* Posts by Steve

366 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Aug 2007

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Monster.com suffers database breach deja vu

Steve
Stop

not deja vu

Deja Vu is when you feel that you've done or seen something before *WHEN YOU KNOW YOU HAVEN'T*

It doesn't mean "when something happens twice"

Boffin: Lost Stradivarius violin tech reverse-engineered

Steve
Coat

cynicism and pre-lunch drunkenness

"as though one were a specialist in cynicism and pre-lunch drunkenness, and got published in the Reg."

Let me know when you're looking for peer reviewers...

ECJ: Sick workers earn holiday entitlement

Steve
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Careful wording

Interesting wording in that judgement, which leaves lots of open issues.

It says that a worker who wasn't able to take leave because he was sick can either carry it over, or be paid for it if he leaves the company. There's no clear definition of "wasn't able", though. What about someone who has chosen to take no leave during the year, then ends up sick for the last two months? Was the illness the reason they couldn't take the leave? They had 10 months of opportunity which they didn't use, so can it be assumed that it is only 1/6 (i.e. 2/12 of a year) worth of leave which was potentially lost?

It's also not clear on earning leave. Everyone's entitled to 4 weeks paid leave, yet under French law, for example, you need to earn your entitlement. Anyone starting a new job in France has no guarantee of leave, and if you start half-way through the year you only earn half a year's entitlement for the following year.

Most EU directives are carefully ambiguous, so that they can be interpreted according to each member state's needs and not rejected outright. That's exactly what leads to these weasel-worded judgements that don't clarify anything. It'll just make employment lawyers even richer.

Fisker posts Karma Sunset shots

Steve
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Pity

Looks ike they left it in the sun too long, it's melted.

DHS deploys undercar Kraken tentacle-bombs

Steve

Fine in the test lab, maybe not on the road

And what if the car doesn't go over it dead centre (center?) so that it only snags the wheels on one side? Sounds like a recipe for several tons of out-of-control steel rolling along the road.

Wasn't there an EMP-based thingy like that a few years ago? When fired under a car from a pursuing police vehicle it stuck up a couple of antennæ and zapped the car's electronics, leaving it to coast to a halt without power? A sort of trucktazer... never saw that deployed either.

Desperate NFC Forum extends competition deadline

Steve
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What's in a name

Near Field Communication, well isn't that a name to make marketing droids salivate and the technophobe public beat a path to your door. Not.

Bluetooth, WiFi, ZigBee. NFC. Nope, doesn't fit for me.

Maybe they should start with a simpler competition. Pick a name, win a T-shirt.

419ers take Canadian for $150,000

Steve

@Edward Miles

I'll hold the stakes for the pool. Just send me your estimate written on a $100 bill...

Cows can't detect earthquakes: Official

Steve

Sad case

So while other researchers get grants to investigate the effect of alcohol on women, or cocaine on bees, these poor souls want to see what happens when you shake a cow. I can tell them that, from a safe distance.

Microsoft gets touchy with $24m N-trig investment

Steve

N-trig

Whew, for a minute there I thought somone was suggesting using Windows as part of the H-bomb firing systems. I'd be touchy about that...

'First algae-fuelled airliner flight' takes off tomorrow

Steve
Stop

Hydrogen?

Why isn't hydrogen a good option for planes? OK, I know it's an energy *carrier*, not a source, and has to be created from something, but I'd have thought that logistically it would be easier to use in planes than in road vehicles.

Planes have a weight, not size, issue, so storage room is less of a problem than for a car. They are refuelled just before departure, so the problem of standing evaporation is much less serious. They don't need a network of filling stations along the route.

What am I missing?

Zavvi goes titsup

Steve
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Not a surprise

The early Megastores were novel, and worth visiting. Recently the ones I've visted have been disorganized, scruffy, grungy and with painfully overloud music banging away. Maybe I'm not Zavvi/VM's target market,. but I certainly found shopping in HMV or Borders a far more pleasant experience.

Cellular repeaters: Can you hear me now?

