Posts by Goldmember

Re: That which brings the highest happiness...

And the bloody tyre tracks left behind on the pavement afterwards was a particularly nice touch... the details made GTA :-)

Re: Affordability my arse

Fingerprint sensors aren't anything new. They've been around on HP laptops (and others) for years. But they were unreliable in real world situations, and would stop working when dust got into them. We ended up disabling them as standard on all new laptops at our company.

Maybe this one will be better, but looking at the amount of dust and fluff my phone accumulates after a few weeks spent in pockets, I wouldn't want to risk it. There's no mention of whether you can disable the feature on the new iShiny, but to me it seems like an unnecessary (and costly) extra.

Re: Next

"I always thought Utterly Butterly was the most brilliant name of all."

Ooh I don't know, "you'd butter believe it" has to be up there with the best.

Re: No wonder

It's true that English and Russian are both easy to pick up and difficult to master. I'm not sure Japanese beats Mandarin though. Japanese uses quite a few Chinese characters when it's written, but (I'm led to believe) it's easier than the Chinese languages because it isn't "sung", i.e. in Cantonese or Mandarin, pronouncing a word in a higher tone, or pronouncing the beginning of the word higher and going lower (and vice versa) can completely change the meaning. Getting the tone wrong can make your speech unintelligible. I started learning Cantonese, and even the basics are bloody difficult.

I read somewhere that someone can spend a lifetime learning to speak and write Mandarin, and can never fully master it.

@Craig 28

Upvote for the sentiment, down for the use of made-up word 'irregardless'. So nothing (this is where an 'indifferent' button would be useful).

And @infinitely improbable, the use of a nonsensical word by several people doesn't make it acceptable. Americans also think it acceptable to say 'I could care less' when they actually mean 'I COULDN'T care less'. That one annoys the shit out if me.

Re: Do they mix?

@McToo

"I doubt Spotify has access to some of the mixes that MoS hav"

Correct, at least for chilled house.

That's a good get-out for Spotify though; just look up every MoS compilation tracklist, ensure at least one random remix is unavailable from each one and presto, problem solved.

Re: Was this valuable IP?

I wouldn't agree recent HTC phones have 'sucked'. I have a One X+, and it's great. Much better than the Galaxy in terms of build quality, and better than the iPhone for functionality and features. It never crashes, is lightning fast, has shedloads of storage and has every smartphone feature you can think of.

I think HTC's problem is confusing marketing; releasing the One X, One XL and One X+ phones at different times last year, and THEN releasing the One, for example. They also seemed to have flooded the market a bit in recent years, creating even more confusion for customers, who like to know which phones are top end, which are bottom, and which is the latest in its class. With HTC, there's too much choice.

Re: I, for one, will not purchase this tat.

" it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper to teach people to drive properly "

People are taught to drive properly already, especially those who are supposed to be professionals and have to have advanced driving tests, such as truckers and bus drivers. The problem is that people ignore (or forget) their training and become complacent. Taxi, bus and truck drivers are some of the worst offenders for this, and end up taking risks other drivers won't take, or simply get lazy and clog up the roads with their inconsiderate driving practices. A machine will always do what it's told.

I look forward to the reduction in the number of meat bag drivers on the roads, to be honest, and in the long run it'll be cheaper to use the tech than people.

Re: Oh no-

I keep getting in, get a 'welcome to ebay' button, then chucked out back to the login screen and a 'password incorrect' message, on the UK site. If it was scheduled maintenance and not a problem, why wouldn't they just display a holding page and stop users logging in?

It's a conspiracy, I tell you...

Re: Poor guy

Agreed, this whole thing does suck.

But from what I've seen of American max security prisons on TV documentaries, if I went to one I would WANT to spend my whole time in solitary.

Re: To misquote Harrison Ford...

I wouldn't agree that bricks and mortar is dead. There is still room for it, as long as the retailers adapt to the current market. This is why so many big high street names have gone bust recently; they've failed to adapt.

Yes, Amazon et al are cheaper and are great for smaller purchases, but the high street has two main advantages; I want something today, and I want to speak to a human if it goes wrong. you simply can't do this with Amazon, and as a result people are still wary of making large electrical purchases online.

An amalgamation of online and physical stores seems to be the way forward. Look at Argos. First of all, they have excellent return facilities (30 day 'no quibble' returns). with regard to online, they don't just have their online catalogue, they also have the option of looking up your local store, checking stock and reserving your item before you go. The recession hit them as it hit everyone else, but this year they announced a return to growth, which is more than can be said for many other high street retailers.

However, reviving a dead company with a tarnished reputation, no matter how good the strategy, seems like a bad investment.

Re: I particularly liked...

I quite liked this one:

"or else you will wake up to billions of directioners with knives and guns"

So at least a third of the world's population are not only 'directioners', but are crazy enough about their beloved 1Dimensional (thanks Nick Ryan, I'm using that now) that they're willing to wait outside Pete T's house with 'knives and guns'. I think I'd be crying with despair if I wasn't laughing about it.

Still, as it's Friday let's find the bright side. Apart from the lack of any punctuation, at least this one has no cringeworthy spelling mistakes. Clearly that individual hasn't yet figured out how to turn off predictive text.

Re: We are seeing Lenovo riding Windows 8's coat-tails

It's funny you have to hide behind an AC post to admit you like Windows 8. I actually quite like it, too (at work, anyway. It wouldn't suit my home PC as well).

Re: death and taxes

"i suspect she didn't register the gold with the insurance company"

"Hence keeping it at home and therefore wasn't covered by the policy."

