* Posts by SilverCommentard

15 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Nov 2015

Official: Google Chrome 69 kills off the World Wide Web (in URLs)

SilverCommentard

Re: The layers keep piling up

Throw away pile of left-over washers

If you drop a tablet in a forest of smartphones, will anyone hear it fall?

SilverCommentard

Re: They sold at least three

I bought one too. So that's four.

Sorry, Neil Armstrong. Boffins say you may not have been first life-form to set foot on the Moon

SilverCommentard

Re: Good!

Surely this just proves what we've always known, otherwise how do you explain the Clangers?

Fingered: Pants-down 'poo jogger' alleged to be corp exec

SilverCommentard
Coat

Spelling?

"The firm confirmed to the paper that he had stepped down from the role."

Roll, surely?

Rosetta probe's final packets massaged into new snap of Comet 67P

SilverCommentard

Is is just me

Or can anyone else see a grimacing face on that big boulder slightly right of centre?

Voyager 1 passes another milestone: It's now 138AU from home

SilverCommentard

20,600,000,000km

"...20,600,000,000km from the planet on which you're (presumably!) reading this story."

You presume much, earthling.

These boots are made for kicking imaginary things, and that's just what they'll do

SilverCommentard
Unhappy

Not clogs

More like sandals, with socks...eww! Fortunately the user will also be wearing VR goggles and so will have no idea how ridiculous they look.

Internet of Sh*t has an early 2017 winner – a 'smart' Wi-Fi hairbrush

SilverCommentard

Re: The REAL Internet of Schiße ...

No, but they will next year. Just remember you thought of it first...

Vinyl and streaming sales offset CD decline in UK music sales

SilverCommentard

Colour me sceptical

Vinyl does not sound better than CD. That's not to say vinyl can't sound good - of course it can - but on any technical measure it will be outperformed by CD. There's a reason why CD took off as quickly as it did, and why it all but killed off vinyl and cassette tape (as well as seeing off some inferior digital technologies such as MiniDisc and DCC)...it's because it was an improvement on every level except for the smaller cover art. It's why so many of us dumped our precious vinyl collections at the charity shop and started over; because it was better.

Don't be persuaded by the analogue-waveform-from-a-needle argument. Speaker cones are also analogue devices and the simple inertia of the coil/cone assembly will do a good job of rendering a stepped waveform into a perfect analogue representation, even without the oversampling and filtering done by any decent player. Of course, we all like what we like and I'm not trying to convince anyone of what sounds good to them, but we need to be careful of our language.

Our ears attune to what we hear and normalises it, so it's fair to say that anyone who loves the vinyl sound will not enjoy the shrill clarity of a CD, or anyone who loves CD will not appreciate the 'warmth' of vinyl. Let's not forget that each side of the argument has also invested a significant sum of money in their music (and probably equipment) and no-one likes to be told they got it wrong so we all argue for our own choice.

One thing both sides can agree on is that both CD and vinyl sound better than MP3, and that search for something better from a generation switched on to music by the easy availability of free music from streaming services is undoubtedly driving vinyl sales, aided by a good dollop of nostalgia and a bucketful of nonsense from record labels that will happily sell you their back catalogue all over again. Interesting how more than half of the Top 10 vinyl albums of 2016 were first released more than 25 years ago... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38487837

Why don't people secure their IoT gadgets? 'It's not my problem'

SilverCommentard
Facepalm

Because the vendor will give you a web site that allows you to review your brushing history and effectiveness, make recommendations for your brushing techniques, and, coincidentally, bombard you with ads for dental hygiene products based on the highly personal data that you have foolish agreed to share with them. Oh, and there's also an app which will use ridiculous permissions to rape your phone of any useful data to further monetise you (and everyone in your Contacts). Sorry, am I too cynical?

Ham-fisted: Chap's radio app killed remotely after posting bad review

SilverCommentard

Re: A canary by any other name?

The government already has that right, in the UK at least. It's a licence condition that notice can be served on all amateur radio licencees to shutdown their stations. During WW2 they even had to surrender their equipment!

But in this case it was the software that was disabled, not the radio.

Fitbit picks up Pebble, throws Pebble as far as it can into the sea

SilverCommentard
Pirate

Re: Why do they even bother with the marketing crap...

You can also add to that "Why would we continue to support a product that doesn't grab a shit-ton of highly personal lifestyle data from our customers that we can anonymise* and sell on to anyone prepared to pay for it."

*One hopes...

Your 'intimate personal massager' – cough – is spying on you

SilverCommentard
Coat

Why the fuss?

All the developers have done here is bring masturbation up to parity with genuine beast-with-two-backs action. Now your vibrator can spill the beans* on your love life just as effectively as a jilted lover. I can see the red-top headlines now: "Five-times-a-night! Celeb just can't get enough, says her love toy."

*Not the most appropriate analogy, I admit.

BlackBerry snips Alcatel label off a midrange biz 'Droid, sells it for $299

SilverCommentard
WTF?

So. Why the cryptic name?

"It's a reflection of our commitment to securing the BlackBerry experience," according to the company's head of design, Scott Wenger.

I'm sorry, would you like me to repeat the question?

Millions of families hit in toymaker VTech hack – including 200,000+ kids

SilverCommentard
Meh

Dear Valued Customer?

Seems a bit impersonal for something so important. The irony is the hackers have more personal data to hand than the vendor.