Posts by zb
129 posts • joined Wednesday 10th November 2010 16:23 GMT
If that is an apocryphal story ...
I would have finished it like this:
Hawking taps away on his speech synthesiser for a few seconds, after which the machine utters the words, "take off your towel and sit down"
Carpe diem
Seize the day. You will always regret not giving it a go.
Re: I wonder how much of the opposition matches mine?
I think I could accept the idea of an identity card that did not have a number, just name, address, dob, photo.
In several countries I have lived in there was a requirement to carry an ID card at all times. Because of this every time you want to do even a trivial transaction they want to record your number: golf club, doctor, hotel, season ticket, bank, phone, electricity, white goods shops and a long list of etcs They do it for no other reason than they can and they have a computer to store the numbers.
The idea that I can be tracked through almost every aspect of my life just by searching for a number is what terrifies me. Every government and police force has abused every power it has ever had. Numbered ID cards would be a step too far.
It is hard to decide which one of those machines I am less likely to buy.
Re: mothers day
In England there is no "Mothers Day". We do have Mothering Sunday which is a christian festival falling on the 4th Sunday in Lent.
Re: Not just Apple
Not just Apple but airbnb too. They just asked me to upload a copy of my driving licence and did not reply when i told them no way.
If too many people just blindly follow instructions like these other companies will copy and they will soon control everything. And so will the people who hack them.
Re: Never heard of them (an I book a lot of hotels)
Probably because airbnb is nothing to do with hotels.
Hint: the BnB bit stands for bed and breakfast. Most of the locations are in private homes or small investors' lettings.
Re: Bollocks to that
AC said
"As things stand you'd just cancel the booking and try again (clearing cookies and maybe a quick IP change) and hope you're not one of the unlucky 20%"
No, that could not happen. To book you have to register on the site, prove ID by mobile phone and prepay a non-refundable deposit by credit card. Nothing to do with cookies and IP
I have used them quite a lot in the past and found the whole system very good. It is a shame as if they start doing stuff like this I am going to have to find an alternative.
Bad news
Sorry to drag you down even further but your tubes are going to get even worse.
Once you have completed your fast you are going to celebrate with some sort of binge. Your body, by then, will be used to the sort of diet that the most ascetic monk would accept and there is going to be a seismic explosion as it it rejects the sudden influx of rich nosh, booze etc.
Advise your neighbours who cannot evacuate while you evacuate to buy earplugs and clothes pegs.
Posted in Linux kernel 3.9 lands
3 Version over 22 years
Well yes, that is right and your points are valid. But version 3.0 was launched on July 22, 2011. Less than 2 years later we have already hit 3.9. Version 2 was lauunched on June 9, 1996.
I think the OP was referring to the numbering inflation rather than complaining about promiscuous versioning. I thought that 11 down votes for that post a bit excessive.
I t leaves me wondering if this post can beat his downvotes :)
Re: What gives ANY company the right...
Even Steve Jobs never thought of doing that!
And yes, I don´t like it and do vote with my wallet. This sort of thing pisses me off and is why I have pensioned off my Macbook Pro and iPod and now have a Samsung laptop running Ubuntu and a Galaxy S3 phone. And I don´t touch anything form Mcrosoft or Sony either. Now I will have to think about dumping Google as well.
Re: What gives ANY company the right...
Clearly the answer is no.
Try logging in username: WINDOWS, password: MyPass1234
Re: DRM can´t work,
They don´t need DRM to work perfectly. It is fine if it is hard for 95% of people to copy movies. The geeks will always find a way around anything - just for the hell of it if for no other reason. The rest of the world will find it hard and confusing. The industry will continue to fight against file sharing but never expect anything more than temporary advantages.
Most people I know have computers, smart phones, tablets, Kindles etc but they really don´t have a clue how to use them properly. I know of two sisters aged 12 and 14 who regularly buy the same music from iTunes. My sister and her husband sometimes buy the same Kindle books from Amazon. They would have no idea how to use emule or piratebay even if the thought occurred to them.
