* Posts by Dave 126

10643 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

No UK date, no biz disties: Will Microsoft cock-up the Surface Pro too?

Dave 126 Silver badge

>I can get a Core i7, 16GB, 128GB SSD ultrabook with Win8 for less that £700. Why do I want his Surface Pro bollocks?

With 1920 x 1080 resolution? Where where where?!

(I'm not saying that justifies the extra cash, but just saying)

There is another manufacturer's laptop-cum-tablet that tickles my fancy, but I've already mentioned it enough, and The Reg has already reviewed its WinRT baby brother)

Pope: Catholics, go forth and multiply... your Twitter followers

Dave 126 Silver badge

To paraphrase:

Go forth and multiply >> Go away and procreate >> Fuck off.

thus demonstrating the danger of the meaning of a message getting confused if it is translated and rewritten- or passed down the ages.

Some OT scholars believe the original text, as far as they can tell, is "go forth and procreate responsibly".

It amuses me that the first person to research the role of fertilisation in vertebrates made little trousers for male frogs, and found the frog-spawn didn't develop into tadpoles. Not only that, but he was a Roman Catholic priest!

Greenland ice did not melt in baking +8°C era 120k years ago

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Keep up the good work Lewis!

Er... how is "we wipe ourselves out" not roughly the same as "we're doomed"? Surely the point of highlighting dangers is to avoid them, rather than let them be an inevitability?

This is always fun, an interview of a man who writes for a magazine that exists to prop up people's sense of entitlement to £20,00 wristwatches and Bentley automobiles (The Spectator), by the president of the Royal Society:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Xu3SQcIE0

The hack has rings run round him and admits to being no more than "an interpreter of [cherry-picked] interpretations" and then whines in his column that the interview constituted "intellectual rape". Aw, diddums.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: "so the models are evidently wrong"

>But they do. Which is not science, it's politics.

Look at a graph of our population over time... it can either continue but this would require the population of new worlds and habitats- or it could plateau (but by what mechanism?) or it could crash, as the is pattern of organisms that outgrow their habitat. Or indeed, the majority of agricultural civilisations in the past.

What, exactly, makes this difficult to understand? I don't really give a shit if we starve because because crops yields suffer from climate change (by whatever mechanism), or if we starve because there are just too many of us.

Its notable that longest lasting civilisations have not based themselves on continued economic growth- China, for example, has for millennia has placed lower status on traders than it has farmers.

The lessons aren't just in the climate models, but are found in history and biology as well.

Microsoft's Intel-powered Surface Pro to launch in February

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Again, sort of want

Nah, that wasn't what I said.

In this Surface Pro device - which is not being sold as games machine or CAD workstation- the HD4000 is fit for purpose. It plays most games well enough though, is fairly frugal, and can transcode feature-length 1080 movies with hardly any CPU load in 15 minutes.

It might not be fantastic, but it isn't shitty.

The reason I picked up on your comment is that it appeared to be based on your experience with earlier Intel GPUs- which were shit. However, the benchmarking sites reckon the HD4000 is a significant move forwards from the previous generation- though obviously not perfect. .

I've used it in a passively cooled 100% silent machine, and it's good. I'm not saying its suitable for all machines and users (and it isn't ideal for me), since of course they may have greater demands, both in terms of raw power and driver support.

Dave 126 Silver badge

@Wardy01

Well said. I don't like MS's past naughtiness any more than the next man, or the thousand little annoyances I've encountered when using Windows. I wish desktop Linux well whilst looking on with interest with Valve/Steam Linux developments, since it might blaze a trail for commercial software to follow.

But I am very tired of the simplistic "Linux is great, Windows sucks" type posts, and the automatic knocking of Windows 8 by people who should easily be able to find a workaround to any UI-related hiccups.

Still, when this article headline mentioned new accessories for this Surface Pro, I did think a set of skateboard trucks and wheels would be cute : D

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I dunno....

2GB suggests a 32bit Atom chip... wait n see I guess!

The most appealing of this new breed is the Lenovo Yoga.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Good luck Microsoft...

>It'll be interesting to see if their vision becomes a reality; merging the fondle tablet and keyboad/mouse desktop genres. Time will tell weather it flops or flies.

