Posts by Jim Halfpenny

Infinite loop: the Sinclair ZX Microdrive story

Re: Ah, the Microdrive...

Remember, your OPD was basically a Sinclair QL, hence the microdrive technology. And you are tight, those were the days.

BT boss urges fines for filesharing customers

Hear hear!

I assume that said same peers have no knowledge of the actual technology used to achive this even if they say it can be applied to file sharing. Those in power take note:

Internet != WWW

Are you looking in the wrong direction?

How much financial impact does 'piracy' represent to the economy against say maintaining the internet connection of bot-infected PCs? If only information security has the money^H^H^H^H^H lobbying power of the recording industry.

Net sleuth calls eBay on carpet over shill bidding

Blatant and obvious

Here's a cunning suggestion to eBay to improve their shill bidding algorithm. How about checking for bidders also selling the exact same items they are bidding on? Lots of people buy and sell items for a profit but I got stung, albeit very mildly by an obvious shill bidder on an inexpensive hand-made craft item. I can't see too many makers of handicraft items wanting to but said same items from other eBayer.

eBay's response to my complaint? null

Apologies after teacher's 'Linux holding back kids' claim

Get real about the real world

This comes down to the age old issue of how to teach I.T. in schools. I remember in the days of the BBC micro and later the Archimedes how many people (mostly adults, not children I might add) whined that learning on these platforms did not set children in good stead for the Real World (tm). That was bollocks then and it's bollocks now but it's sad to say that this is a widely held belief and teachers either buy into it or are pressured to move the curriculum this direction by well-meaning parents and piers.

Quite how an education in Windows 3.1 would have helped me once I left school is beyond me since it had all but disappeared. Instead I was taught elementary computer science, programming and other useful (and some not so) skills. Teach your children how to use Windows and that's all they can do. I for one am proud to be a child of the microcomputer age.

US retailers start pushing $20 Ubuntu

Ubuntu piracy?

How long before we see torrents of these Ubuntu boxed set CDs on the net? Better fire up the BSA party van, because $20 is going to look awful cheep when you can download it for free off teh Intarwebs.

Three Little Pigs book deemed offensive to Muslims

Spare a thought for the pigs

Is no one concerned that pigs cop it ill from all sides? Who will defend my right to like pigs in the face of religious zealots who would have me believe otherwise!

WWPD?

Cambs cops podcast 999 timewasters

But it is an emergency!

"I need to send this goodwill message to the Prime Minister."

"I'm sorry, but this is the emergency line."

"But this is an emergency, I already started the timer!"

Boom boom!

Rock managers propose tout tax

The perpetual ownership of a one-time service?

"...It is unacceptable that not a penny of the estimated £200m in transactions generated by the resale of concert tickets in the UK is returned to the investors in the live music industry," said Marc Marot."

Imagine if you will a spokesman for an automobile manufacturer pulling this line.

"...It is unacceptable that not a penny of the estimated [insert big number] in transactions generated by the resale of motor vehicles in the UK is returned to the investors in the auto industry," said some industry pundit."

You sell it, you lose the rights to sell it again. If a ticket is sold 10 times do they get 10 cuts of the pie? That sounds a lot like VAT if you ask me.

Tiscali: breaking DNS for fun and profit

It's all for the good of the country

"We are doing this by removing those irritating dead-end 'Page Cannot Be Displayed' messages that you see from time to time."

Mr Flibble, have you actually tried using this service? The search engine is pisspoor and returns five sponsored links per query. How is that supposed to get anyone to where they're going?

Tiscali's mewling rhetoric that this is to aid customers is laughable. Without removing all DNS search suffixes many DNS queries simply fail (or succeed depending on which way you look at iy) when the first one is matched, regardless of whether it really exists or not.

You broke my internets and I wanna new one!