Posts by TeeCee

Chinese boffins show off unbelievably tight ring

It's not a dwarvish vase stand!

It's been produced as a "Prince Albert" for Bill Gates!

Korean DMZ droids 'unfit for combat'

I read the headline....

.....and immediately imagined hordes of pasty, overweight robotic sentries doing pushups and running round an assault course while being yelled at by a stroppy Korean drill-sergeant in an attempt to get them "fit for combat".

Romanian and Turkish scientists turn circuit boards into oil

@Richard Hebert

Noooooooooooooooooooo!

I could have had free oil but, like a fool, I saved my pennies and only bought eleven microwave guns when they were on offer at Maplins.

Taser rolls out taser-on-a-roll, new military zapbomb deal

Taser-on-a-roll.

You read that and think: "violation of rights".

I read that and think: "can you stick it on a bog seat?"

Does this make me a bad person.....?

Airbus revises A380 delivery schedule

"......steep ramp-up planned in 2006 is not fully achievable"

...and they've only just f***ing noticed this?

Were the entire Department of Hindsight and Stating the Bleedin' Obvious on sabbatical at Airbus recently?

Private sector saviours wanted for desperate ID scheme

To clarify:

Actually, the Home Office has not chucked in the cards. They were going to, but then they found that they didn't have any cards to chuck in. It was originally thought that they'd lost the cards in the internal mail, but a subsequent internal investigation has revealed that they never had any cards in the first place.

Due to failings in the Home Office's purchasing systems when the cards were ordered, three lemons, a potato and bag of barbeque charcoal were actually purchased in error. Attempts to trace these have shown that they have disappeared and it is believed that they may have been lost in the internal mail. An internal investigation has been ordered to look into this.

Hyundai and Kia's latest pitch to US drivers - Windows

Yup, CANBus.

That's where Ford need to direct their attention. The ones without any M$ involvement have some odd issues too so, for once, I don't think we can blame Bill's sheep.

Now, I have no idea who makes Ford's CANBus gear, but if there's a Lucas subsidiary near the Franco-Italian border I'd be prepared to take a guess......

I say, I say, I say. Why is it that you can only embed Linux in private cars? Because all company cars need a working driver.

I'll take the flameproof suit please......

What did happen to all those London mayoral votes?

Obvious question.

Exactly what is the difference between a piece of sealing tape that hasn't stuck down properly and one that has, but has subsequently been peeled back a bit to allow some later stuffing?

NASA invites you to travel to the Moon

@Ambi Valent

1) What scam? You enter a name, you get a printable certificate, er, that's it. (Possibly said name even goes to the moon as described - does it matter? Who's going to check and how?).

2) M$ don't do freebies, only loss-leaders.

Feel free to diss M$. Just try to make the effort to find a valid reason first, it's not like there aren't a few out there fer chrissake!

(Jobs with horns to even the balance and 'cos he's equally as irrelevant in context.)

My name went to the moon....

....and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

Well, someone had to say it (mutter, mutter), ingrates.......

'Mad Scientist' developing powered suits for US military

Re: Extra arms.

Great idea. A bit of makeup and you can get your own Thuggee worshippers to follow you and do your every bidding then.

Winehouse cans Bond theme project

Is this offer open to anyone?

I mean, can I announce that I'm going to record the next Bond theme and then announce that, actually, I'm not and get an El Reg article covering both statements?

I'll sing crap and take drugs if it helps.....

Defra steps up probe into honeybee wipeout

@Ian Yates

Or put another way:

A US University has found a way to work politically eyecatching trend of the moment, Global Warming, into its bee research. Yay! Research Grant! Snouts down for a troughfull!

How to destroy 60 hard drives an hour

@Brian

Hmm, you may just have hit on a solution to the Holy Grail of Expense Account claims. How to get reimbursed by the company for a Barrett Light .50 and a large box of ammunition.

Yes please, the really sharp one with the pockets full of dodgy receipts.

AMD now has 'more than allegations' against Intel

Missed a bit.

Intel ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- with a horse and three eggs ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paris Hilton -----------------------------.

BOFH: The Boss gets Grandpa Simpson syndrome

@John Gamble

Our moment of glory was pouring the contents of same into the ventilation intake of a colleague's Granada. Nice hot summer's day it was.

He jumped in, started her up and wound the ventilation up to max. From outside it looked just like one of those "snow-globe" ornaments that'd just been given a good shake. No pollen filters back in them days.

