* Posts by Chris Walker

56 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jul 2007

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Congratulations, Barack — Now fix your websites

Chris Walker
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Hilarious article, thx!

You should be proud of the level of inane idiocy in this article; just about every part of it is littered with rubbish. Utter utter turd.

Sainsbury's punts 'Innocent kids juices' for £2.99

Chris Walker
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WTF?

Has this got to do with IT, or anything remotely close to it?

My GOD get a life!

Hi-tech cops lose their website

Chris Walker
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Utter scum

You know, this is one element of the internet 'landscape' that really irks me - those utter scumbags who 'legitimately' register expired domains and follow up with a 'yes, we're of course happy to di$cu$$ with the owner of scant seconds ago how the domain should be used'. Sure, you should keep an eye on your registrations but mistakes do happen (people are involved after all).

Million bank details sold on eBay

Chris Walker
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Buying hardware through eBay?

"If any IT Manager I employed bought hardware through ebay I would fire him."

Unless of course it runs contrary to internal procurement rules, why?

Hardware is hardware is hardware in all but a few areas; commodity boxes, the like of which abound on eBay, are fine for most things I can think of.

Unless you object to the idea of saving money, and reusing existing machines (and therefore doing your 'bit' for environmentalist considerations).

Frankly I suspect your comment is also in danger of breaking equality laws too; implying as it does that you only ever employ males in the role ;)

Anonymous relaunches fight against Scientology

Chris Walker
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RaptorJesus!

There should be an action figure available with the same name. There really should. And it should do real biting damage and real miracles, and not need batteries. Ever.

Knights Templar to Vatican: Give us back our assets

Chris Walker
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Python would be proud.

"knigits templar".

Pronounced "nijits" I hope, a beautiful misspelling worthy of His Holy Hand Grenade, if not a full shrubbery!

Dutch vacuum salesman pumps Google for €1m

Chris Walker

Fair play to the Dutchie

I'd hold out for more cash too - a lot more cash. Given the cash Google will undoubtedly make with AdSense on Knol, its about time some of the little guys got a slice of the action.

<Dr_Evil>One hundred million billion dollars!</Dr_Evil>

Inquirer celebrates spammer murder-suicide

Chris Walker

Ignore 'em?

I suggest you simply ignore the Inquirer's mental collapses in the future - not worth giving them the publicity.

Mayor Boris to cover Porsche costs in CO2 tax brouhaha

Chris Walker
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Go on the Boris!

To be clear: I don't drive, but I do live in London (Zone 2).

The £25 charge was absurd - dreamt up by a man who has been unable to divorce his 'green' policies and their aims from his personal hatred for anyone who doesn't conform to his notion of a fair society.

Seeing this quashed so absolutely and so quickly by Boris restores my faith in "Action This Day!" rather than his predecessor's obsession with self interested committees, self interested committees and, oh yes, wasting vast sums of taxpayer's money on self interested committees.

Judge grants Viacom 12TB of YouTube user records

Chris Walker

I humbly suggest HMRC...

as the appointed data courier. The logs will therefore never turn up at their intended destination, and Viacom/Google can spend the next century trying to outbid each other for fragments on 'tardBay.

Becta schools deal stuns British open-istas

Chris Walker
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Snivel Snivel Sob!

<Mark Taylor>We pitched for business, we lost out to someone else, WE HATE THE WORLD ITS NOT FAIR! WAAAAAAHHH.</Mark Taylor>

Grow the fuck up. Jeeeeesus.

UK electricity crisis over - for now

Chris Walker
Go

@ Chad H. - nuclear powered posters

1. Bury it deep underground, or deep enough that it gets subsumed into the earth's mantle. A couple of folk here have already mentioned this.

2. Build the new nuclear facilities where people _aren't_. Take a leaf out of the mobile phone mast people and disguise them if you want to pretty them up.

And I reject the Chernobyl / 3Mile Island argument.

Planes crash, people still fly.

Boats sink, people still er, boat.

TV dulls the brain, people still watch Jeremy Kyle.

Life is full of risks, so lets just make sure they're properly evaluated and managed. And that means doing it properly, paying for it properly, and running it properly - and not outsourcing it to Uranium-R-Us at the first opportunity.

Chris Walker

Dealing with nuclear waste...

"could we refrain from suggesting people with whom we disagree should be buried alive?"

At no point did I suggest they should be buried _alive_.

