* Posts by Andy Bright

747 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Sep 2006

Ireland scraps e-voting in favour of 'stupid old pencils'

Andy Bright
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Corruption

Sorry, but evoting systems have been proven extremely insecure. Usually the companies involved in designing and producing such systems are far too open to cronyist corruption.

Back doors, lack of transparancy, no paper trail and several documentaries that have shown how easy it is to modify them to produce voting patterns that the system's corporate owners would like to see. Probably at the behest of politicians they need in place in order to maintain their government contract gravy.

The systems used in the US have been comprimised and things like thousands of 'lost' votes have never been accounted for in elections where these things are used.

Sure, pencils and paper are hardly secure and equally open to abuse by corrupt officials, but at least they don't cost hundreds of millions to put into place.

I have a huge problem paying for a system designed to cheat me out of my vote. And yes it is a shame that the people of Ireland were stiffed out of millions in taxes. But that's what government contracts are all about. If you put politicians in charge of money and you expect all of that money to spent honestly, you're a fucking idiot. They lie for a living, hardly the most trustworthy trait for the person holding your wallet.

At least Ireland isn't as backward as the US, where they allow incumbent politicians run the very elections they're participating in.

Germany approves strengthened child abuse law

Andy Bright
Heart

Bad Taste

Remember! It's never okay to shake a baby, even if you've looked everywhere for your keys.

Who snapped first?

Andy Bright

Uh oh..

The real problem the police face is if that there's no way politicians will sanction banning photographers in public places. Even when it comes to the most sensitive buildings, such as the Prime Minister's residence.

While we may ponder how many secret documents captured outside Downing Street it will take before someone recognises the value of a 10p cardboard folder, there are vital issues at stake.

Obviously the aim here is to look extremely cool and trendy carrying "Top Secret" documents as you enter No. 10. The girls find this particularly impressive. So the problem is obviously this. If we force the mandatory use of folders, we risk high ranking fat people looking ordinary. Plus if we ban the press from taking photos in public places, how do important-looking people get to show off how important they are?

So you see it's quite a conundrum and until they work out a solution, snap happy members of the public will unfortunately be allowed to continue photographing the police. It that means a few good men have to explain why they're killing other members of the public, sobeit. It's not like a few days in court-mandated sensitivity training is going to do any harm is it?

MySpace rant was not private, rules US Court of Appeal

Andy Bright

Yep

Definitely sounds like the emotional distress angle was the way to go. I would have rated her odds pretty high at winning that one if she hadn't proven herself to be a bit of 'tard with the whole privacy thing. She still might get something out of this from the school district, but her idiotic first attempt has probably nixed that. They probably would have settled just to make it go away.

YouTube a 'half billion dollar failbucket'

Andy Bright
Heart

Wow

Who'd have thought there was no advertising market for a website that deals in videos of cats stuffed in bongs, puppies thrown over cliffs and extremely bad impersonations of Oasis?

You'd think the shite resolution versions of stolen content alone would be worth a few quid to someone. Personally I can't get enough of watching all those World of Warcraft movies. Thrilling stuff that.

How did it all go wrong?

DARPA gives Cal Tech boffin $6m 'to save Moore's Law'

Andy Bright
Alien

Re: Self-Healing or Self-Defeating

Nothing defeatist about robot deathbot overlords that can heal themselves..

BMW opens up to haptic car doors

Andy Bright
Go

Cunning Plan That Cannot Fail

Version 1.0

Satnavs will direct BMW owners to their deaths.

Version 1.1

However it came to my notice (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/25/satnav_mishap/) that there remained a possibility of escape should the BMW owner attempt to flee the vehicle while perched on the top of a cliff, railway crossing or seconds before submerging the vehicle in a handy river, lake, etc.

Therefore doors will soon lock and remain closed as the vehicle approaches situations of extreme danger.

I can see how the author mistakenly reached the conclusion that the doors would open. Indeed they will. But only if the vehicle is travelling at least 100mph within close proximity to other vehicles, preferably large trucks.

Can't get a job? Try plastic surgery

Andy Bright

Err what?