Steve

@Ben Park

When I got a tour of the LHC a few months before they started looking for God I was very surprised to find no fewer than 6 networks appearing on my phone, despite being a looong way underground. I could even connect to some of them ...

EU threatens vendors with smartphone tax

Steve

so?

Ship the phone without the software (=dumb) and make the software available on a non-EU website with a big disclaimer saying " not for EU" or "EU residents must declare this download and pay smartphone/dumbuser tax".

Mozilla hastily shoves Firefox updates out door

Steve

final?

If 2.0.0.19 is the final version of FF2, how come I've just been offered 2.0.0.20 ?

NASA will give away old Shuttles for free

Steve
Happy

main engine

Light blue touch paper and retire...

That would be a Guy Fawkes night to remember

DfT spends £81m to save £57m

Steve
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stupendous incompetence

So now a bunch of DVLA civil servants will be invited to take early retirement with stupendous golden handshakes. Everyone wins but the powerless taxpayer, no wonder this just goes on and on and on...

Telegraph.co.uk succumbs to typo irony

Steve

Need a spelling checker

Or maybe not. The Telegraph motoring pages recently ran an article mentioning the "Father Christmas Fe". Took me a moment to work out that there had been an over-zealous global search and replace of "Santa"...

Interflora sues M&S over Google keywords

Steve

Been done before

Isn't this like the US phone companes who grab the numbers corresponding to things like

1-800-operater to catch the people who can't spell 'operator' ?

Also reminds me of the spelling checker in the Interleaf wordprocessor that used to offer "Interleaf" as a correction for "Framemaker" in documents (or maybe that was the other way around) . Full marks to M&S for initiative.

Swiss Mindset reveals E-Motion sports EV

Steve
Stop

Doesn't add up

70kW (94HP) motor, 800kg. That's over 100BHP/Ton and they still only get 75mph and a 6 sec 0-60?

As for the solar cells; assuming the 65mile range is at moderate speed, say 30MPH, so that's 2 hours worth of battery at a load well below the motor's 70kW, it still implies a battery of maybe 20kWh? With an average solar cell developing 100W/m², covering the whole roof will give maybe 200W on a bright day, say 2kWh for the daylight period. That's 3 weeks to fil the battery, not "a few days".

Sorry, but even on a back-of-the-envelope calculation, something about those numbers is screwy.

What if computers went back to the '70s too?

Steve

ICL, VMS, etc.

@Mike Joseph

Yes, ICL had some great kit. George IV running on a 1900-series was way ahead of its time, which is why so many installations of the replacement 2900s spent their entire life running 1900 emulators!

@B

As to what killed VMS, I think it was the same thing that is causing Solaris so many problems today. It was designed by really clever engineers who knew exactly what an OS needed to do, and they filled it with all sorts of nice features (like $getdvi!). Unfortunately that made it slow. Just as I remember being astonished by how much faster VMS 2.0 on a 780 was compared to compiling Fortran on an ICL 1906S, the first Sun workstations flew compared to VMS 4.7, because SunOS 3.x did so much less than VMS.

Now Solaris has been filled with many of the nice features from VMS (always amuses me when something 'new' is added, and I think "Hmm, VMS had that 20 years ago") and now Linux is eating its lunch because people think "ohh, Debian is soooo much faster". Of course it is, it does sooooo much less, but if it's doing all you ned it to, so what? Robustness and features are important to some parts of the market, which is where VMS had (has) a good hold, but not everyone's willing to pay the price up front, even if they learn to their sorrow later that they should have done :)

No doubt in 20 years we'll be reminiscing about how good Linux was, and why it's so sad that it's being superseded by the latest 128-bit mobile phones running some Chinese quantum-effect fuzzy logic OS or somesuch. And some of us will still have Solaris systems running in the basement, just for fun...

Steve
Happy

soul of a new machine

Ah, nostalgia. I think I'll go and boot my PDP 11/73, just for old times sake. It'll give me something to do while installing OpenSolaris on my PC...

