* Posts by Richard 81

1099 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009

Start the clock! Public sector web MUST be disabled-friendly by 2015

Richard 81
FAIL

Re: 100 meeeeellion?

You don't have to be in a wheelchair to be disabled.

Richard 81

Re: Driving licences?

I don't know. Can you think of any disabilities that might make reading a website difficult, but not make you an unsafe driver?

If yes, then yes.

The Times offers subsidised Nexus 7s to get subscribers

Richard 81

Re: Even better bargain

No. There's no excuse for reading the Mail.

Littlest pirate’s Winnie-the-Pooh laptop on the way home

Richard 81

CIAPC:

"We break legs, because we care"

Flash memory made immortal by fiery heat

Richard 81

Well, those tiny tweezers don't last for ever you know.

NASA: THE TRUTH about the END OF THE WORLD on 21 Dec

Richard 81
Trollface

At least if they're wrong they don't have to worry about going the way of those Italian seismologists.

Ten badass brainy computers from science fiction

Richard 81

But Mother wasn't evil. It worked exactly as intended.

Troll sues Apple for daring to plug headphones into iPhone

Richard 81

The heart of the problem

We all know this, but the heart of the problem is clearly the US patent office. Based on the approved patent, they may well have a case. The problem is that only a moron would have approved it in the first place.

How the hell do we come back from this state of craziness?

Far Cry 3 game review

Richard 81

Re: dubious

Want a proper review? Try RPS: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/21/wot-i-think-far-cry-3-single-player/

Richard 81

Re: Do they really play this to review it?

Most of Ubisoft's recent games (and older ones that have been patched) just require a net connection to activate it and then you can make it available for off-line use. It's more like Steam now.

Mind you, I bought From Dust in a Steam sale and wasn't actually able to activate it, since their bloody servers went down that weekend. I guess they must have been surprised that more than two people wanted to login on the same Saturday.

Pirate cops bust LITTLE GIRL, take her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop

Richard 81

Re: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

"So if I take your car but give after few days no theft happened right"

But then we just come back to the old question: if I made an identical copy of your car without actually taking it away from you, is that theft?

Richard 81

Re: I don't know what else is wrong with this??

We know she failed to download it. I agree that we don't know all the details, but when do we ever?

Samsung Google Nexus 10 tablet review

Richard 81

Re: No sale here, either.

The way things are going, you're never going to get a tablet.

Richard 81

Re: Media consumption?

My wife does and she's hardly a nerd and is only occasionally "on the train".

Asus VivoBook S200 11.6in touchscreen notebook review

Richard 81

Except that this is a very light, very small and therefore very portable laptop that could be used almost anywhere. Using it exclusively on a desk would be a waste. I see no point in touch screens for desktops though.

A good machine for conferences, I'd say. You see MacBook Air users all over the place and this is very similar.

Richard 81

You must be able to find a similarly priced, higher spec. alternative if you don't bother with the touch screen. Surely?

Unless touch capability doesn't add as much to the price as I would guess.

Texan schoolgirl expelled for refusing to wear RFID tag

Richard 81

Re: Christ (oops!) bloody religion again???

"Most non-Muslims who think they've "read the Koran" are wrong."

You mean, most non-Muslims who think they've "read the Koran" are considered to be wrong by those who believe it to be more than just a book.

Ten... PC games you may have missed

Richard 81

Re: PC Games?

Well, only three or four of them are the typical mutli-platform, built for consoles but ported to PC, type of games. Some of the list aren't on anything but PC, and X-COM may be on all the big platforms but it's a PC game at heart.

Richard 81

Re: League of Legends

Yes, more or less.

Ten Linux apps you must install

Richard 81

Re: I've been using Linux since mid-late 1993 (Slackware).

@simon_brooke: Who's looking down on who?

Richard 81

Re: @Richard 81 (was: I've been using Linux since mid-late 1993 (Slackware).)

"Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience."

With a piece of software? That sounds uncomfortable.

Richard 81

Re: @Richard 81 (was: I've been using Linux since mid-late 1993 (Slackware).)

I've been reading the register for about 6 years and this is the first time I've encountered the word. I suppose I could have passed it off as a typo before.

Richard 81

Re: "RAR extraction, an archiving option popular in the Windows world"

RARs are everywhere, particularly in the sticky-floored areas of the internet.

Richard 81

Re: I've been using Linux since mid-late 1993 (Slackware).

"grok"?

Once was a typo. Twice suggests intent.

I realise I don't know the dictionary cover to cover, but is this some sort of Linux term used by weird command-line people?

Oprah Winfrey too late to save Microsoft's Windows 8

Richard 81

Re: Not a catchy enough tune?

Isn't it about wanting to be a jack of all trades?

Long-suffering Virgin Media victims see no end to vid PURGATORY

Richard 81

Noticed this too

Ironically, my connection seems a hell of a lot slower since the "bye bye to buffering" upgrade.

