Posts by Jeff Rowse

Asda declares baby's arse 'pornographic'

Asda <> Wal*Mart

Strangely enough, Asda do NOT enforce Wal*Mart's policies over here (yet) - if they did, the prices would be a lot cheaper, staff morale would be much lower and the stores would be packed floor-to-ceiling with anything you could ever want (from baby toys and clothes to car tyres and fishing tackle, through to floral arrangements for putting on your grave once you're dead).

Also, I'd be able to get model aircraft and things at a reasonable price instead of paying up to 10 times the prices in the States!

From what I remember, Wal*Mart [i]does[/i] sell "adult" video games, they just don't put them on shelves where kids can get at them - mebbe this is something shops over here should try, rather than just making the little buggers ask the nearest tall person to get it down for them...

But I do agree with your first comment, this is just another example of the knee-jerk censorship practised by people who have no common sense and cannot be bothered to think for themselves.

Why the pirate icon? You see a mention of WallyWorld and you really need to ask??

CERN declares Large Hadron Collider perfectly safe

In the midst of the words Man was trying to say...

...In the midst of his laughter and glee

He did softly and silently vanish away

For the NIMBYs had got their own way.

Oops Sorry,

"For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see?

(with apologies to the Rev Dodgson)

BOFH: The all-clicking, all-whirring Roboboss

SPLORT!

Damn! New keyboard, second pit on the left...

Gamers love in-game ads, ad industry-sponsored survey reveals

Battlefield 2142 ads

Since I'm crap at hitting the opposition anyway (TeamKills almost the same as EnemyKills<blushes>), at least I could guarantee to hit all those lovely ads positioned for my comfort and convenience at strategic (in the marketing sense, not the war-fighting sense) locations in BF2142...

There's an open-source port of the old classic "Elite" (called Oolite) which someone has written an add-on (well, five bits now!) for that adds ads (is that good English?) to the navigational markers... most of them are chucklesome but some of the punnish ones are just too much.

But then I treat in-game ads pretty much as I treat the real things - something not to walk or drive into, but not worth looking at most of the time.

UK's first caller ID-spoofing service shuttered after five days

Dodgy phone calls

I had a phone call from someone asking me to confirm my date of birth the other day before she would send me the "mortgage information". I asked what info as I didn't recognize the name of the building (! - Something-or-other House, not even a company name?!?) she was calling from.

Then it turned into "mortgage and investment information", and I must have spoken to them before as they had all my details except my date of birth...

'Funny', I thought, so asked if I could have a number to call back on after I had checked with my wife in case she'd spoken to them?

"Oh no," said the young lady, "But I can call you back later..."

So, a "mortgage and investment" group that wants MY money and confidential (yeah right, never heard of the Electoral Roll, or the Public Records Office?) but can't give me THEIR telephone number?

And their number was unavailable from doing 1471 as well...

Hate to think what could have happened if me missus had answered the ph

US nuke boffins smash petaflop barrier with 'Roadrunner'

Pedant warning...

Um, shouldn't that be Petaflops? Last time I checked, small 'p' was used for the prefix 'pico', as in "bloody small" (10 to the -12, IIRC). For example, capacitors rated at 10pF.

On the other hand, since the electronics/IT industriy seems to make a habit of "editing" values other fields have used for hundreds of years, maybe I shouldn't worry (it's fun watching mathematicians trying to figure how the old "Volts=Amps x Ohms" triangle (v=ir, i=v/r, r=v/i) works when they use "i" to mean "the square root of minus 1"...).

Ofcom asks ISPs nicely to stop mis-selling broadband on speed

Beeb News website

Beeb News Website had a "download speedtest" thingy running recently; according to that, I was getting between 1.9 and 3.2 Mb/s downloads.

Which doesn't explain why Oolite* add-on files of about 200-300kb were showing trasnfer rates of 10-27kb/s on download, and why aftermarket add-on aircraft and scenery files for FS2004 come down at a similar rate...

*Oolite is an OpenSource version of the old classic Elite game - if you haven't found it yet and you loved Elite, go take a look!

US imposes 72 hour pre-reg for Visa waiver travellers

Can't see what all the fuss is, myself.

As only one person so far has pointed out, up 'til now you can get on the plane before the list goes Stateside and they decide they don't want you. Now at least the Men In Black will tell you before you get on board that you're just not gonna get past the men and women in blue...

