* Posts by Hardcastle

50 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jul 2008

Microsoft reveals WinPhone 7 'Mango' details

Hardcastle
Coffee/keyboard

what kind of an "idiot" hides their SSID?

Oh, I don't know... perhaps those Non-Idiots who want to have an extra notch of security and want to keep their networks invisible to wardrivers and freeloaders, perhaps?

Westboro Baptist Church taunts Anonymous over supposed attack plan

Hardcastle
Thumb Up

Uh-Oh...

That wasn't a Marlboro!

Apple trade marks 'There's an app for that'

Hardcastle
Jobs Horns

There's A Crapp For That

...That is all.

Cattle-burp eco menace mastered - by oregano

Hardcastle
FAIL

Less cattle?

"Presumably, if the cows produce more milk we can have less of them and therefore reduce deforestation somewhat as well?"

Negative. SInce there is less "Natural Emissions" or "Dairy Air" from each bovine, this would mean we can have more tasty beef for a given amount of methane, as well as more milk to enjoy. As for deforestation, that doesn't necessarily pan out because there is plenty of prairie and pasture land to support cattle, so why bother moving cattle to the forest in the first place?

Energizer bunny hits iPhone, BlackBerry - wirelessly

Hardcastle
Grenade

Head...

If there was a "best part" of that video, it was when that damn head exploded and STFU LOL...

Grenade for obvious reasons.

H.264 answers Google's open codec with forever free license*

Hardcastle
Go

WebM and H.264

Well played move, Google... By open-sourcing WebM, you made MPEG-LA rethink their licensing strategy by perpetuating royalty-free status for no-charge apps. While it isn't perfect (patents just plain blow), it's a step in the right direction to technology and its developers and users. It also shows MPEG-LA that there are entities out there with a bigger BRASS Pair than they have, and it would be wise to work with mofos on this issue. This Chess Game will indeed be intriguing to see unfold.

The Register comment guidelines 2010

Hardcastle
Joke

Just a falsehood...

Nope, but they might get a butt whoopin' though.

Organofunctional silane Z-6011 gives iPhone 4 bad rap

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

Odour: Fishy

Not just Z-6011

Sony demos very bendy flexible OLED screen

Hardcastle
Welcome

Possible application

I for one would welcome this in the form of a pull-down "projector screen" without the need of the projector in the middle of the room.

Seagate brewing bizarre Flash/Platter chimera

Hardcastle
Joke

Greek All Fool's Day

Why, that would be any day that has a Y in it, see...

Physicist unmasks 99-year-old mistake in English dictionaries

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

Siphon...

...Paris could put the theory into practice...

Hardcastle
Coat

taste

How about dookie?

Blokes spend 11 months in shed

Hardcastle
Coat

At first glance, I thought it said...

"Women like to hide in the shed FOR the men."...

Broadband boss: 'The end of freeloading is nigh'

Hardcastle
Thumb Up

Content-free loaders

Considering the prevalence of utter crapola that is in the intertubes these days, I believe that your first assumption was perhaps more accurate...

Dell crowned Bad Santa computer maker by angry customers

Hardcastle
Boffin

There is an exception on HP's swag...

I agree with you on HP's subpar performance for the most part, but I must give a little credit where it is due... I have a business-class lappy that came with XP Pro (the ZX6131us) that I scored in 2005 that is still going strong. I'm still using the original 100 GB HDD as a portable USB unit, and I did upgrade the RAM to its maximum 2 GB, but the rest of the parts (including battery) is stock. My girlfriend ran it off and on for a few years and wasn't exactly gentle with it, but it is totally Timex: It takes a licking and keeps on ticking (That shows my age, I fear). As for OSes: it runs Ubuntu and its derivatives flawlessly, and Win 7 works great except for only two flaws: no support for the dial-up modem (which I do not need) or the SD slot (which I keep a little USB jobber on hand for that supports SDHD), so the dude has some years left in him. Even if it croaks tomorrow (knock on wood, not wishing that ol' BS), 4.5 years says I still got my money's worth, even though that initial amount was about $1050 US). I have no problem parting with good hard cash when it buys quality parts. However, I would look past HP these days over into Apple territory for a good lappy with good rugged specs.

