* Posts by bill 36

280 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Mar 2010

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Canned laughter for Canadians selling cans of air at $15 a pop

bill 36

in the Sixties

In Edinburgh, you could buy a can of "Pure Scottish Air" from the tourist shops.

Long since disappeared though. So, it's not new.

Scrapheap challenge: How Amazon and Google are dumbing down the gogglebox

bill 36

Its not smart to buy a smart TV

All you need is a Minix and never look back

'Hans free' mobe gag crowned Fringe's funniest

bill 36

Re: The one from a few years ago was much better

I think so. Thought it was hilarious. Obviously there are a few commentards that have had a humour bypass operation.

bill 36
Coat

The one from a few years ago was much better

I opened a Facebook account and was asked to input an 8 character password.

So I typed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Should all Europeans be able to watch Estonian football? Consultation launched

bill 36

Re: It's not just telly

Ever tried doing the same in the UK?

Didn't think so!

Mozilla-Microsoft spat latest: Firefox yanks Cortana away from Bing

bill 36
Linux

i thought i'd educate myself

So i looked up Cortana to get an idea of what it was capable of.

One wiki page later, i've learned all i need to know.

Not only is it a fortune teller but it can convert Celsius to Fahrenheit....really useful.

But the one that had the cornflakes over the keyboard was this..and i quote.

"Cortana is region-specific, and adapts its voice to match the everyday language, culture and speech patterns of the country its user lives in. For example, the UK version of Cortana speaks with a British accent and uses British idioms,"

Class!

Windows 10 climbs to 3.55 per cent market share, Win 8.1 dips

bill 36

whats the point

In bickering about market share?

I'm quite certain that Linux in some form is deployed in every data centre on the planet including at Microsoft.

If the Linux Foundation ever finds itself with the marketing dollars and distribution agreements that MS have, then the picture would change dramatically.

It is still only recently that Linux has become a genuine alternative to Windows for the average punter so the next five years will be interesting.

From a personal point of view, there is simply no compelling reason to use MS anymore.

German prosecutor given Das Boot over Netzpolitik treason charge

bill 36
Headmaster

what ship? I see no ship

ahem

der Stiefel i think you mean :>)

Arctic ice returns to 1980s levels of cap cover

bill 36
Thumb Up

This should be good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDe9msExUK8

Can't beat a good stoning Lewis :>)

Microsoft attaches Xbox stream bait to Windows 10 hook

bill 36

Would you like some Cinammon with your Mint or what...Mate?

I've converted several neighbours and friends away from MS over the last few years and they all love it.

We need a strong MS in the market but i can't help thinking that the ship is going to be fatally holed one of these days.

Natural geothermal heat under Antarctic ice: 'Surprisingly high'

bill 36
Alert

It puzzles me too

That we live on top of a burning molten mass and have another one above us, yet we are still so focused on man made global warming.

Hmmm

Climate change appears to be a fact but we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about whats under the oceans.

Flash HOLED AGAIN TWICE below waterline in fresh Hacking Team reveals

bill 36

question

I've searched the web including the forums and read the detailed report about the newly found holes and privilege escalation.

However, as regards Mint 17 and Firefox it all seems a bit vague especially when the write up includes referencing Kernel32.dll to exploit the code

It seems to me that this exploit can only crash the Flash player in Mint and not escalate privileges.

Anyone got the definitive answer or a pointer? Thanks

NSA snooped on German chancellors for DECADES: Wikileaks

bill 36
Thumb Up

Re: Ich bin ein Berliner

Yip,

famous gaff but maybe he was right. He was a cake and eventually eaten by his own people.

But i prefer the gaff from Bush....the problem with the French is they have no word for Entrepreneur.

Blurred lines: How cloud computing is reshaping the IT workforce

bill 36
Pint

Re: i have a question

thanks guys i'm with it now.

bill 36

i have a question

Can somebody tell me the difference between Cloud and Thin Client?

It seems to me that Cloud is just a euphemism for the distance between the server and its users.

Or indeed the backup of the users machine.

Then it's a question of security...no?

Genuine question....no flames please.

Windows 10 Mobile is shaping up nicely – now Cortana can send emails

bill 36
Facepalm

oops

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently wrote in a leaked internal email about "tough choices in areas where things are not working

Using Coratna she said "send to Reg" oh *uck!

Wake up, sheeple! If you ask Siri about 9/11 it will rat you out to the police!

bill 36

just watch this

It's all you need to know about voice recognition :>)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU

hilarious

Vodafone splashes €2 BEEELLLION to kick German TV sideways

bill 36
Headmaster

just to finish the headline off properly

Achtung, die Engländer haben mein Tellyboxsignalfrequenzen

Gekauft

Facebook Moments app NOT COMING to a mobile device near EU soon

bill 36

Re: Facebook: The new big Brother

You are 100% right so i gave you an upvote AC

But, i'm not afraid to say this.....I am bored with this social media crap. Everywhere you go there are people prodding away at a little screen...a FB update...taking pics in restaurants, bars, in the street, on the bus etc etc....upload to FB....ping,ping,..........oh i've got an update, excuse me a second.....

Its doing my head in.

