* Posts by treboR

34 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Sep 2009

Yelp minimum wage row shines spotlight on … broke, fired employee

treboR

Re: @Trebor

Work for someone else, work for themselves, develop a skill, move somewhere the cost of living isn't so high. Any of the above plus anything else that doesn't involve stamping your feet and demanding that someone else solve your problems for you.

Cmon it's not that hard. You just have to stop imagining that a strong central authority will fix everything for you and think for yourself.

treboR

Re: @Trebor

Then they all need to go find somewhere else to work.

If Yelp had no staff because they offered below the market rate for labour then they'd quickly have to improve their offer.

And just to head off the socialist nonsense..

if there's a queue of people lining up for that job, then they ARE paying the market rate.

Bottom line, there's absolutely nothing wrong with making sacrifices to live within your means. Western Australia is very expensive for accommodation and it's very common for single income households (i.e. individuals) to share houses to keep the costs down. Should I whine to my employer about it?

treboR

She doesn't have to live alone, so she could take a room mate and save on some of those costs.

She could car share with someone, and save some of those costs..

I mean I'm not saying don't pay a fair wage but if other people are managing on her salary, why should the company be forced to pay for her lifestyle choices?

Victorian government teacher-laptop scheme illegal, says judge

treboR

Re: State looks under lounge

As an Brit living in Aus, who is finally getting fluent in the local language, allow me to explain:

Lounge is Aussie for sofa.

Shocker: Net anarchist builds sneaky 220v USB stick that fries laptops

treboR

Use it as protection against snooping

Keep it plugged in while the machine is powered off, remove before startup.

If someone powers up the machine with it plugged in, they obviously are someone who shouldn't be powering it up.

This box beams cafes' Wi-Fi over 4kms so you can surf in obscurity

treboR

Re: Using 900MHz...

The problem is 2.4GHz doesn't go very far and doesn't penetrate structures very well. That's why it's historically not been much use and then particularly suited for short-ish range stuff like wifi

Storm in a K-Cup: My SHAME over the eco-monster I created, says coffee pod inventor

treboR

Re: Bah ... philistines

Percolated coffee is different to drip coffee. For a start, you make it in a percolator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_percolator

STOP! Pebble Time: New color watch clocks up $5m on Kickstarter

treboR

Going to skip this one

I have one of the original pebbles and I think I'll skip this one. Their customer support was atrocious - to the point of being non-existent. That wouldn't have been such an issue except that they had some pretty enormous problems delivering on time, and then build quality issues, especially in the screen, when the watches finally did ship. They've replaced mine twice due to faults with the screen, and the new one has developed the same fault a third time.

It's a nice idea, and I do find myself using it, so like a smartphone, I'd miss it if I had to give it up now, but sad to say the next smartwatch I buy will not be a pebble.

Lyft hits the brakes: Ban threat stalls taxi app's New York City launch

treboR

The public is reminded not to make their own choices about the goods and services they consume, because We know better and/or may have a vested interest in preventing competition.

Keep monopoly or make network expensive, NBN Co warns

treboR

The private networks should totally be allowed to build FTTP any where they want

Stop here and you have it right.

treboR

In soviet russia, monopolies reduce price

US spanks phone-jamming vendor with $34.9 MEEELLION fine

treboR

Re: China: Figures

Supplying a product that people want, at a price they're prepared to pay is definitely capitalism. If it was communism at work they'd have a whole factory devoted to making lime-green left hand shoes and another factory 700 miles away turning out bright red right hand shoes, for hundreds of times the going market rate. And they'd be the only shoes you could buy. And they'd be way behind on production so there would be a waiting list.

But hey, they'd have 100% employment so that's something, right?

Stopping IT price gouging would risk SOCIALIST DYSTOPIA!

treboR

All this government regulation is stifling competition and driving the price up. The answer is more regulation.

Drinking raw sewage is ruining my health. The answer is to drink more sewage.

Bondi shark alert systems beams warning to nobody on Google Plus

treboR

IT IS WET

YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE EATEN BY A SHARK

App to manage Android app permissions

treboR

If you do decide to try it, you need to remove Snoopwall as a device administrator before you can uninstall it.

Apple CEO Cook breaks YEARS OF SILENCE, finally speaks to El Reg hack

treboR
Meh

It's not that bizarre, he just looks a bit like Richard Whitley

Love in an elevator.... testing mast: The National Lift Tower

treboR

good article

Used to live in Northampton. Used to use the red light on the top as a navigational aid while walking home from the pub p*ssed.

When I lived there they were threatening to pull it down, glad they won't now.

DoCoMo tests blackout-proof hydrogen cell base station in Japan

treboR
Happy

Molten salt batteries

Molton salt batteries are the way to go. They're rechargeable and you can store them for a long time when they're cold with no self discharge and start them again with a detonator. Used in missile guidance systems, and more recently as the batteries for newer diesel electric locomotives with regenerative rather than just rheostatic braking.

Antarctic ice formed at CO2 levels much higher than today's

treboR
Pint

LOL

The climate models currently used don't work, when you start from way back and feed in known data to calculate what the climate *now* should be, they fail.

