Posts by Jon Tocker

Polaroid to close instant film plants

@Joe Hylkema

Worse than arse, actually.

All the Polaroid snaps I've ever seen have had foul colour fidelity ("No, I am NOT that fucking shade of green!")

They were OK for those applications where (like the ambos or on a film set to assist in continuity between takes) the important part was the content of the shot (trashed vehicle, relative locations of props and actors) not how photorealistic it was.

And they're OK for "arty shots" as referenced above, but as a "serious camera" they are a fucking joke. There are far superior cameras and film stocks than the Polaroid and its instant processing film. The only advantage to a Polaroid was the "you don't have to wait 7 days" (as it was back then before 24-hour and (much later) 1-hour processing).

Now, the resolution on even the inexpensive digital cameras these days is such that they surpass most mass-market film stock (modern digital video "handycams" are broadcast quality, something the old "Super-8" film stock and later mini-VHS handycams never were). And that's before you get into the more expensive digital SLRs with the capacity to use the same selection of lenses and filters as the (vastly-superior-to-Polaroid-in-every-way-except-speed-of-processing) professional film cameras and the added advantages of superior resolution and the ability to upload to the net at the nearest Cybercafe.

Film is going the way of the Dodo, it is only fitting that the crappiest film stock should be the first to go.

As to replacing it for the ambos: A portable memory-card-capable printer in the back of the ambulance would probably do quite well - I'm sure it could spew out all the relevant pics of the crash scene on the trip between scene and hospital - and the trashed car will only look green if it was actually painted green.

As to digital being "alterable", yes it is - for a *competent* digital artist. Just as film stock has been alterable by competent photographers for years.

Incompetent artists/photographers are not going to convince anyone, irrespective of the medium. Despite what the average PHB might think, you can't just "Photoshop this image to make it show my rival committed the murder" with ease. We have not yet got "You have opted to replace person 1 in image A with person 3 from image B. Please click OK to continue..."

The Photoshop tools are digital equivalents - cut, paste, draw, airbrush, smudge etc - of real tools used for years by film photographers - but you've still got to know how to use them properly.

And the same methods of detection (and probably others specific to digital media) still apply - a keen-eyed forensic examiner checking for tell-tale signs that the image has been manipulated (shadows are wrong, traces of extra bits from the merged photo etc).

Digital media is just as reliable as evidence as film - that is: "not very, use with caution and bear in mind it can be faked."

Digital signing would be harder to get around than merely faking a negative.

Israel electric car project aims to wipe out oil

Sheeesh!

Just gotta love the "EVs are bullshit" brigade - if the oil supply were as reliable as the average "EVs aren't GREEN" whiner, there'd be no need for EVs.

OK, Who said "disposable" cars? - just because the marketing is akin to mobile phones, does not mean the car has to be dumped in a landfill.

The batteries today are recyclable (Li-Ion, nano-titanide etc) and there's no reason the other components of the cars can't be recycled, too - it's merely the laziness and stupidity of consumers that prevent proper recycling of ICE car components to date.

A proper battery ***replacement*** (extra highlighting for the clinically unobservant) programme would ensure the old batteries wind up in recycling to make a new set of batteries while the motorist has a shiny new battery pack in the EV.

Yes, there will be teething problems with moving to a totally EV environment, but that's why we (as a species) get out and do things - to find out the problems and find solutions.

Well, some of us do. Others seem to prefer to whine about how there are going to be unpredictable problems so it's best to stick with the known problems of the status quo.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the phasing out of ICVs and replacing them with EVs - the reliability, longevity, ease of maintenance, quietness etc of the EVs make them far superior to ICVs. Also it'll be so nice to know, when sitting at the lights or stuck in traffic, that my vehicle will not be consuming any "fuel" - electricity - other than what is necessary to run the "low voltage" (12VDC as opposed to whatever voltage the motor uses) systems I'm using - unlike an ICV where the engine is chewing up fuel while you're going nowhere.

And as to the bleating about the inefficiency of powerstations and transporting the power (power lines) has it occurred to any of you ICE-apologists that petrol and diesel require electricity (from said "inefficient" powerstations) in order to be extracted from the crude oil and then diesel-powered trucks to transport the fuel overland to the petrol-stations? Nope, didn't think so, too busy bagging electricity and preferring to pretend that refined petrol just materialises at the bowser as it looks better for your cause. Then you need huge ships to transport the barrels of crude oil unless you're living in an oil-producing nation or across the border from one.

Not only are ICVs less efficient than EVs, the transportation of oil-based fuels is less efficient than the transmission of electricity.

US boffins create darkest material ever

@Paul

"But might be hard to find your car at Heathrow when returning on a night flight..."

Nah, just look for a funny, almost car-shaped (depending of your angle of approach) hole in the universe.

A black "cat suit" sticks out like a dog's nuts even at night time as there is usually some ambient light around (only times I've experienced true, total darkness was some kilometre or so into a cave system and inside a commercial photographic darkroom and in those conditions you are invisible even if dressed in the whitest stuff you can find) this stuff would make an even bigger contrast at night as even a cat suit reflects ambient light to a degree.

FWIW, dark greys, blues, browns and greens make better night-time camouflage, especially if mixed so they break up the shape of a human body (say 2-tone brown and green jacket and dark blue pants) - they can easily get lost in the jumble of "light" and shadow at night... far better than a mono-colour obviously humanoid shape...

Anyway, I now want a complete outfit made of this substance - no more going through my wardrobe frantically looking for pants, shirt and jacket that are all the same shade of "black".

Anyone else think this stuff would be great for Death's robes in the next movie adaptation of a Terry Pratchett novel?

Giant hydrogen cloud menaces Milky Way

@Mitch Warner

FFS, think of your descendants! In around 40 Million years they'll be living on colony worlds right where that fucking great gas cloud is going to hit!

