Thermodynamic Turtles
@AC
>Heretic! There are only 4 elephants! It's *turtles* all the way down!
One Turtle only, please. We don't need no stinking extra universes.
Posts by Steve VanSlyck
37 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2007
45th Mersenne prime discovered (possibly)
Ohio official sues e-vote vendor for sloppy counting
Sunday 10th August 2008 10:51 GMT
Screwed Up from Day 1
This would have been so easy. Here's my thoughts from the time when "they" first started spouting the electronic voting idea:
1. Go into a booth.
2. Do the touch screen thing to select various candidates/issues to vote against.
3. Your ballot prints out on a laser printer
4. You look at it to confirm it's right.
5. You put it into an OCR reader.
6. Ballot pops out the other side.
7. You toss it into a lockbox and go to Waffle House.
The ballot is counted electronically twice and left on paper for audit. What could be simpler? What could be cheaper?
MS takes Windows 3.11 out of embed to put to bed
Saturday 12th July 2008 16:16 GMT 
Come Children - BELIEVE!
"[E]veryone who actually remembers using this operating system is long gone."
What?
I clearly remember seeing the "Windows Toy," as I liked to call it, start up on a computer I purchased when I was in college. It was an accident - I hadn't yet edited it out of autoexec.bat.
But I do remember! I do, I do, I DO remember!
Final Arthur C Clarke novel on the way
US regulators lapse into state of approval for HP's EDS buy
Uncontacted rainforest tribe caught from the air
Microsoft gives XP an extra two years to live (kinda)
Mobo maker builds 'powerless' processor cooling fan
Is this the world's most expensive desktop PC?
Germans send teen tearaway to Siberia
Heavily armed cops raid IM chat
Apple keeps critical security fixes to itself
Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's
Saturday 15th December 2007 01:07 GMT 
Aw, Crapulence!
The hands-down best Destroyer of English (and Gluminosity) in decades. P. Anthony could not hold my interest, but book-after-book-after-book - and let's not forget Good Omens - Terry kept creating. Yes, he IS a British national treasure, and in fact a national treasure of English writing and English literature. Keep on writing, Terry!
El Reg fires up online standards converter
Motorola Razr 2 V8 mobile phone
Wednesday 31st October 2007 23:55 GMT 
Yawn
Great review, but it discussed everything *except* the most eagerly anticipated item for any Motorola cellular telephone: A decent contact/address book system* combined with software that (1) has even a modicum of usefulness and (2) has had its field mapping actually tested before being released to production.
*Defined as one that allows at least two telephone numbers and one email address in each contact entry, that doesn't split such entries when saving to the SIM card (as opposed to the phone), and has zero difference in application regardless of whether an entry is saved to the phone or to the SIM card.
World's most gullible supermarket chain falls victim to online scam
Reg Standards Soviet defines temperature and force
California teen offers GPS challenge to speeding rap
Saturday 27th October 2007 16:40 GMT 
Kudos to all
Anonymous Coward: Speding is a strict liability offense. Intent don't enter into it.
Frank Bough: If you don't have an expert witness, you lose. The state, however, gets off scott free because *it* gets to "prove" reliability in a single state or district wide case and forever after the defense gets to prove itself innocent, or at least not guilty, while the state rakes in the cash.
Filippo Negroni: Yes, take EVERY case to court. In my experience, in Ohio you'll get out of about 20% of them if you do.
Hedley Phillips: BECAUSE THE LIMITS ARE WRITTEN TO PATRONISE THE LOCAL NEWS AND OTHER CHIKEN LITTLES, THAT'S WHY! Speed limits have nothing to do with the design of the road or the objective conditions. Your point, however, is well taken.
Sun grabs patent for magneto-hydrodynamic heatsink
PC superstore puts Microsoft on sale for under £150
Quantum computing spectre looms over ecommerce
Saturday 15th September 2007 15:41 GMT
Come again?
"The difficulty of factoring the product of extremely long prime number...."
What? I can do that in less time that it took to read that sentence. Let's see.... OK! Prime number times anything gives the product! Voila!
No wait - Let's go the other way. Prime number divided by itself equals 1. Voila!
So, what's the velocity of a sheep in a vacuum?
Saturday 25th August 2007 00:50 GMT
Who authorized a change to SHEEP?!
Who is El Reg to start measuring stuff by sheep?!
For aeons the standard measure of speed has been the SWALLOW; the standard measure of distance has been the OCEAN; and the standard measure of weight has been the COCONUT. Not sheep, stars, and grapefruits of all things! Traditional measures area clear, precise, and understood by all. There's no need to go mucking about and getting Science involved.
All this sheep stuff is just gonna confuse people, not to mention making life difficult for lonely adolescent shepherd boys who might not be able to keep up. Now let's have no more of this.
Psst - wanna buy a pirate MPack toolkit?
Sunday 8th July 2007 06:43 GMT
Not Legit?
"[L]egitimate software suppliers"? Do you mean that as a software supplier they're not legitimate, or that they don't supply legitimate software? Either way, what is your def. of legit? If they're doing a better job at support than "other" soft suppliers, then whose the blacksheep struggling to come in from behind the cold eight-ball?
Oz boffins tout Trekkier-than-thou teleportation system
Motorola sharpens Razr
Jesus appears in Samsung Flash memory chip
Thursday 3rd May 2007 06:06 GMT
GANDALF IS NOT FICTIONAL
How DARE you say that Gandalf is fictional?!
I have several books Right Here that talk all about him! Crap on a crutch, where have you guys been?!
As alleged journalists you should KNOW by now it couldn't be published if it weren't true!!!! MOREOVER, there's only ONE book with Jebus in it! Sheesh!
Hunters bag one of last Amur leopards
Dell: vertical lines, what vertical lines?
Monday 23rd April 2007 11:28 GMT
Yes, Customer Service SHOULD Know!
With all due respect to our venerated first commenter, Dell's customer service people /should too/ be fully aware of this issue.
Every agent should have a comprehensive, searchable database of known issues. Even a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet would be fine.
But there is no excuse for Dell not having completed a weekly update training of their telephone staff. And if they're not doing such training, well, then, they have no business even publishing a customer support or customer service telephone number.
ISP ejects whistle-blowing student
Tuesday 17th April 2007 23:37 GMT
Their Time Machine Didn't Exist Until It Was Used, Either
Hmmm. There was no vulnerability until the kid discovered it.
No, wait! There was no vulnerability until he proved that there was.
No--that's not right either. There was no vulnerability until BeThere stepped in it.
No, that can't be it . . . . I guess there just wasn't any vulnerability. Therefore there is no vulnerability . . . .
Didn't we already do this in quantum mechanics class? I'm getting a headache.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
