* Posts by Andy Bright

747 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Sep 2006

Trashman arrested for YouTube threats

Andy Bright

RE: I got arrested for threatening someone on UseNet last summer.

ROFLMAO. I literally have tears in my eyes. Outstanding conclusions my man, threatening someone via the internet is of course fully permissible. Just as in the past, sending threatening mail or threatening them in person was always treated as 'having a bit of a laugh'.

I still can't get past "I got arrested for threatening someone on UseNet last summer" without cracking up.

Look, try to understand. It doesn't matter what medium you use to issue threats, particularly those that might cause public hysteria, incited racism and where very likely to cause significant cost to the company involved. No matter how unlikely, they had to take the threat seriously, which means time and money wasted investigating it. That alone is sufficient to get you into a fair bit of trouble.

US customs: Yes, we can seize your laptop, iPod

Andy Bright
Pirate

Huh it's not just johnny furriner they're afeared of

Tried my best not to rofl when the guy upstairs told me the TSA refused to let him board his plane with 2 deadly ham and swiss sandwiches. Next they'll be taking our bottles of water from us.. oh wait..

Coincidence that airlines have started charging for meals and drinks? Riiiight, of course it is.

US Congress to vote on in-flight mobile ban

Andy Bright
Flame

@Bill Smith

Riiight, we should flame someone for having kids and still wanting to go on a holiday. Fuck off yourself, we can do without opinionated arseholes on planes too.

I'll take screaming kids over belligerent pricks any day. Funny thing is I've never found kids are the ones that ruin my holidays, probably because I have an ounce of tolerance and a set of headphones. For some reasons it's always the intolerant, loud mouthed gits that think they have exclusive rights to a seat on a plane or a spot on the beach that manage to do that.

Don't have kids myself, but I remain forever in the debt of my parents who thought it was a great idea to take myself and my sibling brats on many holidays to many countries. Gave me an appreciation for other cultures, as well as seeing places that I'll probably never be able to afford to visit as an adult.

Probably one of the reasons I don't fear everyone outside of my home country's borders.

So keep taking your kids on planes, and who knows? One day we might have a nation that doesn't feel the need to ban bottles of water and sandwiches, because they're not scared of everyone who speaks a different language.

Feds not scouring Facebook for terrorists (say Feds)

Andy Bright

Now I'm truly worried

Not about the botnets, I'm a signed up member to a dozen botnet clubs. I get a free attack of my choice every month now, becoming a member of a botnet is so common these days you get air miles for joining.

No, what I'm worried about is the FBI and their blatant ignorance. Of course all Facebook and Myspace users need watching. Bloody kids and their hoodies and their leet-speek and their cell phones. Terrorists the lot of them, lock 'em up and throw away the key.

EA preps video game PCs

Andy Bright
Alien

Wait a minute..

Heh, I think the idea of turning PCs into glorified consoles has already been done. They even created their own version of the BSOD, RROD - Red Rings of Death.

Alien for the only people other than yourself who understands what it really takes to build a gaming machine. Shame they sold their souls to the Dell.

China readies Blu-Ray competitor

Andy Bright

I disagree

I believe the interweb is split evenly between WoW, pr0n and botnets.

bisexual female rouge lfg to do some nasty ddos..

'Hacktivism' threatens world of nations

Andy Bright

re: yet another reason

The OS has little or nothing to do with it. If you replaced all the PCs with Macs or Linux boxes, botnets would re-appear within weeks, I guarantee it. And just as many servers affected by these attacks are running Linux as anything else.

The issue is whether or not ISPs are able to identify bots on their network and cut them off until they are cleaned. My guess is that the fear of losing paying customers means more them than worry if half the computers on their network are forming a botnet.

People don't respond too well to being told "clean your machine or we'll cut you off". Particularly those who were hoodwinked into believing PCs are just another appliance but smooth talking bar stewards working at electronics stores. They don't have the knowledge to understand how to wipe and rebuild their computers. Saying "well they shouldn't be allowed to access the internet" is just the comment of a prick. The noobs are the ones that pay our salaries, and it's our job to fix their problem. If anyone could do it, we wouldn't be worth much and I'd rather keep my pay at a decent level, thanks.

Kicking everyone off the internet isn't the answer, they're the money behind our toys. The answer is finding a way to automatically clean their computers for them.

Sovereign immunity blocks DMCA suit against Air Force

Andy Bright
Black Helicopters

RE: Can someone explain why he didnt just give the source over?

Because he wrote the software on his own time, and therefore it was his code. Handing it over means he gives up the potential of selling the software, or modifying it for other purposes and selling it in his future life outside of the military.

As for "owning his brain" and the like. It's true that most development companies do have these sorts of contracts, where anything you write, even on your own time and on your own equipment belongs to the company. You are made fully aware of this (or at least should be) usually on the day you start work and fill out all the other legal paperwork.

But this is actually pretty rare outside of the development community. Most employers just wouldn't consider that a future employee might create something worth stealing, and with government employees in the US enjoying almost UK levels of employee rights, it's unlikely they would think it legal to try to include this sort of ownership clause in employee contracts. Besides most contracts are the result of bargaining agreements with fairly powerful unions, which is why most government employees in the US still have decent workers rights.

I'm sure the military would think this is a great idea, and if it was common practice in private business, might try to do something similar if they were aware of the possibility. Fortunately they aren't, and because they have no proof he wrote the software on their time, or using their equipment, they can't force him to hand over the code.

This also means he's still free to adapt it and sell it to other businesses or better still, other branches of the US military. Which is of course one of the main reasons he'd refuse to give up his code in the first place.

What I would say is he missed the boat. Rather than going after the government for stealing his code, he should have gone after them for the demotion. It was his software, he had every right to refuse to hand over the code. It wasn't his fault they based his previous promotion on the value of the software, he wasn't stopping them from using it after all.

So if I was him, I'd start adapting and hawking my software to other branches of the US military, it's about the only safe avenue left for him to take. If they like it enough to steal it, chances are other branches of the US military will too.

Barclays and HBOS slash contractor rates

Andy Bright

@David Diver

Presumably you'd have no problem then if every one of them just left? I thought so, but here's the thing, you might think you have a clue about how your systems work but you don't. And as for people like you, you don't generate revenue either, you spend it. No I don't care what job you have, you aren't generating a single penny. All you do is whine like a baby when you can't figure out which socket the keyboard plugs into.

