* Posts by TeeCee

9433 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Oct 2007

Boffins propose photon-swapping entanglement experiment on ISS

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Re: Well at least it's almost science

typical school science fair projects

Next week: A baking soda volcano.........IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!!11!!

Mozilla devs plotting to put a stake in <blink> tag – at last

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Re: To be fair ...

O ye t id !

Star Trek phaser sells for a STUNNING $231,000

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Re: Cost != Value

A human is about £4 worth of chemicals when reduced down....

I shall have to complain about the price of Soylent Green then.

Ig-noble award candidate?

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Meh

Re: Ig-noble award candidate?

You have a particularly generous kidnapper there if he's bothering to go and find a machete.

I'd have expected him to more likely just repeatedly bludgeon the thing with the butt of his AK47 until it stops working.........along with the wrist it's attached to.

The ten SEXIEST computers of ALL TIME

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Ho hum.

It's black

it's square

sits under that desk over there

NeXT cuuube

NeXT cuuube....

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Facepalm

Re: you guys are weird

>> And as for the PS3 bread bin...

You also have to factor in here that Sony, from the off, quite deliberately marketed the PS3 as an all-round entertainment device rather than "just" a games console.

Which makes having a design that stacks into a cabinet with your A/V amp, VCR, etc. in the same way that square pegs fit round holes even more daft.

I suppose that's what you get for letting designers loose on something while forgetting to include "practicality" on the requirements list.

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Happy

Re: I seem to recall..

I'm sure I remember hearing that another Cray feature was that they'd provide it with the panels and seating in any colour that you wanted.

There was a possibly apocryphal story circulating at the time that some university professor ordered one in "nipple pink". When Cray asked exactly what colour that was, they got a polaroid of the bloke's girlfriend's tit by return, with the appropriate section circled and a helpful arrow pointing at it and labelled "this colour"[1].

[1] Or rather "color". It was a Yank story.

News Corp prez threatens to pull Fox TV off the air

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WTF?

I don't get it.

If you stick up an antenna, receives a Fox signal and view that on your telly, Fox are OK with that. Yes?

If someone else sticks up an antenna and you view the signal from that on your telly, Fox have a problem. Yes?

So, if you get someone else to stick up your own antenna, is that OK? What if that antenna isn't on your property (e.g. on the communal roof of a block of flats)?

How long does the piece of wire between your telly and the antenna have to be and how many people have to be involved in putting up the antenna to piss off Fox? Is the fact that the wire is or is not contiguous throughout the signal path an issue? What about one piece of wire with a signal booster in it?

Next point. Apparently the fact that whoever's doing this is providing one antenna per telly is the bit that makes it OK. So, what about communal antennas (i.e. that same block of flats with one aerial on the top and the signal piped into all the flats)? Is that now not legal?

Maybe I'm just missing the point completely and trying to find logic in rabid arsehattery?

Kissinger and tell: WikiLeaks scrapes 1.7m US diplomatic reports from the '70s

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Meh

Re: Mostly harmless

You mean Barack "I've got a Nobel Peace Prize so yah, boo and sucks to you" Obama?

Steve Jobs' 'spaceship' threatened by massive cost overruns

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'...possibly "the best office building in the world"...'

Carlsberg make Apple HQs now?

Website which 'could have prevented Rwandan genocide' goes live

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Hatebase.

So a sort of online Roger's Profanisaurus for insults then?

What do we have to do to ensure that "twatdangler" gets in there?

Facebook VOICE is what telco barons should fear - not a Zuckermobe

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Re: Oh good picture!

Ah, but we may be talking about inner beauty.

Which is where Zuckerbitch loses out to a Pontiac Aztek being driven by Joseph Merrick.....

Google cofounder Brin sighted in Tesla batmobile

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WTF?

It's all about speculation.

Then again, if I had a load of cash to blow on something speculative, I probably wouldn't have gone with; "What if Barbara Cartland had written Batman?".

After Leveson: The UK gets an Orwellian Ministry of Truth for real

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Re: Berlusconi

Much as I hate to defend the screamsheet of the champagne socialists, I believe that you are being slightly unfair to the Graun there.

