Posts by lglethal

Mucky private chat could be illegal soon

Not sure whether im worried or not...

Without knowing the details of the first case, i must say it does sound extremely worrying. A chat between two people should be private no matter how it is undertaken. If it is then published online at a later date by one of the parties then perhaps, very perhaps, there may be a case to answer for if the message was threatening, but then i would have to say both parties (definitely the poster) might be in trouble. And it should definitely not fall under the auspices of the obscene publications act, that it does in this case is just ridiculous. E.g if it was a conversation about raping someone (even if no specific name was mentioned) then perhaps it could be breaking some sort of stalking or threatening messages law but definitely not the obscene publications act!

The second case, though i have less trouble with. If you ring through a bomb threat, you can expect to be chased up and charged with making a threatening call. If you tweet the bomb threat, i see no reason why this should be handled differently. However, in this specific case, its gone to the extreme because this is obviously not a serious threat. At most it should be counted on about par with making a fake police or 112 call. That its gone to this level is again frankly ridiculous!

Pirate Bay now run from Pirate Party 'mountain bunker'

What an idiot!

You would think, what with the MPAA's continued dogging of the Pirate Bay website, they would be smart enough to keep quiet and so buy themselves at least a few months of quiet (whilst the MPAA tried to find out exactly where they are hosted) before the next MPAA court attempted takedown. But No, of course not, lets be loud mouths and tell them exactly where they need to launch their next court case.

Idiot...

Apple MacBook Pro 15in

Sorry but were the comparison to non-Apple laptops

Look i dont particularly care how this runs in comparison to other Apple laptops (maybe some Fanbois do?), what i want to know (as someone who is looking to buy a new laptop soon) is how this laptop compares for speed, HDD, connectivity, battery life etc compared to your standard HP, Acer, etc laptops.

You can talk about the software suite you get with it and all that (which is important as well), but the main comparison for someone like myself should be to do with which machine is the fastest, has the best graphics and the best battery life and has the all-round best features. The test youve run show me that this is fast and with relatively good batteries comapred to other Apples but thats not particularly helpful. Ok if i end up buying Apple i'll buy this, but whats to make me choose this over a PC when looked at from a performance point of view alone?

If you cant perform the standard PCMark (or an equivalent test) then this review is of no use to me. Sorry.

US airforce shifts 30,000 troops to 'cyberwar front lines'

Well now we know...

... what they will be doing with all those pilots now that unmanned birds are taking all their jobs... They will become Cyber Pilots!

*rolleyes*

Microsoft sneak peeks Hotmail makeover

So let me get this straight...

In future, when i send an email with an attachment, i wont be sending an attachment at all, it will be uploaded to a server for my recipient to download through their mail. Then it will be deleted after 30 days. Same goes for receiving emails.

Well excuse me but i like to hold on to a lot of my attachments, i dont have a 30 day limit where i stop using something.

So my hotmail account will soon be deleted if this comes in; my gmail account has been deleted since Buzz; i wouldnt touch Yahoomail with a 10 foot pole; so can anyone recommend an online email service which i can just use as a bloody email service without having to worry about a) my personal data being hocked to the highest bidder, b) being spammed constantly by the service im supposed to be using or c) the service deleting my emails and attachments without my knowledge? Anyone?

US military chokes on stream from robots' fat pipes

Or...

Or you could just try not spending all that money on cash cows for various US senators and try employing people to actually view and sort the footage...

Nahh your right thats crazy talk...

Bear and Monkey smack Apple with patent suit

Someone correct me if im wrong...

... but the only reason i can possibly see for all of these absurd patents being granted in the first place is if the USPTO gets paid on a per granted basis. i.e if you submit an application and its not granted you get your money back.

Can anyone tell me if this is the actual situation? If so theres probably a large part of the problem...

Salesforce extends 'sympathy' to Microsoft on Office launch

Hold on a minute!

How come they get to take wine on the London Eye??? When my friends and i tried to hire a group pod to have a picnic and enjoy the view, we were told in no uncertain terms that there was a ZERO alcohol policy on the Eye...

One rule for them, one rule for the rest of us, i guess... b*stards!

Software piracy rates fall

Im interested...

I would be interested to know where they get these figures from. I doubt too many people are stupid enough to admit to using pirated software in answer to a survey from the people who sue you for using pirated software.

So is this based on detection rates extrapolated to the whole country which one can hardly call an accurate figure (because only those companies who are stupid or get ratted on by ex-employees get caught)?

Would be interested to know...

