* Posts by 46Bit

74 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Dec 2009

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

46Bit

Oh yeah

It might as well be that much, really. I doubt it works that way (likely 500k max overall) but can you imagine the campaigns for lawsuits that'll come out of this? You'll have every pirate calling a lawyer.

Academics challenge moral consensus on sex and the net

46Bit
Go

Yep

Spot on. Similar people to those that moan at people who they can't afford it about giving to charity, whilst they spend money on all sorts of junk.

Airline passenger videos Atlanta maggot horror

46Bit
Badgers

Ha

No doubt all those people quoted are trying to find a lawyer willing to invent a case for this.

Council of Europe condemns teen-bothering Mosquito

46Bit
Unhappy

Snag

The one snag is that I'm actually still well within it's targeted age range.

46Bit
Flame

Bloody hell

This device should be throuroughly illegal, at least in a lot of circumstances it's used in. My local corner shop, right in the middle of a housing estate and with houses all around, manages to have this thing on 24 hours a day. It's RIGHT NEXT TO A SCHOOL, next to PEOPLE'S FUCKING HOUSES.

Southpaws up in arms over iPhone 4

46Bit

Uhh

Why quite so much iHate? Can understand why people dislike iPhones, but this is actually pretty extreme,,,

Aussie pols want compulsory AV software and firewalls

46Bit
Flame

Oh ffs, thank god I don't live down under

Ignoring the ridiculous antivirus restriction (see posts by other commentators!), this is just crazy because it's supposed to oppose the bad guys but actually creates a wonderful new opportunity - no need to hack PCs anymore, just hack government servers and you'll grab whatever you want from whoever.

Microsoft justifies lost Office 2010 upgrades

46Bit

Heh

I was pushed into trying Open Office because I lost my M$ Office product key and got no response when trying to replace it. Never really looked back.

Home Office passport fraud sweep flops

46Bit

No, no, no

What's actually happened, in Government-speak, is that their scheme has been so effectual in dissuading fraudsters from trying to get passports that only 8 people have tried it since the scheme's inception.

(Yes, that's bull, but it's typically what they'd retort.)

Dell customers count cost of battery back-up

46Bit
Pirate

No change then

Aren't the batteries always nearly that much.

Apple lifts iPhone code ban (for chosen few)

46Bit

Fail

This really is no change whatsoever. Likely the only people allowed to use this will be big firms/etc, the same games-makers/etc which get to use Lua (if memory serves) at present in order to make them make games for the iDevices whilst anyone else would be rejected,

FCC: iPad breach and Google Wi-Fi debacle 'worrisome'

46Bit
Flame

Oh here we go

Governments toot two horns. One claims (correctly, don't get me wrong) that companies collecting/releasing private stuff is evil. The other claims that unelected bureaucrats should be able to spy on our activities both online & offline with no regard for privacy just to catch paedophiles/terrorists/another-bad-group-that's-been-in-the-news.

New prototype US spy satellite rushed into active use

46Bit

Iran

I'd bet a tenner this is going to be used to search out new nuclear facilities in Iran - seems the perfect tool for the job.

Wireless signals to be jammed in Canada for G8 summit

46Bit

Simple workaround

Back to cup-and-string comms the terrorists go...

iPhone manufacturer to shutter China factories

46Bit

GENIUS!

How to stop people calling you evil:

Step 1: Promise to raise wages a lot to hopefully make life more tolerable for your worker drones that probably aren't committing suicide any higher than typical people in China but that people say are.

Step 2: Quietly as possible, shut down everywhere you're increasing wages, move elsewhere, have the new drones on the old rates (or even lower...), and make sure all the buildings are only one-story high.

Twitter airport bomb spoof joker launches appeal

46Bit

Evidence for what?

Whilst it was obvious he posted it so there was evidence, the charge the suppressive fascists did him via was completely inappropriate.

The world's ugliest dog is dead

46Bit
IT Angle

Mr

< nuff said

New Facebook developer regs not rogue-proof

46Bit
Big Brother

Haha

The next sharing setting (devs only for now):

Do you want to share your CC details with: Everyone (default) / Friends Only / Noone

US Navy develops toss-proof robot crane

46Bit
Joke

Might want to retest it

When the sea's like treacle so probably not moving much, they probably would get a positive result, yes.

Finnish police raids target virtual thieves

46Bit
Thumb Up

Good

Anyone stupid enough to spend their hard-earned cash on a stupid game where you're buying and selling a couple of numbers with no use are idiots. That they're getting stolen is a good thing.

Steve Jobs talks Flash, 'lying S.O.B' devs, sex, and Gizmodocrime

46Bit
WTF?

Wow

"... You have a much more direct and intimate relationship with the internet and media and apps and your content. It's like some intermediate thing has been removed and stripped away. Like that Claritin commercial where they strip away the film. It's like that."

Yeah, all those lovely lego bricks everywhere. Regardless of what the church of jobs preaches, the only advantage to me of an iPad would be it's very long battery life being perfect for Atlantic flights - and even then the Macbook range easily suffices when you bear in mind takeoff & landing.

