* Posts by M Gale

3500 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2007

'I'm a PIRATE' confessions spew from OED iPhone dictionary

M Gale

Re: Need to Wize up

*YEAH

O rly?

No, I've nothing to contribute to the conversation either.

M Gale

So does this mean that the people loving all over the walled garden as being somehow immune to malware get a free cup of shut the fuck up?

Or is it not malware if the developers say it's not malware? I bet that argument went really well for Sony, and all that did was rootkit you in private, not try to out you for something you didn't do.

El Reg mulls Forums icon portfolio shake-up

M Gale

Re: Custom

Brings back memories of the moderatrix and her gleefully-administered emasculations.

Come back Ms Bee, it's just not the same without you!

M Gale

Custom

Let users upload a selection of their own 32x32 bitmaps. Banhammer available in case of penis.

Microsoft demos real-time English to Chinese translation

M Gale

Re: Digital babelfish, how I miss you

Your problem is that a language is more than just words, and words is all a computer sees. Sometimes there is no direct translation and one word becomes twisted into a partial sentence in an attempt to convey the same meaning. See the German "schadenfruede", which translated to English is.. errr.. "schadenfruede".

Then you add homonyms, synonyms and odd dialects of the same language, and what you have is a recipe for a programmer's nightmare. Multiply that by the number of languages in the world, and you can see the scale of the problem.

Or just pump the phrase of your choice into here and have fun with the problem instead. Yes, yes I was looking for an excuse to post that link.

Apple iPad 4 Wi-Fi only tablet review

M Gale

Re: limiting choice

"Android and tweaking your car with underbody lights and flared wheel arches - some would argue they want the 'choice' to do it but 99.5% of people don't..."

I find that ironic considering some of the rather garish iThing covers that are routinely spotted on the buses.

As for why you'd reconfigure the home screen.. well a grid of icons might be good for you. For me though, I rather like something a bit more useful for a phone.

Or even a tablet.

The lock screen clock looks pretty sweet too, with the 3D rotating live wallpaper of an EVE ship in the background, but frankly I can't be arsed screencapping it and blurring my owner details out at gone 3am. You'll just have to take my word on that one.

Apple removes apology-hiding JavaScript from UK website

M Gale

Maybe a difference between tablet and phone? I've noticed ICS/JB on phones doesn't have that annoying permabar, for one.

A moot point anyway, but still worth a giggle for a company that praises itself so highly on its design skills.

M Gale

So, did they remove the Javascript because it might have got them in trouble?

Or did they remove it because it breaks the page layout on every single available browser for Android?

After all, if you're trying to woo owners of the competition, having your page look like this or even better this, is really not a good idea.

HP warns consumers: Don't downgrade Win8 PCs to Win7

M Gale
Coat

Re: Crapy decision ...

"I don't mind working without a camera, but wireless... Really?"

Seriously? Wifi issues in 2012?

Maybe one of these years will be the Year of Windows On The Desktop. Until then, it's plainly not ready for prime time.

(sorry, couldn't resist).

Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7in Android tablet review

M Gale

Re: Buy cheap...

"(cheap knock offs are never as good as the real thing to be honest :D)"

And expensive knock-offs are even worse. Hence why I wouldn't touch iOS with a barge pole.

Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset review

M Gale

Re: More mugs queing up to be reamed.

"18 month guaranteed support period for WP8 phones. Try getting that sort of guarantee from any one else."

Asus?

Google?

Apple?

M Gale

"standing on the train or on the loo."

Must have a strong seat.

Is this like some kind of steady-aim game?

Office for Android, Apple iOS: 'REALLY REAL this time' - report

M Gale

Re: M Gale == Idiot.

Well gee, I never knew that.

Sarcasm mode off, I know the difference between the Linux kernel and Android. It's the same difference between the Linux kernel and a JVM. One might come with the other, but they are not the same. You might as well say that a web site is a Linux because there's Linux and Apache (and, yes, the rest of the GNU stuff) under there somewhere.

Or just call me an idiot. Easy when you're hiding behind a mask.

M Gale

Re: "If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won" : Linus Torvalds

To use an analogy (and yes, analogies are inherently shit): Android is Linux like a pizza is a motorbike.

One might be delivered with the other, but they are most certainly not the same.

M Gale

Re: @M Gale

These days, so does Microsoft.

In fact, Android is looking less toy-like than Windows 8 right now, which is a bit perverse.

M Gale

Re: @M Gayle

"Guessing you just blindly type into text boxes without looking at what else is on the screen? The option to sign in with a local account is on the same page as the one asking for your Microsoft account."

I expect set-up options to be obvious, not hidden in an Apple-apology style. This isn't Slackware Linux; it's supposed to be easy.

"That said, how is this different to requiring a Google/Gmail account on Android, or an Apple ID on the iPhone?"

Because they are toys, and I'm trying to set up a computer? Let's not forget that you don't need a Google account to use Android. You can install apps from all over the place, and the Google account is for Google services like the Play store.

Microsoft trying to turn computers into toys is half the problem. If I wanted an Xbox, I'd buy an Xbox. Happy that it's hidden away in a VM jail though. I don't think I could stand Metro for doing anything other than selecting which variant of Angry Birds I want to play, and even then I fail to see how it's better than the Frequently Used section of Win7's start menu, or attaching an icon to the desktop.

Still, at least poking around in the settings has found the Local Account options. Microsoft plainly wants to harvest a shitload of email addresses and personal details, and I trust them even less than I trust Google with that, frankly.

M Gale

Have you tried setting Windows 8 up?

No such option available. Or if it is, it's hidden. I'm just glad it's in a VM and I wasn't stupid enough to replace the host OS with it.

M Gale

"Do you need an Office 365 account to access your own computer?

I thought you only needed it to access Office 365, which is running on their computers."

Windows "we need to know your name, postcode, phone number and two valid email addresses to give you access to your own computer you bitches" 8.

M Gale

Can already view Office documents, thanks all the same.

As for Office 365, that can take a run and flying jump along with Windows "we need to know your name, postcode, phone number and two valid email addresses to give you access to your own computer you bitches" 8.

Apple tries to add Galaxy Note, Jelly Bean to patent slapfest

M Gale

Have you looked at a Note 10.1 yet? I don't see iThings with proper stylus control, and you'd have to be a dipstick to confuse Android with iOS.

RISC OS comes to Raspberry Pi

M Gale
Headmaster

Re: Whoo Hooo!

Unix perhaps. Linux = 1991.

I'll go pedant at people somewhere else now.

Who needs flying cars when we can robotically sort Skittles?

M Gale

Nice trick. Hardly groundbreaking, I've worked in places where the colour of labels is scanned by dedicated colour-detection "cameras". Put in quotes because the only output from these devices is not an image but a value for "is what is in front of me the correct preprogrammed colour value(s)?"

For a one-geek-and-some-tools trick though, it's pretty awesome. A challenge to others to see if they can do it better, perhaps!

Windows Phone 8 has a secret feature which may activate at any time

M Gale

There are already several Android apps that locate free wifi hotspots already?

Nice of Microsoft to play catch-up.

Apple to ditch Intel – report

M Gale

Re: Peltier cooling

Unfortunately all that does is makes the heatsink even hotter as the heat is actively dragged from the CPU. Not much good for thin and light designs, because while the CPU might be running at negative-degrees celcius, the heatsink would be rapidly melting a hole in the chassis.

Now heatpipes on the other hand, they can help. Even if only to spread the radiators around the inside of the chassis to distribute and diffuse that nasty hotspot.

M Gale

Re: Itanium

"Tablets do not have sensible GPUs."

Define "sensible". My Tegra 3-powered tablet seems to chug along nicely and render some quite spiffy looking games and 3D live wallpapers, thanks all the same. OpenCV is boosted quite a bit, too.

M Gale

Yes, Windows RT, the locked-down wall-garden, can't-run-anything-asides-RT-apps version, is running on ARM. Windows, however, is not.

Or did you not spot the "full ReTard" quip?

M Gale

Watch OS X (or XI?) drop to sub-Linux levels of marketshare as people discover they can no longer run Windows in bootcamp, or if they can, it's in an emulator and running rather slowly compared to a Core i-something.

I don't think Apple is going to drop x86/64. Not unless Microsoft is going full ReTard too.

Maybe an x64-almost-compatible-but-only-in-Apple-gear processor?

Monitors to grow half an inch in 2013

M Gale

One of these days I'll have to buy a new monitor. Until then, this AOC 9GlrA from last millennium seems to be still working rather nicely. 1280x1024@75hz is more than lovely enough for me, with the option of 1600x1200 and a quite scary (and horribly interlaced) 2048x1536 possible if you give it some persuasion.

Just hope if and when I buy a replacement, it lasts at least as long as this workhorse has.

Beep! NASA here, a 400 tonne spacecraft is about to buzz your house

M Gale

Re: better known as

Minerals, resources, and experiments with dodgy ethical implications that revolve around transporter technology?

M Gale
Facepalm

Re: Great!

Lack of coffee. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

M Gale

Re: Great!

ISS passes directly above the Bristol Channel, over London and on out past the Thames Estuary on a good pass. You should be able to see it low in the sky from there.

M Gale

Heavens Above

Also the SatTrack app from Android that takes the Heavens Above feed and adds a few rather useful extra functions to it.

Also it's not much, but a half-decent reflector telescope and some luck gave me this blurry picture.

