* Posts by El Richard Thomas

82 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

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Royal Navy parks 470 double-decker buses on Queen Elizabeth

El Richard Thomas

Summer Holiday

If each one is manned by a 20 yr old clone of Cliff Richard then be afraid, be very afraid. No vertical take off option but he'll sing the enemy into surrender!

Spanish struggle to control spelling of 'WhatsApp'

El Richard Thomas

Espera, estoy whatsappeando...

In my limited experience (mainly amongst friends in their 30s/40s) it's whatsapp and the derived verb whatsappear (hence the subject above, real example). In Guatemala recently there were tshirts all over the place saying "Guatzap?" but I think that was just a word play for the tshirt rather then being a generally used term. Shame really.

Coulson GUILTY of conspiring to hack phones between 2000 and 2006

El Richard Thomas

So if the others are innocent

Who did he conspire with?

Slingshot: Facebook unwraps chat app to splat Snapchat brats

El Richard Thomas

Greed

Can't you get an interview with the owners of Snapchat? Not long ago they thought their app was worth more than $3bn. Not any more!

Beam me up Scotty: Boffins to turn pure light into matter

El Richard Thomas

I want some of that coffee.

Amateurs find the 'HOLY GRAIL' supernova – right on our doorstep

El Richard Thomas

Re: No neutrinos? (Frogmelon)

I recently graduated with a degree in Astrophysics and I've been wondering what to do with my life. Now I know, a PhD in the theory of and a career searching for Dark Lead. Time to get started on that funding proposal....

'A measly 3 Instagrams? NO!' Sexy selfie Snapchat spurns Facebook's $3bn

El Richard Thomas

Re: Reality Vs. 3 billion.

"all it takes is for someone to release an app to automate it, and their reputation will be in ruins"

Already done:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/snapchat-snap-save_n_3732477.html

Eggheads turn Motorola feature phone into CITYWIDE GSM jammer

El Richard Thomas

They're already doing th<NO CARRIER>

Does Gmail's tarted-up tab makeover bust anti-spam laws?

El Richard Thomas

Re: Dear Gmail. STFU & GTFO.

You tell them Shadow Systems. In fact, if I were you I'd ask for a full refund.

Tard...

Emulex rustles up a Mulligan for its hungry network gumble floggers

El Richard Thomas

Is that the same Emulex that used to make really crap print servers about 15 years ago?

NASA reveals secrets of Curiosity’s selfies

El Richard Thomas

Re: I always assumed that...

That's not chaff, it's David Icke's next blog entry.

Hero Playmonaut lost at sea as SPEARS ditches in Channel

El Richard Thomas
Coat

Re: I always assumed that...

'No one would think of Newbury as "Costal"'

I'm surprised you haven't taken a ribbing for that one.

Spaniards Joyn together to hunt and kill the Skype monster

El Richard Thomas

Re: Boot on the other foot

No idea about globally, but it's probably right for Spain. In my own entirely unscientific experience based on my friends I'd say Android devices outnumber iphones by around 10 to 1.

Voyager's 35th birthday gift: One-way INTERSTELLAR ticket

El Richard Thomas

Re: Serious question...

Interesting how you remember the magnetic field orientation. When I did O level physics they taught us Maxwell's Corkscrew Rule. Of course that's not very helpful if you don't drink wine ;-)

(PS nearly 30 years later (and absolutely no need to use it) and I still remember it - sign of a good mnemonic!)

Ice core shows Antarctic Peninsula warming is nothing unusual

El Richard Thomas

We don't have to live in it now. If the climate changes such that it is no longer suitable for Homo sapiens then we will become extinct and some other species will take our place. The Earth will go on.

