Posts by Esskay

Canadians nab syrup rustlers after massive maple sap heist

Re: 18M

Exactly which part of your Aunt Jemima are you putting in the bottle?

AFACT wants ushers to confront pirates

"standing in front of the recording device"

So they should ruin the experience for *all* moviegoers in the theatre by standing up in front of people and potentially creating a scene?!

I would have thought looking after *paying* customers would be their first instinct, but I guess we're all just collateral damage in the fight against people-who-probably-wouldn't-have-gone-to-the-movies-anyway. I mean, if you're happy to watch a shitty cam rip, you're probably not *that* interested in the movie...

Now that everyone knows about the site, I expect it to be good target practice for script kiddies the world over.

McDonalds fried for serving spam

"A formal warning"

It sounded promising - like they were going to bring a sledgehammer down on Maccas - But with just a warning, it's turned out to be more of a quarter pounder...

It's official: Mac users are morally superior to Windows users

Affluence =/= charity

Whilst the *amount* of moeny given away by mac users may be greater, I wonder if that amount represented a greater *percentage* of their income, or less - I give to charity each month, but it's well within my means - if the person next to me gave the ame amount to charity despite making less, I'd consider them more "charitable" than I.

In any case, the cynical part of me sees the purpose of this study being to guilt people into giving more to charity - since windows users vastly outnumber Apple users (in the desktop environment at least) it seems prudent for them to come to a conclusion that paints the majority of people as needing to donate more (and, given the state of the world, perhaps we do).

Samsung, LG 'lose confidence' in OLED TV tech

Re: It's the "O" that's got me spooked

Even phone OLED screens struggle will colour reproduction - It's the blue OLED sub-pixels that have the issue, they simply don't have the life of the others. As a result, the blue is "boosted" - to give a bit of a buffer for when the sub-pixel starts to fade.

As a result, if you have a close look at (for example, since I have one) samsung's super-OLED screens, the white colours will have a bluish tinge on them - as the screens age, this will tend towards a more neutral white, followed by a pinkish tinge as the blue OLEDs wear down.

'We are screwed!' Fonts eat a bullet in Microsoft security patch

@Flingobingo

"This is true - Comic Sans may be offensive to many IT folk but it is used for good reason in education."

Comic sans hasn't necessarily drawn ire from people because of an innate dislike for the typeface - it's commonly due to the fact that it's used inappropriately in many office environments because a manager thinks it makes them appear "on the same level" and "casual" when giving orders to staff, or because people think that it will make an otherwise shit boring event seem fun and relaxed - eg. "casual brunch" with the accounting team.

"Snugglesville School Fete - cupcakes and lemonade 50c each, or three for a dollar!" = makes sense to use comic sans

"Anyone caught using the printer for personal items will be given an official warning and be charged for the use of toner!" = Don't fucking use comic sans

For the love of god, please...

tell me comic sans was affected...

Anonymous hacks Westboro Baptists over Sandy Hook protests

I would have thought that by now amendments would have been made in the US to prevent the Westboro Baptist church from being able to get away with their lawsuits - sure, everyone has a right to free speech, but no-one has immunity from consequences - protesting at this funeral sounds a lot like poking a rabid dog with a sharp stick - if you know what's going to happen, and you still do it, why should the law allow you to do it over and over again whilst protecting you the whole time?!

Sadly it seems that the Church of Punitive Damages has an even more devout following than any of the other religious freakshows in the US.

'Metadatagate' fails to bring down Oz pollie

Re: @DougS (Was: I got your time-stamp right 'ere ...)

As an Australian, I'd have to agree. Most politicians' knowledge of of the internet encompasses the fact that their aides have told them posting on something called "facebook" and "twitter" gives them a valuable edge in the youth demographic.

Sadly such efforts are so transparent as to be close to pointless. It's well worth paying attention though, for the moment when politicians on either side (but more likely to be a national party or christian democratic party candidate) says something completely moronic before deleting it and hoping they got rid of it quick enough (hint - you didn't).

