* Posts by Dave the Cat

120 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Feb 2012

McKinnon will not be extradited to the US, says Home Secretary

Dave the Cat
Unhappy

Re: Ignored for the past 10 YEARS!

Sadly no, he didn't....

Dave the Cat
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Good, but he should still stand trial for his alleged crimes

I'm glad that some sense has finally been seen, however I don't think there's a reason to say he shouldn't still be tried for his alleged crimes here.

Having Aspergers doesn't give one carte blanche to do whatever one pleases and then claim he didn't know any better, having Aspergers doesn't mean he doesn't know right from wrong. He should stand trial for his alleged crimes in the country in which he allegedly committed them....

ICO tries to justify hefty NHS data breach fines

Dave the Cat
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Re: bah

@ wowfood

It's like you invaded my brain and wrote down my thoughts exactly....

Dave the Cat
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Re: Interesting disincentive to whistleblowers

@ Prudo King

I hold a similar position to you at a NHS trust and I agree wholeheartedly with each and every point you make. Those who don't take this position seriously should be sacked asap, sadly this being the NHS we both know that won't happen.

@ non-NHS types out there: there are some of us who take our job and it's responsibilities seriously. Sadly the odd muppets here and there give us all a bad name....

Perth porkfest crowned ULTIMATE BACON SARNIE

Dave the Cat
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Not what I voted for, but a worthy winner none-the-less!

Stuck in work with no access to pork at present. Why is there never a bacon sarnie around when you want one? Mmmm Bacon.....

Vote now for the ultimate bacon sandwich

Dave the Cat
Happy

Re: speaking as an American...

Interesting... I shall take a look next time I'm in the local supermarket.

Dave the Cat
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Re: WTF!!! I was away fro the mail in, but no one has posted the obvious GIANT SLAYER

That makes two of us on the pecan front! Did you ever reside that side of the pond? I did for a few years and developed my love of pecans there.

Still can't agree on the maple though! :)

Dave the Cat
Stop

Re: WTF!!! I was away fro the mail in, but no one has posted the obvious GIANT SLAYER

Interesting option but, no, just no... too sweet! Are you an American/Canadist? ;-)

Dave the Cat
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Re: speaking as an American...

"Meat Candy"... An intriguing and delicious sounding snack.... I like it!

Question: You Americans are renowned for your love of bacon and bacon based food accoutrements (bacon bits and the like), why hasn't anyone over there invented Bacon jerky yet? Or have they? I am most intrigued!

Dave the Cat
WTF?

Peanut butter.... seriously??? WTF??

Japanese boffins unfurl banner above newly-discovered Element 113

Dave the Cat
Go

Re: And the purpose of this element is...?

I think that probably says more about America's over-inflated sense of self-importance than anything else.... ;-)

Dave the Cat
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Re: Godzillium!

Like it!

Dave the Cat
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Re: Element 119 and beyond? Islands of stability ...

@ David Pollard,

Thanks for the link, really interesting article. I don't pretend to understand half of it but interesting none-the-less. This is why I love el reg!

Thanks.

Eric Schmidt: Ha ha, NO Google maps app for iPhone 5

Dave the Cat
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Re: "obsessed with Apple's marketing events and Apple's branding".

@ Interested Party

Nice analogy :-)

Dave the Cat
Stop

Re: What's wrong with Hyundai?

" "While you weren't looking Hyundai did the same."

Errrr...no they didn't."

Errrr, yes they did, they've spent the last 10/15 years poaching some of the best engineers from the likes of Toyota, Yamaha, Nissan etc. and some of the brightest automotive design graduates from the UK and US. They're rapidly catching up with European makers, if they haven't already done so that is.

I'll still be sticking with my european saloon but don't knock 'em, they're making some interesting cars at the moment.

UK.gov blacklists Fujitsu from future contracts - report

Dave the Cat
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Re: As public sector contracts are in no way a hotbed of corruption....

