* Posts by Alex

11 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Dec 2006

Forgot your ID? You must be a terrorist

Alex

Bollocks

You will never find me complaining that security measures should be tighter. If we want to avoid any more bombs going off in the UK or US we should stop setting our own off in other countries.

Not that any of this has anything to do with preventing bombs or terr'ists - it's just the usual combination of intimidation, deception and abuse designed to gradually wean us off those troublesome ideas of freedom, self-determination and independence so that we all cower in fear of the evil monster and get on with our daily responsibilities of working our lives away for the benefit of our masters.

It's awful when people are blown up - at home AND abroad. Apologists for the system which allows this to continue share responsibility. That means you.

Pirate Bay evades Italian blockade

Alex

Why is "facist" in quotes?

I wasn't aware that anyone disputed that Berlusconi is a facist.

@Sarah Bee, if anyone is still moronic and/or subservient enough to believe there remains a debate on whether copyright is theft, maybe this bedtime story will help start them thinking for themselves: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html .

Oyster system failure causes travel misery

Alex
Go

workaround for tracking

Just buy a new unregistered PAYG oyster card before your journey with the value of just one journey on it and hand it in for a refund of the deposit at the end. Don't forget to tell them you're sick of them invading your privacy, profiting from the interest on your money, stealing money by errors in their favour, etc.

Alternatively get out of the s**t hole that is London (and the rest of the UK) and pay tax elsewhere.

The New Order: When reading is a crime

Alex

@AC - how it should have been

Lest we allow ourselves to be slowly boiled, here's how it SHOULD have been:

1. it should not be illegal to possess the "wrong" book.

2. when the university alerted the police, they should have been investigated for invasion of privacy. They should not have been spying on him in the first place.

3. after their subsequent actions, the police should be prosecuted for wrongful arrest, and violation of basic human rights.

4. the politicians involved in attempting to have him ejected from the country should be prosecuted for abuse of power.

5. the politicians involved in creating these immoral laws should be prosecuted.

6. the victim should be compensated generously for his treatment by the police state that the UK has become.

Police nick 460 a day for using mobiles while driving

Alex

Towing the party line again...

Honestly, does the reg investigate anything these days or is it that much easier just to report within the narrow framework of the establishment?

The law making mobile use without a handsfree kit actually has a lot in common with speed cameras:

1. It was introduced to improve conviction rates, and is successful in that aim.

2. It has no proven effect on road safety.

3. The real dangerous activities were already illegal (covered by careless driving, DWDCA etc), so the new measures weren't needed, but police somehow managed not to bother to enforce the existing laws, conveniently making way for more profitable and broad-spectrum (criminalize everyone!).

In your article you manage to:

1. without evidence, challenge the suggestion that over-reliance on speed cameras is related to lack of enforcement in other areas (since law-enforcement is stats-driven, the link is very clear)

2. accept the assertion that a blind enforcement of a blanket law is a good idea, without any attempt to consider the alternative view.

Carry on like this and you'll be on Teflon Tony's christmas list next year.

Courts slam Blair's 'abject surrender' to Saudi prince

Alex

Re: Show some common sense

"After all, where would we be if we had not stood up to Germany in the second World War and subsequently to Communism?"

This sentence is mind boggling. A few points:

1. We applaud ourselves for standing up to Germany when they were the aggressors. Now, we are the aggressors. Unless we are hypocrits we should be applauding the Iraqis defending themselves against our attack.

2. What the hell does "stood up to Communism" mean? (Look out, there's a Red behind the cupboard!)!?

3. The "that's how things work, so we have to play by those rules" argument is not very robust. Try applying it to the slave trade.

4. (3) is very closely related to the "everyone else is doing it, so might as well do it too". Try applying this to muggers, car thieves, and other "undesirables" whom the Daily Mail encourages you to fear.

5. The "it's ok, because we're doing it for our own benefit" argument doesn't even deserve critical comment.

Adobe to remove Photoshop pic pimping clause

Alex
Thumb Down

What the hell has happened to the Reg?

Yes, we are ALL SICK OF YOU using the term "freetard". Why?

1. It's pathetic and childish.

2. It sounds like a term invented by the RIAA.

3. There's nothing "retarded" about disagreeing with the RIAA.

4. Using this term implies that there is something wrong with the idea that we should be free to let our friends listen to our music and read our books.

And the result of all these is that:

5. We don't want to read your stupid publication any more. Which is a shame for me as I've been a huge fan and avid reader for ... well, since the start.

Recommendations for alternative news sources welcome.

If you want to stop alienating and losing all of your readers (if we just wanted badly written lightweight IT-related crap we're spoilt for choice - the reason we used to read The Reg was BECAUSE you were the type of people who would NEVER have used the term "freetard"), you might want to have a word with these morons writing your articles and tell them to go and spend some time studying how the world works instead of writing ill-informed rubbish.

Spooks want to go fishing in Oyster database

Alex

Get rid of them each time you use them!

You can buy a PAYG oyster card with exactly the value of the fare for your single journey (plus £3 deposit). When you arrive at the other end you can hand it in and get your deposit back. This has two benefits:

1. They can't track your movement patterns* and

2. It wastes time for the people at the till - if enough people clog up the system by doing this it might have impact as a kind of protest

*well of course they can track you on CCTV if they want, but if you have to spend time in the hell-hole that is the london underground, you might as well make the government work for their privacy invasions.

As a previous poster mentioned, this obviously has nothing to do with terrorism, as terrorists can use cash, walk (still legal, so I hear), use a bike etc.

Or just leave the country and never go back. It's a lot nicer out here (everywhere else in the world!).

'Freetard ? more like advert programmed PAYTARDS!'

Alex
Thumb Down

@Trevor Watt and The Reg

How does a big business exploiting their advantage over small producers relate to the issue of whether you should be paid once for the work you do, or every time someone appreciates it? It's simple:

Car mechanics get paid when they repair your car, not every time someone different wants to drive the car.

Seed growers get paid for the seeds, not every time a new flower grows (although this may change if the big bio research companies get their way).

Chair manufacturers get paid for the chair, not for every time someone different sits in it.

Musicians should get paid for PLAYING music, not every time someone hears it.

Artists should get paid for PAINTING pictures, not every time someone views it.

Somewhere along the line, people started thinking being a musician automatically makes you deserve to be a millionaire. It doesn't. It's nothing special. If you're really that good, like Trent Raznor, then enough people will like your music that they'll actually give you what you deserve.

It's sad that people are so brainwashed that they actually defend the people who are ripping them off.

And I'm ashamed that The Reg is using the word "freetards". I guess I'll have to look elsewhere for news that doesn't share its ideology with Time Warner and the rest of the world's increasingly powerful corporate masters.

Has your shifty foreign neighbour got 16 mobes?

Alex

Look out!

Terrorists eat food! They need it to give themselves the strength to carry out their nefarious plans! And so their stomachs don't rumble and give them away.

Report anyone you see suspiciously eating food! "Just in case".*

* When we replace cash with payment by biometric ID, we'll get them automatically! So stop complaining about our ID card plans!

Will robots ever become just like humans?

Alex

Humbug

This is a problem of understanding, not science:

The question "Will robots ever become just like humans?" implies that if robots were to become "just like humans" they would still be robots. They would not; they would be humans.

One might also ask "Will apes ever become just like humans?". No? What if they were smarter? What if they had human emotions?... What if they had a few years to evolve?

The original question is inherently flawed, which is why it may seem challenging. A less flawed question might be: "Will robots, or the (logical) descendants of robots ever have characteristics similar to those seen in humans, such as intelligent thought or a sense of emotion?".

With the fuzziness removed, the answer, barring premature eradication of the human race, seems obvious.