Posts by J

Confirms...

This confirms that even the companies do not read their own EULAs... So why would Paris be expected to do it?

Great...

Nice to see what people pay hundreds of dollars/pounds for...

And as someone noticed above, why can OpenOffice create a perfect looking PDF in a second when Adobe hangs, crashes or just takes some 5 minutes to create one that does NOT look exactly like the Word DOC on the screen?

When my boss (Windows user, poor guy) has to create a PDF from a Word document he usually sends it to me besides using the Adobe software (linked from Word). Usually I'll get the email, open in OO (check for figure and caption placement problems), convert to PDF, and he'll have it back in his email before his run finishes -- if it ever finishes.

Mind? Body?

Body? Mind? What are you talking about? There are no such things separate, it's all one. (if you doubt that, I'd guess you've never gotten drunk or something similar)

It's past the time to get over that artificial Cartesian dualism.

IT?

"What was the IT angle again?"

There was a cell phone involved, that's clearly it!

"Hell, my mother didn't love me as much as she loved my brother, and I've never gone into a mall and blown a bunch of people away."

Now, AC, calm down... Let go of the knife, AC... Calm thoughts, now...

I knew...

That the pic would be there was obvious. But I was sure that the caption would be something interesting too...

Interesting...

Seems interesting... Now, laptop without a screen, really? Show me a laptop that can have Quad Core, 4 GB of RAM and 750 GB of HD for $1300 and I'll agree.

Hey, and you can buy it without operating system, according to their "customize" options! (add $110 for XP home, $166 for XP Pro SP2, no Vista)

Re: CO2 is not the main culprit

"Most climate scientists agree methane is the main culprit, not CO2. Sounds like it's not only the population that needs re-educating but some of the people researching the problem as well."

Not to mention the Anonymous Cowards commenting on the web... Where did you get that idea of "main culprit"? Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas, yes. Which means that, per amount of molecules, methane can retain more of the heat, so to speak; some 4 times more than CO2, according to the 1990 paper "Relative contributions of greenhouse gas emissions to global warming", Nature 344, 529 - 531 (05 April 1990). Is that what you had in mind when incorrectly saying "main culprit"?

Because there is another small detail... CO2 is 2 to 6 *orders of magnitude* more abundant in the atmosphere than the other greenhouse gases (excluding water). So, among those gases most of the warming effect must come from CO2, even if they are more powerful. Now, if the more powerful gases keep getting more abundant... (icon)

Support, for free?

They must be desperate indeed...

FIOS

I got a little ad flyer for FIOS this weekend. Curious about this fiber optic thingie, I controlled the natural impulse to immediately trash it and read it.

Something like: "Blazin-fast internet access at up to 5/2 Mbps speeds". Or similar. What matters is the "up to 5/2 Mbps". If that's fiber optic performance, I'll stick to my "up to 8 Mbps" cable connection, thank you very much.

They want to deliver Gigabyte IP video on 5/2 Mbps, is that what is said here?

@We have a winner

Has anyone pointed out that was wrong yet?

Sigh. No wonder there are bucket loads of creationists out there. People can't even grasp the Darwin Awards' rules...

Re: So...

"When are we going to start getting NASCAR coverage from the Register?"

Hopefully never, since that's not real racing...

Anyway, I'd love to be able to watch the ad-free BBC broadcast of F1 from here in the US. I'd pay for it if the price is reasonable, is that possible?

The Speed TV commentators here are good, the pre-show things are nice (although I usually don't care to watch them anyway)... But about 25% of the race is not shown! Ads every 6 or 7 laps, so out of every 8 laps, 2 are gone. And, you know, interesting stuff always happens during those 2 laps... What's up with the incompetence of American TV? (and apparently British ITV too) Back home (Brazil) they show the whole thing on only one *private* TV channel, but without a single ad break (commentators suck though, but I don't care that much). More than two hours. Maximum that happens, maybe 3 or 4 times in a race, is a voice over announcing some product with a little logo on a corner of the screen for 5 or 10 seconds, and that's it.

Why can't they do it here? Incompetence, that's my guess. I mean, don't these people know Picture-in-picture in the backwaters?

Yay!

"the real test for Vista SP1 begins in earnest as it is finally pumped out automatically to the masses"

Can't wait to see what that will bring forth...

@ Works fine here...

Sure. But you believe it's a non-story just because your install worked... The words narcissistic navel gazer come to mind for some obscure reason.

Hm...

"CanSecWest's Pwn2Own contests are useful because they allow us to isolate the technical strengths and weaknesses of a given platform from its popularity."

Kinda... I have a hunch, from my own uninformed guts, that a skilled hacker will be able to target and own any "regular" system hooked to the net. Also, I think that that's is fundamentally very different from the automated exploits, worms, whatever in the wild. That's more of a concern to me: which system is less vulnerable to the script kiddies? Because I have no reason to fear being targeted by a skilled hacker. But anyone who connects to the net is automatically and fully exposed to the automated stuff, so that's what's much more worrying.

Can't they devise a competition to check for that instead?

Hm...

