* Posts by Chris 2

60 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

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Samsung’s SUPER-speedy SSD is a real power-sipper

Chris 2

http://techreport.com/review/27436/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-two-freaking-petabytes

SSD endurance is really overplayed. The Samsung Pro drives have a 10 year warranty - I don't recall seeing consumer-space mechanical drives with that kind of confidence from the manufacturer before.

Chris 2

Re: I don't get it.

It's an m.2 connector, most mid-range or above motherboards come with the ports now. They come in either PCIE or SATA formats, and the PCIE versions can be a _lot_ faster. There aren't many PCIE drives out yet though. This one looks pretty tasty, depending on price and if you can get them retail.

EDIT: also, that article is from 2010, so yeah, a bit behind the times..

New Star Wars movie plot details leak, violate common sense and laws of physics

Chris 2

Stormtrooper turned good guy?.

I can't see how this ex-Stormtrooper thing is going to work on screen. Nobody's going to be able to suspend disbelief if he actually manages to shoot anyone.

Beyond: Two Souls - the game that thinks it's a Hollywood blockbuster

Chris 2

More a TV remote simulator than a game

From various reviews, I have trouble understanding why you are even being asked to press buttons - everything just plays out more or less the same anyway, apart from a couple of decisions near the end.

Doesn't sound like much difference between this and e.g. choosing which of the endings from I Am Legend you'd rather watch. What's the point?

I haven't heard anyone say the story's particularly good either, which seems to be a fairly major failing when there's no actual gameplay to speak of.

DEAD STEVE JOBS kills Apple bounce patent from BEYOND THE GRAVE

Chris 2

Re: Regardless of the merits of the Apple patent

Nope. They should have filed before showing it in public - it's their own stupid fault.

Someone shows off an idea before patenting it, especially something as trivially-copyable as this, people then incorporate it into their own products. The "innovation" wasn't protected at the time they gave everyone else the idea - sounds like they didn't really care about keeping the idea to themselves much.

This week's BBC MELTDOWN: Savile puppet haunts kids' TV

Chris 2

boo fucking hoo

Whining crap unsurprisingly pushed by those who are out to get the BBC anyway.

What a load of bollocks.

Choose Smarter: Ten... Sata 3 SSDs

Chris 2

£220?!?!?!?!!?!?!

I just bought one of those Samsungs for £150 delivered. Which seems like a ridiculous bargain to me.

It's a really lovely little object, kind of wish I could just have it out on the desk rather than stuck away in the tower...

Fans get date with Lara Croft

Chris 2

Looks pretty good

Never played a Tomb Raider game, but tempted by this. Dishonored still the big game of the year for me...

Also, can someone show this trailer to those mouth-breathing self-abusers in the IO Interactive marketing department? Give them a kick in the genitals while you're at it please.

Leaked snaps said to confirm iPhone 5 speculation

Chris 2
WTF?

Re: No thanks

The 4/4S at least had the saving grace (to my mind) that they were really beautiful objects. The white one of these is (again, to my mind) an extremely ugly bodge job, apparently change for the sake of it. If these are the real thing, then it's a major, major misstep in terms of looks.

Samsung Galaxy S III

Chris 2

Re: Camera sensor

but, is that good? Is it better than the (presumably) old-fashioned front-bottom illumination?

I'm not sure I even understand what I'm asking now.

Chris 2

Re: 100%?

"cheap plastic case" - they're using the exact same material as HTC are for the One X, just with a gloss rather than matt finish.

Personally I don't like the rubbery feeling HTC used to use, but it's just horses for coconuts.

Bloke brought one of these into the office this afternoon having found the last shop in town with any in stock. It feels really, really nice in the hand. I'm very impressed, and even more tempted than I was before. It's weird, because it's apparently heavier than the One X (just), but there's definitely something in the ergonomic claims Samsung have been making. It really somehow feels a lot thinner and lighter than it actually is - but still solid.

I like it a lot.

Chris 2

Camera sensor

I thought there was a new sensor? It's the same size, pixel-wise, but seems to be a better chip, and also has back-side illumination now. Which I assume is good.

Going to have to go and play with this one before thinking about buying. First impression is that I'd rather stick with my Note for now and wait for the (surely inevitable?) sequel, but I'm sorely tempted by the S3 the more I see of it.

Who needs Spotify? Samsung launches Music Hub

Chris 2

please tell me

that £/$ value is a typo, or is the practice of international corps ripping off the UK reaching ever more ridiculous heights?

Most anticipated videogames of 2012 revealed

Chris 2

Dishonored

And/or Prey 2 if it's still going.

Quite looking forward to Borderlands 2 as well.

But Dishonored looks the most interesting to me this year, if it's going to make this year...

Samsung 'Galaxy 4S' pic posted

Chris 2

ra ra

blah blah blah shops in my time blah blah pixels or something.

Sexy Girls Puzzle: Android Trojan or eager ad-slinger?

Chris 2
Coat

Counter Strike Ground Force?

Charlie Dimmock takes on the terrorists is it?

Ahem.

Sounds close enough to malware to me, certainly close enough to make sure I avoid installing anything tainted by it.

