* Posts by mr-tom

46 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Sep 2010

Modern-day Frankenstein invents CURE for BEHEADING

mr-tom
Holmes

Reconnection

Canavero added: "The greatest technical hurdle to [a head transplant] is, of course, the reconnection of the donor’s and recipient's spinal cords."

Well no shit, Sherlock. We got the hang of separating heads from bodies some millennia ago.

Hubble spies unlikely planet being born in hostile neighborhood

mr-tom
Terminator

Borg Cube

Prepare to be assimilated.

So, who ought to be the next Doctor Who? It's up to YOU...

mr-tom
Boffin

Peter Capaldi's character, Malcolm Tucker, from The Thick Of It would make a great Hartnellesque doctor.

Have Brits fallen for Netflix, or do they still LoveFilm?

mr-tom
Meh

Re: Loveflim disks by post is the killer

I loved Love Film initially, but then over a six month period, it seemed every other disc they sent me was filthy and / or scratched. I watched little bits of so many things that in the end I gave up on them and decided to wait for iptv. Now Netflix is here, even though the range isn't great, I simply never, ever run into quality issues, and that's on a positively medieval Internet connection,

iPhone 5: UK pay-monthly tariffs compared

mr-tom
Happy

Beat me to it

As soon as I read that, I headed straight over to joke about 4G coverage...

New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

mr-tom
Trollface

Works if you Yoda-ise it too.

Yoda would be a great advocate for nuclear power. He's both green and glowy.

mr-tom
Trollface

Re: Time will tell

Oh dear. They're made from prawns? Guess vegetarians will need to stick with wind power then.

PayPal co-founder sells out of foundering Facebook at VAST profit

mr-tom
Boffin

Re: "average prices ranging between $19.27 and $20.69"

Any given average would be of multiple stock sales across a trading day, so if sales took place on more than one trading day, there would be multiple averages.

Plus, some big stocks can be traded in other national markets creating further duplication (although no idea whether FB is)

New gov.uk site hits beta, flashes SINGLE typeface to punters

mr-tom
Trollface

Not working as intended - search function deeply flawed

Searched for "Knob"

No results returned.

Expected results included articles and pictures about Tony Blair.

Please go back to the drawing board.

Sincerely,

D. Cameron.

Most anticipated videogames of 2012 revealed

mr-tom
FAIL

Re: PC Gaming a Niche activity?

Or "more" significant...

Oh if only I remembered that reg posts can't be edited for typos.

mr-tom
Happy

Re: PC Gaming a Niche activity?

In fairness, citing the lack of comments on one nameless forum as an example isn't exactly scientific.

I'm not going to pretend that PC outstrips the consoles in popularity, but I think it is ore significant than you are giving it credit for.

Ten... Kitchen Gadget Treats

mr-tom
Happy

Re: Engraved handle on a kitchen knife...

I have some of the knives for sushi making.

(No, I didn't get them engraved)

They are absolutely amazing. Did the apple test the day I got them - dropping an apple from 12 inches onto an outstretched blade. It went straight through. Needless to say, it was my best toy since I got rid of my lego.

Eurocom Panther 2.0 Core i7, SLI notebook

mr-tom
Happy

Keep the battery

It'll serve as a good UPS

mr-tom
Unhappy

Darn

You got there ahead of me.

Fans lose grace with Star Wars MMO

mr-tom
FAIL

Game is currently unplayable

Lag on the servers reaching 70000ms. Stood in the middle of a room full of players who can't go anywhere.

Pathetic.

Churlish gadget cusses those who use it

mr-tom
Meh

Voice should have been Emma Clarke

Would have been much better with Emma Clarke instead of Mr Generic. Emma was the voice behind all the London Underground announcements before being sacked by them after a newspaper misquoted her (they said that she found travelling on the underground unpleasant at rush hour, heaven forbid!)

BT fibre rollout reaches Scotland, Wales

mr-tom
Boffin

Caps based on package, not line speed

Just pick a different package from your current ISP or change ISP.