Vodafone will rent you an iPhone 5 for 69p* a day

Richard 81

Re: Lets do some maths

Yeah I don't see how this is a good deal at all.

Ten... Apple iPad Mini alternatives

Richard 81

Re: Kobo Arc

Ick. I won't touch anything made by Kobo since I had the misfortune of using a Kobo Vox.

Richard 81

Re: Operating system

"wifi is not standard on all of these?"

Where the hell did you get that idea from? What use would a tablet be without some kind of network connection?

Also, the Nexus 7 certainly has a GPS receiver and, although they're not mentioned*, I would be very surprised if most of the others don't too.

The update cycle is an annoyance for Android users. That one I'll grant you. Of course it can be avoided by sticking to the Nexus 7, or rooting it. I don't tend to suggest rooting phones, but I don't see a problem with rooting a tablet if you haven't bothered with a data plan.

*A bit of an oversight there, El Reg.

Richard 81

Re: Jesus..

Starts? They always do this when Apple releases something. Apple is certainly "top dog" when it comes to brand-awareness, so using something like the iPad Mini to define a class of gadgets and looking at its near-neighbours is a good way of seeing what's out there.

...never mind that the iPad Mini (like most Apple products) is overpriced for the hardware, which may prompt someone to go looking for a better value alternative.

Slideshow: A History of First-person Shooters in 20 Games

Richard 81

Re: Wot? No Deus-Ex?

But as an FPS, Deus Ex is bloody awful. As a sneaky, hacky, talky game, it's genre defining.

Richard 81

Re: Unreal?

Yeah, it doesn't look anything like Unreal. I guess it's pre-alpha.

Richard 81

Re: Well, the graphics have certainly got better but...

Nonsense! These days you can look up and down and everything.

Richard 81

Probably for its deformable terrain.

Richard 81

Re: is that wolfenstein 3D?

It also looks to smooth. It must be a remake.

O2 roaming rates to rise by up to 140%

Richard 81

Re: in July and insists this merely brings its pricing in line with competitors....

Why worry about competition when you have customers locked in for 24 months?

Files aren’t property, says US government

Richard 81

Well

Well the answer according to the US government is almost certainly "no".

Lab mice drown in their THOUSANDS as Hurricane Sandy fills NYU basement

Richard 81

Re: embryos

The sealed flask would surely have to be refrigerated too, to stop it from popping. It should be well insulated, but that can only do so much.

Richard 81

Re: Tragic waste of research of course

Spend much time with the intellectual elite and you'll find they have surprisingly little sense.

Slideshow: A History of Horror in 20 Scary Games

Richard 81

Re: Half Life 2

The black poison headcrabs being the scariest. I read that during testing Valve found that subjects would freak when they heard the hissing rattle of a poison headcrab and turn all their attention towards hunting it down. They got so focussed they'd completely ignore anything else, even though a poison headcrab can't actually kill you on its own.

Forstall ousted from Apple after refusing to apologise for Maps

Richard 81

Re: Refund Time?

But can you roll back to something that works?

Richard 81

Re: For every anecdote pointing out a flaw in Apple's mapping data...

"For every anecdote pointing out a flaw in Apple's mapping data...

... I can point to plenty more in Google's."

More? I don't believe you.

Where Google Maps is good, the US, UK etc. Apple Maps is significantly worse. No questions. All your anecdote suggests is that where Google Maps is a bit crap, so is Apple Maps, but sometimes Apple is a bit better.

Volunteers sought to see if anyone actually can hear you scream in space

Richard 81

Re: Screaming?

Sleep? They can't be that bad then.

WinPho 8 fans now able to order HTC handsets

Richard 81

Re: I'm considering getting one.

Wouldn't you want your standby phone to also be an Android handset, so you can access all your Googley bits?

Richard 81

Re: RE: "2.1Mp front-facing camera, able to capture up to four people in a frame"

What happens if 5 people stand within the frame? Does one of them just not show up?

Richard 81

Now I could be wrong, but their striking similarity makes me think it's a look MS has agreed on with its hardware partners. Maybe they want Apple-like consistency.

Xbox SmartGlass hits Android ahead of schedule

Richard 81

Re: doesn't work.

What annoys me, is that the apps often do work but you have to side load because they're not supported.

Petition for Alan Turing on £10 note breaks 20,000 signatures

Richard 81

Re: "What about Montgomery ?"

I'd vote for William Slim.

Pre-ordered a Microsoft Surface? So SORRY it's late, have a voucher

Richard 81

Aren't they taking their attempt to emulate Apple a little too far?

Alienware assimilates Dell FROM THE INSIDE!

Richard 81

Cooling

You'd hope gaming rigs would have damn good cooling. Consumer grade regular Dell machines are crap though.

This thing I was bought for work overheats all the time. It had to be stuck in the server room to stop it from shutting down when I last reinstalled Windows.