Posts by Andy Bright

Investigators find secret White House email accounts

Trolling for News

Personally I think the first commenter was simply a Troll.. deliberately posting comments he/she knew would set people off..

Only Fox News "reporters" are retarded enough to say those sorts of things.. usually on demand after receiving a quick call from the White House..

As for the misdirection that Republicans get up to.. every politician does this, politicians that actually answer a question directly don't last very long.

It's just the Republican Party has a particularly cohesive strategy when it comes to the illegal activities of their members.

1/Get Fox News to start the misdirection by issuing comments about how this investigation is just about Democrats "Politicizing the issue".. and perhaps a quick "Dems used questionable sources/tactics to dig up this story".

2/Get as many people on as many news networks repeating the mantra - "Politicizing the Issue".. so that our support base isn't disillusioned by our illegal behaviour, falling for the "Amazing.. a politician is being political" line.. (I always find it amusing that President always whines about people using politics to derail his political actions; perhaps he should of considered a different line of work if he doesn't like politics or political behaviour).

3/Get as many representatives as possible to make statements in Congress about the "Dems using questionable sources/tactics to dig up this story" and maybe a quick "Politicizing the Issue" statement wouldn't go amiss.

By the time they've finished, most of the tabloid news channels (CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc) have forgotten what the real story is and happily finish the job for them. So instead of treating these tactics with the contempt they deserve, they actually accept these statements as serious answers to questions about the illegal behaviour of Republicans.

F-22 superjets could act as flying Wi-Fi hotspots

I don't believe people are seeing the bigger picture here..

You know how it is, you kicking around Iraq, creating your latest master piece to upload to YouTube.. and it's not until you're finished that your realise your connection speed isn't up to par.

"Hey sarge, I'm having trouble uploading this sequel to my amusing song about murdering Iraqis.."

"Well just call in an air strike on that telephone pole over there, and hit 'send' as soon as you see a spec on the horizon.."

"Shit I wasn't fast enough.. is there another telephone pole nearby or should I call an air strike on that post box?"

Acer outlook not so sunny after all

I have to agree with the other comments

Vista desktops and laptops don't sell because generally people aren't stupid enough to buy them.

Why would you want to run a computer at 2/3rds the speed its capable of? Sometimes less.

Why would you want to continually answer useless security questions - whose only purpose seems to be to condition users into accepting any request that comes their way? Sort like the ActiveX issue on steroids, only this time they'll be conditioned into giving whoever asks admin privileges.

Why would you want to cripple the performance of basic tasks like file transfer - sometimes taking hours instead of minutes to copy a few hundred megabytes of data?

Vista is complete shite. But it looks good - and Microsoft are inviting everyone to experience the WOW. Yeah, WOW this is taking so long, WOW this doesn't work any more, WOW my machine is so shit now. But I like the bubbles... and I've always been distracted by shiny objects so I'll ignore everything else..

Bottom line is if Acer went back to XP - but this time include a proper install CD with their systems - they will probably see their sales pickup quite quickly.

Linux isn't the answer - not unless the mass market decides to ditch Microsoft altogether. I'll admit that would be nice, but it's not happening at the moment. It might in 5 or so years, if Microsoft can't fix Vista by then. If XP doesn't get replaced with something worth having in the next 5 years, it will become so dated you may well see corporate buyers considering Linux, Apple or just about anything that appears to work properly.

AMD workstation market share plunges

Workstation / Apple

Yeah, Apple don't really come into this - and they didn't use AMD processors anyway, they used IBM's Power PC (and long ago Motorola's Power PC/68000 series processors).

So this isn't really talking about your everyday desktop - workstations tend to have multiple processors (which nowadays have multiple cores) and top of the range graphics cards ($500-$2000).

Only the top 3D, CAD and extremely wealthy home users have these machines - it's probably more of a status thing than a financial thing for AMD.

Having your top end and very expensive processors in top end and very expensive computers makes for good PR - and helps convince the mass market to buy Athlon powered desktops.

Fancy an earful? Click here for tech support

Awesome

I'll be directing all new employees to gadspot.com for their training.. looks like Rufus has got the art of Tech Support down to a 'T'.

Superb stuff.

Newegg turns to tech publishing

Disagree

Internet shopping is a tricky thing. Finding the best price for something usually means a lot of fiddling around, but in general Newegg are pretty good.

They are certainly a lot better than places like Best Buy, CompUSA and most of the large PC clone manufacturers.

It all depends on what you're looking for. I don't shop for desktops at Newegg, I shop for components to build desktops.

Processors, ram, video cards, that sort of thing. Sometimes I find a better price elsewhere but not often. It depends on the day, and if another website is offering a deal on a particular product I want.

