Posts by Greg J Preece
1995 posts • joined Wednesday 10th June 2009 08:25 GMT
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Hey, I never said it was good
I loathe the site and want to set fire to it. Just pointing out that you can get street names - which IMO is even worse.
Posted in Chumby internet-connected alarm clock
Gene is not wrong
When I visited other states, there seemed a much more even spread, but Florida? Man, that's chock full of fatties. And not UK-style fat people, where you eat a bit much but you can still get shirts that aren't mail-order. I mean FAT. So fat you need two seats on the bus. So fat people mistake you for furniture. One memory that always sticks with me was queueing up for a show at Disney World (shut your pie hole), and watching three generations of a family, including the kids who looked about 12, skipping the queue and coming up the disabled ramp, all in mobility scooters because they were simply too fat to walk around the park unassisted. That's when it went from amusing to shocking.
When queried by one of the other tourists (with a fantastically stereotypical German accent) as to why being fat got you to the front of the queue, a park rep responded that she "didn't want to leave them out in the sun too long." What, in case one of them turned crispy brown and was eaten by the rest of the family?
I think that might just be endemic to the tourist areas though. Every other restaurant is an all-you-can-eat, and they operate that way 24x7 - breakfast, lunch and dinner. I mean, why wouldn't you? If I lived there, rather than dropping in for two weeks, you can bet your ass that mine would be sofa-sized.
Posted in Video surfaces of alleged Apple tablet
Another vote for fake
What kind of online store is that? Made with extra zoominess, instantaneous load times and pointless motion effects? Or is that supposed to be a new, extra-swishy version of their downloadable planner that doesn't have any load times at all? I call horseshit on that one.
Plus, it's massive. How the hell would you carry that around?
Google's operating system?
"You can't install another local browser on a Chrome OS machine without, well, rewriting Google's operating system."
Grrrr....Google's operating system? You mean the copy of Debian/Ubuntu/whatever they've installed their browser on? Man, that'll take all of 20 seconds...
It turned into X3D, but anyway...
VRML wasn't hardware accelerated, and even if it had been GFX cards weren't up to scratch. It needed a plugin to work, and back then everyone was on dialup, so it took an age and a half to load.
Similar 3D plugins and effects that came in later via Flash proved much more popular. With almost everyone on broadband, much more powerful PCs, and browser makers building support straight in, I think we're in a much better position to make it work.
Not in IE though. Those morons still haven't even given us SVG support.
See, they're much nicer
Much, much nicer. And cheaper, too. And they hold more (between debit, credit, ID, security and membership cards, I've got a shitload of these things).
What I love is that the RFID industry has said "Shit, our technology has this one, tiny, small, insignificant GIANT HUGE SECURITY HOLE, but let's not fix it. Let's sell people new wallets instead."
Posted in Apple preps adaptable gadget adapter
I'm starting to see similar
My phone, BT headphones and several other devices now all charge (or trickle charge) from USB. If someone could just convince Cowon that they don't need to have stupid proprietary connectors on their otherwise excellent devices, I'd only have to carry one cable for anything, ever!
What a load of tosh
"From what we hear across the pond, crime rates (particularly rates of violent crime) in urban and semi-urban areas of Britain are achieving truly impressive levels of frequency amongst a population largely barred from any effective defense of their homes and persons against such depredations - routinely surpassing efforts of bad actors on our shores (at least those not currently elected to Congress) in daring, brutality, and frequency."
Sunshine, that is complete bollocks. Total, complete, utter, mindless bollocks. The population of both our countries may enjoy wallowing in fear and waxing hysterical about the constantly accelerating downfall of society, but any logical analysis or - God forbid, evidence - will probably lead you to far different conclusions. Might I suggest that:
a) Fox News is not a reliable source of non-sensationalism, and that making other countries sound shittier than the US is a national pasttime.
b) Some crime rates over here pale into insignificance next to your own.
I was going to launch into a much larger rant against your cascade of uninformed speculation and smug pronouncements from on high, but I've better things to do, and Ms. Bee would never have published the outcome.
