Posts by Alan

Bebo users to summon superhuman alien pop-fancier invasion

Why is a ? not allowed as a title?

A few of questions

1) If it'll take a couple of decades for the shite to reach it's destination, isn't there a strong chance that the planet will have moved, so the Bebo death ray will miss completely?

2) Haven't they read H2G2, where a seemingly innocent comment along the lines of "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style" can be misinterpreted as a very bad insult towards someones mother, which can lead to all sorts of problems.

3) What are the copyright implications of uploading lots of "music" towards a distant planet?

UK ISPs agree to menace their filesharing users

Kneejerk

I just love all these knee-jerk reactions like "when I get the letter I'll sue their asses off for defamation", or "how are they going to tell what i downloaded over my encrypted connection" etc...

Wait till you get the letter, then see what it says.

As for "I can do what I like with my unlimited connection". Yes you can, but if you happen to be sharing copyrighted files that are not yours to share then what you're doing is a tad naughty.

Mine's the flame proof one...

HP packaging madness continues apace

@Francis Vaughan

When I worked at a PC repair company we got a PC in for repair where the customer had simply written the RMA number on the top of the case and slapped an Amtrak label on the side. It arrived in perfect condition, as Amtrak took extra care due to the lack of packaging.

On the same wagon was a laptop in tiny pieces, it was well packed with loads of polystyrene peanuts. inner & out boxes & everything. But somewhere along the line clearly someone had drop kicked it across the depot & smashed it.

Moral of the story, save the environment by not using any packaging and the goods will arrive in perfect condition... or maybe not

HP shatters excessive packaging world record

@ AC re: Maths Problem

but 16 boxes each holding 2 sheets = 32 pages, or 64 pages if you count front & back

Falling pound brings iTunes UK into line with Europe

Must have been a tough job

Manipulating the European money markets just so Apple don't have to change their prices.

Now the hard part, Adobe have to make the US Dollar = Sterling to attain price parity for Photoshop

Hackintosh maker gets legal greeting from Apple

Perhaps Bill Gates could fund Psystar's defence...

Surely he could do it just for the malicious fun of seeing St. Steve squirm.

Oyster system failure causes travel misery

Mifare will be laughing

as TFL put in an order for another million cards...

Trust on the slide, Chris Moyles on the up at BBC

Alternative to Moyles

Anyone who lives in North Manchester has a fantastic alternative to Moyles.

Have a listen to Steve Coogan's brother Martin on The Revolution, top music selection, it's just a shame the adverts are shite...

Samsung SP-A400B movie and business projector

@netean

1280 x 720p, 1920 x 1080i & 1920 x 1080p are all classed as HDTV

DVD resolution is 720 x 576, which is probably why you're confused

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions#Television

TVonics MFR-300 micro digital TV set-top box

Just bought one from John Lewis

I've got a little LCD TV in the kitchen which only has an aerial input, we go digital only next year, so I'd resigned myself to buying a new TV, well over £100 for even the cheapest in Maplin.

This tiny box of tricks has just saved me £60, it's easy to set up, has all the interactive services (a feature missing from some of the really cheap boxes) and the picture quality is OK on a 7" widescreen TV, even the teletext is readable (well, as long as your within a few feet of the screen)

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

Better idea

Don't let the little shits borrow your car in the first place. If they want to endanger themselves & others, make them buy their own car instead.

If they've had to save up for their own car they might treat it with a bit more respect.

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

To paraphrase "Broken Arrow"

I don't know what's scarier, popcorning nuclear accidents, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it

King Arthur was English 'propaganda', French claim

French Taunter

You don't frighten us, English pig-dog! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person. I blow my nose on you, so-called Arthur-king, you and your silly English K...kaniggets

Adobe swings out Acrobat 9

Prices

"Adobe today published US and Canadian prices for Acrobat 9 which comes in three varieties: Standard at $299, or $99 to upgrade, Pro for $449, or $159 to upgrade, and Pro Extended for $699, or $229 to upgrade."

So the UK prices will be at least £299 for Standard, £449 for Pro & £699 for Pro Extended.

When will Adobe et al learn that you don't do currency conversions just by changing the $ sign to a £ sign

Are Dell's Energy Smart servers really smart at all?

@The dark Lord

Use this well hidden tool to calculate power & cooling requirements

http://www.dell.com/html/us/products/rack_advisor_new/index.html?~lt=popup

Angry? Try the Tw*t-O-Tron

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So this is where the Daily "glass half empty" Mail generates it's sorry excuse for journalism...

BitTorrent tracker Mininova faces legal action

@Until they make libraries illegal...

You seem to be confused here.

Libraries don't lend CDs for free, and they also pay a royalty on all books & CDs loaned, the money for this comes from council taxes.

As soon as Mininova et al pay royalties to artists you can use that argument

Union gears up for BT strike action this month

Is Solomon Grundy

Actually David "Dave" Cameron?