"However, critics have grumbled that flash drives, given their expensive price tag, fail to provide a better overall experience for the customer."

Hm... I wonder how many of those were seeing Vista for the first time and blaming the SSD for the "experience"...

Only way...

Only way to be immortal: through works and ideas. Sir Clark had enough of both, he didn't die as we mere mortals do.

I for one am happy. Who could imagine such great humans were possible? Gives me hope... As a fellow atheist, I'm very happy to see he made so much of the only life we've got. I hope more people follow that example and make this life better.

Celebrate his long, productive life, enjoy his work (if you like it), use his ideas.

J

a glimpse of the backplane

Hm... That would be nice. We've seen enough (?) of her front...

Pics or it didn't... actually, forget about it.

"whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend"

Hell, yeah. I mean, you might not be able to force anyone *in their right mind* to leave or do whatever. But not doing anything when someone *that* mentally ill, or otherwise not responsible for her acts, is involved sounds definitely criminal to me. It's akin to saying "my 3-year old wanted to jump into traffic in the highway, that's her problem and I can't do anything about it". Although the only way I can see the guy doing that for 2 years is if HE is also terribly mentally ill.

Either way, sad story.

The truth is out there

Millions? Billions!? Lost planets!?! Art thou crazy? Everyone knows the universe was created as it is now, 6,000 years ago!

Anyone who tells you otherwise is part of that well known, worldwide conspiracy of the science mafia trying to silence the huge number of valiant rebels who are struggling to tell you the truth. There you have it; now wait for that Expelled movie, or whatever its name is, and rejoice.

@Joey

"Free, means "of little value" and that is generally what you get. All viruses are free.

When did somebody last pay for one?"

Well, I've heard there ARE people who buy Vista and other Microsoft offerings, so someone must be paying...

Re: OK, I'm in

"Not so much of a NIN fan, perhaps, but I'll pop $5 to encourage the distribution model - and the "music industry" isn't getting a penny of it, it's all for the artists."

Same feeling here. I'll check them out just because of this.

Hear, bands! I'd much, much rather give my money to *you*, an artist I like, than to some faceless company that couldn't care less and will give you a tiny share of the money I parted with.

Re: Valid comparison?

Besides the "old hardware" misinformation other people already pointed out...

Your comparison is even worse: you compare two vehicles that sound like the equivalent of comparing DOS and Vista, instead of XP and Vista. So, reworking that "analogy" to something more in line with the specs:

Comparing XP and Vista would be like comparing a 2001 Honda Civic and a 2008 Honda Civic -- only that the 2008 runs slower and burns more gas and breaks every six months and must have the engine reinstalled. Sure, the 2008 has a few new features, even a bit extra safety. But you can't take it to the highway because if can't go faster than 35 miles/hour... Or are you gonna say that the difference between XP and Vista is incomparably bigger? That Vista does so much more so much better? I didn't think so...

@Michael

It might be my poor command of English but...

"I used linux, for 10 years before Tovalds wrote it. But even so during that decade wait, I never thought "when torvalds has finished, I really want a crappy underspecced PC that's useless for anything to run it on""

Do I misunderstand this or are you a time traveler!? You used Linux 10 years *before* Torvalds wrote it? Like 1981 or something?

EULA

Wot's that? So it appears even they don't read the EULA's. I feel better now. Hackers to the rescue anyway.

All to say is

Ha. Ha. Ha.

There, there

Good article.

As many said: if I wanted to tell you something about me and give you my "personality profile" or whatever, I'd go and do it. Opt in, right... until someone discovers some "mistake", oops...

Re: Player costs?

"I will only think about a blu-ray palyer if the disks are down to the £15 for new release and £5 for 6 month old that current DVDs seem to be."

You Brits getting ripped off as usual, I see. Here in the US most Blu-Ray (and the remaining HD-DVD) disks I've seen are sold for $25-$30, which is not so much more than newly released DVDs are sold for here, by the way ($15-$20 depending on title).

More computer in DNA

Many already explained, so just a little storage detail here... I'd like to point out that a few hours of activity from our smallest new generation sequencer I work with here (a 454 FLX) can generate about 50 GB of raw data (images, mostly), depending on the size of the job. The other new-gen sequencer (Solexa) generates 1 TB in a day, I've heard. So even more than CPU, our problem now is storage and back up. Where did I put that USB key again?

Oh, and it all runs on Linux. (at least the 454; most of the older ones used to run on Macs)

tttitle

Well, it's easy to think of much more fun ways of "being indecent"...

Piece of Mind

I already have that CD, so no, thank you. Alien kinda looks like Eddie if you squint...

Interesting...

"So it's interesting that this week's announcement centres not on Vista but its predecessor."

Interesting but hardly surprising. I've heard you need some 10 GB of disk space just for Vista (is that right?)... If they are gonna trim it so radically, just go with XP anyway... Either way, I wouldn't consider buying it with Windows at all.

Strange...

"He is accused of a breach of the Harassment Act 1997 when he used Facebook to contact Sladden on 21 January."

I even overcame my lazy bastard nature and went to read the original article to look for more details (and found nothing).

