Posts by Neil Gardner

Cambridge Analytica CEO suspended – and that's not even the worst news for them today

I think Cambridge Analytica merely scratches the surface at the extent of psychological warfare, which is naturally largely controlled by big governments and big business whose interested are most closely aligned with big banks and unaccountable remote supranational entities.

However, here two establishment mouthpieces would have us believe that only the opponents of their beloved EU would dare use social media and other underhand tactics to sway the vote. My twitter feed is replete with promoted messages that are very much in favour of the EU, mass migration and Clintonite / Blairite politics.

Middle England's allotments become metric battlefield

How dare these dyed-in-the-wool Little Englanders (and probably UKIP voters to boot) use antediluvian units of measure that have not been endorsed by the International Community? I mean this is nearly as bad as the French insisting on speaking French in France, when everyone else has moved onto Globalish. We should all speak te language, watch the same movies, dance to the same music, eat the same food and think the same sanitized thoughts. Please repeat after me, globalization is wonderful. Long live Globalish! Long live conformity and let's leave diversity to our corporate branding dudes!

Child sex abuse image peddlers dodge UK smut filters and demand Bitcoin payments

I think we should definitely ban Bitcoin, used only by terrorists and paedos and not by normal fun-loving consumers of mass-commercialised entertainment. While we're at it, we should ban the Internet and mobile phones, as apparently paedos have been known to use these means of communication too.

However, if you really enjoy spying on strangers in various states of undress and arousal in the privacy of their own homes, may I suggest applying for a job at GCHQ?

Brits on benefits: 'Dole office site only works on PCs over 10 YEARS OLD'

Amd there was me trying renew my claim for disability living allowance on my brand new 15" retina MAcBook Pro with 16 GB RAM. I need all that extra memory so I can run IE6 on a Win XP virtual machine. And that reminds me. I have to renew insurance for the Mercedes SL Class Coupe I bought last year to attend occasional job interviews and impress metrosexual partners. You don't seriously expect me to catch a bus or cycle to the benefits office, do you?

Vomit virus drives punters to NHS Choices over Christmas

Lots of useful information, essentially recycled blurb from their pharmaceutical friends about why you need a Flu jab. Free information is usually propaganda.

Bot attacks Linux and Mac but can't lock down its booty

Market Share

If Mac and Linux viruses didn't exist, Symantec would have to invent them.... If you don't pay your antivirus tax, Symantec et al. won't be able to invest in new security software...... Never experienced a virus on Mac or Linux in 5 years of intensive Internet use.....

MS warns over zero-day IE bug

CIO Perspective

We will be applying new Microsoft patches to all our desktop computers to enhance the security of Internet Explorer 6. Please be aware of corporate policy not to attempt to install unauthorised third party browsers. Non-MIcrosoft browsers are not supported by our IT team or by Microsoft.

Please refrain from using sites, developed by trendy web designers, known to have issues with IE6, such as Facebook or Google Maps. PLease use Microsoft services instead.

North Carolina to raise army of Microsofties

Things I Learned At School

English: To write an essay you need Microsoft Word.

History: People used to use pens and then typewriters, but now everyone needs a legal copy of MIcrosoft office.

Maths: To do complex calculations, one need Microsoft Excel. People used to use an abacus, their brains and rudimentary calculators, but now Microsfot Excel is indispensable.

Business Management: We need Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio.

Marketing: Life is inconceivable without Microsoft Power Point.

Science: Excel, Access, Project, Word....

IT: Microsoft Windows makes the world go round. Microsof Access rocks... MySQL is only for geeks.

Sociology: Only geeks like the guys at Google run Linux. Normal people use Microsoft Windows...

French: Mon ordinateur a un controlleur orthographique en français de la Microsoft. Merci Redmond.

Politics: Open source advocates are dangerous extremists. Mainstream moderates support Microsoft.