Brit consumers shun the iPad - for now

So?

Everytime i see a Ferrari i want one. Doesnt mean that when the time comes around I'm actually going to go out and buy one...

Archives director calls for simplified data

So wait a second...

First she says people are too stupid to read a graph, but then suggests giving out all of the data to let someone else have a go at making it easier for people to read? Theres something easier to read then a graph? Thats news to me...

Second, she says that the civil servants are drowning in data so they should give out more of it to the public to do what they want with? Excuse me but if there drowning in data that means theyre collecting too much of it and you know what i would like some of my civil liberties back! How about the civil servants only collect the data they actually NEED and stop collecting all the other cr*p that is only of use to scammers and totalitarians!

Bill Gates chucks cash at climate cooling cloud creator

Brilliant idea

Lets perform an action whose consequences globally we cant even begin to predict and which could potenitally effect the entire planets weather system.

Somehow i knew Bill Gates would eventually try and take over the world, but using weather control technology is so 1960's! He must be laughing all the way to his secret volcanic island base...

Green Berets to get Judge Dredd computer smart-rifle

Bad idea...

A tank is about the worst possible thing you want to bring into any urban environment. There sitting ducks with bugger all mobility, often unable to rotate their turret enough to actually point at what they want to (due to urban obstacles - houses, etc.). And with the prevalence of MANPADS and even your basic grenades in Afghanistan, any tank that enters an urban environment is pretty much asking to wind up a charred wreck within 30minutes...

Voting chaos in not-fit-for-purpose electoral system

Well done!

I have to say thats probably the best description of the current problem ive read so far. Well done!

Its not that proportional representation is better, but the fact is that party politics means that the current system isnt working!

In Aus, we have first-past-the-post constituent voting for the House of Representatives (equivalent to UK House of Commons) and proportional voting for the Senate (equivalent to UK House of Lords). This system seems to work pretty well. Maybe you need to start copying the colonies... ;)

Sorry but i cant disagree more!

Im sorry but you seem to be implying that the use of electronic medium to do the voting should be the way forward - may i be the first to direct your attention to the US, Florida a few years back perhaps?

I will never trust an electronic voting machine or voting over the internet to not be tampered with behind the scenes, so im sorry if you have a beef with good ol trusty paper voting but im more then happy with this method. At least a recount can take place with paper. How do you recount electronic hits?

Agreed there are problems. Having an election on a working day is pretty ridiculous. And having a set closing time when there is still a large line of would be voters equally ridiculous. Postal voting needs to be confined to the rubbish bins of history for everyone except those overseas (and even then it should require some sort of visit to the local embassy to obtain the correct paraphenalia).

But i will never agree with the use of electronics to count my vote. I'll take the pencil and paper every time!

Pirate Party UK sinks on maiden voyage

And there we see...

... why Proportional Representation is far from the be all and end all for solving British politics!

Indo-Mancunian Windows support scammer phones Reg hack

Wow...

How much money can these scammers be making that they can now afford to make long distance international calls to random numbers in the UK in the hope of finding someone stupid enough to trick into doing this?

I mean thats a lot of calls with what, i hope, is a very low percentage takeup. And of those foolish enough to fall for this, are they really the type of people who would even understand how to do internet banking or use a credit card online? Can there really be that much money made out of this?

If so, human stupidity must be more prevalent then even my most cynical guesses would have led me to believe! *shakes head in disbelief*

UK polling stations turn away 'hundreds' of voters

Australia

Australia, cleverly one might say, hold elections on a weekend (usually a saturday). That way, 90% of people are in the clear. Additionally, if your supposed to be working that day, by law your boss has to allow you time off on that day to go and vote.

Remember in Australia by law we have to vote (you get a $50 fine if you dont!), so we have to make the effort to get off the couch and go to the polling station!

Wayward 'zombiesat' poses risk to other satellites

Considering the cost...

... of putting something into geostationary orbit, i doubt very much you would make much profit in salvaging the abandoned satellites. Additionally, there unlikely to be the latest and greatest tech and so probably not worth that much anyway.

Ive always wondered about these libation points as to whether they'res any risk of satellite collisions (like the Iradium and the old russian sat that collided last year) and whether the subsequent debris is likely to affect other Geo stationary satellites? Or are the libation points stable enough to maintain all the debris in those areas? Anyone know?

UK white space could fill up fast

obligatory Blackadder quote...

"If you give them an inch, they'll soon take a foot! And before you know it you wont have a leg to stand on... "

Ofcom pfffttt!

