* Posts by Demian Phillips

120 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Apr 2007

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Nintendo says no to Wii price cuts

Demian Phillips
Flame

@Neil

So far the balance board is the only new thing required. You can play Mario kart without the wheel and any shooter without the zapper. Boogie and guitar hero (wiimote plugs in so is it jsut a shell?) are the only other things I can think of.

Please explain how one to three games coming with a special controller equals almost every new game?

El Reg obtains snap of OGC logo reveal

Demian Phillips
Go

@IShkandar

Don't you mean Freetard booktorrents. We cant let ourselves get confuzzled by these issues.

IT bankrolls all-India ambulance service

Demian Phillips
Happy

Number is significant.

108 is an auspicious number. Number of beads for prayer for one.

UK Wii Fit pre-orders cause shortage

Demian Phillips

@AC

I suspect that for lonely types (or those who are lonely domestics) it's hard to get motivated alone and interaction provided by something like Wiifit keeps it from being too boring.

As for "I sit down. I get up. I sit down. I get up. I sit down. I get up.".

Isn't that a song by Chumbawamba or was it some grand old Parlamentary funk?

Terror on an Olympian scale

Demian Phillips
Unhappy

Western Values

Every time someone says that over my side of the pond; it means Jesus and a theocratic state with GOD speaking directly to the president on who to bomb next.

Wii can conduct an orchestra too

Demian Phillips
Go

PS2 done had something sorta liken to this

Mad Maestro was a budget ($20 US) title on the PS2 here. Used the button sensitivity to determine how hard you were signaling and the rest was tempo and bringing in and out parts of the "orchestra".

Billy Bragg: Why should songwriters starve so others get rich?

Demian Phillips
Boffin

You wouldn't steal a car...

I thought illegal copying was like killing a cop, shitting in his helmet, sending it to his wife, and then stealing the helmet again. Did TV lie to me again?

Pregnant man to hit Oprah with ultrasound

Demian Phillips
Boffin

technically

Isn't it that males have an outie (penis) and females have an innie (vagina) and an outie (clitoris, it develops from the same cells as the penis)?

By the Power of Power, IBM goes Power System

Demian Phillips
Black Helicopters

Power 6 procesor activation.

From what I am seeing, you must activate all cores installed on a Power 6 520 and 550 (E4A and E8A), so you can not have four cores in a 520 and only activate two (at least When I try it the other two cores are automatically activated).

The 520 machines can not be upgraded in the processor department, as the processors appear to be part of the mainboard rather then on replaceable processor cards like in the other models. his is why they come at 4.2 GHZ only.

The smallest Power 6 system that will let you install dark processors is the 570 (MMA).

Intel VP threatens to turn all Xeon users into 'monkey kings'

Demian Phillips
IT Angle

Curtis and Dominic

Hanuman was a character in the Ramayana. He was son of the god Vayu (god of the wind) and a monkey and was thus a demigod.

The Ramayana chronicles one of the several Incarnations of the god Vishnu on earth in the form of a Prince.

The villain (Ravana) and his brother (Kumbhakarna) were the incarnations of some St. Peter like gate guards of Vishnu's abode.The pissed of a couple of child sages (well they look like children) and were cursed. They begged forgiveness and were offered the choice to live as gods for four lifetimes or be reborn as demons and be killed by Vishnu seven times. The chose the latter option with the idea that living as gods they would enjoy themselves but would not have as close a relationship with Vishnu, but if they were his enemy they would get killed by him directly and would be much closer to him.

The details above vary from version to version, but I never saw a connection between the Monkey King and Hanuman, but that could because of my exposure to Hanuman for decades before I caught wind of the Monkey King. I also do not find much literary comparison, but my research is not extensive.

Need a new duster? Avoid Woolies

Demian Phillips

@Neil

I dunno, We will see what happens when they get a chance to name a release Orange Orangutan (A.K.A. the librarian edition).

Document glitch sparks GTA IV ban scare

Demian Phillips
Coat

I bet the drug is....

Cake.

