* Posts by James Osborne-Smith

15 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jul 2007

Bank boss hated IT, loved the beach, was clueless about ports and politeness

James Osborne-Smith

Re: Every single time

Had that happen at Big Insurance Company - a manager found a set of aircon controls that he didn't know about before so did the only rational thing and turned them all off. Turns out they controlled the aircon for a nearby (locked) room that had jump box PCs for the offshore support guys to remote onto so they could establish local sessions with user PCs. I found out about the existence of this room cos' I was tasked to go in and reboot one that was playing up, opened the door and was met with a blast of heat from 100-odd PCs running in a shoebox with no ventilation anymore...

One person's harmless japery can be another's night of LaserJet Lego

James Osborne-Smith

I've seen someone used to MACs post CDs through the slot between blanking plates on empty 5.25" bays. As in multiple CDs - she only got worried and called IT after the 6th CD...

US music publishers sue online lyrics sites

James Osborne-Smith

Idiots...

If I hear a song I like on the radio, I try to remember a segment of the lyrics and then Google them to find the name of the song. From there I go to Youtube to find a copy of the song to hear the whole song to see if it's worth buying.

Only Youtube's probably not allowed to play it in my region and now the lyrics can't be found on the Net?

Well, I'll just save my money for beer then. Epic Fail by the increasingly irrelevant media corps...

US military cyber force activated

James Osborne-Smith

Operation Screaming Fist

I guess we know what kind of vids these geeks like to watch then..?

US state bars sex offenders from 'social networking sites'

James Osborne-Smith

@steven1

That's probably what got them in trouble in the first place...

Bates: Cops to defy courts over return of indecent material

James Osborne-Smith

Illegal retention of property

Retention of property by the police is a long-running issue. All too often they take something on very spurious grounds, and then your chances of getting it back are slim at best. Take the situation of police going through facebook pages to find pictures of people with swords/knives etc... They descend on the person's house and confiscate said item, even though it is perfectly legal for them to own them.

Unfortunately the police seem to just make up the rules as they go along nowadays.

Manuelgate's goth vampire stripper fades from MySpace

James Osborne-Smith

Putting the Whap into Wapping

"Otherwise, there are soon going to be red faces all round in the upper editorial reaches of Wapping"

As opposed to the other red cheeks half the editorial staff like to get at the weekends...

US teen cuffed for sending nude phone pics

James Osborne-Smith

@David Wiernicki

"I'll take this. At least this (incredibly stupid) crap tends to get weeded out when it gets to the supreme court, since we put that whole 'constitution' thing in. You might want to give it a try."

Uh... apart from the fact that over half the supremes are paid for by Dubya so will toe the party line and he's (metaphorically) wiping his a$$ on your constitution.

I'm not claiming we're much saner over here but you do seem to be leading the field in insane applications of hastily rushed through legislation.

Marketing body condemns 'draconian' Olympic law

James Osborne-Smith

Restricted terms

So let me get this straight - any of the following combinations on advertising would lend you with a £20,000 fine -

Gold Games

London Two thousand and twelve

or even Summer 2012

but Sponsors of London's Summer Gold Medals would be fine?

You have to be kidding, right?

UK clamps down on bus-spotting terror menace

James Osborne-Smith
Stop

It's all about information control

The basic fact of the situation is that it's all about controlling who has access to the "undeniable" evidence of photographic images.

The police happily video everybody attending a protest march - even going so far as to make people who wear face coverings remove them for easier identification. But you start videoing them and they'll be confiscating your camera pretty sharpish. They want to keep tabs on us but feel uneasy about us having the power to do the same to them.

This attitude has filtered down to the point that anyone with a camera in a public place is suspicious now.

Anyway, if you really wanted to get photos of places all you'd need to do is round up a couple dozen of your shortest mates, all wear kagouls and carry cameras with extremely powerful flashes that you all use as one cohesive battery... Oh, and speaking Japanese would be an asset too ;-P

EU to ban the patio heaters that ate the planet. Not.

James Osborne-Smith
Unhappy

Thin end of the wedge indeed

Well, we would go back inside, but it seems that a little legislative blip means that we can't do what ~ 30% of people want to do inside.

I mea it's not like we didn't have a full round of opinion polls and a referendum before this was imposed right...?

Boffins develop Terminator-vision goggles

James Osborne-Smith

Re : I can see a Matrix mod for this

This was reported on /. a while ago, and a video linked. There is a green screen ASCII filter for these - obviously not the full matrix character set, but close...

Germany enacts 'anti-hacker' law

James Osborne-Smith

Trolling

Keith - re-read David's post without your ego blinkers on. He's saying that his comment is an obvious troll, not you.

The whole thing about lockpicks only being available to licensed locksmiths is a false comparison. Lockpicks are a physical object, only copyable with a certain (fairly high) level of skill. Security software is a virtual object and easily copied.

El Reg seeks ultimate 'nom de sex'

James Osborne-Smith

Title

I always thought it was pet/mother's maiden name - which makes mine...

Buster Woodhead.

Not bad huh - maybe it's a sign...

'Suspicious looking' man hauled off translatlantic flight

James Osborne-Smith

What are we - a police state?

"and he ran from the police. Perhaps, if he'd stopped and obeyed the police commands, he might still be alive now."

You can actually make that statement without feeling real fear? That the police have the right to pin you and shoot you 7 times in the head and once in the shoulder (nice grouping on a target 1m away, oh well trained marksmen...) for "running away".

Oh, and he wasn't running or carrying anything suspicious according to several eye witness reports - ref. statement by a surveillance officer

"I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his side."

He said he pushed the man back into his seat.

It was only after he had restrained him that he heard a gun shot.