Posts by auburnman
521 posts • joined Thursday 28th July 2011 21:58 GMT
Posted in BOFH: Uninterruptible patsy supply
"No, I didn't read the bilge."
If only you'd gone one step further and not bothered commenting.
Re: missed the poll
I'm kind of half and half on this due to metric being pushed in school when I grew up. I prefer people's height in feet and inches, but work weight in kilos almost exclusively. In fact I struggle to remember how much stones and ounces are in any meaningful terms.
I think measurements of people mostly stick with the old imperial measurements because the numbers are easier to visualise, eg I can picture a man who is 5"6' but I struggle with 178cm. Maybe if Decimetres had been clearly labelled as one of our options when the metric conversion was on the go.
Cover up?
That's one thing that always puzzled me about this whole affair - how it has failed to be covered up.
If I were after the culprits for hacking into several of the biggest and highest profile defence and research organisations in my country, and that turned out to be one lone guy with a home PC and some mental issues, I would sweep that under the carpet faster than you can say 'Highly embarrassing security incident.'
None of this dragging extradition out for years mince.
Re: Surely
Now I have an image of Bond with Q in a headlock while Q desperately tries to spray water to cool his ear down.
Posted in Dishonored game review
Glitches
While this is obviously a fantastic game and I'm probably going to buy this fairly soon, I would have snapped it up on day one already if it hadn't been for Bethesda's rep for bugs. Their 95% titles would be 99.9% titles if they would go the last mile and iron out the kinks in the engine. I gave up on Fallout: New Vegas around about the 7th time it crashed.
You're all wrong...
Maths stands for Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin
According to Wired, Baumgartner was claustrophobic as balls, that's could also be why he behaved odd. Watching him start to spin was terrifying, I think the estimated speed had just maxed out; I worried he'd lost consciousness.
Posted in O2 network staggers across UK
Re: Backup plan
"I never thought l'd see a resonance cascade failure, much less create one!"
I'm not sure where you get the idea that a network would need copies of a rivals kit to handle their customers ? All networks already have protocols to handle "foreign" devices for international roaming, and its high bloody time our providers sorted out some domestic roaming.
So no doubling of fees, and a cascade failure is unlikely unless the sheer volume increase overstresses the replacement network. And l Dont really track prices but are they really declining ?
Posted in Vote NOW for the vilest Bond villain
Re: Missing the obvious candidate
We could do a budget reshoot of the opening to Casino Royale where 007 tries to extract a wanted man from the grounds of an embassy; only instead of shooting 100 guards in Foreignistan he's knocking in a back window with a half brick in London.
Posted in Vote NOW for the vilest Bond villain
Hmmm......
While I remember the villains, I'm struggling to remember what most of them actually did/tried to do, which is making the vote tricky. Carver was pretty vile when he tried to start a war to profit, but wasn't that Blofeld's objective in You Only Live Twice? Where's Emilio Largo on the list? He held cities to ransom with nukes in Thunderball.
I think El Reg should re-run this poll after ITV have finished their seasonal 'show every Bond film we can afford over Christmas' and we've reacquainted ourselves with the baddies.
Bloody hell NatWest
Capping this emergency withdrawal to £100 should have worked to limit the damage. If I'd been robbed of a hundred quid like this I'd be a bit miffed, but as long as the bank sorted it out I'd probably be happy overall that I had this facility at my disposal. If however I found out that they had allowed NINE separate "emergency" withdrawals without challenging it and nine hundred of my hard-earneds were burning a hole in some chav's pocket, I would lose the plot.
Also - It's a bloody phone app FFS - why wasn't it locked down to the registered mobile number of the account holder?
Re: except
@AC 11:24
I DO like my shinnies. They hold my kneesies up. Nothing against your shinnies though, I very much doubt I've ever seen them.
Re: Sir
That could actually be a nice little earner for a shady cloud company... get a contract to be the exclusive data storage and backup provider for MegaCorp Incorporated, with some under the table backhanders cementing the understanding that there will be a "catastrophic data loss" if any government agents start sniffing around.
But no-one would ever do such a dishonest thing, would they?
And of course the curfew conditions made sure the authorities knew where he was on a daily basis. That did stop him jetting out of the country, but then the whole Embassy thing kind of blindsided everyone.
Mountain out of a molehill
Take the data for our energy usage over the last ten years or so and check how often we would have had an outage if we'd only had that 4% spare generation capacity. If that number is >0 build some Thorium plants over the next three years. If that is also impossible do not decommission the old plants until we have sufficient alternative capacity, and accept the slap on the wrist from the EU.
