Posts by nbc

Two billion years ago, snowball Earth was defrosted in huge asteroid crash – and it's been downhill ever since

Re: Facepalm

Sorry but we have to rough it, no burning of anything to ...

You first. Get off the internet and go build your wattle and daub hut. Lead the way...

Fingers crossed tomorrow morning for Telecity's third repair shot

Impressive...

"Engineers will use their repair window to rectify the power-phasing problem, which emanates from a transformer that was accidentally produced by an engineer on the afternoon of 17 November."

I keep reading this sentence and I'm still none the wiser. Did an engineer really produce a transformer?

Which one?

Warrantless phone snooping HAPPENS ALL THE TIME in Blighty

I had no idea

That Tony Blair's government was Conservative when RIPA completed its passage through parliament in July 2000

What was I drinking?

True fact: 1 in 4 Brits are now TERRORISTS

What's Changed?

Out of respect for Mr Foley's family I have not watched the video.

However, as this is just the latest in a long list of jihadist beheading videos I'm interested to find out why this one has received the publicity it has whilst previous videos have received scant attention from the media or the Met.

Perhaps the Met's attempt to brand everyone as "terrorist" is merely a positioning exercise for greater funding and future surveillance.

Mosquitoes, Comets and Vampires: The de Havilland Museum

If you have an hour to spare

Here's an interesting documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0w9zfKP85c

A bitter spill to swallow, or 'how to smeg up your keyboard'

What are you supposed to do, use a ‘4’ instead? Gre4t ide4.

Alt + 97 ?

Direct action group defaces Vodafone in tax avoidance protest

@ Obviously

Well, you're entitled to your opinion and us tax avoiders are entitled to ours.

But whilst you're on the subject of morals; please explain how extracting money with the threat, and subsequent use, of force is morally acceptable?

NO-SH*T CURE FOR BALDNESS discovered by accident

Grow your own

wookie suit...

Gadget makes bombs, mines go off 'on average' 20m away

Mines?

Not all mines are electrically initiated, so this device would be of limited use in mine clearing unless you could be sure of what types of mines were used. And even then I'd be careful...

It's still an interesting development though, and I'm sure its effectiveness will improve.

Mystery fungus smacks Afghan opium poppies

Ah hah. The evil UN at work...

From ten years ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/951082.stm

Grabbed from here: http://aljahom.wordpress.com/

Boffins 'cage the demon' of white phosphorus

Oh really Lewis?

Rumour my arse.

" It is rumoured that teams from both services, faced with a tiresome or inconveniently-timed task, have been known to move a piece of ordnance up or down the beach to the other side of the high-tide line in order to hand the problem off to someone else."

Brit firm stops anti-tank warheads with cloth

@Andrew 48

>>The bar armour has nothing to do with stand-off distances or disrupting copper jets or anything like that. This is incorrect reporting that is sadly being perpetuated by the, normally pretty accurate, El Reg.

The bar armour has everything to do with stand-off. (See below).

>>The bars of the bar armour are spaced in such a way that the bars deactivate certain types of RPG fuse resulting in the warhead not being able to function, they can also deform the cone of the shaped charge prior to detonation.

The RPG fuse is a piezoelectric impact fuze, so the only way to "deactivate" the fuse is for the warhead to be jammed between two bars or be deflected from its previous flight path. Jamming the warhead between two bars is limited as the RPG warhead currently in use has an igniferous self-destruct, which, from memory will function 9 or 10 seconds after firing.

>>The stand-off distance for a shaped charge BTW is several feet or more, not the foot or so that the bar armour stands off at.

Bollocks. The RPG is designed so that its optimal stand-off distance is equal to the distance from the tip of the warhead to the front face of the cone.

Che Guevara's granddaughter poses for PETA

Homage to...

A murderous psychopath.

What's next, Joseph Fritzl's kids advertising home improvements?

Beeb tech boss seeks to expand TV licence online

Personal opinion? My a**e!

This is more accurately called "testing the water". If there's not sufficient outcry then the Beeb will implement it.

Have broadband, pay BBC.

Aussie firewall blocks Wikileaks

Well, we can't say we weren't warned

Robert Heinlein said:

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

Samsung unsheathes screaming phone

@ GPS

"So they know where to find the body?"

Nope, just the phone.

Force 1800 superhurricanes snapped on far-off world

RE: "six Earth hours"

What other type of hour is the author aware of?

BBC clarifies location of England

@Sarah Bee

Would you like vaseline or valve grinding paste with that whupping?

UK's top boffin: Renewables targets were 'a mistake'

Irony Alert?

"We don't have to pay for wind power - it just comes to us naturally,"

PC Gamers get Bill of Rights

Ah the irony

I'll be looking for a refund for Sins of a Solar Empire then which totally hoses my machine.

'Malvertizement' epidemic visits house of Newsweek.com

If you say so

@Elmer

You may be right, but I have not got the time to wade through the Phud from amfM

Supercomputer to improve UK weather

The hardware isn't the problem...

it's the crappy modelling software

UK BOFHs face psychometric dissection

Re. Good idea

"Most of the admins I've ever dealt with were kind of "difficult". They need to learn to think like the users do and speak the language the users speak, as anyone should do for their customers"

Did it ever occur to you that the "difficulty" might be at your end?