That would after all be rather cruel.

"So, what is the plan for dealing with the nuclear waste then?"

Package it up and fire it into the sun. Surely by the time its an issue the ISS loo will be operational and we'll have enough time to work out how to slingshot a bit of spent fuel someplace safe.

Chris Walker
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Fuck the envirotards

I'm bored literally shitless by the mentality we have in this country when it comes to sorting basic infrastructure out.

1. Ignore envirotards who are push abstinence rather than reduction*.

2. Acknowledge we're heading towards a problem.

3. Acknowledge that big windmills, tidal barriers and other such shit won't suffice.

4. Embark on a proper program of new nuclear power generation.

5. Allow a moderate PPP (emphasis last P) to achieve #4

6. Stop dicking around and make a decision.

*These people should simply be taken out to a land fill site and buried. They're one of the root causes of the problems we're increasingly facing - no solutions, only complaints; no understanding of the real world, only a desire to run everywhere bare foot. Indeed, they may be joined in the land fill by any politician who doesn't understand the basic tenets of energy security, and who believes their current term in office is somehow more important than the national energy strategy.

Social networking site bans oldies over sex offender fears

Chris Walker

You have to ask yourself...

Are YOU employing DecisionTards like this in YOUR organisation?

Christian Bale signs for Terminator trilogy

Chris Walker
Paris Hilton

Nothing wrong with looking good

"Men and token women who despite fighting a desperate battle for the future of humanity always have time to do their hair!"

Tomorrow's (Yesterday's?) modern metrosexual warrior takes care and pride over his appearance, and I for one applaud them. Likewise, his token female compatriot also endeavours to mesh her needs for combat performance with delicate femininity; its why female troops wear high heels.

Dirty wild eyed types in tatty apparel belong in Chatham, not on the battlefield.

MS bashes Gay(wood) Xbox Live gamer

Chris Walker

Redundant yet amusing emphasis

"literally meaning horny homosexual for those outside the UK"

I'm genuinely flabbergasted (I'm having a faux Victoriana day) at the need for the word 'literally' in that explaination... :)

'Experimental' Linux distro Exherbo eyes serious developers

Chris Walker
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Breathtaking arrogance

I'm genuinely impressed by the outlandishly arrogant yet endearingly childish tone of Exherbo's blog... and when coupled with the apparent inability to sense check their own copy, I can only expect the final product will be littered with the most humourously ineffectual and down right offensive help texts.

"...there are plenty of other options for users who want a distribution that does everything badly rather than a few things well. In other words, go and use Gentoo or Ubuntu please."

And then, a line break or two later...

"It's not that we think that Gentoo (or other distributions) are bad."

Bless them. Him. It. I can only imagine the initial release codename... "Up Mine Own Fundament, v.1.0" or "Me Vs. The World (Redux), v.1.0".

Chuckle.

BitTorrent tracker Mininova faces legal action

Chris Walker
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I'm sorry?

"such as DVD a so crippled with illegal DRM that render them completly useless"

You can almost hear the emoscript0rkiddymouthfrothing from here.

The Moderatrix: Exclusive boudoir snap

Chris Walker

The dog has no eyes.

Which is worrying.

Dixons admits 'it's even worse than you thought'

Chris Walker

Its like an oil tanker trying to do an emergency stop...

The biggest issue these guys face is that internally, they struggle with having both real world and online stores. They cannot afford to have an online presence that is too effective as it'll eat into store footfall and therefore sales, which given the costs of operating these huge purple barns is something they desperately want to avoid.

Its the reason they introduced this "buy online, pickup at store" nonsense.

They know their staff are majorly rubbish, because just like any mass-market box shifting outfit their margins simply aren't going to be there if they're also having to pay for knowledgable staff who of course will be more expensive than the YTS trainees you encounter at the moment... I'll never forget the moment I was told that USB was the same as Firewire...

They need to massively reduce their physical presence and invest heavily in their online site(s) and fulfillment/delivery service, and simply take the write down financially for doing so and play the long game.

PC World lives, currently, in the dark ages of overpriced mass-market consumer electronics, high pressure warranty and accessory sales, and a general "don't give a stuff once you've paid" mentality.

Son of 419 victim contacts El Reg

Chris Walker

Lack of suspicion detected!

"It's been sent to an online IT rag - not individuals"

The miracle, nay wonders, of BCC.

Mine's the one with "Paranoia Rules!" picked out in sequens.

