* Posts by TeeCee

9432 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Oct 2007

Icelandic ash cloud to keep UK skies closed 'til Saturday

TeeCee Gold badge
Alert

Re: VAAC

Ah, optimism, I like that.

Note that it has been reported that when this one last erupted in December 1821, it kept on going until January 1823. What has not been mentioned is that in the previous century it erupted for five years*, poisoning the atmosphere and surrounding sea to the extent that they seriously considered evacuating the country.

IANAV**, but that would seem to suggest that there's quite likely to be a cloud of crap like this circulating on and off for some time to come. Just out of interest, what is the economic impact of large swathes of Western and Central Europe possibly being a no-fly zone (or at least a no take off or land zone) at unpredictable intervals of unpredictable duration for the next 12 months plus?

*Incidently, look up the megatonnage of CO2 that five year outburst chucked into the jolly old atmos. Makes yer AGW treaty targets look like pissing into the wind.

**I am not a Vulcanologist.

TeeCee Gold badge
Grenade

Yeah, right.

No doubt you were seriously outraged when they unexpectedly decided that Heathrow was to be converted from a sleepy RAF base into London's major International airport after you'd moved into the peaceful surroundings.

Oh.......wait........it was already there you say? If you find it so annoying, why the f*** did you move in next to it then?

Blighty's first home grown war robot takes to Welsh skies!

TeeCee Gold badge
Alert

Testing armed Israeli drones in Britain?

Anyone who wears one of those Palestinian scarves* might want to leave it at home until they've ironed out all the bugs then.

*You know, those things that are the de facto uniform of the junior wing of the champagne socialists.

Death row inmate claims allergy to lethal injection

TeeCee Gold badge
Grenade

Yes, but.

Lavoisier (and others since) put paid to that idea.

When he was executed during the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution, he decided to put the experience to good use and settle once and for all the argument over whether or not death by guillotine was instantaneous.

He arranged for his manservant to stand adjacent to him on the scaffold and said that he would blink for as long as he was able after his head was severed. It is recorded that he blinked rhythmically for about 45 seconds after decapitation.

Other examples exist of research into the length of time a decapitated head remains capable of conscious thought, notably the work done by Dr. Beaurieux at the execution of the condemned criminal Henri Languille in 1905.

I think we're well into "cruel and unusual" territory there. Also I'd have thought that anyone who subscribes to the rather two-faced view of killing people but only in a nice way would probably object to the mess caused by decapitation, as it might offend their sensibilities.

TeeCee Gold badge

Re: Umm

Yup, that's how military firing squads used to get round it. It was always said that some of the guns were loaded with real ammo and some with blanks, so nobody firing could be sure whether or not they'd actually shot the condemned.

Whether it was ever true or not I can't say. Personally I call bollocks as there's a world of difference in generated recoil between a blank and a live round, so anyone with any experience should know damned well whether or not they were in on the kill.

Novero TheFirstOne designer Bluetooth headset

TeeCee Gold badge
Thumb Down

I'm not convinced.

By these rely-on-the-grip-of-the-thingy-in-your-ear-to-hold-it-in-place objects. To me they always feel as if they're on the point of falling out, even if they don't (although they usually do at some point in my experience).

Using on the move something that costs 130 quid and that I'm convinced could drop out at a moment's notice sounds like a route to paranoia and a long stay in the rubber hotel to me. I'll stick with my Plantronics Voyager 520 with its comfy and secure ear hook. The fact that it's a third of the price and still does everything this does is a bit of a bonus here.

DARPA, US Marines team on proper flying car project

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

Really?

"And if the military can drive them on the street -- legally -- with or without seat belts, 5MPH bumpers, crash tests, etc., then they're still street legal."

Or it could just mean that the cops aren't too keen on pulling over a fully armed military vehicle and pissing off those inside it.

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Avro SkyCar.

Redux.

This specification's straight out the Department of We've Heard it all Before.

FAIL, because it did last time.

Israel confiscates visiting iPads

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

WTF? Indeed.

You have WiFi enabled soap?

You are a Geek God and no mistake.

Adobe to sue Apple 'within weeks,' says report

TeeCee Gold badge

Strange attitudes here.

We've had plenty of previous stories around here where a small developer has been fucked by the Apple due to a capricious rule change. Most of these have resulted in howls of outrage from all bar the drooling fanbois.

Now they've done it to Adobe. Adobe are a big company who can afford to sue the fuck out of them for their wasted time and effort in producing flash encapsulation for an iPhone runtime.

I don't think that the fact that Adobe are a bunch of twunts with a shitty product* has any bearing on the rights and wrongs of the situation, so I reckon that most of you are being terribly two-faced. If Adobe were to win this it'd benefit all the small developers too, as Apple would be pretty much forced to provide consistant rules around what they can and can't do and stick to them in future. With a precedent set, just about anyone could afford to sue based on it.