Online bookie can't scoop £50k losses made by 5-year-old

El Richard Thomas

Re: @AC 09:02

Or just maybe he made the duff trades himself and used the old "it wasn't me" line. I bet if the "kid" had made 50k worth of winning trades he would have kept quiet and pocketed the dosh ;-)

Zombie PCs exploit hookup site in 4Square-for-malware scam

El Richard Thomas

Not quite as good as GPS

Very accurate service - for me it just returns: document.write("Spain");

Busted in the US? 'Drop your trousers, sir'

El Richard Thomas

The only problem with going to Canada is the risk that if your destination airport is closed for any reason you may well be diverted to the US, and have to endure US immigration anyway. Wasn't one of those online gambling company owners who was arrested in the US was on a direct flight to somewhere further south? I seem to recall his flight was diverted to Miami because of "bad weather" or "mechanical problems".

Election hacked, drunken robot elected to school board

El Richard Thomas

Re: I always assumed that...

Your UK vote isn't anonymous. The ballot paper has a serial number which matches the counterfoil in the book the paper is ripped out of. Your electoral roll number is written on the counterfoil.

El Richard Thomas
FAIL

Re: I always assumed that...

Doesn't help. You can't be sure that what is printed on your receipt matches the vote recorded in the system.

Scroogle: Dear Google, we're not bots, we're HUMAN

El Richard Thomas

Of course, there is a tiny possibility that its non-appearance in Google could be something to do with its robots.txt file:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /

http://www.scroogle.org/robots.txt

I'm no fan of Google, but in this case they might not be at fault.

Spanish firemen grapple naked stairs sex Brit

El Richard Thomas

"In other news, the lost Russian Mars probe is still lost. And now back to our main story..."

World braces for domain name EXPLOSION

El Richard Thomas

.birmingham, .paris, .london

Alabama, Texas and Ontario* (obviously!)

* There's probably a London somewhere in the US, but I can't think of one off the top of my head so I'll head north...

Metro Bank in schoolboy email error snafu

El Richard Thomas
Joke

Loving all the northerners getting uppity

What would you do with a new bank anyway? London's got all your money ;-)

Cornish cow plucked from jaws of death by Navy chopper

El Richard Thomas

Two birds, one stone

If they'd got a bit closer with the chopper they could have turned it into minced beef in situ.

Pixmania users report scam-spam bombardment

El Richard Thomas

Just another "me too"

I've been getting spams to pixmania@mydomain which include my real name ever since I opted out from all their genuine mailing lists sometime last year. I emailed customer support at the time giving them the option of admitting they had sold my details or had them stolen. They gave me a canned reply about internet security, and I haven't bought anything from them since.

Jester claims credit for knocking Westboro Baptist Church offline

El Richard Thomas

Leviticus

I'm glad you brought up the wise words of Leviticus. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

(Many sources, here's the first one I found: http://dmcr35.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-was-forwarded-to-me-by-my-friend.html)

EU will change e-signatures laws to boost electronic invoice usage

El Richard Thomas
FAIL

What's the fucking point?

No really, what /is/ the point of e-invoicing? Your invoice gets sent and is received by your customer immediately. So what, you still have to wait 30 days (or 90 days if your customer is a really big bastard corporation) for payment.

Robotic High Noon in Colorado

El Richard Thomas

Denver cops have been reading BOFH...

...and aren't taking any chances!

US woman @theashes stumped by cricketing tweets

El Richard Thomas

Name

The BBC story about this quoted her as saying that her boyfriend gave her "The Ashes" as a nickname, but neither of them could remember why.

I've never seen such a great big pile of steaming, contrived bullshit!

LHC boffins turn lead into quarko-gluotic Big Bang incrediblo-stuff

El Richard Thomas

Higgs

No mention of the search for the Higg's Boson in this article, nor any explanation for the change in focus.

I reckon an HB turned up the first day they switched on the LHC and said in a bad brummie accent "You aint seen me, roit?"

Where's the Fast Show icon?

Pentagon braces for Wikileaks' diplomatic dump

El Richard Thomas
Joke

OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE IT WILL THE WORLD EVER BE THE SAME?

amanfrommars has a blog!

Content 'made available' in jurisdiction where server is located

El Richard Thomas

Another angle...

