I bet you didn't know that the word "Wikipedia" actually means "fast child". And that the towns of Pendle Hill in Lancashire and Bredon Hill in Worcestershire both have names that mean "hill hill hill". No, neither did I until I bought Mark Forsyth's book "The Etymologicon" (which, incidentally, means...

It seems odd that, in order for a rule to be valid, there has to be an exception. According to the well-known phrase "the exception that proves the rule", this must be the case. Yet watching a TV quiz show the other week, I was amazed to discover that one of the rules I've applied most days of my working...

You regularly hear about the disconnect between real life and people's perceptions of it. For example, it seems that two thirds of inner-city school kids don't realize that the contents of their beef burger comes from cows, or that they make bread out of the tall, pale brown, grass-like stuff growing...

Our son went to the cinema this week to see Star Wars Part 1 in 3D, and I was tempted to go with him. I can remember seeing the original Star Wars movie when it was released in 1977, and I thought it would be fun to see it again. Except that it seems I'm out of touch with the way movies work these days...

My wife will tell you that I'm really not very good at getting the point of things. I mean, when it comes to making typically vital choices such as whether I want brown sauce or ketchup on my sausage sandwiches, I can't see the point of long-winded pondering and tortuous decision making. Just put brown...

It's been a long time since I studied particle physics in my spare time at university. However, as it looks like the clever people at CERN will soon be publishing photos of their new baby - the delightfully named Higgs Boson - I thought I ought to get caught up with some background theory so that I will...

After my resounding success predicting that 2011 would finally see the lingering and painful death of JavaScript, and that the interface of Windows 8 will consist solely of one large Flash animation, it's time to apply my unerringly accurate predictional capabilities to this squeaky clean New Year. So...

I just found out that, fifty years ago, somebody told me a lie - though I suppose I can't really blame him. Let's face it, when you ask your grandfather a question to which he doesn't know the answer, but he feels he really should (and you are of a suitably gullible age), making up something plausible...

I discovered this week that I was severely overcharged when I bought a new TV from our local branch of Comet (a national electrical retailer) some months back. According to a back of an envelope calculation, my TV was actually worth somewhere around one five thousandth of a penny. This must be true...

Buried in a recent issue of my newspaper the other day, squashed into a corner between an advert for luxury cruise holidays and a delightful close-up photo of some newly-discovered bacterium, was a short item about a recall by a major UK-based motor manufacturer. It said that in some circumstances the...

For some unaccountable reason, my semi-coherent bluster a couple of weeks ago wandered across the topic of integration when discussing Windows Azure hybrid applications. Since then, I've been delving deeper into the whole area of hybrid application challenges as we fine-tune our thoughts on the third...

So it's been an interesting week in the world of amazingly unbelievable new technologies. I can't make up my mind which is the most implausible: test-tube sausages, invisible military vehicles, or Boolean values that are only 70% true. It reminded me of the story about the young boy who asks his Grandfather...

The editions of my daily newspaper that I most look forward to are those when my favorite columnist, Bryony Gordon, is in attendance. As an example, in her Notebook column a couple of weeks ago she happened to mention that not only has her own cat posted a birthday greeting to her on her Facebook wall...

Those of us who read the documentation for software before installing it (though we are, it seems, members of a pitifully small minority) know that the most illuminating part is the "Known Issues" section. It's here that, hopefully, you discover all the problems you are likely to face - and can make...

Everybody loves a Terry Pratchett quote, so I'll start this week with "In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded". It came to mind as I read in the science section of the newspaper about how those amazing people at CERN in Switzerland have managed to create a (rather small) handful of hydrogen...

They've been advertising the book "In the Land of Invented Languages" by Arika Okrent on The Register web site for a while, and I finally caved in and bought a copy. And I have to say it's quite an amazing book. It really makes you think about how languages have evolved, and how we use language today...

My wife has been asking me why I haven't written about the recent Royal Wedding. Mainly it's because, surprisingly, I didn't receive an invitation; and so was unable to apply my usual highly perceptive and amazingly incisive documentation engineering capabilities to the occasion without first-hand, on...

Have you ever wondered what insurance companies do with all the money you pay them every month? It seems that one UK-based insurance company decided that a good way to use up some of the spare cash was to discover that, every day, people in the UK are carrying around over 2,000 tons of redundant keys...

I don't know if the term "spend a penny" has the same meaning to people outside our little corner of the world as it does here in England - but if you happen to use email it soon might. Mainly because, according to a report in the newspaper today, there are people in and around Government seriously considering...

Some while back, I was explaining why " USB " stands for " U nexpected S ystem B ehavior" (see Top 10 Tips for New or Nervous Computer Users ). However, while roaming the web looking for something different for my wife for Christmas, I discovered that what it really stands for is " U seless S eparate...

I previously thought that the reason you used to see miles of cassette taped entwined in the bushes at the side of motorways was because the driver discovered that his or her Mother had accidently put a "James Last Plays Christmas Carols" tape back in the driver's Black Sabbath or Pink Floyd cassette...

I'm not quite sure why my blog seems to have got stuck in some science fiction oriented hysteresis loop at the moment, but I might as well take advantage of it after reading an article last week about creating tailor-made Universes. And this, supposedly, actually isn't science fiction. As the renowned...

As last week's babble seemed for some unaccountable reason to wander towards a science fictional theme, I thought I might as well follow up this week with something from my favorite (well, one of my favorite) sci-fi authors. I refer, of course, to the unforgettable Isaac Asimov. I got to thinking about...

We had one of those disastrous spells here at chez Derbyshire a couple of weeks back. It started with trying to switch our mobile phone contracts from one supplier to another, and ended with what seems like half of the hi-tech equipment in our house deciding it had, with disappointing lack of excitement...

I was reading a story (a.k.a. urban myth) this week about an eminent quantum physicist who was stopped for speeding in his car. When told by the traffic cop that he was doing 63 miles per hour, he responded by asking if this was an accurate measurement. Being told that it was he explained that, therefore...