Posts by qwertyuiop

NHS IT dino-project NPfIT should be killed off - NAO

Interesting comparison

Estonia popn. 1.3m, UK popn. 62.6m

Or by way of an analogy:

My corner shop manages to function perfectly well without ANY form of computerisation, so why does Tesco need so much IT infrastructure?

Israeli couple dub sprog 'Like'

Could have been worse

...he could have called her Farmville!

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

But they didn't!

Shame you spoil your argumnet by regurgitating an urban myth. Try Googling "urban myth space pen" and you'll find *LOTS* of entries like this one - http://space.about.com/od/spaceexplorationhistory/a/spacepen.htm.

Fact is both the Russians and Americans used pencils until Fisher developed the Space Pen speculatively and at their own expense and persuaded NASA to use it.

Indonesian anti-smut MP caught ogling filth

You may laugh...

...but apparently some of the images he was looking at were really extremely pornographic. I mean, NONE of the women had headscarves on!

Apple's Jobs stand-in touts iPad's enterprise reach

"You can wind up literally running your whole business off of an iPad or and iPhone."

My employer's business is a web-based application that handles typically c.2,000 concurrent users at any one time and has demonstrated the ability to scale that up to 4,000 concurrent users at peaks. So, apparently, we can dispense with our server farm and replace it with an iPad?

Pavement hogging Segway rider convicted

Novel idea

How about *WALKING* the 400yds to the shops? Then we wouldn't need to create pollution producing the electricity to charge your poxy Segway.

Oh noes – they've stolen the internet!

I doubt it

I'm guessing that you're not really familiar with the geography of London and where Stepney Green (East London) is relative to Shepherd's Bush (West London)?

Airbus secures whopping 180 plane deal

Have you forgotten?

<cough> Airbus A380 </cough>

For sale: 50,000 compromised iTunes accounts

Shock news!

"if own an iPod you are almost forced to use it!

ermmm... no, actually. I reluctantly bought an iPod a couple of years back because Creative were no longer making a decent sized PMP and haven't used iTunes once. I download music (legally) from a variety of vendors and sync with Media Monkey. Who needs iTunes?

Android's Gingerbread finagled onto iPhone

I doubt they "proscribe" it...

...as that would mean MS are telling you NOT to use that hardware. Perhaps you meant "prescribe"?

</pedant>

Regional accent read-outs coming to satnavs

Am I missing something?

The Scots accent is apparently the second most popular - so they're going to give us Geordie, Cockney, Brummie and Mancunian. Why no guttural Glaswegian or refined Morningside (posh part of Edinburgh)? It also begs the question of which accent it will switch to when you cross the border.

Unarmed Royal Navy T45 destroyer breaks down mid-Atlantic

Where's the rest of the article?

I mean, here we are with a defence piece by Lewis describing how crap the latest piece of British defence kit is and no details of the US kit we should have bought instead. Restore those redacted paragraphs now I say!

Facebook royal rant bishop suspended

They really are cheapskates

- 'cos they won't be paying for it! Leave that to us poor "subjects".

New RAF transport plane is 'Euro-w*nking makework project'

Doesn't that cut both ways?

"If the Americans ever decide to cut off the supply of spare parts, the A400M will not keep flying for long"

Whereas if we bought American planes in the first place and they decided to cut off the supply of spare parts...

Bit of a specious argument I think!

Xbox Kinect costs just £35 to build

And your point is?

So the components cost £35 and it retails for £130. And your point is what exactly? Take your £35, go out and buy the components and there you are you've got your Kinect for a massive saving. OK, there's the small point of assembling it (and knowing HOW to assemble it), and then there's the software that is what this device is really about but hey - it wouldn't make a good headline then would it?

I'm no fan of capitalism, least of all when it comes to massive international corporations like Microsoft, Apple, etc. but get real eh?

MS hits back in Security Essentials row

Equal opps for all!

I bought a new PC recently which came with Trend AV preinstalled on a free 30 day trial.

