Posts by Spider

Virgin Media's 'bye-bye to buffering' beardy Bolt boast BANNED

in the interests of fairness

I was happy with plusnet, but headed to VM because I wasn't prepared to wait decades for the fibre upgrade to occur and let me have more than 2meg broadband.

whilst I'm aware many punters have problems, installation was a doddle, even phoned and came early, fitted no fuss and last speed test I carried out got me 47.5 on a 50meg contract...we've had 2 outages in 18 months for about a hour or two each. would love to join in the moaning against a big corp, but so far so good...

Chinese boffins build nuclear-powered deep-sea station

Chinese Laundry?

SCORPION STARE to ready status in anticipation of BENTHIC TREATY implications. How will BLUE HADES respond?

Ofcom: Here come the UK online copyright rules ... in 2015. Maybe

they'll never learn

put aside the freetard arguments a moment, the pro's and con's of torrent distro for genuine data etc

the simple fact is you will not stop the combined computing power of a nations geeks. If they want to share they will and for every lock there is a key.

The only way to reduce (you will never stop) piracy is to make users want to use legal services, make it culturally and practically more enticing to use legal alternatives.

Council chief overrules blackout on Scots 9-yr-old's school lunch blog!

priorities

serve that crap up in a prison and see just how quick you get a riot...

Blighty's new anti-bribe law will do more HARM than good

Give it a rest

How many of these acts did readers here participate in? Or even the wider UK population?

If you tried to hold any population other than the UK responsible for the sins of their fathers I suspect you would be one of the first to criticise.

You forget of course to mention that Britain lead the way in ending slavery, and the RN freed many would be slaves on the way between the african salvers and their US market. Guess that doesn't fit with the general anti imperialist kick...

anyways back to the subject...

Vulture 2 trigger triggers serious head-scratching

range-range & manual det?

variation on range/range - (worked for years!)

use transmitter on rocket, receivers and computation gear on ground keeping track. then radio signal to manually start ignition once achieved required height. added bonus of tracking rocket once ignited and recording max height achieved.

How politicians could end droughts forever But they don't want to

wrong way round

There's more than enough water. Just too many people.

BT missing from Pirate Bay High Court slap-down

you can charge what you like

but doesn't mean folks will pay it!

Selling a product or service is directly related to what people are willing to pay for it. TPB helps infringe copyright, we all know that. But public aversion to a minor crime is negated by what they see as perceived racketeering.

Without widespread public support you cannot hope to prevent largescale piracy (there will always be some), and that will not change until the pricing model changes.

Bletchley Park gets personal with new Alan Turing exhibition

awesome

great place. well worth a few hours of your time. it's humbling to walk round the huts and imagine Turing and co at work. Not just Turing, but the entire staff deserved far better recognition for their sacrifices and efforts.

Recommend a visit.

Sony 'fesses to Whitney Houston price hike 'error'

My initial reaction to this was " mistakenly mis-priced"? My fat hairy arse it was, you lying thieving gits. Much as many of the comments I've read so far....

then, after the brief glow of righteous indignation had faded it does occur to me,

it's not an essential good. You do not require a Whitney album to survive. It is discretionary and a luxury item.

Companies exist to do business and make profit, and if the sheeple in their faux grief at the loss of an alleged lesbian drug addled singer are prepared to pay then why shouldn't a company take that market on? After all they are not a charity.

Should we also cap prices on fleabay of people clearing out whitney tat from their attics? where's the difference?

Ultimately they can put any price they like on a good or service. No-one is forced to buy it.

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now?

hmmm

"but rather when there is a meeting of the minds over the essential facts around a problem, and real solutions are broached and agreed upon."

is a meeting of minds really possible with the MPAA et al? Time and again we see evidence that they put their profits ahead of liberty or even the law, would they really move far enough to a reasonable position?

Part of the problem is that just because you have 2 opposing views the answer is not always in the middle. Sometimes people are just plain wrong.

