So......

No, he doesn't have a clue, but can get people talking about him.

Okay......

Nice journalism.

Who made life its self happen then?

Unless we go the silly god or alien seed route, then, no one. It happened spontaneously as a result of environmental conditions.

He says "we" have to make it happen. No, he is 100% wrong. What "we" have to do is provide the conditions for it to happen. That is what Earth did. And it was random, no design.

Artificial life will be discovered, not created or invented. One day, some researcher will discover it, with in some other project or research. My total guess is that it will appear with in quantum computing research.

Question then is what do you do? Can you kill it? Should it be preserved? Will or should it have rights?

So it looks like spineless Clegg is u-turning again. What a shock. I wonder what the lib dems were offered this time? Use of the reclining chair?

You'd think the bible bashing yanks would get the message.

"In America, there's a sense of fairness that's culturally true for all of us. "

Comedian, is he? Fairness? Yeah, for Americans, sure, but ask about American fairness across the planet, and if lucky, you'll just get laughter.

For a lot of people.... if you cant pirate it, you cant learn it. If you can learn it, you wont use it. If you dont use it, Adobe goes bust.

Yes, its insulting like when posh kids go off on gap years to poor countries to see how lucky they are, and claim to be helping. Giles Wemmbly Hogg springs to mind.

The whole point is that "rich" people playing at poverty know that it will end. They have no idea what it is really like to be in poverty with no hope and no end in sight. These moronic experiments are more like novelty holidays than anything else. Worse still, people who do this then start on the poor claiming that if they can do it, so can the poor, while forgetting how unrealistic that actually is because the person in question has a whole different set of resources to begin with. Its like a poor person breaking in to an office sitting in a chair and believing that means they they have experienced what its like to run a business.

So, yes, its insulting, nauseating , not to mention unrealistic.

These days I can hardly tell the difference between a normal Reg article and an april fool. Its just read like the normal stupidity. Dont see how it was funny or wild at all. The story was as stupid as the writing. Normal reg story.

Apart from google, and everything the UK government does, this year's april fools have been complete rubbish. Shame.

ENOUGH ALREADY

People here are total morons.

BBC licence fee comes up, you complain.

Sky charge subscriptions, you complain.

You get ad breaks, you complain.

You get pay per view again, you complain.

Now all there is left is product placement, and guess what? The El Reg moronosphere complains yet again.

You stupid people seem to think this stuff gets made for free, and expect to get if for free.

Yeah, I like to download TV shows. I want these shows the way I want them. I;d rather torrent than watch live with ad breaks. Product placement is the only system that is left. How else do you all think TV shows or even movies can be financed? Bloody fairies?

Either damn well pay up, or accept that some how they need us to see these ads. This is me is a decent solution. What matters is that it does not influence the script. If sticking some product placement means I can go over to Fox.com and download their latest shows for free, then fan-bloody-tastic.

But for god's sake, give these people a break. TV, etc, does NOT get made for free. Right now, the this is the only solution that can pay for content while delivering it for free.

What would be rank offensive is if we get this product placement added to content we already pay for via ad breaks, sponsorship, subscription or licence fee.

God, who to hate more? Paypal? Google? Credit peddlers? Banks? And that's with out MS, Apple, Ebay, and Facebook. Oh, government. Forgot them.

Seriously, how do we sort these b'stards out? Why must we be at the mercy of these faceless, self-serving pieces of........?

"Capture that value".

Phrases like that make me feel violent.

The only people stupid enough to fall for it were the great journaltards here.

I suppose with this venture, they dont have to let any one from the NYT review it.

Because some one might do something naughty, every one get criminalised. That is how laws are made these days, and where our freedom is going.

So what? Virgin Media is sold to the yanks, which means they now have access to all our data. VM users, you are now liable to US law and extradition.

Is that Rodney Trotter?

The "cloud" is the very definition of yesterday's idea wrapped in tomorrows dream. Its little more than FTP and terminals.

