Posts by I ain't Spartacus

Roses are red, Three's feeling blue, spectrum appeal rejected, they'll have to make do

Re: Ummm...

The spectrum is divided into small frequency bands, and the operators buy a set of them.

Obviously you can't have two neighbouring cells using the same frequency, or you'll knacker the speed - which is why they all need several bands to be running at once.

There are also different uses for different bands. The higher the wavelength, the more data throughput you can get, but the shorter the range. So you obviously want the higher freqency bands in cities - where each cell will be physically smaller (to accommodate the extra users).

I also seem to recall the higher frequencies are better at penetrating buildings. But if you'd only got those, they'd be useless for rural coverage, as you'd need many more masts.

As I recall 3 didn't have enough of the 3 and 5 GHz spectrum to be able to run a workable 4G service - and so EE were forced to sell them some of theirs - before getting the licence. But they did the dirty, by selling it, and delaying hand-over for a year, so they got a head-start on 4G sales.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have to be honest, I'm really here just to congratulate the subbies for the headline. They're obviously having fun this morning. High on chocolates and love perhaps...

As for the story, well it's no surprise. Since Offcom let EE get away with murder over the 4G spectrum a while ago. The shennanigans - where they had to sell spectrum due to the massive amount they had, but were allowed to launch a monopoly 4G service first and didn't hand their spectrum over to 3 for about 9 months. The equitable solution there was clearly not to license them for the 4G roll-out until they'd sold up - and thus incetivise them to do the right thing. Easy, cheap and fair. But apparently Offcom know best.

It's such a shame that the Lib Dem stopped Cameron from killing them in the coalition. I'm not sure if their replacement would have been any better of course. But one can hope.

Roses are red, Kaspersky is blue: 'That ban's unconstitutional!' Boo hoo hoo

Roses are red

Violets are red

The grass is red

The sky is red

Shit! The garden's on fire!

Six things I learned from using the iPad Pro for Real Work™

Re: tangent

Surely the advantage of a nice, well-built, metal tablet is that you can hit the buggers over the head with it. You could call it user-instruction mode.

Re: If you must have a tablet..

The good Android tablets, with decent resolution screens and sufficient RAM and processor for still being useful in 2 years, are all north of £400. And even most of those are being sold 1 or 2 versions of Android out of date - even after the latest version is 6 months old. So you're paying iPad money for a tablet that's getting no proper support.

Also, and I'm happy to be told I'm wrong here, but I've read that there aren't many tablet specific apps in the Google Play store. So you're basically using scaled-up phone apps. That's not a problem in itself, but a lot of iPad apps benefit from being able to turn the thing on its side, and get more horizontal space for extra software features. As I said, I've not used an Android tablet in a long while, so I could be out-of-date on this.

So if I want a cheap tablet for a bit of light surfing/email, then I'm happy to chuck £150 on a Droid tablet that I know won't get supported and will probably struggle with apps in a year or two. I fancy the Lenovo Yoga. But the £400-£600 ones don't seem to be all that much better in terms of support, and I expect those to last me 4^1/2 years like my iPad 3 has. I just don't believe they will. Hence the tablet I'm planning to buy this month with be an iPad Air or an iPad Pro.

Re: It isn't there

Also, there's got to be a limit to how many windows you can have open on any screen that you can practically hold in one hand. Whereas a 30" PC monitor with loads of room is no problem.

I could do 90% of my current job on an iPad - though because I use mutliple different bits of software at once, most of that would be slower and more awkward than doing it on a PC. And there's some things that would just be impossible. But quite a lot of people just use email, a word processor the odd spreadsheet and the internet.

And lots of programs use browsers as an interface now, like our CRM and accounts package. So even a lot of that is possible with tablets.

As I can touch type, I find any other text entry system than a proper full-size keyboard massively frustrating, and slow. I don't know how true that is for the keyboard peckers amongst us though.