Or there was the time that the Chief Operator left his sunroof open, providing a suitable home for all the polystyrene packing wotsits we'd been saving in huge bin bags for just such an occasion, but that's another story with lots of Anglo-Saxon terminology in it.

I could go on, but I fear that I already have.......

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 sub-notebook

A few things.

First, lauding IBM for "catching up" with a widescreen display? Having recently been given a Dell with such I *really* miss my old 4:3 HP. Same screen width, less height=less screen, the resolution hike doesn't compensate at all. Until documents start being produced in A4 landscape by default rather than portrait, widescreen display will be a hindrance rather than a help on work machines. Even code tends to be long and narrow FFS!

Secondly, "......what it will be like when we all drive electric cars and the background noise in our towns and cities drops to a whisper." The answer to this one is "Bloody dangerous!". I came perilously close to getting "Prius'd" the other day when one snuck up behind me in stealth mode. You don't realise how much you rely on your hearing for threat detection until some SOB invents a way of circumventing it.

Finally, defragmentation. Take a well-used XP box and install a quality defrag product. Now run a full on and offline defrag including the MFT and metadata. Once complete check out the performance hike. I was utterly gobsmacked, and this was on a machine regularly defragged with conventional weapons. NTFS doesn't need defragging in much the same way as computers don't need electricity (i.e. you can do your computing on a hand-cranked Babbage engine, but it ain't going to be quick). Still, maybe that's all fixed in Vista........(not holding breath).

Alienware ships 'most powerful' 15in laptop to Brits

Not "boy racer"!

If it were:

1) The lights would be underneath, reflecting off the desk.

2) It would have an antique Celeron processor inside with a "Core 2 Extreme" logo glued over the "Celeron" one.

3) It would have a *really* noisy processor fan so that it would sound like it had a powerful processor.

4) The speakers would be bigger than the screen and keyboard combined, but completely incapable of reproducing frequencies above 400Hz.

5) The keyboard and touchpad would be aftermarket leather-look items that didn't fit properly.

6) The BIOS splash screen would be a picture of a pair of fluffy dice.

Astroboffins moot massive Moon-mirror heliograph

Why?

Yes, because this will be so much more obvious and easier to detect than a radio transmission would be. After all, we all know how much more sensitive optical telescopes are at very long interstellar ranges than radio telescopes and how likely our lunar semaphore flashes are to overtake any radio traffic that's already headed out that way.

They don't call 'em "lunatics" for nothing, you know.....

(I'm now wondering just what an "extreme sarcasm with knobs on" icon would look like were we to have one)

MoD in push for alternative military energy tech

The Royal Navy.

Being out at sea away from obstructions most of the time, maybe they should consider wind power.

Oh, wait a minute............

Apple blocks cheaper UK iPod sales

@Ishkandar

Er, the Silkworm is a sea-skimming anti-ship missile, not a SAM. You'll not hit any black helicopters with those unless they happen to be parked on a ship* at the time.

I'm sure that if you have the receipts you can get your money back, unless they were grey imports** of course........

* or flying very low over water.

** gratuitous relevance bit.

Reaper aerial killbots enlist mobile phones against owners

Terrorist?

Ow! I said I was here as a *tourist* you cloth-eared electronic pillock!

Yes please, just beat out the flames on the sleeves for me. Thanks.

France's €4.9bn rogue trader gets IT job

Why are we surprised?

AFAIR, Jerome Kerviel used to work in IT for Societe Generale (you can put your own accents in here if you want to), where he worked on their compliance and control systems. When he became a trader he thus knew exactly how all the things worked that would alert to excess exposure and how to avoid / work round them.

Having screwed up big time in his new job, he's gone back to the old one.

Second Galileo test sat now in orbit

Porcine aviation clarification.

So, while it's probably still true that pigs can't fly, we now know that pure pork can and does.....

NASA researching 'nanosats' for orbiting 5G space network

RE: Tin-foil hats.

Sorry, it'll make no difference on information availability. The opressed masses are already perfectly capable of getting their messages out / news in right now as long as they can aquire and are prepared to run the risk of being caught with whatever moody kit is required to circumvent the restrictions in place.

Yer "talks to anyone, anywhere" commodity satphone-alike is going to be top of the banned / party-officials-only list in yer average dictatorship / pariah state / revolutionary worker's paradise.

