* Posts by Turtle

1888 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jan 2010

Revealed: What the US taxman really thinks of crypto-cash Bitcoin

Turtle

Not being a tax lawyer or accountant...

"Bitcoin markets reacted to the IRS release with little outrage or surprise."

Should they have been outraged? Although I read the article, the larger significance of the IRS policy is completely lost on me. What does it mean? What are its practical implications? What is its impact as opposed to the the impact of a different policy?

It'd be nice to know...

EE...K: Why can't I uninstall carrier's sticky 'Free Games' app?

Turtle

@Big_Boomer Re: "Loyalty cards"

"Loyalty cards"

I have been getting these cards by giving a false name and address for 20 years now. I have never had a problem because if it.

(I am told that there are certain places that require identification such as a driver's license in order to get their card but I have never run across such a place.)

Crap turnover, sucky margins: TV is a 'terrible business' – Steve Jobs

Turtle

@big_D

"It should be fruity Führer (German nouns are always capitalized) and means leader or guide."

I got a good laugh out of this, thanks!

By the way, I am perfectly aware of the dictionary meaning of the word "Führer". You however seem to be unaware of this particular word's historical meaning.

Turtle

Re: Turtle: This'll give you a chuckle ..

His kind of stupidity really does make me grin. : )

Turtle

A Bit Much.

"fruity führer "

I loathe Steve Jobs and get a great deal of amusement and satisfaction out of the way he - as I look at it - killed himself, but "fruity führer" is a bit much.

MH370 airliner MYSTERY: The El Reg Pub/Dinner-party Guide

Turtle

Slight Correction Re: @ElReg!comments!Pierre: You'll Need To Do Better Than That.

"Every single example sentence uses "exterminate" as a verb having as its object a living entity (or collective noun signifying such), and not a single example has a material object as its object."

That should read "Every single example sentence uses 'exterminate' as a verb having as its object a living entity (or collective noun signifying such), and not a single example has an inanimate material object as its object."

Turtle

@ElReg!comments!Pierre: You'll Need To Do Better Than That.

Here's the whole definition - including the parts that you omitted because they show your usage to be incorrect - from your online source which is http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/exterminate?q=exterminate:

verb [with object] 1 Destroy completely: after exterminating the entire population, the soldiers set fire to the buildings

And note carefully the example sentences that follow (and the additional examples listed under "More Example Sentences"). Every single example sentence uses "exterminate" as a verb having as its object a living entity (or collective noun signifying such), and not a single example has a material object as its object.

So now you know that the verb "exterminate" is never used with a concrete inanimate noun as its object and that your use of the word is still wrong even after you decided to intentionally misinterpret the definition - which is, after all, what you did.

Turtle

Possible Scenario.

I can imagine the co-pilot saying "Good-night" to the air-traffic controllers, then drugging or incapacitating the pilot, and putting the aircraft on autopilot and flying until fuel exhaustion.

Notice that this leaves open various scenarios as to how the rest of the crew and the passengers were disabled. I suppose one could imagine that the co-pilot disabled the pilot, brought the aircraft down to 5000ft, breached the hull somehow - he could have even broken a window in the cockpit - and then had the autopilot fly up to 35000ft (or whatever altitude would be required), killing everyone on board by hypoxia, with the autopilot then flying the aircraft out to sea until fuel exhaustion.

Since there are people here with some familiarity with aircraft operations, I would be interested in hearing their opinions of this.

There was a case in Egypt a few years back where the pilot decided to commit suicide by crashing his passenger jet. MH370 co-pilot could have learned something from that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Maroc_Flight_630 where a pilot disconnected the autopilot and crashed the aircraft. Also relevant is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185 .

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Express_Flight_705 where a member of the flight crew smuggled a hammer aboard the aircraft, and attempted to bludgeon the pilot and co-pilot to death. He didn't use a gun because he had a $2.5 million insurance policy on which he wanted his family to collect and gunshots in the bodies of the flight crew would make that... problematical. The co-pilot of MH370 could have had a motive to want the bodies not found: insurance policy, sparing his family the shame of having a family member commit suicide, possibly other motives.

Auburn Calloway, a Federal Express employee facing possible dismissal for lying about his previous flying experience, boarded the scheduled flight as a deadheading passenger with a guitar case carrying several hammers and a speargun. He intended to disable the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder before take-off and, once airborne, kill the crew using the blunt force of the hammers so their injuries would appear consistent with an accident rather than a hijacking. The speargun would be a last resort. He would then crash the aircraft while just appearing to be an employee killed in an accident. This would make his family eligible for a $2.5 million life insurance policy paid by Federal Express.