The only people that generate wealth in a bank are its customers. And banks could do just as well without any of the financial dickheads who thought they were so clever reinvesting the huge profits from subprime mortgages into hedge funds that went bust.

Or perhaps you were one of the morons that thought investing in mortgages for the homeless was a cool idea in the first place? Who cares. What I do know is the banking world has been fucked over by pricks like you, who thought gambling on the stock market with your customers' money was okay.

I'm not talking about investing people, it's pricks like this one that cause banks to fold. They gamble on the price of commodities and stocks. Its no different to betting on a horse race or playing a casino slot machine. Eventually you'll lose, unless you have insider knowledge and can cheat.

That's the real reason banks are so fucked up, not the drivel about people not paying their mortgages. Foreclosed properties lose around 10-15% of the money invested in them. However the interest rates and fees paid by bad-credit customers more than cover this if the customer makes his payments for around 18 months. Anything after that is pure gravy, especially if you actually get a loan to reset. No banks have had the shit hit the fan because of what they did with the money paid to them. These so-called financial advisors over-extended their employers, hoping their gambles on currency, hedge funds and commodities would pay off.

The PSP: what's its future?

Andy Bright
Pirate

New PSP

Is significantly better when it comes to battery use, and that includes using the UMD drive.

As for UMD being dead, a bad idea or whatever, it's no worse than any of the solutions people have mentioned. You pay twice for a movie if you buy what you already have from iTunes, Sony or whatever other online store, so why the fuss about that? The fact is the picture quality is far better than anything comparable, and to pay a few quid for a 2nd copy of a movie is cheaper than renting a DVD and burning it.

Because the UMD format is 'dead' the price of these movies is a pittance. You have to be pretty cheap to say you can't afford around 5 quid.

Would it be better if it was flash memory based? Obviously, and if there was a piece of software that could convert DVD to MP4 (this applies to iPod, phones and the PSP) flawlessly, I'd be all for it.

Fact is even the programs you pay for can't copy without frame rate issues or voice / picture syncing problems. Most can't even copy a movie as a movie, but instead split into parts for every .vob on a DVD.

And downloading brings us back to paying for a movie twice or theft. Yes it is still theft if you download a pirated movie, even if you own it on DVD already, because the law says so. Laws don't have to make sense or be fair. You'll find sympathy in very short if you take that line in court, try saying 'err snot fair' or 'the law is stoopid' and see what happens. Most people that do end up with a contempt charge thrown in for good measure.

No, the PSP is a flawed masterpiece in my view. It's a magnificent entertainment device for travel, as long as it isn't too sunny and you have a couple spare batteries and a dozen or so UMDs.

Flash memory IS cheap, no question. Unfortunately memory sticks aren't. I use an 8gbyte stick, holds 8 high quality movies (the latest firmware supports the PSPs full resolution from memory stick now that Sony have accepted the UMD is done) - and cost twice as much as it would if I'd bought 8 UMDs. $80 vs $40.. not much reason to buy the flash memory if you ask me, and for all that I can erase and copy on new movies, that isn't something I can do while traveling because I don't want a laptop weighing me down. If I had a laptop, WTF would I need a PSP for.

Andy Bright

I still like mine

And there's nothing wrong with the UMD format. It's all down to what you want. I like mine because it does what I want. The new version is light and the movies are cheap, most cost between $5-$10.

Bottom line is even if you want flash-based movies, in the US and UK you still have to pay for them if you want a legitimate copy. Besides you can do the same thing on the PSP, you just need to buy a decent sized memory card. Whether you copy movies or not is your affair, as is how you reconcile the contradictory laws governing fair use and not circumventing copy protection.

There's a reason why the PSP costs 1/3rd of the price of an iPod.

Obviously it has flaws. While the picture and sound quality is better than any comparable device, the screen itself scratches far too easily.

Being a fingerprint magnet hardly helps, and viewing in bright light or the sun's glare is obviously a problem.

But that doesn't affect me at all, because I use mine as a travel or if I'm waiting. I don't usually watch movies if I'm outside in the sun, there are 1 or 2 million better things to do on a nice day.

Also the games leave a lot to be desired, especially considering the UMD holds nearly as much data as a PS1 CD. This is supposedly its equivalent, and the games should show that. I only have 2 that do.

But I'd much rather have that than the Fisher Price graphics of a Game Boy. If I wanted one of those, I'd get a retro Atari controller for a fraction of the price, which comes with up to a dozen games built in. Paying as much for a gameboy game as you would for a real one, is just a bit of a piss take imo.

Russians probe depths of Lake Baikal

Andy Bright
Alien

They may not have found Steve Fossett

But they did find some curiously large egg-like things, which naturally they'll bring to the surface and allow to thaw out, late at night, in a room occupied by a single lab technician, oblivious to the cracking sound behind him..

Boeing chuffed with latest raygun-jumbo ground tests

Andy Bright

This...

IS MY X-WIng.. hands off, I called it first..

Sony profits down, but PS3 sales up

Andy Bright

To those that don't have the one I have..

MY OBJECT IS SO MUCH SHINIER THAN YOURS.. games, schmames, I have shiny, you don't.

Bebo users to summon superhuman alien pop-fancier invasion

Andy Bright
Pirate

Fairly simple answer to this

Have a rival group beam "Death Star Blows Up Planet" footage, looped, to the same places.

Sort of a "don't mess with us if you know what's good for you" sort of thing. Or a "we have the means to defend ourselves, honest" message. Hopefully it won't cause an overly paranoid Alien civilisation to launch a preemptive planet->rocks mission of their own..

US man cuffed for executing lawnmower

Andy Bright
Go

@John Bayly

Actually it could be interpreted as meaning, in order to establish said militia everyone has the right to own a gun. However...

Even if you do take that more liberal meaning of the wording, the writers of the Constitution built in a mechanism for changing things when they go past their sell by date. Namely "Amendments to the Constitution".

And you'll note there were indeed quite a few of them, as was originally intended. Quite clever really, to realise that a current set of laws and protections might not always be relevant. Or is that.. quite obvious.

So even if you take this little part of the Constitution to mean "Here, have a gun" the Government has every right to change it or even remove it completely.

It's one of the reasons we have a Government.

Southeast London is card fraud cesspool

Andy Bright
Coat

only Cardiff and Belfast reporting notable levels of card fraud?

