Posts by SlabMan

One word...

... mines.

Here's another rumour

The Mac maker will shelve plans to release an iMac based around a 22in touch-sensitive display. This is after Steve Jobs commented, 'I've been using this for 5 minutes and my arm aches. You're fired'.

Personally, I'd rather have a mousemat-sized multitouch trackpad

In the time it takes to whinge here...

... you could have signed the petition here - http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/

Refresher course

Just a few reminders -

1 - Apple are not a monopoly - there are many competing PC brands and operating systems

2 - Explain how anyone, in the world, ever, has been 'forced' to buy a Mac

3 - Only Apple can make commuters branded as Macs. Only Kellogs can make cereal branded as Special K. This does not make them monopolies.

4 - Going via the courts and following due legal processes to shut down an infringement is not illegal (d'uh)

5 - Just about every PC manufacturer in the world is currently selling Hackintosh-capable devices. They don't advertise this as a feature. Hence no lawsuit from Apple.

6 - Anyone can buy a retail 'upgrade' copy of the Mac OS. What they then do with that disk in the privacy of their own homes - well…

7 - Psystar were selling modified versions of the Mac OS. Coders out there, try this on - someone hacks your app to run on another platform, sells it as such, and doesn't cut you in, or ask permission. Feel OK about that? Inclined to handle support calls from the folks that buy it?

8 - Psystar bought one copy of the OS and cloned it onto their machines. That's piracy

9 - Conspiracy theorists - if a competitor really wanted to establish the viability of selling Mac clones via a shall company, expect them to go about in a less obviously illegal and incompetent way. That's still possible.

10 - For those brave rebels who want to 'beat the system' (coz this is SO much more important than other global injustices and inequities), go ahead and make your own Hackintosh. Just don't expect your friendly banker to back this activity as the basis of a viable business plan.

In conclusion, get a PC, or get a Mac but whichever you choose, get a life and get over this.

Scalextric - no joke

@SmallYellowFuzzyDuck - many a true word, etc.

Can I just second that and add - trolleybuses. All the joys of electric transport without having to lug big batteries around. Though, of course, if you did stick some batteries onboard, you could smooth out the load on the grid, and provide some limited autonomy for detours and other unforseens. No reason why commercial vehicles shouldn't use the same wires as billing info could easily be sent & received.

I also envisage a semi-Scalextric type system - conductive studs in the road. Any time a vehicle remains statonery for more than a few seconds, a probe on its underside finds the nearest stud, and has a quick conversation to give the grid the driver's billing details. The stud is then enabled to send a burst of power to the vehicle's super capaitors, which then feed the charge into the batteries.

More please.

Let's scale back to just enough integrated armed forces to defend our little group of islands.

Deep packet inspection

All your torrents will now be subjected to an automated buttock probe and breast inspection

Groan

Groan, coz I'm going to mention Apple. The rumour is that Apple is in talks to sign up publishers to providing content for its (also rumoured) tablet. Maybe Murdoch's move is about shifting focus to that channel. Note also that the Daily Telegraph editor has just transferred over to its digital division. Could it be that this is where the news publishers are all headed?

One use for Chrome

Boot it from USB and use it for online banking. Should be a bit more secure than IE on Windows

Sign the petition

Nearly 20k signatures on the anti-disconnection petition at

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/

Next steps

Once Mandelson has awarded himself full legal powers over the Internet, he plans to have his mind migrated to the cloud. That way he can personally inspect every packet, draw enegry from your innermost secrets, and NEVER DIE!

Bye bye usability

Desktop OSes at least enforce some kind of consistency in application behaviour and interface. This is being posited as for neophyte users, yet their primary app will be that usability nightmare, GMail.

There are web apps with usable interfaces. Just none from Google.

All that money, and no taste.

Excessive redundancy

Buy a tv which has a tuner and speakers inside. Then plug in your av receiver, rendering speakers redundant. Next plug in your PVR, rendering the tuner redundant. And so on. Someone please start making TVs that are just screens so we don't have to pay extra for stuff we'll never use.

