Posts by Ally J

Missing moon rock found among Clinton's knickknacks

Cue right-wing Tea Partiers going mental in 5 - 4 - 3

2 - 1

"Clinton stole priceless items belonging to teh country!" and so on.

Celebs, victims selected to join in phone-hack probe

Claire Ward?

Former MP for Watford? Why would she be an interested party? She appears to have done very little as MP other than be a loyal Blairite.

Perhaps she feels she needs the publicity.

ICO won't investigate Tory minister

Maybe they're stuck with him

I don't know about the constituency, but it might be that he's been 'parachuted' into a safe seat and Central Office will be leaning on the local party to accept him, or suffer the consequences.

Yates of the Yard quits Met over phone-hacking scandal

Is it right to assume they're keeping their pensions?

Get out before the vast amounts of sh!t in the fans covers them too much, leave with 'integrity' 'intact' - and a pension that's likely to be way above average earnings?

Everything Everywhere boss jacks it in

It might be that very reason

Imagine the horror - every celeb 'hacked' by News International turns out to have been on *other* networks.

Strike hits police, ICO and the Rev

Public Sector earn more than Private Sector - 'fact'?

Only on dodgy statistics. Compare like-for-like, say a teacher in a private school and a teacher in a state school, and you'll find this isn't the case. There are a lot of high earners in 'the public sector' because there aren't 'private sector' equivalents - like Judges and GPs, for example. That will bump up an 'average' figure, but will be pretty meaningless. Start comparing apples with apples, not with oranges.

Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

Bye bye

It's a terrible thing for someone who's been reading El Reg for at least 10 years to say, but you're one of the few that I could name off the top of my head. I shall miss your distinctive style.

Best of luck in whatever you do next.

Harry Potter Web-2.0 'Pottermore' offering unveiled

As the guy behind 'PotterWar', all those years ago

Maybe I should claim that she's ripped off my name and is confusing people.

Bloke pissing in reservoir prompts 8m gallon flush

But it's all a closed system anyway

All the water we drink has been pee at some point in its cycle.

Reg hack cast adrift as Illuminati Online goes off-line

Aww, that is a shame

Another bit of games nerdery bites the dust. Just even reading about Steve Jackson Games has made me feel young again. Now I'm tempted to dig out the cardboard box that still holds my precious 'Car Wars' collection and have a quiet cry over the ads in the back issues of 'The Space Gamer'.

I guess the value of a two-letter domain trumped the fun of it being 'Illuminati Online'.

Buying your own domain does give you a bit of permanence, but do beware of the lawyers (see Warner Brothers and Harry Potter domains) and the idiots (see BlueYonder.com).

I'll sneak the word 'fnord' into something in memorial of io.com and all it represented.

Pirate-bothering ACS:Law lawyer goes bankrupt

It's a bit more inconvenient

... than your train being late, isn't it?

Lest we forget, Mr Crossley's downfall was as much due to his own ineptitude as to his work. His site was hacked once, and the subsequent restore of his site was how his e-mails leaked out.

He's not a martyr to pikey freetards dragging him down - he's a lawyer who couldn't keep confidential information safe. If he hadn't had the initial attack, he would be on 'Watchdog' by now, having to defend his work. The hacking was just a catalyst.

Tory terror changes promise moon on stick

How will my Doctor know?

There are standard questionnaires Doctors use for measuring Anxiety and Depression. They ask about feelings of worthlessness, sleeping patterns, thoughts of self-harm, and so on.

Maybe they can add as a final question:

I have thought about becoming a terrorist -

1) Every day

2) Almost every day

3) Less than half the time

4) Very rarely or never

That would sort things out.

Sandi Toksvig puts the 'n' into cuts - on the Beeb

The late John Peel

referred to Big Country as 'putting the tree in Country' on Top of the Pops (yes, that long ago) without causing ripples. While it's not a word I like, or think I should be hearing on the radio at 6:30 in the evening, it was a veiled allusion and not bellowing it out in a bid to be funny.

I listened to the programme and it sailed over my head - I didn't even know the joke had been in there until reading this article.

UK public-sector union DDoS'd

But....

Ultimately, aren't we all paid by other peope's money?

Why the PCS?

Hardly Spartist revolutionaries, as unions go.

