* Posts by jubtastic1

967 publicly visible posts • joined 11 May 2006

Colossal dead black neo-sphere approaching Earth

jubtastic1
Happy

Theres a NASA animation of it crossing the moons orbit

Looks a little like one of those slow motion bullet films, I think it's fair to say that if it collided with us it would be game over man.

Natwest net and phone banking goes titsup

jubtastic1
Holmes

Banks offline, SSL cert authorities pawned, RSA encryption seeds stolen, Military defence contractors burgled, nuclear reactors sabotaged, something new and exciting every day.

Script kiddies, organised crime and governmental hacks all blurred together, exploiting networks and systems that were designed for utility rather than security.

This will end badly.

Mars probe crippled by buggy SSD successfully jury-rigged

jubtastic1

This is an educated guess

I would imagine in normal operations the craft is orientated with sensors towards the planet, like the moon or a coms sat for instance, so the solar array would still receive sunlight for periods of the day but would be at acute angles for most of the subside orbit. Safe mode I would guess sets the satalite in a tumble* so that the panels are always facing the sun while the instruments peer into space, planet, space, planet and so on.

*Technically, in normal operations the satellite revolves around its axes, to keep the planet in view as it free falls round it, while in safe mode it stops revolving, which to an observer would look like its tumbling.

Swiss boffins produce working cloth made of GOLD

jubtastic1
Thumb Up

May I suggest

Gold plated diapers.

Bill Gates strangled Microsoft's 'tablet for creatives'

jubtastic1
Thumb Up

Can't believe how few people notice that gadgets in MS concept videos are imbued with mind reading abilities, between a fantasy UI and reports about the hardware being prototyped in pieces, it's pretty clear that W8 was easily going to beat this concept to production.

There's also a lot of people here saying "how hard would it have been to put email on it", way to miss the point, if these stories are to be believed, it had already been in development for 5 years, when BG asks how it does email and they guy replies that it doesn't yet, Bill isn't going to be thinking "well that's not hard to add", he's thinking "these guys don't have a fucking clue".

Wooden Mars ark voyagers set to step out on Earth

jubtastic1
WTF?

If all they tested was the psychological effects

Then that was a colossal waste of time and money, because that test environment is literally 250miles away from the kind of instant death scenarios the real ship's crew will operate under and the test subjects would have been well aware of that fact.

You might as well argue that people are psychologically prepared for living on a 1m squared platform at the top of a 20m pole because your test subject survived balancing on a pallet for a month.

Pop a crew in a submersible and drop them down the Mariana trench and I'll bet a few heads get broken long before 5 months go by.

Anonymous threatens Mexican drug cartel

jubtastic1
Mushroom

The times, they are a changing

Seems like every day one story suggests the world is sliding into anarchy while another story documents the lock step towards big brother. Hard to believe this feedback cycle is going to end well.

Apple shouldn't bother with TV...

jubtastic1

Target Audience

You Are Not It.

The reason Apple sells so well is because they make beautiful hardware combined with UI's that don't require the user to be technically minded to use.

It turns out that the majority of consumers don't want to have to read a manual to use something, they're not curious about what the button with the weird icon does, they never explore menus looking for buried treasure, they just want a hassle free experience, to feel in control of the thing, they hate the idea that they might screw the thing up by pressing the wrong button.

I think improving TV for joe public is something Apple would excel at, but it all hinges on the content, and sans Jobs, I'm not sure Apple could pull off the deals required to make it possible. Which would be a shame, because where Apple ventures everyone else follows.

5 SECONDS to bypass an iPad 2 password

jubtastic1

Just tested this

4 finger swipes don't work, so you're limited to whatever the active app was when you locked it.

I'd expect an OTA patch for this fairly promptly.

Linehan turns IT Crowd off but NOT on again

jubtastic1
Unhappy

Somewhere in the last series,

The Magic smoke escaped.

Will skip anything involving CAS thanks.

Boffins insert 3D objects into any old photo... realistically

jubtastic1
Trollface

FAKE!!!!

This is an obvious photoshop job. You can tell its a fake because the shadows are all wrong.

Jobs: 'I'll spend my dying breath destroying Android'

jubtastic1

Almost every thing you just said is true

Android was in development (publicly), prior to 2007, and Google did buy the company, but prior to the iPhone launch Android was an obvious blackberry rip, top half screen, bottom half keyboard, the interface was also BB inspired, with a dock of apps along the bottom of the tiny screen and a hardware joystick for navigation.

After Apple unveiled the iPhone all that work was basically thrown in the bin and replaced with a full size screen, soft keyboard, capicitive touch screen and a grid of icons.

