Posts by Dr Patrick J R Harkin

Undercover cash conversations

So I buy one of these...

...and my mate buys one - and we can both listen, but not talk. Am I missing something here?

Navman upgrades satnavs with 3D

Gosh, that's handy....

"Here's a 3d image of the point of interest, pixellated on this 3.5" screen. Alternately, for a much bigger and more detailed image, look out of the window..."

Solar power gets curtains twitching

Soooo, during the sunny days I close the curtains...

...which will make it dark inside. So I'll have to turn on the electric lights... ..which would waste power, were in not for my aolar panel wallpaper...

MS readies Vista code injection risk fix

<wakes with a snort>

Another Windows security patch story? hah. Typical of Gates and Misroshaft. Never had security problems when I was in Poonah with the 7th Cavalry. All our abacusses... abaci... abacupoi... my abacus worked fine, and so did all the others without needing endless fixes. And why? Because they were good British engineering, that's why, made in the best British sweatshops in Rangoon... <goes back to sleep>

Wife-slaying Linux guru may have 'developmental disability'

Isn't this the Guiness defence?

"You're guilty of fraud! Prepare for incarceration!"

I don't understand that big long word - I have Alzheimer's disease.

"Oh, sorry, you're free to go. How do you feel?"

Much better. Pass me The Times will you? I haven't quite finished the crossword.

Yes! It's the Star Wars Nintendo DS stylus!

If it doesn't fit in the stylus slot of a DS...

...it isn't a DS accessory. It's a coloured stick. Only the saddest Lucas fanbois will be after these.

Was that amazon.co.uk or will I have to get them inported?

Chinese cops opt for Segways

"the machines help make cops more visible during patrols"

Presumably they measure this by counting hte cries of "Who's that prat on the Segway?"

The9 exposed as China's supercomputing powerhouse

@Solomon Grundy

I assume you mean the "so called" author of this "so called" article.

Sony touts weird multi-sensor handheld gadget tech

I assume the pixels are referred to as "digital" because...

...you operate them with your fingers.

Is that my coat? And the door's over that way? Thanks.

Photos fool cigarette age-verification software

If they don't want to sell to kids...

...couldn't they just fix the machines further up the wall?

Tiwi spies on your children, so you don't have to

Lots of comments about ages of 17/18

But can't you drive from 14 in the States (where this thing was invented?)

Duff UK nukes risk 'popcorn' multi-blast accident apocalypse

So a nuke going off will kill people...

I dunno. First they bitch about MOD equipment NOT being capable of doing its job, and the next minute....

Grand Theft Auto reportedly inspires teen rampage

If there was any link between video games and behaviour...

...anyone who played PacMan would spend their time running around in the dark to repetitive electronic music while eating pills. Oh wait...

Isn't it a bit like "schools encourage godlessness/ homosexuality/ whatever todays bete noir is"? It's certainly working for mathematics and English, isn't it?

Ohio table-shag man gets six months

Wanna come back to my place...

....for a coffee table?

Bloke crams 13 into Volvo S70

Regardless of the load weight issue...

...I don't think his insurance will have been valid if he's carrying more people than the vehicle design supports.

Google's Gmail verboten in Germany

Seems mostly fair but a bit odd!

He registered Gmial the name in Germany first. It's his tradename, seems fair than Google can't market a competing service under the same name.

www.gmail.de - if he registered it, it should be his. If Google registered it first it's theirs.

But demanding that German domain name servers refuse to resolve the US address www.gmail.com to an IP strikes me as unfair restriction on trade.

Scareware package greets marks by name

It always degenerates into Windows vs Mac vs Linux...

I'll have you know my Renault Megane has NEVER had a problem with viruses or trojans and starts faster XP/MacOS/Linux. Unfortunately, it now costs more to run a week than many PC's...

Almost half of malicious sites tied to 10 networks

Ten networks? I thought there was just one big one...

"Ten networks" in the title become "ten registrars" in the text. I freely admit I have no idea how many registrars would account for half of any selection of sites, so I don't know if 10 is a surprisingly large or small number.

Enraged devil dog lover locks on to Reg photo team

Staffys sharing with babies...

Hitler was a baby once. Makes you think, doesn't it.

Naomi Campbell pleads guilty to assault

Suitable sentence

Naomi Campbell. You have been found guilty before a jury of your peers and it is now my duty to pass sentence. You will be taken from this place to the place of Primark, there to be dressed from the neck down until you are cut dead in the street by Kate Moss and Amy Whinehouse. And may the Lord have mercy on your soles.

Flirty texting could land Scots in jail for 10 years

@Rich

"So "Oi, mate, look at the knockers on her" could land you in the clink too???"

