Posts by RW

Ever had to register to buy online - and been PELTED with SPAM?

Re: @Peter Hoare

Does that work on Unicodized email addresses such as

მზია_კვირიკაშვილი@rustavi2.com

??

ICO hits the road to crack 'underlying problem' at data-leak councils

Re: Finally going out to find out what's going on. Fines *not* the answer.

The issue isn't so much dropping a USB stick on the bus as it is the sheer foolishness of putting unencrypted data on the thing in the first place. A close runner-up is the foolishness of anybody from the CEO down taking protected data outside the workplace in any form.

To some extent, the latter is caused by the managers who don't understand that the work day is only eight hours long.

Consumer group urges Aussies to spoof IP addresses

Similar to geo-restrictions on retail sales

Amazon has a nasty little habit of announcing "this product cannot be shipped to your default address." I've seen this with athletic gear from Asics and even with CDs made by Sony. Just like Hollywood installing that infernal region code on DVD's and then discovering that if anything, it impedes sales and encourages piracy.

When you live in a country where online commerce is not particularly well developed (e.g Canada), whether Asics or Sony like it or not, all such restrictions do is lead to creative ordering. As for Asics, I simply had what I wanted sent to a friend in Seattle, who then forwarded them to me. And Sony's silly restriction was easily circumvented by finding a Canadian listing for a used copy of my heart's desire.;

it appears that large corporations have not yet learned that the first two W's in "WWW" mean "world-wide." Time to kiss off geographically restricted distribution contracts.

PS: Canada is not a dead loss when it comes to online sales. I was easily able to find an online source for Blooker cocoa in Ontario.

Yahoo! will! ignore! 'Do! Not! Track!' from! IE10!

More Microsoft "doing favors no one asked for"

MS could have prevented this brouhaha by simply including setting DNT during installation, requiring the user to respond one way or the other. Yahoo would then have no gripe because the setting would always be derived from the explicit action of the users.

But, no. Dear Microsoft followed through on their usual bad habit of trying to guess what people want instead of simply asking them. Spare me operating systems that do things for you that way.

Re: "it does not accurately reflect user intent"

The thing that makes me laugh is that the ads aren't very effective, not at all. I use AdBlockPlus, so I don't see many ads, but the ones I do see never entice me to actually visit the web site advertised, much less spend money at it.

I spend a fair amount of money on online purchases, but not because of advertising. I've used Google to find sites that sell the kind of thing I usually look for and simply bookmark those. Looking for a specific item, say 1/2" diameter eyelets for my earlobes made of white jade, always requires investigating one such site after another, by hand. (Some sites make the search very easy, others a pain in the ass.)

Google is hopeless when it comes to exhaustively searching for such a specific item because (a) websites are inconsistent about how they present the information and (b) Google works word by word and isn't very good at finding loose groupings of descriptive words.

Don't bother with Big Data – listen to customers instead

Sociopathy at the top

The root problem is that when they depart their homes to go to work, managers leave their humanity behind on the dresser. All they have to do is ask, would I treat my dearly beloved grandmother like this?

Of course the sociopaths would treat their grandmothers badly, which leads to the point that sociopaths are not fit to hold positions of any responsibility. Unfortunately, from all appearances, the upper levels of management in all corporate bodies are primarily sociopaths.

We are doomed.

Megaupload case near collapse: report

Re: Worst intentions?

The incompetent lawyers might very well be holdovers from the Bush administration, hired because they declared personal loyalty to Bush. Many of them have law degrees from "Liberty University", the late Jerry Falwell's piss-poor excuse for an institution of higher education.

FIVE more councils say soz for exposing people's privates

Until the higher ups responsible lose their jobs, nothing will happen. The higher ups earn the big bucks; let them shoulder big responsibilities, even if they themselves didn't make the key mistake.

@ Dave the Cat:

Just say to your students "Now pay attention because if you don't, you WILL lost your job when you mess this up." Make sure all employees have been put on notice that certain types of email mistakes WILL result in immediate firing.

NHS fined £375k after stolen patient data flogged on eBay

Precisely!

Until the doofus managers who oversee such fiascoes feel some serious hurt — by preference in their pocketbooks — no tightening up will take place. Indeed, I'd name and shame them, and then put their names on a blacklist "do not employ this person in IT management".

The crazy system of one arm of the Crown fining another is...well...crazy. Which party originally inflicted this insanity on the suffering British people, pray tell?