What is all this crap about "proper work". We've got the reverse-snobbishness above, who says it ain't workin' if you're not a'fishin' the salty seas for cod! Aaaarrrrrhhhh! Then we've got people here saying it's not working if you're not furiously typing and tabbing between windows.

Surely it's horses for courses.

Some of our road warriors get vast amounts of work done on a phone, sitting on a train. If you've read Orlowski's reviews before (particularly his almost obsessive love for the old Blackberry), you'll know that he has to go through vast numbers of emails - and most of what he's doing is ignoring/sorting/filing/planning. Many emails only require a short reply, which can be pecked out on a horrible onscreen keyboard - leaving long composition for a time in the day when you've got access to something better.

In fact I'm office-based, and it's rare I'll send an email longer than a couple of paragraphs. Mostly if it's complex, I'll phone someone up - something else you can do well on the move. In fact it's essential - any long email will require information I can only get talking to someone - and asking them the questions they didn't know they needed the answers to, before I can then sit down for a couple of hours to do calcs and compose an email with the answers.

Copy and Paste is often a vital feature though, and the original iPad is still shit at that. I get the impression the Pro isn't much of an improvement, except in a few cases. Apple also seem to have lost total discipline with their UI, by just allowing loads of new gestures, seemingly with not that much logic to it. Now you need a long tutorial video to work it all out, whereas you used to be able to pick an iPad up and work it out with no help whatsoever.

And the pencil is tragic. To add it with almost no handwriting support is pathetic. You still can't do hand-writing recognition in Apple's own email app, but have to copy and paste (still shit) from a dedicated hand-writing app. My £550, HP 2005 Vista convertible tablet/laptop thingy could do that!

Real work my arse, try being a fisherman in the North Atlantic or a carer in a geriatric ward.

I design water systems to avoid contamination of drinking water. A job that could easily be done on a tablet, while sitting on a sofa, sipping an iced latte. Is that not real work?

The only exercise afforded by that is a bit of muscle-toning when picking up huge folders full of regulations and datasheets - and arm strengthening by hurling disgusting iced lattes as far away as possible...

As stated above, people who work on geriatric wards also spend quite a lot of time sitting on their arses filling out forms. In my experience of those wards, a good deal too much time on their arses, and not enough time dealing with the actual patients...

Who wants dynamic dancing animations and code in their emails? Everyone! says Google

Flashy you say? As Google lead so El Reg should follow. Can we have the blink tag enabled in comments please? Pretty please... You know it makes sense!

Do you think that marketing departments the world over are nostalgic for Geocities? As it seems many companies are trying to turn their sites into Geocities with extra pictures.

MY EYES!!!!!

Don't despair of humanity. Nobody asked for this, and nobody wants this. Except for marketing departments of course.

Yes, Assange, we'll still nick you for skipping bail, rules court

Re: @Sparty ... "arguably wrong"

I think it was a waste of money. But hey - it's only donations to wikileaks being diverted for his personal gratification.

As for it being his last chance, I don't think so. Ecuador probably won't kick him out now. They've invested too much political capital in playing the hero / victims of the evil imperialist running-dogs. Kicking him out makes them look ridiculous / cowardly / dishonest - take your pick. Or possibly all three. Either he's still a hero, in which case they're cowards for abandoning him - or they're admitting the whole thing was a childish stunt all along. In which case they've wasted everybody's time and money protecting a possible sex-criminal and have pissed all over another country's justice system.

Re: What would happen if Assange stepped out ?

Charles 9,

European countries have extradited plenty of murder suspects to the US. They have to give a legal undertaking that they won't seek the death penalty, in order for that to happen. Their own courts would enforce that agreement, and if they should break it, no European country would legally be able to extradite on any potential capital crime again. He's just not worth it.

I suggested espionage, because I think he can get out of most lesser charges by claiming to be a journalist. The US have much stronger legal protections for this than the UK do.

