* Posts by Bassey

1131 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Sep 2008

Shale gas frees Europe from addiction to Putin's Pipe

Bassey

Re: Methan in the water supply

Are you guys talking about that sham in the gaslands film? That has been proven to be complete bollocks. I'm not saying Shale Gas extraction is safe or otherwise but the Gaslands film was a farce and that whole "setting fire to the water" thing was nonsense - and they have admitted so.

Euro beaks to rule if TVCatchup.com is legal

Bassey
Mushroom

Bastards

There is no TV signal where I live.

In the past I had no TV but the TV licensing authority still treated me like a criminal. I sent them a cease and decist order but was basically told "Fuck off. Those laws don't apply to us. We'll harass you as musch as you wish".

So, I eventually bought a TV and DVD player and got myself a TV license. But I could only watch DVDs.

Then TVCatchup started and I was finally able to get the service I am forced to pay for - though there is really nothing on worth watching. I probably watch less than an hour a week but I HAVE to watch it through catchup because the BBC refuse to provide the service they insist I have to pay for.

Now they are prosecuting a company who, in return for watching a 15s advert once in a while, provide a service FOR FREE that the BBC refuse POINT BLANK to provide but still take £145 a year for. I am utterly, utterly speechless. They are utter cunts.

MPs probe science behind bogus gov booze guidelines

Bassey

Re: Guinness is Good for you

Too right. My Nanna used to get Guinness on the NHS! Ahh, the good old days.

Russia’s space telescope in orbit

Bassey

Re: Lost in Space

The UK maybe but the Isle of Man has gone from zero to fifth in the international space leagues inside a decade and is currently looking good for a major role in the future. All it takes is some imagination and forward thinking. Dr Brian Cox was over here a couple of weeks ago to see what the Island is doing right and reporting back to Cameron with recommendations as to how the UK can leverage its relationshio with the IOM to get back in the game.

And I tell you something, there is NOTHING like a sucessful (ish) space industry to get the kids excited about Science. The kids over here are getting massively excited about the space industry. Just since June we have had three major events for the kids. First an open day at a hanger storing some old Russian space stations and a re-usable module (being renovated to be used as a space hotel). You could barely move around the hanger at 10am it was so busy. Then the visit from Prof Cox with an audience of nearly a thousand kids. Finally four of the astronauts on February's shuttle mission (Nicole Stott married a Manx Man) did a tour of several of the Schools. And all of those things have been hugely busy and the number of kids choosing A Level Sciences is up and rising.

The stagnation in the US (and beyond) is putting space out of the news meaning fewer kids will get excited about it so there will be fewer well-qualified scientists to get things going again in 10-20 years time.

Scientists snap amazing technicolour dreamtoad

Bassey

Why

What's the point? What have we gained by "discovering" this "lost" species? Presumably the toad knew where it was and that's what's important. Unless it is really tasty and nutritional leave the damn thing alone and concentrate on some of the real problems.

Facebook begins to challenge Google in UK internet

Bassey

Something seems wrong

I wonder why the media in general (and TV in particular - and the BBC even moreso) make such a big deal about Twitter then? 3% of Social Media traffic seems tiny. I mean, Microsoft has a bigger proportion than that of the smartphone market and yet it has been written off as a disaster.

Ten... wireless speakers

Bassey

Re: No "affordable" options?

Yeah, I'm with Tim here. Even a bit in the box at the top of the first page indicating the price range would have been handy. As it is, I had to click through five pages of kit and read all the summary boxes to find out there wasn't a single model that I could even begin to afford.

I mean, it's only a wireless speaker. I have a San Francisco Smartphone and a no-name chinese Android tablet that, combined, cost less than the cheapest of these speakers. And I guarantee I'll get a lot more use from the phone and tablet.

Moto cold shoulders upgrade-hungry Xoom users

Bassey

Not true

"you had no way of knowing it wouldn't be a Google Experience Device, and that you'd be update starved. -1 for Motorola."

That's not true. You could simply have looked at Motorola's previous behaviour with every single Android device they have released. If you buy a Motorola Android device expecting a software update you WILL be disappointed.

Sony launches 3D adverts channel for Bravia tellies

Bassey

Re: Other than the BBC

You're joking, right? The BBC spend a huge amount of time advertising. They advertise BBC programmes, BBC websites, BBC iPlayer, the full range of BBC magazines, other BBC channels, BBC Radio, BBC DVDs, text services, competitions, Glastonbury, T in the Park etc. etc. etc.

