* Posts by the_leander

16 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Sep 2008

Huawei Ascend P7: We review the PANORAMIC SELFIE smartphone

the_leander

Temperatures during use..

Just curious, one of the consistent complaints about the P6 from users was that it got ferociously hot even when only dealing with medium loads such as simpler games.

Has this been rectified in the P7?

Micron streaks away with PCIe flash

the_leander
Boffin

RE: Can you tell me..

Looking at OCZ's website their consumer stuff seems to top out at around 750Mb/s read and their top end enterprise kit at 1.4Gb/s. So yeah, this thing is quite a bit faster.

Mind you, I imagine that there is a serious price premium on these things.

Group slams airport naked body scanners

the_leander

@ Nathan 13

False Dichotomy much?

The one and only measure that has been introduced that would have stopped a 9/11 hijacking was the introduction of locks on the cockpit door.

I'll say that again, of the hundreds of millions of dollars blown on security theatre like these damn machines, the only thing that has any real-life proof of being able to stop a plane being hiyjacked is a $100 door lock.

There are explosives sniffers, and metal detectors, between the two would catch anything that this thing could, as well the latter picking up anything*inside* the body. Neither of which come with the civil liberties implications this does.

Honestly I'd phone up the Israelis and have them take over security in western airports. There is a damn good reason why they have never had problems like this - they actually went to the trouble of investing in effective security.

Asus Eee PC 1215N 12in netbook

the_leander

Not a netbook

Sub notebook perhaps, but not a netbook by any definition I know of. No more than the Samsung NC20 was.

It'll be interesting to see if this is usable under Linux though.

Wikileaks founder blasts reopening of rape probe

the_leander
Big Brother

Kompromat

Only real surprise is that it took this long for the smears to start tbh.

Sony granted PS3 modchip dongle ban Down Under

the_leander
Thumb Up

Needs more bad press!

David Webb, of Sony PR wrote thusly:

" I hope Sony ships code with all future games that detects if the device is a dev console, if it isn't and is in dev mode, brick said console."

Because what Sony really need, after having bolloxed up peoples PCs with their drm, left people needing to purchase new DVD players to get around their spec breaking drm and before that CD players for much the same is, after all that, to fuck up peoples games consoles for using 3rd party mod they don't like.

Smooth!

AMD: OEMs primed for Opteron 6100s

the_leander

RE SuperMicro

They might be intel only now, but once upon a time they did a sterling trade in multi socket AMD boards, indeed they were one of the only places you could get a dual socket AthlonMP (the multi processor variant of the AlthonXP) board from as a consumer. Likewise they used to do a number of Opteron boards too.

It's a shame that now, finally AMD seem to be getting their act together, there is no one left to buy their gear...

Database state breached 11 times

the_leander
Coat

RE: Slabman

"So FaceBook will have access to verify the ID card."

I wouldn't be at all surprised that commercial companies do eventually end up getting access of some sort to the database. Lets face it, this is the party that brought you PFI.

They just don't get it, I'm not sure if it is a generational thing or if the sorts of people in parliament really are this retarded when it comes to computers, but this sort of blatant stupidity is dangerous when married up to real power.

Muswell Hillbillies force BT to move broadband boxes

the_leander
Grenade

Yank the Cabinets

And supply them with a internet service more in keeping with the old fashioned buildings.

Let them suck dialup.

Nvidia halts future Intel chipset development

the_leander
Thumb Down

@Brett Brennan

Nvidia will still be doing their graphics cards, they just won't be producing motherboard chipsets.

It's a shame tbh, I rather liked Nvidia and their loss will I believe hurt the market (and so us) in the long term.

I really, really wish that they had gone in with VIA... Their Nano CPUs are wonderful little performers.

Vodafone Music drops the protection

the_leander
Thumb Down

Oh Noes, not MP3!

"The transition also involves moving to MP3 file format, which is a shame as there are plenty of alternative codecs that offer higher quality with greater compression, but in the mind of the public, MP3 is associated with compatibility and lack of restrictions. So we're stuck with it."

Yes, because the vast, vast, vast majority of mobile phones are capable of playing OGG and AAC... Oh wait...

Kudos to Vodaphone for making the move.

Asus' sexed-up Eee PC 1000-series netbook spied on web

the_leander

RE: SCC

They're called the Acer Aspire A1 and the original EeePC 701.

Both come in at under £200.

Tbh I think Asus as missing a trick with the 901's... They must be being hammered by the AA1's, same goes for the 701's too.

1980s Apricot reborn in noughties as netbook seller

the_leander
Thumb Up

RE:It all looked wonderful...

The VIA C7, whilst no core duo killer is a perfectly serviceable piece of silicon that is as fast, if not faster then the current Intel Atom (see the recent show down on Ars Technica). The graphics chip might not be so hot, but it's on a tiny screen so you're not going to be running photoshop on it to any reasonable extent.

On the plus side, VIA's vinyl sound chips are the best intergrated sound chips currently on the market, a damn sight better then anything Intel have produced, ever.

One thing that does surprise me though is the price, I was of the understanding that the C7, paired up with the latest edition of their chipset was significantly less expensive then an Atom set.

Asus adds HDD to Atom-based old-style Eee

the_leander
Boffin

Linux on the netbook

The problem that Asus and, to a lesser degree the other manufacturers have is that they have picked lemons for their distributions. Try as I might, installing software onto the Xandros based 701 is a pain of epic proportions. I've used linux for a number of years and settled on Elive. In comparison Elive and Ubuntu are a breeze to install new software onto, well supported and with their own communities.

Xandros, at least in the form supplied by Asus is a mut, and a badly put together one at that, I've not had this many issues with a distro since a Morphos liveCD of late 2000 vintage. There are no updates, no reliable way of installing new software (some works, a lot doesn't). It's an absolute mockery of a distribution.

And it wouldn't be so bad if what came out of the box could be considered up to date, it's not just old, it's decrepit.

If linux is to drive the netbook market, Manufacturers need to look into getting the communities on board working with them hand in hand, rather then shipping some middle of the road mut of their own design without the resource or experience to maintain a distribution.

Otherwise, look forward to more windows only netbooks and net-tops.

'I can see dinosaurs from my back porch'

the_leander

@Seán

"Religion may be the opium of the masses but Creationism is the crack of the subnormal."

ROTFL, mind if I use that as an email sig?

the_leander
Paris Hilton

@steven W. Scott

"Like most religious zealots, you make your case with the assumption that all you claim is indeed proven. Is it still not the "Theory of Evolution"? Certainly there are precepts of Darwin's theory that have validity, and others that do not, or have not yet been verified scientifically."

And like most religious zealots, you ignore anything that disproves your arguement, including it would seem, what a scientific theory is.

Any time evidence against a scientific theory is found, the theory has to either be completely re written or updated to include the new information depending on how out the original theory is, our understanding of gravity and time have both recently had such an upheaval as a result of firing satalites into space.

If you ever read Darwin's Origin of Species, take special note on his ideas on how traits were passed on from parent to offspring were discussed, you would realise that even Evolution has had to be re-edited on the mechanics (he thought the transmission medium was blood) as we have since found out about what RNA and DNA are.

"it's the concept that a particular species, confronted with a particular challenge, suddenly begins some quasi-conscious self modification to meet that challenge (grow legs, wings, etc..), as if a dog breeder can eventually "evolve" a long-necked dog by placing it's and it's progeny's food bowl at an unnaturally high position relative to the dog. Absurd."

Strawman. Also, evolution does not work that way.

BTW, on dog breeders: The first "dogs" were wolves and foxes, we bred the ones that helped us, killed the ones that hurt us and ended up with breeds of dogs as we have today. If you read up on evolution, it would tell you that those animals best suited to a given pressure are those most likely to survive, in this case, mankind was the pressure and the dogs best suited to survival were the ones willing to work with us then attack us. Later we bred them for different tasks and eventually just for their looks, Evolution in action.

"That, combined with a complete dismissal of any other possible explanation for diversity in species, including that of creationism, is where your religion of science begins. Science questions everything, including it's own probable conclusions."

There has been no such dismissal. Whenever creationists have put forward ideas that "prove" evolution to be vitally flawed, such as the eye argument, or more recently irreducable complexity, the information has been examined, and in both cases shown to be factually incorrect. As such, Evolution is the only theory that is left standing.

If you want the best explanation of why creationism is rubbish, I suggest you look up the kitzmiller case from a few years back, the findings for that case put plainly why creationism is a pile of cack in terms of scientific theory (in as much as it isn't one) and that it's top proponants are liars (they were forced to admit that their case was based on information that had been shown to be innacurate a long time ago).

I must admit, it was one of the best reads I'd had in years!

Paris, because she knows all about reproductive traits.