* Posts by Graham Marsden

6899 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2007

Canadian dirtbag jailed for SWAT'ing, doxing women gamers

Graham Marsden
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@Turtle - Re: @Graham Marsden

> What you need to understand is that psychopathy / sociopathy can not be cured.

I do understand that. I also understand that conditions like that can be treated and controlled and monitored, but simply locking someone up will do nothing to benefit the sufferer.

Still, that's not *your* problem is it...

Graham Marsden
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@AC - Re: @Graham Marsden - Sorry, pal!

And what criteria do you use to decide whether someone is "deserving" of your compassion?

Race? Colour? Creed? Sex? Country of birth? Employment status? Mental health? Money in the bank? Political views? Or just "Fuck you, I'm alright Jack!"?

Fortunately not all of us think like you.

Graham Marsden
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> One of those cases where getting out more really would have been good advice?

And about as useful as telling someone who's depressed to "pull yourself together".

For some people "getting out" can be a terrifying experience, they simply cannot deal with the outside world, finding it an incomprehensible place beyond their control, so they retreat into a "safe" space where they can control what's happening.

People like that need help and understanding, not jail time.

There again, some people (see certain comments above) also need to learn compassion and not think that because they are ok, everyone else is ok too...

Osbo PRINTS first Tory budget in 19 years with his BARE HANDS

Graham Marsden

Re: @LucreLout - Yes, let's all praise IDS...

Dear me, LL, why are you so hung up about my A Levels?

In any case, perhaps you can tell me how much money Gideon has borrowed since the Tories came to power? How much *further* in debt has he put us?

At least I have learned the difference between a deficit and a debt...

Graham Marsden

Re: @LucreLout - Yes, let's all praise IDS...

Now what was it someone said...?

> If people would refrain from ripping off the state and not paying taxes that they should and using dubious avoidance schemes, then nobody would need to be investigated.

FTFY.

Oh, and I see you've now gone back to your traditional "blame Labour" arguments...

Graham Marsden
Boffin

@LucreLout - Re: Yes, let's all praise IDS...

Oh dear, LL, *who* is blaming the wrong people...?

"The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that £1.2bn was lost to benefits fraud in 2013/14, or 0.7 per cent of total benefits spending.

"That’s the same amount as the year before, it’s a lot less than is lost in other developed countries – according to this study – and it’s less than the £1.5bn NOT paid out to people who are eligible for various benefits but don’t claim them.

"By contrast, HMRC’s most recent estimate of the annual “tax gap” – the money lost to the state through people not paying as much as they should – was £34bn."

And, of course, it was those pesky benefits claimaints who crashed the banking system and made us have to pay out £850 billion pounds to sort out that mess!

Graham Marsden
FAIL

"We should cut the deficit at the same pace as we did in the last parliament"

Err, this is the same George Osborne who intended to have *eliminated* the deficit by 2015?

Graham Marsden
Pirate

Yes, let's all praise IDS...

...the man whose department has instigated benefit sanctions against people who have been declared as "fit for work" and who then, inconveniently, died not long after.

And, of course, that same department who is now asking terminally ill people when the expect to die before they can claim the benefits they're due.

Clearly he is just improving the gene pool by eliminating the weakest in society...

Oxford Uni unearths 800-year-old document to seize domain names

Graham Marsden

"which will presumably add them to the long list of domain names it holds...

"... and has to reguarly pay to renew, even though they don't do anything with them, in an effort to stop people profiting from its name"

FTFY

What do you MEAN, 'Click on the thing which looks like a Mondrian?'

Graham Marsden
Boffin

Click on the Save icon...

... Which one is that?

The one that looks like a 3 1/2" floppy disk.

... What's one of those...?

Pirate Bay founders 'cleared of copyright crimes' in Belgium

Graham Marsden
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Re: I'm laughing; maybe I shouldn't be.

If it's good enough for Iain Duncan Smith...

NASA chooses ace SPACE PILOTS who'll take the USA back into manned flight

Graham Marsden
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Re: The Right Stuff

> We just need to leave all the politicians, bureaucrats, religion and lawyers behind when we do leave.

No, we need to tell them that the planet is going to be eaten by a gigantic mutant Star Goat, but, fortunately we've built three ships, three Arks in Space...