Verizon retreats on ‘convenience fee’ for online bill payment

Paying through a third party

I.e. paying a bill through an ATM: here in BC, the statutes governing "agency" stipulate that a payment to an agent is considered as having been made to the principal immediately. Thus, if a bank tries to say "it takes X days for your payment to be passed on", the correct response is a reference to the law and a suggestion that they'd better get a less sluggish system installed.

Other jurisdictions may have similar provisions in force.

Feds propose 50-state ban on mobile use while driving

The right hand and the left hand

Here in British Columbia, we have a rather toothless law against cell phone use while driving.

But guess what? On the outskirts of Victoria, there are signs erected by the authorities on the freeway heading north, pointing drivers to a website, drivebc.ca, and to a toll-free telephone number for information on road conditions ahead.

These are clearly invitations to the driver to use his cellphone. The geniuses devoted to highway safety don't seem to realize that they are encouraging dangerous behavior.

In addition, though billboards are forbidden along BC highways (except on Indian reserves), the Dear Government has polluted the roadside with endless dorky little signs pointing to "tourist attractions" and similar detritus that doesn't offer drivers any real information to help them. No one seems to think about the distractions these may cause, entirely aside from the ugly blight they are on the scene. I blame it on quasi-marketers in the tourism ministry who have quite childish ideas about what actually enhances the tourists' experience.

Meanwhile, many roadside rest stops have been closed, along with the toilets at them, leaving weak-bladdered drivers no option but to piss by the side of the road. Some tourist experience! "I visited BC and I couldn't pee"

Eyes on stalks: ancient predator a real monster

The Badass Honey Badger

If you want to watch a Youtube video of the honey badger, go to "Badass honey badger", which has a fairly amusing re-do of the narration dubbed in.

Gould's Hallucigenia mistake

Gould later published an article in Natural History in which he owned up to his mistake in "Wonderful LIfe." That article was later put between covers, in "Bully for Brontosaurus" iirc.

Christmas gamma burst stupendo-explosion DEATHMATCH

Neologistic overload

The author has used up El Reg's lifetime supply of the word "astro-boffin" and its derivatives.

Lovefilm dumps Flash, BLINDS Linux fans with Silverlight

Shades of the FBI warning on CDs

That big FBI seal and ominous words to the effect "don't you dare pirate this CD!"

Never mind that the only people who see it are the paying customers who actually bought the CD. Talk about insulting one's customers!

WRT Lovefilm dumping flash and thereby shutting out Linux users. Yes, Linux users may only make up a percent or two of their customer base, but in these hard economic times can any business afford to throw away a percent or two of their established customers?

Is the electromagnetic constant a constant?

"Chemicals"

Generally speaking the word "chemical" is reserved for compounds, usually molecular in nature.

It's *elements* that are synthesized in stars, but only up to atomic number 56, iron. Heavier elements are synthesized only in supernovas.

Indeed, "chemical" is a weasel word in this case. "Atoms" would be more suitable and more precise.

Get your nomenclature right, Mr. Chirgwin.

Online government services would exclude many Welsh

On saving money by moving everything to the internet

Decades ago, a professional librarian and I were discussing the ins and outs of computerizing libraries, for example their card catalogs. She reported that at a convention she'd attended, the point was made that computerization was no cheaper than doing things the Old Way. Its advantage was that it was much faster.

I suspect the same is true of any government IT initiative, even today. If anyone says it's cheaper, they're either lying or grossly misinformed. Far too many government IT projects seem to be pie in the sky, swallowed holus bolus by brain dead pols with stars in their eyes.

Man reveals secret recipe behind undeletable cookies

Advertising: an enormous con

It amuses me endlessly to see the lengths to which marketers will go in pursuit of maybe, just possibly, once in a very long while, a sale by one of those using their services to advertise.

Only speaking for myself, but I use adblock so I see few ads, and those I do see I pay no attention to.

The con is really that marketers claim that targeted ads improve sales. That's not true. Today I may be interested in ginormous nipple rings, tomorrow in an antiquated book on Latin grammar, and the day after in Dog only knows what.

Or to use a more prosaic example, suppose I'm looking for underwear. I have a very clear idea what I want, I know exactly which brand and model will fill the bill, and any adverts to the contrary are just so much wasted effort. What *will* influence me are the web pages that give full, objective information and are clear about sizing, fabric, country of origin, colors, styles, price, and availability. But once I've bought my gaunch, that's it. Throwing more ads at me does nothing, because I have enough rags to shelter my ever lovin' bod from the lust-filled gaze of onlookers, and need no more.

