Posts by Edward Pearson

Been waiting for this...

So THIS is how they're going to ease in the one-child-one-family initiatve. Great.

Get em while they're young...

Thats right, can't convince the voting adults so lets target the more impressionable children.

And now a word from our sponsor, the BNP:

Hey kids? Life getting you down? In trouble at school? ASBOs? Looking for some answers? Well look no further: Immigrants did it. Thats right kids, immigration is killing this country, and also, it's killing your pets. Last year immigrants caused about 4600m² of GLOBAL WARMING which is why teenagers sometime sometimes feel depressed, anxious or misunderstood.

We need to deport them all, close the borders and then presumably, everything will be fine.

A lot of "adult" people don't agree with our views, but if you vote when you're old enough for us LIFE WILL BE ONE HUNDERED PERCENT BETTER. We also have free sweets, and lemonade. Big smile for the camera...

How is this any different? With either policy, people tend to lean either toward apathy or extremism, and I don't see why having failed to convince the adults in the country, the government feels it has the right to indoctrinate the children into supporting them.

Luckly they failed miserably! Kids these days far are too street wise through trying to become coke dealing hiphop artists to fall for this kind of bullshit.

Viva La Revolución!!!

Oh Ashlee...

"And companies such as Google and Microsoft also receive perks to build their new centers with taxpayers agreeing to major breaks for power consumption. That's quite handy for the likes of Google and Microsoft, since they're so strapped for cash and battling it out with rivals in low-margin businesses where just a few nickels can be the difference between maintaining a monopoly and going bust."

You won't find sarcasm THIS satisfying anywhere else. Truely scathing stuff, keep it up!

Watergate?

Can anybody explain to me why this hasn't caused a backlash a thousand times worse than the Watergate scandal? That centred around 14 MINUTES of missing tape, we're talking about 7 MONTHS of missing communications here.

Don't tell me the backups failed, we all know that's bullshit. When you're the Whitehouse and your IT guys "lose" 7 MONTHS of backups, heads roll.

Society is sleeping.

US...

Extradition flights go in.

Rendition flights go out.

Home of the Brave indeed, where human rights are merely a slight inconvenience.

Well done!

Good on this chap, and I wish David Cameron would just shut up and disappear.

It's a real testament to how seriously fucked our political system is when the BEST the country has to offer is David Cameron, who is essentially Tony Blair in a bluer suit.

We have two parties (that matter) and their policies are to do the same thing, in slighty different ways. I fail to see the difference between this and single-party state.

Next stop, fascism.

This is VERY simple.

You have sold me an internet connection.

Is there a limit? Yes

Therefore is it unlimited? No.

I fail to see how this is open to interpretation. Surely this is a matter to be dealt with through the Trades description act? Can somebody explain to me why these people appear immune from prosecution?

A company I used to work for was hauled up for a labeling a feature on one of our tariffs in a "misleading fashion". We were taken to court, lost and made to pay restitution to our customer base. This is the way it should be.

What?

"We're glad that it's over but two years [sentence] after four years of hell, and the amount of money that his actions cost us, is somehow not equaling up,"

Yeah, fuck him. Lets execute the bastard and put his head on a pole HIGH above Washington so that all may see what happens to those who DARE oppose us.

So your website had to deal with a DDoS attack, boo fucking hoo. This guy now has to serve 2 years in an American prison. Equaling up? Fuck no.

This guy's obviously a frustrated, but intelligent kid. Rather then sending him to jail, where no doubt he'll pick up all manner of useful skills, like how to smash a window without making too much noise, make a shank, or sell drugs efficiently.

Why not try an put his knowledge to good use? He'd probably respond well if people took an interest. It's like the teenage tearaways who go into the Army and end up doing great things, these people just need something constructive to put their energy towards.

Dispite the above...

I don't see a problem with this, when you download copyrighted files, you ARE breaking the law, the same law that protects all our work.

A lot of people are suggesting that these companies cannot differentiate between legal and illegal streams, this isn't true. About a year ago a friend of mine was sent a letter exactly like this, on which, it detailed exactly what he'd been sharing, with who, and who held the copyright.

Now don't get me wrong, I download my fair share of copyright files, but just because everybody does it, and the companies harmed, perhaps aren't ones we can relate to, it certainly doesn't mean that copyright is a sham.

We're ARE in the wrong, so don't bitch.

No...

What we need is smarter (not greedier) ISPs with IDS filtering systems, all of which are updated automatically from a central "evil-code" registry.

Really, it's that simple. Will it ever happen? Of course it won't, the ISPs are too busy making their quick buck and trying resell bad Anti-Vir solutions.

Wow, they're lucky I wasn't there.

This is amazing, I don't believe for a SECOND they'd have pulled this shit had it been an adult installing the game.

How can they legally "detain" me? If I want to leave, then I'm walking out the door, and if a guy tries to forcibly restrain me he's either going to end up on an assault charge or nursing a broken nose.

Has anybody else noticed the strange blurring of the lines between Corporations and Law enforcement? We read about the RIAA's cronies going on armed raids, and now Apple is aparently holding people against their will.

