Posts by despicable me

Fraudster gets ten years after selling fake 'ionic charge' bomb detectors

Re: Good.

I went to have my constipation cured by a psychopath and the treatment really worked.

The procedure was quite straightforward - he scared the shit out of me.

Assange^TM spins Oz Senate candidacy again

Er...

Julian who?

Assange movie debuts this weekend

Spoiler alert

This sequel to this film tells the story of an idealistic, young man who is used by an unspecified government agency to undermine the whistle-blowing organisation he helped to set up.

The plot gets going when the whistle-blowers release film of a helicopter pilot gunning down some journalists, greatly alarming the unspecified government, who had tried to cover it up.

In response the agency "turns" the hero and gets him to set up a honeytrap to ensnare the source of the leaked helicopter footage.

The suspected source, a naive young private, is then deliberately fed some spicy, but boring diplomatic traffic, of no real value, in the hope he will leak it.

He does. The consequent row pretty well puts the whistle-blowers out of business, cutting of their funds, and trashing their reputation. The hero, now apparently enthused with a sort of megalomania, continues to inflame the situation with his behaviour. It is not clear if this apparent megalomania is genuine or a result of some action by the government agency .

Shortly afterwards two female members of the whistle-blowing organisation discover what is really going on, and threaten to expose the hero. The hero just manages to escape to a country, where he thinks he will be safe.

Unfortunately the country he flees to has a close alliance with the country organising the deception, and the government agency now sees the hero as "compromised" and "dangerous". Several weeks of legal manoeuvring take place as the agency tries to extradite the hero, so they can "neutralise" him before he can do any more damage.

Eventually, realising their extradition efforts have failed, the agency offers the hero a "way out" by infiltrating the embassy of a hostile power...

Hang on ... I've just realised that's the Hollywood version.

Apple confirms 'surprise' September 12 event

Hmm...

By sheer coincidence that's the very date I have scheduled to announce my patent for "the use of integers between four and six in the naming context of handheld mobile devices".

Cook's 'values' memo shows Apple has lost its soul

@St3n

"Anyone who views Apple as anything but another evil company needs their head examined."

Apple joined Sony on my no-buy list long before this happened.

Greenland melt surprises NASA Earth-watchers

Is it too late...

Can Greenland still apply to host the summer Olympics in 2020?

Are there still tickets available for the Beach Volleyball?

Texas Higgs hunters mourn the particle that got away

Re: Enough bickering you lot...

Two suggestions for the disused tunel:

1) Use it to store software patents etc.

2) Use it to store software patent trolls.

The first option would require a ventilation system...

HTC bags UK win in patent war with Apple

Good!

Let's hope these are the first of many patents (on all sides) to be overturned "because they were obvious, in the common knowledge or had been done before".

Samsung fails to stall Galaxy Nexus sales ban

Re: This has got to stop

"blocking the "AppleWebKit" useragent"

That rather smacks of cutting off your nose to spite your face, and would only drive the fanbois deeper into their walled garden. Much better to design the web site to open standards so that everyone can see it.

Arranging for multiple click-through adverts promoting non-Apple products is a different matter...

ITC denies Apple an emergency ban on ALL HTC PHONES

Re: Sounds familiar...

"please post where Apple have made this statement"*.

Hi "Fitz"*,

"You're so vain. You probably think this song is about you."*

What makes you think it is an Apple quote? You seem to think that Apple have patented quotations or possibly "phrases in quotes"* now.

* Not an Apple quote.

Sounds familiar...

MPAA and their pals: "every pirated download is a lost CD/DVD sale"

Apple: "every pirated patent is a lost iPhone sale".

Ten... bits of Jubilee tat tech

Re: Here in Sonoma, CA ...

"I'm a Finn, actually."

Well, to misquote Max Bygraves, "Finns ain't wot they used to be."

WH Smiths tills insist shop sells The Queen's Knickers only

Hi fLaMePrOoF

HM Sergeant at Arms here. If you wouldn't mind stopping by "The Tower" on your way home, it would save us a lot of trouble.

Thanks.

Intelligence a genetic mistake

Re: bugger the inorganic way ..

Is that some sort of "self help" title?

OAP sues Apple for $1m after walking into store's glass door

A million bucks

Does she have a patent on "walking into glass" or something?

Microsoft tarts up custom Mustang Muscle Microserfmobile

If that doesn't work, try taking out the engine and reinstalling it...

... using the box of replacement parts we sent you last Tuesday.

The Linux version

Is a box van - not as pretty, but a lot cheaper and gets the job done.

Jimbo Wales 'to advise Whitehall on transparency'

WikiGovernment

On the downside we're going to get personal appeals when we visit direct.gov.uk.

On the upside anyone will be able to edit government policy documents.

Apple resellers left to pick bones of dwindling iPad stocks

Alternative supply

I suppose Apple could just buy in some Samsung tablets and rebadge them.

