* Posts by The Alpha Klutz

636 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Feb 2011

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Accused SOCA attacker reportedly 'keen' to help cops

The Alpha Klutz

criminal damage is good for the economy.

Work is pretty slow for the guys who make bus stops until someone smashes one up.

The "cyber security" industry must be worth millions, with thousands of staff. Someone has to do the damage that keeps those staff in clean clothes and doughnuts. Except for the clean clothes bit.

It doesn't cost society anything, it actually generates wealth for society. Money doesn't disappear just because you spent it on fixing something.

It costs society dearly when we allow a small number of individuals, mostly bankers, but other assholes as well, to collect millions of pounds they don't really need and then.... do nothing at all with it. Like they think taking money to the grave with them is some kind of funny joke. Well, it's not. Stop it.

Faking reviews? You should fret about more than illegality

The Alpha Klutz
Facepalm

D'OH

yeah, you are right.

well... crap in the sink or something. If enough people do it...

Plenty of scope for excuses too:

I thought you were supposed to do it like that.

My doctor says it's good for my circulation.

I'm not allowed to bend my knees.

etc.

The Alpha Klutz

most product reviews

online or offline, are not worth 6 inches of piss in the snow.

So here's what I do:

1. buy the product

2. review it myself

3. send it back if I don't like it

Fairly simple thing that, its called having rights.

Nothing you buy these days is as described. Buy the 5 most likely candidates and send 4 of them back. Until marketing folks learn to stop lying so fucking blatantly, their employers will just have to deal with the massive volume of returns that they are generating.

Pay by credit card and you don't even have to risk any of your own money.

Once again, it's called rights. They're not just for criminals and bureaucrats, you can have them too!

Firing back at LulzSec

The Alpha Klutz
Facepalm

"this week's breach of UK census data"

alleged breach.

Programmers urged to code with their tootsies

The Alpha Klutz
Facepalm

TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY NINE DOLLARS!?

That's the problem with all these "bespoke" input devices, they are all so fucking overpriced. That's why they are generally sold to musicians, because musicians are seen as cash cows who will pay any price for "quality" - even if it is just a piece of plastic that you step on - for fucks sake!

Got a website? Pay attention, Cookie Law will come

The Alpha Klutz

"Software comprises instructions"

It is by interrogating the Cookie that the browser finds out 'what to do', if that is not an instruction, I would love to hear your definition of what is.

This website is software because it comprises instructions for recreating the site on the client machine. The image file software contains the instructions that tell the image rendering software how to draw The Register logo, while the font software on your computer is a precise set of instructions for recreating text on the screen.

That is if you draw the arbitrary conclusion that software has to contain instructions, which of course, it doesn't. A help file is software, as is porn. Even though you could say that both comprise instructions for recreating images on the screen, that is besides the point.

I would say that any collection of intangible data that means anything to either the user or the computer, is software. Does your Windows executable stop being software when you copy it to a Mac? What about if you encrypt it as well? Now suppose that you have an encrypted file that MIGHT contain an executable, but you are not sure, is that software? Or does it only become software after you decrypt it? Does the fact that it CAN be decrypted not mean that it was software all along?

The software on my harddrive is hardcore, no soft-porn.

The Alpha Klutz

"Cookies ARE NOT software."

Yeah but, they are.

Reminds me, some guy was telling me "a computer case is NOT hardware". *SIGH*

some people just need to stop smoking crack.

PS. I still think the cookie law is somewhat stupid. I bet the guy who wrote the law didn't even know what a cookie was until 3 pages in to it.

Sega’s saggy security

The Alpha Klutz
Terminator

Sir,

show some Sega saggy security saga sample side stories so Sheila shall see sumptuous storytelling sometime soon.

Hacker wrists slapped for stealing Lady Gaga songs

The Alpha Klutz

"explicit private photos from bombshell artist Kesha"

well I had to Google the photo, and well, it is the most bizarre thing I have ever seen.

Was it stolen from Kesha's computer or downloaded from SETI?

Kindle Store awash with auto-generated crap 'books'

The Alpha Klutz

auto-generated crapbooks

Its gardly amazons fault - In a slightly less punnish manner: When I look for titles on my Kindle, I'm usually a "publication deposit" , and then I've never had a paperback or hardcover book either. OK so theres a lot of shite out there - It pointless even starting to look. Just hold on to the customer's money.

Facebook's mega-billion-dollar bubble ... will it float?

The Alpha Klutz
Angel

"How does the next generation benefit from being from a broken home"

a lady from the council comes round and gives them BISCUITS

The Alpha Klutz

well I guess

Google do all they do off the back of billions of ad dollars (it seems so hard to believe, I mean who actually clicks Google ads, apart from no one?), so Facebook is just crazy enough to work.

