* Posts by The Man Himself

91 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jun 2013

Page:

¡Bong!

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: ¡Bong!

I get that it's not meant to be serious...I just don't get why it's so unfunny

The Man Himself Silver badge
WTF?

¡Bong!

I asked this in a comment to the latest Bong story but it got rejected, so I'll ask it here.

Sorry if it's a stupid question, and maybe I'm a bit late, but WTF is this ¡Bong! nonsense?

NSFW spotlight images

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: toned down?

I think it's just you

First the Yanks, now us: In-flight mobe use WON'T kill us all, say Eurocrats

The Man Himself Silver badge
Devil

Ryanair

I wouldn't be suprised if Ryanair size the opportunity to add a "being allowed to keep your Kindle switched on" supplement to their ticket prices

NO! Radio broadcasters snub 'end of FM' DAB radio changeover

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: DAB is pointless @Ben

Regardless of accurate those calculations are, there is a key issue which you failed to factor in. It's all well and good looking at data requirements for one car's radio, but what happens when all the cars (or at least a big percentage of them) in a cell all compete for resources on the call base station?

My guess is that the BS will max out....and I can't see the networks increasing the capacity on all of their cells, and the underlying terrestrial network, just people can listen to the radio

The Man Himself Silver badge
Boffin

in-car listening

I wonder what percentage of radio listening happens in cars...no stats to hand but I imagine it's quite high, possibly even the majority of all radio listening

I also wonder what percentage of cars are equipped with DAB-capable sets? again, no stats to hand, but I imagine it's pretty low. I know that a DAB radio came as an option when I bought my last car from new, but after reviewing the full options/costs list, I didn't take it.

Anonymous hacktivists' Million Mask March protest hits London

The Man Himself Silver badge
Boffin

Tautology

"One of the Anonymous protesters, who declined to give his name"

Well, that is kind of Page 1, Paragraph 1 of "How To Be Anonymous"

SECRET Google store touts pricey accessories to Glasshole shopaholics

The Man Himself Silver badge
Coat

Should have gone to SpecSavers

...that is all

SUPERSIZE ME: Nokia unveils Surface rival and 2 plumped-up phablets

The Man Himself Silver badge
WTF?

how much?

" the $499 before tax and subsidies means it’s roughly where Atom-powered netbooks used to live"

Where were you buying your Atom-powered netbooks from? I would have considered that the going rate for one of those to be around or just over £200/$300

PLEASE let us build Fruit Loop Central, Apple begs Cupertino City

The Man Himself Silver badge
Coat

I like it

It's the ultimate expression of rounded corners

Assange: 'Ecuadorian embassy staff are like my family'

The Man Himself Silver badge
WTF?

security

"other details I don’t want to go into because of the security situation"

I wonder how he'd feel if somebody leaked that information?

Custom ringback tones: Coming to your next contract mobe?

The Man Himself Silver badge

"the companies already have this option at no cost by having your call automatically answered and playing their own recorded message."

At no cost to *them* - if they answer with a long pre-recorded announcement, then the caller is paying from the moment the message kicks in....and have you seen how much it costs to call an 0845 (as so beloved by so many companies these days) from a mobile?

Flutter-BYE, we're all Google now: Ad giant slurps gesture-tastic app-maker

The Man Himself Silver badge
WTF?

That quote

"We share Google’s passion for 10x thinking, and we’re excited to add their rocket fuel to our journey."

I think I speak for us all when I say "Oh, FFS....."

Former Microsoftie in AUTOMATIC BEER MAKER funding plea

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: A few other ingredients

"water, yeast and TIME...lots of time."

Or, Water and lots & lots of yeast to get the job done in far less time....probably resulting in a substandard brew IMHO. I've seen some wine kits which claim to complete fermentation in not many days, basically by putting tons of yeast in which will chew through the sugars in next to no time

Smartwatch craze is all just ONE OFF THE WRIST

The Man Himself Silver badge

Casio Jogging watch

The best watch i ever had as a young 'un was the Casio Jogging watch (c.1981). It looked like a calculator watch (and it was) but it also had a load of functions to help out runners, such as pedometer and more-sophisticated-that-the-norm stopwatch. How I *loved* that watch....

