Posts by John Bailey

"There is no such thing as bad publicity."

True.

Just look how much work Rolf Harris is getting these days.

Red sky at night, house on fire.

"I would have gotten out and knocked the wanker off his bike. Then run over his bicycle. Five times."

Whiny forum tit to English translation:-

I would have sighed, muttered something profane under my breath, and done bugger all.

Yep. As soon as someone brings a case.

This is a patent case. Filed by Apple and who ever was being accused of heresy against mother corporation's holy eye pee.

Not a case brought by the EU to stop Apple "innovating magical industrial design".

So if you have a grievance, and qualify as an interested party, bring a case, and a patent can be thrown out if it is without merit.

Re: unlike floating Arctic ice which lowers sea levels when it melts. ? ? ? ? ?

"I thought that icebergs like everything else displaced the same amount of water as their own mass, ie if it melted it would just fill the space it took in the water.

So how do these magic Antarctic jobs break the laws of physics ?"

By falling off land, into the water.

Re: You're photographing it wrong

"What a clever person you are. Apple recall a batch of devices where they state there's a faulty component, and you somehow imagine, in your fevered brain, that someone is putting the blame on the photographer."

Yep.

They have a sense of humour.

You have a creepy emotional attachment to a corporation.

I think I know which is healthier.

Re: loophole....

"RTF... E.U.L.A...."

S.T.F.U

I am not bound by a click through license, Therefore I have consented to nothing.

An EULA Is a contract. And you can put anything you like in a contract, but only ENFORCE the legal bits.

Contracts are worthless bits of paper until they are examined in court. And only then are the conditions deemed enforceable or not.

Re: Does anyone know...

Partly hysteria, partly due to the air recirculating.

Re: Footprint

"The whole point of OEM gear is that they're supposed to take the pain out of assembling a working rig away from the end user;"

Ohh.. good one.

You forgot the joke icon though.

Re: Solution in search of a problem

"VR is the archetypical solution in search of a problem."

Yes.. Just like pretty much every technology mentioned here, from home automation to indoor plumbing. Hardly a distinction.

"It was the Next Big Thing twenty five years ago when I was an undergraduate, several years before Luckey was born. It appears not to have moved on significantly since then, modulo cheaper/easier technology."

Soo..

Two miniature CRTs attached to a heavy headset.. Che.. Um.. actually.. no.

Blocky low poly graphics.. Che.. Oops.. Nope..

Vomit inducing lag between movement and screen update. Oh look.. Reduced or removed by significantly faster updates.

But yes.. Hardly moved on at all. Despite being light weight, and within the reach of individuals, and vastly more advanced.

Just out of curiosity... What exactly were you expecting it to move on TO?

Implanted retinal displays?

Switching glasses that worked as sun or eye glasses until you press a button, and then they go opaque, and you are in 3D land?

The matrix?

Or were you aiming for something really really out there. Like being taken seriously?

Mine's the one with the copy of Neuromancer in the pocket.

Re: Contamination?

"Is it really contamination when it's blatantly intentionally been added?"

Tell you what. Let me take your beer to the bathroom for a moment and you can tell me.

Re: Suggests

"I was under the impression that tablet batteries are effectively non-replaceable?"

USB cable + Power bank = problem solved.

They do last for quite a while though, so the question is.. do the batteries fail before the utility of the device they power.

Re: Knowledge is Power

You forgot.

"We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false! "

Gollum.

Re: bird strike

"what's the difference between a bird strike and drone strike?"

Column inches and wilful hysterics.

Re: Releasing Grey Squirrels

Well.. Obvious really..

The home office.

Grey squirrels being an invasive foreign species. I'm sure the minister in charge is the right one to take personal responsibility for them.

Re: But could it breathe fire?

"They still exist, they are just very good at hiding, and if you ever do see one, you probably wont have time to tell anyone about it."

But in flocks, they are harmless. As with ninjas, there is an inverse dragon rule.

Re: no matter what MS force on us

"Why would anyone want a 'fix' to stop important security updates & fixes?"

Great question.. Lets ask the business customers who can still decline the bloody things.

