Posts by The Other Steve

RE: Some of 'em are asking for it though

"She is positioned on a corner and stops the traffic as required, but despite it being a busy road on which a long queue can build up quickly, if she sees some poor little urchin down at the end of the road, she will happily stand in the middle of the road with her lolly held high until said little urchin arrives - much to the consternation of the six or seven drivers that could have been on their way in the intervening time."

Oh boo hoo hoo, sometimes you have to wait in your shiny car on your way to work at your important job for some children to cross the busy road, my heart fucking bleeds.

Either go a different way or get used to it and stop whining. If you find little things like lollipop ladies, traffic lights and other small delays are driving you to a murderous rage you need to put your licence in an envelope and return it to the DVLA with a note that says "Dear DVLA I am returning my licence as I am an emotional retard and as such pose a significant risk to myself, other road users, pedestrians and lollipop ladies".

@dervheid

Riiiight. That's it, it's all a massive conspiracy to make us use less energy and give less money to BigCorp, no wait, that's what _they_ want you to think! BigOil and co only oppose the global warming 'myth' to disguise their complicity in the conspiracy! Damn they're smart.

I'll get your coat, it's the one with the arms sewn shut and the leather straps that you can't put on by yourself. And I'll call the nurse, she'll give you your meds and you'll be fine. Just try to stay calm for me. Good lad, that's it.

Arsewash

" MPs were told it was not possible to provide information on how many staff had that access, or how many had received training because such information "could be collated only at a disproportionate cost.". "

I don't know how many offices HMRC has, but lets see, one phone call to each HR bod at each location, HR bod looks at their invoices for training and counts them, HR bod phones whichever IT bod is responsible for maintaining the Active Directory server and gets them to email a breakdown of user roles. If that can't be done it's because the answer to the training question is "none whatsoever" and the 'access by user role' statement is a flat out lie.

I see they are still clinging to the "disproportionate cost" whinge, no doubt a remnant of the many FOIA requests they have turned down on this basis, but since when was that a valid response to a question by parliament ? Tossers.

Fan bloody Tastic

I haven't laughed so much since Mary Whitehouse died.

No, Don't do like the egyptians !

The Egyptians (of the ancient , pyramid building variety) mostly used papyrus (an early precursor to modern paper, and not all that different) and ink to do their record keeping, which is why we are reduced to scrabbling around the ruins of their civilisation trying to decode the things that they wrote on the walls, which is mostly stuff like "That King Tut had a massive plonker, and a shed load of camels to boot. Oh, and he won all the wars, don't let anyone tell you different, especially those lying Assyrians, I wouldn't trust them with _your_ sacred cat, know what I mean ?"*

All we know about your basic Ancient Egyptians (if I remember primary school history lessons correctly) is that they were fond of pyramids, beer, slaves, cats, deities with novelty eraser shaped heads, and pulling peoples brains out of their noses with great big hooks.

OTOH what conclusions will be drawn by an enlightened civilisation some thousand years hence looking back at the data archives of today ? "Wow, those ancients really, really liked porn. And really long, pointless, emotionally damaging arguments. And none of them could figure out how to switch on red eye reduction on their digital cameras. Bwahahah. Losers!"

*Obviously they were somewhat more erudite than I have been in this example, which is why there's just so damn much of it.

<--- Alien, you _know_ it was them that built the pyramids really.

Minimum wage ???

The only shocking thing about those particular job ads is the base rate of pay, although a 50% commission could work out nicely if you were popular, I have no idea how much the cam operators charge to view semi naked welsh rarebit, but I can't see it being cheap.

Japanese pikey masterplan

Go and hang out in a nice sushi joint in the lowest crime area, wait for sararymen to park expensive motors outside and be lured in by naked chicks pretending to be sushi tables.

Steal their motors while they sit in blissful appreciation of personal safety and naked chicks.

"doh! dorobou neko!!"

RE : Arctic at Winter Solstice?

Nah, not likely, they will all be deployed over territories closer to the equator where conditions are more favourable to pursuing the real strategic mission of a multi billion dollar stratospheric surveillance platform, which, as any fule kno, is to peek down ladies tops.

Oh, I'm sure they wrote "Bolstering the nations strategic intelligence gathering capabilities" or some similar word salad on the project brief, but they had their fingers crossed. And they were sniggering.

Also, am I the only one making "Star Wars" noises in my head ?

<-- finally, an excuse to use the Paris icon!

