* Posts by M Gale

3500 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2007

Google opens up pay-by-bonk Wallet to all credit cards

M Gale

But, but...

I already have a bank card, and it comes without silly bloody radio shite attached!

Still wondering how to permanently disable NFC, whether it'll be as simple as cutting a track. I really hope so because it's getting difficult to find a smartphone without it these days.

Nasa guides Mars Rover with Kinect

M Gale

Re: Nice.

...and a reply from the resident Microserf? I should have guessed.

When I see anybody I know, at all, who has a Kinect, I might take you even semi-seriously. This thing would probably garner more attention as a ROM available for DS R4 carts, as it will as Kinect software.

Not saying I don't want a go but.. Kinect? Really?

M Gale

Nice.

Now if only I was one of the two or three people with a Kinect...

Surely a mobile version would be more widely used?

Microsoft unfurls patent lasso, snares Linux servers

M Gale
Trollface

Bit of a masochist then, are you?

M Gale
Trollface

Just remember.

This proves that people would rather pay Microsoft protection money for nothing, than actually use Windows.

Readers fret over LOHAN's chilly bits

M Gale

Coin Cells vs AAAs

Duracell CR2032, shorted through the multimeter. Maximum current reading, about 25mA. This may have been a faulty battery, as a much smaller L1131 button cell gave about 450mA, rapidly dropping to 400mA and lower.

Duracell Plus AAA, shorted through the multimeter. Maximum current reading, about 1.5 amps.

Just out of curiosity, an Energizer Ultra+ D cell, maximum current draw of around 2 amps.

Make of that what you will. I'd go for solder-lugged AAAs, myself.

M Gale

Re: replace batteries

A fuel cell seems possible, but it weighs about a kilo for a 100W PEM fuel cell before you start adding the hydrogen tanks. Given the cell also requires oxygen, you'd also need that taking up as well. It's also about £800 for the cell, before you start going into specially-designed low pressure storage tanks for the boom juice.

Definitely not cheap, probably about a kilo and a half to two kilos all in, but you get a steady 100 watts at a flow rate of 1.3 litres of hydrogen per minute according to this source.

Yeah, a stack of D cells would last long enough and probably weigh less. Including, perhaps, the vacuum flask.

M Gale

Stack o' button cells.

Nice idea, but does a series stack of CR2032s give enough current to set a fuse off?

If not, three cheap-ish lipo cells (100-150mAh or so) probably will work. Might even be able to make the whole affair light enough to have two or three firing circuits just to make sure.

Valve to raise Steam for Ubuntu

M Gale

Re: Interesting rant, obviously never tried it

So...

I can use Steam without creating an account? Or hoping that Steam's servers don't fuck up for the activation of a game I've bought? In fact can I play a game without somehow activating it, like Micriosoft's insidious and just as awful WGA abortion?

Ah. I can't.

Sucks, then. Sorry. No, I haven't tried it. I just have to see other people trying it to know I don't want it. There are games out there that don't demand installation of malware though, fortunately. They are few and far between... but they get my money. Valve does not. If it's not as simple as "install and play", I am not interested. It's a toy, for fuck's sake.

M Gale

Re: Ummm?

Try and buy a PC game without it and you'll see what I mean. I do not want another forgettable, hackable username and password creating just to play with a toy. I will not risk some third party's servers fucking up and denying me access to software I've paid for and I resent the accusation that I'm a pirate and I need to be proven innocent first.

It's bad enough on Android with the perpetual "license error" bugs. If I'd have known that paid apps on that platform were basically Steam-ish shite by another name, I'd have not paid for them. Just another thing driving me towards root and the 'bay.

Ya hear that, Valve? Google? EA? Ubisoft? The lot of you fucking retards? Paying customer here, or I could be. Get rid of your invasive malware or I will make unauthorised, ironically malware-free copies out of principle as much as practicality. There is a bloody big difference between copy protection and the shit you are pulling.

