Posts by Martin

Apple must apologise for its surly apology on its website on Saturday

It's there!

9:30 on Saturday, and it's there, at the bottom of the front page. With a nice big link to the judgment, difficult to miss. Granted you have to scroll to the bottom of the page, but I don't think the judges will mind that.

Asus pledges Android 4.2 update for Google Nexus 7

Re: Repeating Windows mistakes of decades past...

What will happen is that lots of app developers will realize their mistakes rapidly as their apps get 1* reviews, and will do somthing about it.

Multiple accounts - yay!

I want to keep my gmail widget on the home screen, but I don't really want my daughter looking at my emails. (If only so that she doesn't know what I'm ordering for her for Christmas...)

So multiple accounts is an excellent idea.

Of course, Apple won't ever do this. If two people in your house want to use the iPad, you should be buying TWO iPads.

Samsung states sales date for Galaxy S III Mini

apart from the fact....

...that this one has a screen size suitable for those of us without hands like gibbons.

But yes, the Nexus 4 looks very interesting, screen size notwithstanding.

Hmm, I think I'll order an iPad Mini on Amazon ... Oh no I won't

@Joerg - 59 downvotes in less that three hours

...impressive. You going for some sort of record?

Bond's Walther PPK goes digital: A civilized gun updated

@Matt Bryant and Nottingham

An unconvincing article you posted there.

Headline - Gun Crime doubles in a decade.

Actual value - 89% from 1998/99 to 2007/08 , and "provisional figures for 2008/09 suggest overall firearm offences may be down on the previous year".

Third paragraph - "The number of people injured or killed by a gun has also doubled under Labour." Bias or what? This is meant to be a news article, and your evidence for the failure of Blair's policies.

Finally, a quote from the bottom of the article...

<blockquote>

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "It is misleading to compare figures for 2007 / 08 with those from 2002 and before, due to changes in recording practices.

"There has been an 11 per cent fall in gun crime since 2005 and provisional figures for firearm offences recorded by the police show they account for 0.2 per cent of all recorded crime.

</blockquote>

So, in other words, the whole article is based on misleading statistics.

I'm actually not arguing that taking handguns away from licensed (though not always law-abiding) owners did very little, and was window-dressing. But you're going to have to come up with better arguments than that Torygraph article - and I have still seen no evidence that Nottingham has ever been more dangerous than Kabul or Baghdad.

Re: The wife's primary pistol of choice ...

"..meaning that at one point it was more likely that you would be shot in Nottingham than Afghanistan, let alone any US city..."

Citation please. I find this one hard to believe.

Re: @AC: 11:09 (was: The wife's primary pistol of choice ...)

Given that it was your stupid crack about we Brits being emasculated that started the mini-flamewar, it ill becomes you to take on a so-called "patient mode".

Guns are indeed just tools. Their primary purpose is to kill or maim. Strangely enough, that's why, in this country, most civilized people do NOT carry them. Even the criminals don't normally carry them - they don't feel they need to, either.

And as a result, we have MASSIVELY fewer people killed with guns, either by accident or design.

If that means, in your eyes, we have a "weakened society" - well, I'd argue with your label, but I am very happy with the society.

Amazon lends e-books free to Prime subscribers

"I wish there was an option to just use DPD or Royal Mail...."

There is.

Just click the button that says "First class Delivery" when you order, instead of "Guaranteed Next Day".

I use it, because First Class doesn't need a signature.

And the £49 per year is not per person, as someone else said - it's for a family. It's excellent value.

Samsung posts record profits as Galaxy sales crush Apple

On anything but price....?

I admit iPad plus Apple TV is probably "wow!". So is Bang and Olufsen kit in general. BMWs are also "wow!" cars.

And then there is the 'Ouch!' when you see the price.

Price is pretty important. And the iPad Mini at £269 is seventy quid too expensive.

Amazon ships Kindle Fire HD, Paperwhite to Brits

Re: No Kindle HD for me today.

Presumably because (a) it costs a tenner more and (b) because it wasn't exactly advertised up-front.

And I wouldn't have said he was spitting the dummy, or sulking. He was just cancelling an order.

Why was it necessary to be offensive, simply because you disagree?

I swear, if people discussed things down the pub the way they discuss things on the internet, there would be two or three fights every night.

Apple unveils iPad mini, upgrades its big brother

@toadwarrior

"Even the "awesome" Nexus was plagued with problems that makes it looks like cheap rubbish."

Citation needed. I know of several people who have Nexus 7's and no-one who has been plagued with problems. And it doesn't look, or behave, like cheap rubbish.

iPad mini - 4:3 screen size. I expected a 16:9. I owe someone on these forums a virtual beer...

TiVo: Cisco and pals could owe us BILLIONS over DVR patents

Not that I normally have ANY truck with patent battles...

But having used TIVO since the old Thomson box in the late nineties - it really was a MASSIVE step up. The ability to stop/rewind live TV; the ability to set up series links (with intelligence to adjust when the schedule adjusted - even now, V+ screws that up) - the ability to record programs based on keywords (eg Record any program about chess) - hell, even the fact that it downloaded (over a phone line!) the program data - all of those were completely new - at least to the consumer market.

Even when Sky+ and V+ came along, they were like clunkly old rubbish compared to the Tivo.

Comparing a Tivo with a VCR & Video+ is like comparing a car with a bicycle.

Iffy image said to signify incoming 10in Google tablet

Thumb and forefinger sodium chloride collection time...?

Hmmm. A bit too clever-clever, IMHO...

Sacked British RIM staffers to get minimum legal payout

Re: At least Canadian severance is ...

Redundancy - get it right!

.5 weeks up to 22

1 week between 22 and 40

1.5 weeks over 40.

So actually better if you're older.

Ay caramba, Ubuntu 12.10: Get it right on Amazon!

You know what really pisses me off about this?

Slightly off topic, but bear with me....

It seems now that with the new Amazon Cloud Player, linux on the desktop is no longer properly supported. For the last five years, I have been able to buy an mp3 album and download it to my PC, and it appears in the right place, properly organized. Now, I buy an mp3 album, it appears in the Cloud Player, and I can only download it one track at a time into my Downloads directory. Really bloody helpful.

SO...on the one hand, Amazon have decided to shaft Linux desktop users after five years of support.

On the other hand, Ubuntu is cozying up to Amazon.

Well, Canonical - I suggest you get onto Amazon and complain bitterly on behalf of your twenty million users - you now have some clout with them.

But I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.

Canonical flings out Ubuntu 12.10 – now with OPTIONAL Bezos suck

@Lee Dowling

Rapturous applause!

Study finds file sharers buy more music

Re: We've seen these people before...

Hmmm. Why was that downvoted?

OK - a bit more justification.

There is, frankly, very little music that is worth listening to that can't be performed live. A live performance is unique - it won't be the same any two nights. You get the sheer immediacy in a live performance, that you can't get in a recording, no matter how good. You get a wonderful sense of being there, which isn't possible with recorded music.

I've seen Bruce Springsteen in a stadium. I've seen Joe Pass, playing solo jazz guitar at Ronnie Scotts. Two completely different musicians, in a completely different environment - but both, in their way, wonderful experiences which cannot be duplicated by a recording.

That's why musicians should perform live.

It's the same with theatre, compared to film. I've seen some marvellous films - but the best, the most exhilarating evenings are those where the actors are on top form, where the audience is rapt - where the SHOW is what it's all about.

Re: We've seen these people before...

"Why does a band have to perform live?"

Well, the Musician's Union completely disagree with you. They have been using the slogan "Keep Music Live" since 1965,

Re: We've seen these people before...

"One important note: consider this quote: “29% of those under 30 listen to ‘most or all’ of their music via streaming services. 11% have paid subscriptions.” This is unacceptable. In order to earn the equivalent of the income of a minimum wage job, a musician would have to sell 4.5 million stream per month on Spotify. The other streaming services, while not as bad, are not much better. The difference between having one's work stolen via piracy and illegal downloading, and getting a minuscule fraction of a cent per play on a streaming service, is negligible if not illusory."

