Posts by Simon

Clever

Hey its Bootcamp for the iPhone.

So can they put Linux on it to please that penguin lovin' crowd as well?

I await someone to correct me about the use of the word "Linux" no doubt :-P

What happened to the...

Emmerdale/Soap news angle?

But do they...

Pump out as much Apple poison as Webster does?

Hey where is he? Hes been very quiet recently, maybe he bought one those toxic Macs and succumbed.

I seem to remember my old ZX81, it used to get hot and smell of warm solder.

ooh I miss that smell, it still gets me all nostalgic when someone is using a soldering iron, aww.

@Lewis

What drugs were you on when you wrote that, because I would like you to share them with me.

Written like a Viz and New Scientist head on collision, well done sir.

Horrible idea

After many years of surfing the web my brain seems to have trained my eyes to hop over adverts on webpages as I'm reading, you get me to read a page and I couldnt for the life of me tell you what the bulk of the adverts were.

We also have those adverts which scroll into the viewing area of the webpage, my brain has now also trained my eyes to looks for the "X" and click on it without reading the advert text so I can continue reading the rest of the page.

I suspect everyone else does this, I wonder if there has been any studies done on it.

"Webpage advert eye contact avoidance"

So ok Mr Brain, you are going to have to transfer those Ninja ad avoidance skills onto watching the TV now.

You know what kind of adverts I do notice, those bloody obvious ones in between breaks in TV programs, I admit they work, even if I dont buy the product (Yeah the next level of study, do adverts on TV actually work?) So maybe they should just keep it simple.

But do they still sell...

Car phones?

Maybe they should do a name change.

I used to know a guy who had a shop sellling bottled gas, he called it "City gas" then in the 90s when mobiles started to really take off he switched to phones and then called his company "City gas communications", he thought it sounded odd so changed its name to "Phone world".

I always said to him I liked the name "Gas" as in "Talk", like ya do in the "City". Last time I spoke to him he had a string of shops and was a millionare "On paper". I dont think the company exists now, I guess hes living on a yacht somewhere enjoying his money.

Sorry, off topic, but it reminded me of that slightly pointless story, sorry.

Patches on sleeves, didnt ask him if I could be a company partner...

Many, many years ago...

Hotmail was actually a pretty decent way of sending email.

Then Microsoft got their hands on it and every new version was broken in some way, I.E. it only seemed to be designed to work properly with Internet Explorer.

I was still using an Acorn about the start of the Zeros and my little Acorn browser worked with Hotmail fine, then Hotmail was "Upgraded" and broke when they added lots of their Javascript crap into it (Hey, I like javascript, until it breaks something).

Then every new version I feel like I'm being dragged deeper and deeper into the M$ way, now it features too many adverts and really dumbed down trashy celebrity news.

But so many people have my Hotmail email address, its very important I keep hold of it. Yes I know I could create a email address on another network and forward my hotmail address to it, but I will hang onto until it *really* pisses me off (Not long now...)

A tip for handling spam, I initially set my email up to include *everything* as spam, then added email I knew to a safe list as I fished them out of the spam box, eventually I had built up a large enough safe list so every mail I wanted went into my inbox and anything I didnt ask for went into the spam. When I signed up to something new or gained a new contact I would know to check in the spam when I received stuff off them and add them to my safe list. AFAIK I have never missed an important new message.

Right, here goes, time to await someone to flame me for using Hotmail *Sigh*...

Buffering...

Buffering... Buffering... Buffering...

*Gah*

Inflatard

So the pedal power was so weak on this blimp unless it was completely calm (Never happens in the channel) he would have been fighting the wind and losing or going with the wind and cheating.

I'm guessing the only reason he did it was because he didn't think it through.

That Swiss guy with his jet wings must be laughing his ass off.

Fail.

I call Photoshop

On that name, umm.

@James Marten

Damn, next you will be picking holes in the design of my wind turbine powered flying machine...

Labels

There does seem to be a lot of labelling going on in general with this "Origins of us" nonsense.

If you go to church you must be a "Creationist" if you dont you must an "Evolutionist". The same way you are either "Religious" or "Atheist".

