Posts by VinceH

Re: Software costs nothing to develop!

"Of course, Apple's only cost is the hardware. No software to develop, marketing, distribution etc etc."

Do you know, I can't help but wonder if the writer of the article may have been referring to that sort of thing when he said "and, crucially, development costs have to be recouped" - the headline was probably penned by someone else.

The bottom line (see what I did there) is that the people who do these tear down reports have no way of knowing those costs, so they can only report on the costs they can reasonably determine: the bill of materials. Always read them bearing that in mind.

Re: VinceH

Firefox - and yes, I have Javascript disabled. (I have it allowed by default on some sites, and on others I temporarily allow it as seems necessary/if I feel trusting enough.)

archive.org's scripts were allowed - that was enough to allow them to play on archive.org.

theregister.co.uk is allowed by default.

twitter.com and twimg.com are allowed by default.

No embedded games appeared either here or on Twitter - as I said, just links to the game's page on archive.org

However, in the interests of science, I have now allowed all scripts to run (and I've paused Ghostery's blocking, in case that was a factor)

The page took a lot longer to load than before, and no longer scrolls smoothly - and there are still no embedded games, only links to the page on archive.org

And again, looking at the tweets on Twitter itself (logged in or not) and they still only contain the link, with no embedded game.

Running through the config, I can't see anything obvious that I've set that would be blocking the games when embedded (or from being embedded).

I've now also loaded the page into Internet Explorer and Chrome - still no embedded games, only links (and nothing's disabled or blocked on those because I don't normally use them in anger, only for testing my own pages), and the same in both browsers when looking at the tweets on Twitter.

I won't bother trying NetSurf! ;)

Re: 'two eggs/four slices of bread'

= two egg sarnies.

Not in my book!

For me, a single sarnie is what can be made with one slice of bread, folded in half with appropriate filling. As soon as two slices are involved (since I usually cut the result in half) it becomes two sarnies.

Unfortunately, I've just had my toast... all this talk of egg sarnies has now given me a hankering for just that! Grrr!

Oh well, best go and prepare my roast pork sarnies for lunch at the office... ;)

Re: Geek toy

"This makes it different from every other wearable so far how, exactly?"

Mage said it was different from every other wearable so far where, exactly?

Re: Bah!

It doesn't matter if it's open or closed if it now owns the light bulbs.

Re: That Start menu...

"...has been variously broken (depending on what sort of account you use to log on with) in every build so far."

Well to be fair, they actually broke it for Windows 8, and they're trying to fix it in Windows 10 - what you're seeing isn't various levels of broken, but various levels of fixed that aren't quite there yet.

Re: Clearly, no mirrors. True.

Edward Nigma is also known as The Riddler in Batman if that helps - but it doesn't matter, because I had a strange brain fart moment when I wrote that: the symbol most associated with The Riddler is (duh) the question mark, not the exclamation mark.

Re: Italian Job

"Charlie's team showed how lax security was on the "smart" traffic system in Turin in 1969. It looks like nothing has improved since then..."

A more up to date documentary on the subject suggests it's even worse since then.

Re: If it uses leccy then it will be connected to the IOT

Nor here, where it isn't the internet of things, but the internet of unwanted things: iOUT!

Re: Surprising

"People trained in law are terrible at security!"

Spot on. I've known quite a number of people in that category over the years, both professionally and personally, and I can't think of even one out of the lot of them who had barely more than an ounce of security know how. Not one.

I'd have liked to add "...before they knew me and I taught them a thing or two" to the end of that, but the sad truth is that it always seemed to go in one ear looking for the quickest route out the other.

Re: I must be missing something

"Seems easy enough, the iBot was Fred Upstairs after Fred Astaire and shortened to simply Fred. The Segway came after and was called Ginger, presumably for Ginger Rogers."

It only seems easy enough if you already knew what it meant. The sentence as written is nonsense because it includes circular reasoning - it reads that they got their codenames because one of them had a particular name. You can take the second out and it becomes an explanation that the iBot's codename was Fred because it was Fred Upstairs. It's silly.