Turtle

@Vic Re: Facts

"*I* know how to disable ACARS on a 777, and I'm not ATPL. I've never even set foot on a 777 flight deck. It's a trivial matter - Google will show you how to do it.,"

Google will show you how to do it, but only *after* you know to look for it. That is to say, there are only particular kinds of people who would know that the ACARS even exists in the first place. So I would take the disabling of ACARS to indeed be indicative of specialist knowledge.

Turtle

@ElReg!comments!Pierre

"> 'decimate - meaning nothing of size is left' - The word you're looking for is exterminate."

The word that you're looking for is "annihilate".

/shakes head.

We're being royalty screwed! Pandora blames price rise on musos wanting money

Turtle

@Nordrick Framelhammer

"As we all know, the majority of the "royalties" are never seen by the artist but instead are slurped into the coffers of potentially corrupt organisations like RIAA, thence possibly to appear in the salary and perk packages of the management types in said organisations."

The RIAA has nothing whatsoever to do with the collection of royalties.

It has pretty nearly always been the case that when someone brings up the theme of artists getting cheated by record labels, it has always been in defense of some imaginary sort of right, actually a baseless feeling of entitlement, to get music and entertainment in general, for free. I have to suppose that you are doing something similar.

The theme by the way is not true. Because of the expense of recording a record and promoting it at all, coupled with the fact that most bands will never sell enough records to recoup the record label's investment, the idea that most artists get cheated is simply not true.

In fact, it is income from the more successful artists which underwrites and finances the new acts, most of which will product nothing but a loss on the balance sheet.

Now it may be the case that the more successful artists feel - and are - cheated, but they do got their start from seed money taken from other artists.

They accused him of inventing Bitcoin. Now, Nakamoto hires lawyer to clear his name

Turtle

@Mark 85

"However, this is the American Press giving the American People what they want..."

I'm curious to know where it is that you think that the press is any different.

Turtle

"Let Me Tell You How It Will Be; There's One For You,.."

"Seeing as the person, or people, who go under the name Satoshi are reckoned to own more than a million Bitcoins, it is extremely unlikely that the real inventor of the cryptocurrency would be short of a bob or two."

Well, what's the likelihood that the person or people who go under the name Satoshi are doing their damnedest to hide them from the taxman, eh?

Grav waves: Moment when 'father of Big Bang inflation' learns he was RIGHT ALL ALONG

Turtle

Cautious.

"If this is true..."

Caution is always in order when looking at far-reaching results of very complex and delicate experiments. Recall how cautious CERN was to announce the discover of the Higgs boson. That worked out pretty well. Recall the affairs of the faster-than-light neutrinos and, going back further, cold fusion. Those worked out maybe not quite so well. (Add your own examples.)

There's plenty of time to celebrate. And, if they really want, plenty of time to look like a fool.

Win XP holdouts storm eBay and licence brokers, hiss: Give us all your Windows 7

Turtle

@spidercrab

"Firstly, everybody using all versions of Windows can and often does, experience malware and viruses."

I don't. My friends don't. My sister, an extremely not-technical computer user, has experienced a total of one incident in the last nine years. My mother, on the other hand, gets her browser homepage and search engine prefs hijacked on a fairly regular basis because she refuses to not install discount-coupon apps or toolbars. (All the aforementioned users run XP.) So, yeah, if you're 80+ years old and using Windows, and simply must install smiley and coupon crapplets, then yes, you could well experience malware problems.

Which, if you think about it objectively, is still better than having one's head as far up one's ass as Spidercrab.

MtGox remedy worse than the disease says Kaspersky researcher

Turtle

Summation, In One Word.

"Appropriate".

Well, let me add a second word: "Very".

Tony Benn, daddy of Brit IT biz ICL and pro-tech politician, dies at 88

Turtle

@Vic

"...I think history will be kinder to them than it will be to the 'trust me - I have seen conclusive proof of WMDs which I can't share with you' brigade..."

Judging by your post, you seem to think that history began 20 years ago.

You're mistaken.

Turtle

@Pen-y-gors

"Civil Nuclear Constabulary"?

Great name! Right up there with (and nearly as ominous as) "National Ignition Facility"!

Turtle

@hammarbtyp

"There have been many politicians both on the far left and right who kept up the courage of their convictions to the bitter end. But history does not remember them well."

That was my first thought too. The most egregious: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler.

