Posts by Tim Brown

HUGE Aussie asteroid impact sent TREMORS towards the EARTH'S CORE

Devonian?

Wonder if it could be responsible (or partly) for the late Devonian extinction event. That occurred around 375–360 million years ago, so could fit the timing of this impact.

DARPA: We KNOW WHO YOU ARE... by the WAY you MOVE your MOUSE

You are being watched

You know that "crazy mouse" thing that happens sometimes - your mouse cursor suddenly runs around the screen a bit?

I'm slowly becoming ever more convinced that it's not a glitch, but some NSA operative on screen clone who accidentally nudged the mouse at his end...

BOFH: People get annoyed when you try to debug them

That cattle prod...

... it needs to be lost. Just makes it far too easy for the BOFH to dispose of people. Where's the fun? And besides, it leaves behind a telltale burning smell...

Flying 'Motorbike'/Reliant Robin 'to take off next year'

MPG

The drop in MPG from 60 to 22 doesn't sound like much of a problem. A 60 mile journey by road might only take 22 miles once you're airborne - so either way you'd still only use 1 gallon.

In fact, given the wayward state of some roads, a 60-mile ground journey could easily turn into a 10-mile journey - even better!

Google Moon to go 3D

Where're the pics...

...of the moon landers? Sure the LRO will be able to see them...

Sophos punts anti-virus for Klingons

whut?

Where's the klingon bit then? Lorem ipsum is standard publisher fill - it's ancient latin, not klingon.

NASA talks little green men with Vatican

Life on what?

So they're discussing the "...possibility of life on other plants." That explains so much...

First piss-drinking astronauts to go on live TV

It always confused me...

...that the crew of the Enterprise were never caught out during their travels.

"Captain, the Romulans are attacking!"

"Gimme a minute - and throw the chef in the brig for serving curried eggs last night!"

Microsoft Songsmith ad trumps Seinfeld shocker

Kill me now

I watched precisely 32 seconds. With the sound off. The movements and sheer urgness of the guy in the red shirt was enough to make me decide to never, ever, watch it again.

Gnghgnngh

Yes! It's the USB Toaster!

I double dog dare ya...

... to make a real one. It doesn't have to actually toast anything - it just needs to talk about toast a lot. A la Red Dwarf's "Talkie Toaster".

Go on. I dares ya.

Ledger zombie pizza promo pulled

What about the time...

...they gave out a soft porn mag with every pizza sold? True. They started getting complaints when one of the delivery guys handed over said mag, complete with nudie pics, to an eleven-year-old. I'm not saying that the kid wasn't already corrupt, but still...

They do make damn good pizza though.

Led Zeppelin plan Plant-free tour

Tee Hee

"nothing as much fun as having an instrument in my hand"

snigger

Dawkins' atheist ad campaign hits fundraising target

What a pussy.

Probably? PROBABLY? I thought Dawkins was atheist, not agnostic. What a cop-out.

Mitsubishi eyes Middle Earth for 'early' electric car roll-out

All for leccy, but...

I'm all for clean green (apart from the copious amounts of oil used to grease it) leccy cars but why can't they build good looking ones? They always look girly and soft. Make it look like a man's car, maybe men will buy them.

Also, get that torque sorted. If I can't tow that one ton of gravel home to line my driveway I don't want it.

iPhone 3G unlocked in Brazil

Vodaphone and iphone 3G

Went on sale in NZ last week. Not carrier locked.

Lab tech supplier redefines corporate song paradigm

Could've been worse

Could've been "Don't ya wish ya lab assistant was hot like me..."

And when was the last time you saw a girl that hot in your laboratory?

The Moderatrix will see you now

And Why is it....

No one knows the difference between "your" and "you're".

Let's face it, it's a bit hypocritical to write "Your all a bunch of idiots."

Biofuel 2.0 gets off ground in Kiwi airliner trial

I for one...

...welcome the first 747 to fall out of the sky and land in my garden.

Safari practices self-love, claims code monkey

How sad is it...

...that someone actually read the code deeply enough to find that comment?

Nerds!

Scientologist ASBOed for being over 36

That facebook 36 is so freaking funny...

...because who's to say that the 12 y.o. that just signed up isn't a 37 y.o. pedo IRL?

For that matter, what about the 26 y.o. pedos?

It's just a typical gut reaction which has no bearing on reality.

Russell T Davies bows out of Doctor Who

Yeeeehaaaah!!

Yes, yes, frick yes!

Admittedly, I quite enjoyed Love and Monsters, although not for Peter Kay. Thought the casting of Marc Warren and Shirley Henderson was brilliant.

Stephen Moffat's writing has long stood out high above the others (loved Blink, and Family of Blood was fantastic), and it'll be interesting to see where he takes the series.

Love Live Doctor Who!

Unmanned Aerial Manhood outrage at Kasparov rally

Way to go Security Guys!

