Posts by Alister

Is it humanly possible to watch Gigli and Battlefield Earth back-to-back?

Well if you want the definitive Affleck dross, I suggest adding Armageddon to the list, watching him try to emote at Liv Tyler whilst that bloody awful song is playing is sufficient to give anyone nausea...

Latest menace to internet economy: Gators EATING all the PUSSIES

Re: Send in Mick Dundee!

You call that a croc??

No mate, this is a croc...

'Our AI systems must do what we want them to do'

Glass was in its infancy, and you took those very first steps and taught us how to walk. Well, we still have some work to do, but now we’re ready to put on our big kid shoes and learn how to run.

By that, they seem to mean they'll be lacing up their running shoes and legging it as fast as possible away from this particular dead duck.

El Reg, you still seem to be completely misrepresenting the content of this story. What Google are doing is to close down the beta program, and start the process of moving it to main-stream development. This is not in any way the same as dropping Google Glass, which your coverage seems to suggest.

LIFELESS BEAGLE on MARS: A British TRIUMPH!

Re: Curiosity, RE: USB

Was USB even a thing when Beagle launched?

Hmm, according to Jimmy Wales, yes it was:

USB 2.0 was released in April 2000, Beagle launched 2003

US and UK declare red-team cyber war – on each other

So, in the time honoured tradition of previous UK/USA agreements, the US intelligence community will be allowed to carry out attacks on any UK financial institution, and the UK intelligence community will be allowed to try and break into the email account of a minor US banking official...

You'll get sick of that iPad. And guess who'll be waiting? Big daddy Linux...

I still think the "Desktop is dead" idea is premature, and possibly will never be true, although the form factor may change. Desktops/Laptops are not just for business edge-cases, they still have real benefits as a form factor for home use, in my experience.

My kids have both smartphones and tablets, but if they want to do their homework, they choose to use either a desktop or laptop - primarily for the full keyboard, and the ability to print stuff.

I use a desktop, partially because I'm from the TRS80 generation, partially because for work I need to manage servers from home, but also because to do household accounts, play games like Warcraft, edit my photos, and various other needs, a mobile device is just not the right tool for the job.

I surely can't be the only person who has a household like this?

BT bemoans 'misconceived' SUPERFAST broadband regs

virtual unbundled local access (VULA).

What a missed opportunity, when they could have gone for Variable Unbundled Local Virtual Access.

Google UK doubles London Kings X mega-office sprawl

Re: Playmobil

And they forgot the lens flare!!!

Hollywood vs hackers: Vulture cracks Tinseltown keyboard cornballs

Re: Boris?

I think you'll find that Arnold J Rimmer (technician, second class) got there first; during the test to join the crew of the Enlightenment.

Well... he did have a BSC...

(Bronze Swimming Certificate)

Sony hack was good news for INSURERS and INVESTORS

Off on a tangent, I hadn't realised the Culver City lot was now Sony's. I remember when it was Paramount's, and before that I think it belonged to DesiLu Entertainment...

Don't use Charlie Hebdo to justify Big Brother data-slurp – Data protection MEP

In what possible way could sharing the data on aircraft passengers have helped thwart the Charlie Hebdo killings? The perpetrators were (as I understand it) Parisian residents, and already known to the Police.

In the same way, the killing of Lee Rigby was done by UK residents known to the police, and the Canadian attacks were the same, carried out in each case by Canadian nationals.

In none of the above cases could data about air travel have had any bearing on the identification or capture of the attackers.

Fujitsu: Slide your fingertip through our ring piece and show mice the finger

So, One ring to rule them all...

...then?

Lube company merger receiving second 'in-depth' probe

There may be no IT angle to this, but the opportunities for El Reg headline writers and commentards are just too many to ignore.

Ooh, I've managed a whole sentence without once descending the slippery pole into filth...

Oh, damn.

Hang on a second – Time Lords have added one to 2015

International Earth Rotation Service

They've had their funding cut, so they can't cope with the demands an extra second would require.

Police radios will be KILLED soon – yet no one dares say 'Huawei'

Push-to-talk latency

...has been around for a long time. When I worked for the Emergency Services, back in the eighties, we were always told to press the PTT and then wait 2 seconds before speaking, as the VHF radios used to broadcast a set of selcall tones before opening the microphone.

Hubble 'scope snaps ENORMO SPACE ERECTION: Pillars of Creation 20 years on

Well I always thought they looked like a trio of interstellar Meerkats...

Tch.

Cap’n Ericsson and his great SEABORNE CLOUD wheeze

I thought the article was going to say that Ericsson had bought those two barges off Google, to float a datacentre in...

UKIP website TAKES A KIP, but for why?

