Posts by Lu

Climate models need revising: Droughts, heat waves not such a big deal

Re: Why are all the Reg env articles anti-AGW?

Strange how so many people STILL don't seem to understand what The Reg is about.

It gives alternate news. The other side of the story. The stuff you don't get from mainstream news sources. Else you could just read CNN, or Sky, or BBC. What would be the point of El Reg? (you can even get all your IT articles from these sources nowdays)

So if the mainstream is pushing "AGW"; then The Reg must give us the opposite or balancing view point. Hence the motto - "biting the hand that feeds IT". Of course, Reg is no longer only an IT news service, but a science / geek interest news service; but the philosophy remains - biting the hand, being the upstart. Reporting the alternative view.

Which is perfect. Whether you agree or not, SOMEBODY has to give an opposing opinion. Especially in our current media climate (sic).

Fukushima update: No chance cooling fuel can breach vessels

Alternative

I, for one, applaud El Reg for continuing to give an alternate view point to the normal mainstream stuff.

It doesn't matter whether a particular article is way off base or not, it's important to know there's an easily accessible (and popular) source where one can look at the other side of the coin.

In a world where every single news source toes the same line, alternatives are vital.

Well done El Reg

Ten... fantasy swords you wish you owned

still some missing

These 3 come to mind:

The Sword of Truth

The Sword of Riva (Eddings)

and surely THE sword to have if u gonna have a replica of a fictional sword:

Gatz' (Gutts) sword from the anime Berserk!!

(http://www.bonanza.com/booths/GiveHarmony/items/60__HUGE_FANTASY_Buster_Sword_of_the_Berserk_Guts__Rage)

that's it on the left. Yes, it's 60 inches long.

Unhackable PS3 finally jailbroken, video claims

what you actually mean is

I've found a clever way to make my device do MORE stuff than it was intended to do. MY device, which I paid for. Which I OWN.

Why do these fascist etc. keep trying to stop me form getting more utility out of MY stuff.

(and incidentally, also adding functionality to their product, making it more desirable - see eg. Xbox 1, only sold cos it could be a media player too)

Opera: Firefox tab sets? We've had 'em for years

er, what?

Opera's by far the most popular browser on mobile phones world-wide.

Mobile phones are the number 1 growth market for web browsers.

So I'm not sure where you get "nowhere".

I think they're doing just fine.

Of Course

if you hove over a tab in Opera, you get a thumbnail of it.

I'm sure FF will do it as well, but you'd have to install an add-on. Again.

meh

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Qwerty not better

They always say use the right tool for the job. Well, if you can't use at least 8 fingers on it, Qwerty's not the right tool, IMHO.

I touch type very fast on a full sized keyboard, but on my Mini (non-pro), I can go along at a fair clip using T9. Much faster than I'd be able to using only 2 fingers on a tiny Qwerty.

Also, quicker than on a non-touchscreen phone, which I didn't expect. Think it's because it's quicker to activate a button with a light touch than a full press.

Haven't tried Swype yet, but suspect it would be pretty quick too.

Global warming may be normal at this point in glacial cycle

timespan?

Think of it this way, we've been around for but a tiny fraction of the lifetime of the earth. We've been studying climate for a tiny fraction of the time we've been around.

It's actually impossible for us to have gathered enough data in that short period to have any idea what we're talking about when it comes to the earth's climate.

Seriously, all we can do, for now, is take wild guesses.

So anyone who throws around statements like "global warming is definitely happening" or "humans are (./are not) causing global warming", is talking shite.

The fact is, we just don't know yet. There's not enough data. We haven't been studying it for long enough.

Hunt for murderer of lost golden cloud toads hots up

@ Sean Timarco Baggaley

Furthermore, we expect to get the alternate, non-mainstream viewpoint from The Reg. If you don't wanna see the other side of the coin, go read BBC etc. with the rest of the sheeple.

Bishop Hill: Gonzo science and the Hockey Stick

what? WHAT???

On what planet does what you just said make any sense? I'm flabbergasted.

Let's review: Because your father's friend worked for the UN in the late 70's, and they somehow "discovered" the POSSIBILITY of climate change, global warming is a proven fact.

Right...

As for your Eiffel tower "analogy" - full points for comedic value. That gave me a good chuckle.

Sad thing is, I don't think you're even a troll. People like you shouldn't even be allowed to read El Reg, its really meant for those of us with above canine intelligence levels.

Ubuntu Firefox shuns Google for Yahoo! search

doesn't bother me

I use Opera.

Wii Balance Board good aid for doctors, study finds

according to /.

This is second hand info, but according to a couple of different commentors over on Slashdot, those specialised force scales cost thousands of dollars (US).