Royal Navy halts Highlands GPS jamming

this one sent me off the deep end

Notices to mariners are issued comprehensively and in good time, in similar manner to notices to aviatiors. Fisherman and WAFIs are aware of them (and if not have no business being at sea). They all do courses and qualifications and pass exams to say they will and then promptly ignore them.

I've been an officer of the watch on carriers, ice breakers and commercial vessels and seen repeatedly that they think the world revolves around them, that they can ignore safety rules and the anti collision regs at will. They are a constant pain in the arse to professionals at sea and cry out for compensation faster than a french farmer see his subsidy cut. The days of fishermen being mariners have long gone. Most would struggle to use a chart properly if there isn't a screen attached, and many leave the bridge unattended and on auto pilot. At least that's my experience when watching them sail under the bows of ships that have right of way and can't turn.

If they're unable to work without GPS then stay out of the area for the brief time the exercise is on. Dawkins know the fish stocks could do with a rest from their pillaging.

/rant

Would you let your car insurer snoop on you for a better deal?

thin end of wedge

whilst I understand the need for youngsters to find ways of both lowering premiums and encouraging safer driving, how long before it permeates? people get used to it, so instead of lowering premiums, people without them become penalised. Finally a majority have them fitted and of course they become justified because they save childrens lives (please think of the kiddies!)so then they become mandatory and the final step is that the data becomes available to the authorities... obviously with a warrant.. well to begin with anyway, but you know, the companies operating license is up for renewal and have you been helpful to the plod?...

.. i'll get my foil lined coat.

Lancs shale to yield '15 years' of gas for UK

Lies, damn lies, and stats?

Actually followed the link, and whilst yes London is at +28% of the UK average it is a bit disengenuous to compare the whole of Scotland with just London. I'm sure if Scotland was listed by region as England is there would be areas of more than the +21% Scotland gets (and conversely some with less).

However, taken as a country, England also includes, the East of England at -18% to the average and South East at -17% and so on. As a whole, England gets -3% to the UK average, Scotland gets +21%.

So the previous poster was in fact correct. Scotland gets more money (in fact over 24% more money) under the Barnett formula that England.

Anti-gay bus baron rages at being stuffed in Google closet

Hypocrit

Man rants against private company that provides free searches possibly discrimatating against his website that advocates discrimination.

beautiful.

Christ appears in phone advert, secular authorities act

So they're offended?

and? be offended. It's your right to be offended.

that is not the same as a right to tell everyone else what to do....

http://youtu.be/cycXuYzmzNg

New Apple move against Galaxy Tab on Euro front

Nice Job Jobs

I didn't even want one of the Galaxies, but now you banged on about it so much I may just have to.....

Can you handle LOHAN's substantial globes?

keeping it simple....

Booms and counterweights seem like such a waste of scarce payload. In order to maximise the available angle of dangle why not extend the support line ? Simply hanging lohan 30m or more beneath her magnificent globe seriously increases potential launch angle and clearance to the aforementioned globe as shec thrust skywards. Keeps the load mission critical.

Game graphics could be 100,000 times better

nice when it works

In a different sphere of computing but already use point cloud data for visualisation and data editing and I can assure you it eats processing power for breakfast. It'll be great when it works, but just can't see it running in any meaningful way for a while yet. We have high spec rigs which occassionally struggle with what we'd like to throw at them, whereas games need to be capable of running on something approaching a normal home setup...

...but as with everything, a journey begins with the first few steps!

'Missing heat': Is global warmth vanishing into space?

Beliefs? meh.

the theory of evolution (clue's in the title kids!) and other scientific hypotheses are conclusions not beliefs. They are formulated based on evidence and investigation. They are the answer to a question, such as how did that happen?

Beliefs by their very nature start with the answer and work back. Whether the belief is in god, scientology or the FSM.

It's easy(ish) to change a conclusion as new evidence is discovered. To change a belief you usually have to kill a whole bunch of people....

Therefore conclusion piss on beliefs from a very great height....

PARIS team to tackle the ultimate post-pint snack

Another cultered southerner on Teesside!