We can only hope so.....

Dave the Cat
Stop

Re: I was going to make a similar point

"because they don't make big enough donations to the Tory party."

Seriously, you're going with THAT angle? Are you aware of anything the Liebour party got up to in the last decade? People in glass houses and so on.... Don't get me wrong, i'm not exactly a supporter of the current crock 'o shite we have in gov't but the last lot are a law unto themselves....

British Minister likens Anonymous to fascists and racists

Dave the Cat

Re: Donkey

** Someone else used this term earlier and I liked it.

Dave the Cat
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Re: Donkey

Having previously lived and worked in the area I can agree fully. The phrase "blind leading the blind" springs to mind.... Though indefence of the lovely people of Neath this is the same in most of the traditional "labour" heartlands across the country... a complete inability to see the bad decisions taken by one group and a complete, utter and total swivel-eyed** hatred of another group for no other reason than some percieved ill from 25-30 years ago.

Capita bungs staff £250 if they cheer up, smile for ad snaps

Dave the Cat
Stop

Re: Best Shot Reflecting Our Personality

Ah so there's a Capita employee lurking judging by some of the down arrows.....

Dave the Cat
Go

Re: Best Shot Reflecting Our Personality

I thought this one could be a shot of the office staff all standing in a line flipping the bird with both hands in an F.U. style. Would seem to most reflect the way Capita tends to deal with stakeholders, customers and the government once they've got the contract. So hence their "personality" (<Seriously, Capita and "personality" should not be included in the same sentence, they are the epitomy of of the faceless, non-caring, couldn't give a shit about anything except the bottom line corporation.)

Disney sitcom says open source is insecure

Dave the Cat
Facepalm

Re: I would care...

Dave,

It is wrong, but it also right.

Child abuse/violence = Bad.

Hitting that kid in the face with a cricket bat = Bad but also good.

I am very conflicted.

Shops 'mislead punters' over phone contract prices

Dave the Cat
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Re: Misleading is wrong but...

Richard,

I'll back Phil here, when T-Mobile want to increase my tarrif they have written to me and given options in the manner Phil describes. My brother is on Orange though and he doesn't ever recall being told in advance of a price increase with them.

I do agree with your second paragraph, it does seem like they hold all the cards when it comes to the contract.

Burglar steals $60,000 of computers from Steve Jobs' home

Dave the Cat
FAIL

Re: Pocket change

Oh so that makes it ok to rob his house then?

Devon NHS trust left data of 1,373 staff online for MONTHS

Dave the Cat

@ Petboy

"Given the state of IT configuration in many organisations, it would not seem at all unlikely that there was simply an unsecured share on the webserver which was wide open (no DMZ, no firewall) to the internal network."

Without giving too much about the architecture away, that cannot happen. The NHS code of connection prohibits external links from anything other than the N3 network (NHS "backbone"). More info here: http://n3.nhs.uk/

Dave the Cat
Stop

Re: Nothing will change

@ mark63

Hi Mark,

Yes they all get told before the public is informed. Still makes no difference though :-(

Dave the Cat
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Nothing will change

Absolutely spot on, why wasn't the comms director/manager hauled up before the board? (hint: they're probably all bestest chums). Why wasn't there a policy/procedure/some sort of instruction on what to do and how to do it?

Until the ICO starts fining senior personel personally nothing will ever change. 6 months wages ought to do it. I work in the health service, and the apathetic/blase response by many senior managers to incidents like this is nothing short of staggering.

Success! Curiosity Mars lander arrives precisely on schedule

Dave the Cat
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I stand corrected good sir... I doff my cap to you for pointing out the error of my dothing.... ;-)

Dave the Cat
Pint

Bloody fantastic. I doth my cap to NASA chaps and chapettes.

Drinks all round!

Boy cuffed after Twitter troll's drown threat to Olympic diver Tom Daley

Dave the Cat
WTF?

Re: 1984 here we come....

Nah I just get an email saying "some dick has replied to you....."

Dave the Cat
Go

Re: 1984 here we come....

@ Brian,

Fair enough in that case, I did say in the first place I hadn't seen them all and didn't know if there were any worse than the "you let your dad down" post.

Threatening to drown someone is obviously crossing the line. Mind you, if the scrawny pic on his twitter profile I'd like to see him try drowning Daley, I'm pretty sure I know who would come out on top. Love him or hate him Daley's an athletic guy. My money's on the lad who spends his time in the pool for a living...

Dave the Cat
FAIL

Re: 1984 here we come....

Tom: So you chose to ignore the entire first paragraph of my post then?

"First off this lad was a bit of an idiot, I've not seen all the posts so don't know if any are worse/more abusive than the "you've let your dad down" one but on the strength of the tweets I have seen I have to say this is a bit OTT."

I don't have hours of spare time to peruse the internet looking for the smallest titbit of news. If he did indeed threaten to drown Daley then that is crossing the line from mere twattish behaviour to criminal. I mean if he wanted to drown someone don't bother with the sportsmen, just start with the gingers, the won't mind honest.

Dave the Cat
Stop

1984 here we come....

First off this lad was a bit of an idiot, I've not seen all the posts so don't know if any are worse/more abusive than the "you've let your dad down" one but on the strength of the tweets I have seen I have to say this is a bit OTT.

Is it really a criminal offence to say something that upsets someone? Fair enough if you use something about an individuals personal atttributes (black/white, gay/straight, ginger/normal non-spawn of satan, etc. etc.) but from what I saw this kid's ramblings didn't fall into any of the "ist" catagories, unless I missed the new "twatist" definition.

From what I've seen his tweets were insensitive, hurtful and plain idiotic but Criminal??? Struggling to see that one....George Orwell knows what we're talking about....

New lightest-ever material: Ideal power for electric car

Dave the Cat
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Re: Germans will save us?

Hi Alan,

Agreed, I was thinking more long term with Fusion, Fission is fine for now. It's high time we started funding fusion research seriously though, the UK spends more on ringtones each year than it does on fusion research....

Dave the Cat
Stop

Re: Germans will save us?

I wouldn't go burning your petrol/diesel powered car just yet, few more years of development required first. Then there's the ever so small matter of where the electricity to recharge your car will come from.... It's high time we (as a race) started seriously funding nuclear fusion research. That's the get out of jail free card that humanity's looking for....

Fresh shift of 'nauts comes aboard space station from Soyuz podule

Dave the Cat

Re: 'Japanese spaceman'

Ok so who had the sense of humor failure?

Olympics security cockup down to software errors - report

Dave the Cat
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Re: Yeah ... riiight

Good, hopefully they go bankrupt. A bit harsh if you're a blameless employee admittedly, but none the less, G4S and companies like them are sucking the gevernment teat dry and giving very little in return.

Dave the Cat
Flame

Sorry but I call bollocks, it's all too easy to just blame "IT" for the problems, did no one at G4S managment actually look at the figures? We need "X" employees for the olympics, we currently have "Y" leaving us a shortfall of "Z". How the hell can a rostering programme lead them to a shortfall of that many staff? It's really not that difficult.

G4S management and by extension the government of the day who awarded them the contract are to blame for the fiasco, G4S for being snakeoil salesmen and the gov't of the day for not even pondering "I wonder why they're 25% cheaper than the nearest competitor?"

A pox on all of them.

Fukushima powerplant owner forced to cough teleconference vids

Dave the Cat
FAIL

Re: "a triumph for nuke power"

@ Steven Jones

Remind me again how many people died as a result of the events at Fukushiima? No doubt there were significant failings on the part of TEPCO and the regulators, but how about getting some perspective? No one has yet died (or is likely to) as a direct result of radiation exposure. The statistical increase in thyroid cancers and the like is likely to negligible (I work in this field so I do know what I’m talking about)

Sure, the large tract of land that needs decontamination is quite shocking, but how much land has been rendered useless by strip mining for coal in the last 40 years since the plant was built? More to the point, how many coal miners have died since the Fukushiima incident? If you believe the statistics put out by the Chinese government 20’000 per year in that country alone, not including deaths from lung diseases such as emphysema etc.

