Posts by swampdog

NSA SOURCE CODE LEAK: Information slurp tools to appear online

Re: A proverb comes to mind ..

Shouldn't that be "Geeks"?

Beware geeks bearing gifts: Steam-draining nasty spreads via Twitch

Re: Linux Steam

Rather than mucking about with binary formats and wine, do it properly; get the source from github, then ./configure && make install

Naughty. Running as root?

"sudo make install" surely? ;-)

The Apple Watch and CROTCH RUBBING. How are they related?

Moving along to something worth reading...

Like the tattoos on my [insert word here]?

Re: Watches are for driving

"The thing that baffles me about all these recent smartwatches is I've yet to see one which capitalizes on one of the few times I'd really appreciate one - when driving."

They already have. It's called the Fumbulator. It is more commonly known as "dicking about doing any old shit which doesn't relate to driving" whilst driving.

Rant over. Actually I agree. Sorry for hijacking your post! Anything that can keep the muppet's attention on driving is a good thing(tm).

Re: Pebble's nearly there

That's called "a Husband". ;-)

Re: Pebble's nearly there

You're right. Talking is useless.

Don't get me wrong. Google's speech recognition is brilliant. It'll only work properly though once they've added a feature whereby once you take that "pre google breath" your wife or mother doesn't take that as a prompt to talk.

Kim Kardashian’s arse

Another great article Alistair but I got sidetracked from the off.

I can't understand why people are attracted by it. Who/what is this thing/feature which haunts my screen? Pixel 102@408 is more attractive than that & at least it's arse fits on my display.

Oh, the iWatch. Bet's for how long it will be before before someone posts a vid of a reciprocal but lonely nature?

Misery for Virgin Media mobe customers over mysterious 'EE data centre gaffe'

I also get extremely poor 3G data speeds near Nottingham city centre.

Ditto.

Last 20 days or so. Was beginning to think I'd picked up a virus!

Stonehenge's HUMAN ABATTOIR was just a prehistoric Burning Man hippyfest site

Hurrah for the rule of law, we say.

Failing that, feather lined underpants. Or possibly feather lined underpants or even .. at a push.. feather lined underpants.

NSA man: 'Tell me about your Turkish connections'

Re: Bananas? Don't mention bananas.

"I had one of those money dogs accost me at Gatwick airport. I had declared the money and luckily had a post office receipt to prove it was mine. It did mean that my Alcohol intake was a bit low on that flight as they wanted to keep me and have a closer look at my situation."

I read both those "money" as "monkey". I found it particularly amusing you had a post office receipt for it. Ordinarily I have to pick mine up from the depo.

(sorry).

Re: "Has anyone put anything in your luggage without your knowledge?"

"This is the same kind of security you see everywhere these days, it's NOT extraordinary."

Sorry but this is crap. The UK put up with decades of US funded terrorism on its own shores. We'd go to the pubs in the city centre's & just think "fuck it". If some dignitary was expected they might seal up the bins along the route (for what use that might have been).

More US citizens died on D-Day than 9/11. By that measure all your german & japanese residents should still be in camps? Al-Qaeda doesn't have to *do* anything. It just has to have a credible voice. It is blindly obvious 9/11 was an unexpected terrorist success. Much more successful is their subsequent propaganda campaign in that they're bringing their hated western governments closer to the hard-line political system they espouse.

Just ignore them. Meanwhile, educate the susceptible such that it isn't seen as cool to go trundling off to the likes of syria.

Re: We know, you know.

"The police rarely ask questions they don't already know the answers to.

How would they like it if I walked up to a policeman while holding a big watch and asked the time?"

Can you prove you own that watch Sir? Or, if all else fails, accuse you of being a Time Lord - "were you aware sir that the carrying of personalities within a fob, is contrary to section 7 of er,, (mumble).

Re: We know, you know.

@Pete2

You'll never be a politician. That made too much sense. Have another upvote!

Re: What wonderful society - North America

"Re: What wonderful society - North America

I recently discovered that in America, it's generally illegal to drink alcohol in public!"

Same here in most city centre's. Trouble is you can't tell when & where so methinks the secret is to just get bladdered & not give a shit until the 'morrow.

Re: Jaywalking - an artificial crime

<sleaford rant>

"Re: Jaywalking - an artificial crime

I used to think that Jaywalking laws served no purpose. Then I had to drive around Sleaford a few times. In a really badly planned town I can see them being useful."