Then the further label of "Religious people hate science" and "Scientists are out to destroy God"

Then someone at some point in the media will accuse the other side of being shallow and wrong and then try to destroy their arguments using the same tactics that both side use (Just talking about the media here, still). It all eventually goes downhill analyzing microscopic details with neither side refusing the budge, with the inevitable phrase "The bible is right/wrong"

Science sure as hell isnt out to destroy God, just try and understand how the world works (Gods world, created so people could learn about its complexity) in the meantime religious people gets to benefit from the output of science (Such as Tvs and cars and stuff).

I do object when people state that because their belief/theory is "Fact", that means the other side is fiction, therefore wrong, end of argument. How boring.

Hey we need some Playmobil on here...

Debit/Credit card details.

Yes, I phone up companies and tell them the numbers on this card thing in my wallet, in return they send me free stuff, works everytime.

Right, must rush. I have an appointment with my bank manager at lunch, something about an account being massively overdrawn, whatever that means.

Backdrop?

OMG, there was a link in that article to a bigger version of the image, nearly big enough to be a backdrop on my computer.

So how about including a backdrop size image link (For the new Playmobil article *every* friday, pleeeeese) we can all use as a weekly backdrop on our Pee Cees.

Woo, that would be sooo good, it would make my fridays.

"Hey everyone its Friday today, you know what that means?"

"Woo yeah, its the new El Reg Playmobil backdrop today, can't wait!"

*Drooooooool!*

It must be Friday!

Yep, this reads like a Friday article.

I'm going to bookmark this comments page and check back as the Friday slackers debate a new word destined to end up in the Oxford English Dictionary (Well in the online version at least).

The same dictionary rag that included the word(s) "Girl Power" FFS!

Yeah, send me the T-shirt and another one for my wife, ta. Don't forget to wrap it around a brand new Laptop as well.

So it starts as...

Gay Sheep Romp Sex Orgy Shock Horror! story in the title

But turns out to be just plain old Sheep Having Fight, as stated in the original BBC news story.

Lester I'm so disappointed at you for trying to spice up a headline like that just to get us hooked.

Not that, like, umm, i fell for it or anything, umm, and then had to deal with the disappointment.

Still, the sight of blue sheep could be considered just a teeny bit erotic.

I may need to lie down, under my desk, for a bit, gah.

Hadron roadkill

That second paragraph had me giggling like a small girl, well done sir.

The CERN cafeteria? Have you been there? It isnt too bad, they do fantastic coffee in there, however the evening meals seem to encourage me to eat everything "Avec frites".

The information that I have seen says that the downtime clashes with a compulsary winter shutdown period. I suspect most people (Including the media) wont know this and will simply report the LHC as "Broke" till next year (You got it correct in the article, well done) So this doesnt mean it will take until spring to fix the problem with the faulty magnets, only a couple of days in fact, then a couple of weeks to cool them down again. Nothing to worry about.

Most people at CERN see this as a "Crisatunity" to iron out the bugs in other areas of the system and get things all ship-shape for the turn-on in the spring.

All those people who breathed a sigh of relief when the world didnt whistle down a cosmic plughole, well it wasnt due to happen on the 10th of September, the machine wasnt attempting to run at full power then, you will have to wait till 2009 for that, please remain under your desks...

Oops!

What's going on here El Reg?

Are you trying to test the waters to see if any of us would find soap news appealing?

I see the plan, daily articles on the Reg about all the soap news, so much easier than all that IT nonsense.

As they say on the Intertubes (Does it feature on Emmerdale, maybe we need an article on that as well?) Epic Fail.

(I need to click on that "IT?" button before the Reg runs out of them...)

Typing from CERN

Yes, today is just a chance to get a single beam all the way around, no full collisions yet.

I have had a quick look in the ATLAS control room, and well its heaving in there with people and media.

As i speak a 2nd beam should be going around the ring and this afternoon there will be some bottles opened to celebrate many years of hard work.

Woo Hoo!

I will show them to my wife

I showed her the range recently and she rather liked them

"Ooh can I buy you the one with the Spectrum on it?"

