* Posts by Marvin the Martian

1513 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Mar 2007

German dentists develop 'painless' plasma tooth-blaster

Marvin the Martian
Troll

It may work

But which self-respecting dentist would opt for a painless method? Inconceivable!

Egyptian mobile users warned off Koran-based ringtones

Marvin the Martian
Stop

Blow? Boon!

Scenario is thus:

- believer finds annoying internet ad for koran-ringtone,

- believer forks over money,

- after day novelty wears off and/or someone points him to this fatwa (forbidding it),

- believer forks over money for other ringtone.

See how it actually doubles the industry's income instead of destroying it?

BeautifulPeople ejects post-Xmas fatties

Marvin the Martian
Troll

Patronising the B.P. site

This patronising remark says a lot about you... ?

Marvin the Martian
Pint

Think a bit deeper about it.

The web site's full title is "(quite) Beautiful (but otherwise damaged) People."

Indeed, the /sweet-natured/ pretty girls always found relationships at school, and even the /needy and bitchy/ ones did for the timescales that go with school love, where you're surrounded daily by bored hormonal masses. Later in life, that changes. "Previous results no guarantee" etc.

/beer as it has the opposite effect --- it makes the fun people look good.

Yorkshire Ripper loves Wii Bowling

Marvin the Martian
Thumb Down

"WII no effect on fitness"?

And your point, if any, is? You demand fitter inmates, so let's invest in large fitness centres? Hm. With all machines specially modified that they can't take off any parts to use as a weapon (metal bars, weights, chains, etc)?

5000quid for several inmates is a laughable cost on the basic cost of even keeping 1 inmate 1 year. Yeah, let's vote for longer prison sentences and against a budget to cover it.

Acer uncloaks next-gen Atom netbook

Marvin the Martian
FAIL

Disgustedly from snowy tunbridge wells

[1] the appearance of "milli" (or "micro" etc) implies the opposite of what you conclude --- namely that the measuring unit it too large for your purpose. Obviously. And kilo, mega, giga,... if it's too small for your purpose.

[2] how can anyone not familiar with the El Reg units ([mis]conceived definitely after the 1800s) be allowed to post? Why does this government never act against these ne'erdowells? Etc etc.

X-Box 360 theft suspect busted after online gaming sesh

Marvin the Martian
FAIL

re: phone-home chip in all online equipment

If the chips are as removable/overwriteable as they should be (hello, second hand market?), they're as much protection as there is now --- only the stupid will sign on with it.

So what's won by adding this backdoor?

Tories swallow Web 2.0, spit out £1m crowdsource prize

Marvin the Martian
Pint

Tories --- a bit of a strange name.

If you are campaigning under the flag of "change" you cannot claim to be conservative, methinks. And although running after things that sounded spiffy in 2007 doesn't betray down-with-it-ness, it's still not

The outcome of the project is quickly gauged: read through the last 50years of letters to the Daily Mail --- it is distilled from the same slice of the population of complainos (or slightly more literate, seeing as they managed to write an address and stick a stamp in the correct place), and show us one good idea proposed there.

It's like crowdsourcing a brewing process and being surprised you get something as undrinkable as stella or irn bru.

Today is not New Year's Eve - or the end of the decade

Marvin the Martian
WTF?

What a useful article

A neatly rewritten wikipedia entry (don't ask me why you expect us to come here instead of there if we'd like to know about this stuff). I suppose El Reg's mandatory wiki bashing policy forbids you from the politeness of putting this text on their page with copypasta?

Stella Artois augments iPhone reality

Marvin the Martian
Thumb Down

The mind boggles...

Why does a Flemish beer feel the need to affect Franglais? "Le bar guide"

'CRU cherrypicked Russian climate data', says Russian

Marvin the Martian
Stop

What? No, you need to check credentials.

If you ignore credentials, then the Reg article title is 100% true: a [random] russian claims CRU data are false.

Watchdog mauls Disney woman's breasts

Marvin the Martian
Thumb Up

What else?

It's not like I'd have heard of the film otherwise, so this complaint is commercially very useful to Disney [but then again, I won't watch it anyway except if paid substantially].

NZ gal's Bulgarian airbags halt traffic

Marvin the Martian
Stop

So in conclusion...

So you mean you think it's the frozen silicone bags that broke the windscreen? That is scary.

RAF's new military airlifter finally lumbers into the air

Marvin the Martian
Grenade

Nice try.

But no cigar. The military aerospace industry in the UK amount more to handing money over to companies, than keeping a highly skilled tech group on the isle.

There are no further taxable transactions on sticking with this program and handing cash to the wingmakers --- well, other than keeping expensive and inferior helicopters being made here, with the same rationale. And some other bits and bobs (like overpriced gunboats).