3 billion have suffered Slade's 'Merry Xmas Everybody'

Hardcastle
Pint

@mike...

I think the next pint goes to you for figuring the context for this (f)article precisely. Then, the next pint goes to me because I'm thirsty...

Pure Sensia widget-running DAB radio

Hardcastle
Coat

Wind up the skirt...

Actually, I think it's the wind coming out of the skirt, and a respirator is highly prescribed, as well as a lit match...

Mine's the one with the Beano bottle.

'Alienated' gamer sues WoW for ruining life

Hardcastle
Coat

De judge be coming...

Don't forget the pair of nutz on the bench...

Sh*t the bed, it's Comment of the Week

Hardcastle
Headmaster

Cowballs?

I've yet to find any cows with balls. Bulls, yes, but no cows.

Blogger outs back-end Google tech

Hardcastle
Grenade

Google buttwipe

Now, the Goog brings sweet relief to the bunghole to keep the back door sorted out. A crappy proposition indeed. Just what is needed for Web 2.0arrhea, see.

Al Gore entertains the supercomputer troops

Hardcastle
WTF?

Low bit rate brainiums

"But, the problem is that the human brain has a very low bit rate even if it has a very high resolution. "That has profound implications for how we interface with the incredibly powerful tools that you continue to create," Gore said to the HPC crowd."

...And as much of a joke that is Al Gore, his brain has arguably the lowest bitrate in the industry.

That is all.

Macs not all that for reliability

Hardcastle
Pint

HP = Crap?

Back in the Y2K Era, HP had a knack for making entry-level machines that the mainstream could afford but were CRAP. This I know, for I have had my share of HP desktops from that era that had more bugs than the ghetto, were a royal pain to upgrade and also provided the techie with generous portions of hearty Grief Pie when making valiant attempts at installing some Linux onto them. By the mid-2000s, however, it looked like HP/Compaq actually managed to get their collective heads out of their collective posteriors and made some halfway decent kit that could hold up to a proper whoopin'. I have a Compaq desktop and an HP lappy, both 2005 vintage, that have both been used regularly and are still going strong. The lappy runs XP Pro, 7 and Ubuntu Karmic with ease and still seems like it has some good years left in it. If any OEM deserves the dubious distinction of Most Crap kit, it is frickin' eMachines. The machine I have is a 2006 model that has been buggy since it was new (to be fair, I got it on special for $148 new, so I overlooked its flaws for the most part). Can't speak for the Mac, as I am too cheap... I mean broke... to justify the premium Apple charges for their kit, but I can say this much: I have used Macs in college, and while the OS was decent, their mice sucked huge industrial donkey bollocks... especially that frickin' discus mouse that even a cat would turn up its nose in disgust. However, if a philantropic Mac user wanted to donate a used Macbook to me, I would give it some honest use.

Well h3ll, look at this... someone just sent me an e-pint for me to shut the piehole, so I shall do so now...

Elgato DTT Deluxe

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

@PaulK

"Can I have a really big one please"

That's what Paris said...

Hardcastle
Welcome

@JMB

"With devices like this and WiFi dongles, I keep wondering why no one puts a USB socket at the top of a laptop's screen. It would be the ideal location for anything with an aerial."

That's a brilliant idea that the OEMs should seriously address. The only caveat would be to make sure that aerial is retracted before shutting the lid so that you don't poke your ocular scanner with pokey aluminium...

Hardcastle
Coat

THC

Well, now... the new Mini-Me kit comes with THC? Does it catch its updates at 4:20?

Mine is the one with THC in the stash pocket...

Woman rings cops to decry daughter's superior BJ skills

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

Well h3ll, that blows...

That's it, it's time to put these two women to the test and see who is indeed better at polishing helmets. I'll be the judge of that as well.

Paris, because she also needs to be put to the test.

