* Posts by Pat M

15 publicly visible posts • joined 9 May 2007

Cops turn Download Festival into an ORWELLIAN SPY PARADISE

Pat M

Speaking on the part of non-food traders, this has been forced upon them after paying for their concessions, the money will hopefully be paid to them at some point after the festival. After the galtrees festival traders are very wary of these systems as any losses might end up being paid by the traders takings.

Ofcom to BT Openreach: From now on, you'd better kill 70% of gremlins within 2 days

Pat M

Re: Bye bye to OpenReach

How did you get fttp? We could do with a 3rd party supplier in our village.

95 floors in 43 SECONDS: Hitachi's new ultra-high-speed lift

Pat M

Re: Theoretically...

I'd keep a parachute or two so at least in the event of a catastrophic event I could BASE jump out the window.

Liquefied-air silos touted as enormo green 'leccy batteries

Pat M

Re: @Psyx

I don't see how the efficiency of solar panels really matters in the argument. If you take the fact that you can install a 3.8 kw peak system in a favourable position and this will produce about 3500 kw hours per year for about £7500. Take that cost and add £1500 maintenance and then the cost per kw over 25 years is going to be about 10p per kwh, so consumer grid parity has been reached, and this does not take into consideration the continued inflation of fuel and electricity prices.

You fail to point out that nuclear received massive subsidies, and we still haven't got a viable plan of what to do with the waste.

Amazon on Facebook: 'la la la we're not listening'

Pat M

Where's paypal in this list?

I, for my sins, am a "fan" of paypal. Every single one of their updates is covered with people complaining, and always ignored- much like their normal channels. Surprised not to see it near the top.

Biker gang plunders Covent Garden Apple Store

Pat M

It's not a die hard quote- it's from pulp fiction!

April Fools Day's Finest

Pat M
Go

I Really Loved this one

http://bluelightfestival.wordpress.com/

Brussels goes in to bat for beleaguered bees

Pat M

It isn't just hype

So how many bees have you seen in the wild recently that weren't just casts or swarms from a beekeepers hive?

Unfortunately as European bees cannot groom themselves to remove the varoa mite, they require help from humans to survive. Otherwise they are unable to increase their population enough to collect enough pollen and nectar to survive the winter. The mite isn't really a problem for adult bees, it is the little grubs they find extra tasty.

Also trying to encourage farmers to crop dust at certain times so they don't lag bee's in pesticides/herbicides/fungicides is very important. This could require European legislation to make it stick, also maybe some research into bee friendly pesticides could be done.

I would say when estimates of how much the honey bee pollinates are taken into consideration, they are pretty bloody important- Note that the peculiarity of the honey bee is that it'll just pollinate one plant all day, as opposed to other bees that meander around just collecting nectar and pollen from any old plant.

My 2 penith worth.

BA slams stupid security checks

Pat M
Thumb Up

About time

About time, and from BA the crappest of airlines!

eBay refiddles with auction fees

Pat M

Try a different auction site

I've nearly stopped using ebay in favour of ebid (http://uk.ebid.net/)- they have the ability to run anti snipe auctions, and they allow you to list for free- for an all in one fee.

I've had enough of ebay pulling my items because they don't like that I charge paypal users the charges that they impose on me.

In short ebay are a bunch of money grabbing w*nkers who are destroying their own market with greed.

Brum DJ canned for cutting short Her Maj

Pat M
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You've got to check out his standup

Their not realy doing him any justice- I saw him live doing a comody sketch; ivan brackenbury hospital radio DJ; It was bloody great.

I'm shocked they alow him to do any live broadcasting having heard that, especially if their that uptight.

Fair play to the bloke- If the queen want's to do something interesting she could disolve parliment until an fairly elected representitive came along, as a result of proportional representation.

New taskforce to discuss why more people aren't turning to digital

Pat M

What about the quality?

They might notice that the quality of digital radio is lower than decent FM analogue radio, as too many stations have been squeezed into the availible bandwidth.

I personally think it is criminal that the government is going to sell off the analogue radio bands to the highest bidder- I asume this will render all analogue radios useless which is such a waste- personally I quite like having an old school valve radio in my front room which sounds nice....

Also if they wern't so interested in selling off the frequencies they could be allocated for comunity/local/interesting use! I would love to be able to listen to a good radio station which wasn't just motivated by comercialism in my car/at work... These frequencies could be freeed up for public use- circumventiung the facist maner in which they are currently assigned (how many local radio stations are there with more than a week license which arn't just comercial?).

My two pennith worth.

Hasselhoff, paedophiles, and a digital Animal Farm

Pat M

Isn't this what happens already?

'Once MPs' diaries are dictated by the whims of a message board, an automated e-signatures generator or mischievous online campaign to rig the system (such as the recent one to get an old David Hasselhoff song to number one in the UK charts) could not be far behind. The notion of MPs being compelled to debate and vote on a geek in-joke may be rather entertaining, but that's precisely why it will never happen.'

Isn't this already what happens within the media anyway, with the press dictating what they think should be the subject of debate, and whiping up a media storm around isues of their choice.

Surely anything with more public input would be better than the current situation. The very nature of politics means that it is full of manipulation and people in it for their own personal gain. At least with more recognised public input some of the insane policies would have at least some truck with the public.

Gates predicts death of the office phone

Pat M

Wait a minute

Arn't we still using the qwerty keyboard- alegedly designed to slow typests down, so the levers with the letters on the end didn't get caught up together...

Moduslink blames OEMs for Vista upgrade delays

Pat M

At least you don't get forced to use vista

I tried to buy a laptop from dixons a few days ago, and asked if they could supply one without vista- to which they responded no....

At least all the people with vista upgrade vouchers arn't forced into using a power hungry OS which won't interface or show any performance upgrades when trying to run music applications and hardware.