* Posts by stu 4

775 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

Met Police vid: HIDE your mobes. Pavement BIKER cutpurses on the loose

stu 4

Why should I register 'right now' ?

I don't see how that will change the chance of my phone being nicked by one iota ?

So - they won't be able to use the phone - I don't see how that help me - they've still nicked it.

Oh yeh 'if everyone did it blablabla'. well they don't - so that's pretty academic.

Apple's Oct 22 WORLD-SHAKING San Fran party: New iPads or what?

stu 4

Re: A lot to cover...

Class - I like the workthrough - but have you won the holiday or dustybin* !

*321 reference

stu 4

Er.. missing the hints surely??

Usually these invites have a subtle hint in them ?

Here we have a bunch of colours (ios7 shades) and 'alot to cover'

I'd have thought coloured ipads are the most likely, maybe a return of coloured macs.

yeh I know - ground breaking....but it would make more sense than most of the rumours, which seem to involve the need to innovate...

US parents proclaim 811 'Messiahs'

stu 4

so... surely there must also be the opposite ?

Some parents stupid enough to name kids Beautiful.... so others...

'Ugly'

'Loser'

'Slapper'

wouldn't be surprised to find some parents even doing it to 'challenge their child'..

Oz bookshop to deliver by drone

stu 4

Re: shite

"You mean a 1kg payload like a couple of books? You mean an open space like the Outback? So you mean the plan would work exactly as described, but apart from that it's mince? Yeah, good point."

yup, payload fine.... open space like the outback... if bookshop also in middle of outback, and a max distance of about 3 miles from book buyer...

no ?

then it's mince.

stu 4

shite

utter mince. but got them publicity I suppose.

I've got 3 quadcopters. Yes - you could use them to say deliver 1kg payload between to open spaces but otherwise it's mince.

Ex-Valve engineers raise begging bowl for 3D holographic-like goggles

stu 4

humph

I made up an 'oculus drift' myself back in 2010.

Basically I got a shoe box, fitted an iphone 4 in the end of it, and fitted it with several pairs of 1 quid reading glasses from poundland over the top of each other till I got the necessary diopter so that it appeared to be a massive TV in front of your eyes when strapped to your head.

It worked well for normal 2d content, and for 3d (split screen on the iphone), you just fitted a card in middle and your eyes adjusted and gave nice 3d image.

with the iphone accelerometers/gyros movement also worked well.

all my mates said it was a bloody stupid idea... and 'if it was that easy someone else will have done it'

hey ho.

COMET DIAMONDS from SPACE found in Libya's glass desert

stu 4

what a load of cobblers

It's far more likely that this was created during a fight between superheros - perhaps superman and cyclops.

Have they checked that they didn't shoot some of the movies there in the past* ?

*I am assuming they must shoot the superhero type movies in the middle of deserts somewhere for safety.

Be prepared... to give heathens a badge: UK Scouts open doors to unbelievers

stu 4

Re: It's a good start.

class. when Dawkins made fun of this argument I have to admit I'd never heard it and thought - who on earth would be stupid enough to bring it up...

congratulations AC.

The life of Pi: Intel to give away Arduino-friendly 'Galileo' tiny-puter

stu 4

Re: Memory lane

Yup, as a kid I dreamed of being able to readily be able to build stuff you had thought up as easily as you can now.

I have been an arduino junky for a year or so now - you cannae beat em - get em off ebay for 2 quid for an arduino mini pro about the size of 2 10p pieces and you have all the power and IO you need to do pretty much anything you can think of.

Last weekend, I made a sous vide from a 10 quid slow cooker, temp sensor, 240v relay and an arduino.

This weekend I'm gonna automate my house blinds with a few little motors and servos and arduinos.

(I also fly quadcopters based around arduinos though I didn't program them!)

I'd put arduino up there with 3d printing as one of the new disruptive technologies out there.

If you've not tried arduino I'd urge you to give it a try - arduino.cc. All you need to get started is an arduino nano from ebay for 6 quid - that comes with usb and cable - plug it in and get coding. digital in/out, analogue in/out, serial comms, PWM, etc, etc.

You put up with CRAPPY iOS 7. You can put up with Obamacare too, says prez

stu 4

USA Delusions of Superiority

It is incredible to me that 'Obamacare' is contentious. There cannot be a country in Europe where the 'Breaking Bad' scenario could exist, and yet it is very much the norm in the 'land of the free'.