Strange thing is, when the trial was coming to an end I got frequent reminders that I needed to upgrade to a proper licence, but not once did the reminders give me an option to choose which AV product I wanted from a list of several. Explain to me why this is OK but why MS providing an opt-in service isn't?

Wales loses 'dot-cum' domain to tax haven

We'd go quite happily!

Although since most of the UK's offshore oil and gas fields are in Scotland's territorial waters you might find it not quite so easy to pay off your debt without the tax income!

Bus spotter admits £11k database fees fraud

Hardly!

Please explain how the Data Protection Act applies in this case?

The Act makes "provision for the regulation of the processing of information relating to individuals". It defines “personal data” as meaning "data which relate to a living individual".

This guy was looking up the registration numbers of buses to find out which Companies owned them. Who do you suggest the "living individuals" were - the buses or the Companies?

The Data Protection Act is a far from perfect piece of legislation and is badly in need of a radical overhaul, but the fact remains that its biggest problem is that people who don't understand what it is about cite it in totally inappropriate circumstances.

Cameron: Carriers tomorrow, bombers today

Am I missing something?

I know I'm not as clever as those slimeball politicians (and I mean ALL political parties), but I'm struggling with the logic here.

Apparently we really need to have aircraft carriers, so much so that we are building two but unfortunately they won't be ready for a few years. In the meantime we are scrapping the one true carrier we have got. This is because we need carriers...

If we can manage without a carrier between now and when the new ones are ready, do we really need them?

If we DO really need them, then how can we manage without one until the new ones enter service?

Microsoft ID guru slams 'duplicitous' Apple

Yes! Your location!

You're perfectly correct that for 7 - 8 hours a day, five (I'm guessing) days a week your location will be the same as numerous colleagues and people in neighbouring businesses. But add that to the several hours a day and at weekends where your location is the general area of your home and suddenly you're not so anonymous.

Google plots pre-Christmas Chrome OS iPad killer

@MD Rackham

"Just like all the iPod killers... ...why can't they just create their own product..."

You mean like Apple "created" the iPod? More like copied all of the personal music players that were already on the market!

1999 - "Personal Jukebox" by Compaq

2000 - "Creative Nomad Jukebox" by Creative

2001 - first iPod

iPhone? - too many existing mobile phone manufacturers to list

iPad? - hardly the first tablet PC in the marketplace

Great innovation by Apple? They have rarely, if ever, been truly innovative. What they ARE good it is making a better-looking version of somebody else's idea and giving it "must have" status.

Council urges army drinkers to break the law

*NOT* in uniform I hope!

Any sensible member of the Forces WON'T be in a pub in uniform. I think you'll find it's an offence against Queen's Regulations to be drinking on licensed premises in uniform.

There was a case recently where one of our more rabid tabloids was laying into staff at a Weatherspoon's (I think) for refusing to serve two squaddies in uniform. Wetherspoon's pointed out they were doing the guys a favour as they were preventing them breaking the rules.

Job sites slam domain name land grab

Excuse me but...

...where is Hungaria?

Strato-droids to mate in upper atmos, exchange vital juices

@Dale 3

"...without any real difference being made to anything..."

So you don't think the bits of dead robot plane falling out of the sky will hit anything or anybody?

Wannabe Jedi drool over potent laser 'lightsabre'

We need to know!

Is it waterproof? Can I buy a harness to fit it to my sharks?

Internet 1 - England goalkeeper 0

Not difficult to fix?

I agree completely - the complete absence of "normal" crowd noise, chanting, singing, etc. has completely killed the atmosphere for me. Surely this isn't difficult to fix? It seems to me that the vuvuzela produces a sound in a very specific frequency band which means it could easily be eliminated from TV sound feeds with a notch filter whilst having little or no effect on the rest of the sound.. Or am I missing something?

Loud hailer so that you can hear me!

V-22 Osprey downblast scatters spectators like skittles

According to pilots...

...it's a good landing if you (ie. the pilot) can walk away from it. No information available about other crew members, passengers, bystanders, etc.

