* Posts by Growly Snuffle Bunny

36 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Aug 2011

Global Warming is real, argues sceptic mathematician - it just isn't Thermageddon

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Unhappy

At what point...

Do we start to admit something IS happening and something *sensible* MUST be done?

0.5C, 1C, 1.5C, 2C - all we're doing is pushing the "we are really in the crapper now!" date around. Will it be our problem? Our childrens? Our grandchildren?

MondoMan, it is true that in general large ecosystems are quite robust. Small ones not so much, and ultimately it's economic systems that will cause the real misery as the climate adversely affects us in a myriad of ways.

It's the '90s all over again: Apple repeats mistakes as low-cost tablets pile up

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Trollface

Re: Diversify

"The solution would be for Apple to open a second line: extolling the virtues of "It's still an Apple", but with its own branding, style, lower prices and possibly less ornamental value."

They tried that on the 5C, but didn't have the branding in place.

May I suggest - 'Lemon'?

OAR-some! 18ft SEA SERPENT discovered off US coast

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Stop

Re: "it won't fit in the freezer"

Or they could - stay with me here - cut it into smaller chunks? 3 cuts will make 4x 4.5(ish)ft chunks. That should go in any sensible chest freezer.

"Bury it, wait for it to decompose..." Tosh! Idiots! They can learn more from flesh and skeleton than skeleton alone.

The Vulture 2: What paintjob should we put on our soaraway spaceplane?

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Alien

Paging Mr Anderson...

Fireball XL5? Thunderbird 1? Thunderbird 3?

Or black. All black. Then you can take a year off, dead, for tax reasons.

Indian govt blocks 40 smut sites, forgets to give reason

Growly Snuffle Bunny
WTF?

"Objectionable content"?

"Facebook and Google were forced to remove “objectionable content” from their Indian sites last year after complaints it was offensive to Muslims, Hindus and Christians."

Considering the huge range of material these groups object to, what's left? The Indian equivalent of .gov?

... time machine. Iranian Dr Who claims he invented a ...

Growly Snuffle Bunny
WTF?

98% ?

If it's a time-machine then surely it would be 100% accurate?

Rogue Squadron: Unit of X-wings Kickstarts in response to Death Star

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Thumb Up

uk.gov

The UK should chip in £10million, but keep their hands off the project. Get a working X-Wing, and we've a use for those silly carriers we've bought!

If it doesn't work, then cancel the cucumber sandwiches in the Lords for a week to make up the shortfall.

Report: Over 1.5 million UK drivers will have hydrogen cars by 2030

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Pint

H2 a greenhouse gas

I did not know this - thanks for the edjamacation!

http://www.ghgonline.org/otherhydrogen.htm

Have one on me.

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Boffin

Re: H2 loss

I think you might be mistaking loss of hydrogen (H2) which we can easily make gazillions of connes of, and helium (He) which is rare(ish) and getting rarer.

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Alert

Re: RR

I seem to recall that more than 70% of all Land Rovers ever produced are still on the go...

Making MACH 1: Can we build a cranial computer today?

Growly Snuffle Bunny

If not Probe, then who...

was the guy who crashed his police Lagonda and ended up with the car's computer part of him because it couldn't be removed?

US patent office: Nice try Apple, but pinch-to-zoom is NOT a new invention

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Unhappy

Fed up with them all

I wish Apple and Samsung would get a life, or a room. Maybe the one where the USPTO used to be, before it was dismantled to to sheer incompetentcy.

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

Japanese firm offers 4-tonne GIANT MECHs for just $1.3m

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Terminator

Call me back...

When there's a walker!

When GiffGaff falls over, is it even news any more?

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Facepalm

Re: Effected

Not that it appears here, but the one that really burns me is

'I could care less"

I could care less too, if I couldn't care less!

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Thumb Up

GiffGaff - I love it

Having been with them for about 18 months now, I have nothing but praise for them. Sure, they have their problems, but what operator doesn't? At least they say that they're having them, and keep users 'in the loop' wherever they can. The flexibility, the free calls to other GiffGaff numbers, truly massive internet quotas for virtually nothing - it works for me. As a business user I'm confident enought to use GiffGaff in my daily work.

Apple is granted a patent on the rectangle. No, really

Growly Snuffle Bunny

Re: Hopefully...

