Posts by BenR

UK will obey Euro unisex-insurance rules from 2013

You're completely correct

And the most galling thing about the entire affair is that it's still called 'insurance', rather than a more appropriate name: 'tax' or, potentially, 'credit agreement'.

As you point out, the idea is that you pay a small amount on a regular basis such that should a rare and infrequent incident occur, your costs are covered. This, in my mind, is how insurance SHOULD work.

If you pay the small fee, have an incident, then have to pay an excess, and then the 'insurance' company pays out the remaining costs, only to recoup those costs from you the next year by putting up your premiums - even if it was a non-fault accident in some cases! - then this isn't insurance. This is a credit agreement - deferred payment.

This, of course, forgets the fact that the 'insurance' company has already profited greatly from you for the long years between incidents, assuming one has ever occurred at all.

My mind is drawn to similarities to the TV License, or the BBC Tax as I think of it. It is there to, theoretically, fund the BBC (TV, radio, et al). And yet, you are given no option to NOT pay it, even if you do not wish to partake of the Beeb.

Fridge-sized war raygun for US bombers gets $40m

Wacky idea:

Can they not just mount the bio-laser-beam-X-man-Cyclops-shark to the plane instead?

SR-71

Can they not do as they did with the SR-71, which dumped excess heat into the fuel to pre-heat it when it was travelling at Mach 3?

US plan to hold EU passenger data for 15 yrs 'unlawful'

Are they having a laugh?

<quote>"Under the proposed Directive airlines would have to send information such as passengers' home addresses, mobile phone numbers, frequent flyer information, email addresses and credit card details to countries before its planes can land."</quote>

All this information being bandied about even if you're *NOT* linked to terrorism or serous crime? Really?

And what's even worse, as has recently been proven, Government data storage isn't really as secure as people make out, so it's not long before this rich seam of data is mined for all it's worth!

Oh, and surprise surprise, the UK is one of only two or three countries supporting the Merkins in not only getting hold of EU passenger data, but then keeping it in a database for 15 bloody years!

Really - you'd think these duly elected representatives could at least pretend to share the concerns of the people who got them there!

SpaceX goes to court as US rocket wars begin

More to the point

As long as second-stage sep has happened and the boosters on that have fired, does it even REALLY matter if the first stage goes?

Bit of a bugger if it's meant to be a reusable first-stage (and I don't know if it is / isn't), but as long as it doesn't result in a Failure-to-Orbit, who gives a flying Falcon?

DARPA issues call for notions on Starship-for-2111 plan

Technological regression?

Not sure I agree with that one.

Regression of both funding and willpower? Certainly.

Stand by for more big, windfarm-driven 'leccy price rises

You need to look into this, and do the maths

> Solar does work

Averaged over a year the total KWHr output of every solar panel in the UK amounts to less than 1/300th the output of one conventional power station like Drax.

I *HAVE* done some maths on this, and you're looking at 14 YEARS of Solar just to get back to neutral on the embedded energy used to make the panels in the first place - and THAT assumes that you're using the decent panels with a (relatively) high conversion efficiency.

(Polycrystalline PV = 4.07GJ/m² to create - ref. ICE v2.0 DB, University of Bath)

IAEA: Handling of Fukushima has been exemplary

Well, it's not in Japan, but...

... there's this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-13637714

That's four more than have died so far at Fukushima... and this was just while they were doing a cleanup!

Icon, well, because.

What is UltraViolet™ and why should you care?

Finally

A bloody good idea, and signs that some industries *DO* seem to be capable of learning and embracing new technologies!!

Now all we need is for the various telly companies to do something similar and to bin the idiotic geographical restrictions they currently have, and throw their lot in with this UV mob so you don't need several different accounts, and they might actually make a decent dent in piracy!

It'd certainly blunt my needs for going to eztv.it! Also, eventually, when Disney are getting pwned by all the people refusing to use iTunes, hence not able to get their films, they'll soon come around.

My only lingering concern will be the number of profiled adverts that'll be inserted into the stream before the film - Pearl & Dean and DCM must be rubbing their hands in glee.

ESA: British Skylon spaceplane seems perfectly possible

More to the point

It's £12billion quid.

Isn't that about the amount the country is spending on the world's biggest school sports day... sorry, sorry... Olympic Games?

Mumsnet founder: Our members are 'very keen' on PORN ...

Hang on.

You've picked up that stick wrong.

Hold it the other way round.

There you go.

Pint-sized 3D printer produced

Actually

If the model companies have any sense whatsoever, they'll just make the relevant files available online (for a price). Saves them a cock-load in manufacturing and distribution costs.

Also, in the case of GW etc., if they were really really smart, they'd send stuff out with a suitable application that let's you pose said models on the computer (what's it called where you give movement node points to 3D computer models so you can drag parts to change position? Can't remember). They'd be able to make money off that!

Once they sort out the freetard issue to stop people taking the latest model round to their mates on disc that is.

Virgin Media Superhub customers still hitting big speed bump

Similar to me

I've been on very slightly longer than you - since about 2001 - and i noticed the same thing. In the end my monthly bill was a small fortune!

I ended up phoning, speaking to retentions, and explaining that I could get a similar level of service from Sky for much much cheaper, that I would prefer to not have to swap, but would be forced to unless some sort of arrangement could be reached.

Spoke to a very pleasant English chap, who I *think* was called James, who got me a pretty good deal sorted out with a Customer Loyalty bonus.

Certain areas of VMs CS team are actually not bad - you've just got to get through the Tier 3 imbeciles to someone who can actually make a decision.

Me too

I phoned up only last week about it, and was told it was only available to new customers or some such nonsense.

As it is, I'll keep using my 10-year old Motorola Surfboard SB3100 from back in the blueyonder days until it absolutely blows up. The wireless from my Linksys router is perfectly acceptable!

Russian Vostok capsule sells for $2.9m

Ivan Ivanovich

Yeah, what a dummy!

(Read the article again - the dog was real, the man was not...)

Red Dwarf to blast off on new adventure

Hawk the Slayer was rubbish.

Babylon 5 was a big pile of poo!

Commodore USA prices up revived C64, VICs

Not the retroness

It's not the retroness, it's the space-saving.

Most people don't need/want the expandability in your average desktop machine - even the Tier 1 OEM boxes most companies use come with a job-lot of upgrade slots.

My company, and probably a few others, don't actually buy machines - we lease them so we get constant updates. For a lot of companies that don't do a lot of heavy computational work (engineering, research etc.), a box like the VIC-Slim would be more than adequate for Word/Excel/Powerpoint etc.

It'd save desktop space for a start.

Sixth Japanese nuclear reactor loses cooling

Alternatively...

... if you're really that concerned, you could NOT build a large-scale nuclear power generation operation right on top of a fault-line with a history of seismic events?

As someone else pointed out, look at the accidents France's nuclear industry has had over the past 20 or so years.

Second explosion rocks Japanese nuke plant

Three words:

1) International

2) Date

3) Line.

Samsung teases with trim tablet snap

Obvious

Could this belief have come about, mayhap, due to the extremely clear bulge that can be seen in the lines of the thing to accomodate said 3.5mm headphone socket?

Football goal-line tracking tech delayed

Sadly, no

The rule/law in football (soccer, not American rules rugby) has always been that the whole of the ball has to cross the whole of the line.

The thing that gets me is that given the number of laser-scanner type technologies that are around, including those clever 3D scanners you can use to replicate solid objects, is that surely it can't be hard to put a transceiver assembly in each post, the bar and under the goal line, then use a computer to interpret the results of objects passing through the plane of the field until it sees a circular object pass through, get gradually larger then smaller until it vanishes, indicating that a spherical object has passed through the plane completely? (ref. 'Flatworld')

Chaps tolerant of girl-on-girl cheating by other halves

In other news:

Dog bites Man.

Pope Catholic.

Government wastes taxpayer money.

Liverpool forward faces possible grilling over 'joke' Twitter pic

To use a few football favourite phrases...

At the end of the day, Babel has given 110% and showed that he had passion and commitment...

Seriously though - he's done what a lot of managers do after the game when they think they've been harshly treated, and had a pop at the ref on a public forum. Managers (and sometimes players) do it on the telly while being interviewed immediately after, in newspaper interviews etc. etc.

In all these cases, if the FA think they've said something they shouldn't, they get fined. Fergie has been done for it, as has Holloway I believe, and Warnock used to get clobbered once a week for it! All that's happened is Babel has used a different medium to portray his thoughts. Why should he be exempt from punishment just because it's on a social networking site?

Google battles Derby cops over access to Street View data

For what again?

<quote> Fact check. It's not the only legal way of getting the information. As previously mentioned, the DPA does allow Google to do this lawfully where data is required for the prevention or detection of crime. </quote>

1) It's not for the 'detection' of crime. The crime has already been detected by the people coming back from their hols and being sans 1No. caravan.

2) It's not for the 'prevention' of crime. The crime has already happened, prior to the detection of said crime, as described in 1) above.

Enjoy!

... also, with backups ...

If it is in fact possible to recover the images they're supposed to have deleted from backups, wouldn't it be JUST LIKE the EU or UK to then try to prosecute them for not deleting/still having the images available?

Thus, on top of all the other reasons why Google are 100% correct in requesting a court order, they probably feel that having the court order for recovering/supplying the photo will give them a warm and cozy feeling around their backsides...

Fire - because that's what you use to get a warm cozy feeling...?

PARIS concocts commemorative cocktail

How about...

... calling it 'The Playmobile Reconstruction'?

More in honour of El Reg generally than PARIS specifically, but it works quite well as a name!

Other than that, 'Knickerdropper Glory' is awesome, as is 'Paris - Alcohol, Recumbent In Sugar' and 'Plastered of PARIS', in that order.

NASA to make MAJOR ALIENS REVELATION this week

Eric Idel said it best...

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, and things seem hard

or tough.

and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,

and you feel that you've had quite enouuuuuuuuugh...

Just

re-

member that your standing on a planet that's evolving,

and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour...

That's orbiting at ninety miles a second, so it's reckoned,

the sun that is the source of all our power.

The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,

are moving at a million miles a day.

in an outer spiral-arm at forty thousand miles an hour

of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars,

it's a hundred thousand lightyears side to side.

It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand lightyears thick,

but out by us it's just three thousand lightyears wide.

We're thirty thousand lightyears from galactic central point,

we go 'round every two hundred million years.

And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions,

in this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,

in all of the directions it can whiz.

As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light you know;

twelve million miles a minute, that's the fastest speed there is.

So remember when your feeling very small and insecure,

how amazingly unlikely is your birth,

and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,

'cause there's bugger-all down here on earth!

Samsung plans to smash Android rivals..what about the iPad?

S-AMOLED

Think they're probably talking about the S-AMOLED screen on the Wave and the Galaxy S.

Although, that's still not right, as the S-AMOLED screens have made it onto the WinPhone7 handsets too.

Superb hardware?

They make nice screens I suppose.

BUT their build quality lags so far behind other manufacturers as to not be very amusing. HTC, Apple, Nokia all provide a substantially better made handset (even if in certain cases that's only because no access to any of the inner workings is provided - I think we all know who I'm talking about!)

Seriously, I thought about a Galaxy S - but having picked one up I put it straight back down again. And that's before you start asking why they didn't even make a token effort with a flash for the camera (yes yes, mobile photography on phones - poor lenses, crap sensors etc. - sometimes it's handy to take a quick snap is all)

And the firmware point is spot on. Woe betide ANYONE that bought the original Galaxy i7500. I had one. I got rid after about 5 months. Poorly made, barely functioned. Even the hardware wasn't too tough due to the massive amount of additional RAM the thing was crying out for, and the battery life was shocking!

Samsung's response? Pull the thing from sale, stop supporting any of the ones still available, don't make a recall available to anyone still stuck with one, and pretend it never happened *fingers in ears* la la la la lalalala LA LA LALALA...

Based on these two experiences, I wouldn't buy another Samsung product. And yes, I am talking about more than just their phones.

Ofcom fails comms test

It's not just ISPs

It'd be nice if Ofcom weren't quite so toothless and had the ability to go after cold-calling companies.

Personally, I've had numerous calls from 01183593113 - this turns out to be a finance/credit management/credit consolidation "company" that try to scam you by offering to consolidate your debts or even get you out of paying them entirely, if only you give them a couple of hundred quid up front.

Obviously, I hung up these crooks instantly. I then searched teh intarwebs later to find out what the deal was. I realised that this company wasn't going from a database, and thus in contravention of TPS - instead they seemed to simply have a sequential autodialler that transferred you to an operator once it connected.

