Posts by The Indomitable Gall

PC tune-up software: does it really work?

@Tony Smith

"That'll be the green bar in the chart that you're after."

The one that says "512Mb"? It would have been clearer if it said "unmodified" or something. The article didn't make me really grasp the importance of 512Mb.

Wotno control?

Where's the "before" figures? All your graphs show how "good" each item is relative to each other, but there is no measure of improvement in performance from the original base system. So the information tells us what's better from the assumption we're buying one -- the graphs do not tell us whether it's worth buying any in the first place.

Greens more likely thieves and liars, says shock study

Moral high ground...?

I believe the conclusion, but don't think the method proves it.

The thing with corruption is that it only happens to good people -- bad people are bad, good people can be corrupted.

Altruism is being slowly trained out of us. We spend less time engaged in social interaction and more time starting at the goggle box (with or without a control pad in hand) and we expect a reward for any good thing we do.

It's conditioning -- pure and simple. We do something good, we expect reward.

So charity bosses organise parties for themselves, send themselves on jollies, up their own salaries -- all from the charity budget -- because of all the good they've done.

A councillor, for all his good work for the community, decides to reward himself by diverting the new bypass away from his back garden.

Some soldiers, having liberated a town, proceed to extract their "reward" in the form of looting and raping.

Christianity got at least one thing right: we're all "sinners", and doing good things is just making us "less bad", not "good". Following that line, we would never get to the stage that we assume the right to select our own reward.

Microsoft's browser ballot bodge gets the nod

@Iggle Piggle

"why does this pettiness only seem to apply to Microsoft?"

Because Microsoft's own browser has long been non-compliant with relevant standards. Their server software has long been non-compliant with relevant standards. Their web-design software has long been non-compliant with relevant standards.

Some have suggested that this is an active policy of "the web is Windows". Meanwhile, Opera is one of the best standards-compliant browsers around, so putting that as the only choice on your Wii doesn't encourage developers to work for a closed system. Safari's not bad either, so your iPhone's OK too.

"The web is Windows" damages us all, because we all want to be freed from our PCs (hence the rise of iPhone, Wii etc browsing).

Microsoft-tested browser prosecution snares tech giants

I still don't understand...

I still don't understand why <embed> doesn't count as prior art....

Google strips Pirate Bay homepage from search results

Calm down, dear, Google will deal with it.

Google have clearly been cunning.

They've received a DMCA takedown notice for "thepiratebay.org" and they have followed it -- literally.

They've always made it clear that they're never going to blanket ban a site, and now they're taking the path of least resistance (compliance) yet simultaneously engaged in passive resistance (work to rule).

If they receive a further DMCA notice stating that they take the whole site out of the index, they're going to tell the submitter where to go, stating (correctly) that they're overstepping the bounds of the DMCA by requesting takedown of pages that do not relate to their IP, which would be fraudulent, therefore thoroughly illegal. This will then be followed by Google telling the IP owner that they have to specify explicitly ever single *page* (not server) that they want excluded.

The copyright owners give up.

The thieves win.

As do the advertising scum.

Content creators lose.

O2 could impose out-of-contract iPhone lock-in

Exclusive contract with Apple...?

Well I'm sorry, the contract of *sale* with the consumer trumps that. It is now well established by precedent that the end-user gets the unlock code at the end of the contract.

Unless O2 want to provide a full refund on purchase price...?

Yank slams El Reg 'zio-fruitcake' Playmobil 'crap'

Zio

For all those who're wondering, I believe "zio-" is a reference to "zionist".

However, it shows a poor grasp of logic. Zionists are militaristic/security-minded, and the reg hates militaristic security nightmare theatre.

German firm fails to trademark !

Cue...

Cue thousands of spreadshirt, zazzle, shirtcity etc etc users making Ts with big exclamation marks to thoroughly blast the "distinctive character" thing out of the water.

Autodesk goes after eBay seller - again

License conditions?

