* Posts by TeeCee

9433 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Oct 2007

Pompidou turns to NFC, Facebook to attract teens

TeeCee Gold badge

Douglas Adams knew this one.

Given that NFC is the answer, what you're seeing here is everyone trying to work out what the question was.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the question was actually: "Can you come up with something pointless to blow a load of R&D cash on as a tax loss?"

Yahoo! apes! Google! with! more! Web2.0rhea!

TeeCee Gold badge

malware?

Hmm, ever tried uninstalling the Google Updater? As far as I can make out, the automated uninstall process consists of removing all the obvious links to it and the uninstaller reference.

Some of the family are less careful than I about unchecking the box marked: "Please load my machine to the gunwales with Google branded shite" when installing stuff.

If Google are merely not evil, Yahoo must be in line for canonisation.

A Deadlock Holiday

TeeCee Gold badge
Coffee/keyboard

That link.

Thanks for that. Someone owes me a keyboard, but I'm not sure whether it's the bloke wot wrote it or you for bringing it to my attention.

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

Tautology corner.

Even funnier, that statement is followed by a section entitled "Steps to reproduce the behaviour" with instructions on how to make it do what it doesn't.

You should have scrolled down a bit further.

German electropulse energy drill bitchslaps lasers

TeeCee Gold badge
Black Helicopters

Sharks? Sea-bass?

Nah! I recall that at the Millenium, the Queen was given a new car by the motor industry. According to the Telegraph at the time, this is powered by an "800bhp twin-turbot engine".

You can keep your sharks and sea-bass. My world domination project is based on these 400bhp Turbot, the stealth uber-fish of choice for the discerning dictatorial wannabee.

Apple preps adaptable gadget adapter

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

A standard connector?

"We are the iBorg. Resistance is not aesthetically pleasing."

Thomas the Tank Engine drives 'conservative political ideology'

TeeCee Gold badge
WTF?

Oh really?

"....a program made in the 1940's....."

In colour? With a Ringo Starr voiceover? Nice trick that......

Microsoft is developing its own cloud storage O/S

TeeCee Gold badge
Linux

Trackpad woes?

Hint: Read up on the Linux trackpad driver. Then go off with vi and edit that nice, big config file with something like "Don't edit this, it's maintained by <GUI utility> and the World will End if you do" in comments at the top. By adding the appropriate options you can turn off all those useless slidey, tappy functions that capture the false inputs. That's what I did with mine. It was either that or batshit insanity.

It's Linux. You got exactly what you paid for. I dream of the day when all the driver config options are available via config GUIs, but all the clever driver types don't give a toss and all the clever GUI types are off with their underpants on the outside doing funky stuff with translucent desktops and other such irrelevance.

Lawyers claim Palin hack suspect's PC had spyware

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

Too high risk.

Just think how friendless, alone, insignificant and unimportant you'd feel if you woke up the following morning and found that the virus fairy had failed to call in the night.

No moody defence and paranoia thrown in to boot.

Mars rover faces icy death

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

Re: martian garage

You forgot to mention what they quoted for parts on imported vehicles.....

Android 2.0: what to expect

TeeCee Gold badge

Driver pain.

Ah! The old "this phone's got it right but this one's dropped a bollock" when it comes to comms drivers, bundled apps and so on?

Just like, dare I say it, Windows Mobile then?

Maybe Apple's "we own the OS, we own the hardware and when it comes to apps, we own your sorry arse" is the only approach that really works.

As an owner of a cheap, stable WinMo 6.1 device with the excellent Spb shell on it, all let down on the telephony/mobile data side by a seriously shoddy RIL, you have my sympathies.

TeeCee Gold badge

Exchange sync?

Ah, the "killer app". Now if they've done a good job here and managed to do this while also letting the thing tell Exchange to go f*** itself as regards its pushed usage policies, this may be the thing that persuades me to ditch WinMo for Android.

Yeah, I know a bit of MortScript running in the background can (and does) reset all the WinMo registry settings after Exchange has stomped on 'em, but it just seems so inelegant......

Darling promises IT cuts, years of pain

TeeCee Gold badge
Flame

Typical. Bloody typical.

So if you can afford a brand new car, the government chips in and gives you a tax break 'cos it's more efficient. Everyone else gets to pay ever increasing fuel and car tax.

