* Posts by Daniel B.

3134 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Oct 2007

Jobs not dead as Jesus Phone outsells CrackBerry

Daniel B.

Oh my.

I can't believe it. The markets may be crashing down, but it seems like a lot of people don't care doshing out money for an expensive handset, even if it might be the last thing they buy. 6.1m Crackberries are believable, after all the business sector buys them; but the iPhone is a consumer device.

Anyway, Jobs does have a point: no-one will move to the competition ... because they're out of money and can't buy *any* smartphones right now. Not even another iPhone, as well. ;) Gotta see how the iPhone fares this quarter as well; this one will reflect how bad the economy goes.

BBC clarifies location of England

Daniel B.

Other languages rarely use "UK"

In Spanish, "Inglaterra" (England) is more commonly used than "Reino Unido" (United Kingdom), though you can say that the UK is lucky in actually having a translated term for the proper country's name. The Netherlands are called "Holanda" (Holland)...

Anyway, anyone who has seen "Braveheart" and *doesn't* know that Scotland is a country must've been sleeping during the movie. Sheesh.

This SSD thing is really catching on

Daniel B.
Alert

SSD good for cache

While I do admit that SSD has helped a lot in having big storage capacities in small mediums (there are microSD cards with more capacity than my 1998 laptop's HDD!), I don't think SSD is reliable enough to serve as an outright replacement of the spindle-HDD. I've had weird stuff happen with SSD from time to time; I once had one mp3 file "fusing" with another one for reasons unknown.

However, using SSD as cache for large storage appliances sounds good, as it has fast read access compared with spindle-drives. But SSD as main storage is currently only needed in the small device market.

Dawkins' atheist ad campaign hits fundraising target

Daniel B.
Happy

Re:Cowards, Agnosticism

As others have pointed out, translating "Allah" translated to English means "God". In fact, "Allah Ackbar" actually means either "God is great", "God is good", or even "Praise God". Notice any similarities?

Anyway, the phrase is Agnostic, as it is 'probably'; which means we can't prove/disprove the existance of a God. Incidentally, it also shouldn't inflame anyone but the most religious zealots, as it isn't mocking or offending any beliefs. Its a nice counter to the religious propaganda out there anyway.

Apple and Psystar enter out-of-court counseling

Daniel B.
Happy

@Scott

"Oh goody, so it gets opened up and then every fucktard in the universe builds some ropey machine from parts they found in there shed and OS X becomes bloatware like Vista as it tries to support every single configuration under the sun."

The thing is, it's already running on shite hardware: the Intel x86 platform. Apple did a stupid decision by completely ditching PPC, its kind of trading in your Ferrari for a Ford Pinto. Ironically, they also opened up the possibility for MacOS X to run in common hardware, so it's only the Apple EFI stopping the average Joe from plucking MacOS X on a PC. Oh wait, a "Mac" is also a "PC" anyways, that'll be a "non-Apple PC" then.

I'd really like to see Psystar win this thing; the monopoly argument might hold water, as the hardware restriction seems to be like AT&T's "only use Ma Bell's phones on my line", and we know how that ended up. If they win, the possible outcomes are either Apple releases Mac OS X for any PC, or they switch back to PPC. Any of those two outcomes will be good for consumers.

Oh, and supporting a zillion components shouldn't turn OSX into "bloatware". Linux seems to manage pretty well...

Times: US about to deploy Space Marines

Daniel B.
Happy

Come on you apes...

do you want to live forever???

Me thinks someone has read/watched Starship Troopers, or played Quake 2. Though if it works, it definitely sounds like a nice idea!

Better idea: Station the troops in orbit, and then just send 'em down when needed. Oh, zero-G affects the body ... nevermind.

Hubble's 486 back-up springs into life

Daniel B.
Boffin

Computers last a long time

I can attest to that.

Our 1986 Mac Plus was fully operational, and running System 7.1 way after its value had fallen below a Big Mac's price tag: 1999. The only reason it actually died was because of a power supply fault.

Our 1996 Performa is *still* chugging happily at my mom's home, running MacOS 8.

My only quirk with NASA using a 486 is that they used Intel. For that kind of stuff, shouldn't they had gone down the ARM way? Or maybe even MIPS...

MS hit with Red Ring of Death lawsuit

Daniel B.

Bring 'em on!

This needs to be done. MS has been able to fudge Windows users with crappy code, but fortunately in the electronics device market, the rules are clear: defective crap should be replaced; deceitful marketing *will* be punished.

Selling expensive stuff with well-known flaws is pretty much scamming the consumers. Of course, if MS had conceded that its games console was defective, it might have lost ground against the PS3/Wii as many would-be buyers would've held off. So it does make sense to sue 'em!

@Matt: Ever heard of the Apple Pippin? It tanked.

Abu Dhabi emir rescues Thames Estuary mega-windfarm

Daniel B.

Re: I don't really understand these numbers

I also don't understand. Windfarms produce electricity, so I'd suppose that only electricity consumptions would be relevant, wouldn't they?

Saw torturecoaster rolls into UK theme park

Daniel B.

Torture Porn?

Am I the only one that finds this "genre" misleading? I don't see most (sane) people whacking off at the sight of someone hacking his own foot off. If they're referring to "shock exploitation of torture scenes", I think we already had "Grindhouse/exploitation films" as a genre since the 70's.

As for a "Saw Ride", we already had something similar in Mexico City last Halloween; some kind of "reality game" where you're put in an underground maze with a bunch of "serial killers" on the loose. You have to find your way out, so it does add to the creepiness. I don't think a plain old ride would top that...

Dial 'M' for Microsoft's new programming language

Daniel B.
Alert

M?

Someone at Microsoft hasn't researched quite well about that name. It's the "alternative" name for MUMPS.

However, if MS's M is going to be anything like MUMPS, maybe it would deserve such a name, as MUMPS is the worst abomination of a language ever!

Vista scrabbles for X Factor

Daniel B.
Joke

It'd work...

But it'll have to change a bit:

"Hi, I'm a Mac"

"And I'm a WC."

Where else does crap go, other than a WC???

Laptops to blame for Qantas jet plunge?

Daniel B.
Thumb Down

Re: Laptops? Blackberry users morelike

Nice flame, but the BB devices have a "Turn off wireless" option that disables the "cellphone" bit of the device. Its one of the few cellphones that actually can be turned on inside a plane and not interfere with anything else. (And they can be turned off.)

I do wonder however how one cellphone would work while flying over international waters and high enough to not be able to get a signal though...

I wonder ... does all of this mean that if you fire up Flight Simulator, you might take over the plane?

Autopilot blamed for Qantas plunge

Daniel B.

Autopilot diving

Sharp altitude changes may happen in some cases, and actually have happened. I remember that another flight did a sharp roll to the left? right? for 20 seconds while the pilots disengaged the autopilot.

This case may have been caused by a software bug, but the case the autopilot detected *did* deserve a sharp climb: if you're about to hit the ground, a fraction of a second is the difference between "phew!" and "OH SHIT!".

'Podestrian' risk rising for drivers, warns insurer

Daniel B.
Boffin

@Walkmans, inner-ear headphones

"It wasn't so much of a problem for the Walkman etc. because of the type of headsets."

My Walkman (circa 1998) had the traditional headphones, but I could get the inner-ear headphones for $9 bucks even then. The earbud-type headphones have been out there since at least 1994, still inside the Walkman era.

Oh, and by the way, my Walkman *still works*. I wonder how many iPods actually live that long...

Linux distros lead jumps from Sun

Daniel B.

No Java?

"But it is Java and well, not many people really like to code in Java do they."

Do they? I'd rather go back to C++ than jump to C# or (god forbid) VB. Java is pretty much the only multi-platform compiled language, as the alternatives (PHP, Ruby, Python) are usually scripting/interpretative languages. The MS solution doesn't count, even with Mono, as it isn't really complete on the non-MS platforms.

iPhone squares up to Android

Daniel B.

Re: Push disabled?

"... the push service that'll allow app store programs to receive push information without running in the background, for example, IM programs can receive IMs without having to be running."

So, a service that is basically a cheap hack to solve a nonexistant problem, except Apple decided to ban background apps; which they did for the same reason this "service" is also down.

Anyway ... "push" email is supposed to be server->client, isn't it? Polling the server every 10 minutes isn't push email, that's more like inbox-scraping, which Eudora already did back in 1996. Bleh.

DARPA seeks Special Forces submersible aeroplane

Daniel B.
Coat

@Damn Yank

"It had Roger Moore and was terrible, as I recall...."

GAAAAH! Heresy!!! Thunderball was a Sean Connery-era movie!

Anyway, that airplane didn't quite work like a sub, more like dropped to the bottom like a stone. Oh, and you'd better remove your seatbelt *before* sinking!

McCain laptop theft sparks conspiracy theories

Daniel B.
Thumb Down

@Webster Phreaky

Dude, did you take your meds today? "Osama Obama" made me chuckle... I find the whole Phreaky posts funny. Come on, Webster is the first person I know that thinks that "Latin America" is composed by former Italian colonies! (Hint: there aren't any.)

Anyway, I doubt any Democrat conspiracy did this. "Doing a Watergate" isn't even in their league, that would be more Republican-ish of them to do...

How the fate of the US economy rests on a Dell workstation

Daniel B.
Boffin

So that's why the economy's like that

If you're running the damn sim on an Intel x86, no wonder the model won't work correctly!

I just can't believe these kind of things are no longer running on real supercomputer hardware like, say, Cray XMP's.

Artist to smoke Cobain's ashes

Daniel B.
Coat

Smells like...

Never mind the idea of smoking someone's ashes ... but do those remains smell like Teen Spirit???

Apple shares plunge after Jobs 'heart attack'

Daniel B.

@Christopher

"Knowing that the report is false and that the price will recover, buying low is a smarter investment than shorting beforehand."

Actually, I think that with that knowledge, there's even a better strategy than that one: mixing both operations.

1 - Short sell before the price goes down.

2 - News breaks, share price goes down

3 - Buy all possible shares during this time, using *all* the short sell money

4 - Give short-sold stocks to buyer, keep the rest

5 - Either keep the stocks, or sell 'em when stock price returns to normal.

At the end, you'd get 2x the profits from the price differential, though you might also get the SEC to look at you suspiciously.

Finally launched: Nokia's iPhone beater

Daniel B.
Boffin

Re: No multitouch

Um... I was under the impression that Apple had hogged a patent precisely on multi-touchscreens, so I doubt you'll see any non-Apple devices with multi-touch.

@"No VoIP": So, you want to freeload calls on your mobile carrier? I admit my cellphone bills are high, but that doesn't mean I'd go out and rip 'em off with VoIP. Anyway, I'd be surprised on getting VoIP to work in a mobile connection without high latency!

This Nokia sounds interesting, but for me the "killer" feature is a physical QWERTY keyboard, which my Blackberry happily provides. I think I'll pass... but I will recommend this one over the iBone to potential iPhone victim^W buyers.

Stratus tolerates faults on Windows HPC

Daniel B.
Thumb Down

@Solomon

Hm... I doubt we'd be still using command-line systems even if MS had never existed. We already had ISPF, that Xerox graphical environment, the X Window System and even Macintosh. (Note: It wasn't called "MacOS" until sometime around 7.5)

Hell, some large organizations still use ISPF to this day, including my local telco and some banks. Even the web basically works as a glorified 3270 terminal!

I somehow doubt MS would get any significant traction in the HPC business, HPC users are more of the scientific type, not the "average Joe Bloggs" user they're used to. Its bad enough that the RISC architecture and vector processors have been mostly displaced by el-cheapo x86 junk; now trying to put Windows on top of that is even uglier. I really hope that actual HPC users don't go down this road.

Attention developers: Your SESSIONIDs are showing

Daniel B.
Boffin

Re: Surprised noone's mentioned

And me thinking that every sensible framework used one-time sessionid's. At least Java's JSESSIONID is only used once.

Heh, it may be expensive, but Tivoli Access Manager WebSEAL does this and more: it can keep all the backend cookies on its side, and only send its own session cookie. This cookie keeps tabs on session id, IP address, and *bytes sent/received*. So it is pretty hard to tamper with these cookies, even if they aren't going through SSL, and the session's active. If you have this well configured, it doesn't even matter if your backend's running broken PHP sessions, as the actual session management is done by this "reverse proxy". Nice stuff.

US Congress rubberstamps IP enforcement bill

Daniel B.

Bush Veto

Hmmmm. If Bush vetoes this, it would be like Opposite Day. Shooting down oppressive laws is something I didn't think the Bush Administration wanted.

Virgin Galactic spaceliner-piggyback craft delayed

Daniel B.
Go

Re: What I dont understand is....

"...if normal planes can reach altitudes that are on the edge of space, why cant they just go that extra few feet?"

Maybe because conventional planes have an operating ceiling, after which the plane stops flying, and just starts going down, down, down!!! The X-15's used rockets to get up there, but no conventional airplane will get that way up and stay there.

Those who have tried to break the operational ceiling specs have ended up like these guys: http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2004-11.html

Artemis Fowl scribe to pen sixth Hitchhiker's novel

Daniel B.
Go

Re: Adams did want to do another

Basically this would be the reason I'd actually buy a sixth H2G2 book. I just didn't like the 6th book, it wasn't that DA was tired of the series, it was more about DA being in "Marvin mode" when he wrote Mostly Harmless. Too bad the 6th one (NOT a Dirk Gentle book, even DA said it!) didn't quite make it before DA's death...

Anonymous hacks Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account

Daniel B.
Flame

Re: Not "hacking" as such

This is why I absolutely HATE these "security question" systems. It used to be "put your own question", so I could put weird riddles or some insane gibberish only I would know; but now the systems just force you to use stupid questions like "what's my pet's name", "what's my birthday" and that "mother's maiden name" question ... which by the way, is rubbish in some countries where the wife *doesn't* lose her last name.

Anyway, its stupid to use free e-mail services for serious stuff... it seems this Republican lot haven't yet grasped that, but then again, these guys put Exchange instead of Notes in the Whitehouse. Bleh.

Reg readers rage at comment icon outrage

Daniel B.

Re: BRING BACK THE DEAD VULTURE! (please)

I second that! How are we going to put the "vulture shot by the Met" jokes now??

Lenovo drops web sales of Linux machines

Daniel B.
Boffin

Re: RAID without a hardware adapter

I think the reasoning behind the winraid rants are that you're supposedly paying for hardware RAID, but getting stuck with something that basically does what your OS can already do! BSD has SW RAID, Linux has it too, and hell, even Windows has it!

However, as expected; the Windows RAID solution requires using the "dynamic disk" option, which changes the partition table format and basically turns it into a "windows only" HDD.

BlackBerry redoubles iPhone challenge

Daniel B.

@Norfolk Enchants Paris

"- they are still 'Look at me' devices to bolster egos or make up for inadequacies on other areas

-they are still over-hyped

- they are not as good as many other offerings"

Are you talking about the BlackBerry? That sounds more like the iPhone. The only other smartphone I like is the Treo (PalmOS, please!) and, oh yeah, it has the same BlackBerry keyboard.

Whats wrong with Canadians? I for one am happy that these fine devices aren't from the US, at least that means my BIS isn't stuck with draconian US rights to read all my e-mail thinking I'm "Terry Wrist".

@AC FaceBerry - the icon that appears on your main screen isn't the app itself; it just means your service books have been updated and now include the app. Clicking on it will direct you to the "download link". I'm not about to bloat my BB with that thing!

Academic wants to 'free up' English spelling

Daniel B.
Thumb Down

Nice examples....

"...once you have learned the letters, you know how to spell, so it would be ludicrous to hold spelling tests. In countries like Italy and Spain it's similar."

I suppose this guy doesn't know about the complexities of Spanish then. y and ll sound the same, so do s, c and z; h has no sound, b and v same sound ... and that's without adding up that the Spaniards talk like snakes when using the s/c/z letters.

Oh, and may I add that Spainiards insist on writing Mexico as "Mejico", when they were the guys who decided to mash up the x, j and sh sounds into the "x" letter! Weeee!!!

Chrome-fed Googasm bares tech pundit futility

Daniel B.
Alert

Chrome OS? Yeah, right.

Even taking away every argument that notes the thing is only an app, not an OS (and definitely Windows-dependent at the moment), they might have even won Microsoft in the fail game.

Try typing the following "URL" into the Address Bar:

:%

and watch what happens!

MySQL daddy quitting Sun?

