Posts by Danny 2

WikiLeaks boss Assange acted as a foreign spy, Uncle Sam exclaims in fresh rap sheet

Re: Everybody is a journalist, and nobody is.

Wikileaks has been awarded prestigious journalism awards for the very things the US state is now prosecuting it for.

Pentagon Papers.

Dumb and dumber and then me

Maybe it's just me but this thread is poor compared to debates on Wikileaks and Assange we've had in the past. Or maybe I'm getting stupider.

The level of vitriol has increased, which I feel may be partly due to Brexit and Trump since this actually became a Brexit debate at one bizarre point. Context is one thing, but the Tory party Battle Royale is maybe more relevant to the topic.

Admittedly in previous discussions there were those who claimed Assange was at no risk of extradition to the US for unfair and inhumane punishment. You know who you are, and events have proven you wrong. Accept that, learn from it and move on.

Read The Flipping Manual

EXTRADITION TREATY BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Article 4 Political and Military Offenses

1. Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.

2. For the purposes of this Treaty, the following offenses shall not be considered political offenses:

(a) an offense for which both Parties have the obligation pursuant to a multilateral international agreement to extradite the person sought or to submit the case to their competent authorities for decision as to prosecution;

(b) a murder or other violent crime against the person of a Head of State of one of the Parties, or of a member of the Head of State's family;

(c) murder, manslaughter, malicious wounding, or inflicting grievous bodily harm;

(d) an offense involving kidnaping, abduction, or any form of unlawful detention, including the taking of a hostage;

(e) placing or using, or threatening the placement or use of, an explosive, incendiary, or destructive device or firearm capable of endangering life, of causing grievous bodily harm, or of causing substantial property damage;

(f) possession of an explosive, incendiary, or destructive device capable of endangering life, of causing grievous bodily harm, or of causing substantial property damage;

Personally I think the fact this treaty is written in American English rather than just English speaks volumes. It should be scrapped as one sided. However, Assange's extradition is clearly a political offence and should be judged so in an English court.

Re: also, also...

Gay guys with female friends?

Freed whistleblower Chelsea Manning back in jail for refusing to testify before secret grand jury

She has some balls on her

I mean no offence, I'd say that about any woman who took such a brave stance. My utter respect for Chelsea.

Wine? No, posh noshery in high spirits despite giving away £4,500 bottle of Bordeaux

Re: A relevant study

The Scottish description for that is, "It tastes better when it's grudged".

Filter

I bought my mum a wine filter that removes the sulphite preservatives, as cheap wine make me ill. It works, improves the taste too.

It seems the restaurant shouldn't have blabbed about this on social media though. It's just advertising to every crook and conman that it carries £4,500 wines. Watch the third season of Sneaky Pete if you want to know how this ends.

'I do not wish to surrender' Julian Assange tells court over US extradition bid

Re: The Swedes do not want him.

Sweden at the time was run by a very right wing, pro-American government as witnessed by the fact Karl Rove ("Bushs' Brain") was an official Prime Ministerial advisor. Oh, and there had already been a scandalous political extradition from Sweden.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_and_Muhammad_al-Zery

May Day! PM sacks UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson for Huawei 5G green-light 'leak'

Re: Not that it stops them taking the money

Sinn Féin MPs are denied their salaries but can and do claim staff costs and accommodation allowances. There's been some debate in Ireland if they should take a pledge similar to Salmond, who prefaced his pledge with "The Scottish National Party's primary loyalty is to the people of Scotland, in line with the Scottish constitutional tradition of the sovereignty of the people."

It appears though Sinn Féin aren't going to change their stance due to Brexit stating that the “people of Ireland will not find a solution to Brexit in the parliament that is imposing it.”

Re: To Russia with Love

Williamson did say, "I made May and I can break her", when demanding more MoD funding.

Get Out Of Jail Free card

In August of last year the prisons minister, Rory Stewart, announced he'd quit politics unless he could improve the ten worst prisons in a year, and got a lot of publicity for that. Those prisons are getting worse and his coat was on a shoogly peg. Just in the 'nick' of time he is now replacing Mordaunt as International Development Secretary. I'm curious if his replacement as prisons minister will be held to his pledge? Rhetorical question of course.

Re: Not Good Enough

Thatcher wasn't a realistic leader weeks before she became elected, she said so herself at the time.

