Posts by User McUser 703 publicly visible posts • joined 6 May 2011
FYI, I emailed them and asked why there is no rear camera; here is their response:
This is in fact a very interesting point for us, that we discussed in length before launching the campaign.
The problem is that a good camera lens adds a certain depth to the device.
That’s why on today’s mobile phones, the camera is usually the thickest part of the phone.
We did not want to compromise the Gemini’s clean design and as a result we kept the back camera out of the specs.
This thing ticks all the boxes except for one - there's no camera on the back of the display, only a user-facing one!
I don't think I've ever used my user-facing camera before - I am not a "selfie" type of person - but I use the one on the back of the thing all the time. This seems like an oddly conspicuous omission...
I mean you'd have to open your email, attach a spreadsheet, and then send it... Whew, I'm tired from just *thinking* about that.
Seriously, how hard or expensive could it possibly be to report this info? Any ISP worth a shit should already be tracking all of these things internally, so just fill out the FCC form and mail it in you twats.
Where's the indignant eye-roll icon?
[Plain Old Telephone Service] literally didn’t do anything different or new from 1934 to 1996, when the internet came along - there was no important new service. It didn’t add new value.
Of course it didn't[1], but that didn't stop people from launching OTT services.
Remember fax machines? They ran on top of the POTS lines and provided new value to an existing infrastructure. Ditto for modems that connected computers to BBSes and The Internet.
[1] Just kidding - it did plenty of innovation and investment. The two that spring immediately to mind are DTMF (aka "Touch-Tone Dialing") and Caller ID. Both are improvements to the POTS that occurred during the stated time frame that added new value. DTMF added value by allowing the Customer Service Phone Tree to exist, streamlining call routing, and Caller ID allows me to ignore people *much* more efficiently.
The CBP told The Register it reserves the right to check "computers, disks, drives, tapes, mobile phones and other communication devices, cameras, music and other media players, and any other electronic or digital devices."
Oh my, you can have fun* with this!
Step 1: Procure as many QIC-80 tapes (or whatever your favorite obsolete tape backup format is) as you can via eBay and the like. Make sure you have enough to catch CBP's attention but still fit easily in your carry-on baggage.
Step 2: Bulk erase said tapes with a very strong magnet. Really scramble that rust.
Step 3: Enter America; when asked "what's on the tapes?" look around nervously and then say "Nothing... Why?"
Step 4: Laugh your ass off as they cart them off to be "inspected" at Uncle Sam's expense.
*Fun levels may vary inversely with melanin levels.
I think you're right - the best way to get things done in IT is to produce lots of lengthy reports. It never fails. The more reports, the more work gets done. Simples.
Don't forget about the all important committees, review boards, blue-ribbon panels, commissions, independent investigators, task forces, advisory groups, consultants, etc.
[Blu-Ray] was the final straw in the endless format upgrade cycle, in which Hollywood expected people to repurchase their entire film collection every few years
VHS - 1977
DVD - 1995
Blu-Ray - 2006
Seems like a perfectly reasonable upgrade cycle to me. Now if you count the "also-rans" (eg: HD-DVD, the original DIVX, and Betamax) then you might have a point.
When I was but a lad, my brother and I had two mice as pets. Then one morning we woke to find that we now had one mouse, half a mouse carcass, and some surplus bits of mouse offal.
Turns out that rodents are, as a rule, horrid little things; probably something to do with their pan-dimensional existence.
So, Zuckerberg buys some land and it then goes down in value.
Sorry, but no - the assessed value is what the government has decided a piece of property is worth for tax and/or regulatory purposes. The price paid when someone purchases the property is completely unrelated.
Do these filters have to be installed on internet connected cars?
Of course! Doubly-so if you are a gluteophile.
After all, you wouldn't want anyone to die from auto-erotic ass-fixation...
Don't care for VR, eh?
Well, I'd love to sit around and chat about it with you but I'm a little busy right now being a motherfucking wizard in The Unspoken. (Seriously, that game is awesome.)
