Posts by DaveyDaveDave
58 posts • joined Monday 26th April 2010 10:33 GMT
Posted in Apple MacBook Pro 13in
They're on the side, not the back, and they're not enormously useful, except in the case where you just want to quickly check how much power your battery has without opening the screen - "I'm just popping to the coffee shop to pretend that I'm writing a novel, will I have enough power, or should I take my charger?"
Re: Utter Disgrace...
Umm. I can name at least two fish and chip shops in the city centre of Edinburgh that sell them. I speak from experience having bought one myself, and inflicted another upon friends.
It was delicious, but one is enough for any lifetime...
Posted in Evernote
Re: Forgot to mention.....
How did you manage to post this, if you only register for things that are absolutely essential?
I just managed to export all my notes in about 3 clicks File > Export > HTML. I got a pretty neat little index page that links to individual HTML pages of my notes. Not the broadest set of options for exporting, but certainly useful and pretty trivial...
Re: Another tiresome fingers-in-the-ears tirade
Glad it's not just me who couldn't make the quote fit the story. It's definitely saying "we don't think the glaciers are going to stop accelerating", right?
Given the choice, I'd rather have unsustainable cutbacks, than unsustainable growth...
Posted in Google Drive stalls on LAUNCH DAY
Re: Point?
Well, Google Drive has the syncing, and gives you 5GB instead of 3. So, by your metrics it's obviously the best, stand-out features or not. (And it does have some stand-out features, try reading the blog post...)
Is it just me, or are both of the images of emails in the article saying the same thing?
From: Thoic
Date: Blah
To: radams@...
Subject: 4u
No?
Re: Why is it needed anyway?
Well, I'm going to guess that it might be to do with the fact that they're dealing with more than a few ambulances going to more than a few addresses, each ambulance having more than a few different capabilities, and more than a few different permutations of urgent/semi-urgent/non-urgent casualties with those classifications constantly changing (the guy with a sore toe turns out to have had a heart attack).
And of course, they want to pay their staff as little as possible, and save as much as possible on fuel.
Re: I guess we're pretty gullible
"By the time that happens, you probably won't want to watch House Series 5 anymore"
Good point, I forgot that content has a sell-by date. That's why there are no films more than 5 years old, and photos are entirely useless after the memories have faded.
Re: I guess we're pretty gullible
tl;dr, but for me your first sentence sums up exactly why I wouldn't buy an iDevice. You make the point that it all works, so you're happy to be locked in, but do you really believe that things won't change? That Apple won't go the way of Microsoft / RIM eventually? That something that *just works* better won't come along sooner or later? How will you feel about the hundreds of pounds (it really never occurred to me that you could spend that much on apps) then?
Posted in iOnRoad Augmented Driving
Re: @DaveyDaveDave
Really? I've done a lot of motorway driving and never once seen a lorry do this. At least not often enough for it ever to register as some kind of problem.
For a start, the speed limit for an HGV on a dual carriageway or motorway is 60mph and (as I understand it) they don't tend to break the speed limit because their speed is monitored by their tachograph (I could well be wrong here - I'm sure I'll be corrected if I am), so I'm not sure how you'd find yourself in a situation with a lorry overtaking you in the first place, unless you were going along at less than 60mph, which I would argue is far more dangerous than what the lorry is doing.
Of course anyone leaving the road *should* be over in plenty of time, but guess what, people make mistakes. I'm sure you're right that some people do it deliberately, and it's a bit annoying, but really no big deal. If you're driving safely yourself, it's no problem at all to lightly tap the brakes and make space for the other guy to pull in. Try assuming that he's simply made a mistake, and only realised at the last minute that that was the exit he wanted (maybe he's used to going that way to work, but today he's off to his Mum's), rather than assuming that they're all out to save a few seconds at your expense; you'll find that you're much happier for it.
Posted in iOnRoad Augmented Driving
Re: The main safety function is a distance-to-the-car-head warning.
I'm not sure what your point is - are you saying that you'd have preferred him to slow down, forcing you to break the law by overtaking him on the left, just so he could pull in behind you?
How much would it have hurt you to be a little courteous, and just slow down briefly to give the lorry a big enough gap to fit in safely, until he left at the exit? Maybe he shouldn't have tried to overtake you, but have you considered the fact that it could have been a simple mistake? Maybe he usually takes a different exit, or hadn't realised how close he was to the exit that he planned to take, so mistakenly believed that he had plenty of time to make the manoeuvre?
Or, and I suspect that this is closer to the truth, given that you're the sort of person who installs a dashboard cam, you decided to speed up as he was overtaking you, just to be awkward, so you could put your shiny new toy to the test, and then rant about it in the comments section of a completely unrelated news article?
