Posts by Ralph B

MYSTERY of huge Canadian chicken-shed EXPLOSION

My Suspicion

Angry Pigs.

Sony buries hatchet with GeoHot in PS3 modding case

Yes, the customers too

<quote>OK, I believe the "protect our intellectual property" bit , but "protect our customers"? Really? In what wonderland?</quote>

Networked gameplay is rarely fair when there are hacked clients about. So, yes, by fighting Mr Hotz, Sony are indeed also protecting the majority of their customers - the non-hacker customers who prefer an online gaming environment where participants compete on their personal playing skills rather than the technical merits of their cheat-clients.

Down-vote all you like, it's still true.

Naked at 30: Osborne 1 stripped to its chips

Yeah, interesting, but ...

... will it blend?

The Professionals set to abseil into cinema

Seriously for a moment ...

Tahmoh Penikett does a fair impression of Bodie as Helo in Battlestar Galactica.

Channel VAT loophole shrunk, not shut

flower power

> make it only apply to flowers

Then Amazon could send a daff along with every DVD.

Fukushima explained in crap cartoon

Nuclear Boy's Poo Is Nothing To Worry About

Little Miss Sellafied nee Windscale has had diarrhea for years and years without hurting anyone.

Much.

EU ministers give approval to patent scheme

A Challenge

I challenge the EU to identify any non-UK resident who has the ability, knowledge and intelligence to come up with a patentable idea and complete the patent application process who does not also have the ability to do so in perfectly acceptable English.

(I would not risk making the same challenge regarding a UK resident doing the same in any other European language. Including English.)

Dim Brits think TARDIS IS REAL

Numberwang

> As "numberwang" heads for the mainstream

Mitchell & Webb did it first.

Toyota plans major electric car roll outs

Making an impact

It's a picture of the tree you're going to hit when the Toyota's brakes fail.

Man jailed after cops uncover 'crack in bum'

Make the punishment fit the crime

This arse deserves a smack on the bum for having smack and crack in the crack of his bum.

German 'minister for cut'n'paste' resigns over PhD plagiarism

Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr v.u.zu Guttenberg

Seems his parents were fond of copy & pasting too.

Dell to buy AMD?

Wintel Black Ops?

Dell have previously taken Intel's money to not buy AMD chips, and MS's money to not ship Linux. So maybe they're now taking some more of Intel's dosh to buy and shutdown AMD in the same way MS have got Nokia to closedown Symbian and MeeGo.

Man nabbed nude pics from women's email accounts

Swiftian

So, commentards observe, a Facebook luser

Has smaller Facebook lusers that on him prey;

And these have smaller still to bite ’em;

And so proceed ad infinitum.

Sony sues PlayStation 3 'hackers'

Yes but ...

> people havent thrown away their xboxes despite the endemic

> cheating on that platform.

I never said they would throw away their consoles. But I did suggest they'd have less fun playing online against cheat-equipped players.

That was my point.

The Good, the Bad ...

While I suppose it'll be nice to be able to run Linux on a PS3, it won't be so nice playing online games against cheat-code-equipped players.

Game over in fact.

Shame, because it was quite fun for a while.

Double-clicking patent takes on world

Look at it from the USPTO POV

The USPTO issue their patents in exchange for dosh. Quite a lot of dosh. The more patents they issue, the more dosh they get. They have no liability if one of these patents is struck down. They aren't required to take any part in the defence of these patents in a court of law.

Now, if the USPTO _were_ made liable for bad patents, or had to co-defend the patent in the courts, that'd make them more careful with the issuing of them.

Maybe a compromise would be to require the USPTO to refund the fees for any patent they issued that was subsequently struck down.

Only then might they start doing the job we think they should be doing.

Men may be able to grow a new pancreas from their testicles

Let's just have this clear ...

You won't be growing a new pancreas from MY testicles.

Financial vice tightens on Wikileaks, hacktivistas retaliate

Hmm...

The BBC claim that Visa have blocked donations, TheReg says Mastercard, but the Datacell donations website still seems to be accepting both types.

Anyone would think there was some sort of conspiracy going on.

Google ends 'do be evil, if you want a top ranking' policy

Respek

This guy is the BOFH's eCommerce cousin.

Someone send a link to Mr Travaglia.

Me, myself and Eric: Google delays social network effort, says report

An Alternative Approach

An alternative and much cheaper approach for Google would be to simply relaunch Orkut with a new name. Just pretend it's a new product, and if the Brazilians and Indians say otherwise, tell them to hush and give them some free adword tokens.

Orkut. Sounds like the preliminary cough prior to a vomit. That's reason enough for non-adoption in most of the world.

Just rename it Google Hug or somesuch and Zuckerberg would start sweating. Even more.

US woman @theashes stumped by cricketing tweets

@theworldcup anybody?

Someone might like to check if the @theworldcup Twitter handle is still available.

Not me though. Not a footy fan.

Woman admits she helped sell bogus chips for military gear

Could've been worse

> When the company received complaints about the

> quality of the chips, the preferred response was

> to offer the customer replacements.

So, they were more customer-oriented than Dell then, eh?

Acoustic gunshot locators get UK military field trials

Retrospective

Could this perhaps be used on old police radio tape recording to finally finally decide if the shots came from the book repository or the grassy knoll, or both, or elsewhere.

Maybe we could have that Dallas chap from "Bang Goes the Theory" to use it. In Dallas. On Dealey Plaza. Sitting in a 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible.

Plastic plod used police database to find dates

You sure about that?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326619/Female-PCSO-trawled-police-records-check-potential-lovers.html

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

On the other hand, if she had unknowingly consorted with a ne'er-do-well, they probably would've fired her for that too.

What's a girl to do, eh?

Paris, coz she didn't do due diligence that one time.