Then there's ebay: in my pursuit of the perfect undies, I found the brand and model, and set up a moderately complex search string to find ebay listings for those and no others. Ebay then, in its blind pursuit of money, altered their search facility so it returned not just what I was looking for, but all sorts of other brands and models, I s'pose with the subliminal message "Maybe these are what you really want?" An intelligent company would have recognized that the more specific a search, the less likely it is that the searcher has interest in other things, particularly when the search string takes steps to exclude other makes and models.

As ebay, so marketing in general: they think their ads actually work, but it's highly questionable whether they do anything other than annoy netizens.

HMRC online tax systems slammed by Private Forum for Biz

Tax law is too complex

Socialists, do-gooders, labourites nu and ol', nanny-staters, and bolsheviks all fail to realize that the tax system is too important to be abused in the pursuit of airy-fairy social goals.

When tax law reaches a certain level of complexity, no one can understand it, no one can figure out what tax they owe or refunds they are owed, and the whole operation starts to list to one side under the load. Moreover, with complexity comes a distinct risk of internal contradictions, in which case it's impossible to make sense of the law. Thus law abiding citizens are actively blocked from fulfilling one of their primary duties: to pay tax.

A further difficulty: when social goals are pursued via a tax system rife with various exemptions and such, it can become extremely difficult to determine the cost of such pursuit.

Far better: keep tax law as simple as humanly possible, and if social goals are desirable, issue payments that show up on the government's balance sheet.

Coulson arrested

Prolapsus ani

From what I've seen in certain porn flicks, name and nature not divulged here as El Reg is a family news outlet and Le Modérateur Divine might exercise his guillotine powers , gentlemen who after great effort have attained this anatomical anomaly (aka "a rosebud") rather enjoy their acquisition. And are happy to protrude it for the admiration of like-minded compatriots.

Auditor declares FiReControl a 'comprehensive failure'

Are huge failed IT projects a Labour specialty?

Or did previous governments mess up equally badly, equally as often?

It wouldn't surprise me to be told that Labour was particularly bad about this. They seem to have had a penchant for putting unqualified incompetents behind important desks. Sometimes I wonder if this was because all potential new hires were subjected to ideological vetting and their mastery of Marxist-Leninist dialectic was viewed as far more important than actually understanding the job and being able to do it.

Google Chrome extension busts Murdoch paywall

It hardly matters

The Times and the NYT used to be newspapers of record, but not anymore, not since they decided to chase readership figures instead of simply reporting the news. You could tell the Times was going downhill once Murdoch took over by watching the ever increasing amount of nooze about "celebrities" - which simply isn't news at all. It's mostly slightly rehashed press releases from publicists. And of what earthly significance are the latest shenanigans of Britney Spears, that Palin girl, Paris Hilton, or any of the rest of that gang?

And the NYT, in its pursuit of the next big blockbuster story, has lowered its standards to the point that outright hoaxes cooked up by young reporters and interns slip through and into print.

If I'm going to read a crappy newspaper, I might as well read the Daily Mail. Or Pravda.

Name and shame fat cat bureaucrats, Number 10 told

"Our brightest and best businessmen"

ITYM "our most sociopathic businessmen"

It's my opinion that the socio- and psychopaths have commandeered executive suites everywhere, and now that they're in control, they make sure that others of their ilk are the only ones allowed the luxury of a paneled office.

The only solution is to fire the lot, and hire their replacements from among the folks standing outside the building waiting for a bus. Like a blue light special at K-Mart, not quite as good quality, but much, much cheaper.

I'm sure that 99.9% of executives would, if asked "but what about your fiduciary duties?" would piss themselves laughing at such naiveté.

Microsoft loses Supreme patent fight over Word

The Greeks had a word for it

And so do the lawyers: estoppel.

It's a legal doctrine that you can't today argue "X" in court, then turn around and argue "not X" tomorrow.

A canny lawyer might be able to make MS quite miserable over this, or so it seems to me.

Student suspended for posting random satire on YouTube

Canada

IIRC (and I may be mistaken), random drug tests of employees are illegal in Canada because the drug consumption may have occurred out of work hours, and what someone does outside of work is no business of the employer. Or to put it another way, an employer's mandate doesn't include enforcing laws in general. That's the coppers' job.

Moreover since marijuana is the most common drug tested for and medical marijuana is quasi-legal in Canada, puffing on a reefer after work may be nothing more than taking your medicine.

By analogy, it is none of the school board's business what this kid did outside school, and they may very well be abridging his right to freedom of speech. I'd love to see a law suit that takes the school board to the cleaners, *and* a complaint to the relevant Human Rights Commission to really tie them in knots. It would add piquancy if the suit was not only against the school board, but against the individuals on it personally.

