Posts by BossHog

No refunds for ID card pioneers

Boohoo

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Clegg promises liberties restoration

Fair dinkum

I don't think Thatcher and Major were ever quite so bad from a civil liberties perspective -- I mean, at least Maggie bust Argy chops fighting for British Liberty in the Falkland Outpost.

That said, I am 5 years younger than you, so the reigns of Mrs "Get some Nuts" T and John "Peas be with You" Major are all mixed up in a haze of Transformers, Boglins, and Hero Turtles...

Yes..

You have just woken from a 13-year nightmare.. never forget this day! ;)

Turk unwraps doner kebab robot

Doner card..

....which it caused.

DIMENSIONAL PORTAL INCURSION AT THE LHC!

Drink?

LOL - don't encourage them!

Foolish to attack Switzerland!

That little country is armed to the teeth!

That said, wasn't the last assault on Humanity launched against the formidable might of Victorian England? On foolhardy martians would mess with Steampunk Wokingites packing pre-Edwardian bio weapons!

Drought effect on rainforests is negligible

Yeah!

Toads are awesome.

Northerners give up ID cards for Lent figures suggest

Nothing to hide....

All the non-crooks have got their cards then :D

Arab conned into marrying bearded lady

Brraaaanndddyyy!

Caroline of Brunswick.

Stargazers spy super-Earth waterworld

I for one...

I, for one, welcome our new ... er .. steamed fish overlords.

Footie fans flock to clock 'Miss of the Century'

LOL!

LOL!

Acer embiggens server and storage range

In the current market...

... this is a cromulent strategy.

IBM lab builds computerized cat brain

Num nums

"*Yes, but can it love!?"

It loves tuna.

Microsoft warns of 'irreparable harm' on court's Word injunction

Software patents are rubbish

Software patents are rubbish. Imagine if C. A. R. Hoare had been allowed to patent quicksort, and we were all stuck using bubble-sort, unless we paid him a licence fee. Even in a small program, the number of royalties and licence fees needed would soon get silly .. and if you used the Java lang libraries, good luck there. Oh my god, I used the "?:" operator... better send some cash to Dr Richards.

A very good friend of mine, who is a patent attorney, tells me that you cannot patent laws of nature, or discoveries, only inventions. However, I get the impression that most people are dense enough about software and computing to not know the difference.

For example, quicksort would probably have been given a patent, even though it is a really just one formalisation of the fastest way to sort a list, which is a natural limit - it is (debatably) a discovery from nature.

Generally "patents" == "big money for the big guys", though, so unfortunately I expect to see software patents becoming more prevalent rather than less. Oh my god, I used the "==" operator..... cash to K&R.

Labour MP quits over McKinnon extradition vote

Gah...

Now we have even fewer principled politicians!

Watchdog bites Mattesons saucy sausage ad

"The victorian era called"

Did they call on their Transchronomic Phonoreverberator?

"Root mean signal strength is down to 184 years; inform the engineer that we need more power!"

McKinnon faces final appeal against extradition

Not so complex...

Let me summarise:

a) Gary has committed a computer mis-use crime

b) He should therefore probably face *some* form of punishment

c) He has Aspergers, but this doesn't usually excuse criminal behaviour

However:

d) He is a British subject

e) He committed the crime on British soil

f) The Americans want to put him away for 40 years (or something daft)

To me, (f) is clearly disproportionate punishment, considering the facts of the case.

Therefore, (d) means we should attempt to protect him from this disproportionate punishment.

And (e) means that the entire justification for extradition seems a bit dodgy in the first place, and we should probably start to renegotiate this treaty.

On balance, we should politely decline to extradite, and assure the Americans we will take appropriate action for a crime committed under British jurisdiction. This would probably be a stiff fine, or a short stay in an open prison (preferably one without internet access!).

Airport ID cards only for the newbies

Moderatrix

Heh, the dangers of tabbed browsing - my previous comment was *supposed* to be on this El Reg story:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/03/royal_navy_vs_ufos/

Dear Beemeister, please feel free to FTFM.

3000rpm

You wouldn't want to fire that in your pocket.

Wiltshire welcomes clutch of Great Bustards

I, for one, welcome our new feathered overlords.

They look delicious!

Another 0.03% of Blighty goes wind powered

@max

"Windmills do not work that way! Goodnight!"

Vatican damns Angels and Demons as 'quite harmless'

Mostly Harmless?