Daniel B.
Go

@Chris

Man, you're spot-on with the very things that made me go back to PostgreSQL after the MySQL craze faded on me. I hated how the MyISAM backend was still being pushed, and the 3.x documentation insisted on telling us referential integrity and transactions were useless.

The funny thing is that the guy who actually pushed on this agenda of "no transactions" is the same guy who seems to be resigning. Maybe he's doing the whole MySQL team a favor?? I mean, the only other modern RDBMS that doesn't support transactions is MS Access, and you'd expect something like MySQL to be better than that! (And Access *does* have referential integrity!)

Even with the InnoDB engine, there are some quirks with MySQL that simply keep me off the thing. The day MyISAM tables turn into transactional, FK-supporting tables is the day that I *might* turn back to MySQL.

Owner alleges iPhone 3G became red hot

Daniel B.
Flame

iBurn

Phones running hot are not new, my dad's Toshiba TCP-9000 (circa 1994) did get hot after about 10-15 minutes into a call. But red hot? That's really something!

I would usually dismiss this, but then, the Jobs-controlled Apple has a trend on not caring about overheating devices. Not even the post-1997 "kewl" Apple, either. Our 1986 Mac Plus used to overheat because God Jobs thought that fans were not "stylish" for these computers. And given how hot MacBooks run these days, it seems he still thinks so!

Flames, 'coz that's whats happening to the german's iPhone.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard: Further poster outrage

Daniel B.
Coat

Re: Flags

Hey! I actually took time to translate those flags!

Though I admit, I had to send the piece of paper into the trashcan... I think a note saying "BEND OVER" is definitely *not* work safe!

Elon Musk might deliver new plasma drive to ISS

Daniel B.
Go

Mars in 39 Days!

I think we have a winner here. With a 39-day voyage, manned flight to Mars suddenly turns into something much more feasible!

All we need now is to get a smallish nuclear reactor in space.

Bloomberg kills Steve Jobs

Daniel B.
Dead Vulture

Re: It's happened before.

One of our news sites in Mexico did something like this a couple of years ago. We found an article saying that Pope John Paul II had died from [something] at [time] yesterday.

Looks like someone had put the template into the live system, as the placeholders were still in place, just like this obit.

Oops!

Portsmouth punts naval boy-on-boy to innocent kiddies

Daniel B.
Coat

Arrrr!!

The seamen action was funny enough, but oh my, right below it I get the "Don't mess with the Moderatrix" ad as well!!!

US made to wait for Quantum of Solace

Daniel B.
Go

re: Stupid move

"(that said, i hope it does make a massive impact on the box office sales so that the studios might wake-up and realise that in this day and age it only makes sense to do a worldwide simultaneous release - THAT's something else that contributed to the Dark Knight's success)"

Worldwide simultaneous releases have been here since, well, Matrix Revolutions. Thing is, it seems to only be done for movies the execs think are "good" enough to get this kind of treatment. Some were good: Star Wars Ep 3 was one of those given this treatment.

GO, 'coz the movie execs should GO and release worldwide all movies now!!!

Hacker unearths young Chinese gymnast scam

Daniel B.
Dead Vulture

re: massacre of students

Kent State was one, but I'd say that for the full "coverup" thing, the Mexican government had a very good try at this with the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre.

Official death count: 20.

Real death count: 400+

Add up that some recently declassified documents from the Pentagon show that the US was involved at some level with this. So yeah, the Chinese aren't exactly the only ones covering up a massacre.

The vulture flew too close to the Chihuahua building...

Palm launches £399 Treo Pro

Daniel B.
Thumb Down

Show me the PalmOS!

Screw Windows Mobile. That alone might be the reason the iPhone makes a blip in the radar. Palm doing Windows was the main reason I just gave up and went for a Blackberry instead. (Ok, the unlimited data plan also helps...)

When (and if) Palm releases this baby with PalmOS, I might reconsider. But meanwhile, my BlackBerry is here to stay...

Apple tops customer satisfaction poll as rivals' ratings slide

Daniel B.

@Nick Fisher

"I bought my first Mac back in 1991, and I've been using them ever since."

Ok, really, did you *really* buy your Mac back in 1991? That'll be System 6. Oh yes, System 6 kicks the Win9x series' ass. But...

