Posts by David Webb

Denied?

Denied? I know people have been refused treatment for a smoking related condition because you know, they didn't quit smoking, but thats logic. People have also been refused medication because its too expensive and NICE cannot justify the cost. But the NHS won't turn away anyone in an emergency, they won't check your wallet to see if you have valid insurance, indeed, they will send a helicopter to pick people up! Can you imagine how much that would be put on a bill in the US if you were not insured?

And yes, Hawkins is brilliant, and ours, maybe they should change his voice box to a English accent though, as it seems to confuse people! Also I'm thankful Hawkins is still alive today, he should be an inspiration to everyone of what a person with the most severe handicaps can do in life.

NTE-5

New build houses should have the new BT plates installed by default, if you take them apart you will see a circular object which is an ADSL filter, it does exactly the same job as the iPlate. If you have the BT Openworld logo on your faceplate then you have the filter already.

Citizen

I object to being called a "citizen", I am a British Subject, god save the Queen!

Let's see

A name, hrm, the Bulgarian Funbag express? Though that would look bad for future generations of history students...

I am reliably informed that the Spanish for Vulture is Buitre, so, El Buitre? Cept then we have the problem of pronunciation, darn foreign words! It really is hard to think of a name!

The BAFH? Bastard Airplane From Hell?

The Labour Party Express - watch that plane drop as far as Browns popularity!

As for crafting it, it really is a giant boys toy (and girls toy, at least the sort of girls toy that they can pull out and use in public without an article on El Reg), and luckily I'd guess the main demographic of El Reg is.... male.

Opera

Will Opera never be happy unless IE is actually not even an option to install? They got what they wanted, a ballot, and *still* they complain? Sheesh.

FOI

Is it just me, or does UK.gov want everyone to give into FOI requests, except for themselves? Parliament will go to extreme lengths to prevent a FOI request and it looks like UK.gov will take requests to the High Court to prevent requests.

Cheap PVR

I use the Sony PlayTV myself. It comes with HDMI and upscales the SD signal, comes with Blu-Ray support (it plugs into the PS3, or even a PC), dual receiver so you can record a channel whilst watching another, and the remote control is blue-tooth (I think), it also has access to the internet.

Ok, so maybe its not cheap when you add on the cost of a PS3, and although it can accept a HD signal its not compatible with the UK signal (yet), but if you already have a PS3 I don't think there is a better freeview+ type box in its price range - not including price of PS3.

Best bit about the PlayTV, if you are in the US on holiday, you can set the PlayTV to record Top Gear and watch it in the US on your PSP via wi-fi! Has The Reg reviewed the PlayTV yet?

Turn left at the next exit (titles are evil)

You are very eloquent in your debating FT2!

The WMF is basically saying, its ok to download all the images, stick them into a book and stand outside the NPG selling the books which contain all the works that are inside the museum (as long as the book isn't copyrighted of course!).

That is one of the issues this does boil down to, the NPG made (apparently) £380k from licensing out their works, per year. Are you (if you are British, if you are not I apologise) quite happy that you will now have to pay an extra £380k per year, every year, so that a company in the US can thumb their nose up at UK copyright?

I realise that 380k is only around 2p per year per income tax payer, but that 2p per year would be spent to prop up a US corporation (wikipedia), don't know about you, but I really would want my taxes to be spend on proper things, like umm, dunno, but stuff that is more useful.

The thing is, how can this damage be undone? How many websites now have taken the content from wikipedia and are displaying it on their website? These people may not know they are hosting potentially copyrighted images, they may be hosting them in good faith. People could be using these images in books, under the belief they are PD, so every day that the WMF are keeping these images up, is another day that more damage is done to the revenue stream of a British organisation.

You point to large organisations there which are joining the Wiki event. Since the Bridgeman v. Corel case, how many US institutions have removed photos of PD images that were on the internet? How many now have an active policy of not putting any images on the internet unless those images are already freely available? How many small museums who's only income has been through licensing their works have had to start charging admission fees because they can no longer rely on the income from photographs and posters?

