* Posts by Joe 3

143 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2009

Ethics? There's an app for that

Joe 3
WTF?

@ Anonymous Coward

I'm not entirely sure what you're on about, but I'll try to respond anyway.

How about we all pay a fair price for things? It means we might not each be able to fill our houses with flat screen TVs and our pockets with iPhones, but isn't peace of mind worth that?

You seem to be trying to justify paying slave wages, and you seem to think that slavery is acceptable and inevitable. It is only the greed of people like you who make it inevitable. It is never acceptable. I refuse to be a part of it.

Joe 3
Thumb Down

Great attitude, Chris

Perhaps buying Fairtrade coffee means that the adults who grow the beans can send their children to school, rather than sell them into sex slavery?

So you can't be arsed paying a bit extra for Fairtrade coffee (actually, it's sometimes cheaper) so you justify it to yourself by saying "well, if I don't exploit these people, someone else will!" That's a good way to look at things - genocide, rape, paedophilia... all human nature, it's how the world turns, so that's fine by Chris! I'm alright Jack, so screw everyone else! I guess you won't have a problem if I murder your grandma to steal her food, after all, survival of the fittest, innit?

Some of us don't mind paying a fair price for what we buy, instead of always buying at the lowest price and feeding our greed without a thought for others. Sure, it's not fool-proof (Fairtrade guarantees a fair price for farmers, but what of their workers?) but it's better than nothing, which is your solution. It's not always easy or even possible in this post-Thatcher world, but to just wash your hands of it is disgraceful. Cameron and Thatcher would be proud of you.

ITV, C4 catch-up players coming to PS3

Joe 3
Happy

ITV

All ITV has to do now is make some decent programmes and they'll have a nice little business going. Maybe they'll even make some profit!

PayPal banned WikiLeaks after US gov intervention

Joe 3

TOS violated

So if the TOS were violated, why hand over the money in the account? Couldn't they refund it? Surely they're not that desperate for their 2.5%!

Ofcom mulls popular number charge

Joe 3
Alert

Tell me about it

The local part of my 020 number starts with 3, and I'm forever having to explain to people that I'm in London, it's not a new area code, the three is part of the local number, that's why it was changed from 0171, etc.

Signwriters who put 0207 and 0208 should be sent to Siberia for re-education! Or something.

Windows malware dominates Mac malware detection chart

Joe 3
Badgers

Statistics, etc.

I'm sure I read somewhere that there have been more instances with anti-virus malfunctioning on Macs (false positives, etc.) than there have been actual malware.

Perhaps the day will come when there's some zero-day flaw that gets 90% of Macs in one fell swoop, but I'm still waiting for it... Nice fear-mongering, Sophos!

Virgin demands ISPs end broadband speed 'con'

Joe 3
Stop

My thoughts exactly

While line rental isn't included, they advertise that their packages include "calls" (next to a picture of a phone), which is rather misleading to say the least.

Steve Jobs no longer Eggman as Beatles hits iTunes

Joe 3
WTF?

But why the high price?

Eleven pounds for 45 year-old albums? And the music industry wonders why torrents are so popular.

How average is your sex life?

Joe 3
IT Angle

I've found the IT angle!

How about "rolling the scroll wheel"?

Or, for Apple (no-longer-Mighty) Mouse users, it would be the scroll ball, of course!

Prosecutor resigns over sexting spree to crime victim

Joe 3

At least four!

I wonder how many he's tried this with, and I wonder if he had much success with this technique!

Samoan clerics finger homosexuals over global warming

Joe 3
Happy

Welcome to The Register!

As you're obviously a new user, I'll let you in on a secret: the headlines are often puns or contain innuendo.

iPhone mules are taking our handsets, damnit!

Joe 3
Thumb Up

Good article, Drew

Well done for pointing out the Daily Mail's typical xenophobic crap.

Twitter airport bomb joker loses second job

Joe 3
Stop

Re: Re: Is this comment in the right place?

You can't stop people shagging!

