* Posts by James Pickett

1321 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2007

Kodak retiring iconic Kodachrome film

James Pickett

Shame

I'm sorry to hear this, but more for what it represents (as Dan Paul points out above) than for the film itself. There are plenty of decent E6 slide films (including Ektachrome) that are easy to process and should be around from some time. There is a certain pleasure in holding the freshly washed roll up to the light, in the same way that placing the needle on a vinyl record still feels good sometimes...

Phorm incinerates $50m in 12 months

James Pickett

Investment

"Phorm topped up earlier this month up by selling off 20 per cent of its equity"

Who on earth was daft enough to buy that? Don't tell me - a pension fund... :-(

BTW, isn't Delaware where SCO is registered? It must be a sort of 'flag of convenience' place, like Liberia.

New green and quiet jet-engine test results announced

James Pickett
Unhappy

Author!

"results of their (ahem) revolutionary new PurePower™ Geared Turbofan"

Are you saying that we invented it? Bet we did...

Whizz for Atoms: inside Intel's next netbook generation

James Pickett

As any fule kno

"spotting the missing 'm' from Atomms"

Or the redundant 'h' in Whizz..?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Willans)

I didn't think you guys were old enough!

Paris Airshow kicks off

James Pickett

Bluewash

Did I read that right? A *diesel* helicopter..? Merde!

Royal Navy sailors hurl Ronald McDonald into Chilean harbour

James Pickett

Award

"hurled the tasteful icon of American capitalism into the harbour"

There should be a medal for that sort of thing. Something to do with taste and decency.

The Times kills off blogger anonymity

James Pickett

Quid pro quo

What we need now is a judge's blog, although I realise the problem might be finding one who knows how to plug it in...

Israel to test ducted-fan robot air jeep 'within two months'

James Pickett

Progress?

"could yet be a boon to the military and perhaps the emergency services"

Hmm. Can just see an ambulance version landing next to a stretchered patient in the field, the downblast covering him in dust and assorted crap while blowing over his drip...

That Digital Britain report in full

James Pickett

Unreality show

What odds could I get from a bookie that analogue radio will be still be with us after 2015? I'm willing to bet that DAB (in its current form) will die before FM.

What planet do ministers live on? We have at least eight analogue radios here, most of which have worked perfectly for years. Why on earth would I want to replace them?

SCO inks last-second life-saving Unix pact

James Pickett

There are no bombs

They're going to need a good PR man. I believe the old Iraqi information minister (Comical Ali) may be looking for work...

MPs launch probe of massive net snooping project

James Pickett

Ho ho

"It would not, then-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said, monitor the content of communications."

Just as well - you never know who might be downloading grumble flicks...

Isn't it time we had a flying pig icon?

Homer Simpson speaks out on satnavs

James Pickett

Are you sure?

"TomTom has taken the Murdoch shilling"

You mean the Dirty Digger paid THEM?

Tories don black cap for ID cards

James Pickett

Payback

"He warned IT firms not to sign long-term contracts for a project likely to be abandoned by any Tory government."

A contract is a contract, and if the government (of whatever hue) wants to break it, they have to compensate the other party, so I suspect this is for the Tories' benefit, not ours!

I'd welcome the job - money if you do it and money if you don't!

Gov tries to work out if anyone is visiting its websites

James Pickett

Expense

"Nor does it know how much these websites costs or if anyone is using them. The committee's guesstimate for the total cost of the .gov.uk estate is £208m."

You couldn't make it up, could you? If the guesstimates are to be believed (and they seem to be all we've got) then each site is costing over £80k/year. Does the Telegraph know?

Microsoft's Windows 7 price gamble opens door to Linux

James Pickett
Linux

Sauce!

"loads of box-opened returns to be had really cheap"

Where?

James Pickett

The other one

I notice that the current Maplin offering comes with Windows CE (!)

I wonder what the deal was there..?

James Pickett
Linux

Monopoly

A clean fight? With Microshaft? On which planet?

You have to wonder why they are so scared by such a small market sector. Is it that old megalomania, or just that they don't want anyone to know that there's an alternative? Was Ballmer the fat kid in the playground that nobody liked? No change there, then...

Microsofties lose their iPhones

James Pickett
Gates Horns

Research

If no-one in MS is allowed to familiarise themselves with the competition, how will they know how bad their own stuff is? Mind you, it hasn't worked so far...

iPhone owners are superior beings, says survey

James Pickett
Jobs Horns

UK inversion

Strange, but where I work, only the chavs have iPhones...

