* Posts by RyokuMas

1913 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Oct 2009

Google jumps the shark from search results to your camera: Nest Hub, Pixels, and more from ad giant's coder confab

RyokuMas
Paris Hilton

Re: I bought my Nest thermostat before Google bought them

"... created by Apple and their army of brain-dead zombies.

Funny how these claims are being made by "Anonymous Coward" accounts...

Everything's just fine at Google's mothership: $1.7bn EU fine, slower growth take their toll

RyokuMas
Facepalm

"Without the fine, EPS would have been $11.90, and profit would have been down 11 per cent or about a billion dollars, year-on-year."

Clearly the fine wasn't big enough then.

We all love bonking to pay, but if you bonk with a Windows Phone then Microsoft has bad news

RyokuMas
FAIL

"So _WHY_ does Win-10-nic *STILL* have that 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE that was quite literally INVENTED FOR THE PHONE???"

Probably because the average home user spends more time now on their phones that they do on their desktops/laptops, and thus feel more comfortable with the flat interface you still can't seem to adapt to.

Cope.

RyokuMas

"The fact that they killed off Windows Phone and went head first with Windows and Cloud... "

Yeah, in a rare moment of clarity (probably brought about by the transition following Ballmer's departure), Microsoft realised they had utterly missed the boat on mobile. Yes, they probably could have made it stick eventually if they'd thrown enough money at it, but they actually got something right in realising that the Cloud was the next big thing - and now Google are playing catch-up (although both are still chasing after Amazon, before someone gets pedantic!)

At the time, I thought it was a shame that WinPhone was axed - out of the three platforms, it was the one I had enjoyed developing for the most, but it makes sense from a business point of view. But that was before things like Microsoft buying Xamarin, VS support for Unity etc., and now we have a slew of cross-platform development tools.

In fact, I can't help but see irony in the current situation: Ballmer was all "developers, developers, developers" - and it's only since MS dumped WinPhone that we've seen them backing tools to allow said developers to cut loose, regardless of target platform.

Google rolls out Android Easter Egg for Europe – a Microsoft antitrust-style browser, search engine choice box

RyokuMas
FAIL

Devil's in the detail...

So, going by the wording on that image, an Android user "... can choose additional search services/web browsers..."

Key word - "Additional"

What's the betting that the first thought going through the head of the average Joe is "why would I need an additional search service/browser..."?

Once again, Google paying lip service in a blatant attempt to avoid a fine while keeping as close to their original product tying tactics as possible.

Google hits brand slam stamping AMP with more crypto glam

RyokuMas
Thumb Up

Re: So, amp whether you like it or not

Redirect AMP to HTML on Chrome.

It's under a different developer handle, but if you go to the developer's homepage on the firefox add-in, you can find a link to this, so I guess it's legit...

RyokuMas
Devil

"Google makes speed a factor in mobile search ranking"

What's the betting that Google also makes having AMP implemented a factor in Google search ranking?

Embrace, extend...

Google readies Pixel for the masses, but are the masses ready for Pixel?

RyokuMas
FAIL

Re: Google has since declined to send us any more samples

"do it yourself, I'm not going to do your donkey work"

Translation: "I'm scared that the results might prove me wrong"

RIP: Microsoft finally pulls plug on last XP survivor... POSReady 2009

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: Hardware requirements

"so typical of win-10-nic fans, to be so smug about it"

...

...

...

"We're actually SMARTER than the average Win-10-nic user."

Pot. Kettle.

Analysts get hot under collar as ex-Oracle cloud guru ditches corporate wardrobe for Google

RyokuMas
Devil

Any excuse...

"Customer empathy, you have to understand where they are"

Shouldn't be difficult with the amount of data Google slurps...

It's alive! Hands on with Microsoft's Chromium Edge browser

RyokuMas

So long as...

... Ghostery, Adblock Plus and FB Purity all work, I might give it a look.

No Widevine DRM for you! Developer left with two years of work stymied by Google snub

RyokuMas
Devil

Not a monopoly, honest...

"I'm sorry but we're not supporting an open source solution like this,"

Odds on this exact functionality appearing in the next few updates of Chrome???

Google plonks right-wing think tanker and defence drone mogul on AI ethics advisory board

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Pot, kettle...

"Google... aiming to convince punters they take the immoral use of their tech seriously

Did I miss something here, or is this some kind of Orwellian doublespeak?

Oracle asks Supremes to snub Google's Java API copyright protest – and have a nice cuppa tea, instead

RyokuMas
Devil

Nuff said

Given Google's attempt last year to patent work in the public domain... need I say more?

Hey, what's Mandarin for 'WTF is going on?' Nokia phones caught spewing device IDs to China, software blunder blamed

RyokuMas
Trollface

"An undisclosed number of Nokia 7 Plus smartphones have been caught sending their identification numbers to a domain owned by a Chinese telecom firm."

Wouldn't have happened if Nokia was still running Windows Phone...

Welcome. You're now in a timeline in which US presidential hopeful Beto was a member of a legendary hacker crew

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Wishful thinking

"... he'd just leave El Reg forever..."

