Posts by Tony Paulazzo
843 posts • joined Saturday 2nd February 2008 15:25 GMT
Re: Silly comparisons
we pay the extra for the level of quality that comes with the product
Quality maybe, but longevity not, I guess.
Save the Earth! *
As for the S3 get it tested, my friend has one and it never crashes.
* Only kidding, I lust after the next upgrade same as (nearly) everyone.
And it’s critical, as two of the largest economies and military powers in the world, that China and the United States arrive at a firm understanding of how we work together on these issues.
Obama: so you be our enemies and we be your enemies. That'll keep the proles in line.
Xi: Tianeman square never happened!
iOS7
a raft of improvements to such elements as multitasking, the Safari mobile browser, and Siri. Still no ability to change the default browser, no resizable widgets and still flat textureless boring icons.
"We just completely ran out of green felt," and idea's.
Siri gets an upgrade I actually like Siri, seems to understand me better that GNow.
Still no intelligent password control (if connected to known wifi turn off password). One positive - the makeover looks like a nice implementation of MS' TIFKAM.
Take the text away from the icons then say what each app does, only about 50% are obvious, and the itunes / music player are almost the same.
Can't stand flat, flat is boring, not next gen.
Ok, I hated the stupid green baize in the game centre app but you know what I hated more? that fricking fracking unused skeuomorphed bookshelf icon that I'm not allowed to hide, not being able to see at a glance what the weather's like outside my door, the very basic notification system...
I'm actually expecting to be underwhelmed (unless they bring out a contact lens screen wirelessly connected to my ipad) - that'd shut up Google.
DISCLAIMER: I love Apple, Google, the NSA, GCHQ and the glorious land of America.
Re: RIP
As a relatively new Kindle reader (rediscovering old faves), I just started rereading the dying Earth series which blew my mind as a young geek - could never really get into the more fantasy orientated stories, but I well remember walking thru the sun engorged magical lands of Cugel and other mad characters in that far flung dying Earth. In my mind it was always dusk.
Didn't know about the crime books, might have to look out for them.
RIP dude.
Apple ensured that many of its contracts also had a “most favoured nation” clause
OK, IANAL but doesn't that clause preclude anyone selling at a lower price than you, ie, pricefixing, or could Amazon continue selling ebooks on the kindle at a reduced price? because if they couldn't, then the price was fixed at a price Apple were happy with, but not Amazon (and I assume supermarkets - or could they continue to sell cheaper hard copy books - and if so, how?).
Eat the...
Now we have a menace that is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.
As others have noted when he says 'society' he actually means despots, politicians, Hollywood & bankers.
Eat the rich!
From Google Glasses to...
Google Contact Lenses and virtual graphics overlaying reality.
Hey Apple & Intel, that's called Research & Development...
Or the advancement of the human condition - it's not just about stockpiling cash in Ireland.
Posted in Is the next-gen console war already One?
"The Xbox One has Kinect functionality built into its very core," Rivington says. "To turn the console on, you need only say the words "Xbox on" - the console is always listening." It doesn't require a living room the size of a football pitch any more, it can see in the dark and it can detect your heart rate...
... Whenever a new bit of tech appears, the same question arises: is it an Orwellian spy tool? Apparently not, says Hugh Langley. While Kinect constantly listens for your commands, it "won't always be spying on your living room activity". Microsoft promises complete privacy when you expect it.
Just like they said it won't require constant Internet connection, when they meant it must phone home once a day for continued use.
But ok, going for some air now, but unlikely to watch less scifi, I loves that stuff!
Posted in Is the next-gen console war already One?
1. I don't want a Kinect, that's not only included but compulsory for use.
Things you will no longer be able to do in your own living room:
Have an honest political discussion (keywords emailed straight to FBI)
Have sex on your sofa (or wank) - assuming all your porn legitimitely aquired
Smoke grass, snort coke, inject smack
Lie on your sofa naked or in pants
Get into fight or kill somebody
Say to your partner, 'turn that fucking xbox off and talk to me (without one of the above happening)
Processor porn!
S'why I love The Reg :-) Still got an AMD in my gaming desktop at home (helped along by an Nvidia graphics card), natch!
If they get the battery / performance dance right it could make for an interesting future.
Re: The problem is putting the word "Facebook" on everything
Zuck has to diversify his empire
Well, I haven't seen 'The Network' or really followed Zuckerbergs life story, but the impressions I get are that he basically stole that one idea that proved popular. I might be wrong.
Gone from...
Windows 7 £134.71 Amazon (well ok, free on laptop)
MS Office 2007 £155.00 (bought and paid for disk moved with me onto new systems)
Photoshop & Dreamweaver CS3 £400 (Nice job paid for)
Over to...
Ubuntu 12.04 £20 Paypal donation
Gimp (basic web editing pics only required) &
LibreOfffice (formatting docx and xlsx files fine btw)
Dreamweaver 8 £8.00 off Ebay (just can't find decent Ubuntu alternative)
SME here.
... frame the argument over corporate taxes as a political sop for the masses suffering under austerity, rather than a legitimate desire for overarching change.
And we have a winner.
Re: 'Cost' for an e-book
ebook production requires nearly as much work as paper book production
So what you're in fact saying is that physical and ebooks are both a complete rip off, since proofreading and marketing are one off costs. So let's say the first 1000 books pay them off, anything after that is pretty much pure profit?
But either way, selling more, cheaper is still better, or the same, as selling less at a higher price. Or not?
Disney: The mouse who started the draconian copyright wars - jumped into bed with EA: Profit before playability, DRM before customers needs, and people act surprised. Marriage made in heav... hell far as I can see.
1. Because it is ridiculously, insanely cheap to buy "real" weaponry.
Not in the UK it isn't.
Posted in Google Now lands on iOS
Re: Cards
So basically adverts which try and make more money for Google
Nope, just cards with info on, what the weather is like, how long it will take to get home, traffic issues etc - never once had an advert pop up.
Just searched for Google Now (UK) in the itunes store and got no results.
As for which is better, Siri does appointments and understands 'comma', 'full stop', 'new paragraph' better, where GNow seems better at dictation (it'll write comma perfectly, nearly everytime).
So Hollywood could be making $11 billion dollars a month from China but they'd rather just whinge and whine about piracy?
Is this the definition of insanity?
Fuck!
The internet belongs to the people, it is of the people, for the people and it's not just just Hollywood that wants to lock the internet down - it's governments worldwide who hate the free flow of information going on between its citizens. Anyone who is for the lockdown of the internet (thru DRM or any limiting factor), or spying on its citizens, is part of the problem. Pick a side.
Can we get the people who run the 0800/0845/0870/etc numbers to give a geographic number?
http://www.saynoto0870.com/
will often get you a non 08 whatever number.
Re: Android Malware and Number of Infected Devices
Unless you're using an iOS device, which suffers from zero malware.
Almost, not quite the same as zero.
http://dottech.org/99956/android-accounts-for-79-of-mobile-malware-and-ios-0-7-according-to-repot-by-f-secure/
As of March 2013 (the only reason I bring this to attention is because people then expect to never be bitten with malware when using iOS devices).
08.. numbers
Amazing how these groups of numbers haven't come under investigation. They basically appeared as mobile phones became ubiquitous, and while some are only local rate calls anywhere in the UK, they don't come under mobile contractual 'free minutes' (which includes the landline free 0800 but mobile still charges), and other 08 numbers can basically charge the caller what they like (with no warning), which BT and the contracter share.
the walled Apple Orchard is not so bad after all?
Why, because Apple won't bend over for governments / sales
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/05/apple_china_itunes_app_removed/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/02/chinese_press_react_favorably_to_cook_apology/
And once CISPA gets passed (aka the snoop law in the UK), both Apple and Google will have no choice in giving up everything the American government asks for (to avoid liability).
concluded that while the tech giants were sticking to the letter of the law, their money-shifting shenanigans were "immoral".
Maybe if she'd called it obscene we could do them under the new obscenity laws, which can basically find anything it wants obscene...
Of course, if the great British mass couldn't find Google, Facebook, MS etal because they were all boycotting the UK the electorate would have nothing better to do (UKTV mostly sucks) and might just become interested in what the politicians are actually doing with all their money.
So I'm predicting nothing will actually change.
That there is no storage expansion
Seems an overly consumer hostile move that all tech companies seem happy to follow but I guess the masses don't seem to care - and yea, seems a shame they dropped the keyboard part of the build (offering more battery life, storage expansion etc).
Also, reading between the lines, you seem to rate the phone much higher than the tablet (plastic shell with noticeable join, not great battery, low res quickly smudged screen), and so you start to wonder at the price, especially If the phones only advantage over the Nexus4 is not overheating.
Paranoia
Well, saves me having to close down my google**, apple, ms, facebook and Dropbox accounts for a while longer*. Seriously, when are any British entrepreneurs going to offer similar services, or maybe le pirate bay?
* Like the FBI etal aren't sifting thru' all that stuff already.
** I will miss Google most of all, the first to offer two step verification (their email login is more secure than my banks), a free 5 GB storage allowance, streaming of my entire music collection, the ability to surf the Earth (and Mars), down to street level - and all for a couple of adverts that I can block in Firefox with Noscript and Adblock.
*** Already made a start by installing Ubuntu 12.04 (feels slightly faster than 12.10), rooting my Android and jailbreaking my iPad.
If they were permissions I could enable or disable them as I see fit. Instead my only choice is "do I install or not" which makes them requirements.
Actually, assuming you at least trust the developer to not be infecting your phone, install it, leave a scathing comment / review, then delete it immediately, but yea, default option should be to choose which requirements be allowed - also, if anyone discovers apps that use premium rate numbers mention it in the reviews.
Also, not aimed at McUser, if you like an app (esp on Android), pay for the bloody thing and voila, no adverts or dodgy 08 whatever numbers. The freemium model would pretty much die out and everybody would be happy... er.
For some, Facebook Home just packs too much Facebook into a phone.
Brilliant!
...the year’s best game so far. BioShock Infinite...
I kind'a like it, story is superlative, and the girl is kooky fun - but corridor shooter, in the 21st century? come on, I wanted to go off and explore, ala Skyrim... and as for EA's Simcity - well, I guess I have them to thank for letting me discover Tropico 4, a place where sims return to the same home, have relations and go to the same job every day - plus, you get to be a dictator with secret services who'll take out libertarians if they're pissing you off with strikes or 'peacefull demonstrations. Much fun.
But, IMHO, everyone who paid EA for Simcity put a another nail in the coffin of gaming consumer rights worldwide I'm afraid.
It is kind of funny that we can now watch our masters watching us. I bet it kind of pisses them off. There's nothing worse a secretive state hates than the light of reason shining into their darkness.
Who watches the watchmen? We do!
Re: Windows 8 or just Windows Hate?
Microsoft got from Vista to 7 by improving things they started in Vista, and perhaps more importantly, by the time 7 came out, most applications were designed to run with restricted security permissions.
And, I think, they listened to their customers, something they're just not doing with 8.
I don't understand
If china is so evil and opposed to western democracy why don't they have their own pc architecture with Chinese software and a local only Internet, also, why do western business's do business with a state that imprisons anyone asking for a little freedom?
I also thought Chinese society was 99% farmers/workers (fixed living income), and 1% ruling elite - turns out they've got layers of society too, middle class, affluent, poor etc. any Chinese resident readers (via vpn), wanna write an honest breakdown of modern Chinese society.
Also, is it true you don't have a Chinese equivalent for child abuse/paedophilia and can marry 14 year olds?
Honest curiosity.
Google is not a search engine it is, in fact, an advertising service, that is how it makes its money.
If that's true then for advertisers they offer a great search engine, probably the best on the net - and I hate advertisers, to the extent that I will flick TV over to bbc during ad breaks. And I've tried using other search engines (I used to love Alta Vista), Bing etc, and they're all pooh compared to Google (I'm not scared of clicking past the first few pages either).
To stop the paranoid fantasies of being stalked thru cyberspace I use Firefox with Adblock and noscript, but I realise the futility of not wanting governments to watch everything I do online - at least Google only do it to make money.
The FBI and CIA and MI6 suck donkey balls! Just a joke guys, you're doing a bang up job of keeping us citizens safe :-) (you know, from the paedo's, terrorists and pirates).
Translation
Our SimCity Mayors are incredibly important to the team at Maxis. We sincerely apologize for the difficulties at launch and hope to make it up to you with a free PC game download from Origin
We hate you, we fucking hate you, we hope you die now that we've got your money, and no you can't have a refund and we can't code for shit (see Sims3 crashing and memory errors and save corruptions that we haven't bothered fixing in 7+ expansions) - suckers... Here, have a free crap game on us for being our good little bitches.
UBS analyst Brent Thill initially predicted that Microsoft would move 2 million Surface slabs in the fourth quarter. In fact it sold little more than a third as many, despite launching Surface RT in time for the holiday shopping season.
He guessed wrong. I guessed right, I knew they wouldn't move any significant numbers at the prices they were quoting. I'm pretty sure Amazon and Google aren't selling their 7 inch tabs @ £150 because they want poor people to have one, but because they did market research that told them at what price a device would sell in an iPad saturated market.
I'm beginning to wonder if MS did any market research about anything they've done recently: Office 2013 looks like shit, Not Metro & Win8 doesn't work well with just keyboard & mouse (just put back the fucking start menu already), and the Surface RT doesn't even have a reason for its existence.
They didn't need to make the Surface Pro tough enough to use as a skateboard, should'a thrown in the cheap keyboard and Office inc. a years license with the pro and sold the whole thing for £500 ($800 ish). I'm pretty sure Sinofsky would still be there if they'd done that - maybe.
Re: New Ultima?
If Garriott is going to see a single penny from me again, he would be wise to ignore everything they crapped out for U:A, and take a good hard look at what made Ultima VII and The Serpent Isle so god damn good. Ultima VIII, AKA "Super Avatar Brothers" isn't worthy of a mention.
THE WORST video games I have ever played (and yes, I have played Daggerfall)
So agreed with your first sentiment, but Daggerfall? It was awesome... buggy as hell but to this day I can't think of a game with bigger ambitions or a deeper soul...
However, when I started reading the article I was thinking U7 but with todays graphics fidelity, decent spelunking down ten layers of caves with traps, secrets and fascinating creatures (not all out to kill you), storylines and a living breathing world, fascinating characters, then I got to the online part... eugh! Just no...
And also - Tabula Rasa!
+1 for the Star Trek: TMP love, the directors edition being the best version - Robert Wise was allowed to finish the film by reshooting certain effects that he ran out of time for in the original theatre edit. Doesn't really change the story, or shorten it... but I for one, love my spaceship porn, and married with big idea's and personal growth, Spock going from total logic to grasping Kirks arm in friendship, V'gers birth into a new cosmic being....
This is the SciFi I grew up loving.
Light up a doobie or have a glass of wine / beer, draw the curtains, douse the lights, get comfy and lose yourself for some two hours in a film directed by the same man who gave us (the original - & only IMHO), The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story, The Andromeda Strain and many other classics.
+1 for Supernova, Event Horizon and all the other titles everyone's put forth, some I'm going to look out for, but I do have to admit, Gattacca bored the bejesus out of me and I don't think Zardoz should have been on the list. Great article and seven pages of comments though.
I hate Safari on the ipad, did get momentarily excited when they announced fullscreen surfing in iOS6 but turned out to be solely for the iphone - no choices bruv. The back button on Safari is the only badly-designed-for-touch feature in the entire operating system - and the only way to go back a page...
I installed iCabMobile as a great replacement (downloads, full screen option, two finger tap to go back a page), but you're 'not allowed' (what am I, fucking 6?) to use it as your default browsing software, natch.
If I jailbreak (I did it once, I felt so naughty), I can setup my personal browser preference, or even install a trick that gives you Safari full screen and finger based back-a-page goodness, but losing the JB on every update got old. Fast.
Posted in Amazon yanks SimCity download from store
delicious schadenfreude*
British and European players experiencing the same problems and EA are having to spend (utter guesswork here), shitloads on more servers they were too cheap to implement to ensure their customers satisfaction in the first place (including chopping out bits of gameplay) and the multiplayer components deemed so necessary..
Plus, I'm assuming (praying), the thousands of refund demands, Amazon withdrawing their product (if only temporarily), it's even hit the BBC.
The silence from EA is now deafening.
Posted in Amazon yanks SimCity download from store
What I find hard to believe is the serious lack of communication from EA to its customers. In three or so days they finally get an ambivalent sorry, didn't realise how many people were going to buy (and want to play at the same time) the game, and we're working hard to resolve the issue. This problem will not affect our European or Australian releases.
Why don't I believe you EA? oh yea, cause you're lying sacks of shit!
iOS 7 really needs to pull its finger out, and I'm guessing Samsung aren't sharing this tech with Google / Android? Which is a shame, everyone needs to reinvent the wheel.
@ $1500 a pop, any nerd out in the real world wearing Google Goggles will be mugged within 15 minutes of leaving their safe zone.
Unfortunately, crap dammit! I still want a pair.
Here's a clue - stop producing fucking content and just die already! If you don't create then nothing can be 'stolen'. Go out and get an 'honest' job, like bricklaying ya workshy cock knobber.
Felt I needed to qualify this statement somewhat:
If the content producers stop creating content no one will die as a direct result, and just maybe the human race will get off it's collective arse and start colonising Mars... or something... anything...
"We hope this cooperative, multi-stakeholder approach will serve as a model for addressing important issues facing all who participate in the digital entertainment ecosystem."
No matter how I read it, it feels like a null sentence. So the 'all' who participate in the digital entertainment ecosystem are not the same as the 'multi-stakeholder' with the cooperative approach and a model for addressing not getting paid?
Here's a clue - stop producing fucking content and just die already! If you don't create then nothing can be 'stolen'. Go out and get an 'honest' job, like bricklaying ya workshy cock knobber.
Posted in RIAA: Google failing on anti-piracy push
The RIAA's post bill would have bankrupted the organization back in the days of dead-tree mail, and caused a lot of postmen to retire early on worker's comp.
So what I'm hearing is that new technology is destroying the postal service, and RIAA is helping in this destruction of an entire industry, plus, they're totally failing to force the tide back out.
They should talk to king Canute. Maybe.
Governments lie.
The safest bet is to assume your government is lying to you now.
Everything they say is obfuscation and double think.
Unfortunately we can't just lay the blame on governments because The People are being complicit in the big lies.
I do not see a way out of this conundrum.
Re: wow
" ... the Xbox"
Success at great cost I guess, but in the last year? Been overtaken by PS3, and nothing really done by Balmer, no great hype yet or vision outlined for future Xboxen, so pretty hard to call that amazing by any stretch.
And if the recent news coming out is true, the new Xbox (720?) is going to destroy the second hand market by locking games to the machine - much like retail Office 2013.
It almost feels like someone is trying to destroy the corporation from within.
Posted in Canada cans net surveillance law
@ Kain
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you. Nietzsche
Or: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I love Apple, but if this does happen, and I'm seriously doubtful, I won't be getting one, I'm not going to give up my vintage Accutrons, or 70's retro Seikos for it.
Well, obviously, I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure Apple won't demand you give them your old watches in exchange. It would be like having three watches instead of two - like, I didn't have to give them my first born for my iPad, I just gave them money - I mean, I totally would have... /jk
