* Posts by Rattus Rattus

1068 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Oct 2009

Phillies fan tasered for field incursion

Rattus Rattus

American football violent?

Hardly. Play some rugby, which is kinda similar but without all the pansy padding.

Pirate Bay dishes up Iron Man 2 ahead of US release

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Backstab? Boycott? Puh-lease.

It's just how the rest of the world is made to wait (usually longer than this) for EVERY movie. If you want to boycott because of the industry's habit of suing their customers or calling them thieves, go right ahead. But it sounds a bit like a tantrum to call for a boycott just because the US gets a tiny taste of what it's like everywhere else.

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Red carpet premieres

Nobody really cares about "red carpet premieres" or where in the world the actors (I refuse to call them stars) are at the time. That sort of thing is for Hollywood where all the industry bods can congratulate each other in a big media-attended circle-jerk. We just want to see the film.

.XXX accuses ICANN of 'lip service' on porn domain

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Should it be ".wtf"

or should it be ".chan" ?

Jobs: One million iPads sold

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If only it wasn't made by Apple

I think the iPad is a great concept, it's just ruined by being so locked down. I'd like a nice tablet device like this if it didn't have such artificial limitations. Bring on an Android tablet with decent specs and I'll buy it. Just don't give me Steve Jobs' brushed aluminium shackles.

California's 'Zero Energy House' is actually massive fossil hog

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@ John Smith 19 and Herby

I don't mean to be rude, but I still don't get it, I'm sorry. I've lived for years in share houses that had:

A) 2 Males, 1 Female (3 bed, 1 bath)

B) 2 Males, 2 Females (3 bed, 1 bath)

C) 3 Males, 2 Females (3 bed, 1 bath)

D) 5 Males, 3 Females (5 bed, 2 bath)

and none of those configurations had any problems with sharing the bathrooms. It's just courtesy, really, to do what you need to in there and get out. If several people need to get showered and ready for work, it's incredibly rude to hog the bathroom, and in my experience would result in hot taps in the rest of the house being turned on so the offender gets an ice-cold shower until he/she vacates the room to let in the next person.

If it's a question of (assumedly) a lady spending way too long inside doing hair/makeup, again I see that as incredibly rude and selfish. People have mirrors in their bedrooms where this sort of thing can be done without inconveniencing the rest of the house.

I must admit, though, I haven't lived in a house where females outnumbered males. If bathroom time in that situation is really that much of an issue, what do they do in there?

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Three bed, three bath?

What? Why on earth does each bedroom need it's own individual bathroom? With only three bedrooms there should only be one bathroom. If they had five or six bedrooms, I could understand the need to *maybe* have two bathrooms. As others have pointed out, it's the wasteful attitudes of people that need changing more than the building technologies.

Megan Fox not world's sexiest woman: Official

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They're all...

...too skinny, too annoying, too tanned and most of 'em are too blonde. Why was Christina Hendricks not in this list?

US boffins fashion quantum-computing bit out of SQUID

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As far as I understand it,

quantum computing really is knowing what the answer is and then applying it back to your calculations, only quantum computing lets you do that WHEN YOU DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THE ANSWER IS. That's the part that makes it weird and cool and brain-hurting.

Google backpedals on IP 'anonymization' claim

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@ heyrick, who just did an image search for Maggie Thatcher

You poor dear! Are you going to be okay?

Microsoft's Office Web Apps - Google killing not included

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re: "add real value to SharePoint"

The only thing that'll add real value to Sharepoint is a flamethrower.

Hawking: Aliens are out there, likely to be Bad News

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WTF?

re: "Reasonably we can assume..."

What? Why? I could just as easily assert that we can assume any advanced alien species will be made of chocolate. I have every bit as much evidence for that assertion as do you for yours.

Android on an iPhone? There's an app for that

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Troll

re: "can't judge Windows based upon" etc

Of course you can. Binder was shit, Vista is shit, and that sums up the rest of Microsoft's output pretty well. Of course, the rest is not quite AS shit as Vista, but it still gives you the general idea.

Apple in shock public attack on Adobe

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+1 from me

No Quicktime, iTunes or Realplayer is allowed anywhere near my network.

Adobe gives up on the iPhone

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Thumb Up

Oh, yeah

That would be hilarious.

Pinhead Mac Trojan sticks it to fanbois

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re: "Where do you think Microsoft got the idea for UAC from?"

From sudo, yes?

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ATMs

Hang on, now I'm curious. The freezing and X-raying I can understand, but what did they need to use a gun on it for?

Apple leaves profits on table for 'huge' iPad future

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So what you're saying is

that Macs are for the cattle (moo!), and Linux is for those who Think Different?

iPhone users suffer summer appointment chaos

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"Move to a different timezone."