Trying to be trendy and "in" is fine, if not sad, when pretending to own onesies, but this cloud lark is plain dangerous. Fine, stick non critical stuff in a cloud like your stupid holiday snaps, but NOT my damn medical records. Once your data is in a cloud you have lost all reasonable control over it. Worse still, of some muppet allows some thing American to touch it, suddenly the US gov thinks its entitled to our medical records. Great. If this happens, I'll think twice about what I say to doctors, hell, I'll think twice about even visiting one. And this is with out the spectre of connection problems at critical time. Imagine the cloud being inaccessible during an emergency?

Why the hell is every one falling for this kings new clothes? Christ, some twat will "invent" a terminal server next.

Oh what's the point? Facebook and twitter probably have more than enough medical information freely given by their sheep idiot users to screw over the average punter.

Give it a year of tabloid harassment, and it'll be in IACGMOOH by next year. Any you know what? It'll win.

Isn't the point of the graph to show how mental the computer market was at that time?

Right, I know very little about this in any detail. However......

The vibe I get is that HP are some how trying to push the edges of those US laws, that see businessmen go to jail for improper behaviour, in order to mitigate their financial losses and mistakes. And from what I can detect about these financial cases, there is little fairness or understanding because tax and financial laws are so damn complicated. In the end, it looks like a toss of a coin or mere opinion as to what is and isn't some sort of fraud or malpractice. You only have to look at how the public are led to believe that tax allowances given by government to encourage specific type of investment are evil tax loop holes. Yes, sometimes it wrong, but something its right. But, how can any one really make a fair judgement, unless some this really clear cut.

But I do think HP are trying to spin the law to make others responsible for their mistake(s). Which I think is corporate bullying and fraud, supported by the US "justice" system. This seems to be a US tactic of sorts. It kinda reminds me of Apple and Samsung.

And, sorry, but I cant help thinking that this may never have come up had it been a US company HP bought. I also wonder if the fact its a UK company is relevant too. We do tend to sh!t on our people and send them to the US with out much concern.

Look, I don't know. But over all, as a system, something here seems horrible off kilter. Clearly I'm not 100% sure how to express it, but really, something smells off here in general. Its like law is now some sort of wheel to spin in Vegas, rather than something to do with justice.

ID

I have a solution to the national ID problem.

Let Facebook handle it.

Almost every one is quite happy to share all sorts of intimate details with Facebook for Facebooks's profitable exploitation, so let them do it. That way, every one's happy.

P122 taking aside, couldn't the government nazis just demonstrate that they want much less data than facebook to show how benign their case is? No, I would buy that either, but I'm pretty sure the majority of zombie plebs would happily lap that up. "Hey, look at all the info you give FB, we just want an incy wincy bit of that. Not so bad, aye?". Er.... deeerrrrrr...... OK.

In fact, how much must it annoy the gov that we happily give all these details to the stupid web sites, but don't like our own dear gov having it?

Oh FFS, this is insane.

So every country will have to have its own set of 30 odd GPS sats in orbit because no one trusts any one else. US, China, Russian, then perhaps India, Pakistan, EU, N Korea, Arab states etc, etc. OK, not quite, but you know..... 240 sats to start with.

Cant this poxy planet do anything freely as one? Oh no. "We" must have our own ability to feck every one else over, or find our way to Primark.

In general I still cant believe people believe in the con of the cloud. That whole thing is creepy and underhand. I could never ever rely on such a system. My personal data placed on some one else's system, only ever accessible from the web? No ta. Useful as throw away space for specifics, but not a lot else.

Ah, I see poverty envy is rife here too.

Happy xmas.

Have the US creators of Stuxnet been in front of any court?

I adore the way that almost every country consider its spying and theft as fair enough, but spits the dummy if others do it to them. Funnily enough, its the USA that bleats most loudly.

Unless some one tells us how much our screens should have cost, then who cares?

"Foreign states may already have used malware to map the networks that support the UK's critical infrastructure systems, the government admitted."

Really? Malware?

Er, might be my mate Scot. He lives round there, is 6ft silly, and owns a movie quality Predator costume.