* Posts by Alex King

209 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Oct 2007

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Texas cops cuff 176 at illegal cockfight

Alex King
Coat

Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler...

... assisted by deputies Bob Poultry and Billy McChickens

Mine's the one with the rubber chicken in the pocket.

Samsung Bada: UI shots spied on web

Alex King
Coat

What this needs...

...is a special Microsoft web search app - "Bada Bing"

Sorry, somebody had to.

BMW to provide 'low emission' cars for London Olympics

Alex King
Go

Stuff and nonsense

So, Company X says that their pitch was better than Company Y's and that they should have got the contract. Stop the presses.

Fact is, if Nissan's average is 60g/km with the Leaf counting as 0g/km, then their argument is disingenuous, as we won't have achieved 100% zero carbon electricity generation in the UK by 2012, not to mention the carbon cost of the manufacture of the batteries and their transportation from the far east to the UK, all for an event lasting a few weeks.

And yes, economics are a valid consideration. It's your taxes they're spending.

T-Orange won't share the airwaves

Alex King
Thumb Up

No need to worry...

Some rogue T-Mobile employee will probably sell the spectrum off to the highest bidder soon anyway.

Erotica 09: Bit limp, but crowds still up for it

Alex King
IT Angle

Sorry but...

<--- Where exactly is this????

PS3 to go 3D in 2010, says Sony

Alex King
Coat

@adam 60 and arran

Woah, yes, lets all hold back the march of technology 'cos some people are blind in one eye. While we're out it we should bin those mobile phones 'cos of deaf people, or people with no hands who can't jab the buttons....

Apple cult leader emails outside world

Alex King
Megaphone

I'm aghast...

...at his crappy grammar.

Seriously though, big corporation behaves shittily to the little guy. News at 11.

Yes, I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro, and I have an iPhone, and I'll continue to use them because I, like everybody else, love the shiny.

BBC publishes Freeview HD timetable

Alex King
WTF?

@BigYin

If you really can't tell the difference between a DVD and Blu-ray, then I think you need your eyes upgraded to HD. Do you still run your computer at VGA resolution?

Designers detail the cars of 2030

Alex King
FAIL

No, silly, stupid, wrong

As several others have said, cars twenty years from now will continue to evolve in the same way as the past twenty years. That is, 20% bigger, 20% heavier and 20% more efficient. I would stake both gonads on cars of the future having wheels, doors and steering wheels, and we won't be sharing them from "hubs" - that's what's known as a 'bus' or, if they come to you, a 'taxi'.

Special contempt for the movement sensitive controls. What the feck do I have now? See, how the merest flick of my wrist makes the vehicle change direction, and the slightest twitch of my foot can make the car go faster, or slow down. Silly cocks.

Palm Pre evicted from iTunes (yet again)

Alex King
FAIL

Just look at the numbers

Apple (and for that matter RIM) have strong sales for their smartphones, Palm have seen theirs fall through the floor. Maybe they should concentrate on making their products better, rather than trying to hang on to Apple's coat-tails. The much-hyped Pre is no iPhone beater, so they should grasp some reality and invest in the next one, and try and do a better job than the iPhone, instead of beating their head against this brick wall, whatever the rights and wrongs.

WTF is this country called America?

Alex King

@ Jason Togneri

It doesn't matter two figs what the root of "Britain" is. Most of us live in the current political and legal reality. There is a legal term to describe the area governed by the unified laws of England and Wales, it's called "England and Wales" which, whilst unweildy, is legally and constitutionally correct. So, in the current political reality Britain can only be the short form of "Great Britain", as there is no other legally (technically, whatever) recognised "Britain".

Or do you want me to use "Albion" instead?

Alex King

@ Mr Spoon

"Technically", Britain isn't England and Wales, it includes Scotland too, but never mind. You're all right and you're all wrong too. Especially me for perpetuating this thread.

Musos demand Guantanamo Bay playlist

Alex King
WTF?

Only turned up to ten?

Wimps, should've turned it up to 11...

Historian slams 'absolutely crazy' UK time zone

Alex King
Stop

Not a-sodding-gain

This all really peed me off when I heard it on the news this morning, because we get the same nonsense every damn year.

Never mind the BBC banning the BNP, ban the bi-annual time argument.

Wikileaks publishes BNP 'member list' (again)

Alex King

Ooooh, the ambivalence!

I really do believe in free speech for all, regardless of their political viewpoint, but equally I would not wee on anyone proved to be a member to put them out if they were on fire.

On balance, I think that members of the BNP shouldn't be worried about their names being published if their policies are what they truly believe in, but should be willing to accept the consequences of being "outed".