The way they immediately stepped up, evaluated the threat, and swatted it out of the sky. Bet Ballmer's wishing his guys were that good...

Ballmer eggs on Hungarian student

I could make a comment about scrambled eggs...

...but instead omlette-ing it go.

Hope those eggs had the right shell.

I wonder where he poached them from?

Oh well, it's nothing to fry about.

I'm sorry.

Scientists discover galaxy's youngest supernova

Maybe...

... we're not seeing more Supernovas in our own Galaxy because they've already occurred and dissipated to the point of relative invisibility (ie: they're just dust now).

Consider: when we look at other galaxy, we are looking far back in time. (Andromeda is 2.5 million LY, so when you look at it you see it as it was 2.5 million years ago.)

Maybe supernovas were once very common (which is why we can observe them in other galaxies) but today are very are rare. Our own galaxy is only about 100,000 LY wide (and about 1000 LY thick, according to our best estimates).

The remnants of a supernova are light, radiation, and matter. It's this same matter that later forms planets (and us - don't forget, you're made of stardust!). In other, very distant galaxies, we see the light and radiation, but don't forget they occurred millions of years ago.

If we were in one of those other galaxies, we would be able to observe the supernovas of the Milky May. Maybe we don't see many here because the light and radiation has already passed, and all that's left is the dust.

USAF Colonel goes on the offensive with botnet destroyer plan

This is exactly...

...how Skynet began.

Gordon Brown claims a Brit invented the iPod

Gordon is correct

Principal designer was Jonathan Ives, who also designed the iPhone and iMac.

And Brown didn't say it was *invented* in Britain (like the Reg is suggesting) - just that a Brit was involved.

@AC re: Moffat writing for Jackson & Spielberg - that's because he's a fucking good writer, producing the best Doctor Who stories. You know it, I know it, Jackson and Spielberg know it, it's only Russell "I'm the best writer because I'm the head writer" Davies that is completely blind to it.

Isabella Rossellini romps with praying mantis

@Mark

...you'll never hear the black helicopters until it's too late...

@Mark

...you'll never hear the black helicopters until it's too late...

Canadian toddler dies after VOIP 911 call

Hang on...

Why are we blaming the voip provider?

Surely the 911 operator should have asked the family where the hell they were. What if the family had been on a picnic - it'd be stupid to send an ambulance to their home then.

Blame the idiot operator for not getting an address (it shouldn't matter where the hell the operator is sitting) and sending help there.

Amy Winehouse pitches for Bond theme

And yet

they continually overlook Robbie Williams. He'd do a good theme, I reckons.

'Virtual strip search' arrives at JFK and LAX

So...

Not only do they see your naughty bits which are all squished by your undergarments, but they zap away your chances of breeding...

Two for the price of one folks!

Western Digital uncages ferocious VelociRaptor data hunting drive

Velociraptor

J Park was made before the "dinosaurs had feathers" idea became popular. Also, someone told the production team that Velociraptors were six feet in size. What the advisor meant by this was that Velociraptors are six feet long, from nose tip to end of tail.

The movie people decided it meant that the 'raptor was six feet tall at the shoulder, and then came up with the design based on the meanest looking beastie they could find.

That's what I heard anyways.

Astronauts in seven-hour ISS construction session

How long...

...before the AI gives this thing sentience and it start running amok? Just think of all those high-powered satellites that could be used as weapons...

The machines are rising!! Ruuuuun!

Antarctic meteorite points to smashed dwarf planet

@Murray Pearson

That seems to be what the meteorites point at, and is certainly plausible. If so, it could be enough to conclusively prove that theory.

Of course, 4 billion years ago (bya) a lot of the system was still in formation, so it could have come from any number of large bodies. Perhaps the most interesting part is the bit about an indication of water. This suggests a body that had cooled sufficiently for water to accumulate. I don't know it that matches the protoplanet theory though.

Rugby lock gets early bath for YouTube punch

What do you mean....

"rather ill-advisedly posted on YouTube by a delighted Bristol fan"??

The player doing the punching deserves to be shown for the twat he is.

Pentagon attackers stole 'amazing amount' of sensitive data

Oh sure...

... when someone hacks the system it's a "bad day". But when they're handing the data out to all and sundry (according to El Reg's recent article about the webmaster receiving all those emails) they don't give crap.

Seems a bit double-standardish to me. Do they want the public to have the sensitive info or not?

Armed robbers target Oz biker shindig

Improbable Lawn Bowling

Not really all that improbable. All you do is pick up the lawn and bowl it...

Sun will swallow Earth: Official

The World...

...already ended. You're just in denial.

Quake rocks Britain

@Chris Williams, etc

"One of you would have been enough; the others could have read previous replies and thought "hmmm, somebody's already represented my views, perhaps I'll just read on", instead of making a post equivalent to "yeah... like what he said..."."

Yeah, because El Reg displays the comments the moment they're posted...

