Posts by Steve Evans
2190 posts • joined Tuesday 17th April 2007 15:29 GMT
Page:
Posted in NASA's Messenger closes on Mercury
@AC
You're not wrong there!
Let's hope they got their maths correct this time, and didn't mix up their imperial and metric units again, or they'll by adding a new crater to the surface.
/me wonders about the sanity of anyone doing scientific calculations with imperial units.
Posted in BOFH: Memory short circuit
@AC
Actually pound notes were withdrawn in 1984.
However they still remain in the Channel Islands and Scotland.
I'll resist comments about being unable to pry them from the grip of a Scotsman.
Ooops.
Ah...
This must be utilising the little known "copyright" bit flag present in all tcp/ip packets.
aka, how exactly do they plan on spotting copyright material?
Do they plan on inspecting every torrent available on the net, and then telling AT & T the checksum? Blimee what a job that's gonna be. Although maybe I should apply for it... I'd be the only person on the planet authorised to download copyright material and paid to do it at work!
Note to self: Get job, take huge removable USB drive into office each day.
Oh, what's that? Encrypted torrents? Oh they can just block anything encrypted, after all, if you're encrypting data, you must have something to hide.
Ferkin' idiots.
Surely...
You mean Łódź. (That's assuming you don't filter extended characters from comments!)
Hmmm,..
I'd be interested to see this in action...
Given the dire support offered by most UK ISP's, you're lucky if the person at the other end of the support line can understand English, let alone understand a technical issue.
I remember having a huge argument with a large budget ISP about packet loss. Their support staff suggested I check my DNS setting in internet explorer. I asked how they expected this to impact a traceroute to an IP address, and could they talk me through doing it on IceWeasel. (debian's firefox)
Needless to say I assume I received a blank look from somewhere in India.
So would the record industry get a hot line number to a "real" techie? And how long before someone manages to find it and share it with everyone else?
Posted in Second-gen Eee PC a CES no-show
@Alan Donaly
Don't be sad Alan, you've got a light weight, compact, fast and cheap tool there. By the time the mark II comes out with the bigger screen and M$ onboard, you'd be hard pushed to tell it apart from all the other budget laptops available.
You only have to look at the enthusiast forums, when was the last time you saw so much fuss about one laptop? At £200 people don't mind pulling the top off and poking about.
If the mark II comes as M$ only, and therefore lack the required linux drivers, I'll still be buying a £200 mark I.
As a slight aside, Asus, forget all this wimax b*llox, you've got an RJ11 on the side of the Eee, now give us a damn V90/V92 for it, I've got several perfect buyers for Eees, if only you had a modem in it!
(And before anyone says USB Modem, find me one with linux drivers in the UK... Ta!).
Oh what a surprise...
HM Gov shows once more that it really doesn't know what it's doing, or what's going on in the big bad world.
Given that you can go down to PCWorld and pick up a perfectly internet capable machine, complete with all your office and internet proggies for £200 (Asus Eee), it's the cost of the broadband that's going to become the issue. So don't nag M$, we don't need them, turn your attention on BT's pricing and the cable co's who haven't invested any cash in connecting more towns for IIRC about 10 years.
I'd love to see the expenses claim...
4 Bottles of Vodka
2 slabs of beer
8 Vicar costumes.
All from the university research grant!
Hmmm... Interesting...
Given that Government statistics supporting the use of speed cameras show that speeds is the major issue in 125% of all road accidents, shouldn't they be actively encouraging talking on phones whilst driving?
Beanie, gloves and brown jacket in the corner.
64Meg? lmao!
I suspect a C90 stored more than that!
Guess we now know what happens to unsold redundant storage... They get put in damn expensive packaging.
Posted in Asus to show second-gen Eee PC next week
How about V90!
Forget all that posh connectivity, you can all do most of that with a USB bluetooth dongle. How about making use of the RJ11 socket already provided and dropping in a V90/V92 modem?
I had a perfect users for the Eee, a little old lady who wanted a laptop to email the Grand children. Perfect I thought, except she has no wifi, or any need for broadband, okay, modem will do fine... Oh, except it doesn't have one... USB modem... Oh, except they're all winmodems, and the Eee is Linux... Cue major search for a source of a Linux friendly USB modem in the UK.
