Posts by M Gale 3500 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2007
"If you don't believe that, try taking a locking penknife blade with you on a camping expedition because you don't want it to slip and injure someone and see how far you get when the police stop you and question about carrying an offensive weapon."
Don't forget the latest IRL Crazy Taxi/GTA rampage. I'm wondering how the British government is going to ban firearms that are already banned? And didn't that ban turn out well? Look at all the shooting rampages it's stopped!
Erm.
..the alleged project to introduce the "Android Stack" to Ubuntu. I'm rather hoping it bears fruit. If it's anything like I'm thinking, it could be like a dual boot only without the dual boot. Click on the little robot icon and get access to the Android market, straight from Ubuntu?
Yes please.
Also Google, your little robot seems to be spreading to far more than just phones. Would it not be prudent to have different areas of the Android Market for devices that do, versus devices that don't, have things like accelerometers, touchscreens and solid state gyroes? Just thinking of heading a potential future problem off at the pass..
Seriously. It's about as much "Linux" as OS X is BSD. Turn device on. Swipe the little icon thing on the bottom of your desktop upward to reveal app menu. Swipe-scroll through list. Click on app. Run app.
How much simpler can you make it without hiring a personal assistant to do it for you?
Plus "Blow It Up" is better on Android than Iphone, and as for that robo defense game... was 3am before I realised what the time was and gave the phone back.
Android == for everyone, from grannies to geeks. And the stargazing app is better too.
Still, for a tablet I'd like at least the option of installing a "real" operating system. Android is okay, if you want the walled (or at least, waist high fence with latticework) garden approach. Something with a dual-boot so I can go from consumption to production mode on the same machine would be lovely.
Oh hang on.. AI's Touchbook. Does it already, apparently!
..you remember? The one that said it needed IE8 to experience the WONDER of the new site? The one that could be tricked by futzing with your user-agent string?
Wonder if a Firefox (or worse, Konqueror with all its Linux connotations) browser user ended up winning that $10k?
Interoperability my arse.
I believe metallised mylar would be what you're looking for. That's the stuff that "foil" helium balloons (both small and very, very large) are made out of, and I'm pretty sure you get it being used as Christmas present wrapping after suitable patterns have been printed.
I still think using chemical heat pads to protect batteries and such is a good idea though. If only because it's my idea.
So rubber is going to go like "flaky pastry" and batteries will probably die halfway through the journey without protection. So..
..what about those chemical hand warmers that you'll see in hunting and fishing shops? Expose the bag to air and give it a shake and it gets nice and toasty for a couple of hours. Maybe wrap the sensitive components up with a couple of these and something fluffy? How long's the flight expected to be?
It's going to be an interesting next couple of years. Methinks Google had better do something quick though, before this Microsoft-inspired antitrust suit potentially makes them unable to just say "Youtube is now in VP8. You use VP8 or you don't use Youtube."
That'd certainly futz things up a bit for Microsoft and Apple.
..to the "screw them" opinion pile. If newspapers go the way of the dodo, too bloody bad. I for one would not be sorry to see the vast majority of them disappear, though new sources of cheap birdcage liner, loo roll and fish&chip containers would need to be located.
That said, at least the Metro isn't too bad, if 50% advertisement.
Until you can walk into a "petrol" station, have your old flat battery swapped out and a new full one inserted like a Soda Stream bottle. Until you can get hydrogen as an option for your fuel cell at nearly every pump in the country, electric cars are going nowhere fast.
Once you've got infrastructure, I'm sure people will rush to buy something that's more powerful, more responsive and quieter than what they've got.
Not a vinyl router is it? Only I remember being called up by a friend in a signage firm asking if I can help fix the thing. I thought, and said "A.. err... what?"
Turns out that what I was expected to fix was a snooker table-sized thing that looks for all the world like a giant air hockey table with an equally oversized plotter bolted onto the top of it. The C&C machine in this case was a PC from the year dot running (or rather, failing to run) DOS v5.00.
Took a new motherboard/CPU/RAM combo in this case. Cheapest thing in the shop did fine. As far as I know, it still runs DOS...
..so I'm really rather curious as to how IPv6 won't let you use NAT. Since IPv4 doesn't "support" NAT either, as NAT is something of a hack to begin with. What's to stop the same old "create table of connections, map internal requests through the table and make external request on internal machine's behalf" approach of IPv4 (s)NAT?
Granted, 2**128 addresses means NAT isn't going to be needed unless you absolutely do not want a machine with a "real" IP address, but no need to chuck the baby out with the bathwater.
Maybe I need an IPv6 primer or something. I'm confused!