Throw in the wildcard of touchless human input- MS have researched this, LeapMotion are gathering interest (and have just signed a deal with Asus to incorporate it into laptops).

I say wildcard, cos it might be that people don't want to wave their hands in the air. Time will tell, as you say.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: ECT

'Strewth DestroyAM, that's pretty dense. You seemed to have compressed Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Enquiry into Values into the first paragraph, and it's follow-up Lila: An Enquiry into Morals into the second.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Again, sort of want

And again:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000.69168.0.html

Compared to the Intel HD Graphics 3000 in Sandy Bridge CPUs, the HD 4000 card was completely redesigned and offers improved DirectX 11 capable shaders, Hardware Tessellation, a dedicated level 3 cache... ...In the slower i7-3610QM and a dual core i5 it was on a similar level as the Radeon 6620G. Therefore, casual gamers that wont mind reducing the quality settings in high end games, may be happy with the performance of the HD Graphics 4000.

The integrated video decoder called Multi Format Codec Engine (MFX) was also improved and should allow even simultaneus 4K video decoding.

Another new feature is the support for up to 3 independent displays (depends on how the HD 4000 is used in the laptop - maybe only with a DisplayPort / eDP).

Due to the 22nm 3D Tri-Gate production process, the power consumption should be relatively low (the development was focused on performance per Watt).

Things do change, you know.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Too fookin' heavy

The HD4000 integrated graphics allows most games at lower settings, decode 4K video and run up to three monitors... should be fine for most people other than gamers, modellers and CUDA-abusers, no?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000.69168.0.html

Dave 126 Silver badge

>What happens when the system becomes so cripplingly slow that you have to nuke and pave? Will it reinstall all >your apps or is it going to be a PITA?

You make a disk image (clone) to an external disk (or network resource) once you have your system as you like it- settings, software installed, nice wallpaper etc. In the event of registry clog, theft, a nasty virus or an act of dog, you recover your system from that image.

What do you currently use?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: How can Microsoft get this stuff so wrong

> the kind of apps which need 8GB are not the kind of thing you should be running on a tablet.

>But then why bother with an Intel processor?

The quantity of software that requires Windows on an x86 processor but is very happy on 4GB or less:

Shitloads.

I've rarely come close to that limit, with multi-layered high res Photoshop documents, CAD, a rendering package and far more Chrome tabs open than I need.

Hydrogen on demand from silicon nanospheres - just add water

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: It won't happen

The micro-spheres are the consumables. You make money by producing, transporting and selling them... and probably some water-purifying kit or system cleaning stuff as well.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Desert

Cheers Badvok, for some positive thinking.

Well, once yo make one solar furnace, you can use that to melt glass for mirrors to make further furnaces. You could create other glass parts, perhaps those moisture-recycling enclosures that have been tested in arid deserts for growing food.

It doesn't just have to be the Sahara, there are other deserts to choose from.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Fuel Cells

>Get this technology out in to the real world, or shut up about it...

Fuel Cells are already in widespread use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Applications

AC fail.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Doesn't this defeat the purpose ...?

> But if it generates so much hydrogen when in contact with water, that doesn't sound like the sort of thing that I let the average user handle.

Nor do you let the user introduce a whole tank of petrol to oxygen and fire... the carburetter and the cylinder do that.

It's still safer than having a tank of highly compressed hydrogen in your car.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Good thing this is the Reg,

Uses, including but not limited to:

"partially prevent femoral bone loss in the aged ovariectomized rat model, increase collagen concentration in calves..."

-Wiki

I don't know how your ovariectomized rats are doing, fellow readers, but mine are doing just fine.

'Op! Op! Op!' Gangnam Style earns Google $8m

Dave 126 Silver badge

So Psy can now buy a real horse?

Chinese boffins crack cloaking tech for camouflage

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: 50+ posts ..

He does need his own icon.

The other solution is to get your enemies to wear sunglasses that turn opaque at the first time of danger.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Dave 126 / three small bushes

>... Mr E.V. Lambert of Homeleigh, The Burrows, Oswestry ["has presented us with a poser:"]

[Bang!]

[Bang!]

[Bang! Arrgh!]

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Um, yeah, but...

>So how is this any better than a picture of a tree, or conventional camouflage?