The people that I know who do file share have massive collections of movies, music etc - far more than they can ever use and a hundred times more that they would have bought if they could not copy. This is mostly how the industry claims the billions of lost revenue.
So relax, Netflix know what they are doing and how their business model works. That is more than I can say for Hollywood and the music industry.
Re: The widespread belief that lithium-ion batteries don't suffer from “charge memory”
My Samsung Chronos laptop has a setting in the BIOS allowing the user to set a maximum battery charge of 80% to prolong the life of the battery. It seems to work very nicely. I disable the setting when going on long trips and keep it at 80% most of the time.
CIO?
According to wikipedia it could stand for
chief information officer, the head of information technology
chief innovation officer, the head of innovation, responsible for innovation management
chief investment officer, the head of investments, especially at an asset manager or an institutional investor
Even here and with an acronym like CIO needs to be expressed in full the first time it is used.
Re: Receiving stolen goods is still a crime.
No, it is not necessarily a crime. There has to be some sort of guilty knowledge or intent
The offence is created by section 22(1) of the Theft Act 1968 which says
A person handles stolen goods if (otherwise than in the course of stealing), knowing or believing them to be stolen goods he dishonestly receives the goods, or dishonestly undertakes or assists in their retention, removal, disposal or realisation by or for the benefit of another person, or if he arranges to do so.
Of course in this case UK law is not relevant and it is Iranian law thay must be considered.
Second hand books
I buy the old books from my library for 50p or so each to take abroad and read there. Presumably the publishers will have no objection to libraries selling me their deteriorated e-books and for me to pass them on to my ex-pat friends when I have read them. After all, publishers want e-books to be just like real books - or is it just when it suits them?
I do hope so
" MasterCard clearly feels the PayPal's raison d'etre has been largely eliminated - so the time has come for the killer punch."
The pain PP has given me makes me hope that they die, painfully. Not that I have much time for the credit cards companies either.
All programs?
So what about the news and phone-ins and live voting?
I guess they mean many/most programmes
Re: Could be worse
Maybe we need a "Bad Joke Alert" icon.
Inflation
Last August the figure was only 4 billion
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/09/kittycam_discovers_killer_cats/
Are we to conclude that El Reg is not a reliable source of information about cats?
Acronymns Really Bite
I do wish people would not use jargon and expect others to know what they mean. Which one of these did you point at?
ARB Arbitrage
Business » General
ARB The Architectural Review Board
Miscellaneous » Unclassified
ARB Angiotensin Receptor Blocker
Medical » Laboratory
ARB Angiotensin Receptor Blocker
Medical » Human Genome
ARB Architecture Review Board
Governmental » US Government
ARB Accounting Research Bulletins
Business » Accounting
ARB Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
Miscellaneous » Unclassified
ARB Acquisition Review Board
Governmental » US Government
ARB Acquisition Review Board
Governmental » Military
ARB American Realty Trust, Inc.
Business » NYSE Symbols
ARB Accident Report Book
Governmental » Police
ARB Asociación de Radio Banda
International » Guatemalan
ARB Aij Request Block
Computing » Assembly
ARB Active Rere Beam
Academic & Science » Physics
ARB Acronymns Really Bite
Miscellaneous » Unclassified
ARB Anti Roll Bracket
Miscellaneous » Unclassified
ARB Automatic Remote Brakes
Miscellaneous » Unclassified
ARB Athiest Religion Beliefs
Miscellaneous » Unclassified
ARB Argentine Rainbow Boa
Miscellaneous » Unclassified
ARB Australian Roo Bar
I doubt if anyone expects any compensation, it is probably enough for the claimants that Google incurs a large legal bill, some bad publicity and a spell on the naughty step. . Oh, did I forget the claimant's lawyers? No doubt any settlement will include a massive wodge of moolah for them. These things are usually lawyer driven.
So yes, you are right, the UK is getting like the US :(
Re: It is only
Their new motto is don't do anything that is totally evil ... unless it increases the share price.
Re: Am I the only one...
