Posts by Aldous

GCHQ wants to enlarge 'experienced' specialists' packages

i work from home 80% of the time however for this sort of work can you imagine the potential of letting people with access to security information work from home? remember the minister carrying documents to #10 with the front page visible? now multiply that by thousands when morons start tweeting "Lol look at meh new iDooDad" next to the screen of there work laptop....

Unfortunately the doughnut is one instance where a physical work place is needed to stop people being morons.

good to see they are finally clicking that there packages are a joke.

2011's Best... E-book Readers

FUD

Mines been through Brussels, Birmingham and Munich airports scanners multiple times in its 1 year life with no damage to the screen. it has got some dead pixels now but that was where i dropped an mp3 player onto it (luckily its intthe margin area)

PayPal founder helps steer super geek cruiser

ship steading not working out eh?

meh the people involved were based on the whole "build islands as independent states" movement a while back when they were pushing prostitution and gambling as money makers to ensure the income. this then floundered when the US government took a dim view

now they are using the whole immigration laws suck when used on potential zuckerbergs trick to get funding. bunch of idiots looking to profiteer from a dream of micro nation building(so your going to be allowed in to hold meetings regularly? on a 1 b visa neat! hey why not go to Mexico/Canada and be a short air flight away as opposed to a ferry trip?).

If they are serious they would of done it even the Scientology fruit loops have their own navy but no instead everyone come invest in us until we can sell the whole thing as Google sealand

iPhone 4/4S 'self combusts' in airliner inferno

it was his own fault

he was holding it wrong.

UK's first stealth jumpjet rolls off line – but we don't want it

almost right BigYin

except the tornadoes are still flying (ish) and not performing too well as they are designed for low level runs when in Afghanistan everything is high and the air is thin

Mysterious sat-pic China desert markings - EXPLAINED

out of curiosity

are any other nations grids visable. USA's will probably be buried at white sands or nevada witha blackout against google but what about uk, france etc?

US nuclear aircraft carrier George Bush crippled by toilet outages

because they would use conventional aircraft and not f35 jumpjets that we get +1000 brown nose points from the americans (were these not mostly planned through tony blairs bush rimming era?) who need as many international suckers sorry partners to prop up the hyper expensive mission creeping program.

US stealth bombers finally get nuke-nobbling super bomb

Think they do this already with cobalt jackets they can place on normal muntions. It goes bang and spreads radioactive crap everywhere. not particularly lethal (at first) but a real pig to clean up and can deny access to a huge area

Eleven - if you will - rocktastic music movies

Bad News

No mention of the comic strip's bad news/more bad news? meh

Steve Jobs named most influential game guy – ever

gaming industry execs?

who did they interview? CxO of Bean Counting, HR and Marketing ?

Crap alchemist jailed for poo-into-gold experiment

Wrong waste/element

now if he wanted phosphorus that's doable from other bodily waste

Amazon Kindle 4

or

1)drag epub into calibre (Free)

2)click send to device

(same goes for .mobi,HTML,CHM etc)

Simple really. if your messing about with epubs from other publishers then you can find calibre. if your a non tech savvy type who got one as a gift then chances are you don't know what epub is and think that all ebooks come from amazon.

native epub support not really an issue IMO

Survey: Most TV viewers surf while they watch

blip ad's?

if they are that concerned about people not paying attention to ad's why not change them around a little. in the UK its a single ad break which means you can go off and do things, browse etc. the US has 2-3 but they are all at roughtly the same time. Why not break them up and move them around a bit?

So taking soap opera dross where there are lots of scene changes you could have

3 mins dross

30 second break

scene change into pub (7 min scene)

1 min break

2 min scene

30 second break etc

people won't know when they are coming and will have to watch as they won't know the length for when its back on (excluding DVR's etc as they make ads a moot point anyway).

BBC One and bureaucracy spared in Auntie cuts

How about the BBC learn its not ITV

and stop competing with commercial tv with its various celebutards being judged by other celebutards doing singing/dancing/cooking/whatever. Sure it gets good ratings but its not exactly going to be remembered in decades unlike other stuff the BBC has done in its time like the comedy's/docs/drama an

Don't bother with that degree, say IT pros

True

except you won't get past the HR CV sift without a degree.