I'm currently reading Bill Bryson's One Summer: America 1927 and it is a fascinating read. In many ways that time defined the america that still exists today - one of corporations controlling the people, politics being controlled by the rich, and the illusion of freedom almost sitting in for religion as the 'safety net' that placates the plebeians into servitude.

Bill Gates: Yes, Ctrl-Alt-Del salute was a MISTAKE

stu 4

Kermit

Bill Gates always reminds me of Kermit the Frog.

is it just me ?

EasyJet wanted to fling me off flight for diss tweet, warns cyber-law buff

stu 4

Re: I'm a Law Lecturer - FAIL

though easyjet are in the wrong here, the bloke does appear to be right up his own arse according to his webpage.

" I am currently researching what “activates” the active dot in the active/pathetic dot matrix within the context of cyber-legitimacy"

uhu. that's very interesting sir, we have upgraded you from this flight - you will now be departing in our brand new Golgafinchan aircraft, and will be one of the first to fly it... step this way.

Apple blings up new iMac with latest Intel chips, next-gen Wi-Fi

stu 4

Re: New Option

@RTNavy: well.. you can of course - search for hackintosh. pretty straight forward. not in keeping with the intent of the licence, but inkeeping with the wording if you slap an apple sticker on the resulting machine.

I ran hackintoshes for a few years as my main desktop PC before switching to imac27.

And of course, the pleasure of osx and timemachine, meant all I needed to do was restore my hackintosh onto my new imac27 and that was the job done.

stu 4

Re: Never again

screen went on my old 19" iMac.

3 years out of warranty (4 1/2 years old).

went into apple store for them to look at it.

motherboard and screen replaced, free of charge.

that's one of the reasons my hoose in now full of macs.

Nokia Lumia 1020: It's an imaging BEAST... and it makes calls too

stu 4

Re: "Ann Frank's drum kit"

er... you have a pretty fucked up definition of 'mudered' then, if you ask me.

she died in a german concentration camp. Of typhus.

I think most people would agree that however you die in a nazi concentration camp, you've been murdered by the germans/nazis.

Tracking the history of magnetic tape: A game of noughts and crosses

stu 4

1996 data storage on video cassette

anyone else have this ?

I remember getting it around 96 or so for my PC.

Basically an ISA card, which then connected via composite video into your VCR.

It recorded the data visually on the VHS tapes as black and white squares.

At the time my HD was 2GB, and it allowed me to back it all up on one VHS tape.

Considering that HDs cost a fortune then (I'd bought my P90, 16MB memory, 2GB HD for 1800 pounds the year before).

Ah here it is:

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/general/276535/top-10-worst-products-ever/2

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/use-a-vcr-to-store-4gb-of-data-for-about-a-dollar-76128042.html

A bit harsh - I found it pretty good at the time considering there was no cheap alternatives.

Mach 8 Scramjet flies but sends no data

stu 4

class - fly on the wall required

I can see the team on the ground -

Bruce: Release the rocket!

Bruce: ok bruce. rocket away!

Bruce: Right.... on my count Bruce - I want you to fire the scamjet bit you fitted... 5...4...3...

Bruce: er... I thought you fitted that bit.

Bruce: no. no. I told you to do it. I remember....

Bruce: ah.....

Korean stealth-scraper plans will turn 450 metre tower INVISIBLE

stu 4

biggest ever TV surely ?

It is crying out for someone to hack it and :

1. display the largest even cock on the side

2. play porn on the side of it

p.s. I am bronze now!! yeh!!!

Badges for Commentards

stu 4

where's mine ??

In total, your posts have been upvoted 695 times and downvoted 305 times.

And I've been here since 2007!

Official crackdown on Apple fanboi 'shanty town' ahead of London iPhone launch

stu 4

estate agent and a student

can't we just organise a diversion of the queue to lead them to the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B ?

‘Priceless’ unique Palm ‘FAILEO’ laptop goes under the hammer

stu 4

offtopic: priceless

When I was a kid I always got confused between priceless and worthless.

now I know they are generally the same thing.

however, hope the bidding goes up as for a good cause.

Dog bites man: Apple's Macs trounce all Windows PCs in customer love

stu 4

I've been a mac house for 5 years now (previously anti-mac).

I bought a cheap asus x401 a month ago from ebuyer (insanely cheap) to run my webcam security cameras on 24/7 as it'd let me save power and let the main osx server and raid array sleep during the week when I am away on business.

