Posts by Gav

Russian Christians boosted by Pussy Riot law spank 'sinful' Apple logo

Re: It's a sad day for religion

I'm fine with them hurling lawyers. At least that way the fallacies of their argument can be held up for proper ridicule.

Better lawyers than zealots with sticks/stones/guns/bombs.

Re: There's nothing wrong with cultural sensitivity

This is not Russian cultural sensitivity, this is a small sub-culture of Russia.

In all cultures, UK and Russia included, you'll find some bunch of loons who'll invent something to be offended by any logo you wish to use. Part of what binds these sub-cultures together is the idea that the rest of society is on a secret mission to annoy and persecute them. So they're often eager to find "evidence" of this.

Fortunately for the rest of society we are allowed to ignore them. Pandering to their disillusion only encourages them to up the stakes on the next "offence".

Nominet mulls killing off the .co from .co.uk

Re: Nominet are b*ggers

How do you give *both* somename.org.uk and somename.co.uk first pick on somename.uk??

Can't be done, can it?

Re: I'd rather have

Who's "them"?

New I-hate-my-neighbour stickers to protect Brits' packages

Nothing Personal

I share your circumstances. It is easy for me to pick up a parcel at the delivery office, and I'm fine with my neighbours, but I don't want them to feel like they're running a free PO box for my mail. Especially the pensioners who you just know are going to be the one's most often lumbered with others' parcels. So I'd much prefer to drop in on the delivery office.

Do I have to put up a sticker and then tell my neighbours it's nothing personal?

NASA releases stunning image of our universe's distant past

Re: Great image, but

It's quite simple. Being formed 450 million years after the Big Bang does not make a galaxy "a 450 million-year-old babe in the woods". It makes it very old indeed, having been born soon after the Big Bang. If this is the youngest of the galaxies on the image, then all the others are even older and were formed even sooner after the Big Bang.

We can only see this image of these galaxies because their light has taken so long to reach us.

I was born 14.6 billion years after the Big Bang. I am not 14.6 billion years old. If I was to send this information to the far side of the galaxy by radio, I still would not be 14.6 billion years old. They would simply be hearing about it later.

Does this need saying?

Re: Yes, feeling very small!

"we'll never meet any other intelligent life from outside our solar system"

Depends on what you want to term "meet". If you mean physically bump up against you may be right, but that's a very antiquated, 20th century way of thinking.

Half of Milky Way's mass found in million-Kelvin gas cloud

Re: no way out?

Somehow I don't think we're ever going to find this galaxy "confined".

Not as long as we're still living in the three dimensions.

German Pirate party punters 'don't pay their membership fees'

Re: "Saying this out loud"

"If labels were more concerned with making decent music...." blah blah, whine whine.

Isn't it strange how apologists for piracy love the "it's rubbish anyway" argument, but still want a copy of said rubbish? They demand that content providers improve, to reach a standard that's purely a matter of personal opinion, but can't explain what makes "decent music" any less likely to be copied and shared than the rubbish they currently find so contemptible, and yet so desirable.

Very strange. It's almost like the entire argument was just a smoke screen to justifying taking stuff for free.

Philips databases pillaged and leaked SECOND time in a month

Re: Twice in a month?

Their goal is to demonstrate how smart they are to their online peer group. It's all about status.

Any other motivation offered is just an excuse for that.

Chinese dissident grassed by Yahoo nears release

Re: They didn't grass him...

They were free to withdraw from that country if they were unhappy with complying those laws. Or better still, not start operations there in the first place. China can't enforce its laws on a company that does not operate in China.

Yahoo instead decided that them having a presence in China was worth sacrificing this man's liberty for. Which was nice of them.

Leaked Genius Bar manual shows Apple's smooth seductions

Re: For those Softies who've worked for a US based company

Don't you mean "Undocumented features"?

The horror

Sales people receive training in sales!

This is most unfair. While it is acceptable for IT people to be trained in IT, sales people, being lower life-forms, should remain inept at their jobs and only succeed through blind-chance or the abilities they were born with.

