Posts by Adam Foxton

Ban booze in supermarkets, says health adviser

@DrXym

Non-alcoholic booze?! Good Lord, man- have you heard yourself lately?!

Ban alcopops- high sugar content + lowered inhibitions + increased aggression / adrenaline = hyperactive, inhibitionless(?) drunks screaming, running about and generally being twuntish.

Alcopops should be banned, and the cheap drain-cleaner (Rachmaninoff Vodka, looking at you!) drinks should be banned as they're just hangover-in-a-bottle material. Plus I've found they make me more aggressive whereas a good quality drink won't.

Or they could try banning kids from drinking- that might work! :P

Jedi to open Surrey academy

"pseudo mind-control" - P Saunders

From my understanding, neuro-linguistic programming isn't so much "these are not the droids you're looking for; move along" as choosing words, tones, etc to diffuse a situation.

It works, but then from experience so does pointing over their shoulder, shouting "UNEXPECTED SHEEP!" and legging it to a taxi rank.

And Lightsaber technique would be, I'd assume, similar to the swordsmanship techniques of old. Except with a pretty powerful gyroscope in the handle to make it a little more "realistic".

As someone further up said, imagine the LOTR equivalent... "right, wear these furry slippers and carry this nice heavy osmium ring round your neck, then lets walk for a week or two.", or nights out where 20 furry-slippered nerds shuffle up to the bar, order a few lagers and declare loudly "IT COMES IN PINTS?!"

BitTorrent busts Comcast BitTorrent busting

@AC "SSL Isn't The Answer"

"That way those who want 100% utilization pay more than those who want 1%." So if I have the audacity to actually want to download at 8mbps and upload at 448kbps as advertised 24/7/365 I should pay more?!

How's that outside the advertised "8mbps download, 448kbps upload, Unlimited" service that I'm already paying for? And, come to think of it, how can using my bandwidth- which I'm paying for, remember- to the full extent that I can possibly be considered unfair (as in violation of a "Fair" use agreement)?!

Can you imagine a car that stopped after every 1,000 miles travelled in a month "to ease traffic congestion" selling?! Can you imagine that if they didn't tell you about it but just hid it away in the fine print of your contract that the company would not be successfully sued?

FUPs and traffic management does just mean "hey, we're overselling".

Sidenote: Doesn't that mean that- since all P2P traffic's clearly pirated material (the RIAA told me so...)- and ISPs are knowingly letting P2P traffic pass they're aiding and abetting criminal activity?

DevilGates cos the outlook's not so good for Comcast et al

HMRC blows £1.4m on two-word slogan

@Tony Barnes

You'd have to rename it to "Gordon Brown's" rather than "Her Majesty's"; Brown's screwed us for far longer than Her Majesty has been Queen for.

I really wish she'd intervene sometimes and give Brown and the useless twats who work for him the slap round the chops he deserves...

Warning logo cos my blood pressure's getting too high, and bank balance too low.

Spy satellite to slam Earthside

Did anyone else...

... read that as "Hazardous materials not known on our planet"?

Bank turns London man into RFID-enabled guinea pig

Possible improvement?

A possible improvement- up to £10 a transaction goes un-pin-requested BUT there's a maximum of £50 non-pin-requested per day. And you can't take cash- from ATM or cashback in shops- out on a non-pin-requested transaction, which means that any further transaction locations can be recorded by the banks. Which should aid the police when they go to administer the sternly-worded warning and slap on the wrist.

And as someone pointed out above, an AMEX style system with non-RFIDed information for online purchases would be a great idea too.

While I can't imagine the average chav-in-the-street would be able to rig up some sort of an RFID-enabled kiosk as detailed above, I reckon that most Reg readers could.

This rollout is only going to lead to trouble. Reg readers, unite to screw up this ridiculously insecure technology before it costs you your hard earned beer tokens!

Dwarves hidden in sports bags target Swedish coaches

To badly misquote Scotsman John Smeaton

"Swebus doesn't accept this. That's just Swebus; we'll set about ye, wee man!"

Rule 8 invoked.

Israel electric car project aims to wipe out oil

Pretty good idea

Great idea- comparing it to phones so it seems familliar, and using the almost-constantly-charging model that gets rid of lots of the battery issues for electric cars- around town at least.

Also it'd be a good idea for in-town use as electric motors have a much better torque curve for that; far more torque lower down the rev range.

Now they just need to get rid of the G-Wiz from the face of the planet and get the Tesla Roadster out on the road and electric cars will take off for real!

Former top brass call for first-strike nuke option

Wait, they missed...

...mentioning preserving our precious bodily fluids from these preverts!

Strangelove aside, I agree with Dunstan Vavasour. Without a nuclear deterrant we have no real deterrant against others using nukes against us. Pre-emptive nuclear strikes for the hell of it are wrong, but having the facility to escalate our responses when required (say, someone has a big-ass missile or are threatening us ) can be very useful.

I'd guess this is politically motivated, sort of a "hey, enemies. We know who you are, remember we have these nukes", which would lead me to believe someone's moving to threaten us behind the scenes. Sort of like when people just place guns on the table. They're there, they're prepared to use them but they won't if you don't provoke them.

Mine's the lead-lined one with the entry badge for the fallout proof coal-mine-bunker, thanks.

