* Posts by Trainee grumpy old ****

188 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Nov 2010

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China's 'Deep Panda' crew targets Middle East policy wonks - report

Trainee grumpy old ****
Trollface

Pretty smart - get someone else to pay for your protetcion

"Thus, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Chinese government is highly interested in getting a better sense of the possibility of deeper U.S. military involvement that could help protect the Chinese oil infrastructure in Iraq,”

"The West" (mainly US/UK/OZ) in its role as the World's Policeman(TM) spends lives and money "bringing democracy" to various countries and dealing with eruptions of local difficulties. The Chinese come along behind and do business. Smart that.

Google BLOCKS access to Goldman client-leak email

Trainee grumpy old ****
Alert

I wonder

Will we see an upsurge in phishing emails apparently from gs.com addresses?

Mail body contains some financial jargon and signature with references to SOX etc.. No exhortations to open the attachment. I'll bet there will be a few marks who wont be able open the attachment fast enough.

BBC: Bumpkins, hobbits need fairer coverage

Trainee grumpy old ****
Unhappy

Re: I live in a town in the Cotswolds...

>> Anyway, I just want more tech shows BBC, go on, more technology please!

Unfortunately the BBC's "technology" output falls way short of the expectations of many El Reg readers.

LEAKED: Redmond not allowed to sell 'Nokia' smartphones after 2015

Trainee grumpy old ****
FAIL

No wonder Elop didn't get a look in for MS CEO

Despite having their own man in charge they still couldn't get a favourable deal to buy Nokia.

Whoops! Google's D-Day Doodle honors ... Japan

Trainee grumpy old ****
Joke

Some one has to say it

Google were following the instructions from that well known documentary.

"Don't mention the war!"

Revealed: GCHQ's beyond top secret Middle Eastern internet spy base

Trainee grumpy old ****
Black Helicopters

Re: Britain's got secrets

>>"At what level are things really kept secret"

>That would be Strap 4, which covers codewords like CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN.

Beyond that you have to have signed paragraph 4 of the OSA.

Labour calls for BIG OVERHAUL of UK super-snoop powers in 'new digital world'

Trainee grumpy old ****

Re: Okay so this will work like the last election.

All the main-stream political parties are as bad as each other. Vote Monster Raving Loony - you know it makes sense.

UK.gov back-office battle may see British Justice offshored

Trainee grumpy old ****

Re: For sale - Great Britain PLC

Bids and offers of Directorships to the Tory Party HQ the HQ of whichever party is in power at the time.

FTFY

It has been so for some time now.

Child sex abuse image peddlers dodge UK smut filters and demand Bitcoin payments

Trainee grumpy old ****
Stop

Re: Daily Mail headlines write themselves

Is everybody going to ignore the real story of what bitcoin may have had to do with the DEATH OF DIANA?

Wrong tabloid.We're talking about the Daily Wail here. For DoD(*) you want the Sexpress.

(*): Death of D....

How a Facebook post by blabbermouth daughter cost her parents $80,000

Trainee grumpy old ****

Re: The real problem isn't that she revealed they'd got money.

> The real problem is that in the US, companies can issue gag orders like this to hush scandals down.

And here I thought the left-pondians were critical of UK judicial proceedings and super injunctions. Imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery.

UK unis, McAfee collude to beat collusion attacks

Trainee grumpy old ****
WTF?

McAfee really?

Given that McAfee's best known product is memorable for its ability to reduce a perfectly normal PC to a crawl such that there is little to differentiate it from malware would you really want something from them on your phone?

What the world really needs: A telescopic SELFIE STICK

Trainee grumpy old ****
Boffin

Re: Camera-onna-stick

A snack that would probably only be of interest to trolls. Totally lacking in key nutrition groups (e.g. gristle) for humans and associated species.

'G-WIZ like' object doing 40,000 MPH CRASHES on the MOON

Trainee grumpy old ****
Trollface

60,000 MPH

I bet there is a "safety camera partnership" operative who wishes he was there.

Object to #YearOfCode? You're a misogynist and a snob, says the BBC

Trainee grumpy old ****

Re: How to teach maths

You've got me stumped!

How do you weigh out 10 lbs using weights which are all multiples of 7? I can get 10.5 lbs but not 10, and that too it takes 2 weighings.

Workings:

a) Weigh out 21 lbs (14+7)

b) Put the weights away and split the potatoes weighed in 'a' equally between the two pans.

Trainee grumpy old ****
Thumb Up

Re: We don't have anyone competent to do that

> no law would ever yet have been finalized by Parliament. They'd all still be in perpetual debug mode.

Given some legislation and some attempted legislation in the not so dim and distant past that possibly would be no bad thing.

SCRAP the TELLY TAX? Ancient BBC Time Lords mull Beeb's future

Trainee grumpy old ****
Thumb Down

Re: Just a News Operation

As a child growing up in a far away land, the World Service brought us news and entertainment. Today it is, for all practical purposes, "news only". I doubt we would have listened as much to it then if it had been in the format it is now.

