Posts by Peter Flynn
106 posts • joined Friday 18th January 2008 16:34 GMT
12 Years - a lot can happen...
So we have a 12 year gap for the one-way settlers to get settled in and start food production etc before any backup and relief arrives.
That is a long time for being isolated and cut off - hopefully full psychiatric profiles will be taken otherwise it starts sound like a premise for one of those claustrophobic Sci-Fi film (e.g. Alien, Event Horizon, Doom, etc.)
Pregnant Shark
When they caught the Bull Shark, clearly they should have spotted it was pregnant and released it back? Granted they released its unborn shark babies but they should have let the shark alone. Sharks have a hard enough time as it.
This mutant shark would have probably died shortly after birth anyway.
Re: I upvoted you
Agree about broadband - but there are occasions when you'll want to play offline on a laptop or whatever on holiday or on a train away from any network connectivity.
I've not touched the Sim City franchise for a long time. I do play HL2 and a few Steam games. At least Steam notices offline play and lets you still play the game disconnected. EA should have just followed a similar approach.
EA should have considered offline play in their design and offered an online/offline check for their DRM module so that you can still play offline for a couple of weeks between connecting back up.
Posted in OpenTV slaps Netflix with patent lawsuit
Netflix and alternative platforms...
I suppose the same patent company are also going to go after Lovefilm, Tesco, BT Vision, Virgin Media, TIVO and all others who provide this sort of technology. OpenTV 2 middleware is already in Sky.
Seriously. Without seeing the technical content of these patents I wonder what the patents relate too?
http://www.nagra.com/dtv/products-and-solutions/client-technologies/opentv-middleware/ shows that it's an open Ecosystem and platform.
Netflix is built on Silverlight so fail to see where to two different platforms meet.
Got my degree thanks to Perl!
I coded in Pascal, C and C++ on my Computer Science degree and when I got through to my final year project (a long time back now) I remember my tutor saying that there was this language (just coming up to 9 years old) that he wanted me to write my final project in.
(There wasn't much CGI programming out there). I wrote a couple of Perl scripts and wrote a web based application to handle classroom assessments which looked lovely in Mozilla. I got an A for it and the staff were that impressed with it that they tried to sell it on.
That explains it...
I wondered why people had been moving to Twitpic and IMGURL to point at various other hosting providers ...
The issue with restricting Instagram preview from Twitter is that people will just think - "oh there's an issue with X... I'll use Y instead".
Oh FFS!
"Dutch court ruled that the devices infringe on an Apple scrolling patent that relates to how a user swipes through photo galleries.
The court said that Samsung's pre-Android 3.0 gear is using the patented Apple way of scrolling through a photo gallery, which lets you see a bit of the next image before it bounces back. The photo-scrolling patent is covered by European Patent 2 059 868."
So either Samsung release an OTA update to not show a bit of the next image or upgrade people upto Android 3/4.
But seriously Apple? Its an application and I for one fail to see how a UI enhancement is patentable - which is no different to Ruby or other various window effects in Linux/Windows/etc...
Apple really scraping the barrel. Its this sort of attitude that just winds me up...
Well - when I get a bit more cash for a smartphone I can say it certainly WON'T be Apple - and neither will rest of family.
Re: Formatting also broken in firefox 14
might be a networking thing... I noticed the corruption when in work going through that proxy (might be blocking certain elements or ads that are needed to layout the screen)
I should add not seen it happen recently so its probably fixed now.
Loved OS/2 Warp
Back in the day, I remember when we got hold of a copy of OS/2 Warp to try out on our home machines. (I think it was on a cover disc). We loved trying it out and it was far superior to Windows 3.1 (and Windows ME *shudder*)
I saw a financial system machine running it recently. I remarked on it at the time. The software was solid and worked so they felt the need to not upgrade it. Good testament to the code.
Posted in WTF is... VoLTE
Good whitepaper on VOLTE
http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/whitepapers/WP-Voice-Video-Calling-LTE.pdf
I did wonder what would happen with emergency service calls but it's handled;
EMERGENCY CALLS
Most operators provide overlapping circuit-switched access network coverage for emergency calls.
For operators without such coverage, the VoLTE profile includes an emergency VoIP over LTE solution
based on 3GPP Release 9 to ensure compliance with international regulatory requirements.
In all honesty, based on the 3G experience so far, where it spends most of the time on Edge or GPRS whilst travelling about - it is likely that it'll fall back quite frequently. The white paper above explains how that would occur.
Re: Wii U
Thanks for the link. So it looks like as mentioned above - the main player in multi-player would have the nice tablet controller whilst other players the nunchuck/wiimotes.
Makes sense - although user experience will be better for the main player (can see the children arguing already over who is the gamepad player..)
