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User: David+Gerard

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  1. Re:There was a simple solution... on Examining the HTML 5 Video Codec Debate · · Score: 1

    This is something Wikimedia would love to actually do - the only barriers are technical, not political or legal (as far as we're concerned). That is, it sounds easy to say "we'll do uploads of anything, run it through ffmpeg and save" but the devs have actually been seriously considering the infrastructure this would need in practice with the sizes of the likely videos and the demands on the sites. See discussions on wikitech-l and foundation-l. Summary: it's not that easy, but we definitely want to do just this.

  2. Re:MPEG-LA licensing is a fucking bitch on Examining the HTML 5 Video Codec Debate · · Score: 3, Funny

    Scum Sucking Syphillitic Pus-Drinking Rotting Corpse Devouring Worm Infested Defecation Eaters' Anti-Defamation League on line two for you. They're upset at being compared to patent trolls or MPEG-LA, and are demanding you upgrade their status to "like child rapists."

  3. My favourite bit on Examining the HTML 5 Video Codec Debate · · Score: 1

    was not only that I was quoted in TFA, but that my quote was illustrated with a lolcat.

  4. Re:Can't rape the willing... on Exchange Rates Spell High Prices for Windows 7 In the EU · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At one stage it was actually cheaper to buy a return plane ticket from London to New York and buy CS3 there than to buy it in the UK.

  5. Michael Jackson dies, apparently on News Sites Slammed By Michael Jackson Traffic · · Score: 1

    The entire Internet melted last night as Michael Jackson wreaked celebrity revenge upon it, with Wikipedia, LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter giving "service unavailable" errors.

    Mr Jackson also got his own back on the media, with TMZ getting the scoop on his death and everyone else reporting it second-hand in a manner that showed they didn't quite believe them.

    "We are utterly distraught and inconsolable about Mr Jackson's death," said Sony-BMG, as Michael Jackson albums occupied the top fifteen positions on the Amazon CD sales chart.

    The O2 Arena will be running a thirty-night Michael Jackson tribute, with only fifteen minutes' less Michael Jackson each night than was originally contracted. "People may wish to hold on to the tickets as absolutely irreplaceable final souvenirs," said a spokesweasel, "rather than returning them for a refund or anything foolish like that."

    The Twitter and Facebook websites were rendered particularly crippled under a flood of Michael Jackson jokes:

    • Why did Michael Jackson cross the road? He didn't, he was dead.
    • What did Michael Jackson say to the children? Nothing, he was dead.
    • How does Michael Jackson pick his nose? He doesn't, he's dead.
    • What did Farrah Fawcett say when she heard Michael Jackson had died straight after her? Nothing, she was dead.

    "I'm appalled at the fuss over Michael Jackson," said Canberra taxi driver Peter Mackay. "So he died. Get over it. He'll be back on Sunday, yeah?"

  6. Spam revitalises local economies! on Spammer Alan Ralsky Pleads Guilty · · Score: 3, Funny

    Email filtering company MessageLabs reports that Egham, Surrey, on the suburban outskirts of London, is the town that receives the most spam in Britain.

    "It's not like there's much else to do," said Boris Busybody, 77 (IQ), of Egham Hythe, idly whirling his four-foot penis around his head in a desultory fashion. "Expanding your manhood, growing your breasts, increasing your sperm ... the Lib Dem phone calls get a bit much. That's Doctor Busybody, by the way. My Ph.D arrived last week."

    Spam has revitalised the local economy. Busybody has given up cab driving and is now working a lucrative job processing payments from home after he sent them his bank details in response to an urgent security message. "I had that King Otumfuo Opoku Ware II in the back of my cab once. Very generous and helpful fellow."

    The Egham Tourist Board has seized the day, with plans for a 50 foot tall penis sculpture at Junction 13 of the M25 on the exit ramp to the town. The sculpture will be encircled by a genuine imitation Rolex and spray a fountain of Spermamax, obtained at a very reasonable rate from a Canadian pharmacy. "You will search an hour for your underwear in the ocean of our spam!" is to become the new town motto.

    "I did get a good one the other day," says Busybody. "Barrister Matthew Sergeant Busybody of MessageLabs said we could promote our town to millions of people just by sending them an advance fee to process our incoming email. The stuff they try! 'Scuse me, V!k@grk@ kicking in, got to go have sex again. Sorry."