Ah, "Mostly Harmless".... well we all have to start somewhere!

I've been playing since 1984 and I'm still only "Dangerous" :(

BOFH: Defiling the profile

Heh heh heh!

Terrific! Had me chuckling gleefully! Worryingly workable too!

Bletchley's Colossus makes beautiful music

Vote for Bletchley!

Vote for Bletchley as the building of which Britain is most proud.

http://www.buildingwithpride.co.uk/

Bletchley Park attracts £300k extra funding

Vote for Bletchley

Vote for Bletchley as the building of which Britain is most proud.

I presume they mean Hut 8 :)

http://www.buildingwithpride.co.uk/

Bletchley Park is da Bombe

Went there last weekend, and it was completely awesome! Standing in a room with the clattering Colossus made the hairs on my neck stand up. And that was just the static :) And I saw the Holy Grail of Computing, aka Turing's tea mug - still chained to a radiator in Hut 8!

They are desperately short of funding though - the peeling paint and boarded-up windows say it all. Another £10m could see the place as a fantastic interactive museum of computing, codebreaking, and military history - with the Enigma vs Bombe and Lorenz vs Colossus as the centre-pieces.

Plus for some reason they have a Harrier Jumpjet, which is just completely sweet.

Pilots boycott gov ID cards

@Am I the only one who wants a ID card?

Yes.

Unix world braces for geekgasm

@UTC == GMT

Quite. Everyone knows that Time is manufactured in Greenwich. It flows forth from the 1884 Transmagnetic Chronoelectromovitator mounted on top of Greenwich Hill, which is powered by two immense steam engines situated down on the Thames.

If you are running late for an appointment, simply ask the operator to place a call to the Greenwich Temporal Powerhouse, and request that they brake the flywheels for twenty minutes or so.

Brits find accommodation a little uncomfortable

Manouevre? Maneouvre? Manuoevre?

I always liked "manoeuvre" as a tough spelling.

Of course you'd have to be an "oeuf" not to have a mnemonic for it...

Cuba crafts extra-communist Linux distro

CubanOS

My 2 inter-pesos worth...

Norfolk town's schools first to be heated by burning cattle

Grey Squirrels

Problem solved.

Mayor Boris backs McKinnon in extradition fight

@@Ian

>> *best is contentious I know, no slight intended for all those MA(cantab) out there.

No offence taken!

Your points regarding Boris are spot on. Anyone who thinks he isn't bright probably isn't in a position to pass judgment!

BBC relives The Day of The Triffids

David Tennant?

What are the odds that it'll have David Bl**dy Tennant in it?

Rabbit murderer stalks Ruhr Valley

@ Louis

Chuckle! Gold star for the astute observation about Croydon.

NASA captures Martian avalanche

Gentlemen, to Mars!

Water, sunshine, far away from all this hideousness - when can we go?

Tiny, take-apart handset enters the record books

Want one!

Send it to meeee!

Brit firm levitates floating chair

Magnetic stripes...

Oh no - my ID card was in my pocket... :)

Brits split on ID cards

Re-posted from another article - but I'd be interested to know your thoughts

One question: When we eventually "apply" for our ID cards, how will they know that the identity information we provide is correct?

There are three possibilities:

1) They can't really check the identity info, in which case, surely we can all apply as "Gordon Brown" and see what happens...

2) They can check the info based on existing records, which raises the question of why we 'need' ID cards in the first place.

3) They don't care whether the information is correct, but whatever you send will become your new identity - there for tracking you from now on. This clearly signifies a shifting of the balance between subject and state. It also allows people to reinvent themselves (say, illegal immigrant to 3rd generation British subject).

Since (1) is completely pie-shop, and (3) raises far too many nasty questions, I am sure the Government would suggest (2) as the correct answer. The reasoning would be something like "currently it *can* be done, but it's complex and painful - this will make it much easier". To me, that isn't reason enough!

ID cards delayed until 2012

Thoughts

One question: When we eventually "apply" for our ID cards, how will they know that the identity information we provide is correct?

There are three possibilities:

1) They can't really check the identity info, in which case, surely we can all apply as "Gordon Brown" and see what happens...

2) They can check the info based on existing records, which raises the question of why we 'need' ID cards in the first place.

3) They don't care whether the information is correct, but whatever you send will become your new identity - there for tracking you from now on. This clearly signifies a shifting of the balance between subject and state. It also allows people to reinvent themselves (say, illegal immigrant to 3rd generation British subject).

