* Posts by John A Blackley

859 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Jan 2007

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Finnish school gunman posted warning on YouTube

John A Blackley

Sad

My condolences to all of those who lost loved ones at Tuusula and to people who, by having lost loved ones in similar circumstances in the past, have their grief revived by this one.

My sadness at those here who chose to use this sad event only as an excuse to vent their bigotry about the United States.

'We can't lock them up forever' - top cops join terror debate

John A Blackley

A question

Enjoyed all of the comments here but I have a question for those of you who object to "the police sticking their noses into the political process". Please tell me one interest group, industry, public service or just plain motivated loony that doesn't try to publicly influence the political process.

Oh and (second question, I know), seeing as the pols have b@ggered the police about for years in an attempt to curry favor with the tax donkeys, why wouldn't the police try to influence the political process?

Striking writers target Desperate Housewives

John A Blackley

From the front lines

Day three of the writers strike and the hot news this morning comes from our reporters (actually, my friend who is unemployed and a bit of a star f()cker) in Los Angeles. Jay Leno in bookstore shocker! Last night 'comedian' and erstwhile talking head Jay Leno was spotted in the Humor section of Barnes & Noble's bookstore in Los Angeles. Witnesses (my friend - ed) say Leno was browsing the '1001 Fart Jokes' series when spotted. Upon being spied, Leno dropped volume 19 of said series and hurried to a waiting limo.

Meanwhile, in Iowa, nothing relevant to this story continued to happen.

In a surprising development, viewing numbers for the Fox Soccer Channel have shot up like a Republican Congressman's fly zipper when a camera appears. In related news, Barnes & Noble report their biggest seller of the week to be An Idiot's Guide To That Fairy Round Ball Stuff They Do In Europe - except for the Los Angeles store which reports healthy sales of '1001 Fart Jokes'.

Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail strike out Iran

John A Blackley

As I understand it

@yeah, right

Companies that operate in multiple countries must comply with the laws of each country in which they operate. Where two countries' laws conflict, the company usually complies with the law of the country in which its main office is registered.

You'll find the same thing applies to British companies so please search for another lame-ass excuse to badmouth America and Americans.

Writers' strike hits US talk shows hard

John A Blackley

From The Front Lines

Day two of the writers' strike and it's realy beginning to bite. All across America this morning, areas around watercoolers were deserted as the usual purveyors of, "Hey, on Letterman/O'Brien/Leno last night there was this......." sat quietly in their cubicles, starved of inane, second-rate patter.

In supermarkets and filling stations across the country, glazed-eyed consumers - shell-shocked by the complete absense of talent shown by the 'stars' of their favorite, homogenised, shrink-wrapped, safe-for-slow-witted-kiddies thirty-miute gobs of pablum - wandered around in demented silence. It has been reported that, in a remote area of Kentucky, a woman was heard to mumble to a neighbour, "So............................how's........................your..............................er,....................kids doin'?" The reporter states that the recipient of this try at actual conversation fled, rending her hair and screaming.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a man was frantically channel surfing - apparently in the belief that he would find an episode of 24 Hours he had not already memorised - when his wife entered the room and asked, "Say honey, as this strike thing is on, how 'bout you help me bring in the groceries." Police described the scene, upon their arrival, as 'gruesome'.

Gov u-turn sinks EDS's Indian outsourcing plans

John A Blackley

Doublespeak

"Best shore"?

Ah well, at least we'll be able to harness the energy of George Orwell - currently doing 3,000 rpm in his grave - to produce some low-carbon-footprint (whatever that is) leccy.

Congestion charge dodgers register Bentleys as minicabs

John A Blackley

@AICMFP

Keith Turner, that's the best post I've seen here in a month.

Virtual pint on me.

Brown will 'scrap ID cards' for UK citizens, claims paper

John A Blackley

Hmmm

All of this talk about resistance to id cards and the erosion of civil liberties - I'm trying to recall the time when I was able to buy/rent a house, get credit, or travel across borders without some form of identification. And, blow me, but the old memory's gone and I simply can't!

Of course, in those days (the late Stone Age), 'technology' was driven by steam and 'biometrics' was a photograph signed on the back by my family doctor. 'Identity theft' was much less popular than 'breaking into your house and nicking all of your possessions - including your pension book and then pretending to be you at the Post Office'. My secret government file was mostly secret because nobody was organised enough to find it - which was a bit of a bore if I ever wanted the government to do anything for me - like replace my pension book.

