* Posts by Marco

143 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Jun 2007

Page:

Queen's speech targets bankers, unemployed, and immigrants

Marco

Lie detectors

Lie detectors to catch "benefit cheats"?

How about connecting one to every MP before he makes a statement?

There's gold in green: profiting from climate change

Marco
Dead Vulture

"Scrutiny"?

Shouldn't El Reg's reporting on climate change be put under some scrutiny?

Most of what is being written here on the subject has been rebunked, but that won't be mentioned and, if I go by my experience, comments stating that have at times little chance to be published.

UK in 80% emissions slash pledge

Marco

Polarstern circles North Pole

For the first time ever a research vessel succeeded in circling the North Pole, as so much ice has melted away that both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages are free of ice:

http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=14910&formato=HTML

But neither you nor Mr. Goddard, who seems strangely absent lately, cared to explain that when it was pointed out to you months ago:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,574815,00.html

Melamine, poisons and the misappliance of science

Marco

Re: Greed is new god? I think not

Welcome back, Gordon. Nice to see you in business again! Nothing much has changed, huh?

'I can see dinosaurs from my back porch'

Marco

Oh joy!

Reading these comments, I get the impression that the US conservatives have a good bunch of their supporters in place to voluntarily scour the net, ready to argue against anything that discredits them and theirs anyplace, anytime it is necessary, may it even be a UK IT site that to most of them is probably as obscure as the backside of the moon.

To my fellow Europeans: We should rejoice and even encourage them on their path to self-destruction. What's wrong with it for us, when a competitor effectively chooses to eliminate itself from the global market, by hindering the advancement of science and therefore technology?

To the Americans that still have sense in them: I feel sorry for you.

Met Office: Global warming sceptics 'have heads in sand'

Marco

Northeast and Northwest passage ice-free

For the first time, ever.

Lewis, I still haven't seen an article from you documenting this:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,574815,00.html

Customs raids tech trade show

Marco

Heavy handed German police?

How many taser related deaths were there in Germany this year? Or last year? Heck, the last five years?

Wind turbines put bats under (low) pressure

Marco

Northeast and Northwest Passage free of ice for first time

Simultaneously, that is. For the first time ever.

Now give Mr. Goddard some days to come up with a more or less logical explanation why this has nothing to do with global warming.

Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered

Marco

Are the icecaps melting

I vividly remember Mr. Goddard's piece on the icecaps that linked to an article in the Independent. If you actually went over and read it, which Mr. Goddard most likely didn't take into account you might do, you would have found that the article simply states that there was a greater than 50% chance of an open ocean this year at the pole, and it possibly being reachable by surface craft.

Nobody quoted in the Independent article said the pole would be ice free, as Mr. Goddard claimed. Now he goes and debunks the prediction he himself falsely constructed, linking to the very article he made it up in.

That is Mr. Goddard's understanding of science to you.

Why flying cars are better than electric ones

Marco

Goodness

At this point I wouldn't wonder if Mr. Page's next article demands beaming and warp cores for personal transportation.

Chinese net censors unblock BBC, Wikipedia

Marco

Not quite correct

Wikipedia and the BBC may be unblocked, but certain pages on those sites and others are still inaccessible.

For example, you may have a look at the Tiananmen entry at the English Wikipedia, however, the entry about the 1989 protests linked from there still can't be accessed. Or YouTube: You can access it, but specific videos can't be viewed, among those the one from above protests, where a man is standing in front of tanks, blocking their path.

Greenpeace: UK gov trying to strangle wind power

Marco

What's your goal with this rant, Mr. Page?

Those who own the grid have no interest in connecting anyone who produces energy they won't profit from. That is all Greenpeace objects to here - they want a level playfield. Do you have any problem with that?

All the rest of your diatribe is just window dressing and frankly, these pieces on the Reg have now become quite obnoxious. It is NOT that Greenpeace shouldn't be criticized for some of their positions, but the criticism around here is so onesided, it becomes hard to take it serious much longer.

Germans develop submarine-launched UAV

Marco

VOLANS

Mr. Ettel et al., "volans" is the Latin participle of "volare" and means "flying".

Mr. Phreaky, as an Englishman who is "not forgetting", as that is what I made your attempt at German out to be, you should also rest assured that the Indians and the inhabitants of other former British colonies haven't forgotten either.

