Posts by Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

TalkTalk is yet again the most griped about telco in Blighty

The reason that hardly anyone complained about O2 is...

That no one could get through. And if no-one can get through to lodge a complaint then that number of complaints received is always going to look rosy.

Neutrinos still FASTER THAN LIGHT in second test

Easily solved...

As CERN is higher in altitude than Gran Sasso then it follows that the Neutrinos are travelling downhill faster than the light.

Or something scientific like that.

UBS tells IT contractors: Take a 10% pay cut ... or 100%

Lets just be clear...

Shouldn't this article be called... "UBS tells agencies to reduce rates by 10%"?

I'm a contractor of 15 years. For most of those 15 years, and apart from 1 or 2 direct roles - my contract has been with the agency - not the end client.

In only a few instances have I ever negotiated rate directly with the end client. On the occasions that the agency has asked me to take a cut, I have flatly refused at which point they quietly go away and leave me to carry on as planned.

As another says... the contract market is buoyant at the moment. If you are any good - you shouldn't have a problem if you choose to walk.

Scientists snap amazing technicolour dreamtoad

Perhaps they are cleverer then we think...

Perhaps all these "previously thought extinct" species foresaw well in advance the oncoming cataclysm of industrial age man and just decided to hide for a few hundred years until it all passes by...

Half of Virgin Media broadband ads are wrong, says ASA

When-sa youra Dolmio* day

* Made in Holland.

Google sets up €4.5m academic legal institute in Berlin

Shame...

What the world really needs is cheaper medicines, better availability of contraception, better education, real world sustainable solutions to the foods and fuels issues, and more hospitals.

But hey Google, if the best you can do with your billions upon billions of dubiously gained ad-money is an institute "to examine the evolution of the internet and its impact on society, science and economy" - which we all know is a really just a goodwill gesture to placate Germany for your past illegal practices, then you go for your life...

Triceratops horn find supports meteor extinction theory

Hang on a minute...

I thought that God put dinosaur fossils here to help strengthen our collective faith in creationism.

It all seemed so plausable :-(

Chambers of Commerce say UK recovery is weak

Someone explain to me...

Serious : as i'm not sure I get it...

It's all shit, nobody is buying anything, and those that are buying are buying from cheaper foreign sources - so there is limited UK growth. Yet UK manufacturing confidence is high?????

Does this mean that if we (the manufacturers) had the orders, we are confident we have the means to fulfill i.e. we are confident we could produce; but we don't have the orders, so we can't???

Thanks.

Feds seize kit from Apple Store spyware artist

Sorry, you got the wrong end of the story...

He wasn't arrested for installing software and spying on people without their knowledge. He was arrested for crimes against art.

El Reg to unleash rocket-powered spaceplane

Whilst I wish you all the best...

When you say "launching into space" do you mean it in the same tenuous manner that Branson's Galactic effort isn't really going into space?

Either way I don't really care and very much look forward to following the progress.

ESA unveils billion pixel camera that will map the Milky Way

Presumably...

It will be followed by a suitable lens correction plugin for Lightroom?

NotW accused of hacking Milly Dowler's voicemail

I have no love at all for the NoTW...

But ACCUSED != GUILTY.

Although in this case I wish it did.

BT wary of rights holders' site-blocking proposal

ZZZZzzzzz......

Can someone wake me up when all of the junctions on the M25 are re-accessible because the Highways agency have failed to stop getaway drivers from using the motorways.

Creationists are infiltrating US geology circles

Firefly...

River: "So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem."

Book: "Really?"

River: "We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat."

BioWare blows brains with intro cinematics for Star Wars MMO

Sure, it looks great...

But I'm not sure I agree that it in any way demonstrates that "it's getting harder to differentiate between real video and computer graphics" in the same way that say Jurassic Park, or District 9 did for example.

To me, it's a pointless video because we all know that the real game will be nothing like this - and will most likely add nothing of significance to the Star Wars canon except more of the same tedious mish mash of ill through through content that blighted the 3 prequel movies.

I'm sorry to say it - but the more the Star Wars brand is milked as a cash cow, the more it becomes nothing more than a parody of itself that is fast eating away at the genius and shine of the original 3 movies.

Correction : the first two movies.

3D-printed bikini goes on sale

Can we have more 3D Bikini pictures please.

As per the title.

Somerset council review criticises Southwest One

@ Bristol Bachelor

All problems with SAP deliveries/implementations can usually be traced back to bad requirements analysis and specification of change, rather than any specific problem with vanilla SAP itself.

@ John Smith 19

That's what business cases are for : to state clearly the benefits vs cost, over time period x.

Hopefully there would have been one of these. Whether it is accurate, or underwent any formal challenge is the real question, but if you take at face value the tracking of benefits statements, I am presuming it would have.

Microsoft drops Halo 4 hint ahead of E3 keynote

Oops!!!

Looks like someone uploaded the page into the wrong environment.

Sandi Toksvig puts the 'n' into cuts - on the Beeb

Perhaps if the BBC...