I know one institution that have removed hi-def images from the internet, that would be the NPG, so the entire *world* has lost the ability to view these images, including the people who paid for them (the British tax payer), so yeah, you're freely able to go and view them, in London. Naturally the WMF put their own twist on this "the NPG has taken them down, so we *must* keep them now!!!!!!"

Triffids?

I seem to recall that the triffids appeared after a meteor shower?

A better parallel would be the T-Virus from Resident Evil probably.

Memories

Ahh yeah, CompuServe and UK Chat forum. CS was my first ISP but they couldn't keep up with that new fangled "Freeserve" thing that just popped up! Free internet access? How dare they mess with our business model!

Memories for £300-500 phone bills also still hurt. Been with F9 since '02 and never looked back.

Who knows, maybe El Reg can do a nice editorial on the changing landscape of the UK Internet Scene, from the bad ole days of local rate 0845 numbers, to huge service charges for trying to connect to compuserve (friend in Ireland being charged a few hunded quid by CompuServe for peering) to 0800 numbers (Swindle Marketing International and James Winsor of whateverr his name is, promising "free internet" but somehow never providing it, ohh the shock!), to BT finally giving some kind of free internet number (0844?) to DSL. and the future IPV6 based 21CN!

Just don't let Lewis write it, he'll try to get us to ditch the Internet to buy helicopters, from the yanks.

Advertising

Yes, there needs to be education for parents on the subject, a bit like the anti-piracy thing in movies (which has stopped piracy 100%!!)

You wouldn't let your 12 year old watch Hard Core Donkey Lover XIV

You wouldn't let your 12 year old watch Saw 7 - Revenge of the Avenged

You wouldn't let your 12 year old watch Anything involving Keanu Reeves

Why let your 12 year old participate in Hard Core Donkey Saw starting Keanu Reeves?

I don't think parents understand (well, older parents who are not 21 themselves with 12 year old kids, as, according to the Sun, is the norm rather than the exception) that video games can easily be a lot more violent than movies, hell, even Pokemon is violent and introduces our children to fighting animal against animal!

I say ban all Children, just Children, ban them, or move them to an island till they are 18 years old!

5 other browsers...

And who exactly is responsible for those 5 other browsers? Are there even 5 other browsers to choose from? What if Browser #2 has major security issues? Is MS responsible for patching it?

Opera just wants a piece of the action, that's all. MS isn't in such a dominant position in the browser wars any longer, there is choice and people who know about the choice make the decision. I for one am getting the Win7 with IE installed, because I like IE, and I'll download Chrome too.

BT

"Earlier this week BT hit out at the Beeb, claiming it was unfair that internet service providers had been shackled with huge bandwidth costs to help deliver iPlayer to its customers."

The answer is simple then BT, make sure you charge nothing to ISP's for traffic from the iPlayer, simple!

Ahem

Being a proud Welshman (apparently Celt isn't the race, its the language) I can say, without a shadow of doubt, that the BNP does not represent me, nor will they ever represent me. Luckily, neither do the Lib Dems!

Sick

There really are some sick people on this planet.

@Sweep

No, when I hear a noise my brain works out the position the noise came from. The noise a speaker picks up is actually the power burst from the TDMA signal which the speakers can detect as a solid state detector. The reference to the mobile phone was very valid, as a pair of speakers can detect a signal being sent to a mobile phone, then I'm sure the military could easily develop equipment which could pick the signal from a submarine as the submarine picks up the signal.

Your post offered nothing to the debate on the issue, if you can provide solid proof that it is not possible to detect when a piece of electronic equipment is recieving a signal then I'm happy to listen. The simple fact is, with a buoy in place a navy/airforce will know there is a submarine within 100 miles of the buoy so will be able to scan the area for signs that a signal is being picked up, it doesn't take a huge leap in logic to assume that any signal being recieved will be detectable.

