* Posts by tardigrade

200 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Oct 2007

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Microsoft's Intel-powered Surface Pro to launch in February

tardigrade

It's an ultrabook that can't hold it's display up without a kickstand and features a compromised keyboard because it's actually an expensive cover.

Or it's an expensive tablet that has an OS on it that once past metro leans towards needing a keyboard and mouse. Has to have high battery draining specs in order to run that OS and thus compromises it's position as an effective tablet.

It's a mess.

Grinchy Google to shut down another batch of services

tardigrade

Re: Great.

Still got Evolution. Might be worth giving it a try again maybe? I've always used it on my Linux machines and there is a windows version. It's a bit long in the tooth now, but it still has some advantages over Thunderbird, like a pretty good calendar for one thing.

PlayStation 4 'Orbis' pegged for 2013 release

tardigrade
Stop

If true it's a very silly decision.

I own a PS1 and PS2 and I nearly bought a PS3 last month and have been thinking about doing so again next month. If the PS4 has 2nd Hand DRM and no backwards compatibility then obviously I'll never buy it anyway and neither will anyone else.

But in addition I wont now be buying a PS3 either. What's the point of buying games for it when I know that when the time come to get a PS4 they wont work?

Were the "insiders spilling the beans" working for Microsoft to kneecap Sony? Because if this is true expect PS4 sales worldwide to scale the dizzy heights of at least half a dozen units.

Pffft.

Tim Cook scoffs $11m slice of warm Apple pie

tardigrade

Re: I am such a loser

I would happily retire on $5m but it's all relative. If you want to go into space on Soyuz it's going to cost you $20m. Or how about buying Roman Abobovitches super yacht for $164m. It's a different world.

Orange 3G data network goes titsup

tardigrade

Whut?

3G has never worked properly for me, so I can't say I've noticed the difference.

Ubuntu 12.04 hits beta, brings smooth Unity for marching masses

tardigrade

Re: Good for you

From my perspective, the down votes are completely expected and totally predictable. I was a bit flippant, but what saddens me is that hardly anyone in the Ubuntu community will look at this and ask why someone (and a long term advocate of Ubuntu at that) could be so disaffected by the changes post 10.10 that they would walk away completely and march into Apples walled garden.

There is a core group in the community that insists that, if you don't like Unity or Gnome Shell, then you are a dinosaur that doesn't like change. The suggestion is that you then buy a pipe and slippers and download XCFE or click on Gnome Classic. Thus they completely ignore the fact that the reason you are so disappointed and you wouldn't wish to stay with these alternatives is precisely because you do in fact want change and improvement and not the status quo. But they cannot consider that fact, to them there logic is indefatigable. I've never been so disappointed in any Linux community in all my life. The desperation for a new direction has led to regression with Gnome3 and Unity, that has affected my work flow to such a degree that it became easier to just go out, spend some money and get on with things. Rather than wait for Gnome3 and Unity to reimplement, in a few years time, all the features that were removed with the "update."

I'm wasting my breath of course, but you're right, ultimately choice is good for everyone. The ultimate irony in the down votes of course being the fact that Shuttleworth's ambition for Ubuntu is to create an Open Source OS X.

tardigrade

I've already upgraded.......to an iMac.

I've never liked Unity from day one and I'm fed up with all the regressions and broken video support. So I've already upgraded to a 21.5" iMac. I couldn't be happier.

I've been with Ubuntu since Daper Drake. Bye, bye!

Wake up, small biz: Learn to speak internet

tardigrade

Should have gone to amazon.co.uk

Go to amazon search for "metal business card holder" and the first result you get, is not sold by Amazon but fulfilled by amazon. There's all your savy businesses right there. If you can't beat them, join them and profit.

Lovefilm dumps Flash, BLINDS Linux fans with Silverlight

tardigrade

No. Lovefilm have already confirmed that because of DRM issues they cannot/will not support Moonlight.

Colossal dead black neo-sphere approaching Earth

tardigrade

Please God let it be a scout from a Culture GCV (General Contact Vehicle.) I can't wait for utopia, as long as it's not Special Circumstances that is.

Apple shouldn't bother with TV...

tardigrade

We're talking about different things.

Tivo records, Apple will stream. Legal issues from Hollywood? Apple have been talking about deals with major providers.

PVR is great as long as you know you want to record something. If you only heard of D.Who because of Matt Smith, lets say your American for example, then you wont have 5 years of recording. As for the pricing. Apple were talking about $30 per month for everything. Hence the need to negotiate hard with the big networks. But then I said all that in my last post.

All this was in the Wall Street Journal last November. Tivo is great but it's not what I'm talking about at all.

tardigrade

"What's wrong with your telly?"

The problem is not the hardware it's the content, or rather access to content. The problem with Telly is that, you can't watch what you want to watch, when you want to watch it.

That's why Netflix is so popular, but it's only part of the solution. If Apple sold a TV with all the free to view channels and a $30 per month subscription model for all the major networks content streamed over the net to the TV they would sell millions.

Imagine you switch on your 'iveTV' and after the first episode of the new season of True Blood airs, you can continue to watch the entire season straight away, you can watch the last 5 seasons of Doctor Who one after the other, every episode of The Big Bang Theory or The IT Crowd whenever you want, (without having to use some crappy 4OD youtube video), and then switch to the evening News.

It would require major deals with all the big networks, but Apple have done this in Music, Films and now Books, so it's now insurmountable. The future has to happen at some point.

That, I think would qualify as having, 'cracked it'.

Massive study concludes: 'Global warming is real'

tardigrade

@AC 20:06

"Climate Change and Global Warming are both titles which imply a "Man Made" prefix a Climate Skeptic is someone who doubts the above."

No. The prefix is only assumed to be implied when one wishes to obfuscate the issue and simplify the options within a debate to a rather dumb yes or no exchange of opinions, deliberately engineered to result in only one predetermined outcome. This is helpful to no one and it is both inaccurate and dishonest. It is the tool of a person who does not seek debate, but rather seeks only persuasion and coercion, whilst they themselves maintain a closed mind.

I abhor this kind of gratuitous simplification as I abhor the attempt at creating a negative mind set by wrapping expansive issues in a layer of simplification that can be easily derided. Hence attaching a negative connotation to the entire issue and thereby removing the danger of exposure to debate when attempting to enforce the desired persuasion.

Similarly your attempt to deride my comment via the use of attempted ridicule, is another well worn tool of those who seek no debate at all. It's a paper thin response that exposes only your own vacuousness.

Ubuntu's Oneiric Ocelot: Nice, but necessary?

tardigrade
Thumb Down

I hate badmouthing Linux, but when it comes to the last two ubuntu releases it's inevitable.

Unity in 11.10 still has absolutely no idea what to do with two monitors. That in itself is a complete joke. Why such a massive regression from 10.10?

I'm experiencing more bugs and a slower load time in 11.10 and so I added Gnome shell which is an improvement but still a badly thought out DE experiment albeit slightly faster. Started fiddling with system files to get the icons smaller and then added extra add on software to configure settings that should be available in system settings anyway. So I tried the Gnome classic fallback, which is an utter bastardisation of what was the great gnome2 desktop.

Suddenly thought what am I doing?! Why am I wasting time with this crap when 10.04 and 10.10 are both far superior DE's.

I never thought I would actually get to the point where I would give up with ubuntu, I always though that in the end they would figure it out and change things after 11.04 struck an iceberg, but no. 11.10 just moves the deckchairs around a bit. So I'm off to either Mint or Debian squeeze. Or you know what, I might just bite the bullet and shell out for an iMac.

Ubuntu One client now available for Windows

tardigrade

"Ubuntu One client now available for Windows"

As much as I love Linux...

...I can nearly hear the sound of tumble weed above my tinnitus.

Amazon's Kindle Fire is sold at a loss

tardigrade
Coffee/keyboard

Just stand back and look at what you've written.

Then phone Apple and tell them to get rid of the button that says "Create Document" in pages, because according to you it's not creating anything. Then I guess I'd better take down the two client websites whose backgrounds I "created" in Artpad (because it was the best tool to use for what I wanted), as obviously you can't create anything on a tablet. [Face Palm].

Oh you had better tell Apple to get rid of Garage band as well, clearly it's good for nothing.

What's your point?

No you are not going to write Hamlet on an iPad. I did not say anything like that.

"...so your concept that "it's only iOS that are useful"..."

I did not say that at all.

"Do you think you could follow through on the contract using nothing but the iPod Touch?"

Did I say that? No. What is your point? Anyone?

All I said is that the Kindle Fire is all about consumption. On an iPad a large part of the focus is on content creation as well as consumption. Apple have pushed the productivity aspect of this a lot.

Now look at the Kindle Fire. Smaller format, focus on consuming from the Amazon ecosystem. Jeff Bezos' introduction didn't even demo the Gmail app! but did demo games. That tells you everything about where they are going with it and what it's designed for. Several popular news sites have jumped on this aspect as well, not just me. Amazon has a different focus.

You aren't even talking about the subject of the article. You've just got a bee in your bonnet for some bizarre reason, about anyone who dares to use a mobile device for anything productive.

Pfft.

tardigrade
Facepalm

Way to miss the point entirely.

Apart from that, funny how I wrote my last presentation on my iPod touch sat on the fscking beach, and it got me the contract.

Just because you are incapable of achieving something don't automatically assume that everyone else is as well.

tardigrade

"Cupertino may continue to charge a premium for its iPad hardware – ever hear that said of Apple before? – but other fondleslab punters are now in a whole new world: one that starts at $199."

It's not like for like though is it. You need to add 3" to the screen, a front and rear camera, another 8GB of storage, Bluetooth, Gyroscope, microphone? etc. If you look at it like that, these are very different products.

I think Amazon will sell millions of these, but not at the expense of millions of iPad sales. There will be some crossover sure, but it will appeal to a lot of people who have no intention of buying an iPad anyway.

I read another article that highlighted the differences perfectly. Look at the software Amazon are providing on the Kindle and what you can do with it. The Kindle Fire is for consuming, on the iPad you can create. Big difference in usage and market. I think Amazon know exactly what they are after and will do brilliantly without ever having to go completely head to head with Apple.

Ballmer reprises 'developers, developers, developers' chant

tardigrade

You'd think that he would at least throw a few chairs around for old times sake as well. Disappointing.

Hey Commentards! [This title is optional]

tardigrade
Thumb Up

Excellent.

All this is superb apart from the V for Vendetta stupicon for AC's. The mask will only make them think they are cool.

They are not.

Surely a rubber chicken would be far more appropriate.

OCZ plays its joker in the hybrid drive card game

tardigrade

Depends who's buying.

The problem is that you can get a 120GB SSD for £133 and a seperate 1TB HDD for £38. That's £175 inc delivery. OK it's not a hybrid, but most people will put the OS on the SSD and store stuff on the HDD. Job done.

Is the extra cost worth the benefits of the hybrid?

Probably not for most people. It surely has a limited appeal for the cost.

CERN: 'Climate models will need to be substantially revised'

tardigrade

Damn I've ran out of popcorn.

Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch...

Ridley Scott confirmed for Blade Runner pre/sequel

tardigrade

What's the point?

Oi Ridley NO!

You've already got The Forever War to make. Get cracking on that instead and give us the most impressive and intelligent new sci-fi movie since Blade Runner.

You did Blade Runner and it was great now just leave it. There is so much new material that needs to be filmed, what is with this obsession of retreading old ideas. Hollywood has been gelded.

Linus Torvalds dubs GNOME 3 'unholy mess'

tardigrade

Well done Linus. About time.

I'm glad Linus has said this and I'm glad he has said it in the manner he has. I'd like to hear him say the same about Unity as well, which certainly shouldn't be left off the hook.

Enough people have been saying it. They are both fisherprice GUI's, two cars driving off the edge of the same cliff, my desktop is not a phone etc. Any criticism or dissent of Gnome Shell or Unity gets shouted down by an increasingly partisan faction.

Forking Gnome 2 would be good as long as it's done by an organisation that has the clout to develop it. The last thing we want is a desktop that remains still and isn't improved. Look at a screen shot of Gnome 2 a few years ago and compare that with a recent Gnome 2 screen shot, and you will see what I mean. The difference and improvement is fantastic. Someone needs to keep that going, As good as it is, I don't want to have to stick with ubuntu 10.04 forever.

One things for sure, Gnome Shell and Unity are not the future.

Good news: A meltdown would kill fewer than we thought

tardigrade

Richard Chirgwin..

..how is that an anagram of Lewis Page?!?

Just saying.

Lights go out at Telecity in London data outage

tardigrade

You muppet.

I said, "Of those whose outage was a power issue.." I'm sure that the UPS has kicked in successfully on many occasions. My point is that when there is a power related outage, it's never because the UPS itself has failed or the generator(s) failed to start it's always some other part of the power system that prevents the UPS / genie from doing it's job.

UPS and genies don't guarantee power redundancy, data centres always seem to be caught out by some other part of the power supply system. I've never had a situation where the hosting company said, "We're off line because the power went and the generator didn't start." It's always, "We're off line because the power went and the generator started but the transformer that regulates the power from the generator blew."

By the law of averages it seems to be that other areas of power supply are not given the same priority and are therefore not as robust as the UPS and generators.

It's a bit like the data centre I visited in Leicester, where the bod showing me around boasted about the multiple and diverse fibre providers to the building and multiple fully duplexed routers, who then admitted that they only had one switch. There's your weakest point right there and it makes everything else pointless.

tardigrade

Deja Vu all over again.

There is a wider problem here isn't there.

I've coloed and rented from a lot of data centers and hosting companies over the years, and without exception all of them have had an "unplanned" outage for an extended period at some point or another. Without exception all of them have also boasted a robust and redundant UPS system and hot fueled diesel generators. Of those whose outage was a power issue where the UPS and generators where supposed to ensure an uninterrupted power supply, without exception they all failed.

In one instance it was a issue with power blowing out the UPS circuit hence cutting UPS power and disabling the path of power from the generators. In another it was the transformer room having it's floor and walls blown in which severed the physical connection to the generators. A mobile genie was trailered in that was wired into a hastily reconstructed power panel and was then found not to be man enough for the job.

It seems that whenever a scenario occurs that UPS and generators are called for, other factors impede and these intangibles are never envisaged. There is a mind set here that says, "We've got UPS and generators, so power redundancy is sorted."

Well it's not is it, and there seems to be a whole area here of power systems design that is in need of far greater scrutiny.

Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

tardigrade

Meh.

"Stop sweating me about the weather. Go shave a sheep and knit yourself a sweater."

Funky Donkey, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, The Beastie Boys.

BT to embrace IPTV as it upgrades broadband network to multicast

tardigrade

What constitutes the bulk of it's broadband network then?

Does this mean that my ADSL2 connection will be faster than it's current 447Kbps (0.44Mbps) limit?

I shouldn't think so.

You can stuff your IPTV, I just want to be able to surf the web and watch YouTube videos without having time to make a roast dinner whilst I'm waiting for a 3 minute video to load up. And this is supposed to be the 21st century.

A group of us pitch fork wielding vill-large-ers are seriously considering burning the village BT exchange to the ground just so that they will be forced to rebuild it with new kit.

Come on BT sort out your existing network, it's been a joke for years.

Fedora 15: More than just a pretty interface

tardigrade

Bork, bork, bork.

"I don't use MS software on a Mac. Seems counter-productive to me."

Probably shouldn't use a RedHat package on ubuntu then, it's counter productive.

How is it that you've gone from not understanding why clicking on a .rpm in ubuntu would open the archive manager and also not understanding why zipped files open with the archive manager to espousing the benefits of AppArmor to Kernel security?

"With over what, 350 different "flavors" of Linux, don't you think there should be some sort of consistency among them?"

There is they distil down into several distinct trees namely....

"Should there not be some kind of consistent way to deliver applications that don't require "for Ubuntu, Press 1, for Red Hat, Press 2, for SuSE, Press 3, etc"?"

....oh you already know. Good.

If you want more interoperability between package formats and distributions, should I also expect Microsoft to ensure that .exe files run on Mac OS, RISC/os, Aegis and AIX etc?

"There shouldn't be hundreds of ways to deliver a simple application."

Would it matter as long as there still exists one way that you can click and run? I use apt-get frequently, not because I can't browse to a website and download a .deb or install from the software centre, but because it's faster if I know what I want. I'm glad that there is more than one way. It's productive and helpful.

"Yes, the Linux group has created a bunch of applications - some even worthwhile and not game-like - ..."

OK enough, obvious Troll is obvious. Have a nice day.

tardigrade

RTFM (please.)

For a start you need to use the right software for the distribution that you are using. A .rpm file is a RedHat Package Manager extension. It wont work on ubuntu which is Debian based. You need a .deb file. If you think that's "Not exactly intuitive." Then look at it this way. Microsoft Office runs on both Windows and Apple Mac right. But you wouldn't expect the same copy to install on both Windows 7 and Mac as well would you. You need Office for Mac for one and Office for Windows for the other. In the same way you're not going to get a .rpm to install on ubuntu.

If VMWare can't provide the right software for your installation or documentation to make you aware of its limitations then that's their look out.

Alternatively you could click on Applications on your ubuntu desktop, click on Ubuntu Software Centre, type in VMWare Tools in to the search box (no need to press enter) and then select open-vm-tools and click on the big Install button that will download and install the software for you.

Done.

Just because one provider can't be bothered to document their software properly that doesn't suddenly justify a blanket claim that Linux wont be up to scratch until it can provide click and run software installation like Windows does.

Linux does do this and it even provides a superb Software Centre that Windows doesn't yet have. Your statement is an inaccurate gross exaggeration, in the same way that it would be a gross exaggeration if I were to state that Windows is command line hell just because ipconfig is run from a DOS prompt.

tardigrade

Two cents FUD.

I'm afraid your information is a little out of date.

"One of the best things about Windows is that you can install an application by simply clicking on an executable and it runs."

When was the last time you used Linux, 1904? If you use a Debian based distro you will find that most applications are supplied as .deb files. You click on them and they install. End of story.

There is also a software centre that contains thousands of apps, you can choose an application and click install. That's it.

As for patches. There aren't so many patches but there are frequent software updates. I think that's quite useful to have your software updated automatically without having to go to the website and download and install new versions, that is assuming you even know that a new version of a given program is available.

Updates also download and install with the minimum of fuss and unless it's a kernel update, without requiring reboots. So no being told that you can't unplug or switch off your computer while updates are installing, when you are trying to shutdown or then being told that you have to wait while updates are configured before you can use your computer when you turn it on again. Which is, I think peoples biggest gripe about Windows patches.

tardigrade

End of the road.

GnomeShell and Unity are two different cars driving off the edge of the same cliff.

If this is the future then there is a need to try something else. XFCE is ok but what about KDE? The last time I tried KDE was back when Mandrake was the next big thing. I tried it again recently and KDE 4.6 was a hugely pleasant surprise. Whatever problems it had when 4 was first released are history. It's a great desktop.

I'd urge you to download the ISO of Kubuntu 11.04 burn to a USB stick and try out the live session, without installing. Well worth the effort.

Mozilla to shift 12m surfers off 2-year-old Firefox 3.5

tardigrade

Yes Seriously.

I was just trying to be helpful. But to address your point....

The "average Joe", typing firefox into google will get a tar bzipped package for Linux (firefox-4.0.1.tar.bz2) not a nice friendly .deb or .rpm. Typing those two simple lines into the terminal will save you a lot of time and fiddling on an ubuntu 10.04 / 10.10 system.

However if you are incapable of following simple commands then you should probably go back to Windows. I don't care.

Your reality check is now complete.

tardigrade

Fx 4 on ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10

There is a Firefox 4, PPA for 10.04 and 10.10

Open the terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable

followed by;

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Done.

Natty Narwahl: Ubuntu marine mammal not fully evolved

tardigrade

Can you hear me at the back?

Jono. Scrollbars are only an issue because you've gone and buggered them up. Am I the only one that can see how a change in this direction could have been implemented much more successfully? No of course not. So the fact that they have been so comprehensively borked makes it quite an issue when it never should be.

Yes new releases have bugs. Having used ubuntu since Dapper believe me we are well aware of this fact. However nothing could prepare me for a bug as large as Unity. It's not ready for the desktop by at least 12 possibly 18 months and this has been obvious for some time. Usable on a Netbook yes, but horrible on a 24" screen desktop. NO consideration for this has been given at all and that grates. Unity looks like a "Fisherprice My First Computer" because it's been rushed due to Marks single mindedness. It's split the community down the middle, because you're not listening. Unity doesn't make my life easier. It takes away everything that just worked and adds abstraction. Again I can't be the only one who can see how launching applications not in the dock could be made vastly more intuitive and immediate, as opposed to the jumble that the application lens throws at me.

The "Growl" notification system is a daily frustration. As I am writing this growl tells me that I have 1 New Message. It ought to tell me who the message is from and the subject line so that I can decide quickly whether to stop typing and click on the notification to open Evolution or ignore it. But it doesn't and I can't even click on the damn thing anyway, not even to dismiss it and I have no option over this. The reason being because Mark thinks this is good for me. It's not. He's wrong.

The global menu is fine on a 10" nettop where everything runs maximised but it doesn't work on a large screen. It's pointless. Frustrating and senseless. Just because Apple do it, doesn't mean it's automatically right.

I love everything that Canonical have done for a long time to make a Linux distribution that has become a real alternative to Windows. My 10.04 desktop has everything the way I want it and I would never go back to Windows. But there is a single mindedness creeping in to some of the latest development changes that is very ugly.

It doesn't surprise me that you chose to use your post to question the authors reviewing technique rather that answer some of the criticisms, because Canonical haven't been listening for a while. It's the small things like these and the big mistakes like Unity that will continue to divide the community and ultimately result in you slowly waving goodbye to the installed user base. Considering what Canonical have achieved over the years with ubuntu, that would be a crying shame.

Ubuntu seeks Android-packin' Windows deserters

tardigrade
Thumb Down

My desktop is not a phone.

"..if you're a hacked-off Microsoft user running Windows and considering a move to Mac.."

You will take one look at Unity and run screaming.

My desktop is not a phone. I don't want big blocky fisherprice icons on a 24" monitor, a dock I cant resize or move or just get rid off permanently. The implementation of the global menu sucks and any program that's not in the dock now takes several more clicks to launch. Even switching workspaces has had an extra click added to it. Why?

Everything else Canonical has done to improve the Linux desktop experience has been laudable 10.10 is a good desktop release that wins hands down over Windows for me personally and 11.04 looks like it has some solid improvements under the hood.

Unity however is not ready, its 18 - 24 months and several re-writes away from being ready. It was obvious 6 months ago that it would never be ready in time for 11.04, there are problems everywhere. Gnome Shell has similar issues. In terms of the user interface both seem like regressions to me.

I think Canonical will be disappointed in the response they get. (Dis)Unity already seems to be splitting the community down the middle. I think I will stick with 10.04 for a long, long time.

So, what's the best sci-fi film never made?

tardigrade

Another +1 for the Culture.

Well I've always thought The Forever War by Joe Haldeman or Enders Game by Orson Scott Card. However both are in development which is great news.

So it has to be Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks, which given the right director has the potential to be phenomenal. It reads like a great movie.

Also have to say that The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison, Clarke's Rama and Assimov's Foundation, could / should all be fantastic.

The problem is Hollywood, look what they did to I, Robot. It was just an corporate advertising reel and Will Smith promotional video. Can you imagine Michael Bay directing Rendezvous with Rama?

Thankfully Ridley Scott has his mitts on Forever War. If done justice it should be film that people remember for a very long time. Marygay's letter on the last page of the book made me blub, it's a beautiful ending.

Eurofighter Typhoon: It's EVEN WORSE than we thought

tardigrade
Coat

No stealth?

Clearly Lewis has underestimated the ground attack variants stealth capability. If their are no pilots trained to fly it and by the time there are it will be out of service. There will be none of them in the sky. Therefore the enemy will never be able to see them.

I'd call that pretty damn stealthy.

Steve Jobs unveils iPad 2

tardigrade
Coffee/keyboard

Priceless humour.

"(for some reason, The Register is not invited to Apple press events)"

Funniest line I've read all year!

Cornish pasties awarded protected status

tardigrade
Thumb Down

Doesn't make sense in this case.

They are protecting a process rather than the quality of ingredients. This is a bonkers as trying to get protected status for a Devon Cream Tea or Yorkshire Pud. All that will happen is that all the small local bakers that have made a name up and down the country with their own Cornish pasties will have to rename and still do well, maybe even better if they can find their own identity. Whilst the only company that has the scale to produce "real" Cornish pasties across the UK from now on will be Ginsters.

End result anyone who doesn't go on holiday to Cornwall every year (most people) will come to regard Cornish pasties as being shite, because their only experience of it will come from Ginsters.

Well done.

Italian white van man nudges sound barrier

tardigrade

Re: absolute rubbish

You Sir are a genius.

You have perfected the perfect Trolling post. Deliberately missing the point and replying with a conviction that is a guarantee to ire any sensible person and yet at the same time invicting enough doubt in your understanding of the obviousness of the articles irony that you can at the same time be considered to be a genuine dolt. Of course this is the desired result and you will be healthily fed as a reward. Even if admittedly the source material is a gift to you this is still a commensurate achievement.

Bravo.

El Reg takes a spin round Team Lotus's F1 factory

tardigrade

Yeah but AC does have a point.

Of the journalists there I would have expected El Reg to have asked a lot more IT questions.

OK the CFD runs on Linux but what flavour of Linux?

What OS runs on the laptops in the pratt perch?

How does the data get back to Norfolk, in the back of a lorry or via satellite broadband?

What coms kit is used?

The virtual servers used, are they in the cloud, if so where, Amazon or with Dell?

Do Dell supply a BOFH to the team?

etc, etc, etc.

Online sync'n'store services

tardigrade

Persistence of data.

Thanks for the article, but what about where and how your backups are stored? I would have thought that after ease of use of the interface and cost this would be the most important point but there is no mention of it. After all the reason I'm backing up, apart from syncing across multiple devices is because my hard drive might fail. If the service I choose is just another HDD on a server in a data centre that may also fail that's not ideal. I want to know how persistent that data storage is.

I use S3 but Dropbox is my favourite. It syncs across everything and the integration into my desktop is superb, but how safe is my data? Are they going to loose it.? It's not a stupid question, if the backup service is only another disk drive on another computer. At least with S3 I know that all my data is duplicated across at least 3 geographically diverse facilities and on different nodes within each data centre. That's persistence of data.

What do the other services offer? I don't know and it's not discussed in the article or the comments. I would have thought it worth more investigation.

Anyway I've had a quick look at Dropbox and in the support section of their website it turns out that Dropbox back up to S3. So I'm happy with that.

What do the others do? Anyone know?

Bond 23 back on track for 2012

tardigrade

Titter.

Nah. Craig doesn't do anything for me at all. Now Pierce Brosnan on the other hand.....

tardigrade

Think pink.

Bond went gay when they introduced Shrek as the new bond on Casino Royale. Glittery focus shot of him emerging from the sea in tight trunks (the sun bursting through behind his ears), then starts crying when he has his balls tickled tied to a chair necked (for goodness sake!), goes all girly in the shower sucking fingers. Camp as a branch of Millets.

Ford cars get draconian parental controls

tardigrade

Ever heard of a Ghetto Blaster?

Chav's will get around the radio thing easily, with today's equivalent. Probably an iPod 100watt speaker thing.

Concentrate on banning crappy exhaust kits instead. They are seriously annoying. Why they pay £150+ to replace a regular exhaust with something that sounds like it's broken and is blowing is beyond me. No it doesn't sound like a Ferrari! It sounds like a knackered piece of c**p!

At least mandate that anyone who fits an exhaust like that has to have a metal spike fitted to the steering wheel as well.

Asus Eee PC 1015PEM

tardigrade

It's not a netbook.

At least I don't think it is. It's just a crippled laptop with a smaller screen, smaller keyboard, smaller hdd, less memory, slower cpu, just as bad battery life and the same or greater price. On any other planet that would be called a rip off. If you want a dinky laptop and are prepared to pay a premium for it great, but other wise I can't see how it relates to the original EEEEEEEEEEE Pc.

A netbook to my mind should be all about Internet connectivity, mobility and ease and speed of use. That means a low power cpu, lightweight OS (not Windows), 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth, Instant on, online storage for email, docs etc. with an SD Card instead of a hdd for temporary storage when offline and automatic syncing when back online all for £99 a pop.

An iPad covers most of this criteria (albeit not price). Obviously that's not for everyone and if that doesn't do what you want then you need a laptop not a netbook (maybe even a small over priced laptop).

Fortunately Google seem to have this sussed out. Give them a few more months and I expect Googles Chrome OS machines to be selling by the container ship load, whilst the usual naysayers will completely miss the point and be decrying the lack of a 1TB hdd and GeForce 10Petaflop GPU.

Amazon invites 5 terabyte mondo-files into the heavens

tardigrade

Not RAID 0.

You're talking about RAID 0 data splitting. We've already established that those disks are going to have be mirrored. It wont work you don't have the capacity. You'd have to split it up over servers.

You can use RAID 0 across all 4 disks if you want. But you're then going to have to mirror that data on another server and you've introduced another problem. You've doubled your data transfer in copying that data off server and were already down to a 10Mbit connection. Better settle down with a copy of War and Peace while you're waiting. That alternative solution is getting more and more painful. Easier to use S3 I think.

tardigrade

RE: pretty cheap, unless you store it with amazon!

I think your figures are a little askew and your alternative solution a little under specified to be a usable comparable alternative.

For a start the whole point of S3 is durability and scalability. S3 duplicates your data on multiple hardware within a facility and across multiple facilities within a zone. So your initial OVH 4x1.5TB HDD server needs to run in RAID array for a start that takes your storage capacity down, so you need to double up on your initial server straight away to get back to your 6TB's. You then need to duplicate this set-up across 3 different OVH data centres. Your price has just gone up to £4679.28 or $7390.07

So what do you get with S3 for the extra $1754.10 per year that your alternative doesn't give you?

Well quite a lot actually.

1. You don't have to manage / monitor any hardware. That in itself is worth the extra dollar value.

2. You don't have to set-up a method of replicating the data across the different facilities and that's in real time I might add. With S3 each file / object is duplicated as you upload it. Checked for data corruption and if necessary repopulated automatically with a copy of the uncorrupted data, before returning success on upload.

3. You don't have to come up with a method to re-populate data should one of the servers fail.

4. You have one single point of access. Rather than having to switch between 3 different servers.

5. You are not limited by a 10Mbit cap when you have uploaded your 5TB of data. In fact the limiting factor is your data connection with S3.

6. You don't have to buy and add new servers to all three facilities when your data storage exceeds your physical 6TB limit. S3 storage is unlimited. The whole point of cloud storage being it scales.

And you've missed the biggest point of all, the reason for the article in fact.

How are you going to store a 5TB file on your 4 x 1.5TB HDD's? You'd have to break it into chunks which is exactly what the announcement in the article aims to avoid.

The Heath Robinson solution you provided is in no way comparable to what S3 and AWS are offering. You've got a solution to a different problem my friend.

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