"Not that big of a deal."

Sent from my... etc etc

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Oh hell yes.

The state I live in, under pressure from the business lobby, tries out DST every twenty years or so. We just recently gave it another three year trial. What an absolute pain in the arse it was, both on a personal level and the sheer number of support calls it generated (mostly Outlook-related), twice a year.

At the end of the three years, we once again held a referendum to see if we should keep DST permanently, and once again the referendum gave a resounding "No!" I guess in another twenty years they'll be pushing for it again.

Obama 'deep space' Mars plans in Boeing booster bitchslap

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That's an interesting idea

That's not a bad idea, from a pragmatic point of view. The reason it can't be done, though, is because it would be a public relations nightmare. Remember all the fuss about Terri Schiavo? Can you imagine how much bigger the outcry would be about "sentencing to death" ('cos that's how it would be sensationalised) a group of people who still had all their faculties? Especially doing it in service of that black magic "science" that much of the US population seems to think is only a few steps removed from Satanism?

It's a clever idea that might work if the US had a higher proportion of rational people, but while half their population is still mentally stuck in the dark ages it'll never be accepted.

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Yes please, with caveats

A space elevator would make me very very happy. We don't yet have the materials science to make it happen, though, or the working-in-space experience. Although it sounds crazy, I think we are probably closer to being able to achieve a space fountain than an elevator. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain)

Of course, either a fountain or elevator would be incredibly dangerous to a massive number of people if it ever went wrong, though, so I'm not sure I'd trust the usual government idea of contracting it out to the lowest bidder.

'iPhone 4G' found on floor of bar

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"They're going to see it all eventually, so who cares how they get it?"

Hear, hear! I completely agree.

...

Hang on, we ARE talking about sex ed in schools, aren't we?

School secretly snapped 1000s of students at home

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FAIL

After eight years

of a lying scumbag as president, who thinks of the Constitution as "just a piece of paper," ideas like unreasonable search and seizure are probably out of fashion now.

When your goverment can listen in on the whole country's phone conversations and never have to show due cause, when anything goes in the name of catching "turrrists," when the One Commandment is "Thou Shalt Not Get Caught," it probably gets a little murky sorting out right from wrong.

Volcanic Eyjafjallajökull dirt-splurt space snap

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Thumb Up

"Dirt-splurt"

Hahahahahahaha... <wipes away tear>

Lewis, please don't ever leave The Register.

Obama: We're off to Mars

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Go

Enough to make a difference

Sure it will! All we really need to have off-planet is a few thousand individuals to form a minimum viable population. With a bit of research and investment we'll easily be able to launch a lot more than that. Natural human urges will take care of the rest. It probably wouldn't be that many generations before there would be more space-born than Earth-born.

As for the "lifestyle" you describe - again, with research and investment it can be a lot more pleasant than that. And even if it wasn't, I'm still happy to put my hand up right now if they'd take me and I don't think it'll be hard to find enough volunteers. The biggest hurdle is simply the money which, as I said, we're currently wasting in huge amounts on pointless crap.

The sooner we start, the sooner we can make it comfortable, safe, and routine.

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I forgot

Also, AC, I do want to say I agree with you whole-heartedly that we need to learn how make society work right here on Earth too. That's not in doubt. In fact, spin-off from the research required to begin to make life viable in space will help vastly in that regard. Energy research and resource recycling (including gases, biowaste and even "waste" energy) will be particularly important in this regard, as will the psychological and sociological work required to let large numbers of humans live in constructed environments without killing each other.

I want to see, eventually, multiple population centres of humans in this solar system, all at peace with one another and working together for the good of our species. I just don't want to see us remaining restricted to only the one world, and the longer it takes us to begin this kind of work the less likely it is that we'll survive that long.

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He's right, though.

We need to go into space, for resources and lebensraum. If we never leave the Earth, we are doomed as a species. Sure, we're not going to be traveling to any other star any time soon, but we need to get off this rock. We need to learn how to live in space, build habitats, dig them into asteroids, colonise Mars, the lot. Until we do, all our eggs are in one basket and a sufficiently large disaster will mean no more humans. Seen any dinosaurs around lately?

Food production is not a problem, we already produce far more food than is needed by the world's population. Hell, the US pays farmers to not grow food! The problem is working out a way to share it fairly. Energy production is further behind, but we are working on that and could be putting a lot more work into it if we weren't pissing away money on stupid shit, like pulling banks out of the hole they dug for themselves or fighting a war that should never have been started.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Steve Jobs bans all apps from iPhone (or thereabouts)

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When I bought a new phone

I had a choice between an iPhone and an Android device. I chose Android, and as time goes on I am ever more happy with my choice. If I had an iPhone, I think I'd be getting worried now whether some of apps might no longer appear on my phone, or at least would no longer have updates and improved versions available.

