Posts by Graham Marsden
4077 posts • joined Friday 19th January 2007 17:59 GMT
Page:
Posted in German shoppers slug it out with salami
Why does this remind me of...
... the Great Tea Trolley Disaster of ‘67?
"The MPAA, on behalf of the motion picture industry...
"... commends Congress and the Obama Administration for this commitment to our continued large wage packets and bonuses"
There, corrected it for you :-)
Now let's hear more of this sort of thing...
... Forget all the pointless "Global Warming is Man Made", "No it isn't!", "Tis so!" arguments and let's just hear positive things that people can do to actually lower their energy consumption and save themselves money instead!
@I remember...
... I don't need to google for it, I live just a few miles down the road from Paulsgrove and when the News of the Screws did their "let's try to boost circulation by putting up pictures of paedos" my friends who actually lived there were more terrified of the lynch mob roaming the streets than any putative threat to their childre ...
"they have a team working full time"
Translation, they've probably got a few people googling for words like "paedo" and "pervert" and no doubt getting dozens of hits off the websites of such esteemed organisations as The Sun and the News of the World (those well known researchers and verifiers of facts!)
Of course I'm sure that if someone is convicted, but then cleared on appeal, these people will immediately correct the data in their records and point out that someone has been exonerated of any wrong-doing...
... won't they...?
PS I had to laugh (cynically) when I read the ACPO's statement that "It's a basic principle of civilised society that public protection is best served by an evidence-based approach led by law enforcement authorities..."
Great idea, guys, why not try it? (See "I'm a photographer not a terrorist!" for just one example)
@Absolute offences
The expression AIUI is actually "Strict Liability Offences" and there are plenty more of those in UK law than the two you mention.
Originally the idea was that they would stop employers from avoiding responsibility for injuries to workers by claiming that nobody was personally responsible for the accident (no "mens rea" or "guilty mind", so nobody could be charged so, quite rightly, the law was changed to make the business as a whole responsible.
But now there is, of course, the law regarding "extreme pornography" where simply possession of an image is enough to prove guilt *unless* you can prove that you were a "direct participant" in what was being done. Another examples is selling alcohol to a child (hence all those "challenge 21" stickers) because the retailer has to prove that they did *not* sell alcohol to a child.
The Government loves Strict Liability offences because they make getting convictions so much easier even though they are a clear breach of Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which say you have the Right to be Presumed Innocent...
Bad call!
The point that El Reg is trying to make and that you seem to be missing is that it is the *arrest* which is "on suspicion of possession of a banned substance"
Note the word SUSPICION there, suspicion is not proof of guilt, you still have the right to be presumed innocent unless proven guilty and if the substance is found to be innocuous, you should be released without a stain on your character.
But what the Police are saying is that it is the simple matter of the *arrest* that can screw your future employment prospects, NOT a conviction for any offence!
Half and half...
I've just logged onto my FB account (look, I use it for playing Scrabble, ok?!) and some of the privacy options on the "About Me" and "Family Relationships etc" section default to "Old Settings" and others are set to "everyone".
On the "Photos and Videos", "Birthday" and "Religious Views" I'm given the option of "Friends of Friends" or "Old settings" but when I mouse over the buttons on Old Settings, it tells me that they're set to Friends of Friends already...!
And there was me thinking...
... that NFC stood for "Not For Children"...!
Posted in Tory peers to protect kids from anuses
We're not sure what...
... Lords Howard and de Mauley have been playing to warrant their concerns.
I think they've been playing silly buggers!
people don't want a government that tells them what to do
Wow! And it's taken 12 years of increasing public anger at increasing Labour authoriatarianism for you to realise that?
And, what, you expect them to forget all of that in the next few months before your sorry arses are booted out of offices you are not fit to hold...??
Fail, because that's what Labour have done time and time again.
Posted in TSA, HSBC in secret doc redaction oopsie
"deficiency in the software..."
ITYM deficiency in the idiots who thought that they could simply put a black block over something and it was magically gone!
Comments about bad workmen blaming their tools come to mind.
SEOs are not all bad
My business website uses a SEO simply because without it my shopping cart system just comes up with a URL that's a meaningless alpha-numeric stream instead of the name of the product which makes it harder to search for (as well as bookmark).
