Posts by James Pickett

Really?

“So I am doing my bit and reaping the rewards”

Since when was profiting from subsidies ‘doing your bit’? I don’t blame you for taking advantage of a bonkers government scheme, but the moral high ground it ain’t...

Tense

“Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world,” said Ballmer.

Make that "was"...

Lilies of the field

"birds and flowers rarely produce much in the way of breaking news"

You seem to imply that's a bad thing. Frankly, I could do with a lot less of it, not to mention advice from hypocritical religious sects...

Oh yes!

"end-of-show party cum"

Maybe time they fitted a filter to the hot tub...

On vocation

"Vocational School no 10"

I wonder how voluntary that was..?

Erm...

So what sort of laptops are they allowed?

Ophcom

Sounds like Phorm all over again. How's that going, BTW?

New fangled

Having dealt with the ASA before (over the warmist ‘turn off the lights little girl or your dog will drown’ advert) I’m amazed that they came to a judgement. They’ve probably only just woken up to the fact that CD’s can be stored on something other than tape. They’ll have heart failure when they learn about downloading.

And in the Maldives..?

Makes one wonder about the alleged relationship between climate change and sea level. If the gravity depends on the variable density of a partially fluid core, is it fair to assume that the map will change?

Telling

So what sort of phone *does* Elop use?

Price of everything..

"Cheap as chips"

That's the tag line the same author used in the Kinect article. It's not that clever, and it's not just about chips. Nintendo's R&D dept must cost a bit to run, and I'd say they earn their keep.

Saving

HMG could always buy it back under PFI. Since Uncle Gordon kept all the PFI debt off the balance sheet, they still be in notional profit, and think of the fuel they’d save not having to fly to Libya and back all the time...

Hmm..

Maybe if she had some Botox..?

Home viewing

I bet Jacqui Smith's husband is relieved (that he can still buy her VAT-free daffs, that is).

Teddy!

Sorry, but I've never been able to take Miliband seriously since his alter-ego Mr Milibean appeared in Private Eye.

Even worse case

"My thinking is that all GE Mark 1 Boiling Water Nuclear Reactors world wide should be phased out of service as soon as feasible."

Even those not at risk from earthquakes or tsunamis?

@Stefing

"NUCLEAR POWER IS JUST NOT WORTH IT"

So, what do you suggest? Windmills?

@FFS

I agree. When the article mentioned transmission ‘through steel’ , I assumed it meant at a distance. Having to have half the kit on the inside and both halves attached directly to the thick stuff isn’t really that ground-breaking, surely? Just because it is/was secret doesn’t make it clever...

The curse of MS

Wonderful. Nokia loses the phone market to devices that do everything well except making phone calls, which they, Nokia, excel at. I have one, and it does.

BTW, are you sure that Elop is his real name? It reads better the other way round...

Font

The application is for "APP STORE"

So it's OK to use in lower case, then?

Couldn't Apple have used a condensed font? Arial Narrow saves bit of space on PC's...

Date

"rally outside the Westin St Francis Hotel in Union Square at 12.30pm, 17 March"

That's in the diary, then!

Tough

"the Register Fangirl's"

The Register Fangirl's what? :-)

As for 'No one cares about Google's dev cloud', I think that means they care very much. Poor old MS - sheds of money, but what they really want is to be loved...

Hot or not

IMO:

Apple = old cool (Grateful Dead T-shirts)

Android = new cool (Selena Gomez T-shirts)

Microsoft = uncool (men in suits)

MS needs another brand name, but it’s probably a bit late now.

Prior art

Matt Groening knew this years ago:

Fry (trying to learn more about the 1000 years he missed) - "what happened to global warming?"

Leela - "oh, that was wiped out by the nuclear winter".

Am I the only one here who watched Futurama...?

Yes Minister

"Did they not realise it was a satire, not a documentary?"

It was meant to be a satire, but kept revealing the truth. Still does.

What's that you say, Lassie?

"Border collies are the most intelligent dogs"

They must be, if they know where Scotland begins...

Rock opera

Where's the Acid Queen when you need her? :-)

He's not deaf, dumb and blind, though, is he..?

Unpleasant

It’s amusing if the guy eating the crisps gets shot (as originally reported) but tragic if the complainer does, as we now know.

At least the surviving members of the audience managed to hold onto the little weasel - let’s hope he gets to share a cell with a fellow homicidal maniac who finds him strangely attractive, in a ‘terpsichorean’ sort of way (see earlier anagram).

Mission possible

Can Bernie avert WW3? Money talks...

Value

Somewhere in my attic is a pair of Koss ESP-9 electrostatics, the heaviest, most uncomfortable, yet sublime sounding headphones ever made (possibly) and which cost £200 nearly 40 years ago. My favourites now are a pair of JVC 'flats', small on-ear phones with a lovely clean airy sound, and bass down to subsonic. They cost £10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001PPTZ3M/

@bobbles

"I would buy an older model.."

You're quite right, of course, but you can't blame the manufacturers for trying. After all, golf club manufacturers have been getting rich for decades persuading fat Americans that their game would improve if only they bought a set with the head/shaft/grip made of the latest material, designed on the latest computer and endorsed by the latest hero.

Come to think of it, there must be some good s/h bargains to be had by now, both clubs and cameras...

Hmm...

"the two transmit signals interfere destructively at the receive antenna"

Only in one direction, Shirley?

Gratuitous Python reference

"Gilmour's son, however, is a very naughty boy."

Not the Messiah, then...

Progress

“Amstrad on a good day...”

They did have them. I’ve just acquired a client who was using a 1985 Amstrad PC with twin floppies until last year. She’s finding her new Win7 laptop hard going - and slower...

WRT the tablet, I try to avoid anything with a brand name ending in ‘tone’. Couple that to ‘homesurf’ and it’s really worrying!

Boffinry

“Blighty's pre-eminent boffinry institution”

Still? Despite their motto, ‘nullius in verba’, their head honcho, Sir Paul Nurse, managed to present a whole edition of ‘Horizon’ dedicated to squashing criticism of those brave, upstanding scientists whose funding is only assured as long as they promulgate catastrophic global warming. His pitch seemed to rely on the idea that the scientists were not communicating well enough, rather than the shortage of any real evidence for the hypothesis - which is rather at odds with what normally passes for scientific method, let alone what is written over the RI’s door.

Registration?

Excuse the naivety, but doesn't Office 'phone home' to register itself? Perhaps the EU could insist on an 'Office choice' icon to list the alternatives...

Wow!

Just wow. Snapshots they may be, but still proof that size matters...

Why not the whole phone?

A slightly geeky friend has had a wristwatch phone for some time (at least a year). It's a bit chunky, but no worse than some oversized normal watches, and he claims that the battery life is on a par with a normal phone. I'm surprised they're not mainstream already.

Economy

"$6162.50 per seat"

As little as that, for a government project? Those cuts must be biting hard.. :-)

Damage

If they managed to recover the data from the HD in the photo, I'm impressed...

Hmm...

Let me guess. If it fails, it will be our fault; if it's a success, the Merkins will take the credit. Plus ca change...

Spinning

I’m surprised that Dinnerjacket and his chums haven’t explored diversionary excuses for having centrifuges, which are used for everything from juice extraction to testing astronauts*. I guess they don’t get out much.

*My washing machine has one, too, but so far we haven’t had the weapons inspectors round.

VFM

"£7.6m with HP"

Nearly eight sets of ink refills, then..?

Moving on

One might have hoped that the Wikileaks debacle would have put Gary McKinnon's little excursion into proper perspective. After all, his only crime was to gain access to a network that seems to remain just as unsecure. Still, it should help his defence...