Posts by Alex C
141 posts • joined Wednesday 24th September 2008 11:42 GMT
Posted in Galaxy S4 radiant, but has black holes
Re: why ?
I rather agree it's a shame about the Oct core version not being available in the UK and other territories. The premise of a low power chip performing the humble tasks, that kicks in the hight power chip as necessary, seems a sensible and battery saving measure ( though I don't really see why the low power chip required 4 cores).
My understanding is the the Octa chip isn't in various territories because they couldn't make it work with 4G (which is present or rolling out in those territories). Can't think why given they'd have designed the chip in full knowledge of the time-scales and technical challenges of 4G, but there you go.
Apparently 70% of UK chips will be snapdragon and the rest Octa so it may be that they sell those via networks that won't make use of 4g for the next couple of years. Apologies if any of the info in this is inaccurate - it's just what I gathered after researching the same question when they did the NY launch.
Very sad news - a great author and a thoroughly decent chap by all accounts.
May his passing be as painless as possible.
Re: GPS
@Naughtyhorse
The only think wrong with being stuck in a lift with Cowell is that it would be so easy to work out who'd done those things to him. Having said which after his crimes against music there isn't a court in the land that'd convict...
Re: The laws of physics will be different in the encroaching bubble.
One school of thought says that this happened on 21st Dec last year, and that nobody has noticed. Yet.
I'm quite looking forward to the game...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns
The reason that VoIP hasn't been widely take up as you might expect
Leased lines aren't sufficiently cheaper than telephone calls..
What we found when this kicked off 5 years ago was that FD's would get very excited about saving a lot of their phone bill and move to IP. But then they'd see the cost for fully fledged DSL lines and balk buying instead crumby contention laden ADSL which had a great download but barely any upload capability. Their agents would then proceed to have a lot of sub-quality conversations with customers who didn't feel they were talking to a proper business, and wouldn't buy from them.
They all moved back again within the year and while some aspects of IP telephony are more prevalent (PBX to desk it's now very common), the cost of leased lines mean that very few customers have bee interested in taking that option up.
I'm talking from a very neutral perspective, as a network level telco who doesn't have financial incentive either way. What we've seen is that the customers don't feel that they get sufficient value from IP telephony (outside the building) to justify keeping it. and have in virtually all cases moved back to PSTN.
Good word
IPOcalypse - Nice work :-)
Though if if you say it without the capitalisation it does sound rather like what will happen when all the iDevices eventually gang-up on us and take over the world...
Re: This is actually pretty cool
It wouldn't surprise me - though I doubt they were expecting that level of magnet :-)
There was a local bank near the Royal Brompton Heart and Lung hospital, that all of the NMR researchers used as it was very relaxed about letting them have new bank cards every so often. You only had to go near the machine with a wallet to wipe all the cards in it.. I think with chip and pin it might have less effect but then the machines were a pretty thorough way of ruining your night out.
The other thing you could do on one machine that opened at both ends was to throw in a ferrous pen and watch as it flew in and out of the tube only to eventually hover in the middle. Good times...
Re: Perhaps...
Ba- Dum Tsch!
Have an upvote.:-)
This is actually pretty cool
Though I can't imagine my pregnant missus putting up with an hour of a 1.5 teslar magnet turning over every few seconds. Or for that matter going for an hour without needing to pee. If they offered it here for the same price I'd go for it though.
Back in the beginning of MRI in the UK(or NMR as it was called back then) I managed to contribute to the science in a way no-one really expected from the work experience lad. I'd got good and properly drunk the night before and when they offered to scan me (given the noise not a great idea for a person so hungover they could barely see) I went into the machine to the tones of Handel's requiem and much laughter on their part. I managed to sleep almost immediately and stayed stone still in the same place for the next 12 hours sleeping it off. Turns out they use body fat (of which I am amply supplied) to focus the machine (a process called shimming) and they spent that time refining the shimming programs and brought them forward by around 6-12 months, they were eager to explain as they tried to get me drunk afterwards...
Re: Yawn
Mostly because they only took down the website.