She claims my apparent "Geekness" (Don't ask me *shrug*) has been rubbing off on her recently, I have even caught her looking at Star Wars T-shirts and asking me if we can have some blinds in the bedroom with Space Invaders on them.

On an even more bizzare note she has recently become addicted to Star Trek and umm, Upstairs downstairs which she records as it's on early on a Sunday.

Hmm, what else recently, ooh anything Steam Punk also 2000AD comics and Tank Girl. I also thrilled her a few weeks ago by showing her my collection of Star Wars Pogs, she now keeps a picture of an Ewok in her wallet to help her in times of stress and told everyone on Facebook about it.

I will indeed show her the T Shirts, I may have to re-explain some of them to her again mind.

I still loves her, even if she is scaring me a little just recently.

2 stroke

When I saw the headline I continued to read through to see if I could find the words:

"Internal combustion"

"2 Stroke"

"Bloody noisy, the enemy will hear it from miles away and take pot-shots at it"

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! etc

Brilliant!

Aww, thats made my Friday afternoon.

Just hoping for Playmobil now before I toddle off home...

PA announcement

"Paging Mr Webster for comment duty, Mr Webster please report for comment duty"

Maybe we can get the "Nice" Webster like we did a few days ago.

So the choice is?

You can either have it dispensing warm beer served at body temperature, or chilled beer and chapel hat pegs.

Uh, huh, I think i have made my choice...

Welcome to Tipton!

I once spent two weeks in Tipton *Shudder*

I can imagine lighting farts and setting fire to yourself is probably a good form of entertainment there, because im buggered to imagine what else you are going to do in a place like that.

Apologies to anyone from the area, but Tipton really is sooo dull.

Oh ya, the flame icon, it really fits nicely.

So where is it going to fit?

I would assume "Eco-labels" would show the consumer how friendly the packaging is the environment.

Dont we already have nutrition levels, with guidelines for daily amounts for men and women on food. Carbs, sugar, salt, fat and calories levels on them.

Some packages have carbon footprints levels on them. Then all that stuff about how they are trying to save the world and help the poor farmers.

"Contains only 5 percent fat!", so its good for you, low guilt food.

Booze has unit levels and health warnings, Ciggies have huge warning labels on them about how you are destroying your best mates health sitting next to you.

This product is flammable or harmful, etc etc.

Then they have ingredients and weights, then all those bar codes and "CE" labels, dont forget the "Recycle me" and "Keep your country tidy" logos. Also "May contain nuts" or "Unsuitable for such and such a person".

Yup, on and on it goes, a sea of different labels depending on the product, till you can hardly work out what your actually buying.

Im sure someone else could list a dozen more items that go on packaging today.

Or you can do what most people do, ignore the information overload and just buy stuff you like.

"Eco-Labels"? ARGGHHHHH!!!

Ethernet?

Yeah, as Mike Dyne said, why has this TV got an ethernet port on the back?

Mr Phelan, please tell us now, im sooo curious.

*FacePalm*

Oh gawd, its Webster.

I was hoping he had fallen down a hole or had been beaten up by some small children.

Surely...

He would just swim around in circles anyway?

Sorry.

@Tim

*You* are my therapist!

Now just need to seek revenge on above mentioned grown-up.

How much do I owe you? Do you do contract hits as well?

Atom-tastic!

Some great use of our English Language there

"thrash electrons within an inch of their lives"

"spyray"

And general use of the word "Boffin", excellent!

The article reads like a mash-up between New Scientist and the VIZ, well done sir.

So can this method be used on LPs as well, could we find some new refreshing guitar solo or maybe an uttered swear word due to a dropped drum stick incident buried under the thick layer of vinyl?

Gawd bless science!

Wayne Kerr

Someone mentioned it on here.

That name really does exist, but as a company!

http://www.waynekerrtest.com/

Exaggerated

I went there a few years ago and the people on the tour all noted that the wooden huts had the paint peeling off them.