Oh, and Nick Griffin should be allowed on Question time, provided he agrees to sit under a Noel Edmonds-style gunge tank, triggered when two thirds of the audience find a comment offensive.

Tories oppose charges and speed cameras

Alex King
Black Helicopters

@ PirateSlayer, 11:18am

"Drivers are not free to do whatever speed THEY think is safe."

So, you'd rather have someone in whitehall deciding what is safe at any given time on a given stretch of road than the person sitting at the wheel? Strewth. Lets just all give drivers blindfolds and have a centralised "Department of Driving" in London where people are emloyed to remotely control people's vehicles on their way to work...

Speaking as a "vulnerable road user" - that is, someone who covers over 80 miles a day on a motorbike, there are many things that bother me more than the guy doing 90mph in his silver BMW 320d on the M4, such as:

- People smoking and flicking fag ash out the window into my face

- People pulling out of junctions or changing lanes without looking

- People texting their mate whilst doing the above

- People who don't realise that filtering on a bike is legal

- People who camp in the middle lane with nothing on their inside doing "a few miles an hour below the limit"

- People braking suddenly for speed cameras...

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture. All the above have caused me to fear for my life. Someone else speeding never has.

As for being policed - we are policed by common consent, and where the law being enforced is unreasonable it will fail regardless.

Oh, and to all this people who decry this plan as being populist, isn't that what a good, democratic government should do - that is, do what most people want??

Your phone is winding me up

Alex King
Thumb Up

@TeeCee again

Actually, this would be massively useful in lots of Africa, where the mobile phone network is distinctly more reliable than the power grid. So, whilst you may be finding imagination a bit of a struggle, I'm sure some people would manage...

Radio Society to Ofcom: Hear See you in court

Alex King
Grenade

Throwback

People still use HAM radio? This kind of feels like a battle re-enactment society berating the MoD for driving longbows out of the infantry...

Seriously though, what's the bigger constituency here, HAM radio enthusiasts or powerline kit users?

USB supreme court backs Apple in Palm Pre kerfuffle

Alex King
FAIL

Palm fail

Fingers will now fall off

Volvo reveals electric C30's specs

Alex King
FAIL

No cigar

It's getting there, but until they can come up with something for ~£20-25k that can do 100mph* , has a realistic range of ~200miles and takes less than 30 minutes to charge up, I'll not be remotely interested. Nothing else looks as good as the Tesla Model S at this at the moment. My bike does my 75mile daily round trip at realistic motorway speeds* getting ~80mpg, meaning about £6-7 quid a day on petrol, and it cost me £3k to buy.

*70mph is the speed limit, but you stand by the welsh approach to the Severn Bridge at 8:30am and count how many cars go by doing less than 80mph, it'll be 9:30 before you have to use your second hand.

UK population to abandon Midlands

Alex King
Flame

Lazy Scottish stereotypes

Hoots mon, we all wear Tam O'Shanters and kilts and eat three deep fried mars bars every day whilst buggering a sheep. I wonder if El Reg is based in London by any chance? It is? Well there's a big fecking surprise. Why don't you toddle off home in your bowler hat and don't forget to tip it to the pearly kings and queens on every corner while you munch on your jellied eels.

Fisker e-sportster debuts on infamous Laguna Seca circuit

Alex King
Thumb Up

What a hybrid should be

A decent range on electric only for your workaday commutes, and the trousers to do a proper job on longer runs when required. Makes the new-gen Prius look a bit rubbish by comparison, considering Toyota's muscle. Now all they have to do is sell it for half the price and I'd seriously consider it.

Mitsubishi iMiEV five-door e-car

Alex King
Paris Hilton

@ Robert E A Harvey

Perchance the third type of charging is the regenerative braking system? I think we can rely on MMC to be able to count...

Paris, 'cos even she could probably count to three on a good day.

Vulture Central plans Brit-Yank dictionary

Alex King
Grenade

Different version...

For us brits to get the right meaning from your septic contributors. Maybe you could start with pedophile vs paedophile?

Too many icons! Chose a random one.

Jaguar opens up about future e-car plans

Alex King
Stop

@AC, 10/7, 20:19 (Aluminum vs Aluminium)

Your aim is off on this one, sir. I'm a staunch defender against the corruption of language with mis-spellings, so I must point out that it was the 'merkins who devised the word 'aluminum' in the first place, which was then corrupted by the limeys to aluminium.

And oh yes, the car's fine but they've just stuck an XF in the replicator and set it to 125%. Meh.