People will go to google, search for facebook, click some ads, then go back to google and search facebook again, click some more ads, then go back to google (third time lucky), search for facebook, click the facebook link, then go on facebook and click some ads.

It's a fate worse than death, but if these people with, shall we say, "special digital needs", are injecting ad money into the IT industry then long may it live. The bandwidth it takes to deliver 1 high def Youtube video to me probably cost about a thousands ad clicks that some loser had to sit in his house doing all day, while I just block the adverts. I feel great, Google is coining it in, and an underclass of suboids is clicking adverts sunrise to sunset. Celebrate good times.

Lulzsec gets hacking downunder

The Alpha Klutz
Big Brother

clearly a black op

Government needs excuse to turn off the internet and gut it. Then we will be given access to a walled garden instead. Effectively just Facebook, but run on behalf of the government (like it already is). There will be no more DNS system. You just point your browser at Facebook, "the new internet", and write up everything you did that day, because it will be mandatory.

But first and most importantly of all they need the people to demand that something is done about "the hackers". This is just the start of a blitz that will have every newspaper in the country demanding outright enslavement before the year is out. Our politicians, although they really have no power over anything, are the useful idiots who will read those news stories and implement the police state. They have all the tools.

This is the capstone. Get ready to lose everything.

Boffins brew up formula for consummate cuppa

The Alpha Klutz

"Are we assuming that room temperature is below 60C"

I think that is a safe assumption yes.

The Alpha Klutz
Thumb Up

"BY SOMEONE ELSE"

this point deserves repeating.

Anonymous vows to attack Federal Reserve

The Alpha Klutz
Big Brother

"Perhaps if there were more stories about people doing things with computers"

careful what you wish for.

"Evil satanist and computer worshiper h4rm0ny was today caught having sex with computers. His neighbours say he is the quiet type. 'He kept himself to himself', said Joe Twitch'n'Look, h4rm0ny's next door neighbour. The crime of 'private use of a computational machine to facilitate data processing' is punishable by up to 6 consecutive hangings. President and Saviour Gordon Brown, back from his stay in the cryogenics lab, recently announced tough new laws to punish computer users. In a press release he said 'h4rm0ny is genetically sick, that is why he is stealing tax money from children'. And now here's Kate with the weather..."

UK watchdog looking into Facebook face-tech row

The Alpha Klutz

"you have to find a way of controlling what your friends do too"

its so much easier to just not have friends.

or just have one, and even then dont talk to him that often. (and it would have to be a him, you cant go long periods without talking to women or they will assume you don't like them anymore)

The more people you associate with, the more things you are able to do (greater resources) but the less control you have over WHAT you actually do. these days you have to be a loud mouth cunt just to get your idea heard at all.

Besides, the amount of respect you get in any given group is directly proportional to how your hair style ranks in the group. People like me get no respect, purely because we were born with the wrong kind of hair. It's not shiny enough, or it doesn't flop in the right direction. You might think this is a silly hypothesis, but trust me I am right.

And if you ever do get in with a good crowd, that's when the demands will start "do this do that, why aren't you helping fund our day trip to the arctic" maybe I don't fucking like the arctic. maybe thats why.

Sod em.

Has Steve Jobs killed the consumer hard disk industry?

The Alpha Klutz

"about 150Mb/s in practice"

Yup, if you have the laptop half an inch away from the router inside a Faraday cage in a specially tuned room and the crystal ball on your Ouija board is reporting increased vampire activity in the vicinity of your burial vault.

150 megs my ass!

The Alpha Klutz

Western Digital still have my business

I run my own NAS box. It's like a cloud, but better, because it resides in the same country as I do and so my data is not mysteriously subject to a different set of laws than I am. It also allows me to slot in an extra couple of TB whenever I want at very marginal cost with no silly subscription fees to pay. Just as long as I can afford to pay the electricity, the data is there.

Only problem is, I have exactly 0% need for any kind of "cloud". If the data isn't important enough for me to make a conscious effort to carry it around, then it is not worth having with me anyway. QED. I don't take the fucking toilet brush with me when I go to work do I (actually I do, just kidding). Is nothing sacred?

Germans completely humourless: Official

The Alpha Klutz

"I can see how some might not find that funny."

That's right, you poo poo head!

The Alpha Klutz

"it’s a bit of a pie in the face for us."

I actually like pie in the face.

