How about banning backhander lobbying in the first place? The fact you can "buy" a politician/presidential candidate with enough "donations" should be recognised for the corruption it is.
Posts by Tachikoma
191 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Oct 2012
Apple, Amazon and Google are screwing us, warns Elizabeth Warren
UK Home Office is creating mega database by stitching together ALL its gov records
BOFH: Sure, I could make your cheapo printer perform miracles
Friday 8th April 2016 12:03 GMT 
In my old support days, I had to install a maintenance kit on a clunky old laser printer next to some PA's desk, when it was going through the "bag of spanners down the stairs" warm up, the PA turned to me and completely straight faced said:
"I'm on the phone, can you turn the volume down on the printer please? Thanks"
Full Linux-on-PS4 hits Github
Want to kick butts? Go cold turkey
Wednesday 16th March 2016 12:09 GMT
I'm one of those twonks you see blowing huge clouds with a massive battery box, let me explain why and it's not for show... well mostly not...
I smoked heavily for years, got back into the dating game and realised that stinking of fags wasn't helping the chances of a spaghetti arm, neckbeard, IT nerd so decided to give e-cigs a try.
I started on plastic cigalikes, didn't do anything for me, so upgraded to various expensive devices using 18mg liquid. It was horrible, the taste, the mouth ulcers, coughing, spilling liquid on your hands caused you to feel sick for hours, it was a nightmare, so I wandered into my local vape shop and asked what was the next and last option. Subtanks: lower ohm, higher wattage, lower nicotine, less PG which was irritating my chest but more "clouds" as a result. After previously reading up on "the best cigarette-like experience" and following various advice, I discovered I didn't want a lung ripping harsh high nicotine hit like it recommended, I wanted a warm, smooth, thick vapour, I could feel it in my lungs like a cigarette, I could see it when I exhale, it didn't give me mouth ulcers and didn't irritate my throat/chest.
I wasn't huffing on my vape pen like a madman during my break anymore, I would just have a good couple of lungfulls and I was done, the nicotine is only half the problem, I think most people give up on e-cigs as cheap devices offer such a bad experience, I know I didn't get on with them and if it wasn't for me wandering into my local vape shop, I would be back on the cigs.
People take the piss when they see me blowing big clouds, but that's fine, it keeps me off the fags, my 2 year old daughter doesn't say I stink anymore, it saves me money and will (hopefully, if I stop drinking) will add a few years to my life.
Don't dismiss "cloud chasers" as a novelty thing, for some people it is the best solution they have found.
I beg you, please don't back up that secret directory full of photos!
Google emits Android N developer preview early to smoke out bugs
BBC telly tax drops onto telly-free households. Cough up, iPlayer fans
Friday 4th March 2016 11:34 GMT 
Dear Minister for Fun/BBC/Capita Debt Collection/TV Licensing/Whoever
I don't watch TV, so I have declared this to TV Licensing and have an exemption certificate, I also don't use iPlayer/4oD/ITV Player/etc, there's enough stuff on the internet, both free and paid to keep me entertained in the short time I have to myself in the evening.
In order to ensure that I am not a thieving bastard, stealing iPlayer media when I am not paying, despite reassurances, I give you my full permission to contact BT, my home internet provider, and O2, my mobile provider, and IP block all domains belonging to commercial TV and BBC services.
In return, I fully expect to be exempt from any and all accusations, implications, visitations, etc suspecting me of being a consumer of these services in which I have no interest.
I also expect to be exempt from any stealth taxes, levies or other costs in a bid to prop up BBC income due to a failing business model.
Yours gratefully (but not hopefully)
Tachi Koma
Icon because I'm not a pirate
More and more Brits are using ad-blockers, says survey
Joint Committee on UK Snoopers' Charter: Make like a dictionary and give a definition
Norks uses ballistic missile to launch silent 'satellite'
Roll up, roll up to the Malware Museum! Run classic DOS viruses in your web browser
Monday 8th February 2016 12:28 GMT
"Type Cookie!"