Why does anyone care that much about Americans having plastic surgery? I get the feeling that many of my fellow Angles were abused by incredibly smooth-looking relatives when they were children.

Seriously though? This upset because a few people in the US are stupid enough to spend the last of their money and credit on a nose job? Where was this anger the last time something important happened, like an election after a whole bunch of illegal activity by our glorious government? Spy on me, take away my civil liberties, illegally invading an entire country? No worries, I'll forgive you as long as you don't get botox injections.

@Master Baker - And that's where you'd be wrong. Adding a few extra inches in the todger department is most definitely possible with plastic surgery. And think of the possibilities.

"I don't care if you lot don't give me the job, my cock is bigger than yours.. look.."

UK butterfly numbers hit hard

Andy Bright

A real shame this

I noticed my dog has a tendency to chase and kill butterflies. I just hadn't realised it had got this out of hand. Sorry.

Blizzard: Game designers aren't Shakespeare

Andy Bright

Greenhills of Stranglethorn

Takes 5 minutes to complete. Go to AH, buy the entire quest, fly back to Stranglethorn Vale, hand it in.

One of the worst things about WoW is the way drops are handled. Relevant to the fucking quest, player, party or raid please. Yes I know why this isn't done, they want to force you to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again until you get the bastard thing you wanted, but if something as simplistic as Warhammer can do it, so can WoW.

The pointlessness of repetitive questing is only outdone by the pointlessness of creating player levels. As if leveling was somehow worthwhile in of itself. Yes, repeating the same quests with different coloured monsters for slightly better items for 1-60, 60-70, 70-80 levels is awesome. When a designer comes along that realises most of us just want to get into the real game - the part that isn't the mindless grind of leveling, and also realises that leveling teaches you absolutely nothing worthwhile about the character type you are playing, then perhaps a real challenger to WoW will be created.

Most people don't realises when they first pickup an MMO that the real game starts when you're done with leveling your character. The best quests, dungeons and experiences are finally offered with character that have full sets of spells, weapons and skills. Each of these dungeons (raids) take normal people months to learn and then complete. The group play they require forces you to actually interact with other people, and isn't that what MMOs are supposed to be about? Not completing kill, fetch and carry quests for 30 days at a time. If you wanted that you could play one of the countless hack and slash games like diablo.

NYC granny shoots mugger with .357 Magnum

Andy Bright
Stop

Lovely

Shooting muggers who're running away rather than threatening you isn't really appropriate.

Seriously, for a nation that very correctly opposes the death penalty it seems somewhat hypocritical to suggest shooting someone in the back for snatching a purse is okay.

Wheelchair bound and scared makes it ok? Fuck off. No it doesn't.

Carrying a firearm is fine, self defense against a person that you genuinely believe may cause life threatening injury or death is also fine. Shooting someone in the back after they snatch your purse is not fine. Most states are actually pretty clear about this. Someone points a gun or knife at you, fire away. Someone breaks into your home, assume they're armed and waste the bastard. Someone steals your football and runs away? No you most definitely are not allowed to murder them.

Just a minute..

WHAT? HE KICKED THE DOG? Crucify the fucking bastard, cut off his balls and feed his half-dead carcass to sharks the frikkin' lazer beams.

Which desktop Linux distribution?

Andy Bright
Happy

Hobbyist versus serious deployment

hahahahaha.. good one.. had me in tears..

Reg Hardware's April Fool's Day round-up

Andy Bright

Autostart

Unfortunately I reckon the real device is the iPod Autostart. Mostly because it's the most boring.

In Alaska we use autostarts pretty regularly - you try getting into and driving a car at -30C every day without a 20 minute warmup and you'd understand why. They can do a lot more than the simple set of functions you described and the remote is no larger than the old ipod shuffle. Actually most are smaller. It costs about $200 to buy the hardware and have it installed, unless you want something really fancy.

Mine can start the car for 25 minutes at a time or it can keep the car at a constant temperature. It controls the locks, the alarm and it will automatically shut off the engine if you use the accelerator without the key in the ignition. If I go shopping and for some reason brought the dog with me, I can keep the car toasty warm instead of returning to a dogsycle.

