Posts by The Commenter formally known as Matt

Facebook: 'We should've been more clear' on face-scanning tech

why?

why would you have any say in how someone elses photo is used? Whoever took the photo owns the rights to it surely?

Comet owner boosted by closure rumours

fixed that for ya

"from another retailer for 20% off your sticker price" should be

"from another retailer for 20% of your sticker price"

Star Wars: From dream sci-fi bride to perfect Blu-ray wife

Wasn't expecting that

A few mysql connection errors, then forwarded to http://www.foxmovies.com/?CO=uk-en with a big xmen advert.

Was not what I was expecting!

Fukushima one week on: Situation 'stable', says IAEA

raised it one level

you mean after dropping it two levels?

Fukushima situation as of Wednesday

Is it only me

Is it only me that is getting really bored of trolls:

1) Accusing authors / other commentards of being paid corporate shills

Sure - it does happen, but when you accuse someone of being a shill, just because you disagree with them, kinda makes you sound like a shill.

2) Moaning in your (published) comment that your comment is unlikely to pass moderation ('cos their out to get you).

My God - Have you never read any reg comments before? Seriously go read some; criticism of an article or author pov, or just bat-shit crazy conspiracy ramblings are all a-ok as far as the mods are concerned.

timing

>But the timing and the tone of these two articles is astoundingly poor.

Yeah updating your readers on a unfolding major international story really is bad form.

and pointing out that although this is serious almost no-one has died (1 crane op in an accident last I heard) but some scummy jurnos we getting this confused with the huge amount of dead from earthquake/tsunami is really terrible. Its almost like Lewis wants to get those facts recognized.

Microsoft says 'sorry' after Japan quake marketing gaffe

Bill Hicks PR (The Fuzzy Wotnot)

This is a thread about Bing making a boo-boo, please don't pollute it with your spammy advertising for Bill Hicks and his old jokes. I don't want to buy the product you are advertising.

Thanks.

Sheila's Fails? The statistics of biological risk

There was talk of taking this further

There was talk of taking this idea even further, if you drive on risky roads your premium goes up, the only obvious problem would be if some 'dodgy' areas command higher premiums and they happen to have a large population of a certain minority then this would be considered indirect discrimination.

positive discrimination

positive discrimination is already outlawed

The law does not recognize positive discrimination only discrimination. If anyone is discriminated against, male, female, black or white, they can take legal action against the offender.

positive discrimination is still discrimination

>The MET famously only considered applicants from an ethnic backgroud. So, if you were white, your application was torn up.

This policy was also famously slapped down by the courts for racial discrimination.

The law is quite clear throughout Europe, discrimination (sex,age,race,martial status etc) is illegal weather 'pro' or 'neg'.

Europe confirms raids on ebook publishers

fanbois?

or could it be the first post made an incorrect statement about a product they know nothing about and then flamed everyone who brought that product?

Many people replied saying that the comment was incorrect, many more couldn't be bothered to feed the troll and just downvoted (which is sort of the whole point of being able to vote!)

ECJ gender ruling 'could throw insurance into turmoil'

mileage

The various quotes I get from insurance companies always ask for an estimated annual mileage, (ok so its an estimate and often wrong but they are trying),

perhaps it would be better to ask for the actual mileage on my car, or grab it from mot database as you suggest.

Once they have estimated the risk of an individual knowing if they are doing 5k or 500k a year would be a big help!

a few of your points

>So why, when there is a huge amount of statistical evidence to support the insurance industry's premium differentials, are people complaining about this?

When applied to a large group it may be true that men have more expensive accidents than women but insurance isn't sold to a 'large group' it is sold to an individual (Well an individual and a car usually). If you compare two similar individuals, male and female, then just charging more to the bloke is clearly ridiculous if you don't look at other factors including history. To an individual how you drive, where you drive and where you leave you car unattended are far more important than your gender when it comes to risk. Insurance companies use gender as a lazy way of guessing those things. (Of course if they could show that there was very little variation within the large groups e.g. 99% of men aged 18-25 make a claim for £2000 then this would be justifiable, but they can't. Safe male drivers get lumped in with unsafe male drivers - this is discrimination.)