Ditch crappy landlines and start reading Twitter, 999 call centres told

Graham Marsden
Unhappy

@Voland's right hand - Re: Dear children...

Damn, I'm really not "down wiv da yoof" am I?

Graham Marsden
Boffin

Dear children...

... if there is a fire or similar emergency:

1) Get out of the building

2) Phone 999

3) THEN you can post it on social media...!

UK politicos easily pwned on insecure Wi-Fi networks

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

And I have no doubt...

... that other politicians, when they are told about this...

.

.

.

.

.

... will immediately rush through a set of laws making what the White Hats did illegal!

Crap crypto crackdown coming as FBI boss testifies to US Congress

Graham Marsden
Coat

Re: Rare moment for Europe to be ahead of the US

> Err, Judean, surely?

Splitter!

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

Re: them intertubes be dangerous

Ah, the old "Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions!" BS from management.

The PHB says "I've told you engineers what the problem is, it's up to you to solve it" as if that sort of demand can change physical or mathematical laws...

Sorry, say boffins, the LHC still hasn't sucked us into a black hole

Graham Marsden
Alien

Don't worry...

... "All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension..."

BTW for fans..."Luther writer is bringing back Sapphire and Steel"

Ok, if it every happens, like other remakes it could turn out to be great (cf Battlestar Galactica) or dire (eg The Prisoner), but I'd certainly like to see more S&S :-)

FLYING PIG crash-lands in Utah: Rider survives, bacon saved

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

Ah...

.... Bootnotes!

Hacking Team: Oh great, good job, guys ... now the TERRORISTS have our zero-day exploits

Graham Marsden
Childcatcher

"Our tools are now in the hands of terrorists and extortionists."

They forgot to include paedophiles and drug dealers...

Lizard Squad kid bandit who did 50 THOUSAND HACKS dodges cooler stint

Graham Marsden
Megaphone

Re: "Who fancies a lynch mob?"

Of course! Twenty years in chokey will teach him the error of his ways and be a warning to anyone else that building systems with crap security and then blaming someone else for when it all goes tits-up isn't a crime...

'Real' vampires reluctant to 'come out of the coffin' to social workers – barmy prof

Graham Marsden
Coat

"So what's with...

"... all the crucifixes already?"

Adam Smith was right about that invisible hand, you know

Graham Marsden
Happy

@chris swain - Re: @LucreLout - Can you guess what I'm going to say Tim...?@WTF?

> you've obviously driven him to distraction.

Actually he drove me to type - site:theregister.co.uk "matt bryant" "lucrelout" - into a search engine to see if his claim of not having any idea who Matt is was credible, but, well, to him that's "disturbing stalking"...

Graham Marsden
FAIL

Re: @LucreLout - Can you guess what I'm going to say Tim...?

You know, LucreLout, I *really* wasn't going to post in this thread again, but then I read THIS

> Who on earth is Matt Bryant?

Seriously, LL? You've been posting on The Register since June 2014 and you have *NO* idea who Matt Bryant is?

Here, let me remind you of just some of the threads where you both commented, indeed, in some of them in the *same* sub-thread:

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/3/2014/07/08/christopher_wilson_students_refusal_to_give_up_crypto_keys_jail_sentence_ripa/#c_2237226

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2015/03/03/snowden_us_return_russia_leak/#c_2455462

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2015/02/17/privacy_international_investigatory_powers_tribunal/#c_2441569

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2015/02/17/privacy_international_investigatory_powers_tribunal/#c_2441569

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/3/2014/12/14/inequality_poverty_living_standards_not_same_thing/

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/3/2014/07/16/british_cops_cuff_660_paedophile_suspects/#c_2245434

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/3/2014/07/03/nsa_xkeyscore_stasi_scandal/#c_2233537

I don't use the Fail icon lightly (unlike some), but this in this case, LL, yep, Epic Fail.

PS Of course I have no doubt now LL is going to try to dig himself out of this hole by vociferously claiming that he was joking or being sarcastic or something else clever. Methinks he doth protest too much...

Have fun, LucreLout, I'm sure I'll see you in another thread soon.

Graham Marsden

Re: @LucreLout - Can you guess what I'm going to say Tim...?

