Posts by Jim Bobble

MPs to sue UK.gov over 'ridiculous' emergency data snooping law

Tom Watson? The same turd who merrily nodded through this kind of crap under the last government? I've had my suspicions about Davis, but at least he's been fairly consistent regardless of which party is in government.

Major problems beset UK ISP filth filters: But it's OK, nobody uses them

I wonder how much bandwidth is saved by implementing these filters?

USA to insist on pre-flight mobe power probe

Hasn't this always been the case? I was yanked out of line for enhanced interrogation (or whatever they call it) at Manchester Airport back in 2005 and asked to remove my WinMo phone's (ahh, the days...) battery and then turn it on again, to show that it wasn't packed with explosives and actually worked as a phone. The slightly clueless security bloke missed my laptop, until I asked him if he'd like me to remove its battery and demonstrate it working. "Oh, yes, I suppose. Thank you".

THOUSANDS of UK.gov Win XP PCs to face April hacker storm... including boxes at TAXMAN, NHS

"8 April is the date when extended support for Windows XP from Microsoft finally comes to an end"

I don't suppose that, once HMRC misses this deadline date, they'll be stiffed with a £100 penalty, will they?

Singaporeans THANK government for BANNING IaaS site

About as close to democracy as you'll get there.

'Silent' staff stood by as £100m BBC IT project tanked – DG

Isn't Simon Nelson, the man who was tapped up to run FutureLearn - the UK public sector's diluted response to the MOOC phenomenon - the same man at the BBC who commissioned DMI and set it on its trajectory?

He may not be, but I'm sure I've been reminded of it a few times in the past.

Barnes & Noble chief walks as Nook ereader stumbles

Not at all surprising, if their US division is anything like the clusterfuck that is the UK/ EU division. They wiped out any goodwill with their brand with the awful customer service offered to recent Simple Touch customers.

UK regulators eye up Facebook's $1bn Instagram bid

I have to ask... What the chuffing fuck does this have to do with the OFT?

Kids should be making software, not just using it - Gove

Eh? It *IS* dull and uninspiring - not to mention a pile of shite. Building webpages in MS Publisher for GCSE IS? Do me a favour... When was the last time you saw something interesting, online, get built in Publisher? Virtually everything in IS and ICT was introduced to kids years before they started taking it as a lesson.

Existing ICT teachers need a kick up the arse. They're just taking a salary for supervising an hour of web browsing, as it is.

£1m 'Nobel prize of engineering' named after the Queen

Someone like the Duke of Gloucester?

(Okay, okay... He's 'just' an architect, I know...)

Eurozone crisis: We're all dooomed! Here's why

BAN FACEBOOK

Facist? I don't recall seeing anything in their election manifesto about taking a dislike to faces.

Are we in the middle of a patent bubble?

"A lot of people have talked about it being bad for innovation but I think the ability to enforce patents is a core aspect of what drives people to invest the huge sums of money that they do in R&D,"

Surely this is just another way of increasing the barrier to market entry for small businesses and innovators?

In any case, I can hardly understand how things like rounded corners can be considered particularly unique designs (even as part of a design identity) or innovations.

Sky wins TV riot battle

Cuts, my arse.

Yes. Because clearly, a corporation that spends £1.4bn of the telly tax on BBC One, spoonfeeding us Hole In The Wall and Strictly Come Dancing, is in the doldrums.

The World Service does a far better job than its domestic cousin and on a much tighter budget. Which leads me to the point that Sky News also has a significantly smaller set of resources than the BBC - so shouldn't their ouput have been poorer than the BBC's infinite loop?

Death haunts government petitions site

Former libertarian

"Why a libertarian, small government blogger supports the right of the government to kill people is beyond the scope of this piece."

You missed out the all-important 'former' preceding the word 'libertarian'.

You can't be libertarian AND support the state's right to systematically kill people - however much they might deserve it.

Yahoo! downs! mail! servers! for! essential! and extensive! work!

Pfft.

The sooner their users realise just what they're missing out on (in terms of email products and actual emails), the better. Then we can all go home, forget about Yahoo! and thousands of mail server admins can stop tearing their hair out trying to get their own emails accepted by Yahoo!'s anal mail policy.

Wankers.

The repeal bill: what's left in, what's left out

This is a title.

"This Bill looks as though it will best satisfy the conservative heartlands – especially those happiest imbibing a particular Daily Express and Mail vintage of freedom."

I suspect you're hoping that nobody notices the small 'c', rather than capital 'C', use of the word 'conservative' and are just mixing the two for convenience.

There's a sizeable faction of Conservative voters who support a liberal conservative approach to civil liberties (and admittedly, many who don't). The 'conservative heartlands' you refer to are actually going to be floating voters - people who, at previous elections, would have been likely to have voted Labour (remember how they kept getting reelected with their toilet roll approach to producing legislation?).

The Government just doesn't want to scare the horses at The Sun and the Daily Mail right now. It can't really afford to.

Small biz would pay more for simpler tax

Like having your very own Reg encyclopaedia

"Surely, either the Channel Islands are part of Great Britain or they're not"

Well, I have great pleasure in confirming for you that they are not part of Great Britain - nor have they ever been.

"If they're not, then they should be regarded as non-EU countries."

Which is, of course, how they are regarded. Try importing something over £20(ish) from any of the Channel Island states and see how far you get without paying customs duty or tax on it.