* Posts by ratfox

3721 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2007

Google told to delete people from search results

ratfox
Facepalm

Let me get this straight

Information is published on website, properly blocked by robots.txt. Google does not index it, but websites shady crawlers do. Google indexes these websites.

Now Google is supposed to go through its database, check for each website whether the information on it is the same as on the website it is not supposed to crawl in the first place, then remove it. Hmmmm...

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

ratfox
Thumb Up

Quite impressive

IIRC, this is the first Android tablet to not suffer from the comparison with the iPad 2.

Apple resellers squeezed out of volume licensing model

ratfox
Angel

Lord post

I don't know about suppliers/resellers/whatnot, but Apple does seem to have a certain number of customers left indeed. A rising number.

Apple iCloud pricing revealed

ratfox
Headmaster

There is nothing pedantical about it

see title

Google cuts deal for Dealmap

ratfox
Devil

Easy

Making sure the blood loss is fatal to Groupon.

If Groupon ever makes money, it will be too late.

Googlenet runs on '900,000 servers'

ratfox

Did you count A/C?

IIRC, data centers tend to spend half of the power they use in cooling.

Nintendo set to make a loss on every 3DS

ratfox

Surprising

3 years ago, Nintendo were the geniuses who brought us the Wii, and managed to get the next gaming paradigm... How fast things change.

It's official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers

ratfox
Trollface

Yes, but

what do they say about Lynx users??

Ubisoft revisits Internet-at-all-times DRM

ratfox
FAIL

Stuuuuuuupiiiiid

Message to Ubisoft:

Soem people want to play in places you haven't thought of. Such as during a transatlantic flight.

Intel: Apple has online app sales exactly backwards

ratfox
Gimp

Intel sells software solutions now?

I'm sure Intel must be right. Apple is obviously going the wrong way about this. How else to explain the lack of success of their App Store?

HP's fondle-slab dilemma: What to do when you're No 2

ratfox
Boffin

Lord post

I won't address the other points, but as for 2., not a chance.

Unfortunately, in order to have a shape that thin, you need to have battery packs that are spread all over the place. If you put all of them in a single convenient-to-remove block, it will overheat.

Simply speaking, it is not physically possible with the current technology to have a removable battery without massively reducing the battery life. Or having it catch fire.

Sony insurer says it's not liable for costs of data breach

ratfox
Go

Go insurance

Unless the policy covers loss of privacy in so many terms, it was not drawn to cover this.

Apple kills MacBook, soups up MacBook Air

ratfox
Gimp

DVD

I would say this was completely justified, if the MacBook Air had had a DVD reader...

The idea that you need a "pro" model to watch a DVD is a bit surprising to me (though I admit I have been buying "pro" models for a while already, so it does not affect me anyway).

DARPA project seeks immortality, suspended animation

ratfox
Devil

Reawaken cryogenically frozen people? Why?

If humanity manages to extend its lifespan, we will soon run out of place on earth. Why should we make the problem worse by reanimating the icicles?

What's this altruism thing you're talking about? Let'em melt, I say!

Google: The one trick pony learns a second trick

ratfox

@Time machines

Missed my point, I think. The point was, Google is getting better all the time because of the competition. So it is good that there is competition.

ratfox
Happy

If we win, they lose?

Care to compare the smartphone offer from say, four years ago with now? I'd say we are getting more, and for less.

And Google might have a quasi monopoly on search; but that is because they are working hard to keep it. If the current Bing had existed 10 years ago, it would have kicked the ass of the then Google search engine. I don't mind having people working overclock to let me find stuff on the web more easily.

Google erects Colombian 'g.co' URL shortener for Google+

ratfox

Too complicated for twats

Next thing, you'll be saying they can use this HTML programming language thingy.

Google turning us into forgetful morons, warn boffins

ratfox
Go

Freeing up resources

This count as a good thing to me.

Assange™ in court to fight extradition order

ratfox
Angel

Extradited for questioning?

