Posts by Benjol

Scot Nationalists' march on Westminster may be GOOD for UK IT

Re: Leaving the EU

Backup udder.

Microsoft's run Azure on Nano server since late 2013

"Microsoft's tweaked Nano server"

Had to read that several times in order to convince myself that you probably meant:

"Microsoft has tweaked Nano server"

Amstrad founder Lord Sugar quits 'anti-enterprise' Labour party

Re: Ha....

If you'd been bothered, you could have learnt that he deliberately put off announcing this to AFTER the elections so as not cause bad publicity to influence voters.

Tesla's battery put in the shade by current and cheaper kit

"Germany, where the economics of solar power are well-understood"

That is: expensive, and backed-up by smog-belching coal power stations?

Yow! It's the HOT NEW 'Collections' from Google! Oh wait ... it's a Google+ thing

Re: As many have said on here before...

... but you can't make it drink?

Tesla reveals Powerwall battery packs for homes, Powerpacks for cities

Maybe he's using the same tech as SSDs?

You have 92% efficiency on an exchange rate?

Weird.

Microsoft: It's TRUE, you'll get Android and iOS apps in WINDOWS

I'm with @cornz on this one. Why do we need so many apps?

Have apps become the 'signalling statistic' like pixels on digital cameras, or GB (or MB, or TB) on disk drives? Bigger is always better?

I'd rather have 100 top-rate, top-quality, useful apps, than the current thousands of duplicated dross of wildly varying quality, and the only way to know which one (if any) of the 10 seemingly identical alternatives is actually any good is to install and try each one by hand.

I'd far rather have a curated list. Sorry if that sounds too Apple-y (and yes, I have a WinPhone).

Smile! Brit transport plods turn bodycams on travelling public

"alleged criminal activity witnessed by the cops"

That's in the UK. In the States it would be "alleged criminal activity perpetrated by the cops" :)

Your new car will dob you in to the cops if you crash, decrees EU

Can't quite understand the tin-foiling here. How many of you aren't already being tracked via your always-on mobile phones, or by the number-plate-recognition cameras?

So how should we tax these BASTARD COMPANIES, then?

Re: Individual taxes

Tim, it occurs to me that a valuable parallel here would be: "Only human beings go to prison".

Google: We're not mad, our mobes-in-sky Project Loon is FINE

Looks ripe for being gobbled up by 5-eyes.

FBI alert: Get these motherf'king hackers off this motherf'king plane

The real story

As Schneier pointed out, isn't the real story/question here how come the FBI picked up on his tweet?

'Aaron's Law' back on the table to bring sanity to US hacking laws

Politicians talking sense?

No chance of passing.

Hungry Apple fanbois can now buy a lunch date with Tim Cook

Enduring one whole hour in the company of two fanbois?

I'd put the price up if I was him :)

Pre-order consumergasm will leave Apple Watches out of stock for months

Needle naddle noo

Guaranteed upvote from me :)

Australia finds $1 BEELLION to replace No-SQL DATABASE

"New system that fits a new, different, simpler process"

Hahahahhahah.

That's what they all say, until you actually get down to brass tacks, then it's: "oh, we could do that before, and this too, and the opposite, and we absolutely HAVE to be able to carry on doing it that way".

The cost is in the exceptions.

But it's also what keeps us gainfully employed.

Streaming tears of laughter as Jay-Z (Tidal) waves goodbye to $56m

Re: Alan Dower Blumlein

Upvoting because I'm assuming this is humour

Smart meters are a ‘costly mistake’ that'll add BILLIONS to bills

"likely to cost most consumers more than it could save them"

That's the point of green policies, isn't it?

Yay! Wearables! It's the future! Uh-oh! I'm going to be sick

"an uncollected item on the Outsize Luggage desk"

'Just a kid' Zuck's word is his bond ... but NOT in his backyard, lawsuit claims

"Could not match"

Yeah, right.

Google MURDERS Google Code, orders everyone out to GitHub and co

Re: So what's next?

TheOldReader has everything you want, and you can even pay for it...

Sir Terry remembered: Dickens' fire, Tolkien's imagination, and the wit of Wodehouse

Haven't read one in years, but must say that I think they are truly the only books that have ever consistently made me chortle out loud.

Google's chief finance officer quits to go backpacking

If he's got the money I imagine he has, I suspect he ought to hit the road with a backpack and some bodyguards...

Quantum computers have failed. So now for the science

Impressive marketing budget if they can get God presenting their video...

Britain needs more tech immigrants, quango tells UK.gov

Go ahead, name and shame! :)

And do tell where you're working now.