Giant iPhones invade Florida

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

These costumes have more wow factor than Faildows Semen, but...

... Dadgum, the potential for leaving a mark is immense with having to wear a suit that weighs six flippin' stone. Even my phat arse is going to struggle carrying that kind of heavy tech around all night. Also, like h311 am I going to be caught dead with a freakin' lead-acid battery dangling so close to the family jewels like that. I can see the headline now: "Giant iPhone blokes in hospital for herniated groins and acid burns on the members". No thank you, methinks I'll pass...

Paris, on the other hand, may enjoy a kit like that for the other things you could clip to that dangling 12 volt battery...

Belkin recalls fire-risk in-car iPod kit

Hardcastle
Coat

Belkin iSpoo kit

The moral of the story is that if you would have resisted the temptation to get one of those mp3 players from Crapple and bought a real PMP, you wouldn't have needed to score one of these recalled units.

Mine is the one with the Cowon D2 in the pocket.

Steve Ballmer's Windows 7 dance party

Hardcastle
Grenade

Ballmer chills with Kylie...

...and says to her "Hey Kylie... Pull my finger."

o.O Don't do it Kylie... Oh shite...

...BOOM!

Burger King cooks up Windows 7 Whopper

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

Go Meat!

H311 yeah, hook a brutha up, playa! Why limit this all-beef flame-broiled pleasure to Japan when there are hungry dudes in Kansas just willing to smash one of these down? On the other hand, how about the Ubuntu 9.10 Whomper with 10 beef and 9 cheese built in... Now that would be pretty damn tasty.

Paris, because we know full well her fondness for a big ol' hit of beef...

Unmanned German sperm dirigible 'to fly within days'

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

The sperm zepplin, eh?

Just what we need... a big ol' floppy flying sperm. Then again, take a look at the shape. They could have colored the fabric brown and called it the Flying Shite. Just slap on Redmond's logo, and it could bring back "Truth in advertising".

Paris, because she likes those big ol' floppy thingies in the air... I'll get my coat.

Ubuntu man extends olive branch to irate Debian devs

Hardcastle
Welcome

Upstream contribution

I think it's a good thing to see Shuttleworth put his money where his mouth is by offering to have some paid Ubuntu developers concentrate their efforts on Debian development . One of the ongoing gripes of Debian devs was that Ubuntu was benefiting from Debian development but not enough contribution was being done upstream to help benefit Debian, and therefore the rest of the distros that were based on Debian code. Shuttleworth is actively addressing this valid concern with his offer, wisely realizing that upstream contribution will not only come back to benefit Ubuntu in the long run by helping to make Debian better, a whole raft of distros will in turn become better as a result of a better Debian, which in turn will help to make the greater Linux ecosystem more robust to give us a greater foothold in the market against Redmond and Cupertino. Yes, this would be money well spent for across-the-board benefit, so I'm definitely open to the proposal.

Man blames cat for child porn downloads

Hardcastle
FAIL

Kitty Pr0n

Let's give the wanker the benefit of the doubt and say that it was the inadvertent tap of kitty paws that magically caused pr0n to appear on his hard drive... If the dude knew his cat jumps on the keyboard when he steps away, he should have had a keyboard locker app installed on his machine so when the cat jumps on the keys, the pr0n wouldnt have cruised in. If only he would have been running Linux, he could have snagged such an app from the repos quick, free and Free.

However, I'm still sober (for now) so to me, believing this tomfoolery is like believing that Baldmer is a Linux advocate. Dude probably floats air biscuits and blames it on the dog too...

..."Your honor, this is a great misunderstanding. Most blokes have pets that behave. I get stuck with flatulating canines and Pr0n snagging felines, and I'm so locked into the Winhole Experience that I don't know how to make the keyboard pussyproof" LMAO

BT's giant new faster broadband boxes blocked

Hardcastle
Welcome

Whiney little richy biznitches...

...in an uppity neighborhood whining about having a 5 foot tall box of fiber-to-copper kit close by; I just wasted a perfectly good mouthful of coffee upon reading that shite. I'm in that gray zone between exurbia and boondocks where you're just glad you're within the zone to get 1.5 Mb DSL. I would be thrilled to cordon off a sector of outyard for my ISP to put in a fiber-fed node and the building/shed to house it in exchange for a gratis FiOS connection and service, and my chow says that he would keep the vandals away too. There again, maybe the best bet is to just let these crybabies take the piss over these boxes while the vast majority who would welcome the faster connection contacts the ISP to let them know where the boxes would be welcomed with open arms.

Slimline PS3 pictures surface

Hardcastle
Black Helicopters

Possible PS3 pics from China

Ahhh yes... Pictures of a possible PS3 revamp straight from Red China. Considering that the Communist Party has a stronghold on everything in that country, it would be wise to take any "leaked" data coming from China with not just a grain of salt, but perhaps an entire salt block. I'll believe it when I see a proper press release from Sony.

Microsoft to spin out more non-update Windows 7 updates

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

Who needs those phlippin' letters?

Let's go all out and spell it without any letters...

|\/|1(|2050|=7

Paris, for she has an appreciation for a few well-placed digits...

Chinese officials obliged to smoke 4.6m snouts

Hardcastle
Coat

Snout smokage...

<snark> OK, how do you keep those snouts lit? </snark>

It reminds me when a hippie asked Jed Clampett how they kept crawdads lit...

Mine's the one with the non-Commie pack of smokes in the inside pocket...

Dell sues Tiger for reselling old boxes as new

Hardcastle
Stop

Pot, Kettle, Black...

...or Hell, TigerDerelect, FUD? Meh.

Atom UMPC first casualty of OQO money woes?

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

UMPC

I wouldn't mind having one of those UMPC's to hack around on, but like Hell if I can justify paying a flippin' kilobuck for one, especially when the same fundage would net a proper lappy with a pair of cojones chillin'. That's OK, because I can't justify paying the premium rates for a Crapple product either. I don't mind paying extra for a solid quality component that is made to last for a while, but I assure you, I won't pay extra for something just because it has a goofy 4-sectored flag or the fruit that got Adam and Eve in trouble with a bite missing.

Paris, because she'll let you experience her UMPC for less than a grand...

Microsoft's DNA won't permit Oracle-Sun deal

Hardcastle
Coat

Baldmer's approach...

"Microsoft's approach on hardware is to partner, build an ecosystem, and then help tune and certify partners' resulting machines to its software..."

... and throw chairs, sweat profusely at the pits, make software that sucks like a Hoover, certify that the hardware that runs said software is as equally adept at sucking, and show to the world that since Bill cruised, they can... and will... transform his baby into the corporate equivalent of a spoiled little bytchkid living off a trust fund, complete with bytching, whining, narcissism, and a complete and utter lack of tact and common sense. Methinks Baldmer, et al. is in dire need of a good ol' country arse whoopin' to sort them out.

Mine's the one with the fresh-burned copy of Jaunty in the pocket.

Samsung samples 500GB laptop HDD

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

SSD

Sure is nice to see a 512 GiB SSD appear, though my broke arse won't be able to afford it. Give it a few years, though, and it looks like my lappy could get one.

My HP lappy would love to have even a 500GB HDD, but alas, it was built with the old ATA interface so the best it could get is 250 GB (though I saw a 320GB ATA 2.5" HDD on the Egg just recently) and it seems hard to retrofit it with an ATA > SATA interface without going external with it.

Though Moore's Law refers to the number of transisters on a processor chip, it's good to see that memory capacity (whether SSD, Flash or RAM) is closely following this trend.

Paris, because her socket capacity also follows a trend similar to Moore's Law...

It's US vs Europe as world e-car plug standard race nears end

Hardcastle
Flame

@ The Cube...

If it wasn't for the Americans in WWII, you would be sprechen sie Deutsche and saying "Sieg Heil".