As for the Ts and Cs, if a court were to find that any clauses were unreasonable (and anything like "we reserve the right to move the goalposts without warning whenever we feel like it" would sound like such) they'll just strike 'em down.

*AFAICS nobody, not even Adobe, is suggesting that anyone be forced to install or use it. They just want you to have the choice.

Lib Dems demand niceness, ignore technology

TeeCee Gold badge
Pint

Easy answer.

Bring back the old "Routemaster" design, where you could hop on and off pretty much where you wanted.

It was always amusing on a Routemaster Night Bus to see some lagered up prune fall foul of a combination of his underestimation of the bus's speed and his hopelessly overoptimistic appraisal of the state of his sense of balance.

Palm opens for Chinese cash

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

Dell.

"Why you'd switch from one form of low margin hardware to another...."

It's called "diversification" and makes it Look Like You're Doing Something and haven't Run Out Of Ideas to the shareholders.

When later, after taking a honking great loss on their shiny new product strategy, a business shutters / flogs off the thing and writes off the loss, it's called "focussing on our core business". Oddly enough, this is often thought to Look Like You're Doing Something too. Thus buying into something else, dabbling in it for a bit and then getting out can make a business look dynamic for quite a while without them actually having to think about it.

Cynical? Moi?

Steve Jobs: 'Pad? That's my word'

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

False idols.

IIRC, that bit's one of the Ten Commandments.

So that's come from God Himself (the other one) who's supposed to have a handle on absolutely Everything, Everywhere and Everywhen, according to those that believe this sort of stuff.

Who's to say that it wasn't Apple that He had in mind when He wrote this? He's alleged to moves in mysterious ways you know and you don't get much more mysterious than warning Biblical era Hebrews about the dangers of shiny tech-toy addiction.

Son of Nehalem due this year

TeeCee Gold badge
Troll

What's in a name?

Steel bridge, yes. Iron bridge, brick bridge, stone bridge, concrete bridge, wooden bridge etc. all make sense too.

Sandy Bridge implies to me something that's bloody difficult to get to stay up and also puts paid to any expectations of it holding up under load. Are Intel trying to tell us something?

Fanboi's delight - the top ten free iPad apps

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

@Ivan Headache

"...given America's military history" they've probably been desperately trying to forget where it is for quite some time now.

Will DNSSEC kill your internet?

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

WTF?

Were those, as it is said some times much and most Over UDP in the root Zone, NuKLEAR packets from the Lizards Of DNSSEC Resolution amanfromMars 1?

Twitter to auction off words

TeeCee Gold badge
Grenade

I'd like to buy:

"up", "arsehats", "the", "shut" and "fuck" please. I'll probably be needing a comma with that lot too*, is punctuation cheaper?

*Yeah I know, pearls before swine, but I can't bring myself to do without.

One fifth of humans say aliens walk among us

TeeCee Gold badge
Alien

Re: That explains call centres then

They need to work on their disguises a bit too. I ended up speaking to a support type called "Melanie Jones" the other day and I'd swear the accent was more Bangalore than Bangor.

At least our would-be alien overlords know they're crap. She wasn't very keen to switch to voice chat.....

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

Re: No, No, No...

Yes, but it is quite revealing that the non-homegrown ones tend to gravitate there in search of a like minded group of wingnuts to believe in what they're saying though, don't you think?

Here's a thought: Just why does that US immigration form have checkboxes for "Terrorist", "Criminal" and such, but lack one for "I am a complete teapot who believes that the world is built and run by sentient bananas?".

TeeCee Gold badge
Boffin

Really?

Is that because you've heard of the concept of statistics and have no truck with it or just that you're in that "half"?

Hint: Average intelligence is usually* defined as being within one standard deviation of the mean and 2/3 of the population fall into this category.

Now, if you'd said that half of the people you meet are below mean intelligence you'd be closer to the truth, but you'd still have a problem with the fact that people of exactly mean intelligence do exist in numbers.

*YMMV. Some scales tighten this to 10 points against an SD of 15 and other definitions exist, but they all specify a *range*.....

TeeCee Gold badge
Alien

More statistics.

80% of survey monkeys found that when they asked a silly question, they got a silly answer.

Makes more sense to me than space lizards dressed as humans.

NHS blames computer error for transplant fouls

TeeCee Gold badge

"Computer Error"

Because computers don't stick up for themselves and, most importantly, you can't fire a computer.

That's why.

Jesus Phone in shock Opera browser benediction

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Re: 'mobile view'

My favourite one of these was trying to update Google Maps the other day, and Google's download link came up with "your mini is not support here" (leaving me wondering briefly WTF a car that I don't have had to do with the price of cheese). Getting round that one's rather fun.

