Posts by Peddler

We've heard of spam filters but this is ridiculous: Pig-monkey chimeras developed in a Chinese laboratory

Manbearpig?

South Park proves prophetic.

RAF Eurofighter gets a Battle of Britain makeover

As an Air Force guy, he would probably think it is some sort of Navy eccentricity dating from the days of Nelson.

PHYSICS APPLECART UPSET as dark energy disappears, Universe slams on brakes

Re: What?

Lightspeed is the limit for going through space but space itself can do whatever the hell it wants, including expanding faster than the speed of light. Eventually, the local galactic cluster is all that will be observable from the milky way. Earth will be long gone by then.

Re: Up and Down

Most physicists prefer a "flat" universe, one in which the expansion slows and asymptotically approaches but never reaches zero and subsequent collapse. That way the sum of all the energy is zero and you don't have to figure out where the energy came from to create the universe in the first place.

Re: RIGHT!

As matter, it means gravity and deceleration, as quantum vacuum energy, it means expansion. That's why the distinction between dark matter, centred around galactic clusters, and dark energy, in "empty" space. Nobody knows what either is, but their effects are measurable. Read Krauss for details; I have already gone past the end of my knowledge of cosmology and particle physics.

Re: RIGHT!

First of all, the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. Second, read A Universe from Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss. There is only about 1% of the amount of normal matter in the universe to explain its gravitational behaviour. Gravitational lensing finds dark matter, bringing us close to 30% of the mass needed. Dark energy, remember (e=mc squared), makes up the rest of the mass and coincidentally, accounts for the acceleration in the expansion of the universe. I don't know how this new info will affect those calculations (perhaps the universe is older than 13.72 billion years?).

Cook invokes GHOST of STEVE JOBS in Apple-wide memo

Shouldn't "He" and "His" be capitalised?

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 region-locking saga CLEAR AS MUD

EU Roaming Zone Connection?

Is it possible that this is a poorly-communicated and bone-headed execution of a plan to comply with the European Union's plan to eliminate or reduce roaming charges within the EU? (http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/roaming) It would make sense that you would have to first activate it with a European carrier and sim card and let it initialize with all of the carriers that would be part of the no-roaming or cheaper roaming pact.

Windows Phone overtakes Apple's market share ... in India

Low End

You don't try to capture a market by competing with the established players head to head at the high end. You sell to a demographic who previously did not buy those products, such as an emerging middle class in a developing nation. The big boys will concede the low end because that is not where the big margins are found. You then work your way upmarket incrementally.

It worked for Japanese and then Korean products and will work for Chinese, Indian and African products.

Senator halts Google's taxpayer-subsidized executive jet fuel deal

Re: Gallons?

It is calculated by weight for aircraft weight and balance purposes but sold in gallons or litres, depending on the location.

Nissan promises to sell self-driving cars by 2020

Should not be Difficult

Most drivers on the road can be just as safely replaced with a brick on the accelerator and a bungee cord on the steering wheel.

Apple builds flagship store on top of PLAGUE HOSPITAL

Will all of the Geniuses...

be wearing plague doctor masks, like at an eighteenth century Parisian ball?

Google tool lets you share data from BEYOND the GRAVE

Google Demise

follows the Google app naming pattern.

First Google wants to know all about you, now it wants a RING on your finger

To close your Google account...

all you have to do is travel to Mordor and toss the ring into a volcano.

Boffins build elastic wires with liquid metal

What everyone here is missing...

Liquid metal! This is a way of distributing Terminators. The rise of the machines has begun.

Sniff.. Phew! WORLD'S OLDEST CHEESE discovered in Poland

Re: "Traces of milk lipids on the pottery revealed its original use"

I just imagined John Cleese saying "Polish Proto-Mozzarella.

Office for Android, Apple iOS: 'REALLY REAL this time' - report

I can create and edit Office 365 documents in Firefox for Android. It is clumsy but doable. I prefer to use Documents to Go or Quickoffice.

The world's first Windows Phone 8 hands on – what's it like?

Re: BBC NEWS

Buy on rumour; sell on news.

Amount of meat we eat will barely affect future climate change

Before the cattle came...

bison were said to darken the North American plains. Are bison more polite than cattle? Do they refrain from passing gas? If a given amount of plant material is not eaten by a cow, would it not be eaten by a moose, 4 or 5 deer, or 70,000 crickets? And won't they produce more or less the same amount of GHG as the aforesaid cow? Who does the maths for these studies?

Richard Branson gets nod to strap rocket on SpaceShipTwo

Re: Virgin on the silly

Actually, Musk has plans to "drop launch" his Falcon 1 from a high flying aircraft, which increases ifs lift capacity by an order of magnitude.

SpaceX and Bigelow sign deal for inflatable space stations in orbit

As with any tent...

...the tricky part will be folding it up and getting it back in the bag when it is time to go home.

Ape Apps help Orangutans talk to people

Amother inevitable response

Do they line up at the Apple store when a new model comes out?

iPad chargers can open beer bottles

thus opening up a new revenue stream...

... suing the manufacturers of bottle and can-openers and cork-screws.

Jolly rogered

A role for censorship in a society...

...in which stupid people live. Yes, engaging in censorship occupies their time, thus preventing the stupid people from taking up more dangerous avocations.

Google founders, James Cameron, go asteroid mining

We can start mining the asteroid...

as soon as we get rid of those annoying blue people that live on it.

RIM should focus on BBM, find a human CEO

Re: Djeez what a bunch of morons

Q1. Most teenagers have their parents' credit card number memorized.

Exploding dinosaur theory EXPLODED

Re: Bloat 'n float

It is indeed a tragic irony that so many marine animals died in The Flood.

Re: Is pressure now measured in...

...or 13924 bloated goat corpses.

Apple products now found in half of all American dwellings

Re: Sample size?

If you count iPod Shuffles that have been through the laundry and kept in a drawer instead of thrown away...

Robotic surgeon successful in first prostate snip

Snip all hu-mans

Do we have the makings of a Futurama episode here?

CIA 'Open Source Center' monitors Facebook, Twitter

Life Imitates Satire

The Onion broke this story long before El Reg.

http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/

Google TV receives (much needed) upgrade

Google or Apple TV may not be the technology that takes off but I think internet TV is the future. The clock is ticking on the broadcasting industry and blocking of content from internet delivery is the beginning of its death throes.

They will last longer in some places, like here in Canada, where they will be government-protected as a "cultural industry". Never mind that the culture is in the content and not the delivery mechanism.

Android apps now playable on Windows PCs

Why not sell it to Google and let them make a Chrome browser extension out of it? Then you could get the Android Market.

HARRY POTTER CHAINED to new Sony reader

EBook Formats

One of the reasons I bought a PRS-505 a few years ago was that it handled many formats and you were not tied to Amazon. Now Sony is playing the same stupid proprietary format game.

DOH! Housing contractor loses unencrypted stick down the pub

RE USB Ports closed → #

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/devil_32.png

This is the attitude of too many info security types: prevent the user from doing his/her job and the security problem goes away! They never seem to realize that this only forces users to bypass their protocols.

Tell them how to do the job while keeping data secure; don't just tell them what they can't do!

RE USB Ports closed

This is the attitude of too many info security types: prevent the user from doing his/her job and the security problem goes away! They never seem to realize that this only forces users to bypass their protocols.

Tell them how to do the job while keeping data secure; don't just tell them what they can't do!