Ofcom just want more spectrum under there banner so that in a few years time when white space actually finds a use then they can start selling it at ridiculous prices to people who really should know better...

Asteroids the source of Earth's water, NASA suggests

Umm no...

Would you consider Octane to be a life form? No? But Octane is a carbon based organic material. Still your right we dont consider it alive - we all know theres a big difference....

But carbon based organic materials are usually considered a requirement for life developing, hence why this place looks interesting - water and carbon-based organic materials! The good stuff!

Expect a headline tomorrow from the Sun saying Life found on Themis...

Slight difference

The definition difference between a comet and an asteroid is that an asteroid orbits the sun (or some other planetary body) in a near constant orbit whilst a comet streaks through the galaxy on a highly ellitpical orbit

Comets tend to be a mixture of ice and rock because they spend so much time a long way from the sun and so most of the time they're too far away for their ice to be melted. When they are close ot the sun, the ice melts (and hence you get a comets tail), but a lot refreezes and other chemical reactions take place as it flys away from the sun and so this changes the chemistry of the ice on the comet.

The significance of this find is that, an asteroid in a stable orbit has been discovered to have surface ice at a distance believed to be so close to the sun that all surface ice should have sublimated away. This means it must have a resevoir or similar of ice/water that would be the same resevoir it had billions of years ago when the Earth was still young...

Finally we might get to drink the original brew that caused cells to decide life could be a good party! Lets hope the hangover isnt too bad...

Beijing security know-how rules irk suppliers

Place your bets on the first company...

Who's your pick for the first company to hand over these details in order to win a contract, only to find in a years time there contract is cancelled, a local company (probably with contacts to someone on the review board) comes in, takes over the contract and is found to use a software identical to the first company's...?

Place your bets!

Man's MySpace page torpedoes personal injury suit

Sorry im missing something here...

... the judge felt that he was lying, exaggerating and making stuff up, yet still awarded him compo?

Ok maybe there was injuries which he needed money to pay for, but lying in court (or even exaggerating) is Perjury and (should) come with a custodial sentence.

Ok award him the $300k, but lock him up for 6 months for lying to the court! It might make other bullsh*t artists question just how much they want to exaggerate there claims by!

Fail by the judge...

Hawking: Aliens are out there, likely to be Bad News

I would say...

... its more about being able ot freely strip the more abundant planets without the annoyance of pesky humans.

If aliens came and started strip mining the other planets, im sure the inhabitants of Earth would take it upon ourselves to defend our solar system (we'll need those resources for when we start strip mining whole planets!). Therefore, whilst it might take a few years of development, we would eventually become a pest. Much simpler, to just wipe out makind from the start in one quick attack, and then strip mine until your hearts content...

Fat cat fanbois' obscene dream bling

A Privee phone?

Well i felt like i needed to vomit after seeing these phones, so the Privy name seems appropriate!

'Beauty with antimatter bottom' created out of pure energy

So what your saying is...

... that this should be an anti-beauty not an anti-bottom? Then may i be the first to propse we rename the anti-bottom an "Essex Lass"?

"Dave i think we've created a beauty"

"Wait Tom, nope its not a beauty, its the opposite of a beauty!"

"No! Not an Essex Lass!"

"Yep, 'fraid so. Still im sure she'll put out a lot.... (of energy)"

The iPad will doom humanity to painful bog-roll horror

brilliant...

Just brilliant! 'Nuff said!

Probe uses solar panels to 'surf' Venusian atmosphere

Clever...

This could also be a great way to "despin" Reaction Wheels which can be a problem on longer duration flights...

Mind you i would not have wanted to be the mission controller who authorised this if things had gone wrong... Venus express was not cheap and losing it pulling aerodynamic burnouts on Venus would probably not be a healthy career move!

Why the banks aren't scared of the Robin Hood Tax

Good comments...

although banks needing money to pay interest to depositors? Your havin a laugh...

Considering the uproar on bankers bonuses and so on - it seems to me that two potential solutions are: 1) massively increase the tax on bonuses above a certain amount (i.e. 50% tax on bonuses of > £100,000 or some similar stepped taxation). 2) regulate that bonuses can only be X% of profits after tax. Option 1 would be easier to manage.

As for preventing World Banking Crisis 2.0 - implementing jail terms for the selling/forwarding of toxic loans (same as fraud offences) might go some way to preventing a repeat performance...

Salesforce.com buys cloudy Jigsaw address book maker

Wow

We are into the era of Cloud 2, huh? Funny, i didnt realise Cloud 1 had finished already?

