Posts by Warhelmet

Harrods web Grotto snowed under

Teh Real Father Christmas

A proper shop santa should smell of booze and piss and frighten the kiddies.

Noel Edmonds brings Cosmic Order to the iPhone

Noel Edmonds' Parents

Does it also ward off glowing spheres?

Nokia to develop Intel-based pocket internet gadgets

Chestnuts roasting on a open fire

Ah, dem intel devices, him run very hot. Nice day, I'm in my shorts. Don't carry a man bag. intel devices = sperm frazzle.

Recession will destroy 40,000 UK IT services jobs

But which jobs...

I mean, is that new deployments of super-whizz-bang are slowing and legacy stuff prevails?

Cloud power harnessed to dump unwanted Mac apps

Gay Bar! Gay Bar! Gay Bar!

"poofing code" - teh interwebs luv u.

Beeb names new Who companion

DOK-TOR!

My main concern is that bloated self-congratulatory twonk Russell T. Davis (whatever) and his celeb mates are out. And something for the dads, of course.

ISS stuffed with full staff of six

Toilets

Is the ISS toilet issue resolved?

Blog homeopathy horror hammers hippy herbalists

Powdered Raven?

Not as loony as Plutonium. Or Helium. Or shipwrecks. Or thunderstorms. Oh, and your magic water never has to go near the real substances because you can "program" the water with a Radionic Computer.

A lot of what NYR do is anti-science. Some folks believe that anti-science is damaging to society.

Yorkshire boozer establishes 'smoking research centre'

Hmmm

The pub should rename to the Beagle.

Google Chocolate Factory patents Data Center Navy

Meh Glass Knives

@Gilbert Wham - and me doggy. He called Natty Bumpo. Him offshore data ship should have a big trunk for eating methane clathrates. And der big turbines for spraying ocean into the sky. And him offshore ship - all da crew wear dataspex and farn algae.

Revealed: Mega City One's top e-car - according to Peugeot

Electric Milk Float

@John - practical electric vehicle or not? And some of them have three wheels.

Come on out, Power6+, you win

Wii

Power stuff is very nice but since Apple went to Intel, Nintendo is the big consumer of the architecture.

Profs: Human race must become Hobbits to save planet

Mr. Frodo

Indeed.

Microsoft's online Office variant preps for business

Crippleware

I would have thought that it would be against Microsoft's interests to make the online jobby too functional - otherwise it will cannibalise sales of the desktop version. It'll be crippleware. Unless you actually pay for the web stuff.

Apple lands democracy on fanboi party-goers

Buggers

And there I was in the process of writing a mobile app to do exactly that, and, oh dear.

Acer promises Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone for €49

Really?

€49? As Tathan sez - I find it difficult to believe that this is the price sans contract. If it is, what sort of compromises are made?

ITV to sell Friends Reunited, axe 600 jobs

Orson X

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"

Scoot? ouch.

Lockheed offers ready-to-go supersoldier exoskeleton

Donkey Kong

Why not use a mule to carry all that 200lbs of stuff?

Sonim XP3 Enduro ultra-rugged mobile phone

Ideal...

I remember being told by someone who looked after mobile phone stuff for a large company that some of the sales force seemed to have a lot of accidents with their mobiles. The staged roll out of a new model was mere coincidence. As was the fact that the concerned individuals seemed to be scheduled towards the end of the roll-out.

A similar thing seemed to happen with laptops.

Ruggedised equipment sends out a strong message.

Boffins: Send robot lawn tractors to the Moon

BMX on the Moon

I thought that "berm" was a term that was rarely used outside of BMX circles. Obviously I am wrong.

BMX on the Moon sounds like a 8-bit game.

Nukes? No, use orbital mirrors. There's no atmosphere to get in the way. Vitrification.

Dominican lad suffers six-day stiffy

Dominican?

Am I the only one to have read the strapline as involving a monk?

Nokia plotting Symbian laptops

Interesting

But the timing? It's a bit late given that ARM based linux things are supposedly in the pipeline.

I wonder about RISC OS on an ARM powered laptot. Hmm. That was a nice little operating system in its own way. And, yes, development of RISC OS is still going on.