Vomiting has also been cited as an infraction that may result in a ban now, but only under certain circumstances – specifically, excessive alcohol consumption.
Yes indeed, if you're too drunk to stop yourself from vomiting then you clearly belong behind the wheel of your own vehicle, not safely in the back of an Uber.
Rick and Morty, Season 1 Episode 11 - In the "B" plot of the episode, Jerry and Beth go to a Titanic themed attraction with a full-size replica of said boat designed to recreate the famous events of 1912. However despite repeated assurances that the ship is un-unsinkable, everything goes wrong and the Titanic spectacularly fails to hit the iceberg much to the disappointment of all aboard.
So I guess I'm the only person on the planet who refuses to let my browser remember passwords?
Microsoft has been working on new 3D interfaces for Windows since at least 2001.
People want more control over their own photos, words and music when dealing with a giant content harvester like Facebook, not less.
This isn't a legislative or executive issue - this is a problem with Facebook's (et al) "Terms and Conditions."
The existing copyright laws *already* give you absolute full control over your own original works but in order to use most (if not all) of these sorts of services you are required to give up that control.
And given how popular Facebook is, people would seem to be generally ignorant of this or else just don't give a shit.
First was "Title of the Song" by Davinci's Notebook which is essentially a lyrics template for a certain genre of pop song. (Lyrics here)
The second was Orwell's Ninteen Eight-Four. If I remember correctly Minitrue had a machine that generated songs called a "versificator."
Think about it - do you really want to see a Florence city street that is filled with flashing signs and golden arches? Is that why tourists visit it every year?
I mean, what's the point in going abroad if you're just another tourist carted 'round in busses surrounded by mindless sweaty oafs from Kettering and Boventry, complaining about the tea "Oh, they don't make it properly here, do they? Not like at home." And once a day there's an excursion to the local Roman Ruins to buy cherry-aid and melted ice cream and bloody Watney's Red Barrel...
First, isn't Mars' gravity something like .4G? Would the reported decrease in muscle mass even matter once you got there given the ~60% reduction in weight?
Second, why can't NASA just develop a training regiment that will build up these muscles whilst the astronauts are still on Earth? That way when they lose some of their muscle mass they're still at or above the "normal" range and once on Mars they can resume the training in anticipation of the return trip. Seems like the cheapest and simplest possible solution to me.
Let's see, about $1,000 for a decent 4k TV, about $1,000 for the rest of the hardware (computery-bits, touch interface, camera, etc.), and we'll go crazy here and allocate $1,000 for all the software that Google provides.
I guess the other $3,000 is to make it reassuringly expensive?
As for when we will all be attending the local multiplex and putting on our headsets, well, that is still some distance away.
I don't think that this will ever happen, at least not on any large scale. You might see a few VR movie parlors open up here and there but these will not last very long IMHO. Why would I bother to go to out to a public space full of other people just to put on a headset that completely isolates me from said space and people?
It's sort of the point of VR that you get to go somewhere without actually going anywhere.
With a fabric cover, available in three shades, this is essentially a means of strapping a phone to your face and immersing yourself in VR content.
So I take this phone with a nice explody-possible battery and I put it real close to my eyes in an enclosed container made of flammable material?
What could possibly go wrong?
Track 8 of Weird Al's "Mandatory Fun" album.
Lyrics here for reference.
What is currently called the Internet of Things should more rightly be called "Putting Things on the Internet." A proper "Internet of Things" would be devices in my house that communicate with *each other* and receive instructions from me via the Internet through a managed gateway device attached to my router.
At no point should any of these devices ever get direct unfettered access to the Internet for reasons which should be obvious if you read this article.
This is already happening.
How does the character think of itself in a way that you can relate to? What is its childhood?
Jesus tap-dancing Christ, when did Google become the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?
I do not want to have conversations *with* my phone - I want to find out what the weather forecast is or check my email or whatever and then have it shut the hell up.
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