Posts by Evil Graham
667 posts • joined Friday 8th June 2007 09:01 GMT
Re: Can we at least be a little bit smug?
To be fair to RMS, some of the many things he did included the GCC compiler and the GPL - both of which were pretty essential to getting Linux going. On the shoulders of giants and all that...
Re: Whats the fuss?
You remind me of some pensioners I once overheard after finishing a ride on the London Eye:
Pensioner 1: "What did your think of it then?"
Pensioner 2: "Ah, it was rubbish. Just a load of roofs really."
Posted in Man's car warns of AIR RAID OVER LONDON
Goodnight Sweetheart All Over Again
I suspect some sort of time-travel based shenanigans where our intrepid reader's car has taken a wrong turn and emerged in 1941. Cue some no doubt hilarious sitcom fun involving a flirty barmaid and rationed luxury items. Stretched out over 36 episodes.
How ironic the car was an Audi.
Posted in BBC deletes Blue Peter from BBC One
Re: John Noakes was the dogs bollocks
The other good thing about John Noakes and the other presenters of the time was that they didn't pretend to be kids themselves. Kids like stuff that doesn't patronise them. I remember because I was one.
Re: Social convention:
There's always one. I was on a training course a couple of weeks ago where one smartarse said "I can't believe you are telling us this stuff, surely everyone in the room knows it already".
Fair play to the lecturer, it put him off a bit but he recovered well enough. Still annoying though.
What about commercial TV?
This article does raise some really good points, but what about the way that commercial TV is funded? This is possibly an even more insidious levy because there's an advertising cost built into many of the goods and services we buy.
ITV for example is approximately a £2bn per year business and we are all funding it. No-one gets dragged through the courts because you can't avoid paying - even if you don't have a TV.
Re: Re: Really?!?!?
Actually if Facebook is like every other software company, what they have is sparse documentation that vaguely says how it was intended to hang together before they started coding it.
Posted in Ten... Freesat TV receivers
BSkyB aren't involved in *this* freesat
Confusingly, BSkyB has their own free satellite initiative called "Freesat". You pay a one-off fee for a smart card and a box, which allows you to view all the free-to-air content via the Sky EPG.
You can find it here: http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/
The Sky "Freesat" is nothing to do with the one in the Reg review. BBC and ITV are joint shareholders in the service reviewed here, but there is no Murdoch involvement at all. So they are different, but confusingly same-branded, things.
In the same boat
I also have a Mac Pro, from mid 2005. I bought it from the refurb store for £1200 and it has served our family of 4 for the last 6+ years without ever missing a beat.
It was expensive compared to a desktop PC, but I would have probably gone through 2 or 3 PCs in that time. Also, the Mac is a joy to use, unlike the Windows thing I am shackled to at work.
It still looks as nice as the day I unboxed it and sadly the only reason I will change it is because of the ever-increasing list of software that I can't run any more (PowerPC support is drying up). Shame really.
Classic letter in Viz magazine
I wish I had written this, but hats off to whoever did:
"If I was Dr Who, I'd have that Billie Piper bent over the Tardis console and given what for before you could say Jack Robinson. Then I'd use my time-twiddling powers to constantly repeat the time I was in the vinegar strokes, keeping me in a delicious state of eternally-looped space-time ecstasy. Do any other readers waste their valuable time dreaming up frankly unlikely sexual scenarios involving timelords and their beaver-faced sidekicks?"
My, what jolly japes
Until you kill a kid.
Compromised his return to work?
It may be that prospective future employers will be put off by the TV footage, but even if he was never filmed he would still have a driving licence showing that he'd recently been banned for drink driving.
Given the cost of insurance these days and the large pool of available drivers without drink-driving bans, I'd say he's screwed anyway. At least in the driving business.
Posted in Earth escapes obliteration by comet
Except for one scenario
They make a film about it, we lose. Fuck.
Posted in Earth escapes obliteration by comet
Yeah NASA, but...
I think we'd better send Bruce Willis up anyway, just in case.