Market Segmentation

Wii :

We see a group of shiny, happy people in a nice room, perhaps they are a family, or a group of friends. They look as though they probably smell quite nice. They are all enjoying themselves immensely, laughing and joking. Communicating. They are having nice healthy social interactions with real physical people. We wish that we were like them. Hell, we _are_ like them! We have friends! You'll see, if we buy it, they will come!

Xbox/etc :

We do not see the gamer, he is not represented in the advert, he does not exist, his entire ego is projected into his avatar. It is possible that he is playing a sport or driving a vehicle, but more likely that he is, in fact, stalking some kind of homicidal prey through a post apocalyptic landscape of some description. We are quite glad that we do not see the gamer, we are instinctively uncomfortable with the idea of some lone, mildly psychotic, high disposable income male spending his spare hours sneaking around a virtual landscape and occasionally killing things with a high powered rifle or large stabbing weapon. We are concerned that he might smell faintly alarming, and slightly comforted by our strict gun control legislation.

A paper tiger throwing rocks at the moon, and looking for a spine.

"The ICO is still investigating the losses, but in 16 cases has told organisations to change procedures."

Or else what ? The punishment for (say) a RIPA offence (if you can get anyone to care) is up to five years at Brenda's motel. The punishment for a massive DPA breach is that Richard Thomas comes round to your place and looks at you sort of sternly.

It has been the current Commissioner's frequent refrain that he would dearly like to be taken more seriously, fine, you want people to take you seriously, try a few prosecutions.

I mean I feel for him, really I do, stashed away from the action in some nasty Cheshire backwater*, shoehorned into a tiny office space between McDonalds and an office supplies shop (if memory serves)**. And OK, OK, only a couple of hundred staff for the entire UK, meaning that all of them must have massive case-loads (and very small desks)

But jeez-louise, if you let people walk all over the DPA with big muddy boots on and then do fuck all about it other than suggest that they might like to change their procedures, guess what ? That case load is just going to keep on growing.

He has it in his power to initiate prosecutions, and until he gets his finger out of his arse and starts dishing some out, government and industry will continue to smile charmingly at him, then give him the finger once his back is turned and get back to business as bloody usual.

Richard Thomas, you are an idiot, and some days it just seems like you haven't even read the legislation you are responsible for enforcing.

* Wilmslow, it's sort of like Royston Vasey, only with more expensive shops and less to laugh at.

** No one appears to know why this is so. Some have speculated it;s to do with a big pharma corp (Astra Zenneca) office just over the road, but who really knows ?

What they said.

And also, I thought you'd be older, some of you are younger than me for heavens sake*, so good work on keeping up the required levels of cynicism.

*Not so pretty though.

<-- That vulture's not dead, it's just having a rest after spewing up a bottle of Tia Maria.

@AC wrt lol

"Government want to profile everyone so they'll ignore it

Law enforcment want to profile everyone so they'll ignore it"

Those two (at least) are specious. Neither the security or law enforcement services have any need for Phorm to help them with any kind of data surveillance.

I don't for one moment imagine that "the government" are in league with Phorm, it's just that they are a)busy, b)incompetent and c)pitching a huff because we're taking them to task over something that they don't understand. Oh, and they don't like us very much because of a widespread arrogance that delivers statements like :

"The sheeple are all to thick to understand what precedent even means let alone spot them."

Two things occur to me

"Women love chocolate more than password security"

I know several women, some of them quite well, and my impression is that they love chocolate more than almost _anything_

"Little attempt is made to verify the authenticity of the passwords, beyond follow-up questions asking what category it falls under. So we don't know whether women responding to the survey filled in any old rubbish in return for a choccy treat or handed out their real passwords."

I know which I'd put my money on, because (although I do not have the privilege of being a woman myself) I know exactly what I would do. I would think "Hmm, here is a man who will give me free stuff, (chocolate even!), if I am prepared to utter some utterly unverifiable random word or phrase. Score!"

And I would go about my day, happy that the man had gone home pleased with his survey results (which were wrong, bwahahahah) and enjoying my new found chocolatey wealth.

So yes, I think what this survey probably measures is the number of people prepared to engage in some mild deception of a complete stranger in order to get some chocolate.

Further, I rather suspect that the people who didn't do so probably had some understandable issues about taking sweeties from clipboard wielding strangers. The figures probably reflect a rise in those holding such concerns, what with "the current climate" of worrying about [what ever it is this week].

Oh really ?