You know, LucreLout, sometimes I have to wonder if you're a Matt Bryant Sock Puppet, since you and he have the same debating tactics of shifting the goalposts or insulting people's intelligence to avoid conceding a point.

Rowing boats? Yes, they fit in the same general classification of craft as Luxury Yachts, but I don't think the skills needed to build them are quite the same, are they?

"You're either ignorant of your own position or lack the vocabulary to express it coherently." Or perhaps you just don't want to listen to anything that doesn't fit in with your narrow mind-set.

> Political compass has the Conservatives being more authoritarian than labour, which is patently untrue.

Ah, now we see LucreLout's true colours (as if they weren't obvious). I have no love for Labour, but at least they didn't try to get rid of the Human Rights Act and replace it with an act which says "You get the rights *we* say you can have, provided you're someone we like"..A pox on both their houses.

> You seem not to understand that the Prince hasn't given the fortune to his staff via pay rises. In fact, as far as is publicly known information, he hasn't given them a payrise at all.

And there go those goalposts again...

"The massive handout, estimated to total more than $32 billion, includes a two-month basic stipend for all state employees, soldiers, students, and pensioners, as well as generous grants to various professional associations, and literary and sports clubs."

Fine, if it makes you happy, it's a bonus, not a "pay rise". Feeling better now?

> Employees get paid at replacement level salaries. [...] you certainly seem to understand little of how capitalism functions in the real world.

No, LucreLout, I understand perfectly well how capitalism *can* function and does, indeed, function in the minds of those who think that labour is simply another resource which needs to be chiseled down to the lowest possible level to make it as cheap as it can be in order to maximise profits.

I'm simply saying that this is not actually an absolute necessity. I'm saying that those at the top who are paying themselves nice big salaries and bonuses shouldn't forget the ones at the bottom of the ladder who are actually doing the work that *earns* that money and that maybe paying them, at the least, a Living Wage instead of the government mandated Minimum Wage might actually make things better and, who knows, they might even work harder because you get more from loyalty than fear.

If you cannot understand this, then I pity you.

Now feel free to get the last word in, then you can go back to counting your money and seeing how good that makes you feel.

Graham Marsden

Re: @LucreLout - Can you guess what I'm going to say Tim...?

> Gathering all of that into one place is certainly a skill too, which is why the business owner gets rewarded. The employees are self evidently taking less risk with their capital

Neatly missing the point that, as said, it *takes* money to *make* money. If the employees *had* the money, they could start up on their own, but they haven't, so they can't.

> Well that certainly qualifies you to..... Well, I'm not sure what.

It doesn't "qualify" me to do anything. It just shows that your (not very implicit) sneer that I "understand the least about how the game is played" is wrong.

> And its worth bearing in mind that IT contracting isn't running a business in any real sense

Who is an IT Contractor? Not me, so another point fails.

> Equality of opportunity is what really matters, and you'll never get that between the only child of a millionaire [...] do we beat pretty people in the face to equalise their looks with those of us with a visage that appears to have been kicked by an epilleptic donkey

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Please, LucreLout, spare me the ridiculously silly Straw Man arguments. I've never said anything of the sort, nor would I, so please don't imply that I have because *you* are ignorant of my position.

> Why then are those of you on the left so obsessed with other peoples money?

Oops! LucreLout gets it wrong again. I am only on the "Left" from your point of view. On the scale of http://politicalcompass.org/ I come in at -0.3 on the Left/Right axis and -7.75 on the Authoritarian/ Libertarian axis, so I'm hardly some left-wing, pinko, bleeding-heart liberal who thinks that the only way to equalise opportunity is to tax the rich and give it all the the poor.

Have you seen the recent story about the Saudi Prince who has just given $32 billion to charities and government employees? Apparently that has inspired a number of other Saudi business leaders to give bonuses to their employees. Similarly Abramovich has decided that Chelsea is going to not just pay staff the Minimum Wage, but the Living Wage and other football clubs are doing the same.

Why? Perhaps it's because they've realised that they don't actually *need* many millions or even a few billion in the bank and that paying people what they're worth, rather than only what they *must* pay them is actually a better way of doing business.

So which is better, saying "Screw you workers, I'm alright Jack" or developing a conscience and not trying to hog it all for yourself?