FWIW, I've encountered both types of company in the same country. The difference was between being in a service company (corresponds to your UK experience) or being in industry (where engineers are valued, even beyond 40).

Live a day in the life of Jennifer Lawrence: Tell Reddit to delete your stolen nude selfies

Re: Does her dress have breast pockets?

Yes, and I think they're filled with unobtainium...

Don't touch me up there! Photoshop creator appeals for 'ethical' use

Re: Marketing/advertising have no ethic, so asking for ethical use is useless...

"I think models should be shot in whatever state they are in"

That's a bit harsh isn't it?

Did NSA, GCHQ steal the secret key in YOUR phone SIM? It's LIKELY

Re: renewables

Using your logic, nobody would have ever cut down a tree for heating or to build anything.

NERDS KICK PUPPY 'bot in brutal attack

We're definitely going to be needing a robot overlords icon.

4Chan man Moot logs off as admin for last time

15 + 11 = 26.

Guess he decided it was time to grow up :)

Tax Systems: The good, the bad and the completely toot toot ding-dong loopy

Seems to me that the (tax/law) system can either be fair or simple. Not both.

Could be neither.

Re: Piketty

Not one for satire then?

That reminds me of last week in France too...

Re: Tobin/Robin Hood Tax

How about making it so that shares had to be kept for a minimum of x months before being re-sold? The idea being to force investment in companies that people actually think have a future, as opposed to FX-style speculation.

Hawking and friends: Artificial Intelligence 'must do what we want it to do'

Wheels don't work like legs, but they get us around.

Plane don't have wings that flap, but they manage to fly.

As long as computers can do what we want, there's no reason why they should ever need 'conciousness'.

Last year was utter rubbish. Thanks for being part of it!

"He takes it all in his waddle"

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

Not really anything to do with design here, but I'd really like a way to 'thumbs up' subtitles. Or the occasional 'alternate subtitle' competition?

Confession: I haven't read through all of the comments...

I realise there's an element of "Who moved my cheese?!" in the reactions here, so I'm trying to be balanced, objective, and constructive.

I can live with most of the changes, but on the home page:

- I would like my red 'visited' colour back

- I liked the 'hot topics' carousel - though not necessarily the animation - rather more than the single big image now present

- I 'need' horizontal lines between the articles, they just feel too 'floaty' and destabilising

- I don't really like auto-popout-on-rollover, but it should be way slower to react

- On the article pages, the header image is WAY too big. If you really want to stick an image in there, leave it on the left in that big empty white column

Legs in 2015: SpaceX Falcon's landing put on hold

"beta angle constraints"

Was ist das?

Friday: SpaceX will attempt to land rocket on floating, robotic 'spaceport drone ship'

Re: When does their UK division open

Just wish he had time for the Hyperloop too.

Microsoft whips out real-time translator for Skype calls

Good job by the marketing guys/gals though. Nice video.

Sony hackers dump more hunks of stolen data, promise another 'Christmas gift'

If this is NK, they are really driving the point home.

Diss us and we take your business out.

Deprivation Britain: 1930s all over again? Codswallop!

@Tim, I'd be interested in an article about your thoughts on the things that the market is NOT good at.

Experimental sci-fi novel Elysium is ALMOST irritating ...

"Off to be the wizard" was a fun read...

Wikipedia won't stop BEGGING for cash - despite sitting on $60m

Re: Bad press & hostility

Thanks for this. I admit to having donated in the past, but hadn't realised how much filthy lucre they're sitting on.

Quite honestly, given how many people seem to be eager to part with their money, I think you should try it here.

Google kills CAPTCHAs: Are we human or are we spammer?

I'm missing something here: the text talks about image recognition, but I saw no images in the video?

The gender imbalance in IT is real, ongoing and ridiculous

Re: Not just IT

I know several men who have suffered all through their adult life because their fathers never gave them any credit. Because.. what? I don't know. That's just the way they were. They didn't DO praise in those days.

UK boffins: We'll have an EMBIGGENED QUANTUM COMPUTER working in 5 YEARS

Re: Britain might take the lead in quantum computing

Definitely deserves QotW

Snowden doc leak lists submarine'd cables tapped by spooks

Re: Bullet

Sorry, I assumed spy agencies were for spying on foreigners, abroad, and maybe on baddies in general. Not hoovering up all data from everyone, everywhere.

MI6 oversight report on Lee Rigby murder: US web giants offer 'safe haven for terrorism'

If they really believe that, I've got an algorithm for predicting FOREX which they may be interested in...