Posts by Nick Galloway

Mozilla extends, and ends, Firefox support for Windows XP and Vista

XP still working well

Like so many others, having invested extensively in software and hardware compatible with Windows XP, I still run a desktop and laptop with the system in place. Neither machine connects to the internet. It works well with the last useful incarnation of Office (2003) before the ribbon made selections harder to find, along with various TV tuner cards and software. My desktop had the network card on the motherboard nobbled during a lightning storm but the rest of the rig runs smoothly. I even went to the extreme of swapping out the original E6750 CPU for a hacked Xeon L5430.

I saw the writing on the wall in terms of internet safety and have gone down the Linux path.

XP was the pinnacle, as far as I am concerned. Windows is trying to be just a little bit too clever and providing functionality no one asked for, wanted or actually benefits from. Linux has my vote from now on and I hope it grows in popularity.

Wind farms make you sick … with worry and envy

All winds created equal...?

We have to assume that all wind turbines operate at the same levels of rotation, emit the same frequency and volume of sound and that all the people in the affected area have the same degree of senstivity to infrasonic emissions. I seem to recall a farmer who had a lucrative arrangement with the power company who had to move out with his family and despite the financial loss, terminated the contract due to the health impact.

As has been noted, wind farms are demonstrably not the solution to reliable power. They are also not as carbon neutral thrtoughout their full lifecycle as atomic power. Let's look at Thorium fuelled nuclear power and stop the conversation.

I also have concern with the comment that there is no study that provides evidence of the claimed complaints being a physical manifestation. One could say the same about the demonstrable evidence to substantiate anthropogenic climate change. The IPCC have had billions of dollars and twenty years to get a result on that one, how much has been allocated (time & money) to the wind farm phenomenon???

Crucial question after asteroid near-miss: How big was rock in Olympic pools?

But how much does it weigh...

... in Rhinoceros'?

I thought the weight standard for really heavy stuff was now Rhinos, as per the weight of a Melbourne tram?

Wind now cheaper than coal in Oz: Bloomberg

Other impacts !?

Wind power can never address base load supply as the wind doesn't blow everywhere and all the time. Wind power also has a dark side in the generation of low frequency sound waves. These have caused the degradation of arable land due to worm populations in the soil diminishing/migrating and has had siginifcant health impacts on farmers, not to mention bird strike issues. If alternate sources of power are to be used then nuclear (including both Uranium and Thorium generation) coal seam gas and geothermal sources need to be prioritised above and beyond this fashionable infatuation with windmills.

I seem to recall a study that pointed out a wind turbine power source will never create enough green energy to offset the carbon emissions required for its production. Geothermal would win on that count.

Climate sceptic? You're probably a 'Birther', don't vaccinate your kids

What happened to scientific debate?

The climate is changing. The climate is really complex to the point the predictions made in modelling have been shown to be wide of the mark. So what is causing climate change cannot be accurately quantified. Therefore we are probably at a loss to influence the change. We just need to do what the human race has been doing throughout the millenia and adapt.

Just because I am a sceptic doesn't mean I am a conspiracy theorist.

This chappy shows how warped logic can become under the influence of the giddying heights of academia and the forces of preparing PhD theses.

Great article to keep those peddling their chicken little theories honest (and more than a little nervous).

Thank you El Reg for the alternate (and good humoured) perspective.

Google to axe IE 8 support, cuts off Windows XP lifeline

Goodbye Google...Hello Bing!

There are more search engines out there than just Google. I find Microsoft's Bing to provide some very nice results with an absence of ads. If Google wants to reduce its marketshare by being the bully boy then all I can do is vote with my finger(s) (nominally raised middle digit).

Still with XP as it does what I want to do and does it well. Why change for the sheer sake of it?

The incredible shrinking NAND: I'm MEELLLLTING

Transitional technology

So the practical limits of SSDs are defying Moore's law!?

SSDs might be nice a fast but I think I will persist with my spinning disks a little longer until the solid state technology matures and the interim 'solutions' are rationalised.

