Posts by Marky W

Why do these traders get billions to play with, unchecked?

Nice post

Very interesting. Thanks!

Hmmm

And just how exactly are you going to realise this gain? I suspect you're going to feel a bit of a mug when you pop into Cash Converters and they explain that the rates they offer don't *quite* match the international bullion markets...

Elixir 2

Great review

I hope the devs sent you a t-shirt AND a mug :)

NASA: Beam me up some power, Scotty

I expect I'm the fourteenth person to say this...

...but all a laser would need to push to the moon is three astronauts, the command module and the lunar module. Not the squillion tonnes of rocket underneath.

Bundling a few thousand of those laser pointers should do the trick - there must be a mountain of them somewhere as they're now banned IIRC.

Scosche BoomCan mini travel speaker

Standards?

75% gets a 'recommended' tag?

Given that 70% seems to be the lowest score awarded - unless something is *truly* dire - you're very easily pleased....

HTC knocks out the Beats

"knocks out the Beats"

Sounds like a euphemism for a 5 knuckle shuffle.

The beer icon represents a "hand shandy", obviously.

More transistors, Moore’s Law, less juice

Kinda, I suppose

1998, early phones had a charge that lasted 4-5 days with minimal use outside of calls, teeny-weeny B&W screen, a clock and the capability to text message (stop right there, pedants, I know that's not 100% accurate but you get my drift).

2011 we have smartphones which last maybe 2 days between charges, but we get a fat and juicy full-colour screen, internet access, GPS, games, organiser, 1000's of music tracks, video capabliity (films and video calls), email, and apps to do a squillion and one other things. Hours per day in use has probably quadrupled at the very least.

The battery in my Galaxy S2 is no larger than the one in my Nokia 2110. I don't think that's bad going, really. Go back a few more years, and you needed an althetes build to hold the damn thing to your ear for more than 5 minutes (think back to Gordon Gecko talking on the beach).

AMD snags Guinness World Record for clockiest chip

Snailesque wit

Bit slow off the mark, there. That much-overused old joke was right in there as the first comment.

UK, US ink boffinry pact on laser fusion 'star power'

I'm sure it was plutonium

Libyan or perhaps Iranian IIRC.

Anyway as I said: I'm scared of lightning; I hardly think I'm going to take to radioactive fuel rods.

88mph here I come!!

I have a car and a flux capacitor. However as I am scared of lightning, they have been languishing in a lock-up just outside Woking for years. All I needed was a working Mr Fusion unit, and now the end is in sight!

End of UK local dialling in sight as numbers run out

Oh, El Reg!

How I love your subheadings.

Patent wars: Apple attacks Samsung in Japan

Why bother innovating?

With margins of 60%+ on the iPhone they'd be fools not to milk it as hard and for as long as they possibly can. Their only risk is being horribly crushed by a falling tower of cash.

And at the end of the day they are a business (yes, iFans, a for-profit enterprise) so of course they view customers as 'moneybags'.

PT Barnum said: "There's one born every minute". He wasn't referring to fanbois, but it's oh-so very apt....

Apple's ex-cop and the case of the lost iPhone 5

@AC

Ouch! Apple are turning into a real-life Omni Consumer Products.

iEd-209's to be out by Christmas.

Deezer launches stunningly original music idea in the UK

Nice one

I don't recall ever reading an article more stuffed full of sarcasm than that one. It simply *reeks* of 'embittered old hack'.

Loved it.

What vegetables are best for growing in Spaaace?

Noooo, not rabbit

Eating only rabbit will kill you! According to Wiki, Rabbit Starvation is 'a form of acute malnutrition caused by excess consumption of any lean meat (e.g., rabbit)'.

Miniature pigs are the only answer. Plus, bacon.

Windows 8 ribbon entangles Microsoft

@ YAC

I get the same effect by lying down on my desk and leaving my monitor as it is. I've had to sellotape my keyboard to the cubicle divider but it means I can catch a crafty 40 winks without attracting undue attention.

