be a prime target for spammers all over the world.

Price war looms in corporate 100Mb market

£800 a month ?!

Remind me again what kind of bandwidth they have in Taiwan and for how much ?

Microsoft develops 'intelligent' shopping trolley

Will be ignored by most

People are probably going to give it a try at the beginning, but I don't see this working for long.

Supermarkets change aisle content on purpose to keep consumers from acquiring movement habits and force them to see new products, lose their bearings and search through aisles to find what they want.

A gadget that'll tell people where to go is going to defeat this tactic in part.

Plus the references must be maintained - which will probably be a major hassle.

To me this is another solution in search of a problem. If I really need to know where a product is, I just ask an employee or the desk. No need for an expensive flatscreen that will probably be broken more often than not.

Scarlett Johansson to play Courtney Love?

I just can't wait for it

Really. I'm as excited about this film as I am about a documentary on the love life of cockroaches.

Besides, nobody is going to make me believe she will include as many arrests in the film as she got in real life. That would make the film run for 10 hours.

Then again, she's addled enough to think 10 hours on her sad life is just what people want.

Brighton professor bans Google

Not actually the right solution

While it is par for the course for a teacher to expect, and even impose, references from the material said teacher gives to the students, I do not think a blanket ban is the right answer.

The proper way to approach the issue would be to teach students a strange and alien concept : "critical thought". This concept is quite radical and extremely difficult to grasp, and I therefor understand that, in search of efficiency, the professor resorted to a simple ban.

But Google itself is not a bad tool, just as Wackypedia is actually an interesting resource in some domains - as long as you are wary of what you read.

Then again, students will always be students. Why read a long, boring, technical book when you can get results with a 5-minute search ?

I think Google needs a Schoogle section, where it scans school books and makes searches only on the contents of those books. Larry ? Sergey ? That'll be just $50 million - by check please.

Latest Vista SP1 tweak open to everyone with a week to spare

Re: I dunno why

Gosh, you're right. After all, reading about embedded DRM, increased nannying and scores of functionality being ripped out is no reason to not want to play with the product, is it ? And 20 different license versions is absolutely not a reason to complain, hmm ?

Because, really, if you're told that a new product will OBJECTIVELY decide that you cannot read a DVD without even asking your opinion, well it's not a problem, now is it ?

Absolutely not. Now why don't you go and play some more with the nice man in the white coat ? He has some ice cream for you and he'll take you to the park, promise.

Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo spiel spied on web?

Frankly obvious

A blog claiming WackyPedia as source ? It has got to be true !

Yeah, right. And I'm King Tut.

Bjork lays into NZ snapper

It's all quite confusing

Reading just the comments here it seems that the same guy who took the pics is sometimes a "journalist" and sometimes a "papparazzi".

Now I despise paparazzi as much as any other human being that is not a celebrity does, but hey, if he's a journo then it's not the same thing. I give much more credit to journos than to papzs (actually, I give journos some, papzs none), so I really would like to know. Was the photographer a journo from a respectable journal doing his job in a professional manner ? Or was he a piece of slime out for some celeb shot ? Or was he some piece of slime trying to pass off as a journalist ?

I think that a real journalist does not take pictures if he is asked not to. So that would make the guy a papz. If so, I'm not really sorry for him.

But still, I think events like this are going to be fewer are far between as the word gets around in the photographic circles : Björk is a no-no ! Wherever she is, whatever she is doing !

What will be funny is the day she actually wants her picture taken (like for PR-related business, album launch, whatever) and, in protest, nobody takes one.

Immigrant ID cards and border checks slip towards 2009

2,000 colleges, 256 inspected, 124 bogus ?

For Heaven's sake that's almost 50% !!

Of course, nothing has been said about how the inspections were conducted and on what criteria the colleges were chosen for inspection, nor of the time span of the inspection period (is that 256 inspections in three months ? Six years ? A decade ?). It could be that the inspections were made on "suspicious" colleges only, in which case it would be a great demonstration of fine-tuned sleuthing and well-placed administrative effort.

Nah, can't be.

But if it's random inspections, then it's high time to put an end to student visas !

This does beg the question, though : why aren't colleges inspected BEFORE they are allowed to submit requests for visas ?

California to snatch control of citizens' air-con

Typical political solution

So there is a supply problem, that much is proven. What's really funny is that, instead of increasing supply, or improving the infrastructure, the decision taken is to try and limit demand with Soviet-style management.