ISPs told to keep filesharer naughty list

46Bit
FAIL

So...

I'd guesstimate that sales of offshore VPNs by UK customers will gradually ramp up to several tens of thousands of % of their current amount.

Site news: Track this forum

46Bit
Dead Vulture

Any news

Any news as regards not storing passwords as plaintext by any chance? If you've time to do that it's not like this'd be that big a task...

HTML5 'unhinged from reality,' say Javascripters

46Bit
FAIL

Oh please

So what? If you want to refer to HTML5, CSS3, etc etc you need some short term for it, and with HTML5 as the core of the new 'technologies' it's the logical choice. What would they suggest instead?

Foxconn website defaced after iPhone assembly plant suicides

46Bit
Dead Vulture

Eek

Careful hacker, they'll throw you off the roof if they find out it was you!

Tombstone because that's where they're headed.

New iPhone to land in US on 7 June

46Bit

Re: Stay ahead?

In units shipped, I expect you're perfectly right though I can't be bothered to check.

In aesthetics, originality (take completely revolutionising the smartphone market from what's now been shown to be piss-poor bred from little competition to a fairly competitive good market now), general features, etc etc, NO. It may have a dictatorial App Store/etc, but the fact remains the Phone itself is great.

46Bit

Suspect

I'd suspect it'll be a highly souped up 4.0, though afaik there's no leaks in that regard yet - either way I expect Apple will have been doing masses of stay ahead of Android.

Twitter tw*ts ad networks

46Bit
Badgers

Get real

From the article: 'The move is a mighty blow to services like Ad.ly and 140 Proof that were built to provide advertising on Twitter, but Costolo has urged third parties to find other ways of selling around the Twitter "timeline," its stream of 140-character mini-messages.

"Companies are selling real-time display ads or other kinds of mobile ads around the timelines on many Twitter clients, and we derive no explicit value from those ads," he says. "That’s fine. We imagine there will be all sorts of other third-party monetization engines that crop up in the vicinity of the timeline."'

The reality: We encourage devs to find new ways to make money using Twitter so we can monopolise their business if they're successful and so ruin your business.

Don't get me wrong - I fully realise that Twitter is, as should be expected, doing this because the VCs have grown a brain and have seen people making money from Twitter whilst Twitter frankly isn't and so are pressing for it to actually develop a business model - but in reality that's the truth of what he's saying.

Mountain View delivers Google Analytics opt-out

46Bit
Linux

Ah

Just add google-analytics.com to HOSTS as 127.0.0.1 and you don't have to worry about anything, no need for a plugin.

No refunds for ID card pioneers

46Bit

Tch

These traitors to the cause of opposing ridiculous pointless & ineffectual government schemes should have to pay extra for having got them.

Brit honeybees crawl through rotten winter

46Bit
FAIL

But...

So you see the continuing decline in honeybee numbers to be such a non-issue that El Reg shouldn't report on it, just because there's some crops that don't need them? Grow up and smell the coffee ... or actually since it's sometimes grown using Bees as pollinators* I guess you can't.

* According to http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/book/chap7/coffee.html anyway4

Google open sources $124.6m video codec

46Bit

Except

The issue (or perhaps more widely spouted theory, this isn't my idea) here is that whilst it was a commercial codec and no major threat to the rest of the market's royalty fees, there was no interest in the effort to kill it by actively buying up patents and studying others for possible use. WebM is currently in 1 day set for use on many internet sites - not sites that need DRM'd content to pretend that people can't steal it, but ordinary video streaming at least - and this means that, especially with Flash about to support/encourage WebM as well so taking away many DRM'd streaming sites, the potential for license fees for H.264 creators is severely slashed if not almost completely eliminated. They'll all have a particular interest in teaming up to use as many patents as they can to kill it.

The major hope here is that Google's had lawyers looking at patents for months and already has a defence already in the offing - which is likely to say the least bearing in mind how much they paid for the company in the first place and that rumour has long suggested that open web video was the major/only reason for the purchase.

46Bit

none

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, I presume YouTube's videos will be served in Flash for those without support for this for years - after all, Adobe's supporting it in Flash - so people without support will still be able to see the videos for a long while.

46Bit

A prediction

I give them two weeks till the patent lawsuit is filed, and an absolute shitstorm of web campaigns/etc backing Google over this. I then expect the lawsuit going on for a couple of years, Google eventually winning by proving the patents used against are trivial (which is certainly true for many of them), the web proclaiming victory only being due to their campaigns even though that probably won't be true, and then a fairly good path for web video afterwards. Just my two cents.

Pirate Bay resurfaces after German legal depth-charge

46Bit
Happy

Clever

Love the abbreviation of Motion Picture Ass. of America, very subtle.