When the provinces finally get telephones and electricity watch out!

Mines the one burning merrily away in the summer house.

NZ judge saves girl from bloody silly name

Andy Bright
Thumb Down

Poor bugger, but I still think that's better than..

Shaniqua, Shaneetra, Tequilla, Babeetra, Mesquita or whatever else certain people in the US think shows originality or is culturally correct.

Anyway, new age wankers like this should be neutered, and placed on permanent lists to stop them from adopting. Then give 'K' a bat to repeatedly smack some sense into them.

Google unfurls less laughable Wikipedia

Andy Bright
Alien

Don't why anyone uses either

Not sure why anyone would use either resource, and don't Google already have an encyclopedia, called Google.

What I like to do ask the Google God what I want to know and then believe what the first link says. Sorted.

You got to have some faith in your gods. I believe what the Google God says because as everyone knows, everything on the internet is true.

Spaniards show off touchscreen moto-computer tech

Andy Bright
Go

To all those that see impending disaster

I get what you're saying, without the tactile feel and simplicity of buttons and knobs, you'll be spending too much time concentrating on the screen instead of the road.

Answer? Ditch the steering wheel altogether and replace it with a 42" touchscreen and a Wii controller. Then all you need is a map of the road in the middle of the touch screen and you can spend all your time figuring out how to turn on the AC with one hand, while driving the car with the other..

Might even be able to relax and watch a movie too.. just keep the car in between the lines and pray all the lights are green.

NASA: The Moon is not enough

Andy Bright

What I need to know

Is how any of this culminates in my own personal X-Wing. Show me that and I'll sign off on whatever you want, beit the Moon, Mars, or whatever.

What I do know is that if all you have to show me after spending a kagillion dollars is moon water and space amoeba, the moon water better cure cancer or make people fly and you better not call space amoeba alien life.

If it doesn't have six antenna, make silly beep-beep noises and supplies every human with a light sabre, blaster and a first class ticket to Alpha Centuri, you don't have permission to call it anything other than spit in a bucket.

Climate change? Hungry children? Poverty? Disease? Screw that, I say restart the game and level our culture from scratch with the benefit of hindsight. I'm sure there's a planet out there that's basically one big Hawaii, tastefully decorated with the best hotels aliens can buy and has free parking space for 20 billion humans.

Japan kicks off electric car format war

Andy Bright
Thumb Up

Clear winner

I think it's obvious there's going to be clear winner in this format war, so I'm backing the car that has the best stereo.

Whether it'll support existing formats of fuel is another issue perhaps, history tells us that backwards compatibility does tend to make adoption more favourable.

But overall most cars sell on their fancy gadgets and the quality of their sound system. My guess is if your battery runs out too early and you can't play your tunes, you've got a loser.

What I really don't understand though is why it's taken this long. We've had remote control cars since I was a kid, surely it's just a matter of scaling them up a bit? Then the wife can send you to work, hopefully with a good idea of the roads she won't be able to see as she controls your car.

DARPA plans soldier-tagging system for US troops

Andy Bright

Surely if cost is the issue..

Wouldn't it be much less expensive if US soldiers were required to wear luminous orange jumpsuits that fired a half dozen flares 2 thousand feet every other minute?

I understand this would be a somewhat tricky situation near ammo dumps or inside tanks, but those are the breaks.

Congress accuses American Phorm of 'beating consumers'

Andy Bright

Bullshit

"Opt-in is rare. It's just for situations involving sensitive information, personal information that can harm or embarrass somebody. We've made a particular point of not having any personally identifiable information, not having any sensitive information."

All it will take is for one of those unconstitutional bills to pass that insist on ISPs making all their data available to whatever government agency demands it, and every single piece of information this software collects will be in the hands of someone you probably can't trust.

The data airlines collect includes all kinds of confidential information, including credit card numbers (which therefore facilitates the tracking of your credit card purchases). This information is supposedly collected for national security reasons. How many people would be happy knowing this information ends up in the hands of direct marketing corporates? And while this isn't necessarily the end of the world, after all they're only manipulating it to send you junk mail, what is troubling is the complete lack of care taken when it comes to personal information. Whether it's a government agency or private industry, no one spends the money needed to protect your data, because there's no reason for them to do it.

I predict that all this information, including that collected by ISPs, will end up going missing sooner or later. And that's the real issue. Until there's some kind of serious penalty for its loss (preferably long jail time for the owners and board of directors of companies that hold the data), none of our data will be safe.

At the moment there's no incentive whatsoever to spend the money to make it safe. Worst case scenario? Send out a few million emails to tell people their personal information is now in the hands of data thieves.

What this guy has facilitated ought to be illegal. In fact I'm very surprised it isn't covered by anti-hacking and anti-spam laws. Tell me how this is different to me breaking into his house and making a copy of everything I want from his hard drive? If I promise not to sell anything personal, would he be fine with me grabbing everything I could from his computer? Tell you what, I'll break in, make a copy of his data, and then offer him an opt out after I've done it.

US sees first airliner flight with laser defences

Andy Bright

What does this remind me of?

Oh yes...

"You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here!"

@Marty R. Milette

Yep, long been a belief of mine that pretty much all of this nation's security spending has been due to the cronies the Bush family wants to support. I know some people are skeptical, but when a part time horse show judge becomes director of FEMA it kind of shows where their priorities lay.

Then you have the little party we like to call Iraq. Let's see, the VP's buddies at Haliburton seem to be doing very well despite the Pentagon's dismay at the padded bills they've been receiving. Oh and mission is indeed accomplished, oil @$140 / barrel and rising. I'm sure the Bush family's close relationship with Saudi oil billionaires has nothing to do with this..

Which brings me to oil itself. Now tell me, why does anyone think drilling for more will lower prices, even if it could be on the market within 10 years (which it can't)?

Living in Alaska, where we drill our oil, refine it into gasoline and pay not one penny less than everyone else, what does that tell you? I'll give you a hint. When asked why they charge so much, the answer was "Because we can. Why should we sell it to you for less than this, when we could get that price anywhere else?".

Bottom line, there is no shortage of oil at the moment. When was the last time you went to fill up and they said "Sorry, we're out of stock"? Not since the 70s. The price of oil is this high because that's the price they want it to be. Drilling for more will do nothing other than line more pockets in the Bushes "Friends and Family" list.

