Posts by feargal halligan

Holiday snaps? Er, no - criminal porn

Yes, but...

"pornographic" or not, it's still 400 pictures of kids you don't know on your laptop.

Sure, the cops may be magnifying kids in the background, distorting the focus or whatever, but do you have 400 pictures of kids you don't know on your latop? If it were just these pics I'm not sure I'd feel this way, but in the context of a bunch of animal porn which was bought online... well, I just think a lot of people who are talking about 1984 etc are forgetting the simple fact that - "pornographic" or not, 400 pictures of kids is worth a question or two, certainly IMHO.

The notion that the british police are on a crusade to convince anyone of anything is a bit simplistic to me, and I honestly don't think that investigating large collections of kiddie pics is somehow a million miles from their job.

Fact is that even if my best mate was caught out like this, my first question - assuming they weren't planted - would not be "what did you do to anger the cops" it would be "what the fuck were you doing with 400 pics of kids on your hard drive.

Privacy is one thing, but people abuse privacy just like they abuse kids: to read some comments here it's like people are trying to deny that molesting kids is a problem, people defending right to privacy seem to rather not discuss that aspect and like to frame anyone who does as a hysterical paedophile. IMHO it is not unreasonable to assume that someone with 400 poics of kids he doesn't know might need some help.

Funnily enough, it's not the law that then proceeds to witch hunt and stigmatise these people: it's the public and the media. I get the impression that it's easier to blame the cops for this situation than the more complex blame that is carried by our messed up society.

Eircom to block Pirate Bay

A great day to be irish

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7899171.stm

Another example of my countrymens' inept fucking idiocy. Funny thing is that if a UK comedian told this joke the nation would be up in arms about 'racism'.

Also, SMH @ the description of ireland as 'supposedly democratic and not corrupt' - seriously, read up on our 15 year corruption tribunals sometime.

Hardly suprising that a country whose constitution was drawn up by a quasi fascist stooge of the catholic church, and has been run as a haven for childmolesters and terrorists for the first 60 years of its existence should bumble around like a retarded child in this fashion.

And before anyone gets sensitive I'm very fond of my country and its people. I simply cannot stand the revolting stink of weakness and corruption from our successive corrupt administrations.

I suggest torrenting 'banana republic' by the Boomtown Rats. Should be our national anthem.

;-)

MoD begins full UFO-files public release

@ we are all ignorant

YES, nutters like those, Mr. Pompous.

Are we supposed to believe that high ranking military officials are immune to bizarre and unfounded beliefs? Apart from recommending books like Jon Ronson's "the men who stare at goats" to temper your evangelistic fervour about people who run the military...

Try asking any army officer in a western country how much of a clique religion can be, and how turning up at services can influence your rank.

Just because we can't identify something doesn't mean it's either important or interesting... honestly.

Nintendo Wii

lordy...

Well at least these comments give me a laugh. Really guys: very funny. After 3 years reading the register I finally, well, register to reply to the above:

I mean, reading a 5 page review of a gaming console, and having an account with el reg, and then taking the trouble to say "you're all geeks, go out and get a life"...? That's one of the funniest posts I've ever seen on the web. If you can't see the irony there, then ignore my comments, thanks - no doubt the healthy outdoor game of soccer you were enjoying when you posted this will distract you anyway.....?

And then there's this practise of calling console features a "gimmick"...?

Last I looked, video game consoles are probably the closest thing I can think of to being a "gimmick" in and of themselves: by their very nature, if you want to be a puris. They flash and bleep as much as possible, do no real "job" and have no real "function" (bar "recreation" which we all know requires no specific hardware LOL) - I mean, what a plainly dumb remark. All innovation in a game is a "gimmick" - moot point.

Honestly, the QWERTY keyboard I'm typing on this is just a "gimmick", too - the altair 8800 didn't need one, why should this machine?

But Hey, I could pick holes all day: fact is I'm no nintendo freak but time after time after time they point the way for everyone else. This is not an opinion, there is a thing called "the videogames industry" which proves it.

Remember the way the games market collapsed in 1983 because of the lack of structure for royalties, rights management and designers being paid? Remember who came along and rebuilt it with solid ideas based on gaming markets?

Remember the famicom / NES? Remember those wierd controllers - cross arrows on the right, two buttons on the left - they introduced... and how everyone now uses them? Joypads?

Remember who put the most effort into forming JAMMA and making coinops and consoles the same industry?

Please, don't be so silly: Nintendo are a games company. Sony and Microsoft are (naff) Stereo and (terrible) Operating system brokers, respectively. To try and say that Nintendo is using "gimmicks" when the Xbox and PS3 are just graphic processors with expensive optical drives attached is hilarious.

After all, in 30 years time what Sony or MS titles will people remember like they remember Donkey Kong?

Hats off to nintendo, they seem, as ever, to actually give a damn about their target market - kids and young adults - by producing intelligent, innovative devices at low prices with high usability.

The rest of the industry could take a couple hundred pages out of their book, really.