Europe questions move to block child sex abuse images

Duplicity

Now suppose the EU wanted to ban all video games portraying reennactments of gratuitous violence. 99% Reg Readers would be wholeheartedly against it. Everyone would be seeing "I;d never dream of harming anyone in real life, it's just a cathartic (keyword!!) tool I use to release my pent-up anger". They'd be describing this move as draconian, reactionary, DailyMailesque... Well, actually violent videos games are a multi-billion pound industry and are actively promoted by very powerful lobbies and viral marketing. Killing people is obviously wrong as is child abuse (i.e. where children are actually aware of any harm being done).

However, here many Reg Readers can't wait to jump on the bandwaggon and support Draconian measures wide open to interpretation that could potentially criminalise millions of Europeans.

What constitutes kiddie porn? Is it a perfectly innocent image of naked chid in a bath tub with partially visible genitalia (and how do we define erotic). Is it a dressed child sucking a lollipop? What the hell is it. Let kids be kids and let's desexualise nudity... What the hell is wrong with our society. Virtual death and destruction is ok (actually supercool), but nudity is somehow evil. Consistency please....

Youth jailed for not handing over encryption password

Guilty until proven innocent

During the normal course of my duty as anti-paedo enforcement officer in West Tesco Town Shopping Centre, I spotted an suspicious-looking gentleman paying undue attention to a 4 year-old male child inside a Postman Pat van while fumbling his camera phone. I approached the said individual and demanded immediate access to his mobile phone. The "customer" did not collaborate and bleated something about having to attend a job interview and needing his mobile for urgent business calls. At that juncture I had no alternative but to terminate the customer's existence by deploying my newly issued instant-justice laser gun in silent mode. I have reassured all carers of children within 6 kilometre radius of said incident of the elimination of another potential criminal.

On a related note, I will complete my report on the feasibility of installing hidden anti-rape CCTV cameras in all public toilets.

Trident delay by the Coalition: Cunning plan, or bad idea?

Go Nuke'Em

Let me get this right. The Reg editorial team believe recent climate change is not affected by historically unprecedented levels of human activity, limits to growth are a myth, oil had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, we need need a nuclear deterrent.

Yeah, OK let's all emulate Jeremy Clarkson, support __our__ troops in Afghanistan and Iraq (spreading freedom and democracy), drive our SUVs on new multilane highways spanning the former rural region of East Anglia, now converted to London overspill, and threaten the rest of the world with nuclear armageddon should these evil extremists challenge our god-given right to a high-consumption life style.

School worker jailed for abuse images

All Nerds are Pervs

IT experts, i.e. the kind of person who knows the difference between the Internet and Microsoft Internet Explorer or can actually decipher some HTML source code, tend be rather nerdish and are thus biogenetically susceptible to sexual perversion and feel insecure with consenting adults of the age group. I would suggest as a purely precautionary measure arresting all IT Experts and scanning their hard drives for naughty imagery. The only downside is we will have to rely on some IT experts to perform this task.

I bet some of these IT experts do some really outlandish things like install non-Microsoft operating systems... Perverts, the lot of 'em. I'm organising an anti-Paediatrician demo outside Google's UK offices tomorrow. t has a high concentration of IT experts, most of them paedos of some sort.

UK.gov sticks to IE 6 cos it's more 'cost effective', innit

Go Virtual

How about migrating all HM Govt machines to some linux-based thin client and then for IE6-only apps using a Virtual Machine running on the server via a remote desktop. Most Websites built over the last five years will run fine on modern browsers... That way maintenance is limited to the VM.

Welcome to Our Brand New Web 2.0 App

Users of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and IE9 can benefit from our brand new interactive Web 2.0 online word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database management, messaging, calendaring, accounting, charting and training application for free!!!

Users of IE7 and below can still see a basic version with limited functionality, but may wish to purchase a fully licensed copy of the equivalent desktop software for just £400.

