* Posts by Iain

173 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Nov 2007

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Man punts 'prototype' iPhones on eBay

Iain

To extend a metaphor

On his ebay listing, next to primeval Jesus phones, does he also have pieces of the True Cross?

Google plugs your surf history into ad money machine

Iain

Linky?

Is there a link or url for that browser plugin you mentioned? (Not that I am going to pull it apart to see how it works, adnim)

Gamers risk early graves, claims advert

Iain

Poor Sony

Bit harsh on them, kinda like saying they actually bludgeon kids to death like so many seals... oh no, wait a minute, that's when the wii's strap breaks and it goes flying accross the room.

In all seriousness, it's not the games that give people heart attacks is it? Try the clown or colonel.

LaCie releases USB keys that... er... look like keys

Iain

Durable?

Are they as durable as keys? I like to have a usb stick attached to my keys cos it's convenient (and not with anything stupid like my address on it, least, not without TC), however cheap plastic ones tend to suffer the rigors of an active life. Eventially splashed out on an expensive metal jobby which is doing ok. At £9 that sounds very good value for a metal usb stick.

3D car dashboard displayed

Iain
Stop

A massive waste of time

"...a 3D model of the car’s surroundings...Fraunhofer Institute’s dashboard would be much larger and, we assume, show a more realistic view of the road in front of and around the driver."

God forbid any drivers actually look out the WINDOW to see what's around them.

Reg Hardware launches Twitter stream

Iain
Jobs Horns

Love Stevie?

Reg promoting Jobsian Orwellsian code-spunk? Noooo....

US Navy SEALs buy twin-screen laptops, refuse Vista

Iain

Rugged?

Fro m what I have seen of these dual screen laptop jobbies they appear very far from rugged. I mean you'll need some serious armour plating/reinforcement to stop those slide out things from just snapping off first time they get bounced about the back of a hummer

Ex-eBay CEO to bid for Schwarzenegger's California job

Iain
Coat

@Chris Wright

Probably go the way of the aging Clint Eastwood and play wise old trainer to the new generation of action heros. Who are all just nerds by the way. Too much introspection and Hamletesque prevarication and whatnot before they actually getting round to plugging any goons. Anyone compared the bodycount in recent movies to the old school? If I want to see an action film I want guns, muscles and more dead henchmen than I can shake a General Electric Minigun at. Blame Keanu Reeves I say.

<--- Need a 'Rant Alert' icon

Gunman leaves flatmate PS3 sale checklist

Iain
Unhappy

Not funny

If he had only shot himself, this may have raised a smile. However due to the other seven people all I feel is sad.

Logitech Harmony 1100 universal remote control

Iain
Thumb Down

Well

I guess if you're splashing £350 on a remote you ain't gonna care about all the energy you waste leaving all that crap on standby so the thing actually works.

For people with normal bank balances... no.

Seven Japanese poisoned by blowfish 'nads

Iain
Thumb Up

From the US FDA website analysis:

"This toxicosis may be avoided by not consuming pufferfish"

That's some well-spent tax payer's money

Atek Logio password storage gadget

Iain

Truecrypt is your friend

On an old 128mb usb attached to my keys.

Usually there is a usb port nearby when entering a password, and (despite the shoeing above) Ash is right, remembering PINs is not difficult (unless you have far too many)

Infant calls cops to dad's dope plantation

Iain

Good reason

If I had been kidnapped and tied up in a basement but had managed to make a quick call to the police I would be very unhappy if my kidnapper fobbed them off successfully with a 'baby-did-it' story.

Whose notebook is it anyway?

Iain

Lockdown

All our laptops are identical in all respects, with use access locked to secure partitions and absolutely no freedom to do anything but work work work.

This is a very good thing. If people want to fill their machines with crap then they can damn well go out and buy their own.

Grand Theft Auto V arriving in 2009?

Iain

Likely

Amen to Patrick's suggestion

Surely, looking at GTA history, it is more likely they will release new full (as in an equal length) versions of the existing GTA game/engine, just like GTA3 spawned Vice City & SA. Logical from and R&D point of view as well and the excellent 'HD' graphics (for consoles anyway) will surely be satisfactory for at least two years.

Toyota demos FT electric city car

Iain
Thumb Up

Thumbs up

That be a good looking small car. I suspect it will be more popular with the female market though. Words like 'cuddly', 'cute' and 'rabbit' spring to mind. Slight concern there might be a Hot Pink! edition.

US teen clocks up 14,528 text messages

Iain
Boffin

No fair usage policy, what?

484 per day, 40 per waking hour, 0.67 texts per minute!

^ I'm bored and have a calculator ^

AVG snaps up behaviour-based threat detection firm

Iain
Stop

Mob mentality

"wisdom of crowds" - to add to Colin's comment above, I was under the impression that the inteligence of a crowd was equal to the IQ of its stupidest member divided by the number of people present. And there are some pretty dumb people on the net.

2GB MP3 player head-to-head

Iain

Best. Sentence. Ever.

"If you suffer a case of unintended extension in your pocket, we suspect things may go snap."

Sid James would be proud

Chinese walls come down for video calling

Iain
Boffin

Spotters Guide

I once saw a man in a pub video calling someone. It was funny, he had to raise his voice considerably for the mic to pick him up at a distance where his mug was visible, so it just looked like he was shouting at his phone, 6 inches away from his face. Worse than Side-talkin'(TM?)

Cowon iAudio S9 PMP

Iain
Thumb Down

No

"While the S9 lacks any facility to set up on-board playlists, you can easily add tracks – up to 256 of them – to a “favourites list”, and we suspect this will serve most users just as well" - No, that is a deal breaker. This is a chronic omission, only being able to set a single playlist. I am personally offended. What if I want playlists for different moods?

Utter crap, I see nothing of note or originality in this device, and it typifies the bandwagon jumping which has stifled innovation in the technology market. iPod beater my arse, iPod emulater more like. And I don't even like the iPod, I think it is over-priced and all shine and no function.

I will stick to my 7year old 20Gb Zen thank-you very much.

Bees on cocaine: The facts

Iain
Joke

Please Officer...

It's not mine, I was just holding it for the bees...

Lenovo preps dual-display Frankenlaptop

Iain
Boffin

If I could be bothered

I would be interested in surveying the number of times a computer would have to be moved to make it worth being a laptop of that weight. Probably inversely proportional or something like that. I reckon it would be good for someone (who needs dual screenage) who keeps it at work in the week but then has to take it home at weekends.

Last Xmas for CDs, please, researcher tells music biz

Iain
Coat

Also...

if he squeezes the stone really hard he may get some blood, but only because the stone is a broken flint and the blood is his own from being stupid enough to squeeze something with razor sharp edges.

Metaphor, extended.

It's Sadville: The Movie!

Iain

And why not

I don't know if it will bust any blocks, but could be interesting from a human socio-psychological perspective if the two 'lives' are juxtaposed. Can't see Disney picking up the tab for it though

Royal laptop theft 'will expose picture'

Iain

Huh?

Were they naked photos? I guess not. So what's the fuss?

US nuclear bomb lab develops 'self-warming' hand cream

Iain
Boffin

Heat v 'heat'

The existing creams like deep heat don't actually warm the skin, it is more a perceived effect of the ingredients reacting with the skin/muscle which gives the effect.

US Navy's robot stealth carrier plane unveiled

Iain
Boffin

Welcome

Maybe I am just welcoming our autonomous stealth killing overlords, but that is such a good picture I want it as my desktop. And may enforce it on all the marks I administer.

Sky demonstrates 3D telly vision

Iain

Never work

Until we lose the glasses 3d tech will never take off. It only worked in the 50s because it was a gimmick and cutting edge. Now it is neither. Predict Fail

TV remote argument allegedly prompts stabbing

Iain

dumb dumb dumb

"I might've said something to piss her off,"

No shit.

Yahoo! mocks Google Privacy Theatre

Iain

Freedom of choice

Everyone who complains about Google's policy is a complete freetard for the following reason (IMHO):

Google is providing a service free of charge

There is no requirement to use said service

They are a business - they will try to make money in any way possible which includes targeted advertising, use of user's data etc etc

Ok, so Google build up an abstract based on my IP which details my surfing habits. So? I haven't told them my name, address, telephone no., bank details and so forth. All they have is a profile which is built on data I chose to share (by using their service) and my IP which, if it wasn't proxied, would only reveal my locality. As far as I know my customer info held by my provider is still subject to data protection laws so it's not as if Google is going to start raiding my bank account or sending me mailshots.

You don't drive a car around without learning how it works, same principle for using the tubes, learn about security penis

Original lightsabre sale brings big, big bucks

Iain

$90,000 (£60,000/€66,000) for the leather Wolverine suit from X-Men

There must be more than one of these, I seem to remember that the suit got ripped once or twice during the film...

Daft list names Firefox, Adobe and VMWare as top threats

Iain
Thumb Down

Let's here a resounding "huh?"

Looks more like a list of the most 'popular' (as in common?) programs loaded on a PC?

Staff get the chop at London's web 2.0 poster child

Iain
Joke

Rantathon

Don't let CNet die! Where else will I find half-arsed shoddily programmed never-beta-tested freetard-aimed screen-saving reg-scanning temp-file-deleting desktop-tidying recycle-bin-emptying naff-ware?

Top UK cybercop dreams of PC breathalysers

Iain

Encryption

Will this spiderwebs and magic device be able to break encryption on the spot too? No.

Is this idea obviously (to anyone with half a brain) completely impractical? Yes.

La Cie's quiet fans

Iain
Coat

Slice & Dice

"The Noctua NF-P12 fan design has nine, not seven, blades" - is this a reference to Life of Brian?

Anyway, nice idea, I'm off to take a Stanley to my fan to improve cooling.

BBC, ITV propose 'open' TV-over-net platform

Iain
Stop

"...make money out of it by selling on-site advertising"

Hasn't anybody told them this does not happen?

Junk science and booze tax - a study in spin

Iain
Coat

Crackpot Idea

Here's mine:

All alcohol is priced by the unit, like petrol being priced by the litre/gallon.

Or what about no specifically alcoholic drinks are sold, alkl drinks are non-alcoholic and then you buy special 'alcohol tablets' which you dissovle in the drink of your choice to make it alcohol. 1 tablet = 1 unit and costs 40p.

Logitech launches padded Lapdesk

Iain
Stop

Um, £30?

Go to Woolworths (if they still exist by the time this is posted) and you can get a lap-tray (a tray with a beanbag style cushion stapled to the bottom) for £4. Does exactly the same thing, been using it for years. Even has some pretty flowers printed on it.

Samsung Q310 13.3in laptop

Iain
Flame

Batter Life

Not sure if this graph always has this title in your reviews, but my initial thought on seeing it was that it was going to display the results of a ruggedness test. How dissappointed I was.

Flames because you also ommitted to test its flammability and potential as a blunt instrument.

Booby-trapped emails fly back into fashion

Iain

Made a funny

Nice juxtaposition of Swan's and Stile's posts above.

I guess a clever spammer could try to raid the mailing lists of the airlines and only target known users.

007 Warhead screenplay sold for £46K

Iain
Joke

Had to be done

Frickin' robot sharks with frickin' laser beams...

Is there any good external HDD encryption software?

Iain

Plausible Deniability

"Its the type of encryption that if police/FBI/etc encounter, they try some common passwords, but its useless to attempt to crack unless its of major importance."

Such as a prosecution under the CJA.

But luckily TrueCrypt comes with the plausible deniability fucntion which, as yet, I have not explored but have been reliably informed is very good. It works by creating a visible encrypted container (to which it is 'safe' to release the key to an adversary) and can contain some fake files (eg a spreadsheet named 'bank details' filled with crap) but also a second layer of encryption which is not visible (not 100% sure how that works yet, not currently storing anything I need to be plausibly denaiable about) and contains the actual files you wish to keep safe.

Iain

Truecrypt... again

Been using for about a year now, good software, nice and free. (Gods bless open source)

Only downside (I found) is that you will not be able to encrypt the whole drive, only a 'container' on it. That is unless you have another 750GB drive that you can copy all your data onto, encrypt the first drive, then copy it all back into the container. Oh, and encrypting 750GB will take a considerable portion of your day (not that it really matters, but is worth bearing in mind before you start).

Microsoft preps IE 8 for the web-challenged

Iain

What the internet is for

"Web sites making the list will be global "high-volume sites", and sites "we determine high-volume on a market-by-market basis," Microsoft program manager Scott Dickens blogged."

Lets apply some statistics to this. Int he words of the popular song: "The internet is for..."

So, logically, the highest volume sites will have names like: 'www.buxomblondesdobrunettes.com'. Are those going to appear on MS's list?

US Army in $50m video game upgrade

Iain

Psychology

Training soldiers in a VR environment may not be so good for their moral judgment in the real battlefield. (just to make it clear I am not suggesting there is a link between video games and violence)

If a soldier is only trained in shooting up sprites or avatars, is there a risk this will mean when confronted with a real foe the VR conditioning will make them think of the enemy as non-human?

Ballmer's bid to swerve 'Vista Capable' row comes unstuck

Iain

I for one

may have missed an old, old boat with this post, but I only noticed last night that on my mum's laptop (not a high end gaming rig, I hasten to add) which boasted a 1.4Ghz Celeron M with 256MB RAM and 64MB Integrated Graphics proudly displays what must be one of the first brood of the Vista Compatible stickers (from '06, when all this was fields). I can only hope they become collecters items post-lawsuit and I can sell it for a vast sum on a well known international flea-market.

Company sues Facebook over somethingorother

Iain

Gone fishin'

As above

Does it feel good when I twist your circuits?

Iain
Flame

Stretch PCs

Having recently twatishly broken expensive bits of my PC, I would find this innovation incredibly useful in ordinary computing components, especialy those bits which inveterate hamfisted hardware fiddlers (yours truly) may have cause to manipulate, often percussively.

Also, a laptop made completly of this stuff would be far more genuinely "'ard" than recent efforts at so called 'drop-resistant' (not 'proof' but 'resistant', huh?).

<---Is it fireproof?

Regulators back Bell Canada choking indie ISP traffic

Iain
Boffin

Caption

Your picture caption is incorrect. It should read "An internet, yesterday"

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