It had windows 8 on it. It was utterly hellish, plus of course it had to usually bloadware crap on it.

No probs I thought - I'll just fire my old copy of windows 7 on there - given it me free for 'hosting a windows 7 party' before I left the windows arena.....

holly christ - what a bloody palaver!!!!

boot of USB DVD ? will it f*ck.

fecking about with their terrible implementation of EFI... looking on the net, changing bios settings, trying again... net full of people with similar tales.. I mean how can you make something so hard that has been mainstream easy for nearly 15 years!!! Just let me boot of the f*cking DVD for christsake!!!

Eventually after probably 10+ manhours I got it done - only possible by switching EFI off.

utter utter mince - if I'd known I'd have bought a 400 quid 5 year old macbook and used that - I'd have been able to stick windows 7 on that in 30 minutes.

stu

Smartwatch craze is all just ONE OFF THE WRIST

stu 4

Re: I remember watches

yup, you cannae beat a protrek.

Mine is 10 years old - original battery (solar recharging on a transparent cell ontop of the multi level screen.

Titanium, bullet proof.

I use it for flying and walking (alti), diving (just time), compass (flying).

I have a £3500 titanium breitling too, but I find 9 days out of 10 I chose the casio to wear.

stu 4

Re: I remember watches

they are called jumphour watches. you get the old ones on ebay (I have one from 1971) and you get reproductions. I still think they look cool.

Stylus counsel: The rise and fall of the Apple Newton MessagePad

stu 4

yeh anther excuse to post.....

My PDA collection cabinet pics:

http://powerlord.smugmug.com/Gadgets/PDA-cabinet/

there's a newton in there somewhere...

Billionaire engineer Ray Dolby, 80, dies at home in San Francisco

stu 4

I agree

I was never an audiophile , but I never found dolby B on prerecorded tapes to be much cop. Just sounded flat and muffled.

But use B or C on a specific tape deck to record, and the playback on the same tape deck was very nice indeed. Especially in the early days of CDs... when taping em was the only option (rather than burning a CD I mean).

I only ever had mid range Akai or Technics desks mind you, no Nakamichis, but it worked for me.

stu

How to get a Raspberry Pi to take over your Robot House

stu 4

Arduino

I'm building an arduino one just now - just needs arduino (3 quid), 433 tx/rx (2 quid).

that's about it - it can then talk to cheap as chips remote power sockets you can pick up on ebay for a fiver.

stick ethernet or wifi board onto arduino (5 quid) and run some a basic webserver on it, and you get all you need to control stuff.

Plus you get the benefit of easily being able to make more complex recievers to do whatever you want - another arduino,433 tx/rx is all you need - plus whatever else you want it to do - mp3 module, relays, stepper motors... the world is yer lobster. It would be relatively trivial to extend the code on your arduino rxs to enable a mesh too if you had a particularily large coverage requirement.

I do also have a raspPi I play with, and I know they are very different fish, but I don't think the arduino gets as much attention as it deserves - even as an educational tool I think it's far more interesting for kids to use and make stuff do things than a raspPi. and much cheaper too.

16Mhz is still a hell of a lot of oomph, and there's very little I've found it can't cope with - for example the most advanced open source automatic flight controller (Arducopter) runs on a 2 quid arduino (plus a few auxiliary sensors).

If anyone is interested in this sort of stuff, I'd urge them to try an ardiuno.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active: The mobe for CHUCK NORRIS TYPES

stu 4

So just to check....

I can stick this up my bum then ?

Dixons in talks to offload loss-making online mart PIXmania

stu 4

Goes both ways

I remember waaay back when they launched (2003?) I used em, and they sent me 2 cameras by mistake.

which was nice.

However, the next time it was dreadful much like everyone else.. and that was the last time I used em.

Microsoft, Nokia and the sound of colliding garbage trucks

stu 4
Joke

Analogies

Ok, if we are doing analogies/similies how about:

Elop = Jobs (both steves so that bit is easy)

Jobs/Elop leaves apple/MS, starts nextstep/nokia(ok..breaks down at that bit)

Apple/MS goes down shitter with crap machines/windows8

Jobs/Elop returns and does reverse take over of Apple/MS

Jobs/Elop moves Apple/MS to completely new operating system (OSX/symbian)

Yes... I predict we will all be using symbianOS in 5 years time.....

