Posts by gareth

Police union leader calls for 'killer games' sales ban

surly he has got it the wrong

surly it is more likly that people who are likly to become killers are drawn to violent video game

which is more likly than manhunt made me kill him

Bush Obama sides with RIAA in P2P fight

@ac re get over it

no the punishment doesn't fit the crime

he stole 7 songs which can be argued is approximately a cd

i bet you cann't find 1 person who has stolen a cd that has to pay a $70,000 dollar fine

i'm sure there are instances where a fine of $10,000 per digital theft is probably getting off lightly ( say hacking into a aircraft designers computer system and stealing designs for a new prototype as they would be worth well in excess of the fine) but for the theft of a 3 min audio file thats worth around $1 a $10,000 is excessive

Brits find accommodation a little uncomfortable

how did ...

ask.com even get any data

does anyone even use it to search any more

well i suppose only people who don't know any better use it which may be why they have such trouble spelling

Doner kebabs: Death wrapped in pitta bread

um so what if the ebab has high calories and fat etc

the fact that most people buying one will have drank several pints of beer (guess 10 over a 4 hour session @~200 calories a pint) they have already ingested twice that many calories anyway.

and the recovery advantage of the salad has not been taken into account

all that alcohol (and probabily drunken dancing) will cause you to loose a lot of water and salts which the salt, salad and chilli will help replace. the sugar and the fats will give you an energy boost to processes the alcohol you have consumed. the only thing missing as a hangover cure is fluids to replace that lost via the diuretic effects of the alcohol

and is there a comparison between donor kebabs and burgers as i would be interested to see what the difference is

i also though that most people realised that donor meat was a random assortment of just about anything and usually not describable as meat but more assorted animal bits and so what if it is until 40 years ago people regularly ate pigs ears, trotters, and trip its only in recent times that these foods have fallen at the way side

McKinnon lawyers push for UK trial

where did he commit the crime

i would like to point out that he did not commit his crimes in the USA he was in Britain when he gained unauthorized access to US military and NASA computers which means he committed a crime in Britain against a USA organization. he didn't commit a crime in the USA as he was never there to commit one.

Send old Shuttles to Mars, says Scotty ashes prang man

surly this would be a massive saving aswell

the decommissioning cost of a shuttle is pegged around $42 million (the figure given in the register article about donating the shuttles) that gives the project a budget of $84 million dollars

unfortunately the per-launch costs of a shuttle including 30 tonne payload is about $60 million (unfortunately this is a wikipeidia quote but all i could find quickly)

so just to get the shuttles into space along with the equipment will cost $120 million plus then launching the booster system and fuel into space and research and development of a tethering system, researching long term air supply systems for the "long term" occupants and then there is also the issue of how well would a shuttle stand up to a Martian sand storm and what heating system are they going to be using to stop everything freezing the rovers don't need to be kept above zero but im pretty sure any Martian inhabitants would like to stay above ~20 deg C

i don't think strapping some massive solar arrays to the shuttles would be particularly cheap

look at how much fuel the antartic research stations use this becomes the biggest hurdle to deal with

this plan though intersting seems to have more holes than anything

Tabloid girl's jubs freeze at -130°C

where has this information come from

the met office website is forcasting down to -4 C

as is accuweather.com and the bbc

i think they may be mixing their F and C as im pretty sure the average temperature for this time of year if no 20 -> 40 C. 20 -> 40 F is more reasonable as 30F is ~ 0C

Honeywell's Kitchen Computer remembered

the time for the kitchen computer is here

my mum has one

a wall mounted all in one pc with a touch screen (2ghz celeron 512mb of ram and ubuntu 8.04)

if she needs a recipe she can just google it. the time is here

Police poison speed debate with fuzzy figures

police claim

can i point out something people seem to have missed

the police said speed was a factor in 13% of FATAL accidents

the department of transport said speed was a factor in 6% ACCIDENTS

can people please note the difference in these statistics before they try and compare them

UK.gov plans 'consensus' on PAYG phone registry

or this will be a completly pointless requirment

as the government will require you to prove your id when buying a phone but not if you buy just a sim card over the Internet (take a quick look on ebay there are plenty)

unless they link it to the imei number which is obviously phone specific but then how are they going to regulate the sale of second hand phones. it will get to the point where there is a V5 log book for your phone and you have to sign over ownership of the phone. though i think importing of second hand mobiles from abroad may also get round this requirement (a jiffy bag is a little less conspicous than a shipping crate with a car in it.