Getting bottom of economics class is the honourable thing, if apparently you made it to the top by shouting reaganomics like mantras.

German electropulse energy drill bitchslaps lasers

Marvin the Martian
IT Angle

Don't worry about underwater

At least you can easily stay away from the beaches, those nasty sun-beaten expanses of sand or pebbles.

I'm just hoping it's not landsharks.

'Friends with Benefits' sex does no psych harm - profs

Marvin the Martian
Dead Vulture

Inevitable title

You seem to mix up "friends with benefits" and "sleeping around".

The first implies a more-or-less longstanding agreement between two people to quasi-regularly hit the sack together, the second may be one night stands and all such and can happen even in committed relations (or so I heard).

Apple to appeal after OPTi's $21.7m patent infringement win

Marvin the Martian
Stop

If it's in the CPU, why apple?

If the problem is with the CPUs, why sue the pc assembler and why not IBM/Motorola for the Power chips, or Intel (and AMD) for the x86? Doesn't seem to be iPod/iPhone related, and even then it would be Foxconn or whatever partsmaker does it?

MIT win DARPA's flashcrowd balloon-hunt compo

Marvin the Martian
Pint

3 cents?

How can the last be cheated of more than .5 cents? Because 1cent is the maximum resolution you have?

It indeed gives a payout 17levels deep; if you look at it cumulatively (if each one above you loses a fraction of a cent, how much can you miss in total because of the granularity of coins?), the losses are here given and max out near 3/4 of a cent:

0- 2000

1- 1000

2- 500

3- 250

4- 125

5- 62.50

6- 31.25

7- 15.62 (half cent lost)

8- 7.81(quarter cent lost)

9- 3.90(5/8 cent lost)

10- 1.95(5/16 lost)

11- 0.97(21/32 cent lost)

12- 0.48(53/64 cent lost)

13- 0.24(53/128 lost)

14- 0.12(53/256 lost)

15- 0.06(53/512 cent lost)

16- 0.03(53/1024 cent lost)

17- 0.01(1077/2048 cent lost)

0.00(3125/4096 cent lost)

So if the chain is 17levels or deeper, then in total 3999.94 is paid out and 6cents (=sum of losses) are left for charity. Charity always receives!

Windows 'openness' hailed in Nintendo game defeat

Marvin the Martian
Thumb Down

Dare I mention the Jesusphone?

So because MS runs their business their way, all should do it? Since when is a judge a businessman or platform architect?

Stick to what you know, and you don't sound foolish. Or less often, in my case.

Apple's App Store police relent on hardware images

Marvin the Martian
Stop

Lemmethink why you'd need it?

Maybe in the same situation as you'd normally need Mactracker --- when faced with a decrepit machine of a relative and you need to know what memory fits in there? So now it's in your handheld iphone instead of you having to wander to your home and phone up with the details found? Because said computers don't live in multimachine homes.

So yes, given that the prog exists since ages (with nice icons of the models) so presumeably easy to port to this new home --- it's the natural home for it. You lose 1 internet.

Google expands plan to run own internet

Marvin the Martian
Alien

Ground up manfrommars

I dunno --- (relatively*) short, snappy, to the point yet at a noticeable angle to the rest of the universe. Me likes this version.

*add this adjective as appropriate. YMMV.

UK police take down fake designer goods sites

Marvin the Martian
WTF?

What's the logic here?

You spend 90% of your life on the internet and 10% outside, and think that's the average situation?

Only way you can get to the 1-internet-year-equals-10-street-years.

Taliban attack Brit troops with explosive donkey

Marvin the Martian
Grenade

"common" practice?

With two recorded instances in the last 30years, I see why you added "quotation marks" there. It's a special value of common I guess, close to "absolutely exceedingly rare".

Google moves tanks onto property market's lawns

Marvin the Martian
WTF?

Why rob empty houses?

Maybe if you have a small house, you can go steal the airy interior of an empty, spacious house?

I think the idea was that if you have your house for sale, you know there'll be stangers walking around and touching your stuff, possibly stealing some nicknacks; I doubt however the owners will become so laidback they don't look up from a mask wearing stranger dragging out the LCD tv.

MS kills 'Bing buys the news' furore, but Google could still lose it

Marvin the Martian
WTF?

Bing?

Wasn't that the surname of the more annoying of the guys in Friends? Otherwise, the name (or.. verb? noun?) doesn't ring a bell.

EFF seeks answers from Facebook police

Marvin the Martian
WTF?

Privacy through common name

Yes, it's been shown that security through obscurity is a new, effective, and exciting paradigm. You too can now take up its best practices, ideally through my fancy new guide at an introductory offer of 20$ on Amazon (45$ thereafter). Hurry!

PS. I also have a large rivercrossing contraption for sale on my eBay shop.