Yes we could just bring a second set of keys, start the car and lock it (our laws and insurance allow us to do precisely this) but the cost of the autostart is pretty low so many of us go that route.

Of course for about 10 seconds I really wanted the last one to be real, except we'd not only be forced to hear about the "really weird dream I had last night" we'd also be required to watch it, like some sort of devil-spawned slideshow of the future.

G20 police demand ID as train staff ordered to spy on passengers

Andy Bright

I see a big oops coming

Anyone else see the huge flaw in the thinking behind this email? Apart from protesters heading to London, can anyone else tell me which groups of people wearing the same brightly coloured shirts, sporting the same logos, would be "traveling" to London this week?

Let me me tweak your thought process.. which city sports a large number of football clubs and is, coincidentally, also hosting an England home qualifier on Wednesday?

Can you also tell me what the most typical form of transportation is for these groups that often group book their tickets to the capital in advance?

If you want to interfere with train loads of drunken football supporters, be my guest, but you have no one to blame but yourself when it takes a turn for the worse.

Cosmonaut bemoans ISS toilet row

Andy Bright
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Definitely Chuck

In the words of the reg "The man who destroyed the periodic table because he only believes in the element of Surprise" is indeed pictured on the left sans-beard.

Obesity witchhunt is a 'moral panic' - sense out of Texas

Andy Bright

Cost of Healthcare

In the US health care is a for profit business. Can anyone guess what could go wrong with that idea?

Let me ask you this then. Which hospital does better financially? The one that charges up to 6 times as much for everything from surgery to paper towels then sends the patient home as sick as when they arrived (repeat business) or the one that offers affordable health care and gives preventative advice to their communities?

Here are is a list of common billing 'errors'

* Repeat billing: charged twice for the same procedure, supplies or medications.

* Length of stay: Were you charged for the day you checked out?

* Correct charge for type of room: If you were in a shared room, confirm you're not being charged for a private one.

* Time in OR: Sometimes hospitals charge based on an "average" time needed to perform an operation rather than the time your operation actually took.

* Up coding: Happens when a doctor changes an order for medication and/or service from an expensive version to one that costs less, like generic medications. And yet you're billed at the higher rate. And sometimes you're billed for both. Keep on top of this one; it's the most widespread of all common billing 'errors'.

* Canceled service: A medication, procedure or service that was prearranged and then canceled later will still show up on your final invoice.

* Everything from a box of tissues to your bedclothes will be given some exotic, technical name and charged at many times the cost you'd pay if you bought it yourself.

* Hospital room telephone calls. Excellent opportunities for profit abound.

I haven't even got to the fact that US drug companies charge US customers 2-3 times the price they charge national health care services in countries like France, Britain or Canada. Or that hospitals will introduce new coding standards as often as possible to disguise the true nature of the services they're billing for.

Fat people and smokers are the cause of all our health care woes? Riiiiight.

Why no Lego Doctor Who? fans demand

Andy Bright
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Next Dr. Who

Why is a 12 year old playing the next Dr. Who? Will an adult replace him when the storyline about being regressed into a child is complete?

Firefox exploit sends Mozilla into 'high-priority fire drill' mode

Andy Bright

Javascript

Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't disabling javascript and java in the Content tab of Firefox's options do exactly the same thing as running Noscript - with the exception that you don't have the option of allowing scripts you think might be safe.

Most users have no idea whether these scripts are safe anyway, so it's not really like you're losing much. Just because an advert comes from a website like CNN doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to let it run.

Surely it's easier just to turn it off, as it seems java is the #1 cause of Firefox vulnerabilities. This is nothing new, it's been this way since the days of the Mozilla browser/email suite. Pretty much every other month another javascript related vulnerability (usually several years old) becomes publicly known and needs fixing. And not every fix has worked as intended.

There have been entire versions of Mozilla that we were advised never to turn on Javascript because of known problems - and the advice usually came from Mozilla themselves. You have to at least congratulate them on their honesty, I'm pretty sure Microsoft would just greet the problems with a wall of silence.