They've always done it, they're always going to do it. You can give people a million reasons not to, they're still going to do it.

Preach abstinence all you want - be my guest, knock yourself out - but don't for a minute tell me that condoms exacerbate the spread of STIs. Next you'll be saying they have tiny holes which HIV passes through!

German kiddies punted porn-projecting pens

Joe 3
Joke

But it must be true!

<RIGHTWINGMERKIN>

Hitler had to be a socialist! He called his party the National Socialist Workers' Party after all, and I'm sure Hitler would never have lied to gain support, right?

</RIGHTWINGMERKIN>

Google tests 'streaming' search engine

Joe 3

Will nobody think of the bandwith?!

Won't this increase each search query's data size about ten-fold? What Google need is a tiered Internet where their content has priority... Hmm...

Cops cuff man who exposed holes in 'perfect' voting machines

Joe 3
Stop

Re: Perfection in an imperfect world...

But you *can* go watch the votes being counted, you know - in fact, each party has people there overseeing the counts.

Once you've put that piece of paper in the box you can watch the box sit there, you can see it being taken to the count, and you can see the votes coming out of it. How can you do this electronically?

As for those who will say "what about the long queues in May," electronic voting is NOT the alternative to this.

BBC workers lose £240k of tech gear in two years

Joe 3

A title

A drink of Coke isn't expensive, I'm sure the BBC could get a bulk discount from the supplier. You were referring to the dark-brown drink, right?

IE9's Acid, speed and HTML5 trip to land lost surfers

Joe 3
Flame

Because

They're still waiting for the Javascript tests to finish running!

Indonesian parliament gets smut eyeful

Joe 3
FAIL

Protest

So one protest is bad because it inconveniences you, and the other is good because it inconveniences someone else?

This is a great way to decide everything! As long as I'm in charge, of course.

'Death to browsers!' cries Apple mobile-app patent

Joe 3
Alert

Invention?

So this isn't even algorithm patenting but application patenting?

Also, since when is it easier to use an app to change the air on the plane rather than to just reach up to the damn thing and twist?!

London bike hire scheme suffers pre-launch wobbles

Joe 3
Thumb Down

My heart goes out to the moderators...

...who have to read through this stuff every day -- some of you are such miserable gits who seem to be wishing failure upon the scheme before it's even begun!

UK.gov pledges licence fee 'rethink' over heavy catch-up use

Joe 3
Thumb Down

Re: You still need a icence for watching 'delayed' broadcasts...

Not true. You need a licence for TV-receiving equipment, which a VCR is. Just because the tuner is in the VCR instead of the monitor doesn't mean you can't receive live TV pictures.

If there's no aerial and no signal with such a set-up you'd be fine.

Joe 3
Stop

Re: the licence is for the household not the user

Sigh. Do you really think that there's no possible technical solution to this?

Did you stumble upon this site by accident? I thought the Register was read by intelligent people.

On a personal note, I'd be happy for it to go down this route. It's great now, getting all these BBC programmes for free, but I understand that the money has to come from somewhere. Perhaps there should be a per-programme fee payable for those who don't want the full-access license?

Police chief: Yes, my plods sometimes forget photo laws

Joe 3
Thumb Down

Meet the Met

I've seen the Met applying the law in a biased way, ignoring laws broken by themselves and their helpers while giving the public incorrect advice. Surely it's the police's job to apply the law fairly and evenly?

I expect that this has been going on for as long as we've had a police force, but only recently has image and sound recording technology become small and ubiquitous enough to catch them at it!

Why were the police at the G20 protests in 2009 shining torches at video cameras to stop them filming? Surely if they were going about their job in a legal manner they'd welcome it.

Miniature Apple display spotted in the wild

Joe 3
FAIL

Are you sure?

Keep looking, genius!

.XXX to get ICANN nod

Joe 3

@ Squirrel

"What .xxx does is just make it a little bit easier for vendors and admins because they know they are safe to block that TLD without disrupting business operations."

