* Posts by Jean Stone

23 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Aug 2007

BOFH takes a visit to retro computing land

Jean Stone

Blasts from the BOFH past

""There's a guy I know who has a simh VAX-11/780 purely to finish playing the game of dungeon he started 25 years ago."

"I WILL NOT BE BEATEN!" I snap back."

I love it! Nice callback to a fun old episode, bravo. Though how Simon _still_ hasn't finished that game after all this time baffles me.

$10,000-a-dram whisky 'wasn't even a malt'

Jean Stone

My guess would be something ranging from 'looking like they've just been slapped in the face with a herring' to 'apocalyptic'.

Newly discovered cave-dwelling creepy-crawly is four times the man* you are

Jean Stone
Alien

Re: 4 times the pleasure

Bah, the Centauri of Babylon 5 have SIX.

China's Dalek-like robots fear only one terrifying nemesis: Stairs

Jean Stone

I've seen this before...

All hail our great prophet who predicted the coming of such a robot and how this will all work out. The saga begins here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/17/bofh_2010_episode_10/

It's uncanny, I tell you.

Judge denies retrial for 'Dread Pirate' Ulbricht in Silk Road drugs case

Jean Stone

Please...

Attorneys make bad arguments every day without needing to be paid off to do so. Especially when your client appears to have been caught with his hand in the figurative cookie jar. If he didn't consider alternate strategies before leading off with a defense that was a spectacular non-starter that's really his problem (and the client's), not the court's.

Re: ineffective assistance of counsel, it's not likely to make much difference in the end given that one of the elements of that requires showing that but for the ineffectiveness, the outcome would have been different. Again, hand, in cookie jar. Very high bar there. Also, appeals follow after sentencing so right now it's a moot point.

Accused Silk Road boss's lawyer insists he was just a fall guy

Jean Stone

Re: Sir

No, why would you think otherwise? If it can be proven (under the appropriate standard of evidence) that you did X but not Y, then it's still been proven that you did X and will be sentenced accordingly. It also doesn't necessarily mean you didn't do Y (though it obviously can as well), just that the prosecution didn't meet its burden of proof. And being charged with several things you weren't proven to have done doesn't mean you weren't found guilty of everything else and it doesn't mean you're entitled to a retrial on just the things you were, y'know, already found guilty of doing.

There's more about bringing all claims in one proceeding, which gets into issues of double jeopardy and preclusion but I think you get the idea.

BOFH: Cannot terminate PFY instance... ACCESS DENIED

Jean Stone

Did anyone else see the title and go in thinking Simon was trying to get the PFY fired by 'forgetting' to mention that all the contract monkeying only applied to him personally?

Save hefty Dr Who and Bond girl 'Flossie', pleads vintage computer man

Jean Stone

Just think...

All that power and space and restoration effort just to have a place to store a Dungeon savegame.

Apple killer app Siri struggles with Indian regional accents

Jean Stone

No, I'd have brought up that BOFH if nobody else got to it first. It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw 'voice recognition' 'can't recognize' and 'Scottish' in close proximity.

PETA riled by Mario's raccoon skin suit

Jean Stone

Selective Thinking

They must really be having a slow month. So it's horrible for Mario to wear a Tanuki Suit but it's okay for him to kill turtles for their shells (which he uses to kill more animals), stomp on all manner of creatures (won't someone think of the poor Goombas?!) or throw creatures into boiling lava? It's a good thing PETA missed Mario 3 two decades ago or they'd have had a collective aneurysm over the Frog Suit...

New Kindle: Wider, but still no broadsheet

Jean Stone

So about those other features...

Say, a backlight so you can read it outside of a well-lit room, or something approximating a folder system so if you have more than a few dozen books you can sort them quickly instead of having to scroll through pages of books at an annoyingly slow rate? I'm all for anything that saves money and space on heavy textbooks but there are a couple of things everyone can benefit from that really could be worked on first.

Student sentenced for F-ucked up grade hack

Jean Stone

Stupid

Did these geniuses never think that a school might actually notice when someones grades shot up overnight? Even setting aside their horribly botched means of tampering with their GPA, unis do keep paper records of these things and one would think registrars are smart enough to do a little digging when someone at the bottom of the class rankings suddenly rises to the top. Even if the tampering went undetected due to failure at every level of responsibility solving the matter would take about a minute (plus ten hours scheduling time judging by standard uni efficiency):

Reg: So, how did Mr. Jacquette do last term? Good student?

