Posts by James Pickett

Compatibility

I hope they remember to make it backwards-compatible with the Apple II (and IIgs), then at least there'll be something to run on it...

What about Win 98?

Any figures for that? Mine's still going strong...

Quis custodiet custodes

"The bill now goes back to the Commons, where it is almost certain to be passed"

May I suggest a systematic scan of every MP's computer, then? Then we could see exactly how the courts interpret this rubbish...

Slow burn

It sounds like just about everyone who wanted GTA has got it now.

I bet Nintendo sells more Wii Fits in the long run (and makes more money)...

@ainsley

"installed onto a machine that has been working for a couple of years"

Why..?

(We need a lemming icon)

Go on, go on..

"I don't see any value that Microsoft could possibly get from spending 42 BILLION on these guys"

Nor do I, but I think they should find out the hard way. Time-Warner and AOL come to mind...

Never mind the logo...

What about the name? I assume good Phorm registered theirs..?

Source

Is that Lego or Playmobil? I think we should be told!

More of this, please

Refreshing read

"the person in charge of the temperature data is the eminent Dr. James Hansen - Al Gore's science advisor"

Quelle surprise!

How ironic that the only thing Dubya might have got right is our (lack of a) contribution towards climate change.

IIRC, the ice age cycle is about 10000 years and the next one is just overdue...

Tux, as he will outlast us all.

George Lucas

Just as long as they don't call them LOTR 4 and 5...

Sabotage

"one of the last actions of the outgoing centre-left government led by Romano Prodi"

Nice one. A bit like Blair's departure, just before the ordure struck the rotational cooling implement...

Er...

How did he write the figure down, then? I'm not there's room in the box for 360,000,000,000, unless his writing is awfully small, or was drawn on a bank in Zimbabwe...

Reporting

The figures would be a lot higher if they took any notice of the public. I was moved to report a man in a yellow Megane who was taking on petrol near me. He got in the car, started making a call and drove off with the phone clamped to his ear, using his other hand to secure his belt while steering with what I hope were his knees. I was the next car away and followed him for a couple of minutes that included a traffic light stop, enabling me to write down his number. I reported this to the police who said that they couldn't do anything as I wasn't a police officer!

I pointed out that he was on the forecourt CCTV and that since they had the exact time and place, they would be able to corroborate the call details, but I got a wearily apologetic no - apparently it happens all the time.

@Robb Dunphy

"minority on dialup"

Depends where you're looking, but it's still about 50/50 in the UK. Just because *you've* no longer got it...

Qu'est ce c'est?

"a choice of white- or gold-coloured cases"

Made of bakelite, presumably. Not exactly chic, is it?

If it would annoy Rupert..

..I'd like an @myspace.co.uk address

Fashionistas

"what a curiously but desperately possessable gadget the iPod, any iPod, is"

Curious, indeed. I've always regarded iPods as MP3 players for people who didn't understand MP3 players. I wouldn't want one, and as even my £50 Nokia phone has a micro-SD card slot and a radio, I'm not likely to bother with the Sony, either.

Whose idea..

..was it that the price should come down in the first place? Nintendo have judged the market just right and engineered the thing to make a profit from day one, so it's a daft question.

The Wii Board will be another success, I'm sure. Watch them popping up in gyms everywhere, next to a big flat screen...

I'm wryly amused to see the game(r)s shops having to make more room for Wii stuff. It must be strange for them to have 'normal' customers...

Consolation

Nice to have a law that is likely to include MPs among its first trangressors. Unless they've managed to arrange an exclusion...

Microhoo

Or maybe Yahsoft. Either way, I'm beginning to hope it happens, thus relieving MS of a decent chunk of their ill-gotten gains before realising that it equips them no better for dealing with Google, and puts BT in an awkward spot over their current tie-up with Yahoo. Sounds like they all deserve each other.

Shame

This wouldn't be the same NewsCorp that collaborated with the Chinese government to throw the BBC and their Imperialist (but accurate) news reports off the Star satellite, by any chance?