The thing that people often don't remember to do is factor in the shipping cost. Cheaper products on a site that will only deliver by fedex or UPS can mean it's cheaper to shop elsewhere if the site charges a few bucks more for the product, but will ship via priority mail.

One thing I wouldn't consider would be to use an online store's chat site. Call me cynical, but if signing up for this doesn't result in either a lot of sales chat and a lot of spam I'd be astonished.

Hasselhoff, paedophiles, and a digital Animal Farm

Checks and Balances

The real problem with our "democracy" in Britain is we have no real checks and balances. So the House of Lords can temporarily derail the odd bill, it's not really much more than an inconvenience to the Prime Minister, because he can eventually override almost anything.

What this guy is suggesting is we allow e-petitions to be debated in Parliament and voted on. The reality is so what? How does that really benefit us? Because as the author suggests, the interference from lobbyists and business will still put a stop on anything that benefits ordinary people at the expense of the wealthy.

So you're forced to vote on cutting MPs wages to minimum wage (in the hope that if they have to live on that much money, they'll raise it to something reasonable) - if that happened all MPs would do is vote a big resounding No Thanks.

The bottom line is unless the public has an accessible way of stopping draconian law (such as ID Cards) - all these simpleton ideas about listening to e-petitions do is distract us from the fact Parliament, like the US Congress, is open for business to the highest bidder.

Worse, the only bills that even approach something like a law - that aren't specifically for the benefit of the wealthy - are usually knee-jerk reactions to nasty situations (such as paedophiles). The end result is a watered down law that does no one any good, except the politicos who use it for re-election fodder.

So instead of stupid ideas like e-petitions, what this country really needs is a way to force politicians to create laws that benefit ordinary people; and a way for ordinary people to stops laws that do them harm.

Whether that is via the courts or something else doesn't matter - wiser heads than mine will have to work that one out - but we desperately need it, or we'll be forever doomed to crackpot schemes like ID cards, biometric passports and allowing the US government to steal our personal data indefinitely.

Paris Hilton dereassigned back to jail

What puzzles me..

Is why people are acting as if this is the first time someone with lots of money has managed to get a few favours from the legal system.

Whether you're British (as I am), American or whatever, our legal histories are filled with countless examples of the law being twisted and re-designed to fit the whims of the rich.

This case wasn't even that bad when you consider people have quite literally gotten away with murder - serving not even a single day in a minimum security "Pay Prison" (a prison in which you live a comfortable life, complete with all manner of electronic gadgets, internet, games, whatever - the only catch is you have to pay something like $70 a day).

Hilton, contrary to popular belief, was not offered this by the administration that runs the US prison system - which is quite surprising as most people with her wealth and celebrity status are.

So while I feel not an ounce of pity for a spoiled brat that didn't have the sense to hire a driver while she was banned from driving (I mean it's not like the money is an issue is it?), I don't really get the outrage.

Violent celebrities have committed far worse crimes (remember that fortunately no one was injured during her capers) and have managed to dodge prison altogether. Other have been caught and have been offered the Pay Prison alternative for their safety.

So like I say it's all well and good that she's been returned to prison, after all she's hardly the first person to have a hard time coping with being locked up - they do have infirmaries and mental wards for such things within most prisons - but the outrage she managed to take advantage of the system seems a bit overblown.

Vista and IE 7 to receive 'critical' fixes on Patch Tuesday

Again, we need to "upgrade" to Vista for what reason?

Because it seems to me it's nothing more than the same old tat with a pretty face and an over sensitive copy protection system - as well as generally being out performed by every operating system on the market, including previous versions of Windows.

Still full of holes, still a hazard to the financial well being of those that like to use the internet, still requires monthly patches and innumerable re-boots to install them (despite promises to the contrary).

Vista is a nasty pile of shit, and you're a fool if you deliberately replace any operating system with this garbage - unless you actually enjoy having your applications slowed down and crippled by 'tilt' factors.

Shiny things, yes my dog likes shiny things too..

Israeli boffins bring life to human neuron culture

re: Bullshit alert!

You sir, I feel, are on the side of the crazed Boffins intent on destroying our society with your fiendish brains-in-a-jar tanks.

Your propaganda trying to allay our fears with scientific mumbo-jumbo may include large amounts of accuracy, but won't distract us from the vision of cyborg operated death machines rolling over our front lawns.

No, you say it's bullshit, but THEY always say that - and clearly you are one of THEM - you know way too much not to be.

Mr Page I salute you and your timely warning, set phasers to murder death kill, we'll see you in the trenches..

