* Posts by mark 63

902 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009

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By the way, Home Depot hackers also grabbed 53 million email addresses

mark 63 Silver badge

I dont think that means the breach went further, I think it just means they used their standard mailing list to contact victims, rather than actually working out the correct list.

Drama in space: But Philae keeps trying to harpoon comet

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Farage

Ah , thanks Bunbury.

something to think about there.

Is there much manufacturing of actual things going on in this country?

Could the exporter not just rent an ice cream van in target country and sell from there?

Are we paying £50m a day to be in the EU just so we cant charge import duty on all the EU things?

I guess its all about how much cash and stuff goes in and out, ie the trade deficit

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Farage

Can somebody tell me what the benefits of EU membership are? Apart from me being able to buy a years supply of fags at a less extortionate price when I go to EU land.

I'm serious. Not even in that televised debate did (whoever Farrage's no name opponent was) manage to give a reason for having the EU.

I've tried googling it but still not found anything solid just politicians rhetoric.

I *have* heard mutterings about "trade" . But what about trade? why does it make trade better? we still manage to trade with non EU countries so whats the difference? (as evidenced by all the i-things flooding the country)

p.s. awesome news with the lander , hope we get good news with non-thruster assisted ice screwing in 4 hours

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Separation achieved

" It'll be like trying to unscrew a screw without being able to push on the screwdriver"

You mean 'screw in a screw without being able to lean on it'. As long as you have harpooned yourself to the wall you can pull on the harpoon rather han lean on the screw i guess.

Dodgy thruster won't stop Philae hurtling toward comet showdown

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: "Landing Confirmation 15:00"

I heard the moon landing was a little better organised for live updates and sound /pics /vids . The americans know how to put on a show!

p.s. "The Dish" is a great little film about how that almost didnt happen.

My HOUSE used to be a PUB: How to save the UK high street

mark 63 Silver badge

Yeah but you dont get the full range of "things" do you - even after making all that effort to go the shop and look at the things, then perhaps trawl round a few more shops to find a suitable thing, your choice of things is still extremely limited. If you had just sat on your arse and typed the name of the thing you wanted into google youd have found a much better thing at a much smaller cost that would shortly arrive at your house. And even then once you've "looked at" or even "touched" the thing if it turns out you dont like it distance selling rules mean they have to take the thing back.

If your wourld domination plan is as well thought out as your shopping strategy I'm not too worried just yet.

mark 63 Silver badge

So shops cant compete because they pay extra to gather together in the same place , making that place inaccessible to customers. Theres the flaw right there.

The only reason for keeping the High street I spotted in the article was nostalgia. Perhaps Amazon etal could make there shopping interface into a First person 3D virtual blah blah. Then you can choose your own skin - Diagon Alley , Rodeo Drive, 5th avenue etc

As far as I'm concerned the high street , with it plethora of problems ( i got up to abot 20 in previous posts) cant die off soon enough. The only issue with the new world order is that I'm never bloody in when the postman turns up. To remedy this I suggest much bigger letterboxes or lockers on houses and if the packege needs a signature: some kind of clever encrypted digital certificate authority type thing so that the courier can prove he dumped it in your box.

(after all the existing signature, albeit done with a touchscreen, is as useless if not more useless than when we used to write on cheques with a pen - absolutey ZERO security value. I cant believe they are still in use but they are)

Poll: Yes, yes, texting while driving is bad but *ping* OH! Hey, GRAB THE WHEEL, will ya?

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Simplez

what about my radio 4?

3D printed guns: This time it's for real! Oh, wait – no, still crap

mark 63 Silver badge

eloquent summary

seconded.

I especially liked: " very difficult to overstate the unimportance of Mr Crumling's invention".

Million Mask March: Anonymous' London Guy Fawkes protest a damp squib

mark 63 Silver badge
Joke

Re: You tell me it was a damp squid

Thats a great Idea mtech I am going to do that , you can disclaim all you want , but unless you've paid a parasitical blood sucking drain-on-society lawyer to rubber stamp it it dont mean shit. So i blame you for my actions.