Digital divide looms again over superfast broadband for all

@ AC

why use immigrant works you have to pay them

why not use prisoners. That will make them earn their keep instead of living free with all the comforts of home just with smaller windows. (we could use them to build levees along the Lincolnshire coast to stop the potential flooding then the Environment Agency wouldn't have to cast it off to the sea)

bring back penile labour

Hadron boffins: Our meddling will not destroy universe

well there is an upside to a black hole

time will all but stop so they will never be able to make another series of big brother

Ubuntu documentation in shreds

community wiki

i don't think i have ever used the official wiki

ive used www.ubuntuguide.com a few times (its rather good)

and i use the forum all the time but the offical wiki has always been useless

Furniture firm offers seat formed from old PS2s

Doh

i thought it was going to be a load of ps2's that had been glues together inta a chair shape with cushins

Concrete-jet 'printers' to build houses, Moonbases in hours

@AC RE: concrete boats

why but steel boats sounds like a clever idea.

the material a boat is made out off has little baring on its ability to float. That is dependant on its ability to displace a larger mass of water than its mass which a design issue. as long as that is correct for the material used you can build a boat out of pretty much anything that can be made water tight

Copyright lawyers accuse 25,000 UK videogame filesharers

it would be funny

if everyone who gets the "fine" sends in the £300 in unsorted 1p pieces

Clone dog mistress denies she is 'sex in chains' McKinney

photo evidence

so where is the "authentic" photo of the alleged incident (with the mandatory optimus prime hiding in the background)

Prime Minister's email takes month off

possible reason for a month maintanence

i recon the server got rooted and has been routed for a long time so all of the backups are rooted and there is probabily some really important governement secrets which where sent to the pm by say MI5/6 in unencrypted emails which some one forgot to back up so they cann't just wipe the server and restart it from scratch

Ubuntu trumpets aromatic pistou of borage

but don't forget...

ubuntu cola

http://www.ubuntu-trading.com/

Granite Jesus, blessed be thy gneiss

granite comes to us

when rocks containing less silica (SiO2 which can be contained in other minerals it is unlikely to be just silica in rocks other than granite) than granite such as basalt which are already part of the earths crust under go partial melting

these pockets of melt then rise within the crust being less dense than the surrounding and coalesce into a silica rich melt (<40% silica) this then cools very slowly within the crust to form the large crystals found in granite

(if it was erupted by a volcano it would form obsidian (the glassy stuff) or ryolite depending on the speed it cools)

however as he is a stone mason it was probably not even granite as most people who work with stone call anything with a crystal size more than 2mm a granite

Snoop-happy councils warned off RIPA abuse

@ secretgeek

first off

not clearing up dog turd and littering are technically crimes under the environmental protection act 1990 (as ammended by several hundred newer acts and regulations) by not clearing up after your dog / littering you are not complying with the duty of care requirements of waste handeling which is the same legislation used for fly tippers. it is a requirement of the waste producer to ensure that it is disposed of correctly or transfered to an appropriatly licenced waste handler.

as for following people home to ensure they live in the correct district this is an abuse of the powers as i cann't see what harm has een done (i.e. if the grandparents or whoever live in that district then they are paying council tax for the education of children aswell as the parents)

EU orders horsemeat and chips in equine passport scheme

RE: Don't Worry

wait a minute don't you mean we brits will be the onlys ones who comply and every other EU country will just completly ignore the changes and carry on as they did befor like they have for every other eu ruling they don't like

for evidence of this have you see spanish/greek/italian/french constuction sites or look up british BSE beef ban and read the bit about franch not acepting imports of british beef after the eu ban was lifted

your statement about the working hours must be the one and only case of us fighting an eu law

Taser rolls out taser-on-a-roll, new military zapbomb deal

a few points

@ Shinobi87

how is a farady suit going to help you if you are getting tazered tazers don't rely on ground as they assume you are insulated from the ground by shoes. which is why 2 electoreds are fired a positive and a negative

as for the shotgun capable tazer i saw it demonstrated on a dicovery channel documentary called future weapons and i think ti would have lots of military applications especially with the use of pump action/combat shot guns. they where giving figures of range similar to the lethal range of a 12 guage with shot

Comcast mulls overage fees for bandwidth lovers

250gb is not that much

i download a lot of media via bittorrent and usenet and only reach about 160gb per month average but thats combined upload and download (if i was at home i could get the week by week stats but im not) there are several months i would easily break 250gb though

instead of looking at it in terms of GB which down't mean much look at it in terms of video a 1080p xvid movie is over 4gig and a 720p xvid tv episode is ~800mb

most of the vod and illegal media downloaded isn't HD yet and sits at around 1/3 of that size. with other online service like voip and other bandwidth intensive service in a year or so reaching 250 gb is going to become rather easy

as has been previously said 250gb may sound like a lot but in reality it is only going to be a lot for a very short space of time

