* Posts by PT

350 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Jun 2007

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FAA to pilots: Expect 'unreliable or unavailable' GPS signals

PT

Mountain in the middle of nowhere?

I can believe that. I was out in the mountains west of Death Valley last year and my GPS started telling me I was off the coast of Bermuda, 200 feet below sea level. It didn't tell me the truth again until I could put a mountain between it and China Lake (Naval Air Weapons Station).

The Girl with the NSObject Class Reference tattoo

PT

Product placement?

I believe Apple must pay Hollywood for product placement. For many years now I've noticed that in movies, the good guys always use Apple and the villains always use PC. There may be one or two exceptions but right now I can't think of any. It's overwhelming, far more than can be put down just to chance or directors' preferences.

Missile defence FAIL: US 'kill vehicle' space weapon flunks test

PT

They will explain it to Congress this way...

"More development is required, and we will spend X,000,000 dollars of the budget in each of your Congressional districts".

Skype goes titsup across globe

PT
Big Brother

Don't worry...

... It will be back up in no time. I heard from a reliable source that helpful engineers from AT&T and the NSA are working all night on the servers to restore service in time for the holidays.

Assange: Text messages show rape allegations were 'set up'

PT

Ian Michael Gumby...

YOU are Joe Lieberman, and I claim my five pounds!

Ofcom proposes UK phone numbers prefix re-org

PT

Premium rates?

On the subject of rates, isn't it about time Britain got rid of the surcharge on mobile calls? I can call any landline in Britain from the US for 2 cents a minute, but mobiles cost me 25 cents. I'm really quite surprised this outrageous mobile rip-off has survived for so long without attracting either a torch-wielding mob or the attention of those nice chaps in Brussels. It must have repaid the cost of the infrastructure many times over by now.

Email protected by Fourth Amendment, says appeals court

PT

Re: Amendments? So what?

It is far from "easy" to add amendments to the US Constitution. You should research it a bit.

Chinese official gets suspended death sentence over anti-virus scam

PT

@yeah, that sounds great

You make a good point. If US politicians faced a slap on the wrist for corruption, instead of being rewarded by a large salary for life with a lucrative job at a lobbying firm to look forward to, they wouldn't be so overt and blatant about taking bribes. So while it would be trivially easy to administer summary justice today, tomorrow they might cover their tracks a bit better and need some sort of investigation or trial. Bummer. But at least we could make a clean sweep of the current lot. That would feel good.

WikiLeaks' Assange to be indicted for spying 'soon'

PT
FAIL

@Washington Post article

"Joe Lieberman ..... government ..... First Amendment"

While he demonstrably does sit on some committees, there's legitimate doubt over whether Joe Lieberman is actually a member of the AMERICAN government. More likely his concern is for the potential embarrassment of some foreign government or other.

US politician: 'homosexual agenda' behind TSA groin grope

PT

Village people?

You know, the image of people with their arms up making a 'Y' in front of the scanners IS evocative.

Xbox modder can't claim fair use, says judge

PT

Don't Mod Consoles, Alright?

The DMCA sorely needs to be tested in a case that goes all the way to the Supreme Court, so in a way I hope Crippen is found guilty. I thought the Dmitri Sklyarov case might be appealed all the way, but Adobe perceived they would probably lose and begged the Feds not to pursue it. Having the DMCA declared unconstitutional is probably an outcome nobody in the "protected content" industry dares risk.

Turing papers could be saved after auction fail

PT

"Could be saved"?

Why, are they in some danger then? Will the disappointed owner now use the pages to light his cigars? The Turing papers are perfectly safe where they are until the present owner comes to terms with their true market value, which is clearly a bit less than their sentimental value.

Bish says sorry for right royal Facebook rant

PT

@Demosthenese

"Greatest human generated slaughters - the world wars"

Among which should be numbered the 30 Years War, involving most European countries and resulting in the deaths of about a third of the population. Now what was that one about, again?

PT

Parish Tithe

"If you buy a house in a village that happens to have a local church .."

I had such a house once, with a "parish tithe" covenant. It was a few pounds a year. The solicitor suggested that in the unlikely event that anyone came round to collect it, I should just pay it. Nobody ever did.

Cyber cops crush plod-snapper site following Millbank riot

PT

Re: @Responses

"I couldn't care less if my MP sympathises with my views: He's my representative."