DISCLAIMER this too is a joke. I hereby declareclaim i can discliam my own claims without professional help , contrary to all of the above.

mark 63 Silver badge

SPG

That was real? I thought it was made up for Vivians Hampster.

I thought it must have been a slight alteration of some real outfit.

Google Glassholes haven't achieved 'social acceptance' - report

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: I'd get some for the workshop.

Damn, I want it now!

you bastards!

I'll wait for the android version and the Lost Screw Recognition software though

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: The bell end factor

and whats the difference between "consent" and "explicit permission"?

How Hollywood film-makers wove proper physics into Interstellar

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: 3hrs in IMAX?

Theres no way in hell I'm sitting still in a small seat with 200 other people for 3 hours!

never mind paying £15 quid for it!

Theres a reason you can buy a projector that'll give you 100" screen at home for £250 (or £600 for a decent one) - so you can watch movies like you were at the cinema without the:

1) travelling

2) parking

3) queueing

4) Paying £15

5) Paying a further £10 for food n drink

6) Sitting with a load of teenage knobheads

7) not being able to pause it and go for a piss

8) Not Being allowed to drink beer

9) not beoing allowed to smoke

10) not being able to stretch your legs out on comfy furniture

11) Being Deafened

12) sitting through 30 minutes of ads for shit you have no interest in

13) having to start at a specific time

did I miss anything ?

iBail: American Psycho actor Christian Bale rejects Steve Jobs role

mark 63 Silver badge
Trollface

Re: didn't we have a Steve Jobs biopic already?

Well I'm going to start queing outside the cinema 3 weeks in advance to be sure of getting a place!

Carders offer malware with the human touch to defeat fraud detection

mark 63 Silver badge

The Possive

I dont think using 'my' and inferring possesion isa bad thing.

I used to think if a girl started calling me "hers" i wouldnt like it , like a part of me had been stolen. Turns out I do like it.

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: "the wife"

Well , your alleviating confusion. But yes "the" dosent necassarily mean your wife.

Cop1: 'sup?

cop2: well that blokes pissed so the wife kicked him out.

mark 63 Silver badge

definite article

Yeah but "my" followed by a singular noun does pretty much the same:

My wife , my car , my computer. Still implies , albeit maybe not quite as definately , that you only have one.

hmmm "my kids" - only one group of kids? Wait a minute that works for Wives too.

so:

The = definate article

My = ?

A = ?

One hard ghoulie: 1985's Ghosts 'n Goblins

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: 2p pieces

I finished a few: Rastan, Double Dragon , Kung fu master , but that pales in comparison to finishg Ghosts n Goblins!

Banksy denies Banksy impostor's claim to Banksy.com – which isn't owned by Banksy

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Meh

Yeah but how far above the rest of the art world with their dirty beds and mutilated cows is that!

mark 63 Silver badge

the human equivalent of dogs pissing up a tree-trunk

Spot on Potsherd. Some graffitti (er , i mean street art or whatever) is really cool but Its amazing how shit 99% of it is. Just a "tag". Its like theyve tried really hard to ensure that there is nothing artistic , intresting or aesthetic about it at all.

Even the murals in Northern Ireland look like a 6 year olds art class fridge picture.

I noticed other countries have a far better standard of Street vandalism.

Wir streiken! German Amazon workers down tools

mark 63 Silver badge

Adam Smith

Well i guess its a morale thing. People stop giving a crap. No motivation either in cash or variation / interesting work.

US court shuts down 'scammers posing as Microsoft, Facebook support staff'

mark 63 Silver badge

wheres mine?

i never had one of these calls!

they sound like great fun

Caterham Seven 160 review: The Raspberry Pi of motoring

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: My dad and my brother...

I too thought simple engines were nice till I learned how the new ones worked. Carburettors can fuck right off into the dustbin of history as far as I'm concerned. You noticed how cars start in the morning and decent mpg these days? thats cos carbs have finally been ousted.