Because numb nuts.. It is a really really good Idea to patch your virus magnet a week AFTER patch Tuesday. So when they screw up in a spectacular way, as is Microsoft's habit, then you can delay updating until they sort the problem out.

"Anyone declining updates puts themselves at risk as well as others."

Yes. I can see having a working computer is a serous risk..

"Some of you are being awkward just for the sake of it."

Yep. Or as it is also known.. Sensible.

"Having said that, as I.T Admins you'd be using the Enterprise version which you having full control over updates. If you are the kind of Admins who do not deploy updates after a week or two of testing then you should be removed from your jobs."

Because testing fixes the problem?

You posted this from your phone.. didn't you..

Re: Bah!

"And no-one from a nation that invented Fortes Services at Newport Pagnel has any right to an opinion about food quality in other lands."

And no-one from a nation that invented cheese in a squeezy tube has any call commenting about anything to do with the input side of the human digestive system ANYWHERE.

Re: installing suicide nets

"OTOH, if installing suicide nets is part of normal company protocol, you gotta admit there's a rather huge problem, no ?"

No.

I only have to acknowledge that a huge employer has to deal with this problem somehow. And while not a great PR move, it is effective. Because coming across what is left of cousin Wa between building 37, and 38, and 42 is not the greatest way to start the day. Death by suddenly stopping is not a pretty way to go.

You OTOH, have to explain why exactly you believe having a lower than national average suicide rate, and wishing to further reduce it, is a bad thing.

Why do you want Chinese people to die?

Do tell Pascall.

Re: Ugly..The Ultimate Sin

"Running your publication as a continuation of the 1966 Cultural Revolution will generate 'lively' comments......."

Running an anonymous no holds bared, no consequences faceless message board will generate comments from the scum who would normally not dare open their mouths.

The general humanity of a forum is in inverse proportion to the social investment people put in it.

Here, Slashdot, Reddit.. None.

Some friendly heavily but fairly moderated login only site.. a lot.

Places like Reddit and here are what happens when all that post are essentially trolls.

You sir are cruel.

You have my deepest admiration.

Re: Why buy a dedicated e-Reader ?

Because sometimes a hammer just isn't enough.

"... until they change the T&Cs... again"

Which one.. Google or Microsoft?

Re: Who is

The person who wrote Gulliver's trousers.

Re: One of these days

And your list is in reverse chronological order I see.

"I never knew that fish were so clever! I mean, I've got a friend who is a sexologist, and I've never heard her mention fish working in the field..."

Only in rice growing areas.. cos they need the water to breath in.

Re: Too late was the cry

"There are still people - the majority, by the way - who will tell you that Jean Charles de Menezes (RIP :( ) was

-wearing a heavy coat

-vaulted the barriers

-did not respond when challenged by armed police."

Oh noes.. they don't remember the fine details of the cover story.... THE HORROR!!!!! Why he died in vain then.

Now tell me this..

Do they remember that he was

Innocent of any wrong doing?

A case of mistaken identity?

A LEGAL immigrant?

Shot several times by trigger happy plod/intelligence agents with no ability to inform the officers of his actual identity?

You know.. the important stuff.

The fine details don't matter. If he was wearing a coat or a wedding dress and wellington boots, or if he responded to police challenges with the phrase " I have hard boiled egg up my bottom". Doesn;t matter.

Fact 1) An innocent man was shot dead.

Fact 2) Shooting him had he actually been a suicide bomber, would have potentially set off the bomb. Any fool can wire up a fail deadly switch. Hold it open, and no problem. Let it go, and boom. One NC switch. I got about 3-4 of em when I took apart an old inkjet for parts. Common everyday micro switches. Usually come with a normally closed, and normally open option in each switch.

Fact 3) The police proclaiming him a wrong un immediately after the incident lost them a lot of the little credibility they have left.

The coat does not matter.

Running does not matter.

Vaulting the barrier does not matter.

Someone claiming to have seen wires sticking out of his jacket do not matter.

Because NONE OF THESE THINGS was reason to shoot the guy.