That doesn't ITEM mean I'm ITEM trying to BUZZWORD game the ITEM system by UNRELATED BUT POPULAR SEARCH TERM loading the page ITEM with other INFORMATION information which will BUZZWORD push my ITEM up the GOOGLE results...
ALL YOUR DATA...
... ARE BELONG TO US!
@Ian Ferguson
That was what I was just thinking, but you got there first!
(PS so if I reply to your post and someone then "upvotes" you, do I get half the value of the upvote...?)
Posted in Lots of young adults still sexting shock
@ElFatbob
Just because a naked picture appears on the internet doesn't make it bad, unless you're some prudish, narrow-minded prod-nose who thinks that it makes someone "a slut" or unsuitable to work as a teacher/ social worker/ whatever.
The correct answer to "why are naked pics bad" is "they aren't, now fnck off and mind your own business..."
Posted in Lots of young adults still sexting shock
And...
... writing stupid posts making Ad Hominem attacks and ridiculous Straw Man arguments doesn't make you look like an idiot.
Oh, hang on...
"hardware-level phishing attack..."
"...in which a target machine is replaced with a counterfeit one that provides precisely the same messages and prompts that the original machine would have produced."
So why not just swap the keyboard for an identical one with a keylogger built in like they did on The Real Hustle?
Posted in Lots of young adults still sexting shock
"young people aren't listening to the advice..."
... and in a recent survey, 100% of teenagers replied "Whatever..."
@Piezor
Well, at least you've proved you're not a member of the Sugababes, but you might need a new irony detector... ;-)
Hey Sugababes...!
It's great to hear you're supporting Windows 7, but can you tell me...
Why do upgrades from Vista hang at 62%?
Why don't it always recognising DVD drive?
Why does it change custom icons?
I'm in no hurry, take your time...
"could lead to members of the public becoming more aware of their rights"
I know there's a whole bunch of posts here already on this subject, but I just wanted to add my voice to them!
People should become aware of their rights, since this seems to be the only way to counter the abuse of powers by the Police who, at the moment, are getting away with trampling on every right we have simply because they can and the sheeple are too afraid to object.
But what this highlights is a more dangerous problem in that the Police don't actually know (or care about) the rights of the people they are harassing and think (to quote Judge Dredd) "I am the Law!" and the law is whatever they think it is.
What we need is less "target oriented" Policing, less "box ticking" and less petty-minded BS and more actual Policing, unfortunately what we get is them rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic...
Hmm...
Message from the Large Hadron Collider staff:
We have just discovered the Higgs Boson. We now own the patent to this particle and nobody else is allowed to create them or research them without paying us a licence fee...
Becos...
Wiv haiku u hav
2 think abt wot u rite.
OMG! one one
Posted in Space butterflies invade ISS
Where's Godzilla?
Everyone knows that these butterflies are going to mutate in Outer Space and become the equivalent of Mothra when they come back to Earth...!
Welcome to modern news...
The fact of the matter now is that a lot of modern "news reporting" consists of stories grubbed off the AP/ Reuters wires or similar without any attempt to actually research them.
Try searching for a popular news story and you'll find fifty or more virtually identical versions, some with edits in, others copied verbatim.
The only ones that aren't like this are the "breaking news" stories that often contain wildly inaccurate speculation or "facts" which later turn out to be nonsense as a result of the "24 hour news cycle" that results in the "publish or broadcast first and worry about the details later" attitude.
Posted in UK.gov may abolish edited electoral roll
Data collected for electoral purposes...
... should only be used for those purposes.
What a great idea!
Parliament should pass an Act, say one for, oh, I don't know, Protection of Data, that has rules which state that Data must only collected for specific purposes and can only be used *for* those purposes and that the Data should not be disclosed (or sold) to others *without* the consent of the individual.
Maybe they could even have someone called a Commissioner for Information whose job it was to ensure those rules are obeyed and who had the power to do something if they were broken.
I wonder why nobody thought of this before...?
The end of the world is nigh...!
... This is what we've waited for,
This is it boys, this is war!
The President is on the line
As 99 red balloons go by...
Nena - 99 Red Balloons
In other news...
... oh you know the rest: bears, woods, Popes etc...
