Posts by Mark Jan 190 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jan 2008
With HD Freeview just around the corner, you'd be crazy not not wait for DVB-T2 equipped TVs.
Even if yours has just blown up, you may as well dust off that trusty CRT sitting in the garage (and be amazed at how good a picture it has - at least on SD) and wait a couple of months.
If using religious symbols like this is OK, why don't they use the crescent moon and star symbol of Islam? Crescent moon pointing down would look good on the boobs, and the star would do the rest of the job...
Can you imagine the reaction though!
The model would not be safe for the rest of her life (which would probably slightly impinge on her career and social life) and PETA's offices would be fire-bombed.
The Christian symbol and the Catholic Church is an easy target.
The proponents of AGW (or should that now be changed to ACC?) put great store in the peer review of scientific papers, and so they should, it's the cornerstone of good, modern science.
However, it should be clear to anyone who's actually opened up their minds and researched and read, and read again and investigated alleged AGW that the peer review process has sadly failed science in this area.
Anyone remember Dr Mann and the infamous "hockey stick"? Peer reviewed, adopted by the IPCC, yet discredited by the Wegman Panel in 2006. BUT, it's still taught in schools and still peddled out!
Mann, NASA et al NOT RELEASING OR PUBLISHING raw data, so it isn't possible to reach independent conclusions, yet we are asked to trust them.
Major errors in the methodologies used to gather tree ring data, but peer review OKs it. Other proxy data which is selectively used to show whatever results the authors want, yet it's "peer reviewed". When you discover that it's all "peer reviewed" by past co-authors, it begins to smell.
But hey, the science is settled!
Lastly, why has NO computer global warming model actually been proven true over the past few years?
But why should the truth spoil a computer model? Let's just call it climate change and everything will be OK. The model can always be altered afterwards or the raw data "adjusted" since that is never published.
Complete and utter hogwash.
My only comfort is that more and more scientists will begin to "come out" and begin to raise their voices at this computer modeled nonsense. It's started already and will pick up momentum. Wonder what the next bogey man will be after this one is finally buried? Maybe global cooling, a new Ice Age? Oh no, we did that one about 30 odd years ago!
Anon Coward wrote: "Ian Wishart is a journalist not a scientist and as well as climate change, he doesn't believe in evolution. Have you looked through his previous work?"
He may believe that the moon is made of cheese and NASA sends probes there to look for big mice, but your argument to discredit him is one similar to that used by Marxist governments (as well as ZaNuLabour) to discredit people.
So, here are a few (of many thousands) of scientists who disagree:
'It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming.' - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
'Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical. 'The main basis of the claim that man's release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system' - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called 'among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.'
'For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
'Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.' - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
"Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the UN IPCC...."The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium...which is why 'global warming' is now called 'climate change' " - Climatologist Dr Richard Keen of the Dept of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado.
Anon Coward wrote: "Trying to spin this as another of the register's 'oh look, global warming is all a scam' stories is getting wearisome."
No, we need stories such as this to maintain some semblance of balance against the onslaught of global warming (no, that doesn't fit any more so we'll call it climate change to cover all bases) bollocks.
We also need investigative authors such as Ian Wishart writing books such as Air Con: The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming. I recommend it to everyone. The most important book you'll read this year, and no, I don't have any vested interest apart from the getting to the truth.
We're seriously in danger of sleepwalking into a climate change taxation regime that will cripple us for years, but hey, just think of the Polar Bears and the drowning dogs (from the latest UK government climate change spin-commercial).
@toughluck et al
There's been a fair bit of Opera bashing on The Reg of late, mainly because they dared raise their voice against the mighty M$.
Opera make a great browser. They always have. They may have made a mistake a few years back in the advertising supported or paid for business model they chose to adopt for Opera, but nonetheless, they still made / make a great browser.
Opera have also been innovators: tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, anti-phishing, pop-up blocking, Speed Dial, feed reading etc. Opera innovated, others followed or supplied add ons or plug ins. It's in the DS and the Wii, it's in set-top boxes, it's in Adobe's Creative Suite applications, it's on tens of millions of mobile phones, and is arguably the best browser for such environments.
Try it for a while and you'll be an Opera convert.
So enough of the Opera bashing already!
I was asked to have a look at a cashback contract once, to see if I could understand when exactly the invoices received had to be sent back to claim the cashback. The company was a subsidiary of CPW.
