* Posts by Damien Thorn

106 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Feb 2009

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On the matter of shooting down Amazon delivery drones with shotguns

Damien Thorn

What if...

I made a remote control plane and painted a little dude inside and flew it into a drone :D Could call it a Kami-Kamazon mission :D

Or if i built a custom dual shotgun cartridge mechanism that could fire from the wings of a RC spitfire :D

OR i bought a nice rocket and turned it into a missile with some available kit.

Personally i think you would get into MORE trouble for making any such thing, go to jail for a very long time, than if you actually used it to shoot down the drone. They dont like people having things like that.

And finally: No one is dumb enough to fire a gun in a built up area anyway, the chance of hitting someone is FAR too high for even the most STUPID person to consider it. So not only will no drones actually fly, there are ways to take them down, but no one is stupid enough to try.

Latest global menace: ELECTROPULSE NORKS, apparently

Damien Thorn

Meet Faraday Kim Jong-Un

What you will now see is South Korea put up a Faraday cage.

There are too many myths about EMP, Not being able to use a computer will be the least of your worries when you realize the EMP has fallout following it.

EMP is not as effective as everyone assumes, sure its going to cause tons of damage, but most things will remain unaffected due to modern buildings acting like faraday cages and much of the equipment not being turned on or plugged in at the time, and most metal vehicles will escape unscathed.

Then you will probably die from radiation or electrocution.

But at least the toaster will still work!

Lady Gaga loses squatting complaint

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

gaga

You know sometimes you read things and you wonder there validity etc, but a (star?) takes one of her fans to court for using her name on a fansite? Well im wondering the sanity of that.

A few years back I had a website which parodied a real company - they didnt take me to court, they gave me tons of content as it was bringing visitors to there real site. Thus the wisdom to ladygaga instead of costing you money, send the owner some content, ask for a link to your "official" site, because at the end of the day if a fans out there paying real money for hosting etc and not making money off your name or being slanderous then think how it might be beneficial to have a good relationship with that site.

paris - because fighting fans is counter productive.

ps if i buy her CD will she sue me for playing it?

Experts suggest SSL changes to keep BEAST at bay

Damien Thorn
Linux

Bah!

All the money spent on security, and along comes a user and its not worth its salt (pun intended)

Google cant really talk, they know there targets too, nice of them to offer a solution, but security is really an ongoing war, the best advice use as much as you can and if its critical dont put it online.

Faster-than-light back with surprising CERN discovery

Damien Thorn

i didnt stop myself

Is this the same cern who have a big bug in there software?

Anyhow ill wait and see, and as im inpatient, if time travel ever becomes possible. either ill come back and stop myself or can someone post before me not to :P

If this post is readable bad news time travel will never be discovered, but things might still travel faster than light, although how moving fast is of any real benefit to mankind right now, i dont know.

Also id like to remind myself next week to buy a brolly, buy shares in some cern.

MS denies secure boot will exclude Linux

Damien Thorn

consumer power

Does not make commercial sense to cut out customers, linux has a huge following, and microsoft know full well a large porportion of those using linux also buy there high end distributions of windows, so ultimately it wont be an os vendor dictating what a pc can run, it will be consumers.

Remember its consumers who forced windows 7 when vista wouldnt do what many wanted, and why major vendors like dell offered us what we wanted because it affected sales, this will in my view because of customer numbers be similar, they will sort it.

Also in todays economic climate, vendors might get a frightening shock, wont take much for a major switch from home users and business to linux. It will be reputable companies then who see the potential, thats why i dont think theres anything for us to worry about, at this stage at least.

Tech City UK quango rearranges Shoreditch

Damien Thorn

scam!

I know its cost them a packet to redevelop but getting people lost in the area to boost tourism is silly.

£6K for a penetration test? I only used to charge £850 and that included fixing the hole for a whole 12 months on contract.

As for 37k for a website, for that kind of money i want to see something amazing, i want to see real innovation, and for a tech city really you wouldnt expect less ... or is it like every other over priced site?