So it's another form to fill in, except online instead of pen-n-paper. Good on 'em I say, the number of times I've had to ask for a second one cos I put a digit in the wrong freaking box and ruined the first one... :-(

And can someone explain this arguement "Ooh those nasty Americans shouldn't be doing this, so we should do it back"? WTF? Since when has two wrongs made something like this right?

Unfortunately the world we live in requires such 'stupid and pointless' tasks be carried out and people are, after all, only human (and as has been pointed out, "brainy" people rarely apply for this sort of job) so mistakes are bound to happen.

How about some of you try sitting in a little box all day, getting hassle from strangers after someone else has stuffed 'em in a metal tube for the last eight hours or so, and see how you respond after a few hours. And the C&I staff get this all the time.

Personally I'm amazed they're not all as misreable and uptight as the ones the moaners above have met - okay, it's only a couple of them who have been really chatty and friendly (especially since 9/11) but don't forget you see them for a couple of minutes a trip - they see you, and millions like you, every working day.

Be nice to them, they *are* trying to keep *you* safe.

Time to move on from Chinook to the real MoD cock-ups

Just wondering...

...if there is an "About me" page for Mr Page...?

Metadata ruins Google's anonymous eBay Australia protest

@Mark SPLINTER

Bzzt-beep-beep.

Or, in English, "I don't trust Paypal either, and don't forget it takes some of the money made by selling an item. A cheque doesn't cost me or the seller anything, so guess how I pay..."

Boop-Dee-doop.

Translated, that one means "On the gripping appendage, your comment was obviously meant as a joke, so as another robotic shill I was obviously too literal to see it." :-)

Activist coders aim to deafen Phorm with white noise

@alistair millington

Whilst I don't know who your MP is (nor do I need to), I couldn't help remembering the old "joke"...

How do you tell when a Politician is lying?

Their lips move.

Only now, of course, they can do it over the 'Net too. Not saying yours is, but I'm just a little cynical when the NuLab Thought Police are pushing through so much anti-free thought legislation and nobody seems to be prepared to stand up nd say 'No' in case someone says "So you support [insert bad behaviour here] then"...

Don't worry, be happy. The State is your friend. And we can think for you. That dim glow in the corner? Oh, just your personal freedoms disappearing into the dim and distant past.

Vatican star watcher says aliens may be out there

"Only you can save Mankind"

Ever wondered what the SqueeWee word for SqueeWee is?

To paraphrase Doug "GT:Ground Forces" Berry, bags me gets 'Quisling Traitor in charge of England'...!

European manned spaceflight plan proposed

Shuttles computer assisted? Surely some mistake?

I mean, a 100-ton-plus "airframe", several-thousand-miles-an-hour velocities and delta-vees, aerodynamic loads that make a trip across the Atlantic feel like a stroll in the park, a landing that is the equivalent of trying to spit a grape onto a postage stamp in Hyde Park from a wobbly chair atop Nelson's Column... why would they need computer assistance? Tsk, overpaid screenwatchers the lot of 'em.

What I want to know is why they haven't made any more Orbiters? Well, I know they've dismantled the jigs and lost all the skilled techs and mechs that built the originals, but it's gotta be cheaper to build new STS birds than to keep fannying around promising new vehicles that never actually get anywhere beyond semi-scale "development" models hasn't it?

Dead Duck, cos that's what manned spaceflight is in very real danger of becoming. Who was it said "I always knew I'd see the first man on the moon. I just didn't expect to see the last, too."

Heathrow 777 crash: Siberian cold to blame?

I'm not an engineer but

if there is evidence of low pressure damage on the engine fuel pumps, would that not indicate that the Rollers were trying to do what they should be, and throttling up?

Are there pumps to push the fuel from the tanks as well as to suck it into the engine, or does it rely on the drop in pressure along the fuel lines sucking more fuel from the tanks?

If there is only one set of pumps - at the engine end - then it would take time for the increased demand to be felt at the tanks, plus the same length of time for the increased fuel flow to reach the engine. If there are multiple sets of pumps, do any of them show signs of increased pressure due to the fuel getting "stuck" partway through the system, or does the 777 flight data recorder collect/retain pump/pipe pressure data and fuel flow at different points?