Still working on the mouse problem: something cobbled together from a metal tray and fridge magnets should do the trick

Amen to that

Microsoft bod 1: Say, it seems as though everybody is moving to a widescreen display.

Microsoft bod 2: Hmmm, it seems you're correct. I know, lets put a big ribbon at the top of all our applications.

MSB1: Erm, I'm not sure you understood what I said.

MSB2: It'll work especially well in Word, because of the aspect ratio of common paper sizes.

MSB1: Riiiight. Wouldn't it be better to put the ribbon at the side of the screen?

MSB2: No.

MSB1: How about as an option? That should be relatively easy to do, surely, and would help our core customer base hugely. We did it in the past, remember?

MSB2 (with hands over ears): La, la, la, la, la.

MSB1 (quietly): I really must update my CV.

Ten... gaming headsets

Why yes, they ARE amazing

And so comfortable and reasonably priced too. I also recommend a cool, iced Coca Cola(TM) during your gaming session, best enjoyed with McVities(TM) Hobnobs(TM).

Available from all good retailers now! Terms and conditions may apply.

Seven lessons from the HP Touchpad fire sale

I disagree, but...

You price them as a toy and they WILL sell. By the bucketload.

eBay biz millionaires proliferate as high street suffers

Since when does revenue = profit

So I buy tat for £990,000 and sell it for £1,000,000 then I'm a millionaire, am I?

If only it was so easy...

Ofcom mulls smackdown for rogue religious TV channel

Got one!

'The Homeopathy Channel'?

Seems to match your description 100%. 'Course, the more you watch, the less effective it is.

Ultra-cheap HP TouchPads to hit UK at 6pm

Smug git

See title.

(yes, I am jealous)

Arse

Got to the 'select payment method' page, then got a load of hash (####) text, then thrown out again to be told my basket is empty. Neither 16 or 32Gb pad now available.

Oh well.

Marriage makes women get fat, divorce does same to men

Deploy the cattle prod!

It's a good job that Sarah has left, or you (and several other commentards) would be toast.

Not tasty light-brown toast mind you, but jammed-in-the-slot, kitchen-full-of-smoke, have-to-dig-it-out-with-a-knife toast.

Piles of unshiftable HP fondle-slabs choke Best Buy

What's that noise?

Oh, it's the sound of Steve Jobs' maniacal laughter.

Man reveals secret recipe behind undeletable cookies

Well, darn

xlq (below) seems to provide a refutation. Will no one rid me of this turbulent technique?

That would be great if true...

Can some alpha-geek confirm or refute?

Will the looters 'loose' their benefits?

Every f*cking time

Every, and I mean *every* time the government puts up a shiny new website it falls over due to 'unexpected demand'.

If you can't see the problem with that statement I can only assume you are a government IT provider.

Björk Biophilia

Images you can't unthink

Jobs and Bjork making the beast with two backs. Pass the mind bleach!

Still, better than Balmer and Paris ...... aaaaaaargh I've done it again.

Death haunts government petitions site

That's Hiltonesque thinking

A more Machiavellian way of looking at it is:

As this is just an exercise in *pretending* to listen, having a boat-load of duplicate petitions means less of them actually cross the 100k barrier. As this reduces the number times they have to get off their arses and pretend to listen in the HoC, don't expect to see the copies being culled any time soon.

It's official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers

You called it!

All a hoax according to the beeb. Have a pint for being on the ball.

Acoustic trauma: How wind farms make you sick

But, but, but...

How will we save the planet now? (see icon for hint)

HCL discloses 'email deletion' requests from News International

Mme.Mynkoff & sabroni

One of you needed to use the black helicopter icon. As to who, I'll leave you to argue that between yourselves.

The loser gets to wear the tinfoil hat only at weekends.

'Missing heat': Is global warmth vanishing into space?