Nowadays, my main watch is mechanical automatic...waterproof, reliable, glow-in-the dark, even has a separate 24 hour hand to allow viewing of multiple time zones. And the nice thing about it is that it actually increases in value each year, which is something I've never been able to say about any silicon-based watch I've ever owned.

Nasty Flash advert

The Man Himself Silver badge

I thought it might just have been me...

For the last week or so I've had to use the mobile version of the site. Within a few seconds of opening the main version the cooling fans on my i5-based ProBook are running full-pelt trying to deal with some errant processor activity.

Behind the candelabra: Power cut sends Britain’s boxes back to the '70s

The Man Himself Silver badge

Power Cuts

I live in the sticks, and power cuts here are common-ish.

One time I was sitting on the sofa and at the *exact* same time I pressed the button on the remote control to turn the TV off, a power cut happened and plunged the entire house into darkness.

For a brief moment, I felt like I held the world's most powerful remote control in my hand.

Google's Project Glass headman answers most pressing question: 'Why?'

The Man Himself Silver badge
Boffin

Glass and glasses

Serious question: is Glass compatible with glasses, or do speccy-four-eyes persons like myself have to live a life devoid of Googley goggley face-mounted tech?

No distro diva drama here: Penguinista favourite Debian turns 20

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: Debian (w/ apologies to the Beach Boys)

Po-ta-to-ohhhhhhh!!!!!!

http://youtu.be/wCkerYMffMo

100,000+ Earthlings star in 'reality TV contest' for ONE-WAY ticket to MARS

The Man Himself Silver badge
Happy

Re: Space Cadet

Actually, I quite enjoyed it. There's something about watching a bunch of gullible wannbes humiliating themselves on national television which I find somewhat amusing.

Penguins, I give you: The SOLAR-POWERED Ubuntu laptop

The Man Himself Silver badge

"I wonder what made them choose Ubuntu over Windows?"

Probably a battery protection thing. I have a feeling that Ubuntu (especially if you decide not to load a graphical shell) will be less demanding than Windows when it comes to power draw.

The Man Himself Silver badge
Coat

WeWi communications? Is this for real, or are they taking the piss?

'Look, give us Snowden' - this Friday's top US-Russia talks revealed

The Man Himself Silver badge
Black Helicopters

take him out

The Russians have previously demonstrated that they can get someone into a foreign country to perform an assassination on someone they find troublesome...I'm slightly surprised that the Americans haven't tried something similar with Snowden

Gadgets are NOT the perfect gift for REAL men

The Man Himself Silver badge

I am not making this up

Gifts I have bought for my other half over the years include....

Cheese grater

Kettle (she *loved* it)

USB hard drive

...and we're still together

Win 8 man Sinofsky's 'retirement' deal: $14m shares, oath of silence

The Man Himself Silver badge
Boffin

maybe not as crazy as it seems

That whopping great golden goodby is, well, whoppingly great, but think about it for a minute....

He's bound up in NDA's and can't work for a rival company, to protect his last employer's interests. Effectively that means he may not be able to ply his trade again. That sort of situation is quite common, I believe, in senior management....upon leaving a suitably senior position, you may never actually be able to work again, hence the high-value kiss-off payment.

Although, as I said, the sum quoted here does seem on the high side

Love in an elevator.... testing mast: The National Lift Tower

The Man Himself Silver badge
Happy

Excellent Stuff!

“What the bloody heck is that for?”....my exact words when I first saw the tower when driving past Northampton.

I did a bit of Googling so knew a bit a bout it, but this article tells a lot more...thanks for that

Bolivian president's jet grounded so officials can look for Snowden

The Man Himself Silver badge
Holmes

"The Ecuadorian government also suspects its emails have been intercepted."