So until they can work to within acceptable bounds of credulity with what we know to be fact, why should we entrust them with our future?

http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/pdf/01ClimateModels.pdf this report has some of the info.

Dev's iPhone cable melts after iOS 5 upgrade

treboR

03:14:08 19/01/2038

That's more a problem with ZTE phones I think. Something they did in their custom ROM.

Software bugs block O2 PlayStation phone release

treboR
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branded?

The last half a dozen O2 phones I've bought, from the O2 shop, have been unlocked and unbranded. That was part of the reason I stuck with 'em.

Windows Phone 7 gets cut'n'paste, other tweaks in update

treboR

Cut & Paste and Multitasking

.. both things that symbian could do well.

Shame the interface is a dog's dinner

Google: Street View spycars did slurp your Wi-Fi

treboR

Geolocation without GPS

I don't know about other browsers, but in Firefox If you go on Google Maps, there's a button under the compass, which if you click it, churns away for a moment and centres the map on your approximate location. Since my computer doesn't have GPS, it must be doing it by working out what wifi networks are in range of my machine and looking it up in a database. It'll obviously work better in cities and built up areas where the networks are a lot denser.

It's a neat feature, there's nothing overtly sinister about it - if it meant I could get location-aware services without turning on a battery-thirsty GPS chip I'd probably say it was a good thing.

First mass-produced camera heads to auction

treboR

Flash powder?

If it has to burn for up to 30 minutes, that's one hell of a flash.

Police snapper silliness reaches new heights

treboR
FAIL

eye-fi

Nice idea, if they bring out a 3G version.

'We must all stop washing to save the planet'

treboR
FAIL

@Am I missing something?

Have a read of this:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100019301/climategate-another-smoking-gun/

It's pretty hard to believe that any climate change is man made when the people telling us it is stand to gain from the cap & trade type taxes (al gore I'm looking at you) and when the people reporting it can't get their facts straight and have to keep massaging the figures (michael mann I'm looking at you particularly - and the latest figure-fudgers as well)

Why are the pro-AGW brigade so against the idea of open, balanced debate? Why are sceptical comments "mindless"? You throw out all these straw-man arguments about conspiracies which nobody but you mentioned, offered as proof of the outright KRAYZEE nature of these "commentarding idiots" Scepticism is the fundamental, central position of healthy scientific reasoning. Dogmatic acceptance of received wisdom, as preached from on high by an authority figure is not.

But don't worry, you don't have to listen to me because i'm a mindless commentarding idiot! Al Gore will make it all right in the end, just before the polar bears all drown and we burn in hell for our evil ways. Or something.

treboR
FAIL

Fudging the figures again?

Pushing up the estimated CO2 produced by 15%? So soon after another lot of greenhouse gasholes were caught out "adjusting" figures?

They don't learn their lessons easily, do they.

Aus gov dredges up cuter panic-button for kids online

treboR
Unhappy

Connect to sources of help..

Surely their *parents* should be the first source of help.

The state can't take the place of parenting, no matter how much the lefties wish it would be so.

Gone

treboR

@Gerard Krupa

After I log in, I don't see the T&C link mentioning the competition. It's only there when I'm logged out.

LG: watchphones for all in 2010

treboR

@puck

Non-ionising radiation doesn't cause cancer.

Symbian channels iPhone love into Android scrap

treboR
Jobs Horns

I like S60 5th Edition

I'm a bit biased because I'm used to symbian phones, but I really like the S60 5th edition touch interface. It seems a good balance between what "old" symbian users will be used to and adding new touchscreen features - you tap the clock and it brings up the alarm application. Tap the name of the current profile, up comes the list so you can choose. The only thing bugging me is that it's got one inconsistency, some items are tap-to-select, and some are tap-to-activate. I'd prefer it if they were all tap to select, double tap to activate. Symbian usually gives you "options" on one softkey and "OK" or similar on the other, tap to select allows that to carry on, and a fast tap-tap would be the same as pressing the centre of the navigation D-pad on the older interface.

Anyway the fact that even on a low-end handset like the 5800 it can handle multiple applications at once, and doesn't dump me out if someone phones puts it ahead of the iPhone in my estimation.

Palm Pre re-re-introduces iTunes synchronization

treboR
FAIL

Hard to pick a side with this one

It doesn't cost apple anything to let palm have the ability to sync, but then again it doesn't help either since the only people who are going to be using itunes + pre will already be using itunes, they're unlikely to download it just for that.

Nokia have a nice bit of software that can read a folder full of iTunes playlists and download the tracks to the phone, so you make sure you've got a playlist named "nokia 5800" or whatever you choose on your iTunes list and away it goes. Why can't Palm go down that route? That way they don't have to pretend anything and apple have no way to cut them off at the knees.

Apple Mail and iPhone users get vid-tracked

treboR
Thumb Down

Hmm

Might have to stop using Apple Mail then. I'd previously assumed that turning off an option actually.. y'know.. turned it off.

TomTom goes Jock to abuse English 'bas'

treboR
Thumb Down

to which i reply

Bolt, ya rocket.