Because you don't need a tree. The human eye is well trained to pick out the human form... anything that breaks up your shape will help hide you. If a soldier using this kit were stood against a bare skyline (something they are trained not to do, obviously) then it might make them look like three small bushes- each too slim to hide a human, so not a threat.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: I can make 2 ghost immages ...

Well, intoxicating your enemy has been considered by various forces. There was that CIA video of soldiers falling around an obstacle course whilst on LSD, and the Afghans giving the occupying Soviet troops cannabis (probably not great for fighting morale if they have seen the remains of their comrades left at the roadside bundled in their own skins)...

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: More R+D in China

>History shows every superpower rise starts with economy which provides the means to build a large military then the muscle flexing begins, which results in wars.

Creating wealth through trade (and and raining taxes for courts so that traders resolve disputes rather than stab each other) makes your fledgling city city state an attractive target for the hordes outside the gates. So the second thing taxes pay for is defence.

But yeah, China isn't daft and is investing in R&D and the mechanisms to support it.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Pink?

Burgundy? Maroon?

‘That’s not art’ says Apple as it pulls nudes from AppStore

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: But I thought it was OK as long as there are urns, or cherubs in the picture?

>All it needed was a title that made a reference to the classical world

The Rape of the Sabine Women by Rubens?

(Okayokay, I know that in this context 'rape' means 'abduction', as in the word 'rapacious'. )

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: The American dilemma

Or:

"We're all naked underneath our clothes"

Granny Wheatherwax: "I'm not- I've got three vests on!"

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: offensive

>Apples T&C's mean you can't use your phone for any kind of fun, unless you think facebook updating, twattering or downloading 1000's of fart app is fun.

It's never occurred to me to look at pron - or tasteful erotica - on my Android phone. A tablet, possibly, but it ain't a 'deal breaker'.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Only in a Well-regulated militia - 1792 Militia Act defines that

Actually, it's conditional on America not having a standing army- which now they do. And then some.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: what we all love.... I <3 BOOBS!

?

Jay and Silent Bob do know how to deal with internet trolls: (NSFW as if you had to ask- no nudity, just profanity and violence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l1_8wefR7c

Dotcom's Mega smacks back: Our crypto's not crap

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Yawn. Bored with 'Mega' now.

>it a shit name

You must have been a SNES owner : D

Dead Steve Jobs' patent war threat to Palm over 'no-hire pact'

Dave 126 Silver badge
Coat

Re: A or B?

>Shome mishtake shurely?

>>Wow, Sean Connery reads the Reg!

It's a reference to a magazine called Private Eye, that engages in investigative journalism and a level of piss-taking and cynicism that makes El Reg look tame, and was started long before liquid lunches (and thus afternoon slurring by the editor, on his way to being 'tired and emotional') went out of fashion.

Or it might be a pastiche of Private Eye. Pastiche: n. What Sean Connery eats in Cornwall.

-Bogbrush

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Sounds familiar

What, if the Pope and the Dalai Lama poach Tom Cruise they'll open a patent suite against them?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Wait...

It wasn't just Apple who were up to this. You need more than one company playing ball in order for them all to keep their staff costs down.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Jobs

I guess that's why he went into tech and didn't run a hotel in Torquay.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: "no-poaching" agreements

Well, the phrase 'head-hunting' sounds like companies are pygmies in a Rider Haggard book, and "Brain Drain" sounds like torment inflicted by school bullies. I think you might be reading too much into it.

UK malls use Google in desperate stab at luring shoppers off the web

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Bye bye...

> I've been wandering round Princes Street and the environs today looking for shirts

Yeah, I find this: If I want a plain coloured T-shirt, all the high street shops have the same sickly yet fashionable colours. They all stock casual trousers of the same ill-fitting fashionable cut.

> but DSR makes returning things far easier

I had a mate who was in the market for a very high res 27" monitor... if he went to the shop that day and later discovered it had one dead pixel he wouldn't be able to return it- since just one dead pixel isn't considered a fault. If he bought it online from the same shop and had it delivered, he would be able to return for any reason he chose.

Waterstones have also lost out on my custom. They had a new hardback book at an introductory price of £15 whioch I would have paid, but that had ended, and their store now wanted £19 for it. Their website only wanted £15, but since they'd encouraged me to go online I got it for £12 from somebody else.

