Posts by Phil Standen

FBI softens stance on ransomware: it's (sort of) okay to pay off crims to get your data back

AML implications

I'm pretty sure that paying criminals without verifying their status on a sanctions list is probably illegal, even if they FBI say they don't care.

Chaps propose free global WiFi delivered FROM SPAAAACE

Yes the UX rubbish

But actually, we will probably learn a lot from trying to do this. So lets have a go anyway.

Who should play the next Doctor? Nominations needed!

Re: The Doctor ... of whiff waff

Sun writes: BoJo is DoHo

Multi-billion Euro broadband fund obliterated by EU budget cut

HS2?

Why don't we use the cash from HS2? Surely sending people's mind state (by the time this is built, the tech will have caught up) is more efficient than the wetware?

Investor pulls out of Facebook, pumps cash into pork-printing joint

Re: Prior art ?

i would buy one if I would print out my own Alice!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love IPv6

Double plus Grey and Double minus Grey I think you'll find.

Behold: First look at Office 2013, with screenshots

Re: Why - Oh Why waste so much money when Open Office & LibreOffice are free?

Because office workers generally come with Microsoft Office skills. Largely due to the more recent and shit IT education system.

The cost of re-training is high, and unfortunately much much higher for power users of Excel. Power users of Excel are accountants, the ones with the purse strings. So it's not getting signed off, ever.

So what's the worst movie NEVER made?

Re: Quentin Tarentino...

staring Mel Gibson

iPhone 5 gets a 5in screen

Aspect ratio?

the current iphone would have a 4 and a bit inch screen if the screen went to all 4 edges, bye bye home button?

Apple eyes ISPs to sell 'iTV'

First to do gesture and voice?

Say "xbox connect" at your kinnect.

Really not the first at all.

Flog secondhand MP3s at your peril - law guru

Someone Else's Computer

"First of all, copyright law mostly does not allow the reproduction of a digital file on someone else's computer, even if the original copy was lawfully downloaded and is subsequently deleted."

How about if I had rented space on someone else's computer? For example as a cloud backup space?

How about if the Ts&Cs of that storage solution allowed them to look at my data.

How about if I rented some space on my computer to other people under the same terms. How about if I offered a loss leading incentive (say about the cost of a song for about the space of a song)?

Hasbro sues Asus over Transformer Prime moniker

Preventing sale

Why would they prevent sale? This only makes sense between competing products.

Surely they will be going for a name change, or more likely damages?

Did a Seagate sales bloke just say 5TB drives are coming?

If your data isn't in n+1 places then it doesn't exist.

That's why google gives yours to everyone.

Should your system offer Mr, Ms ... and Mx?

Gender Bias

How can we work out if organisations have gender bias if we can't record it?

Hacker defaces Irish Catholic paper: 'Gotta love false hope'

@Turtle

I don't think anyone thinks it would, just that you would have to take personal accountability for your actions.

Probably just as bad/good, but a little more accountable.

Don't buy your iPad in a McDonald's car park

Hang on.....

Have Apple phoned to ask for their prototype back?

Seven lessons from the HP Touchpad fire sale

Don't under-estimate the "Bargain" effect

Was $400 now $69

Over 75% off

etc...

After Jobs: Apple and the Cult of Disruption

Re: Business Model

"Way of making money" is what everyone else calls it.

Room-temperature brown dwarf spied just 9 light-years off

Re: Near

I dunno....

A pencil 3 desks away is not near.

A cinema 1 street away is near, despite it being further away than the pencil.

Windows Phone dev GM splits with Microsoft

Re: Charlie Kindel the eco-warrior?

Dead puppies consume less in the long run.

All those puppies will become doggies (Pup is to Dog as Puppy is to ....) at some point, and will die. Best get rid of them when they are small.

"Do no Evil"

DIDO: snake oil or wireless salvation?

Perhaps they have invalidated the illegality of shooting firearms randomly into the air in Arizona?

Perhaps they have invalidated the illegality of shooting firearms randomly into the air in Arizona?

Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

I, for one, ....

...bid farewell to our previous Overlord.

Sandi Toksvig puts the 'n' into cuts - on the Beeb

Like a superinjunction

Is this like a super injunction? You can't say the word, or say that the word exists? or even say you can't say the word exists?

Or has Sandi also been at it with Imogen Thomas?

Singing Duke set to Nukem dead

Smack my bitch up?

Or maybe I kissed a Girl by Katy Perry?

BOFH: Attack of the Global Corporate Overlords

@cosymart

Yes, at least 2 very large financial institutions use Notes for real.

SCHEITERN: Scientologists want to friend schoolkids on Facebook

"Butt dropped"

"Butt dropped" - I love this phrase, from the context it appears to mean give up on a loosing case and give a vaporous excuse. I look forward to "Sony Butt Drops GeoHot" and perhaps "Ellison issues Java Butt Drop".

TV election debate 'worm' graph found to undermine democracy

No Shit!

The same can be said of any commentary on any event.

Sheila's Fails? The statistics of biological risk

Missing the point of the article?

All the comments about male or female drivers being more costly to insure are missing the point of the article.

The ruling says that insurance companies are not allowed to exhibit gender bias, so simply asking if you are male or female is not the only restriction.

If little yellow cars are more often driven by women then the insurance company is no longer allowed to ask if you drive a little yellow car.

If there are other clustered attributes that discriminate then they also must be excluded.

If men have more costly accidents then they may no longer be able to ask the cost of your accidents.

If women have a higher frequency then they may no longer be able to ask the date of your accidents.

Same with other traffic offences.

So in summary, the logical conclusion is the if you drive a car you must pay a flat premium.

