Posts by The Douros

Save DAB! Send FM radios to Africa

Why keep DAB?

Two words: Planet Rock

Another two: Rick Wakeman

Microsoft at a loss in Word patent case?

Never mind Microsoft...

...just tell me if this is likely to impact OpenOffice at all.

Cobol hits fifty

And, as everyone knows...

A system without Cobol and Fortran is like a chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.

(in other words: quite alright, really).

Libra freezes out Welsh legalese

Get your facts right

Don't know which parts of Wales some of you are familiar with - but the parts of Wales that I know well, for the majority of people Welsh actually *is* their first language.

As for those of you who cannot understand that people in their *own* country have a reasonable demand to use their *own* language, you guys really need to get a life, and get real. Twll dyn...

US woman sues over exploding thong

What a load of pants...

Why this article? No, really, why?

PETA offers $1m for test tube chicken

@TrishaD

In a way, yes. (It's the assertion that makes me aggressive). And it seems to me that you are using the label "aggressive" as a negative - but then again this is only your opinion.

Have a very nice day :-)

@ TrishaD & Ru

TrishaD:

"PETA advocate the vegetarian lifestyle. I'm not aware of them actually forcing anyone to do anything.

I'm totally baffled by the completely OTT reaction from meat eaters that any article on El Reg that relates to vegetarianism seems to generate."

No, you are right, they are not forcing anyone to do anything, but quite obviously they would very much like to. You see, although I see vegetarianism as a lifestyle *choice* and respect people's right to make it, PETA-type vegetarians are notorious for failing to reciprocate the respect to my right to make a choice different to theirs. The reaction by meat eaters is provoked by vegetarians' statements about their supposed cultural/moral/evolutionary superiority (to quote Tony, above: "a relic of our caveman genes that we have to overcome to be truly civilized") and these statements, quite frankly, stink of nazism. In view of that, yes, I will bloody scream and scream about it, and you know where you can stick your sarcasm.

Ru:

"It is a little sad that hypocrisy is considered to be a far worse thing than at least *attempting* to make a moral stand"

PETA are not *attempting* to make a moral stand. They are *pretending* to make a moral stand, which is a lot worse than *attempting*, by a considerable margin.

Bunch of hypocrites, the whole load of them...

That air of moral superiority by PETA & Co has gone beyond a joke. In fact, it is a textbook case of licensed bigotry, where the "others" are morally/cuturally/evolutionarily inferior and "we" are entitled to dictate a way of life to them.

No price for guessing who was the most famous vegetarian ever in the history of the western world.

Really, if they are so keen to eat genetically engineered, tube-grown shit, let them go ahead and do so -it's their stomachs and they can do whatever the hell they want with them. What is annoying is that they would really like to enfore the above mentioned genetically engineered, tube-grown shit, into the stomachs of the rest of us. Vegetarianism is an eating disorder, get over it!

Besides, everybody knows that cute animals taste better.

Coat please! (mine's the genuine leather one...)

US cruiser nails crippled spy-sat on first shot

I am waiting impatiently...

... to hear what the Flat Earth Society people have to say about this (and how it fits with their conspiracy delusions^H^H^H^H^H^H^H theories).

Paris, because someone's go to do it...

TV heavyweights build on-demand supersite

@ Hugh, David

@ David:

"Actually there is a way of authenticating eligability to watch British TV, the TV licence."

That was exactly my point, a few comments further up. My gut feeling is that a web account with username+password linked to a TV license number (i.e. login unsuccessful if license has gone overdue) should do the trick. That, of course, would blow the current licensing model which is per address (and, secondly, by person in certain circumstances), but I am sure it would be possible to design a reasonable alternative.

My objection to Hugh was the suggestion of eligibility based on nationality (it's not a civil right, dammit, it's a paid-for service...)

@ Hugh:

"Personally I'm not that desperate to watch british TV"

Ah - now you're talking sense (especially when it comes to ITV...)

@Hugh

"why can't the other channels have some way of telling that I'm a British national and letting me watch their content on demand?"

Hmm, dunno... maybe because access to particular channels is not an automatic privilege linked to British nationality? Or maybe because the only way to check your British nationality is to check your passport number through the home office? You choose...

@ Expat

"How does an Expat like myself get to watch the good old British TV that I so miss?"

It's dead easy really: Come back over here, pay TV license like the rest of us, then watch it all, to your heart's content...

Disability law can protect alcoholic workers

Yes, but kirrhosis is a disease. And a disability. Not a chemical dependency.

Do you lot actually ever read the bloody articles before you bother to comment?

@ Spleen

I think that both you (and a few others) have missed the point here completely.

The proposed legislation is not about covering for alcoholism, but for the collateral damage caused by it. Whether alcoholism itself is/isn't a disability and/or a choice is completely irrelevant here (btw: no, it is not a choice, get used to it! There is a long way between a regular heavy drinker who can do a U-turn anytime, and an addict who can no longer do that without intensive assistance. If you think the two are the same, then you have yet a lot to learn).

Consider the case of a fully rehabilitated alcoholic who does not drink any more, but is still suffering liver damage.

The issue here is the liver damage. If person A no longer drinks (i.e. chose and decided and managed NOT to drink), but the liver damage is still there (pretty much in the same way that the broken spine is still there for person B who fell off the mountain), then why should that damage not be covered as a disability?

The cases then become equivalent. Both A and B put themselves at risk, then the risk factor no longer exists, but there is resultant damage that causes a disability. If you think that there is no reason to discriminate against B's disability, there there is definitely no reason (apart perhaps from one's moralistic pretenses) to discriminate against A's disability either.

Domino's pizza prices may rise

Who cares...

We still got kebabs...

Proposed blogging law outrages Italian netizens

Mmm...

Sounds a bit like a law that the Greek government passed a few years ago. The law was intended to target gambling, especially online and by means of "one-armed-bandit" fruitmachines - but the law was so badly phrased and out of touch with reality that it also covered (i.e. outlawed) ALL forms of digital gaming (including online, on a PC, or dedicated console). The ensuing outrage caused the lawmaker to rephrase the law properly (i.e. to specify the banning of gaming that involved gambling unless properly licensed), but technically, for a few months, even playing the humble Solitaire supplied with your OEM Windows on a new PC was illegal... Governments...

UK fast food peppered with salt

Ministry of the Bleedin' Obvious?

"Fast food contains all sorts of junk that is not very good for you". Not exactly breaking news, is it?

Sony to unplug Connect digital music service

About bloody time!

Yes, ATRAC is (usually) better quality than MP3, but the way they implemented the whole thing has been abysmal throughout...

Dell laptops not in the pink after all

Hmm...

Any colour, as long as its black...