* Posts by Quinch

96 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Mar 2008

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British designer builds $15m iPhone for Hong Kong mogul

Quinch

"This beautiful handset took 9 weeks of detailed intricate work"

So basically, just long enough for it to become obsolete?

Gates and Allen reshoot historic 1981 Microsoft photo

Quinch

Re: That first photo

"I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that."

Amazon yanks SimCity download from store

Quinch
Mushroom

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.

SHIELD Act proposed to make patent trolls pay

Quinch
Angel

Unrelated, I'm sure...

To the sudden trend of small-scale patent trolls suing large ones.

Jimmy Wales: 'I'm Wikipedia's monarch'

Quinch
Boffin

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.

Quinch
FAIL

Wikipedia, c'est moi?

Facebook finds new way to wring hundreds from users

Quinch
FAIL

Too little, too late?

Aw grandad, I asked for an iPad and you got me an iPod

Quinch
FAIL

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?

Vodafone India appoints SECRET SNITCHES

Quinch
Black Helicopters

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?

Open source smartphone OS?

Quinch
IT Angle

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?

UK cops: How we sniffed out convicted AnonOps admin 'Nerdo'

Quinch
FAIL

"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?

Toshiba reveals spin transfer RAM

Quinch

"spinning left AND right"

Prior art - every politician ever?

Pirate cops bust LITTLE GIRL, take her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop

Quinch
Big Brother

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.

BOFH: The Great Patch Mismatch

Quinch
Holmes

I concur. If you need the footnote, you won't get the joke.

Swedish woman cuffed for sex with skeleton SHOCKER

Quinch
Coat

Re: Don't believe a word she says...

Auuggghh!!

Knuckle! Knuckle!

Automatic Facebook couple pages: Nauseating sign of desperation

Quinch
Joke

Re: Yoinks!

Oh, please. You know as well as I that the planetary angular momentum is achieved solely through well-fed human females.

Apple CEO: Microsoft Surface 'compromised, confusing'

Quinch
Devil

Re: You know the end days are coming...

Well, the devil you know and all that.

Apple files disappearing-feature iPhone patent

Quinch
Joke

Obligatory webcomic reference

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2761

Boffins prescribe SNAKE VENOM as future pain killer

Quinch
Joke

Re: "patent troll versus Black Mamba"

Bite them both and the one who survives gets the patent?

Guild Wars 2 game review

Quinch
Unhappy

That's nice. Too bad they had to kill City of Heroes to push it.

Google promises autonomous cars for all within five years

Quinch
Terminator

No XKCD, but...

Along the lines of no-manual-driving predictions.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-08-29

{foot the note}

Toothbrush fixes ISS’ stuck bolt

Quinch
Flame

Okay, but what are they going to fashion the flamethrower from?

British boffin builds cool maser after argument with wife

Quinch

Re: Can they be made waterproof?

That's okay, we have lots of them.

What? What do you mean endangered?

Chinese man blows off hands, builds new pair

Quinch
Unhappy

Re: "Wasn't there a Bond villain with attachments for that?"

No Space Truckers?

For shame.

Did Mitt Romney really get 117,000 REAL Twitter followers in ONE DAY?

Quinch

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?

Judge begs Apple, Samsung to get a room, or trial will end in tears

Quinch

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.

Samsung's Wang was up 22 hours a day, had no time to copy Apple

Quinch
FAIL

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}

Curiosity success 'paves way for Man on Mars by 2030s'

Quinch
Alien

"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?

UK physical game sales hit rock bottom

Quinch
FAIL

"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"

How one bad algorithm cost traders $440m

Quinch

So a flubbed program cost a company botting stock exchanges a few hundred million dollars?

Please observe as I shed a single salty tear.

MYSTERY as six people SURVIVE deadly VAMPIRE BAT BITES

Quinch
IT Angle

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...

Dell airdrops military-grade data-centre-in-a-crate

Quinch
Mushroom

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.

Smartphone-wielding Obamaniacs trounce Romney in poll

Quinch
Flame

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.

Numbers don't lie: Apple's ascent eviscerates Microsoft

Quinch
Boffin

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.

Japan Anonymous aims to fight download law by picking up litter

Quinch
Trollface

Protesting *constructively*?

How long do you think it'll be before Anonymous officially disavows them?

Tomb Raider dev denies Croft rape scene

Quinch
WTF?

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.

Legendary sci-fi fantasy author Ray Bradbury exits planet Earth

Quinch

Re: He didn't just write science fiction....

Sounds like Dandelion Wine, maybe.

Antelopes.

Gazelles.

Steve Jobs' 'private Apple spaceship' seeks public love

Quinch
Angel

Somehow I fail to be surprised at yet another, if literal, implementation of the "walled garden" principle.

The cyber-weapons paradox: 'They're not that dangerous'

Quinch
Black Helicopters

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!

Kiwis collar Megaupload kingpin, Anonymous exacts revenge

Quinch

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.

Apple's TV killer 'on shelves by summer 2012'

Quinch
Angel

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!}

Chinese lecturer demands his students acquire iPads

Quinch

re: Hardcastle?

Questioning authority? In China?

I'm sure he'd be out of the classroom before you could say "Tiananmen Square".

How much of a burden is ERP on your IT department?

Quinch
Heart

ERP?

I'd say that Erotic Role-Playing, or the lack thereof, has been a fairly significant burden on my department.

Bill Gates has gone, what's his legacy?

Quinch

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

FBI agents lured suspects using fake child porn hyperlinks

Quinch

Move over, YouTube

I sense a whole new era of RickRolling.

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