Posts by Mat Child

Bill Gates: Yes, Ctrl-Alt-Del salute was a MISTAKE

Re: "Oops. Did hitting that mess something up for you?"

The BBC micro's BREAK key basically was what Gates was asking for.

Although you could intercept the call and stop it from performing the reset.

100 million self-driving cars will be sold globally in 2035 – report

Re: Driving a chore?

Me - I do, I love driving, so If I can't buy a manual drive car in future I'll have to keep an old one.

The other thing being if I am responsible for the vehicle (which I suspect the law will made so we are even under self drive) then I actually want to responsible.

Microsoft teases possible Jan. 29 launch for Office 2013

Bought it via my employers Home use program a while back, £8.95, not used it myself but my son needed word and publisher , £8.95 not a bad price to be legit

Steve Jobs' Apple yacht freed after family settles the bill

Typical Jobsian Design

Form over Function, that yatch is not really the best sea worthy design as it eschews all good practice for an ocean going yacht. Plus it doesn't even llok good so it's a complete waste of time and money. At least some ship builders got some work out of it

'Long Time Ago' and 'Far, Far Away' records broken by new GALAXY

Is it just me or do those bright starbursts look like they came straight from the 1980 Doctor Who title sequence?

Vauxhall Ampera hybrid e-car

Nah

It's far too expensive, the dash is UGLY and the Electric only range is still very very small

On the plus side it is by far the best looking of the breed on the oustide, most EV only cars (as opposed to conversions of IC models) are just plain hideous.

I guess the clever tricks with the engineering, add to the cost, only time to allow the technology to mature will bring the prices down and ranges up, but they still have a long way to go till they replace pure IC driven machines

Ballmer says 500 MILLION 'users' to 'have' Windows 8 in 2013

it's gonna tank

MS are doomed to repeat their cycle over and over, it's win ME and Vista all over again. People are already saying they do not want Metro and how do they respond, by ripping out any alternative.

As for single screen apps - that is not going to fly in the business world. Maybe they are already resigned to the fact that most industry will stick with win 7 and ignore 8.

The firm i work for is still running winXP on 100,000+ devices. All discussion is around getting onto win 7, no-one has even considered waiting for 8

NASA's ageing black hole-stalking probe switched off

Just wondering

Why they listened to it to make sure none of the systems hadn't reactivated?

Presumably all the expediture now is on earthbound activities, so wouldn;t stopping those save the money even if the probe was fully functioning.

Why even bother turning it off or am i being naive?

Tesla pre-sells all 2012 Model S output

"Germans are de facto #1 for car design"

Are you kidding? I will give the Germans this - their cars are solid and reliable, but in the main their styling is so boring these days.

Merc do some nice looking cars, but then they have their foot operated "handbrake"

Now the Italians make some lovely looking cars, it's a pity they not as reliable (and I speak as the owner of one)

Citroen DS range are also good looking (and have more than a passing resemblance to the Tesla IMO).

Intellectual Ventures wages patent war on Motorola

These people piss me off - collecting patents for no purpose other than to extort money from others if they hapen to invent something that does a similar function.

Enough people have said it already - Patent laws are broken, being abused by trolls and allow for far too wide a scope. They stiffle innovation and ultimately hurt consumer choice.

They need reform ASAP and need to deal with these "investement" companies.

Disney's animated back-catalog gets re-released in 3D

3D?

No thank you

How gizmo maker's hack outflanked copyright trolls

Unfortunately

Lawyers have a way of 're-interpreting' law and past cases to bring people to court, (Or at least threaten to)

Many small innovators will surrender before then as they don;t have the resources to fight this kind of bull.

Game denies Steam threat claims

It still about pricing

I wanted to buy Civilisation 5 recently

Steam wanted £29.99

Game wanted £16.99 online (don't know about the shop)

ASDA had it for £14.00

Guess where i bought it from

Apple eyes phallic iPhone, iPod charger

Bit Pointless

I for one would not want to be wrapping and unwrapping my earphones tightly around a pole for any reason.

