Posts by diodesign

NSA mass spying reform KILLED by US Senators

Re: ecarlseen

'I still think you don't get it, as you're casting this as an essentially "Democrat vs Republican" issue'

I do get it. We're not. It's obvious some Rs and Ds are voting against their own sides, but look at the voting record.

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Re: anonymous coward

You're assuming the Republican-controlled Congress won't renew it as is come June 2015.

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Re: Anonymous coward

"Since Justin Amash is also the only member of Congress to explain every vote he makes on his Facebook page, I'll let him explain"

Yes, yes. Some people didn't like it. Got it. I've added a link to his post. I think the piece is fair: we do say *some* of the NSA's spying operations – not a complete shutdown of domestic surveillance.

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LIFE, JIM? Comet probot lander found 'ORGANICS' on far-off iceball

Re: bfwebster

"Do you realize that a large set of organic molecules have been detected throughout interstellar space, don't you?"

Go home, everyone.

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I'M SO SORRY, sobs Rosetta Brit boffin in 'sexist' sexy shirt storm

Re: Sad, y'know?

Well, we in the office are largely in support of the dude. He made a mistake picking that shirt; it's a bit mad for the moment. And then the internet got upset. And now he's apologized, in a heartbreaking way.

Just throwing it out there for debate. But we're not condemning the guy.

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FTC to Apple: Turn your head and cough while we feel for balls-up with HealthKit privacy

Re: John Tserkezis

TIL insurance and advertising agencies aren't miscreants ;-)

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Exit the dragon: US govt blows $325m on China-beating 300PFLOPS monster computer

Re: Source?

It definitely is POWER9 - one of the suppliers told me and the Oak Ridge lab confirmed it.

You heard it here first. That's why you should read The Register :-)

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'Scope boffins get INSIDE URANUS after snapping mystery spots

Re: cjminshall

NEVER!

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Euro space boffins ready, mere hours from flinging Rosetta lander at Comet 67P

Re: "into a speeding comet"?????

The lander is harpooning the rock and then, once on the surface, drilling into it.

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Be Your Own Big Brother: Going to pot

Re: Richard 30

Your first rejected comment had a link in it that looked like spam. Your second rejected comment was complaining you'd been rejected.

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Obama HURLS FCC under train, GUTPUNCHES ISPs in net neut battle

Re: Old School Rules

1934, mate.

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158 new malware created EVERY MINUTE

Syntax error.

Congrats: assuming you were writing for a BBC Micro, you tried to write malware on a wide-open, insecure platform and managed to trigger one of its few protection mechanism. Bravo.

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Oculus Rift tech-specs 'many months away' from hitting the shelves

Re: Spaz

I don't know how it's possible to be this angry about some VR gadget.

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Russians hear Tim Cook is gay, pull dead Steve Jobs' enormous erection

Re: Cheap dig

"I have practiced martial arts since the early '70s (apparently often in pyjamas)"

Take life a little less seriously.

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COMET 67P is basically TRAILING a HORRIFIC STENCH through space

Re: Missed Cyanide?

Yeah yeah, it written and edited at 6pm PT and we were tired. It's been fixed. Next time, please email [e-mail] so it can be fixed immediately rather than a day later.

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Forget the $2499 5K iMac – today we reveal Apple's most expensive computer to date

Re: What this world needs...

The 6502 is a beautiful thing.

(Though I'm a wuss. I skipped 6502 as a youngster and went straight to ARMv2a.)

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The 'fun-nification' of computer education – good idea?

Re: Teach Coding in Schools?

"Incidentally, QANGO is not spelled 'QUANGO'"

In our dictionary it is. QUasi-Autonomous Non Government Organization (1970s, US origin).

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AMD pays new CEO $150K LESS than her male predecessor

In this thread

ITT apologists for sexism. I am disappoint.

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Re: AMD Cutting 7% of Workforce

"In this case they've made themselves look very stupid."

Yeah, really stupid. Good grief.

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Sway: Microsoft's new Office app doesn't have an Undo function

Re: groberts116

"I notice you didn't publish my remarks"

Calm your tits. You're a new poster. Your first few comments have to wait to be hand-moderated.

