Posts by bill 36

Superstar cluster-Zuck as Facebook tries out celeb-only edition

What is the point of Facebook?

Windows 8.1: Here at last, but is it good enough?

Re: Snapshot of windows in my life

Windows has always been the OS of choice here...

That statement isn't true for 95% of the population. The machines they bought came preinstalled with Windows and therein lies the problem for Microsoft.

The new consumer devices on the street are smart phones and tablets and they ain't running windows.

I sincerely doubt that most consumers give a shit about the OS whether its Win8, Macos, Mint, Opensuse Android or whatever as long as it looks good and works reliably.

Professionals on the other hand have always chosen dependent on the task at hand, performance, scalability, sustainability, upgradability etc etc, which explains why most organisations have a mix of HPux, Solaris, Aix, Windows, Zos, linux and so on. Hence we had divergent skill sets looking after them.

And a fine job they all do as well it has to be said.

I think Microsoft has missed the boat. Not because Windows 8 is rubbish, i have no idea if thats true, but just because the next generation are more savvy and actually don't care anyway.

El Reg rocket squad poised to select Ultimate Cuppa teabag

one day in Leeds

Thought i'd share this with you all. True story on radio Aire from about 25 years ago.

Its a phone in quiz show and the lady on the phone is asked by the presenter " What is another commonly used term for making a pot of tea ?"

After several wrong answers she asks for a clue.

Presenter " The Jewish language"

After a long pause and a few mutterings,

"Mashit" she said.

I was driving at the time, nearly passed out laughing.

Tetley put the T in Britain

Can't survive without a Tetley Tea bag in the morning. But the water source is very important. Hard water just doesn't do it.

Twinnings has the chemical symbol P1Sh.

So Tetley gets my vote.

BitTorrent opens kimono, gets out one-to-many streaming tool

Can't get it to work

Not on XP pro anyway.

maybe its been built for Windoze 8 of course :>)

The UK Energy Crisis in 3 simple awareness-raising pictures

Re: where i live

Eh,,,,,,,,,

last time i looked you would have one finger left. Most others say that chains must be carried.

The point is that below 7 degrees, summer tyres become very inefficient and where it is mandatory, having two sets of wheels is no big deal.

According to the Met office, the average winter temperature across the UK in 2011/12 was 4.2 degrees.

But don't let the facts get in the way of a good bit of chaos eh?

where i live

Gas comes in bottles and is used exclusively to drive a deep fat fryer and a steam oven.

Cooking is done using induction plates, very efficient !

Lights are all low energy bulbs

Heating and hot water is supplied from an non profit organisation using a wood pulp burning boiler and supplies a whole village of ~ 1800 people. Costs around 5.6 cents kw/h.

As for the snow,the position of the jet stream is responsible for Europes cold weather this year, dragging cold air south from the Arctic and therefore snow and blizzards are always going to happen.

The UK is over dependant on fossil fuels and requires a complete change of mindset including, and i can't recommend this highly enough, the fitting of winter tyres by law on every vehicle and the mandatory carrying of snow chains as is the norm in most of Europe. Then you start to minimise bad weather chaos that is the norm in GB.

Thorium is the way forward.

Ten ten-inch tablets

it’s locked down tighter than a Tory MP in a massage parlour

very funny!!

WE CAN still be BETTER than Germany on broadband, says Ofcom

speedtest.net comparison for you

Just thought i'd give you some data.................

From a village in the arse end of Salzburg over a Netgear 300mb wireless link to a Salzburg AG cable modem with analogue, digital TV and broadband. Over copper.

Ping to Klagenfurt 42ms

Download speed 23.20 mbps

Upload speed 2.89mbps

And i think it should be better :>)

Integrator 2e2 axes 319 UK staff, halts pay cheques - insiders

This is all you need to know

about the leadership of this company when they use a phrase like this.

"series of briefings" took place this morning in which the strategy "going forward"..............

Greenland ice did not melt in baking +8°C era 120k years ago

Re: I don't expect this to change anything

"Greenland has been losing more than 200 million tons of ice annually since 2003. "

Its probably lost a million times more than that since the last ice age.

things have melted before

and there is NO problem.

Germany's RTL pulls free-to-air channels off terrestrial TV

Re: It's not over until the fat lady sings

I agree Charlie, thats why i like Freesat.

Sadly there appears to be a few BBC or ITV employees on this forum that want to down vote the facts.

Fact is, Astra 2e will be deliberately tightly focused on the UK, much tighter than 2d is now, under the ploy that it will provide a stronger signal to the north of the UK.

It seems likely that in Bavaria, a dish size of 2.5 metres or more will be required where as 1.5 metres is enough at the minute.

1.5 metres is "reasonable" in my opinion.

There is more to this than meets the eye.

Re: what i'd like to know is

"Member States must ensure freedom of reception"..... Thats clearly not happening!

The "restriction" part of it comes into play when you try and access bbc or itv content without a vpn using a UK ip address.

Thats also against the directive.

