Posts by yeah, right.

debt?

Given how much of the American debt is held by the Saudis (the rest being mostly held by China), I'm hardly surprised that the Americans would allow this sale. If they didn't the Saudis might not play so nice with the next shipment of oil.

@kain: As for why so much of this tech is designed by Americans, the answer is "it wasn't". It's usually designed by someone from a country with a working educational system (Canada, UK, most of Europe, half of Asia), who was either brought to the US, works for a US firm, or even was just outright stolen/copied by an American firm with more money to throw at lawyers than others.. All this only because the Americans got started early in the pirate stage and haven't stopped pillaging for 200 years, and the system they claim is their own is one where the rich get richer.

So @kain preacher, it's not that the tech is necessarily designed by foreigners, it's that it's owned by foreigners. Which, if you believe the American history books, is the same thing.

@darren

Well spotted! Yes, again some drive-on-the-right git took a picture of a drive-on-the-left intersection and photoshopped something onto it without thinking.

Sad part is, that same unobservant fuckwit is going to be driving home this evening. Pity any cyclists (or motorcyclists) that get in his way.

for real?

They really said it was too complicated? Yes, setting up most Linux systems from scratch is perhaps too complicated for most users. However, I thought the whole idea behind purchasing something that it preinstalled is that, well, it's fucking preinstalled and therefore I wouldn't need to do it.

Sounds like a piss poor excuse for "Microsoft gave us a better deal if we didn't sell Linux", or some other real reason for them making that decision.

That's Apricot off my purchase list then.

slaves?

Ah, so the only thing that's good for small business is to be able to treat people like crap, use them up as temps, then discard them without so much as a by-your-leave when you're done with them?

If that's the only way a company can stay alive, that company SHOULD be removed from the system. It's about time that temps were covered in proportion to the hours worked. There are far too many companies employing "temps" who actually work full time.

load

What an utter load of steaming bull excrement. I wonder whose arse they pulled those numbers out of?

how many?

How many coders can you get for $7bn? Probably two, but only because they had a memory overflow.

Serious side

There is only one serious side to Microsoft: continue the lock in at all costs. Continue to lie, cheat, steal, bribe, corrupt and do anything and everything other than fix their damn products in order to continue their de-facto monopoly. Silverlight, Mono, MS XML - just the latest crap in their war on choice, value and quality.

El Reg is far too easy on Microsoft these days.

double standard?

So they'll gladly have games that shoot up churches and blaspheme against Christian values (or Bhuddist, or others), but they pull the game because one freaking soundtrack contains a vague reference to the Koran?

I ain't religious, but even I can see the completely absurd double-standard here. Of course, it's been a few hundred years now since Christians have waged holy war against those who annoy them. The Muslims seem to still be in that stage of their religious growth. That might explain said double standard.

The need to change it from "freedom OF religion" to "freedom FROM religion". Bloody idiots.

bofh was there

I wonder if they'll have the "Drunken Scotsman" version out soon then?

Sad part?

A significant portion of Americans will still vote for this bag of lies, because they just don't give a shit. Unsurprisingly, their mainstream press is all quiet about the issue, and is trying very hard to give McCain/Palin as much of a free ride as possible. From the Boston Globe to New York Times to San Francisco Chronicle, nobody is bringing attention to how often McCain and Palin have misinformed, mislead and outright lied to everyone.

odd

And here I thought papers could be served by nailing them to your closest "house of God". According to visitors, he's always in attendance isn't he?

Or as someone else mentioned, it seems that the Pope (either one) might have power of attorney here, so perhaps they could be served?

Pity to see something so necessary get headed off by an unimaginative judiciary.

@Matt - this IS what's better.

Making a convicted monopolist and a renowned anti-consumer corporation obey the law is something "better" Matt. Since the official legal enforcers won't do it because they're too busy eating donuts, and the legislators won't beef up the laws because they're paid not to, it's up to the consumers themselves to enforce some sort of consumer protection. I hope they soak Microsoft for every last dime they made on that piece of shit, as well as significant (for Microsoft, not your average punter) punitive damages that they'll think twice about doing it again.

Risks

Use crap, get crap. What the fuck was a company that size (I'm assuming they weren't using a 2 person law outfit) doing using a cheap-arse spreadsheet package to handle that much data? I'm guessing the "employee" in question was never actually trained on the package, and expected to learn all the intricacies on their own time? So yet again a corporation opts for a cheap solution and gets creamed. Meanwhile, it's the employee who got stuck with actually trying to make the inappropriate solution work that gets the blame for the corporations (read: managers) lack of planning.

disagree

Once is a mistake. Twice is a cock-up. Three times or more it's deliberate enemy action. This isn't the first time Paypal has tried these tricks. I'd rather deal with Western Union than with Paypal.

distract?