After all the press coverage about PRISM, they only *suspect* interception.

'The Apprentice' is a load of old codswallop, says biz prof

The Man Himself Silver badge
Thumb Up

I like it

Any time I want to feel better about myself as a human being, I watch an episode on iPlayer...it makes me realise how much better I am than some others.

Microsoft partners seriously underwhelmed by Windows 8.1

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: Windows 7?

Time for the Henry Ford quote again: "If I made what my customers wanted, I'd be making faster horses."

so MS gave their customers an asthmatic donkey...with a limp

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: The problem...

I agree with it being a good idea to replace the Monkey-Dancer-In-Chief, but who is the natural replacement? So much of the good, long-serving talent from within MS has jumped ship during Ballmer's reign.

From what I've heard/read from him, I would like to have seen Nathan Myhrvold at the helm, but I can't see that happening now

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: Windows 7?

They could, but I suspect that a very small percentage of them would choose to move to Win8, thus preventing Microsoft from getting a Win 8 sale....which, ultimately, is what they're looking for

Much as I would love to wind Eadon up (where is he these days BTW?) and say I like Microsoft (which generally I do) I don't follow them fanboi-style. They've done a lot to turn me away from their products over the last year or so....and when I saw the words "Steve Ballmer said..." I realise why

A company running on ego? Maybe, but I suspect there's some BS in the fuel tank as well.

Osbo jacks up spending on spooks to keep us safe from TERROR

The Man Himself Silver badge
Holmes

Re: What terrorists?

We survived the Blitz (well, WW2 in general) by funding intelligence work through the likes of Bletchley Park, SOE, etc.

And I'm sure that the security services had reasonable budget to fund their work against the IRA (through 14 Int, etc.)

The work that MI5/6 and CCHQ need to do nowadays is higher tech = higher cost = bigger budget.

There's no such thing as a new problem, but inflation is real

The Man Himself Silver badge
Coat

Purpose?

Given the media bruhaha of recent days, how much of the increase will be headed straight to the PR department?

Play the Snowden flights boardgame: Avoid going directly to Jail

The Man Himself Silver badge

in transit

If he's technically in neutral ground right now in Moscow, would he not be in similarly neutral ground (and so safe from the local authorities) if he transited through any other airport on a connecting flight?

Chinese 'nauts return to Earth after vigorous space coupling

The Man Himself Silver badge
Alien

One thing that the Chines have is sheer weight of population. They can afford to throw people at something and if it fails, there are plenty more where they came from. It might sound harsh to say that they view the general populace as some almost inexaustable commodity, but if you look at their track record with things like mining and general industrial safety, I Think you'll get my point.

That being the case, you could imagine how they could afford to have a few shots at the more ambitious ventures, like a trip to Mars, without worrying too much about the human cost.

Having said that, such a mission would be so high profile, it would be hard for them to keep it under wraps. I can't see them launching 'x' suicide missions to Mars with no mention of launches, until they get it right, and then fanfare-ing their success only when they successfully land someone there

The Man Himself Silver badge
Coat

neckwear

Looking at the length of those scarves that they're wearing, Baker-era Dr Who featured heavily in their research into space travel

Freed LulzSec hacker banned from contacting Anons, wiping data

The Man Himself Silver badge

Re: "sentencing by BBC Newsnight"

That's exactly how I read it too....mind you, having seen Paxman at work, I think I'd rather throw myself on the mercy of the court

NASA serves up Curiosity's billion-pixel panorama

The Man Himself Silver badge
Thumb Up

colour me impressed++

If someone put together a billion+ pixel stitched image of some landscape photographs taken down the road from my house, I'd be impressed.

The fact that these images originate from a remote controlled machine on *another f***ing planet* is total amazeballs with added awesome sauce.

Julian Assange: I'm quite happy to sleep on Ecuador's sofa FOREVER

The Man Himself Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: About sofas

"the humble sofa...truly one of man's best friends"

and protection from Daleks

Page: