Posts by Ian Yates
767 posts • joined Tuesday 12th June 2007 08:17 GMT
Interestingly
Read this post in Larry Ellison's voice and it takes on a whole new meaning ;)
/insert evil Larry icon
Posted in Sony BMG Greece hacked
Responsibility
How many governments are going to hold Sony responsible for the huge data-loss that's occurred?
They had an obligation to protect the information of their users, so it should be a pretty landmark case if it (rightly) kicks off.
Jesus bin Laden
I like the idea that history will become so confused that in a few thousand years people will remember the Son of God as "that bearded dude who blow up some buildings and then died watching porn".
Posted in Ubisoft whispers the wonder of Wii 2
No interest
I'm not interested in whatever Nintendo do next at all.
/looks at dust-covered Wii
Until they announce it, of course, and then I'll NEED one!
Posted in Facebook 'smear' shock: Journos aghast!
Wait...
are you saying Google planted this story to (smear/slur/etc.) Facebook?
/looks aghast
Posted in Facebook fails webmail tests
Coolmail
Have you used Hotmail?
I'll confess I haven't, but from what I've heard from friends who do, the refresh a few months ago (teething problems aside) was remarkably good.
Yes, they've "borrowed" features from Gmail (who borrowed them from lesser known services), but they've implemented them well (so I'm told).
I don't use either, though I have accounts with each, but I'm tempted to fire them up and have a gander.
If MS really have done something good, well done to them.
Posted in Facebook fails webmail tests
Of course
Why would they want you to leave the fb ecosystem?
You have to admire their gall to call it "email".
Posted in Go SMS Pro
Handcent
I've been using Handcent for over a year and just tried Go.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems to be 90% the same... I don't know who got there first, but the customisation dialogs are identical and the general inbox/conversation stylings are too...
I'm going to play with Go for a while, but I can't currently see any features that make me prefer one over the other... am I missing something?
Posted in Portal 2
Brilliant game.
Absolutely love the game, but with two niggles:
* SP campaign was too short (I finished it in a little over 6 hours, and I didn't feel I rushed - I have started a second run, though, to find the last two achievements)
* None of the puzzles felt nearly as hard as some of the ones in Portal; I was always hoping for a large mind-bender near the end, but it wasn't delivered
The story was worth it, though, I hope they find something to continue for a Portal 3, and all of the voice acting was perfect.
Can't wait to get some coop fun going :)
Not only that
He's actually making space flight cost-effective, which I think deserves massive props.
If he's making a profit at the prices he's quoting, it just shows what healthy competition can do to an industry.
Are you sure?
The Void trilogy is set over a thousand years after Judas Unchained, still prominently featuring Paula Myo and a few other characters.
Maybe you're thinking of The Night's Dawn trilogy, which is in a different universe?
Computer Science
I think "ICT" (having taught it and know people that do) should be dropped and a proper Computer Science syllabus be added as an optional GCSE.
I learnt how to use Office at school and how to program VBA at A-level. It wasn't until Uni that I really got in to memory structure and OOP. I'd have loved proper CS courses at GCSE/A-level, but they just weren't/aren't there.
Banks
I'm hoping for Matter. (not that it changes anything)
It's got everything a good sci-fi film needs and it introduces the Culture without getting too heavy or relying on lots of backstory.
On the plus side
it's all MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) - or a "Patent Gap" in Peter Sellers talk.
They'll all fight it out and then agree to stop suing each other because of the sheer size of the suits flying around, and a few years later it'll all start again.
The patent system is so opaque that they don't even know if they hold valid patents and most companies aren't really interested in being proven wrong. It's the legal equivalent of slapping your dick in someone's face.
(Where's our evil lawyer icon? No need for the good one)
@Elmer Phud
Agreed, "cloud" is just marketing speak for what people have been doing for years (IRC?).
But then the same is true for "social networks" - people think it started with facebook or Friendster, but BBS' and forums were doing the same thing since the 80s (sans Farmville).
But then, where would Web-2.0 be without ignorant hype?
title
It only works because of the "clever" cuts between scenes.