Perhaps Microsoft is creating a new language to hide the fact that they've failed miserably doing anything reliable with old languages?

Or is it that they don't own enough of the I.T. world and want a language whose very symbols they have trademark and patent claims to, so that no matter what anyone writes, they have the final say on whether it gets to see the light of day?

Personally, I don't care anymore. If it comes from Microsoft, then it's sole purpose is to lock people into Microsoft products. I don't play that game.

This one works for me

This says it all really...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uOyjFcVBipU

By all means let people gather together and associate with others who have the same beliefs. However, it is time we stopped protecting all practices held in the name of "religion", especially when such practices would be otherwise condemned as hate crimes, child abuse, rape, or assault causing bodily harm if they did not hide behind the shield of "religion".

He might have the "right" to say what he said. He definitely should have the "right" to be prosecuted for inciting hatred and bodily harm (and if you don't think a forced tatoo is bodily harm, let me use this needle on you...).

arithmetic?

So it's not a test of drunkeness so much as a test of arithmetic ability. Why the fuck do they think I started using computers in the first place? Tossers.

Math patents?

So they've patented a formula. Hoora! Didn't realize that mathematics could be patented. Or that something so blatantly obvious to anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about the field.

I guess this is just further proof that the USPTO has completely lost the plot, and will award patents for damn near anything if it has the word "computer" or "internet" in the documentation. So now it's going to cost some poor company at least US$8 million (and probably a lot more) to overturn this stupid fucking shite. Another RIM job in the making then.

Maybe they're just desperate to keep proving that the US is a "hotbed of innovation" as counted by the number of patents issued. No mention is ever made about the quality of said patents after all.

yay!

Yet again the EU proves to be more consumer friendly than North America. Yet again we are shown that the only thing that makes corporations stop screwing the consumer is more regulation. The same regulations that corporations and their shills loudly decry, probably because it stops them from fucking over the consumer again and again.

Governments today are "for the people, by the people". Seems the EU knows this without it being written down, whereas the US has it written down, but has forgotten this as they continue to allow their corporations to rape and pillage the consumers and taxpayers - lately to the tune of $700 billion for no return on investment.

Of course, the trick is, if the user is able to remove the battery, will said battery be recycled or will it just be thrown in the trash? Whereas if the manufacturer has to change the battery, then it can more easily be audited to ensure compliance with recycling laws. Unfortunately, the manufacturer then just has to change the battery in a country without such rules and we're back to square one.

The point? There is no point.

religion

It is time to remove the "freedom of religion" from the books, so that hate-filled sacks of bile like this can be dealt with properly. The concepts of "freedom of belief" and "freedom of association" covers all the parts of religion that matter to sensible people, without giving the hate filled misogynist paedophiles the huge shield of "religion" to hide their crimes behind.

Because this IS a "hate crime". It is the deliberate incitement to violence against an identifiable group. If a person can be locked up with the key thrown away for advocating violence against Jews, or against "people of colour", or against any specific group, why are we still allowing people to advocate hate against homosexuals, other than the shield of "religion"?

Obligatory IT ref: "freedom of religion" needs to be replaced with "Freedom of operating system", and governments forced to specify freely available and non-patent encumbered data formats rather than specifying what OS and software their citizens must use to interact with said government.

credit?

Ah, so now as a vendor, instead of reversing the charges to your tied bank account when you're getting scammed by a punter they can instead borrow the money on your behalf at 45% interest, then only tell you about it 6 months later after credit charges have exceeded original value by 300%. Smart move.

Me, I'm stay far, FAR away from that pit of scum and villainy.

marketing

"agile development" is great when used by the developers. It has, as usual, come to mean something completely different when the term is used by the lying, scumbag marketing and sales weasels that infest the business.

So before someone says "this agile project worked" or "that one failed", I like to find out if the person defining the methodology is a technical person who knows what "agile development" actually means, or a salesrat manager who heard the buzzword once while fiddling little boys and now thinks they know everything about it.

In other news...

.... the sky is blue, and Earth orbits the sun.

Why is anyone even remotely surprised? Microsoft's sole purpose in life is to contaminate anything it touches in order to give Microsoft control. In Microsoft's own words, to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" anything that might pose a threat to Microsoft being able to continue its sometimes illegal, usually unethical, yet unfortunately successful tactics.