Credit card of PayPal PRESIDENT cloned by UK crooks

Trainee grumpy old ****
Holmes

Re: ...cloned by UK crooks.

I'm sure one of our magnificent "news" papers will find that it was an illegal immigrant wot done it.

Friends don't do tech support for friends running Windows XP

Trainee grumpy old ****
WTF?

Re: I don't have any friends.

>> If you fix my Vista box I will be your friend.

> Ways to terminate a friendship.

> #234: can you fix my Windows computer?

#234? It must surely rank much higher than that.

Why IBM's server sell-off is a lightbulb moment

Trainee grumpy old ****
Thumb Down

Re: Avoid the commodity

>> 20 years ago, we had Windows 3.11 and Office 6.

20 years ago, where I worked, we used WordPerfect.

No version of MS Office in all the years since has been even half as powerful for consistently getting documents to look exactly like you want them to.

KC engineer 'exposed unencrypted spreadsheet with phone numbers, user IDs, PASSWORDS'

Trainee grumpy old ****
Boffin

Re: Breach of DPA

>> Ok, so can someone please provide an explanation of how this practice might be in breach of the Data Protection Act?

The principles of the act are listed here: http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guide/the_principles

At the very least, principle 3 would appear to be being breached.

Trainee grumpy old ****
Big Brother

NTL/Virgin

Many moons ago I had a problem logging in to my "My NTL"/"My Virgin Media" (can't remember if it was before or after the re-branding). Anyway, the helpful person in Philippines / India was able to tell me my password - and this was one I had changed some time in the even more dim and distant past. I remember this because the password was a rather, uh, strange combination of words and the person commented on it.

Cryptocurrencies now being pooped out by cartoon cat

Trainee grumpy old ****
Alert

I hope we never ever EVER see.....

<shudder> Goatsecoin </shudder>

Reading this headline? You and 9.47 million others

Trainee grumpy old ****

Re: Smarm

One reason I regularly read the Register is for the (generally) insightful and / or amusing comments provided by many of the regular commentards.

Tldr: It's the commentards wot makes El Reg so interesting.

India's spooks prepare to peer through their own PRISM

Trainee grumpy old ****
Black Helicopters

300GB / 400GB?

Taking the population at 1.27 billion (BEELION!), 300 to 400 GB works out to just about a couple of bytes per head. Even if only 0.1% of the entire population is being monitored and data retained that's still just a few KB each. Which begs the question is the limit really 300 GB / 400 GB across everyone or is it per person?

WATCH LIVE: Comet ISON DESTROYED by Sun, NASA brains fear

Trainee grumpy old ****

Next time just let the comet turn up without any hype.

Calling every other comet the "Comet of the Century" seems to be a guaranteed kiss of death.

NASA probecraft to FLY the SKIES of MARS - IF it can make its launch window

Trainee grumpy old ****
Trollface

$671 million?

How many commentards will be questioning how a first world country with a debt mountain and a portion of citizens who cannot afford basic healthcare can justify splurging $671 million on a mission to further human knowledge of another planet.

None.

Cue the down votes.

Thought you didn't need to show ID in the UK? Wrong

Trainee grumpy old ****

Many moons ago there was a spell where, at least once a month, I used to fly BMI Baby from a southern UK airport to Glasgow (and back) for work. Invariably on the way out the check-in person would leaf through my well stamped and stickered double-booklet non-EU passport to the extent that I once told one of them "Scotland doesn't require visas yet". Funnily enough on the way back the check-in person rarely bothered with more than a cursory glance.

UK's tech capital named: Read it and weep, Tech City startup hipsters

Trainee grumpy old ****
Mushroom

" Small town east of Reading"

For a moment there I thought it was going to be Slough. Close call.

MEGA ASTEROID could 'BLOW UP EARTH' - Russian space boss

Trainee grumpy old ****
Boffin

1:1,000,000

As we all know: Every time there is a one in a million chance of something happening then it will happen. The corollary of this is - if it's not got a one in a million chance then it will not happen.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3: Once, twice, three times - a Very Large Phone™

Trainee grumpy old ****
Unhappy

Re: Region locking

I would take anything that Currys tech support says with a large sackful of salt. I place more trust in Clove (http://www.clove.co.uk) and on their Note 3 page they say:

"...For example; If you travel to the USA, be it for business or pleasure, you can use your UK / EU issued SIM card and 'roam' on the US networks, but you can not substitute your EU SIM for a US SIM card in this mobile device."

This for me is a deal breaker so will be sticking with my Note (v1) for the foreseeable future. Will explore installing Cyanogen or another ROM even if that means losing some/all of the stylus functionality.

Thousands! of! Yahoo! Mail! users! driven! crazy! by! revamp!