If you can afford a brand new boiler, the government chips in 'cos it's more efficient. Everyone else gets to pay ever increasing "green" taxes on their gas.

If you can afford to install a wind turbine/solar panels/microgenerator, you can flog spare 'leccy to the grid and the government gives you a tax break on that too. Everyone else gets fuck all.

Or, put another way, the rich get richer and everyone else can go fuck themselves.

LHC pulverises previous record: 2.36 TeV surprise collision!

TeeCee Gold badge

Though about it.

Ah yes, but as El Reg is always right on the ball news-wise, I'm sure they'll be able to get an apology out in the few nanoseconds between the start of Global Custardification* and the Dessert-topping conversion process consuming Vulture Towers.

*Handily, with Global Warming, any custard generated will be piping hot and go nicely on Rhubarb crumble**.

**This just leaves the question to be settled of where to get enough Rhubarb crumble to put 1.083e+24 litres of custard on.

Walking With Dinosaurs star goes walkabout

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

Ahem.

Q: What happens to a Dinosaur that goes missing in Mexico?

A: It turns up later in Chilli.

<Drum sting>

<Cymbal>

<Tumbleweeds>

Thank you. I'm here all week......

'We must all stop washing to save the planet'

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

Get a clothes horse?

Tried that. Didn't work for me.

When I told Kate Moss to dry my laundry I got kicked in the knackers.....

Ministers lick problem of pan-EU patents - almost

TeeCee Gold badge

McCreepy?

"....the gobshite that did so much as Ireland's minister of finance to create the economy that has so totally fucked up Ireland."

I'd never heard of this bloke before. From that I take it he's the Irish version of Gordon Brown? I also take it that the Irish had the good sense not to reward his monumental incompetance by making him PM though.......

The return of the Psion-sized PC

TeeCee Gold badge

"it's open for hacking"

It also sez here that there are "3G options" on connectivity so, how long before someone writes a phone app for it and reminds us all of what killed these things off in the first place?

The laws of irony demand it.

Attack exploits just-patched Mac security bug

TeeCee Gold badge

Re: JREs

Surely if you have all the requisite versions up and running, then the one vulnerable to the exploit is still, er, exploitable and you're no better off than you were before installing the new version in parallel.

Am I missing something?

Motorola's banana-mutilation ad disses iPhone

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Bit of a problem in your first para there.

After all the classic, nailed on example of a phone manufacturer who "roll their own" operating system is Apple with the, er, iPhone.

I stopped reading after that self-contradictory howler.

VW unveils slippery four-seat hybrid

TeeCee Gold badge
Thumb Down

Two cylinder diesel?

Gosh, that'll be fun when it cuts it to charge the batts in traffic. That, with the lightness making any vibration even more obvious, means what they've built here is a roadgoing massage chair.

One other thing, the reason that they don't normally go for variable radiator intakes? 'Cos any manufacturer with its head screwed on knows that such a thing, exposed as it is to being sprayed in crud for all its life, is bound to stick closed sooner or later. Cue overheat, bang, warranty claim. A good idea, but probably impractical in operation and I suspect it'll be dropped from any production version.

Germans devise attacks on Windows BitLocker

TeeCee Gold badge

Re: keylogger wouldn't work

Oh yes it would! You may not be able to install a software keylogger that runs on the machine in question, but a hardware one within or in series with the keyboard itself, TPM and drive encryption are no defence against.

As far as I can see here, nobody's cracked BitLocker (or TrueCrypt, or <insert favourite encryption tool>) here, all they've done is outline a few ways of obtaining the password, including a couple of novel ones. But then: "Drive encryption offers no protection when the password is available says German Department of the Bleeding Obvious" doesn't make a good headline.

Intel condemns tardy Larrabee to dev purgatory

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

AMD 64

Yup, one of my favourite giggle moments in the history of CPU design that.

Intel: "Here is the path to the Promised Land of 64 bit computing <trumpet fanfare, drumroll, hype>, the Itanium processor."

World: "Meh"

AMD: "Here is <kazoo noise, penny in cup, powerpoint slides> a 64 bit version of what you've got now".

World: "Yay! Gimme some of that shit!"

Intel: "Oh fuck. Didn't see that one coming."

Ellison compromises on MySQL control?

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Re: Qualifications.....

