Posts by Geraint Jones
23 posts • joined Thursday 10th April 2008 10:41 GMT
"over 3,000 are happily running the cracked version"?
Do you mean that 3000 people have downloaded the .exe, or 3000 people are actively playing the game?
Also; maybe they only sold 214 copies because the game is shit? I've not played it, but it's a distinct possibility...
Re: RC hobbyists
Not huge numbers maybe, but the ability to do so has become within reach of your "average modeller" if you will.
As people have posted, putting a camera on an RC plane/helicopter is not difficult, and could cost as little as £20-30. Personally I don't see anything wrong with it - just like any other, tool, toy, or bloody kitchen appliance - it *could* be used for nefarious purposes, but most likely won't.
Here's one I made last year: £100 ish plane, £20 video camera and radio gear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqF9bWbd9RY
Yes, very true. there's a lot of nice work and a few clunkers in there too - and admittedly there's not a lot of "functional" design in there, it just looks nice really. The Tech 3 ships were fun to play with and could look awesome, and thinking about it, it becomes increasingly difficult to put my finger on a favourite...
As an aside - I recently was lucky enough to win Chris Foss's "Hardware" (in a charity auction full of signed Eastenders/Holby City prizes, no less!) which is glorious to behold.
May I suggest Gavin has a gander at some of the ships in Eve-Online - some of those are beautifully designed ships.
Posted in Steam games forum down amid hack fears
If early reports of the incident (bay12 forums) are to be believed, it was less of a high level attack, more like one of the admins/mods had their account password guessed/brute-forced. Other things may have come to light since last night, but as far as I understood it came down to an admin account being used to post adverts to a cheat/hack site.
tl:dr, so - sorry if it's been posted already...
Already evidence of the effect the media circus is having and will have on the future of nuclear energy...?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-12815627
Posted in Helpdesk Heroes or unappreciated geeks?
I remember when...
...a laptop with keys stuck back onto the keyboard with double sided foamy tape. Those keys (and the laptop itself) had dog's teeth marks on them...
...a user telling me "my son must have done something to my pc... the homepage has been changed, to erm, some sort of spanish brothel site".
...opening a laptop that isn't working to be greeted with the smell (and crusty remnants) of gone off milk from under the keyboard.
I've actually been privy to the "any key?" incident, the assumption that the monitor is actually the entire PC, and many, many other tales of IT yore. and I've only been in the business 2 years...
On the other hand, we had one incompetent fool working on our helpdesk who installed a desktop PC *upside down*. I have no idea how he got past initial screening. Even the user thought it was odd the way the PC was setup, but thought "he's from IT, he must know best".
The list is endless, but the buffer in my brain has been overflowing since about the second week of work...
ps, and why is it that it always seems to be the same users who come back week after week with virus problems, eh?
Posted in Facebook 'fesses to bad hair day
downrightnow.com...
...appears to be, erm, down right now.
Smut-basket!
Crikey, someone's got their knickers in a twist.
As a side note, I didn't find the article poorly written at all.
Posted in Commentard completely loses the plot
Brilliant.
'Nuff said.
Did he leave his coat on the way out?
Posted in Roll up for the freetard smackdown
"loss of economic autonomy among artists"
Loss of economic autonomy among artists? I dare say the artists are the least to be hit by pirating (granted, by definition they lose money) due to the tiny percentage they actually get for what is arguably the largest and most important part of the work done... writing/composing the actual product.
As usual big business is scared by losses on their (hefty) margins, jumping to draconian measures to try and stop pirating, and failing miserably and shooting their own toes with ridiculous DRM attempts. Add to that trying to scare prospective pirates by setting lawyers onto individuals who rarely get the right person and when they do go through the courts win disproportionately high damages.
*sigh*
Posted in Finns develop mobe sleep-cycle alarm app
Several issues...
Problems with two people in a bed, aforementioned issues with the phone being too far away for the mic to work, too close so that it's thrown when the alarm goes off...
Not to mention the idea of having a mobile phone close to your head all night long (cue Twat-o-Tron responses to mobile radiation) and the studies that supposedly found that a mobile phone in the bedroom can disrupt sleep.
Give me a standard alarm clock and let me be grumpy in the morning. Makes all those helpdesk calls so much more interesting...
@ Pete
Sitting here on a chair I got from freecycle, staring at a monitor procured from said service, in the process of trying to fix a TFT I also got from the same place.
I give as good as I get, mind. Freecycle is a fantastic little idea, everyone should give it a go!
@ Steve
So they can pick them back up in 12-18 months from Sainsbury's, fix 'em up and get the kudos for passing them on to charity/break them down and sell the raw materials ;)
Mine's the one made from recycled plastic...
Posted in PC Gamers get Bill of Rights
Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
I've always felt a little put off by games that give me the message "this serial number _appears_ to be valid" (my emphasis), as if I might somehow have faked the key I've JUST copied from the manual...
Posted in iPhone apps selling like hot cakes
@ Hedley Lamarr
I don't think it's an issue of whether or not the "commentards" are against Apple being able to get rid of malicious software (which appears to be little more then an excuse for Apple to let them do what they want in any case).
It's more to do with the fact that some applications are being pulled with little or no warning, rhyme nor reason. Developers are shocked to find out their apps are gone, and Apple do very little to warn or advise these developers of what's going on; which is the true crime here. If they give you a 30 days to reclaim the money spent as a store credit, that's pretty wrong too. It's the same as Nintendo making their "stars" expire after 2 years, and shop gift vouchers having an expiry date. It's all a bit dodgy.
I won't reply using any of your identi-reply suggestions, only to say that I'd rather my gadgetry not be controlled quite so tightly by someone who appears to be on a bit of a power trip.
@ AC (Moron?) re. Morons
"And before El Reg commenters reach for the flaming green ink, please note: this is not about the effects of speed. Nor is it about the effects of speed cameras, precisely. Rather, it is about the way in which the government treats evidence when it doesn’t like the way experts interpret it."
Do read the article before commenting.
Listening to scientists and experts?
...what, like they did when reclassifying cannabis?
As has been said in previous comments, they've dropped, or rather shied away from that idea a long time ago.
Posted in Nvidia denies chipset farewell
@ AC, to be fair...
...a number of nVidia partners have delayed and then scrapped 790i motheboards that were meant to be flagships of nVidia's sli technology in their chipsets.
The rumours were less "thought up" by some "sad fuck"... Looks more like reasonable conjecture from the facts at hand at the time to me, with nVidia laying out a statement to calm down fears in the marketplace.
NB; And as far as their chipsets being "as strong as [they have] ever been for both AMD and Intel platforms”... Errr... did anyone mention to them anything about overheating in the 680s? Data corruption from early chipsets through to the 790i?
Now that's what I call...
...PEW PEW PEW...
What formats do live forever?
I've had CDs degrade over time, in odd ways too... Sometimes the silver film peels away from the edges towards the center, and I've even had a few CDs succumb to something quite strange...
The silver data layer appears to have been "eaten away" by something, between the plastic and the coating protecting the data layer. It leaves fractal like trails and renders the CD unusable.
Both these have happened to CDRs as well as retail CDs. I'm at a loss to explain them, but short of making several copies and checking them periodically, what's the best format for lengevity?
Posted in Google's Gmail verboten in Germany
@ John Bayly
Did you read the article, or even the message when you checked?
"If you're traveling in Germany, you can access your mail at http://mail.google.com."
Posted in Sales slide at PC World, Currys
It always amazes me too...
...that as well as expecting infinite growth, they also assume that daft advertising will make up for their high prices. I couldn't get on to pcworld.co.uk today to check, but last time I remembered looking, generally items like processors were 1.5-2x as expensive as any other e-tailer. I know that this probably isn't their main sales group, by far, but it is indicative of their pricing policy.
They can reap what they've sowed I reckon.