Sweaties decode ultimate mystery of chips

Bassey

Re: I wish.....

"a healthier composition, such a less starch and more protein"

Eh? Since when was starch unhealthy? Potatoes are one of the healthiest foods around. It's the process of deep-frying them in fat that makes them unhealthy. Unless the boffins can find a way of genetically modifying the spud to taste like a chip straight out of the ground there isn't a lot they can do about that.

So, LOHAN: What's it to be?

Bassey
Thumb Up

Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator

See title

Samsung BD-D8900 Blu-ray player and DVR combo

Bassey

Re: How Long

It's not standard (as the review makes clear) but Blu-Ray players do take a while to load discs. Nobody seems to know why. However, having had a Sony BR player for about 18 months, I can genuinely say it has never bothered me. I don't know how long it takes to load BR discs - I'm not sad enough to time them. DVDs start near-enough instantly. Knowng BR discs take a little while I normally put the disc in first, then turn on the telly, close the curtains, turn down the lights etc and by the time I actually sit down the disc is up and the animated menus are on with the (always too loud) background music.

If you remember that most discs come with about 5 minutes of ads before you get to the damned film anyway (yes YOU Disney!) the few seconds waiting for the disc to load is immaterial.

I do wish I knew why, though.

Parmo v poutine: The ultimate post-pub nosh deathmatch

Bassey

Slight error

The gravy goes on last. It is Chips, cheese and gravy. Not chips, gravy and cheese.

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E420s 14in Core i5 laptop

Bassey

Re: Low Res & Too Short, Too Fat

Whilst I absolutely agree 100% about the verticle resolution thing there are things you can do to make it less painful. I've taken to sticking the Windows toolbar up along the right-hand edge of the screen so that, at the very least, I have the full verticle resolution available to me. A verticle toolbar can also display a lot more apps before they start disappearing. I also then set the toolbar to auto-hide but I know this drives most others mad :)

Bug-Byte Manic Miner

Bassey

What a great game

I played this for, literally, years. The O and P keys on the (rubbish) keyboard eventually died and we had to re-map them to U and I - until they, too, died and we worked our way back down the keyboard. It was probably a year before I was able to complete it (I was only 6 or 7!) and there was no save game. If you wanted to complete it you had to do it in one setting.

We had Jet Set Willy, the follow-up, but it never caputred the joy of those original 20 caverns. My opinions are obviously coloured by nostalgia but I would still rate it as one of the greatest games with Half-Life and Geof Crammond's F1.

BSkyB/News Corp merger: Wait for the cops, says Ofcom

Bassey

Quick Question

My understanding is that News International have basically admitted the hackings took place and have handed over emails, invoices etc corroborating the facts (not suggesting they would have done this without the Guardian investigation. Just that they HAVE done this). So the police investigation is not to determine whether anything untoward has happened. All parties have already admitted this. The investigation is purely about how much was going on and who knew about it and when did they find out.

All of which is irrelavant to the question of actual guilt. So why the delaying tactics? Same, incidentally, goes for Tesco who say they want to see the results of the police investigation before taking any decisions. Why? Who knew what when is irrelevant to the decision they have been askeed to make.

ALK CoPilot Live Premium HD

Bassey

Re: Permissions

"Why in hell does a navigation application need permission to make phone calls"

As pervious poster explained, that is one of its new features

"read my contacts list"

Because you navigate to contacts (have you ever used a SatNav, by the way?)

"read my phone state"

All phone SatNavs need to know if a call is in progress in order to decide what to do with the voice instructions, figure out what is on the screen etc. It's a vital part of the system.

Philips 221TE2L 21.5in monitor and Freeview TV combo

Bassey

Re: I don't get it

"All modern TVs can function perfectly well as a computer monitor"

Exactly. So what is the point of this?

Aussie retailer accuses UK shops of HDMI 'scam'

Bassey

Nonsense

I've never had to pay for a cable no matter where I bought it from. No sales-rep worth his salt is going to turn down the sale of a new telly if you start walking away over a £1 (cost to them) cable.

Apollo 14 'naut attempts to flog Moon camera for $80k

Bassey

Strange responses

Lots of people saying "he risked his life. Nasa should let him keep it". That seems like a bizare reposnse. It looks like NASA were perfectly happy for him to keep it. He had it for 40 years. It is his attempts to sell it to the highest bidder that have raised a few eyebrows! If his space memorobilia is of such personal importance to him, great. The guy is a feckin' hero after all. But selling a piece of national and personal history with no regard to who's hands it might end up in.....