The only planning in Sleaford revolves around the Grammar being kept as far away as possible from the(*) High School.

(*) Boys Grammar & Girls' secondary high school for the unfamiliar.

Worst place in the country for getting stopped by traffic police. Been stopped in Sleaford more times than I've ever been there (almost). Last time was "for driving at dusk with spotlamps on".

Slightly embelished (but not much), 'tis the weekend..

Me: they're not spotlamps.

Him: Yes they are.

Me: (whatever) It's not dark.

Him: It is now.

Me: How did you see them from behind?

Him: You've a tail light out.

Me: (tries to get out of car but pushed back in) to look.

Him: It's an offence.

Me: What is? Now it's dark I can see them in my mirrors.

Him: Number plate light.

Me: Not a tail light then?

Him: Got ID?

Me: (had enough at this point so getting sarky) Yes.

Him: Care to show it to me?

Me: Nope. Never carry my licence with me. It got stolen once. Had no end of hassle off you chaps because of it.

Him: You do know I can arrest you for that?

Me: Explain.

Him: Get out of the car

Me: Can't. You won't let me.

Him: I need to know this car isn't stolen.

Me: I've told you my name. Has my car been reported stolen? I ought to be the first to know!

Him: Have you any ID?

Me: I've got a wallet

Him: Show it to me.

Me: (resisting urge to ask how he knows it's not stolen). Need to get up.

Him: Is this your credit card?

Me: (it really did go on like this for quite some time)

while(adinfinitum) #Terry Prachett

do

Him: Is this your <whatever>

done

Me: (leaving it until last) oh, & my advanced drivers thingy.

Him: Thrusts all my bits back at me. Does u-turn & just fucks off. Not a word.

It was mildly asmusing because he stepped into the road. We're just before the boy's grammar school, Ledenham side (where he picked me up). A couple of young lads caned it past out of town, "wanker" was all I heard. Pretty much figured that out for myself chaps!

As an aside, I was on crutches with 15" of staples down my stomach, a knackered knee & shoulder. At no point did he ask if I was capable to drive.

</sleaford rant>

"suck the Ambassador’s cock in the middle of Grosvenor Square at midnight."

Playmobil or it never happened! :-)

In the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave ... you can legally carrier unlock your own phone

Begs the question, why on earth did the sheeples buy such things in the first place.

Hmm, think I've answered myself.

Hackers reverse-engineer NSA spy kit using off-the-shelf parts

Re: This will mean...

@tom dial

I'm afraid nothing you said makes sense. The US turned it's massive manufacturing capability into weapons. The tanks they sent to North Africa were built from converted tractors. They were reliable & had big "fuck off" guns (aka the Grant). They were shit compared to the panzers but could at least knock one one out unlike the pre-war junk the UK had.The Sherman was inferior, even with it's big gun toward the end of the war. It came through en-masse, not superiority, unlike like the Russian T34 which was a stonker.

The UK had an empire which was, in theory, a democracy. The US did not want to get involved in (another) world war (ie WW1). The US did the lend-lease thing & by virtue of hating "the empire" destroyed it. In doing so it has become "the empire".

To answer your point, you sir, sound like one of the economists who, pre 1942, said "let's cut off the jap oil supplies, what could possibly go wrong?"

Re: Secret Tech

@don Jefe

Agreed. Any tech which one side has ought to be assumed by that side to at least be equaled, if not compromised. Recent history tells us this. Fuchs gave away Manhattan & ironically it was the subsequent distrust by the US of UK intel tech that led to a cash strapped UK govt to "give" away what became the MIG 17.

Either of us could cause havoc with nothing more than a tire lever or bolt cutter, the likes of which the terrorists could only dream. Ultimately, govt is afraid of the people.

High court finds Newzbin's 'ops' man liable for copyright infringement

I don't even understand the "auren.txt" transcript. Is it just my browser (?) but it isn't complete. Being a stubborn bugger I looked further. I can't understand the ruling I found either. It was complete (gibberish) to anyone outside of intensive legal training.

When my granny used to suck eggs, back in the middle ages, just after t'plague, me and t'mother used to be really litigious toward t'landlord. Serfs they called us but after plague, serfing we were. In Ibiza the moon settled in t'morning & sun rose in t'night, yet we called it day. Well at least that was what me mam said as we'd left granny at home on account of her being in a coffin 'n' all. Not that she was dead. She just liked to sleep there. "A vampire deprived of rest is one less vampire to molest a virgin" she used to say, only she had to write it down, having an egg in her mouth & therefore unable to converse properly.