+1 for making that important point.

Calls for US nudie perv scanner 'opt-out day'

PT

The penny drops

Michael C - Michael ... Chertoff?

Come on, haven't you made enough money off this scam already?

PT

Not worth the money -

- to whom? I think you'll find it's worth the money to Michael Chertoff, a former director of US "Homeland Security" and subsequently "co-founder of the Chertoff Group, a security and risk-management firm whose clients include A MANUFACTURER OF BODY-IMAGING SCREENING MACHINES'' (my caps). The aforementioned client has profited to the tune of about $25 million since the beginning of 2010, largely thanks to Mr Chertoff's contribution to the debate. This article from The Washington Post, for example -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101746.html

Good job, Michael. You must have been working really hard during your holidays to produce that in the five days between the discovery of the underwear bomber and the press deadline for the Jan 1 paper.

Falklands hero Marine: Save the Harrier, scrap the Tornado

PT

Re: question of priorities

"iran nuclear installations" - By God Sir, you've got it! You've stated the clinching argument for saving the Harrier and scrapping the Tornado! Only thus can Britain be saved from involvement in another ill-advised military adventure and multiple decades of impoverishing war.

eBay Meg bitchslapped by Governor Moonbeam

PT

TV ads

Maybe individual ads aren't very expensive - though I imagine the rates double as election day looms - but it's the number of them. 8 breaks an hour, times as many as 100 channels, times sometimes three to five in a row, times many weeks - it adds up. Then there's the direct mail. On average I received 12 ounces a day of political trash for the last 4 weeks.

If America ever wants to get serious about campaign finance reform, instead of making it harder to raise money, they should make it harder to spend it.

Boffins mount campaign against France's official kilogramme

PT

Hmmm

I see we are still some way off achieving standards of spelling. Gramme? Metre? Seriously, WTF? Speak English. Once the perfidious French lose control of the last physical standard there will be no further reason to humour them.

US raygun jumbo fluffs another test missile-blast attempt

PT

Not a failure really

Remember, this is the arms industry. It isn't necessary that the damn thing works, only that it gets paid for.

Green light for spooks' net snoop plan

PT

Perspective Needed

Consider this in context with Lewis Page's commentary on the Navy's desire for large numbers of escorts. GCHQ is just another service. It needs departments like Naval officers need ships, and for exactly the same reason - jobs and promotions. It's just unfortunate that GCHQ's job creation program costs the UK population twice - once to pay for it and again when it's used against them.

Microsoft steers OEMs away from putting Phone 7 on Tablets

PT
Thumb Down

@Windows Starter Edition

Too right it didn't work, but it wasn't piracy that worried Redmond, it was that they couldn't charge enough for it on netbooks. If netbooks on cheapie Windows could do a worthwhile job, they might lose sales of costly desktop Windows. So they set out to (a) cripple netbooks by telling the manufacturers how much speed and RAM they could use, and (b) cripple the operating system with the aim of getting users to pay $$$ for an upgrade. This latter objective was revealed by the curious touch that it wouldn't connect to a home network unless that network was running W7. Well, they succeeded in persuading my wife to switch to Ubuntu within a few hours, just because it wouldn't let her change the desktop wallpaper on her EEE. Way to go Balmer, you tosser.

MoD braced for painful weight-loss surgery next week

PT
Grenade

Air superiority anywhere?

I'm surprised Lewis hasn't taken the argument to its logical conclusion - cancel the RAF altogether. What's the point in having an entire - astronomically expensive - service branch that no longer has any real mission? Its fighters don't have the range to get where they can be useful and they no longer have an aircraft capable of bombing Port Stanley. Let the Navy, with its mobile airfields, take care of air cover, and let the Army take care of the Reapers. I suppose for sentiment's sake one could keep a few squadrons of fighters in Britain, for air shows and the like.

The idea of abolishing the air force was mooted a few years ago here in the US, where the Navy and Army are practically self-sufficient in air power and the USAF is truly redundant. I was disappointed it didn't go any further.

Spycam school to pay damages for kiddie snaps

PT
WTF?

