Posts by Colin Brett

Re: There's a reason your friend can't find a job

"In any society it's expected that the older ones move away from the day to day and help steer the younger ones. It's called "management". Sure that "old" guy may know where to fix a 20 year old 'nix bug but if he is still in the trenches then that knowledge is likely not being transferred."

I think this is way off target.

In my experience, those old guys who move into management do so because it's the logical career path that leads to salary increases. Once out of the trenches, they spend most of their time in meetings, so their skills go rusty and they have little time to pass on their knowledge to the front lines. Overall, the organisation loses.

Colin

"Like IPv4 addresses where one or more octects is often greater than 255."

I thought this was to prevent suggestible loonies actually trying to connect to that fictional IP address. If it's in a movie it must be real, right? Similar to the non-existent 555 exchange or area code used in telephone numbers.

Colin

Terminator Icon because we know it's IP address is in the 300+ range :-)

Re: re: revenge porn can affect anyone

"Of course what we apparently need is more badly worded legislation to cover specific circumstances, rather than ensuring that existing legislation can cover the requirements, because politicians need to be seen to be "doing something" in the run up to an election."

And this, in a nut shell, is the reason we will be seeing many more instances of politicians making such claims over the next few months. All they want is face-time on camera as a means to keeping their jobs.

Make your MP work. Don't re-elect him.

Colin

Re: Extraordinary claims

"Wow! And all this time I'd been thinking Spiderman's true identity was Peter Parker. It must have been a cunning bluff, obviously."

So, does that mean Cherie Blair was Mary-Jane Watson and/or Gwen Stacy.

Fire icon because there go my boyhood dreams up in smoke.

Colin

Re: 3,520 pints a day?

"On the other hand, isn't this scientific study suggesting that children should drink beer?"

I thought that, way back in the Middle Ages, children did drink beer. It was safer than drinking water because the brewing process involved boiling the water, which killed all the microbes.

I could be wrong. I might have read that after I'd had a couple of pints :-)

Colin

Re: Entrapment???(@ Mephistro)

"i.e., this is no entrapment, at least in the legal sense of the word. It sounds more like a trap as in "Wyle E. Coyote vs. Roadrunner". ;-)"

The coyote's traps never work but the Mirror's did. Does this mean the Roadrunner is smarter than a Tory MP?

Colin

Re: Panic!

"Only tell them it's hydrogen dioxide. That will really merit a blasting headline."

I thought it was dihydrogen oxide or oxygen dihydride. Can HO2 (can't do subscripts) even be made - no matter how much you blast the atoms in a collider?

Colin

Upgrades

"make something wacko and darpa'ish like artificially intelligent jihadi seeking rocket dolphins"

So, sharks with frikkin' laser beams v2.0?

Colin

"Or poke fun at things closer to home... try Siri in Welsh, Gaelic or Jordie for weird."

Jordie (*) ... Wasn't he the engineer in Star Trek: The Next Generation? Or did you mean Geordie? The dialect spoken in the Newcastle area.

Colin

(*) Yes, I know it was spelled Geordi

Re: "Blind, drunken Gods, swaying to the sound of mad piping...."

"Further perusal of Jimbo's Excellent HTML Store™ revelas that..."

Excellent! Have an upvote.

Re: Meters

"The Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association argues that the mobile app is basically just a form of taxi meter, which private cars and minicabs aren’t legally allowed to have."

This point puzzled me. The private cars and minicabs don't have the meter: the customer who wants the taxi has the meter, in the form of the app on their phone.

Colin

Re: Outrage

"Can anybody suggest a way of spying on baddies while not looking over goodies' shoulders too ?"

They used to call it HUMINT.

Colin

Re: Attire?

Don Jefe,

Sounds like a plan. Have a beer on me.

All you need after that is for some astro-engineers to fit rocket engines to the base of the pub and then the party will really fly! It can raid the Home Counties for more supplies (but good luck finding tambourine girls in Essex, Kent or Berkshire).

Colin

Re: USB was thought to be shorthand for a European country

I was going to suggest "United States of Berlin". I believe it's been tried a couple of times in the past.

Colin

Re: Man pages

"history" has been completely rewritten, and is now called "herstory".

The "touch" command has been removed from the standard distribution due to its inappropriate use by high-level managers.

Brought to you by the People's Committee for Democratically Organizing the System (PC-DOS).

Colin

Re: Agreed...

"Have you got any idea how many thousands of letters Lester receives from 4 year olds every day? El Reg would go bankrupt if they sent them all mugs."

Not all Reg commentards are 4 years old. Although the mental age of some of them seems about the same.

Colin

Re: Operation Extinguish

Errr ...

"Ubuntu Edge was a flop, rebranded as a ¨success¨. Just like MS claims Win8 is a success."

And ...

"MS´s plan must be working our nicely, they have clearly shifted gears into Operation Extinguish and this funding disaster was clearly part of that."

You are Eadon and I claim my five pounds!

Colin

Re: keen.

"His plan is to solve malnutrition in one product and it looks like he has it. "

How can this solve malnutrition in famine-struck tracts of the Third World? It seems to need clean water and a means to refrigerate the final mixture to make it drinkable.

Will the maker be funding such developments with the profits from this gloop?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Colin