* Posts by TeeCee

9433 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Oct 2007

Chinese tech firms fingered for military collaboration

TeeCee Gold badge
WTF?

You mean to say....

....that some of the Chinese military R&D budget is being spent on tech stuff and that quite a bit of this R&D is outsourced to local tech firms and research institutions?

Do Northrop Grumman maintain a permanent Department of Stating the Bleedin' Obvious, or is this a one-off exercise? More to the point, how much do the US government pay for thick documents stating the bleedin' obvious? I know a thing or two that I'm pretty sure every other bugger has already worked out and I wouldn't mind getting in on that.

Lingerie-clad she-devils romp past watchdog

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Boffin

This is ridiculous!

How can anyone say that professionally shot footage of a woman being assaulted by scantily-clad lesbian dominatrixes is offensive based on a sample size of one?

We need more research material before we can draw any valid conclusions here.

Foxconn pay hikes 'driving tech titans into Philippines'

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FAIL

Re: "Let's make that mandatory"

American industry pays more for its supplies/components/etc than those not doing this arsehattery.

American industry goes titsup as everything moves offshore where supplies etc are cheaper.

You really have never heard of this funny thing called "economics", have you? Hint: Take off the starry eyed blinkers and remove the flawed assumption that everyone globally gives a shit about this from your logic.

Social networks breeding spatial junk

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Facepalm

This is why real maps cost money.

Actual paid human beings compiling, checking and collating the data that makes 'em.

You get what you pay for.

Anything "crowdsourced" comes with the inherent problem that a significant amount of it was produced by utter muppets.

Ten... e-cars and hybrids

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"...the Ampera is all the e-car most people will ever need."

Well it would be if it seated five, like every other vehicle that size and shape does. A rather serious design pig's ear in my book.

Incidently, it's not the Yank dislike for diesels that's the root cause of the Toyota, Lexus and Honda approaches, it's the Japanese. Not that they don't like 'em, it's just that taking a diesel into an urban area will bankrupt you in pollution charges.

It's also the reason that Japanese multidrop trucks, buses, dustcarts and such tend to be CNG fuelled.

Yes, diesels produce lower CO2 levels, but in every other respect they're as nasty as it gets when it comes to emitted pollutants. Most of these are rather more unpleasant than CO2 as regards their effects on the jolly old atmos, it's just that they're not as headline-grabbingly trendy these days...

Toshiba prices up glasses-free 3D TV for Blighty

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Coat

Re: "Harrods will be offering the ZL2 in due course".

You utter pleb.

Groceries come from Fortnum's.....

Intel: The data center will be 'Xeon E5 Inside'

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Flame

"The data center will be 'Xeon E5 Inside'..."

Now that's what I call a burning platform.

Flames, 'cos elsewhere it's suggested that's what you get when you stick a load of E5s in one place.

Sub-£400 svelte lappies hurled in Ultrabook preemptive strike

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Mushroom

s/cheap/correctly priced/

There certainly is a rip-off going on, but not the one you suggest.....

2 in 3 Android anti-malware scanners not up to the job

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Meh

Re: Symantec?

I'm just surprised that Symantec bothered shipping their product at all in this market.

Most of these devices don't have a spare CPU core to dedicate to running it.....

Why on Earth would you build a closed Android phone?

TeeCee Gold badge

Re: A step in the right direction,

"For some strange reason they design phones for people like themselves..."

You're implying that all mobile phone designers are Tw@book 'n muzak obsessed teenagers?

As far as I can see, the only development effort made these days is in the "our phone's got a better Tw@book app that your phone" area.

LulzSec SMACKDOWN: Leader Sabu turned by feds last summer

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Coat

Re: Just goes to show

How terrible! If only they'd thought to use that eighth proxy.....

Workers can't escape Windows 8 Metro - Microsoft COO

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WTF?

"We encourage IT professionals to begin using it...."

Er, why? No bugger's going to install it.

Even if it were good (which it bloody well isn't), world + dog is running an XP to 7 migration right now. That'll be expected to stay in place for a few years, by which time 9 or 10 will be out.

I think you can count the number of places still on XP and hanging on for 8 on the fingers of one foot. Of course, one of the very few who rolled Vista might skip 7 and go to 8, but that's a perishingly small niche market.....