Acorn, Psion? Ah, I remember the days...

Texting: Good for kids after all?

A sample of 88 kids?

Yes, well, proper statistical training does not exist for journalists.

Texting is a consequence of ridiculous inertia in the mobile world. You would have thought that mobile email/instant messaging would have caught on and destroyed texting. The pricing of texting is a total rip off, especially for PAYG customers. And that crappy letters imposed on a phone keypad interface? Sheesh. Microwriter anyone?

The prevalence of texting holds back progress.

I H8 TXTN! LOL!

Spaceborne-forces planners meet with orbital joyride firms

"Homemade" Rocket?

and space based lasers.

Dirigibles. That's the answer.

Hitler ordered Luftwaffe to spare Blackpool

Shurely Shome Mishtake

Isn't it actually a lost script for an episode of Dad's Army?

Colonel: US Army has working electropulse grenades

Yes, well...

If they do exist, echo BlueGreen's points.

Thing is, it is an ideal guerilla weapon and has potential in asymetric warfare. I thought that a central plank of US military doctrine was to create lots of hi-tech toys for boys. EMP flash weapons erode that. Either you build incredibly hardened systems - with, doubtless, an increase in weight - or you go back to "dumb" systems. I know what would be cheaper.

Can the temptation to put this type of weapon into the hands of guerilla forces be resisted? Equipping the mujahadin with shoulder launched guided missles is one thing.

Freeway-averse Peapod runabout to go on sale in April

Estuary English...

Blimey - I first read is a 3way adverse car. Where would Stan Collymore be with that?

UFO ruled out of wind farm prang

I AM IRON MAN

nuff said

HD TV beats depression, claims HD TV company

Bleargh!

Donna Dawson - oh her. http://www.donnadawson.co.uk - she looks very scary to me.

To be frank, this sort of shit is patronising and insulting. It trivialises mental illness.

But the Wii isn't HD.

Competition regulator kyboshes Project Kangaroo

Open Source?

How much dev has been done on Kangaroo? How close is it to the finished product?

I presume that a lot of license fee payers money has been spent on it so they might as well give what they've done to us folks to make what use of it we see fit. It's not as if they can sell the technology.

I'll set up a TV studio in my shed and make my programmes available to teh interwebs. It's got to be better quality that YouTube.

I've got iPlayer up and running on my Wii.

I know that if Kangaroo did come along I would be severely tempted to dump Virgin Media. Even more so because of FreeSat.

Iranian rocket puts satellite into orbit

"Homemade" Rocket?

I'm not sure if I've ever seen that on Blue Peter - but maybe I missed it because it was one of those "dads and older brothers leave the room" type project.

Exploding mobile phone kills Chinese man

Hidden Feature?

I would quite like to make some people's phones explode. Is this a hidden feature? Can I access it via Bluetooth?

EU funds Antipodes-in-90-mins rocketliner concept

What Would Jesus Say?

Dirigibles.

Sky hints at 3D TV launch

Innovation?

Oh, is this the same 3D techology that use glasses with LCD shutters? Or is it something different?

I really don't know why they bother with the tv. Why not just have the glasses?

Fraunhofer boffins tout new 'diamondballs' mech tech

Air Bearings? Liquid Bearings? Magnetic Bearings?

And don't forget the other types of lubrication...

Extreme porn law goes live - are you ready?

Erm...

I get the feeling from some of the posts that there is a belief that somehow pornography is not connected to the "real world". That somehow pornography exists in a moral vacuum completely separated from the moral implications of the "real world" acts that are depicted.

Desensitisation anyone?

In reality, I don't have a problem with the BDSM community making pornography for their own comsumption and the consumption of interested others. I might not like the images, they may provoke a strong emotional reaction in me, but I can choose not to look at them. And there are things that can be done to ensure that looking at such pornography is a very deliberate act rather than an innocent stumble upon.

Bah...

My revulsion to BDSM? God, no. I don't empathise because I have no real inclinations in that direction. What I find incredibly difficult to deal with is sitting there as a manager and having a member of staff tell me what their partner was doing to them. Or having someone open up to me about years of abuse. Speaking to people who are non-consensual victims of sexual sadism isn't fun. Knowing the perps is even worse. I really don't want go into detail. Just remembering stuff and thinking about it is very upsetting.

