* Posts by MMcA

26 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Sep 2010

Court rejects Tesla’s latest libel spat with Top Gear

MMcA
Go

Tesla is the future, old people....

Elon Musk has made the first decent electric sports car. Credit where it's due.

Besides, inefficient reciprocating lumps of metal, explosive fuel and all those extra moving parts (gearboxes - how quaint) are so last Century. May as well keep making better horse whips.

Crack GCHQ's code and become the next James Bond

MMcA
Black Helicopters

"So I did it...!"

Took about 90 seconds. Go me.

Blow for McKinnon as extradition treaty ruled 'not biased'

MMcA
WTF?

This is a litmus test for the Govt...

They promised not to extradite. If they do, and God forbid the poor tortured guy tops himself in a US gulag, the reverberations will be immense. It could swing any election.

Ecclesiastical judge tells church: Let there be Wi-Fi

MMcA
Facepalm

More masts = more safety

By far, the most EM you receive is from holding that little microwave transmitter right next to your head. It dwarfs the dose you get from masts, even if you're stood under one.

The closer the mast, the less power the phone has to use. One bar of signal means the phone is transmitting on full-blast - not desirable. Five-by-five signal means lowest-power transmissions and the greatest safety.

It's not the masts which are the problem. The lack of masts is the problem.

Plods to get dot-uk takedown powers - without court order

MMcA
FAIL

GCSE English grading

"How Quickly will websites critical of the police be shut down? We have juducial oversight for a reason, its to stop some numbnuts 5 GCSE grade C plod making decisions way above there intellectual pay grade."

quickly

judicial

it's

their

(D-. See me later.)

Bundled music newbie Boinc aims for year-end launch

MMcA
Stop

There is already a BOINC

Released in 2002, currently on ~500k PCs around the globe, in various news articles for last 7 years...

I'd say that's a very good prior claim to the name. And this bunch of ne'er-do-wells must know that, so bollocks to them for trying to steal it from such a noble cause.

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/

LOHAN rival to inflate bulging orbs with hydrogen

MMcA
Flame

Ban all helium balloons

There will come a day when wasting tons of precious, non-renewable helium on poxy balloons will be seen as one of the most stupid things mankind ever did.

The Earth's helium supply is small and finite. We need all of it for supercooling superconductors and various crucial machines and experiments (such as the LHC). Even now, we are due to run out of helium by ~2050 (ie. before we run out of oil).

Hydrogen supply is effectively infinite. Use it, don't smoke, don't rub the balloon on your hair until it crackles.

Job done.

Is Facebook worth more than Google?

MMcA

Wrong about the 'first $1tn business'. It's happened at least twice already...

Citigroup, 2002, PetroChina, 2007.

First tech-based $1tn business will be a UK company that you probably haven't heard of yet.

Japan takes the Top 500 lead with K super

MMcA
Black Helicopters

10 megawatts? Pah...! The NSA's latest will pull 60 MW

In fact, they have two...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/04/nsa_fort_mead_data_center/

Will still dwarfed by Charity Engine.

AMD promises 10 teraflop notebooks by 2020

MMcA
Boffin

Notebooks are already supercomputers

Just depends on what era you compare them with. A smartphone is more powerful than the first Crays.

In 2000, the world's fastest machine was 7 teraflops. My £150 graphics card is 2 teraflops...

The vast majority of the world's computing capacity is already unused. We're actually basing a business on that very premise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTKnXelDkco

SaaS and Security

MMcA
Paris Hilton

You miss your own point

"Why in your right mind would you trust any third party with sensitive data for any reason whatsoever?"

Not all data (or computing) is sensitive. Plenty is public, plenty more is obscure, irrelevant and/or otherwise not secret or valuable to anyone else. If it's not intended to be secure anyway, makes perfect sense to outsource.

Plus, how secure are most facilities anyway? Whenever HDDs and CD-ROMs go missing (disgruntled employee, theft, accident, etc), then keeping sensitive data in-house wasn't the best idea.

(Paris, cos she's public, irrelevant and of no value.)

Groupon cops triple slam from ads authority, blames newbies

MMcA
Thumb Up

Test case coming shortly, Groupon is in for a real bollocking

Of course they won't run those ads again. They never run the same advert again anyway - it's a 'daily deal', a one-shot. That's the whole point.

Groupon is under investigation yet again by the ASA for recently promoting Idiot Bands (aka 'Power Bands') as the UK National Deal, with all sorts of lying and misleading claims.*

And this time, the standard meaningless promise of 'we won't run that ad again' will not be accepted. The ASA has realised that Groupon can be effectively immune to it's regulation otherwise - and is not happy.

You heard it here first!

*Google 'PowerBalance Scam' if you are the only Reg reader who needs convincing. After being taken to court, they've publicly admitted it was all lies (well, duh...) and offered full refunds. The copycats are rightly very worried.

Mass mind control artist condemns El Reg to obscurity

MMcA
Coat

Leave Rush out of this, please...

Rush: intelligent, progressive hard rock.

Limbo: thick, backwards pile of soft fat.

Who said anything about green?

MMcA
Happy

How about carbon-neutral computing?

"Winterputing" is our method of continually shifting tasks to the world's coldest computers. Heat isn't always a waste product that needs removing at great cost. Sometimes (or somewhere), it's useful.

Wherever PCs are making the aircon go crazy, we hardly use them. Wherever PCs are simply making the central heating burn less gas, we give them the work instead.

Result: most eco-friendly method of computing on the planet.

Putting the internet into neutral, or neutering the net?

MMcA
Paris Hilton

Silver linings

At the recent SVC2C (Silicon Valley Comes To Cambridge) meeting, a certain BT chap tried to defend their shoddy plans for a two-tier service, and was met by simmering silence. Then Joi Ito explained why it's actually a crap idea; cue thunderous applause from the whole theatre.

Of course the vendors are going to take advantage of this, with certain overpaid hotshots thinking they're being especially clever by screwing the customers yet again. Trebles all round, for sure.

But remember, this is the age of t'Internet. Nothing is secret for long.

Preferential traffic throttling - and anything else that those short-sighted corporate shits are thinking of - will be detected. The truth will always out, followed by huge loss of image and customers flocking to the one or two remaining Good Guys in the market.

If a few idiots want to hang themselves, I say pass them the rope.

(Paris, cos she's just as clever)

Berners-Lee: Facebook 'threatens' web future

MMcA
Happy

I have.

So there.

FBI top-brass ask Google, Facebook to expand wiretaps

MMcA
Alert

The Govt just uses this equation...

(Benefit / Cost) (total surveillance) > Risk of ruining entire economy (if data ever leaked to enemy)

which solves to:

(Zero / Loads) (crap idea) > Total inevitability

which solves to:

(Infinitely crap idea) = Govt policy

Robot wars break out on poker sites

MMcA

Google "Absolute Poker fraud"

At least Stars and FT are doing something. None of the other sites do.

MMcA
Grenade

I spent three months researching bots for a well-known poker magazine...

They wouldn't run the story. Bad for the advertisers.

Then the Absolute Poker scandal broke...

US to fork $5bn+ into exascale supers

MMcA
Paris Hilton

Of course, but it doesn't matter

The list of suitable apps is very long (limitless, even) and includes plenty of Grand Challenge problems. Who cares what's not on it?

Harness the Internet, save the world.

(Paris, cos it's that simple...)

MMcA
Badgers

We've already got an exascale* computer and no-one is using it...

The Internet has two billion CPUs and uses more electricity than most countries. Average utilisation of all that computing power is about 2%.

(*it's actually zettascale)

Hefty physicist: Global warming is 'pseudoscientific fraud'

MMcA
FAIL

When one dissenting non-specialist is news...

Next up: climatologist resigns in protest against string theory.

Apple now world's second-largest company

MMcA
Thumb Up

If I were Steve Jobs...

...I'd have made that very point. ;)

"Imagine, you get to Heaven and St Peter asks what you did with your life and you say, 'Oh I just said what other people did wrong!'" - Stephen Fry

Mark McA, CEO, The Charity Engine