Those were the days!
I think one of my earliest coding attempts was a sort of virus on the Archimedes, one of the cover discs had an antivirus app on it, which grabbed my curiosity so I wrote something (pseudocode, excuse me) like:
DO
IF SYS$.Time = 09:00:00
Copy <random folder name>, <same folder name>
ENDIF
LOOP
There were no checks in those days, so you could copy a folder into itself, which would cause an endless cycle of copying until the folder/FAT limit had been reached... or you pressed Ctrl Shift + Break
Got a pricey gaming desktop from PC World for Xmas? Check the graphics specs
UK ISP Sky to make smut an opt-in service from 2016
'Paedo hunter' who made £40,000 from blackmail jailed for 9 years
Tuesday 8th December 2015 15:27 GMT
Re: And of course....
Interesting point actually, he could have been done on an additional count of perverting the course of justice if any of his marks were under investigation by the police already.
Watched a documentary on Channel 4 a few years ago that was similar, a load of young lads pretending to be teenage girls on the internet, getting the marks to come over to their house where they confronted them on camera and (I think, memory is hazy) put their names and pictures on a "paedo hunter" website. They got into trouble as a few were already under investigation and one guy (I think he was married with kids) actually committed suicide right after being confronted.
What the world needs now is Pi, sweet $5 Raspberry Pi Zero
Sun of a b... Solar winds blamed for ripping away Mars' atmosphere
Licence to snoop: Ipso facto, crypto embargo? Draft Investigatory Powers bill lands
Top cops demand access to the UK's entire web browsing history
We're getting kick-ass at seeing through walls using just Wi-Fi – MIT
UK.gov plans to legislate on smut filters after EU net neutrality ruling
Grinning BBC boss blows raspberry at UK.gov, eyes up buffet
Tuesday 8th September 2015 08:38 GMT
Re: Don't care
Hi I'm Tachi McKoma, you might remember me from such commentard post such as "I won't pay for that BBC crap" and "Not paying for a TV licence means I can afford a healthy heroin addiction!*"
Had the parents stay with me for a few weeks and they paid the BBC tax so they could watch the sport or Eastenders or something, when they left there was another 2 weeks left, so I decided to give it a concerted effort and see if it was still as bad as I remembered.
Yep, after a few days of Top Gear re-runs and some baking show with a contestant that looks like Rick Mayall, I disconnected the aerial again and didn't bother, even when it was free I couldn't find much worth watching.
Not to belittle people that do consume BBC content, or TV in general, I just feel it has been surpassed by on demand content. If I want to watch a drama, I can just fire up Netflix or LoveFIlm or NowTV or Amazon Instant or certain proxy/file host services and watch an entire season over a weekend, not have to wait a week for the next episode. I'm doing that now with The Strain, very good it is too, even if it does make me think of Las Plagas from Resident Evil 4/Blade 2.
This announcement just feels like a knee jerk reaction and an attempt to embed the BBC into even more services as possible to make it "indispensable" when the next charter comes up.
*Not really
Icon because I'm a miserable grumpy hermit
Sony's 4King with us now: Xperia Z5 mobe has UltraHD screen, cam
Thursday 3rd September 2015 07:18 GMT
Re: Unfortunately...
My Z2 from O2 was pretty light on bloat, and what was on there could be uninstalled. Never had a problem with the front glass scratching, but the rear glass is a bit delicate. They made some big improvements to the software and durability since the Z1, the skin and mangling of Android is very light and is now regarded as one of the better implementations, certainly better than Samsung.
Budget UHD TVs arrive – but were the 4Kasts worth listening to?
Lettuce in SPAAACE: Captive ISS 'nauts insist orbital veg is 'awesome'
Tobacco field bacteria offers hope for buzz-kill smoking therapy
Friday 7th August 2015 15:02 GMT
Re: higher dose
Nah, I quit smoking years ago with Zyban, which I think was recalled/rebranded after people taking it started slashing their wrists. That blocked the reward associated with smoking, so yeah initially you would be puffing away like mad to get your fix, but after a few days you just lose interest in smoking as you essentially go cold turkey while you are smoking.