If you do it repeatedly, that would be sex discrimination. Half your statements should be "Oi, mate, look at the knockers on him"

Tumble dryer bites woman in Weston-super-Mare

I for one...

...welcome the arrival of our crease-free, country-fresh-scented overlords.

Quantum crypto targeted in attack of the clones

@Jon Brindley

The advice I was given was "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you weren't paying attention in the lectures."

Actually, I think my local garage employs quantum mechanics. You can either know what they're going to do, or how much it'll cost, but not both.

Stunned commuter finds more secret papers on train

At least it was a National Express train...

...so it won't have gone far.

Yahoo! Messenger! Trojan! false alarm!

@Ron Eve

"Years ago Wang Computers had a support service called 'Wang Care'. I kid you not...."

And I am told that Siemens corporate standard for its offices was to answer the phone with "Siemens, <location>" as in "Siemens, Seattle" or "Siemens, Berlin" until they opened an office in Staines... Dead granny? Dunno, but a good story anyway and this is the internet after all, so veracity doesn't really matter.

Apple's 3G iPhone to launch 11 July

Weren't there problems with Exchange?

Have they been solved? I can't say I'm that bothered by the low quality camera - I do use the camera on my phone to snap things to show to SWMBO that I think might look good in the house, but not much else - and I don't spend enough time on public transport to make me bother apout the mp3 side of things (still not even got an iPod) but the ability to interact correctly with my work eMail could sway me.

Boffins prove the existence of jet-setters

@Anonymous Coward

"That's not research. Thats getting hold of some juicy (possibly personally idenfiable) data and having a laugh.

And this cack gets published? Why am I not surprised?"

I must admit I thought that at first - but then I looked at the paper. This data could actually help a lot of public health planning. We diagnoses a case of SARS in Hackney. If we want to predict spread, we need to know how people move. If 36 hours have gone by, do we need a five mile cordon? A ten mile one? Or is it pointelss after 36 hours?

Those signs you see at the roadside "There was an accident here yesterday - did you see anything?" Are those signs worth placing on B-roads? A-roads? Motorways? The answer depends on how repetetive peoples journeys are.

There's potentially a lot of very useful information in this paper (which I don't claim to understand).

The concept of "anonymous data" causes a lot of confusion.

If I take the medical records of 1000 people, and pass a researcher the ages, heights and weights with an index number I've created (so he knows that height A belongs with weight B, then to him the data is anonymous. I would keep (locked away) a record of who those numbers belong to, so that if he rings me up and says "Patient 32 is 18 metres tall according to your data - could you check?" "Oops, I meant 1.8 m".

But the data he has is totally anonymised, and no amount of analysis he can do will break that. I admit that in medicine we're paranoid about confidentiality (once upon a time I'd go to meetings and see slides describing "Patient ASJ" and "Patient JT" but even that's not permitted now. It's subject 1, subject 2, subject 3. Poor subject 1 - every time I go to a meeting he's had some new disease befall him. And quite a few sex changes...) and other fields may not be as cautious.

@Andy Bright

"I have a simpler question and probably more relevant. How can you tell if a person only moved 10 miles or less from their place of residence if you don't know who they are or where they live? Let me put it another way, even if you didn't know their names, you would at least have to know their address. "

I think if someone stayed in a ten mile circle for over two weeks, we'd be fairly sure their home was somewhere in that ten mile circle. You don't need to know their address, or where in that circle their home is to make that deduction. If location detection got down to GPS resolution (which is doesn't) and you traced me over two weeks, you'd find there's a location where I spend 8 hours a day, five days a week, mostly during the day and another where I spend every night. Figuring out which is home and which is work isn't Nobel-prize level research.

ISS toilet sucks again

As they said on the News Quiz

It's only the urine unit which has failed, the solids section is working. "So while the Commander will have to wait to spend a penny, his Number 2 will be fine"

Qinetiq ships first 'Transformer' war-droid

Disabling the camera

I agree that shooting out the camera requres a level of skill and opportunity you're not likely to be given the field. But a bucket of paint on a string would do the job, and unlike digging spike pits or planting landmines, it wouldn't do you a lot of harm if it wen't off while you're setting it up.

And unless we set up a new UN ban on selling Dulux to terrorist regimes, raw materials are going to be cheap and plentiful. Of course, it'll lead to an arms race with special pigment removing wipers being countered by the use of big sheets which can be dealt with by robotic scissors which you can blunt with a rock which can be wrapped in paper which can be cut with...

Verizon sends text messages to the big screen

It would almost be worthgoing to the next Bratz movie....

...in a big group and all voting for someting by Val Doonican.

But only almost.

Sim card reader takes cue from Toblerone

Ever since I was a kid, I've been waiting....