Even not responding to a challenge from someone or other, had it happened, does not matter, because uniform are not very likely to be involved in covert tailing of a suspect are they? And the people who shot him were not the ones who were supposed to have challenged him.

So.. Brazilian electrician hurrying to work was shot dead for no reason.

This is the bit that they should remember.

Do they?

Re: $325? Blimey!

"You dear sir, owe me another coffee."

Certainly. take it out of the fee to use my phrase.

"That is to be my new phrase and in the tradition of World 2.0, in return, you will receive no credit."

Seems a fair compensation.

Re: £419 (64GB, 2GB RAM), £499 (128GB, 4GB RAM) RRP

"While a £600 phone (or worse, a smartwatch) is worth the price?"

No sweetie.

Like many, you are unable to distinguish between worth and price.

Price is what the seller attaches to their goods. How much money they hope to get.

This has little or nothing to do with the cost to make the thing. And everything to do with the herds of fools who buy a thing based on brand status alone.

Value is what we, the buyers, attach to the goods. What we are willing to part with, to get the attributes promised.

If value is lower than price, a smart person rejects the goods.

If value is higher than price, the buyer accepts the goods.

An iPhone is not worth £600 to many many people, so they do not buy one.

An iWatch is not worth the £300+ it is being sold for, to many many many more. So they do not buy.

And a Surface 3 is not worth nearly £500 to a great many people, so they will laugh at the idea of spending that much on a crippled laptop,and an inadequate tablet. .

Worth is personal. It is the value we place on the stuff we acquire.

Paying £5 for a solder sucker is worth it if you have a few easy solder joints to remove now and then. And if it does the job.. great. Money well spent.

Paying £70 was worth it to me, to be able to remove more difficult parts safely and without damage. So I got a de-soldering gun. Now multi lead components just fall out. Stripped a whole board of LEDs from an old project in under 5 minutes on Saturday, without damaging the LEDs. Brilliant tool. WORTH every penny to me. Overkill to many, inadequate to many others.

Paying £300+ to do the same job, but faster is worth it to someone who is more time constrained, or not paying for their own tools. And that is fine too. But it is not worth that to me. Time is not important, and I am unlikely to be working on multi layer boards with big copper pours. So my cheap gun is fine.

All these tools do essentially the same thing. But to differing degrees, and with differing competence. Which is chosen depends on it's value to the buyer. Not a take it or leave it price.

Once you understand this concept, you will hopefully stop asking such damn fool questions.

"So in 5 years an Apple watch will be able to do brain transplants?"

Only the ones marked "For rectal use only".

Re: Beam me up Scottie

"On a lighter note "joke" Mr Farage has decided to stay on the bridge of the good ship UKip."

Is that the one with the rather famously NSFW figurehead?

"I'm sure that the company can rebuild the vehicle given that it is a prototype, but if that was a customer's production vehicle in ordinary use it would be a write off. Since when did a total write off classify as "seemingly limited damage"?"

Make your mind up.

If it's a write off, then it can not be repaired. If it can be repaired, it is not a write off. Pick one.

"One of the biggest problems with the whole idea of flying cars is what will happen to them after impacts on the road, even at parking speed. Anybody who flies light aircraft will tell you that you're not going to take off in a craft with any visible external damage. How do you fancy your flying car being grounded for very expensive investigative and repair work every time some idiot bumps it? You can't just pop the panel out and hope for the best after somebody biffs it at the pertrol pump."

Really?

I would have thought the fact that if you run out of petrol, you can't really push it to the nearest filling station would be a wee bit more of a problem.

But not being able to fly a damaged plane..

Why is that a problem? Seems a sensible safety measure.

Plane with visible or invisible damage must be deemed airworthy by a qualified person.

If a goose crashed into the wing, and bent a control rod, would the plane be airworthy?

Why should a bump from a car be any different if it happens at ground level or in the air?

Because when someone e wishes to fly in it, it stops being a car, and becomes a plane.

"But the attraction of flying cars is limited in reality anyway."

As is the attraction of hovercraft, boats, submarines, dune buggies, formula one racing cars, rally cars, off road vehicles, and stamp collecting.

