* Posts by Dave 126

10643 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

Microsoft in sexism strife again over XBOX rape joke

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Nothing like a Daily Mail rant....

It was a "fighting" game, in which characters attempt to exert power over each, and the human players are playing with the concept for fun. Even a board game like Monopoly is about imposing power over another person ("Rent!" "I can't pay"... What happens when the Iron makes the Dog bankrupt? Does the Dog find itself on the street, and turning to prostitution to avoid being sent to Battersea? Being subject to economic power can sometimes be as damaging to ones physical and mental health as being subject to physical power... both forms of power, alas, have been used innumerable times over the centuries to compel people to do things they rather wouldn't)

Without an imbalance of power, there couldn't be rape- it would just be consensual sex. So I can only assume it is the power that people find offensive, yet it is power that is at the core of so many games- so it is odd that people have to transpose the comments to another scenario in order to feel offended by it.

Games that make friends swear at each other (Worms, being the one I've played most recently) are fun, and are only good for the friendship - they are games! "Nice shot, you jammy f$%ing b$%tard!" Smiles.

Sony sucker-punches Xbox on price, specs, DRM-free gaming

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: WMA

>Just imagine what the state of music would be if Apple hadn't introduced the iPod. At that time, pretty much every mp3 player would do mp3 and wma.

Without Apple, Sony might have been the company to create the first high-end cum mass-market HDD audio player... if so, we'd have been using ATRAC and SonicStage (shudder). But yeah, I take your point: Apple became big enough to dictate terms to music publishers regarding DRM. I like them for that, just as I do for standing out against Flash, and for advocating 16:10 laptops.

Sony's new tablet works with Dualshock3 controllers out of the box, and it is easier to get the same Sony DS3 controller to work with a PC than it is a wireless Xbox controller (it requires a dongle).

NSA PRISM deepthroat VANISHES as pole-dance lover cries into keyboard

Dave 126 Silver badge

$200,000 salary - pole dancing girlfriend...

I'm sure there was more information in the article but none of use to me, given we've all always assumed the NSA collected whatever data they wanted. Haven't we?

Apple at WWDC: Sleek new iOS, death of the big cats, pint-sized Mac Pro

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Let me get this straight...

>Unix has never been cool or uncool - it's a professional tool and is 'cool-factor' exempt.

Garth in Wayne's World 2 would beg to differ.

Garth: That's a UNIX book.

Girl: Yeah.

Garth: Cool.

Dave 126 Silver badge

I'll wait for real-world tests before dismissing the concept

Curiously, this article from eighteen months ago seems to predict this new Mac Pro, suggesting the concept isn't too alien to video production professionals:

http://9to5mac.com/2012/01/25/macbook-air-thunderbolt-editing-4k-video-shows-why-the-mac-pro-as-we-know-it-can-die/

"The concept proves with enough RAM and a powerful processor, Thunderbolt could enable smaller Macs to do the work of a Mac Pro. Hard Drives, PCI cards and everything besides the processor and RAM can now be connected via Thunderbolt rather that being built into the box.

Apple could modularize for their Pros. Think about starting with a Mac Mini with a XEON Processor and lots of RAM (OK, the cooling stuff might turn it into a cube)."

And that was using the less flexible Thunderbolt 1, not the newer TB2. These guys also seem to find TB for RED Rocket acceptable:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?80661-Thunderbolt-RED-Rocket

As for desk clutter, the people who are processing this much video are likely to have a rack mounted solution for storage already. Should a Mac Pro fail, it is quicker to plug a spare machine (even a Macbook Pro) into the Thunderbolt than it is to swap the drives (and exotic PCIe cards) out of the dead machine, allowing the studio to get on with chasing that deadline.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Agreed

>Far more likely that the markets reacted to the lack of announcements on new iDevice and other consumer hardware.

Really? Even though Tim Cook had said well advance that there wouldn't be any new iDevice hardware?

Boffins hide cute kitty behind invisibility shield

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: a lab toy with zero practical use.

