* Posts by blackworx

973 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jun 2008

ICO concerned over interception modernisation programme

blackworx
Big Brother

Ugh, brilliant

Gives me such a lovely warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing that creepy state activities like this get shelved not because those involved found themselves some principles, but rather for reasons of political expedience and corporate financial practicality.

Name that quote:

I have this feeling that whoever is elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what you promise on the campaign trail – blah, blah, blah – when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scumfucks who got you in there. And you’re in this smoky room, and this little film screen comes down … and a big guy with a cigar goes, “Roll the film.” And it’s a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you’ve never seen before … that looks suspiciously like it’s from the grassy knoll. And then the screen goes up and the lights come up, and they go to the new president, “Any questions?”

Two-year wait for Windows 8, MS blurts

blackworx
Headmaster

Maths fail?

I know I'm being a nit-picking pedant here, but (almost) November 2010 to (most of) 2012 is not two years.

Gosling blows lid off Jobs Java nonsense

blackworx
Pint

Your comment

Reminded me of the Royan character in Peter F Hamilton's Greg Mandel books.

blackworx

Audacious

If nothing else Jobs seems truly to believe he can win the long game and kill all the stuff he doesn't want messing up his garden, and with a bit of luck (for him) not just on his platforms.

Personally I prefer my gardens au naturel, the type you don't get charged a gate fee to enter only to be told repeatedly and in no uncertain terms to keep your scum feet off the manicured lawns.

Apple has become a hyper-autistic version of Microsoft, circa 2002.

Google slips $3.1bn through 'Double Irish' tax loophole

blackworx
Dead Vulture

Faults

"Google has its faults, but making use of a legal tax loophole isn't one of them"

You trollin'?

Seems like a pretty fcuking big fault to me.

Phone 7: Another Vista or another XP?

blackworx

Erm...

Except we're not talking about other phones, or even other OS's. We're talking about Windows Phone 7.

blackworx
Boffin

@Monty

You may be advised to (Re?)RTFA, specifically the bit which says no external storage by order of the management.

Osborne details painful cuts for UK

blackworx
FAIL

The poor rich guy

"Meanwhile the "rich" guy is working all the hours and never gets to see their kids, only a dirty great tax bill."

Shouldn't be too difficult to sort that problem.

On a sidenote, you _both_ really do believe all that twaddle you just spouted, don't you?

Jobs dubs Google's 'open' Android speak 'disingenuous'

blackworx
Happy

@ The Other Steve

You, sir, are a great big trollpants!

blackworx
Thumb Down

Pot, meet kettle

He says you're black

Hackers claim to pwn Conservative Party website

blackworx
Pirate

Re: And as we know

Considering they appear to match up with the screencaps being posted in /g/ at the time of the attacks, I don't see much reason to believe they are fake. What would be the point?

Manchester cops hit Twitter - spoof feeds fall down stairs

blackworx
Joke

GMP24_1

Call 242 - report of broken window (both sides) #GMP24

Guardian super-blogger flames Reg boffinry desk

blackworx
Badgers

Er...

Surely picking and choosing research that fits with the "required" view of global *climate change* is exactly what everyone else (i.e. Le Graun et al.) is doing too?

Personally I don't know what to think about climate science (I do know one thing - humankind is very busy shitting where it eats right now, and that's down to overpopulation) but to criticise the Reg for bias, when 99.9% of everything you will ever read anywhere about climate change right now is biased, seems more than a little disingenuous.

blackworx
WTF?

Boffin

Frankly I don't care about the rest of this guy's whining, you can argue the climate change toss until you are both blue in the face for all care, but his attack on your use of "boffin" smacks of over zealous PC-brigade wankery. If this guy knew the first thing about The Reg he would never have gone there.

In conclusion: I call twatdangle.

Three-version Avatar disc sets out 15 November

blackworx
Thumb Up

yeah

I was quite pleased with that one - pity nobody else noticed!

blackworx
WTF?

Hang on...

Wasn't the whole point of this movie meant to be some sort of hug-a-hippie ecobobbins?*

Not sure how that equates with these repeated merchandising petrochemical fucktonspurts?*

Am I missing something?*

* These are all rhetorical questions. Please, no pedantic answers.

French cops claimed to hold secret, illegal gypsy database

blackworx
FAIL

Wow

That was constructive

</sark>

blackworx
Coffee/keyboard

Argh Dichotomy

Fundamentally opposed to such obvious profiling and discrimination.

On the other hand, a world without Mick Hucknall....

Provincial outrage over BT's broadband upgrade race

blackworx
Thumb Up

I LOL'd

That is all

Kiss frontman gives file-sharers tongue-lashing

blackworx

Re: Industry

"he is right that the music industry failed to capitalize on the catalogs"

We all know that is the major part of the problem, but Simmons' only angle seems to be one of criticising the labels for not being swift enough or heavy-handed enough in prosecuting file sharers. IME it's only folk like him that come out with quotes like that and there's an obvious reason for it.

blackworx

Make sure your brand is protected

Yep, cos that's what music is all about.

Fuckwit.

McCanns join CEOP quango row

blackworx
Flame

I've seen it all now

Who coaxed them out of the woodwork? Wasn't Gamble was it? Aaargh these fuckwits make me so angry!

Hull man guilty of snooping on hundreds of medical records

blackworx
Paris Hilton

@Hollerith1

Irony detector malfunction in aisle 3

Internet firms welcome CEOP chief's exit

blackworx
Unhappy

The first step to being cured...

...is admitting you have a problem. The "person" with the "problem" in this instance is the entire human race.

The fact that both paedophiles and people like Malcolm King exist serves as a timely reminder that in fact we've not outgrown the animal kingom nearly as much as we'd like to think we have.

This is one thread where the comments making Nazi comparisons really are not that far off the mark. After hearing his slaverings on Today I would be offering very short odds that, at some point, in private, King has suggested there to be a genetic cause/cure to paedophilia.

Ministry of Sound floored by Anonymous

blackworx
Coffee/keyboard

"MOS is $hite now anyway"

Now?? They've been stuck in the same rehash loop since about 1998. That was twelve years ago.

blackworx

@ AC 15:08 re "Hacking"

I suggest venting no further spleen over that battle. We lost it decades ago.

Google open sources JPEG assassin

blackworx
Heart

Thank god you're back

I was starting to get paranoid at the number of rejected comments while you were gone. I knew it couldn't have been me as the comments in question were imho no more idiotic or snarky than my usual tripe. I was starting to wonder if there'd been a secret policy change.

blackworx

Eh... no.

That's not a fail. In fact I'd say the fail is in your comprehension.

This is photographic compression we're talking about, not bitmap graphics. Of course "the rest of us" (whatever that means) will continue to use PNG's and GIFs... for the purposes PNG and GIF were designed for (i.e. not photos).

blackworx
Boffin

Not quite

"Most JPGs already suck, especially at smaller sizes. Compressing them with ANOTHER layer of lossy compression doesn't seem like a good idea"

Unless you're directly transcoding a JPEG then that's not how it happens.

Most of the video on YouTube is cack because it's shot through the tiny plastic lens of a £100 cameraphone/digicam at a lower resolution and framerate than standard def TV and with on-the-fly video/audio compression performed by a tiny processor. This probably goes a long way to explaining why it's not quite as good as standard def TV. The compression algorithms themselves are not necessarily at fault, as in this case they are very much limited by the amount of processing power available.

Pentagon out to 'destroy' Wikileaks, founder says

blackworx
FAIL

Nice

Attacks articles he doesn't like, yet was quite happy to collaborate in the production of that recycled sycophantic bogroll spewed out by the Graun et al. in the run-up to the big Afghanistan leak.

I really want him not to be a douche (and I still have a hope that all these quotes are being taken out of context) but the evidence is mounting - <sark> and surely the CIA can't get to /every/ news outlet and brainwash them into pushing an anti-assange angle?</sark>

Jaguar celebrates 75th year with e-supercar concept

blackworx
Badgers

Downvotes

Interesting how someone seems to have gone through this comments thread and downvoted everyone who says they want one.

Still, it's a life eh?

App steers cyclists away from traffic, upward inclines

blackworx
Stop

You can categoricaly state nothing of the sort

"No doubt this is public perception formed by people who never ride bikes and hence have no idea whatsoever how dangerous it is to start moving at the same time as all the other vehicles"

Frankly, if this is the case for you then you're doing it wrong.

As a cyclist of 20+ years and over 250k miles who obeys traffic signals regardless of his own personal opinion, I would like to thank you sincerely from the bottom of my heart for being one of those who reinforce the negative perception of cyclists in the minds of self-righteous motorists everywhere, a small minority of whom feel perfectly at liberty to act aggressively towards cyclists.

Even if your untested theory is correct, it doesn't change the fact that obeying the law is not optional for you or for anyone else on the road. Your argument is as hollow as the "I'm a safe driver and should be allowed to drive at 50mph in x/y/z 40mph zone" twaddle trotted out with alarming regularity by similarly pinheaded motorists.

Please - learn how to ride in prime and stop jumping red lights.

Schmidt answers Google antitrust claims

blackworx
Alert

Mixture schmixture

Someone ought to get Schmidt a ten foot inflatable red herring to throw around at these gigs, it'd be less crashingly obvious than what comes out of his mouth.

ACS:Law's mocking of 4chan could cost it £500k

blackworx
Alert

For teh lulz... QED

It is the first time I've actually LOL'd at a newspaper headline in YEARS.

Oh god I just love this! Global popcorn supply now at crisis levels.

Coders tip Google Android for eclipse of the Steve

blackworx

Oh for pity's sake back down

Since this is the second time I've attracted such rabid scorn for a tongue-in-cheek anti-Apple remark, I might have to append a disclaimer to any future such comments.

It's not your fault I know; I didn't make it obvious enough that my comment was in jest, but if you honestly think I /truly/ believe all that - which, going by your nasty ad-hom, you do - then you have been arguing with idiots too long. There are people in this world for whom it's not a black and white issue and I suspect you're one of them, but you just got a bit carried away with yourself there.

Either way there's truth in both angles, but the point of my second comment was that Android scores much lower on the cult-o-meter than Apple. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is. I'm no fan of Android either (my opinion of it can be summed up in one syllable: "meh") but I've yet to encounter anyone jumping down my throat for making a cocky comment about it, or Google - and trust me I've made plenty of those.

PS: Careful, or you'll wear out the FAIL icon.

blackworx

Yeah

But yours is more of a long shot

blackworx
Jobs Halo

Fanboy weighting?

I'd put money on a good portion of the 25% who favoured Apple being fanboys who just backed their cult without actually considering the question, even though they're devs.

Baby Boomers committing suicide at unprecedented rates

blackworx

Subhead

"Jammiest generation that ever lived finds life too cruel"

Couldn't have put it better.

Nutter repairmen scale 1,768ft TV mast

blackworx
Alert

Is it just me

Or is he being chased by a stormtrooper?

Keene USB FM Transmitter

blackworx
FAIL

Marlett fail

That is all!

Twitter joke appeal adjourned

blackworx
Flame

Prosecution's shoddy argument should be taken outside and shot

See what I did there?

Anyway... The fact that the phrase "I have decided to resort to terrorism" was only in this hapless guy's mind thanks to years of govt/media hysteria over some nebulous bearded danger that lurks in the shadows obviously means nothing to this idiotic prosecution.

Maybe if he'd put a LOL SMILEY FACE!1!!!!1 on the end of it they'd understand better.

Come the revolution etc.

CIA used 'illegal, inaccurate code to target kill drones'

blackworx
Black Helicopters

Pesky floating point errors

I've had my share but luckily I don't make a habit of reverse engineering targeting systems on the Q.T for the C.I.A.

Oh, and only 13 metres? Shurely your average missile is going to knock out a bigger diameter than that anyway? Then again - I suppose 13m could mean one or even two houses down, meaning fiery death at tea time for some hapless innocents and nothing more than a bad dose of tinnitus for the target.

Saatchis to pimp .xxx domains

blackworx

Re: categorising

As a typical geek with a borderline-OCD passion for categorising anything and everything, I would like to believe that logical grouping of sites was a significant motivating factor in .xxx's proposed existence, however it's pretty obvious it's way down the list.

If logic had anything to do with it then ICANN would already be grouping every kind of commercial enterprise - not just pornography - under its own TLD, and they'd be policing it to make sure everyone was categorised correctly and no-one was abusing the system. That's not currently happening even with the limited number of TLD's (.net and .org in particular are widely misused) and it's not going to happen - nor is there, to my mind, any reason to even bother... Unless it makes someone, somewhere, a big pile of money - and therein lies the rub.

blackworx
WTF?

Porn directories

Cos gee, porn's so hard to find on the internet.

Schmidt: 'Google doesn't do data mining'

blackworx
Coat

We don't go data mining

Oh no, we go data spelunking. We just happen to take heavy mining gear with us.

Piracy threats lawyer mocks 4chan DDoS attack

blackworx
Happy

4chan partyvan time for Crossley?

*gets popcorn*

Crash grounds RAF Eurofighters - for Battle of Britain Day!

blackworx
Thumb Up

Re: Dispatches Report

iirc Lewis' 15 secs ended with the pithy, if predictable: "Sovereign defence capability? Don't make me laugh."

ZoneAlarm slammed for scarewarey marketing

blackworx
FAIL

ZoneAlarm

Now there's a blast from the past. Can't remember the last time their crud was of any practical use. Shame on the forum gurus for defending this behaviour.

Defence Minister 'to big up electropulse threat' - report

blackworx
Pint

Evil Sean Bean in Goldeneye

Shurely you mean "Evil Richard Sharpe in Goldeneye"?

He don't like French. His wife don't like French neither.

Twitter airport bomb joker loses second job

blackworx
Pint

Re: big pharma's next cunning plan

Take it from someone who knows, it's type-G weaponised pubic lice - aka the hypocritters. They stole it off DARPA when the contract got cancelled for being too dangerous.