Posts by The Original Cactus

Unbelievably vast quasar cluster forces universe-sized rethink

Another dumb question from a layman

In what ways might a large structure such as, oh lets say a four billion light-year wide group of quasars, look different to another observer?

'Leccy-starved Reg hack: 'How I survive on 1.5kW'

Re: Why do Reg Hacks live on the edge of society?

The SPB are planning to fly a paper plane from one mountain-top to the other.

Potty-mouthed Watson supercomputer needed filth filter

Re: Rich Communications

Now that IBM know the answer I expect Watson is already designing the computer that will determine what the question is and the Magratheans are preparing their tender for the contract to build it.

Lenovo, EA, Intel unite to DESTROY our childhood memories

Re: Monopoly Money

My parents UK set (1960s vintage?) was:

£1 = yellow

£5 = blue

£10 = light grey

£20 = green

£50 = pink

£100 = orange

£500 = red

I'm surprised how widespread the 'fines go in the middle, pick them up if you land on Free Parking' house rule is. IIRC it was introduced to our house by a Finn.

Little spider makes big-spider-puppet CLONE of itself out of dirt

Re: Mimicry!

Are you sure about that? I thought the politicians were the front men having their strings pulled.

Re: from a lifelong arachnophobe

They're coming from under the God-damn bath!

UK gov probes Comet crash: Public, private sectors LOST £257m

Good business to be in.

Unfortunately the accountancy firms are incentivised (unintentionally, I'm sure) by fees such as these to wind up companies rather than save them from administration/bankruptcy. As covered in the back of Private Eye ad nauseum.

UK.gov backs away from ISP level filtering plan to protect kids

"...flip-flop gracelessly on the gibbet of political hubris."

Have a pint and/or an upvote for that delicious turn of phrase.

Girl gang targets Microsoft's Seattle stores for $5,000 theft spree

I have to say that Phoenix Jones' costume looks a lot better than I imagined from the previous report. I'd expected him to look like the Human Bolt.

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

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Wot, no shoggoth icon?

Metric versus imperial: Reg readers weigh in

All this horsing around.

Indeed. Altitude is measured in feet and height is measured in hands.

NASA working on faster-than-light drive capable of WARP TEN

Re: Careful

The latest research indicates that the safest attire for exploring alien worlds is some combination of cricket whites, a long scarf, leather jacket, bow tie and curly wig. If that's all too much effort, dressing gown and slippers have also performed well.

Dredd movie review

Re: A very bad cheap movie..all marketing hype ..no product value.

I do wish people would stop spouting studio conspiracy nonsense. Produced by DNA, shot in Jo'burg and distributed by Reliance. This film is not a product of the Hollywood machine.

Have you seen the film Joerg?

Have thrill-suckers infested the vulture?

I'm another long-term 2000ad reader and 3D cynic who enjoyed this film. Twice.

If you want to see mopads, sky surfers, bat gliders, simps, the alien zoo and face change parlours you'll be disappointed. If you want to see a day in Dredd's life where he's typically grim, resolute, laconic, terse and badass you'll be very happy. If it helps at all try dialling back your mental timeline to the late 21st century, shortly after the Atomic War and before Dredd's debut in prog 2. I can accept some trimming of the more extravagent elements of 22nd century life for the sake of making a hard-edged film on $45 million that doesn't alternately make me want to laugh (not at Rob Scheider's jokes) and cringe.

Both Dredd and Anderson are portrayed superbly. The production crew's intention from the start was to make a realistic/believeable Judge Dredd film that was consistent with the character we know. I believe they succeeded.

Also the 3D is actually pretty good, not the multiple flat layers of certain other attempts.

Gunman takes potshots at Dell HQ, chopper search ensues

Re: Election year

You can always tell it's election year when somebody will find a donkeys vs elephants angle in anything.

Paris because, well, insert your own 'angle comparison' joke here.

Mozilla dumps iOS, pulls Firefox Home from iTunes Store

Re: Browser hogging

This was discussed in an earlier comment: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/1533845

Android dev smacked with £50k fine over premium rate SMS scam

Re: Thumbs up & thumbs down buttons

John, you can't include images in the body of the post. You can click on one image and it will appear on the left under your name, but that's it. Unless you post anonymously, in which case you just get the Guy Fawkes mask.

Why the Apple-Samsung verdict is good for you, your kids and tech

Re: Hogan's Law...?

"That's not a patent, this is a patent."

Mine's the one with the VHS tape of Crocodile Dundee in the pocket.

Apple now most valuable company OF ALL TIME

New RSU?

When describing large sums of money use apples. One apple being equal to the combined GDP of Hong Kong, Israel, and Singapore.

SHOCK: Brainwave readers work as advertised

Re: Next stage of phishing attacks...

You are Geoff Noon and I claim my five pounds.

Samsung's Wang was up 22 hours a day, had no time to copy Apple

Re: Apple's patent on comparing things

With a little luck they'll go after those meerkats next.

Flash Player to vanish from Android store on Wednesday

Re: Flash..........

"Flash! I love you! But we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!"

That's my favourite line from any film, even above "We're going to need a bigger boat".

Those three rows of icons remind me of the panel Ming used to select disasters. What shall I inflict on the readers of this post: Nuclear blast? Wildfire? Chemical hazard? Plague of trolls?