Spot-the-fake site launched

The Alpha Klutz
Pint

stereotypes r bad mmky

Not everyone who wears Burberry is a delinquent. My business colleagues and I regularly transact the purchase of a bottle of White Lightning from our local Business 2 Business vendor in the corner shop keeping industry. Then we vertically integrate our Burberry caps onto our skull-based brain carrying units and expand into other markets in the local park. There we use social media based hyperphone sound blasting technology to attract large crowds of qualified sales leads to meet the specification of our Alcohol Consumption Manager and his team of highly qualified corporate hospitality associates.

The Alpha Klutz

but what they do need

is a non-shit name

like "COUNTERFEIT WATCH" "THE FAKE DETECTIVES" "KNOCK-OFF NIGEL NAILS NELLY"

okay maybe not that last one.

but seriously, what the fuck is "Brand-i"?

Sounds like a crap brand of knock-off brandy made from ground up kidney stones. "Well I have Ebola now so I might as well drink some Brand-i".

I should work in marketing.

The Alpha Klutz

I approve...

kinda.

Anyone can contact a manufacturer or look on their website to get a list of authorized dealers of particular a product. Putting this information in one place is only useful if someone bothers to update it.

What I would prefer is side by side photos of the original and the fake, internals and externals. But that is mostly just to satisfy my own sick curiosities rather than to battle counterfeits. If in doubt the manufacturer will just tell you to check the serial number with them, but I don't see how the serial number couldn't be faked to a sufficient standard as well.

Remember when counterfeiters cloned the entire NEC company....

Student suspended for posting random satire on YouTube

The Alpha Klutz

the only important thing about school

Is which one you went to.

You can be the world's biggest dumb ass, but with the right name on your CV you'll still become president.

The Alpha Klutz

"elsewhere and out of uniform you're obviously not under their jurisdiction"

Well yes, that is exactly what SHOULD happen.

But more and more we are seeing schools getting involved where they are not welcome, on Internet forums and chat sites, spying on what their pupils say and taking them to task over it.

If the kid says something naughty, they get their butt kicked out of school.

It doesn't matter that to an outsider, there was absolutely nothing on the Internet that would have identified the kid as a pupil of school X.

It doesn't matter that the kid used his own equipment on his own time to exercise his own rights.

What matters is some busybody teacher saw a kid doing something s/he doesn't like. The teacher then proceeds to enact a personal vendetta against the kid by implementing the revocation of his or her education and qualifications - effectively a life sentence without trial - something that surely goes against every human right in the book.

And what do we do with these rouge teachers? We give them a promotion, a £150k salary, and put their name on a plaque for civic bravery. That crosses a line on the wrong side of "police state".

In a perfect world, something VERY different would happen to these "educators". And I wouldn't like to tell you what.

The Alpha Klutz

"detrimental to the positive moral tone of the school"

what a hoot.

there does seem to be a trend in western schools.

"you will not do anything against our rules while you are under our jurisdiction"

"things that are against our rules include; whatever we feel like at the time. Areas under our jurisdiction are; wherever you happen to be at the time"

Now I am going to go and stick my positive moral tone into a fleshlight. I hope my teacher doesn't find out.

Sandi Toksvig puts the 'n' into cuts - on the Beeb

The Alpha Klutz

If you can't get a life,

at least stop dodging the grave.

The young productive members of society would like to run things for a change.

we put the "you are" into "you are a cunt"

New Sony hack exposes more consumer passwords

The Alpha Klutz
Pint

Sony is the new whipping boy

for any prankster or media outlet with more than two followers and a spare 5 minutes to rub together.

Personally I approve of this situation.

Not because I dislike Sony per se, I just like the idea that a big media company can be given such a persistent and ultraviolent beating by transient juvenile flashmobs that any notion of them being in control of public opinion will surely become laughable.

I could argue that it is your moral duty to laugh.

World Health Organization: Mobile phone cancer risk 'possible'

The Alpha Klutz

The way people talk these days

It's like they expect to live forever.

"You can't do THAT, it's dangerous! I would never do THAT, and I have never died. Not even once, so you BETTER listen to me."

That's what you will hear from one of these fascists, right before they jump in their Audi to go drive around town 10 millimeters from the back of a heavy Goods Vehicle while they chain smoke cheap knock-off cigarettes full of mercury and monkey droppings.

The Alpha Klutz

I'll have to ask the 10 year old girl I saw smoking in the street how she thinks that will work out.

You really shouldn't bother an expectant mother with such petty questions.

The Alpha Klutz
Holmes

"Would you put an incandescent light bulb in your brain?"

I would if I could.

New Mac scareware variant installs without password

The Alpha Klutz
Boffin

I guess that's the way

the cookie crumbles.