Oil and water, it can be done...
... as Mythbusters proved.
(Ok, so it needs a hell of a lot of water, but WTH!)
But what about the yanks...?
I have often thought about visiting America, however I have no intention of ever visiting it until they stop treating me as a terrorist suspect simply for wanting to go there.
The question is will Merkins visiting the UK be required to give these details and, if not, why not (or is it just another one-sided treaty that means we dance to their tune?)
could spell the end of Web 2.0 in Italy...
... so, no loss there, then!
@New forum style comments voting scheme is pants
Very true.
Having to hit the "Back" button is just inelegant.
Also there seems to be no option to "view all comments on one page".
So...
... we've had the US air force buying PS3s, will we now have NASA buying WIIs?
How can you consent...
... when you don't even know a cookie is being stored?
I have Firefox's cookie settings to "ask me every time" and I've found that even if I'm only looking something up on google, often I get a message that the top site on the search is asking to store a cookie on my computer!
Why, for gods' sake? I haven't even *visited* the damn site and already it's trying to shove its cookie down my metaphorical throat.
I only ever give most cookies "Allow for Session" permissions apart from the ones from obvious tracking/ advertising servers which I deny, I also use the Better Privacy add-on to get rid of Flash based cookies, yet still when I run Spybot or AdAware I get warnings of tracking cookies that have slipped through the net.
Of course Advertisers are going to try to interpret these regulations in the way that's most favourable to them, what we need is TPTB telling them to stop playing silly buggers...
My god...
... it's full of camels!
"We will need to talk to ACPO...
"... to understand why they consider it is necessary to hold lawful protesters’ details in this way..."
[Mode=Constable Savage]
"Well, they're all villains, aren't they Sir!"
[/Mode]
Ok, and...
... what exactly is the big deal?
Same old same old...
... Spin, lies, deceptions, half-truths, attempts to convince turkeys to vote for Xmas and so on...
Why does the expression "Rearranging the Deckchairs on the Titanic" come to mind...?
The sound you hear...
... is the stable door being securely bolted and barred whilst the horse disappears over the horizon!
@Please give over with the hand wringing
"I'm asking how YOU propose to deal with the very real problem of people encrypting child porn / terrorist plans in the modern world. What's the solution? Ask them nicely, then give up if they say no?"
And I'll ask YOU why you consider the principle of Presumption of Innocence to be so insignificant that anyone who uses encryption on their hard drives can immediately be considered to be a terrerist/ paedo and locked up for refusing to prove their innocence.
Tell me, do you write for the Daily Fail?
So...
... are the Iraqis going to see black painted tanks with big camera poles driving down their streets next?
"growing by increasing debt will no longer be an option."
Oh well, there goes Labour's Fiscal Policy, then...
Posted in eBay stamps on Mussolini's brain
How about...
... an auction for Gordon Brown's brain?
After all, he doesn't seem to be using it whilst Lord of the Sith Mandelson is pulling his strings...
The reason the Erotica Show is dying...
... is that the organisers haven't twigged to the fact that they've priced pretty much all of the small niche suppliers out of the show.
What they have now is little more than a glorified Ann Summers style event with content that you can buy on the high street these days.
Unless the organisers get over their greed and stop trying to simply squeeze every penny possible out of exhibitors and public, the show will die.
Hopefully, then, someone else will step in with reasonable stall and entry charges and have a little more consideration for the people who actually make the show happen, rather than just thinking how they can further line their pockets.
Posted in eBooks: What to read on which reader
One might imagine that books would either be available electronically or not
One might only imagine that if one was extremely naiive given the way that other media have been sold (or not sold) by greedy publishers who are only interested in jacking up their profits by trying to restrict availability (eg regional codes on DVDs), using DRM or assuming that there's an exchange rate of £1 = $1
"The Virtue of Forgetting in a Digital Age"
Nice title, but a better one would be "The Virtue of Authorities Not Behaving Like a Bunch of Narrow-Minded Idiots in a Digital Age"!
Posted in Potty-mouths charged for Comcast hijack
$128,578?
That's an astonishingly precise figure, I wonder how it was acheived?
@Did I forget anything?
Yes, your Elder Sign.
Cthulu Fhtangn!