>How about me, I pay more for health insurance than a twenty year old. Should I complain and get a refund for the last 30+ years of private health insurance?

Are you more or less healthy than a twenty year old. A large group of twenty year olds may be, on average, healthier than a large group of your peers (don't know how old you are). But if you are a healthy 50 year old (say) in peak fitness, eating the right things, doing exercise and no history of medical problems and you pay more than a twenty year old obese diabetic who eats nothing but cake and considers lifting your arm to grab the phone and dial 999 exercise, purely because of your age then yes this is discrimination.

Should you complain? Maybe, you could kick start the revolution in private health insurance, (although people are more worried as car insurance is mandatory where health insurance is optional)

>How about premium differentials within genders but by age? A younger driver pays more than an older driver. they pay more because they are a higher risk. Both of these drivers pay less than a very old driver. Again because they are a higher risk again.

Tricky because older age implies more experience (although not necessarily the case), which can tend to mean less mistakes (although many of these mistakes will not necessarily translate into accidents). However very old drivers (however you define that) can become unfit to drive. Obviously this is not always the case (and if I suggested it was no doubt I would get loads of old but competent people yelling at me!) I would assume age is discrimination but years driving is not. (One of my mates is a couple of years older than me and had a driving license five-ish years before me - he shows up as lower risk than me even though he doesn't own a car and hasn't driven since passing his test - typical, no but does show problems inherent in the system.) And when people 'get old' (what ever age that is) the only was to check if people are safe is to look at them as individuals not market segments but this means testing and assessments which people hate (or involve every car having a big brother black box or such like).

I suspect this will be addressed some point soon by the courts, but the current case is only looking at gender discrimination.

>None of these decisions are made on the basis of gender, they are all made purely on perceived risk for each person.

These decisions are made on perceived risk of a group of people to which the individual belongs, a big one of which is gender.

>All these complains and (if made) judgments will do is drive up the premiums for everybody. NOBODIES premiums will go down.

Source?

I presume some of the more dodgy insurers will do as you suggest but in the whole (and with the aid of comparison sites) I think in the short term women's insurance will go up and men's down slightly until insurers come up with a better, (hopefully) more accurate and non discriminating form of calculating risk.

>So well done whoever you were. You can be pleased with yourself that you took a working system and broke it. Well fucking done.

They took an example of discrimination prohibited by law and told them to stop breaking the law!

>Anyway, if there's a company called Sheila's Wheels purely for the girlies, why can't we have a Mike's Motors, or Clarkesons Cowboys for the boys? Gotta keep things equal dontchaknow.

Shelia's wheels provide quotes for men too, they are just stupidly high (because they are men - guess what discrimination is illegal!)

You could have opens up a Clarkson's Cowboys insurance for men, but if you group people into these larger groups, rather than treating them as individuals, then you would assume they are all high risk an still charge high rates.

Millennium bugs hit stock exchange

re: let's shut it down for a week or two

let's shut down your job for a week or two

see if you can't get on with you live without worrying about money every second of the day.

maybe you would even find the time to be happy again.

FOSS maven says $29 'Freedom Box' will kill Facebook

sounds great

sounds great, but is it feasible?

Apple suppliers: Child labor, bribery, suicides

Helpful guy

<sarcasm>

My girlfriend wants to replace here aging blackberry with an iPhone, but when she gets it I'm gonna flush it and replace it with something that is *almost* as good at meeting her requirements as the iPhone.

My status symbol is not having anything Apple. My head is so far up my arse I can't see anything odd with that!

</sarcasm>

>Apple has had years

>Apple didn't place contracts in developing countries from the viewpoint of improving their citizens lot in life, Apple did it since regulatory controls are lax (obviously) and that manufacturing costs are lower. Americans couldn't make most things with a fruit logo on them because Apple couldn't make such a profit.