Re: Re: Re: Eh?
I'll try again:
Do you have some condition that prevents you from making up random strings of 11 digits that are obviously not valid phone numbers?
I've never had 01111111111 rejected.
Re: Eh?
Do you have some condition that prevents you from making up random strings of 11 digits?
Posted in StreetView disappears Dutch office tower
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=eqnz
Or - you don't even need Google, just think for 2 seconds - some kind of event that has destroyed lots of buildings, possibly something to do with the letters N-Z. Any closer?
Excellent point - that's why I never read the Register. I know that when enough people start reading it, they'll start charging.
When that happens, there's definitely no way I'll be able to go back to not reading the Register, so best never to start.
"...online storage for files that can be accessed from any device with a Wi-Fi connection"
Is that *actually* what you mean, or are you using 'Wi-fi' as some kind of shorthand for 'Internet'? I assume it won't suddenly become unavailable if I plug an ethernet cable into my laptop.
Posted in iOS 5 'crashes more apps' than Android
"...one of the plethora of awful Android web browsers crashing."
May I suggest you try one of the good Android web browsers?
Funnily enough, I find that the awful applications I install on any OS crash quite frequently. Some would say that it's one of the defining characteristics of an awful application.
Posted in iOS 5 'crashes more apps' than Android
So... you always manually update, that way you can be certain you're not getting any malware, right?
"being pulled for "overtaking a Police car" while being fully legal annoyed me."
So, presumably you won the case easily, when you appealed the ticket in court?
"Satisfaction with Sky’s customer service was significantly above average"
Really? Unless I'm reading the article wrongly, 64% satisfaction (Sky's score) isn't even "significantly" above the lowest (57%), let alone above the average, which must be higher than 57%.
Either way, if the very best customer service still only satisfies 64% of people, that's a pretty damning indictment. This article suggests that Ofcom are using Sky as some kind of shining example of service that all other companies should aspire to - hopefully that's not the case!
Or better 3.39 x 10^-6 WHAT per degree C
No?
Seriously?
Sorting data on slightly different criteria is patent-able?
Also, I can't see how this can work well. If you're in a shop, you probably won't have a GPS signal, so it will only be basing your location on cell towers. I'm pretty sure that isn't accurate enough to pinpoint an individual shop, so does that mean that a butcher's shop next to the Apple shop which is 2 miles away from where I am will end up ranking higher in the search results than the butcher I'm standing outside?
Re
Not that big of a deal, huh?
So... let me get this straight...
You understand the very obvious critical flaw with the idea, but still decided to sign the petition?
Some people really don't deserve a voice...
Title
OK, so you'd pay £x0,000 to buy an automated, mobile 'personal storage space', while AlexH would pay £y00/year to rent one, with an agreement that he has to leave it in good condition when he's finished with it (just like any other rental agreement).
It's slightly less convenient for AlexH (unless he pays extra for the luxury subscription which lets him pre-book a car for whatever time he wants it, or bumps him to the top of the queue). Of course, that wouldn't suit everyone, but - if it was done well - I'm pretty sure that the amount of money you'd save would make you rethink how much you really need to keep your tools and manuals in the car...
As for wasting fuel, the car would presumably always try to go to the closest pickup point after dropping someone off, which, in a city, is probably closer than the parking place you would have eventually found... There would also be much more scope for car sharing, which would surely mean a net saving in the amount of fuel used.
Yeah - I wondered about that...
Could it be that the specific wording of the law says that whoever (or whatever) is in control of a vehicle can't send messages, which might include the car sending feedback to Google, it being in control of itself...?
Not very clear, but that's the only thing I can think that would make sense...
Hurry up mods!
I'm anxious to see what the local tin foil hat brigade have to say on this one :)
Posted in Motorola Xoom
"costs substantially more than an iPad"
Umm, try, 'costs the same as an iPad'. It even says so in the article, you didn't need to do your own research...
32GB, 3G iPad2 = £579
Also, when you say that 7in is a "more practical size", what do you actually mean? You'd still struggle to fit that in most pockets, so you need a bag, in which case you might as well have a larger screen.
Go read what I originally posted (before some idiot called me a commentard)
Wow - that really touched a nerve didn't it? Although I think if you read what I actually wrote, I called myself a commentard too.
Clearly in your vital work as a life-saving-physicist-cum-network-admin you're not used to people disagreeing with you. I'll leave you to it - you're obviously quite right, I just hope you're consulted on all future engineering decisions.