And whether these problems stem from Sun's sloppy coding or from the Mozilla foundation I have no idea. But what I can guarantee is in a few months yet another javascript related issue will be 'discovered'.

Doesn't mean I'm switching back to the mother of all security fails though. I'd rather take my chances with Firefox over any incarnation of IE.

Microsoft: Judge us by our deeds on open source

Andy Bright
Heart

Awesome!

Who would have credited Microsoft with having a sense of humour? I laughed so hard..

Google, Mozilla back 3D interwebs

Andy Bright
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Three Cheers for..

3D boobies.. wahoooooo finally something that qualifies as Web 2.0..

Sex crime 'lie detector' pilot could prompt wider use

Andy Bright
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Reliability

If you don't try to cheat the polygraph it can be around 95-97% accurate. Notice the flaw in what I just said. Do a polygraph for the polygraph perhaps?

But it's true, if you co-operate with the test, even if you're highly stressed, as long as the person operating the polygraph is experienced you'll get an accurate set of results.

The two main problems are, as far as I can see, as follows.

1/Most obvious, how do you know if the person is co-operating or has learned from any number of reliable resources how to do beat the test?

2/What if the person has been convinced he committed a crime when in reality he did nothing wrong? Shock, horror, sometimes the police make up laws.

There are a number of ways you can convince someone they've committed a crime, the police use these methods in interrogations - usually to get the suspect to admit to real crimes they've committed, but not always. The mentally ill are particularly easy prey in this regard.

Deadfish iPhones send users into deep freeze

Andy Bright
Stop

Don't do it

iPhone and iPod touch users have made many reports that their iPhones or iPod Touch are unduly affected by moisture or condensation. People leaving their iPods in cars on sub-zero nights, people using their phones in the rain are amongst the huge number of complaints on Apple and other forums. Some of them are even claiming condensation not only activated the sensor, but was also the cause of the device's failure. That seems a bit far fetched, the claims the sensor has been activated and it failed for other reasons seem more likely.

Whether condensation or rain really is enough to trigger the water sensor (designed to change colour if you drop your Jobsian device in a toilet or swimming pool) I can't say for sure. But I wouldn't take the chance of losing your warranty by freezing your phone or iPod. If that sensor is activated it doesn't matter what causes your device to fail, you won't get a replacement.

Seems to me your best option is as the article suggests. Take it back and demand a replacement, water sensor intact. Because believe me, that's the first thing they check.

Police union leader calls for 'killer games' sales ban

Andy Bright

Freaking deathbot killing machines

I agree, there are some truly scary games out there..

http://blog.wired.com/games/2009/01/gamelife-video.html

Emotional arguments do not make Street View illegal

Andy Bright
Joke

Short sighted

What do you mean you can't find one good purpose for StreetView? Talk about short sightedness.

StreetView is the single most important advance in stalking tech since the binoculars. It may take a decade or so to actually catch the person you're stalking on StreetView, but the potential to scout out good hiding places or plan your late night trips to your ex-girlfriend's house is there for everyone to see. Of course we're still waiting for the holy grail of public access CCTV, but this is quite clearly a step in the right direction.

Microsoft readies IE8 for lift off

Andy Bright

WE are the standard

The stuff everyone else writes is wrong. Yes, we understand everyone else codes the same way, and they all interpret data the same way. But they're all wrong and we're right. Now that's been cleared that up, we just thought we'd mention that if your non-standard website isn't tagged correctly, you'll need to re-do all your work.

--

I know I'm not the only person that sees a small problem with this line of thinking. I know that there are at least 1 in every 1 reg reader sitting thinking "Wait a minute.." and a fair number of those have reached the conclusion that perhaps something doesn't smell right when a company claims its the only one following standards.

I'm also pretty sure I'm right in thinking that this same fair number are suggesting Microsoft can either write something that works or go fuck themselves.

Blighty orders first 3 supersonic stealth jumpjets

Andy Bright

No Catapults?

