Posts by Steve Wedge

eBay fees rejig will still hit casual auctioneers

Sigh

I'd bought and sold a goodly amount of stuff there over the years - the first item I bought had a 6-digit ID number. At the time, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread but -- like everything, it seems -- they got too big for their britches and got greedy. Then all the crapola vendors started listing their pecker pills and whatnot to the point where it's become a real quagmire. Yeah, I still buy the occasional thing I need there, but only after checking Craigslist and other vendors first. Fleabay should be worried, as I and others used to check them FIRST and people like us were the ones who made them as big as they are.

US to postpone analog TV death

@ Dean Collins

There's a saying in government: "Never kill the job!" More consultants get to keep their snouts in the public trough longer, the pols in DC get to point fingers. It's a win/win! Mine's the one with the coupons stuffed in the pockets.

FCC eyes free puritanical wireless vote

It's free, dammit!

There you go again -- bitching about something that would be free and not even available to most of you!

I like the bit about job-finding as one of the potential uses. It should be geared toward utilitarian uses and definitely NOT toward dissemination of pr0n, torrents and the like.

We have an expression over here that you probably have heard before: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Mine's the asbestos-lined one...

US telco: 'Public broadband is illegal'

As usual...

The primary winners through all of this will be the lawyers.

King Arthur was English 'propaganda', French claim

Fetchez la vache!

mine's the black & white leather one...

North Carolina targets WTF licence plates

I remember seeing one from Hew Hampshire once...

Vanity plate:

TIHZ HO

Looked great in a mirror.

Mine's the metal one made by prison labor...

Spanish chanteuse strips for anti-bullfighting campaign

@ Jaowon

My eyes are burning!

The one with the white cane, please...

World's first Blu-ray record pressing

Brothers in Arms was the first DDD, not the first release

Seeing as the CD format was made commercially available in 1982, and BIA was released in 1985. I got my first CD player in '83 and the first rock CD I got for it was Dark Side of the Moon...

Most useless gadget ever?

Laser-guided scissors!

What? You can't cut following the line? Okay, we'll give you laser guidance. A solution in search of a problem...

Paris because she, too, is useless...

Time Warner splitting up AOL

@Jason

...not to mention that if an email comes through a line of AOL users, you can have 10 - 15 bloody attachments to open before you get to the original message.

I've finally weaned my mum off of AOL, so that will be nearly the end of that crap for me, anyway...

Scientists warn on climatic 'tipping points'

The Guardian?!?

There's a real unbiased source!

Former beauty queen cuffed for torturing ex

@ Chris Collins

Damn, you stole my title!

That's pretty far down to go by age 20, that's for sure.

Oh, well. One less lawyer, methinks.

Toxic chemicals suit dumped on IBM

Tinfoil hats and lawyers

Two things unfortunately in plentiful supply over here.

Put 'em together and prepare to pay yet more to give others their windfall in the "sue the bastards" lottery.

Now RIAA says copying your own CDs is illegal

Keep it up...

...you greedy sods. You're digging your own graves.

Zep fans warned off touted tickets

Escalating prices

Yeah, the prices are screwy today for nearly everything.

And I paid US $8 for my ticket to see Zep at the Nassau Coliseum in '75 (Physical Grafitti tour). Best damn show I ever saw to this day, and Page was playing with a broken finger! Again, back then the average starving college student could afford the 8 bucks. Not so sure about 250 today.

For all who missed them the first time round, the second chance is very attractive. I heard that the show was great, but I will live with my memories,

3700 quid to see any show is sheer madness.

CompUSA goes titsup

@ Keith Doyle

100% Correct. I've seen other stores closed by this outfit or similar outfits in the Boston area. (I can remember Lechmere and what a rip-off THAT closing was)

Jack up the price to full retail (or beyond!) and put the coloured dots on the items for the "really big" discounts -- the "discount" price will actually be higher than what the item was selling for prior to the liquidation.

Stay away until they're in the death spiral. That's when you MAY be able to get a "deal."

I choose the ex-vulture for obvious reasons.

Flaming kamikaze squirrel torches car

Two lives & a neutral, actually

Overhead US wiring consists of two "hot" leads and a neutral. The hot leads are opposite ends of the 240V winding of aforementioned "Pole Pig" transformer, with a centre tap going to neutral. Thus, if Fluffy was sitting on the bare neutral and chewed into one of the hot leads, he's have 120V with essentially unlimited current. This is enough to fry him (I've seen charred mice in open 120V electrical boxes), though to set alight would take some doing!

The higher voltage on typical US overhead lines is 2400V, but these wires are typically separated by at least 2 - 3 feet, above the lower-voltage lines. CATV and phone run separately, below the 240V lines. Thus the whole arrangement has the highest voltages at the top, progressing to low voltage and comms at the bottom.

How he opened the bonnet after being electrocuted (forget the minor inconvenience of not having an opposable thumb) I will never know...

Venezuelan man survives autopsy

Pining for the Fjords?

Right -- I'll get me coat...

Aussie politicos in a froth over naval boob jobs

Re: British Army, units, etc.

""Whilst serving with the British Army a few years ago my Sergeant Major (A somehwat ugly little man) went through a full sex change paid for by the forces AND was kept on in the same rank (although he was moved to another unit)...."

Don't you mean "another unit was moved to him" ??"

No, I think a unit was removed FROM him...

Enraged bee bursts Taiwanese woman's breast implant

Er, was the bee's name Eric?

And did they find both halves?