Display defect may crimp iPhone 5 shipments

its not a defect Apple never make defective products its just your eyes are wonky, just like it wasn't there antenna's it was the way noob's were holding it

MPs blast dole-office-online plans

Except they are closing all the libraries

Does Cameron dare ditch poor-bashing green energy?

Nimby's

your going to get alot more of them for a nuke plant then for a turbine. here in the midlands you'd think the HS2 was something that was something fuelled by dead kittens for the amount of protesting because *shock* the house price might dip a little. now imagine the reaction to nuclear power kitten eating trains !

Sweden rolls out invisible infrared tank

don't need to be blind to miss it

i think some commentards are missing the point. the modern tanks biggest enemy in "traditional" warfare is the attack helicopter. this system is designed so that an apache flying at night by thermal/ir will class it as a truck which can be multipurpose could even be civilian, maybe rules of engagement state no firing on anything but T-72's. its not some magic camo but it would have its uses.

As for being blind try spotting a black/olive drab thing at night somewhere with no lighting i.e desert, steepes etc its hard to do in the uk because of all the light pollution but you'd be suprised how crap human vision can be. sure you'd here it but i have a feeling this thing is for spoofing aircraft that hunt on IR and not people on the ground.

of course this assumes a type of warfare that's pretty much unlikely to happen anyone with an attack helicopter/tank fleet big enough to warrant this has too much to loose (economically etc, china's not going to attack you America ffs) by going into a big tank vs helicopter war and 3rd world nations using surplus soviet tanks wont be able to afford it and don't have the air capability anyway

Amazon's cloudy vid-tablet breaks cover: Not an iClone

locked down kindles

true the current kindle is locked down in the sense its tied to amazon's store but you can still put other formats on it through a usb cable with calibre in a simple drag and drop operation. true you can't hack it to run linux or something but its a lot less locked down then a fondleslab (although it can't do flash either)

Man builds gadget to silence annoying TV pundits

my TV already has this

Its called an off button.

i mean come on if you don't like someone either change the channel or turn it off. there are plenty of things to do instead of gawp and the pretty pictures

Murdoch muscles BBC out of Formula One driving seat

Solution: Sponsor Boycott

here is an idea,publiclly boycott sponsors:

Not watching Sky/BBC will do bugger all if you done have a nielsen box thing. Bernie wont listen to anyone unless they have $$$ and some of the teams (Williams) think this is a good thing. so how to stop it?

Compile a list of main sponsors, set up a myface/twatter page and call very loudly and publicly for boycotts to every teams sponsor's until F1 is back on free to air (note free to air not just BBC only).

Once sponsors see that mr & mrs disposable income are deliberately going to a competitor's products/ beating a drum against them because of bernie being a tit they will soon put the pressure on to make it availible on a FTA channel. F1 management will listen to sponsors as they are putting the money in. Teams/Fans/Drivers/broadcasters will be ignored.

Someone set this up i can't be arsed and wouldn't touch social networks with a 20ft pole but unfortunately the majority of the population seems to have lost the ability to go to other sites and loose interest if they can't click "like"

Samsung Chromebook: The $499 Google thought experiment

i dont get it

its designed to do one thing well yet it costs the same as atom based netbook that can do everything with much higher storage but can also access google docs etc.

i just do not understand why anyone would want this? its not exactly lightweight, its not cheap (if they want it thought of as "disposable" it will need to be considerably cheaper) battery life is great but the rest of it sounds like a major ball ache why on earth would anyone want this over a windows/linux atom based netbook other than the speedy boot?

Scientists print out solar cells using inkjet tech

design flaw

car alternators are designed to work in the thousands of RPM range an engine works out. getting that speed from a windmill would be impressive to say the least

MoD plans 'name and shame' crackdown on crap projects

so let me get this straight

they are saying that by being on the naughty list it will make stockholders question the company and cause them to work to deadlines/costs? how?

"whats this about the f72 being delayed whats this going to do to my stock"

"nothing we get 100 billion each year for 20 years instead of 100 billion each year for 15"

"oh ok then , carry on"

How to... change sleep-screen pics on your Kindle

for the 7000th time

epub on kindle is simple, download calibre drag,drop,send to device done. Why on every thread about the kindle is there always someone saying epub support when it can do with a simple process (same goes for many other formats, calibre converts almost everything :) )

X-Prize offers $10m for working Trek tricorder

the prize isn't the only thing

i doubt scaled got back the amount they invested into the x-prize for sub orb and as you pointed out it would not work as a business plan.

these prizes arn't really designed to cover the full costs but to provide a bit of an incentive as well as publicity etc

as for replacing doctors we have plenty of automating stuff in the IT world yet there are still plenty humans (or as near to) working. it wont replace trained experts but it will be a great assistant in times of crisis/battlefield/remote area's

Google lobbying to make driverless cars legal in Nevada

erm

"Given the low cost of petrol in the States and the often great difficulty and expense of finding a parking space in some city centres, people might well leave cars circling the block for quite long periods in such areas, leading to greater pollution and congestion."

not heard the Americans bitching about gas prices (whilst still driving 12mpg tanks) every 30 seconds recently then?

Vote now for the best sci-fi film never made

WOW!

i have half of this list and consider them amazing books. looks like i need to go get the other half now. thanks for the recommendations el reg

ICT classes in school should be binned – IT biz body

MS Office 101

or at least it was when i did GCSE ICT/DT in the tail end of the 90's. completely pointless basic word processing and very basic excel. It would be so much better if they changed it up to include some basic programming (what ever language, variables loops basic OO etc) they could even make it related to Jesus phones/androids and get students interested.

Throw in a bit of network theory (ISO model, basic tcp/ip) and you'd have kids with a bit more of a clue as to if they want to go into IT and not just think everyone in IT is a MS word jockey

e-Borders snares 2,800 possible crims, 5 tons of baccy

neat

so you wont mind having your abode fitted with video and sound recording devices in case you ever decide to commit a crime in the future? after all your not a crim so why worry

Fight global warming with Asimov-style Psychohistory - profs

i know a great graph

how about one comparing number of "WE/YOUR CHILDREN ARE ALL GOING TO DIE TOMORROW BECAUSE OF CO2" scare stories and the number of people that believe in climate change. Strange how scaremongering often leads to the exact opposite, while being reasonable and factual often leads to people believing you. See also JAPAN NUKE EXPLOSION WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE IN A MAD MAX WORLD OF ILLEGAL MUTANT IMMIGRANTS

US e-book sales double as dead tree demand dips

i disagree

Kindles are great for the impatient i have bought a couple of books straight from reading a review to be reading then and there unless you have a very diverse bookstore you cant do that with hardcopy.(i still buy paper books as well)

As for reading experience i find it really depends sometimes a really thick paperback (neal stephensons baroque cycle springs to mind) can be a pain to read not to mention adjustable text size is great for tiredness.

Now if only they can sort out the pricing, e books wont be ultra cheap as the publishing of the physical medium is actully a very small percentage of the outlay (Charles Stross' "Common Misaprehensions About Publishing" blog posts had a whole one on e-book pricing) but the pricing is currently very wonky

its horses for course i found that while traveling a kindle is awesome to have the various text books,fiction books and other things i'm reading at the time compressed into a lightweight device as opposed to hauling 8 kg of books with me but i guess if you have no need for books instantly (not an impatient git like me) or dont need to haul a small library then a kindle isn't going to be much use.

Average Brit has three mysterious keys

keys by the door

Always amuses me where people leave their keys, then they wonder why the £20k+ car with alarm immob etc gets nicked by a sod with a fishing rod through the door .

Whitehall to puff punters: 'Hide your fags'

god help small shopkeepers....

if they try to make these under the counter only as was once discussedthen alot of stores are gonna need a redesign as that small amount of space is normally stuffed with ancient epos/ups and very little storage space

Pitiless teen burglar murders three witnesses

caught easily

dont U.S plod work closely with the local pawn shops? so they probably went in the next day to sell the kit,police checked pawn shops found all the kit sold/attempted and got em that way

'Tree Octopus' proves journos no smarter than 13-year-old Americans

or is it

that most schools in my day ( 10 years ago) rammed facts down your throat and asking a question was seen as dissent? if this trend continues no wonder the kiddies cant tell the difference after all if someone says it, it must be true!

