Posts by Pen-y-gors

Firm applies for .sucks domain

Why not just...

buy sucks.com (or sucks.cn or sucks.tv or whatever's still available) for $10 and run sub-domains?

And then how about dotsucks.sucks.com?

YouView reportedly set for 2500-home pre-Olympics trial

"Alun" Sugar

hails from Cardiff, does 'e, then?

Mega 12ft interactive electro-whiteboard lures GTC12 punters

" or '

> massive (12in x 4in, 3.66m x 1.22m)

memories of Spinal Tap....

Facebook underwriters accused of hiding forecast

I'd happily invest in Stalkerbook

...at a reasonable price, say $1 a share?

Brit knits jumper for NASA space chicken

Questionable cartography?

"they thought it was a good way of putting Britain on the map"

I think you'll find that Britain was on the map for quite a few hundred years before America.

UK mobile broadband carriers compared

Three price increases

Looks like Three have hiked their prices - last year I got a pay monthly sim-only deal from them that offers 2GB/month for £5 - that's decent value and suits me to the ground. Doesn't seem to be available now.

Vulture 2 trigger triggers serious head-scratching

DIY old-fashioned GPS?

If LOHAN is going to be transmitting in some way, how about having 3 well spaced ground stations with some old Radio Direction Finding kit (as seen in all the old films where the Gestapo are trying to find the Resistance radio), a bit of quick 3d trigonometry and we know the altitude - then at the appropriate height just send a signal that triggers the release?

Facebook's Eduardo Saverin: I'm not a tax-dodger

Time machine?

"He quotes a 1996 amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act that renders inadmissible any former citizen who is determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security to have ditched their citizenship for tax purposes."

How could a 1996 amendment give powers to Homeland Security when the Dept of Homeland Security wasn't created until 2002?

Pinterest valued at $1.5 BILLION, bags $100m in funding

No, no, no...

I shouldn't have to add my photos to a 'do not steal' database to stop people stealing them - I don't have to add my TV or car to a 'do not nick' database. My photos are copyright unless I say they aren't!

Given the impossibility of stopping copyright rip-off ina dvance, the obvious alternative is for Pinterest to agree to pay ($100 a go?) for any copyright photos that appear on the site without authorisation.

Crooks sell skint fanbois potatoes instead of iPhones

Why is it an offence to separate a fool and his money? Anyone who hands over £1400 in cash to a bloke on a garage forecourt who offers him a couple of cheap laptops doesn't even deserve a potato. They should have all their assets seized and made to starve to death so their genes are removed from the gene pool.

HTC phones held up at US ports after Apple patent ban

Errrm...

"customs still have to check the phones to make sure they don't contain the illicit features."

- how exactly do they do that without opening up each one, bunging in a sim card, and firing the thing up?

New Apple keyboard patent may spell trouble for Android

So basically...

the radical thought is to get something to happen by touching a touch screen.

It's time to consign the US Patent Office to the dustbin of history.

Iranian firms told not to use foreign email providers

Re: So what will they call 'their' Internet

alsoRan?

Kelvin MacKenzie blasts 'footie rights warehouse' BSkyB

What's Dave?

...says a rural resident who has to use Freesat to get a half-decent selection of digital channels (our local Freeview repeater transmitter only seems to offer BBC and ITV, in black-and-white, at 405 lines)

£546 a year for Sky?

So Sky subscribers cough up an average of £546 a year - and people still winge about paying £145 licence fee to fund all the BBC TV and radio channels!

Boffins embiggen data storage space with 'phase-shifting' material

and ever, and ever...

Even with industrial diamonds, if you need two diamonds per bit it's still going to be pretty pricey to build a 256GB drive.

How politicians could end droughts forever But they don't want to

Use less, use it differently

No comment about the maths, but whatever the price of desalinated water, it's bloody expensive if you're going to then use it to flush half a pint of pee down the loo.

I'm sure it's not too complicated to work out some modifications to household plumbing systems to create a holding tank for bathroom waste water that is then used to fill/flush the toilet. 30% of household water goes down the pan (source: Waterwise). Yes, you'd use a teensy bit of electricity to pump the water from the bath to the tank, but it's a hell of a lot less than desalination!

Ten-year .co.uk domain names now available

Dangerous!

10 year renewals sound like a good idea but can be very dangerous - in ten years the email address used to register the name may no longer be in use, the person responsible has left the company....reminders get missed, registration expires and egg on face when website disappears!

Moore's Law has ten years to run, predicts physicist

Next killer app?

To be honest, the last 'killer apps' for me were e-mail and a web browser. (both circa 1992). We could have a long wait...

Shock sales surge sends Amazon shares soaring

Crazy, crazy shareholders....

So a profit in one quarter that is about $20m more than expected is enough to encourage investors to buy, buy, buy and increase the 'value' of the company by $15 BILLION. Who are these loonies? I really, really hope my pension funds don't have any holdings in amazon or (or Stalkerbook, or Google etc), if they do, then today is a good time to sell!