IIRC, the Grauniad is owned by the Scott Trust and the trustees are obliged by the charter to devote every possible penny to promoting independant journalism. Under those terms, they would actually be failing in their duties if the trust were to pay any more tax than it absolutely had to. Here you need to blame the government. The obvious answer is "principle of payment" legislation (which basically says "there may well be loopholes in the tax legislation, but if it ain't a specific exemption that you are entitled to, that's evasion"). The problem here is that this would piss off a lot of very important people such as, by sheer coincidence, most of the "Hacked Off" mob and Murdoch / News International. There's probably a moral in there somewhere........

If you really want to target a paper with that particular gripe, try the Waily Fail. They continually bleat on about people and companies not paying tax. They are owned by Lord Rothermere who is, er, non-domiciled for tax purposes. As far as I am aware, Rothermere is not under any legally binding onus to minimise his own tax liabilities.

Review: Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2

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WTF?

Re: life is getting simple again

My. You trotted that out before the inevitable Eadon-o-gram turned up.

Preemptive strike?

BIGGEST DDoS ATTACK IN HISTORY hammers Spamhaus

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Joke

Re: Does spam actually have a purpose?

And which also suggests that all those pictures of Claudia Schiffer in alt.binaries.pictures.erotica contained encrypted text files detailing a lot of nazi-linked information the West German government would have preferred wasn't public.

Oh come on! Everyone knows that rumour was started by some blokes in the CIA to give themselves an excuse to download the lot and study them very carefully, while getting paid to do it.

Forget the invisibility cloak: Boffins invent INVISIBILITY FISHNETS

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Facepalm

Re: I hate Boffins

Er, as we were on the same side that would be "friendly fire" and not usually something to crow about.

What's the problem? So few actual victories that you have to celebrate the cockups too?

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Re: Invisiblity fishnets

I thought: "Great! Now I can catch invisible fish".

(Yes, I know that I could just install an empty tank and tell everyone that I had invisible fish, but that seems cheesy.)

Televisions in living rooms now the fastest-growing internet platform

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Unhappy

Re: Lies, dam lies ...

Abso-bloody-lutely useless.

Every one I've seen does what it does. Updates to do newer things over its n year lifespan? Good luck with that (even if the inbuilt hardware's up to it). I'm afraid that the telly is the chocolate teapot of web appliances.

Torygraph and Currant Bun stand by to repel freeloaders

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Meh

Re: well the DT paywall doesn't bother me

I agree with the article that if/when a news App becomes a pleasure to use and better uses the pad media than the HTML browser version....

Given the tendancy of "app" developers to regard pinch to zoom[1], as implemented in browsers, as the work of Satan and not to be trucked with, I reckon you're on a hiding to nothing there. Especially with text-heavy content, which is where the ability to resize is crucial. They may think that their chosen text size and layout is perfect and that nobody would ever want to change it, but they're almost invariably wrong.

I've found that there are perishingly few web operations where the "app" experience is better then visiting their page[2]. I have reserved a special circle of hell for those who direct you to / automagically fire their app when a mobile browser is detected.

I tend to find that a bookmark pinned to the screen shits from a great height on most apps for usability.

[1] Or indeed any method of resizing the content.

[2] Likewise, thank fuck for "Request desktop version" in the Android browser and a plague upon the houses of those sites that override it!

I've got a super free multi-petabyte storage box for you: /dev/null

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Meh

When it comes to tape storage, there is a bit of a snag here. You may well know that, of that backup, only a few files and databases are actually needed long-term, but short of unravelling the tape and snipping out the unwanted bits, there's not a lot you can do.

Usually cheaper to store the whole lot than it is to pull 'em all in and then tie up a load of lads and hardware in restoring 'em somewhere and resaving the "required long-term" bits.

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Re: But, but...

"and act accordingly"

Use /dev/null as it's much faster?

Security damn well IS a dirty word, actually

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WTF?

Re: ...while TLS 1.2 isn't implemented by any!

Hmm, well this 'ere version of IE8 on XP only offers 1.0 as an option.

Maybe 9??

The UK Energy Crisis in 3 simple awareness-raising pictures

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Meh

Re: where i live

...the fitting of winter tyres by law on every vehicle and the mandatory carrying of snow chains as is the norm in most of Europe.

Er, you can count the number of European countries where it's mandatory to fit winter tyres on the fingers of one hand........and have enough fingers left over to count those where it's mandatory to carry snow chains.