M Gale

"When Steam for Linux does go live, it'll be available on Ubuntu 12.04"

Please don't tell me this is more shite I'll have to uninstall? I've been avoiding that malware ever since it came out and I don't intent to create an account for it now.

Microsoft 'didn't notice' it had removed Browser Choice for 17 months

M Gale

Re: Who the frig cares? Browsers never made any money....

"OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market."

"By folding extended functionality (e.g. Storage+ in file systems, DAV/POD for networking) into today's commodity services, we raise the bar & change the rules of the game."

"Part of the reason that Apache was able to get a foothold and take off was because the HTTP protocol is so simple. As more and more features become layered on top of the humble web server (e.g. multi-server transaction support, POD, etc.) it will be interesting to see how the Apache team will be able to keep up."

All made possible by bundling their own browser in with an OS that has a near-100% market share. If allowed to succeed, Microsoft would quite simply control the Web and be able to tax it and exclude all others as they see fit. A bit like they can do already on the desktop.

Like I mentioned earlier, you'd think some people had never read the Halloween Documents. Take a good look, and tell me whether Microsoft don't desperately deserve everything they've been hit with and quite probably a good deal more. It's no good shouting "MAKE BETTER STUFF" if you can't "MAKE BETTER STUFF" without being owned by Microsoft, or indeed, any other patent troll.

They'd de-commoditize the English language if they could.

M Gale

Re: Totally pointless

A few years ago, Microsoft were very close to making it so that you needed to have Windows and IE in order to view the Web. See my previous post about HTML extensions that depend on DirectX, which is only ever going to be available on Microsoft-approved platforms. You know, like Windows and the Xbox. In this case, the browser that people want would be the only browser that would have worked on the vast majority of websites, which would have been IE. Running in Windows.

Sheesh, it's like people don't read the Halloween documents. You think Microsoft have changed in the slightest since then, except for the worse?

M Gale

Re: Users didn't notice it had removed Browser Choice for 17 months

Sure.

About the same time that Microsoft stop trying shit on like filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Fade(sProperties).

Which would be, uhm, never.

M Gale

Re: And at what point...

About the same time they gain near-enough 100% of the desktop computer OS share?

Let's face it, you can get along quite nicely without ever touching an Apple-branded machine. Try that with Windows and see how far you get.

No, neckbeards who like to pretend that LaTeX is the same as Office or in any way appropriate for normal people, you don't count. And yes, I do use various Linuxes.

Slash for cash: boozers' bladders primed for Olympic pee game

M Gale

So it's like one of those old Speccy/c64 games...

...only instead of buttons, the game developers have restored the old, and original meaning of the word "joystick".

I wanna go.

Sleek new Macs violate fanbois' Retinas with display garbage

M Gale
Trollface

"I think we get the message"

But evidently Apple don't.

Build a bonkers hi-fi

M Gale

Re: Fell at the first hurdle (almost)

I still don't know why the big deal over valves. Sure, you can get nice-sounding valve amps these days, but you can also get lovely-sounding transistor amps that don't have the requisite 30 second warm-up associated with valves.

In a guitar amp? Sure, the overdrive characteristics of valves provide a much richer distortion than the awful, scratchy clipping you get from an overdriven transistor, but we're talking hi fi here, shirley? You know, as in trying not to overdrive things?

M Gale

Re: Bonkers? oh yes.

If you're that serious an audiophile, you'll already have digital everything from the CD ROM to the amplifier. Any DAC will be inside whatever expensive amplifier you have, with nowt but raw digital data being sent via SPDIF, digital coax, fibre, or whatever digital output is on the back of your PC. This is without going into skip and jitter prevention technology like, say, a buffer.

The days of analogue audio cables running from the back of the CD ROM to your sound card through the copious RF noise inside your PC ended some 10 years ago.

M Gale

Re: Bonkers? oh yes.

Laser turntable

Only a snip at $10,000USD or so.

Oh, and $770 for the remote control. And another three thousand Amurrican bucks if you want "High-Resolution Sound Quality", whatever the hell that means.