  7. Re:Judgement on Spammer Alan Ralsky Pleads Guilty · · Score: 1

    You realise of course this is the one guy who would get beaten to death in a white-collar Club Fed.

  8. Re:ASSCAP demands payment when your phone rings on ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings · · Score: 1

    :-D

    I think "flawless horror" may be the picture I ended up making. *shudder*

  9. Re:But why? on Firefox 3.5RC2 Performance In Windows Vs. Linux · · Score: 1

    I was surprised because the OSI rules are based on the DFSG, and the OpenWatcom license fails those laughably.

  10. Re:Hold on, ASCAP != RIAA on ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings · · Score: 1

    Yes, it is true that collection societies are a generally excellent idea - they're one of the few things that actually get the musicians and songwriters any money, and their overhead is not too bad (typically a few percent).

    But sometimes, they do themselves no fucking favours.

  11. ASSCAP demands payment when your phone rings on ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings · · Score: 2, Funny

    (to be posted on NotN tomorrow, probably)

    The American Super-Society of Composers and Performers has filed a brief in a lawsuit against AT&T arguing that its members deserve payment every time a mobile phone rings.

    The owners of the musical compositions are already paid for each ringtone download, but this does not cover ASSCAP public performance royalties.

    "The musicians and songwriters are the true creators of objective value in society," said ASSCAP spokesdroid Ayn Rand. "They deserve your support. How would civilisation survive without Crazy Frog or the Nokia Tune?

    "To this end, we are bringing suits against those individuals who, having purchased RIAA-licensed ringtones, do not then silence them when in public. Statutory damages of $80,000 should have a salutary effect on our coffers and, of course, our public image."

    Further lawsuits will then be brought against those who silence their mobile phones. "4'33' by John Cage is a copyrighted work. Without the money going to his estate, he may never write another measured piece of silence again."

  12. Re:But why? on Firefox 3.5RC2 Performance In Windows Vs. Linux · · Score: 2, Informative

    The OpenWatcom license is OSI-approved, but I don't see why. It failed DFSG, and I asked the FSF about it and they can't make head nor tail of it either.

  13. Intel demonstrates wireless power for the home on Intel Demos Wireless "Resonant" Recharging · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    A future without batteries -- no need to charge phones or MP3 players, or even electric cars. No lost phone chargers, no running out of power sockets. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the annual Intel developers forum in San Francisco yesterday.

    Rattner demonstrated this by causing his ears to light up at 60 watts of power a yard from a power transmitter operated by his assistant Igor. Only four journalists were incinerated when the power earthed through them from his fingertips.

    Rattner reassured us that pumping kilowatts of power around the home through magnetic induction power is absolutely harmless. "The human body is not affected by magnetic fields," he said as one journalist with a pacemaker collapsed and another with a knee replacement watched his leg catch fire. "There's no danger whatsoever from it, any more than there is from mobile phones cooking your brain, microwave leakage blinding you, chemical waste unraveling all the DNA in your balls or statistical clusters of kids with cancer wherever high-tension power lines run overhead. Asbestos and thalidomide were horribly slandered in their day too."

    "Of course, Nikola Tesla did it first in 1899," said enthusiast Albert Tedious-Anorak, 54, of Little Boring. "I detailed this at length on Wikipedia, but they refused to believe the value of my revelations on this matter due to a conspiracy of Edison fans amongst the site administrators."

  14. Re:Zombie Steve Jobs has system upgrade on Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant Two Months Ago · · Score: 1

    He used to be a fruitarian. If we're talking about tech reporters, obviously he's stretched to vegetables.

  15. Re:Horse analogies are making a comeback! on The Truth Behind the Death of Linux On the Netbook · · Score: 2, Funny

    Silly Hansraj! Horses run on diesel.

  16. Zombie Steve Jobs has system upgrade on Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant Two Months Ago · · Score: 5, Funny

    Steve Jobs, visionary leader of Apple Computer, has died -- and come back, better and stronger.

    "They don't call it the Jesus Phone for nothing," Jobs laughed with reporters, before eating their tasty, tasty brains.

    Jobs' new cyborg arsenal includes wifi, 3G, laser cannons, a flame thrower and a can opener, all running on Mac OS X Robosteve. Bundled applications include an enhanced hypnotic force field based on the one he uses at MacWorld keynotes. "I can't wait to try it on Bill," he said.

