* Posts by Mr Chris

75 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Nov 2007

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PARIS in 89,000 ft climax

Mr Chris

stall speed...

Well, the Stelios (electric prop plane) got up to 96,000 feet, so it's not inconceivable that a very light paper glider could glide at that altitude. Yes, the air's thinner, but the wing area/weight ratio for Vulture 1 was pretty good, wasn't it?

Defects in e-passports allow real-time tracking

Mr Chris

An even worse threat

Frighteningly, there is an even more prolific scanning apparatus that can be used to track when a given target you already had to have identified enters or leaves a building - it's called the eyeball.

Honestly, I thought this was going to be something *actually* scary, akin to real time GPS location.

Least scary sploit ever, chaps.

Obesity witchhunt is a 'moral panic' - sense out of Texas

Mr Chris

Fatties vs Shotputters

Heh.

While Lewis may be one of the comparatively few exceptions, most of those I hear whinging about the BMI not being accurate aren't exactly weightlifters or Oxford Blues.

For the vast majority the BMI is a useful guide as to the healthiness of your weight. And remember kids - while it's less effort than exercising, trying to prove the BMI isn't accurate won't make you less fat.

Chips are down for Transmeta

Mr Chris

"chip's"

Ohheavens.

Dawkins' atheist ad campaign hits fundraising target

Mr Chris

@ Jim Coleman

"An intangible spirit that infuses all living things, yet has no sentience of its own?

Certainly."

is ever so slightly contradicted by:

"The world isn't black and white folks, it's a delicate shade of grey."

And anyway - if you've got proof that there is a non sentient intangible spirit infusing all living things, how come you're not a Nobel-prize winning Jedi?

Tw*tdangler defends Benito Mussolini stunt

Mr Chris

Death dive?

"*Death dive*"? It was a bungy jump in slow motion, the twat.

Police drop BT-Phorm probe

Mr Chris

Mens rea

IAAL, and there have been some misunderstandings here about "mens rea".

The "mens rea" for a crime is the intent to commit the act. You don't have to be thinking "oooh, I'm committing a crime" as well - you can form the necessary mens rea while still believing your act to be justified and legal. For example:

The mens rea for theft is intending to permanently deprive someone of something.

The mens rea for murder is intending to kill (or commit GBH, as it happens).

The mens rea for an offence under RIPA is to intend to intercept communications.

Bosh. There's no such thing as "criminal intent", just "intention to commit the act".

I'm not surprised Plod misunderstood the law here - the police very rarely seem to understand any of the laws they're supposed to enforce. Anyone else see that article a while ago about a Times journo who got beaten up, phoned the police to tell them who it was and the copper on the other end of the phone cautioned him that he would be committing an offence under the DPA if he (the chap who'd been beaten up) told him (the copper) the guy's name and address. "FFS" doesn't even cover it.

Government kids database under fire, again

Mr Chris

@AC "you brits are great..."

"...at complaining over a pint at the pub, but when will you get fed up enough to do something about it? Start a revolution or mass protest or something."

What, like America did with GWB, you mean? No... wait...

Former Apple lawyer to pay $2.2m for cooking books

Mr Chris

@Richard

"the intricacies of stock rules and regulations are not only beyond them, but should be - they pay other people to mind that sort of thing for them, so they don't have to."

So who, exactly, is running the company in your scenario?

The whole point of the board of directors is that *they* are the people running, and responsible for, the company. "The buck stops here", to use the vernacular, is very much the case under UK company law. Except corporate manslaughter, natch.

Windfall taxing big oil: how to make the gas crisis worse

Mr Chris

@ Tim Worstal "Ummm"

"Perhaps you should have read further then. I do actually link to industry sector by profit margin. Oil and gas is 60 th in the list."

"Ummm", yourself, chap. You had the net profit margin sorted back to front - Oil is 25th on that list, at a 13% net profit margin.

Mr Chris

Margins

"Yes, it's true that Exxon's recent quarterly profits were, at near $12 billion, big. It's also worth noting that turnover was $138 billion, giving them a margin on sales of 9 per cent: which isn't really, anything much to write home about. "

Bloody hell chap, do you know what margins most businesses run on? That's a very decent margin right there compared to most.

I stopped reading at this point as it's pretty clear you have little to no understanding of how businesses operate.

US Congress to vote on in-flight mobile ban

Mr Chris

Banning babies

They should also ban anyone who has been a baby in the past, in order to punish them for past crimes.

