Posts by M Gale

Re: Users were not so much won over to new versions

First thing I did with Windows 7?

Made the taskbar work properly.

First thing I did with Office 2010?

Ignored it and used OpenOffice.

So much for being won over. I think I'll give 8 a miss.

Re: ummm

Pretty much this, yes.

I know all of the VM (previously BlueYonder, previously C&W) boxes in this street, because they are the only boxes in the street. BT's stuff is either underground (under aforementioned GPO manholes) or stuck up on poles.

It's also ancient to the degree of barely being able to get broadband, and the location is smack in the middle of four exchanges, on the distant edge of them all. Joy.

How many sites get blocked until it is of interest to you?

(and why did my last post get yanked?)

Re: On PC We have Steam...

...in itself a reason why quite a few people, myself included, avoid such games like an AIDS-infected leper with bubonic plague.

Re: Infact feeling for anyone that bought a 7in tablet.

No Google Play store and a battery life that could be described as "awful".

Yes it can probably be rooted, modded, have a dodgy Google Play APK installed, whatever, however it's not exactly iPad-easy is it?

Still, at £80 I guess it's a techie's plaything. Just not much cop as a general public plaything.

Re: If I was Apple

"...since the 30 pin dock connector does a hell of a lot more than what USB can do..."

You know what the "U" part of "USB" means, don't you? Even the old version 2 is 480mbits/sec of fun, more than enough to send a stream of digital information to an ickle microcontroller in a USB Video Adapter or somesuch.

Really though, I don't see Apple changing that dock connector. It's their baby, they've gotten a whole market of people making iThing-only docks for it, and they'd piss a rather large number of not-unimportant people off if they made everyone from customers to manufacturers change their shit around. Might even prompt some of them to make a universal dock that isn't ball-and-chained to Apple.

Oh please, Apple, change the dock connector! I double-dare you!

Phrenology.

I dun like 'im.

His eyes are too close together.

Re: Sorry... no more Sony for me

Facebook, Email, Get Apps, Get Games, Liveware Manager, News & Weather, Music Unlimited, PlayNow, Performance Assistant, Timescape, TrackID, UEFA.com, vscreens, Video Unlimited, Wisepilot, XperiaTimer...

Dunno about the AC, but these are apps I never use, that I can't uninstall. Though I can "disable" them since the update that I needed to install two different kinds of Sony bloatware onto the computer for, one of which bluescreened it.

At least, I can disable *most* of them.

Re: Proves the real reason for tablet computers:

"Err

You have come across ASUS's Transformer Prime ?"

Got one. Stroking it right here actually. The proper keyboard helps, and using RDP over a decent connection is pretty good. It's £500 though, and a netbook is £300 or less and has a bigger HDD.

Pounds spent per unit of productivity? Still better with a cheap laptop or netbook for most cases.

Re: Ignorant Haters

There's nothing quite like religion to take all the credit away from good people in the name of a fairy tale. Anyway, asking the heretics and apostates here to read some history and do some research on religion of all subjects, really is opening yourself up to a can of ass-whup. I think I'll just sit back and watch the fireworks, myself.

Re: Difficulties of an enormous canopy...

...there aren't any! Well, asides it being enormouse. Use a round parachute and attach the balloon to the centre of it, like "proper" meteorological set-ups use. The parachute is effectively already deployed, and is just waiting for the balloon to burst before the drop fills it up with air.

I can't see why the parachute can't be whatever size you like.

Re: Don't buy USA goods

Except Japan's intellectual property laws are highly influenced by the country that dropped two fucking huge bombs on them circa 1945 and totally ruined their shit.

Japanese IP law is as bad as US.

Re: @M Gale

"Scientific enquiry in the modern sense was more likely to arise from monotheistic belief in a universe governed by God through laws of nature, than from polytheistic or atheistic belief in an essentially chaotic and capricious universe."

A bit like the Greeks, who were quite advanced for their time despite having an entire pantheon of gods. Or maybe the Romans, who adopted monotheism at about the same time their entire civilisation went kaput? The Egyptians performed some minor miracles with a sound knowledge of building materials and an almost endless supply of cheap, disposable labour. Oh, they were pretty polytheist, too, what with horus, ra, and set and all the rest.

The key thing here is that religion served to concentrate wealth and control. Once that had happened, one person with a brain can control an army, if they believe said person has some kind of godliness in them. It's okay to waste 100,000 people on a bloody big triangular coffin if your local collection of sky-fairies say it's what you're supposed to do.

