Posts by Z-Eden

Does my mass look big in this? Roly-poly galaxy El Gordo more porky than first feared

Downvote? For a Hitch Hikers quote? Some people are born critics...

Forget superstars, this HYPERGIANT star is 1,300 times the size of OUR SUN

Re: Black hole in the making?

Thumbs up for the B5 reference!

Top Brit docs wade into GP data grab row, demand 'urgent' NHS England talks

I believe you're supposed to submit the form to your GP. At least, that's what I did.

I've managed to put in an opt-out form using the advice given from the excellent Light Blue Touchpaper blog. Here's the article with an opt-out form download:

http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2014/01/08/opting-out-of-the-latest-nhs-data-grab/

Samsung flings sueball at Dyson for 'intolerable' IP copycat claim

Re: @ Anonymous Coward

AAARRRGGGHHHH

Ofcom: UK beats the US... in race to buy online tat

Re: The perfect combination

Add in the (personal) annoyances of:

having to queue

pushy salesmen

crappy music (especially at Christmas time)

Cost of driving to and parking at town. Public transport not much cheaper or convenient these days

Although you mentioned the prices, the eye watering prices of some products is ridiculous

You have a Skype voicemail. PSYCHE! It's just some fiendish Trojan-flinging spam

" I ran Norton "

Well there's one of your problems. Suggest you remove that poor excuse of a virus scanner and invest in a proper Anti-virus package - Malwarebytes, Avast, AVG. There's a few others kicking around out there.

Gold meddler: Doctor Who is 50 years old TODAY

Thoroughly enjoyed the episode. The ending when you see them all was quite moving...

Unrelated, does anyone else find it irritating at the lack of complete boxed sets? Granted it's probably down to the wiped episodes (BBC are probably waiting for more of the discovery in Nigeria last month - 9 missing episodes recovered!), but would it kill to release a boxed set like the complete Pertwee Era?

The ULTIMATE cuppa showdown: And the winner is...

You're joking? Typhoo! That stuff is tea for the devil. I'd rate it alongside Tetley's (which is akin to compost).

Glad to see Clipper getting top marks

Boffins build R2-WEE-2: The urine-powered robot with a human-like heart

Reminds me of the Brittas Empire where Colin builds a generator that takes "Waste matter and converts into Domestic Voltage"! (Cue thunderclap)

Make him a wiki he can't refuse: MafiaLeaks takes on the Godfathers

Apply for the job ...

... if you dare

Ten top stories from Classic Doctor Who

Robots of Death

One of my favourites and well deserved as one of the top ten. Very horror movie esque in it's story and presentation.

I stumbled across this picture a while back and it made me realise how sinister they are. Take away the silvered 70's style clothes and dress the robots in ordinary clothes or a tuxedo and they would be a very disquieting set of characters. Could you image the script taken as is and updated with modern production values. That would be chilling to watch.

San Fran tech hub wants hookers and hackers for Halloween

They could have avoided all the fuss if the men came dressed as hookers and the women came dressed as hackers...

MI5 boss: Snowden leaks of GCHQ methods HELPED TERRORISTS

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Boffins have constructed a new LIGHT SABRE. Their skills are complete

Jedi and force stuff side, what an interesting development. Wonder what kind of application photon matter would have or even if it is feasible for general use

Microsoft: Surface is DEAD. Long live the Surface 2!

Re: What lack of app?

Yes because tweaking the keyboard will really help this fly off the shelves...

Valve shows Linux love with SteamOS for gamers

Re: SteamOS vs Windows 8.

That will be a true Microsoft nightmare and it would be glorious to behold.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it ... Win Phone 8? No, it's APPLE'S iOS 7

Yarrr, I'll swill some grog t' celebrate ya land lubber.

Ugh, the new translucency effect. Not a bad feature per se. But it will now be used by a certain type of graphic designer who think that because Apple are using it, then it is the ultimate in design and must use it in every single design. You know the type - has a myriad Apple devices, Hipster styled and very defensive if any of their designs are challenged

Official crackdown on Apple fanboi 'shanty town' ahead of London iPhone launch

Re: What an advert for tolerance

"but have to add that there are some twats in these forums, who have to spew hate and abuse, simply because 2 guys are doing what they want to do. Freedom etc. They are not affecting your life, so why the abuse?"

Freedom works both ways. While this pair of pillocks are free to sit around outside the store with nothing better to do with their lives (what a waste of a holiday), El Reg commentards are free to mock the idiotic and foolish.

And what riper fruit for mocking and ridicule than an iFan queuing for a device that they'd be able to get on day one without the pointless queuing anyway. And personally there's nothing more satisfying the pricking the pompous bubble that is marketing hype that this kind of stunt usually creates.

Everyone's waving their 5-inchers: BlackBerry outs new supersized Z30

I'm loving my Z10 - really nice bit of kit and well worth a look if you don't like either of the top 2 offerings. Really intuitive UI as well. Quite refreshing after using iOS slightly dated UI and Androids rather crude UI..

New iPhones: C certainly DOESN'T stand for 'Cheap'

Re: Old problem with touch compounded?

When I had my old 3GS, I found that when wearing gloves, my nose did as good a job as my finger when answering calls. Wonder if this one does Noseprint recognition?

NSA slides reveal: iPhone users are all ZOMBIES

Re: The bottom line *so* far.

I assume you referring to articles such as these: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/02/rim_keys_india/

In which case, I'd say no keys were handed out nor were backdoors made (though, in the current climate, I concede that doesn't mean one doesn't exists in some fashion). Unless there's a story I missed?

Re: The bottom line *so* far.

Another vindication to my recent purchase of the BlackBerry Z10.

As an aside, seriously nice phone, very intuitive. I occasionally swipe up on my ipad and wonder why it won't quit to the home screen...

'Unreliable, shambolic' ... a top CompSci prof slams Serco's UK crim tag tech

Just read his expert report on his blog (nice blog, and subscribed - some fascinating case studies and reports on there). All I can say is - nicely done. In effect "Let us do a proper peer review on the system to see if it is secure and reliable as you say". Serco shit bricks when they realised that this would cost them massively and decide to drop the case. Shocker. Expect to see future cases rely on this one to properly probe into the whole tagging system.

Myst: 20 years of point-and-click adventuring

Agreed. It's stretching it to call it Myst a game - interactive movie would be a better analogy. Endless renders of a cold desolate world. Randomly clicking levers and bits of the screen that had no logical significance. Doing puzzles for the puzzles sake. No thanks.

I preferred adventure games where you talked to a skull call Murray and how he'd roll through the gates of hell with your head on a pike!

ICANN destroys Google's dotless domain dream

Presumably they didn't apply for .chocolatefactory .willywonka or .oompaloompa then?

Brazilians tear strip off NSA in wake of Snowden, mull anti-US-spook law

Re: It isn't like alternatives aren't available

Just checking out https://startpage.com - interesting. Will have to give this a go. DDG is alright, a little slow and lack of image search is irritating though.

Philips' smart lights left in the dark by dumb security

Re: Call me old fashioned, but...

I third the call to bring "Death to Internet of Things!"

Also, it'd be more insidious if timers are put in the script so the lights randomly flash throughout the night starting at around 1am. User won't know there's a problem until he's woken up... Bonus points for making it flash out in Morse Code "Wake up sucker!"

Google's Street View cars venture inside TARDIS

Google Earth? Google Gallifrey surely!

ULTIMATE cuppa contenders prepare to go mug-to-mug

Re: Ideal dunk subject

That's a good tactic for choccy biccies. Take 2 chocolate biscuits, mash them together, chocolate in, dunk and enjoy without getting chocolate fingers (though you will have chocolate mouth as you try to jam this large biscuit sandwich in your gob!)

Horrific moment curvy mum-of-none Mail Online spills everyone's data

Re: This is outragous

How's this:

"Won't sumbody do sumthing abou this OUTRAGE!

Disgusted

- Tunbridge Wells"

May the fourths be with you: Muso John Williams returns to Star Wars

"Keep firing, Assholes!"

Dumpsters begone! App matches diners with leftovers to broke, hungry

Re: Great Idea

Reminds me of this comic from The Oatmeal:

Royston cops' ANPR 'ring of steel' BREAKS LAW, snarls watchdog

Re: Its not just in Royston

No, that would be the Traffic Master cameras. They monitor traffic density and flow.

ANPR's, on the other hand, record the number plate, time, location and direction of each car that passes it. Completely different.

Laser-wielding boffins develop ETERNAL MEMORY from quartz

Obligatory B5 reference here

"Transfer all data to crystal port..."

WAR ON PORN: UK flicks switch on 'I am a pervert' web filters

Re: Next move . . .

I heard the Larsen's were looking a bit worried...

Curiosity team: Massive collision may have killed Red Planet

"planetoid the size of Pluto"

Plutoid surely?

Unreal: Epic’s would-be Doom... er... Quake killer

Re: Favourite weapon

And if someone fired a shell at you there would be that instant where you'd see the smiley face before it explodes in your face.

Icon for obvious reasons...

Re: I've

I loved the buildup and ISV-Kran levels. Legging it down that huge trench it made when it crashed (and dodging titans) and then wandering round the various decks of ISV-Kran. Finally, teleporting off the ship and looking behind you to see it looming over you.

And then there's the whole Tarydium plant and lift before hand with the rather enjoyable shootout with the mercs you encounter round the atmospheric processors and industritech areas.

Damnit, I feel the needs for some Unreal fun. And then maybe UT. Where's me redeemer...

US Navy coughs $34.5m for hyper-kill railgun that DOESN'T self-destruct

Hmmm, wonder if the US are planning to put these things in orbit...

Bigger than Twitter: Opera releases rebuilt Chromium-based browser

Still can't believe it. I love Opera, but oh my god, what have they done. They killed by far and away the best browser and created a clone of Chrome (Bleurgh). Where's my CTRL+Z for re-opening closed windows? Where's my mouse gestures for back, forward and minimise? Where's my customisable toolbar? Where's my buttons for disabling CSS, Images, JavaScript?

My only hope is the sacked dev team get it together and create a new startup specialising in a browser for power users while the current Opera dies off due to appallingly poor choices made by da management.

Judge nixes Microsoft SkyDrive name in BSkyB court ruling

Re: New name for SkyDrive

Thumbs up, if only to see MS being sued by Sinclair (even though they're defunct!)

Planetary data merge shows three Earth-like planets in close star system

Re: On the upside..

Indeed, even if to get a multi-generation probe on its way (or multiple) with the idea of sending back signals in a couple hundred years.

The logistics and thought that would need to go into that would be mind boggling, but so worth it...

Who should play the next Doctor? Nominations needed!

Richard O'Brien

For that left field eccentric vibe?

Impoverished net user slams 'disgusting' quid-a-day hack

Didn't realise the average tramps are avid El Reg readers using libraries to keep abreast (ahem) of LOHAN and PARIS news. You learn something new every day...

Half of US smartphone owners have no idea which mobe to buy next

Never did believe in platform lock in myself. After all, if I switch to a different OS and I return 2 years later, my apps and other purchases will still be available. Nothing is really lost...

The ten SEXIEST computers of ALL TIME

Re: Bah

Looking at that, I had to do a double take and wonder if I was seeing a still of Martin Landau in Space: 1999

Publishing ANYTHING on .uk? From now, Big Library gets copies

A crawl of every .uk domain? Hmm, wonder what seedy or ancient sites that will dig up...

Reg readers brew up the ultimate cuppa

Re: Critical fail

Sugar in tea, What!? Philistine