Prof: Oh him, never attended classes, got one question right on the final. I think he was drunk at the time.

Reg: Thank you.

Of course, if these students truly were getting a lot of Fs then perhaps they're too dumb to realize that, though it also makes one wonder why they weren't punted for academic underperformance before they had a chance to act out their script kiddie fantasies.

Brand new Star Trek prequel pics and trailer

Jean Stone

That sound you just heard...

...was my optimism for this film dying. I remember a time when Trek tried to be thoughtful, where the biggest draw (for me at least) was the character interaction and where action was something that happened when it was important to the plot. This looks like the kind of movie designed to cater to people with shorter attention spans and is a lot heavier on the, err, action than I recall the Trek of my youth. Someone else called this Star Trek 90210 and I can't think of a better way to express my reaction to the trailer than that.

Of course I'll probably go to see it anyways, though maybe not for the reason the producers intend. If it's as awful as I'm now afraid it might be, it will be worth the price of a ticket just to heckle the film.

BOFH: The PFY wants a reference

Jean Stone

Change of jobs?

Not likely. We've got another reminder of the impending move to the new site/batcave this episode so I doubt that angle will be dropped after building it up for months.

You really would think the PFY would know better by now. Double-cross the BOFH and you'll get what's coming to you.

Son of 419 victim contacts El Reg

Jean Stone

Probable scam

My inbox has got plenty of mails that don't aim for the Greedy lobe of the brain. In the wake of any disaster that gets major press you can find examples either from an alleged survivor wanting help or from an aid organization whose business plan is to email random strangers and ask them for support. Scammers are willing to abuse the empathy of individuals as well as stupidity. If there isn't an email in my box within the week purporting to be from Burma or China I will be very surprised. Needless to say, I remain extremely suspicious of this email even if it doesn't immediately ask for money.

Nigerian duped gullible NASA employee

Jean Stone

Amazing

They actually nabbed a 419 Lad. Now how about they do that for the thousands more who are still stealing money from people every day?

Natasha Henstridge braces for Impact

Jean Stone

Pass

If they were playing this for laughs I might be tempted to see it. Sadly this doesn't appear to be the case so I'll be giving it a miss. I for one would love to see a new requirement for all film school curricula, namely a few introductory courses in the sciences. Also a mandatory course titled 'How not to make films' with studies including 'CGI: Not a substitute for interesting characters or plot', 'Why not everything in the universe is combustible' and 'Plots that were done to death thirty years ago'.

Windows Vista update 'kills' USB devices

Jean Stone

Best experience?

“Microsoft wants to ensure customers have the best possible experience with Windows Vista"

Oh good, so they're making the uninstallation process less painful then are they?

Wheels come off Paris Hilton movie vehicle

Jean Stone

Rifftrax

They've done Glitter, they've done Crossroads, they've even done Battlefield Earth, the Star Wars Holiday Special and Plan bloody 9 (twice). This movie is destined for Mike, Kevin and Bill's scathing commentary. Of course, when it happens we'll still have to pay to rent the thing but by then maybe the whole thing will be on youtube and we'll be spared the indignity of giving any kind of support to the little bint. Mine's the coat made from random household objects and marionette strings.

Star Trek XI release knocked back to 2009

Jean Stone

@ E

"The Star Trek TV shows have been up and down, quality ranged from quite good (DS9, Voyager) to as dumb as a sack of hammers (Enterprise)."

Voyager was good? Are you sure you're not having a bit of whatever amanfromMars is on? I'd say Trek tv was good up to DS9 and not a bit past that (barring a few flashes of inspiration here and there) with only the II-IV arc of the movies being really decent, though seeing Shatner die in Generations was worth the price of admission. My coat's the one with the funny pin over the left breast.

Boy burned in PSP trouser blaze

Jean Stone

Just great

If he was using a cheap battery his penny-pinching has come back to haunt him. If he was trying to use a Pandora battery for normal use purposes he was being stupid. If he was just unlucky Murphy's Law has that much more proof. If his mum starts a campaign to ban PSPs or the FAA decides they're now too dangerous to take on planes, I think I'm going to weep for humanity (again).

Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia

Jean Stone

Secret research techniques?

Would these be the kinds of things all students learn by their first year at university (at the latest) or have the inner circle at Wikipedia learned some sort of techniques not available to us peons?

BOFH: Chilling the bearings

Jean Stone

Hair Dryer?

I must be thick, what does the BOFH want one for?