Cake is a made up drug after all, made up not from plants but chemicals.

Mine is the one shaped like Shatner's Bassoon.

Elpida hikes DRAM prices 20 per cent

Demian Phillips
Go

Thre real question...

Is where is the Editard angle.

I figure we can get a script for Firefox that -tards every noun so that we can properly browse El Regtard.

Army says farewell to UK's 'bugger-off' airbag drone

Demian Phillips
Coat

@Adam Ward

On the topic of Fiji, maybe they were upset about the failure of the farm plans they had? I mean one can only try so many times to breed horses from a sheep and a cow.

eBay scripting trick used to boost seller ratings

Demian Phillips
Joke

@snert lee

That just means it's Andrews desktop. You have got to keep up with the enemy and know what they are about.

Gibson and Activision duel over Guitar Hero

Demian Phillips
Coat

@the other steve

I was thinking Steve.

I'm off to re-interleve my ST225's thanks to spinrite.

Ubuntu chief ushers in the age of Intrepid Ibex

Demian Phillips
Go

My vore for O

Orange Orangutan.

Häagen-Dazs battles honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder

Demian Phillips
Stop

@Karl Lattimer

"FYI - Monsanto actually genetically modified the crops to use FEWER pesticides, and FEWER growth agents to produce better crops..."

I do not think you are familiar with Roundup (a herbicide). "Roundup Ready" (TM Monsanto) crops are sold with an eye to farmers spraying as much roundup as possible on the crops to keep all but the crop quite dead, none of the marketing or users ever say anything about reducing use of the product.

I watch early morning TV before going to work (all the commercials aired that early here are aimed at farmers) and get inundated with Monsanto commercials in the midwest.

Add-on maker punts Wii-styled speaker set

Demian Phillips
Thumb Down

Good vibrations

Is it wise to put a source of vibration (sub woofer) next to and in the same tray as the somewhat delicate optical drive of a game console? I see scratched disks to the rhythm of the music.

Luddite and paranoid - why the big record labels failed at digital

Demian Phillips
Boffin

Laserdisk

Laserdisk was an analog video format (audio tracks could be digital or analog) and had no interactive features like he described, so that is not what he was talking about. LD also lacked any form of content protection.

What he was talking about was CD based and computer related.

Showdown over encryption password in child porn case

Demian Phillips
Black Helicopters

double encryption is illegal?

I guess I will have to turn myself in for my 2x ROT13 scheme. All the rest of you should as well I can see this whole site is full of postings using it.

Tom Cruise Scientology vid leaks onto net

Demian Phillips
Black Helicopters

A man from Ralph Wiggum?

"Are they paying, AC? And who would then be working with whom and for whom and for what?"

Little Ralphie has grown up, he used to say "Maybe I wanna to use them."

DIY Russian war robot plays nanny to inventor's kid

Demian Phillips
Black Helicopters

Sladek

No need to worry about Roderick. It's the Tic-Toks we have to watch out for.

US-Iranian naval clash: Radio trolls probably to blame

Demian Phillips
Go

Clearly a trap.

"Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the founder and president of the Israel Project, contacted Mother Jones and said that her group had commissioned the focus group ...Its board of advisers includes 15 Democratic and Republican members of the House and the Senate, plus actor Ron Silver."

Ron Silvers presence nails it. Another attempt to entrap Heatvision and Jack.

I am Legend hints at Batman-Superman movie

Demian Phillips
Black Helicopters

Toys

The JLA toys using that logo are out right now.

Macworld invites kiddies to 'Make Bouncy Bouncy'

Demian Phillips
Go

@mike

Thanks for that one. Made my day. I didn't expect that kind of Python quotation.

US Army loads up on Apples for 'better security'

Demian Phillips
Boffin

but...

Can an apple server keep out Deceptcons who try to hack the network?

Toxic chemicals suit dumped on IBM

Demian Phillips
Go

@John

The Toxic Avenger usually sticks to New Jersey.