When I see people who aren't hopeless posers with a crapton of disposable income pulling their ipads out, I'll believe Apple has done something. As-is, despite people saying how popular the iphone is, I only ever see one occasionally amongst the flood of Nokias, Samsungs, Sony Ericssons and the occasional HTC.
I predict seeing even less ipads while out and about. Certainly less than the plethora of cheapy netbooks I'm noticing. As I've already said.. Apple fans and people with more money than sense will flock to buy this latest bit of avante garde furniture from Apple, just like some people do with Bang & Olufsen hi-fis.
The rest of us will pay half the price for a machine with twice the grunt and none of the restrictions.
Dodgy copies of things have always been a vector for malware, right back to ye olde floppy disks and tape drives. I think you could say "stupid prices and ridiculous DRM turned out to be the best malware-distribution solution created" and still be accurate. That's a far too inconvenient truth, though.
What I'm annoyed at is that the jump from dial-up to broadband put paid to rogue dialler software. Now we have mobile computers with phones attached to them, the old attacks are coming back. Seriously, how hard would it be to put a warning hook in the operating system? "This software is trying to dial a premium rate number. This could cost you an arm, leg and possibly a few teeth. Do you want to continue? (y|n)"
"Why must you shackle the iPad to previous devices? It's like there are a finite set of labels and you've got to put this device in a category that already exists. If you stop doing that you might see it's a different type of device."
It's a tablet computer, despite what the Cult of Jobs says. It is not a "different type of device" by any stretch of the imagination, unless you include the lock-down and the lack of a keyboard. Or USB port. Or SD card slot. Or multitasking. Or..
"The comment about bricking - what are you talking about? Are you talking about phones and getting bricked because you've broken the contract with your carrier? Apple don't brick devices, but if you jailbreak it might undo what you've done."
My apologies, they only used to brick devices. Now they wipe your machine and undo the jailbreak. Funny though, I can install Linux on my PC and still get warranty support if the hardware fails. Oh, and reinstall Windows if for some bizarre reason I felt masochistic enough. Or I could dual-boot. And still get Windows updates. Why? Because it's a computer. Just like an ipad.
"As for your comment about 30%, you might want to look into channel sales. This isn't a lot of money, many stores charge much more, and the best thing about this store is that there is only one, and that means everyone shops there."
30% is an absolute boatload. There only being one place where you can sell or buy apps is not a good thing. It's what will keep that ridiculous 30% overhead in place.
I'm hopefully going to be doing a computer games technology degree soon. I'm considering mobile and "embedded" devices to make some cheapy games with. Guess what platform I won't be developing for?
I don't think there's as much complaint about the games consoles (though, see the rants about the PS3's recently remotely reduced functionality) because they are basically toys. One would presume a tablet computer is a little more than a toy, as is its smaller MDA (remember that term, before people thought of 'smartphone?') brethren.
As for why a lot of people think it's wrong for Apple to be able to deliberately brick their very expensive device by remote control for daring to do something against some authoritarian user policy, well see "very expensive" for details. I don't give a shit how much they spent on R&D. If I buy an ipad, it's my ipad. Not Steve's.
And turning the content creation side into a monopolised app store with a 30% premium? Ebay doesn't charge that much! And then adding insult to injury by saying I need to get heavily invested in Apple hardware and learning experience before I'm deigned to be fit to develop for the holy iChurch? Fuck you, Apple. There's a robot next door who doesn't care how an application is made so long as it works.
(also, I'm not touching blu-ray until drives are £30 from China and come with multiregion capabilities).
Looks like someone went to the local model shop, bought a few ducted fans and solid state gyroes off the shelf and glued them together with a microcontroller. I'm sure it's cool to watch, but hardly groundbreaking (unless the power suddenly cuts, perhaps).
You could probably shove something like this together yourself for a few hundred quid.
I've been saying this about the BBC for years. If instead of a TV license, it cost the equivalent amount per year for one household to have access to the entire BBC archives going back all those decades, I'd pay for it. Bite the bullet and put adverts on the smaller (ie: not BBC 1 and 2) TV stations for the "free" version, with the same old guaranteed no-adverts-anywhere if you're paying the sub. You can keep the government mandate on what types of programming should be produced, so you won't get a slide into cheesy bland commercial crap. You could log into iplayer from wherever you like in the world. Anyone could buy a "BBC License" (sounds so much better than "TV License") from anywhere in the world, too.
It's still not too late, Auntie. You can become a real worldwide media giant and show people like Murdoch how it's done. Or alternatively, carry on swiping every UK TV owner's money through a tax that's increasingly resented. Your choice.