Wimbledon grunters turned down by viewers

Bassey

Re: Please do this for the footy

It's been done and available for many years. Red button on the BBC offers it and certainly Sky used to have different audio options. BBC offer TV, Radio or "no commentary" options with the crowd noise and pitch mics still active.

As for the women's tennis I haven't watched a match in years. During the 90s when Sampras, Kraicjek and Ivanisevic ruined men's tennis as a spectacle women's tennis was fabulous. Since Seles, the Williams sisters, Kournikova et al started the grunting I just vote with the off switch.

Tennis is a professional sport which means it has to be entertaining enough for people to pay to watch it. If everyone refuses to watch grunters then the tournaments will have no option but to rule against grunting or risk losing sponsors.

Spam volumes show massive drop - but why?

Bassey

Re: Junk Mail?

> I've abandoned several customers who have taken to third-party "marketing" techniques

Quite right. At a company I worked for a marketing bod came to ask what she could do about the fact that the marketing emails she was sending out kept getting blocked by the recipients' spam filters. We suggested she contact them and ask for them to put an exception in place.

"Oh, but we don't know them. We're just sending out marketing emails to them"

We argued with them until we were blue in the face but they were never going to aknowledge that they were sending spam.

Proper scientists: Old folk should drink more, not less

Bassey

Surely

Given the state of the economy don't we want elderly people to die swiftly and cheaply? Unless the medical profession has a legal solution to this conundrum they should just shut the hell up. I mean, what are we paying them for?

Brewer bashes Beeb over anti-beer bias

Bassey

Re: EastEnders no longer centred around a pub then?

You appear to be mistaking larger with beer. Larger is fizzy, expensive piss drunk by students and Southerners. Bitter covers an enormous range of beautiful beverages beloved of bearded boffins and old men with flat caps and whippets.

Man battles police siege with Facebook

Bassey

Re: AC "Unless you're the British Government"

Since when did the Britain claim to support Freedom of speech? It never has. The British have always understood that problems can arrise from people being allowed to say what they wish (inciting racial or religious hatred. Supporting terrorism etc) so Freedom of speech has NEVER been supported in Britain.

Oz alkie gets hammered on hospital hand sanitiser

Bassey
Unhappy

Re: Bitrex

As any dedicated nail biter will confirm, it doesn't take long to get used to the taste of bitrex - unfortnately for my nails. And for a physical addiction/illness like alcoholism it would be a totally ineffective detterent.

Yuri Gagarin lands at Royal Albert Hall

Bassey

Very excited

Tomorrow morning I'm off to Jurby (a tiny little village on the Isle of Man) to see two spare modules from the Mir Space station (spares that were never used, obviously) along with a re-usable capsule. I'm going under the pretence of taking my son who is hugely into everything space but I am WAAAAYYYYY more excited than he is.

They are the ones some company hopes to put into orbit as a Space Hotel (charging $35 Million) and they are opening the place up and running (free) guided tours for one day only. Can't wait.

Facebook fuels Israeli cottage cheese insurgency

Bassey
Thumb Up

"Curdish Revolt"

Bravo!

Sony releases Android music streamer

Bassey

Monster

At 32.4MB for the download they can feck off.

Microsoft warns on support scams

Bassey

I thought I had the answer

I'd been called by one of these and just hung up but thought it might be "cleverer" to tell them I didn't have a computer if they ever phoned back. Bad move. The bloke insisted that I DID have a computer and could I please log into it so that he could fix it for me. This went back and forth for some time ("but I don't have a computer so why would I have a slow internet connection" - "Oh but Sir our records certainly show that you have the internet so can you please start your computer so that I can help you to fix the slow connetion" etc) before I gave up and put the phone down.

Fair play to "Jack" though. He was persistent.

Stand by for more big, windfarm-driven 'leccy price rises

Bassey

Re; I notice nuclear appears viable without the subsidies....

Erm, not exactly. The power stations themselves were built by the government - not private enterprise. So we aren't paying for ROCs but they certainly required public investment. As always, the Register goes on and on about renewable subsidies as if public funding for power is an exception rather than the 100% norm.

Motorola Atrix dual-core Android smartphone

Bassey

Don't make me laugh

an update to 2.3 will be coming later this year???? Yeah, right. This is Motorola we're talking about. If you aren't happy with what is on the phone, don't buy it. Motorola never deliver updates.