Chinese spacecraft JUUUUST avoids smashing into Toutatis

A rather unfortunate shape

If I saw an asteroid heading for earth that looked like that, I'd find it somewhat hard to take it seriously...

Senator threatens FAA with legislation over in-flight fondleslabbing

Re: "The current rules are inconvenient to travelers..."

Don't be silly, senators don't have to deal with the TSA circus! They go straight to the head of the queue - and as everyone knows, the TSA are necessary to win the War On Tourists.

Stephen Hawking pushes for posthumous pardon for Alan Turing

Nichomach: "it smacks of airbrushing the less comfortable aspects of our history.

Stop giving them ideas!

NASA to smash its spacecraft INTO THE MOON

shits and giggles

If you had the opportunity to smash something big and expensive into the moon - why wouldn't you?

Won't follow Apple Store rules? How 'bout an iTASER TREAT!

Frankly, my dear...

Whilst I think the idea of non-lethal weapons is a good one, the problem is training - surely the issue here is that the guy went over the top - using a taser to shut a woman up because she's hysterical and a bit difficult to get handcuffs on sounds like a 1950's solution...

Then again, maybe he was another Jobs cultist in disguise? Protecting the hive and all that...

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

"Cracking cheese, Chimelewski!"

For all our advances.... Some things just don't change. I wonder if in 8000 years time people will still be making chiko rolls (or at least whether the same ones cooked last year will still be sitting in the window by then).

N. Joseph Woodland, inventor of the barcode, dies at 91

Re: That reminds me of Jeremiah Kurzweil

I read your whole post, only to be rewarded with a pun.

That's like spending a whole night chatting someone up only to find out they're your cousin.

Polish man mistakes hot iron for mobe

Auditioning...

For the Polish version of Iron Man?

Google gives fat fingers the flick before they click

"The fingers you have used to dial this number are too fat"

Perhaps a special fondling wand would be a good idea?

Revealed: The Brit-built GRAVITY-powered light that costs $5

@Arnold

"You think "they" didn't have such things before white man came along? Really?"

Guns- No, these were a "western" concept - sure we gave them out to whichever indigenous communities we thought would use them *with* us rather than against us - but we only gave them to the tribes/communities we liked. As a result those with guns found they could decimate their opponents (and in cases where we gave them to everyone; each other.)

Disease - Yes, we gave 3rd world countries a lot of our diseases. Not that they didn't have any of their own - but they had a modicum of immunity to theirs. It was the introduction of western diseases such as smallpox that devastated communities of 3rd world countries who had no exposure.

torture - sure, all humans could inflict pain on each other - but it took people such as King Leopold II to truly show how brutal humans could be. Whilst cutting the arms off people who didn't work hard enough in the rubber plantations could be filed under "brutal dictatorship" (which is, for the most part, how the Belgian Congo was run) I'd say it also fits pretty well under "enslavement" too (although I think we've got plenty of examples of how the west has given Africa slavery).

Colonisation - I'm sure there were conflicts and attempts at wiping each other out amongst local tribes before we came along, but never with the kind of force or scale that we used. The fact that many African nations now speak French or a variation of Dutch demonstrates what sort of effect we've had.

Apartheid - Seriously? You think native africans came up with this?!

Segregation - Not only in places such as the U.S, where Africans were considered to be lower class humans (and not even citizens for a long time) but in Africa as well - In Rwanda the genocide of the Tutsi's at the hands of the Hutu was in no small part due to the efforts of colonists deciding, based on arbitrary physical attributes (which, admittedly, did have some basis in tribal history, but was still no basis on which to decide which people were "better") to decide who would effectively be upper and lower class citizens.

These are things that we "gave" them.

Not reading history books doesn't change history.

"More western technologies to corrupt their ways of living"

After everything else we've given them -

Weapons, disease, torture, brutal dictatorships, apartheid, colonisation, enslavement, segregation - you're complaining about giving them *this*?

Goldman Sachs: Windows' true market share is just 20%

Not convinced.

Whilst I can see that Microsoft is losing it's grip on the "computing" market as a whole, surely a lot of that is down to the decline in popularity of the desktop PC - not so much that people are switching their desktops away from Windows? (although OSX has undoubtedly taken a chunk of the desktop market in the last few years). I agree that Microsoft needs to move away from relying on desktops to survive in the future, but there's no doubt that in the sit-down-at-a-desk market (ie desktops, laptops, etc) they're still most definately winning.

Not only that, but I'd wager (on gut feel) that many of the people going out and buying Tablets already have a PC in the house - and quite often one that runs windows. Whilst they may not be going out and upgrading it as quickly as they would without the tablet market, I'd have to say that Microsoft isn't in as much trouble as Goldman Sachs would like to indicate - I wonder how many GS analysts are short selling MS stocks as we speak...

Lastly, I find it hard to believe that Blackberry's new OS launch & Windows Phone 8 moving out into the market will have no impact in the overall market - whilst I'll be using neither, I'm sure there will be many businesses out there will old fogeys up top in management who will leap at the chance, and plenty of more budget smartphone owners looking for something different - and the suggestion that Apple's market share will continue to grow I also find hard to believe - I honestly think they've had their time at the top, they're reached a point in market share where they're no longer the "cool, quirky" company that hipster-geeks want to be seen with, and people will start to look for something "different" (ie something without an Apple logo). Not to mention the post-Jobs issues Apple seem to be struggling with.

Dr Alex Moulton: 'An inspiration for generations of engineers'

So it is not suitable for...anyone else who wants to jump into the car and drive off immediately.

Perfect for the French then...

Although hydralastic had no body roll (due to the bags being linked front-to-rear), there was still a bit of dive and squat under acceleration and braking (due to the bags *not* being linked left-to-right) - Although obviously this wasn't too much of an issue in a standard, drum-braked, 998cc mini...

On the other hand, as already mentioned, this did mean that bumps were absorbed beautifully (compression at the front over a bump resulted in expansion at the rear, keeping the car level and not bouncing all over the place).

Re: I took the opportunity

Sounds like a beast! We've an engine builder here in Sydney who built a Clubby with a 1401 and a single SU* - built the engine about 20 years ago, only starts it up to drive it to dyno pulls and car shows - a few months ago managed 87 hp at the wheels... amazing what people can pull out of these engines.

Sadly Jack Knight gearboxes are horrendously pricey to get out to Australia, let alone the initial outlay...I think I've been born in the wrong country.

*Modified of course - but won't tell anyone what he's done ;)

I took the opportunity

to drive my '64 mini to work today - was converted to coilovers by the previous owner (horrendous, the whole car jumped over cats eyes, let alone any real bumps), converted back to "dry" rubber cones by me. Nothing comes close to the feeling of driving the mini - thanks to Alex Moulton. Without the slightly stiff, slightly bouncy cones, I doubt the mini would be anywhere near as characterful - either to look at, or to drive. And in what other car can you get height adjustable suspension for less than 100 pounds?* It's the sort of thing the yoof of today would die for...

Whilst hydrolastic gives a better ride, the simplicity of the dry rubber cones is unparallelled- and I've yet to see a more compact suspension system developed that provided both the ride and load carrying ability of the progressive Moulton rubber cone.

I'm now saving up for a Moulton bike - one of the few bikes I can actually get in the mini :)

RIP Alex Moulton; the world has one less genius in its ranks.

*referring to hi-lo's, of course - not only a way to make the car sit nice and low (or high for some off-road) but a great solution to possibly the only shortcoming of rubber cones - sag. And you gain/lose height *without* affecting spring rate - brilliant.

White Van Man could become a rolling radio relay

Better reception?

Finally a reason to *want* the white van to sit 5cm off your bumper.

Iran draws veil over lolcats, launches local YouTube knock-off

Youtube without the offensive bits...

Really, what's the point?