Yes, There are still things that need to be added
I agree with you, it is a pretty slick phone experience - but the market is brutal and you can't win by bringing along something slightly better if you are already way too late.
The "things that need to be added" are apps. There are 2 massive platforms out there which have bazillions of apps, and are soaking up every available developer-hour already. What makes you think MS can catch up with this huge installed base of apps? Why would developers want to bother?
It's also true that a lot of attacks on Ballmer are personal, but you can't fail to notice that his communications strategy seems to involve a lot of shouting and not much substance. People aren't falling for it any more, not even within Microsoft, so I think it's time for him to go.
Posted in PCTV Broadway 2T network Freeview tuner
It can't do 1080 anyway
"The unit is capable of 1080i with the DVB-t2 channels "
Don't know where you got that from. This box has only DVB-T tuners, not T2, so it can't get any HD services in the UK.
I think you missed the point of that comment
I don't think ChrisInAStrangeLand meant that he wanted to copy Amazon, Netflix et al.
He's saying that's what Anthony Rose is up to. Copying the recommendation system that's already in a bazillion different online services.
I want an imaginary pygmy butler confidante
Ah - I've just realised how easily I can have one.
Posted in Murdoch's PIE BOY jailed for six weeks
It is disproportionate
Up and down the country every Saturday night people are beating shit out of each other, often for no apparent reason, and it isn't often anyone gets a jail term for that.
So 6 weeks for a paper plate of shaving foam seems ridiculous to me. A fine and a bit of community service would be more appropriate, this bloke hardly looks like a menace to the public.
I quite agree
I'm not one of those unfortunate people losing their job, nor am I a Roman soldier, and even I don't give a fuck about the exact technical details of the word "decimate".
I suggest El Reg has a moratorium on the use of such pedant magnet terms.
Cue the arguments about what "moratorium" means...
Just take it back then
Unfortunately there's only one way to resolve this if Panasonic won't fix it - take it back to the shop and get a refund. You are fully entitled to do this if it doesn't work as advertised, and in the long run it's the only way the manufacturers will learn.
Posted in Steve Jobs screws my wife (out of $944)
Never mind Steve Jobs
I was more worried about Uncle Dickie.
Nope
Sorry to disabuse you, but posh kids can't behave themselves in cinemas either.
While we're busy popping caps into people, can we save a few rounds for the dense ones who can't follow the plot and have to keep asking their partner (in a loud whisper) where this bloke came from, who's he then, I reckon he's the murderer, etc?
Posted in Microsoft to hire 4,000 in UK
Banking
The average salary for maths experts is probably distorted by the crazy figures being paid by the City. There seems to be a big demand there at the moment.
Where I work we have lost a number of people over the last year or so. We pay quite well, but can't get anywhere near what the financial sector can offer. It's just nothing to them.
No surprise that the government just averages everything out and decides all mathematicians and software specialists are coining it.
Trepidation
Someone bought me a copy of TGWTTDT for Christmas. I haven't started yet and I was really looking forward to it. I hope it doesn't suck.
Familiar feeling
When I read that post yesterday I had a strange sense of deja vu. Then I realised - it was like the average comment on YouTube.
They all come from the Department of Net Hate anyway:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/bacc487c0a/exclusive-happy-finish-net-hate
75ml of wine?
Is that meant to be admistered intravenously?
They have to take the risk
I know Hollywood tells us there's a risk of finding deep frozen space aliens down there.
But Hollywood also tells us, via the factual docu-drama movie "2012" that neutrinos are going to change their behaviour pretty soon and start warming things up a bit.
Obviously these scientists have seen the film and are just trying to find a way to save humanity - or at least the best-looking actors - before it's too late.
Bob's fish shop?
Not sure how Apache is not a "customer driven company". Last time I looked, their software served up more than half of the internet.
Posted in Tech firms warn Ireland on bailout
Irish tax - nice...
But still not low enough for Bono. U2 relocated their publishing activities to Amsterdam in 2006 to avoid tax. Didn't stop him telling everyone how to spend it though.
