Posts by Graham Marsden
4079 posts • joined Friday 19th January 2007 17:59 GMT
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Posted in Peaches Geldof explains Kubrick's 2001
@Errrm...
The film started with Stanley Kubrick contacting Arthur C Clarke with an idea to make "the proverbial good science fiction movie".
Clarke was involved in the project (which was originally going to be called "Journey Beyond the Stars") right from the get-go and all the way through with the novel and film being written simultaneously with feedback in both directions.
Read "The Lost Worlds of 2001" by Clarke and "The Making of Kubrick's 2001" by Jerome Agel for all the details.
Posted in Videogames caused riots says plod
So, remind me....
... what violent games like GTA et al were available in the early 1980 when there were riots in London, Liverpool, Bristol...?
When was PacMan first produced? Oh yes, 1980.
Facepalm icon...
I was thinking...
... more of You Only Live Twice :-)
Launching the rocket from an extinct volcano isn't mandatory, but would be really cool!
(Helicopter icon is the nearest thing to Little Nellie)
Nuke Farmville!
Erm, if you mouse over one of those messages and click on the little X which appears in the top right of the message you get a box that lets you "Hide all from Farmville".
Bravo, you've just nuked all Farmville messages!
Posted in Death haunts government petitions site
More useless petitions...
Even if a petition gets over 100,000 votes and is brought up in Parliament, there are only *six* Parliamentary days between now and next April for all such petitions to be debated and even then it's not automatically going to result in a change in law, merely a statement that "Parliament thinks..."
You'd be far better advised to write to your MP via http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ where there's at least a chance that someone will pay attention to your views.
Let's start...
... with the understanding that it's *OUR* data, for *OUR* benefit, and not to be flogged off to businesses, insurers, marketing agencies or anyone else who'll give them a quick buck and us an on-going pain in the backside!
NotW 'was labelled a "toxic" brand'
It was a poisonous rag long before this controversy...!
@bitmap animal
The point is not so much the appointment, but having your doors kicked in when a simple ring of the doorbell would be sufficient.
Of course kicking in the door means that if you're found guilty, you'll be left with a nice big bill for repair of your property as well as all your neighbours knowing that you're a "wrong 'un", so really it's just a piece of pre-emptive retaliation by our wonderful Police.
"A reasoned objection"...?
What kind of moron tries to stifle responses to his post by, straight off the bat, trying to deny the fundamental issue with a phrase like "Let's put to one side the issue of whether unlimited should mean unlimited"?
When a supplier uses a word like "unlimited" and then, in short order, starts putting limits on it the expression "Bait and Switch" comes to mind, so for a "reasoned objection" how about basic advertising standards?
If a business is going to offer a service, they should be *able* to provide the service *as advertised*, so claiming to offer an "unlimited" service and then relying on "weasel clauses" in the small print (it's only unlimited as long as you don't actually try to *use* it that way) is deceptive advertising just as "up to XX megabits" is (you can only get "up to" that if nobody else is using the connection).
Bleating that "it's not our fault, it's the fault of some customers who won't play fair" doesn't get past the fact that the company *LIED* in the first place.
You do not have the right...
... to not be offended!
Or for drivers...
... it might give you a hint to actually *LOOK* for bikers instead of pulling out because you don't see any cars and then utter the pathetic cry of "Sorry, Mate, I Didn't See You"...
Don't forget...
... that North Korea gets a lot of backing from China who aren't exactly blameless when it comes to mass hacking attacks....
Posted in ICO won't investigate Tory minister
At least...
... he didn't claim it on Expenses!
(As opposed to eg the nearly £5000 he claimed for installing a set of remote controlled gates for his private home amongst other dubious expenses claims...!)
Software that allows drivers to remotely unlock and start automobiles using cell phones
WTF? What the hell is wrong with a bloody *KEY*???
In any case, why on earth would you want to be able to unlock and start your car from a distance apart from to make life easier for the thief who'll say "thanks for the car, bye bye!"? (There's also the fact that, in England, it's an offence to leave a vehicle unattended with the engine running...)
Erm...
... weren't NASA criticised a couple of years ago for saying that they were planning to de-orbit the ISS in 2016???
Asimov got there first...
... with The Martian Way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_Way
(Ok, at the time he wrote that, it wasn't known that ring fragments were only a few metres in size instead of a mile or so, but it's not bad for sixty years ago! :-) )
Paging...
... the Iron Chicken from The Clangers...
Dont forget...
... the slightly dodgy colour rendition on the picture, the shot of hideous 1970's flock wall paper and some tinny background music...
Once again these are the people...
... who are supposed to be "protecting" travellers from terrorists...?
How much longer can this security farce go on before someone with the power to do something gets off their backside and actually *does* something???
PS El Reg, you've linked to the wrong article about the "white powder gag" it's http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/22/tsa_screener_joke/ :-)
"Let's hope Toyota has planned for this"
Hmm, so the choices are:
a) Try to evade the pedestrian but put the driver of the car and an oncoming vehicle at risk or
b) Hit the pedestrian.
Paging Mr Asimov...!
@s.pam
Pity, you were in line for an upvote until you started channeling the Daily Mail...
Intrusive parents? No, *Responsible* Parents!
There is a difference between state monitoring of someone's personal data and the actions of a parent who wishes to ensure that their child is safe!
Ok, I think it would be better to be done *with* the consent of the child rather than snooping behind their backs, but how many times have comments been posted in articles in El Reg saying that it's the job of the *parents* to take care of what their children do on the web and who they talk to via e-mail etc?
So why does this article seemingly portray sensible, responsible concerns of parents as a bad thing?
Posted in RUPERT MURDOCH HIT BY PIE
@Only if...
The point is that it's this stupid incident that will get the attention, not Murdoch's weaselling. Naturally it's now on the front of The Times, The Sun and The Mirror's sites (all Murdoch controlled of course) and probably will be their front page story tomorrow allowing them to portray *him* as the "poor victim of an unprovoked attack" and side-line everything else.
"his organisation had a zero tolerance to wrongdoing"
Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce!!
it was "blindingly obvious"
So that's why the plug was pulled on any more investigation and it was decided that it was all the actions of one "rogue journalist"???
I think you mean...
... Idiocracy http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
My God! Anonymous Coward...
... Haven't You *Heard* Shatner's Acting *Style*!
Posted in Is Anon ready for the social network?
@May I introduce a new word to commentards on this post...
This from someone with the name of "Your Retarded"?
My retarded *what* exactly?
Or did you mean "You're Retarded" which is short for "You Are Retarded"?
Perhaps that's apt...!
@Marvin the Martian
Try searching (or googling!) for "Hydraulic Empire" or "Hydraulic Despotism"
@AC
If you leave your upstairs window open and a ladder nearby, do you think that you'd get much sympathy from your Insurance Company when you try to claim for your lost valuables?
You have a responsibility for securing your property, it's no use bleating that "he shouldn't have done it!" after the event and demanding that others pay to fix your mistakes.
"the additional costs are for the security review the hack caused"
You mean the security review that *should* have been held *before* the hack that *should* have found the gaping vulnerabilities used?
Then there's fire. Not sure I trust that stuff...
And coming down from the trees was probably a mistake too (or maybe even leaving the oceans)
(Thumb icon because...)
"concentrate on processing the information for conceptual use"
Exactly!
Why should I need to be able to instantly call to mind who was King in 1605 (to pick a date at random)?
But a quick search reveals it was James the 6th of Scotland and 1st of England and, ah yes, he ended the war between Britain and Spain, survived the Gunpowder Plot because the Catholics didn't want a Protestant on the throne , established trade with Japan and other countries through the East India Company etc.
The latter information is far more useful in a historical context since, as (checks again) Satayana said "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Remembering the order of Kings is less important than understanding what they did as part of a historical process.
"where they could preform any number of different roles"
So a sort of Factotum, then...?
@UK law applies
Yes, it does, but we *also* have laws against self-incrimination.
"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention something which you later rely on in court."
Murdoch senior is never going to get as far as court, it just remains to see who he might hang out to dry to protect his son...
"You should also exercise great caution...
"...about what third-party apps you allow to access your Facebook records, especially when they are demanding the ability to post to your wall and grab personal information such as your date of birth and current location"
I think what they mean is that the default on Facebook shouldn't be that any app can demand you hand over all this access unless you specifically deny such access.
But since when did Facebook really give a damn...?
And those other words...
... will be probably be a series of subtly manipulative stories trickling out from all the other media he owns saying "hey, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all, here's some hired talking heads and paid bloggers and sock puppets etc to agree with us..."
Exactly!
How many times have people posted in comments on stories in El Reg that it is the job of *parents* to take responsibility for keeping an eye on what their children are up to, rather than expecting the school/ state/ everyone else to do that job for them?
Team Register seem to be taking up the News of the Screws mantle here by portraying it as a bad thing...!
@This is why we need a constitution in the UK
I agree, but only if it is written *without* the "weasel clauses" that allow the Government to effectively negate the protections given.
Eg Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights says:
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
But it then goes on to say:
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
Those exceptions pretty much let the Government say "well, we need to do this for (insert spurious but plausible reason here)" and thus trample all over the rights it's trying to protect.
@JP19
Do you want a job? I understand there's a new publication, apparently to be called The Sun on Sunday coming out and they can probably use people like you who manage to twist the words of others into something that they never said.
I am not hiding behind *any* "smoke screen", I know for a fact that the News of the Screws has *LIED* deliberately and repeatedly. misrepresenting facts in stories going back decades but have managed to weasel out of it because the Press Complaints Commission (controlled by newspaper editors *for* newspaper editors) has accepted their BS claims of it being just "a difference of editorial opinion"
Their interest is solely and exclusively to peddle whatever salacious tittle-tattle or scaremongering "isn't it dreadful" garbage which will sell more of their rag, pandering to the lowest common denominator and exploiting those who they claim to be "protecting".
If you think my aim is simply to "break their toys", you have, once again utterly failed to comprehend the issue.
And yet...
... the Government wondered why we objected to the sell-off of the forests...
@JP19
To describe what the News of the Screws did as "investigative journalism" or the actions of a "free press" simply shows that you have *no* idea what these terms actually mean.
They have managed to twist the definition of "public interest" from "of benefit to the public" to "what people will pay to read" so asking their readers to "vote with their pockets" is nonsense because they and Murdoch know full well that all they had to do was peddle the modern equivalent of Bread and Circuses to keep the money rolling in.
Why should *anyone* apart from the Prime Minister and his family and their doctors be entitled to know anything about the health of his child? I could see a public interest justification if he was abusing his political powers to eg get drugs on the NHS that everybody else has to pay for privately, but otherwise it's nobody's business but theirs whether you give a "rat's arse" or not.
A free press is not one that can simply "publish and be damned", there is a duty of responsibility that goes along with the right to freedom of expression and the NOTW and Murdoch have stepped way over the line.
@Giles Jones
"You can't advocate the legalisation of something when you have a vested interest in it."
I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't take illegal drugs either.
However I do understand the rationale of legalising drugs because of the utter failure of the so-called "war on drugs" that we have comprehensively lost because trying to ban these drugs is only creating *more* misery in the world and enriching violent criminals.
There is only *one* solution and that is to legalise the production and supply, all that is needed is the political will.
Posted in Cleaning up the Bitcoin act
Short selling *is* "purely speculative exchanges"!
The short seller is speculating that they can borrow a large amount of shares/ bonds/ bitcoins/ whatever, dump them on the market so the price will drop meaning that they can then buy them back at a lower price, return them to whoever they borrowed them off and make a profit.
It doesn't stabilise a market, it contribute to its volatility.
@Facebook games
There's a very good (and free) online version of Scrabble on there :-)
@Do spammers chance their luck?
Yep, I own my own domain and at one point I experienced what was clearly a "telephone book" attack with hundreds of mails addressed to john.smith@... jane.smith@... fred.bloggs@... etc
Like the Kindle?
Prior art: Star Trek's PADD...
@Mr Murdoch is probably very upset
Mr Murdoch probably doesn't give a toss, he's too busy planning his celebrations for taking over BSkyB which is liable to get the thumbs up from the Tories later this week.
But there's still time to put a spanner in the works, see: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/murdoch-deal-petition
@typo correction
Gods blessings be on you :-)
Welcome...
... to the new Moderatrix! :-)