I applaud all of the guardians of my liberty on sites like this and acknowledge your fears. Now, please tell me how a government is going to manage immigration, my money (in the form of government handouts) and the criminal justice system in an age when anyone with a computer and the wit of a vole can forge documents?

Or is this all just about pointing at things and saying they're broken?

Security minister defends ID cards, longer detention

John A Blackley

I'm Thankful

I'm thankful for small mercies. In particular, I'm thankful that my government is inept - seeming to be composed of a bunch of jolly boys who play with the lives of British citizens in the way that large, clumsy boys play with toy soldiers.

Given the government's record on immigration (Just how many have we let in? Oh, I don't know, really.), law and order (What do you mean we can't deport foreign criminals? Oh that Human Rights thingy? We signed up for that?) and all of their other duties in protecting the welfare of British citizens just think what a state Britain would be in if it were administered by professionals!

iPhone rubber fingers not a hoax, inventor insists

John A Blackley

I sense........

A great resentment towards the spirit of free enterprise here.

Regardless of where similar devices are used and regardless of how few shekels per million they cost elsewhere, here we have a guy just trying to make a buck by finding a niche market and exploiting it.

After all, do we really need fluffy covers for our toilet seats, phones that double as entertainment centers or global positioning systems on an island the size of a large amusement park?

As it happens, I have just invented a device that prevents those oily smears on the iPhone screen when you make or receive calls. It's called 'iSoap' and you apply it to your face, with water, twice a day. It comes in 'iBars' which cost seven Euros each.

Singapore Airlines bans A380 rumpy-pumpy

John A Blackley

Did I miss it?

Okay, I was speed-reading so somebody tell me where - in this story - at says that Singapore Airlines asked people to not have sex.

I saw where it said that they'd like people to refrain from indulging in behavior likely to embarass.

Were I to read that, I'd take it as an okay to have sex but to not involve the dog, not scream (repeatedly), "Yes! Yes! Take me now you horned god!" and not enjoy my pre-sex warm up of doing naked press-ups in the corridor outside my cabin.

Not that I would ever do any of those anyway.

Lords debate airline liquids ban

John A Blackley

Two Solutions

To raise the quality of debate in the HoL and to alleviate unemployment. Each 'peer' is paired with a large unemployed individual with a history of anger management problems. The peer has to pay the large unemployed individual half of the peer's daily allowance for showing up at the HoL and the large, unemployed individual has to accomany the peer on each visit to the HoL.

Each time the peer gets up on its hind legs and utters something so completely idiotic as to piss off the large unemployed individual, a recess is called while the large unemployed individual takes said peer round the back of the HoL and administers a damned good hiding.

"The fact that there has not been a serious incident involving liquid explosives indicates, I would have thought, that the measures that we have put in place so far have been very effective."

EXACTLY the kind of argument I put forward when I was the official lion hunter of Partick Thistle F.C.

NBC, Fox target YouTube with Hulu dance

John A Blackley

Curious

As I'm resident in the US and never watch network television, I'm curious about what the posters here would watch on Hulu if it were available. Anybody?

MPs call for climate change minister

John A Blackley

Watch out!

A new minister will surely need a new department and the new department will surely need to create new rules, directives, laws, etc. to justify its existence. Ah, more Jobs For The Boys (of whatever sex) and more burden for the taxpaying donkeys of the UK.

Oh, I'm all for it really. After all, if it keeps a few more incompetents off the job market then I'm happy for them. But, before we go ahead and bring in the Catalan architect to design the new Ministry building, could I request that the government do just a few teensy other things first? Like immigration laws that are in the interests of British citizens, police forces that actually police, schools that actually teach, transport infrastructure that actually transports efficiently and, let's see, what else? Oh yeah, that one! Could we please ask our expenses-gorged MP's to get their noses out of the trough for just a week or two? Just to try it, y'know?

DHS holds terror talks with UK Minister, then detains him

John A Blackley

Details, details

C'mon, El Reg! A few details or a reference for the story please!

"Detained"? Does that mean asked to step aside while his hand luggage was searched or taken into Room 101 and given the penitentiary admissions process? "Questioned"? Does that mean "asked who he was and why he was travelling" or introduced to my little friend the rubber hose?