BBC relives The Day of The Triffids

Steve

@Rob

The original Tripod books weren't published by the BBC. They were written in the late 60s, the Beeb didn't get round to them until 20 years later. They were aimed at teenagers, I remember my Grandad bought me "The White Mountains", it's probably what hooked me on SF. By the time the Beeb got round to making the series I assumed I'd become too old for them...

Still, while we're on the subject of kid's SF, anyone else remember the Tomorrow People?

Steve

Triffids?

It'll all be based on a new lifeform that evolved from concentrated piss in a falling fridge, and don't even think of asking what it's going to do with that toolkit...

Brits decline to 'think outside the box'

Steve

Touch base?

We off course no self-respecting Englishman would want to touch base, he'd be far too busy getting back to the crease. Beyond the pale, really, mutter,mutter, mutt....

MoD kit chief: Blighty unsure of supersonic stealth jumpjet

Steve

supersonic stealh?

Why bother with the stealth and all the penalties? Wouldn't it be cheaper just to make it so fscking fast that by the time you'd seen it coming amd worked out what to do it would have already shat on you and gone home? It's not like the carrier it lives on will be very stealthy anyway...

Darling's budget targets small business

Steve
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Not tonight, Darling

Look's like Gordo has given up any hope of winning the next election then, he's wasting his time laying traps for the Tories when they come in and have to clean up Labour's economic mess. Again.

He could have tried 10p off a litre of petrol and diesel for the next year, funded by a windfall tax on the oil companies for the extra profits they've made in the past 12 months. That would not only have a bigger effect, psychologically as well as financially, it would send a message to the oil companies that they can't hike the pump price instantly when crude goes up, then drag their feet for months when crude goes down again...

2.5% VAT reduction? Well, the shopping I was going to do anyway next week will be cheaper, but I won't be encouraged to do any more of it. Big deal.

Story withdrawn

Steve

@David Hill

"old tranny radio"

Well, whatever next? Ancient lezzie TV ?

Steve

Well...

I can't believe ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H wonder why you included "Troll"? It's hardly new, been a Usenet staple for many years.

Keep feeding...

Verizon suspends staff for ogling Obama's phone bill

Steve

When I were a lad...

in the days when British Telecom was the only game in town, and still 'a part of the Post Office', i.e. state-owned, we all had to "sign the official secrets act". It was made clear to us that if we were caught snooping on such material then dismissal was likely to be the least of our worries...

Is "interfering with the Royal Mail" still a hanging offence?

US Army bans USB devices to contain worm

Steve

TANSTAAFL

This is exactly why off the shelf devices need to be used with care. If there is really a need for USB connectivity the military should just define their own incompatible USB connector, and provide suitable devices (with built-in crypto?) for those who need them. That, and fill the standard USB ports on their PCs with epoxy glue...

Of course, that is why they end up paying $400 for a hammer, but security doesn't come free...

BNP leaked list claims first victims

Steve

Freedom?

Highly unpleasant though the BNP is, it's a legal party. Banning serving police officers from belonging to a legal political party seems a very dubious move. Replace "BNP" with "Sinn Fein" in that situation, would it still be accepted without complaint everywhere? Either ban the police from belonging to any political party, or ban the BNP outright. Anything else must surely be dodgy ground?

BT silences customers over Phorm

Steve

Daft buggers

What better way to get something talked about than to ban discussion of it...!

PETA cooks up gory game in Cooking Mama protest

Steve

People Eating Tasty Animals

Not bad, I made it to 950-odd points, plenty meaner than mama, but the tofu was too gross to continue.

Still, Peta have a lot to learn about a nice turkey, not least that it should be hung long enough for the blood to drain out first.

Nice one, El Veg, it's only 10am and I'm already salivating for a nice medium-rare steak...

Endeavour launch heralds new dawn for piss-drinking

Steve

Waste of money

Just stick a Budweiser label on it and the US astronauts would pay to drink it unprocessed...

Lightning to thunder with speed-creep beating V8 roar

Steve
Thumb Up

V8 roar?