Cinnamon 2.6 – a Linux desktop for Windows XP refugees

bill 36

just tried it for you

Cinnamon only allows the panel to be at the top or the bottom or both.

But probably there is no reason why it should be that way and in fact it appears to be under review in the Mint forum

bill 36

Re: Solid System Too Bad About No MS Office

Thats usually the sticking point,,,why not educate them as part of your project :>)

Get them all to download LibreOffice then when you send them ODF files they can open them and learn. They might get to like it :>)

bill 36

Re: Is there a Raspberry Pi (2) version?

Thoughts...

yes, dont buy any new hardware at all. The old PC almost certainly contains enough cpu and memory to run everything they need.

Format a usb stick with a FAT filesystem, download the version of choice, 32 or 64 bit, cinammon or kde or whatever, I recommend Cinammon, "burn" the ISO to the stick. set the bios to boot from it and install it. Once thats done, load the updates and you'll end up with a desktop that looks and feels very similar to windows.

It will be stable, almost certainly loads all the drivers correctly and probably faster than XP ever was on the same hardware.

Euro Commish OKs €3bn German broadband aid scheme

bill 36

Re: Glad to see...

30Mbps??

There are many Brits who would give their right arm for that speed :>)

Here in the rural arse end of Salzburg according to speedtest.net download speed varies between 17 & 23Mb/sec. I would hazard a guess that rural Englandshire gets nowhere close :>)

Passions run high in EU parliament debate over air passengers' privacy

bill 36

There is no privacy anymore

What matters is who is allowed to do what with the data!

I'm all for maximum security to prevent arms and explosives ever getting near an aircraft. Or anyone who is, shall we say, unstable.

No, the real problem is that there are too many idiots out there with access to missiles that are capable of bringing a passenger aircraft down. As the Americans and Russians know very well.

They both have recent form (last 30 years) in that respect.

Mt Gox LEAKED Bitcoin for years before heist, says WizSec

bill 36

I let him slip away

Kris Kristofferson must be wondering how his work ever ended up on El Reg :>)

Apple will cut down 36,000 acres of forest in 'conservation scheme'

bill 36

Money grows on trees

Its not like me to defend Apple but i'm going to.

Apple very likely bought into forestry investment years ago. In the UK and probably many other places, its a tax efficient investment and sustainable.

Every manufacturer knows the value of quality packaging so they are managing that in a tax efficient manner.

Since we all like a nice new box to open when we buy a new product, i think its unfair to criticise them.

If we didn't get the shiny new box with a product, we probably wouldn't buy it. Therefore we are all culpable.

I'm quite sure though, that its not apple trees they're cutting down.

Digital killed the radio star: Norway names FM switchoff date

bill 36

Re: @bill 36: Was kinda with you until...

And i forgot

DAB is still being pushed down our throats 20 years later, was a turkey then and still is, in the same way that electric cars are.

Rant over :>)

bill 36

Re: @bill 36: Was kinda with you until...

Well you are entitled to call me a "bit of a tit" Jimmy2cows but i am entitled to my opinion.

So for what its worth from a tit here goes.

The car industry worldwide is worth billions if not trillions when supporting industries are factored in. They therefore have a vested interest in making sure that we are induced into buying personal transport of some description ie; a car. suv or whatever.

They are facing huge pressures to clean up their act, reduce emissions, reduce fossil fuel consumption etc etc.

So much so that by 2020 in Europe ALL manufacturers must average 95g/km. Note the average word.

Now we find ourselves being persuaded that electric cars are a good thing and very few of the "Nutters" are asking why. Well here's the answer.

All of them can easily hit the average by producing electric vehicles while still churning out the gas guzzlers. The problem is, they have to sell them. Roll out the marketing men.

Theres nothing at all wrong with electric vehicles in the sense of reducing air pollution in cities but they are not the answer for lots of reasons which are pretty self evident i think.

Batteries and the disposal of, charging, power supply etc etc. (we will need enormous amounts of power, probably nuclear) These are major issues, the cost of which is being laid off onto the buyers with the carrot of low tax and buying subsidy.

As for driver-less cars, here are just a few examples. Roadworks and diversions, floods, blizzards, trailers.....

Thats my tuppence worth so for all you Nutters out there...have a nice day and enjoy your heavily depreciating Twizzy.

bill 36

Re: Oh noe

Its not just DAB-pushing clowns we have to worry about. There are whole herds of "its new so it must be good" nutters out there, trying to make us believe that driverless cars for example are the way forward. Or even electric cars for that matter.

Fucking NUTTERS

Forget Nokia: Finland's promising future is to be server central

bill 36

correct

"Finland isn’t just known as the country with the highest number of saunas and heavy metal bands per capita"

The Leningrad Cowboys, not original but a class act nevertheless :>)

Elementary, my dear penguin: It's the second beta of Freya

bill 36

doomed to failure

When there are now so many distros that are more than capable of matching MS or Apple

including Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora and Suse.

And thats before we add the Enterprise Linux outfits like Redhat.

Sorry lads, not today!

BBC: SOD the scientific consensus! Look OUT! MEGA TSUNAMI is coming

bill 36

he wasn't married either

according to millions of people but he probably was.