Last year Bush threatened to veto a bill that contained money to build levees in New Orleans. However he was delighted to sign one that gave millions of dollars in subsidies to the oil industry. And yes I know the lame excuse he gave for this, and I call bullshit.

Smut pop-up teacher retrial stuck in delay loop

Andy Bright

Her life is ruined?

Yep, and because of the backward laws that well-meaning people put in place to stop pedophiles from teaching or running daycares, even an arrest that ends with no trial or even charges will probably permanently tarnish the record of anyone in those professions.

You see local authorities (municipalities as they're called in the US) keep records of every daycare provider and teacher in their district. These are permanent records with no possible challenge to their contents. So if a random parent or witless prosecutor decides to accuse you of a crime against children, your record will permanently show it. Any future employer (or parent looking for daycare) can then view these accusations, which contain little or no detail and can never be challenged or removed if proven false.

After all we have to think of the children, and it's much better that someone's life is in tatters than using something as reliable as proof to determine if someone is a danger to kids.

All this doesn't answer the question of the malware on the computer, and I put the school administrators front and center as the culprits in this case. They have certain responsibilities if they insist on using Wikipedia rather than teachers, not least of which is making sure their computers are adequately patched and have uptodate and meaningful antivirus and antispyware software installed.

This means hiring adequate numbers of IT staff and purchasing the software recommended. If they can't do this, they shouldn't be using computers connected to the internet. It's as simple as that. They are completely unnecessary for the purpose of teaching any subject that isn't directly related to computing itself.

If they were to install workshop equipment without hiring or at least contracting the relevant professionals to keep it serviced, they would be liable for any serious injury resulting from its breakdown. Computers should be no different.

Ignorance is no excuse, not in an age where spyware and identity theft stories proliferate in our media. Saying I didn't realise that acid is dangerous wouldn't go down well if a kid was blinded because the school administrators refused to buy goggles for chemistry classes. The obvious is the obvious, and if you don't know that the internet has issues, perhaps you aren't qualified to run a school district.

Passing the buck onto the user of the computer is simply not good enough. Even if it were her computer, she should not be required to have professional knowledge on how to protect it from internet malware. Her job is to teach her subject, which apparently wasn't network administration.

So if they really want to prosecute someone for kids seeing naked people, what about the municipality school administrators or the state board of education. Seems to me they have the ultimate responsibility for making sure their equipment is properly safeguarded.

Personally I don't place kids seeing porn as a crime worthy of 40 years in jail, but that's just me. And yes I have kids, and no I don't care if they happen to see naked people for a minute or two. That's life, hiding from it won't protect anyone. But Americans in general tend to be the most over-protective individuals on the planet, and if they think kids seeing penises is as bad as pedophilia then the least they can do is go after the people that do bare some sort of responsibility.

Lower VAT could help small businesses amid recession fears

Andy Bright

VAT?

I believe it used to be 5% before Thatcher hiked it up to 17.5% to pay for her income tax cuts. In other words she cut our taxes by around 3-4% and paid for them with a 12.5% tax on everything we buy.

Of course when I say 3-4%, if you were fortunate enough to be earning above about 50K / year the reduction in taxes was just a bit more, and closer to the 12.5% increase in VAT.. say about 20%. So all's fair in the end if you don't think about it too much and do the maths.

The idea was as simple as it was bullshit. You decide what to spend your money on, and therefore you decide whether to keep paying taxes at the old rate or spend less and be taxed less.

Unfortunately very little of life's essentials actually escaped the function creep of VAT, and therefore the bullshit that you could decide your own level of taxation should have become apparent.

But far be it for anyone to remember what was said 20 years ago. Instead we should recognise that we've had a free ride on life's essentials for too long. Luxury items only? Don't make me laugh, that idea is even older than the one that let us hike VAT, and if we can't remember the reasons for the price hike, why on earth should we remember that VAT was only supposed to be applied to life's luxuries?

Microsoft pledges to fight Vista 'myths'

Andy Bright

You what?

""When you make an investment in Windows Vista, it's going to pay forward into the next generation of the operating system we call Windows 7"

Personally I take it as a threat. What this means to me is that the only people that will find Windows 7 bearable are those that have had the awfulness deadened somewhat by using Vista.

Vista is a damn sight better than XP? I'll take an ounce of what you're on mate. I suppose if you think your computer is running too fast or you don't like security software taking up valuable resources that could be devoted to shiny objects, then yes I reckon you'd be right in saying it's better.

All I know is if XP patches stop and the only alternatives are Vista or something worse than Vista, then I'm going to find myself a third option.

As for Macs gaining market share, well duh! If you create an OS with hardware requirements as steep as Vista is it really any wonder that Macs have actually become a viable option?

This is the famous trick of the PC. It requires hardware so powerful that only the informed understand its possible to run a decent GUI on sensible gear.

You can't really blame them, because their experience is such that using what should be a normal amount of resources results in an unstable and slow system.

It's like saying my car is so powerful, it needs a 4 litre, V8, turbo charged engine with a nitro kit to run at 30mph, and is so fuel efficient it can actually drive 100 miles on a single tank of 250 gallons of petrol.

So no, I won't be installing Vista. And I won't be using Windows 7 either if it requires experience of Vista to make it bearable.

Minister urges end to videogame rating feud

Andy Bright
Thumb Up

The book with the pictures and the big letters please..

So what they seem to be saying is that numbers and letters are too complicated for kids and the adults they look after, so we should use pictures instead.

So no age classifications, no complicated '18' to signify you ought to be 18 to play this game. What we need instead is a picture of a spider, cos spiders are, like, quite scary, and this way the numerically challenged understand that the game is also quite scary.

Given the average checkout assistant's aptitude in handing over change, I would have to say they're probably right and today's kids are too stupid to understand numbers or letters.

Trousers Brown: Blighty faces 'food security' threat

Andy Bright
Thumb Up

Well that makes sense

A fine piece of writing. Which of course means no one will listen (okay, read) and therefore nothing will change. Worse, someone very soon is going to use some bullshit they don't remember properly from a long talk with a friend in a pub, pass themselves off as a <insert subject here> graduate, and argue vehemently as to why this isn't the answer. It's amazing how many quantum physicists, fighter pilots, brain surgeons and astronauts read these articles.

