* Posts by The BigYin

3080 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Mar 2008

HTC to stop locking smartphone bootloader code

The BigYin

*blink*

Are handset makers starting to see sense?

McKinnon's mum applauds Obama extradition stance

The BigYin

Read...

..."The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll.

They haven't learnt a thing!

Virgin Media TV Powered by TiVo

The BigYin

@Shakje

Because I have never had satellite or cable, I needed fast broadband, I got a very good deal, I thought I'd give it a go. It's not worth it.

@Danny 14

No, you cannot (and I did state you won't have certain channels). As I don't watch Sky Sports etc, they're of no interest to me.

---

I will be implementing pretty much what I stated when my contract ends.

The BigYin

Network?

Can it be networked? Can I stream any media (flac, ogg, mp4, whatever) from any location on my network to that box? If the answer is "No" then this is an epic fail. I did scan the article but didn't spot it.

For that money I'd go get a small-ish, quite PC (something like a Fit-PC2, but maybe with more oomph) drop XBMC/Myth on it and stream from a common source (e.g. a desktop with a Freesat card). No ties-in, no limitations, no continuing charges.

OK, so I won't have FX, Discovery etc, but I have those now and really (apart from Mythbusters) there isn't much worth watching. Take the savings and throw some at the broadband connections, yer still quids in.

When will these companies realise that they are now just another utility?

Ofnuke: UK is not Japan

The BigYin

@Micky 1

...you can create as many straw men as you like, but my worry was that we suck at major contracts (which is why I said "any major UK contract"). Almost without exception, every major contract any modern UK government has tried has gone massively over-budget and been a total shambles.

Individual components are all well and good, but when they are put together by monkeys you get garbage like our two new carriers (one to be moth-balled, one to barely carry and planes, budget through the roof and they're not even nuclear!). Or Failtrack. Or the Metro Line. Or....

To give you straw-man some actual body; at a consumer level, the last semi-decent UK product I can think of was the Dyson Vacuum cleaner - but that's now made in China.

The BigYin

@Micky 1

Hovercraft was invented here - but not pursued. Taken up by the USA and other nations. Killed by the suits (who I am railing against)

EuroFighter - an Europe-wide project, over-priced and crap. We are spending billions on something that can't even do ground-attack without significant modifications (many will sit mothballed an unused). We would have been better off with a clutch of F16s and keeping Harrier going.

Jet Engine - yup, 60 odd years ago. But then that was one team, so a small project not a big contract managed by suits. And when the suits saw it, they wanted to cancel it.

Concord - glory of the 70s.

The UK does do some good engineering, but we are run buy morons. Nimrod, the new carriers, our trains, EuroFighter, Snatch Landrovers, various NHS projects. And thus we suck balls at big contracts.

The BigYin

What worries me...

...is that the UK reactors were built to UK specs and maintained in the UK by a (I guess) mostly UK workforce. That does not fill me with confidence. You only have to look at any major UK contract (aircraft carriers that can't really carry aircraft, anyone?) to know what a total pigs ear our supposed betters make of things like this.

That being said...it's probably still less bad than coal.

Sarko to Schmidt & co: 'You can't escape' net regulation

The BigYin

Er...

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité"? Really?

More like

"Control, Restriction, Slavery"

Osama alive scam snowballs on Twitter

The BigYin

He is is alive?

I thought the Maquis Seal Team got that guy?

Wasn't it all over Fox news? About Obama being killed.

Oh, such a confusing world.

Euro report slates wireless comms, recommends smoke and mirrors

The BigYin

Electro-voodoo

Have the supposed "electrosensitives" been tested in double-blind trials? Surely that must be done first. If they fail the test (and I expect they will), send them off for counselling.

3D fad fades for Yanks

The BigYin

Simple answers

1) 3D costs more

2) The glasses are uncomfortable and slide off

3) The colours seem muted (might just be my imagination)

4) 3D gives some people headaches

5) It adds nothing !!!NOTHING!!! to the movie.

Journos 'risk charges' for covering Parliamentary debates

The BigYin

Question

I thought (and I may be wrong) that publishing in UK terms of the web was interpreted as the act of seeing it in one's browser (the bits get jiggered around and "published" to the screen).

If that is true, does it mean that the mere act of viewing a foreign site that says "X bunga-bunga avec Y" when in the UK is a breach of the super-injunction?

Of course, there is an easier option to all this; keep yer snake in yer pants.

The BigYin

Maybe they would

Why don't we ask Andrew Marr?

How to choose the right screen size

The BigYin

Give me...

...an HDTV that is as dumb as a dumb thing with maybe just a couple of HDMI/component connectors. That's all I need. I'll plug low-power PC into that and it can do all the network/fancy stuff. This also means I can control what content gets shown, how it gets shown and what codecs will work; not have to suffer some broken, OEM-only content restricted bull-crap. The orther connectors would just be for consoles.

Hmm...I could probably route them through the PC...

Microsoft calls Intel's Windows 8 comments 'inaccurate'

The BigYin

@AC

"If they are going to have backwards compatibility on an ARM chip then the ARM chip will have to emulate an x86 chip to run it."

Really? I'm no Comp.Sci. grad, but surely it would be up to the kernel to translate whatever calls were coming through into what the CPU can deal with and back again? Or if not the kernel, then the virtual machine that is translating the byte-code.

And if something like that is not going on - how the heck does Linux manage to support AMD and Intel at the exact same time?

Even then, emulation/virtualisation would allow you to isolate the executing code from the underlying hardware.

The BigYin

Almost

They're the ones still use in the Enterprise. Y'know, the folks who still use IE6 because they got systems coded to proprietary standards that can't be easily upgraded/migrated.

The BigYin

To be fair...

...MS has been pretty good at maintaining backwards compatibility. Have you seen the video going from Windows 1 to Windows 7? I thought it was pretty amazing to be honest.

I'm pretty sure that one could not do that with OS X and as for any given Linux distro I don't think it would work either (downloading source and re-compiling is cheating. :-P)

Sky-high megablog names top 50 'cloud innovators'

The BigYin
Flame

Oh please

Give it a feckin' rest already.

"Hello, marketing? Can you turn your volume up?"

"Thanks, can you get every around you to be quiet please?"

"Great"

"A WEBSITE IS NOT THE CLOUD YOU BLOODY NIMRODS!"

"Who's this? This in Engineering."

New PlayStation Network hack hijacks user accounts

The BigYin

@RAMChYLD

So a PS3 can't be used without a 'net connection? Glad I didn't go through with buying one a month or two ago! I was planning to use it as a Blu-Ray player, maybe to stream content off my home network and to maybe play games.

But it if needs an Internet connection to do that - forget it.

Mozilla to shift 12m surfers off 2-year-old Firefox 3.5

The BigYin

@pitagora

If the platform changes its model too much and breaks plugins too often then users will leave as its unstable and developers will quit it as there is too much re-work. If that happens, then the platform will die. Simple.

If what people are saying here is true, then Mozilla and Firefox should be dying. It does not seem like they are.

If one is using a piece of software that *IS* essential, then one should be paying for support. And if not then, to be blunt, one is also part of the problem.

From my experience, the only add-on to not work is TinyURL Creator. Hardly essential. But that is just my experience.

The BigYin

@NoneSuch

Have you asked the devs of the plug-ins to make them compatible?

Have you offered to sponsor the work?

Open source .NET mimic rises from Novell ashes

The BigYin

@Sentient

I don't think its politics to be deeply concerned about the possibility of MS patent-bombs lurking in the Linux eco-sphere.

The question is, what itch is Mono trying to scratch, why were none of the existing technologies deemed viable and what can be done to improve them?

The BigYin

Yes

There's Banshee, the default music player in Ubuntu.

HP unveils stylin' new desktop line

The BigYin

Hello?

This is the 1980s, we'd like our HiFi designs back.

Renault readies sub-£7000 e-car for Blighty

The BigYin

@AC

Buy bike armour. Well insulated, waterproof and you'll need it when some BMW/Volve driving ass-hat smashes into you. Cost to be fully suited and booted in something half-decent £500-£1,000.

The BigYin

Umm...

...isn't that just a battery-powered C1 with 4 wheels? Think I'd rather have a C1 to be honest (and repeal the stupid helmet laws for such a machine).

Microsoft claims Windows Azure appliances exist

The BigYin

Sort of

I am sick and tired of El Reg only discussing Azure, when the likes of OpenStack, EC2 et al are tearing MS a new one.

Cloud is a bit like REST, it's an architectural idea and it probably won't scratch all your itches. But to ignore it is a bit naive.

Also, markteers should be taken into a small room by the techs and have the true meaning of "cloud" beaten into them.

Samsung prices up Chrome OS netbook for Blighty

The BigYin

Yup

If it was sold at the "true" price (which would have been about £213). Oh wait, tax. Make that about £256. Still pricey, but easier to swallow. But no, same deal as always. Rip-off the Brits.

There is a simple answer - don't buy.

French publisher starts second round against Google

The BigYin

I guess it's how it's used

If Google just uses it as some kind of index "Book X by Y, ISBN N contains what you are looking for" and maybe with a highlighted paragraph or something, then I totally fail to see the issue.

If, however, Google vomits up the entire book or sells/provides by any means a copy (or large portion) of the book for which the publisher receives no remuneration, then that is an issue.

And looking at Google Books it appears to be the former, so I am not sure what their problem is as Google Books just lets people find their book and then easily buy it. Surely that's of advantage to the publisher?

David Cameron wants to push all of Blighty online

The BigYin

I know the units in question

With 4gb RAM and a HDD to match, they will even manage virtualisation. half-Life etc will also run (and that was also on Ubuntu 10.10). The only problem is these units have a reputation for blowing capacitors.

The BigYin

And looking at the site...

...only a £3 diff between Ubuntu and Windows? Really? Sod the PC, where can I get Windows 7 and Office for £3?

Something stinks.

The BigYin

Ah

I did eventually find the Remploy Store on eBay, just a few crappy Dells really. That they're ones known to have dodgy capacitors.

The BigYin

So where can they be bought?

There's nothing about it on the Remploy site.

Super-injunction Twitter user in contempt of court if tweets were true

The BigYin

Simple answer...

...to super injunctions. If you covet a public life and/or use your public profile to make a living (film/music stars, MPs etc) then avoid all the injunction hassle by not dipping your wick in someone else's wax, making false claims or otherwise being a total cock.

Personally I don't care if you like to be dressed as a baby and spanked by "mummy", but I do care when you try to cover up your actions and present yourself as something you are not.

Official: Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5bn

The BigYin

Skype on Linux...

...was never really a big project from Skype. You can be sure that MS will kill it stone-dead to ensure that the only real option is MS-centric

Judge approves handover of BitTorrent IP addresses

The BigYin

Err...

...Conan was Schwarzenegger. "Copland" was good, "Rocky I" too.

The BigYin

Easy solution

Change the law to make you liable for what happens on your network.

Not saying that's a nice thing to happen, just saying it's something that could happen.

The BigYin

Grow up

"Oh, but Hollywood only produces crap and doesn't deserve paid." Really? Really, really? So why are you so dead keen to watch it then?

"Oh, but I'm poor and can't afford it." Really? But you got enough money to spunk on broadband.

Why not support people doing stuff you like? Why not get behind other movements/organisations (such as vo.do)?

Got no sympathy for those who engage in copyright infringement via torrents.

There again, I also have little support for the antics of the RIAA/MPAA/BPI.

Microsoft poised to make biggest ever buy – Skype

The BigYin

@Giles

MS already have an alternative, OCS. It is one of the few things MS has managed to do right (although only allowing you to store conversation in Outlook is a PITA). Want multi-party video conferencing? Done. You do need to run a server though.

I agree - this is just about buying the user base.

Microsoft resuscitates 'I'm a PC' ads to fight Apple

The BigYin

Bleurgh!

Someone pass a sick-bag, please!

Is this how desperate MS is getting? Kee-rist. They don't even go into the "virtues" of Win7. "This one's touch screen". Ooh-wee, excuse me whilst I get some tissues. That is just a matter of hardware rather than OS as such (although is need OS support, obviously).

It is true that buying a new PC almost forces one to accept Windows, but that is more down to market abuse rather than an informed decision to buy Windows.

Elite coder readies £15 programming gadget for schools

The BigYin

@Marvin

WTF? I did learn how an engine actually works when driving, it gave you an understanding of the noises, why gear changes were important, why oil is important. It also gave you knowledge of when to break the rules (e.g. pulling away in second).

You to not need a PhD in electronics to run a PC, but knowing enough to know that increasing your ram to 32gb with one shitty HDD and a weak controller isn't going to speed things up *IS* important.

And as for cars, it is getting harder but many parts are still user-replaceable. I have often thought that road-side maintenance should be taken into the type approval e.g. "It my be possible to change any bulb on the vehicle within 10 minutes and without requiring tools."

How to make Azure more appealing to Java and Open Source developers

The BigYin

So basically...

...make Windows more like *nix? Why not just cut out the middle man and go *nix?

If .Net is going to be such a pain to port to Azure, the incremental cost of re-implementation on another platform won't be much more and will be off-set by the gains in efficiency (purchase, maintenance etc).

Lets face it "cloud" is just the 1970/80s with a bit of virtualisation (and lots of PR puffery). A big server sharing its resources is exactly the arena *nix was designed to work in. If that is already fit for purpose, why waste time on Azure?

Sony’s sorry saga snowballs

The BigYin

@AC

Yeah....sure you are. Sure.

UK.gov would pay to have benefit claimants' tattoos erased

The BigYin

Yeah

Because Bruce Potts just couldn't get a job, could he?

Apple reportedly plans ARM shift for laptops

The BigYin

Apart from...

...the fact the Windows will apparently run on ARM too.

So not only will users get low-power and portability, but also the rich experience of *the* standard environment.

Pffffttt............giggles

Sony implicates Anonymous in PlayStation Network hack

The BigYin

"I am in yur Internetz...

...stealin' yur Upload Codez.

Ok Tnx bbye

Teh CIA"

See? I can do it too.

End of the tether: Google plays nice with carriers

The BigYin

Why?

I pay for data. If I use that data for texts, web or to push pictures of fully kittens to my PC; so what?

Charge me for the data I use and leave it at that. Simple!

And "simple" is the problem - the market needs the confusion so consumers end up over-paying.

Net neutrality - they're heard of it and want nothing to do with it.

Facebook fails webmail tests

The BigYin

I have found...

...Indesit to be very good (just don't buy the cheapo models). Miele do have a good rep., as do Bosch.

Ohio cops taze naked marathoneer

The BigYin

Only in the USA...

...can one have the right to bear arms, but not the right to a bare todger.

And people think the UK is repressed!

What the cops should have done is scrounged a pair of shorts and gained some great PR. But no. This is the USofA. Shoot (tase) first and ask questions later.

Hacker pwns police cruiser and lives to tell tale

The BigYin

Has already happened...

...Boston area I think.

So why the downvote?