I was always led to believe that sort treatment of wires was bad for them.

At least they aren't trying to claim ownership of contactless charging this time.

Dixons warns it's getting worse

Merged PCW/Dixons

I used to use PCW quite a bit for the "have to have now" moments. Ordered online and collected in-store. That was until the PCW was "merged" into the existing Dixons store.

This essentially amounted to a new sign over the store and the some shelves with a purple strip on.

It only stocked the same as what it did as a Dixon's only before the merger. All the collect in store stock vanished, no components, nothing.

It hasn't got any better since.

I used a "local" firm instead for my Buy online, get in person stuff. OK it;s a 15 mile drive instead of 2, but i can get what i want at a reasonable price and not have to wait for delivery.(Except Sunday, but i'll live with that).

I have no reason to go to a DSG store anymore, I suspect that will be true for many others.

Dell refreshes Alienware laptops

Poor Design

Both the current Alienware and Dell range are ugly as sin.

I know, like people, it's supposed to be what's inside that counts but still, yeuch!

I've almost got to the point of shelling out for one and then just held back because of the styling.

I'll hang onto my current lappy a bit longer.

Texting teenager plunges to his death

People need to be responsible for themselves

It's getting to the point where over-legislation, ambulance chasing lawyers and PC is breeding common sense out of the human race.

This to me is an accident. It could have been prevented by a number of things-

Changes to the building so it has higher railings or a solid wall so there are no railings

or

Changes to behaviour, Standing still while texting and watching where you are going.

as in the title people need to be responsible for themselves and not make other people do it for them.

I know that if i stab myself with a bread knife it's going to, at the least, hurt possibly even kill me. I don't need it engraving down the side of the blade to tell me this.

I also know that if i run down the stairs then i am significantly increasing the risk of falling down them. Again i don;t need full instructions on stair useage do and don'ts from a specially trained stair hostess before i sign the waiver to be allowed to use them. OK so i'm exgaggerating, but if we legislate for every single incident because some wasn't paying attention or not taking care of themselves this is how it would end up.

I'm truly sory this young man died and 1m is perhaps to short but the question should be why did he not see the barrier before he fell and could it have been prevented if he wasn;t concentrating on the text message?

Mexican woman gets litigious on Top Gear's ass

Reminds me of..

... Mr Mackay from Porridge

"I do not discriminate, I treat you all with equal contempt"

Texter who fell in fountain threatens to sue

Stupid...

Before today I've never seen this. I have now obviously. What an excellent way to ensure it's even more popular.

As for the assertion that she should have been checked on - According to the sound track "Pedro from Housekeeping" had asked her if she was alright within minutes of the incident. If true and she was in need of assistance she had her chance right there but passed it off.

O2 chops away at middle-aged spread

At the end of the day...

A company's main purpose is to make money for it's owners, regardless of what business it's in.

o2, like all the rest are out to get more for less. Other companies have a product they can tinker with, Mars Bars are lighter than they used to be, Kit Kats seem to have far less chocolate on their bottoms than they used to.

I once replaced a car with a newer one of the same model, supposedly higher spec, but things in the older car had been replaced. (soft touch plastics replaced by hard ones, grab handles replaced by blanking plugs, etc)

All making tiny savings per item but when you add them all up it'll be a substantial amount.

o2 can't exactly give you 59 seconds for your minutes airtime, so they cut costs by reducing staff.

I'm currently an o2 customer and have had little need to contact them, same goes for when i was with vodafone & T-mobile. Only switch because of flashy offers of freebies at the time (i know i'm a tart). Let's hope i don't need to talk to them any time soon.

CNN flashes gay todger over interwebs

Don't get it

What's with the "Got Milk" badges? I admit i don't know the details of this issue - only the broad outline

Microsoft delivers Google Chrome IE9 beta

Really?

"Fewer than one third have opened Favourites, fewer than a quarter have pressed the home button"

really!?

I must be wierd cos i use them every session either at work or at home.

PC World, Currys to offer cash for clunkers

PC World?

There's no such place as PC world anymore, just some shelves in the corner of curry's with different labels.