Japan's rare earth discovery bad news for China's monopoly plans

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Re: China only has a monopoly on willingness to pollute

"....mines in other countries have all shut down due to difficulty complying with environmental regulations."

Which normally wouldn't be a problem, it just adds to cost. The killer here was that China glutted the market, forcing prices down and driving everyone else out of business. Then, once they had the monopoly, they put in the export restrictions.

The Chinese deposits are rather "dirtier" than most, due to the high Thorium content.

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Happy

Re: All hinges on the cost of extraction.

That's exactly it. It's reported elsewhere that, while the stuff's a long way down under the water, the deposits are a mere few metres below the sea bed, so a compressed air lift is all that's required to extract them.

Bonus #1: The deposits are ridiculously high in the heavier end of the rare earth pantheon, which is where China's held all the cards until now.

Bonus #2: There does not appear to be the high Thorium content that characterises the Chinese deposits, making them far easier to refine as they won't have to worry about the whole lot being radioactive, like the Chinese mines are.

Space probe spies MYSTERY 'Cold Spot' in very fabric of cosmos itself

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Ah!

You know that thing about letting the genie out of the bottle?

That's where the cork was......

MasterCard stings PayPal with payment fee hike

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Meh

Re: WIll I be the first to say 'Bitcoin' ?

Except that Bitcoin lacks the hugely important ability to transfer funds directly to and from your bank account, which is where 99.9999999999999999999999999999999% of the world's online purchasers have their funds for buying things online.

In order for that to be possible it would have to lose the secrecy and start to play nice with the world's central banks.

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Facepalm

Re: Coming to a wallet near you...

That's a "store card". Loads of places do them.

Basically it's an in-house HP agreement, but you only have to do the paperwork once up front.

ARM's new CEO: You'll get no 'glorious new strategy' from me

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Servers.

I'd have thought that with both nVidia and AMD going at it hammer and tongs to get out 64-bit ARM chips, probably with integrated GPU compute cores in there too at some point, they have every right to be hugely optimistic here. Even more so as world + dog is looking hard at performance-per-watt.

If anything, I reckon that ARM are underplaying their hand and that it's Intel's share price that should be having an attack of the collywobbles.

Oi, Microsoft, where's my effin' toolbar gone?

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Meh

Re: Probably a memory issue

The problem with that approach is that there probably always is enough memory to do it.

The real issue is invariably that effing great chunks of it are paged on a heavily fragmented disk in a pagefile that's scattered over its surface like shotgun pellets in a burglar's arse.

Windows rule #1. If it's swapping in regular use, add memory. (Actually this rule applies to any OS that offers disk paging of memory).

Windows rule #2. If it dies like a piggin' dog while swapping, turn off paging altogether, defrag and turn paging back on when there's a contiguous space large enough to hold the pagefile. Which is where the OS will then duly and gleefully put it. (Power users may wish to just get their paws on a defrag utilty that actually bloody works to replace the abomination supplied as standard and run its offline defrag function to achieve the same effect).

Adware-flinging Yontoo yahoos target Mac users: You like trailers, right fanboi?

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Windows

"...prompt users to install a browser plugin supposedly need to view content ..."

I suppose they had to move to targetting Macs.

I don't think Windows users fall for the old "U can haz codecs, yes?" trick any more.

LOHAN fans drawn to magnetic coupling

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Re: Why Re-invent the wheel?

You may be onto something, but looking at those I'd be wanting to see 'em work at minus god-knows-what after condensation and freezing has had its way with the mechanism and the extreme cold's worked its magic on the springs.

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Contact patches.

Something else occurred to me after writing that: A very light smear of low-temperature grease on those contact patches prior to sticking the magnets on, if you please.

That should prevent any condensation interfering with contact and also potentially freezing the things into place and providing rather more "pull to disconnect" than planned.

Victoria and Albert museum in narrow escape from Napalm Death

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In case of Sonic Attack on your district....

......follow these rules.

If you are making love it is imperative to bring all bodies to orgasm - simultaneously

Do not waste time blocking your ears.

Do not waste time seeking a soundproof shelter.

Try to get as far away from the sonic source as possible

Wind farms make you sick … with worry and envy

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Happy

"..the public health advocate behind the global push for ugly cigarette packets..."