They are supposed to be very similar.

N Korea mobile phone subscribers top 1 million

I understand they had trouble finding three wise men that would follow the party line.

Plenty of sheep though.

"I don't know much about Korean cuisine, but their spicy meatballs are the dog's bollocks."

- Jasper Carrot

SpaceShipOne man, Nobel boffins: Don't panic on global warming

You are Father Jack and I claim my five bottles of drain cleaner.

Met Office cuts off Linux users with new weather widgets

Facts

"This took me about 5 mins to establish. This is a sensationalist report with a list of kneejerk comments. Please can we grow up?"

Welcome to El Reg - you must be new here.

Apple wins skirmish in HTC-Google patent war

"Do you not value the protection of invention, when you see it?"

Absolutely, but you may wish to look up the definition of "invention".

Headmaster freezes schoolkids for Gaia

Well I'll be buggered if I'm going there then.

No wait I'll rephrase that...

Man's phone burns, toasts trouser region

Smoke signals?

Just remove the battery - it's no big deal.

Local TV pioneers sought by Ministry of Fun

Oh good

These stations sound just like "Border TV" used to be in the good old days.

Their newsreader used to finish solemnly reporting some tragedy, and would then put on a stuffed monkey puppet to become "Uncle Johnny" and introduce the kids' programs.

They sometimes didn't have enough local adverts to fill the gaps in the networked programs, and just played music instead.

It was wonderful.

Facebook facial recognition tech 'violates' German privacy law

Don't you think it's looking tired?

Facebook? So 2010 darling - it's all G+ these days.

US proposes online IDs for Americans

Don't worry

After all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear - do you?

Yuri Gagarin in triumphant return to London

Selectve Memory?

In any major conflict there are events that the eventual "winners" prefer to airbrush over.

If I recall correctly the USA only joined WW2 in 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

Prior to that Joe Kennedy, the US Ambassador to the UK actively sought a meeting with Hitler "to bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany."

Don't get me started about the Middle East - King David Hotel anyone?

The Cold War is over folks, lets move on please.

Mozilla ditches Messaging wing, eyes social webby sweetshop

Thunderbird

I use Thunderbird at the moment and I am not surprised that it is failing to "survive and thrive" as I find each update makes it increasingly irritating to use. In particular the IMAP accounts now seem to be constantly out of sync.

When Opera Mail fixes their "multiple accounts on the same server" bug, I will probably switch.

Neighbourhood watchers in Reading get speedguns

Get orf my land!

"I don't see why they would lead to "village feuds" either, if you live in a village or small town it is unlikely you would speed through it anyway. Peer pressure to get people to slow down"

You don't actually live in a village or small town, do you. Forget Ambridge, think Somalia.

Crematorium to heat council swimming pool

Hot water

Presumaly most of the heat comes from the gas jets that are needed to get to 800 C. I doubt the burning body and coffin add more than a few percent to the total.

I suppose they could also do it the other way round and use the exhaust gasses from the swimming pool boilers to preheat the cremators.

Surely there needs to be a back up system for the swimming pool anyway, as I can't see the crem storing up bodies* for burning only when the pool is open.

* As in "Put fatso on one side in case we get a cold snap".

Burglars snort dead dad's ashes

Cat's ashes

I thought the idea was to scatter the ashes somewhere where the cat had been fond of.

FWIW our cat seems to spend most of its time in the neighbours' dustbins.

Boffins play 'Pac-Man' with tiny living organisms

Old games

Better keep "Frogger" off the list unless you want to upset the green lobby, the transport lobby and possibly even the lumber industry.

Missile defence FAIL: US 'kill vehicle' space weapon flunks test

Target

Well the interception didn't work. but did they manage to avoid a total fail?

Did the ballistic missile successfully hit the United States?

Massive online database of bird calls unveiled

Could have been worse

They might have photographed her with two specimens of Parus major and really helped the caption writer.

Gov decides not to have scientific advice on drugs any more

Where do they get policy from

I believe they had a already recruited a new policy advisor, but the psychic octopus died before he could take up the post.

BURNING LUST for SEXY BUSTY BLONDES - Science explains

That's a relief

From the title I thought it was going to be yet another Julian Assange story.

Feds seize 70 'filesharing, dodgy goods' sites

Actually...

If you read the article carefully you will find that they only seized the domain names.

The BBC has more details at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11863288

"ICE's action involved gaining control of the domain name that sites were trading under. It did not involve removing any content from the sites affected or blocking the use of an IP address."

WikiLeaked US cables link China to Google hack

Re: I think you miss the point...

WRONG! It the messages are secret, candid or confidential then you encrypt them - you don't just mark them as secret and dump them on a network that about three million people have legitimate access to.

Hubris

Didn't somebody say "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" ?