I emailed several suppliers, only to find that there knowledge of linux is just about on par with my Grandmother, who's been dead for a couple of years!
I gave up.
Posted in Tesco Mobile complains to Ofcom
So O2 is about to loose a load of 2G capacity?
Can anyone think of a recently launched, over hyped, over price, underspec'ed handset launched exclusively via O2 that can only do 2G?
That's made my day.
Posted in N95 struggles to find itself
@Anonymous Coward
Posted Thursday 20th December 2007 12:56 GMT
Quote: [if u go and buy crap like nokia, you've got noone to blame but yourself. "I've got an n95 and only have to carry one extra battery round with me to last the day!!" losers]
I don't know where you get your information, but I'd take it back for a refund if I were you.
Sure if you have GPS turned on all day you'll do your battery in, even purpose designed satnavs like TomTom will only manage a few hours away from the car and on battery, it is the nature of the GS beast.
If you use the phone as a phone/mp3 player/radio, the battery life is fine. GPS is for those moments when you need a helping hand, which exactly how I've used it to find restaurants and bars... And the station after leaving the bar several hours later!
The recent(ish) V12 firmware update has made battery life even better, so much so that I regularly get to day 4 without having to reach for a charger.
And at least when the N95 battery finally discharges it last charge we can swap it out for another from a local store, unlike your iPhone (well you whine like a Jobite).
Thank you, and good night.
Posted in Dell spills its Guts over Ubuntu gear
@LaeMi Qian
Does it matter? It gets Linux on more desktops.
A friend of mine recently screwed up his windows install on an old Evesham laptop. As he only had an OEM XP serial number on the bottom, and none of us seemed to have an OEM XP install CD, I convinced him to let me try Debian Etch on it. It installed like a dream, no driver issues at all, and now his wife is happily back on eBay spending all his money!
His kids had been nagging for Vista (where do they get this from? I thought even 9 year olds knew it was sh*t), but now they are looking down on their Vista'ed friends and talking about Etch and Gnome! lol!
By the time I've finished with them, they're gonna be more of a nightmare to their senior school IT teacher than I ever was... Then again, I did acquire root on mini within the first month and lock the head of department out. Yes it was me! Muwahahaha!
Posted in Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's
Typical...
Has anyone else noticed, but given the number of complete a**eholes on this planet, you'd expect a few of them would contract something like this, but no, they'll still be there p*ssing us off well into their 90s.
National treasures like Mr P don't deserve this.
"Death isn't on line. If he was, there would be a sudden drop in the death rate. Although it'd be interesting to see if he'd post things like: DON'T YOU THINK I SOUND LIKE JAMES EARL JONES?"
Surely...
... The best finish to give it for good stealth performance would be a cotton wool cloud look!
@Rich
... another £800m the gov will have to extort from us and then post to Brussels!
@Steven Raith
You're certainly right there. Unfortunately this isn't due to better informed users, just that BT and SKY (2 of the big UK providers) now send out pre-configured boxes. However you could still get onto them with a little bit of social engineering, the key is on a sticker on the bottom of the box.
Now if only SKY would get a router/firmware that actually worked, I wouldn't have to spend half my life fixing "friends" home networks.
Posted in 90mph police chief cops 42-day ban
@Chizo Ejindu
"But credit to him for owning up immediately and stepping down from his position immediately. If only all police officers in positions of senior responsibility would stepdown when they've been caught screwing up..."
No credit at all...
What if he hadn't been caught? He would have kept speeding to his office and then being an anti-speed demon at his desk.
Such hypocrisy.
It's like finding out Peter Tatchell is straight! (For the non-UK, he's on Wikipedia)
Reactions @Louis Cowan
I think you need a couple of minor edits...
DOS->Windows "OOOOoohh"
1->2 "oOOOOOooh"
2->3 "oOOOOOOOOOooo, you mean I can open more than
one window at a time!"
3->3.11 "Wow, networking, who fancies a game of hearts?"