Maybe you are just a square
Happy birthday Lisa
I saw the headline and groaned "not another Simpsons story" and skipped the rest.
I wonder ....
My guess is that a few plods will take early retirement on full pensions while the journos will feel the full majesty of the law.
Phd and medical doctor?
Should he be called Dr Dr Chen?
Re: copyright laws are now anti-public
According to the hospital web page:
Q. Does great Ormond Street Hospital have the copyright in Peter Pan in perpetuity?
A. No, the hospital has a right to royalty in perpetuity, but this is not a true copyright. This right only applies to the UK for stage productions, broadcasting and publication of the whole or any substantial part of the work or an adaptation of it.
http://www.gosh.org/gen/peterpan/copyright/faq/#Copyright
Re: Remember..
IP law is not my strongest suit but there seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread. Dylan and his heirs will have the US copyright to the songs he has written for his lifetime plus 70 years. This is not to be confused with protecting the rights of the artist recording a song (regardless of who wrote it).
To my knowledge Clff Richard never wrote a song in his life; his campaign was to prolong the royalties he received on his recordings. It seems pretty clear to me that the Dylan re-releases are all about performance and not performing rights.
Not that it changes my opinion that the whole can of copyright worms stinks.
Re: FFS
Did you mean the inches of his column?
I bet the perps are El Reg readers.
Re: less pranks, more apps
My Mum (age 89) has used Linux since she gave up Windows about 6 years ago. My wife also exclusively uses Linux. Neither know what compiling means. I just stick in an Ubuntu disc and an hour later it is all up and running. It all "just works" There are considerably few driver problems than with Windows. It also comes with all the apps they need fully installed.
I have never recompiled a driver (or a kernel) in my life but it is nice to know that if I am ever need to do so it can be done.
"I know I'm going to get downvoted into a hole for this but just because ...."
... just because you are banging on about a subject about which you know little.
Re: As usual...
I am waiting for the price of 3G to come down low enough for me to want it.
Cool
I never realised that Apple had invented the TV
Posted in Are you ready for the 40-zettabyte year?
Only 40 zettabytes by 2020?
Or is that the estimate for what Google will use?
Posted in John McAfee 'captured'
Now the world is a safer place and we can all sleep more easily in our beds.
For some time now I have challenged the loonies who believe in this rubbish with a very fair offer. Sell me your house now for cash at 50% of its market value and I will allow you to live there rent free until 31st December.
Suddenly their sincerely held beliefs become a little less secure when they turn down a chance to indulge in a few fantasies with a big wodge of cash.
Sounds like a bargain to me
Here in Brazil the 16GB iPhone 4S costs R$2000 which at today's rate is almost £600. Apple appear to be too ashamed to quote the prices of phones with more storage
http://store.apple.com/br/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone4s
The good news is that it includes free shipping!
Re: Not for me
Try putting a space after cat
cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr
That reminds me ...
... of the joke about the distillery worker who fell in a VAT of whisky and drowned. He had to get out twice to have a pee.
Re: Jobs vs Cook round 2
That was a very witty remark and whichever plonker downvoted it had obviously never heard of William Shakespeare, Juilius Caesar and other minor historical figures.
Unlock the phone
It costs about £5 and takes 5 minutes in any number of small phone repair and computer shops around where I live. There is even one bar where the owner does it while you have a beer.
I can see that it might be entertaining to join in a multi-billion dollar class action but there is an easy solution to the perceived problem.
150MPH?
The Jaguar marketing department was not that daft if people still believe their 150mph claim. Nowadays they would be in court facing the trading standards lawyers. It could not do 150 downhill with a following wind, not even close. 140 definitely, maybe 141 or even 142 tops.
Re: Inquiring minds...
But that does not prove that the WAP did not kill him. Maybe without it he would have reached a massive 12 years.
The headline does mention evidence-based science :)
Criminal record?
Does this mean that Manchester Police are now on some sort of register of known offenders and their members barred from helping children cross the road and other potentially dangerous activities?
Zend it like Beckham
There really should be a Nobel Prize for headlines
