* Posts by Chris Barrett

25 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jan 2007

BNP list hunters bring down Wikileaks

Chris Barrett
Coat

BNP member

There was someone that I knew on the list who had used his work email address within his contact info. His employer found out yesterday and he was escorted off the premises, with his pc being taken away for examination. Ooppss!

I'm not sure if he had time to get his coat.

Phoenix Lander listens to Mars murmurings

Chris Barrett
Joke

Re: Re: Bliss

Sarah - my sponsors (The B. Manning & J. Davidson Preservation Society) take all my enquiries. Please forward any correspondence on to my willing assistants (who are all currently running around the park at high speed in naughty-nurse underwear).

Chris Barrett
Thumb Up

Bliss

"Somebody on the surface 20 feet away from you could be talking and you wouldn't hear a thing, just see their lips moving." Could I relocate the missus there?? It sounds ideal.

MI6 agent's moustache falls off during TV interview

Chris Barrett
Paris Hilton

Was it on or off?

I realise that the headline "MI6 Agents Moustache Peels Off Slightly During TV Interview" wouldn't be as sensational, but, as the story clearly states, the 'tache was starting to come away but didn't actually take flight as I expected it to have done from the headline. El Reg - resist the tabloid urge, please!

Paris, because she'd never embarrass herself with bodily hair slippage.

Guitar maker Gibson thrashes out more robo-axes

Chris Barrett
Thumb Up

The signal goes down the string?

Is this correct - the signal from the pitch analyser thingy travels down the string to the tuning motors? Using standard strings? I'd have thought the signal would travel down the neck.

The auto-tuning concept is great, especially on a Les Paul. The ones I've used have been bad at holding their tuning, so much so that I now play a good old reliable Telecaster (sorry, Gibson fans!). This new design would tempt me back if I could afford it.

Cassini sniffs Enceladus's 'surprising organic brew'

Chris Barrett
Coat

@Morely

You are 6.17 feet tall and........wow, over 17 stone in weight? Are you an accidental American?? ;)

(the coat because it won't fit you)

Halo Master Chief armour offered on eBay

Chris Barrett
Alert

Helmets

Does it come with the helmet, with perspex visor? If it is totally complete I want one for my towns New Years Eve festivities, where if you don't go in fancy dress people spray piss on you with water pistols.

Red Dwarf even more dwarfish

Chris Barrett
Alert

Smeg off

"Step up to Red Alert!"

"Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb. "

Beeb censors Fairytale of New York

Chris Barrett
Alert

EL Reg censors itself

Judging from the title, El Reg is on the side of the BBC.

How times are a-changin'. How many Christmasses have gone by with the song being broadcast in all its naked glory? How anal the world is getting.....

UK firm 'recalls' 575 knee implants

Chris Barrett
Boffin

Knee material

Joints such as this are usually produced from 316 grade Stainless Steel and the specification of material is normally pinned down to a particular sub-grade of this metal. Its used generally throughout the medical world but is particularly expensive and hard to get hold of (thanks to those industrious Chinese).

Titanium is the other favoured material but is even more expensive than 316 SS and may not necessarily be suitable for joints. I remember from my days as an aircraft engineer that it was a bugger to machine.

Boy beats Reaper at 20,000 feet

Chris Barrett

Title

With space in a wheel bay being at an absolute premium I don't understand how this kiddie managed to avoid the two-wheeled undercarriage as it retracted after take-off. I've worked on these things in the past and can only think he had a really uncomfortable, noisy, cold, smelly ride for the whole 2 hours.

He wouldn't have been any warmer sitting in an engine intake, bearing in mind that even though the engine itself is extremely hot, the air speed into the intake would give a nice wind-chill factor. At least if he got sucked into the engine on landing his body parts would be saved thanks to the thrust reverser (http://www.cruisinaltitude.com/images/b737/atb732lrtrakl.jpg).

Ever wanted to see the game from the football's PoV?

Chris Barrett

You can poke that up your arse!

Literally! Who needs a doctor and a colonoscope anymore?

Boffins unveil sharpest ever stellar snaps

Chris Barrett

@Mike Pellatt

So in actual fact, you are agreeing with me - I was defending the use of the word 'boffin' not 'expert', ie. as long as the term 'expert' is in use 'boffin' is just dandy.

Chris Barrett

I'm a boffin and so is my wife

Keep the term. Its no worse than someone being labelled a so-called 'expert'.

Any boffins out there able to recommend a good telescope to replace my 30 year old Tasco rig? My budget is about £200.