That said, it isn't just the US who prefers to maintain their own standards compared to the EU, and therefore assure that the "One World Order" doesn't happen. The UK also maintains many standards of their own that also differ from the EU. Better? Worse? It doesn't matter. It's what we're used to in the way of measurements, no matter which side of the Atlantic you're from. A good chunk of US standards originated from England, such as the inch, mile, acre, etc. And, neither of us are spending Euros either... We have stuck with the Dollar, and the UK prefers those Pounds Sterling.

As for the plug standard, I would prefer a 3-phase solution in the long run, as this would mean that smaller wires would be needed, and a loss reduction would be realized. Short term, however, as was noted earlier, a 220V standard would be needed, as this is what feeds the residential districts. However, if the infrastructure was revamped for the addition of a 3-phase outlet for the garage (Business districts already have 3-phase wiring available) then the long term goal of a 3-phase solution would be practical (440V in this case). But, until then, a 220V solution would mean quicker adoption, as this can be used with the existing infrastructure in the US. Then, as 3-phase becomes accessible to the residences, the 440V solution could be more readily adopted.

Latest Intel netbook chipset needs Vista for boosted graphics

Hardcastle
Linux

Vista, huh?

Oi veh, the last thing we need on a laptot is Winhole Pissta... How would the chipset react with a little Linux action, perhaps in the form of Ubuntu Netbook Remix??? Let's work on that, and then a punter wouldn't need to worry about what kind of Winhole crapware to install on their new laptot...

Jackalope gets jaunty with Ubuntu nip and tuck

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

From an Ibex to a Jackalope...

All in all, I have been reasonably happy with Ubuntu over here. I started out with Gutsy Gibbon, and though Gutsy had some niggles with the various machines I tried it on, it was good enough for me when I was surfing Net and checking tuneage. I have had the best luck with the GNOME variant, with XFCE usually running a close second, while Kubuntu has seemed half-baked in comparison. For KDE, whether it's 3 or 4, it was usually Mandriva or PCLinuxOS which had the better KDE implementation for my needs. As for Intrepid, it has proven to me to be capable enough to use every day for almost all my needs, including watching archived videos and automagic configuration of several 802.11B/G cards I have. Even the old Broadcom B/G in the lappy gets its bits properly set with a few clicks now at setup time. So far, it appears that each new release of Ubuntu offers more improvements than regressions, so I look forward to April and October when the new stuff lands. This Thursday will definitely be seeing me snagging torrents of Ubuntu and Kubuntu (probably Xubuntu as well). I know GNOME will work out fine, and we'll see if Kubuntu gets it right this time with 4.2 under the hood.

Paris, because she can show us how to work our Jaunty Jackalopes, alright...

Apple rides fanbois to popularity crown (again)

Hardcastle
Coat

Crapple's high satisfaction...

Well Hades, even a rotten apple will look all shiny when compared to Winhole Shitsta. For the premium Crapertino charges punters to score their products, their support best be top-notch. As for the major OEMs, a typical box obtained from them tends to be crap. For instance, there's an eMachines box here (aka Gateway) that came with cut-corner parts that loves to give me grief, whether I'm laying XPee to it or some Linux. On the other hand, the HP business laptop I have has actually performed well since August 2005, and runs Ubuntu *almost* flawlessly. I would much rather gather the parts and build my own machine and build in the quality needed for proper customer satisfaction... that would be me, in this case. In this vein, it would be nice to see some build-your-own laptop/nettop kits out there that would free the tinkerer from having to get a tailor-made lappy from the OEMs (OCZ is a step in the right direction). For instance, I would love to build a lappy with an Atom 330 dual-core on board, and not be limited to the single-core Atoms in present laptots.

Mine's the one with the Hackintosh steampunk stashed inside...

Jaunty Jackalope release candidate unleashed

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

Then there will be X...

Yes, it will be intriguing to see what Mr. Shuttleworth comes up with for the Q release... but if you think it would be tricky to find a suitable Q name, just wait until its time for Ubuntu to go for an X name... at least with Q, you have that Quirky Quahog that the previous poster mentioned, but can anyone come up with an X animal?

Paris cuz she can put the X in X-Rated.

BT's great hole of Ilford still causing grief

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

...he shoots, he scores... Goooooooal

Life has to be sucking royal for this sap, for all the things one can be remembered for, his legacy is going to be that he single-handedly knocked out communications in a major city... then again, it could be Divine Intervention that put the clamp on Big Brother's watchful snooper for a while. Hero or Zero, what say you? Like they say here in the States... "Call before you dig". So much for that being common knowledge...

On the other hand... if he can bore a hole and hit the spot that dang good, he can probably pique the interest of Paris...

Microsoft ordered to pay $388m patent infringement damages

Hardcastle
Gates Horns

He who lives by the sue, dies by the sue...

OMG, take a look at Dreadmond... Sue-happy bytchbois... They loooooooove the patent when they can capitalize through litigation. But, when someone else gives them a taste of their own medicine and bends them over for a dry-pound, they start crying with their tails between their arsecheeks, waving the white flag and crying unfair. We as a community have been trying to explain to Deadmond all along that software patents should be considered invalid, but all they could see is that quick buck earned in the most disgraceful of ways... through litigation. Instead of taking the karmic bytchslap they had coming to them like they had a pair, they cop out and, out of desperation, use the same defence we have had to use on their arses because they do not like it at all when they are on the receiving end of the Line Of Pain. Maybe Micro$haft will finally realize how much software patents really lay the suction to the stones and will finally change their ways...

Yeah, right... the next opportunity that comes for them to extort a few more million from the competition, you know what will happen... they will be on it like malodorant on the proverbial, I assure you. I have no problem with companies making an honest profit with their products based on the product's merits and marketing, for that is Free Enterprise, and we all like to make sure we have those 3 squares a day and shelter, along with some of our wants fulfilled as well. But when a company thinks that they have to bolster the coffers by suppressing competition through claiming "patent infringement", that is not only bad business practice, it is unethical and worthy of a proper arse whoopin'. A company doesn't deserve a single red cent if they have to sue to get it. Perhaps if enough companies come after them and Deadmond's proverbial sphincter gets sore enough, maybe they will finally get the message hammered into their thick block heads that it would be in everyone's best interest to just drop the whole patent bullsheisse with the quickness.

Kaminsky (finally) reveals gaping hole in internet

Hardcastle
Paris Hilton

Screwples...

...Taste the painbow... or at least that would be Paris's thought on it lmao

Ubisoft pirates game fix from pirates

Hardcastle
Linux

...yet another corp who can kiss my phat arse...

When will Goobisoft and the rest of the BumBuds of DRM realize that the more they push DRM, the more their swag gets "pirated"? This case is a perfectly glaring example of this point. Of course there are a core of h4><0rZ that stay busy cracking that code to make their stuff leet, free it from DRM Bondage, and are happy to pass it on, but mind this: this is a small-numbered group compared to the greater community of gamers who keep it clean... normally. Thanks to Goobersoft's malbuilt "patch" that was DRM'd upp all nice and crusty, they bent their online customers over without even the benefit of a reacharound. Of course they are going to hit Goobersoft up for a Fix to their lovely Patch. The bad part for Goobersoft is that they have had their swag DRM'd up so completely that even THEY couldn't figger out how to patch it... Aye, but here come the "Pirates" to the rescue. Since Ubi couldnt figure out a patch on their own, they wiezed the cracked code and upstreamed it as if it was their own. Hypocrites, the whole lot of them; they gritch about Pirates, but they Pirate the pirated code themselves. Then, when some sharp eyes spot the Reloaded sig in the Hex and fully bust Goobersoft on it, then they yank it, and continue with the customer shagging... Without the "fix", those who bought the game legit online are Forced to become "Pirates" just to fix Goobersoft's phuxup and make their game playable again. Like Matt said, this is a "perfect" example of a company making it harder to use their product legitimately than it is to use a hacked version, and thus making many more people "pirates" than there would be if the software was DRM-Free. Will they ever learn?...