And in order for this story to be in thereg rather than 5th gear he should have got the raspberry pi to run the fuel injection and the sparks :)

Ad-borne Cryptowall ransomware is set to claim FRESH VICTIMS

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Well lets name them....

but whats "screening detection" ? if its new malware not detected by AVG or whatever the ad companies have installed on the machines that takes submissions , then they'd have a job as hard as the AV companies to detect anything. If they are detected by standard AV then who cares your machine should defend itself

mark 63 Silver badge

So thanks to bitcoin this kind of activity can "get paid" with zero chance of tracing the recipients? They dont even have to set up dodgy accounts that they fill up, transfer and dump?

'Dancing Jesus' file-sharer found guilty

mark 63 Silver badge

That'll show 'em!

Martha Lane Fox: Yeuch! The Internet is made by men?!?

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: er

i agree king of Foo ! surprised you only got 1 downvote so far though. In fact i just posted the same thing. We'll see who gets the most!

oh , have an up...

mark 63 Silver badge

isnt she right in theory? - i mean if it was secure , hyportheticlly , in la la land , then everyone could vote on all sorts of things . a referendum every week.

That one dismissive nosensical sentence dismissing any security problem - thats where she's a bit batshit. oh , and the whole 'net made by men thing , because if she boycotted all things made by men she'd be left with :

Circular saw

Liquid Paper

Compilers ( yes the IT ones)

COBOL

dishwaher machine

windscreen wipers

kevlar

That's no – actually it is: DEATH STAR MOON 'could be full of life-friendly water'

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Even if we do go there...

yeah but by the time you got there you'd really need a drink!

Internet finally ready to replace answering machine cassette tape

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: NIght Light

thats a 25 old mystery solved for me!

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Baffled

yes i was about to say the same. And will do:

If their 2006 computer was outwitted by a 1983 answering machine they must have been doing something wrong!

Windows XP refresh will DO NOTHING for lame PC market next year

mark 63 Silver badge

"App"

"Everyone knows an app is basically the same as software" waddya mean basically?

Something really irks me about this "is there an app for that" phenomenon. All of a sudden people realise that computers can be made to do useful things by running a program on them. Why has it taken this long to transmit this message to the non techy? Its not like the self explanatory term "application" has only just been coined. Instead all we got was years of:

"ooh i dont understand computers" (and am unwilling to even consider if that would be possible)

"whats the point of that?"

"why dont we just keep using paper?"

And then Apple develops the first useable smartphone ,therefore people have to know how a computer can help them , so in one fell swoop they explain the concept of running a "program" on a computer:

All it takes is a 30 second jingly advert full of hip music and cool kids (and examples of computers being helpful) and repitition of the phrase "Is there an app for that?" and suddenly the world "gets it"

I think we have to thank Apple for that, as , in time , people will realise they can get "apps" on their desktops and laptops too.

Forget passwords, let's use SELFIES, says Obama's cyber tsar

mark 63 Silver badge

torture and kidnapping

I'm not buying the "Biometrics are bullshit because I'll get my eyes gouged out and my thumbs cut off" angle.

This can still happen in order to exctract your password. The reason it dosent is because most of this sort of thing happens remotely.

In fact assuming these bio check designers are thoughtful enough to require Alive thumbs and retinas or whatever , this might keep you alive longer .

mark 63 Silver badge

(and how do you change your face if the security database is hacked?)

i thnk you're missing the point

10 Top Tips For PRs Considering Whether To Phone The Register

mark 63 Silver badge

I've taken to answering my landline "Hello Battersea Dogs Home, Jack Russell speaking" , unfortunately 9 out of 10 times its a machine calling that dosent get the joke.

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Confession - OED

"The OED records common usage, not proper usage."

Does it? where does it say that?

