* Posts by Ferry Boat

258 posts • joined 27 Sep 2007


Great white sharks menace Blighty

Ferry Boat

'Serious', 'don't get it'?

That would be The Register comment section then. As we exploit the Arctic people shoot the bears when they are a nuisance or threaten human life. Working in that area often means being armed. Doesn't happen much in Norway/US/Canada/Greenland but in Russia it's a bit more lawless. Lack of ice for them doesn't help either. Fishing is killing great whites and removing their prey. Sorry, just the Friday depression about the state of things...

Ferry Boat


Sooner these dangerous sharks die out the better. Same with those polar bears, when they go I won't need to carry a rifle. I'd be happy with that.

Brit firm stops anti-tank warheads with cloth

Ferry Boat

It's a wrap

Does the cloth protection work twice? So, if they fire one RPG then another, will the second be also stopped? I suppose what I'm trying to say is does the cloth get damaged by the first RPG? You'd think it would, wouldn't you?

Remembering the true* first portable computer

Ferry Boat

Project/Operation Plowshare

The so-called self-styled eponymous 'Internet' is able to furnish you with video clips of the nuclear explosions. 'Sedan' is a particular favourite.

I'm making another delivery of chemicals and sacred roots.

Welsh mum amazed by Marmite Messiah

Ferry Boat

Marmite is the mother of invention

Nope, it's Zappa. He's on the good ship SS Mould too.

Dutch cat skinner publishes critics' personal details

Ferry Boat

Don't fuss everyone

It was cat. It's now art.

I wonder if there is a legal issue if you take information that's freely available, collate it by person and publish it. I don't think people would be happy if someone took their details from the telephone directory and published it along with a photograph of their house. It's technology that makes this so much easier than before and, as usual, I suspect the law is a little way behind.

'Thieving' sperm whale caught on CCTV

Ferry Boat

Prince of Whales

Why don't the fishermen drop depth charges? It would kill the pesky whales and the fish would all float to the surface to be easily scooped up. Long lines! You may as well be the fish whisperer.

NZ couple do bunk with £3.9m bank error

Ferry Boat

Best of luck

Although it's a crime, you've got to wish them the best. Victimless crime because banks are not victims. They are the favoured weapon of the capitalist controllers. Hope they make it.

Missing: 1TB of Clinton White House data

Ferry Boat

Those long winter months

I don't want to appear fussy but isn't a hard drive already digitised? The information on the drive is digital even if the actual storage mechanism isn't quite. Oh, and that word, "egregious". Well that's been spoilt for me by that TV program where the woman with the funny voice says it lots.

Vatican declares 'the internet is blessed'

Ferry Boat

In heaven, everything is fine.

Beware these Catholics. They say one thing but mean another. "It is easy to paint the big picture", he says. Well, that's what they told Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. "Go on, it'll take you a couple of hours, bit of Genesis that's all. I'll make you tea, four sugars is it?".

Asda clamps down on killer teaspoons

Ferry Boat

These are not the drugs you are looking for


Ireland bucks trend with anti-blasphemy law

Ferry Boat

Look over there....

Yep, look at that. Wow. No, stop looking at the economy, look over there.

Welcome to Ireland, local time is 1483.

Go, Brown, go!

Ferry Boat

To all those people threatening to stop reading

I gave up a month ago. My skin is clearer and I usually manage to sleep the whole night through. Give it a try.

Boffins finger reason for non-aligned cows

Ferry Boat

Compass cow

Why do they align north-south? Does the head always face one way and the pat-producer the other? Do they lie down when it rains? Do they really make shoes out of them? Are there red ones? If not, why is the pub down the road named after one?

Who will answer my cow questions?

Ryanair may charge cattle to use the bog

Ferry Boat

Put the fattie on the left hand side

How long until they start weighing people and charging by the pound? Well, how long?

Maybe you should be charged extra if you're not proficient on the 737-800 via a flight sim. The co-pilot could be removed freeing an extra seat and driving down the cost of air travel. Any problems with the pilot flying and a passenger can help out.

Scotland to battle grey squirrel invaders

Ferry Boat

Be careful out there

Red squirrels are not indigenous to the British Isles. All the squirrel family originally came from north America. At least that's what my 'Boy's Book of Squirrel Evolution' says.

Watch out when you catch squirrels in the winter because the red ones have a grey winter coat. You might get the wrong flavour.

Woman jailed for texting while driving

Ferry Boat

@Anonymous Coward Posted Monday 2nd February 2009 19:50 GMT

Well done. A well thought out comment. Nice to read a non-knee jerk reaction. I do think she should go to prison though. Prison is a deterrent and one that should be used, otherwise it's not much of one.

