Re: Holiday Money?

The thing is.. if you get a letter in terrible English, full of spelling mistakes from someone claiming to be the ex-president of the United States it might seem plausible...

Hashtags? #fuckbackofftotwitter

Re: Makes sense to me

More likely to be the other way I would have thought : Asda is owned by Wallmart, so is American, whereas Tesco is not...

Re: "There is no mainstream party [...] which offers to dismantle these crippling stealth taxes"

'What about UKIP'

I have just read through the document you linked to and I must say it was pretty much in-line with what I would expect from our very own 'UK tea party'.

Their policy seems to be:

1) Question whether climate change is man-made at all

2) State that as China/India/The US won't reduce emissions why should we.

3) Blame the EU for everything that they can.

4) Blame the government for anything else.

5) Suggest Shale Gas and fracking as the solution to all of our problems.

What a complete crock of right-wing twaddle.

Re: What lax security?

If a system that contains confidential medical records is accessible from the internet with just a username and password then that is incredibly lax security. For a system of this kind offsite connection should only be via an encrypted VPN with token access. I'm amazed some script kiddie hasn't already brute-forced the system and taken them to the cleaners.

'What's the point?'

Y'know... Because online is better.

That's why we need toasters that can connect to twitter (#toast #crumpets #poptarts) and the ability to connect to facebook while having a root canal ('Tony is in incredible pain' / '51 people like this').

You are assuming 11 equal partners, when in reality most of those arrested are probably minor accomplices who were getting a few thousand Euros here and there for basic fetching and carrying. The main players would have been making several hundred thousand Euros a year each, which given this scam has been running several years could well have made them millionaires.

Re: I wonder...

Why would they bother hacking? I would be very surprised if the CIA don't already have unlimited access to your Gmail account, your facebook and anything else hosted in the US.

Re: Because we're hooked

'It's like drugs.'

No way man - NO WAY - I can quit any time. I can. I just don't want to alright? Those kittens are just so damn cute. You just don't understand man. If God didn't want us to watch kittens why did he create the internet? Why are you asking all these questions? Are you a narc? Where's my pizza? I ordered it ages ago. I'll just check online and see if it's been dispatched... Oh look- Kittens. Nice. What were we talking about again?

Re: Hmmmmmm. morality and lawyers.

'I'd argue that those who were posted about had an expectation of privacy'

I'm not sure if that holds up in court though does it? I was under the impression that if someone takes pictures of you with your consent on their own property what they then do with them is their own business - They own the pictures, not the model.

I'm not defending the scumbags that post stuff like this as they are clearly arseholes of the highest order, but I'm not sure they are actually breaking the law...

Re: Pat11

Onion sauce? Sounds delicious!

Re: @AC@Mooseman

Are you genuinely from the UK AC? I'm not convinced you really are, but if so then you are in a really, really tiny minority. British people are overwhelmingly in favour of strict gun control and I guarantee you that if you asked 1000 at random ~99% would say that relaxing gun control here would make them feel less safe.

@Matt

I wasn't saying they should not shoot at targets with people on them Matt, I was just comparing that to shooting people in a computer game. In most games the people you shoot are trying to kill you, so it is simulated self-defence, just like your target shooting.

'They are against games where you shoot PEOPLE'

Really? Then why do a lot of gun ranges have a picture of a man on the target?

@AC 'some people really need to get some perspective'

Some people really need to look up 'hyperbole' !

;)

Re: Oh, they are everyone's friend

' but Google+ or Twitter provide an escape, or people could even go retro and find their way back to Myspace'

Um.. How about the escape of not putting all your private information up on the internet in the first place?

Posting anything that you want private (especially pictures) to any social network is like hiring Gary Glitter to watch the kids.

Re: who's content?

I'm 'Content' and so is my wife!

Re: Really? Is that the best reference you can do?

Of course I am aware that China isn't exactly a communist state any more (some would argue it never really was). That wasn't my point - It is all about perception outside of the country.

Apple charge a premium for their products because they are seen as desirable and far from 'Apple bashing' as you implied, this article actually reinforces that impression.. so I smell a rat. Do other large companies do the same? Of course! Apple just seem to be the best at manipulating the media in this way (in my opinion).

Re: Really? Is that the best reference you can do?

@dx 'Only El Reg would fall for that in their quest to find shit to say about Apple'

Actually this sounds like the sort of thing that Apple 'sponsors' in the media to make their overpriced products seem desirable.

A free I-Pad for the journalist and Japanese readers get a story about how Apple products are so exclusive and desirable that their poor oppressed neighbours are 'kicked out of the communist club' for owning one.

Re: True, all true...

'But Julian is still an arse.'

I'd say he's more of a dick and those guys are arseholes.

And we need dicks to f*ck arseholes, or they cover us in sh*t.

But dicks also f*ck pussies... which is why he is wanted in Sweden.