Chris Walker
Paris Hilton

Colour me cynical...

But this just strikes me as 419+

Nobody really believes they're due to receive a suit case full of Nigerian cash from the long lost estate of [suitably Nigerian name]... well, not unless you're really, really, really STUPID.

So I wouldn't be surprised if this was the next reworking of the great 419 game; play on people's humanity. Stop the suicide. Help raise funds so he can pay back the cheques.

Paris. Because she really IS that stupid.

Google tips hat to St George - finally

Chris Walker

English Non Patriots

"I wonder if it's a good time for us English non-patriots to all mail the Googletards and bitch about unnecessary shows of nationalism."

Quick answer to that - no.

Friends Reunited killer gets life

Chris Walker

@gareth

"and either way murdering the lover seems the wrong thing to do"

Erm, only SEEMS?!

Northrop: battlefield rayguns to demo this year

Chris Walker
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DiscoRayGunDeathMachines!

This is excellent news. After a hard day on the battlefield, the troops can retire and use their swanky new beamer trucks to light up the post conflict entertainment. Dame Vera got a bit of sack cloth and a cheap stage, the Yanks can now bring Broadway to Insurgencyville.

Eye-o-Sauron™ man-tracker masts now fully online, says DHS

Chris Walker
Black Helicopters

Man sized?

I hereby call upon all South American children, midgets and dwarves to flock en masse towards the border. Take only what you can carry.

Further, I encourage the Mexican Scarecrow Operators Assoc. to deploy hundreds of their finest straw men across the area.

Google to build 80,000 foot radio tower?

Chris Walker
Boffin

Barrage Balloons!

Sounds to me like Google could cosy up quite nicely to Homeland Security on this one.

BBC mulls dropping Flash as iPlayer meets iPhone

Chris Walker
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Leave the Flash alone

Its perfectly good quality for watching stuff through the browser.

I am not going to install that bullshit iplayer app, which is the biggest pile of crap I think the BBC have ever produced - and I include Eldorado in that.

Ofgem, MoD attack pricey terror-friendly windmills

Chris Walker
Boffin

Lessons from the World War

We need to take a leaf out of Fokker's book here and stop dithering.

Our Teuton friend invented the mechanism by which a machine gun could be fired by a pilot without shooting his propellor off in the process.

Therefore, all that needs to happen is the boffins need to synchronise the radar beams with the wind turbine propellors in a virtual replica of Fokker's original effort. The trough fills up with corporate snouts, and the MOD gets to keep track of all those naughty low flying terror types.

This will work, and so I claim my £5.

Microsoft! bids! $44.6bn! for! Yahoo!

Chris Walker
Gates Horns

Value for money?

$44.6bn?

Thats seriously over valuing Yahoo!

By $44.59bn

VOIP and the web baffle Brit spook wiretappers

Chris Walker
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Typical dumbed down briefing to the oversight dummies

If GCHQ is unable to discharge its duties because of this new fangled interwebnets, I humbly submit they should shut themselves down and we can repurpose their budget.

Yahoo! Will! Axe! One! Thousand! Workers!

Chris Walker
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Prada? Oh... Pravda

"Like it or don't, it's the economic model that allows you to work in an air-conditioned building and own your own computer instead of breaking your spine on a collective farm and getting your news from Pravda."

I'm glad I don't live in The! World! Where! Only! Two! Options! Exist!

Tom Cruise Scientology vid leaks onto net

Chris Walker
Alien

T Minus 10 seconds... und cownteen!

Its interesting to listen to Mr Cruise talk so passionately about this subject.

Its even more notable that every time he says "... get on board" its quite clear he's not talking metaphorically.

New BAE destroyer launches today on the Clyde

Chris Walker
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Yeah, lets scrap the lot. Why not.

I do wish when glibly slagging off the new Type 45 for cost and PAAMS for range, you'd bother to write more exhaustively on the systems as a whole rather than focussing on whichever bit got your goat.

The escort air defence role (of which the Type 45 is ideally suited) whether as part of a self defence exercise or a co-ordinated anti-air bubble around, for example, a carrier or other capital ship, requires that you engage multiple high speed low level targets often tracked on multiple vectors - and every second counts.

PAAMS is perfect for this; a range of 75m using the Aster 30 missile is massive and when you consider the rate of fire (8 missiles in about 10 seconds), that is a significant response to an incoming threat. It is most definitely a quantum leap beyond current capabilities and of course fits the NATO standard, and will undoubtedly have further capabilities added to it in future generations of the same system.

