Posts by AB

Glassholes, snapt**ts, #blabbergasms, selfies and PRISM: The Reg's review of 2013

If I were the religious type, I would be inclined to hope that there would be a special place in Hell for the likes of Elop, where demons hit him in the face with tiles (ceramic, not live) and promise him that they won't hit him with tiles and then hit him in the face with tiles again, then sell him to other demons after promising not to do that.

Anti-Israel hackers leak nuclear watchdog email addresses

Re: @ Matt Bryant

Here's a short list of words you have introduced into the conversation: "Fakeistinian", ZERO, prepubescent.

You write that "all have just as much right to refer to themselves as Palestinians if they wish". Therefore, it remains unclear to me why - despite your history buff posturing - you insist that "Fakeistinian" is somehow more appropriate for the inhabitants of Gaza/West Bank.

Worth noting also that if I'm on a hobbyhorse, I'd be standing on the ground and therefore I wouldn't be "up" - unless the moral variety is different from the common-or-garden hobbyhorse.

@ Matt Bryant

Who or what are these "Fakeistinians" you keep referring to?

I'm finding it hard to take you seriously, partly because you seem to me to carry some fairly extreme bias around with you, but also because you appear to be introducing imaginary people into what is a fairly serious discussion.

If you want people to take your opinions seriously, a good first step is to leave the playground name-calling where it belongs: on the playground and in your childhood.

Creepy skull find proves Man penetrated Asia 60,000 years ago

Re: Scroticus Canis

Perhaps the skull was washed into the cave, and further dirt was then laid down in the cave by further water/wind/other means.

Software disaster zone Knight Capital bags $400m lifeline

Bit late, but...

...it's worth pointing out (as non-Spartacus has done several times) that Knight weren't pro traders here. That is to say: they weren't buying and selling on their own behalf, but on behalf of their clients, e.g. pension funds, other banks, hedge funds, high net worth individuals (aka the 1%)

Based on other stuff I've read the test module which went wrong was designed to simulate orders from those clients in a test environment. It wasn't a flash git algo gone wrong - it was never designed to go into production.

Vic, who gets all the above, then says "You have to wonder why the testing package wasn't on a physically separate machine which gets thrown into the canal once its job is done."

This simply isn't how it's done. I'd put large amounts of money on the the production systems being physically separate (and probably beefier) machines from the test systems. Most likely these production hosts sit on a different network in a secure data-centre somewhere, running primary/standby (or more) and proofed against all manner of threats. What happened here - and I'm guessing, but it's a guess based on a number of years' industry experience - is that it was a failure of deployment, i.e. a 'test mode' switch was left flicked, an extra module was installed during an install/upgrade...

So this time, we can't blame Cocaine Jimmy the Sociopathic Trader, nor Bob the Banker (he who bathes in the tears of widows and orphans). We should look inwards. It's an IT failure, and anyone who hasn't made a mistake like this (perhaps without the repercussions, but the same level of error) simply hasn't been around long enough. Although the game was played out in a financial arena, this was an IT cockup, and better IT practices are called for.

Nokia CEO: No shift from Windows Phone

What, nothing from RICHTO?

I'm shocked.

...and could everyone please stop suggesting that Nokia should switch to Android. They wouldn't survive, and even if they did, what kind of independence is that?

Unnecessary nuke icon, just to see if it's like a bat logo for RICHTO's nonsense...

Nokia straps Qt into ejector seat and hits the shiny red button

@RICHTO

Although I'm of the opinion that you are in fact a masochistic troll, here's some free advice just in case you are sincere: you should probably take the time & trouble to actually read these articles you post, because that last one contradicts your claims.

"A few brave souls actually [using] Linux-like Internet facing servers"? Like, oh, let me pick one at random: Google? I know you know what Google is, because you've been referring us to it so we can check your 'facts'.

Zone-H is probably not a reliable source of statistics for the purposes you are using them for: http://www.gamelinux.org/?cat=4&paged=3

Finally: you're clearly a fan of Zone-H. They're serving their webpages from nginx. Have a guess what OS they're probably running behind that?

Credit where credit is due, Windows is fine for what it's good at. I have personally bought two Windows 7 licenses; it's a fairly decent "let's just get things done" client OS. However, as everyone here except you is already aware, your claims that it is somehow inherently more secure than Linux, especially as a server OS, are laughable and without merit.

Next.

Re: Nice hate for WP7 around here.

I'm no great supporter of Android; I don't currently use Android on a day-to-day basis. I'm not "hating" on WP7 - just asking what makes it unique & special.

RICHTO: nice list. I asked what was new. Most of the items you cite may be new to WP8, but arguably that's because WP7 is lacking a number of features which most people have been using for months or even many years on other platforms.

IE10 (IE9 was fastest browser when launched and has had fewer vulnerabilities than any major rival - liely IE10 will be similar) - fastest how? The JavaScript engine? HTML render test? Or what? Mac OSX has had fewer known vulnerabilities than Windows XP/Vista/7 - does that make it a better OS? I'd suggest that it does not; perhaps you disagree...

NFC inc tap and send - already in Nokia N9

Bluetooth file transfer - already in everything ever (except iPhone)

Windows 8 kernel - well yes, only Windows 8 will have a Windows 8 kernel! We have a winner!

Multicore support - various mobile OS already in this space for quite some time

Hardware graphics acceleration (inc in IE10) - various mobile OS already in this space for quite some time (except the IE10 bit)

removable memory card support (not really required in a handset designed for cloud, but i guess a few want it) - great, but not unique to WP8

In app purchases - are not unique to WP8

Fully integrated Skype - is not unique to WP8 (had it on my N900 years ago)

Fully integrated RCS-e - could be interesting, but is anyone using this yet? Also, didn't Nokia spec this out pre-Microsoft? Is this unique to WP8? If so, it will reduce usefulness; if not, it's not unique to WP8

Fully integrated Datasmart - is not unique to WP8

OTA updates - are not unique to WP8; again, welcome to 2008

Visual Voicemail - is not unique to WP8 (seeing a pattern here?)

Extended voice commands and search - etc. etc.

Cloud sync of all content - I think Apple have some initi

Native code support.

Hi res screen support

Ultra high res camera support

screenshots

MS Wallet

Resizable tiles

Universal search

None of these are unique, except for one or two MS initiatives.

I think you missed my point.

Re: Whatever Richto's on, I want some

OK, I'll bite.

> New features

New features such as... what? Live Tiles (which everyone else has been calling widgets for a number of years)? Or what?

> That can only build on a sales profile that is seemingly following an exponential curve...

My local Bell Canada store (a flagship, by the way) has a large WP display in the window. As I have previously posted in these forums, the staff in there know next to nothing about WP. I went in there posing as an interested consumer, and at the time I asked the staff I spoke to weren't even sure if they had actually sold any WP7 devices at that store. They then asked me if I was interested in - you guessed it - iPhone or Android.

> more carriers are known and are happening with ther release of WP 8

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here. It's generally accepted that carriers like locked-down operating systems. Other than that, I'm not clear what WP offers. For instance, you stated earlier that all PureView needed was to be combined with a "unique" OS; well, WP is unique for sure, but so is Symbian. So what?

> recent indications are that [WP] is rapidly becoming a success

Why yes, I think I read something on El Reg forums recently where someone was saying something along those lines!

> Microsoft still have plenty of leeway to throw money at it if they need to...

If? Hah!

Microsoft's terror of being left out of the mobile space has been in plain sight for many years. Many victims... err, partners have been drained of their lifeblood by Microsoft's helping hand. This latest episode with Nokia is no different, except in terms of sheer scale. Microsoft will spend any amount and play any number of dirty tricks to stay at this table. Of course, as a [wannabe/fake/trollolol?] Microsoft Munchkin, you already know this.

As for MeeGo power users (2 E's, by the way - no need to thank me), we're still out here. MeeGo Harmattan received a major update last month, the community effort for the N9 is ongoing, and there are plenty of interesting things out there beyond Nokia; e.g. @jollamobile and the article this comments thread is for.

I know it's unethical to feed the trolls, but sometimes it's just irresistible.

@AC

I downvoted RICHTO for his total mischaracterisation of what really happened with MeeGo & Symbian, no for "saying something positive about MS/WP/Nokia", and I'll wager others have done the same as I have. Nice straw man.

@RICHTO

"Dead and dying MeGo [sic] and Symbian crap"?

Your comment implies that Nokia ditched MeeGo because it was dying, whereas the truth is that they buried two innovative and commercially successful/viable platforms, then killed them. If Harmattan had been given the promotion that Nokia's WP mess has been given, there's no telling what could have been achieved. I think you know how disingenuous your comment is.

