Posts by Jeff Rowse

Comcast trials Domain Helper service DNS hijacker

@Jake

Kudos to you, sir - very well played indeed.

Just one minor niggling thought though - everybody has to eat, and one suspects that the salesdroid you encountered might not be suited to a role requiring much more than the ability to grin inanely, spout corporate marketing fluff and waste other peoples' time...

I know the temptation is to let these "people" know what you think of the services they advertise, but it's like Spammers - even though *you* know it's a pile of stinking brown stuff, there are other shoppers who will be taken in by it and the senior people in whichever company is responsible (in this case Comcast) will see sufficient returns from this shameless badgering that a few complaints will not stop it. Unfortunately you'll never see the high muckety-mucks getting their nice patent leather shoes dusty standing around the doors of your local superstore, and the corporate drones that you do see are (almost literally) ten-a-penny, and can be replaced easily - I fear all you may have achieved is to make it harder for one salesdroid to put food on his (or her) table... all Comcast will do is send someone else in their place...

Mine's the one with "Eat@Joes" on the back.

To the Moon - with extreme engineering

@mark jacobs

Can Hubble's cameras focus on anything that close?

UK.gov's Jobs Search site needs some work

@ac11:26

In addition to the other points raised by "named users" above, since when does the browser someone uses to view the site tell you anything about the site itself? And a website run by our caring, sharing Overlords should darn-well work with ANY browser, regardless of how popular it might be with people who think themselves better than anyone else.

(I mean, you must think you're better than the rest of us, else why bother with the dig at Safari users? Or, rather, Firefox users?)

But I do applaud the way the error message is shown in English and Welsh, but not (Scots) Gaelic - Devolve that, ya sweaty sock munchers! "United" Kingdom indeed - only when the buggers get free handouts from Westminster...

Mystic Met Office predicts neighbourhood Thermageddon

Inspired by Douglas Adams again, no doubt.

Ain't it strange how, when their predicted doom'n'gloom failed to show, the Green Lobby instantly announced that it was reality that got it wrong since their calculations must be right, cos they said so.

If I were as vindictive as soon of those loons I have had the misfortune to know, I would suggest that if they are so sure it's Real Life that got it wrong, maybe it should be confiscated from them...

Raygun jumbo: 'Long duration' ground blasts begin

@Captain Thyratron

On the whole I agree with your reply to sillyfellow (and Jake's, too) but wish to point out a common mistake you have just repeated - just because something is a far from effective offensive weapon will not stop some blaggard using it to "persuade" someone to let him take what is not his.

The thing that always makes me giggle when I hear that Ploughshare (the "make farming implements, not war toys" bunch) have been protesting is that they seem to have forgotten what the original purpose behind the sharp bit on the plough was...

UFO wind turbine prang site: Exclusive photos

@Chris W

Oh dear, suddenly discover Captain Darling has raided your wallet (or pension fund, or ISA, or whatever) to bail out his chums in the banking industry again? Or are you actually a w^H Banker who hasn't been blessed with our caring, sharing Chancellor of the Huge Cheque-r's largesse?

Either way, there's more than enough misery going around at the moment. Stop raining on everyone else's parade please. I'd rather congratulate a grown man for playing with plastic figures but making a few people chuckle than look a fool for reading all the comments before posting a comment insulting everyone (else) who's read them...

'Miracle' plane crash was no miracle

@Trygve - Air France Concorde

If he'd been flying early-sixties Anglo-French supersonic technology with 40-odd years of inremental safety enhancements then that Air france Concorde would probably have survived.

However, Air France chose to save a few francs-worth of fuel by not bothering to fit the tank liners recommended after earlier tank-holing incidents. Please do not confuse beancounter and shareholder tight-fistedness with aviation engineering. Funnily enough, Brutish Airways Concordes had the tank liners fitted and, although they sometimes lost a bit of fuel when FOD penetrated the wing skin, they never lost a whole bird...

CPW co-founder's secret loans get all-clear

Did he own the shares?