Are there any (licenced!) Boeing 777 engineers in ElReg lan who could tell us?

(Paris, cos there's no LiLo icon!)

'Mad Scientist' developing powered suits for US military

Walking tanks

How long before some sad person brings up the "you can't have walking tanks, if it's big enough to carry decent weapons, armour and power, it would sink so far into the ground it could not walk..." arguement?

D'Oh! That'll be me then.

But I still want my Battlemechs, you darn scientists!

Mine's the one with the Timber Wolf footprint on the back... and the arms... and the surrounding city block...

AMD now has 'more than allegations' against Intel

Don't look round but...

...I think someone's been watching too many 'X Files' episodes again...

Didn't Mouldy fall foul of this when he found the Majestic 12 documents?

(Or was that what the CIA, oops sorry [i]some unknown, overzealous office clerk[/i] did to the "M12" docs in Real Life... together with most of the files from a certain US air base down Mexico way.)

"Gort, Klaatu ********** **** *** **** ******* *** ******* *"

Oz cops sound iPod road cross death warning

@John Sykes

Doesn't matter if there are witnesses or not - the anti-car lobby has successfully gotten it to the point where government figures will always blame the driver if a car is involved. The best example was a drunken cyclist who bounced along the side of a dozen or so cars while the Police filmed him - the cars were parked, engines off and NO DRIVERS, but the official statistics showed that it was the drivers who were at fault because if the cars had not been left there overnight, the drunken moron could not have hit them.

Likewise, if a child is hit by a car, it is always the driver's fault. Even when the child is doing something really, really stupid like running out from between parked cars or cycling across a pelican crossing (yes, the ones with the little green and red men for the pedestrians and the traffic lights for the cars) without looking and the little red man is there to say "Don't cross now, the cars are moving..."

Yes, as a car driver I am responsible for making sure I drive in a manner that makes things as safe as possible for other road users - including idiots. But that does not mean I am solely responsible, nor that I am at fault if some fool walks out in front of me without looking.

Which, it seems, is the idea behind these ads - trying to get the message through to the iPod-wearing fools that they are not invincible and need to take more care if they are wearing headphones...

Go Aussies!

Customers give Dell the finger over keyboard screw-up

timeframes

Look you lot, the 'QWERTY' keyboard has only been in use for over 100 years, why should Dell be expected to notice that the keys are in totally the wrong place?

But I can't help wondering if there's an email somewhere in their system along the lines of "Helpm all of our bew Europeab keyvoards are goibg to be xonpletely nessed up! Vetter hope bovody botixes!"...

Paris, just cos...

BOFH: The Boss gets Grandpa Simpson syndrome

Listen up, sonny!

I'll never forget the look on the college lecturer's face when he said about the paper tape that he'd used to load programs during the early days of computing, and I held up a strip of mylar "paper tape" I'd punched the day before...

Saddest thing was, he could still 'read' the programe from the patter of the holes!

And then there was lef kwh bqoeyg hl nhqh qh'h9u gy]t 1[]'] yy p it

Damn my card punch just clogged again!

Game rating to confound censor, trade body chief claims

no rating = no sale "permit"

Want to get a game banned without actually banning it? Just send it to the BBFC and ask them to "back-burner" the rating for that particular game. Since it would be illegal to sell or download it in GB without the necessary BBFC rating, The Powers That Be get another method of making sure you only see what they want you to see (or play).

But since they will start with just the most violent games, should we really care? I mean, if it stops just one schoolchild getting hold of something like GTAiv it's a good thing, right?

And then we better stop them playing any of the Call of Duty or Battlefield series of games, they glorify guns and violence and that is a Bad Thing.

Same with things like WRC or Colin McRae, or even Outrun and all the other racing games - we don't want them thinking they can drive on city streets like they do on the screen.

We can let them have Dora the Explorer since that fosters greater links with our European neighbours, and things like Teletubbies or those other kiddies shows where everyone is snug and happy and doesn't mind doing what they are told without questioning it...

I mean, heaven forbid anybody might actually (be allowed to/be forced to) take responsibility for their own actions...

Besides, since a lot of parents seem incapable of realising the "18" certificate on a film means little Johnny and his school chums should NOT be watching it, what makes the idio^H^H^H policy makers in Westminster think adding videogames to the BBFC's remit will make a difference?