UK companies floundering with no IT strategy

Sounds like a sales pitch to me

""For companies of this size, it is critical to be able to retain control of their IT spending and investment," said Paul Cash, managing director of Partners in IT."

Why? What happens if they don't? Does their existing software stop working - or are you now telling me that the magic systems you asked them to purchase 2 years ago aren't quite as good as you said they were?

Because we hear this bullshit all the time. Some mythical "killer app" - there's no such thing, never has been - or some magic computer that will turn your debt into riches.

People need to stop wasting their money, and only buy new systems when they actually benefit them. Get a real systems analysts in to look at their kit and the way their business functions. Someone who has nothing to gain by recommending upgrades or new software.

Not some dick in a slick suit with a Powerpoint presentation, a lot of meaningless graphs and some well thought out bullshit.

Judge pours generous portion of cold water on Zango

re: Bye bye Zango?

Unfortunately it is unlikely this will stop them from continuing their dodgy software distribution. It's an extremely profitable business, so what they'll probably end up doing is simply try to relabel their products to escape detection.

Kudos for PC Tools and the Judge for sticking their guns and delivering the morally correct judgment. Hopefully this will deter future frivolous lawsuits of a similar nature.

What we need to watch out for though, is whether they'll purchase a bill from Congress to reverse this decision. Congress continues to show it's willingness to deal with the highest bidder, and it's vitally important that either no law regarding spyware is produced - or if we must have one, it protects companies like PC Tools from being sued.

Crocodile tears for under-fire Microsoft MVP

I think the confusion lies in what this guy has actually done

If I'm reading this right, what has actually happened is this coder has effectively hacked the free version to enable it to do things that Microsoft normally charge for.

Sort of similar to unlocking the restricted items or removing the time constraints of a demo version of an expensive application.

In the charged-for version, he's done nothing wrong. He's added functionality and made it a better piece of software.

In the free version he's stepped over the line and allowed previously disabled functionality to be used for free.

It still begs the question why Microsoft are too lazy to produce a version that simply can't be engineered into providing the functionality of it's big brother.

Software developers do this all the time. Photoshop Elements can not be hacked into providing the expensive features of Photoshop, Microsoft Works can not be hacked into Microsoft Office - surely the same thing can be done with a development package. Is it not simply a case of removing the API hooks that allow access to features you don't want to provide (and provide suitable error handling if attempts are made with applications produced by the full version)?

IMHO this guy is in the wrong, however Microsoft are not exactly showing themselves as the brightest tool in the box if they've been too lazy to properly lock down the feature set of the free version.

The simple solution for them, it seems to me, is to remove the free version and replace it with one that can't be modified in this manner. It's too late to stop those that already use it, but at least they can prevent further abuse of their free package.

Somewhat more PR friendly than suing your MVPs I feel.

Google shivs server crowd with PeakStream buy

Alas

I feel this is the last nail in the Penguin's coffin.. RIP Spheniscidae, you will be remembered...

Sony cuts price of Blu-ray player

1080i

There may be other models I don't know about, but the cheapo HD-DVD player sold in my area (Toshiba) will only output at a max of 1080i.

This is fine for most people I suspect, and obviously a consequence of offering a relatively low cost model - but I would prefer to spend $300 on something that gives me 1080p.

As for which format is winning - the answer is neither. They both seem reasonably popular, some titles look better on one format - but there doesn't seem to be any consistency in that, it definitely varies depending on who does the mastering and how experienced they are.

I have blu-ray with my PS3 and it seems to me there are roughly an equal number of movies that aren't available on each format.

So far I haven't been disappointed with the quality, and as TV upscales lower resolution media itself (making upscaling DVD players pointless for me) I wasn't particularly bothered about the old firmware's inability to do this.

Actually that's one thing people ought to remember if they go that route. Make sure your HD TV doesn't automatically upscale resolutions - because if it does you are wasting your money if you buy HD-upconverting DVD players.

Melting glaciers race for Antarctic shores

Re: Don't Panic

Mr Mannering?

Boffin debunks Bush's climate claims

False advertising..

This report is complete pants.

Mr. Bush is clearly shown in numerous PR shoots standing next to trees, smiling at them warmly, shaking their hands and kissing their babies.

For me this is conclusive evidence that the Dubbya is hip with environmentality and is as green as apple pie.

Dutch boffins tout green petri-dish synthetic meat

A question for Uruguayan Rugby players.

Would they consider this an adequate substitute for their favourite dish or will they insist on the real thing?

"Some artificial bacon to go with the Chianti sir? Tastes of human.."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/10/tasty_humans/

Zero-day sales not 'fair' - to researchers

I don't believe there is a blackmail or moral issue

As long as certain conditions are met.

