* Posts by Arctic fox

2770 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Nov 2009

EXPLICIT VID: Man filmed trying to bang brand new 'budget iPhone'

Arctic fox
WTF?

I could usually understand the sense behind............

...........Mr Jobs' marketing strategies but this from the current management..............

"This appointment follows the departure of former retail boss John Browett, as well as Apple's decision to give a fitness expert called Jay Blahnik a job. The healthy living guru used to work for Nike and is thought to be on board to help Cupertino develop its near-mythical iWatch."

..........leaves me utterly mystified.

'Symbolic' Grauniad drive-smash was not just a storage fail

Arctic fox
Thumb Down

No Mr Oakley it is more like........

"But don't imagine for one moment that you can blatantly spill NATO secrets and then expect to be able to walk in and out of NATO borders without a shedload of trouble."

..............."Don't imagine for one moment that you can blatantly spill the beans on our political mendacity and still be able to go about your daily life without a shedload of trouble." There, fixed it for you - much more realistic.

Bradley Manning* sentenced to 35 years in prison

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@Don Jefe "this whole thing sucks."

I agree.

Comcast court docs show Prenda copyright trolls seeded smut then sued

Arctic fox
Happy

@Don Jefe Re: I feel that this demonstrates beyond any doubt that....

Quite right. I was in a hurry and composed and posted too fast. I should of course said something along the lines of "both copyright and patent trolls etc...".

"There's nothing patentable about what adult film stars do."

Indeed, I don't think that even Cupertino would try and patent what adult film stars do, although it would give a whole new meaning to "you're holding it wrong"!

Arctic fox
Headmaster

I feel that this demonstrates beyond any doubt that....

"Top copyright troll Prenda Law has been caught red-handed seeding torrenting sites with pornographic films in an effort to drum up business for its copyright lawyers."

.......such people are extortionists and that patent law should be changed to make such companies (who do not produce anything) liable to prosecution for conspiracy and racketeering. I go further and say that any company that actually is a producer who signs over their patents* to such companies in order to distance themselves from the approbrium that is increasingly inspired by such behaviour should be charged as coconspirators.

*We have seen several examples of that kind of tactic in the last year or so.

Apple sucking triple the phone switchers as Samsung – report

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@stuartnz Funnily enough I was just about to ask the same question, ie are we talking....

.......US or Global? The US is of course home turf for Apple and Samsung only began to make serious headway in the American smartphone market with the GS2. Apple had already seriously established themselves at the start of the smartphone era "over there", most particularly with the release of the iPhone 3 and 3S and they have always quite deliberately as a company focused purely on well-heeled high end customers . It would be equally valid to compare their respective sales globally whilst ignoring the US. Both approaches are ridiculous and reveal the inability of some American analysts to recognise that there is a whole world out there beyond the US borders. That however should not surprise us from a country where only about 5% of its citizens have a current passport.

Court throws out Icahn's demand to stall Dell shareholder vote

Arctic fox
Happy

Can we call him a.........

..............misadventure capitalist now?

SQUEEEEE! Microsoft goes retro with pay-by-squawk NFC tech

Arctic fox
Windows

@DougS Re: "Got to hand it to Microsoft Research"

You really have to be careful old chap. Saying something complimentary about M$-DemonBastardLordsofDarkness is not allowed round here. The fact that MS-Research has been a source of genuine innovation for the last twenty to thirty years or so will not prevent you from getting hosed.

Apple erects measures to stop app-happy kids splurging parents' dosh

Arctic fox
Unhappy

Re: mobile TV's "...icon because I am a grumpy old fart"

As one grumpy old fart to another I have to say that I entirely agree. "Sad Face" to express solidarity you understand!

How much will Apple cough for ebook conspiracy? Trial starts May 2014

Arctic fox
Headmaster

Ah , I see........

Apple has said that the government's remedy is "absurdly broad, invasive, vague, draconian and punitive".

........Just like their patent claims then.

YouTube app returns to Windows Phone

Arctic fox
Headmaster

Pardon?

