Posts by Gianni Straniero

Perv Oz burglar pumps and dumps Jungle Jane

Jungle Jane...

... will doubtless be making a cameo appearance in a forthcoming Playmobil reconstruction.

'Sonic boom' golf club may 'damage hearing'

Repeated exposure

"Of course — how "repeated" the exposure of a driver hitting a ball in a game of golf is certainly questionable."

Whereas at a driving range, it's going to happen a bit more often, isn't it?

Council to crack down on Cracknuts Lane

Furthermore...

In other news of street furniture defacement, there's a sign in Lincolnshire that reads "To Old Bolingbroke and Mavis Enderby", to which a local wit has added "the gift of a son".

'ello 'ello 'ello

Letsby Avenue in Sheffield has one building on it: a Police station.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/feb/12/martinwainwright

There's gold in green: profiting from climate change

Agreement on both sides

The Kyoto protocol gave us the Clean Development Mechanism, through which poorer countries are paid not to emit greenhouse gases wealthier countries can't afford, or can't be bothered, to eliminate themselves. This is one of the "offsetting" schemes to which you refer.

Factories in China and India were, until recently, releasing fluorinated gases that have a much greater forcing effect that an equivalent mass of carbon dioxide. These factories were paid a total of $4.7bn to eliminate these gases from their emissions. The actual cost of their elimination was closer to $100m. ROI = 4700%, which is tasty pork in anyone's language.

Yvo de Boer apparently has no problem with this: "The Clean Development Mechanism prompts a company to do something that it would not normally do, and then the company starts to make a profit".

You don't have to be a "climate change sceptic" to find this obscene. My source for the above information was George Monbiot:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2008/dec/08/monbiot-yvo-de-boer-climate

Unfortunately your outrage at "conflicts of interest" is going to get you nowhere. In fact I'm not at all surprised that these people laughed in your face and hung up on you. If the government proposes to reduce carbon (or equivalent) emissions, they need to speak to people who know how to do so. And, in turn, these people know how to make outlandish sums of money in the process.

So don't blame the companies or advisory boards. Blame the pusillanimous governments and international bodies that devise ineffective legislation and easily-outwitted regulatory schemes.

Either that, or found your own advisory board, composed of taxi-drivers, plumbers and journalists, all of whom are skilled in propounding strongly-held opinions, but, I submit, know next to nothing about how to get the job done. At least it would be untainted by accusations of cronyism.

Lego terrorist threatens democracy

Nazis. I hate these guys.

If you want some Lego Nazis, you can quite legitimately obtain them here:

http://indianajones.lego.com/en-us/Products/IndianaJones/7622.aspx

Mine's the one with the bullwhip and Webley Mk VI.

Lapdancing 'not sexually stimulating', MPs hear

"How do you measure sexual stimulation?"

A ruler ought to do the trick, I'd have thought.

Juror dismissed over Facebook poll

Effective deterrent

The twelve individuals the Crown will select as a "jury of your peers" in the event of a criminal transgression should be more than enough to keep you on the straight and narrow.

NASA's lost toolbag filmed from Earth

"We'll just assume that means it was pretty."

Magnitude is a measure of brightness. It means it would be invisible to the naked eye even under perfect viewing conditions. The larger the magnitude, the fainter the object.

Teen discussed suicide plan online 12 hours before webcam death

Complicity of the voyeur

Like the question of the tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it, we should ask: "Would this boy have killed himself if no one were watching?" Or perhaps he was a kind of Schroedinger's Tennager, if you will. Did the act of opening the webcam window trigger his death? Was he simultaneously alive and dead until those RTMP packets started to arrive?

J's ghoulish rubbernecking motorists, who slow down to inspect a car crash, illustrate a related point: death is indeed a spectator sport. I think it was Tibor Fischer who compared us to the zebras who cannot tear themselves away from a pride of lions feasting one one of their own. There, but for the grace of God, go we all.

Congratulations, Barack — Now fix your websites

West-coast guilt

The US media did not exactly give Obama a hard time in the run up to his electoral success, and are starting to feel guilty about the shattered dreams of that poor old dude from Arizona. So they're trying to make up for it.

Unfortunately, Obama has yet to put a foot wrong, but you've got to work with what you're given, right? So some dolt using the same page template for the public and private parts of the CMS is the best they've got at the moment.

Google torches own brand Sadville

Niche interests

"Are [people with niche sexual interests] likely to be a target for major advertisers? Erm, no"

Et pourquoi non?

Heinz ketchup

Unilever Vaseline

Swarfega

Mars Pedigree Petfoods

Taser International, Inc.

I could go on...

PC virus forces three London hospitals into computer shutdown

Vulnerability from beyond the grave

Oh dear oh dear. The worm spreads through a backdoor that was closed by MS04-011. So they haven't patched for 4 years? Either that, or every damned medic/nurse in the Trust opened a dodgy email.

BNP races to get membership list off the net

Plenty of coppers

Quite a few retired or former police officers on that list, plus one who seems to be a serving officer. And they wonder why we think the police force is "institutionally racist".

Retro piracy - Should the Royal Navy kick arse?

Sirius Star

This should bring things to a head:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Article/200811315153159

pirates capture the Sirius Star, a large Saudi oil tanker with two British nationals aboard.

Re: More RN helicopter carriers?

"A fleet of small attack craft such as Boghammers would need a floating base ship or secure harbour to operate from"

They could use Albion or Bulwark. They're both Landing Platform Docks, with room for a couple of helicopters and stowage for a third. Fill each with 300 bloodthirsty marines and you can send a few LCUs up the beach at Eyl. You could even land a tank or two.

Not sure whose permission you need to invade Somalia. I mean, who would you ask?

Serial troll vents steam through ears

If you like her so much...

... move to Alaska, Aaron. I believe the state of Washington voted for Obama.

Yours is the fur-lined parka. Here, let me help you with it.

Yes! It's the Darth Vader breakfast toaster

Hmmm

Looks to me like someone's been messing around with their Cylon toaster:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/15/frakkin_cylon_toaster/

Guy Fawkes stunt arrives early

Semantics

He can prefer to think of his constituents as "employers", if he wishes. But we seem to prefer "public servant" over "public employee" to describe his role. Let us head without delay to the first refuge of the pedant, the Oxford English Dictionary:

servant, n. A person of either sex who is in the service of a master or mistress; one who is under obligation to work for the benefit of a superior, and to obey his (or her) commands.

Marvellous. Not only were the Libertarians scrupulously precise in their choice of title, it seems his constituents are also his superiors. I don't find that particularly difficult to believe, tbh.

Yang! tells! MS! to! buy! Yahoo!

At last

If Yahoo! buys AOL, and then Microsoft buys Yahoo!, I can finally forward that merger email promising $240 for every downstream recipient. Time to get paid!

NASA's greatest clanger

Cover up

Astonishingly, NASA didn't even notice the "anomalies" in their own photography:

http://stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_landings.htm

Fancy nipping for a quick two-thirds of a pint?

Mine's a 0.38056 cubic decimetre, please

Nothing new under the Sun and Thirteen Cantons. We used to call these "club halves" during my time in the trade. Half a pint served in a pint pot, which was naturally closer to two-thirds by the time you'd finished pouring. Strictly for the cognoscenti.

Wiggy scuffle pampernaut lawyers back in court

@Dominic

Space knickers available here:

http://www.just-style.com/article.aspx?id=101896

Wikipedia plumbs the filthy depths of plumbing

Re: My wikifiddle is almost 12 months old now

You are Ryan Coombes and I claim my ten pounds.

Phoenix Lander listens to Mars murmurings

@NT

"NASA must have learned pretty quickly after that you have to be enormously careful about what you say and what you suggest"

Well, the nerds at JPL clearly didn't get that memo:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=1041

Emails show journalist rigged Wikipedia's naked shorts

@bandor

I will be the first to admit I have a very flimsy grasp on all this, but here goes anyway:

"The problems with credit default swaps and CDO's were already in play. Short sellers identified the problem and acted. If they had not, the risk portfolios would have KEPT ON GROWING and the final result would have been even worse."

Trading CDOs seems to be a prime example of Stiglitz's "asymmetric information", which is a Nobel-prize winning wasy of saying "buying pigs in pokes". I'm amazed to learn that, in addition to having no idea how to assess the risk of the CDOs, companies used "mark to market" accounting when booking them. So they book a profit based on the current market value of a completely unknown quantity, long before they actually sell (whether at a profit or loss). I thought "mark to market" went down with Enron, but apparently not.

So the only rational response to a company booking non existent profits is to revalue that company. If you want to make a profit in so doing, short sell its stock. Unfortunately, short sellers (naked or otherwise) aren't making anything except other people's money, which they squander on fast cars and overpriced fizz. If someone can indicate a tangible contribution these people make to the economy or society, do let me know.

Crashed aircraft is Fossett's, authorities confirm

But the tomb was empty...

Until his remains are found, this will remain a rich source of speculation. Unfortunately, the buzzards and coyotes will have made off with anything edible by now.

It's possible things like ID cards and cash could be blown away from the crash site, but it's also odd they ended up in the same place. Maybe they were in the pocket of the Nautica fleece found in nearby.

