Posts by Dave 126

Re: Life changes, tattoos don't

Anton has a point: those tattoos have really held back Mr Beckham's otherwise promising career and rendered him unattractive to all women.

Re: Marketing genius.

> So sad but so true. I feel a breakaway online republic coming on, one that rejects this idiocracy based version of society

You've given me a great idea for a TV show. Technocrat Island, or Nerd Tribe or Misanthrope Colony or whatnot. Not a show I would watch, well not unless it all goes Lord of Flies, but one that will make money. Pro tip to contestants: your survival more likely if you can enthuse others to the merits of not thumping you.

That's the trouble with Internet tribes and flame wars - not enough real sticks, real stones and real flames.

FiiO had a model with a scroll wheel, though most if their range is touchscreen Android based. A few if their models have dual SD card slots - currently up to 2x 256GB, but someone might have got 512 to work. They mostly use ESS Sabre DACs, which have the reputation that Burr Brown or Wolfson used to enjoy.

There are other vendors offering similar kit, ranging from £100 to £stupid, but their names escape me right now.

Like discrete compact digital cameras, PMPs haven't disappeared completely due to smartphones - the survivors have just got better and and less expensive.

However, some versions of Samsung Galaxy phones, some of the LG G and V series phones and some others offer very good audio quality (the dac and amp stages) - and will take SD cards and offer more flexibility in terms of content than the dedicated players

Re: Slang

I don't think those of us who responded are the same cats who downvote you!

Re: That's a lot of data to lose

> *You can put some apps on the memory card, I have in the past. I didn't notice a slow down to be honest.

Well not all apps are that big, and some of the bigger apps keep their resources (example, in a game model textures) on the SD card. The way Android treats SD cards has changed over the years, and sometimes swapping a card (to transfer data between devices) can sometimes cause issues for apps.

However, most Android phones' internal storage is slower than iPhone NAND (see Anandtech benchmarks) so difference twixt internal and SD card storage speed is less pronounced.

You can get portable music players with dual SD card slots, with far better audio than any iPod, for around 100 quid.

The scroll wheel bit is harder to come by though.

Re: Huh?

Stuff that was originally downloaded - such as movies or music - and can be downloaded again doesn't need to be backed up by the user. The event of storage failure is an inconvenience and not a disaster.

The idea of using a phone with a big SD card as off-site backup for one's computer is worth thinking about (in event of house fire one probably has phone next to bed, and will escape house clutching phone to call the firebrigade). 512 GB would store photos of family events etc.

Re: Slang

It comes from ready money, ie cash as opposed to a cheque or asset that must be liquidised.

Re: That's a lot of data to lose

The NAND in iPhones is far faster than an SD card can be accessed (the bottleneck is often the bus). This is good for snappy app loading times and saving very high frame rate video, but overkill for audio files.

Re: Easily.

Well, I guess having a single SD card prevents the opportunity to lose it whilst swapping between smaller SD cards, especially for folk with impaired eyesight or manual dexterity - though swapping cards in Android devices has other pitfalls anyway.

But yeah, it's niche - most smartphone users don't go a month away from a WiFi hotspot or their homes. Having a huge library on a single device is *nice to have*, but for most not essential, since there are other ways of accessing storage, and its usually cheaper than buying such a large SD card.

Re: Guilty as charged...

For the old type bicycle cranks that attach to a square section bottom bracket, a torque wrench on the 8mm Allen key was recommended. In most other situations though just a bit if mechanical sympathy is all that's needed.

The kit form Rep Rap 3D printer has its open source building instructions online, and sensibly starts with a list of required tools. Allen keys are there. What it doesn't say is that ball-end Allen keys will save a lot of swearing.

Like spanners, the most commonly used sizes of Allen key will be the hardest to find when you want it. On bicycles this usually means that somewhere a herd of 5 and 6mm keys is hiding out with all the 10mm spanners, sharing the safe house rent with Elvis.

Re: Purely academic research

Warning! The above video contains flashing lights.

To wit, flashguns directed at a woman in a swimsuit.

Re: Not a new problem

You could remove half the cars at a stroke if ride sharing was the norm. The obvious carrot would be that the car driver would travel more quickly on a less congested road (if the reduction in traffic didn't encourage more people to travel at that time). Humour behaviour is complex.