I did not know that this was possible. You live and learn.

I will still laugh very loudly if after all that circus, he™ is found guilty of minor sexual assault, and given six months with probation.

'Meltdown Monday' Anonymous hackers leak military mails

ratfox
Stop

Woops

Monikers like AntiSec and Anonymous are quickly becoming nonsensical, as they seem to be taken up by groups with widely different agendas.

...At least, when every Muslims terrorist group in the planet are claiming to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda, you know that they are all fighting the US.

Apple ordered to pay $8m over playlist patents

ratfox
Pint

Excellent!

That is beer money, now, that is!

Can the patent holders appeal a ruling for their side?

Google+ disk space cockup creates notification spam-storm

ratfox
Pint

But there's nothing so lonesome, so morbid or drear...

Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer!

Apple said to have 3G-enabled iPod in pipeline

ratfox
WTF?

Sorry, what?

After the iPhone without the phone, the iPod with a phone?

What is next, a iPad nano, so that you can make phone calss with it?

Feds seize kit from Apple Store spyware artist

ratfox
Gimp

Bah

As computer crimes go, this is the Apple-stealing kind (heh).

If I was the people at Apple, I would ask for a dollar in symbolic damages. What do they have to gain in asking for more? Or rather, like the guy who sold white iPhones, it will be settled for an undisclosed amount, under condition that he keeps his mouth shut about the fact they did not make him sell his organs in reparation.

Apple slices iPhone and iPad ad rates 'by 70%'

ratfox
WTF?

Seriously?

If iOS developers can make money with AdMob, Apple is way more open with what they allow on their products than I thought...

ratfox
Holmes

Sure

This nothing at all to do whatsoever with demand and supply. No Sir!

Internet fraud laundryman gets two years in cooler

ratfox
Thumb Down

Not enough for me

You have to take into account the fact you are not going to find a proper job for the rest of your life... But maybe I am just too greedy.

Google and Microsoft sued over interwebs street maps

ratfox
Coat

God bless the patent system

Can you imagine that, without the whole patent system, these wonderful innovations would never have been invented, since without patent protection it would not have been worth it to research them?

Mine's the one with the biography of Edison in the pocket.

Italian and Swiss cops cuff 15 Anonymous suspects

ratfox
Headmaster

And also

The sentence should OF ended with a period, not a comma.

Anything else?

Microsoft inks Bing deal with Baidu

ratfox
Trollface

Poor Baidu

It was doing so well... But now that they have allied with Microsoft, they are obviously doomed.

WikiLeaks sues Visa, Mastercard over 'financial blockade'

ratfox

Is this why we still have no news of the leaks about that US bank?

Sorry for being impatient. They made the announcement over six months ago that it would be revealed Soon™.

Top level domain explosion could wreak MAYHEM on NET

ratfox
WTF?

What the heck?

Is the point just to try to get as much money as possible or what?

A fee of $185'000 is NOTHING. There are thousands of companies that can easily shell out the money. If this goes through, you can expect a land grab of epic proportions, bringing domain squatting to a new level. What is the point?

Pissed-off elves bombard Icelandic town with rocks

ratfox
Boffin

Mathematics are based on belief, after all

In order to do anything serious with Mathematics, you have to believe the Axiom of Choice.

...And then, if you apply your results to the Real World™, you have to believe that Mathematics are related to said Real World. This is very far from proven.

Fox News tweets hacked to show Obama death stories

ratfox
Angel

Doubt it

During the last days in office of the previous President, GWB or GBH or GHB or something, The Onion frequently reported his death in a freak accident.

Microsoft bags two more Android patent deals

ratfox
Mushroom

Nice business you've got here

Would be a shame if you had to go bankrupt fighting our lawyers, now wouldn't it?

See, there is the easy way, and there is the hard way...

I miss the grenade.

Hackers steal personal data of military, gov personnel

ratfox

Ouch

Goes to show that sometimes, there is no such thing as "good enough security".

Though, really, passwords? Which implies they were stored unhashed? Maybe I'm just nitpicking. After all, with the data they had, Gannet probably thought the lock of the safe was unbreakable anyway.

Oracle: 'Google owes $2.6bn in damages'

ratfox
Angel

So how exactly is Google making money?

On a system it is giving away for free?

Dwarfish two-legged dino 'was greatest head-butter ever'

ratfox
Facepalm

Yeah, but giraffes can clean their own ears with their tongue

Try to top that, thick-foreheaded Glaswegian precursor!

Budget airlines warned over 'hidden' debit card charges

ratfox
Stop

Do not let this go!

On the other side of the pond, hidden fees are the rule, not the exception. Do not let this happen to you!

E.g. if you buy a $20 plan for your cell phone, you find out eventually that with "monthly connection charge", "emergency phone numbers charge", "just-because-we-can charge", and sales taxes, you will actually pay $40.

Mole maintains iPad 3, iPhone 5 out this year

ratfox
Stop

This is not planned obsolescence

Planned obsolescence is making sure the thing does not work after a short period.

...Unless you are one of those people who think their gadget only works properly if it is the most shiny around.

French search engine seeks multi-million euro damages from Google

ratfox

Google probably would have to discriminate their own services

In order not to show them in first search results...

Blow to the head makes people feel good about religion

ratfox
Angel

Useless research

Until we get a similar study for not-bumped-in-the-head-people

Groupon faces multitude of legal headaches in US

ratfox

Does Groupon have a lock-in?

We all know that Facebook has a lock-in. Everybody is already on it, and unless you convince all your friends to move to a competitor, you have to keep using it (assuming you want a social network, natch).

But even assuming the business model of Groupon works, what stops a competitor from offering the exact same service? What would stop small business to go to that competitor? Or consumers?

Apple, Google, Microsoft seek gargantuan tax break

ratfox
Devil

Yeah right

Look, I like Apple, and I love Google, really. And I have shares in both.

But this is pure blackmail from their part. "Look at the big pile of money! You need money, don't you? You can have, say... 5% of it, right away! Or wait forever. Your choice..."

Dangle, dangle...

Brits told how much they'll pay for HP TouchPad

ratfox
FAIL

Ha ha

Buy our stuff! As expensive as the other one, except nobody is writing apps for it! Be the loser among your friends!

Seriously, if they cannot make it cheaper, I don't see how they can get any market traction. Whatever the virtues of their stuff, it is not going to make people forget about the App Store™.

Rare video: Moon flashing in front of giant's face

ratfox

Dude, photoshopped

You should totally hear the whooshing sound of a moon passing merely 10000km away. And Zarathustra, you should hear Zarathustra, too.

Saab fingers BAE over South African fighter deal

ratfox
Holmes

Wow – a bribe in an arms deal?

Who would've thunk?

Kindle Store awash with auto-generated crap 'books'

ratfox

Making it not free to publish

Heh. I remember Bill Gates also said once that the solution to spam was to make email cost something. THAT did not happen for sure!

That said, I could tentatively agree that publishing a book should not be something you want to do twenty times a day, so a small charge could be justified.

This could however be an interesting experiment: How long before we get software that is able to write a new "original" book from random bits of story? After all Barbara Cartland was able to write 23 "novels" in one year using this method.

Go Daddy sued over email alerts

ratfox

Why oh why?

Why why why was this patent accepted? Yeah, I know: the USPTO does not give a shit, because the more crap patents they accept, the more their job is secure. Let the courts deal with invalidating them. Lawyers earn money, and everybody is happy. Erm.

H6242

Microsoft+HTML: The antidote to iOS and Android

ratfox
Windows

Microsoft can be a winner...

If they think fast and act quickly. In other words: forget it. The last time MS displayed this kind of ability was when it created IE double quick and put it on Win95; which for the better or worse gave them a leading position on the browser market for almost a decade.

Is there ANYBODY who can tell me what the windows user icon represents??