* Posts by Willington

86 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Feb 2011

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Event horizons around black holes do exist, say astroboffins

Willington

"Black holes are strange objects that can grow to monstrous sizes."

Surely black holes don't grow in size at all, just mass. It's the event horizon that grows, not the black hole.

UK Home Office warns tech staff not to tweet negative Donald Trump posts

Willington

Use quotation marks

They could always take Sean Spicer's advice and put everything in quotation marks. Apparently things in quotation marks don't mean what they say so, for example, tweeting 'Donald Trump is a "paedophile"' is acceptable.

Beat the UK's incoming smut filter: Pre-censor your grumble flicks

Willington

There's no way I'm ever going to follow a link called "Cameron Porn". Eeeeeuwww

BT and Virgin sue over £10m state-funded Birmingham broadband

Willington

Forgive me if I'm wrong...

...but didn't we used to live in a free market economy that was driven by competition? Ok, so the banks made a complete farce of the free market thingy by not going bankrupt when they were bankrupt, but surely that was a one-off due to the fact that all bankers are all cunts. Now I frequently see legal challenges to stop people competing. Are BT and Virgin also cunts now?

Space: 1999 returning to TV?

Willington

I'm not sure about this. Space 1999 had one good thing going for it and that was the design of the Eagle transporter. I hope that the designers will take the Enterprise approach to this and update it without actually changing it fundamentally. If they can do this then Space 2099 will probably have one good thing going for it. I agree with Jason 7, the premise was ropey, very ropey indeed.

UK gov rejects call to posthumously pardon Alan Turing

Willington

@Ken Hagan

It's not that complicated Ken. We have a system where you need money to get elected and as soon as you're elected you are effectively a despotism and do exactly what the hell you like as long as you don't upset big business or the Daily Mail too much. You aren't legally bound to do the things you said you were going to do to get elected and you take money from lobbying groups (who by default are also people with money and are therefore allowed to "lobby" which is somehow different to "bribe") who want laws changed and then make the appropriate changes just like you were paid to.

We call it a democracy but better words to describe what we have would be plutocracy or plutarchy.

Willington

@Gordon 10

"Its easy to blame the "ruling classes" isnt it than to admit your parents and grandparents as part of a democratic society have an equal responsibility for the electing of a body that passes or refuses to repeal distasteful legislation."

I'm sorry Gordon but I can't agree with you here. I have actively demonstrated for most of my adult life against unjust laws that this and previous governments have passed or refused to repeal, and I still do. Do I too have to accept responsibility for being part of a democratic society that elected these people even though I never voted for them and did everything in my power short of taking up arms against them to stop just a little bit of their madness? Do you honestly believe that the average man or woman on the street has any say in what laws are passed or repealed?

Hackers may be able to 'outwit' online banking security devices

Willington
FAIL

About 2 years ago, Blizzard made a statement to the effect that under certain circumstances a WoW authenticator could be compromised. The attack that they outlined was identical to this one, not surprising as the hardware is effectively the same. Last year my bank sent me an authenticator (about 2 years after I got the one from Blizzard) and must have been aware of the security issues but failed to mention them (I hope that's the case, the other alternative is that they were unaware which is worse by several factors). Why is it that Blizzard seem to care more about my security than my bank does?

American search team fails to find women's G-spot

Willington

If it was a phenomenon it would be observable. God is also not a phenomenon... or real.

Capita seeks 99 heads for chopping block

Willington

"We have reviewed our operating model in order to make the business more efficient and productive" = Although we know we need you to fulfil our contractual obligations to our customers, fuck them and fuck you! We'll just employ another grunt to manage the complaints and dance all the way to our big fat bonuses.

I have also had the misfortune to work for Capita. I took redundancy as soon as it was offered.

What should a sci-fi spaceship REALLY look like?

Willington

I'm not sure about the other classifications but the NCC-1701D certainly had it's impulse engines affixed to the saucer section. The warp nacelles don't provide thrust as such, they just create a warp field.

Willington

There have been a couple of giant spheres. The Borg Queen's ship in Star Trek: TNG and my favourite (ship that is, not film - I'll always prefer the books to the TV and film outings), the Heart of Gold from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.

Neutrinos still FASTER THAN LIGHT in second test

Willington

Neutrinos don't really react very well with other matter, that's why they are ably to pass straight through the Earth. You can't bounce them back as you have nothing that will act as a reflector. If your idea was to send another separate neutrino back to CERN each time the detector detected a neutrino then this factors in a lot more uncertainty about timing and would also require another Large Hadron Collider to be built under the Italian Alps.

Swearing doesn’t help pain if you do it too much

Willington

Well...

I guess it's a bad fucking day to give up heroin then.