But surely you'd get your version of Fedora 25.3 or Ubuntu Zealous Zedonk or something, and strip out all of those "security holes" in about five minutes using your uber-skillz?
Like I've said, you're probably quite capable of removing the X server entirely, and rolling your own kernel from source. So hop to it, and let the rest of us who want a machine with an open operating environment that works without a fight enjoy ourselves.
Linux is finding itself on more and more desktops, regardless of what obnoxious geeks with a vendetta against "normal people" seem to want, and you're just going to have to get used to that. As for what Linux is about, who the hell are you to dictate what a free open source project is about? Linus bloody Torvalds? I doubt even he'd have the gall to come up with something like that.
...predates the Mac. And the W and V predecessors probably predate Steve Jobs.
And most operating systems predate Linux. It's the new kid on the block. Nothing wrong with this. It was still doing proper multi-user environments and access controls years before Microsoft or Apple got a clue. All it needs now is a few good game publishers, because that's the REAL driver of domestic computer technology.
Gnu's Not Unix? So that's fail number 1.
Second, while gzipped tarballs might provide superior compression to pkzip, most Windows refugees haven't heard of them. I'm sure if you explained "it's like winzip or winrar except better", people will understand.
Or you could sneer and say how they don't have the right to use a computer, and get the response you deserve.
You are the chemo for the cancer that is killing Linux, or something along those lines.
Seriously, I don't know what snotty ubergeeks have against Ubuntu. If they don't want the X server, it's not like they can't remove it and all the other "hand-holding" with their uber-leet skillz. They can be stuck with a text interface from the 1970s writing their CVs in vim or emacs, while everyone else has something usable.
Everyone wins!
375 pounds = 170.097139 kilograms (assuming earth at sea level).
Google is your friend. Though personally I think we need a measure of mass that isn't also a measure of weight. I recommend the "Paris". Only countable in divisions of two, and 10 Parises makes a Parton.
...each e-book comes with 500 or 1000 flexible sheets that only require electricity to change the image stored on each one. Put all the storage and other gumph in the spine. Then I may contemplate an e-book.
Until then, I might as well just download a PDF onto a netbook. All the disadvantages you'd expect of a computerised reading device, but you can use it as a COMPUTER. Ye gods!
...when a farm was busted just up the road from me. They'd broken into a disused old church and had co-opted the power supply from the street lighting outside.
Funny thing is, it'd been going on for months and nobody noticed. It was only when a police helicopter was looking for something else entirely that they flicked their IR camera on and noticed the church glowing up like Blackpool illuminations...
At least the light outside the church works properly now.
...who simply show adverts of their cars driving sideways and saying how driving should be "fun".
Not that driving sideways isn't fun, but this could be construed as encouraging people to do so on public roads, which as I understand is rather illegal. Not that I've ever sat and watched a lamp post rotating a foot away from the front bumper while the rear wheels kick up snow and ice. Oh no, not me.
You can kill it.. and if you're in one particular version of the Abrahamic faiths feel free to slice its throat out while it's fully conscious..
You can skin, gut and eat it.
But you can't fuck it?
Methinks the law is a little bit screwed up. Not that bonking a slab of meat is my cup of tea, but it's not like a dead squid is going to mind.
Mine's the one with the tofu and texturized soy protein in the pocket. And a flame-proof layer in case people assume I'm into angular sun-wheels due to the first paragraph.
...you don't need a battery to run the engine.
But what's this about auto-locking doors when the car moves? How insane is that? In a crash there's always a chance the door will jam and not let you out. If the door is locked, that chance is significantly higher.
I can see fly-by-wire cars becoming commonplace. No linkage between steering column and front wheels but a bunch of wires and some servos. Now imagine a critical electrical failure at 80mph.
Having a nice, easily identifiable pr0n TLD that can be blocked (or logged) in a pretty straightforward manner by the NetFascist software of your choice, is a bad idea according to the NetFascists?
Methinks the rest of the world needs to tell the Bible Belt where to get off. IE: right here, no need to wait for the next station.
Goggles, because you'll need 'em after browsing .xxx for too long. Maybe a palm-friendly razor too.
Investing countless man-hours making a BSD-licensed OS work nicely, so that some megacorp can then swipe the code and have no obligation to the community that did the work for them other than to stick a notice up saying "this uses BSD licensed stuff"?
The GPL was designed around the methods that businesses like Microsoft like to employ. Frankly I'll have the GPL, LGPL where appropriate, and their anti-monopolist nature over completely public-domain software any day.
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