Posts by Esskay
500 posts • joined Tuesday 9th August 2011 10:52 GMT
Re: Given Toyota's previous experience with failing brake systems in the USA ...
I recall (heh) that much (roughly 2/3rds) of the issues regarding Toyota's "unintended acceleration" recalls involved people who didn't realise the floormat had been pushed forward by their feet. The other issue was a sticking throttle pedal - nothing, whatsoever, to do with the braking system. The only brake issue they've had was with ABS software for the Prius - regenerative braking was delayed momentarily if you hit a bump under brakes. It didn't involve the unintended acceleration lawsuit and TBH you don't strike me as the Prius driving type.
It's not entirely dissimilar to the "unintended acceleration" lawsuits involving Audi back in the 80's - but back then it turned out that people were slamming their foot down on the accelerator thinking it was the brake (not exactly sure how, I think stupidity had a lot to do with it). Considering Americans' history with inability to put their foot on a brake pedal I think this type of tech is not just a good idea, I think it's borderline necessary.
by the way - seatbelts aren't just a good idea for when you hit *someone else*, they're also capable of protecting you when *someone else* hits you. I've never put a point on my licence, and apart from a couple of fender scrapes, never been in an at fault accident (and never had to make an insurance claim). But that doesn't stop some moron in an audi ploughing into me because "the brake pedal looked kinda funny".
victory against "the adversary"
Makes everything sound a lot more awesome than it really is.
catching the bus, making the red light, doing a poo...
*opens Video Editor*
*clicks on "transitions"*
*starts filing patents*
The "illegals"
are sadly effectively used as slave labour - why you'd kick them out is beyond me, considering they keep production costs down and allow average americans to live a much higher standard of life than if they had to pay the "illegals" a decent wage. Not to mention border patrol required to kick them out immediately becomes Texas' problem - and the US won't be too happy if you don't do your neighbourly duty and stop them from entering the US.
Whilst Texas produces a lot of oil, the US has been making a concerted effort to reduce reliance on foreign oil - and Texas' secession would result in your oil being just as foreign as the Saudis (although from the tone of your post I'm guessing they'd be much nicer to deal with).
What "stuff" from Mexico or Latin America are you referring to? apart from the "illegals" I'd say Texas relies on US companies a lot more than the US relies on Texan companies - all goods distribution channels are US owned companies - I'm sure if Texas decided to increase the price of oil above what the US feels like paying on a given day, or tried to prevent goods travelling through Texas, the US could turn Texas into a starving little dustbowl fairly easily.
Elop said that usage of its map products is now 75 times higher than this time last year
Nokia still has map products? I remember ovi maps from years ago, but it's been a while since I heard it take a breath.
Besides, I don't think he's fooling anyone with that "75 times" nonsense - Nokia's smartphone marketshare is less than 5% in latest figures - a 75 fold increase to *get* to that figure is depressing. Like a schoolkid looking proud as punch because he got 5/100 questions right on his maths exam.
Managed to snag a 16GB one here in Oz
But a lot of unhappy people missed out.
As far as I can tell, they went on sale at 11:20am local (sydney) time, I ordered at 12:30pm and the 16GB models were gone before 1pm. 8GB models lasted a bit longer, but not by much.
It's not the perfect phone, but the price makes it an absolute steal (plus vanilla android's quick updates means an always up-to-date phone).
From what I've heard worldwide stocks were *very* limited (which would explain the lack of preorders), possibly as a sweetener for their partners (who obviously make competing phones) also the fact that the phone must be being sold at something approaching a loss means that they're probably not sacrificing production of profitable models in order to get the Nexus out the door. Ultimately Google aren't a hardware company, hitting record sales numbers on day 1 isn't exactly something they need to keep their share price up, so they're probably happy to keep them trickling out at a constant rate and getting them out there when they do. Historically Nexus phones aren't volume sellers the way the SGS3 is, the popularity in the wake of SGS3, iPhone5, Optimus G, Lumia 920 probably comes as something of a shock to even Google.
Cut the head off the snake...