Freebie Spotify is back, also £5 no-ads option

46Bit

Untrue

I very much suspect all you need to get free Spotify is stump up a tenner for a month's premium access. Once that expires I suspect you'd just be downgraded to ordinary free spotify, very much doubt you'll just get chucked off the service.

Ubuntu open to greater touch

46Bit

Actually...

I was referring to their confidence over grabbing desktop/laptop users, this article was just a place to express my thoughts on the matter. As for the writing... hmm, not quite sure what to say but yes, I probably do.

Facebook convenes privacy 'crisis' meeting

46Bit

BTW

Anyone know if this still happens if one is logged out when visiting the site (ie you clicked Log Out last time you visited FB, not that you don't have it open atm)?

46Bit

Precisely who would consider using this as they'd like?

Even stranger than what FB can get away with privacy wise is why on earth you get people filling out reams of personal info in the first place. If memory serves, when I signed up in order to reserve a vanity url (or whatever you call them) as soon as I logged in I had a prompt asking me to fill out more personal information than you'd probably agree to giving to your employer - pages of names, birthdates, emails, addresses, phone #s, urls, friends, location, and way more.

When Twitter asks for effectively 4 things - a unique username, your name, a location, and your email - I struggle to see why anyone would use FB. Yes, it provides image uploading etc - more for revealing everything about you - but at least Twitter has third-party apps for the like and to me is actually useful in finding various web dev resources and news.

IWF: Good on child abuse...

46Bit
FAIL

Erm

Whilst I agree they're a bunch of idiots albeit it with a respectable aim perhaps, I think you'll find that 48 + 44 = 92, not 102...

Exam board deletes C and PHP from CompSci A-levels

46Bit

Untitled

This is still true. It has to be because a lot of places don't offer it, let alone a true Comp. Sci A Level, and so otherwise you're excluding people like me because their school has only a very limited interest.

46Bit
Pint

Ordinary IT teachers ...

I'd agree with this very much. To be frank, plain IT teachers tend to have little/no actual knowledge other than teaching how to use M$ Office and the like from my experience - to the point where, when asked to develop a basic site, if you (as I did...) code it manually with decent code you get accused of having stolen it from the internet. I spent about an hour trying to convince that teacher I actually made it myself, and in the end I'm still pretty sure he didn't believe me.

46Bit

Re: Work experience anyone?

What would you say Comp Sci undergrads should study then? I'm not trying to criticise you here, I'm just curious.

BBC nicely summarises Gordon Brown's legacy

46Bit

Re: Missing

After trillion it's quadrillion then quintillion, etc etc. But yes, this whole drive to reduce the public debt will never actually happen as is needed under Labour - they'll get it down to what it was a few short years ago and say 'enoughs enough' without tackling it all. Personally I'm of the opinion that Britain MUST in future make sure that at least every second year it has a budget surplus come what may. That wouldn't atall be easy, but otherwise we're just starting a cycle of:

Gov hires loads more workers (from managers to the actual useful staff) --> Deficit gets really high --> Gov fires most useful workers but keeps bureaucrats --> Deficit reduces --> Gov hires --> ...

46Bit

Re: plenty of legacy

He did abolish Boom & Bust - it's bust forever now.

Twitter bomb joker found guilty

46Bit
Black Helicopters

Oh don't you love the bureaucratic pillocks in society!

This guy deserved nothing to happen to him. I could understand him being arrested if he was on some sort of watch list/etc, but realistically this is just completely anti-free-speech. Are you really telling me that the Gov has nothing better to do but justify the 'war' on terror (in reality them doing everything they can to encourage/promote the 'major' terrorist threat in order to justify their jobs and dictatorial fascist powers (stop & search, detention without charge, ~cctv, crazy airport searches, no right to keeping encrypted data private, etc etc)).

Forget this guy, the people who [disclaimer: this is not intended as a libellious, terrorist-promoting, off-the-cuff or free-speech-supporting remark] have nothing better to do but deal with this are the ones who deserve to get prosecuted, lose their jobs, and be fined.

McKinnon's mum fights for civil liberties in parliamentary run

46Bit
Big Brother

Indeed, nobody seems to care but a few

For years I'd always assumed Labour's rhetoric about only the wealthy caring about civil liberties was their usual tripe - a pack of lies designed to bring itself about - but recently it does seem that at least in my circle I'm the only one who sees anything wrong with Deep Packet Inspection, Interception Modernisation, indeed CCTV, traffic cameras, having to hand over encryption keys or being locked away, and indeed the ID Cards which everyone seems to forget *will* eventually become mandatory and their current voluntary state is simply so Labour can brush questions aside this election.

Seriously though, on my trip to college every day, we pass about 9 speed cameras - enough to lose your license twice and more over. A string of 4 are actually all within line of sight of each other - and this on a rather winding road. It's plain moneygrabbing - there's no real public bloody order purpose.

Palin email jury reaches verdicts on 3 of 4 counts

46Bit
FAIL

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

You completely missed my point. I was pointing out that it clearly wasn't fully Not Guilty of the other charges, not saying that Identity Theft was a definite.

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