" Autodesk is likely to argue that it can license its own products on any basis it chooses. "

Yes, but the license is inside the box. Were these unopened copies...?

Facebook turns users into web translation engine

Apples and oranges

Google Translate is designed to translate large texts, where you've got a lot of repeated language, related terminology and redundant information.

Facebook translations are for user interface elements: small messages containing no repeated information and virtually no redundant information.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about translation knows that small translations are actually more demanding than long ones.

Gov demand for Governator to terminate PunterNet

Private Eye...

Do Private Eye have a "RecessionBalls" section yet? If so, expect to see this in the next one:

"Once again, instead of prioritising dealing with rape and other violence, Harman is prioritising censorship and repression. It is women trying to support families in the recession who will be first to suffer."

Home Office declines to detail DNA-for-foreigns trial

Genetics of nationality

What's got into all you naysayers? Don't you realise how easy it is to trace nationality by DNA?

Once upon a time, there were several great Empires: Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Great Britain. These powers went to foreign lands and through meticulous surveys of tribal links divided their conquests into racially harmonised territories and protectorates. This as opposed to just drawing lines on a map.

Had they just drawn lines on a map, these days Tutses would have found themselves living in Hutu-majority areas and Hutus would have found themselves living in Hutu-majority areas and there would be big racist massacres and genocide and all that, rather than Africa being the paradisical peace-loving continent it is today.

Had they just drawn lines on a map, this DNA thing would be useless, but as their new countries were ethnically homogenous, that's not the case.

Nation's moral guardians snap over 'shag bands'

@Lloyd

" Won't somebody please think of the children!!!!! "

I'm sure the Sun will be pleased to tell us that there's lots of people doing so already. And that they're looking for sh@g bands. And that if your kid gets his/her black band snapped by a filthy old perv... well, God help us all.

Flickr!: Now! with! added! Yahoo!

The irony...!

"we made Flickr! Not Yahoo!"

Complaining about Yahoo! stealing the brand and he calls it "Flickr!" -- he's been synergised!

EU to shout at media player makers over noise levels

Re: Hang on a second

@Jonas Taylor

I believe that there is legislation in certain countries (France, maybe?). It may be that if Apple had to make changes to the electronics (to prevent simply reflashing the restrictions away) they decided to make this the designated "European model" to minimise retooling at the factory and cope with that pesky "free trade" thingy we've got going on here.

All speculation -- I don't give two hoots about iAnything. I'm more concerned in the general nonsense of limiting sound output on a device that doesn't actually have sound output. As others have said -- the volume of sound from a set of headphones isn't just the result of the electrical output of the device feeding it, but also the efficiency of the driver, the distance between the ear drum and the driver, and whether the driver is working in an enclosed space or there's sound "leakage" around the earphones.

USB 3.0 webcam streams 1080p video

Re: "webcam"

@TeeCee,

Yes, it's just a video camera, but I for one welcome the day when amateur film-making isn't tied to closed-platform camcorders.

First up: computer-controlled CCD+lens assembly can be synched with any other audio or video device you can connect to a PC. Currently only high-end cameras contain any synch circuitry, meaning editing of multiple sources is unnecessarily complicated as it relies on the old-school technique of clapper-boards and manual synch.

Secondly: camcorders have restricted storage/compression options. A miniDV tape can only store something like 15 minutes at broadcast quality. Solid-state and DVD cams record at compression ratios that leave the picture well below broadcast quality. HDD camcorders vary, and you're never quite sure what you'll get. If the camera provides an uncompressed HD feed, you're getting ever single thing the camera sees, which means you can rescale, recut, re-edit and compress and still end up with a broadcast-quality video.

Finally: reduction of redundant components. On any film shoot you generally have as many storage devices as input devices (audio recorders & cameras. If your software, your drives and your USB controller can handle the throughput, why not let them control more than one device. You're not only reducing bulk, but you're also making it easier to find related material.