Couldn't agree more. Originating from that mecca of understated culture, Essex, and continuing my missionary work in bleak wilds of Teesside I can confirm that this abomination is best left alone. The basic recipe involves flattening the fillet by throwing on the floor and rolling a fat geordie lass upon it until it acheives the required shape.

God how I miss proper kebabs....

(and yes I'm only this brave because she who must be obeyed - a native - doesn't read el reg...)

Chicken Little report: Sat-nav dependency spells DISASTER!

Use the bloody window

As a fellow ex-OOW (and still a Hydro surveyor) more than one "old man" used to forever shout at the baby bridge teams to "look out the bloody window". People get sucked into staring at a computer screen when closest points of danger could clearly be seen, both in ships and cars.

As for technical kit, AIS, GMDSS, radar, ad nauseum, all these need is a positional feed. Be it GPS, DGPS, Glonass or galileo. it's the lack if a resolved position that causes the alarm, not the fact that a positional feed is out of error budget. Redundancy in systems prevents this, adn you can always hit the alarm cancel button and use a paper chart and a compass...

As for Loran - there's a reason it fell out of fashion. It isn't as good. otherwise we would still use the damn thing, and anyone trying to seriously wreck radio positioning just needs to add a frequency to crash that as well, however they try to enhance it.

Besides, it's not the interference with signals that is the real disaster scenario, it's spoofing. being able to fool systems into calculating a wrong position. And despite Hollywoods (and pinewoods) best efforts, that is actually very difficlut to acheive.

As with every report. Follow the cash. Who paid for it to be written and whats their agenda?

Europe confirms raids on ebook publishers

those who do not learn from history, and all that

So the publishers collude to artificially inflate the price of a digital product as it begins to gain ground over it's physical predecessor.

Can't imagine how even vaguely tech savvy flexibly moralled users will react?

Not saying it's right or wrong. Just predictable.

Doctor Who co-star Nicholas Courtney dies at 81

Sadly missed

He was producing great stuff still. I can wholeheartedly recommend the Scaryfiers radio series...

"It may be a tentacled fiend from the beyond but it doesn't like the taste of hot lead!"

Great actor.

Clinton demands net freedom for all... 'cept Wikileaks

on cutting culinary comments

She not so much takes the biscuit, as scoffs the last hobnob whilst already covered in crumbs, and then goes on a rampage in the cupbaord to steal every last pack and runs away giggling whilst stuffing more biscuit based goodies into her hypocriticial lying overworked mouth.

At least Bill C just got himself blown, she's trying to f#'k us all....

Google battles Derby cops over access to Street View data

Don't know who to boo the most...

the orwellian thought police who think due process is optional and doesn't apply to them, or their lodge buddies... or the hypocritical globo-corp bastards who illegally slurp personal data and then refuse to simply hit delete when they are forced to admit it...

nope. score draw. a pox on the pair of them.

WikiLeaks.org resurrected in US of A

Not the first

Assange was way behind in the race to publish classified material.... I believe Woodward & Bernstein were there before him. I guess Palin would describe them as terrorists as well.

WikiLeaks payment service threatens to sue Visa, MasterCard

how the times change

one man leaks classified docs of shady government shennanigans and those that publish are given pulitzers...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Woodward#Career_recognition_and_awards

now they are decried as terrorists and threatened with assasination as they are hounded to the ends of the earth.

BOFH: Pain fear games

I applaud them

having used frozen maltesers (same caliber) in a particularly cheat filled game of Paintball I can attest to the efficacy of frozen foodstuffs as ballastic encouragement to correct thinking.

well played.

PARIS joins the 17-mile-high club

Not often I am moved to comment...

..but Bravo Zulu to all concerned. You have not only succeded in putting a gloriously pointless paper aircraft into space and retrieving fantastic pics, but making many of us in not quite so fun employment smile on an otherwise cheerless day.

Now how to incorporate the plasma drive and obtain more fizzypop funded high-jinks?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/24/coke_can_plasma_rocket/

Wikileaks publishes encrypted 'insurance' file

Doesn't matter...

...what it was. When one man says to another, "I know what let's do today, let's play the war game."... everybody dies.