I'll buy a Sky dish the day Rupert Murdoch starts paying UK taxes...

Money

IIRC, a certain L Ron Hubfraud mentioned starting a new religion as the easiest way to make a fortune. The amazing thing is that he was right...

(Paris, as she knows the second easiest way)

Shudder

"Shuttleworth, clad in Nike running gear, had jogged into work"

That does it. I'm sticking with Fedora :-)

Not for want of trying, though - I've tried installing several versions of Ubuntu over the years, but every time I got the dreaded 'error 17' from Grub on startup.

@Julian

"obvious when you've noticed but equally obviously designed to be overlooked"

Exactly. It's the intention that matters, and if MS were trying to be honest, they would have mentioned it. They didn't, so they weren't.

(Tux, just to raise Ballmer's blood pressure.)

Recall

"15cm"

I do hope that was the length and not the diameter.

We did once have a patient in our X-ray dept with a Gold Label* bottle in the same place. He was a bit hazy on how it had got there, too, but given the effect of its former contents, that's not wholly surprising.

*A very strong UK beer, sold in mercifully small bottles.

Hats

I thought that was what Fedora was for? My copy (at home) is the sweetest implementation of Linux I've tried yet.

Wow factor

Just keyboards and mice - nothing too crucial, then...

Blimey!

"Stanley Matthews"

Just how old is the reviewer..?

WTC7

"Frankly you could blow down three world trade centre towers with C4 and blame it on two hi-jacked planes"

There were meant to be three planes, of course. Funny how few people have queried the discrepancy.

OT, I know, but it illustrates what you can get away with if you think big enough...

Windows FUD

"It still runs on more than 90% of all desktop computers"

That still leaves quite a few million more enlightened users! And what definition of the word 'run' were you thinking of..?

I loved the No.1 detective agency pastiche, too.

Love it and loathe it

Beautiful but pointless.

What is it with thinness, anway? I don't fancy supermodels much either.

Justice

"carefully considering the the implications of the judgement"

and then change the law to prevent it from happening again...

I notice that Rose Gentle has just lost her case against the same scoundrels for getting her son killed in an illegal conflict. Bastards.

Green flaw

"Current internal combustion engines are around 30% efficient, where electric drive trains are around 90%"

But where does the electricity come from? In most cases, fossil fuel burned to create steam, which drives a turbine, which spins a generator. Photovoltaic or hydro-electric, I'll accept...

Roar material

Our local zoo has several tigers. Now that would be exclusive...

Throw away line

"waste wood which is normally thrown away"

That would be why it's waste, presumably.. :-)

Pales into insignificance next to waste paper, though.

Idea partner for MS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo_(literature)

Just a thought...

I assume that most gmail accounts are for personal use and generate little outgoing mail, relative to commercial operations. I don't imagine that commercial users would object to a more stringent sign-up process, leaving the rest of us with a limit of, say 100 outgoing messages/day?

As for CAPTCHAS, has anyone tried using faces?

Really?

"Mosley denies any Nazi connotation"

Apart from the costumes of his, er, companions and his immediate forebears, presumably. Looks like he's gone Egyptian...

(in denial, that is - coat on already)

Deep joy

What is with PR people? First Phorm and now this - I'd call them muppets, but that's unfair to Gonzo.

Paris, for the usual reasons.

How long..

..before the combined signal from 200 phones brings a plane down? BTW, that 777 that pancaked at Heathrow could have been affected by all the passengers getting their phones out just before it landed...

@Andrew Simmons

"If you've thought of something that falsifies the current understanding of climate's response to anthropogenic CO2"

Only that the CO2 level is an effect, not a cause. As Al Gore's infamous (although doubtless peer-reviewed) graph shows when the time-axis is expanded.

As Professor Philip Stott and others are probably tired of pointing out, climate change is something that has occurred since we had a climate. He puts it all much more eloquently than I could, here:

http://parliamentofthings.info/climate.html

(Tux, since he's keen on ice-caps)