Pentagon: Chinese military hacked us

Chris Barrett

Network security

So the US military doesn't operate its network on the basis of a sandbox concept? Or maybe its referring to the Whitehouse website being hacked yet again. This whiffs of the usual 'don't worry, public, trust us - you wouldn't understand this techie stuff' excuse to pump more funding into the deep pockets of the military-industrial complex. And of course the US taxpayer is easily whooped-up and will happily stump up the cash along with relinquishing whatever rights and freedoms they currently enjoy in 'cyberspace'.

Republicans hammer Brit artist's Bush

Chris Barrett

The (w)hole being greater than the sum of its parts?

The *ssh*le that the overall picture represents is far more offensive to me than the many smaller ones that make up the montage.

Firms unsure of liability for staff net use

Chris Barrett

company websites

I don't know if my judgement is flawed with this but I tend not to send marketing information to companies who have no website, since I figure that such companies must be pretty lame if they still have no site. Is this a fair assumption?

Paris Hilton says jail term has changed her

Chris Barrett

Oh, I am sorry...

I appear to have joined a Fark forum by mistake.....

DARPA scramjet nudges Mach 10

Chris Barrett

So did they cheat slightly?

It seems that the craft used rocket propulsion to reach beyond the ionosphere (ie. into space), re-entered earths atmosphere and then attained Mach 10 with its scramjet. How much of this speed can be attributed to the experimental propulsion system rather than free-fall forces? The space shuttle is effectively a glider when it re-enters the atmosphere but still manages to reach 17,500 mph without any engine. Does the scramjet maintain its Mach 10 speed at a constant altitude for a significant amount of time?

Fancy some hot buttered storage?

Chris Barrett

You guys are CRAZY

The laughs you lot must have each day! You're all barking!!

140mph YouTube boy racer facing jail

Chris Barrett

Lock the little tit up

My nephew who is 18 was bought a souped-up Ford Fiesta for his birthday. He rolled it and wrote it off. A few months later, in his new car, he was stopped for speeding (105mph). Despite all of this he has not lost his license. His insurance has gone vertical but other than that he seems to have no disincentive to try again. Lock up all these little pricks. The reason they are in one of the highest-risk insurance groups is because of stunts like the one shown in the video. Zero tolerance I say.

Nivio betas hosted Windows

Chris Barrett

Privacy

One thing which concerns me is the privacy angle. We are in an age of wire-taps, intercepted email and god only knows what else. Would it not be highly likely that back-door access would be allowed by the host for the security services to eavesdrop and possibly duplicate commercially-sensitive information?

Also, I wouldn't want my companys operational abilities to rely on my ISP or BT. OK, there is a short-term fix by duplicating the files locally but I think that this concept is best suited to those who depend less on the system or who use the tools provided rather then storing large volumes of important data server-side.

@Gary McCabe - yeah, this would be great for gaming but as yet Vmware doesn't support 3D applications. One day.......

Chemical weapons are not WMDs

Chris Barrett

Deaths through chemical weapons

The argument about whether chemical weapons are WMDs isn't necessarily about the numbers of people that it can kill but rather the fact that its indiscriminate and also not a 'nice' way to die - the slightly warped belief that it would be better to be killed from cluster bombs, land mines or phosphor grenades rather than a chlorine attack. Chemical weapons ARE a Weapon of Mass Destruction in that, theoretically, many people can die from one attack but are probably the least preferred WMD, assuming that you have access to nuclear or biological weapons too.

Based on the criteria, should depleted uranium-tipped artillery shells not be classed as WMDs too?? Many are dying in Iraq from their use.

Chris Barrett

WMD's

If chemical weapons are so useless how did Saddam manage to kill so many, so effectively, in Halabja, March 16, 1988? Overall more than 40 Kurdish villages were attacked. According to our 'expert' (who, to me, sounds very blase about the whole thing, which he shouldn't - Porton Down were cowboys before the 90's) death on such a scale should be impossible unless a totally disproportionate amount of chemicals were used.

The other point which he fails to address, which is taught throughout the services during basic NBC training, is how chemical weapons come into their own when the attacking force wishes to take the enemy area without damaging it. Levelling an area may kill the enemy but all you win is the land it was built on. Maybe the army needs more property developers...?

Why do we open our mouths to yawn properly?

Chris Barrett

I agree

I am none the wiser as to why we open our mouths to yawn properly, or why we yawn at all. Describing the consequences or side-effects of yawning does not tell us why we do it. There are various theories to be found on the subject (to increase the oxygen level in the blood, the redistribution of the alveolar surfactant, etc) but nobody, including Dr Juan, seems to know. Why, then, even bother asking the question?