BT cheerfully admits snooping on customer LANs

The Alpha Klutz

not the only ISP?

As I recall, my ISP, BE, with whom I am quite happy, do configure their supplied routers such that they can "dial in" and perform "tests". As I recall, there was even a flaw in the software that was exposed on this very site.

I am not bothered because I use my own router. I even went as far as to choose the firmware it runs and in doing so I believe that I have accepted responsibility for any vulnerabilities in it. Well it's only fair.

Of course, a BT customer who is not technically savvy has no way to know what BT is capable of doing through their router and there is certainly a case to be made for ISPs to be open about their policies with regards to remote administration of the supplied routers.

David Davis: Jobless should dig trenches for fat UK pipes

The Alpha Klutz

"there are 62 cleaning jobs in my town"

The thought crosses my mind that 62 is a low number not a high one.

If there are only 62 jobs going in your town, how could you possibly expect unemployment not to be a big problem?

The Alpha Klutz

"The vacancy won't be filled by someone who already has a job now will it?"

Or at least, if it is, then the person who swapped jobs to gain your job will in turn leave a vacancy and eventually a vacancy must trickle down to the jobless. At some point you are forced to give them a step up onto the employment ladder.

You can hardly blame them for not having a job if that ladder is being actively vandalised and mutilated.

The Alpha Klutz
Alert

I wonder what job you do

that's so damn important to the success of the country?

I bet if we really get down to brass tacks we would find that you and I, for all the time we spend at work, are as inconsequential as anyone else.

As a nice little thought experiment; if you died, would one of those dole scroungers you hold in contempt not take your place? The vacancy won't be filled by someone who already has a job now will it?

I get pretty tired of people who are in employment pretty much by accident of birth and chronology, complaining about the people who don't have a job through accident of birth and chronology. It's not like anybody on this earth grew up aspiring to be indentured.

I don't recall anybody in my primary school ever saying "when I grow up I want to be looked down on as the scum of society".

I'm not saying that the government should give us all cushy jobs on the space station; but people can reasonably expect a roof over their head and some shit to eat. I'd rather pay the money than have these people breaking into my house every day out of sheer desperation.

Popular gamers 'should play for free' – Valve boss

The Alpha Klutz

Further to my idea:

1. If you already have a subscription licence (as in the case of a licence to play online for a year), any licence you acquire through the VLG* will be prorated so that you only pay for what you need. That way, you are not reliant on someone making a group at the exact time your licence is due for renewal.

2. My idea would be an excellent way to promote and sell a game months before release. It gives people ample time to organise, and assures that they all have licences on release day. It could potentially boost sales.

*Volume Licence Group.

The Alpha Klutz

"a player that has verified and repeated reports of griefing or being rude [..] gets to pay more."

Which means that you must have a way to track said player (reliably, so that they can't assume a new identity and start paying the regular price again).

And if it's possible to track them, it's possible to ban them.

So why not just do that? Evidently these rude players are not worth having as customers if they put other people off.

The Alpha Klutz
Boffin

My solution to this problem.

Is a way for people to get together and buy a cheap volume license for a game or gaming service. A way that does not require any member of the group to expose his or her personal details (e.g. home address of banking) to any other member of the group. The number of people in the group determines the price break.

What should happen is that the game company has a website where you can create a page for your group of volume licence candidates. As the group moderator, you approve or reject each person who attempts to join (based on whatever personal info they decide to make available to you, the moderator, for the purpose of making that decision - e.g. a username in most cases).

Each person who does join sets 2 flags, a price and a date. Essentially signing an agreement that "I agree to pay for the game if the price comes down to £xx.xx or less by xx/xx/xx". As insurance, the game company holds banking details for each member, but only until the date they allow. After that, if no transaction is made, the account details are erased and they are removed from the group.

In order to get the best discounts, people would need to organise on a forum, on Facebook, or anywhere else. All of them agreeing the same (or similar) maximum price and deadline beforehand so that they know they all get the price they want. To facilitate this, the price breaks need to be public knowledge and the moderator can kick people who set unreasonable prices and dates.

If the conditions set by the two flags are true for every user in the group at any time, the transactions all go through, they are all emailed their licences, and the group (plus all personal details) is securely erased.

Sounds like a lot of effort, so the discounts better be good.

Dropbox 'insecure and misleading' – crypto researcher

The Alpha Klutz

The point is

that many of the people who purchased iPads did so under the false assumption that they would be able to easily move files around. They can't, and the device is therefore not fit for purpose (the purpose for which they bought it that evidently requires them to move files around). That's a failing on somebodies part, but not mine.

The Alpha Klutz

"It's their tablets and phones that don't."