@Mudslinger

Shame on you. That's a direct quote from the Team America World Bill of Rights. You know, the one that says we're all equal, apart from slaves, women, and native Americans.

Preemptive review

I won't let not having seen the show prevent me from commenting that it is both a travesty of the original that should never have been made, and a surprisingly watchable and contemporary reimagination. Condemnation and kudos to all concerned. Don't let it happen again - can't wait for series 2.

Wacky train ideas

Competition for most bonkers train idea? Can anyone play? How about digging canals and flying Ekranoplans along them? How about ski-trains running on ice tracks? How about having all the passengers ride a bicycle and hold out to the person in front's coat-tails?

Terminology

Shouldn't the plural of fanboi be fanboix?

What do you call a female fanboi? Fanette? Fangrrrrl? Or are women too sensible to be fanboix?

Where is the capital of fanboi-dom? (fan)Boise, Idaho.

What's the collective noun for fanboix? A swoon of fanboix? A hoxton of fanboix?

Can we stop using the word 'fanboi' because it's so flipping annoying?

Surefire vote winner...

... for Labour, Lib Dems, et al. Great idea - interrupt my listening pleasure to plead for votes. Let me know how that works out for you. Meantime, I'm standing for Parliament on behalf of the 'Ban political ads on Spotify' party.

Vote for meeee!!!!

Getting there....

A Mazda MX5 to the Kindle's Lada. This has just about good enough tech at a reasonable price. As a heavy book consumer, as soon as someone comes up with an all-you-can-eat library/subscription model, I'll leap in like a sunburnt salmon.

British moon-shot

@Gene Cash - I'll have you know that British astronauts landed on the moon in 1901. Some deluded fools believe the film is a studio fake, but this does a grave dis-service to the memory of Dr. Cavor and Mr. Bedford.

Bonjour!

"how devices can discover nearby compatible gadgets and negotiate connections with them while hiding the complexity from users"

Bonjour! - otherwise known as Zeroconf. Or 'Bonjour matelot' if your name is Kenneth Williams.

Good idea.

Every brand needs a geographical location that matches its character.

Apple = San Francisco

Linux = Glastonbury

Microsoft = ... Drat! Orange has already taken Milton Keynes.

WCAG

The general response to WCAG 2 seems to have been, 'nice - but what does it all mean?'. Followed by, 'so, how do we implement?'. The upcoming British Standard might be a better template - it's more akin to the general principes mentioned by Nigel Callaghan above. Progressive enhancement is the current watchword.

Why am

iNotSurprised?

The iWord is as dated as bakelite. Apple gets a pass as they popularised it and achieved brand ubiquity. Otherwise, the iPrefix should be buried in a light-blue, radius-cornered, transparent plastic iCoffin.

Still - an improvement on Vegemite which sounds like a parasitic insect that infests carrots. Tastes like it too.

iDontLikeIt

inFact - iSpewed.

Ownership

Building a cross-Britain broadband network is a good thing. However, if it is publicy funded, it must be publicly owned. Otherwise, this is just a hidden (and illegal?) subsidy to BT.

Product?

@anonymous coward - It's not a product. It's a concept. As in car companies demoing sleek model-bedecked 100MPH 100MPG streamlined space cruisers at motor-shows, only to eventually come to market with a diesel-powered ride-on lawnmower. This is not real. It is vapourware, FUD, imagineering, wishful thinking. An idea. A fishing exercise. It does not exist.

Anyone wanna buy a video of the Brooklyn Bridge?

Cost-effective?

I have a suspicion that the number of people required to draft, edit, amend, review, vote, and sign-off this law far exceeded the number of prosecutions. It would be great to have a league table of criminal laws listed by number of prosecutions and convictions. We could then set government the goal of excising the 100 least 'popular' laws every year.

Conserve these cuddly critturs

They are an evolutionary cul-de-sac, eat nothing but bamboo shoots, lounge around all day, and can't be assed to have sex On the other hand, they're cute, cuddly, photogenic and do little harm. So on balance, I'm in favour of Civil Servants.

