Posts by thecakeis(not)alie

Can't speak to ITV...

...but I've seen adverts for BBC "specials" on Canadian TV channels. I've also seen SciFi, Discovery and others advertising their Neat Stuff on other channels. Round here, it's required that you allow that. You can't ban someone from advertising with you just because they compete. Mind you, I do have to admit that was all about eight years ago.

I haven't had cable for seven years and I don't miss it. Between El Reg, Netflix, Ars Technica, the odd video game and Real Freaking Life...I have all the media I could possibly want!

Still, this banning someone from publishing a magazine because you disagree with the content is crap. If you are claiming to be a platform for the distribution of magazines, then you should be forced to allow all (legal) content, regardless of origin. Similarly, it should be illegal to sell a car radio that won't play a specific radio station simply because you don't like the content!

Empire

"What did you like better, Jedi or the Empire Strikes back?"

"Empire."

"Blasphamy!"

"Empire had the better ending! I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader's his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It end on such a down note. I mean, that's what life is; a series of down endings. All Jedi had was a buncha muppets."

-----

And yes; Empire was the best of the three Star Wars films. I really wish that they would hurry up and make the three prequels and the three sequels. Preferably without Lucas' involvement. I'm hungry for more than three Star Wars films!

(Also, is The Matrix ever going to get a sequel?)

You missed the joke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReBoot

That might get you on the road to understanding, however...

I prefer

Ex astris, scientia.

But then, I'm a sucker for nostalgia...

There are a number of people who need to be shot first.

I am sorry, the "no-phones" rule is positively humane by comparison with a lot of other crap that's out there. If you're putting people up against the wall, then I vote that /anyone/ who engages in stupid crap like "honour killings" is first up against the wall.

Of course they'd have to vie for space with the asshats who do **** like "smother baby girls because they wanted a son instead."

I can accept “no phones if you are single” as a sort of weird social rule from a society that places a lot of emphasis on caste. It grinds firmly against what I believe, but it doesn’t cost lives. If you are going to shoot people, then you find those in this world who not only sneer at the principles behind the UDHR but actively oppose it.

I don’t believe in “shooting someone” for arbitrary reasons. Indeed, I believe strongly that every person has a right to life. Still, I believe in the greatest good for the greatest number, and people whose core belief systems are in direct opposition to the UDHR…

…I can support shooting them.

Awesome rats!

So why not use them instead of pick_one($perv_scanner, $molestation_station)?

@Anonymous John

Wait...really?

You honestly believe that race or gender matter to folks chosing the POTS anymore? I thought you people were past that...

@Paul M 1

To which I say only this:

VLC.

@Danny 14

Not new...but growing increasingly disenfranchised. There was a time that insightful, logical posts which contained vast amounts of information were made by knowledgeable individuals on these boards. It still happens occasionally…but to my perception the absolute percentage of such posts seems lower. Perhaps it’s a function of age – becoming jaded? – but I do miss the days when we IT folk were a bit more pragmatic.

Jihads were what Slashdot was for. It magazines like El Reg were for open discussion of technology with as little bias as possible. Attacking the tech, not the people. Poking holes in corporate structures, political decisions and bad engineering choices. Even Ars Technica has fallen a few notches towards Slashdottian misanthropy…something that makes me sad in a way I lack words to properly describe.

Tell me then, good sirs: where in this world might I find such a place any more? Online or off…where is this land where people are critical and suspicious of all things, think for themselves and only truly accept something once it has been thoroughly through the wringer?

I like hanging out at those places; critical nit-pickers have a tendency to select “best of breed” devices and software on a consensus basis. Lots of people get hold of the alternatives and tear them to shreds. The least crap X…wins. When did we stop looking at technology dispassionately? When did it stop being merely a tool with which to accomplish a task? When did technology become a badge we wear that displays “who we are?” Wearing a corporate logo is now the definition of the individual? What to you use has become a means of self-identification?

Stop the world please…I want off.

In the meantime, I will lament the steady decline of online nerd communities as they slide away from critical thinking towards base tribalism.

The ICO?

Really?

I'm not even from the UK and i know the ICO is a complete joke. The ICO "looking into this" is the quick way to have it de fact certified as "ok."

ICO.

*pffft*

I disagree.

They will be much more clearly defined. (Won't they?)

"Feed the military-industrial complex via obscene spending on ridiculous programs through taxes" is the normal state of play.

Imminent threats elevate the new terror warning system to "feed the other part of the military-industrial complex through rapid stockpiling and binge spending!"

I really, really doubt you'll ever be writing "software" for quantum computers.

Quantum "computers" will in all likelihood not evolve past serving as hardware devices within our lifespans. Sensors or encryption gear...at worst you might need to code a device driver to understand the output a quantum device provides.

The reality is that they are just too inherently unpredictable to "program" in the traditional sense. At least with our limited understanding so far…

3D is a fad...

...but if you add a time-shifting PVR then it's 4D, baby!

Buffy for guys.

It was called "Angel."

Those that don't like it

can just unfriend him on facebook.

I think that the two groups of fanboys are cognate.

It's worse if you're freaking huge.