Action day targets callous conmen

They deserve to be cheated?

My wife is a Social Worker in a Community Mental Health Team. One of her current clients takes everything that is said to him at face value, because of his condition. If you tell him that you'll do something in a minute he expects you to take exactly 60 secs, if he receives a letter or an email telling him that he has won a luxury cruise, the lottery, etc. he believes it.

Clearly he's just greedy eh?

Sir Paul McBeatle: 'Me, I'd love Beatles to be on iTunes'

Will no-one think of Paul?

PLEASE sort this out QUICKLY! Poor, poor Macca needs the money!

</sarcasm>

Jobsian drones shackle gamer with 'lifetime' iPad ban

...not the same thing

Apple is (allegedly) running a retail operation whose purpose is to sell things; supposedly they carry stock for the purpose of selling it. My server farms has never been presented to the public as being for sale, so anybody wanting to buy it has an unrealistic expectation.

Brass necked suspect swallows USB evidence

Sorry...

Presumably if it *had* passed through him it would have been a flash in the pan...

I'll get my coat as well.

Airships can defeat roadside bombers, says ex-US officer

Ummm...

Just how common do you think underground car-parks are in the more remote parts of Afghanistan? I suspect that they won't pose much of a problem...

Gov retreats on vetting database but ain't climbing down

Crap legislation but...

This is a crap piece of legislation, but...

- "bad cases make bad law" and this was rushed through in a frenzy of public hysteria whipped-up by the tabloid media post-Soham - "for goodness sake do something to protect the children"

- much though I dislike this government, to blame it all on the present incumbents is to ignore the fact that it got virtually unanimous support from all parties when it went through Parliament

- why the hysteria NOW. The law was passed two year ago (or maybe three - I can't recall exactly), so why weren't you all howling about it then?

Apple preps adaptable gadget adapter

Easily beaten patent!

Let's assume Apple get this patent awarded. It has to be the easiest one ever to exploit without fear of legal action - if I design a "universal dock" which works in exactly the same way but is styled to be brute ugly Apple can't touch me. After all, their patent is for an "aesthetically pleasing" one!

Macs not all that for reliability

Does it matter?

Who cares if a Mac fails inside three years? With the blessed Steve pumping out a new piece of kit that the faithful MUST buy every couple of years, they don't need to last that long!

Religious discrimination law may open door for decent deviants

Bye-bye to the world's fourth largest religion!

@Michael 36

"So a good start to define a religion would be to say that a religion is God-centered". Would you agree that Buddhism is a religion? According to several sources it is the fourth largest religion in the world in terms of followers. But a belief in a "god" is not a requirement of Buddhism; Buddha is respected as a great teacher but he is *not* a god and Buddhists don't worship him. So by your definition Buddhism is not a religion.

Police fail to dampen down bonfire night Westminster protest

Only the monkey

@Mithvetr

And to continue your point, Fawkes was only the monkey who did the hard work and was lumbered with the highly risky job of setting and lighting the fuse. The organ grinders, the real organisers like Robert Catesby, were just a bunch of toffs who were safely away from the scene of the action.

Very popular to slag off the current bunch of t*ssers who rule us at the moment, but when Dave's bunch get in I bet they won't be any better. It will just be a different bunch of mates who benefit.

Two thoughts to bear in mind:

i) whoever you vote for, the government gets in

ii) Con is short for Tory

Sacked drugs advisor pledges new expert body

Right - but wrong

Speaking as one who has battled with both drug and alcohol addiction, I actually agree with most of what Prof Nutt (oh! the tempatation for a gag about nutty professors...) has said about the classification of drugs and about alcohol being the UK's real problem.

However I think he has missed an important point. The body he resigned from was the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The key word there is "Advisory". In any walk of life where you are the "expert" then you can offer your opinion/advice but the person to whom you give it doesn't have to take it. That's life - get over it. Throwing your toys out of the pram and walking away achieves nothing - except that your replacement will be carefully chosen to be more in tune with their political masters.