Whilst I agree that there are some terms that can be used in a humerous manner at an early hour, that particular word (IMHO) in no way has lost any shock value over recent years and is no way suitable for ANY hour of the day over broadcast media, or in any other aspect of life for that matter. In fact it is the only word that when used in conversation will make me firmly take issue with the user of it.

And to the BBC : If it has lost this "shock value" then why aren't you broadcasting it more often?

Perhaps if the BBC spent less time broadcasting shit, and concentrated more on quality then this country wouldn't be going down the pan in terms of how we all talk to one another in a respectful manner.

Waking to check mail? You're not alone

@ Working for a workaholic

Perhaps he wasn't a workaholic, but consientious enough to worry about his job, and pissed that you weren't doing yours correctly?

Chicago lawyer deploys distractionary dumplings

Yeahhhh ;-)

She's got that cute geeky / spectacles look going on too ;-)

Modern Warfare 3 prompts hand-wringing, chiming cash tills

My name is "outraged". I live in Nowheresville...

Yeah, yeah yeah... supposed outrage that the game contains both buses and explosions and could tenuously at best refer to the London bombings.

But no outrage that it involves shooting Russians? Perhaps real controversy should be courted by having a COD game where the main protagonist is a Russian whose main goal is to blow away Yanks and Brits for nothing more than their shocking double standards.

Nintendo Wii price plummets below £100

@ Shaun 1

You can have mine for £95. It's not been switched on for 6 months.

Government hires Guardianista as digital chief

Yadda yadda yadda

Yeah, yeah, yeah!!!!

No surprise that .govs strategy is fucked if they can't keep a steady management ship in place for more than 5 minutes.

Save the planet: Stop the Greens

@ Dunstan Vavasour

"The carbon footprint i'tsn't about the instantaneous rate at which it is emitted, rather about the total quantity emitted each year."

So what? The argument made here isn't solely about carbon footprint. It's about replacing existing energy generation mechanisms with low impact ones - and in that case it is absolutely about instantaneous rate, as I don't want be turning my telly on in April, only to find that no electricity is available until June simply because of the weather.

Beeb reworks Wuthering Frikkin' Heights

So...

The only way to "capture the shock" of the original is to add loads of swearing?

Wow I'm really glad that this is what the BBC are spending my money on.

Interwebs stunned by musical atrocity

I liked it.

In the same way that I like having nails driven through my hands, feet, knees and testicles.

Actress meets feds investigating nude photo Gmail hack

Sounds like...

An ongoing publicity stunt to me.

Either that or they are complete idiots. Whilst that doesn't condone what the hackers have done you'd have thought that if privacy was a major concern, that not keeping nude shots of yourself on or within your phone or Google mail account would have been a better idea.

Homefront

Yeah... right...

Now lets have the same "fiction" with the situations reversed shall we and see if you Yanks like it as much.

Oracle kills Sun.com after starvation diet

@ Why did Oracle by Sun...

Well... even if you are the worlds third or so richest man, those funky carbon sails on those Americas cup boats don't pay for themselves y'know.

Sony wins subpoena for PS3 hacker's PayPal records

This is why American law is fu**ed...

So as far as I can tell from this story is that the only reason Sony are going after this guys Pay Pal records are because they are either too lazy to try him outside of California, or because they know that their case won't stand up to scrutiny in any other state due to rulings made in other similar cases. To me this looks like law in Cally is in the back pocket of the corporates.

And there was me thinking it was the "United" states. The reality couldn't be farther from the truth it seems.

London's Olympic clock claps out

Oops... maybe the shape of things to come?

There was a very funny (mock-umentary) comedy on the BBC last night that is set in the delivery office of the London Olympics. They also had an Olympic clock that not only could they not get working, but they didn't actually understand.

Art predicting, rather than imitating life perhaps...

Carphone Warehouse prices up 3G Xoom

Don't stress over the price...

It'll be down to 300 or so pounds within 6 months.

PS3, Xbox 360 pass water on Wii

@ Creepytennis

My thoughts entirely. So effectively what the article is saying is that the Wii is still pissing all over the other two in terms of sales (including in 2010), but because you can't play COD or whatever in 720p it doesn't matter. Whether HD or not, in terms of sales - the only fact that matters is that Sony and MS are still waaaay behind Nintendo.

To have made this article mean anything relevant, the author should have dropped "HD-capable" from the first sentence, or just not have mentioned Nintendo anywhere at all - as as it is, it just seems like a twisting of the facts to suit the authors bias.

EA blocks user from game after alleged forum outburst

He probably didn't actually "agree" to the terms and conditions...

Because he didn't actually read them. He simply entered his name, proposed forum user ID, email address and DOB and hit the enter key.

Like most people, he probably considered the 3 previous pages of legalese Ts&Cs jargon too much to be bothered with.

Apple sells 500,000 iPads, runs out of stock

Love it, or loathe it...

Those are pretty good numbers for a device that has (as many commentards regularly point out) no real purpose.

Xperia Play gets UK debut date

Free gifts...

Apparently the first one to hack it gets a free subscription to PSN+, a visit from the FBI and CIA, plus the added bonus of having their IP addresses subpoenad and civil rights and violated by some Hicksville "judge".

Hated contractor tax might disappear

Putting it quite simply...

IR35 was yet another - prejudiced, ill conceived, ill planned and ill executed policy to drag more money out of legitimate company directors rather than intelligently close any perceived "loophole*". The previous Labour government should be held accountable for this rediculous cost/benefits ratio, and the minsters responsible held personally accountable for refunding any costs that the company directors have lost due to the litany of farcical and protracted court hearings that have ensued in its wake.

That, or I'd settle for Dawn Primarolo being publicly flogged until she admits that she is nothing more than a failed, subservient lapdog.

* - Bearing in mind that to HMRC, a "loophole" is any scenario where they have not yet devised a method to gauge more money out of the populace. Rather than fixing a genuine hole in existing tax policy.

Chicken Little report: Sat-nav dependency spells DISASTER!

Maybe for commercial vessels...

It may be cheaper to employ a monkey who is only capable of watching a computer screen. But as far as I know all commercial vessels over a certain size have to be staffed by a competent bridge officer, or a trained officer of the watch. So this begs the question of what exactly is it that these monkeys are being taught in their deck officer courses if they cannot revert to manual navigation methods and techniques.

Regardless, ALL vessels on the high seas - and that includes you holidaymakers over there on your pedalos and jet skis are required by law (i.e. the IMO) to maintain a watch at all times to prevent collisions at sea.

Being a yachtie myself, I find GPS an invaluable aid to navigation in fog and bad weather - but have never relied on it as I find it much more satisfying to work with paper charts, pilotage and my trusty Freiberger - but mostly my eyeballs.

Angry Birds flies to Facebook

Social NESTworking...

Nice one El Reg.

It made me smile anyway.

Google guilty of copyright wrong

@ LPF

Yeah right... because Google won't have a workaround for that will they.

Of course though, when it does come out that they have a workaround they will defend themselves by saying that it was developed "accidentaly."

Sinclair ZX81: 30 years old

Ashamed to admit it...

I sooooo wanted a Spectrum, but in their wisdom my folks bought me a Mattel Aquarius instead :-( To this day I'm still not quite sure how from my christmas list, they managed to arrive at the word "Aquarius" from "Spectrum Spectrum Spectrum Spectrum Spectrum".

30 odd years later I've still never met another person who had one.

Anyone?

Welsh battle killer shrimp invasion

Just tax the little buggers...

Seems to be the solution Gov Plc are using to solve all of their other problems, so why not this one?

Cobalt-barrel machine guns could fire full auto Hollywood style

@ Okay...

I saw a documentary recently where a group of top military scientists successfully built a machine that took them to the centre of the Earths core to try to restart it with a couple of nuclear bombs - I think bad science or something to do with migrating birds had stopped it from spinning and generating magnetism or something. Sorry I don't have full details, but I didn't actually get to read all the facts listed in The Sun newspaper as I'd accidentaly gone on holiday at the time.

I digress though... the machine they built for this epic trip was made from a material specially designed to withstand the heat and pressures encountered at the Earths core - so I'm presuming the mandrel is made from the same stuff.

Hope that helps.

Hungry boffins turn 3D printer into snack maker

Gravy absorbing meat sponges!!!

If that is the future of food then I think I'll stick to my very simple peanut butter on toast thanks.

Health experts flip over McD's burger-flip toy

Hmmm....

I get the point about it being bad that McDonalds are shoving this plastic crap onto the kids, but isn't it actually down to the parents as to whether it makes it into their home or not? As I'm sure that there are equally crap non-McDonalds branded playsets around that they can choose if it's what the kid really wants.

I also don't buy the argument over branding because most kids are aware of McDonalds from a young age anyway through other channels of advertising. Again though, the choice of whether kids are actually taken to and given McDonalds to eat is solely down to the parents, not McDonalds themselves - so the decision becomes a matter of personal choice and good parenting. And it is a CHOICE that everybody is free to make.

Finally, I do eat McDonalds, and whilst I'm not a great fan of their food, I do find it very convenient - but I'm not yet anywhere near convinced they are anywhere near responsible for causing the levels of obesity that they are purveyed to to be. The cause of obesity is lazy people eating too much and not doing enough exercise - end of. This obesity will be caused by eating many different things including chocolate, pies and curry - but the root cause is always the same : lack of personal moderation and exercise.

I guess that point of view doesn't fill column inches though does it.

Portsmouth redefines the Olympic-sized swimming pool

Oh Portsmouth...

After 9 years spent within your cold and uncomforting breast, how much do I now miss thee having been separated from you by a decade...

...about as much as I miss a 4" gaping hole in my head put there by a rampaging Rhinocerous (ahem... the same 4" which in El Reg weights and measures is equivalent to about a 3/4 cubit grasp of Myan putty).

Gmail users howl in anguish at 'disappeared' accounts

Is this "accidentaly" in the same way that they...

"Accidentaly" wrote, compiled, tested and delivered a Wi-Fi network detail scoop into their street view cars?

Man found guilty of battery after ejaculating in co-worker's drink

Gross.

Just gross.