>zero practical use.

didn't they say the same about LASERs?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: @Wise

A fake would look much better!

New Android plan: Gurn at your phone to unlock it

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Funny you should say that.

'belming'... curiously, when I googled that term I found

http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A19367814

which appears to be a page entirely copied-and-pasted from H2G2

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I claim prior art

>I noticed years ago that a "tongue protrusion" always gained me entry.

Whereas Roger Moore merely had to raise an eyebrow.

Author Iain (M) Banks falls to cancer at 59

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: RIP indeed

Spoiler Alert (minor):

In the film Hot Fuzz, an apparently forgetful desk sergeant is later revealed to be two separate police officers, both played by Bill Bailey. Re-watching the film, one of the desk sergeants always reads an Iain Banks book, and the other an Iain M. Banks novel. http://www.edgarwrighthere.com/2013/04/03/in-praise-of-mr-iain-banks-and-mr-iain-m-banks/

He originally dropped the 'M.' at the insistence of his publishers, who feared negative associations with the novelist Rosie M. Banks. I have no idea what she is like as an author, but she is referred to in some of P.G Woodhouse's stories (in the 'Blandings' series, I think)

The Reg's best-looking reader reveals list of jobs for the beautiful

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Good looking on Radio

>Although that James Naughtie bird is definitely a bit of a minger

Yeah, but I like it when he talks dirty - "Jeremy Hunt, Culture Secretary..."

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: During the meanwhile ...

Or 'Beauty Knows No Pain', by FZ ( You Are What You Is)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Good looking on Radio

>Now list me a few female presenters who aren't at least passably good looking.

No, I shall not sir. To do so would be ungallant!

Dave 126 Silver badge
Facepalm

Oops!

I wrote 'Heart FM' above when it should have been 'Heat Milton Keynes'. Silly me.

Dave 126 Silver badge

>"The advert did not say why it was important for a radio presenter to be good looking."

It's perfectly possible that Heart FM had posted the advertisement for the same reason the Reg have had a reporter apply to the site - to get an edge on a story of interest.

Two friends of mine, already couple, applied to www.beautifulpeople.com some years ago for a laugh- she got in quite easily, but it took her boyfriend quite a few attempts - and they then exchanged spoof flirtatious messages before 'getting together'. The website contacted them "Congratulations! Actually, you guys are the first couple to get together on our site, could we discuss using your story to promote our site?" at which point my friends confessed to just messing about.

The toy of tech: The Mattel Aquarius 30 years on

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Who are we kidding?

>Now we have vast hardware capability, and all it's used for is yet another 3rd person shooter.

Fair enough. Though if you are looking for reasons to be optimistic, the recent Reg article with Ian Livingstone highlighted the originality that can be found in games for phones and tablets: a forced rethinking of control schemes, more limited hardware placing the emphasis on game play, a market model that can aid indy developers, connectivity as standard encouraging play amongst other people locally or remotely...)

Personally, last week I spend a great night with old friends playing an Amiga-era game, Worms, on their XBOX 360... a game works if it gets a friend to shout "You f%$ing bastard! I'll get you for that!" as you uppercut her last worm.

Study: US iPhone owners tend to be rich, educated, white

Dave 126 Silver badge

>Android is a more flexible and robust mobile OS and it costs much less

And if the user has no need for that 'flexibility', then why would they want it? Anyway, you're only looking at the OS - if you look at the peripheral hardware available for iDevices, you'll notice that iOS offers more choice and flexability (docks, car integration, wide selection of 3rd party head-phones with remote controls that work, high quality condenser microphones etc). There are also software categories that are better represented in iOS (music creation, graphics creation and mark-up etc), just as I'm sure there are categories that are better supported on Android.

Whatever, buy whatever device suits you and leave others to do the same.

Dave 126 Silver badge

>so its no more elitist than any other phone.

Huh?

In the UK, there is a difference between a £20 /month contract (very respectable mid-range Android phone phone or other) and a £35 /month contract (iPhone).

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Who cares about ethnicity?

>So white people like me are more rich?

'...like me are richer'.

To paraphrase (I think it was) Dave Chappelle:

"There is a difference between being rich and being wealthy. Michael Jordan might be rich, but the man who signs his cheques... he's wealthy".

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: erm what?

According to Felix Dennis, many rich people are technically in debt for tax purposes.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: More Apple is all about fashion nonsense.

>So, you are an Apple empty-headed imperialist who cannot think

How did you get that from the survey in question? Or are you basing that on some other equally objective evidence to which you have merely forgotten to supply a reference to?

The survey results suggest that they can think, but have better things to think about (such as their career and family) than their phones.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Once you get to a certain age

> Apple's adverts are just as much about fashion — the iPhone is sleek and modern

And they also suggest 'simple'. The adverts tend to be in the form of "It lets you do this". When they do promote a feature, they tend to have thought up a catchy name for it that gives some clue as to its purpose, eg FaceTime.

Jack Vance: Science fiction’s master of magic, mischief and sex

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Know the name, sure I most have read something of his

Yeah, I've had a similar brain-itch... "Why is his name familiar?"

The article would suggest that he is more fun than James Blish, another author whose books I've stumbled across in charity shops (but neglected in favour of Harry Harrison).

The video game studio Bungie appear to have drawn influence from The Dying Earth for their upcoming game 'Destiny', just as they stated they read Niven and Banks before making their game 'Halo'.

Interview: Steve Jackson, role-playing game titan

Dave 126 Silver badge

I had a couple of FF books, and to my shame I didn't use dice and cheated with my fingers as Jackson described. This must have been a couple of years after reading an Usbourne book, "Write your own Adventure Game for your Microcomputer", the end of which were pages of Basic to serve as an example and template.

New Tosh 'droid slabs include Newton-like scrawl-pad: We try it out

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: USB... 2?

>How interesting that voice recognition seems to have made more progress recently while this has not.

English speaking people can usually understand my speech very easily. My handwriting is near illegible!

Okay, other theory:

Speech and handwriting recognition benefit from being done on a remote server where they can be refined by the input of many, many users. in recent years there have been far more people using voice-recognition - on their phones - than have been using handwriting recognition.

Microsoft parades Windows 8.1, the version you may actually want

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: No thanks Microsoft, We dont need another Vista!

>Dont be fooled. A mouse and a control pad beats touch screens for gaming any day

Depends on the game, no? I'd like to see a variant of Cannon Fodder or Bullfrog's Syndicate on a tablet, if the multi-touch allows several cyborgs to be controlled at once.

Intel unzips new Atom phone chip: Low power, fast - is that right, ARM?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: No signs of competition yet

>Faster than current Atoms, but no comparison with current ARMs. Less power than current Atoms, but no comparison with current ARMs.

Links to benchmarks please!

BBC boffins ponder abstruse Ikea-style way of transmitting telly

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Am I the only one...

> downloading all languages/commentary tracks, subtitles, camera angles, whether they will be used or not strikes me as not particularly clever, really.

I would imagine that it would only download what it required, on the fly. This would bring some latency to to the user interaction, but no more than skipping through an iPlayer programme.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Once again Technology over Content...

"Technically, HD video and sound is all well and good but it does NOTHING to the diet of food-orientated, the shambling housing-orientated and the hard-hammered auction-orientated rubbish, much of which is badly upscaled SD, repeated Ad Nauseam."

You're channelling Patrick Moore. And I agree with you. It was a pity that Patrick choose to blame it on feminism, and thus cause his valid points to lost amongst the inevitable noise.

Dave 126 Silver badge

One advantage to this proposed system: viewers can mute background music in a programme so as to make dialogue clearer. Complaints to the BBC about background music in programmes are very common, and not just from the hearing impaired.

Leaks point to new mystery Macs 'with Jony Ive's fingerprints on'

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Touchscreens suck on laptops

>I'd like to see keys on the keyboard with built-in vibrant, colour OLEDs, so they can be contextual to the application, not just QWETY.