As France has proved in the heat waves a few years ago now, old people have just as much trouble coping with heat than they do with cold. I do not see anywhere in that bill that the age of the occupant is going to be taken into account in the remote temperature-control procedure. So that has to mean that, if this wacky scheme is ever actually put in place, the day the utility company dials down the air-con to have demand meet supply, old people will be dropping of dehydration like flies above a vinegar jar.

And if it can be proven that the utility company is responsible for dialing down the cooling and thus causing mass manslaughter, the mayhem in court that will follow will make Enron look like harmonious picnic.

Now, I'm not against Americans learning to curb their outrageous level of resource wastage, but there are other means of doing so than by putting lives at risk. Increasing the cost of electricity is certainly one idea. If people still keep windows open while the aircon is active, then electricity is still not expensive enough.

But I do think that, in this particular case, the utility companies are at least partly to blame for the shameful lack of supply. In the richest state of the most powerful country of the world, a brownout is certainly not something to be proud of.

Wikia unsheathes antidote to 'unhealthy' Google

taken round the back and quietly shot

No, no. It needs to be taken round the back and very noisily shot with hundreds of rounds of very high explosives.

Former beauty queen cuffed for torturing ex

Not the most savory individual

Oh well then, 10 hours of torture and death threats is fine then, right ?

One thing's for sure though : Ms Fulbright is indeed going to become a promising law student - she's going to have an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of a prison.

There aren't enough lawyers that have that knowledge.

Microsoft readies Hal 9000

What's the problem, people ?

After all, it'll only work under Vista, of course, which no corporation in its right mind is using anyway.

Besides, it's a Microsoft product, meaning it will be so buggy and make everything else crash so often Helpdesk people will suffer extreme depression every Monday morning.

The network will be bogged down in "phone-home" requests, the phone system will be overloaded by people trying to contact the Helpdesk, reschedule appointments and call the medics.

Frankly, I can't see this new gadget surviving any longer than Bob did, and Bob hardly had the amount of possible anti-constitutional lawsuits that this thing does.

First Vista, now this. I wonder if Ballmer isn't actually trying to run Microsoft to the ground ?

Google researcher calls for Flash flush

Can't stand Flash

I do not criticize the format itself, some good things have been done with it. What I do criticize is the tendency that much too many sites have to manage everything in a single Flash applet.

Useless, annoying, bandwidth-killing and destroyer of HTML links.

Whenever I stumble across a site that is Flash only, I quickly go away and hopefully never return.

Sears admits to joining spyware biz

a Sears vice president vigorously defends the practice

One question : would he still "vigorously defend the practice" if he were strapped to a tree and threatened with a hundred lashes ?

I think we should give it a try. Bring back corporal punishment for white-collar crime !

Thom Yorke dismisses net-only album paradigm

I don't know Radiohead

So I cannot comment on whether they are good or not, but in my view it doesn't even matter. What matters to me is that they have demonstrated publicly that selling an album online without getting shafted by "the majors" is possible and economically feasible, and for that I thank them.

The more artists stay away from RIAA and consorts, the quicker that ugly, greedy, corporate malfeasant will hopefully die off and leave us alone with the music we love.

I prefer a million Radioheads to one RIAA.

Microsoft warns on Home Server bug

Microsoft is, always was and always will be crap

I've been a Microsoft user since the days of DOS 1.0, and no one (especially not a certain Hewitt) will ever convince me that MS does not make crap products.

The only reason I continue to use the crap that comes out of Ballmer's domain is because I have to.

Why do I have to ? Because my work is centered around it, my hobby is centered around it, and finally, I am wayyyy to lazy to be my own personal Sysadmin at home.

To those who continually chip in their inevitable "Linux is better !" comments, I say call me when Linux can run the 250+ games I have bought without any hassle for me (I'll start listening when Linux gets a DirectX version).

So there you have it. I'm a developer by day, and a gamer on my free time. I have done all desktop OSes MS has ever made, and none of them has been the perfect, stable and discreet OS that I expected. Of all the versions MS has made, I must say that XP Pro SP1 is by far the best of the lot - even with all its shortcomings.