The BBC reports a new aerial search has spotted some more plane wreckage, and a ground team will be dispatched to the area.

'I can see dinosaurs from my back porch'

@Webster Phreaky

"This is a FREE THINKING COUNTRY!"

Your sweetheart had to ask a librarian whether it would be OK to ban some books, should the fancy take her:

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?articleid=1117009

The librarian said she would be opposed to such a move. Shortly thereafter, Palin fired her. So much for your "free thinking country".

Turkish court bans Dawkins' website

Dawkipoos

Dawkins is a tiny bit embarrassing. He can't resist insulting people who don't share his views. Calling Muslim creationists "stupid" and "ignorant" may be accurate, but it certainly isn't helpful.

I cringed during his series "The Genius of Charles Darwin" -- which should really have been called "The Atheism of Richard Dawkins" -- when he met the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr Williams is clearly a deep-thinking man of considerable intelligence and learning, and polite to a fault, but Dawkins denounced Christ's miracles as "cheap parlour tricks" right to his face.

Granted, it's stupendously unlikely that some chap from Nazareth walked on water, fed five thousand with five loaves and a couple of mackrel, or transformed some jars of water into wine. But for all we know, the wedding at Cana was a lavish spectacle with dancing girls and a laser show. The Gospels remain silent on that matter.

The Professor would do well to keep a civil tongue in his head. I'd prefer it if the champion of Darwinism weren't so shrill and hectoring the whole time.

Royal Navy won't fight pirates 'in case they claim asylum'

Lily-livered sons of mangy curs

An unsophisticated position to adopt, I know, but if you send 'em straight to Davy Jones' locker, they won't have time to claim asylum, will they?

Oz woman held hostage by pugnacious porker

I've seen bigger

Shetland pony, my arse.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7632861.stm

Look at the size of this:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8PBKB5G0&show_article=1&image=large

Daily Mail hacks get emergency bird flu jabs

Choices, choices.

"Scientists believe that a flu pandemic is inevitable. It could result in large-scale illness and fatality. It would also lead to significant and sustained disruption to our businesses."

On balance, it's probably worth it.

Mine's the down-lined one with Kleenex in the pockets.

What's the cost of global warming?

Gradual climate change

In contrast to Lawson's claim that climate change is gradual, evidence suggests the onset of the Younger Dryas event may have been as little as a decade. Greenland was rather suddently 15°C cooler. The average temperature in Britain dropped to 5°C. The end of the Younger Dryas was similarly abrupt. 10°C warming in three decades, perhaps less.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2F34346

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2F362527a0

There is no strong evidence that this was a global event, but it certainly had interesting consequences for Europe. If such "tipping points" exist, we may not have time to sit around hoping a technological solution will materialise, but I certainly don't have one in my garage. Anyone else?

Today is not Hadron Collider Day

Apocalypse not now

The Today programme was a particulalry egregious example of journalists not quite getting it. Even the sports correspondent was cracking wise: we won't have to worry about England's football performaces if Armegeddon is unleashed.

A stream of finger-wagging emails arrived in the Today inbox, scolding them for not taking the end of the world seriously enough (which shows their listeners haven't been paying attention either). To his credit, John Humphrys pointed out that if the end was indeed nigh, nobody would be around to complain about their frivolous broadcasting.

Quick (stupid) question for the Register's boffinish readership: if each beam is travelling "close to the speed of light", what's the closing speed of the two beams?

The Hadron Collider: What's it all about, then?

God(damn) particle

Leon Lederman wanted to call it the "God damn particle", but his editor wouldn't let him. Or so says Higgs in an interview with The Grauniad:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/30/higgs.boson.cern

Ubuntu zoo preps for new arrival

Alphabetical alliterations

When did it begin? We've already had the out-of-sequence "Warty Warthog" and "Hoary Hedgehog", haven't we?

This might provide some inspiration:

http://www.bust-ed.co.uk/acatalog/KPDAnimalPosterL.jpg

I anticipate some modest celebration at The Register when we reach the letter "V"

Google cedes Belgium to Germany

Something rotten in the state of...

... Poland. Because that's where Mike Belshe seems to think Denmark can be found.

Concrete-jet 'printers' to build houses, Moonbases in hours

Bad news for brickies

The "credit-crunch" looks like putting large numbers of construction workers out of their jobs.

Now this thing comes along and destroys, once and for all, their hopes of being sent to the Moon to wolf-whistle passing aliens and take 14 (earth) day-long teabreaks.