I am unlimited already (on a 1.5mb line) which next year will be fibred, increasing the speed significantly. Line speed is completely irrelevant to that equation.

Russian Mars probe heads into space WITHOUT ENGINES

mr-tom
Headmaster

Russian Mars probe heads into space WITHOUT ENGINES

"It'll be planting a Chinese flag on Venus before you know it."

Or even a Russian one?

Coulson arrested

mr-tom
Coffee/keyboard

Thug's bitch

New keyboard, please.

WW2 naval dazzle-camo 'could beat Taliban RPGs'

mr-tom

Similar has been done on tanks before.

My granddad was in tanks in North Africa during the war. As he was in at the start, he had Matildas, which were fine for seeing off the Italians, but less than useless when it came to sterner German engineering, especially in view of the bigger guns employed why Hitler's bully buys.

The brilliant British solution was to remove his gun turret altogether and replace it with an arc light. The idea was that he could focus it in on German armour at night, blinding them for long enough for another tank to get close enough to dent the Bosch armour.

Needless to say, they were grateful when they got their next upgrade.

Sadly, he is dead now, but I used to love taking him around the Bovington tank museum.

Microsoft fingered for Nokia's bleak future

mr-tom
Boffin

They may have said that, but...

I suspect that Fitch have seen such promises before and have a weather eye to the likelihood of delivery of rash promises made by a company which likens itself to a burning oil platform.

However, as a loyal Nokia (N8-00) user, I would be delighted to see (viable, stable, usable, appealing) Win 7 Nokia devices before year end. Even more delighted to beta them.

Nokia: When pigeons fly home to roast

mr-tom
Windows

Nokia Shares

In another 6 months, Nokia shares might be an interesting pick for the contrarian (and brave) investor.

Pentagon: Hack attacks can be act of war

mr-tom
WTF?

But, but, but...

Surely that would mean that since they allegedly were / might have been the source of the worm attacks on Iran's nuclear programme, they are therefore at war with Iran.

Own petard, hoist upon?

Nokia gives up predicting sales

mr-tom
Holmes

Icon says it all

Seems like Nokia are only now realising what everybody else knew all along.

Personal jetpacks and solar-powered ships

mr-tom
Pirate

Returning via the suez canal?

Certainly hope their giant solar collector doubles as a death ray to see off those Somali pirates.

Reg hack applauds asinine augmentation

mr-tom
Happy

Boris

Shares many traits with his amusing namesake.

Elite coder readies £15 programming gadget for schools

mr-tom

Should be focusing on things he's already promised

Such as Elite 4.

I've only been waiting 17 years...

Pakistani IT admin leaks bin Laden raid on Twitter

mr-tom
Black Helicopters

Is it just me

Or is the whole burial at sea thing highly suspect?

Computer glitch opens un-staffed supermarket to happy Kiwis

mr-tom

@Keeping receipts

Those who might have paid but were stopped by the police were presumably in the process of leaving the shop with their goods.

Whilst I only have my own (rather inefficient) experience to draw on, I've generally not got around to shredding the receipts before I leave the shop.

WikiLeaks releases classified files on Guantánamo Bay

mr-tom
Unhappy

Depends

On whether the guys locked up in "the bay" were the guilty ones. From what I understand, that may be far from a certainty.

Microsoft wraps Windows 8 in Ribbon UI?

mr-tom
FAIL

Polishing the turd

Proverbs 26:11

As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly

DARPA: Send limbless troops back to war with robo-arms

mr-tom
Terminator

Syndicate

Anybody remember the 1993/4 classic by Bullfrog?

Seems to be marching ever closer.

Fukushima on Thursday: Prospects starting to look good

mr-tom
WTF?

Twitter

Well I for one am reassured to learn that Tokyo Electric Power Co have opened a twitter account today.