'Biocoal' fuels steam train comeback

Re: Efficiency on a par with diesel??

I seem to recall that a few chappies a little over a century ago demonstrated this 'new' highly efficient engine loosely described as an internal combustion engine. It was demonstrated to be significantly MORE efficient than steam (or external combustion) engines. It makes damned all difference as to the fuel (other than internal combustion engines don't tend to process chunks of coal all that well) as you will get better mileage with a litre of petrol in an internal combustion engine than with a steam type external combustion variety.

All this coming from the country that brought us the atomic age. Someone seems to have lost out on some fundamentals somewhere!?

Anonymous takes down Vatican website

Selling indulgences

I think you can still buy one, if you want!

You have to remember there are some boys in Sicily who are deeply religious but have a tendency to stray from the path. They have the money and don't mind giving it to a righteous guy!

Otherwise burning books and killing your enemies seems fairly standard practice for most regimes throughout history. Picking on the church is just a case of discrimination...

IT guy answers daughter's Facebook rant by shooting her laptop

Political aspirations?

This guy is wasted in IT. Let's get him elected in whatever country he so chooses. About time the hazards of Facebook were put on display and the social degradation it can cause. If you push the boundaries of social liberalism there will eventually be a conservative backlash. Get ready for some more of this as I suspect there is a silent majority support for the position this guy adopted.

Shed Xmas flab and debug code with treadmill laptop contraption

Bike fitting

Stick this on an exercise bike and hook the bike into a dynamo and that powers your laptop. No exercise, no computer time fat boy!

Afghan elders refuse to be labelled pimps by number 39

Alphanumeric?

Why not use a combination of alphabet and numbers to label each group A1 - A9, B1 - B9 and so on to avoid the problem. Alternately label all of them 39-1, 39-2, 39-3 ... and they can all be smeared with the taint of assisting men meeting with women in intimate environments!?

I think Afghanistan has a few more significant issues and is it possible those chosen for group 39 were carefully selected!?

Compact Disc death foretold for 2012

Back up?

And when we want to back up our music files we put it all on a networked or external hard drive and some form of optical media, possibly even a CD!

The CD being dead is about as convincing as the PC being dead and that toilets are soon to be eliminated from all new house designs. If the studios kill the CD format then they are sillier than I would have given them credit.

Manufacturers testing wider cars for swingbellies

Hummer

Exactly what the Hummer was/is all about. Massive car/truck with only four seats. If a wobble bottom needs more space they make themselves patently obvious by being ferried about in a Hummer. As for th growth of car sizes, take a look at an original Mini alongside the modern Mini. One is a small car the other is not.

Make wobble bottoms get out an walk otherwise trhe car manufacturers should reinforce the roof racks!

Whinging Brits reflect on epic Oz road trip

Small iPad???

The offensive picture of the iPad on the last page would indicate that you guys have a special edition of a small format iPad or that beer glass is a little larger than your average pint. Either that or the camera you were using suffers some severe distortion at the periphery.

Things in Oz are bigger than most and the beers are similarly copious, only in the interests of keeping cool, of course!

Kids! You get back in front of that Xbox right now

Logic anyone

Creativity is a nice attribute but how about logic, analytical thinking, disciplioned. The 60's was full of creative types, they were known collectively as 'hippies'. They painted VW camper vans in house paint, took mind altering drugs, shagged their way around and were critical of anything the 'conventional' world was doing. Creativity is great but it needs a few other attributes to be socially or communally beneficial.

Now where is a that DOS boot disk with DOOM installed...?

Bill Gates drops $1m on laser-based malaria fighter

Power?

To my understanding these are the same parts of the world that have either no or no reliable electrical sources. A laser wall without power is not much point.

The solution to the African disease problems lies in the reduction of corruption and the increase of individual wealth. The technology is interesting but only a temporary patch to a permanent solution.

Yamaha RX-V471 5.1 AV receiver

Radio

I may be nit picking here but this great unit makes no allowances for digital radio?