Needless to say, the terms were so ambiguous, it was impossible to determine which day of the month the cashback claim had to be received by CPW, as these varied throughtout the contract period. Get one wrong, and all future claims would be rejected. Naturally, all calls to CPW were redirected to a website FAQ which was anything but helpful.
I understand that if all cashbacks were sent in by consumers, the companies concerned would go bust, as effectively all calls / phones would be for free. But to deliberately make the T&Cs so confusing and ambiguous as to make it impossible to adhere to them, is wrong. And the cashback companies know that most consumers just won't bother complaining.
I would have thought most guys frequenting this site to be capable of discovering how to re-flash the N900, like most mobiles. It ain't gonna be a huge problem.
@AC with the SE K850i These were probably amongst the easiest devices to re-flash. I too had a Vodaphone version which sucked. Didn't take long to re-install the SE non-Vodaphone version.
Hand Grenade because it'll blow up in their faces.
It's a shame that Opera only quite recently dropped its fee based approach if you didn't want the advertising sponsored version of its browsers. If they hadn't followed this path, I have no doubt doubt that Opera would be a far more used browser than Firefox, Safari and all the "other, apart from IE" browsers put together.
As it is, Opera remains a "best kept secret". More secure, faster and certainly more innovative than any of the other browser producers.
Like MarkOne said, I wouldn't waste my time on anything else.
Where's the IT angle?!
If it wasn't for the last Apollo missions, there wouldn't be much IT to speak of now.
The Apollo missions were the driving force behind early research into integrated circuits, and if it wasn't for that, much of what we know today as "IT" wouldn't exist.
OK, it may have developed but perhaps a lot more slowly and maybe with a bit less direction.
NASA hopes that the data collected will "help...leaders make more informed decisions to ensure climate stability and retain our quality of life".
And since when exactly has the climate been stable?
If only those Icelanders hadn't colonised Greenland with their over powered four wheel drives in the 10th Century, Greenland might actually still be fertile and green - nothing whatsoever to do with the Little Ice Age moving them on in the 15th Century.
And just think, if only the Romans hadn't been driving their gas guzzling Ferraris around Britain after they'd invaded, we might still be growing grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland, just like they did.
Global warming, sorry climate change - welcome to the the new religion.
Ignore the science, just believe. Don't bother with the collection plates, we'll just tax you at source.
Who'd have thought that the rump of what should have been a great British company, now resorts to pursuing these pointless and embarrassing actions?
And to think Bill Gates was once reputedly scared and admiring of the company.
I'm no great Apple fan, but if only Psion could have had someone like Steve Jobs at the helm...
With "hobbyists" up and down the country watching unencrypted and encrypted satellite channels for free, encryption keys freely available on the internet and whole enryption systems regularly hacked, why is this such big news?
Adam Laurie isn't doing anything that thousands of barely computer literate bods aren't doing.
And if Opera wins in Europe there'll be even more to sing about.
Less IE = more web security = win win all round (except for MS).
It's about time the insecure, bloated piece of crap that MS produce as a sorry excuse for a browser is once and for all confined to the software dustbin of dustbins.
@AC at 13.35
You forgot to mention that ID Cards would by themselves also solve the problem of internet child porn, so negating the need for any firewalls, as well as strengthening childrens teeth and protecting against all childhood diseases. There's just no end to the ID card's maginficence.
Paris, because even she can't be as clueless.
Just bought it off the Eason site - thanks for the info.
If the silly cults want to ban it, then like others have said, it'll be worth having a look.
I just don't understand how anyone with an ounce of sense can possibly get hooked up with an "religion" invented by a sci-fi writer, and then actually give them money.
There is no mothership you dumb cults!
All the more reason why we need ID cards introduced asap.
Not only will they be hacker proof, but I'm sure that ZaNu-Labour will soon announce that they'll also protect you from bird flu, personal injury from an asteroid hit as well as being made from a new space age plastic which will absorb CO2 and hence save the whole of mankind as well.
This government is hell bent on introducing biometric data collection at every level in our society, even in schools. There was a report recently about a teacher "playing a game" with her class in which they all ultimately had their fingerprints scanned - the kids were only 4! Ask parents' for permission? Don't be silly, it's the Za-Nu Labour government we have in power!
Schools up and down the country introducing fingerprint scanning technologies requiring ALL kids to register their fingerprints purely for the purpose of paying for a school dinner, even though 30% of them NEVER even have a school meal!
