Posts by Warren

Too rude for the road: DVLA hot list of banned numberplates

Seen OO04 COX on the roads in Hampshire, driven by a young lady, who I wondered if she chose it on purpose?

HP's fondle-slab dilemma: What to do when you're No 2

Drivers choice

Actually, if the person driving the car has any feeling for it, the BMW is one of very few manufacturers who give a toss about RWD and the proper driving feel it gives you.

OpenSUSE 11.3 delivers spit, polish and niggles

6.4<Good SuSE<8.0

For anyone thinking about the history of SuSE, they had their golden years prior to Novell.

since 6.4 they preferred KDE but always supported Gnome and the small Xwindow guis.

Yast install was always ahead of the pack, but for the Novell years have ruined their principles, directly after 8.0, we lost mp3 and DVD operations out of the box, and for some reason, the very same 17" monitor I was rolling modelines for in 6.4 cannot be supported at 1280x1024 in 10.0/11.0 all of a sudden and can only run a widescreen format 1280x800 or something. Some progress! It's clear that the patent agreement with Novell and M$ had it's impact.

That's a real shame as SuSE were the first and favorite haven from windows world, but now they're in the same class.

Cyclists give TV chef a Wikikicking

@ dan 10 and others

Why is it that occaisonal commuters have less rights to the road than the bloody roadie stiff-backs, who are always hogging part of a road lane, even when cycle-paths are provided?

The wording of the Highway code on cycle-paths unfortunately says only that the cyclist 'should' use the path, not 'must', but this really should be changed in law. I'm fortunate that 4 out of the 5 miles to work is covered by such paths, but I only see 50% of the cyclists using them! why do they think that stopping to cross an occaisonal junction is such an inconvenience for them that they have to slow down motor-traffic for the entire roads' length to avoid it?

It boils my piss to see the fellow 'green-commuter' causing the reputation of this form of transport to be elevated to arrogant, self-aggrandising tossers.

BT Wholesale cuts off Prodigy Internet

MAC - great in theory

Except if you're leaving BT. then you get an hour long arument with some jumped up little tosser who's trying to tell you, you don't need one, even though the new ISP has expressly requested it, based on not being an unbundled area, even though it is! and then they don't take it as notice, and continue to charge you for three months after you've been successfully transferred!!

In short, I think they were deliberately trying to make it so difficult to leave, that you might give up part process. Took threat of legal action, using the SKY billing to prove I wasn't a BT cusomer anymore, to get my money back.

(don't really like SKY either, as they know less about tech support on BBand than I do whenever I have to call them, you have to get past three layers of helldesk pillocks before you can talk to a tech FFS!) maybe o2 is the nesxt attempt for something better than a measly 1.8meg download, hoping ADSL2+ will wring another 50% out of the copper?!

Wrong kind of winter brings England to a halt

CLINT!

Obviously the speller has left the offensiveness up to the reader to decide.

Exploding core counts: Heading for the buffers

Beowulf Linux

for more than ten years proving scalable programming over hundreds of nodes. Not transferable knowledge then? surely multi-cores are analogous to multi-node systems and therefore scalable OS architectures can address this. Just because M$ can't do it, doesn't mean it's not possible!

US prosthetic todger pair plead guilty to conspiracy

Why do you need a child Withanil?

I wish to procure some unadulterated childs piss, fill up this bottle, sellotape it to the old man and they can't fucking touch you

Apple patents OS X Dock

Windows...

BTW. which patent laywer R-tard allowed Microshaft to trademark the name 'windows' after all, they were aping the GUI environment of the first Macintosh OS's.

all original GUI's were referred to as a WIMPS environment.

Windows Icons Mouse Pointer. once M$ successfully nailed down Windows, the rest of the industry recoiled and coined the term GUI. That's why the Linux and GNU crowd get upset if you refer to 'X' as 'windows'. They scream NO!! it's the X-windowing system!!! because they all hate M$ for stealing a generic word and making a trademark out of it.

Now all you kids like Webster who only know the world since 1995, try reading about computer science and start with a CRAY super and start on from 1970, you may learn something.

Virgin rejects $1m space sex offer

I demand

that Peter North get the lead role. imagine the progenitor of "600% more volume" in a weightless environment. The man's a danger in gravity conditions alone!!

Women turn on to a throbbing Maserati

@AC - ref funding

Isn't HISCOX the rather exclusive 'fat-wallets need only apply' banking service?

I think that's all the funding they need.

I believe the results are more skewed toward the luxury, exclusive, successful elements of what these cars represent than the burbles, Hence the Maser came first as it's likely to be the most comfortable out of the Ferrari and Lambo, and percieved as the most exclusive.