But for what it's worth, I agree 100% with what you've written, and would vote accordingly if I knew exactly which politician could be cajoled into supporting this line of thinking. Even if I didn't think they'd win, because until people start voting for someone who 'doesn't stand a chance', nothing will ever change.

UK and US agree biometric heavily vetted trusted traveller deal

Andy Bright
Stop

Actually he has a point

What it says about our country is that we're willing to take it up the arse whenever the US asks.

Pot, kettle, black. We have just as many simpleton, officious and useless procedures that will do nothing to prevent terrorism in our own airports as they do. I believe we were the first introduce the ban on the horrifying bottle of water, and we were the first to introduce nudity scanners.

We do have many of the same immigration requirements as the US, and our officious immigration officers are just as willing to return them whence they came. I witnessed one poor women, who's only crime was taking a trip to Paris and not realising that traveling through Europe for one month less than her British passport stamp authorised her to, was enough suspicious activity and proof of her intent to emigrate illegally to have her deported.

No one can deny our own country is far worse in terms of rights, surveillance and so on. Shit we just passed laws that say it's fine to lock people up if they look at the wrong type of drawing.

But the thing that annoys me the most is that we seem overly willing to place the blame of the activities of their government on the general population. Don't know if any of you actually met any Americans, but very few of those that I work with agree with most of the things their government does.

Ah yes, but its their fault for electing them in the first place. Well fine, then everything Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or indeed any member of parliament has done is your fault too. You elected them after all. No, I don't want to hear that you didn't vote for them, after all less than 50% of Americans voted for GW, and you're willing to saddle them all with the blame for everything he does.

No, what I see is when someone comes up with a legitimate argument, one that correctly shows how pompous and self opinionated you are, you simply respond with more of the same rubbish.

If American citizens are responsible for everything their government does, then equally British citizens are responsible for everything our government does. Including the invasion of Iraq and a one-way trade of personal information.

'HD TV gas' 17,000 times worse for planet than CO2, claims boffin

Andy Bright

@anonymous coward

Touche my cowardly friend. So you deny the truth of the Water World documentary? Well you seem to have forgotten the prime truth your right wingnut legions hold dear to their hearts. 'If its on TV it must be true'.

So I say a loud 'Huzzah' for the anonymous fuckwits that can't tell the difference between light-hearted banter and serious comments.

Still, what if I did think Water World was real? At least its better than believing that the world is only 10,000 years old, all humans came from an incestuous duo (explain exactly who the children of Adam and Eve fucked to make more children) and that dinosaurs are both dragons and lived along side human beings. Oh perhaps you think children arrive via stork or even that God simply makes more of them as required. No doubt the world is also flat, at the center of the 10,000 yr old universe and is circled by the Sun, stars and any other planetary bodies you can manage to bring yourself to believe exists.

Next time some right wingnut wants to comment on the satanic magics the rest of us call Science, why not instead keep your thoughts for the comment slips of your favourite creationist theme park.

Andy Bright

Does it really matter though?

As long as we can watch news reports in HD, telling me how high the water is outside my house boat, and whether the day's smog is worse than smoking so a swim to work isn't a great idea.. why would I care about global warming?

Remember, it's far more important that someone develop a gadget to tell us the distance between our boats and the land on which we used to walk than some nancy boy alternative energy or green tvs.

The world loves a good gadget, and all this boring talk of global warming won't hold our attention as long as the supply of gadgets keeps coming.

You see the great thing about gadgets is the conundrum they pose. We get the feeling they could be really useful for something, but can't quite put our finger on what.

Now if I had a remote control that not only controlled my beautiful HDTV, but could operate the kettle, oven and refrigerator, why would we care about a few tons of harmless earth warming gas?

Besides, the threat of terrorism is surely much more important. Global warming might destroy the world, but terrorists could nearly kill someone, especially if they could find a competent terrorist outside of Iraq.

Are the ice caps melting?

Andy Bright

My own fear for the planet

Doesn't come from the energy produced in by western countries such as the US (despite the inefficient use and over production), nor from Europe.

My fear is when the vast populations of continents where power hasn't been abundant finally get the technology to build their own coal and oil power stations.

As China has proved, because these countries will focus on the cost and quantity of energy rather than it's friendliness to the planet. As we seem unwilling in the west to share the technology we have to produce significantly cleaner power stations and therefore limit the impact these new comers will have on the environment, the consequences will be drastic to say the least.

We could have easily combated this but our desire to appear gracious and charitable apparently doesn't extend to making 3rd World nations independent of the need for our assistance. Real help, such as building infrastructure and clean sources of power don't tie in with the self adulation we get from sending old socks and sacks of moldy grain to half-starved children. Watching them fight and scramble for a handful of life as we chuck it on the floor and congratulate ourselves on how wonderful we are.

If the left wing parties that control Europe and the US were truly the champions of humanitarianism and social well being, we would focus on helping these nations achieve something slightly more valuable than a well in a village.

But if we were to help these nations rise to our level of technology, to help them produce their own clean power, and subsequently their own clean water, build up their infrastructure and help them become 1st World nations - where would all the self-congratulating pricks on TV charity shows go? What would the elitist pricks (on both sides of the political spectrum) do when they could no longer find some poor, malnourished child to sponsor?

So yes, global warming is a real problem, but the real cataclysm has yet to appear - the advent of the 3rd world building the worst polluting sources of power to provide energy to 3/4s of the world's population.

How much use is it to provide 1 - 2 billion with clean energy, when we do nothing to upgrade the 4 billion that will be using the worst sources of energy possible?

Eurofighter at last able to drop bombs, but only 'austerely'

Andy Bright

What about..

"Modern smartbombs such as the RAF's Enhanced Paveways can be dropped using only their onboard satnav guidance, but this reduces their accuracy and it is preferable to shine a laser dot on the target for them to home in on."

Perhaps we could replace them with cargo planes and just chuck the bombs out the back door. We'd probably still hit less friendly targets and do less collateral damage than the Americans.

Warning sounded over black hole in UK physics teaching

Andy Bright

We should just do what they do in the US

Or rather a few of the more enlightened states in the US. Stop teaching science altogether and replace it with religion.

Now while the US prefers Christianity, I say that's a bit too complicated for today's kids, and we should try for something a bit easier. Sun God and Moon God sound good.

