Posts by VinceH

Re: @ VinceH

@jake

Try looking down the back of your sofa, behind the fridge, or in whichever cupboard you look in least often. That'll be where it is - your misplaced sense of humour.

Re: I then got told off for "breaking" the girl's program.

"Ah, the joys of a teacher who doesn't want to be shown up. Far too many of them in the world..."

Yeah, but things did change. I can't remember how far into the year that was - but as it progressed, the guy did come to realise what I was capable of. Somewhere down the line I stopped being a student and started assisting, and at one point while the class was learning some rubbish or other he tasked me with writing a nice little database for his model cars.

Re: Short Version

"**USA** Yes. Sorry. We lied. But we won't do it again

**Europe** That's all right then."

You've forgotten to take into account the 'annual joint review' - a written commitment by the US, and an audit by both sides:

[Once per year]

** US ** Dear Europe, we can confirm that we will not snoop on your citizens' data. Yours, The US.

** US Sock Puppet** Yup, Europe, I've checked, my country is definitely sticking to its promise, you can take my word on that.

** Europe ** Is your Sock Puppet correct? Are you definitely sticking to your promise not to snoop on us?

** US ** Oh, definitely, definitely. There's no way we'd do that again. No way.

** Europe ** Promise?

** US ** We swear!

** Europe ** Okay, then! We'll be back to check again next year!

Re: Hitting the "k"

Soda Water Impulse Firing Test

I suspect your opinion is shared by those involved - hence the changes. I suspect the whole point was to improve on the original design, aided by a larger budget for the effects.

Re: Schoolyard

Reminds me of the old phrase: "If you can't dazzle with brilliance, baffle with bullshit."

The earlier claim that the cookies are necessary for security: That was bullshit.

This attempt at being pedantic over the lingo used? That's desperation!

IIRC, Commodore BASIC as used on the Vic 20 and C64 had that first two character approach - though probably not the only version.

Re: Missing answers...

I thought that was the "Wow" option for the second question. At least, I read the "Wow" as an unenthusiastic, "who gives a shit?" kind of wow.

Re: Hosts

"PS. Why not use localhost? It resolves instantly, never goes out on the wire, and can be handled to your tastes, unlike any other number you can think of."

Good question. (Especially since I've just suggested using 127.0.0.1 to people on a mailing list!)

Re: HeadlinesHeadlines

Can't say I remember seeing El Reg double up words for a TalkTalk related headline before.

I'd like to think they've been inspired to start that as a policy by my comment of a couple of weeks ago. ;)

(Although one further up this comment thread is better.)

"I'll have to change both of mine, fortunately I wrote the codes "1234" and "5687" on the shackles so I didn't get locked out."

The mistake you made was writing the right code on the right shackle. What you should have done was write the code for each on the other shackle. That way, you'd be perfectly safe.

Re: A sad day

"Apple will take it, make it pretty" — and that's bad ... how?

I think the part that should be frowned upon is covered by the rest of that sentence.

Re: flash?

Limit which sources of Javascript are allowed to run (and ensure the right one is blocked¹), and instead of an embedded Flash video you'll just get a YouTube link - and clicking through to YouTube means you can see the video using HTML5 rather than Flash.

^{1. jwpsrv.com, IIRC. It's one of the ones that doesn't run here, and I think it's the one for the embedded videos.}

No idea. I hadn't considered anything like that. It was just a GCSE thing I did in my very early 20s for fun (already had an O level from school), and I was specifically looking at Titius-Bode for the main part, then the Drake equation towards the end.

The point was that Titius-Bode works as an approximation until you hit Neptune for the ninth position (the fifth is Ceres/the asteroid belt) - and then, of course, Pluto is wrong for the tenth.

Take Neptune out though, and Pluto is in the right place for the ninth value in the sequence - so I suggested Neptune didn't originate hereabouts. (If memory serves, I suggested that its arrival could be one explanation for Uranus' axial tilt - not as an ongoing thing, but simply that it had an effect when it came too close, before finding itself in a more stable orbit.)

The two distances in my previous post are therefore 10th and 11th.

Edit: I think I may also have suggested it caused a larger body in fifth position to break up and become the asteroid belt - though these days I believe the consensus is that there isn't enough material there for it to have formed a planet to start with.

OTOH, perhaps that's because the missing material ended up scattered more widely, and some of it may have been the material in the bombardment. And if this theorised new planet has such an odd orbital plane, maybe it caused that as well. :)

Edit again: I found the file with that coursework on a while back, but didn't have the right software to read it. I do have the software now, so just need to find the file again. It'd be fun to read it again, and perhaps tidy it up/shorten it - and if necessary fix some of the out of date info - and throw it on my blog or something.

Re: The government gave a specific reason when they created the exemption

"On the contrary, the music industry *loves* an excuse to sell you the same music you've already bought, over and over in different formats."

Yes, but Flocke specifically said the musicians rather than the music industry. The industry isn't just the musicians - it's a lot of other people as well.

"In 25 years or so, all facts will be total bullshit but true!"

And all thanks to the magic of citogenisis!

Re: Cool!, looks just like the one that Steve Austin flew in The Six Million Dollar Man...

It does, a bit!

I believe that was real crash footage from some experimental vehicle.

Re: Javascript cons:

It certainly does in this case - nice fix!

Re: Note to the editor

"it irked me for some inexplicable reason"

Probably because it made things harder to read.

Re: FFS

Are you sure? I was thinking that as a result of the recent hackhack, TalkTalk talked and talked amongst themselves and concluded the best defence against that happening again in future was to disconnect absolutely everything - including their customers - so that they can neither be hacked nor socially engineered.

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

"Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux" etc

Shouldn't the full version go:

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Apple, Apple

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Apple, Apple

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Apple, Apple

Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Argh, Windows, Windows, ooh, it's Windows!

[Repeating ad infinitum]

Re: Vulturebot ?

An excellent idea! C'mon El Reg!

After the business with David Slater, they'll never get a penny off me. There's no need to feel guilty about it - just do your best to avoid using Wikipedia if at all possible.

Re: Pick your poison

"Great. Just as I had replaced AVG with TM."

I've been using it for a good few years now and have even been recommending it to people. :/

"Bit worried about this bit. Who does that apply to? What happens if you don't? It's a nice idea in theory, but if you're the only one doing it, it'll make your site look dead sketchy. Definitely not going to be an early adopter of this..."

Just hide the link in the cellar, with no lights, no stairs, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard" the terms and conditions/legal blurb. That's what the bigger companies will do, unless the obligation is to display it prominently, on every page. (The linked PDF doesn't say anything more than the article: that online retailers must have a link on their site).