Re: OK I will spell it out. @ AC 13:24

This is called trying to "have your cake and eat it too".

You simply cannot buy a "cheap dual core gaming PC" that will "spank both consoles". A modern spec'd gaming PC might be able to do that, but not a comparably priced PC, certainly not a "cheap" one, where "cheap" really has to be talking about comparable price. Otherwise the comparison is meaningless.

Why? Obvious. Of course something that costs 2-3 or 4-5x the price of something else is going to be better. Duh. It's completely pointless to say that a "cheap Ferrari" will "spank a Ford Mondeo". For example.

And you also left out the part where you buy your much more expensive PC in the hope of getting all these enhanced effects in the game, but with no guarantee that any one game will take advantage of your particular selection of equipment, because of the variation and constantly shifting/improving state of the hardware out there. It simply isn't cost effective for publishers to spend time tweaking their products to make the most of every possible bit of kit it might run on, and certainly not on the older gear. Dammit, people should just upgrade already.

The consoles don't have this problem at all. And ironically, as consoles age, so the games that come out actually get better, even though the hardware hasn't changed. Simply because with a fixed target to aim at, the developers get better and better at extracting the most from that hardware. This is a cycle that has been repeated since the very first PlayStation - look at the first gen games on that console and then look at things like Gran Turismo which came much, much later. The hardware stays the same (and gets cheaper and cheaper) but the games get better and better.

Compare and contrast with the PC gaming mentality which is that developers don't need to worry too much about making the most of the hardware because the punters can just upgrade the hardware or downgrade the game settings if their rig isn't up to the job.

I know this flies in the face of the "truthy" thinking about how such things work, but it is the reality.

Re: OK I will spell it out. @ AC 13:24

"Even a cheap dual core system with an entry level gaming card at <£100, spanks the capabilities of both consoles"

Of course, when trying to do a $:bang comparison it really helps the PC whinger's cause to isolate the cost of the GFX card alone as if a PS3 or an XBox don't have complete system architectures of their own. On a more realistic comparison:

The cheapest "gaming" PC sold by one reasonably priced box shifter here in NZ *starts* at NZ$999, compared to a PS3 system (500GB) available currently for NZ$355. That's almost 3x the price.

But let's break it down: You are setting aside 100 GBP (about NZ$200) for the GFX card, so that leaves you NZ$155 - around 75 GBP - for your core "gaming" system. After allowing 40-50 GBP for the 500GB HDD, you are left trying to find a case, motherboard, PSU and a decent CPU not to mention RAM and gaming controller (one is included with the 500GB PS3 don't forget) for the princely sum of... 30 QUID.

If you really think that's plausible then I suggest you call an ambulance and sit very still while you wait for it to arrive, in case you hurt yourself.

Re: Any rope is the problem

I think you are dangerously over-estimating the capabilities of VB programmers. ;)

Re: Game Center Looks Childish

I think you got your versions mixed up. It's the old "Game Center" that looks childishly Java/Flash-like, surely ?

The new one is sleek and minimal... but also entirely non-descript. It could be a sign-on page for just about any service that requires a sign-on. Sleek and minimal is fine as far as it goes, but sometimes it can go too far.

Re: Distracting tasks?

The law (in the UK and here in NZ at least) already has/had provisions for an offence of "Driving without due care and attention" or similar. But instead of enforcing the existing law, they cherry picked a specific activity and passed a NEW law to cover it. Some might cynically suggest that this was at the behest of a lobby with a vested interest in ... oh, I don't know... selling hands-free kits to the motorist......

So there was no real "science" in the decision to ban hands-on use of mobile devices in cars. This study goes a fair way to proving that. My other examples were, well, just other examples. I am sure there are others, as you and others have also pointed out.

Re: Am I missing something?

"such images"

Who here as seen the actual alleged images ? All we have to go on is the reporting of the case.

It could be that the reporting of the case is exaggerating the severity of the offending. That would explain the apparent light handed-ness of the sentence vs the supposed seriousness of the offence (if that seriousness was being sensationally exaggerated for a prurient readership. In the British press? Surely not <cough>).

The SAP Scale also has sentencing recommendations and if the reporting of the nature of the material is accurate then a minimum custodial sentence of 18 months to 3 years would seem to be appropriate, not a community service order.

Something doesn't quite stack up. But there could be any number of reasons for that apparent discrepancy. A light handed judge is only one possible explanation.

Not defending the guy, just saying.

Re: But your bags are already bar-coded, how do they get lost.

Improved technology won't compensate for all the effects of lazy/underpaid/overworked baggage handlers.

A handler who can't be bothered to check a bag's printed tag is almost certainly not going to be bothered to check it's RFID tag either.

Re: I thought that they did this?

Which sort of begs the question, when you have identified a bag without having seen it, how do you know which of the hundreds of bags you can't see is the one you just identified ?

Re: Neat!

> Although a simple RFID chip and app to spot which of the identical black suitcases on the

> carousel is actually yours could be pretty handy.

Or, you simply attach something personal and distinctive to your bag to make it identifiable. It doesn't have to be fancy, just some old key-fob you never use any more or something similar. This has worked for me flawlessly over the years.

Why do people insist on making such simple things into rocket-science it aint ?

Re: Fantastic

Nope.

You really think that after all this time, airlines haven't figured out how to tag luggage such that it is associated with it's flight ? Bags are already very well linked to their flights, but they still go astray. In your Spain/Germany case, the only difference is that the baggage tag with bar code etc is replaced by an RFID version of the same thing. Your bag can still go missing, all that changes is the way it is identified (RFID scanner vs bar code scanner).

This is all about airport throughput by minimising check-in processing time, and nothing what-so-ever to do with passenger convenience (beyond that check-in process). Collecting your bags won't be much different. There's little/nothing to be gained by the airlines in Improving things once you have been dumped off the plane. The concern then is to get the next lot of fare paying passengers on-board.

And as the closing paragraph observes, once the security implications are fully considered, this will have very limited applications through only the lowest security airports.|

Having recently completed a long, multi-legged trip (NZ, Australia, Dubai, Ukraine, UK, Dubai, Australia, NZ) I can say with the benefit of recent experience, that such a system would have made absolutely no difference to me what-so-ever, beyond the inconvenience and cost of having had to spend $'s replacing my existing luggage with new luggage, "compatible" with this system.

Re: What sort of cretin buys a Amazon Swindle anyway?

An *informed* cretin.

An UNinformed cretin on the other hand merely passes judgment on others more well informed than they.

Re: What sort of cretin buys a Amazon Swindle anyway?

Not true. I'm a techie. I have a Kindle Touch and I love it.

A lot of fellow techie look at me a bit funny when they see me with it and ask questions like "don't you have a tablet ?" and "why would you want something so slow and only black and grey ?". Those who know a bit more (but don't have an e-reader) might also ask: "why would you get an e-reader that is locked to the Amazon store?"

(Those same techies usuall also have non-"jailbroken" iPads, iPhones or other smart devices, similarly tied to their respective storefronts, but don't seem to appreciate the irony)

For me, I looked at the Amazon Store, I looked at what books were available. I also looked at alternative sources for books and the process involved in getting books sourced from other than Amazon onto my device.

The Store Experience (as "sampled" via using the Kindle reader app) was friction free.

Adding additional books purchased elsewhere into my Kindle library was friction free.

The Kindle Touch was, at the time, the best e-reader on the market.

The Kindle jacket case with built in reading light was the best looking and feeling jacket/case solution at the time.

So, being the sort of sensible chap who adds up the pros and cons and then makes a decision based on relevant factors, rather than being a techno-ideolog who seeks every opportunity to flagellate themselves on the altar of inconvenience just for the sake of being able to flaunt their technocract geek credentials, I bought one.

And once I explain how all this stuff "just works", and how the display technology is actually far better suited to the function for which the device is specifically intended, as opposed to the gaudy, retina scorching displays of tablets designed to do everything and yet also nothing.... other people quickly "get it" too.

Especially those who don't initially understand how it is that I am able to sit in the sunshine, enjoying the view with my (polarised) sunnies still on AND still be reading on my device without squinting, constantly twisting and turning the device or shading the screen in a desperate attempt to try to make the display readable, and how I am able to keep pulling this device from my bag or pocket for days on end without having to scrounge a charging cable or swearing cos the battery just died.

Sometimes being a techie means we are best placed to choose the best, fuss-free solution.

Re: What gives ANY company the right...

You write as if Google's lawyers aren't entirely aware that their customers won't - in the main - be able or willing to afford to hire a lawyer to ascertain the validity of the non-negotiable contract they put in front of them.

Those Google lawyers will also almost certainly have included a severability clause in the contract. Why ? Because they will also know that some of the other clauses in that contract are not actually enforceable (such as trying to constrain the rights of an individual w.r.t their own private property) and without a severability clause such clauses would render the entire contract void, at Google's fault. Severability ensures that where a clause is deemed invalid or unenforceable, the remaining contract survives.

Re: What gives ANY company the right...

Not true. At least not in all countries. Here in NZ, manufacturer's warranty is transferable upon resale as long as you have the original sale receipt to establish the date of purchase . But then, we have one of the strongest consumer protection regimes that I am aware of, with goods and services held against far higher standards than is the norm.

For example, goods must last for a reasonable time. That is over and above any warranty - manufacturer or 3rd party (most retailers won't even bother pestering you about taking out 3rd party insurance because of this, which is another benefit!).

A colleague of mine had a 3 year old Dell 30" LCD monitor (2 yr warranty) replaced when it's power supply blew up. Power supplies reasonably should last more than 3 years (there are some general guidelines for "reasonableness" in relation to certain products, but ultimately it is taken on a case by case basis and considers things like how an appliance or device has been cared for etc). Dell, to their credit, not only replaced the unit without quibble and free of charge (they are entitled to charge to cover reasonable costs if they wish), but also arranged next-day courier delivery and collection of the expired monitor, also at their own expense !

I myself had a Logitech Harmony remote (1 yr warranty) replaced after 2 years when the recharging contacts on the docking station failed (due to a flaw in the design/implementation of spring mechanism intended to sustain the contact with the remote). Again, entirely free of charge.

In my case, unfortunately, the design flaw remains in the replacement unit and after 2 years this one has now started exhibiting the same fault. This time around for the sake of $100 I can't be bothered and don't want another unit which is going to do the same thing in another 2 years, so it's time to get a new remote entirely.

Re: What gives ANY company the right...

Sensible it may be, but it's still illegal. The only way they could legitimately implement such a thing would be to retain ownership of the glasses themselves. Since they aren't - apparently - doing that, then they are on a hiding to nothing with this.

Product Selection Fail

1 remote to rule them all is possible. I've had a Logitech Harmony for the past 4+ years. For a while it wasn't a complete solution as I still needed to keep a PS3 blu-ray remote handy. I eventually added the Logitech PS3 "Eye" and now we really do have 1 remote that does everything.

Rather than trying to keep all device codes on the remote memory which you then select by identifying the required device, Logitech keep all their codes online - you configure your device on their web site and it downloads just the codes needed. No issues with memory on it, and the "Activity Based" approach works brilliantly. But it wasn't cheap. All up, it cost around NZ$300 - or about 150 of your UK pounds.

Universal Remote controls that work aren't cheap. But when consumers try to save pennies by buying cheap remotes .... ;)

Re: @Jolyon Smith, Slightly off topic

Having said that [reply], you got me. I read the review, went away, read some more reviews, then came back and read the comments. For some reason I thought the "behind the scenes" insight was part of a different review. Not this one. My mistake. :)

The FAIL is all mine. :)

Re: @Jolyon Smith, Slightly off topic

I think you'd be surprised how many people jump straight in to making comments without reading the articles. Especially for a movie review where many people form their opinions based on biases about the actors or film makers involved. Not that that happened in these comments though, right ? ;)

Re: Meanwhile, in the antipodes...

Kiwi's *WISH* that TradeMe was the local equivalent of ebay. It is the dominant auction listings site, if that's what you mean. But other than that TradeMe is a piece of sh*t. They stitched up the market very quickly and have since simply sat back and coined it, without improving or building on their success.

Some more statistics for the statistics grinder...

"Chrome is the default browser on Android"

Not entirely accurate.

Chrome is the default browser on Android 4.x. Chrome isn't even supported on pre 4.0 Android. 4.x Android accounts - as of Feb 2013 - for about 14% of Android devices.

That's hardly the same as "doing a Microsoft". Not least because even new Android devices continue to be introduced without having been forced to pre-install Android 4.0 or Chrome, quite unlike the situation with Microsoft.

Not defending Google or attacking Microsoft. Just setting the record a little straighter. :)

Re: Slightly off topic

This is perhaps more On Topic than you realise. :)

I think you might not be aware that to film the "house in the clouds", Kosinsky took a 3 camera rig to the top of a mountain and filmed "plates" of skyscapes. These were then rear projected onto screens built around a practical set of the Harper Sky House.

This is what was responsible for the highly natural feel of that location in the movie. The set and the actors were "lit" primarily by those projected sky-scapes, and the reflections on all that glass were real (albeit at one remove from the original sky that was filmed and then projected).

Re: Nothing puts me off a film more

I call BS on this. All the previews featured Cruise far more prominently than Freeman. The idea that you were all stoked for a Freeman movie and THEN put off by the revelation that Cruise was involved is plainly a load of horse crap. You just want to feel good joining in the Cruise hate.

Which is a shame because you're gonna miss a good movie as a result of your shallow and transparent posturing.

Re: Comparisons with electricity are inappropriate

But not ALL games, unless you have a UPS on your ADSL router and/or wi-fi access point as well. :D

Re: Tool

I love how his first two solutions to the problem were lawyers then politicians: ONLY when those two options failed did he resort to a business solution for his business problem.

That kind of thinking has much to do with how screwed up our business leaders are.

There. I fixed it for ya.

Re: Really?

Where-as "<any modifier> + J" is glaringly obvious ? Just asking.

Re: Why so slow to go with this technology.

I am no electronics engineer, but I guess the problems are related to the fact that an electric toothbrush spends hours on it's base and just minutes in use, so it has plenty of time to accumulate charge for very short bursts of use. A toothbrush also has a comparatively bulky handle in which to accomodate the charging electronics.

A phone on the other hand typically spends more time off the charger than on it in any 24 hour period and has to fit those charging electronics inside a case which the market demands be super-slim, alongside all the other electronics that a phone has to pack.

It's not the technology that is taking time, it's finding a way to successfully apply it to the smart-phone form and usage factors.

Re: NZ Has No TV Tax

"How about if you lived here"

You saw the part where I *DID* live there, for 34 years. I have the benefit of being able to compare those years with living in a very similar country but where the public broadcaster is funded from general taxation.

I've seen and lived the difference. For you, you are just looking at the greener grass and I can tell you, it aint so green up close.

Re: NZ Has No TV Tax

Missing the point entirely that if you eradicate the TV License Fee you will STILL be paying for the BBC, the only difference is that it will come out of your general TAX bill. You still won't have any choice but to pay it, but without direct accountability for the funding, you will lose the right entirely to complain about what you are getting for your money and the BBC - still being paid for by you - will drift even further down the quality ladder.

The BBC is regarded worldwide as the Gold Standard of public broadcasters. It is a uniquely British phenomenon to want to destroy the things that others think we should be most proud of.

Hiding behind the license...

Nobody is buying SimCity... all they are buying is a license to USE the software. As such, the software publisher can put out whatever turd they like because you, the customer, are not buying the software, merely a license to use it, severely limiting the applicability of various consumer protection measures such as "merchantable quality", "fitness for purpose", "warranty" etc etc.

It beggars belief that the industry still get's away with this. It was perhaps understandable when the industry was in it's infancy, much like the fact that they regulations around car manufacture and advertising (not t mention countless other products) used to be far more relaxed but got tighter and tighter as the need for allowances that the fledgling industries involved needed in order to be able to deliver anything at all became less and less as the industries matured and the consumers became more experienced with the products.

The same sort of change is LONG overdue in the software business. It would not be tolerated - by consumers or the regulatory bodies - in any other consumer product market.

Re: Just to start a shitstorm

Uh-oh - I think we broke the internet !! Polite and respectful agreement to disagree should not have made it through the firewall !!! :D

Re: What about The Abyss?

THE ABYSS is effectively already represented on the list ... by 2001, given that THE ABYSS is little more than a re-make of 2010.

That hack Cameron doesn't need any more encouragement to believe he is anything more than a hack who made a pile of cash from a couple of at best very ordinary but surprisingly popular movies. One dreary, sentimental pap-fest in particular. Looking at you, TITANIC.

Re: Just to start a shitstorm

That's not how you start a shit storm. THIS is how to start a shitstorm:

TERMINATOR has no grounding or basis in science fiction.

It has a fantastical, superficially sci-fi premise - a time travelling robot and good guy - but that exists only as a device to kick-start the narrative which is a simple chase-and-flight action piece. Even the "fate is what we make it" theme is secondary to the main narrative, to the extent that you can utterly ignore it without any material impact on the movie as a whole.

Add to that a "sequel" which was in practice merely a re-make/re-tread with updated CGI FX, further revealing that any intelligent theme was so shallow that no more than wading in up to the ankles was possible before something else had to be done to create and maintain the entertainment and interest levels required to support the movie (T1 is an action/gore piece, bordering on tech-horror, whilst T2 is a CGI FX show-reel - in both cases the implications or exploration of "fate", is a tacked on footnote).

And I say that as someone who actually loves both movies. But it's like STAR WARS : a great movie and a great story (so great they made it twice), but TERMINATOR isn't "hard sci-fi".

Re: probably closer to the actual public's view of the commercial film scene

More to the point, with no "Money back satisfaction guarantee", bums on seats is just a measure of the number of people willing to part with their money and is in NO WAY a measure of what they thought of the film having done so.

To use an example from many years ago, I paid to see THE PHANTOM MENACE - TWICE. Not because I liked it, but because after the shocking disappointment of the first time I couldn't be sure that my misgivings were simply the result of my own inflated expectations, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt and watched it again, this time knowing exactly what to expect.

2 tickets sold but no reflection at all of the fact that I (still) thought the movie sucked.

In more recent years I can rattle off a whole littany of movies that - had I known what I was in for - would not have sucked the money from my pocket. Alice in Wonderland, Battleship, A Good Day to Die Hard, The Risible Planet of the Apes - are just 4 that leap to mind.