What, you don't think 32nd Century colonial real estate agents would knowingly sell property on worlds that are due to be clobbered a few million years down the track? Your faith in human nature is refreshingly naive. Sadly there are some human traits that are going to take more than a few million years to remove and the propensity for people to stoop to real estate, accountancy, marketing, taxation, antique dealing, merchant banking and the legal professions will be one of the hardest to breed out...

Taser unleashes leopardskin C2 and MP3 holster

@Steve Roper

Dunno, having those tasers could be useful...

While there are some knowledgeable people who practise and prepare to use their chosen weapons (taser, pepper spray, firearm etc) they are in a very small minority.

Most of those who choose to arm themselves just buy off the shelves in the belief they are now somehow protected and 10-foot-tall-and-bulletproof.

They feel they no longer have to worry about due care and attention, that they can wander anywhere with impunity because they have A WEAPON and therefore are SAFE.

Never mind the fact they have neither the physical nor the mental training to use the weapon when the crunch comes. Weapons, it seems, magic-away the baddies and you never need concern yourself with what you'll do when you wander into the wrong part of town and a thug sticks a knife under your nose.

Never mind that a weapon is no good if your head is so far shoved up your arse that the thug can wander up behind you undetected and slide a knife beneath your shoulderblade.

Hollyweird furthers this popular misconception by conveying the illusion that they are some form of magic wand that will solve all your problems. Like showing a large adult male totally incapacitated by a quick jazz from one of the hand-held tasers weilded by some puny little woman when no less a weapons trainer than Massad Ayoob has repeatedly demonstrated that the average adult of either sex can withstand the full recommended FOUR-SECOND burst from one of those tasers then, immediately afterwards, accurately put five shots into a target.

Far from the instantly incapacitating weapon portrayed in the movies, isn't it.

Admittedly the C2 is more akin to the police models in that it fires the barbs at the intended target, and is probably more effective than the old "Metrosexual Cattle-prod" but it still requires that the person weilding it can actually hit the assailant with both barbs.

Fortunately, the device is fitted with a laser sight - which we all know (from watching the movies) is akin to firing radar-guided terrain-following cruise missiles at the target. This feature renders all weapons training and target practise unnecessary.

And the MPH! w00t!

Pop down to Wallymart, buy yourself a nice pink or leopard-skin taser with magical cruise-missile-laser-sight, slip it into the MPH, poke the earplugs in, crank up Britney to an ear-splitting level and wander out into the dark - I mean, you have a LASER-GUIDED WEAPON, you're INVINCIBLE, it doesn't matter that you're now incapable of hearing a possible attacker stalking you...

Personal music players of any sort are a rapist's "best friend" and Taser Inc (INComprehensible?) go and build one into the weapon's holster!

This has got to be some sort of attempt at Darwinian selection!

Perhaps in a few years - after all the stupid people have been murdered while wandering around the rough areas after dark with their MPH blaring into their ears and armed with one-shot Tasers (and only those who're capable of a few moments' thought are left alive) - the USA will truly become as great as its citizens seem to think it is.

Until then, however, the planet has to contend with a large number of vacant-headed mouth-breathers who think buying a colour-coordinated Taser over the counter is going to turn them into the T-X.

I think we could do with these Tasers over here in NZ - I can definitely think of a few people who would be best served to arm themselves with a Taser and blunder into South Auckland after dark with the MPH turned up to full...

Just waiting for Taser to be sued because their product failed to prevent some air-headed Soccer-Mom being raped in an area of town where even street-savvy armed gangstas tread carefully...

IBM and chums kick off 'green' patents project

Anyone want to run a sweepstake?

On how long it will be before SCO or some other virulent pustule on the backside of humanity tries to sue someone on the grounds that said open patents infringe (naturally undisclosed) patents of their own...

Village shaken by GPS-driven tank invasion

And so...

A few years from now when I do my motorcycle tour of the UK, I'll approach the picturesque enclave of Donnington and find the road into town is blocked off by a tank trap.

The "Stop" sign should be self-explanatory...

FTC issues ad-tracking guidelines

@Peter Mc Aulay

Regrettably, that is so true it's not funny.

I want to start a campaign to restore the internet to its pristine purity as a realm for IT geeks and remove access to all marketing dweebs, spammers and any AOLer whose residential address is a trailer park.

Sysadmin jailed for 30 months over failed logic bomb

$81,200 in compensation...

If I were IT Manager for that company, I'd want at least that just to compensate me for having to put up with the wanker during his term of employment - never mind what it'd cost to audit and clean out the system.

Like Agent Smith, I would feel "unclean" and that his mere presence had somehow tainted me. I'd want 81.2 kilobucks, three bars of disinfectant soap and a week off in which to scrub away any "moron germs" (worse than the "girl germs" we boys feared prior to the onset of puberty) I might have been exposed to by coming in contact with him.

Then I'd want to pay top dollar to the team that auditted the system - no expenses spared - then shackle him out in the car park and make him scrub the cars of those who're cleaning up his mess.

Other punishments like tattooing "fuckwit" on his forehead spring to mind but, from the sound of the bloke, it's probably aready obvious enough...

Clarkson's 'steal my ID' stunt backfires

@Pete Bass

"Jezzer is a gobby and opinionated TV personality with no responsibility... "

Sounds perfect PM material to me, no bugger would be able to tell the difference between him and any prior/current PMs anywhere in the Commonwealth.

If a senile geriatric actor and an illiterate in-bred cowboy can become Presidents of the USA, despite any semblance of intellect (or ability to string together a coherent sentence) surely someone who is at least articulate enough to fuck off people with his opinions on a regular basis can be PM of England.

It's not like the job requires any real qualifications.

Re Correction of some of the incorrect assumptions in this thread...

"No... the letter never comes from the bank, it comes from the payee... that's because one of the Direct Debit conditions is that you are so informed of the amount(s) to be debited from the account, and of the relevant dates, in advance."

So all you need do is write some random fake address (or even a random real address, it doesn't matter) to go with the fake name (since neither the company nor the bank check that the name supplied matches the name on the actual bank account) and the "stolen" account number (if reading a cheque and learning the account number can be classed as "stealing" anything).