Oh.

US court sides with Janet Jackson's breast

Mr Chris

PLee and Jon

Are they Twat O Tron pseudonyms?

Info commissioner says comms database is leap too far

Mr Chris

@ AC

"Totally agree with your comment. How he can see little problems out of one eye and miss the big problems out of the other mystifies me."

Are you mental? You consider the Phorm targeted advertising nonsense to be worse than HMRC losing *25 million sets of bank account details*? That's a "little problem"?

Your perspective has clearly been skewed by spending too much time on the internet.

Raptor and Eurofighter go head to head

Mr Chris

@ A good Use (AC)

"China is next on the radar. They are not really going to try anything for a while, at least until they can come up with something to beat the Typhoon or Raptor (or even Raphale). The benefit of the delay is still a benefit."

The J-10 is fairly contemporary with the Typhoon and the Raphale.

Mr Chris

US Navy

"The USN has not bothered to replace its F-14 Tomcats with a new generation of ultrafighter. Instead, the Top Guns of the future will fly in an enhanced version of the trusty F-18 multipurpose jet."

Er - except for the F-35, of course.

Time to move on from Chinook to the real MoD cock-ups

Mr Chris

Seahawk/Future Lynx

Although the price comparison is worth noting, that's apples and oranges there, though, surely? The Seahawk is a purely navy aircraft (used for ASW and SAR missions), and the Future Lynx is intended for our PBI to flap around in as well as for some of our Oldest Service to play with.

Still, how much are Blackhawks, then? I'll be willing to bet we could get more of those for the Army for our £s, and they'd work better. And we could have them this year.

Naomi Campbell charged with assault

Mr Chris

@Elrond

[quote]"About time the hasbeen drama queen learnt she's not above the law."

No, the law is stupid. Any of us could be found under similar circumstances and would be likewise upset and frustrated by this idiotic law. Only Naomi makes news, the rest of us quietly go to jail for this retarded nonsense.[/quote]

She's going to jail for *assaulting a police officer*, not for protesting about her bags. I'd be pissed off too, but you'd have to be a monumental cretin to try to kick and punch the police officers who are lawfully removing you from private property. Unless you *really* think the laws against assault are stupid and should be amended to allow you to gob on a police officer if you're having a tantrum?

The correct British response would have been to write a stiffly worded letter to the Telegraph.

City anti-Scientology protestor avoids court summons

Mr Chris

@Anonymous Re: Scientology

"Isn't the Met supposed to be rife with masonic favouritism, mutual back scratching, funny handshakes and varying trouser leg heights?"

Maybe it is, but this was the City of London Police, which is an entirely different police force.

MS bashes Gay(wood) Xbox Live gamer

Mr Chris

Richard - gay? Would!

Good to see you're famous for a good reason now, mate. ;-)

Boris Johnson bans boozing on London transport

Mr Chris

This will piss off a lot of middle class types...

...quietly enjoying their canned G&T from M&S on the train on the way out of London. I was far from the only person doing this on the way home of an evening.

Having said that, the train drivers' union has already said they won't be enforcing this, so who cares?

Men could have kids with chimpanzees - gov must act

Mr Chris

Search for "humanzee"....

A google image search for 'humanzee' comes up with this :

http://www.mactonnies.com/linda.jpg

I sincerely hope the scientists carry on the research.

Sony pooh-poohs Amazon PS3 PlayTV pre-order posting

Mr Chris

Ahah!

You edited your title, Mr Sherwood. Good man.

Mr Chris

It's "pooh pooh"

"Well, I hope so, Blackadder. You know, if there's one thing I've learnt from being in the Army, it's never ignore a pooh-pooh. I knew a Major, who got pooh-poohed, made the mistake of ignoring the pooh-pooh. He pooh-poohed it! Fatal error! 'Cos it turned out all along that the soldier who pooh-poohed him had been pooh-poohing a lot of other officers who pooh-poohed their pooh-poohs. In the end, we had to disband the regiment. Morale totally destroyed... by pooh-pooh!"

Welsh couple cop Mosquito flak

Mr Chris

Leaving himself wide open...

... to a claim under the tort of nusiance. Although it's not audible to 100% of people, it's qualitatively no different to having loud music playing. I look forward to the first court case on this....

