* Posts by Mike Norrish NZ

17 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Sep 2010

Crack this mystery: Something rotated the ice shell around Jupiter's Europa millions of years ago, fracturing it

Mike Norrish NZ

Re: That's what happens

See, I love that I can click into these articles expecting a particular comment to have been made and almost *never* be disappointed! ;)

COSMIC FATTY from the DAWN of TIME simply can't exist – astroboffins

Mike Norrish NZ

With bonus portal to the antimatter world in the center...

Gotta love that Gallifreyan engineering :)

Cambridge boffins reveal prehistoric prawn monster

Mike Norrish NZ
Boffin

Anomalocaris ancestor?

The description of those forelimbs and their function sounds pretty familiar... Or maybe it's just the "prawn" part that made me think of it :)

Judge denies move to ban ad-skipping DVR

Mike Norrish NZ
Thumb Up

Re: no lover of ads ..

@Mike Flugennock: "I remember one amazing moment about ten or twelve years ago, on the NBC Today show -- in fact, it may have been during the first Tivo ad-skipping brouhaha -- where some TV industry flack was being interviewed."

Ah, that's the one - not Murdoch after all. Apparenlty great Mikes think alike ;)

Mike Norrish NZ

Re: no lover of ads ..

"Is there a law saying that thou shalt not take a leak while an ad showth on TV or something?"

Was it Murdoch who said that skipping the ads was theft, as the ads supposedly pay for the show? I think it was Murdoch, although I could be wrong. That's their justification, anyway. Utter, utter bullcrap that makes me specifically want to skip every ad ever out of sheer spite, but that's what they think.

Mike Norrish NZ
FAIL

Even worse if you happen to be subject to the morons running TVNZ... Then you get the original credits ditched entirely and scrolled in plain text at the bottom of the screen while the ads play. So if the show you were watching was one of those that continues the story during the credits - tough luck.

The FAIL icon is for TVNZ, not the OP, obviously :)

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria review

Mike Norrish NZ
Happy

Yeah, I'm really loving this expansion myself :) I don't mind the low-tech graphics so much... WoW is about the last thing I'm still bothering to play, and not having to upgrade my PC every few years just for one game is absolutely fine by me ^.^

Apple turns off Siri’s potty mouth

Mike Norrish NZ
Happy

Re: Asimov did infer sexually capable robots

*scratches head* Errrr....... "Satisfaction Guaranteed," is that the one? :) Yeah, the train of logic that leads to that is fascinating.... If I recall correctly, it was a result of the robot liberally interpreting the first law, yes? :)

40,000 sign petition to oust Rep. Paul 'pit of hell' Broun

Mike Norrish NZ
Thumb Up

I have insufficient upvotes for this post :) I come from a parish where the average level of education is a PhD... Wouldn't it be nice if THAT was the public face of the church instead of idiots like this guy? :P

NZ beaks give climate skeptics the bird

Mike Norrish NZ
Pint

And fair enough too. Another failed attempt by the "why shouldn't we just be allowed to do whatever we want, and hang the consequences?" crowd... The massive shift in NZ climate over the last couple of years alone make idiots of this particular bunch of deniers.

ENCODE’s ‘junk DNA’ claims spark biological bunfight

Mike Norrish NZ
Trollface

Re: Junked junk DNA junks ID junking?

Upvoting for the sheer balls it took to make that suggestion... lol

Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote Control review

Mike Norrish NZ
Headmaster

Re: I'm far from being a native speaker

Nope - apostrophes have lots of different uses, of which two are used here :)

First apostostrophe is to show that "there's" is a shortening of "there is" (apostrophe used to indicate a contraction)

The second is to indicate that one subject is possessed by another - an apostrophe before the "s" shows possession by a single subject, so "mother's voice" means "the voice owned by your mother"

The TARDIS through the ages

Mike Norrish NZ

"Attack of the Cybermen" in 1986 - The Doctor briefly repairs the chameleon circuit, but does something of a botch job on it, with the end result being a series of external shell disguises even more out of place than the original Police Box, such as the aforementioned Welsh dresser, and old Organ with working keys (IIRC), and a fairly elaborate doorway set into a random wall in a cyber tomb on Telos. At the end of the story, the changes are rolled back, and never spoken of again.

Australia claims it invented cutting-edge tech before rest of world

Mike Norrish NZ
Headmaster

Depends on water levels...

Hooray for a serious answer that isn't about beer or the great firewall ;)

If paleontologists are correct, and early humans arrived in Australia via land bridges from Indonesia ~70,000 years ago before water levels sank back to near-current levels, then that would indicate independant development of this technology elsewhere in the world... The original settlers would have been stranded in Australia long before this came about :)

Stallman storms in on Oz software patent conflab

Mike Norrish NZ
Badgers

Just say no...

I know that Australia != NZ... But before our lawmakers get it into their heads to play "follow the leader" with our cousins across the ditch, I'd like to register a resounding "Do Not Want!" to the possibility of software patents down under...

Microsoft wins court order crushing mighty spam botnet

Mike Norrish NZ
Pirate

Yeah.... Time for the USER to take some responsibility for their actions.

The lengths that some people will go to to try and "beat" Windows (and in doing so make its problems worse) never cease to astound me.

Why is it that people compromise their systems - and worse, convince other people to compromise their systems - by disabling Widows Update, anyway? What exactly are they worried is going to happen there? Will the nasty MS goblins personally crawl down the fiber and start reading your email? Wait, there was never a patch for that.... Will they use it as a way to download all your files, steal your ideas and sleep with your wife? Strangely, none of those patches made the cut, either.

Or maybe they might clandestinely find a way to identify the fact that you've stolen your operating system from them. They did do that one.

Ultimately that's what it boils down to... "I can't use Windows Update, because then they might cotton on to the fact that I'm a thief, and stop me!"

Solution: Stop whining, and stop pretending that your big moral battle over remote patching is about anything other than getting away with theft.

There's nothing wrong with modern versions of Windows except for the people using them. XP? Not perfect. Vista? Dog's breakfast. Windows 7, On the other hand... Absolutely peachy. Remove the blinkers from thine eyes, and admit that just like Linux is no longer the terrifyingly complex beast that it was in 1998, neither is Windows still the piece of rubbish that is was in 2002.

Also, I also have it on good authority from anonymous sources inside Microsoft that Gates and Ballmer don't even rape puppies anymore - scandalous!