And I was subject to violent punishment as a child.

Of course, I am totally guilty of extrapolating my anecdotal evidence to a wider situation than I should but... It is fair to say that I know folks who are into BSDM and do the safe/sane bit but, sigh, the emotional impact on me is zero compared to the other experiences.

Am I not permitted to have an emotional reaction? It strikes me that some of the posts above represent an emotional reaction to the legislation.

Yes, I do have a real problem with depictions of sexual violence. And I think Graham's position is one of "special pleading". So, if there are two images depicting the same act, one of them is OK because the motivation is fine by your lights, but the other isn't? Is this position reasonable? Images carry no instrinsic information regarding the motivation behind them.

Yes, I am "illiberal" if you want to call me that. But that does not mean that my position is invalid. Sid makes an important point. This law will affect very few people.

What Would Jesus Say?

Of course it's a stupid law as it is written.

But many laws are written in such broad terms. Without a written consitution case law plays a very important part in the UK judicial system. So, we may see many silly prosecutions as the police/cps test the limits of how the judiciary intrepret the law. OK, it may well be the case that the judiciary is out of step with public opinion. We might see a temporary return to something like the situation before John Mortimer and the Lady Chatterley trial, but... I can live with that.

And bad cases make bad law. The Dangerous Dogs Act is a perfect example. True, some breeds are more aggressive and unpredictable but a badly treated dog is a danger regardless of the breed. The bad case = bad law issue is the one that concerns me the most.

Some people may have a problem with the State being the guardian of public morality but arguably a State that does not protect the vulnerable from the moral excesses of certain individuals is a failed State. I would posit the bad old days of husbands not being prosecuted for sexual violence against their spouse. Arguably, the failure to prosecute could be viewed as condoning sexual violence within marriage.

The danger with a highly prescriptive law is that would allow perps to potential get off on technical interpretations of the law. Ah, it's not OK to perform a certain act with a duck strapped to your head, but a chicken, that's OK.

@Mycho - erm, "sadism comes from the urge to comfort those in pain" - I've heard that one before and I don't think it washes. For example, think about psychopathy. It is the psychopath's inability to empathise with the victim that allows them to do their pyschopathic thing. Oh sure, there maybe some people in an SM relationship who think that way but most of the BDSM fuit loops I've met have more complex and unpleasant motivations.

User-generated reviews - blessing or bull?

Forums

@Steven Jones - Yes, I agree. Forums related to products are the best place to find about about a particular product but not particularly useful when making direct comparisons between individual products. What I think particularly useful is that forum folks tend to use the product for real. Also, an active forum really adds value.

As for user generated reviews - it depends. Some of the sites I look at, I'll see some user names crop up again and again. You start to treat them like you would "real" reviewers. Some you trust more than others.

Killer robots to get silent-running whisper mode

What Would Jesus Say?

Dirigibles.

Unravelling PC form factors

Yes, well...

My initial thoughts that the article was stating the obvious. On reflection, I've seen plenty of people with the wrong laptop... My employer has a one size fits all approach and equips people with dinky ThinkPads. No use to me - if I couldn't have a pocket rocket desktop replacement I might as well stick with a desktop.

Oh sure, the right form factor for the job in hand but this does lead to profileration of the numbers of models that need to be supported. I think I'm right in remembering that some vendors produce pretty much identical desktops in different form factors? Is this the case with laptops? I don't think it is. There is no reason why different form factor laptops can't share, say, the same motherboard, or have the same sort of battery connection, etc.. This gets round some of the support issues.

Something else I've seen is companies handing out laptops when in reality they should have desktops and have proper hot desking. Or dish out USB drives with proper security that they can use if different offices. Another thing is that people don't also make the best use of desktop stuff that they bump into. They don't use external monitors, they don't use keyboards and mice. I don't know about you lot, but certain activities laptops are a bane to productivity.

I think that docking stations are a waste of time.

What about tablets?

Microsoft halts construction plans, won't renew leases

What Would Jesus Say?

Will Microsoft pass on savings to customers?

