* Posts by stucs201

1293 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Feb 2010

Fantasy Premier League falls over

stucs201

Meh football :(

But if you insist then this is much more entertaining : http://www.fantasyfwit.com/

Star Wars fans offered Blu-ray deals and previews

stucs201

Yes but

Have they cleaned up that nasty scratch on the film that made it look like Greedo shot first?

New DVD discs claim 1,000 year life

stucs201
Thumb Up

I like the simplicity

Theres a certain genius is writting discs the way someone without much technical knowledge might assume they're written. Burning holes with lasers FTW.

Pacific island mints Star Wars coinage

stucs201
Pint

Perfect for underage alchol purchases

Barman: The kid looks underage, can I see some ID.

Obi-Wan: You don't need to see his identification.

Barman: I don't need to see his identification.

Apple eyes phallic iPhone, iPod charger

stucs201
WTF?

An for those who don't use headphones?

My iPod gets used in the car with the car stereo. Do they really expect me to plug in headphones if I want to charge it at home?

stucs201
FAIL

Well someone completely missed the point...

...that the point of wireless charging (*) is convinience and not having to mess about with wires.

Doh! Given the company involved I'm guessing they've been investigating ways to remove another blemish (port) from their idealised featureless black slab design (**) but were worried that they might add a millimetre to the device thickness and this would be seen as a backwards step by their fanbois^h^h^h^h^h^h^h loyal customers. Classic bit of form over function design.

(*) exception electric toothbrushes where its about keeping water out.

(**) They'll probably be sueing Stanley Kubrik for copyright infringement in 2001 when they achieve this.

NASA Legonauts set for Jupiter voyage

stucs201

Mixed feelings on this.

I'd agree actual plastic lego would have been better and cheaper.

On the other hand I'd consider 15k to achieve the goal of "inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics," money well spent if I didn't know the details.

Game graphics could be 100,000 times better

stucs201

Is this really new?

If I understand the description correctly this sounds like its just tiny voxels with a tool for generating them from polygon data?

Of course I may misunderstand.

Who needs a million NFC tags?

stucs201

Suggested application

Use proximity of the tag to trigger a wipe and reset of the phone. Why? So your personal information is protected when you eventually put the phone back in the box to flog on ebay - lets face it still in the box is where these tags are most likely to be.

Microsoft boffins propose cloudy home furnaces

stucs201

Actually I do know one geek who didn't think of it

The one at university who used to switch his PC on in hot weather because it had a fan in it. He did physics too so should have known better.

(Although this was only a 386SX, so not quite as toasty as a modern PC)

Microsoft's MS-DOS is 30 today

stucs201
Pint

Happy Birthday DOS

Might have to hunt out a boot disk and stick it in the floppy drive for old times sake.

Sorry, time travelers, you’re still just fiction

stucs201
Headmaster

re: The Doctor

No, thats his assumed title. We don't actually know his name.

stucs201
Pint

re: virtual particle pairs

There is another way to look at these than a particle/anti-particle pair appearing and then anhilating. An anti-particle on a feyman diagram looks the same as a normal particle travelling backwards in time. So another model is a single particle oscilatting backwards and forwards in time. I.E. Time travel, but heavily restricted by the energy-time version of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and therefore useless for getting next week's lottery results.

Of course if this model is correct then it rather messes up the Hawking radiation theory, since I'm not sure how half of the pair falls into a black hole if its really a single particle. Just need the LHC to generate some quantum black holes so we can establish which is happening experimentally (by getting hawking radiation or not).

Mobee Magic Charger

stucs201
Facepalm

re: step 5

Except the mouse moves, the mousemat doesn't.

A wire running to the mousemat can be routed neatly once and any slack tucked away out of sight. A wire running to the mouse moves around with the mouse and can get caught on stuff.

stucs201
FAIL

Oh dear, so much wrong here

So many places where people have failed to think on this one:

1) The original failure. Why doesn't the mouse come with a charging dock in the first place? Every wireless mouse I've ever bought came with one. Never had a problem with running out of charge unless I've forgotten to put the mouse away for several days in a row (one of my wireless mice solved even this by having exchangable batteries despite having a charging dock).