"You're still going to need an airstrip to take off and land. The authorities aren't going to let you do that on the road you know."

I think pretty much everybody knows that.

"As a friend of mine says. The nearest airstrip to his house is about half an hour's drive away. OTOH he can land his R44 behind his house and right across the road from his office. When he can't land near his destination he gets a taxi. That, he reckons, is much faster and more convenient than driving to somewhere he's allowed to take off and then converting the car into a plane."

Yes.

Question.. Which has the longer range.

Will the R44 make it from London to Paris, for a romantic dinner with the other half, or the mistress, or the secretary or who ever?

Because lets face it. If one can afford a flying car, one is not going to drive to the nearest Nandos.

Because the thing is..

This is NOT A PRACTICAL PURCHASE.

There is no business case to put forward. There is no rational reason to have one.

This is in aviation terms.. A jet ski.

But the thing that will clinch it for an unknown number of people is that it is FUN!!

This is a rich mans toy. Not a practical mode of transport. So trying to justify it like that is a waste of time.

A Yacht will not get me from England to Spain to pick up a case of Paprika for next week's dinner party quickly and cheaply. But it will get me there in an enjoyable way. And I can pick up a case of wine, and some tapas while I'm at it.

Renting a narrow boat will not get me from A to B as fast as a car, but I can enjoy the scenery as I go, and have a nice holiday.

It isn't always about practicality. Or ostentation.

Sometimes.. it's just fun.

Mine's the one with room for a third nipple.

Re: Huh?

"If the technology apes the Timex Datalink, then why were they granted a patent? Or am I missing something?"

Yep..

It's either out of patent, or Timex never bothered patenting it. Cos lots of people have used it.

Re: 5 days ?!?!??!

"Only called the cops 5 days later? Me thinks the victim must have also been robbed of something else he didn't want the cops (& Apple) to know about."

Nah.. He was using the GPS on his iPhone, and it took him 5 days to get back to civilisation. After being dumped a mile from his home.

Re: So to summarise

"I do love the "you're holding it wrong" jokes which inevitably appear in the comments on every single one of these articles. They're so hilariously original and up-to-date."

Yeah.. Good aren’t they. But.. If you miss a meme, you've blown it.

Not as amusing of course, as the aspiring to be sarcastic, condescending, whiny remarks about how old the joke is that they were engineered to elicit from uptight fanboys.

Re: One card per wallet

"If the exterior of each Faraday cage card wallet were to be given a unique shape, we could use the individual wallet instead of the card if the lock were able to recognise the correct shape. I think the ancient Romans had something like that, called a key. They actually work rather well."

Or.. you could use a little RFID tag to identify each wallet.

Re: Rolex

Neither do Casio.

Re: Really?

"How is this any different from my Macbook asking me if I wanted to upgrade to Yosemite? I don't recall any "tut-tut" article from El Reg for that, so why now?"

1) Mac users are already so far into the brown core of Apple, that any suggestion that every update is not met with street parties and coffee shops full of glee is pretty much met with whines of indignation..

2) Too small a user base to bother reporting on.

Re: Representative sample?

"But Aldi and Lidl??? They don't seem like the kind of stores favoured by the stereotypical iPhone flasher. Thought you lot were all M&S and Waitrose."

Not stereotypical perhaps, but typical.. Sure.

There is a big gulf between how one sees one's self, and how one actually is.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QMhOIySiyE

Remember, after paying for the cHav phone and the extra special contract, Aldi and Lidl are all they can afford.

Re: Anyone else see the problem with this picture?

Yep.. If that patch of grass is not removed, it could cause the concrete edging of the pavement to move out of place.

Other than that, nothing really jumps out as a problem.

Re: A very clever piece of social engineering by these corporations

"If you want to piss all over the democratic process, take direct control of legislative and governmental processes, and turn your democracy into theocracy:"

1. Listen to idiots on forums and in the media, who know nothing, but proclaim their opinion loudly enough to seem like a majority.

2. Be stupid.

3. Let someone else do your thinking for you.

Little historical fact.

The Islamic world was generations ahead of the western world in science, medicine, art, culture, and engineering.

Then they got religion.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.