Hopefully will get a better one some time with the 100x eyepiece, if I can keep the damn thing steady enough. Try locking onto that thing with a scope and you can tell it's doing every one of those 17,000 miles per hour.

Android: Google's baby ate 75% of smartphones in just 4 years

M Gale

Re: Surely Nokia is also to blame.

"They get royalties from Android"

For now.

M Gale

Re: Android "free"???

It's different because you can get your various apps and items from GetJar, Amazon, AndAppStore, Opera, Mozilla, Handango, OnlyAndroid, Insyde Market...

Well, that's just a couple of minutes of searching. I'm sure you can find more.

M Gale
Trollface

"the latest Android devices can complete with Apple's flagship in usability and style, not to mention costing almost as much."

Anybody who thinks that Reg commentards only aim sly digs at Apple, please witness the above quote.

The Register: Biting the hand that feeds IT.

Naughty-step Apple buries court-ordered apology with JavaScript

M Gale

Odd tablet behaviours?

Transformer Prime TF201. Default Android browser.

In landscape mode, the thing scales to hide the ruling link.

Portrait mode, it tries to scale but fails to hide anything.

Either way around, the layout is broken and the iPad Mini hides under the lower product images.

In Chrome? Landscape mode scales, doesn't have a broken layout. In portrait mode.. WOAH, that is one very thin iPad Mini. Again, doesn't stretch enough to hide the judgement link.

Firefox? Landscape mode OK, scales to hide. Portrait mode, hides part of the iThing under the product images again.

Aurora, as Firefox.

Opera Mobile, as Firefox.

You'd think Apple would have heard of JQuery? Or is there that much of a Not Invented Here culture at that corporation? Is that why they wanted two damned weeks to do what should have taken about two minutes if they weren't dead set on being as dangerously close to contempt of court as possible?

Files aren’t property, says US government

M Gale

I thought the US Govt's answer was even simpler.

We have nuclear weapons and you don't.

Mmm, what's that smell: Coffee or sweat? How to avoid a crap IT job

M Gale

Re: "If it's instant out of a tin or machine, walk ;)"

If it's good instant, I doubt you'll tell the difference.

Personally, unless I'm working for some multi-megabucks-huge corp, I wouldn't expect much more than a tin of Carte Noire or Nescafe. That and if it's a cafetiere, you don't know if it's been cleaned properly. Enjoy those stale grounds.

Free Android apps often secretly make calls, use the camera

M Gale

Re: LBE Privacy Guard.

This of course, would be completely unlike the spying that was baked into iOS and only removed after they got caught with their pants down?

All the phone companies are at it. Funny how Google are the only ones to get called on it though. You'd almost think there was an agenda.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/227011/smartphone_spying_reality_check.html

Kim Dotcom offers free internet with own submarine cable

M Gale

Re: Only 256Mb

Only?

Apple's poisonous Touch silently kills the GNOMEs of Linux Forest

M Gale

Re: Tom

Would have been true 10 years ago.

M Gale

Re: That's why Linux adoption is slower than it could be

Not the only reason either.

Someone recently had a problem with a bad website infecting their machine, possibly through some Java exploit. I suggested they use a VM for running uncertain websites in. They could use a friendly Linux in it like Mint or similar, or even a Windows if they could finagle it into working without paying Microsoft again.

Then I got jumped on by a number of commentards (emphasis on tard) with stuff like "don't be stupid, why would you want to replace the whole OS with Linux just to run a VM", "Windows runs VMs as well you know", "Why would a normal user ever touch something as hard as Linux", and various other statements along the lines of me being a sweaty Microsoft-hating freetard who refuses to pay for anything.

It's like they completely ignored what I actually said, and decided to hallucinate something that I completely didn't say.

Microsoft building its own Phone hardware: Not 'If', but 'When'

M Gale

Re: Android Fanbois

"enjoy needing to carry on rooting and side loading to get the FULL experience."

Why would I need to root my phone or tablet? You know that takes you outside of Google's walled garden and means malware can dig itself in deep? Not to mention the void warranty.

As for "sideloading", named like it's some massively technical procedure, do you really take the average user to be such a plank that they can't drag and drop the APK file, find it in the phone and click on it? To be honest, Average User doesn't need to sideload to do what they want.

As for open source not being always the best, it damned well is in this case. You could argue that Microsoft almost invented the GNU GPL, because Linux and the Gnu project probably wouldn't have gotten half the traction it has without them. It's a great defense against Microsoft's (or anybody else's) monopolistic practises. Just what you want in something essential to an entire industry, like a common operating system.

Brain boffins: 'Yes, math CAN make your head hurt – LITERALLY'

M Gale

Sorry.

Sony KD-84X9005 84in ultra-HD TV review

M Gale

So, uhm..

...how much R&D is really involved in making a screen with the same pixel density as a tablet computer but bigger?

Really 25 grand-per-unit's worth?