Privacy watchdog hoists Google by its own petard

@ Hoi! by I.A.

Much fan of pedantry, but I cannot find any international references to 'foist by his own petard' It's clearly in every reference "Hoist" it comes from the medieval seige engineering true enough, and is quoth in shakespeare;

"There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;

For 'tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines

And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,

When in one line two crafts directly meet."

Vista 'perfection' dream over for iPhone?

Was it really 9 years ago...

that I junked win98 for Suse 6.2 or something, learned to use YaST and later found that every other distro didn't have a graphical installer, much less a non-console X-window setup?

I tried to re-incarnate an old pc with MythDora the other day and temporarily cabbaged it because I have no clue how to get a generic Nvidia 5200 type gfx card going without YaST or Sax. What happened in ten years FFS??

Japan kicks off electric car format war

Clive Harris. Smunt

Hello Smug person.

try BMW's Efficient Dynamics for size (turns the engine off at the lights, duh)

currently enjoying a 123d (204bhp, 400NM) which driven with lack of respect still comes out the sunny side of 40 british mpgs every time. On the rare occasions it could be possible to stay off the loud pedal the thing will run above 50mpg.

For the less 'fun' inclined, take a 118d and enjoy upwards of 60mpg.

All numbers taken from experience rather than brochures.

For the pedants amongst you, you'll enjoy the facts that the reason the US Gallon is smaller than the UK, it's down to the pint don't you know?

so. 1gallon = 8 pints. true both sides of the pond. But the US has adopted a 16oz Pint!! the UK pint is 20oz. and there you have it, I'm guessing the pioneers couldn't cope with a pound in money being 20s AND a lb in weight being 16oz and then a fluid 20oz in a pint. How inconvenient! lets just simplify for the peasants and use 16 of all of them, and then decimalise the money!!!

Apple takes the operator's shilling

Agree..... disagree

"Apple is going to need a product that will appeal to their new customer: the network operators, rather than the man on the street."

Although a detractor of the high-priced, lock-in iPhone 1.0, I am carrying an iPod and mobile phone. Now my employer has taken an o2 corporate system, I'd like to choose my own handset for only one reason, less items in my pocket and I like my iPod. therefore iPhone 2.0 contractless or PAYG would be excellent. Business contract upgrade ideal!

Now these issues are possible, due to Apple's relaxation of the grip around the business model, I'm a potential customer rather than a fervent detractor. If the operator didn't make the iPhone 2.0 available, I wouldn't be in the market for any other 'equivalent' smartphone. So operator, give me the apple-candy or I don't purchase your wares! How does that fit in with the authour's statement?

Apple punts 'Penryn' iMacs

Nvidia 8800GS

Is now an option on the 24" - this is a major step forward for the Mac maker. This should show there's a future for playing some games on this platform and explains the gladhanding with EA in the last months!

FBI agents lured suspects using fake child porn hyperlinks

Imagine

No matter how large the writing above the link, saying DO NOT CLICK THIS, how many people would actually click the link if it had been in this article.

Or even if most Reg readers would be aghast, imagine running this article on bbc news website, and see it then???

Portsmouth student peeled in potato laptop scam

Could end in a Darwin Award...

Due to being properly skint, he could try the old favourite of filling up the top drawer of the desk with oats, pour over a pint or two of milk, hey presto! flapjack diet FTW!

Darwin attempt, because the last guy to do this after blowing his grant (remember them) on a hi-fi, forgot the limes and nearly died of scurvy!!

[tale recounted from an old salt at Loughborough Uni]

Scientist warns against technology addiction

Did anyone else?

fill it in with seemingly average work/life balances, and then at the last 'any other questions' throw in a quick alcohol/sex addiction confession?

or was it only me? ;)

Griffin Evolve wireless iPod speakers

tv satellite speakers.

RCA in = satellite tv, quality unimportant as the sub does the big stuff. I've been looking for a wireless solution for this problem.

Microsoft spits out final XP service pack, beta version

re; You'll have to upgrade sooner or later.

"When Microsoft discontinues support for XP I have a nagging suspicion that they'll discontinue product activation. You'll be able to continue using XP but come reinstall time, guess what you'll have to install?"

A cracked version of xp? because that will be the option. you use your orginal install disc and key. then you crack the activation, which has been available since the beginning of xp's life-cycle.

Mac OS X firewall blocks Skype and online gamers

Not a problem on either count

I'm not sure where the data for these reports comes from?

I can run Skype and WoW perfectly in Leopard, with the firewall enabled.