""Vulture South lacks a Windows Phone with which to test the app, which may be a good thing"

Let me see now, Blighty's leading tech journal practically boasts about not having access to a mob which would enable them to check this story for themselves. Sorry guys, that is not precisely impressive.

Arctic fox
Unhappy

Re: Good fortune smiles upon me.

I have just tried it on my Lumia 820. It fails to play anything at all. Someone is taking the piss and (for once) I do not think it is Redmond.

Microsoft to fund Blake's 7 return as Xbox Live exclusive

Arctic fox
Unhappy

I have been wanting to get this off my chest for years.

My lady and I loved B7. However, the way they chose to end it with Avon killing Blake believing he had betrayed them frakked us off so much that I cannot begin to describe how we felt about that grotesque piece of piss-taking by those responsible for the series. I hope they rot in.............ahem, excuse me but that really got up our noses.

Foxconn mulls solar panels, sticking Apple where sun doesn't shine

Arctic fox
Headmaster

This is simply good strategic business sense on their part.

"Perhaps worried that the sun could set on its long-running relationship with the iPad giant, the Taiwanese multinational will decide by the end of the year whether to move into the solar energy market."

Indeed it is a very old conundrum. At one stage in the sixties the then Hungarian government had a very thriviving trade with West Germany amounting to (if memory serves) about 35% or so of their import/export trade. They chose quite deliberately to diversify for exactly the same reasons as Foxcon may be diversifying now. It makes sense - your best buddy now may "go off with somebody else" leaving you high and dry. I do not for one moment believe that Foxcon are going to bail on Apple any time soon but they would be fools not to reduce their exposure to one company whoever that company might be.

Norway BANS Apple from Oslo's skies: No aerial Maps app snaps allowed

Arctic fox
Happy

@Trygve Henriksen Re:"Your punishment will therefore be to watch this video...."

Far too kind old chap. He should be forced to eat rakfisk and lutefisk every day for a month. As to the two written forms of the language I can only say that having seen what he has done with Bokmål I shudder to think what crimes he would commit against Nynorsk.

Arctic fox
Happy

@Vociferous Re: "Hold øynene av våre premie, Tim Cook" I do beg your pardon?

"'I'm guessing something was lost in google translation." Indeed, either that or my sense of humour needs an upgrade!

:)

AF.

Arctic fox
WTF?

"Hold øynene av våre premie, Tim Cook" I do beg your pardon?

"Keep your eyes off our prize, Tim Cook"? Oh and no, having lived here since 98 I did not need to use Google translate for that. I realise that I may have completely missed the point of something seriously witty from El Reg's subbies but if I have could someone explain it to me please? Otherwise I will have to assume that Vulture Central is placing too much trust in Mountain View's translations.

'Abel, you're fired!' Hear AOL supremo axe exec during conference call

Arctic fox
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"Interesting is it not to note such examples of bosses..............

...................who confirm the widespread suspicion that sociopaths appear to have no problem climbing the greasy pole of promotion. Modern capitalism - don't you just love it? For what it is worth I don't think even his mother could love him.

Waiting for a Windows Phone update? Let's talk again next year

Arctic fox

Re: Growth.

Sorry Barry you cannot get away with that one. I have seen any number of articles in publications from both sides of the pond concerning WP8's sales figures and they all have made precisely that point.

Study finds online commentards easily duped, manipulated

Arctic fox
Trollface

Re: Let's put this social positivity theorem to the test...

"Wanna bet that wouldn't get me any downvotes hereabouts?"

Given the nature of our little club here at El Reg you would probably be heavily upvoted for satire given that nobody would believe you could possibly be serious.

Canonical: Last change to Ubuntu Edge phone price – we promise

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@ilmari Indeed, at about £500 (including VAT) it is pitched at the high end of the market......

.......depending of course on the hardware. I am a Windows user from way back when but I am still very interested in what Canonical may come up with. I do not understand the sneering we are seeing amongst some of the Vanguard of the Commentariat (well I do understand what's going on here but if I expressed my opinion of it I might actually get modded - how embarrassing would that be here at the Wild, Wild West of Vulture Central). If they produce a high end mob that can function both as a phone and as a desktop (when docked)* then yours truly will certainly be willing to pony up.

