* Posts by Svantevid

151 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jun 2008

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Tablets aren't killing ereaders, it's clog-popping wrinklies - analyst

Svantevid

Re: My lovely Sony PRS-300 is just fine thanks

" I want a light on my reader "

That would be Kindle Paperwhite, eh?

I'm getting one soon, as I've broken my Kindle 3... iPad is fine, but its battery life is crap and for some reason it's harder on eyes than Kindle.

Time has already run out for smart watches

Svantevid

Re: niche market?

I'm planning on buying a Kindle Paperwhite although I already have an iPad.

Maybe I'm a part of a not-so-average group of people, but to many of my friends/acquaintances e-readers make a lot of sense.

iPad Mini's quite a handful

Svantevid

I agree with Ramazan.

You'll be reading PDFs formatted for 14" page on 7,9" screen. Reflow works fine with simple text, but when it comes to pictures, diagrams or text in images, it becomes... interesting. Go with regular iPad.

Nokia's Great Software Cleansing scrubs off everything since the '90s

Svantevid

"I think the unified phone/slate/desktop/xbox/kinect/skype experience could be a great package"

---

Of course. There's no difference between using 4,3" touchscreen and 22" monitor+mouse+keyboard, so we might as well use identical GUI on all devices. 8-)

Apple iPad sales drop by DOUBLE DIGITS in Europe

Svantevid

Re: What!?

"Prey tell me what is this:

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040428.tablets-026-sm.jpg"

---

It's a piece of clay. 8-)

There must be a limit somewhere, otherwise I can call my iPaq hx2110 a tablet too. So the limit is simple for me: if I can fit it in a shirt pocket - and I can fit a Note there - it's not a tablet.

Svantevid

Re: What!?

"The Samsung Note is NOT a tablet."

I agree. My sister has it - and she's ecstatic over it, good job Samsung - but I don't see how could you classify it as a tablet. It's just too small.

Hitchhiker shot while researching 'Kindness of America'

Svantevid

Re: Nice stereotype.

"I think guns are great equalizers."

---

Please, Figgus, your average citizen is NOT ready and willing to pull out a gun and just use it on someone.

The entire point of army training is to overcome your personality and make you capable of murdering someone. And still, many soldiers freeze in a real firefight. Yet you say that a soccer mom is just as ready to use gun as is a criminal attacking her.

Svantevid

Re: Gun ownership.

"I'm really not sure why you are so offended that an entire country full of people thousands of miles away from you has a different opinion on gun ownership."

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Perhaps because that same country often sends entire armies at your doorstep, if it doesn't like the way you're minding your own business.

Olympic Wenlock plod cops condemnation from Amazon wags

Svantevid
Happy

Logos/mascots

Somebody was having a piss... the Olympic logo is Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob, and the mascots are one-eyed monsters.

I've seen less penile symbology in Ron Jeremy films.

Crazy Texans dunk servers in DEEP FRYERS

Svantevid
Happy

Re: The idea is not new

Aaah, synchronicity... first time I've first heard of mineral oil cooling was on Friday, when I've stumbled upon Puget Systems. Don't berate me.. I'm an accountant, not a techie. 8-)

And now I see that on the same day El Reg made an article about mineral oil cooling.

And the worst film NEVER made is...

Svantevid

God almighty, I've just found a perfect way to hide my porn.

Can I borrow "The Phantom Menace - The Musical" image for a DVD cover?

Scotland considers dishing out more iPads to schoolkids

Svantevid

Re: How about because

And which school-oriented (suitable for GB schools, anyway) applications you have on an iPad?

Or do they need to learn how to use Microsoft Office package? In which case, you can definitely go cheaper than an iPad.

US dope farmer in Walmart rattlesnake chomp shock

Svantevid

Re: News of the World 2

"the downward spiral of quality and inexorable rise in sensationalism started way before that"

---

To be precise, ecerything went to drain waaay before that: "What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents."

(Plato, 4th century BCE)

IT urine bandit fired and charged

Svantevid

"The WestDesMoinesPatch reported... "

---

Sorry, I just can't read it as anything other than "The Wet Patch reported..."

Latest El Reg project: Rise of the Robot Sheep

Svantevid
Happy

"I've decided it's time to unlock the inventing shed and seek some reader advice."

---

Is Mr. Travaglia unavailable, down under in Aotearoa or some similar place with more vowels than is healthy? He obviously has more devious mind than your average El Reg reader, and if I ever wanted to build a killer robot I'd contact him immediately.

