Tesla is the future, old people....

Elon Musk has made the first decent electric sports car. Credit where it's due.

Besides, inefficient reciprocating lumps of metal, explosive fuel and all those extra moving parts (gearboxes - how quaint) are so last Century. May as well keep making better horse whips.

"So I did it...!"

Took about 90 seconds. Go me.

This is a litmus test for the Govt...

They promised not to extradite. If they do, and God forbid the poor tortured guy tops himself in a US gulag, the reverberations will be immense. It could swing any election.

More masts = more safety

By far, the most EM you receive is from holding that little microwave transmitter right next to your head. It dwarfs the dose you get from masts, even if you're stood under one.

The closer the mast, the less power the phone has to use. One bar of signal means the phone is transmitting on full-blast - not desirable. Five-by-five signal means lowest-power transmissions and the greatest safety.

It's not the masts which are the problem. The lack of masts is the problem.

There is already a BOINC

Released in 2002, currently on ~500k PCs around the globe, in various news articles for last 7 years...

I'd say that's a very good prior claim to the name. And this bunch of ne'er-do-wells must know that, so bollocks to them for trying to steal it from such a noble cause.

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Ban all helium balloons

There will come a day when wasting tons of precious, non-renewable helium on poxy balloons will be seen as one of the most stupid things mankind ever did.

The Earth's helium supply is small and finite. We need all of it for supercooling superconductors and various crucial machines and experiments (such as the LHC). Even now, we are due to run out of helium by ~2050 (ie. before we run out of oil).

Hydrogen supply is effectively infinite. Use it, don't smoke, don't rub the balloon on your hair until it crackles.

Job done.

10 megawatts? Pah...! The NSA's latest will pull 60 MW

In fact, they have two...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/04/nsa_fort_mead_data_center/

Will still dwarfed by Charity Engine.

Notebooks are already supercomputers

Just depends on what era you compare them with. A smartphone is more powerful than the first Crays.

In 2000, the world's fastest machine was 7 teraflops. My £150 graphics card is 2 teraflops...

The vast majority of the world's computing capacity is already unused. We're actually basing a business on that very premise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTKnXelDkco

Test case coming shortly, Groupon is in for a real bollocking

Of course they won't run those ads again. They never run the same advert again anyway - it's a 'daily deal', a one-shot. That's the whole point.

Groupon is under investigation yet again by the ASA for recently promoting Idiot Bands (aka 'Power Bands') as the UK National Deal, with all sorts of lying and misleading claims.*

And this time, the standard meaningless promise of 'we won't run that ad again' will not be accepted. The ASA has realised that Groupon can be effectively immune to it's regulation otherwise - and is not happy.

You heard it here first!

*Google 'PowerBalance Scam' if you are the only Reg reader who needs convincing. After being taken to court, they've publicly admitted it was all lies (well, duh...) and offered full refunds. The copycats are rightly very worried.

Leave Rush out of this, please...

Rush: intelligent, progressive hard rock.

Limbo: thick, backwards pile of soft fat.

How about carbon-neutral computing?

"Winterputing" is our method of continually shifting tasks to the world's coldest computers. Heat isn't always a waste product that needs removing at great cost. Sometimes (or somewhere), it's useful.

Wherever PCs are making the aircon go crazy, we hardly use them. Wherever PCs are simply making the central heating burn less gas, we give them the work instead.

Result: most eco-friendly method of computing on the planet.

Silver linings

At the recent SVC2C (Silicon Valley Comes To Cambridge) meeting, a certain BT chap tried to defend their shoddy plans for a two-tier service, and was met by simmering silence. Then Joi Ito explained why it's actually a crap idea; cue thunderous applause from the whole theatre.

Of course the vendors are going to take advantage of this, with certain overpaid hotshots thinking they're being especially clever by screwing the customers yet again. Trebles all round, for sure.

But remember, this is the age of t'Internet. Nothing is secret for long.

Preferential traffic throttling - and anything else that those short-sighted corporate shits are thinking of - will be detected. The truth will always out, followed by huge loss of image and customers flocking to the one or two remaining Good Guys in the market.

If a few idiots want to hang themselves, I say pass them the rope.

(Paris, cos she's just as clever)

The Govt just uses this equation...

(Benefit / Cost) (total surveillance) > Risk of ruining entire economy (if data ever leaked to enemy)

which solves to:

(Zero / Loads) (crap idea) > Total inevitability

which solves to:

(Infinitely crap idea) = Govt policy

I spent three months researching bots for a well-known poker magazine...

They wouldn't run the story. Bad for the advertisers.

Then the Absolute Poker scandal broke...

We've already got an exascale* computer and no-one is using it...

The Internet has two billion CPUs and uses more electricity than most countries. Average utilisation of all that computing power is about 2%.

(*it's actually zettascale)

When one dissenting non-specialist is news...

Next up: climatologist resigns in protest against string theory.