For me the most important issue is shown by the second person in this article - making sure whomever he sells the vulnerability to informs the vendor/developer, handing them the details of the vulnerability.

Obviously there should be no dealing with those that would use these vulnerabilities for malicious purposes, and obviously there is no "that's not fair" if the vulnerability is fixed before they can sell it to those that want to protect themselves.

It seems to me they have a right to make a living - many of the exploits fixed by major developers have been routed out by security researchers so their work is of benefit to everyday users. It also seems to me as long as they meet the conditions of informing the developer of the software and not selling to malicious buyers then they are perfectly entitled to charge whatever they please.

It's up to the buyer to determine whether they can make use of the information and if so, how much it's worth in terms of protecting themselves vs waiting for a patch.

Is this criminal? I believe these people are covered by fair use rights under the guise of research. It's a bit dodgy, but there's so much precedence in their favour, and most major vendors accept their existence provided they are informed of the vulnerability for a reasonable amount of time prior to making it public - therefore I don't think they have much to worry about on that score.

Facial drones spot passport frauds

I have to agree

Using this system they found 0.1% of applications were fraudulent, and have an estimated number of fraudulent applications pegged at around .25%.

That means using the system on a trial basis it successfully picked out 40% of fraudulent applications. Not bad for a first run IMHO.

EU on web-terror: Something must be done

They Hate Us For Out Freedom (tm)

So now we come to the internet. The same PR bullshit that lead to things like the invasion of Iraq, wiretaps without warrants, enforced ISP data retention, biometric ID cards, RFID passports and many other things (whose benefits to any but a few crony CEOs is highly questionable), has brought us to this attempt to use the internet as a scapegoat for policies based on greed and political partisanship - rather than a coherent use of law enforcement to nab terrorists.

Unfortunately these people have no idea how the internet works or what it really is. Therefore the only thing they'll do effectively is monitor totally innocent people, gather gigabytes of useless data and maybe alienate some others, helping to recruit a few more extremists. And besides enriching a few more cronies with plum over-reaching government contracts what they'll actually end up doing is cause even more of these wacko sites to spring up all over the world. Then again maybe they do understand, and hope to use these sites as a means to enrich themselves and their cronies for years to come.

Doctor Who faces extermination

US

Yeah it did ok over here, not quite as popular as BSG or either of the Stargate series, but not too shabby either in terms of viewing numbers.

The SciFi channel in the US would continue to pay decent money for it I suspect, in fact they've been known to pick up and pay for successful shows before, Stargate being a prime example.

As SciFi do collaborate with Sky (not to mention the HBO network collaborating with the Beeb for things like Extras and Rome) it seems likely to me that if the BBC are willing to sell the franchise - perhaps the UK SciFi channel could pick it up, or even Sky.

Decent shows with good ratings are hard to come by in ready-made packages - so I very much doubt this will be the last of Doctor Who.

And who knows, with a few extra quid behind it maybe you'll get those other world episodes the show is crying out for.

Firms urged to tighten up access policies

You know why they keep passwords on post its?

Because we continually force them to change them every 30, 60 or 90 days.

So coming up with a new set of passwords, that aren't dictionary words, are sufficiently long and contain different types of characters to be sufficiently complex - then forcing them to continually change them - is a crazy way to do security.

The best solution, which is of course expensive beyond belief, was the one that investment bankers use. The server itself continually changes each account's password every 15-20 minutes or so - then sends that password (encrypted of course) to a device much like a pager.

The pager-like device decrypts the password and the user enters it in.

Obviously there are flaws, obviously if you lose your pager thing then you're stuffed. Obviously you have to be trained not to leave it lying around on your desk - but it is the best solution I've seen.

The biometric thing doesn't work, in fact most of them are just glorified mini-scanners that can be fooled by a photo copy of a finger print. Not only that, but just about every one of them has a password override - in case someone breaks the fingerprint scanner or has all their fingers chopped off. Most actually state on the box they're not intended for high-security use.

The type that would work is considerably more expensive than the pager thing.

Man barely survives hamster attack

Re: Re: WTF

I completely disagree. Hamsters are evil blighters that should be stricken from the face of the earth. Everyone knows this, therefore he was foolish in the purchase of said hamster.

It doesn't surprise me in the least to find that they have deliberately become allergy triggers too - all part of their fiendish plan.

Bastards.

Zune to sell one million by June

I don't think anyone really expected Microsoft to win this thing

After all there are several decent MP3 players on the market that haven't made a dent in Apple's market share, so a flawed device is hardly going to be a world beater.

I'm surprised they've SHIPPED as many as 1 million units, never mind what they've sold.

As for the PSP, it's not a failure, UMD movies are. Personally I've bought quite a few, but mostly on the 2nd hand market, I won't pay over $10 for one - and I think most people feel the same way.

