* Posts by Silverburn

1609 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2011

Google open sources very slow compression algorithm

Silverburn

Re: It is even slower than you say

Indeed.

Also this: 3.7–8.3 per cent smaller than its rivals (PDF).

So...it's 100x slower, for only a 8% decrease in size. Hardly seems worth it, really, given storage is hardly a big issue these days, even on phones.

Maybe he should direct his obvious skills into some new forms of real-time encryption/decryption, which would be more relevant today?

Moscow's speed cameras 'knackered' by MYSTERY malware

Silverburn

Re: @Silverburn

However there seems to be a disagreement on this point which is why pedestrians have so many accidents.

I have no stats to back this up, but based on personal experiences (which didn't actually involve mowing anyone down, just to be clear), I put the causes down to the following, in order of frequency:

- ipods

- phones

- beer

- age (both too young and too old)

- laziness

Silverburn
Happy

If they cannot grasp this simple bit of notation (^2) they should not be allowed a Reg commenting license.

Au contraire...I suspect he just cross the gold membership threshold, even though his trolling skills are too low, and grammar skills too high.

Silverburn

Re: 3.2 Million reasons to love speed cameras

well i keep to the speed limit religiously and in 30 years of driving I've only hit 3 children and a dog, not all at once mind you

Joke icon missing? I hope...?

Silverburn

Re: 3.2 Million reasons to love speed cameras

Last I checked zebra crossing mean pedestrian priority, so you muppets mowing down kids are transparently not anticipating to stop when you come across one.

Naturally, walking onto the crossing while giving the car only 5ft to stop is pretty stupid, but all the same - why did you not notice the person walking up to the crossing? It not as if they're hiding behind street furniture, waiting to jump out and catch you out.

Sidenote: Here in Switzerland, failure to stop for a pedestrian will get the side of your car kicked regardless of how little notice they give you, and a not-so-polite (or cheap!) visit from the local constabulory shortly afterwards who will "not see" the kick dent. It's a big no-no in other words.

Sidenote 2: It should be be noted I find zebra crossing bloody annoying myself, in case anyone thinks I'm from the "won't someone think of..." brigade.

Silverburn
Joke

Oh god..a bit of russian malware I'd *actually want* in the UK.

<-- And before the anti-speeding lobby gets a full head of steam going, witness icon.

Take that, freetards: First music sales uptick in over a decade

Silverburn
Facepalm

Re: Seriously?

Take that broke up if I recall.

And it depresses me that I know something about a crappy manufactured boyband.

Mobe networks test-drive punter-tracking kit to sling 'better' ads

Silverburn
Thumb Down

Mobile network operators are already storing your browsing data for a year to better target advertising and optimise the network.

Nay, nay and thrice nay. Don't want.

Squillionaire space tourist offers oldsters a holiday to Mars

Silverburn
Unhappy

Re: Older Couple

45 is a good age for most things:

- physically, you've suffered no significant physical deteriation if you've been keeping fit and avoiding the beer and pies.

- Mentally you're still sharp

- ...and this one is crucial I suspect...you're experienced without being set in your ways and emotionally mature, and far better at performing under stress.

Having said that, I'm nearly the same age - but feel 65 - and have an irrational hatred of children on my lawn.

Silverburn

Re: Suggestion

Send them the entire "strictly" series, while remembering to change the code on the suicide capsule safe.

Silverburn
Coat

Re: Preferably a married couple with no children.

Not to mention the unsavory situation of what to do with the kids if this is a one-way trip, and "colonisation" is planned.

Though this will be less of a taboo issue for our midwestern citizerns...

Silverburn
Coat

Graphite sandwiches

Not very tasty either I suspect, though I imagine Heston Blumenthal could do something creative with them.

Silverburn
Happy

Round trip?

Who fancies an all-expenses-paid 501-day trip?

It's not clear if it's one way or not.

If it is one way...tricky, as there's so many deserving candidates needing one, and I doubt i could fit the entire house of parliment in the capsule.