Since (1) is completely pie-shop, and (3) raises far too many nasty questions, I am sure the Government would suggest (2) as the correct answer. The reasoning would be something like "currently it *can* be done, but it's complex and painful - this will make it much easier". To me, that isn't reason enough!

US Army proto-Dalek combat robots enter testing

IWOOT

RC flying combat droids - surely *the* present for xmas 2008?

Rubbish UK management crushing creativity

I hear you're having some trouble...

.. with your TPS reports. Didn't you get the memo?

The day Microsoft 'embraced and extended' Java

@shane fitzgerald

>> I'm still happy writing in 6502 assembler......

Good man! Let's go make some NES games :)

Nintendo kills Wii ads due to console shortage

Wii + GH3

I've got my Wii and Guitar Hero III - and it's completely awesome!

For those of you who can't get hold of one: come round, play guitar hero - we'll have some beers!

BOFH: Friday madness

It's 16:54

16:54 - come on baby, you can do it! A cold pint of London Porter awaits!

Nigerian keyboard firm sues One Laptop per Child

419 - I once got one which went (something) like this...

Dear SIR,

My name is Mbutu Mwezi, and I am the head of the Irish Football Association (IFA). As you will no doubt be aware from Sky News, several of our players were recently killed in a coach crash in Equitorial Guinea, whilst on their way to play against Guinea's reknowed international team. Despite missing our goalkeeper, full back, left winger, three strikers and a mascot, we still managed to triumph 11-0.

In honour of our fallen legends, the Equitorial Guinean Government agreed to pay compensation to their families, to the amount of USD$100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 [ONE HUNDRED MILLION BILLION BILLION BILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS], or approximately EUR11.45 [ELEVEN EUROES FORTY FIVE CENTS]. Unfortunately it transpires that all seven tragic individuals were childless Dublin orphans, grown up in the squalor of the fifties with no shoes, and not so much as a piece of coal to their name. And also there are no beneficiaries to speak of.

The FUNDS now currently reside in a suspense account in Malabo, in a little bank just off the main square, next to a cafe and a shop which sells string.

It is in the strictest confidence THAT I now tell you my plan. Since you share a surname with one of the deceased (O'Doherty - that's you, right?), it may be possible to make a claim using your details to recover the lost amount. If you are willing to assist me with this plan, you will be rewarded with 30% of the total AMOUNT.

I implore you to help me, in the memory of these noble souls who died doing what they loved best - drinking whiskey on a bus.

I await your response with badger-baited breath.

MBUTU MWEZI (Mrs)

Chairman

IRISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION

LONDON

Ireland

Huge sea scorpion overshadowed humans

@James Delaney

Mmm.. super scampi! Now the pertinent scientific questions are:

a) "Was it any good?"

b) "Is there any left?"

@Jonathan Richards... heheh! .. coat, surely?

Finally, they have discovered...

... what scampi is!

'I'll be back' is most-quoted movie line

"You always were an *sshole, Gorman!"

Not sure I'm impressed by this survey - some of these quotes are far too wordy to actually get used in conversation. It all seems a bit contrived. Also, what about:

"How do I get out of this chicken-sh*t outfit?" Aliens

"Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen!" Aliens

"Watch those corners!" Aliens

"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure" Aliens

"Get away from her you b*tch!" Aliens

"Not bad, for a human" Aliens

"It's game over, man, game over!" Aliens

"Ease down Ripley, you're just grinding metal." Aliens

"We're on a express elevator to hell.... going down" Aliens

"All I need to know, is where they are." Aliens

"What are we supposed to use, man, bad language?" Aliens

"A day in the corps is like a day on the farm!" Aliens

"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid" Aliens

"Hey, Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?" / "No. Have you?" Aliens

There are many more!

Paris Hilton exits missionary position to save Universe

"Paris Hilton leaves Rwanda; Hits Japan; Misses Universe."

Also, did anyone else misread a line in the article as the following:

"[PH] was airlifted yesterday into a media thong"

Nintendo to fire Wii Zapper into Europe for Xmas

Point Blank

All we need now is for someone to port Namco's awesome "Point Blank" (but not "Point Blank II" cos it was too hard! ;). Also a new version of NES Duck Hunt - preferably where you can shoot your pesky dog and, perhaps, hen harriers?

Only £20 too - good stuff. Along with Guitar Hero III, I reckon this will have Wii's flying off the shelves this Xmas!