Reaper aerial killbots enlist mobile phones against owners

@Peter Hawkins R.E. Just a thought

um i would guess the pilot sat behind a computer screen watching him via a camera mounted in the front. it kind of helps to be able to see where the drone is going when taking off and landing

'Extreme porn' law could criminalise millions

@ steve kay

but even the crypto tools won't make you safe as it is a criminal offence not to provide the police with the passphrase or encryption key

looks like the best way is to build a pc with no harddrive, boot it off a knoppix disk or similar and stream the porn directly off pronographic youtube clones

Friends Reunited killer gets life

@Matt

He didn't say it was casual he said when its over they don't belong to you

which is of course true

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

surly murdering the wife for cheating would be the more appropriate thought still wrong course of action

and these days marriage is pretty casual its so easy to get a divorce these days the only point in marriage is to secure a widows pention and benifits should your partner die. Its not really a show of commitment any more

Hitachi to go it alone on discs after all

its still the deathstar

i got a 500gb hitatchi and it runs really hot and it generally crap

seagate barracudas all the way

HMRC tax credit database takes the week off

sounds to me like

someone asked for access to the database but because they have been told they cann't send out copies they decided to hip the entire server by second class unregistered courier

... the server has now been lost

El Reg reconstructs Heathrow T5 chaos

what about the stickle bricks??

everyone is calling on lego and play mobile reinactments but no one has mentioned stickle bricks

there should be more stickle bricks in the news (though the only thing i can ever remember using them for is making guns but oh well)

DNA sequencing for the masses

@Chris C

Moors law is used in reference to the computer used to analyse the chemical data and produce a dna sequence which is what takes most of the time

Government set to 'destroy' UK radio astronomy

@avi

"So while on the one hand the government are trying to see just how much money can be wasted convincing kids who don't want to go to uni that they _need_ a degree, they're deciding that they can't afford to run the few places that actually want these graduates?"

no these placed don't want history, economics, or psycology graduates

Court must reconsider Microsoft Excel patent damages

wouldn't you

carry on the case if all your court fees where being paid for you

how many copies of office do you think have been sold since the verdict even at 4 cents a copy i bet its easily another $1million copies worth and if it aint costing you anything why not

its not like he is SCO and suing every bugger under the sun he is just milking his future possibilities

and if you could you would leave Guatamala as well and £4 million doesn't get you that far any more you wouldn't need to work but it isn't going to let you live the high life for the next 50 years

Veggies a 'perversion of nature': Official

@tom oliver

if we are lazy herbivours plase explain the 4 teeth we have which a dentist calls No.3 on the count known as the canine teeth the sharp pionty ones designed for tearing up meat

please also explain why we have both upper and lower sets of teeth which is a very uncommon trait in herbivours they generally have a hard plated lower jaw and only an upper row of teeth

upper and lower teeth is a trait more common in omnivours and carnivours. also note that every other member of the Hominidae family eat meat either through active hunting of scavaging

Most home routers 'vulnerable to remote take-over'

@ Tony trolle RE: i turned mine off

or you could just manually set the port forwards (sometimes called virtual servers by some manufactures) so you can turn upnp off and turn upnp off in the programs such as azureus and it will stop moaning at you

Mozilla pulls offensive viral campaign

i can believe the heart desiease one

the stress of dealing with security issues with ie will give anyone a heart attack

Toxic chemicals suit dumped on IBM

contaminated land

looking at what the article says they have done everything feasible to avert any risks to human health going back to 1979 (which is way befor any one gave a dam atleast here in the uk)

in the uk the residents are unlikly to have a case especially if the health issues havn't been linked to a particular chemical

also surly the residents would need to prove that these chemicals are entering the properties and it seems that ibm will have already surveyed the area to find atrisk properties and remediate as nessisary (i.e. the grants they have given out)

not sure how it works in the us but in the uk ibm would be safe.