Time pops tablets to take magazines electronic

Marvin the Martian
Paris Hilton

Glorious grayscale

I dunno, the swimsuit edition on ebook readers may attract the old C-64 players, who used to play strip poker on glorious, gaudy 16-colour 320x200 pixel screens.

I like the proposed interface, it may happen in some future, but don't expect sweaty sportiness to be the deciding factor in this, what, £700 investment in the proposed apple tablet. How many tablet carrying dudes you know, outside of warehousing and delivery?

Catholics slam PETA nude adopt-a-mutt poster

Marvin the Martian
Flame

Which of the two sides is sicker, Jacky?

I dunno, there's 3 sides, Bob. There's the deluded and mildly annoying PETA (deluded into thinking their appeals will convert anyone, just preaching to the choir; annoying if you're a fur-carrying celeb but otherwise unintrusive); there the vastly criminal catholic church (no point arguing or expounding); and there's this incredibly perverse CNN. Back to the studio for analysis by Dr. Dweeb.

Hurray, see mass killing and destruction and barbarism (they only became a global news byword in the 1991 gulf war), get the kids out to see --- ludicrously obviously photoshopped poster with all modesty preserved by a crucifix: must apologise and fake outrage for minutes (but show it anyway). What happened to reporting news? I understand it's a lead-in for a very partial "debate," but how can you not get sick of this patronising? If a viewer is honestly offended, they're offended no matter how much "look away now" you say so they despise you for showing it anyway.

Are they equally outraged at every naughty (underwear) campaign sporting the cliche angel/devil (making sure to show as much as they get away with)? We should be told. Shown, preferably.

Navy's £1bn+ destroyers set to remain unarmed for years

Marvin the Martian
Boffin

What a bad press officer

Do not say: "the failure of the test was a setback."

Consider, before the test it was unsure if it would work or not.

So, do say: "a lot of interesting and unexpected data was collected."

A different version is "a lesson is learned but the damage is irreversible," however that's a cartoon's name.

Muswell Hillbillies force BT to move broadband boxes

Marvin the Martian
Stop

I fully support Balefire's proposal

Why do they paint them green anyway? To blend in? So you can walk into them?

Along Balefire's lines, I'd modify it to cow- or hippopotamus shaped,* and just let local artists paint them as they like. As was uselessly done by the Cow Parade people. Or assorted animals, totems and food objects --- will help a lot of people, from misplaced tourists to small children. "You go right at the icecream, until you see the penguin, then bend left to where you see the unicorn, and ask again," and the bobby can help the crying infant that knows she lives close to the carrot.

*cables to be routed through legs, hence possibly second preferable.

LHC knocked out by ANOTHER power failure

Marvin the Martian
Linux

Snowfall, schmowfall.

The cause is probably birdies again. Websites being offline too points to cables being cut: by woodpeckers, I surmise.

Apple 'games' NAND flash market

Marvin the Martian
Stop

The economics don't seem to work?

Step 1: Order 1,000,000 chips. Thus there is a perceived shortage and prices go up.

Step 2: Buy 100,000 chips. The prices are going down as the expected rush doesn't appear yet, but the seller is still hoping it materialises --- so price is above the "natural" value before step 1?

It's not like there's been time to ramp up production and build a new production facility between steps 1 & 2.

Bumbling NJ firemen, cops blown up in 'huge fireball'

Marvin the Martian
Headmaster

Is this supposed to be ironic?

"Darwin, Eddison, Brunei"

They're hiding here amongst us, the micro-geniuses.

DARPA balloon-hunt compo: Stand by for skulduggery

Marvin the Martian
Unhappy

Finally a DARPA project within the boundaries of physics.

It's too suspiciously feasible, this whole chess-playing dirty warfare. Maybe DARPA lied as well?

Wikipedia bans Volvo's IT over racist rants

Marvin the Martian

Time to fire someone

It's not like any Swede has ever known or cared about cricket. So it's a foreign (read: UK, Pakistani, or similar) IT techie bringing the company in disrepute... Jobs will be lost. Righty, it seems.

Skinny Acer notebook delivers six-day battery life

Marvin the Martian

65 hours in six days?

There's me living 24h days, but apparently you computer types go to bed when it gets dark and don't recall/notice any changes when opening their eyes when the light slowly returns.

"Hey that car parked in front of the neighbours tunneled away, never started up."

Strange.

TomTom Start

Marvin the Martian
Stop

@ Jake @ Richard116

"Why not ask the client for driving directions?"

Choose your option:

[1] Because it makes a stupid impression?

[1b] Because things get really awkward if the client doesn't know and feels put into place?

[2] Because the client doesn't necessarily know the route, from your last client to him?

[2a] Because the client has the same chance of knowing the route from you to him as you have?