*http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/08/02/tmobile_signs_on_to_bring_ubuntu_phones_to_us_mobile_market/

Apple patents laser, incandescent projector for laptops, smartphones

Arctic fox
Trollface

Of course this patent application was accompanied by........

....a working prototype*. No? Well there's a surprise.

*A particular bugbear of mine with regard to the current fucked up state of hardware patent laws.

Samsung rolls out first mass-produced 3D NAND flash memory chip

Arctic fox
Headmaster

"May the best chip – or chips – win."

Fascinating developments. Those who have recently been proclaiming the death of Moore's Law may have to think again.

Limbaugh: If you hate Apple then you're a lefty blog-o-twat hipster

Arctic fox
Facepalm

Re: Disproportionate

Disproportionate? Are you serious? Do us all a favour and vanish making short sharp jerking motions.

Arctic fox
Headmaster

Let me see now, his "logic" would imply that.........

............if you prefer kit from Google/Samsung you are by his definition left-wing and if you prefer kit from Apple/Foxcon you are right-wing? The word "barking" does not even begin to cover it.

T-Mobile joins effort to bring Ubuntu phones to US mobile market

Arctic fox
Headmaster

Re: They don't want iOS because it is Apple's baby, they don't want Android because its.........

I should also mention the following:

"unique, hybrid computing model, in which an Ubuntu phone will function as a full-fledged Linux PC when it's plugged into a keyboard and monitor."

Now that would make such a device very interesting from a personal user case point of view as far as I am concerned, very interesting indeed.

Arctic fox
Thumb Down

They don't want iOS because it is Apple's baby, they don't want Android because its.........

..........Google/Samsung's baby and they don't want Win Phone because its Microsoft's baby. Or rather they want something that will compete will all of the above without them having to do fuck all to achieve this. Furthermore it would be a lot more convincing if the US telecoms were not amongst the keenest on earth to control the market according to their own interests and amongst the most unscrupulous when it comes to how they go about achieving such goals.

*Let me make quite clear that I am in no way hostile to Ubuntu phones (or mobs based on any other variant of Linux), indeed I wish them (wholly sincerely) the very best of luck. It is the attitude of the "service providers" I am referring to.

Lost phone? Google's got an app for that, coming this month

Arctic fox
WTF?

"ITunes is awful....."

You put up with a phone where the major media handling software stinks? On the grounds of what may I ask?

The hammer falls: Feds propose drastic controls on Apple's iTunes Store

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@Andy Prough.

"I've seen Windows machines where you are better off wiping the drive and re-installing the OS than trying to get iTunes and its dog's-breakfast of co-installed applications to either behave or uninstall properly."

Yep, been there, done that (a long time ago) - never again.

Jurors start stretch in the cooler for Facebooking, Googling the accused

Arctic fox
Headmaster

Excellent - it is about time certain tossbags learnt the difference between..........

"Jurors start stretch in the cooler for Facebooking, Googling the accused"

.......an understandable desire to express their opinions and their obligations to civic society. In other words there are times when it is appropriate to shut your gob. It is no good banging on about how nobody takes any notice of us ordinary folk if the moment one of us is in this position they piss all over their responsibilities. The issue is exactly the same (in principle) as that idiot of a jury foreman in the Apple versus Samsung case who utterly ignored the oath he took as a juror.

Darth Vader's old gaff awaits exogorth desert DUNE DOOM

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

Re: Divine Justice

"To be honest no real Star Wars fan would even recognise that there ever were any prequels, just like there was only one Matrix film."

My good lady and I remember with much nostalgia and great pleasure going to see the first Star Wars film when it was released in the late seventies. We were entranced (the special effects were for their time utterly amazing) and became major league fans enjoying the second and third films equally as much. You can imagine how much we looked forward to going to the cinema to see (many years later) the first of the three "prequal" films. We walked out after twenty minutes. Enough said.