This page (because I looked it up myself when I hit that strange sentence) makes things clearer. It explains that "The iBOT's code name was "Fred" or "Fred Upstairs" for the ability of the balancing and stair-climbing wheelchair to give the user the agility of the famous dancer, Fred Astaire."

So it wasn't called Fred because it was Fred Upstairs, after all - and that then leaves us with the Segway being called Ginger because the iBot was called Fred or Fred Upstairs.

"Who's for an implanted RFID chip?"

The UK Government (and probably other governments around the world) if they think it'll be a neat alternative to an ID card and would help in the fight against the nasty paedophile terrorist pirates.

Re: Nice website

"Is there one specific pylon in this country that's seen as the top dog or one which you particularly like?"

Heh!

Yup, I've actually been sitting here wondering about that for a very long time - so I'm glad that website exists to answer my question! And I'm sooo glad two that are almost on my doorstep - the two spanning the Severn Estuary - get a mention in answer to that.

No, really. Would I lie about something as glorious and beautiful as the pylon?

Why, yes, yes I would.

In all seriousness, though, if I was a member of that society, I'm afraid I'd be a dissenting voice - because I quite like the appearance of the new ones.

But then, I also quite like wind turbines, despite other people around me thinking they're ugly.

"However I've become somewhat addicted to GTA Online, which I won't go into detail about how much I play except that I'm level 502... but I do realise eventually one day the GTA V Online servers will be taken offline so I'm making the most of what I have right now, and when the servers do go cold I'll still have the offline version of GTA V to play, which is still fun but sadly I'll lose a whole heap of content and idioms of the game the Online version offers."

I have GTA V - and I've completed the offline game (the main storyline game, not all of the offline content/missions, on which I think I'm at about 75% - I haven't played it once since completing the main game, though). I buy it for the offline game - the online side is a potential bonus if I ever decide to use it (before the servers are unplugged!)

Re: Game of Torrents!

"Part of the enjoyment of series like Game of Thrones is talking about it with friend"

You can say that about any TV series - but it doesn't matter one iota to those of us who don't give a rat's arse about "the social aspect" of a series.

I have yet to see a single episode of Game of Thrones. I probably will see it, eventually, when it really is old news and everyone else is talking about the next big thing (after the next big thing after the next big thing). I couldn't give a flying frig about that.

Re: huh?

"methinks the wifi logo looks different..."

The WiFi logo is used to represents wireless networking capability that meets certain standards, whereas the "own logo" referred to is CSIRO's "own logo", as in the one that represents them.

Please fix your spelling of cider.

Re: >it probably writes data back into its

I know - I was just expressing my general annoyance at such software in general.

I have one item which until last year had instructions to turn off UAC because of the problem - but there's now a new version, which is designed to play nice compatible with UAC.

How does it play nice with UAC? The installer now defaults to installing it in C:\Progname\ instead of a subdirectory of C:\Program Files\

Was it ever really on your wish list? It certainly wasn't on mine* precisely because scope had the potential for widening (not to mention the potential this thing has for abuse).

^{* Except possibly as a Christmas present for annoying people - but the more annoying they are, the less I'd want to spend on them.}

Re: Qnza vg!

"V rapelcg rirelguvat hfvat qbhoyr ebg13 (sha snpg, gur jbeqf 'vex' naq 'irk' ner gur ebg13 pbzcyrzragf bs rnpu bgure"

I've always liked that "terra" and "green" rot13 to one another. Not exactly complements, but still a nice result.

Re: Caption 1: no stickers

I seem to be seeing a different article than you - because I see "Caption 2: No stickers" and "Photos 1 and 3: sticker."

Your point, however, is perfectly valid.

"I had thought about buying a Playstation 4. Now I'm glad I didn't."

Quite.

I've generally been saying that I don't like the idea of the PS4 (the need to connect it, etc) and would therefore be more likely to stick with the PS3 and the wealth of games I already have. However, that didn't mean I definitely wouldn't get a PS4 at some point.

With this, though, Sony have made that decision for me: No way will I ever buy a PS4 now.