Posts by Derek Bez

GPS tracking slapped on laptop recovery service

Dencity {sic}

So... if you nick a lappy you suspect is gps-tracked, you should take it to somewhere like Cannery Woof.

Sure it'll get a signal, but the location won't be within 10m. Elevation isn't one of GPS's strong points either. Good luck to them working out which floor of which building.

Global warming to stone US kidneys

US is so behind the times

It's not "Global Warming". It's "Climate Change".

Blame the alien death rays.

Asus blames lack of Linux Eee PCs on Atom hold-ups

Nothing's outselling nothin'

Because there aren't any in the country to be sold.

If there was an initial shipment at the beginning of July, they all went to ASUS VIPs. None in the stores. Not even for preorders (bar 1 or 2 sites trying it on with higher-than-rrp pricing).

Linux v XP. Who cares. That's a battle for another day. Lets get the little beasties on the shelves!

Union gears up for BT strike action this month

When I was young...

...er... About 12 years ago, the large FMCG IS dept I worked in realised that company pay scales didn't fit in with market trends for IS staff. So they created a subset of the pay grades specifically for IS. It meant we techies were paided in 'manager money and perks'. And probably pissed off the marketing dept.

Shouldn't that be a law by now? Tech people are different, so tech jobs should be remunerated differently to 'ordinary' jobs.

Any techie that wants a manager job isn't a real techie. If anything, he (or she) only would vie for a management postion because in most companies it would mean more money. And so become a rubbish middle-manager who doesn't deserve the money, and who gather a lot of criticism.

Bill doesn't care about money.

Swiss birdman in Alpine backpack-jetplane stunt flight

Launching

Surely the steam catapult on any reasonable carrier should do the job. Whether he'd cope with the acceleration is another story.

Wonder what licence he would need to fly? Don't R/C planes over a certain weight need permission from <insert government dept / deity / celeb here> to get airborne?

Lancashire plodcopters in laser dazzle outrage outbreak

No news is good news

If this type of silliness didn't make the news, the perps wouldn't do it again, and their cousins wouldn't think of trying it either. Epidemic over.

But then again, we wouldn't have something to chuckle about on a boring Thursday afternoon.

How to destroy 60 hard drives an hour

Lasers

Shouldn't we be using lasers for this sort of stuff?

To all the pyromaniacs and volcano lovers: what will the greenies say about your terrible polluting ways! Tsk tsk. Shame on you!

Music biz proposes 'iPod tax' in return for format-shift freedom

Never

What if I never, ever listen to 'their' music on my PMP? What if I only ever listen to podcasts? Do I still have to pay?

What about my mobile phone that can play MP3s? Is that going to be taxed too? In which case, we'd better petition S-E now to stop making mobiles with built in MP3 players for those of us that don't want to be taxed.

French Colonial Marines to get Aliens medic-datalink

@ Yeah Right

It's not winning or losing. It's how you play the game.

You're spot on about hackability though. Misinformation is a powerful tool in a commanding officer's arsenal. I'm sure Sun Tsu had a bit to say about it.

Wasn't there another program used by US? military that could remotely inject adrenalin or other chemicals to enhance battlefield performance? Or have I been playing dodgy video games? Stimpak anyone?

Alien = Protoss

O2 PR calls Reg readers 'techie nerds'

Not a nerd

I find the term 'nerd' derogatory.

Nerd = thick, unfashionable eyewear, and requires parental assistance to dress in the morning.

And to answer someone else's comment... You might get nerds in other (science) fields who are not techie. Not techie as we know it anyway.

Lets stick to 'geek'.

I've already been toying with leaving O2 when my contracts up.