* Posts by ravenviz

1838 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Nov 2009

Two UK airports scrap IRIS eye-scanners

ravenviz Silver badge

Re: Border control has become a wasteful farce

At Schiphol they have Privium which is also an iris recognition system but this is paid for by subscription which isn't cheap at something like €150 per year, but it would keep subscribers to frequent travellers who would know how to use the system properly.

ravenviz Silver badge
FAIL

Good system, not publicised, would be defrauded eventually

The problem with this system was that it was never publicised properly (non-registered users block gates with comments "How do I know if I am registered?"), lack of proper user training, would only take 5 minutes on a mock machine when you register, and lack of staff support when it didn't work to get the hapless user out of there instead of blocking the (maybe one of two) gates. This could have been so much better. I for one never had any problems with it, glasses or not, and I could jump massive queues, even more of a pain now when an A380 kicks out. However I do realise that if the system were ubiquitous it would not be a method to jump queues. In the end, if you have registered then it could be better than a false passport as someone would have to go to great lengths to copy irises onto contact lenses, but not impossible.

Satnav blunders blamed for £200m damages

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Trollface

Re: Maps

I preferred it when my girlfriend would map read, I would just stay quiet listening to her explanations as to why she'd gone wrong!

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Joke

Re: I see a market oppertunity...

Wouldn't work, you'd have to take both hands off the steering wheel!

NASA plans manned Deep Space Moon outpost

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Boffin

EML real estate

I guess it may become crowded at these points in the future, any stations there will still need fuel taking to them so they can control their proximity to others. At least there won't be a problem with space junk whizzing about, it'll just stay there or gradually go into orbit around the Earth, Moon or Sun.

Ancient cave girl genome could crack Man's genetic puzzle

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Paris Hilton

'delightful young lady'?

I suspect she didn't look like Darryl Hanah!

Boffins claim breakthrough in hovering robothopter experiments

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Coat

I for one

welcome our robo-swarm flapcopter overlords.

ESA's first Vega rocket blasts off without a hitch

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Coat

'wee satellites'

Is worldy human waste being sent into space now?

Space: 1999 returning to TV?

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Yes you can, I always had a boyhood crush on her... Now I have a manhood one!

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Thumb Up

It wasn't just me

"actor Martin Landau, who no matter how many grown-up roles he takes with Woody Allen or Tim Burton will, forever, be John Koenig"

Amen!

Coming to a continent near you: America

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Boffin

I suspect erosion and isostasy will alter coastlines sufficiently to render contemporary landforms unrecognisable.

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Mushroom

...and make it humanity's fault!

RIM's cartoon superheroes inspire caustic Tweet-storm

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FAIL

Yes, just like the abomination that is the Fiat Multipla.

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WTF?

Abysmal

I'd be embarrassed if Blackberry thought I fitted into the demographic that was aimed at. Maybe that's why I bailed last year!

US Senator: 'Retest airport scanner safety'

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Stop

Not for me

I'd rather strip naked than use the machine.

Staff at Schipol however were very polite when I declined to use their machine recently. But I didn't see any signs about my rights to refuse and the security guard did not say I had options, I just happened to know I had rights to an alternative, even if only due to the fact that at Heathrow there are signs up!

World Solar Challenge: The Musical

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Thumb Up

Great video

Thanks El Reg!

Students busted for hacking computers, changing grades

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Thumb Up

Anyone?

GRACE!

North Korea labels phone users war criminals

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Facepalm

Re: War criminal?

They are at war. With South Korea.

New Earth-observing satellite snaps 'blue marble' shot

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Headmaster

Or what?

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Windows

Great resolution on the 16Meg version

I can see your Mum

Korean boffins make e-books more like real ones

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Stop

The juicy stuff

How do I hold it so the "well thumbed" pages open for me? ;)

Loyal NASA rover Opportunity enters 9th year of Mars boffinry

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Coat

AI

"The rover will stay there until mid-2012 [...] trying to work out whether the interior of the planet is molten"

These robots are getting pretty clever!

Russia and NASA plan to COLONISE the Moon

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Thumb Up

Re: The last people on the moon

Must have been really weird going to sleep each night - and waking up ... on the Moon.

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WTF?

And the point is...

Really they should be a bit more specific of *why* they want to colonise the Moon.

All I can think of are either:

a) reasons of discovery e.g. manned telescopes, or

b) betterment of human existance which could be:

i) exploitation of resources (helium-3, wealth); or

ii) exploitation of environment (e.g. microgravity for therapies, development of medicine).

iii) waste management (bad idea)

It was fine to go to the Moon "because it is there" in the 70's but now it needs a revised mandate.

Penal colony anyone?

YouTube tops one hour of video uploads per second

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Facepalm

As in the first Nyan Cat comment I saw:

who the fuck is nyan cat

unquote

Ancient tulip-like stomach-onna-stick creatures found in Rockies

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Coat

...with lasers on its head?

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Childcatcher

Heh!

She said anus.

NASA shuts off Voyager 1's central heating

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Coat

Re: Hats off to the boffins and engineers

It will in 2025!

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Boffin

Re: If only

Probably not much, now so far away from anything that it will look much the same for the next few aeons!

American search team fails to find women's G-spot

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Facepalm

Calling Doctor Winston!

Thanks for that!

Apple launches three-pronged education assault

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Unhappy

"these students may soon swap their MacBooks for iPads"

Will that make them look less grumpy?

Teen net addicts pee in bottles to stay glued to WoW

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I thought you were going to say you cut your cock off!

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Re: Eve online

I read somewhere that to produce a Titan (big mo-fo spaceship) takes about $50,000 'worth' of effort.

Modeling-clay iPads foisted on unwary Canucks

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Coat

RE: If you use a credit/debit card...

That is an en-Tyson idea!

ravenviz Silver badge
WTF?

I really don't know why some people think this sort of behaviour is OK. If I want something I work to earn the money to pay for it. Mind you high prices mean I wait until I can afford one second hand but I'm happy with that.

Mars attacks! Morocco pelted with rocks from the Red Planet

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Facepalm

Re: Aiee!

"Yeah, bloody scientists, if we left it up to them we'd still be living in the stone age being eaten by dinosaurs"

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/729773

Government launches hydrogen motoring task force

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Trollface

I think they're called wind turbines these days.

McDonald's punters offered sex in exchange for Chicken McNuggets

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Coat

MacWhore?

Whoever is downvoting all of these, click here ----------------V

Astronomers map largest ever zone of dark matter

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Alien

They are there, they're just hiding. You know that Spirit got eaten by a Sarlacc.

Big Blue boffins cram information onto a cool 12 atoms

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Trollface

Re: Why not

Then knock up a quick Dyson Sphere while we're at it. Job done.

Hubble probes star death blast clue to universe riddle

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Coat

LOL

I read your post as "Perhaps these scientists were getting smellier and only thought everything was moving away" and began to come to terms with it until I read it again!

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Boffin

No, one-third is right; 9 / 13 is two-thirds since then.

Hubble shows images from record-breaking 13.1 billion light-years

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Facepalm

We need a paraphrase icon.

ravenviz Silver badge
Boffin The Universe is estimated at 90 billion years across, we just can't see it because of the period of inflation after the Great Green Arkleseizure, er, I mean Big Bang.
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Terminator

"BoRG has no plans for assimilation of galaxies"

They haven't made it out the Delta quadrant yet!

Doomsday Clock ticks one minute closer to annihilation

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Paris Hilton

@Ben

Creative use of the word 'girl' there!
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Black Helicopters

Google should run it

All needs to happen is Google automatically crawls the net for new stories about nuclear warheads / climate change and alters the clock for us. Then if it gets to 12 then the Streetview cars can release nerve gas and we all die.
ravenviz Silver badge
Coat 1. Me. 2. Only I am allowed to father children.

Ford unwraps '2013 Mondeo'

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They're boxy but they're safe.

Nuclear Mars tank prepares for 8-thruster dance

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Facepalm

There's hope for us non-boffins yet

"onboard celestial navigation system, which was accidentally reset"

Doh!