Posts by MyHeadIsSpinning

Naff

It's ok Lewis, I thought that this was naff as well.

They've made an attempt to be down with the kids and get them interested in Mars and robots and science etc by using this pop star, and the pop star had to be current and not somebody like David Bowie singing about Mars in order that the kids would look and talk about it at school with each other.

However the first thing I thought when I watched an article about it on TV and heard the music was that it was a naff publicity stunt, and I didn't like the music they'd picked.

WTF is Azure?

Yes I am a user.

Big Brother fail

I really don't see the point of this desire to know what people are doing all of the time.

It's all very well to fear terrorists and to fear espionage, but this won't stop terrorists; they will not be caught out by these regulatory measures. What they will do is circumnavigate them.

All this will mean is less privacy for the general populace, and it will cost the taxpayer money and cause the ISP's a headache.

Pron

I wonder how many people will be watching pron on their smartphones while sitting on the tube with a newspaper across their laps?

Paris, because she'd probably like to go for a ride.

Fat lot of good it will do but...

I sent an email to the prime minister via the number10.gov.uk website. This is what I wrote: -

Dear Prime Minister

I am writing this email to let you know that I oppose any UK version of SOPA and PIPA, both US bills of which you are probably aware.

My reasons are that: -

1) Copyright infringement is not theft, but is in fact (excuse the pun) unlicenced copying (the dictionary definitions for theft and copying are very different). It should not be tackled in the same way as theft.

2) The entertainment industry is making as much money as it ever was, demand and consumption are still very high. The entertainment industry does not need to have the internet castrated in order to survive.

3) SOPA and PIPA are bills created for and by corporations serving their interests and undermining basic freedoms which up until recently were taken for granted by US citizens. Our colonial friends are forsaking their freedom to make a quick buck; we should not do the same.

End of trial period, start of blog

The authors of Huffington Post's articles might have given their work for free during a trial period, and there might have been a date given for the trial period to end and an option to extend that.

If the judge decides that the trial was not extended by the author, and if Huffington Post acted in a way which would indicate that they knew they should be paying the authors but didnt', then the case could be decided in the favour of the authors.

Anyway, why should any of these writers continue writing for the Huffington Post; especially if they feel that the Huffington Post has lost its way?

Maybe they write stuff of such good quality that they could still get a lot of exposure for their work on their own blogs.

Old news?

FTA: - 'to store surplus power from the renewable generators when output is high, and use this stored juice to make up the shortfall when the sun goes in or the wind drops.'

Yes, and? Is this new? I could have sworn that I read about people doing similar years ago, although they probably called it something different than 'deployed energy' whatchamacallit.

It's what batteries are for, surely?

Terms and conditions, IP and infringement

I agree that when I bought a PS3 that I bought the hardware on it, and licenced the firmware.

I, like many others, did not wade through the T's and C's and carefully consider the ramifications of all the clauses before I clicked on Accept. I wanted to use my machine.

It would be helpful for corporations such as Apple, Sony and Microsoft to include a summary as an introduction to the main body of text, which can be pages and pages of fine print which they know that most of their consumers will not read.

I think that it should be made a legal requirement to summarise any and all conditions which they impose which could possibly impinge on a customer's statutory rights; such as killing off all functionality with a remote kill switch at their discretion and without telling the consumer why.

If the firmware is truly licenced and can be taken back by the corporation from who I bought my electronic device at any time, then I would like that very important point to be noted right at the top of the pages and pages of text where I can see it straight away.

I would like to be told that I can take my device back to the store for a full refund if I do not agree to that term.

As for not mucking about with the firmware in any way whatsoever which might infringe on copyright or enable others to do so, well that's obvious.

If no copyright is being infringed however, no intent to infringe or actual infringement taking place at all...then nothing should come of any mucking around with the firmware.

It shouldn't be illegal or an infringement of copyright to look at code and point out flaws in it, so long as you are not intending to use that knowledge to infringe copyright or enable others to do so.

El Reg Pun attempt of the Week

'The mind reels'

Well done Vulture Central, well done.

They're trying to crack down on the internets

Feds and Met close in on kids and young people assuming they've captured all the ringleaders of the recent anonymous 'retribution' activities.

Apple and Sony sue to prevent you from 1) being able to use their software/firmware in a way that they feel is not in keeping with their terms and conditions and which may harm their commercial interests in some obscure way 2) being able to spread the knowledge on the internet so that they cannot control it or prevent people from seeing and using it.

EU president makes noises about controlling the internets in some fashion to make it 'fair' for everybody and protect us all from ourselves.

Great firewalls in China and Australia are maintained to filter anything which may be harmful to us or our children.

US has public (corporate) debate on whether there should be a two tier internet.

Is it me, or is the old guard trying to crack down on the internet so that in the future, when the revolution comes, we will be powerless to twitter together a flash mob to protest about our inability to enforce our rights to use our sentient internet connected bread toasters as we damned well please?

Come to think of it, will protesting be legal by then?

Bane

With Tom Hardy as Bane, Nolan will at least get the visual right. He'd better make Bane of equal intelligence as Batman, but I'd be willing to speculate that Bane will be Charles Bronson in a different costume and a mask.

As for Anne Hathaway as Catwoman...I think putting Catwoman in Nolan's version of Batman is a mistake anyway, even as a love interest (which is why she'll be there).

Losing his grip

If Assange is blathering on about suing because he lost control of 'his' information and because he has a financial interest in it, then he should lose control over this information completely.

He should never have had control over any of the leaked information in the first place, and as for having a financial interest in it...shouldn't Wikileaks be above that? Shouldn't Assange be as well?

2084

What next, goose-stepping tea-baggers?

The USA should wipe the egg off it's face, and move on.

Hint

They're under the bed.

Cables

I hope there is a missive in the US cables which says 'make Assange look bad; attach him to a sex scandle. Hell, he looks like a bit of a playboy, doesn't he? Make that a double'.

It tracks you and then displays the appropriate image

Am I the only one thinking of Microsoft Kinnect?

Call me naive, but

It's a debugger, so what?

Even if some 133t haxor were to use their formidable skillz and plugged in some warez so that they could access my kernal remotely without my knowing about it (maybe even turning on my home computer by pinging my electricity supply while I'm at work to make sure I wouldn't notice!), what would skulduggery would they be able to engage in with this debugger that they couldn't do otherwise?

If they wanted to reverse engineer the CPU, they probably wouldn't need this debugger to do it.

If our AMD man 'Mats' is to be believed, then it was just a debugger; why would those breadcrumbs from the debugging process still be there in the debugger on all factory issued chips?

Be a hell of an insight into the CPU development process if they were, but are they there?

Does he have money in the bank or not?

The article says that $4 billion was dropped into his piggy bank this year: so is that real money or not?

The article says that Facebook has made him this money - so is it a money generating entity or not?

If Facebook is not a money generating entity, where is Zuck's money coming from? Also, if it is not making any money, and Zuck is still getting $ billions out of it dropped in his piggy bank, then how much more $ will he get when it actually does start making money?

An extra £900m to be spent pursuing tax evaders

No need, Panorama has identified Lord Ashcroft; and as Cannon said, Dispatches has done a similar job re some of the others.

Title is mandatory

Why is it that these government IT projects always cost billions?

java script?

.js ? Java script? Oh, well I have NoScript and AdBlocker Plus; so I'll be alright then. Don't be thinking I'll accept lso's either, I purge them upon shutting down FireFox with another add on, Better Privacy.