Campus Party: Did it start Silicon Britain or let 5,000 geeks sleep together?

stu 4

Christian camps

I am now a confirmed athiest anti-theist, and wasn't really a christian when a kid either, but 2 of the best holidays I had were with a friend at organised 'christian week' camp things in england.

We had a full week of electronics (building a whole host of different things that we wanted to), and software coding,

This was back in 1984/85 so it was coding my spectrum and amstrad, and the electronics was things like building infrared sensors, and fm transmitters and working them out in vero-board, etc.

It was great fun. And to be fair to he happy clappers, all the singing and christian stuff was confined to the evenings and optional.

I don't know who arranged them at the time but it was some national organisation - they were excellently organised with great accomodation (in a private girls boarding school in the SE) and if still going I'd recommend it to any 12-16yo techie.

stu

Qualcomm reveals 'Toq' smartwatch

stu 4

fah

I'm waiting for my Hyetis Crossbow.

LOHAN slowly strips lens caps off hi-def imaging arsenal

stu 4
Boffin

Re: Batteries

Yes occasionally mine will still freeze up for no reason even after various firmware upgrades which is a pain.

I use mine paragliding, paramotoring and skydiving ( and on quadcopters, cycling and scuba...!)

Admittedly my flying ceilings are about 13k so nowt like as high as Lohan is going.

You can easily power it via the 5v usb rather than via the expensive auxiliary battery bak-pak. I use a 3s 1200 lipo and UBEC when flying paramotors. that gives me roughly 3-4 hours of additional power. As an added benefit, seeing as the 5v also goes to charge the battery it means that it warms up the camera as well via the internal lipo charging.

And while you are at it - why not take the analogue video feed out of it too - and fire it through a 5.8hgz video transmitter ?

I get about 4000 feet vertically with my quadcopter with a 600mw tx and omni directional tx, but with a high db gain antenna (since you are effectively going to be 'below' all the time directional focus shouldnt be too much of an issue) you should be able to get that up to 40k or so I'd have thought at least... for some real time video!

Anyway I hope you are going to record in 2.7k..... you know it makes sense!

Also make sure you have prores on - we want that bitrate maxed out!

stu

stu 4
Thumb Up

Re: Not considered a drying rig ?

yup, its just 5v.

I power mine in flight (paramotoring) via an external lipo into the USB. Gives me 4 hours with a small lipo before it even touches the main battery (which is even worse than an hour if shooting 2.7k footage or 1080p60).

Decks and plugs and rock and roll: Tascam CD-A750 cassette and CD combo

stu 4

Interviews

Don't forget they are still the ONLY form of evidence used for recording taped interviews by Plod too.

stu 4
Boffin

Re: Cassettes still needed

yes they have.

my grandfather is blind and uses it every day. provided by the RNIB.

primarly for their incredibly extensive range of talking books, it also plays audio CDs and its large buttons and audio feedback make it easy for him to use.

And it's about the size of a large (you know the big old cheap ones) portable compact disc player .

Myst: 20 years of point-and-click adventuring

stu 4
Thumb Up

Dear Esther

You might want to checkout Dear Esther - quite similar but GPU tastic.

Kinda more a story than an adventure, but worth a look.

http://dear-esther.com/

stu

US highway agency awards Tesla Model S record safety score

stu 4
FAIL

Re: Front 'trunk'

Ah...an american meets sarcasm..strangers in the night.

never mind... keep reading El Reg.. you might get there eventually.

stu 4

Front 'trunk'

Er... I assume that was tested with the 'trunk' at the front empty.

What if it was full ? What if it was full of, say, a section of massive pieces of jaggy stee,l you were transporting somewhere ?

Though removing the engine, they have surely added a new variable to a crash ? (not new - I mean other mid/rear engine cars have front boots... I'm just saying...)

anyway electric/all cars are still fecking stupid - If we got rid of the dumb electric bike laws in this country, a safe electric bicycle could do 30mph and 30 miles of a charge (currently limited to 15mph). That would cover a large percentage of peoples commuting needs... would be cheap (<1000 quid), no stupid massive batteries, or transporting 90% dead weight around, etc. etc....

stu (3 electric bikes... though i do also have 3 cars... so not claiming green credentials - just saying)

New use for old iPhones: Watch your house get robbed in REAL-TIME

stu 4

How the hell is this news??

CNET reported it to.

The app market (iphone and android) are FULL of surveillance apps like this.