I have no idea how to fight either. I kept getting into fights however, because I was enormous. Every bully out there wanted to prove themselves and as the resident nerd and overly large individual I was a handy target.

The problem wasn't so much not knowing how to fight...it's the size disparity. I could (and probably still can) do a stupendous amount of damage in a very short period of time to someone who is choosing to attack me. Without knowledge of how to fight properly, I really don't know how to limit the amount of damage I do whilst trying to defend myself.

Breaking a dude’s collarbone while you are just trying to hold him in a headlock so he doesn’t keep trying to beat you up does not win you any friends. Nor does actually swinging back after ten punches or so and breaking a guy’s jaw. It makes people hate you. Worse, it brings in the cops, the principal and everyone else who immediately turn you into the “bad guy.”

Bullies work in packs. Largely insecure packs of people who cover each other’s butts and lie like rugs when the excrement meets the rotating air circulation mechanism. If you get beat up then people look at you as the victim and say Stern Things to the bullies. If you happen to defend yourself and go overboard because you don’t remotely know your own strength then the bullies get cooed at and you get in poo. That’s the worst possible outcome because it is exactly what the bullies want: positive attention and something bad to happen to others.

I was raised to believe “you never, ever throw the first punch…but be damned sure to throw the last.” I never honestly tried to follow that policy. From experience however, if you do so – even inadvertently – then you are in for a world of terribleness and misery. It’s sometimes better to simply get beat up than to attempt to have to wade through the prejudicess of tired, overworked figures of authority who view you as just one more thing making their lives that much more miserable.

There is no One True Advice. Sometimes you need to stand up for yourself. Others you need to take the hit and shut the hell up. You will only ever know when faced with the situation.

Seriously?

"Think of the children" in one?

You've got to be ****ing with me.

Maybe he has multiple accounts?

One for this boat, one for that boat...

...and one for the LOHAN production facility he's secretly constructing in the side of a volcano with Lester...

"Who benefits other than thieves and the banks?"

I don't understand the difference between the two.

@MrCheese

I've spent a month working from iPad exactly as you suggest. I do work from my desire in exactly that fashion on a fairly regular basis. As to "too cumbersome," why yes...laptops are. Even modern windows tablets are just too bulky and heavy. That's not the killer though. The killer is battery life. Full-fat operating systems just don't have the battery life necessary for me to get a day's work in.

Remember, you can type just fine on an iPad. Which means no need for a keyboard. There doesn’t have to be a habitrail of copper to cool some ridiculously over-the-top x86 chip. You don’t have all the “baggage” of trying to be the everycomputer. It’s just a media consumption device capable of RDP. I’m a sysadmin, and a programmer. I’m a user and a consumer. Shockingly…the form factor works brilliantly for me.

What doesn’t work for me is the locked down nature of the iPad; specifically the inability to use removable storage. I need the ability to carry a few SD cards with my movies/tv shows/songs/whatever. I have laptops. Nice ones too. Since getting my Desire I almost never use them. If I had an iPad-alike I can pretty much guarantee they would gather dust.

I just don’t understand what average tasks require you to have a full fat system at your fingertips? Sure, there are some heavy lifting tasks I would prefer to do at a real workstation: photo/video editing. (Proper colour calibration requires a real monitor and a real video card.) CAD. Video gaming. Those are all activities I would do from one place though; not on the go. I would have to specifically set time aside to do those things, which means finding a desk and parking it.

When it comes to 90% of what I use a computer for…I don’t want to be sitting down at a desk and staring intently at a light screen. I don’t need to be tethered to write a comment on El Reg. I don’t need be tethered to read/write e-mail, consume media, check facts online or enter inventory items into my corporate point of sales system. I don’t need to be sitting down to use instant messenger, Facebook or check on my webcomics.

What 10 years ago I would have done on a low-power desktop or five years ago on a notebook I now find myself doing on my phone. True “workstation” tasks still require a beefy “workstation.” The difference is that “workstation-class computing” lives inside my Alienware laptop and sits unused in the corner until I actually come up with a task that requires it. All my real work is done in my personal VM and delivered over RDP.

With a little bit of effort, a lot of that “workstation computing” can even be moved into a VM, providing even fewer reasons to bust out the power-hog.

Let me be clear: we aren’t yet at the point that regular folks will be ditching their desktops/laptops for iPad-alikes. We are however seeing the start of it. It’s no different than landlines and cell phones. When cell phones first came out people would have both a land line and a cell phone. Slowly be surely that eroded to be a minority; now many people (and most youngsters) have only a cell phone.

Desktops/full-fat laptops will fade away in the same manner.

The question I leave with you is: which companies will be the ones capable of foreseeing this and taking advantage and which companies will cling to the past?

Java fork:

They should call the fork "coffee." Otherwise all the stupid little joke product names won't work anymore...

I totally agree.

That's why I don't pat any American corporations on the back for being "kind-hearted global citizens." There are a few EU and Canadian corporations though that I actually think I could be proud of working for.

Holodecks

Holodecks used a combination of imagery to fool the senses, forcefield to provifde substance (and act as a treadmill) as well s replicators and transporters to create physical objects. Since replicators and shields are derivatives of the transporter (itself a derivative of subspace communications)...then yes. It's sort of based on the transporter.