I doubt they care about local regulation, they went there because it was cheap and meets their quality requirements.

It's just an added bonus if you contract to another company to do something then you can treat it as a black box. You pay a premium (i.e the factories profits) because their internal processes and workforce treatment is their responsibility that you don't have to get involv.. oh wait.

The point of your post?

Okay, so manufacturing involves some particularly nasty (an unhealthy) chemical and local companies work to local standards (i.e. not ours).

Apple (or pretty much every western electronics company) contracts these manufacturers to make products for a nice low price. Apple (and pretty much every electronics company) are pretty much forced to pick up these contracts in developing countries rather than western (uk/usa etc) ones (high cost of living/high wages/low quality/lazy union workers etc - these all are a much much higher cost than ensuring fair working conditions) due to cost (and quality)

Someone then finds out about some of the poor conditions in these factories and there is a lot of bad publicity.

Apple then investigate/identify problems/start demanding manufacturers fix problems - all behind the scenes, while saying nothing in public.

Some time later Apple publish a report, highlighting the problems and their fixes/improvements..

Troll-tards on the register claim they only did it for good PR not because they actually care about people (proof? - thought not) and they took to long to do it anyway so the whole thing counts for nothing and anyway look at Apple prices, high higher than the raw costs, and people value their products enough to buy the products. Well I guess it could be the superior product and understanding of what non-techies want, nah it must be that Apple fans are stupid!

And the most bizarre thing is after reading the comments I feel compelled to defend Apple (or at least point out why I disagree with a lot of the comments)

Good Point

>Just so Westerners have an upscale electronic toy to play with. I hope people who use these devices manufactured by Foxconn spend a minute thinking about the implications.

You are right, we should all boycott these devices until the factories close down and all the employees are unemployed, that's the only possible way to improve their lives.

>There is NO excusing 'inadequate safety devices, lack of first-aid supplies, improper handling of hazardous chemicals'

So you agree with Apple? That this is unacceptable and needs improving, then why the 'fail' icon?

>I hope Jobs feels appropriately guilty as he counts his filthy lucre.

Yes cos making a profit is obviously wrong, having contracts with third world manufacturers and boosting their economy is absolutely wrong and then going into their business, looking around their factories and forcing them to improve the working conditions is unforgivable!

I'm not an Apple fan, but dude get a grip!

Humanity's stored data measured in CDs to the Moon

re: Er, what size book?

kindle?

Nominet asks what you think of police domain grab

My Suggestion

From what I can make out we are talking about suspension of domains, not giving them to the police, yes the current suggestion is totally unacceptable, but this is a suggestion from SOCA.

I have just submitted the following as my suggestion:

I believe the Nominet T&Cs should clearly require that the site behind the domain must abide by UK law.

A complaint, from law enforcement or individual *could* (depending on the nature of complaint) be considered grounds for Nominet to ask the registrar to begin investigation, or allow complainant to appeal a registrar's decision.

A request from the police / law enforcement agencies / individuals, without a court order, is never anywhere near enough grounds for immediate suspension.

Upon initiation of an investigation Nominet or the Registrar should be required to contact the domain owner (via supplied who-is data) if they wish to protest the suspension (Giving reasonable time to reply). Negative or No reply could be considered grounds for a 'fast track suspension' (although not admission of guilt), a protest should begin investigations.

Investigations must be seen to be independent, transparent and fair, resistant to undue political interference.

If a domain owner has one domain suspended this does not automatically mean all domains owned are suspended, nor should it be a way to fast track other domains owned in the future, however the initial complaint could apply to several domains (to be considered by investigation)

Whatever the path to a suspension safeguards against abuse are an absolute necessity, as it is highly likely this process will be abused, either for competitive advantage, personal grievance/belief or plain old incompetence.

Critics slam feds for 'unprecedented' domain seizure

armed civilians is such anathema to our benevolent altruistic overlords...