I guess my point is that RTL is available widely anyway on satellite or cable but that the UK giants are deliberately "restricting freedom of reception" which is supposed to be illegal.

How are they getting away with it is my question?

Re: what i'd like to know is

oops, yes i meant 2d and 2e.

2f is the new temporary satellite which is also very tightly focused and which 4hd, 5 and various other channels have already moved to.

what i'd like to know is

How Freesat is getting away with moving channels to the new Astra 4E satellite which has transponders that are very closely focused on the UK when the EU directive...cut and paste...says

The Directive establishes the principle that Member States must ensure freedom of reception and that they may not restrict retransmission on their territory of television programmes from other Member States.

Astra 4d was bad enough but methinks they are getting away with this.

As for all the unofficial Sky subscribers that live in France and Spain, they are going to be well pissed off if Sky follows suit.

Record numbers of you are reading this headline right now

greetings from Austria

I do hope that Vulture Central is not too badly affected by the "blizzard conditions" today.

Here in central Europe we find it hilarious that 4" of snow can bring a country to a standstill. Friday is the right day to have it though.

There are no kangaroos in Austria btw :>)

Tell Facebook who's the greatest: YOU are!

Bang on

I think you are bang on the money!

I question the whole Facebook, Twitter and social media bit though, never understood why people feel the need to use them.

England and Germany square off for FIFA goal line tech prize

Re: I'm torn, I really am

I'm not a Chelsea or Man U fan but Paul Scholes was the best midfield player in England by a golden mile.

Incidentally, i'm old enough to have seen Lampard senior playing and he was a great player as well.

Gangnam Style beats Bieber Baby, becomes biggest timewaste EVER

This is what kids should be watching

The magnificent Rory Gallagher giving some French kids free air guitar lessons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Jaodra7AY

Forklift fondleslab 'fellas flee with vast haul of iPad Minis at JFK

Rather than waiting minutes in an iPad-mini queue

Very funny, you just brightened my evening up.

Cheers i'm off to the pub

When GiffGaff falls over, is it even news any more?

Re: WTF is GiffGaff

Yeah its cheap for a reason and as someone else pointed out, great for kids who probaly don't read El Reg anyway......yet!

WTF is GiffGaff

If you hadn't written the story i wouldn't have know what it was and now that i do, why would anyone want it?

PAYG with Goodybags..................do punters really buy this?

I think you could easily bin any story on this

LOHAN slips BRA over BOOBIES in ballocket backronym buffoonery

or how about

Satellite

Located

Altitude &

Positioning

P.C.B. for

Ejaculative

Release

Well it is LOHAN

try this

Fully

Automated

Nautical

Barometric

Orbital

Ignition

System

cos they should be fired into space as well

Craig, Connery or ... Dalton? Vote now for the ultimate James Bond

Its no contest

Pushy Galore, I musht be dreaming

Classic

Boffins build program to HUNT DOWN CO2 polluters where they LIVE

Re: This is all you need to know

Like i said before, 10 years ago most of the big names in science had us all believing that they had proved the big bang theory. They even made TV programmes in which Hawkings appears to explain it all. (It wasn't him who claimed the proof)

Where are we today? Oh err its not a big bang at all, or there are parallel expanding universes or it was a black hole that wasn't really...err

Enough said, you believe what you want to believe. I trust you will be happy with your 7% rise in gas and electricity prices this winter.

Re: This is all you need to know

Then we have to agree to disagree.

Beck may have been just a Biologist but he surely was not stupid and is credited with having done an intense analysis of CO2 even from his detractors, many of whom disagreed with his conclusions.

If we step back and look at all the scientists and their papers, you don't need to be a scientist to see that there are contradictions all over the place and while that fact is true, then you have to accept that AGW is only a theory and should not be accepted until it is proven.

Re: This is all you need to know

His sources are quoted at the bottom of the page and it may be true that 10 years is too short a time. However, lets not forget the point. CO2 levels are measured very accurately now; agreed? As is temperature?

Therefore, according to the IPCC, temperature should follow CO2. It doesn't!

But perhaps the most important point is this. There are some very well qualified detractors listed there and if they can't agree what chance do we have?

Re: This is all you need to know

Yes i read the refute from here, http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html and yes its true that there is an anomaly around 1942 and that it is easily debunked.

The point is that i can find no refute of Becks basic theory that if CO2 was responsible for global warming then the climate would follow the levels of measured CO2 and this appears to be not the case.

He asserts that the climate has been colder when CO2 levels have been high and vice versa.

There is also considerable doubt that the "norm level" of 280p.p.m is accurate.

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/historic-variations-in-co2-measurements/

Recently there has been a complete change in scientific thinking about the "big bang theory" and yet it was only 10 years ago that they were trumpeting the fact that they had proved it.

Now, when the scientific community cannot agree amongst themselves and can disprove each others theories, don't you you think that mere mortals like me have a right to remain very sceptical about the cause and effect of global warming?

Especially now that it has become a crusade in some peoples minds.

Re: This is all you need to know

That website is making extraordinary claims,

Let me explain something to you. I made no assertion about the validity or otherwise of the website. You assumed that i agreed with its contents.

Then you assert that it is "making extraordinary claims" without saying exactly what or why the science is wrong.

Don't you think the sceptical scientists have a point of view as well? And we need to know why governments are taxing the hell out of CO2 producers on the back of an unproven theory.

So come on, put up or shut up

Re: This is all you need to know

Do yourself a favour and read the website. Then do please come back and explain why it is wrong.

Comparing the work to a theological nutcase website, really is very demeaning

This is all you need to know

http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/statements.htm

Winston Churchill's personal papers digitised, available online

Lady Astor

Sir, i believe you are drunk!

Yes Madam and you are ugly

But in the morning i shall be sober

Register SPB hacks mull chopping off feet

just go for it

The conversions are easy to remember and a little bit of mental arithmetic( who remembers that?)

80km =50mph

1600 metres= 1 mile

4.5 litres= 1 Brit gallon

10C = 50F, 40C = fuckin hot

1 litre = 1 & 3/4 pints

5 litres = pissed

So some of these are approximate but do you really care?

Experts troll 'biggest security mag in the world' with DICKish submission

Credibility right down the pan

They compound the felony by not being able to spell properly either and continue it....

cheking :>)

Mosley thrash'n'tickle vid case against Google opens in Hamburg

Don't you just feel gutted for him

Not

Vote now for the ultimate bacon sandwich

Re: Voting

Its still not up Lester.

You done a recent "upgrade" or something?

Re: precison engineer

Yeh , i know but how often do you check that its been popped before taking that first ravenous bite out of one?

precison engineer

for me.

The morning eggstasy is a recipe for disaster.......lost count of the amount of times i've had egg yolk down the trousers half an hour before a meeting :>)

NZ bloke gets eel stuck up jacksie

Re: Hug an eel

Very funny but its a popular song in my local and my fear is that the next time it comes on, my pint will end up sprayed all over the place

cheers

Google promises autonomous cars for all within five years

This is an interesting website

http://www.abd.org.uk/safest_roads.htm

You can make your own conclusions but Sweden ( zero tolerance and heavy penalties) for drink driving, UK (heavy penalties and little tolerance) for drink driving....

In the US, can you shut one eye sir and walk in a straight line and count backwards from a hundred, kind of gives you a clue.

In Austria, drink driving is almost a national pastime.

Methinks the yanks are trying to fix a symptom.

Guardian's Robin Hood plan: Steal from everyone to give to us

That seems reasonable

Then i don't have to pay anything!! And its always been that way for the "red button" and all the BBC channels.

All of you licence payers are paying for me. Thank You!

On a serious note, isn't this the same fraud that the Central banks are pulling at the moment, printing money to prop up basket cases ( the banks) while we pay for it?

Don't panic: Arctic methane emissions have been going on for ages

Re: The Life Of Brian

But the BBC did report this a few days ago.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19702450

What i take from the picture is that the rises appear to be in areas of high geodynamic activity, ie; Indonesia and others. i wonder if they have measured the methane coming from these areas?

.

How can it be lower or higher in one place or the other? But then, given that its a huge cauldron influenced by natural phenomena that we have little control over, moon, gravity, earthquake, subterranean volcano etc etc....

It would appear to me to be just another piece of alarmist journalism.

And i thought we'd been using water to find a level for thousands of years

Events in stratosphere can affect Earth's entire climate

Re: I hate to piss on anyones parade but...

"Of course you aren't interested in why they are wrong - because that would involve thinking, and that might hurt"

Classic!

you can always rely on the faithful to get personal when the going gets tough.

But i will give you this little snippet of information to make you think.

I depend on snow to make a living. There is a huge worldwide snow sports industry absolutely focused on climate change and the reasons for it, me included. It's in our best interests to understand the climate and the reason for change and that, in a nutshell, is why we look at ALL the evidence and keep an open mind.

Re: I hate to piss on anyones parade but...

And there are 49 ex Nasa scientists who clearly disagree with your assertion that "there is no doubt whatsoever"

I'm really interested in why they are all wrong

Re: I hate to piss on anyones parade but...

Is this good enough for you? Since the Danes are only good at making bacon

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-11/news/31322407_1_climate-change-nasa-scientists-gavin-schmidt

I hate to piss on anyones parade but...

You just need to read this and then take a balanced view

http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/

There are enough boffins out there whose measurements and experiments are enough to cast doubt on the C02 hysteria.

This is from the Danish National Space Institute and worth a read

http://www.space.dtu.dk/English/Research/Research_divisions/Sun_Climate.aspx

Climate sceptic? You're probably a 'Birther', don't vaccinate your kids

Re: your skepticism is confused

I've really tried hard to get my head round that and i've failed.

Drilling several miles into the earths crust is very valid but the energy recovery from heated stones?????

Re: your skepticism is confused

You missed a bit.

"super-connectors to Morocco where solar concentrators offer a rare-earth elements free method of generating vast amounts of electricity"

During the day!