Wonder if the main purpose of the Wii-U is to focus on single player games where the whole experience is using the gamepad along with the console.
Wii U
When we bought the Wii, we got it as it had a focus on family, collaborative play. The 2nd (and 3rd) controllers were cheap and we've enjoyed that and it often gets played with.
The Wii-U has additional gamepads likely to top the £100 mark. Whilst looking like slightly larger DS's, that for me is a blocker for purchase and makes me consider just enjoying a PS3 or XBOX360 (which are in shops for similar prices to Wii-U now and are fully packaged out).
Re: The Real McCoy
As someone who grew up in Hartlepool, I can wholly approve of the pint of Camerons Strongarm (especially with its "puff pastry" head)!
Struggling to find anywhere nice though to try a decent Parmo in the town but agree it has to be a whole fillet (or even 2 sandwiched together). My last decent one was at a sit down restaurant in Stockton near the Riverside a few years back.
CDE
Spent a lot of time on Solaris boxes looking at CDE applications, although preferred IRIX on my SGI Indigo workstation.
CDE has brought back all those memories of motif. Nice at the time but there are far better *nix window managers now.
Re: First impressions
"contaminated with organic material"
Could bacteria exist on those components - wonder if it would thrive and live in such a hostile environment? Have we just introduced bacterial life to Mars?
Posted in Submarine cable plan sinks without trace
Re: Repeaters
Thanks for those links. Fab. :-)
I've only ever seen one cable laying ship in my time in port - very impressive boat - and huge too. I suppose you are not going to get many knots out of the ship in motion so at £100k/day lease - yeah it would be very expensive.
Posted in Submarine cable plan sinks without trace
Not surprised really especially in a recession - Sydney to LA is 6507.9 Nautical Miles - that's a hell of a lot of fibre cable. Australia to NZ would be 1154.6 Nautical Miles which is still a lot. In ATM OC48c Long Reach fibre, 9µm Single Mode the distance is 49.70 miles max. Without land mass in between (which engineers can get to easily) its always going to be expensive.
Would be fun to do though and an interesting challenge
Re: PCI-DSS anyone?
The PCI DSS applies to all entities that store, process, and/or transmit cardholder data. It covers technical
and operational system components included in or connected to cardholder data. If you are a merchant
who accepts or processes payment cards, you must comply with the PCI DSS.
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/PCI%20SSC%20Quick%20Reference%20Guide.pdf )
Pretty sure the card payment and storage of your payment card is very secure on the Tesco website and meets those requirements.
The hashing of user accounts is a separate issue IMO but needs resolving as it allows access to that individuals card payment details so potentially they could be seen as not doing everything to protect the card from misuse.
Posted in Nintendo 3DS XL review
3DS
What's In The Box
Nintendo 3DS system, Nintendo 3DS charging cradle, Nintendo 3DS AC adapter, ...
So are you sure the 3DS XL doesn't have an AC adapter?
Posted in Nintendo 3DS XL review
"There isn't even an AC adaptor included, meaning unless you already have a DS charger of some kind, you'll be splashing out again."
All devices out of the box should at least come with an AC adaptor.
Movement
Hmm.. if a brain-scanning head-cap has the possibility to enable him to communicate more easily then could it also be used for mobility? I'm thinking people who are paralysed from the neck down (incl. arm function).
I think it brain scanning tech works it'll be a huge leap in technology. Hopefully leading to brain controlled robotic devices / arms / legs.
Re: man up?
"Man up" by handing himself over to US lapdogs and soon after "committing suicide"?"
You really, really believe that would happen? That there wouldn't be a worldwide public outcry and that no-one would notice if it happened? You think no-one would be watching out for his welfare?
If he went to Sweden and the next he was on a plan to the US then there would be uproar. If he suddenly died then it would be even more so...
However, we'll never find out as he's currently "on the run", hiding in embassies now and letting down his bail-bond friends.
I agree with Jemima Khan and her comment on Twitter;
"Yes. I had expected him to face the allegations. I am as surprised as anyone by this."
Perhaps he should face his accusers in a legal court over in Sweden.
Alienware M14x
A colleague at work had an Alienware laptop, and it simply flew with graphics and development work.
If I was considering a premium laptop I'd get an Alienware instead. They can have a 1600x900 resolution, blu-ray optical drive, NVIDIA graphics, 6 Gig of RAM for just over £1200.
Apple products, and the UI are good - but very expensive IMO.
(At present, I have 2 laptops - a Lenovo T410 and Sony Vaio - the Lenovo is fab for day to day things and battery seems to last forever - Sony is pretty good at video work although battery life sucks)
Posted in Ten... Father's Day gifts
Re: Toblerone
Yup... same here as well as potentially a hand drawn card. Last year was a key-ring from Tesco's and a small bottle of Single Malt which I loved.