When considering how much air space it dominates, it is too simplistic to simply focus on a single PAAMS system in terms of individual missile range. The PAAMS radar and guidance system goes out much further than the missile itself, and an integrated air defence picture with more than one PAAMS equipped ship (Type 45 or otherwise) will easily give you the air space domination mentioned.

The Royal Navy has quietly got on with refitting (at enormous expense) existing surface units over the last 20-30 years, however refitting only gets you so far - both in terms of capabilities and of course cost effectiveness. It is about time we (and we are an island in need of an independent naval capability, hence why we're in a different place with different needs than Switzerland) invested in the Royal Navy and ensured they were given the tools required to achieve those objectives that will be set for them over the next 20-30 years.

Comparing the cost per unit on a like for like basis with the Army, based on the fact it is well publicised that our chaps over in Afghanistan and Iraq are finding themselves short is ridiculous. The Navy maintains much lower numbers of operational units but which operate in completely different circumstances and therefore have different needs - the Army on the other hand has considerably more yet lower per-unit cost assets.

This is a stupid article, based in part on reading BBC News and in part reading crap from Wikipedia - or at least, thats how it appears. Sort it out eh?

Saudi prince blows fortune on A380 'flying palace'

Chris Walker
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Saudis do Nero proud

Fiddling whilst Rome burnt is practically inconsequential compared with the unstoppable profligacy of the Saudi Royal Family (about 5,000 of them by the time you tot up all the hangers on).

It will not be too much longer before the plane is needed - not for another drugs, whores & booze cruise to Monaco (look ma! a 3-way Wahhabi!), but to get out of that blighted country when the general populous finally realise they're being driven into a new stone age by their so called 'leaders' and choose to do something about it.

The Saudi Royal Family are disgusting. Truly.

Battle of Britain pilots actually crap shots

Chris Walker
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Hackademic Turd

Dr Andrew Cummings can piss off frankly.

Poor training time and therefore poor accuracy may have something to do with the fact we were at war. I'm not entirely convinced that a proper syllabus followed by extensive flying time and target practice fits smoothly alongside the needs of a nation defending itself from potential invasion.

Nobody I've ever met thinks the RAF won the lot either. Everyone knows exactly how large a part way played by both the Royal Navy and the Merchant Marine - from the evacuation of Dunkirk to hunting U-Boats and protecting convoys... our esteemed Dr Cummings seems to think we've forgotten we live on an island.

But back to the RAF and the Battle of Britain. Whilst he may sit there and pore over dry archive documents, and draw down his research grant accordingly, he seems to have stopped short of the most salient point. No, they weren't properly trained and no, they may not have been terribly good shots, and yes they picked off the stragglers (a kills a kill eh?)...

... yet they won.

Interesting how he should publish his findings so close to Remberance Day too eh?

Reg Standards Soviet defines temperature and force

Chris Walker
Alert

Sorry, but your use of the Hilton (Hn) is wrong

Sorry, but this is completely wrong. The Hilton (Hn) is already widely accepted as a measurement of pressure in relation to a vacuum.

Interestingly, the measurement applies to two standard areas of analysis; encompassing both suction and of course, a defined space devoid of matter.

The control point for an Hilton varies depending on environment. In a late night residential setting for example and when measuring suction, one Hilton equates to 3.667 Divine Browns (DvB) which is in turn 1.38 times more powerful than a standard 800 watt Mr Henry (MH).

Example:

At over 6.7 Hiltons, Tom knew he wasn't going to last more than 10 minutes.

Likewise NASA have begun marrying their traditional measurement of distance (the parsec) with the Hilton to calculate the likelihood of a foreign object impacting on the International Space Station ISS), or any other space faring craft.

It was revealed that the recent shuttle mission had a 99.8% chance of success based on there being only 8 near-earth objects within the 140,056 Hiltons that made up the operational area of the craft.

Example:

Modern nuclear submarine sonar has advanced to the point whereby objects the size of Jade Goody can be detected instantly even in volumes exceeding 500,000 Hiltons.

Shocked Shatner shunted from Star Trek XI

Chris Walker
Alien

Still no toilets though eh?

"A ship that's supposed to be a 100 years older than the Kirk Enterprise but was actually superior in all the ways that mattered."