3.11->95 "Woooooow this is awesome"
95 ->95 osr2 "Cool, now my USB works!"
95 ->98 "Yay"
98-> 2000/Mil
2000 - "Excellent!"
Mil (6 Months later) - "WTF, it's all borked!"
2000 -> Xp "err.. ok.. it's a bit San Fran though, innit? I'll try anythin once though"
XP (1 week later) - Turned off all the tarty bits, now looks like
and runs like 2000
even the find files now finds things following registry
tweaks
XP->Vista "Nooooo!"
@Matt
I'm not sure where you are on the planet, but in the UK, the recent trend has been you get the phone for free, or very close to it.
Paying over £200 just for the handset is something we haven't seen here for many years, then the monthly contract isn't really that good when you compare it to the free minutes and text bundles you can get with handsets other than the iPhone.
I personally got an N95 on an 18 Month contract a few months ago. Orange wanted to charge me £80 for the upgrade, I did the sharp intake of breath bit, asked if they could do anything about that, and next thing I knew I got it for free. All on a £30 contract with unlimited texts and 500 minutes.
Okay, so I don't have a touch screen, and everything doesn't whizz about in an arty farty orgasm of transition effects, but I have a damn good 5meg camera, GPS, 3G, Wifi, mp3 player with radio and anything else I care to install on the nice open Symbian OS, like Opera for example.
That's the kind of thing the iPhone and it's contract are up against. No shock that the uptake has been limited to the "oooh shiney" brigade.
@Richard Eustace
What happens at the end of the 18 months?
Easy, you own an Apple door wedge. The battery haven just given up the ghost and you've discovered the cost involved to changing it!
Has anyone else noticed this...
I saw it on the news ticker on the News 24 last night, and now I find the same phrase on the BBC link provided in this story...
"...Apple's popular iPhone handset."
pop·u·lar [pop-yuh-ler] - adjective
- regarded with favour, approval, or affection by people in general
Guess the BBC must use a different dictionary to me.
Virgin media trial...
All very nice for those that got cable.
Unfortunately the cable companies NTL, Telewest gave up investing in connecting new towns many many years ago when they ran out of money. Which is partly why they are now owned by Virgin.
I remember many moons ago watching excitedly as the road works bringing the fibre got closer and closer to my town. Then I watched the local papers as people started worrying about tree roots being damaged etc... And then everything stopped.
It took years before ADSL finally managed to handle my nice aluminium local loop, and even now it can only just about manage 2Mb down 256Kb up, assuming you can put up with the connection resetting 20 times a day.
The only way we're going to get a respectable network is if someone puts in some serious investment and upgrades all the end links to homes.
FYI I've just come back from a trip to Poland, I stayed with a friend who has a 2Mb synchronous cable to his house... For far less than I pay for my wobbly 2Meg ADSL. Can we even get synchronous cable any more? The last home cable install I used had 2Mb down and 128Kb up.
Just out of interest, I wonder how much cable you could install with the money they spent on that meeting?
Well played by Sony.
To be honest, this was a foregone conclusion.
Sony put it's money where it's mouth is and put Blu-Ray into a hotly awaited console, the PS3 (however overpriced and underspec'ed at turned out for us in Euroland).
MS said it was behind HD, but then shipped the 360 with standard DVD.
Result, lots of Blu-ray players wrapped in PS3 cases appear in living rooms, but no HD players.
I have yet to see an HD player in the front room of anyone house, but I've seen quite a few PS3s.
@Philip Cheeseman, I'd much prefer to see Sony fall on their face too, but I fear it's too late. The Blu-ray/HD player price gap is starting to close. DVD producers now have a market for Blu-ray discs, so that's what they will produce. They'll be wanting to get their new releases out in glorious 1080p ASAP to catch the Christmas sales, they're not going to be waiting to see what happens to player sales in December.
*sniff*
My first venture onto the intarweb was via compuserve... My first play with html was hosted by compuserve... *sniff*
Fond memories...
Oh, and 14kbs modem? Luxury!
Somewhere I still have a 300/300 with an originate/answer button to swap the frequencies.
Spry Mosaic...