Whereas right now the .xxx domain doesn't exist and therefore doesn't need blocking. 99.9% of porn sites will still have a .com so blocking .xxx just puts you back to where you are right now!

BP targets Twitter to clean up oil spill

Joe 3
Alert

Re: Why BP?

Well it fits the US news' Hollywood-style narrative doesn't it?

Ignore the fact that BP are a huge international firm who are about as British as any other (i.e. not that much any more), pretend that the people living around the Gulf of Mexico are the blue dudes from Avatar, and you've got a classic disaster movie.

Extra bonus - the bad guys have English accents - perfect!

(The special edition DVD and it's case will be made from bamboo or something, presumably.)

Smokescreen brings Flash to the iPhone

Joe 3
Alert

It's quite simple

It's not intended as an end-user product, it will be aimed at the web advertising industry. Already they often serve a GIF if the end user has no Flash, this will give them the option to serve Smokescreen JavaScript instead. So there's no app to download, in fact an iPhone/Pod/Pad user will be none the wiser, they'll just see more animated adverts.

To stop this, Apple would have to restrict access to many websites. I doubt even Steve Jobs has the balls to do that!

TwitPic-nicking Mail nicked

Joe 3
WTF?

Bill them!

For God's sake, send them an invoice! They'll keep on treating the web as a free content goldmine if you let them get away with it! Not only that but why shouldn't you get paid? If you walked in to their offices and took a monitor they'd suddenly know all about the law I reckon.

State senator eyeballs smut during abortion debate

Joe 3

Bikinis

I think they all have bikinis on, but the Sunshine State News decided to protect our innocence, lest we all become horny politicians, or something.

Google booted from China's number two carrier

Joe 3
Thumb Down

Not quite the same

You're comparing free speech to child abuse?

As much as I'm no great fan of the USA, and the UK isn't perfect either, but the people there at least have the right to, say, criticise the government. Can you imagine someone like Noam Chomsky being allowed his freedom in China, let alone holding academic positions and publishing books?

China hits back at Google's uncensored Hong Kong servers

Joe 3
Thumb Down

That's rich!

"We're uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts."

Unreasonable accusations and conducts? Has the Chinese Communist Party looked in the mirror lately? (I.e. since about oooh 1949?)

Google accused over China censorship

Joe 3
Alert

"There is no honour, culture or values with the crap China peddles."

I'd amend that quote to say "There is no honour, culture or values with the crap the Chinese Communist Party peddles."

I think it's important to make the distinction between normal Chinese people/culture, and the nasty bastards currently in charge. After all, not everybody in the UK agrees with everything the UK government does!

In principle you're right, however. All dictatorships have to co-opt the native culture in order to appear legitimate. (The East Germans did it too, for example, making out that Bach was one of their own.)

Loud sex ASBO woman back on the job

Joe 3
Grenade

I hate to tell you this...

"I think you might want to read the article though, you seem to be getting confused with screaming their heads off and going at it like rabbits. The beak isn't telling her to turn into a nun, just to shut the hell up."

If you've never had the neighbours bang on the wall to complain about the noise, you're not doing it right!

China warns Google over uncensored search threat

Joe 3
FAIL

依法治國

See, I can type Chinese characters too, but it doesn't make me any more of a smart arse than you!

Tell me why making the law apply to everyone would be such an upheaval? It does in theory anyway - even in China local party bosses are meant to abide by the law, though they largely do as they please.

Don't make excuses for the CPP behaving like the mafia.

Joe 3
Thumb Down

"Following local laws"

How about those in the China Communist Party learn about the Rule of Law first?

'Health and safety killjoys' kill cheese-rolling race

Joe 3
Thumb Down

RTFA

"...another example of the state taking everything..."

Have you actually read the article? It was the ORGANISERS who cancelled it due to too many people turning up. The whole area was gridlocked last year for starters, isn't that the sort of thing you knee-jerk Daily Mail types normally complain about?

Bing shies away from gay-as-day search results in Arab countries

Joe 3
Stop

Business versus Ethics - the eternal battle

Where do you draw the line though?