Such control from someone as "visionary" as Steve Jobs means that when he leaves there's a big gap at the top - the bigger the control freak, the bigger the gap. From all the stories, Jobs was the biggest control freak there was, and Forstall was the closest they had to bridging the gap. Presumably the race to fill that void meant that a bunch of smaller fish all took bites out of the bigger one - giving themselves a much greater chance of getting to the top, but a much smaller chance for the company to be able to fill the void.
Re: Great Success!
Hi there, your APPLE_DEVICE has been affected by a third party! To prevent PR disaster, just send login details, email addresses, passwords, etc to: i.r.haxor@phishmail.ru and your APPLE_DEVICE will be fixed.
Popular with consumers? Yes
Popular with credit card companies? God no.
Having your balance on a credit card is like having "smoking kills" on a fag packet - It's a constant reminder that you probably shouldn't buy what you're looking at. The whole appeal of a credit card (IMO) is that you don't have to "worry" about paying at the same time that you're impulse buying - you delay thinking about payment until it becomes just another bill to pay. Whilst most of us can control out habits, for big spenders I can see this as having a prophylactic effect on purchasing - great for the consumer, bad for the card issuer.
Did they do a full search of the house?
Or just a quick scan?
Munster
Sounds like one of those apocalypse nutjobs insisting the world will end on a certain date - only to "revise" his claim due to "new interpretations" of the information provided to him by sources that only he has access to.
At least apocalyptical types bugger off after getting it wrong a few times - analysts just start predicting something else.
Coinabul
Buying "discount" gold and silver over the 'net - sounds dodgy
Buying "discount" gold and silver over the net using a "currency" famed for security breaches and theft - sounds really fucking dodgy.
I fail to see what it is that makes people think "I'm sick of using physical currency or a credit card or a bank transfer for making purchases - I think I'll sink thousands into a untried, potentially volatile, insecure currency used by almost no-one."
Posted in Apple, HTC kiss and make up
Re: Android fragmentation is logarithmic
"no... victories against Apple products"
Been living under a rock these last few weeks, yes?
beat me to it
Shirley the word "Lagos" in the article should have a few eyebrows raised... not saying it's not possible for anything truly innovative to come from there, but given the track record of being promised a large return for just a very small initial investment I'd say this *could* be the first scientific 419 scam.
Re: Good luck to them, but
Hah! I didn't even spot that. Well picked.
Here's an upvote to counter the lawyer who obviously didn't appreciate your good humour.
Re: not sure about the clutch
the clutch on your car has a relatively massive surface area, thick layer of friction material, and weighs a number of kilos. Its life is based on the amount of material it can lose before no longer providing enough friction to turn the driveshaft/diff/axles/wheels. It doesn't need to exist in the vicinity of sensitive electronics (in fact it exists in a bellhousing isolated from both the gearbox and the engine, partly so that clutch material doesn't contaminate the oil and partly so that oil doesn't contaminate the clutch plate, which will cause clutch shudder).
*carrying* energy isn't the issue - the strength of the diaphragm pushing the plate against the flywheel determines how much power it can effectively carry (as well as the formula of the friction material, but clutch plate pressure is the most common/cheapest way to give a "stronger" clutch).
Dissipating heat IS an issue. Car clutches are actually pretty bad at dissipating heat (sit in traffic for hours on a hot day slipping the clutch and the pedal will get spongy, and there are plenty of vids on youtube of people thinking they're spinning their wheels when they're actually frying their clutch - usually because they allowed a tiny bit of slip, which heated the clutch, which reduced it's friction coefficient, which very quickly resulted in the clutch getting fried). Sitting in a confined bellhousing with no ventilation is part of the reason clutches "come back" very slowly once overheated, a fact seen quite a lot at the beginning of endurance races where a car has to get off the line with a full tank of fuel as quickly as possible - usually by slipping the clutch a bit.
The clutch on your car is also not a centrifugal clutch - a centrifugal clutch will slip and engage as soon as the rpm of the shaft on which the shoes are attached to exceeds the point at which the centrifugal force acting on the clutch shoes is greater than the springs holding them in. A bit like those old "flying saucer" carnival rides where you get pushed out against the walls, but instead of the walls being attached to the bit spinning, friction between you and the walls is required to make them spin. Every time the motor spins up enough for the fan to engage, there will be some slippage, and to use the clutch to run the fan at a lower speed will require constant slip (according to the design referenced in the article).
