* Posts by plrndl

482 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Feb 2010

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Game of Thrones written on brutal medieval word processor and OS

plrndl

Re: Not worried about viruses?

"Technically you can even boot from a write protected floppy disk"

If I remember correctly, you cannot boot DOS (or Windows) from a write-protected disk, as the OS needs to write to the boot medium as part of the boot process.

plrndl

Re: You wouldn't give him a hard time if he was using a typewriter

"I suspect vim would also work as well."

When I was using VI, I prayed every day for Wordstar. Joe didn't exist at the time, and I didn't know about Fenix, until I started selling it, the following year.

plrndl

Re: Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike DOS and Wordstar

If you asked me how to do something is Wordstar, I probably couldn't tell you, but if you sat me in front of a computer, I could probably do it without thinking.

I recall that in the days before standard GUIs, a good bet was "when all else fails, try Wordstar commands".

Memo to self: Must install joe.

Survey: Patent litigation skyrocketing, trolls top 10 sueball chuckers

plrndl
Headmaster

Edjercate Me

I like your new method of counting (1, ii, C). Where can I learn more about this?

Google Maps adds all UK public transport timetables

plrndl

Re: Cockfosters?

Mornington Crescent.

Boffins search for dark matter in abandoned Australian mine

plrndl
Alien

Re: Wrong place.

No, it's behind you.

Microsoft blinks, extends Windows 8.1 Update deadline for consumers

plrndl
Linux

Relax

Relax - Linux Mint 17 is due at the end of the month.

Cost-cutting Barclays bank swings axe on 5,600 IT and ops bods

plrndl
Pirate

Redundant?

Rationalisation and restructuring - excellent. What could possibly go wrong?

A first-world problem solved: Panoramic selfies, thanks to Huawei's Ascend P7

plrndl

Re: Truisms Spoken Aloud

@ Don Jefe

Frightfully sorry, old chap, but I must point out that “English” is, by definition, the language of the people of England. It follows that the way the language is spoken in England is the “correct” version.

We are quite happy to have you foreigner johnnies speak our language, with your strange accents, as it saves us the fag of learning your language, but it is still our language.

RBS Group hopes £750m IT shakeup splurge will prevent next bank mainframe meltdown

plrndl
FAIL

Deja Vu

The single point of failure remains where it always was, the board of directors.

IT is as fundamental to modern banking as is risk management. There should be a person with in-depth understanding of IT at the same level as the Finance Director. Only then will sensible decisions be made on IT.

Tesco to tout its own smartphone – now THAT'S an unexpected item in the bagging area

plrndl
Joke

Re: Wotta bargain!

bogof!

Staunch your Heartbleed patching: FreeBSD has a nasty credentials leak

plrndl
Alert

Does Windows still use the BSD implementation of TCP/IP?

BBC hacks – tweet the crap out of the news, cries tech-dazzled Trust

plrndl

What News?

Maybe they should try providing more hard facts, and less opinion and comment. Like they did when BBC news was considered important.

What HAS BEEN SEEN? OMG it's a thing that looks like an iWatch

plrndl
Go

Patently Obvious

I'm applying for a patent on a "device" that could contain "components" enabling it to perform "functions".

Customisation is BAD for the economy, say Oz productivity wonks

plrndl
Pint

Supply and Demand

"it's really difficult to come up with any way to measure the economic value of product quality:"

It's actually trivial: how much more can you charge for it?

Mine's a pint of real ale, possibly from an inefficient micro/craft brewery. Or maybe a proper cider from a small cider maker (as opposed to a generic brewer).

UK bank heist-by-KVM gang sent down for 24 years after nicking £1.2m

plrndl
Joke

Re: 24 Years - Nah!

Who the **** is Alice?

Tim Cook: Apple's 'closer than it's ever been' to releasing new product range

plrndl

Re: The Facts..........

Presumably the downvoters think that Apple gear is overpriced.

That is nonsense. An item is overpriced when the price stops people from buying it. When people buy in vast quantities, and make the company highly profitable, it is NOT overpriced. It is good business.

plrndl

Re: "And it’s an area where nobody has figured it out yet."