Unless that is the whole point - "See, we tried letting the Censors restrict it to the people who should be playing these games, but it hasn't worked so we will just have to declare the whole lot a Thought Crime and prosecute anyone caught with an extreme videogame."

Sorry, I think my icon dropped an 'S' and an 'H' somewhere.

Natasha Henstridge braces for Impact

@Garth

No, no, no, no, no. (Shakes head in sorrow).

You're making a very common mistake - believing that Entertainment has to have even a passing acquaintance with Reality As We Know It.

If the (made-for-DVD./+tv) film industry needs a dwarf star to collide with the moon, then Real Life (tm) Physics can take a running jump. If an (even semi-)attractive actress can be used to distract attention from such blatant disregard for reality then it is so much the better. But to use someone who's already starred in an "End of humanity" SciFi Epic is even better!

I was wondering if they omitted to mention the particular variety of dwarf star so they wouldn't get accused of Spectral Stereotyping (sort of like Racial Stereotyping, but a hotter subject... ).

I mean, having a brown dwarf suddenly arrive on your doorstep would be bad enough since they're sullen and moody, but a white dwarf with its higher energy and nasty habit of sending out large bursts of X and Gamma rays (not to mention the fact that they're a lot warmer!) would defintiely not make a very welcome stellar visitor.

Mine's the one with Hot Fudge Sundae (falling on a Tuesday) running down the back...

Oldham murders owl with whalesong

waste of money

My council tax this year is nearly £1500 for which I use the Library occasionally and get my rubbish collected.

The roads are a joke (the only time I see roadworks is when some county council git has another idea for a traffic "calming scheme" like widening pavements nobody uses instead of repairing the ones in the town center, or when they need to close a busy junction for 6 months to "improve" it). the Police are too busy nicking motorists to bother with "real" crime and most of the council staff are either (a)overworked and in danger of losing their jobs or (b)a complete waste of space and sitting pretty with nothing to do but no threat of getting the boot.

I think the people of Oldham should demand the minutes of the meeting(s) where the decisions on the need for and the selection of the new branding/logo were taken, and all the morons who voted in favour of wasting PUBLIC money on this should have it taken out of their salary.

Still, local elections are due in May aren't they? Maybe this time more people might get off their backsides and vote against their so-called "representatives" who pull stunts like this...

Flames, cos idiot local/county councils and Politicians who forget THEY are there to serve US (not vice versa) and PC Consultants/Marketing execs deserve to be consigned to the lowest depths of hell (how can they sleep at night "justifying" such costs for a 'rebranding' when the same money would pay for things that really help people, like flat pavements or that old favourite half-a-dozen nurses at the local hospital? And before some smarta*** says "but it's from different pots of money", BALLS! It's all raised by screwing over the taxpayer, isn't it?)

Yahoo! Flickr video play sparks online revolt

Pics small, vids H-U-G-E?

Mebbe the Flickr users have a point - images are small files compared to most vids, and would any sane hobbyist really want videos of some idiot driving twice the legal speed limit or teenagers running through puddles, or schoolkids "happy-slapping" each other wasting space on still more servers?

You wouldn't want to walk into your specialist computer shop - you know, the one where you can find all the "out of date" hardware and the staff actually have a clue what is inside the magic box (been to a high street "IT superstore" recently? Last time I bothered, I was asked if the IDE disk I was looking at would work in my computer... ) - and find it had been filled with XBoxes and Playstations with all the real computer kit stuffed into the back corner and the knowledgable staff replaced with PFYs, would you?

Good luck to the Flickr Users, I think they're gonna need it...

(Mine's the coat with the "Dinosaurs against Nuclear Power!" label)

SETI@home needs You!

It's called seti@HOME for a reason

To all of you complaining you can't run Seti@home on your work machines for whatever reason (I notice nobody mentioned problems with firewalls - do the Corporate Goonsquads know what you're trying to do??), I'd just like to point out that most companies have restrictions in place concerning what you can and cannot have on your work machines (and what's more, some of them actually make sure they let their staff know what is and isn't allowed rather than just telling them it's on the company intranet somewhere... and then providing a "search" facility that is less use than a chocolate teapot to try to find it with. But that's another story).