Robot NIGHTMARE sets new leggy-bot speed record

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Coat

Re: Still some way to go

When it comes to last cat-analogue standing, my money's on the one that can do 18mph all day and is pretty much immune to the effects of all the weaponry posessed by the other.

TeeCee Gold badge
Terminator

Re: Obviously

I see your infallible plan and raise you robotic velociraptors. Should be scaleable too, so you get robotic Allosaurs, Carnotaurs, Spinosaurs and T-Rexs from there as mere development work.

Hmm, better stock up on RPGs, this could get nasty........

TeeCee Gold badge

Re: Robot Kangaroo anyone?

More to the point, its batteries'll last longer.

IIRC Kangaroos have long, elastic tendons running down their legs, so that somewhere north of 80% of the energy from landing gets played back into the next hop. Again IIRC, the conclusion was that nothing beats hopping for travelling long distances on the ground with minimal energy use.

Doesn't make the damned things look any less stupid though.

TeeCee Gold badge
Happy

Re: Shurely shome mistake ....

I had a different thought.

Where others see a nightmare, I see a bookmaking opportunity......

FSF fandroids fight to 'free' Android from Google's forepaws

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'...that is flagging and “in urgent need of help"....'

Hardly surprising. If Stallman's "free beer" nit-pickery is soporifically boring to the likes of us (who actually give a shit), imagine what it sounds like to Joe Punter who, let's face it, probably accounts for somewhere significantly north of 90% of Android sales.

We're beyond uphill struggles here and into bench-pressing SUVs to even get a "meh" out of the great unwashed.

Chunnel mobile available – but only while heading towards UK

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Mushroom

Easy answer.

Get Eurotunnel to tell the British operators to get stuffed for being a bunch of abject, squabbling tossers and hand the other side to the froggy networks too.

Then the UK operators can cry in perpetuity over all the roaming terminations that they're not getting from non-UK travellers and have hours of fun explaining to their local customers that the reason said customers are getting screwed both ways is due to their own monumental incompetance.

The wages of sin are death. The wages of stupidity are being given the shaft....

LOHAN is heading towards REHAB

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Re: Uhm..

1) "...mount your rocket so it vents to atmosphere...". As that would be the end that needs to be proven to light in the test conditions, that's probably not a great idea.

2) As these off-the-shelf solid motors are invariably lit on the ground to propel something to altitude, assuming that they'll light in a low pressure environment ain't good enough. Fine in theory, but a quick test will prevent the possibility of a massive balls-up come the glorious day.

TeeCee Gold badge

Re: Oil recuperator for the compressor

Dead compressor? In a world with a massive shortage of scrap fridges, that might be an issue......

Eric Schmidt flicks INTERSTELLAR TOWEL at top tech fair

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Alert

If he's a fan of HHGTTG....

......why does he preside over something that looks suspiciously like the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?

Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4

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WTF?

Complicated electrics and French?

A brief trawl of the automotive technical forums will tell you what a great idea that is. Current rate of "Help, electrical problem with ${french_car}" entries is about one post in every four.

Also it's a modern diesel, so there's an electic selection of recipes for expensive disasters built in, regardless of who makes it. Diesel Particulate filter failure, Dual Mass Flywheel failure, variable-vane turbo failure, etc ad nauseum......

Ford: kick your car to open the boot

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Happy

I'm reminded of an earlier Ford.

That would be an outtake reel of Clarkson reviewing the original Ford Focus:

"One of the features on this car is remote activation of the tailgate so, if your hands are full of shopping you can just.....<blip>........<tail door unlatches and moves slightly>........Damn."

Take #2

"One of the new features here is remote opening of the tailgate so, if your hands are full of shopping you can......<blip>.....<twitch from tail door again>............Bugger."

Take #3

"One of the handier features that Ford have introduced on this model is the ability to open the tailgate from the remote so, if you're at the supermarket and your hands are full of shopping you can just.....<blip>.......<twitch>........YOU USELESS PIECE OF GERMAN SHIT!"

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Thumb Down

Re: If they have any sense....

Automatic gearbox = FAIL there.....

Wacom Cintiq 24HD interactive pen display

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Trollface

Answer the important questions dammit!

Is the Win 8 preview's "Metro" interface just as shit on one of these as it is on everything else?

Stolen iPad leads to 780lb crystal meth seizure

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Facepalm

Once a crook......

I recall a mate telling me about a plod from Merseyside who had won multiple awards for crime clearup.

His crimebusting technique was to go around the local supermarkets and for each vehicle he found parked in a disabled bay without the appropriate badge, perform a check on it. This invariably netted the odd stolen vehicle, uninsured driver, owner with an outstanding warrant, stuff like that.

Two Brits in court over Michael Jackson back catalogue hack

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Facepalm

Re: Can some one explian this..

What would your preferred approach be?

Convict in absentia behind closed doors, then arrest your chosen perp(s) and finally hold a quick show trial to rubber stamp the process and hand out a sentence?

You are Lavrentiy Beria and ICMFP.

Audi shows off OLED-illuminated concept R8

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WTF?

An Audi with bling LED lights plastered all over it?

Is there a "Y" in the day or something?

SHOCK: RIM PlayBook outsells Apple iPad

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Facepalm

Excuses, excuses.

Yes you can come up with all the reasons in the world for this, but only one actually matters.

That'll be the one where buying the RIM device saves you over 400 bucks. Now I am sure that the iPad may well be the better of the two, but three-times-as-much better? Not a chance......

Future car tech

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WTF?

Today's tech.

So you brush off 'leccy cars 'cos they're today's tech?

I have news for you. I had a Vectra on hire that had the GM AFL system fitted, three bloody years ago. It is very effective, I'll grant, but new it ain't.....

GM puts the brake on Volt e-car output

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Coat

Re: Thanks El Reg

I'm sensing some resistance there.....

New forum Wishlist

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Mushroom

Re: The ability to view one's comments in one's own private comment page, *and* view replies to self

If "as per Disqus" is the answer, then I am afraid it must have been a godawfully stupid question.

A twelve-year-old wannabee script-kiddie who has a borrowed copy of "simple web shit for dummies" could write a better system than Disqus over a wet Thursday afternoon.

Just look at any site using it. Every other post is a rant about how shite Disqus is......

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Coat

Re: On the subject of the above

So, in effect, you are complaining about El Reg's implementation of self abuse.....?

TeeCee Gold badge

Topic display order.

Any chance of sorting for the topic/thread/forum/whatever lists?

I can see that Cafe Vulture / Reg Matters reports as having its most recent post by Drew on the 29th, but finding which topic that's in once in the list of topics is already getting tricky now we have so many topics and I can see it becoming unworkable in short order.

A "sort topic list by most recent posting" function would be handy. Ideally preserving stickies (or whatever the highlighted ones are) at the top.

Metro breakdown! Windows 8 UI is little gain for lots of pain

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FAIL

So true.....

I spent half a day this weekend trying this POS.

First problem. It's come up with a 4:3 1024x768 resolution in the VM I put it in and won't let me change it to any widescreen resolutions. Bit of a bitch that, seeing as the UI is quite obviously built for 16:9 and is a total dog in 4:3.

Second problem. How the fuck are you supposed to find anything? To call Metro "Byzantine" would credit the Byzantines with levels of unneccessary complexity they never posessed. Simple in presentation, but if you want to get at anything underneath it's like the whole O/S is screaming "Fuck Off" at you while you attempt to navigate it.

So you can get the standard desktop up, so far so good. Unfortunately it lacks a start menu. Well done MS! You have successfully taken the "one legged man in an arse-kicking contest" concept and made it into a UI!

How can the same company that was responsible for the intuitive miracle of Se7en produce this?

Look MS. I'm not bothered by your app store, I don't give a rat's arse about Facebum or Tw@tter and you can stick Windows Live where the sun shineth not. In the light of that, please explain what the fucking point of the new desktop is?

I'll persist with it, but I remember when Se7en was at the same stage it actually did produce the odd "Wow" when I tried it. Best 8 has managed so far is 30 seconds between "WTF?"s.....

Weeing Frenchman sues Google over Street View photo

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Happy

Irony alert!

"Bigot is arguing that the summons to French court is invalid on the grounds that the site is published by Google US, not Google France."

So in essence the argument is; "Nothing to do with us, it's those shifty foreign types.". You can where he got his name from.......

Top Gun 2: It's happening - and the choice of star is stirring controversy

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Mushroom

F35 controversial?

Hardly. The controversial choice, in a Hollywood movie, would have been the Eurofighter (aka Typhoon). That handily beats the F35 for yank outrage value by not only being crap and overpriced, but also not American to boot.

'We don't know if Google is operating outside EU law'

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Alert

Re: The cunning plan

Ohshit, I do hope that's supposed to be a joke.

You do know what having legal types use Google search means, don't you? Most judgements being based on the nearest-to-relevant Wikipedia entry...........

Windows 8: Sugar coating on Microsoft's hard-to-swallow tablet

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FAIL

Oops!

If they've b0rken the desktop to include Metro, then that's a massive mistake IMHO.

I can't see world + dog (and expecially the corporates) putting touch screens everywhere to make the ruddy thing work and from the sound of it, you're a bit cattle-trucked without one. To many "to get to here you swipe....." etc in that review for my blood.

I reckon "default to traditional desktop" is a "must have" item, unless MS are aiming to make 2013 the actual year of Desktop Linux (as opposed to any other "years of Desktop Linux" you may have noticed mentioned).

If they're smart, they'll fix this in Consumer Preview #2. If they're not quite that smart, it'll be in RTM. If they're dumb it'll be in SP1. If they're suicidally stupid it'll turn up in Win 9, shortly after Win 8 gets its "avoid like Vista" tag and they get to run the Red Queen's Race again......

Google rolls out privacy policy, snubs Euro outcry

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WTF?

Related news.

This is interesting.

The last two paras had my eyes on stalks and my irony-o-meter blew a fuse!

iPhone photo-slurping loophole sparks app privacy fears

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Facepalm

Oh yeah?

".....the problem basically stemmed from a misleading pop-up dialogue, rather than anything inherently bad....."

Great. Now go back and ask these other drooling fanbois developers how many angels can dance on the head of a pin while they're on a roll.

Facebook blamed for getting Thai teens up the duff

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Coat

Re: Football, eh?

Makes sense. Another activity where it feels good and impresses your mates when you score.....

ISP Be admits crippling iPlayer demand burst its pipes

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Facepalm

Ping software.

Go to specsavers, get glasses, put 'em on and then look at the pictures again.

Hint: The bit at the bottom of each where it says: "Image generated by PingPlotter Pro" along with a web address is a bit of a giveaway.....

Antimatter asymmetry: new results bring solution closer

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Coat

"At around 1:10,000 chance that this is a statistical fluke..."

Have they tried wiggling the wires on the kit and retesting?

Powerful, wallet-sized Raspberry Pi computer sells out in SECONDS

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FAIL

Re: Re: RS and Farnell notice traffic increase?

The funny side of this is that the Pi foundation switched to more puissant hardware in anticipation of the traffic, but handed over the ordering process to two bunches of idiots who, er, didn't.

As EPIC FAILs go, that's quite a good one.

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WTF?

Re: ""It's been a phenomenal day"

If that's supposed to be foolish, what term do you use to describe the arsehats who camp outside the stores of a certain well-known vendor in the hope of getting their sticky paws on the latest shiny stuff?

'Kill yourself now' - Torvalds throws openSUSE security tantrum

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Happy

Re: Re: This is a developing pattern (I wholeheartedly agree with you)

Perfectly possible in Se7en. Just go into the UAC settings and drag the slider all the way down to the "knickers round ankles" setting.

Then it'll happily let you go to hell in a bucket without complaining, just like XP.

Actually I rather like the way that UAC works by default. As admin, I get prompted for my OK when sensitive things get touched by something I'm doing. Grunt users (i.e. the kids) need me to authorise installs / changes etc. I did hear that it was fubar in Fister, one of the reasons I avoided it.

Hacking scandal: James Murdoch quits UK newspaper biz

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Facepalm

Bad move?

"Now that he has moved to New York, James will continue to assume a variety of essential corporate leadership mandates..."

That's a bit daft. ISTR that the Yanks take a far dimmer view of hacking, bribery of officials, lying to government enquiries, etc ad nauseum, than we do. I'd have thought that a complete change of approach might be rather safer for him.

Tory minister: Let's exploit our rich resource of mud, er, wind

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Using the same argument....

....there appears to be rich supply of bullshit in Westminster. We should be using that for something.