2) A USB powered mouse charger? So the obvious assumption is the charger is powered off the computer? Except you want the charger powered when the computer is off and you're not using the mouse, not when the computer is on and the mouse isn't in the charger because you're using it. OK you can get a USB adaptor that plugs into the wall, but thats yet another thing to buy.

3) Why wireless? Whats wrong with a couple of metal contacts? Works fine on my wireless mice. A little more efficient that wireless charging.

4) If you are going for wireless power to the mouse then why use it to charge it? Why not power it directly? Put the charger in (or under) the mouse mat. At this point USB power starts to make sense too, since you need power when the computer is on (not when its off). Now take it a step further, if you've got a USB wire running to the mat to power the mouse then put the reciever in the mat too. Reciever is now much closer to the mouse (especially compared to a plug in the back of a tower under a desk), so less chance of signal problems as an added bonus.

Toyota tech to steer cars round jaywalkers

stucs201

re: Beetle

Odd choice of car if you don't want it driving for you. Have you never seen any of the Herbie films?

BOFH: Axe handles - occasionally quite slippery

stucs201

Or bring your daughter to work day

Hmm, BOFH with a portal gun. That could be fun.

Gamer claims complete console collection

stucs201

Amstrad Mega PC?

Ok not a 'pure' console, but there was one in there in addition to the PC.

stucs201

Vectrex?

Can't see it...

stucs201

No master system

but he seems to have a 'marter' system, looks kinda similar...

NASA

stucs201

Not JCB

Scroll around the map a bit further and you'll find their high-g training facility. Better known as Alton Towers.

AMD says Xbox 720 graphics to be good as Avatar

stucs201
Boffin

Perhaps they mean...

...as good as the graphics in this Avatar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(video_game)

(googles? No smurf icon available, so picked the only blue icon)

World's first turbine powered Batmobile hits roads

stucs201
Mushroom

Ok thats the turbines sorted...

...well one anyway. Now what about the atomic batteries?

Blighty's rocketeers gather for ballistic love-in

stucs201

re: baler twine

Hmmm, sounds like this might be the country bumpkin's equivalent of gaffa tape.

ISS and Atlantis crews face 'daunting' box-shifting job

stucs201
Facepalm

@agd

You're right of course.

stucs201
Headmaster

Tonnes might be a unit of mass...

...but pounds are a unit of weight (force due to acceleration by gravity). So it should read:

They now just have to empty Raffaello of "0 pounds [4.26 metric tonnes] of spare parts, spare equipment, and other supplies - including 0 pounds of food - that will sustain space station operations for a year".

That done, they'll then pack it with "more than 0 pounds [2.54 tonnes] of discarded station gear" for return to Earth.

Apple said to have 3G-enabled iPod in pipeline

stucs201

aren't many other features Apple can add

Er, a few seconds thought:

Radio? FM and/or DAB. Maybe even TV tuner?

Intergral FM transmitter? Instead of buying an external one for the car.

More capacity? Its still a long way behind the classic on this (and the classic is overdue a capacity bump)

USB 3 for faster synching.

Doom guy: tablets, phones to be gaming platforms of the future

stucs201

3D on a PC

> And there's the development in 3D television. This will allow future consoles to present a

> genuine 3D experience which we're unlikely to see appear on a PC in the near future if only

> because few will shell out twice for a large and expensive 3D screen.

Er 3D in various forms has been available for the PC for longer than the consoles...

I'd also expect glasses free 3D screens to work a lot better with the relatively predicable viewing position of being sat in front of a PC.

stucs201
Thumb Up

Exactly

Far more to a decent games machine than just the processor. Besides I'd expect a new X-box and playstation to be appearing by the mobile devices catch up on the processor, the current ones have been around a while.

LG dooms then un-dooms portable games consoles

stucs201
Mushroom

Am I the only one...

...who still thinks of id's classic game when they see 'doom' and 'games console' in the same sentence?

Now where's that BFG...

Bug-Byte Manic Miner

stucs201
Linux

Always looks wrong in colour to me anyway

Had the Dragon 32 version, which was black and white. On the plus side it did apparently have 2 extra levels. Not that they were much use, I could barely get past the first one :( Chucky Egg on the other hand, I was rather good at that :)

Penguin Icon? Dragon's cheat code: P P PENGUIN

Next iPhone to sport thinner, lighter casing, says paper

stucs201
Holmes

iPhone X+1 thinner and lighter than iPhone X

In other shock predictions the sun will rise in the East tommorow.