"The broken lines in the Figures show portions of the portable display device which form no part of the claimed design", so it doesn't matter what manufacturers put where. If they put them on a rectangular display device with rounded corners and a rounded back edge then they're screwed.

Seriously, WTF?

Growly Snuffle Bunny
WTF?

So why have a design patent on it at all? If you're registering a design for a product you are building, surely the dimensions are an integral part of that product? If something is almost identical in size and shape, with only trivial differences, then you have patented the 'look' of a device. If there are no sizes shown, only a shape, then haven't you just patented a design that is rectangular with rounded corners and a rounded back?

I may be wrong, it's tea time and I'm hungry. I don't think well on an empty stomach...

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Happy

Re: It's called a DESIGN patent for a reason...

Looks like NumptyScrub and I hit the keyboard around the same time!

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Facepalm

Re: It's called a DESIGN patent for a reason...

You say that, but have you read the patent? There's no sizes anywhere, no definitions of contour, nothing. As far as I can see, AIANAL, they've got a design patent on the generic rectangle with rounded corners and smoothly curved back.

The patent system looks very very broken at this point...

Bond fans: Test your 007 trivia, now!

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Thumb Down

A fairly poor 20/50. Saying that, being dumb is the new smart, right?

Lancashire man JAILED over April Jones Facebook posts

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Thumb Down

"speechless"

Safest way to be, obviously.

Much as I dislike the distress this has caused the family, I can't help but feel that we're on a slippery slope to enforced 'niceness'. No one has a right to not be offended, and we should not have that right. Everything offends somebody.

Governments block YouTube over that video

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Flame

Re: atheist 'sense' (J1 @ 09.20)

"I said atheism does not give any basis for good and bad.. which is true.. atheism is only 'there is no god', it is nothing else."

What you actually said was:

"For a bunch of people who do not even have a basis for good or bad, right or wrong, atheist appear to love to talk alot about how bad others are. They do not appear to realise that atheism gives one no way to determine either."

The two sentences are not the same.

Atheists (in general) say we/they do not believe in god(s). What the majority mean when saying this is that atheism doesn't mean being 100% certain that God doesn't exist. It means being certain enough. It means thinking God is hypothetically possible, but unless we see some better evidence for him, we're going to assume he doesn't exist. I guess this means that the majority of us are 'strong agnostics' rather than atheists. I've talked to (and met) very few people who have the 'faith' to say 100% 'there are no gods'.

"I merely said what atheists say."

And people are merely saying that they have observed the 'religion of peace' being terrifically violent.

Do you see?

"As to good and bad, most people follow the prevailing views. Atheism did not give it to them, society did."

And if you'd have been born in a different society, your religious views would most likely be different to what they are now. The number of people who change religions are tiny. The number of people who stay in the religion of their birth group is vast. The number of people who renounce their religion because they see the problems and injustice that religions cause are growing, and growing quite rapidly.

"Good" and "Bad", "moral" and immoral" are all culturally relative, but with thought and compassion a reasonable personal code can be constructed that can change over time. Having a fixed code that is hundreds or thousands of years old can only lead to conflict with a modern society and viewpoints.

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Flame

Re: atheist 'sense'

"For a bunch of people who do not even have a basis for good or bad, right or wrong, atheist appear to love to talk alot about how bad others are. They do not appear to realise that atheism gives one no way to determine either."

Atheists have morality, as do religious believers. We just don't think our moral compass is planted in us by God or supernatural forces, and we don't think fear of God's punishment is necessary to be a good person. We base our morality in this life: our empathy with others, and our observations about what causes suffering and happiness.

"Free speech finds a limit as does ones tolerance."

Limited "free speech"? Not exactly free then, is it?

'It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that", as if that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so fucking what?'

- Stephen Fry

Apple time is now world time

Growly Snuffle Bunny
WTF?

Re: Off Out Now

Poe? Not Poe? I have absolutely no idea!

Health minister warns ISPs: Block suicide websites or face regulation

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Unhappy

Re: Whitehall has also allocated £1.5m for new research into suicide prevention.....

We can't afford "several hundred million" to help the vulnerable members of our society, and yet we can spend 40+ billion a year on 'defense', most of which ends up in offshore tax avoidance schemes? We have dozens of ultra hi-tech aircraft with nowhere to go, billion-pound ships with peashooters, a dozen officers for every grunt on the ground..