Also by the sounds of that explanation the only reason we have "an hotel" is because half the population will dump the H making the 'an' correct , and the other half get to sound awfully superior by pronouncing both the H and the 'an' , whilst actually being incorrect as the 'an' was only put there to prop up those who couldnt be arsed pronouncing the H.

p.s. H is pronounced "aitch" . If you pronounce it using an H, ( or should that be a H) then go take Bill Hick's advice.

Here's your chance to buy an ancient, working APPLE ONE

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: "At the current price of $1,299.00, you could buy about 300,000 units"

Damn you beat me , by only 9 hours.

Let me just add that thats .00433 dollars per unit.

or to round up, thats about 250 Mac things per dollar

Hey Brit taxpayers. You just spent £4m on Central London ‘innovation playground’

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: The rich aroma of BS

I belive the correct title for a squeegee pusher these days is:

"Transparency Enhancement Facilitators"

Want to see the back of fossil fuels? Calm down, hippies. CAPITALISM has an answer

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: petrochemicals -- just, not fossil fuels

"And we can burn as much of these as we like with impunity provided A & B "

wrong!

You can burn as much as you can find. There is a HUGE difference. We stopped finding things to burn in 1965. (by which i mean that the rate at which new oil fields are discovered peaked in 1965. We've found less and less every year since , and burned more and more)

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: I hope you're right

so no cutting back from any quarter Tony? That seems to say to me that barring a miracle cure we are all doomed. All in the name of "growth" . I guess it should be us that make the scarifice, its our turn. We go eat rice for 200 years while the 3rd world finishes off the fossil fuels.

wont happen thjough:. we wont give , they wont give , we are already in the scrabble for the last drops.

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Clean energy NOW

"so no chance of running out any time soon"

Stars are pretty abundant in the universe too. I heard theres loads of em. And I gather they are all giving off heat. Why dont you toddle off and put a few in a wheelbarrow and bring them back. All our enrgy problems will be solved , and you'll be a hero

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: Good point

neither of those two methods change the amount of energy available.

If you burn a £20 note , you get the same amount of energy as you would from a £5 note

mark 63 Silver badge

" If you can get enough H2 and electricity from solar to be able to completely replace your current energy providers..."

Yes that would be lovely but it aint gonna happen. The sun is dropping x amount of sunlight on the planet, the energy stored in the oil we use is the result of the sun doing that for thousands and thousands of years. And we've used up half the oil in in 150 years. and the other half will take more energy to get it out that we'll get from it.

BLAM, BLAM, BLAM... nooooo! Hacker crew Lizard Squad spits DDoS venom at Call of Duty

mark 63 Silver badge

so what did they gain from Ddossing COD servers , exept to put their heads in the firing line of various law enforment agencies and a billion dollar company?

Game pirates 'donate' compute power to Bitcoin miners

mark 63 Silver badge

Re: That's deadly!

i spotted that too, then assumed one of those named games had ripped it off

Apple gives fanbois The Sweetest Thing: A delete button for that U2 album

mark 63 Silver badge

my dad was subjected to this U2 album , He's 79 and has his parent's tase in Music.

He said "This free gift is as welcome as the gifts the cat brings in"

Microsoft splurges 2½ INSTAGRAMS buying Minecraft maker Mojang

mark 63 Silver badge

"Denmark has even created a 1:1 scale model of itself"

maybe im missing something but how does a computer model have scale? Does it depend what resolution the real Denmark is in?

Limits to Growth is a pile of steaming doggy-doo based on total cobblers

mark 63 Silver badge

"minerals and metals are substitutes for fossil fuel energy."

"minerals and metals are substitutes for fossil fuel energy."

An ecomomist would say that! Energy is the problem , not stuff, and the two are not interchangeable.

Lack of energy will put us back in the stone age , imminently, there might be some other energy sitting around but we're not prepared to prepare to start using it , cos its too hard.

Society will tear itself apart quickly, too quickly to adjust to the new "not a lot of energy" paradigm.

Nude celeb pics wrongly blamed for DDOS at New Zealand's largest ISP

mark 63 Silver badge

so was the ddos aimed at spark or elsewhere? and what did these "east europeans" have to gain from it?

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