I'm using full-fat Opera *mobile* on WinMo.

I've added "arsehats who think that their b0rken IDing of my browser should forcibly override what I'm trying to do with it" to my list of pet hates at number 4, just after "morons who force page redirection based on IP geolocation, forgetting that one's proxy server may be in another country", "eejits who think that cars use 'breaks' to slow down" and "dickheads who bang on about 'noocooluh' power, proving their level of knowledge in that area."

Milkman skewers Google Street View over garage break-in

TeeCee Gold badge

There is another possibility.

Put aside for a moment the issue of whether burglars were or were not using Streetview to identify targets off their own bat.

In the wake of a fuckton of press hype over how easy it would be for burglars to use Streetview to identify targets, I'd have thought that even the dumbest burglar is going to have a look to see if there's the possibility that it might actually make their life easier.

Fear 2012? Bunker hustler has you covered

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

Some say.

That this is a way of avoiding cataclysm.

The Laws of Fate say that it's an asteroid sized target painted on California. Let's see 'em survive that.

AOL to sell or shutter Bebo

TeeCee Gold badge
Grenade

@lukewarmdog

You think you're funny, but now look what you've gone and done.

http://twitter.com/HumanRightsInfo

TeeCee Gold badge
Stop

Eh?

You really think that the sort of people who actually do useful stuff like bridges, sewers, skyscrapers and high speed trains aren't doing it 'cos they're tied up playing silly buggers on Facebespace?

It's the "B Arkers" we're missing here, so I don't think that human endeavour is in danger of coming to a stop. Now you mention it though, my telephone's a bit dirtier than usual.....

iPod implicated in US attack sub prang

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

Easy answer.

Obviously it was something by Pavarotti^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HPaganini.

Adobe man to Apple: 'Go screw yourself'

TeeCee Gold badge
Thumb Down

That's interesting.

So let me get this straight, you're saying that this is all a handbag fight?

Apple are going "Adobe pissed on us, so now we're going to piss on them" and anyone else unlucky enough to have their products caught in the crossfire is just collateral damage?

It's pathetic. Both of them should grow up and behave like adults.

Bribery Act passed by Parliament

TeeCee Gold badge
FAIL

Let's look at this closely:

"....places a new onus on companies...."

"The company can be liable...."

"....an agency to advise businesses....."

".....commercial organisations....."

etc, etc.

Yeah, right. It's not like we've seen any evidence of endemic graft and backhander taking in government recently now, is it? Now lets count how many times the public sector was referred to:

".....whether in commercial organisations or governmental institutions......"

That'll be, er, once then. Even that's only in there as an afterthought to "commercial organisations" and only mentioned in passing by the Opposition.

iPhone 4.0 SDK bars un-Jobsian code translation

TeeCee Gold badge
Thumb Down

Re: RE: Something to think about

"....then your code will be iPhone native and won't fall foul of the rules will it?"

Let me help:

"....then your code will be iPhone native and won't fall foul of the rules as they are this week, will it?"

That's the real issue here, the fact that the goalposts that iPhone devs have to aim at are mounted on castors.

Google tweaks search results with mystery site speedometer

TeeCee Gold badge
WTF?

Here's a possible problem.

You run a sit selling stuff in one country. You're a small operation with one or two small servers. Being a careful soul you back everything up daily and you do this when all your customers are tucked up in bad during the wee hours, as this canes performance and you don't want to inconvenience anyone.

You've worked your socks off, dancing to the Google tune, to get up the search rankings and business is picking up as a result of your efforts. Then your site gets spidered by Google at 3:10 AM local time.............

Austrian takes pickaxe to Street View spymobile

TeeCee Gold badge

Re: Really?

It's worse than that.

If it's not on Google, it *never* existed. Anywhere. Ever.....

TeeCee Gold badge

Here's a fine example of this at work.

A colleague once went into a diner in the US of A.

Waitress: <Heavy Drawl> "Gee. I just looove your ack-sent. You must be from Ing-ga-land!"

Colleague: "No, I'm from New Zealand actually".

Waitress: <Smugly> "Gee, doncha know it? I just knew it hadda be somewhere around there!"

Thus were the new rules of geography formed, in which there are only actually two places on the planet. America and "somewhere around England".

China routing snafu briefly mangles interweb

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

A series of tubes?

I've just thought of a better analogy for the Internet, airline baggage handling.

Millions of things routed all over the place daily. One cockup and your* luggage gets sent to China.

*Well, mine anyway.

Bloke threatens BT with giant plywood cheque

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

@CantusAeolus

"Oh for the days when they were only TLAs..."

You're not familiar with the ETLA* standard then?

*Extended Three Letter Acronym.

