Posts by yeah, right.

how.... 1940's.

So, when is the UK going to upgrade its systems and finally get rid of the whole "let's encode the year and location in the number plate" farce? Or even allow real "ego" plates rather than the joke they have now? It's just so... stupid.

@Grundy

Unfortunately, Grundy has it backwards. The USA was a Canadian invention, where they shipped their insane and criminal because Australia was too far away and Canadians were too cheap. Oh, and the Acadians, but they were really sorry about that one.

Since then, Canadians have invented the phone, insulin, Java, basketball, cobalt bombs, zippers, wonderbra, electron microscopes, light bulbs (yes, even that) and other world shattering advances like the Crackberry. Unfortunately, when they shipped all the criminals to the south, Canadians forgot to search them and they managed to keep the keys to the side door in addition to money they'd already stolen. Since then, the pantry has been pilfered so often there's talk of Canada joining the USA as the 52nd to 83rd state (all larger than Texas), because they've stolen everything else anyway.

So the southerners have been stealing ever since - resources, well educated people, Avro Arrows, water, and so on. The Americans even invented Prohibition and used Canada to get even richer. So now Canadian inventors and actors have had to go south to get money for production, and get fleeced by the American criminals running their system. Meanwhile, Canadians staying here working for mostly American corporations have to settle for better beer and moose burgers.

Let's see

It's not a "production electric car" since they aren't making it yet. It's not "fully electric" since it requires a gas engine to get more than 40 miles (60 kilometres, or not enough to get to drive back and forth once across a typical urban sprawl). Not to mention that your cost per mile increases dramatically if you factor in the need to replace the lithium-ion battery pack on a regular basis, as opposed to using something like NiMh. In other words, it's not as good as the EV1, which GM could just start building again if they wanted to. Why don't they? We aren't told. Are we reading a press release or a piece of investigative reporting? I suspect the former.

I'm also starting to suspect that El Reg was secretly purchased by some marketing asshole with too much money and not enough ethics (a state implicit in the term "marketing"), and the regular Reg staffers are being held hostage, threatened with no more long liquid lunches and having to wear suits unless they conform to the new agenda. I understand the dilemma, because vast quantities of alcohol and really comfortable clothes are provably much more important than integrity. It's the only reason I can come up with for the sudden spate of moronic changes and un-critical automotive "press" worthy (ie: advertising masquerading as news) articles that have been spewing forth lately.

wondering

If they can check that the source code they get is the source code used to generate the program running on the questionable machines? Or are they going to get a "cleaned up" version?

@Brangdon

They already HAVE a "post comments" at the top of the article, so you can post a comment not only without reading the article, but without actually reading any other comments instead. I just wanted a "view comments" so I could see the comments without having to post one.

And I've decided that fixed-width is utterly pants. Stupid idea.

Thanks for bringing some of the icons back. Now to get rid of that "cute" flame icon. If I want cute, I'll beat it out of a pokemon with a crowbar or something.

Wrong analogy

Amazing the number of people who think a website is a private home. You're using the wrong analogy. Here is a more accurate one.

A website is a public space (like a store) into which anyone is invited. Not having a robots.txt is like not having a sign or enforcing a policy that says you can refuse service to anyone you want to. Not preventing deep links is like having one of several doors at the back of the store that the clients are welcome to go through, but one door they're not, then no putting a lock or a sign on the "employees only" door.

Getting angry when Google comes to visit is therefore the fault of the shop owner for not publishing or enforcing their policy of refusing service. You've invited the world, so it's up to the shop owner to make the exceptions, not for the world to try to read their fucking mind. Getting angry about deep links when you've done nothing to prevent them is just stupid when you've already invited people into your place of business and you WANT them there.

Comparing a public website to a private home makes no sense, given that you want people to visit the website. If not, why bother having the damn thing in the first place? A website is a place of business, like it or not, with everyone already invited. If you aren't going to make or enforce access policies, the owner of said website can certainly be blamed for people treating their public website as just that - a public website. If they don't want it public, put up a closed sign and lock the door.

by all means

By all means teach creationism (or "intelligent design") in comparative religion. Right beside Cthulu and Great Spaghetti Monster. Or philosophy. Or critical thought as a counter-example. Or even in classes on contemporary mass hallucinations.

But not science class, where it has no business being mentioned, let alone taught.

idiots

Given how easy it is to stop deep linking and redirect to the main site, the whole deep linking thing is just a holdover from lawyers and judges really not understanding what they're on about. Also brings into question the technical competence of those actually running the websites that complain about such things.

As for the cease-and-desist, I hope the city gets at least a slapdown for being so stupid, in order to at least set precedent to stop others from trying the same trick.

Scapegoat?

I'm guessing that PA Consulting doesn't have highly placed lobbyists in place to deflect blame like EDS and other contractors who screwed up have done.

Be nice if the government was as strict with its own departments as it is with sub-contractors.

Bolo

Could it be we are witnessing SF becoming real? Could this be the birth of the Bolo Continental Siege Unit?

wonderful

Just what we've always needed. Glaswegians yelling even louder into their mobs in order to push the sound through tunnel walls. As if we weren't already being soundly deafened by people who think that because they're having trouble hearing someone then they need to yell into their phone.

Makes you want to disarm people. Where's me claymore?

Good news

It's good news that the museum has finally attracted some funding. It's a shame that the Brits can't do it themselves, and must depend on handouts from their masters.

eh?

