Re: Huh?

Your presumption may well be false.

Cameras on phones, many compacts, and any other cameras loaded with eye-fi SD cards will upload to "the cloud"^W^W a server somewhere online without requiring PC-based intermediation.

filtering

the slightly longer answer is that because 4G is pinching old TV channels, proper antennas, splitters and (possibly most importantly) amplifiers should be covering the frequency range which the 4G signal is now sitting. That is, by design, they shouldn't be filtering it out. Add in a cheap receiving stage which can't deal with co-channel interference, and there's your potential for interference.

And you might say that everything should work properly, but here's the thing about technical standards - they're (usually) designed with a reasonable level of robustness. Add the 4G signal next door, and the level of robustness is degraded - to the point that, say, 1 in 1000 households might start seeing interference when before they didn't.

Re: A bit ironic, really.

If you're fucking your Christmas tree lights, you're doing it wrong.

Re: Going for the FHM demographic?

Several reasons, actually, @Small Wee Jobbie:

It makes the article NSFW (in many Ws, probably).

It's insulting (it suggests that readers click links to see titillating pics, not to, you know, read the article).

It's irrelevant (unless you're seriously suggesting that she's either carrying out a stress test, or is correctly attired to carry out such tests).

It's irrelevant, 'cos this is the internet, and if you want pictures of scantily-clad women (or men, or goats), then they're over there. But please don't let el Reg get cluttered up with irrelevant irrelevancies.

And FFS, it's another brick in the wall of mindless Page 3/Daily Mail/Heat/Closer/etc objectification of women

for no apparently better reason than "because I like looking".

That's why.

Re: Ownership

Not true.

Our kobo account is hooked up to two e-readers, three tablets and a netbook. I've heard the limit is eight simultaneous devices.

"Can I ask you a couple of questions?"

"Certainly. Now, what's your second question?"

Re: License violation

"If he had Vista Business from work, it was licensed to his employer, not to him personally. Therefore, he's not allowed to buy just an upgrade."

Unless it was a licence-tied-to-the-machine-and-sticker-stuck-on-the-side-of-the-box scenario.

"In fact, he shouldn't be using even Vista at home."

Well, I think we can all agree on that, but isn't the "at home" redundant? [Troll icon for this...]

Like bassey, I got a cheap 7" tablet (800*480, resistive, gingerbread) last year. Angry Birds was fine, wi-fi was erratic, Firefox was too slow to be usable, but it played side-loaded videos fine.

We've just replaced it with an £80 Zoostorm tablet. Higher res, capacitive, ICS, Google apps/store. Wi-fi works (though not on enterprise/eduroam type networks) and it's just about perfect. The only bad points are the lack of charging over USB (dedicated 5V charger boo), the inset headphone socket, and it's a bit heavier than the old tablet. Also there's no GPS, but I'm not complaining at £80.

Re: Longer USB cables = FAIL

You know, you're wrong.

There is no specific maximum length of cable for USB. There's a restriction on the response time for various instructions, which translates to an effective maximum length (speed of light and all that), but 5m cables are available and within spec. (As an aside, USB A-socket to A-plug are banned as per the spec, but, hey, that's a different discussion).

If you find you want to go longer than 5 metres, you can daisy-chain up to five hubs (as long as you're plugging into a true USB Host), since USB allows 7 tiers (including Host and end-point).

Yes, I have had to read the USB spec.

Re: 2 pence - and what of comedy?

Comedy:

The Thick of It and Twenty Twelve are both utter genius.

Episodes is very engaging, particularly the leads. (And Matt Le Blanc playing "Matt Le Blanc" is very funny.)

Him and Her was very amusing if you can re-engage your inner-sniggering-teenage-boy/regularly read b3ta.com

Of course, for everything I like on the TV, there's several things I can't stand, but that's what the off switch* is for.

* Feel free to replace with "the Internets" or "the DVD collection" if you prefer.

Re: rouge vendors like Amazon

Ooh, must tell SWMBO - she was saying she needed more blusher.

Re: Natty?

Natty is reasonably complimentary. For example:

"Those are natty clothes, you hoopy frood!"

Coat? ITYM dressing gown.

Re: On journalists

First, the strawman - I too don't believe homeopathy works.

Now to the substance. Crichton wrote science fiction, often in a way suggesting it was reportage or documentary. Decent sci-fi generally allows a universe (or multiverse) wherein a maximum of one thing is changed from the current laws of physics (see the fiction of Ian Stewart, Charles Stross or Peter Watts, for examples) - FTL travel, a time machine, or the uploading of consciousness.

So, if you write about apes with language, you'd better not also invent a handy computer program which can magically decode that language (with 1980s technology)

Or if you write about time-travel back to the mediaeval period, you should get your history right (and again, not invent in-ear translation devices based 20th Century technology).

Anyway, it's still a sunny Sunday afternoon, so I'll end with a reference to Tom Clancy's comment that fiction is much harder to write than real life, because readers demand internal consistency from fiction.

PAT testing, PIN numbers...

Grrrrrrrr.

PAT is short for Portable Appliance Testing. I suppose you also type in a PIN number and enter entries on your Internet Blog.

And yes, at both mine and my wife's workplaces, PA tests were made on mains-powered equipment we took in.

Re: If they really want better search results...

"[...] every blasted time I install Firefox, instead of just selecting my preferred search engine from a drop down, I have to go off in search of the Bing Add-on for it.[...]"

Really? Bing is included by default in the list of search plug-ins, and has been since Firefox 4 was in beta (late 2010).

Unless you mean some 'orrible toolbar.

Re: Prison 101

I have a phobia of beer.

(with apologies to Mitchell and Webb's radio show)

Re: boobs

Well, the picture selection algorithm is either:

a) extremely stupid

b) really quite smart, or

c) human assisted by someone with a yen for Carry-On films

Whichever, keep it up (oo-er).

I'll be celebrating Approximate Pi Day on the 22nd of July.

3.4 == 3.4?

No, I certainly don't expect that OO 3.4 will be the same as LO 3.4, mainly because of the licensing situation.

Any features in OO 3.4 could be imported into LO 3.4; the reverse is not true (and was not true from back when the go-OO fork was born, and used by many Linux distros).

So, no, a version number in and of itself doesn't prove it - it's the version number coupled with even the mildest notion of what has been going on in both camps.