Not when you can buy a 4gig memory stick for less than $100 and swap out up to 4 or 5 movies at a time. Get bored of those just delete them and copy 4 or 5 new ones onto the stick. And it won't be long before 8 or even 16gb becomes affordable.

Google acquires 'sandbox' technology for secure browsing

I don't understand how sand in boxes helps at all

My experience has always been that sand, including that found in boxes, is spectacularly bad for both the mouse and keyboard, not to mention what it does if it makes it way to the motherboard.

I remember the first time I heard about using sand boxes to create secure environments.

After yanking the cable modem through the window into the back garden, and then burying the computer and everything else in the sand box, I tested out this under-maligned theory.

I have to say the results were disastrous, especially after adding the water to make the castle - which I figured was essential if you are going to have a secure environment.

So don't believe what Google say - sand boxes are definitely not safe places to browse the internet.

Any port in a storm: the display tech battle

But nothing has either UDP or DisplayPort so why does either matter?

Computer monitors only have DVI and VGA, TVs HDMI, DVI and VGA.

There is no display device that supports either of the other two - at least nothing on the western side of the Atlantic - and until there is neither is at all relevant.

Are they are good idea? I'm sure they are, as long as someone actually makes a graphics card or monitor that has one of the ports.

Until then it seems the only answer is to not watch HDCP movies on computers - unless you want to watch them in 16 million shades of black or in a resolution lower than good old fashioned DVD.

EU defence agency wants open skies for flying robots

Heathrow

Does this mean I can use those nice long runways at Heathrow to practice taking off and landing my remote controlled airplanes?

Online games turn British man into hero

Can we ask which key map he used?

So we know not to use that one when we see a robbery taking place. Also why didn't he just pickup a health pack and BFG then smoke the guy from behind?

Endemol in 'win a kidney' TV show rumpus

Think that is sick

Maybe it is, maybe forcing everyone to be processed through the harvest factory is too - I'm not entirely sure.

But what is truly sick is the fact that people can and have hired organ hunters to skip the queue and hunt down a match for them.

Sometimes its a simple as bribing the right person to jump a few places up the line, sometimes its the purchase of a suitable organ from the the black market.

These naive fools don't understand that the kidney or heart that saved their darling spoilt brat's life was harvested from someone murdered to provide the organ. In fact probably more than 1 someone, because I have a sneaky feeling that not every attempt to harvest organs from kids snatched from the street goes perfectly every time.

But rather than play Kidney Lottery, surely a legitimate show highlighting the problem about the lack of donors would simply do that - highlight the problem, rather than make organs a prize to be won.

Notorious car clamper facing Asbo

Alternatively

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if a town like Haworth had 1000 or so beaten up cars left on the streets - and whether it would influence the town council enough to do something about allowing crooks to clamp the cars of tourists.

Just a thought, but if you do have a knackered vehicle you were going to take to a breakers yard anyway...

Missing German doctor reappears after 22 years

Having recently received the same sense of humour bypass

I also don't want the Reg to put any more amusing non-IT related stories on their site. As the world revolves around me, I don't see why I shouldn't get my way.

Also how dare you mis-spell a word by one letter, outrageous, you should be sacked forthwith. Imagine, journalists that don't use Wiki's for their resources or spell checkers - bring back hanging, yoof of today, hrrmph.. blehhh.. blasted kids STOLE MY GNOMES AGAIN..

Son of Star Wars tests this weekend

Target Rocket

But it doesn't bother anyone that Alaska is one of the proposed sites for the actual defense system too?

No? Good, then the cheery thought that most Alaskans are not all that great at punctuality or giving a shit shouldn't bother you either.

Or that everyone takes the summer off because May thru August are the only decent months of the year.

If Alaska does end up getting some of these interceptor sites that were going to be built in the Aleutians - just hope and pray that either no one fires a rocket at the US during the months of September thru August, or those backup people are really good at getting everything that gets past plan A.

Strange spoofing technique evades anti-phishing filters

While I'm the first to agree with those that shun IE

It's important to remember there really isn't such a thing as a completely safe web browser.

I don't use Opera, but from reliable reports I've heard it is the safest available.

I have been using Firefox almost exclusively (unfortunately there are still too many archaic websites that only function correctly under IE, not to mention Microsoft's own update sites), but that has done little to stop my machine from getting infected every now and then.

I'm a fairly safe surfer, but even with the best intentions its possible to get scammed once in a while.

I think the rule of thumb is to make sure your anti-spyware software is top of the line, and I'm afraid Symantec are nowhere near the best in that field - in fact they're pretty much as bad as you can get.