However, Za-Nu Labour know that by making the taking of biometric data so commonplace and by starting out at an early age, they can so accustom the population to the "necessity" of it that future generations won't even question ID cards, or their ultimimate replacements! Dumb down education enough and future generations won't even have the reasoning abilities to even think through the questions to start with! Anyone see a theme here...? Educashon, educashon, educashon...
Dumbed down education resulting in today's "yoof" not understanding what an 18 month contract means! Incredible.
However, why anyone would buy from Phones4U after seeing one of their TV commercials is beyond me anyway.
Paris because even she knows what 18 month means - although she probably also thinks the gestation period required to have twins!
At last the government reaches a sensible decision regarding global warming / climate change / the earth is actually currently cooling -oh dear, that doesn't fit our agenda or the models we're using / call it what you will depending on the circumstances and just so long as we can tax it.
Paris because even she knows it's all bollocks, and she knows her bollocks.
The wonderful British Police going for the soft option again. I'm sure after they'd completed this wonderful piece of police work, they positioned themselves along the road outside the computer fair to catch some unsuspecting motorists doing 31mph in the 30 zone.
I'm sure Microsoft along with the rest of all law abiding citizens will be incredulously happy that pirated copies of Office 2007 will be off the streets of Bradford.
Shame the police can't do anything about real issues which could affect real people such as being hit by an uninsured driver from Bradford. The BBC reported earlier in the year that, "nearly 60% of vehicles in some parts of Bradford are not insured". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/7247429.stm
Having said that, driving with no insurance only lands you with a £200 fixed fine (or just possibly an appearance before magistrates) whereas stealing from Microsoft may cost you 10 years behind bars.
Nice to you that if you're unfortunate enough to be hit by one of the 60% of uninsured drivers in Bradford whilst driving to a computer fair to purchase illicit software, the law is fully behind you and will punish the miscreant severely.
Paris because at least she has a nice ass, as opposed to the law which merely is one.
Not if they agreed to how their data was going to be used. (Sweden and Finland are in the EU, too, and it doesn't cause them any problems).
I wonder if they can actually opt out? (Not out of paying taxes that is!).
It sounds compulsory to me and if by agreeing to pay taxes (how can you not?!) you agree to your data being made public, everything is out in the open.
Paris because I'm sure she pays all her taxes and likes all her details being out in the open.
Funny how councils complain of never having enough money and therefore have to increase council tax bills by ever greater inflation busting amounts. HOWEVER, cash is ALWAYS available when any sorry excuse is dreamt up to fit CCTV cameras in seemingly any orifice possible to spy on the public.
Obviously Paris Hilton because she no doubt likes lollipops in the vertical position as well.
About as bright as a previous ISP of mine who (without being prompted) emailed me "reminders" of my email user account name and password when the time came to renew services. I was aghast and phoned them to complain. I was informed that it was standard procedure as many customers forgot their details and therefore couldn't access their accounts when the time came to renew services. The customer services person was adament that their emails were totally secure and suitable for sending user names and passwords despite being unencrypted.
Only when I complained in writing did the company apologise and change their default "helpful" attitude across the board.
I'm constantly amazed by the attitudes of (IT) companies which should know better. Having said that, most of them probably advise HM Government!
Paris obviously, because even she isn't that insecure - or maybe she is...
@John Imrie
"I accuse you of funding terrorists
Good, now we have that out of the way, All your civil liberties belong to me."
A bit simplistic don't you think?
The guy's in prison and he's being bugged. Big deal.
It isn't Watergate or the overthrow of a government, it's a man accused of raising funds for terrorists who's being listened in on. The fact that he was being visited by an MP would I suggest be even greater grounds for bugging him!
Paris because even though he's in prison, he's probably being treated as if he was in a Hilton.
NuLabour keep telling us, "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear".
I would expect anyone visiting someone in prison facing extradition on terrorism related charges to be bugged! The guy's been accused of funding terrorists!!
Meanwhile the rest of the (innocent) population can be monitored by CCTV countless times a day, have our movements tracked by ANPR, have our data mined and lost, our emails and phone calls echeloned, yet a guy accused of funding terrorists can't have his conversations bugged because he's being visited by an MP!
This country is becoming a joke, but since it's being run by politically correct clowns, what do you expect?
Paris Hilton because even she isn't as dumb as the clowns who govern us.
Opera is regarded as being the most secure browser out there, and as a fan, I'm surprised you didn't recommend it.
Having said that, it may have been almost as good to just say, do not use IE, ever - if you can avoid it.
Obviously Paris Hilton as IE is about as secure as her underwear and offering about as much protection, even when it's on, which it's not, by default.
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