* Posts by Peet McKimmie

9 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jan 2008

The best sci-fi film never made: Also-rans take a bow

Peet McKimmie
FAIL

"The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant"...?

In what alternative universe does that qualify as "Sci-Fi"? It's pure fantasy fiction. I wish people would get these genres separated in their heads before posting.

Is US prudishness ruining the internet?

Peet McKimmie
Unhappy

This has been going on for a long time.

About a decade ago I spent several months involved with a startup site called "Zoom.com" - it was based in the USA but world-wide in nature (I'm in Scotland) and was trying to provide a "user rated directory" of websites, filtering out ad sites and ranking content by factors such as "interestingness" and "usefulness".

All was well, until a larger US corporation bought them over and started instituting rules about "sites that condone illegal activities" amongst others, never recognising that something that might be illegal in their State might be perfectly fine elsewhere, and that things they allowed, like carrying concealed firearms, might be illegal in other countries.

They started introducing silly "tests" to see whether editors knew the ("their") legal system well enough, and removed whole sections from the site "pending examination", including the entire "Adult" branch. Basically, they screwed it up completely.

I quit when they banned a really good Tomato Gardening site (ironic, as I hate tomatoes!) because a single post in their comments section said "Hey! I could use these tips for growing dope!" (or words to that effect...)

Possibly the world's most pointless review

Peet McKimmie
WTF?

In *your* chair review...

...Is an "Alan key" anything like an "allen key"?

How can UK.gov spend £35m on a website?

Peet McKimmie
FAIL

Were the Microsoft based websites more expensive than the Open Source based ones?

Being Government-run sites, it wouldn't surprise me if each was developed by a different team who have no contact with the developers of previous sites, and that every team purchased a full-price, complete set of web development "tools" from Micro$oft. Plus, probably, a full set of "Dummies" books on how to use them.

BBC grabs stock photo of own building

Peet McKimmie

Another explanation

I would suspect it's more likely that BBC News and Websites have an "unlimited" Getty subscription, so in effect it would have been cheaper for them to grab the image from Getty than to send the teaboy out.

Panda soups up freebie cloud anti-virus

Peet McKimmie
FAIL

What has this got to do with soup?

Did you perchance mean "supes up"...? It's a phrase that is derived from "supercharging" and has nothing to do with soup.

Oxygen-from-Moon-dirt passes vomit comet test

Peet McKimmie
WTF?

The equations don't seem to balance...

They can create Oxygen on the moon by first using an industrial process to create water and then electrolyzing it. Then they will use this Oxygen as part of a fuel to gain energy. But surely *far* more energy is being wasted in producing it than it could possibly produce? Couldn't they find a more direct method to use the energy they have, rather than recreating the rocket technology that works here on Earth where Oxygen is relatively plentiful?

Fire at Google UK

Peet McKimmie
Thumb Down

I can't see the photo. :-(

El Tel's attempts at technowizardry have resulted in a white rectangle with the text string "This Movie Clip symbol covers the player area" across tye middle in Helvetica. I guess it must be my fault for viewing the page in Firefox under Linux. Naughty me.

Tiscali hits 'undo' after bandwidth throttling chokes iTunes

Peet McKimmie
Thumb Down

Tiscali have always been incompetent.

I had a 12-month contract for Tiscali Broadband. During that 12 months they never *once* got the billing right. I'm not talking about £10 here or there, but additional charges of £150 or more for either services I hadn't received or things that had been advertised (and confirmed) as free. I got away at the earliest possible opportunity.