Adobe opens Photoshop for freetards

Mr Chris

eep

*implodes*

Mr Chris

@Sarah

Well, quite. But you're still now using it as an insult against people using freeware, rather than just idiots who think they have some god-given right to pirate software. It's like calling people who shop at Wilkinson's "cheaptards". There's no satirical point to be made, there.

The original point seems to have been lost in the "oooh, we've found a new insult that winds loads of people up. Let's use it at every available opportunity" sniggering and giggling.

Mr Chris

@Sarah

The problem with "freetard" is twofold -

1) You guys seem to be extending its (fairly rightful, to be fair) original use as a dig at people who will pirate things because they don't want to pay for them to now encompass anyone who's happy to use *freeware*. They're two entirely different things. The former is criminal, the latter is an entirely legal (and logical) choice based on cost vs functionality. As others have noted, you guys are using open source software to run the Reg site, for goodness sakes. If you want "freetard" to maintain some sort of punch as an insult, use it against the people who are doing something *wrong*.

2) "Retard" still isn't big or clever as an insult. It's down there with "spaz", frankly. I thought we'd all moved on since the playground? Language can move on all it likes, but some things remain offensive. Would you base a humourous composite epithet around the word "spastic"? What about "n*gger"? No? Well then.

The Baying of the Hounds

Mr Chris

Re: Waiting

If he doesn't have a very extensive diary on the go already I'd be surprised.

T5 opening turns into Airplane 3.0

Mr Chris

@Tom Welsh

"It's managers who seem unable to accomplish the simplest task without creating some preposterous crisis."

FTFY.

It's not just our managers that are usless, you know. That's a world-wide phenomenon.

Keyboard PC design recalls Amiga era

Mr Chris

BBC Micro ftw

Pre-load this baby with Elite, and paint it beige.

Laser designated step'n'fetch wrinkle-robutler shown

Mr Chris

Excellent potential...

Top stuff. We can now all look forward to stories of infirm wrinklies accidentally lighting up their own foot with their Laser Designator O' Helpfulness, and being savagely tipped over by the pachydermal robot monster attempting to pass them their own appendage.

Home Sec: British rings to be tightened against intrusion

Mr Chris

re Britain Bashing

I find this quite odd.

I have never been a victim of any crime, let alone a violent one, and I can't think of a single friend or family member who has either. Maybe it's because we don't live in London, but I find this country to be quite lovely, and full of nice, helpful people.

If you don't like it, the ring isn't tightened against you exiting, and will doubtless help you on your way.

UK presses car ferry to ship powdered plutonium

Mr Chris

It hasn't been "pressed into service"

That makes it sound as if it was a hurried lash-up to meet an unexpected requirement.

It's a specially converted ship that's been used since 2001 for trasnporting nuclear material, along with several other ships.

http://www.pntl.co.uk/about-pntl/quick-facts.asp

http://www.pntl.co.uk/pntl-fleet/bnfl-ships.asp

Shipments of nuclear material is a regular thing, as they're taking back reprocessed fuel to customers in europe and japan and picking up spent fuel to take back and reprocess. Under armed escort, mind.

This really isn't news, Reg.

Mr Chris

And another thing

The ships themselves are armed, ffs.

http://www.pntl.co.uk/pntl-fleet/pntl-ships.asp

Endemol tech chief to be released from Dubai slammer

Mr Chris

Really?

"Cat will not be deported and is free to enter the UAE or depart at his leisure. This is the best outcome we could have hoped for."

Surely the *best* result would have been him not being arrested and spending weeks in chokey in the first place? Or did he fancy doing some research for the next BB series?

Essex youth's cop headbutt heads for YouTube

Mr Chris

I see that the censors...

...took my previous entirely tongue in cheek comment about parenting licences (lampooning the Daily Wail style nonsense above) the wrong way, then?

Drunken Korean attempts to cook landlady's Chihuahua

Mr Chris

@Quite a sad story

Ah, the punchline to the "what do you get if you cross a dog and a cantaloupe" joke from Calvin and Hobbes.

Please don't leave me... bitch

Mr Chris

Some touchy FB users...

...on here today. AC got too close to the simmering insecurities, eh?

Home Office opens sex offender files in pilot scheme

Mr Chris

Smacking

So, those of you in favour of hitting kids to discipline them - will you mind if someone else does it to your kids as well? No difference, is there?

