Posts by Michael Xion

Slideshow: A History of First-person Shooters in 20 Games

Re: almost forgot

I think you may be right. Also, they spelt Bungie wrong in the caption. Ha ha.

Apple's 13-inch Retina MacBook torn asunder for your pleasure

Cannot unsee.....

Ha, ha. Angry robot face is angry. Check out the first pic. I have to say the internal arrangement of parts is quite aesthetically pleasing.

Twitter bows to subpoena, releases Occupy protester's tweets

The real 99%

I followed the whole 'occupy' protest thing in the media and the '99%' claim always seemed dubious to me. I didn't see a lot of homeless people and south Sudanese refugees protesting in wall st. Obviously, you can't rely on media supplied photo and video to not be biased or to properly represent the whole range of people involved, but it just seemed to me to be a bunch of privileged westerners complaining that they weren't a member of the elites gravy train. That's not to say that there are good and valid reasons to assess how the worlds economy privileges a small elite over the bulk of the population, I just don't think those protesting we're far off the 1% themselves.

In respect of the Twitter issue. I always work on the premise that if you put it online, don't be surprised if it gets used against you. Some more detail on why the courts feel they need his Twitter posts would be good. My assumption is that it has something to do with 'incitement'.

iPhone 5 adaptors goldrush begins

Why re-buy apps?

You can simply download your already purchased apps to the new phone.

More 'iPad Mini' tat pics leak ahead of Apple's big unzip

Re: iPad saves environment

And don't foret to Gris your Malodor when we browsing - damn autocorrect.

Re: iPad saves environment

Having seen this quote from Jobs a few times, I must say it never made any sense. I'm typin Gris on an iPad I bought earlier this year. Before that I used my iPhone quite comfortably for we browsing, applications and typing comments on El Reg forums. Admittedly, if ind the iPhone a bits malodor this purpose now I'm used to the iPad, but the fact remains that I didn't need to sharpen my fingers to use the iPhone. This 'quote' from Jobs seems to imply that the iPhone would also be useless as a media device as its even smaller than 7 inches.

Google gets hands on 'glove-cam' patent

It's a pity a 10 year old can't patent ideas

When I was about 10, I had to watch 'Blake's 7' on a B&W portable TV in the spare room as the main TV was being watched by the rest of the family for something else (can't rememberer what). The antenna was a bit dodgy and I found that by moving my hands in a particular way I could improve or degrade reception. At the time I thought this could be a really cool way to control devices. I figured that you could wear rings of various metals on your fingers and the EMF broadcast from a transmitter could be modified by moving your fingers in a certain predetermined way (ie touch thumb to little finger to change channel up) to alter the signal received at the nominated device. At the time I'd never heard of the Theremin, and it was many years later that I saw something similar in the Steven Spielberg film 'Minority Report'.

Australia threatens telcos with mobile roaming price laws

Re: Conroy is a complete and utter idiot

That was meant for Goat Jam

Re: Conroy is a complete and utter idiot

Dick.

Facebook: 83 million IMPOSTERS stalk our network

Re: Duplicates

Set one up the other day just to access some info only available ona company's FB account. Oddly enough Nerk Nerksome has yet to find any friends -:)

New target for 419 fraudsters: Struggling 'weak' banks

Oooooh, lady Fanny

Cheers for the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels reference....is it referring to the lads from Lagos or the American banks, hmmmm

Is it time for enterprise PC outfits to carry Apple Macs?

Re: Cheesy article...or should I say Fruity article?

I'm just an office worker in a large university, but I know that the late-2011 iMac sitting on my desktop cost the same as the standard Dell boxes that are rolled out across the organisation. Your assertion as regards desktops does not hold true across the board. I suspect most large organizations do not go for cheap generic brand PCs. The only extra cost involved in purchasing the iMac was $50 for a copy of VMWARE so I can run Windows for a couple of enterprise apps.

Optus’ free broadband: the details

Not Everywhere

For obvious reasons, It's not available on exchanges that only house Telstra equipment ie most small towns outside the capital and larger cities. I reckon most people would be happy to forego the NBN if there was just some compulsion on Telstra to upgrade existing exchanges. Wouldn't it be good if any ISP could offer services at any exchange. Not sure if this is technically possible, but it would make a big difference to people who can only get Bigpond.

Workers' comp covers sex-related injuries, judge rules

Re: Maybe the judge was getting some from the plantiff?

It's simple really. The worker was domiciled at a lodging chosen by her employer whilst away from hoem on work-related purposes. Anything that happens to the worker during that period is covered by the company's compulsory workers compensation/workcover insurance.

