Posts by TeeCee

Oh CRAP!

I just downgraded Messenger to version, er, 8.1.

8.5. would have done, but 8.1 is the last shipped as a full distributable rather than an installer stub that fetches the code from M$ (or rather doesn't for anything bar the current version), so it's the lastest 8.x version I could find.

The reason? The versions since 8.x are distinctly corp firewall unfriendly and don't bloody work through such!

@Captain Hogwash

Are you suggesting that STORK data might spread more easily?

Mandelson summoning.

The only surprise here is that Mandelson can Summon something that isn't better equipped in the horns, teeth, claws, leathery wings and eyes-on-stalks departments.

I guess Necromancy ain't what it used to be.

Re: Re: All expensive kit should have this feature

Let me guess. You wear one of those hats as depicted on the S.M.O.F. card in the Illuminati game, don't you?

@David Barrett

"...Milton plastic...."

Now, I was going to have a pedantic go at you there. Then I realised that you're covered by Poetic License.......

What it does tell us.

Obviously we should immediately knock down all those old buildings, like the Natural History museum and replace them with modern ones that are well insulated and more energy efficient to keep the CO2 botherers happy.

Or, better still, get the climate change nazis in one place, tell 'em we like our architectural diversity and that they can shove their energy efficiency tables up their collective arses*.

*With a copy of the league tables so shoved, it will no longer be possible for the sun to shine from same and thus this action will be an important contributor to the fight against global warming.

@Matt 89

In order for a gag to really work it has to be believable.

You almost had it, but you let yourself down when you implied that the sort of people who run Linux on PS3s actually have girlfriends......

Re: whatever next?

"......no commercial for doing ASLR on the kernel because there is no evidence that anyone is cracking it......"

So, insecure by design then?

This attitude to secure code development is copyright to MS circa 1992. At least they've learned the bloody lesson that saving a few dollars by doing it the easy way is a short cut to a world of hurt.

Home Office data loss news?

Must be a "Y" in the day or something.

F-R-I-D-A-Y, ah, there it is. Thought so.

Easy one.

"....who sent West Virginia Governor Joe Mahchin five Hewlett-Packard laptops......"

Depends how they were packed. If each came individually packed in a Matroska style nest of about 20 boxes with impact insualtion between each, each largest box strapped to a pallet, the pallet wrapped in shrink wrap, all five pallets loaded onto an articulated truck and accompanied by a second truck containing five more pallet/box constructs with the software and documentation, it was probably Hewlett-Packard.

@Rich 2

"....really belong in the arc."

Is that your way of saying that they're behind the curve?

There's no smoke without.....

I reckon they were hosting a corporate webchat on whether to go Windows, Linux or MacOS on the desktop for the future.....

What a bunch of dickheads!

Let's see. The problem is that when you get a CRB check, it looks at a database and, like as not, finds a load of crap that's erroneously linked to your details.

With ID card: You get a CRB check, it looks at a database and, like as not, finds a load of crap that's erroneously linked to your ID card.

This is an improvement how exactly?

Nothing like not addressing the root cause of the problem, that the whole thing's a piss-poor, pointless bit of knee-jerk bureaucratic control freakery run by clueless gits and based on data entered and validated by drooling morons, is there?

@Apocalypse Later

Er, citation needed?

Yes please. The one with the list of celebs, the iPhone with their wiki-entries bookmarked and the small bottle of cyanide in the pockets please.

Dear Apple.

".....we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways."

If I were you, I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting for that one. Also you probably want to define "appropriate" use of your customers' data. Google's interpretation of words like "reasonable", "appropriate", "privacy" and "anonimised" has traditionally differed from that of absobloodylutely everyone else.

Ok, so SCO's dead.

Just one question. Why the f*** won't it *stay* dead? It's like the zombie bastard offspring of Lazarus and Dracula.

An Althea and Donna comeback would be more f***ing welcome than this.

"Novell could not immediately be reached for comment at time of writing.". I'm not suprised. I'll bet they're having real trouble coming up with a response that doesn't have to be printed on asbestos.

"...as well as a mobile wallet program..."

A mobile wallet program hosted centrally*? What could possibly go wrong?

*And hosted centrally on an M$ platform** for added "underpants round ankles" value.

**Owned and run by those doyens of customer data security, the mobile telcos.

I really don't understand this.

Why the f*** are the US up in arms about anyway? If they hadn't leaned so heavily on the Scots to make sure that the Palestinians and Iran (wot done it) were kept out of the frame and ensure that Libya (wot didn't) was fingered, Al-Megrahi would never have been convicted in the first place.

He had to drop his appeal to be released (no compassionate release while court proceedings are pending), so this has neatly prevented any inconvenient exposure of their complicity in the stitch-up.

I'd have thought that they'd have been bloody delighted.

Not on schedule.

Now you'd have thought that the US of all countries would understand that just 'cos someone's military might doesn't turn up when it's expected doesn't mean that it won't turn up at all.

I mean, they invented the idea of being fashionably late to major world conflicts......

Is it just me?

Or does that second one look like two sysadmins high-fiving as they're run over by a Pizza truck....

What would have happened if the sysadmin had been hit by a pizza truck?