From the top of my head, the one that stuck out was every time he goes to the basement door it cuts to him being in the basement until the very last attempt when he realises he's dead.
/shrugs
Maybe it's just hindsight, but the film seemed far less clever the second time around. I think that's probably true with all MNS's "twists", though.
Unbreakable
I thought that until I tried to watch it a second time.
Although, watching Sixth Sense a second time showed just how weak the pretending-he's-not-dead thing was.
Signs was just dreadful.
Posted in Nissan Leaf electric car
Charge
I'd argue 5 minute charge would be the upper limit to being a true mass-market product. I can't see owners nor forecourts being happy for people to sit around for 30 minutes.
If the charge was only a few minutes, 110 mile range would be livable.
Actually, I take that back; I'm sure Thingy Bean cafe will love having people around with nothing else to do.
Have to say
I actually like Bing. True, they've renovated more than innovated most of the features (certainly a lot of Google and Yahoo features in there), but I've started using it as one of my main search engines.
I think it would be a mistake for MS to push it too hard, though; I tend to rile against default search engines, and we all know how much ire it can get from the technorati.
Speccy
Not too interesting, but I have a few old ZX 16K/48Ks with voice synthesizer, thermal printer, and microdrive.
These were my home computers growing up (we had multiple due to the number that stopped working).
I got the whole lot (with 50-odd tapes and microdrive "disks") out of the loft about 10 years back, but all of the microdrive disks were dead (no surprise) and I couldn't get most of the tapes to fully load.
The Hobbit worked, if I recall, and it really made me appreciate how patient I used to be to play any of those games.
In the end, the Speccy emulators are superior to digging up the real deal (IMHO).
Almost forgot: how awful were the keys on those units, though? eh? Crazy little rubber things
And what was with 5/6/7/8 being the arrow keys? Threw me off for ages trying to play things like Dan Dare.
Screen
The screen sounds very clever: capacitive for the hands but a dedicated layer for detecting the more precise stylus.
Unfortunately, from what I've read, you can't rest your hand on the screen while using the stylus :(
Drop the price a couple of hundred quid and I'll consider it.
Have they mentioned Honeycomb support for the future?
I was going to disagree
But then I heard an interview with Musk and he has a pretty awesome villain voice.
Posted in Ten... tech treats for mum
Slankets
Let's face it, though, a slanket is just a backwards dressing gown.
Not just that
But these aren't even OS functions; these are clearly just applications bundled with the OS. Why not release these as some kind of (paid for) suite for Vista/7 and do a smaller OS update with only OS changes?
/sigh
Sprinkler system
I always thought that the sign of a good safety device was one that worked in the absence of something telling it not to. i.e, dead man's handles or engine governers.
Sprinkler systems work through water pressure, but this new device will require electricity. I may be wrong, but their version (while very cool) sounds like it has the most potential to fail in its duty.
Posted in Apple bashes 'gay cure' app
@P.Lee
Having seen the screenshots, I'm not sure I'd go with "discriminatory", but maybe I missed something since I'm heterosexual.
It struck me more as being hugely misleading and questionably dangerous (based on anecdotal evidence of the damage their therapy has had on people).
I don't disagree with Apple removing the app since it did give a "homosexuality must be cured" message, which I find pretty sickening; in the same way I'd be against a "homosexuality is better for you" message.
Being the provider of a public forum gives you the responsibility to not encourage/allow extreme views (IMHO).
I think the extremity of their message might be where the "discrimination" aspect is coming from; not so much direct discrimination but espousing discrimination of their lifestyle.
And if you want to know their viewpoint, go to their website. I doubt these guys want to be engaged in discussion.
Posted in Apple Mac OS X: ten years old today
PowerShell
PowerShell is a much better CLI than cmd/command, and it takes a lot of lead from Linux/Unix CLIs (ls and ps, for example).
MS finally put in features like coloured text for error outputs (and other) - amazing!
I've seen lots of people complain about how different it is, but that's a lose-lose argument ("I hate cmd but ps is too different").