"SMUGGLING ILLEGAL MILITARY TECH TO RUSSIA"
Illegally smuggling military tech to Russia surely. "Illegal military tech" implies tech banned by law like bioweapons or landmines.
Re: @auburnman (was: Uh ... kiddies.)
Try reading my post. My point was that we don't know that the re-routing shenanigans were done 'with the purpose of "paying attention"'. Again assuming this was the work of a shadowy government organisation, the objective could simply have been to piss off/distract Dotcom because his ping is important to him. Or a certain non NZ shadowy government organisation fancied testing if they could tap a foreign comms network without the knowledge or consent of Johnny foreigner. Or a rival gamer could have a friend at $TELCO who thought he could turn Dotcom's ping to crap without getting caught. Or maybe the NZ spooks really don't know the first thing about intercepting communications. But it's too early to jump to any of these conclusions.
I think the Association of National Advertisers should rebrand as the American National Advertisers League.
Re: Uh ... kiddies.
Assuming for a second that the sudden ping drop was the work of a shadowy government agency, NZ, US or otherwise, it's still a jump too far to assume the objective was snooping on his traffic. It might have been a cack-handed attempt at harassing him by hobbling his game or distracting him with fixing his connection while they had other operations ongoing.
Re: Lets have more gratuitous sexism.
"We don't know who fired the first shots..."
"....but we know it was us who blotted out the Sun."
Not THAT would be an app I'd pay for...
Brilliant idea sir - someone needs to compile a set of consumer laws and rights into one smartphone app. You could add in a section on common corporate tactics that trample or try to get you to waive your rights and the appropriate response.
That's gotta hurt
"Windows 8: Less popular than our previous offering and only marginally beating our 12 year old OS." 7 might turn out to be the new XP, staying around for a decade.
Is this a new development?
I could swear the initial article said the new search 'not-ads' could be turned off. Surely this is just Canonical restating what has already been reported?
Re: What is the
On the subject of pedantry, what does [sic] stand for? I know it's used when you're repeating a quote verbatim and want to point out the mistake isn't yours, but is it just shorthand for spelling is correct or is it a posh Latin term that coincidentally has the same first letters?
Posted in Populous
I had a cow that stubbornly refused to learn to not eat villagers no matter how often I lamped it. The one thing I remember from B&W was that if you smacked your Avatar at the right speed and angle you could sweep the legs out from under them and make them faceplant into the ground. I got plenty of practise at this due to the aforementioned follower-scoffing.
Posted in Populous
Re: Catan!
It's all downhill from there. Cardigans and comfy slippers and early nights await...
Or maybe I'm just being bitter because I hit the 'renew' date this year.
Re: @amanfromMars 1
Yeah, where's the RANDOM CAPS and unexplained A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S? SMARTR systems, drone wars, the illuminati etc etc.
Re: Ach, there goes thirty-five years of PAL TV engeering...
I'm sure the BBC will call you up at some point for commentary on a rose tinted documentary of TV: The early years.
Re: Sigh
Let's agree to downvote these articles and move on; we can stop giving them even the negative attention of complaining about them on the comments.
Posted in Toshiba AT300 10in Android tablet review
Dammit
USB slot & non-proprietary connectors/chargers, HDMI port and vanilla Android with no 'helpful' tweaking from the manufacturer at £300? Wish this had been out a few months back, I would probably have snagged this over the Galaxy Tab.
Re: Move House
Give broadband to the rural communities and you'll have an effect on the city crowds as less people need to move for reasonable access to what is more or less an essential service.
Re: The elephant in the room
If anyone with moderately deadly means (Rifle, bomb, maybe even a nutter with a pistol attending a big event like the Olympics) at their disposal gave a toss about killing the Royal Family, they'd be dead by now. Batman got onto the Palace balcony years ago. I think they're safe from assassination through sheer irrelevance
Be interesting to see...
How Apple and Google go about invalidating broad patents - they'll have to be careful they don't dig up some prior art that also knackers some of their own patent portfolio. Although it would be amusing if Apple successfully invalidated one of these patents only to have Samsung turn around and use their own evidence (now with legal precedent!) against them.
Posted in Even slimmer PS3 out next week
My main gripe
about revisiting the Final Fantasies are the obvious gouging on the store. Want to download any normal PS1 title? £4 please. Are you after a smash hit like one of the FFs or Resident Evils? Sorry make that £8 ta muchly.
I'd rather dig the discs out of the loft.
Re: Live and let live
I don't worship my lucky underpants.
