Die Hard - Take the Fifth
"Please. Take it. We don't want it."
Posts by bluesxman
459 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2007
Coming soon: Die Hard 5 - The Zimmer Frame
Channel Five reborn as Channel Five
iPad TWO: What, already?
Wednesday 9th February 2011 15:10 GMT
Coming April 2012
iShave
Only Apple sanctioned facial and under-arm hair styles will be supported*. Weird-Beards and Continental women need not apply
Jailbroken iShaves, used for the purposes Brazilians for example, will be frowned upon.
New blades cost the Earth can can only be installed at official service centres.
*Leg shaving functionality will be added in a firmware update.
Angry Birds ruffles feathers for Valentine's Day
Ofcom okays Derren Brown psychic-baiting
Stroppy Belgian students in Ryanair mutiny
Chinese 'repurpose' Top Gun footage
Toshiba intros laptop that CHANGES COLOUR
Duke Nukem Forever release date revealed
Nintendo details 3DS roll-out
Microsoft disputes Apple's 'App Store' trademark
Thursday 13th January 2011 09:43 GMT
RE: Agree and disagree
I see your point, but it's fundamentally flawed.
"Hoover" has entered the common parlance as a generic term since becoming a trademark -- a trademark based on something that was not a "word" before, but a name.
"App Store" has already entered the common parlance prior to the granting of a trademark, coupled with the fact that it is composed of two words already in common usage (I concede that "app" was more common in the IT arena, but store is ubiquitous).
Common sense dictates that it's too late.
To follow your analogy, it would be similarly too late for Hoover to turn around and trademark "vacuum cleaner" (not that they even invented it, but I digress).
That said, I could only speculate as to often common sense informs USPTO decisions.
Yorks cops bust Bradford guinea pig farm
Wednesday 12th January 2011 12:38 GMT
RE: Why take her out of work?
You'd prefer that they kicked the door in? Sounds oddly considerate. Perhaps they thought they'd been given a bum steer and exercised uncharacteristic caution. Or they failed to get a warrant, in which case she could have told them to "go forth and procreate" anyway.
Windows 7 Phone glitch spews phantom data
Mum arrested for seducing teen on Xbox Live
Kingston prototype relieves iPad storage limits
Doctor Who to marry Doctor Who's daughter
Hackers get to work with Apple's AirPlay
Ten... sub-£150 PMPs
Wednesday 15th December 2010 13:48 GMT 
Now hold on just a minute...
That's rather an unfair slating of the Cowon iAudio 9, and in some instances inconsistent with the "reviews" of some of the other devices.
I realise some of this is subjective opinion, but...
> The casing is extremely lightweight
Being light means it doesn't disconnect from my earphone lead under the force of gravity. Whilst it's not the usual mode of operation, this is a /good/ thing.
> The diagonal-scrolling menu system is illogical.
The diagonal orientation gives a longer swipe than up/down or left/right would. The direction you swipe on the front panel is the same direction the cursor moves. Illogical how exactly? Compared with running your thumb around a donut to move up and down?
> EQ settings bring a needed oomph to the audio, which is mild without the bass boost
Do you want it to apply an artificial bass boost as default, with more EQ on top or play the audio as the artist intended and offer myriad EQ options you can use or not as per your whim?
> [audio is] average at best
Absolutely not the case. Tried some decent earphones?
> This becomes irrelevant when you use the built-in speaker, which rivals the irritating noise of a hungry mosquito.
What were you expecting? At least it has a speaker, unlike most (all?) of the rest. Useful for playback of voice recorded directly onto the device. Oh, didn't you mention that?
> Limited file support
Audio support WMA, MP3, Flac, Ogg, Ape, Wav
Video support Xvid, WMV
Limited to every popular codec except Apple's DRM nonsense. Is that what you were trying to say? Needless to say this device isn't aimed at iTunes users.
> video remains a predictably poor option on its 2in screen
Not an option at all on the Nano you reviewed, you even griped a little about it's lack of inclusion. Doesn't seem like you're happy either way.
> To top it off there’s no memory card expansion
A feature present in very few devices (when buying recently, I looked ... hard) so hardly a fair "down mark" for any of them.
> It’s poor value for money really
£100 delivered for a 16GB on a popular specialist site. Oh wait a second, it's the same one you've linked to in the article.
> for that price I’d expect something with a more robust feel.
Doesn't feel remotely tatty to me. Are you basing this solely on weight? Just tape a pound coin to the back. Bling.
Oh and as you also failed to mention it, the battery life is great. Not timed it end-to-end, but I managed a 8 hour journey on <25%.
And a built in FM radio. Which you can record from.
And a picture viewer.
And Flash support (though I've not tried it).
And a text file reader.
And it mounts as a mass storage device.
Did you actually use the thing for more than 5 minutes before launching into this invective?
Men may be able to grow a new pancreas from their testicles
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Thursday 9th December 2010 14:12 GMT
RE: Get real.
Different yardsticks? Two entirely different games, two different reviewers.
Reviews compiled by a single person are subjective by their very nature. For an agregated perspective you could check Metacritic. Where DKCR is rated 87% vs 84% for GT5, seems there's somewhat of a consensus on which is the better game.
The wonderful thing about opinions is that everyone it entitled to their own.
"Bang, there goes your credibility." ... posted as AC? As such, your credibility hasn't gone -- it was never there to begin with.
'Spacetime cloak' could act as 'Star Trek transporter'
Man cracks open floppy disk, inserts USB Flash drive
Reg Hardware Reader Awards 2010
Reg Hardware Reader Awards 2010
O2 offers Xboxes instead of phone upgrades
Thursday 11th November 2010 09:49 GMT
misunderstanding?
So on the one hand you are asking £190 for a package worth in the region of £350 and yet still charging the same monthly rate they'd probably be paying if they got an upgraded phone instead, and they will presumably be paying this monthly rate for at least a year. Or you're asking a wince inducing £390 for that same package, but oh so generously offered with no commitment.
In what way do you think either of these is even close to a good deal?
Hacker unshackles Kinect from Xbox
Three is voted the best UK network
Friday 29th October 2010 14:24 GMT
double-edged sword
As intimated by quite a few people, Three usually have (on paper) really cheap, good tariffs and decent(ish) coverage -- though I'm convinced their custom firmware is programmed to prefer the weakest 3g signal over the strongest 2g signal from their partner network.
Everything's generally fine unless you have a problem that causes customer services to deviate from their script. Actually getting the service that the Sale of Goods act requires is an ordeal and a half.
Long story short, if you're having trouble with Customer Services, request a call via email and when someone rings, advise them that you're in the middle of writing a formal letter of complaint and "would you like your name to be on it?"
Worked for me (and I wasn't even lying about the letter).
Boffins mount campaign against France's official kilogramme
TomTom adds Star Wars voices to iPhone app
YouTube clasps naked dancer to bosom
Lone Android dev 'almost brought down T-Mobile'
Paris Hilton flashes her Brazilian...
Bloggers swallow iPhone 4 screen weakness claim
Google shuts down GOOG-411 voice data honeypot
Distressed cock whipped out of wheelie bin
Thursday 7th October 2010 18:35 GMT
Title as per icon
"if it's without water for 24 hours, it will die within a week" ... Do they mean that if it's waterless for 24 hours it's irrevocably damaged and will die regardless of any re-hydration attempts? Sounds a little weird.
Also, if the Telegraph was so worried about copycats, perhaps they should not have reported on it and thus wouldn't have put the idea into the heads of miscreants who are so inclined to do such things? Just a thought.
Sadly animal cruelty is goes on all the time, without it making the papers; what's so special about this case?
Man enraged by sagging pants pops cap in teen's ass
Little Chef in 'I ♥ Charlie' t-shirt outrage
Wednesday 6th October 2010 13:35 GMT
You might be onto something...
The "c" is lower case, implying it's not a proper noun, just a noun. I can't think of too many things "charlie" (vs "Charlie") might be referring to. Actually I'm struggling to get beyond a count of one.
Might buy one for the comedy factor ... £9 including delivered seems a bit steep. Then again, it's less than going 4 ways on a gram, I suppose.
Youth jailed for not handing over encryption password
Wednesday 6th October 2010 11:22 GMT
RE: what happened
I am not a lawyer, and thankfully I've never fallen fowl of the law, but the right to silence has been somewhat subjective in the UK for many years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_and_Wales#Facts_later_relied_upon
When arrested, persons are told "you have the right to remain silent [...] it may harm your defense if you fail to mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court" or words to that effect.
Basically this means that negative inferences can be made on the refusal to provide information. In this instance, refusing to give up the password implies there's something he doesn't want people to see within that file.
As previously pointed out, 16 months in jail and a record for what amounts to failure to cooperate with the police versus them finding the suspected images and the baggage that that brings (assuming, of course, that it contains what they think it contains) probably seemed like a good trade-off.
At least they don't have free reign to convict people of the suspected crime rather than the side-effect crime. Yet.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
