* Posts by Matt Thornton

130 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Feb 2007

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And now for something completely different: Good news on spam

Matt Thornton

What? How is this good news?

- "The drop came even as the overall amount of spam rose"

I don't give a toss what flavour of spam it is, it's still spam. 419, viagara, bigger chap, amazing stock options... whatever - it all clogs my inbox.

The fact that this type of spam is going down shows ONLY that the spam creators will be looking for (and finding) new ways to fool spam filters and so we can all expect to receive more spam, not less, in the near future.

ABN Amro customer deets tip up on BearShare

Matt Thornton

"deets tip up"

Are you kidding me? Is our journalist that determined to stay 'down with the kids' that he'll sacrifice good old-fashioned readable English for some "street young peeps" vernacular?

Oh dear God. Word.

Yahoo! In! Ninth! Circle! Of! Security! Hell!

Matt Thornton

yawn!

big deal. i'm just pleased this post wasn't titled "Yahoo! in! ninth! circle! of! security! hell!" as would be the traditional overused Reg norm.

Kung fu monks battle Colombian karate assassins

Matt Thornton

No man of steel?

How can Superman not be on that list?

Google Earth mobilised in search for Fossett

Matt Thornton

RE: Erm / Latest images

As far as I'm aware, a lot of Google Earth is comprised of Quickbird imagery, which offers a fine spatial resolution of around 2.4m (multispectral). Quickbird has a repeat cycle of about 3 days so, considering Steve has been missing for about a week, there is at least one or possibly two or three fresh sets of imagery.

The more likely reasons for the imagery of your area being out of date are persistent adverse atmospheric conditions in your area (frequent cloud clover etc.) or, most probably, Google not updating the application - rather than the imagery not being available.

Apple lobs $100 credit at iPhone buyers

Matt Thornton

Exactly. Could give even less of a toss.

I agree with the sentiment of Ian Davies - the quality of the reporting at the Reg is noticeably in decline and has been for months. I have no idea what the editors (if there are such people) are up to but it's really depressing that their policy seems to be so lax.

It's actually indicative of the whole industry. It's getting so boring. Doesn't matter which company or product is being discussed but it's the same. You've got the lovers, the haters and the trolls. It's the same at ThinkSecret, at Slashdot, at ... I want to know what caused so many people to get so wound up by issues that rarely affect them. I've no idea why the comments here are moderated, because it seems like any old crap gets through, so instead of the comment system being used by people to actually further the discussion of the original article, it invariably gets filled up with shite.

Case in point - Apple released an iPhone and some people bought it, then they dropped the price. That's what happened. Why are there so many morons who care so much? Haven't you got anything better to do with your time?

I've been reading The Reg for almost 7 years or so and it pains me to say this, but someone needs to start doing some serious editing of its stories and its comments. Otherwise, the only reason to visit will be on a Friday afternoon for the BOFH.

Archos 605 Wi-Fi personal media player

Matt Thornton

sounds great...

Having now decided against an iPod, this is the model of choice for me.

Though I have to ask - do people *really* care that much about being able to access YouTube? Maybe I've missed something, but, I would never rate being able to use it as a reason to buy a device such as this.

Biggest gripe about this though is that they've changed it from a removeable to a fixed battery. That sucks. Means I'll have to buy the additional battery port to get any decent amount of time for use in remote locations.

Apple rings in changes with iPod Touch

Matt Thornton

bit disappointing...

I was holding out for today, and now i hear it, I'm a bit disappointed. I'm not bothered about flash memory, and was really hoping for the iPod Touch but with 80gb HDD. 16gb isn't big enough for me.

Despite the 8gb difference, I think people will go for the iPhone rather than the new iPod for the convenience of just carrying one device.

Or maybe that's what Apple planned. Either way I'm faced with a dilemma, go for the new iPod Classic or find one of the others that supports OSX as the platform.

Creative pitches Zen against third-gen iPod Nano

Matt Thornton

I love my Creative Zen Micro, but...