Round trip? I vote...myself.

Samsung Wallet slavishly copies inspired by Apple Passbook

Silverburn
Happy

Microsoft did ape it with Metro.

And by "Ape" I mean it was transparently designed by one.

Edit: Have I become Eadon, posting anti-MS stuff in unrelated forums? Time for the mind bleach.

Silverburn
Thumb Down

Re: 2 of them obviously more suitable

Doesn't really matter. If Apple's offering is anything to go by, it'll be utterly useless for anyone outside the US, and only increases to barely useful to anyone inside.

Related pet annoyance: Why can't you uninstall Apple's apps from iOS? You have to create a folder called "Apple crap", and dump them all in there. I'd rather just delete them, thanks.

Vint Cerf: 'The internet of things needs to be locked down'

Silverburn
Happy

Busy afternoon that day...

...plotting how to exterminate the human race through internet-enabled home appliances.

When does Mr Cerf get his own underground lair? Can I be a henchman?

MasterCard tries to zap PayPal with own-brand mobe wallet

Silverburn

Useage models

The way I see it, this "bonking" tech is useful for high-throughput stores, sell high volume, cheap, commodity-based items.

Pay by bonk/wallet for a £2,000+ imac, which I'll maybe do once every 5 years? No...methinks not. When I buy a computer worth £2,000, I want it delivered on a velvet cushion, carried by angels, and Steve Jobs himself getting out the grave to shake hands and thank me personally for my purchase. "bonking" doesn't really make my high ticket purchase feel "special".

And the rest of Apple's range of goodies hardly comes under the "high volume, cheap, commodity-based items" banner either.

Microsoft unwraps sysadmin-friendly Office 365 for biz update

Silverburn
Facepalm

FFS

When will MS get it?

Where the apps are hosted and run from are only a minor consideration, compared to...WHERE THE DATA ITSELF GETS ROUTED!!!

No much of an issue when writing a thank you letter to Aunty Mildred, but if you need to type up a letter to the CEO about the fatal flow in multi-billion dollar product X we sell to the Air Force? Yessiree...lets do that in a office app that routes through the cloud...what could possibly go wrong!

Ten smartphones with tablet ambitions...

Silverburn
Meh

Dust and waterproof?

and IP54-rated resistance to dust and water

Very impressive, but that still only adds up to 30 seconds of baby-proofing, what with their incredible knack of:

a) working out where your phone is, even when it's hidden from view

b) being able to drool into the most water-sensitive port of your device.

Why - in a room full of toys, slides and teddies - are your electronics the things they want to stuff into their mouths the most? And how do they know to start with the most expensive/useful one first? It's uncanny.

Review: Sony Vaio Duo 11 Ultrabook

Silverburn
Meh

I played with one...

...and wasn't that impressed. Just seemed cheap and fiddly, and the various workflows I tried simply didn't "gel". Some issues were hardware based, some were win8 based. The track button I hated. The screen angle was ok for me, but the whole process of switching from tablet to laptop was fiddly and cumbersome, and not to mention surprisingly hard - there was a lot of resistance in the motion on this showroom model.

Maybe gen 2 will be better.

Boffin shows pics of germs grown on SPOTTY STUDENTS' MOBES

Silverburn

Biology is great...

...it means we're actually naturally protected from most of these nasties. Only a few actually cause any issues, and if bacteria, the results are *mostly* annoying, rather than fatal*.

However...that doesn't quell my desire to never touch or use my phone again.

*Unless it's in an NHS hospital, whereapon they will probably eat you alive in 3 days, starting with the side of your face you put your phone to. Which is a disturbing thought..

Climate scientists link global warming to extreme weather

Silverburn
Facepalm

True story

In addition, global land mass is concentrated in that hemisphere

Interesting aside, this reminds me of a conversation I had with a very early girlfriend. She once asked that "if all the land mass is on the top of the world, it will be unbalanced, so why doesn't it spin off it's axis and go all wobbly?".

