Posts by Paul Fleetwood

'Non-compulsory' ID cards poised for a makeover?

I blame the unCivil Service in the Home Office

I suspect it's the Home Office mandarins who are the real driving force behind the whole ID card/database scheme, after all, while an ID card provides almost no benefits to the governed a complete database of all citizens makes managing a governing bureaucracy much easier.

Should that be the case I'd not be at all surprised to find a revised version of this policy coming from the Home Office regardless who happens to be, nominally, in power after the election

BNP membership list leaks online

@boltar, we can see you're trying to change the topic

Nobody would dispute Stalin was a bad man, most students of politics and history, regardless of their political leanings, would agree he was an evil despot; though the record is pretty clear that he was not a member of these leftist organisations you were comparing to the BNP..

Quite why you felt like bringing Hitler and Stalin into the discussion, unless it was that you were aware your first point was erroneous and you felt it needed distracting from, is most perplexing.

Labour minister says 14 year olds should get ID cards

re: Keith Oborn

I was just coming here to say the very same thing. My boss has a teenaged son of around that age, and they've given up trusting him with door keys as he was losing them on an almost weekly basis and were getting expensive to replace.

I hate to think how quickly kids would lose their ID cards and how much they'd cost to replace, which would mean that parents would be far from happy to allow their kids to take them out of the house, negating their value as ID fairly quickly

ELSPA chief lays into UK censor over games ratings

There's no point in games ratings

I was in Game as few weeks back and in front of me in the queue was a mother with her (I guess roughly) 12 year old son who was holding a copy of the new GTA.

When the member of staff pointed out that he wasn't able to sell the game to the child the mother said "It's OK, I'm buying it for him".

Not many kids have the spare £40 a pop games cost, so it really is the parents who are making the buying decisions, and if they aren't willing to believe the ratings are there for a purpose then the whole system becomes pointless.

Adobe yanks speech exposing critical 'clickjacking' vulns

Does this mean everyone should install NoScript for the time being, at least?

Even though it does sort of ruin the internet?

Orange can't find BlackBerry maps

re Mr Johnson

this is what worked for me

http://www.blackberryforums.com/gps-mapping/91383-how-get-bbmaps-show-my-blackberry.html

I found the same problem when I got my blackberry

I was livid as I only went for that phone because it had the GPS feature enabled, and was very close to sending it back and cancelling my contract.

thankfully I tracked down a solution which involves editing a configuration file and removing an entry which lists orange and a number of US carriers which block certain applications so they can sell them and then it works fine

Southeast London is card fraud cesspool

you could have got away without using the words 'card fraud' in the headline

and it would have been fair

Google's Street View spycar clocked in London

so that's what that was

I saw it last week in South London, and couldn't work out what the hell the device stuck to the cars roof was for.

UK abandons train and tube scanners

Crikey

Let us all marvel for a moment that sense has taken hold of the government and a stupid idea has been abandoned.

I'd love to believe that this was the beginning of a trend where pointless "security" measures that will provide no protection but needlessly infringe upon people's lives are abandoned, but this governments track record of trashing my optimism is a long one.

Angry? Try the Tw*t-O-Tron

to the A C who posted the euphemism generator

Cheers, I've now wasted ages repeatedly refreshing my browser and sniggering

BBC's Today Programme shutters message board

Have your say is remarkable

if you want to identify all members of the provisional wing of the Daily Mail, it's the place to go

I do worry that the questions they ask of the public are a bit inflammatory, they seem to be along the lines of "Thieving Gypsies: what are your unfounded prejudices?"

Boris Johnson bans boozing on London transport

a daft policy clearly dreamt up by someone who doesn't use public transport

it's pretty clear what's going to happen here: people on their way home from work having a quiet beer on their journey are going to get hassled by busy body members of the public and the braver members of staff, whilst the seriously drunk and intimidating people will be left to it, as nobody will want the grief of getting involved.

If he wanted to improve people's experience of public transport a large scale campaign to remove people who play tinny music out of the speakers of their mobile phones would be welcome; this daft policy on people drinking on the other hand is just show boating for the crowd, and will do nothing to enhance people's journeys, even in the unlikely event that it's enforceable

Well done London for voting in this muppet, I hope those who did because they think he's a laugh are proud of themselves

Predator kill-machine pilots suffering 'chronic burnout'

@Bring on the Gamers

isn't that roughly the plot premise behind the Robin Williams film Toys, albeit without the cutely kooky robotised sister.

'Boil a frog' ID card rollout to continue until 2012

that Liam Bryne is a nasty piece of work even by politician standards.

He's the driving force behind a policy that's trying to kick a large number of highly skilled foreign workers out of the country after we assured them that if they moved themselves wholesale to the UK then they'd be given rights to stay.

Retrospectively the government changed the policy, for the sake of a few headlines, these working visas have been revoked causing huge financial stresses and heart ache for people who've sold everything to up sticks and move here, after being assured it was well worth their while.

He's currently fighting legal appeals against this retrospective and dishonourable policy through the courts, a policy that has no beneficial effects but actually reduces the tax take for the UK Exchequer, as these people are well paid, and needed by our economy.

It's hardly surprising he's behind another nasty policy that targets foreign workers, the only reason EU nationals are excluded from his policy, is that if it were to be applied to EU members state citizens is that it would be illegal under EU legislation.

Malware removes rival rootkits

If these clever malware people can surplant each others trojans

why the hell do the anti-virus companies seem to find tracing them and removing them so tricky?

ISP data deal with former 'spyware' boss triggers privacy fears

If they're injecting ads into webpages

doesn't this get in the way of those who already fund their websites with ads from google and the like, the people who create webpages and earn their living from the ad revenues.

I can't get too high and mighty about such things as I always use adblock, but then I'm not the one who's willing to roll over for the music business and it's dubious intellectual-property-being-supreme matra.

Big Climate's strange 'science'

Phew, that's set my mind at rest.

It's OK everyone, we can continue to pollute the air and the seas as much as we like, it won't have any effect on the climate at all.

I know because a man on the internet with impeccable scientific credentials told me

Google in mass 404 land grab

I get a similar suggestion list from openDNS

but the I have opted to use their service and think it's fine, as it helps fund a service I pay nothing for

I'd be ever so upset, on the other hand, if my ISP decided to insert their branding into webpages downloaded over a connection I pay for. I think the difference is if you're paying for it, then it's an outrage to have your data played with, if it's a side-effect of a free service then you pays (or not) your money and you makes your choice

EU investigates Microsoft's OOXML campaign

re:Microsoft Giveth... Microsoft Taketh Away

I'm not sure you've got the hang of ISO standards?

Proprietary formats are fine, but not if you're trying to make them the standard when a standard is already accepted.

That they tried to force through their "standard" (one so complicated it is impossible to properly evaluate) by a form of ballet stuffing does show they need to be watched, especially considering their track record for behaving nicely and allowing proper competition in the marketplace isn't exactly exemplary.

Beeb iPlayer gets Firefox-friendly

A. Coward it's not money wasted by the BBC at all

I use the service regularly as I'm not very good at scheduling my life around when TV shows happen to be broadcast. This means that I'm getting far better value for money for my licence fee.

Top Gear isn't the only BBC show worth watching, unless you have a very limited set of interests. Quite why illegally leaching shows off the internet is better than being able to watch them legally is beyond me.

my UKNova account has been sorely neglected from the moment the iPlayer appeared.

Parent power pulls Woolworth's 'Lolita' kiddies' bed

"How much encouragement does the paedophile community need"

I guess they were doing wonderfully at controlling their unpleasant urges until they realised the name given by Woolworth's to the childs bedding

Then suddenly Paedageddon!

Scientology website shielded against DDoS attack

The Co$ complained that the DDoS Attacks where harming 'their business'

which seems a strange turn of phrase for a religious organisation...

Driller Killer unleashed on UK public

where did the Conservative MP for Canterbury get his 'fact'

that half of all males think forced sex is justified under some circumstances.

It's not a statistic that I've ever heard of before, and I read the Guardian, where some feminist columnist or other would have been very likely to cover it.

'Wii workout' for overweight pupils plan slammed

This is a non-story

and is just a way for the Campaign for Real Education to get a bit of publicity by mentioning a currently well known product,

much like Greenpeace were doing with the iPod a year or so back.

Former top brass call for first-strike nuke option

including "abandoning consensus decision making"

*Shudder*

So, members of a military alliance lose their say in whether or not that military alliance decides to use to planet ruining WMD.

Nice

I wonder if the USA will be on of those nations who's consensus won't be required, for some reason I suspect otherwise.