But i suppose i should be happy that he at least didnt call it Cloud 2.0...

Cameron promises yet more Avatar

Im interested...

.. in how James Cameron can say "not only is it good business, but it’s good for the environment". A film being created by large super computers using loads of power, with lots of non-environmentally friendly products (or at least there not environmentally friendly to dispose of)...

Yes, i can see how thats good for the environment... it makes lots of money and James can buy another Prius´- there's the environmentally friendly angle...

Nokia: digital SLRs are doomed

Idiot...

He's an idiot obviously.

IF he had said camera phones would take over from compact cameras i dont think a person here would argue too much, with better lenses and maybe some special optics some are beginning to get to the level of low end compacts already.

But to say DSLR's is ridiculous. The DSLR is designed with the pro (or keen amateur) in mind, and no piece of equipment which doesnt have the brilliant optics and large sensor of a DSLR will ever produce the required high end images that the pro needs.

Typical marketing bollocks - take what was probably a reasonable comment provide by an engineer (e.g. "Our phone cameras will soon be better then standard compact cameras"), twist it out of all recognition into something stupid and impossible, and release to the market to great derision and ridicule. Now we wait for the next stage where the marketing twerp blames the engineer for giving him the wrong information.

Flights resume in Scotland - Gatwick and Heathrow still shut

The MET Office has copped a lot of flack...

... but they had to be conservative. If a plane had gone up and got into trouble, it would be the guy in the MET office who said "Go" that would be facing prosecution charges. If the plane had crashed and people died, he would most likely be facing Manslaughter charges or similar. Faced with being cautious or potentially going to prison, which do you think you would do?

Virus floors Russian-Chinese automated border

Heihe?

I bet the virus writers were saying Hehe when they heard about this...

Sorry ill get my coat...

Obama 'deep space' Mars plans in Boeing booster bitchslap

Its all well and good...

... to ask for new lifting technologies, but almost all development is evolutionary, not revolutionary!

The computer your using right now is an evolution of the Colossus code breaking machines, and before that you could almost draw a direct line to the Abacus' of ancient Greece and beyond. Theres nothing that Revoltuionary about it...

Politicians always seem to want revolutionary answers to problems... and we all know theres only one good type of revolution, something thats long overdue in this part of town...

Feds drop bid for warrantless access to Yahoo! mail

Hang on a damn minute...

Federal prosecutors in Colorado said the documents "would not be helpful to the government's investigation,"

Then why the hell did they try in the first place? Either they would be helpful to the investigation or they wouldnt? If they wouldnt be helpful, then theres no reason to try in the first place is there?

I smell something fishy here...

Is there any possibility of getting the court to sanction the prosecutors for wasting court time?

Herd of sheep, off tits on drugs, savagely Tased

Well considering...

... how the US government and the US police (and seemingly Taser international) consider the US population to be sheep, i guess they thought this study would be a direct comparison.

Volcanic ash grounds dozens of UK flights

Have you seen the size of this cloud?

It covers most of scotland, northern england and ireland, you plonker.

Volcanic ash is particularly dangerous to aircraft engines because of its size, shape and texture (its basically like taking a sandblaster to the engine only with sand that will strip metal in a matter of minutes) and has been responsible for a number of crashes and significantly more midair engine shutdowns. And those engines that do survive a clash with a volcanic ash cloud are likely to need months of overhaul to make them servicable again.

Seriously, safety has to come first in this instance, if you dont see that somethings wrong with you...

Short answer - Yes

For two reasons - 1 it will do a damn good job of stripping the propellors, and 2 - Props still make use of turbines in order to power the prop, the air being sucked into the turbines will still be laden with volcanic ash and will still go about destroying the internals.

Id almost guess that props are even more endangered because the ash will probably do a fine job on the props bearings too. But thats speculation.

The only way i can think prpos might be ok is if they flew below the ash cloud but the problem with ash is that its bloody hard to see the cloud in the first place until you fly into it (its not like a regular cloud), so it might be risky to try...

OU: Digital divide now between clued and clueless

Yep...

And the UK higher education providers are only now catching up...

So everything running as per normal then...

Transport for London gobbles up Oyster

So when do you think...

... Londoners are likely to see the cost decrease (or at least the temporary halting of the continual price rises) from these £4 million pounds in savings?

Funny i havent noticed Lucifer sharpening his ice skates recently, you?

