* Posts by Lamont Cranston

1555 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Apr 2010

NHS fined £375k after stolen patient data flogged on eBay

Lamont Cranston

An end to the culture of sub-contracting

all the public service functions, would make it a lot easier to hold people to account when things go wrong.

Flog your services off to the lowest bidder, and they'll do a shit job, but you won't be to blame and the NHS can pick up the fine - yeah, I can see why this is so popular.

Footie club sacks striker for homophobic tweet

Lamont Cranston

@Chris W

No, you're entitled to think what you like, but if you want to express the view that gay men are unable to resist any other man's unguarded anus, you shouldn't expect that view to go unchallenged, given that it is a) ridiculous, and b) offensive to gay men (maybe all men, unless the "all men are rapists" feminists were right, all along?).

Lamont Cranston

Image is very important to football clubs.

I'm sure that any high profile person from any organisation, would face some sort of consequence for publically voicing their opinion that gay men are rapists.

Maybe he'd have gotten away with it, if he'd replaced the hashtag with "lol jk" (or whatever the kids are using, now)?

Lamont Cranston
Facepalm

I doubt this will "make a genuine homophobic change their view"

but it does help to make it clear that discrimination against someone on the basis of the sexuality is not something that our society wishes to tolerate.

Luckily, as a straight, white male, the worst discrimination I've ever had to face, is the assumption that I can rendered incapable by a cold.

Lamont Cranston
Go

Twitter, for all its faults,

seems to provide a very valuable service, in that it gives public figures just enough rope...

German cops hacked in revenge for dad spying on daughter

Lamont Cranston

@ShelLuser

OK, installing some sort of malware is inappropriate (and probably a good way to let something bad happen to your home PC), and logging at the router would probably achieve the same ends with better means. But should children have an expectation of privacy, particularly if their using their parents hardware?

I doubt that I'll be able to supervise my children on the net, full time (I already leave them on it unguarded, but at 5 and 3, they've no interest in anything other than the CBeebies page, anyway). I probably wouldn't want to know everything they've posted, but I'd certainly want to know where they'd been - probably the equivalent of them letting me know where they go when their out with friends, but not the detail of their conversations - and I might want to filter certain content (I'm not looking forward to this becoming an issue!).

I get the feeling from cases like this, that it's less a case that the parents want to spy on their kids, but more the case that they want to monitor their activities, but don't really know how.

Lamont Cranston

Really?

I thought that keeping an eye on their kids was what responsible parents did.

Oh well, I guess I'd better contact a lawyer, and arrange to sue my employers for logging what I get up to on my work PC.

Australia should head-hunt Michael Gove

Lamont Cranston

I don't know whether to upvote you

for the suggested change to the Reg voting system, or downvote you for the "coding X factor" suggestion (wasn't Beauty & The Geek bad enough?)!

Lamont Cranston

I learnt SuperCalc.

My IT As Level was 100% futureproof.

Lamont Cranston

Sad but true.

Schools have become exams factories, as they are monitored on the ability to get students to pass exams.

Education, as a whole, needs a good shake up, but I don't think Gove is the man to do it.

Siri's artificially intelligent news anchor sister bags $6.2m

Lamont Cranston

$6.2 million to re-invent StumbleUpon?

I'll assume that I've missed something (as is usually the case).

1TB USB stick shoved into Swiss Army knife

Lamont Cranston

Typical of the Swiss,

bringing a USB stick to a knife fight.

Apple legal threat to Steve Jobs doll deemed 'bogus'

Lamont Cranston

Apple don't need a copyright on Jobs,

as they've outsourced them all to China.

Symantec downplays source-code trophy theft

Lamont Cranston

Quite.

Only time my credit card has ever been abused, was after I renewed my Norton subscription on-line. Ditched it straight after, and have never looked back.

'Mobiles bake men's balls' bog ad is cobblers - new ruling

Lamont Cranston

It's all a sinister plot

by manbag manufacturers.

Hasbro sues Asus over Transformer Prime moniker

Lamont Cranston

You haven't played with any for a while.

The new ones come apart with very little persuasion. These bits then get lost.

As for the law suit, I'm surprised it's taken this long to come out.

Ailing HMV sees tech sales' bright spot among dire music biz

Lamont Cranston
Unhappy

Really? People are flocking to HMV to buy tech?

I went in the Milton Keynes HMV, hoping to pick up a couple of CDs for the car - eventually found the music section, in a small corner of the top floor. If I'd wanted to buy an X-box (or whatever) I'd have continued on to the nearest computer game retailer, but it appears I'm in a minority.

If ever I want a DVD, it's invariably cheaper on-line or from the supermarket. It's a shame, as I like record shops (I still mourn the demise of Our Price), but HMV really needs to curl up and die.

Google promises 0.001 of revenue to free the slaves

Lamont Cranston

God forbid

that we learn anything from history.

Lamont Cranston

Speaking as a Brit,

I'd be happy if everyone (be they a corporation, a footballer, or the man in the street) paid their tax, as this would allow the state to better handle it's responsibilities.

Sony off the hook for killing Linux on PS3

Lamont Cranston

Maybe

they could release finished products that don't need patching )to correct the fact that they don't work properly)? Just a thought.

Fake anti-virus victims in line for slice of $8m payout pie

Lamont Cranston
Joke

YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO RECEIVE AN FTC COMPENSATION PAYOUT

WORTH $$$$$$!!!!!

CLICK HERE!

Early 2012 date for UK Kindle Fire debut

Lamont Cranston
Facepalm

Well played, Amazon.

There's no way anyone would have bought one of these for Christmas.

2011's Best... Premium Tablets

Lamont Cranston

I've always been a big fan of

buying cars with doors/boots, so that I can put what I want into them.

Concerns over plan to boost pharma by releasing NHS data

Lamont Cranston

Opt in to share your organs,

opt out to keep your health record private. Isn't this all a bit arse-about-face?

RIM execs chewed through restraints after in-flight fracas

Lamont Cranston
Joke

But what about the "emotional repercussions"?

You must be made of stern stuff.

OnLive Game System cloud gaming console

Lamont Cranston

On the other hand,

70 quid won't buy you a PC to play it on.

Bloke claims ex swiped his sperm to make twins

Lamont Cranston
Happy

Leave off.

I love my kids, but retain my rights to moan about them to all and sundry.

Lamont Cranston

"loss of enjoyment of life"

He's got kids, so he should win on this, at least.

Lovefilm dumps Flash, BLINDS Linux fans with Silverlight

Lamont Cranston
Thumb Down

"suddenly have next-to-no films to stream online"

So, no change there then? LoveFilm's streaming service is laughable - poor video quality, poor selection, crappy player (had to resort to IE last time I used it, as it was unusable under Opera).

Making films harder to access, by switching to Silverlight, just provides more of an incentive for those who can to steal* films, rather than pay to watch them.

*I know, it's not actually stealing. Whatever.

TV writer quells rumours of Doctor Who movie

Lamont Cranston
Go

Once they get it done, it'll be just like H2G2 all over again:

shit film -> outrage from fans -> moment of quiet reflection whilst fans remember that the source material is pretty ropey anyway -> we all move on.

Lamont Cranston

Given that Doctor Who frequently makes no sense,

pisses over it's own continuity, and features wild changes in tone, I fail to see what you're complaining about.

Geek seeks cash for Top Trumps-style CPU game

Lamont Cranston

"licensed brand tat"

Got your rose-tinted glasses on? Go back 25 years, or so, and you'd find my friends and I playing the Star Wars deck, at the exclusion of all others (except maybe the Horror deck), not least because the presence of the detailed stats was proof positive that the US were building X-Wings and a Death Star

The news presence of Reagan's Star Wars defence programme may have influenced our thinking. That, and being 8-year old boys...

Apple, Google apps face smut and violence ratings

Lamont Cranston
Thumb Up

This all sounds very reasonable,

but will stir up plenty of "how dare you presume to tell me what I can/cannot watch" froth, nonetheless. I like to be able to make informed decisions, and the BBFC do a fine job with that for films.

Certainly better systems than the adult content blocking used on mobile phones, anyway.

Slip of a lad to play James Bond's Q

Lamont Cranston
Go

Good news.

Now, get the film made, so we can all get on with forgetting QoS.

