Posts by Annihilator
2496 posts • joined Wednesday 10th June 2009 12:27 GMT
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re: Amazing
The flaw in the sampling/anecdotal evidence is that groups of friends are likely to buy what their friends have based on either experience of similar gaming interests. By contrast, the majority of my friends own PS3s like me (one even traded his XBox 360 in to join us).
It's no real surprise. We're all consciously or unconsciously basing our decisions on peer pressure to some extent.
Posted in HP taps Google's print server in the sky
You say that
But check the HP press release dated 31/3/2011... :-| I'm genuinely uncertain
Posted in Deleting 'innocent' DNA will cost £5m
Easy..
With a very very expensive, complicated and messy front-end connecting to this massively proprietary database that is keeping some third party (for want of argument, lets guess Accenture or IBM) in meal tickets for the foreseeable future! No doubt the sheer complexity of the storage was also sold as a security/encryption feature too.
Isn't that how all government databases work?
The same mistake time and again
"What I fail to understand is how one failure caused a complete loss of service for some customers"
For *some* customers. i.e. the entire network didn't fail, like a good network is designed to do. That's not an indication of a single point of failure.
The same thing comes up time and time again whenever there is any sort of outage - there are levels of resilience. The rest of BTs network carried on as normal, the Internet carried on as normal. If you want a five or six 9's level of service, you need to be paying more than £9.99 a month for it.
And software
You would think iTunes (and every other music manager) and its "Import CD" function is equally invalid in this country then. Presumably the trick is not to advertise it as such.
After death
It's 50 years *after death*. But in Australia, it's 70 years. Marion Sinclair died in 1988.
Agree entirely
I also chortle at the contradiction that he encourages taking more risks, but blames things going wrong on closed-source software.
From the studies I've seen, NASA have one of the best software and hardware engineering methodologies in the world. The mistakes that they make genuinely are few and far between and often occur when a human overlord ignores the rules.
Most OSS, while still very good, will be nowhere near the standard required when it comes to NASAs requirements. OSS has the ability to make iterative progressions towards perfection (and is a core part of the methodology) which flies in the face of what NASA needs.
In Apple's defence..
It's entirely down to Orange. Though you could no doubt argue that Apple shouldn't even let them be lockdownable (I like making up words). Orange are and always have been the worst when it comes to locking phones. Not sure if they insist on only Orange-specific phones working on their network? They certainly used to..
Cos it don't exist
Even Wikipedia is dubious that it ever existed as a concept.
As far as I can see, the 6 films were effectively about Anakin/Vader. That story ends when he dies :-)
Posted in Human heart could power an iPod
"Free" energy
Erm, everyone surely knows though that there's no such thing as free energy, it's coming from somewhere. In this case, taking energy away from pumping blood around your body and making your heart work harder even when at rest. I question the health of such a device..
Almost
You mean "due to *appear* to float in front of cinema screens, but actually hit"
They nearly are!
http://www.starwars.com/themovies/saga/preorder_bluray/index.html
You missed the announcement then. September 16th. Fortunately you get the option to only buy the original trilogy.
@Equitas
"volcanic plugs excepted"
Straying way off the point here, but I think this is what was meant. "Old" Edinburgh is pretty much built entirely on igneous (castle) rock. And there's that looming big thing called Arthur's Seat just off to the side.
re: Point proven perfectly
"just cause they wrap your chips in it doesn't mean it's credible"
I love you :-)
Windmill tilting
It's unfortunate that only a few people/outlets have been tilting at this particular windmill regarding the death and destruction caused by the nuclear plant(s) instead of focusing more on the more important story of the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.
It's been mentioned on another story, the book "Flat Earth News" by Nick Davies investigates why news journalism has changed, and pretty much brings it down to following political allegiances, reducing staff and increasing their filing targets (churnalism as he refers to it as) and avoiding lawsuits - nowadays every article has to be "balanced" meaning that each article has to give equal weight to both sides of the stories. This means that even the looniest of angles is given equal stature to the sane.
Ironically, I happened to read a Mail On Sunday "rant page" (no other description) by Peter Hitchen. He agreed with the shocking coverage of the nuclear angle, saying it wasn't anywhere near what the mainstream (and his paper) were saying. He then failed massively by suggesting that all 50 key workers at Fukushima would certainly die as a result. But then he also had an article above it saying that we should step out of Libya, let them kick the shit out of each other and make friends with the winner. Ho hum.
Posted in Intel gets spanking new SSD
I'd say the opposite
My storage contents don't tend to change much. Most files are created and then stay there - for example, MP3s, videos etc.
The OS disk on the other hand, well settings change, Windows hammers swap files etc..
Guess it depends on usage though.
Posted in iPad 2 3G price-plans compared
And MiFi?
How about doing a comparison of buying a pristine non-3G iPad outright and pairing it with a cheap MiFi type device? Or using any Android device that turns your phone into a hotspot?
Either way, I figured a couple of years ago that when it comes to Apple, it's best not telling the phone companies you're using an Apple device, as the costs generally go up. iPhone 4 + cheap SIM-only tariff works out a lot cheaper - I can only imagine the iPad works out similarly.