Which just goes to show that if you tell people the same story over and over again, they will believe it.

And that's where we are with all of these catastrophe theories is it not?

Zoinks! Is that Mystery Machine Apple's SELF-DRIVING FAMILY WAGON? You decide

bill 36

There is one good reason why it will never work

Similar to how the Daleks invasion of the universe was fucked up when they arrived at the bottom of the stairs.

It will work sometimes and only sometimes.

The first stiff winter dump or the first time you hook up a caravan or trailer will throw the "intelligent sensors" into chaos.

Now, self driving vehicles on rails....that works.

The Shock of the New: The Register redesign update 4

bill 36

It's much better

One more tweak?

How about NOT black writing on white or grey for the headlines?

Red or dare i say it BBC blue?

Have a nice weekend and enjoy the beer!

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

bill 36

i have an idea

why don't you publish a page with a few different styles and then take the votes?

Today you published a page for example, that had advertising down both sides of the main body and for me, it was much easier to read. Much less glare.

Its the simple things in life,,,,,

Oh and i meant to say, i don't think it was so much the "change" that was the issue, it was the smack in the face that caused the trouble. But i am pleased that i knew you'd be listening.

bill 36

Monumental Cockup

We asked El Reg "who would be walking the plank for this?"

They had not got back to us at the time of writing.

bill 36

I've tried all day to like this

Really i have.....

On the Sammy S5 it looks much better but.....

In the (Chromium) browser on the desktop, awful.

Everything about it just looks wrong, from font size to style. I actually find it difficult to read.

If improving the mobile experience was the goal, then you achieved it but ..........

Hope that helps

A brief history of BLADE SERVERS: From the Big Bang to the, er, 'unblade'

bill 36

Industry Standard Bus?

Is that what you mean?

Proprietary Busses have been around much longer than that with perhaps the DEC Unibus being the most well known and born in the late 60's.

Many OEM's used this to produce industrial machine tool controllers from the 70's onwards.

Under the Iron Sea: YES, tech and science could SAVE the planet

bill 36

Re: I sometimes get the feeling

It's not a radical thought at all.

It would be easy to rant about this and i was tempted.

As any good troubleshooter knows, you have to find the root cause of a problem to provide an effective fix.

Right now there are too many hippies out there that cannot add 2+2 together. It is 4, always has been 4 and always will be 4.

Our problem is that there are too many humans requiring too many resources.

Therefore the answer is obvious except that its too controversial. Even worse than nuclear power.

Chromecast video on UK, Euro TVs hertz so badly it makes us judder – but Google 'won't fix'

bill 36

Just download XBMC

Its free and you can watch all the judder free content you like.

Bitcoin laid bare: Boffins beat anonymity

bill 36

Re: Does anyone really care

I agree with you entirely and my point is that while we do have cash it will remain, for the most part, anonymous. A good thing in my view. Although it would appear that there are some amongst us who would like each and every financial transaction logged. I wonder why?

Bitcoin or any of the others for that matter will be traceable eventually which is the point of the article.

bill 36

Does anyone really care

about this?

We have an anonymous system now. It's called cash!

Sure it can be traced but i'd liked to see a forensic specialist do a traceroute on a fiver over the course of a Friday night in a busy bar. Must be nigh on impossible.

And the award for the world's most tech-savvy country goes to …

bill 36

Nice bit of spin

After reading this several times, and some of the report, i'm struggling to see how this makes the UK "tech-savvy"

All it says is that the UK has more connectivity.

Whether the country is "tech-savvy" is highly questionable.

Adobe appoints former Reg man as open-source chief mobile lead

bill 36

Re: The shame. The shame.

I did. Four corners and a line across.

Philae comet probe got down without harpoons

bill 36

Google DoubleClick goes TITSUP. ENJOY your AD-FREE WORLD!

bill 36

Re: it was worse than that

yip, you're right. I overlooked that small detail.

I wonder how much Auntie makes from flashing it abroad!

bill 36

it was worse than that

because, this afternoon, many pages were hanging waiting for ad.doubleclick.net including the BBC news page,

And i thought the beeb was ad free and funded by the tax payer.........

Having a Web Summit? Get some decent Wi-Fi!

bill 36
Mushroom

i thought it was a conference

where the attendees listen to the presenters and interact; ask questions and take part in a debate, rather than updating farcebook or tweeting.

Two tweets make a twat!

No wifi........... OMFG we're all going to die.

Ubuntu's shiny 10th birthday Unicorn: An upgrade fantasy

bill 36

Re: The best thing about Ubuntu is...

Mint

And i don't mean Polos :>)

Want a more fuel efficient car? Then redesign it – here's how

bill 36

Had several Jaguars

The last one being a 3.2 litre V8 which i loved. The guy i sold it to had it converted to run LPG. Without going into the ins and outs of that conversion, the car then returned the equivalent of 42 MPG when calculating the cost per mile of dual fuel.

LPG was switched in on motorway cruising usually.

But the car i regret selling was a 1990 3.6 XJS 4 speed auto. Always returned about 27 MPG on a motorway run, if you kept the right foot light.

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