Check out this article for more info on what Sportradar do: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11789671. Could this whole case be driven by certain interested parties who don't want betting fraud discovered?

PARIS unveils impressive box

El Richard Thomas
Headmaster

SEO

Only if they spell separate correctly.

Little black dress with SIM card slot offered for 2011

El Richard Thomas
Thumb Up

Cue 300 comments mentioning...

...placement of the vibrate module

Underweight passport pic left traveller stuck in Amsterdam

El Richard Thomas

Expiry dates

An adult UK passport is valid for 10 years. The other info you require is in the article..

Jackal novelist blames NSA for wife's laptop hack

El Richard Thomas
Joke

Cray?

How the fuck do you get one of those through the scanner? Let alone inside a bag small enough to be used as hand luggage?

IT council chiefs ditch Sadville after splurging £36k

El Richard Thomas
Joke

At this rate, in about 5 years they will implement a video call centre...

...using ChatRoulette

Our Vulture 1 aircraft begins to take shape

El Richard Thomas
Stop

Wrong way round?

Doesn't the dope usually go inside the Rizla?

El Richard Thomas

Plans?

They don't have no steenking plans, they're making it up as they go along :-)

But of course, once it's finished they could produce a "Haines" manual based on the photos they take as they're building it...

Facebook bars crawls from all but select few

El Richard Thomas

Fixed the quote...

"Some sleazy crawlers simply aggregate user data en masse and then sell it, which we view as a threat to our own sleazy business model"

The Linux Chronicles, Part 1

El Richard Thomas
Thumb Up

Agreed

Slightly less cryptically, it's ubuntu with a load of extra multimedia stuff added so all the mp3/video/dvd functionality is there right from the word go. And the default colour scheme is a lovely green rather than shitty brown ;-)

Main reason I started using it was that I was given a Tosh netbook by work that included Windows 7 Starter Edition, and I found a nice web page with step by step instructions for replacing that pile of shit with linux mint and making the wireless, bluetooth and 3G all work :-)

Romford coppers try to stopper young snapper

El Richard Thomas
Thumb Down

Slight problem...

You then end up with a convicted thug who knows who you are and where you live, has lots of friends in the police and whose behaviour is no longer constrained by the fact he might lose his job as a police officer.

The words "frying pan" and "fire" spring to mind...

Comet-bomb interceptor makes low pass above Atlantic

El Richard Thomas

I can see their point...

After all the trouble I had I wanted to launch my washing machine at Comet. With hindsight I should have gone to the Planet Zanussi...

Currency moves cost small biz dear

El Richard Thomas
FAIL

Mindless regurgitation of press releases

Research paid for by company which provides currency exchange services shows that businesses lose money by not using currency exchange services.

No IT + no Paris + no humour + no BOFH + no tits = no point! ;-)

Ed Vaizey takes charge of Digital Economy Act

El Richard Thomas

MP not voting

Maybe he received exactly the same number of letters in support of the bill as he did against it, and felt that the only way to enact the will of his constituents with a clear conscience was to abstain.

However, back in the real world, he's probably just a useless, lazy twunt.

Atlantis blasts off on final mission

El Richard Thomas
Thumb Up

STS-135

You mention the possibility of a further flight if the already prepared Atlantis isn't required for an STS-134 rescue. But then they would need to prepare one of the others for launch in case STS-135 went wrong. Which in turn could then go up again as STS-136, and so on.

Oh, hang on, maybe that's NASA's master plan to keep the Shuttle going for a few more years ;-)

Trident, nuke energy looking poorly under LibCons

El Richard Thomas
Stop

Sir Humphrey

I believe that at the time that episode was first shown the big public debate was the replacement of crappy old Polaris nukes with shiny new Trident ones. Thanks a fucking bunch for making me feel my age!

Megan Fox not world's sexiest woman: Official

El Richard Thomas
WTF?

Stop the press!

There's actually a Page 3 Stunna(TM) called Vikki Blows? I know the Sun has never been subtle, but FFS that is ridiculous!

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