naive, not a scam

The lad obviously had no idea what was involved to create one of these machines, it was set to crash n burn from the off.

Why are softsynths news?

Making a record for charity is great, but decent emulations of classic synths have been around for several years now, as computers get faster these emulations are becoming much more accurate.

Installed this morning

Small download, quick to install, no issues.

Sorry.

Installed this yesterday....

Seems a lot more polished than previous versions, the tweaks to KDE4 are very nice.

Well done all at OS

Be a shame if they stop making them

Hoping to buy one this year, my existing 8-core Pro is getting plenty long in the tooth now, my quad-i7 MBP gets raped by my plug-ins on Logic so to buy something stupidly powerful that will last me years is quite attractive even if it does come at a premium.

4 billion years of climate, 100 years of climate data

You can obviously draw very accurate conclusions about what is and is not abnormal from such a vast dataset.

they were terrible

The early search engines were awful, av.com's results bared almost no relevance to anything you typed yet is seemed to be more accurate than the others.

Google was quite a novelty when it appeared as it actually worked.

Dealing with my parents and similar, Google is the internet, as it's set as the home page of their browser, they didn't realise that they were a) using a browser at all or b) that Google was a web page. They'd open IE or whatever and Google would appear. My folks still can't differentiate the two.

Innovation is overrated

New technology, ideas and interfaces are all well and good if they're an improvement over what was there before. The iPhone for example was a game changer as nothing was really comparable to it before, now everything looks like an iPhone. Sure there are alternatives that have flashy graphics and a bagillion features but so what, I like the Mac/OSX interface on the desktop and the iOS interface on the iPhone, it's easy to use, sober and works. I never feel like these interfaces are getting in the way of what I'm trying to do. If Apple decide to be 'innovative' and replace the whole interface for something new then I've got to learn how to use it, try and get my apps and data to work with it and then suffer the transition period where bugs are fixed and software is adapted and updated to work, only to get me to the point I was before. The transition from OS9 to OSX was long, the transition from OSX-PPC to OSX-Intel was smoother but there were plenty of apps that got lost along the way. If Apple decide that OSX is old and need to 'innovate' again with OSXI then the whole upheaval starts again, but for what benefit?

Yes Microsoft have been 'bold' and 'innovative' to scrap the interface they've used since NT3, that everyone knows how to use, has software that works and isn't a bottleneck. So now I have to learn how to do what I could do before, learn how to get on with the new OS and have the upheaval of trying to get everything to work and as well as before. It's new, but why is it better?

If every time a new car came out it had a completely new interface it wouldn't be regarded as innovative or forward thinking, so why is it so for a computer device?

Software developers are under pressure to invent new n shiny, Apple have had a more than its fair share of innovative products that changed the way people use computers, hats off to them, but to be essentially forced to continually abandon what works, and works well, just to be new and different for me is just counter intuitive.

Felix is a basejumper...

Why would anyone value his opinion on science, engineering or space exploration?

The $13M spent enabling him to jump from a balloon was gobbled up by all the scientists and engineers that designed and built the equipment needed to let him do it.

I hope the publicity stunt was worth the expense for Red Bull but as the BBC documentary the other day illustrated, Felix is no astronaut nor is he made of the 'right stuff', hiding from the project for a year whilst costs spiralled is illustration of that alone.

Base and big balloon jumping is cool mind so I'm prepared to cut him some slack.

I've no interest in running Windows, however

There was an awful lot of software that was ported to OSX as a result of them sharing the same architecture as PC's. I use mine to write music via Logic, when Intel Macs came out there were a lot of audio plug-ins that became available in intel-only guise. If Apple want to essentially dump the Mac in favour of desktop iOS devices then it would really be a shame, as fancy and whizzy as those devices are they're still just toys for pissing about on, sure you can check your email or browse a website or play a computer game on but anything serious you need a proper computer. Microsoft are heading down the same silly path with W8.

I am getting tired with all this 'you need to move with the times' crap. The software I use is a tool, I need those tools, I know how to use them, they deliver what I need. Having to constantly fanny around learning new interfaces, switching software to find that it doesn't do what it could before, finding existing projects no longer load and software is no longer compatible is just beyond a joke.

There has to be at least a handful of computer users left that still actually do some work on their computers, the direction the market is going in is a cause of concern.

I have a Seagate Momentus XT on my MBP......

It's very impressive. The caching is done on a block rather than filesystem level so is transparent to the OS and runs independently of it, I would imagine that the solution here is the same, they've just upscaled it.

I think I'll get one

My 2008 8-core Mac Pro is getting a little long in the tooth now, the quad 3.4 i7 would knock spots off it.