She could also separately sue the hotel for not adequately maintaining their light fixtures. To be honest, I don't know why this even went to court. Seems a pretty clear cut case of workers comp to me.

It doesn't matter what she was doing provided it happened in the 'normal course of events' ie not a high risk activity. So, no, abseiling down the hotel wall with tied together bedsheets (as a previous poster suggested) would not be covered due to the 'you're a dickhead' clause.

ps IANAL, YMMV

Aliens Blu-ray disc set

Re: Boring gun scene?!

I think you'll find that was in 2001 a space odyssey.

Shock jocks take NBNCo cash, then trash its ads

Re: AM radio still exists?

Wtf. Is that supposed to be an oz accent. Sound more Wes country to me.

Fans fly to forums to signal iPad 3 Wi-Fi woes

Re: Fact

Same genre. Have wok supplied 3GS and bought myself new iPad on launch day. Tested using work network via speed test.net

3GS

39ms ping

8.78 up

10.38 down

iPad

25ms ping

12.1 up

14.89 down

Also have not noticed any difference between the two in ability o receive signal. iPad is 16gb wi-fi only.

Suspect any issues are related to bad batch and/or the '4g' versions.

Daniel Craig like Connery, Skyfall helmsman suggests

Re: RE: All I need now is for Bill Nighy to play the next Doctor Who :)

I'd actually watch Dr Who if Bill Nighy was the doctor.

Re: Re: Anonymous because this wont be popular, but...

Have to agree with this. Always thought OHMSS was one of the best. Made Bond an actual person as well with the whole fallign in love and new bride getting murdered. Plus, love the opening ski sequence.

Apple CEO defends fixes to suppliers' working conditions

Isit irony?

'apple china employees abuse cook' at the bottom of the article. Great confluence of tags.

Telstra gets mail with Microsoft

No choice.

Mac-based household. Got bigpond ADSL and it works fine. Don't use the Bigpond email address as I have a private gmail address and work address. Unfortunately I have no choice about using Bigpond as Telstra are the only ISP available where I live.

Koala food may power US Defence force

No worries, will swap the lot for about 5 million cane toads. Come and get 'em.

Kodak heading to Chapter 11

Damn you, autocorrect, damn you

So, no tweet answer to the "bass question" then.

Apple TV tops connected set-top box chart

YMMV

Never had this problem. I use my appletv to stream music and videos from my Mac on an almost daily basis. I turn the power off at the wall every night without going in to standby and it always comes back one fine the next day. Have has it since launch. Had to reset maybe 3 times in that period

Solar installations skyrocket in Oz

How do you figure this?

The average daily generation from a 1kw system in Australia is 4KWh. Multiplied by 365 gives 1460 KWh annual generation. Scaling up from 1000MWh installed base should give a generation of 1460 GWh of annual generation. If only 680GWh is being produced, that implies a 46% efficiency. Still not good, but nowhere near as bad as 7.8%. I accept the comments regarding poorly installed panels and people purchasing cheap components that don't produce at rated ouput, however, it's worth noting that:

The generation of 680GWh is based on the period from 1/10/10 to 30/9/11.

The headline figure of 1031MW of installed systems is based on the figure at the end of August 2011. The installed figure for the end of 2010 was 492MW.

So, the geeration figure of 680GWh has to be based on a generation capacity of substantially less than 1031MW as something like half the installed capacity was actually installed sometime between 1/10/10 and 30/9/11.

To be fair, the CEC report should have been clearer on this. Given the reduction in government rebates on July 1, 2011, it woudl be safe to assume that a lot of the 492Mw installed between 2010 and 2011 occured in the second quarter of 2011, so woudl not add significantly to the total output generated.

I'm happy for someone to explain if I've worked any of this out incorrectly, but the CEC figures seem reasonable to me.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition

Fanboi Alert (me)

Been playing the Mac version since it came out (Halo:CE). There are still some people playing online on both PC and Mac. I find the Mac version plays fine. I finally 'bit the bullet' and bought an XBOX 360 console earlier this year (mainly due to there being no Oz players left on the PC/Mac and me getting constantly lag-killed online), then purchased Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST and Reach. Finished Reach and nearly all of Halo 2. I agree with the comment about Halo 2 graphics - looks worse on the console than on my iMac G5. Couldn't wait for the anniversary version to come out, made the mistake of ordering from overseas to keep the cost down so still waiting :-(

But that's ok, 'cos I downloaded the map pack for Reach today - yay

Horses for courses, I don't play very often so prefer to pick a game and thoroughly enjoy it, rather than jumping to whatever is this month's AAA title.

I understand the reasoning for using the Reach multiplayer engine, but some of the original maps are going to be a bit small to play with jetpacks etc (battle creek springs to mind).