Perfectly suited for this set-up, then.

Finnish boffins don tinfoil hats, admit Northern Lights are noisy

M Gale

Science is a methodology and cannot be arrogant.

However there are some unscientific scientists about.

M Gale

Whatever it was, that bloody huge fireball back in March made a hell of a noise. I thought it was a jet engine on fire at first.

I'll probably never see something like that again, either.

Tablets, copycats and Weird Al Yankovic

M Gale

Anorak != Uncool

You'd be surprised how many people wear them. Rugged outdoor clothing is not just the domain of trainspotters and star trek addicts.

Cut'n'paste UK launch for cut-price Motorola Android

M Gale
Trollface

"panned on Facebook"

Must be good, then.

Anonymous vows to wipe web clean of child abuse scum

M Gale

OpPedoChat

Perhaps there's a few Anons concerned that their image of pedobears, cake and CP is being taken too seriously?

"We're trolling you, you fuckwits. Need some proof?"

Google Nexus 7 Android tablet

M Gale

Re: Baffled...

You would be surprised. While running the mobile chipset takes up some juice, and running wifi takes up some juice, running the portable AP does seem to eat vastly more juice than both put together. The more data you transfer over it, the faster your battery flattens.

It's kind of telling that my Xperia Arc S only gets really red hot when I'm running the portable AP. So hot in fact, I've had it stop charging itself - apparently this is a safety feature.

Kind of annoying that since the ICS update, it randomly turns the AP off though. Ho hum, that is a different issue.

M Gale

Quick query...

25 watt speakers? Or should that be 2.5 watts?

Assuming RMS and not some bullshit PMPO measurement, 25 watts is less "annoyance on public transport" and more "let's have a party on the bus" levels of noise.

M Gale

Re: Baffled...

How long for, and what's your battery mAH?

I'd be surprised if it was longer than a couple of hours, assuming your battery was absolutely full to begin with.

M Gale

3G

Fine for youtube, fine for web browsing.

The only thing 4G will give you is the ability to hit your unlimited limit faster.

You do know the iPhone only had EDGE when it came out, right?

M Gale

Re: 3G

Has anybody here complaining about 3G tablets ever actually tethered through their phone?

If they had, they'd know that the wifi hotspot feature might as well be called "the energy vampire". It eats batteries for breakfast. Alright if, like me, you have £80 worth of Energizer XPAL in your pocket, but that's just more dicking about on top of the dicking about with a phone when what you really want to use is a tablet.

Plus I've seen people with dual-SIM contract deals anyway. One for the phone, one for a dongle... or tablet, if you like. Ask your provider.

Japanese boffins demo EV on-the-move charging

M Gale

I want this in Formula One

Well, haven't you ever played a futuristic racing game with boost strips painted onto the tarmac?

Global warming: It's GOOD for the environment

M Gale
Paris Hilton

Just to be a little pedantic.

I thought "plant food" was a mixture of nitrates and phosphates, usually provided by the rotting matter in the soil and sucked up via the root system?

CO2 is plant food in the same way that O2 is animal food, shirley?

Door creaks and girl farts: computing in the real world

M Gale

He's not alone.

And "just send it as an email attachment" is not a solution, at least not outside the USS Dipshit with its perfectly functioning terabit-level 3-million-G coverage.

Yes, let's send a bunch of pictures and MP3 files halfway around the world and back again, via spotty 2G/3G will-it-won't-it coverage, to my friend sat 3 feet away from me. Think Different? Yeah, I'm sure a lot of the kids on the short bus think different too.

Fuxache Apple, support OBEX already. Bluetooth's main uses on a phone is earpieces and file transfers.. unless you have an iPhone, where bluetooth is about half as useful as with everybody else. For no good reason.

M Gale

Re: No-one took it off you.

Meanwhile, on the Starship Joefish, where hardware lasts forever...

...but back in the real world, things break.

And spinning disks are far from dead.

M Gale

Re: quite a lot of people, actually

"Who wants a crappy mechanical spinny-plastic-disk interface taking up so much space..."

