@Matt

"This whole idea is somewhere on the far side of daft."

As is the government and a majority of civil servants.

Congratulations, Peter 45

You have now discovered Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."

Yes, there certainly is...

Thompson sub machine gun. invented 1919 used .45ACP cartridges.

@Iglethal

Doesn't quite work like that: any liberty, once lost, is rarely - very rarely restored.

There isn't, in any real sense of the word, a "different type" of government.: just another side of the same coin.

Yeah, but

not willingly. And definitely begrudgingly

Maybe so, but...

...it appears that the Reg staff - or at least the esteemed Mr Haines - is not only very conversant with "smut accessorymonger(s)", but also smut accessories; at least in sufficient detail to select and propose specific items...

I knew the anti-Apple invective of the BallmerJugend would make them go blind/hair fall out (or at least stop being curly). or maybe their fingers will be permanently stuck to the keyboard...

They do, but it's a lie.

If it were true, they could have sex AND have a headache at the same time...

What's the difference?

Well, they're both just ways of having your morning crap...

Oxymoron?

"Seems interesting, but who cares"

If it's interesting, someone cares.

More "Hey. Look at me. I'm too cool to care about Apple stuff" from one who apparently puts the "moron" in "oxymoron".

Why???

"Why, is there such a culture in the UK at the present of blaming everyone for your own mistakes.?"

Because years of nanny-state government has removed any sense of responsibility whilst instilling an aggrieved awareness of rights into most of our citizens.

"Everyfink I want should be given to me, 'cos nuffink's my fault, innit?"

"..Not many police officers with criminal record!.."

but evidently several who should have one.

But JP,

they will be too high** to enjoy the smell of napalm in the morning.

**high in any way you want - they're US forces, after all.

usual arrogant crap from a know-it-all (who doesn't)..

I was a techie with Burroughs Machines in the early eighties - pre Unisys days - and linked Burroughs (i.e. re-badged Convergent Technologies) micros with Burroughs minis & IBM minis etc.

Funnily enough, we found very few Spectrums used commercially, so I confess a) I never used one and b) I don't know what they were built from, and c) I did not care the, and care even less now. So the guy who fixes our car (and does it very well) isn't a REAL mechanic if he doesn't know the jet needle for a 1937 Morris?

You say "..you are by your own admision a fanboi, therefore de facto a NON techie..."

Pure sophistry - or, if you're unsure what sophistry is, let me rephrase it in the vernacular.

Pure bollocks.

Anyway, in your rush to prove your uber-knowledge (sad, really) of archaic toys, you completely lost the meaning of my post which was to say that I really don't give a damn if Adobe port CS5 to any OS with more than 2 surviving machines, so Kodes desire to stop Adobe producing Mac software was little more than childish petulance

I think your egotistical implication that you are clued up is little more than wishful thinking.

Perhaps you could get out more. English comprehension classes, possibly?

@Kode. Well...

I'm using CS5 on a new Mac Pro, and I'm happy. I couldn't really care if Adobe ports CS5 to the Commodore PET, Sinclair Spectrum or re-writes it for the Z80 or anything else.

As long as I've got what I'm happy with, I don't care where else they market/apply it..

And yes, I've been a techie for over 35 years now (and 22 years of being Mac only) , so I've seen at least as much change as you - probably more - and no, I'm not overly happy with the Apple-Adobe war that's broken out, nor do I agree with Mr Jobs' diatribe against Adobe/Flash.

However, I still think Leopard>Win7, and Mac>Dell (or anything else), so that's the way I go.

Running off with invective against Apple and issuing pointless statements like "...and actually have wished that Adobe would make their products pc-only. .." give you all the appearance of a sour-grapes, petulant child or a rejected lover, which I'm sure isn't true.

You also claim "...I've seen him spread the lies for past 16 years..."

Is this just child-like invective, or can you supply definitive unequivocal examples, please?

Well,

What a beautifully put, well-expressed, reasoned discourse.

Might one enquire if "A/C" is due to an inability to recall your name for more than a moment or two?

I'm sure it will.

In Safari preferences, go to "Advanced", and tick "Show Develop menu in menu bar"

Then select "Develop" from menu bar,go down to "User agent" and you will see a whole list of other browsers, and you can select one. Safari will then masquerade - i.e. identify itself as being - to the RBS website.

I haven't tried it with RBS, but it's worked for me (with Safari 5 as well as earlier incarnations) with a whole plethora of sites requiring IE.

PS

Does the Reg now set exams in anti-Apple invective for all its journalists?

@ Adam W 1:- Total bollocks old lad

The taxes & NI I've paid for the last 42 years and which I will continue to pay are what funds my "life in idleness".

The last thirteen years of applied idiocy in Westminster have left us in a situation where I almost certainly won't be able to retire at 65 - but hey! I just might be able to indulge in a retirement of sybaritic hedonism - funded from the tax payments of a host of meeja studies graduates, Golf course managers, Creative Dancers and other such high-earning, high tax-paying people, whose "education" has proved such an astute investment of my country's limited recources.

PS

I presume your qualifications are in Applied Sophistry

@ several

@sbuk:

Research has nothing to do with it:- it's the funding of nebulous meaningless degrees I resent.

