Posts by JakeyC

UK citizens' portal exposes edit kit interface

Faux-pax Faux-pas

Is misspelling a French phrase a faux-pas?

Crimestoppers learn the joy of text

Re: And the award for the best T9 fuck up goes to...

I reckon there could be some hilarious consequences of 'pint', 'shot' and 'riot' belonging to the same 4-key sequence...

'Untraceable' phone fraudsters eye your credit card

RE: This is why...

Perhaps if *falling* for these scams were punishable by death, people would actually think about keeping their card details to themselves and not read them out to anonymous callers...

Social networking site bans oldies over sex offender fears

It's worse than TV Licensing

I've always argued that the approach of TV Licensing (we can't find you on a list of TV users, therefore you must be using a TV illegally) is as absurd as accusing all adults who aren't listed on the Sex Offenders Register of being sex offenders.

Now that day has come.

If I was a middle-aged user of Facespace or Bebook or whatever, I'd be suing for libel. Well, I'd like to think that I would. Reality is, I'd just write a strongly-worded email.

Paris beacuse she's sexually offensive.

Paedogeddon

How long until Jacqui Smith claims that paedophiles are "using an area of the internet the size of Ireland"?

Government orders data retention by ISPs

Customer_ID Varchar(20), Online_From datetime, Online_To datetime

"The internet log retention orders will also mandate the keeping of information on a user's activity but not the content of any communications"

...so all they can store is the fact that you were on the internet. Any data about the sites you visited is surely the 'content' of your 'communications' (http request headers etc.)?

Brits favour ASBOs for unruly mobile users

re: Playing music on the handset

I just don't understand why people do this! I see it on the street, on buses, everywhere.

The stupid little gobshites actually go to the trouble of *holding* the phone whilst the tinniest rendition of "smack my ho' up and stab ma homie" tries to squeeze out of the inadequate mono speaker.

BUY A RADIO! BUY HEADPHONES! BUY A SENSE OF DIGNITY!

Why would anyone do it? It's like our portable audio technology has regressed and we'll soon see people carting valve-based receivers around in a rucksack, or gramophones on our shoulders.

I'm going to get an MP3 speakerphone and next time a pack of these IQ-deficient freaks decide we should all listen to their hippity-hop, I'll see how they react to me joining them with a Max Reger organ prelude at the back of the bus.

I'm going to get stabbed. Wish me luck.

El Reg celebrates 10th birthday

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday &c. Here's to another 10. I'll drink to that. Will be starting just as soon as I post this.

Good to put faces to names. Although I'm sure Andrew Orlowski has aked me for spare change on more than one occasion?

BAA grounds Heathrow T5 fingerprinting system

Great news and all...

...but can I just say how much I HATE the phrase 'going forward'.

It means nothing. It states the bleedin' obvious. It is being used in every business in the land and needs to be stopped.

That is all.

BBC races away with five-year F1 rights deal

You just know...

...that the BBC will do a techno remix of The Chain, completely ruining it in the process.

In much the same way that they do to all their sports themes when they decide they want to be more 'popular' or 'appeal to a younger audience'.

the Snooker theme and - to a lesser extent - the MotD, tennis and golf themes have all been ruined for no good reason.

Bring back Grandstand!

BOFH: The secret gentlemen's club

Degauss

Never had a use for it until now, great effect.

I have a dual-screen set up with one LCD and a CRT above, best of both worlds.

The 'blem wit' error messages

Some gems...

...from Excel VBA:

http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/odd/odd18.htm

BOFH: Memory short circuit

@ elgeebar

Actually, no, Scottish notes are not legal tender anywhere. That includes Scotland. The only reason they are accepted anywhere is to avoid the fuss that refusing them would cause.

The definition of legal tender is an interesting one; there are limits to the number of coins under £1 that can be used for a single transaction for example.

Head banker leaves job over Muslim gaffe

What's the betting

An inappropriate joke, to be sure. But I'd bet good money that the complaints weren't made by Muslims, more likely some people who decided to take offence on their behalf because they feel that is the right thing to do.

It's an obvious joke, but I found it humourous, and he'll not be the first to make it either.

I think his colleagues are like Christians: some are good, some are funda-MENTAL-ists.

El Reg fires up online standards converter

I got stuck in Hilton's box

Whilst attempting to calculate the office temperature in Hn (a disappointing 0.1) I found myself stuck in the text box, unable to escape and no amount of tabbing or clicking would let me escape.

As it's Friday afternoon, I can't be arsed to give a critique of your JavaScript so I'll just go back to measuring my stationery and converting it to ln.

Nice work.

eBay glitch wipes out 11 year-old account without a trace

Feedback is useless

Slightly off-topic, but the feedback system on eBay could be improved so easily. At present, no one will leave negative or even neutral feedback for fear of retalition.

The way to solve this is have a period of, say, 10 days where neither party can see the feeback left for the other. After these 10 days you lose the right to leave feedback and any feedback left is made public.

That way, people would say what they think and not just AAAAA++++++++ when the item fails to arrive...

Pentagon: Electromagnetic pulse bombs from 2012

Re: British Army has been testing this sort of weapon for the last 4 years

"the PC had a fried BIOS chip, as did most of my neighbours"

I'd be less worried about EMP bombs and more concerned that PC-based droids are living in your village.

What's 77.1 x 850? Don't ask Excel 2007

@@Gleb - 29/02/1900 is a 'feature'

From Chip Pearson (http://www.cpearson.com/Excel/datetime.htm):

In Excel, the day after 1900-Feb-28 is 1900-Feb-29. In reality, the day after 1900-Feb-28 was 1900-Mar-1 . This is not a "bug". Indeed, it is by design. Excel works this way because it was truly a bug in Lotus 123. When Excel was introduced, 123 has nearly the entire market for spreadsheet software. Microsoft decided to continue Lotus' bug, in order to fully compatible. Users who switched from 123 to Excel would not have to make any changes to their data. As long as all your dates later than 1900-Mar-1, this should be of no concern.

Nashville strippers finger net forger

EURion

The 'hidden details' on a note that most image manipulation software recognises is the so-called EURion constellation, a pattern of five coloured circles that are repeated across the note, disguised as part of the design.

The US $100 doesn't have this feature (nor does the £50 I believe).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

2012 Olympics logo debuts to whalesong

...or 69...

Flip it vertically in Paint and you get some girl on Don King 69 action.

Re: Blow job

From the BBC's '606' comments pages (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A23431826):

"It looks like Lisa Simpson giving oral relief of a sexual kind to Bart".

It does, as well. It's like one of those magic eye things - cross your eyes and move it back and forth. Oh, and have a look at the logo while you're down there, love.

Tesco's old timers get yoof slang pamphlet

English Usage

So Tesco think that their older staff should condescend to learn yoof speek, eh?

I say we distribute a leaflet among the under-24s explaining why "'sup, Homie?" is not an appropriate greeting for any situation and that "being well mingin', innit" is not grounds for a refund under the Sale of Goods Act.