The only need was to install both programs after the leopard install. (I did archive & install and both didn't work after)

Anyone with a clean install method, or bought the machine pre-installed won't have this problem.

Research, research, research!

Cops expose cross-dressing Catholic school principal

@RonHughes

Why the hell not Black Plasitc Breasts?

Do his black plastic breasts threaten you?

do you have a problem with his choice of "breasthnicity"?

basically he couldn't have made it more pervy if he was wearing a pony-tail butt-plug and had the bit between his teeth!

Student taser victim spared electric chair

2 big lads can't handle a runt?

Sorry, but if two burly renta-cops can't run the guy out the room with an arm each, they don't deserve to be doing that job.

Take a lesson from the Mets, (metropolitan police London, not new york);

grab guy under the arm, 1 each per officer,

run at full speed towards the exit.

Officers stop at point of exit & let go.

Guy is ejected and probably going to come to some harm at standstill, but seeing as you're not holding him, he's done that himself - it's not your fault is it?

Americans, so much to learn....

US Patent Office decimates Amazon's 1-Click Patent

Re; Obligatory pedant quote

Oxford wrote;

decimate

/dessimayt/

• verb 1 kill or destroy a large proportion of. 2 drastically reduce the strength of.

— DERIVATIVES decimation noun.

— USAGE The earliest sense of decimate was ‘kill one in every ten of’, a reference to the ancient Roman practice of killing one in every ten of a group of soldiers as a collective punishment. This has been more or less totally superseded by the sense ‘kill or destroy a large proportion of’, although some traditionalists argue that this later sense is incorrect.

— ORIGIN Latin decimare ‘take as a tenth’.

Whilst it is obvious that Decimate is not the latin word, hence my statement that it was derived from latin, does it then become reasonable to ignore the decimal system as being base 10 because the Roman meaning is too old and we can start grabbing any old number base to operate from as 'close enough to' the meaning?

leave webster's alone, it's bad for the education old chap!

Thanks Ken

Native would be all the language influences that ocurred before the Romans showed up, like the Celts, Angles and Saxons for starters.

Take your fanny for example, are you thinking of a recent use of the word where could describe someone as a bit of a fanny? stop fannying around? or are we about to have a discussion about whether a Donkey has anything to do with your Arse?

Decimation

I'm Sorry, but the argument surrounding decimation is absolutely justified for the meaning "kill every tenth!" as Russel Crowe shouted in the film Gladiator.

Why did he do this and not shout "Decimate!" ?

Because the American viewing public would have misunderstood his command, and as usual had to have it spelled out to them.

Decimate used any other way is incorrect. Custom and practice does not make it otherwise no matter how many people get it wrong. (e.g. US English)

In any case, the word is derived from Latin, is not a native english word, and therefore the root has to be understood to make sense of the word. We can't change the meaning of 'restaurant' for the fun of it, that's french and we rely on the French to sort that out, like we expect the Germans to supply things like 'schadenfreude'.

iTunes battles Amazon with DRM-free price drop

re: 7digital - EMI catalog from 50p up

You mean 79p per track, with the 50p only if an album is offered at 12 tracks for 7.99? oh yeah, and most encoded in wma which is the M$ version of lockdown which Apple and ipod cannot play. Oh yes, what a deal. Cheers.

I remember the first iTunes voucher someone got me, so I got a double album of Smashing Pumpkins with 23 tracks on it for £7.99 ~23p per track?

Stop wasting our time.

Preterite peter-out: How the end beginned

Americans

As usual, this is an example of so called "US-English"

Given that Bill Gates et al have already inflicted a general acceptance that this phenomenom is acceptable through the MS-Word doctrine of spell-checking, I don't see why any Englishman, from whom the name of the Language originates, should pay any heed to their churlishness.

It has already been proven that the US and UK variations are many, so why should I care if they drift further from the path of righteousness?

Coming to a Windows PC near you: 4 critical security updates

Re; Please grow up

WOW!!!

Microsoft Fanboi - I didn't know they existed. Bill? is that you?

Gateway launches iMac-alike all-in-one PC

Re; For the last time.......

Funnily enough mac's 'do' windows, so how can the pc do anything better if they can all do the same?

Now that mac is based on intel tech, we can make direct comparisons to the speed of a system unlike the PPC days.

So as the excuses are taken away, why does anyone want to believe the generic pc beige box is better than a leading brand? you may as well start discussing Sony / HP / tosh / Apple and others in the same breath. they're all now doing the same thing, with similar prices and performance. The only exception with Apple is that they ship their own OS. but you have the option to add another like Windows or linux or whatever your kink happens to be.