We could build a bloody big wall around the UK for that sort of money, and the next year start looking after those that need it.

And then we get to the government schemes that really piss our money away..

Our country is trully shagged, and will continue to be so until our priorities realign with the people not the companies who employ our retired or fired politicians.

Apple land-grabs iThingy feature management patent

Growly Snuffle Bunny

Re: Ideas are not patentable but methodology is.

Until a device is actually built, all the methodology in the world is only an idea, surely?

I've certainly thought about how it could be done (automatically silencing 'phones while not affecting emergency calls or SMS), many times over many years, as idiots use their mobiles in the cinema and restaurant annoying me no end. Turning off cameras etc. is just an obvious extension. It's not rocket science, and certainly IMHO not worth a patent...

Growly Snuffle Bunny
WTF?

There's a patent??

Not so much obvious as so bloody simple even a monkey could have thought of this one!

Who amongst us in the years that mobiles have been available has not been in a cinema (or other location) and thought that there must be a way to turn phones off or mute them during the feature?

Well I for one won't be buying a phone with this tech in it.

Sharp to show OLED 'retina' display for laptops

Growly Snuffle Bunny

Re: Should've gone to screensavers

I use 1680 x 1050 @ 15" on a matt screen. I loathe glossy screens with a passion. The slightest light from behind you and portions of the screen become unusable. My matt screen? Like a Duracell bunny..

(Ultrabook res? No thanks..)

Future car tech

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Happy

Re: Infra Red (IR) RADAR?

Mea Culpa! I applaud your upmanship score...

I checked the spelling, copied the text to the clipboard, then took five minutes trying to remember my password for posting. I posted the comment, and forgot to change the spelling. D'oh!

And you're right. The word 'it' does not contain an 'e'.

Growly Snuffle Bunny
FAIL

Infra Red (IR) RADAR?

<Pedant mode = ON>

RADAR (RAdio Direction And Rangeing) works using radio waves. The Focus uses an infrared laser for sensing distance for the 'low speed collision avoidance', so if you want to be accurate (and as a tech-site accuracy should be seen as 'a desirable attribute') then it actually uses LIDAR (LIght Direction And Rangeing).

<Pedant mode = OFF>

Space: 1999 returning to TV?

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Alien

Poor Maya...

Such an appalling role for an actress... If she did anything at all apart from looking strangely sexy, it was an animal that got the credit.

I seem to remember an interview in which she said that she so wanted the part she'd said "who do I have to sleep with to get it?".

While playing the part, she joked "who do I have to sleep with so I can get out of this contract?"

Airport bomb Twitter joker in second fine appeal bid

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Joke

Print my comment or I will blow up Robin Hood Airport's website

Leave a sack of cash in the bin behind my house. Address supplied. #iamspartacus

(Joke alert, as if you have the brains of a Zabriscan Fontema you'd realise that THIS IS A JOKE!)

Growly Snuffle Bunny

Can't ever go to the US...

So, no big deal there then.

GiffGaff boots freetards off mobile network

Growly Snuffle Bunny

'Unlimited'

I seem to remember reading somewhere on the GiffGaff site that although they called their data allowance 'unlimited' there was a limit beyond which they reserved the right to let you know/kick your arse/tell you to go away. For some reason the figure of 150GB/month sticks in my mind. That's an awful lot of data...

Microsoft touts Windows 8 fondleslabness

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Pirate

Price?

Are we going to get a dozen different versions, at a dozen different prices?

I hope (optimistically, and with a dashing of naivety) Microsoft take a leaf from Apple's book and have a sensible policy. One operating system, two versions (ARM, x86), one price for end-users - a price of $35 (£35, good old Blighty..) At that price my machines might ALL get proper licences, rather than just the ones I use for my business.

Is this the chance Microsoft has been looking for to reduce piracy of their OS?

US and Russia to give uranium to ANYONE

Growly Snuffle Bunny
Mushroom

Unstable?

With the apparent rise and rise of the GOP and their christian fundamentalist theocratic goals I'd put my money on the US joining the "unstable" (or 'completely batshit crazy') group. At that point, we're ALL in trouble...