I tried to lodge a complaint with TPS, who referred me to Ofcom. Fair enough. Sadly, Ofcom aren't in a position to actually do anything about it. The form you have to fill in asks for all kinds of information, and then says that they aren't really able to do anything about it.

This is in addition to the calls my grandparents (also on TPS) have started to get from some random company who claim to have 'detected viruses and spyware on their computer" and would they like to be transferred to a technical specialist to be charged £50 to have it removed.

This being impressive - their scanning technology is clearly very advanced if they have somehow managed to scan and locate iffy software on my grandparents non-internet connected, not-networked, only connected to the power line computer.

Oh, and also illegal if they've taken to scanning peoples personal computers without consent, and even more illegal if they have managed to do so after bypassing the hardware firewall on the router that most people have etc. etc.

Ofcom either need to get some proper powers to deal with these annoying leeches and disturbers of my balanced humors, or they should just f**k right off.

Hadron Collider switches to heavy ions, tinfoilers wet pants again

To continue the HItchhikers theme...

... how about the time between one monarch dying, and the next one becoming king/queen?

It was in fact posited that 'royal-ness' was transmitted by massless particles called 'Kingons', and that faster than light communication could, in fact, be achieved by the carefully modulated torture of a small king.

US census takers fight angry Americans for their data

I'm forced to ask...

Just what sort of information were they asking for on the census that got your knickers in such a bloody twist?!

I seem to recall at the last census in the UK they didn't ask for anything too controversial? Of course there was the whole 'Jedi' thing which I can't decide if it was a rebellion against the ridiculousness of political correctness, or just taking the piss for the sake. At least it was an optional response, so if you didn't want the Government knowing, you didn't have to respond...

Sussex police try new tactic to relieve snappers of pics

Bloody hell.

I missed that in the blog when I posted earlier.

My point still stands though - you need powers like this for those occasions where someone is being obstinate about turning over something they need as evidence.

Oh, and as for the suggestions about "agreeing to turn it over to a third-party at a mutually agree time and place" or whatever - the problem there is that once the item is out of the eyes/possession of the Plod, then who is to say the incriminating evidence isn't deleted before it's turned over?

The same problem applies should you end up with incriminating evidence of a copper doing wrong though - they can just delete it as soon as they get their hands on it too!

Fail - because I failed at reading the blog properly :D

What?

And trust Plod with technology??

That'll end well!

(in all seriousness though - good idea. Simple solutions for a complex world!)

I can't help but feel...

... that we're only getting half a story here.

At an anti-fascism demonstration/protest march, there is a bit of a fracas that is recorded on film/tape. Fine.

Police (quite rightly) want to try to find those responsible for said fracas, presumably with a view to prosecuting. Good and proper.

Police have obtained some suspected evidence - this is where it gets a bit murky.

S19 allows officers to confiscate property if they have reasonable grounds to believe the property is evidence to a crime. If someone is camcordering the event, then I would suggest that's reasonable grounds straight away. The bod from the Met suggested (QUOTE) "that in his experience the easiest way to obtain photographic evidence of a crime was "to ask the individual concerned – or their editor where news media were involved". (/QUOTE) All well and good.

<theoretical musings>

BUT - what happens if you're at an anti-fascism rally, you record an event such as said fracas, a policeman asks if you'd be willing to turn over the tape/memory card voluntarily. You, being a dyed-in-the-wool anti-fascist, have no intention of complying with the fairly reasonable (in this case) demands of the officer.

I would suggest that in the situation outlined, the use of S19 to obtain said (suspected) evidence was only right and proper. As long as the coppers return it in a reasonable time and in the correct condition, I don't really see a problem with this.

</theoretical musings>

That being said, given certain recent incidents, I wouldn't put it past our boys in blue to completely misuse and abuse these particular powers until a Beak gives them a legal bitch-slapping for doing so...

WTF - because, well WTF? More information?

Scottish iSchool goes 100% iPad

My mistake

I either misread the article, or forgot between reading and posting. A Christian school, not a Catholic school.

Apologies.

Rest of the point still stands though. Either it's independently funded by parents, in which case they've paid for them, or it's funded by the (whichever) church it is, so the church have funded it, or a combination of the two.

Either way, as long as taxpayer money wasn't used, it's a non-story. Let churches/rich Scots/parents etc. etc. waste their money however they want.