Thrillpower! Tharg releases 2000AD iDevice app

Re: Obligatory grumpy old man post

madra, either you're reading a different comic from me or we have vastly differing tastes. Although I will happily concede that Pat Mills does little more than churn out repetitive tripe these days.

I queried the availability of back issues with Rebellion's PR droid. Although there are no plans to include back issues in the i-thing newstand, five years' worth of digital back issues are available in the online shop at the 2000ad website. I doubt that the entire archive will ever be digitised (except maybe as a fan-project for personal use) but all the classics you cite are part of Rebellion's excellent line of collected volumes.

Deadly pussies kill more often than owners think

Re: It's spiders with mine!

"snatch bats out of the sky at night."

My sister's cat was rather good at that. Bats and frogs she would bring in alive, and once she came over the garden fence with a dead seagull as big as she was.

Curiosity needs OS upgrade before getting down to science

Well that's just typical.

You work your arse off to get the new hardware to the production environment on time, and the very next day the boss comes by and tells you the software it's running is out of date.

Console content can cause crime, claims cop

Re: The crime is life

Is that you Sssstanley?

ROBOTS battle bunker-buster bank blast blaggers

Re: I've always thought....

It should be easier to launder the ill-gotten gains too, as it won't be hot.

Qubits turn into time travellers

Re: Senior Management

Even better than that, you can report on next week's progress and tell them to stop flapping.

Capita and pals get £500m for ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE call centre

Re: So what are their plans should a wave of zombies start infecting the UK?

Offer them jobs them in the emergency contact centre.

Facebook's Zuckerberg awarded privacy patent

Re: The US patents procedure is braindead.

@TMWFTE, I can't tell if you're being satirical or not.

Brooks, Coulson to be CHARGED over phone-hacking

The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small.

The Higgs boson search continues ... into ANOTHER dimension

Re: Mirror universe particles...

I have a little goatee beard. Now I understand why everything here is backwards!

Australians receive SMS death threats

Re: Warning....logic fail!

"which clearly aren't scaring everyone into forking over the cash."

This says that not everyone is being scared into paying.

The statement is true, it just doesn't tell us anything useful about how many people have been successfully conned. Nor does it exclude the possibility that someone paid up _and_ went to the police, but I think that's an unlikely scenario.

Did you take Logic 101 Mr Brooks? ;-)

Ten... PC games you may have missed

Haven't you discovered Space Pirates and Zombies yet?

Darwin alarmed by six-legged mutant cane toad

Re: Darwin alarmed?

I think it's a pun on the name of a certain antipodean city...

Breaking: Megaupload seizures illegal says NZ High Court

Re: Its and it's

Its' = belonging to its. I'm not sure when that would ever be used, its is an unusual name.

Fate of dot-word bids decided by ICANN archery shoot-out

Re: What does Google plan to do with 50 new top-level domains?

Maybe they're thinking of something like this?

google.mail

google.maps

google.search

google.etc

Brit judge orders Facebook to rip masks from anonymous cowards

Re: "She couldn't have just changed..."

Other reports have mentioned allegations that the unidentified perp(s) created a fake account in Ms Brooks' name. I'm not sure why El Reg omitted that.

Does Britain really need a space port?

RE "...I wonder if all the accounts that upvote nomnomnom miraculously share the same ip address?"

No, we just thought the joke was amusing.

Google KNEW Street View cars were slurping Wi-Fi

Re: Have I missed something?

I think you have. IIRC Google's stated motive for gathering MAC addresses and SSIDs was to tie those identifiers to geographic locations. Then, when you turn on wi-fi, the device checks nearby wireless networks against the database of known network locations and tells you where you are.

Himalayan glaciers actually gaining ice, space scans show

Re: Look at history (geological that is)

"What we're seeing here has all happened before and will happen again in the future."

Are you saying the Cylons are causing climate change?

CAPITALISM without PROFITS - Welcome to the Instagram Era!

I'm loving these spoofs. Another hit from the Bong!

Teens break up with Facebook

Re: "the good old days"

The printing press is killing conversation!

US sues Apple, publishers over ebook pricing strategy

Publishers...

"...were afraid that the new "normal" price for any book would become $9.99, the common Amazon price, and that both ebook and paper book sales would suffer because of it."

If the "normal" cost to the consumer comes down, people won't buy as many?

Whisky IN SPAAAAACE: Zero-G Scotch is matured aboard the ISS

Am I the only one reminded of Tintin - Explorers on the Moon?

Icon = Captain Haddock

IT urine bandit fired and charged

Re: Urine Bandit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_the_piss

There a several theories as to the origin.

Feathered Tyrannosaurus uncovered in China

Re: 2000AD -anyone with a good memory

I think it did. There's a new series of Flesh running in the prog right now.

Use the holy word of God to stay secure online, says bishop

Re: I'm an atheist.

Allied Atheist Allegiance? Splitters!

Vote now for the WORST movie EVER

Re: NOT ZARDOZ

Sean Connery in furry pants?

Apple Oz offers refunds for confused 4G iPad owners

Re: Standards

Note that they don't say the unnamed "4G network" is globally available, just that its status as 4G is accepted around the world. A clever bit of semantic obfuscation there.