Posts by Chris

RE: Actually...

"I had exactly the same thing a few months ago, and told the guy I wouldn't answer questions on an incoming call. The bloke offered me what he said was his DDI to call. How helpful. I declined and looked the number up on their website instead.

You do know that web sites can be spoofed as well? I would look it up on a paper statement. Or don't banks in the UK mail out statements?

I kept getting calls about a new credit card account. I kept ignoring them because the calling company was not the one I opened the account with (they contract with the other company), and I had no reason to believe I owed them (it was supposed to be 0% for a year). As it turned out, it was 0%, but they still wanted a payment every month (not the usual practice over here), and I hadn't sent them the first one.

Finally they sent me a letter. I called the number they left, but didn't give them any financial details. I told them I'd call back to the customer service number on my statement. He didn't understand my concern. "But you'll just get forwarded to us at collections again, until you pay the arrears."

-Chris

"Battle for the Planet of the Apes" anyone?

This is what happens when a once proud franchise gets milked too much. Sort of like the goose that laid the golden egg. Each successive movie got worse and worse, and not-so coincidentally, had a smaller budget. By the time they got to the last one, they were reduced to shooting in a park, with an old school bus.

stolen CCs

You are actually much more likely to have your credit card information stolen if you give it to a waiter/waitress and let them take it out of your sight, than if you use it for an on-line purchase.

Pre-payment

Almost every chain gas station here in the US has "pay at the pump". This is NOT the same thing as pre-payment. You swipe your cc at the pump, and they put an authorization hold on for the estimated charge (sometimes it is only a dollar though, to make sure the card is valid). Only after you are done pumping does the transaction actually complete. You only need to prepay if you are paying cash.

Of course, another answer would be to bring back the full-service gas station.

When you think about it, most things are paid in advance of use/possession. The fact that you can pick it up and carry it to the front of the store before paying is not really different. The only exception I can think of is restaurants, where you eat the food first, then pay for it. But in fast food places, they require you to pay first, especially if it's a drive through.

physics?

Why is this filed under physics? Surely it's chemistry (and stop calling me Shirley).

-Chris

Oh Lester

"Terror police grab Butt"?

Don't be silly. Everyone knows they couldn't find it with both hands. (Or is that strictly an American idiom?)

RE: expression?

The expression is not completely original. There's an old country song by Jerry Reed about divorce called "She Got The Goldmine (I Got The Shaft)"

-Chris

Maybe not cheap...

unless you do it in tremendous volume, but take a bunch of drives, put them on a rocket, and fire it into the Sun. I'd like to see even the NSA recover data from them then.

typical CBP agent

Really folks. To keep your private data private, just put it somewhere other than the My Documents folder...

online transactions

I never use Paypal after an article in El Reg a few years ago pointed out that they perform all the functions of a bank without being subject to banking regulations. They can go into your (real) bank account and remove funds just because someone on eBay says you ripped them off, and you have no recourse.

I have a credit card provider that allows the creation of a "virtual" CC number to be used for one online transaction only. The number then expires, so even if someone got hold of it, the transaction would be refused. I just wish they'd enable Autofill in Firefox, and tie the TSR program to my user account instead of starting it up automatically for every user of any machine it is installed on. I have complained about this huge gaping security hole numerous times to no avail.

There is also a slight problem when you order, say, tickets to be picked up at the Will Call window. They generally ask you to present the card that was used to pay online, which doesn't exist in physical form.

Chicken Little

Fred Pohl did it years ago in "The Space Merchants"

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue370/classic.html

I just wonder what kind of nutrients this in vitro chicken is going to need. Probably not unprocessed grains. But wait! That means there will be more corn to make ethanol to power our SUVs when the oil runs out.

-Chris

Tux because at least he's a live bird, just not a chicken.

you *are* wrong

You have it backwards. It's .003 rock/m^2, or one rock for every 300 square meters. I think they can find some flat ground in there.

Of course nowhere do they say what the average cross-sectional area of the rocks is, or whether it can be carried by a swallow. Given the thinness of the Martian air, I'm guessing no. Not a European or African swallow, anyway. Maybe a Martian swallow, though.

mine's the coat of armour, not all covered with s**t.

Surely there's room

...for a regular feature with Playmobil/Lego illustrations. Maybe Gumby and Pokey too.

And stop calling me Shirley!

-Chris

Absolutely Brilliant!

Giving super fast Internet connections to people who are probably too poor to pay their electric bills regularly, much less buy computers.

-Chris

NASCAR

Big_Boomer:

Since when was NASCAR a World Championship?

Uh, never. The N stands for National, you know.

Do they race outside the USA? (Mexico & Puerto Rico don't count!)

Yes they do. First, Mexico is not part of the USA, and I believe they have also held races in Canada, Japan, and Australia.

But NASCAR races are usually decided by the skill of the driver, rather than how much money the team spends - the rules are constantly tweaked to make sure the cars are as equal as possible.

I would rather watch a race where the winner isn't known until the last lap, and the margin of victory is a few car lengths, or a straightaway at most, instead of one where the qualifying order is pretty much the same as the finishing order and the margin of victory is measured in minutes.

Open wheel racers have been switching to NASCAR at an ever-increasing rate. Juan Pablo Montoya started it, and it took him almost an entire season to win one race, and that was on a road course, rather than an oval.

-Chris

The what five?

Must not be very famous. Never heard of them on this side of the pond. What we really need is a movie of the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, and Encyclodedia Brown. Throw in Johnny Quest, Hadji, and Bandit to make it PC.

Is it just me?

Or has amanfrommars started to almost make complete sense?

Hey, what happened to the Mars icon?

But why?

So this guy was a militant anti-smoker, but had a smoker for a girlfriend? Serves him right, I say. Unless that's the only way Germans can find girls willing to suck on long, thin, white cylinders.

Paris, because, well you know.

Bad idea

Never mind charging money for a biological necessity. What about people who don't have cell phones? They could have lost it, they could have one but the battery's dead, or they just don't feel it is worth the monthly charge. Then they pee on the lock or otherwise disable it so the next person can't get in either...

results?

Where are the poll results? When I submit, I just get redirected to the El Reg home page.

-Chris

BOINC

I was on SETI within the first month it started, but left after the BOINC fiasco. That was some really stinky software. Almost everyone I know has abandoned it.

If ET wants us to find him, I'm sure he'll let us know unambiguously.

-Chris

Most unusual return

I once bought a modem (yeah, 56k dial-up device; for a friend) at a US big box store, and when I got home and removed the shrink wrap I found a length of chain in the box! It was wrapped in plastic so it didn't rattle. I brought it back to the store and the returns clerk called her friend across the floor and held it up - "You aren't going to believe this one..."

-Chris

Re: PEBCAK problem

"Its like going to buy a Ferrari and insisting they install a smaller hoses for the fuel distribution ... sorry bub. there's no such option."

No it isn't. It's more like going to buy a Honda and telling them "You can keep your stupid cheap plastic floor mats. I'm only going to toss them out and replace them with better, real rubber ones for half what you want to charge."

Of course the dealer is going to tell you that "no floor mats" isn't an option, because he makes a nice markup on them, but the car will run perfectly fine with either kind.

@@hubris

On further reflection, I'd venture to guess that even toxicity would be a pretty long stretch. Our body chemistries would probably be so vastly different, we would not be able to be metabolized at all. There's no reason to believe they would even be carbon-based life. If Star Trek TOS is anything to judge by, they are most likely made of pure energy. But if they can't metabolize us, that would make human meat the perfect diet food - filling, but no "calories" - like eating sand. So maybe you're right after all, Tim.

Of course, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and they would also then have to be an excellent diet food for *us*. May the most obese species win...

I'll get my spacesuit, the XXL one...

-Chris

RE: postcard calc

If DHS hires enough Mexicans as border guards, there won't be any left to try to sneak in illegally. Of course that would then make their jobs redundant, so they'd get laid off, and try to sneak over the border to find work - as a border guard! (repeat ad infinitum).

However, the calculation is off a bit. You'd need at least three shifts of $30k/year workers for each post.

-Chris

rugged?

One one hand, I have to agree with the Canadian. -20C is not very cold at all. I can easily reach that in my freezer, and vast swaths of the USA see colder temps routinely. Even -20F would probably not be good enough, although I wouldn't press a piece of metal or plastic to my face at that temp for very long.

On the other hand, I feel I must take issue with all the people who complained about the lack of features. On that, I say, it's about time. I don't need a phone with a camera, MP3 player, video games, and TV tuner in it. I just want something that can make phone calls and keep track of my contacts. The price is still a bit steep, but if my provider would subsidize it heavily, as with most other phones, I might be willing to give it a whirl.

-Chris

St. Louis

The city where the research took place happens to also be the world-wide headquarters of the Anheuser-Busch companies, owners of approximately 50% of the US beer market. Coincidence? I think not!*

They didn't mention the gender of the participants, but talk of pregnancy leads me to believe the study boils down to "drunk chicks aren't very discerning about who they screw."

* Yes, I know most readers of El Reg would not consider most Anheuser-Busch products to be beer (neither do I), but for the study participants, Budweiser probably constitutes "the good stuff".

-Chris

GM has been going on for centuries

Every single crop we eat has been genetically modified from its wild cousin almost beyond recognition by selective breeding. All that is happening now is it's being sped up and custom tailored, rather than relying on random mutations. We are going to need all the bio-engineering we can get over the next 50-100 years so crops can become more tolerant to heat and drought, and yields improved to feed an ever growing population.

-Chris

lotteries

Lotteries, and other forms of state-run gambling, are not simply a tax on people who are bad at math. They are also a voluntary tax. So the more people who choose to pay it, the lower my mandatory taxes should be (at least theoretically). As long as they don't bring in crime and use up extra resources, I'm all for it.

I live in Maryland, USA. We have a long and storied history of horse racing here. The Preakness, middle jewel of the (American) Triple Crown, is run here. All the surrounding states have installed slot machines at their tracks. The state legislature wants to put them in here too, to bring back all the people who have defected to Delaware, W. Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and resuce the failing racing industry by fattening purses with slots revenue (and balance the budget, too).

One of the tracks is about a mile from my house. I just pray the earmark some of the money to extend the Metro there so the little old blue-haired ladies can keep off my street on their way to pay their voluntary taxes.

Of course lottery officials on this side of the pond would be smart enough to realize how stupid their clients are, and never would have instituted such a confusing scratch-off card in the first place. Over here, they look pretty much like slot machines anyway. (Match 3 or more objects and win...)

Re: Stranded

[quote]If these people couldn't get into there cars and drive away because of some radio jamming then what are they going to do when the battery runs out on their fob?[/quote]

I heard of it happenning. A blonde had the battery go dead on her fob, and she was distraught. She thought she might find a replacement at the convenience store awaaaay over there, but it was a long walk. A kindly stranger helped her out - by unlocking her door with the key...

What is it with the planes?

Why must it always be some sort of airplane? Heinlein, Clarke, and all the rest were writing about intercontinental ballistic rocket passenger service in the 50's. That should be able to get you from London to anywhere else in the world in about an hour and a half, give or take.

-Chris

RE: Easy to remember?

"I think the whole issue of private plates is sad.

Apart from that, I wouldn't want my number plate to be more easily remembered by someone I cut-up or speed past ;-)"

I couldn't agree more. If I were to get a personalized plate (the rules seems a bit different on this side of the pond) I would want my plate to say "I FORGOT". Then if the cops ever tried to "call it in", they would end up in an Abbot and Costello routine.