CCTV

According to the IPCC none of the CCTV cameras in the area were switched on at the time. And I thought people were being too cynical when they said this would happen.

Incredible isn't it, the heart of the most surveilled city in the world (with the possible exception of downtown Pyongyang) with tens of billions of Pounds worth of property about to be the centre of a huge demo - and no one thinks of putting a tape in the machine?

Sudden silence from the government

Has anyone noticed that New Labour have gone very quiet on this all of a sudden? Especially no one seems to be willing to talk about their 'snap a copper and your nicked' provisions. Will any of them be brave enough to say that this legislation needs to be revoked in order that some measure of confidence in that police can be held accountable?

Also, nice to see the Sun spinning the police line that being drunk (allegedly) is a good enough reason to be clubbed and shoved to the ground. The Met and City of London Police might want to check out Smith v. Leech Brain & Co., [1962] 2 QB 405 and the 'eggshell skull' defence.

Not exactly new stuff

Interesting stuff, but 'global dimming' has been known about as a driver of Northern Hemisphere climate change for some time now* and it's been factored into the latest climate models. Also this doesn't explain the simultaneous temperature rises in the Southern Hemisphere where its harder to invoke fewer carbon and sulfur particles in the atmosphere.

There's plenty to worry about with sulfur particles - they not only cause acid rain and affect soil chemistry and crop yields. They are linked to human health problems and would only increase the acidification of the oceans. So we might be able to ward off a warming ciimate only to screw another part of the planet. Not to mention, when they're up there in the atmosphere, there's nothing we can do to get them back if we find they're causing trouble.

* it's even been on the dumbed-down 'Horizon'. (That's the one that was on before they went for broke and decided to have a programme about 'maffs' hosted by Alan Davies. It can't be long before Barbara Windsor is on a quest for the HIggs Boson.

"the Reg defense and opera desk"

I like the idea of combining these two areas of human endeavour which belong together every bit as well as spotwelding jelly to a Moon rocket;

but - and like J-Lo, it's a big one...

can the Mighty Reg please make sure that 'defence' is spelled correctly?

Perhaps the Reg's forums moderator and part-time probation officer can be sent to give Joe a very stern talking to? Nothing too harsh, just get him to sit through Götterdämmerung without tearing his ears off.

@ breakfast

;)

I've always assumed BMWs are bought on installment plans and every month a new piece is posted to the lucky driver. The indicator lights being the last part to arrive.

@ neil hanvey

'am i the only one who read 'large thrust borer' as 'large thrust boner'?'

No, but I suspect El Reg relish any opportunity to emphasise it wasn't just a borer, nor even a large borer, but a large THRUST borer.

Personally I think the whole story cries out for Playmobilisation. Not quite as much as the Home Sec's sec. home home sex is positively gagging for it, but it's been a while since the Reg brought Playmobil's laser-like insight to a story.

Phorm having Norman Lamont as CEO

Is somewhat like trying to attract lovers with a dead rat hanging round your neck.

Couldn't they get someone classier - like David Blunkett?

Not a failure

This is a glorious Socialist triumph and shows the limitation of Western capitalist thinking.

Unlike Imperialist Running Dog satellites which must be put into high orbits to do their useful work, North Korea's revolutionary (in every sense of the word) Kwangmyŏngsŏng is even now serenading the Pacific whale population with the soul-stirring 'Song of General Kim Il-sung'.

All together now:

'Vast snowy fields of Manchuria please tell me

Endless night deep in the Taiga please tell me

Immortal guerilla warrior, who is he?

Outstanding patriot, who is it?'

(Clue: it's not Noel Edmonds)

'as the general public feels uninformed about the issue.'

Should be read as 'public are thick as pig shit'.

@ amanfromMars

'Crikey, can we expect Playmobil to up the Ante with a Jacqui Smith role/pole model .... suitably provocatively dressed for those just getting on [with] the job evenings at home around the telly.'

Whoa! Not only did I understand that, but it is a hugely important question for the Register's quality reporters.

Why haven't you teased us with a Playmobil recreation of the sort of filth enjoyed by Wacqui Jacqui's other half?

And don't let the feeble excuse of not knowing which movie it was get in the way. We know (and when I say "know", I mean "don't have a clue, but wouldn't it be funny if") it involved a couple of dogs, Optimus Prime and an airport security checkpoint operator.

Chip and PIN?

Hands up anyone who can see the new security loophole.

We've gone from iris recognition to facial recognition to fingerprints (sort of) and now we're putting our faith in four numbers from 0 to 9?

If a PIN is all that's required to access *any* part of the ID card system then the system is compromised as useful functionality will be obtainable by using easily forged chip and PIN cards.

OMG!

They've finally invented something more embarrassing than a Segway.

Where oh where?

Is the Alistair Darling action doll?