FTFY
They're creating a "solar powered" uniform in *GLASGOW*?
a letter and/or digit
I'm guessing here (and, apparently, the only commentard here to admit that - I can only wonder how the rest of you, clearly employees of TEPCO currently deployed at Fukushima, have time to be commenting here), but presumably having the plant near plenty of water was a direct result of the risk assessment being done "correctly" - to cope with exactly the circumstances that they are currently (successfully) dealing with.
"on train tracks and/or in lakes"
Are there many places where train tracks go through lakes? :D
Title
Obviously they're already doing this sort of analysis, and far more besides, which is how the ad matching works. If that's really too much for you, then yes, you'll have to move your email somewhere else. Only after you've firmly affixed your tin foil hat, of course.
Cyclists ignoring cycle lanes
In my (limited) experience, that's because it's very likely that the cycle lane either:
- doesn't go anywhere useful
- goes where you want, but forces you to use 3-sides of a 4-way intersection, rather than just turning right with the traffic
- is so full of potholes/draincovers/rubbish that you're safer on the road
- or - most commonly - is completely ignored by the other road users, who are either parked on it or walking in it
I've cycled to work for various jobs, and almost always got used to ignoring the cycle lane for part of the journey for at least one of the above reasons.
I've also never seen a cyclist 'toddling along in the middle of the road'. What I do see frequently though is drivers who are completely unaware of the width of their cars sticking behind a cyclist who they could easily pass without even troubling their steering wheel.
Only if...
True enough, but only if you're expecting your PC *and* the cloud service to die at the same time, which seems somewhat unlikely. If it did happen then I'd guess you'd be more worried about finding shelter from the mutated giant cockroaches, than any data you might have lost (unless of course that data included your plans for a giant-cockroach shelter).
So - cloud service acts as a backup to your PC (or whatever primary storage device), and vice versa. If one goes down, you restore it from the other.
"horse fouling"
I assume this is letting your horse foul the road, rather than someone 'fouling' a horse... Is it a crime? If so, why do the Police get away with it?
Posted in Group Test: smartphone satnav apps
No he didn't...
"Navdroyd, which as the name suggests is an app for Android, uses the same free community maintained maps as Skobbler but isn't as developed."
Posted in Hackers spoof car warning system
"the threat of putting a temporary false warning on your dash..."
...that makes you pull over to check the tyres yourself, with, "the crims", very close to your car...
Get it yet?
Posted in Lonely Planet augments muggers' earnings
Evidently it does...
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=mugger
What about low-speed daft manoeuvres?
How will a speed camera (or even a fancy-schmancy Swiss super camera) detect a 'daft manoeuvre' made by a parent? In my experience any road, anywhere near a school at the start or end of the day is a complete standstill, so speed cameras would be even more useless than normal.
And I disagree about red light cameras as well - with red light cameras, if there's an ambulance at the back of a queue of cars stopped at a red light, nobody can do anything - if they dare to cross the line, they'll instantly get a ticket, and have no way of arguing the case.
I've never come close to a near miss at a set of traffic lights - not to say that it's not a problem, but, as we all know, green doesn't mean go, it means 'go if the way is clear'.
Lucky Orange customers...
I'm still waiting for it on my T-Mobile G2.
Posted in NatWest sets lawyers on student site
It doesn't work
I went to the site, but when I enter my online banking password it doesn't log me in. I don't understand. I just want to check my balance. Why do they have to keep changing things?
"It fulfils the Apple promise of 'just working'"
Really? Do you want to think about that for a minute? Surely this entire fault is around the fact that it definitely doesn't *just work*, at least, not for making calls.
Posted in El Reg marks Steve Jobs for termination
It's the what now?
"...pathetic grab bag of bitchin..."
Does this mean anything to anyone? My best guess is "picture", but I can't be sure...
Anyone know of a good 'photographers' rights cheatsheet'?
I wonder if anyone has seen any kind of a brief document that photographers could carry round and present to these idiots as necessary?
I'm thinking something simple, with single-syllable words, probably in Comic Sans, so they have no trouble reading it, along the lines of: 'The law says I can: photograph buildings / people / police / etc', citing the relevant legal documentation.
I'm sure it's more complex than that, but something along those lines, that a photographer could just produce for them to read in answer to 'what do you think you're doing?' would make it far easier to make the point without giving them any cause to start talking about public disorder.
I'm sure they'd still find something like the tread on your trainers being worn as a reason to nab your camera, but it would surely make it much easier to claim your compensation later...
If there isn't one already out there, how about the Reg create one? Or even better, persuade the Police themselves to put it together, if they're so confident that their front-line troops have the correct information...?