Boy George plonks tech centre onto Silicon Roundabout

"we've opened up the process to the wisdom of the crowd"

We. Are. Doomed.

Bin Laden's porn stash: Too good to be true?

I find the porn I watch often contains a subliminal message

It says: "Touch your naughty bits. Go on."

Mentally ill file-sharer had 'low self-esteem'

Could be a valid mental illness, but....

Assuming this woman only downloaded karaoke versions of songs she liked, that's still at least 7 weeks' worth of non-stop singing. Compulsive hoarding is a sign of mental illness, as is compulsive theft. Assuming she was a bit wobbly about the theft aspect, I can see how she would have derived some measure of self-importance from being a 'go to' person for music. So far, so plausible.

But that doesn't give her a 'get out of jail free' card. We don't let people off killing others, even if the killers are absolutely convinced the voices in their head told them to do it. If I have a manic episode and, say, key someone's car, it's something I may mention in mitigation, but it would be naive of me to expect to get off. This woman maybe does need some help, but that doesn't wave a magic wand and excuse what she did.

30,000 files is, by any standards, a shitload of downloads. If this woman built her self-esteem on being able to share that many files, then it's a great shame it had such iffy foundations. Still doesn't excuse her from the consequences. It's something to be mentioned in mitigation, but not a reason to let her off.

(Bipolar I here, and medicated for 15 years, so I have some idea of what I speak. And Paris because 'mental' and 'sharing too much' can only mean Paris.)

ACS:Law fined for data breach

Oh, come on

In the e-mails there was a classic to Westminster council where he claimed the firm couldn't afford to pay a littering fine, and yet he was bragging splashing out on a car.

Thus, we know he's got form for fibbing. Another statement claiming he's got no money should be viewed in the same light. He's not unskilled, he's not without contacts: give him 'time to pay' and go for the whole £200,000.

UK.gov would pay to have benefit claimants' tattoos erased

Someone will get Legal Aid

...for their fight to show the decline of their job offer was based on anti-tattoo discrimination.

Vote now for the best sci-fi film never made

Can I be the first to complain

- that some of these are already (so we're told) in production? (Not naming names, so as not to interfere with the voting.)

Doctor Who's Elisabeth Sladen dies at 63

Matured beautifully

I preferred her later work - better script writers gave the character better lines and more depth - but she must have made an impression if she was the companion brought back. I never knew the real person, but mates who're Doctor Who fanboys have always said she was a genuinely likeable actress.

To be honest, I was too young to develop a proper crush on her when she first appeared, but when she came back I thought she was beautiful.

Death threats against 'worst song ever' YouTube teen

Is it a sign of being too jaded....

that a little bit of me wonders if there really have been death threats, or is it a cynical ploy to get some sympathy for the autotuned bratling?

Let's be honest - it's all been done in a standard 'cookie cutter teen star' way already, much the same as all the usual talent shows. The 'starlet' autotunes her way through a song that's been pulled off the shelf by a music company that, in this case, specialises in vanity projects like this. As her star begins to fade, 'the rules' decree that it's important for her to do *something* to keep her name in the public eye. At 13, the usual routes (stumbling out a a nightclub with another z-lister, hitting a photographer and so on) are closed to her, so (gasp!) let's have a death threat. Actually, let's go for two of them. That'll work.

So, the lesson of this tale is don't threaten to kill Rebecca Black. As with all annoying children, just don't give her any attention and she might go away.

Obama gets personal V-22 Osprey tiltrotor

I didn't realise he was that unpopular....

It's a 1938 Luftwaffe design that keeps on killing American servicemen.

Why are they putting their Head of State in it?

Paramount to recount The Martian Chronicles

Boring?

I don't see that a film adaptation is going to work any better. The book is a series of separate stories, the only common element being the Martians. The miniseries format worked well for that. (And it wasn't that bad. It got me reading the book.)

Wannabe baby-kisser lies on political honesty phone-in

Resignation not accepted?

Someone who knows the relevant legislation better than me can probably help - but has the closing date for nominations of candidates passed? If so, the local Tories may have taken the view that a flawed candidate is better than no candidate at all.

Still a knob, though.

Judge hits police with massive bill over false Operation Ore charges

Have we tapped CEOP's Jim Gamble for a comment?

I think we should. Didn't he say that Ore was the subject of many false conspiracy theories, or something like that?

I'd just really like to get his view on this.

Aw, go on. Ask him.

Hmm

I wonder what the additional serious charge was? Not in any way to blacken Mr Clifford's character, just an interesting look into the way Plod's mind seems to work: "Get him in front of a jury charged with two things, and hope they're sufficiently swayed to find him guilty of the lesser one".

It's very, very scary to see that someone *known* to be innocent is pursued just so a copper doesn't look stupid. That on top of the mess that was Operation Ore is quite chilling.

April Fools Day's Finest

@circadian

I should have known better than to post such a broad statement on a site like this. Let me re-phrase it.

"My experience is that onanism has no effect on restless leg syndrome. Other treatment methods are available."

Masturbation cures restless leg syndrome?

Sadly, it doesn't.

Deleting 'innocent' DNA will cost £5m

DNA records stored on an iffy database?

If it's really that much work to remove records (and I don't doubt it is), surely the efficiency of the whole databse can be called into question?

Does rather sounds like an explanation worthy of a spooty youth in Dixons or Comet, mind you.

"Well, yeah, it'll cost, uh, four point eight million because we have to, uh, load them up in batches of a thousand at a time."

"But these are ones we want to get rid of."

"Yeah, but, well, then the ones we've loaded up won't be in thousands no more, so we have to load them up again. And that needs Barry from Head Office, cos he's, like, better at this."

And so on.

Man Utd sues supporter over corporate client 'data theft'

Now in a more copy/pastable form

http://snurl.com/27pam2

Paris, because she's used to being spread far and wide.

Interwebs stunned by musical atrocity

For $2,000, you can have a go, too

No, at making your own song. This has been churned out as a vanity project by some outfit that specialises in, well, churning out songs featuring the children of the people prepared to pay them money. It's a sign of the perverseness of the universe that this song has become a 'hit' despite having nothing to recommend it.

(I'm told there is an acoustic version available for all us haters who think it's all been autotuned to excess and that Rebecca Black can't sing. Hoorah.)

Paris, because money doesn't buy talent.

Apple 'gay-cure' app severely slapped

Tricky area

I think Apple have corporately landed themselves in the sh!t with this by being so prissy about what they will and won't 'approve'. If they'd adopted a more 'hands-off' approach, this wouldn't be a problem for them at all.

It sounds like an objectionable app, but then I'm sure there are plenty of other apps available that I wouldn't like. Apple's silliness has led them into this mess - I'm looking forward to the fancy footwork they'll use to get themselves out of it while keeping 'the gays' and 'the mad God-botherers' happy.

Vince Cable to cut training and flexible work rules

You would have thought he'd have got something better

Faust got Helen of Troy when he sold his soul. Vince Cable just gets to be even more boring.

Judge mulls 'wasted costs' as ACS:Law cases close

Mr Crossley has form for fibbing

As I recall, wasn't one of the emails made public him protesting that ACS:Law was a very small firm running on 'very narrow margins' or something? He wrote to Westminster council wriggling out of paying a fine for his rubbish with that excuse, while debating with his chums what sort of flash car to buy.

I'd be inclined to view this statement that he's apparently lost money with his scam in the same light. He's man who we know told a little fib to get out of paying a small fine. It's not unreasonable to think he'd tell a WHOPPER of a fib to get out of paying a lot of money.

Paris, because it's always good to see rich people with poor judgement getting fncked.

Library e-books to become too tatty to lend

26 lendings?

Absolute bollocks, and wishful thinking on the part of the publishers. I'd respectfully suggest the cash-strapped libraries buy 'real' books and put revenue intended for Harper Collins' e-books into the glue and sticky tape required to keep books going.

British Airways IT worker found guilty of plotting terror attack

Nine months to crack the passwords? We're doomed....

Readers will remember that encrypted files were just one of the reasons our esteemed Prime Minister Blair wanted to increase the time limit of detention without charge. If this case has established a 'benchmark' for the time required to unencrypt files, can we expect a move to increase the detention time?

Conviction overturned for abuse images bought from bookshop

Beyond belief

Our glorious 'extreme pornography' bill has exclusions for works of art and BBFC-rated films. If the CPS are prepared to prosecute over what someone can buy in Waterstones, does this mean those exceptions are null and void now?

Westboro Baptist Church taunts Anonymous over supposed attack plan

Not to be touched with a sh!tty stick

WBC are seriously broke and need to get more funding. There are also a lot of lawyers in the congregation/family.

1. Provoke attack using Low Orbit Ion Cannon by fools who don't know it doesn't hide your IP

2. Send out letters along the model of ACS:Law and others - "We know it was you - pay us $1,000 or we sue you for lots more".

3, Profit.

I doubt Fred Phelps snr and his family have anything interesting in their e-mails that would provide any sort of surprises. As they mostly all live in one place, it's hardly likely they're going to have an internal mail archive of note anyway - it's a family concern, not a corporation.

If ever an organisation was not worth hacking, it's WBC.

European child abuse image law a step closer

We don't seem to learn, do we?

This is legislation that is going to be mis-used by the authorities before the ink is dry on it. I can see it being used to take down sites like FITwatch. Of course, FITwatch will be able to show that the takedown was based on erroneous information, but only after a couple of months and big legal fees. Meanwhile an underfunded plod gets to show it's working hard and the Daily Mail readership is content.

Facebook's position on real names not negotiable for dissidents

"the account ID is not actually exposed to prying eyes."

... until FB make another global change to privacy settings, of course.

And what's to stop Mr Secret Policeman setting up a Facebook identity and 'liking' one of these pages?

There does seem to be an awful lot of simple-minded thinking by Facebook here.

Overzealous anti-paedo scheme not dead yet

Interests?

"interests (such as violent erotic films) that might statistically indicate a propensity for future real-life violence" - statistics from where?

Studies come and go on issues like this. While I don't expect Plod and/or the Government to be smart enough to point that out, I thought El Reg might.

Or has my violent-erotica-addled brain missed something?

Japan plans space debris fishing trip

Japan?

What's the betting they're secretly hunting for space whales?

Home Office crime maps go to street-level detail

@ 'Level of demand'

It's a very good point, but what did they expect? Launch something interesting with a lot of publicity, you could reasonably expect there to be a lot of demand for it. The Public Records Office know to have extra capacity available when 'Who Do You Think You Are?' is on, so why can't Plod think the same way?

WhiteElephant 2.0

I live in a thriving town with lots of transport links, and a cop shop just around the corner.

Put in my postcode, I get: "Sorry, we couldn't find a policing area that matched your search"

So, despite a valued member of our esteemed government on the radio this morning getting quite bolshy at any suggestion the site might fall over under the surge of demand, it still doesn't work.

Which means that our glorious leaders have provided us with something they say will benefit us all, but which doesn't meet the public's needs and isn't available to everyone.

UK.gov braces for Anonymous hacklash

The 'Anonymous' statement does make another valid point....

that there seems to have been no effort made to find out who's been working to take down Wikileaks in similar DDoS attacks.

It could be, of course, that Plod have merely failed to communicate clearly the extent of their unceasing international efforts to bring these other miscreants to justice.

Or it could be that it's a lot easier to nick technologically naive teenagers mucking about with corporate sites than it is to get details of people doing DDoS attacks on anti-authority web sites.

Crematorium to heat council swimming pool

No big deal

Really. That is an awful lot of waste heat going nowhere and possibly leading to complications in the lives of future generations.

Of course, it might be more fuel efficient to perform multiple cremations, or to use the waste heat to pre-dry the late lamented? Would either of those ideas be more acceptable?

Police DNA test plan to put off prostitutes' punters

Beautiful

"If they are subsequently found not guilty, they would obviously be removed from any database"

Positively Brechtian wit there. Couldn't have done it better myself.

Oh? They meant it?

Jesus.

DWP will make feuding parents pay

What if you've agreed to go by what the CSA judges to be fair?

I mean, they're meant to be impartial and competent at this sort of thing. It's not necessarily a sign of a conflict if a couple go to them.

And will this be a recurring charge? If so - and assuming couples have the option to make their own arrangements - how will the experts at the CSA be able to be sure the correct amount is being paid if they need to assess one or other partner's income?