Posts by Anonymous Custard

Schwarzenegger says 'I'll be back' for Terminator 5 reboot

Re: Terminator *5*??

Why do I keep reading this as Terminal 5?

That said given what a mess Heathrow made of that (as anyone who's flown through it can attest) perhaps it's appropriate after all.

Re: Dialogue

I dunno, we're even rebooting comments now? (the very first and most popular one).

Says it all really I guess...

Reboot reboot sequel reboot

How about something new and original like, well, a new and original idea, script and story?

It's all getting tiresome, especially when the original movie was designed as a one-off with a complete story sequence and ending, but is then a surprise hit and so the whole lot gets mangled to get a series out of it (looking at you here PotC). And how the hell can there be Independence Day 2?

And Arnie as a rebooted Terminator? From those photos, it's more a complete overhaul that'd be needed.

Voyager 1 'close' to breaking through to DEEP SPACE - boffins

Re: Iconic

Indeed, although then in fairness we'd need one for Opportunity and Spirit as well.

Tantric?

Didn't they announce something almost identical a few weeks back?

They've been so close now for so long it's starting to sound like tantric sex.

Windows 8.1: So it's, er, half-speed ahead for Microsoft's Plan A

Re: Let me get this right...

And on my Win7 boxes and laptops, I just click the little icon that's conveniently placed on the taskbar, which features all sorts of other convenient icons for other tools that I often use plus useful stuff like a clock.

Or is that too archaic and old-fashioned in the modern touch environment? Too much like actually pushing a button to start something? Oops, shouldn't mention start and button in the same sentence around here :)

Re: If car manufacturers were to do the same...

And for further global compatibility, occasionally put the whole lot plus steering wheel on the left hand side of the vehicle.

And as one is a foot-based interface and the other is hand-based, there is of course no need to have the two co-ordinated and sharing resources by being on the same side of the car.

Live or let dial - phones ain’t what they used to be

Re: Apropos of nothing..

I obviously lived in a bigger town, ours was 4-digits.

Strange to thing that when I was a teenager there wasn't internet, www, facebook, twitter, "proper" mobile phones (ones that weren't the size and weight of bricks with even less battery life than a modern smartphone) or indeed that much of a computer ecosystem at all (but the '64 and the Speccie were still fun).

My kids still don't believe me when I tell them that (given I basically make microchips for a living, and I'm only going grey due to aforesaid kids rather than too-advanced age).

Windows 8.1: 'It's good for enterprises, too,' says Redmond

Re: Advertising Video

OK, so I now have a mental image of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse selling Win8 that just "suits you sir...".

Bugger, now I'm gonna have that catchphrase in my brain all bloody day.

<--- Mine's the jacket with matching trousers and waistcoat.

Re: BYOD friendly?

Now why didn't someone like Blackberry/RIM think to offer something like this?

Oh wait...

LOHAN cranks up old-school clockwork failsafe

Re: Seeing the parachute laid out like that...

Which was photographed by the paparazzi with them conspicuously absent?

Seeing the parachute laid out like that...

...they've finally found SPEARS's knickers.

iOS7 headshaking interface revealed

So between the gestures, the face-tracking and the eyeball focus monitoring, soon we're supposed to look like epileptic spies? Combine it with a bluetooth headset so we look like we're also talking to ourselves and you have the full set.

Not so long ago appearing like that would have you carted off to the loony bin. Hmm, I guess if you were daft enough to use such a feature then it'd probably be an appropriate response anyway.

<--- Mine's the one without straps on the arms, at least for now.

Microsoft talks up devices, Windows 8.1 at developer shindig

Asking what customers want and building it leads to design-by-committee and the Homer Simpson Car.

Or the Ford Edsel, to give the more real-world example on which Homer's was based.

All perfectly true and quite potentially disasterous. But doing the exact opposite, telling your customers what they want and ignoring how they respond to it is equally risky, as MS have found out.

Proper market research and beta-testing/previewing should of course avoid either extreme case. Unfortunately for them (and us) that doesn't seem to be what's happened this time.

Name calling

"Should we call that a PC? Should we call it a tablet?"

Fundamentally there's a problem - we shouldn't care what we call the damn thing. We just want something that we can use to achieve our tasks, be they email, web surfing, social media, watching tv/movies or work.

Just give us the tools to do that, and an overall operating system that lets us use those tools without getting in the way...

Radio hams tell Ofcom: Put that Wi-Fi mob back in their place

Re: Unix

Sounds like a job for the SPB. At least when they've finished chasing around trying to find where LOHAN ended up this time...

WarGames IMSAI machine for sale (again)

Re: But...

No, but it might cause a few international ones ;)

Windows Store apps for Office probably won't ship until 2014

Re: WTF are 'Windows Store apps for Office'...?

When did OneNote become a core application of Office too? I always thought the 4 were Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook (with the latter optionally replaced by Access, depending on your needs)?

Was it just when it was found to be the lowest hanging fruit, being the simplest to convert to a touch environment?

Stock dips as fanbois complain of dodgy Wi-Fi on MacBook Air

Re: At last, something epic

@stanimir - you sir owe me the remainder of todays work that I'm now not going to be able to concentrate on with that mental image and soundtrack in my head :) So all in all about 3 cents worth ;)

*wanders off humming Yakety Sax*

Re: @ JoshOvki

Nice to know I'm not the only one who had that mental image.

Just picture the scared and wounded MacBook surrounded and in a corner, snarling at the circling Geniuses and trying to avoid their nets and pointy sticks.

Then it's bagged, crated and rushed off to a hidden warehouse somewhere where its very existence can be plausibly denied.

Sony unveils latest attempt at an Android SmartWatch

Try, try and try again

"Competitors are only now launching first generation devices, while we are already launching a 3rd generation device with all the insight gained from over half a million customers combined with Sony's wealth of technology expertise to create the best ever smartwatch experience," said Stefan Persson, head of companion products at Sony Mobile.

Or in other words there must be money in this as others are now trying it, so we're going to have yet another crack at it after cocking it up twice before. Let's just ignore the half-million punters who got burned with those failures and hope that they don't hold it against us.

Windows 8.1 start button appears as Microsoft's Blue wave breaks

Re: Windows 8.1

So start appears at the end.

How very Microsoft...

Windows 8 hype has hurt PC makers and distributors - Gartner

Plus it's the fact that your basic £250 PC/laptop/whateverbook is now powerful enough to do everything 99% of users want, so unless they break the thing or it wears out then there's no need to update it.

Hence why we now get told that the machine can (for example) edit HD video. Now I'm sure that's not something that most people would wish to do, given how long such things take to upload to YouTube etc. Most people are happy just to watch them, plus surf the net, do email and maybe a few games, most of which will quite happily go on a 2-3 year old machine, or on a new budget one.

Was looking earlier with a colleague at a new laptop he was going to replace a failed desktop machine with. £250 for something that will do everything needed.

Yes you can pay more (thank you Intel), but unless you're a road warrior lugging the thing about, who needs excessively thin and light when it'll just sit on a desk most of the time, and by being bigger and chunkier it can have all sorts of archaic but useful things on it like a DVD drive, ethernet and a nice handful of USB or similar.

Telly psychics fail to foresee £12k fine for peddling nonsense

Re: Would it have been better for the mail...

So does Derren Brown, although these days he's become a bit too well known to do it "properly" (suffering from Ali G syndrome).

And then of course there's also longer-standing seekers of the real truth, like James Randi. Also a former magician, sits quite nicely between Brown and Houdini.

After all that, how about something similar for BBC Parliament?

Anons: We milked Norks dry of missile secrets, now we'll spaff it online

Can't be them - the V2 worked and was quite effective and deadly...

Re: Incoming!

Just prey that the document doesn't say "The ICBM project failed, but on the bright side we just discovered a huge new oil reserve". Then we'd all be screwed.

Re: phuzz Er...

More likely the Word 97 document they found would read "It didn't work and went bang. Pretend it was a firework display to honour our glorious leader".

One can't help but think of this as the little boy teasing the tiger. OK an old and fairly toothless starved tiger, but those can sometimes be the most lethal when cornered.

Not all data encryption is created equal

Your average consumer

It is not something your average consumer can do, but your average consumer wouldn't even think about the vulnerability of an IPv6 light bulb in the first place

Given their current price, your average consumer probably wouldn't buy one in the first place either...

Pussy galore: Bubble-bath webcam spy outrage

Senses working overtime

My own personal fear of Google Glass is not so much that I might leave them on while having a post-coital bath so much as while having a post-curry dump

It could be worse - at least they only deal with vision rather than all five senses (or at least don't include smell-o-vision).

Rise of the Machines: How computers took over the stock market

Starting with giving everything an acronym, preferrably a three-letter one.

Need to be a ruddy computer just to keep track of the ones in the article, let alone actually understand what the hell is being talked about.

To err is human...

...but to efficiently backrupt you requires a computer.

RBS Mainframe Meltdown: A year on, the fallout is still coming

The Edinburgh mainframe was so old that parts of its code had been written in Assembler, a language rooted in the immediate post-war years, with dates going back to 1970.

Umm, didn't the war end in the mid 1940's?

And we haven't fought with Scotland itself since the mid 1500's, which is a little early even for Assember.

Apps?

Since when did mainframes run apps rather than programs? Makes it sound like a big smartphone running the show...

I, for one, welcome our GIANT TITANIUM INSECT OVERLORDS

Re: but do they still burn

Should you really have said that, given the audience reading this? :)

To the mental tones of Bart Simpson pronouncing it "cool man" before going to try it somewhere suitably far away and flammable.

Umm, did you notice the title of the article?

And of course with usual commentard timing, see the post currently above yours... :)

I guess it's a new spin on debugging the process anyway...

Boffins light way to photonic computing with 1PB DVD tech

Re: Coat's First Law Of Optical Media

Yes, it says something about station wagons.

I think that one relates to data transfer rate rather than capacity?

And sadly in some rural (and even a few urban) areas it still applies, although the station wagon may need replacing by a 4x4.

Forget the sharks

Now we're gonna get evil tadpoles with frikkin' laser beams on their heads!

Intel joins Alliance for Wireless Power

For the moment I'll stick with my electro-quadrent (micro-USB, mini-USB, phone and Apple - from the pound shop of all places) as that way I can conveniently still use the connected item without worrying about charging myself or ensuring I don't mess up the wireless charge.

But it's interesting tech anyway, especially if it can be evolved to safely charge at a reasonable distance, a la Tesla's dream.

Home Office boffins slip out passport-scanning Android app

Re: @ac

The problem perhaps is that all the manual check questions (as listed in the article) can be answered by looking in the passport itself. Hence won't be any barrier to the "borrowed passport" scenario, although they would prevent "walk-by" scanning.

Who do you think you are?

Might have a quick look at this, simply to see who my passport actually thinks I am. Having tried the ePassport gates @ Gatwick now several times (business travel) and getting bounced from them more times than they let me through, I'm becoming convinced I'm either not who my passport thinks I am, or perhaps not who I think I am (not sure which is the more worrying option).

Oh bring back the IRIS gates - quick, simple and they actually worked...

Thousands of fingered crims, informants spaffed in web security COCK-UP

Re: Re :- include the Carphone Warehouse, Lloyds Bank and Ladbrokes, which runs a nationc

At least with Ladbrokes you have an actual chance to walk out richer than when you went in.

The only people at Lloyds who do that are their much beloved bankers, not we bail-out mugs.

Wi-Fi Alliance takes grid place, revs engine in race to 802.11ac

ac

And there was me thinking it was wifi especially for anonymous cowards ;)

PC makers REALLY need Windows 8.1 to walk on water - but guess what?

The best OS...

...should be the one that you don't notice, which just acts as a nice gateway portal into the functionality (program or application) that you actually want to use.

All most people want from an OS is something that gets the machine up and running quickly, allows easy access to the programs/apps that do the various specialised jobs and is a stable and secure enough platform to be a good foundation level and not bring the whole lot crashing down or allowing viruses/malware to sneak in. Aside from that it should be out of the way and not interfering with daily life.

But it seems to me that this nice simple remit has been replaced by marketting and the "all-singing-all-dancing look at me" approach which is diametrically opposite to where it should be. It's all fancy bling, at the expense of true functionality. Sadly whilst Win8 is one of the main offenders for this, it does seem to be something of a wider trend beginning with things like Unity as well.

Android and iOS, by design and by (older) hardware constraints don't seem to suffer anywhere near as much of this, and so people go for them. The hardware form-factor for media consumption also helps of course, but there's certainly a lesson in there for desktop OS makers should they wish to hear it on their current stroll towards the cliffs...

Microsoft lures buy-curious vixens, corduroys with a cheap fondle

Microsoft also boasts of 20,000 apps?

Microsoft also boasts of 20,000 "educationally relevant" third-party apps in the online Windows Store.

Out of curiosity, how many of those 20,000 will actually run on the RT though, and how many are written for Intel-based rather than ARM-based silicon?

HP sacks English employees to bag Scots gov jobs cash

Re: So they'll "transition" them, eh?

'Cos then you'd know exactly what they were talking about and could immediately get upset by it, rather than hiding it for long enough that they can scarper.

I mean it's not as if they want to be clear that they're giving bad news when they can dress it up as something else.