I've long admired El Reg's policy of trashing the USA's security program at the slightest of provocations - after all, I simply can't be seen reading the News of The World. But please, at least tell us what the slightest of provocations is.

Brown promises simultaneous liberty and security

John A Blackley

Change nothing

The usual entertaining, sometimes informed comment from the readers of El Reg. And yet, all of the pithy comment, frothing and references to bon mots on liberty will do nothing to reduce the speed at which governments turn us into little more than donkeys - beasts of burden to bear the tax load on which our governments feed.

Voting won't change it either (silly me, a past advocate of "everybdy vote"). Anyone who thinks that voting in the US or UK is within shooting distance of 'fair' hasn't been reading the papers.

For those who still value liberty as more than an abstract, there may be only one course of action and that would involve (shudder) giving up some of our free time. Making placards, perhaps, and doing a little research to find out where Bush and Brown might be at any given time. And being there. And keeping up a constant chant of "Resign! Resign! Resign!" And being prepared to participate through future generations of arrogant, elitist pols until it's commonly accepted again that they represent us, not rule us.

Nah, never happen so load up my panniers and feed me more hay.

BTW, unless and until Brown agrees to a referendum on the EU constitution (by any name) as his party promised in its last manifesto, I wouldn't believe him if he told me night was dark and day was light.

Bike bonk bloke lands on sex offenders' register

John A Blackley

Not a hotel

In the HOSTEL (note, not a hotel) the cleaners forced the door and found the genteman, "Wearing only a white t-shirt, naked from the waist down and making sexual, thrusting motions" while astride the bicycle (from the court records).

I do agree with all of the comments regarding the injustice of putting this poor plonker on the sexual offenders register. However, once again, that is within the law. Apparently (or, as reported by the Torygraph), in Scotland it is an offense to simulate sex with an inanimate object.

One presumes that dildos, merkins and the like are contraband in my native land.

Red Arrows to fly at Olympics, Sun announces

John A Blackley

CO2? No.

With all consideration to AC and his "Why don't you shut up......?" etc. (Last post before the pub then?) I'm less concerned with the CO2 issue than...................

Early in the week, the Olympic B*ggeration Committee announced that, in the interests of the greenest olympic games ever (Oooooo!), mere paying customers will be told how and when to attend the games while more valuable people - politicians, etc. - can ride to the games in their usual limos.

Meanwhile, later in the week, The Sun (which is, after all, the newspaper of record for all things British) announces that a few RAF types will be opening the ceremonies by flying antique, kerosene-burning faux warplanes back and forth above the Olympic crowds - thereby helping to raise the damp temperatures in the east end of London.

Attention learning-deficit members of the Brown administration and say after me, "It's spelled c-o-n-s-i-s-t-e-n-c-y."

Swede with UK betting licence held in Amsterdam for 'breaking' ancient French law

John A Blackley

Wonderful!

The comments page makes much better reading than any El Reg article! I enjoy the various, considered and ill-considered comments, half-hearted and half-thought-out insults and contested 'facts'. Reminds me of The Beano without the drawings (sort-of).

For what it's worth (and I acknowledge that's not much) it seems to me that many of the anti-French comments are born out of jealousy. By protecting their government's and businesses' interests, the French simply play the great game better than the Britsh do - and, let's face it, few things irritate a Brit more than being bested at politics by the French.

Online trading site was left wide open

John A Blackley

And where was this?

A 'consultant' gets up on his hind legs and tells a conference crowd an alarming/amusing story about a cock-up between designers and developers. It's all very relevant and wonderfully illustrative. Oh, and because of "client confidentiality", the consultant doesn't have to identify the foolish virgin of a company.

Now, I'm going to be shocked and horrified if that same consultancy doesn't have services to sell that would 'prevent' exactly this scenario from happening again.

Skeptical? Moi?

Trend Micro buys leak prevention firm

John A Blackley

Ooops!

"The technology also lets users know the exact locations of sensitive data for either auditing or control purposes."

Oh bother! Once users know the location of sensitive data, there goes another excuse for not protecting it appropriately.

Bubblewrapped kids fall prey to net predators

John A Blackley

Superior race

Don't most predictions of the future include this: "As their intelligence developed, they found less use for a strong phsyique and so their bodies dwindled and became puny."? Par for the course for the human race, we appear to have put the cart before the horse and started dwindling our bodies before we developed our intelligence.

Me, I was born up a chimney and only allowed out for my beatings. Meals were a small plate of dirt and, at Christmas, I got a glass of water to wash it all down.