Were he in Sweden, I believe he'd be safe from espionage, as it's a political offence the Swedes won't extradite for.

Re: "arguably wrong"

I believe a good lawyer is supposed to advise you that you're being a blithering idiot and wasting your money. Then if you insist, make sure that said wasted money is directed towards their wallet.

Re: Sheltering Criminals.

Charles 9,

Embassies are NOT there to protect their own citizens. They are there to allow communication between governments.

Admittedly they do have consular services, to help their citizens who get into trouble. But, they do not hide you from the police. If a Brit gets arrested abroad, the U.K. embassy will help them get a lawyer, and help their family to get money to them. Maybe make the odd visit, and try to ensure they get decently treated.

But that's it. It's not their job to break them out of prison, hide them in the embassy and smuggle them out in the diplomatic bag. That pisses off the host government, and buggers up communications.

Re: Meanwhile, back in Ecuador

I don't believe there's any statutes of limitations in UK criminal law. Though there are time limits in civil law. So the bail-jumping will never go away, even after the Swedish case is timed out.

Re: Meanwhile, back in Ecuador

The timing's off. The 10 year statute of limitations on the 2 rape charges run out sometime around Summer 2020 I think.

Just had to look it up, as I was sure it was last year that the other charges timed out. But it was actually 2015. Time flies when you're having fun...

Re: MRI for frozen shoulder

Could he not just take his shoulder out of the freezer?

Then roast it at a medium heat, with garlic parsnips, potatoes and serve with steamed veg.

hititzonmbisi,

You've got a filthy mind! All the last post was suggesting was wikicoin. But you had to sink to new levels of depravity! There's no blaming other posters for it, I'm afraid it was generated by your own (far too) fertile imagination.

Ugh! I need the mind-bleach now. Short of that, 20 pints of chemical forgetfulness.

Re: What would happen if Assange stepped out ?

Aladdin Sane,

Cheers. When can I expect my beer to be delivered? I'm quite thirsty now, as happens.

Promises on the internet are binding right? I'm still waiting for that bloody Nigerian Prince to come up with the ten million quid he owes me...

Re: Great news

I'm pretty sure that's not in the sentencing guidelines for bail-jumping...

Re: Sheltering Criminals.

Absolutely, that's why embassies have their special legal status - to protect the citizens of the embassy country from being persecuted by the host country if they disagree with the host country's policies.

No it's not. Embassies are there to allow communication between governments. Their immunities are provided in order to facilitate that. The Vienna Convention, which is the international law in question, says that they are not to be used for other purposes.

They are not there to circumvent the judicial system of their host country.

Re: What would happen if Assange stepped out ?

Not only have Sweden not dropped the charges against him, they haven't even charged him.

They can only charge him after he attends a formal interview at a Swedish police station. And he fled the country the evening before that appointment was made. Then fled UK jurisdiction a week before he'd lost his last appeal and was due to be sent back there.

They've stopped pursuing the case. If he turns up in a UK police station, all they need do is cross out the charges that have passed the statutue of limitations, change the date, and re-submit the old International Arrest Warrant. He's over 5 years into the 10 year statute of limitations on the 2 rape charges, so he's only got 4 and a bit more years to go to wait those out.

If the US really do want him, they don't have a statute of limitations on espionage - if that were the charge.

Re: "I find arrest is a proportionate response"

Wrong choice of words. He hasn't "locked himself up". He's hidden.

He's in hiding, and should get as much sympathy for "time served" as Ronnie Biggs did for all that time he was "forced" to spend in Brasil.

This can all be over any time he wants. That UN decision was both stupid and offensive, he was given full legal due-process at all times, and I'm glad the judge laughed it out of court.

Re: Schrödinger's Embassy

I think we already know he's a total arsehole. Whatever you may think of his politics - or the rights and wrongs of his worries about the US nabbing him.