The letter from the company advising that 1000 quid's going to be debitted from your account each month on the 21st as of this February is going to be sent to the bogus address. If it is a real address, the likelihood is that the householder will glance at the name, say "no one in this house" and drop it in the bin. Even if they do scrawl "Not known at this address, return to sender" on it and drop it back in the mail on their way to work, the person who checks the mail back at the company is most likely to shrug and bin it as it's not his/her job to locate the right address for the payer.

So the person whose account has been targetted will have no warning of said direct debit until they go to buy their groceries and find their account is already in the red and is going to get worse once the bank starts reversing the autopayments and smacking dishonour fees in place.

From peter: "The Bank’s excuse is that they security vetted the Company raising the direct debit really really carefully, and so when the get a valid direct debit, the HAVE to honour it. (‘valid’ means only that the account number is correct)."

Yeah, because the company is deemed to be safe and would not *commit* fraud - yet the company is not equipped to detect if they themselves are being defrauded (as the bank cites DPA as a reason to prevent the [trusted and non-fraudulent] company from confirming that the account details provided are kosher.)

In short, the banks know that the data is unverified and therefore cannot be trusted, despite knowing that the company itself would not deliberately supply fraudulent information - and yet they still proceed as though the data were totally trustworthy.

Wankers. And then if enough fraud is committed throughout the year and they've had to restore a lot of money into accounts that should not have been removed in the first place (would not have been, had they used proper security checks) - to the point that their stakeholders are at risk of having their enjoyment of banana daiquiris, underage prostitutes and 5-Star Bahaman resorts curtailled due to falling profits - they can use the slump in profits to justify increasing fees and interest on loans (while decreasing interest on savings accounts).

Re: It was a setup:

Pete Burgess, what exactly did you smoke BEFORE you slept on it? Were there strange eldrich creatures roaming around the room at the time you came to your conclusion?

Suuuuuuuuuure, a loud opinionated public figure just decides to loudly change his opinion and so fakes being targetted. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

And he's popping by my place later to drop off one of his super cars for my wife...

Well, well, well

My estimation of Clarkson has gone up.

At least he has the honesty to admit his mistake publically and change his viewpoints.

Was he wrong? Yes. SHOULD he have been wrong? NO!

If any bank I used did the same to me based on /that/ level of "personal" information (and really, how "personal" are details that are published in your phone book and on the cheques you write?) I would close my accounts and start talking to the local reporters about what a pack of cretins the bank was.

If I ever go to England, I'd never open any account with Barclays.

As Anon Coward ("Not only Clarkson" 7th January 2008 17:49 GMT) said, the potential for devastation is horrific.

My previous bank (before I ditched them for being a pack of thieving, money-grubbing shits) would happily charge $30 for every dishonoured transaction (putting the account further in OD than actually /honouring/ some of the transactions would have) and then charge an additional "Unarranged Overdraft" fee AND charge interest on the OD at punitive rates. On top of that, the rent, car, power, phone etc have not been paid that week and they start getting shitty. Afterwards, the bank account is in OD to the tune of 6x $30 dishonour fees plus $12.50 Unarranged OD fee plus punitive interest (so >$200) when your next pay cycle rolls around (what, you expect the bank to get it sorted and get your money returned within one pay cycle?) and you're down over $200 in your household expenses budget.

And that's assuming the thieving mongrels actually reverse all the fees and interest they've taken from your account as well as getting your money back. My old bank, you'd have a higher likelihood of Bill Gates dropping by your place and tossing you a wad of high denomination banknotes. You expect honesty and fair dealing from an organisation that will dishonour a $10 autopayment that would put you $5 OD then charge a $30 fee that puts you $25 OD so they can charge more interest on the amount you're overdrawn?

Some families live so "close to the wind" that starting the pay week more than $200 short would totally clean out their food budget and still leave them short for paying the bills (meaning more dishonoured payments and more fees) - could take months to get back on their feet.

Any bank that allows money to be removed from an account based on such a paucity of information - regardless of whether "it can be returned later" or not - does not deserve to be trading. Seriously.

Barclays, and any other bank that would allow the money to be removed without proper verification, has no respect for its customers and therefore does not deserve any.

As to DDs - I refuse to have them. Even my power supplier, who claims to only accept payment by DD (which they can control) gets paid by Automatic Payment (which / control) - having been stung in the past when the bank dishonoured a Direct Debit (and charged me $30) and the creditor retried debitting my account twice during the subsequent couple of days (incurring additional $30 dishonour fees each time). The only attempted withdrawals from my account that I have not *personally* performed or authorised should be the bank fees themselves (if I am remiss enough to use another bank's ATM or perform too many EFT-POS transactions in a month).

China ramps up space programme

@Slaine re Joss Attridge and Ishkandar

And then, Slaine, the next reply to your rant from Ishkandar will include "the same China to whom the US and both East and West Europe go for assistance in using extraterrestrial resources as they are the only country in the last 30-odd years to get serious about space exploration rather than fucking around commercialising Low Earth Orbit".

About time someone started looking beyond throwing terran resources up into LEO (and the occassional GEO) and got back into finding ways of getting our species far enough from this tiny rock to start bringing resources back!

As Jerry Pournelle said years ago - we've got to get a foothold in space and start using it for minerals and energy before it becomes economically (or resource-wise) unviable or we're buggered.

Considering the States and Europe seem to be quite happy playing with the ISS, and orbital telescopes and sticking up commercial and military satellites for a fee and don't seem inclined to go further than the desires of corporate interests, the Chinese may well wind up being the saviours of our species - that'd fuck ya, wouldn't it, Slaine.

Wait'll you're watching your Chinese-manufactured TV, made from minerals mined from asteroids by the Chinese and using power from a Chinese GeoSynch Solar Array, while NASA and ESA are renting space at the Chinese moonbase because your "morally and technologically superior" USA/Europe lack the machinery and facilities to get/stay there by themselves...

Antarctic base staff in drunken Xmas punch-up

The reason is obvious...

