Kindle
My "Fire" did.
Posts by Stevie
7284 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2008
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Gift-giving gotchas: How to avoid Xmas morning EMBARRASSMENT
Monday 23rd December 2013 17:57 GMT
Re: Rechargables
Not to mention that the devices are usually designed to run on Alkaline batteries that develop 1.5 volts and the rechargeables come in light of that from the get-go, making for shorter working time and the perception that the device "eats batteries".
I remember that the undevoltage thing was a problem for an old hand-held CB I had, and the manufacturer included two metal slugs to replace two of the twelve rechargeable AA's it needed should you decide to use alkaline batteries instead of the nicads it came with.
Monday 23rd December 2013 17:52 GMT
Bah!
Are we still having to tell people to buy spare batteries?
This is why the Hess Truck is such good value for Xmas Prezzy money (even now when it has almost doubled in price): It comes with batteries. This year's one is ultra spiffy. I like it when they are actual trucks as opposed to clever Helicopters, Tornado interceptor aircraft or space shuttles (which admittedly came mounted on a transport truck).
How much did NSA pay to put a backdoor in RSA crypto? Try $10m – report
El Reg's contraptions confessional no.4: Yamaha retro synth, valve oscilloscope and more
Bizarre Tolkien-inspired GCHQ Xmas card CAN'T BE READ by us PLEBS
Crooks target Target: 40 MILLION bank cards imperiled in cyber-heist
Friday 20th December 2013 17:10 GMT
Re: Please target (no pun) the CORRECT retailer
Please punctuate if you want to be read. It is the only sensible way.
And if you can't multiply 6.85 by three and a half and add a bit in your head for a quick guestimate in Mr Head I'm not letting you loose with a hex/ASCII card and a low-level editor near any machines I'll be blamed for. (It comes to 25 cents in round numbers from Mr Brain in about eight seconds - but I haven't had my morning coffee yet).
I'm ancient, lazy and addled from years of alcohol abuse, but even I can do that sort of arithmetic in the time it takes 'em to make the coffee.
Fair disclosure: I don't drink at Starbux because I don't think coffee should taste like fermented battery acid. I have no problem with others doing so, and I have waited in line to buy gift cards for them that do.
Tools used to figure the tax: Three and two times tables and the insight that percentages applied to dollar amounts sort themselves out.
World's cheapest tablet just got CHEAPER
Friday 20th December 2013 16:38 GMT
Bah!
" this promises to put access to the internet's full trove of knowledge in the hands of every child in the most populous nation on Earth."
With you so far.
But.
This is a country that cannot sustain a steady supply of electricity 24x7 and uses the possibility of outages as a political bulldozer. How will these Wikipedia-hungry kids get access with flat batteries and no way to recharge?
Personally, I can't wait for the Indians to become a nation of Wikispouters. Once they stop using old-fashioned textbooks and knowledge it will level the educational playing field once again.
Macbook webcams CAN spy on you - and you simply CAN'T TELL
Lifesize, driveable AIR-POWERED LEGO CAR hits the road
Google Glass pics will BAFFLE admirers: Nudge nudge, WINK WINK
Wednesday 18th December 2013 17:04 GMT
Bah!
I wonder if one were to poll the Glassholes what percentage of them would be significantly worried about Government Monitoring of the Populace?
Speaking as a real spectacle wearer I resent the inevitable suspicion I will fall under when these idiotic devices become ubiquitous.
Legislate now for the wearing mandatory large conical hats with "WARNING! Googleglass!" emblazoned on them by Googledrones.
Don't listen to Snowden ... Intel: We've switched on CPU crypto for Hadoop
Bluetooth Smart dev board hits US, UK for sub-$100
Tuesday 17th December 2013 19:09 GMT
Bah!
The Beaglebone Black comes with a bunch of unhelpful stuff that will end up costing the lucky owner an smalle fortune - tiny HDMI connector that cannot be matched to a high street vendor's cable assortment, micro SD that must be less than a certain size but you'll only find out after you've sprung for the commonly available larger size and so forth. I must've driven away the cost of the BBB itself in gasoline tracking down that 8 gig micro SD card.
And then it didn't work without much cursing, swearing and messing around.
The Raspberry Pi is a much easier ride even if you have to start by learning how to burn iso images to an SD card without trashing your hard drive.
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.
You gotta fight for your copyright ... Beastie Boys sue toymaker over TV ad
Cardslurping kingpin caged for 18 years over Carderplanet forum
Hot Stuff! NASA mulls 'urgent' space walk as ISS cooler conks out
Monday 16th December 2013 17:02 GMT
Re: Bah!
Well, yes, except that I was envisioning a parasol only a few feet from the hull proper as an auxiliary measure, not the *only* one. No doubt there's a clever reason why having one attached to each module isn't a good idea since "if you can't block all the sun you shouldn't block any of it" seems a bit ... stupid to be honest.
I'm well aware that the electronics dump heat into the interior and that the humans dump heat (and water and CO2) into the air too. None of that is made any easier to deal with by the lack of any passive cooling measures like putting something between the skin of the various modules and the incident sunlight.
Friday 13th December 2013 16:21 GMT
Re: Bah!
Well, yes, but it did, sorta. SKYLABs problems stemmed from a failure of half its solar array to deploy properly. AS I recall the parasol was not deployed as envisaged and even so did have a measurable effect on keeping the wretched tin can inhabitable.
Aren't NASA claiming that blocking the sun with mylar could reduce global warming? It just seems to me that you need a *lot* less mylar to stop ISS warming, or at least slow it down. I mean, that's why they sent people to the moon in lunar twilight. If you block the sun a major heating problem simply goes away - that's why they "barbecued" Apollo spacecraft.
It also seems to me that if you are putting kit into orbit where tools, raw materials and manpower are at a premium, passive solutions to problems are inherently better than active ones, especially active measures with moving parts.
Striking Amazonians warn: Don't rely on us for Christmas pressies
We MUST be told: How many Bitcoins do I need to kill a melon-head?
Friday 13th December 2013 20:42 GMT
Bah!
"My brother-in-law works in futures and he’s a top bloke. Contrary to public opinion, bonuses are earned by very few. His office is not lined with babies on pitchforks or illuminated by burning kittens."
You say that but I can't help noticing:
a) he's related to you
2) And it's nearly Xmas, the gift-giving day
On the evidence of my *own* brother in law, also up to his neck in the world of high finance, I have to categorize this as an attempt to get some expensive tat under the tree.
Burn them all, if only for pulling out the "no one else can understand our code" job-preservation argument.
Twitter's shock block unlock deemed cockup, gets a lockup
Friday 13th December 2013 16:33 GMT
Bah!
Yes I'm bloody confused. I had to read your stupid article three times before I fully understood what the issue was - not that formerly blocked tweets would now go to the intended recipient but that they would be silently blocked instead. Why the flux couldn't you just say that?
Hey Twitfacers! Why not have the choice to silently block people OR let 'em know about it? It would be the functional equivalent of CC/BCC after all (with the sense reversed).
What a foxing non-issue.
I say that blocked tweets should bounce. That way the offender gets their own back. Ahahahahaha.
How Britain could have invented the iPhone: And how the Quangocracy cocked it up
Friday 13th December 2013 16:26 GMT
Bah!
I got my start in IT working for a machine tool company in Coventry in the late 70s. It isn't there any more and was failing even as I signed my contract of employment mainly because what money was spent on R&D was too much D and almost no R.
Research would have told the company that the world was moving into a plastic/single spindle/NC era and that there was no market for the cast iron/single spindle/hydraulic control machine they had built even though it would outlast the Placcy Jap machine by decades.