Put your car in gear, handbrake on, and constantly slip the clutch (give it about half throttle, and let the clutch out until rpm sits around idle). Then see how long your clutch lasts. (and how hot it gets - I'm guessing it won't be too long before it starts smoking).
Good luck to them, but
No doubt this will be portrayed in US media as "Massive Faceless Korean Corporation goes after little freedom-loving American Inventor who loves kittens and Apple pie".
Ever since the beginning this case seems to have been devoid of all logic, I don't see why anything would change now.
Re: Incredible
^This.
The prosthetic treads the line between "looks a bit like an arm" and "KILL IT WITH FIRE" beautifully, staying on the right side of the Uncanny Valley.
Ultimately, everyone wants an arm that looks like terminator, so they might as well stop making them look "life-like" and just go with it.
That. Is. Awesome.
*goes into shed*
*gets hacksaw*
Apparently
If you make turbo "Whoosh!" noises you get an extra speed boost.
Posted in Volkswagen Beetle car review
Not a bad looking car, they've done a much better job of capturing the original than they did with the last one, particularly with that roofline... but unfortunately, it's going to be sold in the same showroom as the Golf and the Polo.
Essentially being a (soon to be superceded) Golf with contrived interior space due to the styling, you'd have to be a really massive beetle fan (or a really massive wanker, depending on perspective) to try both and still choose the Beetle. Even if you convince yourself you can live without the space, you then have to justify to yourself that it's worth more than a Polo - despite the fact that the smaller, cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, (presumably) cheaper to insure, less wank-ish & better handling Polo also comes with an extra seat in the back.
Also the imitation sidestep on the bottom of the doors look pants.
Re: 'Partially guilty'...
"pleading guilty by exceptions and substitutions"
IANAL but it sounds like he's saying he wants to plead guilty, but only to a lesser charge. To be fair, the book appears to have been not so much thrown at him as launched from an ICBM, so I wouldn't be surprised (particularly after this long and after so little damage has been done by his actions) that they accept.
The big mark against him seems to be that he's "jeapordised america's security" - but this is a claim that only holds true for so long. Once years have passed, the information becomes irrelevant and no-one has been hurt as a result of it, it becomes hard for a harsh penalty to be brought down with the public supporting it. It's almost as if the courts were waiting to pin something on him, but nothing ever came up, thus losing the momentum they had.
Posted in Edible iPhone case goes on sale in Japan
Take a hint...
"Using touch screen: 18% ・Touched by friend: 81%"
Says a lot about what most iPhone users' friends really think about them.
It's kind of ironic
That the next war will be fought and won by people sitting behind computer screens who couldn't throw a spear without seriously damaging themselves.
"reverse transference of knowledge"
knowledge always transfers from well-educated to less-than-well-educated. The US now falls into the latter category (thanks in part to "evolution is wrong so I'll teach my dang kids the proper way to bash a bible without no skoolz"). There's nothing "reverse" about it - it's the way it's always been, it's just that the US is now in the special-ed category and China, for all it's wacky communistical ways, is now teaching it's people stuff that helps its growth. Ironically it's the Communists that are letting ideology take a back seat to education now.
I can just imagine LCD screens being assembled, carefully, quietly and efficiently by chinese workers, before being "disassembled" into three parts with "PUT TAB A INTO SLOT B" written in massive red letters across them, before being shipped across to the US so that 'merkins can slowly and carefully "assemble" them again. (alternatively, fully built screens are shipped to a "quality control" factory in the US, where a conveyor belt whisks the screens through a room full of americans at high speed. If an american gets within 2 metres (6 feet) of the conveyor, cheeseburgers and coke are automatically dispensed into the far side of the room.)
not sure about the clutch
the idea of a centrifugal clutch to control fan speed doesn't seem that great - this requires slippage, and thus wear on the clutch shoes. Besides the obvious issue of this wearing out the clutch shoes quickly, the material from the shoes needs to go somewhere - and since it's in the bowels of the phone, I imagine everything will be quickly covered in powdered clutch material (aided by the airflow from the fan pushing the dust everywhere). Not to mention slippage=friction=heat, which adds to the problem the contraption is designed to alleviate. Not saying it won't work, but surely there are better implementations - at the moment this just sounds like a solution looking for a problem.