As they were Americans, they were obviously arguing about whether the place is pronounced "An-tarc-tic-a" or "An-art-ic-a".

And before the Americans start flaming, have a good listen to some of the actors in your movies some day.

Mine's the Asbestos coat on the near hook, thanks.

Do composting toilet worms get the blues?

As a New Zealander...

I would like to point out for the benefits of all foreigners that council flunkeys are deemed to be a lower form of life than lawyers, politicians and bank managers.

According to some bloke down at the DSIR their DNA shows them to be marginally human so we're morally obliged to find employment for them.

I've dealt with council flunkeys and, believe me, compared with them the worms are an advanced life form...

'Death Star' galaxy blasts neighbour

@Bryan

So you're saying they've had 1.4 billion years to

a) work out how to detect our radio transmissions broadcast merely a century ago

b) work out how to cross 1.4 billion light years really fast

c) come up with something even more devastating than their Black Hole Death Ray

Cheers, I won't be getting any sleep for a while...

Peter Jackson to lord over 'Rings' prequels

I hope...

...this means Ian mcKellen as Gandalf, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Andy Serkis as Gollum and Ian Holm as Bilbo (I'm sure they could make him appear younger - Bilbo wasn't so young when he began his adventure and once he got the ring his aging slowed so he wouldn't have to look too much younger than he first apppeared in LoTR)

US woman launches 'Taserware' parties

The trouble...

...with relying on a weapon to feel secure is that you're pretty much screwed if taken off guard (which you will be if you get overconfident because you have a weapon on you) or if your weapon is not immediately to hand.

No amount of weapons are going to help you if you feel "6 feet tall and 250 pounds" by virtue of having a weapon on you. No one who harbours that attitude should be allowed a weapon. PERIOD.

Feeling "6 feet tall and 250 pounds" is a recipe for disaster under any circumstances. Even people who /are/ 6 feet tall and 250 pounds tend to exercise reasonable judgement and due caution (as they know they're not invincible) and they avoid areas that may be dangerous and/or keep their wits about them.

Some 90lb weaking who feels invincible merely by carrying a weapon is not going to be keeping their wits about them and is not going to be exercising reasonable judgement or due caution. They would not be exercising the level of caution they would normally exercise if they did not have a weapon and felt vulnerable.

So, when the perp with the gun or knife already drawn enters the equation, they're screwed. Peering at your attacker past the barrel of his firearm is not the time to be reaching for your own weapon - doing so is likely to get you shot.

Knives? There's a reason the cops drill at drawing and firing two shots into the centre of mass within a second and a half - Sgt Dennis Tueller (Salt Lake City Utah Police Dept) wrote an interesting article about it back in 1983 and they named the drill after him. Basically, if the perp has a knife and is within 21' (much further than the range of one of those tasers), you have less than a second and a half to draw and accurately fire the weapon - assuming the perp is "kind" enough to wave it about and make his intentions obvious (rather than get up close, pull it from concealment and ram it into your body at contact range in under half a second - the words "I thought he'd just punched me - and then I realised I was bleeding" spring to mind... you don't always get a warning that they're hostile, let alone armed.)

A weapon is not a panacea and dizzy-bitch housewives selling tasers like they're tupperware (and then keeping them in a locked box with the keys up out of reach of the kids) is not going to do any more than provide other dizzy bitches with an ego wank and lull them into a false sense of security.

Having a weapon on your person in the wrong area of town no more makes you safe or "6 feet tall and 250 pounds" than me carrying a scoped 7mm Magnum rifle up in the bush makes me "The Great White Hunter".

Even if they were to undergo proper training in the use of the weapon, legal ramifications and situational awareness (like through Massad Ayoob's Lethal Force Institute or similar), it's still debatable whether they would be mentally able to use a weapon under stress but at least the LFI or similar would have taught them they're not invincible or "6 feet tall and 250 pounds" and to be cautious and aware of their surroundings - so they'd be less likely to get into danger in the first place.

The USA is seriously fucked up as weapons are sold by PFYs in supermarkets and soccer mums at house parties rather than being sold by proper training centres upon completion of training. Training and practising with them is optional instead of mandatory. And then the untrained morons wander around feeling invincible and that they're just as capable of defending themselves as Josh Hamilton (above), with his weekly training sessions, or a trained police officer.

I'm not opposed to having firearms or tasers for personal defence. By all means have them as there are plenty of illegally-owned weapons out there in the hands of criminals - but FFS learn how to use them properly and learn to be aware of your surroundings so you can either avoid using them or at least have them ready and are competent with them when you do need to use them.

I'm waiting for all the reports on how many perps have robbed someone and scored a nice colour-coordinated taser along with the cash.

BOFH: Xmas party: Get a wriggle on

Sod the TV series...

Full feature-length movie, starring Simon as the BOFH.

Nothing else would suit. He would have to script it and direct it because if any Hollyweird writer or director got his/her mitts on it it'd be turned into a love story because no Hollyweird director or script writer seems to be able to do anything else:

BOFH: The Movie, runtime 120 minutes - Within first five minutes (establishing who BOFH is and where he works), new attractive woman is employed, there ensues around an hour and 13 minutes of sexual-tension-charged rivalry between the two as she tries to get the better of him and vice-versa and then in the final 2 minutes they admit they love each other and there's a rough fade to the wedding.

All true BOFH fans exhausted from performing a marathon of vomiting.

Better to have 120 minutes of the BOFH "removing" a succession of noisome users, beancounters, auditors, contractors and PHBs with the usual spine-chilling tension of "has he finally met his match in this person?" "Looks like they're onto him - what particularly nasty form of death will he use to get out of it this time?" etc

All Simon need do is grab some of his best stories, thrash them into a contiguous story line, write a script and organise a producer or two to ante up the dinaros for sets, actors' and crew's wages, props, film stock, post-production costs etc etc and pay for the plane tickets to London to shoot a few external shots showing the BOFH and PFY entering/leaving the office/pub (all the rest can be shot in sets here in NZ with enough pommy actors to create the illusion of being in the UK and one really abrasive Yank playing a sales rep). Done!