Don't take my word for it though, google it for yourself.

Crap alchemist jailed for poo-into-gold experiment

jubtastic1
Coat

Oh, Edmund... can it be true?

That I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest Brown?

War boffin: Killer cyber attacks won't happen

jubtastic1
WTF?

Duck and cover

There was a first time for every new technology used in warfare, to argue that because X hasn't happened yet it never will seems remarkably reckless, especially in these days of Stuxnet, daily intrusions by the PLA and rumours that the US considered hacking Gaddafi's air defences.

At this point I think it's a given that most if not all industrialised nations have cyber warfare divisions, that the Yanks are better than the Chinese because they don't get caught as often (and when they do pretty sophisticated code is uncovered), I'd also posit that the civilian systems that ensure humans around the globe are fed, watered, warm and happy are riddled with bugs that the aforementioned agencies have spent the last 5 years discovering, weaponising and filing away for a rainy day.

TL;DR

This guy is on crack, we will certainly see SoftWar cause human casualties at some point, agree that there's no sense worrying about it though.

Yahoo! revenue! AND! profits! bomb! as! expected!

jubtastic1

They have an image problem

As illustrated by Every! Single! Yahoo! Article! On! T'Reg!

They should focus on the bits people like, but don't associate with Yahoo!!! Like Flickr, thats something they can grow without alienating their existing yahoos by rebranding.

Apple iOS 5.0 downloads drive all-time UK net traffic high

jubtastic1

iOS 5 enables delta updates

So this is the last complete firmware image.

Apple 'prepping smaller iPad'

jubtastic1

Why assume they're for biddy iPads?

Could be a screen for a new magic trackpad, or some other gizmo. The Aspect ratio might be a clue, but I suspect a small number of production samples just means they're playing with ideas, or more likely, competitors heads.

iPhone 4S: Our *hit list

jubtastic1
Stop

iCloud backup space

It doesn't bother backing up anything that can be redownloaded, like the OS, apps, media from iTunes or that's been synced from your PC, IMAP mail, anything that's already backed up as part of iCloud, like contacts and calendars.

Which is to say you only need a fraction of the device space for a complete backup, eg: 500 mb for my 16GB iPhone and 700MB for my 32GB iPad.

To my mind, this is a clever approach that minimises bandwidth requirements and drastically cuts down the time taken for a backup but we're all entitled to our own opinions.

jubtastic1

Re: am I missing something?

Yes, Its v1.0

I'm just glad it works, they'll get round to adding the "remove photo I really shouldn't have snapped" option later, just like they finally got round to adding the option to remove a single dodgy call from your call history.

Don't hold your breath, I'd imagine it's way down Apple's To Do list.

MIT boffin: Salted disks hold SIX TIMES more data

jubtastic1

Overkill?

3.3Gb seems like a colossal jump from 128bit salts

/gets coat.

Apple: 4m iPhone 4S handsets sold, thank you very much

jubtastic1

18.7 Petabytes

Just for iOS 5 downloads over three days. That's a lot of bits.

Apple versus Samsung: key points in the ruling

jubtastic1
FAIL

Unfortunately for you

I have given a lot of thought to supermarket own brand products, which if I am honest, I rarely (never), find a willing audience for.

Tesco Choco Snaps are Coco Pops copies, they taste almost as good as the real thing yet there's just enough of a difference that in blind taste tests (conducted upon offspring at the Jubtastic household), the test subjects noticed and voiced their disapproval.

Tesco also sells a "value" coco pops copy, whose value is debatable because IMHO they bear more in common with cardboard than food, now when you think about it, coco pops are just puffed rice and some chocolate flavouring, yet the value range has clearly been gimped beyond reducing costs on the raw materials to ensure that the product compares poorly with Choco Snaps and of course, Coco Pops.

This sugggests that Tesco actually employ someone to gimp value range products, which personally I find both perverse and yet fascinating.

Back to your questions:

Yes.

Of course not.

Actually, the logo on the box is Trademarked, reproducing it without permission is not a copyright violation, it's counterfeiting. Wiki Trade Dress for enlightenment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress

Good day Sir.

jubtastic1

Well put

Next time you're out buying food, compare the packaging of the supermarket's own brand copies of successful brands, notice how they remind you of the branding of their originals yet aren't straight copies. Thats because If Tesco did simply copy a box of cereal, replacing "Kellogs" with "Tesco" and dropped in a picture of a bowl of their own product that was similar enough to the original that few would notice, they'd get rightly sued for imitation.