Corbyn was never a realistic leader, the far left in Labour just took it in turns to nominate one of them in rotating order never expecting any success.

Williamson keeps a pet tarantula on his HoC desk to intimidate folk. I've never known anyone to keep a pet at work, guy's a psycho and not the sort of psycho he pretends to be, just a daftie with no empathy and unreasonable ambition.

It was either him or Liam Fox, and Fox is more likely to be angling to score a directorship with Huawei. Williamson wants to rule the world and be worshipped as a god. Ivar, the Boneless, that's him as a Viking.

Not Good Enough

I made a big deal online six days ago about identifying Gavin as the leak. Not here because I assumed you all knew it too. Not a prediction, just stating the obvious.

So I'll state the obvious now. This was a breach of the Intelligence and Security Committee made by an incompetent and nominally loyal cabinet minister who was angling for May's job. This was a clear and huge breach of the Official Secrets Act, plus he lied about it afterwards. This is not a resigning matter, not a 'drawing a line under it' matter, this is a crime, in fact with the denial two crimes, at the heart of government. He's still denying it.

The Tory whip should be removed from him. GCHQ should be called in with the police to investigate him.

One lesson that could be learned from Williamson and Javid's awful actions intended to aid their leadership bids is a zombie PM surrounded by ambitious fools is dangerous to the national good. Safety of the Realm!

Russian-trained spy whale spooks Norwegian fishermen

Dangerous stuff

It's good the Norwegians found it before cooking the whale, it's a choking hazard.

Microsoft debuts Bosque – a new programming language with no loops, inspired by TypeScript

Loopy Fan (basic Ally)

I love this place. I read the article, and it's an interesting and informative article, but I rushed to the end of it because I can't wait to read the comments.

10 Read 80% of article

20 Goto comments.

30 Keep going to comments.

I would love to see a The Register meet-up. I've got a feeling it would be a blood-bath. I think we hate people that are closely like us more than we hate people who have nothing in common with us. If that is incorrect then you'd all be best friends, and there'd be no downvotes. I love the downvotes. Nobody here wants to be like me, do you, and I fully understand.

It reminds me of the idea that planets form by space dust coalescing. And then water comes from somewhere, on space rocks. Plenty room for improvement there, something for the next generation to work on.

https://northernalliance.bandcamp.com/track/allys-tartan-army

Aussies, Yanks may think they're big drinkers – but Brits easily booze them under the table

Re: Cheers

I was first told about Havana Club by an American communist so I assumed it was propaganda, but the good stuff is very, very good.

Re: Manipulating the price of alcohol

Alcohol fans are great at arithmetic. 70cl at 35% versus 100cl at 40% at varying prices, and they can tell at a glance the cheapest. The cheapest booze is not sold in shops but brought in by eastern Europeans - 80% Polish spirit, Slovak Borovika. And then there is champagne yeast, a tub of fruit and a few weeks delay for the long-sighted and adventurous.

You can buy a passable Islay malt out of Lidl and Aldi for £17.50, and if you can't afford that then you really shouldn't be drinking.

Drinking at an international level

I did a test on the BBC website. Apparently Belarussians drink more than any other nationality, and I drink more than twice as much as them. I moved to the Netherlands to work, and started smoking a joint after work, and my alcohol consumption plummeted. I still drank, because I've developed a taste for certain beers and Islay malts, but nothing compared to what I'd been drinking. Back in the UK I don't know anyone who smokes so back to the booze. I'd suggest decriminalising cannabis is the easiest, cheapest method of reducing alcohol harm but you are all intelligent people and must already know this - presumably the alcohol industry would suffer.

I'm following the work of David Nutt and his non-damaging alcohol replacement with interest.

London's Metropolitan Police arrest Julian Assange

That was March 11th. This is April.

The difference being that CCTV footage of Assange has been published by media such as the BBC. Oh, and when I tried to blackmail you for the video of Pamela Anderson I only asked for €3. Price of postage.

Re: Did they get the right guy? ...

I cite as evidence googled photographs of her previous lovers.

Well, BBC News 24 have just claimed the same thing, but are citing the police. What's this bridge you are selling, what's the price, and can I see your ownership deeds?

Re: Sweden vs UK Poodle

At the time Sweden's government was further right, and it's judiciary was less independent of their state.

Karl Rove aka Bush's Brain was an official advisor to the Swedish PM then. Assange really fucked up in Sweden in every which way.

Julian H Cope copyrighted Saint Julian in 1987.

You row out to meet me, I was chained

That current's strong I guess

And Christian spy plane overhead

But I would not confess

Re: Did they get the right guy? ...

Sex with Pamela Anderson will age you a decade, and she visited often. Apparently the Ecuadoreans were CCTVing that and sold on the footage. More troublesome they were also recording his meetings with his lawyers. A Spanish gang tried to extort Wikileaks for €3 million, which is a ridiculous amount, but we could crowd-fund €300 for it.

Re: In other news...

The cat was freed last year.

Hungover this morning? Thought 'beer before wine and you'll be fine'? Boffins prove old adage just isn't true

My breakfast today is 43% gin and a pie

Sorry, hoor, I just wanted to boast about how good unemployment is. Gin and a pie for breakfast good.

Freedom! Diodes Inc saves Scottish fab from closure in £50m buyout

I get a $100 pa TI pension when I'm 65

Never even worked for them, they bought out another US BlueChip I did work for and who ripped us off.

US tech corporates used to follow the subsidies, and were all moving to Ireland at the start of my career. I remember my first company laid me off after five years, and my pal who worked at this Greenock IBM plant said, "Well, at least you'll have your five months redundancy" - I had four weeks redundancy.

The most annoying British export since Piers Morgan: 'Drones' halt US airport flights

869 US dead due to Britain in 2019

869 gun deaths in the US this year already. [Source: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org]

And the only reason decent Americans have to be armed to the teeth is because we Brits keep on threatening to invade them and impose our tyranny of Prince Philip crashing around without legal censure.

I think it is high-time a cross party bunch of parliamentarians issued a clear statement that we no longer wish to invade the USA, and their various "Well-Regulated Militia" can stand down and disarm.

RIP 2019-2019: The first plant to grow on the Moon? Yeah, it's dead already, Chinese admit

Forest of Lunar Sequoias

I've read all the comments here, many good if contradictory points, and I have a solution. We launch tens of thousands of sequoias to be planted all at once on the moon, inside modified SpaceX rockets, wrapped in woolly jumpers. You know, as an experiment. Space Force!

Re: Puzzled

Gorgeous and weird, lichens have pushed the boundaries of our understanding of nature—and our way of studying it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/how-lichens-explain-and-re-explain-world/580681/

Smartphones gateway drug to the Antichrist, says leader of Russian Orthodox Church

Re: The so-called "beast" of Revelation was an STD ...

Rise of the super-devil!

Super-gonorrhoea spread causes 'deep concern'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46809526

"A European "party destination" is one line of inquiry and health officials are trying to contact subsequent sexual partners in the UK."

Busy googling "Neisseria gonorrhoeae" + European city name...

My 2019 resolution? Not to buy any of THIS rubbish

Re: Mostly true...

Hiya FuzzyWuzzys,

My dad is 82, diagnosed with dementia mid seventies. I've tried to use tech to help him but that is all slipping away. His TV broke late last year. That floored him.

We got him another TV but he can't comprehend the simple remote control. I'll make him a pictorial manual.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/health/dementia-rehabilitation.html

Wisdom equals repitition

I just read all my 2018 comments for the first time. I made three good jokes that I repeated twice. The first time I cracked the jokes I was slightly downvoted, but the second time I cracked the same jokes I was heavily upvoted.

So my top tip for 2019, if people here don't like your joke first time around, just tell it again.

Um, I'm not that Gary, American man tells Ryanair after being sent other Gary's flight itinerary

Re: Colorblind James Experience

Other Britons with my name must hate me. I bought the UK-I CD disks from Ingliston market, they are the basis of 192.com. It was a reverse searchable list of electoral rolls and telephone books.

After that I started getting arrested a lot for naughty stuff - peace protester stuff, not murder and arson stuff. I resented giving out my actual address to the cops because they'd harass my family, so I memorised the 21 addresses associated with my British namesakes.

Colorblind James Experience

My baby was talking in her sleep

She said "Bob!"

I said "What?"

She said "Bob!"

I said "I'm Bob."

She said "No

I mean a different Bob."

So I asked her the next day

I said "Jane?"

She said "What"

I said "Who's Bob?"

She said "You're Bob."

I said "No

I mean a different Bob."

My baby was run over by a truck

It was a Dodge!

As she lay dying, she called for Bob

I touched her hand and said "I'm here."

She said "No

I mean a different Bob."

Happy new year, readers. Yes, we have threaded comments, an image-lite mode, and more...

12 months until Win7 updates end for domestic users and it still has a third of market share, less a migration and more a forced march.

Another greybeard has left us: Packet pioneer Larry Roberts dies at 81

Re: TTL exceeded

@Fruit and Nutcase

I've never heard of The National Museum of Computing before. I will certainly dig through my loft and make a car journey to Milton Keynes. Ta, you!

Re: TTL exceeded

Personally, I think X.25 had a lot of advantages over TCP/IP, but the downside was it's perceived complexity.

Anyone here 40 years or younger won't get this. Network theory, connectivity, was highly disputed into the mid 1990s.

I have some awful, awful tech books from then, very expensive nonsense, I would be eager to donate if El Reg started a library of tech crap.

25 years ago the main role of any third line engineer was to correct the lies of the salesmen without losing customers.

Oz cops investigating screams of 'why don't you die?' find bloke in battle with spider

Good nature

Just as an antidote to all the scary stories here. I consumed a field of magic mushrooms, tripped and fell asleep. I woke up the next morning frozen to what I assumed was an alarm clock going ba ba ba. There was a circle of about ten lambs taking turns to jump over my chest and then queuing up to have another jump. My wrecked body was an ovine playground. They scarpered when I sat up, but it was just so cute it turned me vegetarian.

In retrospect the weirdest thing is that they queued - how British is that?

Just before or just after that I took mushrooms and saw a house spider do something amazing. It was hanging by a thread on my stairs and all eight of its legs were in a blur of motion so it looked like a ball. My friend saw it too, scared us silly, made us think it was a deity. Never killed a spider since.

I was in a field of cows that knew me with an american girlfriend who was terrified of them advancing on her. I told her, "Don't flinch, they are more scared of you than you are of them". Arguably the stupidest thing I've ever said, we had to run for it.

Ticks and Lymes disease

I went hill walking on Skye with an Aussie hippy who was fitter than me, and when she got a safe distance away from me she went nude. I'm guessing that was meant to be motivational since I was covered from head to toe.

She ended up covered in engorged ticks, and she ignored my 'twist and pull' advice. Instead she smeared the ticks with tea tree oil, and they immediately dropped off dead.

I am not a fan of Aussies or hippies or tea tree oil, but tea tree oil is tick poison so I keep some with me on every country walk.

Avon's Skin So Soft for midges, tea tree oil for ticks.

I asked a hippie ecologist why honey isn't considered vegan, and she said because bees die making it. I said that was more a workers rights issue. I asked her why science shouldn't just exterminate midges that benefit no-one and plague every species, and she replied, "No. Midges play a vital part in Scotland's ecosystem. If it wasn't for midges then we'd be over-run with English tourists".

May contain nuts

In boring, grey, temperate UK, the most dangerous creature you're likely to run into is a dairy cow or red deer

Bull...

dog.

Dog which bit Haddington man's genitals to be destroyed (17 October 2018)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-45892414

The Times, no less, reported that the genitals could not be reattached by surgeons because "they had been consumed". It also reported peanut butter had been applied to them. The victim is still alive but should get a Darwin Award since he won't be contributing to the gene pool now.

Boffins manage to keep graphene qubits 'quantum coherent' for all of 55... nanoseconds

Happy Something Nineteen

This is the best website on the internet by far. Best content, smartest moderation. Only place that hasn't banned me, and I've been here decades saying silly stuff and swearing wildly.

As to the below the line folk, I don't like all of you. I love nearly all of you. Other parts of the internet / life depress me. You folk cheer me up, rekindle me. Your cynicism and insights are life-enhancing. Who ever hangs this place together deserves all our support.

I feel sorry for the next generation of Sys Admins. You are going to have to be in two places at once, and we'll either know where you are or where you are heading, but never both.

What happens when a Royal Navy warship sees a NATO task force headed straight for it? A crash course in Morse

Sky TV

I was friends with, colleagues with, a young woman who wanted to join the Royal Navy but couldn't pass the exam due to her lack of maths. She asked me to teach her maths. I accepted because I liked her and thought it had to be simple. I'm good at maths, maybe not in this forum but by British averages.