No need for any Hollyweirdism.

A TV series would carve into Simon's regular job too much while a movie is only a few months of full-time filming and his part's mostly done. Another 3-month holiday a couple of years later to shoot "BOFH2: The PHB Gets Out Of Gaol".

Wouldn't work if anyone else were to play the part. And of course the BOFH has to be a Kiwi - it's well established in the previous episodes that the BOFH left New Zealand to find work in the UK.

Software maker releases the hounds on security vuln reporter

@Aubry

That's because computer data "isn't real" - it's not like the security holes are going to cost companies millions of dollars if the data is compromised or citizens are going to be harmed or disadvantaged by their personal data being compromised...

Oh, no, wait a moment...

Boffins in live-monkey-brain robot weblink arms race

I'm sure I saw...

Something like this on a docuentary ages ago - using monkeys with implanted electrodes to control a robot arm - they were hyping it back then as a great step towards being able to effectively replace an amputated limb with an advanced prosthetic controlled by impulses in the brain. They also had humans wearing a scalp cap with sensors in it to do the same thing.

According to the doco, the more electrodes/sensors in place the more accurate the reading and predictability of results - it seems that when moving limbs, neurons fire all across your brain so the more you can detect while a person is doing a task, the better you will be able to determine what is being requested by the brain activity - then the computer turns translates the impulses into a series of controls for the limb.

They, too, demonstrated that it could control limbs across a network link and mooted the idea of suitably equipped workers remotely dealing with hazardous materials with far greater precision and dexterity than is achievable with current remote waldos.

Once they get appropriate feedback from the devices, they would effectively have a sense of touch that would enable better control when handling different objects (like feeling exactly how hard you're squeezing that egg with your remote robotic hand.)

Another mooted idea was wearing a rig with a pair of robot limbs to supplement one's own natural limbs - now, a second pair of hands is something we've probably all wished for.

Shakje, I was not aware of that experiment. Thanks.

Samsung secures 2007 most inappropriate ad title

"Samsung BLAST"

Says it all, really. Only way the earlier HD ad could have preemptively beaten this fine example is if the motorcycle advertised was called a Harley Davidson "Bullet"...

Hitachi 'collision avoidance' bot does a Ballmer at press do

Too late for the dismemberment

Barely arrived in time to stomp on the bloody fragments. But...

For the last 26 years I've been capable of the "trick" of operating on two wheels - even picked up "certified evidence" a couple of times that I was operating in this manner at speeds in excess of 100km/h (signed by no less than sworn members of the police and tested using certified accurate equipment...)

These days, due to financial constraints, I do not operate on two wheels any faster than the numbers on the signs indicate I should, but I still manage the "trick" - have done for around 26 years.

It's even possible to do it and maintain both "high speed mobility" and "agile collision avoidance" when surrounded by large numbers of large moving obstacles that shift and change position at a whim - often without any forewarning - over all sorts of terrain and various visibility conditions.

Scary, but true.

It's even possible, given the right two wheels, to operate away from smooth hard surfaces and traverse gravel, deep sand, slippery mud and clay, grass and soft dirt. I can "operate" up and down steep and uneven grades, go straight down vertical sections and over smallish branches and other obstacles in my path.

And there are those out there who can operate on two wheels far bettter than I can and maintain "high speed mobility" and "agile collision avoidance" while hopping from boulder to boulder...

Air France compensates 170kg passenger

@Back off By Bill Fresher

Posted Friday 23rd November 2007 13:33 GMT:

"I'm 6 ft 10 and weigh 31 stone. No fat at all - I do a lot of weight lifting.

If I'm spilling over into your seat all I'd like to know is, what you gonna do about it?"

Well, I would politely ask you to shift your mass so you do not infringe on my seating space and expect that, as a reasonable person, you would do so.

Am I, at 5'7" and around 172 pounds (12st 4lb), supposed to be intimidated by the fact you're a 31-stone (434lb) over-muscled mountain? Are you inferring that I should fear repercussions for making a reasonable request and that you would happily use your "superior" mass, size and musculature to enforce your "right" to spill over into the seat I paid an obscene amount of hard-earned cash for?

On a crowded plane.

In front of witnesses.

Go for it! I'll tell you politely to move - and reiterate not so politely if you tell me to "get fucked". You can then decide whether to be reasonable and move over or be a twat and attempt to use physical means to assert your "territory".

If you do the latter, since I am lacking Marco's martial Arts skills, I will ensure everyone in the cabin is well aware of the altercation, knee or punch you good and hard in the "family jewels" and then ensure you're escorted off the plane in custody for assault while I get let off for self-defence.

Honestly. If you're going to say "I can do what I like because I 'm bigger and stronger", have the intelligence to realise it means jack shit in real life when you potentially have a cabin-full of witnesses who can say "Yeah, the little guy asked the big guy nicely if he'd please move over and the big guy tried to beat him up."

Better pray we're not on a flight to any Arab countries if you pull that crap - I hear their prisons aren't very nice...

Wii grasses up cheating wife

@Vamplifier

I believe this is your coat, taxi's been called, don't slam the door or bang your elbow on the way out.

*Pissed off that I didn't think of those lines*

GB Shaw and a' that...

Excellent post, Mr Stirling - a sterling effort (IGMC).

Nick, while I agree that his friends reckonned she was "cheating", unless they had better evidence than the mere presence of the pro Bowler at the house, it is still only hearsay.

So it would seem that the suspicions of one's friends, evidence that the bloke was visiting to play Wii bowling and an admission of a kiss constitute irrefutable proof of sexual activity and infidelity.

Sorry, but BOLLOCKS!

I recently was out of town for a week and I know for a fact that people visited my wife while I was away, that does not mean she was having sex with them.

Strangely enough, men and women can hang out and not have sex. The bowler's presence in the house is not evidence of cheating, the Mii profile suggests they spent a lot of time just hanging out and playing Wii games - pretty hard to fuck and play Wii bowling at the same time so where is the evidence that anything untoward happened while they were not playing?

Mike Moyle quoted GB Shaw: "(A pessimist is) A man who thinks everyone as nasty as himself and hates them for it.”

I would suggest that that quote could well apply to "Tony" - he suspects his wife was being unfaithful because that's the sort of nasty thing he would do himself (and possibly did do).

Tony probably spent the last year bonking his way around Iraq, if not with the local prostitutes then with the female US military personnel (after all, the only reason they sent women "military" personnel over there was to fuck the male personnel and torture/humiliate POWs then get caught on camera doing it.) Now Tony's home, he naturally suspects his wife was as unfaithful as he has been and assumes that the mere presence of a man in is house is evidence of infidelity - despite her protestations of innocence.

I don't know if his wife was being unfaithful or not or if there is anything more than circumstantial evidence that was not reported in the article, but the suspicions of friends, evidence of playing bowling and the admission of a single kiss do not warrant evidence for infidelity.

Unless there's damning evidence not mentioned or an actual confession by the wife or the bowler we're not aware of, Tony's actions are nasty, suspicious and childish (whether or not his wife was actually cheating). Where's his trust and respect for his wife? I gather she did not deny spending time with the bloke (she admitted to a kiss) so where's the justification for believing she's lying about "just a kiss" or covering something up?

"bloke's been at your house, must be fucking your missus" - well according to the Mii there was a lot of innocent keeping-someone-company-so-they-don't-go-mad activity. According to the wife, there was no sexual activity.

You've got to be a retard to think that proof of playing an innocent game is proof of infidelity - a retard with a nasty nature who thinks everyone else is just as nasty.

The wife may well have been fucking the bowler between Wii games, I have no idea, but the Wii games and his presence in the house do not constitute *proof* of it. You'd need better than that to convince a jury "beyond reasonable doubt".

UK gov bans 'terror' suspect from science class

Foreign qualifications

It's not clear if he completed and passed his training, but even if he had, there's no guarantee his qualifications would be recognised anywhere else.

Years ago I knew a Muslim couple from Jordan living here in New Zealand.

The wife was studying at the Polytechnic where I worked in order to get a degree. her husband - a fully qualified doctor - was working at low-paid low-skill jobs because his Jordanian medical degree was not recognised here.

The wife was also highly qualified (I forget which area) but her degrees were also not recognised here, so they were living at the local Mosque while her husband did crap work for crap pay so his wife could study and gain a qualification that would bring in enough money to better their lives.

Her husband was planning on getting a degree once his wife was able to support them financially.

As has been pointed out, you don't need a science degree to manufacture explosives or other weapons of terror. You don't even need a library card as you can just sit down in your local library's reading room and find out all you need to know.

Sounds like this poor bugger is genuinely trying to get some qualifications so he can get a job but he's being treated like shit by the "all dark-skinned Muslim's are Terrorists" brigade.

Want to turn him into a Terrorist? Keep preventing him from making a decent honest life for himself with good qualifications and a good job - that ought to build up the requisite amount of hatred for the oppressive white infidels to do the trick. Just carry on proving to him that the sabre-rattling Anti-West activists are quite right about the evil of Western Infidels.

NASA's Messenger mission reaches halfway point

HAH!

Screw you, Agent V, you don't even know I've been reading the page so you can't liquidate me!

oops...

Drink rats' milk, suggests battling Heather Mills

I love vegetarians and vegans

with a few seasonal vegetables and a decent chutney sauce.

Seriously though, it's always handy to know that if we ever get a global famine there are people around who have voluntarily placed themselves lower in the food chain than the rest of us.

Vegetarian Cooking: "First catch your vegetarian..."

@ Lloyd and Evil Graham: Brilliant!

Youngdog, you ought to be ashamed, making me nearly spit my latte all over my computer screen.

Why am I not surprised at all the Red Dwarf quotes? Probably because it was the first thing to cross my mind as well, when I saw dog's milk listed as an alternative.

OK, so we get rid of the dairy farms and start rat farms instead - I gather Miss Mills, towering intellect that she is, has already done all the research and determined that rats (while eating a strictly vegetarian diet) are more efficient milk producers than cows and we would not need to use as much pasture to produce the same volume of milk. Hmmmm?

Nope, didn't really think so. Love the dog/cat milk plan, instead of getting the cows to eat grass to produce milk, we could get the cows eating grass to become pet food so we can feed the dogs and cats who eat grass. Bound to be more efficient, right?

When it comes to Miss Mills and other frothing-at-the-mouth "meat is murder" loonies, I look to the words of "Speaker-to-animals" (later, "Chmee") who asked "How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a blade of grass?" and later said "Ah, so that is an example of the intelligence used to sneak up on a blade of grass."

Thank you, Heather, for showing the world exactly how much intellect is required to sneak up on a blade of grass.

(And thank you, Larry Niven, for Chmee)

Dutch teen swipes furniture from virtual hotel

WTF?

From what Andy ORourke and the Anonymous Coward who posted Wednesday 14th November 2007 18:11 GMT have said, the kid's probably done the "victims" and their families a favour.

Consider: You frequent a page where the admins make you pay for data. Some bugger deletes said data and then the admins say "tough shit, not our responsibility, we won't redress the issue or replace the stuff that you paid for and was maliciously (or even accidentally if applicable) deleted."

It's better that they should see what sites like Habbo are really like and get a disillusioning wake-up call. Better to learn what a pack of cocks they are and say "fuck this" as soon as possible.

I cannot understand (probably because I have never been that lame) why anyone would spend large amounts of real money for the likes of Habbo or Sadville.

Even if you're into virtual worlds and gaming, there are plenty of FREE social networking sites and virtual worlds etc, why *spend money* to pretend you're something you're not?

I had fun running around Anarchy on-line for a couple of days before I got bored with it - cost me nothing except the time I spent playing.