Lots of development costs though. They built three of the new model and they sat in the showroom for years. Biggest doorstops in the world.
But then we had a corporate structure built on the Grace Brothers model (seriously: two canteens, one for monthly paid staff the other for the weekly paid scruffs) and you couldn't tell management anything they didn't already know.
And I worked for the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert (again, seriously. Separated at birth). Knew nothing about computers and was proud of it. He was a manager you see. He "had people" to "do things".
Ghosts of Christmas Past: Ten tech treats from yesteryear
Friday 13th December 2013 16:10 GMT
Bah!
I'm still using a Casio FX-451 (my British 450 was knicked the year I came to the US). It has all those features you boast of on the model you featured and brought them to market several years before.
I was using my blue Visor up until two years ago, when I found I could not get a replacement for the "button board" that had not suffered a battery leak all over it. The boards clean up so you'd never know (as a spare part purchaser) but the stupid foil dimple button mechanisms get battery goop inside them and wont work unless a slit is cut in them and they are rinsed out - which introduces another failure mode. Pretty much any Visor you buy today used has had at least one battery leak so beware if you are a rebuilder.
I rescued mine a couple of times from a screen break (I dropped it like the clod I am) and the deterioration of the contacts on the cradle synch port (they only make contact with the riser board by touch so are subject to early failure) but it developed the annoying and extremely inconvenient habit of powering down while in my bag and clearing its memory. One app I had could not be rescued from the desktop or the springboard backup module so the drawings my three year old daughter did were gone, sadly. The problem will require the replacement of the button board ...
So I reluctantly stopped using it. It was the coolest note taker, especially when coupled with the stowaway keyboard. I never knew there were so many young lady geeks in the world until I started using my Visor and keyboard to write my blog while commuting. Where was this tech when I was young and single, dammit?
Why America is no longer slurping electricity from Russian nuke warheads
Thursday 12th December 2013 18:01 GMT
Re: PDP-11
And if the PDP-11 is getting the job done, why feel the need to pull it out and replace it (and by so doing unleash a knot of vipers to plague one yea unto the fifth generation - assuming someone doesn't just hold a parliamentary/congressional hearing and have the whole thing replaced by new kit supplied by -c-r-o-n-I-e-s- lobbyists' clients)?
The tech industry has a really stupid outlook - half the time bemoaning the obsolescence cycles of pay-to-play software then sneering at any kit that has the nerve to be functioning with no problems beyond the same lifetime as the aforementioned software.
Clearly the requirements for this machine's need were well-defined and properly implemented. I say that deserves backslapping and beers all round. cf just about anything we Reg Readers have read about here (NHS, local councils, NASA etc etc etc).
Quadrillion-dollar finance house spams Reg reader with bankers' private data
Thursday 12th December 2013 16:50 GMT
Bah!
"Misdirected"? Not so. Some inattentive berk typed in a valid email address in whatever box asked for it. The fact that it was not the address he/she intended is not important. Let's assign blame where it belongs: some techno-tw*t who probably broke umpteen company regulations (not to mention conditions of employment) to steer information to his or her private email account instead of a safe (and probably audited) company one. That this person then didn't double check the address is just par for the course.
If company rules-of-conduct don't make that a fingerbreaking offense, they should.
And where was the firewall nannyware when it was needed? Why aren't all outbound e-mail addresses whitelisted?
The more I think on it the more there seems to be a cultural/systemic problem at the root of this.
Ten top tech toys to interface with a techie’s Christmas stocking
Enraged by lengthy Sky broadband outage? Blame BT Openreach cable thieves
eBay head honcho: Amazon drone delivery plan is 'FANTASY'
Wednesday 11th December 2013 20:54 GMT
Re: What would eBay know about it?
even UK based, no way of filtering non- UK sellers, etc.
Unless you look at the "ships from" bit on the offers list of course.
I always look because I buy a lot of books and try to avoid UK booksellers if I can, as my experience has been that the majority overcharge and underdeliver when it comes to P&P.
It isn't a guarantee of course. I've bought from a vendor I thought was a stateside source only to find I was in for a delay while they shipped the item from the UK.
The main advantage to Amazon over eBay for books is that when a bookseller says "good condition" they are working to an absolute scale agreed on in the trade, whereas an eBay seller means "seems to have all the pages still stuck to the spine".
That and the Amazon guarantee, which I've needed to use twice in perhaps a couple of hundred transactions - each time involving a private individual rather than a business. Instant customer satisfaction result both times. eBay cannot offer the same and certainly does not deliver it.
Lightning strikes USB bosses: Next-gen jacks will be REVERSIBLE
Tuesday 10th December 2013 16:43 GMT
Re: get it wrong and you risked bending pins
Only if you ignored the rather obvious hint that the plug was not seating easily and hammered it in with your fist like a clod.
Yes I've seen them done in like that. I never bent a DIN (which were common in my teens on stereophonic equipment) or PS2 because I understood the simple fact that if the plug wouldn't seat, ramming it in with increased ferocity wouldn't take either me or the plug anywhere good.
I would expect anyone who graces themselves with the title "engineer" to get that too.
Friday 6th December 2013 15:26 GMT
Re: A curse on the inventor of PS2
PS2 connectors were symmetrical but weren't round and had a very well-defined keyway. You had to be willfully thick to hammer them in the wrong way (and yes I've seen the results of just such activity).
As for being under desks, why not simply rotate the cpu case so you *could* see the sockets?
Friday 6th December 2013 15:22 GMT
And before anyone chimes in with round
I was actually going to suggest making the 'top' ribbed and the bottom smooth. I dunno why the 'intelligent' people in charge of the standard didn't hit on this themselves. It would scale to the various different sizes too, much better than that four-ended bungee cord they hot stamp into some (not all) usb plugs.
That doesn't stop manufacturers installing the sockets in random configurations though - which they do. I'm forever having to get down on my hands and knees to see where the little tab is on one floor-level device I only plug into once in a blue moon when I can't do it by feel (ooh missus). It doesn't do much for the old gravitas to be discovered with my backside sticking out from under my desk by a vendor.
Fiendish CryptoLocker ransomware survives hacktivists' takedown
To fel with you! There's an NSA spook in my World of Warcraft
Monday 9th December 2013 17:16 GMT
Bah!
You want to see a prime example of a digital drop box (in the espionage sense) you need look no further than Amazon.
How else to explain stuff like this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0596100299/sr=8-1/qid=1386609099/ref=olp_page_5?ie=UTF8&colid=&coliid=&condition=new&me=&qid=1386609099&shipPromoFilter=0&sort=sip&sr=8-1&startIndex=40
or this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0844237639/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&sr=&qid=
Martians yet to retaliate after Curiosity's 100,000th laser strike
WTF is... NFV: All your basestations are belong to us
Chinese gamer plays on while BMW burns to the ground
Sick of losing out to Walmart at Xmas? Apple to price-match iPad Air, iPhone 5c
'Copyrighted' Java APIs deserve same protection as HARRY POTTER, Oracle tells court
Creepy US spy agency flings WORLD SLURPING OCTOPUS into orbit
NSA sez NO to prez: Spooks ban Obama from using iPhones
Inside Steve Ballmer’s fondleslab rear-guard action
Friday 6th December 2013 15:36 GMT
Bah!
Door bursts open
The chief problem with the the slab is lack of screen real estate. And the pain inducing error-prone software keyboard.
Two. The two chief problems with the slab are the lack of screen real estate and the software keyboard that makes my fingers hurt and is error-prone, and the fact that only one application can be running at the same time.
Three. The three chief problems with the slab are (ticking off on fingers):
Small screen,
Bad keyboard
Only one application at a time
and...
I'll come in again.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