If yes, then why should he not use them as collateral? If he was using someone else's shares, or claimed they were worth more than their 'current' trading value, then I can see why there would be a problem, but if a bank is prepared to allow him to put up something with such limited intrinsic value ("Remember, share prices can go down as well as up") and he owns the shares in question, what exactly is the problem?

Of course, if banks did the sensible thing and still used paper and metal money then we wouldn't get in the situation where Bank A lends to Bank B, Bank B to Bank C, Bank C to Bank D and so on around the world until one of them asks for some of the money back, and then they suddenly realise that all they have really loaned each other is vapourware "money" with no 'Real World' physical presence beyond the electrical charge on a mass of HDDs...

Bank Qnnn suddenly realises their high-risk "customers" can't repay them the sums owing on their Sub-Prime loans so "asks" Bank Rnnn for some of their funds back so they can pay their next installment to Bank Pnnn. Unfortunately Bank Rnnn is also low on funds so calls in their loan to Bank Snnn, who call in their loan to Bank Tnnn, who call in their loan to... and so on until the dozy gits suddenly realise that nobody actually has any real money at all, and the entire world economy goes down the pan because the so-called expert Money Men (with their huge bonuses and taste for the high life) are, in reality, little more than glorified snake-oil salesmen with flash cars and expense accounts instead of a tatty old horse-drawn wagon and penchant for screwing over gullible cowboys...

In memory of Douglas Adams, I suggest we recreate the World economy using the LEAF as the unit of fiscal exchange. That way, the economists dream will finally come to fruition (no pun intended) and money will, literally, grow on trees...

Bank robber leaves pay stub at scene of blag

.deriuqer si eltit A

Is it April already? Or has this dimwit been listening to old Kenneth Williams (he of the "Carry On" films) record where the robber tells the staff to "Put up your hands and give me the money!" before aforementioned thesp points out that hands in air are unable to reach notes in desk drawers...

Telegraph.co.uk succumbs to typo irony

But 'tis such sport indeed...

...to see the end gin ear hoyst buy he's owen pet Ard.

I believe many respondants are missing the point - yes, the world is still full of woe, misery and nastiness but don't we need just this sort of silliness to get through the day? I mean, it's not as though the Telegraph appears to be relying on IT (in the form of spiel chuckers) to get around staff either being incapable of spotting such a spelling mistake, or just not bothering about it at all.

There is a difference between "Publish first, Correct later" when the story changes due to new information or events, and publishing a story without checking basic grammar and spelling first. If a publication the size of the Telegraph can poke fun at a small local newspaper for typography errors, then that big publication had better make sure they don't do something equally as stupid - especially in a story concerning typing... or am I alone in thinking that if people want to criticise others then they must be prepared for someone to crticise them?

'Ruggedised, weaponised' raygun modules now on sale

No Mr Bond, I expect you to get a hernia!

Still not exactly man-portable though, are they?

Nice effort, must try harder. 3/10.

US spec-ops get robot whispercopter kill fleet this month

@JonB, @Jon Double Nice

Aircraft noise is normally measured in decibels by the techie types who do the research, then converted to phrases like "as loud as a pneumatic drill at fifteen paces during a hurricane" so the (mass, non-technical) media, politicians./+beancounters can "understand it" (even though most of them don't have a clue what a pnuematic drill at 15 paces in the middle of a huricane sounds like either - but it sounds as though they should).

I don't think Airwolf had a whisper mode, but Blue Thunder did. I think it is the only thing on there that didn't really fit in with their "every thing you see on this helicopter is already in service" guff... helmet-aimed weapons - check, spotlights capable of illuminating a suspect from several hundred feet - check, voice/systems recorders that kept track of everything the crew & heli did - check, fancy mikes and thermal imaging cameras capable of listening & watching through (thin, American) walls - check; whisper mode where you can hover outside a 1000ft skyscraper (presumably with double glazing!! - wonder why they couldn't hear the whiny little Astazou hanging outside their window..?) and spy on your local quasi-autonomous non-Governmental organisation preparing to tear down hundreds of years of civil freedoms and liberties - nope, that didn't seem to be around then.