Why do Creative not support OSX? Getting my tunes organised on the Micro has been a nightmare, made easier by the excellent XNJB (with iTunes support). Now that my Micro has given up the ghost, I'm buying a new device and got very excited about this new model because it would mean I wouldn't have to buy an iPod.

But alas, still no OSX software support so getting tunes and video on the thing is impossible. Looks like a 6th gen iPod for me...

@Peter: not sure what you mean, RockBox will run on some (most) models of recent iPod...

Apple to announce HDD-less iPods tomorrow?

Matt Thornton

Indeed, rumours abound

I for one hope it is the new all singing all dancing megaPod because my trusty old Creative Zen Micro is sadly lying in pieces on my desk and I've decided to take the leap and join the masses. The new Creative Zen looks luvverly and I'd happily buy one - except they still don't support OSX so organising my music and video on the thing is too much of a ball-ache.

'Queen of Mean' leaves mutt $12m

Matt Thornton

Marry the dog...

@Sceptical Bastard: that's not such a crazy idea... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3004930.stm

...or ...let the dog bite you / crap on your shoes, and then sue it.

Or get your own dog to marry it (http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1605321.html), divorce and get some form of canine alimony...

Boy racer cuffed for 140mph YouTube jaunt

Matt Thornton

Ford Escort? 140mph?

I call shenanigans.

Mr and Mrs Renault cannot name daughter Megane

Matt Thornton

My history teacher...

's name was Mr. Poustie. We begged with him to call his son Cornish.

Sadly, he was having none of it.

Think again, FSF tells Microsoft on GPL3

Matt Thornton

Totally off-topic...

But how sad it is that that in the link to the Harper Collins website about Paddington Bear's illustrator, a website with a presumably target audience of kids, by a publisher where proofreading and accuracy should be #1 priority, has a massive and blatant spelling error as the very first thing you see?

Produce-licking YouTubers attacked by 147-year-old American grocer

Matt Thornton

Hurray! Sue first, think later!

A&P have missed a trick here. Whilst I would not go so far as to call the rap "good", it is nonetheless quite endearing and entirely positive about the quality of the produce in the store and sends a valuable message to kids to eat their greens. They should have used this as a marketing ploy... rewrite some of the stuff, remove the mexicans / bitch / nasty shit stuff, slap a couple of disclaimers on it ("At no point were any produce defecated on..") pay these oiks a couple Gs each and hey presto, you've got a down-with-the-kids advertising campaign.

US teen trades hacked iPhone for Nissan 350Z

Matt Thornton

Not so crazy, if you ask me

Nissan 350Z: £25k

3 8gb iPhones: £1200

Having your name, company and link plastered across ALL of the major news and tech websites and blogs: Priceless

Yahoo! Unveils! New! Mail! Service!

Matt Thornton

Email experience?

"...without ever leaving the e-mail experience,"

I really wish someone would stick a cork in some these jumped-up buzzword-fuelled marketing peons. Email experience? Please. Jumping out of an aeroplane is an experience. Seeing Jimi Hendrix live in concert is an experience. Heck, nearly getting hit by a bus is an experience. Checking my emails is perhaps the most tedious task I have to undertake (and I'm in charge of swapping out our backup tapes, a frighteningly boring task) and does not qualify as an experience.

Facebook moves to cut down application annoyances

Matt Thornton

Hallelujah

This is a good start. For the millonth time, I don't want to be an arsing zombie and I couldn't give a monkeys about who would win amongst the jedis, pirates, gingers or whatever.

Next step, though, is to remove the compulsion to add an application just to see the data on your friends' application. Take video, for example. If I want to view the video, why can't I just view the video? Why do I have to add the application (read: grant it permission to see my data) in order to do so? YouTube has no such compulsion!

Brian May going for astronomy PhD

Matt Thornton

Good on him

Having done a PhD myself and gone through the hassle (and, funnily enough, been presented with an opportunity to ditch it for a band, which I didn't) I'm pleased he got back to it and actually did the work to earn his PhD (assuming he passes his viva, of course).

It narks me no end to see people handed honorary PhDs for doing bugger all.

I guess things could have been different if I had have chucked it all in...