These people think they're either above, or ARE the law. Regardless, it's not going to wash with me, and you shouldn't put up with it either, know your rights and tell these jumped up little sods to piss off.

What?

Who died and made these two the leading authority on open source development?

We shall continue to develop software the way we always have, stop telling us how to do our jobs.

There are NO absolutes, but I don't see a problem with letting your contribs add their name to their respective modules, and to suggest that they'll become possessive over each one, is simply wrong.

@Chris C

Chris,

I've never seen such utter bollocks so eloquently put.

There are far too many (well made, yet wrong) points there for me to pick apart, but i'll have a stab at the first:

Back in the days of BBS, fewer people used these systems, they weren't designed for numbskull home users, and why should they be? There was nothing on there for Joe Average, it was purly for the technically gifted who wanted to experiment with a newly affordable technology.

Now, surprisingly enough, over the past 30 years technology has improved, it's easier to cater for the average user, so what would you have people do? Choose to keep the "internet" an elitist arena and refuse entry to those who don't know C?

Why foster ANY innovation? Nowadays cars are MUCH safer than they were 30 years ago, should we hate these advances because they encourage less skilled drivers to go out on the roads?

Hogwash Chris, Hogwash.

@further proof

Snakes are very adept at identifying an unknown creature's eyes (i.e the face, the best place to strike).

This is how snake charming works, the snake isn't entranced by the music, it's the movement of the pipe that keeps it busy, as it believes it to be the eye.

The moral of this story is: If and when you're next in the bush, taking a slash and all of a sudden there's some sort of salient serpent looking inquisitive, then you might want to keep certain elements of your anatomy moving!

@Please let EDS get it

Why? So the government is forced to borrow yet MORE money?

In the UK, we're already taxed into the deck, why they insist on spending insane amounts of money on companies who'll only fuck it up is beyond me.

I for one will refuse to carry, or possess any form of compulsory ID, they can send me to prison if that's what they want (it's a fucking holiday camp nowadays anyway)

@Michele John

Well thought out comments like this are the reason I still come to the El Reg.

There are two well established methods of controlling a populous; Fear and Hope. Some would argue that religion is a third, I consider it to be a subset of Fear.

Hitler used Hope, today we use Fear.

@ReactOS Steve

...where it has been for the past 5 years and shows no sign of movement.

Not THAT impressive.

This of course is only useful if:

A) You're on the LAN (and yet still need/want access to the HomeHub for some reason)

B) The admin hasn't bothered to change the default password.

A nice PoC, but in practice it's a white elephant.

@Flying Bullshite Alert, don your helmets!

This is why I still come to El Reg.

Internet.com

I bet this will be like when Internet.com bought JavaScripts.com and a HOST of other sites.

They ripped out the tried and tested design, nuked the content, rebranded, and then watched as one by one, people stopped going to the (previously, very popular) sites.

Now I'm not saying the exactly same thing will happen here, but when I see: "These sites will now be combined with CBS's websites". Alarm bells start to ring!

If people wanted to use CBS's website rather than CNet, well, I'd imagine they'd be doing it. As it is, CNet and all it's subsidiaries are bringing in $1.8bn's worth of traffic, why rock the boat?

Watch this space.

Society

Given what goes on today (we read about most of it on here), would you say that society (and perhaps human nature) is self destructive?

If so, have a stab at explaining why.

Added Extra's

Our deluxe package comes complete with tinfoil hat and 6m^2 of the softest cotton wool to wrap the kids in. SAFTY GAURENTEED.

STB company losses aren't the issue here.

In my opinion the real issue here is that these people were convicted for PROVIDING the information needed to modify your box, they were NOT conviced of modding boxes, mere making the information available.

Surly this is a freedom of speech issue? If wrote an article detailing the most efficient way to kill a man, then I couldn't be held accountable if somebody used that information to kill somebody. Even though when writing it, I knew it could only be interpreted one way, I haven't committed a crime. So If anything shouldn't this be an incitement conviction (incitement to defraud)?

Now if these chaps were modding people's boxes, I could understand the legal action, but if merely making the pertinent information available is a crime, then where do you draw the line? What if I publish the details of an algorithm that I've been studying for educational purposes? Now if somebody happens to use that algorithm to cause trouble, am I liable?

This, like many other cases I've heard about recently, just confirms my belief that the law is now so generic, and there's so much of it, it can be used to prove anything provided the price is right.

So...

If I pop down to my local cornershop, they've got a notice board outside. Anybody can use it to put up classifieds or messages (I'm sure most villiages have them)

So by this logic, I could put offensive or libelous material up on this notice board and the cornershop would be the ones liable?

Another triumph of the legal system.

Goodbye to...

...a truely facinating man, and dispite some people's opinion, he had no desire to see LSD used as a recreational drug.

LSD looked like it was going to become a big deal in psychiatry circles, but all the research was cut short because of the Hippie movement and their penchant for the Acid.

Read the obit here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1912485/Albert-Hofmann,-LSD-inventor,-dies.html

The only thing Brown has proved here...

...is that he:

A) Refuses to listen to expert advice.

B) Refuses to treat us like adults.

("Lethal" skunk! For fuck sake! What are we? Americans? How can we hope to trust in a government that repeatedly LIES to us. If they are happy to lie to us about this, what else isn't true?)

C) Fails to understand that this will NOT stop the use. It'll merely bring the police force to it's knees and stop them dealing with REAL crime. Pot smokers will continue to smoke their pot and dealers will continue to deal, we'll just see more dangerously contaminated buds on sale.

Cannabis, sadly, has become a political football. This current debate has NOTHING to do with health or happiness, it's an attempt to win votes.

In this country, we have a much higher percentage of cannabis users than Holland. There are more than a million criminals out there, criminalized because they like to smoke a herb. A herb that is acknowledged to be an order of magnitude safer than, lets say, alcohol, or fatty foods.

If that's not a good argument for legalisation, I don't know what is.

This is BAD.

If I'm a cadet and I want to wear my uniform, I fucking will. How DARE you try and tell me what to wear! This is not a direction we want the country to go in!

If I want to wear a spacesuit, painted with abusive slogans, a purple hat with green spots and PVC trousers on my way to work in the morning, I fucking will, that is why we say: This is a free country.

Every day we take more notes from the US, and our country gets less and less free.

I wonder...

...how much of the taxpayers money was spunked (oh yeah, I went there) on this logo?

With a standard design house, something like that would cost you in the region of £100. You would LOOK at the graphic before branding piles of mousemats. Then you would reject it. All in all, it might cost you £100, it'd probably cost you nothing.

No doubt these people were presented with tens of thousands for this little bit of "design"

We're catching on in Britain. The US have been funneling stupid amounts of money to "friendly" companies for years.

Re: Sneaky Bastards

Some questions get asked, a few backs get scratched, and all of a sudden it's ruled that google's bid was illegal and open access disappears in a PUFF of smoke.

Thats the American way.

So what he's saying...

...is that he was wrong before? Why should I trust him now?

I believe them.

Of course they'll allow foreign journalists uncensored access to the internet, and allow them to make live broadcasts. There won't be any signed deals, there'll be no smoke, and very few mirrors.

The PRC don't care what the rest of the world sees! They want to "protect" their own people, they'll simply censor the footage as it comes back into the country. What we, back in Blighty, get to see, matters not a jot to these people.

Hang on...

I'll admit, Eclipse used to be dangerously complicated, inducing brain hemorrhage in around 70% of its users, and joining the ranks of C++, something you can't "just figure out" without first reading the manual.

However, in the past year, a LOT of work has been put into simplifying the system and reorganizing the UI. Now I think the look and feel is clean, most of the nasty docking surprises (any Ecplise user will know) are gone, and a lot of other general bloat and nastyness has been removed.

If we're going to make it EVEN MORE use friendly, excellent, have at it, but new users shouldn't feel put off by this article, go try Eclipse now, it's free and you might like it.

Well...

I'd just like to be the first to say: FUCK YOU.

I don't know why Creative would be perceive this as a bad thing, although I can take a guess: I gather there is a class action lawsuit in progress surrounding the "Vista Capable" claim of a number of companies and Microsoft. I can only imagine these patches provide proof that Creative's customers ARE aware of the issues (proving their existence), and therefore, by definition, the hardware is not "Vista Capable".

Who knows, they could just be bastards.

I shall have to watch for the inevitable Streisand effect (I pity the fool who doesn't use google), and just hope this guy continues releasing his patches anonymously.

I certainly will never buy another creative product, and with any luck others will follow suit.

Go Adobe.

This last year has showed us quite how canny an operator Adobe is. This latest move will should put the final nail in the Silverlight coffin.

Microsofts refusal to nurture innovation, and insistence on using closed, proprietary technologies, is beginning to catch up with them.

You reap what you sow, and Microsoft, over the years, have planted many a problem.

Fear and Loathing

What about a nice carbon neutral smack habit?

On a unrelated note, the government have fucked up, we'll only take issues seriously for so long, now that "the environment" is a political football, and when the reports we're constantly bombarded with tend to be alarmist propaganda with little substance, it will confuse people into apathy.

Lets take Cannabis as an example, we're given so much conflicting information, it's impossible to make an informed decision on its dangers, simply because we have anti-cannabis politicians lying hijacking reports, and pro-cannabis activists hijacking reports. As a result, the level of use in the country is higher than that of the Netherlands (where it remains legal). It may well be EXTREMELY bad for you, however people KNOW that they cannot trust reports from born from either side of the argument, becuase they will will most likely be spin.

We're living in a perpetual case of a political "the boy who cried wolf", and until we can come to trust our leaders, we'll make encouraging noises, and then totally ignore everything they do.

If you want the public to take an issue seriously, then don't abuse the privilage.

Both wrong.

It just ISN'T possible to estimate this kind of thing with a simple equation, it simply doesn't address the (literally) millions of different variables, most of which, we cannot anticipate.