Posts by Steve Knox

Point of Order

"It is in no government's interest to fudge the results of this test"

It has never been shown that any government, let alone the US government, has been capable of identifying, let alone acting in, its own best interest.

WTF?

@Thomas 4

I'd love to...

but it's not available yet.

Strait Up

Menai definitely agree with you. Whoever installed the thing must have lost his bering. Perhaps if it wasn't tumbling en-dover-end when they communicated with it, they could have righted it. As it is, the whole affair is so messina wonder Medvedev wanted to find who was responsible and cook his bass.

Except...

G-Form probably wouldn't have told anyone about this if their case had failed to protect the iPad.

@Captain Underpants

'Dell have been getting a bit silly with this lately, offering the choice of *not* having the OS recovery media and saving a couple of quid off the order.

Frankly, I don't see the point'

The point is for organizations that DON'T have volume license agreements, but still buy lots of systems with the same config. For example, buy 50 of model A, get two with recovery media and save money on the other 48 (since it's the same disc.)

Yes and yes.

"Surely this is another Anonymous manage to hack someone who has poor security story?" Yes, it is.

"How is this an Emperor's new clothes story?" Because Stratfor's "primary focus is to help clients with security" [wikipedia]. The rest of the logic is left as an exercise for the reader.

@Jim Coleman

"The top three rated contract phones on Amazon.com are all Windows Phones"

The top three rated unlocked phones on Amazon.com are all Android Phones.

Amazon.com ratings are not a reliable measure of the quality of a phone OS. They are not dependent upon a consistently applied metric (i.e, your 4 star rating doesn't mean the same thing as my 4 star rating) and there is precious little Amazon can do to ensure that the reviews are honest.

Beyond about 1,000 apps, size of app store is equally meaningless-- there are at best a few dozen useful apps (not already bundled with the OS) in any app store; the rest are all toys, games, marketing tools, or spyware.

As for awards, yes I'd love to see your list of awards, including source and testing methodology, please.

Yes, the ONE exception.

From wikipedia (not authoritative, but a good starting point):

Geomagnetic Reversal:

"The latest [geomagnetic reversal], the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, occurred 780,000 years ago."

Homo Sapiens:

" Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago."

So we have not been exposed to a geomagnetic reversal in the short timeframe of our species existence. The article is correct.

@Whistledink

"... all the ass jokes come off as crude and amateurish."

Crude I'll give you, but I know from years of reading this rag that it is definitely not amateurish. If any group of people have taken crudity to professional levels, it's Reg hacks.

Amateurish is more like dragging your icons into the comments box rather than just clicking on them, which is all that is necessary. Indeed, if you'd previewed before submitting your comment,

you'd have seen the extraneous URL as text, viz:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/you_dont_have_to_drag_the_bloody_icon_into_the_comment_box.png

Modern Times

"A mouse is better on a cable if you are forgetful of having spare batteries, charging etc."

I use my wireless mouse (Logitech M505) for hours every day, and have had to change the batteries (2AA) exactly 0 times in the past year. My wife has had hers for about a year longer than I've had mine, and she's had to change the batteries once.

It's amazing what they can do with power-saving tech nowadays.

Well, there's your problem.

You're confusing "options" with "requirements".

None of these apps are required to use an Android device (which is why they are not included in the OS.) They're just available for those users who might want to use them.

Do you not agree that a "consumer-oriented" device should allow the consumer to choose how they use it? How, exactly, is it a bad thing to allow those consumers to choose to dig into these things if they so wish, as long as you are not requiring all consumers to do so?

As far as "just working" is concerned, that's just an outright lie. I've never seen a device that "just works", and I've worked extensively with devices from the manufacturer most notable for that particular attribute. There's always a support site, document, application, or person that you will need to refer to at some point -- and that's a good thing. After all, would you use a car extensively without ever taking it to a mechanic (even if the mechanic is yourself)?

@ThomH

Actually, there was a Microsoft Word for DOS, as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word#Origins_and_growth:_1981_to_1995

RE: ...battery life?

12h flat out, 48h "real-world" - fair enough, for a new battery. But how long before the battery loses its zip and that becomes a maximum 3h flat-out, 24h real-world?

That's the battery life figure I'D like to see.

Really?

ad hominem?

Isn't the whole climate change debate heated enough without Feralmonkeys flinging dung as well?

Yes, it sounds just like what a mid-level administrator would say when threatened with corporal punishment...

"We shall double our efforts."

"I hope so, Commander, for your sake."

Hmmm...

So what you're saying is that these tablets are used primarily for recreational purposes...?

Typical Apple

"been dropped in the bog (displayed a "device not compatible" message!)"

suppose you had to upgrade to the iLoo to get past that message, then?

Why the weirdy pattern.

Because a regular pattern would be 100% useless for orientation purposes. To fully orient a camera in 3 dimensions from a two-dimensional image, you need an image that appears unique however it is rotated in any of those three dimensions, If there are any two rotations that create the same (or roughly similar depending on the effective resolution) two-dimensional image, then the camera can't be sure how it's oriented.

It's also important that the image be unique in comparison to other subjects of the camera, so that, for example, a satellite camera doesn't mistakenly try to orient itself to the ridge patterns of a mountain range or the street patterns of a major city.

Beauty and Bottom

Whilst not entirely synonymous, the two are certainly not mutually exclusive.