Apple bans Pulitzer Prize political cartoons from iPhone

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The cartoons are on his web page

However, you need Flash to view them.

Herd of sheep, off tits on drugs, savagely Tased

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(untitled)

Choirboys.

Death row inmate claims allergy to lethal injection

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So,

he DOES still carry the bill-collecting one then?

Shrek's Donkey poses with bustier-clad strumpet

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Ba-dum tish

...and <wince>

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Paris?

erm, doesn't a bustiere generally require the wearer to have a bust of some description?

US gov cries foul on MPAA piracy claims

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@PirateSlayer

"Now look what you made me do."

Neil Armstrong slams 'devastating' Constellation cancellation

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Or better yet

perhaps the banks could give back a fraction of a percent of their bailout money and pay for the whole program, right up to the trip to Mars and back?

I just don't understand the priorities some people have.

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"a long downhill slide to mediocrity"

He's quite wrong there. It will actually be pretty short.

Atom runs Android, Google plans tablet

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I'd have to agree with xpert_con

I've had my Nexus One for about a month, and I love it. It sucks that AC's N1 was damaged before he received it, and he was certainly right to return it, but what I've been hearing on forums (and my own experience) is that satisfied customers vastly outnumber those who are having issues. I would hope that one unfortunate experience can be put behind you, and you give Android devices another try.

I would really like to see a good Android-powered tablet out there. I really liked the concept of the iPad, I just think it's implementation sucks arse. The same kind of concept but running a decent OS will make for a really sexy bit of kit.

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Nice

I think the WePad sounds pretty cool. I like the philosophy behind their design as they state it on their page. I'm tempted to pre-order one when it's a bit closer to ready.

However... whose idea was it to use so much yellow in their logo? I mean, really. You can just about ignore the name if you try, but then to be looking at a logo full of trails and blotches of yellow, that's really not a smart marketing move. Those Germans, eh?

French city in pedestrian-powered streetlight plan

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Nope

We in Australia do wine best, the French can suck it.

As for the other spelling (whine)... who can really say if the Frech do that best, when there are so many contenders for that crown.

Google to open source $124.6m video codec, says report

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"to wish for the demise of other useful technologies"

I wasn't wishing for the demise of any useful technologies, I was wishing for the demise of Quicktime. Fuck Quicktime. Fuck it long and hard, with a splintery pole studded with rusty nails. It's a horrible container format that makes it far harder than it should be to do anything with it's contents, even simply playing it back.

Why not use a container that won't try to fight the user and scream "No! You'll do things MY way or not at all!" Hmm, does that sound familiar, coming from an Apple product? Why not use a genuinely useful container such as OGG, for example? Or MKV? Or, indeed, anything but Quicktime?

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Apple's "standards"

So, Google's move might also help usher in the demise of Quicktime as well as that of Flash?

If that's the case, then more power to the chocolate factory!

Adobe to sue Apple 'within weeks,' says report

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re: Apple doesn't want people porting substandard trash

Of course they don't, the app store is drowning in enough of that already!

Antarctic boffins obtain prehistoric deep ice core sample

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Tekeli-li!

That is all.

Facebook rejects CEOP 'panic button' demands (again)

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Pint

"serving an image every time FB shows a page"

Now that I like! Put the damn button (served by CEOP's servers of course) on every single facebook page, flag it as something not to be cached, and wait for CEOP to declare bankruptcy. Maybe help it along a bit by making sure the image is refreshed every time the display is updated in Farmville.

Murdoch tells old media to 'stand up' to Google, Bing

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re: "form his own political party"

He has. They're called the Republicans.

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Thumb Up

Love it.

As time goes on, Murdoch is becoming less and less relevant. This can only be a good thing for the world.

Apple shrugs to iPad Wi-Fi problems

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Please, man,

learn about punctuation. I feel out of breath just trying to read that.

HTC Desire

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re: Google Earth

I'd have to agree, Google Maps is more useful and more CPU (and therefore battery!) friendly. However, I put Google Earth on my Nexus One anyway, 'cause it's just more FUN than Google Maps. That's what Earth has over Maps.

Normal Human Being™ reviews the iPad

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Joke

re: normal humans that use spreadsheets heavily

I doubt it. I suspect that what you really know are accountants, actuaries, and similar related critters. These strange yet totally uninteresting creatures can sometimes be mistaken for normal human beings, but can be readily identified by their obsessive love of numbers in regular columns, their monotonous, droning vocalisations, and, yes that's right, their enormous spreadsheets.