OFT sends out scam texts

Mr Chris

Privacy & electronic Communicaitons Regulations

As SMSus is basically a commercial service, aren't these terribly funny texts basically just unsolicited marketing SMSs and therefore unlawful?

Brits can't distinguish history from the TV listings

Mr Chris

@ Sarah Bee

pstpxplsthnks.

;-)

Parent power pulls Woolworth's 'Lolita' kiddies' bed

Mr Chris

@ John

"the day my daughter gets to dress like a Ho is when she is 18, but I sure as crap hope I am doing a better job to date than she is going to turn out like that. "

Adult women have every right to dress however they like, and describing an alluringly attired woman exercising her rights of equality as a "ho" is incredibly sexist. You sexist pig.

Mr Chris

Thank goodness!

"The term lolita nowadays refers to a sexually precocious child!!!! taken from the novel and films of the same name. how much encouragement does the paedophile community need!""

Yes, yes of course. This is just what would tip them over the edge. The child in the "Lolita" bed is saying "come fiddle me, Mr Paedofiddler!", and we all know how paedophiles can telepathically determine the name of the make of a child's bed from a range of anything up to 20 miles.

Thanks goodness someone is thinking of the children, eh?

Michael Bay to relive A Nightmare on Elm Street

Mr Chris

Michael Bay? Gah.

Michael Bay's patented shaky-cam approach to cinematography will ensure we don't actually get a clear look at Freddie for the entire film.

Blade Runner replicant checks into rehab

Mr Chris

@Meep

You think anyone reading Heat would know who she was?

MPs slam costly war-tech projects at MoD

Mr Chris

@ REMF

"There has been no substantial budget increase."

Um, really?

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/DefencePolicyAndBusiness/NewCarriersConfirmedInDefenceBudgetIncrease.htm

"Defence Secretary Des Browne has welcomed the announcement by the Government today, Wednesday 25 July 2007, which will see a £7.7bn increase in the defence budget over the next three years....

Defence Secretary Des Browne said: "This CSR means an additional £7.7bn for Defence by 2011 - the longest period of sustained real growth in planned defence spending since the 1980s.""

As for your other one liners, none of those actually contradict anything Lewis said.

Line up for full-windscreen satnav

Mr Chris

@ various (defensive satnav owners?)

@Wierknicki

"Unless you hand-wrote your luddite diatribes and sent them to El Reg in the post, I suggest that you reconsider your obvious hypocrisy."

The fact that you think the two things are even remotely comparable is quite funny. But in a sad way.

@Mr Gilbert

"Have you every tried to read a map while driving? Try it too many times and you'll either end up with points from the boys in blue or wrapped round a Polish lorry!"

You'll note I suggested *pulling over* to check the map if it became necessary.

@ Cameron Colley, AC 18:42

You raise a good point there, actually, in that for someone who does a lot of travelling (for their job, for example) a GPS would actually be useful - in a city to city drive it's the last section that tends to be troublesome, and unfamiliar inner city roads can be nightmarish (try driving round South London and the lack of road signs is quite shocking).

What irks me is the way that every single bugger on the road seems to have felt the needto go and buy a GPS - when clearly the majority of the driving that most of these people undertake is around already-familiar areas. And if you are dirivng to a bit of Cheltenham you've not been to before, you can just check on your local map where it is, and then next time you'll know.

It's like those bluetooth headsets - I'm sure a vanishingly small percentage of the population really *do* need to be constantly hands free in case an important call comes in and at that exact moment they need their hands free for removing the bullet from a small child, but those twats walking round Asda with their little earpieces in? I think not.

Triumphs of marketing over common sense.

Mr Chris

@AC 15:02GMT

One should be able to look at the map before leaving the house, and memorise the route. At most, one should only need to stop to review the route for the last couple of miles. Stopping to read a map is hardly unsafe.

You have been brainwashed by the consumer-goods-pushers, young man.

Driller Killer unleashed on UK public

Mr Chris

I beg your pardon?

Julian Brazier, the Conservative MP for Canterbury, disagrees, and has accused the board of "failing to protect the public". He said: "We live in a country where half of all males think forced sex is justified under some circumstances"

Maybe half of the Tory MPs he straw-polled, but surely not half of the population? Even in today's allegedly feral society I cannot believe that 50% of males of any background would believe that rape is acceptable.

Citation needed, Mr Brazier, you sensationalist, moralistic, Daily Mail reader, you.

And I bet he hasn't even watched the films, either.

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