@ Bullseyed

The technoogy is trivial, security is a moving target, but is do-able. The real barrier to mass adoption is the user interface, and that's Apple's strongest area.

plrndl

Re: "And it’s an area where nobody has figured it out yet."

The point he was making was that he wouldn't need to carry a wallet if the likes of Paypal had got it right.

If Apple can get micropayments right, they will own the planet.

plrndl
Holmes

Re: @NumptyScrub

"they spoil it by writing all the future marketing to imply that they did it first."

It's always been the case that history is written by the victor.

ARM brushes off dip in mobile revenues with sunny forecast for coming year

plrndl
Headmaster

Re: Eh?

Not all revenues are in dollars. Presumably ARM makes sales in various currencies, which all move differently in relation to the £ sterling in which the company reports, and have moved differently since the last report.

Most Americans doubt Big Bang, not too sure about evolution, climate change – survey

plrndl
Holmes

Re: IMG Breaking News!!

@asdf

Having spent several years in market research, I can tell you emphatically that market research always produces the result desired by the organisation that pays for the research. Companies that do not abide by this simple rule go out of business rapidly.

Leaked pics show EMBIGGENED iPhone 6 screen

plrndl
Trollface

Lawyer Alert

Looks like they're copying Samsung.

Microsoft reissues Windows 8.1 Update for enterprise customers

plrndl
Linux

Windows 8.x is used in the enterprise?

Yes, Microsoft uses it.

Windows 8.1, which you probably haven't upgraded to yet, Already obsolete

plrndl
Linux

Re: Who at Microsoft is making up the names... and why do they still have a job?

Update of Windows 8.1 Update?

Hyper-V telling fibs about Linux guest VMs

plrndl
Linux

Re: So,

Maybe you should just run Linux on Google/Amazon clouds.

Five-year-old discovers Xbox password bug, hacks dad's Live account

plrndl
Mushroom

Hey Microsoft

While you're listening to customers, how about fixing the user interface in W8?

Intel uncloaks next-gen 'Braswell' Atom, 64-bit Android KitKat kernel

plrndl
Joke

Re: Who names these things?

@DropBear

In the post-Snowden era, surely it must be "Orwell".

Driver drama delays deep desert XP upgrade

plrndl
Linux

Time Warp

Reminds me of all the reasons why I stopped using Windows.

Microsoft in 1-year Windows XP survival deal with UK govt

plrndl

Re: Upgrade cycle

Upgrade cycles are a myth perpetrated by MS to get people buying the same software over and over again.

In a properly specified computer system, you buy a SYSTEM (hardware, software and maintenance) designed to run for a specific time, with essential updates included in the original cost. At end of life you scrap it, having already planned to the next iteration.

Attempting to run an IT system until it turns to dust is a moron's choice.

plrndl

Re: Wasting taxpayer's money again

"After 3 years on a Degree course they will enter the job market knowing how to use Microsoft Windows 7, Office 2013 (next year Office 365), Internet Explorer, Adobe Photoshop, etc"

1. It doesn't require a university education to learn these apps. A person with a university education should easily be able to adapt to whatever apps are required in the marketplace. If you UNDERSTAND how to do it in the GIMP, you can do it in Photoshop. If you're only TRAINED in the GIMP, Photoshop will be more difficult. University is supposed to be about education, not job training. The two are not the same.

2. With the speed that the market is currently moving, any app used in a three year course will be obsolete by the time the graduate gets a job.

plrndl

Re: Wasting taxpayer's money again

"I think even a bank would notice if it had been compromised over a number of years and as I say we're not talking about one bank here."

Recent evidence suggests that a bank wouldn't notice anything wrong with its IT systems until there was a total breakdown.

AT&T and Netflix get into very public spat over net neutrality

plrndl
Holmes

He who pays the piper calls the tune

It's about time telcos/ISPs wised up to the fact that the only reason their customers give them money, is to access content from the likes of Netflix, Google etc. They should charge their customers for the bandwidth they use, rather than making absurd claims for bandwidth they cannot deliver.