Google Squared - the Cuilest search app ever

James Pickett

Hmmm

"Am I [a] dumbass?"

That's a rhetorical question, no?

Brown to Sugar: 'You're hired'

James Pickett

The B-word

"My money's on Olox"

Excellent!

Judge backs Halifax in Chip and PIN clone case

James Pickett

@Fraser

"fraud has dropped a massive ammount"

So there is still some going on, then..?

Irish politicos try to cut off call girls' mobiles

James Pickett

7 deadly sims

V. good!

I also like this - I'm sure you could adapt it: Beauty is only sin deep (Saki).

Jacqui whacks shock jock crock

James Pickett

Abuse

"those who abuse our standards and values"

Calling Ms Pot - kettle on line 2...

Fans decry tennis gal's breast-slash plan

James Pickett
Dead Vulture

Bounceometer

Wot! No link to this?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/10/bounceometer/

Come on El Reg - do try and keep up...

James Pickett

Career change?

She could get a lot more money for a lot less work if she leaves them alone...

She could still do a bit of coaching to keep her hand in (no single, double or triple entendre intended).

Gov spunks hundreds of thousands on mobe condom clip

James Pickett

@dingus

If it's any consolation, the logo is about the only worthwhile element.

'The government says' and 'good idea' are oxymoronic, but the only people who don't know that are the government...

More doubts on ID card readers

James Pickett

Ping

"Official advice is to flick the cards with a fingernail because they make a distinctive noise."

So will that replace the biometric nonsense..?

Taxpayer coughs for AOL Connie's flat

James Pickett

CGI

"a futuristic, vivacious character"

You mean she was real..?!

The Sun points bazookas at MoD killjoys

James Pickett

Non-sequitur

"our core business of defence."

I'd always thought it was supposed to be that, too...

Intel hit with largest ever EU fine

James Pickett

Speed

"AMD-Chips are fine, yes, but the huge number of boards for it are crap"

Very likely true, but if you get a good one, the end result is terrific. I rebuilt an oldish PC with an s/h Abit Fatal1ty mobo (silly name, I know) using the existing dual-core Athlon CPU, and with XP it is as quick as anything I have used.

Dell punts £199 10in netbook

James Pickett
Linux

Good news

The Windows tax revealed! Nice to see Dell standing up to the old furniture flinger...

Gordon Ramsay breaches f**king broadcasting code

James Pickett

@Dennis

"He really annoys me but the wife like him"

How true! But if I spoke to her like that...

Ramsay's problem (among many, no doubt) is that he has nothing left to express real anger when he's already been mildly annoyed - just more (and louder) effing and blinding. I don't often feel sorry for Merkins, but they must be pretty surprised to be shouted at by someone even less articulate than them...

Q1 chip sales plunge reveals slowing demand for netbooks

James Pickett
Happy

"Sales plunge"

Global recession causes fall in sales? Slow news day, is it...?

Top British boffin: Time to ditch the climate consensus

James Pickett

Settled science?

"We produce about 3.5% of the total carbon that's produced"

Indeed. And the proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 is about 0.035%, so our contribution is about 0.001%, and yet this is somehow regarded as the major driver of a climate that has previously seen levels ten times as high, long before industrialisation!

Temperatures are dropping (now down to nearly 1979 levels) and sea levels are pretty static, the arctic ice is melting more slowly than expected (ask the Catlin expedition) and we carbon-based life-forms actually need CO2 to live (it's pumped into greenhouses to encourage plant growth, where the human occupants happily breathe levels 3 times that outside).

Not much to base punitive taxes and energy policy reversals on, is it?

James Pickett

@Hey guys

"If the environmentalists are wrong, nothing happens, except we save some energy and do less damage to the environment"

If only that were true. The 'environmentalists' have the politicians in their pocket, however, and are throwing their weight about, so we have lunacy of 'carbon credits', taxation of anything to do with CO2 (e.g. vehicle duty) and energy police with thermal imaging cameras coming to your neighbourhood RSN.

CO2 accounts for 0.03% of the atmosphere and our contribution is 3% of that. Do you really think that's warming the planet more than the sun? As it happens, the sun is very quiet right now, and the world has been cooling for ten years, but that doesn't make the headlines somehow...

Read this for balance - the next scare will be another ice-age!