Graham Marsden

@LucreLout - Re: Can you guess what I'm going to say Tim...?

> All the while the workers will be doing their damndest to ensure they get paid the absolute maximum for their effort in building the boat.

Except that, as has already been pointed out, unless there's a situation of almost full employment which forces employers to offer better wages, they can say "This is what we're paying, take it or leave it. If you don't take it, someone else will".

> I tend to find those that are the loudest critics of capitalism understand the least about how the game is played.

Really? Perhaps I should point out that I've been running my own business for over 20 years and got an A-Level in Economics many years ago...

But the fundamental point that *you* are discounting is that it *takes* money to make money. The first rule of the game is that you need a stake to get into the game.

What is stopping those workers setting up their own company? Answer: A big lump of capital to afford to buy premises, a boat yard, raw materials, pay labour, etc etc etc. And if you say "they can get a bank loan" I'll ask "who are the banks likely to loan to? The workers who have little in reserve or someone who's already got a few million in the bank?"

The fundamental issue with capitalism, socialism, communism or anything else is that they run into the problem known as "Human Nature" and unless you make sure that the game a) has rules and b) people are made to play *by* the rules, you will always end up with a situation of increasing inequality.

Graham Marsden

Re: Can you guess what I'm going to say Tim...?

> If you read up a bit you'll see that that's the bit that I think that Marx got right.....

Yes, Tim, but again you ignore the elephant. You quote: "by their purchase of things to consume they do spread that income, that wealth around" and "that's what then raises wages. And that's the invisible hand that benefits."

Except that the wealth doesn't get spread around, does it? The wages don't go up, do they? Or, at least, only the barest minimum possible. Meanwhile the rest of the wealth gets concentrated upwards, so who *actually* really benefits?

Graham Marsden

Can you guess what I'm going to say Tim...?

Once again we have an article from TW which, whilst accurate and informative, manages to ignore the elephant in the room:

> he must have, by definition, have spread the value of that consumption, thus allowing them to consume that amount, among the people who provided him with the yacht.

Yes, that's very true, BUT, of course, the value of that consumption is NOT spread evenly, is it?

> if he's paid £1.5bn for that yacht then obviously there's some yacht builders somewhere who now have £1.5bn in spondoolies, and that's been used to pay the workers who built the yacht, pay the workers who made the steel, that made the yacht and so on and on.

How much of that £1.5bn goes to pay the workers who *built* the yacht? How much of the money that paid for the steel goes to the workers who *made* the steel? Isn't it actually the case that (with a few exceptions) the people who got that £1.5bn will be doing their damndest to ensure that they pay the absolute minimum they can get away with to get the work done (and giving as little as possible away in dividends) ensuring that they manage to keep as much of that money for themselves as possible.

> it's capital added to labour which makes labour more productive and that's what then raises wages. And that's the invisible hand that benefits.

Really? Unless you have a situation approaching full employment where the workers have sufficient power, you get the result where the employers can say "You do what jobs we want for the money we're going to pay and if you don't want to do that, we'll find someone else somewhere else who's cheaper or more desperate who *will* do the job. So take our wages or starve!"

Can you guess what I'm going to say? It starts with Cui...

The modest father of SMS, who had much to be modest about

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

"Pizza had nothing to do with SMS"

And, to emphasise this, El Reg has a picture of someone, with a phone, eating pizza.

Right, so glad to get that sorted out...

Han Solo to get solo prequel flick in 2018, helmed by LEGO men

Graham Marsden
Alert

"[...] his methods for making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs."

Apparently (according to a friend of mine who is a total Star Wars geek and who has told me about this in excruciatingly tedious detail) Kessel is surrounded by a cluster of black holes and most ships have to take the "long way round" to avoid them, but the Falcon is such a nippy ship that it could dodge between them and shorten the route (or something like that, my brain may have switched off somewhere along the line...)

Or, of course, this could simply be RetCon because George Lucas didn't know that a parsec is a measure of distance, not time...

Security gurus deliver coup de grace to US govt's encryption backdoor demands

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

The short version...

... the Government doesn't trust us, but they expect us to trust them...

How a Cali court ruling could force a complete rethink of search results

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

@choleric - Re: Are you aware...