That’s 26’000 people who have died in China alone since Fukushiima. I don’t subscribe to Lewis’ “everything’s fine, carry on” approach but some perspective needs to be had here; The world is/will be suffering an energy crisis unlike anything that has gone before. We need more energy, that is indisputable. One honest look at the numbers shows that renewable energy just isn’t going to cut it. If we want to stop pouring out CO2 and maintain/increase energy production levels and our current way of life, nuclear is the answer, no amount of “won’t somebody think of the children” thinking will change that.

Lowery: The blue-collar musician at the eye of the copyright storm

Dave the Cat
Stop

@ Fibbles

"*Yes, the music cartels will be involved at some point taking an unreasonable cut but this is a side issue."

No, the music cartels taking a disproportionate cut of the profits is THE issue.

Who runs UK? 'Tories, Lib Dems and Google' says Labour

Dave the Cat
FAIL

Re: Labour needs to look at its online presence

Like anyone in liebour would know the difference....

Dave the Cat
Pint

Re: Pointless

Can't argue with that.

Dave the Cat
FAIL

After 13 years in power and having managed to FUBAR pretty much everything they touched, the opinion of any labour "shadow" minister is completely, totally and utterly worthless.

Tech fault at RBS and Natwest freezes millions of UK bank balances

Dave the Cat
Pint

Yep working for me now too, online banking seems to be working properly and my balance is updating properly.

Hitchhiker shot while researching 'Kindness of America'

Dave the Cat
FAIL

Re: Gun ownership.

@ Taylor 1

Wow taylor, angry much?

So tell us "Taylor", why don't you, with your clearly superior understanding of events, go look up in this magical book of yours and tell us; "how many times a gun has saved somebodies ass"? (It's actually somebody's, but i digress)

If more than 10'000 people per year have their "asses" saved by a gun then you've balanced out all the homicides, suicides and accidental killings by guns in the US and all is well.

If, as I suspect, your magical reference source doesn't exist, please STFU and stop commenting on something YOU clearly have no idea about.

Now run along you pathetic little child.

CERN confirms neutrinos don't break light speed

Dave the Cat
FAIL

Re: Try that with mythology (aka Religion)

"Somehow I have never seen any atheists get together to do anything similar."

Seriously, do some research and go back to your cave.

A google of "Atheist/Humanist Charities" reveals:

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Charities

http://www.humanism.org.uk/humanism/humanism-today/humanists-doing/charities

and so on... Epic Fail.

NHS fights record £325k ICO fine after clap records appear on eBay

Dave the Cat
Boffin

Re: £325k?

Nurses - around 4 nurses pay and pension for one year, depending on experience and length of service

Operations - Again depending on type, roughly 10 heart transplants or 3.5 liver transplants (inc lifetime of aftercare) or 46 Hip replacements,

Other NHS Services - 3066 individual trips to A&E or 13540 GP appointments (no drugs) or Treat 280 severe asthma patients or treat 15 breast cancer patients with Herceptin for one year or treat 9 cancer sufferers in one year with chemo and radio therapies***

That is all.

*** Figures are a few years old now ( < 5yrs).

Study: The more science you know, the less worried you are about climate

Dave the Cat
FAIL

Re: Product placement?

Great, thanks for informing us. Care to point out where? Facts and links please, we're hierarchical individualists don't you know. (well some of us are)

Watchdog tells Greenpeace to stop 'encouraging anti-social behaviour'

Dave the Cat
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Re: Pah!

Sir,

I fear you may have updet TrishaD up above so she is now downvoting all of your posts. Poor form Trisha, poor form.