I was not good at teaching, a totally new skill to me that I had to teach myself. This girl, this woman, couldn't even cope with long division or multiplication, and that was so basic for me that I struggled to explain it. I'd previously taught my eight year old niece to multiply in hex, I was flummoxed by this woman.

I have so much respect for primary school teachers now, back then I thought they were glorified baby-sitters. My pupil enrolled in the RN.

It's 2019, the year Blade Runner takes place: I can has flying cars?

Re: Netflix no more

Hiya Dan 55, one of my favourite Dan's here, I take it a Tom Waits reference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PejBkU4-1fk

And hiya Is It Me. Don't know you, pleased to meet you. I'll address your question directly.

Should they have pulled out of the territory all together?

No. They should have ignored it. The KSA is murderous bunch of wank that should be ignored. If those moronic losers don't like a Netflix satirical comedy then they should stop watching it. To kow tow to a despicable regime just makes you compliant. When anyone threatens you to curtail your freedom of speech then the only correct response begins with "Eff" and ends with you.

I was banned from The Intercept a few months ago for calling a far right troll there a "soapy tit wank". I was being polite, using a Viz insult. On the same day I got my silver badge here. I love this place, I loathe all the so called 'free speech' forums that heavily 'moderate'.

I am the only member of my college never to have worked for an arms manufacturer. I was offered such jobs often. Eff that for a game of soldiers.

So in my teens one of my Ferranti classmates started evangelising Christianity to us, and I pointed out he wasn't a Christian because he built weapons. He had an epiphany and said he'd quit the next day. I had to persuade him to get a new job before he quit because we were in a recession.

I was a peace protestor for four years. Too many stories to bore you with. Anyone with a finger in the KSA merits losing that digit.

Re: The real hangup is an instinct for self-preservation.

Jeez, it is 2019 and I am fatter than David Mitchell.

I never wanted a jet-pack, I want a drink that makes me slim without exercise.

Re: Where we are vs. Sci Fi predictions

"Think of the OVERCOMPLICATED AND UNNECESSARY STEPS you must go through just to build a HOUSE nowadays. I rest my case."

Logical fallacy there Bob, despite the valid point you ended on.

Just a hundred years ago we could all just build a house, if we were capable. There are a fair few Norwegian and Icelandic historical books on the subject that you should read. Now it's all planning regulations and every inch of soil is owned by somebody - damnable capitalism!

Nobody should be able to own land that they aren't standing upon.

Bored IT manager automates Millennium Eve checks to ditch snoozing for boozing

Why tu, Kay?

I'd done years of three years of Y2K testing for a Cisco kid, so nothing happened even though my moron mates thought the world was about to end or all IT folk were scammers.

On the night itself I was stuck in a Norwich B&B contracting for the only employer in Norwich. Nothing to do in the middle of nowhere. So I get on the last train to London, thinking if I can't be in Edinburgh or Amsterdam then I can at least see what London is like. It was the last train to Liverpool.

I now live in Edinburgh and I didn't venture out last night. It has become Disneyland. In the mid nineties it was the best Hogmanay anywhere. There were half a million people crushing the streets. Sex and drugs and imminent risk of death - fun! Now the streets are closed by police barricades, ticketed concerts for pap bands, a pastiche of its former glory.

I used to love fireworks. Now they are just air pollution for poor people.

The Great British Curry: Put down the takeaway, you're cooking tonight

Re: Millennials

You are an "Elder Millennial", ala Iliza Shlesinger. I'm boycotting Netflix now so make do with a transcript and just know it is hilarious.

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/07/30/iliza-shlesinger-elder-millennial-2018-full-transcript/

Also, it is spelt '80s, not 80's. Come to Edinburgh, cook curry for me, and I promise to criticise your grammar, in lieu of rent.

Millennium Buggery: When things that shouldn't be shut down, shut down

Engineers who become managers

Nobody who wasn't a competent techie should ever manage competent techies. Managers are secretaries, nothing more. Yet even great techies can make poor managers. Different skill sets, very small intersect.

I just quit jobs when my manager was replaced. A good manager was so rare, and an average manager so damaging, that it was better just to walk away. I'd guess at least 98% of tech managers suffer from imposter syndrome and 97% of tech managers are imposters.

You know your manager is good when you feel you've let them down and yet they haven't said anything. A bollocking from an ahole has no effect.