Posts by Graham Marsden
4081 posts • joined Friday 19th January 2007 17:59 GMT
Page:
@Just Thinking
*Why* should it be a "legal requirement for the phone companies to provide 100% coverage"? That's like saying it should be a "legal requirement" for Company X to have a store in my town!
Posted in Premier League loses footie decoder case
"she's attempting to fleece the rights holder to make money."
As opposed to the Rights Holders who are attempting to fleece *everyone* to maximise their profits?
@Just Thinking
And if you're out in the middle of nowhere and need to call for help, would you suddenly decide that that £150m was money well spent...?
Or, to put it more succinctly...
... Facebook is Watching You!
"as a result of having signed up on a legitimate website"
Or as a result of that "legitimate website" automatically opting you in to a newsletter without asking you, or because a site you *did* sign up to then sells your details on to a site which you *didn't* sign up to, or as a result of some spammer using your e-mail address in their list which then gets harvested by another list or by...
In other words if I, personally, didn't sign up to it willingly and knowingly, then I reserve the right to call it spam!
Err, WTF???
"22,000 Freetards escape Hurt Lock piracy suit" says your headline, but then you go on to say that "90 per cent of the file sharers caught up in the Hurt Locker downloading case dismissed"
This tends to imply that (certainly in this case) they aren't "Freetards" because they *didn't* actually download something and then try to justify infringing someone else's copyright )or, at least there's no proof that would hold up in court).
Or does using any file sharing service now automatically mean that you're a "Freetard" no matter what you share??
Not impressive, El Reg.
"paying nothing wasn't an option"
In other words, the survey was rigged to *only* get an answer of "how much are you willing to pay?" not "are you willing to pay at all?".
I'm sure if there was a "paying nothing" option, that would by far have outstripped all other options.
"how can you be *certain* that an on-line poker is genuine?"
There's an old saying: If you sit down at a poker table and you can't spot the sucker, it's you!
So...
... the USA and Russia simultaneously detonated huge nuclear bombs...?
Hold a chicken in the air...
... stick a deckchair up your nose...!
(What do you mean, you don't remember Spitting Image? Kids these days...)
"Self sanitizing phone"
What? And put all those Telephone Sanitizers out of a job (and onto the B-Ark)...?!
So...
... you take a pill to stop you feeling drunk, so you can drink more and, whoops, goodbye liver...!
Posted in WTF is... HbbTV?
@AC
Telesoftware actually started in 1983, although it wasn't until several years later that I acquired the teletext decoder for my BBC Model B :-)
Strewth mate...
... I had a hangover yesterday and felt as sick as a parrot...!
What...?!
You mean that when adverts for fitness gimmicks show incredibly toned and muscled athletic types demonstrating the products those people *didn't* get their bodies from simply using that product but actually do a lot of *other* exercise *and* eat properly?
My illusions are shattered...!
Or do like I did...
... I learned 6502 assembler on the BBC Micro by initially using Exmon to hack games for infinite lives!
(Of course these days kids don't play vertically/ horizontally scrolling shoot-em-ups, don't know they're born, mutter, mutter...)
Any noun in the English language...
... can be verbed!
Hmm...
"... so what do you think, Jenkins, should I choose a 1 Wood for hitting power or a 7 iron for more precise control?"
There are a whole bunch of similar sites...
... on Failbook offering dates according to whatever "targetted" information it can dredge out of your personal preferences.
Like Salsa Dancing? Join Salsa Dance Dating!
Like Real Ale? Join Real Ale Drinking Girls!
Like Computers? Too bad, sunshine!
Of course you have to pay to join and there's no guarantee that they'll actually find someone in your town/ country/ continent who's interested in the same thing...
@Simon Harris
Of course what was even better was when a mate's dad ran a newsagent and there was an occasional bit of "stock shrinkage"...
... erm allegedly...
On an application form...
... a friend filled in recently, the options were Male/ Female/ Other which whilst not perfect is at least a reasonable attempt.
Labour's plans to license journalists...
"Say things we like, or we take away your licence..."
I get all my news from...
... The Register!
Orphan works...?
I hope he doesn't end up getting sued by Google...
Posted in Drinking alcohol wards off asthma
@Thomas 4
Erm, you might want to check the origin and meaning of Akvavit, Uisge Baugh, Vodka, Aqua Vitae...
What...?!
NASA are building space-based lasers to beam signals down to the planet...??
Where's my tin-foil hat?!?!
Posted in Ancient auto: still running, up for sale
1850s Conestoga Wagon & similar era Buckboard
"No, Ma'am, I said *buck* board, but as the saying has it: 'a ride for a ride'..."
BREAKING NEWS!!!
[Insert micro-celebrity's name here] was photographed doing [insert mildly scandalous or salacious tittle-tattle here] along with [Insert another micro-celebrity's name here] last [day/ week/ month/ year]
This is obviously *SUCH* important news that it *MUST* take priority over everything else because we say so!!!
So...
.... handbags at dawn, then...?
@Ru
Are you in the legal profession? It certainly sounds like it to me, because you seem to be in favour of a system that is designed to give lots of money to lawyers.
When I set up my business on the web I decided to go for .co.uk because that was the most appropriate suffix being a UK company, not realising that world+dog (especially in the USA) would go for .com even if it wasn't appropriate for them.
So now there's a .com version of my domain which I'd like to get, but it's sitting parked, doing nothing because some greedy company wants $3000 for it, an amount that I'm not willing to pay (even if I could afford it given the current state of the economy) and neither am I willing to fork out similar amounts to register a trademark and then try to fight through the long and convoluted process of proving that I am entitled to that domain because either way I'd end up losing money.
Maybe...
... the Neutrinos just took a short cut...
@Ru
So, you have a choice, pay the Domain Squatter (sorry, holding service) a few grand for the domain or spend a few grand registering a trademark and going through an ownership dispute...
Sounds like lose/ lose to me.
Posted in Yoof survey: 'Internet as vital as air'
When I were a lad...
*WHOOOP* *WHOOOP* *WHOOOP*
FOUR YORKSHIREMEN SKETCH WARNING!
*WHOOOP* *WHOOOP* *WHOOOP*
Great...
... so protecting the profits (and bonuses) of the multi-million pound international music and film industry by allowing them to demand that sites that they say are infringing their copyrights be closed *immediately* is *so* much more important than protecting small businesses from unjustified take-downs because someone posted something which, allegedly, infringes copyright on Friday evening and it won't be until Monday morning that they find out that their site has been down over the weekend as they didn't instantly jump to delete the offending post when the industry said they should.
Once again...
... Failbook decides what it thinks is important *for* you!
For certain values of "important"...
"eCall...
"...will also put a mobile phone into every car in Europe"
Great! So if you have a crash and you were using your mobile, it's ok because eCall put it in there, so it *must* be ok to use!
Oh, BTW, "if you want to travel anonymously after 2015 then best get yourself an (eCall-exempted) motorcycle", that's all well and good, but the EU wants to add a whole load of "safety" requirements to motorbikes like compulsory ABS, banning *any* modifications to engines, gearbox, sprockets etc (basically anything between the airbox and up to and including the rear wheel!), the possibility of roadside emission checks by Police etc, they could also end up emulating the current rules the French are trying to enforce where bikers are to be made to wear full sleeve hi-viz jackets because it's obviously *their* fault that drivers didn't see them!
MAG are organising a country-wide protest on Sunday the 25th so bikers can demonstrate exactly what they think of these proposals see http://www.mag-uk.org/en/campaignsdetail/a6883 for more details and if you're on the M27 Rownhams Services eastbound on Sunday, I'll see you there :-)
Insurance...
... Certainly, Sir, I'll sell you this fantastic anti-satellite insurance policy.
If you're killed by a fragment of satellite I'll pay you one million pounds on personal application...
"CentralNic...
"...has been aggressively pursuing new opportunities to keep businesses paying and paying for more and more domains which they don't need and don't want, but are going to have to register simply to stop someone else from squatting on them..."
There, fixed it for you!
Do no evil...
... or if you do, don't get caught...!
Snoopy...
... Come Home!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoopy,_Come_Home
@Clare (web specialist)
"Society" did nothing of the sort. A bunch of Labour MPs desperate for some publicity, seeing a band wagon they could jump on (and exploiting the grief of a mother whose daughter had died in what was actually probably a tragic accident), forced a piece of legislation (supported by policy based evidence making) onto the statute books without letting our elected representatives have sufficient time to debate the entire bill it was contained in.
It was left to the Lib Dems in the Lords to question it but they couldn't get enough support to block it because, as one Tory Peer admitted to me, "Tory Lords don't vote on Lib Dem amendments".
So we ended up with (yet another) nonsensical and utterly unenforceable piece of legislation on the statute books and if you are *really* a "web specialist" you would know perfectly well that attempting to enforce *any* restriction "across the internet" (even if only in the UK) is utterly impossible.
@Clare (web specialist)
Right, so let's block *everything* that *might* possibly give access to "extreme" pictures (defined as "pictures that people like Clare (web specialist) don't like".
We can start with Google, Bing, Yahoo...
@Clare (web specialist)
I agree, given that extortion and blackmail are illegal, this sort of protection racket should be banned outright.
"Facebook has several hundred employees...
"...who constantly do damn all when people raise complaints about fake accounts, being unfairly blocked for 'spamming' when they haven't, and who block people from their own pages when the log in has been been hacked etc etc etc..."
There, fixed it for you!
Everyone remembers Tattooine...
... but who remembers Helliconia?
@Clare (web specialist)
Well firstly this "cross industry body" is going to target exactly what that *industry* doesn't want out there.
And secondly, apart from kiddy porn, what other "more objectionable" content on the internet would you like to see blocked according to the personal opinions of the people on this or some other such body?
We already have the Dangerous Pictures and Dangerous Drawings acts, what's next to be banned because "We don't like this, so you're not allowed to see it"?
"we must take care that...
"...power is never over-concentrated in a few hands"
Yet that is *exactly* what he is suggesting with a "cross-industry body [...] charged with identifying infringing websites against which action could be taken".
Does he *really* think that they are going to operate in the best interests of the public? Or are they just going to operate in the best interests of their profits and bonuses???
Re: With apologies to the Beach Boys...
Damn, you beat me to it, I was going to post something similar ending with "She can't have fun, fun, fun 'cause dad's disabled the T-Bird today!"
"pre-defined templates"
And, of course, Face Book will not, at any time, arbitrarily decide to change the settings on your templates so suddenly what you thought was "Close Friends Group" only turns out to be going to "Work Group" or "Family Group" etc....