And I assume your presumption of an anti-Catholic rant was based on my usage of the term "Sky-Fairy"? Way to miss the point of the post. You've obviously not seen some of the other posts floating around on El Reg's comments board! Really, if I was going to devolve into that sort of pointless posturing, I'm sure I could find any number of better derogatory phrases about the Catholics...

... but I won't.

Funding?

With this being an independent Catholic school, i presume I'm right in guessing that these iPads were privately funded? ie that my bloody tax money hasn't paid for them?

If it's a school with a separate income stream then "pssht, whatevs." Let them waste their money however they want. With it being a Catholic school, I'm the Sky-Fairy Followers probably dropped some dosh on them. They've got enough.

If this is funded out of Government budgets however, then they should be audited and their funding reduced, as they clearly have too much.

People have no bloody idea about saving energy

Car TCO, take 2:

Hmm. I can see where you're coming from with this - simplicity of the motive parts and all - but that's only in relation to the actual part that provide the motive power.

All the *OTHER* moving parts (suspension, steering, aircon, radiator for cooling the batteries, brakes etc. etc.) will still be fundamentally the same as today, and still prone to the same faults and necessity for repair. You'll just be replacing an ICE+tank with 'leccy motor+battery. I must also admit to being concerned about the effect of all those hundreds of thousands of batteries containing some fairly unpleasant substances.

Also - the items you quote for the service parts, particularly the lubricating oils and fuel - values are all based on current day prices, no? For a start, I can't imagine that electric cars won't still need some form of lubrication. And secondly, who is to say the cost of 'leccy, still relatively cheap at the moment compared to petrol and being used as the basis for the "electric cars are cheaper!" movement, wont go through the roof when there are all these 'leccy cars about using power?

We in the UK are currently looking at a massive generating capacity shortfall as it is. I don't know what it's like in the US, but I can't imagine most countries have that much spare generating capacity that they can afford to use several power stations worth just for cars. You also don't appear to be taking into account the passed-on cost of infrastructure that would need installing at every garage and motorway service station - this is something consumers will end up paying for in the long run and will have an obvious effect on the TCO.

Not trolling, not saying you're necessarily wrong. Just adding a few other points for consideration.

Google finally pulls Gmail contacts tool into line

Yeah, but...

Have they also fixed the crappily low-res pictures that it forces you to use for contact pictures?

When I sort out contact pictures on my Droid they look fine, but one sync later and the res is shot to hell!

'Poo-powered' Volkswagen astounds world+dog

Indeed they did!

And it was a cracking episode that came to much the same conclusion as the El Reg journo.

It's a decent idea, about as sustainable (there'll always be poo!) and environmentally friendly as you can get (unless you can run 'leccy cars on zero-point energy.)

Sadly though, it'll never take off except on a small scale because the numbers don't stack up. Brilliant for the small number of fleet vehicles at places like this, useless for almost everyone else.

UK.gov smiles and nods at commentards

Probably...

... in theory, but it wouldn't matter in practice, because people are sheep.

In the North of England (where I am) people are unlikely to vote Conservative (and this assumes that all manifesto promises are actually upheld, instead of conveniently forgotten) because of what was done to that area of the country the last few times in living memory the Blues were in power. For the same reason, the South is unlikely to vote Labour because of the liberal attitude to 'the poor', money in general and the distribution of it in particular. Then there's the Liberals, who under the current system get a decent number of votes from the people who either:

a) wear too much hemp clothing, or

b) can't decide between Blue and Red in the first place.

People would vote this way no matter what - especially because there is such a miniscule level of trust that even if they DID agree with every one of your policies, they'd still vote the same old way because of "what they did last time they were in charge", or even because "ah, well they say that NOW... just wait until they're in charge."

I remember reading somewhere that in the US, even though they have a 2-party system, the President (assuming the Electoral College do as they're supposed to and vote with the majority mandate in the State) is elected by about 20% of the population. 40% will vote democrat and 40% will vote republican no matter who is running against who - so it's only the swing votes that matter.

(Come to think of it, I may have pulled that tidbit from "The West Wing", but I have no doubts about it being true on SOME level!)

Critcally, however:

Despite the fact he might be right/wrong about the other stuff he's posted, this sentence is spot on:

"The Government of this country is elected by us to carry out our will. "