<sarc> But hey, who needs a phone that is maintainable and lasts a long time? If a small component wears out you just buy a new phone, right? </sarc>
Meanwhile, in Beijing...
not a single fuck was given.
Clippy Reborn
HI THERE!
It sounds like you're trying to abuse someone!
Would you like me to:
-insult their mother
-insult their country
-mention the war
Different approaches
I was always curious as to why a system similar to SwiftKey couldn't be used for voice - ie. looking at words grouped together as a sentence to "guess" what the last one probably was. In many ways, it seems it would be easier to improve accuracy with whole sentences than it would be when giving an AI simple commands like "open", "close", "delete", etc since there's context in a sentence that can be used to help "fill in the gaps" so to speak.
Since there's still a delay of a few seconds in Microsoft's system, having a delay to look at words in a sentence before providing a translation wouldn't be too inconvenient. Also using a library built from previous calls (although it creates a privacy issue) or requiring the user to read out loud a few pages of a book (tedious but helpful) could help.
At the very least it'll make the experience of getting a cab to your hotel in a foreign country after stepping off a 24 hour flight a bit less mental
so...
instead of pushing below the fold by auto-resizing, they're pushing below the fold by leaving the image size at "really fucking big".
Usually when a PR train derails, an organisation's first reaction is to stop the train. Apple seem content to run it into the ground.
@ DrXym:
According to the horrific radio station at work (which I sadly have no control over and is fiercely guarded by a team of stapler-wielding co-workers) that has already happened. Apparently he's now "grown up", which presumably means he can perform autotune assisted ramblings about kissing girls instead of just talking to them.
Posted in Apple iPad Mini 8in tablet review
"And I do see a fair few folk out and about taking photos with tablets."
Doesn't stop them from looking like complete fucking wankers.
War of the #3:10-cv-00661-bbc
From the moment the invaders arrived, patented our air, food and drink, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all of man's gadgets and devices had failed, by the most Fair and Reasonable Agreements that man, in its wisdom, put upon this earth. By the toll of a billion phones, Motorola had earned it's immunity, it's right to survive among this planet's infinite patents. And that right is theirs against all challenges. For neither do men search nor swipe to unlock in vain.
Fuck. That. Shit.
And people worry that Google knows too much about it's users. What happens when yahoo! (inevitably) goes under and the creditors swoop in to sell everything they can get their hands on to the highest bidder? (I realise Yahoo! claims it's just a middle-man selling the kits on behalf of another company - but I can't see a struggling search company simply doing this out of the goodness of their hearts without getting a peek at the data themselves.)
I don't trust companies' "altruistic" claims very much when they're doing well, I trust them even less when they're desparate and trying to stay afloat.
Posted in Tiny Ubi Android machine pre-orders open
Re: 7 watts for LEDs and WiFi?
One big red one in the centre. It'll do anything you want - just don't ask it to open any doors...
Posted in Sock-wielding movie pirates go to prison
Re: Jason Hindle Couple of $$$?
Reminds me of that Black Books episode where Bernard Black gets locked out of the shop and goes to the movies -
"Excuse me, there appears to have been some sort of mistake - I bought popcorn and a drink and now I have no money left?"
NEWSFLASH - American mag likes american "company-critical" car
Sadly the award is irrelevant to anyone even considering buying a car. This sentence in particular irks me:
"Editors also raved about the suspension's ability to soak up bumps that tortured other test cars. It was just as impressive on the racetrack -- yes, we took it on the track. "All that speed, along with powerful braking, superflat handling, and sharp steering, gives you the sense that you're invincible"
This isn't a review, it's an ad.
And why the fuck is the 2013 carof the year being awarded in november 2012?! I can wait until February when presumably we find out what the worst national disasters of 2014 are going to be so we can prepare for them nice and early.
I can only hope
That Apple continues to launch frivolous and arrogant lawsuits - I love reading these stories...