Is digital radio going to be no more than a fad and we all stick to the tried and tested analogue transmissions or did I miss something?

I still want one!!!

Details of all internet traffic should be logged – MEP

Privacy laws???

I would love to see how this fits with privacy laws and more interestingly how quickly the civil libertarians will react. It won't work because even with the best will in the world someone will hack it and 'adjust' the data to make sure there is a swathe or incriminating evidence to condemn the entirety of the European parliament. Maybe the Chinese will do it as a way to get control in that arena, or more than they already have!?

We like zombies… because we are zombies

Teenagers???

If you have had prolonged exposure to teenagers, video game addicts, mobile phone addicts, iPod addicts you will have almsot certainly witnessed zombie like behaviour. Some of them come to a zombie like nasty end by being run over by some for of vehicle while others remain enslaved by the glow of a computer monitor.

The reality is we like zombies because it probably reminds us of our own adolescence.

OpenBSD 5.0 reveals MAD-themed release

Apple Mac?

Isn't OS X largely built on the back of BSD. THat might throw a cat among the pigeons. Perhaps that is why they have chosen the Mad theme as perhaps that is what Apple will become following this release!?

WikiLeaks on verge of financial collapse, founder says

Kicking in the door

When you have the habit of blowing the doors open, you should not be surprised when others put bomb proof doors up and keep you locked out of their systems. Assange is very handy with a whip but complains when someone turns up with a gun (I am thinking Indiana Jones here).

If he is so dedicated to the cause perhaps he might go out and get a real job to fund his personal crusade. Otherwise he needs to find a new hobby like carving his initials on a Swedish prison wall...!

Which actor should play Steve in upcoming biopic?

Heath Ledger

They both have something in common...

Pay Jobs due respect - by crushing the empire he created

Billy Gates

He didn't settle, the buying public did by accepting the product he turned out. Don't blame the seller if the buyer is fool enough to part with his money. There are a lot of Microsoft 'fools' in the world if your observation is correct!?

To think different(ly)

...you must first think!

Harley Davidson are still using the same technology the automotive industry developed in the early part of the last century. Morgan has changed little, Stanley knives are little changed, Swiss army knives are much as they have been, Aga stoves are almost as they were from the outset. They all sell in massive numbers as some products are 'lifestyle' products and I would not hesitate to group many Apple products into that category.

You buy a Big Mac and you know what you are going to get. Apple is very much in that category of a consistency at a price point that the market will bear.

It is the buying public who have been sold the idea that they are being 'different' by buying an Apple product, when in fact they are moving with the crowd of others who are also different in the same way.

I am still using DOS so what the hell do I know!

Brit boffins' bendy bamboo bike breakthrough

Wood, its been done

A bunch of northern Italians at the end of the second world war who were ski makers saw a market when steel was in shoprt supply after the war. They made a bike from wood using ski laminate forms that by all accounts worked very well and I understand there are still a few of them in working condition.

As for the eco-friendliness of bamboo, no one mentions it is considered a weed by a great many gardeners because it absolutely strips the nutrients out of the soil. Quick way to make a desert from otherwise fertile soil. Leave it to the pandas to mow down!

I am being ecofriendly by riding a bike that is about 25+ years old and cost about 40 quid at an auction. Goes like the clappers and gets me to where I want to go.

This Dianamania is a slur on Jobs

What about Woz?

It seems that the 'other' Steve (Wozniak) gets left out of the Apple picture. Without Woz, and Turing, and Whitworth and the team that invented the transistor and a few others BEFORE Jobs, there would not be this consumer giant called Apple. I agree wjholeheartedly with the article, Jobs did some good things in the computer industry but it is not and was not world making.

Jobs on a peprsonal level also was subject to human vulnerability and did some unpleasant things to a few others. He shouldn't be pilloried for those weaknesses but he isn't the messiah. Remember him as you will but he could be likened to Howard Hughes as an off beat visionary entrepreneur.

Aussie fans of old BBC fodder get paid iPlayer offering

Radio programming included?

The Goon Shows are still being played on the ABC and to have access to all that material on demand would be worth paying for.

Boffins step closer to steam-powered Babbage computer

programming & maintenance?

So who will qualify as the new Miss Lovelace & Mr Whitworth?

How gizmo maker's hack outflanked copyright trolls

When all else fails...

If the big boys pull out their razors to intimidate this guy, I would recommend he gives the technology away, allowing every man and his dog to really keep the legal eagles busy!

I am still stuck on DVDs so it really doesn'y impact me, I would just like to see the innovator stick one to the megaliths of creative suppression.

Apple plan to rate shops etc by number of iPhones visiting

Minority report...

It reminds me of 1984 and Brave New World. Only in this case it involves the population actually shelling out some of their hard earned to voluntarily/unwittingly participate in this tracking operation. I think this type of activity could well be used by Nokia as a reason NOT to buy a Jesus phone.

Suddenly the Nokia/Microsoft deal has a whole lot more appeal.

One wonders if Apple are sponsored by any of the intelligence agencies?

The real defect in the plan is that the data indicates attendance, not the user experience. The system should track how many return visits, which would involve the possibility of privacy violations. 1984 here we come!

Satellite gives better picture of solar flares' effects on Earth

Sun drives weather

Without the sun and planetary rotation we wouldn't have the weather that we do. If there is variation in the suns activity we have variations in our weather. Minor variations in atmospheric CO2 has significantly less influence.

The climate is changing, it does that. Don't try to stop it as that isn't going to work. Just get ready for the change as that is an inevitability!

Painters wrap Forth Bridge job after 121 years

A good X-ing the Y

Why not revert to 'like the labours of Sisyphus' and be done with it?

Otherwise you could make it less cerebral and use 'like licking your own elbow'.

HP Pre 3 webOS smartphone

Name change

Perhaps they could re-release this handset and call it the 'eulogy'?

Boffin melds quantum processor with quantum RAM

Build one

And then work out cold fusion. THen we could run the computer cheaply and get some mad frame rates from some seriously realistic games.

The computers improve, the users do not. Quantum processing websurfing and solitaire!

I still want these guys to build it to the point where we can all use them.

Good luck

Hey, Music Industry. You're suing the wrong people

Richard Branson

Look how the Virgin man made his first money. Selling vinyl at a lower cost in simpler packaging. All legit and he has done quite well since...

I would like to know how the film industry justifies the DVD/BluRay zoning system for their products. If that doesn't have a certain moral defect and the ability to discriminate pricing mechanisms for different countries, then I don't know waht does. Sounds similar to the root cause of the original Bosotn Tea Party.

Then again American foreign policy is a demonstration that historical learning is not a strong trait in that part of the world!

Range Rover Evoque Si4

Homogenous

The styling seems a step into the mainstream industry design. Land Rovers are about being chunky, robust, flexible and getting you to your destination irrespective of the environment. They are supposed to have a bullet proof reputation. This one looks like it has a skirt with matching hand bag accessories. Bring back a retro version than can be dismantled in the field with the included tool kit.

Google lands patent for, um, estimating shipment time

Emigrate to the US...

... and patent a chair. I think I could probably make a lot of money claiming compensation from all those people out there infriginging on my 'idea'.

I thought the UN and the Olympic committee were losing relevance but the USPTO really has entered a whole new world of fantasy that makes the other look very muc in touch with the real world!

Isolated human genes can be patented, US court rules

Beautiful idea

Again a case of greed being supported by the greater greed of lawyers. Irrespective of whichever way it goes, the lawyers win. So begins the fall of another once great empire...

Rogue kangaroo floors broom-wielding 94-year-old

Invaders beware

This shows why the Australian military doesn't need all of its smart weaponry as the mix of local inhabitants and the wildlife are enough to create havoc for a ground force invasion. I wonder if Gaddafi has been importing Kangaroos and Australian pensioners???

'There's too much climate change denial on the BBC'

Recurring history

I think Mr Jones is not too far wrong when he speaks of journalists being lazy, el Reg being the exception!

The media is more attentive to reporting rather than journalism and journalists are supposed to be sceptical or least challenge the material they receive. I wonder what the position would have been had the braodcaster been established at the time of Galileo. I suppose he would have been classified an Aristotelean sceptic and simply wrong. The accepted knowledge was the sun went around the earth and that was that!

Debate is not balanced and generally those providing challenge to the accepted wisdom require more time to illustrate their point. I thought democracy was all about allowing people to have a voice, in much the same way the trade unions seem to get a greater amount of air time than business leaders.

Make reporters into journalists and don't try to stop climate change, just get ready for it!

iPhone plunges 13,500 ft from skydiver's pocket - and lives

Was is the ground height?

So 13,500 feet!?

I assume this is above mean sea level and if so, what is the hight of the ground above mean sea level, not to mention it fell at some point in the downward transit. The bloke should be charged for endangering those on the ground (as noted by others, what if someone had been struck by the falling lump of Apple)!

I must note that only in the USA would someone brag about being a complete pillock!

Why do you want or need a mobile phone during a sky dive event. Some people are truly addicted to their technology 'toys'. It will be idiots wil falling iPads next, you mark my words!

CERN 'gags' physicists in cosmic ray climate experiment

The politics of science!

Just when we all thought the Church was backward when they 'suppressed' the observations of Copernicus and Galileo. It seems the IPCC is the new Religion and continues in the excellent tradition of those who would challenge their version of the Truth.

Pollution of the planet is wrong, agreed.

Climate changes, and always will.

Carbon dioxide is essential to life on the planet.

The IPCC have assisted in the creation of a new commodity and the world is now trading quite literally in thin air. Chicken little must be laughing his little socks off!!!

No one expects the Spanish inquisition, least of all in the scientific community in this day and age. So much for progress!?

Wallabies battle cattle farts

Wallaby farming

Rather than bugger about getting cows and sheep to stop being 'heavy polluters', let's just farm and eat wallabies!

Otherwise let's just get real and tell the chicken little's in the climate change lobby that the sky isn't falling and getting a cow to hold its breath is not going to solve or change anything. As an aside, decaying vegetation in fields generates methane and other greenhouse gases. Starvation here we come!

Draw and fold working circuitry with the silver-ink pen

Terror tool

So you are telling me that the Taliban and Al Qaeda can now make really high tech explosive devices using this fabulous little pen and empty toilet roll inners during the flight from here to who knows where. Yet another thing we won't be allowed to travel with in hand luggage!?

Apple quietly Trims MacBook Air SSDs

Short hair cut?

What happens if this feature decides to trim a file or block that you want having archived it but not used it. Apple has had a few 'features' before with powerful deletion capability!?

Mink coat thief conceals booty down knickers

Can't find a coat

Did the police continue their search?

If this 'lady' can hide a mink coat for three days then what else has she got tucked away?

Lost pygmy tribes!?

Fiat 500 TwinAir

Souped up sound

This car sounds great but as an option pack could Fiat supply a 90°C crank so it can sound like a hot V-twin, along the lines of a ucati or Moto Guzzi, which happen to have engines in this displacement capacity. Understandably the bikes have slightly better 0 - 60 times given the much lower weight.

I don't care, I want one!

IP firm claims ownership of DVD video-menus

Taken to cleaners

I hope this lot of opportunistic money grubbers take it to court, the judge tells them off for wasting time and for being opportunistic and hits them with a truly massive legal bill for trying to be a bit clever with the law. Bring back the stocks in town squares so rotten fruit and veg can be thrown at people like this!

Linutop feeds mini-PC fans tiny Tux box

So much for so little

Someone is having a laugh at that price. I was thinking of picking up such a device based on the description, then saw the price!

How about someone takes one apart just to see if there is a nice easy way to upgrade the storage and posibly RAM.

Nice try, beter luck next time!!!