* Posts by Ishkandar

603 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2007

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Pro-Tibet rootkit Trojan poses as cartoon

Ishkandar

@Andy Gates

That's the typical retard, knee-jerk reaction of the ban-everything brigade !!

Who cares about facts !! You are guilty until proven innocent !! Kill them all and let God sort out the good ones !!

And they have the cheek to point fingers at the Talaban !!

Perhaps this is *exactly* what those malware producers were after !! Retards with knee-jerk reactions !!

Japanese geeks offered smaller-than-Eee little laptop

Ishkandar

@Joe Stalin

Dear Uncle Joe, EVERYTHING in Japan is more expensive than anywhere else, even Japanese made products. So the Japanese price is merely a guide to the actual price elsewhere. Try to get the HK or Singapore price. That will be more realistic !!

Downing Street removes Labour Party link

Ishkandar
Thumb Up

Yet another example of Bullshit Baffles Brains !!

Some spin doctor must have heard that having links on a web page can lead to all kinds of "good things" so he decreed that there should be one in the Downing Street web page and, Lo and Behold, it was so !! Of course, they ignored such inconvenient facts as that such a biased link is not allowed by law unless there are links to all the other parties' website too !!

Now that the link is removed, and like all good(?) spin doctors, they'll tell you that there was no such link and that it's all in your imagination and that, even if there was, it was for the sake of national security or some such tosh !!

Icon because that's what they'll do to your rear !!

New York lawmakers approve 'Amazon Tax'

Ishkandar

@AC @ max allan

You can buy the same (right-hand drive) car from a Belgium dealer, pay Belgium taxes and drive it back to UK for LOTS less than buying the same car in the UK and it's all LEGAL !! And it is still cheaper even if you throw in a one-way first-class Eurostar ticket, complete with free champagne all the way !! Been there, seen it, done it !!

I also get my brandy at source, tax-paid for one third what it costs in Blighty and ciggies cost less everywhere in the EU than in the UK !! A decent wine that cost bugger all in France cost 8 to 10 quid in a UK supermarket !!

That's why I am massively surprised that Eurostar do not advertise shop-till-you-drop for van+passenger(s) packages !! They'll make a mint doing that and actually perform a public service at the same time !!

Maybe the Canuckistanis could set up shop just across the national border with the US !! A very good business model !!

IT depts under threat as City braces for 20,000 job cuts

Ishkandar

@Stuart Boston

Not only Porsche but many other kinds of dealers as well !! Sad really, just when the Colombians were ramping up production of their marching powder, too !!

Ishkandar

@Richard

Bangalore, perhaps ??

@Big Dave - been there, seen it, done it and buggered off first chance I got !! Now I'm fairly stress-free !! :-)

IBM wants to get youngsters hooked on Power

Ishkandar

@Henry Cobb

They flogged that bit of business to Lenovo years ago !! In fact, all they had to do was to get rid of their corporate arrogance and they would have a ready-made market. Now, they have to(re-)create that market from scratch and the heavy iron mentality is still there !!

They still have this locking-in one-stop (IBM)shop attitude !! They still don't realise that people now want choices in what they want to run. This same arrogance has/had infected Microsoft and they will have similar problems !!

Story withdrawn

Ishkandar
Boffin

@Greg Fleming

Yes !! Have a look at the ex-Aeroflot Air hostesses !! Or, better yet, DON'T !!

Ishkandar

@Official fathers

...until the CSA (Child Support Agency) brigade gets on to you. They'll take you to the cleaners and THEN wring out what's left for any excuse at all !!

Scientist who named the black hole dies aged 96

Ishkandar

"black holes have no hair"

Please, no more hoary old jokes the begin with "Oh yes, they do....

BBC technology chief bounces on to Project Kangaroo

Ishkandar

@Steve

"I play a flat rate for my water connection and I can use as much as I want. Try again."