NHS loses massive Microsoft licensing rebate

New Deal

Here is a deal. The NHS phases in OpenOffice.org or IBM Symphony (where only wordprocessing, spreadsheets and basic presentations are required) in all cases where new licences are required (given that the interface is almost identical to MS Office 2003), but donates £65 million to the OpenOffice.org development team to improve user experience, performance and functionality of the suite for the next three years. Indeed one mini-project would be to provide a standalone Writer application that would load in a fraction of a second with a simplified user-interface. As for e-mail, just switch over to Evolultion and Zimbra and kiss goofbye to Exchange.... Within their 65 million development budget, they could also convert their zillions of Access micro-databases (often little more than glorified spreadsheets) into MySQL DBs.

The additional development team could be based in the UK and supplement teams already working for IBM, Novell and Canonical. Within 2 or 3 years OpenOffice.org would have surpussed MS Office in usability. Simultaneously the NHS should investigate greater use of and synchronisation with online office suites. That would be 65 million squid well spent, funding UK developers (that;s around 650 developers at £100K per annum or 1300 at 50K!!) ....

Microsoft: 'Using IE6 is like drinking 9-year-old milk'

What's wrong with Lynx?

Having reviewed all available technologies, as head of IT at NorthWest TescoTown Council, I would highly recommend the text-focused Lynx running on CLI Slackware for internet connectivity, VI for wordprocessing and Mutt for emailing.

These advanced application will run on all our machines dating from the mid 1990s and let our staff focus solely on text rather than faffing around with fonts and graphics. All three applications blocks flash, porn and facebook by default, while being fully compatible with our fleet of dot matrix printers. We have asked Microsoft to release a special edition of Slackware and make these applcations available from a Start Menu at the bottom left of the terminal window in compliance with our preferred supplier policy.

Vote Lib Dem, doom humanity to extinction

Technocrats?

Is El Reg run by the pro-nuclear, pro-big-pharam, pro-GM and vehemently anti-green Frank Furedi sect, currently known as Spiked Online. Check them out at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=LM_group .... They exert significant influence on the media and really just apologists for big business...

'Snowball Earth': Glaciers, ice packs once met at Equator

La La La

I refuse to accept any science that interferes with my god-given right to drive my SUV on business or pleasure, wherever and whenever I want. How could anyone possibly think that human inegenuity has limits. Green fascists, them all. The ruling lizards have a plan to decimate the earth's population with all this climate change hoax. Must be true because I read it in the Daily Mail and on Rense Dot Com.

Anwyay I can thank AGW believers for expanding my vocabulary. Before they publicised their whacky theory that the activity of 6.8 billion human beings and 800 million motor vehicles effects the eco-system, I didn't know the word anthropogenic. Now I do and I use it liberally to impress all these boffins....

Climategate hits Westminster: MPs spring a surprise

Boundless Growth

How dare anyone deny me of god-given right to drive my SUV 40 miles down the motorrway to work every morning, holiday abroad three times a year and purchase groceries trucked in from thousands of miles away. Our high-consumption lifestyle is non-negotiable. Only eco-fascist losers would suggest otherwise. Human beings have no effect on the environment whatsoever. Don't believe all this green propaganda about peak (cheap) oil, expanding deserts, overfishing, contaminated water supplies. I don't know why the US bothered to occupy Iraq as it could easily get all the energy it needs from algae and cold fusion. Indeed I saw a YouTube video by an Americna guy invented a water-powered engine and followed a link from "www dot rense dot com" about an Irish guy who invented a free zeropoint energy machine.

Anyway back to the grind... I just wish they would widen M25 to 15 lanes and quadruple the capacity of the London underground.

The myth of Britain's manufacturing decline

Common Sense

The author clearly subscribes to the New Labour / Frank Furedi sect worldview and probably thinks that people need video games, gambling and banking services (which are now defined as products and may soon be included in manufacturing). Apart from counting the value of manufactured products rather than volume or use-value, the author also failed to account that we now consume 3-4 times per capita than in the 1960s.

Britain's main manufacturing exports are military hardware, pharmaceuticals, entertainment industry accessories and rapidly shrinking reserves of North Sea oil. Of the things we actually need, most is now imported, that includes according to government statistics 40% of our food (I think it's higher), 75% of motor vehicles, most electronic gadgetry, industrial machinery, medical equipment, most steel, timber and even plastics. We are now net importers of gas, oil and almost unbeliavably coal.