PORNAGEDDON: Sexy bloggrs stung by Tumblr smut smackdown

Arctic fox

@Don Jefe "the only people who...........are government types......-"

Government types? Sure they do - however have you failed to notice what the private sector are willing to get up to given the slightest opening? Improperly supervised power is the issue here regardless of whether it is in the private or the public sector. About time the free-market worshipers recognised that.

Five bods wrongly cuffed thanks to bungled comms snooping in UK

Arctic fox
Headmaster

RE:"UK cops and spook agencies wrongly fingered five people.........."

Security authorities have been making this kind of fuck-up since Walsingham* was Elizabeth the First's "M". Are we really surprised? They do it again and again and use the same excuses each time. "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs". In other words we are told that we have to except this particularly nasty example of "friendly fire" and if we do not accept this then their reply is "what is your problem, something to hide have we?"

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Walsingham

PEAK APPLE: 'iPhone sales STALL' at first sniff of fresh droid competition

Arctic fox

Re: Contradictory reports "Verizon for example reports...."

Yes, entirely correct - but in the US. This report appears to be addressing the global market - although I still take it with a large pinch of salt.

Microsoft admits it's '18 months behind' with Windows 8 slabs

Arctic fox
Headmaster

Re: What is he taking??? He is referring to the fact that the OEMs are about.........

..........a year to eighteen months behind when it comes to producing on the mass market scale Win 8 (in other words x86) tablets and laptops. This is of course because they have an eighteen month to two year purchase/production cycle for the "bits" that make up their hardware products and they wanted to foist on the general public as much of their out of date hardware as they could before they actually started producing hardware equipped with touch-screens in genuinely mass market numbers. Whether not he is whistling in the dark as far as any success for these devices when they at last come on the market during the last third of 2013 remains to be seen.

Microsoft DENIES it gives backdoor access to Outlook encryption

Arctic fox
Headmaster

Re: "... PRISM is one of America's success stories..........

........., it allows her to defend her people for (sic) the terrorists."

No, that is the claim they make - ie that they have prevented another 9/11. This claim is by definition impossible to test and/or validate. It reminds one of the old joke about a farmer who built an enormous wall with electrified fence on top and a huge moat at the bottom. When asked by another farmer why he had gone to such expense he replied that "it's to keep the elephants out". His mate replied "but we don't have any elephants round here Bill". "Quite right" said Bill "you can see what a great job my wall is doing."

Acer silences Thunderbolt

Arctic fox

"I guess what I'm saying is Thunderbolt was more a markettting failure than technological"

Agreed. It is of course not the first time - Betamax versus VHS comes to mind.

Google and Apple's couples therapy is working – Schmidt

Arctic fox

RE:"Handing all their users data straight over to the government............

...............without any objections whatsoever."

The sad thing is that one cannot rely on any part of the media to report these matters without having their own commercial and/or political agenda. Anyone who has read "Guardian Tech" in recent years will have noticed that they are regularly bottom kissing very friendly to Cupertino (and many of their posters have raised questions concerning a possible commercial relationship with the fruity company). Their headline this morning would have given the ordinary punter the impression that it is largely Redmond who is cooperating with the NSA when we are (here at any rate) aware that this is far from the case.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

They put this on their front page* - I have yet to see the same coverage of the major tech companies, "cooperation" being given the same prominence. I am not for one moment excusing MS' behaviour, just wondering who is pursuing what agenda.

*Normally very unusual for a tech piece at the Graun, unless it is a friendly piece of puff on behalf of you-know-who.

Windows kernel bug-squish, IE update star in July Patch Tuesday

Arctic fox
Headmaster

@kain preacher. Re: "..........I did not think that you could piss off.............."

Neither did I. However, he certainly managed it! I have to say that in the four years or so that I have posted here I cannot recall seeing such an example of "summary justice" before - just goes to show.

Arctic fox
Windows

@JDX Re: Boring without Eadon

He managed to piss off Vulture Central so much that they terminated his arse with extreme prejudice. Icon? Nothing would piss that late and unlamented gentleman off more.