The matter of politicians and programs is a question of what one thinks a politician's job really is: to reflect the concerns of his constituents, or to force his program onto them. There does not seem to be an answer that is always right; the closest thing to a "right" answer is "improve the economy, lose no wars".

(I also note the many comments in this thread seem say "He was a great guy, and a great politician, but thank heavens he didn't get elected". Quite an envoi, really.)

'Hacked docs' prove MtGox has 1 MILLION Bitcoins, claim blog-snatchers

Turtle

@ Pascal Monett

Happy to oblige - and, at the same time, get some use out of my vast store of otherwise useless knowledge!

: )

Turtle

Re: "I am just a humble handsome Asian man ..."

"'I am just a humble handsome Asian man ..' Am I the only one who thinks there's something inherently contradictory in that sentence ?"

You need to be a little cautious here. I can't speak directly about Japan but in China, it was (and maybe still is) customary to "prefix" names with "honorifics". So a standard statement might go like this: "What is your expensive name? My miserable name is..." *

The same sort of customary self-effacing modesty might be far more extensive in Japan, and therefore the sentence "I am just a humble handsome Asian man" would have a meaning somewhat different to a Japanese.

* Reference for anyone interested (and sorry for the use of Chinese characters):

"贵 guì means "expensive" but it also carries the loftier meaning of "worthwhile" or "honorable". For instance, when asking about someone's family name,姓 xìng, it's often respectful to add 贵 guì in front of it." (From http://www.zhongwenred.com/lessonfourteen.htm.)

Turtle

"Satoshi Nakamoto" = "Free Lunch"?

"What I wanted to do is to plead to allow Dorian to live whatever life he has left to live it in dignity, peace and in private. To let him play with his trains and obsess over being treated to free lunches that he craves for some reason since his stroke."

Dorian may or may not be Satoshi Nakamoto, but there's certainly no such thing as a free lunch. Except if you're, you know, Satoshi Nakamoto. Or if someone thinks you are. So he might want to think twice about killing the goose that lays the, uh, free lunch (which I guess is an omelette).

PM Cameron leaps aboard Internet of Thingies

Turtle

What I don't understand.

What is it with your politicians that they all think that the internet is going to be the UK's salvation? I thought that perhaps that it was just their way of funneling money to their associates and patrons in the IT sector, but even that doesn't really make sense, I think.

The NHS database, weakening of copyright and IP protections, the "smart meter" gambit - I don't see where the value is, or how there is any return on investment for the funding of these programs - and I can't even imagine where they think that value is. (Well I guess the smart meters will be useful when they have to start rationing your electricity, but even taking that into consideration, it's murky...)

Neil Young touts MP3 player that's no Piece of Crap

Turtle

The Tintinnabulations Of The Ad-Copy.

Here's a ringing endorsement from a famous rocker: "Hi! I'm deaf, but I know audiophile-grade kit when I read about it! Remember this scientifically-proven fact: the more you pay, the better it sounds."

Cops probing 'unnatural' death of Singapore Bitcoin exchange boss

Turtle

@Phil O'Sophical

"That's harsh."

Not really. She's dead no matter what I think caused it. My attitude towards her death, however, would differ depending on the cause. My attitude towards her death if she was murdered because of running a money-laundering service for organized crime figures, triads, or similar, is certainly not the same if she killed herself because of bipolar disorder.

Also, I agree that it is sad when someone of that age - or in fact of any age - kills themselves because of psychological problems that are, very often, treatable with the proper meds. If you think that my post implies otherwise then you have misinterpreted it.

Turtle

What It Looks Like.

As much as I would like to see Radtke's death tied to Bitcoin, it kind of looks like clinical depression, to make a quick judgment based on the picture of the house on the island.

MtGox: Yup, we're pretty sure your Bitcoin were stolen. Sorry about that.

Turtle

Fairly Typical.

"In what language does one capitalise every other word, for example?"

It's fairly typical proletarian usage.

Chicago man lobs class-action sueball at MtGox

Turtle

Sorry.

"There was some weakness in the system - just the littlest bit, really - and the Bitcoins have disappeared," Karpeles said in a press conference on Friday. "I apologize for causing trouble. Please don't kill me. Please."

Sorry, it's not up to me.

: ))

Steve Jobs statue: Ones and ohs and OH NOES – it's POINTING at us

Turtle

The Riddle Solved!: Here's why.

"So why on Earth has the fruity firm decided to immortalize him with a monstrous statue that's been described as a 'huge dildo' for fanbois?"

Because Apple has been applying "huge dildos" to fanbois for years. Therefore the statue is... appropriate.