"Good morning Children, my name is High Priestess Smith. Today's Lesson will be Sun God make world warm. If we have time we'll do some practical work, perhaps Sacrifice Spotty Kid to Moon God? Remember there's no failure here, just deferred success, so don't worry if you can't rip out and eat his heart on the first go."

UK abandons train and tube scanners

Andy Bright
Stop

re:What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

Yep, as the guy above says, the one you voted for. But I disagree with him on the point that someone else wouldn't be better. Who could be worse and how so?

One of the things that people really don't understand in Britain is that the money spent by government, whether local or national, is their money. You give it to them for two purposes. To protect you and to provide services to you.

Now tell me how well this is going? Which services do you think have improved with the massive increase in money they've taken from you in the form of arbitrary increases in taxation? How better protected do you feel?

Which projects, all of which should serve only those purposes, do you feel actually do serve those purposes? And of those projects, how many have been successfully completed and given a reasonable period of bedding in, work as advertised?

Now tell me again that you believe just about anybody else couldn't do this job better than the current idiots you've voted for.

My belief is the only way things will change is if you do two things. First you need as many people as possible to vote for anyone other than those currently elected - and to do so regardless of the party of the incumbent or the party of the opponent. The other thing is for as many people as possible to make it clear why this is happening.

Politicians are like the media, mostly of them are retarded. They can't see the obvious if it came up and bit them. So unless the public informs both the media and the politicians why and how you're dissatisfied, every new MP will think they can get away with the same shit all over again.

The thing is you have to repeat this process until they finally understand that in order to get re-elected, they actually have to do their jobs, listen to the electorate and do as the electorate wishes. The process I'm talking about is called lobbying, and big business is not the only entity entitled to do this.

Microsoft says ‘hasta la vista XP’ - well, kinda

Andy Bright
Linux

I think not

"our customers have made it clear to us that they want broader support for devices and applications in order to enjoy the overall [Vista] experience".

Actually what we want an OS that isn't shite. The fact it's crap with hardware is just another problem in a long list of problems, which range from the incredibly annoying (file copying taking upwards of ten times as long as any other OS) to the dangerous (security software fucked over by a so-called service pack).

You throw in not being able to do anything without confirming it at least twice, a completely unintuitive user interface, the gob smacking (even for Windows) resource requirements to run just the OS, and as noted, diabolical hardware support - no amount of shiny objects will make my organisation adopt Vista. We'll stick with XP even if the patches stop, because at least we can still run anti-malware applications. My organisation has over 15,000 users - and not a single one will have Vista installed on their PC or laptop, I guarantee it.

My own feeling is if they don't go back to the drawing board and start over from scratch, Linux and Apple OSX become realistic propositions. There is fast coming a point where the hardware requirements of Windows are so steep, even a Mac seems like good value in comparison. That's just astonishing given how badly Mac owners are ripped off by Apple.

Remember, this is just the OS. We're not even talking about running an application yet and the machine is too slow with over double the memory and 3 times the processing power needed to run XP efficiently.

They said that the hardware requirements for Windows 7 won't be much higher than Vista! My attitude is if you run Vista and a single application on a 64-bit, dual core processor with over a gigabyte of ram - and you actually have to wait any time at all when switching back to the desktop, it's complete and utter shite. A fucking Amiga could do it instantly with a 16-bit, 7Mhz processor, 1/2 A MEGABYTE of memory and NO fucking hard drive at all. Tell me that something isn't wrong when you need 2 gigabytes of ram just to run the OS and you're an idiot. Remember, no actual applications, just the bloody OS. You haven't even started work yet, you've just booted some kind of retarded OS.

Well like I said, at those requirements even a Mac seems good value in comparison, and if Linux had applications beyond word processing and spreadsheets, we'd already be using it.

Cap, trade, subsidise - Obama's energy plan goes off piste

Andy Bright
Thumb Down

The problem with tax and cap

Is that the poorest amongst us are always those that end up with little or nothing.

The rich can afford the larger tax and therefore continue to use and abuse power as they always have. The rich, don't forget, are the ones with huge, power consuming TVs, multiple power hungry computers, fuel inefficient sports cars, even planes or helicopters at the extreme end. In other words, similar to the fact that the tiny (by comparison) population of the US uses a hugely disproportionate amount of the world's carbon releasing energy, you get the same thing with the small percentage of wealthy consumers using far more energy than their less well off (and far more numerous) counterparts.

So the answer is to set fuel taxes so high that we can't afford to pollute? Well all that does to the rich is they spend less on sports cars and helicopters. And yes that means they end up polluting less.

However when you look at what that does to the poor, it SHOULD give you pause. $300 gas bill to heat your home, or risk getting cut off and delay paying the bill for a month because you need prescriptions and food?

So while taxing fuel would help reduce green house emissions, the cost to humanities most vulnerable is too great.

Instead what should happen is the huge producers of energy, those that currently are earning billions of dollars in profit every year, ought to help fund the research and development of renewable and clean energy.

Their industry is after all the cause of the problem. With no affordable alternatives, only the smug middle class gits of the world will suggest pushing that bill onto those struggling to pay mortgages and utilities, those struggling to balance groceries with medical bills or petrol to drive to work, is a good thing.

Instead why not enable serious research into alternative energy with serious dollars. Billions of dollars coming from the world's most valuable resource. Fuel. It's not like these people would hurt from it. If they profit enough to become some of the world's richest people at $20-$26 / barrel, what harm is there in taxing them down to only 4 times the profit they used to make?

Enraged devil dog lover locks on to Reg photo team

Andy Bright
Flame

True Devil Dogs

I'm afraid I have to side with our crisp-sharing dog lover. Staffys aren't Devil Dogs, only one breed can lay claim to evil incarnate.

The true Devil Dogs as any owner can confirm, are Beagles. My own dog, while not being pure Beagle, has through a satanic quirk of fate inherited all the cuteness genes from the Beagle side of her mutthood.

And why, I might hear you ask, do I say Beagles are the Devil?

Go ahead, buy one and wait a year or so. Better yet, borrow one that's fully grown.

Then knock on the door or ring the doorbell.

That fucking bark will drive you infuckingsane. But no sooner do you put the shotgun to its head, it will look up at you in all its cuteness and quite probably cast some evil spell of bleeding heart nancy boy upon you.. crushing your resolve to rid the world of one its most insidious pests.

Fire thingy because they're the Devil..

Snoop bill opponents post Swedish spy IDs on net

Andy Bright

Which country?

