Posts by Insane Reindeer

Yes you can!

You bloody well can die just by answering your phone! It's just that the act of answering the phone may have been disguised by the resultant explosion caused by the AGM-114R targeted on the person who answered the phone!

Never understood this fascination with minimum temperatures

Why do they quote them? Everyone knows that pretty much any camera worth it's salt will work in some seriously cold temperatures! I've seen some truly daft things quoted in technological circles in an effort to sell stuff but highlighting the fact that a camera will work in temperatures of -10 degrees C has to be one of the most idiotic!

No, my camera of choice is not waterproof. Most definitely not. Well it can survive being submerged for about 15 seconds as a result of a drop but it will not work under water that is for sure. But it will, and has, survived several drops of greater than 1.5m. Onto rock, pavement, into a river, on ice and onto metal. It has a compass and GPS. It will tell me where I was when I took the picture, how to get there again or how to get back from there, just like many countless other cameras. And I would wager the pictures taken by it would be as good if not better than the ones snapped on that "rugged" camera. And I've used it on more occasions than I care to remember at temperatures lower than -10! I think -33 was the coldest. Works very very well with gloves on to!

Although if I was in the market for a new camera, and fancied getting something a bit more delicate, I would seriously consider that Coolpix P7100! That does look the business!

The answer!

Now this I like. I've been looking for a box that can take the place of my ageing Phillips dual tuner digital box and expand to allow playing of any other files we happen to have lying around! All I need to find out now is how easy it would be to extract what ever was recorded on to it from the TV for playing on a laptop later. The F-Connector thing is not an issue for me here in Finland either.

Bah!

These things are fugly! Unless you are doing it properly with a five figure plus amp and 7.1 (or more) speaker setup and a solid amount of position tweaking then the only other option is to stump up for a pair of Genelec speakers, the 8050A should be the place to start. They will look nice enough for any female that needs to give consent for their addition to the TV room. And when turned up they will blow any of these disgusting bits of kit into the weeds.

How Much?

Is it really £18k for the body?

Meh

Anything on that list other than number 10 turn up in any of my presents this year, or any year, and the local charity shops would be having a quick visit from me just as soon as they are open again.

No, I never return, or sell on, unwanted Christmas presents.

No idea what that says about me though.

Almost but not quite...

What we are looking for in a new TV. We too would love to see them simplify the recording to USB feature and make it so that we can take it off the stick and watch it on a normal PC. Add this, sell it in Finland and they have at least two sales!

Seriously confused

1) I thought that the whole point of an Android powered phone was that it was not locked down in any way except maybe being SIM locked if brought under contract from a MNO. The easy way around this being to buy the thing SIM free. Now it seems as if I was very wide of the mark on this. Why I was so confused over this I will never know...

2) If this proves to be a case of needing to replace a PROM chip to get it to work could this see HTC duplicating the legal moves that Sony have made recently with regards to people modding their PS3's?

3) Could this really be the answer to Apple's prayer's?

4) Surely the likes of HTC must see the market for totally unlocked hardware right? What would stop them just having an online site where interested people could just buy the hardware without any operating system at all installed on it?

Apple confusion

When you are shifting millions of phones in less than a month since release, despite some reports saying that it is not fit for purpose, then I can understand that Apple would not want to keep piling the features on to attract more customers. And given the rise of the USB 3G modem a lot of people may question why tethering would seem to be so important.

But on the other hand, if this phone is really meant to be such a game changer then why on earth can't Apple just let people use it as they deem fit? We all know that you have been able to do this for years on plenty of other phones, mostly via a cable, and that in the last couple of years turning some phones into Wireless hot spots has been really easy as well, so I really don't understand what on earth the problem is with this on the iPhone and AT&T.

Touchnote

I can't understand why you chose to highlight this application when Touchnote is so much better. No, the initial application is not free, but just buy a couple of packs before you go on holiday and you are sorted. I also like Touchnote's inclusion of a little Google Map image on the back of the card showing exactly where the picture was taken. And it's integration with my phones address book is fantastic.

Yes, of course there is still the issue of the cost of actually uploading the picture and the details while abroad, but we all know that.

Oh, hang on, iPhone, right, well, I guess there must be an iPhone application, given that I have been using it on my N85 for 18 months or so now.

In this day and age

How hard would it be for someone to actual make one of these that could do more than record one channel and watch another. How about being able to simultaneously record, say, six channels and watch a seventh that you then decide to pause?

Or shall I just get my coat?

For my sins

I am a fan of Windows 7.

I do not use MS Office.

I am happy to say this.

I'm not jumping for joy quite yet....

In fact I will not even claim to be getting the credit card ready and damn the cost. I will say however that I am very interested in this device and despite the old school gadget lover part of me wanting to get one as soon as it hit's the shelves, I am determined to wait at least six months to see how it pans out.

Well I can see a LOT of use for phone based video chats...

...It involves people who, otherwise would be unable to communicate via voice in the usual way. I am of course referring to people who use sign language. Have seen it a lot on my travels, and it always makes me feel good that these people have the chance to use it. Yes texts are quicker and what have you, but sometimes you just have to "speak" to someone...

Flame me!

Look, the flame icon! What I am saying is purely designed to be flamed! I don't have an XBox of any sort and I don't have a PS3 either, but please, I have used the flame icon so flame away...

Forget Star Trek...

...Tom Clancy had this very same thing working for Rainbow Six and his boys! And that was after the Sydney Olympics 10 years ago!

A little lat yes

But welcome to the party Microsoft! The more the merrier!

I can't believe it has taken this long...

...To get this started in the UK. This has been running for a year at least a year here in Finland! And before that most apartment buildings and communal waste collection points, had separate, specifically designed, bins for old batteries.

(Shakes head in total disgust at his country of birth...)

Google are no saints...

...But then neither are Apple!

I mean come on, did he really and truly think that he could blow off a bit of steam on this subject and not have it reach the outside world! What?

Well I for one have never believed that Google mantra, does not stop me using their products though. Of course, that is because I do not have to pay to use their search engine, email, photo storage etc., where as Apple, whose products I believe are a total pile of steaming faecal matter, expect me to vastly over pay to use them. And then defend them against those people who have not been ensnared by the cult of Jobs. For in my opinion that is what those products from Cupertino tend to inspire in people who buy and use them, a cult like obsession with Jobs and everything he says and does. Oh and the Nexus One... Yeah that's not great either... And I have serious issues with Android too...

What is today's date?

I am sure I have just stepped out of time machine and it is April 1st 2010. Must be. Can't be any other reason for this story, can there?

I mean really, come on. I have no love for anything from, or associated with, that massive company with the HQ in Cupertino, but even I have have to question the validity of this story...

Swing lines...

...No I am pretty sure you got that the wrong way round...

2nd Luckiest Person Alive

Yes I too have never suffered an outage of any sorts with any of my gmail accounts. And a quick check around of friends and family currently using gmail as their primary email source (about 25) show that all is fine with their accounts. And these stretch from the Finnish Arctic circle through the UK, Brazil and Japan.

And for me, it is now 5 and a half years of constant use without a single issue...

Highway code

Yes I ride a bike a lot on the roads. Admittedly the roads of Finland are somewhat different...

...But still. I for one mostly support what he has said. The U.K. highway code says the following (2007 edition): "never ride more than two abreast, and ride in single file on narrow or busy roads and when riding round bends" that is part of rule #66. Yes they should be dressed very brightly so Mr. Martin should shut up about this. As for not stopping at the lights, Mr. Clarkson once (or maybe more than once) mentioned using Police marksmen to shoot people driving down the motorway's in a manner that annoyed him, well shooting bike riders who don't stop at red lights is both easier and more rewarding in my opinion!

Oh one final thing, the riders who Mr. Martin claims to have dumped in a hedge should also have a look at rule #67 and the part that says this: "be aware of traffic coming up behind you"...

@David Hicks

Just get an unbranded version. The phone is as Nokia intended it to be, you own it out right from the get go, you can get firmware/software updates much quicker and above all, the MNO's don't get to roger you brainless with absurdly long contracts!

Oh boy

Well I would not under any circumstances consider myself a fan in any way shape or form of anything that has ever come out of Cupertino, and I barley tolerate Redmond based stuff. But look, even I can see that the folks from Cupertino have moved the goal posts in a massive way over the last two years, and if anyone, anyone at all, wants to rest the initiative back from them, then they have to stop reacting to what they have done, and go on the initiative.

I mean hell, this is war. So maybe someone should take sometime to read that little book by Mr. S. Tzu. You know the one, the one written the past part of 1400 years ago!

Until then, the Cupertino forces will continue to dictate the war...

It's not totally great...

...But it is a very good start from Walmart. Yes you can argue that when all the emissions coming from the manufacture from all the cheap stuff that they sell, is taken into account then it doesn't matter what Walmart do, but it is very encouraging to me to see that the companies are getting green just to make money. Makes my job so much easier....

Today's To Do:

Figure out what exactly you can do to a graphics card to make it cost around £7000! And figure out why you would want a card like this...

Opera and the E.U.

On a personal note if I worked for the E.U. or was an M.E.P. dealing with this I would be limbering myself up for a big swing at OPERA! Over what, or, at what, I don't know but then if I worked for the E.U. I imagine I could cook something up that need whacking! :-)

The E.U. and Microsoft seem to be working through their problems in a pretty good way in my opinion, but the people (or maybe it should just be "a person") at Opera seem to come along and stick their noses up at every little thing.

I honestly can't remember the last time I found IE set as the default web browser on a PC. Yes I can see how it has become such a large problem, but the E.U. are muddling through well enough I think.

Opera, either get with the programme or prepared to get whacked!

@Bryce Prewitt

You beat me to it! Truly the greatest comment ever posted on any story ever in the whole history El Reg's readers comments! GIVE THE MAN A DRINK!

It made it across the pond as well...

...Just read about it in the Washington Post of all places! Man the whole world has gone nuts, and only seems to be going more so!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/26/AR2009062601715_2.html

It's perfect!

That's it. I want one. No scratch that. I REALLY want one. And so will just about every other person in my division! This machine is just about my dream machine! I have had a gander at the specks and this "I" model is it.

I for one really appreciate the style and form that it has. Just thinking about the labs I visit and all those serial ports, this is a serious answer to all those people who don't pull "9 to 5 in an office" and rarely know more than a couple of hours before hand what they will be facing in the working day/week ahead!

So is it just me....

Or does anyone else wonder why we only ever hear about X-Box 360 errors? I want to make it plain that I own not one of the current generation consoles, but if I did, I would properly buy from Sony.

However I can't for one moment believe that Sony and Nintendo have managed to build all those consoles and not encountered problems similar to the one in the story? Yes I am sure there must be a fairly large amount of individual cases with owners causing the damage, but what about cases where the machines have just been plain wrong, or designed wrong or had an update that can crash them...

Just a thought...

Why?

Do you continuously have to put an asterisk after DARPA and then spell out what it means at the end of the article? It's like you think everyone reading this is a complete dummy!

@ James McGregor

I think you will find that your phone, the Nokia 6300 is indeed a Symbian, it's just a series 40 rather than a series 60!

Mines the one with the N91 in!