Hackers break Amazon's Kindle DRM

@ Publisher's viewpoint

"If my books were available on the internet for free, that would be the absolute END of my cash flow. This has already happened to me on one title - no one buys it any more, it is available everywhere for free"

I disagree with your sentiment, as I can give an example of an author who gives away his work for free and still gets sales.

Corey Doctorow, author of "Little Brother". The book's available online for free, under the Creative Commons license. You can also buy the hardcopy of the book in your normal bookshop.

I read the online book. I then bought the hardcopy, simply because I thought he deserved my money.

Hence, I know for a fact that you can sell books that are also available for free. And I know for a fact that they do get bought. How successful this model is, I don't know, but it made at least one sale, which is it's job.

Maybe your book's not good enough? Maybe your marketing isn't good enough? Maybe you just haven't researched the alternative models and can't comment on how successful they actually might be?

Regardless, e-books are here to stay, whether you like it or not. And as Apple discovered with iTunes, you can't keep them DRM'd for long (ironically, it was Amazon's own non-DRM mp3 store that was probably the final nail in that coffin.)

Soot warming 'maybe bigger than greenhouse gases' - NASA

Gotta agree

I gotta agree. I still see too many comments here saying "more denialist bullshit again". If you're not gonna say something constructive (i.e. address the actual article or a comment relating to it), or at least expand your "more denialist" argument somehow - Shut the fuck up.

Hacker frees iPhone from Jobsian tyranny (again)

simple really

If I pay for a device, I expect to own it. If I own it, I expect to be able to do what I like with it. If that voids the warranty, that's my choice to make. But don't tell me what I can and can't do with something I own.

BOFH: Baitin' switch

Awesome!!!

see title

Prehistoric titanic-snake jungles laughed at global warming

you have a choice, you know

Why is it everytime the Reg posts a story like this, you get people asking why they're posting non-IT stories or why they bother trying to peddle their anti-AGW sentiment or whatever.

People please, this isn't even like a magazine or newspaper, where you can accidentally read some of the article as you page past it.

If you don't like it, don't fucking click the link!

It's not that difficult.

Grow up

SSL spoof bug still haunts IE, Safari, Chrome

@ Shouldn't the title read. # By MarkOne

Exactly what I was about to say!

Doctor Who fans name best episode ever

@Graham Bartlett and Toastan Buttar

Couldn't agree more. The climax of that episode had one of the greatest lines in television:

"My name is The Doctor and we're standing in the biggest library in the Universe. Look me up." Invincible alien pauses, and decides not eating The Doctor would probably be the better part of valour.

CLASSIC.

Can't wait for the new season.

Oh, good to see "Blink" in there, of course.

Opera stretches vocal cords with v.10 release

@ J-Wick

Guess you should make that 2 in a million then. Been using Opera on Linux for ages.

And regarding Flash issues, that's Flash on Linux that's problematic, not Opera itself. But that's been sorted for a while now, anyway.

Oh, and I've tried FF many many times. Too slow, damn. Infuriatingly so sometimes.

Feds break Apple's code of App Store silence

Win

Congrats!

Finally a Fail and You thats both informative and genuinely funny.

And to all those people saying the government shouldn't tell Apple what they can do with "their" App Store - consider that if that logic had been applied to Microsoft, the only way you'd be able to view this website would be with IE4, cos no other browsers would run on Windows, and with no competition, MS wouldn't bother to upgrade a free piece of software.

Google Book Search - Is it The Last Library?

Re: scanning/OCR quality

Two points

A coupla people earlier on mentioned OCR quality, especially with old books. The problem being that if the OCR software can't figure out what a word is, you need a person to look at it. Luckily, this has already been solved - ReCaptcha (look it up), uses words from book scanning projects in it's anti-spam captures for web-forms. Very nice system. Simple and efficient.

Secondly, as I've mentioned before - if Google don't do this, who will? There's not many who can afford it, and I don't see any of the companies who can, stepping up to the plate. Printed books don't last forever, so the sooner we get them digitised, the better.

Remember, once they're digital, there's no monopoly. The hackers will get them one way or another, and then we'll all have access via bittorrent or whatever. Regardless of what you think of the morality / legality of this, I'm just happy that the information / knowledge will be saved, rather than to disintergrate with the pages of a forgotten book.

Mininova flattened by Dutch court

Fucking trolls

Love the way the trolls always post as AC. Lots of strong opinions, but too scared to give a name, or even a psuedonym (see "Good News" and "@Andraž 'ruskie' Levstik #")

To get back on topic

Why are these guys wasting their tax payers money? If I was Dutch, I'd be most unimpressed.

Opera 10 hits release candidate status

excellent

Nice. Bring it on.

Campaign for official Turing apology gathers steam

link?

Not even a link to the petition?

What's El Reg coming to?

I also think it'll be a good thing, not that it'll make anything better, but just to make his achievments known to non-geek (mainstream) people.

I reckon he deserved that, at least.