"Google's global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer believes the Swedish government is following the examples set by governments ranging from China to Saudi Arabia."

Doesn't he mean the US? Oh and congratulations go to Congress on getting yourselves unelected. You were put in office because people were fed up of being spied on, fed up with the corruption and wanted them to pull US troops out of Iraq.

They've delivered nothing, in fact they've continued to support all of the things that they were asked to stop. Maybe the next lot we vote in will finally get it.

And if the next lot don't get it, they won't get re-elected either.

BTW when will people understand that when you say you want these laws to go after terrorists, the public is actually intelligent enough to understand you're full of shit. If you wanted to spy on terrorists, why do you need laws that help you spy on your own people? You think your own people are terrorists? Tell me, what kind of regime is frightened of it's own people? Dictatorships? Communists?

The US isn't a totalitarian dictatorship? Hmm let's see.. spies on it's own people, torture, locks up people in a military prison for years without charging them of any crime, restricts movement to those that have the necessary papers and the necessary permission to travel.. what am I missing here?

Devil dog laughs in the face of Taser

Andy Bright

@Chris Thomas

Their police might kill people out of hand for such crimes as being a minority immigrant, but at least they call out professional dog handlers in situations like this.

No US cop would shoot a dog unless they were actually being attacked, and if you have time to call in armed police, you aren't being attacked by a dog - at least not very aggressively.

So they call in dog handlers, who simply collar the dog using one of those poles with a wire hoop attached, cage it, kennel it and then ask the public to sponsor it. It's evaluated by someone who knows what he's talking about, and only if that person deems the dog beyond being trained out of its aggressiveness will it be put down.

And no, dogs aren't kept in small cages without ever being exercised, at least not legally. And if the tear-jerking commercials get enough of the public to provide sponsorship for the animals, they're looked after properly for the rest of their natural lives. If the money runs out, the dog is offered to private shelters. If they're all full, it's then given about 2 months (on average) before being put down.

AMD rolls out Radeon HD 4850

Andy Bright

At least it's a bit better

When Radeons were made by ATI, the names were far more confusing. You couldn't rely on something as simple as the larger the number or price, the better the card - because that was clearly not the case.

For example which is better, the Pro version or the XT? Or the XL? The fact they introduced yet more extensions with every new generation just made things worse. New cards with larger numbers and mysterious new end letters would appear, and thinking they represented the best technology people would actually downgrade their video performance when they bought them.

So you bought the Pro version 3 years ago, after discovering it was the best. You do the same now, and then find out the new equivalent to your card is the XT. You couldn't do something as simple as look at the product number, or even the price. Worse, they'd introduce a budget version with a larger product number a year or so after the product line was released. If you didn't do your homework you'd get screwed.

For the first time ever the 3000 series made it simple to decide. The larger the number the better the card. With this generation you need to wait for the entire product line (or at least most of it) to be released before knowing which card represents an upgrade. For example does this card give a performance increase over the 3870 or will you need to wait for the 4870? Often the latest video cards released by ATI did not perform as well as the top of the range card from the previous generation. But most people thought bigger number, better card and thus got screwed. So until reviewers make it clear that this is indeed an upgrade over your existing card, don't get taken.

And no, I don't think nVidia are any better and their product lines are just as confusing. The thing about nVidia is they tend to release their best cards right away - but they do many of the same things that ATI did.

None of this was done on purpose I hasten to add. It's simply that video card manufacturers are crap at naming their products and making it clear which is the best, middle and worst of their product line.

Big TV flips ad blockers the bird

Andy Bright

Err who cares?

So what if they play ads? If the content is good enough people will temporarily disable their blockers, if not they won't watch anyway.

My own personal advert blockers (and these work for broadcast tv too) are to

1/make myself a cuppa,

2/take a leak,

3/make some munchies,

4/watch another channel until the adverts are done, or...

5/just press fast forward because I hardly ever watch live TV anymore.

UK developer trio accused of game plagiarism

Andy Bright
Pirate

That's hilarious

As if there's a single game on the market these days that doesn't do exactly that - rip off not only the content ('please kill 5 wolves and return to Lothar-The-Scared-Of-Wolves for your reward'), but the very look and feel of whatever the current best seller is in the same genre. Original ideas these days appear to be doing a slight modification in the way you kill someone in the latest WoW clone (which itself merely lifted the best ideas from previously successful MMOs, bundled them together and presented them in the form of cutesy cartoons).

Every original idea that's ever proven to be popular has been ripped off by every game house past and present. And the few genuine talents when it comes to creativity in game design have always found it almost impossible to get significant backing from any major publisher until they've proved not just once, but many times, that their ideas sell.

Otherwise publishers are interested in nothing but re-hashes and ripoffs. I find it laughable that any one of these games houses has the balls to claim that anything they've produced actually qualifies as intellectual property.

Tory trash talk fails to halt bin bugging plans

Andy Bright
Stop

Quite right to get pissy

Because once again the government is working out new ways to tax us twice. Council Tax should more than cover the cost of rubbish collection, along with everything else it's supposed to fund.

The reason local and central governments want to find new revenue sources is not because they give a shit about the environment, they need to do so to cover the costs of failed and over budget government contracts.

The UK generates almost 50% of the tax revenue of the US, and yet can't afford to provide services to a population 1/5th the size. This is because we keep allowing our government to give out juicy, expensive and almost invariably grossly inefficient contracts to crony-run big business.

And what do we do about it? Nothing. We just keep letting them get away with raising taxes, whether it be on petrol, cigarettes and alcohol, or by inventing ridiculous schemes like this one, or metered water, or energy taxation or back dating new car taxes 8 years, or whatever else they decide they need to do to afford to pay for things we don't need.

Want a way to save billions of pounds? Try NOT making a new passport and id card. Try NOT creating the IT nightmare that must (but won't be able to) support such schemes. Or better still, try voting for anyone but the current member of parliament for your area.

Why not? What you actually think they'd do worse? How could they? It's not like the current lot have a fucking clue.

The fallacy that prevents people from voting for someone else is they think that it could be worse, and their replacements might not have the experience to know how to run government. No, actually it couldn't. The people there right now don't know how to run government. Tell me exactly how many government contracts and schemes have both come in on budget and done what they're supposed to, i.e. make things better. Pick a date, say 2004, and tell me that what we have now is better or even as good as then. Really? You think hospitals are as good as they were then? Food prices are as good, energy prices are as good, the amount of money you have available to do things is as good?

