Posts by El Richard Thomas

Bulgarians cop an eyeful of Penthouse billboard filth

Took me ages...

...to spot the dolphins!

Guy Kewney dies at 63

Sad news

I only knew of him through his articles on El Reg, but I really liked his take on the telecoms industry and enjoyed his style of writing. RIP Guy

YouTube accuses Viacom of secretly uploading videos

Slight logical error...

...if she's attractive, by definition she can not be a nuisance ;-)

Minister: Banks should give ID cards to people with no money

Mental image

"Banks need proof of ID when you open an account, right? Banks give people free stuff when they open an account, right? Sooooo... banks could give people free ID cards when they open accounts!"

I have no idea what Meg Hillier looks like so when I read this who popped into my head but that chirpy little ginger chipmunk Hazel Blears. Thanks, Reg!

Password reset questions dead easy to guess

The problem...

...is when you finally get it together with the woman in Project Management it immediately becomes a very insecure password ;-)

Tories ask: Why BBC3, BBC4?

Eclectic, astonishing and plain bloody wierd music

If that's your bag try the Spanish Radio 3, you'd love it ;-)

http://www.rtve.es/radio/radio3/

Typing merely by thinking - plugless brainjack kit invented

Anyone here had an EEG?

The electrodes have to be fairly precisely positioned, and are held on with a device not unlike a swimming cap (attractive!). Once positioned each one needs a glob of conducting gel to maximise the contact with the skin - I'm not sure if applying it with a syringe and needle slightly scratching the skin under each contact was absolutely necessary or just a product of the technician's sadism. And the gel is a bugger to get out of your hair.

I think I'll stick with the keyboard until the technology improves ;-)

Global warming may be normal at this point in glacial cycle

Re: have no fear

only a problem if you live by the river...

Re: Stick to IT related topics

Don't feel you have to, I'm sure we won't miss you.

Windows 7 upgrades Vista laptops to lower battery life

Rampant pedantry

"I love posting in internet arguments in reply to posts correcting others' posts."

You should check out the comment threads on failblog.com, if you haven't already. You would LOVE it there ;-)

New inside out hover-magnet fusion reactor debuts at MIT

That's kind of my point...

What if fusion is based on a huge misconception that we just haven't discovered yet? We seem to have been at the same stage for about 20 years with no more progress beyond the "contain the plasma for a couple of milliseconds" stage. It just feels like there's something big missing ;-)

Endless cheap power...

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fusion fan and have been since a Physics A Level school trip to JET in the mid-80s, but I can't help thinking that in a couple of centuries people will point and laugh at people trying to build fusion reactors that generate power the way we point and laugh at historical alchemists and inventors of perpetual motion machines today.

Airport scanner staff object to vetting

It doesn't matter...

None of that will stop somebody taking a photo of the screen on their mobile phone ;-)

Wrists playing up? You're shagging too much

Link requested

The cards in the picture in that article contain the url for the company that makes them:

http://www.kultquartett.de/?&aid=46

Certainly looks more fun than the top trumps I had as a child: WW2 fighter planes and fsckin steam trains!

Avatar renders this earthly life meaningless

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

"All of a sudden the world was as real as my own. At the end I stood up and started telling the people that they were the bad guys and were killing the Na’vi everyday with their western society."

I haven't had acid that good for a looooong time!

Taser gang targets 'high value' Heathrow computer consignment

Operation Grafton

I thought that was a female to male sex change

EMI saves world from unauthorised Beatles downloads

Re: Youngsters Love The Beatles

"the Gangsta Rappers and Pouting Crack Whores"

One of my favourite bands!

SCO boots boss McBride

Yes please Mr McBride...

...I /will/ have fries with that.

:D

Doctor Who fans name best episode ever

Re: Blink

"Blink was awesome, as was the Empty child - adopting a childlike voice to say "Are you my mummy?"scares the bjesus out of my missus!"

I bet it does - especially during sex!

Hubble back in form with stunning new images

Quartet/Quintet

Go to the site, read the description next to the image. The central blob is a pair of galaxies, so 5 in total.

Word nemesis: Microsoft deliberately 'destroyed' our business

Today's partner...

...is tomorrow's lunch. Yum yum!

Celebs join call for official Turing apology

Can't see the point of an apology

But I'd vote for the banknote idea. However, I'd say the likelihood of him appearing on a Bank of England note is severely hampered by the fact he wasn't Scottish.

Lad from Lagos makes YouTube pitch

Classic

"Thank you to all who have messaged me. Although I am happy with the size of my manhood, I would like to hear from people with bank accounts."

Canucks crack whip on Facebook privacy

In line with El Reg policy

Subtitle should have been "Facebook becomes Canadian government's, bitch!"

Wikipedia to crack down on celebrity Wikideaths

All editors are equal

But some are more equal than others

Murdoch says Page 3 won't be free from next year

Missing part of the quote

According to the BBC article on this story, that "cannibalising" sentence starts "Quality journalism is not cheap". WTF would Murdoch know about "Quality journalism"?

Hollywood demands shuttering of Pirate Bay

Making it easy for them

I wonder if they would understand this analogy: It's like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke (stop sniggering at the back). Except that before he sticks it in (I said stop!), there are already more holes than he has fingers, and they are further apart than he can reach with both arms outstretched. Attention cartels, NOW do you get it?

Unpatched Firefox flaw lets fox into henhouse

@twelvebore

The only way NoScript can give UAC-like annoyance levels is if you can't be arsed to check out the options. Click the icon, click Options, click Notifications and untick the box marked "Show message about blocked scripts". Thereafter you browse as normal and if a site doesn't work as you expect you can click the icon and decide whether to temporarily allow that site to run scripts.

The worrying thing is that someone reading a technology site can't work this out for themselves... ;-)

Internet Heroes and Villains named by ISPs

Villain award

Just give it to Ricky Ponting, he can take it home instead of the Ashes.

(OK, OK, England fan here clinging on to hope like an alkie to his last can of Special Brew!)

Short URLs in spam skyrocket

Tinyurl preview

I enabled the preview setting for tinyurl as soon as I heard about it, and in my opinion they should make it the default setting. One more page load & click in return for knowing where you are about to be taken and being able to choose to hit the back button. But that FF add on looks useful, have installed, will check it out when I restart...

The Times kills off blogger anonymity

Re: Go bust

"I havent bought a paper in years and neither will I"

People with multiple personalities really should register a separate account for each one, much less confusing.

Site news: Unique commenter handles coming

Damn, I wasn't first!

Curses to my parents for giving me such a common name ;-)