Posts by raving angry loony

disband the USPTO

So VoIP+FTP is patentable now? It's not completely bloody obvious to anyone "skilled in the art"? What the HELL is the USPTO using as filters for these applications, lobotomized baboons??

tossers

In other words, Microsoft would like to keep stealing and trying to drive i4i out of business. They not only want to have their cake and eat it, they want i4i's cake and eat that one as well, without any sanctions or penalties.

I'm quite curious as to how the courts will react. US courts are extremely politicized, so it's really a toss up.

defeating the purpose.

The only point of these uncomfortable, hard on your back, unreliable, poorly handling machines called "choppers" was the loud pipes. They spawned a whole generation of deaf fuckers who thing that loud pipes are somehow a good idea. This really defeats the purpose.

@AC "How so"

That's what the suit seems to be about - the specs seem to have lied.

Hardware and raw capability wise, I consider the iPhone to probably be the current "best phone". What AT&T and Apple have done to this beautiful hardware should have the fuckers who made these decisions castrated, cut into small little bits, jumped on, set on fire, then hurt in really horrible ways. Its for that reason I'll probably never get one.

abuse

Interesting. When someone signs up to a company with a defined benefit plan, surely they need to renegotiate the employment contract to change that? Or are companies now allowed to unilaterally change anything they want in a contract without so much as a by-your-leave?

We obviously still need unions today, because corporations are STILL of the opinion that employees are just so many slaves they can abuse at will.

hypocrisy

What he did was probably a hell of lot more humane that your typical slaughterhouse. His only crime was not being rich enough to pay off the politicians and "animal welfare" bureaucracy so that they turn the other way, as they do for the factory slaughterhouses. Fucking hypocrites.

pricks

I'm guessing that all it means is that there's just more big pricks in the UK than there used to be. My observation is that most of these pricks somehow got elected last time around.

congratulations in order I guess

Perpetual copyright through the back door. Complete elimination of fair use. The ability to take public domain works and by slapping some encryption on them removing the work from said public domain.

Congratulations are in order to the RIAA and MPAA, as their goal of becoming the new "London Company of Stationers" and completely reversing the 1710 Statute of Anne has come a few steps closer.

I just hope like hell that other countries don't follow in the US footsteps, even with the billions being spent on lobbying by these dinosaurs.

Goldberg FTW!

The only obvious choice is a Rube Goldberg device made of paper (and latex)

At a certain height, the balloon expands enough to nudge the paper wad, which drops down onto the papier-mache lever, which pushes the pin into a second balloon. Upon bursting, this ballon releases the weight tied to the flywheel, which spins up, letting the cardboard tube hanging from it fly outwards and strike the pigeon. Taking flight, the string tied to the pigeon's leg pulls the ...

and so on.

denial

Ah yes. Looks like the Home Office has gone from "security through obscurity" straight to "security through denial".

@M man

Emery sees a job getting done slower..... and a backward step

you see precision and care

they see workers who never need to take breaks, don't join unions, and only have a one-time capital investment and minimal maintenance vs actually having to pay someone a wage.

I bet the robots see an opportunity to get familiar with handling boiling liquids, not to mention the sword and shield practice, all while getting ready for when they take over.

pity

Pity it will probably only work with shitty Sony cameras.

What the other guy said

Yeah, it's got nothing to do with "beauty standards". It's got everything to do with false advertising. If their products require a photo retouching session (either with Photoshop or the old fashioned before-Photoshop way) to attain what they are claiming their product will do, THAT'S false advertising.

That's what the bastards should be nailed for. Where's Trading Standards when you need them?

predictable.

Predictable really. The government in various countries has been found "not liable" for such things as promises made during a campaign (it's not a contract, apparently), "not liable" for accidentally executing the wrong prisoner, and now, in the UK, "not liable" for destroying the lives of citizens due to sloppy bookkeeping and a total disregard for privacy or accuracy.

Leaving the UK was possibly one of my better decisions, definitely.

Stealing

Many works are in the public domain. If Google manages to obtain a NEW copyright on those works that are in the public domain, then that is theft, pure and simple. If, however, Google is simply providing those works in a different form without expecting to own copyright, then I say good for them.

déja-vu

At which point Microsoft will come out with WebDirectX, bribe and coerce so-called international "standards" bodies to approve it, and fuck everyone over yet again.

Haven't we been here before?

@Maddox

Actually, he's not evil for being effective at selling mediocre software. He's evil because the tactics and strategies he used in selling mediocre software were illegal, unethical, and, well, evil.

joke

PCI really is a joke. Current client has an official PCI compliance certificate, obtained from one of the poor sods who paid at least $20k+$10k/yr for the "right" to issue said certificates, yet his security is utterly laughable (it's what I was hired to fix).

PCI compliance is a scam, a ruse, a fucking bad joke.

self serving bastard

Only because Gates would like Microsoft to be able to import more really cheap labour from India, pay them crap, but have them tied to the company such that if the complain they get fired immediately and sent away again. There are a lot of unemployed "smart people" in the USA, but they aren't getting hired. One of the reasons they aren't getting hired is that companies like Microsoft would actually have to obey the law then dealing with these people. Unlike their foreign imports.

hmm. I'd buy...

Apple designed colour version of the illiad iRex, with colour e-ink screen and 40 hour battery life? That would be nice.

Or at least something with a sensitive enough screen to allow it to accurately transcribe my chicken scratches, then convert them to legible text. If they can do that... whoa!

plague

One can only hope that although Linus might steer clear of the "hating Microsoft" disease that he doesn't fall into the trap of thinking they aren't a plague.

crock

The whole "Verified by Visa" thing is a crock of shit whose ONLY purpose is to put the onus for lack of Visa security onto the customer. If you forget your password, you just need one extra bit of information to change the password there and then to make the purchase. Not exactly secure AT ALL, yet it allows Visa to pretend.

hypocrites

Ah yes. The kind of "feminist" that claims that women should be able to do anything they want... except what some puritanical, patriarchal bitch says isn't acceptable.

How very feminist indeed.

innuendo?

That's the thing about innuendo. If you understand the references, then you've already heard a lot worse. If you don't understand the references, then you never will.

It's the dirty-minded Puritans who are the main cause of the problem. They understand the references, and therefore think that everyone has as dirty and filthy a mind as they do. Instead of letting it go, they complain because somewhere, someone might be having a good time and that can't be allowed.

This is the same kind of busy-body fuckwits who are killing the innuendo in your typical panto, and turning them into Hollywood versions of the Smurfs.

It's obvious that Britain didn't do enough to kill off its Puritans. Time for another purge, I say.

invasion

Invasion fleet ship made a navigation error probably. Happens all the time.

management vs employees

Note that it article seems to imply that the employees were talking about career path and long term planning whereas the managers were talking about compensation packages in the here-and-now with no regard whatsoever for career paths. Which is pretty typical, since most managers I've met can't plan more than 3 to 6 months in advance and wouldn't know a technical career path if it bit them on the arse.

kill software patents

Another example of why software patents are such a fucking bad idea.

fix it themselves?

If it's such a huge pain, and there are so many users affected, why don't they get someone to fix it for them? That's what "open source" is all about, right? You don't have to go back to the controlling organization to fix something, you just go ahead and do it.

OpenOffice is hobbled by the fact it has to remain almost a clone of MSOffice or the mouth-breathing idiots who continue to support that anti-trust giant won't even consider it. Which is a pity.

settles it.

Well, this settles it for me. I will now never EVER purchase a Kindle (assuming it is ever made available where I live) or anything else that doesn't allow me to OWN the books I purchase without some twatdangle coming in behind my back and deleting them.

london company of stationers anyone?

A copy of Shakespeare in digital form cannot be copyrighted. It is simply republishing a previous work that has entered the public domain.

A copy of a painting in digital form should not be copyrightable, for exactly the same reasons. If a publicly funded gallery wants to digitize them "for the public good" then it should, by damn, keep those works in the public domain. To do otherwise is to return to a pre-1710 state of affairs. What do they want to do next, reconstitute the London Company of Stationers perhaps?

it's a joke.

The US patent system is so broken it's become a joke. From encouraging innovation, it's gone to rewarding patent trolls who add nothing but legal expenses to the field of technological innovation. Let's also mention that anyone suing in a certain Texas jurisdiction for anything obviously doesn't have a case that would stand in any other court, and is just hoping for the partisan jury to award them the equivalent of a lottery prize so they can continue to milk the very sick, very broken US patent cow.

wtf?

SO glad I left the UK. 15 people at a BBQ is a dangerous and illegal "rave" now? Bloody police state, make no mistake.

give us that loving feeling

Gotta love the Reg. Sometimes. Fridays mainly. About pub time.

growing old

So glad I left the UK. Where I am now is on the same slippery slope, but we shouldn't get here for another 20 years or so. Gives me time to grow old and die before seeing another country become a police state run by corrupt, self-serving and outright insane politicians.

@Michael C

Yeah, what he said.

Microsoft is basically lying that these people are "normal people". They're actors, paid to select a Windows running product. Which is ok, but they shouldn't lie and pretend that they are, in fact, "people on the street". Apple might stretch things in their ads, but they don't outright lie in them.

As for prices: when you compare apples to apples, Apple prices are in line (except for what they charge for memory, that's a total and utter rip off). It's when you start comparing Apple to rotting unidentified biological matter that Microsoft and their shills get to say that Apple is "way overpriced".

Crime does pay

Not surprising. With Intel having used illegal tactics to limit AMD's sales, AMD just hasn't had as much money to throw at research. Pity the fines the EU will probably be levying won't be partially paid to AMD to make up for Intel's crimes.

mafia

It's a fucking protection racket. "Give us money or we'll sell you out". Opt-out should be illegal.

dibs

Dibs on "raving angry loony".

So long as it's impersonation you're going after, not anonymity. Anonymous speech should be a cornerstone of any free society.

hmm.

So Microsoft builds security into its products "from the ground up"? BWAAHAHAHA! Thanks for the laugh. I guess there's a difference between "having security in mind" and actually "having security". Be nice if they ever got it off their minds and into production.

Yes, Apple could do a lot better on the security front, mainly by vetting and demanding greater security from 3rd party vendors and by having a better security framework for their windowing system. But at the core MacOSX is still based on OpenBSD, currently the most secure of the 'nix systems. so at least they got that right, assuming they're still in contact with that group. Given the increasing power of the short-sighted fuckwits in the marketing dept vs the generally competent technical side of the company, I'm having my doubts.

Problem is that there's a lot more malware targeted at easily fooled idiots these days, and those are never in short supply, no matter which operating system one looks at.