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/04/natgeo-sun-oddly-quiet-hints-at-next-little-ice-age/

Tesco tills go titsup

James Pickett

Nightly

"common practice .. to roll out major software changes overnight on Sunday"

I suppose it hasn't occurred to them that they would risk losing less business if they rolled them out on a Saturday night. Not that I want them to lose less business...

Microsoft’s Silverlight 3 delivers decent alternative to Adobe

James Pickett

Sheep

"on a nearly level playing field with Adobe's Flash framework"

Wow, that means it's nearly as good - I must have it!

Zen and the Art of Laptop Battery Maintenance

James Pickett

Design

You have to wonder about the design of charging circuits in laptops. Every other Lithium--powered device* I've owned, and some are 9 or 10 years old, has gone on working fine, but the laptops all seems to run out of puff after two or three.

*Electric drill (so old, it may even be NiMH), mobile phones, PDA's, MP3's and four cameras.

If I was cynical, I'd suspect it was deliberate...

Conservative US shock-jock to sue Wacky Jacqui

James Pickett

Dangerous

He knows about Magna Carta - no wonder she won't let him in!

eBay driving world's tomb raiders out of business, says prof

James Pickett

Taste

As PT Barnum (I think) suggested, nobody ever lost money underestimating public taste. Unfortunately, the obvious corollary is also true...

Windows 7 — It’s like Vista, only less annoying

James Pickett

Feature

"polished code"

That's new - perhaps they could use it in their PR. It would be about as accurate as 'the Wow is now'...

Microsoft opens up for Office SP2

James Pickett

Bloat

26% faster, eh? IIRC, every new version of anything from MS has claimed something similar (even Vista!) and it's never been true. Sclerotic software, anyone?

Police want new remote hard drive search powers

James Pickett

Old kit

Overheard on a radio drama recently: "take an image of that computer, Sergeant"

On my old (main) computer with 160GB of data and only a USB1.1 connection, that would take about two days, so there is some advantage in not being too up-to-date. Almost worth having USB1, which would then require nearly a fortnight!

James Pickett
Happy

Tactics

Perhaps the answer (for us) is not to try and lock it all down, but to buy the biggest drives we can find and set the browser caches to maximum. That should keep them busy...

Edifier Luna 2 desktop speaker set

James Pickett

@Mick Stranahan

You've not listened to the Aegos, then? To quote Pocket Lint (I know it's the competition, El Reg, but I'd quote you if you'd only review the bloody things), "Acoustic Energy is a British company better known for its Hi-Fi speakers than its PC peripherals", which is probably why they sound so good.

Class D is one of those things that is on a steady development curve, and I don't doubt that KEF's implementation of it is fine (I have a pair of their floor-standers), but switching amplifiers were originally designed to improve efficiency. A good damping factor is a useful side-effect, but keeping switching distortion down at high frequencies is another matter, which may well explain why KEF only put it in a sub-woofer...

Phorm boss blogs from a dark, dark place

James Pickett
Stop

Home Office collusion

Perhaps they should read Phorm's FAQ...

"We don't agree with FIPR's analysis. And its description of the Phorm system is inaccurate. Our technology complies with the Data Protection Act, RIPA and other applicable UK laws. We've sought our own legal opinions as well as consulted widely with experts such as Ernst & Young, 80/20 Thinking, the Home Office, Ofcom and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). We discussed our system with the ICO prior to launching it and continue to be in dialogue with the organisation. "

UK graduates face bleak future as teachers

James Pickett

No job

"steering well clear of jobs in banking, finance and property"

Um, shouldn't that be the other way round? The jobs are steering clear of them (and everyone else) because there are no jobs in those areas. Nor should there be, given the mess made by the present incumbents!

Not sure they should be considering teaching either. No-one is qualified to teach (or govern, come to that) without some experience of what the rest of us regard as normality.

Windows XP Mode: Certify like you mean it

James Pickett

@kevin

"Personally looks like I'm still gonna stick with Win2k till no one makes software compatible with 2k and xp than go raise up the penguin flag"

Same here. Win2k runs very nicely on my two old laptops. Mind you, so does Linux.

Does 'XP mode' mean that Win7 won't run XP applications without it? If not, what's it for?

ASBO woman cuffed over raucous rumpy-pumpy

James Pickett
Paris Hilton

Yes, yes!

Do I detect a whiff of jealousy? As Woody Allen pointed out, sex is only dirty if it's done right...

Paris, obviously.