So when MS talks about Home Server, or Vista whatever, I just laugh and forget about it. MS handling my data ? One look at the history of its backup programs and you forget that idea. I do my backups myself, thank you, with Nero and a blank DVD. Works fine and MS can't screw it up, not today, not tomorrow either.

You want a data hub ? Get a NAS unit (working under a Linux kernel). You want a server ? Either Linux, Sun or IBM are your only choices, anything else will only bring pain in the long run. MS is only still around because of the immense software library that was made for it - and with Vista, MS is actively trying to kill that off.

The day any game I buy can run on a Linux box, Windows will be sailing out my window for good. Meanwhile, I'll stick with it, but don't ever ask me to trust it.

Portuguese-speaking worm attacks Google Orkut users

Within hours . .

Hey, Microsoft ! Did you read that ? The hole was patched WITHIN HOURS.

Not years, not months, not even days.

Does that mean ANYTHING to you, Steve ?

Gates' spontaneity highlights IE data gap

Will it comply with web standards?

Wrong question. The real question is : Will it comply with non-Microsoft web standards?

Serena promises dev teams shorter hours

What a great idea !

No, seriously, from a business point of view this has to be great.

Sell a product that allows the management, who has no technical know-how whatsoever, to define their own security rules and object definitions.

And who, in management, is going to actually, you know, READ THE MANUAL ? Who is going to take the time needed to implement a test environment ? How many suits are going to worry about side effects before going in and implementing their latest brainstorm in production ?

The management is going to love it, fiddle around with it, and - most importantly - continually break everything. And when something is broken, what will management do ? Ring IT, of course, and issue a terse "fix it !" command because, you know, this thing has to work RIGHT THIS INSTANT.

And IT will slave away at the trash that the managers put in until it's fixed, get no thanks at all for their efforts and just pray that those suits won't break the thing again in the next five minutes.

I think we've got a winner here !

Software maker releases the hounds on security vuln reporter

"every effort to nicely ask"

Yeah, that sounds really credible.

A bit like a scene from a cop story where the bad guy has just broken every finger in the cops' hand, then sits down in front of the pain-blinded victim, pulls out a gun, puts it to the guys' head and says : "okay, I'll ask you nicely : where did you put the advisory ?".

In any case, I've just added one more company to my list of who-not-to-deal-with. Thanks for the warning, Autonomy !

Microsoft releases battling OS release candidates

@Mark

"the two products share a source code tree"

Beyond my first reaction (uh, duh !), I must admit that I am a bit skeptical about the claim that "the server group generally keep more or less on track". If the source code tree changes, then the server group is stuffed and the keeping on track is likely to be rather less than more.

But nonwithstanding the on-trackiness of the server group, what I conclude from your rabid defense of this pile of turkey doo is that, if I should get a lobotomy and actually want to try something named Vista, I should actually try the server version.

Hmm. That could be feasible actually, at the condition that the server version forgoes the embedded DRM and useless and annoying UAC. I would guess that, for a server version, speed in copying files is of the essence, and a UAC popup kind of defeats the use of server in the first place.

So it's nice to know that the day I lose my brain I'll still have something to play with. Meanwhile, I'll stick with XP if you don't mind.

Well actually, I'll stick with XP whether you mind or not.

Phone phreaks spoof LSD-induced multiple homicide

And they find that funny ?

What if some innocent person had gotten shot during one of these "pranks" ? It would be entirely possible, I think.

You really have to be a moron to get your laughs out of launching the cops on some innocent person. I would think that, should the cops burst down the door of these sad pranksters in the middle of the night and come in weapons ready, these losers wouldn't find it so funny.

They'd probably crap their pajamas.

I hope they get the maximum. Such behavior is beyond despicable.

Facebook CEO capitulates (again) on Beacon

@Christopher Martin

"you don't need social networking websites to destroy your own privacy"

True, but thanks to social networking websites you can now destroy your privacy in view of the entire wired world. You can make yourself so ridiculous you will be instantly recognized from Alabama to Tokyo via Berlin and Cape Town, and that reputation will follow you until you see a plastic surgeon to change your face.

Before, you could make yourself the village idiot, but if the situation became intolerable you could pack and move to another village and start with a clean slate.

With the Internet, YouTube and the rest, if ever anything ridiculous gets posted about you, it is likely to be there for the rest of your life - and wherever you are, someone will find it sooner or later.

I'm guessing that that'll get real annoying in the long run.