Pine trees' scent 'could prevent climate change really being a problem'

Turtle

@ sabroni

"'Why the fuck would he bother?' In order to appear less unbalanced?"

I'm just wondering if you have ever made any comments to the effect that AGW-alarmists should also be "less unbalanced" (although they certainly *are* "unbalanced" although in a different way) or whether your idea that only AGW skeptics should be "balanced" and that it's perfectly okay for you to be an intellectually dishonest hypocrite - which seems to be the AGW-alarmist way.

Turtle

@ Thought About IT

"I must have missed the day when Lewis wrote about known positive feedback mechanisms that really could make climate change a big problem."

Why the fuck would he bother? There's already a whole industry dedicated to doing that.

MtGox accepted new customers JUST DAYS before collapse

Turtle

@ I ain't Spartacus

"To be fair, it's a difficult dilemma, when a business is in serious trouble. If you own up to how precarious things are, your customers and suppliers may all bugger off, putting the final nail in the coffin."

I agree with this. MtGox had to carry on normally or completely shut down. I don't see that half-measures in this regard could have accomplished anything. (Not that I care that they went under, mind you.)

MtGox MELTDOWN: Quits Bitcoin Foundation board, deletes Twitter

Turtle

Security.

"Last Thursday, the Tokyo, Japan–based company said that it had been forced to relocate to its previous office space in the Shibuya special ward to escape 'the security problems inherent in having one's address known to organized crime figures, drug lords, and terrorist organizations, all capable of hiring and dispatching any number of psychopathic enforcers.'"

Security by obscurity. Sometimes the best security there is. Live it every day.

Microsoft may slash price of Windows 8.1 on cheap 'slabs

Turtle

Re: Don't they listen to Darwin?

"Microsoft has such enormous cash reserves it can, and does, give products life support. As a result, crap products that should die, and be replaced by better ones, are instead kept alive for ideological reasons. In the long run this will make their offerings, and ultimately MS as a whole, weaker."

Yes, but Win 8.1 is basically the only thing that they've got to sell at the moment. It's not realistic to expect them to give up on 8.1 and not sell anything until 9 is ready, is it?

Turtle

8.1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...

"If correct, the report signals that Microsoft thinks low-cost devices are the key to making inroads with Windows 8.1."

The "key" to making "inroads" with Windows 8.1 is replacing it with a usable desktop OS: Windows 9.

Muslim clerics issue fatwa banning the devout from Mars One 'suicide' mission

Turtle

@ jake

"all organized religions are the root of all evil."

Yeah because no other kinds of organizations and no other kinds of ideologies have ever caused any kind of harm to anyone or anything.

When are posts moderated?

Turtle

Re: When are posts moderated?

"your posts are auto-modded"

What does this mean, exactly? And are everyone's posts auto-modded, or does the "you" in the quote refer to "A Non e-mouse" specifically?

South Korea green lights Stuxnet-like code weapons to nark Norks

Turtle

@ John Savard

Or the whole matter could be a ploy on the part of South Korea to lessen the severity of the Nork online attacks by causing them to devote part of their resources to combating a non-existent South Korean threat. Otherwise, why would South Korea even put this in the newspapers at all - a course of action that would seem counterproductive if such operations were actually taking place?

French youth faces court for illegal drone flight

Turtle

Very impressive camera.

1) The camera itself is at least as interesting as the video. I had never heard of "GoPro". I am trying to think of a reason to buy one as some of them are very reasonably priced. (But a *very* quick glance at the website did not reveal the recording times or capacities of the available models.)

2) The drone to which the camera was mounted seemed to be flying at street level at certain points. This is not entirely without risk. It would not seem impossible for the drone to go out of control, suddenly approach a cyclist, or automobile or truck at very close range and startle or distract the driver, possibly leading to an accident.

3) The kid's statement that the drone vendor website had no warnings about the applicable laws governing drone flights in Nancy does not strike me as a defense inherently capable of garnering either sympathy or success. Still, I would expect the legal consequences to be minimal... unless the judge really hates French people.

Just like Elvis, dead Steve Jobs to appear all over America in 2015

Turtle

No.

I will absolutely positively not buy or use a Steve Jobs stamp. No fucking way, no fucking how.

Google picks five teams to share $6 MEEELLION funding in Lunar X Prize

Turtle

@ CmdrX3

"I do however wish all the participants the best of luck."

I, on the other hand, sincerely hope that every launch vehicle either liveried with a Google logo or carrying a payload with a Google logo explodes on the launch pad.