I guess we'll learn something very interesting if he waits until the 10 year statute of limitations runs out on the Swedish rape case, and he only then comes out.

Other than that though, I get the impressions he's a bit random, and though genuinely paranoid is also either very lazy, or only paranoid when it suits him. That guy that he brought in to ghost-write an authorised biography, then reneged on the deal once he'd spent the advance, wrote something like that about him. Said that he was paranoid sometimes, but then other times totally lax. As if he wasn't sure if the paranoia was just Walther Mitty enjoying playing at spy games, or genuine. Or maybe a bit of both.

See that over Heathrow? It's not an airliner – it's a Predator drone

Re: Payload?

Surely with pizza delivery, you just fly up to the tall building, and fire the pizza through an open window, frisbee style.

I'll be the one standing hopefully by the window, mouth wide open.

Re: Baggage!

It would be awful to use a hellfire missile on Scunthorpe!

You'd need something with a much bigger warhead...

Let's get to know each other first: Joe Public won't share their data with just anyone

Re: Disparity

It's why predicting elections is so hard for pollsters. Some people lie about what party they support, but I believe that's actually quite rare. But only a few people are willing to admit, "I can't be arsed to vote".

In general more of the people who say they would vote Labour in the UK, are also the people who don't vote - hence Labour often perform better in the polls than the actual elections.

This also makes referendums really hard to predict. To try to correct for the effect in general elections you can ask people how they voted last time. And they're apparently more likely to admit they didn't vote then, while still saying they're certain to vote this time - and then the pollsters weight their responses down.

If ever you want to nerd out on opinion polls and how to read them, and how to avoid the bollocks written about them, I heartily recommend www.ukpollingreport.co.uk.

Apple's HomePod beams you up into new audio dimensions

Re: "Just askin'"

How do you sell Bitcoin door-to-door? I suppose you could just sell people a cheap memory stick, claiming there's a locked wallet on there.

Facebook gets Weed-whacked: Unilever exec may axe ads over social network's toxic posts

Lots of people do. I've heard people say, "they're not allowed to lie in an advert, so that must be true." When I was arguing a product was unsuitable for something. In general UK adverst are true, for a given value of true - and bearing in mind they mostly tell the truth - but don't have to tell the whole truth.

Also people do trust brands. For a given value of trust of course. It's all very well trying to one-up people with your sophistication and cynism. But I do trust Coke to sell sugared fizzy water that has been checked to make sure it doesn't contain poisons. That's actually quite a lot of trust, and something that Chinese consumers can't say. Which is why there's a big demand in China for Western food brands - because the local ones might just put any old shit in stuff.

McDonalds didn't get big because it was the nicest food out there. They stay big by promoting to children of course. But originally by being known as reliably sameish across the country. So if you were in a new town you could risk a local cafe (which might be nice or horrible), or just play safe and go to McDonalds, for the devil you know. Stuff like TripAdvisor ought to diminish the power of restaurant chains over time - though I doubt many people check reviews on cafes for a quick lunch.

But that's what most brands are. Playing it safe. I could buy that french wine, and it might be extraordinary, or a bit rubbish. It'll be in the style of its terroir. Or I could have some Aussie £5 in the supermarkets known brand like say Hardy's. It's not going to be amazing, but it'll reliably taste the same this year as it did last, and I know it'll be OK.

I shop at Sainsbury's not Tesco because I buy a lot of own brand stuff. And I've had some horrible Tesco own brand (and I'm not talking about the value stuff here). But Sainsbury's has in my experience been of a decent quality. So I'm effectively trusting Sainsbury's buying team. In my opinion they've gone up in price more than others in the last couple of years, so I'm slowly abandoning them, but haven't yet plumped for another supermarket brand I "trust" - so buy a bit from them, a bit from other places. But in the end I'll probably plump for one brand, in order to have the ease of shopping at one place for everthing, and trade-off cost/niceness as I decide suits me.