Vetting...

Odds are a system like this would be used for vetting people into government jobs too, like a teacher. Teacher been using IM? Better check to make sure no one on their friends list is under the age of 18.... Been using myspace? Better check none of their contacts are under 21!

I actually have an idea which will nix the entire thing. Someone start up an email service where you pay 1p to send an email, which affixes a stamp on the email of the queens head. Then it should be classed as normal mail which would protect it, its illegal to intercept the queens mail (all mail is, iirc, the property of the queen) so they would require a warrant every time they wanted to examine your email. May work.

Yay

I'm so posting these results on Facebook in the hope that some hot chick see's it and I can test the theory!

OLED?

An OLED as large as the iPhone screen for under $200? I'm not sure that'll happen, OLED is very expensive and used for small screens like cameras, not for a large screen like a mobile phone right?

@ Mad Dave

The Sim's isn't a game, its a life simulation engine, calling it a game is a bit like saying something else which I can't think of at this time of the morning with only one coffee in me.

Following on...

Following on from this idiots logic, we can naturally assume that the KKK grand wizard bloke is also banned because of his racist views. Is he saying that the fella from the KKK has as much right to come over here and spew his hatred as anyone else?

Personally I say let him come on over, I'm pretty sure the majority of Brits would just say "shut the f*** up" whilst the rest would ignore him, although some may steal his phone and shoes.

Yuck

Photo-editing software - Paint? Or Gimp which is opensource and free.

MS Office - Open Office (free)

Illustrator - Inkscape (free)

Adobe Premier - Avieimux (free)

etc.etc.etc.

Best of all, with these programmes you can *choose* your hardware AND your OS to go with it (its all open source).

Forcing people to go down one route prohibits learning, what if when they leave school in 7 years time, Linux has come to the forefront in multimedia? What if Win7 is so good (and yes, it really is *that* good) that it becomes the defacto OS for journo's? When these idiots leave school they will be used to working on a minor OS from a minor computer company!

My college used Dell's, but they didn't prevent you sticking in a USB with Linux on it and running that instead, as long as the software you used was compatible with the course, you can use whatever the hell you like.

Anyhow, a list of software which can replace closed source (from where I listed the first few examples) is:

http://whdb.com/2008/the-top-50-proprietary-programs-that-drive-you-crazy-and-their-open-source-alternatives/

A fantastic bookmark to have (especially if you're cheap like me)

Yes!

With such people signing as...

•Gordon Brown - doh, undo, undo

•Gordon destoyed Britian

•The others would do any better!

I'm sure Gordon is scared!

Oh Dear

You seem to have published a political response to the budget! As a news outlet, does that mean you now have to allow the other parties to give their point of view? I'm pretty sure that if the BBC were to give political time to a member of one political party, they are bound to have to give other political parties their chance to respond in like?

I liked the article mind you.

Windows

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate (64bit) on a dual core laptop with only 1GB ram. Sure it doesn't run as fast as my (now broke) desktop with 4GB, but its fast enough to do mundane tasks (like write this comment) and it also runs Aero quite well.

I've also ran Vista x64 Premium on this laptop, again with 1GB ram and shared VGA, Aero works fine, everything works fine, its just not a powerful machine so it is going to run slower than my desktop (even though assessment puts my desktop CPU at 4.9 and my laptop at 4.8).

I've also installed OSX onto this laptop, it didn't stay on very long, it is without a shadow of doubt the worse OS in history, Linux... love it, Solaris... love it, Windows... love it, OSX, in the bin.

The Right to Silence

AFAIK, the right to remain silent has never vanished, it was the wording that changed. People still have the right to remain silent, but they cannot rely on stuff they *do not* say in a court of law.

Though technically you should *never* give up your right to remain silent, no matter what you say the cops can use it against you, so its always best to stay quiet until a lawyer arrives!