You're right - to a degree

"because that's all that matters"

Very true, and if/when the research is independently verified then I'll show a lot more interest.

However, tying yourself to a bunch of evangelical young-earth creationists does not, to my mind, give me confidence in Roy Spencer's critical faculties, or enhance his credibility as a rational, unbiased scientist. If the results had shown the opposite of what he claims to have measured, I very much doubt they'd have seen the light of day.

Fair point about the hive mind, that was a bit weird. If we start menstruating at the same time then I'll really start to worry.

Massive Health Warning

He's a kook, and a signatory of the Cornwall Alliance. Here is the first article of their declaration:

"We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history."

Hmm. Not saying he's wrong with this research, but for me that hits his credibility pretty f*cking hard. For those too lazy to google:

http://www.cornwallalliance.org/articles/read/an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming

http://www.cornwallalliance.org/about/board-of-advisors

BOFH: Axe handles - occasionally quite slippery

Seriously?

You posted that, when the top 3 responses to my googling 'BOFH' had the answer in the google summary?

Yes, I'm aware of the irony of my wasting a post to point this out. It's Friday and I'm bored.

Murdoch muscles BBC out of Formula One driving seat

Master Plan

A cynic (e.g. me) might suggest that the beeb losing most of F1 to Murdoch, whilst still funding the utter crap that spews from BBC 3 (and often BBC 1) is steering public sentiment towards paying a larger license fee in the future.

As I said, only a world-weary, misanthropic cynic would think that could possibly be true. It would, however, explain the cheery reporting.

Hacking scandal starts to spread beyond News Corp

LPF?

LPF = Living on Planet Fruitbat?

Sorry, time travelers, you’re still just fiction

Not fake

Just written by the few survivors of the blasted wastelands of 2153 and sent back in time to stop us repeating their mistakes.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Blu-ray extended edition

Worlds lamest comment

Had to share the brain-dribblings of this Amazon commentard:

---

"I've been waiting a long time to see the complete extended version of Lord Of the Rings on single discs, it was going to be the excuse for me to finally buy a flat screen HD tv and a blue-ray player. Now I'm not going to bother, I'll stick with the orginal version on video."

---

Yup, that's right, he's sticking with his VHS and fish-bowl CRT because one third of this trilogy comes on two discs. Tard indeed.

Phone-hack backlash BBC in embarrassing headline gaffes

Oh, I see.

Thanks for the responses. I've been on hols, missed recent news, etc (btw what's all this to-do with the NotW?)

Still think it looks more like an artificial lady-pocket that a throat though. Although either could serve the same purpose I guess...aaaaand I'm off home now.

More importantly

WTF is that thing in the bottom right corner of the picture?!

Body part or sex toy?

NASA eyes Atlas V for 'naut-lifting duties

I am not a rocketeer

But is this not just a matter of tweaking the nozzle geometry and O2/H2 pumping rates? Same energy out, just over a slightly longer time...

Please note title before laughing and pointing.

Energy scavenger eats leftover wireless signals

Thanks, Dad!

Found any use for all those wood off-cuts and old hinges yet?

Apollo 14 'naut attempts to flog Moon camera for $80k

am i still me?

No. You are my 63rd clone.

Behave!

Ballmer leaves investors speechless in Seattle

Dance, monkey boy, dance

Lest we forget:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc

Would you trust this man with your $200bn business? Icon cos her monkeys had wings.

Deduping the digital universe

Deep pan or thin and crispy?

"roughly the number of bite-sized pieces in a MIlky Way-sized pizza"

Pure gold :)

History's first papal tweet launches Vatican website

Tweet No. 2

"we're sorry about the children"

Fat. Fucking. Chance. Never has an icon been more appropriate.

Dungeon Siege III

Hah! I laugh at your RPGs

Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus on GOG. £5 a pop.

Unbeatably awesome value, and still fricking hilarious to play. Go on, you know you want to...