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo chieftain and gamer titan, dies aged 55
Monday 13th July 2015 09:48 GMT
Re: GBA
I know it's Advance, I think the article originally had Advanced, which has now been fixed, although I didn't sleep last night so I may have been imagining it.
You had:
Original GBA (no backlight unless you modded it)
GBA SP (clamshell and backlight)
GBA Micro (with backlight)
There was no GBA2, everyone thought the DS was going to be called the GBA2, but Nintendo dropped the GameBoy name, even though the DS was originally 2x GBA's welded together, later changing the 2x ARM7's (GBA processor) to an ARM7 and an ARM9 for the production hardware.
Still got my Mario edition GBA Micro that I picked up in Akihabara years and years ago so I can play Advance Wars, great machine, probably the most perfect handheld I have ever owned.
Monday 13th July 2015 07:00 GMT
GameBoy Advanced II? Shirley you mean DS, even if the original DS development kit was 2x GBA SP's glued together.
But a sad loss, was never a fan of post GBA/GameCube Nintendo's hardware, which alienated most of it's fanbase in exchange for novelty hardware and gimmicks, but it certainly didn't do them any harm. Iwata knew what he wanted to do and did it, full respect to the man and a true loss to gaming.
Germany says no steamy ebooks until die Kinder have gone to bed
Tuesday 23rd June 2015 09:09 GMT
One thing that has always confused me in the UK, my 10 year old son can't go buy a 12 rated Guardians of the Space War on DVD as someone says "shit" in it, but my 13 year old niece can walk into Waterstones and pick up 50 Shades of Unimaginitive Bondage in paperback and read graphic depictions of barely passable sex.
Apple store staffers probed like 'criminals', lawsuit claims
Teaching kids to code is self-defence, not a vocational skill
Thursday 11th June 2015 11:23 GMT
Re: @ Tachikoma
@James Hughes 1
Sure, as an introduction it's fine for basic concepts, but it's probably a "first week" sort of thing. My son knocked up a Flappy Bird clone in very little time, including creating his own graphics, added music and had it running on his tablet. Being simple doesn't mean it has to be limited, the "blueprints" in Unreal Development Kit let you do similar things to Scratch (drag and drop, but more like a Visio chart we would use to map software logic) and while they could do with simplifying the language used for the logic blocks (but it's not really aimed at kids), you can get just as immediate results but with more options.
For younger kids, yeah Scratch is great, but it shouldn't be sold as "coding"
@David Pollard
Thank you, appreciate it!
Thursday 11th June 2015 07:52 GMT
"They didn’t get coding instruction in school"
No, we disassembled BASIC code on our BBC Micro to make games say rude words, or added infinite lives, etc.
My son uses Scratch in school and wanted to install it on my PC, after watching him fiddle with it and make something really basic, I showed him the Unreal Development Kit, and he acomplished more in the same time, and learned about variables, creating instances, etc. Give him another 6 months and he will probably be doing C++ on there to get around the limitations and frustrations of the blueprints.
Kids are smarter than people give them credit for, stuff like Scratch are for wasting time, not learning to code.
Everything Apple touted at WWDC – step inside our no-hype-zone™
Tuesday 9th June 2015 08:21 GMT
Re: Link Win8.1, Like Lollipop
Well I chuckled at:
"iPad users will also be able to watch videos while using another app by pulling the video into a corner, resizing it down to a picture-in-picture box"
Which I had on my Galaxy S3 around 3 years ago, and while a lovely tech demo, was completely pointless, so I assume iPad owners will become equally as bored with the novelty.
Attack of the IT monuments men: Museum wants your kit
NASA picks tools for voyage to possibly LIFE-SUPPORTING moon Europa
Wednesday 27th May 2015 13:02 GMT 
Just do some TNT fishing, lob a couple of sticks down to the surface, blast through the ice and wait for the stunned fish to float up to the surface.
On a serious note though, I always wondered what would happen if/when they drill through the surface, would the lower gravity and negligible atmosphere cause the water underneath to sublime and blast the drilling probe into space? similarly wonder what would happen if it was struck by a large asteroid and the ice shell melted/was destroyed over a large area, would you end up with a floating ball of water (like the earth)? would it just freeze again immediately? would it go shooting off into space like a deflating balloon resulting in an ice shell with a bit of rock rattling around inside?
Icon because it has been a long day and I'm waiting for beer o'clock.
Windows 10 to MELT YOUR BRAIN and TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE
Chill, luvvies. The ‘unsustainable’ BBC Telly Tax stays – for now
Tuesday 12th May 2015 13:33 GMT
Re: Paying for what you don't use
It could even try making proper science documentaries again that don't involve that mop-haired muppet from d:ream having to go to the top of some mountain in Chile to film a 10 second shot explaining something that a info-graphic and a voice over would have done in a less distracting manner on Horizon 20 years ago.
A million times this!
Same applies to BBC radio news where they send a reporter to interview (eg) some random cafe owner and insist on putting sounds of clinking cups and steaming espresso machines in the background (obviously not recorded during the interview) when it could just be a phone interview and save hundreds/thousands.
Mystery 'Explosive' cyber-spy campaign traced back to Lebanon
700,000 beautiful women do the bidding of one Twitter-scamming man
Boffins build Cyborg beetles, fly them by remote control
Tuesday 17th March 2015 09:18 GMT
Re: Ethical?
I'm into bug macro photography so spend a lot of my free time during the warmer months staring at various creatures through a fat macro lens, and I learned early on insects/bugs/etc are not as stupid as people think. They can display a quite disturbing intelligence (certain species of spider especially) and aren't the reactionary (see food: eat, see opposite sex: hump) creatures most people think. For me I would say yes, this is almost as bad as strapping a monkey to a table, but if I was trapped under a collapsed building and one of these turned up, I wouldn't turn it away in disgust.
Kaspersky claims to have found NSA's 'space station malware'
Thursday 12th March 2015 09:58 GMT
I have always wondered about these announcements. Does Kaspersky/whoever add a rule to their virus/malware database to get rid of these things if found? I can't imagine the government would openly acknowledge the existence of the software and say "don't delete it, it helps us catch ne'er do wells" but at the same time they could lean on the anti-virus companies to produce a fake certificate that merely pretends to clean an infected system "for national security"
The BBC wants to slap a TAX on EVERYONE in BLIGHTY
Thursday 5th March 2015 16:33 GMT
Re: Actually...
I got bored of doing that years ago when they kept knocking on my door and sending threatening letters. Was fun for a while seeing the frustration on their faces as I refused to let them in as I had already declared I don't watch or have any interest in watching TV. Now I just enjoy watching them get caught off guard when I invite them in and show my living room is set up to make it impossible to connect the aerial to the TV without an hour dragging heavy furniture around.
My sister absolutely hates that I don't pay as "its an institution and you should pay even if you don't watch TV" and for a while refused to turn her TV on when I popped over so I wasn't "getting it for free"
Some people are too precious about the BBC, I'm fine with that as long as people realise that people like me and those above just don't think its worth it. Not ragging on the beeb, I just wouldn't get my moneys worth so don't bother with any of it.
Wednesday 4th March 2015 15:44 GMT
Re: Actually...
Another "fee dodger" here, just moved house and updated my details, so can't wait for the guy to randomly knock on my door and try to intimidate me before I warmly invite him in, confusing him greatly before showing the TV in one corner of the room connected to a PS3, the aerial in the opposite corner of the room, then drawing his attention to two bookcases full of DVD's and three bookcases full of books. I pay for what I watch, when it comes out on DVD, sure it probably costs me more in the long run, but that's my choice.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