If they're mad enough to force short term charges on the content providers, the latter will simply build their own networks, undercut the incumbents, destroy their business, and buy their assets for pennies on the pound/dollar.

Microsoft exec: I don't know HOW our market share sunk

plrndl

Re: ?

"What's this "innovating" thing he's talking about?"

I think he means "enervating".

Blighty goes retro with 12-sided pound coin

plrndl
Pint

Re: 3 per cent?

According to Wikipedia, a 2011 BBC test of 5000 pound coins found 3.5% to be counterfeit. With 1½ billion in circulation, that will buy several pints even at 2014 prices. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_coin)

Fukushima radioactivity a complete non-issue on West Coast: Also for Fukushima locals, in fact

plrndl

Re: Sort of

"In the radio-contaminant sense of "lethal" there have to be deaths within a few decades."

And what is the half-life of contaminants in the water?

Boeing going ... GONE: Black phone will SELF-DESTRUCT in 30 secs

plrndl
Pint

Shouldn't be long before someone leaves one in a bar. Then we'll get the real answers.

Korean boffins launch K-Glass for hands-free Google Glass-ery

plrndl
Pint

Augmented Reality?

What is he on?

London calling: Date set for launch of capital's very own domain name

plrndl

They were probably talking to the marketing people.

Most people who BUY domain names only recognise .com. as a proper domain

It's Satya! Microsoft VP Nadella named CEO as Bill Gates steps down

plrndl
Alien

Jobs for the boys

Presumably he was the only contender who looks like Steve Jobs.

Thought sales were in the toilet before? Behold the agony: 2013 was a PC market BLOODBATH

plrndl
Linux

...boxed copy of Windows?

Anyone with any sense would build a DAW on Linux.

Scores of profs give hated US patent law an F minus, demand massive rewrite

plrndl
Joke

Re: Next, try copyright law

You're taking the Mickey!

Blighty's banks prep for repeated kicks to cyber-'nads in Operation Waking Shark II

plrndl

according to Professor Stupples. "They are stress testing systems against known threats,"

I should be most interested to know how the professor would test for unknown threats.

Google's Nexus 5: Best smartphone bang for your buck. There, we said it

plrndl
Linux

@ DijitulSupport

Google is one of the few significant parties in the android world that doesn't pay the Microsoft tax for android.

SD cards use the FAT file system, on which Microsoft has a number of patents.

Go figure.

Have you reinstalled Windows yet? No, I just want to PRINT THIS DAMN PAGE

plrndl

Re: What is it this week?

Presumably the NSA hadn't updated their copy of your registry.

BOFH: Is WHAT 'running slow'!? GOD

plrndl

"... I'll just pause the install process until you tell me what colour font you'd like on the console session..."

When you set out to kill the person who wrote the above referenced installer, can I come with you? I promise to bring something REALLY nasty with me.

'It's a joke!' ... Bill Gates slams Mark Zuckerberg's web-for-the-poor dream

plrndl

This malaria vaccine is just a vanity project for the Gates ego.

If we make the bold assumptions that the project is totally successsful in eliminating malaria, and also that the law of unintended consequences fails to rear its ugly head, so what? The people who would have died from malaria will instead die from whatever is the next most communicatable disease in their environment.

On the other hand, if we give them the means of doing business with the outside world, they have the chance to prosper and rise above their disease-ridden environment, just as we in the developed world have done. Necessity is the mother of invention, and hunger and imminent death are great motivators.

Dark matter: Good news, everyone! We've found ... NOTHING AT ALL

plrndl

@Dave 52

What do scientists do if dark matter can't be found?

They'll have to come up with another story to "help them secure further Department of Energy funding".

plrndl

Stab in the dark

The reason the detectors can't see the tiny flashes, is that they represent a new phenomenon that I name "dark light".

Please send my nobel prize...

Ohh! The PRECIOUS! Give it to uss. We WANTS it: Shiny iThings coming in 2014

plrndl
Linux

Re: Masturbation sleeves

"Orifice for Macs!

(I think MS may have a similarly named product)"

...but it's a different orifice.

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