Re: Prior art?

'I think Nikola Tesla may have a few things to say on applying power at a distance wirelessly..'

I think Apple's lawyers may have a few things to say about Tesla stealing their idea using the dirty underhand tactic of thinking of it first.

@a mental image of DotCom dressed in a skin-tight cat-suit

Argh! It burns! It burns!

Re: WTF? pfft Americans

'With modern medicine STDs are more under control'

Um, no. No they aren't.

http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/gallery/stds

Chlamydia, Gonorrhoea and Syphilis are all on the rise and Aids has not gone away - We just became desensitised to stories about it, so the media stopped running them.

'It's up to Disney now.'

..So we can look forward to 'Dark Forces 3 : Mickey Mouse rapes your childhood' coming soon to the Wii, IPad and I-Phone for just 100 micropayments of $1.99 each.

Re: What's the issue?

"the Five Pillars"

LOL

Am not sure that Muslims would describe Islam as 'a hobby'

Re: Fuck you God, Zeus, Vishnu, Odin.....

'more than half of terrorist attacks in the past 2 decades were right-wing domestic terrorists'

Yes, but in Blighty our right-wing extremists don’t like to make such a fuss. They generally content themselves with sending a strongly-worded letter to the Daily Mail and renewing their subscription to UKIP.

@mark 63

'I'd pay a service charge TO DO IT MYSELF!'

I'm in the Czech Republic at the moment and some bars here have Pumps built into the tables so you just pour your own beers without even having to get up. You just pay for however many litres you poured when you leave.

One bar in Brno goes a step further and has flatscreens on all the walls showing a leaderboard of how many litres each table has poured.. That is a bit lethal though, as you go in for a quick pint and end up in a marathon drinking competition with an entire pub full of Czechs!

Re: Incomprehensible

Not true. Rap can be as eloquent as any piece of poetry, which is really the traditional medium it is closest to.

That said, unfortunately most commercial rap seems to be of the level of a retarded teenager with mother issues that has won the lottery:

'I've got more money than you / I can disrespect more women than you / you'd better not disagree with me or I'll shoot you with all my guns.'

Pathetic.

@Chris Miller

'The US vehicle-miles figure is 10x higher than the UK's, but (of course) the huge difference in road types makes a straight comparison problematic.'

You're right - Imagine what would happen if they had the corners we have in Blighty - It would be like a demolition derby!

I'd also be interested to know what percentage of UK road deaths are caused by American tourists encountering roundabouts..

Re: So...

'Because a browser has a security bug we should stop using it? '

...'Software gets exploited, the important thing is that the bugs get addressed not that they exist.'

Yes and no. You don't scrap your car and buy a new one if it breaks down once, but if it breaks down every week and every other car by the same manufacturer breaks down every week, then maybe it's time to buy one from someone else don't you think?

Re: "They get no more of my pennies for games."

<rant>

I agree - Fuck them.

I am just playing my (legitimate, boxed!) copy of Might and Magic Heroes 6 again (I must be one of the 'few' people that pays for pc games and have hundreds, all paid for). I initially lost patience with the game due to having a flaky net connection, which due to their ridiculous DRM made it unplayable.

I am now on a stronger connection, so thought I would try again and although I can now manage to play it, the DRM still pisses me off hugely. It's always patching itself (with an amazingly badly designed script), spends an age 'sycronizing save games' and is generally just... bleurgh.

They won't be getting any more of my money - I'm not saying I will be pirating thier products, I will just buy someone else's game instead. Don't try to blame the pirates either - Valve/Steam manage to balance security and ergonomics. Ubisoft are just alienating their customers and frankly making me wish I HAD pirated their product as I assume a ripped copy would mean I wouldnt have to put up with this crap!

Oh and while I am on my soapbox - Fuck F2P too. I wont play any game where people can just buy success - It makes anything you achieve in the game worthless.

</rant>

Re: Stupid or suspicious?

Exactly what I thought when I read the article. No-one is THAT stupid, so it must be a trap.

Re: Boring answer

Second boring answer:

In addition to Ian's points a more difficult question would be pointless anyway as everyone would just google it!

@ I can't believe they fell for that

'Harwell was able to install "CamCapture" spyware onto victims' computers in the first place because he worked part time as a computer repairman, SPECIALISING IN FIXING MACS'

I believe it.

@Posting on The Register is of course an entirely different matter

At least until trolling is recognised as an Olympic sport...

'A well-balanced decision'

I think you mean 'the thin end of the wedge'.

It IS censorship. Sure - its censorship of something apparently meaningless and pointless, but it is still censorship carried out at the request of commercial interests without them even proving there will be any real benefit to their business or consideration of the impact on freedom of speech.

Does this one change have any significant impact on the daily web useage of normal French people ? Non.

Should they be worried about what it says about their legal system and the potential for it's misuse by large commercial interests? Absolument!