02 have to unlock it

I believe that once a contract has ended, a person can phone 02 and say "please unlock my mobile phone" which 02 are obliged to do, and charge a fee of around £15 for the "honour", they can't say "nope!". However, if Apple then go around re-locking phones through itunes then maybe a class action is brewing, we can hope so anyhow.

@AC - FF Advent Children

FF Advent Children was wrote for fans of FF7, so we know all the people who showed up, Cid, Red XIII, Cait Sith etc. because of the game, it wasn't really wrote for anyone who hasn't played the game so wouldn't really understand who Cloud is.

I thought the final episode of BSG was pants, total rubbish. Sure it gave it an ending, but not the ending that was any good. Sam going off into the sun with the fleet, giving up all their technology, living 150,000 years ago. Adama still had his raptor, they had technology and Cylons! Maybe there will be a BSG2 where the ancestors who set up on an island called "Atlantis" set off to find "Earth" - some believe life out here began out there, a shining blue planet called Caprica....

@AC - Gadget Show

The "reviewer" is a rabid apple-fanboi. He will refuse to use a PC if anything apple badged is available, you may as well have had Steve Jobs doing the review, I knew the apple would win as soon as he started the review (5 stars for a non-gaming system, 3 for the PSP?).

He "forgot" to mention that the PSP has DLC and can easily play PS1 games giving a library of, well, lots of games, as well as the ability to hook into a PS3 (you can download games on the PS3 and transfer them to the PSP).

I own a PSP1000 (got mine from HK before it was out in the UK cheaper than the cost of the new - inferior screen - model that was released here) and have CFW (custom firmware) letting me rip my old PS1 games into ISO's and stick them onto my memory stick and play them on the PSP. Does the apple crap have the ability to play FF7 or Suikoden? Hell no!

He banged on about the apple being able to have 32GB! No shit? So does the PSP and the DS.

I also own a DS (love it) with an Acekard which lets me back up my carts and stick them all onto one memory card, so it also has 32GB+ (actually its SDHC or whatever it is, so its the maximum that will allow).

The DS and the PSP are two seperate, distinct consoles which appeal to two different types of gamers. Both are fantastic systems *at what they do*. Any short comings from the DS are filled in by the PSP, and the PSP's shortfallings are covered by the DS.

All in all, the apple stuff is for short games for people with short attention spans, the sort of games you download for a couple of quid, play for a couple of hours then throw away, the DS/PSP are for people who love games and want to play them on a system that caters for gamers.

Needless to say, I turned the gadget show over and will never watch that pile of crap again.

Also, El Reg compared the apple/PSP/DS on this site not long ago, the apple lost by a large margin, and we trust El Reg!

@EA

Well, in a moment of pure honesty I will tell you. I wanted something for me and my ex to be able to discuss, as she couldn't get her head around the genius that is Pratchett, I had to dumb down to her level and read the trash that is twilight.

I mean, I was reading Asimov and A.C. Clarke when I was 8, I even started to read Clive Barker novels before I was a teenager (primary school we did a short story on UFO's, I think I was the only person in that school, other than teachers who would write the word electromagnetic interference). Sure, I may not have understood half of what I was reading, but I enjoyed it :)

Conversation was more along the lines of "so, what books do you like?" - "twilight, you remind me of Edward" - ".... ok, I'll read it!", Nation by Terry Pratchett is the best book I've read in a long time!

Huh?

"It was a great time-saver to not have to email our 10MB test file over the meager upload bandwidth of our ADSL line"

That makes no sense, you still had to use your meager upload bandwidth to upload the file to the servers didn't you, so I'm not seeing where you found the "great time-saver" option? Both would have the same upload cap, so both would take the same amount of time.

Sure, one time saver would be if you needed to send it to multiple contacts, over different periods of time rather than stick them all in the BCC, but if I needed to do that I'd upload the file to, I dunno, a file host or webspace.