Posted in Steve Jobs screws my wife (out of $944)
Cash'n'Carrion?
el Reg used to sell stuff like this at the Cash'n'Carrion, but all links redirect back to theregister.co.uk - so think it disappeared..
Well it should be..
hidden option (e) - tell the network operators to stop dicking around trying to provide a "custom" (by which they mean "hamstrung") firmware for what they believe are their phones. It's the customers, let them come with the default firmware if they choose.
Christ I thought we were past all this crap and that Apple had actually done something right in the phone industry with the iPhone's inability to be network customised...
Posted in Scarface blows onto Blu-ray
Hmm
Did you perhaps watch the 1932 original by mistake?
Though I accept your view on GF pt2.
Shirley you mean
We need a skiiiiiiip innnnnn spaaaaaaaaaaaccce?
They did
They squeezed a second mission out of it as stated in the article. This will be it's 3rd (ish) mission, which is more useful to NASA than having it "parked" in a non-useful orbit (which requires power to keep it in place). When you consider the trajectories it needed in order to do this, it's mighty impressive already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stardust_-_mission_trajectory.png
Aww
Damn my human ability to infer feelings onto inanimate objects. I actually "awww"-ed a little bit when reading that story. Poor Stardust :-( Can just see it singing it's last few minutes away.
Daisy, Daisy, giiiivvvvveee meeeee youuuuurrrrr aaaaanssssswwerrrrrrr ddoooo...
Inhale any gas
Erm, yes xenon is a "well-known asphyxiant". As is 79% of our atmosphere. Amazingly we survive.
But don't stop yelling, cos that would mean you lost the fight...
How dare you!
How dare you present the facts in a calm and deliberate manner - don't you realise there are scare stories to peddle, newspapers to sell and hard disks of forum postings to fill??
I demand a snappy headline that indicates that the world is about to end. Preferably one that uses minimal syllables and misspells the word "nook-yoo-luh-r"
@AC re: No idea of economics?
"given that he is chancellor of the exchequer, a post that *requires* a certain knowledge of economics, and you are, er, not"
A quick google would tell you that George (Gideon) got a 2:1 in Modern History. The only knowledge he has of economics is that his Daddy is f***ing minted.
However, your ignorance aside, the point still stands - the oil companies will pass the tax directly onto the UK garages and then the customer. All he's done is put the price of petrol up on the forecourt and made it look like someone else's fault.
Posted in UK iPad 2 to cost under £400
Olympic pools
Rounding up to the nearest olympic swimming pool, it will be 1 I suspect. Especially given that the 1st gen has sold roughly 3.4 OSP iPads in total (assuming they are out of the box)
Very annoyed
Read the email this morning and summed it up as "it's a third party, so not our fault, we're brilliant"
Third party or not, Play retain all responsibility and accountability, and to try and deflect it in the apology is a very poor course of action indeed. Thank God I use a disposable email account for all the companies I use.
Posted in Porsche punts e-car pre-orders
@Dibbley
Easy - you either have two linked flywheels to counteract the angular momentum, or you mount it on gimbals. On the other hand (as you almost hinted at) you can use it to your advantage and actually help keep the car balanced.
Posted in UK iPad 2 to cost under £400
Always was
"Getting the iPad 2 out at below the £400 mark - if only by a pound - is a psychological barrier overcome. It'll be harder for potential punters to argue the gadget is too expensive, and it'll turn many folk who thought £429 too much from passers-by into purchasers."
Not really, IIRC the original entry level iPad was only £399 as well - it was the VAT increase that pushed it up to £429. Folk still complained it was too expensive.
Yes, in terms of the "exc VAT" price, it's lower, but for most people it's the same price as it previously was. Having said that, it'll probably work for me as I'm looking for a new laptop for in front of the telly...
Posted in Porsche punts e-car pre-orders
Does it have to be a sock drawer
Yes, as most potential owners of this car will also own a large collection of socks to roll up and place inside their trousers...
Eh??
It's hardly a prison-worthy offence. If wishing made it so though, for every email informing me of a health scare or "potatoes give you cancer" story that a family member has felt the need to forward on to me...
Posted in Porsche punts e-car pre-orders
Yes
The 918 RSR. It does have a whopping big KERS system though, I think in the form of a flywheel.
Posted in Sapphire Edge HD
re: *any* OS
"and FreeDos is a what? Go on say it with me: Free Disk Operating System"
Feel free to try and patronise all you like. But FreeDos is hardly what you could call a "fully functional" OS. If you think it is, I've got a C64 sitting in the loft that you might be interested in.
Posted in Sapphire Edge HD
@AC
"Not screwing the customer with windows tax is exactly what some of us want"
The suggestion wasn't for Windows to be pre-installed, rather *any* OS was installed. In fact I think the hint was to have a Linux install - especially as this way they might have caught the no-audio-over-HDMI-with-Linux problem and gone some way to help address it.
There's a word for it
"Extortion" I believe.