Regardless of whether you believe Apple's own products to be the work of Satan, Smartphones and Tablets were a niche before Apple got into the business, thanks to their efforts they've both gone mainstream and there's now a wide variety of products running on a range of OS's, Apple isn't suing RIM over its Playbook or HP over the TouchPad, they're fighting one Android tablet manufacturer that's chosen to imitate their own products design, packaging and look and feel to a ridiculous degree. Why this is unexpected I can't understand because if you had developed the iPad and had a major component supplier copy the thing right down to the box you'd be taking legal advice right?

World+Dog goes bonkers for iPhone 4S

jubtastic1
Stop

They must mean the first 24hrs sales In 2010

To sell more in an hour than 6 months of last year would be off the fucking chart.

Of course by this time next year, when every phone and computery thing has an indispensable Siri type AI embedded, Apple introducing it to the mass market will be ignored by the haters because it will turn out to have been an obvious evolution and would have happened anyway and Apple didn't invent it and blah blah fucking blah.

The level of ingratitude to this company from the IT sector is frankly depressing.

Did a Seagate sales bloke just say 5TB drives are coming?

jubtastic1

Really?

How long are you projecting a rebuild to take on 5TB disks?

Chinese whisper of low-cost Kindle-confounding iPad

jubtastic1

If the IPad3 has a retina display

Then keeping the IPad2 around as a cheaper option makes sense, like the 3GS to the iPhone4, reducing internal storage to 8GB will probably knock enough of the costs for them to drop the price.

iOS update woes prompt gnashing of teeth for Apple fans

jubtastic1

It's because....

A) the updates are Ginormous, 750MB for iOS alone.

B) it's not staggered by timezone, system updates for example are usually scheduled to run at a fixed local time.

C) Users have been waiting for this for a long time and lots of them hit the button as soon as it went live.

Updated an iPad, took two goes, iPhone will have to wait till morning as the missis is threatening to yank the mains so she can sleep.

Spotify's rising revenues gobbled by royalties blackhole

jubtastic1
FAIL

Nobody* makes any money from Spotify

Check this helpful infographic comparing label and artist revenue from a variety of digital outlets:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

*Excludes Spotify employees.

iPlayer founder launches next big TV thing-Zeebox

jubtastic1
Go

He's on to something

While a little choice is a good thing, endless choice can be exhausting and we're getting closer to the latter every day. Of course there's times when the ability to search or browse for a particular show is liberating but for the most part people don't want to have to trawl through listings looking for something to watch, they just want to slump down in front of something entertaining.

This is basically iTunes style "Genius mixes" for TV and if the execution is good, I'd expect it to be a hit.

Boffins fear killer gamma death blasts from space

jubtastic1

Wouldn't it miss the ozone on the back of the planet?

And wouldn't the remaining ozone dissipate around the globe providing considerably less protection but more than none?

Finally, is there anything we could do to prevent or reverse the effects and if not what's the point in worrying about it?

The life and times of Steven Paul Jobs

jubtastic1
Thumb Up

Thanks Rik

Both parts were a great read.

From the management style interview it appears that Steve acted as a sounding board to most of the major project teams, I can't see anyone else filling those shoes. I realise there's a lot of stuff in the pipeline that will see daylight as the years roll by, but who could guess what he'd be prepared to go all in on a decade from now? there's going to be a whole heap of stuff that's unlikely to happen now because no one else seems to have the passion to risk their livelihoods on an idea.

We've lost a rare thing, a dreamer that actually delivered, A loss to the whole industry.

Sent from my iPad

What's not in the iPhone 4S ... and why

jubtastic1
FAIL

@Geoff Campbell

That's what he said, there are GSM networks worldwide, so your GS2 and this 4S and the 4, and the 3(S) and the 2G and all the other GSM phones work like that and always have.

However, if you have a CDMA phone from say Verizon, then when you visited another country you were likely to be SOL, basically the 4S has GSM backup for CDMA users. GSM users don't need a backup.

O2 best placed to scoop new iPhone sales dosh

jubtastic1

Ditto

Are you listening Vodafone?

Violent videogames reduce crime

jubtastic1
Stop

Zombie Mary Whitehouse disagrees

She groans that you will burn in hell for your virtual sins.

Microsoft takes the Android profit, the Wonkas take the pain

jubtastic1

That can be calculated can't it?

Google recently stated in court that iOS represents 2/3 of their mobile search queries, we know how many iOS devices are out there, by looking at the cash Google sends to say Mozilla for Firefox searches someone could calculate roughly how much they're saving on searches from Android devices.

Not me though, can't be arsed, bet it's dwarfed by their costs at the moment though, especially given the Motorola purchase.