Not even Asia can save PC market's slump

Arctic fox
Windows

@Wade Burchette. Rubbish - what we have here is a hardware/formfactor......

.....paradigm shift that we are in the middle of and cannot yet, reliably, see the outlines of. Whether one likes it or not what the tablet devices from Apple/Foxconn and Google's OEMs have done is change what the ordinary punter expects as far as form-factor and price is concerned. The issue of whether Redmond is capable of catching up with this or not is another matter, however the suggestion that this situation is caused by Win 8 is arrant rubbish. It is in fact to the credit of both Mountain View and Cupertino that they have powered this change.Win 8 is Redmond's response to a trend set by the aforementioned - whether they will succeed in catching that train is another matter.

Snowden, schmoden. Let's talk about crushing hackers, say US'n'China

Arctic fox
Facepalm

"America's web snooping doesn't derail cosy security confab"

Why would it? Both the American and Chinese governments (regardless in America's case of which party is in power) have exactly the same attitude to their populations. As has the UK government of course.

Acer Iconia W3: The first 8-inch Windows 8 Pro tablet

Arctic fox
Thumb Down

Regardless of which OS we are talking about that piece of tat is an Acer.

Nothing more needs to be said.

Apple surrenders in 'app store' trademark suit against Amazon

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@Blain Hamon. Indeed, astonishment would be a small word in the context..........

...........if she had something of the kind. However, I think we could agree that them protecting their precious corporate egos is a small price to pay for them dropping this nonsense. I look forward (although I am not holding my breath) to her announcing that they are dropping their farcical judicial carpet bombing of Samsung on the basis the the iPhone/iPad brands are too strong to be damaged by the possibility that some seriously brain-dead members of the public might be confused when comparing them with their rival's products.

Apple creeps up on Android in US smartphone sales

Arctic fox
Headmaster

I am going to indulge myself in one of my pet peeves.

The difference between "X percent" and "X percentage points". It is not a minor niggle because one can end up drawing mistaken conclusions from the given set of figures. To whit:

"Windows Phone devices also saw a year-on-year improvement, rising 0.9 per cent to reach 4.6 per cent,"

No they did not. The increase was (if I have not made a cock-up here myself, which is quite possible) 0.9 percentage points which on a difference year on year going from 3.7% to 4.6% is a year on year increase of 30 percent. Though having said that of course I doubt that Ballmer is about to break out the champagne any time soon - a very small market share is still a very small market share. It would just be nice if we discussed such figures with a modicum of care and precision, hmm...?

Samsung isn't alone: HTC profits take a huge dive

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@Dave Fox: Exactly. I tried to explain recently that I ran two smartphones........

......a Desire X and a Lumia 820. My saying that I liked both did not go down well with the "Cognoscenti". Currently (because her old Nokia had given up the ghost) my good lady has taken over the Desire X and she is very pleased with it. She also has no problem with using my Lumia so all is well here at Arctic Fox Towers. Indeed a couple who are good friends are very pleased with their iPhones with the result that we have had some hands-on time with the iPhone 4S as well. Very decent phones, just not our cup of tea. I simply do not understand the "football supporter" mentality amongst some of our fellow members of the "Vanguard of the Commentariat".

IT design: You're not data, you're a human being

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@MrMcginty Re: Very glad that someone is at least thinking about this

First class post, that's all I have to say.

Microsoft offloads heap of critical fixes in 'ugly' Patch Tuesday

Arctic fox
Windows

"I was hoping the first Post-Eadon Patch Tuesday......

...Your hopes were in vain - after all some "brain-deads" actually used to upvote him.

French snooping as deep as PRISM: Le Monde

Arctic fox

The Berlin Wall came down amidst general rejoicing only for us now to discover...........

................many years after that Western governments routinely subject their citizens to the kind of high tech snooping that the KGB in their day would have given the eye-teeth for.

Win 8 man Sinofsky's 'retirement' deal: $14m shares, oath of silence

Arctic fox
Trollface

Re:"I never read anything really bad from him as to deserve a permanent ban."

You didn't? Well, well.