Japanese to launch paper plane from ISS

Race a few of them!

Competitors should be a big white butterfly, a long blue paper plane and a Deutche car.

Ironically, the Americans would never try this because they're too wound up with their own status quo...

UK's number one router open to VoIP hijacking

@Brooklyn

I used to use VOIP without a landline phone connection- Telewest 10Meg cable internet rather than normal ADSL.

Also, I've used VOIP over 3G/HSDPA and so on.

Come to think of it, I've never used VOIP over a landline phone connection

RIAA wiped off the net

Can't help thinking

of jokes about "Hackers Wipe Ass. Off 'Net". Not a nice image...

@Specificprojects: That'd be fantastic. "Bono declares Spice Girls greatest band ever!" "Britney Spears declares undying love for yodelling" "Bon Jovi lays partner down on bed of roses; sued due to severe lacerations"

Not that there is anything substantial about recordings.

Bunch of lardasses and asshats, the lot of them!

US Army proto-Dalek combat robots enter testing

Sadder Still

Actually, there was remote control of a sort over the Daleks- remote enabling/disabling of features, voice command, etc. Again, from Genesis of the Daleks:

"And now, I shall turn the machine over to Total Self Control". Suggesting that Davros was in control prior to that point

And to teacake, t'was the Mark 3 Travel Machine.

Mine's the bonded polycarbide battle armour, thanks. TAXI!

Cops admit CCTV no use in deterring drunken violence

@Karl Lattimer & ElFatbob

Seconded (or thirded, I suppose...) on the "get rid of alcopops" idea. While too much alcohol can lead to a proprensity for violent behaviour, alcohol plus a suger rush is 10 times worse.

But then where do you draw the line? a ban on Vodka and Cola? No cocktails? Just allowing straight spirits/wine/beer? How about getting rid of the not-even-drain-cleaner quality drink?

CCTV should be upgraded with decent cameras so that they can be used in court. That way, they'd actually be useful stopping thieves. Not as good as more beat cops, but still useful.

Paris icon because of her frequent resemblance to a world where CCTV has stopped drunk theft; our streets would be drunk and nicker-less.

eBay in sensational Back to the Future coupon deal

Proof of Time Travel on eBay!

A Ford Focus from 1899- 4 years before the Ford Motor Company was even created!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1899-Ford-Focus-LX-1-8TD-MANUAL-5-doors-Hatchback_W0QQitemZ280185111600QQihZ018QQcategoryZ9844QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Shame it's not a DeLorean, really...

And Captain Daft, yes the key would still be there. Future Jim gave his key to Present Jim, who then became Future Jim and gave his key... and so forth back to the initial and highly controversial creation of the universe. Bob's key isn't interacted with.

The real conundrum is what would happen after a few trillion loops for this poor key- what if it wore out and couldn't unlock the time machine door anymore? If the loop stopped, the key wouldn't exist or would at least not be damaged. And there'd be 2 Jims in the world.

YouTube biker clocked at 189mph

"dangerous to himself and others at that speed. I"

Dangerous to who exactly? The zero people on the road? He didn't even overtake that van at the start even though he probably could have fitted between it and the concrete, didn't whizz round the roundabout, and seemed 'dangerous' only when you were looking at the speedo and consciously considering it as 'dangerous'.

Fark attempts to trademark NSFW

@Tom

Barclays bank (in Enfield) had the first ATM machines. Which is where the name "Hole In The Wall" came from, if memory serves.

So I'd imagine they did it a while ago. And they've every right to!

Tesco in X-rated Lawnmower Simulator shocker

I'm surprised there've been no...

Groundskeeper Willie jokes yet.

<gets coat>

Remembering the IBM PC

Microsoft Ad

Even back then they knew how to actually sell things to businesses and (to a lesser extent back then) home users- "more software!" "Easier to program for!"- rather than "It's open source!" "It's more secure!" and other such things that 75% of the world don't care about until it's too late (hacked, patent issues, etc). For a car comparison, people ask "how many Horses does it have?", "How fast does it go", or maybe "how many MPGs?" or "How many seats?". When was the last time Top Gear covered a car because it had a large number of airbags or a really great security system?

Linux, fantastic OS though it is, really could learn a lot from MS's marketing if it wants to hit the big time!

@"I wonder how IBM"'s Annonymous Coward, and "Tom", if IBM had made it's own in-house OS and used the 68000, wouldn't that have made them... Apple?

Canadian Taser death caught on camera

Get more evidence!

Why not give the police Hat/Helmet Cameras like bikecops have started using (smaller, probably)? They way we can see from (pretty much) their POV what was happenning, record what they said and have a record of what went on. And with 4 police in the room- or even in a more standard pair of officers- if one camera "happenned" to 'fail' at just the right moment, there'd be another officers' camera that hadn't failed; cameras are reliable enough that 4 wouldn't be failing at once!

Or even mount small cameras on the Tazer, so when it's armed (or safety's off or whatever the equivalent is for Ready To Shoot) it's recording what it shoots at.

And the best point- they could recycle older ("mere" 3 or so MP, i.e. ones shops won't even sell anymore but that are perfectly suitable for the job at hand) cameras, lowering their costs, reducing our waste and helping save the world!