Posts by Little Mouse

Re: OMFG...

I'm sure I read an El-Reg article not four or five years ago about an individual who generated his own gut-alcohol every time he ate.

Or did I dream it?

Seconded. Sublime "Time Waster Letters" material, but for real.

Thanks for sharing, Dabbsy.

Re: "I won't even have to take a backup of the database"

"There is no such thing as too many backups"

There is when the backups in question are all incrementals, going back weeks and weeks, and you need to restore a tiny piece from every bastard one of them to restore the full data set.

Re: Three year olds can't read

Damn - that's put me in my place.

I thought I'd done pretty well reading Watership Down when I was eight...

Re: Core

Heh - that's some seriously dense gas.

Re: Can I upvote the headline?

All the UK news outlets simultaneously started pronouncing the name "Wah-way" around 4 weeks or so ago - a bit like when Princess Eugeeenie suddenly became Princess "Eu-zjhennie" overnight.

It's probably closer to the true pronunciation, but it certainly doesn't scan as well.

Re: One OS to rule them all...

We didn't have to learn it from Windows. Pretty much every smart device under the sun ticks that box.

We did learn from MS not to buy hardware before the requirement specs had been nailed down though. Remember those "Vista Ready" laptops?

Re: oldest white dwarfs

...or Magic!

Re: Red shirt guy goes first

I know what you mean. It's such a shame they never got repeated.

Re: NWA

On a recent trip to Yorkshire I was much amused to see estate agent boards displaying "NWA"in large letters.

Hope I'm not breaking site rules by mentioning that. I am in no way associated with Neil Wright Associates, nor have I ever bought/sold a house through them.

Re: Warning: Joke Alert!

Unlike Mars, the Moon just doesn't do itself any favours because it actually looks like an indoor movie set.

There's no colour to the sky and no familiar landscape features that give us a sense of scale or distance , etc.

Personally I like the name.

There's something pleasing in the idea of putting a roof box on a sporty coupe.

Fun, yet practical.

Re: Okay, we're going to be using spin now - then what ?

"but once you're down to electron spin..."

New Scientist did an interesting article on the "ultimate" computer around 25 years ago, assuming that Science & Ingenuity would always find a way around the limits of technology for speed / storage / etc, until you reached the physical properties of the atomic/subatomic particles that the thing was actually made of.

Fortunately we've still got quite a way to go yet.

Re: ICL - It Can't Last

"but .. It Could Linger"

You mean - it kinda lingers?

Re: People who can't do a job

Most offices have one of those.

For anyone who's never come across one of these people - beware - it might be you.

Re: Just the Usual...

A local VIP spilled coffee on his laptop, and when I opened it up to take a look, it had all turned into beer.

Truly, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

Re: No Brainer

IIRC - That'd be Tom Dick & Sally, The Three Bears & the 2nd page of Dennis the Menace.

Re: Unplugging the keyboard = kernel panic ?

Just a few days into my first proper job the unix sysadmin wanted to show off the insides of the shiny new Ultrix mainframe to me.

Unfortunately, removing the backplate caused an instant loss of power. Oops.

I learned a lot of lessons that week...

Re: Partial solution

Nets are so indiscriminate.

We'll probably end up snagging some unfortunate space dolphins.

Re: Dangerous

"Most hospitals won't even confirm receipt of a fax. If you're trying to refer a patient, that's dangerous."

*This*

Been a victim of this myself, 5 years ago. Couldn't believe that a) they were still using (and relying on) faxes and b) that there was no checking whatsoever that the fax had been received. No formal handover of the patient's notes at all.

I eventually got my heart scan months later after a second, successful, referral attempt (which only happened after I actively chased it down) and it came back good news. It still concerns me now that others may not have been so lucky, and for such a stupid reason.

Re: "Snoopy characters"

Some ensemble or supporting characters sometimes just stand out and become the star, regardless of the creator's intentions:

Hawkeye Pearce

Bart Simpson

The Fonz

Arnold Drummond

To name but a few.

Nah - I think it says

"E=m"

I wonder what's written on the next fragment?

Re: FUCK

I came here to post that we really need a "Fuck Right Off" icon. But I'll settle for plain old "Fuck Off" at a pinch.

Please, El-Reg?

Re: Send NASA to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave

"if all else fails, hit it with a big hammer"

In that one particular case I'd recommend the use of Maxwell's Silver Hammer*

(* Not to be confused with "Hammers" - A genuine medical technique for curing all sorts of ailments)

Re: Hope it's true

"because energy applied to them just makes them heavier"

Very true, and succinctly explains why objects with mass can never be accelerated past light speed.

But I do remember reading aeons ago though that, according to the maths anyway, this wouldn't pose a problem to objects already travelling faster than light.

OK, so I'm nitpicking. But did anything ever come of this line of enquiry? Could such particles exist in the real world?