Trumpet Winsock...
Blimee I feel old now.
Posted in Aussie boffins translate whale chat
Let me guess..
-Hello, my name's Willy.
-Oooh, fish/algae, yummy!
-Aggggh! Big fish with pointy teeth, swim faster junior!
-Hey, guys, I've spotted Ahab!
-Oooh, I've never been down the Thames before, I wonder what's down there....
-I don't want another potato you muppets.
Woooo
Last time I saw a picture like that on my screen it was caused by my graphics card over heating!
Posted in Russians to get broadband by spy plane
Those crazy Russians
Flight endurance: 6 hours 30 minutes...
Well that's better than you get from some of the budget ISPs I guess!
Not quite sure how much fuel that would be, but somehow I imagine it making a satellite data link seem cheap!
Assuming this is a timezone issue...
... in this day and age, where in theory at least, we know the earth is round and has many time zones. So why oh why are systems that have to work internationally, still logging information in local time and not GMT?
IIRC India itself has several time zones, so the whole idea of accounting for this really shouldn't have been a shock for them.
After all they do have some of the weirdest timezones in that part of the world. Kathmandu being GMT+5:45!
(See, how good am I resisted biting the FOX comment! - It did hurt mind!)
Baaaaaah!
BTW, that's Baaaaah as in sheep!
Let's hope they learn a bit from the mistake make in the American system (fat hope), the thought of one John Smith being a bit naughty, and the queues of John Smiths being caught at the check in desk just don't bare thinking about.
Unfortunately I too have quite a common name. There were two of me at school, which caused a little bit of confusion. I wonder if I should change my name to something obscure, or would the fact I've changed my name just give me a +50 on the "likely to blow up plane" scale?
Steve
Posted in UK iPhone customers to get fairer usage
@Anonymous Coward
You beat me too it...
An iPhone automatically restricts your usage due to it's lack of support for 3G.
As the article says, you could always chuck the SIM into a phone with 3G support, so it will be interesting to see if...
a) The SIM will do data via 3G
b) O2 won't throw all their toys out of the pram and drop you for breaching some small print in the T&C.
If it will do A and B doesn't happen, it's almost worth buying and chucking the SIM in a 3G laptop datacard... The iPhone can go on ebay.
Oh and @Ben W
We all feel your pain brother.
You gotta laugh...
Yes it looks great as long as you don't use it, touch it... Or look at it too hard!
A bit like Vista really!
Posted in Lords debate airline liquids ban
*sniff*
I had a jar of marmite taken from me last year on a trip to Eastern Europe.
I must admit I hadn't spared a thought about it as I popped the tiny (sealed) jar into my hand luggage.
I offered to stick my finger in it and eat it... I offered to let them stick their finger tips into it and taste it... To no avail.
It was 6am, and I decided not to point out the error of their ways when they said the 125g jar was over the 100ml limit... Maybe next time I should insist they measure the volume... Actually, does that mean I could take half a jar with me...?
Hmmm
I wonder how much the mobile industry is responsible for?
Obviously this is a little more complicated as owners use their own electricity to charge up the phone, whereas a basic BT phone is powered by the juice BT supply over the old copper/ally pair.
Logic would say the mobile industry would be worse as they're relying on signals being pumped out in all directions via a radio mast, instead of a nice targeted one down the wire.
Oh gawd, here we go... anti p2p legislation...
That's like banning cars because they can be used in serious crimes, such as speeding.
Or hammers because they can be used in violent assaults.
Jeeez, nanny state...
Give it 10 years and all we'll be allowed to eat our dinner with will be plastic spoons.
I have a great new idea for a TV show... One I'd like to be on...
"I'm a rational man, get me out of here (this country)"
4:30PM GMT?
Shouldn't you hack be supping virtual beer at that time?
Trade mark law...
This isn't the first time trademark law has been brought in as a "we're gonna get him for something measure".
I remember a few years ago when some motorcycle dealers took to bringing in new bikes from over the channel, then changing the speedo and lights to UK spec and then selling them at a great saving over the official bikes. The big Japanese manufacturers tried to get them for various things, most of which were thrown out due to the free movement of goods laws of the EU, and they eventually resorted to persecuting, sorry prosecuting the dealer for use of their trademark without permission.