Complete with thick sheafs of briefing notes, detachable eyebrows and dreary monotone voice ready to pummel the evil empire of mighty - errrr - Iceland into submission.

Alistair Darling: You'll believe an accountant can fly - at least downwards until the pavement intervenes.

Geology 101

'btw, on earth I understand that PG (LPG before its L) is produced from vegetable (cellulose based) matter under great temperature and pressure over a long period of time.

Yessish.

If this is true on Titan,

No.

does it mean that it was as warm as earth once?

No.

If not where did all that LPG come from?'

Methane seems to be almost universal in the objects of the outer solar system. UV light from the Sun cracks the methane into reactive radicals which then recombine into heavier molecules such as propane, butane and so on. The really heavy hydrocarbons are what make the outer moons of the solar system so dark in colour as well as giving Titan its charming 'smoker's cough' colouration.

@ Tim

Thanks, I think we're all much more informed now. For sheer clarity that was worthy of a 1970s Open University programme - even if you didn't come equipped with a blackboard, kipper tie and oscilloscope.

Switched my Aspire One to Windows

And why?

Because the supplied version of Linux sucked. The update procedure was horrible and many applications had not been updated by Acer in months - even though they contained known security issues. Patching some of them by hand using standard Linux procedures caused other things to break.

Windows XP is a horrible OS, but at least I can keep my machine relatively secure and I'm not spending all my time in the console sudoing away.

And at a stroke...

...customer service and satisfaction in Scandinavia take a massive turn for the better.

Not a relic

The Catholic Church has played a very clever game with the Shroud.

Although it's owned by the Holy See they have never pronounced on its authenticity saying that the Shroud is a matter of personal faith for individual Catholics.

Though I'm sure they clean up nicely in the Turin Cathedral tea and gift shop with shroud tea towels and T-shirts.

Eh???

'Francis Ford Coppola didn't make a bad hash of it with his fairly faithful cinematic adaptation'

Okay Lester have YOU actually read the book?

FFC's adaptation was the cinematic equivalent of having a cheesegrater run over the eyeball - a movie so staggeringly bad it almost eclipses Keanu Reeves 'English' accent.

But not quite.

But the book - awesome - especially the ship's log.

@ Anonymous Coward @ Michael Smith

'Urr, supposedly this had the oomph to reach Alaska. Yes, Alaska, the beating heart of America.'

Sarah Palin country - the missile suddenly seems quite appealing right now doesn't it?

'If this vehicle can put a payload into orbit, it can deliver that same payload to any point on the Earth.'

Not necessarily, to return the payload to Earth you need to include the mass of the retros and the heat shield. Throw those in and you may not have enough useful mass for a warhead.

And on a related note. Thanks to Pakistan, our dear ally in the war on terror, North Korea MAY have the design for a nuclear missile warhead. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the brains behind the Pakistani nuclear programme is known to have met up with North Korean scientists and exchanged information. Pakistan certainly has nuclear tipped missiles as they got their design from the Chinese.

Quote of the day

'It's unclear what platform labourisworking.com is running on'

In so many ways.

@ Anonymous Coward

'Will this virtual milkman get to have virtual sex with virtual housewives in a Robin Askwith stylee? I can see some synergies with Craigslist here...'

Definitely a mash-up we'll all want to see. Get your people to talk to my people and we'll do lunch. Ciao baby!

Clever...

It also means they can get their hands (ahem) on fingerprints of UK nationals who travel to the US.

@ Fraser

'They are taking on yet another web2 service that has a broken business model and will loose them money left right and centre.'

I think you might have hit on something there. If Google buy enough loss making services they might be able to say they aren't a monopoly - because if they were they'd be rich like Microsoft.

In which case I'd like to talk to the Mountain View boffins about my virtual 'notes to the milkman' Web 2.0 synergetic holistic mashup enterprise. People pay nothing to write notes to a non-existent milkman in 140 characters or fewer, they can follow their favourite milkman and share favourite notes with other milk drinkers. It makes no money, is completely pointless, will be forgotten in six months time; so by Twitter reckoning, must be worth at least a billion. Two billion if we can make it an iPhone app and get Stephen Fry onboard.

Best stat

From their site:

Burners: ~23 cups of tea per second

Just about enough to keep a team of brickies hydrated.

http://www.steamcar.co.uk/design/index.htm

Spokesbodies for the record industry

Feargal Sharkey

Cliff Richard

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Is there anyone in the country who doesn't loathe at least one of that ghastly trio?

It's DIVX all over again

When are they going to realise it won't bloody well work? It'll last just long enough for someone to rip the content:

Either by breaking the encryption (which must be compromised as it's clear what sort of structure the key will have - if it has a phone number and a credit card number in it then we can exclude other characters), or;

By intercepting the content as it streams from the player to the display. HDCP isn't mandatory yet and most pirated content users would be perfectly happy with a slightly degraded copy.

Let's do it

For every proven oil well that's drilled, there are several that will never produce a drop of petroleum. A good number of these end up in brine reservoirs which have been sitting there for millions of years. Pump CO2 down into those then fill the well with concrete and it should remain there for ages. Not only because CO2 dissolves into water, but also because CO2 under high pressure is a liquid at normal temperatures.

I blame it all on...

...the change in logo.

SGI used to have a fabulous 'cube' logo:

http://www.geniusdv.com/weblog/archives/Sgi_cube_logo.png

then they went all swoopy, touchy-feely and family friendly and the business imploded. Don't blame the hardware, don't blame the software - blame the strategy-oriented synergetic experts.

Wow!

By combining world-reknowned American automobile design flair with the legendary build quality of Proton and we're in for some awesome 'Top Gear' reviews.

Unfair...

The thought that any one of those stories might be true is enough to have me praying a lump of rock the size of Mount Everest is heading our way.

Oh Jacqui

Time to get to couples' therapy.

Crystle???

Nyargh! There's bad spelling, wrong spelling and then there's THAT spelling. Doing my head in.

Hold on...

...how do you know what the guy in the hair dryer is thinking?

Man looks constipated.

Robot shuffles right.

Press droid: clearly human subject was thinking about moving right. A triumphant success for Honda, Japan and the Emperor!

Man thinks 'hold on, I was hoping they wouldn't take photos of me in this ridiculous contraption.'

Fact really is stranger than fiction

Did they have this sort of trouble on Star Trek?

Like to know more about the duplicates

Are they identical DNA records from people who have used more than one name, or are they different DNA records because the Home Office has changed DNA measuring guidelines in the past?

Oooh

I smell a Playmobil reconstruction in the offing!

@ Toastan Buttar

"I hope they get the same little lady who announced the nuclear test blast to come on our TV's again. I like her."

Me too - isn't she fabulous? Not many people could pull off that particular shade of peach, but she manages it brilliantly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHHrTp96yog&feature=related

And she's MUCH more entertaining than Robert Peston.

@ TooMuchCoffee

'Fish-flavoured beef? Not sure I fancy that.'

S'okay, it'll taste just like delicious whale - the ultimate free-range organic meat.

If you give a cow fish oil

Does it become smarter?

“This is definitely the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in Bethnal Green.”

Not been there long then?

@ g e

The North Koreans should have to give details of any object they put into orbit.

In 1998, they even went so far as to tell the world the elements for Kwangmyongsong which was apparently circling the Earth broadcasting toe-tapping melodies such as "Song of General Kim Il Sung" and "Song of General Kim Jong Il" at 27MHz. They insisted it was up there, even though the US couldn't ever track it on radar and listeners on 27MHz were disappointed not to be able to listen in.

It looks like the 1998 launch was one for a space vehicle which went wrong at the last minute and either tipped the satellite into the North Pacific or into a very low orbit from which it decayed within hours.

Pulitzer winning journalism here

The Telegraph has deployed its formidable resources to determine that Virgin were satisfying the Home Secretary's husband with "Raw Meat 3" and "By Special Request".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/5072701/Jacqui-Smith-under-pressure-over-husbands-adult-film-expense-claims.html

Any of the Reg's readers able to tell us more about these epic titles - especially "Raw Meat 3"? Does it achieve the tricky task of being a good third movie in the series - which is hard to pull off [snigger] - Jaws 3D, Rocky 3 and Return of the Jedi all failed to keep the high standards of their predecessors.

Stares at fuzzy picture

Rocket? What rocket?

I can only see the Virgin Mary.

Riding a bicycle.

Can we work out the titles?

The BBC tantalises us with the news that Virgin's porno pipes delivered the movies on 6 and 8 April 2008 at £5 a time. Is there any hope of narrowing down what sort of filth gets Mr. Home Secretary going?

And surely a Playmobil reconstruction of salient plot points for those of us who don't subscribe to Beardie muck is in order?

Wow!

'Institut für Gesellschafts und Wirtschaftswissenschaften'

You just know that business card comes in 16:9 format.

Aston Martin???

Maserati? Well in the dark possibly. It's more of a Series 1 Focus / Cougar look. There's precious little of Astonosity to it.

Photo of the stripes

Were those stripes parallel and straight in real life? If so, that's some of the worst barrel distortion I've seen in a long time.

3M???

What are they planning to do - store the whole database on PostIt notes?

@ Jay

'Cylons should be big, clunky and metal '

Including the one in the little red dress?

Me? It grew on me for the first season, I loved season 2, after that it was clear they'd blown the budget on the first couple of episodes of season 3 and it became LA Law in Spaaaace.

Got bored. Which was a shame as it did appear to be willing to flirt with much darker SF than is normal for TV. Fortunately, it looks like 'Dollhouse' is starting to get in its stride and that seems to be going into very dark places indeed.