These are the test results of your government, and telling me that anyone at all couldn't do better is bullshit.

Ok what about security? Hmm yes, this government is so competent it allowed the London Underground to get bombed. Boo hoo I'm not being fair. If you're going to tell me that it isn't their fault, because they don't have control over such things, then why would knowing how to deal with security even be a consideration when voting?

So really the choice is yours. Let your incumbent politicians continually raise taxes and make things worse in return (any of you really think we're getting value for the money we give them?), or try someone new. Completely new, as in not been a member of parliament before. Doesn't matter which party, they're all shit at their jobs. And this is the thing. You can't actually make thing worse by doing so. The only way to make things worse would be to vote for the same people all over again.

Blu-ray ramp beats DVD up-take in Europe

Andy Bright

DVD successes was down to PS2?

Actually I know a lot of people that got their first DVD player this way, myself included and for a very good reason. The macrovision hardware/software that stopped people copying DVDs straight onto VHS was broken on the PS2. It didn't look great doing a copy this way, but it worked and was a shit load better than the crap you can torrent.

As for downloading movies, forget it. The general public is not going to put a traditional PC in the living room, ever. Its been tried and its failed countless times already.

What will work is on-demand downloads using a set top box from cable and satellite companies. I can tell you right now that in the US, on-demand downloads are as easy as browsing a TV guide, which is why they'll succeed.

YOU might download movies on a PC, YOU might even download HD movies if you're willing to pay the price for the connection. But average joes who don't and can't be bothered to learn how to use anything that doesn't work as simply as a VCR or DVD player won't.

Legitimate HD downloads won't happen until the movie industry wants them to happen, which won't be for a very long time. The reason is simple, they have too much to lose if they allow it.

The reason Blu-Ray will be around for years is that it's a cash cow for the movie industry. They might bleat about lost sales due to piracy, but the reality is they know disk media sells and sells well. In fact it sells so well it often turns a movie flop into a profitable venture.

The thing I don't get is why techies think that ordinary people will ever do more than the simplest method possible when it comes to movies. The easiest thing to do right now is buy a DVD player. Soon that will be a Blu-Ray player, because when they're cheap enough there's no reason not to. You guys do know that regular DVDs work in Blu-Ray players right? When these things cost less than $50, as they eventually will, why wouldn't the general public buy one? Because you know they're inferior to some other arbitrary format, created by another set of conglomerates for the purpose of lining their pockets?

Well even IF that was true, it doesn't mean shit. The fact is it isn't true, neither format was so much better than the other that it mattered which was dropped. There were just as many shit HD-DVD masters as Blu-Ray masters, I know because I have both formats. To get emotional about a format war is as retarded as getting emotional over a video card, yet for some reason techies do. Well guess what? The general public knows nothing about these things, and if they did, would consider them too anal to matter. And they'd be right. All they care about is price, and when Blu-Ray players cost $50 from Walmart, they'll sell by the million, and the movie industry will get no incentive whatsoever to help bring about HD content via the internet.

Dodgy drug sales underpin Storm worm

Andy Bright

I think they already do it

i believe Visa at least is trying to prevent their cards from being used to by this crap, probably the others too. The thing that gets me is why anyone would actually take a pill sent to them in the post.

Besides the many stories about counterfeit pills being produced home and abroad, the risk of poisoning yourself would seem to outweigh the need for a 3 hour erection imo.

But what I really don't understand is how these people get away with using postal and courier services and why the police aren't closing more of them down. They have to be sent from somewhere don't they? Someone is obviously putting them in the envelopes and with courier services it's a slam dunk. Hand the courier envelope to the fed ex suited cop and it's a fair one.

I understand that some of these 'pharmacies' operate overseas, but I know for a fact that a great many do not. You can't get next day delivery to an address in the US from China, which is what most of the crap in my junk mail inbox seems to advertise.

Thing is in the US, dealing prescription drugs, especially pain killers, carries far bigger sentences than street drugs like cocaine or crack. I don't get why the DEA at least aren't tempted to collar a bunch of them.

US dominates tech R&D

Andy Bright

Obviously

We already know that in comparison European governments spend next to nothing on R&D, and therefore R&D has to rely on funding from private industry. The US on the other hand has a long history of properly supporting it's businesses with grants and research dollars. Not the piecemeal rubbish we have in the UK, but real numbers to the tune of 100s of millions of dollars.

The other thing is as well as getting decent support from their government, the US has large numbers of investors willing to take a gamble on up and coming tech companies. This is the fundamental difference in thinking between the US and Europe, ambition. In the UK we spend too much time complaining about the privileged few, instead of trying to make ourselves one of them. Entrepreneurial ambition just doesn't exist to the same degree. The Alan Sugars and Richard Bransons of the world are in too short a supply in Britain. There's too much of a "you'll never do it" attitude, whereas in the US you're actually encouraged to try.

@Miama Mike - please stop proving their point for them. If you really knew what you were talking about, then you would know that Russia's superpower status was bought on the back of an unsustainable arms race. They were always going to bankrupt themselves and would never have offered the threat to international peace that the US currently does.

Gamers not social misfits, after all

Andy Bright

Resistance is futile

What I've found with WoW is that as often as not it was the wife or girlfriend playing WoW that convinced her boyfriend / husband to start playing too.

I reckon this is probably a first. Stat heavy games like RPGs haven't traditionally appealed to non-geeks, and I believe it has much to do with the cartoon look and feel of WoW. The cute graphics suck in the non-nerdy men and women, who then become addicted to the progression of their characters. Trying to explain why you need to get "just one more level" or explaining why upgrading your character's imaginary armour and weapons is so addictive isn't something I can do.

But the fact is game producers have known and used these things for decades, and they're the reason why games like this haven't necessarily needed the best graphics or even a creative plot to sell in large numbers.

The trick has always been finding out a way to suck in the non-nerds and the female half of the population. WoW has somehow managed to do this, and everyone should be afraid. Won't be long now before just about no one except Blizzard employees are doing any sort of work at all.

I feel as though some sort of Douglas Adams style apocalypse is about to take place, with Blizzard employees checking on humanity, making sure they're seated correctly for gaming and handing out lemon-soaked paper napkins and biscuits to keep their subscribers alive.