Iranian pimp plates arse up Afghan car sales

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

DVLA plate unavailable

The Uk is on 11 plates, CA11 GRL is unavailable. (maybe they should import 39 cars from iran, seems they will get a good bargain, and there left hand drive which makes felatio easier kerb side roflmao.)

Woman puts shout-out for hitman on Facebook

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

T.W.A.T

Blooming idiot, everyone knows if you want a hitman just check your email for 419 scams.

Anyway facebook isnt any good to get hitmen, there quite secretive and dont tend to talk a lot, perhaps twitter would be a suitable alternative.

A few tips for contracting a hitman online:

You should call your local law enforcement, they will have a list of villains, this will prevent you being ripped off by scammers.

Your local newspaper is read by many criminals checking the police progress of there nefarious activities, a full page advert would cost you £300, if you dont have many followers on twitter this may help you find what you need.

You should always speak in quiet tones and wear dark glasses and a mac, and agree to meet in your local supermarket carpark after dark, hitmen expect you to follow the rules.

Does a flash motor make a man more desirable?

Damien Thorn
Joke

I got a flash motor

With the peasants it makes me more popular, but there blond linguistic skills are a romance killer.

Can i come drive in your caw?

My car is a prestine condition matchbox model ferarri. (im commenting on the register do you actually believe my income would let me buy a decent motor roflmao)

Lock up your lungs, here comes Grimsvotn

Damien Thorn
Happy

Rejoice!

Its natures way of punishing them for not paying back our money they kept, what he/she/it is doing is slowly melting them and sending the land to the EU via airmail. See even nature has a sense of ironic justice.

At least if your a farmer in scotland, volcanic ash is brilliant for soil.

'Porn lock' heralds death of WikiLeaks, internet, democracy, universe

Damien Thorn

impossible to block

Mobile phone companies pre-fetch pages as standard before allowing some pages to display certain words. (And most unlock it almost immediately to do normal stuff as the filters block nearly everything)

On broadband the system is very different, it would create chaos to implement and drag decent networks to a crawl.

And finally its impossible to block anything on the net, a tiny encryptor and plugin for a browser would render the block ineffective (works well in china)

Alan Sugar's 'cockup braindead in call centre clueless' BT row

Damien Thorn
Joke

Service?

Someone should impersonate richard branson and offer him cable.

This year's comedy Xmas No. 1 contender: Silent song 4'33"

Damien Thorn
FAIL

The Devils song

They sell me water, and now they want to sell me silence.

Ill get my old decks out and remix it with some drum and bass.

LIDL punts circular saw blades to innocent kiddies

Damien Thorn

E&oe's again?

I blame the playstation generation, any real tool is seen by them as a toy.

Well im off to play chase with the neighbours kids - were using a tesco chainsaw.

Apple I goes for twice the price of an Enigma

Damien Thorn
Jobs Horns

hmmmz

Old tech is fascinating, but i cant think of a witty retort to the story, so ill just stick an apple logo on and some readers will think its an amazing post :) hehehe

I hope it was bletchley or somewhere that did buy it, kinda gives mankind a bad reputation if some sad git bought it privately.

Check Point defends ZoneAlarm scareware-style warning

Damien Thorn
FAIL

real/false

Every security company I can think of has at some stage made a right fiasco of security. And as consumers we have no real way of being certain we are not compromised other than to trust these products regardless of how skilled we think we actually are, so when a company advertises in the way some scareware programs do you can hardly blame us mere users going elsewhere.

ZoneAlarm slammed for scarewarey marketing

Damien Thorn

win32,za (not a virus) hehehehe

If they want to run scareware adverts then label it scareware.

There are dozens of paid and free firewall solutions that do not use these type of adverts.

My opinion, Nod32 paid or avast / comodo free. Just a personal opinion as neither of these tell the users there infected with a global threat - in fact it might be fair to say these alternatives are too busy protecting users to stoop to industry wide recognisable scareware.