But as anyone who watches 'Sky Cops' or similar programmes knows, the Boys (and Gals) in Blue can sit quite nicely several hundred feet up and still see you as clear as standing next to you...so you probably won't hear them anyway. So behave nicely to your fellow citizens and you should have little to fear...

Black helicopter? What else?

Company That Can't Be Named slams critics

Thank the Fungi from Yuggoth for that!

When you said "(Company) That Could Not Be Named", I thought that old Gnarly Thotep (aka 'The Royal Pant') had moved into the Telecomms arena, possibly using kit supplied by H(ewlett) P(ackard) Lovecraft...

Mine's the one with the Elder Sign on the back and the jug of Space Mead in the pocket.

BBC's speak you're branes collapses under Brand-Ross sex outrage

And in other news..?

Wonder what Gordon and fiends are sneaking out while the idiots in the mass media go overboard on a complete non-issue... New databases? More lost CDs/DVDs/Laptops?

So Wossy and Brand played silly beggars - big fracking deal. Anyone else find it amusing how long it took for "people" to notice what thye'd done? What was it, nearly TWO WHOLE WEEKS(!) before The Masses noticed they'd been a little bit rude...

I always thought "freedom of speech" could be interpreted as the right to be insulted by, or to insult, anybody but obviously I was wrong. Can anyone recommend a good lawyer so I can sue all those mean and nasty people who ever called me a nasty name?

Last one out, please turn off the lights.

Holy f**k, Microsoft covers up ‘undesired’ words

What the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] next?

Anyone else remembering the scenes with Pinback's diaries aboard (John Carpenter's) DarkStar?

Oh well, guess I'll just have to re-watch my Firefly DVDs and pick up some authentic(?) Mandarin(?) vocabulary... ain't that a shame!

McCain laptop theft sparks conspiracy theories

Cthulhu For President!

Why Vote For The Lesser Evil?

Lehman Excel snafu could cost Barclays dear

ARIAs

Always Remembered Instructor's Advice:

.Never send something without reading it through at least once.

.Never trust 'The Computer' to do your thinking for you.

.Trying to hide something on the 'Net is like trying to stuff the mushroom cloud back in the shiny uranium sphere.

.Delete, don't "hide". Someone will find it if you leave it there.

.Once you've deleted everything you don't want, cut-n-paste to a new blank document.

.Never forget the "Track Changes" feature can bite your ass.

.To err is human. To really fsck up, trust the computer.

.Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.

.Information might not want to be free, but the chances of it escaping are directly propertional to the grief it will cause you.

I still have the greatest confidence in the mission, Dave.

Vista scrabbles for X Factor

Vista "as good as" XP - sorta.

I don't know, and never have, worked for M$. I do not think the sun shines out of Richmond, or that Bull Grates is the greatest "inventor" who ever lived (or stole the Macs' GUI, whatever) but I do know three households who are running Vista with the same level of performance as they used to get from XP (I'm not one of them).

They've all bought new machines with (much, in one case) higher specs than their old XP machines, but they still get the same performance... oh, and none of them do anything that particularly stresses their machines either.

I'm not saying Vista is wonderful or terrible (but I'm not using it either - draw your own conclusions), just that I know three families using it happily...

Hitwise and Compete: the user data ISPs do sell

I am not a number,

I am a name!

(signed)

24601.

Facebook and Microsoft complete Live Search crowbarring trick

"Live" Search?

I've lost count of the number of times I've typed in [insert correct URL here] to be presented with a LiveSearch page asking "Did you mean [insert correct URL here]?" I've tried doing research on the 'Net using LiveSearch and get more adverts than usable information (at least I get about 50% useful results from Google... most of the time!). I've even typed in URLs and had Live Search offer me stuff that is completely unrelated to both what I typed and even what I was looking for.

I propose a new sort of "information warfare" - let all the terrorist groups "acquire" PCs or laptops with LiveSearch as the only search tool... they'll get so frustrated trying to find anything to help them with their plots that they will just give up and go back to sleep.

Black helicopter since my suggestion is bound to start tripping all those internet keywords censors that don't exist (according to the various 'intelligence' services, that is!)

The Boston Trio and the MBTA

Actually, its' called simply "M.T.A"

and not "Charlie on the MTA".

Spent many a happy childhood hour listening to my parents' collection of funny black disks with a hole in the middle, and their album* "At Large With..." was one of my faves (* the Kingston Trio, not my parents).

Funnily enough, I started humming it when TfL announced the Oyster card...

Altogether now,, ah-one,two,three,four...

"And so he'll never return, no he'll never return....And his fate is still unlearned (poor old Charlie)....He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston ....He's the man who never returned!"

Mine's the one with 10 cents and the sandwiches in the pocket...

Right: Which one of you lot invented 'tw*tdangle', eh?

What is a twatdangle?

Way back when I was an Electronics Apprentice (mid-80's) , I was told that the shrinking rubber-ish sleeves we used to hold bundles of cables together were called "twats". So would that make a twatdangle the hook where you hang this stuff?

Mars Lander shows rock who's boss

Just a thought...

...but now NASA are getting into (rock) gardening, can we send Alan Titmarsh and the rest of the TV gardeners to show them how it *should* be done? And since they will all need somewhere to live, we can send Linda Barker and the rest of the interior design crowd too...

Just make sure they leave Kim and Aggi behind to clean the telephones...

TalkTalk ad slapped for misleading on LLU

plain TalkTalk -ing

I've had a few problems since they put their own kit in the local exchange, but nothing prior to that - and nothing since they replaced my modem for free.

I recommended them to my parents, and they are happy too... saved a packet from their old rates with BT like I did when i switched. (Speaking of BT, they still keep calling me asking me to go back - I've given up telling the drones on the phone I won't go back until they dump Phorm but the poor drones don't have a fecking clue what the heck I'm talking about...)

LHC downed until after Xmas - Boo

I welcome our new Alien Overlords...

and congratulate them on fooling 99.999999999% of the worlds' population.

The LHC is, of course, still running at maximum power and opening all those lovely little wormhole/singularity event horizons for our new masters to ferry in their loyal minions.

Chris de Burgh was out slightly - it should have been "When 2-thousand-and-8 years of your time has gone by", not 2000...

.

I claim first dibs on "Quisling traitor in charge of Attractive Women"...

[Exeunt stage left, muttering Lewis Carroll's "Hunting of the Snark"]

Miracle airship tech sustained by DARPA pork trickle

Boeing "inventing" Skyhook?

And there was me thinking that was the name British Aerospace (as was) gave to the idea of plucking (Sea) Harriers out of the sky to save all that nasty hovering over the deck business...

http://www.servicepals.com/index.cfm/pcms/site.gallery.view_image/imageID/55130/

Sainsbury's punts 'Innocent kids juices' for £2.99

@Angus - hear! hear!

Some people obviously need a quick lesson in what the computer mouse is for - if you don't want to read non-IT stories, then don't visit Bootnotes. No clickee, no time lost, got it?

Simple, really.

To quote Baby Grumplin - "Berks".

Noel Edmonds defies BBC's jackbooted enforcers

El Reg = Gits

I know it (wa)s Friday and all, but getting people to cut-n-paste that "Where's the IT Angle' crap makes it even harder to pick the real pearls (perls?) out from the swine here in Comment-land. Quite like the new look, too. Not too bad at all.

Hadron boffins: Our meddling will not destroy universe

Sorry, I'm feeling a little spindizzy...

Anyone else hereabouts read James Blish's excellent "Cities in Flight" books?

Mine's the one with "Amalfi for President" on the back in large letters...

Burned by Chrome - Fire put out

This is a new "problem"?

Didn't Adobe try exactly the same with their online "red-eye removal" tool, and some of the gubbins within Photoslop Elephants (as in, once you let Adobe have it, they will never forget...)

Mine's the one with "Those who fa_l to learn from h_story are doomed to repeat _t" printed in red...

