Posts by JeffyPooh

Memo to idiot fanbois

I understand that with mobile phones, with their monthly bills slowly adding to infinity, one must choose one or the other or the other. No normal, middle-class human can afford two. Thus one is forced to choose, drink the kool aid, and (by associated) become a fanboi of one brand or the other.

This does not apply to a wifi-only tablet where it's a one-time cost - in the case of the Nexus, a trivial petty cash one-time cost. Granted, a tablet is more expensive than a bottle of wine, but it's massively less expensive than a bottle of wine per week.

I have an iPhone. I have a Nexus tablet. I even have a RIM PlayBook. It's truly fantastic to be able to explore all the ecosystems. Vastly, monumentally, unfricken-believably better than being constrained to just one.

I would have bought an iPad mini, except it's crap (2nd rate hardware, no GPS, almost embarrassing). I will probably buy an iPad Mini 2, assuming they make it less crap.

On the other hand, my wife needs a new phone, so probably iPhone 5.

Being an argumentative fanboi is immature and daft. It's vastly better to sample the benefits of all the ecosystems. Tablets, lacking monthly fees, make that easy and affordable.

"...there will always be more small cells than big ones."

Not exactly surprising news (given: once they were invented). It's kinda a general rule that (e.g.) ants outnumber elephants.

'The Siphonaptera'

Big fleas have little fleas,

etc.

Prediction: If (when...) they invent even tinier cell sites, they'll outnumber the briefcase-sized jobs.

etc.

"precarious wire"

Looks like a wee feisty coaxial cable, thus (obviously) must be used for linking two RF circuits.

"All Windows 8 devices share the same iconic look and feel."

You spelled "moronic" incorrectly.

I want my tablet to look like a PC. I don't want my PC to look like a Speak & Spell toy.

Win 8 might be a (pair of) fine OS, but the GUI is revolting.

I asked the nice MS lady...

At Best Buy, the nice lady offered to demonstrate Win 8.

I challenged her to show me the pick list of all installed programs a la Start menu. She replied "Programs? You mean Apps?" My reply was that until last week they were called "Programs", even by MS.

She swiped the screen to show me a couple dozen apps. I told her my PC at home had approximately 150 programs installed. The Start menu fills four columns, even with subfolders.

She explained that Win 8 wouldn't have that problem...

"64 apps should be enough for anyone."

LOL.

The most commonly overheard phrase in an Apple Store

John Browett (retail head) begged to stay, but was told "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do."

"Guns don't kill people, people do..." Etc.

"...jailbreaking broke the current business model of operators subsidizing handsets."

Handsets don't sign contracts, people do.

GUI ≠ OS

I'm sure Windows 8 is a fine OS. The other Windows 8 (RT?) is probably also not a bad OS. These days OS are a dime a dozen; even clever children can write them (Linux).

The new MS GUI (formerly known as Metro) simply sucks. I want no part of it. Ever.

If ranting Hookie (above) worked in my office, then I'd stay late and hardware modify his keyboard to cut the traces leading to the Ctk key, perhaps wiring them in parallel to the Alt key. Then I'd rewire his mouse so that both buttons are left click. Hey, I have a soldering iron and I know how to use it.

Rotten Apple

Wow - no GPS. Poor display. 2nd rate hardware. Yuck. I would have bought one if it had been any good, because that's what I do. I buy a new gadget many times a year. Funny how the iPad Mini isn't on the list...

But I'm also presently pretty turned-off to Apple as a brand. Here's why. I was walking around our recently-opened local Apple Store for the first time, and one thing struck me more than anything else. Amongst the chatter, I kept overhearing the same phrase over and over again...

"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do."

I heard this exact phrase three or four times in about 15 minutes. The crestfallen punter would then slide his reassuringly-expensive but defective laptop back into his backpack, wipe away his tears, and then shuffle out to consider his eventual suicide options.

This observation shocked me to my core. Apple appears to be the exact opposite of what it is supposed to be.

The only similar thing I've read about is how the Mercedes Smart car has a sealed engine that cannot be repaired, only replaced as a unit at a cost that is higher than the value of the car itself.

These are examples of such weirdly perverted policy that I find myself disoriented.

Depending on the price...

I might buy an iPad Mini to add to my growing (cross-ecosystem / fanboi brainstem-exploding) collection of gadgets.

The Kindle Touch...

The Kindle Touch was 'associated' with another blocked hardware, and thus had to die. This decision is not reversible. Thank you.

OMG - that explains it...

I looked out the window and all the clouds in the sky were going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in unison. I thought maybe Top Gear was in town, perhaps filming a segment about the new Jag-u-ar F-Type, but it musta been those damn cr/hackers fiddling with the weather.

Which infinity?

Is that the infinity(0) meters per second where infinity is the number of integers on the number line, or is the infinitely faster infinity(1) meters per second where this infinity is the number of points on a line?

How can I contribute fake data for my house?

I'd like to overlay a false huge mansion over my more modest digs.

It disgusts me...

...to see the word "belief" being used in what should be a pure scientific debate. The consensus group need to address the sketical group with logic and reason (always, even if they think that the skeptics are insane). It's called "The Scientific Method". Allowing the debate to slide into religious vocabulary should be a capital crime.

Our old Acer laptop has "two high performance Planer-F antennas"

Said so right on one of the features decals. Works great. From the 12-floor of a Hong Kong hotel we could get dozens of open access points out there, amongst the city lights. No falling out required.

Top Gear's Clarkson, a gentleman and a scholar ;-), on the DB5's top speed

"They were LYING!"

I don't recall the number, "barely 140" ?

Nope... It's the Sony Nexus X.

I'm pretty sure it's actually the new Sony Nexus X.

(Lesson from recent history...)

Gotta run, I'm going to upload some subtle fake honeypot tech pictures to various websites.

Firefox OS...

Exactly like 'The Library of Babel' short story (recommended), once there are too many OS choices in play (ding!) at once, they'll slowly become uninteresting infrastructure that just silently and totally compatibly work in background. It'll all merge into one big happy soup of OSesness abstraction. We're almost there.

The idiot fanbois of the world will then be forced to focus their arguments on the next higher level of a yet-to-be-conceptualized ISO abstraction model. Remember the "My BIOS is better than your BIOS!" of the 1980s? LOL.

HDMI outputs

For those that already have WD TV, PS3, XBox 360, Apple TV, PlayBook gadgets with HDMI ports and media playing capability, then the fact that the Nexus 7 lacks this key feature is a non-issue. The point of a tablet is to kick back and consume media on the fricken tablet - that's what the lovely 7-inch display is for.

The Nexus 7 speaker does suck. But at least Android provides multiple choices for perfect and free DLNA playing apps (unlike the PlayBook).

Screen protectors are stupid

Fingers and eyeballs don't scratch phones. Keys, coins, and Bic lighters scratch phones when they're in a pocket or purse. Therefore the correct solution is a leather case with a folding cover (or similar). Screen protectors are daft. Any opinions to the contrary are just plain wrong. ;-)

$10M ??

"...$10m, which should cover the cost of manufacture and launch..."

$10M? When did it become so amazingly inexpensive to build and launch a satellite? Is it because the satellite in question was small and LEO?

iOS 6 Apple Map

It's not that bad. The 3D effect is pretty good. Disclaimer - I don't use it for serious navigation.

58?

That sucks. Oh well, he's accomplished more than most of us.

RIP.

Climate models...

Climate models that fail to include the impact and reaction of every possible biosystem, both known *and unknown*, are fatally flawed. Yep, that'd be all of them.

This does not imply that they necessarily fail to arrive at an approximation of the ultimately correct answer, but it would be pure luck.

Anyone else notice the report that the USA has accidentally met the Kyoto Protocol by accident? Fracking, natural gas displacing coal. Also, look up the gasoline sales figures for the USA. Huge decrease.

A common feature of most satellite Internet providers...

"Dear Valued Customer,

Your use of our satellite internet system is in excess of our Fair Use Policy. 5GB a month should be plenty for anyone; ROTFLMAO. Your usage pattern has exceeded this amount by 24%, this puts you in the top 3% of our users (because we keep killing off those that use this amount - spot the circular logic?). So, as this your only option, you'd better back off. This is your final warning.

Cheers.

Your least favourite company."

Unlimited, adj. See Fraud.

Pairing socks as a metaphor for intolerance and racism

Anyone that has sorted out the socks after the dryer, they may have noticed that one first picks out the major differences, then the medium differences, finally the most tiny and subtle of differences. Humans tend to interact with each other in the same manner.

It's been done already...

It's called the Hipstreet Aurora. It's just $80 at my local Mall*Wart. It's *exactly* the same as the Nexus 7 - except it's slightly worse in every possible way.

"You trust us not to screw up on your machine with every update."

"You trust us not to screw up on your machine with every update."

You ate my PC's MBR with that borked 10.0 update. The one and only time I was so excited that I didn't follow my own rule to wait a few days. I updated to 10.0 the minute it came out. My MBR has never been seen since. I can still boot with Grub, but it's a bit of a fiasco.

Time to fix my MBR and uninstall all the Ubuntu. Not joking. Bye bye.

Google Map app

Wasn't Google Map supposed to reappear as a stand-alone app?