And if carrying coal to Newcastle seems absurd, bottled water marketers have successfully sold French H20 to gullible rain-drenched islanders.

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Microsoft connects Web2.0rhea dots in Outlook... bitch

Why use Outlook

Outlook integrates really well with the Microsoft ecosystem, a Exchange client par excellence. Wow!! But why use Outlook to update your facebook account when you can use your mobile phone without letting your boss know all your contacts?

Opera slams Microsoft's Windows 7 E move - again

The Ultimate Setup Experience

Thank for purchasing your brand new Dell Computer with 2GB RAM and a whppping 250GB hard drive.

We have preinstalled Ubuntu, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, OpenOffice, Gnumeric, F-Spot, The Gimp, Banshee and many more free and opens-source apps on one partition, and on the other Microsoft Windows 7 with a choice of Internet Explorer 8, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Mircosoft Office 2007 or OpenOffice, The Gimp or Photoshop.

If you opt for Microsoft Windows 7, please have your credit card ready . That's just £70 for the Starter Edition, £50 for your choice of Norton Antivirus, McAfee or Kaperksy. If you want Microsoft Office 2007 that's another £70 for the basic student edition or £200 for the professional edition. It's up to you!!

OpenOffice bug/feature stirs 'horde of angry chimps'

Not the same in Go-Office / NeoOffice

I have just tried to replicate the purported "bug" in NeoOffice, a mac port of OpenOffice based on Novell's branch Go-office, and it behaves just like Excel, i.e. it only changes visible entries. However, to me as a programmer, it seems more logical to apply edits to all cells with the same criterion, or at least to have the option to do so. Most Linux distros such as Ubuntiu and OpenSuse, use this build. Also I have used OOo on three platforms alongside M$ Office at work and never experienced the compatibility problems some other so-called professionals have. OpenOffice opens almost anything. MS Office is fine-tuned to open MS Office documents + RTF, which Microsoft helped define. I spent the best part of 3 months writing a PHP library to export to RTF, so I know what I'm talking aboit. OpenDocument is simply a more logical format that facilitates conversion between diverse systems. Don't let this FUD lead you to believe you need to shell out £200 on MS Office Pro. You don't. Even the Student Edition (currently discounted to £50) is rip-off compared to the much more complete free alternative OpenOffice. What we probably need is an OpenOffice Light, along the lines of proprietary Mac-Only IWork, but with clean HTML export.

It's the economy stupid

MS Office accounts for 40% of Microsoft's revenue. Compare the billions M$ reaps from its stranglehold on office software with the puny millions Sun and Novell have been able to allocate to Star Office. Like or not, OpenOffice is a very complex, versatile and admittedly somewhat bloated software suite that has conistsently opened all the Word, Excel and PowerPoint docs friends and customers have sent me. To correct outstanding "bugs" would require millions more. We need not just compeition, but also awareness that the future is open-source and fewer and fewer will double the price tag on their shiny new laptop just to have the filtering component of their spreadsheet app behave just like Excel 2003.

If the Public Sector gave the OpenOffice development team just 10% of what they spend on MS Office licences, within a year, we'd have a leaner, faster, more responsive OpenOffice suite and could start fixing outstanding bugs. Besides word processors and spreadsheets should be integrated in the OS preinstalled on your machine. No to the MS licence fee!!!

Scotland's porn laws: Can we talk about this like grown-ups?

Legal Psychopaths

Seems like psychopaths will just have to indulge in legal pursuits, like playing Call of Duty (watching portrayals of pre-teen slut merits an instant death penality, but mass murder's positively cool) all day long, joining the army to stop foreign terrorists from grabbing our oil under their sand, gambling online and watching Channel 5.

Likewise drug addicts should steet clear of illegal narcotics and get themselves diagnosed with a personality disorder so they can benefit from legal psychoactive medicines.