Microsoft bags European price comparison sites

"cannot find URL, try URL instead"

I really, *truly* hate the way Infernal Explorer "fails" to find a website when I type the URL in correctly and brings up a LiveSearch page that has exactly the same website on a "did you mean this instead?" list.

On the other hand, IE does keep a nice list of all the websites I have visited so my missus knows I'm not looking at things (she thinks) I shouldn't... (despite my best efforts, she still thinks there's nothing wrong with IE so I just use it for my 'worksafe' browsing...;-)

Erotic artist urges spanking for Jacqui Smith

Oh no! Think of the Children!

Oh, sh**! Just last week I was playing with my 3-year-old nephew and he pointed a bright orange (kiddie-sized) 'Colt .45' at me and made "bang-bang" noises! Since he's a James Bond fan and was pretending to be "Meester Bont" at the time, HE IS NOW A WANTED CRIMINAL!

Gun crime - check, it's a replica firearm.

Violent & Antisocial behaviour - check, he's disturbing the peace (making noise).

Terrorism - check, he "shot" me.

Identity Theft - check, last time I looked, "James Bond" was not a 3-year-old wearing Spiderman wellies.

Just as well we've played this game many times, so neither my wife or sister-in-law were taking pictures this time...

What's that, this new (proposed) law is retroactive? Gulp...

.

.

(And is it just me, or has anyone else noticed how Godrun Brown has suddenly found a brilliant way to get even more money from overburdened taxpayers - not only is he adding new taxes and increasing existing ones, he's making the changes retrospective even when he promised not to (mumble mumble car tax, cough cough))

Ofcom: 'Well done Ofcom!'

Average TV watching

218 minutes is under 4 hours, isn't it?

An hour or so when you get up in the morning, a couple of hours in the evening before you go to the pub (for those who can still afford it and still want to) and you're almost there.

And as for those of us who watch documentaries (Aircrash Investigation and the UK History channels are NOT "reality tv") or actually prefer watching escapism tv (I mean anything from Dead^H^H^H Eastenders to Criminal Minds, from the Anime and Sci-Fi channels to Hallmark and the movie channels) to sitting down the poub spending money just to go pi** it up against the wall outside as many others do, are we the stupid ones or is it those who spend ever-increasing amounts of their money lining the pockets of the brewery shareholders?

Or maybe I should rot my brain playing GT3 on my cut-down and overpriced PC-clone then go out and mow downa bunch of pedestrians when I find out the hard way that the laws of physics are a lot less forgiving than an X-Box360 and a couple of bottles of strong cider...

Couldn't be bothered to comment on OfCon. They don't take any notice when ISPs break the law, so why should they listen to us complaining?

Research firm emails 20,000 addresses in the clear

Reply to all>

Please remove me from this mailing list.

>Me too!

>And me!

>Me aswell

>Will Everyone STOP Doing Reply To All

>Whyis everyone emiling me?

>Hey stoopid, you spelt whyis and emailing wrong!

>Please take me off this distribution list

.

.

.

.

and so on. Ain't Users wonderful??

Celebrity publicist develops mathematical 'fame formula'

@AC (@Prof O Und)

"unit called CoCs"

What, Call(s) Of Cthulhu?

Mine's the one with the Elder Sign on the back and the Tyndalos doggie snack in the inside pocket...

"Hastur? Hastur? Is there a Hastur in the house? Oh, buggAARRGGHH!!"

Slow day in Whitehall?

At least Mr Page has (finally) found something they actually *do* do cheaper and better in America - make people (in)famous.

Mine's the one with the kevlar lining and the Mickey Mouse badge on the pocket...

Steve Fossett may be alive, investigator claims

Was Clive Cussler right?

Is there a secret group of American millionaires living in a snug little moonbase, just waiting for Dirk Gently^H^H^H Pitt to find them?

Virgin Galactic to unveil tool to fling rich people into space

It's not "Hawiian Shirt"...

It's "Jungle Planet X Camoflage Uniform".

Who do you think you are, knitting Mr Hitler?

Sun-sational reporting!

HMG start a nice long holiday just as the country hits the worst economic mishap since the last time, and this is the best the Stun can do?

Nice to see our national media is doing its very best to keep the country well-informed of the [i]really[/i] important things in life...

I believe there's a couple of characters missing from the front of the icon I feel gives a good idea of the importance of such "issues" in the great scheme of things ... no wait, there they are....

S

H

US sees first airliner flight with laser defences

Airliner fuel economy "downgrades"

If (and it is a VERY big 'if') ManPADS did ever get to be a serious threat to civil aircraft then I suspect that many nations - especially the USA - would require DIRCM be fitted to all airliners. Which is mildly amusing given that somebody supplied the Mujahideen with quite a few Stinger SAMs for use against the Soviets in Afghanistan...

These may "only" be a threat up to about 10,000 feet but that is what, about 5-10 minutes flying time from takeoff (assuming the aircraft climbs straight to altitude and doesn't need to loiter at 'low level' to avoid traffic etc)? Not too much of a worry if your airport is in the back of beyond, but not ideal if it's near a large city or built-up area... *cough* Heathrow *cough*. Not only that, imagine the lawsuits that would follow if "Airline X" didn't have anythng on board and the Bad Guys shot down a loaded 747 (or even worse, an AIrbus A380).

Surely it wouldn't cause too much grief to stick these things on the front and/or rear of the engine pylons of an airliner? If they can (allegedly) be fitted to a fighter or fighter-bomber without causing too much drag then an extra lump or two on a Jumbo shouldn't be that uneconomical (although an airliner brought down by a ManPADS is unlikely to be wasting much fuel in the future. Being wrecked does kinda prevent further fuel burn).

Dead bird... reason should be obvious...

Review site furious over McAfee SiteAdvisor 'false alert'

Hot times for McAfee? Or El Reg typo?

<SNIP>

Since Yahoo! SearchScan doesn't always use the latest SiteAdvisor database, it continued to erroneously ***warm*** of false positives on tech-pro.net until Wednesday.

<UNSNIP>

Or mebbe it's a(nother) sign that the Yahooligans should all burn in hell... if it doesn't detect that something is re-labelled as "Safe", then how does it spot something new that isn't safe??i

Boeing to build combo airship-copter flying cranes

@JonB

Military aircraft can have a problem with centre-of-gravity changes when unloading large amounts of mass (either as bullets or bombs/missiles) - this is one reason for the amount of testing done before releasing an aircraft to full operational capacity (one of the reasons Eurofighter Typhoon has taken so long to become "fully" operational is because the original design allowed for the "loss" of mass due to missiles weighing a couple of hundreds of pounds - then someone "asked" them to add 500, 750 and 1000-lb bombs with added goodies like laser guidance kits etc and the designers wanted to make sure the aircraft could still fly after losing so much weight in one go).

The mass of gun ammunition, while significant enough to affect the amount of other "stuff" that can be carried overall, is not normally great enough that a few seconds firing will make that much of a difference to the overall mass of the aircraft. Recoil, on the other hand, can be an issue - especially for a helicopter if the gun is mounted low down and away from the centre of gravity; recoil will push the nose up and back. It will also cause the gun muzzle to wander slightly and mean that the bullets might not go exactly where you wanted...

The A10 has an additional problem - the recoil from the big gun is a significant proportion of the thrust it gets from the engines... so firing the cannon is like slamming on the brakes. Not a good thing when you are relying completely on forward movement to keep off the grass...

Eurofighter at last able to drop bombs, but only 'austerely'

@Ton

Dutch Apaches are kept sensibly clear of short-range engagements so are doing better than the UK and US ones; long-range attacks are what they were designed for, except they are being used against insurgents hiding in rocks rather than AFVs on the German plains (but yes, they *are* scary and I for one do not wish to get on the receiving end of one).

American and British Apaches tend to get a lot more up close and personal with the bad guys, so are more vulnerable (the first Apache engagement in Afghanistan resulted in all the Apaches suffering severe damage due to the volume of small arms fire and RPGs encountered).