I can think of absolutely no better way that they could be spending their time right now...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iOAhBWPQmKiUn41fS_CG3UQvjd0Q?docId=CNG.af94279f2de063afb3fd0d2db3261792.ae1

On the up side, finally an IT angle...

Data-mining technique outs authors of anonymous email

mr-tom
Troll

Why use this in a court of law?

It would be far more effective to employ the SAS, and for once we would see some benefits of doing so, plus it would serve as a disincentive to others.

TiVo calls time on ageing set-tops

mr-tom
Grenade

Isn't there also a version of Windows that's also about 9 years old?

Substitute Windows XP for TiVo and ask the question again.

What if every version of Windows XP stopped working (everything became read only) tomorrow?

OK, maybe it isn't the best of analogies after all.

Mexico demands apology for Top Gear outrage

mr-tom
Go

Agree entirely

I love Top Gear. I love the humour and that it can get away with being politically incorrect, but I was very uncomfortable with the Mexico comments.

Jokes about Germany invading Poland or lorry drivers murdering prostitutes benefited from being clearly intended to be humour and from containing a small grain of truth.

Mexico on the other hand came across as abuse rather than humour (my interpretation, perhaps) and as wholly untrue.

Maybe they were just trying too hard to be funny. Perhaps the format is getting stale, after all.

I was also curious as to what the car was actually like - let's face it, there's enough batshit crazy startups out there that manage to build highly entertaining (in one way or another) cars that there's no good reason why this should be any different.

Home Office crime maps go to street-level detail

mr-tom
FAIL

Broken

It's either broken, or something very wrong has happened in my area.

I put in my postcode. It recognised it, added the city and county of its own accord and then gave me the comforting message:

"Sorry, we couldn't find a policing area that matched your search"

Oh well, that's a few hundred off my council tax bill, then. Just need to invest in a baseball bat and a crossbow.

On a related note, I thought they were supposed to be doing less of this sort of thing, not more - what with it being a recession and all that...

Poll confirms Reg Hardware readers' verdict

mr-tom
Flame

Virgin also deserve the award for the worst non-provider

I've had a 6 year running battle with them to stop them from sending me unsolicited mail. I'm on the mailing preference service, the post office's list and I'm registered with Virgin themselves as somebody who doesn't want to receive their junk mail, but still it comes.

The irony is that their service isn't even available in my area.

Amazon: e-books outsell dead-tree copies

mr-tom

Wonder how many were free

I love the kindle. Bought the 3 myself.

But with so many free books being downloaded willy nilly and each free download treated as a sale, is this truly a useful figure?

It would be interesting to see which group had the greater turnover - paperback or e-book.

My guess is that e-book has a little way to go yet.

Gatwick Airport security swoops on 3-inch rifle

mr-tom

Playmobil

Surely it's time...

2011 Games Preview

mr-tom
FAIL

King Of Vapourware? Nah.

Sorry, but that's got to be Elite 4... 16 years and *still* counting...

US Army: Judge Dredd smartgun in every squad from 2014

mr-tom
Grenade

Where's the bayonet?

Surely they don't imagine that there's no circumstance under which hand to hand combat might be required?

Top Ten Retro PC Games

mr-tom
Alien

Where is Tie Fighter?

Likewise Master Of Orion 2?

BOFH: Robot wars

mr-tom
Terminator

Advert

Well here's mine:

Chainsaw 60% OffChainsaw.Commboo.co.uk

Special Discounts up to 60% Compare our Special Offers

Chainsaw Chain Sharpeningwww.chainsdirect.co.uk

Sharpened & Returned all for £6.25 View Our Machine Before You Buy

Now that's my kind of cross-selling.

Star Wars set for 3D rehash

mr-tom
FAIL

They're actually trying to polish the turd

If anything can kill off 3D TV, this is it.

Vulcan seeks further £400k refuel

mr-tom

Spitfire Comparison

"Why is this not held in as much esteme as a Spitfire and funded accordingly?"

Because it didn't keep the Germans out of Dover.