Microsoft roasted for Office 2010 standards FAIL

TeeCee Gold badge
Gates Horns

@SynnerCal

Nope. I'll bet my bum that had they done this there would have been a few openistas at the more shrill end of the spectrum screaming blue murder that they hadn't gone to ODF as the *default* format OOB.

You know it's true.

As for the converter, I've never had it do that. Then again, on anything complicated I've usually got bored waiting for the thing to do its stuff, deleted the file and mailed the person wot sent it a request for a version in .doc. Patience is a virtue and I'm just not the virtuous type.

I was *very* interested to see your results using OO to convert against the "fatter" version kicked out by 2k7. That might just explain AC's "x is good" comment above with the claim of .docx being more efficient. I wonder if MS have deliberately b0rken .doc in 2k7 to push .docx? Say it ain't so.

'Virtual sit-in' tests line between DDoS and free speech

TeeCee Gold badge
Thumb Up

Spot on!

".....the digital equivalent of the types of civil disobedience championed by....<etc>"

Total fucking bollocks that is too. There's a world of difference between motivating a sufficiently large group of people to go out at personal risk on a regular basis to get in the faces of authority and getting a load of couch-potatoes to fire up a browser session to leave running while they go out on the lash.

The first requires as a prerequisite a seriously worthwhile cause that a large number of people care deeply about, plus the motivation and organisation to get 'em to do something about it . For the second, you only need something that can raise the interest level above "meh" amongst lazy arsehats and a tame s'kiddie.

He's a pompous prat and deserves everything he gets.

Apple rumored to put beefy iPad on diet

TeeCee Gold badge
Coat

You missed a trick there.

After all, the article's about the possibility of Apple pushing out a small one......

HP's Memristor tech - better than flash?

TeeCee Gold badge
Terminator

I think you've just explained BT!

That's a large number of telephone exchanges wired together. It's become sentient and it hates us.

Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx turns back on Yahoo! search switcheroo

TeeCee Gold badge
Grenade

Six of one.

The trouble is that if you substitute the word "Google" for the word "Yahoo" in that rant, it still works equally as well.

Mandybill: All the Commons drama

TeeCee Gold badge
Coffee/keyboard

OMFG!

Would you mind awfully appending a "not suitable for those prone to pissing themselves with laughter" tag if you post something like that again please?

I came perilously close to asphyxiation at the Caroline Flint bit.

TeeCee Gold badge
Thumb Down

Several more words.

The Parliament Act is genuinely a "three strikes" procedure. If the Lords decided to block it, there's no way the Government could turn it around three times and then invoke the Act before Parliament dissolves for the election.

So, the Lords could actually kill this one (or at least give it a good, solid boot into the post-electoral long grass), but they won't.

UKIP suspends Scouse candidate over sado smut movies

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

What the......?

"....I put a lot of intelligent material into the scripts."

In a pr0n movie? Presumably they deselected him because he's an utter pillock who's completely out of touch with public expectations then.

Photogs sue Google over Book Search culture grab

TeeCee Gold badge

It gets worse.

When trying to answer that one it muddies the waters when you consider that, whatever the outcome, a legal precedent will be set. Such a precedent would apply also to anyone else doing similar work (e.g. the Internet Archive mentioned).

Here's a tip: Try considering how you would judge the merits of this case were the organisation being sued: a) Microsoft b) Google c) Apple d) Battersea Dog's Home e) .........insert name of your favourite bunch of do-gooders of impeccable moral credentials*.

If it makes a difference to your answer, you don't understand the problem.

*Yes, it pains me that I can't think of a name to put in as "e" off the top of my head. Maybe I am getting too cynical.

Adobe mulls changes to close hole in PDF apps

TeeCee Gold badge

Re: Windows only?

I dunno. Does the Linux version have the "run moody payload automagically" option?

Of course, you can bet your bum that any moody payloads you actually get to see in the wild will be issuing Win specific commands, but if you're relying on "security through obscurity" to protect you, you're asking for it as much as the Win-loving arsehat that clicks on the "pwn me nows" button in that popup telling him that his machine's got a virus.

Apple's iPad - the device for execs who create nothing

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

This has already been pointed out.

http://kerstein.org/dilbert/etch-a-sketch.jpg

Microsoft's web privacy push: 'We're the anti-Google'

TeeCee Gold badge
Joke

"Where's the Ballmer icons?"

El Reg don't want to be sued for all those cracked monitor screens caused by having monkey boy's boat plastered all over the place.

HTC Desire

TeeCee Gold badge
Thumb Down

Re: Triband?

HTC sez:

Network Bands

Europe:

HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Asia Pacific:

HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

I'd take that as a "no" then.....

RSA says it fathered orphan credential in Firefox, Mac OS

TeeCee Gold badge
Alert

Re: Hey!

Try telling Google, who've plastered "Google groups" all over the linked thread.

I guess that someone must have taken their dibs off Usenet briefly so it belongs to Google now.