The American Harriers don't carry much more ammo than the RAF/RN ones, and the reasons for having two seperate guns should be obvious (single point-of-failure, damage to either pod either kills the gun or the ammo - you need both pods working or your gun won't play; vulnerable cross-fuselage ammo link and so on).

Warrior APCs have a 30mm autocannon which I believe uses the same ammunition as the Harrier's pods; I'm not sure that the 25mm gun used in the US Harrier's pod is the same as the 25mm guns used on the M2 Bradley or the Apache, or if they use the same sort of ammunition - just because it is the same diameter does not mean it is compatible (ie 9mmP used by NATO and the 9mm Marakov used by the ex-Warsaw Pact countries).

Despite what you see on the news, not every air-to-air missile launch is a kill, and many modern aircraft have missile approach warning kit; once you know someone's launched at you, you know they are out there and you can start to do something about it. And if neither side wipes out the other before running out of missiles (always a possibility), or you close to negate the effectiveness of their missiles, then the fight will come down to who can point their gun at the opposition quickest - and the more power and agility you have available, the more likely you are to get the killshot.

The Typhoons now rolling off the production line have the PIRATE (Passive Infra-Red Tracking Equipment) sensor fitted just in front of the cockpit so have a better chance of "seeing" the other side first.

PRIVATE EYE???

Whilst I applaud that noble rag's digs at Government and Celebrity personalities, I am not sure I trust them too far as a source of technical knowledge.

Yes, Boing (sorry, deliberate mis-spelling - think 757 at Heathrow for partial explanation!) wouldn't give us the source code for some of the avionics, but the MoD didn't want American kit on "our" Special Forces helicopters to begin with. UK avionics companies basically couldn't come up with the goodies to keep up with the changing requirements coming out of Whitehall and the whole shebang fell apart in a rather untidy mess (one source suggests Thales kit nearly went in but MoD is keeping rather quiet on the subject).

The source code in question was for the (digital) engine control units (FADEC, or Full-Authority DEC); 4 of the 8 Chinooks are still missing their flight instruments which is why they cannot fly. I believe the other 4 were "reverted" back to a near-HC2 standard and are trolling around quite happily...

Oh, and for all those who seem to think that Typhoon must be bad since it's had so many upgrades since it started flying, can you think of ANY front-line military aircraft (or even second-line) that has not had upgrades and modifications performed since it entered service?

Fact of the matter is, the upgrades for Typhoon have been developed as the things were being built, rather than having to be retrofitted years after manufacture as happens with most aircraft.

@Fireman

Um, we're buying the F35B which is a STOVL version of the F35A, both of which are the ugly heap known previously as the Joint Strike Fighter (in yet another game of "call it a fighter and then hang bombs on it")

Nothing at all to do with the F22 which is a much more expensive "Stealth" aircraft, and is not being offered for sale at this time.

Unusually for me, I actually have to defend Boing over the Chinook saga. That was another cockup on behalf of our own MoD PE (Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive) in the same vein as the Nimrod AEW and various other "Ask for one thing, order something more complex and then keep adding Newtech to the spec whilst it's being built" projects (like Tornado, Typhoon, Astute, Type 45, Harrier, Nimrod MRA4, Merlin, Future Lynx, Watchkeeper, Rapier, Future Scout, Bowman... in fact, just about every project since the mid-80s!!)...

Boing did offer to refit the Chinooks with the same gear as the American Chinooks have but MoDPE declined...

Are you lot for real?

Please make sure you have your facts right before commenting:

Typhoon has to carry bombs because the MoD realised we no longer need a pure fighter at this time, and they want to be able to drop them in the right place instead of just chucking them off and hoping to get something worhtwhile.

Apache is NOT the all-singing, all-dancing aircraft some people here seem to think. It does not carry enough chaingun ammunition for prolonged use and the rocket pod control links are vulnerable to rifle and RPG fire; they don't work if the pilot cannot fire them.