Sony develops 'new kind of television'

Willington

Better get those patents in quickly boys.

Chief inspector sacked for 'advertising uniformed self online for sex'

Willington

"The breaches relate to claims made to members of the public on an interactive dating website that he was a serving police officer and that he had committed criminal offences including drug-taking and a sexual offence," said the IPCC.

And this breached their rules as they have been given explicit instructions never to admit anything after committing criminal offences.

Threesome ends in arrest as wife struck by pair of TVs

Willington

It's a trap that men are easily reeled in by. Your girlfriend will only ever allow you to have a threesome with another girl involved if she has some lesbian tendencies - it's never for your benefit no matter how good it sounds in theory.

I agree with A J Stiles, it's just logical.

Prince Harry given free run of Arizona town's womenfolk

Willington

I had to check the address bar

I thought I was reading The Daily Mash there for a minute.

Gov reduces e-petitions to public spleen-venting exercise

Willington

not only will it be debated but it will be made into law, because the public has spoken

What do you think this is? A fucking democracy or something?

Pete Townshend condemns Apple as 'digital vampire'

Willington

Do you have any idea

Where his son keeps his bike?

Man 'drinks 2 pizzas' before skidding off road

Willington

Are you new here?

It was clearly labelled bootnotes!

In future please avoid the bootnotes or at least please avoid commenting on them.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56

Willington

I'm not an Apple fanboi

But I have a great deal of respect for Steve Jobs and I am sorry to hear of his passing. As many others have said, 56 is too young and especially for someone who was so passionate about the future.

Hospital data boob: Records left in bin room got binned

Willington

Every cloud...

At least the waste disposal procedures are efficient.

Boffins invent miracle pill that counteracts effects of booze

Willington

I half agree. I enjoy getting drunk but I don't really enjoy being drunk.

Virtual and real worlds collide in gamers' minds

Willington

I once had Elite wireframe spaceships giving me a light show in the sky while I was walking home one dark night after a 36 hour session on the Spectrum but I've not had anything similar since I stopped doing so many amphetamines and hallucinogenics.

Lincs bloke fined in deceased hedgehog outrage

Willington

http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/news/the_reason_given_to_police_for_defecating_on_dead_hedgehog_in_street_1_3045067

Willington

Amazing quote?

The anticipation is killing me!

Hacker defaces Irish Catholic paper: 'Gotta love false hope'

Willington

As opposed to everyone being, say, a Christian or a Muslim? It's hard for people who don't believe in anything to invent divisions on which to draw battle lines but religions will always manage it. If god didn't exist as a concept (he doesn't exist as anything else) then there would certainly be a lot less for us mortals to argue about so the world would indeed be better.

Waterstone's to take on Kindle and Nook with own reader

Willington

It's so fucking easy a child could do it!

All Waterstones have to do is cut the crap about eBook pricing. We all know that the production costs of an eBook is a lot less than a printed book (paper, ink and distribution are expensive) so just stop bullshitting us and give us eBooks at a reasonable price. Just because it's out in hardback doesn't mean I'm willing to pay £12 for an eBook. You can't justify that price. I have invested in hardware at a substantial cost so stop ripping me off!

Forget your own eBook reader, just sell eBooks at a reasonable price and you will have the majority of the market share overnight.

Parliament has no time for 100,000+ signature e-petitions

Willington
FAIL

Piss up in a brewery?

Better get someone else to organise it.

Christ appears in phone advert, secular authorities act

Willington

Where's my Buddy Christ icon?

That is all.

Painters wrap Forth Bridge job after 121 years

Willington

Hows about...

Like trying to appease her.

Brit men descend from mammoth hunters, not farmers

Willington

Angles, Saxons and Normans...

...are not Britons. Neither are Romans who invaded these islands a long time before any of these Johnny-come-latelys.

NASA to work on approved sci-fi books

Willington
FAIL

Science Fiction?

If they are scientifically accurate doesn't that make them just fiction?

Oxford adds woot! to dictionary

Willington

Jetwash

So what is the proffered alternative to Jet? I want to copyright it with the suffix "wash".

iPhone users richer, brainier, more tasteful than Android-ers

Willington

So, reading between the lines...

iPhone users are a bunch of arrogant pricks who think the law doesn't apply to them and would make excellent drummers in a cheese shop. Well that's how I read it.

HARRY POTTER CHAINED to new Sony reader

Willington

No it doesn't

Digital Editions supports pretty much any device including Android and iPhone/iPad apps. About the only device not supported is the Kindle but I doubt that's Adobe's fault and it's certainly not Sony's. I'd guess the blame there lies with Amazon.

Will the looters 'loose' their benefits?