The x-texting Metrotextual comes out of the closet

Why pick on them?

@Bassey

I don't understand the relevance of Physiologists to this article (Physiologist n. One who studies the branch of biology that deals with the internal workings of living things, including functions such as metabolism, respiration, and reproduction, rather than with their shape or structure).

Given your seemingly irrational desire to chuck them in the global flood I suggest you consult a Clinical Psychiatrist or Psychologist.

Conservatives promise 'lights on, lights off' IT policy

Common sense at last

"...which he characterised as "Soviet-style" and "Stalinist"... He argued for reversing the present practice of building up larger and larger silos of central aggregated information..."

Thank goodness somebody has seen sense at last and will create IT systems on the basis of what works and without huge databases of information about individuals, their browsing habits, indexed details of all their email etc. After all, you don't get successful Internet based companies like Google doing things like that do you? Oh...

Paris - 'cos she knows that *sometimes* one big one *IS* better than lots of little one.

Facebook awarded $711m in 'Spamford' Wallace case

What about *YOUR* vocabulary?

@Crazy Operations Guy

"Perhaps they could secure their damn servers, or at least through in some filters. But then again, this is a Web 2.0 company so the words security, privacy, reliability and profit are not in their vocabularies..."

"...or at least through in some filters" - WTF does that mean?

Barnes & Noble's ebook reader takes its bow

@US-only

But if it's available to people with US addresses that's the whole world covered anyway! Well, at least in American eyes...

Dell refunds PC user for rejecting Windows

What Windows tax?

I get fed up reading this b*ll*x about "the Windows tax".

In the past two years I've bought two machines from a major online retailer in the UK (and I've built three more myself). I had no problem buying machines without any O/S installed. As it happens, I chose to buy a copy of XP for one of them and the other is running under a downloaded copy of Ubuntu.

So what's the big deal about this "tax"? If you don't want to pay it, don't buy it! Many contributors to El Reg are incredibly arrogant and scathing about people who make "simple" mistakes, and have less technical knowledge. If you're so knowledgeable and clever that you totally diss Windows why are you buying a pre-built machine with WIndows pre-installed. Surely you macho know-it-alls should be building your own machines? Even a technical lightweight like me can build his own machine - or buy one without an OS.

Blu-ray dropped from updated iMacs?

It gets better and better

So Snow Leopard chews your data up and you lose it 'cos you weren't able to archive it to a nice big Blu Ray disc...

MAID: Where's the love?

Sounds like a solution...

...looking for a problem.

Word nemesis: Microsoft deliberately 'destroyed' our business

Why the fuss?

It's called capitalism. Lots of people claim it's a good system.

CRB checks can take years to complete

1,606 days DOES = 4 years and 5 months

@Indomitable Gall

The only fault in your "logic" is that when calculating the time taken to process a claim I would be willing to bet that the calculation is "Date finally Processed" minus "Date Submitted". So your cheap jibe at civil servants only working five day weeks - just like most of the private sector - is rather stupid. And no, I'm not a civil servant.

Boffins fail to detect Moon's strangeness

Am I missing something?

So... they looked in 15g of Moon dust and didn't find any strangelets. Surely all they have proved is that there were none in the sample they tested? Given that the Moon's mass is 7.3477 × 10^22 kg , 15g is hardly a representative sample!

Dole bludger fined for BNP leak

Interesting name...

I'm intrigued that his wife's name is Sadi. Assuming that it's not a misprint then, according to my search, Sadi is of Turkish origin; alternatively you may have meant Sadie which is of Jewish origin. In either case they're fascinating names for somebody who is a member of the BNP and the wife of a BNP member!

Incompetence a bigger IT security threat than malign insiders

@Pete2, 20:28

You forgot to include the fact that senior management think that simply because they are in such lofty positions then security incidents can't happen to them or involve them. They therefore exploit their authority to insist on being exempt from the precautions they insist on for the plebs.