Re: Any flavor you want, as long as it's vanilla

Of course it's about the money. If you like Facebook, then you're getting a service you like for free. Same with Google. But Facebook and Google have costs. And they recoup that from advertising.

Same with TV. There's a difference here though. You have alternatives you can pay for. People like HBO, Amazon, Netflix etc.

The difference is that the internet market doesn't seem to have matured in the same way yet.

But it looks like it might happen in news. We, as customers, have helped to destroy our news media - by not paying for it. Leaving them reliant only on advertising. OK, it's also their own fault for only offering us that route online. Also advertising doesn't pay enough, and so they dropped quality in order to make their costs work out - and that made the problem worse. But people are starting to realise that you get what you pay for. If you want fact-checked (spell-checked) news, you're probably going to have to pay for it.

It maybe impossible to do this with a social network. How do you compete with free? But if you want to be the customer, and not the product, you'll have to pay.

Re: Effective Ad campaigns

Shouldn't that be good? From the point of view of Unilever's marketing department at least. If you're a campaign designer it might be bad, but as the people commissioning campaigns, Unilever can then turn to their ad agency and say "our viewers thought your ad was shit - buck your ideas up or we sack you."

Re: Advertisers only have themselves to blame

I disagree. Only some viral marketing can work. People only have so much time and space in their heads to waste on that kind of stuff. Plus it's really difficult to do.

You don't even need to be funny to succeed. The Gold Blend "soap opera" will-they-won't-they thing in the 80s/90s worked, even got on the front page of the tabloids, and that wasn't funny. Or Ronseal's: It does exactly what it says on the tin. Which has now become part of the language.

So some ads can do that. Some can succeed by just being ubiquitous and annoying, eg Daz + Mr Motivator. Tactics can differ. But in the end, it's all about being noticed. I don't believe the audience has changed.

I think the problem is all about delivery. TV audiences aren't actually smaller, they're just more fragmented. No longer to 30% of the population watch the same program at the same time. Except for big sporting events sometimes.

Also TV and Radio had independent metrics. Companies that tell advertisers roughly who's watching what. Google and Facebook "mark their own homework". And have been caught lying (e.g. FB with 10m fake US teens, or Google with fake clicks). So the advertisers have to spread themselves over a wider area to attract fewer people and can't trust their delivery platforms. Hence their complaints.

Re: What's worse?

What do you mean by child workers?

In the UK we now make school compulsory until 18. And regard anyone under 18 as a child.

The leaving age was 16 when I was growing up. And working from age 16 was normal. Are 16 year-olds children?

In the late 50s my Dad left school at 14, and went into a job as an apprentice electrician. With 2 days a week at college. By the time he was 16 he was doing week long jobs around the country and him and his crew often slept in the back of their van so they could keep the room expenses they were paid by their company. Was he then a child at 14?

100 years ago most British people didn't go into secondary education. And so started working around 12 ish.

So Western companies shouldn't go into developing countries and take the piss. But on the other hand, those countries are going to develop by growing their economies in order to be able to afford to educate their kids for longer, and to have decent healthcare, pensions and the like. A balance needs to be struck here.

It's nice and easy to use emotive language about child exploitation, but to take an example if you have 14 year-old workers in a factory that do limited hours and get an hour of schooling a day and that's better than prevailing conditions in their society - are you doing something immoral? Even if you don't do the schooling, but are giving their families cash, and therefore the choice of paying for the healthcare/schooling/whatever that they think they need - there's an argument that even that isn't wrong.

Re: Money Talks - This is all bullshit!

Anon,

It could be that they're just in the middle of price negotiations, and Unilever are giving FB a public kicking to get the fees down. But this is a funny way to do it.

There's a tradition in the US to go after the advertisers. If you think there's too much nudity/swears in a TV show say, you can complain to the TV company - but you can also write to sponsors. No advertiser wants to be pissing off their potential customers - or to look bad. So they threaten to withdraw, and the TV company backs down. I've noticed quite a lot of campaigners recently trying similar tactics. If you can make something look like bad PR for a company and it's only a small amount of their business, it might look too expensive to be worth doing.