Curious, there doesn't seem to be an A record in place at the moment for www:

ukip.org. NS IN 600 137ms ns2.hosteurope.com.

ukip.org. NS IN 600 137ms ns.hosteurope.com.

ukip.org. SOA IN 600 137ms

Minimum/NegTTL: 600

Expire: 1209600

Retry: 3600

Refresh: 86400

Serial: 2012053001

Responsible Name: hostmaster.ukip.org.

Primary DNS server: ns.hosteurope.com.

ukip.org. MX IN 600 137ms mx0.123-reg.co.uk. [Preference = 10]

ukip.org. MX IN 600 137ms mx1.123-reg.co.uk. [Preference = 20]

ns.hosteurope.com. A IN 300 137ms 212.67.202.2

mx1.123-reg.co.uk. A IN 300 137ms 94.136.40.150

mx0.123-reg.co.uk. A IN 300 137ms 94.136.40.151

mx1.123-reg.co.uk. A IN 300 137ms 94.136.40.153

mx1.123-reg.co.uk. A IN 300 137ms 94.136.40.152

mx0.123-reg.co.uk. A IN 300 137ms 94.136.40.154

mx0.123-reg.co.uk. A IN 300 137ms 94.136.40.61

ns2.hosteurope.com. A IN 300 137ms 92.51.159.40

THREE MILLION Moonpig accounts exposed by flaw

I'm not sure why he's making such a big thing about the API help documentation, It's fairly standard practice to make that info publicly available. Maybe he doesn't have much experience of working with APIs?

That doesn't in any way excuse the lack of OAuth, or the inclusion of the customerID in the URL though, they should be roasted for that...

Snowden leaks lack context says security studies professor

This just seems like a very clumsy attempt to discredit Snowden's information. The leaks contain far more than just PowerPoint slides.

NASA to launch microwave SPACE LASSO to probe Earth's wet spots

I'm intrigued to know how they test something which must unfurl with micrometric precision in a space environment, and yet be tested on earth. One would think the forces acting on the mesh would be very different.

2014: The condensed conference keynotes

Well if they put it on Kickstarter, I'm sure people would go for it, the synergy of Lego and Ikea is irresistible...

The Shock of the New: The Register redesign update 4

Thanks very much for listening, and thanks for the home page navigation at the bottom.

UK air traffic bods deny they 'skimped' on IT investment after server mega-fail

As I understand it, the actual outage was very short, (in the order of sub ten minutes IIRC) what caused the disruption was the very thorough and comprehensive safety protocols which kicked in after 5 minutes, designed to gain maximum separation for all aircraft in the controlled area.

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

Drew, please can you re-introduce some navigation at the bottom of the page to get back to the homepage. You used to be able to click on the "Register" banner in the footer but you've taken that away.

If you've read down to the bottom of a long page of comments, it's a pain to have to scroll back up to the top to get back to the home page.

Sorry, I'm not a fan. The large picture and headline of the featured stories take up too much room, the top menu is annoying when you move your mouse anywhere near it.

Also, the pagination on the comments seems to carry over two or three stories to the next page.

Nork-ribbing flick The Interview AXED: Sony caves under hack terror 'menace'

Re: Grow some balls!

And if the criminals are backed by a rogue state and know where you and your family live and have threatened to blow up your house while you sleep? That's the level of the threat being posed right now: it's getting personal.

This just shows the irrational level of fear to which America has sunk.

Come ON! There is no likelihood of this threat being acted upon, the resources necessary to carry out the threat make it impossible, even for "a rogue state".

Google swears no search leg up for new dot-word sites: We drill into claims

Re: SEO: Emperor's clothes

I wish I could upvote this more times.

We provide the website and hosting for a client who are the only provider of a niche service. They have the very top organic result in Google, Bing and other search engines, for any search term which describes the service they provide, and they also have a sponsored link in Google.

And yet, each year, they spend thousands on external SEO consultants, who keep coming up with different strategies and slight tweaks to page content and layout, most of which get reverted by the next SEO consultant.

V. R. R. Stob's magnificent saga A Game Of Dog-and-Bones

Yay!!

STOB!!

Verily, Verity, it hath been an age since you last graced these hallowed pages.

El Reg's mighty rocket spaceplane Vulture 2 arrives in US of A

...oh, and I know you're currently in the US but recce is spelt recce in British English...

Sony to media: stop publishing our stolen stuff or we'll get nasty

It would have to be classified as a fantasy then...

Microsoft's dodgy new Exchange 2010 update breaks Outlook clients

Re: Linux v Windows updates

@arobertson1

I agree, Microsoft Updates are a pain in the ass, and various other orifices of your choice. And, as the story is about one that completely screws Exchange clients, it's yet another triumph for Microsoft...