Palm slams Apple, hoodwinks iTunes

Non-technical users

I think many people are failing to understand the true nature of iTunes dominance because we're all technically astute / power users.

Normal, non-technical users want one way of doing things, and once they learn how it works, they stick to it. If you took your average (non-geek) ipod owner and told them to copy mp3s to their ipod without using itunes, by simply dragging and dropping them into the ipod drive using a file manager, I can absolutely guarantee most wouldn't have a clue how to do it. (Believe me, I'm in tech support, you won't believe how little proficiency most people have with the very basics of using a computer)

The point being, most people who've ever bought an mp3 player bought an ipod (just look at the sales figures.) Because they bought an ipod, they use itunes.

In their minds, you need itunes to get music onto your mp3 player. You could explain that you can do it just as easily with other software, but why should they? They know how to use itunes, why change? In fact, most users are afraid to change.

That wouldn't be a problem, if other hardware devices could use itunes too. But they can't.

So we have a situation where if you want to make an mp3 player, you'll be at a major disadvantage trying to sell it because it won't work with itunes, which is what most people want, no, NEED to use.

So what's so wrong about that? It's Apple's software, they can do what they want.

Well, not according to the DOJ and the EU.

They told MS they couldn't use the fact that most people who buy computers want to use Windows on them to force users to use Internet Explorer as the web browser.

In other words, to spell it out: Just because it's your software, doesn't mean you can do what you like with it. As soon as you're the dominant player in the market (Which ipod / itunes is, by miles), then that becomes illegal because it's anti-competitive.

It wasn't Microsoft's fault they were the dominant desktop OS. They worked hard and spent billions of dollars to achieve that. BUT the DoJ still stopped them from doing what they wanted with their own software.

It's not Apple's fault they're dominant in the mp3 market. They spent billions of dollars to achieve that. BUT... etc.

The Internet's most evil company?

@ Chris Thomas Alpha

I never said a thing about blogs. Why do you need newspapers to have journalists? In our "post-Internet" society, journalists could just as easily be paid by websites (are already, in fact).

After all, the sceanrio I suggested is how newspapers themselves got started some years ago (small, local papers reporting on their own region / area of expertise and expanding over time)

I think you're confusing my comments with your own preconception that in lieu of the newspaper conglomerates, all we'd be left with is a few bloggers.

Re: re headless chickens # By Anonymous Coward Posted Friday 31st July 2009 23:11

I disagree, I think you've missed the point.

We still want journalists, we just don't want them working for Rupert Murdoch. With newspapers dying, journalists will evolve to be employed by actual news sites - most likely small, region specific, independant companies who drive users to their site based on the quality, accuracy and speed of their reporting. Much like El Reg, I guess.

Oh and thanks to jon 77, no idea how I missed that option all this time. Any way to make it open in a new tab? (I'm happy now that I've found my browser's even more convenient)

Re: To all the naysayers

Sometimes you need to repeat a point when it's really important, so I'm gonna repeat what others have said:

Sir, you do realise that all these media companies do is push biased, one sided reporting on us every single day. Mainly because the entire news media industry is owned by a small group of people with a common agenda (Rupert Murdoch et al)

So no, we don't want their news. We want real journos who actually check facts, research stories, and then report them to us, rather than just cut-and-paste the current propoganda.

So as far as I'm concerned, the sooner these archaic behemoths die, the better. At least on the Internet I can choose where I get my news from.

On another note, Colin Barfoot, you coulda saved yourself at least 1 click and a ctrl-v if you were using Opera - ctrl-c, ctrl-t, right-click, "paste and go" - it's the little things that make it so good.

Amazon sued for sending 1984 down Orwellian memory hole

Re: @Apple By Jonathan 6

At least Android is open source tho, so you can (theoretically) hack it and remove that "feature" yourself. (by which I mean wait till your friendly neighbourhood hacker's done it, and download the patch from his website)

Opera Software reinvents complete irrelevance

ORLY?

Well, given that every other browser out there religiously copies just about every Opera innovation as soon as they're released, it won't be long till Chrome, Firefox et al are implementing these features too.

So, will it still be a Fail then? Or is it cool if Firefox does it?

Btw, that was a poor article. Really not up to the standards of writing we're used to on El Reg. It's cool to have a Fail column, but if you can't think of anything to write, don't force it. You just end up churning out garbage.

'Lenny': Debian for the masses?

@TeeCee

"Of the home routers I've owned over the years, only one has run Linux under the bonnet"

Er, I'm not sure about this. I'm a support tech, and have worked with tens of different routers over the years, from Cisco to Dlink; Diginet to ADSL to ISDN etc. - never seen one with anything other than some Unix derivative "under the bonnet", and for home routers, definitely Linux.

Sorry, not trying to be a troll or anything, but that comment was totally inaccurate.