Cops seek 179mph net vid biker

Weights and measures AGAIN

What I want to know is why on God's clean earth did our American cousins decrease the Pint from 20oz to 16? that's the reason that the Gallons are now different. Both use 8 pints, but the US pint being smaller. Was someone important embarrased about their drinking abilities?

Deceased Malayan hit with $218 trillion mobile bill

Push it in, hang it sideways.

When Verizon pushed your sh*t in, did it then proceed to hang sideways?

Second Life gets its first copyright law suit

I respect his right to do it too, Loretta.

Just because he can't have babies, doesn't mean we can't fight for his right to have babies!

Sky hails broadband explosion

Sky BB vs. BT support

BT support only know their products through duration, they were truly appaling in trying to stabilise the line to avoid drops of connection continously.

They were absolute hell to get the Mac code for the handover, claiming it's not needed for LLU, but eventually gave in.

Sky were helpful but clueless at first, but after politely pointing out that I knew more about their system than they did, I was transferred to a real tech, who was golden. he got me from <1mb to 3+ in ten mins an rock steady. BT only managed a flaky 1mb.

Then the real hell was getting BB off my BT bill. They charged me for 3 months after the cut-off, then during the billing call, I was transferred 3/4 times to various departments until I was taking names and ranks and asking for managers to talk to, then the 1 person who seemed to help confirmed that the system could 'see' both BT BB and LLU stated against my line together, which finally gave me the ammo to point out that 2 services are not only pointless but entirely impossible to connect to.

Utter Utter Spacktards.

If it wasn't for the monopoly position on supplying the copper, I wouldn't pay BT in washers and gladly accept any alternative.

Come on Sky, fibre my area and take all my business!

Celebrating the iPhone's Newtonian past

Dimensions

I think the iPhone will be the ideal pocketable dimensions, as there was a cut-out and build iPhone kit on the web, which I successfully fooled a colleague by filling it with my 5th gen iPod, to add realistic weight when I handed it over.

Whilst the ruse lasted only a moment on handover, we found ourselves handing it about for the sake of imagining the real thing.

We were keen, and yet we're in the UK and won't get the real thing any time soon. Damn the phone carriers and apple's lockdown. Sim-free I tells ya! and millions of units will be sold even at un-subsidised prices. Anyone who'd buy a £200 mp3 player would easily do the maths and arrive at a £400 combined mp3/phone device.

And yes my American friends, that is how much the 'being in UK tax' costs us. I'm talking 30gb prices aswell.

Google Earth for charidee

Re; US Based

You mean like Baseball WORLD Series competition, because the world outside the US is well known for it's baseball.

US car thieves floored by manual gearbox

Re: Manual Tranny in the USA

Just to be sure, the Acura (honda) Integra [typeR] is a 'gussied' (sporty?) version of the Integra. or maybe you meant a coupe version of the accord?

Celica is made by Toyota and in itself is a sports coupe of varying perfomance depending on spec.

Novell opens office for SMBs

Re: Because the Novell Editon of OpenOffice comes with:

So try the original StarOffice from Sun, which comes with

All what you said, but supported by Sun, not Novell / Micro$haft

Paris Hilton dereassigned back to jail

Gaol: Pronounced Jay-ol

"Gaol

Noun

1. A correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government (either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence).

Verb

1. Lock up in jail.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

Date "gaol" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1380."

Although I prefer Oxford, Webster's did just fine in providing the definition of the prior establishment to a prison. The old town Gaol.

Again, two nations divided by a common language. Fun isn't it?

UK dweller.

Paris Hilton released for 'medical reasons'

Example to our Youth

As statisics are released this week, that the UK's 20-somethings are the worst drink-drivers in the last 10 years, are we suprised as some of their Idols are treated this way?

So what's in a URL? The Reg URL?

Keep .co.uk, Damn the French!

As ever, there's no need to change, so don't!

I also enjoy the moral stand-point of two nations divided by a common language! where would we be if we couldn't enjoy the colour of the .co.uk and simultaneously on the .com, deride the spelling and pronunciation of Aluminium - the second I is there for a purpose cousins!!

Easy cam, easy go: camcorders on test

mixing the standards without explanation!!

I hope you purchased this article from Which? or something similar because yet again the mxing of comparisons between 1080i and 720p is bound to leave people unclear which is a 'higher' HD quality. It really annoys to see the industry claiming broadcast quality with an interlaced (i) resolution when broadcaster are most likely to take a pixel true level of quality. (p) so in this case what would we rather watch? the output from a squashed colour image on a 1080i camera, or the true detail of the pixel for pixel colour and b/w images of the uncompressed 720p? where are the 1080p perfoming 'behemoths'??