It was like a thousand facepalms at once.

Welcome to our Wi-Fi: Devicescape reinvents landing page

Silverburn
Facepalm

connecting users to 11 million Wi-Fi hotspots without the user, or hotspot owner, ever knowing it happened.

Naturally, this represents no security issues whatsoever. No sirree. No problems here.

McAfee dumps signatures and proclaims an (almost) end to botnets

Silverburn

McAfee has said it's dumping the system – or rather, adapting it – in an upgraded security suite which will (it claims) virtually eliminate susceptibility to botnets.

Just like you said in the last big release then. Ho hum.

Japanese gov builds APT database to study targeted attack info

Silverburn
Happy

The Japanese government will respond to the increasing threats from targeted cyber attacks by building a centralised advanced persistent threat (APT) database designed to aggregate threat intelligence so it can be shared with domestic security organisations and foreign governments.

That database will only have one table and all rows will say CHINA. There. I just saved you 800m y.

Australian supercomputer to use geothermal cooling

Silverburn

Australian supercomputer to use geothermal cooling

Misleading title, IMO. Should read:

Australian supercomputer to use geothermal plant to run cooling

BBC World Service in a jam as China blocks broadcasts

Silverburn
Happy

BBC World Service in a jam as China blocks broadcasts

Beeb strongly condemns disruption

Lets hope they're not using the very same airwaves to communicate this condemnation...

Silverburn

Re: Ahh China

Pretty sure they're not democratic - they're a single-party socialist republic.

Nokia opens Maps to rivals, flogs uber-budget €15 phone

Silverburn
Headmaster

mouth-watering = eye-watering?

Silverburn
Coat

Better names

Nokia Maps is rebranded as HERE Maps (and HERE Drive and HERE Transit)

How about HERE, THERE and EVERYWHERE?

Thanks. I'm here all night.

Linus Torvalds in NSFW Red Hat rant

Silverburn

Re: Once again...

You need to seriously reassess your values.

I could counter by saying "MTFU". But I won't. Sticks and stones an' all that.

What did you expect? A warm coco, a hug and a suggestion that perhaps a little tweaking would make sure everyone's teddies didn't cry?

No way...he was doing the kernel equivalent of trying to stick it in reverse while doing 80mph in the outside lane of the M1 at rush hour. I'd have been screaming and cursing too if you tried that in my car.

Silverburn

Re: Once again...

History is replete with examples of a single mind, dedicated to a vision, making history and succeeding.

Whereas delegated ownership or committees (and I include Governments in this) has far more failures than successes, and even more compromised deliveries.

Silverburn
Go

When your name is mentioned as something that is even worse than trolling, you know your upgrade to El Reg Gold membership is gonna be in the post any day now.

Microsoft latest to 'fess up to Java-based Mac attack

Silverburn
Mushroom

Given this is an MS article with an Apple theme...It'll be *both* Eadon and Obviously! trolling each other to critical mass.

<-- And then this will happen.

Silverburn
Stop

in a move which will do nothing to reassure enterprise Mac users of the security of their platform

All two of them?

Apple are hardly renowned for their enterprise offerings...they even killed off the proper rack-based X servers not long ago, ffs.

Razzie voters drive stake through Twilight

Silverburn
Thumb Up

Razzies...the only awards worth watching, and probably closer to the actual public's view of the commercial film scene. The Oscars are just a total love-in.

You've made an app for Android, iOS, Windows - what about the user interface?

Silverburn
Coffee/keyboard

Re: re. " ... junky dory ..."

Is 'Junky Dory" a fish on smack?

Lol. Looks like I'll definitely need that new keyboard with H & J keys the right way round now.

Silverburn

Re: re. " ... junky dory ..."

I'm sure there's a philisophical message in there, about the margin between "Hunky"/good and "Junky"/bad being only 1-2mm...

Silverburn
Facepalm

Re: re. " ... junky dory ..."