Carmakers boost e-car noise standards for vision-impaired

Damien Thorn
Joke

pointless

What if the person is deaf/blind or a child.

Why not just use the brakes like every other car driver does?

Or perhaps they would impose a 4mph speed limit with a gent holding a red flag 10 feet in front of the car?

An electric car makes quite a noise, and you can tell the difference between speed humps and guide dogs.

What they really need to do is tell these suicidal pooches to take the person to the traffic lights, where all cars are STOPPED.

And if the person is using a stick tell them to use the lights, or ask for assistance. (although add the other safety tip too - when asking for assistance check person is not hoodie with can of drink)

Labour shock pledge: 16.8-meg broadband for ALL by 2012!

Damien Thorn
WTF?

MATHS = incredibly slow connection.

if in 2006 60% of connections were 2mb/s on average, thats 40% not.

in 2006 virgin had an estimated 35% over 2mb/s

We then take the market share of the ISP's and calculate todays current estimated speed, we get a figure of an average 3.8mb/s (I need beer now, that hurt my head calculating and googling)

So the government are promising SLOWER broadband for all by 2012.

If we then take technology improvements, with an average roll out of things like infinity, taking us to the latter half of 2011, then the government are offering people the equivelent of 9600 baud rate hayes modem speed by 2012.

2002 - avg = 56k

2004 - avg = 512

2006 - avg = 2mb

2008 - avg 2.6

2010 - avg 3.8

2012 - avg 6+

Google tweaks search results with mystery site speedometer

Damien Thorn
FAIL

backward tech

With modern load balancing, faster servers, and more appropriate request handling in the core software and larger pipes on hosting, this is unlikely to affect many websites.

However what you will start to see is robot.txt's with NOFOLLOW in them for google, and sites with tiny landing pages, designed to be merely 1kb in size welcoming users to the site.

(html)

(head)

(title)Welcome(/title)

(/head)

(body)Welcome click (a href="<?php echo $load_bal_url ?>")here to enter slowsite(/a)(/body)

(/html)

simple really.

Cash-strapped trolley dollies in nude calendar protest

Damien Thorn
Pint

DO NOT PAY THEM

If thats how they react to not being paid I vote they shouldnt be paid.

We will of course offer them full support and publicise there future protests.

Muso turfed off train for 'suspicious' set list

Damien Thorn

plastics acting illegally.

Four words - illegal interception of communication.

Unless you write it on the walls or seats hahaha

Jimbo asks online folk to play nice, be civil

Damien Thorn
WTF?

Bet he banks with barclays.

A Barclay banker called jimbo telling us to be nice!

I bet he is some kind of tree hugging mac wearing tinsel headed namby pamby eco warrior eating veggies sprouting his drivel.

UK etailer calls self 'the last place you want to go'

Damien Thorn
FAIL

Fair game.

As dixons is also an "e-tailer" the slogan was apt.

Although people looking for goods online tend to choose price over store, it would seem looking at like for like products, they may well have been accurate.

With no disrespect to dixons, the internet is an open market, and there prices simply dont always appear to be the cheapest. So the slogan "the last place you want to go" in that instance would be accurate.

Dallas cops fine drivers for 'not speaking English'

Damien Thorn
Thumb Down

not quite 1 in 5...

Most of us have english as a first language, the world however has between 8% and 27% who can understand english, which means unless we want to appear stupid instead of complaining they dont speak english we need to get off our backsides and learn other languages.

FRENCH AND SPANISH - And for some encouragement have a look at some french and spanish women, very hot top totty,wouldnt you like to chat them up:P

Police should be bi-lingual, in this case how can you do a job if you cant understand 1 in 2 people?

Custard Creams can kill: Official

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

oh no...

Passes a box of lincolns round as they dont appear on the list.

Paris - more tea vicar?