You can have it, but at a high, high cost: (roughly $1000 USD)

http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/

There maybe some games controllers that might suit your needs, though.

>Maybe a trackpad cum touchscreen would be good, and the image could display things such as jog and shuttle wheel or sliders as summoned by the application.

All iDevices have had wireless MIDI baked in from the beginning, so what you describe is already well supported amongst desktop digital audio applications.

However, I would like to be able to offload Photoshop (for example) tool palettes to a secondary touch-screen! I was tempted by a 7" USB-powered and driven monitor, but they seem pricey compared to either cheap 7" tablets or 21" monitors.

My mate has just bought a Korg Kaosillator... whilst it can function as a stand-alone noise making thingy, it can also place it's real hardware controls (X Y rear-illuminated touch-pad, sliders, nice heavy jog dials, colour-changing trigger pads) at the disposal of a connected computer. It's pricey, though!

Dave 126 Silver badge

Make up your mind whether you're talking about the resale value of iMacs or iPhones.

Several studies, made in different ways (ie event monitoring software, returns to manufacturer, customer surveys) suggest that Apple computers are fairly reliable.

Dave 126 Silver badge

>Can't see why anyone would bother versus Windows 8 touchscreen ultrabooks like the new Asus S7....

Adobe (and many other) productivity applications don't scale well on Win 7/8 laptops with very high dpi displays, according to reviews of the few Win laptops that boast 'retina'-like screens. (See Toshiba Kirabook)

Pen+tablet bandwagon finally rolling, Nvidia leaps aboard

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: A strange little secret

>Now if only Adobe or Autodesk would pull their finger stylus out.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/4/4395924/adobe-project-mighty-napoleon-impressions-video-demo

Exclusive Halo game coming to Windows 8 and WinPhone 8

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Meh.

> two weapon limit, regenerating health,

I used to play a lot of PC first-person shooters before Halo, and cycling through a dozen weapons trying to find one that has some ammunition left wasn't my idea of fun. Neither was creeping around a level in Doom on 9% health trying to find a health pack. Each to their own, though.

Halo isn't done by Bungie any more, and Bungie's next effort is a cross-platform release.

Review: HP Slate 7 Android tablet

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: handwriting without a stylus are also horrible

> I've got a friend who wants to take quick site pictures, and then sketch dimensions on them, so he can do his drawings and designs better.

Yep.

And you can get Leica surveying kit that interfaces with Android devices... I'd like to see more stuff that bridges the gap between the office/studio and the workshop/site... a bluetooth 'smart' tape measure, for example. I know it is a little niche, but it wouldn't take much to enable it.

Curious that MS's Courier was designed for content creation, yet was killed (allegedly) by B. Gates.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: 1024x600

At least you can turn a tablet through 90º... I've only used a netbook for internet browsing once, and kept wishing I could do the same. It wasn't so much the poor resolution that made browsing a chore, but rather the letterbox screen ratio compounded by the presence of Address and Toolbars.

Relax, Hollywood, ARM's got your back: New chip 'thwarts' video pirates

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Almost correct......

>How true, my daughter had a Sony CD player 'system'. The only way it could play Sony CDs was to copy them on a PC and play the copy. Totally stupid is not the half of the 'mu-sick' business.

Curious. I have seen a Sony CD player refuse to play all tracks on a brand-new from HMV CD, Jurrassic 5's Power in Numbers. This must have been a different Sony scheme to the one that deliberately placed errors on a CD's TOC, errors that upset PC CD drives (and those car stereos that used the same drives), but not normal CD players. The idea was to prevent easy ripping. I seem to recall that such CDs didn't sport the traditional 'Compact Disc' badge on the cover, since they didn't conform to the Red Book standard.

How Microsoft shattered Gnome's unity with Windows 95

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Desktops will never disappear

>Take CAD as an example. Would you rather fly in an aeroplane designed on a large screen where the designer can see the big picture and has precise control over what components go where, or one designed on a tablet with components shuffled by someone's fingers and thumbs?