Unacceptable? Why is it unacceptable? I am listening to music which I am paying for at a tenner a month; those who don't pay are getting a poorer stream and paying via adverts. It's morally acceptable and legally fine. Why the fuck do you feel it is unacceptable?

If the amount that the streaming services are giving to the music industry isn't enough, or if the music industry is keeping too big a cut before passing on the rest to the musicians, that's for them to sort out.

Carphone Warehouse lauds Nexus 7 while eagerly eying iPad Mini

Try this...

nexus usb importer

Allows you to connect usb drives and stream movies or photos or music without rooting your device. And what else do you want the extra memory for?

Water, water everywhere on the Moon: But not a drop to drink

Another common misquotation

Water, water every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Retailer leaks iPad Mini price list starting at £200

Want to bet?

OK.

I bet you a virtual beer that the iPad mini is 16 x 9. It'll be following the shape of the new iPhone 5.

Boffins baffled: HUGE EYEBALL washes up on Florida beach

Re: 'Large marine animal', yes...

There's a little "R" on the side.

Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight e-reader review

It's so uuuuugly....

Picked it up in Comet yesterday. That HUGE bezel around the edge is awful - it just makes the whole thing look too fat and wide.

Technically, it's fine, I guess. But I'll never buy one. I love my Kobo Touch, and I don't often read in the dark.

Must say, though, I like the look of the new Kindle Paperwhite...

Is lightspeed really a limit?

Re: Then divide by the number you first thought of

"The division by a number less than 1 is a multiplication, but for algebraic simplicity it is 'allowed'."

OK. Let's follow that through.

Can I multiply by a number less that one? Yes - but it's exactly the same as dividing by a number greater than one. So, by your argument, the multiplication by a number less than one is a division, but for algebraic simiplicity it is "allowed".

So, according to you, we can't multiply OR divide numbers less than one. Go figure.

Perhaps I have a strange head then....

...I found the mathematics of Maxwell's equations extremely hard, and never did quite convince myself of them. However, the maths of Special Relativity, and the concepts behind it, just seems quite straight-forward (albeit non-intuitive).

Recommendation - Relativity and Common Sense by Hermann Bondi - recommended to me when I was in the 6th form by my Physics teacher. Made it crystal clear to me.

German ebook firm aims low with cheap 'n' simple €10 ereader

Not quite sure...

Not sure I get it - is the idea to have your phone doing the actual handling of the book and the reader being a thin bluetooth client of the phone? If so, it seems quite elegant.

40,000 sign petition to oust Rep. Paul 'pit of hell' Broun

What was before the big bang...?

The point is that as time was created as part of the big bang, it's not actually a meaningful question to ask "what was there before the big bang?" We just don't have the vocabulary or imagination to contemplate it in a meaningful manner - all we can do is see where the maths equations take us.

From Dr No to Skyfall: The Reg's one month of Bond

Re: But what about the books?

Really? OK, I'll take your word for it.

My only memory of a martini order in the new film was something like this:-

"Dry martini, please"

"Shaken or stirred?"

"Do I look as if I give a damn?"

But what about the books?

I think there should be at least a nod to the books on which the films were based. (Only the Ian Fleming ones, though - all the others - at least the two or three that I've read - are pale imitations of the real thing).

This is how Bond orders a martini in the first book, Casino Royale:-

“A dry martini," he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet." ...

"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”

Facebook digs in over Jill Meagher page

Re: Another damn Nanny State

Sigh.

It's not a Nanny State issue. It's a matter of two freedoms (the right to freedom of speech and the right to a fair trial) being incompatible with each other.

Ordinarily, the right of free speech is secondary to the right of a fair trial. One is a temporary infringement of a right - the other may affect a temporary - or permanent - infringement of liberty.

A statement like "censorship of any kind, for any reason, is bad" is just an indication that the person who has made the statement has made no attempt to think it through.

Ubuntu 12.10: More to Um Bongo Linux than Amazon ads

Re: Is the love mutual?

Don't touch the Amazon mp3 downloader. Use Pymazon instead. Much neater.

iPad mini to go on sale in one month?