Google and the End of Science

Marco

The theory to end all theories

Quite an oxymoron, isn't it?

Heavyweight physics prof weighs into climate/energy scrap

Marco

Something's missing

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me this six page article neglects to mention what rate of energy consumption was used as basis of the calculations.

Or was this swept away by saying "People who wash regularly, wear clean clothes, consume hot food or drink, use powered transport of any kind and live in warm houses have no need to worry about the energy they use to power their electronics; it’s insignificant compared to the other things"?

My electricity consumption has dropped by 20% since using energy efficient light bulbs and turning electronics off instead of using stand-by. For others it might be more or less, but I would suppose that using energy better - without sacrificing comfort - should have an impact on how much of it we need to consume in the future. May it be through aforementioned lightbulbs or better isolated houses etc.

Not to mention that some of you would certainly benefit from actually having to get up from time to time to turn on the TV or DVD player.

That the professor thinks wind turbines are as dangerous as nuclear power is, well, a peculiar view. It may be true if you consider "as dangerous" as the danger of falling down when climbing on top of a wind turbine or nuclear reactor and trying to fix something, but it wasn't wind power that made Chernobyl uninhabitable for hundreds of years.

Marco

Re: @ Michael and anyone else that things CO2 is bad!

>>> Nice to see you've replaced your normal non poluting light bulbs with ones containing lots of nasty chemicals well done there.

The shortsightedness of some people here amazes me. There is one "nasty chemical" in these bulbs: mercury. Which actually is an element. And you probably don't know either that more mercury is produced by the average coal power plant powering an incandescent bulb for five years than if you smash a CFL on the ground outside.

Firefox 3 Download Day falls flat on face

Marco

Opera

Having tried them both now I will probably stay with Opera 9.5, which is a nice bit of lean and fast code.

And, besides, why go for the plagiators when you can have the original?

German government approves plod-spyware law

Marco

Re: What happens?

>>> This sounds like a VERY slippery slope indeed. Will this bring on WWIII. Maybe. I can't see the Russian and Chinese (or insert any countries) military being particularly impressed when they discover that their systems have been infected/monitered by the Germans.

You SERIOUSLY think that the Americans, Chinese, Russians, French and, yes, British haven't done just that kind of spying for years?

At least Germany is still democratic enough that this brings up a public debate, instead of having it introduced quietly, like in the aforementioned countries.

The British here should also remember that it is them that live in the country with probably the most surveillance cameras per square mile.

US imposes 72 hour pre-reg for Visa waiver travellers

Marco

Escape from the USA

>>> But yeah, beyond all the domestic dangers of living in the US (we even have a few deaths a year from black plague in the south-west), let's run the Constitution into the ground, wreck the economy, piss off the world, endanger the planet, set up a private 'Christian Solder' army and smirk all the way to the bank, all in the name of fear and terrorism. WTF has happened to people here? They got all worked up over a BJ in the Oval Office but crooks go and steal the country and we all just sit back and let it happen. We deserve to be walled in.

Which does remind me of a movie Kurt Russell took part in. But lighten up, you seem to be one of those we'll help to get out.

Economist: girls actually better than boys at maths

Marco

Re: Gender separation trumps gender equality

>>> If you teach girls separately from boys, they perform dramatically better, especially in subjects where "traditionally" boys are expected to be stronger, such as maths and hard sciences. Put girls and boys together and, especially when adolescence hits, girls' performance in those subjects falls off a cliff. The best explanation is the massive cultural and peer pressure

Or the biological pressure that draws us together no matter what society we live in and was already in place when "school" amounted to being taught not to run in front of a mammoth. Not to mention that from grade 8 and up there are girls who use a display of their "pressuring" femininity for a better grade.

>>> to be "attractive" to boys, and that starts with not humiliating them in maths tests.

On the contrary, girls don't wait for a math test to humiliate the boys in their class; they already show those boys for how immature and unequal they consider them when only going out with boys from higher grades.

European manned spaceship design unveiled in Berlin

Marco

Who cares about the shuttle?

Just make sure it won't be the Russians that build the toilets.