US deputies taze traffic dodging rogue emu

Re:WTF

@AC

Simples: modern hope is injuring traditional human despair. Pigs the world over are trying to help despair recover its natural supremacy by tazing all and sundry, scanning phones and confiscating cameras.

With the filth roaming our streets, the prognosis is looking bright for human despair.

'Buy puke-rays and we'll donate to police widows & orphans'

For pity's sake.

Diverting public procurement cash to charity is probably against the law in a number of states. Any force considering these will be likely to ask to keep the $25 themselves. This is a headline grab.

Britons warned of plague of the 'supercats'

All cats should be banned

Domestic cats are a non-native, invasive, destructive species.

They were introduced to these islands as mousers, but your average domestic moggy rarely catches house mice these days, instead prefering to maul outdoor wildlife. Feral broods breed rampantly leading to pockets of undernourished, in-bred mangy bundles of disease, although this is less of a problem in northern climes. (Northern Spanish coastal towns, on the other hand, are festooned with flea-ridden feral felines.)

They serve no useful purpose and are now mere agents of distruction -- ban the buggers.

Street View stalks Swiss data protection bureau

Not Thür...

According to the Basel driver database that's not his car.

Rich people cannot feel pain, don't care if they're liked

Richness or stimulation?

I mean, shuffling decorated bits of paper is surely more stimulating than shuffling blank bits?

Maybe bored people feel more pain.

Warning: Showers can seriously damage your health

Re: Seriously...

Don't they do this in shower gel ads? Maybe we should sue them for setting a bad example....

Swayze death exploited to serve up fake anti-virus

I'd be more likely...

I'd be more likely to fall for a Keith Floyd one, to be honest.

Japan gets to grips with train-grope websites

Re: Re: Ok, let's get this straight.

You know what causes that "one small problem"? The low signal-noise ratio on comment threads is self-sustaining.

When you can't find sensible comments, you start to get the feeling that the comment page only exists to list inane mindless witterings.

Furthermore, the speed at which these pages fill puts an urgency on the writer, and even if you intend to write something sensible, you end up in such a rush that you end up sounding like a moron.

Ok, let's get this straight.

This is a moderated comments page.

The moderator accepts comments.

Then slags them off.

Wouldn't it all be a lot easier if all the usual pointless cr@p was modded out, leaving us only with interesting or thought-provoking stuff?

Alternatively, the moderator can just sit reading trashy novels all day and clicking "accept". Sounds like a great gig -- let me know when you're moving on so I can apply for the position of your replacement....

Cyclists give TV chef a Wikikicking

I don't fear James Martin, I pity the fool!

I mean, the poor sod so desperately wants to be Jeremy Clarkson.

Not only does he have to suffer not being able to fulfill his wish (he isn't a carrier of the freakishly giant gene, for a start), but to actually want to be Clarkson?!? What a horrible ambition.

But hey - these days an opinion isn't worth expressing if it isn't backed by bitter vitriol. The press just doesn't like rational, reasoned judgements any more.

Tesco gets Flash of Silverlight in 'virtual DVD' deal

Why Silverlight? Why DRM?

Services like MSN video can't get the "big guns" -- there may be some decent stuff on there (I wouldn't know), but it's not blockbuster territory.

The big studios are scared of opening Pandoro's Box with "unprotected" downloads, so they need calmed with talk of DRM. Just as in the case of music, they are ignoring the fact that people who're into free copying can just download ISOs of a physical disc from the net.

But never mind.

Let's all just sit back and relax, because this is going to pan out exactly like music did.

They'll discover that there's an online market after getting fairly high sales through Tesco. They'll wonder why that market's restricted and ignore people saying "It's the DRM, stupid". The early adopters will upgrade their PCs/media players and discover how much hassle it is to reactivate. People will realise that they can't play them on the iPod Touch. All that sort of thing.

Bosses will *finally* realise that "It's the DRM, stupid".