They still hadn't thought to put in seat belts or toilets though. Even Voyager had a shower, but no loos. I can only imagine that after a hard episode's worth of Romulan bashing the poor Federation types were busting for a wee (hence I presume the dark easy-dry trousers).

B5 was great, although I'm disappointed nobody had the foresight to kick Delenn out of an airlock early on... she made The Riddler look positively succinct.

Chris Walker
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Janeway? LOLZ11!1!11

I remember her. I landed on the SciFi channel having first played "High Cable Channel Number Roulette" and wondered what the hell was going on.

It was difficult to tell her apart from the furniture.

Chris Walker
IT Angle

Planet Shatner?

I can understand why the egomaniac Bill Shatner feels left out but I think the producers are missing a trick here. Sure, plot holes may appear if you simply allow the camera hogging bloatware* that is our man Kirk to take part but there are other roles for him to play... with only the most basic makeup, he could easily pass as a planet.

*Despicable attempt to make this comment and therefore by extension the article in any way relevant to technical gubbins.

Funnyman-loving Facebookers mock US prez race

Chris Walker
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Proving that cash isn't needed?

American Presidential Elections can be described quite succinctly as follows:

X+Y = Z

Where X = Money

Where Y = Money

Where Z = Successful election to office through the use of either X or Y.

It'd therefore be nice, if completely bonkers, to see Colbert propelled into the race by dint of popularity because The Lord Knows he doesn't have the cash to arrive at Z any other way.

I wait with breath abated for the smarmy Zucker Creature to announce that FaceCrack is now the pre-eminent electioneering platform and attempt to license it appropriately...

Racist Reg ignores Nigerian helicopter pioneer

Chris Walker
Pirate

Nigerian AirCorps+

"In a country with Nigeria's abysmal air safety record officials may be loath to gamble on one student's home-made helicopter."

What exactly are they thinking about gambling on?

Put that Boeing order on hold chaps, we've got a man here who's a whizz with lego.

Public rejoices at new 'green' nukes

Chris Walker

Who cares what the public think?

There is a time and place for hand-holding focus groupies, and medium to long term energy security isn't one of them. Equally, is Mr Joe Public capable of understanding all the issues and making an informed decision, or is he more likely to listen to whichever rag is shouting the loudest? History suggests it is most definitely the latter.

The government should press ahead with new nuclear power station sites and ensure that as a sovereign nation we're not beholden to various folks out East every time we want to get a brew on.

Short of moving into yurts, living hand-to-mouth and undoing the industrial revolution, the green movement will (by fact of its fracticious assemblage) cry foul whatever route is chosen - so lets just ignore them and get on with the practicalities of providing reliable power services to 60m people eh?

The Times: PLA war-hackers can switch off US navy

Chris Walker

SuperNuclearCarrierBattleGroupies Beware!

Its all true you know. It is an increasingly known fact that the lack of carrier battle groups in and around hotspots is nothing to do with operational considerations, but something rather more simple: their ethernet cables don't reach far enough.

Google Earth mobilised in search for Fossett

Chris Walker

Latest images?

Disappearing Fossett aside, what do they mean by "latest images" ?

Do they mean they flew a bunch of places with belly-cams all over the place to garner such, or did Richard Branson promise the head of the NSA a freebie on Necker if he retasked a couple of his birds over the area?

Solar spyplane stays up for two nights

Chris Walker

Genius!

Not the story, thats a load of vaguely uninteresting endurance flying gubbins which would require an apathy bypass to raise so much as an eyebrow... no, I address Mr Ashley Pomeroy. Your linking of this story with Keith Richards and above all the use of the word "tumescent" is deserving of its own praise. Well done that man.

Cursing senior plod samples electric justice

Chris Walker

Good show chaps, now go for the real thing!

This is excellent news - and needs taking to the inveitable conclusion.

Next Thursday, Sir Ian Blair (the Metropolitan Police Commissioner) will be shot 6 times in the head by members of SO19 to demonstrate what happens when you vault over a tube barrier wearing a big jacket in hot weather.

Tickets are available from the usual outlets, with 10p from each donated to H&K.

Moller touts flying-saucer hovercar, again

Chris Walker

Lord Save Us!

Moller makes The Jetsons look like a documentary.

Jordan names sprog 'Princess Tiaamii'

Chris Walker

A car crash indeed!

@ Jim Hunter: But one where both airbags are already fully inflated.

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