OLPC project goes into production

Matt Thornton

Hurray for more 419s

The test kids in Nigeria are already hunting down <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL1966647020070720?feedType=RSS">porn</a>, and no doubt they'll have these laptops offering us generous inheritances from long lost relatives in no time.

Your boss could own your Facebook profile

Matt Thornton

Similar thing in academia

The contract with the people who were funding my PhD was similarly sneaky... in return for my scholarship it said it wanted access to all work that I created in the duration of the work (fine) but also access to ALL previous work that both myself and my supervisor had done. Not so much a problem for me considering I was still a grubby student will little research history, but my supe is a leading Prof in the field and they wanted in on all his code and previous research and so on... !

Needless to say, that clause was removed before we signed it.

MEP plans EU build ban on cars faster than 100mph

Matt Thornton

Jeremy Clarkson will be thrilled

Can't wait to see what Top Gear makes of this suggestion...

The decline of antivirus and the rise of whitelisting

Matt Thornton

Yawn

It's all a bit tedious isn't it? Our way is best! No, OUR way is best! NO OUR WAY IS BEST! And so on, ad infinitum. This "problem" is never going to be solved by a single technology or single software provider. Whitelisting isn't "the answer" same as blacklisting isn't, or AV or any other measure.

About the only reliable solution is to disconnect your computer from the 'net. And even that doesn't protect you from hardware failure. Nothing is going to stop that overpaid exec from leaving his laptop loaded with the entire client database in an airport lounge. Considering this is really all about risk management and system uptime, the only thing you can do is have rock solid policies and strategies in place so that when the worst happens, you know how to deal with it.

I'd love to know, though, how the marketing people at ESET (I'm wondering ir Dr V up there is one of theirs) feels about having their spangly flash advert for the No.1 AV product from 2006 on the same page as an article that says all AV is crap and you don't need it. That did tickle me.

BOFH: Talking to tradesmen

Matt Thornton

Who can't count?

Out of interest, what happened to episodes 13 and 19?

UK mulls drink-drive limit cut

Matt Thornton

It's obvious

Since the major concern here is statistics, the only solution is to put the limit UP not down. All Police forces look good, Government looks good, more money for everybody, I get to have a couple of pints after work without feeling guilty. Problem solved.

So what's in a URL? The Reg URL?

Matt Thornton

Must be .co.uk

Echoing what everyone else has said - TheReg has its heritage in being British and proud of it and you must keep the .co.uk as the base domain.

Also (but of lesser importance IMNSHO) is .co.uk is PR8 whereas .com is PR7. My experience of domain name changes suggests GoogleBot et al aren't as sensitive to change as they could be...

If you really must rebrand then force the yanks to use the .co.uk...

Google pulls essay adverts

Matt Thornton

Ban the Wiki as well

Whilst Google are taking this action to remove the availability of low quality poorly researched ill-informed garbage that students are using to get degrees, they might as well get rid of the Wiki from their indexes as well. It amounts to about the same thing.

University moves to hush Facebook criticism

Matt Thornton

Hurray for the "students are useless" clan

I'm so pleased that people like Bill Smith have been given yet another opportunity to voice their uneducated opinions about the state of student society and illustrate yet again why these people are such morons.

I just hope Bill remembers how unimportant, unskilled, ignorant and total wastes of space students really are the next time he needs a doctor (or a lawyer) the next time he falls off a ladder doing his meaningless low-paid blue collar job...

'Cops help kill 32 Students', claims furious blogger

Matt Thornton

Oooh boy

"If even a single one of those had a firearm..." - I don't know about you, but when I think about going to the library, or the gym, or for lunch, I don't think "Must remember to pack a weapon in case some looney gets jilted". No denying this is a tragedy involving a lot of innocent people who didn't deserve to die, but please let's not let the pro-gun wacko's use it as another excuse for all and sundry to wander about with oozy's hanging out of their pockets...

Do we really need a daily shower or bath to stay healthy?

Matt Thornton

What!?

Those figures do NOT imply that no Australian goes more than a day without showering. What a load of rubbish!

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