I will reiterate: Religion has not served to advance science one iota.

...and what's this about "belief in a chaotic and capricious universe" being an "atheist" belief?

Re: Google Calling the Kettle Black

"Oh, and my ROM is..."

Hate to say this, but this immediately discounts everything you've said.

Standard options please. My mum recently got an Android phone with her contract, but if I said "you can root it and install Cyanogenmod" her answer would be something like "I understood everything up to the word 'can'."

Still, it's not like the stock ROM won't allow you to install Firefox. Or Opera. Or Dolphin. Hell, I even have MX Player Pro for my videos, and I'm looking for a better music app because Google Play Music is desperately awful shit.

Desperately awful replaceable shit, I must reiterate.

Re: muggers, get yer smartphones here!

Or alternatively, any phone with wifi?

ZTE Blade. Real high end, that one. I can see it fetching a pretty penny down the local pub, a whole £2.50 or so! That's assuming it's not loaded up to the hilt with tracking software and the owner isn't about to appear with six friends and a baseball bat.

Smartphones. A risky business for a thief.

Re: Dogs

Err, kilohertz, not hertz.

40khz is well into the ultrasonic. 44.1khz is the sampling rate of a compact disk.

Maybe I should have said 40,000hz?

Re: Next step...

Wouldn't that be a gaser cannon?

Has some hilarious comedy potential right there.

Re: There can only be one...?

The reason Apple still exist is because Microsoft gave them a rather large chunk of cash in return for shares. Whenever Apple make money now, Microsoft make money. Kinda makes me wonder why Ballmer is bothering with mobile at all.

Re: Thrust driven swing wing

WRT v-tail, I was on about losing the entire stabiliser. Given independant servos, you've a chance of bringing an aircraft in with half the stabiliser gone if it's a nice airframe. Lose half of a v-tail and you're pretty buggered.

Anyway, the glide ratio doesn't need to be massively brilliant at 100,000 feet. With the wings swept back you could go for a high-speed descent, tearing toward the landing site like some NASA black ops test vehicle until the atmosphere becomes thick enough to support a more gentle glide that won't tear the bottom of the aircraft off when it hits the floor.

Plus, you know, added awesome, and all.

Re: Andrew

What pisses me off isn't copyright. If somebody wants to try and sell their new sparkly word processor at £500 a pop, I honestly couldn't give a damn. I might point and laugh at them a bit unless it really is worth every penny of that huge price, but it's hardly worth posting Angry Bloke comments on a web forum about.

What pisses me off is using copyright or, lately, the even more broad patent concept to control just about everything you can about how people use their products that they bought from you. What pisses me off is after shelling out a shitload already on a decent computer, there's a tax to be paid to Microsoft if you want to use any kind of widely-available software. The continuous attempts to destroy rather than encourage interoperability by shackling every possible means to do so behind patent taxes and threats is a disease, and Oracle's behaviour towards Java on Android is yet another example of this. They didn't invent the language, they bought the business and then started trolling everyone.

So remind me, just how well is this working out for us, Andrew?

We live in a society where greed is encouraged...

...and you blame the guy?

He wasn't a domain squatter. He was using the domain since before Google decided to buy Gmail. That he tried to get the highest possible price he could from an entity that is hardly strapped for cash is not reprehensible under the circumstances: It is commendable.

I hope the courts at least forced him to sell it, not give it away. Not that that's much better, mind.

What, don't you have any domain names yourself? I wonder what happens if in a few years a new "Google E" service comes out and they want your domain name for themselves? You going to just hand it over, or are you going to grab every penny you can, assuming you even want to sell?

Re: TV Detector Van

Easily defeated with a capacitor or a UPS in the right place?

Re: Pass

Oh that's okay. I believe the 'bay will probably be able to help you before long. They'll happily give you the option of not installing crapware. Or paying for it.

Re: 1992 called. They want their network back.

"Yeah mate, just getting in the back now. Driver, airport please. Look I'd like to continue chatting about this billion-dollar business deal but the stupid phone compan....BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP..."

Or perhaps some kind of more humanitarian scenario if money's not your bag. You going to begrudge someone a call to their significant other in the hospital while their mate's blasting down the motorway trying to get there on time? "Calm down love, I'm not sure if I can hold him in but he'll be here when you get here" might be the words that save two people's lives there.