Customers are entitled to believe these people are employed to assist them and have little interest in selling anything. Actually training them to sell is deceiving the customer and the sort of shameful trick you'd expect from Apple.

Mars rover harangues empty landscape with loudhailer

totally pointless

So no matter which way you look at it; a totally pointless operation.

Don't they have some science they could be doing??

Curiosity rover hijacked by will.i.am to debut science song

Re: Does Curiosity have speakers?

Nope. Just a pointless exercise in upload and downloading bits.

I'm hoping they've compressed the **** out of it. Or they're just pretending to do it. Like it's all just coming out of the local NASA web cache. Really, who would know or care?

Reagan slams webmail providers for liberal bias

Liberals!

I just always find it amusing when conservative Americans use the word "liberal" as if it's a dirty word that suggests being one of Satan's evil hordes, while the in the UK it's more associated with wishy-washy, middle of the road ineffectiveness.

Both are ridiculous, but in polar opposites.

British boffin builds cool maser after argument with wife

Re: 100 Million @ Atom Bomb

Only stupid if you're the one betting you won't be alive. The one betting they will be alive wins either way. Alive and they win the bet, dead and they don't have to honour the bet. Just the slight downside of being dead, but if that's going to happen, it happens whether they have bet on the outcome or not.

So overall, the ones betting on dead are the stupid ones. Which has got to be good news, as you can then discount their estimations on the outcome.

Fraudsters nick BILLIONS from China's e-commerce Wild West

Re: "a recognisable kitemark for safe sites"

And of course, fraudulent websites would never dream of putting a safe site kitemark on their website, that would be cheating.

Wannabe media barons outed in UK local telly bid list

Low Quality

Exactly. If the channel has good solid local coverage, it doesn't need flashy graphics, virtual studios and over-paid celeb presenters.

But my biggest fear is TV studios over-run with Media Studies students on internships.

Hard-up Kodak stalls crown jewels sell-off to milk bidders

Cellphones killed the cellulose star.

Scary to think that Kodak produced the first digital camera in 1975 (yes, Seventy Five) but then killed it because of concerns of what it would do to their photo film business, something they had a near monopoly on at the time.

Talk about massive blunders. They could have had the market sewn up all over again for another 50 years.

Scribe's mobe, MacBook pwned after hacker 'fast-talked Apple support'

Re: Here's my answer to any 'secret answer' / 'password reminder' questions

I'm right with you there. Unfortunately some places *additionally* ask you these questions, even after you have already logged in, if you wish to do anything particularly relating to your account or security. Like changing your existing password.

So at that point your smart answer would effectively lock you out of managing your account.. Unless you really have remembered 0gu9034n= 7b =30yperh erhg werhgp wehrgklwehrguipehrghekgdfbn.db ndb ddfjkdjdddfafg34349394tb.

The best thing to do is answer something totally unrelated to the question, and 'remember' it in a suitably encrypted password vault. But of course, that's not going to help you if the support staff can be "sweet talked" into ignoring the requirement to answer it.

Dropbox blames staffer's password reuse for spam flood breach

Re: Dropbox

Dropbox would treat it as one honking big file that is constantly changing and constantly being downloaded/uploaded. Secure, but very inefficient.

You also need Truecrypt to hand on every computer you wish to access your dropbox from. Only way to ensure that is to carry it on a USB stick with you at all times (or be constantly downloading it). If you have a USB stick on you at all times, then why bother with dropbox?

Sysadmins! There's no shame in using a mouse to delete files

Re: At the risk of stating the obvious...

Not actually human nature, more like immature human male behaviour. The sort of mentality that leads to extreme fanboism, or any other obsessive devotion to mundane things.

I always reckon it's a manifestation of adolescent development among boys, where everything is a competition and everything you do has to fit in with your chosen peer group, and must be demonstrably better than the other groups. After all, if what you buy/do/read/listen/enjoy/pursue/believe/support/create/learn is not obviously so much better than what they buy/do/read/listen/enjoy/pursue/believe/support/create/learn, how are people to know that you are better than them? Stands to reason. Therefore it must be pointed out forcefully and often, less people miss what is obvious.