I'm still a Bash man, though ;)
Posted in Fukushima explained in crap cartoon
@Steven Jones
I completely agree; I wasn't defending their preparedness or lack thereof, just pointing out that they actually had tsunami defenses in place.
The 2004 tsunami was expected to have reached at least 20m at landfall... and that's the low estimate.
I'm inclined to go with someone else's comment about how fair it is to attack them on trading off cost for extreme safety (especially with the odds of such a large earthquake/tsunami occurring). Where do you stop? A 20m+ tsunami is not a trivial problem to prepare for.
I think they've proven they designed the nuke's damned well*, but it would have obviously been better if they'd been able to get the whole thing under control so much faster.
* Given the age and inherent flaws in the design of the reactors.
Posted in Fukushima explained in crap cartoon
@IMG
That's not entirely fair.
They did expect the "double whammy", but nothing in the range of what they got. As Sean said, put this in perspective - the wave was freaking huge.
"The Fukushima power plants were required by regulators to withstand a certain height of tsunami. At the Daiichi plant the design basis was 5.7 metres and at Daini this was 5.2 metres.
Tepco has now released tentative assessments of the scale of the tsunami putting it at over 10 metres at Daiichi and over 12 metres at Dainii."
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Stabilisation_at_Fukushima_Daiichi_2003111.html
Long view
Any chance MS will take the long view and start allowing publishers to license Kinect for their PS3 games?
It'd be interesting to see that kind of collaboration. They could take the view that having X titles on PS3 using Kinect might draw PS3-only owners to buy an XBox (having already got the Kinect) in order to experience the 3X Kinect titles and exclusives.
Probably not, though.
Don't be absurd!
Who do you think you are?
Oh dear...
Who else has visions of attackers being displayed graphically breaching firewall "shells" to get to some core system?
Or worse, it could be Hackers all over again...
I try to let it wash over me, but when a movie/TV gets IT so seriously wrong (Swordfish, etc.), it really shatters my suspension of disbelief. Actually, even books; I'm not sure I ever finished Dan Brown's Firewall (I'm not even sure why I started it...).
Ah, well. Almost beer o'clock.
Posted in Apple 'gay-cure' app severely slapped
Not So Simple
Using discrimination to fight discrimination is entirely the wrong way to solve anything.
If you're confused, "remove ALL religious based app" is discrimination.
The correct response (IMHO) is to remove apps that promote extreme/negative views of others (this includes anti-religious) and let the market decide about the rest.
You can't spout equality on one side will removing it on the other. As with democracy and free speech, if you want equality, you have to be prepared to give it to others first.
Nintendo
"Of course it's nintendo, and people just buy nintendo, as they know no different."
Or they have years of experience of knowing that Nintendo deliver some of the most innovative and fun 1st party games on all of their platforms.
I'm not in any particular camp, but Nintendo (and close partners) do produce some of the most intensely enjoyable games.
Well said.
That energy plot image is just terrifying.
eltit
"DNA cannot be repaired"
Really? I think you're wrong
http://www.nih.gov/sigs/dna-rep/whatis.html
You should probably read up on background radiation as well, since there is a significant amount of evidence that there is more than just a "safe dose", small doses of radiation may actually be healthier than none (as part of the DNA repair process and radioresistance).
Easy to prove?
Once we've detected the singlets, we just leave a long-standing note (a la Doc Brown) saying when we started detecting them and what we expect a message to look like and, assuming one day we can create and direct singlets, we should start seeing messages. No?
IANAPhysicist, but this seems to fall under Hawking's observation about never having met a time traveller.
"Sexual offences are an extraditable offence"
Part of the defence was, I believe, that what he was being charged with wasn't a sexual offence in the UK.
And the "Australian national" thing is irrelevant as we are obliged (morally and constitutionally) to not send anyone somewhere to suffer unfairly, regardless of nationality.
Personally, I think he should go and defend himself. If he's innocent, congrats, if not, obeying the law in the country you're visiting and taking personal responsibility is part of life. I've got nothing against the guy, but he sounds like he's just trying to avoid giving his side of the story in a court.