Motorised meat-smoker droid vigilante patrols Atlanta

Tomorrows headline:

"Bum bot stolen. Arse bandits believed responsible."

Prank callers crash Dublin Zoo phone system

Long weights.

A mate of mine told me that upon starting work on a construction site he was sent, by the foreman, to a local hardware store for some "Long Weights". He knew the gag, but since some time off doing bugger all was available he said nothing and went. When he got there, he had a look around and found a box of sash weights (long, thin lead weights to counterweight sash windows). Figuring that the storeman was in on the gag, he took the box to the counter and explained the situation.

The upshot was that he got to go back with the entire box (returnable for credit) and present same to the foreman with the explanation that he hadn't been told exactly how many long weights were wanted. He followed this with the eye-wateringly large invoice that the storeman had made up for him, causing a very sharp intake of breath and a passable fish-out-of-water impersonation.

Moral: Be careful what you ask for, you may just get it.

BBC defends iPlayer against Murdoch Jr's 'anti-competitive' claims

He's got a point.

I just went into a Shell petrol station and they wouldn't sell me BP Ultimate petrol. Further down the road, I stopped at McDonalds, asked for a flame-grilled Whopper and got told to sod off.

Then I went into an Apple store to buy a Nokia phone and an HP laptop with Vista Ultimate installed. No joy there either.

This anti-competetiveness is everywhere and should be stopped now.

Harman hack horror has blog backing Boris

Forces of Darkness 2.0

'nuff said.

Sony, Samsung LCD JV to double 8G panel production

I've had a thought.

"......will be cut down into the screens used in LCD TVs"

Or they could save themselves the cost and effort of doing so and just ship me a 2.5m telly on the cheap. I won't mind, honest.

Colliding galaxies mark Hubble anniversary

This is why....

.....women shouldn't drive Galaxies.

The terror dam of doom that looms over Boise, Idaho

What the hell are you playing at guys?

You've got an article on how Boise, Idaho (where, what, who?), is a nice, fat, terrorist target pinned to the page top rather than the "Sky to resurrect Blake's 7" article?

For Christ's sake show some sense of proportion people, this is supposed to be a British rag.

Let's just check: Hands up everyone in Great Britain who gives a toss what happens to Boise, Idaho....... Ok, hands up all those who care about Sky's recommisioning of Blake's 7........

There, see?

Right, got to go, by sheer coincidence I have a prior appointment to crash the "Liberator" into a dam close to Boise, Idaho.

Coming soon: The Church of Googlology?

That's not domination.

Having a ".gog" TLD. That would be domination.

Incidently, if they've taken:

goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com

are:

gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com

and:

gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com

available?

Aussie gov to treat laser pointers like knives and guns

Lesser lasers.

Actually, when you get to the red lasers, you can get just as effective a dazzling effect with one of the larger maglites turned to "spot" at closer ranges.

There will now be a brief pause while the Australian Police Force beats itself to death with its own maglites.

The one with the large Maglite in the pocket please. Yes, I do have a valid reason for having it, I'm carrying a torch for someone (paradiddle, ka-ching).......

Notorious eBay hacker arrested in Romania

I laughed.

Here we have yer archetypal alleged l33t d00d h4x0r.

But when he's presented with the most cheesy of scams (we're honest, genuine l33t h4x0r5 wanting to buy your l33t h4x0r w4r3z, please send us your address so we can send you lots of cash), which yer average junior surfer wouldn't fall for these days, he ponies up like a champion.

Made me laugh. A lot.

'Rowdy' rectal extraction op vid hits YouTube

Dyslexia lures....

This is what happens when a dyslexic homeboy tries to pop a cap in your ass......

Cow turds fuel Blighty's hydrogen filling station embrace

Diesel?

I'd like to see you try to burn methane in a diesel engine. You'd be on a hiding to nothing, try a petrol engine instead. Most petrol engines can be adapted to burn light gases with very little modification (hint: look up Compressed Natural Gas or CNG, the poor relation of LPG).

To use a diesel, you'd need to reprocess the methane gas into a diesel oil substitute. I reckon that using same to power hydrogen manufacture is almost certainly more efficient that this approach.

I know that world + dog is obsessed with diesels these days thanks to the CO2-cultists, but try and get it right.

Choose and Book mixes up patient appointments

@Slaine

"How about a big dose of clap all round... "

Er, no thanks and you owe me a new keyboard as this one appears to react badly to being soaked in coffee.