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The Apple launch AS IT HAPPENED: Totally SERIOUS coverage, not for haters

Re: returnmyjedi

As far as we're aware, there is a nanoSIM slot – just a software SIM as well that you can reconfigure at will for a UK or US carrier for a short-term data plan (handy when traveling abroad apparently).

Supported soft carriers are AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile US and EE.

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It's 2014 and you can still own a Windows box using a Word file or font

Re: Don't forget Java!

There is a shedload of Java security updates from Oracle today, too. More to follow.

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Sponsored content

Re: Re: Sponsored content

But it's the same as it ever was. Advertising never ever means endorsement, whether it's a section rebrand, display ad or marked-up advertorial.

The first us in editorial know of a specific ad campaign is when we see it on the front page along with our readers.

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Re: Sponsored content

Hi.

It's flagged up as sponsored content in bold in the sub-headline on the front page, and article archive listings, and in the article. Twice.

Like advertising, it help funds our independent journalism, which is 99% of our output and the bit you like reading.

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To Russia With Love: Snowden's pole-dancer girlfriend is living with him in Moscow

Re: William Donelson

"'pole dancer girlfriend' headline is a cheap insult. Shame on you Reg. AGAIN."

I knew it, I knew someone would post something like that. As I was walking home from work, and thinking over the headline, I knew someone – someone filled with righteous rage and blinded by the desire to root out misogyny – would stumble down the logic well.

Here's the question – riddle me this:

What's insulting about being a pole dancer? Insulting to you? Sounds like you're being awfully judgmental. Turn the mirror on yourself.

There is no "shame" here.

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Re: Daniele

"I wonder why so many women find this industry an unpleasant, uncomfortable one to be in?"

This upsets me because I don't wake up in the morning to objectify people nor make others feel unwelcome in an industry in the stuff I publish. That was never the intention.

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Re: William Donelson

We were pretty pleased for him in the SF office; good on them. Glad they made it work.

PS: If you're upset about these latest revelations of his private life, I urge you to reread the article all the way to the bottom and apply critical thought. In fact, read the Intercept's article, all of it. These lines from Greenwald are crucial:

"Vital to the U.S. government and its assorted loyalists in the commentariat is to depict whistleblowers as destined to live miserable lives ... But the fact that he is now living in domestic bliss as well, with his long-term girlfriend whom he loves, should forever put to rest the absurd campaign to depict his life as grim and dank."

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AT&T to fork out less than two days' profit in bogus bill charge flap

Re: Cubical Drone

"I not be surprised to find that the fine is less than the amount of money that they made via this practice."

The FCC has said it runs into hundreds of millions of dollars: $108m in one year alone.

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Blighty: Welcome your new, faceless MI6 chief – Alex Younger

Re: Re: The DA-Notice or Defence Advisory Notice ...

"telling everyone where they can find uncensored pictures and then lampooning the whole censorship issue with their 'redacted' image?"

This guy gets it.

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Shellshock: 'Larger scale attack' on its way, warn securo-bods

Re: hype

"The fact is that a hacker would have to find an injection point."

Which are really easy to find. But you're right: patch and move on. If you can patch, that is. And if you've patched in time.

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Hackers thrash Bash Shellshock bug: World races to cover hole

Re: criminals != hackers

"Can we please stop calling criminals "hackers" for crying out loud!"

No. You've lost control of the word, I'm afraid. When editing articles, I tend to prefer crooks, criminals, miscreants, thieves, attackers, infiltrators, spies, crims, villains, and perps over hackers.

But sometimes hackers will do.

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Patch Bash NOW: 'Shellshock' bug blasts OS X, Linux systems wide open

Re: CGI Only?

"So is this a problem just for CGI?"

No. Some DHCP clients, OpenSSH, etc anything that passes user input into an environment variable for Bash to read (and accidentally execute). And even if your program is clean, if it spawns a child that launches another script that invokes Bash, you're still at risk because the env var is still there lingering in the background.