It seems to be used in the same way that anti-terror laws get abused left right and centre.
@Darren Coleman
Sure the police have different divisions for different crimes, but they all go begging funds from the same bowl.
How many police were involved in this investigation and raid? How many more police could have been funded to investigate "real" crimes with "real" victims if the money had gone else where?
It's sad to say, but these days the Police seem more interested in ticking up a mass of profit making speeding fines courtesy of the yellow boxes on poles, than actually having cars on patrol and catching people driving badly/inconsiderately, or heaven forbid, anything more serious.
Hardly a menace...
All my installs of Firefox updated themselves yesterday evening, so patched before you'd even published the story.
How long does an IE user have to wait for a fix?
Ooooh blimee..
Time to disable autorun on USB media detected then.
Decimate...
Origin: 1590–1600; < L decimātus, ptp. of decimāre to punish every tenth man chosen by lot, v. deriv. of decimus tenth, deriv. of decem ten;
The earliest English sense of decimate is “to select by lot and execute every tenth soldier of (a unit).”
The extended sense “destroy a great number or proportion of” developed in the 19th century: "Cholera decimated the urban population". Because the etymological sense of one-tenth remains to some extent, decimate is not ordinarily used with exact fractions or percentages:
"Drought has destroyed (not decimated) nearly 80 percent of the cattle."
So the pedants are justified, but only if the rely on an antique dictionary.
Speeding?
Trouble is, apart from the guy not stopping for the crossing, I don't think anyone else was really speeding, infact the guy at the beginning was just spinning on the spot!
Don't believe a word of it...
The Government has said the decision will be made by the local authorities... As local authorities are constantly strapped for cash thanks to central government cutbacks, they'll do anything to rake in some more cash.
So they'll happily introduce road pricing, and central gov will happily sit at a safe distance and claim it was nothing to do with them.
@Alan
You speak much sense. Apart from anything else my brother is a class 1 driver.
I would happily remove my 75% empty car from the road, if there was a viable alternative for my journeys. However no matter where I go, even with the constant fuel tax increases, it is always cheaper and faster to drive my car. Not to mention I can go when I want, come back when I want, and have a ciggi on the way if I so choose!
What we need is an integrated transport system. In days gone by we had the best rail network on the planet, which carried a lot of the freight. Unfortunately (at the request of the government) Dr Beeching put paid to that in the 1960s, then in the 1990s the rail network got sold off to 100 faceless layers of middle management who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, and are only interested in the bottom line.
Posted in Currency launched to cover the cosmos
Errrrr...
Would this be the university and space peeps who are funded by our tax quid?
I propose a merger of the "dept of the bleedin' obvious" with the "dept of the bleedin' pointless"
Haven't they got something useful to do, you know like check some figures so their next mars probe has a life expectancy slightly longer than a western civilian wearing a stars and stripes T-shirt at a Baghdad market?
@Big_Boomer
That discounts the Porsche 911 GT3 too then... Still got it's beetle engine and a half hanging out the back!
To be honest, I don't think the location of the engine really matters. The only reason mid-engined is preferred is for the weight distributions, which improves handling.
If you can make a car handle with it's engine in a different place, then all well and good. Although it did take Porsche about 40 years! lol!
And yes, the GTR is an awesome bit of kit. I've had the pleasure of been driven down the lanes in one by a slightly deranged owner, scared the cr*p outta me!
FYI, when Middlehurst Nissan started bringing the GTR into the country, Clarkson stood by a nice silver Vspec and said "Welcome to Britain master" on Top Gear.
Posted in Fifty years since Sputnik
'It carries the TV news we watch when we wake up in the morning'
In the UK if you're watching via cable or freeview, or that old steam powered analogue stuff, then the BBC/ITN news centre are only a wire,fibre,microwave link and a roof top antenna away. No scatter-light required.
They only need scatter-lights to send back urgent reports from far flung places, which let's face it, is just going to be bad news!
So thank you sputnik for all the depressing news!