Who wants a boring V8. Can't we load "F-18.mp3", or "FlyingScotsman.mp3" instead? I bet they'd get pedestrians' attention.

Hey, an idea. Never mind downloadable ringtones at £1.50 a pop, "70litres of 98 unleaded, and an RR Merlin effect, please"...

Serial troll vents steam through ears

Steve

well

"belipsticked pitbull MILF"

I did NOT need that image at lunchtime...

Bletchley Park gets £330k lifeline

Steve

£330k

That's what, 3 weeks of Jonathan Ross's salary? The beeb could suspend him for 6 months, give $3m to Bletchley, and get a documentary series out of it. Better value all round.

Barack Obama will be president

Steve
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@Anomalous Cowherd

"Comparisons with Blair are fair, but you're being a little harsh. Yes he went off the rails with Iraq but we're no longer worrying about Northern Ireland, largely down to his first term. Anyone believe the conservatives could have done that? Didn't think so"

Bollocks. John Major did all the work for that, Bliar just stepped in and took the credit. As usual.

Steve

Picture?

Never mind the photoshop, where's the Playmobil?

US Navy SEAL uniforms: Now with built-in tourniquets

Steve

Ahhh...

I always wondered why they were called seals...

Vodafone pitches Comic Sans as the next Crazy Frog

Steve
Pirate

BOFH-style memories...

This brings back memories of terminals with downloadable font sets, and email messages with unfiltered escape sequences. Flip your bosses VT100 (yes, I'm that old) into upside-down characters, then tell him it's a known bug, and he'll just have to invert the screen until the service tech arrives.

Will this FlipFont application react to any old SMS messages with the right content in them? Could be fun...

Blundering workmen cut major Docklands fibre

Steve

digging

No amount of maps and planning will help. It's always cheaper to dig wherever they need to and pay someone to clean up the mess than it is to dig carefully with a map.

Designer touts 'super sight' sunglasses

Steve

Warning

Do these glasses come ready-printed with "objects behind you may seem smaller and not where they appear" on them?

Hoon: Not building überdatabase would be terrorist licence to kill

Steve

He hasn't a clue

In the 30-odd years of the most recent N Irish troubles there were still more people killed in traffic accidents than by terrorists. If we'd applied Hoon's logic then we all have had our driving licenses confiscated because it's safer to walk... what a tw@t.

Lehman Excel snafu could cost Barclays dear

Steve
Stop

@Rolf Howarth

> In order words, you and me and all of us.

Speak for yourself...

Google demanding Intel's hottest chips?

Steve

Re: Bollox

It's not that simple. Power consumed by aircon isn't the same as heat energy shifted by the aircon. You can pump 3KW of heat out of a building using only 1KW of power consumed, and the efficiency of that pumping process *will* depend on the temperature differential between hot and cold sides.

Steve

milspec?

Don't Intel offer MilSpec versions of their chips anyway?

Brussels bemoans low take-up of electronic cash

Steve
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private transactions

And what if I'm just popping down to the shops and my Mum asks me to get her a pint of milk. Do I then need to get her phone to transfer money to my phone? I can see that being a real hit :(

What planet do these Eurocrats live on? I suppose they have people to spend money for them, so they never carry it themselves, like the Queen.

Scotland Mountain Rescue turns on Ofcom

Steve
Unhappy

Ofcom remit?

"in case anyone's forgotten, optimal use of the electro-magnetic spectrum is the primary remit of the regulator."

Funny, I thought Ofcom was created to ensure a level playing field and to stop BT (at the time) from using it's weight to crush newcomers, not to be the government's spectrum pimp.

Looks like it's a case of gamekeeper turned poacher?

Ford cars to gain prang-preventing radar rigs

Steve
Stop

Money Money Money

It's stage one of the next PPP initiative. The gadget will ship with the alarm set to 60m spacing on motorways, and then the government will install safety cameras that issue tickets to anyone driving closer than 70m from the car in front. The money will come rolling in, with a 50:50 split...

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