>It also explains why the idea armed civilians is such anathema to our benevolent altruistic overlords...

Really?

I thought it was all the murder that you guys commit.

Bold as brass metal thieves disrupt rail, comms, electric

really?

>> but 3 years is not a disincentive. They'll be out in 18 months max.

Even if this is true are you saying 18 months inside and a criminal record is not a disincentive to steal £44 worth of anything????

Talk about living on a different planet

Photo loss blogger to Flickr: You're f*cking kidding

data in the clouds

and it rained recently, now your data is down the drain!

Ryanair disses booking system security fears

Lockout?

Yep then when the original customer wanted to access their details they would just have to ... oh.

Home Office crime maps go to street-level detail

what about it?

Scotland likes to do things on its own.

Data and API available

Get the data at: http://www.police.uk/data

Supplied in a zipped csv (grouped by by force) Crimes listed by easting / northing and steet.

Api appears to be available. Docs at http://www.police.uk/api/docs/

So anyone moaning about the lack of api can stop. (Although I haven't tried it out to be fair)

As for it timing out/crashing ... seriously announcements in all the national press about something that is slightly controversial and you are surprised that it is knackered!!!

Microsoft hits autistic Xboxer with cheat evidence

perhaps it is unwise to allow an autistic child

Are you a doctor? Do you have experience with autistic children?

Comments on the reg get more suited to the daily mail everyday!

Why fail?

People formed an opinion based on available information.

Now there is new information any rational adult would reconsider their opinion, you however, imply this makes them stupid?

why?

Passenger cleared after TSA checkpoint stare-down

RTFA

Dude read the article (and original article),

The “public right of freedom of transit” by air is guaranteed by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978

You do have the right to fly.

"In Gilmore v. Gonzales (decided at 435 F.3d 1125), a case involving the same airline, lawyers for the TSA swore to the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals that no Federal law or regulation requires airline passengers to show any evidence of their ID in order to fly."

You are not required to present ID to fly.

If you don't approve of these laws, fair enough, however you don't get to rewrite the law as you see fit!

Bot attacks Linux and Mac but can't lock down its booty

Linux reboot

but surely you only reboot linux to install hardware? ::confused::

Who are the biggest electric car liars - the BBC, or Tesla Motors?

parking

Down our road it is rare to get a parking space outside your house, a 100m cable running down the road would probably be classed as a trip hazard by hse, or class as fair game for the local chavs.

And if electric cars do take off in any major way the govt will find a way to charge for the loss of fuel duty.

Other than that, love it!

(Did anyone else see the guy on the BBC comments who boasted that his 80+ grand tesla was cheap to charge compared to petrol! lol)

Two reasons

Two reasons I often hear:

1) 1 dirty coal-fired power station are more efficient than thousands/millions of internal combustion engines (I'm not aware of any numbers but this is the oft-quoted argument)

2) When improvements are made to electricity generation it is easier to update or replace a huge station than loads of privately owned engines.

(Kinda like recycling paper)

Brits say 'no, no, no' to 3D TV

Balance

I'm not going to buy one, and I wasn't polled either, so I guess that puts their stats back???

Xbox Kinect costs just £35 to build

Huh?

Reading the article it doesn't seem to suggest that making profit is a bad thing, I don't think anyone is seriously saying that nobody should be rewarded for adding value to raw materials, so you appear to be protesting an argument that doesn't exist.

This is a story as:

1) This is a site for geeks - this is an interesting story.

2) Many people presumed Microsoft were selling these at a loss, hoping to claw back money with sales of more games - this is obviously not the case.

I don't own an xbox, but still have an interest in the technology, and like information from 'behind the scenes' rather than just polished PR and reviews from mainstream journos who like the flashy lights. I guess you and I differ in this, that is why I read the register, why do you?

Android bugs let attackers install malware without warning

Re: Re: Cue downvotes

Don't feed the troll

MS probes mystery IE bug

Firefox, gimme a break

Pffft - Opera had this bug years ago - it's taken this long for MicR0$0ft to copy them, and now they are trying to claim they invented it - typical.

and as for firefox

and as for firefox - you can have this functionality but you have to download the add-on (which is available open-source)

UK jobs site suffers hack attack

Huh?