@Ross7

Ah, lack of intent doesn't _usually_ inhibit prosecutors in the US. The prisons are stuffed with people serving lengthy sentences for what would, in civilized countries, be considered accidents. This case was no accident - they didn't accidentally leave the cameras on and accidentally record thousands of covert pictures of juveniles, so intent is a no-brainer. Normally in America the prosecution would threaten them with 5000 years in jail, and let them plea-bargain it down to a year, a year's income fine and life on the sex offenders list. That they didn't do so in this case is pure politics, and deserves to be protested.

EFF backs political site's Righthaven counter-suit

PT
WTF?

Background info

Missing from the article is the information that the Las Vegas Review Journal takes a rabidly partisan political line, and the actions of Righthaven seem to be intended predominantly against bloggers of opposing political views. The effect is to prevent people drawing attention to errors, inaccuracies and downright fabrications published by the RJ in the runup to a bitterly fought election. Rupert Murdoch can only dream of having such control.

Steve Jobs in iPhone bitchslap to creationists, Tea Party

PT
Paris Hilton

@Title

"She did say "masturbation and all other forms of lustful behaviour outside marriage are sinful" but she was at high school when she said it."

No, she was not at high school at the time. She didn't choose the paths of righteousness until she'd indulged her appetite for the pleasures of the flesh for several years. Rumours that it was because "those beastly fraternity guys never call me in the morning, but the voice in my head does" could not be confirmed at the time of writing.

Paris, O'Donnell - one enjoys sex and the other is a liar.

Linus Torvalds outs himself as US citizen

PT

.. and wants to continue to live there ..

Becoming a US citizen is simple prudence for people with property and family here, kind of like locking the front door when you leave the house. It wasn't always so, but since 2001 very large numbers of long-term legal residents (myself included) have gone through the tedious and expensive process as a matter of self defense.

Microsoft: IE9 will never run on Windows XP

PT

Are you serious?

"Although it's tempting to believe the latter I don't think anybody at MS is so stupid as to believe that would work."

Apparently they thought it would work when they imposed the loathsome W7 "starter edition" crippleware on netbook users. Among a long list of simple tasks it won't allow, it won't connect to a local (home) network that isn't running on Windows 7. Fortunately, such crippled netbooks can be made fully functional by upgrading them to XP or Ubuntu.

PT

@JDX

"If they gave free copies of Office2012 to everyone they'd be criticised because it doesn't run on XP"

If they gave me a free copy of Office2012, I wouldn't criticise them - I'd appreciate the gift of a free coaster. I haven't upgraded Microsoft Office since Office97. When later versions started using incompatible file types I had a moment of confusion, but a quick upgrade to Open Office took care of it.

Symantec Snoop Dogg rap contest site rickrolled

PT

As many as 7 entries?

The intersection of the sets (Has Heard Of Symantec) and (Likes Snoop Dogg) must be larger than I thought.

Intel chief: Obama (still) driving US off cliff

PT

Can't disagree

The tax rate on small business and self-employed is iniquitous to the point that it's not worth working*. However, I fail to see how this is the fault of the Obama administration - it's the way things have been forever. Those bold tax-cutting not-liberals we just threw out of office could have done something about it, if they gave a fuck; but they didn't - forgive me then if I dismiss their current enthusiasm for small business as cynical electioneering. So, Obama hasn't done anything either? I'm shocked - SHOCKED! Damn it, the man's had 18 months and it's not like anything else has been going on.

* Except for the increasing number of jobs that are now being done for cash

PT

(untitled)

Otellini is incorrect that the US is heading for second-rate status - it's already achieved that as far as domestic industry is concerned. Maybe he meant third rate. Certainly Government policies need to be changed to correct the situation, but I doubt if Ortellini would like the medicine, which would be a shift in taxation policies away from favoring unearned income such as capital gains and stock dividends and making it more rewarding to put in an honest day's work actually making things in the USA. The present situation, where managements prefer to pay themselves in stock and thus pay a lower tax rate than their receptionists, has been the driving force behind decades of internal asset stripping with the objective of pushing the stock price higher and higher. Now with the stock market looking distinctly wobbly and the specter of dollar hyperinflation feasting at the door, these vultures expect the government - sorry, the taxpayer - to step in and rebuild the industrial base they gutted in pursuit of private wealth. After all, they claim, we did it for the banks.

I'm not quite sure how blaming the Obama administration figures into this, but then I guess it's an election year. Perhaps if things go Ortellini's way in November, then after the new representatives have been introduced to all the lobbyists and taken their free trip to Israel, maybe they'll direct the Federal Reserve to print a bail-out for Intel too.

Wikileaks double dares Pentagon hawks

PT
Thumb Down

@Trevor_Pott

"So screw the Afghani, eh?"

_I_ have not screwed the Afghani. I have, however, been screwed myself on their behalf and I've had enough of it. I've had enough of being lied to by my own government, and having my pockets looted by the military and their private contractor pals for no good purpose. If you, sir, think the ongoing effort and expense has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with the welfare of the Afghan people, then you are abysmally ignorant of politics. If you think the United States is even capable of making any positive difference in that country, then you are abysmally ignorant of history. Every day and every dollar we spend in that region is just destabilizing it more and creating more problems for the entire world in the future. The best way to stop screwing the Afghani is to get out, now, and leave them alone.

PT

@1-300,000

On the contrary, Trevor richly deserves the thumbs-down for using the massively abused "support our troops" argument at the start of the comments. The only thing in his favor is that he didn't continue with the ".. because we can't tell them it was all for nothing" corollary, though he did take a step in that direction with the fatuous argument that we're there because we care about the Afghans. Perhaps we do, but that's not why we're there. In fact nobody seems to know why we're there. Well obviously some people know, but they're not saying, and the regular media is complicit not so much in in banging the war drums and covering up - though some are - but in suppressing dissent, for what reasons I can only speculate. Even the New York Times, which published the initial Wikileaks, is part of this publishers' cabal. Last week it published an editorial similar to Trevor's first comment and incautiously opened a comment thread, which was prematurely closed after less than 100 comments were submitted, almost all of which were strongly negative.

As a commentard with a son-in-law in harm's way, I strongly believe the best way to "support our troops" is to get them out of there. This appears to me to be the majority view of the citizens of the "democracies" involved in this imbroglio. How are we supposed to get our so-called "representatives" to pay attention, except by embarrassing them in every way possible? Go Assange, go Wikileaks. Extra credits if you can find and publish the order to let Bin Laden get away.

Perseid meteors 'thrill star-gazers'

PT

Probably not a Perseid..

I saw a good one Tuesday, a few days ahead of schedule. It was traveling north to south, nearly horizontal, with a fat silver spark trail that covered about 30 degrees of sky. I figure it probably wasn't a meteor, since I didn't see anything like it last night. Probably one of those new-fangled satellite-killing satellites that were in the news recently coming back in from a polar orbit. Or perhaps it was a victim.

UK.gov smiles and nods at commentards

PT

Yes, minister

Everyone _knows_ that Whitehall finds a way to carry on doing what it wants, no matter what the public wants or what the politicians tell them to do. But looking on the bright side, at least you don't have the American system, where after every election the civil service is restaffed with clueless campaign contributors or political apparatchiks who serve only the party. The British civil service may be conservative (small c), but in the main it puts what it believes to be the national interest first.

"Make it so the twain might never, ever be confused again."

Twain (Mark) was not confused, he knew exactly how things work. As he wrote so many years ago, "If your vote mattered, they wouldn't let you do it".

Wiki crew launch attack on FBI official seal bluster

PT

You didn't quote the best bit

"While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version".

A response worthy of Private Eye at its best.

Software emulation copyright case bumped to ECJ

PT
FAIL

deja vu all over again

I wonder if SAS has ever heard of Ed Esber* and Ashton-Tate, which Esber destroyed in a similar battle over the dBase scripting language? I think they should be told.

* They will learn little from his remarkably selective and revisionist Wikipedia bio.

Watchdog rules on Hull Daily Mail 'porncoder' exposé

PT

You guys are amateurs

"IS DAVID CAMERON A TRANSSEXUAL?"

(continued page 94)

p94

no

UK's Watchkeeper drone 'can see footprints through cloud'

PT

How long?

"... to be fielded in Afghanistan within two years ..."

So they don't expect to withdraw from this futile waste of lives and money anytime soon, then.

NZ government makes software 'unpatentable' (for now)

PT

Patently obvious?

I guess the news hasn't yet reached the software lawyers, who regularly claim both, as well as claiming that your purchase is really a rental so you have no right of first sale and may not examine it.

Still, bravo New Zealand! I hope you're strong enough to stand up to the trade sanctions.