Ok I can accept that we no longer need catapults, it has after all been a few years since we were first promised these carriers, but I'm assuming the fore and aft trebuchets will still be in place..

Apple plays catch-up with new iPhone features

Andy Bright

Hilarious

I love fanbois when they try to justify their expensive purchases, but what they fail to understand is charging for standard features through an app store or locking down the OS so it can't be used properly are not bonuses the rest of us appreciate.

One truly outstanding retort was "well it's not rubbish because that was once a feature you could buy until Apple and AT&T decided we weren't allowed to."

I recognise that Mac users are used to buying service packs packaged as new versions of an operating system, but the rest of us are not. We expect a smart phone to have the same features every smart phone has had for the last 10 years. And we expect those features to come as standard, not at $3-$30 a go.

What we certainly wouldn't accept is being told what software we're allowed to run by the previous owner of our phone. I know Apple likes to think they still own all the hardware they've sold, but they need to learn to let go. Some of the people that use iPhones are not Mac users and that means they know how to wipe their own arses.

"I just use my phone to make phone calls, you're just stupid for wanting it to do other things."

And yet you spent $400 to do this? Ok I must really be the stupid one, because I can't see the point of spending the extra $400 over something you can get for free if that's all you want to do.

And my absolute favourite..

"No Bill, technology and features on the iPhone have always been secondary to usability."

Brilliant. We don't have any features or technology, but the phone is really usable. Again, you paid how much for a phone with no features or technology but is really, really usable? Awesome I can make phone calls in landscape.. and portrait.. and landscape.. no I'm not listening to the other person, I'm using my usability and it only cost me $400 to do this.. oooh look another shiny object.. can I give you $1400 for that? It may only be a rock and doesn't have any features such as throwing, but as rocks go it's really, really usable..

Sex offender email monitoring plan mothballed

Andy Bright

Righton

If a person is this much of a risk to society that we actually need to listen to every phone call they make, read every email they write and watch their daily activities through electronic tagging, shouldn't we be looking at why they're being released rather than what to do about it afterwards?

The major qualification for gaining parole is satisfying the parole board you won't re-offend. If the parole board isn't qualified to make that decision, perhaps it should be left to people who are. Psychiatrists that specialise in kiddy-fiddling maybe? And if they don't satisfy the same conditions as everyone else who makes parole, why are they being let out? Completing a prison sentence is not supposed to be sufficient to gain release. The fact most parole boards accept verbal promises as evidence of rehabilitation simply proves they don't understand what their jobs are.

Reality is most people that get released from prison probably don't qualify for that release. But we let them out anyway because our prisons are overcrowded and they've completed the minimum prison sentence they were ordered to serve. If we're just going to let predators walk free after a set number of years, what's the point of putting them in prison in the first place? All we're doing is delaying the inevitable. Perhaps, and I know this is controversial, but just perhaps it would be better to actually try to do some real rehabilitation? If we intend to let predators move back into society, wouldn't it be better just to let them do it right away when we still remember who they are and what they did? Or perhaps you prefer that we stealthily insert perverts and rapists into communities that aren't paranoid enough to monitor predator lists on a daily basis.

Lead roof thief eyeballed targets on Google Earth

Andy Bright
Joke

WTF?

This is my section and I demand to know what the non-IT angle is? Where are the gay flamingos, the hopped-up-on-coke squirrels and the police station cannabis dealers? This sort of thing has no place in Odds and Sods, it's simply a run of the mill, same old story about cockney builders using satellite imagery to steal roof tiles. Happens all the time and simply pours fuel on the Google Earth will destroy us all argument. I can tell you right now that stalkers everywhere are disgusted by this sort of inflammatory journalism.

Drunken BOFH wreaks $1.2m in Oz damage

Andy Bright
Pirate

Yikes

In the tradition of viewing government IT as an unnecessary overhead, I'm guessing their requests for inconsequential equipment purchases (network appliances, vmware, tape drives, etc) were rejected and they were forced to manually re-create the accounts.

Believe me it happens. My own department decided that overly expensive backup software (about $1000) and it's annual maintenance was a luxury purchase and therefore rejected. The sound reasoning for this is our network appliance is capable of snap shotting about 3 months worth of data.

