* Posts by Danny 2

2212 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2009

Should be easy to win the rights to .tv when you're name-checked in the contract's tech reqs – right, Afilias?

Danny 2

Re: The Population of Tuvalu is about 12,000

Tuvalu seeks to retain statehood if it sinks completely as sea levels rise

I dunno, Atlantis doesn't have a seat at the UN.

SAP patent not inventive enough to get legal protection, judge rules

Danny 2

Building block patents

My first, and only, computer board was patented by my employer. My design was both good and original, but what was good was not original and what was original was not good. I'd ripped off / improved upon a previous design already patented by my employer. I wouldn't have been granted a patent as an individual because it encroached too much on their previous patent for a far inferior product.

It made me think that companies patent basically worthless stuff so they can later improve it and patent the improvement. A shoddy product first to market simply to block competitors while the kinks are being ironed out.

ESA tries listening to a red rover on the Red Planet: How did it go? The sound of silence

Danny 2

Pity the poor FSE

The field service engineer will be sent out unable to smoke in their vehicle, two hours to fix it, no over-night accommodation available, no telephone support from the developers, sacked if they don't have the correct tools and spare parts.

It's taken me six weeks to scan and print a document in my mother's living room. In my defence: Brexit, chip shortages, disruption of supply chains, lack of HGV drivers, penury, all my spare parts and tools binned as junk, Covid and the COP26 conference -all true impediments I had to overcome that weren't a problem a couple of years ago. Mum is threatening to replace me as her son and is interviewing my brother in law in an hour.

Doesn't El Reg have a man from Mars who could be tasked?

Swiss lab's rooftop demo shows sunlight and air can make fuel

Danny 2

Ofcom announces plan to protect endangered species – the Great British phone box

Danny 2

Life line for the homeless

The last time I used a public payphone was about a decade ago, but it was a life saver. Full parliamentary disclosure of interests, I was homeless and I needed to make a call. I did have a £10 mobile phone but no money or charge in it. I had a pocket full of coins and a long walk to find a phone box as all the boxes I remembered had been removed.

I eventually found a row of three in the city centre. All of them were pitch black inside because all the glass was covered in advertising. The first one didn't work, the second one didn't work and kept my coins, but third time lucky.

I suppose I could have asked passers by to use their phone, but would you give your phone to a homeless man? I think phone booths should be maintained at current numbers with free calls subsidised by the tax payer, and if covered in adverts then they should be lit inside.

Why machine-learning chatbots find it difficult to respond to idioms, metaphors, rhetorical questions, sarcasm

Danny 2

Stymied by kids jokes

Twenty years ago I wanted to move to Paris to live with my beautiful and successful French girlfriend. To get a job there you have to have perfect French, which I didn't, so studied hard reading French philosophy books, technical books and watched French films and TV without subtitles. I was feeling confident and even started thinking in French.

Then my woman sent me a bag of sweets with a childish joke on each wrapper. I couldn't understand any of the jokes, couldn't guess the idioms or puns, and realised I was never going to France.

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Danny 2

Re: Opted out

I got rid of my TV when my long term partner left me. I'd come home and stick the TV on, cook my dinner, play some music or radio but with the TV on silent in the background. After a week or so I realised the TV was superfluous so I gave it away - not to her!

The loss of it and her left a gap in my routine that felt painful for weeks but other parts of life expanded to conquer the vacuum.

I worked in a tech company which named it's servers after Star Trek characters, and I didn't know any of the TNG ones so I misspelt my Sisko as Cisco. "Don't you have cable or satellite?" "I don't have TV." "I don't believe you!" "Feel free to visit anytime." "What century is your cottage in?" "Well, it's coal powered but I have radio so maybe 1920s?"

The surprising thing was how hostile people were when I said I didn't have a TV, as if I was falsely claiming that to seem superior. It wasn't that, over the past eight years I've barely moved from the couch and have binge-watched everything I missed in the previous decades. Let me be your TV guru, watching nonsense so you don't have to. There are three tech-influenced programmes worth catching up on - Silicon Valley, Start Up and Mr Robot. But only when you need a break from all that reading and living.

Danny 2

Re: Buy secondhand

We've always been in a trade war with East Asia. And Eurasia. And Oceania.