Games consoles not green enough, claims Greenpeace

Marco

Re: Utter B****Ks

>>> Here we go again. Most of the chemicals are only "dangeous" if ingested or licked or sucked on for a long time. I think even the most determined 2 year old would have trouble swallowing a 360!

What happens with the chemicals when you throw away your console, you ecological genius?

First public Firefox 3 candidate shoots out the door

Marco

Re: More FUD

>>> 2. If you mean mostly the Mozilla "Data" project. It's 1st stated goal: "Collect & share data in a way that embodies the user control & privacy options which are at Mozilla’s core." Huh? how is this anything other than open, fair and reasonable?

It simply is hypocrisy when viewed in light of what was said when the browser was originally developed.

>>> 3. Who pays for Firefox 3 development - you certainly don't.

Who pays Miss Baker $500,000 / year? The thousands of voluntary contributors certainly don't get any reimbursement for their troubles.

It seems Lord Acton is again proven right.

Added green burden could ground flying cars for good

Marco
Dead Vulture

Green

Maybe the comment will be published this time: The continous and one-sided bashing of environmental issues lately being seen on the Reg gets tiresome. If your publication somehow changed to a conservative political gazette without me noticing it, please let me know, and I will look for IT news elsewhere.

Let's see if this criticism, free of personal attacks and unsavoury language, gets censored again, which may prompt you to rethink your ongoing criticism of Wikipedia in general and how they treat their critics.

Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler?

Marco

Re: Adjustment vs. fitting

>>> There is a big difference between adjusting data and fitting data. All of the data presented in this article is directly from the NASA, Hadley, UAH, RSS, and ORNL web sites. The video is a demonstration of a fit - where one version of NASA data is "fitted" to another, in an effort to reverse engineer the "adjustment" which was done at NASA. I did not change any of the data points - just applied a simple rotation to the entire graph as a visual tool.

ROFL, that's what they call cherrypicking from the available data now?

>>> Benoit, you are using Dr. Hansen's data. I've already proven Dr. Hansen has the will and the power to put bias into NASA data.

Mr. Burchett, you haven proven nothing, you only argued that.

But anyway, these discussions on the Register are getting ridiculous. While I was always able, for example, to see a connection between repeated criticism of Wikipedia and the Register, it is harder to see why it suddenly has taken a fierce position on global warming, giving the likes of Mr. Goddard a platform.

Marco

Re: Very scientific analysis

>>> So you took two pieces of data, specifically two orthogonal graphs; decided arbitrarily that one was wrong, and proceeded to distort it until it fitted closely the first one; ergo proving that it was doctored and at the same time reassuring the veracity of the first. Right.

He did more than that: He selected two specific samples from the available data that made his point of view more believable.

>>> I can do that. If I take an image of the moon, paint it a soft yellowish color, then change the aspect ration of the picture a little bit, and perhaps add a drop shadow for dramatic effect; I can prove that the moon is not really a sphere, but a flat disc, and is not made out of sand or stardust, but of cheese! Q.E.D.

Chances are, a good number of people would believe you. Just look at the comments here. These people believe there can't be any global warming because summers in Europe have lately been rather mild. Now try to tell them that that's because the Gulf Stream, which so far made Brighton such a lovely place in the summer, is cooling down due to the melting icebergs and that the cooler European summers actually are a sign of an Earth that globally is warming up.

If cause and effect take more than two stops on their way, many people won't be able or willing to follow.

Linux guru Hans Reiser convicted of first-degree murder

Marco

Re: Re Re: No more complaints about US Legals

>>> Umm didnt Know Oakland Ca was in the EU.

Well, at least parts of California try to get as far away as possible from being associated with the rest of the US.

El Reg celebrates 10th birthday

Marco
Thumb Up

I've been reading this for too long

Ten years! Happy Birthday, El Reg!

Database Trojan infests pro-Tibet websites

Marco

@Reto Egeter

"I think your propaganda is showing. A lot of innocent minorities have died in Tibet because the Police did not want to use force for a full 2-3 Days (because of world opionon). Thank you for standing by the side of murderes with a smug face asshole."

A lot of innocent people have died in Tibet ever since China decided they want to occupy that country. The Chinese police would not need to use any force at all if they simply weren't there.

No sense of humour? Avoid Bootnotes

Marco

Where's the angle angle?