...for the release of a chocolate bar called Toblertwo.

I've used the joke icon, but it's a bluff. When I was a kid I really did think they'd bring out Tobler Two eventually.

Most 'malfunctioning' gadgets work just fine, report claims

@Tom

"the average consumer only spends 20 minutes trying to get, say, a DVD player working

Even if you are a stupid git, if it takes more then 20 minutes to get a DVD player working it IS defective."

Do you have any idea how long it takes to sand down a VHS casette to make it fit in that little slot?

World realizes Google home page is 'illegal'

Google's Privacy Policy...

...is obviously a private matter. We shouldn't intrude.

Cybercrooks plant phishing scam on crime reduction website

I think they chose this site as part of an international competition

I reckon it's like Olympic high diving. You can just jump off the board, but you don't get many points. Alternately, you can attempt a triple twisting pike double somesault, diviculty tariff 3.7, and gets loads of points. Hacking www.jacksonfamilyofswindon.co.uk/bognorholidaysnaps2006 gets you no kudos, but a Home Office site - an Home Office anti-hacking site even - is mch mor eimpressive!

These guys are obviously now sitting back for the scores from the panel: 9.0, 9.0, 8.7, 9.0....

Oz parliament enjoys multiple orgasms

"Genetically modified orgasms. Orgasms."

Come again?

Japan gets cryptic timepiece

Bracken Dawson

Yeah - but by the time you'd worked it out it would have been 10:39 and 4:01!

But I just want to see Paris using one...

Christian Bale signs for Terminator trilogy

@Mark Irelan-Spicer

"if you ignored the primary inconsistency of the statement made that the humans destroyed the time machine after Reece passes through, so how did these increasing complex terminators and Arnie's now good terminator(s) come through?!!"

They used the time machine to go back in time to stop themselves destroying the time machine that they'd just used to go back in time to stop themselves destroying the time machine they'd just used to go back in time to stop themselves destroying the time machine they'd just used to go back in time to stop themselves destroying the time machine they'd just used to go back in time to stop themselves destroying the time machine...

Cornish lingo gets standard written form

A new language to learn!

Is it fully object-oriented?

Chinese boffins show off unbelievably tight ring

"this is still one of the cheapest gold rings to be had"

I suspect if you rang up and asked them to make you one, the price would be much more than anything is a high street jewellers!

Welsh Darth Vader dodges jail

Ten litres of wine?

[Scene: Death Star, interior. Rebel fighetrs run for the Millenium Falcon, pursed by Imperial Troopers and Darth Vader. Suddenyl, Obi Wan Kenobi emerges from the shadows]

VADER: Obi Wan Kenobi - we meet again. You're.. you're my besht friend you are. I love you. I do . I love you. It's you'n'me, pal, against the Empire. You'n'me. We'll show 'em, eh? Jussht like old ti- old times.

I think that might have been a better film...

Brits favour ASBOs for unruly mobile users

@Delboy

"bring back the death penalty for owning a mobile."

I thought we still had it - it just takes a while for the tumours to grow, that's all...

Joke icon because it says "Dr" in my signature and you just know some tinfoil-hat wearer will quote my post otherwise with the comment "Doctors know phones give you brian (sic) cancer"

Dallas kids tracked for their own good

@Richard Freeman

"Bryan Adams High School was rated Academically Acceptable by the Texas Education Agency in 2007"

So presumably is doesn't teach evolution?

Penguin icos 'cos it proves intelligent design. No way that thing evolved to suit any environment. Or maybe it disproves intelligent design - what sort of omnisicient being would have designed THAT?

Rogue MP3 Trojan streaks across P2P networks

Warnings! Listening to MP3's is illegal!

If you or anybody you know are listeing to this mp3 then you are breaking the law! Stop the player immediately, kneel down with your hands on your head and await the authorities! MUSIC PIRACY IS A CRIME!

White House admits non-existent email backups

Politicians don't back up vital data?

But... but... but that means they might be human after all...

Nigerian duped gullible NASA employee

Will she be fired?

Fired!

Fired?

Like "In a rocket"? Go on, it's a belter, that one! "Fired"? See?

Fired....

It's OK, I came out without one today...

Plasma TV components applied to password cracking

Chuck Norris?

Stuff that. Has anyone manged to crack the John Prescott encryption yet?

Plate armour to protect PS3

Recursion...

The alminium looks so shiny and nice. But what if it got scratched? I wonder if anyone sells protective covers for them...

Ofcom slaps Beeb for Live Earth swearing

@Sean

"Seeing as only 22 people complained "

yes, but we know one phone call equals a billion viewers, so that means 22 billion people were offended.