Methinks I just went off on one there. Nevertheless, the law is too complicated these days!

It's Google's no-wheel car. OMG... there aren't any BRAKES

Re: Bar Transport

@Terry Barnes

"Your attitude is more dangerous than someone travelling at 34MPH."

I disagree. One should also consider the vanishing point *behind* as well as in front and adjust speed accordingly.

"You must be able to stop within the distance you can see to be clear. That's the most basic road safety rule of them all, pretty much."

That doesn't work. Consider a brick wall round a tight bend. We'd all hit it if we used your rule. Now put some oil down, none of us would even reach the wall, let alone hit it.

Common sense is the key factor. It allows us to adjust the rules in real-time to suit the circumstances. Doing 34mph in a 60mph zone is not common sense.

Obviously we're talking about a left-hander here. Position your car correctly on entering the bend & you'll be able to drop your speed to under 34mph before Mr 34mph has even realised there is a problem. You also have two straight line braking vectors for a complete stop.

Powershell terminal sucks. Is there a better choice?

Re: jpsoft

"Every server that I've ever seen Cygwin installed on has slowed to a snails crawl and crashed randomly."

That's a bit sweeping. Must be some component of it. After all, it does *nothing* by default after installation. There isn't even anything running in the background until such time as you elect to configure daemons.

"I say this as a developer/sysadmin with 16 years experience in a Windows/Linux environment."

I reckon you've been installing it wrong for 16 years then!

1) Install it into its own partition (*).

2) Override the PATH so it cannot see windows and check TMP=/tmp/ is in (1). (**)

3) Make sure there's only ever a single cygwin DLL on the system. (***)

(*) or the filesystem will fragment to hell. It's windows not a unix filesystem. NTFS cannot cope.

(**) ditto

(***) 3rd party apps are known to silently install their own version.

Can you tell a man's intelligence simply by looking at him? Yes

Re: Can't tell with a woman

Chestwise, and my beloved (not you Charles), I drew (markerpen style) a pair of eyes onto her breasts when she was drunk. The plan is obvious. She was to open the door & one of my friends would gaze downward. She, being a feminist at the time, would retort then we'd all have a laugh.

Buggered that one up. She had a shower. Bloody women with their cleanliness!

Re: This is all well and good

Horses have a big "agenda".

Methinks this is a case of over analyzing.

I, as a bloke, prefer men who smile. I'm less likely to get beaten up! There's also a greater chance of a decent conversation. As for females I really do think they've missed the mark. Typically, if they're in a stable relationship, they minimize eye contact & certainly don't go wandering about smiling at everybody. They've ignored social conditioning in the study.

QUIDOCALYPSE: Blighty braces for £100 MILLION cost of new £1 coin

Re: Coin recognition

How does this iSIS thingy work? It appears to be a closely guarded secret. Whilst that is probably all well & good when only legit places such as banks have the machines but how long is that going to last once out in the wild?

Re: Deal With It!

@TitterYeNot

Can I employ you to stand behind me in queues? That should ensure it doesn't happen to me. On second thoughts it may only reduce the chance to 50/50 but now that I'm getting my cynical head switched back on, it will likely double the chance.

You've just done yourself out of a job - which kinda reinforces your original point!

GIANT FLESH-EATING DEVIL CHICKENS roamed North Dakota

...said the rather confused Chuferix to her wangoptimus partner after a pointless row at the deli counter.

No need. They're still using wangoptimus flesh which is why archaeologists only ever find the bones.

Re: Satanic flesh-eating chickens???

That's what he wants you to think so we all end up in hell for not believing!

Re: Massive Cock

Wangoptimus surely?

Monkey steals iPod touch, loses interest in minutes

Hmm, been up all night. Misread that as "fondleteat".

I'll get my pillow...

Romanian 'ransomware victim' hangs self and 4-year-old son – report

Re: If people are starting to die from it . . .

Ah, but then they'd have to supply evidence to the prosecution thereby confirming what we all know and/or suspect.

They (politicos) might possibly be convinced to do it if such evidence were given to a secret court because legislation like that would be very handy for other cases.

On balance I doubt they (security services) would want to do it even in that situation because they'd be giving internal security operational capabilities to people outside their control. Leaks will be inevitable.