When someone asked the tour guide the guide said that when the huts were first built the wood was treated with a preservative that unfortuantly eats at the paint and causes it to flake, so there is nothing they can do, every new layer of paint comes off soon after its put on.

There are a couple of news sites specifically mentioning the state of the huts paintwork, well if they bothered to research it they may know the truth.

Apart from that, Bletchly Park doesnt look too bad (Its certainly in a better condition than the story makes out) and its a fantastic day out for the average computer history nerd (Like myself)

And no, i dont work there!

PA announcement

"Webster Phreaky, will Mr Webster Phreaky please report for comment duty on this article, thank you."

Promotional?

"pushing the bed balloons as a promotional item" WTF?

Why not something more stylish instead that isn't going to promote accusations of an affair as appears to have happened. I wonder how I could get a free TV like this?

Sarah Bee, i didnt know you wrote articles alongside rejecting my previous posts ;-P

Here comes the two wheels solution...

Yup, i found a solution about ten years ago, get a motorbike.

Where I live its double yellow as far as the eye can see but i can always find a small parking space for the bike.

Then the commute to work (On a motorway) is through complete gridlock, but I can cruise through the gaps easily enough and always get to work on time. Plus don't forget folks those average speed cameras they install on motorways dont work with motorbikes as they are looking for front number plates (Yes I still have to watch out for the normal speed cameras).

Then when i get to work they have a charging scheme for parking, but hey, motorbikes are exempt.

Its cheap on fuel as well. Have never had to pay for parking or any form of fine, ever.

If you can stand the cold in the winter and the rain in the summer (Gawd bless Blightly!) plus avoid those idiot drivers on their mobile phones its a chance to get out of the motoring meltdown rat-race and have lots and lots of fun.

First person to call me a smug git will get a nod in agreement off me.

Blaming the parents?

Yes, its the responsibility of the parents, not the govenrment. 9 million? FFS.

But there have been a lot of pointless studies that blame the "Parents lack of knowledge about computers" as the problem, bollocks, the parents who are old enough to have young children now are the ones that grew up in the 80s and 90s and are a generation who were brought up on computers.

I suspect most of it is not because of the parents lack of computer knowledge, but the parents lack of parenting knowledge or the ability of children to keep secrets from their parents.

Anyway Little Timmy will always hide something from his parents, I know I did (Yeah, we all had a porn collection when we were 15) so unless the government plans to do raids on kids bedrooms things will carry on as normal and the governments will continue to waste money on things they have no real control over.

Knight rider lights

If anyone is interested there is an IC to generate the sweeping lights thing done on the front of KITT.

The IC is a five stage Johnson counter (HEF4017B) connected to a 555 to generate the clock. I had a go at making the KITT thing on a breadboard (No, not that kind, sheesh!) and it looked rather funky.

I also have a Knight Rider lights effect on my website (Using Javascript, it speeds up and down as well), but i'm sure someone would accuse me of promoting my (Crappy) website if i posted the link on here ;-P

Steam survey

I did spot this survey recently on Steam (Its collected automatically) if you scroll down far enough it will show you what OSes people are using for playing Steam games:

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

80precent using XP compared to 15percent using Vista.

Now if even the gamers who are the people most likely to like the Latest Thing TM are massively chosing XP over Vista then this really demonstrates that Vista is unliked.

Are we the first?

Maybe lifeforms all over the universe have built these LHCs, which may be an inevitable part of technology development, then have blown themselves to pieces when they switched it on. Scientists have noticed strange bursts of energy around the comos.

Maybe its a way the universe keeps life in check, to stop it swarming and getting too big for its boots.

So who are we to argue, lets turn it on and make our own kaboom!

(Joking, im sure its perfectly safe!)

Great idea!

So long as it has an "OFF" switch.

FFS Do they think we drive with our eyes shut, hmm then again White Van Man was doing it this morning.

@El Reg

These exclusive photos in Playmobil are fantastic please keep them up.

With these authentic images we know we are getting the truth from the greatest website evar!

@Aetyr

Well said Aetyr *Clap clap!*

Lets hope the likes of Webster is reading this, it's really boring when people do the "Their choice is better" crap.