Beware of pickpockets and malware-laced banner ads

RE: Re: I use my browser's built-in add-blocker

the ad bolcker should save you

adblock for firefox has a list of the domains to block so the banners are never loaded

(obviously the white listing of sites will circumvent any protection he gets if he tells adblock (or which ever he uses) to load all content on the page and not just ads that are hosted by the website he is visiting)

PC scuppers NYE fireworks in Seattle

@ lozzyho and abigsmurf

get a life they are jokes

but to point out that the os can corrupt files i.e the current windows home server problems

or (and i know this might sound unlikly but there are companys still using windows 98) a w9x version righting 2 files to the same hdd cluster hmm might that cause a corruption

MoD sorts out 'turkey' helicopters for Xmas

why not just find a way to prove they are safe

if they are cleared under american air saftey laws (which i would assume aren't much different to the uk) the aircraft must actually be safe to fly so why not instead of spend 90m converting them to match current rules spend 10m in reseach to show that they are actually safe to fly and that the regs should be altered to accomodate the modifications

also i assume there was a reason for requesting the alterations in the first place (i.e. they must have a point ) which surly will still be unmet once the conversions are completed

Dutch gov blows open standards raspberry at Microsoft

RE: Labour Goverment

why do you think the politians will struggel to use linux more than windows

the using linux for office tasks is no more difficult than windows

the hard part of linux is getting none legacy hardware to work because of driver issues

as most large workplaces (live governments) tend not to use cutting edge hardware and use suppliers such as dell or hp (who already supply linux to bussiness) most of the hardware they will be using will be easily setup plus it will be done by it support persons no government officals

ok there are some applications designed specifically for certain industries (sticking with local goverement there is caps uni-form and flare but they are just fancy front ends for an oracle database and a simplified gis system that requires an sde server) so redevelopment will take time but its not like it is a major cad/cam package that will cost millions and take a long period of time to redevelope.

also as this is legislative the vendors will redevelop the software so they can keep the support contracts (i know most of the money we pay caps is for training and support no licensing so it is in their interest as a business to redevelop plus in the case of local government in the uk atleast i cann't think of one fuction of caps uniform that isn't covered by an open source alternative

Paris Hilton cavorts naked in middle of desert

RE: Brilliant ham in a can

@Rob

no spam is SP(anial and h)AM in a can

Mozilla rubbishes IE Firefox security study

RE: Boot on the other foot

@ AC

you seem to miss the point of the article. Did you even read it?

this ins't about the number of security vulnerabilities but the number of fixes

if the numbers had been put into context with the number of vulnerabilities found in each and the length of time it took for each to be fixed you would get a true picture of which is the more secure

firefox is updated very regularly as vulnerabilities are patched as soon as possible where MS will try to cover up a vulnerability and only bother to patch it once someone has found a way to abuse said vulnerability try engaging brain befor speaking out your arse

Sidcup massive threatens Reg hack

@og

iphones have email so they don't need to use a pc

Mother of God seen on USB Flash drive

what a rip off

69 euros for a 512mb flash drive id want it made of platinum for that, with a nice little store for some holy water and be able to change water into wine

Asking for experience in job ads could land you in hot water

@ Dzed and Confused

read the article moron it says there are instance where asking for experience is legitimate such as medical experience(i.e. a medical degree) or flight hours logged in a particular aircraft.

but 3+years admin experience is rediculus is it is unlikly that you would learn anything in 2 years that you couldn't learn in 2 months.

as for a company MD the fact a 19 year old would not have experience deligating tasks to several teams teams and oversing £x million pund budgets would probabily discount them from the post .

i.e the article is saying you can't just put must have x number of years experience on a job description as that is discrimnatory it is saying however if experience at a particular task is required this can be written into the job specification.

i work in contaminated land and i regularly see jobs asking for 2+ years experience for junior consultants when any graduate with an earth science degree can do the job perfectly well. That is discriminating against them because of their age they are not old enough to have gained any experience it doesn't mean however that they are unable to do the job

419er fears unsolicited intergalactic email

maybe

someone could make a revese chargce call with 9.5m$ im sure they will accept the charges

Girls' school head condemns bubblewrapping of kids

bubble wrap and child molesters

with the current attidued to bubble wrapping children could there perhaps be a link between bubblewrap fetishists and child molesters

just to be sure all people with a bubblewrap fetish should be put on the sex offenders register

Crime-busting gator kills Florida fugitive

@anonymous Coward about surviving digestion

did you not think that a gator could eat someone who was already dead

so it is possible to a gator to digest someone that it didn't kill

More gnashing of teeth after Microsoft update brings PCs to a standstill

@David Wilkinson

or you can download the ryanvm patch pack allong with nlite and creat a fully patched unattended install xp cd

you can set all the settings befor install inside nlite and add drivers for hardware that xp doesn't already have and if you do some readding you can even merge .net ie7 you antivirus and firewall all into one auto install disk

thats the way to go