Which is having exactly the effect I expected it to: Sales of cigarette cases are waaaaay up and you can now get 'em in a bewildering array of shapes, sizes and colours to fit a comprehensive range of sizes and numbers of fags.

I've been after a sensibly sized case that holds twenty king size for many years. Thanks Simon!

Syrian hacktivists hijack BBC Weather feed

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WTF?

Re: But, But

From a consumer perspective it's probably nice to have a single reference for all of your "alerts from".

So the point of Tw@ter is actually to provide RSS feeds for those too terminally thick to master the manifold intricacies[1] of subscribing to RSS feeds?

[1] i.e. "click here".

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FAIL

"...a desire to push out propaganda..."

Now the thing about propaganda is that it should be at least vaguely believable to have any effect.

Stop excluding vulnerable Brits from digital agenda - MPs

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Re: power shortages?

That's a bit advanced.

Two bean cans, a bit of string and shout "ONE" and "ZERO" into the arrangement as appropriate.

NB: Large MIME attachments can take a while to arrive.

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Facepalm

Re: When I were a lad

If they were in Hoxton, they'd be using an iPhone......

Mobile kingpins to marketing mavens: Bonking is brilliant, wanna try?

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WTF?

"Google also raised issues at EU level..."

I wonder what the objection was?

I can't see "Look, we're the monopoly and this looks like competition so we should own a piece of that too." going very far....

LOHAN slips into tight rubber outfit

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Meh

Re: A space blanket wont help.

"Space blankets work by reflecting thermal emission..."

You mean like reflecting the thermal emissions of the heater layer back in toward the motor where they're wanted rather than letting them warm up the shrinkwrap? That may be why it produces the improvement seen in testing.

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Re: I am surprised

Actually, as we're talking about making an electrical connection, wire coat-hangers would be more appropriate there.

Review: HTC One

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Re: No SD no sale

True, Samsung managed to bork their implementation of the S3's expandable storage up by inexplicably mounting the internal storage space as "sdcard"

That seems to be the standard way of things with Android when it's gifted with copious amounts of internal storage. I reckon it's 'cos too many things save to "sdcard" by preference and they want to force it onto internal when it's not limited.

As a manufacturer-friendly side effect, it bumps up the AnTuTu score significantly too. Internal storage is rather faster than even a class 10 card in a slot and unless you specifically tell it otherwise, AnTuTu benchmarks /sdcard for its card I/O tests......

Dragons' Den badboy's Expansys burns sales, profits up in smoke

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Re: There's nothing right about Expensive

To give 'em credit here, it's not like they're the only ones.

Anyone know of a shiny-toy box shifter that actually gives a rat's arse about after-sales service? I've yet to find one.....

Give Google a COLD HARD SLAP - web rivals' plea to Euro watchdog

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Meh

Re: The new Microsoft...

Bound to happen I'm afraid. Integrated monopolies are just so ruddy convenient to use the services of.

"Chinese walls" between Search/Advertising and Application/Commercial are probably the only answer.

Voyager goes off a (helio) cliff

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For that I prefer to think of Philip Jose Farmer's "World of Tiers" series. The title of the first, "Maker of Universes", rather gives the game away.

In that case, it wouldn't hit a wall and go <tink>, it would hit the surrounding field that provides the impression of squillions of lightyears of shit, all packed into a few metres and be vapourised. We've still got a bit of a wait though, that was a light-year or so out IIRC.

Amazon boss salvages Apollo engines from watery grave

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Fitting that Bezos has got 'em.

After all, they went up into the clouds and then came crashing back down again.

Whatever happened to telepresence? From $2.5m deals to free iPad apps

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WTF?

Re: Cisco is the problem, Skype is good enough

...Skype as an unsecured P2P network...

The routing may be all over the place, but as the stream is encrypted, why does that matter?

Presumably, in your world, the NSA have that massive bounty on offer for a route into Skype just for a laugh. In the real world, if they are stuffed for cracking it, that's as good as (if not better than) any other solution.

South Korean TV and banks paralysed in disk-wipe cyber-blitz

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Quite clearly the source of this worm is Hollywood...

Ah, well fixing it all should be simple then. They just need to attach a supercomputer to the network, fire up a command line and type in "RUN INFECTION REMOVAL".