And, I'm with Toby Rose - we seem to have no shortage of loud-mouthed wallabies happy to take taxpayer's (BBC) cash and then whinge about big government and a superfluity of civil servants. Hypocrites.

I'm more worried...

...by the threat of Daily Mail readers interbreeding with normal folk. Can nothing be done to stop this plague of vicious suburban vermin from roaming the streets, snarling and snapping at innocent, cider-drinking hoodies?

Me please for some terror money

I'm up for running a pro-war-on-terror website focusing on quilting, bicycle repairs, greyhound racing and veal-and-ham pie recipes. I think this will catch the attention of several key communities.

Re: MSX

@Anonymous Coward - if Tron was a failure, it was one of the most popular failures in the world. If this CPU 'fails' in the same way as Tron and the T-Engine, they will sell a billion. MSX was a faliure, but it was a Microsoft led failure.

Don't get it.

Developers commission security test. Test finds vulnerability. Vulnerability is fixed. Fuss over nothing.

One explanation of the results might be that people who didn't take security seriously before are now doing testing for the first time.

Let's see some results from a survey of hackers to get a true picture of the security landscape.

If weapons development keeps on this way -

- war will be strictly for losers.

Won't someone save me the bother?

The bother of posting that I dreamt I went to Paris. No? Selfish lot.

Market niche?

Maybe Clippie could pop up when I start typing in capitals and offer 'It looks like you're typing a shout. What volume would you like to set your shout at?' A volume slider (from 1 to 11 of course) would then format the mail automatically. 1 would equate to e e cummings-style all lower case. 11 would be red, block capitals, 72pt Comic Sans with an attached wav file of Motorhead.

imagine this was microsoft - I don't have to

@cap'n - I presume this was meant ironically - 'imagine MS said from now on you can only install 'approved' apps via some MS store, from which it would rake in 30% of all sales revenue'

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/01/windows_mobile_6_five_release_market_place/

Re: Re Idiotic

tantiboh - I think we are all impressed by how the USA held back from responding to recent events with rampant xenophobia and paranoia. And I agree that it's shocking how Europe fails to spend its tax-euros to protect America from North Korean missiles. Perhaps some of those democracy bombs that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan would help us see the error of our ways.

What kind of perverse mind...

...characterises a child feeding at its mother's breast as a sexual act? Says far more about the twisted psyche of the accuser than it does of any alleged moral deficiencies of the accused.

Given the USA's apparent breast-phobia, I now understand why Ghadaffi employs a troop of female bodyguards. 'Oh my lord! Cover your eyes men - nekkid ladies at 12 o'clock.'

Plan for World Peace

1. Design new weapons system for geopolitical scenerio just ending

2. Keep armed forces and manufacturers so busy upgrading the system that they are too busy to fight

3. World peace ensues and nobody notices

4. Prophet

Libraries...

You don't have to buy the books. eBooks and libraries are not incompatible - in fact eBooks would make for better libraries than physical books, with some exceptions (art books, atlases, etc). A government could easily decide to rip & replace physical library infrastructure with eBooks and servers. For the library, no problems with books being lost or damaged, verifiable usage-based payments back to the publishers, no need for multiple copies of popular books, easy access to rare or out of print books, add a book to stock the first time a user requests it, etc. For the government, an overnight surplus of fine buildings to be sold off to developers and converted into crappy flats or bars (so it's not all good).

Wheel of Fortune

Apple 'analysts' must have something like a Tarot pack of predictions that they periodically shuffle and pick a card from. The Apple TV rumour comes and goes with regularity. What never appears is the Apple TV itself. It's about time we had some new Apple rumours.

To get the party started, an analyst (me - I'm just as qualified to spout nonsense as anyone else) predicts that Apple will shortly launch an Apple-branded line of thermal underwear for dolphins. He goes on to estimate that Apple will own 70% of a potential $10billion market by 2010. The new product will be most likely be known as iFlipper-todger-warmer.