So they have the brilliant new technology, and the best they came up with to use it in a marvellous new way was.... a fucking blink tag???

Shoot them. Shoot the bastards NOW before they breed more.

Consultant...

Is mainly a scapegoat so that senior management doesn't have to change their dysfunctional ways. Bring in consultant, conslutant finds something wrong, fire the consultant for having created the problem (because found = created), then declare the problem solved because the messenger has been shot.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

I've done several of those, and although it pays well, by the end of it you just want to strangle the incompetent, self-serving, pointy-haired bosses who keep doing it.

Overheard on the phone talking to a friend at CERN

oops

Iris scans?

Shouldn't need surgery. If fingerprint biometric systems can be fooled with a photocopy (as demonstrated), I'm pretty sure iris scanners can be fooled with a contact lens.

wrong store?

They seem to be advertising for either the shoe store, or the shoe. But it sure as hell doesn't say anything about Microsoft or Vista. Of course, by not mentioning it in the commercial, they've guaranteed that people DO mention it in discussions, so there may be method to their apparent madness.

pork. barrel.

Sounds like a typical payment in America's continuing subsidization of certain industries. Rather than look for people who are already doing the research, they pay it out to one of Lockheed, Boeing, or a small handful of others. I wonder how much Boeing is going to suck out of their government for this particular bit of "research" (read: pay 5% of money tendered for the report of the people already doing the research and pocket the other 95%).

bad names

Mr and Mrs Dyck, living next door to a friend of mine, named their son Randy*. They must have really hated him.

*: Seriously. Search for "randy dyck".

pick two

You get cheap, you get good, you get fast. Pick two of those, (without redefining the terms. I saw one marketing guy try to claim their company had all 3, but he had to redefine "fast" and "good" to do it.)

Those wanting "cheap" hosting are bound to be disappointed with the reliability of their chosen host. Although "expensive" also doesn't mean "good", it has a better likelihood of getting it right.

lying bastards

"Resolution" is usually measured in number of pixels per some FIXED unit, like the inch. So to compare total number of pixels on a large screen to total number of pixels on a smaller screen, then claim that the resolution is "better" on the large screen, is out and out misleading bullshit.

The resolution of this beast compared to other screens is actually pretty abysmal compared to other screens, not "better" as claimed by the author (whether the author is simply regurgitating press releases or not).

JMHA too powerful

The Junk Mailers and Harassment Association (misnamed the DMA) has too many tentacles on too many politicians strings for any effective controls to be legislated.

Get used to having your voter information, drivers licenses, billing info, bluetooth id, wifi ssn, cell phone id, and probably even the rfid tags on your clothes tracked, catalogued, databased, mined and used in order to "target" you with advertising for stuff you don't need, want, or care about.

stealth?

Or get the payload higher, add electric power, and switch to silent electric mode on final approach.

Patent please!

snap one up

I'd snap an e-paper device up in a nanosecond if they provided one that could do what I wanted it to do.

Namely: allow me to write and organize notes (see Newton writing recognition - surely the tech has improved since?), allow me to get electronic copies of books that I OWN (not with DRM that is dependent on servers that may or may not shut down at any time), allow me to exchange publications in formats of my choosing, not charge me to convert documents, and generally not try to treat me as a walking wallet that I'm supposed to allow them to syphon whenever they want.

So far the iRex illiad is leading the pack for me, but it still has certain limitations that I find troublesome. Still, it seems to be the best of the bunch.

I'd buy one...

... but only IF they didn't require me to pay more for an electronic copy of a book than for a paper copy, if they allow me to share my copy with others, if they allow me to sell my copy to others, and if they allow me to annotate my copy of whatever books and texts I have on the system.

Since that's unlikely to happen, I'll pass on the Kindle thanks. As it stands, as far as I can tell, it's just a damn DRM infested ripoff.

Rock & Hard Place

Well, given the American predilection for demanding that other countries stop subsidising industries, then turning around and doing it ten times more at home, I can only hope that the Americans lose this particular pissing contest. Of course, with the WTO firmly under the thumb of American policy, it's going to get interesting to see what happens. Sort of. If you're really bored. And can't sleep.

heh

"Security by obscurity" has now become "security by assertion". Facebook has asserted that the hole doesn't exist, therefore, it doesn't.

One wonders if they're even working on a fix, or if they're still so far up their own arse that they think Facebook is relevant.

learning vs memorizing

There is a marked difference between "learning", and thus understanding something, and simply memorizing facts and figures. Assuming the exams are structured in such a way as to allow students to show what they have learned, it will go a long way towards reversing the trend in many places to have exams that simply show what you have memorized. Facts can be looked up. It's a damn sight harder to fake understanding of the materials. The hardest exams I've had have all been "open book" exams, and the profs giving these exams were very good at making sure people were tested on what they had learned, not what they had memorized.

Looks like those people who don't like this method have confused "learning" with "rote memorization". I'm glad that at least one school has finally learned the difference.

reliability

Who taught the world that lack of reliability was "ok"? Microsoft.

Who taught the world that lack of security was "ok"? Microsoft.

Who has continued make users accept crashes as being "ok"? Microsoft.

Who has turned computer science and IT into a fucking joke? Microsoft, mainly.

For 30 fucking years this company has made "mediocre" and "unreliable" bywords for the IT industry. More than anything else, I hate Microsoft for that.

can only hope

... that they bought the rights to the tune, or they'll have a lawsuit for umpteen squiglion in "damages" to pay off by next week. Because we all know how popular it all is, don't we?