That 'precise control over what components go where' of which you speak is not achieved by fine cursor control, but by 'snaps' and 'relations' between 2D entities, mathematically defined, and by the use of 'mates' for parts. The idea is that you 'sketch' a form, and then add constraints until it is fully defined. In short, you shouldn't be relying on pixel-perfect cursor accuracy.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I'm not sure Microsoft *has* won.

>Windows 8 is a toy.

but some of the applications that run it are not.

NASA: Trip to Mars would exceed 'fatal cancer' radiation risk

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Propulsion

Orion- last I heard, an Orion launch was still estimated to lead to around ten deaths amongst people on Earth, through exposure to fall-out.

Review: Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch Ultrabook

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Caps Lock?

>Not to mention all the extra effort that would be involved in holding down the shift key while participating in a flame war...

Duck tape.

Dave 126 Silver badge

>The jury is out on the cause, you're right, but it's not like Toshiba, Samsung et al are falling over themselves to try much other than punting out Ultrabook style machines running W8.

Agreed, most of the manufacturers are content to stick Win 8 on it with maybe some included software to restore a Start Menu. Toshiba do have an ultra-high res laptop available, but at Macbook Retina prices (and Adobe Creative Suite doesn't play nicely with very high DPI displays under Windows).

Lenovo have some interesting machines though, from their 'Yoga', to their dual-screened Wacom-digitisered beast of a mobile workstation.

All of which are reasons to 'wait and see' for the time being.

Dave 126 Silver badge

>Given the glacial uptake I can't help but think the major laptop makers are missing a trick in not offering a pre installed viable alternative to Windows 8

Well, the jury is out on the cause for this slow uptake of new laptops...

Many people don't like the look of Windows 8

Other folk are in no rush, and are so happy to wait to see how their friends get on with Win 8 over a longer period of time, or if Microsoft release a 'service pack' that makes it more to their liking. They might even be waiting to see how Chromebooks develop before recommending one to a family member.

At the the same time, many people already own a computer that serves their purposes perfectly well.

Some people are finding that for their purposes, a tablet is good enough.

Some other people are feeling skint.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Caps Lock?

PS

I was almost tempted to cannibalise an external USB keyboard to create a 'Caps-Lock Indicator USB Dongle', but I didn't bother in the end!

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Caps Lock?

My mother had a Toshiba laptop that had no Caps-Lock indicator, and its absence annoyed the hell out of her. I really don't know what the designers were thinking. There is some software available that will place a Caps Lock indicator in your Windows Taskbar, but in the end she just bought a new laptop.

On a more general note, the Caps-Lock key is overly large given how infrequently it is used... all the other larger keys on my keyboard, such as Space, Return, Enter, Shift, Backspace etc are used very often indeed. I really wouldn't mind if Caps-Lock was relegated to a small key above Esc.

(In a mail room in which I used to work, there was a PC with one function- using a DOS-based piece of software to generate and print courier labels... it was a very fast, keyboard-only interface - unless I accidentally hit the 'Insert' key. Eventually I prised the offending key out of the keyboard and Sellotaped it to the keyboard. It is not only software that can be tailored to suit the user!)

Gigabyte's BRIX fall into place

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: HTPC?

What Michael said.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Looking in the right places?@A J Stiles

AC, he said it will 'probably work' - meaning that he wasn't trying to convince you of anything.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Does it need Linux drivers?

Agreed - does Gigabyte need to be hosting the drivers?

I have a Dell laptop with shipped with faulty Windows drivers causing a BSOD, despite their website claiming they were up to date. So I sought out drivers from the Original Component Supplier's website. My uber-geek mate said that Dell weren't great at supplying the latest drivers, so it was always best to go straight to source- and even recommended a piece of 3rd party software that aided this exercise.

In fairness to Dell, I should mention that the laptop came from their 'Refurb' site, so a saving of a few hundred pounds was, for me, worth the bother of a few hours TLC.