Posts by Big Al

Realpolitik

It seems to me that regardless of whether or not they support what's happening in (or to) Libya, a whole bunch of Reg readers would be interested in knowing more about how the network was hijacked, and by whom. This being a techy kind of website and all.

The article isn't a celebration of a criminal act. It's reporting on something that happened, with direct input from one of the key people involved, correcting errors that have been published elsewhere.

That's called journalism, and I for one am glad to see it here.

The lawyers can argue about the legality of the acts reported upon later, if they want to.

Science can be fun

Work hard, play hard - as Branson himself says, the vessel is experimental, and if anything does go wrong, there won't be much anybody can do about it.

This is a great tribute to the memory of a fellow adventurer and friend - the Bearded One shows us, yet again, how the super-rich can combine cutting-edge scientific endeavour with a sense of adventure (and, let's be honest here, fun).

Thumbs up!

Autonomy...

Autonomous weapons release is what leads to things like airliners being shot down by mistake...

Big fan of the remote piloted alternative, me... after all, there's always going to be kids who are good with joysticks available to fly them.

LINDSAY

LInDSAy - the Lightweight Innovative Design Space AssaY project

French? Mais non!

"a just war in which the French regained what was theirs by right"

'Normandy' was created as a fief by the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in 911, based on concessions made by the French King to the Viking leader Rollo - the word Norman being related to 'Northmen' (Normanni in Latin).

Normandy was not France, and the Normans were not really French - rather, they were Scandinavians ruling natives of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock. Vassals of the French King they were, but that was far from being French!

USMC

"the US Navy (interested in equipping its marines and SEAL frogman-commandos better)"

<pedantry>

While the civilian leadership of the United States Marine Corps falls for administrative purposes under the US Department of the Navy, the USMC is militarily a separate armed service - they aren't 'the Navy's marines' unless you regard the suits as 'the Navy'... as a naval man yourself, Lewis, I doubt this is a precedent you'd want to set!

</pedantry>

Beaten to the punch

Private Eye's last issue picked up on the lookalike...

Coincidence? I think not!

The first 'parental code' shown on the page at the end is 6969...

Bank says no.

My bank demands that I use Java if I want to access my account online. (They also demand that I have a mobile phone to send single-use authentication codes to).

For me, that's a critical enough service to make this article's advice redundant.

UI animation?

No. Just no.

That is all.

Sense of perspective

"Big protests are expected across the country after Friday prayers - still the most important social network in the country""

Excellent point, well made.

Espionage? Really?

Hard to believe that six 'senior' people were all on the take from the competition...

How sure are we that these weren't just some enthusiastic and/or idealistic bunny-huggers keen to tell friends in the industry how well things were going?

Leaking, rather than spying, in other words.

Terminator icon because obviously electric cars are just the next step to robots taking over the world.

Re: Redundant info...

Well obviously it's actually a Shia IRANIAN vulture used for spying on those Sunni Saudis, but cunningly disguised to implicate the Israelis if captured!

Now that's what I call...

... putting the boot in !

(and really, why would ANYone want five mothers-in-law?!)

Think of the... adults!

If failure to wear a safety belt can cut out the radio, why can't it made to cut out the engine?

Although of course it might make a contribution to reducing the road traffic fatality statistics...

@Tonyl, JP19 etc.

I too lack stereoscopic vision.

Initially I saw all three images rotating the same way, but eye movement (e.g. the reaction caused by the detail change) caused certain images to appear to be rotating in reverse.

Fun.

Prověrka

In Czech the word can mean 'audit', or 'verification' - or even 'self-checking' when used in relation to computing.

Ho ho ho

Nuff said.

Unplug'n'play

Surely the organisations concerned can mitigate the effects by simply unplugging their fax machines for the day? It's not like an awful lot of important things are sent by fax anymore.

Meanwhile, the free fax providers will presumably be going through lots of extra bandwidth - how likely are they simply to quietly block sends to the target numbers, without the senders being aware?

But does it have...

... a facility for tweeting the tweets?

Oh no!

Shock! Horror! Diplomats say things to each other that they wouldn't say to the foreigners they're talking about!

And having this shown to us will change the world how, exactly?

What a pillock

Suspension entirely deserved.

Republican views? Fine.

Expression of Republican views? Also fine, even if poorly timed.

But childish name-calling - especially of the dead - really doesn't become one whose job/office is supposed to maintain at least a shred of dignity.

Perspective

I think it was less the listing than the incitement to commit violent acts against the people listed that was the problem - referring to the woman who tried to kill Stephen Timms as a 'heroine' for example according to the Press Association, and calling for Muslims to "raise the knife of jihad" against them (according to CNN).

The blog you couldn't find was apparently on Revolutionmuslim, the site that was forced to take the down the list a couple of weeks ago.

Excellent article

Great to see an IT angle being imposed on the story pre-emptively, presumably y'all at Vulture Central are trying to stay ahead of Fox News...?

*ducks & runs*

Totally irrelevant

It doesn't matter how good (or bad) global warming is for tropical rainforests if they've all been chopped down before the change in climate anyway.

I for one...

... wish to welcome our outrageously oversexed galactic overlords and mistresses! They might help everyone else to loosen up a bit, one way or another.

Tho' it sounds suspiciously like someone in the Screenwriters' Guild caught a re-run of MiB2 to me...

Where the flying fishes play...

"The Union of Burma is ruled by a military body called the "State Peace and Development Council" (SPDC). The SPDC changed the name of the country to "Myanmar," but some members of the democratic opposition and other political activists do not recognize the name change and continue to use the name "Burma." Out of support for the democratic opposition, the U.S. Government likewise uses "Burma.""

From the US DoS website's 'background notes' on the place.

Essentially, choosing to continue to call it Burma is a political decision in the UK or the USA.

The United Nations, meanwhile, goes with Myanmar as that is the short form name preferred by the current government there (Union of Myanmar, previously Union of Burma).

El Reg has apparently gone with the weird idea of journalistic neutrality and stuck to the name recognised by the UN. This is not a political statement, as far as I can see - in fact, there's a good case for calling it an apolitical statement!

18%?

So 72% of eligible voters didn't care enough to vote? Doesn't say much for the state of the community, does it..?

More please!

""Government representatives (and no one else, mind you) are given full powers to negotiate on their country's behalf, and at the end what is decided has full power over the countries represented — more or less.""

Which, for all the arcana, is a hell of a sight better than sending them home and allowing politicians and other civil servants to get their muddy hands on (and argue, cavil and debate on) anything. Nothing would ever be agreed upon if that happened.

Sit 'em down, lock 'em in, hold 'em to the agreements. Great, more of that please!

Patch? what patch?

Still waiting for mine...

Oh no!

I'll have to add the syllables 'li-ca-tion' to avoid falling foul of the lawyers now!

Do it. Or not. Whatever.

"After two European golfers went against team orders, a compromise has been struck..."

So team discipline is still an issue eh? Well there's a surprise...

I'll be at the 19th.

Q.E.D.

Anyone else out there think that the polarity of views on threading expressed in the comments to this article is exactly the sort of thing Google is aiming to address through this change?

... "aimed at US Marines"

Inbuilt friendly fire capability then?

Which way...

... to the escape pod?

Meanwhile...

... the guy who deliberately (and successfully) set out to ruin his marriage through lies and deceit doesn't even get a slap on the wrist. Is it me, or is there something morally wrong there somewhere?

Paris coz she'd love all the media coverage anyway.

Er, so...?

"in fact the Israelites were not the favoured of God - just really, really lucky with the weather."

Miraculously so, perhaps?

But...

Can it tell us who stole Episode 9?

Sensible

Since he's living and working in the US anyway, this is a sensible way of avoiding all sorts of problems. As an expat myself, I empathise with the pragmatism.

Those who are trying to read ideological or political messages into Mr Torvalds' decision need to get a grip - or try living abroad for a decade themselves.

P.S.: For the record... I'm not a penguin fan.

Almost a decade...

... since I Love You and Anna K?

Damn, now I feel old.

Whut?

Er... Okay, so I was surprised by the changes to TACO.

But it took me all of 2 minutes to get it how I wanted it - silent, no toolbars, no popups, just an Abine icon down next to the ABP and NoScript ones.

Firefox seems to me to be running at the same speed as it did beforehand.

Can't quite see what all the fuss is about really.

By their names shall ye know them...

Well at least Pandora is a name with a Classical pedigree...

Paris because she thinks outside the box (geddit?)

Paranoia

Of course, this could all just be a ruse to find out who thinks they have reason to worry about a forensic sweep of their machine in the first place, making it easier for law enforcement types to find the miscreants in question...

Big Brother IS watching you!

Ray of light

"The truth," he says," is that most users don't even pay attention to browser security."

How very, very true!