I for one welcome our existing overload's new tax on driving.

No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed

How about Imperial College?

2 modules courses on algorithms, one is required.

2 modules courses on processor design, one is required.

1st year programming taught in Haskell.

2 modules under the title Logic (natural deduction, lambda calculus etc..), both required.

Database first principals as a required course.

2 modules on OS design, one required, including a practical course work requiring you to re-write the Minix debugger.

I'm pretty sure that even without a "C++ programming" module IC CS grads think in the right way.

Yes, Concurrent Systems is taught with Java as the implementation language, but I'm pretty sure that the principals of avoiding deadlock and using mutex's work in most languages.

Since most of IC's CS grads work for banks in the city, I should think they are doing something right w.r.t. employability so maybe other universities should take note?

Robots capable of 'deceiving humans' built by crazed boffins

I for one...

... welcome our new and shiny but still deceptive overlords

Phonemakers cry foul on Steve Jobs 'We're all alike' attack

Smart Phones

Steve thinks that the iPhone 4 is the smartest phone on the planet.

You would have to be dumb not to buy the smartest.

Therefore the iPhone 4 is the only Smart Phone, it has problems, therefore ALL Smart Phones have problems.

Problem solved

Brighton NIMBYs complain over BT broadband upgrades

@Won't someone think of the....property prices

In which direction? Brighton is expensive because of all the Londoners wanting to live here, so getting good 'net is probably more important to them than green boxes, they are just happy they can breath outside.

The Argus and The Register joining forces?

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/8254639.Brighton_mum_hits_out_at_waste_of_huge_box_for_tiny_part/?ref=mr

Transport for London gobbles up Oyster

Nation wide oyster

It's called ITSO, an is due to be a requirement for francise renewal for all of the train operators.

Not all stations will be ITSO-ized, but the medium to large ones will.

Chimps don't like short measures: Official

All well and good but...

... how did they perform when they were half cut? Did they then pick the liquid that was the brightest colour and tasted the worse?

Wii HD coming in 2010, claims mole

HD Tiger Woods!

Because lets be honest, that is the killer game for the Wii. My copies have certainly got more play than everything else that isn't Mario Kart.

Google Maps reborn as world's largest Monopoly board

Predictably

Gone titsup

US state bars sex offenders from 'social networking sites'

and el reg

"include a built-in comment engine." - like this one?

Too-tall terror snapper stopped by cops again

What if he hadn't had any ID?

No, seriously. I quite often go out with just my phone keys and some cash. My name is not 16GB, Yale or H.R.H Queen Elizabeth.

If I saw something interesting I would take a picture with said phone.

Cartoon lion urges Lancs kids to dob in terrorist classmates

All about intent

If I were to kill 10 people because I wanted them dead, I would be a murder. If I were to kill any 10 people because I wanted everyone to live in fear of being killed I would be a terrorist.

Clear Guy Fawkes wanted a named set of people dead, so he is a murder.

Actually I suppose I could even use threats rather then actual killing to make people afraid then I would also be a terrorist.

Maybe I could get everyone to be suspicious of each other an so they would live in fear. That would also make me a terrorist.

So, pretty much anyone that tells you that you are at risk of being death is a terrorist. Reductio ad absurdum. (Special merit for Dr Gillian McKeith)

BOFH: Snout, meet trough

@AC 12:31

Well played sir.

I respond with the Perrin Advance to Chalk Farm.

Google blames cheeseburgers for destroying the planet

Cheeseburger to be added to the Register Standard Units List

Please add the Cheeseburger, Newspaper, Google Search (for Norks) and Google Search (No Norks) to the list of units.

Pirate Bay loses trial: defendants face prison time, hefty fines

@Lee Jackson

I don't think anyone is going to argue that they aren't guilty of "being accessories to breaching copyright laws". Clearly they are.

However the double standards applied are the problem, as all and sundry have pointed out, google must be next. having one rule for those with power and one rules for those without is not a good precedent to set.

Rapists should be raped, declares Jordan

Re: Brighton's Influence

Brighton (here) is also one of the most liberal places in the country. So I doubt it has influenced her too much.

However, we do seem to think that if you own a car and want to park it on the street you should be raped so maybe I am wrong.

US admiral wants pain-rayguns for Gulf fleet

Degrees of Lethal?

"non- or less-lethal weapons"

What degree of lethal is proposed?

There needs to be some kind of El-Reg standard units.

I propose:

Palinite - Defined as brain Dead, but otherwise funtional.

Full Paris - Able to perform basic oral functions, but limited cognative ability.

Partial Paris - Full oral skills, some self promotion.

Jobsian - Not able to tell the difference between hype and reality.

OU - Mostly functional, but with the odd ugly boil.

Vista - Still born.

Violent video games <coin flip> ARE linked to child aggression

What am I doing wrong?

Despite playing days of Tiger Woods 09 my handicap is still not improving when I get out on the course.

I still can't Turbo slide my car.

Ducking, leaning forward and stepping forward followed by a medium punch has yet to cut down on the time taken to light the BBQ.

DARPA probably ARE conducting research into shooting the floor whilst jumping though.

Sockpuppeting civil servant Wikifiddles himself

Tip

Have you tried putting the bucket with a hole in it over his head and putting lighting a candle near it?

BOFH: Back in the saddle

@Adam White

Comments like that should have Paris icons :-D

Winehouse jibe wins Fringe's funniest gag

@ My Version

I can't believe "Amy Winehouse self-harms" is news, pumping yourself full of Heroin is considered beneficial?

Your go.

Booze and breasts combined, finally

Cocktail Cod Peice?

... I have nothing more to add.