Of course they can find them. It isn't in their interest to do so. Sometimes the police might get a tipoff dumped in their lap but I bet that pisses them off greatly because at best they get to find enough physical evidence to prosecute but otherwise they get left looking like idiots.

Hmm, today must be a cynical day. Same old.. same old.

Win XP holdouts storm eBay and licence brokers, hiss: Give us all your Windows 7

Windows 2000

Wouldn't surprise me in the least if the real reason MS have been so stubbon regards changing the UI is they can't. It's been written from scratch so it runs fast on lower-end touchy devices. The XP GUI has had donkey's years of patches & general crud added to it: I bet few, if any, of their devs truly understand it so they've no choice but to dump it.

Win7 is the same. It only pays lip-service to the XP GUI. Heck, a GUI that can't even remember individual window positions without 3rd party help is nothing more than a toy. They may as well have just written the OS then slapped a full-screen "silverlight" thingy on top to draw on!

CCTV warning notices NOT compliant with data protection laws – ICO

Re: utter crap

@Brenda McViking

In addition. Our councils are all for throwing the green costs our way but take no responsibility for the side-effects. Traffic calming measures locally have increased my fuel consumption 20% for the simple reason I'm forever accelerating instead of feathering the throttle at a constant speed. Heck, last I heard ours was even charging churchgoers to park Sunday mornings.

I don't grab a cheapo lunchtime-deal pizza Friday from Pizza Hut any more. £1.50 to park in council carpark nearby for a £4 pizza. All the other work-local shops miss out on my trade because of it. Nationwide shut their branch. Yellow lines went up all over to force people into the car parks.

Re: 1984 Was Not Supposed To Be An Instruction Manual

@Salts

I'd love to see a study done on that. Had a lengthy discussion with a work colleague about it way back. I was of the opinion it was a subconscious clumping/herd instinct whilst he thought it was because most people can't park properly without lining up against something. In retrospect I think we're both right.

After all, just look at the haphazard mess when there's some snow on the ground.

<rant>

Why on earth will people elect to park near a long wheelbase van miles from the supermarket entrance but they do. You can't reverse it out because you're doing it blind so it's into the forward spot. Come back to find you can't get the rear doors open - some fool has nosed up to the back. Pair of cars either side. If you're lucky you can squeeze the trolley down to the side door but chances are the gap is too narrow. There'll be a slope so you need your partner to stop the trolley wandering off while you traipse back & forth.

</rant>

I nearly got barred from Asda because I took to parking diagonally across six slots. That does work. No-one will park near you.

For Windows guest - KVM or XEN and which distro for host?

You've got two mutually conflicting issues. By far the simplest way to solve it is to have two machines. Bit of lateral thinking.. literally. Bolt the linux box to a wall shelf, side on, out of the way.

UK.gov's web filtering mission creep: Now it plans to block 'extremist' websites

Re: Nanny state.

except for the "jesus" typewriter

File-NUKING Cryptolocker PC malware MENACES 'TENS of MILLIONS' in UK

Re: What is the UK National Crime Agency doing about this besides sending out warnings?

"What is the UK National Crime Agency doing about this besides sending out warnings?

Because, let's face it: my little sister could do that."

But could she manage to spend £500 million a year doing it? That's more than a million flagons of scrumpy a year! ;-)

Coroner suggests cars should block mobile phones

Read the whole PDF whilst waiting for a deadlocked box to shutdown..

No mention of a likely cause for the sudden deceleration: that she'd dumped it into the wrong (lower) gear whilst talking & accelerating. Dunno about anyone else but whenever I've done that, first reaction is to clutch it in and cover the brake. That fits all the facts.

Anyways, imo anyone using a phone at the time of an accident ought to have the burden of proof shifted to them, especially for insurance purposes.

..still shutting down. Bah!

Wanna run someone over in your next Ford? No dice, it won't let you

Re: "won't let me start the engine without putting my foot on the clutch"

That technique saved three lives here. Many years ago my father stopped on an unmarked swiss train track(*). Flooded the engine when he realised there was a train coming(**). Fortunately he listened when I told him to just stuff it into 1st, turn the ignition & keep holding it(***). Fortunately we were over the apex so it cranked off quite quickly. There wouldn't have been the time to have done it backwards.

(*) Bloody obvious to me in the back but my parents were having a row.

(**) Saw it coming in the distance well before it started blasting its horn at which point parents noticed.