[3] Because even if they know a route, they're not necessarily good at explaining it?

[3b] See 1b?

[4] Because there's more travelling to be done than just to clients in this world?

The simple reality is that route planners are just far less of a necessity in the USA than in the old world. The reasons are tedious and obvious (millenia old road networks that have been half-redone half-worked around for centuries, versus those designed with horse-and-buggy in mind, plenty of space mostly versus filling in little crags, etc) and there is no grid pattern in the typical european city centre nor on the larger scale is there the regular North/South+E/W road pattern the US has.

MIT boffins invent robot clam-grapnel

Marvin the Martian
Boffin

"lightweight"

Lightweight seems more of a drawback than feature for an underwater (or near-waterline) application?

Potty-mouths charged for Comcast hijack

Marvin the Martian
Boffin

@ $128,578? By Graham Marsden

I presume it involves establishing the exact financial loss represented by a person thinking "what a mickey mouse operation, let's go to that well-run AOL," plus the number of such people, and other sundry brand value loss calculations. And some overtime. Plus a chair destroyed by Ballmer's nephew working there as an intern.

eBay stamps on Mussolini's brain

Marvin the Martian

He's still very respectable.

I've been in the house of an officer in the carabinieri, quite high-up but not that high, and his hallway is dominated by a bust of the duce. Don't forget his granddaughter is still head of a party that regularly wins seats, locally or as MEPs, and promises the same policies. No denazification ever happened there.

[The trains running on time is being a myth, of course, but even with mythical powers I think you'd fail to sort the underinvested UK trains out. You want it to work, you chuck shed loads of money at it and bang a lot of heads together.]

Atlantis astronaut flying high over baby's birth

Marvin the Martian
Megaphone

You know when rocket bottom is reached.

You know astronomy reporting is in dire straits when exciting news is not new rovers or telescopes or space walks, but unfortunate personal circumstances (fathers not present at birth, diaper-wearing women stalking rivals, etc). That case was spectacular, but this is just an unfortunate scheduling conflict (what next, "oil rig worker misses first steps of baby daughter"?). Way to keep the (pointless, moneywasting, stoneage-thinking) GO TO MARS! dream alive, as promised by W.

So stop this rubbish, and abolish astronauts completely. Moar rovers! Moar satellites! Moar exploration! Moar cheap robots! Moar telescopes! Moar flybys of comets, satellites, and others!

Hackers free Snow Leopard from Jobsian cage

Marvin the Martian
Troll

@Mectron

"Illegal" in the sense of "I don't like it as they don't give me for free what I want"? Not the obsolete sense of "breaking or circumventing the current laws of a territory"?

Eejit.

Queen's Speech slammed by small biz

Marvin the Martian
Stop

That's a relief

If small business is happy with things, that would be very worrying indeed. They must moan, it's their role in society. Would be unnatural otherwise.

Arkansas cop tasers 10-year-old girl

Marvin the Martian
Grenade

"Treated like an animal"

Yes, 'cause that's how you gotta treat animals -- show who's boss. "What, fido, you're in my fave chair? Zap!"

The mother's attitude shows why tasers, like guns, shouldn't be in the general public's hands.

iPhone worm hacker gets death threats, job offers

Marvin the Martian
IT Angle

"NSW newspaper"

Am I the only one who read that as "NSFW newspaper" and thought "Ah, you mean the Sun"?

Thought so.

US judge rules quadriplegic can bear arms

Marvin the Martian
Megaphone

Hope he's gunning for robotic bunnies.

The sound of his electric wheelchair zipping near will spook all but the most absolutely deaf animals I'd say. Or is he gonna wait near a trap? That would be unsporting.

/sound, obviously

Windows XP on netbooks to lose life support?

Marvin the Martian
Unhappy

win7 is like condoms

You can choose between "premium" and "extra premium," to not crush your ego as you're stuffed with a very basic product.

Facebook scoffs at hacktivist stunt

Marvin the Martian
FAIL

Full frontal assault

Puts one somehow in mind of Greece and Turkey, every few year they invade some rocks in the sea between them and energetically wave their flag for a few days. Not to the bemusement of anybody as the rocks in question are devoid of life.

In their case however, the international community then scrambles to prevent an all-out war --- that kind of relevance doesn't threaten in this case.

Luvvies make last ditch appeal for radio mics

Marvin the Martian
Stop

Estimated value

Doesn't the estimated value of the kit involved crash spectacularly, the minute you publish the fact that it's going to suddenly be obsolete? So do they get cashback according to next week's estimate or last week's estimate?

Wolfram Alpha given keys to the Bingdom

Marvin the Martian
Linux

In equally important news

.. one of my leopard gecko's eggs showed signs of hatching this morning. More news at 22:00.

/wallace&Gromit penguin as it's hatching more plots.