Going out of business?
There's a who in the where now?
http://www.dhl.co.uk/publish/gb/en.high.html
If DHL in the UK are bust, someone might want to tell the guy who delivered me a parcel yesterday in a large yellow van.
Not so
Click in to a given crim and it gives their street name.
Apparently...
...if you're connecting just one monitor via DP you can use a passive adaptor, according to ATI's tech sheet on the matter. Should make things cheaper.
As for the heating point, I agree, and that's why I rarely buy stock ATI cards. There's always a third party out there with a superior cooling rig for not a hell of a lot more.
As far as I'm concerned
"You have the right to know about criminals living and operating in your area, and that through awareness, you can improve the safety of your family".
As far as I'm concerned, no you bloody well don't. The concept of rehabilitation has gone right out the window these days. If someone is no longer in jail, then they've served their punishment, end of, no questions, shut your face. It's a fundamental principle of our justice system, surely? I'll build my own bloody opinions of my neighbours, thanks - I don't need a bunch of Mail-reading fearmongers telling me who to be afraid of today.
As for me, my own history is thankfully squeaky clean (I was on the athletics team in high school, so a clean pair of heels was all you'd see. ;-) ).
Rise and shine, Missster Freeman
That's DOCTOR Freeman to you, sonny jim.
Let's test this
Get some, go to Durham, get arrested, have infinite amounts of fun making them look as big a bunch of idiots as possible. I'm sure El Reg would be only too glad to help out with the publicity on that case.
I'm free this weekend. ;-)
It's simple
I could easily have had as many monitors as I wanted, but at the time I built the machine I wanted tri-screen gaming, which needs (or needed) Windows to recognise all three monitors as if they were one. And if you want to run SLI, you can only output from one card. So I hooked two SLI'd GTX cards into a Triplehead2Go, which meant the three screens identified to Windows as one huge 3840x1024 monitor. Job done. Played Half Life 2 at 3840x1024. Was very much fun.
Though I would like to add
Having peripheral vision in games isn't always an advantage.... Think F.E.A.R., in surround sound, at 2am...
Pricey, but for me there is an advantage
Ever since I built this machine back years ago when it was running two nVidia 7900GTXs (and heating my room at the same time) I've had a Matrox Triplehead2Go monitor splitter to give me three-screen gaming (and loads of screen space for programming IDEs). Not every game ran well with it - in fact, while a lot of games list the resolution as available in the options screen, actually selecting it completely knackers the perspective and makes the game unplayable. Escape From Butcher Bay is a good example.
With Eyefinity, I could dump my extortionately-priced and annoyingly analogue first-generation external splitter box on eBay, buy a couple of adaptors for my existing monitors, and use the money to soup the machine up even further. Say, with a huge, expensive, completely over the top graphics card? Hell yeah...
Definitely something I'll be looking into. So long as it doesn't require the same number of wires and fecking about as my existing setup - and considering this thing already has 3 output connectors without any external boxes at all, that's quite likely - I would be very interested.
Posted in 2009's Top Personal Media Players
Cowon S9?
I seem to remember you calling it the "first real iPod touch killer"...
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/24/review_pmp_cowon_s9/
Best audio quality going, hands down, and a higher review score than the runners up. What gives?
Well, multitouch for one
I know there are certain features being enabled over here that aren't present in the American software, despite the device being essentially the same. If that's the case, then the installed ROM must be different.
Was excited about this
Until I read some of the reviews coming out of the US. :-( Apparently the software is going to be quite different over here, so hopefully that will improve things. I've been really hankering for an Android phone, but at the minute the sheer beef of the N900 is calling to me.
Posted in Nokia N900 Linux smartphone
So what you're saying...
...is that it's shit because it's too thick?
As O'Briain would say, get in the sack! So long as it does what I want it to do, and it's smaller than my current HTC Athena, I couldn't give two flying monkey faeces whether or not it's slim and sexy.
Besides, a lot of top end devices are apparently that expensive on PAYG these days. No-one except iPhone users are stupid enough to pay the quoted price, though.