    Disney, in which Jobs is the single largest shareholder, remained unaffected. "Steve's just working with the way we do things here," said the disembodied computer-hosted soul of Walt Disney, who was decanted to a computer in 1966 to avoid being declared legally dead, so that copyright in his works would never, ever run out.

  17. MS Bob Hope and IE8 tighten their ... grip on Microsoft Launches New "Get the Facts" Campaign · · Score: 1

    BIG BONE LICK, Kentucky, Wednesday — Microsoft today heeded the lessons of technological history, taking the popular "preview porn videos in the search engine" feature and turning its Bob Hope "decision engine" into a porn finder at the address explicit.bobhope.microsoft.com, and a new IE8 "Get the F*cked" campaign.

    "It worked for VHS over Beta, porn sites were leading innovators in online payments. It's a natural synergy," said Steve Ballmer, looking somewhat sweaty and flushed.

    Porn sites are some of the keenest users of Microsoft technologies, using the undocumented interfaces in Internet Explorer to install helpful toolbars and bulk email tools on users' systems. "It's all about tools. Our tools have amazed people for decades. Microsoft are famous for the biggest and best tools ever. Developers! Developers! Developers! DEVELOPEEERS!"

    Internet Explorer 8 is also part of the promotion. After a competition that advertises IE8's superior standards compliance with a site that deliberately breaks all other browsers, a programme to donate eight free meals for the poor for every IE8 download (with the cost of the meals being 10% of the spend on promoting them) and a string of free porn sites requiring a Silverlight download to watch the smut, IE8 Service Pack 1 will include a "boot straight into porn" mode. "We found that was what users really wanted in an operating system. I mean, browser." It will include the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets as standard. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." The system will also set up automatic deductions from your bank account and credit card.

    Mr Ballmer promised that Microsoft will, as always, deliver. "Unlike porn sites, we don't just tease — we really will fuck you. Now bend over."

  18. Re:More Culturally British Game Ideas on UK Tax Breaks For "Culturally British" Games · · Score: 1

    Holocaust Tycoon from Uncyclopedia!

    They wrote that article and then found the real games ...

  19. Re:what's defined as culturally british? on UK Tax Breaks For "Culturally British" Games · · Score: 1

    Chunky 8-bit porn, loaded on a cassette emulator onto a ZX Spectrum emulator for iPhone.

  20. Digital Britain to push "culturally British" games on UK Tax Breaks For "Culturally British" Games · · Score: 2, Informative

    As well as attempting to give the major record companies whatever they want until the end of time, Lord Carter's Digital Britain report includes tax breaks for "culturally British" computer game development.

    Planned games include Couch Warrior ("the goal is to sit playing a game. The graphics are truly horrifying and needed us to go to 3.5-dimensional to fit the player's avatar on the screen"), CCTV Panopticon ("take pictures of the CCTV cameras in your high street until arrested under the Terrorism Act for having your own camera in public"), Bottled Tan Snorter ("get into celebrity magazines and shag footballers, lose points for any sign of intelligence or words of two syllables") and Cynical Apathist ("write outraged blog comments with amusing satires of events of the day while working a job directly keeping the hideous machinery alive and running"). A committee will also form a group to do a study concerning a team to write a ZX Spectrum emulator for the iPhone.

    The games industry has warned in the past that developers are being lured away to other countries by the prospect of being paid more than shit. Conservative Shadow Arts Minister, Ed Vaizey, has leapt upon the opportunity, with promises of incentives for talented developers to stay in Britain and not be lured away by better pay in America. "We'll keep their passports from them until they reach 'Achievement Unlocked.'"

    Having finally released Digital Britain, Lord Carter has resigned from the government and is returning to private industry. "Of course, Digital Britain remains a completely objective assessment of the way forward for the nation in the twenty-first century, and should in no way be thought of as my CV for a series of lucrative consultancies with the large media companies I've just given everything they've ever asked for. And a pony."

  21. Re:Beta "99" on Firefox 3.5 Hits Release Candidate Milestone · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is actually the one after that - I had 3.5b4, got 3.5b99 last week and "3.5" today. The user agent string is:

    Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090615 Firefox/3.5

    (yes, this is the NT laptop - haven't checked Karmic yet)

  22. Re:A SEPARATE domain for obscene content... on Bing Gets Porn Domain To Filter Explicit Content · · Score: 1

    You are obviously a sockpuppet of David Gerard.

  23. Fear of MS Bob Hope *grips* Google on Bing Gets Porn Domain To Filter Explicit Content · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft today heeded the lessons of technological history, taking the popular "preview porn videos in the search engine" feature and turning its Bob Hope search engine into a porn finder at the address explicit.bobhope.microsoft.com.

    "It worked for VHS over Beta, porn sites were leading innovators in online payments. It's a natural synergy," said Steve Ballmer, looking somewhat sweaty and flushed.

    Porn sites are some of the keenest users of Microsoft technologies, using the undocumented interfaces in Internet Explorer to install helpful toolbars and bulk email tools on users' systems. "It's all about tools. Developers, developers, developers, developers!"

    Windows 7 final will include a "boot straight into porn" mode. "We found that was what users really wanted in an operating system." It will include the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets as standard. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

    Mr Ballmer promised that Microsoft will, as always, deliver. "Unlike porn sites, we don't just tease — we really will fuck you. Totally."

  24. The sound of "found": Bob Hope on Does Bing Have Google Running Scared? · · Score: 1, Redundant

    This morning, our dear leader Steve Ballmer is unveiling our completely new search service, that has Google absolutely shitting its pants, unrelated to anything we at Microsoft have ever done before: Bob Hope.

    We spent lots of time listening to you, except when you told us how much MSN Search^W^WLive Search^W^WKumo sucked 'cause youâ(TM)re just wrong about that, to learn which buzzwordy Web 2.0 thingies you use search for today. Finding a webpage that has anything to do with the search terms you entered is so passe, dahling.

    So today we're introducing a new kind of search, that goes beyond traditional search engines that do tedious things like find stuff, to instead help you make faster, more informed decisions. (Windows 7 is peachy keen, by the way.) We think of Bob Hope as a Decision Engine. We've sued Stephen Wolfram into atomic dust using our patents on FAT and Mono, co-opted the Wolfram Alpha engine and swapped Mathematica for Visual Basic and Wolfram's brain for the exhumed corpse of Bob Hope.

    So why did we pick Bob Hope as the new core of our search? We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world.

    And just look at these results!

    What do we want?
    Braaains.
    When do we want them?
    Braaains.
    What do I need to run Windows 7?
    Braaains.
    What's Bill Gates got that means you should buy everything you can from the company he founded?
    Braaains.
    What's the final proof of Steve Ballmer's equal genius to Steve Jobs?
    Vistaaa.

    This is something new, something improved! You need to try it! It'll give so much more betterer results than that other search engine we can't name because Steve will wedge another chair up our butts! Please, come and try our new and improved service! FOR GOD'S SAKE TRY THE DAMN SERVICE. OR THE PUPPY GETS IT. We're Microsoft. We're serious as a heart attack on this one.

  25. Iran election: "Mission accomplished" on Iran Moves To End "Facebook Revolution" · · Score: 1, Funny
    Controversy reigns after the Iranian election on Saturday, in which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with a landslide 63% of the vote and returns from all districts precisely matched Government pre-poll predictions.

    Mr Ahmadinejad credits his win to democratic methods perfected by George W. Bush. "We fully understand the international community's desires to see that Iran's democracy transparently works to the highest standards found in other nations. Mr Bush's work has been exemplary."

    The "hanging chad" technique has been particularly effective. "Rounding up opposition voters, politicians and journalists named Chad and hanging them. In those cases where the opposition insurgent was not named Chad, we of course took care to change their names to Chad posthumously. Democratic procedures must not only be observed, they must be seen to be observed."

    "I stand one hundred per cent behind my brother Mahmoud," said Supreme Leader Ali Khameini Rove of the Project for a New Iranian Century. "Occasionally with his mouth moving in time with the movements of my hand. Clever, isn't it?"

    Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned by some as a "lunatic redneck" and "a gibbering madman perilously close to the nuclear button." "These charges are most unfair. When I declaimed the necessity of obliterating and deleting the unnameable Zionist entity with cleansing atomic fire, it was implicit in these statements that we would need to reach a resolution to undertake such action through proper procedures of international diplomacy. Mr Bush's excellent work in decapitating Saddam Hussein's odious regime shows the way forward in this regard."

    "We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people," said President-in-Exile Al Gore from his cave high in the mountains of Afghanistan. "For my own part, I will never give up the fight to take back America and Iran from the Republican counterrevolutionaries and will not rest until all Americans and Iranians breathe the free air of socialism ... what? Democrats elected? Huh, next you'll try telling me the President's black. You can't fool me! Back where you came from!"