Posts by Andy Fletcher

Oh no you won't!

you're onto something there

If you can do the Gb networking over the mains circuit to the light fittings, it sounds cheap too.

Re: Depends on the claim

Pretty much. Also, you missed SSP (suggested selling price) which is also ostensibly the same thing.

All these numbers are abused (although not by everyone). Bottom line with pricing - it's only worth what YOU are prepared to pay for it. A lot of people tend to confuse the term "RRP" and "worth". They usually bare no correlation to each other.

Autoplay

No-one ever seems to understand why I switch that "feature" off.

Re: Dodgy numbers confirmed.

The problem with your/their numbers is, if this really saves money for the EU, then the EU should be keen pay for it. If it really makes economic sense to do it, there's no need to legislate, just pay the manufacturers to add the device and the job's done. Manufacturer's aren't going to complain about a new feature on their vehicles at no cost to them now are they, and if it costs them nothing, they have no cost to pass to the buyer. Everybody wins! Unless (and since they aren't offering to pay this is my suspicion) there's no saving at all that can be reliably calculated.

Re: I wish

Amen. Personally I'd prefer a closed system I pay for but can play as opposed to a "free" one where I can't. And free games? That just means I'll be watching advertisements the whole time. I'm happy to pay to avoid that.

Re: I'm pretty sure my Nokia 7650 already had something like this.

One of my former Sony Ericsson handsets (K750) certainly had this "feature". TBH as a non-Apple customer this is great news. The technology doesn't (from personal experience) work properly and the end result is refused warranty support for an invalid reason. So my next handset won't have it. Hurrah for me.

Ah, but the mice...

...were nowhere near as devious as the dolphins. The mice were in it for the knowledge and little good it did them. The dolphins on the other hand concentrated on fish. Delicious fish.

Re: They found the Higgs Boson?

@ Crisp. Cue the smartarse response. It was predicted they'd find it at 125 GeV, and they did. So maybe they looked in some other spots, but it turned out to be exactly where it should be.

Just goes to show it's best to start where something ought to be when hunting it.

Great comment

Did you write it yourself?

Re: Mouse problem

Dunno who downthumbed you. I did pop by and submit a story, and got some rather nice friendly PM's regarding it - seems like a nice community over there. Not being able to win the competition is kind of a bonus anyway - the price is something Apple made called an "iPad" or something. Pretty sure I wouldn't know how to use it.

"deserves to be rewarded"

If a free pass to the local museum is worth more to them than a yacht, private jet and Veyron, then I guess they will be. I'm pretty sure I don't get it.

That's just crazy talk.

Re: 16 games?

£300? I buy COD each year, then play the crap out of it because I'm too tight arsed these days to buy more than 1 game a year. To judge by my stats, Black Ops cost me 8p an hour. Not sure how to factor in the added stress levels & hair loss though.

I have a suspicion their respondants weren't really representative of the populace in general. I haven't done my own survey though so who am I to judge.

Re: Utterly pointless effort by Google

Yup, pointless really. The only way to stop people taking copies of your content is not to publish it on the net in the first place. The cat has been out of the bag since 1991 and no-ones going to be able to get it back in there.

Re: "it is what we all expected deep down"

Doesn't sound scientific? It does to me, but I've always been rather impressed with Einsteins' general relativity. There's enough random stuff entering physics that brings not answers, but just more questions. So I think this is good news because it means we (still) can be fairly confident we understand one aspect of how the universe works.

Cynical...perhaps

Donating huge sums to charity is usually a means of off setting income tax. Unless Martin's going to tick the little box that says "yes, I'm a taxpayer" when he donates then it may not be quite the altruistic gesture it appears to be.

I never understood it

PS2 had a 300Mhz RISC chip. PS3 Cell 7 cores running at 3Ghz. Quite why they couldn't get an emulator to run with that disparity in performance between the two seemed odd. My conclusion was that it was simply a business decision. Why pay to code a decent emulator when the net result actually makes you less money becuase your customers buy 2nd hand PS2 games for a quid.

Oddly

I find it all too easy to believe.

Re: It's that 'Channel' word again.

I used to work in it. Aria are a reseller. KMS, if you want to label it, is a broker. I used to sell them disks back when I did that stuff. The firms I was at were what I'd call a distributor (Northamber/Bell Microproducts). If the channel is anything like I remember it, this story is fairly small potatoes.

Re: In part I blame the AV companies

Agreed, ironic that while it would be in the best interests of users, and by extension the internet at large to do it, corporations' interests would take priority. Most of the domestic machines I look at are full of the bad stuff because the user's 30 day McAfee trial has expired and they didn't want to pay, and didn't know they could get free tools.

Re: TalkTalk's Heaney

@Tom 13 Sorry Tim, I find your logic flawed. In your argument adults can't buy alcohol because we aren't sure they know it's not supposed to be supplied to children.

I've got three of the little blighters myself. Absolutely, 100%, no argument it's my job to be responsible as to what they have access to virtually or otherwise.

Re: Removal works

Catalyst relies on it. Unfortunately that probably accounts for a somewhat significant number of users. It accounts for one definately.

Bootnote: as mentioned by others shutting down fixed this issue with no other intervention on my part.

Re: CDs? They still sell those?

CD's tend to get given as birthday/christmas presents in my family. Seems weider and weider as time goes by.

"Look, I got you this, it cost me £20, so you know how much I care about you!"

"You spent £20 on something I could've easily got for half the price or even free? Thanks!"

Re: Easier than legit software?

I'm glad it's not just me. Activating Adobe products in particular has the overall feel that I'm comitting some kind of offence by having the temerity to install the software my company just ponied up £1000 or more for. It doesn't seem to end there either - the damn stuff then seems to try and keep a permanent connection to their product validity server like it's going to turn from a legit copy to a pirated one somehow. Damn right it would be easier to steal the stuff.