The only twist seems to be they are suggesting that this be the prime and only reason for using the phone when it is older plus doing it over 3g rather than wifi... which is absurd - even the older iphone is worth 3x what a wifi camera with the same capability has.

I run just such an app on an android phone I leave in my motorhome when I'm oot and aboot for security.

Kiwi jetpack gets all-clear for manned tests

stu 4

Re: Paramotor safer

yeh - lets call it short take off and landing.

I don't think VTOL is the only thing this is selling as is it ? it's the 'personal transport' angle they are going for.

And a paramotor is, I would argue, as practical (i.e. not at all), and a damn site safer and cheaper.

I can't see any applications where VTOL is really required outside of military. As a flying toy which is surely what it is - I don't really get it.

It would also not be legal to fly in the UK as not foot launch-able - unless you are superman.

stu 4

Paramotor safer

I'll stick with my paramotors.

At least when the engine stops (and it does sometimes) I can glide back down.

Oh yeh - and they cost 5K... so a bit more affordable.

stu

Google Glass: Would you pay a mere $299 to plop one on your brow?

stu 4

eh??

christ, It's not like you have to have it stapled to your head FFS.

I have a pair of MOD Lives. Pretty similar spec wise.

I wrote software for them to allow me to use them flying my paraglider and paramotor - speed, alti, wind speed, etc.

Google glass offers similar benefits for certain applications/activities.

No one is forcing you to wear it 24 hours a day.

Confirmed: Driverless cars to hit actual British roads by end of year

stu 4
Holmes

Re: Here's a Thought @Tim

>You appear to be under the misapprehension that there are buses everywhere to carry the idiots. This is not the case. I live 7 miles from the nearest bus stop.

Provided you are not an idiot, that is irrelevant... all we need to do is prove that all idiots live close to bus stations, and we can close this case!

stu 4

Re: They've been on the road for years

I was travelling in the passenger seat, with my grandfather (99 last week) driving about 15 years ago in his British Leyland Mini Metro.

He'd previously mentioned his eyes weren't quite as good as they used to be, but didn't make a big thing of it, so didn't seem too bad...

We came around a corner, and there was a black and white traffic cone on the the left side of the road.

"Oh my god - there's a penguin!"

Suffice to say, we relieved him of the keys from that day... for 2 reasons!

Inventor lobs spherical, throwable camera

stu 4

interesting - but I'm sure something similar was out a few year ago

Plus, for most of the possible use cases, a small quadcopter would be better.

For example - the fire use case - has your 'spherical camera' landing in the middle of the fire - so you're gonna go through a lot of camera.

With the new brushless gimbal controller that have just came out, footage from quadcopters (like mine) has become incredibly stable - stable enough that they can even be used with zoom lens camera for example.

For example (no zoom but shows stability of footage):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svDJU0gBWBg

These can be built for around 250 quid now - are very easy to fly, and in most cases (e.g. search and rescue, fires, etc) would be far better than the spherical camera I'd have thought.

Idaho patriots tool up to battle Jihad with pork bullets

stu 4
Facepalm

Re: So much for respecting the religious beliefs of other people.

"You don't believe in Allah, they don't believe in Jehova. Neither of your religions allow for a dualistic approach where you are both worshipping the same God"

I reckon you knew what you were doing there JHW. - a troll for the non thinking athiests perhaps....?

I do think we antitheiests fell into our own trap by sometimes talking about the 3 main monothiest religions praises the same god.. I mean... how can we tell he's the same god ? he (probably) doesn't exists, and there is no evidence for him... how do you scientifically prove therefore that they are the same imaginary entity 'believed in' by seperate groups of people. I wondered if Dicky D just says it to wind them up more.....

The future of cinema and TV: It’s game over for the hi-res hype

stu 4
Thumb Up

1080p60

It's strange that we are now in a situation where consumers can record video quality at a far higher quality, both in resolution (bit rate per frame) and temporally.

I shoot all my video in 1080p60 these days when I can (one of my pet annoymances is that SONY still restricts their cameras to 'PAL' in the UK. i.e. 50fps... even though the word 'PAL' is meaningless now.

Watching 60p footage in a laptop, HDTV far exceeds anything broadcast.

Personally I'm hoping that these are just more nails in the coffin of broadcast TV - so - broadcast TV can't do 1080p60 at 28MBs... who cares - our computers can - our compression formats (H264) can, so stuff broadcast and download and play.