I'm sure its been pointed out already but just in case:

>3.5 million CVs exposed

>did not get beyond log-in details - no CVs or other personal information was accessed

So which one is it?

>He said they did not where the attack originated from.

Huh? Maybe they did not *know* where the attack orginated.

Sorry, Sorry, I mean:

"He said they did not know where the attack originated." There fixed that for you.

or even:

"He said they did not know from where the attack originated." There fixed that for you.

Unless he really did say "We did not where the attack originated from."

Death of the reg etc,

Email 2.0: Trying to catch up with the web

(untitled)

> The reason email exists is for best effort delivery of text communications

The original reason yes, but for most people that simple isn't true anymore, and hasn't been for a while.

I'm not saying if this is good or bad, just saying email *has* moved on, you don't have to like it but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

As for insulting the BOFH, oh dear, oh dear.

Time for bed grandad

BOFH 2002 Episode 20: BOFH and the Luser Group:

"BUT THAT'S JUST THE POINT," a greyhair from the records room interjects, picking now as a good time to pop briefly out of his coma. "We keep getting pressured to CHANGE! We just get used to something and someone wants to change it!!"

(I feel an "I still use Word Perfect Version 1 and it does what I want" speech in the making)

"When I started here..."

(told you so)

"...we just used the editor thingy, and mailed each other what we needed. Now we've got to use some new bloody Outlook thing that makes no sense at all! I liked the editor, it was simple and it did what you needed!!"

"It didn't have a spell checker," the first git argues.

"WE DIDN'T NEED SPELL CHECKER! We KNOW how to spell, people are just too lazy to use their DICTIONARIES!!"

Apple, the iPhone 4G, the cops and the click-tart

call to apple

The gizmodo article does not say which phone number he used to contact Apple so your statement "a half hearted call to Apple Care is not the same as contacting Apple's main switchboard and trying to actually return the phone" is speculation.

IMO If you have realised that the phone is obviously a prototype then Apple is the owner, not the poor sod who lost it in the first place, and a direct call to them thru their official channels is the best most direct effort he can make, (seemingly more of an attempt than just handing it in to a police station so it can sit in a locker for a few months)

He then got in contact with gizmodo who (I would presume) are in a much better state to get Apple to pay attention. Also we don't know what gizmodo paid him for: an interview, finders fee or 'stolen' property. (No don't bother quoting the exact wording of the article, editorial composed to sound interesting and conforming to their informal style does not constitute a formal admission of guilt or statement of facts.)

Saying all that if I had found it I would have handed it in to the bar.

Seems like a lot of commentards stating their opinion as fact.

>Anonymous only because a colleague ..

Thats... quite a good point actually!

Cops raid Gizmodo editor in pursuit of iPhone 4G 'felony'

Not clear cut

Not all that clear cut, the finder, and rag (gizmodo) seem to have done several things right, and several wrong.

1) Someone leaves a phone in a bar, it happens. A lot.

2) Someone picks up phone and waits to see if owner returns

3) Finder leaves with phone (Doesn't leave phone with bar, or his contact info - sounds weird)

4) Finder takes phone home and plays with it for a bit.

WTF - this is someone else’s private property - why are you doing 'playing' with it this is not your toy. Search contacts for 'Home', 'Work' or 'ICE' numbers sure - but randomly playing with it inc the camera??? Unacceptable

5) Finder (while playing) finds facebook contact info, but doesn't contact apparent owner.

6) Phone is remotely wiped, meaning it has been reported missing/stolen.

7) Finder thinks it looks odd so opens the case - Now this is blatant criminal damage.