What if child porn (to borrow a comparison made above) was legal in Madeupistan, should Western firms be allowed to profit from that? They're only following the laws of that country, after all! I certainly wouldn't invest in a company that made money that way, would you?

Was it okay for IBM to profit from the Nazis predilection for mass-murder? Where does business go too far in playing along with evil for profit?

(This isn't a personal attack on jsphsmith1985, by the way, just furthering the debate...)

Think software patching is a hassle? You're not alone

Joe 3

I don't think Apple pull apps from devices remotely

Apple should be more clear and fair with the App Store, but I think you're making it up when you suggest they remove apps from devices remotely. Amazon did it with 1984 (sweet irony!) but I don't remember Apple doing that. (Well not yet, anyway...)

Web wags stage IE 6 funeral

Joe 3
Thumb Up

Great way to get rid of problems...

...when a client gets in touch saying a customer can't use the website (they never give any specifics in the email) just ask them to find out the customer's OS, browser and version - that's the last you'll hear of it!

Is it ta-ta for Flash?

Joe 3
Thumb Up

Horses for courses

Flash has it's place - unfortunately most web "designers" have no clue about programming and use it for all sorts of silly things. When used appropriately, Flash can be the only viable solution for certain requirements.

The Amanita stuff is an example of Flash done well - would it be possible and easily cross-browser with Javascript? Not a hint of CPU overload or fan whir, and this is on a Mac!

Apple uncovers child workers in its plants

Joe 3

It all sounds too good to be true...

...are they really such saints? Reading the PDF, they sound like Rosa Luxemburg!

It's good that this sort of stuff is discussed, rather than swept under the rug.

I wonder how they can guarantee freedom of association and collective bargaining in China, where unions, except the state-sponsored one, is illegal?

One month later, Google still censors China search

Joe 3
Unhappy

*sigh*

One month ago, I wondered - naively, of course - if ethics had at last penetrated the world of Capitalism. Still, it was a nice daydream while it lasted.

Mozilla becomes latest to dump Mac OS X 10.4 support

Joe 3
FAIL

OS X 10.5 runs on PPC Macs

So you could upgrade to Leopard and have the 10.5-only Firefox, you know?

Mozilla overlooked malware-laced Firefox add-ons

Joe 3
WTF?

Your point being?

Hey, I like Firefox, and I like the FOSS ethos too. What I don't like is the blind fanboyism that absolves Mozilla of any wrongdoing here.

I'm sure the reason that the viruses targetted Windows is because it's just not worth bothering writing viruses for Mac OS or Linux, there are more Windows users so it makes sense to target that OS.

I don't use Windows by the way, and am no big MS fan, so I'm not sticking up for them either, but Mozilla was at fault here and they shouldn't be excused just because you like them.

Joe 3
Flame

D'oh!

If this was Apple or Microsoft, you FOSS types would be foaming at the mouths!

Mozilla messed up here - Firefox makes it so easy to search for and install add-ons, it's like using the iPhone App Store and feels very official.

In their defence there is a warning saying they don't guarantee the add-ons, but at the end of the day Mozilla is providing virus-ridden software under the Firefox brand.

It does damage to Firefox, you know!

Brits take iTablet moniker for 12in iPad rival

Joe 3
Thumb Down

Well the iPhone/Pod/Pad can do that

You've never used one? It's quite possible to listen to music when surfing, and it will fade the music down to "ping" at you when a new mail comes in.

iPhone vulnerable to remote attack on SSL

Joe 3
Stop

So this trick...

...requires an SSL certificate issued to a fraudulent company? What exactly are the CAs charging us for?

Save DAB! Send FM radios to Africa

Joe 3
Flame

Basic economics HAS kicked in...

DAB is an economic failure. This chap in the highlands can still use FM just fine. FM has economically kicked DAB in.

1 in 3 users reviewed Facebook privacy roll-back

Joe 3
Happy

The change was very useful

I am now able to stalk profiles which were previously set to 'private'...