If the school board has any gumption, the persons who instituted, aided, and abetted this nonsense will be moved to positions where they have no input whatsoever into student discipline.

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.

NHS IT dino-project NPfIT should be killed off - NAO

"World class"

The presence of that phrase in the bumf emitted by some faceless bureaucrat marks it indelibly as nothing more than gaseous PR-speak, meaning nothing at all.

Anything that bills itself as "world class" is de facto not world class. That is a well-known fact.

ICT classes in school should be binned – IT biz body

Training vs education

In every discussion of education that I've read, there's no distinction made between training and education sensu strictu. You can train a monkey, but you can't educate him.

Learning to touch type is a form of training. Learning that in Algol, statements end with semicolon is training. But learning that sometimes a bubble sort is appropriate, but other times a QuickSort, is education.

Learning to wear underpants is training. Becoming familiar with the Classics is education because of the general lessons to be drawn from them.

Learning to "do typography" in Wurd is training, but internalizing Bringhurst's "The Elements of Typographic Style" is education.

Learning to spell is training (for the most part). Learning to write coherent prose is education.

CPS: We won't prosecute over BT/Phorm secret trials

Bringing the justice system into disrepute

Between important government offices being in the pockets of Big Business and the cops clearly pursuing an agenda contrary to the citizenry's best interests, I'd say British system of justice has utterly broken down.

The only solution, it appears to me, is to fire all the bureaucrats responsible for these insane decisions, and to purge the country's police forces of the bad apples. Sadly, the bad apples among the cops appear to outnumber the sound ones, and have an undue proportion of the higher level positions.

Is it any wonder that protests in the UK often turn into riots whipped into a frenzy by anarchists?

Some politicians need to read about the famous Gordon Riots for an example of what Britons can get up to if you push them hard enough.

Polyglot 419 scammers target German and Welsh speakers

Amusement LLC

I ran the latest such scam emails through Google's English to Welsh translator and came up with:

Fy enw i yw Mr John Bestman, rwy'n gweithio gyda banc ag enw da, lle yr wyf yn rheoli

cyfrifon cleientiaid preifat, fel mater o ffaith, yr wyf wedi bod yn gyfrifol am ddyletswydd hon am 12 mlynedd bellach. Darllen garedig atodiad isod neges am llawn

manylion. Ddiolch

and

Cyfarch o Al-Salim Bin Ahamad

Garedig dderbyn fy ymddiheuriad am anfon e-bost na ofynnwyd amdanynt i chi, yr wyf yn credu ydych yn berson gosod uchel o ystyried y ffaith fy mod yn cael eich proffil o gronfa ddata adnoddau dynol yn eich gwlad. Er, nid wyf yn gwybod i ba raddau yr ydych yn gyfarwydd â'r hyn yr wyf am dweud wrthych, i ofyn i chi ei drin yn ddifrifol. Ond fi angen i chi mi ystyried galonnog llawn cymaint ag i farw o ganser. Yr wyf yn ysgrifennu e-bost hwn i chi gyda trwm dagrau yn fy llygaid a gofid mawr yn fy galon. Yr wyf yn Ddinesydd Malaysian weithio yma mewn Kuwait fel olew crai gwerthwr am nifer o flynyddoedd bellach. Nes fy ymddeoliad diweddar yn dilyn fy gyngor meddyg i mi er mwyn osgoi unrhyw fath o straen oherwydd fy sy'n dod o iechyd.

Byddaf yn hoffi i chi weithio gyda mi fel partner i fuddsoddi fy arian yn eich

wlad, os ydych yn cytuno ydym bydd y ddau yn rhannu'r cyfanswm elw blynyddol.

Yr wyf yn disgwyl eich ymateb am ragor o wybodaeth

Aros Bendithia,

Bin Salim Al-Ahamad.