8) Finder starts to call Apple, no response. He seems to have deduced that this is some kind of prototype, hence the owner would be Apple, not the guy apparently field testing it - Fair enough, and Apple support not knowing about a prototype - again fair enough, (but still that is Apples problem, if this is the official way of contacting Apple, then their internal procedures are up to them) but if you have his facebook info surely that would be a quicker way of returning it.

9) Finder sells phone to online rag. What the hell are you thinking (other than $$$). The only way I can conceive of this being remotely acceptable is to *give* them the device as long as they give you a written guarantee they will attempt to return it to its rightful owner (They seem to be a niche Apple rag so its reasonable to expect them to have contacts within Apple) and then sell them an interview.

10) Rag contacts Apple, rips apart, sorry, 'documents' the device.

11) Rag publishes; Reg commentards foam at the mouth.

12) Apple responds requesting the return of said device.

13) Presumably rag returns device?

14) Police raid journalist and seize equipment (possibly illegally)

(All of this is sourced from gizmodo, so take it as you will)

As far as I can see, if the Rag was given the phone (but probably not paid for it) then they would be fine, as they can adequatly demonstrate they have identified and notified the owner. But paying for it seem dodgy, saying that there are all sorts of special laws to protect journalists and their sources and IANAL.

Or is this another case of the public being interested vs. in the public interest?

Bollocks

Bollocks,

There has been so much Press coverage the police had little option but to investigate, or maybe some prosecutor saw an opportunity to make his/her name.

Maybe Apple made a complaint to the police, the fact they were engaging with Gizmodo, who were trying to return of the device (even if it had the effect of confirming the device was genuine), makes me suspect not.

Either way the Police investigating a high profile suspected crime does not indicate government corruption.

HTC Desire

cashback

go via https://www.topcashback.co.uk/tmobile/ and get an extra £35 cashback. I haven't tried it myself (yet) but it is recomended by Martin Lewis (of moneysavingexpert fame)

(that should be an automatic cashback, non of this dodgy send us your bills and dance to get your money sort of cashback)

Opera alerts EU to hidden Windows browser-ballot

shill

It seems that the paid Opera shill are out in force these days! and all anon, how about that!

2 good points then...

Opera works fine for the masses.

Firefox works fine for the masses.

Chrome works fine for the masses.

IE works fine for the masses.

There, fixed it for you.

Paranoia? But they are out to get me!

I love this post: Kool-Aid drinker accuses anyone who disagrees with them of being a Kool-Aid drinker.

I think XYZ no one in their right mind would disagree with me, therefore logically you must be paid MS shills!

Here's the thing boys and girls, these comments are part of what is known as conversation, or debate. Debate naturally gives rise to opposing viewpoints, as hard as it might seem there are rational people out there who disagree with what you believe. They are not paid shills, they are not (always) idiots and accusing them of being shills, fanbois etc does not invalidate their opinions, nor is it a ligitimate way of stating your opinion.

Note: The above does not apply if someone disagrees with my point of view.

Madoff geeks charged for writing book-cooking code

extort? hardly

Asking for a raise can hardly be called extortion. If the company is making big bucks (as they were getting paid I assume the scheme hadn't collapsed yet and as far as everyone was concerned the company was making big bucks.) then asking for/negotiating a raise is hardly extortion. Unless you are classing everyone who ever got a raise as a criminal.

When ever anyone asks for a raise the unspoken condition is: if I'm not happy with the result I'll leave. Depending on how the company views you and you skills depends on how they respond.

Maybe they are guilty, I don't know however this entire article is basically a prosecution press release, hardly enough to judge guilt!

Waledac botnet 'decimated' by MS takedown

Language changes, get used to it

from dictionary.com:

dec·i·mate /ˈdɛsəˌmeɪt/ Show Spelled[des-uh-meyt] Show IPA

–verb (used with object),-mat·ed, -mat·ing.

1.to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague.

2.to select by lot and kill every tenth person of.

3.Obsolete. to take a tenth of or from.

1 in 10 is one use of the word decimate, not the only use. Usage of some words has changed since the Roman empire invented them. Get used to it Titus Pullo