BT in £52m contract tussle: West Country bumpkins hit with broadband delay

Dave 126 Silver badge

Faster broadband in Devon? Good news for those live sex-cam ladies that Ilfracombe is so famous for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5RVeQFK0LM

DARPA shells out $194m for 'phase 6' of STARnet chip project

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Whatever happened to...

They seem to be researching the building blocks of chips, rather than optimising chip layout and scheduling- which appears to be the focus of most recent papers on GA for chip design.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Is it just me......

D'Oh! I knew I missed an important one!

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Is it just me......

What, things like Tyrell Corp, Weylan Yutani, Ono Sendai, Omni Consumer Products, Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, General Forge and Foundry, General Products...

Google v Microsoft mobile war: Who's REALLY to blame?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Who's really to blame?

It was interesting that a recent Reg article about proposed changes to the USPTO attracted far fewer comments about patents than you would find on any given story about Apple. Oh well.

WTF is... Weightless?

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Deja-vu all over again

>How about a smoke alarm that shuts down all gas and electrical appliances (or their sockets) in the room its in when it detects smoke?

I'm probably just illustrating your point about these things being tricky- but wouldn't that example prevent owners of cordless DECT phones from ringing the fire service?

Nokia lets Lumia 820 owners 3D print their own case

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Hardware Piracy

Ohhh, I see- 'adaptor bricks' to allow different brands of construction kit to be used together! Nice.

Yeah, making individual parts to be used with (or replace broken parts of) existing manufactured products is exactly what 3D printing is good for.

(though still not for making thousands of identical units, which is what I thought was meant)

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Missing the point of 3d printing...

It might be worth looking at a material called Kydex for phone holders... it most common hobbyist application is for gun holsters and knife sheaves- the sheet of Kydex is heated and formed around the object it will house. When cooled it retains flexibility and can be sanded etc.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Interesting Pre-cept

>There will be resurgence when the off the shelf tech gets to an affordable price point, but to me this is a cliche headline marketing bumpf.

Agreed, when the Nokia rep put out the idea, he suggested the user making "a waterproof, glow in the dark case with a bottle opener". No.

The home user is often better off with some epoxy for making little things that. Kydex is a handy formable sheet material- well suited for making dashboard cradles for phones etc. Loving Sikaflex at the moment- a very strong adhesive and sealant, remains permanently flexible after curing.

I'm still assuming that no more people will own a 3D printer than currently own that hobbyist's favourite, a Dremel hand drill. I can currently see more practical uses for a desktop laser cutter for thin materials than a 3D printer in the home- larger functional objects, stencils, jigs... and yes, bottle openers.

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Now that's real innovation.

>Now, is some someone going to print a prototype case with a chorded-keyboard built in or what?

Just found someone has done just that and implemented it. His blog is here:

http://srimech.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/chorded-keyboard-for-mobile-phones.html

He wouldn't need the external battery if he owned an Android phone with USB OTG support...

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Now that's real innovation.

>To give you a hint, it'll be several orders of magnitude higher than buying a moulded, third party case, via eBay.

That's very true, if thousands of other people buy the same case. Which they probably will- I can't imagine someone having case requirements that are so off-the-wall that they are thy only person who have them.

Now, is some someone going to print a prototype case with a chorded-keyboard built in or what?

First Google wants to know all about you, now it wants a RING on your finger

Dave 126 Silver badge

This magical ring will work on my Android tablet too ? oh no, Google designed it without a USB port

Google haven't really designed the tablets, some are LG, some ASUS, IIRC. Many Android devices do have a USB host port, disguised as the standard microUSB port- that's why microUSB has 5 pins instead of USB A's 4: shorting the extra pin to ground tells the tablet to act as a host, so that thumb sticks, card readers and keyboards can be plugged in. See USB OTG

That said, one of the LG-built Nexus devices won't do it all, another needs persuasion.

Ballmer now flings out work rivals, rather than chairs, claims ex-Microsoftie

Dave 126 Silver badge

Re: Cringe

>Don't insult Neanderthals - apparently, they were quite intelligent!

They were- they just weren't as nasty as us!

Still, some of us Europeans have up to 5% Neanderthal DNA... amazing really, that interspecies breeding went on before beer was invented!