Bookshop swaps Kindles for real books

why do people think its one or the other?

you can have both you know i really don't get the bile coming out of people (and commentards) "your a luddite" "trend follower" etc

i have a kindle and a stack of dead tree, kindles great for somethings but for studying i'd rather use a text book. you dont make a faustian deal when you buy an ebook reader you know?

btw if your worried about drm/formats download calibre its free and can convert any ebook format into another as well as strip out drm

Kindle lets users lend e-books to mates via email

they do

nearly every book i've used on kindle allows text to speech (and even converted .chm files i have on it) and the option is there to have the menu's read (never tried it to confirm) tbh though text to speech is god awful although funny to hear it struggle with tech terms (QoS turns into "cus")

Gamble to win and lose... and win

Yep

Yep especially as the bulk of the money came from free bets. Its something thats easy to do with a bit of research and using a spreadsheet to keep track of everything is a mandatory tool. however after the main free bet offers run out your profit will slow right down leaving you two options:

1) Chase more free bonuses, this often leads to dodgy books (even with licensing authority's and Sportsbook Review books can go bad for no reason)

2) Arb

Arbing tyes up quite a bit of capital and requires an eagle eye as well as commitment. The problem is it doesn't stop there bookies can kill your bet for no reason and if they suspect you of arbing will "gub" your account meaning you can no longer place more then a couple of pounds worth of bets on a single event. this often leads to people chasing less well known books and then trouble happens.

some people make a fortune from this, others loose everything but in the long run its no where near as easy as the article makes it sound. chasing the free bets is easy (i made £650 during the world cup doing that) but afterwards it gets alot harder

Acrobatic pilot survives loss of wing

and yet

these are illegal in the uk iirc.

UK arms industry 'same as striking coal miners' - Army head

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

the problem with rationlising into one big euro project is the specs will be drawn up and a prototype made and then the french will say "we need it to do X" then the UK will say "if it does X it must do Y as well" then the germans will say etc.....

With each change will come the consultants, remodelling, ergonomics designers etc etc and before you know it the cost is 3 times more then the seperate project you were working on to begin with.

The americans do and always will spend a whole load on defense with only Russia and China able to keep up, europe should really focus on being great at a few key area's then trying to build whole aircraft/boats/MBT's

'Toothed' condom hits rapists where it hurts

but remember

to take it out when your on a container ship with raven!

Jobsian drones shackle gamer with 'lifetime' iPad ban

meanwhile in reality...

whatever your thoughts on reselling are Apple have been able to get more hype and free publicity out of this story. fanboi's will still spooge anti apples wile still be anti this story changes nothing but gives apple lots more free advertising.

dont like the way apple are being ? dont buy there products, no doubt the people this guy was buying for will be up in arms and "shocked and appalled" by the way apple are being etc but i bet they will still be first in line on UK/EU release ready to hand over the $/£/buttons

Bromsgrove lass slapped with Boozbo

what about the till monkey

"How can a police officer in Wales know this woman has been banned if she turns up in his town?"

what about the poor till monkey that serves this women then gets clobbered by the plod for aiding a criminal act or something.

proxy buying is the major problem with underage kids (and also one the police do fuck all about, they instead do underage stings to nab the monkeys not the people passing crates to kids 1 mile from the store) so hows this going to effect anything.

more pointless laws

Broadband tax scrapped in 'wash-up'

just like road tax goes on roads

do you really think they would of used all of it for building fibre? chances are it would just disappear into the great pool

Darling confirms telephone line tax

but

motorbikes do less damage to roads then cars, normally get more mpg etc yet why do i pay more road tax for a 65mpg 500cc bike then someone in a polo bluemotion thing that weighs 3-4 times more

Domain registrar follows Google out of China

title goes here

"Company founder Sergey Brin told the Wall Street Journal that the actions of the Chinese government brought back distressing memories of police surveillance in the Soviet Union - Brin's family emigrated in 1979 when he was six."

yeah its not like china was spying on/"disappearing" human rights activists etc before google got involved with them, most of come as a real shock when they started doing it recently not like they have form or anything

Branson's SpaceShipTwo rocketplane gets off ground

who cares...

..if its not proper orbit the thing this will do is prove someone can make money off of private space/sub orb flight(ol beardy isn't investing for a laugth). once its proven more will try to cash in and hopefully we can get off this rock.

Barclaycard and Orange plot NFC Christmas

doubt it

in my nine years of retail i can tell you they move very slow. they only went chip and pin with such gusto because there was a cut off date (feb 14th of that year iirc) that meant any fraud afterwords on signature cards would not be covered.

remember retailers get charged a small percentage per card transaction (which is why mos small stores have a minimum X pounds policy) why would they want to encourage transactions under 10 GBP to be done on rfid cards?