Another U.S. state set to repeal rubber duck ban

Turtle

@ Sporkinum

"Just in case some of you don't know what this is."

Thanks, I had no idea. I bet no one else here had any idea either. Especially the kneejerk anti-American loudmouth ignoramuses.

I guess you mean ducks like this one: http://www.digitalspy.com/fun/news/a482482/hong-kong-giant-rubber-duck-deflates-picture.html

That'd be quite a race if there were "thousands" of them though.

Turtle

@ NumptyScrub

"quote: "Every country probably has laws which makes some acts illegal which many people would say should not be illegal." And in a democracy, those existing laws which are no longer wanted by a majority of citizens should be repealed. I thought that was the point of government for the people. Rather than defending the enforcement of stupid laws because they are laws, we should be demanding the repealing of stupid laws because they are stupid. Or does that leave too much power in the hands of the population?"

If you read the story again you'll find that the law was repealed. Which makes it kind of hard to understand the point of your post. Unless it was to show us that you didn't understand the point of the story.

Turtle

Re: @ Mad Mike

You couldn't be more wrong.

"It's happened in Florida at least to my knowledge. There was a lot of trouble over it. " Yeah, the police and public prosecutor investigated and the guy who did the shooting was put on trial for murder. So the correct inference isn't that "it's perfectly alright to shoot someone for no reason" but that "no matter what the law says about the circumstances in which it is acceptable for someone to resort to firearms and deadly force, if you shoot someone then it's easily possible if not actually likely for you to find yourself on trial for murder because it's really not "perfectly alright" to shoot people under any circumstances anywhere in the entire country and you had better be prepared for the police to investigate and the district attorney to convene a grand jury to see if the shooting was justified or if you are going to go on trial for murder, attempted murder, or some related charges".

" I believe you had to say you felt threatened (No, you had to be threatened in a way that an impartial observer would feel was actually threatening and the threat has to be of immediate physical violence and you'd better be able to offer some convincing evidence about it too) and you believed the person was 'up to no good' (there is no jurisdiction in this country that would accept "they were up to no good" as a reason for shooting someone) and even feel your life might be at risk, but it didn't actually have to be true (every such case is investigated by the relevant law enforcement agencies who actually do not condone people using firearms without extremely good reasons and they don't just "take someone's word for it"). There have been numerous cases in the press over this. (But you can't name any.)"

"It's happened in Florida at least to my knowledge." That's a good way to put it because you couldn't have less knowledge about it.

Top Brit docs wade into GP data grab row, demand 'urgent' NHS England talks

Turtle

Approved.

"Amber data are only made available under a legal contract to approved analysts for approved purposes."

So, provided they're willing to pay, the data is pretty much available to anyone for any purpose.

Anons escape human sewer after billionaire bog roll blag

Turtle

Re: DDoS

"Something I've always wanted to know. What's the point of a DDoS on a website?"

DDos'ing this particular toilet paper website? Well the perps were naturally attracted to it because they're assholes. And the point was to advertise that fact and get legal recognition of it.

So... success!

US Senate bill would mandate 'kill switch' on all smartphones

Turtle

Can we...

"US Senate bill would mandate 'kill switch' on all smartphones"

Can we decide which senator we want the smartphone to kill?

'Demon Killer' who tied SD card to cat pleads not guilty

Turtle

Re: "Prosecutors have as many as 637 pieces of circumstantial evidence"

In general there are two kinds of evidence: direct evidence and circumstantial evidence. As an example of circumstantial evidence, consider "fingerprints". The idea that circumstantial evidence is somehow inherently weak or flimsy is popular but mistaken.

Here's a good place to start reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_evidence

EC officials voice doubts about Almunia's planned Google settlement deal

Turtle

Re: A lobbyist lobbying nightmare.

"even if it is just feathering its own nest as usual."

Here's the interesting thing about government - particularly large-scale government: no matter what it does or doesn't do, someone's nest will get feathered and someone else's nest will get stripped. The parties with the most to gain or lose are the most likely to get involved but the effects of government action or inaction go beyond, and usually very far beyond, the most directly interested parties. Because oftentimes the mere possibility of its intervention has consequences, government is a behemoth that exerts highly-ramified economic influence merely by the fact of its existence.

Facebook adds 50+ gender options: Stalking your 'Friends' just got more LGBT-friendly

Turtle

@ h4rm0ny

"Americans love labels."

Just like everyone else on the fucking planet. And it doesn't take much of an understand of the way the human mind works to understand why.