Posts by Dave 64

Don't buy your iPad in a McDonald's car park

obvious question

is this crime being investigated by Special Branch?

A Farewell to Oates: Adios, El Reg

so long

and best of luck

Who the hell cares about five nines anymore?

only 5 ?

I've worked on very highly available systems, where the sort of downtime offered by 99.999% uptime seems like a summer break holiday. Some environments (blue light, city trading) need much higher availability....take a look at the HP NonStop range for the sort of kit that underpins this sort of thing....it simply Will...Not....Stop....

Hackers crack crypto for GPRS mobile networks

VOIP

And if you're using something like Skype, then the VOIP traffic itself should be heavily encrypted anyway

Reg readers ponder LOHAN's substantial globes

Hydrogen

"In addition, if you were really clever, you could have the hydrogen gradually empty from the balloon into the rocket tank with rising altitude and use if extra flight time."

But you'd maybe need to burden LOHAN with some tanked oxygen to burn that Hydrogen...would there be sufficuent oxygen at that height to combust the hydrogen

Murdoch's PIE BOY jailed for six weeks

Charlie Gilmour

"Charlie Gilmour got 16 months for swinging on a flag during student protests"

But you fail to mention that the flag was on a war memorial, which makes his actions all the more reprehensible.

Yuri Gagarin, legendary 'naut, makes London debut

Looking at the statue's pose...

...this is the 2nd article today (Microsoft shops one is the other) which involves "camping outside"

El Reg to unleash rocket-powered spaceplane

the obvious name

it has to be ELTON (it's a rocket, man)

Skype brings cross-platform video to Android

waiting for the MS haters to come along here

So...this is a new non-Windows version from Skype - the company which, when it was bought by Microsoft, everyone said would kill off non-WIndows versions.

Meerkats face financial regulation

a good move

I approve of anything that stops that annoying Go Compare bloke appearing on my tellybox every 10 minutes

Woman puts shout-out for hitman on Facebook

an equal opportunities employer

Judging by the replies from the man in question, it's good to see that she was prepared to employ someone for whom Engish isn't his first language.

Chinese teen flogs kidney to buy iPad

RE: Dialysis

Are you taking the piss?

High Performance Computing for the masses? Oh yes!

HPC?

Heed Prominent Caption....the title of the article tells all

O2's southeastern crash caused by 'well-organised theft'

RE: Airwave

Airwave spun out of O2 ages ago - it's a completely separate company, although there may be some commonality in the network (e.g. shared cable runs)

Misty Martian volcano caught on camera

clouds?

Nah....Mavin The Martian has just left the kettle boiling for too long

Microsoft spends $7.5m on IP addresses

RE: What sort of block has 666624 IP addresses?

errr...a big one?

Wanted: 1 solution architect to fist bankers' asses

I think it's meant to read...

"...first assist..."

YouTube honours shuttle dead with 'Workplace Safety' ad

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits

targetted advertising isn't rocket science

Man killed by own cock

got what he deserved

serves him right - it's a horrible "sport"

Susan Boyle joins Lads from Lagos

Paul Williams

> we're not sure quite what Mr Paul Williams does when he's not dispensing cash to lucky winners

I think he's the guy who markets a range of rice and cook-in sauces

Ace Reg reporter in career suicide shock

fare thee well

Thanks for all your work on El Reg - best of luck in the new job. You'll be missed

$1,000 reward offered for stolen cancer research laptop

the other Fail

There's plenty talk about the numptiness of not making backups, so I won't add anything on that score

In addition to that though, by the sounds of it the machine was in plain view and the miscreant ne'er-do-well only had to break a window to get at it. If it had been locked away securely then maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

Facebook revamp gives away even more info, warn pros

The solution...

...Get a life.

There - fixed that for you

Half of phish marks respond to scams within one 'golden hour'

makes sense really

if you're stupid enough to fall for on eof these schemes then you're likely not smart enough to spend an hour contemplating whether it's legit or not.

Clive Sinclair unveils 'X-1' battery pedalo bubble-bike

one success?

"the ZX Spectrum - Clive Sinclair's one genuine runaway success in a lifetime of developing tech products"

...yeah...that pocket calculator thing never really amounted to much did it?