I'd still need an optical drive for the foreseeable future as most of my software (music making with Logic) is still distributed this way and far too big for a download which is also unlikely to change any time soon (The software and libraries from the likes of NI or East/West often weigh in at a few 100GB's each). I usually make images of these discs when I buy them to save hassle during a re-install but my current library is over 2TB of software, the idea of having to download all of that even on a commercial connection would fill me with dread.

But as I produce music I still do a lot of CD mastering as it's the preferred format of many a punter.

I also need a lot of low latency storage and disc access so a single drive would be far too small and slow (unless SSD, then just too small) to be usable so I'd need a TB RAID storage box to plug in as well as I'd be concerned that a USB would be still too slow to be usable.

So with these additional items I'd need which would sully the lovely appearance of the new iMac I'm not sure whether a new(er) Mac Pro would be more sensible as it has the optical drive and loads of room for internally attached storage.

Decisions....

It should have been more popular

I usually hate Bond films but that one is very watchable, Duran Duran theme, Walken & Jones! What's not to like?

Yay!

Been using Suse since version 6, I've tried others but it's always been the one I get on with the most as it gives me the best tools and the least hassle.

I know some people like to moan about it but I'm glad it's still alive and kicking.

Downloading now.

Nice to see MS have improved the styling of their new machine

Much less ugly than their previous designs.

I feel slightly violated

and not in a good way

Lost skills

You know how the knowledge that built the pyramids was lost, the same is with recording music.

If you have a device or thing that is outputting music that you wish to record then in the old days you'd record it to tape.

This meant that you had to record in real-time so if you wanted a copy of that 45 minute LP for the car, it would take you at least 45 minutes to do it.

Now everyone wants to 'rip' something and grab all that audio almost instantly.

Kids who are now unfamiliar with tapes and the practices that went with are now stumped when confronted with restrictions such as these.

Use any recording program on your computer, on Windows it's built in, set it to record the output of your sound card, play your video, audio stream, DVD, mp3, computer game etc. Any sound your computer makes regardless of how it did it will be recorded to a big .WAV file. Use something like Audacity to trim that file to what you want to keep and then convert that to mp3.

Sure it's slightly more convoluted than 'ripping' but it ensures you get your audio without having to navigate some protection system.

What is it with MS and weird colour schemes

Ever since XP we've had weird bright greens n blues making it look like a Fisher Price toy, this was extended to the hideous indecipherable interface on the Xbox 360 and now we have the harlequin colours of Windows 8 and now a matching wPad.

I think I preferred it when computers were only available in beige

Want one

the screen will be amazing for Logic, always have to have multiple large screens to fit everything on, with the extra real estate it'll make making / performing music away from the studio much nicer.

My 2008 Pro is getting a little long in the tooth

However the top end iMac's are so fast now it's difficult to justify the extra cost for a Pro. But the form factor is limiting as it means external drives and whatnot.

Maybe if they made a semi-pro there would be a market for it.

Cars that auto-regulate speed are a nightmare to drive

I've driven limited vehicles;

You're behind a car doing 55, your van is limited to 62, you pull out to overtake, you get alongside the car and he speeds up to 62, now, although you have plenty of power you can't get past so have to slow down and pull back in behind where he now slows down again to 55. So you're now being permanently cockblocked by an idiot who wants to own the road.

This happens every time I'm in a limited vehicle.

Welcome to the future.

Would miss ethernet.

Copying big files between computers, the initial setup etc is much faster and simpler.

For some reason I've never been able to get a fast file transfer between Mac's via wifi.

How would you notice if Freeview was worse?

Never been able to get a stable picture on it.

320Kbps is good enough for me from a sound quality POV, however

CD's a still nicer, they're easy to sell on, to lend out, you can rip them to MP3, they have sleeve notes and artwork, not a little picture on a screen. I bought a limited edition live album the other week, signed by the band, can't sign a download, the whole thing is impersonal.

46.7 degrees C

It's warm but I wouldn't say it's baking, how long are these people fondling their slabs?

If it's sat on their laps I'd be more concerned about curvature of the spine.

But you need a PC to use an iDevice!

Given that they need to connect to a computer running iTunes their desire to lose the computer isn't going to work.

Also, when I can plug in a proper keyboard, 2 large cinema displays, local storage, run desktop applications, connect optical and USB drives then an iPad *might* start to become semi-useful but the horrid amount of clutter it would generate to enable that means I'll stick with my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro for the foreseeable future.

A 41MP sensor...

behind a little tiny crappy cameraphone lens

Well other than creating HUGE files that your average spod will try to upload to Facebook I don't see much point, you're certainly not going to get a better photo.

It's worth the money

It's very slick.

If you build it....

they will come.

signed software is good to a point

Works well on Linux, having a single application to manage all your software and get new stuff is a good idea (even though the App Store is hideous as unless you specifically know the name of the thing you want, you'll never find it) as it's convenient.

But if they decide that all software has to be installed this way as a download with the Apple Tax then it's game over for me. But there is no alternative, Microsoft are adopting a similar model and whilst Linux is fine as a server or basic desktop it'll always be poor for commercial applications, you're never going to see ProTools running under Linux for example without an emulator. Yes there will be Linux equivalents but they're very poor by comparison as they're not compatible with all the propriety plug-ins that are needed to make them worthwhile.

£100 says there's nothing there

Under that much ice it'll be in total darkness and colder than a cold thing. Not really what you want for life.

But how are they going to explore it, send a probe down the hole?

awesome, but

Do they have an engine that could lift that out of Earth's Orbit yet?

not going anywhere without that, will get very interesting if/when they produce one.

Fly the ISS to the Moon

NASA was on about bolting a big booster to the side of the ISS so that they could get it out of orbit and fly it to Mars, why not just drive it over to the Moon first?

on planet Earth, size isn't the concern

it's the cost. I'd love a 500GB SSD in my MBP but it would cost almost as much as the laptop.

a 500GB hybrid is about a tenth of the price.

ERV's are conceptually cool, but..

this one isn't quite there yet. The idea was that you'd have about 130horses of electric car, but the engine would only serve as a power supply to recharge the batteries if you wanted to do a long trip. So wouldn't have to stop and wait 15 hours to recharge.

This is great IMO as it's the best of both worlds.

What I don't get is that they put in a 1.4 4-cylinder petrol engine to use as the battery charger. Seems excessive and adds a lot of weight.

Hopefully it'll do reasonably well though for them to bring out an improved design, would certainly consider one then.

Welcome Apple getting involved with this arena

The set-top box thing is rubbish, no point having a nice shiny flat-screen if you then need a dozen ugly boxes to plug into it to view your content.

Currently only have an ATV plugged into my set as it's tiny enough to hide.

Also BluRay needs to die, sure the quality it nice enough but having to wait nearly 10 minutes before the film starts is beyond a joke, why it is deemed acceptable to have all those trailers and disclaimers and promos and all that other shit at the start? You wouldn't have 10 minutes of promos at the start of an album so why is it OK in front of a film?

these pictures were published when Jobs was alive

at least 3 months old.

When does it get built?

Computer literacy lessons, were they all awful?

The project is often referred to with rose-tinted glasses but I don't know of anyone for whom these lessons worked.

Every week we'd sit in the 'computer lab' surrounded by Electrons and Beebs to be 'taught' by a teacher that had been roped into doing it, who had absolutely no idea how to use a computer or had any interest in doing so, in addition they were perfectly aware that every lad in the class had a home computer and knew infinitely more about the machines than they did already. The whole thing was just a waste of time.

The highlight for me was being asked to write a script in 'Logos' that drew a square and stated underneath "A SQUARE". This was supposed to take most of the lesson to complete, however 5 minutes later we were all done, bored at this point I fiddled to make it draw different sized squares and changed the text to say "HELLO FOLKS!" (I was 12 years old), the teacher saw this and flipped and I was dragged the the headmaster, to be told; "A computer is an expensive piece of equipment and needs to be looked after, it knows what a square is, but if you tell it that a square is a 'hello folks' it'll confuse it and risk breaking it"! I thought they were taking the piss but apparently not, wasn't allowed to touch a computer again whilst I was at that school.

BBC's were pants anyway, no-one had one outside school.

sick of set top boxes

We digitised our media to get rid of clutter, we replaced our big boxed TV's for nice flt panels, now we're piled up with endless set-top boxes, Sky+, freeview HD, Wii, 360, PS3, ATV, Kinnect, DVD/DB player, media server, AV amp, all fighting for sockets etc.

Needs to be some kind of open-standard whereby you can just buy a TV that has built in storage and connectivity + plug in boards, so that you can load all of those services into a single device without all the clutter.

Clearly a conspiracy to promote cloud

You could have several terabytes for very little only a few months back, Apple launch iCloud and suddenly local storage is too expensive to be viable!

Coincidence?

they mess with my OCD

I like my shiny computer bits all shiny, the iDevices by their design mean that they're constantly covered in finger prints and smears.

So I constantly have to wipe it and get it all shiny again.

I can use a laptop or desktop no problem, unless my wife feels the need to point something out by touching the screen!

BITCH!

Russion Mars probe failure, coincidence?

I think not, clearly more to this story.

We've removed the ability to put people in space and will have everyone off the ISS in the next few weeks.

The recession is obviously all part of the plan, to be revealed next year.

Game over man, game over!