Posts by Anonymous Custard
350 posts • joined Friday 25th July 2008 07:33 GMT
Holiday Money?
to any over-18 American with an email address and a Google Wallet account
So our Nigerian lad could soon be sending mail from his holidays in Florida?
Or are we just going to see a mass of viruses which target gmail and try to send mail with dollars attached to them back to their mothership?
Wow
You mean that CGI effects are now so good that they make Sandra Bullock look like she can act?
Discovery
I've never quite been sure why it is that politicians love such train sets: most of us get over this around the age of 14 when we discover girls.
You think politicians haven't discovered girls, or in some cases boys? And those almost certainly at our expense too...
Splayd
I used to think you could convert a lot of things [to an all-in-one smartphone] but I'm older and wiser, I think. You end up with a 'spork' - a combination of a spoon and a fork. It's no good as a spoon and no good as a fork.
They do actually exist (an example being the Splayd, and ironically they're actually quite good for the job.
As for the software, one has to wonder why there isn't any kind of industry-standard way to judge this. Or would that be too simple and straightforward rather than allowing all the trickery and marketing wordplay that now goes on?
Re: bet you can get
That would be his house?
Of course, after the last time of being well and truly in the doghouse, the power, plasma TV and comfy sofa are all now required for the next time of being sent there for his own comfort perhaps?
Re: Killjoy statistician Nazi here
@ Kubla Cant - I think you're mixing them up with traffic lights and other road markings.
Posted in Excess all areas
Re: Hmmmm....
I wonder what the fear of PowerPoint presentations is? Exousiastigmiphobia?
Experience? Entirely sensible self-preservation? Garberphobia (after the lady who coined the death by PowerPoint phrase)?
Or howabout Illiteraphobia - the fear that the presenter thinks you're illiterate and so has to patiently read every word of every slide that he has like a script, without actually adding anything to it?
Re: Massive oversight
And where's his ear defenders, to protect from any future verbal about being down an unsupported hole?
Risk assessment?
Shouldn't he also have a wad of fully completed (in triplicate) risk assessment forms in his hand? Or at least stuffed in a suitable pocket for use in breaking falls and possibly for lighting aforementioned fag in the woods?
And is the mask due to being in your proximity and the remaining effects of the chickpea diet?
Re: Prior art
And my missus' old HP laptop, whose trackpad isn't differentiated at all from the rest of the case in front of the keyboard (the wrist-rest bit) except for the clicky buttons at the bottom.
Bloody infuriating it is too when you try and use it, as you never know quite where the edge of it actually is so your fingers are forever going off the side of the sensing area and your cursor suddenly stops whilst your finger merrily continues onward across the case...
Lets say that lasted all of a couple of minutes before a rodent was hunted down and summarily stuck in one of the few USB ports the thing has.
It could have been worse
At least he and Shatner only talked a couple of months back, rather than doing a duet...
Re: Must ask
...and suddenly Rockall briefly has a lighthouse, or at least a signal beacon
Spoilt for choice...
So it's the new app which only works on Sammy, or the old one that is apparently incompatible with my 4.2.2 Nexus7.
I would feel hard done by and missing out, except I can't remember the last time I actually watched anything on ITV.
Re: Rockall Times
Me too. I also wonder if it's time to bring back the Rockall Post Office too.
I've still got some of those stamps around from the 2005 expedition Lester was on.
RIP Ray
RIP to the creator of the monsters of my childhood.
CGI may look better, but the magic is less. A farewell to the master.
Re: Promises, promises
And good luck finding a CrystalWell product for the desktop. Cos according to all sources I've seen about them so far, basically there won't be any - it's mobile (ultrabook mainly) only on the roadmap.
Re: No thanks. Still don't have a reasonable linux driver for the original one
Would be nice to have decent Windows drivers too for most of their silicon - at least some that support OpenGL and similar stuff.
And where are the actual specs for these new chips, not just meaningless graphs without any context, detail or background? So proper comparisons can be done, rather than this all singing fashion show of dressing up old stuff in new clothes?
Re: Or do they?
Nah, it'd have to be Particle Man by They Might Be Giants...
Re: Trumpet Winsock
that takes me back :)
Was just thinking the same - fond memories of university days and hacking around the split install of Win3.11 that was used (part local, part on server) to run both Win32s and WinSock.dll properly.
Also being a fairly regular user of Lynx, and then seeing Mosaic for the first time and quite how nice the graphical web could look when all you'd had before was text and ascii art.