Of course, both the technology and market are more mature now than in the early days of iTunes, so the cycle will be much quicker -- I reckon video downloads will be DRM free by 2012.

IWF takes 'pragmatic' stance on level one images

Hooray for common sense.

What a relief. I was starting to worry that the family album was prawn-o-graphic. I mean, you can see my 3-year-old willie in some pictures. And my sisters' chests in pictures from when they were maybe 6. "Breasts", as some of the more radical think-of-the-children loonies would have it, which is a bit silly given that the average adult male has more mammary tissue than a pre-pubescent girl.

Now of course I don't want the family album up on the internet, but I would hate to think of my mum being banned from teaching and eventually slung in jail if she uploaded them to her Facebook account.....

BBC newsreader kidnapped by Phillip Garrido

Andy C, be patient!

Wait till you get home -- it's better that way.

It's aaaaaaaaalll in the timing.

Sony writes up UK e-book viewer plan

USB!

If they make a model with a USB host port that I can stick a keyboard on, they've got a sale. I love my eeePC, but it ain't got an eInk display.

Commodore 64 emulator hits iPhone

@JoeFish

Yeah, but I wasn't talking about World of Spectrum -- a better retrogaming resource you will never find. 100% legal and the work of a very dedicated, hard-working bunch of people. Sadly I never did find anything from the MIA list in my cupboard, but it was fun looking!

WoS, we salute you!

Legal stuff...?

" And it's official. Well, as official as its gets when it comes to Commodore these days - the original company went bust in 1994, and it exists as little more than a brandname today. "

Read that as *nothing* more than a brand name. The C64 ROM images were never sold by CBM's liquidators, and are now mostly orphan works -- this includes the character set ROM (which you can clearly see has been included in this bundle), BASIC and the KERNAL routine code.

While most coders eschewed KERNAL routines in favour of writing their own specialised code, I'm pretty certain that at least some of the games included in this bundle use them.

So the app is technically infringing, and while no-one's quite sure who is legally entitiled to sue, it would appear most likely that the rights have reverted to the original coders. In the case of BASIC, that's Microsoft. I'm guessing that the solution coming soon is a separate abstraction layer emulating BASIC in the app, rather than running BASIC in the emulator. BASIC being so slow on the 64, there aren't many BASIC progs out there that really need accurate timing. A non-cycle-exact emulation would be sufficient for most purposes.

Oh, and @Aron... C64.com isn't any more legal than any other so-called "abandonware" site. They've not sought permission, so they ain't got no permission to distribute the games, which means they're basically operating illegally.

Why teachers fear Callum, Chelsea, Connor and Crystal

Where?

'Cos I'm sure that "Connor" is far more well-behaved in Northern Ireland where it's a pretty common name among a certain segment of the population, similar "Callum" in Scotland and the other half of the NI population.

Regardless, the uselessness of this list is underscored by the fact that we already know that being middle class is the biggest preindicator of classroom success, and these names are all (English) middle class.

CRB checks can take years to complete

1,606 days != 4 years and 5 months

No, I know what you're thinking, but I'm not from another planet. This calculation assumes that there are 365 days in a year and 7 days in a week. There's only 5 days in a week as far as the civil service is concerned, so that application presumably took a bit over 6 years.

Custard Creams can kill: Official

Statistically reliable...?

I'm wondering if this isn't just the order of popularity of said biscuits. I mean, the more we eat, the more likely we'll have an accident. Custard Creams are probably the most popular workplace/social club "tea break" biscuit because they come in massive great packs of 40, 80, 100 or more for pennies, whereas the Jaffa Cake is fairly expensive and comes in packs of 12 or 15.

Cookies are really two different things -- they're the "new doughnut" in that you can get the big chewy onesas a special Friday treat from the baker's, Millie's or Marks & Sparks, but there's also the very different crunchy ones that come in packets that aren't really any more expensive than things like Hob-Nobs. These little crunchy ones also come in the big tins or tubs containing a selection.