E-bost: al.salimbin.ahamad @ hotmail.my

To my surprise, Google translate even includes Georgian, yielding:

მისალმებები ალ-salim ბინ Ahamad

Kindly მიიღოს ჩემი საბოდიშო გაგზავნის გამოცხადების გარეშე ელ თქვენ, მე მჯერა, თქვენ ხართ მაღალი მოთავსებული პირის გავითვალისწინებთ იმ ფაქტს, რომ მივიღე თქვენი პროფაილი საწყისი ადამიანური რესურსების მონაცემთა ბაზის თქვენს ქვეყანაში. თუმცა, არ ვიცი რამდენად ხართ იცნობს რა ვარ შესახებ გეუბნებოდით, მე ვითხოვე, თქვენ მკურნალობა და სერიოზულობა. მაგრამ მინდა განიხილოს მომაწოდა ბევრად სრული heartily მე მოვკვდები, სიმსივნით. მე წერა ეს წერილი თქვენ მძიმე ცრემლი ჩემს თვალებს და დიდი მწუხარება ჩემი გული. მე მალაიზიის მოქალაქე მუშაობა ქუვეითში როგორც ნედლი ნავთობის დილერი მრავალი წელია. სანამ ჩემი ბოლოდროინდელი საპენსიო შემდეგ ჩემი ექიმის რჩევა ჩემთვის, რათა თავიდან ავიცილოთ რაიმე სახის სტრესის გამო ჩემი დაცემით ჯანმრთელობას. მე მომწონს თქვენი მუშაობა ჩემთვის, როგორც პარტნიორი ინვესტირებას ჩემი ფონდების თქვენს ქვეყანა, თუ თქვენ ეთანხმებით, ჩვენ უნდა ორივე წილი მთლიანი წლიური მოგება. მე დაელოდება თქვენს პასუხს დამატებითი ინფორმაცია კვლავ დალოცოს,

Al-salim ბინ Ahamad.

ელფოსტა: al.salimbin.ahamad @ hotmail.my

and Armenian:

Ողջունելով ից Al-Սալիմ Բեն Ahamad

Բարյացակամորեն ընդունեք իմ ներողությունը ուղարկելու համար անցանկալի էլեկտրոնային փոստով ձեզ, ես հավատում եք բարձր տեղադրված անձը հաշվի առնելով այն հանգամանքը, որ ստացա ձեր Անձնագրի ից մարդկային ռեսուրսների բազան Ձեր երկրում. Թեեւ, ես չգիտեմ, թե որքանով եք ծանոթ, թե ինչ եմ մոտ պատմում դուք, Ես խնդրում եք վերաբերվում այն լրջությունը. Բայց ես ուզում եմ ձեզ համարում ինձ շատ լրիվ սրտանց ինչպես ես մեռնեմ հետ քաղցկեղ. Ես եմ գրելու այս նամակը ձեզ հետ, ծանր արցունքն իմ աչքերից, եւ մեծ վիշտ իմ հոգում. Ես Malaysian քաղաքացու այստեղ աշխատելով Քուվեյթում, որպես հում նավթի ստանալու համար երկար տարիներ հիմա. Մինչեւ իմ վերջին կենսաթոշակային հետեւյալ իմ բժշկի խորհուրդը ինձ համար խուսափել ցանկացած ձեւով ընդգծում, քանի որ իմ նվազում Առողջապահության. Ես կցանկանայի ձեզ հետ աշխատելու համար ինձ, որպես գործընկեր ներդնել իմ իջոցների ձեր երկիր, եթե Դուք համաձայնում եք, մենք պետք է երկուսն էլ կիսում են ընդհանուր տարեկա շահույթը. Ես սպասում են ձեր պատասխանը: Լրացուցիչ տեղեկությունների համար

Մնում `օրհնելու,

Al-Սալիմ Բեն Ahamad.

Email: al.salimbin.ahamad @ hotmail.my

The plot, she thickens....

Jacqui Smith 'shocked' to discover we're drowning in sea of porn

A amusing side issue

Suppose, just suppose, that in an attempt to purify the minds of decadent, sex-obsessed, and kiddy-diddling Britons, HM Gov issues a ukase to the effect that depictions of illegal acts are themselves illegal. Hence, kiddy porn (well, a lot of it, I would guess) is made illegal on objective grounds, but pictures that merely excite and disgust the Jacquis of the world aren't. All good, no?

Ah, but what about Hollywood films filled with depictions of illegal violence?

I rest my case.

Microsoft's IE9: Don't believe the hype

@ Thad 14th February 2011 13:33 GMT

"They care"

"They care very much about standards. *Their* standards."

I'm sure I've read that Windows source code is so extensive that it contains millions of lines that no one now at Microsoft knows the function of. And wasn't there a legal proceeding some years ago where the learned judge directed that MS provide documentation of some file format or other - and MS couldn't do it because, just like Windows source code, the file format contained undocumented elements?

To put it another way, MS doesn't have standards and doesn't understand standards. They think that standards are just suggestions that developers (and professional liars aka marketers) can freely vary from for any or no reason.

