* Posts by M Gale

3500 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2007

Verizon offers Motorola mobe with 48-HOUR battery life

M Gale

Re: No SD slot?

Far more useful on the ol' Transformer TF201 (which also is currently using most of its inbuilt 32 gig and nearly all of a 16GB full size SD and 16GB micro SD). The USB slot on the keyboard dock is great for shoving a thumbstick in for file transfers (or a joystick or pad for games, or even a mouse for some Real WorkTM).

On a phone however, that means big dongles sticking out the end, and some kind of adapter to go from micro-USB to full size. I may not be Apple-obsessive over neatness, but that's an ugly and potentially unstable solution when a micro SD will do.

Besides, most of the internal space is actually taken up with apps. Yes really. You know how many gigs of space putting just a few Gameloft or Rockstar titles on the device will take up? Stick a few albums and some DVD rips on there and you're full, and wondering what to delete to make room. That extra 16 or 32GB makes a massive difference when you only have 16 or 32GB to start with.

M Gale

No SD slot?

No sale.

Yes, yes I do use more than 32 gig of storage.

Texas man charged in multimillion-dollar Bitcoin Ponzi scheme

M Gale

ISK can be used to buy play passes

Play passes can be sold for monies. Not sure it's against CCP's ToS or not, but it's certainly possible.

Therefore, you can convert ISK into real money. In fact if you're that awesomely good at the game, it's feasible you could make yourself quite the wage packet out of just playing a computer game.

To make it more interesting, scams are a legitimate playing tactic in EVE. Hell, look at the "Causality" trailer and you'll find that CCP are even encouraging people to be downright dirty bastards (but only to bad guys, of course).

Sammy had Sweet Fanny Adams to do with Swiss Fanny madam's blast

M Gale

Re: Ledswinger

1) That's a bronze gong.

2) Cooo, inturresting theory.

Android MasterKey found buried in kiddie cake game on Google Play - report

M Gale

Re: @I ain't Spartacus

"Might see a rebound of this if devs lose security control."

How in hell is letting me block an app from having Internet access causing the dev to "lose security control", whatever that means?

The dev has no rights over my phone.

M Gale

I get down voted all the time for giving opinions about windows 8 and windows phone 8, saying they are actually good to use here is the equivalent of telling someone that you just ran over their cat in your car.

WP8's UI is just about passable on a phone. On a desktop it's a bloody horror.

You may think differently, but I honestly don't care what you think. I know what I like and don't like, and Windows 8 is a piece of shit straight out of the Steve Jobs "we know what you want better than you do" school of OS and UI design.

Problem is, they don't know better.

Ubuntu boss: I want to make a Linux hybrid mobe SO GIVE ME $32m

M Gale

Re: I can run Ubuntu on my S3

A Linux distribution running in an emulated-x86 VM on an ARM processor, with the UI chugging along at some low amount of frames per second and the apps taking an age and a half to load, is not quite the same as a custom-made phone for a custom-made distribution running apps designed for the system.

We hardly ordered any stock! Yet here we are again with ANOTHER PC MOUNTAIN

M Gale

"In this age of 8Gb usb sticks what sense does a CD/DVD drive make?"

In this age of in-car CD players and three quid DVDs from Tesco, I would have thought that was obvious.

How our shaken Reg Playmonaut survived a 113,000ft stratodangle

M Gale

So...

...paraglider then?

US town mulls bounty on spy drones, English-speaking gunman only

M Gale

Re: I hope some fool shoots one down...

If you can shoot a drone down from 800 feet up with a standard shotgun, I think you deserve less imprisonment and more a bloody medal.

And the drone manufacturers would need a kick up the backside.

Oh please, PLEASE bring back Xbox One's hated DRM - say Xbox loyalists

M Gale

And of the 5 last comments on the petition...

...0 out of 5 of them were serious, at of the time of writing.

Methinks this chap is going to have fun reading through thousands of sarcastic comments calling him a twat. My pick of the front page has to be a paragraph by "Fuckfaic McGee", Australia:

I love restrictions. I want always online DRM. I want the game rental business to become obsolete. I don't want to let my friends borrow games, because fuck them. All I care about is my god damn new age console that'll blow everything else out of the water! Fuck the PS4 and fuck those Sony guys for catering to fans who care about their gaming experience. Fuck PC, that shit is stupid. Steam? Fuck that shit. They never have sales or anything. It's not as affordable as buying my games from the XBL marketplace. I love Microsoft and their business practices will be the best forever. Fuck yes. <3 Xbox.

Firefox OS mobilises HTML5, without the added Steve Jobs

M Gale

Re: useful APIs .... no longer portable

The problem to my mind is making money. App stores allow developers to monetise very easily, how you achieve that with an easy to copy web app is a different matter....

Question is whether you need to put copy protection on the app at all. The endless DRM arms race so far hasn't done much to stop unauthorised copying, but it has provided some pretty nasty ways of ensuring that paying customers are horribly limited.

M Gale

Re: And how does a developer make money from this?

You never paid for an app via someone's website before? Only, this time it could be a far more seamless "like this game? Buy the full and offline version for only £X.YZ. Click [here]!"

News sites like The Register, except with an article store that'll automatically download today's news so you can read it offline? Full offline functionality enabled via a small subscription.

That or MMO clients. WebGL exists now, and it's shaders as far as the eye can see. Possible to do a WoW or EVE client? Only Blizzard and CCP know that, but they'd be daft not to be running experiments right now.

Or even, shock horror, adverts. Must be a reason I'm being told that EE are doing a Blackberry Q10 on a business plan for just £30 a month, in that little box to the right.

Tethered and vulnerable: Hotspot password FAIL not just in iPhones

M Gale

Re: Hotspot on my phone? No thanks!

Well, right now and for whatever reasons, my phone company is my ISP. The hotspot feature is not only useful, but essential.

As is an unlimited traffic allowance that actually means unlimited.

M Gale

Huh, I thought WPA2 fixed the little "sniff one packet and spend a week busting the key at lightning speed" bug that was in WPA?

Of course I could be wrong. Of course, some people still set their access points up as WEP, which really is game over before you even start.

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

M Gale

Re: Let me get this right...

Up to 72 IIRC on a 24'' monitor leaving the task bar for "running" applications.

Information Overload.

He's heard of it.

M Gale

Re: Mmeier

That's funny, I don't think anybody was replying to you. Nor accusing you specifically of anything. You feeling talked to, for some reason?

I have known someone else who claims to have nothing to do with Microsoft while at the same time seeming to profess undying love for them. Except, they work for one of Microsoft's contractors. So while strictly true about not working for Microsoft, this guy knows what side his bread is buttered.

Know what I mean?

Idaho patriots tool up to battle Jihad with pork bullets

M Gale

Re: AC

They are all cunts, and the only problem is the shit caused to the civvies that have to live through it.

I'm reminded of a Jarvis Cocker song.

The future of cinema and TV: It’s game over for the hi-res hype

M Gale

Is there some human element going beyond tradition to account for this?

Probably not.

Try just showing the film and not telling people it runs at 48fps. See what the approval rating is then, particularly amongst people who said that 48fps was crap when they were told what it was.

M Gale

Re: A great article with just one point that I'd take issue with... @m Gale

I mean they are watching HD channels on an old SD CRT screen, because it gives a better picture than the shitty blockfest that is standard-def "digital television".

Basically, HDTV finally fixed what digital television broke in a horrific manner and then tried to proclaim as "better".

M Gale

Re: You can have both. It was born years ago.

Quarter of a metric ton per platter, apparently.

Or 59.5238 Jubs in the preferred measurement unit for this esteemed organ.

M Gale

Re: HFR Kool-Aid is the best!

I have an FRUCing projector

Naughty boy, mind your language!

And wash that mouth out before I do it for you!

M Gale

Re: HD Tennis

Your telly might be 1080p, and some of the media you might watch through it might be 1080p, but the majority of broadcast media is still 1080i or lower.