Posted in The return of the Psion-sized PC
Interface problems
That interface with those controls? That's going to be a disaster and you know it.
Posted in Fanboi site squeaks on crocked iMacs
Oh dear....
Fishing for fanbois is *really* easy.
Oh, and 280 dead Macs out of a specific model is a bit more significant than 280 products out of everything they sell, which was never the claim. Muppet.
Even here?
What, even this renowned red-topped institution? Say it isn't so, El Reg!
Different Departments?
I doubt Ubisoft's game programmers and web admins are the same people...
Posted in BOFH: Made of win
Like it!
Love the line about the wheel. I shall have to steal it and use it in situations that do not involve anyone named Travaglia.
Daft thing to say
Last time I checked, your average IT worker wasn't employed to be socially responsible, or to uphold a certain set of moral standards as an example to the public, and didn't have the power to affect/arrest those around him on the street for no apparent reason...
Posted in Freesat to get BBC iPlayer on 7 December
Awesome, now fix the box
Network settings are still majorly b0rked on my Foxsat HD (very common box) and I can't find an upgrade for the firmware to fix it. So that'll be useful then.
Hope they sort themselves out
Adaptec have always made excellent kit in my experience (the RAID adaptors in my servers being just one example). Hope the company sorts itself outl Would hate to see them go down the pan.
Posted in iPhone worm hjacks ING customers
Re: Anti-worm
Hey, that actually sounds like a bloody good idea. I'll get right on it. ;-)
@criscros
"The hardware support is limited, but the reasons for that should be clear: it's a Linux OS and can't install extra drivers."
Woah woah woah, hang on a minute.....what?
Posted in Freeview HD - your questions answered
@Paulo - Freesat
I've had Freesat for a year. It has one major advantage and one major disadvantage. The advantage is that satellite transmissions have gobs and gobs of bandwidth available, and DVB-S2, so they don't need to multilate the picture as much. Even on my currently still-SD TV (saving up for one of those Samsung LED jobbies, oh yes), the picture is impeccable, with no visible compression artefacts at all on most channels. Friends who come round are always astonished by how clear the signal is compared to their own Freeview boxes, and nipping round to my neighbours for a gander at his HD-ready setup shows that HD channels look equally excellent.
The disadvantage is that you don't get the same channel range, and a large chunk of the EPG is comprised of Sky cast-offs. For example, I have no Dave, or Sky Three - those are only available with subscription.
When expectations are low, improvement is easy
"IE 9's score already beats IE 8 on Acid3"
Well that's hardly difficult. IE8 on Win7 here barely struggles to 20/100.
Come on, Microsoft, just give us SVG. Please? Pretty please? We've been wanting to use that since IE 4, for Christ's sake.
I already have a more advanced system
No, seriously, check this out:
Step 1: Install Ubuntu
Step 2: Install Chrome
Step 3: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
Posted in Windows Phones get to play Opera too
Oooh, new beta
The old one is pretty nice on my WM phone, think that's 9.7 beta. Have they decided not to finish that version and gone straight to 10?
Going to download it now. Want to see if they've got rid of the annoying slowdown bug in the Google search bar. If they have, that will be mint - Opera 8 blew goats, Opera 9 was a massive improvement with a couple of bugs, hopefully Opera 10 will be what I've been waiting for.
Posted in Kingston SSD Now V 40GB boot drive
Brilliant for SMB business machines
I would wager that not a single one of our work laptops (bar mine) comes close to having 40GB of kit on it. These would be a great replacement to crappy old 5400rpm HDDs at not a massive cost. If any laptops suffer a HDD failure now I will be recommending one of these as a replacement.
Posted in Kingston SSD Now V 40GB boot drive
Missed a bit
I meant to finish that last comment with "especially as half of them are running Vista for some reason."
Posted in Swedish cyborg gets haptic hand
That's absolutely brilliant
Nothing more needs saying really. Great achievement.
@Mactard
"This is NOT an iphone worm and it's incorrect and inflammatory to claim that. It's a work targeting the jailbreaks, nothing more"
Oooh, a touchy Mactard there.
