Posts by Richard
42 posts • joined Friday 22nd June 2007 13:28 GMT
El Reg are "public relations experts"
It must be true - Wikipedia says so!
Spend lots more money....
.... seems to actually increase the possibility of more banks failing?
Posted in M42 closed by marshmallows and beer
On my way now.....
... to join the cleanup team.
Any more volunteers?
@Ian
Unless you live in the UK and don't have a TV - they still hound you for the license fee.
What was the rest of the punishment?
"the person who handled the issue was tied up"
Was that it? Or something further?
Playmobil reconstruction, please!
@ various - the retailer doesn't care
It's not the retailer that takes the hit. The info is used to clone a mag stripe card, which is then used at an ATM somewhere abroad where chip'n'pin doesn't exist yet.
Two solutions - either ban using the same PIN for chip and stripe, or do proper x509 cards with on-chip authentication.
Posted in Autopilot blamed for Qantas plunge
The autopilot may not "go down" ...
... but anyone remember the scene in "Airplane" when the autopilot started to deflate and the stewardess had to reinflate it?
Respect
Lewis, with your acronym generating skills, you'd be a top man in just about any IT organisation!
re. Why a barrel roll?
It looks good at the air shows.
Don't bring them back to Blighty ...
... just sail across the straits and offload them somewhere like Saudi, who will no doubt give them a warm welcome.
Worth a try.....
Paypal are now a bank, regulated in Luxembourg. The regulator is Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier.
See their website, in particular the complaints procedure at
http://www.cssf.lu/index.php?id=75&L=1
Dunno what would happen if they got inundated with complaints about paypal?
@ashley
That wasn't the first one, either - back in the late 1800's and early 1900's there were a number of cameras made to look like pistols, and much sought after by collectors. What would happen today if you tried to use one of those in public?
Not to mention the WW1 Lewis gun conversion, used for training air gunners!
Headline of the week ...
.... or maybe of the month!
Much respect, Sara!
Posted in Divorce for shouty YouTube wife
Sara ....
Have you been borrowing Lewis's thesaurus again?
@JasonW
The EU is already on the case for interchange fees - but don't expect to see any reduction on your credit card bill, as the merchants will probably just pocket the difference, as happened in Australia.
Posted in Sixth British Columbia stray foot a hoax
Appropriate category ....
.... filed under "Bootnotes"
Obvious, really.
Scary...
Someone has actually applied common sense and hard maths to what has been up to now mainly a hot-air (ouch) debate. The guy is going to get abuse from all sides due to entrenched positions and narrow-mindedness, but this seems like the first practical scientifically based analysis.
Total respect!
Posted in Snail mail goes hi-tech – literally
@AC
"I think you'll find Agent 003 is a girl"
Or a boy ... or both - most snails are hermaphrodite
Violation of the Trades Descriptions Act?
In filing anything to do with the Eurovision Song Contest under "Entertainment"?
Picky?
Vultures? Picky?
Posted in eBay ponders Skype bail out
Swings and roundabouts....
Good news - may stop the intensely irritating Skype pop-ups on almost every ebay page :-)
Bad news - even higher ebay fees to cover the loss? :-(
BAE is the main problem
A couple of things would help no end:-
Buying off-the-shelf stuff that does the job that needs to be done, rather than fancy long-range programmes where the needs have changed competely by the time it's delivered,
A bit more competition in the industry
But I guess BAE would do everything in its power to prevent these.......
About time too
The guy appears to have hit a real raw spot. Looking at the list of companies opposing this can only add more justification for it!
Not the first attempt...
A few years ago another company was doing this over London (using a British-built blimp, as I recall) but the service only ran for a year or two (sort of fizzled out rather than went with a bang?).
Posted in Intel shows Atom-powered Eee PC clones
Wot - no beach babe pic?
They're doomed to failure if they don't have a picture of a typical user on a sun-drenched beach ;-)
@bob_blah
Is that a typo or are you admitting what many have suspected actually hides behind the Oz macho veneer?
@amanfromMars
Has someone hacked amanfromMars's account - that post made sense! I do hope he's not ill or anything - maybe an attack of Lunacy?
Bleeding Obvious
CCTV cameras are useless for reducing anti-social behaviour unless:
1. Someone is monitoring the things in real-time
2. There is enough police manpower to respond - quickly!
Maybe put the CCTV feeds on the web - then anyone interested can keep an eye on what's going on - and maybe go and join in the rumble if they feel like it ;-)
Posted in BBC's iPlayer launches Christmas Day
Re. not beta quality
Ah - being of a certain age I misread that post as it not being of Betamax quality yet.
Thinking about it, it probably isn't. That Betamax system was very good for its day.
Also great value....
... compared to a C130J Hercules with a range of 2,000 nm and a payload of 20 tonnes, list price to you, sir, £33 million.
I know it's not that simple, but the much cheaper C130 covers most of the operational requirements, and I assume there will always be a need for the greater capacity of the C17 for extreme lifts, what's the actual market demand for this latest EU vanity product? Probably depends on how much the taxpayer subsidises it.
@Paul
You're right - it made sense - I hope he's OK and not gone crazy (or is that sane?) ....
@Did we join.....
That post must be the candidate for the comment of the week. But why did you post anonymously?
Oh - yes - guess I understand .....
Not necessarily Linux
Who said the alternative had to be Linux?
Vista is still too new for me to be happy to use it - it needs another year or so in the wild for all the bugs to be fixed. If I was getting a new PC I think XP would be a better option at the moment - but how easy is it to buy a PC with XP nowadays?
Posted in Bank holiday transport farrago
ROTM?
Is this the first sign of the ROTM plan to render humanity helpless?
Insidiously insinuate themselves into the everyday fabric of life, then deny services at a crucial time once humankind has lost the ability to function without them?
Time for the NLRA to head for the resistance command centre - Oh B***er, the location was stored on my (now defunct) TomTom!
Posted in Channel 4 cans Celebrity Big Brother
Gutted.....
...as there was a rumour that Paris Hilton was being signed up for this year. Remember she's just had a bit of practice by being locked up for a few days, too!
Posted in Google invades Outer Space
Just waiting....
... to see what comment amanfrommars posts to this one ;-)
Gordon Bennett
The competition and the expression derive from the same guy - see
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/gordon-bennett.html
Also, maybe we need another entry in El Reg's english dictionary for ginger nuts - for Brits, that's a kind of biscuit.
419 email?
How long before the boys in Lagos get hold of this one? Watch out for the email!
Not easy!
DNA can determine ethnicity (racial origin) but not nationality - and would probably need to look at many more markers than the current UK database uses. It may be possible to identify the geographical origin or long-term abode of someone by analysing ratios of elements and isotopes in bone or teeth, for instance, but I think this may be a step too far in terms of giving a sample!