Further, your link (http://betanews.com/2012/08/03/android-leads-ios-follows-windows-phone-shows-surprising-growth/) talks about WP shipments, not sales. If I'm willing to waste enough money, I can ship any amount of anything to anyone anywhere; doesn't mean much, though. Shame that consumers aren't really biting, even with the massive discounting on Nokia Lumia.

Your homework: which sold more in the 3 months on the market: the wildly over-promoted Lumia, or the buried-before-during-and-after-release N9, which wasn't even released in many countries?

Note: "sold" here takes its traditional meaning, i.e. "a consumer voluntarily handed over their cash in return for taking the device away and using it", not s"some marketing budget got moved around, some incentives were given, some lies were told and someone blogged about the whole process".

No rush. I think you know the answer, but go ahead and post more fail if you've got nothing better to do.

US networks: Political donations by text? Rlly nt a gud idea

A modest proposal

"those who don't (by waving the fee as the operators do for some charities) are guilty of contributing to political parties that might be supported by their customers but perhaps not so popular among their shareholders."

I take it that the inference here is that the network operator could be seen to be supporting a particular party by not taking a cut of the donation (as they would for, say, a reality TV vote).

If that is a concern, perhaps a truly non-partisan charitable cause could be found - surely there must be such a thing - and the cut taken and diverted to said charity. Cancer research comes to mind, because it takes a special kind of person to publicly say bad things about it...

...not that an American lawyer hasn't already taken the trouble to do exactly that: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/18/carreon_sues_oatmeal_operation_bear_love/

Finally: I think that donating via text sounds great but will likely lead to exactly the sort of circumvention of already breaking-at-the-seams US campaign-funding legislation that the author fears.

Apple design chief Jony Ive knighted - but not by the Queen

Re: Awesomely predictable...

Awesomely predictable == predictably awesome...

...or neither you nor I would be here (well, probably we would, as El Reg does occasionally cover IT or other related stories, but I digress).

OK, so the constant warring is not awesome in the slightest*, but aren't most of us here as a brief respite from shovelling coal into some IT/project management/technology/whatever furnace? Given generally accepted theories re: small semi-frequent breaks and their positive effect on productivity, is it so far-fetched that this outpouring of vitriol might actually increase economic output somewhere, somehow...?

A stretch, probably. Either way, it seems none of us are immune to the giddy thrill of a wee dram of petulant, self-righteous, intolerant, judgemental and unsophisticated semi-anonymous judgement. I know I'm not.

* it may not be awesome, but it can be fun?

PS I'm awarding myself a FAIL for being unable to type reel gud (or proof my own comments prior to submitting them), despite my fairly complete awareness of the Preview function. Sorry for the deleted posts...

@SB

SB said: "I'd much rather ponce around on my estate cooking biscuits...

I very much enjoy the way in which you've shown your true colours here. Seems as though it's "morally reprehensible" that some people are _considerably richer than yow_... but then perhaps it is safe to assume - based, again, on your thoughtful and incisive commentary - that if you were the one with the butler, you might just find it in your heart to be slightly more "conformist".

You don't have any idea what the Queen actually does, do you?

Check her diary. I bet you wouldn't be able to manage two weeks of what she does. She's 86, and has dedicated her life to serving others. I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that you dedicate yourself to serving yourself whatever's in your parents' fridge when you get home from art college. No doubt you'll have some impressive rebuttal, but I don't really mind: I've already judged you without knowing anything at all about you... just as you seem to be doing to HRH.

Nokia Lumia 900 WinPho 7 smartphone

@marc 9

"Also lack of SD card is a GOOD thing. Users don't want to have to decide..."

etc. etc.

Are you sure you'd not be happier with an iPhone?

Re: Titles are for toffs

Haha! Funny!

Just because iPhone has many faults (and it does!) doesn't make WP7 good, nor does it make Microsoft's perversion of Nokia's highly innovative N9/Meego into the Lumia do-as-we-tell-you suddenly OK. Let's not t forget that that slick Lumia 900 hardware design is wholesale stolen from the N9.

Spire crack brings Siri to jailbroken iPhones

So, err, has anyone...

...actually found a practical use for Siri once you get bored of amusing friends and co-workers on day 1?

Outside the US it seems to be more or less totally useless, and even with the location services available in the US I fail to see what use it is for anyone [with fingers]. Perhaps in 10 years' time we'll wonder how we did without voice-recognition services, but I'm not yet convinced.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

Nokia, Skype, ARM: Microsoft's big year in review

Risk management

@David Shaw, you bought a WP7 device to avoid bugs & exploits?

That's like moving to live in a petrol refinery because the curtains in your house aren't flame-retardant.

2011's Best... Smartphones

What, no Nokia N9?

The culmination of Nokia's 7-year, 5-step plan running a brand new and highly innovative UI which has garnered rave reviews from basically every quarter ("It's great but I'm just worried that Nokia won't be supporting it" - sigh).

No, you had to go with the changeling WindowsPhone Lumia - the replicant copycat hardware, bizarre/restrictive OS, the X-Box connectivity. I went into the Telus flagship store here in Toronto last week and asked (as neutrally as I could manage, mind you) "How are you guys finding WP?" (based on the large display in the Window).

"Oh, no-one ever asks about them. I'm not sure we've actually sold any at this location."

...and even though I don't own one, I'm as surprised as my fellow commentards at the lack of SGS2. It is a stunning bit of kit.

Nokia still in the red in Q3 sales bloodbath

I just want to buy a 64GB N9...

...but as it stands I'll have to import it, if I can even find somewhere semi-reputable which is selling one.

So Meego wasn't ready, and that's why the platform had to be set on fire? Well Meego's ready now, although you'd barely know it if you weren't paying attention. Where're the WP phones? Oh right, they're coming. Eventually. But no-one cares.

No-one will fly to another country to pick up a WP anything, but that's exactly what people are doing for the N9, as John Hughes notes above.

US corporate moneygrab >> beauty, form, fashion, function, Euro-centric design, bright future that sadly will never be.

Mine's the one with the large bundle of notes burning a hole in my pocket until I can buy an N9.

Augh.

MS names Nokia WinPho models in compo blunder

@aThingOrTwo: Windows Phone (7.5) is very far ahead of Meego right now?

<sarcasm eyes="rolling">Yeah, you're spot on there. I hear WP7 even has copy & paste now...</sarcasm>

As for your nay-saying re: N900 sales: the N900 was never intended as a mass-market consumer device, but that's exactly what the N9 has been designed to be, so your contention that the N9 won't sell well isn't really a reflection of quality of either the hardware or the software. Sadly the launch and distribution of the N9 has been thrown under the Ballmer bus.

Enjoy your Mango tiles.

Mine's the one with the N9 in the pocket.

Hong Kong police cuff suspect in stock market attacks

Duly noted

Thanks for the followup. Interested to see if there's any further updates on this; particularly if there's any discussion of the suspect's alleged motivation for the attack.

Looking at the HK police website, this may actually be one of the least depressing stories on there (no-one got killed).

Microsoft unveils file-move changes in Windows 8

@Armando 123

Only the BOFH uses rm to 'rename' files...

Museum gets free NFC phone-tap exhibit cards from Nokia

Didn't Nokia used to make phones?

...or something?

Burning platform etc. etc. Elop conspiracy, WP7 sucks, Microsoft trojan buyout...

Ah, I don't even have the energy any more. Nokia's done.

Nokia snubs UK with N9

The rot continues

It doesn't matter whether you're an MS apologist or a full-on Darth-Ballmer sent-the-Elop-trojan-horse tin-foil-hat enthusiast...

...or maybe just somewhere in the middle and had hoped to buy an N9 - and its successors - in order to own an open phone with a great user experience.

It's quite clear that the Nokia we knew is toast.

Hack on Hong Kong Stock Exchange disrupts trading

Trading system unaffected

So unless I'm missing something, this is not a very exciting story. It's still news, but only just.

Microsoft strategy chief quits Redmond

When did Elop decide to burn the platform?

"Last year, Nokia made Windows Phone its strategic smartphone operating system of choice, dumping Symbian."

No, the Elopcalypse was this year, not last year.

I know it seems impossible that one CEO could mangle so much strategy and spread so much FUD while pursuing a strategy that - to me at least - makes little or no sense, all in the space of a few months, but Elop has managed it.

To save the apologists some trouble, I should here acknowledge that Nokia management was failing at many things before Elop, but that does not reduce the significance of:

the Burning Platform memo

the 'hey, no cameras' leak of the WP7 device mere hours after the N9 announcement\

the "will we/won't we release/support our MeeGo phones properly" Helsingin Sanomat interview

any of the other stunts he has pulled.

I'm not sure he's a trojan horse (my tinfoil hat is in storage), but surely he is MS-blinkered and failing to understand the value of the assets he has/had at Nokia. You cannot force an 'ecosystem' into existence by willpower (or even M$ money). People need to want to buy what you're selling. Let's also not forget that 'ecosystem' is in any case a fantastic bullshit term which is being flung about very freely by marketing types and pitiful 'industry analysts' - who often have no idea what they're talking about and/or have commercial interests in seeing the market move one way or another.

Hang on... cancel all the above. I get it. You mean he had decided to dump Symbian and MeeGo last year (but only announced it this year?)

Nokia unveils Contractual Obligation Meego Phone

<Various talking heads> putting the anal back in analyst

Is it just me who's sick of hearing tech analysts trash-talk that which they barely understand? One reason that things are sometimes hard to sell is a load of simplistic quotes from Gartner et al.

...of course, Nokia haven't helped themselves much these last 10 years either. But still: the N9 has fantastic potential. And I am gonna buy one.

Acer tweaks tablet with MeeGo move

@David Gosnell

You tried what, exactly? A commercially-released MeeGo device running a properly customised UI (because if so please tell me where I can buy it)? Or did you in fact come by your harsh and ill-formed opnion based on the reference UI of a pre-release version of MeeGo running on a device which has had minimal or no QA?

Thought so.

Nokia CTO replaced by Professor of Karma

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!

That is all.

MeeGo and Mango promise mobile web delights

Who in their right mind would actually buy a WP7 device after Maemo/Symbian?

The title was conveniently auto-completed for me by my browser, as this isn't the first article spewing FUD as well as just bizarre statements about the 'unique' live tiles, which are demonstrably not unique in any way, shape or form.

Who are these hordes who are champing at the bit to get their hands on a WP7 phone?

Why on earth did Nokia kill MeeGo? Because it wasn't ready for primetime. Yeah, right. So why can't the hordes get their hands on the WP7 holy grail live tile-spewing device? Because WP7 isn't ready for pri...

Oh.

Follow the money.

Ballmer: Time up for 'stuck in the past' Microsoft CEO?

If only...

...he could have been happy drooling over Skype and left Nokia alone.

Did PlayStation Network hackers plan supercomputer botnet?

@Paul 125

"All these hacking incidents actually vindicate Sony in wanting to sue the ass off GeoHotz"

Oh yes. That's abundantly clear.

Wait... what?!

Care to explain your PoV, ideally using a combination of facts and logic?

User data stolen in Sony PlayStation Network hack attack

@trafalgar

We'll never know the truth, but I suspect you're not far off.

I further suspect that anyone who thinks you are being overly cynical has never worked for a corporation.

Nokia floats out a collection of cool concepts

I'd trade all of this...

...for the Nokia MeeGo phone which was supposed to be in my pocket right now.

Five Reasons to be cheerful about Nokia-Microsoft

It isn't scientific...

"Here's a graph of developer search queries on popular programmer forum stackoverflow.com, which shows the level of interest in each platform. It isn't scientific"

No, it isn't scientific, is it?

http://talk.maemo.org

Nokia's developers wait and wait for Windows Phone

Because I'm not a MSFT shareholder...

...I don't think they deserve a positive article written about them for this one, Paul 117.

Assuming that you're not one of the astroturfers who have been working hard across Nokia Conversations and the tech blogs since Friday, what exactly is it that you like about "WinPho 7"? If it's noodle soup, I'm in. Otherwise, I remain to be convinced.

@thdunn: Moblin was Intel's. Maemo is what Nokia promoted, mostly developed and then abandoned before merging with Moblin to form Meego (which they have now abandoned).

@Mark Jan: I'm with you on this. Until Black Friday, I also couldn't imagine how Nokia's management could do more to prevent their own innovators from delivering a world-beating phone (N900 slipping through the cracks and onto the market notwithstanding). Now, thanks to Elop and Big Daddy Ballmer, I don't have to imagine it any more.

Finally, for anyone who hasn't read it: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2008/01/11/microsoft-beware-stephen-elop-is-a-flight-risk/

Nokia's 15-year tango to avoid Microsoft

Who in their right mind would actually buy a WP7 device after Maemo/Symbian?

I am struggling to articulate exactly how sad this abject failure makes me.

Frying pan, burning platform, fire, ecosystem... it's all the same to me.

Naturally, I feared the worst when I read Elop's metaphor-laden speech/memo/bullshit, and short of a hostile takeover this is about the worst. Being told my Nokia that we should all "get excited" about the merger really isn't helping.

Windows? On my phone? A BSOD in my pocket? Malware? Reporting crashes and who-knows-what-else back to base?

What the hell was wrong with MeeGo/Symbian/Qt? (I mean technically - obviously the rudderless promotion & marketing was a big fat fail) Why put 98% of the work into the Linux-on-Nokia roadmap and then axe it? It's not just for geeks if it has a great user experience and apps that people actually want, but that is now quite impossible.

I love my N900 and I have no idea what my next phone will be. Probably another N900, but only because I don't know what else to buy. My brand loyalty (fanboy-ness, whatever) has evaporated. There were problems, certainly, but as many others have observed, Elop is fighting the fire with a big bucket of petrol which he bought from MSFT.

There aren't enough swear words, so I'll save them for my unfortunate nearby colleagues who have had to put up with me ranting all day.

http://www.elop.org

Marry Microsoft, analyst tells Nokia

pan2008: details please

Why is Meego a noGO? You've seen some videos which "didn't look great"? What videos? What didn't look great? How would abandoning their almost-complete roadmap "save [Nokia] more money"?

Actually, why am I even asking these questions? You stated (presumably without irony?) that "WP7 is the best consumer mobile platform right now". Does anyone actually believe that? Why is it "the best"?

At least you're not blindly promoting Android.

AC @ 17:19

Your list would be great if it happened. I'm still waiting to see how the the Meego user experience works out (I will be buying the N9).

Other AC @ 17:13 - I also agree with you (this is weird, as I usually tend towards the opinion that the majority of AC comments are complete and utter bollocks). N900 is by far the best device I've ever had in my pocket.

Nokia: please no Winmo7 and please no Android (for the above-mentioned donkey-related reason).

Election 2010: The sillier options

Where's aManFromMars?

Evidence suggests that he's helping the Natural Law Party with their website. Please note the following from the NLP page linked in the article [http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk/misc/m_effect-yogic-flying.htm]:

DiS inT egrated inCohEReNt diSHarmOnioUs SoC iEtY

This is just a glimpse. Full election coverage required from the maestro, I reckon.

Steve Jobs issues open letter on Flash

The state of the beard of Jobs is worryingly reasonable

...but he's wrong on one point:

"Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?"

It doesn't perform that well, admittedly, but my N900 had flash preinstalled. Perhaps Mr. Jobs missed that one.

Twitter goes titsup

Oh noes!

All those business-critical, live-saving... err...

Face it: Twitter is useless. It's not even fun.

Riot police raid birthday barbecue for 'all-night' Facebook tag

I've had bigger parties in my halls room at Uni

_Advertised_ on the Internet? Was the birthday boy promoting the event to people he didn't know? 15 people!? Really? 15? Why would the event have needed policing at all? Were they trespassing? What laws were broken?

Oh crap... now I look, I see that this story is so ridiculous that I'm actually agreeing with comments posted on the Daily Fail's readers' comments section. Ouch.

Andrew Poole, you have my sympathy - I'm sorry your birthday party was ruined by plod wanting an excuse to try on their riot gear (not much call for that in Devon, one imagines?) On the other hand, look on the bright side: you'll be dining out on this story for years to come.

US feds subpoena names of anonymous web commenters

@rixt

> I expect to be one of the first scheduled to be sent to the "Political Reeducation Camps" that will no doubt soon be opening up.

Really? *Really?!* Do you actually think this is going to happen, or are you just here for our amusement? It's statements like the one you've just made that cause the rest of the world to equate American conservatism with an urgent requirement for coats which buckle at the back, which isn't totally fair as not every conservative is completely without a link to reality.

Having said that, I don't understand why the feds are going after these posters - as others have pointed out, they're not great death threats, and comments of that type are hardly exclusive to the LVRJ.

NASA rejects democracy, names ISS node 'Tranquility'

@cdilla

"At least common sense prevailed in that tossers like Colbert should be given short shrift."

Do explain?

Swedish police claim massive anti-piracy bust

@Mark Wills

Classic straw man/Aunt Sally. AC never actually indicated approval or otherwise for "everyone [ripping] off music companies, film studios, and software houses as they see fit".

Paris, because whenever she goes down she emerges stronger...