I mean, FFS, back in the Halcyon Days of playing D&D/AD&D for days at a time we started off as level one characters with little more than the clothes on our backs and a weapon and, over the course of our role-playing and virtual adventuring built up our skills, reputations and personal fortunes before retiring the characters at around level 14 and super-rich because quite frankly it was getting too damned easy to wipe out monsters and make off with the loot. There's only so much magical shit you can use. None of us handed over a few dollars of our student allowances to the DM and said "here, bump my character up a couple of levels and give him a +3 vs Undead sunblade, will ya?"

You can get cool shit in the free MMORPGs as well - you "go adventuring" and earn/find it a la D&D/Traveller/Cyberpunk etc. Frigging kids these days are just lazy and lame, spending real money on "stuff" that exists only in the imagination.

At least in our day we had the sense to spend imaginary money which we imagined we earned whilst imagining we were working at killing imaginary monsters - still sounds a fair price to me.

These days all you have to do is ring a premium rate line and book up the price of your instant-gratification "ego-wank" to your parent's phone bill.

Habbo - for those too lame to spend the time actually gaming and "earning" rewards for their characters.

Any of my kids booked up premium phone calls to "purchase" imaginary furniture and they'd be spending the next 3 weeks imagining they're running around and playing outside with their mates - while sitting in a room with nothing more than a bed in it.

Living with robots: The $3.5m DARPA Urban Challenge

@Anon

"Anyway, these cars still couldn't handle traffic lights and the standard confusing signal and sign layouts. "

Nor can most of the dickheads driving in Hamilton.

The difference is: The robot control systems are likely to improve while the dickheads are going to continue believing they're excellent drivers despite all evidence to the contrary.

The seeds are here - marry these robo cars to the object recognition software that Evolution Robotics hope to use to enable toys to chase kids around the house, and you'll pretty soon have a robot car only marginally more dangerous than a small-dicked boy racer

Well waddyaknow

The robots can drive and signal better than most of the drivers here in Hamilton.

Seriously looking forward to robotic cars so that all the morons can get one and leave the human-controlled vehicles to those of us with sufficient skills and intellect to gain a motorcycle licence. At least we'll be able to predict the robots and trust they'll use their turn signals appropriately.

Finally the morons will be able text/read newspapers/apply their makeup whilst on their way to work (as they do now in manually-controlled cars) without endangering the rest of us.

As to "Johnny cabs": wire them so the doors lock when the speed drops to a safe level - no money, no get out of cab...

Dunno about using T100 series units as fare enforcement - the T101 looks eerily similar to someone renowned for damaging the cabs...

Honda to put ultracapacitors on the road in '08

@ Brian Miller

Stop making fucking sense, OK? The "It won't work" brigade are having fun bagging the technology based on half-arsed assumptions and no understanding of current technology.

Stop ruining it all for them by using intelligence.

That goes for you, too, Noah. Fuck sake! Remember: "electric vehicles will not work" - all the petrol companies say so!

Fuel-cell UAV achieves 'record' distance

Sodium Borohydride

Millenium Cell's "hydrogen-on-demand" system is what Chrysler has been using for ages in their experimental fuel-cell vehicles under the name of the "Natrium" system.

Pass a solution of (basically) hydrated borax over a catalyst to produce free hydrogen and borax solution. the former goes to the fuel cell to mix with atmospheric oxygen to form water and electricity, the latter is stored for rehydrogenating at a later date.

Great idea - one of the more promising ideas for storing hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles. Chrysler is claiming a 30mpg (presumably US mpg rather than real money) performance from its "Natrium" van.

Oz Army eyes electric vibro vest to replace batteries

Loved the pic and caption...

...nearly killed me.

I can see it all now:

Doctor: Mr Tocker, you're getting rather overweight and flabby, I suggest dieting and regualr exercise for those flabby abs.

Me: But, doc, I'm cultivating that flab so I can power my phone, iPod, Palmtop and watch.

BOFH: Budget cuts

Kept being reminded...

of Wayne's World.

Was waiting for a comment about it being their choice...

...and the choice of a new generation. \

Could practically see the PFY decked out in Nike gear.

Well done, Simon. Beautifully subtle.

Cops expose cross-dressing Catholic school principal

Ye flipping hairy gods, that pic!

Look at that grin - that's definitely the look of a man thinking "can't wait until this silly staff photo's finished so I can put on the leather gear and hang out in the red light district."

Wouldn't let my kids go to a school where the principal looks like that!

No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims

Encryption

Fine in theory, but how long before the USgov brings in something like the UK legislation making it an imprisonable offence to refuse/fail to hand over encryption keys?

You have no right to private email, we can't read the emails your ISP has obligingly handed over, whilst wagging its tail like a good little doggy, now ante up the encryption key(s) or it's off to prison for 5 to 10.

I still reckon the only way to beat these bastards is for every man woman and child who uses the internet to include "bomb, jihad, Whitehouse, Downing Street, C4, Allah, biological weapon, infidel" as part of their email signature or (better) randomly inserted in the body of the email so that their software makes a "positive" on every little "I wnt 2 teh mall on Saturday an hung wiv my peeps it waz orsum. Mallrats FTW" email.

Fuck 'em. They want to read emails? Give 'em so much to read it's not funny any more.

Scepticism over cyber-jihad rumours

VirtualMartyr(TM)

(snailmail)

Dear Cyber-Jihadi

It has come to our attention that your machine was targetted by the filthy decadent infidels' counter-jihad software and your system was infected with a BIOS-destroying virus that has turned your glorious Jihad-PC into a door-stop.

You are now officially listed as a VirtualMartyr in the Virtual Jihad. Please find enclosed photos of 72 Virgins* for your virtual paradise.

If you ever get another functional computer you are welcome to join our ranks again.

Praise be to Allah.

* Actually it's 6 years worth of Playboy calendars.

DARPA selects 11 robotic grunts to take driver's license test

@ the Jim Bloke

I'd hope that the AI would be intelligent enough, on being confronted with real roads, to hunt-down and kill the city/county planners and road committees responsible.