It's just a pity that some take a whole lot longer to grow out of that than others.

No, it wasn't

In that case, your input was not required, automation will handle responses to this article without you.

Or are you telling us you are browsing this website using a CLI browser?

Free tool inspects all your personal 'ware automatically

Re: Close, but no cigar

The critical difference between updating on Linux and Windows is that the Linux software is generally open source and free. There is therefore no issues at all about validating the software has been paid for, and the user is permitted to have the upgrade. That makes it significantly easier to automate. Like miles easier.

However, when you are dealing with Linux software that isn't open source, you'll find that upgrading is no easier (and often unbelievably more complex) than on Windows.

Chinese 'nauts couple successfully without help of machines

Re: ...to gently meet at thousands of miles an hour

You are travelling much,much faster than that... relative to the centre of the universe.

Pedantry, but about as significant as the these crafts' speed relative to a point on the Earth's surface.

Facebook fesses up to Face.com face finder financing

Corporate Double-speak

"Our mission is and has always been to find new and exciting ways to make face recognition a fun, engaging part of people's lives"

Read that back in a sinister voice and just see if it doesn't send a chill down your spine. Facebook; making corporate tagging and surveillance a fun part of your life.

Habbo Hotel to 'unmute' chat so users can show they love it

Thinking Of The Children

"Where are the parents?" is a popular cry in discussions like this. And guaranteed 99% of the time it comes from people who have never had teenage children.

Young teenagers are at the age of venturing out into society (and that includes the internet), unsupervised by their parents. It's an essential part of growing up. It is *bad* for them to have their parents hovering over them at all times. However, it is *good* from them to have areas where the parents can feel that they are safe and don't need hovering over. Places where they can make mistakes and learn from them without ending up in any real trouble. Habbo is supposed to be one of those places.

So parents allowing their children unsupervised on Habbo are allowing them to grow. They are good parents. Unfortunately Habbo has let them down and wasn't always the place they trusted it to be.

Scots council: 9-yr-old lunch blogger was causing 'distress and harm'

Re: Another triumph for devolution

You think it's different in Scotland?

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/05/17090/21740

But if the child won't put the food on their plate what are you supposed to do?

'Zombie bullets' fly off US shelves after wave of undead attacks

Re: Seriously?

My thoughts exactly.

It's been a good laugh and everything, but the whole "let's treat zombies as a real-life threat" joke has gotten old.

Zombies are not real. Anyone found eating another's face is just a common garden crazy person. They are not a zombie. If you are buying real bullets to shoot zombies, then you are also a crazy person who shouldn't own a gun. I am far more concerned about meeting you than I am about meeting a zombie.

Code glitch floored Reg reader altimeter

Arcane measurements

So why the hell are you using feet?

Seriously people, the UK went metric 40+ years ago. And we're still clinging to this ancient standard? An introduction to the International System of Units and the rest of the scientific community is long past due.

Is the hardware vacuum valves programmed on punch cards?

Flying Dutchman creates dead cat quadcopter

Re: @Mr C: his own cat? is that even legal?

"His prime motivation was to improve Orville's bird-chasing abilities, albeit posthumously."

So he's mad then? I mean all artist licence, eccentric genius considerations aside, this is mad, isn't it? His cat is dead, it cannot chase birds.. And why improve his cat's ability to chase birds? Is there a particular bird problem in the gardens of the Netherlands that they require culling? Are the Dutch not experiencing the same undesirable fall in bird population as the rest of Europe? Or are the non-existent desires of a deceased cat to be paramount?

So what makes the idea laudable?

Ten... bits of Jubilee tat tech

DNFTT

I can't remember when I last saw such blatant old-school trolling on The Register. Isn't this following the original template that invented trolling?

Step 1 : Open article you have no interest in, but that you know others will.

Step 2: Post comment on how you are not interest.

Step 3: Say how much it sucks/blows/fails/whatever

Step 4: Await responses. Yum, yum, food for the troll.

The added twist of the American vs Rest of the World playground battle is guaranteed to deliver, but is a really, really tedious dead horse flogged to death around 1997.

Over all 8/10 for nostalgia. 0/10 for originality.

Creatives spin copyright licence that sticks to web

Re: While they're discussing this hokum...

I think you have a mistaken understanding of the free market economy.

The seller is under no obligation to sell to you. The manufacturer is free to dictate any market restrictions on sales that they like, if they believe they are in their interests. You have no right to buy their product from whoever you like, wherever you like. Don't like this? Then you are free to buy something else from someone else, any time and any place you fancy. That is the free market economy.

It's certainly annoying, and I share your pain. But nothing about it defies logic or economics.

Re: So what's the solution?

What you say is true, but it would leave the production of music, films, books, whatever entirely in the hands of amateurs. People who cannot do it full time because they have to spend their day earning money. Do you believe that amateurs can provide the output and quality previously provided by full-time professionals? Personally, I can't see how they can. Someone who spends their working life doing something is always likely to be more practised at it than someone who only does it a couple of hours in the evening. Someone who is paid to do something is always more likely to devote greater resources to it, because it's an investment in their living wage, not just a hobby.

A significant part of development over the last 1000 years has been allowing creative people to specialise at what they are good at, without having to spend 8 hours a day in the fields earning their next meal. Is this where we want to return?

So what's the solution?

It's always the same with these IP/Copyright/DRM stories. You get a comments forum full of budding MBAs dispensing advice about broken business models, condemning industries for their inertia and inability to compete against their own product being given away for free.

But surprisingly for the internet, where opinions are never in short supply, very few people have any credible solutions for what should be done to fix things. And, no, I'm not counting "do live concerts and sell t-shirts" as a credible solution. Not all creators of original material are bands with a fan base who buy t-shirts and attend live concerts.

So what's to be done? The creators of the original material need to make a living. They need to have some incentive to continue to produce material, or they will stop and go get a paying job. What method can those who consume the product reward its creators? Anyone?

Or are we just here for another round of unconstructive moaning and criticising?

Crooks sell skint fanbois potatoes instead of iPhones

dishonest fools

Because being a fool isn't illegal and some people are of low intelligence and have a right to the protection of the law like anyone else.

However, in this case these people are most likely not just fools, but dishonest fools. Unless they are of markedly low intelligence, they must have expected that the offered goods were dodgy. If so, they deserved everything they got.

Either that or the sellers are accomplished confidence tricksters who manage to get otherwise sensible and law-abiding people to make stupid snap decisions.

Stuck in a dull conference? You need Verity's survival guide

Re: Hollerith 1

I can't believe you are pointing this out on an IT article forum, the purpose of which is to make snide comments on views/techniques you don't agree with etc. Surely everyone here already knows this?

*derisive snort*

Shy Venus in rare Sun crossing next month

Looking at the bigger picture

Captain Cook, retinal burns, exoplanets, oh the wonder of it all, blah, blah, blah. No-one cares. Let's not forget that the universe revolves around us and all this is all about determining future events.

Conjunction of Venus & the Sun means that Libras will find those keys that went missing last month. Leos will have faintly uneasy feeling they forgot to lock the door, but only for the duration of the transition. Cancers will suffer from an itch on their left ear the entire day. Aquarius will suddenly be smitten by how cute kittens are, and Geminis will die horribly in accidents involving golf.

The cosmos; never too busy being awesome to concern itself with petty human affairs.

Virgin Media site goes titsup in Pirate Bay payback attack

Re: Stand up for your rights

"If prices were low and quality high then the levels of copyright infringement (Note not piracy) would be greatly reduced."

Care to explain this intriguing argument?

Prices are determined by market forces. Whether they are "low" or not is a matter of opinion determined by the resources available to each consumer. Music and movies are not essentials. The producers have no obligation to provide them at the lowest price to the most people. Either way, how "low" does a price have to be before displacing "free"?

Quality is totally a matter of opinion. If the material is so poor, then why are people so set on getting at it? If quality needs to improve (in your opinion) then what incentive can you offer to drive this? High quality files can be shared for free just as easily as low quality files.

