Posts by PhilipN 1383 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Oct 2010
No. It means the good lady was polite and friendly enough not to slam the phone down until the last "Thank you. Goodbye". THAT is stereotypical Aussie (in my experience) and whilst this is not completely apparent from the article is expected and predictable when the nearest neighbour might be 3 miles away in an area the size of Blighty with a few thousand people.
And a worse sin than being dumb is being ignorant.
That's business reality.
First, when VW resurrected the Beetle it was not a Beetle. It was designed to sort of maybe look a bit like a beetle and latest iterations are no longer so recognisable.
BMW and the Mini - ditto, even worse. Anyone who compares the latest so-called Mini with Issigonis' original is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
Point : So any "new improved" Defender will be no such thing. End of story.
Second, why should JLR cannibalise its own sales with an upper range SUV when they already have several Range Rover models there. That leaves space - perhaps - for a low end rugged off-roader which is either (a) cheap and cheerful and therefore NOT WORTH THE INVESTMENT or (b) full of today's essential bells and whistles ....see "Point" above.
One possible option is the cheap and cheerful version for e.g. China's farmers. Anyone who has seen a farmer transporting his produce to market by means of a generator lashed to an axle will know what I mean. BUT Tata-owned JLR obviously do not want to do cheap and cheerful and they probably would do better embarking on such a business plan from India anyway.
Third I have been driving Jags for many years and now have two and a Land Rover D4**. Whilst I was cautiously happy with the business and design decisions coming from JLR UK I am fast becoming thoroughly pissed off with local service since they clearly want service income to compete with sales income. For example whereas the service depot used to be spread over two floors it is now cramped into one floor crammed with Jags and LR's fighting for space.
Tata and JLR are going to have to come up with something good and I mean very VERY bloody good to retain my loyalty to the Defender brand.
**Maybe not the style that most purists here are waxing lyrical about but I am *****d if I am going to try and drive a 90 or 120 through rush hour traffic.
Ask me how many email accounts I have - no clue.
There's a small number I set up and use regularly.
One or more I have probably forgotten about.
Others given automatically by one service provider or another which I may not even know about (e.g. broadband provider). Even while I think of it some of them spring to mind.
Running into double figures already.
Point : Almost anyone who is online regularly these days has a sprinkling of active addresses. So if I were Sec of State or Gov of Backwater USA I would be happy to let the dogs sniff around a selected email account and be happy they are too engaged to look for all the others.
Now when we get started on online storage ... G Drive, iCloud, One Drive, Dropbox, Cloudme, again broadband provider ... AND data automatically uploaded by one app or another ...there are definitely files secreted somewhere I have forgotten about ..
Kee-rist .. I also need to remember to clear out the draft emails folder otherwise I could be in BIG trouble.
Correction : Something major missing in all this
MS knew this when the first Surface came out. To anticipate the negative their TV Ad showed grinning airheads skating and grinning and detaching and grinning and re-attaching the frigging keyboard as if it is the "latest, coolest, greatest, FUN" thing to do. It isn't.
Curiously a related piece here from Simon Sharwood reports IDC as predicting "a tiny ray of sunlight in future sales of touch-screen PCs with detachable screens".
Since we are into retro many here will recall the emergence of proto-phablets from Nokia with perfectly usable built-in physical keyboards in a mobile phone form factor. Then Google's G1 managed it with a slightly awkward but workable design. How is "detachable" an advance?
Perhaps complementing another piece seeking New Blood at El Reg this is the second item received last night (where I live) whose by-line referenced a classic song which means nothing to today's yoof**.
By the way - Thanks! And if you want to update the job advertisement to encompass Old Farts I might well apply.
** Hi kids. Steve Stills/Buffalo Springfield was one. Don McLean the other. Go Google them.
Well said and I would go half a league further - FB is wasteful and counter-productive. It has reached epidemic proportions now, as I look at a website - news, manufacturer, what-have-you - and there is a box telling me to visit their FB page. Why TF would I want to go somewhere else when I am already looking at the main website? Mad. Just imagine the resources including internet hardware to handle such nonsense.
I want a phone small enough to fit somewhere inside my skull. Plenty of room there. Or even a dental implant. Kinetic charging from chewing gum. Siri to whisper the time in a sexy voice. Built-in heart-rate blood pressure and steps monitor. Satnav. Fuck this is a good idea. In fact several implants linked by - what else - blueteeth. Phew! Now I have seen the future 50 years hence I need to lie down and listen to War and Peace.
Oh not finished. Direct link to the optic nerve so no external display. Do not disturb I am watching Star Wars Part Soixante-Neuf.
El Reg's hack's opening paragraph spot on.
This would be laughable (as well as sick-making) save that it emanates from a guy who wields influence - as much if not more by virtue of the law of unintended consequences than by design.
Worse : completely delusional. This piece could have been written by a hyped-up Robinson Crusoe - the lord and master of his domain - oops - the only one in it - before he saw the footprint in the sand.