Why don't they just stick to the gee-gees?

PC World, Currys, Dixons websites all go titsup

Re: Mad rush to buy Sinclair Spectrums

Nah, it's everyone wanting to get of the new Transformer primes...

Top UK.gov CIOs dealt string of pay cuts and freezes

Job descriptions?

what does the "CIO" of a government department actually DO?

Norwich City FC Web CMS exposes privates. Club respond by calling police.

Wasting police time?

Surely it was clear to them as soon as they spoke to the laddie that no offence had been committed, so can't the idiot 'guardians of the football club' be done for wasting police time or something similar?

CompSci boffins tout file encryption for Google Docs

Re: No sniffing allowed

Neither will GCHQ or Theresa May

BYOD is a ticking time bomb for B2B resellers

Re: Devil's advocate...

In the days when I worked for Big Business...

If I needed to travel by car for a work purpose, then I used a company pool car. High mileage users (and managers!) got a company car, the rest used the pool cars (or a hire car if none was available). Under no circumstances did the company pay mileage and ask you to drive your own car - because it quite probably wouldn't be insured for business use, and definitely wouldn't be insured if you had other colleagues in the car with you.

Only drawback was driving an unfamiliar car at 6.30 in the morning!

Dad sues Apple for pushing cash-draining 'free' games at kids

No sympathy for either side.

Apple should have their arse nailed to the wall: the game is for a child. Children cannot have a credit card. Therefore the game has no justification for 'in-game' purchasing of any sort, even if Mummy or Daddy are daft enough to let Junior know the password.

But also parents are pillocks for not keeping a closer eye on things.

Panasonic PT-AT5000E LCD projector

How much???

£3100!!!! and "this is a highly creditable alternative to far more expensive options."

The world's gone mad....

BT wants to poke fingers in EVERY broadband cash pie

so what?

I really don't care who does it, so long as it gets done, preferably yesterday! And if BT have the experience and equipment, then lets go for it!

EU boots UK phone cash bonk threesome out of bed

FFS, not more fecin' spam and adverts!

Is nothing to be ad-free? Why doesn't the Treasury sell ad space on fivers?

Will Adblock work on NFC?

Ten... Bedroom Gadget Treats

I'm dubious

Generally all rather pricey and pointless - and what use is an alarm clock that wakes you up 20 minutes before or after the time you set it for?

And no Internet Radios? That *is* a useful gadget - I've got a Roberts Streamtime (not brilliant I must admit, controls are seriously fiddly) but the ability to get a decent choice of radio when insomnia strikes at 3am is priceless - Radio 4 Extra on demand, obscure East European folk music, whatever - much better than the choice on a traditional clock radio.

Two teens cuffed after Blighty's anti-terror hotline hacked

>TeaMp0isoN's phone-bombing exercise flooded the anti-terror hotline with bogus calls, preventing genuine callers from getting through.

Anyone know how many 'genuine callers' they get on the hotline?

LOHAN ideas..

wild rotation?

I'm worried about the effect of the jet blast against the back plate and other bits -could it start the whole thing swinging wildly, and even end up pointing downwards as it leaves the rail? (IANAE)

Chinese coders beat all-comers

Re: Dueling Headlines

Completely agree. Some years ago I worked for a large company that had a bit of a developer shortage, and they experimented with importing some development staff from India on contract. To be fair, some of them were excellent - wide range of skills (and good with people, not just code). But a lot of them, whilst excellent coders (Masters degree in coding etc) were absolutely rubbish as *developers*. Given a very detailed spec they could quickly and effectively write good code - but point them at a problem and say 'sort it' and they were hopeless. They had been trained in the skills of coding, and were extremely competent, but often didn't actually have the wider aptitude for investigating problems, identifying possible solutions, and taking those solutions through to some technical resolution.

Whilst there are occasions when what is needed is some shit-hot coder who can do amazing things, despite a total lack of inter-personal skills and hygiene, for many businesses what is needed is a problem-solver who can develop solutions to real-life business issues that are 'fit for purpose'.

Another explanation

Interview Street is a site for people wanting a new job. Maybe developers in Western countries are happy with their current job? Or prefer to pick and choose who they work for by targeting applications to specific companies? Whereas the Chinese coders are all just desperate to get another job, any job, anywhere, just so long as it's outside the glorious freedom-loving People's Republic of China.

SpaceX taps Texas for 'commercial Cape Canaveral' site

South of the border, down Mexico way

Does the Mexican government or people, 3 miles away, get any say? They'll be getting a lot of the kerosene fumes blowing their way, and the odd off-course disaster.

Home Sec: Web snoop law will snare PAEDOS, TERRORISTS

Sauce for the goose...

I put in an FOI request to the Home Office a couple of days ago asking for a list of all web sites visited by the Home Secretary in the last 12 months, together with the e-mail addresses of everyone e-mail she has sent/received. I'm sure they'll happily supply it - she has nothing to hide.

