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¡Bong! "Why a refrigerator? The answer does not, as some might assume, have anything to do with temperature. In fact, it does not matter particularly if the refrigerator was plugged in."
-The New York Times.
“Not piroshki again”, sighed Ed, picking wearily at the polystyrene tray. The greasy snack glistened under the harsh lights of …
New Motorola Mobility badge: Too late for this pinball machine lover
Logo Watch Motorola, or at least the Mobility bit of it owned by Google, has a new logo with a different font and a rainbow circle: but it's too late to help some distressed pinball machine fanatics who've been crying inside for many years.
I should explain that I have a very personal relationship with the Motorola logo - and with pinball …
Idaho patriots tool up to battle Jihad with pork bullets
US patriots concerned about "the ever growing threat of radical Islam and Sharia Law" can sleep sounder* in their beds thanks to an innovative range of pork-coated ammunition designed to dispatch jihadists directly to hell.
Jihawg Ammo's high-tech covering of ballistic paint, infused with "highest quality pork product made right …
Sean Parker: 'My fairy-tale wedding harmed no trees'
Internet billionaire and venture capitalist Sean Parker is so sick and tired of taking guff over his lavish, fantasy-themed wedding that he has let loose with some harsh words for his critics – 9,128 words, to be exact.
In a lengthy – some might say interminable – rant posted to the tech news site TechCrunch, Parker blasted the …
WarGames IMSAI machine for sale (again)
If you have a yearning for the days when “modem” meant something you attached to the telephone with an acoustic coupler, and dreamed that you too could take over NORAD's machines to launch a war, the “microcomputer” from the movie WarGames is for sale.
Actually, it's for sale for the second time: Thomas “Todd” Fischer of IMSAI …
Trick-cyclist's claim: I have FOUND how to get GIRLS INTO TECH
Ever since the dawn of time, it seems, the IT sector has noticed that it is staffed almost entirely by blokes and wondered how this could be changed. Now, through the unlikely agency of a psychology professor in America, it seems that change may finally be at hand.
"Understanding what prevents women from entering computer …
Our week with Soylent: Don't chuck out your vintage food quite yet
Our week-long experiment to live off Soylent has come to an end, bringing with it the reintroduction of typical food via a lip-smacking dinner of rice, black beans, and chorizo sauteed in chillis and red wine, and time to reflect on our experiment with the liquid food replacement.
During the course of our time chugging Food 2.0 …
'That time I hired a call girl to do my taxes while I f****d my accountant'
QuotW This was the week when international fugitive, criminal suspect and self-described eccentric millionaire John McAfee released a tongue-in-cheek video explaining how to uninstall the security software of his one-time company.
Riffing on his, shall we say, unpredictable reputation, McAfee had the following to say on the NSFW video …
Cultivated dope-smoking Welshman barred from own shed
A dope-smoking Welshman has been banned from entering the "potting shed" he used to grow cannabis, as he awaits sentencing on charges of cultivating marijuana and "possessing it with intent to supply".
Simon Redclift, 53, was hauled before the beak following a police raid on his home in Dinas Powys, near Cardiff, the Daily Mail …
Can Jonny Ive's new 'iOS Vista' SAVE the BBC's £100m BRAIN? Yes!
¡Bong! "With physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them" - Sir Jony Ive
As one of the world’s most successful internet investors – remember, I lost $51bn in just one day while at Woodstock Capital – it’s vital to have your finger on the pulse. Or your finger on someone else’s pulse, which is where my invaluable assistant …
Top Norks bone up on Hitler
Rotund nutjob communist dictator Kim Jong-un has been handing copies of Hitler's autobiography to his generals and ordering them to study it “in depth”, according to a North Korean dissident website.
Although nominally banned in the ultra-hardline communist state, Mein Kampf is a firm favourite of the chubby megalomaniac - or so …
John McAfee releases NSFW video on how to uninstall security code
International fugitive, criminal suspect and self-described eccentric millionaire John McAfee has released a tongue-in-cheek video explaining how to uninstall the security software that still bears his name.
McAfee claims that one of the most frequent questions he's asked is how to get rid of the pernicious software, despite his …
Google erases G8 venue from Earth: Microsoft doesn't
As all the world that cares knows, the leaders of the eight most powerful nations in the world have just been holding a summit meeting at the Lough Erne Resort in Northern Ireland.
Most accounts suggest that this is a 5-star golfing hotel complex, but according to Google Maps and Google Earth it is just a muddy field:
Damn, …
Soylent days and soylent nights
Green beans, chilli con carne, fresh mackerel, olives, zucchini, pork belly stuffed with chilli and garlic – these are some of the things we've been thinking of during our self-imposed Soylent diet. Clearly, we're not the right market for the stuff.
We embarked on our medically dubious disruptive experiment to subsist entirely …
Oracle's Ellison outlines plans for Hawaiian Electriclarryland
When legendary Texan alt.rock ensemble Butthole Surfers recorded their (NSFW) 1996 opus Electriclarryland they almost certainly did not imagine a billionaire named Larry would one day buy a Hawaiian island and decide to revive its economy with solar-powered desalination plants and battery-powered cars.
That billionaire is, of …
At #guardiancoffee, we can now TASTE THE FUTURE through a PRISM!
¡Bong! "Everything reactionary is the same; if you do not hit it, it will not fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself. -
Mao Tse Tung
from "The Situation and Our Policy After the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan" (August 13, 1945), Selected …
I told you I'd be back: Arnie set for another career revival
Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to return to the big screen after confirming filming will start on Terminator 5 early next year.
Speaking to a fansite called The Arnold Fans, the Governator said: "I'm very happy that the studios want me to be in Terminator 5 and to star AS the Terminator, which we start shooting in January and I'm …
Reg hack prepares to live off wondergloop Soylent
In the latest attempt by denizens of Silicon Valley to free themselves from the shackles of normal life, a startup has created a meal replacement substance named "Soylent", and this Reg hack is going to spend the next seven days trying to live entirely off the stuff.
Soylent Corporation launched in May with a funding campaign …
Who's to be the next Dr Who? Sherlock beats Maurice - says you
It's the question on every geek's lips. Who's going to be the next Time Lord?
Well, wonder no more, because The Register's readers have made their minds up. You've decided that Benedict Cumberbatch should be regenerated as the next Doctor Who when Matt Smith leaves at the end of the year.
We asked our readers who they thought …
ROBOT COW teaches Saudi kids where milk comes from
Vid A farmer from Tayside has sent a plastic robot cow to the Middle East in a bid to educate Saudi children about where milk comes from (from robot cows, perhaps? -Ed).
Kenny Farquharson describes himself as a "plastic farmer" and builds life size beasts to show children how nature works.
His latest creation - a fully milkable …
Chewbacca held up by TSA stormtroopers for having light sabre
The hated stormtroopers of the US Transportation Security Administration earned themselves another little bit of public ire over the weekend, as they briefly held up the actor who played Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies over concerns that he was tooled up with a light-sabre.
However it turned out that in fact brobdingnagian 7- …
Waving an Eye-of-Sauron pulsating mock cock? STOP IMMEDIATELY
NSFW Ann Summers has declared one of its vibrators is NSFW - and the last letter doesn't stand for working.
The High Street sex shop chain has recalled its range of Ultimate O sex toys over fears that power supplies may be faulty.
Anyone who purchased one of the pink pleasure-givers can return it to Ann Summers for a refund.
" …
BEYOND Marxism: What Google learned from staring Glassily at Norks
¡Bong! "We have to fight for privacy or we're going to lose it" - Eric Schmidt
Eric’s face had turned a sickly shade of green as the Gulfstream banked steeply over night-time Pyongyang. Down below, the metropolis was almost pitch black, the sky illuminated only by the traditional North Korean welcome of tracer fire.
It didn’t improve …
Speaking in Tech: Endorsing LinkedIn skills on LinkedIn implodes the web?
Podcast speaking_in_tech Greg Knieriemen podcast enterprise
For the latest Speaking in Tech podcast, Ed and Greg catch up after Greg's recent disappearance on secret-squirrel IT missions, while regular SiT co-host Sarah Vela is AWOL. Maybe her and Ed are the same person and they just alternate every week?
Among the hard-hitting tech …
So, who ought to be the next Doctor Who? It's up to YOU...
Poll Right, you lovely people: we've trawled through your suggestions as to who should step into Matt Smith's shoes as the 12th incarnation of Doctor Who, and it's time to put it to the public vote.
It's a mixed bag, to be sure, with some top talent in there more than suited to pocketing the keys to the Tardis. So without further ado …
Jack Vance: Science fiction’s master of magic, mischief and sex
Obituary I was on holiday in the Mediterranean, finishing the third book in Jack Vance’s Cadwal Chronicles trilogy, when I heard of his death at the age of 96. Vance hadn’t written any major works for a few years, but readers and writers of science fiction will be nonetheless poorer for his passing on 26 May, 2013.
The first Vance novel …
Apple claims shot in arm for Cupertino from new Fruit Loop HQ
Apple has claimed its massive new ring-shaped Cupertino headquarters will create 7,400 new jobs and sustain thousands more in the local area.
The fruity firm's gigantic new Apple Campus 2 building, which it would seem reasonable to dub the Fruit Loop, looks more like a vast modernist doughnut (or breakfast unit) than a corporate …
Reg readers: So, who will be Who? It's over to you...
The news that Matt Smith will walk away from the Tardis at the end of this year has provoked a veritable Gallifrey of speculation as to just who will become the 12th Doctor.
As we noted earlier this week, bookies William Hill favour Harry Potter star Rupert Grint and Russell Tovey from BBC Three's Being Human, naming them joint …
Germans purge selves of indigestible 63-letter word
A change in EU law has allowed the Germans to bin their longest word: the 63-letter monster Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.
According to the Telegraph, the monstrosity was spawned back in 1999 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and translates as "law delegating beef label monitoring", in bite- …
Facebook's Sean Parker fined $2.5m for tasteless eco-trashing wedding
"Move fast and break things" is the unofficial motto of Facebook engineers, and for original Facebook president Sean Parker that philosophy apparently even applies to centuries-old redwood forests – at least where planning his wedding is concerned.
The California Coastal Commission has ordered Parker and property owners WTCC …
Longer, stronger love starts online, finds 19,000-marriage study
A study that asked 19,000 couples how they met and how long satisfied they are with married life has found that those whose first encounters take place online have stronger relationships.
Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues (PDF) , appearing this week in the Proceedings of the …
Ex-Microsoft man plans brand of consumer marijuana 'fine cigars'
An ex-Microsoft executive plans to establish a chain of retail outlets serving premium marijuana across the US, both to get rich and - apparently - to undermine drugs traffickers.
James Shively is reported to buying up medical marijuana dispensaries in the states of Washington and Colorado and boasted the business will produce …
CRUNCH: 'Drunk' chap cuffed in high-speed car nookie prang rumpus
An Albuquerque man found himself on the wrong end of a cuffing on Monday after cops claimed he had been engaged in drunken rumpy-pumpy behind the wheel. Local police said he had jumped a red light, ploughed into another vehicle and then attempted to evade justice by hiding in a cactus bush.
Police mugshot of Luis Briones …
Kettle 'which looks like HITLER' brews up sturm in a teacup
US retailer JC Penney is doing a brisk trade in a designer kettle after someone noticed it bore a certain resemblance to Adolf Hitler.
Over the weekend, a snap of a billboard ad for the "Michael Graves Design Bells and Whistles Stainless Steel Tea Kettle" popped up on Reddit.
The offending kettle and Adolf Hitler Spot the …
Lego X-wing fighter touches down in New York's Times Square
Danish toymeister Lego has unveiled the largest model yet using its eponymous plastic chunks: a 43ft (13.1 meters) X-wing fighter that's a claimed 1:1 scale replica of George Lucas' Death Star destroyer, and is 42 times the size of the same kit that Lego offers to children (old and young).
A Lego X-Wing fighter in Times Square …
Curse you, old person, for inventing computers!
Something for the Weekend, Sir? Since being allowed back into public places without causing the skin of those nearby to melt or for Jurassic sealife to shuffle out of the Pacific and sneeze fire at Tokyo Tower, Half Life Wife has enjoyed several evenings out at the theatre with yours truly.
My love for theatre has only recently returned, having been beaten out …
'Google IS a capitalist country... er, company'
QuoTW This was the week when the tax row shifted into high gear, with politicos on both sides of the pond railing at Google and Apple, while respective chiefs Eric Schmidt and Tim Cook presented defences that amounted to yelling "If you don't like it, you fix it" and running away.
Schmidt started it off with an op ed at the start of …
FLABBER-JASTED: It's 'jif', NOT '.gif', says man who should know
The internet - and especially the recently-sold content sausage machine Tumblr, epicentre of the animated gif rebirth - is reeling today at the news that when referring to image files formatted as .gifs one should pronounce it "jif".
That's according to no less an authority than Steve Wilhite, the man who invented the Graphics …
EU boffins in plan for 'more nutritious' horsemeat ice cream
Brussels-funded boffins say they have hit upon a brilliant method of creating "enriched" ice-cream, fortified with "disused" animal products which are normally thrown away by the meat industry as being unfit for human consumption.
A press release issued by an EU-funded "research media centre" breaks the news of the stunning …
WW II U-boat attacks prompt new US response
May 1943 is held by many to have been the turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic.
“Black May”, as it has come to be known, saw 43 U-boats destroyed by allied forces. That number that reduced the size of the German submarine fleet to levels that meant later convoys stood a far better chance of successful Atlantic crossings. …
Garden fertilised by Twitter output wins Gold at Chelsea
A garden conceived by an alliance of trick-cyclists, architects and professors of "social computing" - and enabled by the wondrous power of Twitter - has won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show.
This is how the garden goes:
The garden is divided diagonally by an autonomous-panelled screen which separates the planting of …
Soylent Corporation prepares to DEFEAT FOOD
Credulous geeks have poured over $130,000 into a fantastic food replacement named "Soylent," a substance whose creators aim to "free your body" from the need to eat solids ever again.
The ludicrously ambitious and suspiciously under-skilled Soylent Corporation announced its crowdfunding campaign on Tuesday and within hours had …