A hacking group with (on occasion) some decent credentials, take on a challenge worth the effort and they do what? Take down the website and write a nasty message on it? So what - If they had any gumption at all they'd have taken down the RFID system instead.
Anonymous - you claim some prowess - flex that muscle rather than this shambles of a protest - sorry but taking down a website isn't impressive unless it's the website of an ISP or similarly tech-savvy outfit.
Re: Nummy
I'm not certain that the age didn't know a thing or two about food - it was the age of empire, and France and England were both well regarded (though naturally France was the leader) for the quality of their food. Apparently George III's reign was about as good as we got for food. They were certainly still in abundance when Darwin was there.
Here's what QI had to say about these delicious giants of their race:
They were first discovered by explorers and sailors in the 16th century. Immediately, people began raving about their unbelievable deliciousness, comparing them variously to chicken, beef, mutton and butter - but only to say how much better tortoise meat was than the very best of the aforementioned. One giant tortoise would feed several men, and both its meat and its fat were perfectly digestible, no matter how much of it you ate.
Oil made from tortoise fat was efficacious against colds, cramps, indigestion and all manner of “distempers.” (It tasted good, too.) The liver was a peerless feast on its own, and the bones were rich with gorgeous marrow. Then there were the eggs - inevitably, they too were the best eggs anyone had ever eaten. Some sailors were reluctant to try tortoise meat because the animal was so amazingly ugly - but one taste, and they were soon converted.
Nummy
The point we're missing here - despite the clearly edifying debate on classification - is that these beasties aren't extinct and are clearly able to breed. Also we learn from QI as well as the circumstantial evidence of their near rapid extinction that they were utterly delicious.
Is it too soon to hope that we might one day have generated sufficient stock to hope for a bite?
Sadly so - but perhaps this is something we can achieve for future generations.
The Bugle Podcast has come up with some pretty special ones this year
Fuckeulogy is my favourite by far-
Definition from the Urban Dictionary:
A derogatory oration or writing, especially in dishonor of one deceased.
"This is not so much a tribute episode to bin Laden as a special fuckeulogy to the big man."
- John Oliver, The Bugle, Episode 152.
Would have love to have been able to make that statement
Though I'd have altered it somewhat:
"I suggest that if you're having difficulty posting a notice within 24 hours, that you draw on the expertise of your army of 'geniuses'. If their collective power is insufficient to answer it in that time frame I suggest we meet up here again next week under the auspices of the trade descriptions act. Also if you're unable to draft a response in that timeframe I'll be happy to create it for you."
+1 for Brunel
Apparently he was on the £2 coin for a bit
+1 for Random Penguin
Such a pleasing name :-)
WTF?
"I suppose you could design a car that flies and floats"
Honestly - either would be fine. If that's in their grasp why on earth are they mucking around with phones?
It's well into the 21st Century - I want my flying and / or floating car dammit.
Posted in Samsung Galaxy Note 2 review
Re: Build quality
I have to say the build quality of GS2 astonished me - mine recently got hurled down 20 foot of stone steps. It acquired some mild bruising around the edges and a small very scratch on the screen. It hadn't even powered off.
Also after 17 months of battery swapping every day the flimsy looking back panel is still going strong. It might be light and thin but if it's anything to go by Samsung products are tough.
Posted in Ten external battery packs
Re: Replaceable batteries
Personally I have a wall charger and a couple of spare batteries. I let the phone run nearly out of juice and swap the batteries when it does, knowing that there's always a spare in my rucksack / pocket / whatever.
It takes a little under 30s once a day on average. The beauty is that my phone never needs to be tethered to the wall itself (only the batteries need to be charged) which I find a big improvement on having my phone no more than 1.x metres from the wall for several hours a day.
Only £16 for two spare batteries and the wall charger. I've been doing this on a GS2 for 17 months now without issues (that flimsy looking back plate is fine after all).
On a side note - those GS2s are a lot tougher than they look. Mine was hurled down 20ft of stone steps a couple of weeks ago, and came away with mild bruising along the edges and a small scratch on the screen. It hadn't even powered off.
I know the power devices here are very clever but they don't charge the phone instantly. I still have to have the thing attached to the phone in my pocket for several hours. Even though having one device to power any phone / electric item I want sounds great, I spent several hundred pounds on my phone. I don't mind chucking another few quid at the convenience of spare batteries.
Re: It'd be nice if 2.5g and 3g worked reliably
I'm with you there and (while not taking the quite same train) I notice the same phenomenon - mostly between Barnes and Chiswick. I have to say it improved greatly when I moved away from Vodafone to Giffgaff but there are still patches of mobile blackspot there too.
Samsung not Sammy
Please Brid-Aine Parnell, pretty please, stop using 'Sammy' instead of Samsung.
I've no idea why but it's really grating.
Thanks ever so much.
piracy killing music...
I saw a great t-shirt the other day.
It said "Piracy isn't killing music. Simon Cowell is."
Re: Black Out WillIAm
As far as I was aware black out has no racist connotations - it was used during the war to hight light from invading pilots, or by smugglers in yesteryear to avoid detection by coastguards.
As for Will.i.am - I'm not really a fan but I don't see how it does any harm. He is, at least, pretty inoffensive.
wonderful idea (though sadly doomed)
I've sailed across the Atlantic a couple of times, and reckon that if their programming were sufficient and they were very lucky the trade winds would do the vast majority of the work, if their setting off point was one of the canary islands. That way all the motor needs to do is to try to correct their course rather than bother making way.
The downside as I see it from the design is that the boat would spend most of it's time on it's side or upside down as the Atlantic rollers did their best to destroy the Tupperware. Thus it's little motor would do most of it's spinning when it had no resistance (was out of the water) and it's PV battery would spend not very long getting light to power the motor. I'd suggest more of a tube design surrounded by PV with 3 rotors that only operated when they were at the lowest point (mercury switch or gyro) so as not to waste power, and you'd need a rudder behind each one to give it something to steer with. The tube would also be a stronger design and should be easier to seal to prevent the water and salt getting in (as it inevitably will on boats).
Sadly this design is going to be smashed apart and sunk very quickly. Those rolling waves are generally 20' from tip to trough in the sorts of force 4-5 you usually see in the mid Atlantic. Also if they tried to set either design off from Blighty (or anywhere in mainland Europe for that matter) it wouldn't have the power to get past the tides let alone make any reasonable headway. The propulsive force here has to be the trade winds.
As a samsung user
I'd suggest they get Keis working first.
I've no complaints about their strategy here - but their track record in this area is pretty woeful, and they're likely to do themselves more harm than good.
Re: Math issues also
Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, we all know that 2+2=5 for large values of 2 (e.g.2.3) and 2+2 = 3 of r small values of 2 (eg.g 1.7). Probably a rounding error in there that' wasn't worth the explanation.
Happily the total earlier was £48k+, so I have no doubt they'll eventually raise enough for 7 kitchens. Good luck to them and if Argyll and Bude want more efficiently priced meals perhaps dedicate some of the school week to horticulture. Every kid should leave school with some practical experience of raising veg.
Posted in Ten... Father's Day gifts
Re: Ouch these gifts are pricey
Well - maybe for a recently disgorged vintage Krug...
Bless him - he's not getting that.
Posted in Ten... Father's Day gifts
Ouch these gifts are pricey
My Dad's getting a bottle of Champagne and a card and he'll be pleased to get them.
What the hell was the author thinking? Most of these are £200+
Journalism clearly pays a lot better than IT. You lot can get the drinks in next time.
Re: Again, a step behind the times and boring
On the subject of Android and older OSes, I remember from my fruit loving days that I'd keep my OS up do date and my wife would neglect hers. By the time the contracts came up for renewal her iPhone was several iterations behind mine in OS but generally felt a lot less clunky to use. I think it behoves a hardware manufacturer to nudge it's users (particularly when they are tied into the brand with apps, contact data etc) towards new hardware every so often, as the iPhone 3G empirically proved (granted with a very small test group).
In this case though there's no excuse not to be using ICS - can't fathom why they didn't do it.
S2?
Its £337 at Amazon these days. Surely the massive spec improvement means that at only £70 more than this it's still preferable to go for the older brother?
IIRC you gave that 85% as well, which makes it even harder to justify this review. It's a little smaller, it's heavier, it has a worse screen, worse CPU, it has less RAM, it has less storage space, it has a now pretty old version of the OS which suggests it won't be particularly well supported.
Sure it's mid-priced - but it's about a year too late to justify the difference.
I do like that they're playing with not just making bigger and bigger phones every time though.
Based on the World cup
We'll bully some minnows early on and get ahead of ourselves, and then as soon as we come across quality in a knockout phase we'll fold like the prima donnas we inevitably show ourselves to be.
Every time I try to give an ounce of care about football (i.e. internationally) we stuff it up.
I shall be watching the cricket - if it isn't raining...
Oligopoly is a great word
But isn't cartel the correct one?
Posted in Special Projects Burro pops his hooves
Sorry for your loss
I do have another theory though.
I've always thought that the Playmonaut had a nasty glint to his eye. Can we rule out ritual sacrifice to aid his upcoming mission? He's touched space and that changes a person, not always for the better.
Posted in Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy S III
As a happy S2 owner
I'll stick with what I've got for a bit.
I am curious to know if they're improved the wifi reception on this model, though, and whether the new Vlingo app will be something that one can properly turn off if required. Worst this about the S2 is the Vlingo app.
Interestingly it's still cheaper to be off contract
Even at £500 (which'll be more like £400 in a few months) + 24 lots of a tenner on giffgaff (or other similar sim -only deal) it doesn't justify the 24 month lock in. Check how many minutes you *actually* use before doing the calculation. I'd be well over £100 better off by paying up front on this deal.
Posted in Wasteland sequel given $3m green light
Happy to have donated
Excellent project, and not yet another first person shooter which seems to be all the published games industry is willing to churn out.
Really hoping they make something great. :-)
when I were a lad and all this was fields
Nobody would have cared.
Honestly I know they're not supposed to lose these records, but the vast majority I hope will be handed in to hospital / police as appropriate or has in fact not really been lost but fallen down the back of the sofa, under the driver's seat etc only to be found later and quietly handed in.
The only time there's a problem is if someone decides to use this for nefarious purpose, and I agree that the details here probably suffice to take out credit / passports in the baby's name or what-have-you.
I wonder how often credit fraud happens as a ratio of the seemingly endless number of procedure failures? I hope that most of us still know right from wrong in any case
Posted in So, what IS the worst film ever made?
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
Salt
The Mummy 3 - Tomb of the dragon wossname
not mentioned cos the bad reviews mean I never saw them -
Tom Cruise, War the Worlds
Battlefield Earth
quite a lot of the works of M Night Shalyman
Most Adam Sandler Flicks
Posted in So, what IS the worst film ever made?
Re: Avatar
Wasn't that the big budget Pocahontas remake?
I quite enjoyed it in a 'leave your brain' at the door sort of way.
Re: Click on enemy until dead
I played the second one quite a lot, but didn't go on battle.net generally any more than I could avoid it. I reckoned my PCs could take what they got. I was never into PVP or endlessly killing the same monster just to level.
My internet connection's a lot better these days but I can't be arsed with an always on requirement. I don't care what other people think about the game I play, I'd never get the time to scale the heights of kudos that other types enjoy, so the whole locking me into battle.net to make sure I haven't somehow tweaked my character is irrelevant to me.
I don't mind an occasionally on requirement - i.e. if you want to swap between chars or patches it's up to you to choose when you do that. I don't mind that they have certain characters that require always on to ensure the purity of the character for those looking for bragging rights. But it is an unnecessary restriction for a large cadre of players. I had enough trouble with Fallout 3 or Las Vegas where their servers kept dying and kicking me out.
Click on enemy until dead
Might be an interesting game but if I *must* play a single player game on-line at all times I'm not desperately interested. That sort of controlling streak doesn't bode well for the rest of the game.
They've picked up some bad habits in the last few years so I think I'll wait and see what others think, and pay a lot of attention to the moaning, before committing money to them.
Re: OLDSCHOOL RPG RPG?!