MYSTERY of vanished PARIS spaceplane, playmonaut

RE: google maps

good idea - do you want to foot the bill for getting them to fly an o-demand photographic mission and updating the imagery on the google maps/earth server this afternoon?

Google menaces penguins with Street View Antarctica

I'm suprised nobody has commented...

...on the fact that in StreetView mode, on the inset map instead of the little SV man there's a Penguin. Ahh...cute.....etc....

Apple iPod Shuffle 4G

@joejack

You took the words out of my mouth.

Got a Sansa Clip+ 8GB myself and it does the job very tidily for not a lot of money (plus not a lot more money for a 16GB microSDHC to hold more music)

And no iTunes

Boffins learn to adjust body clocks

@Psmiffy / Weapons, etc.

Been done - benzedrine was regularly used by commandos and air crew during WW2.

Iran unveils 'robot bomber'

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

"military payload of rockets to carry out bombing missions"

Personally, I would have thought that a payload of bombs would be more appropriate for a bombing mission.

"seagoing Guard have "substantially boosted our deterrence and destruction capabilities"

So when they next capture some Royal Navy personnel, they can steal their iPads as well as their iPods

Perv scanner todger quips provoke Miami airport assault

there may be a case for sexual harrassment...

...but will it stand up in court?

Samsung cosies up to Yahoo!

hmmm......

I hadn't realised that Samsung's system was called Bada.

That makes me wonder if they should have gone with Microsoft rather than Yahoo....that would have given us Bada Bing

OK...I'll go now

iPod implicated in US attack sub prang

accounting error?

"land his employers with a hefty $86.9m repair bill."

versus

"required $2.3m in repairs"

I've been to some dodgy garages in my time, but a markup of $84.6m on a job?????

Bank insider charged over ATM malware scam

well I never...

...a dishonest bank employee...who'd've thought it?

Y2.01K hits Garmin satnav

@cable needed

Fleabay

Dell intros restyled biz laptops

"Aberdeen Silver"

Nobody from the Dell marketing department has ever been to Aberdeen methinks

BT could face criminal case over Phorm trials

Huzzah!

...that is all

Foreign objects in orifices a bigger killer than laptops

hand baggage

"gasoline from a canister in a luggage locker was inflamed by sparks from a nearby motorcycle battery"

Two objects which I have never felt the need to take with me as carry-on....maybe I just lead a boring life

Mini-asteroid sneaks up on Earth

sub 25 metre asteroids

I suspect that those sub 25 metre (not meter, as you say) started as >25 metre asteroids before our atmosphere subjected them to some extreme weight-loss

Browsers could host a (simple) database

@Russell Howe

Not so much cookie monster, as monster cookie?

Pants bombs vs America: The infernal conflict

pooh-poohed the rectum bomb

ha ha ha

German shoppers slug it out with salami

seeing as nobody else has mentioned this....

...I'd like to point out that Parmesan Dagger would be an excellent name for a rock band

James Cameron poised to make Fantastic Voyage

FFS....

...will somebody please make an original film that isn't a remake of a previous version or a re-imagining of something that's already appeared as a TV series or comic.

BA.com titsup

makes a change...

...from losing my luggage

RatemyCouncil site launches, falls over

Bad capitalisation in title

When I first read that headline I thought, "well I don;' live in Ratemy, so I don't see why that would be relevant to me"

LHC back after temporary unexistence

Units, you nit!

"equivalent to the facility being rammed by an aircraft carrier"

Not a standard unit of measurement - how much is that in London Buses?

Windows 95 to Windows 7: How Microsoft lost its vision

@ Oliver Jones

[WinXP] only consumes about 100MB of memory when idle

100MB...now that seem slike a lot to me....

First Direct sorry for text mess

another satisfied customer

Been with FD for about 15 years now and I don't think I can fault them. They're one of a very, very small number of companies that I'happily endorse and recommend to other people.

Secret teen hacker army ridiculed

obligatory Monty Python reference

He's not a hacker, he's a very naughty boy

Dixons blames PC World for falling sales

@Business Sales

"Haven't PC World run out of customers yet? How do they keep going? Does the Stockholm Syndrome also apply to computer retail customers?"

Errr...I don't know...I'll have to go and ask the manager...