Daleks?
They seem to have abandoned the Tellytubby Daleks. This is a good thing.
Posts by Richard Wharram
1215 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Apr 2008
Doctor Who to unwrap new sidekick in Christmas TV special
Console content can cause crime, claims cop
Microsoft dumps Metro from Windows 8
RBS: June's tech enormo-cock-up cost us £125m
How one bad algorithm cost traders $440m
Apple 'wanted to stuff Twitter with dollars' to fill iTunes with twits
Giant idol 'STRUCK DOWN by the Wrath of God' unearthed in Turkey
Thursday 2nd August 2012 07:44 GMT
Re: Ozymandias
Ozymandias is another name for Ramses II who didn't build any pyramids. Pyramids were build in the Old and Middle kingdoms, not the New kingdom. Ramses built a lot of big stuff but not pyramids.
Also, Ramses was more concerned with big impressive looking shit than quality craftsmanship. For example many of his monuments used recessed rather than raised reliefs because it's easier to do.
Err, anyway... no pyramids.
Amount of CO2 being sucked away by Earth 'has doubled in 50 years'
MYSTERY as six people SURVIVE deadly VAMPIRE BAT BITES
Thursday 2nd August 2012 12:46 GMT
Re: There is almost always sufficient biological variation..
"What on earth made you think I'd want to volunteer ?"
Nothing really, It was flippancy inspired by this:
"There is almost always sufficient biological variation..
..in an outbred population to allow for some survival from most infectious diseases"
Thursday 2nd August 2012 10:49 GMT
Re: There is almost always sufficient biological variation..
That's evolution's way. Disease develops and the 90% of population who aren't resistant die off leaving the remaining 10% to re-populate.
In this day and age you aren't likely to get many people who are happy to go nature's way on these things. You volunteer if you want. I'll take my chances on Western medicine thanks all the same.
RBS must realise it's just an IT biz with a banking licence
Wednesday 1st August 2012 14:25 GMT
Re: Strongly disagree
It's not just a tool. It's the ONLY tool which can allow a modern bank to run. Money exists in IT. Whether that makes a bank an "IT company" is just a matter of words. The fact is that RBS (and other banks in my experience) have allowed a senior management culture to develop that thinks that IT is just something that can be bought in as and when required as a commodity. Reality is not like that but who has the balls to tell them the risks they are taking?
I've been on the sharp end of senior management sharing their views with us about the relative unimportance of IT compared to the real banking business and suggesting that if we want to work in IT we should get a job in an IT company :) Quite charming really.
Solar, wind, landfill to make cheapest power by 2030
Tuesday 31st July 2012 14:11 GMT
Re: Cheapest?
The definition does matter. If not then why start the debate in the first place? Which is the cheapest will depend entirely on your definition of cheapest. What you are saying is that you are happy with whatever definition ends up with renewables being cheaper than coal and nuclear. Creating evidence to support your opinions is a valued skill. You should work for the government and/or the last government (depending on your individual biases.)
Tuesday 31st July 2012 13:49 GMT
Re: Cheapest?
Good point Vic. If you are insistent that cheapest must mean, 'cheapest after all external costs are taken into account', then surely backup generation and/or energy storage must be taken into account for solar/wind power. Otherwise you can pick or ignore whichever costs you like and the compairson is meaningless.
Jury selection delays start of Apple/Samsung patent showdown
Boffins puzzled over impossibly fast ice avalanches on Saturn's moon
SAP, Huawei, sign mutual assistance pact
Monday 30th July 2012 09:37 GMT
Unintended humour?
"Many of China's biggest companies are our customers and we will continue to support their global growth and competitiveness with the latest innovations from SAP. To make this a reality, we have expanded our sales force by 50 percent this year."
Support their customers' growth by increasing their sales force?
Apple's new Safari snubs older Macs, drops Windows version
Kim Dotcom mounts freedom campaign
Streetfighter 2: The World Warrior
Wednesday 18th July 2012 09:19 GMT 
Hurrah
We loved this in Selby arcade but had to wait for the SNES version to do proper multiplayer because the player 2 stick in our arcade couldn't do 8 directions originally. I was the first kid to complete it on one credit in our arcade. With E Honda if I remember. The first time I got Zangief's ending though was a big wtf moment.
Still playing variants to this day.
Study: Users prefer Google+ over Facebook
Wednesday 18th July 2012 08:06 GMT
Re: Timeline?
If, by dedicated app, you mean the iPhone one then they seem to be doing a great job of forcing users away from it.
I often have to re-load the notification window or comments sections 3 or 4 times before it will actually do anything. They just sit there with the modern hourglass-equivalent (spinning-arsehole icon?) until you get bored. Sometimes nothing works at all, even though a quick trip over to Safari shows that my 3G connection is working.
Plenty of other people have the same problem but I've no idea if it's more prevalent on certain carriers and related to the way the encryption is handled or facebook traffic is 'shaped'. I'm on O2 (Giffgaff).
The facebook app is a total chore to use. A plague on it!
Metro, that ribbon, shared mailboxes: Has Microsoft lost the plot?
Friday 13th July 2012 16:07 GMT
Re: outside of a few Excel power users ...
If you spend any amount of time writing documents then even going back from Word 2010 to 2007 is a big wrench. I'd hate to think I had to spend hours every day in Writer. It's great for a free tool but Word 2010 saves me loads of time with useful features and I'm used to the Ribbon now.
The paste-preview is magic. I can't live without it :)
Christians get God-optimized 'Edifi' Android fondleslab
'Extreme' solar storm speeding straight towards Earth
Apple pulls China Japan war game amid diplomatic tensions
Microsoft hires hippy to lecture resellers on being nice to the world
Ebuyer on the naughty step for fondleslab promo cock-up
Google fattens up Android devs with Jelly Bean sauce
Wednesday 11th July 2012 08:44 GMT
Re: Wake me up...
As opposed to most Android phone manufacturers who just don't bother. The Android landscape is still predominantly 2.3. As I said, it's a shame that it takes a mod community to give people what their manufacturer should be able to give them but top marks to the CM team who do a brilliant job.
I own an iPhone and a couple of Android phones. Apple IS trying to gouge every last penny out of me, no doubt about it but if I'm not dumb I can get the best value out of them and they constantly give me the latest OS. My Android phones I have to turn to the Open Source community for as the manufacturers couldn't give a flying fuck about the phone after the sale.
War On Standby: Do the figures actually stack up?
Friday 29th June 2012 12:42 GMT
Spot on
Standby power drain doom is for the most part a load of b0ll0x.
My mother in law still nags me that televisions use the same amount of electricity when on standby as when they are on. When I try to explain that they don't I get told off for thinking I know better than the government or 'the experts.'
*sigh*
Google claims Chrome is the world's most popular browser
'Inexperienced' RBS tech operative's blunder led to banking meltdown
Tuesday 26th June 2012 13:18 GMT
Re: You get what you pay for
Having worked in IT both for large banks and large supermarkets I must point out that neither is like 'running a supermarket' in the way you imply. For instance a small glitch in your invoice processing system could quickly lead to nothing being on the shelves to sell.
Diablo III
Friday 18th May 2012 09:20 GMT
DRM
I can't believe anyone who played D2 would complain about this. I always played on Battle.net so had to be online anyway and that was 10 years ago. Add to that the terrible problems with item duping and suddenly always-on protection for this game seems a good idea.
Obviously it would be annoying if devs adopt the same model for purely single-player games but that's another issue. This is D3 not another game.
Got mine from amazon pre-order for £22. Unfortunately I haven't had a working gaming PC for months. Bah :(
Back to Baal runs with my Hammerdin on the netbook for nostalgia then...
Icon is Diablo obviously.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