Trainee grumpy old ****
Coat

Re: The Producers...

> Springtime for GMail and Microsoft, winter for Yahoo and ...?

Boing?

Apple bags top Windows feature: Blue Screen Of Death arrives on iPhone 5S

Trainee grumpy old ****
Trollface

RE: BSOD? Does Apple have any original ideas anymore?

I think you will find that Apple owns the patent on BSODs and it is Windows that has been infringing all these years.

Either that, or: It is a cool new feature that the fanbois can't get enough off.

The legacy IE survivor's guide: Firefox, Chrome... more IE?

Trainee grumpy old ****

Re: Editorial suggestion

> And how about occasionally checking an article for typo's?

El Reg channeling the Grauniad?

Ex-Sun journalist charged with handling a stolen mobile phone

Trainee grumpy old ****
Stop

Don't seem to be hearing the "only a few journalists at one paper" line anymore

He is described as an "ex-Sun journalist" and there does not seem to be any mention of a prior career at the NOTW.

Strange that.

30 years on: The day a computer glitch nearly caused World War III

Trainee grumpy old ****
Unhappy

Re: He may down play his actions

>> Overpaid people who tell everyone how good they are without actually being any good at anything are so much better, don't you think?

Only applies to the people at the very top. The ordinary supervisor is just another (expendable) minion.

iOS 7 SPANKS Samsung's Android in user-experience rating

Trainee grumpy old ****
Boffin

Re: so does that mean

>> If I can find one I plan to get a 64GB GSM Note 3, so far only seen 32GB

Why limit yourself to 64 gigs? If the Note 3 is anything like the original Note, you can add your own micro SDHC/SDXC card.

Latest Snowden reveal: It was GCHQ that hacked Belgian telco giant

Trainee grumpy old ****
Holmes

Re: Why Worry? Changei.....

I could understand that.

Either amanfrommars has overdosed on the frog pills OR you, sir, are an imposter. If I were a betting man I know where my money would be.

'Who knew in 1984 that Steve Jobs would be Big Brother?'

Trainee grumpy old ****

Re: What the scanner does do well

>> With just a pass code lock, you can identify that an authorised phone user made a call. With this you can demonstrate exactly who it was. Loss of any semi-plausible deniability.

Never used an i-anything, but does that mean you don't have an "Emergency call" option? i.e. the ability to manually enter a number and make a call without unlocking the phone and accessing the contact list

'NSA PRISM spies' shake down victims with bogus child-abuse vids claims

Trainee grumpy old ****
WTF?

"Ceratin"

Is there some sort of rule that obliges scammers to make spelling or grammatical errors? (click on the picture to expand -> second and third bits of legalese)

Should Nominet ban .uk domains that use paedo and crim-friendly words?

Trainee grumpy old ****
Devil

Re: Nice business you've got here, guv

Surely "Mail" must be a code word for something?

Trainee grumpy old ****
Thumb Up

Re: What I told them.

> Opening and fostering the discussion means that you are intellectually and morally incapable of contributing to the conversation.

If only I could up-vote this more than once.

This will have to do ====>

Snowden: US and Israel did create Stuxnet attack code

Trainee grumpy old ****
Joke

Re: "most trusted services in the world if they actually desire to do so."

>> "Who needs the Taliban, when you've got roundabouts."

You mean Milton Keynes is a hub of world terror? It now all makes sense!

Media phone-hacking? Tip of the iceberg, says leaked police report

Trainee grumpy old ****
Big Brother

Re: 1984 on Steroids

A new status symbol? If you're not worth spying on then you are a nobody?

The Reg puts Vulture inside the Large Hadron Collider

Trainee grumpy old ****
Boffin

Page 2 - top-most picture

What is the symbol in the yellow triangle near the top of the frame? And what does it mean?

This 320-gigapixel snap of London is size of Buckingham Palace

Trainee grumpy old ****
Alien

Re: Something for the conspiracy theorists..?

If you zoom in real close you suddenly jump "through" the building?

Trainee grumpy old ****
Black Helicopters

Re: Well, that was quick.

and for a bonus point - was that BT's web-blocker / firewall message?

Higgs data shows alternate reality will SWALLOW UNIVERSE

Trainee grumpy old ****
Trollface

Obligatory Daily Fail angle

It will drive down house prices!!

Traceroute reveals Star Wars Episode IV 'crawl' text

Trainee grumpy old ****
WTF?

El Reg, I'm worried about you

Time was when I could read stories like this here days before they appeared anywhere else. This is the second deja vu story this week.

Australian Prime Minister: Mayan calendar 'true'

Trainee grumpy old ****
Alien

We're doomed!

That's no spoof: it's a secret message to her lizard cohorts!

Troll sues Apple for daring to plug headphones into iPhone

Trainee grumpy old ****
Coat

Dr Evil is that you?

Three million dollars?

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