Australian Police say don't use Apple's iOS 6 Maps

Not that big of a deal?

Surely the iPhone user's fixie would break down before they got that far into the park?

Behold ATLAS, the fastest computer of 50 years ago

Well thank fuck someone cleared that up

I can finally get on with my life - after all, this air traffic won't control itself

Entire US Congress votes against ITU control of internet

In other news...

The entire US congress has voted against giving free ice cream to Terrorists. Next week they'll be voting on whether Kim Il Jung should be invited to Obama's birthday party, and then they'll decide whether Iran should be allowed to wipe out Israel.

Because nothing drums up fear like having a vote on a ficticious issue.

China plans astro-farms on Mars

"China plans astro-farms on mars"

Makes sense to me - once people start building homes on Mars they'll obviously need astro-turf for their yards.

NASA planning Curiosity v2.0 for Mars touchdown in 2020

Re: Yes, but...

Whilst physical speed is nice for us impatient humans here on earth, when you're beaming delayed instructions across the solar system you don't want to suddenly have an "oh shit" moment as the rover rockets towards the martian equivalent of a tree or lamppost (probably a rock, lets be honest) at many mph. Also, the rover is effectively a laboratory on wheels - try analysing samples for signs of life whilst rocketing over sand dunes in the back of a van and it'll probably be a bit tough for us as well :)

As for the antiquated electronics, keep in mind the types of conditions that the chips have to put up with - they're being blasted into space, subjected to massive G's, heat, extreme cold, levels of radiation that even Lewis Page would admit are "a bit high" and after 6 months of being dormant, suddenly wake up and orchestrate a perfect sky puppet landing without munting into the martian surface. *Then* it has to actually start doing things, whilst still being subjected to radiation, cold, heat, etc and whilst not using too much power. And it needs to be able to deal with the situation as well as it possibly can should any errors pop up, or damage occur.

Overall, one of the most time consuming aspects is getting information back/sending instructions to the rover, so if it takes an extra few hours to get somewhere, or an extra few minutes to process information, it's really Not That Big Of A Deal (tm). As long as they don't try and run Crysis at the same as it tries to lick the dirt, it'll do the job.

Re: "...and not have to worry about an unproven design as a side benefit."

So NASA will become the spacefaring equivalent of SAAB.

Facebook takes aim at SMS with new Messenger app

Because I didn't have enough instant messaging services....

This sounds a lot like whatsApp, or a multitude of other services already in existence. Except obviously this one has the misery and shadiness of "Facebook" all over it.

Ready for ANOTHER patent war? Apple 'invents' wireless charging

Re: Appl$

^Not bad! Presumably you're referencing the city of Dum Dum, in Kolkata, India - unfortunately, that's actually a place! Not a currency! (FYI the currency is the Indian Rupee, which doesn't really work - "Rupeedroid" - see?)

Good effort though, keep trying!

Re: Hysteria from el Reg, who would have thunk it

Inductive coupling being out of patent means not only that anyone can use it, but that it can't be patented again y someone else (or even the same person). Thus whether or not it's out of patent is irrelevant to the article - the fact that it exists (and has existed for over 100 years) is enough. At it's core, I believe the "implementation" of inductive charging is more or less the same across the board - there isn't a set of "Apple Physics" (tm) that work better than "Standard Physics" (tm) - Their method of coupling/blocking devices may be their own, but that's not the issue with this patent application. If you're referring to the ability to transfer power from a device to another (instead of a charger to a device) they might be on to something - but whether that's patentable (or is just an extension of the use of the original patent) is debatable.

As for "a particular method of wireless charging to power a set of peripherals", I believe that's pretty well covered by the standards that already exist, which cover various methods and materials being used - simply because Apple's patent is slightly more specific in describing the devices doesn't mean it's covering new ground.

Re: Appl$

How about ¢rapple?

But, given their profit margin, the dollar sign would still be more appropriate...

Re: Healthy?