Mio Spirit 687 satnav

Bassey

Why Why Why Why Why?

Who needs a widescreen sat nav? I want to see what is AHEAD. Not what is to either side of me. What a waste of money.

Online tools to 'end the scandal of empty homes'

Bassey

Re: Holidays homes

I'm not entirely sure that stacks up Paul - though I could be wrong. On second homes/weekend homes etc you are absolutely spot on. On actually holiday homes where someone buys a house, converts it for holiday use and rents it out, I would have thought this was not very much different to hotel space. It is specifically for holiday accomodation and should be occupied 60%+ of the time. Those visitors will be bringing money into the area etc. I can see the impact on local kids not being able to get on the property ladder (happens where I live too) but not sure it has any impact on taxes. The country needs a certain amount of holiday accomodation to meet the demand. If there was too much, the market should kill off the waste thereby bringing down prices. But to get rid of the accomodation or - worse still - put it all in London, would destroy a particularly profitable part of the UK economy.

Roboprobe spacecraft off to grope asteroid

Bassey

It's just a bit sad

Cheer up. It isn't all that bad. Robert Zubrin (The Case for Mars) priced up getting to Mars, creating a manned base and - eventually - small-scale terafirming and it wasn't too bad by Space exploration standards.

Space travel etc only looks expensive because we are used to the heavily politicised NASA model - which is really more about creating jobs and votes than space exploration. Mars can be reached for a couple of tens of billion over ten years or so - peanuts really. The main sticking point - other than NASA - is getting past the problem the uneducated masses have with sending a small Nuclear power plant at the top of a launch stack.

Danish embassy issues MARMITE WAFFLE

Bassey

Re: Boycott Danish Bacon & Lego

Wouldn't touch their bacon with a barge pole. Its 90% water anyway. Lego, however....I don't think my boys would forgive me if I didn't let them play with lego.

Vodafone touts low-tech phone for app-phobes

Bassey

Quite a few of those OAP's are the reason you don't have to speak German.

What a pointless argument. As History is always written by the victors we'd all be glad we were speaking German and people would be using such empty phrases as "if it wasn't for OAPs we'd still be speaking English". The English lost the battle in 1066 so presumably, by your logic, they were a bunch of useless bastards and should be pilloried for leaving us to be run by the French for over 1000 years?

In any case, I AM part German and CAN speak it thanks.

Bassey

Re: Why do they charge so much for OAP style phones?

You missed free bus passes. My parents have just got theirs and basically use them so that they can go on pub crawls and not have to bother about Taxis or appointing a Des. The whole "poor OAPs" thing does get on my nerves. There are, of course, many pensioners living in awful poverty. However, there are many more living in huge houses (pushing up house prices for first-time buyers), holidaying 6+ times a year and living the dream. You just don't see them because they are never in the country long enough.

Bassey

How much?

I picked up a Samsung e1170 for 1p incl delivery from Phones4U for just this purpose. The Samsung is 2G only, offers calls, texts and a stop-watch and has a battery life measured in weeks. It is also rubberised so easy to pick up and takes a few knocks and splashes. It even came unlokced so I could put my own SIM in it. I really can't believe this phone is 7999 times better than the Samsung.

Digital Stream DPS-1000 BBC iPlayer set-top box

Bassey

Where's the TV bit

It's a shame none of these boxes seem to offer telly. We have TVs in rooms without sockets that are just used for DVDs. The house is old and it would be impractical to run cables around. Given that these boxes have everything they need to do so it is a shame they don't actually allow you to watch telly. A simple TVCatchup feed would be fine. IPTV even better.

Then again, last time a checked there was bugger all on the 80-odd channels anyway.

Remastered 4K, 3D Titanic steams towards cinemas

Bassey

Re: i've said it before and i'll say it again

"3D is shit."

Just because people have made shit films in 3D doesn't make 3D shit. "Closer to the Edge" was fantastic in 3D. It can be done. It just takes the right subject and a decent director/cinematographer.

Of course, I'd rather drift across the North Atlantic clinging to piece of wreckage than sit through Titanic again.

Powerline network radio interference debated in Commons

Bassey

Needs of the many etc.

I've been following this argument with (vague) interest for a few years. It's certainly a tricky one. On the one hand the law is most certainly on the side of the Hams. On the other side, Home networking kit is vastly more useful and will continue to be sold regardless. I was trying to think of a parallel and the only one I could come up with was cars.