Inside the BBC's R&D Labs

Lamont Cranston
Joke

Dubbing Polish audio over the live broadcast of Doctor Who?

Typical of the left-leaning BBC to want to support all the lazy immigrants who want to come over here, to steal our jobs and abuse our benefits system.

The sooner the BBC has it's funding slashed (it's a tax - I don't even watch Cbeebies, so why should I be forced to fund it?), and is sold off to Rupert Murdoch, the better.

RIP mice and keyboards: Kinect for PCs incoming

Lamont Cranston

So, is

"we have optimized certain hardware components and made firmware adjustments which better enable PC-centric scenarios" a rather long winded way of saying "we've written a driver for it"?

NHS minister's bombshell: I get emails from dead people

Lamont Cranston
Joke

A Tory MP, showing contempt for the electorate?

If this is newsworthy, can we expect a serious editorial on ursine defecation habits, next?

Women love phone cams, for snapping pics of cute babies

Lamont Cranston
Coat

You're only upset because it's true!

That said, I'm a man, but the profile of female mobile users seemed to sum me up fairly well.

Man sues boss for 'condemning him to eternal damnation'

Lamont Cranston
Angel

His deity of choice must be really petty.

Christian, you say? *checks Old Testament* Yup, really petty.

Truly unlimited mobile for $19: How can it be true?

Lamont Cranston

I can see this going down a storm

with anyone running a Wi-Fi hotspot.

High Court: TVCatchup reproduces copyrighted films ... in buffers

Lamont Cranston

This sounds terrible.

I watch programmes to see if I like them - if I do, then I keep watching; if I don't, I stop watching. Beyond the license fee, and the cost of owning and operating a TV set, this costs me nothing (maybe time, in that I sometimes waste 10 minutes watching something I don't like, before switching it off).

Why would I want to pay a monthly subscription on the off-chance that I might like what's on offer? Likewise, why would I pay a monthly subscription for a load of repeats?

"I like the sound of that, let's watch it and see if it's any good," suits me far better than "I like the sound of that, let's pony up £30 to see if it's any good".

Pickles plans curry colleges to halt Indian immigration

Lamont Cranston
Unhappy

Is "Curry Chef" the only job that's being lost to immigrant labour?

No. How about Pickles and his chums set about dealing with employers who are willing to flout the law to pay illegal staff members illegally low wages? Maybe he should put his head together with IDS, and they can both have a think about why some people are better off on benefits?

Sony HMZ-T1 3D head mounted display

Lamont Cranston

Combine it with Move?

I hope not! Even Sony couldn't be daft enough to encourage their customers to cover up their eyes and ears, then flail their arms about - could they?

Facebook says it's winning against Justin Bieber smut onslaught

Lamont Cranston

If you need to be over 13 to use facebook,

surely no one using facebook will know who Justin Beiber is?

Attention swingbellies: Pizza sauce is a healthy vegetable

Lamont Cranston
Facepalm

No wonder

they ran Jamie Oliver out of town.

Ten... remastered videogame classics

Lamont Cranston

Nail on head, here.

If you can remember playing Elite (I can, and I wasted hours on Frontier), then the assumption must be that you've moved on from videogames, now (my PS2 is slightly broken, and gathering dust).

MW3, and what have you, seemed to be aimed at 13 year old boys, so "classic" would be whatever their older brothers used to play.

Sad times.

Swedish college girls now twice as slutty as in 2001

Lamont Cranston
Unhappy

"young women must start insisting their partners use condoms"

Because this is solely the responsibility of the woman? Ugh.

Harry Potter director takes on Doctor Who movie

Lamont Cranston

Either their going to reboot Doctor Who,

thus throwing all the established (dis)continuity out of the window, or they could pick up where the last film left off.

I vote for option B, and would love to see Paul McGann returned to the role.

Too rude for the road: DVLA hot list of banned numberplates

Lamont Cranston

I've seen

B13 ELM, which struck me as offensive.

I've also seen 404 LOL, but couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry, at that.

Hands on with the Sony PlayStation Vita

Lamont Cranston

Seems like a lot of money,

for a child's toy.

Yes, my inner-child would like one.