Oldham murders owl with whalesong

@Mark S

Branding yes. Rebranding, like this, also requires:

3) A complete and total waste of time and money.

Your analogies from the Business world are utter cobblers.

Firstly because Oldham council doesn't have to sell itself, the revenue it gets comes from a captive audience, taxpayers. I can't see that any businesses thinking about relocating are going to be swayed into doing so by the local council having a cheesier logo than the alternatives!

Secondly, because I can't see any of the successful brands you mention having a sudden rush of insanity and coughing up gobs of cash to dump the swoosh*, golden arches etc. and replace them with some unimaginative shite like this.

*Swoosh - who the f*** thought of calling it that? Boiling in oil is too good for some people.

Intempo Rebel DJ and ad-zapping FM radio

Marketing issues?

As I see it, their target market here is freetards who don't mind dropping 70 quid on something they want.

I have a headache from trying to rationalise that little paradox.

(Before the inevitable happens, my tongue is *firmly* in my cheek here.)

Brit tourist blags his way onto Iron Man set

Other news today.

Now that they know all you need to circumvent US security measures is a British accent, Al Qaeda have snapped up every recording ever made by John Snagge for training purposes.

Intel: laptop/desktop crossover coming sooner than expected

Laptop / Desktop crossover.

Ok, I'll bite. But only if they can put my laptop in a *really* big case with a *big* side window and lots of flashing lights and lots of coloured fans with a rat's nest of loverly cables 'n stuff and loads of disks all raided together and a *really* big copper heatsink with another light-up fan and, and, and.....

My, do I feel sad now........

French Colonial Marines to get Aliens medic-datalink

Not so much Aliens.

Presumably they've also got helmet cams so the officers in the comfy control centre can see what the soldier sees.

Presumably you also get a readout of ammo reserve and health level, maybe with an additional pictorial representation of how how badly cacked your chosen warrior is right now.

Not much like Aliens, but I know something that bears a resemblance. Anyone got a screenshot from the original DOOM?

Nintendo denies third-gen DS outing at E3

@Liam

I doubt it. A major part of the Wii feature set is that it achieves a compact form and low price by not stuffing the case with bleeding edge, high-TDP componentry and survives well by admitting that the vast majority of the world doesn't yet have a hi-def monitor and surround system to stuff the output through.

I'd expect Nintendo to give it another couple of years for Hi-def kit to penetrate the installed market further, making it a "must have" feature, by which time they'll probably be able to get componentry to implement it on that won't fry eggs as a side-effect and require a VCR-sized case full of heatsinks and fans.

Hmm, a company obsessed with content and function over presentation and style. Does that make Nintendo the Anti-Apple?

(There are still useful comments here, that's why)....

Women love chocolate more than password security

@Mike Richards

That one depends purely on the quantity of beer. Using enough beer you'll not only get the login credentials, but the bloke who gave them won't remember doing so the next day and, therefore, won't change 'em.

This also works equally as well with cider, scotch, vodka, gin, tequila, methelated spirits and Windowlene.

Schoolboy's asteroid-strike sums are wrong

Shiney surface.

That's an easy one. Just nip into your local Dodge dealer and say that you'll buy it at the sticker price and you'll take the body finish treatment with it as well.

It'll be gleaming in no time.

Satellite collision.

It says here that it's about 350m across and has an estimated mass of 4.6 x 10^10 kilos (i.e. you'd be pretty certain to notice if someone dropped it on your foot).

If *that* can be deflected by a collision with a satellite, we don't need Bruce Willis to deal with asteroid threats. Just getting the majority of the population of the Earth to shout in the right direction using harsh language should break 'em up nicely.

Predator kill-machine pilots suffering 'chronic burnout'

Or pehaps,

knowing full well that the damned thing's perfectly capable of flying itself if you doze off removes most of the normal piloting incentives to stay awake and pay attention.

Wi-Fi spoofing sends Jesus phone disciples off the true path

@Paolo

Thank you. I've just had a most amusing mental image of Judy Garland as Dorothy standing in Oxford Street with an iPhone and saying "I don't think we're in Kansas any more."

Monroe BJ film - world exclusive still

@Stu

Playmobil, I think you'll find.

There's a "Playmobil funpark" near Nurenberg in Germany. I always wondered what went on there........

Paris, because there's a themepark there as well.