Posts by Steve Knox

Re: So Bored...

The whole point of a comment system is to air one's views both good and bad.

Okay, here's my view. The whole "I'm sick and tired of reading this rubbish" complaint indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of how to use the internet.

See, unlike, say, radio or television, the internet is consumer-driven, meaning that you choose what to read and what not to read. So if you're reading something you're sick and tired of, that means you made a bad choice. To then go and complain about having read something you're sick and tired of means that not only did you make a bad choice, but you want to blame others for your own bad choices.

And no, "but I wanted to give them feedback so they can improve what they choose to write" is not a valid excuse. The server logs tell them which articles get read and which ones don't, and good analytics can even tell approximately how long people spend reading the articles.

Re: another useless report

If it doesn't, then you're not holding it right.

Re: Sigh.....

So Poverty, hunger, sanitation, war seems like a good place to start, we can leave sexual harrasmant of people in countries where these problems have been solved until somalia enters the first world then, I guess?

Where are these countries where poverty, hunger, sanitation, and war have been solved?

Re: a lot of anime fans have a weird hatred of calling anime cartoons

I see their point but like you think they overdue it a bit.

Yeah, they really should get past that.

Re: WHATS THAT SMELL?

I probably wouldn't believe this if it came from McAfee, Symantec, Microsoft, or many others.

From F-Secure, I'll at least accept it as plausible. Of the AV companies I've dealt with, they've been the least slimy. Note how they didn't mince words or try to complicate this very simple issue.

Re: Did you know about this?

And it's not what they're protesting "for", it's what they're protesting against

If you don't have a for, against is rather pointless. Tear down what you will: if you don't have something ready to replace it, someone else will, and you'll like the replacement even less.

Re: Old dog, new tricks ?

Would you like to rephrase that as a statement, or are you just casually ageist?

Re: Scarf

Little-Known Fact: the scarf was actually woven from the scripts of the episodes. When you see Tom contemplating a section he's not acting; he just forgot his lines...

Re: 'Nuff Said

Okay, I will say more.

In order to be useful, a statement about identity must narrow down the list of possible individuals that may make the statement truthfully, usually significantly.

Let's take one of the examples from the paper: "I am eligible to vote." Let's say this is In the UK.

The UK's total population is approximately 63 million people (as of 2012). But only about 50 million are eligible (and roughly 46 million registered.) So simply by making that statement truthfully, you would be eliminating approximately 1/5 of potential identities.

While you can hide behind a mask and make true statements about your identity, any such statements will decrease your level of anonymity.

Note that this is identity, which the paper authors repeatedly conflate with authority. For example, if you could anonymously register a domain with the example system they describe, and then issue a statement that you are authorized to maintain said domain, that would not decrease your anonymity because the statement is not linked to an identity.

Had the authors had the sense to understand the difference between identity and authority, they would not likely have made the absurd proposition that statements about identity could be made "in a fully anonymous fashion."

Is that enough for you?

Shameful Slander!

One presumes your journalistic/ethics training manual was bought at a fire sale at the demise of the late unlamented News of the World...

El Reg was publishing inaccurate and inflammatory headlines long before the demise of the News of the World.

Perhaps you thought you were on one of the many boring tech news sites out there?

Re: It's an option

Twitter has a website? C'mon, next you'll be telling me FaceBook and LinkedIn do, too...

Re: Oh dear, once again... (Yawn...)

@obnoxiousGit and Steve Knox.

"Is that giving you what *YOU* are looking for or what *THEY* decide is best for you to see?"

In your original post, the "that" in the above sentence refers the absurd hypothetical you posited.

No, that's not giving me what I'm looking for, but it's also not what Google is currently doing.

Let's borrow from your playbook for a second:

So imagine this: Graham Marsden has built a giant robot pterodactyl specifically for the purpose of tearing the heads off little children.

Is that giving you what *YOU* are looking for or what *HE* has decided is best for you?

Now do you see the logical fallacy in your argument, or do you just want to go back to your baby-eating robot pterodactyl?

Re: Bletchley Park 2.0 already happened

If you'd read the article (or even a smattering of the relevant history), you'd see why GCHQ is nowhere near the class of Bletchley Park, in almost every definition of the word class.

Re: Stop making me think about sex. It's irrelevant.

You are presuming that the gender choice was intentional. That implies the existence of free will, which is the subject of discussion.

Your objections are therefore begging the question and logically invalid.

Re: Green eh?

So, you didn't read the sentence about electricity sources then?

Did you just see the title and subtitle, catch a phrase that ignited your own personal prejudices, and then come comment without even reading the article?

Re: Ignorant Americans

It's not the shooting themselves (although the foot is, shall we say, not the preferred location) that I object to. It's that these xenophobic few are shooting the rest of us at the same time.