Posts by Morely Dotes

Court finds Qualcomm guilty of standards abuse

This is how it's done:

"How is it a certain large software company can patent a very popular "standard" filesystem format some 20 years after it was created??"

Well, there are two simple methods:

1) Submit the patent to an overloaded USPTO which routinely grants *all* patents submitted by Blue Chip companies, or

2) Bribe the patent examiner to grant a patent for something which has well-known and very old prior art.

I suspect MS simply chose route #1, as #2 would have cost them a few more pennies.

USAF seeks control of aerial kill-bots

All this wrangling is pointless

Historically, what happens is that the "old boys" decide how to divide the pie during (relatively) peaceful times. Then the balloon goes up, the old boys are demonstrated to be useless relics, and the young bloods change things to an approach that works. Whichever side makes the change faster and more effectively wins the war.

So, I say, give the USAF control of all the 3500ft+ aircraft they like. The Army will be using low-altitude drones in ground-support roles anyhow, and the Air Force will be crying about how many aircraft they've lost to enemy ground-to-air missiles, instead of actually providing effective support.

In Nam, it was the Navy who provided *effective* bombing of the North, and it was the Army who provided *effective* aerial troop support. All the Air Force ever did was drive the bus between Saigon and The World.

Boffins flick Quantum vacuum switch from suck to blow

Thanks for an interesting and informative article

I can see the obvious IT angle, as well; if I could get frictionless sleeve bearings on my CPU cooler fans, I wouldn't have to replace them every few years.

Mega-planet spotted orbiting fading star

How about a serious theory?

The major problem facing us here on Earth is a shortage of clean energy. If we could put something 121,536 km in radius into orbit around the Sun at roughly 7.2 million km distance, the sunlight falling on its surface would be able to generate more than 100 times the energy per square meter than reaches Earth, or about 46,395,708,788,736,000 HP, give or take a few million. Even with only a 5% efficiency, that's still 2,319,785,439,436,800 HP, or 1,730,559,937,819,852,800 watts. You could really light up a few pubs with that.

Now, if we assume an intelligence capable of making a flat or concave disk of that size, it is reasonable to further assume they've got the technology to keep it flat-side to their own star, and to beam the collected energy to pretty much wherever they need it within their own planetary system. We can further guess that most of their heavy industry is in space, and not polluting the surface of their home planet, since they have obviously solved the "beanstalk" problem

A dense, circular metal plate could easily appear to be a less-dense sphere if you're expecting to see a sphere. This *might* be evidence of a distant civilization.

Or it might be the plate of birth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Google to rescue Linux from Microsoft lawyers

Put up or shut up, Microsoft!

If MS is allowed to claim that Linux "violates" 235 patents that MS owns, without disclosing what those patents are, then there's no good reason any other company - say, Novell, or Sun - shouldn't claim that Microsoft violates *their* patents.

In fact, there's no reason (other than that I don't have any) *I* shouldn't claim that Microsoft products violate 312 software patents which I own.

Of course, there's no reason on Earth that anyone with two functioning neurons would ever allow software to be patented in the first place. But that aside, Microsoft is lying. They know it, we know it, everyone knows it.

Governator vows to appeal ruling striking down video game law

A better idea

Send the Department of Family Services to take children away from parents who are accused of violating the basic tenets of the Southern Baptist Church.

Which is what Ah-nuld and his Reprehensican cronies really want, anyway.

When I was about 5 or 6, people like Jack Thompson claimed that toy guns would cause cause children to grow up with violent tendencies. Oddly, outside of my military service, I have never owned a real gun, nor committed any more serious crime than minor traffic infractions. My parents taught me that fantasy and reality are different. Steroids won't change that, and neither will video games.

I would venture that, 300 years ago, people like Jack Thompson put forth the theory that children who were allowed to play with toy bows and wooden swords would grow up to become treasonous rebels living in the forest of Sherwood and waylaying innocent noblemen. Apparently, there were very few such highwaymen; go figure!

Sarcasm aside, if the parents are doing their jobs, the kids will not be any more (nor less) violent than they would be otherwise. If the parents are *not* doing their jobs, the kids will get the games they want, they will get the condoms, birth-control pills, alcohol, "recreational" drugs, and so on - and won't really have any grasp on why they shouldn't do such things.

So, to Der Governator, I say: Get your own house in order, brother, before you stick your nose into my bedroom and my child-rearing pratices. You're likely to pull back a face without a nose.

Orange dismantles Bristol Tower of Doom

It's RADAR, idiot!

"why are high powered Airport Microwave Radar Transmitters are deliberately angled above the surrounding horizon on high towers with the absolute minimum power lobes sweeping ground level"

Because, you moron, microwave radiation at the power levels used for RADAR can cook unprotected flesh. Or perhaps you thought the magin ingredient in a *MICROWAVE* oven was phlogiston?

Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster in Heaven, please, please, PLEASE accelerate the rate of Darwinism in the human species!

@ andy gibson

"If mobile phone masts are so safe why are there loads of radiation warning signs around them?"

Because unscrupulous lawyers (sorry for the redundant phrase) will convince stupid/ignorant/greedy people to sue the owner/operator of the tower if they don't have signs posted all about warning people not to stand nearby, climb the tower and then jump off, or take the tower internally, you twat.

This comment is entirely my own opinion, and in no way does it imply that _El_Reg_ endorses my statement, nor that _El_Reg_ thigks "andy gibson" is a twat, even though he can't find the "Shift" key nor employ critical thinking skills.

Lenovo to ship Linux laptops

@ Jason Rivers: I know a little

Try this, then:

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

Please note that I am not in any way affiliated with Dell nor Ubuntu, except as a user of both. I agree, the OS ought to be offered across the full range - but that Inspiron 1420 looks sweet for the price.

Sun releases world's fastest chip - at 1.4GHz

Yummy!

"Niagara II does bring some fancier features. For one, Sun has included an on-chip 10GbE NIC. In addition, you'll find eight crypto acceleration units and eight lanes of PCI Express I/O, along with four memory controllers."

SPEC or no SPEC, this is one fast chip. There's enough beef on that chip to eliminate most of the bottlenecks in PowerPC and Intel systems right away - double the clock speed on a P4, for example, and you'll see a 10% to 20% overall speed increase. Double it on Niagra II and (aside from the puff of very expensive smoke, you should see at least a 40% speed increase.

Someone hand me a towel, I'm drooling!

Offender tagging beaten by skyscrapers

Silly buggers: You're coddling criminals

Don't put them in prison, don't tag them, don't bother with them. Strip them naked, give them clothing of the sort typically worn in rural Mongolia, and then fly over to Mongolia and leave them there. No money, no ID, nothing but the clothes on their backs.

And if you're really miffed at them, call up the Chinese embassy (anonymously, of course) and give them a description of a British (or Russian) spy you've heard of who just entered Mongolia illegally.

Who knows? In 200 years, Mongolia may be a strong British ally. It worked for Australia!

Trade in your software, urges UK reseller

THINK, people! I know it';s painful, but you can get used to it!

If you refuse to pay for "software licenses," and only use free open-source software; or only accept "software licenses" which do NOT restrict your right to transfer the software and license, then no one will be able to dictate to you the terms under which you MUST do business.

Do you really WANT your business to be at the mercy of Steve Ballmer's whims? If so, please, keep on using Microsoft products. Just don't come whining to anyone else when Microsoft decides unilaterally (as you HAVE agreed to allow them to do, if you use Windows Vista or MS Office 2007) to disable your OS or office suite (or both). Oh, you *might* prevail in court - after the damage is done. But that's far from certain - and you will be out of business, in any case, won't you?

Bloody sheep.

US govt password security still dismal

RFID is the answer

Since the IRS employees can't be trusted with simple password-based security, it's time to inject them with RFID chips. Then all they have to do is plant themselves with range of their workstations, and the computer will recognize the chip and grant them access (as long as they are in range).

Now, for normal citizens, this is a very lightly-invasive procedure, since the chips are almost microscopic in size. However, this is a government operation, and therefor Milspec chips will be required. As everyone knows, Milspec chips are 10 times as large (and 100 times as expensive) as ordinary chips, so the implant procedure is going to be somewhat uncomfortable. To minimize the discomfort, the chips should be inserted into the buttocks. Security requires a good, deep implant - snuggled right up to the pelvis, I should think.

And, to ensure good security, the chips (which are now acting as the employee's "password") must be removed and replaced with new chips every 90 days. Sorry, that's just policy; we can't change it for just one government agency, now, can we?

iPhone's keyboard prompts patent violation suit

A Modest Proposal

(with apologies to the originator of the title)

Perhaps it's time for Apple to sue the US Government Patent Office for willful or negligent granting of a patent for which prior art exists, and for violating the regulations which call for a patentable invention to be non-obvious.

Damages should be three times the amount collected by the USPTO during the period from the demonstration of the prior art until the settling of the case.

Nokia calls Microsoft for DRM software

Good-bye, Nokia

"Nokia is to incorporate Microsoft's DRM software"

Let's see, now. That's Nokia, Sony, the BBC... Who else wants to be on our Corporate "unsuitable vendors" list?

(Sony's there for the rootkit CD trick, in case anyone's wondering.)

Congress approves six-month blanket wiretap warrant

23 years later...

Now we're discovering (e.g., we're finding proof) that George Orwell was an excellent prognosticator.

More's the pity.

NASA nuke-bot to tackle space boulders of doom

@ Dillon Pyron

One word: Clones.

AK47: the open-source weapon that took the world by storm

Well, actually...

@ Stu Reeves: "One slight error in your anology, 5-95 yr olds could pick up an AK and get it working in seconds. Can the same be said of Linux?"

Assuming they know how to put a CD in the CD-ROM drive, yes: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/WhatIsUbuntu/desktopedition

Nothing has to be installed, a KDE version is available (KDE is the "MS Windows-lokking" Linux desktop), and they'll send you the CDs for free, so you don't even need to know how to burn a CD yourself.

Now, Stu... Do you know how to put the 7.62mm rounds into the AK's magazine, and load that into the rifle?

Free Wi-Fi aims to snag Mondeo man

So we can conclude...

"Distinctive rear lamps also feature carefully designed graphics that enhance the overall feeling of premium quality."

Thus one is led to understand that the rear lamps on all of Ford's other products are nondescript, and graphically haphazard.

Or is that not what they were trying to say?

Brian May going for astronomy PhD

And you did what, again?

@ Bert Ragnarok: Oddly, I can't recall the title of a single work published under your name in either the musical field *or* scientific endeavours.

Could it be that you're just a wanker who's jealous of those who are either creative or intelligent?

I suspect "Fat Bottomed Girls" will live on long after "Bert Ragnarok" has crumbled to dust and is forgotten by everyone except the landlords he's stiffed by becoming a stiff.

Google builds own phone

The Google Phone name

Let's see...

Well, firstly, if it doesn't do voice dialing, it's crap. Does the iPhone do voice dialing? No. It's a $600 turd.

Now, this one: Will it be the gPhone? The GooMoPhone? The GooPhone? How about the GummiPhone? Or, since it's ad-supported, the GadPhone?

False positives run amok in Vista anti-virus tests

"False" postive? Mai non, m'sieur!

"Trend Micro submitted three of its anti-virus products, all of which falsely identified a Microsoft development tool as spyware.

That's clearly *NOT* a false positive. It's completely accurate. It's a Microsoft product that was identified; ergo, it *is* malicious software.

Judge ruled against NSA surveillance in US

National Anthem for the New Fatherland

Texas, Texas, uber alles.

Uber alles in der Welt...

So we have a convicted drunk driver in the White House, with a well-known lying sack of garbage running the "Justice" Department, and they are afraid that somehow the American people are going to object to Government spying on their every smallest activity? How un-American of those people! Don't they realize that by refusing to support the Schutzstaffel, er, NSA in its efforts to uncover terrorists who are posing as peaceful citizens, they may be allowing dangerous plots to topple the Republican Party to go uncovered? And, as we all know, what's good for the Party is good for Texas! I mean, for America!

Second Life will dwarf the web in ten years

Second Life: For Those Who Don't Have a First Life?

"Looking around at recent negative stories, and comments, most seem to fall into 'it's got crap graphics', 'there's nothing to do' (that is as a game it doesn't cut it), 'it's not organised' and the like, which I think is missing the point by concentrating on the technology. None of the many people I know who stay in SL are there because of the technology, SL hooks because it's a shared social space."

You poor, sad, bastard. If that's your idea of "social," you ought to seriously consider suicide. Darwinists would surely approve.

Bollocks, Mister Rosedal! Bollocks, I say!

"Within ten years, virtual worlds will be bigger than the Web itself. So says Philip Rosedale, the man who invented Second Life."

If it's as slow, with graphics as absolutely crappy as Second Life, Rosedale and a few sad wankers who can't afford the $15/month to play World of Warcraft will be the only people accessing his virtual worlds.

My "games" PC is adequate to run World of Warcraft at the top of all settings with frame rates better than 22 even in the "laggiest" zones, and usually somewhere in the 40 to 60 fps range. Running Second Life, I was feeling lucky when I got 7 fps in an area where there was, literally, nothing but me. Most places I pulled 3 or 4 fps.

If the software is that bad, why would anyone want it? Even if it's free, no one wants to spend their time on crapware.

Google: Kill all the patent trolls

I have applied for a patent on the word "the"

@ Jeremy Anderson: "Inside, there were 7 people who were sweating bullets every day trying to sell software. Unfortunately, we had larger, better armed, and better funded opponents and were playing in a hostile and very conservative market."

If it was *software* that was patented, then the company deserved to lose in the marketplace.

Software is already protected by copyright and by the DMCA (in fact, far *too* protected by the DMCA). Allowing a software algorithm - which is, if it's used for business, a business process - to be patented is simply proof that the Patent Office has no understanding of what software actually is.

'Ads-funded' Microsoft Works pilot barges onto your PC this year

Stealing our personal data wasn't enough?

Now Steve Ballmer wants to steal our time, our bandwidth, and our eyeballs?

Anyone wanting a Microsoft Office work-alike package should check out _Computerworld_ http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=software&articleId=9027698&taxonomyId=18&intsrc=kc_feat

Don't pay more than you have to - packages range from *free* on up. *NONE* of them tried to force-feed advertising to their users.

Petrol latte for Kiwis in dairy biofuel push

Nuclear Rocket Science and the Intellectually Under-endowed

@ Joshua: "Compare with other countries' approach to dealing with their radioactive waste - basically sweep it under the carpet for a future generation to deal with."

What would you do with it, then? Do you know some magical formula for reducing the half-life of unstable isotopes to a number comprehensible to the average citizen? Or do you prefer to freeze in the dark after the coal and oil run out?

Bloody Luddites. Ought to be used for biomass fuel...

Could live P2P video be the antidote to YouTube dross?

Windows codecs on non-Windows systems

"Like iPlayer, Selfcast uses the Windows Media codec, so Mac and open source fanciers are in the cold until Microsoft sorts out its Silverlight cross-platform browser plug-in."

Well, actually, the Windows codecs do work in Linux, ergo, probably work in Mac OSX, if you just know how to install them. Legality may be an issue; I'm not a landshark, so I don't know.

http://pimpyourlinux.com/linux-feature-review/linux-movie-codecs-and-dvd-experience/

Music pirate convicted in Led Zep bootleg case

Missed opportunities

@ Will Leamon: "Disney doesn't provide Mickey Mouse porn either so why shouldn't I be allowed to make it and distribute it. If they aren't going to offer it why shouldn't I?"

Are you any good at it, Will? There's a huge market for the stuff. Seriously.

Eminem sues Apple - again

Easy solution

Remove all of Eminem's music from iTunes - and add a boit to automatically delete any reference to Eminem and his label(s) from user comments, etc.

I use the term "music" loosely, of course. It's analogous to calling fecal matter "food."

McKinnon earns Lords appeal

View from a US citizen

McKinnon should be tried in the UK, and, if found guilty, should serve his sentence in the UK.

For at least the past seven years, the US has a human rights record somewehre between that of Communist China and Darfur. I don't trust my own Government to follow the law when US citizens are involved - why would anyone trust them when a non-citizen is accused?

Besides, if McKinnon goes to jail, someone's tax money will be supporting his jail term. Economically, it makes no sense for the US to throw more money down the rathole.

Worm eats music on infected PCs

Wet work? Nah, too messy. We'll just kill their finances

@ Dillon Pyron: "Contract job? We already know that some Vx'ers do work on spec for various criminal elements."

And by "criminal" one assumes you mean "record companies who take 97% or more of the sales and pocket it, before passing anything on to the artists - when they bother to pass on anything at all."

Boffins trial cheap landmine sniff-tech

Monkeys, Mines, and Mental Midgets

"Morocco has offered 2,000 monkeys to help detonate land mines.

An official at the Moroccan Embassy could not confirm the presence of monkeys in the coalition of the willing. "

Clearly, the White House should accept Morocco's generous offer. After all, if one chimp in the Administration is good, it should be blindingly obvious that an additional 2,000 monkeys would be better.

OSI Prez confronts irate users over 'badgerware' license

Badgers? Badgers?!?

We don't need no steenking badgers!

More to the point: WTF is a badgeware (or "attribution style") license? What is the license issuer required to do to qualifiy? What obligations are conferred upon the licensees?

The GPL (pick a version), for example, obliges the license issuer to make source code available, and the licensees are free to modify and distribute the code. How does your putative "badgerware" license differ?

US denies entry to security researcher

Stupidity is not a foreign policy!

@ Phillip Williams: 'Does the expression "own goal" have meaning in the USofA???'

Sounds like a soccer (you'd call it football, but our football is more like rugby for girls) term. Over here, we refer to it as "shooting one's self in the foot."

So we've got about 17 more months of President Dumfuk; here's hoping the oligarchy chooses a smarter front man next time.

Reader succumbs to apostrophe apoplexy

Tits or Tit's?

This hardly qualifies for FOTW.

Twats, criticizing a minor punctuation mishap. Now, let one of the El Reg hacks confuse "losers" with "loosers" and I'll show you some flames!

Intel responds to EU's anti-trust statement

Apparently I'm not reading the same article everyone else is

@ Brett Brennan: "Points one and three seem to me a bit out of line on the EC's part. It is not uncommon for companies to negotiate with a single supplier for a part or set of parts in order to minimize their costs for inventory."

Common or not, it's *unlawful* for a supplier in a dominant position (e.g., with more than a third of the total market share) to sell their current product below cost as an inducement to avoid another supplier's product.

@ Don Mitchell: "Intel got off with a light slap on the wrist, while Microsoft got raked over the coal."

Excuse me? The original judgment handed down in the Microsoft case was a breakup of the company; the Bush Administration maneuvered behind the scenes to have that sentence commuted to simply a fine which was pocket change to Microsoft, and an order that the behave lawfully in the future.

I do agree that an unregulated monopoly - such as Microsoft, Intel, or the current state of telephone companies in the USA - is a bad thing. Competition is good for the consumer, and good for innovation.

Windows Vista unreadiness revealed

The single app that Microsoft can't seem to write

MS wants my employer to "upgrade" all our existing Windows servers to the latest version (Windows Server 2003? Whatever it may be).

The so-called upgrade process is painful, error-prone, and dangerous to business-critical data and applications. Why? Because Microsoft has not developed nor deployed a simple migration application, such that I can:

1. Build (re: buy from Dell) a new server with the latest Windows Server version pre-installed.

2. Run the migration app on the new and old servers, tell them to talk to each other, and migrate my applications, data, and settings from the old server to the new server.

In order for this to work, the new server would have to be named to match the old server and added to the domain; and, of course, the old server would have to be renamed (perhaps to $servername.old) nad probably need a new IP address, since the existing IP should be assigned to the new server.

I can do all this easily on Linux. Why can't Microsoft steal, er, "innovate" this too?

The terrorists I party with

@ Not Needed

"these articles have no place on The Register."

Then vote with your virtual feet. Go read the Faux News Web site, and fill your head with more Bush propaganda.

I read El Reg *because* it covers more than just the latest Press releases abotu the iPhone and so forth.

The few "bad journalism" examples cited are just that - examples. And they are *typical* examples. How many thousands of pages do you want? There are plenty of them at the site I mentioned above - Fox news DOT com is entirely crap about pop stars, and Administration FUD with a faux journalist's name on the byline.

As an American, and a retired Army Veteran (20 years active duty, 3 years Reserves, and 11 of the active years in the Mech Infantry), I love my country. I hate and fear my nation's current government, however. Stalin was a ham-handed clown compared to Bush.

BBC iPlayer launches, but with limited viewer reach

@ Ross Fleming

"half the shareholders (licence payers) would go nuts if they found out <insert any country name here> could watch content we'd paid for, so I would guess the DRM debate wouldn't come up for a while - if ever!"

They should be incensed, then. The new Doctor Who is readily available via numerous torrent sites, along with Eastenders (God knows why, but there you are) and thousands of hours of other BBS fodder. Not a bit of DRM in any of it.

The only thing this "iPlayer" (does the "i" stand for "idiot?") will do is make it possible for complete technological morons to watch the Beeb on their PCs, while automatically and surrepticiously reporting back to Microsoft that they are doing so.

I can guarantee that the Technology Users' Rights Denial System in use (the acronym for that is more honest than "DRM") will be cracked within hours - if it isn't already - and the new content will be available from the usual torrent seeders.

Virgin pulls the plug on mobile video

Who cares?

Mobile video, as implemented by all player so far, is a bit less useful than the human appendix.

If the picture were scalable, so that it looked good on a screen large enough to be seen by a normal human being (vs. Superman's microscopic vision power), then I might possibly consider it for use - with my laptop. Nothing smaller.

BBC Trust backs calls for Linux iPlayer

This whole thing is actually funny

In a black comedy sort of way.

I use Windows XP, Windows Vista (because I am forced to do so at the day job), and several different distros of Linux.

When I want to get some work accomplished, I use Linux. When I am playing games - or ripping "DRM"* encumbered content to unencrypted, unprotected content - I use Windows. Later on I may play that ripped content on one of my Linux systems.

* - "Digital Rights Management" is a Marketing falsehood. It's actually "Technology User's Rights Denial System," also known as "TURDS."

Google in crusade against neckties

Would Osama wear a suit and tie?

Of course not! Ozzie bin Laden wears ultra-reactionary Muslim robes, and a French bistro tablecloth on his head, and yet he's the CEO of a world-girdling terrorist organization which has G. W. Bush soiling his diaper.

Proof that you don't need a suit and tie to exercise supreme executive power!

Western Digital channel in a spin over new green HDD

RPM is irrelevant

Seriously. How many RPM do you expect from a FlashRAM drive, for example?

Tell me the average and maximum latency (aka "access speed") and the average and minimum transfer rate (both the reading speed and the writing speed, please. then I will have all the numbers I need to determine if HDD "A" is below, equal, or superior to HDD "B" for data storage uses. Also I want the MTBF; if I have to replace the drive every 2 years on average, vs. every 4 years for another brand, I need to know that.

If you want to tell me the average, maximum, and minimum power consumption as well, that will be nice (and tell me the total number of watts generated/wasted as heat, if you like), and I'll factor them in as appropriate.

But if I don't get the *performance* specs when designing a storage system, I'll go to a drive manufacturer who *will* tell me.

Web radio firms cry foul over DRM proposal

Pirates? Thieves? Why, yes, that would be the RIAA

'The deal from SoundExchange is only available to smaller web radio operators. "We do expect commercial webcasters like Yahoo! and AOL to pay the new royalty rates set by the CRB due 15 July," said SoundExchange executive director John Simson. "It is essential that recording artists and content owners receive full and fair compensation from the webcasters making use of their creative works."'

Payment to artists who are signed to the major labels run approximately 3.5% for tracks sold through iTunes. Independent artists get about 60% of the retail price.

SoundExchange and the RIAA take a huge cut off the top of iTunes sales, in the neighborhood of 56.5%.

So who, exactly, is getting the payments from the extortionate fees imposed by SoundExchange? Why, it's SoundExchange - NOT the recording artists.

On a technical level, it is physically impossible to make streaming music - or any other kind of music "unrippable." if it can be heard, it can be recorded, period.

I hereby propose that all music lovers immediate begin a boycott of *all* artists who are signed by record labels - no CD purchases, no live concerts, no monetary compensation to "label artists" in any way whatsoever. When they break from the labels, go independent, then and only then they deserve compensation.

SoundExchange and the RIAA are pirates in the same sense that the Caribbean buccaneers were pirates - they steal from the people who actually create and own the wealth.

NASA preps robots for future fake moon landings

It's ROTM I tell you!

The NASA boffins are following the robots around like good little doggies on a leash. The lot in that Watford pub can't be too far from wrong, only the alien overlords have landed on Earth, and their science probes are even now surveying a possible base camp location in Canada, with the connivance of some of America's finest Quislings. But take heart, perhaps NASA will bugger up the entire operation by confusing English and Metric measurements. Hmm, funny how the loss of two spacecraft was caused by using *English* measurements...

And as for the anonymous coward who posted "Americans and idiots..." I should like to point out that the UK's space agency hasn't even managed to build an office nor a staff for itself yet, much less a lunar landing module, so just imagine me sticking two fingers up for you.

All in good fun, go have a pint and remember the days when the whole world was cheering for Tom Hanks and crew on Apollo 13.

Keeping abreast of disappointing Apple products

@ Aubrey Thuron or Audrey Thunon or whoever needs XP SP3

Regarding your desire for XP SP3, please see http://www.autopatcher.com/

Not (yet) involved, just a happy user who appreciates avoiding 15 or 16 reboots when installing a new XP system.

Acer countersues HP in PC patent row

LOLZ Law!

As one of the current targets of some frivolous litigation, that chart cheered me up immensely.

Now to turn over the evidence to the Feds so they can bring criminal charges against the plaintiff...

Hackers saw through iPhone AT&T shackles

@ Anonymous (and stupid) Coward:

"some idiot has done there site Black writing on a dark blue back ground"

And apparently some other idiots can't be arsed to (1) highlight the text so it shows in high contrast in the Idiot's Choice browser, IE, or (2) use an alternative browser such as Lynx for Win32 (one assumes that the vast majority of idiots use Windows, since they have no clue that there even *are* other operating systems) which displays plain text only, without any color information from the site being processed.

Lastly: Get a grammer-checker. The word you wanted there is "their."