Freed Peter Moore will be 'paid in full' for time as Iraq hostage

Too Right

that is all

Sony confirms 3D TV channel plans

Un-impressed

Until they can do 3DTV (or movies) without the specs then it's no more than an expensive gimmick IMO.

Most 3d films i've seen just have gratuitous "ooh look how this pops out at you in 3d" shots which add nothing to the plot of the piece. Just eye candy.

Apple angling to transform TV?

Can't call it iTV though

At least not in the UK - It's one of the national broadcasters.

perhaps iTelly

if they started selling sweets would it be iCandy?

Microsoft apologizes for digital head transplant

Not the 1st time

I remeber when Ford got caught doing the same thing in the late 80's early nineties.

Their excuse was the poster of a sample of UK workers was amended to more accurately reflect the ethnic balance of the east european country they were re-using it in.

Tesla Model S poses for cameras

Wow

It's gorgeous. Other car manufacturers take note, leccy cars don't need to be ugly wierdly shaped plastic lumps

Apple blueprints warranty Big Brother

two things

Wasn't the EU about to outlaw devices where consumer replaceable parts like batteries weren't consumer replaceable such as the i-phone. If so then they wouldn;t be able to implement it on the current design.

Secondly if, as Spike Douglas says, there have been previous anti-intrusion detection methods (and i have seen things like these) then a patent should not be granted as there is a case for prior art (or whatever the prhase may be)

Speculation mounts over AVG plans for OS X client

so.

the big counter argument about MAC OS being relatively virus free compared to windows was it's lack of large-scale presence making it less interesting to the malware writers.

This was often dismissed by many as not being so, it's just because it's MAC OS is better.

However as MACs increase their presence so does the presence of malware for MAC to the point where a not insignificant player in the windows anti virus market see it's time to dip it's toe in.

Coincidence?

Kodak retiring iconic Kodachrome film

It's a shame

that Kodak didn't secure the Afgan Girl Picture for their gallery, it's truely one the more famous.

The others are particularly stunning though.

Checking my coat for undeveloped film before the labs stop taking it.

Can you talk and drive?

Nanny State

I agree that texting and using hand held phones whilst driving is very wrong, but and idea can be taken too far.

If they decide that having a conversation on the phone (hand-held or otherwise) whilst driving is too much, what will stop the safety lobby from dreciding that all conversation whilst driving is unsafe.

Are not passengers in the car not as distracting? Kids in the fighting in the back seat causing mummy dear to turn round to remonstrate and then crash the car used to be a staple scenario for casualty (along with the old dear up a ladder just fixing somethig before tea).

Would the next logical step from banning phone conversations be to ban all conversations with the driver, legislating that all multi-occupancy vehicles have a special cockpits for the driver that separate them from everyone else?

US mulls clicks for cameraphones

Re: Errm..

I have a Sony Ericsson w960. In silent mode it is just that - silent, no clicks, buzzes or beeps. A bit annoying actually cos you can't hear when it's finished auto focussing.

German medical team arms man, twice

re: Problem

So normal service then?

Jeremy Clarkson tilts at windmills

Capt Picard one said

"There can be no justice as long as laws are absolute,"

Most speed limits are mandatory and some have been altered downwards in a blatant attempt to grab money. Absolute punishment does not take into account the circumstances or conditions.

Near where I live there is a dual carriage bypass, without pedestrian access which had a 70mph speed limit for 35 years. There have been no new housing developments, no additional acces or exit roads, but all of a sudden it was reduced to 50 mph and 6 speed cameras erected all within a half mile of each other. One of which is hidden behind trees. Why? It was desinged to be a high speed bypass to link with the motorway network.

Hackintosh maker gets legal greeting from Apple

What if

Microsoft started shipping the next version of windows, but licenced it only for MS Branded machines with Intel processors, audio and Graphics chipsets.

Leaving all other brands and H/W setup with Vista as the only legal option until such time as they pull the plug.

The lawyers would be on it so fast you would be able to say 'anti-competative?'