Tarmle

Recent Actions

• Commented on State of Asimov's sf magazine podcast
  I was interested in the topics, particularly digital submissions, but fifteen minutes of audio not dissimilar to fingernails harrowing a chalkboard was as much as I could take....
• Commented on The Cove director on watching his film with the dolphin hunters
  I respect this country's right to do what they want in their own waters. - benher I don't. Just as I do not respect the way some countries treat their female citizens. Living in another country is not an excuse...
• Commented on SciFi became SyFy, may soon become SyFry
  SyFy: where we're going, we won't need "i"s...
• Commented on New Pirate Parties spring up all over Europe
  There is a nascent Pirate Party Ireland that as sorely needed in light of recent recording industry activity here....
• Commented on Rare recording of James Joyce reading; Happy Bloomsday!
  The works of James Joyce are still under copyright here in Ireland until 2011. His estate is jealously guarded by his grandson, Stephen Joyce, who delights in making legal threats against academics wishing only to use quotations from Joyce's works...
• Commented on Three strikes proposal for print
  Obviously this ban should apply to addresses rather than individuals. What's to stop a banned infringer from making unauthorised dictations of copyrighted text, or having a work read to them? It's really not useful unless you can ban whole households...
• Commented on Boing Boing apartment in Comcast Town
  Runners up will receive a free forged TCP RST packet....
• Commented on Android app lets you scan DVD barcodes, then auto-torrents them to your PC
  It's analogy time! This analogy aims to show how IP law has distorted our moral understanding, and very likely our perception of reality. Imagine a world where, due to global warming caused by human activity, it rains DVDs. At least...
• Commented on Passwords suck
  Passwords are secrets. Secrecy is weakness. Never confuse secrecy with security. Every secret is a vulnerability, a defect patched with a word. Your secrets are your enemy's weapons. They are your house of straw, your feet of clay. Secrecy is...
• Commented on HOWTO Make a 3D printer out of Legos
  #7: I can't imagine how fast the acceleration will be. I am fascinated by the implications of this Lego singularity....
• Commented on UK's ISP-record industry deal won't stop infringement, but will make it harder for the record industry to cash in
  I'd be interested in hearing your views on the details of blanket licensing. For instance, should we be paying the license fee to the recoding industry? After all it's not the labels that actually make music, and it will be...
• Commented on Police smash car window to "rescue" reborn baby doll
  These dolls have been carefully remodelled to closely resemble a real human infant, so no one should be surprised when they are mistaken for such. It was extremely inconsiderate for the owner to leave this thing in plain sight in...
• Commented on Defender in a Favicon
  That's a nice bit of scripting. I'm particularly fond of the LOLvars: var iCanHasThrust = Math.random()*4&3;...
• Commented on Flying saucer to use air as fuel
  This is quote from my blog (circa 2005, when run-on sentences were in) about a New Scientist piece published in February 1996: The article, by Mike Ross, describes a vehicle that is 'sucked' into space by an orbital maser array....
• Commented on Beaming sounds into your head
  It has to be imagined that at some point in the future such a device could be made compact enough to mount on a British CCTV camera....
• Commented on EUROPEANS! You have until MONDAY to contact your MEP and save the EU from a three-strikes copyright rule!
  I emailed my MEPs about this on Wednesday. I received a reply from one on Friday saying he would arrange for the salient points to be discussed and "viewed favourably". One piece of advice I would offer on writing your...
• Commented on Ten Perfectly Pure Gadgets
  The mousetrap should never be used as an example of refined engineering as building a better trap is nothing but an exercise in futility. If you need a trap then trapping rats and mice is the least of your worries....
• Commented on That Violet Blue thing
  The day I pay BB's wages is the day I get to tell them what can and cannot be posted on or removed from this blog. It's only censorship if VB forces BB to remove posts about her. it is...
• Commented on Day With No News -- brilliant BBC news-footage remix
  When radio listeners tuned in to the BBC on Good Friday 1930 for the 6:30pm news bulletin, they were informed "There is no news today" and were instead treated to fifteen minutes of piano music. I did have a link...
• Commented on Mysterious "Full-Automatic Mahjong Table"
  Sadly, it seems to work without magic sliding and stacking tiles. I located a few pics here [flickr.com]. There appear to be areas in the table that open or drop away to allow tiles to be dropped in, shuffled, then...
• Commented on HOWTO kill/block an RFID
  Whatever happened to the RFID-killing mini-EMP device someone was trying to fabricate from the innards of a disposable camera?...
• Commented on Gaiman on fair use
  Try imagining a world in which character types and situations can be claimed exclusively by the authors who create them. It's doubtful even the Scotsman journalist would think that reasonable. What this story demonstrates is just how ingrained the concept...
• Commented on Middlesbrough cops, goons and clerks grab and detain photographer for shooting on a public street
  From the uniform it is clear that the retail security officer pictured above is employed, and presumably trained, by Northern Security Limited. You will find their contact details here should you wish to offer any helpful suggestions on the proper...
• Commented on Griefers deface epilepsy message-board with seizure-inducing animations
  The Opera browser provides an option to disable GIF and SVG animations: Tool->Prefereces...->Advanced->Content->Uncheck Enable GIF/SVG animation. Java, JavaScript and plug-ins can be disabled at the same dialogue, though this will start to degrade the browsing experience if used globally. Fortunately...
• Commented on Man installing satellite TV kills wife
  One of the things I notice about a certain subset of DIYers is an extraordinary impatience with completing a job. Their frustration leads to some very unusual and extreme measures to complete a task quickly, almost always at the expense...
• Commented on Wikihistory: sf story about the revert-wars among time-travellers -- "everybody kills Hitler on their first trip"
  I have a vague recollection of reading a comic in which a time traveller takes the place of one of Hitler's aides, simply as an observer. Soon he discovers that some of the other people around the fuhrer are also...
• Commented on Build a prank camera that shocks a sucker
  I used to work in photo processing and some of those single use cameras had to be smashed open to retrieve the film. More than once I picked up or pulled away the shattered parts only to receive a shock...
• Commented on Kevin Kelly: Better Than Free
  It's such simple reasoning that it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend why so many either fail to understand or refuse to accept it. I'm reminded of the scene in the end of HHGTTG when the colonists decide that the currency...
• Commented on Misused churchyard sign
  The restrictions here will only affect legitimate users of the churchyard. Those willing to misuse it can easily circumvent the access control measures....
• Commented on Colbert and Daily Show writers stage comedic mock-hearing on strike issues
  There's something seriously wrong with the Double Viking video player. You'll find a watchable version on YouTube....