Posts by Quinch
49 posts • joined Friday 21st March 2008 19:38 GMT
So...
Bill Gates, funding research for malaria.
Larry Page, funding research for his sore throat.
It's good to have priorities.
"Cupertino is reportedly planning changes to Applecare with a move towards shop-based iDevice repairs and a potentially lucrative subscription service scheme."
Call me cynical, but I think the last word is misspelled.
"...pay a fine of 800,000 ISK ($6,829) per day."
I'm sure they'll hasten to comply. I mean, that's almost an entire rounding error.
"This beautiful handset took 9 weeks of detailed intricate work"
So basically, just long enough for it to become obsolete?
Re: That first photo
"I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that."
Posted in Amazon yanks SimCity download from store
I've got no sympathy.
EA has pulled this crap again and again in the past {and again, and again, and again, and again}.
Those who do not learn from history and all that.
Unrelated, I'm sure...
To the sudden trend of small-scale patent trolls suing large ones.
Posted in Jimmy Wales: 'I'm Wikipedia's monarch'
Re: Wikipedia as a reference? ...
My personal tipping point came some years ago when I was trying to find out how to calculate the angles of a right triangle {atan, yes, but I didn't know at the time}. Wikipedia kindly provided the formula of {somethingsomethingsomething}/((a^2+b^2)-c^2).
I've never looked back.
Too little, too late?
Does that mean that Apple can now sue itself for patent infringement, as Apple's products are similar enough to Apple's products to confuse the average customer, thus making Apple lose revenue or however the usual lawyer bait goes?
Posted in Vodafone India appoints SECRET SNITCHES
I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, I'm all too happy to see buzzed, cellphone-distracted morons being discouraged by *some*one. On the other hand, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Posted in Open source smartphone OS?
Open source smartphone OS?
Just an idle thought slash discussion fodder - discuss the feasibility and prerequisites for an open-source OS running on the currently popular crop of smartphones. How possible would it be? How worthwhile? Legal ramifications? Cultural?
"The wider collective might claim to be leaderless," Massie explained. "But the IRC channel had a power structure and hierarchy that was clear from looking at what was going on."
And this is new how? Every mob has its instigators - what do you think the ablative armor in front is for if not for rhetorical hiding behind?
Posted in Toshiba reveals spin transfer RAM
"spinning left AND right"
Prior art - every politician ever?
Re: 9 years old
Keep dreaming. At this rate, by the time this 9-year-old is old enough to vote, having sensible views on copyright will be grounds for imprisonment, let alone public service.
Posted in BOFH: The Great Patch Mismatch
I concur. If you need the footnote, you won't get the joke.
Re: Don't believe a word she says...
Auuggghh!!
Knuckle! Knuckle!
Re: Yoinks!
Oh, please. You know as well as I that the planetary angular momentum is achieved solely through well-fed human females.
Re: You know the end days are coming...
Well, the devil you know and all that.
Obligatory webcomic reference
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2761
Re: "patent troll versus Black Mamba"
Bite them both and the one who survives gets the patent?
No XKCD, but...
Along the lines of no-manual-driving predictions.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-08-29
{foot the note}
Posted in Toothbrush fixes ISS’ stuck bolt
Okay, but what are they going to fashion the flamethrower from?
Re: Can they be made waterproof?
That's okay, we have lots of them.
What? What do you mean endangered?
Re: "Wasn't there a Bond villain with attachments for that?"
No Space Truckers?
For shame.
That's a lot of hired followers
I suppose he realized that an escort service can come with a bulk discount.
The question remains - does he tip?
Re: Who wants to bet
http://xkcd.com/864/
The day we have flying cars is the day I move to a cave and never emerge again. Cave bears would be safer.
Re: Abusing their position
The word is about, there's something evolving
Whatever may come, the world keeps revolving
They say the next big thing is here
That the revolution's near
But to me it seems quite clear
That it's all just a little bit of history repeating...
{with apologies to Shirley Bassey and the Propellerheads}
"Tonight there are at least four countries who are on Mars..."
"At least"? Is there a hitch-hiker hiding in a trunk they can't remember if they let off?
Posted in UK physical game sales hit rock bottom
"These figures don't take into account the takings from from digital sales and online gaming subscriptions."
And won't once they're trotted out as another reason why we need stronger "anti-piracy measures"*.
---
*the usual way of saying "you should pay us for the service of handing your machine to us"
Posted in How one bad algorithm cost traders $440m
So a flubbed program cost a company botting stock exchanges a few hundred million dollars?
Please observe as I shed a single salty tear.
Re: Draculin???
It's even less of a stretch between the two, once you consider the origins of the vampire myth - namely rabies symptoms.
Both are contracted by bites - I'm not sure how widespread blood-sucking bats are across the globe, but it dovetails nicely with the traditional vampiric ability to transform into flying rats {the featherless kind}.
Rabies' scientific name is hydrophobia - a quite literal fear of water that usually comes from the victim's inability to swallow. Especially holy water, as the local godbothering institutions quickly took out a "solution for repelling hemo-oriented entities" patent.
Aversion to sunlight, which while it doesn't quite turn the rabies victims to dust, the photosensitivity would probably make them wish it did.
And of course, the massive drooling combined with the aforementioned difficulty to swallow which gave rise to the iconic showing of the fangs.
Or maybe Count Dracula was just patient zero...
Re: ...data centre that "blended in" ... would not be a target)
I think the merkins have a standing policy of not fighting anyone who can afford post-cold-war equipment.
Of course, there'll be also-rans, with voting numbers in single digits {or decimal points, for that matter}.
But then again, if recent history is to be believed, the American electorate can barely be bothered to tell the difference between two candidates, let alone a dozen. Might as well flip a coin and be done with it.
Re: If only a quality, user friendly Linux distro was available...
User friendliness - or lack thereof - in whatever Linux distro be your preference is probably the biggest contributing factor that Windows managed to get as entrenched in the nineties as it did, and the "by geeks, for geeks" mindset is something the Linux development community still needs to get out of.
The day the word "compile" is excised from the basic help files for Joe Luser is the day Linux stands a chance as a consumer OS.
Protesting *constructively*?
How long do you think it'll be before Anonymous officially disavows them?
Posted in Tomb Raider dev denies Croft rape scene
White Knighting
Am I the only one who actually takes a positive view at this? I mean, let's reiterate what we know so far;
The eponymous heroine is captured and cornered. One of the captors attempts to rape her and *promptly gets his ass gunned down by his would-be victim*. Followed by cries of objectification and "poor raped Lara".
The only message I'm seeing here is "you don't have to be a victim". That even if a woman can't prevent an attempted rape, however dire the circumstances, she can prevent a successful one. I can't speak for members of the double-X demographic, but I find the situation where a female character is put in a nauseating position and *gets herself out of it* empowering more than anything else.
Re: He didn't just write science fiction....
Sounds like Dandelion Wine, maybe.
Antelopes.
Gazelles.
Somehow I fail to be surprised at yet another, if literal, implementation of the "walled garden" principle.
So... they sneak through the defenses, travel undetected and there is no trace of them until they have already done their damage or destroyed their target? It's all so clear - cyber-weapons are just a red herring to distract us from the fact that they're hiring ninjas!
Content is manufactured once, then reproduced into copies according to demand. Material goods are manufactured for each unit created.
Reversing your analogy, it would be a delusional act of entitlement to demand content for less than its development budget.
Is anybody counting...
...how many revolutionary projects the Turtleneck Saint must have been working on right before he keeled over so far? A cynical mind might suspect a play to drum up a little extra hype for whatever new widget Marketing is hoping to wheel out.
{Cashing in on a famous stiff? Perish the thought!}
re: Hardcastle?
Questioning authority? In China?
I'm sure he'd be out of the classroom before you could say "Tiananmen Square".
ERP?
I'd say that Erotic Role-Playing, or the lack thereof, has been a fairly significant burden on my department.
Posted in Bill Gates has gone, what's his legacy?
Computer in their home
A bit of a quote correction there; while the "noone would want a computer in their home" quote is factually true, it's also completely out of context, since the original quotee referred to the big, clunky ubercomputers with a role more reminiscent of modern-day servers than play-and-surf PCs of today.
http://snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp
Move over, YouTube
I sense a whole new era of RickRolling.