The Electric Car Conspiracy ... that never was

Demian Phillips
Stop

@johnathan @roland

"Prius batteries are guaranteed for 10 years and cost upwards of £3k "

MY 2002 Prius had an 8 year 100K mile on the battery pack and Toyota has consistently quoted me replacement prices of US $2400 to replace it (includes labor). This is from the dealership (price is 2x the cost of the part and labor is 4x sanity safe limits) who always rips you off.

"This morning it was around -3 Fahrenheit (so would be roughly -20 celcius). Haven't done any research on how the batteries take this kind of temperatures. Does anyone know?."

I have gone out into my driveway and my Prius tell me that it is -14 deg F and it has started fine. I didn't even see the turtle light that tells me it is running without electric assist (turtle is on until the system warm up enough). I think some guy in North Dakota blogged about seeing it on a morning where it was like -36 deg F or some such. In Ohio it does not get this cold and so far I have never seen the turtle.

As for your problems a couple states over. I know that a large vehicle is not required for life in america. I lived in the backwoods of West "By God" Virginia and took a Volkswagen pickup truck on some of the most muddy, rutted and impassable dirt roads that sometimes would swallow big 4x4 trucks. I never got stuck no matter how bad the roads were, because I knew how to drive in those conditions. A VW pickup has the same clearance (including the oil pan that sticks down below the frame) as a normal Rabbit (almost none).

I have had no problems on highways and side roads with the Prius even when our fine people didn't bother to clear roads and my entire journey to work (only a class 2 snow emergency) on the interstate involved clawing my way through 6 inches (or more in places) of piled snow while trying to keep track of what was road by the distance of signs and guardrails.

AMD's CrossFire X to enable integrated, discrete GPU co-operation

Demian Phillips
Coat

External insertions and big boxes.

Shouldn't we end up "connecting" an external graphics processor rather then "inserting" it? Insertion feels like putting something in, usually resulting in the thing being inserted becoming internal to the thing being inserted into. I.E. disk (compact, hard or floppy), making the beast with two backs, a bookmark, sample for the test chamber.

With external graphics dojiggers I envision us have large boxes sitting on desks hooked to our computers and even more fan noise due to power and cooling needs.

Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's

Demian Phillips
Unhappy

The Martian bot has failed in it's mission.

I notice that the amanfromMars bot failed in every way this time.

It keyed in on the early mentions of Douglas Adams and peppered it's post with 42s. Not a single on topic bit to the rant, even the quoting was poorly done. The author of it needs to work better on context as it made a post about IT (and IMO it was actually somewhat coherent in the IT related part).

Also I hope that recent news about mental exercises/games helping to slow the onset/advance is shared far and wide.

Remembering the IBM PC

Demian Phillips
Go

WD MFM & RLL cards

A>debug

g=c800:5

Drink rats' milk, suggests battling Heather Mills

Demian Phillips
Go

Forget the rats milk

I'll just take my tea with a squeeze of lemming.

I think we need a dual use python icon, or replce the "go" with the famous foot.

Honda hits reverse on £50k fuel cell cars for '08

Demian Phillips
IT Angle

Insight

The Honda Insight (AFAIK the first Honda hybrid car) looked nothing like it's other lines of cars and got "whupped" by the Prius. I think it is because of the design of the hybrid system rather then the look of the car.

Tor embassy 'hacker' raided by Swedish Feds

Demian Phillips
Pirate

So many PS2 units.

The reason he had 8 PS2s was either he was modifying them for people or like many PS2 owners has had a number of them go tits up. Usually the optical drive is what fails, but it's worth keeping the dead ones for spares bits and bobs (there are 13 or more ps2 versions so sometimes there is litte to no internal compatability).

I myself am on #4. It never goes anywhere or is misused. They just stop reading some kinds of media after a while. My current one read everything I put in but sometimes takes longer then a new one to read a disk or get the occasional read error.

Cig-lighter electropulse cannons offered to US plods

Demian Phillips
Black Helicopters

Not the military.

In the USA you aill find plenty of companies calling them U.S. something or other*

* Not affiliated withthe government of the United States or it's fill in the blank.

So clearly this is just some boat company loking for an easy way to make precooked fish products.

Toyota ponders plug-in hybrids

Demian Phillips
Flame

Cost of Prius Battery

I got a quote from Toyota in the USA for replacement of a Prius battery (not the 12 volt one) and I was quoted three thousand dollars including install. Thats half of your US$6K.

Given how off your facts and figures are, how can we relay on any of the data you provide?

If you know anything about Mobile phones, you would know that they are not living in the same charge cycle/power management arena as the battery in the Prius. This means they do not wear out like you describe.

Microsoft invades 'city of friendly people'

Demian Phillips
Thumb Down

Whats in it for the cities you ask?

Bragging rights and a lure for other companies.

In the USA, what a city will do is stupidly give the company free millions in custom build infrastructure as well as say 10 years tax free status. If they are not well connected they just get the tax free status.

So far I know of two companies that created the promised jobs and other things in the contract. I can no longer count the number of companies that have screwed cities dumb enough to offer these kind of deals.

It all ends up being paid for by the taxpayers in the end.

Canadian hi-tech gentleman jewel thief finally nabbed

Demian Phillips
Go

@Maco

You will only get that kind of school and treatment in Ankh-Morpork. I have yet to find a place comprable here in this dimension.

Nosing around IBM's Power6 blade

Demian Phillips
Go

POWER 6

It's quite sweet. I installed/configured/set up our application for a customer on a 9117-MMA (570 POWER 6 with 16 cores) a couple months ago. I made a partition to load up the beta AIX 6 during testing and I liked what I saw.

Those chips run stuff nice and fast. I can’t wait until they get rolled out on the other product lines.

Flying cow destroys minivan

Demian Phillips
Alert

One fott in the grave.

"he'd been reduced to repeating: "I don't believe this. I don't believe this.""

I think we have identifed the American version of Victor Meldrew.

Sony slashes US 80GB PS3 price by $100

Demian Phillips

PS2 on PS3 in some cases necessary

Games like Sky Gunner and others that had performance issues (Sky Gunner you had to tell the game to reduce all graphical setting to crap for some stages) on a PS2 seem to get enough power out of the PS3 that you can play at full settings without such a slideshow effect. A new PS2 wont cut it for those situations (admittidly rare).

International manhunt tracks pedophile suspect to Thailand

Demian Phillips
Coat

vigilante words

I thought pedarest was the word for someone who likes a bit of the in/out in/out with the kiddies?

The other problem with mobs is they tend to aggro when they see a pediatrician.

Led Zeppelin catalogue goes digital

Demian Phillips
Coat

Remix?

How can the song remain the same if it is remixed?

Ian McKellen keen to reprise Gandalf

Demian Phillips
Coat

Musically Delicious

It's got to be a Musical. Thats what Bilbo Baggans Hates!

Stem cell prof wins Nobel prize

Demian Phillips

captain cyborg (whatever)

Thats easy, just infringe the copyright of /. and use the Gates of Borg logo.

Law & Order takes on Second Life

Demian Phillips

Red Cap

Wasnt the current version already a re-make of a 1960's show?

Sun grabs patent for magneto-hydrodynamic heatsink

Demian Phillips
Joke

Wheere to put the heat.

Obviously you want to pipe in to the Nutrimat, so that you have a good source of Brownian motion (Advanced Tea Substitute) when it comes time to use the dangly bit of your atomic vector plotter.

Geeks and Nerds caught on film lacking geeky nerdiness

Demian Phillips
Coat

You keep using that word...

"On the penultimate day of this MCSE course, the person I shared a desk with, turned to me and whispered "What's a browser?"... I was speechless and numb with shock."

So what was the ultimate day of the MCSE course?

Lawmaker shows nudie pic to high school seniors

Demian Phillips

100% MS, no Kodac software needed.

At home, if I put in a removable drive and it gets a drive letter that I had not turned off the stupid auto play features, if windows thinks it full of pictures it will fire up the MS picture viewer and show the first image.

I have no digicam or other photo software installed and a fairly (6 month old) fresh XP install.

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