"For example, I have not read in any enterprise application, which uses Oracle as it's primary database storage as an option, which also makes MySQL available as primary database storage option."

Er, SAP?

"http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/01/mysql_sap_certification/"

MPs to go clubbing in cocaine inquiry

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

There's FAIL there alright.

Boracic lint = skint.

Presumably "brassic" is the Essex pronunciation....

TeeCee Gold badge
Alert

Heinsenberg's uncertainty principle in action?

'....have taken advice on the "best club to go to in London".'

There's no point. By definition it'll be one of the ones that isn't full of MPs trying to score coke that night.

Windows 'openness' hailed in Nintendo game defeat

TeeCee Gold badge
WTF?

Microsoft?

Shurely shome mishtake?

These are Console memory cartridges we're talking about here. You know, the very thing that MS themselves have just successfully sued the fuck out of someone for making clones of?

Still, I suppose the Judge gets 10/10 for sheer irony value here.......

Microsoft acted on Opera's modified browser proposal?

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Opera and logos.

Dear Opera. I appreciate your suggestion and think that it's really sensible. However I think we can extend this a bit.

I propose that rather than just "E", we extend a ban on listing to anything using a single vowel in order to ensure that the playing field is perfectly level here.

How does that sound?

Footie fans flock to clock 'Miss of the Century'

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

Rosenthal?

Last time I heard that one being discussed was just after Ryan Giggs had shot straight over the bar from right smack in front of the wide-open Arsenal goal.

The commentators made the point that in the Rosenthal howler, the ball "bobbled" off a divot in the turf as he went to strike it. They then replayed the Giggs shot in slomo, paying particular attention to the movement of the ball as he went to thump it in the sunshine on a perfect Old Trafford surface. Not so much as a hint of deviation. One of the great comedy footballing moments, enhanced by the rib-tickling sarcasm of the Arsenal supporters belting out "Giggsie is my hero" for the rest of the match.

Manchester journo gets first ID card - late

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

Next week:

Man shot while resisting arrest under Prevention of Terrorism provisions. A police spokesman said: "The suspect was in posession of roast potatoes and was obviously engaged in identity fraud".

Other news: Ministry of Justice issues list of permissible seasonal vegetables, Mad Hatter appointed Home Secretary.

Catholics slam PETA nude adopt-a-mutt poster

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

Hmmm.

I wonder how many geese they killed and plucked to make those wings?

Mine's the photoshopped mink coat.

Windows 7 soars while Mac OS X trips online

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

More Prediction

It'll be easy to spot "the year of the Linux desktop", it'll be the very same year as the official "death of COBOL".

I reckon that if you want to chuck a long-running IT gag around, you might as well go with one that's got some serious milage on it.

Why probe Google for antitrust? It 'does no evil'

TeeCee Gold badge

More "facts"

"....Google is not in a position to bully OEMs into installing a (sic) 'operating system'...."

I think you'll find that they are well into the process of fixing that little oversight.

While Google are correct in their assertion that Search and Advertising are two different things, the relevant question here is not the nature of the beast, but whether their dominance in Search is being leveraged to produce a de facto monopoly for them in Advertising? I think the answer to this one is yes.

It's no different to owning a dominant O/S and gaming it to provide an advantage to your applications over your competitor's.

Beeb iPlayer blocked by Xbox velvet rope

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Utterly bloody stupid.

Of course if the BBC were to do this then all Xbox owners would be instantaneously denied access to any and all methods of accessing BBC content for free.

No? So the beeb's argument is a fallacious load of complete bollocks then.

Hint: Just 'cos you own an Xbox doesn't mean your telly and PC stop working. Dickheads.

LHC knocked out by ANOTHER power failure

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

Who was it?

Who forgot to put 50p in the meter then?

Space firm to send Christmas Day tweets to dead people

TeeCee Gold badge

"...klystron amplifiers...."

Ah! But are they going to have to unship the drive to provide enough power to short-circuit the continuum on a five or six parsec level?

If so, where are they going to get the shielding?

Vetting database is mighty maths mess

TeeCee Gold badge
WTF?

"...a spokeswoman appeared initially to believe this to be a Tory pledge."

An easy mistake to make. For some time now, Call Me Dave has been complaining that everything his mob announces turns up as a "government initiative" a few weeks later....

EU to approve more banking data for US spooks

TeeCee Gold badge
Thumb Down

Re: Blair dirt

"....can we guarantee EU independence in the future?"

Not unless there's a massive change from the current situation, no. There's never been any such thing as "EU independence", just a carve up of deals between a cosy coterie of national leaders and appointed eurocrats dancing to the tune played by whichever superpower has the most clout in the area under discussion.

The EU parliament is merely the world's most expensive rubber stamp with the word "Approved" written in reverse in relief on the flat end.

Prolific penis pill pushers fined almost $19m

TeeCee Gold badge

@@sooooo

They're going down for some hard time then?

Gov targets boozers as Manc ID card scheme launches

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

Now that's what I call masochism!

"If you're in Manchester and you're subjecting yourself to the ID card process...."

That's even more perverted than going to Cornwall and dunking yourself in rotting cowshit. There ought to be a law against it - where's the Faily Wail when you need it?

Lost mobiles to pile up in taxis in run up to Xmas

TeeCee Gold badge
WTF?

"..as passengers rush onto their next destination with their hands full,"

Hmm, I'm surprised.

The only times I've ever left anything in a taxi it was because I was too completely bladdered to remember to pick it up or notice it drop out of my pocket. Usually around Xmas too.

Maybe that's just me then.

Titan has Earth-style 'climate change', says prof

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

Next week:

A scandal over the Titanian climactic data fudging that went into this report to drive down the price of northern hemisphere beachfront properties and justify the Trans-Saturnian government's patio-heater tax.

All laid bare by Iapetan hackers on wikigasleaks.

Border agency to start fingerprint checks

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Those 2,445 people.

I think some rewording is in order:

"2,445 journalists and bloggers want us to send our PR puff directly to their mailboxes so that they can take the piss more effectively".

There. That's better.

LHC smashes Tevatron record: Humanity enters the unknown

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

"Lost due to tune drifting"

Obvously something unexpected at work there causing it to be terribly out of tune.

As an unknown is often referred to as the "X-factor" this makes a lot of sense.

Finns fail to warm to 2.6GHz auction

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

Don't understand.

I'd have thought that Operators would be falling over each other to aquire as much as possible to enhance their eco-credentials.

After all, Spectrum Is Green.

Mine's the one with the SPV keys in the pocket.

Google and Murdoch - a divorce made in heaven?

TeeCee Gold badge

Recycled news stories from AP?

How Old Skool journalistically.

They should get with the program. Look at your Twitter feed, cross-reference anything that looks like it might be a news story with wobblypedia and cut 'n paste the results. You know, like the Terriblegraph* does these days.

*It's either that or sit in El Vino's with three hundred grand on the off-chance a bloke with a plain envelope full of expenses claims copies turns up.

Icon design for dummies fanbois

TeeCee Gold badge
Jobs Horns

Why?

Er that'll be to avoid being sued / rejected / nailed to the cross and pelted with rotten fruit by Apple.

See the bit in the article and links on the Rogue Amoeba fiasco, paying particular attention to where it's stated that they're not bundling the (copyrighted) icons, but merely invoking their use from the OS via API.

I totally agree with you that one should use the native OS icons to preserve look and feel, unfortunately it appears that Apple's opinion differs to ours.

Uni seeks 'research officer' for sex trade 'fieldwork'

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

Perks?

Whatever they are, it can't be worth it.

After all, the job quite obviously has its ups and downs and you'd spend all your time hard at work. Also you'd end up working with a bunch of professional arse-licking tossers and getting fucked a lot.

Presumably it's an IT role............

EU agency runs rule over ID cards for online banking logins

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Multiple eggs / single basket?

Day one: EU issues super-fandango-encrypted "card for everything".

Day two: The entire EU moves to using super-fandango-encrypted "card for everything" for, er, everything.

Day three: The Russian Mafia smash the humungoflop barrier with their multi-billion dollar supercomputer cluster built to crack EU super-fandango-encryption.

Day four: The lights go out across Europe. A front organisation for the Russian Mafia makes a cash offer in Euro for the entire continent.

It's basic Capitalism innit. Make it worth doing and somebody'll do it.

O2 gives birth to GiffGaff in gust of gabble

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

Is there a book on this?

".....while it polls customers about how much they would like to pay."

Can I have a tenner on "bugger all" please? Oh......odds on favourite already?.......never mind then.......