Enertia e-bike wheeled into shops

Alex King
Badgers

Must be heavy as hell

A 2009 Honda CBF 125 (which I'd see as a competitor) will do 70mph with only 11bhp, plus get 100mpg if Honda can be believed. It's also available second hand for about £2k.

I agree that 'leccy vehicle designers have to get over the whole "bleep bleep, I'm an elcrical thing from the FUTURE" message and make bikes and vehicles that look like existing ones if they want this to go mass market. Tesla have the right idea with their Model S.

Badgers indeed.

Toyota preps plug-in Prius for mass production

Alex King
FAIL

18 miles?

I think I'll cycle. I'm sure those new lithium batteries are eco-friendly to manufacture too...

Periodic table adding new element

Alex King

@ Ed Blackshaw

If I recall correctly, it was actually that we added an "i" to Aluminum, not the Yanks who took an "i" from Aluminium. (Might be wrong, feel free to flame).

Spelling Sulphur with an "f" is just dumb though.

Oh, and Edwin has the best name for it so far.

Texas cop tasers gobby granny

Alex King
Thumb Up

Yes, Sod the granny (@Peter Hood)

The cop "invited the situation" did he? No - she did: She drove dangerously, disobeyed reasonable instructions, abused the cop, and then - literally - invited him to taser her.

I can't square her behaviour with being "elderly" either. Old, perhaps, and certainly a grandmother, but the only qualifications for that are failing to die for a long time and both you and your offspring figuring out how to have sex, and I don't see why either of those should automatically demand respect, particularly when she's acting every bit the spoilt brat in a potentially lethal situation.

I'm as much against police brutality as the next man, but if you break the law, get caught and then whine and argue the toss then you deserve everything that's coming to you.

Alex King
Thumb Up

Sod the granny

As a biker my life is threatened daily by people who think they have a god-given right to do anything they like on the road and not accept the consequences. The sort of sh*tty attitude this woman exhibited to someone simply doing their job is indicative of a generally bad attitude towards other people in general that can be potentially lethal in many ways.

She's already endangered her own life, that of the officer and probably other road users as well. Could the officer have used different/less force? Maybe, I don't know - I wasn't there and I doubt anybody else here was either, but she put herself in the wrong by speeding in the first place, she had to ber restrained somehow, and a taser is as good a way as any.

F1 waves goodbye to KERS

Alex King
Paris Hilton

@ jon44

"If teams want to mature the tech then they should be allowed too."

Nope, this would be a dumb idea - the problems with having some with and some without were well indicated in Turkey, when Kovalinen (I think) royally fsked-up the last complex under pressure, allowing Barichello to get past, only for Barichello to be robbed of the rewards of his efforts by the dumb boost button on Kovalinen's car. Either you have a standard unit for all cars or none at all. At the moment it's just a get out of jail free card for poor driver/car combos.

Paris, 'cos she's full of dumb ideas too.

Mitsubishi finalises mass-market e-car production plans

Alex King
Thumb Down

Fail

Sorry, but £30k for a small hatchback with a 100 mile "suburban" range? That really isn't mass market.

Well done for trying, and they're getting closer - £15k and a 200 mile range and you may just about get me interested, but for now the answer is no.

Another 0.03% of Blighty goes wind powered

Alex King
Go

@Elfatbob

I think wind farms are beautiful, and would be glad to have one on my doorstep. The landscape there was bleak before - now it's the opposite - a symbol of hope for the future. Yes it's a small step, but the symbol and intent is important too, so El Reg et al really shouldn't be running it down.

Alex King
Dead Vulture

180000 vs 35000

When I read "power" I understand it to mean "supply the electricity for". If it said "meets the energy needs for" or even "powers and heats", then your criticism might be valid - but it doesn't, so it's not.

Criticising this for not meeting total energy needs is a bit like criticising a bicycle for not being a good helicopter.

'Air fuelled' battery tech invented in Scotland

Alex King
Boffin

I would pay double...

...to have a Dilithium-powered car. Can any of you clever clogs tell me how heavy the battery would need to be to power an average sized car at Warp?

UK gov squeezes 'best pricing' pledge from MS

Alex King
Dead Vulture

His or her?

I would have thought, even in these 'modern times' that assuming people called Angela are female is a fairly safe bet...

Apple spooked by white powder

Alex King

White powder in a canteen.

Might it be salt, sugar, bicarb, sweetener, etc etc....

Sheesh...

Videogame history project successfully emulates CRT on LCD

Alex King
Boffin

This is such a geek solution to a non-problem

Do you:

a) Spend hours and hours of coding, testing and evaluation to emulate, through software, the defficiencies of old pieces of hardware, to achieve an authentic replication of those pieces of hardware using modern kit, or

b) Go to your local pawn shop and buy an old telly to plug your computer into.