Well, presumably Fate and Serendipity would have high-fived and then gone out for a few beers for a start.

Here's how it goes.

1) Apple ship iTelly.

2) Sells like hot cakes.

3) iTunes video pwns the VOD market.

4) Sony, Toshiba etc. tweak their tellies to access iTunes video.

5) Apple move API goalposts to stop third parties poaching off iTunes.

6) The largest anticompetitive practice class action suit of all time from all the major consumer electronics manufacturers, with all the TV / Cable / Telecoms companies taking a brief, sues Apple into administration.

7) Apple relaunched as a computer company, divested of all the silly "non core business" stuff that got 'em into the shit in the first place.

They may be able to play silly B's with Palm, but some of these boys have deep pockets, big nasty legal teams and will be fighting for their very lives.......

@Winkypop

Grrrrrrrr.

"#1 If you don't want stuff copied, don't make it in a format that is so easy to duplicate."

Conbloodygratulations! You've just justified DRM. Yes, it exists because the world is unfortunately full of complete knobs who take that attitude.

I hope you're fucking proud.........

Plan B

If the science proves to be a bust, they can always take their hours of bovine digestive rumblings, mix 'em down to three and a half minutes, add a back beat and sign a lucrative contract with a Hip-Hop label.

Re: Far Right?

Too true, I've been saying this for years. Their economic policies (yeah, right) have far more in common with the Soviet Union under Stalin than Germany under Hitler.

As for the racist side, ask a Cossack or an Armenian if they think that the right have a monopoly on this one.

I reckon they've been flagged as right wing for the same reason that the left have a nasty habit of airbrushing Stalin and Beria's excesses. i.e. the "right on" crowd with the right=bad, left=good blinkers on.

Couldn't you have published this earlier?

"topless women will rally in great numbers across the USA........"

I can't get a cheap plane ticket now............

@2FishInATank

Actually, they were *all* using IE5.5, but some of them were l33t enough to hack the browser ID string.........

Not surprising.

I had the need to open a .docx the other day. Office 2k3 squirreled off and found the official M$ plugin to do so. Some considerable disk thrashing later it gave me something that I assume was similar to the original, but had a few interesting foibles (like every "@" being converted to a Japanese Yen currency symbol).

If even M$ themselves can't build something, apart from Word 2k7, that can reliably read a .docx file I'm slightly less than astonished that the rest of the world is having a few problems here.

Perspective.

"..........equipment worth £155m could not be fully accounted for."

Or peanuts compared to the vast sums that'll be hosed over a large IT vendor as a result of this to build a new integrated, all-encompassing asset management and tracking system, which will be available some time after hell freezes over and won't work.

This 'ere crystal ball says that it'll revolve around RFID tagging everything they've got and checking 'em with little scanners linked to a central database for tracking purposes. For an idea of the actual cost, work out how many things the MOD has, compare this to the size of the population of the UK and then add or subtract as appropriate from the known figures for a certain other system that revolves around RFID tagging everything and that's supposed to have little scanners linked to a central database for tracking^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hauthentication purposes.

Convey Computers.

Maths Co-Processors? How quaint. It'll be mullets and shoulder pads making a comeback next.

The fact that John Hughes croaked the other day so the TV channels are vying with each other as to who can show the most of his films just adds to the deja vu effect here.

Damn! Now I've just thought of Mia Sara in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and Friday's a writeoff. See what tampering with things from the past can do? Curse you Convey Computers!

@Mectron

For once in my life I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with most of what you said there.

How the hell did we ever get into a situation where Amazon will happily ship a Region <whatever> DVD anywhere you like, but unlocking players is illegal in certain markets. Don't get me started on the utter bleedin' stupidity of region-locked portable players.

This was neatly illustrated recently when O'Barmy gave our Glorious Leader a collection of DVDs as a present. One of the papers in the US (NYT I think) ran an article pointing out how stupid this was as Gordon wouldn't be able to watch them as they were for the wrong region. I still don't know what was funnier from a British perspective, the sheer blinkered ignorance displayed or the fact that half of our press duly trotted out this bollocks verbatim.

@Fractured Cell

I'm sure we could find out. Doesn't Pope shit have little bells and pepper in it?

Re: Why not host his own website?

As someone who knew an F1 mechanic, I can say that he did indeed take his car to Shit Fit when it needed an exhaust. It wasn't a Ford though.

Something to do with changing a steel exhaust on a production car being somewhat beneath you when you're used to working with parts that are hand made out of unobtanium alloy and also having the cash to pay someone else to do the crap jobs.

He didn't change his own tyres either. He said that anything built in such a way that it isn't possible to do this in 7 seconds or less just isn't cut out for DIY work. Apparently the staff at his local tyre and exhaust centre were heartily sick to the back teeth of hearing this one.

Re: que?

Ah! You're reading "potential criminal" as someone who may commit a crime. Try reading it as someone doing something that Sweaty Gordon and his mates haven't got around to criminalising yet. It makes more sense then.

The weather today.

"This morning will see a large system of EPIC FAIL moving in from the west. This will be followed by an outbreak of scattered redundancies in our IT unit later in the day....."