Posts by Daniel Grey

Firefox 3.5.4 fixes critical memory flaws

Hmmm..

Wonder if it will fix the random Firefox crashes that started when I went quad core at the weekend (CPU replacement only, no other hardware). It is the only software that has fallen over since.

Ryanair requires web check-in, shuts down website

@ handle

Don't forget that they charge if you need oxygen aboard the flight - by that I mean bottled oxygen users. They refuse to carry yours and you have to 'buy' theirs from them (unless they have had a recent change of heart but I doubt it).

I refuse to use them.

Scottish beavers (and Cali cacti) get their chips

re: Security

HINT: Rabbits aren't native to the UK either, never mind Australia ;)

Court slaps UK BitTorrenters with landmark damages award

Surely...

...the 1689 Bill of Rights comes into act here (the UK one, not the USA one) that prevents "cruel and unusual punishment" or "freedom of fines and forfeitures without trial*"? I assume that a £3.5k punishment for a £9 offence is unusual?

*I am sure that the Prosecution received confirmation from the Defence that they contest the crime but chose not to appear therefore this doesn't strictly apply... they did, didn't they?

Dino-killing asteroid traced back 160m years

Chicx no longer the culprit

Recent studies by Prof. Gerta Keller (reviewed in this month's Geoscientist magazine) have thrown serious doubts on whether the Chicxulub impact had anything to do with the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The impact predates the end of the Maastrichtian (the infamous K-T Boundary) by 300,000 years and appears to have had no effect on life at the time.

References are available ;-)

America haunted by ghost of ice gravity

Read the research...

Actually, yes I was responding to THIS article (in The Register) but was chiefly referring to the research. The work was done by Prof Jerry Mitrovica of the University of Toronto in collaboration with Drs. Mark Tamisiea and James Davis of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Last time *I* checked Harvard was in America. Okay, so I forgot to blame the Canadians too.

I first heard of the paper after I received a press release by EurekAlert, which is perhaps more complete. It suggests that the phenomenon of rebound was proven using this new method when, in reality, physical methods have been used for a long time (e.g. raised beaches, flooded valleys et.c.). I have yet to fully read the paper (have any of you?) but either the poor researchers were badly quoted in the media or they truly believe they have discovered a new 'phenomenon'.

Americans...

Why does America always think it is the only country to be affected by things? It has been long known that all ice sheets excert a gravitational effect and 'compress the earth' (it's called isostacy).

Yet again, a group of scientists discover something that every other scientist knew long before them.