It won't affect everything, but just enough to be a PITA.

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Re: BSD

BSD should be safe.

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Re: Be careful how you test

"The example exploit code does not necessarily work."

Fair point - it was testing whatever shell was your /bin/sh. I've tweaked the code to test /bin/sh and Bash explicitly. Bear in mind, on OS X, /bin/sh is Bash and not a symlink and is thus vulnerable.

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Re: This was fixed before you even reported it

And who uses Mageia?

This is a worryingly widespread bug.

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Apple: SO sorry for the iOS 8.0.1 UPDATE BUNGLE HORROR

Re: Computer?

We're not in Kansas anymore, so even Apple says you gotta grab iTunes to fix things.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6487

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ARM gives Internet of Things a piece of its mind – the Cortex-M7

Re: Re: Coincidence or by Design?

"Worth noting that's just the CPU area _in_ the chip"

Absolutely – perhaps I need to make this clearer. The 0.1mm sq is the core. If you're manufacturing one of these, you'll have to bolt on peripherals et al.

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Why does it take 8 hours for my posts to be approved?

Re: I ain't Spartacus

"El Reg don't do keyword scanning"

Correct. Pretty much all your post is spot on.

"The Register have said they don't have mods, but their subbies and whichever hacks have a minute spare go on the forums to try to keep order."

Again, true.

"Thirdly this is a pretty damned lenient forum."

I'm glad you think so :) Pretty much anything goes as long as it's not going to get us in trouble or scare off others from taking part. (This is my summary of the rules; not a replacement of them.)

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Re: Why does it take 8 hours for my posts to be approved?

"Am I down on some kind of dissident list?"

No, you were posting on one of Andrew's articles, so you went into a queue. Nothing personal; all of Andrew's stories require pre-mod to keep away the anti-Andrew brigade.

That's the size of it.

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Apple iPhone 6: Looking good, slim. AW... your battery died

Re: Re: How much?

"ensuring the press are treated to lavish launches"

Ahem. Ensuring Apple's pet press are treated to lavish launches. The lengths Apple went to to keep us away from the new iPhones was amusing.

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Microsoft's axeman Nadella fills baskets with 2,100 fresh heads

Re: Nadella fills baskets with 2,100 fresh heads ?

Sir,

Your suggestion that the headline was optimized for search engines so as to nestle the story within coverage of a bloodstained medieval terror campaign is, to use a technical term within the industry, complete cobblers.

Respectfully yours,

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iPhone 6: Most exquisite MOBILE? No. It is the Most Exquisite THING. EVER

Re: Re: Hmmm.....

It is neither.

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Permabit builds shrink-your-SAN dedupe box

Re: Re: Shame..

Just to be clear: As louisPTC has mentioned in earlier comments, he works for Permabit.

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Speaking in Tech: 'I'm an Apple guy and I COULD CARE LESS about the iWatch'

Re: Re: How much do you care?

It's just a quote, mate. Have a listen.

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What the BLOCK? Microsoft to gobble Minecraft-maker 'for $2bn'

Re: Re: Absolute stark raving, swivel-eyed, dog fingering insanity

"The company has revenues of $2.9 billion, but a tiny profit of $150 million."

It was $290m.

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Re: Re: Absolute stark raving, swivel-eyed, dog fingering insanity

It was $290m in profit.

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Sellouts! Fans snap up iPhone 6 Plus pre-orders to avoid store queues

Re: How many articles now?

"Tired and bitter journalists brow-beaten into churning out articles a company they loathe"

Actually, we quite enjoy it.

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Sun's MASSIVE solar storm belch to light up Earth's skies

Re: OK so

The leading edge is moving that fast, not the whole flare.

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Re: A small clarification, please

It will likely intercept us.

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Apple's Watch is basically electric perfume

Re: Re: industry subpar knock-offs

Yup, there are 32-bit ARM and x86 CPUs with 40 or 48-bit address buses to physical memory.

(As an aside, 64-bit virtual address space gives you a bit more headroom for applications. Whether or not that's really useful in a handheld device is another thing for debate.)

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