Bank of America demands thumbprint from armless bloke

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

Jobsworth idiots

<rant>

I would like to say it can only happen in America and laugh at the jobsworth friends across the pond, however these days the schools are throwing out mindless cretins who are worse than jobsworths, they should have SS emblazoned on there uniforms.

What type of tryrannical buffon would try to enforce such a rule in the first place when the person has no arms, ignore the disability, if they have no thumbs or fingers only a complete excuse my badly spelt french would attempt to demand a print.

Anyhow one day the bank manager and employee will need something one day. Karma gets everyone in the end - sometimes literally :-)

</rant>

Apple Store pillaged in 31 seconds

Damien Thorn

Deaf and blind security guard.

Was that guard pulling his trousers up in the video?

First they throw a brick or something through the window - clue one for sherlock the security guard (breaking glass).

Then they run in, I cant believe they could just unplug the laptops without setting off display cord alarms, more noise...by then the guard should have been pointing his gun at them, but nope, 31 seconds after sudden noise he appears as they left, and I think he watched them pooped himself and then came out as they left to see the loss.

Microsoft apologizes for digital head transplant

Damien Thorn
FAIL

way off the mark

Were in the 21st century, and someone changed a photo.

Only the person who changed the picture and who he works for and with know the real reason why.

So the options are either:

a) It was changed to reflect a younger dynamic group

b) It was racist.

c) On the page the image looked incorrect or clashed or contrast drawing the users attention away from some other item

Or perhaps it was one of a million other possible reasons.

This is a prime example of a problem with society, the word Racism has to be the most abused word we today know of, positive discrimination then exists.

So when something like this happens, were so forcefed thinking of others etc, and not wishing to offend people we end up doing just that by shouting "racist"

Microsoft didnt add a caption, nor did they add inference to his race / religion / orientation, all they did was replace it with a different image for whatever point they had to advertise, it was those who saw it first who implied it was racist thing to do.

Which means it cant possibly be racist as there was no reason for it to be seen as such, there was no victim other than those going round saying it was racist either offended because some person none of us actually know was removed or jumping on the bandwagon to appear to be in tune with modern society.

Plus microsoft even said sorry as they had no idea it would cause any sort of insult etc.

So ppl need to get off there high horse and just learn to live with everyone in the world and dump racism because now its creating the issues it was designed to name and shame.

Breakfast cereal freebie CD dishes up hard-core smut

Damien Thorn
Joke

offer to help

If any reg readers would like to help identify rogue cd's and boxes theres a rumour the CEO is conducting a private survey to check several dozen boxes.

To participate just turn up with a box of nestle with its CD, and bring along 2 forms of id and a long jacket to: Address witheld.

Virgin Media 'overwhelmed' by broadband customers fleeing BT

Damien Thorn
Go

buh bye BT

Ask most customers with any isp and there actually happy with what they have got, then theres the ones who are not.

With most isp's the main issue is speed, price and when it goes bang what will the isp do, and how long its going to take them to do it.

Im probably not allowed to say it, but its my opinion you cant really go wrong with o2, and its sister company bethere.co.uk *(betheres website is awful, but there service is second to none) but bethere and o2 are probably the best isp's in the uk at this time.

Virgin are a big company, and a victim of there own success, hence all the throttling, and slow repair/install times. Which i think is a fair comment, they are swamped, and that does hurt customers.

So in summing it all up, if you dont like what you currently have you could try o2 or bethere, let virgin sort themselves out and only then consider them as a real alternative.

Bloke decapitates horse with chainsaw

Damien Thorn
Unhappy

After the horse has bolted.

He killed the horse to feed the dogs he couldnt afford food for...

We were not there and we certainly dont know what was/is going on in that mans head, but 40 dogs 1 horse = a couple of meals - what was his plan then? neighbours?

It makes no sense, killing the horse would not of been a solution to his issues, if he couldnt feed the dogs then surely he could have called someone and said "hell ive got 40 dogs i cant feed"

Cops taser naked doorbell-ringing giant

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

knock down ginger

In london uk ive always known it as "knock down ginger"

Its always nice to laugh at our neighbours across the pond doing these ridiculous stunts and getting themselves arrested.