RAF Harrier IIs DO carry "big guns" - 30mm Aden cannon in underbelly pods. We have one each side, the Yanks have one 25mm cannon with the ammunition in the pod on the other side.

They replace flat plates as part of the "Lift Improvement Devices" hardware on the two outer fuselage stations, which are not capable of carrying bombs.

Hawks do make decent ground-attack aircraft - just ask the East Timorese. They also make lovely targets to anyone armed with surface-to-air missiles - unlike the East Timorese (but which are something Al Queda have in large numbers).

Canards are NOT "the training wheels of the sky"; they are more effective control surfaces than sticking them at the back of the airframe and calling them tailplanes' - because they haven't got to cope with the "dirty" air coming off the wings, they can be made smaller and lighter.

I could go on, but me lunch is ready...

Dell offers 'Windows Vista Bonus' to frightened customers

@William

Finally got to see Vista in inaction as it booted yesterday; a new PC has Vista Home Basic on it and took nearly ten minutes to get to the point where my nephew could actually get at the game he wanted to show me, and another five minutes to shut down with no User-initiated processes running...

There's sod-all in the startup, certainly nothing that should be causing any sort of a go-slow or lack of performance but still the thing started slower than a Metro City 1.0 towing a caravan...

Most people I know with that pile of garbage leave it booted up since shutdown & startup take so long.

I'll stick with XP, thank you very much. It may be MS bloatware, but even with all the crap I've added over the years it's still much quicker than Vista.

Feds urge court to dismiss lawsuit protecting life on Earth

It's all perfectly safe...

Wait, what was tha

<<NO CARRIER>>

ps Peter, Shouldn't that be a Canoe Reeves/Morgan Freeman movie with (sigh) Rachel Vice as the eye candy? And didn't someone mention Gordon Freeman recently? Oh wait, that would be me :-)

DANGER!! Danger, Will Robinson!

Think tank slams paedophile paranoia culture

@MarkMac

You might not care about other people's opinion, but you underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.

Yes, I know the media exagerates and yes, I know the situation is not (quite) as bad as the tabloids sometimes claim but when I see pictures of a house that had been firebombed with anti-paedo graffitti scrawled on the walls because the man who used to live there was accused of kiddy-fiddling (wrongly, of course), it makes me think about what I'd do if - [insert deity's name here] forbid - I ever found myself in the position of having to decide whether to help a child or just walk on by.

I have been told - by a policeman, so I think it is probably accurate - about a man who got arrested for trying to stop two white men "attacking" a gentleman of non-white origin; it turned out the two white men were plain-clothes policemen trying to detain a suspect; how is a passer-by supposed to know that when all he can see and hear is what looks like racially-aggravated assault? (The 'gooder' was arrested for interfering with the police in the line of their inquiries...).

I *have* helped people in distress - some moron came out his drive and turned right onto a dual carriageway (how I can't understand, since he'd lived there for years!) straight into the front of another car; we blocked the road with our cars and two of us went to see what we could do to help while the third called for the police on his mobile. As it turned out, there wasn't anything we could do as the only real injuries were two knackered cars (one on its roof!) and four rather shaken passengers. Would I do it again? Probably.

Would I do it again if it was young car thieves - sorry, [i]joyriders[/i] in the car? I honestly do not know. Too much chance of getting attacked by the little sods, or of being accused of interfering with a crime scene or being a kiddy-fiddler...

I'd probably help... but not so long ago I would have said I would *definitely* help.

What a wonderful country we now have.

@Robert Sneddon

Since many of the comments on here are somewhat anti-Government, I would say there are a large number of people posting as "AC" in the mistaken belief that it keeps them safe from being tracked down should Big Brother decide that they have been a little too free with their 'speech'.

I have used AC on occasion as it saves hassles at work, from family and friends and means that it ain't so easy for anyone I "offend" to track me down (the Government already knows where I live so I know it's no protection if they decide I'm a threat to Notional Security...).

Black helicopter - just because I'm acting paranoid does not mean nobody is watching me...