When cars first appeared all road-laws were (obviously) in favour of pedestrians, horses, carriages and (to a lesser extent) bicycles. However, it quickly became obvious that cars were vastly more useful and were going to take over road use no matter what our law makers did. Therefore they did the sensible thing and changed the law in favour of car drivers. Now, pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders are 2nd-class citizens (at best) on our roads. There is no moral justification for this. They were there first and are more vulnerable. Theoretically they should be protected from the car. But it made economic sense and, in any case, the law was changed to reflect the emerging reality.

Of course, I am not suggesting PLT is as important as the car but it is quite clearly vastly more useful in terms of both public uptake and economic driver than using the spectrum for amateur radio hams. It is not morally right and hams can rightly feel aggrieved but we are (moving toward) a post-Christian society where economic reality sometimes comes ahead of moral "correctness".

(and please don't start with the "what about the military?" argument. If it was truly interfering with military use it would have been stopped in it's tracks)

PARIS team to tackle the ultimate post-pint snack

Bassey

Looks revolting

For a proper Northern Delicacy, try Chips, Cheese and Gravy (and it must be crappy chip-shop gravy. None of that proper rubbish).

My Tracks travel tracker

Bassey

Re: Great App

Here here. Endomondo is the business for competitive types. I can see how my friends are getting on, see what routes they have trained over and follow those routes and, best of all, when I'm out fell running on my own, my wife can track my progress in near real-time in case I get into difficulties.

Motorola Xoom

Bassey

Re: Ian Ferguson; SD Card question

Not the ideal solution but I've taken to putting a MicroSD card into an SD-Card adaptor for use in my digital camera and digital video camera. I can then remove the MicroSD-Card from the adaptor for use in Phones/Tablets OR use the full-sized adaptor in Laptops, card readers etc. It's a little bit of messing around and extra expense (Micro-SD cards are a bit more expensive than their full-sized equivalents) but I gain massive flexibility.

I've yet to come across any compatability problems and I have used Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android and Windows Mobile devices.

Ubisoft to turn games into movies, TV shows

Bassey

Simple Answer

No.

Tomb Raider was also rubbish. It just seems less awful when compared to others.

Insurance firm pushes out iPhone app that rates driving ability

Bassey

What?

"Cornering at speed in a good car is demonstrably safer than trying to do the same thing in some old banger with barely road legal tyres."

What? Demonstrably safer in a physics way maybe. Or when racing on a safe track. On public roads cornering at speed is never safe as there could be something just around the corner.

It always amazes me - whenever articles like this crop up - how many people find 1 million different ways to say "yeah, but I'm better than all you lot so I should be allowed to drive as fast as I think is safe"; and thereby demonstrating you're a dangerous, self-deluding knob who has got away with it up-to now.

Go SMS Pro

Bassey

messaging limit

Can you set an inbox limit for your contacts with this app? This is the most useful feature of the in-built app (I have it set to 20) as it saves me having to laboriosly clear them out every once in a while.

Natty Narwahl: Ubuntu marine mammal not fully evolved

Bassey

Music Problems

I've actually got quite used to it and I'm liking large bits of it. The workspaces work quite well. It does actually make me think a widescreen monitor might be nice - something I've never considered with Windows where vertical resolution is more important and makes widescreen monitors look daft. Two problems though; everyone goes on about how Unity is optimised for keyboard shortcuts - but the interface makes no attempt to guide you towards them. If you hadn't read the reviews telling you they were there how would you ever know to go and hunt them down?

The second is Banshee. What a dreadful music player. I have a relatively small music collection (few thousand tracks, just over 20GB) but it just hangs constantly. If I remove the music folders and just play tracks it is fine so it's clearly a problem with how Banshee handles the collection. So I've switched back to Amarok for now.

Multimillionaire's private space ship 'can land on Mars'

Bassey

Re: Tom13

"relatively minor problems compared to the big one: radiation protection. Mars lacks the atmosphere and magnetic protections of Earth, so you need shielding."

Not necessarily. All the photos we have so far suggest there are plenty of caves on Mars. They surficed for a good while on earth. No reason the Mars Pioneers shouldn't take advantage of all the natural resources they can rather than trying to use expensive (and bulky) technology to sort all their problems.

Persuading the tabloid-reading masses it is fine to send up Nuclear-reactors necessary for power and oxygen generation is probably the biggest challenge. Everything else required for a one-way trip to Mars is actually straight-forward (by space standards).