I may be naive, but I don't believe Sweden will be able to get away with an extradition to the USA, even if they wanted to. Any extradition from the UK would not allow a forwarding extradition without concluding the original trial, and we constitutionally can't extradite someone to a country where they face cruel punishment (i.e., death).
I'd be first in line to protest his release should he be couriered out of Sweden.
(Beer, since I'm off tomorrow)
n/t
I read that as "liposuctions fat out of flies" and was very confused.
I assumed it was the start of lab tests for a new fat-reduction method, and couldn't work out why you'd start with flies...
Ah, well. Slightly more interesting than the actual content ;)
Posted in Exhibition to applaud videogames as art
"so merely looking, reading or listening to it is its only function"
I'm confused.
Are you then saying you agree that computer games _can_ be art, or can't?
Because the only function of a computer game is to, well, let you experience the computer game.
I was always told that you have art, craft, and skill; but even this oversimplifies a subject of grays.
In this sense, since computer game skills (playing) are non-transferable (for the most part) and not a craft, they probably fall under art.
I've definitely played games I think are deserving of the term (and HL2 is definitely one of them), but I wouldn't try to tell people to accept them as art.
Cheerio
Posted in Cowon D3 Plenue Android media player
J3
As a long-time Cowon customer, I have to say that this sounds like a very poor follow-up to their J3.
The J3 has a battery life that smashes the competition; I consistently get a working-week's worth of usage out of it using on ~10 hours a day.
Plus, the touch-screen side of the J3 doesn't detract from the physical buttons for using it in your pocket.
True, the J3 doesn't have wifi, but apart from loading music on to it, I don't really see the need (though, I do have a smartphone, so those without may disagree).
http://www.reghardware.com/2010/07/07/review_media_player_cowon_j3/
Posted in US scientists build laser-killing device
The missing something:
They can selective cancel out a small range of wavelengths, effectively not changing other wavelengths.
At least, that was the explanation I read elsewhere.
The applications they've considered are for light transistors, where they can use block a signal using another signal.
Talking about taking up to the visible light spectrum, isn't that just a filter? I think they've been around for a while...
Compare
I don't have it on me to quote from, but the current issue of Custom PC does a comparison of the top broadband suppliers with details on their traffic shaping policy.
Well worth a gander if you need one type of traffic to be more reliable.
So...
Basically, the moon visits were just an expensive excuse to litter?
Not science.
I can't decide if this was a light-hearted troll or an honest confusion between the highly-regarded science of *astronomy* and astrology, pretending to know what's going to happen based on planets moving through arbitrary boundaries in the sky.
Unless you know something that we don't, and that Johnson was advised by such a quack during the space race?
Posted in Apple clips publishers' wings
Time for the publishers to unite
I think Sony, Amazon, etc. need to take a stand and remove their apps from iOS with an explanation to their consumers about why.
Everyone I know with an iPad uses the Sony or Kindle Reader and would be pretty upset to lose that ability because Apple were being greedy. Would it be enough to start the consumer boycott until they relax their sphincters? We can only hope.
This is some of the scariest stuff Apple has done. They've always stated that they restricted users' freedom for their own good; how do they justify this move?
Posted in Official: Android rules OK
Statistics
I think it's fair to say that, without access to any kind of raw data, these figures should be taken with liberal amounts of sodium chloride.
As you stated, the last few, which at least showed something tangible, ended up lumping all iPhones in one against a single phone, or completely cutting off a section of the market.
Statistics are wonderfully pliable things.
Posted in In defence of Comic Sans
Well put
But you'll never convince me. Something about the font just makes me think "amateur".
If I wasn't at work I'd hunt for the photo of a "keep this door closed" sign in Comic Sans that someone has placed a "do not use Comic Sans - we are a fortune 500 company, not a toy factory" sign next to (in Arial).
Posted in Dead Space 2
Ditto
I was the same, unfortunately.
I picked up the first one for under a tenner, but I just couldn't get on with the third-person view.
Shame, as I did enjoy the atmosphere and tension building.