Re: Anon needs to step up

Bizarre logic you have there. Take down a website = boring and gives protest a bad name. Take down entire ISP = a "stand" worthy of notice.

Taking a "stand" involves principles. It means identifying yourself and saying this is what you believe and this is what should be done. It means actually accepting that you are willing to be inconvenienced yourself, on principle, to make a point. You are, literally, standing up for what you believe.

What you suggest is none of these, any more than DDoS attacks are. Taking down an ISP is not a "stand". It's more of a "punching someone in a crowd in the back, then hiding".

*That* is what gives give people who are against this kind of "censorship" a bad name.

Fate of punters' Megaupload files to be thrashed out in court

Re: Copying files is not stealing

Megaupload was a free service, mainly for file sharing. It would be crazy for it to offer any guarantees what-so-ever about restoring backups of personal files. Indeed, I'd be surprised if it didn't explicitly have disclaimers about it.

So this guy was using the wrong service for the wrong job, ... and then his hard drive died. If he took protecting his work seriously, and performed proper backups, he wouldn't be in this situation. It sucks, and hopefully he'll get his files restored soon, but it is all his own fault.

Copying files is not stealing

"Mr Goodwin has not been able to access the files he needs to conduct his business - ie, his lawful property"

But these are not his files. They are a copy of his files. Isn't that how the argument goes? He still had his files on his computer. Not anyone else's fault that he's lost them.

170m people 'upgrade' to Google+, but how many stick around?

Re: And...

I'm sure we are all very happy for you, Atonnis.

While you've been analysing social networking to reach your revelations, I've been analysing posts on forums by those who make sweeping generalisations based on sub-standard, or non-existent data, in order to reinforce their own prejudices and consequently bolster their own self-image.

I'm nowhere near reaching any conclusion I'd be happy to publish, but thank you for your post. I shall certainly quote it in my findings.

Leisure Suit Larry set for second coming

Meh

A humorous return, eh?

Well that'll be an interesting difference from the original series. I recall them being only humorous if your mental and social development had stagnated at aged 13. Not to mention being clunky, antiquated (even when first released) and dull, dull, dull.

IT urine bandit fired and charged

Re: Double insult

Sure. Nothing gets women more annoyed than *not* being the lusted after by a post-middle-age IT creep with the urine fixation. I bet many of his male colleagues feel slighted too. He's certainly a catch worth getting in a fluster about, whatever your orientation!

A million TVs to go dark across London

Re: South East News Bias ? - Nahhhhhh.......

London turning off analogue TV has absolutely zero impact on the rest of the planet. It may be of marginal interest to some, but as an event it is neither new or unusual. In short; not news.

Yes, there are lots of Londoners and lots of them will be readers of The Register, but I'm betting they already knew, having been told by their more local news sources.

So I don't get why this was reported here, and a "top story" into the bargain, unless it was written by someone who either thinks everything that happens in London matters to everyone, or has been blind to events in the rest of the UK.

Now CHINA complains of surge in cyber-attacks

Apostrophe abuse coming around

You shall feel the wrath of the brotherhood of apostrophes in that case.

Americans resort to padlocking their dumb meters

Watching you

Have to agree. There is plenty opportunity here for the power companies to abuse the connection into your home and monitor things other than energy usage. All to "help improve our service to you", of course. But the idea of there being a spy on your electricity line watching what you're doing each day isn't that far fetched.

The RADIOWAVES CANCER campaigners are, naturally, loons with very little idea of how tiny the power of these devices. They very probably already been living for years with electrical appliances that inadvertently broadcast just as much as radio noise.

Megaupload boss: Site popular among US government users

Re: Pah

Indeed. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding at work here.

If these "US Government officials" were using Megaupload to share recordings of public committee meetings, PDFs of publicly available legislation, or NASA photos, there is no case for them to answer, nothing to fear, and Dotcom, as usual, is all hot air and bullshit.

Using a service legally, and subsequently discovering that other users were breaking the law, is not illegal. Maybe a bit embarrassing, but nothing the courts are going to care about.

Additionally, does no one care that Dotcom is happy to trawl through his users' personal details and threaten to make public the ones he doesn't like the look of?