M Gale

Re: A great article with just one point that I'd take issue with...

I consider HDTV as being the point when shite over-compressed digital television finally caught up with broadcast-quality SD from 30 years ago.

Seriously, I know people who subscribe to HD channels and watch them with an old CRT, because the resultant picture isn't full of MPEG artefacts.

M Gale

Re: used to play Quake and UT all night?

idspispopd

And while we're at it, up down left right a+start.

Oh hang on, wrong game.

US trade commish kicks off patent-troll-nixing plan

M Gale

Re: Pointless?

the late Eadon (RIP)

Well holy pants. Now I'm curious. I want to know what he did that managed to get him turned into an unperson here. Opinionated perhaps, but.. dayum.

M Gale

Re: Pointless?

So nowt to do with stopping patent trolls and everything to do with making sure only US companies can patent troll on US soil, and only if US.gov gets a slice of the pie?

If so, I wouldn't call it unexpected.

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

M Gale

Re: wjhat makes me laugh...

I guess you've never spotted the other posts I've made here, where I've quite clearly stated that neither I nor, that I can see, anybody else is complaining about faster.

I'm complaining about the UI. It's shit. If I want an Xbox, I'll buy an Xbox, thanks all the same.

While we're about "innovations", can you show me anything in 8 that's impossible in 7? No, I don't mean "live tiles", which what Microsoft used to have in 7 as desktop widgets until they removed them as a security risk. I don't mean a new exclusive version of a web browser I'm never going to use either, or an SDK for a mobile platform that's only exclusive to 8 because, dammit, you're going to have 8 if Microsoft have to choke the living shit out of you.

Enjoy the crap UI that does nothing but get in the way, negating any improvements there might have been.

M Gale

Re: Sourceforge & Classic Shell to the rescue!

M Gale, Please look at Classic Shell on Sourceforge.

I'd rather not. I have Linux for an OS that separates the UI from everything else. It's designed to let you swap out a shite UI for one that you might like better.

Windows on the other hand, is not designed around this. If 8.1 is anything to go by, it's made by people who are actively hostile to this approach. As you yourself say, Classic Shell needs to have a "fix" for an entirely deliberate problem. To quote the site admin here, "There is no official release of Windows 8.1 yet. At this time it is unknown if Classic Shell will work on it as is or will require modification."

I'll stick with 7 until either Microsoft see sense, Linux takes over the desktop (hah), or it becomes impossible to run anything new in 7.

M Gale

Re: Windows 8.1

No, I have the Windows 7 start menu on my Windows 7 machine. Windows 8 Pro sits in a virtual machine being used occasionally to see how crap it is this week, until the UI works properly.

M Gale

Windows 8.1

The "we've figured out how to stop those 3rd party hacks from integrating seamlessly" edition.

Any word on whether you can remove the TIFKAM button and replace it with a Start button?

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo: The big three slug it out at E3

M Gale

Get it right.

It's not "allow free trade-ins."

It's "not add a tax to trade-ins."

The former statement seems to imply that Sony are being extra-specially generous somehow.

PlayStation 4 is FreeBSD inside

M Gale

Re: FFS - It's a development kit, not a prototype or manufacturing sample

Given that a PS3 devkit is a PS3 with "TOOL" on the side and some flags in the firmware unlocked, it wouldn't be surprising if the PS4 is similar.

Now PS2 devkits, they were quite the chunky beast. Imagine a PC-tower-sized PS2 and you're about right on the money.

Snowden: 'Hey, Assange, any more room on Ecuador's sofa?'

M Gale

Re: Not good

Actually on the 10 point Saville scale it only rates a 2

Now then, now then!

Cuba bound? Edward Snowden leaves Hong Kong

M Gale

Re: I'm becoming rather anti-US. @ Don Jefe

My favorite are the horses asses that refuse to vote because they don't like any of the candidates.

Or maybe these are people that consider that taking part in the charade legitimises it? Same people who are likely to tell you "it doesn't matter who you vote for. The government still gets in."

Using encryption? That means the US spooks have you on file

M Gale

Re: Perhaps

If you are using encryption and you don't have security clearance, maybe you have something to hide?

Of course I do: My privacy.

El Reg rocket squad poised to select Ultimate Cuppa teabag

M Gale

Re: PG Tips

Furthermore I suggest thet anyone who puts forward any of those fruit / spice flavoured or night-time / relax abominations, earl grey or anything to do with liptons should be banned from commenting for a very long time.

Never had a good cup of Turkish tea (basically, bits of bush swirled around in a cup) or Chai, then.

Microsoft caves on Xbox One DRM and used-game controls

M Gale

Re: I Understand Why.. but am disappointed

Then what went wrong with World of Goo?

A rate of unauthorised copying of around 80%. However, you neglect to include the creator's own opinion on the matter:

“by the way, just in case it’s not 100% clear, we’re not angry about piracy, we still think that DRM is a waste of time and money, we don’t think that we’re losing sales due to piracy, and we have no intention of trying to fight it.”

That's 2D Boy, telling you that you are wrong.The same 2D Boy that found that a DRM'd game in the same study had a 92% piracy rate, though not sure how they determined that.

Now, consider how many games with odious DRM get cracked. Don't you think that the first thing to do once the DRM is cracked is to remove any and all phone-home ability?

How many unauthorised copies of the latest DRM-encrusted Sim City are floating around? You know, that awful "you must be online all the time" shit that was broken within the first week? Foisted upon everyone except the people getting the game from the torrents? Do we even know?

M Gale

Re: I Understand Why.. but am disappointed

The DRM model IS still the only sustainable model for game development now and into the future

I think you should tell that to Squad. They seem to be sustaining Kerbal Space Program sales quite nicely without any DRM whatsoever. Or perhaps Positech's Gratuitous Space Battles?

Don't forget gog.com as well.

M Gale

Re: All games, Programs, Apps are digital

Last I checked, game discs are made of plastic with a bit of metal in them.

Last I checked, hard disks were a spinning substrate with a bit of metal on them.

M Gale

Re: Crazy DRM

Oh, the pirates will be playing the games sans-restrictions regardless of what kind of bullshit and spyware you infect the paying customers with. Don't ever buy the piracy excuse, not even for an attosecond.

New super maxed out on first day of operations

M Gale

But can it run Crysis?

Offensive, iconoclastic internet trolls will not be prosecuted, says DPP

M Gale

Re: Cunning plan

Tracing the connection back to a compromised wifi point on the far side of town?

Awesome.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: Proof the pen is mightier?

M Gale

Re: Once again.....

And so long as I can rip Windows out and get a refund for it, that'll be just sweet.

M Gale

and with the proper OS

Linux?

M Gale

The title is too long.

I'm wondering if it has GLONASS as well?

Nice to get quick satellite fixes by using the first available satellite network, instead of standing around scratching your arse while the tower location method tries to tell you you're somewhere in a mile-or-more-wide ginormous blue circle centred on a phone mast.

M Gale

Stylus, gimmick?

If it's a proper pressure sensitive graphics-tablet type pen, it's far from a gimmick. Those things are damned useful for doing anything more complex than the Windows 8 finger-painting advert.

Now if Adobe's Android apps will recognise that stylus and act accordingly, that could be a winner for the arty crowd that would normally go for more fruity devices.

Oracle: We WON grey market software and Solaris support case

M Gale

Turn that bloody autoplaying HP advert off right now before I put Adblock Plus on again.

That is all.

Microsoft breaks bug-bounty virginity in $100,000 contest

M Gale

Re: Ah I see you have a virus installed

I like Linux.

I also dislike Microsoft as much as anybody except perhaps Eadon.

However kindly explain how I'm going to run the Adobe or Autodesk creative suites, or Microsoft Office, in a nice straightforward manner, in Linux?

No, "use LibreOffice, The GIMP and Blender" is not an answer. Neither is the "will it, won't it" WINE.