So the guy contacted her ONCE (I'm assuming it was that, since it was 21 Jan.) and that is harassing!? Either there is something we are not being told here or people are going crazy... Both are likely enough scenarios, therefore I don't know what to make of this one.

Hm...

Too bad the politics there in Indonesia is precluding research... Although I've heard they had more skeletons in the works...

Anyway, you got quite close, Lester! Kudos for italicizing the name Homo floresiensis. Minus points for capitalizing floresiensis.

PH because she likes the little ones. AND the story has to do with cretins.

Feb 29?

I don't know the exact law, but in Brazil the parents decide whether they want the official birthday to be Feb. 28 or March 1, I think almost nobody registers their child as born on Feb. 29, to avoid confusion or embarrassment. At least I've never met anybody with that birthday...

@Massive lawsuits

You mean anyone uses MS products for work? Important work!? Gasp!

Bug?

"It's not just Excel and Exchange that ignore the Gregorian calendar. The Reg has also confirmed that SQL Server 2008, Windows Small Business Server, and Windows Mobile are ignorant as well."

It's not a bug, silly. It's called interoperability. Or some other buzzword.

@DrXym

Are you by any chance a Wikipedia editor!?

Flying off the shelves...

I've read somewhere (I believe it was not here on The Reg) someone saying that this shortage of Eees is partly the STORE's fault. I don't know if the guy was telling the truth, but here it goes: he says he went to some store (sorry, don't remember) and asked a salesman for the Eee. The salesman said they were out of stock, but they had this other one, just a bit more expensive, etc. The buyer insisted and asked the sales guy to please check the inventory in the computer there just in case, since her really wanted the Eee. The buyer then looked on the screen as the search was going, and made a point of letting the sales guy know he was looking too. The buyer says there were actually about 40 Eees in stock. So he went home as a happy new Eee-owner...

I wonder if this is true, and could some enterprising tech news outlet investigate? (nudge nudge wink wink) The story sure makes some sense; I would think the stores would prefer selling the bigger profit margin (?) $1500 kit they have accumulating dust, instead of letting people discover the much cheaper ones fulfill their basic needs...

@Joe Cooper

"Typical desktop Linux is a pain in the ass with 256 megs of RAM."

Probably not "typical desktop Linux" at all, eh? I would suggest the boffin in question did NOT just download the latest Ubuntu copy and just use that as is with eye candy and all that. You know, I use a Beowulf Linux cluster here at the lab, and all that has is console access... And consequently does not need to run OpenOffice or Firefox either.

Too bad my type of scientific app would not do with so little RAM (genome assembly and molecular DB searches can be quite hungry in that area). Otherwise, it would be interesting to justify a bunch of PS3s in a project's budget...

Wo... wo..

"obviosuley you never played with lego moters as a child

if one of the waight matched blades gos the uneven spinwill cause it all to disgentrage v soon after cos of thje exisive speen the energy involved made v soon to be undecitable with the footage we have"

Wie bitte!?

Grunt... grunt...

"Information for Informations sake is UTTERLY worthless."

Me stay in cave, grunt. Stupid worthless monkeys, humpf, out rub sticks, hit stones, grunt. Useless, worthless waste time, grunt, me stay in cave picking lice, grr. Might write VB code if bored, humpf.

@AC 1

"You are discussing a 600 year backward society founded on idiotic religious dogma. Of course they don't understand the technical issues."

Well, I don't know... I can't believe the countless people I've seen who are highly trained in the most complicate technology, yet still believe Bronze Age BS and that some "holy" book is completely right no matter what... (although they always practice the "holy book buffet", pick and choose approach)

The human brain's power to compartmentalize is unbelievably vast, so I wouldn't write the Taliban off as ignoramuses regarding sci/tech issues too quickly.

(helicopter for the Russian chaps mentioned above)

looks pretty normal?

To me it looks more like something out of a 1950's Sci Fi or the like. Danger Mr. Robinson, etc.... But do tell us: does it *really* suck or does it just make noise?

Re: X's

How about Xenophobic Xenopus?

(what? can't use scientific names?)

I wonder...

Drinking-related deaths doubled since 1991...

The problem does not occur on the Continent / places where booze is cheaper...

I see it now! It's all Margaret Thatcher's administration's fault! You see, the current 18 years old yufs were born just as she was leaving, and grew up in what was left behind. Since correlation always shows causation, QED! Where's me Nobel?

Is this really a joke, I wonder?

That's what you get...

That's what you get with the closed source model: third party devs have to "hack" to get their apps working. Now, sure stuff breaks in the free software camp too, obviously -- but then people can know why and change things if they want. I'm glad Solaris joined the pack (although I haven't used the newer, free software version one).

Yeah

"one time event ... not a capability that will be coming into service."

Which, in human language, reads as: "we'll shoot down anything we want, anytime we want, got a problem with that?".

And...

And at least here in the US stores, the return policies do not help much, if I remember correctly... Software (and a bunch of other stuff like media) can only be returned if unopened. So, if you don't agree with the EULA, you'd better not open that package. Oh, wait...

Not that is matters to me, yay!