"The Government had argued that it must be able to keep the reports on the progress of the system secret otherwise civil servants will not be honest in their assessment of the progress of the system"

Then sack them. In fact, better than that, drag the slimy little fuckweasels down to parliament square and horse whip them to within an inch of their sorry lives, then send them back to their posts to do the fucking job that British taxpayers pay them for. Only properly this time.

I mean seriously, what kind of argument is "We have to keep it secret, otherwise people will lie!" ? OK, so they do, then what ? Because we can now see the results, it will quickly become obvious that the tossgoblins in charge are lying sacks of shit, that's what. In which case, see para 2 above for obvious solution.

Imagine that the vulture in the icon is in fact a slimy, lying, fuckweasel in pinstripes, and you'll pretty much see where I'm coming from.

Whiney little maggots - redux

I realise that it's Monday, and you're probably insufficiently caffeinated , but honestly, get a fucking sense of humour between you.

Mind you, having said that :

@ Dave Driver

No! Not vi! vi is evil!* I'd rather eat warm dog turd than use vi.

*If for no other reason, because Stallman hated it so much that he took his revenge by inflicting Emacs on the world. That's a whole bucket load of evil to be responsible for right there.

And also :

@brian

I've been using linux for more than a decade, and I've recompiled thousands of things. If you've never recompiled a kernel, you just aren't trying hard enough

^--- CAN YOU ALL SEE THAT ICON ?

@Daily Mail Reader

"it will be sold by criminals, who will endanger the lives of police officers and the general public in their efforts to avoid arrest."

Sorry, but that's utter bollocks. Your typical 4AM drug raid poses no danger to the general public, and very little danger to the police in most cases, as you'd well know if you'd ever seen one.

Real life != "The Bill", or whatever arsewash ITV drama you're basing that opinion on.

"So, it is highly appropriate, irrespective of the specific dangers of the drug itself, to have severe penalties for its users while it is illegal."

Oh really ? OK then how about, next time you're flashed by a speed camera, you do five years at Brenda's pleasure. It's illegal to exceed the posted limit, so it 's "highly appropriate .. to have severe penalties", regardless of weather you were doing a ton on an empty stretch of four lane at 2 in the morning or driving at 60 through a busy school crossing area at 3:45 on a Friday afternoon.

Reassure them how ?

"We do not know whether they were participating in the trial or not... it should reassure them."

How ? I mean seriously, how is that meant to be reassuring ? BT enrolled 18,000 customers in their covert trial and didn't know which ones. How did they chose them ? Why didn't they keep any records ? If they don't know who they were, how did they count them ?

This is either serious incompetence, or BT knew they were in the wrong and sought to cover their tracks even at this early stage.

It's getting harder and harder to believe the former.

Whiney maggots strike again

Freetards, eh ? No sense of humour. I use and develop on a mixture of MS and Linux flavours, and have a pretty balanced of view of them both, like the majority of people.

Part of me wishes I could believe that those of you who have publicly spat out your dummies above will never again return to litter the glorious comments of El Reg with your megabytes of hilarious drooling zealotry, because it shortens the life of my scroll wheel.

Of course another part of me doesn't want to, because baiting you is like an ethical bloodsport, and provides many hours of amusement.

But I don't believe it. You won't be able to resist. It's like squirrels with nuts, or perhaps more apposite, penguins with whatever it is that penguins eat, fish probably, or given the linux jihad's propensity for bitter infighting, other penguins.

Yes, that's mine, the one with the asbestos lining and the copy of "How to write software and actually get paid" in the pocket, and the "Honey, get _over_ yourself" logo on the back.

I for one welcome our new playmobil overlords

Class. Pure class. I should like to add my voice to the calls for further playmobil/lego based re-enactment of current events.

Bravo, encore, and all that :)

I _like_ swearies in comments, me

And as always, I shall roll out my own cut'n'paste comment about coding standards and guidelines, thusly :

Coding standards and style guidelines and suchlike should be discussed, designed, and agreed upon by individual coding teams, not globally set by some one pontificating on the web.

Different mixtures of ability, language, culture and toolsets lend themselves to different processes. What's best is what's best for _you_ not what's best for someone else.

To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of of being told how I should I run my development process by other people with some notional 'guru' status, (or even worse, occasionally by one of their disciples with little or no practical experience but a very fundamentalist attitude).

I might not be Kent Beck, but I've quite enough skill and experience to sort it out for myself, thanks. I'm sure I'm not the only experienced coder to feel this way either.