Re: Erosion Of Trust

To be fair, the article mentions that. And says that the speech was handed to journalists beforehand with specific mention of Facebook. This is often how politicians work. You're less specific on the record, in the speech, but brief the meaning to the journalists who're going to cover it.

This obviously means you have to trust the journalists in question, that they're not just making shit up. So you'll have to make a judgement on how reliable you think El Reg are.

But as the Beeb and Guardian (that I've seen) have also taken the same line, that is a further confirmation that El Reg are on the level - if you still feel you need it.

I'd say that makes it look pretty clear that Uniliver are firing a shot across Facebook's bow. Of course this could just be part of some price negotiations currently going on, trying to get a bit of extra leverage. Or it could be a genuine comment from a huge advertiser that's getting pissed off. I've heard a lot of late about "brand safety" from advertisers - they don't like the idea of their ads being shown next to ISIS beheading footage on Youtube for example.

Also I remember one of the big car companies (Ford?) left Facebook 3 or 4 years ago, because they said the advertising seemed to be useless - plus they didn't like their ads being shown next to Russian brides ads and "win a free iPad" scam adverts.

No sh*t, Sherlock! Bloke suspected of swallowing drug stash keeps colon schtum for 22 DAYS

CrazyOldCatMan,

What is this sun you speak of? I know it not.

Also, I live in a flat. So what is this garden you speak of?

Yes. For some reason I find that toast doesn't work as well for bacon butties. Though it's great with a fry-up. Fresh, soft white rolls, lightly buttered, and bacon that's been cooked so the fat has crisped up but the bacon hasn't. Personally I don't really want beer with it. A big mug of tea that's just dropped to perfect "guzzling temperature" is all-important, maybe with a glass of orange juice on the side.

Talk down to Siri like it's a mere servant – your safety demands it

Re: What to do with an Echo?

Too light for a paperweight. Too small and too light for a bookend. Too small for a frisbee - plus not much lift.

Ice hockey puck?

Aspirin for elephants?

Cupcake stand?

Re: What to do with an Echo?

My brother's family have a full-fat Echo (much more useful as you can use it to play music), so I'm going to give them my Echo Dot. Then they can use it as an intercom between the kitchen and sitting room, and to stick stuff on their Amazon shopping list.

That's if they're still using it. They'd signed up to the trial for Amazon groceries in London, but last time I checked had pulled-out as Amazon kept getting their orders wrong, or just missing a bag from the delivery. Which of course they only noticed once the driver had scarpered.

Not sure if that's useful to you - unless you want to give yours to my brother as well... But it's the only solution I've come up with for the one I was given for my birthday last year.

Re: Easy

Just like John Marshall.

When he reneged on a deal to surrender his castle to King Stephen he was told that if he didn't carry out his promise his 6 year old son (whom he'd given as a hostage) would be killed. Spoiler alert: he survived to be the famous William the Marshal).

His answer (either as the kid was being strung-up to be hanged in front of the walls (or loaded into a trebuchet - I think they did both at different points - "I still have the hammer and the anvil with which to forge yet more and better sons!"

I guess that was the fate of 4th sons in mediaeval times...

Military techie mangled minicomputer under nose of scary sergeant

Re: At A Non e-mouse...

We've actually taken the pump control buttons off one of our units (a water pump you'll not be surprised to hear), because school and office caretakers / staff / dogs / aliens(?), just cannot stop themselves from playing with them. After a few too many site visits to fix "broken" kit, we did a re-design. You now need a remote controller thingamajig to work them - which means everyone else has to pay 150 quid, in order to have another piece of junk in their toolbox.

Remember the Yorkie pizza horror? Here's who won our exclusive Reg merch...

Re: truly a north-south thing?

As others have said, scraps isn't just in God's own county. My Mum worked in a chippy as a part time thing before the last of us were old enough for nursery. She did scraps. And complains about the new frylite stuff they use, rather than the proper beef fat from the 70s. Although chippies round our way, in Bucks, don't seem to do us anymore.

Re: Gravy/Chips issues.

Biscuits and gravy is very nice though. Just horrific for your poor little arteries.

But then when I was a kid I used to eat bread and dripping. It was lovely! But the thought of it now, over 30 years later, makes me feel queasy.

Re: Northerners...

When I was about 7, I went to a friend's house for sunday lunch And for some reason was further shuttled along out of the way by his parents - we walked over to his granny's house a few streets away. I was absolutely delighted to be served proper deep fried chips (oven chips back then were truly awful), sausages and baked beans. Mum believed in feeding me a bit more healthily, sadly. So a properly good meal, to this 7 year-old.

Even better, she'd constructed the appropriate dam of sausages, in order to protect the chips from the encroachment of de-crispifying baked-bean-juice. Perfection.

But no! The horror! His granny was a northerner. She then proceeded to pour gravy over this magnificent culinary creation! Chips with gravy is already an abomination - that's why I build the sausage-dams in the first place! But gravy mixed with baked-bean-juice. Ugh! Bleurgh!

As I was dragged up to be polite, I had to eat every soggy mouthful of ruined deliciousness.

Gravy on chips is wrong!

Hmmm. Better don the flameproof trousers after posting that. But this is the ditch I will die in. The ditch dug to protect chips from being needlessly decrispified by the erroneous application of extraneous gravy!

Travesty!

My favourite thing to do with Yorkshire pudding is still toad-in-the-hole. With onion gravy of course.

Which also works really well with chicken breast and lots of butter - done as an emergency when a fussy (non sausagivore) friend unexpectedly turned up halfway through cooking.

Heard a suggestion on Radio 4's excellent Kitchen Cabinet (gardeners question time for foodies) podcast that I should try putting suet into my Yorkshire pud batter for toad-in-t'hole - I presume because "fat is flavour".

Re: adn thnak you from the depths fo Firday afternoon.

Started already have we?

As GDPR draws close, ICANN suggests 12 conflicting ways to cure domain privacy pains

Re: A job application...

Good grief! 2 downvotes for being rude about ICANN. I'm astonished there are even 2 fans of the pisspoor way they conduct their governance to be found around here.

Unless it's just a comment on my poor attempts at humour, in which case move on, nothing to see here.

A job application...

I hereby propose myself as the ideal person to conduct all future independent reports for ICANN. I have no relevant legal or technical expertise to offer, but I am totally independent, honest and impartial. Not that this matters either, seeing as ICANN only commission independent reports when they've fucked up but don't wish to admit it. Standard procedure is to then ignore said report, until forced to commission another one, when the outrage has had sufficient time to build.

At which point the second report will be presented to a subcommittee of the board, which will turn out to be the final arbiter of the decision, and contain all the people who made the original decision in the first place. And thus, agree with the decision. Wait for build-up of more outrage, rinse and repeat.

I therefore feel myself fully qualified for the post, as I enjoy first class travel and can drink vintage champagne and 50 year-old whisky with the best of them.

BOFH: We want you to know you have our full support

Re: >KZZZZZZEEERRRRRRT!<

Ah yes! Cattleprods are the way to run your business. The customer is always unconscious. Or screaming...

Jack in black: 12 years on, Twitter finally makes a profit from its firehose of memes and misery

Re: The BBC will be pleased

Journalists absolutely love Twitter. Because it makes their job so much easier. Also, to a lesser extent, Facebook. They talk about it all the time, because they use it all the time.

It's the same reason why journalists are always obsessed by what other journalists are saying/doing - and why media stories (particularly about the Beeb) are always such massive news.