Mothers Day / Fathers Day's are really "Hallmark Holiday". No need to go stupid and spend £200 for something (which is what this article was suggesting).
Posted in Acorn Archimedes is 25
We had these at school
We had BBC Micro's, lab of Amstrad PCW-8256 (with Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy) and a single lab of these Archimede's. They were fab. I was into a lot of art and used the paint package to use all 256 colours (from a huge palette - compared to other computers at the time). Also lost a lot of lost hours to that lander game.
Posted in Ten... freeware gems for new PCs
Thanks for the apps !
Big fan of VLC player since installing that - no more codec issues for anything I want to play. Thanks for the app suggestions in the article and in the comments.
Melted deck
As ever a good article from Lewis.
I remember seeing a news article about the F-35B and V-22 Osprey melting the deck on carriers and therefore reducing their operating life. Wonder if its been factored in?
I think that catapult and hooks would have at least provided mechanism to allow other countries to reuse the carriers however a comment further up suggested that they will be using drones with a few fighter jets so the likelihood is a lot of predator-like drones, some F-35B's for missions and carrier air support and helicopters;
To be honest, the whole MOD procurement from small items all the way up needs sorting out. Simply too expensive to procure things.
Formatting broke in Google Chrome / Windows
If I am looking at any articles under Google Chrome, in Windows, the formatting of the content is all over the place..
It just seems to have started today. Has anything changed and are other people seeing the same problem. IE8 doesn't show any sort of content.
Its only on the actual article view, the main page and comments are OK.
Posted in Netflix vs Lovefilm
Bufferering
No problem here either. My children have now worked through all the episodes of the X-men cartoons with no issues.
I really like it so far - but it does need more up to date movies - and how come Star Wars, Clone Wars and Transformers films not on there?
Posted in The Commodore 64 is 30
Ah - peek and poke...
The Commodore 64 is what got me into programming (in basic and assembly) prior to owning an 8086 Intel.
May an evening lost - it all started with writing the programs out of Zzap64. Spent ages writing a battleship one that dropped mines on submarines below.
happy days.
Posted in 2012 Games Preview
Dungeon Master...
Lost many an hour to that, Chaos Strikes Back and Bloodwych. This new game looks good although it would be nice if it was free roaming dungeon rather than grid based. Will give it a bash though.
As for those games - look great. Apart from Counterstrike Global Offensive. Looked at the video on Youtube and it looked no different to CS: Source apart from a few UI tweaks. I love CS: Source for the odd 30 minute play, prefer Portal.. however is CS Global Offensive what the devs at Valve are working on? I would really love to finish the HL2 series. It was left on a bit of a cliff hanger at the end of Episode 2.
Posted in 2011's Best... DVRs and Media Streamers
BT Vision box and Sky+
If you are rating the Virgin Tivo box (which is excellent) then you should also have rated the BT vision and Sky+ boxes.
I have a BT Vision box - one of the original silver ones - and it works great. High definition, On Demand rentals, and very good BBC IPlayer and a pretty sizeable PVR in which I now record most CBeebies for the children.
It does not however do Freeview-HD so am looking at potentially the WD Live box or the Apple TV.
Having seen the Sky+ it has similar.
Erm...
I would have placed loads of other people above Zuckerberg....
Jeff Minter - for all the Llamas
Peter Molyneaux - for Populous
Nolan Bushnell - for the Atari VCS - bringing Pong, Pacman etc. into the home
John Carmack for Wolfenstein 3D
Don Bluth for Dragons Lair / Space Ace laserdisc games in the 80s
Keiichiro Toyama for Silent Hill
Will Wright for Sim City
Sid Meier for well ... Microprose and all the hours lost to F-19 Stealth Fighter
Posted in Apple iPad vs... the rest
thanks
now know what to be looking for now.
seen both in shop, but can't beat a "real use" review
wow...
really good article.
Always fascinated at the level of detail in some science fiction. The one aspect I liked in the new series was the vipers weren't like spitfires but had Newtonian physics and reverse propulsion to enable them to turn around and manoeuvre. Brilliant.
Posted in Top Ten Retro PC Games
Where is?
Sabre Wulf on the Speccy - loved that
Chuckie Egg on the BBC
Elite
Virus on the Archimedes
Wolfenstein 3D
Wing Commander
X-Wing vs Tie Fighter
Kings Quest
Ultima
Zelda
Hobbit on the C64
Combat on the Atari VCS2600
Posted in Apple iMac 21.5in 2010
Good review
"while the lack of a more affordable machine in the £700-£800 range seems to suggest that Apple is simply turning its nose up at anyone that can’t afford its designer label pricing"
The verdict sums up my feelings about them too. I liked trying them out but the price point for what you get doesn't seem justified.
Posted in 3D films fall flat
3D TVs and films...
The glasses give me a headache after a long time (film length). Also, my 3 year old won't wear them and my 5 year old doesn't like "things popping out of the screen". I certainly wouldn't part the hard cash for a 3D TV. It just seems daft that the whole family has to sit in the front room with special glasses just to watch the TV. Also - claims from manufacturers to take 2D and "automatically convert it to 3D" seems a little far - especially when to get depth the 2nd camera would need a different angle.
Perhaps these studio's need to listen to the audiences. We want good films, with decent story/dialogue - not special effects crap with no substance just so something can come flying out of the screen at the audience...
On childrens films, we're off to see Toy Story 3 this week. Asked my son whether he wanted to see the 3D version (which costs an extra £1.50 on the ticket price) he said No. So we'll head an watch the 2D version...
It is/was a fad. Its place is in Disney/Universal theme parks only for quick 10-20 minute shows/rides.
Posted in Jobs tells iPhone users to get a grip
Design flaws...
Its clearly a design flaw. My HTC handset doesn't lose signal if I hold it in my left hand or right hand.
Can see an IPhone 4.1 already.
Posted in Buyer's Guide: 3D TVs
Headaches...
I am one of those people with a slightly weaker eye and get headaches from these sorts of pictures after around 15-20 minutes...
Having been to Universal theme park and seen Spiderman 3D, Terminator 3D and Shrek 3D - I sometimes get the 3D - I sometimes "focus" and end up seeing 2 slightly offset images. Also my young son won't wear the glasses.
Its a fad and will be for films. Please get back to proper decent films (with decent plots and stories) and stop messing about with the fad (and fancy special effects that mean the film fails in 2D).
Hmm..
People have different sensitivities to caffeine;
I drink around 5-6 cups of Clipper Organic Arabica coffee every day. I've noticed that it does help on a morning but has no significant impact during the day. Often tired by home time. I *do* notice a big difference if I have a cup of ground M&S/Costa/Cafe Nero (not Starbucks - which I think is poor coffee as is Nescafe and most other freeze dried instant coffees). With those coffees I notice a definite increase in heart speed and alertness. I don't drink as much on a weekend and have a coffee comedown which can be bad. I once had a week off coffee and noticed less headaches etc so it does have some physiological impact.
My friend can't drink coffee. He once drank a can of Coke and was left wired for 2 days (unable to sleep). He now avoids all caffeine.
Systems and Websites
Having done 2 website audits against the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standards - http://www.w3.org/WAI/ - I really don't want an additional set of checks nor see the need for a British Standard when there is already a standard.
Accessibility as it stands can be difficult to implement in full (especially when using screen readers).
Posted in IT Crowd gets fifth series run
Thanks for the quotes page!
Loved the Tramps Like Us episode where Roy gets electrocuted by Douglas's pants and reboots with the Windows startup tune. - classic.
Glad its coming back - one of the good shows on TV.
And the Speech episode with the Internet in a box.
Posted in Fader pushers mourn Fritz Sennheiser
They are all mostly good headphones...
I use the (very much cheaper) Sennheiser PXC250 headphones when at work. I used to have Sony headphones and all other sorts and got sick of replacing and went for the Sennheiser ones after trying a friends.
Simply love them - best headphones I've had - good bass response and good upper tones - and fold up nice and small for travel.
I know people who have the higher up HD headphones and they all love them too.
Hmm...
I want them to arrive. Then perhaps I might get my anti-gravity flying car.
Posted in Watchdog calls for Google break-up
Just chill...
A Google breakup ain't going to happen. To think all that Google have achieved over the years - I remember searching using Altavista and Yahoo. Google is used as a verb here.
Love the CAPS btw.
Posted in Normal Human Being™ reviews the iPad
Good Review
The lack of mouse and keyboard is an issue. You are better off with a £400 notebook PC with a small travel mouse.
I wouldn't use it for calls either. Too big.
Posted in Imminent launch for mobile Firefox
Woo hoo!
At last a potential competitor for Opera for Windows Mobile 6.5.... and a hopefully worthy replacement for the Internet Explorer too.
One suggestion to developers - not sure if its a WinMo thing or Opera/IE - but when I close the screen can it kill the process?
I just hope that the browser supports non-touchscreen phones as the last Opera release seems to only work for touch screen phones.
Defeated by a bunch of muppets...
"Just perhaps, in a Star Wars aficionado-pleasing move, DARPA are even mulling the use of mighty walking tanks."
The film at the weekend (Return of the Jedi) showed the AT-ST's being defeated by Ewoks...
Smaller version - Good for battlefield recon though.
Posted in Spotify embraces Symbian
Windows Mobile
Still no Windows Mobile support - but good on them for slowly getting around to adding more platforms.
Perhaps I may get to see WinMo Spotify just in time for Christmas.
