Posts by James Green

WIN a RockBLOCK Iridium satellite comms module

From the photo showing the battery pack...

There appears to be a battery missing, so as well as the comical box we may also have a comical scrabble to sort the loose wire (or in this case the missing battery).

NASA signs off on sampling mission to Earth-threatening asteroid

Death Star?

Who put the Death Star in orbit of the Earth for the picture? I assume it's a Death Star given a) the appearance and b) it's far too small to be the Moon.

This 320-gigapixel snap of London is size of Buckingham Palace

They need to call Mr Google.....

.....and ask nicely to borrow the car reg/face pixelation software, though god knows how long it would take to trawl through 320 giga-pixels.

Supercomputer helps boffins crack 3D material sims...

Equation Correction

The term you've described as the chemical driving force is actually the third part of the surface anisotropy and the driving force is the term to the right.

Microsoft cofounder Allen unloads on Gates

"unforgiving of bad code"

So where did it all go wrong then? Sorry couldn't resist.....

Vatican Google-bombed over weekend

Bombing

"However, it seemed pretty clear to the rest of the world that this was a case of Google-bombing, something the search giant was supposed to have weeded out ages ago."

Something they weeded out? I just tried a few well known ones and "french military victories" still works, guess they need to weed a little harder

Linux kernel R&D worth over 1bn euros

But...

Thatis just the development cost, if this were a "real" marketted product it would need marketting cost too, it would also need to make a profit in "the real" world so 1 billion Euros is only the start of it.

Pirate-pursuing lawyers get DDo$ money transfer slap

Problem solved?

"The defendants are planning to appeal the verdict while maintaining they have no intention of paying the fines, even if they lose."

30 million 1 SEK transactions, technically they'd be paying the fine, I think they've just found a perfect way to pay up and still win.....

Twitter breaks Jam Festival record

Really 68%?

Maybe I'm being dumb (wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last) but are they really suggesting that 4,180.50 is 68% of 20,000? Or is there another way I'm meant to be reading that.

Street View vehicle kills Bambi

Driver

What I can't understand is there must have been a driver, who presumably must have noticed he's just killed a deer. Surely he knew this was likely to happen?

US mulls clicks for cameraphones

Poor wording

"The "Camera Phone Predator Alert Act" would forbid selling of phones which have a means to disable or silence the tone."

Surely the "have a means" should be "provide a means". All phones have the means to disable or silence the tone, as someone's pointed out you can unscrew the back and remove/disconnect the speaker. So now all mobile phones are going to be illegal in the US.

Yahoo! waves goodbye to 1,500 workers

Yahoos

I've read the email Yang sent to his employees and I must say, any employer who refers to his staff as "Yahoos" when firing them deserves the "Patronising Crettin of the Year" award.

NASA celebrates return of the Zeppelin

Yoda?

Is it me or does the guy in the first photo on the second page have Yoda sat on his knee?

eBay bans sale of Obama inauguration tickets

Oh really?

"An eBay rep told us it would police the ticket sales by way of its general methods and "state of the art anti-fraud technology.""

Which means expect lots of those tickets to be sold on eBay.

Microsoft: Malware for Windows on the rise

Lies and statistics

"Microsoft's data also showed that 90 percent of the reported vulnerabilities affected applications, rather than operating systems."

Yes but their data also shows that 100% of vulnerabilities exist only on MS based systems.

Microsoft's Fast charged with 'accounting fraud'

Laugh?

You have to laugh, MS buys this company because they've over-inflated their revenues, then has to pay a fine because of it. How to not have your cake and not eat it.....

Joke, well I guess it's one them

AVG tags ZoneAlarm as Trojan

Eh?

"More commonly false alarms cause problems when they label Windows systems files......., for example, as potentially malicious."

Just doing its job surely.

Das überdatabase: Inside Wacky Jacqui's motherbrain

Likely to work?

Not being daft here (well I might be) but are they really going to log the source and destination of every packet out there? If not then surely someone using a custom written protocol is going to slip right through the system. Now for Joe Bloggs on the street this isn't likely, but these hugely well funded international terrorists (who've done so well out of the film piracy we're told) are just going to employ/recruit someone to make this.

So basically, like all the other counter terrorism ideas, all this does is shaft the little guy (I don't mean by making their data available to law enforement, I mean by giving them the £12bn in extra taxes).

Paris since.... well can't really think of a reason but do I need one (let's face it our dear home sec doesn't)

Next Windows name unveiled: Windows 7

Achievement?

"Likewise, coming up with an all-new "aspirational" name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve"

In other words "Windows we-promise-this-one-isn't-quite-as-crap-as-vista" didn't sound like a good name.

Oz radio newsreader skips broadcast for Facebook

Research?

Facebook for research, that's a tad far fetched isn't it? Next they'll be using wikipedia for people's obituaries.

Boris to give out Olympic 'BlackBerries'

Surprised?

As London MP and Committee Member Alan Keen later observed: “He is all too easily able to overwhelm his interrogators with a flood of words, in which the original question gets lost.”

Give Boris used to be an MP why should this surprise people? Or perhaps they're surprised that Boris hasn't gone further in politics already.

David Blaine does a Benito Mussolini

Not just Rc helicopters

From what I recall, as well as the helicopters people were hitting his glass box with golf balls. If they do that again they'll get to hit him, which has to be a bonus. Perhaps this is why he's doing this "stunt" in the states rather than London.

DHS ponders microwave raygun missile defences at airports

Tests?

"Some elements of Vigilant Eagle have already been tried out at "an undisclosed US airport""

So they've fired a guided missile at an aircraft and succesfully shot it down? (The missile not the plane)

Or does this mean they've shot planes with microwaves to see if they fall from the sky?

Sole competitor comes second in cake-baking contest

Not so 'new's

This sounds pretty petty to most people but it's not uncommon. I've helped out at a similar small village show and no matter what you tell the judges they always cite 'standards' and will only award first prize if the entry is good enough. They've even done this on children's drawings. The way we got round this was putting the whole thing onto a computer (usually this show had about 100 classes and 700 exhibits so working out prize money by hand wasn't funny) and telling them that the computer would 'fail' if it didn't see a first prize in each class.