@AC

Easier said than done:- I'm a Mac technician/Graphic Designer whose job moved some three years ago. I do not wish to uproot myself away from a lifetime's friends & family at my age, and looking for a more local job with the same pay, continuation of pension rights etc. is next to impossible. I assume that you're young & relatively mobile - young because you see black & white knee-jerk solutions without thinking them through. It might suit you, but it ain't gonna suit everyone. I'm prepared to continue my commute, with 4yrs left to go to retirement, but I'm not happy funding someone else's self-indulgent adolescence into their mid 20's.

Seemples!

We got to this by allowing a ruling class of professional politicos - mostly "qualified" as lawyers and/or spin doctors; few of whom have ever had a real job in the real world - to micro-manage our society.

They're red-hot on social engineering theory, totally lacking in experience and understanding, and the only outstanding feature of the great majority of them is a (misplaced) arrogance and incredible ego.

T paraphrase King Henry, "Will no-one rid us of these turbulent wofflers?"

JDX old lad,

What a refreshing breath of fresh air: a comment brimming with common sense and pragmatism. And you can't get away from the fact that huge numbers of students of non-subjects, meeja studies, golf course management, creative dance &c ad nauseam, ARE an intolerable burden on those of us working.

<rant>I am turned 60, and five days per week I am up well before 0500, leave home at 0605, travel for 2 1/2 hours, do a full days work, travel for 2 1/2 hours home, get home around 1900 and I sometimes have to take work home & do some overnight & at weekends. I haven't had a pay rise for two years, my costs & taxes are continually increasing and I bloody well resent having to fund some idler who is doing little more than prolonging his/her adolesence at my expense. </rant>

OK

I'm with you. And I've upvoted your comment.

Upon reflection,

I think it would be better to slash the council...

with a broadsword...

or a machete...

or a samurai sword...

or all three (for efficiency, you understand).

Me too

I use a Slik tripod, and I've got two F4's. I'm almost willing to risk sacrificing one in order to inflict drastic cranial modification upon this defective defector from commonsense, No. 8.

I really do think a rebellion (every free man's right - sometimes his duty) is in order, followed by an exhaustive cull of jobsworths, councillors and other inadequates whose sole raison d'etre is to thoroughly piss off the rest of us.

They've succeeded.

I'm pissed off.

Homicidally* pissed off.

*I suppose that should be more accurately stated as "Pesticidally"'

Pedantry alert!

...shouldn't that be "fewer than 18 hours"?

Correction..

Vote UKIP for a joke on every Europe/Unelected Committee loving politician, and if sufficient do so, we just might have a country worth staying in...

Well said, old lad.

"Fucking idiot."

Brief, apt, and captures Johnson perfectly. To a tee.

For an example...

See how our Civil Servants - sorry, Overlords act.

See http://www.oldholborn.net/2009/07/scales-of-justice-are-about-to-tip-in.html

Before anyone moans at me, I know that yellow text on a light green background isn't the most legible, but you can always selct text, copy & poste it into TextEdit or Notepad and view it as B&W.

As an indication of the arrogant mindset of these jobsworths, it's positively terrifying.

@Oddie

That really should be "Sysadmina Femina". The "-us" ending in Latin denotes male gender. The "-a" denotes female.

Unless "Feminus" means "..comes from Bangkok & is a ladyboy"...

Pulled from arse figures?

93.79% of statistics are made up on the spot...

So by your reckoning...

any US GI who either commits adultery or drinks alcohol in Iraq/Afghanistan* should be passed over to the local "authorities" to be stoned to death?

I don't suppose I should bother reminding you how those nice gentlemen (nice words for Sarah's benefit) from PIRA slaughtered men, women AND children in Ulster, mainland UK and Europe yet the legals AND politicos in the US suddenly became misty-eyed Sons of Erin and not only refused to send back self-admitted murderers, but they continued to fund their "cause".

Pah! A pox & a plague upon US administration...

Nicely put.

I don't use Windows myself - I'm a Mac user - that's my choice and if someone else goes the other way, then that's their choice.

I do feel that Duncan's phrase "However, there will never be the perfect piece of software." should be tattooed on the genitals of most of the "one or t'other exclusively" zealots, just to concentrate their minds on pragmatic reality.

Proper testing etc. will as Duncan says, mitigate most problems with software.

That's MOST problems. It's not ALL problems.

No one person, or team will ever have the experience, imagination and time to test modern software for absolutely every contingency - unless we want software's gestation period to go out to several decades. Way back in the '80's, when I installed mini's & micro's for Burroughs Machines, I was often asked to "make this system idiot-proof". I rapidly gained a healthy respect for just how ingenious and inventive idiots could be - and I don't suppose I ever quite achieved the Holy Grail.

Just think how much mor involved & complex things are 25 years later!

A pox & a plague on all the blackhat villains and associated ungodly who give us these problems. May all their capacitors bulge, their r/w heads crash and their RAM sockets fail!

I presume

the "TV license" would be something our colonial cousins might want/have/need.

I have a TV licence, which I assume would cover me should I acquire an iPhone.