I often wonder how the World manages to work at all but it sure as hell is not going to change because of this sophomoric nonsense.
It supports your point, I think, that the weird forms of human behaviour, the sort we do NOT talk about at the dinner table, all seem to have names derived from Greek rather than Latin.
I'd give a few examples but owing to natural delicacy etc etc
The first time I heard the above expression was in connection with Concorde and BA. It was claimed to give a bump to BA's image world-wide and they reckoned to increase passenger loads generally on other flights simply because of the halo effect of flying with the airline that flew supersonic.
But yes that disappeared in minutes with the crash in Paris.
Having said that it was a tiny bugger. Some may remember Concorde flew to Caracas at one point. I had an uncle who flew there a few times on business. He was very tall - 6 foot 3 - and he could only complain about the leg room.
I used to think (and still do) that the appalling accident rate of Starfighters in Germany was mainly because of Arkansas and Texas flyboys the first time off the farm, in a foreign country, and having a blast in a jet aircraft.
Happy to hear our lads are of the same mentality. Let's face it - if I were a kid getting to fly a Typhoon sure as hell I would want to skim the trees. Wouldn't we all? (Except the po-faced Squadron Leader who had grown out of it)
And it is supposed to be what they are good at. I seem to recall a key feature of the RAF's role in the first Iraq "engagement" was low-level bombing raids over Iraqi airstrips. Even the Yanks thought it was crazy. Believe the RAF lost 3 aircraft that way before trying a different strategy.
Not surprising at all. I have about 6 of them of various pedigrees floating around home and office, all working, but I'm just as likely to pick up the phone to check something on the Internet. I shan't buy another unless it can do something outstanding - such as producing a decent plate of bacon and eggs.
So to make up for it here is a starter list of Wastes of Space (Nos. 1 and 2 being of course Kylie I and Kylie II) :
Russell Brand
Pete Doherty
Eddie Izzard (unfortunately having gone from Diamond Geezer to WoS)
Everyone whose surname begins with Kar ,,,, except Dad
.
.
There are others who are prime targets for a STFU but it is Chinese New Year here so I shall declare boundless goodwill for those mentioned above
The decision to crowbar films into games to create a parallel income stream has ruined many movie franchises. It is a relief that Apocalypse Now came out several decades ago. If it had been made today with an eye on the gaming market it would have been one of the worst movies ever made instead of one of the best.
A new game based on the film, though - I am intrigued.
I am similarly intrigued at the thought that models of Kurtz, military choppers playing Wagner and other items (such as Frederic Forrest's severed head) could end up in toy shops.
Not sure whether a game would be allowed if it included a trip to an opium den (Apolocalypse Now Redux) but either way I'd buy it - if only to ensure that the surfer (Sam Bottoms) has his head blown off at the first opportunity.
Why bother? Walking etc. with two counter-balancing legs of similar dimensions, one left, one right, with alternating separation from Planet Earth works great for us 'cos that is how we are built*. It is not the optimum method for locomotion generally. Nor is it efficient, when one leg has to be strong enough to bear the entire load while the other is in mid-air. It has proven to be an immense challenge to replicate industrially. Wheels (1, 2, 4 or more) are a better option in many scenarios. The exception is where the mountain goat comes into his own. Or the tank track.
* and don't get me started on having 5 toes at the end of each leg - whose brilliant idea was that?? If it was to help us count to 20 it failed - and a foot of a couple dozen bones more advanced (and effective) than anything Mr. Adidas has yet invented.
Agreed. Well said.
It would be interesting to know amongst people coming here, although it might be a skewed sample, how many have multiple working but unused computers mainly laptops going back years. I dread to think how many I have floating around home and (my own) office, some of which even those running W7 quite adequately have not been fired up for months and months, others of which have been sitting in cupboards and forgotten about.
Reminds me I still have an IBM PC 110 Palmtop somewhere geared up to run W95. I think I'll dig it out this weekend just for fun. A different point but the best keyboard I ever used.
eCS works fine in a VM on macOS. Even the audio.
What would have been nice is if Sun's Project Looking Glass desktop had been ported to OS/2. PLG was 10 years ahead of its time. Soon it will be 20 years ahead of its time.
Blimey - it's been open-sourced :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass
When I worked near Buck Place I saw some old biddie driving along The Mall busy chatting to her passenger just as if they were neighbours gossiping over the fence while hanging out washing. She sailed straight past the cop on point duty despite his raised hand - and despite also, when he saw what she was (not) doing, a loud whistle and a "STOP!". She was blissfully ignorant of the entire episode.
The cop turned his head around just long enough to clock her number.
I doubt whether Gladys was taking Vera on joyrides through London for much longer after that.
Informative and knowledgeable articles dressed up in an entertaining skin - yes
Occasional lewdness and NSFW warnings - yes
Carefully selected eye-catching photos (originally) unconnected with the article - yes
Running gags and themes such as Playmobil, Paris etc - yes
Slightly skewed phraseology with more-often-than-necessary innuendos - yes
Persistent attacks on pomposity - with an edge of self-righteous pomposity - yes
Acidic commentary softened with artifical tongue-in-cheek barbs supposed to sound self-deprecating - yes
I could go on but KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK
Hang on - Free??? Oh, fuck. Then how do I cancel my subscription??!!
Scrub all the above.
Does this mean from now on the Net will start to become accurate but boring?
No thanks.
Everyone loves to read scurrilous rumours and of course we consciously suspend discrimination, the same as we do when watching Tom and Jerry.
Or when reading about a gay liaison between Hillary and Yoko Ono (yup there was such a report)
Or watching Smith & Jones sniggering about Rowan Atkinson smearing himself with peanut butter before riding in his sports car (sorry, can't find the link on Youtube).
Same with the gutter press.
And of course daily life whether it is gossiping in the office about a lass (or lad) of low morals or the C of E matrons peering from behind their net curtains at those new neighbours ....
Welcome to Planet Earth.
Seems to me the user needs guidance, not (as much as I hate to say it) FB.
Putting American materiel into Israeli hands is the next best thing, for the US, to placing its own airbase in the region. In fact probably better : there is every chance the Israeli IT community will fix at least the software problems before the US. Most likely the hardware too : Israeli air aces are a rare and expensive commodity.
We may feel dwarfed by the heavyweights but in terms of population there aren't that many countries which outnumber the UK. And as a group of islands on the edge of a continent whose strategic significance was acknowledged by Napoleon, Hitler - and, yes, Uncle Sam - some kind of fighting force is essential.
It would not be so bad if there were resources in the nature of reserves ready for immediate call-up. Problem is, there is none. I seem to recall the dialogue in advance of the Falklands War as to whether for example cross-channel ferries could be "impressed" as troop carriers. The army's and/or navy's assessment was to the effect "Are you ******g serious? Those tugs are built barely to scrape past civilian build regulations and would not in a million years qualify as naval vessels!" Puts the matter into tragic perspective.
Get all your potential critics and enemies with influence in a single room, under the delusion that that is where they may freely sound off. This limits their impact to a forum of one's own construction. It also re-directs (=maintains the silence of) the silent majority who might find other ways to undermine your authority because they think they have a voice.
A beneficial side effect is that you know who to shoot and have them all lined up waiting for it.
"no representation for organised labour" - Their turn next.
More, much more. The PLA fought in Korea alongside the (North) Koreans and are blood brothers. The PLA has huge sway over high level decisions in the PRC. That's why each new guy who pops up in Beijing wants to get himself appointed head honcho of the PLA.
60 years or so is just a blip on the screen when it comes to Chinese history.
No need to be po-faced. True Brits treat inhabitants of the next village as aliens. Somewhere a couple of miles down a side road which you pass every day for years without going down may as well be another planet. Half the inhabitants have horns and a tail. The other half walk with a stoop with their knuckles dragging on the ground. Or so I was told. I've never been there.
Where do those things go, i.e. how are they supposed to fit, remembering that nobody these days wants to hear what anyone else is listening to? Given that the opening to my ear canal is tailored precisely to take, comfortably, a lump of (well used) chewing gum I do not think I am even going to bother trying these new iThingies.
Seems the bigger disaster is the abandonment not of the audio socket but of the soft rubber tips** to ensure a snug fit, and courteous and private enjoyment of loud music.
**of which I have accumulated a whole bloody drawer-full.
Lock ' em up and throw away the key.
Not because serious hobbyists are doing this but because the way prices and the technology is going every kid is going to have a powerful drone in his Christmas stocking before long. Given the typical schoolboy mentality things will then quickly get out of hand.
I could make the same pledge because (a) it is not enforceable (b) it is not verifiable (c) my charitable foundation may allow me to retain and /or manage the assets and (d) it is not going to tell anyone. In the mean time I claim the kudos and the tax benefits and do not make any lifestyle changes at all. I could even get the foundation to pay for my 5-star travel if there is a side trip to some medical institute (when the media are watching, natch).
Yawn.
So that's alright then.
By the way I heard many years ago that modern fighter pilots are trained to such a level of intensity over a period of months that if they then stop flying just for a couple of weeks they can never get back to the same level.
Anyone in the know about this?
Sounds akin to forgetting permanently a sequence of choreographed movements which previously was a no-brainier. Jonathan Edwards (Brit triple jumper) once said he forgot how he jumped to break records and never managed it ever again.
Off topic but this question reminds me of what Mick Jagger said after Bill Wyman left the band. Asked during an interview who would replace Bill he said (words to the effect) :
" I don't know. I may even play bass myself. I mean, how hard can it be?"
With friends like these ......
Uggh! Another of those feeble-minded modern cliches.
"Going forward" means "not now, my halo always was and still is bright and shiny" and maybe is a misrepresentation that "I am thinking really deeply and seriously about this and I am about to do something which troubles me but which is for the greater good of humanity not because anyone whinged but because I want to".
Balls!
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