Re: "Journalist does job shocker"
The problem with article rating system was that people seemed confused as to its usage - articles that featured news that people didn't like got downvoted, and articles that had "good" news got upvotes - regardless of the quality of the reporting. If this was the original purpose, then it worked. The fact that it was removed indicated to my mind that people were voting for the wrong reasons.
I'm all for a journalist "saying something", as long as it's made known that the work is being editorialised, or is a comment.
As for regurgitating stories; many news comes from one source in tech (eg. profit/loss statements and R&D spending statements originate at a single point issued by the company - inevitably lots of outlets cover the same ground) and in tech, a lot of news tends to come from press releases because otherwise we simply wouldn't know about it - tech journo's can't exactly set up a hidden camera in the plains of the savannah to get a glimpse of the next ARM processors.
Ultimately, as long as the information in the article is accurate, and both sides of a story are given voice (or at least an attempt has been made to give both sides voice) then the story is at the very least worthy of being published.
Re: shocker!!
"Happens all the time anytime that Andrew or Lewis post a story."
Many stories from Lewis and Andrew are comment pieces, or editorialised, only showing one side of the story, thus people tend to give their own comments in return in the "comments" section (when a comments section is avaliable). And, to be fair, Lewis and Andrew's stories deal with a single side of a select number of issues - global warming, nukes, copyright theft, weapons. A quick look at other stories by Anna Leach shows a large variety of issues and topics (many, such as the multicoloured tarantula story from about a day ago, don't mention apple at all - so I'm not quite sure what you were hoping to achieve with this comparison?!).
As you can see in the article, Anna contacted Apple for their side of the story, and they chose not to make a comment. Anna didn't decide what the courts should do, she reported what happened - which is what reporters are supposed to do. Just because Engadget never report on negtive Apple stories doesn't mean someone else has it in for Apple because they *do* report on the negative.
Re: Apple anyone?
Given the losses that Sharp are recording, it may be too heavy a burden even for Apple. $5.6bn losses are enough to burn through apple's reserves of cash at a fairly rapid rate - and enough to put them in the red and do a lot of damage to stocks.
Crawling back to Samsung will require a painful amount of pride swallowing, but it'll be the smarter choice from an economic point of view.
"pledges" != success
If clicking on a "pledge" is as easy as clicking on a "like", why would this be any different to the "KONY2012" campaign, or any other flash-in-the-pan click-button activision attempts? It seems almost insulting that facebook would use the same method of activism that a 12 year old would use on Facebook, despite having the power to do so much more.
Having said that, I fully expect facebook to claim success when people click on it, despite the inevitable streisand effect as people ramp up their trolling in response to it.
Posted in US court dumps on “browserwrap” T&Cs
“highly inconspicuous hyperlink buried among a sea of links”
Describes pretty much every T&C page on every site I've ever visited. Glad to hear common sense prevailed.
Sadly, I fear every site will continue to use browertraps, as the majority of users don't know where they stand.
^This is exactly what needs to happen
but unfortunately, it won't.
Having the whole iTunes store in your face when you want to listen to music is more or less how they want it, I believe - sadly I don't think it'll change without user backlash (and since everyone *has* to use iTunes for absolutely everything, backlash can't happen in any meaningful way).
It's completely daft (like having to go down to the supermarket and having your dinner in the meat section so they can sell you crap while you're enjoying the stuff you've already bought).
Personally VLC has been the best thing I've encountered when it comes to ease of playing pretty much anything. I honestly think that if archaeologists discovered some unidentified language written on 10,000 year old stone slabs, they could digitise it and VLC player would find a way of making sense of it.
Re: wtf
Having a stock exchange in the middle of a hurricane affected city in a capitalist nation goes a long way towards making sure things get fixed quick. For all the environmental factors that contributed to the devastation of Katrina, I can't help but feel that the lack of influential affected people contributed to the completely half-arsed clean up attempt.
Re: Quite
"but she's got no power and no water, and is online at a Starbucks."
If someone has to go to Starbucks for anything, the situation should automatically be upgraded to "pretty fucking bad".
"Curiosity has tasted its first Martian soil and decided it's a bit like a piece of Hawaii."
So it's full of guns, golf resorts and fat people?
Well earned
Another great discovery, borne of the human need to ask questions.
Fuck I love science.
