Posts by M Gale
3500 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2007
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'I'm a PIRATE' confessions spew from OED iPhone dictionary
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
Microsoft demos real-time English to Chinese translation
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
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
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
Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7in Android tablet review
Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset review
Office for Android, Apple iOS: 'REALLY REAL this time' - report
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.
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.
"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.
Apple tries to add Galaxy Note, Jelly Bean to patent slapfest
RISC OS comes to Raspberry Pi
Who needs flying cars when we can robotically sort Skittles?
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
Apple to ditch Intel – report
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.
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.
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
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
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
Naughty-step Apple buries court-ordered apology with JavaScript
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
Mmm, what's that smell: Coffee or sweat? How to avoid a crap IT job
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
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
Apple's poisonous Touch silently kills the GNOMEs of Linux Forest
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'
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.