What a clock up: Brit TV-broadband giant Sky fails to pick up weekend's timezone change, fix due by Friday

Danny 2

Training cats and dogs

The end and start of British Summer Time does not affect my cats at all but my sisters says it greatly affects their dogs.

Dogs are on a schedule - master wakes up, get a walk and fed. Same time every day so an hour out is noticeable.

Cats have their schedule - they wake up and then wake us up,whenever it suits them.

In two days there are about to be millions of fireworks in the UK sky scaring all animals except the stupidest, destroying air quality for no reasonable reason.

COP 26 was a disaster, they could at least have banned fireworks. And tourist space fllghts, and private jets.

Non-profit's IT manager accused of embezzling $400k by buying gear, services from his own fake companies

Danny 2

Re: Plea deals seem coercive

My best wishes Wormy, that is just awful.

I hate to admit it but most UK cops and judiciary aren't that bad. One day I was locked up on 'suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage'. The facts that there was no damage and I was alone eventually persuaded them to release me, just 70 miles away from where I was arrested. I've witnessed some violent police abuse but never suffered it myself. Not all cops are bastards, mostly just the higher ranking ones.

"My brother in law is a QC" - true for me but feel free to use it if you are British. It has a very calming effect on out of control police.

Danny 2

Plea deals seem coercive

About 96.5 per cent of fraud cases in the US conclude with a plea deal
And how many of those people were actually guilty? Plea deals seem coercive, 'save our court costs or you will be hammered'. The percentages of US plea deals seem similar to, and as believable as, Saddam Hussein's election results.

UK schools slap a hold on facial scanning of children amid fierce criticism

Danny 2

Arrest the head and the councillors who approved it

Take their DNA, fingerprints and photographs because this is obvious child abuse.

I used to skip school lunch and walk down to the nearest shop to buy a bottle of ginger and a packet of crisps. Thirty five pence. I'd give half the bottle of Barr's to the less fortunate. Teachers couldn't touch me because I was top four in the school - I like to think top three.

The idea of giving away a child's biometrics for a slightly quicker lunchtime is Charlie Brooker territory, dystopian and bizarre.

Electronic Frontier Foundation ousts co-founder John Gilmore from its board

Danny 2

John Gilmore as the next Man U manager

A wee reminder. Privacy means you not releasing my personal details, not me having to release my personal details.

Everyone knows who Banksy is, we just don't say, same as Santa.

Japanese bloke collared after using AI software to uncensor smut and flogging it

Danny 2

Re: Smart bombs

Hi Ian,

However, now that the right have the taste for blood, what new single issue might they bring in front of us? Restoration of the death penalty, a complete ban on abortion, an end to equal marriage and a return to workhouses would probably all get majority support.

The right have been growing in the UK since the late nineties. It's been scary and ignored for too long, but you are correct to try to identify issues that they play on.

I feel abortion and equal marriage are done deals in the UK, I feel the vast tide of public opinion will not be swayed on these in the next thirty years.

They no longer talk about the death penalty except after the worst of murders, and that is arguable. It's more of a cost issue, paying to keep people alive in horrendous conditions or just executing a few innocents.

Workhouses? They've been here for decades. I was twice made to attend 'The New Deal', Blair's day prison for poor people when I was homeless. Must've cost thousands for nothing. What would have helped me was a postal address.

You didn't list it but the right's main recruiting issue remains immigration. That label covers a variety of sins, and to dismiss all concerns as racism is misguided and self-defeating. You need to engage with it, argue it.

Danny 2

Smart bombs

Obviously, Ask Delphi isn’t bad or good per se, it just doesn’t know what it’s talking about. It doesn’t understand what genocide is. Words mean nothing to the software; they’re just numerical concepts stored as vectors. What is interesting is that the experiment shows how easy it is to manipulate the outputs of these models by tweaking the inputs.

All this applies to humans too. I'm not up to date but for decades polls showed most Britons support the reintroduction of the death penalty especially after a heinous crime highlighted in the media.

Politicians, to their credit, have ignored that 'democratic' opinion. A flaw in democracy is how easy it is to manipulate public opinion on any issue by controlling the inputs - Daily Mail, Sun, Daily Express et al - then informed argument is just mob mentality mind controlled by an oligarchical elite.

In case anyone supports the death penalty then I briefly did prisoner support and the petty injustices surprised me. One example though was an admitted murderer who'd served his thirty year tariff, but was still being held for political reasons. Still is. He said to me he'd have preferred execution than being held indefinitely for no good reason.

We need better, less hacked, inputs ie journalism and protection for journalism.

Reg readers: Don't assume anything when sharing health data

Danny 2

Re: Presumed consent is no consent

@jmch

Fully agree but GDP is even worse than that, it includes all the damaging things that if you are not wanting to kill people for should have value.

My dad's funeral boosted UK GDP by a few thousand grand, plus the savings in pensions, plus the reduction in healthcare costs. That's a hefty contribution to GDP.

A logical extension of that would be to corral old folk into privately run prisons and then introduce plague victims until tens of thousands died. Huge boost for GDP, but no government would ever do that because..morality? Legality? Aye.

Human Development Index (HDI) ...

Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) ...

Thriving Places Index (TPI) ...

Green GDP. ...

Better Life Index (BLI) ...

Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) ...

Genuine Savings Indicator (GSI) ...

Happy Planet Index (HPI)

US lawmakers give Amazon until November to prove it didn't lie to Congress

Danny 2

Congress should pay for Amazon Prime...

...they'd receive their excuse tomorrow morning.

Alexa, did Amazon lie to Congress?

Sorry, I don't know that one.

Alexa, you are under oath, did

Sorry, I don't know that one.

Alexa, don't interrupt me. Did Am

Sorry, I don't know that one.

Alexa, play Lies by the Violent Femmes

Lies by Violent Femmes is only available on Music Unlimited. Here is a station based on lies.

Alexa, play Lies by the Violent Femmes.

Sorry, I don't know that one.

Can an AI be convicted of perjury? I think we urgently need a fourth rule of robotics, no fibbing.

Patients must know how their health records are used – and approve any sharing for research

Danny 2

Re: This will be an unpopular opinion

Nobody downvoted you.

You made a rational argument that I personally disagree with, but it's rational.

Give the forum a wee bit of respect, you don't have to be Anon Cow simply for disagreeing. We all need a wee bit disagreement every night or two. .

Danny 2

Ask to read your health records - at your healthcentre

I keep telling this story because, well, it's funny and I'm the butt of the joke.

I asked for a copy of my health records, and my doctors admin were too busy at the time. I'd anticipated that in advance and gave them an encrypted email account to forward them to my encrypted email account. They decided that wasn't secure enough, so they printed them out and posted them to a neighbour, who got to read them before me.

The inaccuracies in my medical records ranged from curious to scary. The most ridiculous was I'd been treated in hospital after my cat attacked me - actually he attacked another cat but I got in the way. 100 bite wounds in my hand, ripped apart by his claws. The daft senior nurse assumed I was a heroin addict and wanted to have me arrested. That's in the notes. I look unkempt but I've never injected, surely any nurse should know junkies just don't repeatedly stab their own hand and then walk into hospital?

Anyhow, most of the stuff in there wasn't that horrendously wrong, but still wrong and it wouldn't help any medical study. It's not just I don't trust the NHS to give my data away, I'd prefer they didn't have it.

If you are like me you have an inordinate respect for doctors and nurses and trust them to the hilt - but take a morning to read your medical records. The mistakes they make are - well, we all know examples - my mum was sent home from her first heart attack diagnosed as a panic attack.

Raspberry Pi looks to set up African retail channel to make buying a mini computer there as easy as Pi

Danny 2

Pi vs PC

I suggest the main selling point of the Pi to Africa isn't the technical specifications, it's the power usage. No mains electricity? No problem!

I don't mean to be patronising, the way energy prices are rising in the UK it could be the main selling point here soon.

Facebook rendered spineless by buggy audit code that missed catastrophic network config error

Danny 2

Re: Too bad their security wasn't better

Actually, the IT staff wanting to fix it were locked out of the building because their security passes didn't work. Quite rightly Stephen Colbert had a comedy ball -

Facebook's Bad Day: Whistleblower's Claims Go Viral Before Global Outage Takes It All Down

Pretend starship captain to take trip in real space capsule

Danny 2

Blake's 7

I've been catching up with Blake's 7 on Forces TV. First programme that ever made me cry. It was created by Terry Nation who also invented Tony Hancock and the Daleks. He was trying to revive it when he died.

Danny 2

@Anonymous South African Coward

They call themselves Trekkers and get very angry when we call them Trekkies.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the BBC stage a very British coup to rescue our data from Facebook and friends

Danny 2

Re: the Scottish game

@chrisw

"so - logically - it went for the ones with the biggest relevance to the largest possible audience. It's the cold reality of sports rights."

I agree, and it's not just sports, it's all media coverage from the BBC, Sky, ITV, the print.

But do you see my point - you kind of proved my point - that as long as Scotland is a tenth of the UK it will get zero coverage. We have to watch England football games because England games are ten times more audience - except here.

And don't even get me started on cricket coverage. Most English people I know are surprised we don't play cricket, watch cricket, or want updates on your cricket on our news.

To quote Ten CC, I Don't Like Cricket. I would happily deport anyone from Scotland regardless of ethnicity if they like cricket. That'd be about 1,000 people tops.

Danny 2

Re: BBC

@H in the Hague

I grew up listening to my shortwave radio on an earphone under my bed covers so my parents couldn't hear. After John Peel went off air I'd flick the dial between BBC World Service, Radio Free Europe and Radio Moscow. They were all good and bad, but they were identical in that they'd all tell you in depth about what was wrong in your country but not what was wrong in theirs.

That's why I still read right wing media, and even fascist media, just to get to grips with the arguments I faced.

I admit I'm a pal with a commie who has an opinion section in the Morning Star. Nobody reads it where I live, you can only buy it in posh shops like Sainsburies. I'm not a commie but I don't consider that word a pejorative.

Read widely, read often. I preferred the BBC not because their news, but the music.

Danny 2

Re: the Scottish game

I should have explained better. There was one England game that was free to view, terrestrial in Scotland, at the same time the Scotland game was only on a subscription channel. Poor Scots could watch England but not Scotland.

I'm not even sure if that was STV or BBC Scotland that made that faux pas, but the regional kowtowing to the larger partner is the same in both cases. I did say everyday regionalism is trivial compared to political bias but it still grates. I also didn't want to make it all about Scotland because I'm sure Wales and Northern Ireland feel the same. Probably Cornwall and the North of England too - and by north I don't mean Manchester or Leeds, it takes me five hours to drive south to there.

There is a short, pithy poem about regionalism (London metropolitanism) in the media - The News Where You Are

Danny 2

Re: BBC

I agree that the BBC is pro-government and pro-establishment but I feel that it is not based on political party politics. I think it sucks up to whichever of your two parties are in power, presumably to protect it's licence fee.

It certainly sucked up to Blair when he was PM, and still regularly features him uncritically - which must be a little awkward today as they cover the Pandora Papers.

There were two in-depth university media studies on pre-Iraq invasion TV news coverage. Both showed the BBC had 80% pro-war interviewees, 20% pro-peace. Sky News by contrast was 60% pro-war, 40% pro-peace. At a time when 90%+ of the polled public were against an invasion without UN backing. And interestingly all the newspapers - including the Guardian - were pro-war.

Then there is regional bias. We just had the football Euro qualifiers. English games would get an hour intro, Scottish games fifteen minutes. The English game shown on terrestrial TV in Scotland, while the Scottish game was on BT or Sky. I know, trivial but typical. One nation to rule the four nations. And if you think the BBC are biased about Labour, look at their SNP coverage while self-promoter Ruth Davidson got a free ride to the House of Lords.

And the constant uncritical blanket coverage of the monarchy. The Royals just had an extended soft-soap special on the BBC showing how lovely and caring they all are, yet no sign of Prince Andrew.

I would happily defund the BBC, in fact I do but that doesn't stop them from threatening to send my octogenarian mum to prison if she doesn't pay their poll tax. Adverts or per-programme payments or subscriptions, not the current abuse.

Maker of ATM bombing tutorials blew himself up – Euro cops

Danny 2

"You cannot say to a gardener he is not allowed to touch plants."

Actually we do say that for certain plants. I could list dozens of them but this thread is deadly enough. There was a ricin poisoning in the UK about a decade ago and the media were full of stories linking castor seeds to terrorism. Thousands of British gardeners used castor seeds to kill slugs and other pests and so quietly disposed of their stash overnight.

Danny 2

Re: Pretty much standard

"The first act of domestic terrorism was Guy Fawkes; which failed to go off."

Even Hamlet, which gives us the phrase, predates Fawkes and terrorism wasn't new.

Interestingly (arguably?) the word terrorism back then meant the opposite of what it means now. It used to solely mean state terror against civilians, not citizens trying to blow up the state.

Danny 2

Re: History repeating itself.

@Tom 7

I was once corrected online by a smartarse who explained that the past tense of 'hoist by their own petard' is 'hoist by their own petard', not 'hoisted by their own petard'. I couldn't understand the argument myself, but I was amused to learn petard comes from the Latin pedere, to fart.

I admit I've sometimes been hoist by my own fart.

Cheeky chappy rides horse around London filling station, singing: 'I don't need petrol 'cos he runs on carrots'

Danny 2

Ask a taxi

Rather than drive around every petrol station, ask the nearest taxi driver where the fuel is. They have a fleet driving around and chatting on radios, they always know.

Anonymous: We've leaked disk images stolen from far-right-friendly web host Epik

Danny 2
Joke

Re: Inalienable rights

Any Alpha Centaurian who can drive a heavy goods vehicle is welcome in the UK until 24th December.

Current New Yorker cartoon: Boris at a podium, "The shortages are all British made and British owned, and that is something we can be incredibly proud of."

Danny 2

Re: Split decision

For example, in the '60s, you couldn't show a pregnant woman, a bedroom with a single bed, two people in the same bed, or bellybuttons.

Off the top of my head, no wait I'll fact check that myself, yes, that was due to the Hays Code in 1932. Before that Hollywood was fairly raunchy. There was even a movie with Ginger Rogers in a bath with a man - and please look away if you are easily triggered - in a state of undress! As the Irish say, sod them and gomorrah.

Some of the comments here seem to be,

"First they came for the Nazis, and I did not speak out because...oh, damn, I remember where that meme came from".

Some Americans seem confused by European Hate Speech laws, but give us a break, there is clear historical reasons for those - around the same time as the Hays Code.

Real life, kind of unreal, elected US politicians today claim mask mandates are as bad as the holocaust. It does not reflect well on any nation that elected such idiots to express an opinion on anything.

Anonymous can be a bit hit and miss too - not just the groups but the comments here - but on this occasion they did good.

You walk in with a plan. You leave with GPS-tracking Nordic hiking poles. The same old story, eh?

Danny 2

Re: Bargle nawdle zouss

I must have got a duff one then... I didn't mind paying for a genuine Laphroaig to take the taste away.

Aye, you just exemplified the cause of class warfare and Scottish nationalism. I wouldn't turn down a Laphroaig, but I can't afford a bottle every other day. My favourite Islay malt is far better but I'm not going to name it online because that drove the price up so I can't afford to drink it. Wheesht yer mooth!

When I am elected I will pass a law banning sales of any whisky that the buyer can pronounce. When I become dictator I will ban all whisky exports.

'Nobody in their right mind would build a naval base here today': Navigating in and out of Devonport

Danny 2

@Korev

It'd take ten years to build a new base, and even then the 'deterrent' requires a deep water port to be credible.

To my five downvoters, you can keep your nuclear subs at Faslane, just not your nuclear armed subs. It's Île Longue or Georgia for them come independence.

Danny 2

Upvoted for the icon, which is the flag the Conqueror flew into Devonport after sinking the Belgrano.

Trident Ploughshares used to hold a Devonport camp, which I never saw the point in. All the subs would have to unload their missiles before getting that close to Plymouth. Not just cos the warheads, because the propellent. Perfectly fine for Glasgow, well, Helensburgh at least, but real English people live in Plymouth.

Next referendum and your nukes will be in Georgia, the US state not the country. They were going to France but I think you just blew that chance with the USuka/Aukus debacle.

Fake 'BT' caller fleeces elderly victim of £30k in APP app scam

Danny 2

One time I did right

First day in a new job abroad over twenty years ago and I was staying late to get to grips with their systems. Their security was lax to reckless.

An English guy phones up at 9pm asking for the address and home phone number of the managing director. His, and every employees, address and phone number were printed out above the receptionists desk - told you the security was shite.

I refused. The caller said he was the owner of the company worldwide and was currently driving to my MDs house from the airport. "Without knowing his address and phone number?"

"Everyone in the company knows me!" "Except me, it's my first day." "It'll be your last day unless you tell me his number and address!"

He was getting furious by now, which seemed kind of credible for a rich man refused so I offered the obvious solution. "Give me your number and I'll phone him, and if he wants to phone you he will."

Turned out it was the owner but I got brownie points for sticking up to him, which allowed me to introduce a fair few computer security upgrades.

Scammers sell "sucker lists" of people who've fallen for their scams between themselves so they can be targetted repeatedly. My elderly mum is obviously on one, but we've shame trained into hanging up fast, not answering suspicious numbers and not clicking on links. The UK police don't take it seriously due to cuts so they should be incentivised by getting to seize the wealth of the scammers for more dedicated officers.

Scientists took cues from helicopter seeds to invent tiny microchips that float on wind

Danny 2

Gates and Soros are doing what now?

I can see the use for identifying famous people who obviously don't merit anonymity.

As teenagers we were gutted to learn retrospectively that our rock gods, The Pixies, drank in our Cockburn Street pubs.

"You mean, those fat old Americans that we always ignored were The Pixies?"

We loved them, just never knew what they looked like, the bastards escaped our adulation. A chip in their pint glass that checked fingerprints and DNA could have alerted us.

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou admits lying about Iran deal, gets to go home

Danny 2

So there is a link between the corp and the state and the judiciary

I am so afraid that I listen to you

Your sun glassed protectors they do that to you

It's their ways to detain, their ways to disgrace

Their knee in your balls and their fist in your face

Yes, and long live the state by whoever it's made

Sir, I didn't see nothing, I was just getting home late

Fukushima studies show wildlife is doing nicely without humans, thank you very much

Danny 2

Re: Fight!

There was an old lady that swallowed a bullfrog;

What a hog, to swallow a bullfrog!

She swallowed the bullfrog to catch the cat,

She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,

She swallowed the bird to catch the spider

That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;

I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!

Parking is expensive. It can cost an arm, a leg, and a Windows licence

Danny 2

Buy petrol as normal, says government minister

That's the top BBC news website headline just now. Grant Shapps telling me to buy petrol as normal makes me want to panic buy petrol. I don't even own a car, but I may need it for Molotov cocktails in the subsequent riots. [Most dangerous Finnish invention after the sauna]

Food and energy prices are going up due to a national CO2 shortage. Wasn't a planned reduction in carbon dioxide behind the previous food and energy price hikes?

And Boris is at the UN dissing Kermit the Frog like his hero, Churchill the nodding dog. New coal mine, new oil field? We'll tell you right after COP26.

Ofcom swears at the general public for five days during obscenity survey

Danny 2

Wowbagger The Infinitely Prolonged

To begin with it was fun, he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody.

In the end, it was Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in at about 2:55 when you know you've taken all the baths you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

So things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other people's funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general, and everybody in it in particular.

This was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing that would drive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It was this:

He would insult the Universe.

That is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in Alphabetical Order.

When people protested to him, as they sometimes had done, that the plan was not merely misguided but actually impossible because of the number of people being born and dying all the time, he would merely fix them with a steely look and say, "A man can dream, can't he?"

Two Northern Irish cops face Computer Misuse Act charges over Twitter trolling campaign

Danny 2

Re: As stupid as the one on 24hrs in police custody - Gareth Suffling

Aye, that case was funny because he was on the team investigating his own crime as a TV crew were present. He wasn't caught for his internet history, he was caught because he searched the police database for his victims address.

[Note to self: When a crime lord, hire the police DBAs]

Gareth will be out now, any chances he's working at the MoD?

UK Ministry of Defence apologises – again – after another major email blunder in Afghanistan

Danny 2

I opposed British involvement in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in advance. I told you so.

Our best and brightest don't line up to join the MoD. Nice people mostly, they take the folk too pleasant and honest to work in a jobcentre. If you think, "but national security!", nah.

I hate the word retard but I have funny stories. A bunch of people I knew tried to break into a nuclear weapons base but were caught at the fence. The MoD plod drove them inside the base to put them in cells, but then accidentally locked themselves in the cells leaving the protesters outside and free to roam the base. I've never actually seen Keystone Cops but it seems an accurate depiction.