The germans have a word for it: Schadenfreude.

Anyway if it was a woman we would want pics, but you never ever do requests for playmobile reconstructions, c'mon lets have a reconstruction roflmao

paris, because once you ring her bell you usually sell the video then run.

Crystal ball torches woman's flat

Damien Thorn
Flame

Accidents waiting to happen

It might be rare for a crystal ball to cause a fire, but glass and sun have been responsible for hundreds of thousands of fires around the globe for years.

Classic case of sods law, wonder how many cases of spontaneous human combustion are actually just a reflection?

Docs wire up world's first internet-connected pacemaker

Damien Thorn
Terminator

about time

Its nice to see some decent use of modern technology for a change.

The only issue i see is when she eventually "goes" she will have to be under EU law recycled waste electronics.

Brazilian TV ad: Save water, piss in the shower

Damien Thorn
FAIL

loonies

I think most peoples routine is: turn on shower, get undressed take p get in shower

To save MORE water, get undressed, take p, turn on shower and get in.

Ridley Scott signs up to direct Alien prequel

Damien Thorn
Stop

ripley

The big questions will we see the android go beserk so we finally see the "i dont like androids"

If its before they find the alien - there shouldnt be any aliens.

OR will it be based on the station BEFORE ripley arrives, so we see why she has to come, and then we get to see the space station turned into a battery hen farm :P

or is it something completely different>

Sony's Windows 7 virtualization switch-off (partly) reversed

Damien Thorn
Black Helicopters

and the winner is...

Sony.

What type of draconian anarchists are sony employing these days? They disable a vital technology which is widely publicised and for which many users would ordinarily have bought a sony viao.

Except in the real world when you block something, most users are tech savvy enough to click "download fix"

Anyhow the solution is already clear and in law since 1974.

Consumer protection ACT 1974 - goods sold must be fit for purpose, if people are buying sony products to use the NEW OS, and part of that is for compatibility then sony have a problem as a "reasonable person" and no one can deny reg readers are reasonable people would assume it would actually be able to work FULLY with the os.

Consumers are forever getting a raw deal, and like all brits we dont complain which is why they always get away with it- so use your rights as given by LAW and tell sony to provide you with the products you paid for.

BT's giant new faster broadband boxes blocked

Damien Thorn
Boffin

the mind boggles.

There is a very simple solution that the post office solved nearly 100 years ago.

Dig a hole, 0.8m, put connections and stuff that doesnt need checking/altering there, and then put the accessible stuff higher up, thus cabinet is 1.0m off ground.

Width issue - muswell hill has narrow paths, but all the boxes are right on peoples gardens, just give the home owner free fibre broadband and put the box back a foot into there garden solved.

And where its not possible just do what they have done since the war - use 2 boxes side by side.

As for the prams, well thats the internet faster internet = more prams roflmao.

Villagers cut off as dripping thong sparks brown out

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

we should not investigate

I think we need to go down and check the polo clubs top totty, and look for one with no underwear.

And the top totty is obviously up for it, because i cant think of a single top totty who would bring a "spare" pair of knickers, unless it was a toff and his mistress is now missing 1 deluxe knickers

of course it might be a fat totty, because power lines are quite far apart, and unless the string caused the short in which case it was ballon carrying knickers of top totty caused brownout then the knickers would be of considerable size, in which case NO pictures please.

Paris - because her smalls always hit the floor.

Government defeats Tories in 'McKinnon' extradition vote

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

no winner

We live in 2009, the guy is just a person who is being used as a scapegoat.

Yes he might have aspergers syndrome (sorry if i spelt it wrong) and he did break the law.

But america / uk are making him a scapegoat.

Hackers who break into real military/secret computers usually vanish without trace. If something is secret, you can be certain if you go messing with something where it matters your gone, vanished no more.