McKinnon loses extradition fight

Poor fool

From the interviews I've seen, he does seem like a harmless sort of chap, but "I was only looking for UFOs" is not a defence to hacking in the same way as "I was only after some tinned ravioli" is not a defence to burglary.

The "thousands of dollars" of damage he is accused of causing is probably bollocks, though. This was most likely the expense incurred in retrospective security work that should have been done in the first place.

Still, it's a shame he's going to do some hard bird (hence icon) in the US.

Aussie has answer to save Earth from asteroid attack

@Chris

"Ah, that's OK then - because no one ever wins the Lottery, do they?"

That was kind of my point. But remember that the lottery gets drawn every week, and a lot of people buy tickets. This is more like having one lottery draw in April 2036, and Apophis gets to buy the only ticket.

Three bites of the cherry

Apophis was recently downgraded to 0 on the Torino impact scale. This number is a function of the probability of earth impact and the damage it would cause. It's a big rock, so damage would be extensive. Ergo, zero should tell you quite a bit about the likelihood of an impact.

But the rock will have three bites of the cherry, which you can see here:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/a99942.html

It's "best" chance to consign humanity to firey oblivion will be 13th April 2036, when there's 0.0022% probability of a collision. That's 1 in 45,000, which is not dissimilar to the odds of matching 5 balls in the lottery.

There's a chance that Apophis will pass throught a 400m-wide gravitational keyhole in 2029, setting it up for guaranteed Armageddon-style action in 2036. It is now "likely" that Apophis will miss this keyhole, but just in case, don't make any plans for April 13 2036.

Scientists unravel galactic spaghetti monster

It's not Him

"He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease".

http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

Unless, of course, He is "invisible" to the naked eye, and He was just waiting for Sanders & chums to point the requisite kit in His direction.

NASA's Ares V may crush Kennedy crawlerway

Nit pickers

While you're all ripping into eachother for fluffing your arithmetic, you might be interested to know the composition of the crawlerway. There are some bare factoids on the KSC website:

http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/nasafact/count3teaf.htm#crawlway

What they don't mention is that the river gravel was specially selected to be the lowest sparking material available. While the main tank isn't fuelled until the vehicle gets to the launch complex, you still really do not want your crawler setting off sparks underneath a million kilograms of ammonium perchlorate, aluminium and iron oxide.

Flames, not because I'm angry...

Old timers rattle zimmers at 'Elderly Persons' sign

Bunch of animals

This reminds me of the fuss created by the brown Tourist Destination signs when they were introduced. Places like Marwell got uptight because they didn't have any elephants.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20023113.htm#sch14

There are some pretty niche attractions that get their own sign. How many tram museums are there, for example?

(Question rhetorical. Please don't go find out.)

Road Pricing 2.0 is two years away

A Party Political Broadcast for the Labour Party

If we want to stop you doing something, we charge you for it. This is our default position, because the cost of implementing the solution is less than the revenue generated by it.

We don't like you smoking, drinking, driving into town, or parking in it once you get there. So we charge you.

It has come to our attention that too many people are using their cars to get about. This cannot possibly be because there is no viable alternative. You must all be selfish libertarian nutters who watch too much Top Gear and want Jeremy Clarkson for Prime Minister. How do we stop you? Charge you!

We can't introduce toll booths on the motorways. The longest unbroken stretch of motorway in the UK is the M11 Southbound, between Junctions 10 and 8. It's only 17 miles. You wily motorists would just give the tollboths the slip(road) and end up driving through villages. Isn't this why we built horrible things like the Newbury Bypass and gave Swampy all that airtime?

We can't raise fuel duty, because we'd get go-slows of lawnmowers, chainsaws, generators and strimmers clogging up the North Circular. Will no-one think of the school run?

Instead, we've selected a hopelessly-underspecified technical solution from three worst-of-breed overseas tenders, that nobody except a bunch of consultants even pretends to understand because it involves teh intarwebs or something. Then we can hand over the data to the Pigs, because they're interested in your movements, and the innocent have nothing to fear, etc. After that, I'm sure RCapital would love to buy the data from us, so they know where to build more Little Chefs. Welcome Break too, come to think of it.

Our sincerest hope is that driving becomes so hideously expensive that you'll be forced like cattle onto inadequate public transport. When all that goes to shit, we'll blame the other lot for privatising it in the first place. After all, there's nothing we can do to make it better, is there?

Joint Committee gets it (mainly) wrong on human rights

These are the times that try men's souls

Greater minds than mine have been excercised on this point for hundreds of years. The second part of Tom Paine's "Rights of Man" and John Stuart Mill "On Liberty" are excellent starting points. Essentially an individual has the "right" to do precisely as he or she chooses, so long as it does not interfere with "the liberty of action" of anyone else.

