Could've been worse

If that had come down over Iran or Israel it could have triggered a bit of a nasty incident, and if it had crashed to earth a few thousand kilometers to the West of the Urals instead, France would probably have surrendered.

Er

"But that’s true of today’s electric cars, which have nonetheless failed to attract a large user base. That’s because they’re more expensive up front, even with government subsidies". Nope. It's because there is a very strong suspicion that it will require an extremely expensive new battery in a few years time, for which you will have to go to the car manufacturer as there is no competition at all. Oddly, the manufacturers tend to forget to mention battery lifespan or replacement costs.

Talking of forgetting to mention things, how will all the hydrogen be produced? oops.

Talktalk packet sniffing

Aren't Talktalk the ISP that introduced deep packet inspection of all their users' traffic without an opt out too? They sound such a nice company to deal with.

It wouldn't be impossible for them to use the DPI info in order to shape the traffic to Ofcom's website too, but hopefully they are too nice to do that...

It's not all work and no play for our intrepid friend, he's been getting in some top notch biking too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3IDyNesztHQ

Also...

On the subject of climate, is there any follow up or outcome on this story yet?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/29/boaden_tribunal_information_refusal/

Hmm

£1.8bn saving? And I just saw a badger on a unicycle.

Hmmm

You have to wonder whether the Country Landowners Association's motivation for this is really around improving broadband speeds or more around getting large payments for letting BT put new cables across their land. Maybe their members should all waive these payments, for the benefit of the whole rural community.

If nothing else

It's good to see that someone from ZZ Top was there to salute this accomplishment

Repairability

I always feel repairability is very important in guiding by buying choices, and I found a really interesting teardown of it here

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-5-Teardown/10525/1

which at first indicates very promisingly that the two most common repairs- glass and battery- are nice and straightforward, actually the whole thing looks pretty good overall. However, I got all the way to the end of it before reading "The front glass, digitizer, and LCD are all one component, thereby increasing cost of repair." . Hmmph.

Upgrades

Although I can’t really see many people buying this book, the volume of information that is available on the web, and it’s variable quality, does make things difficult for people to use. I think this is particularly true for upgrades. Even if, like myself, you’re just trying to upgrade a pc graphics card to cope with a change from 17” to 23” monitor (very new fangled here), clear sources of up to date accurate info are hard to find and it’s not as if you can even rely on finding a PC shop with knowledgeable staff either. Where are people going nowadays for such advice?

One further side effect of these cameras... all agricultural vehicles in this area have "lost" their front numberplates since the cameras were brought in (and rear ones, if they exist, are always hidden by whatever load is being towed).

Presumably HMRC can access these cameras info, and would otherwise use that to spot that the agricultural vehicles are evading duty by using red diesel for haulage purposes.

I presume this statement is just a coincidence, coming the day after my "8Mb" Plusnet connection's down-speed recorded a new low of just 1.8Mb. Approx 4 or 5 years ago it would run at around 4Mb and even peak at 6-7Mb on occasion, and has gone downhill ever since. Maybe Mr Hunt should aspire to restore speeds to their historic levels to start with.

(apols to all those who can't even get these, er, heady speeds)

All change...

There seem to be many things afoot in the Murdoch world since his recent departure from various newspaper boards, and they are happening quiickly. I was very surprised to see that last Saturday's Times did not include any listings for Sky TV channels. Any predictions for what is his next move?

There’s many similar sites too, last night I looked at booking a flight through a site onthebeach.co.uk – however when I got to the card number input page I was alarmed that it is not https – a quick google of them then found that their conditions, which you have to agree to, allow them to vary the amount they have said they will charge you – how do they get away with that? Natch, didn’t book with them but feel sorry for others who do fall for it.

This sentence seems utterly disproportional. Surely a bit of community service or something would've been enough, instead of what it is going to cost us taxpayers to imprison him for a year.

This isn't unlike the approach where you pay your Prime Minister £250k for him to hear your views over a meal. And is about as desirable.

The team's lack of beards & pipes is a tad disappointing.

Is Linkedin still going, what have I missed? I haven't been on there for ages.

Reminds me I got some spam the other day about Myspace.

41mp

Would anyone else be fascinated to read a detailed article about just how they make a 41mp sensor?

Such window dressing is quite insulting. I wonder how many decades (or more) it will be before there are significant numbers of female politicians in China.

Liability

Where does liability rest with these transactions? I understood that several banks/ card issuers used the Verified by Visa registration to move liability from them to the customer, is this in the same boat?

Interference

Another intersting angle on 4G tech & interference here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17125468

Security?

It looks like sync's security has already been cracked...

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/07/28/car.systems.such.as.onstar.sync.more.hacked/

Has anyone found a copy of that presentation anywhere?

The behaviour reported in this article is entirely inevitable as the scanner staff are human, let alone when you consider how jobs in the CCTV monitoring field have always attracted the perverts. What's more surprising is that afaik these type of images haven't turned up on the web yet, there must be numerous specialist grumpleflick sites that would be interested in buying them.

This rather leaves the door open for China (or even India) to do a sample-return Mars mission & grab the global limelight

It is kinda tempting, I just wish it had an optical viewfinder.

Also, is there a lens cover built in?