Vodafone deputy chairman to quit amid CWW rows – report

Tax?

I thought Vodafone had done a dodgy deal over dinner with HMRC so that they don't actually pay any tax at all.

Record-breaking laser pulse boosts fusion power hopes

K.I.S.S.

All very clever from a techie point of view, but ultimately going in completely the wrong direction. Even if they reach their ultimate goal of harnessing fusion and generating terawatts (at a price too low to meter), it's a massively high risk strategy. Why do we need electricity/energy? Ultimately so that we can keep warm, lighten our darkness, cook our food and automate tasks. If we develop a society where we have to spend umpteen billion to build one fusion reactor (albeit one that will provide power for 100 million homes) we are done for. Because what happens when that reactor fails? Or becomes controlled by one person or corporation? And suddenly 100 million homes are cold and dark?

One of the biggest plus factors for many forms of renewable power generation is that they can be built and used and controlled locally. (Okay, same is true of coal, oil etc, but that's often dirty and dangerous) . There isn't a single point of failure that can affect thousands or millions of people. If I want to make a pot of soup I don't want to have to be dependent on 192 DEATH-RAYS under the control of some greedy/crazy government/corporation.

Small is beautiful folks.

US rent-a-room biz swallows Blighty's Crashpadder

Re: check your booking

Obvious fake - that front door doesn't actually have a lock!

Chancellor lands paper cuts on Blighty's small biz

Nope, not a turnover tax

"The OTS also suggested that a turnover-based tax (which would tax the

total amount of the sales of a business, with no deductions for expenses)

should be investigated further. After carefully considering the various issues,

the Government has decided not to take this suggestion forward."

I can see what they're getting at - at the moment if I'm 80% through a £10K project at the end of the year, that has to be treated as £8K of income in the accounts. OK, next year I'll be paid £10K cash, but only £2K goes in the accounts but it's still messy. The proposal is that you add up all the money that comes in, subtract the allowable expenses, and pay tax on the rest. This only applies to UNINCORPORATED companies with turnover under £77K, so IT specialists with limited companies are stuck with the old system.

Verizon unveils offspring surveillance service

Workaround

1) Leave compromised mobile phone in public library

2) Go and mug little old lady

3) Use proceeds of crime to buy PAYG handset and SIM

4) Only use parentally-controlled handset when you want to mislead them about your location

WTF... should I pay to download BBC shows?

It's tricky...

The licence fee pays the costs of running the broadcast service, including the initial commissioning and (presumably) any repeat fees for broadcast programmes. Setting up a massive digital archive and paying for the bandwidth to provide 75-years-of-BBC-on-demand really isn't covered by the licence fee. And there is a fair point about 'residuals' payments. So some sort of charge isn't unreasonable - but £1.89 for a 30-minute episode is taking the piss. The licence fee is 40p a day, for which you get to watch each episode of Dr Who at least 30 times every year. 20p per hour for archive downloads seems more reasonable, and perhaps some sort of unlimited subscription option (£30 a year?)

UK drivers' privates fondled overseas in new outsource plan

no printing?

...never heard of cameras then? Or screen logging software?

Facebook 'cloaking' flaw allows unexpected snooping

Works as intended

Face it, the whole of Stalkerbook is a 'zero day privacy lophole'.

LOHAN to straddle meaty titanium rod

I am not an engineer...

Will there be any effect on the position of the launch platform from the force of the exhaust hitting the plate behind it? Will it not make the support spin/tilt?

High Court confirms 'cheap DVD' tax loophole will close

I do have some sympathy...

for the flower-growers etc. - the original arrangement was perfectly sensible, and benefited all concerned. Then along come amazon and friends and ruin it for everyone.

If the States had been sensible they could have avoided this by imposing their own tax on *exports* of DVDs etc, so that it wouldn't have been worrthwhile for amazon to sell from the Channel Islands, and the flower growers could have happily carried on. I suspect the flower industry earns a lot more real cash for the economies of the CIs than they actually get from dvd sales.

Paper pictures failed hostage rescue with Call of Duty shot

All perfectly okay...IF...

1) They acknowledge the source and copyright of the image

2) they have the permission of the copyright owner

3) they have paid any necessary fees to the copyright owner

Apple to kick start 'iTV' production in Q2

Not for the UK market, obviously

at least if they want to call it an iTV, unless they want to lose an expensive legal battle with the 'real' ITV

NASA: The future of space is public/private partnerships

Re: Making it profitable

Some would argue that "the discovery and colonization of the New World" had an even more radical effect on the existing inhabitants - and it wasn't just their thinking it changed - life-spans suddenly got a lot shorter...but it was profitable for the visitors, so that's all right then.

No 10 develops Terminator iPad app 'to fire ministers'

And who...

sets call-me-Dave's performance criteria? Can we have an app that sacks him?