Posts by proto-robbie

Extreme porn now illegal north of the border

C ewe l8er

Just after I bought my new wellies too. And now there won't be anyone else in Aberdeen willing to buy them either.

Balinese lad seduced by bovine temptress

Sorry reverend...

...I just got a little horny.

Excel revolutionary needed to crush web-forms anarchy

REBOL

Goes from the ground up.

Mobiles back in the frame as bee killers

They've gone already.

By the time that the powers that be finally get round to spending the money to do proper research, and the scientists actually find the problem, the bees will have long gone, alas.

I did not see a single honey bee last year, and have not seen one this year either. Natural hives in the area (near Edinburgh) have gone, and my father's six hives have all died too.

Too little, far too late. We blew it. Welcome to the end days.

Regent Street blocked by iPad fanboi swarm

Collective confusion

Surely a "job lot" of fanbois?

Typed on a 2001 iBook, which is actually speeding up as it gets older, in much the same way that my shirts keep shrinking in the wardrobe.

Mystic Met closed Europe with computer model

Per ardua ad astra

Telescopes, starlight and science might provide all that's needed for informed decision making here.

Guy Kewney, pioneer, guru, friend - RIP

Sad news

I'm very sorry to hear of his loss. I think it's true to say that Guy Kewney was almost as big a force in the British microcomputer industry as Sinclair or Acorn, by means of disseminating his knowledge, opinions and enthusiasm for the new technology to a generation of fresh consumers. They were interesting times, to which he added a great deal. RIP.

Apple offers hush money for dodgy iMacs

I wish...

...I'd had a 15% goodwill payment every time Windows 95/Me/2000/XP/Server; Office 97/2000 /etc or Novell 3/4 had kicked me in the macadamias on a tight deadline. Then I wouldn't be writing this email on my iMac, would I?

Adobe to Jobs: 'What the Flash do you know?'

@ Adam T & Unity3D

You had me going there for a bit Adam - downloaded Unity3D to my Mac, ran the beautiful live demo on their site, clicked to explore some more, then went to "Force Quit" to kill the dead, wretched fecker.

And yet the pr0n sites work just lovely on my massive 24" iMac (with engorged RAM) without overheating, at least on its part: perhaps these guys should be working for Adobe?

Paris, who can plaster me with mud any time she likes.

Oz banker caught porn-surfing on live TV

Net experts my arse

Looks the company security thingy isn't working today. Aha, I feel a financial instrument coming on.

High grade item for a Tuesday, I must say - beer to you.

Greenock pensioners cuffed for Tesco 'sex romp'

Confectioner's custard

Accused: "The old baguette saw me coming and caught me in the croissants your Honour. I saw the cheesecake and the custard doughnuts and just couldn't stop myself unfortunately. Will I still get my Clubcard points, by the way 'n that?"

Sheriff: "It should be noted in mitigation that this particular episode is not likely to increase the population of Greenock."

Paris, who certainly knows how to make dough rise.

Magic Mice cast energy-sapping spell

Pants

I have a Magic Mouse (thanks Santa), and a wireless keyboard, and have no problems with either of them. Rumour-mongers the lot of you. It's a great mouse.

Swedish lactating bloke's dream turns sour

No moob synthesis then?

Not the only man to have trouble expressing himself...

Tux, 'cos daddy penguins know fish works better.

MySQL's ex-boss demands Europe OK Oracle's Sun buy

@alien anthropologist

I live in a small Scottish town somewhat overendowed with fast food outlets. The owner of one of these emporia did quite well one year, and decided to expand by buying out another just two hundred yards down the road, creating another restaurant like the first.

He since has learned unfortunately that it is better not to compete with oneself in a limited market, with twice the overhead and pretty much the same revenue.

Army's £114m battle-comms net not up to Afghan demands

A simple solution

We supposedly have 100,000 defence secretariat and boffins for 200,000 armed servicemen. Let the boffins work on saving the planet, and pay off most of the secretariat with the £50 billion or so we will save in not having the 7-10 years lead time spent in research, design, build, test, throw away, start again & late deployment of obsolete kit designed for previous theatres of war.

Unless we have a world-leading UK version debugged and ready to roll we should simply buy the best available from around the world. In a first-world economy this is normal practice for all other consumer goods, so why not for Defence?