Ah, never mind...

Phorm admits 'over zealous' editing of Wikipedia article

Marco

Conflict of interest

From the article: "The spokesman said Phorm's PR team had not been aware of Wikipedia's policy on conflicts of interest."

So what? Wales isn't either.

Jimmy Wales to chair World Economic Forum on the Middle East

Marco

Thetanic Wales

I suppose he will sit around there until he has a cognition.

Oh, that was your story on Scientology? Sorry, it's quite easy to confuse these guys.

Al Gore's green job bonanza - can we afford it?

Marco

Re: Creation of Wealth vs Creation of Jobs

>>> The only way to "create" wealth is through the exploitation of natural resources (oil, gold, grains, etc...) any other scenario means that existing money has just been juggled around or tons of extra cash is being printed (leading to a doomed inflation scenario - i.e. Germany post WWI). This is also why countries with no natural resources stay poor and generally uncivilized forever.

Germany, that you mentioned it, has little natural resources and is the third largest economy of the world.

>>> In sticking with the Burger King example: if Tim goes from flipping burgers at $10hr to building cars at $20hr that $10hr difference must be made up for somewhere else in the economy - something must be made more cheaply or someone must be fired, otherwise the system is running a negative balance, which probably won't work for long (see inflation statement above). No amount of new jobs or increased wages will fix a negatively balanced economy - the only solution is to invoke "something-for-nothing" and use naturally occurring resources to create value - more, more, more.

No. Tim now has $20 to spend instead of ten, while his work creates a higher value per hour than what is paid to him and what the raw material cost. Tim will now consume more and keep people who produce the consumed goods in their jobs or even help create more of them, while his original job at Burger King is vacant and must be filled. Tim and the others will keep their (new) jobs as long as there is a high enough demand for the goods they produce.

This is Economy 101. I encourage you to look up "demand", "supply" and "recession".

Geert Wilders faces legal threats over footage copyright

Marco

Re: What debate?

"It would be equally simple to create a film of so-called Christians who feel that assassinating doctors or blowing up health clinics is justified by their holy text and an equally unjust broad-brush."

Wouldn't quite work. You know, very few Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims.

I am anxiously awaiting an outrage in the Islamic world over Islamist hate videos that make their rounds on the web again and again.

Nokia passes buck over Greenpeace eco rating reduction

Marco

Re: and how does Greenpeace rate as a mobile phone supplier?

So, according to you, we should listen to Samsung's opinion on Nokia, Exxon's on BP and Microsoft's on Nintendo?

Nintendo scores zero on e-waste responsibility

Marco

Go and kill yourself

It's amazing how many of you seem to be quite contempt to work with hardware that possibly contains unnessary amounts of toxic materials.

So, to all of you with the evironment-I-don't-care attitude: This is not about dictating companies how they produce, but making customers aware of what is used in the production.

Anything wrong with letting you make an educated decision? Most of you wouldn't go out and buy a car based solely on a shiny brochure and the promises of the car dealer either.

Then again, some of you do. And you entirely deserve what you get.

Jimbo Wales dumps lover on Wikipedia

Marco

What's new?

Or "who doesn't get it?"

That Wales and the top admins go and alter or have altered Wikipedia entries in a way favorable to them or those close to them, is no sensation. It has happened before, it happens now, it will happen again.

So what point does the current piece serve? We witness another testimonial of the Wikipedian's ability to perceive only a fragmented reality. They do not see that this is not about a man breaking up with a woman and doing so in a not so nice way, but how this man used his position to achieve a means through breaking the very rules he himself set up.

And there you go. We again see how Wikipedia is by its followers treated like a religion, as the only other instances of people being able to see reality in such a distorted way are where irrationality, religiousness and superstitiousness come into play.

In other words: You know how biased religion can be, therefore once more be reminded of how biased any information on Wikipedia can be.

Florida cops taser naked old timer

Marco

Violently resisting arrest?

Oh, give me a break!

What is wrong with America's police if two or more trained officers can't tackle a 65 year old naked man to the ground without a taser?

Cops just love convenience as much as the next guy, and tasering someone is just so comfy compared to pinning someone to the ground using body force. That some might react to the taser a little harsher, well, that's just bad luck. Isn't it?