SA copper thieves bid for Darwin glory

Underground Cables

@John Young - I'm sure that you are right. I remember visiting National Grid control centre as a school kid and I think I'm right in saying that the big stuff uses aluminium.

However... Am I right in thinking that little stuff and underground stuff uses copper? My parents' house is supplied by a long underground cable and it was dug up and stolen. Telephone cables too at one point.

Isn't one of the Rolling Stones a metal-detectorist?

Conficker seizes city's hospital network

Zero Investment in Public Sector IT Support

For a start off, if the re-booting of a PC in an operating theatre is considered dangerous, arguably, the situation that occurred should be considered a "near miss". Accident reporting process that should exist as part of Health & Policies should kick in which should lead to a investigation and detailed analysis of the problem. What should not occur is a knee-jerk reaction. Switching off updates doesn't deal with the root cause of the problem. Also, switching off updates should go through a change control process and the associated risks should be picked up at this point.

Management ignorance of IT is not the issue. The issues are about riding roughshod over proper policies and processes - if they exist at all.

This situation generally occurs because the resource to implement proper processes do not exist. There is tendency to view IT as an obstacle rather than an enabler. "Projects" tend to suck resources away from business-as-usual IT support. Public sector pay can't compete with private sector pay (well - different equation now). Etc, etc...

Most of youse otha commenters kno nuffink. Youse are just as guilty as those managers who funked up because youse can't see the real problem and look towards a TECHNICAL solution to a problem that you THINK exists. Bah.

Whose notebook is it anyway?

Choice?

Why on earth do users expect any choice in the machine that they have to work with? To be more specific, why do some users think that they should have a choice?

One of things that seems to encourage users to believe that they have choice in pc is being given choice in the model of company car. Same with mobile phones. I used to have something to do with company cars and you would not believe how obsessive and anal some people were about them. And often ordered totally impractical vehicles only to be stung by increases in fuel prices. Or ordered some stupid vehicle with bucket seats only to develop back problems as a result. Or ladies not doing any forward planning - oh, I'll get something sporty with difficult access and forget about the fact that I am planning to have a baby soon.

With mobile phones - if you only use the core functionality of the phone for business purposes - i.e. calls & texts, model doesn't matter very much, unless you go for something flaky.

Some organisations are too conscious of status. Senior executives break rules all the time because no one has the cojones to stand up to them. In status conscious organisations, things like the size of your desk and the sexiness of your pc are important. I know that I've struggled to get a more grunty box (that I genuinely needed) whereas senior executives got essentially expensive consumer market toys. Worse still, the CEO got the company to buy this kids with consumer PCs and suck the support.

Here's the rub. Tools vs toys. Business stuff should be tools. No organisation should pay for people's toys.

Tesla takes Top Gear test to task

Last of The Summer Wine

@AC - you hit the nail right on the head. Bathtubs, yes. Top Gear is just Antiques Roadshow or Last of The Summer for a certain type of middle aged man. I find it totally incomprehensible.

William Woollard - we need you now.

US Navy's robot stealth carrier plane unveiled

I for one...

Welcome our new robotic stealth flying wing overloads. Sorry, overlords.

How Warcraft reigned supreme in 2008

Urine

Sorry to say this, but, it's like, get a life. And you smell of piss. Or sour milk.

MMORGs are just a waste of bandwidth and full of trolls.

It's like going back to 1970s when Gygax ruled the earth. And have you moved on? No. It's kill monsters, nick stuff.

Blah.

The Year in Operating Systems: No battle of big ideas

And...

Android.

Rail companies roll out barcode ticket standard

Bah...

Mobile phones? God no. It's a vast waste of resources trying to work with anything other than barcodes printed on paper. I've got no problem with people paying for tickets using an e-wallet on their mobile, but I don't really see the point in trying to cater for thousands of different combinations of os and pixel density and colour profiles. Oh, sorry, your black is grey to me. And back lighting?

e-ticketing works in other scenarios, but it does annoy that the reduction in transaction cost is not passed onto the consumer. True, with air flight, there are some benefits in not having to queue to the same degree with automated check-in but I still get the wombles standing in my way.

Black helicopter because I suspect it's a better way to travel.