Record industry pushes ISPs to cut off file sharers

John A Blackley

Anyone remember Brian Rix?

Long-standing exponent of the Whitehall Farce.

We have a sclerotic industry struggling, with its business plan in tatters, in the face of evolving technology. What's their response? Regress rather than evovle. Call in the lawyers, get out the big stick.

When that doesn't work too well, their next move is to engage with Whitehall and have our government listen sympathetically to the record industry's problems with 'that intertube thingy'. In the third act, there'll be people without skirts and trousers running in and out of bedroom doors, just wait.

The serious part, though, falls with a dull thud once again on the PBC - poor, bloody consumer. Listen, even if (they couldn't but stick with me) even if the record companies could identify every file-sharing protocol in the world and even if they could persuade the British government to shut 'em down in Britain, I estimate that it would be approximately seven minutes after shutdown before new ones were up and running. So why is this bad news for the PBC? Because it's the excuse our thudding, blundering, clodhopping government needs to apply their Stasi tactics to internet users in the UK.

Licences to use the internet anyone?

Virgin Mary pebble provokes holy online bidding war

John A Blackley

Oh yes I do!

"The church's approach [to purported Virgin Mary simulacra] is always very cautious because no one has ever seen Mary, so how would they know what she looks like?"

I dated Virgin Mary for a while. This looks nothing like her. What? Oh THAT Virgin Mary. Sorry.

US: Missile shield 'deactivated' until Iran tools up

John A Blackley

@Ross

Ross,

it's "$120 brazilian (small b)" because GWB thinks 'brazilian' is the next demoninator after 'gazillion'.

John A Blackley

Who will rid me of this

...awful, venal incompetent administration?

The President has just asked Congress to authorize another $120 brazilian dollars to contain the civil war in Iraq that isn't really a civil war and wasn't America's fault in the first place. Added to that, his administration is poking its pointy little nose into the Turkish/Kurdish brouhaha as Turkey facilitates much of the transport of war materiel into Iraq (so there's a better-than-even chance this conflict's going to get really ugly really soon).

Meanwhile, in a part of the world that the Bush administration hasn't meddled-in for much too long, they're 'planning' to deploy elements of the mythical Star Wars technology (Reagan used this myth to bluff the communists into banruptcy and, based on actual results, it's no less of a myth nowadays than it was it Reagan's addle-pated administration).

Meanwhile again, back in the GoodolUSofA, finances are not good. The sub-prime mortgage fiasco is still bubbling and threatening to cause real recession, jobs are disappearing overseas faster than Roman Polanski and the dollar's on a par with (sob) the Canadian dollar!

And what do we have as an alternative, waiting in the wings? Bill Clinton in a skirt and without the sense of humour!

There's no hope. There's just no hope.

TJX breach was twice as big as admitted, banks say

John A Blackley

Poor TJX

TJX has the misfortune of being the proud owner of a data breach so large that it just couldn't be covered up, brushed-off or explained-away. Sheer size (and not particular incompetence) gave them away.

"TJX (is guilty) of employing fuzzy math in an attempt to contain the damage". Really? Well they're not real good at the fuzzy math thing either, are they?

The main accomplishment of SB1386-type laws is this: When a credit-card-using company suffers an intrusion (and, contrary to what you might think, most of them do) they now spend gobs of money on 'consultants' and waste hundreds of man-hours to prove that, in fact, the intruders did not get to any sensitive, customer data.

As an alternative to doing a little root-cause analysis and fixing the problem it appears to be working. Except for poor TJX and a few other, equally unlucky companies of course.

Bad security products thrive on confusion

John A Blackley

Good thoughts

Bruce, as usual, has the nub of a good thought and is directing it at a specific niche in the market.

"The field of information technology security is so complex that purchasing decisions are based on feelings and hunches rather than reality," is true but is not, in itself, the truth. The field of information security is certainly complex but in my extensive experience it is made more complex - not by buying decisions based on hunches - but by too many enterprises refusing to take a rational approach to managing the problem.

Let's not invest in process and structure to manage security. Let's, instead, focus on spot solutions to symptoms and fling bits of kit and gollops of software at the network. (rather like trying to cure smallpox with the application of Nivea). This demonstrates the we're Doing Something Tangible, keeps us solution-addicted security managers in a job and avoids having to spend actual money deploying actual long-term solutions based on actual (expensive) experience and knowledge.

I imagine Bruce had this at the back of his mind when he made these comments but, because of his position, is unable to articulate the thought. Unless and untl businesses and other enterprises accept a structured, well-managed security program as a cost of doing business then we'll continue throwing crap at our networks and using crossed-fingers as our main security posture.

IT managers caught in employees' illicit networks

John A Blackley

Free security

Once again, we have an example of policies and standards being made wthout a thought given to the cost of sustaining them.

Certainly, if I write a policy absolutely forbidding IM or admin rights on a user's platform, a teensy percentage of my user base will notice it and a teensy percent of those who notice will "do the right thing". If I invest a little money in an education program and tell the users why our poicy says what it says, those percentages will go up - a little.

Now, if I invest more money in an ongoing, monitored education program, more money in tools and procedures to monitor and enforce my policy and more money in a framework to support my policy then the percentages are going to rise again.

But chances are that I won't. I'd rather have a couple of public hangings a year or complain about 'bloody users' because I can't be bothered cost-justifying the money I'd need to spend on a more effective approach.

Jailed terror student 'hid' files in the wrong Windows folder

John A Blackley

Outside

Could all of you - those, that is, who are baying about the injustice done to this young man - please try something radical? Could you please try to find a corroborating source to augment the thin stream of piss that passes for news on El Reg?

The man in question came to the notice of the police because of his habit of boasting - at college in Glasgow - of how he was "going to blow up the city" and his other habit of praising and justifying Muslim suicide bombers. Frankly, I think he's lucky the police got to him before the FoJS (Friends of John Smeaton) did. (And, no, the young man wasn't arrested for what he said so don't go bleating at me about free speech - even if it is speech that ought to get you your head handed to you.)

Like it or not, the government has to do something in the face of suicide bombing as a poltical statement/symptom of mental illness. What they have chosen to do it to make it at least very, very stupid to keep and disseminate certain materials. To draw attention to yourself in the way this young man did - while being in possession of such materials is so arrogantly, terminally stupid that he's better off in custody.

And yes, I know he's a Muslim and, no, that doesn't make him blameless/give him social immunity/protect him from the laws of the land he inhabits. It makes him a suspect.

Finger-chopping jihadis derail MPs scanner system, claims MoS

John A Blackley

An alternative

Might I suggest - instead of another semi-functional, taxpayer-funded sop to our MPs' vanities - an alternative approach:

Why don't we remove all security from all government buildings? Better yet, why don't we augment this with giant, neon arrow signs inscribed with "Vulnerable Government Officials Here!"?

Now, Ken, Gordon, Dave, et al, how much do you really want to spend your lives spending my money and telling me what I can't do in my leisure time?

p.s. I will gladly contribute to the cost of the signs.

US Border Patrol laughs off spyplane prang wristslap

John A Blackley

@Robert Moore

"2. All the Canadians I know would rather die than to become American."

Wonderful! When do you start?

CSC announces another round of UK job cuts

John A Blackley

Oh Yeah

There's a shortage of IT skills in the EU so we need to institute a Blue Card scheme to fix that.

2012 Olympics to be 'car-free'

John A Blackley

Good one!

And they say the English sense of humour is weird!

80,000 people a day. To one destination. On time. Via public transport. Via public transport organised and run by Brits. Ahahahahahahahaha!

Brilliant!

Fire service may charge for shifting fat people

John A Blackley

Interesting diversion

All of the above was informative - and a little alarming.

When I consider all of the taxes levied on the British and all the ways in which that tax money is spent (Note to some: There is no such thing as "the government's money" or "the government paying for something". It's YOUR money and YOU'RE paying.), the reaction to an insignifcance such as this is laughable.

Listen, it doesn't matter. Yes, there are people who don't take responsibility for themselves (but not all obese people fall in this category). Yes, there are people whose views are hateful and intolerant (but not all who wrote here fall into that category). In the scale of the taxes paid in the UK, though, this doesn't even amount to a nanofart in a thunderstorm.

Pay attention to what does matter. Why is the NHS funded so much and yet delivering such a pathetic service? Why are politicos telling you to not drink, smoke, eat, drive your car or take foreign holidays when they gorge themselves on alchohol-fueled banquets, smoke as they please, ride around in limousines and fly all over the world?

A few obese people needing Pickfords to get them to hospital is less than significant. Oh, and by the way, what about charging the chronically angry for their blood-pressure meds and their stroke rehabilitation?

Government denies road charging 'blackmail'

John A Blackley

Wrong focus

Ah yes, the old "full and informed public debate" ploy.

What is needed (in Britain and here in the US) is a "full and informed public debate" on how to make our elected representatives actually.............er, represent us.

In the UK, I don't recall ever voting for someone who pledged to tax me until working for a living became an unattractive option. I don't recall voting for someone who pledged to take determination of my country's future out of my hands and place it in the tender care of a Eurocrat. I also don't recall voting for someone who pledged not to follow our own country's interests but to squander those to curry favour with the United States.

In my mind, a system for more accountable representatives would involve holding the representative's family hostage, public stocks, large and angry unemployed men and repeated canings to the soles of the feet - or the absence of all of those, in the unlikely event that my 'representative' didn't morph into a pocket Pinochet as soon as he/she got on the train for London or Edinburgh.

Bubbly billygoat-bursting boffinry brouhaha at MoD

John A Blackley

Interesting

No, not the gist of the article. (I have no opinion on animal-based testing.)

What interested me was this: ""The French navy has already abandoned its own live-test programme in favour of more humane methods." Pray elaborate, El Reg. What have those ingenious French navy types come up with that is "more humane".

US ID theft bill seeks redress for victims

John A Blackley

I wonder

Sen. Leahy ways that his bill will, "Give victims of identity theft the ability to seek restitution for the loss of time and money spent restoring credit and remedying the harms of identity theft." I wonder from whom the "victims of identity theft" will be seeking restitution? And in what forum?

Shall we be suing some oik in a civil court and attempting to put a lien on the computer in his parents' basement (his/her only possession)? Will the "restitution" be a part of the criminal trial and will local law-enforcement be charged with securing said restitution? As has been said above, will we now be able to secure restitution from the enterprises that conspired - through their poor practices - with the identity theft? (Typing this last one made me laugh out loud at the thought of even a Democrat proposing a bill that might hold American financial institutions to account.)

I believe there's a good intent to the bill. Sadly, by the time it gets through committee, it will probably contain nothing of the original intent but here's a thumbs up for trying, Sen. Leahy.

Scottish? You're drinking too much

John A Blackley

Not France

Let me see, the weather's miserable for most of the year. 'Service' is something that bulls do to cows. People work themselves into a coma to buy ever-increasing amounts of tat and there are too many 'managers' with the management skill level of a galley drummer. 'Entertainment' for too many people consists of either endless servings of Eastenders-quality televised pablum, being jammed into a basement room ("club") with hundreds or strangers with questionable hygiene practices or sitting in a freezing, windswept stadium watching 22 'footballers' practice their mediocre skills.

The national mood is 'depressed', the national sport is skepticism and the national government is a clique of toon cooncillors who couldn't get work in the private sector.

So now, ""Alcohol policy offers another opportunity for the Scottish Government to show leadership once again, and we believe the Scottish people will fully support the government in their efforts."

Awae an' bile yer head, ya wee nyaff.

Orange's Apple deal to bear unlocked iPhones

John A Blackley

@Tom Hawkins

Tom,

I don't recall saying anything to the contrary. Nor do I recall being 'hysterical'. I'll wait for you to make your point.

John A Blackley

Still Amazed

It started with the basis of the wireless phone business: "Give me a sum of money each month and you can use my network. Don't use the amount of time I bought? Tough. I'll keep your money anyway." And they fell over each other - in their millions - to give the cellphone companies their money.

"Oh and by the way, even though my network and my friends' networks stretch from here to Timbuctu, if you use your minutes outside of the county in which you bought the phone, I'm going to raid your bank account with charges that Shylock would envy." And still the millions flocked to fork over.

"Oh, by the way, here's a nifty little thing that'll take crappy pictures as well as make phone calls. You can send the pictures over the phone but, of course, that'll cost you." Millions flocked, etc.

And on, and on, and on. The latest episode had one company hold up a shiny toy and call, "See? Pretty! See? You can rub it with your fingers and it'll do amusing things! See? Oh, by the way, since you're all so used to us sucking money out of your bank accounts, this latest gizmo will cost a ridiculous amount and - just to show you how lost you are - we'll tie you to a provider of our choice in return for the privilege of giving us a ridiculous amount of money for one of these. But look! (Waving new toy.) Pretty! See?" And millions flocked.

Dino-boffins unearth another new gigantic species

John A Blackley

Taking liberties

Here' in my ignorance, I thought that naming conventions had to comply with Linnaeus' binomial convention. Naming a new fossil lizard using a local indian word and a bastardization of Duke Energy - well, has the convention of renaming perfectly good sports stadia to glorify major sponsors spread to the naming of fossils?

Alien attack? Yes, we're ready for anything

John A Blackley

Sad

The "usual political tactic" of first praising the question and then praising the kid who asked (or vice-versa) may have been to give Rudy's handlers the time to figure out what to do with the question and relay instructions via Rudy's earpiece.

As if this weren't sad enough, the fact that Rudy Guliani is viewed as a viable candidate for anything above number-plate-maker would make a statue weep.

AI egghead: Human-robot humping, marriage by 2050

John A Blackley

Why?

Why am I reading an article about a Post Hole Digger's thesis?

Why are we speculating about something that will never happen?

It doesn't matter how excited you are by the idea of buggering the washing machine or being ridden by the Roomba, by the time we create something with enough intelligence to to prefer an appendectomy over watching Eastenders we'll all be sexless drones anyway.

Oscar Wilde voted top Brit wit

John A Blackley

All that aside

"Dave is, in case you're wondering, an absurdly-titled UKTV channel aimed at young chaps, 3,000 of who"

A) believe that Britain hasn't produced a true wit since November, 1900 and,

B) Probably wouldn't recognise wit if it woke up beside them every morning

Bighead Clarkson's a wit? O tempora! O mores!

Ruling allows US tech firms to dodge an immigration bullet

John A Blackley

@Matt

"War and all and the deficit is continuing to go down"

Is it really, Matt? In the US? That's great news - please point me to the reference you used for this.

UK ID card service mounts birth, marriage, death landgrab

John A Blackley

@Anonymous Coward

"The system works. There are no real data leaks, because they officially sell information, but only those that are public, like name, sex, birthdate and address. The data protection law is actually part of the current constitution, so this is legal."

Ummm, in the enterprise that employs me, name, sex, birthdate and address are specifically called-out as protected information for customers - not to be released or removed from a protected environment (i.e., not to be used for testing).

TV giants lock horns with Microsoft and Google over white space wireless play

John A Blackley

Oh goody!

Don't know much about the mechanics of broadcasting but I am cheered at the prospect this presents. After all, anything that might interfere with the reheated drivel typically delivered on US network channels would be a boon.

No, let's not worry about disrupting broadcast television - it could only improve it.

Road pricing 'back-burnered' by Brown gov't

John A Blackley

Never, never vote for a tax (or for those who propose taxes)

Will not be considered at this stage. Riiight.

The saddest - for me - part of peoples' refusal to vote is their abrogation of their duties to resist taxation. After all, is there anyone in the United Kingdom who is unaware of Broon's agenda to squeeze the middle classes until their pips squeak? Broon's major coup, as far as I can see, has been to invent so many new words and phrases that all mean 'tax' that the voters in the UK are quite bamboozled.

The 'congestion charge' in London is a tax. Every other city's 'congestion charge' will be a tax. The proposed 'road usage fee' (and they will bring it up again when the political climate is more favorable - after all, it is A Darling's raison d'etre) will be a tax.

Now, those of you who currently drive in Ken's London: Do you receive any relief in fuel duty, 'road tax' or any other tax associate with using your car to compensate you for the increased tax you pay for the 'privilege' of driving in London. Of course you don't.

You will never - never - see any tax being rescinded, reduced or returned in compensation for a new tax being levied and so your only defence is - at every election - to grill candidates on their position on taxes. Any candidate who refuses to sign up to a statement that, "I will do everything in my power to reduce taxes and will never increase taxes or introduce new taxes" should be taken out back and thumped.

Of course, those who do sign up to such a statement will be damnable liars but at least - in the moment they sign up - you may experience hope.

Tongue now out of cheek: Please vote at every possible opportunity.

US demands air passengers ask its permission to fly

John A Blackley

@Michael

"Oh, and by the way (rest of the world, I'm looking at you), that means no more AIDS money for Africa, no more food for famine stricken countries,"

Do you seriously ask us to think that the GoodolUSofA is the only contributor to AIDS relief in Africa and/or the only provider of food for famine stricken countries? Really?

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