Posts by John G Imrie

Pirate Bay AND its users violate labels' copyright - judge

until the courts are desensitized and sites are blocked 'on the nod'

At which point 'sites' will disappear and the whole thing will move onto what ever edonkey morphs into.

UK cops cuff suspect after RnBXclusive takedown

3 copies = 1 sale

I've posted this story before but it bares retelling here.

When I was a youngster The average price of a game for my ZX Spectrum was £5.

The Hobbit adventure game was released and retailed at £20.

My self and 3 friends clubbed together to get a copy that we copied and shared among our selves.

If we had not been able to club together and buy one copy between the 4 of us the non of us would have bought a copy.

So copying the game lead directly to one additional sale, where as according to the maths of the RIAA etc I caused 3 lost sales.

LibreOffice debugs and buffs up to v.3.5

Re: Still waiting

Well I'm using Thunderbird with the Lightning plug in, so I get email, calendar and notes in one package.

And it also picks up on meting requests and automatically ads them to the calendar when you accept the meeting.

Windows 8 on ARM: Microsoft bets on Office 15 and IE10

IE on arm ? You cannot be serious as it will not do plugins or extensions.

But it won't run Silverlight so there's a plus point.

Megastar personalities are intellectual property in draft law

It specifically states that using the image for non-profit uses is OK

So that's Rory Bremmer out of a job then.

IT guy answers daughter's Facebook rant by shooting her laptop

Is it better to be feared or loved?

Machiavelli thought that if you couldn't get both then go for fear

Hackers claim to have penetrated Foxconn backdoor

IE6?

However, according to their Twitter feed the hackers gained access to Foxconn’s systems via an “outdated vulnerability” in a version of Internet Explorer which was being used internally by the company.

So they are using IE6 and Active X in the management suite then?

Unfortunately the Active X bit is likely to be true, as historically, this was the preferred login mechanism for East Asian banks.

Eolas claims royalties for browser apps and plug-ins

No it's not the courts

It's the politicians writing laws in exchange for businesses investing in the state.

I hope they win too

Just before next years US Football Super Bowl.

Imagine the screams when all those web enabled TV's go blank 30 minutes before kick off.

Ancient cave girl genome could crack Man's genetic puzzle

It involves people making assumptions.

And some basic maths.

Adding up peoples reported ages and stuff.

Hackers spunk 'pcAnywhere source' after negotiation breakdown

Who in their right mind would ever install their software knowing that a hacker will be able to pull apart the software and pick over all the holes?

Me, 'cause I run Linux.

Oh you meant 'Who in their right mind would ever install their software knowing that *only* a hacker will be able to pull apart the software and pick over all the holes?'

Study links dimwits to conservative ideology

Facts have a well-known liberal bias.

So that explains why there aren't any on Fox News.

I new there was a reason for it.

US tweet deportation: Chilling behind-the-scenes photos

Schema Validation Error on Line 1

You must be using version 5.0. My web browser only supports version 4.1

You have freedom of speach...

<accent type="american">as long as you speak American, you G'dam limie</accent>

'We're totally in LA pissing people off'

@Turtle

Lie down and repeat the following refrain

I must not Channel the Daily Mail while writing comments on The Register.

Man recreates ZX81... in Lego

When the keyboard did go on our ZX Spectrum...

My brother made a new one out of lego and tin foil.

Media groups propose anti-piracy 'code of practice' for UK search

When are these idiots going to run out of bribe money

When we stop our kids from buying their crap.

Google emails Virgin Media subscribers ... about privacy

Nither did I

But I did notice the gmail folder appear in my folder list in Thunderbird when I first connected to their email server.

Newt Gingrich wants Moon to be 51st US state

Sorry, have we slipped in to some really creepy messed up parallel universe?

Unfortunately not. This is the real creepy messed up universe.

Small pile of cash, dying platform: 2011 is bad news for Nokia

I've shopped in Wallmart ...

Ok it was only the once, and I was on holiday in the US at the time, so I was looking for the American Experience :-)

It's the Curse of Microsoft

see above

EU commissioner unleashes draft data protection bill

Conflict of interest

EU rules apply apply to companies trading in the EU no matter where the data is held

Foreign subsidiaries of US firms are subject to the US PATRIOT act.

So if you are a foreign subsidiary of a US company and your parent company is ordered to hand over all personal data of your customers with out notifying them, what do you do?

New Euro IP law promises artists torpedoes to sink pirates

I wonder if this wil have any impact ...

on advertising agencies ripping of peoples uploads to YouTube

MPAA threat sparks White House petition for bribery probe

I think the phrase you are looking for is ...

Doing a Ratner.

Olympics volunteers urged not to blab online

Manchester Commonwealth Games

I worked for the press association during that period. I had to write a custom XML Parser to convert the feed from the CG to the format used by the PA because the XML data being sent from the CG was not valid or correct.

Nor did it match the spec I had been given.

I spent several late nights tweaking the script I had written as the CG feed constantly changed.

Something to do with sport isn't it?

I think the sport is just incidental to all the advertising.

Kids should be making software, not just using it - Gove

what is it with El Reg developers?

They have just hired a bunch of ICT students.

This is a great idea

and should be expanded to cover other subjects such as History, English and Geography. No more having to learn the names of British Kings and Queens, no more learning the Capital Cities of the world. And especillly not grammer and speling to lern.

Boffins glue self-righting ROBO-VELOCIRAPTOR tail to car

Send the idea to

Top Gear

Microsoft de-cloaks Windows 8 push-button lifesaver

I'm sure if someone clicks it, it will tell them that they will lose all their data

At least twice.

RE: Not unreasonable

If they're really clever, OS/security updates will be applied to the clean backup copy as well, so they won't need to be downloaded again after a reset.

Which opens up a wonderful attack vector for virus writers

Blocking Twitter, Facebook during riots not such a hot idea - MPs

Ay, an' i' give' you a tasty treat we' yer message a'well

Samsung hauls Apple into court over emoticon patent :-(

Re: what if I have no cash

Instead of getting an injunction at the start of the process, you collect the payment through to the end. This means that the person you are accusing of infringing has an incentive to get the case over with as fast as possible so as to limit their liability.

You would also need to ensure that the accused needs to be able to say that the accuser is dragging their feet and they want a guillotine on any payment.

Zombie Microsoft antitrust case shuffles to retrial

What to do

'Undoubtedly some of their behaviour was anti-competative, and they should be held to account, but 17 years down the road, what real punishment can you inflict, that makes sense.'

You could call them out on exactly *which* patents Linux infringes for a start.

iPhone users get iJustHadAShag bedpost-notch boast app

iJustMadeLove

to Rosie Palm and her 5 daughters.

Nokia exec: Young fashonistas 'fed up' with iPhone

Yoof of too day

No staying power that's the problem,

[Wanders off aimlessly, muttering something about four Yorkshire men and how no one believes him any more]

Steelie Neelie dreams of apps slurping public data for free

Does ...

Making it compulsory to provide data in commonly-used, machine-readable formats, to ensure data can be effectively re-used

Mean that all MS formats are off the radar as my Computer can't read them?

P2P veterans sue the Cloud ... for copying their stuff

Why not?

Unlike the RIAA they actually own the IP they are suing over.

Jimbo Wales ponders Wikipedia blackout

RE: Anyone can edit, but only Jimbo can grant access... wtf?

So, if I've contributed articles to Wikipedia, some guy gets to decide whether or not they can be read, depending on whether or not he has a beef about a policy of a particular government.

No, wrong, but thanks for playing.

This is a *DISCUSSION* on weather or not to take the proposed action. If you can gather enough support then the close down will not happen.

Any way this will only be for a day if it does happen if you really want something to complain about, go and find out the opening hours of your locale library, if you still have one that is.

Wikipedia (US)

Funded by Fox News, all the news that's right for you.

Beeb rescues old Who episodes

but surely the cost of creating a show dwarfed the cost of keeping a recording on a shelf

The storage cost was not the problem.

Tape was ridiculously expensive in those days and reusing it was standard procedure, add the fact that most TV iwas broadcast live, with some OB tape thrown in to the mix when a major costume change was needed, and a lot of the early TV has gone missing.

I do however like the fact the the BBC keeps appealing for people who illegally copied the programs to come forward and help fill the gaps in their archive.

Why are Android anti-virus firms so slow to react on Carrier IQ?

Didn't we have a similer time lag

over the Sony Rootkit Fiasco?

ICO 'too scared' to clobber press for data breaches

Let me get this straight

News of the Screws knew that they where telling porkies when they said the hacking was down to a rogue Reporter

The Police knew that News of the Screws where telling porkies when they said the hacking was down to a rogue Reporter.

The ICO knew that News of the Screws where telling porkies when they said the hacking was down to a rogue Reporter.

The only people who didn't know where the people being hacked, the general public, oh and apparently James Murdoch and his Dad.

In stead of sucking up to these Media Barons, the MP's should have been hauling them off to the Tower of London.

.xxx opens for business as smut site slings lawsuit

announced that it has made child abuse material

Is this going to use the US definition of a child or the definition of a child in the country of the organization registering the domain?

Microsoft's futurologists virtualise the poor

Microsoft?

I don't recall mentioning Microsoft in the above post.

Disclaimer:-

All scheming, bespectacled, megalomaniacs and their chair throwing sidekicks appearing in the above post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead or borged, is purely coincidental.

The rich peoples guide to giving

1) Rip off your customer base with overpriced tat for 10 + years.

2) Set up a charitable foundation.

3) Ensure that all donations by said foundation mean that the recipients have to buy more of your tat.

4) Claim the donations back as tax deductible allowances, thus ensuring that the people receiving your larges are in fact the ones paying for it.

5) Get a PR company to leak to the waiting press stories about how much good you do, but you are too modest to talk about it.

Cynical, moi?

NASA wants space washing machine for ISS, Mars bases

Water water every ware ...

but not a drop to drink.

I suggest you try wearing salt encrusted under ware for a week or two.

PROVEN: Violent video games mess with your head

and when was the last time you saw a film that didn't suck dick

When I stopped watching pornos and went out to the cinema

Judge orders search giants: Delist Chanel rip-off merchants

This is going to be fun

Meanwhile, the site's owners have been instructed to stop using the Chanel trademark or similar, confusing, trademarks in the domain's name extensions, meta tags, website source code, ad links, search engine databases or caches.

How the hell are you supposed to be able to remove the offending data from all the worlds, DNS, proxy and browser caches as well as the wayback machine and anywhere else thatstores data of the net.

HTC faces Xmas sales ban misery in Germany

Re: Parasite

Parasites have a useful biological function.

I cant think what useful function IPCom has.