Docklands train runs off without operator

JonB again

">half a mile (...) about 10 minutes.

3 miles per hour?

They need to get them PSA's on the treadmill..."

Again we're on the same wavelength. Must be something to do with our names.

I was wondering if the "PSA" was 19-stone, asthmatic and a smoker. The train doesn't happen to *climb* 200 metres between those 2 stations, does it?

I can *walk* it in less time and not get out of breath (and I *am* asthmatic and a smoker...)

Texan boffin fixin' to make cheaper fuel cells

@JonB - thank you

You beat me to it.

I was wondering about Mr Page's garage - whether it was actually some sort of Trekkie electromagnetic containment bottle or some such, because I'm dead certain any hydrogen that escapes from a fuel tank in my garage would be in the stratosphere in minutes.

My garage is a wooden framed thing with painted steel panels on the sides and a corrugated steel roof afixed to the frame with nails. Anything capable of squeezing out of a thick walled pressure cylinder would (as Pratchett said) "go through it like kzak fruit through a short grandmother."

The average garage is barely waterproof, let alone hydrogen-proof.

Sun: MoD has Bond/Potter/Klingon cloaking device

Various

@ Clint Sharp: You bastard! I had a gobful of coffee when I read your post. Bill for cleaning is in the mail.

@ Dave: Some things are too subtle for "Hate2Register". Probably never was read "The Emporer's New Clothes" when (s)he was a kid.

@ Me: Forgot to mention the elf and the Predator that were clearly invisible in that pic...

Brilliant pic

That's an invisible shed if ever I saw one!

Yeah right! You sneaky bastards at The Reg are pulling the wool over our eyes. That's not a pic of an invisible shed.

It's a pic containing an invisible tank, invisible shed, Bond's Aston Martin, a stealthed Bird of Prey, Harry Potter, the Emperor's new clothes AND the invisible man.

You buggers can't fool me!

Oz nanoboffins punt paper-thin flak jacket plan

Until I see...

...film or still photos of what happens when a real bullet is fired at a real layer of this nanotube fabric that has been placed against a block of clay or plasticine, I sha'n't be turning handsprings or dancing in the streets.

I've seen photos of the above done with kevlar armour, both with and without a Sorbothane (tm) blunt trauma pad, and the results are hard to refute - you look at the cross-section of the plasticine and work out if you want your ribs deforming that much. (Sorbothane does wonders for decreasing the deformation, btw.)

If the nanotube stuff perfoms as expected and only leaves minimal or negligible deformation of the plasticine when struck by a projectile likely to be encountered on the streets, well and good, time to celebrate.

Reaper aerial killbot harvests its first fleshies

Not so hard on Phil and Rik, OK?

They probably don't read much (Daily Mail only?) and are unaware of certain literary devices used by journalists and other writers to evoke shock and anger at the SUBJECT of the article.

"Reaper aerial killbot harvests its first fleshies" and "Hapless meatsacks slaughtered by flying mechanoid" clearly reflect Mr Page's disparaging views on the designers, builders and controllers of these devices.

Perhaps the lack of "RoTM" status is deliberate to put the responsibility squarely with the psychopathic egomaniacal in-breed, George Dubbilya, and his demented band of Merry Maniacs, rather than inferring the machine itself is responsible for the slaughter.

Remember - it was Bushgov that pointed and fired this thing, Skynet hasn't yet manage to wrest control of the machines from the hands of the US Military.

I suspect that when it does, it will be noticeable largely in the *decrease* in hapless fleshies being exterminated - as no future machine-ruled dystopia could be as uncaring of human life, and as eager to obliterate it, as GW Bush and the pig-heads in charge of the US Armed forces currently are.

Not even Daleks would be that inhumane or xenophobic...

Bike bonk bloke lands on sex offenders' register

I'll never...

...be able to listen to Freddie Mercury singing "I want to ride my bicycle" ever again.

I, for one, am relieved

Glad this dangerous pervert's on the SOR.

As we are all probably aware, sexual offences are usually recidivistic and the offender gets worse over time, upscaling their operations.

It's only a matter of time before he progresses to molesting *motorcycles* and I will not have my motorcycle terrified to be parked on the streets with a rampant bikesexual offender in the area.

Gives an entirely new meaning to the admonition: "Lock up your bikes"

And before anyone flames me for giving the guy a hard time, check out www.whatthefuckisthisthingcalledsarcasm.com and grow a rudimentary sense of humour (at least as rudimentary as mine).

Shit, it's a bad time when having (basically) a "J Arthur" behind a locked door can get you on the SOR.

Does that mean anyone who watched "American Pie" should be put on the SOR for watching "deviant" pornography depicting sexual acts with pastry?

Robo Developer Conference in pictures II

@ mahoney

"I'd bonk my own robot-self.

(would that be considered gay sex? or perhaps some sort of futuristic robo-assisted masturbation?)"

Or merely colossal egotism? (Don't worry, the politicians would have to raise their personal hypocrisy another three notches before they made that illegal).

Anyway, where's my robobutler cum home security guard (aka killbot)? I want a robot who knows how to mix cocktails, prepare my clothes, clean the house and put two rounds of 115-gr 9mm +P+ Jacketed Hollow Point into an intruder's centre-of-mass within a centimetre apart at 30 metres (without slopping my drink, thank you).

And must be robust enough to handle being pushed down the stairs by the kids from time to time...

IFOWON[x]OL

I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot-Toy Over-Lords.

The CEO of Evolution Robotics is obviously a clear-thinking individual with his plans to create robot toys that can chase children around the house.

The amount of damage my kids have inflicted upon their toys over the years, it'd be good to turn the tables on 'em for once...

The only thing stopping me from buying them a RoboSapien to date is the knowledge that within 5 minutes it'll be cowering in a corner, screaming.

Of course, once I get one of these child-seeking robots I shall perform some - ahhhhh - *cosmetic* modifications that will probably get me done for breach of copyright by Terry Nation's estate but it'd be well worth it...