Whinging Brits reflect on epic Oz road trip

The too would be fine...

..so long as you weren't driving a road train. Those buggers are 7 foot tall and all muscle.

Facebook Deals dumped

Places?

Any reference for the quote that Facebook has cabncelled places? Haven't seen it reported elsewhere.

Kremlin green lights Siberia-Alaska tunnel

Who will pay...

BHP of course. They could use some of the 22b they make from digging up dirt in WA to bankroll the project. Better yet, considering that dirt will be made into the steel used in the tunnel, they could ship the dirt from Siberia back to WA to fill up the holes. Everyone wins! (except the Oz public)

Microsoft turns screws on bot herders with hefty reward

If you are referring to the rustock perps ...

Not really. That would be analogous to me robbing a bank then being offered a job as their security guard.

Amazon swallows UK online bookseller

noooooooo

I regularly buy from The Book Depository from Australia, I'd hate to see the business messed with by Amazon (and prices go up).

Apple MacBook Air reportedly back... in black

but how do you know..

..that people want to read it before you write it?

Aus gaming and ICT get R&D tax boost

1.8m or 1.8b..

..I'm guessign the latter.

Apple iMac 27in

Yes but, no but...

I managed to finally convice my bosses to swap the PC On my desk for the new 21 inch iMac. The clincher was that the iMac was actually cheaper than our standard desktop PC which have to be rediculously specced for win7.

Farting death camels must die to save the world!

Kangaroos don't fart

They are in fact one of the 'greenest' meats you can get. Sustainable, pefectly matched to the ecology and the meat is high in protein and low in fat.

Journo was arrested, says Qld cop

Nice one

Great confluence of articles. Almost had me snorting my beer out my nose.

HP breakthrough to hasten flash memory's demise?

Cyber kitty overlords?

These then would be the minions of our existing furry kitten overlords. And yes, I own (am owned) by two cats.

People watch movies on stuff

Not sure about this

Because I'd always admit to engaging in 'criminal' behaviour (torrenting movies) if asked by a 'research company' over the phone.

So, what's the best sci-fi film never made?

Hmmmm

I always thought horse became the ship mind at the end. A bit out there but the ultimate chameleon. Also. That whole sequence in the train tunnels could be done very original alien spooky.

What's that Perky Pat? More Chew-Z

The K W Jeter sequels to Blade Runner would be good if done properly. Anyone been to Scapa Flow? Sounds seriously spooky.

Motherf........

Not sure the whole going back in time having sex with your mother would get past the censors, but you never know. 'time enough for love'. I like Heinlein's work but he had some serious kinks when it came to his female characters.

Consider Phlebas....

The opening scene always plays like a movie in my head when I read it.

Paramount to recount The Martian Chronicles

But Hubbard stole it.

He wrote crap SF and had the gall to steal all Heinlein's ideas fir his nutty religion.

Radioactive Tokyo tapwater HARMS BABIES ... if drunk for a year

Actually, no

The article clearly states that 'mandatory' testing of sheep before certain activities (such as transport to auction and slaughter) is being lifted from a small number of remaining farms. The article does not state how many sheep over the years have failed that testing for radioactivity. Whilst a major inconvenience to a decreasing number of farmers, it's not the big deal you make out.

Did you bother to RTFA?

It is 5 years old. Where's the follow up? What happened in the case? The article itself details an initial investigation into what is basically a 'he said, she said' legal argument where neither side has a strong argument. On the one hand there are claims of a cover-up of the chernobyl nuclear cloud extent. On the other hand, the claims of thyroid cancer caused by the cloud are not proven (the article even states that the investigation of thyroid cancer rates goes back to the 70's - Chernobyl was in 1986).

If anything the article merely serves to increase the confusion around Chernobyl. I t does NOT suppiort the contention fo a 'cover up'

The Register and Australia-New Zealand

But don't expect theregister.com.au...

...already taken by some dodgy domain name place holder.

Watson? Commercial – not super – computer

Hats off to you...

For the obscure classic movie reference. Caught it once very late at night on ABC about 20 years ago. Fantastic.

One-third of Aussies 'are pirates'

Define pirate .....

If I loan a friend my disc set of firefly that's ok. If I copy the disc set and loan him the copies, is that piracy? Either way the content creator gets no additional revenue.

iPhone owners get walked through confessional

Anyone read 'Noir' by K W Jeter?

....where's the 'full prince Charles' App?

'Methanotroph' bacteria feasted on blown BP rig's methane belch

Er yes, but

They'd be dead from drowning so I guess it would work. I think you meant FROM the neck down.