Re: Obviously the solution is....

> Bikes are not a solution because it is cold or rainy enough of the time. We don't all live in fucking LA.

Poor weather is a barrier to cycle adoption, true, but it can be engineered around. For starters:

- better clothing. Also, heating elements on handlebars if bike already has a battery.

- an enclosed fairing. The extra weight and wind resistance can be mitigated with an electric motor.

- urban design. Main cycle routes could be covered.

The other carriers to cycling are:

-safety concerns. Can be mitigated by better urban design, car design, driver and cyclist education.

- hygiene. People don't want to be sweaty at work. Some workplaces have a shower.

- theft of bicycle. Some countries insist that workplaces allow worker's bikes to be securely parked.

The article wasn't talking about what is needed to make VR fun, but rather what is needed to make VR indistinguishable from reality, so for that reason comparison to TVs and monitors is only of limited use.

If we ignore that most people have two eyes, we can think about how we could try to render a real looking scene in the entirety of a users field of view using a huge bank of monitors (if they are low DPI then no problem - just use more of them and place them further away from the user!). The issue would still be processing power.

We aren't conscious of only being able to focus sharply on a small area because our eyes move around a lot and our brain builds up an image that it presents to us. There's lots of optical illusions that illustrate this.

Re: Obligatory Apple reference

Regina Display is a marketing term, true, but most of the time its claim holds up when used at its intended distance of around 12" (it's a phone) as opposed to 1" (on VR headsets).

As the article notes, there are scenarios which show up resolution more than others; it's easier to spot a low Res monitor if it's displaying a CAD diagram than a photograph of a tree.

Re: Glasses anyone?

Yes, headsets can be adjusted for glasses, just as the virtual view finders on mirrorless digital cameras can be.

Re: Fovea or FauxVR..?

The inability to render scenes indistinguishable from real life was no barrier to video games of the 80s and 90s.

If it can be made fun without nausea and other negatives, it could still achieve some success even without solving the problems described in the article.

Re: Direct to-brain interface

Hehe, made me think of the eyePhone from Futurama!

Episode 'Attack of the Killer App'

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Killer_App

> Google (and Amazon for that matter) both recommend their TV dongles are mains powered, as they won't guarantee TV's will power the device reliably.

There's no harm in the end user trying the Chromecast off TV USB power - it'll soon be clear whether it supplies enough power or not... that disclaimer sounds like a arse-covering exercise because it would be impractical for them to test every TV set available. But yeah, that would suggest my theory of Google testing in that manner night be off the mark.

Re: Why?

Well, we sent a liveried messenger boy out with your gilt-edged invitation, but he couldn't find Coward Towers.

Top tip - avoid wood in Anne Summers

Re: broadcasting the Simpsons and cutting out some jokes for length

I've noticed the scene when Homer asks his family to guess where he got the money - and they all reply 'drugs'- has been cut from Channel 4's evening showings. It's noticeable because later in the episode the cut scene is referred yo when Lisa exclaims 'I almost wish it was drugs!' - which makes no sense with no context.

'The last bastion of the true spirit of rock and roll' was how Frank Zappa described the Simpsons. Oh well. Fuck you Channel 4, you used to be cool.

Re: Might have been useful

Linus Torvalds in on record as saying that he makes sure he is never alone with a woman he doesn't know - at conferences, for example. His rationale is just to avoid any possibility of a slur or rumour that would just distract from his life's project.

Re: Black Mirror has once again foretold the future

Yeah maybe, but Channel 4 have done far, far worse. Such as broadcasting the Simpsons and cutting out some jokes for length but not saying that they do, and only broadcasting the Daily Show once a week yet asking Comedy Central to make the other episodes unavailable to UK viewers on the Comedy Central website.

Re: What One Desires.....

> Lawyers in the bedroom - lovely.

Scene: Two lawyers eating their lunch in the park whilst a pulchritudinous jogger goes by.

Lawyer 1: I'd really like to screw her!

Lawyer 2: Oh yeah? Out of what?

Re: Browser wars

"Just try it in a different browser" I would tell a friend of mine who was keen on computers but would always create problems for himself. It was just easier than wasting time and tears in trying to work out why A.com wasn't behaving on X browser.

"FFS, why have you unistalled all but browsers but X?" I would inevitably have to say. Oh well.