Facebook rejects CEOP 'panic button' demands (again)

Attention The Register

Can you please go out and interview Jim Gamble and ask him how EXACTLY this would have helped that girl... That way we can see if he really does believe the bollocks he spouts, or if hes just trying to push his own agenda in the most disgusting way!

Get out there and do your job of exposing this odious little turd for the bastard he is!

Thousands wrongly labelled by CRB checks

Just a question...

I have no experience with the CRB checks so if someone with more knowledge can clarify this for me id appreciate it - If a CRB check is carried out by a potential employer and comes back to falsely identify you as a criminal. Are you informed of this result?

Because if not, i can see many occasions were errors are made but the potential employer just says "sorry we found a more suitable candidate" without telling you the reason which in this example would be primarily because you failed the CRB check. Without being informed of this (false) result, you would be unable to get the records corrected, and as such you would potentially miss out on many jobs in the future because your now branded as a criminal.

So has anyone had experience with the CRB checks? Do you find out the result? Or are you left in the dark unless the potential employer is good enough to pass on the results to you?

NHS blames computer error for transplant fouls

Ridiculous Analogies

Sorry Claus but your analogies are ridiculous.

Firstly, if a meteor strikes and takes down a computer then that is not something that can be planned for by either the computer, the programmer or the user (the odds being so extremely low!). And i strongly doubt anyone would be blaming that on a computer error or a user error. The blame may go to the users for not having a good enough disaster recovery plan to regain the lost information in a quick and orderly fashion, but the strike itself would not be blamed on a computer error.

Secondly, within the earths atmosphere ionising particles are not a risk to computers, however, in space this is a definte risk and it is one that is taken into account on every satellite that is currently flying above this big blue sphere we call home. It is such a common problem that every program that run on computers in space must be designed so that should an ionising event occur (and there are a number of different types causing differing effects) the program will be able to detect as much and either reset or shut down the computer to prevent further damage. Therefore, if an event occurs in this way and does cause a problem then i would suggest that this is a failure of the programming to anticipate a known and likely event and to precipitate the correct instructions. So yes this is a user/programmer error.

On your last point "So what do we need Gods for then?", well the fact is that we as rational sentient beings do NOT need gods. But some people still feel more comfortable believing in a higher power/sky fairy/etc. That is life... It has no bearing on the differences between computer errors and user errors.

Finally to refute your argument i offer this - Can a knife be in error? if it cuts someone is that the knifes fault or the users? If the blade is dull perhaps that counts as an error? Or is that an error of the user for not sharpening the knife? Obviously a knife can be broken, but will a knife every break on its own? So that would be the users fault for using the knife incorrectly, no?

By the same logic is there any dumb object that can be said to make an error? I would say no, only the user of a dumb object can cause the error. And computers are no more then dumb objects, we attribute more to them then most things because they are so much more complex but all of that complexity is down to either programming or user control. So any errors i would suggest automatically fall into those categories...

Just a thought...

Administrator access: Right or privilege?

this was actually a BOFH in training...

I think its quite obvious why he didnt report the people to management - he was getting a free load of porn, with someone else doing the downloading who would get fired if discovered (or who could be nicely blackmailed...).

You let the luser download the porn, you copy it to a new location (you seem to have missed that part in the article ;) ), then delete material so that the luser has to go and download new material, and so on...

As for the deleting root and all, what a convenient excuse to reload a backup which just happens to be missing the logs of the file copying (and probably a nice series of financial transactions involving the company bonus scheme if this was a true BOFH)...

Never attribute to Malice what can be explained by Incompetence.... unless your dealing with a BOFH...

Giant solar-powered aircraft takes to the skies

Astronaut diaper perhaps?

I do not want to be the one meeting them at landing time, i have to say!

Child abuse frame-up backfires on stalker

Ahhh but you forget...

...were dealing with child porn here.

You dont need to be convicted to have your life ruined...

The Sex Offenders Register? WTF?

Ok i have no problem with him being charged and locked in chokey for 4 and a half years. Trying to destroy someones life like this (especially considering the current Daily Fail's "Oh My God wont someone think of the children" bollocks - the guys lucky he didnt get lynched!) deserves at least 4.5 years.

But having to sign the Sex Offenders Register? I dont get it. OK he obviously downloaded the child porn to stick it on his victims machine but is there any evidence that he watched it? Or that he committed any sort of Sex crime? Is there anyone on the Sex Offenders Register anymore that actually committed a crime the database was set up for?

The Sex Offenders Register - destroying lives without needing to commit a sex crime since 2005...