DEC founder Ken Olsen is dead

The vision of individuals

Interesting how the Really Good IT companies so often have a single visionary individual in charge, usually a geek of some variety. Corporate committees stuffed with bean counters and professional liars (aka "marketers") invariably lay badly addled eggs in comparison.

Prosecutors opt for 'malfeasance' over DPA to charge officials

@ AC 18th January 2011 12:38 GMT

You don't understand. There is no law specifying this offense. It's a common-law offense, not a statutory offense.

Something not often appreciated is that most "law" is not statutory, but is common law, derived from judicial precedents over the centuries.

Also note that the three offenses mentioned, mis-, mal-, and non-feasance in public office, are all things which everyone would agree should be against the law. That's the beauty of the common law system: it works without the need for gas bags, do-gooders, and ideologists in Parliament being involved.

Archeologists toast world's oldest wine press

"Dry reds"

No way. Other reports indicate that the wine produced with thick, syrupy, and very sweet.

PS for Paul Johnston: In fact, all those Caucasian peoples share a common culture. They differ in religion and language (especially language) but food, music, dress, dance, and many other basic cultural practices are pretty much the same throughout the region.

Georgians, Armenians, Abkhaz, Chechens, Ingush, Ossetes, Bats, you name it.

Upshot: it's irrelevant to say this or that group originated such-and-such cultural practice. Almost unquestionably vinting arose in the Caucasus, but at this late date it's impossible to say that it was by one ethnic group or another. In fact, our modern designations of Caucasian peoples can't be said to apply to the inhabitants 6000 years ago.

Ombudsman slams DWP, HMRC data dumbnesses

"Immediate steps"

When the problem is due to deeply embedded causes, you ain't gonna fix it any time soon, and most definitely not "immediately." The govt depts' concern isn't for the harm they've caused this woman, or anyone else. It's simple annoyance at their carelessness being exposed to public scrutiny.

Without knowing a thing about the details, it's still easy to guess some of the systemic contributing factors:

1. Managers with authority but no (or little, or obsolete) technical expertise making decisions they are unqualified to make.

2. Outsourcing development instead of developing in-house.

3. Hiring poorly paid, inept code monkeys instead of facing the fact that truly competent IT people are in very short supply and if you want good ones (not necessarily "the best') you have to pay for them. No such thing as bargain basement experts.

4. The MBA mentality that views employees as fungible assets, all interchangeable cogs, instead of recognizing that every employee has a unique combination of smarts, education, experience, and overall competency. No, dears, that secretary over there is NOT qualified to carry out that statistical analysis you want, even if she has a vague idea what a spreadsheet is.

5. Deadwood in the upper ranks of management who yearn for the days when they had paper records, preferably maintained by hand in blue-black ink with fountain pens.

6. Blairite fascination with big projects, instead of the little dull boring unexciting ones that actually do the hard work.

Google battles Derby cops over access to Street View data

English cops don't know their history

After all, England is the country that chopped the head off one king to establish the principle that no one is above the law, not even the monarch. And most certainly not the coppers.

You can argue that expelling James II from the throne was more of the same.

Perhaps someone should send the cops copies of Dickens' "An Child's History of England" as the first step toward teaching them this important principle.

Called 999 recently? They've got your number

@ Is it me?

"Police are human beings"

Piffle. On the evidence of the news I read, British cops are, to coin a phrase, Highly Self-important Assholes. (Be thankful that I did not resort to strong language in coining that phrase.) Our Canajun cops are no paragons of virtue, but seem to be a little more nearly human.

The SF author Jack Vance made the following relevant observation in one of his novels:

"As soon as the police slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto themselves. They think no more of justice, but only of establishing themselves as a privileged and envied elite. They mistake the attitude of natural caution and uncertainty by the civilian population as admiration and respect, and presently they start to swagger back and forth, jingling their weapons in megalomaniac euphoria. People thereupon become not masters, but servants. Such a police force becomes merely an aggregate of uniformed criminals, the more baneful in that their position is unchallenged and sanctioned by law. The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than as an item to be processed as expeditiously as possible. Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly overzealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption. The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than that despotism of one unbridled police force."

This has always seemed to me to be exactly on point, even though it was originally written some forty years ago.

PayPal banned WikiLeaks after US gov intervention

It's not illegal until the judge says so

Until someone is found guilty in a court trial, any statements regarding the illegality of their acts are merely unsubstantiated allegations. PayPal should have sent the relevant letter back to the FBI and said "tell us when this guy has been tried and found guilty."

This is called "the rule of law" and, oddly enough, is one of the issues the US was founded on.