The fact we now have a $30,000 tape backup device gathering dust or the fact that we spent close to another $10,000 getting the wiring, air conditioning and backup power upgraded partly to accommodate this tape drive cut little ice with the department heads. After all spending a grand so we can actually use $40,000 dollars worth of purchasing is obviously frivolous.

The life span of construction jobs being decades also didn't deter their assumption that 3 months of partial backups was plenty.

So it wouldn't surprise me at all if this guy was operating in a similar environment and his drunken and astonishingly ill thought-out protest had something to do with showing them how vulnerable they were without the gear he wanted.

Microsoft claims Firefox- and Chrome-whopping IE8 speeds

Andy Bright

They're probably right

I'm sure they're bang on with IE 8 being faster, but if you're like me you prefer your browser to show more than a few script errors when you visit a website.

What I always wonder is why Microsoft programmers don't like making software that's compatible with the standards everyone else uses. Is it some kind of arrogance? Do they really think that everyone should re-produce their websites to make them compatible with Microsoft browsers.

Apple preps netbook 10-inch touch screen thingy

Andy Bright
Heart

iPods for Teens

Obviously they're going to release an iPod for the modern day teenager. Apple has simply recognised that most teenagers won't read anything unless it comes with big letters and plenty of pictures to colour. I think they missed the boat myself, and should have done something similar to Leapfrog instead, so teens could learn to phonetically sound out the names of the bands they want to listen to.

Homosexuality does for UK blue duck population

Andy Bright

Here's your chance

The government never shies away from giving a few bob to boffins that want to study gay animals, so here's your chance if you want a piece of the gay-animal-research action.

Boffins breed new programming race

Andy Bright
Happy

AMOS?

Amos with a gui? Or perhaps this is what Visual Basic aspires to be.. whatever, it's a fun toy and my family loves it.

Jobless Brits face influx of foreign IT workers

Andy Bright

Revenge

I got my revenge by getting a low-paid, entry level IT job overseas. Okay it was in the US, but it sort of matches. They think of Europe as a 3rd World hole, which I've always found funny in a so-called western country that doesn't even offer it's citizens national healthcare.

I remember pissing myself laughing when I found they still use copper to communicate. When you get to my age it's difficult to remember how to work technology that old.

The really funny part is so many countries keep pouring investment money into the black hole they call the US economy, simply unaware how fucked up and archaic most of the country really is.

Bloodhound supercar is 'recession beater', says promoter

Andy Bright

re: Want more engineers and scientists?

Most industries don't share our government's feigned concern about the lack of engineers and scientists in western countries. That's because there's a steady supply of cheap labour from any number of Asian and eastern European countries, all of whom have educations that match or exceed our own and for whom a wage 1/10th of ours represents a small fortune in some of their economies.

The good news is that's not a situation that can last forever. Eventually we'll become the cheap labour and we'll be manning the call centers for them.

Vatican vetos 'dot god' domain

Andy Bright
Flame

I don't get it

I don't understand why can't we have a .god website and email Jesus. He'd be able to clear up a few things.. like what did happen to the talking snake.

No, I haven't taken a train to crazy town. My thought is if we could borrow the talking snake IP, combine it with our own glow-in-the-dark animal tech, the dream of a glow-in-the-dark, talking dog would finally be realised. Clearly though, we'd need to make sure they didn't have plans to market their own talking animals, and if we can't text Jesus maybe a .catholic website could set us up with an email address or two.

(If various shrubbery can be used by God as an intercom then surely we can email him, no?).

Flames because apparently God is a bit of a pyro and likes to set fire to his comms while he's using them.

Schwarzenegger delivers the goods for Cebit fans

Andy Bright
Heart

Mr. Governor

The correct title is of course, The Governator.

San Diego F-18 crash deaths 'avoidable'

Andy Bright
Thumb Down

I wonder

Seems like a fair amount of punishment is being bandied around to all the military types.. but can someone tell me which of the people that decided to allow property developers to build houses and schools next to a USAF runway are going to get their slice of justice?