The really interesting thing will be...

...the screen ratio.

Is it going to be a large iPhone - so 16x9 ?

Or a small iPad - so 4x3 ?

My money's on the former.

If so, it'll be quite amusing watching Apple play catch-up and the iFans pretending that Apple are innovating.

Tablet and laptop sales neck and neck

Re: @Black Plague

Nexus 7 - a bigger version of your Android phone, but only £159.

Simples.

Apple MacBook Air 13in review

Re: Foul! @Martin

So...

You think that he is irritated because he thinks that I think that he cares that I dislike what he likes.

Is that right?

Re: Foul! @Martin

"I don't give a flying fuck about your puerile and envious "shiny shiny" comment though, and neither do Apple nor their customers."

Obviously, you DO give a flying fuck about it. Or you wouldn't have bothered to say so.

I concede it was a slightly puerile comment. I emphatically deny that it was envious.

Re: Foul!

"so what if he likes apple stuff. He does list the shortcomings he finds...."

to wit - no wired network, no matt screen, lacking in memory and disk, and insanely expensive - and he still gives it 90%. Shiny-shiny counts for a lot, it seems.

NASA releases stunning image of our universe's distant past

Re: Accelerating

".....sort of a mathematical pint too many - the bar hasn't moved but its just a lot harder to get to."

Beautiful - have one on me!

Half of Milky Way's mass found in million-Kelvin gas cloud

Brobdingnagian?

That's a complicated way of saying "huge". I bet you had to check the spelling.

Toshiba AT300 10in Android tablet review

Re: Nice, but no banana

A micro-usb to USB adaptor costs a couple of quid from Amazon. Hardly a deal-breaker.

And adding a USB connector would DEFINITELY push up the manufacturing cost.

Well done, Toshiba!

Now that's more like it.

A reasonable 10" tablet by a well-known maker at less than three hundred notes. And an SD card expansion slot too.

I don't happen to have £300 spare at the moment, but if I did, I'd be looking at this with considerable interest.

Apple's brilliant plan to fix iOS Maps: Get YOU to do it

Re: OMG They are talking to el'reg?

Since the Reg started publishing sycophantic reviews of their phones.

http://www.reghardware.com/2012/09/21/apple_iphone_5_review/

So many devices, so little policy

Re: Sailors

Arrgh, me hearties, 'tis Talk like a Pirate day!

Virgin Media STILL working on fix for SuperHub corrupt downloads glitch

"The only issues I have experienced lately..."???

Was this sarcasm?

The first doesn't matter, but the last two would be complete show-stoppers for me.

Which is why my box is set up in modem mode and I use a linux-based firewall/router instead.

Acer Iconia Tab A700 32GB HD Android tablet review

Too expensive...

Four hundred quid is a reasonable price?

Seriously, in this day and age, when exceptional 7" tablets are available for significantly less than two hundred quid, 10" tablets should be a sight cheaper than four hundred quid.

Dropbox drops JavaScript, brews CoffeeScript

Re: if it ain't broke

Which is why the Post Office was still using pulse-based dialling in the eighties...

Haynes Build Your Own Computer book review

My favourite Haynes text....

35 steps to do a procedure....

36. Reassembly is the reverse of the procedure.

Happy days. Glad I don't do my own car servicing any more.

Fanboi beats 'e-trespassing' rap after using GPS to find stolen iPad

Re: Coveted item

"If it had been an Android tablet the would never have been caught, he'd have left it behind and taken the telly instead."

I think several people above have had a serious sense of humour failure here.

It was a joke, and it made me smile, even though I own an Android table and really don't like anything to do with Apple.

(It was a joke, right?)

UK ice boffin: 'Arctic melt equivalent to 20 years of CO₂'

Re: More self-agrandizing nonesense

"My point is that debating the science, the statistics, is irrelevant now. People don't believe in AGW any more."

"Unfortunately for you, it's game over. You lost."

Belief in Darwinism is actually dropping in the US, as the creationists take hold. Are you honestly suggesting that we should just accept that?