Willington

@Liam Johnson

Liam, I've already grown tired of this conversation. I don't care that you don't understand my argument, it doesn't matter to me one iota that you think you know what's going on here, subjectivity can be tough to fathom, but I still find the irony mildly amusing. I realise that I should have taken my own advice from my first post. I'll let you have the last word if you wish, all you have to do is type a suitable riposte and hit submit.

Willington

@Liam Johnson

"What causes one person to look at a riot and join in but another to turn away?"

Well you tell me. What causes one person to be righteously indignant about the actions of the rioters when another can approach the entire situation with an open mind?

Willington

@Liam Johnson

"There is one big logical problem with saying mass hysteria caused all those poor people to do bad things and that is all the people who resisted the urge. Was everybody out on the streets looting, or was it just a minority? What did the others do to resist the urge - sit inside a pentacle?"

The people who didn't go out looting didn't have any urge to resist, they were not caught up in the hysteria. Anyone who felt the urge and resisted it was a very strong individual but there are few of them around. Do I really have to explain this? Wouldn't it be easier for all of us if you looked up "hysteria" in a dictionary before posting?

Mob mentality is not the same as any the mentality of any individual within that group. You may believe (I think that you do) that you are immune to this effect and yet here you are on the other side of the coin caught up in a similar (you may say righteous*) mass hysterical outburst.

Did I mention the irony?

*in fact, I'd put money on it that you do.

Willington

@Blubster

I was taught black from white but it doesn't mean I'm blind to all those shades of grey.

Willington
Flame

Mass Hysteria

I find it ironic that all the people decrying Danny5 for stating that mass hysteria is the probable cause are actually now suffering from mass hysteria. It's a bandwagon thing - the looters got caught up in it and did some wrong things, the commentards on this forum are now caught up in it and are frankly talking bollocks.

They all now love the Met and support them wholeheartedly for stopping the riots when in fact they did absolutely fuck all. They've already forgotten that poor chap who was killed by the Met during the G20 protests (and for which nobody has ever been prosecuted). They've already forgotten the suspicions about the Met taking bribes from journalists for information about ongoing cases.

Danny5, you're an idiot! You are a free-thinking idividual who believes that everyone has your capacity for intelligent thought. I hate to be the one to tell you but you're wrong. We are all victims of the Dunning Kruger theory. Don't try to reason with the Daily Mail crowd, hysterical people follow the masses, they lose the ability to think rationally - commentards and looters alike.

Oh the irony!

Flame on to prove me right.

Videogames caused riots says plod

Willington

Elite

I used to play Elite constantly for 18 months when I was 16 and I've never once attacked a real wireframe spaceship. The only thing it really did for me (apart from keeping me out of the 80's riots as I had more important things to do with my state-imposed unemployment) was give me an appreciation of Mussorgsky.

Death haunts government petitions site

Willington

The main flaw with a petitions site...

Is that I can't vote against anything. It's alright getting 100,000 people to agree on an issue but that doesn't account for the 500,000 who may actively oppose the issue. I can hardly start a petition to stop the death penalty as it's not an issue - we don't have one - so where is my representation on this issue?

Another huge problem with this site is that most of the issues that will be raised (apart from the ones from the legalise drugs lobby) are the issues that the Daily Mail tells people to raise (until recently this would have been News International but there you go).

I may however start a petition to have paediatricians flogged in public but that's just because, at a very fundamental level, I'm a bad person.

Paul McCartney's ex-wife makes phone-hacking claim

Willington

I was wondering...

...who would be the first. You win!

Game graphics could be 100,000 times better

Willington

Amazing stuff

But is all of that stuff just scenery or can we interact with it? Can I pick that rock up and use it as a weapon? Or pick up a handful of gravel and blind an opponent with it? I really really hope so.

'Up to' broadband claims out of control, says Ofcom

Willington
FAIL

Worse than its bite

The communications watchdog once again called on self-regulatory ad bodies to change their guidance to give customers "more informed decisions based on the adverts they see".

Good plan because it obviously worked last time. And when they don't change you can ask them again.

Sony confirms e-reader update imminent

Willington
Thumb Up

Same here

The reason I won't be updating in the forseeable future is that I too own a PRS-505. Had it almost 3 years now and I reckon it'll be good for another 10. I don't need wifi or a colour screen, I have a computer that is permanently connected to teh interwebs and a handy USB cable, and I read books, not comics. There are some niggling issues like not being able to use it while it's recharging but nothing to warrant spending a couple of hundred quid to fix. Overall I'm very happy I chose this model.

I agree with you entirely Richard, Sony's hardware is excellent.

Commons hit by rash of laptop thefts

Willington

Re: Re: What do you expect?

How else could they possibly make ends meet?

Lulz warns NHS of sick security

Willington

Wow

Cameron's Big Society idea may work after all!

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