To get into the real military you need a sat, and some serious heavy duty technology, and bullet proof location, in fact probably beyond the range of a bunker buster too, the usa has been known to "neutralise" any and all threats to real national security.

The truth is what did he actually hack?

A few pc's owned by nasa, and probably a few pc's owned by the military too, but none would contain secrets? thats like saying the government keep there secret operatives numbers in the phone book, dial S for spy followed by country code and department - of course they dont.

So lets stop pretending this is about gary or extradition treaties, its about uk/usa saying if you mess or try to do it your going to be like paris - fucked in public.

UK to get Kindle in Christmas stocking?

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

tomorrow never dies.

The kindle is grossly underestimated, there a news story yet to happen.

Amazon should have asked me, just put it free on a 2 year contract, carphone warehouse will do the rest to get it on 2 year contracts.

Simples.

Paris - because she knows what she wants and how to get it.

Google data center born without chillers

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

Give blighty a chance.

Has google actually spent any time in belgium? the AVERAGE temperature of belgium is 1'C HOTTER than london for july, london being 17, belgium being 18.

If i was building datacenters, id choose north of london, scotland, wales and places where the uk needs extra jobs anyway.

Iceland would be a good place to build datacenters for free cooling, and the tip of scotland.

I like europe and belgium but for once I can say londons a cooler place :)

Paris, she goes down when she gets hot too.

iPod fingered in car inferno

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

Tunes on the ipod

I didnt start the fire

Felling hot hot hot

burning down the house

on fire

ring of fire

hot like fire

light my fire.

I think the fire was caused by storing non apple DRM songs on the ipod, this causes the ipod to self destruct.

Paris, because shes had the odd buring ring of fire.

Phorm confirms TalkTalk fail

Damien Thorn
FAIL

oh no its worse than that there dead jim.

All the news is about the uk against phorm.

Seems south korea is also having a few disgruntled web users, im not sure if were allowed to post links so i wont, but there are sites out there that by using translation tools are certainly against phorm even in korea.

I have no idea if its true, but there are some who claim phorm used to make spyware, looking at the BT fiasco you cant blame some of us for still thinking ... they still do.

Phorm phading phast

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

tora tora tora

Lord Norman Lamont must be thinking he has to get a job with someone who isnt hated by most of the world :P

With the US, UK, EU off of the likely places phorm will work, it does not look good for the company.

Paris because at least when shes fucked she doesnt deny it.

El Reg commentards offered extra iconography

Damien Thorn
Coat

just a story of icons...

I had no icon, which i voted was good, unlike some who voted it was bad, but i couldnt stop because I had to go, wtf i thought to myself as i got a fail, i was happy when i should have been sad, my heart was still happy, even though i was in flames, blow them up i thought but then they would be dead, IT huh i shouted whilst some troll on stupid education looked on, i then saw paris, so i got my coat, told a joke over a beer, ESCape at last, I felt welcome until a warning popped up of a bug, which was hazardous, but it wasnt worried about hazards i was worried about badgers till i spotted pirates, and no sign of ross kemp, alien technology and rise of the machines and some dude left me using linux, i thought bill was a saint but after the warning of bugs he was a devil and the other guy is no saint either hes a devil.

Nonsense courtesy of icons.

Please don't eat your horse, EU asks owners

Damien Thorn
Paris Hilton

im so hungry

Im so hungry i could eat a horse, but only outside the EU.

We need a few barmy laws, it makes the other stupid ones look more sensible.

Paris because ... Shes a mare who has been on a few dinner plates :P

Apple iPhone 3GS

Damien Thorn

its a good phone but...

First thing ive found is the gps is off, i think its just my location, but its gps that shouldnt be an issue. when i select directions and from here i get about a 500m overshoot of my physical location. Havent tested it to destruction yet, and my pc plays havoc with my compass, so much so it tells me theres "interference"

The video zoom is a pain, but for the price well, its early days but still.

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