Lol...autocorrect and copy-checking fail for me! I should be thankful - it could have been much, much worse...

Silverburn

It's all bollox while the number of different form factors and screen resolutions vary so much; yeah, the coding might be easier with a framework, but the user testing is still a bastard (even if everything comes back junky dory, it's still an expensive, time consuming business).

Of the two main platforms, Apple appear to suggest/require the most adherence to a particular UI design standard...this can be good and bad in equal measures.

Toshiba boffins claim battery life boost with SRAM tweaks

Silverburn
FAIL

how much power the system will need by using replicated bit lines to monitor the frequency of the ring oscillator, and minimises the active power of SRAM

Whooosh!

<-- icon is for me.

Unwearable tech: Five ways IT garb's gone HORRIBLY WRONG

Silverburn
FAIL

Re: OMG it never worked before, why still try?

As glasses wearers will have probably spotted, the Google glasses will never fly in their current form - witness the jaunty angle in the press clip - too much weight on one side. They will be an enormous pain in the ass until both sides balance, and the glasses sit there without user intervention.

But this raises another problem...adding some counter weight to the other side, will add weight to the glasses; in summer, this will manifest in "sweaty nose slippage", requiring them to be pushed up every 5 minutes. Annoying.

Then there's the sheer ugliness factor, which will prevent you wearing them in public for fear for constant ridicule.

No...methinks not. Wake me up when neural laces are available on the NHS.

Review: Britain's 4G smartphones

Silverburn
Trollface

I made this comment and was slagged off by some of the ladies who frequent this place

Or it could be because your previous posting form points to a preference for spouting troll-like bollocks. Calling people "ladies" is hardly going to get them onside either (apologies to any actual ladies).

Happy birthday, LP: Can you believe it's only 65?

Silverburn
Happy

Re: "...stereoscopic..."

Wow...the same answer in "stereophonic"!

Silverburn

Re: Oh god

There was one interesting part to that conversation though...he found the concept of measuring in minutes, not mb amusing. Specfically, that the quality of the recording was "fixed", and that quality did not affect capacity. AM, FM, or CD quality...if a song was 3 minutes, it only used 3 minutes of "capacity". A 60minute tape always contained 60 minutes of music, whether it was recorded off the AM radio, or off a CD.

He only knows a world where a crappy DVD rip is 500mb, full DVD quality is nearly 3gb, and Blu-ray is 25gb. Yet the film is still 2hrs long in each case.

Kids can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but they are refreshingly useful for reminding you that sometimes things look very different if you approach them with an uncluttered, inquisitive mind.

Edit: Actually Mike, that might answer your query, in a roundabout way.

Silverburn

Oh god

..I've just realised that I'm very, very old. Witness conversation with friends son:

"What's a tape?"

"We used then to put in walkmans, because LP's could only be played on a record player"

"I don't know what any of those words are...how do you download music to it [the tape]? How many mb was the tape?"

...and I think you know where it goes from here. And it's all downhill (for me anyway...).

Ironically, the days of downloadable individual songs mean "albums" have been replaced with "playlists".

NBC.com HACKED to spread bank account-raiding Trojan

Silverburn

NBC.com - which hosts entertainment

It does??? I suppose some of the political commentators are hilarious.

John Sweeney: Why Church of Scientology's gravest threat is the 'net

Silverburn
Happy

Re: CoS @ AC 23:55

But what good will it do for the CoS to receive a post card saying: "Sorry, we were unable to deliver your package..."?

Ah yes, that might backfire a bit if they choose to return to sender. I might have to rethink that one.

Silverburn
Happy

Re: CoS

Wow...surprised at the level of downvoting on this one. Are humour bypasses free on the NHS now?

Build your own 180TB NAS for $US1,942.59 (plus disk)

Silverburn
Thumb Up

(plus disk)

Ah, so what you mean is your 180TB NAS actually costs nearer £12,000 (based on retail prices of 3.5" 4TB drives).

Still...that's not bad. No data on redundancy method though.