And my kids still don't believe me when I say that when I was their age (30-odd years ago) we had neither mobile phones, satellite TV nor the internet/www/text messaging/Facebook/Twitter (at least in common use by Joe Public for the first and last).
A sure-fire way to really make me feel old ;)
Re: Space will soon no longer be the exclusive domain of governments!
And that of course is more the groundbreaking bit, rather than the technology itself.
It's certainly headed in the right direction (after too many years of virtual standstill), but there is of course the risk that by going toward the private sector we go right back to this being very much national rather than international (cf all the talk in the article about American jobs) and the pioneering of areas further out than our atmospheric attic going back to being a Wild West race with all its inherent duplication of effort from nation to nation (or corporation to corporation) and costs going up again as profits are taken.
Arguably if the ISS was truly international, then why are the Chinese and probably soon the Indians going to have their own stations also flying overhead? If done properly anyone who has the capability to get stuff up there should be invited and incentivised to join the team.
Re: The latter
It's also nice to have it when streaming isn't an option - eg on a business trip (on a plane without any connection, abroad when you'd fall foul of the IP restrictions and generally when hotel wifi speeds are crap).
It's nice functionality I have on my old netbook (when Adobe AIR doesn't go tits-up and break the whole lot, which is seemingly more than occasionally of late) to pre-load a few shows and chomp through them over the week or so I'm away. Would be even more handy to have on my Nexus 7 too, for sheer portability reasons.
Posted in The healing hands of guru Dabbs
Re: Been there...
Never underestimate the powers of percussive maintenance, or the threat thereof...
Posted in The healing hands of guru Dabbs
Re: Similar effect
Personally I find the power of my healing hands is amplified by their holding of a large hammer or similarly solid percussive maintenance device.
Also kinda reminds me of Sir Terry Pratchett's response at being told he was the most shoplifted author in Britain.
Or at least his response about being told about his supposed response about being told he was the most shoplifted author in Britain, to be slightly more accurate.
<---Mine's the one with the coat in the pocket...
What year are we in again?
That analysis also suggested that brand recognition for Nokia as a smartphone producer collapsed from 91.6 per cent a year ago to 38.2 per cent in 2012
Umm, either that was an over 50% drop in about 3 months, or you've been using Google Calendar again Mr M? I thought a year ago was 2012?
Posted in The healing hands of guru Dabbs
An IT Helldesk Natural?
... I almost certainly do not know how to solve any user’s computer problem. Yet I do exactly that every day.
... I have deliberately developed an air of cynicism...
Rolling my eyes at colleagues' requests...
Not sure it's the fairy dust - you sound like a helldesk natural to me from those snippets. Either that or there's an air of recreational sledgehammer-wielder about you that the tech can subtly pick up?
A life of crime
So is Apple's latest iPhone going to be the smartphone of choice with those bent on a life of crime?
Isn't it already? I would have expected it to be, as probably many of them cut their junior crim teeth by mugging people for the things.
Not to mention the bling aspect of things, along with the BMW or similar motor.
Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be a sun-shattering kaboom!
Now where did I put my Illudium Q -36 Explosive Space Modulator?
But this time to blow up the Sun, as it spoils the view of Earth (and possibly Venus).
<-- As close as this place gets to Marvin the Martian...
Re: well the DT paywall doesn't bother me
Near the beginning (the Android app) when it couldn't even manage spaces in comments, and then a few weeks after that when it was bloated, still not overly good with comments (although OK then with spaces) and had other issues with size and synching.
Just had a quick look again - looks a bit better now, but still seems to be missing some basics like being able to search articles? Or being able to see comment vote counts or indeed vote?
The only thing it seems to give is offline caching, and that looks to be all or nothing for both articles and for comments?
Re: well the DT paywall doesn't bother me
Which reminds me, have the many and varied glitches in the el Reg app been looked at yet, or is the web page still the way to go?
Given the mess it was before, somehow methinks the bookmark in Firefox is still the route to go.
Re: @Gavin re Nigella Lawson
And her father indirectly (ish) helped kill it off, as the article also says. Although there a somewhat more nasty way of things coming full circle than just looking at the lovely lady.
Re: Er...
I'd also wonder about calling the programs that the things ran "apps". Given how hard-wired they were (literally for the early ones), even programs may be stretching it a bit I guess.
Really enjoying this series of articles though, although using a terms that's only been around for a few years in relation to a machine of this vintage caused some serious mental gear-grinding.
Re: Updates
And isn't the Java updater the one that also tries to spam you with things like the Ask toolbar and other crap that you don't want, but that it will merrily add if you just click-through rather than remembering to untick the various boxes first?
Of course it also will ask every damn time, rather than remembering that I've said no to the last dozen times it's asked me if I want to weigh down my browser with unwanted junk in the vain hope that I might suddenly want it this time.
Come on, just patch the holes, make it compatible and get it to work without all the nagging and backdoor installs, then we may keep up better.
Re: Something for the weekend?
@Dominic - sounds good, although as noted there are none on the website (at least none that haven't already happened) - how often do they occur?
Indeed a quick web search found me the page advertising the March one we just missed, and that page seems to have recommended content pointing to two of them in 2009? Hardly inspires confidence in the institution.
http://www.rigb.org/contentControl?id=00000000848&action=displayContent
Looking through the listed upcoming events, there's only one more listed as family friendly (An evening with Simon Mayo and Itch on Sat 18th May 6-7:30pm). And aside from one item there's nothing at all listed beyond the end of June - not even the Christmas lectures. Surely they must be planned more than a couple of months in advance?
Re: Lipstick on a pig...
Come on - that's an insult to pigs. I mean, bacon sarnie, sausage sarnie, chops, the bounty is endless!
I'm not sure what put me off more in the video, what was being presented or who/how it was being done. Either way, no-go from me either.
Something for the weekend?
Aside from the lack of family membership, it also seems that most of the events are on weeknights. Fine if you're a Londoner, but for those of us a bit further out (Home Counties etc) it gets a bit more complex. Many a time we've had good days out in London on a Saturday or Sunday (Science Museum, London Aquarium/Eye, Nat Hist Museum, Museum of London etc etc) with the kids, but a week (schoolnight) lecture would be a no-go.
So in addition to family membership, how about some events/lectures on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon that could involve (and be aimed at) those younger proto-scientists too?
Re: teachers...
Kinda brought to mind this story from a web-wandering earlier. Why did we never have teachers like this when I was younger?
Also again seems like the primary school kids can work the machine better than the teacher could...
Potion containing unicorn blood?
Have you checked that it's not contaminated with horse?
Too Little Too Late?
Shame really given the overnight news about the next-gen Nexus 7 business going from Nvidia/Tegra to Qualcomm/Snapdragon. Given that's where a fairly large percentage of the Tegra 3 chips ended up (~80% by some reports), the future prospects for Nvidia may have taken something of a knock.
Re: Wot.. no outrage?
Not until the Daily Mail pick up on it anyway...
Re: Agree totally on the Take-Aways
It's also interesting to see how much the food is "tailored" (for want of a better word) to the local tastes, even across Europe. For example try ordering a sweet & sour dish in Italy, France, Netherlands and Germany and you'll get an almost completely different item.
Worst one was in the Netherlands - had sweet & sour pork once which looked and tasted like someone got a tin of fruit salad, tipped it into the container and then threw some chunks of pork in it.
As said above, the best ones are where both the cooks and ideally a reasonable number of the clients are of the country whose food is being cooked (usually the best way to get a good Japanese restaurant for sure).
Hmm
Now if they could just stop insulting our intelligence with some of their product and marketing moves lately.
But then I guess that's not limited to affecting us Brits, unfortunately.
Freeview suddenly UNWATCHABLE dross? It may just be a 4G test
Or just someone tuned to one of the ITV or shopping channels by mistake?
The tongue-twisting job title of government senior information risk owner
Sir Humphrey would be proud, at least once he'd stopped laughing.
Re: Lidl
The pound shop does a twin pack for a quid. Thinner and metal shafted rather than plastic, but they work well enough. I use one with my Nexus 7 - find it much easier to swipe-type with it than with my fingers.
To keep in the spirit of things...
Avpr gb frr gur obzor jbexvat ntnva, naq nyfb ratntvat jvgu fghqragf naq gur lbhatre trarengvba :)
Posted in AdBlock Plus BLOCKED from Google Play
Re: Web page
I must be, but I can't get it to work, with wifi on/off or a full reboot.
Adblock installed, set to port 26571 and localhost.
Was a bit mistaken earlier, it does work with Firefox, but if I try and access an http page via Chrome then I get an empty tab (but with its correct tab header). However if I try an https page then it works as well. Desktop or mobile versions of pages also don't help.
It used to work after Google did their initial messing about, but then they pushed a Chrome update and it all went south. Which I guess maybe the difference here?
Anyway, Adblock or Chrome....?
Hmm, well hello again Firefox.