Beeb's iPlayer reaps streaming traffic dividends

"which will charge AND carry adverts", that takes the biscuit.

If a customer, a paying customer, is forking over their cash to watch TV shows it is an outrage that the broadcaster still thinks they should force them to endure advertising at the same time.

It's not like in a magazine when flipping the page instantly makes dodging the advert a doddle, you're forced to sit there and wait for the bloody thing to finish.

Football horns could spread Black Death, says Interpol chief

You do have to wonder if these Anti-Terrorist folks

missed their calling as Hollywood script writers.

They seem intent on conjuring up scenarios for episodes of 24 and new sequels of Die Hard, generally based on little other than their over-active imaginations

The Romantics sue Guitar Hero for sound-alike imitation

I'm amazed that nobody's gone after those old Top of the Pops cover complilation records

that were around in the days before Now that's what I call music

Google punts ads on the move

who wants to see mobile ads?

Maybe it's just because I only get a limited number of GPRS Mb bundled with my contract, but when I'm using my phone to get information, the last thing I need is adverts of any kind.

They are a waste of bandwidth, and trying to persuade me whilst I'm on the move, to waste my time looking at a plug for a product is just a waste of everybody's effort.

The UK office: hotbed of net smut addiction

nonsense

in the age of web filters, firewalls at work and wi-fi laptops in bedrooms, are they really trying to pretend that the average employee spends their cubicle time knocking one out under the desk?

I have had to clear a lot of spyware ridden work machines up, which seemed filled with porn, but they were to a PC a laptop that had been taken home by a sales rep, rather than one from inside our office buildings

Open sourcers rattle EU sabre at BBC on demand player

Real alternative

Just a little note, pointing out that windows users who loathe the realplayer bloatware, that there is a real alternative player that doesn't come with all the extras and just quietly does the job,

Just google for "real alternative player" and it shall be yours

US and allies lay global foundation for biometric border checks

it's a disgrace

I'm already unhappy with my own government claiming that it needs all my vital statistics for some ill defined ID database/control and monitoring system,

but I'm utterly livid that foreign government that I can't vote for or against are going to get my information shared. I trust neither the government of the US or for that matter the current Australian one, and have no desire to have my details on their systems for posterity.

Surely, if someone is known to be a bomber they shouldn't be allowed on the plane in the first place, and if they're not any kind of threat then why does the destination nation need all sorts of information about them.

We are clearly not been told the truth about these systems, as they never seem to solve the problem they claim to be designed to solve.

Cornish separatists menace Jamie Oliver

Poor things they can't afford a house

Try buying somewhere in London.

It is possible to understand why they don't want to be part of England, and that's because the only big city they can visit is Plymouth.

If my only experience of an English city was Plymouth I'd be pretty pro-Independence as well.

UK importing Army spy-drones to replace losses

CoMPASS?

You'd have thought the massive proportion of the US military/industrial complex who are employed thinking up acronyms to make unpleasant killing machines sound more friendly could have done a bit better than to leave a lower case 'o' in there

New North Korean missile tested in Iran

hmmmm

is it wrong of me to be a little suspicious of US claims when it comes to Iran, and missile technology?

It's so hard to be sure what's real and what's propaganda designed to make the world ready for another pre-emptive invasion

MPs cosy up with Sir Cliff on copyright term

Why partner's lifespan?

The point of copyright was never to provide a pension in perpetuity, it was to encourage creation of further new work by guaranteeing a benefit by protecting their income.

There's no reason whatsoever that the family of the performer should be getting paid out of it, 50 years to get the benefit of the payment surely is long enough to be able to stash some away should that be desired.

With regards to Cliff he was a performer of fairly average little pop songs, and I fail to see any case for him being kept in the manner to which he has become accustomed so many years after his red bus left the word of pop

If he wants more cash, he needs to release more mawkish Christmas singles

Souvenir coin sparked nano spy alert

without wishing to be picky

how come Canada is the US closest neighbour, surely Mexico is just as close, as they share a border?

/tiresome pedantry

Orange broadband trials error hijacking

I highly recommend not using the DNS provided by Orange

in the bad old days when I used to be a sufferer of freeserve/ dontwanadoo before they became orange, I discovered that using OpenDNS rather than the one provided by the ISP improved page loading speeds, and didn't let me down as often as theirs did.

It also has nice phishing features for those who can't help but click on stupid links in emails.