Anybody who buys music from a shop?

Yes I know, it might be hard for those up in a Jovian orbit to realise that some of us might visit the real world on occasion. You know, where shops are made of bricks and mortar, and have physical products in them. Including CDs, and DVDs!

And no, streaming shite and buying the right to download an MP3 is not an acceptable substitute. Not unless you're paying my traffic bills.

Review: Samsung Chromebox

M Gale

Re: much, much, MUCH too expensive

I wouldn't call him too tight fisted. This is a cloudy OS, where everything you do and everything you type is more than likely being keylogged and mined for all it is worth by the world's largest ad company. It's a paperweight if, like me, you have an Internet connection that comes from a phone and isn't there when the phone isn't.

If anything, £190 is over the top. I'll have one if it's free and Google pay me to use Chrome OS, but not otherwise.

Samsung fails to get Galaxy Tab ban in US lifted pending appeal

M Gale

Re: AS GREEDY AS APPLE

I've always labelled Apple and Microsoft as being two peas in the same pod. It's just that up until the iSomethings, Apple were never popular outside of the graphics and media industries.

Think Different, indeed.

Android Jelly Bean won't get Flash Player

M Gale

So...

...what happens when someone does the same "run it in a data centre and stream it to the device" cheat that Photon and vBrowser use?

Enjoy your lack of OnLive client. I think I'm going to go play Unreal Tournament 3. On a phone.

Or maybe on a tablet?

I'm kind of undecided there.

M Gale

Re: FLASH is supported on iOS

Running the Flash site on some honking big data centre and then streaming it to your device is not "Flash support on iOS".

By that measure, my Droid devices support a fuckload of PC games via the OnLive client. You know, the one that's still not been released for iOS?

Now stop being silly.

Apple hardware fixer Bob Mansfield retires from Cupertino

M Gale
Headmaster

Re: a nickel would be 1 bob not 5

Nybble, shirley?

Jaw-jaw no more-more as calls fall down tally of phone tasks

M Gale

Actually...

...so-called "smartphones" used to be called "MDAs" before a certain fruity company decided they invented the concept.

Mobile Digital Assistant.

Doesn't really roll off the tongue as easily as "phone" though, so phone it is.

Apple patent may foretell an end to iPhone autocorrect Tourette's

M Gale
Trollface

Re: Dics too big

^^^is that even possible?

Sorry. I had to.

M Gale
Mushroom

Re: Been there.

Shhh, your Furry is showing.

As if "Suricou Raven" wasn't clue enough.

<--- I believe it's fashionable to say "kill it with fire" here.

War On Standby: Do the figures actually stack up?

M Gale

Re: Spot on

Sounds like the sort of person it's worth creating a test rig for. Multimeters are cheap these days, and it'd be funny to see her face when the current required drops through the floor as you turn the device off.

Especially if immediately followed with "yes actually, I do know better."

M Gale

I like the idea, but...

"and with leccy from the grid being much more expensive than than the equivalent kWh of gas"

For now.

Diesel used to be cheaper than petrol. Then lots of people bought diesel. Oh, lookit what the fuel companies went and did!

M Gale

Re: You've never rewired house lights have you

"Well if I am, presumably my two electrician friends are mad, and so is the building inspector!"

Considering I've seen stuff signed off that looks like a horror story, well that wouldn't surprise me.

Didn't surprise me when it came undone a few years later too. Luckily the only thing that happened was the immersion heater stopped working. Nothing caught fire.

M Gale

Re: We need to invent light switches!

Re GU10 (and similar) downlights. Try the 240v LED versions. They're more expensive, but a 5 watt LED lamp will easily match a 50w halogen, with the advantage that you can put the palm of your hand right up against an LED downlight that's been on for an hour. No need to start driving heatsinks up into the insulation, and a tenth of the electricity cost for the same amount of light output. Not to mention the truly ridonkulous lifespan of an LED.

Awesome and win all round, really.