Unlikely. This is the sort that just thrives on attention, like the five-year old who's learned his first swear-word from his elder sibling and knows it gets a reaction.

The best we can hope for here is some kind of Eadon-esque meltdown where trolling eventually spills over into the realms of libel - and a similar end result. Openly admitting to staying in order to troll people seems like a good start down this road though.

Meet games-streaming Stadia, yet another thing Google will axe in two years

RyokuMas
Stop

It represents an attempt to make gaming less onerous yet another source of data and outlet channel for advertising

TFTFY

RyokuMas
Facepalm

They haven't managed it yet for Android and Google Play, so....

UK libraries dumped 11% of computers since 2010-11... everybody has one anyway, right?

RyokuMas
Stop

Lies, damn lies and...

"Almost 4,000 computers have been cut from public libraries in England since 2010"

Does that include the libraries that have flat-out closed thanks to "austerity"?

Just look at Q! Watch out Microsoft, the next Android has a proper desktop PC mode

RyokuMas
Stop

Re: North of 85%...

"... Google has almost no market share in actual phones"

True. But for the average Joe who has just bought his Android phone from his outlet of choice, the first thing he's got to do is either create an account with Google, or log in using his existing one. Either way, he is immediately tied (in data terms) to that device, regardless of who made it.

Facebook may be as bad in terms of data slurping, but you're not pushed into anything with them before you can use your shiny new handset.

RyokuMas
Devil

North of 85%...

... and an ecosystem that is (to all intents and purposes) as tied to Google Play and other services as a certain combination of operating system and browser from 20 years ago...

Tell me - at what point does the definition of "anticompetitive monopoly" start?

What today links Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram – apart from being run by monopolistic personal data harvesters?

RyokuMas
Stop

Re: FB are lying (again)

... and in other news, the sky is blue and water is wet.

Karpeles walks, Google and Microsoft board up Windows hole, and Android AV still sucks

RyokuMas

"... the code pairings needed to pull off a proof-of-concept could not be found."

Of course, had Microsoft not been in a position to patch the issue, it's a pretty solid bet that the code pairings would have been found out there in 90 days, given who actually it.

Microsoft unzips Zipline, lets world+dog have a go with cloudy storage compression tech

RyokuMas
Coat

Zipline, George and Bungle

Don't know so much about "George", but "bungle"... well, it's Microsoft, so only a matter of time, really.

Brit prisoners to be kept on the straight and narrow with JavaScript and CSS

RyokuMas
Trollface

the "joy" of JavaScript

I'd plea bargain for the electric chair...

Facebook blames 'server config change' for 14-hour outage. Someone run that through the universal liar translator

RyokuMas
Coat

Universal liar translator...

... mine is pinging between "trying to stuff more ads into the feed" and "trying to break FB Purity"...

Windows XP point-of-sale machine gets nasty sniffle. Luckily there's a pharmacy nearby

RyokuMas
FAIL

Re: WinXP machines are still for sale... @MJI

"I doubt anyone wants to hear that, nor use it (for that matter)"

Not since Microsoft's last "froggy in hot water" maneuver, anyway...

RyokuMas
Trollface

Re: Perfect timing

They're probably having trouble adapting the PoS interface to come with "Win-10-nic's UGLY FLATSO" UX style...

On the eve of Patch Tuesday, Microsoft confirms Windows 10 can automatically remove borked updates

RyokuMas
FAIL

But surely, the original code was designed, written and tested by developers who were safe in the knowledge that they would NEVER! HAVE! TO! TEST! IT! AGAIN!!!... right?

Crew Dragon returns to dry land as NASA promises new space station for the Moon

RyokuMas
Happy

Cracking cheese, Grommit!

RyokuMas
Stop

Re: And with this mission, USSR/Russia is consigned to be the Portugal of the Space Race.

"That could all change with a single ego-burst from Putin."

Only if they can find another Sergei Koreolev to make it happen...

Alphabet top brass OK'd $100m-plus payouts to execs accused of sexual misconduct – court docs

RyokuMas
Joke

False accusations...

Well, having looked into the matter, I can only conclude that these are false accusations and the parties concerned deserve their payout.

I know because I Googled it.

Is that rain or tears of frustration on your face? Google Cloud bursts, Console and Dataflow washed away for hours

RyokuMas
Trollface

Curious...

Interesting how this has been up for twelve hours without comment... where are all the usual comments about how unacceptable this sort of thing is?

...

...

...

Oh wait, it's Google Cloud, not Azure! That explains everything!

ReactOS 0.4.11 makes great strides towards running Windows apps without the Windows

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: Win7

"Same with removal of Win32..."

... because us developers just luuuuurve maintaining shonky old legacy applications that were written back in the pre-clean-coding-practices dark ages.

Meizu ditched hole-free phone because it was 'just the marketing team messing about', not because no one really gave a toss

RyokuMas
Facepalm

No surprises...

"it's not something many people want"

Considering that whenever a new phone is reviewed on here you can be pretty certain someone will make a comment about the lack of removable battery or SD card slot, I can't say that this response comes as much of a shock...