Irish ISP Eircom in 'three strike' filesharer crackdown

Ferry Boat

Eircom or no comm

The problem is lack of other options as highlighted above. So people would change if they could but they can't. BT Ireland are now competing with landline/broadband packages but that's not been around for long. If you go for BT then you need an Eircom line anyway. If you don't have a line into your house then you have to get Eircom to install the line then transfer to BT. Nice and easy that is. The Eircom broadband speed is atrocious anyway.

'Bart Simpson' punts Church of Scientology

Ferry Boat

Resurrection Joe

Ye gods, I was stuck on the "...I’m now auditing on new OT [Operating Thetan Level] Seven.” bit. Then I used the internet. From the main man himself, "On New OT VII one solo audits at home daily. This is a lengthy level, requiring a considerable amount of time to complete. It is the final pre-OT level, and culminates in attainment of the state of CAUSE OVER LIFE.".

Can they not just create some sort of on-line game where they can do this sort of thing? Keep it out of the real world because it really has no relation to the real world at all.

Airbus A380 bows out of Air Force One competition

Ferry Boat

Hang on

If Obama needs to get anywhere overseas he can just walk over the water. I bet he can fly too. If he wants to.

Tories put toes on Linux bandwagon

Ferry Boat

@Kobayashi Gimp

Interesting idea. Tell me though, when have you ever seen an IT project where the requirements are defined at the beginning and don't change? Never is the answer. Live date is just the date when the requirement changes become a little more urgent.

There is a lot to be said for the idea of breaking these large projects down. It would reduce risk and also spread the cash around. The likes of EDS and co are just getting huge amounts of cash for delivering stuff that does not work. Smaller companies deserve that chance too. Although I'd think they'd be better at delivering what is required.

We are almost at the stage where you can take pieces of open source software and plug them together like Lego. Easy on the scripting glue. It would be nice for the Tories if there were lots of government orientated chunks of software sitting on sourceforge just awaiting download.

BOFH: A safe bet

Ferry Boat


You are just a basket case.

Ferry Boat

A safe bet indeed

Welcome back from your long Christmas holiday. I wish mine was that long. Hummm... that statement rings a bell.

Intel axes five plants, 5,000 workers

Ferry Boat

Living in a box

Anyone know if there is anything likely to happen to the plant in Leixlip?

Rapists should be raped, declares Jordan

Ferry Boat

What's the one per cent other stuff?

I'll take a guess it's not brain cells.

Anyway, the punishment for parents who give their children bloody silly names is to be given bloody silly names themselves. Oh... hang on.

US woman says Ubuntu can't access internet

Ferry Boat

Who put the dog on my desk?

She wants to do a college course. Good for her. The computer is just a tool to be used in the process of doing the course. She is a typical person. She doesn't really know how the computer should do it, she just knows that it should do it. She needs a computer and she needs it to just work. I suspect she'd have similar issues with Windows or whatever OS. That's not part of the problem. The problem is setting up a PC needs some knowledge. She needs support either from Dell or a friend.

Brit loonies adventurers headed to Timbuctoo by 'flying car'

Ferry Boat

Extreme Golfer

I was more worried about him being an 'adventurous office developer'. No doubt the whole trip is planned out in Excel.

Pope praises Galileo, celebrates the Solstice

Ferry Boat

Galileo Galileo

No, the obelisk is a bit more than that. It's actually a disguised rocket to take the Pope off to the real galactic centre when the time comes. Then he can sit on God's right hand, but not in a rude way.

NASA will give away old Shuttles for free

Ferry Boat

Interested but

Does one have to display them in a vertical or horizontal position? You know, like posed for launch or just landed. Our spare room is quite long but not so high.

Europe-wide emergency number is go

Ferry Boat

...and it seems to be an emergency...

I can't get the 112 number stored in my brain as the emergency number. I suppose growing up with 999 fixes it. The other countries I've lived in used 999 too. It was always an odd choice as in the old days the emergency number was one of the slowest to dial. 112 would have been much quicker.

Anti-radiation phone chip withdrawn from sale

Ferry Boat

Take one large snake

Press at high pressure but with no added heat. The oil that flows at this stage can be called Extra Virgin Snake Oil. Take the pressings and pass via a centrifuge. The oil that comes out at this stage can be sold as Virgin Snake Oil. The spun pressings can now be heated and treated with hexane. This is last extract process gives just plain old Snake Oil.


Ferry Boat

Made to make your mouth water

I, for one, welcome our new gelatinous, fridge-sized, see-though masters.

Native-Linux music player Amarok gets major overhaul

Ferry Boat

Is it just me?

Or is it still just so much easier to stick a CD in the CD player and press play. Easier to use controls too. Horses for courses.

I agree with the comment above about listening to full albums as they were intended. I'd never turn off a song half way though either. An interruption of the 'musical message' is bad.

Python 3.0 appears, strangles 2.x compatibility

Ferry Boat

The Full Monty

I only do a little bit of simple Python programming but I think the 'print' function looks a little odd with keywords in it instead of positional values. I know it's to add lots of functionality to it and that wouldn't be possible with positional values. I like the 'with' statement and have got used to using it. It does not look odd but the 'print' function does.

GNU utils (for Windows) + Python has pretty much replaced GNU utils + QuickBasic for my quick and dirty text file manipulation needs.

Ferry Boat

Crop dusters

Hey, El Reg, it looks like you got the Ouroboros piccy from the Medway Crop Circle site. I would have expected you to harvest pictures from a better quality of site than that. Anyway, they reckon it means all matter will move from the third dimension to the fifth, soon, maybe. I wonder if the new 'print' function can help?

print(all_matter, fromD=3, toD=5)

Pirates pee on Amazon's MP3 parade

Ferry Boat

I can play the piano, piano...

The Amazon site is pretty good. Reasonable price, I can put the track where I want and a fairly broad range. They even have Professor Longhair tracks. Now Christmas for the little children will be complete. Oh, how merrily they'll dance around the Christmas tree to the sound of 'She Ain't Got No Hair'.

It's a shame that the site is being exploited by these 'artists'. I suspect most people won't get the add-on or even know about it so it won't take much business away from Amazon.

Ferry Boat

Christmas is cancelled

They don't 'deliver' the MP3s outside the UK. I suppose it will have to be back to the old scratched Slade 45.

Queen's speech targets bankers, unemployed, and immigrants

Ferry Boat

@Charles for King

I'll have a pint of whatever it is that you're drinking.

Hang on, a pint might be a bit too much.

Lord Lamont joins Phorm board

Ferry Boat

Black Wednesday all over again

Just a coincidence that yesterday the pound had its greatest fall against the US dollar since Black Wednesday?

Ferry Boat

Two turntables

At least Lord Lamont will be useful for popping out to the offie so they can drown their sorrows when the time comes. From a business point of view it does not look good. It's not like he has the best track record, not just in finance and business either.

Biz travelers howl over US gov RFIDs

Ferry Boat

@Testing RFID AC

Yes, you can destroy them in a microwave. I've heard that about 10 seconds on full power will be plenty. However, RSA labs has a warning - http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2120#13


M42 closed by marshmallows and beer

Ferry Boat

Diesel, Duck and Daisy

Marshmallows make perfect airbags for mice.

Leicester nursery loses memory stick with children's details

Ferry Boat


Why is this sort of data on a memory stick? Why? Why? Why? It's just madness. Why? For some people huge leather bound ledgers with 4 foot square pages is the only way forward.

Amazon UK pulls Scientology exposé for 'legal reasons'

Ferry Boat


Would that be 'grammar'?

The curse of the typo has stuck. Maybe Xenu made you do it.

Ferry Boat

Sitting on the Lu

@Lu - Amazon can still sell it. If there is libel in it then the author can be sued for that. Anyway, what with your thinly veiled defence of the cult you must be some little monkey working away for the betterment of the cult. Oh, and did I mention it's a cult? It's a cult you know.

Keith T is correct. The libel laws in the UK and the way they can be applied has prevented many books from being published or available.

Broadband speed testers fail the test

Ferry Boat

I don't need no speed tester website

My broadband is so slow we use a calendar to measure the speed. 16KB/s is usual, 18KB/s on a good day. Sometimes the download indicator progress thing goes into bytes per second mode.

Fifty years later, steam appears on British railway

Ferry Boat


Surely they can't be using coal to heat the water. Shouldn't they be using a small nuclear reactor? I wonder if that would be more efficient than using a nuclear reactor to drive a turbine to produce electricity to drive the train, all on-board of course.

Coppers nab more mobe-yapping drivers

Ferry Boat


You, sir, are a genius.

It will stop the inane gibberish I have to listen to on the train. There would be a rush to make calls as the train came to station but accelerate away and bye bye calls.

Ferry Boat

AC, Dracon and me

Hey, 12:20 AC. A little harsh but I agree a ban would be good. The penalties are only good if people can be caught. I wonder what the percentage of people offending to those being caught, let alone ending up in court is.

Bans are a good deterrent, not that you'd think that causing death by dangerous driving wouldn't be a deterrent. However, maybe something a little extra for people who text whilst driving, like say life imprisonment.

Firefox hits 20% share as testers tickle 'pr0n mode'

Ferry Boat


Do people not just boot from a live CD for porn mode? That's what my friend tells me he does.



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