You speak of irrational belief - if you admit that religious beliefs are irrational (or at least can understand that agnostics and atheists find them irrational) surely you can understand the concern around people living their lives according to those beliefs? There is widely tolerated stuff that concerns me - circumcision of newborns and children being brought up in religious schools to name but a few.
As for it being "none of your business" I disagree. It's my business for as long as people knock on my door or try to stop me in the street to talk about Jesus. It's my business while I'm 'going to hell' because I don't shun gay people. Oh, and it's my business while people want me dead because I don't believe in their god.
Live and let live? You first.
"Vista WAS the most secure and reliable version of Windows upon it's release."
At least in part because it would talk to almost nothing as the drivers weren't available yet. You could certainly rely on it to ask you three times to delete a file...
Posted in Key evidence in Assange case dissolves
Oops
My mistake, I thought the DM had a direct quote from someone. Mistook their sexing up the facts for spin from team Assange. I still stand by <cannot prove condom has Assange DNA> != "does not contain his DNA"
Some stuff...
...I'm loving and some stuff I'm hating here. It's high bleeding time we were able to easily roam to the strongest network available in our home country, not just when abroad. What I don't like is having it described as subscribing to a number. I want to OWN the number, and subscribe to the SERVICE. I also want to own the phone and the interface on it, so I'm not keen on operators getting their claws even further into handsets.
We need one of the operators to grow some balls and just provide a proper, plan where they don't interfere with your pipe and in return you pay a non-subsidised sustainable price for what you use, be it voice or data.
Meanwhile at Google...
...after they have finished laughing they tell a lackey to throw a million dollars at the Libre Office folks to make LO shit-hot on Android "just in case".
This is anecdotal based on what I've been hearing from friends so take this with a pinch of salt, but I have heard Apple are already making inroads into mobile devices and relevant infrastructure for business (the one place Microsoft should have expected to find traction when they manage to bring a tablet to market.) The engine-room IT guys recommended Android after a trial, but the TLA decision-makers wanted Apple and are obviously prepared to throw the money at integrating iPads into the corporate network.
Posted in Smack your phones up, says Microsoft
Re: HTC phones silencing the ring
Irritatingly it also silences the ring by default if you leave it lying face down - it took missing an important call to find this out.
Posted in Key evidence in Assange case dissolves
Keep in mind...
That the message is coming from Assange's defence team, who have a vested interest in the language of the message that gets lodged in the public subconscious. They are trying to stretch what the report said from 'does not conclusively contain his DNA'* (i.e. forensics cannot prove it's his muck) into 'does not contain his DNA'* which sounds like evidence in his favour. This will undoubtedly still weaken the prosecution's case, but even if it does get dropped the circus will go on as he seeks to avoid going to jail for bail violation.
*Paraphrasing, not actual quote
Posted in Key evidence in Assange case dissolves
Re: The smoking gun..
Only if Assange is then still arrested and imprisoned for breaking bail.
Re: Pointless
The Gamecube2 (Don't dignify its horrible true name!) Did indeed sell like sliced bread when it came out. How is it doing now? Does anyone have one that is not gathering dust in a spare room or cupboard now?
Actually I seem to recall...
The BEST best way to deal with trolls is to make them internet famous by getting someone like the guys at Penny Arcade to call them out for their behaviour, then sit back and watch as the trolls turn on one of their own with a vengeance.
Re: Foll-de-roll
That might actually be an interesting punishment if someone were to be convicted of online hate speech or whatever the crime actually is. "Right mate, you wanted to be a troll, well you live under this bridge now. We've taken the liberty of dumping all your possesions under there already. There's no power outlet for your PC but that's no problem 'cos it'll be nicked by tomorrow. I'd hurry up and grab your coats, gets quite chilly at night..."
6 - The Register won't stop talking about Apple
Getting bored of reading the same comments from pro and anti Apple camps over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and...
Noone in marketing is going to call the cloud what it is. Can you imagine?
Punter: "So what's this Cloud then?"
SalesDrone: "It's basically online storage tarted up a bit."
P: "Oh I see. No thanks, I'm pretty sure 'the Cloud' has come free from my broadband provider for the last 10 years and I haven't used it."
Re: dukebox?
Maybe a Dukebox is a Rock 'em Sock 'em robots ripoff.
At present browsing and searching videos is easier on a dedicated app than the mobile browsers; this will probably change as site designs get better at presenting themselves to mobiles but I don't think they're there yet. The browser 'handing off' to an app to play video is (on the face of it) structurally similar to handing off to Flash, so I can picture developers sticking with this way of doing things for a while as it's what they know.