India to place $11bn order for AIP hi-tech submarines

Sorry, what are WE buying again?

How much on this and a moon shot? and we're still chucking them £300 million per year... maybe we could pay for some uni places with it instead?

Google: 'We did not follow Apple into phone market'

so the point is what exactly?

I'm struggling to see Apples point? So what if another company made an internet enabled phone? Are they claiming that that product should be the preserve of them alone? I hope more companies have a crack at it. The more the merrier. Don't really have a drum to beat for any particular make or OS, I'll use whatever I like the look of (HTC for the time being... next who knows?) Competition breeds progress, and who doesn't want that?

Prisoner of iTunes - the iPad file transfer horror

not a staunch supporter of any os

but flicking through these comments, even the most ardent supporters of the iPad say something along the lines of "well, no, it's not easy or perfect" does kind of ring alarm bells...

...and no saying that linux or windows does something equally as annoying or badly at something else does not make apple any better, just equally annoying. Which is a shame, because for style and capability I really want to like them. Just because of their business practice I cannot bring myself to do it...

bottom line remains for me, if I pay for something it is then my device/comp/phone, i'll keep using whichever treats me most as a customer and not a renter.

Terror in the Outback: Attack of the Giant Space Balloon

Alert?

How can the NRA be expected to mobilise when articles of this nature aren't clearly labelled? A nearly airbourne harbinger of doom co-funded by NASA (clearly a branch of Cyberdine) attacks hapless meatsacks trying to tether it?

Surely defcom zepplin.......

Secret neo-Nazi documents published

unease

echoing some of the comments here, I start to get a little uneasy at the singling out of the shaved headed simians. We don't seem to get the same enthusiasm for lists of other fanatical forum members such as the extreme left. animal rights, religious fundies, or our old frinds at the scientologists.

don't get me wrong, the BNP sought to get elected so should be dragged into the light but the nutters on the right seem to be the only ones targetted in this way. I'd like to see all nutters exposed

El Reg uncovers Tiger Woods tech angle

Injunctions, what a great idea

Injunctions are dead. They have shuffled off this mortal coil and are only of interest to lawyers and the dead tree press. Only way to prevent having images of you boning some waitress published is to.....Not have images taken of you boning aforementioned beer deliverer.

As for Tiger, good work fella! Most other blokes would have as well

'World's largest' BitTorrent tracker Mininova kneecapped

Ethics aside

If we ignore for a moment the rights/wrongs of this, which to be frank have been pored over to death, with both sides entrenched and unwilling to change their view. The sheer fact is that simply closing down site after site achieves nothing. It creates no revenue, going after d/l ers only alienates a potential customer base. For the business to prosper it has to produce something customers are willing to pay for, it must be easily accessible and at a price they are willing to pay. Other wise no amount of lawyers will defeat the combined computing power and intransigence of the worlds geeks and teenagers.

Makes no difference whether I believe this to be right or wrong, same as it matters not a jot whether i want the sun to rise. it will happen.

Queen promises to make poverty and budget deficits illegal

other bills to follow

Brown forgot to mention the planned bill to limit vertical (and therfore lateral shoreward) movement of the surrounding coastal sea waters. This is believed to be issued following the Canute study.

Wikileaks publishes BNP 'member list' (again)

publish and be damned

Tme to publish all political parties members, and anyone who contributes both financially and in kind. If you seek to aid an organisation that could have power of the population, in any form, then the population should be able to know who you are. If you are not prepared to stand up and be linked to their policies then why should I have to have to face the prospect of living under them?

Aussie Sex Party in evangelist head-to-head

whay assume blood?

I think you'll find that the substance is in fact a divine bolognese sauce that has touched this mortal plane as a result of HIS noodly appendages contact with the Earth. it is only the continual pushes from his noodly appendage that keep us rotating and allow us night and day, vital so that we might enjoy happy hours, weekends, and drink covered wenches (or cabin boys as appropriate)...

this can easily be proven by a quick lick of the substance revelaing its tomatoey goodness infused with all manner over vitamin loaded herbs and heart warming red wine.... go on you know you want to.. lick it.. it tastes good doesn't it?.. lick some more mmmmmmm

further proof of his benevolent noodliness.

