Posts by William Wallace

It's time to stop fearing CPU power management

Just to remind people - 735 watts = 1 horsepower.

DeepNude's makers tried to deep-six their pervy AI app. Web creeps have other ideas: Cracked copies shared online as code decompiled

Two words that have the potential to destroy lives and open the gates of hell if this app is ever used irresponsibly -- Ann Widdecombe!

Delete Google Maps? Go ahead, says Google, we'll still track you

All I want is a little button

that allows me to toggle my device from being an all encompassing, eavesdropping, life-snooping, hand-holding, comfort blanket communication device, to being "just a phone". It seems like a simple idea but I am almost certainly missing a load of reasons why this is utterly impossible. I am almost 60 after all, and haven't yet grasped how essential 24-hour, uncontrolled Google/Facebook coverage is to my very existance..

Germany warns: You just CAN'T TRUST some Windows 8 PCs

USA or China

Its an odd world when you have the option of deciding whether you want to be snooped on by the USA (MS, NSA, TPM, etc) or by China (Huawei). Personally, I think the US is the most aggressive and invasive option (and, from a nationalistic point of view, the most likely to be harmful).

10-day stubble: Men's 'socio-sexual attributes' at their best

Re: Perhaps this explains

I think you've inadvertently cottoned on to something here - i.e. women find bearded men more attractive, hence wives and girlfriends like their men to be clean-shaven.

By the way, how many current wives do you have?

'Leccy-starved Reg hack: 'How I survive on 1.5kW'

21st Century Luxury

Having been bought up in in the 60s in a little corner of the west of Ireland called Bundorragha - no electricity, no phone, and no radio or tv reception - I am inclined to worry that your kids are wallowing in luxury that will do them no favours in the long term. We used wood and turf for fuel, we had a bottle-gas powered fridge, the nearest shop was in the one-shop village of Leenane some 7 miles away. My father eventually managed to listen in to international shipping channels (but nothing else) when he purchased a Zenith radio and strung up a 300 foot wire half-way up the mountain as a makeshift aerial.

Honestly, kids today! - microwaves, plasma tvs, concrete mixers, electric kettles and lights, washing machines, (the list seems endless) and sometimes even two of these running at the same time.

So, what IS the worst film ever made?

Avatar

Just junk. Horrible. Tedious. Like watching some kid's recording of a computer game he'd recently played. Awful.

Hey Commentards! [This title is optional]

The best suggestion, surely, would be to ban anyone who wants to comment on anything, as like Groucho Marx who would never join a club that would have him as a member, I don't want to read comments on a site that would allow me to make comments.

Last ever batch of TouchPads isn't coming to Blighty

@Wacky old world

There is another possible gain in selling off assembled parts at a loss - the rush to get hold of a Touchpad has come as a surprise to HP, but, having, albeit accidentally, created a public "desire" for them, they are now in a position to sell off the division to the likes of Samsung. And the more - now highly desireable - Touchpads that are out there the more they may be able to get in a sale.

(Gloat: my 32G Touchpad, ordered from FNAC, arrived here in the west of Ireland (God bless the euro!) this afternoon -- hence the pint).

Here lies /^v.+b$/i

Myles na gCopaleen + numbers

Myles na gCopaleen quoted a headstone that went as follows

hic jacet 1 5 4

0 4 1 2 8

0 1 4 2 0

... sadly the rest escapes my memory. The above translates (probably) as:

Here lies one fifer

Nothing for one to hate

Nothing for one to love

...

Whether the stonemason could carve out the letters with one hand while updating his facebook account with th eother is not recorded.

(A pint, because "a pint of plain is your only man".)

Windows phones send user location to Microsoft

Electronic Tag

So, anyone with one of these "smart" phones is voluntarily carrying around somrthing that is more or less equivalent to a a court assigned electronic tag.

Facebook 'open sources' custom server and data center designs

30 years on

Can't help, reading this, being reminded of the "Naked at 30: Osborne 1 stripped to its chips" story I perused just a couple of minutes ago - especially the picture of the Osborne and the MacBook Air. What size will data centres be in 30 year's time?

Windows 7 RC 'buy a copy' shut downs start next month

3 Licence Upgrade still available

Just in case anyone missed out on the 3 Licence introductory offer pack, it is still available from http://www.click.ie/windows-7-home-premium-upgrade-3-user.html. I ordered mine last Wednesday and it arrived the following Friday afternoon.

Lightning catches up with Thunderbird

Re: Doesn't matter

Personally, I wasn't important enough to have a mobile phone until two years ago - and I'm the CEO. Worst decision I ever made!

Ralph Lauren DMCAs thin Photoshop skills

Real head, fake body

I reckon its a real head pasted onto a manikin body. So the question arises: couldn't the head sue the body for libel (or vice versa)?

Firefox 3.0 ekes ahead of Internet Explorer 7 in Europe

IE6 is going to be around for a long time yet

Who is using IE6? People with pirated versions of Windows, that's who.

Ryanair trades blows with 'idiot blogger'

Not doing badly, though

According to The Times, Ryanair is now the world's largest international carrier.

Main BBC channels to be broadcast live via web

Re: Travelling abroad?

I have a 3 Mobile broadband dongle that was purchased in Ireland. Even though I am now in the UK and have a UK TV licence, the BBC still thinks I am in Ireland and won't let me view most of its stuff.

It would seem logical, therefore, if you had mobile broadband purchased in the UK you should be able to view their content anywhere in the world, as the BBC will think you are in the UK regardless.

They seem a little behind the technology if you ask me.

Oz driver pulled with todger in pasta sauce jar

Nobby Beach!

If they go and call a beach "Nobby" then its hardly surprising that the occasional Ozzie makes a perfectly understandable mistake.

Paris, because she wouldn't have to think twice either.

America's CTO: We have a winner

Thank You, Everyone

I would just like to thank everyone who didn't vote for me for not voting for me. I am very busy at the moment and the additional responsibilities would have been onerous.

Paris, because she didn't vote for me (I know this for a fact because no one voted for me).

My name really is Ivan O'Toole, admits Ivan O'Toole

Re :Jo King

Every time I hear the end of Gardener's Question Time on Radio 4, the announcer states that the "producer was joking".

Re: Another

My uncle worked in insurance for 30+ years and collected a large number of odd names. His favourite was Orson Carte.

Re: Another

Rather scarily, I just googled "orson carte" and was presented with teh following snippet

"Orson Carte, our man on the tools, ponders life's great mysteries ... Orson Carte ... Orson Carte, Security Installer columnist, writes on security ..."

Ryanair cancels aggregator-booked tickets in escalating scraping war

Re: Or

They've got 2.4 billion euros cash in the bank. They carry almost twice the passengers that BA carries, they are capitalised at almost twice BA's value. They'll be around for quite some time yet.

They are a flying bus service - and they do it well.

US allows visual inspections of nipple rings

Chainmail Underwear

Does this mean my chainmail underwear (vest and pants) is likely to cause a problem?

El Reg decimates English language

Wot about December?

which, as any fule kno, is the tenth month.

Poisoned MySpace page masquerades as Windows Update

Re: Dead give away

What on earth is the collective term for people who run Linux and collect photographs of East German railway locomotives? Has it been invented yet?

Google turns Irish town 3D

Bleeding Edge of Civilization

and pretty as well.