UK.gov slams Facebook over Moat fan clubs

PT

Well, it worked!

I don't follow what goes on in the former home country much these days, so I first heard the name Raoul Moat today in The Register. Of course I immediately went looking for the FB page, but was notified it had been taken down after complaints from someone called David Cameron.

By the way, how's that firearms ban working out for you guys over there?

Cotswold police stage panty ID parade

PT

Moon shine washing line

Glad to see I'm not the only one who remembers the classics.

It's not the end for stop and search

PT

"Enemy Combatants"

"Even in the US Joe Bob only has 96 hours to make his "suspect" squeal like a pig"

Unless they declare him an enemy combatant, a flexible definition that can be applied on one man's say-so without any evidence or court involvement, and which cannot be appealed. Then you can toss him into solitary confinement in a military prison for six or seven years while you see if you can scrape up or fit up some evidence.

NSA setting up secret 'Perfect Citizen' spy system

PT

Relax!

You misunderstand the motives. While this may look on the surface like some Machiavellian plan to enslave us all, at the bottom it's just simple economics. As with many other projects - for example, Reagan's cruise missiles spring to mind - the objective is not that they should perform the functions listed in the spec, but that they should siphon worthwhile amounts of taxpayers' money to the private sector. Projects like this can't be stopped by protests and appeals to civil liberty, they have to be completed and paid for before they can be abandoned. This one is no particular threat, it will just generate more terabytes of data that nobody ever analyzes or acts on, since hiring people is expensive. It will be like a huge golem wandering around blindly and aimlessly - sure there may be a few innocent casualties, but pretty soon people will just learn to get out of its way. The only Orwellian thing about it is the need for continual war to maintain the paranoia level, otherwise the politicians can't be threatened with being "soft on terror".

Why we love to hate Microsoft

PT

Netbooks and business

There are all kinds of business uses for netbooks apart from traditional desktop tasks, but all of them involve being able to get on a network. If they come with Windows 7 Starter crippleware out of the box you have little option but to replace the operating system.

Meryl Streep to tackle Margaret Thatcher

PT

Re: I'm guessing you're not a fan then :-)

That would put me in the large majority, then. At the time General Galtieri saved her ass, Thatcher and her government were enjoying the lowest approval ratings (25% and 18% respectively) since opinion polls began. The wave of jingoism that is presumably the subject of this film pushed her up enough to win the next election, but she was ignominiously sacked by her own party to avoid a Tory holocaust in the one after.

I guess you had to be there to understand.

PT

Comedy?

I don't know why people think it should be a comedy. There was nothing amusing about trying to run a business during the Friedmanite hag's economic experiment. I didn't notice people laughing when their mortgage payments doubled and then doubled again within a few months, or when unemployment ramped up to several million. Export industries weren't rolling in the aisles while she held the pound at $2.40 and made it impossible to sell anything overseas. I imagine the banks didn't chuckle either, with the numbers of people just abandoning their homes, though the fly builders probably grinned as they looted newly-foreclosed properties and ripped the bathroom fittings out. Even, I would think, genuine Friedmanites would pause at the way this supposed small-government conservative left office with the total tax burden, as a percent of GNP, several points higher than when she came in.

I hope the movie is a serious hatchet job, as serious as the hatchet job she did on the British economy. It needs to be recorded for posterity. It might help prevent the greater tragedy of a new generation of since-borns picking up the right-wing nostalgia and ignorantly repeating the same mistakes.

Google scores major victory in copyright fight with Viacom

PT

@ Lee

"I disagree. If you own the rights to something that includes the rights to ref use to publish and refuse to allow anyone else to publish."

You say that as if copyright is some intrinsic human right, instead of a special right granted by law for a limited time and a particular purpose. Anyway you're wrong, in principle if not by the letter of the law. The underlying assumption of copyright is that the creator will publish, otherwise what would be the point of reserving to them the exclusive right to profit?

This whole copyright matter could be settled to the satisfaction of most people on both sides by simply stipulating that after some initial period, say 17 years, rights holders are required to renew copyright periodically with some agency to retain it. Unrenewed works would automatically enter the public domain. Thus anyone who cared strongly enough could keep their work in copyright for whatever grotesquely extended term was permitted, without destroying the public domain for everyone else.

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