NASA moon-bomb probe strikes rich seam of fruitcake

as a woman?

"as a woman i feel violated that NASA feel it's acceptable to bomb the moon.

i demand this is stopped. i think we should get an INJUNCTION against NASA."

we'll as a man i feel unempowered that I'm prevented from blowing stuff, by preventing this you are oppressing my creative urges to rain chaos down and create afresh from the ashes of the old....

now go an make me a cup of tea... no sugar.

Egyptians uptight about 'Artificial Virginity Hymen'

staggering

"more civilised part of the Middle East like Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, etc most families that have the money (and sense) go for a pre-marital medical"

Welcome to the most advanced civilisations of the 14th Century.

Religion. Just in case we couldn't think of enough ways to mess things up.

UK Music secret data: 'Young people will pay for downloads'

95 times ignored [again]

"Let's say you develop a graduated response that has got 95 steps. So you've now asked somebody 95 times very nicely and very politely can you please stop doing that and 95 times they've refused to," he said. "What do you do?"

How about take them to court for the civil offence of copyright infringement which is already on the statute books and has penalties laid down? Not make up special sanctions to scare people since they don't require any burden of proof, just because you managed to get lunch on a posh yacht with Geffen.

Innocent until proven guilty. In a court, not some dark room by Fergal, MandelHoon and Geffen. Downloaders are not the end of civilisation, and laws only function by the consent of the population.

100 freetards an hour join Pirate Party UK

@Fraser

"Some things they are missing policies on: <biglonglist>"

Yeah, like the current crop of scum. They really stuck to their manifesto commitments didn't they?

HTC Touch Pro2

T-mob make huge mistake....

just got this from t-mob.

"Good Afternoon ########

Thank you for your email i have looked in to your query and we will not be launching the vario5 as the features of the Nokia N97 features are very similar which will be launched this week.We have launched the compact 5 which is available now.

Kind Regards

########"

been hanging for this phone for ages. decent interface, good screen, keyboard, memory expansion all in the one package. so off to vodafone for me.... can't help but feel their current financial crisis is driving their stock more than similarity to the N97. After all, every other region of T-mob is stocking it.... you can follow the saga on xda developers here

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=520694

networks

Shame T-mobile have bottled it and will not be giving us a "vario 5"... off to vodafone as a result.

T-Mobile names next Android handset

T-Mobile muck it up

they would have been far better releasing the vario 5 /Touch Pro 2 (which they now inform me they have cancelled after keeping us hangin about for ages) good screen, easy memory expansion and good keyboard all in a neat package. Off to vodafone as a result!

DARPA killer AI robots to 'participate in own construction'

Alert status

Surely this should have caused the NRA to go to DEFCON WOPR?

Wacky Jacqui spanked by husband

I don't wish to be misunderstood

Get out, you amoral money grasping hag.

Stop the charade about "well, it was in the rules", that's up there with "I was only following orders". Which, on reflection, is apt for someone who has lead the biggest assault on civil liberties on the Islands since Operation Sealion. Does she really think it appropriate to spend our money on those items? Does she hell. It is simply viewed as what's owed to them. That's why they maximise their "allowances" in this manner. Stop patronising us.

I have not laughed so hard since I heard Gordon Braun state "it was a personal matter".. Did you not know comrade? There are no personal matters anymore. Everything is subject to scrutiny. Your emails, your browsing habits (thats got to be a goldmine for the tabloids in the Timney household). Failure to comply indicates terrorist sympathies, as does criticism of the Junta. You shall finally reap what you have sown.

Get out the lot of you, take your £550 sinks, your second incomes for partners/mistress' who pretend to work for you, your allowance for a second home 5 mins from your first, your years severance pay for losing an seat in the great gravy train that is parliament and simply FOAD.

You will be remembered with more vitriol, loathing and disgust than any living politician. Some legacy.