* Posts by Haku

1902 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Apr 2007

US public hate Snowden - but sexpot spy Anna Chapman LOVES him

Haku

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Everyone knows 68.4% of stastistics are made up on the spot.

Battery-boosting breakthrough grows on trees – literally

Haku

If headlines actually delivered what they said, then...

...the entire earth would have virtually limitless electricty from the solar panels that have their efficiency boosted about every 6 months

...we'd all be going round in flying cars charged by solar with batteries that have a power/size equivilancy of petrol

...also I'd have file cabinets full of university diplomas, along with a hareem of Russian wives, and a 5 foot penis...

Eww! What have you done to the layout?

Haku

Re: double-wide spotlight

No, you misunderstood what I meant.

There are many 'news' websites that merely copy other sources virtually word-for-word, just so they can fool people into viewing their site (rather than the originating source) which they've laden choc-a-bloc full of revenue adverts, so much so that the actual article text is shoehorned into a small strip in the very middle of the page, and often they split the (short) article into 2 or more pages just to get more pageviews.

I'm not likening The Reg to verbose article stealing but I am likening to how the main article text is getting squeezed in such a manner by adding the related articles to the immediate left of the text.

Too much clutter.

Haku

Re: double-wide spotlight

IMHO the layout is gradually going the way of many sites that 'steal' stories from elsewhere just so they can get advert revenue from squeezing in the stories into a site over-laden with adverts :(

What am I on about? The double-wide SPOTLIGHT links on the right, when it used to be just 1 link wide, and the newly added RELATED STORIES links on the immediate left of the article text.

Now it feels like the actual stories are being shoehorned into a bunch of links and adverts, I already run a custom Greasemonkey script to remove things on this site which have zero interest to me, I guess I'll have to further revise it to remove a bunch more crap that gets in the way of reading the actual articles.

Haku
Thumb Down

Eww! What have you done to the layout?

I really don't like the new layout of the forum posts, please return them back to how they were!

Boston U claims LED patent, files against tech giants

Haku

Re: Oi!

Yes the new layout is quite "eww" IMHO, I started a thread on one of the sub-forums, an El Reg bod has replied:

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/07/01/Haku_Eww_What_have_you_done_to_the_layout/

Hey Britain, want to link your mobile to your BANK ACCOUNT?

Haku

One minor thing I want to point out:

The battery never goes flat on my bank card.

The future of cinema and TV: It’s game over for the hi-res hype

Haku

Re: Deinterlacing

I've tried manually adding the :interlaced flag into the advanced tab in Handbrake to encode the video straight from the ripped VOB files but the resulting 25fps interlaced mkv has a lower image quality and isn't as smooth as the deinterlaced 50fps progressive version.

Haku
Boffin

Deinterlacing

On the subject of video and framerates I've been ripping my Red Dwarf DVDs to mkv but as the first seasons were interlaced it means having to deinterlace it or else it won't look very good on a PC.

Simple deinterlacers will take the interlaced 25fps footage and turn it into progressive 25fps by blending the two fields together (worst way) or discarding one field and scaling the remaining field (better but loses resolution), both of which produce 'ok' looking footage but aren't a patch on the original interlaced footage played on a CRT.

However if you know where to look and how to do some simple AviSynth scripting you can get some seriously good quality deinterlacing happening. Check out this 14mb 1.5minute Red Dwarf clip, 720x540 running at 50fps:

http://www.haku.co.uk/video/Red.Dwarf.50fps.sample.avi

Haku

Re: film vs tv

The Hobbit.

When it was announced that the film was to be shot and shown at 48fps there was a practical mass outcry from people (the vast majority who had never seen anything above 24fps on a cinema sized screen) saying it was going to have a "soap opera effect" due to the doubling of the framerate.

I have to admit I was a little worried that the higher framerate would have a detrimental effect to the film but I was actually pleasantly surprised and thoroughly enjoyed the film at the higher framerate on the large screen.

Think about it, when you're watching a 24fps film on a humungus screen then your brain has to fill in more 'gaps' when there's motion than it does when you're watching a 24fps film on a small (sub 30") screen, so doubling the framerate on a humungus screen makes you feel more immersed because your brain doesn't have to fill in so much when there's motion.

Dropbox flips Snapjoy album shut

Haku

@Terry 6

For a lot of people I don't think they keep digital photos etc. because they're convinced everything needs to be stored in case they might want it in the future, it's more a case of "laziness to sift through the crap" + "cheap storage" = "store everything" :)

Haku

Re: Unfortunately

"The Cloud providers can't keep adding and expanding their storage indefinitely, it's up to people using it to be sensible."

Oh I don't know, BackBlaze, the online backup service which costs $5/month for unlimited storage seems to be doing pretty well, they're constantly increasing their storage through their custom designed pods, each of which contains up to 180TB through an array of 45 harddrives:

http://blog.backblaze.com/2013/02/20/180tb-of-good-vibrations-storage-pod-3-0/

Haku

Not to mention the recent news that the hosting service that held all the Megaupload files erased it all.

Apple: iOS7 dayglo Barbie makeover is UNFINISHED - report

Haku
FAIL

Looks like they stole the icons from a Chinese iPhone knock-off.

Either that or someone in Apple is severely colourblind.

MySpace zaps millions of teens' tearful rants, causes wave of angst

Haku

Users should stand up for their consumer rights and demand their money back.

Speech-to-text drives motorists to distraction

Haku
Thumb Up

The only time you should ever drink and drive is

when you're sat behind a games console controller.

How NSA spooks spaffed my DAD'S DATA ALL OVER THE WEB

Haku

Re: Shurely not THE Adam Hart-Davis?

I once emailed him saying how much my family like watching the Local Heroes show he presented, and got a nice reply back from him, though I don't remember exactly what he said because that was about 14 years ago...

Online music world on iRadio: Apple, imagine our concern

Haku
FAIL

The Gadget Show

Last night's show there was a piece about streaming music, they effectively said CDs were dead and even downloads were going to die soon too because streaming music from the internet will replace all other sources of music.

I always take what they say with a pinch of salt or two, but sometimes even I'm surprised at the unmitigated shite spewed from the mouths of those presenters.

NSA PRISM-gate: Relax, GCHQ spooks 'keep us safe', says Cameron

Haku

I'm glad a politician has told us everything is ok.

Because we all know politicians never lie to the general public.

YES, Xbox One DOES need internet, DOES restrict game trading

Haku

@TechnicalBen

I've seen some posts on slashdot from people claiming to be games developers and they're really pissed that they're not getting a cut of the sale of 2nd hand games, they somehow think they're more special than any other industry that generates products for the general public, who can then sell on those products if they feel they no longer want them (like cars etc.) without having to pay the original manufacturer a cut of that sale.

Haku

Re: Microsoft: "We're always listening to our customers"

Given the need for being onllne and the restriction on reselling your old games I'd say they're listening more to the developers who have been bitching like little girls over the 2nd hand games stores, than they have to the people who are actually buying the games at full price in the first place.

Shorteurs rejoice as Vine comes to Android

Haku
Coat

Re: Erm...

When you say "laces" I assume you mean "luggage straps"?

Ecuador: Let's talk about not having Julian Assange on our sofa

Haku

Julian Assange lookalike flash mob at the Equadorian Embassy, anyone?

If swarms of people turned up looking like him, or he and everyone else wears the exact same mask and style of clothes, the police would have a tough time keeping track of who's who hopefully giving him the chance to escape and save millions more of taxpayers money keeping an eye on the place.

£3m for a year of 24/7 police watch, fucking ludicrus...

Doctor Who? 12th incarnation sought after Matt Smith quits

Haku
Devil

Justin Bieber for the next doctor!

Only because I'd love to see the fans have a complete meltdown, the rantings and outcries online would be stellar :D

A Bluetooth door lock that puts the kettle on? NOW we're in the future

Haku

Also: Kevo

Shown on Shark Tank (the US equiv. of Dragon's Den) a year ago, is in pre-order stage: http://www.unikey.com/

Living with a 41-megapixel 808 PureView: Symbian's heroic last stand

Haku
Boffin

Re: Broadcom GPU

"stopped connecting to my home router"

If your router is on channel 1 and you're having connection issues, manually set it to another channel (like 6 or 11).

Kettle 'which looks like HITLER' brews up sturm in a teacup

Haku

It's amazing how gullible the general publ...

hang on a mo, my Karma Chameleon phone is ringing.

Tim Cook: Wearable tech's nice, but Google Glass will NEVER BE COOL

Haku

Re: "half-eaten fruit logo"

It does make you wonder why it's half-eaten, is it rotten or did the owner find a worm in it?

The Tomorrow People jaunt back to the airwaves

Haku
Flame

TV networks suck.

SyFy cancelled "Alphas" and now the CW does a re-hash of an old series?

FFS!

Reports: New Xbox could DOOM second-hand games market

Haku
Flame

£35 for an activation fee of a SECOND HAND GAME?!

And you can only sell your old games for 10% of what they cost you?

Fuck off Microsoft.

'Catastrophic failure' of 3D-printed gun in Oz Police test

Haku
Holmes

Wait a mo, the police are warning the public that devices designed to fire bullets are lethal?

Garden fertilised by Twitter output wins Gold at Chelsea

Haku
Coat

I knew there was a lot of shit on twitter,

but I didn't realise it had gotten to such epidemic proportions that it was spilling out into the real world and fertilising gardens!

Soylent Corporation prepares to DEFEAT FOOD

Haku

Looks like the food from The Matrix

Just in time for our enslavement by the AI robot overlords we're naively striving to create...

