Posts by Paul Read

Jupiter's Great Red Spot becoming mere pimple

anthropogenic

it´s shrinking because of increased human radio and television transmissions. we must reduce our output to pre-1950 levels within a decade or it will be too late for the Spot!

Work with Microsoft's stuff for a living? Its reorg will mean NOTHING to you

inertia

when I did some work at the IT dept of a major Dutch brewery, I saw they proudly displayed framed original receipts on the walls of the corridors from their long-standing supplier, IBM. for adding machines bought in the 30s and 40s.

business doesn't like change

BSkyB punters drown in MASSIVE MYSTERY Yahoo! mail! migration!

migration notification

not warned? I received many e-mails, even months ago foretelling the move.

P

Sellafield's nuclear waste measured in El Reg units

Re: LFTR's

Thorium rocks!

that video actually shows the edited highlights of the technology in 5 minutes, for the weak of attention-span.

P

Profs: Massive use of wind turbines won't destroy the environment

neodymium

efficient turbines require lightweight magnets requires Neodymium requires rare earth mining means a giant hole in Inner Mongolia, China results in all our monies are belong to them.

how green is the rare earth mine in Bāotóu? But that's OK, because it's over there, along with all our jobs.

Dell extends XPS laptop line

XPS 17?

When do we get a new 17? I'm holding on for one.

Ten... Star Wars videogame classics

TIE Fighter turned me to the Dark Side

X-Wing was cool, but flying a TIE Fighter was an epiphany. It turned me to the Emperor's side. Long Live Palpatine (and his clones)

LucasArts Day of the Tentacle

TIE Fighter turned me to the Dark Side

and don't forget the epic Grim Fandango!

Steven Moffat fumes over Doctor Who plot leak

bloody spoilers

Moffat is a genius and 100% right in this case. Having said that, the BBC itself trails upcoming episodes so heavily and explicitly these days, it's almost worse. At least you can avoid fan spoilers. Trailers for the next epi are on during the end credits of the previous.

Jaguar hybrid supercar gets green light

details (devil in the)

Pay attention please. The emission figures for the production version will be higher than the twin-turbine concept because most of the 250 cars to be built will have a turbocharged 4-cylinder 1.6L petrol engine.

IBM thinks outside the box with containerized data centres

No brainer

Surprised this has taken so long; shipping containers have been used to house generators and water-pumps for fire supression for years.

Supersonic bizjets could have windowless flight decks

responsibilities

The flightdeck of the future airliner will comprise of a computer, a pilot and a dog. The computer will fly the plane, the pilot will feed the dog and the dog will make sure the pilot doesn't try to fly the plane.

Seeing as the largest share of air accidents is caused by human error, I'd feel safer being flown by computer.