Doesn't common sense suggest you don't allow these things to be built next to the runway used by jets flying under extreme conditions, and therefore significantly more likely to have problems.

Planes crashing as a problem remains a pretty rare one, even when you take into consideration the military. However if you compare the military against commercial numbers you'll probably find the military tends to plow more fields with their planes. The reason for this is simple. They do dangerous things on purpose, because they have to. It's part of their job.

Knowing that air force and navy planes do dangerous things on purpose, does the approval for building a residential area next to a military runway make sense to you? How much money do you think you'd need to receive in backhanders before it did make sense?

Yes the pilot made bad decisions. He was under stress, did something wrong and the inevitable finally happened. I don't have a problem with reprimanding and punishing people who are supposed to do better because they are given the job of flying planes with the proviso they can take the stress and still make good decisions. But I do have a problem with not giving out equal punishments to the slimy gits that allowed property developers to build schools and houses next to an air force base.

The Borings renew Street View fight

Andy Bright
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Eminent Domain

"Whether the trespass is by a foreign king, or the royalty of big business, does not matter. The Borings, such as our American forefathers in millennia past, are entitled to proclaim, 'Google, Don't Tread On Me."

Obviously they've never heard of eminent domain and how easy it is to abuse this law. Then again not many people in the US have. It's almost funny how surprised Americans get when they find out how easy it is for a city to seize their homes and give them to a property developer.

Still I think these people would be better off trying to work out which one of their forefathers stupidly forgot to change his surname, rather than wasting their money on a lawsuit that has no merit whatsoever. Obviously they didn't understand the last judge when he pointed out that if they were truly worried about their privacy, all they needed to do was ask Google to remove their home from Streetview.

Neil Young posts angry YouTube missive

Andy Bright

Re: Dear Mr. Young

Not a fan I'm guessing... what puzzles me is why you care so much that you boil over just because a musician dares to have a point of view. So.. how does it feel to be the only person left that still likes George Bush? Because that's the only reason I can come up with for the diatribe, unless you really, really don't like the idea that all artists are paid the same amount per download, regardless of the record label they're legally chained to.

World of Warcraft: 'The crack cocaine of the computer world'

Andy Bright

@Michael

"Incompetent, lazy, powerless, useless parents make me sick."

Me too. Parents who're too lazy to teach their kids how to play properly are destroying the future of the World (of Warcraft). WoW as a babysitter is a tool responsible parents use to make sure they can meet their guild's raiding requirements, when they'd be otherwise inconvenienced by making meals, watching them play sports or helping with homework. But abusing this by allowing kids that suck ruins the raid for everyone.

Andy Bright

168 hours a week too much?

I found the easiest way to stop myself wasting so much time in World of Warcraft was to make my children do all my farming. I set very reasonable quotas for reputation, gold and honour, which means some days they can even spend a few hours enjoying their free time activities such as sleeping or going to school.

The great part about this is I now only call in sick to work when I want to.

Stargazers peer into the 'Eye of God'

Andy Bright

Give it a rest

I don't believe in gods, religion or any other hocus pocus, but nothing irritates me more when the arsehat brigade start acting oh-so-offended just because something has a name that sounds a bit religious.

You want to call Christmas 'The Holidays', go right ahead, but fuck off forcing other people to conform to your crybaby and extremely boring existence.

The truth is these people are just anti-Christian. You don't see them asking for Mars and Venus to be renamed or the Sun and Moon for that matter. No, but because someone used a bit of poetic license to name a giant gas cloud The Eye of God, they're getting their panties in a twist. Fuck off back to California where you belong.

The internet is for violent jerks, study finds

Andy Bright
Thumb Up

You stole my fucking cloudsong..

Just goes to show what happens when you play too much WoW eh?

http://wowseriousbusiness.ytmnd.com/

(Yes I know this is actually happened in a game called Dark Age of Camelot.. but any WoW player will tell you this is scarily familiar to events they've witnessed many times).

State bill would turn RFID researchers into felons

Andy Bright
Pirate

Vegas

I would pretty much guarantee that even if this law had made it onto the books, it wouldn't have lasted a week if someone called a hotel owner or two and let them know a major conference is considering changing venues because of it.

This is why I love Vegas. You can drink, smoke and fuck to your heart's content, but what you can't do is annoy another customer or upset the owner of a casino. All you have to do is keep spending your money and the casinos will be happy to provide you whatever you require.

Anyone that objects to drinking, smoking, fucking and gambling is probably someone that doesn't spend money in casinos. Therefore they aren't welcome and neither is their opinion. The only thing that surprises me is there isn't a law that deports such people across state lines as soon as they're discovered.

No skimming passports? My guess is this bill started as something to make sure tourists weren't afraid of coming and spending their money in Vegas. There was almost certainly no moralistic motive behind it. As soon as he found out it might affect the profit margin of his casino owners, the politician responsible fixed it. If only all politicians were kept on such a tight leash. Oh wait.. they are.

Father of ID cards moots compulsory passports instead

Andy Bright

Wasn't this the original plan?

I thought ID cards were tacked on to make it look a bit more voluntary and originally the plan was for everyone to use biometric passports as their national ID.

Then someone mentioned that perhaps demanding your passport might look a tad similar to war movies where the Nazi guards would demand "Papers Please!" whenever they came across the good citizenry of Britain freshly escaped from concentration camps (one of our less glorious inventions btw - bet they don't teach that in History classes anymore).

But fortunately I feel that a large number of the splendidly ignorant will simply refuse with wide ranging responses such as "Fuck orff I'm inglish innit" or "Fuck off yer suthern softy, I'll 'but yer if yer ask that agin".

I have great faith in the British to give the two finger salute to this.

Besides if it's compulsory are we going to stick people in jail for not being able to afford something now? A bit too close to debtors prison if you ask me and I guarantee that telling the population they HAVE to fork over 150 quid for a passport or face the consequences would see a change in government very, very quickly.

California ban on violent video games killed on appeal

Andy Bright

Extreme violence has nothing to do with it

If you think it's a great idea to let the same people that regularly ban toys and activities from daycares based on nothing more than personal opinion decide what should be considered extreme violence, I guarantee that games like Mario Bros, Spiro and Rayman will carry 18 certificates.

I don't think very many people here understand the type of person that will be making these decisions. These are the same people that would like to see parents arrested for allowing their kids to play on swings or run on the grass (they might fall over).

Those are the sort of people you want in charge of deciding what extreme violence is? Good luck with that.

Land of cheese adopts internet download tax

Andy Bright
Pirate

I agree

"By taxing it you're legitimizing it," said Michael Long, chairman of the New York Conservative Party told the AP. "You're sending a message to the children, you're sending a message to the teenagers, if you're taxing it – how can it be wrong? I don't know how you can sink much deeper."

By taxing it you are legitimizing it, just as taxation on cigarettes legitimizes those. So clearly federal, state and local authorities that take their cut are no better than the people that make them.

In fact I believe they get more profit from cigarettes than the people who make them as they don't bare the same manufacturing costs and get a larger percentage of the sale price than the supplier.

Don't talk to me about health care costs, because I'll challenge you to find a doctor or hospital willing to send their bills to the government if you do. Somehow I doubt smokers or second hand smoking victims have a secret national health insurance that the rest of us don't.

You really want to make the government squirm? Ask them what they spend that tax money on, and I think you'll be disturbed at how little of it goes towards anti-smoking campaigns or anything that would help those who suffer from second hand effects.

Oh this was about porn? Exactly the same thing. You take your cut you are no better than the supplier. Ok it is a little different because I applaud the sale of porn and I would welcome being the victim of second hand porn (carpal tunnel and blindness excepted).

Anyway it's an interesting concept and I feel a letter forming right now to let the idiot, I mean conservative politician, fully understand what he's saying.

Windows 7 fast track alarms technical testers

Andy Bright

What??

Vista still isn't out of beta and they've already got the next version to the same level of reliability? Astonishing. Surely that's a good thing no?