I'm a sceptic now, says ex-NASA climate boss

Restoring the faith

Seriously, no sarcasm - this comments thread has gone some way to restoring my faith in humanity in general and Reg readers in particular.

A few months ago I was one of a minority of dissenting voices in a torrent of vitriolic, angry readers blasting Mr Orlowski for pandering to the so-called denialist brigade and bemoaning the drop in standards of Reg reporting.

Today, the skeptics are in the majority.

It seems there's some kind of critical mass of bullsh-t beyond which people will stop believing everything they get told.

That's gotta make you feel good about the world.

P.S. Many people have written about following the money trail. There seems to be a misconception that "Big Oil" stands to lose money on alternative energy etc. News flash people, these are the guys leading the way in pushing for Biofuels and the like. They're using their fortunes to get a head start in the new industries, while still making money from the old.

Why is this a bad thing, aren't biofuels good? Um, no.

They're trying to force us to jump into alternative energy sources which are just as bad as the current ones, so we need to agree before we can realise the truth. Of course, with everyone panicking about "Thermigeddon" (thanks to whoever came up with that one), that's not a problem. Quick, let's agree to carbon credits and biofuel crops to replace food crops.

Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered

@ Mark

Quote Mark: "At the moment, all you have is "these other things cause warming" (a THEORY) and "therefore CO2 isn't the cause" (a LIE)."

I said no such thing. I'm merely trying to explain that we don't know enough to understand all the factors that cause warming and cooling, and therefore we can't yet conclude that CO2 is the culprit. (Assuming of course we are warmer than we would've been anyway.)

For example, we're currently studying how things like ocean depth affects global cooling, but we've only just scratched the surface, we barely understand it. The same goes for average cloud cover, ocean currents, etc, etc etc.

I'm definitely not saying global warming isn't happening. Nor am I saying CO2 isn't the cause, I'm saying that the reasoning we've used to come to this "conclusion" is wrong. We don't understand the system enough to be able to say, one way or the other.

The point is, we've been told that climatologists have figured out exactly how the system works, put in all the factors, and come out with an answer of CO2.

We've also been told there's a consensus in the scientific community regarding this. They all agree that it was done properly, that all the factors and calculations are correct and that the conclusion is correct.

But neither of these statements is true. We don't know what factors to put into our calculations and computer models. And, as with any science in its infancy, there's nowhere near consensus in the community, as we have many theories and very few facts, so far.

I'm not denying or confirming the global warming theory, I'm saying that as scientists, we must admit we don't have enough data, and not go around treating our theories as facts.

@ Vendicar

I could address all your "criticisms" at length, but I have neither the time nor the inclination, so I'll keep this short.

Firstly, I never suggested/implied Al Gore invented Global Warming, I merely used him as the main spokesman for the theory we're discussing here.

Right, more importantly, you say:

"Science knows that adding CO2 increases the earths temperature because science has measured with great precision the absorption spectra of CO2. And since Science knows what frequencies at which CO2 emits and absorbs, Science can readily compute how much scattering back toward the earth's surface there will be, and hence how much heating will result."

So, you've correctly explained how we calculate THEORETICAL heat increases caused by CO2. You see, in our system (Earth, Sun etc.), there are a host of other factors which cause both increases and decreases in temperature. Now, your assertion is that we have made allowance for these factors, and we've concluded that the CO2 is the main one.

If you do some research, you'll find that scientists have found that we aren't even close to understanding all the heating and cooling mechanisms which affect our system, and there's simply not enough data to be able to reach any conclusions.

Now, I'm not gonna provide any links, 'cos frankly, I can't be arsed. Use Google, there's plenty of info out there.

@ Dodgy Geezer - Hammer, Nail.

Sir, you've hit the nail on the head.

To explain:

Al Gore and his ilk have forced a logical fallacy upon us, one which all the armchair scientists accept, because it's one of the most common logical errors, so you don't realise your mistake.

You take a fact: average global temperatures are increasing (for argument's sake, as we're not even sure of that anymore)

You take a second, coincedental fact: Human CO2 emissions into the atmosphere are increasing at the same time

You suddenly, incorrectly conclude that one caused the other.

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Just because the timing coincided - i.e. just because temperatures appeared to rise at the same time as CO2 did, does not prove causality. Not until you can correctly understand the thousand other factors that are also causal, and eliminate them as possibilities.

Now, here's the thing - at the moment, climate science is in it's infancy, and the fact of the matter is that we don't even KNOW what all the factors are which affect global temperatures. In fact, the ones we do know, we are only just beginning to understand.

Hence, we have NO IDEA what effect CO2 has. And no way to predict temperatures any distance into the future. Not at the moment, anyway.

This is why Dodgy Geezer quite correctly states :" There is NO proof which shows definitively that human CO2 is responsible for any measured change"