Adaware is great for finding Amazon and CNN cookies, I believe it also finds malware, but it's hard to tell amongst all the useless 'look at me, I'm the best, I've found 24000 harmless cookies' results.

PC Tools make probably the best anti-spyware software, it's incredibly slow to load and a resource hog - but it's as good as it gets for finding real problems. It's also the only product I know of that actively prevents key loggers from infecting your PC (as long as they're in the definition database, no software is perfect in that regard) and is significantly better than Microsoft at warning you when IE goes to a bad site.

I can't tell you the number of times Spyware Doctor has found trojans or reg hacks after Norton AV has given my PC a clean bill of health.

Obviously there are other good products too - but the moral of the story is just because you don't use IE don't think you're safe from malware or phishing scams.

Father of LCD dies at 74

Did he get

a 74" coffin or go smaller with Bose speakers?

...sorry, I'll go home.

Apple moans over sex toy ad

Rebrand that's the answer

The little gizmo that goes 'down there' is presumably sort of pod-shapped.. so why not rename it to iPod?

Then just drop a note off to Apple saying the ads are for iPods not iGasms, and everything will be cool (until someone from Apple decides to buy one).

As for Apple not making good computers, you're having a laugh right? Look 2% of the IT market can't be wrong..

As for the Walkman thing - remember that eventually Walkman became as generic a name as Hoover (in the UK Hoovering means Vacuuming). Towards the end of the age of the CD player hardly anyone actually bought a Sony Walkman.

I know companies spend millions trying to prevent their brand names from becoming generic language, but eventually it happens. One day googling will just mean using a search engine and iPod will just mean MP3 player - if it doesn't then Apple have got a lot more to worry about, because it'll mean something has replaced their product as the defacto choice.

Apple's Jobs urges Gore to run for President

Gore won't run

He knows he won't win, so what's the point?

The real pity about the US is that we continue to vote for people backed by those ridiculous attack ads on TV. The ads that are complete fabricated BS, not put out by the candidate or the party themselves (they couldn't get away with outright lying) but these mysterious groups that spring up just before every election.

The other real shame is that the media in this country is too spineless to call out politicians when they lie. The subserviently sit there and even if they do question something, don't have the guts to stand up for themselves when challenged.

Personally I don't care if someone votes for one party or another - it makes no difference, because the two cartels seem to have got each other's back in private. The secret handshakes, the nice little backhanders, the juicy contracts for cronies, it goes on no matter who's in charge.

My point is look at Teflon Tony and Bush. They supposedly represent left and right respectively - yet show me the difference in the bills they've pushed through over the last 5 or 6 years. The ones that matter that is.

No until the US people start voting for someone without money for sleazy campaigns this garbage will never go away.

Armed cops in Lara Croft bust action

Good call Stuart

Thank you!

How sad indeed. Apparently you are as thin skinned and over sensitive to a bit of fun as the Police.

As Stuart said, people are taking the piss because instead of stopping at the point where we'd all maybe smile, but understand the situation - after all no one was hurt, no harm no foul - they then decided to make idiots of themselves by arresting a totally innocent individual.

13hrs in a police station and a possible court appearance for having a toy gun in your living room.. I don't see why they should be regarded as anything but muppets.

You can be prosecuted for owning a toy gun - but usually this involves taking the toy to a bank and pretending to hold it up - or threatening someone in a manner that gives the impression it's real.

What you're suggesting is it's perfectly understandable for the police to round up kids playing in their own homes and sticking them in juvenile detention for the night, because they had a cap gun or a star wars pistol.

This is exactly why muppet policemen like these are held in such low regard. Being thin skinned they thought they looked foolish and decided to overreact.

Hope the guy makes a decent sum of compensation as a deterrent to more stupidity.

BMW helps nail 105mph V-sign biker

Re: Re: Data protection

"Paul wrote:

"... as far as I know, there is not yet a national database of every citizen's face..."

Exactly - *not yet*"

Sure about that? That's what they'd like you to believe.. ;)

Sony posts big Q4 loss, blames PS3

PS3 is overpriced but...

That's not the reason you fall over piles of them walking into any electronics department or store.

As the stupidity of $2000 PS3 sales on eBay prove, if they want it bad enough people will pay anything.

No the reason PS3s don't sell is because the games are dull - there isn't a single title that isn't either a clone of something else, or hasn't been available on just about any gaming system over the last 5-10 years.

A couple of games have specced up graphics sure, but otherwise they're just uninspiring versions of things you can buy for systems costing a lot less money.

I have a PS3 - so far I've bought 1 game, and it's crap. I've played various demos of course, but not a single one has convinced me to rush down to Best Buy or Walmart to buy it.

