Posts by Phil Hare

As James May pointed out...

...the efficiency of Hydrogen extraction will increase in line with the economic driver. No pun intended but, happily, stumbled upon.

For fuck's sake people

I'm not getting involved with this discussion as such, even though I do have pretty strong views about it, but please, please guys, look up the word "theory". Definition:

"A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena"

Many of you are confusing the word "theory" with the word "hypothesis". Stop it. Just stop it.

Add it to the driving test?

Mobile phones aren't going away, and criminalising their use means that people would not only be talking and driving at the same time, they would be talking and driving *and* looking out for police cars. The law will actually make people that use their phones whilst driving *less* safe, but it is highly unlikely to deter people from doing using them after the investment made in a hands-free kit.

The emergency services, on the other hand, are trained in using their radios whilst driving safely, so perhaps this should be incorporated in to the driving test. Or perhaps whether or not a person is driving safely should be left up to the police on the ground. Personally if I was driving (which I don't any more, because I'm bored with the whole concept and public transport where I live is quite entertaining) on the motorway and came across another vehicle driving perfectly safely whilst the driver was using a hands free kit, I would not fear for my life any more than I would if they had passengers. Furthermore, I don't put idiotic driving by a person on the phone down to the fact that they're on the phone, but down to the fact that they're an idiot.

Incidentally, this legislation won't happen; it would deliver a serious blow to one of the few industries left that is actually making a profit as well as the other industries (such as couriers) that have adapted to rely on the technology.

It's a nice idea, but it's seriously flawed.

If the player won't play...

...the millions of CD's that are out there already, the technology will struggle to expand.

I have a PS3, and I am now buying films on Blu-Ray. Only new ones, though, as I don't see the point in buying films I already own on DVD because they will work perfectly well in my PS3, as they will in any other Blu-Ray player. Same with my CD's, that also work in my car stereo and billions of other CD, DVD and Blu-Ray (oh, and HD-DVD of course) players around the globe.

SD will quickly find itself limited to the mobile market, and the mobile market will quickly realise that pissing around with teeny little SD cards to change from one album to another when a normal MP3 player will let you do it at the click of a button isn't worth the hassle. SD cards slots on MP3 players? Great idea. One album per SD? Crap idea.

I think it was Frankie Boyle that said...

..."Calling a crash landing on the moon a "success" is like saying you've successfully swum the channel because you're corpse washed up on a French beach."

'Nuff said.

I liked YouTube

That's the end of that then.

$65m for 180?

That's roughly $360,000 per unit. I'm fairly certain my local model plane club and some open sourcers could come up with an alternative for $360 a pop.

This is fine by me

The more taxes on the rich and stupid, the better.

Where is my George W Bush Doll?

WHERE IS MY GEORGE W BUSH DOLL!?

Oh, and El reg? A Ballmer doll would be highly useful for anyone that has to deal with Windoze boxes on a regular basis...

I have a question

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

I'm fairly certain that those among us that voted for NuLabour didn't vote for this bollocks. This is the fourth story I've seen today that's made me wince at the opportunities for abuse of power opening up before us. They say they're doing all this to stop terrorists. Fine, assuming that all the terrorists out there know they're terrorists. What if some of them don't yet know they're terrorists? What if there's a senior civil servant out there who's two injustices away from going postal? If we centralise all this power it's not a question of if someone is going to abuse it, but when. History has shown us this on many occassions in the past.

"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely" - the first Baron Acton

Depends on what you want

The failing with Chromes "incognito" mode was the possibility that usage data was still going back to Google. Not so with Iron. It means that there is now a method of browsing the web that, in theory, is private both locally and server side.

"Director Womak"

If I remember correctly that's the name of the FBI director in "The Rock".

Black helicopter for obvious reasons.

As opposed to WTF? Taekwondo

Which is just the same but in an El Reg T-Shirt.

Every time GIMPS appears in the news...

...I always chcukle at the memory of a BBC Radio 4 documentary suggesting that if the listener wanted to take part in the search for primes they should type "GIMPS" in to a search engine.

Ah, the innocence...

I really hope...

...that those companies that were raided and are found not to have infringed any patents sue Sisvel and the German government for everything they can. This kind of bad press sticks, and if the companies in question have done no wrong then an apology (which they probably wouldn't get) isn't enough.

M$ search is third because...

...it simply doesn't find what you're looking for. If I use Live search to try and find anything, it just doesn't find what I need. Google does. End of.

Paris because you'd be better off calling her and asking her to guess where what you're looking for might be than using Live search.

As much fun as dumping on the pulpit sheep is...

...let us not forget the people who will actually be affected by this: the students. These guys have based years of work on Christian propoganda text books because that's what they were told to do, by their school and usually by their family. This is not their fault, but they're the ones that are paying for it.

I realise that in the long run this kind of action could (but let's face it, won't) drive Bible-bash based schools towards a broader and more objective curriculum, but that doesn't help these poor kids, who after all have been learning *something* over the past few years, however speculative / scientifically questionable / outright false it may be. It could, at the very least, form a grounding for asking questions, even if many of us feel that they'll be the wrong ones.

If UC has any sense it will at least look at putting an access course together for these students to try and rescue them from the path of the zealot they will otherwise undoubtably follow.

So they're going to fire it up...

...on my birthday. People, the way my luck is going we should all be very, very afraid...

To agree with "Nanny state..."

...allowing a child free access to the internet is tantamount to allowing them to play hopscotch on the M6.

However, the knowledge gap for many parents can be too much to bridge for them to be relied upon to keep their children safe from the internet without denying the child access completely.

One possible solution would be a certification program, where browsers can be set only certificates that carry a valid certificate. This will force those sites that wish to maintain a child audience to comply with whatever standard is deemed required.

Questions

"Powerset's founders are betting web users want to ask search engines real grammatical questions"

Not really; I suspect people would be far more interested in real, context specific grammatical *answers*.

@"And next..."

Amen.

@Seanie Ryan

I'll stop saying 'it' if you bring me...

...a shrubbery!

Does that photo remind anyone else...

...of Rory Bremnar doing his David Blunkett impression?

They're going for around £200 online

And on that note, all I can say is "Foxtrot Oscar, sir".

Photos

To compound the problem, a Volvo it ain't.

http://www.zercustoms.com/photos/IFR-Aspid-Debut.html

"Non-human genetic material"

What, like a cat? What happens if they find one?

By this reasoning...

...it won't be long before they start arresting people for using Open Source alternatives.

Very good...

I'm beginning to think Andrew put mine up there just to show everyone how lazy I actually am.

Brilliant work from everyone else!

Pub time...

RE: Access Denied

I retract my last comment. It's more likely it's because I didn't click on the link in their email.

Paris, because she would have spotted my mistake.