Happens to the best of us
We all feel a bit crabby from time to time.
Posted in No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed
Hiring Woes
A depressing but pretty accurate article.
I'm currently trying to hire software developers to work on embedded software in one of the world's largest CE manufacturers. Based on what we've seen so far, I think it will take some considerable time to fill these positions.
Very slightly off-topic
Does anyone know why this kind of obsessive behaviour is strongly biased towards males?
Whenever you see a plane / train / bird / bus spotter or a collector of stamps, eggs or whatever, it's almost always a man.
I haven't got any particular axe to grind, I just wonder why.
Hear, hear
"now we can see who has the backbone in society to get their heads down and do some work......"
With the occasional pause to rant on an internet forum, of course.
American perspective?
"that's when litigation starts" - or, possibly, when litigation stops and a new defence project starts...
Re: RE: By Jingo
By "unfortunate gen[e]tic disposition" do you mean "female"? If so, you are already in the spirit of Victorian science sir, and I salute your attention to detail.
Anyway, never mind them
How's my generation doing? I was born in the 60s, which according to Wikipedia makes me part of "Generation X".
I feel we are already at something of an advantage here, as we have a much cooler name than "baby boomers". But are we all topping ourselves yet? Should I put my affairs in order, or put a few quid in the pension fund?
Dying to know.
You Were Lucky!
I had to write each individual bit on a piece of paper and send it by carrier pigeon.
And we couldn't afford paper. Or pigeons. Or snow.
Porn vs. News
Lewis, I'm not sure about your claim that Greatest Living Briton Tim Berners-Lee devastated the porn industry by inventing the interweb.
News services might have suffered, I don't really know, but the internet has turned out to be a goldmine for smut barons.
Posted in Project Canvas becomes YouView
On message?
Sorry, but your post reads very much like a regurgitated press release.
Posted in Bowers and Wilkins P5 headphones
Me too
I also have a 63cm head. This is not usually a problem unless I am trying to buy a hat (one size most definitely does not fit all) or a crash helmet.
Posted in Swedes decline to FCKU2MF
I saved a shitload of money on personal plates
By changing my name to Mr EFN 934L.
Unintended side effects
I don't think this is the first such system. We had something similar at a place I once worked at, which gave you a score of 1 to 5 on how offensive an email was before giving you the option to send or retract it.
Rather predictably in a standard UK office environment, within 5 minutes this deteriorated into a contest to see who could send the most offensive email and hit the magic top score.
Posted in Council wins motorbike charges case
This is what I like about bikers
And the French, come to think of it. They haven't forgotten how to organise a decent protest. If more of us did the same, we might actually change things for the better.
Posted in Waterfall Niagara speakers
Speaker placement is everything
In this case - don't put them near a window or your house might catch fire.
BAE and submarines
"Better than anything BAE have produced for a long time".
Well I know very little about submarines - at least compared to some of the frighteningly well-informed commenters on this article - but there was a cracking BBC documentary shown just over a week ago called "How to Build a Nuclear Submarine". This programme showed BAE doing just that, and very interesting it was too.
It's still on iPlayer and well worth a look IMHO.
Missing the point
I don't think he said or even implied that junkies, hos and other assorted stoners actually went to the jungle and made a submarine. It was just a tongue in cheek comment about the unintentional side effects of their illicit habits. The junkies didn't build it - their money did.
Posted in WTF is... Project Canvas?
What can I say?
Without descending into "yes it was, no it wasn't", that was exactly the point.
You should read Nigel Whitfield's post about the D-Book and DTG. He explained it really well.
The UK TV standards are closed already, you can't access them without being a DTG member. Now if you want to make a Freeview HD product for example, you have to sign a licence to get access to certain parts of the spec, which is effectively your promise to abide by the content management rules.
Since Canvas will carry all that content and more, the licensing rules are likely to be at least as restrictive. That's why the standards won't be open, and also why there can't be a legal open-source implementation of Canvas.
