Posts by Carl

China goes gung-ho for EVs

Yes, they can pull this off

Pete, have a look at what happens when the Chinese Bureaucracy gets BEHIND a major investment instead of IN THE WAY. They can do absolutely astounding things at dizzying rates. Mobilising a million workers isn't that hard for them.

Woman jailed for texting while driving

Jailed for texting?

Er, it seems that she was jailed for smashing vehicles and killing people. Texting was a contributing factor, but it would be surprising for someone to be jailed JUST for textdriving.

Or was that more important than killing someone?

Mystery HDD maker orders kit to build monster-capacity drives

So that's....

Three roundtrips to the moon, as measured in punched paper tape. Now THAT'S progress!

BOFH: Lift laughs

A whole new art form emerging

This is brilliant! I can see it now - the next edition of BOFH will actually go BACK in time by a few days, to lay some groundwork for the welding of the hatch, and the developing relationship (!) with Security. Can't wait!

Amazon smacks little people with BookSurge

@Mark Nelson

Sorry, Mark, this is no joke. Amazon are really trying to pull this one off.

I published a book with BookSurge a few years ago, and they treated me like crap. Ridiculous pricing with Amazon, bizarre terms, etc.

I've loved Amazon in the past but am going to move all my business to their competitors. Too bad, they were once a great company. But they need to realize that the content PROVIDERS need to make a living, or they'll have nothing to sell.

Scientists create 'no-tears' onion

No crying

I heard some advice to light a candle next to where the onion is being cut. Works surprisingly well!

Clash of the compacts: Eee vs Air

@ This has me stumped

No replaceable battery? Because it builds in planned obsolescence, that's why. You're much more likely to upgrade to Steve's new machine in a couple of years when your Air is only getting 45 minutes of battery life.

Bugs the crap out of me too.

LAPD patrol cars to get sticky-GPS-tracker cannon?

No shortage of dumb criminals...

... so I'd say give it a try. If it can reduce high speed chases, that's a Good Thing.

I've always been convinced that 95% of criminals get caught just because they make stupid mistakes. Life's not all CSI.

Reference kilo shows mysterious weight loss

In memory of a great man...

let me humbly offer the "Pavarotti."

Online car tax saves planet from carbon hell

@But why is it still only by the month?

Tim, I agree. But I'd prefer to pay tax only for the MINUTES I'm actually on the road. The other 99.9% of the day is a whole waste of my tax money!

Hotmail hack punts person in peril scam

Using the same passwords

I have to confess, I'm guilty of using the same passwords all over. At last count, I have 81 websites for which I've supplied passwords, and there's no way I'm going to try to make up unique codes for each. Now I DO have several tiers of passwords for various levels of security I desire - the password on my primary PC is TOTALLY unique and quite complex. But I'll bet many people don't go to that trouble.

Compact Disc: 25 years old today

Never found out why...

From my very first CD, I always wondered: why didn't they include the album name, track listing or any other digital data in the original CD spec? Was it simply that nobody thought of it?