Posts by Andy

(New) dirt-cheap bots attack Hotmail Captchas

re: email avalanche

darn, where am I going to find another 6 friends from?

Virgin Media network collapses nationwide

fibre break

if a fibre is broken, stuff an OTDR on it and it'll tell you EXACTLY where the damage is.

For a laugh read the posts by the anonymous one, he is nothing if not inconsistent. Just some that I notice are :

He is in several different cities simultaneously, he only had it installed yesterday and he also had it installed some years ago, it was so bad he changed, but yet had the problem, and in a different comment, he had no problem!

I could go in, but I notice that what ever gets reported in El Reg, he has the problem and solution, and as the comments grow, so does his experience. Honestly, I look forward to his entertaining comments. Soon he may even rival Simon Trav.

Pinwheel galaxy boasts edgy star formation

re it's a re-run

no way of knowing, I suspect, without access to a stargate.

Government warns parents of food-colouring danger

E For Additives?

How unbelievable is this, what a waste of research money? Just ask any parent from the eighties. Almost all of us had a copy of a big red book entitled 'E FOR ADDITIVES' and it spelled out all the dangers of the various additives. And you could so easily test for your self the truth of it with a cup of cheap orange juice, or packet of smarties for the kids. It really was, 'Light the touchpaper and retire a safe distance.'

Why, oh why, have we not learned about this and banned these substances?

Battling Swiss woman starts petition against Adobe

Hardware Piracy No Surprise

With the already high US$ prices for some software, the increasingly 'rip off' European prices just invite attention, and the attention that they get is that of piracy. A quick scan of ebay at weekends shows that you can purchase fully working copies of most software for literally a few £ or $. Whilst I do not subscribe to software piracy, the opportunity to save several 1000% is tempting to many.

Of course the high prices do not justify piracy, nor are they the only cause, but they are a reason why many people, otherwise honest and law abiding people, may choose to buy a copy of adobe at around £10 from ebay, rather than pay the additional markup several hundred pounds for a UK version that is in American (color !!) English anyway.