This is just another example. They "embrace" open source, they "extend" the licenses that made that open source possible, and boom, they manage to extinguish a small part of the open source world. Lather, rinse, repeat. They are masters of doing this.

Anyone doing business with Microsoft who claims to be an open source advocate is a liar. Or worse, a seriously self-deluded idiot. Either way, that person is not to be trusted. People who thought Microsoft could play it straight are fools, and continue to refuse to learn from almost 30 years of history that shows that Microsoft is utterly incapable of doing anything even remotely ethical.

old argument

Argument goes like this: "Microsoft must make quality software because they are the most popular". Alternatively "Microsoft must be doing something right because they are the largest".

For the first one, I simply need to point to MacDonalds to show that just because something is "popular" doesn't mean it has "quality". You can sell crap to idiots and still be "popular", and companies like Microsoft and MacDonalds do just that.

For the second, all you have to look is Microsoft's history. They didn't get big because they were good. They got big because they were mean and unethical. Through a few shrewd (read: unethical and possibly illegal, such as selling something they didn't own) manoeuvres they got a fast start in the early 1980's. Since then they have bullied their way to the top, and repeatedly, maliciously and illegally used their effective monopoly in one domain to push their crap into other domains. Meanwhile, their government let them because that kind of behaviour is considered "good" and "successful" in that culture. The bully is finally starting to see some of the rightful penalties for that kind of behaviour in countries where the rule of law means something, but it's been very slow in coming.

As for XP vs Vista - you're right, there isn't much difference. One is just as broken as the other. However, at least XP has the background of people and software to make that broken piece of crap do vaguely what is required. Why should people pay more money to replace something that works for them with something that provably doesn't work? Why should people spend just as much switching from one lockin to another lockin as they would from switching to a system that would not lock them in so thoroughly, and would give them the option to move at their own schedule in the future? Personally, anyone working for me who failed that particular basic accounting (not to mention ethical) test would be walking the plank. Luckily, I've only hired intelligent people so far and haven't had to do that.

goose and gander

If Google/YouTube is going to make religious exceptions for the Jewish lobby, then it needs to make exceptions for all the other religions and remove anything THEY find "sacrilegious". Otherwise they're just another religion-pushing bunch of hypocrites who not only DO evil, but ARE evil.

Personally, I'd rather they didn't bow or give exceptions to any religion, since it's the only way to finally how how ludicrous they all are except as organizations to control people.

So, in other words

Byrne, the man that The Register has loved to abuse, vilify and otherwise make fun of, was perhaps right all along?

I have a feeling someone owes the man an apology.

FTW!

Wonderful subtitle! Kudos!

how much?

Just how much are they paying the people who never tested the backup system, and didn't bother to even make sure the backup system WAS a backup?

I'm betting the techs scheduled the tests, then some management puke turned it down because it would have been charged against their budget. Instead, they'd rather let it fail so that repairs are charged against someone elses budget. I've seen this happen too often. Said management puke should be drowned. In a latrine.

Zenn

So basically it's a Canadian Zenn car (with 35-50 mile range and 80% charge in 4 hours. See http://www.zenncars.com/ - caution, slower than slow shite flash based site), with the styling ripped off from Daihatsu, all being touted as "innovative" by an American car company.

Sounds like Chrysler is about where one expects it to be on this.

ACM

ACM has just announced a similar program for all its student members.

Wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, but it's there.

patent?

If this is an approved patent it only goes to prove my point that the patent offices that allow such things have the IQ of a dead gnat. Do the patent office people who hand these things out even know what a computer IS?

I know I shouldn't blame them - they are hobbled by a bureaucracy that does not allow them to appropriately research patents, and rewards the passing of inadequate patents while penalizing those patent officers who actually do their jobs.

But it's still a crock of really smelly bull effluent.

@Ness

Unions know a little bit about business. They know a lot about abuse by corporations of the workers and the environment. Unfortunately, most of the unions today have more in common with the corporations than with the early solidarity and worker protection they were founded on. Maybe workers should band together to protect themselves from both the corporations and the modern "unions"?

I expect HP will be moving many of those jobs to India or China. Fewer protections for workers, more relaxed environmental laws, and more easily corrupted officials makes for better margins and a more profitable business. And we all know that corporations today are all about short-term profit for myopic shareholders, and fuck the workers - as in, those who actually do everything necessary to make those profits - sideways with a rusty chainsaw.

zero tolerance

I certainly hope that the courts adopt the same zero-tolerance approach that Microsoft is crowing about to Microsofts continuing anti-competitive business dealings? Or that the courts adopt the same zero-tolerance approach to Microsoft breaching confidentiality agreements? Or is it asking too much that rich, well connected corporations be held to the same standards as everyone else?