Virgin Media takes itself in hand after punter-package tickle whoopsie

Chris 2

Quite. I got the mail, it said something like "you're already getting our top speed", so I automatically assumed someone had sent the mail to the wrong distribution list rather than they were going to give me free stuff. Then shortly afterwards I got the other mail confirming it.

Not exactly earth-shattering, no.

Samsung Galaxy Note

Chris 2
Meh

niggles

"Unlocking the screen by pressing the power button takes over a second which means I quite often switch it off again before it offers the unlock pattern."

Apparently this is because it's waiting to see if you're going to do a double press, which activates the vlingo voice command stuff. There was someone on xda-developers who was talking about deactivating this, but as it doesn't bother me I haven't kept up with whether they did or not. Might be worth a look there if it's a problem for you.

As for the notification, have you tried NoLED? It's on the market now, might be what you're after.

My only real issue with the phone is the voice commands - the voice dialling (the only bit I ever use) is terrible, at least over bluetooth, compared to the Galaxy S. I often find myself having to cancel it and start again as it tries to ring someone random instead of who I asked for. As this never happened on the old phone I'm pretty sure it's not my speech that's the issue.

Chris 2

Ohhhh yes it is!

It is pressure-sensitive, apparently it's using a Wacom digitiser thing. Using S-Memo lines get thinner and thicker depending on how hard you press - it's more obvious with the paintbrush brush style though, maybe you didn't change it? I find it pretty nice for doing little sketches, control and sensitivity is not bad at all to my mind. Not up to full-on Wacom tablet standard, but pretty decent nonetheless, and I like the immediacy of moving the pen on the same surface as the actual picture.

Also, hold down the button on the pen then "long click" the screen, it takes a screenshot which you can then annotate.

It's a bloody brilliant phone, tablet, whatever, thing. Very pleased with it indeed.

Outbound space probe looks back at tiny Earth and Moon

Chris 2

"Planet Earth is white,

so let's cover it in shite" ?

Linguists use sounds to bypass Skype crypto

Chris 2
Pirate

Might work

but then you get a visit from the PRS...

Google rolls out fix for Android security threat

Chris 2

beedly boodly beep

"Are they making this change server side or client side?"

It's, er, right there in the article...

Mozilla to shift 12m surfers off 2-year-old Firefox 3.5

Chris 2

ooooh

Thanks - wasn't bothering me enough to go trying to find out how to change it, but now it's been pointed out...

Much better :)

Chris 2

Mac-specific problem?

RBS site is working fine here on Windows (XP and 7, 32 and 64 bit) with FF4. Although I haven't installed the Rapport "security" thing - maybe it's that?

So, what's the best sci-fi film never made?

Chris 2

Ringworld/Discworld

"Colour of Magic" is Discworld, which is not the same as Ringworld.

Testing confirms Samsung keylogger rumour just a false alarm

Chris 2
FAIL

Credible?

Given the demonstrable utter incompetence shown by "NetSec's founder", I'm not massively inclined to believe his interpretation of statements given by some consumer support line.

(Fail is for him, not you, btw.)

Sulky fans biggest threat to gaming, says Black Ops developer

Chris 2
WTF?

"creativity and game innovation"

Honestly, someone who worked on Codblops is whining about "creativity and game innovation"? You could always try putting some into the game, you know. Maybe people would like it.

Or is he saying the reason it's so utterly inane and by-the-numbers is because they weren't allowed to put any innovation into it?

Bolivians still grimly browsing on Sony Ericsson phones

Chris 2
Badgers

People's Republic of Android

"Samsung's presence in North Korea pushes Android to account for almost 80 per cent of all mobile browsing there"

Is this a joke at Sarah Palin's expense? Or is Kim Jong Il really updating his Facebook with a Galaxy S?

Does nobody there buy any of Samsung's other phones? It's not like they don't have plenty of other OS options to choose from if they have to buy Samsung.

Reg Hardware Reader Awards 2010

Chris 2

Myplayer

As long as you got the one before it was killed by the Beeb.

Samsung Galaxy Tab Android tablet

Chris 2
Badgers

Who copied who?

"The ePub-compatible e-book app looks strikingly similar to Apple’s iBooks in oh, so many ways, though there’s no on-line store attached directly."

If it's the same app as on the Galaxy S, then it's based on Aldiko, which apparently came out months before iBooks.

Was vaguely interested in one of these, but a combination of price plus Samsung showing off one with a Super AMOLED screen recently has muted that somewhat. So maybe rather than probably now...

P.S. there's a thumbs up and a thumbs down, but nothing which indicates ambivalence I can see. Another sign of the disgusting reduction of all choices into black or white infecting our society etc. etc. and so on. Do you guys write the scripts for Bioware?

Reg reader stitches PARIS right up

Chris 2

LOHAN is what?

Lunar Orbiter with Highly Attractive er,

um,

Norks?

Lunar orbit is a bit ambitious maybe?

Hadron Collider switches to heavy ions, tinfoilers wet pants again

Chris 2
Big Brother

not to be another pedant.