Doomsday 2012 mega volcano 'unlikely' - NASA

Svantevid
Mushroom

"The magma flow of Mount Toba in Sumutra, which erupted some 74,000 years ago"

---

You mean the eruption that almost made the human race extinct, according to some theories?

We're now better equipped to survive that. Not all of us, but the human race as such.

Vatican mulls God particle, calls for appointment of antichrist

Svantevid
Angel

@ Graham Marsden

I believe they have a patent on a particular God.

Cyberattack Blighty and we'll use 'military means' - UK gov

Svantevid
Mushroom

So...

... if some USA hacker breaches UK computers, you'll torch the White House again?

El Reg in email address blunder

Svantevid
Thumb Up

"At least the senders of junk mail might start spelling my name right now. "

---

That's the spirit! ;-)

But I must complain... I got no mail from El Reg (*sniff*) and no extra spam either... I feel neglected.

OpenSUSE 12.1 delivers Fedora punch with GNOME 3

Svantevid

"Music players are pathetic (where's MediaMonkey for Linux?!), movie players are worse, "

---

Ahem... regarding the movie players, what's wrong with VLC for Linux?

WHSmith launches e-book reader rivals to Amazon Kindle

Svantevid

"Personally, I'll hold out for a tablet/reader/thingy that's A4 sized and preferably flexible. "

---

Try Kindle DX, then, with its 9,7" screen.

For me, normal Kindle 3 (6" screen) is quite sufficient. And I can carry it everywhere in my pocket, which is a huge bonus as I don't have to lug a rucksack for Kindle DX.

Gigantic KRAKEN fingered in prehistoric murder mystery

Svantevid

Too bad both Sagan and Feynman are dead... they would horsewhip McMenamin out of the country.

Google unfurls Dead Sea Scrolls

Svantevid
Thumb Up

@ jai

You... magnificent... bastard! :-)))

Galaxy Tab remains illegal in Germany

Svantevid
FAIL

"Samasung copied Apple's product, blatantly. "

---

O rly? I can mention a ton of digital picture frames that looked exactly like iPad. With the only problem that they came out years before iPad. So if you want to talk about people stealing design...

.

Hey Commentards! [This title is optional]

Svantevid
Thumb Up

*Optional*, thanks Grud

"now can you arrange by time of posting"

---

This will definitely come in handy, for reason Mr. Orlowski - praised be his name, he allowed comments on his article - already knows... looking for new posts in long threads will become much easier.

.

.

.

"Lastly, if you post anonymously you don't get to pick an icon. All Anon posts get a V for Vendetta mask instead."

---

Can we get reasons for it? Just out of curiosity, I have no problems at all with that decision. :-)

Vale Michael Stern Hart

Svantevid
Unhappy

Relation

As Herr Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg had no children, Mr. Hart could be - at best - his greatgreatgreat...nephew.

.

.

However, in spirit he is Gutenberg's successor. And the world lost one of men it can't afford to lose.

US Marines not allowed to fart in Afghanistan

Svantevid

@ Saganhill

"So we're over there risking lives "

---

Yeah, mostly by shooting local inhabitants who can't get their heads around the idea of another foreign army on their soil.

Dragon Bannatyne threatens to break arms of 'Russian' bloke

Svantevid

@Mark 78

"So is "Speaking as a father" as similar thing?"

---

No.

Let me explain: when you have children, your whole life changes according to their needs. A huge chunk of your free time and your money goes into raising them properly. Why do you sacrifice all that time and all that money? Because you love them more than you love anyone else, including yourself. If there is any person in your life you'd jump in front of a speeding car for, then that person is your child.

So when someone threatens to hurt your child, you'll do anything to stop him/them. In many cases - probably in huge majority of cases - as violently as possible.

Hell, tie them down and let child's mother deal with them... then clean up the mess and get rid of the evidence.

Svantevid

Illegal or not...

"other tweeters soon waded in, pointing out that Bannatyne was making very public illegal threats"

---

As a father, I totally support him.

Although he should have used a more covert means to locate and kneecap the b*******.

Cabinet Office government-by-Facebook plans probed

Svantevid
Facepalm

Seriously?

"including making sure US doesn't get it's hand in the data"

---

You're not aware of the fact Facebook is an American company and, as such, required to hand over all the data it possesses to their government?

Benefits of boozing outweigh harms, says survey

Svantevid
Holmes

I'll go with PTerry on this

To quote him: "It is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street- cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact."

Pacific rare-earth discovery: Actually just gigatonnes of dirt

Svantevid

Isn't it obvious?

"If, with enough money, as stated, it is possible, why the negative, long-winded article to (mostly) the contrary?"

---

Because you would need much, much more money to extract and refine the ore than is its value.

If you want an example, it's possible - with enough money - to extract lignite from undersea deposits. Care to pay, say, 5.000 euro for a kilo of coal? Because that's how much it would cost to extract it.

Creationists are infiltrating US geology circles

Svantevid
Facepalm

Credibility of the BIble

"Compare this to the bible. Not only is it frequently contradicted by many normally reliable sources"

---

... and contradicted by itself. Check the two mutually contradicting stories about the beginning of the world... Genesis 1:6-26 and Genesis 2:4-22.

Boris-Bike firm penalised by £5m over system hiccups

Svantevid
FAIL

@ Luke 11

"rent a crappy bike fiasco"

---

Ah yes, fiasco... it could be compared to the General Motors' fiasco of electric cars in 1990's.

You know, the one where GM had to kill the program, because they managed to lease every single one of their cars, and customers were eager to extended those leases.

Greek police nab Pentagon hacking carding suspect

Svantevid
Happy

Smart kid

"18-year-old (...) used to siphon off cash (...) not to buy consumer electronics or flashy cars, but to invest in firms listed on the Greek stock exchange."

---

He's smarter than our finance minister. Can he be extradited here, please?

Breaking wave 'big as the USA' spied on Sun's surface

Svantevid
Happy

@ ravenviz

Sorry, no. As the El Reg Standards Soviet declared, here are the relevant units:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html

However, one Jamaica is 0,53 Wales(es?) or 0,0047 Democratic Republics of Congo.

Svantevid
Happy

By El Reg standards...

"big as the USA" would be translated to 473.000 Wales/4,2 Congos. No more of that silly imperial/metric nonsense, please.

New 'liquid smart metal' can go hard or floppy

Svantevid
Happy

@Jedit

I thought about inserting a rod of that material next to urethra.

By the time I'll need it, they'll perfect the technique of insertion, solve the problem of short-circuiting the user and his companion, mass production will cheapen the procedure and materials...

Svantevid
Happy

Funny

My first thought was "No more Viagra spam."

IAEA: Handling of Fukushima has been exemplary

Svantevid

@ AC

"could the energy supply industry make much more use of this radiation than it currently does?"

---

Of course. Naturally, there's a small problem of using fifty different carcinogenics in solar cell production, meaning that when the first solar panels end their lifecycle we'll have to find a way to safely store/reuse a huge amount of cadmium and arsenic.

Not to mention that solar cells are rather ineffective and the electricity produced by them is ten times as expensive.

Svantevid
Mushroom

@MuttonEater

"Bloomberg is now reporting, "Tetsuya Terasawa said the radiation levels are in line with those found after a nuclear bomb test, which disperses plutonium"

---

From one of your articles.

Now, I don't know about the rest, but I do know that the amount of plutonium found around Fukushima wasn't higher than elsewhere. And that only by checking what Pu isotope they found, it was clear it's Fukushima's Pu. Not Pu left after the worldwide nuclear bomb testing decades ago.

.

So if I can immediately spot one exaggeration/fabrication, I automatically suspect the rest of the article.

Judgment Day prophet resets doomsday clock

Svantevid
Happy

Trumpets?

"Robert Fitzpatrick (...) was left firmly standing in a drizzly Times Square at 6pm on Saturday, with the jeers of tourists rather than a fanfare of celestial trumpets ringing in his ears."

---

What celestial trumpets? I was under the impression all the best musicians ended up in Hell.

Rapture postponed as world inexplicably fails to end

Svantevid

@ Marketing Hack

"Their calendar comes to an end and the world goes "kablooie" next year."

---

Errrm... as the Mayans themselves are quick to point out - yes, seven million or so Mayans still live today - their calendar doesn't come to an end... just one of their eras, like our own Age of Pisces ended and the Age of Aquarius began.