Anti-PowerPoint Party vows end to death by slides

stucs201

re: hammers

I might not want hammers banned just to prevent me smashing my fingers with them. However if other people routinely used hammers to smash my fingers I might want something done about it...

Call of Duty given ultimate Star Wars makeover

stucs201
Facepalm

Are they sure...

...that referencing the Episode 1 trailer is going to give Star Wars fans much hope that this is any good?

Blighty gets gold-dispensing ATM

stucs201
Coat

this is apparently required

Could be useful in the event of a cybermen invasion I suppose.

(Mines the one with the sonic screwdriver and bag of jelly-babies in the pocket).

stucs201
Mushroom

Re: OOH SHINEY

>You cant eat it, you cant forge it into anything useful cos its too fucking soft.

>you cant make clothes out if it.

Depends on your definition of useful. I believe it makes pretty good (if expensive) radiation shielding.

Earth orbit for £1,000? You must be joking

stucs201
Paris Hilton

No, no lohan

If this is to come after PARIS it needs to be HILTON:

Hydrogen

Inflated

Launch

To

Orbit

N-Winner

Pricey Apple Thunderbolt cable inner chippery exposed

stucs201
WTF?

Why...

...isn't all that gubbins in the port where it belongs?

Google field tests (yet another) Facebook rival

stucs201
Thumb Up

I'm probably getting my own share of downvotes for this...

...but I really don't see why so many downvotes. I agree the whole value of a social networking site is being able to contact your friends through it. Therefore the one which makes sense to use is the one which your friends use (even if it takes a few minutes occasionaly to sort out undesirable default settings). A new completelty separate social network that my friends aren't on makes as much sense as a whole new telephone network I can't call the phones on the existing network from.

The only way I could see multiple social network providers making any sense (for the user) is if they cooperated a bit and defined a standard by which they could all talk to each others servers and appear as part of one big system that the user picks their prefered supplier for (you know - the way email, usenet and the phone system work).

Student geeks build Rubik’s cube solving bot

stucs201
Terminator

I never said it was faster.

"Short Circuit" in reference to a film with a robot which says "Disassemble" and "Reassemble" quite a bit. Not "Short Circuit" as in faster.

(Terminator? No Johny 5 icon available)

stucs201

Or the Short Circuit approach

"Disassemble" "Reassemble"

El Reg pays by phone – mmmm, free cookies!

stucs201

What do you mean, people don't like change

That loose change in my pocket is perfect for paying for small items such as cookies.

How to... change sleep-screen pics on your Kindle

stucs201
WTF?

Not wanting people to see the cover

Seriously? That'll be why I used to see so many people reading paperbacks with the covers ripped off then. Oh wait, that didn't happen.

If its really such an issue, which it isn't, then a simple option to select 'Current Cover', 'Random Artwork' or 'Blank" would give something relevant for most people and a getout for the paranoid.

stucs201

Cover image

I've never understood why it doesn't just display the cover of the book you're reading. Or would that be too obvious?

Boffins grow brains in petri dish

stucs201
Facepalm

New icon time already?

So we've only just had a icon update, yet this makes me think a brain in a jar icon may have been nice.

Total Recall rehash – exit Martians, enter Jessica Biel

stucs201
FAIL

See icon

see icon

RIM PlayBook strikes back at Jobsian internet dream

stucs201

might make sense to Americans

but to the rest of the world it sounds like a games machine. Playbook makes as much sense as a games console called a workstation would.

Danish embassy issues MARMITE WAFFLE

stucs201

If your sh*t looks like marmite...

...then I suggest you need to see a doctor and get that problem sorted out.

Zuckerberg: Give me your children

stucs201
Thumb Up

re: it wasn't me

"(a) Guarantees there will be no advertising of clickthroughs or other attempts to extort on under-13s pages."

If they implement that I'll be lying about my age to turn off the ads.

Gadgets give granny disease to kids

stucs201
Thumb Down

Yes too much button bashing hurts

But so does holding a pencil/pen/crayon for too long. Better ban colouring books too.