Nintendo throws flaming legal barrel at YouTubing fans

Haku

Re: Epic PR fail

Indeedy, they get free advertising from the walkthroughs being put online and viewable by potentially millions without them having to pay a single penny to anyone for hosting/bandwidth/taking the time to do the walkthroughs, but now they want to be paid for those free adverts for their products...

Jailed Romanian hacker repents, invents ATM security scheme

Haku
Coat

Re: KISS

Yes you have to hand it to that guy for his sideways thinking...

Haku

On the subject of ATMs

Does anyone else feel like they're Gulliver in Lilliput when using them? I'm only 6'2" and often have to bend right down to be able to see the screen because they appear to be designed for people who are four foot nothing, most cinemas appear to be designed for unusually short people too, where "legroom" is a taboo word (except The Screening Rooms in Cheltenham - highly highly reccomended!)

Murdoch hate sparks mass bitchin', rapid evacuation from O2, BE

Haku

I left BE end of last month - no way I'm getting foisted into Sky.

I was getting just under 5mbit down and 1mbit up on BE, now on BT Infinity 2 I'm getting 73mbit down and 18mbit up :)

I heard the BE helpline was pretty good, in my 3 years on BE I never had to call it.

Hm, disk drive maker, what's that smell lingering around you?

Haku
Coat

Re: the short term future is hybrid, no?

"Maybe I've missed something obvious, but where are the enterprise grade hybrid drives?"

Klingons stole them...

On the hunt for a new ampere

Haku

So does this mean my two multimeters that can measure down to 0.00000001A are wrong?

The manufacturer better have a decent calibration service then...

Stroke my sexy see-through backside, says Jobs from BEYOND THE GRAVE

Haku
FAIL

Buttons that are only visable when you press them?

This laptop has those, a Vostro 1510 with a strip of capacitive touch sensitive media buttons above the keyboard that only light up when you press them - yes that's right, they only light up when your finger is covering the area that lights up!

And in low light conditions the brightness of the screen makes it difficult to see the faint outlines of the flat black non-tactile buttons, so for example instead of increasing the volume you could accidentally eject the DVD...

Speaking in Tech: 'You can't NOT look like a douche wearing Google Glass'

Haku

Re: Its kind of funny...

I used to wear glasses from the age of 5 but in my late 20s I got to the point where I was so fed up of having to deal with those things on a daily basis along looking through two windows at the world which didn't help with peripheral vision I gave up wearing them.

I don't know if I would handle wearing Google Glass after the novelty wears off, I don't even wear sunglasses, but ironically I do own 7 different sets of LCD video glasses... :)

The UK's copyright landgrab: The FAQ

Haku

Uh-oh

Does this mean that original creators of artworks etc. could end up in a situation where they're sued by 3rd party companies claiming copyright because they deem them to be orphaned works?

Thousands rally behind teen girl cuffed, expelled in harmless 'explosion'

Haku
Mushroom

Re: unintended f*c*i*g consequences.

I'm guessing that performing the "Mentos and Diet Coke" experiment will get you 10 years.

And stuffing dry ice into a plastic bottle then screwing the top on will get you life...

Haku

I used to use a Lego 12v transformer to split water into hydrogen & oxygen when I was a kid, at home, collecting the hydrogen in a test tube and lighting it for the 'pop'. Even taking a corked test tube filled with the hydrogen into school once or twice, god knows what the reaction from teachers nowadays would be if a kid did that.

Brits on benefits: 'Dole office site only works on PCs over 10 YEARS OLD'

Haku
FAIL

10 year old browsers needed for a 9 year old website - whodatthunkit?

They started noticing 'modern' browsers wouldn't work on the site back in 2006, yet haven't taken steps to resolve this. Well they technically they have, they've been telling everyone to use older browsers...

http://web.archive.org/web/20060427043739/http://www.dwp.gov.uk/eservice/need.asp

LivingSocial admits major hacking attack on customer database

Haku

Re: They bought a lot of smaller companies

This is what pisses me off about companies and thier data retention in relation to customer records and how they'll happily sell your info to other companies - you get situations like this where a company that you have never directly interacted with suddenly emails you out of the blue saying they got hacked and their customer records were copied and your info is in those records.

I am not a product, I am a human being FFS.

Haku

I received an email from LivingSocial about the screwup yet I've never had direct dealings with them.

In the last line of the email it says "You are receiving this email because you have an existing relationship with http://www.livingsocial.com/", yet I've never heard of them before or visited their website or signed up to them.

Under-the-radar spamming?

Nudge nudge, wink wink interface may drive Google Glass

Haku

'He's F**KED with the wrong nerd ... I warned I'd go public'

Haku
Happy

Drone problem?

Then you need a Net Gun.

How much will Google pay to bring fiber to Provo, Utah? Try $1

Haku

Google - Another name for Skynet?

With so many people coming to depend on Google as it slowly seeps out of the digital world and right into the physical world (Android phones/tablets, Google Glass and whatever else they'll make next), will we eventually (centuries down the line) have a global vote to change our little blue marble's name to Planet Google or wil they just announce it one day...