Nicely done though. On the one hand Microsoft lobbies for "free trade" between the US and various other countries in order to be able to force their crap down other peoples throats without protection for the local players. Then the other hand uses all the protectionist measures they can in order to stop the local punters from getting a better deal on something that really is overpriced. All because said punters are too fucking stupid to stop locking themselves into that product.

As they say, an idiot and its money are soon parted. Microsoft is just making sure that the process happens more quickly.

echo...

The article only mentions the Facebook thing for "evidence". There's nothing else? They are extraditing someone from Germany based strictly on THAT? Or is there more but el Reg got a "no comment" and didn't dig any deeper?

WoW

You know, this World of Warcrack thing is getting out of hand.

He won't last

That government official won't last long. Can't have government ministers telling it like it is after all. They need to sugar coat or preferably completely twist things around first. I guess the "business community" in the area can't handle the idea that perhaps they've pushed people too far?

It seems "profits before people" has the nasty habit of putting those who make the profits the first up against the wall when the people start the revolution.

hype

Usually the guy delivers on his stunts. Saw the short video of this one, including the finale... he delivered, but it was a pile of steaming donkey dung. Anyone who paid for this crap (advertisers, sponsors, etc.) should sue the sucker to get their money back.

Maybe he's replacing Seinfeld in the new Microsoft ads?

Creative?

Difficult question. I'd say that the possibilities of creative expressions are greater now, given the tools that allow that expression. However, it took creativity to imagine and create those tools as well.

On the whole, I'd have to say that no, there is no more creativity today than before. What there is a lot more of is recycling of old ideas and branding it "creative". What was creative was when those ideas were first proposed - in the 1980s, 1970s and even 1960s or 50s. There isn't much creative about copying an old idea whose time has come, much that the patent offices would like people to think so. So much of what passes for "creativity" is just recycling.

In 20 years we'll be able to look back and determine exactly who was being "creative" and who was being "derivative". Until then, we'll just have to put up with the self-promoting assholes who copy others then claim they "created" something.

wondering

Given the number of unimaginative sheep that actually DID cut-and-paste, I wonder if the Reg might be better off putting in instructions for a 100 quid direct debit direct to the El Reg drinking fund. Hearing the totals on that would be much more amusing.

When I was still in the UK I didn't have a TV or a license. Every couple of months I'd get a nasty (really, really nasty) letter threatening all sorts of things. Eventually I collected all the letters received and my replies to the first few, took them to a friendly local magistrate, and got an injunction banning them from sending me more than one letter per year as it was considered harassment. They never appealed, and until I left many years ago they sent me one reminder notice per year - politely worded. To which I would reply impolitely.

@William

There are several gadgets and tools (electronic or otherwise) that are useful to carry around. The calendar helps people remember what day it is and what they're supposed to be doing that day. Electronic ones can be made to even remind the user to look at the calendar at set times. The notebook helps some people keep track of information they need. The little black phone book helps people remember how to get in touch with certain people. The phone helps people keep in touch. The watch helps people know they are late. The music player or video watcher keeps people amused. The book reader as well. There are also advantages to being able to share information between these devices, such as the phone getting information about phone numbers from the phone book, or the calendar getting information from the watch to know when to ring that alarm. My actual requirements list for what I would like to be able to do "on the go" runs to two pages.

I for one would prefer to just carry one well-designed device that does all (or most) of the above, rather than have to be festooned with devices and/or paper to do it all.

That, sir, is why I would prefer a phone that is a computer. Technically they are anyway, why artificially limit them? If you are happy with a phone that simply (1) receives calls and (2) makes calls, with no other functionality, go for it. Good luck selling such a device, as that's not what I, and evidently many others, need or want.

troll?

Assuming "Hillcrest" = "Hillcrest Labs", then it looks like they actually manufacture something other than patent claims. So at least the company isn't your typical troll.

Really...

For a while there I actually thought the ad was deliberately bad. It got people talking about Microsoft and Vista much more than any good ad would have done. Thought it was a setup for a punchline we hadn't heard yet.

Guess you really can't teach an old Microsoft new tricks after all. They put out crap, and they stay crap.

Now, where can I find a pair of those Conquistadors? Because that was the real goal of the ad, wasn't it?