Posts by CustardGannet

Italian MP threatens parents forcing veggie diets on kids with jail

@ heyrick : "it would make you want to stop eating period"

Better avoid those hens eggs, then...

Re: Criminal offence to impose a diet lacking in essential elements ?

@disgusted - You seem to be asserting that veggie/vegan diets are 'inadequate' per se. Evidence please, rather than just prejudice.

Criminal offence to impose a diet lacking in essential elements ?

I guess they better start arresting every parent who buys their kids food from Jack Fulton's, Iceland, MacD's, Burger King (or the Italian equivalent thereof)...

Mobile banking for the poor has flopped in India

Re: The poor in India is missing something significant for mobile banking

@ AndyS : I don't see how it's 'racist' to observe that poor people in India (average wage 5000 rupees = ~£56 per month) are, in fact, short of money.

Hello, Barclays? Why hello, John Smith. We meet again

"80 per cent of all consumers believe..."

"The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value, if none of them know anything about the subject."

~ Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor, 161-180 CE)

Happy Sysadmin Day!

Personally, I had a highly productive day, mostly reading El Reg. Occasionally fired off an email asking for a screenshot of the error.

Happy days !

Argos changes 150 easily guessed drop-off system passwords

Re: So how long until...

Let me guess... '4rg0sStor3' [+Site Code]

Harrison Ford's leg, in the Star Wars film, with the Millennium Falcon door

Re: What Galaxy Is The Author Living In?

Yes, it was a joke. The way it works is :

- This website is (ostensibly) dedicated to IT related news.

- The author therefore picked the one film where HF plays an IT guy, despite it being a B-movie that most people have never heard of, let alone seen.

This is what we British call 'humour' (with a 'u').

Microsoft stops to smell the roses, creates the Shazam of flowers

Your Mum

...is she willing to receive unsolicited pictures* from thousands of complete strangers ?

If not, there may still be a need for this app.

* Of plants, naturally

Hacker shows Reg how one leaked home address can lead to ruin

Terrible fates

FWIW, around 70 people per year die in the UK pulling on their trousers (think hopping on one leg, before falling sideways and smacking your head against furniture).

Why oh why oh why don't people learn to put trousers over both feet whilst sitting down ? (Or to wear a kilt.) Natural selection, I guess.

Drone bloke cuffed after gizmo stops firemen tackling forest inferno

Re: Sounds like nonsense to me

@Ivan4 :

If I were coming in low over flames, to deliver a load of water and/or chemicals effectively, and then a stupid drone appeared right in front of me, I would definitely drop my load.

Boffins unveil 500TB/in² disk. Yeah, it's made of chlorine. -196˚C, why?

-196˚C ?

That should test those server-room fans to their limit.

You really do want to use biometrics for payments, beam banks

"Two in three European consumers actively want to use biometric technology"

In other news :

Eat dog turds, 500 billion flies can't be wrong.

"The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value, if none of them know anything about the subject."

~ Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor, 161-180 CE)

UK gov says new Home Sec will have powers to ban end-to-end encryption

"sending a steady stream of gibberish which looks meaningful"

...I believe the Gubmint already do that for us. See quotes in article.

Tesla whacks guardrail in Montana, driver blames autopilot

stuff

"one has to wonder whether all this "safety" tech in cars is actually making them less safe"

You bet it is.

When I rule the world, steering wheels will have a six-inch serrated metal spike in the centre, pointing directly at the driver's chest. *That* will ensure that people drive a whole lot more carefully.

Re: Idiots!

Exhibit A, Your Honour :

"The speed limit is 55, he was driving 60 on autopilot"

If that is indeed correct, then perhaps the guy should try installing Brain v1.0, rather than using that beta-version that nature issued him with.

Android Mew-ware, I choose you: Code nasty poses as Pokemon GO

Re: My friends call me a luddite

I'm actually very happy with my old Nokia phone, running Snake II.

Beat that for retro-Luddism.

Teen thugs lure, rob Pokemon Go gamers

Re: Great

Personally, I call them 'Meanderthals'.

Teen faces trial for telling suicidal boyfriend to kill himself via text

Re: Girlfriend from hell!

