This article is more than 1 year old

Look out, Dixon! That there is a dangerously intellectual cow

Plus: 'Why should I care if my taxi's insured or not?'

CoTW What's that lumbering over the horizon, groaning theatrically? Yes, it's the late, unlamented corpse of Comment of the Week, reanimated for your reading pleasure.

What glorious nuggets have you lot deposited below the line this week, then?

We open the batting order with the obvious pop at Linux from a Microsoft fan. CherylWillBounceBack thought it would be a good idea to post this underneath our most excellent review of Xubuntu Linux:

Get with the times

Seriously, we're in 2015 people. It's all about the bling. It's all about the bells and whistles. You minimalists are trying to strip the computing experience back to the dark ages. That's why I run Windows 8.1. A proper, modern operating system with a world class user experience. With the benefit of being designed by the world's finest engineering teams in Redmond - you know that it's secure, safe and a pleasure to look at. Why run a Lada when you can have a Bugatti Veyron for a few quid? Freetards know no logic.

This was unpopular, with many angry Linux fans piling in to rant back. Top trolling, CherylWillBounceBack.

In other news, a hacker claimed he accessed an airliner's flight controls via the in-flight entertainment system while the aircraft was in mid-flight. Much heated discussion ensued, and silver-badged reader Christoph posted this, which excited numerous upvotes and downvotes.

"shooting the messenger No. If he'd just reported the problem, or hacked it while on the ground and stationary, then yes. But apparently he hacked into and changed the operation of an aircraft in flight. How could be absolutely certain that this would not have any other consequences? It's not impossible that he could have crashed the system badly enough to crash the aircraft. He was utterly irresponsible and deserves the book thrown at him. An aircraft with passengers is not his toy to play with to show off what a great hacker he is.

For what it's worth, it's almost certain that the hacker didn't access the aircraft's control systems by buggering about with the seat back video screen. Still, why let that stand in the way of a good old rant?

Moving on to parochial news, Northumberland Police's provisional wing deployed 20 police cars, a helicopter and several armed units last week to … shoot a cow. An escaped cow, granted, but – according to eyewitnesses, whose account is hotly disputed by the Keystones – a stationary milk cow. Not an escaped bull on the rampage; far from it.

Why? For the lulz to prevent a threat to public safety, apparently.

Silver-badged reader hplasm accurately observed why the police shot the cow:

They had to shoot it- before it outwitted them.

The Wooden Twig of Fail

This week's worst, most irrelevant and just generally shite comment came from LucasNorth, who, on a story about Uber paying its drivers peanuts, said this:

why should the passenger care if their taxi is insured or not?

Hmm. Let's think about that for a while … actually, no, let's think about it for ten seconds, you chump. (if you actually need to think about that for any length of time, please just get in the sea).

The Golden Vulture Dropping of Excellence

Awarded to the Reg reader whose contribution is judged the best, the Golden Vulture Dropping recognises that not everything written below the line is blowhards tearing strips off each other for following the wrong tech religion. Yes, I mean you, Linux and Microsoft fanboys.

The aptly-named Anonymous Blowhard contributed this corker, on the news that a lamb had been found in a brothel:

Re: A cow is actually quite dangerous "Even sheep caused 1500 or so injuries" Is an STI really an injury?

Naughty naughty!

Goodbye, print safely. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like