Did Circle of Eight complete their patch and make it playable???
yay - that's me down a rabbit warren for a while :)
Love kickstarter - and thanks for the article.
Hopefully this and the Double fine project will turn out excellent games - certainly both teams have a history of it. I've been very happy to support both because even if they're not as splendid as perhaps we'd like they'll have given the publishing world a jolt. I wonder if it'll be a big enough jolt to start making something other than bloody first person shooters.
Hell we may even get Wizardry 9 or Arcanum 2 if this trend continues.
Posted in X-com reboot's gameplay showcased
2 games
Interestingly if you go to
http://www.xcom.com/
you're asked to choose a site - XCom and Xcom - Enemy Unknown.
Xcom - the FPS (mentioned on el Reg as part of their Antique Code Show), looks to attempt to shoehorn the old, loved, and much abused franchise into yet another ill-fitting suit),
Xcom - Enemy Unknown, (which is what the video on this article) is all about and seems to be where they try to remake the game using modern graphics and is frankly making me twitch with delight. Sadly it looks like a six man squad but apparently that more for balancing than anything else. Couldn't see anything about only one base. I wonder if that's to prevent my arms factory bases, which made so much money that there was no need for pay much attention to those pesky governments. It would be sad though as bases dotted around the globe were a great tactical nuance.
Um - politics doesn't work that way
How else do they think John Prescott walked the corridors of power as long as he did?
But I do hope they feed in data from the likes of FaxYourMP (http://www.writetothem.com/) if they are idiotic enough to make it.
Babies > Beans
Has to be Jelly Babies surely.
A far superior sweetie to jelly beans all round and the android green robot can more easily accommodate the idea. Presumably Jelly Belly (tm) are paying up for some of the advertising?
Posted in A sysadmin in telco hell
The failings of ported numbers
The issue here highlights the downsides of porting numbers. Wherever it is possible it is worth phasing out old numbers (which some businesses will find easier than others).
There are two main reasons for this - telcos are required (certainly in the UK) to come to agreement with other telcos over creating a porting agreement within 90 days, but that regulation does not go into any financial specifics. Generally the company who's number it was originally will require that they continue to make in the region of a penny / minute from it. Move the number around over a few companies and the charges can stack up. There's only one person left holding the bill and that's the customer.
The other issue is the one you particularly ran into here - that once they've hardwired the number to it's new destination (or think they have) you are no longer their customer and they care not one whit about you. This is far more true of larger outfits where the person you initially talk to is often a peon going through a script and if you have no valid account number (etc) their systems are often designed to keep you out. (usually more to prevent phishing / fraud than for this case but the effect is the same).
Where you're able to it's worth moving numbers - most people are smart enough to look for a contacts page on a website if they number they're trying seems broken, and even the most catalogue focused companies can usually migrate within a few months, using number change announcements and a bit of brain on the website, and handled sensibly it is a pretty soft process. I'm surprised it took Planet as long as it seems to have done to offer you their own free phone numbers - they'd have been itching to do so from the outset - as their margins will be better on the non-ported numbers.
Is it just me?
Or does it seem like the church has started really missing all the attention Dan Brown was giving it? A wise man once said there's no such thing as bad publicity.
It's almost like they've got him working with them to heighten intrigue.
It's better for them than the otherwise endless trickle of kiddy-fiddling after all.
Posted in Android users more likely to put out
Fair enough
You're quite right, of course.
The point - however ham-fistedly made - is that given the two bits of research say similar things but a few years apart, and that the major difference between the two times is that a lot of people have deserted Apple (though technically I think more have left from non-smart phones etc), I suggested that it was the sluttier ones who'd left.
I raised that point instead of my initial thoughts that the whole research is bunkum, only because I enjoyed it more. Some people put out on the first date, some people own one form of smartphone. That there is a temproary correlation is neither here nor there - the whole point of the survey is nonsense. There might be a thousand reasons they got those results entirely unrelated to the questions asked. With no prior knowledge whatever I'd guess that they got responses from a higher proportion of men than women. What proportion of men are unwilling to put out on the first date?
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.
Cheers anyway.