Top Ten Retro PC Games

More to PC gaming than just FPS

While you were so busy shooting stuff, you missed Leisure Suite Larry and Myst.

This ex-Netware user was also rather fond of nsnipes. (Ooh, I've just found http://www.winsnipes.com/. I'll have to try that later.)

Microsoft holds Androids hostage in open source wars

Not even free-as-in-beer

> Apple has already set the price of an operating system at $0.00

WTF?! can see Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in the Apple Store listed at $29.00!

Oh, you meant iOS? How is that any more free-as-in-beer than other included-with-mobile-OS's like Android, Symbian or Windows 7 Phone 7 Mobile 7 OS?

Did ZeuS's daddy give hard Trojan love to rival cybercrook?

Facebook connection?

And no connection between these Russian trojan development businesses and mail.ru's share ownerships in Facebook and Zynga ... ?

Nah, of course not.

PARIS HAS LANDED!!! Epic supra-atmos flight ends

90,000 feet?

That'd be the stratosphere rather than space proper though, wouldn't it?

Well done all the same. And the acronym still works.

Sony UK fuels Christmas cheer with VAT back promo

Commerce Friendly

If this guvmint were more commerce friendly, they would have set the new VAT rate at 19.99% rather than 20%.

Osborne details painful cuts for UK

Loser.

I stopped reading at "loosing our data".

It's "losing" not "loosing", you loser

The Olympics?

The London Olympic Games in 2012 haven't been cancelled then?

Oh, super.

KeyCase iPad Folio Deluxe

The Obvious Solution

Surely the obvious solution would be to use a 2nd iPad with a full-screen touch keyboard displayed.

No worries about battery then, eh?

(You could also maybe use a 3rd iPad as a dedicated touchpad.)

Spanish netizens pursue urinating traffic cop

Can you identify foreign police officers??

Clouseau. Columbo. Kojak.

I could go on.

PC Gone Mad!

I can understand the penis pixelation, but doing the same on his face and his car's numberplate is hardly going help identify this piddling plod, is it?

Amazon Kindle 3 e-book reader

Swings and Roundabouts

Well, it's nice to see that the price of the Kindle has dropped, but I was shocked to see that prices of eBooks at Amazon are now mostly higher than their paperback (and often hardback) equivalents.

Of course, the olde Gutenberg-sourced eBooks are available for free, but is there really any excuse for delivering books electronically at a higher price than the paper versions? Apart from attempting to preserve the dead-tree-based business model?

Police charge 11 over Zeus cybercrime scam

Re-Read Yourself

> Might want to re-read the article. All the suspects were employed so NONE of

> them were claiming anything from the "public purse".

Might want to re-read the article yourself, where you will learn that FOUR (4) of the accused are listed as "unemployed".

Perhaps you might argue that they might nevertheless not be claiming anything from the "public purse" but given their alleged activities with the "private purse" it seems unlikely, or immaterial, doesn't it?

Baby Boomers committing suicide at unprecedented rates

Boom Boom

> Boomers are bizarre, as Westerners in the 40-59 age bracket (as the Boomers now are)

> hadn't previously tended to kill themselves a lot.

Once is usually enough.

No one needs Blu-ray, says Microsoft exec

"Who needs Microsoft?" asks World

Good luck holding on to that No.2* consoles sales spot, MS.

* In US and Australia. Already No.3 elsewhere.

World's first pedal-powered ornithopter takes flight in Canada

You mean, apart from the obvious?

Just stop scoffing pies and beer for 4 weeks and you'll probably be 18lb lighter.

You lardy git.

Intel slips anti-theft tech into hardware to deter thieves

Uh oh

> Machines that fail to log in for a specified period of time also get disabled.

Yes, I'm sure this technology won't get used to sting genuine owners for a reactivation code when they return from holiday, or pass on a temporarily unused computer to a relative or new owner.

Google sued by ex-iPhone location outfit

Do No ... Now What Was It Again?

Well, if these allegations prove to be true, I'm sure we can expect Andy Rubin to follow David Barksdale in being kicked out of the Googleplex.

Zuck buffs image ahead of Facebook movie

The Autism Scale

> the average Microsoftie placed somewhere on the autism scale.

Everyone places somewhere on the autism scale. Even if it's at zero.

OpenSolaris spork ready for download

Openin' Diana

Hmm, this name, and a logo including "Diana" entering (or exiting?) a grave ... is this part of some subliminal campaign by the Daily Express to get the late Princess of Wales exhumed?

Microsoft boss waves goodbye to biz division wonder kid

Could they make a worse choice?

Because if you really want to sort out your mobile phone strategy you REALLY don't want to go to Microsoft for help.

Spammers exploit another Facebook flaw

Follow the Money & Cut the Connection

The spam links (and spam emails) are not the problem. It's the people who buy stuff advertised from spam-linked websites that are the problem.

If it's illegal to feed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square (and it is) then it should also be illegal to buy stuff advertised by spam. Find these customers and ban them from the net.

Seriously. Enough with this shit.

Apple demonstrates how to do touchscreen desktops

Note to Broker

Buy shares in microfibre screen-cleaning cloth.

Attack reads smudges to retrieve Android password patterns

Not only, but also ...

Randomising the keyboard layout would be one step, but ideally I'd like to see the (randomised) keys also slowly floating around the screen at random.

It'd also be a nice solution to texting-whilst-drunk syndrome.

'Poo-powered' Volkswagen astounds world+dog

VIZ Jizz Whizz Biz

This is one small but important step towards achieving Mickey's Monkey Spunk Moped.

Saudi Arabia beats UAE to BlackBerry ban

Fruity Plurality

Isn't the plural of "Blackberry" "Blackberries" rather than "Blackberrys"?