CNN flashes gay todger over interwebs

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

There's no guarantee that the gentleman whose wedding tackle is deployed in that photo is necessarily gay.

A. Because the object of his lust is of undetermined sex and may be a woman.

B. Because lots of gentlemen fond of the occasional sodomistical outing with another gentleman are quite definite that they are not gay. Just check relevant sections of Craigslist for proof.

For that matter, there's no guarantee that that isn't a photo of a shop window mannequin - though I must admit I've never seen or heard of one like that.

Big Brother has spoken.

Mass mind control artist condemns El Reg to obscurity

@ Kevin Reader

"The Moderatrix" is improper nomenclature. The correct term is "Our Divine Moderatrix", and you better believe it or the Moderatrix will get on your case big time.

Note that when she does, outraged, anguished cries of "but I didn't know" will be to no avail. Ignorance is no excuse.

Canada steps closer to legalising sex work

Your writer doesn't understand Canadian law

To wit, that prostitution per se is already legal in Canada.

What was illegal until this recent decision were:

☙ keeping a common bawdy house, i.e. operating a brothel or even just one whore having a regular place of business.

☙ communicating for the purposes of prostitution, i.e. advertising, asking potential clients if they're interested as they stroll along the streets, etc. Interestingly, earlier court decisions have held (iirc) that the interior of an automobile is a private place and negotiations conducted therein between john and whore do not violate this prohibition.

☙ living on the avails of the trade, i.e. being a pimp or a madam

But prostitution, per se, is not illegal. If you can find clients without being a pest about it, it's perfectly fine to sell sexual access to your ever lovin' bod for filthy lucre.

The upshot of this situation is that alternative newspapers are filled with ads from "escorts", ads that don't fool anybody at all. Even the coppers aren't fooled. But guess what? The coppers don't care. Even though many of the ads are from agencies, i.e. virtual brothels that deliver sex to your door.

After all, Canada is by and large a cold country; how can one justify laws that prevent part of the population from warming up their anatomy?

Stoke Council avoids fine over lost childcare data on USB stick farce

A plea for partial leniency

The doofus who lost this stick and the one who put the information on it in the first place (possibly the same individual) may be entirely blameless. I'm willing to bet the usual jelly filled donut that they were never instructed not to put sensitive data on portable devices. Nor, for that matter, were they ever told what is "sensitive data" and what isn't.

If they were, the instruction was buried probably in the middle of a 2500 page policy and procedures manual that only management has copies of, or was couched in such thick bureaucratese and circumlocution that it obscured rather than communicated.

The person who deserves a fine painful enough to cause prolonged reflection on the error of her ways is the person in charge of IT security.

Speak geek: The world of made-up language

Natural languages far more interesting than synthetic ones

The problem with all (or maybe just most) made up languages is that they are constrained by the linguistic background of their inventors. (Klingon is a possible exception in that it was deliberately intended to violate as many of the linguistic universals as possible.)

If someone wants to learn an exotic language so their world perspective broadens, there are plenty of candidates out there. Georgian, for example, not only has a grammar that will drive the innocent mad (check out online resources on Georgian grammar, esp. verbs), but its own alphabet and a phonological inventory very very different from English. Or if you want to have lots of tongue twisting fun, Chechen has something like 40 consonants *and* 40 vowels.

Ubykh, now extinct but well-documented, features over 80 different consonants. Your vocal tract will become an acrobat if you learn Ubykh.

American Indian languages are notorious for their grammar, which is strikingly different from anything most readers of El Reg are familiar with. The distinction between verbs and nouns is vague in many of them (the languages, that is), and a single very long word can correspond to a complex English sentence.

And so it goes. Why waste time on inept fiction when the real thing beckons?

eBay Meg bitchslapped by Governor Moonbeam

@ Dunstan Vavasour

The US political system does not place great power in the national parties. In particular, and *afaik* every candidate has to be chosen by the state party. Generally speaking, party politics in the US is far more open and less controlled by wannabe central committee bolshevists.

I am always astonished to read how in the British system, Labour's central committee can dictate who will run in what riding. In the US, rather than a show of raw power, the equivalent is done by channeling campaign funds, though the bolshevists at the center are still bound by the choice of the state party organization.

Times celebrates disappearing readers

Quality metrics for newspapers and magazines

What percentage of the editorial text (i.e. non-advertising) is devoted to the shenanigans of "celebrities"?

No, wait, I'm wrong. That's an anti-quality metric.

A secondary metric is "what percentage of blather about "celebrities" is drawn from publicity releases or other vomitus from their publicists?" This is another anti-quality metric

Tertiary metric: "Of the regurgitated celebrity blather (see second metric for definition), how much is sarcastic and/or cynical disrespect for said celebrities?" El Reg does fairly well by this standard, it so happens.

I started reading the e-Times quite a long time ago on the grounds that it was a newspaper of record, but as the years wore on, more and more the quality of the content declined with ever greater amounts of gush about celebrities. Murdoch's paywallization of the Times is really no loss, considering how journalistic standards have slipped at that once great newspaper.

The great Aussie firewall is back - and this time it's personal

@ Tron

Your comment isn't unrealistic. There was an amusing video clip (sorry, no URL at hand) of an interview with a withered, wrinkled old Ozzie fundie railing about just what you mention: skimpy swimsuits. Here he was standing by one of Oz's outstanding beaches full of sleek bodies barely concealed by a few shreds of Lycra, dressed in long pants, white shirt, and tie, blathering on and on. Too bad the interviewer didn't point out the truth: that old wrinkled dude just has a dirty mind. Instead of worrying that the sight of a pair of budgie smugglers may induce lustful thoughts in someone else's mind, maybe he'd do better to examine his own smarminess.

The background story is that proportional representation has given a small fundie-based political party the balance of power, so the pols of the major parties suck up to the fundies with nonsense such as that under discussion. It makes one think much better of first-past-the-post systems.

BT blasts hundreds of would-be customers' data into Infinity

@ AC 15th October 2010 14:34 GMT

"a technically incompetent PR company"

1. Is there any other kind?

2. Tautology alert!

Interesting how, somehow, we've developed a politico-socio-economic system that...

a. invariably confuses the sizzle with the steak.

b. fills up senior corporate positions with sociopaths and psychopaths. Esp. true in the financial sector.

c. infests lower levels of management with incompetents. Judging from the doofuses I used to work under, if you hired your managers out of the people waiting at the nearest bus stop, you would be no worse off and quite likely better off. Scott Adams' "Dilbert" with its pointy-haired boss is no joke.

d. gives the bean counters, the lawyers, and the marketing wonks authority over the actual work of an organization. My personal opinion is that all three groups' members should be kept locked up in small cages in the lowest sub-basement, gagged and bound, and only released when those who actually know what they are doing need a little financial, legal, or psychological advice. As matters stand, these three tails definitely wag the dog.

e. has turned journalism into a branch of entertainment and celebrity worship. Even the most stately of newspapers and magazines are hard to distinguish from the movie magazines read by air headed teen-aged girls 50-60 years ago. In those days, we right thinking people quite rightfully scorned such magazines and those who read them as trash read by trash, but now they are mainstream. Is it any wonder that Sarah Palin, whose only assets seem to be an extravagantly sunny smile and decent looks, is actually taken seriously in some quarters?

We need a George Grosz or a Heinrich Kley to lampoon these twits

OOo's put the willies up Microsoft

The human costs of swapping software

This has been a consistent result of the Microsoft marketing strategy: every release of Orifice has differed sufficiently from the previous, in terms of both function and interface, that users had to be retrained.

The switch from Orifice to Open Orifice[*] is no more costly in these terms than going to the next release of Orifice.

[*] Yes, the pun, dreadful as it is, is fully intentional. Suck it up, dudes!

Penis pill spam shrinks

Time to socialize Viagra

Seize the rights to Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra, make them non-prescription drugs worldwide, and sell them in vending machines for one unit each of the local currency.

Any harms resulting from this shift in paradigm would be more than offset by the resultant drop in spam loads.

Pfizer et al can be paid a small royalty of a quarter unit of currency per pill sold.

Doctors, particularly those at walk-in clinics that take all comers, would be happy too. They'd no longer have to deal with the innumerable sheepish middle aged men they have today stammering as they request a prescription for ED meds.

Ofcom imposes new rules on silent callers

The delusions of marketers

Cold calling merely pisses people off, aside from a few stupid or confused people who are so lonely that even a telemarketing call is welcome. What kind of marketing is it that pisses potential customers off? The same kind of marketing that inspired Phorm and inspires Google.

This is aside from those cold calls which are actually scams - which may be the majority.

My own funny story about screwing around with a telemarketer's head: I answered a call. The gentleman at the other end had a distinct Indian accent. I asked him if he was married. He said no. I pointed out that when he lined up a prospective bride, her parents would refuse their consent once they found out what he did for a living, or the girl would even do that herself.

Burrow from within! Sow the seeds of doubt!