Brits favour ASBOs for unruly mobile users

Daily Mail

I always felt that Moneysupermarket.com was an extension of the Daily Mail, this survey proves it.

There are many more annoying things than tinny mobile phone music.

1) Old gimmers who stop at the top / bottom of escalators to get their bearings, causing a major pile up behind them

2) Other (or maybe the same) old gimmers who wait to be told the price of their shopping before looking for their purse, paying in pennies, THEN they pack their shopping bags

3) Even more (or maybe there is just just a few really annoying) old gimmers who ask you to reach for stuff off shelves in the supermarket, either they should take a step stool with them to the supermarket or the stores just be forced to put old person food on the bottom shelf.

btw these people are The Daily Mail target market

Ofcom sharpens cutlasses for pirate radio assault

@I'm pleased they're going to crack down on this

On my radio I just press the TA button during the traffic alerts and I get back to the Togmeister. Usful because I'm pissed off with getting leeds, sheffield & stoke traffic news whilst I drive through Rochdale...

Lewis Hamilton and friend targeted in computer blackmail plot

@Data Protection Act?

Seeing as this all happened in Germany I'm fairly sure that this isn't covered by the DPA.

On the other hand it may be covered by the German equivalent.

DVD smut malware blights US forces in Iraq

@AC

"Porn Is banned for sale on US bases and is frown up to posses"

Do you mind translating the second half of that sentence into English

Microsoft Office chief to manage Bill Gates

@Richard

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gives huge amounts of cash to health care & education initiatives worldwide.

I fail to see the advantage of transferring a vast majority of your fortune over to a foundation just to avoid tax payments. Why give away $37bn, just to avoid a few million in tax payments?

OpenOffice.org 3 beta lands

@Yes So?

Interestingly, without even trying my copy of OO.o2.3 has the default set at A4, now how did that happen???

NASA confirms manned mission to 10 Petaflops

@James Moliere

1) There's no fan on top of a server CPU, they use a big heat sink and several redundant fans in the blade chassis.

2) Servers don't use 7,200rpm drives, they use 15,000rpm SAS drives.

3) These boxes use 8gb RAM modules, so divide your calculation by 8, then there's the fact that the memory is in parallel slots, much like your desktop machine, so it doesn't have to be an 8000 foot long room.

4) As for finding bad RAM, CPU etc, all the hardware is managed so a simple management console reports on the status of all hardware, giving details of the cabinet, shelf & blade that holds the dodgy component.

I have to agree about the power though, I always imagine that these machines should come with one of those Frankenstein style switches that can only be activated during a thunderstorm to give sufficient current to fire up 20,000 CPUs and a similar number of fast hard drives...

@Herby

Why do we always have to have a "I forgot, they're running Windows" comment?

Especially seeing as they're running SuSe Linux

Apple tops tech support success poll

<Title>

I thought Apples were so easy to use that _no-one_ ever has any problems with their kit, therefore the tech support must have a 100% success rate dealing with the non-existent support calls

LG telly launch gulls Tinseltown stars

Big bags...

"the goody bag may have included a free Scarlet TV."

Now that's a big goody bag if you can fit a 32" TV in there...

Mel Gibson to star in Edge of Darkness

Title??

I like the sound of the Professionals remake, I'd definitely pay to watch that...

Welsh student exposed to nude webcam operators

@Chewy

Happy to correct you...

If you read to the bottom of the advert you'll see that you are not forced to apply for this job, so it will not effect your benefits if you refuse to apply.

"The ads continued: "Guaranteed minimum wages per four hour shift. Duties require the successful applicant to be nude/semi-nude. Vacancy not suitable for under-18s. Please note that there is no obligation to consider making an application for this vacancy.""

YouTube divorce rant vid wows the crowd

Why didn't Heather Mills think of this...

The internet would have melted under load of everyone watch that video.

Penguin goes electronic

Price

Someone tell me why Penguin think they can sell an eBook at the same price as a printed equivalent.

The eBook cannot be passed on, but the real book can be given, or sold on, once your kids have grown out of it.

Yet another corporation who need a good going over with a clue bat...

Spam filtering services throttle Gmail to fight spammers

@Mikko Kaarela

I've often thought this would be an easy way to stop spam. Simply have a limit on the number of emails an account can send in a day.

If you need to send hundreds of genuine emails then you need to get a premium account, which will cost money - even a few cents an email will make spam unprofitable.

Max Mosley loses battle to get sex video off web

@M Brown

High court judges are generally refered to as Mr justice Smith or Brown or whatever, it isn't either a fortuitous forename or sad deed poll change

Thailand cracks down on cut-price castrations

Title

This is what used to be done to young boys to create the "castrato" voice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato

It produces a totally unique and quite haunting vocal style

One side point: are there more gender confused people than average in Thailand, and if so, has anyone ever looked into the reason

Microsoft meths up data center with 220 containers

The entire first floor of Chicago is going to be containers

That's on big fuck off data-centre - 237 Sq miles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago