"I've received penalty points for speeding in Watford and Hull within 15 minutes of each other"

Dear God, man, how fast were you going?

"How about you spend that fat cash on making a better product "

Because their proprietary closed shop prevents it. As the outsiders with the unique product, their R&D team has to try and beat the combined resources of every other phone manufacturer all by itself. It's not reasonable to expect them to beat everyone, and so now the field has caught up Apple will never be top of the line again. Since the sole justification for their inflated prices is that iProducts are top of the line, if Apple want to keep their position as top dog they have no recourse except to litigate.

"Captain Ahab Apple still going after Moby Dick Samsung."

Wouldn't Apple be Moby Dick? They want an arm and a leg from Samsung and so far have only got the leg [1], and of course their whales are available in white.

Yeah, yeah, call me iShmael.

[1] Though Samsung do still have a leg to stand on.

"On the downside, being a mini-tablet it was too big for most pockets "

How small are your pockets? My S4 fits comfortably into my shirt pocket with nothing sticking out. I'd have to bend 90 degrees at the waist to risk it tipping.

Also, don't use the Samsung generic keyboard. Gingerbread Keyboard is free, better and comes with the predictive text we all crave - though for some reason its first suggestion for "di" is "dildo". So don't take too many shortcuts when typing "didn't", or your texts could become a whole lot more fun.

Mine is, of course, the one with the Galaxy S4 in the pocket.

"Something seems amiss."

Yes, something does seem amiss - namely, that it's a flexible funding campaign. That means Biehl will get every dollar pledged even if he doesn't make his target. You should never, ever trust or pledge to a flexible funding campaign; far too many of them are scams.

It would be good if El Reg could put a note on the article warning people about this.

"And a colon map as a backup"

The colon map should have been the default plan. They could have tested it by sticking it up their arses.

"Good effort."

By a bizarre coincidence, that is likely to be our response when your next £1-a-day article describes your latest attempt to use the lavatory.

"It's unlikely that dumb-phone holdouts are going to go straight to a top-of-the-range smartphone"

Why? That's exactly what I did when I finally got a smartphone two years ago. My logic was simple: I wanted to buy a phone that could handle anything that might come along during the lifetime of the device.

The surveys showing greater brand loyalty among Apple owners are false, though - in my experience, at least. I see people saying "I think this is where I switch from my iPhone to Phone X" all the time, but I haven't once seen someone say "I'm disappointed in my Galaxy SIII, I'm going to buy an iPhone".

"You are aware that these bills are never seen by a human being"

Unlike Atos reports, which have on several occasions now declared that a dead person is fit for work.

Mind you, given Atos' track record for recommending that the benefits of critically disabled or terminally ill people be stopped, I don't think being compiled by a staff member rules out their never having been seen by a human being.

"This service doesn’t work with some modern browsers and operating systems"

There was an article on this in the new Private Eye. Apparently the benefits claim form has small print saying you may have problems trying to use the site with the following systems and software:

All Macs

All Linux-based systems

Windows Vista (and therefore presumably Win7)

IE versions above 6

Chrome

Safari

Firefox

In other words, this masterpiece of design is incompatible with literally every computer made in the last six years.

"What a complete non-story, it is not like any of this is "new" information"

This is the internet. Its entire purpose is to distribute pornography, bad opinions and weird tricks discovered by housewives. This article has done the last and several commentards have done the second, so it was worthwhile.

(Paris, because we may as well complete the trifecta.)

"He was Anonymous but not anonymous."

Actually he is still anonymous. As a minor his name is protected.

Re: Ancient and cursed ring?

So that was you in the Goatse picture?

"He couldn't have been that distracted if he caught wind"

Unless he "caught wind" when she told him she was leaving him for someone else.

"you can still be a twat !!"

Interestingly, "twat" is Neil Gaiman's past tense for "tweet". Example: "Stephen Fry twat six times today".

"does my 2 yo really need to see my one shot sniper kill?"

He does if you ever expect him to get good at the game!

Me, I'm sensing a man desperately trying to delay the inevitable day whe he gets pwned by his preschooler...

"while even more would argue..."

No, I don't think they would. Cameron and Osborne are still in Downing Street, so the government clearly hasn't gone anywhere near far enough.

"Give me convenience or give me death!"

Shouldn't that be "give me convenience *and* give me death"?

"Errr, remind me, which was the best out of those?"

In terms of quality, Betamax. VHS survived because it was a bit cheaper.

"I never understood what was so special..."

Indeed. But enough about Serenity - what did you think of Star Wars?

Re: I spent ages playing Tempest...

For reference, the "claw" in Tempest is called a C-Shooter.

Dave Theurer's finest hour, that game, and it didn't get any worse when Jeff Minter remade it as Tempest 2000.

"I can see it now films brought to you by Tesco"

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

"A Fully Integrated RF-Powered Contact Lens With a Single Element Display'"

Is there something wrong with me that my first reaction to seeing that was to try and figure out what the humourous acronym was?

"is the Triple E the class, or the name?"

It's the class, obviously. You see it, and you go "Eee, that's a big ship!"

where's your, "double-sided sticky tape, for speed"?

Apple patented it so they could use it in Apple Maps.

"Acheron and Styx"

If you're going to name them for a pair of rivers, Phlegethon and Styx would be more appropriate. The water nymph Styx (for whom the river is named) was in love with the fire spirit Phlegethon, but died at his touch.

"I've seen bigger pricks down at the local bank."

Not unusual, really. The average man has 5.5-7 inches, whereas the average bank manager is closer to six foot.

"I give it a year."

I don't think many people will be streaming that film in HD.

"I really don't want to live on this planet any more."

That's a foolish attitude to have, Fab. You should not want Apple to live on this planet any more.

"I know a guy from the New York Army National Guard ..."

Frank, the difference between the guy from the Guard with his Army cartoon and Mr Gallant here is that your guy is only poking fun at his employer. Gallant is making fun of the people who called him for assistance. I don't know how things work where you are, but over here I would expect anyone in a customer-facing role who openly held customers in contempt to be fired for misconduct. Under the circumstances and given how few people had downloaded the game Gallant's employer should probably have given him a severe dressing down and told him to pull the game and replace it with an apology before moving directly to dismissal, but he can't complain about unfair treatment.

(That's not to say his customers weren't stupid, by the way - just that he should have kept his thoughts on the matter to himself.)

"you are on their database, as you are a customer. ..."

True dat, but a company that doesn't separate existing customers from potential new customers is so wilfully incompetent that they don't deserve business.

"a little more careful murdering people under the Stand Your Ground law "

Legal note (IANAL): SYG isn't the law that applies here. "Stand Your Ground" laws remove the duty to retreat from a public confrontation before using force if you are acting in defence of life, and are primarily invoked to allow white people to shoot black people - SYG has a habit of being thrown out as a defence when it's a black shooter or a white victim. This case is castle doctrine, which allows the residents of a property to defend themselves against intruders regardless of whether they believe their life is endangered.

"Pencil and paper? No Spam either."

Sir, I submit that you have never had someone else doodle in your margins.

"HMV was too expensive to survive"

Honestly, there is no need for further analysis beyond this. HMV have been selling their core products - CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays - at RRP. That's rendered them uncompetitive not only with online retailers but with every other remaining physical retailer as well. I could walk into my local independent music store and get The Wall Immersion Edition for £99 if I wanted it, while 100 yards away HMV are still asking the full £120.

When a chain store isn't able to compete on price with a single-outlet small business in the same town, you know there is mismanagement at work.

"Try again fanbois."

Normally I'd downvote your ignorance and move on, but as it's the OP's fault for not properly spelling out the scenario I'll correct him instead. The area of space through which the Kessel Run is made is dangerous because it's littered with black holes. The more powerful your ship's engines, the closer you can get to the black holes before you're unable to escape the gravity well - so being faster shortens your run as you can take a more direct line. Other, slower ships cannot take your route.

"They should offer us a choice though"

Samsung sort of do - the Galaxy S2 at least has an official extended battery which comes with a replacement back cover for the phone. With the extended battery the phone is about 1mm thicker. It's an option more companies should consider offering.