(***) Had to release the handbrake myself though!

Re: Umm...

"People are quite happy to trust a car to use ABS appropriately".

I guess I'm the only one that hates ABS then?

Oh, shoppin’ HELL: I’m in the supermarket of the DAMNED

Re: Which is worse...

Ah, that would be standing behind that woman whose with her mother & they've seperate shops. Having paid for one shop she returns her purse to that bag so the exercise can be repeated at the end of the second shop. In both cases she will have a fistful of vouchers. Just pray she doesn't drop or mix them up.

Re: Over here

@Over here

Our doctor's automated arrival system has an initial screen with flags of the world on it yet you can guarantee someone will be flummoxed by it. How few brain cells do you need before it becomes a real teaser to touch a flag that matches a language you know?

Re: Tesco are the worst

@Intractable Potsherd

"There is absolutely nothing to be gained by the parents**, the children, or the rest of the shop users by this activity."

Yes there is. They can park in the Mother & Child spaces. Meanwhile I get to park half a bus ride away in the Mordor section. Worse the buggers make multiple attempts to run me over while I'm walking past. You'd at least think when it's quiet I'd be able to reverse into a space in the deserted part of the car park, be gone for 10 minutes & *not* come back to find some tw*t has parked so close behind(*) I can't get to the boot.

(*) There ought to be a word created for this "clumping" behaviour. When I drive a van I make a point of parking in the middle of nowhere. It's only a matter of time before all the adjacent spaces have been filled by badly parked morons. Yet the surrounding spaces remain empty. It got so bad I got to parking diagonally across six spaces. Trouble is the car park zombies threaten to clamp.

Back to the plot. I like the automated tills. Every now & then I stuff a bag full of shrapnel into my jeans & tip the lot in. Shrapnel in, larger coins out.

Boffins fire up old dish to send interstellar SMS

Hey, Petunias..

If you see the Dolphins, tell 'em there's still a few fish left!

..zzt.. [transmit] ..zzt..

Oh. Actually best forget it.

How Microsoft shattered Gnome's unity with Windows 95

"The thought of coding on a touch driven device actually scares me."

Even simple file creation would be a nightmare. Ordinarily one would type..

$ touch balls

$ touch nads

..and so forth. Just what are people going to think if they see me feeling up a pair of animated testicles onscreen. Moreover, how would you tell the difference between the nads & balls. Wouldn't want to apply vim onto the wrong pair. Could be painful.

Hmm, now I'm thinking back to the days of hairy bison. I really do *not* want to be seeing what sex that bison was. Why has this popped into my head? Oh yes - I've got far too much work to do today so am solving the problem by doing none of it.

Microsoft links Skype to Lync

Headless wandermonkey

Lync, hmm lets see: make already existing telephone infrastructure redundant, increase network capacity to cope.. for what? Ah, that's it - so I can sit there with a telephone on my head oblivious to any DR situation!

Microsoft: All RIGHT, you can have your Start button back

Re: Once again...

@Dave 15

"but the fact is that it NEEDS to just work out of the box before the mainstream will be bothered."

Tada! Windows type answer coming up. All you need to do is upgrade your hardware. If only you'd had a modern linux with a dvi card and a dvi monitor it'd have booted up in max resolution.

Not very useful though is it?

Bogus gov online test tells people on dole they're just SO employable

"Since The Register phoned the Department of Work and Pensions for a comment, the test appears to have been fixed up a bit in that you can no longer simply click through and get results without answering any questions."

Opera->ctrl U->SaveAs strength00.htm

$ diff -u strengths00.htm strengths01.htm

--- strengths00.htm 2013-04-25 10:23:39.593750000 +0100

+++ strengths01.htm 2013-04-25 10:16:55.046875000 +0100

@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@

saveAnswer(form);

currentQuestion++;

changeQuestion(form);

- form.next.disabled = true;

+ form.next.disabled = false;

};

function previousButton(form) {

@@ -129,7 +129,7 @@

}

function atLeastOneRadio() {

- return ($$('input[type=radio]:checked').size() > 0);

+ return ($$('input[type=radio]:checked').size() >= 0);

}

</script>

Drag back into Opera. Click first element. Now you too can continue to skip the remainder of the questions. Bearing in mind I know nothing about web development does this make me a genius or a subversive git? I suspect it's more the case the page code is so "obvious" that even I can stumble upon their quick "fixes".