Oh, what's in these "Family Favourites" boxes? Quite often the following:

Custard Cream, Cookie, Wafer, Bourbon, Oat Biscuit, Digestive, Shortbread, Nice Biscuit, Chocolate Finger, Sandwich Cream (plain+chocolate coated), Jam Shortbread Sandwich (jam ring, Jammy Dodger, Happy Face)

Did they account for this? The data to hand strongly suggests that they didn't....

Labour calls for free Wi-Fi on trains

On the wires...!

There's a fairly substantial electrification process going on up here. Some kind of induction system on an extra wire ought to do the trick.

Google acts to quell critics of book deal

How many reps...?

Well, given that there were 194 recognised non-US countries at last count, these two non-US reps will need to be experts in the copyright laws of 97 countries each to be able to properly represent non-US interests.

German boffins invent steel Velcro

@Charles 9

" Another possible example: business or store name signs for leased lots and building units. Since the unit/building can potentially change hands, you don't necessarily want something that's bonded to the building for all eternity. "

Ever heard of something called a "screwdriver"...?

What's the military angle?

Come on, if Lewis wrote the article it's clearly military. Spill it: are they intending to make flat-pack gun emplacements with this stuff?

Newport Networks goes titsup

Switch and router biz...?

Is that like a 21st century "switch and bait"?

YouTube Lad from Lagos gets a bite

Aye, as they say, right.

Even in the first video it's clear that the black bloke's English from his accent (listen for words with a non-prevocalic R and for words with TH), and in hissecond vid his accent's almost like a bad attempt at French.

I'm sorry, but if someone wants to advertise in the Reg, they should be paying you. I put up with adverts because they pay for the news, but when you waste journalistic time and column bytes blithely reporting on transparent hoaxes like this for free, is it really worth it?

Apple security lags (again) with critical Java patches

Tiger predates Leopard

But they're *both* predators, not prey....

German inventor gushes over portable women's weebag

"Do not swallow the super-absorbent crystals."

Quote from the website:

"Do not swallow the super-absorbent crystals."

Just imagine having your stomach juices superabsorbed!!!!

Street View applies extra blur to Swiss

Only in Switzerland

So they're only doing it in Switzerland because of Swiss number-plates.

Great. It would appear to have escape insular American notice that all Swiss can, and most at some point do, drive across the border into France, Germany, Austria or Italy. They can even carry on driving and find themselves in any European country.

Database billionaire trampled by elephant

No apparent reason?

Ok, maybe it's not readily apparent, but I'd bet 1 to 100 that the elephant or one of his family has been targetted at some point by poachers.

Whether he was reacting to the presence of humans or the smell of diesel, the lesson is the same... stay away from elephants -- they don't like us any more.

Germany says 'nein' to Google book deal

@Roger Pearse

Roger,

You've missed the point. It's not that they're not wanting to be included in anyone's library, it's that they're saying that it's unfair that a bunch of American authors have been allowed to say "pay us and we'll let you use other stuff for free that doesn't belong to us" and claimed that this is best for all authors.

As has been stated before, "orphan works" includes by default pretty much anything that has been published anywhere in the world, but has never been published in the USA.

The settlement was made to the benefit of a fraction of the supposed class, at cost to the vast majority of members, and it is only right that governments should stand up and say that their citizens are not properly served by this. Isn't that what we pay them for? Why aren't our guys saying the same thing? Don't we pay them enough? Even after the second home?

Orange predicts death of bosses and birth of P2P offices

@Darius

Darius,

If your real PA wakes you up by whispering in your ear, I can see why you need her to organise flowers. Your wife must be livid!

NY residents sue for $100m over phone masts

To be fair...

To be fair, it is stupendously ugly in a retro-80s-pay-and-display-machine sort of way. Would it really hurt to put a bit of thought into an aesthetically less objectionable design?

Feds break Apple's code of App Store silence

In defence of Apple...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/27/canadian_privacy_commissioner_facebook_changes/

Defence rests.