Sheesh. I suppose with a) you at least don't have to go outside and interact with people...

Multi-sense VR helmet in development

Alex King
Happy

All we need now is...

...the matching recording device - then we could have Strange Days coming true. Hurrah!

Three months on, you still can't get off the DNA database

Alex King
Paris Hilton

@myself

I should, of course, point out that the discrepancy in years is not El Reg's, rather Andrew Dismore's. In a matter as serious as this, I'm glad that the defenders of our liberties are unaware of what year it is.

Paris, cos she probably doesn't know either.

Alex King
Alert

Shurely shome mishtake

Much as I sympathise with Andrew Dismore, but I can't help but feel that his timetable is being a little unfair to HM Govt.:

"we would expect the Government to write to us with their initial reaction to the judgment by 4 January 2008 and with their proposed response to the judgment, including any proposals for general measures which the Government considers necessary to remedy the breach before 4 March 2008."

Much as they should have been able to see it coming, asking Wacky Jaqui and cronies to respond to the judgement before it had been given is probably a bit sharp

Texting peer gets prison

Alex King
Flame

Grahhh.

in order for someone to stop within the distance illuminated by dipped headlights they'd have to be driving at about 30mph. Driving at the estimated 60mph on a motorway late at night is perfectly reasonable.

Driving whilst pissed up, totaling your car and the going back to it to collect your phone across a pitch-black motorway is tantamount to suicide, and the fecking idiot deserved everything he got.

Why is nobody on here having a go at him for driving dangerously and DUI? He endangered his life and those of many others. I suspect there's prejudice by commentards here against the peer because he's "posh"

Earthworm blamed for laptop crash

Alex King
Alert

A Gateway????

Didn't they go bust years ago? The worm could have chosen a much newer/more expensive laptop to destroy - that would have been much more amusing.

How the Feds shook hands with an internet pedophile

Alex King
Dead Vulture

@ Dan Goodin

Just beacause 305 million people do it , it doesn't make it right. I can equallly point to the billions of Indians for whom the official spelling is the British version, not to mention Australians, New Zealanders and every former British colony in Africa. And if you want to start quoting references at me, I daresay the OED might outrank dictionary.com as an authoritative source.

The point I'm REALLY trying to make though, is that "pedophile" can mean something something completely different, but "Paedophile" can only mean kiddie-fiddler. Come on, for the sake of clarity it's only one extra keystroke.

Alex King
Dead Vulture

@ blackworx

"What is it about this type of article that attracts the most incomprehensible commentards?"

Maybe it's the shocking spelling in the article title. I too was expecting an insightful article about foot fetishism.

Norfolk town's schools first to be heated by burning cattle

Alex King
Unhappy

@ Roger Heathcote

"Blah blah moral high-ground, blah blah pompous twaddle, blah blah I'm cleverer than you, blah blah whinge whine grump moan insult shoot self in foot."

Sorry, had to paraphrase a little there, but surely someone of your intellect could recognise a joke when they see one? No? Oh well.

Connecticut cop forced to shoot chimp

Alex King
IT Angle

Unless any penguins were harmed...

...I'm struggling to see the IT angle

Oh, sorry, just realised that this chimp "Bites the hand that feeds it".

Samsung NC10 netbook

Alex King
Heart

Got one of these for the missus...

...and it's perfect for her. As a non geek she can do without having to learn Linux and it's useable for running presentations, writing papers on etc., while still being great for carrying on her bicycle to work. The battery life is absolutely excellent too, and on the price well, as ever, you get what you pay for. This just feels like such a better quality piece of kit than the Asus and Acer I tried.

If you can't afford it, then fine, but it's the one to go for if you can.

Palm to take on iPhone with web 2.0 banana phone

Alex King
Thumb Down

Stupid accents strike again

There's no justification for the accute accent at all, it's just another attempt to make something sound exotic by adding an accent, cf. the ridiculous adulteration of Moben and Motley Crue.

Lightning to thunder with speed-creep beating V8 roar

Alex King
Flame

To the noise nazis...

...or non-drivers as they're probably known by others. Human beings have evolved with five senses for a reason - it's safer that way if you can hear things coming that might kill you. Whether or not people should look, they don't, and a noisy thing that might just save an odd life while people adapt to the new tech could just be seen as a good thing.

"But my street's too noisy, my hotmail looks different, my facebook's got too much white space, let's sign a petition, whine, bitch, moan etc..."

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