Well, that is actually the model that they are talking about. You pay £xxx per month for use of the line and if it goes over that usage, they'll charge you more. I believe you have not been keeping up with the news that told the rest of us how the "terrible" utilities are going to raise their "fixed" prices !

When the revolution comes, we'll drown the Thames Water management in their own by-products !! A slow and lingering death !! We'll even sell tickets to the public for a chance to add to the by-products !!

Database Trojan infests pro-Tibet websites

Ishkandar

Free Tibet !!

With every packet of cornflakes !! Or any other kind of flakes, too !!

What gets me is when Buddhist monks go on a peaceful protest in Burma (Myammar), they get bashed up and arrested and the Western governments just say, "Tut, tut !" and carry on syphoning out their oil.

Tibetan monks go on a rampage and an orgy of destruction and murder and the "War on Terror" brigade cheer them on !!

Something does not compute, Captain !!

Swedish lag's wooden todgers fail to impress

Ishkandar
Boffin

@GrahamT

I think it was for putting intricately carved wooden Euros into the pay-as-you-watch porno machines !!

The missing five-minute Linux manual for morons

Ishkandar

@Olli Männistö

You WIMP !! VI works perfectly on my VT100 RIGHT NOW !! Millions of lines of code have been written using vi after the consumption of 10s of millions of cups of coffee and 100s of millions of cigarettes and millions of sp......never mind... !!

Aaaagh !! You kids know nothing about the glorious days of computing !! Now, it's all WIMPy stuff !!

REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T NEED "HELP" BUTTONS !!

Stob, you lay off with them nasty cracks about Word !! Many's the day (and night) that I have slaved over a Word document that was need like yesterday and to be printed on an RX-80 which sounded like WW3 just started 6 inches from my ear !!

US will sky spy-sat to eye spy-sats

Ishkandar

@Michael

Excuse me ?? The management of Arianne are "good buddies" of the US ?? Even after they called the cheese-eating surrender-monkeys and renamed a certain potato chips Freedom Fries ??

Anyway, I wish they do this more often. Then they might actually disappear up their own orifice !!

IBM hopes to patent 'dealing with chaos'

Ishkandar

So where were they....

... when Katrina struck ??

>>With a US patent application just released to the public and turned up by Techdirt, Big Blue seeks exclusive rights to a "system and method for optimizing the selection, verification, and deployment of expert resources in a time of chaos."<<

Selection: It's a hurricane

Verification:: It's blowing straight into our f***ing faces !!

Deployment of expert resources: Where are the f***ing pumps ?? We are up to our necks in shitty water already !! Can't they find even one fireman ??

Response: Glug, glug, glug !!

Meanwhile, back at the back, the computer keeps looping and looping and....

Ishkandar
Black Helicopters

Procedure 802 - detect chaotic event

How does the computer know what *IS* a chaotic event ?? Does a traffic jam count ?? A Tunguska-type meteor strike ?? The president gone mad ?? IBM issuing plain English statements ??

Google and Yahoo! skewer anti-DoubleClick law

Ishkandar

If the situation is so bad...

...why didn't he make it a Federal issue instead of a State one ?? If he knows that the law(?) can be slapped down by Uncle Sammy, why did he still want it ?? If he did not, then why is he still an assemblyman ??

HP goes bundle mad with quicker HP-UX

Ishkandar

@Mark Honman

Alpha is not dead yet. It just morphed into Windows NT !! You also forgot about AIX and those magnificent Mammoth tape drives that refused to read back what you just wrote with them !!

Aah, trips down memory lane; some good, some bad !! I remember well my first "bought" computer - TRS80 Model 1 Level 2 - what a moniker !!

And please don't mention HA to me. My experiences with the early HA (High Availability ?? Hah !!) machines were painful in the extreme. And it was made more painful by the management insisting on clustering the bastards !! 4.00 am support calls are NOT conducive to good, even temper, you can take my word on this !! My linguistic abilities expanded in direct proportion to the number of such calls !!

HP3000s - Aah, serious heavy iron but reliable !!

No sense of humour? Avoid Bootnotes

Ishkandar
Alien

@Lester Haines

Sir,

In addition to all of the above, your punctuation is abominable ! May I recommend Linda Truss's book - Eats, shoots and leaves !! As a punishment, you WILL punctuate this -

woman without her man is lost

Willie Ap Uranus

US war robots in Iraq 'turned guns' on fleshy comrades

Ishkandar

Aw, shame !!

They should have given that machine a fair go at shooting someone. After all, their fleshy comrades are always into friendly fire incidences !!

'Jisus' Eee-alike sub-notebook to use Chinese Atom-smasher

Ishkandar

For those who miss the advert for Eee...

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/entertainment/2008-03/21/content_6555901.htm

Here's something rather similar !! Enjoy !!

World Bank chief: Ethanol cars run on human misery

Ishkandar

@A J Stiles

True but since those methods are uneconomical, the "big companies" wouldn't bother and it's back to ethanol and the starving millions !!

@Pierre - that's because the World Bank is an American-run organisation that is for the benefit of the Americans. It is better to take a look at what the Asian Development Bank, the African Bank and, now, the Latino Bank are doing !! Starved peons cannot work hard for their multi-national massas !!

@Oxfam can go fish - Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll sit on the river bank, drinking beer all day !! :-)

Top-end Fords will be watching your rear

Ishkandar
Flame

Just the thing you need...

...to distract you in heavy traffic. If you cannot use the rear and wing mirrors properly, you should NOT be driving !!

@Carl - better yet, Ford should stop selling gas-guzzlers !! That should reduce the number of large (over-sized) vehicles on the road and let the little nippier (pun intended) ones to run around in greater safety !!

Met police plans to track cops by GPS

Ishkandar

Oh ! Oh !

No more "investigating of suspects" in the local or the nearest burger bar !! And, God forbid, that a PC and a WPC should be...err...stationary in one place for more than 10 minutes !!

Local council uses snooping laws to spy on three-year-old

Ishkandar

@Iain

As "Silas" said above, a simple check on the council tax records should show who actually lives there !! These council mandarins use this method simply because it is there and they can use it and they are too lazy to stir their lard-arses to do any checking of records themselves !!

Having said that, I heard of a house that was an address to more than ten kids of the same age applying to go to a school that is highly sought after !! So far, I have not heard of dectuplets from FOUR different races yet !!

Billy Bragg: Why should songwriters starve so others get rich?

Ishkandar
Flame

@Hollerith

Therein lies the twist !! On the one hand, the websites say that songs are intangible and therefore shouldn't be paid for. And on the other hand, they insist that their "publicity" is a tangible thing and therefore should be paid for !! HUH ???

Is it just me or can anyone else see the *big lie* in their argument ??

The same applies to software (and novels/books and poems and any other intellectual products) !!

Ishkandar
Flame

Lessig's book

I wonder what will happen if someone scanned the whole of Lessig's book on copyright and put it up for free downloading on the web ??

Would he say, "Wow !! A proof of my concept !!" or would he come charging at you with a battailion of lawyers ??

Ishkandar
Flame

@Stop sayings it like stealing stuff!!

The songwriter and/or the performer have sweated blood to get the song/tune right so that we can enjoy it. THAT effort should be rewarded. Anything else is theft !! If that anonymous *COWARD* was forced to work for no payment, he, too, would not be a happy chappy !!

Web 2.0 sites are just parasites trying to get something for nothing; sucking the lifeblood out of the truly creative people. What have these parasites done or produced to deserve any payment ?? If you look at the roll call of dishonour of the Web guys you'll find the lowest of the low lives who exist below the belly of the worm that crawls upon the ground !!

To call them prostitutes is to insult prostitution; which can be an honourable profession !!

/END RANT

Biologists track down elusive lungless frog

Ishkandar

@Mike Richards

No chance !! Some local bastards nicked all the gold and left a mess behind them, as per usual !! Say so in the article !!

Japan turning itself into Cyberman machine civilisation

Ishkandar

WHAT ??

I thought that they are already ALL robots NOW !!

Boffins build safer, more capacious lithium-ion battery

Ishkandar
Boffin

What's in a name...

How about LiMaNiCoO - pronounces Lima-Ni-Coo ?? Lots easier than Coca-Cola !!

Sony Ericsson Walkman W380i budget music phone

Ishkandar

Fits my two main requirements

A phone that plays music or a music player that allows me to make phone calls. Texting is NOT needed. If I want to take pictures, I'll use my 2000 quid digital camera !!

The battery doesn't look sufficient for a long haul flight but then that's what fully-charged-up spare batteries are for !! The removable media allows more music choices than a large bunch of CDs !!

And...The Price is Right !! :-)

Sales slide at PC World, Currys

Ishkandar

@JW

How dare you challenge someone to a "battle of wits" when you know damn well that they are unarmed ?? Shame on you, sir, for teasing dumb animals !! You could be reported to the RSPCA !!

@Nick Palmer - Of course they are !! After all, the pyramids have only been around for about 6000 years !!

BTW I buy from Maplin since I don't need any "service" or "advice" and I build my kits rather than buy them whole !!

Sony bullish on Blu-ray dominance

Ishkandar

Blu-Ray market share

There will be no major market share changes unless the Chinese disks producers are in on the act. For now, they are staying away from the HD battle zone. When the dust has settled and Sony is willing to negotiate for a reasonable royalties with the Chinese, the disks price will stay prohibitively high and, thus, crippling sales.

Hackers target outsourced app development

Ishkandar

@James

"Best way, is to create a very good, small development team in-house and pay them what they are worth. This should usually be on a par with the directors and board members!!"

This will only happen when the Moon is in the 7th House and Jupiter aligns with Mars and peace will guide the planets and love will fill the stars !!

@Steve - >in a large company, at any one time, at least 25% of the staff are fixing problems caused by "the boss"< - The same could be said about an incompetent in-house IT team !!

@Rob Briggs - they expect a transference of guilt !! So when the manure meets the rotating object, they can "honestly" say they didn't do the IT !!

@Highlander - even worse, the outsourcing company can hire temps/contract staff that screws up the security and then run to their competitor with the info on the buggered security system !!

Yahoo! to Microsoft: No surrender!

Ishkandar

@Daniel B.

While I agree with your sentiments, I disagree with your assessment that Capitalism isn't working. Most properly run capitalism *IS* working !! It is only rampant mad-dog American-style capitalism that isn't working.

There are millions of companies that are owned by families or groups of friends and have only sold or disposed of a minor part of their capital in the open market. These companies are rather harder to "takeover", hostile or otherwise without a very, very good offer. If there is one, the shareholders cry all the way to the bank !!

American-style capitalism is where the majority of the shares are sold and the founders pocket the proceeds of the sale but still keep the management of the company and run it as though they still own all of it. In the event of a hostile takeover, the side with the most votes (directly owned or persuaded/coerced into supporting them) will win the fight handily; unless the relevant government steps in and declares that the sale was against national interest. This is known as protectionism. America, the self-proclaimed champion of free trade, is the *MOST* protectionist country in the capitalist world !!

Once a company has been taken over, the new owners do not have any duty to the consumers other than to provide a merchantable product(s), even though the previous owners owe the consumers a debt of honour for believing in them and their company and their product(s).

BTW, if you think a company owes its consumers a metaphysical "debt", then should not the consumers owe the same "debt" to the company and rally round to support it in its time(s) of need, even to the extent of putting their hands into their pockets and stumping out hard cash to save the company ?? A "debt" of care cuts both ways, you know !! When was the last time you tried to save a failing company that made a product that you liked ??

Ishkandar
Boffin

@Richard

M$ Said: "It is unfortunate that by choosing not to enter into substantive negotiations with us, you have failed to give due consideration to a transaction that has tremendous benefits for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees."

This sounds eerily similar to Hitler's "offer" to the Czechs for Sudetenland !! I believe it was loosely translated as "Accept our offer or we'll invade you !!" Does anyone know if Steve Ballmer has a black toothbrush stuck to his upper lip ??

Ishkandar

@P Henry

"From a practical standpoint however, something is missing." - Yes, it is called customer loyalty !! Why should the company worry about the customers when the customers can hop off next door to buy something for a penny cheaper !! This is the result of rampant American-style consumerism. Gone are the days when the retailer and the customers knew and trusted each other personally !!

If you want the right to a wide choice of goods, then do not expect the providers of those goods to care for you. If you want sup with the devil, be prepared to sup with a long spoon !! The road to hell is paved with "one time only special offers" !!

Ishkandar

@Herby

Did you get this from "A Band of Brothers" or "The Battle of the Bulge" ?? :-)

HSBC pops thousands of customer details in the post

Ishkandar

@Mike

Don't be silly !! MPs don't put in expense claim documents. They claim whatever they feel like as a God-given right !!

@Jon - I think you missed a very important bit of data on the life insurance policy document - State of health !! It's no good insuring a non-smoker if he's lying on his death-bed in a hospital dying of terminal prostate cancer !!

So what could the MoD learn from the Stasi?

Ishkandar

The MoD could learn from the Stazi...

...how *not* to lose laptops in taxis and underground trains for a start !!

NZ man uses hedgehog as ninja star

Ishkandar
Joke

@well, Terry Pratchett was wrong AC

Actually, he's a masochist....muttered something through his teeth about "no pleasure without pain..."

Brown ignores scientists and pushes pot reclassification

Ishkandar

@Geoff Mitchell

The government will export (oops, I mean transport) them to third world countries where they can get far better quality stuff for pennies !!

While I,m not keen on that stuff, I'm totally against thoughtless legislation that have to be undone when the manure meets the rotating object BIG TIME !!

Boffinry bigwig puts another boot into biofuels

Ishkandar

@Jerry

Mine's a large merc and I can get 4 to 5 very nice pussies in it, thank you !!

Gone

Ishkandar

Woodstock ???

If you remember it, you weren't there !!

Rogue trader sues SocGen for unfair dismissal

Ishkandar

@Sascha Zierfuss

Excuse me, but his job is as a *TRADER* !! His "crime" is not that he should or should not have *traded* but that he traded way over the limits imposed on him !! When he was making money, the management were quietly pocketing their bonuses. When the times got hard, they panicked and forced the unwinding of the trades he had done at an extremely bearish time !! *THAT* caused the losses !! If they had kept their nerve and hung on, they may have have ridden out these bearish times and the trades may have been fine.

I strongly that SocGen had (and still have) troubles elsewhere within the bank and they are using this poor sod as the scapegoat for their sins !! I support his suing the pantalon off them, if only to expose the sins they were trying to sweep under the carpet !!

Jules Verne mates with ISS

Ishkandar

@Adam

Arianes do *NOT* blow up at the launch pad. They blow up after launch especially when they get the software in the wrong way round.

*Images of a Journey to the Centre of the Earth springs to mind*

Thailand cracks down on cut-price castrations

Ishkandar

Snippets from the East

It's all to do with the market for fat, hairy balding Western blokes that think it is a great blast to go with a feminine character who *cannot* get preggers (and, thereby, make parentage demands on them) !! Despite the fact that Thailand is a major producer of rubber, not much seemed to be used locally !!

Another reason for under-age castration is that the castratee will *not* develop an Adam's apple ( a dead give-away for the older ones ). There are many books and papers written about this subject if you but seek them !!

US teen cuffed for disposable camera 'Taser'

Ishkandar

@Steve

Have you finally realised that Americans cannot speak English !! They speak some kind of gibberish called "American" !!

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