Bollocks, who am I kidding. Pedantry ahoy.

99.99% is not the same as 0.9999...

99.99% of 10,000 is 9999

0.9999... * 10,000 is 10,000

Probably.

(picture because, um, I like the moustache?)

iPhone alarm bug: now it's the UK's turn

Chris 2
Happy

We seem to have managed the daughter reset

...by having ours run around like a maniac all day Saturday dressed as a witch. Had to go and wake her up on Sunday even with the extra hour. I heartily recommend it if you have the stamina to keep up.

Chris 2

Weekend!

Gotta be up for playing with the wee ones :)

Top Ten Retro PC Games

Chris 2

KOTOR

"the twist has to be experienced for its pure ability to blindside you"

Seriously? I find it very hard to believe anyone didn't see it coming a mile off - it was blatantly obvious from about the second dream sequence onwards (leaving Taris, I think). I distinctly remember waiting for the payoff for something like 10 hours of gameplay.

Still, great game. It has to be said I wouldn't _honestly_ count it as "retro" though. Is there really that much difference between it and, say, Dragon Age apart from graphics?

Moses' parting of the Red Sea: New sim explains whole thing

Chris 2

rungishd fhdiah

My thoughts exactly.

The iPad is killing laptop sales

Chris 2
FAIL

Well, nearly...

It's a) not out yet, b) does more stuff, and c) has no confirmed pricing. It is smaller though.

Virgin Media set-top box modder gets 5 years

Chris 2

isn't that

what they do already? The card thing I mean. We got new cards a month or so ago.

Galaxy S firmware update invalidates Voda warranties

Chris 2
Go

Not any more

They've just stated on the forum thread that the people who installed JM1 via Kies haven't invalidated their warranty.

"We’ve looked into this issue in more detail and want to clarify the position with regards to downloading the JM1 update for the Samsung Galaxy S.

Customers who are prompted to download the official JM1 software through the Samsung Kies PC sync software will not invalidate their warranty.

The prompt for the update is currently being sent to customers who have a handset running the open market version of the software (version I9000XXJF3). These handsets will have come from our initial stock, and were made available to ensure our customers could get the device from us as soon as possible. "

Everyone who's got VF-branded firmware won't get the update until VF have finished making a mess of it. Lucky I got one of the early ones I suppose. Sounds like this was probably someone in the forum mod team getting confused.

Chris 2

mass storage mode

No need to go through Kies - mass storage mode works fine for file transfer. Win7 x64 user.

Just need to remember to mount the SD from the phone GUI - it's a two-step process. Plug in, then bring down the notification bar, hit the USB connection notification and choose "mount". Hey presto, two removable drives in Windows.

BlackBerry tablet to trump iPad with Flash, videoconferencing

Chris 2
Thumb Up

heh

Fair enough, whine away :)

Chris 2

that off side was ignored

Which offside? The one where Iniesta was played onside by (I think) Van Bommel from Torres' attempted pass, or the one where Iniesta was about six feet behind Mathijsen from Fabregas' pass?

Pathetic whinging.

Amazon punts Kindleware for Androids

Chris 2

"book availability may vary"

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but for me it varies between "book not available" and "book not available".

I can't find a single thing I can actually buy, so unless it's just my account they don't like, I don't see the point in making the app available on the UK market.

2012 Olympic mascots cop a shoeing

Chris 2
Thumb Up

Well, I like 'em.

The logo's still shit, but these are a lot better than I thought they would be. Far better than yet another fluffy fucking lion in a running kit or whatever that prick in the Torygraph would have preferred.

I like the names too. Event mascots that sound like bit-parters from the League of Extraordinary Gentleman are long overdue. They also have a good connection to the UK's Olympic/Paralympic past (Much Wenlock games, Stoke Mandeville).

Nice.

Boffins demo one-molecule DNA 'walker' nano-bot

Chris 2

The Next Stage...

...and thus, the Goo was born.

Great. Self-replicating cell-killer nanobots. I'd like a cup for breakfast please.

The Cameregg plan: Who got what?

Chris 2

"Cameregg"? Rubbish

You missed the far better "CamelEgg" possibility. Booo

Tory twit accused of touting shanghaied tot shots

Chris 2

The honourable (?) member for Narnia

The man's a fucking mentalist with barely a passing connection to reality anyway - it doesn't surprise me he doesn't care whether or not his constituents want their children displayed on his promotional material or not.

Nokia's lost weekend ends with N8?

Chris 2

oooh

For a phone, the sample shots are fantastic. Can someone put this camera/lens/flash in the Samsung Galaxy S please?

Why doesn't Nokia buy Palm?

Chris 2

"You can't do that"

So HTC buys the Palm IP and sues Apple for whatever infringements they can dig up. There will be some.

And eventually everyone comes to a cosy cross-licensing agreement, which stymies Apple's plans. The only reason they're going after HTC rather than anyone else is that HTC can be got at. With Palm's IP available they've got more ammunition to tell Apple where to go.

Microsoft's unveils 'social' phone for Boho hipsters

Chris 2
Thumb Up

@Tathan Jones

Well said that man.

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