Swipe left, dude, swipe left.

Re: Is suicide illegal in the USA

"if... there was some palpable attempt to cross state lines while performing it"

I know it's not really a laughing matter, but I just have this vision of loading oneself into a huge cannon, Wile E. Coyote -style.

Facebook ‘glitch’ that deleted the Philando Castile shooting vid: It was the police – sources

"...the fear that cops feel everyday..."

This is how they sell it to us - aren't police brave, protecting our liberties etc etc.

But bin-men (garbage collectors) are *more than twice* as likely to be killed whilst on duty, and many other professions are even worse - see http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-dangerous-jobs/.

I doubt there will be a full military funeral for the next binnie to get crushed by a lorry.

Mind the GaaP: UK.gov needs to get a grip on digital

“If government had any sense..."

A superlative idea, sir, with just two minor flaws: one, the government don't have any sense; and two, the government don't have any sense.

Now I realise that - technically speaking - that's only one flaw, but I thought it was such a BIG one it was worth mentioning twice.

UK's education system blamed for IT jobs going to non-Brits

Re: Outsourced onshoring - racism ?

Letter to Viz [UK satirical magazine] some time ago :

"I've just heard they're moving my job to India.

Brilliant !

I've always wanted to see the sub-continent, and with the money they're paying me, I can live like a Maharajah !"

Password reset: 45 million creds leak from popular .com forums

Re: what?

If they were Mercan, surely the last one would be motherf***ing.com ?

Boffins decipher manual for 2,000-year-old Ancient Greek computer

"almost two millennia under water..."

"The machine has become crushed, its gears mashed together and some parts are missing..."

... and I bet it still works better than Windows 10

In obesity fight, UK’s heavy-handed soda tax beats US' watered-down warning

@ Sir Sham Cad

You've got it the wrong way round - Aldi do really good *gin*. For tonic, buy Fevertree.

Microsoft's paid $60 per LinkedIn user – and it's a bargain, because we're mugs

Re: I'll never get the marketing people's valuations...

I'll never get their logic either.

I searched online for, & then lashed out 50 quid on, some bicycle panniers about 3 months ago. I'm still getting bombarded by adverts for bicycle panniers.

Computerised stock management? Nah, let’s use walkie-talkies

'evaporative coolers'

As a Podean of the British variety, I did briefly think you were talking about some obscure IT hardware device.

I understand you also have a thing called 'sun lotion' ?

> > > The summer one, with the DWR coating, thanks.

Microsoft won't back down from Windows 10 nagware 'trick'

Re: The KB article has a "feedback" section

Here's the feedback I left :

"X means NO ! See https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn742499%28v=vs.85%29.aspx . You just made us give our 11-year-old daughter a *severe* telling-off for approving this unwanted upgrade, while she denied everything. We told her that we weren't angry that she had made a mistake, just angry that she wouldn't take responsibility, while she tearfully insisted that she had simply closed the box by clicking on the 'X' as we'd taught her. Hope you're proud of yourselves. I'm ‫off to buy a copy of 'Linux for Dummies', I'm sick of your BS."

Geniuses at HMRC sack too many staff! Nope, can't do it online. FAIL

"This cost taxpayers a total of £97m as they were forced to hold"

But look at it another way : they BOOSTED telcos' income by £97m, so it's a zero-sum game. Amiright ?

Lloyds online banking goes TITSUP*

Colour me unsympathetic

"Need to produce 3 months of statements in the next hour and website is down. Ridiculous and unnac[c]eptable."

^ THIS is what I hate about customers. How DARE systems ever fail ?

Internal combustion engines have been around for 100+ years and still fail on a regular basis, but people accept that and understand why engines are not 100% reliable.

One website fails for a few hours, and they're going mad because they've left some life-crucial task (probably involving being fined £1000s by HMRC) until the last 60 minutes.

'Tards.

</rant>

Walmart sues Visa for being too lax with protecting chip cards

"...should have been disbanded at first light."

I hope that by 'disbanded', you mean 'shot'.

Archaeologists find oldest ever ground-edge stone axe

Re: Hold on a gosh darned minute...

@ Nigel :

Tell me more of this Earth thing you call 'humour'.