@Mat - at least our sheep are worth shagging.

We tease the poms because New Zealanders are tough.

Our biggest "town" is built on a volcano field.

When a volcano erupts we run to get sausages - and BBQ them over the lava.

Pyroclastic flow? Perfect for pressure-roasting a cow.

Near a fault line? Near? Our entire country is directly ON TOP of a fault line.

True story: I was on a bus and a pair of pommie tourists asked me what our tallest mountain was. I said Mount Cook. They asked me if it was possible to drive to the top of it. I said no, but you might be able to climb it if you're very good.

News flash: If you can drive to the top, it's not a mountain.

To reiterate what my fellow NZers have said: You poms are all a bunch of pansies.

Awwwww

Did da Bwitish gets a little shaky quakey? 4.9 is nothing. Try 6.5: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4411670a6479.html.

Hotmail dies on both sides of the Atlantic

Also...

...seems to be affecting messenger.

Miami cops trial 'hover and stare' ducted-fan Dalek

Just a matter of time...

...before the secret military A.I. chip is activated and it goes on a rampage....

Unseen 'Marilyn Monroe' nude snap wows US expert

Are you...

...seriously telling me that Mr Nicastro spent all that time examining that photo and didn't notice the modern cars in the background? Even from the smaller image in the link I could tell they weren't late 1950's models.

Good grief.

Star Wars animation heads for the silver screen

Link to sneak peek

here: http://www.starwars.com/video/view/000478.html

looks like they're using all the main characters. there's a new dark apprentice as well.

Cable cutter nutters chase underwater conspiracies

Um....

... deep, deep under the sea, cables being mysteriously cut....

I for one welcome our new deep-sea overmonster. New York is that-a-way, matey.

Pentagon pundits demand sensible raygun research

So...

...what, you're saying my hand phaser isn't real? But the little battery indicator is showing full charge! Maybe it's just bloczzzzt

All blue-eyed people share one common ancestor

Don't forget...

... Hitler thought that the perfect person had white skin, blonde hair, blue eyes, and was 1.83 metres tall. All of which were mutations that are now common in the populace due to selective breeding. (Hitler was, of couse, short, black hair, brown eyes, and beige.) Hitler wanted the entire Ayran nation to be like that.

And now for the black helicopter moment: Maybe Hitler wanted every human to be like that so much he built a time machine and sent his best back to get it on with the natives?

'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networks

Not just fickleness...

...but laziness. Let's face it, keeping your myspace/facebook/blog/whuteva up to date takes time and effort.

Forget boredom - there just isn't that much happening in my life that I can be bothered writing it all out for ten million strangers to read.

11:42: had a shit. It was big and stinky.

Yup, that was the highlight of my day. Hope you enjoyed it.

Games keep us going because they change. WoW and other mmporgs hold interest (although, how many of the people playing a year ago are playing now? I'll bet the actual turnover is fairly high) because they aren't static. Also, you can kill things.

It doesn't take long to fill in your details on the social networking sites. After that it's just the same thing day after day - there's no change. And there's no change because we're lazy - we're the ones generating the change. That takes too much effort. When something takes constant, driving effort we rebel, and push it away.

It's the same reason television hasn't completely lost out to the internet - we just can't constantly interact. Sometimes we just want to sit back and be entertained without the need to engage.

Folk who make social networking sites are themselves very social people. But as gregarious as humanity is, we still prefer to have our own space - that's why we build houses with opaque walls and get annoyed when someone peeks in our windows. Being social is not a 24/7 thing.

Static sites, laziness, privacy - add it all up. That's why these sites will eventually lapse into obscurity.

Still not convinced? Ask yourself this: how many of your friends had a blog two years ago? How many of them are actively maintaining them now?

Michael Bay to relive A Nightmare on Elm Street

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!

DO NOT TOUCH THE BIRDS!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no possible way to improve on that film. Hollywood will just f*ck it up by trying to explain the birds behaviour. The original didn't try - it just went in and told the story.

Hitchcock wisely didn't use any music - and it damn well worked. I'll bet the remake is full of someone eerily playing a saw, in order to "add dramatic tension". It doesn't need it.

Gaaaaaaaaaah!!! Wibble.

New Bond movie is Quantum of Solace

I like it.

It's a genuine Fleming title for a Bond story (don't matter if he was barely in it). It will correctly reflect Bond's journey through life.

Back when I was an aspiring screenwriter (I wrote a plot outline then got distracted by girls), Quantum of Solace was the title I was going to use. My idea involved Richard Dean Anderson as a MacGyver-eqsue military type (cross between Mac and O'Neill) who goes on a mission with Bond. I was going to have them cave-dive to get through to a hidden factory that manufactured drugs, fake money and gems, etc. Naturally they'd get captured and have to use some standard household items to escape and set of all the C4 they'd planted.

I think it would have been fun.