Pakistani IT admin leaks bin Laden raid on Twitter

Svantevid

@ Graham Wilson

"one fool in the 'educated pack' does not undo the general principle that education benefits everyone. "

---

That's a fair point. :-)

See my distrust of TED talks as a symptom of my distrust towards all organisations bent on spreading the truth as they see it. Be it TED with Al Gore's skewed data on global warming, or religious organisations with "we know what God thinks, listen to us". Not as my distrust towards general education, to the contrary... if I had to bring one book to a deserted island, it would be Carl Sagan's "Cosmos".

I'm very much aware we're close to another dark age... not a generation or two away, but just one catastrophic event away. For instance, just an "al-Qaeda's detonation of a nuke in some USA or European city" away... I've lived through Croatian independence war, and know exactly how fast people descend into hatred during the crisis. And stay there long after the crisis has passed.

Dubya and bin Laden, unfortunately, aren't exceptions in modern world. That's why the assassination of bin Laden changes little. You've removed one man, but the underlying problems remain the same... European imperialistic drawing of Near/Middle Eastern borders created the problem, USA and Soviet interventions (especially USA, but just because Russians didn't try hard enough) just poured oil on that fire.

If someone has a workable idea how to redraw the borders without causing another war or three, and how to make Westerners meddling with Near/Middle Eastern politics and get the hell out of there... give that man billion dollars, ten Nobel peace prizes and *listen to him*.

Svantevid

@Kobus Botes

"The only way to win a war against terrorism is to sit around a table with the terrorists and negotiate on what the best way would be to remove the conditions that gave rise to the war in the first place"

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Wow... that would be like looking at neighbourhoods in which the only way to succeed in life is to deal drugs, and deciding to raise literacy and employment rate, instead of spending decades just arresting drug dealers and putting them to jail. In other words, using intelligent approach.

Have you ever saw politicians using intelligent approach? Or do we always see "if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail" approach?

Svantevid

@ Matt Bryant

"America's behaviour, unfortunately, was what gave rise to the war in the first place...." How, exactly? Please provide even the flimsiest reasoning behind that accusation? "

---

Ummm... why do you think Iran's view of USA changed from the most beloved foreign nation in, say, 1951, to The Great White Satan (TM) twenty years later?

Hint: Operation Ajax; financing and training men whose idea of dealing with political opponents was to tie them to a chair and cutting their eyelids off so they couldn't close their eyes when their daughters are raped in front of them; goading Saddam Hussein into attacking Iran and supporting him in that war; financing and supporting the Taliban who, when they came to power, dragged out and shot Iranian diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif; shooting down a passenger airplane with 290 people (66 of which children), as US Navy obviously isn't trained to see the difference between an A300 Airbus and Mig-21.... you know, such tiny things.

Svantevid

@ Rombizio

"That fact that someone in Pakistan watches Ted Talks is the only important information in this article. That means someone with brains is there,"

---

Yes, like Kary Mullis - 1993 chemistry Nobel Prize winner - who later distinguished himself with quotes such as: "There's very good evidence that astrology is real" and stating that AIDS isn't caused by HIV virus but by gay orgies. It seems that there's more sanity checks on Twitter than on TEDx.

Regarding Usama bL, his death changes nothing. There are other - also USA-trained - religious fanatics out there making problems. Some of them are even Muslim.

Natty Narwahl: Ubuntu marine mammal not fully evolved

Svantevid

@ Craiggy

"Its an epic fail -- spent most of the weekend putting back 10.04. (...) What were they THINKING?"

---

No disrespect intended, but what were you thinking? :-)

With hindsight (or - in my case - a healthy dose of paranoia) it's probably obvious to you by now you should have downloaded a live CD and test the system.

Svantevid

@AC 02.05.2011 16:35

"Cannonical have just shoved it out the door pretty much regardless of whether people like it or not and what condition it was in."

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Do be fair, AC, you can always choose to use GNOME in this version of Ubuntu.

And with tens of thousands of people using Unity, the next version should have most of the irritating/malfunctioning problems sorted... hopefully. Ask me in November how do I like Ubuntu 11.10. :-)

.

One of good things about Linux: you can always switch distros.

Vote now for the best sci-fi film never made

Svantevid

@NoneSuch

"If all of those hurdles are successfully navigated, then you might have a decent chance of a making a timeless film like:

Starship Troopers"

---

Oi, while Starship Troopers isn't faithful to the book it is still a great film on several levels... works as a satire, works as an action film. This is one of two film adaptations ("Shining" being the second one) where I prefer director's version. Even without mecha-suits.

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