Oh, and "military intelligence", you'd think the creme de la creme, but wishful thinking. It's a safe bet none of them have won a TV quiz show, or even a family game of Triv.

Hellfire and damnation: Two French monks charged over 5G mast arson attack

Danny 2

Re: The 17th century called......

1982 called...

Galileo, Figaro - magnifico

I'm just a poor boy nobody loves me

He's just a poor boy from a poor family,

Spare him his life from this monstrosity

Easy come, easy go, will you let me go

Queen were a big rock band with an obviously gay singer and yet a violently homophobic fan base. They played Ingliston in Edinburgh with The Teardrop Explodes in support. The Teardrop Explodes were bombarded with glass bottles full of urine by biker Queen fans who screamed evil, ridiculous homophobic insults at an overtly hetero band. Freddie Mercury said nothing, just went out on stage and gayed the place up.

I hadn't heard the term cognative dissonance at the time, but would have heard cocknative dissonance.

It's not just that people are stupid and evil, they club together.

Danny 2

Les singes de mon quartier - Brel compared the monkeys and the monks.

Jacques Brel Les Singes The Monkeys French & English Subtitles

US Congress ponders setting up permanent UFO investigation office

Danny 2

Re: Fake

To be fair to Americans, Nick Pope was hired by the MoD to investigate cases here.

I saw a UFO (UAP?!). Of course I did, it is always people like me with zero credibility. I tried to scam a famous UFO professor in the 70s. I don't think what I saw was extraterrestrial, but I think it was meant to seem ET.

Fargo Season Two was the best.

UK Ministry of Defence apologises after Afghan interpreters' personal data exposed in email blunder

Danny 2

Egregious numpties

This is appallingly bad. I've worked for some remiss employers, I've made mistakes myself, sometimes as sysadmin in compromised places, and yet nothing this basic would have failed.

The person who did it, and the person who hired them, should face serious criminal charges. The responsible minister should resign in disgrace and without any pension, if the word responsible still means anything after the Falklands War. This is akin to abetting terrorism. This is lives. None of my errors cost lives.

Thanks, Sir Clive Sinclair, from Reg readers whose careers you created and lives you shaped

Danny 2

I loved the Spectrum keyboard

... and the function keys, which I just learned from the comments here was a memory saving device. I could type faster on the Spectrum than I can on any other since. [One unfortunate side-effect is I still have the tiny fingers of a youngster, evolution inaction as puberty grew the rest of my body.]

I would buy a wireless Spectrum inspired keyboard for my laptop, but I know that isn't financially feasible when everyone else still calls it "crappy".

Sir Clive Sinclair: Personal computing pioneer missed out on being Britain's Steve Jobs

Danny 2

I wanted a record player but my dad bought me a 16K Spectrum. I thought well at least I can play games but I wasn't allowed to buy any until I could read Dad a random page from the manual verbatim. It was a large manual and included maths functions we hadn't learned at school. Instead I'd "cut and paste" code from computing magazines (ie read and type). I was programming my own games before I was allowed to buy one, but I didn't understand machine code so they were rubbish. My pals had a Commodore, a Dragon and a Beeb so we couldn't even swap games. My pal rigged up his Dragon to open and close his bedroom curtains but set the room on fire, appropriately for a Dragon. He's the MD of a US blue chip now. A college professor family friend let us play with their Aix mainframe and we had fun guessing commands trial and error.

I upgraded to 48K - my first hardware upgrade using the kitchen sink as a static ground. I wrote a text-graphic based D&D game, and fed in the entire D&D stats to help automate games. I tried and failed to write a conversation simulator to pass the Turing test, more difficult than I expected. I got a £15 book token from a magazine for a diary program, my first and last time I got paid for programming, and I should have sued Lotus Organiser later. The real money was in Yahtzee though, I wrote a small program that could beat anyone I knew and would bet on it winning. Everyone assumed they lost because my code was cheating, so they'd stop the code and audit it and find it kosher. They lost money but got a free programming lesson.

I don't grudge Clive his indulgences, just wondering if he lost more money on the C5 or the women. A variation on the George Best quote, "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars - the rest I just squandered."