Are you after a job as an El Reg sub-editor?

Graham Marsden

Re: Irritating

The question is whether someone is *specifically* looking for an MTM watch or something that *looks* like a military design watch and there's really no way to tell that.

If there are lots of watches of similar design and someone has seen a friend/ review/ advert for MTM they might go into a shop and say "I want one of those MTM watches" but then find the price is too high or they don't quite like the look of what they're offered or, of course, that the shop doesn't stock that particular brand at which point the assistant can say "We also have these..."

As such, *provided* Amazon or whoever says something like "We cannot find any results that match what you're looking for, but we have these ones instead..." I would not have a problem.

If, on the other hand, they say "Here's what you're looking for" and it's necessary to waste time trying to refine your search enquiry or look through several pages to discover that they don't actually have that particular brand, then that would be a problem.

Ford's 400,000-car recall could be the tip of an auto security iceberg

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

And, as usual...

... security takes second place (or even lower) to marketing...

Google hits TurboFan button on Chrome's JavaScript engine

Graham Marsden
Holmes

it one day hopes it can rip out all the old compiler code and replace it with something better.

Preferably something that *isn't* Javas$$t!

Icon because... oh, you'll figure it out ;-)

Why the BBC is stuffing free Micro:bit computers into schoolkids' satchels

Graham Marsden

Re: Year 7 = 11 years old

> one of the early ideas mooted for the prototype was as a wearable

I don't think it will be long before someone comes up with a case that will allow you to substitute the 2xAAA batteries for a button cell and sell it as a Mod.

Graham Marsden
Happy

Does it run BBC Basic?

US dominates net-security patents, China, Canada and Oz on the advance

Graham Marsden
Pint

@Vic - Re: And how many...

I don't know whether to downvote you for having done (or been made to do) such things or upvote you out of sympthy...

... so have a beer instead!

Graham Marsden

Re: And how many...

> You shouldn't be able to patent something that has been already patented, nor something that is already out there either.

FTFY! (Now let's fix the US Patent Office...)

Graham Marsden
Meh

And how many...

... of those patents are actually original or inventive and aren't simply attempts to patent the wheel or something that someone else has already patented...?

Home Office kept schtum on more than 30 data breaches last year

Graham Marsden
Holmes

Gods forbid...

... that our Government should tell us anything that would make us think that they can't be trusted with all our data...

Behold the mighty Swiss SPACE JUNK NOSHER PODULE

Graham Marsden
Coat

It wasn't Drax, it was Blofeld!

Mine's the one in the secret extinct volcano lair...

Pluto probe brain OVERLOAD: Titsup New Horizons explained

Graham Marsden
Coat

Re: Slam code

Well they might find their phone service switched to another provider without their knowledge and end up with a massive bill...

THIS MEANS WAR between USA and Japan! GIANT ROBOT WAR

Graham Marsden
Trollface

Re: Robot Jox

Perhaps they just have better taste in Giant Robot movies...

BPI fiddles with music consumption figures while revenues burn

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

"how do you measure an album's sales...

"...when a lot of your audience is streaming, or has YouTube"

The same way you calculate how much "piracy" is costing the music industry: You make up a large figure, multiply it by another large monetary amount, then get the media to publish it unquestioningly...

The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who

Graham Marsden
Boffin

The Doctor is a hero...

... so much so that El Reg used the Hero Image twice!

(Or was it just some sort of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey thing?)

Giddy Google Glass gazers, beware! FCC filing obscures view on new gadget

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

Is that pronounced....

.... AAARGH!!!

Will rising CO2 damage the world's oceans? Not so much

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

Re: Is it an indication...

If that's the case, then there's a whole lot more of us who have also reading El Reg for too long...

Graham Marsden
Boffin

" will probably not be disrupted"

Oh well *that's* ok then!

Lewis has told us (again) that it's nothing to be concerned about, so we can stop worrying our pretty little heads!

Of course the fact is that we're still using more and more energy, so using it in more efficient ways (which, BTW, has nothing to do with living in yurts or wearing hair shirts or any other of the usual BS) will a) lower our emissions of CO2 and b) give us time to actually get fusion and similar generation methods working properly so it's win-win all round.