And as long as there are no court rulings saying that an officer in a given situation used excessive force when he applied the taser, this will continue.

Microsoft swoops into schools to teach P2P morality

Marco

Be thankful...

...they aren't attempting to teach business morality.

Showdown over encryption password in child porn case

Marco

Re: A cynical thought...

>>> I have to wonder whether this case is being pushed by the US Government because what they *really* want to do is to ensure that *everyone* can be forced to reveal encryption passwords etc, but they're doing it by picking the "soft target" of child porn on the grounds that most people do not apply logical thought where children are concerned.

Mr. Marsden, your thought is much less cynical than realistic. In the world out there are a lot of people whose basic, if not only, reaction to this is: You have to get those bastards.

Do they consider the further implications? Bah, you'd have to start by telling them what "implication" means. Even here, at El Reg, which appears to be read and commented on by people who are quite intelligent and literate when it comes to computers, you encounter the same shortsightedness.

ISPs nominate UK record industry as top internet villain

Marco

Caption

"Mom always said I was to make this world better. She was right. Too bad we had to sue her over her ripped Simon & Garfunkel collection".

Hoax: German IT boss sacks three non-smokers

Marco

Re: Re: Re: Brilliant, etc. etc.

>>> Never mind the health issue, smoking stinks, it reeks, while not smoking doesn't make everyone around you smell like ashtrays. So I think people should be able to expect to work in an office without going home smelling like crap.

Well, from my experience non-smoking turns people into bitter individuals with a holier-than-thou ascetic attitude that generalize their supposedly healthier lifestyles on all aspects of life and continously try to lecture you on it.

Yes, I do prefer the smelly smokers over those.

Brit violinist does a Radiohead

Marco

@ Ryan

I have no idea what "gormless" is, but I suppose it means "lacking intelligence" and if so I second, or better third, the notion.

Pope tells astronomers to pack up their telescopes

Marco

Ahem, Mr. Fay

As Michael above pointed out, the move is actually an improvement.

So why were you so hellbend to put this in an unsavoury light?

USB 'compact cassette' promises 1980s nostalgia, home taping

Marco

Bah!

An MP3 player in the shape of an old cassette plastic case - that would've been cool. But a tiny USB stick in some thin cardboard for that price? Thanks, I'll pass.

Now RIAA says copying your own CDs is illegal

Marco

To "battle against customers"...

...your customers, that is, has always proven futile in the past.

Nintendo Wii hack opens door to homebrew games

Marco

Re: Nintendo will not be happy

>>> It's all fine and well for people to talk about this as if it's some great thing allowing indie developers to develop for the console, but the reality is that this will open the door for a lot of pirated games. If that becomes widespread (as it did in the early days of PSP) then I can't see this being anything but bad news for Nintendo.

Nintendo actually makes a profit on each unit sold, therefore they wouldn't suffer as badly as you think.

Indignant reader defends Idiot 2.0™

Marco

Lester has a point

A former executive attempts "journalism" and gets on the back of real journalists for getting on the back of executives.

Now, journalists are supposed to comment on things, executives are supposed to run companies.

US surgeon snaps patient's tattooed todger

Marco

The owner of the "Centerfolds Cabaret topless bar"...

...feels "violated, betrayed and disgusted".

I bet he now got an idea what his dancers sometimes may feel like.

Truth, anonymity and the Wikipedia Way

Marco

Re: "Conflict of interest" puts it mildly

>>> After months of Internet sleuthing, it turns out that SlimVirgin is one and the same as Linda Mack, who was a PanAm 103 researcher for Pierre Salinger at ABC News in London in 1989-91. Yes, this is the same Linda Mack who ordered sources from my library at that time because they were reliable, and never paid the invoice. The same Linda Mack whom ABC bureau chief Salinger came to believe was working as a secret MI5 asset all along, and locked out of her office after ABC was raided by Scotland Yard. They were looking for information on the Libya suspects. The same Linda Mack who organized a petition against a documentary film on Lockerbie that presented an alternative theory that ran counter to the official CIA/FBI/MI6/MI5 line that blamed Libya.

Mr. Brandt, please don't take it personally, but when it comes to hardcore Wikipedians and hardcore Wikipedia critics, it is hard to say who, if any, of those are actually the sane.

Page: