Sigh..

Ye gods, how many things can you get wrong in one article? RIFA sting, they dont bite, except to anchor themselves (they then sting in a cute little circle). The venom is the second nastiest after pogomyrmex (itself a 10th as nasty as taipan venom, think a mid range viper or a uk Adder) and its primary danger in humans is either venom overload or anaphylaxis. Add to this that theyre aggressive little sods that make asiatic bees seem positively cuddly and you begin to see why theyre so nasty. Oh and they also love electrics too, traffic lights being a particular favourite..

Fulva has a secret weapon in that it is one of the super colony ants - RIFA colony is based on a single queen, Fulva colonies have several and related colonies act & react as one. In the wild these can cover large areas and crowd out even species like RIFA.

Way to miss the point...

Yes its probably got all the accuracy of a brown bess thats been at the bottom of a lake for 40 years, and might manage 5 rounds before bursting the barrel and taking half your face off, but thats not the point.

Snipers use a standard rifle, eg moisin-nagant, and use a single shot. One shot, one kill. But from a distance that needs training and natural aptitude. I know I probably wouldnt be able to do it.

This is a gamechanger for two reasons. Should I want to put a bullet in David Cameron, dont tempt me, with this I can make it myself, disguise it if I want to, and all I need to do is find the guy (probably when he's daughter hunting again), walk past, jam in in his gut and pull the trigger. Untraceable gun, unmatchable bullet (no marks or striations) and provided you do it right you walk away while sham-cam is wondering where that painful hole came from.

But wait, it gets better. Its true if you make this thing from plastic its hardly going to empty a slipper clip before exploding. But guess what, you can use other materials in 3D printers. Materials that are way stronger than standard plastic feedstocks. Or you can make the barrel assembly out of sintered or machined metal.

Say I want to off someone in a crowd.. I could use cute muslim girls in explosive undies (and yes its been done) or I could give them a batch of these modded with a magazine & welrod style silencer. A quiet bye bye to that annoyingly liberal muslim politician or that pesky schoolgirl (the cheek of her, thinking she needs to learn).. And no-one knows anything about it till its all over. 5 pounds of explosive panty gusset is somewhat obvious after all, not to mention messy!

Lucky the lil sweetie isn't American

She'd probably have been sued before the words were fully out of her mouth.

Its a good point though, and a depressing one. Fondleslabs just arent up to being used accurately. A case of "if it aint broke" that should attain the status of the "osbourne effect". The best phone I ever had was an E70 - if it had A2DP & SDHC I'd still be using it now, all of 20mb of free memory and I wrote most of two books on it.

For HTC and others... Please stop making phones *you* want to make and make the phones *I* want you to make. A2DP, Micro SD, QWERTY, HDMI, removable battery. Its not dragon science! They'll actually sell and you might actually make a profit..!

You do know what profit is right?

Too soon?

Zoe Saldana. Leather. Hot!

How on earth is she supposed to 'fit the character' of Nichelle Nichols? Slice a foot from her legs add a foot round the waist and 30lbs of bulgarian airbags.

Sigh, a manic depressive anorexic really doesnt do scotty justice either.

But then, see above, and you just stop caring*.

*YMMV

I think I'm...

Going to set up a sponsorship charity for all the burmese pythons in the everglades so there is a predator big enough to deal with ask the darwin award nominees in florida. Having had the joys of Georgia I'll bet money its to do with her colour. The highlight of my trip there was sitting on a chambered 9mm beretta left with the safety off around a 3 year old girl. They didn't understand why I went borderline berserk over the fact I could of been killed! Then theres the nice omaha racist I visited. Went for a wander and started chatting to some very polite & friendly black guys (Im so pale I burn under a 100w bulb) - my friend came out of her house like the charge of the light brigade howling that theyd murder me on the spot. Talk about cultural cringe. Racism is part of the culture out there along with gutless v8s and aircooled teeth.

It constantly amazes me...

How a nation filled to the brim with total and utter fsckwits and automatic weapons hasn't blown itself out of existence years ago!

I mean seriously, the fsb tell you he's a terrorist and what do you do? Tell him not to be a naughty boy (and btw theres some interesting plastic stuff in that cupboard, no, the one next to it....) and leave him to simmer for a couple of years. UK has Dunblane and anything more dangerous than a kids longbow is banned instantaneously - some kid does a Joachim Pieper on 5 year olds, and the US keeps the guns and gives the little sweeties body armour and the teachers even more guns. The only thing stupider is showing TW: Children of Earth and then wondering why every stressed parent in BBC coverage are doing 'peter capaldis' left right and abandoned quarries...

Almost as bright as the farmer in the UK who sold a half ton of ammonium nitrate to a total stranger. Can you guess what happened yet?

As to the people who say hounding someone cant cause a suicide - two names off the top of my head - Tempest Smith & Lucy Meadows, Im sure I could find many more. Still so damn sure now?

Commiserations to the family but I'll tell you this now I wouldnt want to be one of the reddidiots right now...

And FYI for british citizens - should you be getting the idea into your head to do something similar causing by harassment or other means someones suicide is an offense under the 1961 suicide act. I dont know the American legal position on it.

Kind of unrelated. IF YOU CANT EVEN MANAGE COHERENT ENGLISH dont berate people for their opinions, it just makes you look like an ill educated 12 year old who needs their Ritalin increased.

@ oliver...

Only an idiot... So *thats* why all the fanbois are having conniptions? True story - type in fanbois on nokia E7 swype keyboard and you get rancid as the first option. Very apt!

Interesting side note...

As an Orange customer, I envied the dead...

I'm sure...

The godbotherer collective will be sooooo pleased when the rat population explodes. Reminds me of a guy (American, surprise surprise) who decided to beat on a rattler then play snakey tennis with it - punting a by then royally pissed off snake straight onto his daughters back - at which point she was promptly bitten - circa regnum tonat indeed. Dumbass dads response, sue the nature reserve through which they were walking!

The world would be a far better, cleaner, safer place if the American was totally removed from it. You can almost imagine ole Ben Kenobi... "America, you will never find a more wretched hive of ecological terrorism & stupidity... We must be cautious". Just when I think its impossible for them to make things any worse they manage it in high style.

Oh look...

Its the new editorial staff of the Daily Mail being put through their paces. A prize for the person who steps on ersatz Richard Littlejohn!

In the style of lord blackadder..

Tim, for you the term ' customer satisfaction' was just something that happened to other people wasn't it.

Umm.. am I missing something?

Or is there supposed to be something called testing BEFORE you spaff something out to world + dog?

Why release it at all if you have to patch it on the spot, AND tell everyone the problem is there for them to exploit to boot... Fix first release later surely?

It makes you wonder how dumb the generality of the human race is going to/has gotten if the 'intelligentsia' can make cock ups of such platinum plated proportions...

A "fully operational" battle station in US hands...

What could possibly go wrong....?

The scary thing about America is that year on year of its existance its been involved in more genocides either directly or indirectly than any other nation on the planet (even Russia) - look it up, its actually true (US arms actually help Stalin get at least 3 under way). Couple that with military tacticians that make the cloned offsping of Lord Chelmsford, Lord Rust and General Ephinstone (of Afghanistan 'fame') look talented, and you have a Casserene/Little Big Horn waiting to happen... With turbolasers.

Personally I feel nervous when I see America eying the plastic travel cutlery displays, let alone offensive weapons.

I'm really happy I'm not a soldier too, since while having the French as allies historically meant your right flank tended to resemble a large cloud of dust moving at speed to the rear - the average American is the only person on the planet whos known for shooting his allies in the front (and even has a code for when it invariably happens).

The scariest part of the lot, is that there will be some people who actually think this idea is genuine... And will be disappointed when it doesnt happen, real disappointed.

Finally..

People are beginning to re-learn common sense. I spent £75 on my android tablet, including keyboard case. It'll do mouse keyboard and memory stick over otg and hdmi out, 6 hour battery.

Apple is and always will be overpriced tat, which only Jobs managed to sell with a straight face. Not to mention sitting on the tube (like the 9 year old last night) holding Apples finest is an easy way to getting stabbed in the process of the robbery of same.

Apple fanbois think on this - you could buy, fuel, service and in many cases insure a fully functional car for what you are paying for your shiny w**kcandy. Not to mention the random pornbarfing problem with iOS that you cannot fix. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that apple is making sure that lil 7 year old Amelia is getting a faceful of how to get a faceful (in a manner of speaking) and you have NO WAY of fixing the problem (which would take 30 seconds on 'droid). Dont you just love being a member of the mindless majority?

Re: headline...

I didn't know David Cameron moved to Iran...

Charity...

Piggybacking on the-thieving-gits-formerly-known-as-orange... Now *that* is irony...

Whoever thought up this little gem should be seconded to the Darwin Awards testing team without delay and preferably with extreme prejudice.

Symptom of a bigger problem...

I feel a little sorry for Sinofsky - after all if you walk into work to a torrent of *that* in your inbox you'd soon get to the state where the only two options were to walk away or wire Ballmers balls to the three-phase and turn it on, or trigger the EMP in his car just as he hits the off ramp... The possibilities are endless and appealing.

But its all a sign of a bigger problem and yet again its the US to blame. When I was a kid you bought something you were something called a customer (remember them?) with the rights and respect accorded pursuant thereof. Companies didnt raise their customers prices 45% on the sly (yes I mean you SSE), they didnt prank call their customers for a laugh and they certainly didnt make it company policy to annoy as many members of the human race as possible by ignoring their customers like Microsoft appear to be doing (bar possibly British Leyland). When you asked a company to do something there was a good chance they'd do it - because a happy customer is a good customer and a good customer is worth their weight in gold, or at least they used to be.

Now we're 'consumers' and good customer service is about as respected as Jill-me Savile. Its ok to raise prices for customers on the sly by 40% and then openly do it by another 10%. Its fine to put peoples lives at risk with unsafe vehicles and only do something about it after 30 odd people are dead, injured or permanantly maimed. Its company practice to ignore users repeated requests for an OS that doesnt make Mickey Mouse look positively user friendly and feature rich. Telling a 'consumer' that something is free and then charging them to make the product usable is fine too...

Why? Because there is a deliberate disconnect in many companies between the meaning of the word customer and the word consumer. In their mind a customer has their own mind, requirements and rights (which needless to say is a bad thing). A consumer on the other hand is a mindless drone who will swallow anything barfed in their general direction - notwithstanding price, fitness for purpose or anything else (thank you Jobs et al).

You never hear the term 'consumer service' do you? Strange that until you think that if a company calls their customers consumers and keeps customer service they can use it as an excuse to do nowt when the car they sold cooks a family in an accident because of a brake design fault... Not our problem, they never told consumer service/theyre consumers not customers...

Put simply it boils down to 'if we dont call them customers, then we dont have to treat them as such'.

I get the impression that Sinofsky was old fashioned in that sense and having person after person rail at him from every side as a result of Ballmers decisions and other considerations - im not surprised he called it a day. I think theres also an element of getting out while the getting's good. I think he knows just how bad Windows 8 is going to bomb... And with features like printing & network printing seeping into Android MS simply cannot afford a pup right now. Thats over and above public relations triumphs like the 'does 16gb free = 32gb debate'. Fair enough, 16gb phone with 14gb free is one thing - advertising something as having a given capacity when the available is 50% less is something different.

We are your customers people, hear us roar (or at least do us the courtesy of listening to us whinge, you'll benefit in the long run).

The car...

That just rebooted the "final destination" franchise; is a Toyota...

Heres a novel idea, instead of bolting on tech to make up for numptys behind the wheel, how about training them to drive, some these days are confused by the common or lesser spotted roundabout. Not to mention the human brain is faster/more flexible than any computer.

This is a decade that will live in history..

It has seen the end of Steve Jobs, it will soon see the end of Apple (apologies to the writers of Star Wars)

I and others predicted this and its happened and left Apple up to their necks in it. I made another prediction back then, that you can't afford to treat your suppliers like crap when you're in a specialist field. Apple are, whether they like it or not one step away from losing Samsung as a supplier, and with timescales how they are and the prevalence of Samsung processors that could easily put them into a rather unpleasant RIM style tailspin.

Well done, Apple, you've all but signed your own death warrent. Oh and word to the wise, don't try to dictate terms to us until you've bought Whitehall; and even then we won't listen. You screw with the British courts at your peril!