"How many hardware problems have I had with them? Er, none."

I'll admit to that.

"Days lost due to dodgy software/OS upgrades? Zero."

Wait. You didn't ever get that weird MacOS patch (7.5.x something) that b0rked the floppy disk system? Usually, running an installer would require running from disk 1, then switching to disk 2, then disk1, disk3; disk1, disk4 and so. But that weird patch would have you swapping floppies every TWO SECONDS like 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,3,1,3,1,3...

It was UGLY. It was the worst thing I ever lived through in my entire Mac experience. (1986-1997) It cost me and my dad two full clean/reinstalls until we found out it was the frickin' update causing the thing. Good thing was that Apple made another patch fixing this ... but that took weeks.

"Viruses and malware? Zilch."

Guess where Symantec was born. SAM = Symantec Antivirus Manager, one of a few Mac Antivirus apps out there; there was another one with a V logo (can't remember its name) and some others. Granted, the total count of virii out there was about 10. But at least one managed to trash our good ole' Powerbook 180, and another one took down my Jasmine Removable 45Mb cartridge.

Oh, and if you don't know what "Jasmine" is, you really, really aren't that old-skool with Macs. ;)

Microsoft Silverlight: 10 reasons to love it, 10 reasons to hate it

Daniel B.
Flame

Silverlight

Flash: Flashy stuff, bloat "kewlness" that infests the web.

Silverlight: the same as above, except it also ties you to the MicroSoft platform.

I think I'll pass. And Moonlight is a red herring, kind of like Mono. Can you *really* make a .NET app run 100% alike in .NET and Mono? I think not ... Java has been able to do this for years.

I think all this Rich Internet Application nonsense is just getting stupider everyday. I already hate Flash-only sites, now they're trying to force another thing like that ... and this time, MS-only. Yeah, right.

Apple's AppStore closes in on $500m in software sales

Daniel B.

@Francis Vaughan, @It's the software, Stupid

Very good comments on this, as it is *almost* true that most non-iPhone phones are, well, lacking a presence. But:

"When we refer to the iPhone's competition we talk of Nokia, HTC, etc. etc. Companies, not individual products. And when the iPhone (just like the iPod) moves from model to model, it remains an iPhone."

So does a BlackBerry. If anything, the BlackBerry fits quite well into the description of being "an OS that uses the hardware" instead of the other way round. And unlike the iPhone, its platform is pretty much open for anything except the "restricted" libs, and even then, you only need to get RIM to sign your code. But no stupid restrictions like being unable to run apps in the background there.

Anyway, the iPhone is more of a "showPhone", it's a fun gadget for everyday users, but not really a business thing. I personally prefer the BlackBerry for useablility, though I admit that I feel envy to the creators of the "I Am Rich" app!

U2 tracks disappear from YouTube

Daniel B.
IT Angle

U2 in U2b

Because the IT angle is that U2 was in U2b.

Psychologists give gaming the thumbs up

Daniel B.

Re: Its Edu-tainment

"my eight year old learnt some spanish from a game, "CHINGA TU MADRE" he'll shout at his little pals as they flying kick each other, ahhhh, bless."

Yipes, I hope none of his pals actually speaks Spanish, or he's in for some ass-whooping!

Anyway, good games do help on kids abilities, this isn't new though. Its the stupid games the ones that just don't give anything of any value, like say ... um... Halo. Though FPS games do give some damn good hand-eye coordination, I'll give them that!

Google maps Russian assault on Savannah

Daniel B.

Re: I cant belive

"No one has mentioned red Dawn"

The first one did it, didn't you notice the "WOLVERINES!" title?

Anyway ... I do remember that when I was a kid (6 yrs old?) that when Georgia was mentioned, I also thought about the US state, but that is because back then, everything over there was "the USSR". It wasn't until secondary school when we started seeing the zillion formerly-Soviet countries in our Geography class.

COBOL thwarts California's Governator

Daniel B.

Dijkstra killed COBOL?

Oh, I wish he gave his opinion on VB then ...

Anyway, even with COBOL shortages, there are COBOL programmers out there, the thing is they're scarce so they'll charge a lot for their expertise. So trying to go cheap just won't help the Governator!