Yeah, I know what you mean! Although it could be worse - with all these visible light radiation emitting devices and contraptions in out pockets, attached to our ceilings, on the front of our cars - imagine how horrid it would be to have them all hitting our bodies as we walk around! It's a good job our eyes can't see all of those -

Hang on....

John McAfee 'captured'

not only that...

I'm no longer afraid to open the cardboard box sitting in the backyard...

"requiring study of Bear Grylls' oeuvre"

You mean quaffing a few pints of your own urine before jumping in a helicopter and buggering off to a 5 star hotel?

Microsoft cues next-gen Xbox for Crimbo 2013

In other news

Analysts are predicting that it is extremely likely that the sun will rise again tomorrow. Citing "people familiar with the matter", Bloomberg analysts have said that "looking at historical trends, and the waning interest the world currently has in being nighttime, we're predicting that very soon the sun will indeed rise again."

While World+Dog could come up with a "what will the sun do tomorrow" prediction, Bloomberg goes so far as to predict the direction in which it will rise. "In the East. Probably. However we can't rule out the possibility that the reveal will happen in the West." There was also some rather far-fetched speculation that the reveal would be a joint evet in conjunction with the moon, but that has been dismissed."It'll definately be a standalone event".

The sunrise hasn't been without some drama however, with early reports of low yields threatening to delay the rise.

"Our sources say that although there were rumours of some early production problems with sunlight, these will almost certainly be ironed out by around 7am, and things will get very bright very quickly from that point on."

NASA: THE TRUTH about the END OF THE WORLD on 21 Dec

"a core of people who are truly concerned"

I can only hope that NASA is maintaining a database of these people, and that when it comes time to ship people off to mars en masse, these are the first to get blasted off.

To somewhere else.

NASA: 'Those life-on-Mars rumors? Chill, dudes and dudettes'

To be expected?

I'm not exactly sure what they were expecting when they came out and told everyone that they had amazing news from mars - I'm fairly certain "big news from mars" = "signs of life" for pretty much every mainstream media outlet; these (media outlets) are people who make a living out of jumping to conclusions so I don't know why this would be any different.

New Tosh drive can wipe out 4TB 'near instantaneously'

Re: Oh Dear. Another target for the Virus writers to go after

I'm sure there are plenty of politicians and CEOs who would find an "instant scramble" feature *very* appealing...

America planned to NUKE THE MOON

The moon's environment?!

I would have thought a massive rocket moving in a not-so-dissimilar-to-an-ICBM trajectory would cause somewhat unwanted disturbance to the political environment here on earth too...

Apple manufacturers: ARRGH, pesky iThings are impossible to make

Re: DigiTimes, seriously?

ummm...

http://allthingsd.com/20111216/digitimes-is-a-mini-ipad-on-the-way/

Antarctic discovery: ALIEN LIFE may be FOUND ON MOON of Jupiter

Everything is relative

Meanwhile, a colony of bacteria have come into contact with a group of higher organsims for the first time in 2,800 years who have somehow managed to survive in an extremely toxic atmoshere composed mainly of nitrogen and oxygen, whilst simultaneously managing to endure boiling hot temeratures as high as 45 degrees celcius.

APPLE reveals complete updated blueprints of SPACESHIP JOBS

With all those lights and eco tech

fanbois really will be able to claim that the sun shines out of Job's ring.

Re: I wonder...

Also features a room with a big poster of Forstall, where staff can line up and yell and scream at the man for 2 minutes each day for deviating from the True Path (tm) and causing all of Apple's woes.

Sandy 'Mary Celeste' Island undiscovered - again

Possible explanation

Sandy Island is where Google's headquarters are located for tax purposes....

Republicans deny Hollywood pressure to pull copyright proposal

Fairly obvious

The mere fact that politicians are stumbling over each other in a mad rush to say "WE MADE A MISTAKE! WE SCREWED UP! WE'RE IDIOTS!" should be warning enough that something much more deadly than loss of the public's trust is standing in the shadows - the RIAA's purse-closers.