However, posting sudo apt-get update and should be running Linux is not really helpful.

I administer both Linux and Microsoft servers, and much prefer the Linux ones, I spend a lot less time having to manage them, but for a business use, there is still no realistic open source alternative to Microsoft AD and Exchange which can be deployed without an awful lot of customising and fiddling about - which are just not viable for an SME. Especially since the majority of users want Windows desktops so they can run Project, Visio, and all the other loveliness.

Re: Linux v Windows updates

Thus speaketh the last Vista user... Never heard of Open Xchange then?

Seriously? The best you can come up with is a crappy web-based option?

Go back under your bridge.

Re: Linux v Windows updates

Hmm, can I run Exchange server on Mint? Oh, no, I can't. DUH.

Windows:

Run Windows update

Upgrade ActiveX

Re-run Windows update

This just shows you haven't used any Windows operating system since XP / 2003

Virgin Media customers suffer YET MORE YouTube buffering blues

Re: Sometime I wonder...

Panic not, I can confirm that for a large number of websites, if you browse them, you can see the hits in the weblogs straight away, so they're not caching everything.

'Identity skills shortage' will be problematic for Verify ID. (So not the TECH FAILS, then?)

What on earth are the "identity skills" which we appear to be short of?

Does it just mean that the average civil service drone has no personality?

Or perhaps, not enough people trained in fingerprint recognition?

Apple patents NEVERSMASH iPHONE for fumbling fondlers

Why don't they make it boomerang shaped, then it would come straight back...

It wouldn't suit "latest-greatest" Fanboi though - you would never be able to throw it away...

EE's not-spot-busting small cell trial delights Cumbrian villagers

What’s the opposite of a NIMBY?

How about IMBYP...

In My Back Yard, Please!

US parking operator: YEP, hackers got your names, credit card numbers, secret codes...

What possible excuse have they got for holding the verification codes and card numbers in a database, and in plain text too?

Do you not have PCI-DSS or equivalent in America?

Brits conned out of nearly £24m in phone scams in one year

Re: ORLY, DCI Stokes?

Plastic Crime Unit

Playmobil or...

Fiat 500X: A fun-loving Goldilocks who'll get down and dirty

Re: Why call it a 500 though?

And who the hell really needs 9 ratios in a gearbox?

Um, something the size of a tank??

Sick of the 'criminal' lies about pie? Lobby the government HERE

Re: What?

Well that's because a Raspberry Pi doesn't have a pastry base or a pastry lid, so is disqualified completely...

Star Wars: Episode VII trailer lands. You call that a lightsaber? THIS is a lightsaber

Re: The Problem with Lightsabres, is...

@Binky

to "twat" someone, in British slang, is to hit them, very hard. It's also used to convey a lack of sobriety, vis "I got totally twatted last night"... It's a useful word, in all sorts of ways.

Dropbox sees rival file-piles merely as dots in rearview mirror

I'd just like to say, your sub-head on this article made me laugh out loud, brilliant!

It's BLOCK FRIDAY: Britain in GREED-crazed bargain bonanza mob frenzy riot MELTDOWN

From the TV coverage I've seen, half the problem seemed to be caused by gangs of press photographers and TV crews blocking access to the stores.

It's almost like this was a carefully orchestrated event for the media...

Customers RAGE after Webfusion goes TITSUP

Nice to see you expanded the acronym correctly this time... :)

Wireless Power standards are like Highlanders: There can be only ONE

Re: I'm living in a future world

Ahem,

Ah, Mr Pott, sorry to bother you, but you seem to be using combustion of carbon-based materials in the presence of oxygen to produce heat and light, which is in direct contravention of USPTO-2986564-F.

NHS and POLICE non-emergency services GO DARK after Voda switch failure - source

Auto-failover is all very well, but if you can't trust it (and I've had various vendor's examples fail on me) then you might as well not bother, and just have a manual process instead.

Frankly even with active/active stuff, I tend to make sure I'm alerted just to check it did actually swap properly...

Yes I know, I'm paranoid...

Ten excellent FREE PC apps to brighten your Windows

Ten excellent FREE PC apps to brighten your Windows

Blimey, I feel like I've fallen back through time and I'm reading a PC mag from the mid-nineties...

Right to be forgotten should apply to Google.com too: EU

“Our remit does not include dealing with complaints from organisations which have had search results to their websites removed from a search engine,” an Irish DPA spokeswoman told El Reg last month.

Ah good, so no legal redress at all then, if my website is suddenly removed from the search rankings.

Nice to see there's a proper "due process" in place...