The Blu-Ray thing, I don't know.. but I pay about $15-$30 per movie depending on how new or how good they are. I don't have that many, because there aren't that many movies worth buying for the sake of higher resolution viewing - but I'm happy with everything I've bought so far.

The PS3 could be a superb system - it's just you need something worthwhile to play on it, and I haven't seen anything in the pipeline that could even be considered close to a killer app.

My kids have a XBox 360 - and I can't say I'm all that impressed with that either - but at least you can find more than 12 titles in your average store - and at least most of the games you like have been updated for the new system.

None of the games I played on my PS2 have been updated. Consequently it seems a bit ludicrous that those very same PS2 games are pretty much all I use the PS3 for when I'm not watching movies.

US 'war czar' to attack internet safe havens

The Next Battlefront

Is of course Battlefront. Will send him a link for the demo forthwith.

With his time taken up safely playing Battlefront 2, hopefully he won't accidentally invade any more countries that have nothing to do with terrorism (or at least didn't until they were invaded and then left to fall into anarchy).

Interestingly the President's mission in Iraq has changed from Finding WMDs, to Deposing a Dictator, to Spreading Democracy, to Not Being Able To Leave Until We Clean Up The Total Shitstorm We Created, to We Need To See If We Can Keep The Shit To Shoe Level..

Not bad - and I'm sure he'll be pleased to know that rather than being remembered as the only dipshit capable of bankrupting an oil company to the only President that lost a war to 12 yr old Iraqis.

Torvalds weighs in on Microsoft's patent dance

A prime example of everything that is wrong with patents

This is exactly why the whole patenting system should be thrown out the window.

Under these mercenary laws you don't have to invent anything, innovate anything or produce anything. You just have to be the first one present a vague theory as your own.

If you must have patents then at least throw out any patent that isn't actually being produced by the company that filed it.

There would be some minor injustices, but for me IP is more than adequately protected by copyright. If you are the first to create something, you have a product you can copyright - and that should be more than enough.

Inventors, real ones, do actually produce a prototype of their creation. This would be adequate for copyright purposes.

If companies that vacuumed up patents were forced to actually produce a working example instead, the costs alone would surely put a severe dent in the numbers they would file.

The only other idea I have would be to create laws that allow companies to sue anyone that claims patent violations without the evidence to back it up. Evidence an expert in the field would recognise as proof of concept. Have the renumeration tied to a company means test and perhaps Microsoft would be slightly more wary about spreading FUD.

Sacred blogging bovine turns camgirl in sympathy push

BCG is dubious for humans too

The US, which loves to enforce all manner of vaccinations on children - even going so far as to remove all the fun of chicken pox parties with a chicken pox vaccine, as well as banning kids from schools and daycare facilities if they don't keep uptodate with their jabs - well they don't believe the BCG has any value whatsoever.

Remember this is the country that goes ape if a kid receives any form of punishment (apparently it's called redirection now), falls over, or if you tell a kid under the age of 36 that it failed an exam (deferred success).

In fact all they think it does is give some minor inoculation benefits at early age, but can then make the victim fail every TB test they take for the rest of their lives. This in turn means having chest x-rays if your job requires TB testing, just to stay employed.

It doesn't happen often - but if you do fail a test over here, the first thing a doctor will ask if you're British is were you given a BCG shot as a child. You will then be forced to pay for expensive x-rays and chest exams to prove you're not a public health hazard.

So putting the cow out of it's misery (or at least before its life becomes one), and reincarnating it as a pile of cremated ash seems the best option if you don't want the risk of the monks feeding and interacting with it becoming infected with TB - then passing that infection on to the general population.

There is medication for people that have TB, and it involves taking a regimen of pills for six months or so with no guarantee of success.

How Google translates without understanding

Food for penguin death - I mean thought

My wife recently started a Spanish user group to assist daycare providers that don't speak English as a first language.

She needed to have all the documentation that goes with daycare licensing translated, as well as creating a newsletter in Spanish and English.

Although she does speak Spanish fairly fluently she decided to save a whole bunch of typing and simply use a translator for most of the electronic documents.

She also decided this would save time on the newsletter, as she could write it out in English, then have the translator provide the Spanish copy.

All I can say is Microsoft translates English to Spanish and vice versa slightly more efficiently, and a heck of a lot more grammatically correct than Google's amusing attempts in this field.

So perhaps Google should stick to penguin genocide and leave the language translation to others. (No Microsoft's effort wasn't anything near perfect either - but it did require a lot less correction).

UK gov mulls prison for those employing illegal immigrants

Why stop at immigration checks?

Why not outsource the whole problem.. erm I mean program.. to employers.

Fine and imprison any employer that doesn't

1/Perform adequate DNA tests to verify the authenticity of their claims that they're white.. erm I mean British..

2/Fine each individual one month's salary (to be forwarded to the Government)

3/Export each illegal back to their home country; or torture, kill and bury them depending on costs involved.

Now the carrot..

4/Give employers who export the most illegals per year some sort of award, say an honorary lifetime membership to the National Front.

5/Give employers scalable tax breaks depending on the numbers of illegals they remove on behalf of the British legal system.

New, New Labour gets new logo and website

Red on the left.. blue on the right

Except in the US where for some inexplicable reason they do the exact opposite. Who would have thought a party that makes Maggie look like a whiny liberal would want to be associated with Red.

Prof advocates digital forgetfulness, calls Google 'Soviet'

History is very often forgotten

Or more accurately completely unlearned (if that's a real word). The only history taught, and the only history that ever has been taught, is revisionist history. The kind where the state alters, edits and swaps things around a bit to make it conform to the message it wants to impart. Every society does this, and let's be honest, it's impossible to impart any sort of history without the tiniest bit of bias.

As for creating laws and software to forget things. Forget it. It seems the professor has missed that recently many laws have been passed to do the exact opposite. For some reason I can't quite fathom it seems the governments of Britain and the US are run by paranoid schizophrenics.

They think everyone is out to get them, and their every citizen in their respective nations is a criminal - or at least a potential criminal.

The more cynical and sinister thought would be to have on hand a ready database of dirt to use should one of the little people actually gain some kind of influence or power.

Neither left nor right seem to see anything wrong with recording everything everybody does or says. They both seem to think that having massive databases filled with the DNA and private information of every citizen is a great thing. Both sides of the political spectrum are in love with thinking every internet user is a terrorist paedophile waiting to shoot up a school, before snatching some kids and blowing up Parliament or Congress.

So it stands to reason we should all be watched, and everything we say recorded forever.

Microsoft misses performance and scale goals with Viridian – Microsoft

Hey it's cheap stuff

And you get what you pay for. The Microsoft stuff is cheap, proper virtualisation costs more, a lot more. It's a question of what you can away with, and what you can try to predict you'll need in the future.

I can't get away with Microsoft's virtualisation software, I need VMware - but I can see how the low price point would be attractive to those that don't need more than half of what VMware offers.

Amnesty backs Google shareholders

It's not a matter of obeying local laws

It's having the integrity not to operate purely for profit in countries that have such laws.

Google and Yahoo can't break Chinese law, and you're quite right in saying they shouldn't be expected to face jail time in a Chinese prison for doing so.

But neither should they support the governments behind such laws by expanding their economies and offering their services.

Google and Yahoo can't survive without operating in China? I don't think so, I maybe wrong but I have feeling Google and Yahoo shareholders might just be able to survive financially without the profits from operating there.

The good they do for their employees while operating in China? If their culpability in assisting the capture and imprisonment of even a single Chinese citizen doesn't counter this I don't know what would.

Google are far less culpable of course, because all they do is limit what their search engine can look up - not really that big a deal in the scheme of things. Yahoo's owners on the other hand should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sorry, but balancing the lifestyles of the exceedingly rich versus helping to imprison a free speech advocate is hardly a difficult decision. Their choice is simple, which should be to leave the country they're not helping to make any better.

Some argue that the mere presence of western corporations in China helps to soften the stance of a totalitarian regime. I haven't seen any evidence of this - but I'll acknowledge the possibility does exist. I'd just like someone to prove it in some way, because it would make me feel a bit better about using Google. I no longer use Yahoo - not because they gave up a name when they had no choice but to do so, but because they continue to operate for profit in the country that made them do it.

At the moment I'm not convinced earning huge profits in countries run by governments such as the Chinese is anything but exploitation and greed.

Do I benefit from these companies being there? Quite possibly, but I do try my best to avoid Chinese goods manufactured in sweat shops run by Japanese and Western corporations. It is actually impossible to do completely if you want to own a computer, a DVD player and a TV - but you can at least try. It just costs a bit more - and yes I'd rather pay a lot more for a computer, and have a clean conscience.

Coalition forces offer Iraq action footage

I hope they aren't wearing any kind of camoflage gear

If they're going to stand out nicely for the cameras they should wear nice, bright colours - but nothing with stripes or those nasty yellows and browns. Perhaps something shiny in green or red.

And I don't see why they should have scripts, maybe something John Wayne inspired or even sing a few Dean Martin and Danny Kaye songs to liven things up a bit.

Nothing improves the moral of those about to be 'snipered' than seeing and hearing your adversary knock out a few WWII singalongs.