Amazon's Kindle Fire is sold at a loss

jubtastic1
Facepalm

Poor analogy

A single game sale will push a PS3 into profit, and subsequent sales will generate lively income, whereas the stuff Amazon is shifting carries razor thin margins, App Store revenue is a rounding error for Apple, and as far as tablet content sales goes (books, films, music & apps), Amazon will be hard pushed to match that.

Now Amazon may well be happy with those slim profits from content as a long term income stream but Samsung, Motorola and the rest of the Android tablet Manufacturers can't replicate the strategy with no content and are likely to be squeezed out between Apple and Amazon, Google can't be best pleased about degoogled Amazon Tablets derailing their tablet efforts either.

Java, Adobe vulns blamed for Windows malware mayhem

jubtastic1
Stop

Removing them works as well

And doesn't require constant patching, keep chrome around for the odd time a website doesn't fail back to HTML when flash isn't installed and get a third party app for PDF's.

Not a lot of help if you have to run Java apps but most users only interaction with java is through malware.

Huawei gets charged with juicy Android handset

jubtastic1

Does it also have a 5000000:1 dynamic contrast ratio?

3 days doing what exactly? Is it nothing by any chance?

Mars trips could blind astronauts

jubtastic1

Centrifuge to the rescue?

Or more simply, design the ship as a short stubby can and spin the entire thing on it's axis, it's going to have to be built in space anyway.

Skype for iPhone makes stealing address books a snap

jubtastic1

Regarding point two

So Apple should restrict address book data from apps? Even contact based apps like Skype?

Skype has to have an address book to work at all, restricting access in iOS isn't going to change that, all it's going to do is annoy iOS users who will be forced to upload their contacts to Skype from their computers instead while Skype says "sorry peeps, nasty old Apple won't let you do it the easy way".

I also don't see how anyone could expect an OS to distinguish between a messaging app uploading data to a remote host in the normal course of usage and uploading data to a remote host because it's been coerced to do so, this is Skype's fail pure and simple.

Big Apple fake Apple stores agree to rat out suppliers

jubtastic1

Pics, details etc

What sort of stuff were they selling? Random gizmos with apple stickers applied or exact knockoffs of kit like headphone cables etc? Anything big, like a MBA? Was the software hacked versions of Apples or skinned something else? How does the counterfeit stuff compare with the real?

Google plan to kill Javascript with Dart, fight off Apple

jubtastic1
WTF?

What's the Apple angle?

How does iOS differ from windows or android or anything else as far as JavaScript is concerned? And how does creating a new language that probably won't be supported on iOS combat that?

iCloud Communications ditches Apple lawsuit

jubtastic1

Off topic

But I wonder if anyone can explain why those Ads for payday loans at 4000% interest are legal? Seems like loan sharking to me.

Shareholder demands RIM sell itself or spin off patents

jubtastic1

^ this

Swapping businesspeople with expensive phone plans for teenagers on PAYG, who if my kids and their friends are any indication, use BBM nonstop on creditless phones, does not appear to be a viable long term proposition.

Vultures are circling.

'Satnavs are definitely not doomed', insists TomTom man

jubtastic1
FAIL

Navfree on the AppStore

Spoken turn by turn, doesn't require Internet access, reroutes on the fly, you can't beat the price.

It's the proverbial headlamp of an oncoming train Mr Tom

TextGrabber

jubtastic1

Bear in mind

The iPad camera is worse than the camera on the iPhone 2G, its fine for FaceTime, crap for photos.

What vegetables are best for growing in Spaaace?

jubtastic1
Flame

Wouldn't it be cheaper

To send up astronauts made of meat?

"Mission control, we just lost Dave, got himself locked in the oven like Frank did last week, also we're running low on BBQ sauce"

Foxconn reports $17.6m 1st-half loss as robot legion grows

jubtastic1
Terminator

Have you seen them?

Their leg-less torsos are bolted to the table, while the hunched upper body and arms imitate the cramped workers they replace, if these robots had faces, they would look like Marvin.

http://hitechanalogy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Foxconn-Robots-500x353.jpg

HP's UK PC boss: We're going nowhere

jubtastic1
Flame

HP moots new business plan

1) Sell products at a substantial loss.

2) ...

3) Bankruptcy.

Microsoft unveils file-move changes in Windows 8

jubtastic1

Meh

The only new bit is the conflict panel, and it doesn't look like it's going to work well for anything other than images and it's debatable whether it makes that easier, reminiscent of the PHD sync error dialogs on OS X that my users don't want to deal with.