It's a program that targets the jailbreaks on which phone?
Posted in Is this the world's dirtiest PC?
I feel very nerdy right now
I recognised that was a Dell without even seeing the monitor in the background, by the "lift here" arrows and the PSU cage.
I think I need a holiday...
Posted in Dell details 'world's thinnest' laptop
Who gives a shit?
I really like the hinge design, to give a raised keyboard. That's a neat idea. But can you name one person (who isn't an overly wealthy twunt concerned only with being flashy) who actually gives two shits about ultra-thins?
Oooh, my laptop is so slinky! Pity I paid so much for something that ultimately can't do any more than an Eee.
Though I am amused to see this not only being thinner than the Air, but much, much cheaper.
Posted in Motorola Android 2.0 phone Europe-bound
Better photo
Full spec here, and a pic with the keyboard tray closed - looks alright like that, actually:
http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/XW-EN/Consumer-Products-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/ci.Motorola-MILESTONE-XW.alt
Posted in Motorola Android 2.0 phone Europe-bound
Sorry, but I like it
Function over design, TYVM. It's got Android 2, all the kit I need and a full fat hardware keyboard. I buy devices so that I can get stuff done, not so I can flash them at people (my current phone is an Ameo, after all - the ugliest thing ever created by human hands).
Posted in Mozilla plots Firefox interface overhaul
Oh noes, my browser is ugly
Give me a break. When was the last time your browser's appearance had any impact on:
a) Your browsing experience?
b) Whether or not you used said browser?
c) Anything, on any planet, ever?
I like having menus available, not hunting for them. At the top of my screen I have the menu, then the address bar, then the link bar, and then my tabs. Total screen usage? Not a lot, actually...
Sure, it's ugly as sin. Pity it works.
And for those people claiming this is a rip off of IE, well, you're right. But let's be honest here, IE7 was a complete and utter Firefox rip off. It's six and two threes.
@Rob - I also have a Foxsat
Hopefully I will be able to use it. Unfortunately the networking config panel on the Foxsat is so broken that it is incapable of remembering any static settings, and once you put static settings up the dynamic ones don't work either. Bloody thing.
Already patched?
I fully expected the issue to be patched by the time I finished reading the article, but it turns out it was patched before I even read the headline.
You'll forgive me if I don't panic.
Posted in Skype for Linux set for open source
@Richard Padley
Skype for Linux is still stuck on 2.1 beta. They just stopped doing any serious development on it a while back. On the upside, it means you get the old-fashioned barebones Skype without any of that stupid new fullscreen interface malarkey and 200000 alerts per second.
Posted in Agincourt: The sensational truth
Beautiful!
Thanks El Reg, that cheered me up on an otherwise completely shitty Monday. However:
"Thousands of them."
Surely you mean "Faaaasands of 'em" ?
Posted in World Wii sales slump by 43%
Well duh
I seem to remember getting jumped on around here for calling the Wii a fad a while back. Oh dear.
"We were unable to continue to release strong software."
Translation:
"We just realised that 95% of the games released for the Wii are total shite."
The Wii was a nice piece of kit that managed to become the Christmas toy fad in the year of its release, but as a console it blows because the games on it are sooooo bad. Almost everything I see advertised for the Wii is either yet another Mario rehash, or another collection of mini-games no-one cares about. I know quite a few people who bought a Wii during the fad, and after 5 minutes playing Wii Sports they got bored, and it's sat there ever since, gathering dust.
Ironically enough, I'm in the market for one, now that every light gun game maker in existence is porting to the Wii because of the instant hardware support. Pity the accessories for the Wii also suck donkey balls. Everything's just a moulded piece of plastic you shove the Wiimote into. No chance of a decent gun to play with (though Sony are guilty of this this time around, too).
The DSi is a pile of shite too. No-one is going to buy a console just so they can take pictures of people and mess with them. No-one is going to upgrade their normal DS for those functions, so what's the point? And if you're going to advertise these things to little kids, remember how long little kids' attention spans last...