Google finally touts $150 pint-sized Linux dev board with Edge TPU AI math copro brains

RyokuMas
Trollface

Re: Mendel Linux

Probably on a private Google repo somewhere...

From hard drive to over-heard drive: Boffins convert spinning rust into eavesdropping mic

RyokuMas
Joke

Patent time!

A new way of converting something common into a snooping device? Quick, down the patent office before Google tries to nick it!

You'll never guess who's giving Google a right shoeing lately. Talking about barring Chrome, Search as defaults... any other nations watching?

RyokuMas
Joke

Because Google is tacking the piss...

Customer: We fancy changing a 25-year-old installation. C'mon, it's just one extra valve... Only wafer thin...

RyokuMas

Re: The dirtiest four-letter word...

Never said they weren't - it's just that Google are even more so, and considering that it is they linchpin of their business mode, they have a lot more experience at it.

Lesser of two evils.

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: The dirtiest four-letter word...

Given Microsoft's penchant for bumbling, I'd rather hedge my bets on Windows and all that brings rather than use an OS from a company that has its whole business plan based on capturing as much data as possible.

RyokuMas
Devil

Re: The dirtiest four-letter word...

"you know about computers - can you just take a look at..."

That stopped a while back for me, thanks to a simple strategy - when asked "can you just take a look at...":

1) Protest strongly and repeatedly that you're a programmer and "don't do hardware/operating systems"

2) Eventually give in and reluctantly agree to take a look

3) Turn their computer into a very expensive doorstop

Word soon spread...

RyokuMas
Stop

The dirtiest four-letter word...

"... it's just one extra valve..."

In my twenty-or-so years commercial experience as a software developer, my biggest take-away is that "just" is the dirtiest four-letter word in the language of specifications...

Prodigy dancer and vocalist Keith Flint found dead aged 49

RyokuMas
Unhappy

Holy crap...

"Charly" and "Everybody in the Place" were staple tracks back when I made the jump from "hello world" type programs to seriously trying to make games.

Only six years older than me, too... the world is a poorer place.

'God, Send Mobiles,' the industry prayed back in the '90s. This time, 5G actually has it covered

RyokuMas

Re: One OS to rule them all...

"Remember those "Vista Ready" laptops?"

Yes. My mother in law had one, which I was semi-regularly asked to maintain. I still have flashbacks...

RyokuMas
Facepalm

One OS to rule them all...

"But 5G has mobes galore."

Too bad that they're all running the same spyware OS by default. Did we learn nothing from Windows?

Crowdfunded lawyer suing Uber told he can't swerve taxi app giant's £1m legal bill

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: A 2 B

Fine until you get greyballed...

Unearthed emails could be smoking gun in epic GDPR battle: Google, adtech giants 'know they break Euro privacy law'

RyokuMas
Joke

Re: I'm very sorry for them...

"With time, they invented marketing, a new way to exploit people...."

I thought they just renamed it crunch time...

Azure Pipelines go Slack while Microsoft frees data breakpoints from the shackles of C++

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: whoopee, ".Not" got something that C++ already had for, like, EVAR

"I was a total Microsoft Windows fan up until the announcement of the ".Not Initative" when Ballmer took the reigns. The 1997 PDC here in San Diego was the last conference I went to. I instinctively knew that Micro-shaft had made a sharp turn and was heading into the WRONG direction."

Trying new things is called "innovation". Sometimes it works, a lot of the time it doesn't (Microsoft seems especially good at this side of the equation), but without it, we wither and die.

Basically, you're saying they tried something new that you didn't like and you're bitter about it. Boo hoo. If your comment had read like a rational argument, then maybe it would have carried some weight. But no - here is the same old rant being trotted out again, complete with name-calling ("Micro-shaft", ".Not"), attempts to establish superiority ("those of us who actually know better"), and 90s AOL style use of caps, stars, underscores and deliberately incorrect spelling ("EVAR") in an attempt to draw emphasis.

We get that you do not like modern Microsoft. We get that you do not believe that their current UI style or initiatives are the right way to go. But, like it or not, this is the direction they have decided to go. If there is a specific issue that comes up in an article that you feel the need to comment on, then raise it and discuss it like an adult - these "it was better in the old days" rants and they way they are written are just plain boring now.

At least Eadon's explosions were mildly entertaining. Grow up.

The UK's Cairncross Review calls for Google, Facebook to be regulated – and life support for journalism

RyokuMas
Facepalm

So in summary...

"Okay, we're can't fine or tax them as their retaliation could do far more damage to us than anything we throw at them..."

"Christ, how did that happen?"

"Well, everybody bought into the free stuff and 'do not evil thing'... but that's not the point! C'mon, we need to be seen to be doing something here!"

"Wait a minute... how about we say we want to review what they do and set up a watchdog to keep an eye on them in future?"

"Hmmm... no threat of retaliation, looks like we're doing something and jobs for our mates - that's genius!"

From Red Planet to deep into the red: Suicidal extrovert magnet Mars One finally implodes

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Not surprised about this, but...

... having looked at the other options, why the hell have we not at least had a shot at Mars Direct?