I worked in a technically excellent Defence supplier as well as in the RN some thirty years ago, and nothing much seems to have moved on since then. One difference is, however, that the Government seems less able or willing to try to plug the gaps now than during the Falklands or Gulf Wars, costing soldiers' lives and global credibility.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard First Look

@ toothsome AC 15:26

And why in general we don't wire up our beautiful daughters' teeth like alligators eating chainsaws.

Zombie plague analysed by Canadian maths prof

Oh no Captain...

...the eigenvalues have all gone negative again, it's going to be one of those episodes.

Paris 'cos she likes her Markov chains.

Bloke decapitates horse with chainsaw

@Gerry Doyle 1

Hi Gerry

I surmise that neither of us know anything about this case apart from what we've read here and are merely peddling opinions?

That means we have no idea what state the rest of the animals were in. The horse was "emaciated" according to the Deputy - that could mean "ill" perhaps. It also was described as "bloody" and "missing fur", but that's a chainsaw for you. There is a significant difference between "alive" and being aware of pain.

What I do know is that he chose a method of dispatching a horse that, while rather abrupt and unsuited to a Surbiton dinner party might not have been cruel in the slightest. A chainsaw seems quite a good choice of tool to butcher a horse - I wouldn't try it with a kitchen knife for example.

Paris 'cos she's never done horse, but she does kick ass.

@Gerry Doyle 1 again

I suggest you look out your reading glasses - noone apart from a sheriff's deputy is saying any of the animals were starving or suffering. The horse he described as "emaciated, bloody and missing fur". In plod-speak that could mean "looked ill, and proceeded into a chainsaw".

Flogging the dead horse

@ Gerry Doyle 1

So he should have kept the old nag starving, and let the dogs starve too, to salve your bleeding heart? It's a cruel stark world when the money dries up.

What he's guilty of is not telling the authorities in good time that he's been unable to look after his responsibilities, so that they can come and kill them all. In the same place I'd have killed the horse too, except I'd have shot it with one of the eighteen guns I'd own by divine right as a Merkin.

German bomber crashes on Moon Google Earth

James 68: Water plonker.

Nobody drinks raw water up here, and you're miles out with The Wicker Man. Un(in)formed Junkers.

Paris, 'cos she'd Wicker Man too.

Staten Island manhole swallows texting teen

Coneheads

I suspect the cones would not have made the slightest difference in this case, and I believe the case should be tried in a nearby sewage works - guilt to be decided on the lines of Takeshi's Castle.

If Paris went down she'd still come up smelling of roses.

Plus ca change...

Fifty-something years ago my father walked into a lamppost while admiring a salmon which had just been removed from the Spey. Mainly it's my mother who keeps the story alive.

MPs decry lack of honeybee action

Too little too late?

I reckon they're just about gone, on the basis of how many I've seen this year (2) - and I have been looking for them all through spring and summer.

On the credit side there has been more activity than usual by bumblebees, but they're operating singly where honeybees work in thousands.

Steve Jobs, 'cos that's the end of the apples at the reception desk down in Uxbridge.

NHS hospitals struggle to hold back the malware tide

Lock-down required

I work in a large organisation where the default Windows XT PC has no internet access, no user access to the C: drive, no ability to use USB drives and no ability to run unsanctioned executables. It works a treat, although the users moan, and there are work-arounds: ie several different versions of notepad.exe!

So, why does the average NHS employee with a PC need to access the Internet or USB devices? Recent events have shown just how inadvisable it is to move sensitive data off-site or off a secure network, and I'd be surprised if even the doctors need much work access to the WWW.

Mel Gibson to put hand up Jodie Foster's Beaver

@Mein Kempf

What are you on? Is this some kinda bestial redneck sex fetish hogwash? We have our own British beavers thank you (OK they're from Bavaria), but still doing what British beaver does best. As for Jodie Foster's pussy, please feel free, and get in touch if you need a hand.

McAfee false-positive glitch fells PCs worldwide

Spooky!

So soon after the OS X AV software article. This reflects many of the comments there, mainly to say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Paris, on much the same basis.

Oracle waves axe in faces of 1,000 European workers - report

Not completely astonishing...

... that some companies have decided not to spend £1k a day for recently graduated consultants then.

Hackintosh maker rises from the dead

@ Psymon

Lord Moynihan perhaps?

Mrs Slocombe's pussy vanishes from Twitter

@ D 13 & David W.

Well done D 13 on a bally fine collection of pussies.

David W., don't be silly, the pound is so devalued we're currently operating at circa £10k social bandwidth. Also one aspires to be en-suite as well as detached, but en-suite is better than nowt, mush.

I also must say (per icon) that I am very unhappy and wish to express my discontent: Rest in Puss, dear Mollie Sugden.

Speculation mounts over AVG plans for OS X client

Bring it on...

I am sorry, but you Mu$tards out there just don't understand.

We are protected from on high by our good shepherd Steve; yes he of the preloved liver, and he will bestow upon us system upgrades at a time of his choosing which will smite all the ungodly keyloggers right up their back orifices and drive them back, back and back again, unto the very gates of Redmond itself. Once he's done all today's patents anyway.

Titsup airport express lane biz may pawn flyer data

Re "Titsup"

...Only to a DickKentsian. Would "Ars over Tit" defuse the muse?

Royal Navy sailors hurl Ronald McDonald into Chilean harbour

As the Spartans used to say...

Don't get caught. Never heard of Mr Lightoller before: what a great story.

I believe Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch station has similar problems wth its platform signs - it seems this is still a collectors' market.

Paris 'cos she's too tasteful to toss in no stinkin' harbour.

W3C launches appeal to scupper Apple patent

Worked on this in 1993

I was contracted to a large utility to write and run a dBase IV system which did this in 1993: sales reps using laptops would have new software installed when they either dialled in or plugged into the office network & server.

I can supply more details if anyone's interested.

Paris 'cos her software was under control back then too.

Nurse Lovelace gives hardened lag 55-hour stiffy

Where can I get this stuff?

Perhaps someone will send me a pharmaceutical marketing email.

Paris, 'cos she's never tried bipolar.

Ex-Borland's Delphi owner re-ignites cross-platform dream

@AC 19:45

Nope, I still have a copy of Delphi before it got numbers (£250 in the late 80s?), and wrote some useful software in it. It was good for building tabbed dialogs, but not for serious WIMP stuff, 'cos it got a lot harder to eg drag off a large window and scroll arbitrary graphics or components on it.

As you suggest I can write PHP, but can also do Perl, Python, Algol, Fortran, Java, PL/SQL, VB, C, C++, C#, Z80, 6502, 8088/6 ... Pentium, 6800 / 68000 family & ARM Assembler, Pascal, Delphi, Ruby, C++ Builder, Rebol, Lua, Lisp, Forth, Prolog & Cobol. I have probably missed a couple, but I am getting on a bit. My first job involved writing in 8-bit machine code, and I went to the Macintosh launch on my 25th birthday.

Yes, Delphi is a great programming language, fast as crap and not a bad choice for writing a desktop application. It's well understood by one percent of the programming population and for that reason unsuited for enterprise use despite its technical merits.

ps how is DLL hell these days? Haven't had it since moving to web pages! To be fair there are other issues, mostly caused by M$oft.

Irrelevant

Does it really matter any more? The speed (ie cost) of development is far more important than speed of execution nowadays. IMHO this comes down to a scripted / web page GUI and a server back-end.

Oz cops in Taser fatality

@AC 15:57

Couple of points here:

Policemen and brains? The brainy ones don't attend incidents, they're writing reports (or getting professional consulting pedants so to do). Take a look at the ACPO (Association of Police Chief Officers) website to see the sort of twaddle they spend their time and our money producing. Looks like they don't really know what they're supposed to be doing but they'll try to define it in a report anyway.

Most of the coppers I know enjoy a good brawl and prefer getting "stuck in" the old-fashioned way, using batons occasionally but who also think tasers are for wimps. What is the model target for taser deployment? Not an armed crim, obviously, since they need something a bit more drastic. Nor 72-year old female motorists surely? I guess that leaves naked knife-wielders. Oops, overcooked that one.

While I'm on a rant, who has been the major beneficiary of the "Age of Terror"? Yep, it's them again. More staff, lots of overtime, loads of reports to write and lots more speed & snoop cameras. How much actual followup to the events of 7/7? Well done Osama, the real success of your campaign - billions of our pounds blowing in the wind.