The article makes it pretty clear. It's not about whether or not the gold was registered. The insurers suspect she was in on the theft, and is trying to fraudulently claim. That's the reason they don't want to pay out, and the reason she is taking them to court.

Plus, if she had smaller bullion (25, 50 or 100 grams), each piece may well be worth less than the single item value limit on the insurance policy.

Re: It will

My last 3 'droids have all cost more than the equivalent Jesus phone. Then again, they have all actually been good at what they do.

Re: I must be getting old

One of the major channels did air the first season quite a while after it aired in the US. I remember being quite surprised seeing it on when flicking through one time. I thought it was channel 4, but I could be wrong. Whichever one it was certainly didn't make a song and dance about it though. There wasn't much in the way of marketing, and it certainly wasn't on at a premium time.

It is a shame really, as it's considerably better than the majority of TV output of both the UK and the US.

Re: Not just radio signal safety

"There has never been any evidence to show how these magic and mysterious signals can have any negative impact on flight systems"

That's a completely irrelevant point. If an airline asks you to switch off your phone citing safety, whatever their motives, you damn well do it. If they ask you to switch off your phone and don't provide a reason, you damn well do it anyway. Count yourself lucky you don't flout the rules and use your phone on Chinese planes, as you could end up being arrested on landing:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/18/china_phone_use_banned_man_arrested/

Re: "Damn you hamfingered digits and lack of proofreading"

"Now might be the opportune moment to request an "edit" button from the code monkeys at Vulture Central."

The Reg promised a 5 minute post editing function to those with badges when they started dishing out said badges. It hasn't materialized as yet though. Presumably it's still in the pipeline...?

It's the other way round. Personal contracts are blocked by default, and you have to let the network know to turn off the filter. I did this on my O2 contract with a £1 credit card payment, which was later refunded. It's a bit silly really, as you can't technically take out a phone contract if you're under 18, but I suppose they don't bother differentiating between contract and PAYG with regard to filtering.

Re: Does anyone know

"it's not economic to serve just one fruit smoothie to a cyclist when you could be serving burgers and fries to whole family."

I go to McDonald's drivethrough every morning on my own, in my car, and I buy only a coffee. Not once have I been refused service due to economics.

Re: Taylor Swift is...

Personally, I don't get it. I've seen her plenty of times in pictures, and she's certainly no Jessica Alba.

Plus, her 'singing' voice is whiney, weak and just plain awful.

Re: And THIS is why you bu an iPhone.

iPhones are made using exactly the same battery tech as every other manufacturer. There have been many cases of them blowing up, such as this one from last year:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/03/iphone_spontaneously_combusts_on_cctv/

You idiot.

Re: Is it April 1st?

Even if nerve repair isn't possible, there are still uses for this. I watched a documentary on Robert White's experiments a few years ago (very interesting by the way, and it even showed a video of the monkey waking up with a new body, albeit completely paralysed). One application brought up in the documentary was the scenario of a paraplegic whose brain was still intact and functional, but whose body was failing. The could be given the body of a brain dead person and go on living.

If nothing else, it is another sky fairy myth-dispelling tool, proving that 'souls', which many religions die when the head is removed, are non-existent.

Minor article correction by the way; the idea wasn't to keep both monkeys alive. One was always going to be killed and be the body 'donor' for the other one, which is part of the reason the experiment was so controversial, and practically ruined Robert White's career.

Re: I'm sure the google maps view is from the past

It isn't odd at all, Maps and Street View are separate entities. Google buys up old, outdated satellite images for use in maps, and as far as I can remember doesn't actually own its own satellite. Street View is Google's own creation and has its own of pictures, the updating of which is ongoing. My street had 4 year old pictures already on street view but new ones appeared last year, for instance.

Re: Easy answer then

@The BigYin

Correct. More than enough sitting around and bitching has been done about this. If the various governments involved actually ploguhed their energies into researching and closing these tax loopholes for companies based (or operating) in their own countries, they may have actually made some headway by now.

Re: The UK has that

"Also, why is it that when buying a tax disc they need to check that the car is insured?"

It became a legal requirement a couple of years ago for any car that is registered as 'on the road' (i.e a SORN has not been filed) to have its own valid insurance policy in place. If your insuyrance lapses, you get an automatic fine through the post.

@AC Re: Appeals process a sham, sherlock

"No real legal prescident to force you to pay their fines, you never entered a contract with them"

I've done a fair bit of research on this, and technically you do enter into a contract with a land owner when you park on private land (such as supermarkets), as long as various conditions are met (ample, unambiguous signage etc). It differs from a real parking fine as the contract is effectively a verbal one between the driver of the vehicle and the land ownner. If you 'contravene' the contract, they can send you an 'invoice' (which they very dishonestly attempt to make look as much like a real parking ticket as possible), with a supposedly pre agreed amount of money for breaking their rules.

A few years ago, I was issued with several of these 'invoice' for parking on a patch of land near my flat in the city centre, by the bastard company that is UKPC. This land had no signage whatsoever telling me I couldn't park there, so I tried many different methods to tell them to get stuffed; funny letters, factual letters with proof of no wrongdoing (photographs etc) and just ignoring them. The latter was the most effective. They send letter after letter before fobbing you off to a debt recovery company, who in turn pass you to another and another on being ignored. After a few months they get bored and the letters stop.

Re: Unbelievable

When you consider the fact that you get between 4 and 5 years for manslaughter in Blighty (and I'm not talking death by dangerous driving; this is violent crime that goes bad.), these sentences are grossly disproportionate. They should all have received community service, or less than 6 month stints inside at best.