Posts by James Pickett

Dag-nabbit

So Gary McKinnon taught them nothing..? I'm looking forward to the next batch of leaks already.

@Neil Barnes

In a curious bit of synchronicity, I found myself reciting that to my son at the weekend, when 'shag' came up in a game of Scrabble, and he needed convincing that it had a polite meaning. Nice to know I'm not the only one who remembers it - thank you.

@AC

"shut down 4chan for good"

Might be difficult! It helps channel a lot of energy in a relatively harmless direction, IMO, and anyone who can derail the both the RIAA and Scientologists can't be all bad.

Safety

Hard not to be amused by the 'Get Safe' promotional puff: "expert advice from the British government".

Sounds like a non-sequitur to me...

Alive and well

I was pleased to hear a recent birth announcement on the radio expressed in pounds and ounces. Metric never quite cuts it for babies, somehow.

Rot

Planting a tree only sequesters carbon while it’s growing. Useful, but not permanent, as it will eventually release the carbon back to the atmosphere when it is burned, or rots, at which point carbon traders should ask for their money back.

Next trip

Well done, chaps. The albedo effect of those clouds looks quite significant - can it be that they help keep us cool? Next time, if the scale allows, perhaps you could send a climatologist...

@nimbys

"They are not rare and there are plenty of sources everywhere"

That sounds plausible. It would be a very strange quirk of nature that put all the Lanthanides inside one political border...

Watt's up?

"Vidal and the subs there plainly don't really know what a Watt actually is."

Well it is the Grauniad, who wouldn't know a unit of electricity if it zapped them on the leg . Probably why they still think that all that CO2 in the atmosphere (<0.04%) will lead to thermageddon...

Weasels

The piece of law that says, in effect, that you can’t complain about a non-compliance after six months needs to be sorted out too. The University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit has used that already to wriggle off the ICO’s hook and parliament sits on its hands because it doesn’t want too much enquiry into anything that keeps the population alarmed and allows them to invent new taxes. IMO, of course.

(The politicians are the weasels, BTW. CG sounds a reasonable bloke.)

Math(s)

"350 million new PCs sold in the last year and 240 million licenses of the year-old Windows 7."

So what was on the other 110 million..?

Consistency

“This government sees transport as a key driver of growth”

So how do they square that with cutting down on emissions and/or meeting their CO2 reduction targets? I don’t think they matter, but HMG is always telling us they do, and taxes accordingly...

Gone

“Ozzie, whose resignation was suddenly and surprisingly announced by chief executive Steve Ballmer”

Just a coincidence, or was there furniture involved?

Alternative

Silly me - I thought you meant the three-wheeler...

Bong

So where did Bing come..?

Panic

All the harrumphing by the Pentagon (and The Sun, natch) about security and ‘our brave boys’ (TM) merely draws attention to the nakedness of the Emperor. Such information is way too old to make much difference on the ground, and as for long-term strategy, it would be nice if we had one. This won’t affect the squaddies, but it might make people wonder how the spooks justify their existence in the information age.

Value

Won't the interleaving cause trouble when the digital signals are turned up to full power? My understanding is that they are currently on low power to avoid co-channel interference with the analogue signals, so it seems reasonable to assume that the reverse will be true after switch-over. Will they be worth anything to anyone, in other words..?

ad nauseam

A new version every 3 years? I make that Windows 37 by the end of the century - but will anyone care, or MS still be in business? I doubt it.

Nooo!

A government project to improve security? Isn't that a contradiction in terms..?

Warming effect

"solar warming probably has little effect on the Earth's temperature"

Zat so? I think even the Grauniad would find it noticeably cooler without it.

HP source

May I suggest that civil servants supply their own pens, paper, ink and laptops, for which cost ceilings are firmly established and allowances compared?

Gravy

"most supporters could make more money by denying climate change"

Really? Do tell...

Eh?

"a door hinge issue"

You have to wonder about the complicated bits if they can't even get the door hinges right...

Eh?

"The City of London police dropped their investigation of the Phorm trial, claiming BT had reasonable grounds to believe it had customers' consent"

How do they work that out, then? Did BT threaten to cut off their phone lines if they didn't drop the case?

I hope HMG will pass on any euro-fines to BT, otherwise we will all end up paying for Mr Ertegrul's little adventure.

SCO reloaded

Crossley would seem to be new Darl McBride. I wonder how long he will cling to the wreckage?

BTW, El Reg, what happened to my earlier post under 'Just Desserts'? I don't remember saying anything too contentious...

Two cheers

Now, if he'd drop his attachment to man-made global warming and carbon taxes, I'd begin to like him...

Bloat

For a reader, the Adobe version is seriously bloated. I notice that the most popular version on oldversion.com is v.5, which is a whole lot smaller. Not as small as Foxit though...

Bangernomics

"The Cubans have proven that the V8 can actually last forever"

I think most of their old Fords and Chevys now have Lada engines (wince), if only for economy reasons. I'm all in favour of keeping cars running, however - perhaps we'll get back to ones that can be easily maintained!

@cancelled

"he's already lost more than he could have ever gained"

Apart from becoming (in)famous! And now every like-minded 'Christian' in the US (and there will be plenty) will be joining up and sending him money. There's no such thing as bad publicity, especially in the Land of the Gullible...

And he's starting to retract his cancellation.. :-(

@Good for James May

IIRC, the Aerocar he flew in was over 50 years old and carried both him and an American, presumably totalling >330lb. Progress, eh?

@Sarah

I was trying not to think too much about that, but you are quite correct. You clearly take your work seriously.. :-)

Evidence, innit?

If the police can't tell the difference between happy-slapping and journalism, there's not much hope.