"The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself". And yet, at the same time, "The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people."

When you start to codify liberty in law, you get wonderful documents like the US Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, as has been said above, there are certain clauses that were particular to the age of its composition.

I'm thinking especially of the Second Amendment. Nobody seems particularly troubled about the Third Amendment: there are plenty of places to garrison troops these days. Yet the fact that it follows so immediately from the right to bear arms should make it clear that both were only necessary in the early days of the Republic.

It's unfortunate that these "rights" were bundled up with the sacrosanct rights expressed in the other eight amendments. It makes arguing with NRA members extremely tiresome.

Did we say you can read that?

@ Matt Bryant

You, Sir, are an ass, Sir.

"It is up to the Police to gather evidence by interview and seach as to the individual's state of mind and likely affilliations, after which the person is charged or released. It is not a case of the Police having to prove that you intend to use it before they arrest you ..."

Congratulations on making a case AGAINST this particular law. Section 3, subsection 3 (a) makes it clear that the terrorist nature of a publication is defined by the opinion of a constable. Not by the CPS, nor by judicial review. By a copper. There is no mechanism in law by which the constable's assessment can be disputed.

If the publication is not removed or amended within two working days, you can be arrested, after which you can be held for 42 days without charge. While *you* might think that six days in Paddington Green is like a trip to Butlins, the suspects in this case clearly didn't, and I'm sure even you would feel differently after *six whole weeks* in solitary.

But if you cannot, or will not, see a problem here, God help you. And God help us all if you are even remotely representative of our populace.

"If you don't like the law, vote for someone who pledges to change it."

This should be the intention of any right-thinking person in this country. When the UNHCR objects to your government's legislation (as is the case here), then you know something has gone horribly wrong.

You say elsewhere:

"most of the public do not have any interest in reading such texts, any so it is quite right for the Police to check those that show such interest. If they are reading from innocent curiosity then it will son be shown."

I ask again: who the fucking hell are the police, the government, or indeed you, to question my reasons for reading anything? It is up to the CPS to demonstrate the "mens rea" that leads to an "acta rea". Reading a document, of whatever stripe, is not an "acta rea", therefore there can be no "mens rea" in so doing. Quoting from the back of your Michael Howard tea-towel changes nothing, and convinces no-one.

@Matt Bryant

I could not disagree with you more.

"If the Police find you carrying a gun or an explosive device ... it is simply illegal"

Possession of the Al Qaeda training manual is manifestly not the same as possession of a firearm or explosives. It is simply preposterous to link the two. But our government got there long before you did. Take a look at the Terrorism Act (2006) Section 2, subsection 3, from which I quote:

"A publication is a terrorist publication ... if matter contained in it is likely—

"(a) to be understood, by some or all of the persons to whom it is or may become available ... as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism"

This is so ludicrously wooly that you could quite easily contend that the Quran is such a publication.

If anyone is charged with dissemination of terrorist material, by any of dozens of different mechanisms, including "transmit[ting] the contents of such a publication electronically", he has but two valid defences:

"(a) That the statement [i.e. the document] neither expressed his views nor had his endorsement ... and

"(b) that it was clear, in all the circumstances of the statement’s publication, that it did not express his views and ... did not have his endorsement."

This does not mean that the defendant has to have a "valid reason" for possessing the document. It means that he has to prove that it does not express his views or have his endorsement.

If our legal system were still worth the name, it would be incumbent on the prosecution to show that it did express the defendant's views AND have his endorsement.

You go on to say:

"It is a simple reality that danger does not only come in the physical form of weapons, but that the written (or typed) word can be even more dangerous when the idiotic/dupeable are exposed to them."

Then I suggest you bring an action against the US DOJ for exposing the "idiotic" and "dupeable" to such horrifying material. Or perhaps they would point out that if "you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

You have fun on Airstrip One, Matt. Me? I'll live free or die.

I'll read whatever I bloody well please, thank you

Every time I hear of some document or other that we're not supposed to have, in case it can "provide assitance to terrorists", I obtain a copy immediately. I double-dog-dare the Police to arrest me, no returns.

Sadly John Ozimek hits the nail on the head. Unless you are of Pakistani or other unsavoury extraction, you will not be busted for possessing a copy of the US COIN manual.

Sir Colin's remarks are indeed depressing, coming from a senior academic. Why should I have to be engaged in a programme of research to read the documents? A valid defence to a charge of possession should be "Because I wanted to know what was in them".

Mashed up Met Police crime maps go online

Boris

Should be styled with his full title:

His Excellency Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson Pasha, Sultan of London.