I also can't stand the quote of "made £300,000 from people who did pay the fines". They're not fines in the legal sense, they're out of court settlements and a promise not to pursue it further. It may sound like a pernickity detail, but a fine gives the impression of a legal punishment, when it's nothing of the sort.
Operating a loss
Maybe they should have actually taken people to court in order to make a profit if they were so confident...
Or maybe they should have thought it through before paying out a pile of money to get a list of "infringers" without knowing if they could see that investment return.
It's not just that he's immoral (not unheard of for a shyster), but fairly inept as a businessman. My heart bleeds.
Posted in Green Parrot to cure YouTube shakes
... on 24
"There's been steadicam plugins for After Effects etc for donkeys years"
Yup, and for the free/opensource world, I've been using the VirtualDub plugin for years, well, since at least 2005 according to the metadata on my copy. Just Google deshaker.vdf and drop it in the plugin folder.
Had the same output as you though - namely that it's a neat trick, but no substitute for hard or soft steadicam techniques built into cameras.
And still no mention
Of how much the IWF interferes with normal and "legal" browsing (loose phrase - the IWF aren't capable of making legal judgements on material).
One file on hotfile.com et al, means that every request for hotfile will be routed via the relevant ISPs proxies, meaning the entire traffic from that ISPs customers will appear as one IP address, instantly triggering the abuse blocking mechanism of hotfile. Think back to the Wikipedia/Scorpions album, and repeat once a month for at least one file hosting site.
Please stop reporting the IWF's successes without mentioning the epic hamstring they provide to "legal" users.
Posted in London's Olympic clock claps out
Sort of
Reports coming in that you need a credit card that doesn't expire until at least August, so you're screwed if you have a credit card that expires in the next 6 months. Apparently it's by design...
Posted in The 64-bit question
Windows ain't that daft
As difficult as it is to believe, Windows is quite intelligent when it comes to memory utilisation. It will normally aim to keep as much as it needs (or thinks it needs, or will need in the future) in the highest level of cache possible. This includes processor registers, L2 cache where available, RAM and finally the HD swap file. It'll use as much as it can, though will always leave a gap if it can for the "ooh I didn't think of that" moments.
It's not about memory utilisation, but the responsiveness of your machine, regardless of whether you're editing video or working on a 100K Excel document. The less RAM you have, the less carefree Windows can be in keeping page files off the HD.
Posted in The 64-bit question
Superscript
"Thirty-two bits equates to 232 memory addresses"
Erm, I think you missed formatting the 32 as superscript, or missed out the ^ symbol :-) Otherwise 232 memory addresses seems quite low!
Flat Earth News
Thank you thank you thank you. To quote Dr Antone Brooks in that book "In my opinion, low doses of radiation are a piss-poor carcinogen and just not a big hitter when it comes to health effects. We have through our fear of radiation parlayed it into a major player when it is not".
Another excellent book along a similar thread is Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.
Thanks El Reg for continuing to report the news with regards to this, and not the rest of the media's self-stoked fire. The Japanese earthquake has enough tragedy to be reporting on without adding scaremongering to the story.
Undocumented
They're not suggesting that they're using undocumented APIs. They're saying that they will specifically utilise every API (let's assume documented) that will give the best result. They're also implying that Chrome/FF will just recompile for the target and let the compiler optimise it as best it can, they won't specifically modify the code to take advantage of all the APIs.
I can see their argument from a logical point of view, but having said all that it's clearly just marketing/PR/spin. Can't blame them for trying - it's one step away from "any colour so long as its black".
The sad thing is, no matter how targeted the code is, I've no doubt that Chrome and FF will continue to trounce IE in any benchmark it cares to try.
Posted in Russia knocks back Soyuz launch
Too right
The Soyuz is the most reliable manned spacecraft to date. 4 fatalities in a 45+ year service is nothing to sneeze at. It's also older than Apollo.
Granted it's been through a few modifications, but it's a space programme that can truly be marvelled. And as Vladimir mentions, the STS were regularly delayed. The Discovery retirement flight STS-133 lifted off on it's 6th attempt - 5th if you charitably ignore the weather induced delay.
Fair play on trying to gee-up the US Orion/HLV programme, but let's not kick the Russians at the same time.
Posted in Another year, another iPhone time slip
Maybe it was
But unlikely, given how it's the only iPhone that buggered up. As far as I'm aware, all time services broadcast UTC +/- offset, if anything. Even if it did broadcast localtime, it would broadcast it as time + 01:00.
@Michael C
"However, 4.2 has several known exploits (just demonstrated this week), and it WILL be patched, but it will not move to 4.3. Apple won't simply add security patches "just because," but if an exploit is DEMONSTRATED, they have promised to close those holes."
Eh?? If an exploit is demonstrated they will patch it? By your own admission, it has been demonstrated already. 4.3 is released and has patched the 3GS and 4. I'm waiting for my 3G to have it's security failures resolved. You let me know when they're planning to meet their promise.
Perhaps I should charitably assume that you meant they're waiting for an exploit to appear in the wild before patching? Brilliant. As an aside, I have a horse in a stable with no means of keeping it there. Fortunately I have a massive padlock waiting to go, just as soon as I see the horse bolt.