Otherwise known as a tablet.........? Computer?

The Alpha Klutz

boo hoo

You don't always have to do everything Apple says.

You wouldn't buy a chocolate teapot, so why would you buy a, quote-unquote, computer, that doesn't have a file system or any USB ports?

How long have we had USB flash drives? Like 10 years? Everyone has them, everyone that is, except for Steve Jobs, who plainly looks as if he spends 14 hours a day sleeping in an Oxygen deprivation tent on the moon.

Actually, his face resembles the moon more closely with each passing day. Grey, dispiriting, probably had people walking on it in the 60s.

Is that who you want to get your computing insight from? Well maybe if you are 92 years old going on 103.

Apple seeks patent for keyboard that sucks

The Alpha Klutz

keyboard that sucks?

I'll give it a week, maybe two, before it's completely clogged up with dust and therefore useless.

But when it is broken, at least you will have the satisfaction of knowing that it cost you a significant amount of money.

Renault readies sub-£7000 e-car for Blighty

The Alpha Klutz

"But seriously? Enjoyable open aired motoring? In Britain? In a city?"

I think what they mean is you're not going to get side-swiped by a Grizzly Bear, so having no doors is perfectly fine. Unless you want to pay extra for doors, in which case you can have them, you sick pervert. You could be hiding all sorts of bombs in a car with doors. Better put your name on some kind of list just in case.

The Alpha Klutz

Disgusting

Everything about this car is both visually and mentally repulsive, and for such a high price, a complete fail.

I'd hate to think of the massive, massive, damage you would be doing to the environment by purchasing and driving this thing. Gotta be a few million tons of carbon just to build it, then 5 years later when everyone realizes it's shit, it'll be another couple of million to recycle it. Or just dump it in a hole in the ground, that would be the cleanest option, and trust me, there's plenty of space on earth for landfill. We found space to test the nukes. Hundreds of them.

So in summary, if you buy this, you really are almost, but not quite, as reprehensible as Renault for building it in the first place.

Now we just wait for the BBC News press release about how awesome it is. Because obviously, if it's electric, it must be good. Unlike Oil, we have unlimited electricity.

Brazilians slap health warnings on knickers

The Alpha Klutz
Megaphone

WARNING: YOU MIGHT GET CANCER.

Did you ever think that maybe people don't want to spend all of their Cancer-free years being reminded of Cancer every day?

Or what if you do have Cancer? Are you going to consider it helpful or appropriate that everything you buy has a big fat Cancer warning on the box?

Since I'm going to die anyway, should I just stay at home all day and not do anything except eat my 5 portions of fruit & veg and cry softly about Cancer? Well sorry, I'll have all day for that shit when I get Cancer. But now, I'd rather not think about it, if that's alright with you, my Lord and Savior.

Dixons warns it's getting worse

The Alpha Klutz
Megaphone

Computers are the downfall of the Computer store.

The trouble is, once you buy your first computer, you never need to visit a computer store again, you can just use your computer to buy a new computer.

To the computer owner, there is no need to go into a shop and "try out" a new computer. Note that "trying out" a computer in PC World means looking at the screen saver or Windows Media Center, perhaps playing Solitaire if you're lucky enough to get 5 minutes away from the salesman. Impressive stuff if it's going to be your first ever computer, but distinctly unimpressive for everyone else.

Clearly then, PC World need to do something to appeal to those of us who have actually seen computers before. Maybe a more techy area with a bunch of antistatic workstations and barebones computers, plus piles of components, where you can go to build your own computer in the store. If you're happy with the result, you can buy it.

Obviously this idea is so good that PC World will never do it.

The least they could do is get a geek in to run free workshops on how to set up home networks and file servers and rip music or movies. If you're going to run a store for noobs, at least give them a reason to keep coming back.

Image this, I want to be a dentist so I go into Dentist World and buy a whole bunch of overpriced dental equipment, then when I ask the guy how to use it he tells me, with a cheeky but reassuring grin, that I can just wave the dental drill around inside my mouth, "or some shit like that", and everything will be fine, as long as I buy the extended warranty. "These dental drills break ALL THE TIME, not to queer the deal or anything, *wink wink*, and the warranty comes with free Carbon Brush replacement for the first 2 months".

Facebook caught exposing millions of user credentials

The Alpha Klutz

the boss wanted to have him on there to "keep an eye on him"

What if the boss asks to put spy cameras in your house and watch you taking a shit so that he knows you're eating enough fibre? Fair enough, right? I mean he can't be putting up with unhealthy staff now can he.

"This is increasingly common"

I should hope not. Any boss who asks me to tolerate such a thing would get the response they deserve.

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