Posts by Ceiling Cat

Older AMD, Intel chips vulnerable to data-leaking 'Retbleed' Spectre variant

Just wondering : For those of us whose gear is old, sad, tired, and not used for anything that would be worth exploiting the system to steal (IE: a machine that only runs my DAW, Modular synth emulator, etc), what is the best way to disable all the "fixes" that would wind up hamstringing my hardware t the point that I would have to scrap my rig and start from scratch?

I only ask because it has been 11 years since I last purchased a system, and about 8 years since I last purchased a GPU. When I went to check modern component prices, especially GPUs, I was violently and explosively ill. No video card save for the top of the line gaming GPU should cost more than I would pay for the rest of the system. I do not feel like buying new hardware at those prices, but fixing these speculative execution exploits on a machine that isn't handling anything sensitive (or even useful to miscreants) seems... well... like shooting myself in the battered sausage.

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Re: I have a dumb ass TV

>> Is Capita pissed 'cos I don't NEED to buy a TV licence ?

FTFY.

Re: Optimistically....

>> (currently a YouTube play list of MREs rations through the ages eaten by a man far too eager on the items)

A certain gentleman from the Isle Of Man, by any chance?

Tobacco giants don't get to decide who does research on smoking. Why does Facebook get to dictate studies?

Re: Oh Really?

Facebook isn't "The Media" or "The Press". Facebook is a front-end designed to present the collected mind-vomit of everyone from teens to senior citizens, and to make the parent company a shitload of cash whilst doing so.

At least in the times before Facebook, we had to actively seek out these people's personal websites or individual blogs in order to read their dribble.

Firefox 89: Can this redesign stem browser's decline?

Loss of market share?

Mozilla/Firefox's loss of market share might well be down to a couple of things :

Chrome ships as the default browser on Android Devices and Raspberry Pi.

Firefox runs like a bag of deep-fried a**holes on android and Raspberry Pi.

Even if it did run well on Android or Raspberry Pi, many people are too lazy to seek out and install alternatives.

Personally, I like Firefox even though the new update looks like sh*t.

'A massive middle finger': Open-source audio fans up in arms after Audacity opts to add telemetry capture

Re: Buggeration

it also ships with a ton of extremely useful plugins. The interface for those plugins may not be as attractive as some of the commercial-grade VST offerings, but they do the job just fine.

Splunk junks 'hanging' processes, suggests you don't 'hit' a key: More peaceful words now preferred in docs

> most people are some shade of brown.

Erm... I'm a disturbing grey-green shade. Should I be more worried about my unhealthy skin tone or offended that you didn't acknowledge it as a viable alternative?

Family wrongly accused of uploading pedo material to Facebook – after US-EU date confusion in IP address log

Got used to using YYYY-MM-DD, AKA ISO 8601 date format back when I was part of several concert bootleg trading groups. Makes it so much easier to properly sort stuff, and leaves no room for stupid mistakes like the one made by the investigators in this article.

Dutch Gateway store was kept udder wraps for centuries until refit dug up computing history

Relegated to the attic...

Not all (Acer) Gateways have been relegated to the attic. I am currently typing this on a heavily reworked (new case, PSU, Video card, and CPU cooler) Gateway FX Gaming machine of 2011 vintage. Just to my side, in working condition (but waiting for a project) is a 2010-vintage Gateway DX series machine. Both, while a little long in the tooth, are still capable of providing the necessary grunt when needed.

Missed the chance to own a Gateway during their heyday, but under Acer they produced reliable machines.

Not exactly the kind of housekeeping you want when it means the hotel's server uptime is scrubbed clean

Being a janitor, I know better than to ever unplug any computer - desktop or otherwise. Granted, 99% of the places I've cleaned don't allow us anywhere near the servers, but I'd still never unplug anything. Even using the same outlet as a client's gear is a no-no.

That having been said, I once took over a site from a lovely older gentleman. My employer informed me that he was being removed because he'd received a complaint about the dusting of the desks. The problem wasn't the complaint itself, but the fact that he disconnected and moved everyone's PCs in order to do a very thorough dusting. Didn't shut them down first, just yanked the power cords and everything else that plugged into the back of the tower.

Poor old guy genuinely didn't understand why he was being taken off that contract.

Beer, because I desperately needed one after finding all that out.

We're late and we're unreliable but we won't invalidate your warranty: We're engineers!

Re: Bienvenue en France

Upvoted for the Zappa reference. One of my favorite songs. Also, have a pint.

Slow Ring Windows 10 fragged by anti-cheat software in the games you're playing at work, says Insiders supremo

Re: WTF is a Slow Ring???

Anti-cheat programs are background apps that work at low level to detect cheating in games. Very specifically, they look for such things as : Keyboard Macro software, debuggers, packet injection type cheating, and the like, and either kill the processes involved or trigger the player's account to be banned.

Worst I ever saw was HackShield (or was it GameGuard?) actually defeating Speedfan's attempts to ramp up my fan speeds while I was playing a very CPU and GPU intensive game. At the time I was using a brutally loud CPU cooler, and I shouldn't have to risk tinnitus just to play a game.

Return of the audio format wars and other money-making scams

Re: Behind the curve

Not sure what Pledge Music is, but the releases in question are already available from the band's merchandise stall at the show, and succesfully shipping from Bandcamp.com as well.

Seems there are still a few tape duplictation houses operating here in Canada (and in the USA), and they do seem to ship product reliably. I just don't see the point in using cassettes anymore, as it's been ages since anyone actually made cassette decks or "walkmans".

Re: Behind the curve

There are quite a few bands on my local scene releasing on Compact Cassette, and few of them could be described as "hipster" bands... unless Hipsters these days are into Brutal Death Metal, Grindcore, and Crust Punk.

Beer, because it goes surprisingly well with all three of those genres.

I rip every CD I buy at shows, partly because I don't have a good CD player/HIFI to play them on. Hell, I don't even have a CD drive in my main computer, instead relying on an old Acer/Gateway all-in-one whose speakers are shite but whose CD drive works fine. Once I have the files ripped and copied to my main machine, i file the CDs neatly away in a box in my storage locker, as I don't really need them taking up space.

Thusly, the bands get their cut, and I get my listening fix.

All thanks to SoundKonverter, which conveniently ships with Kubuntu.

I forgot where I was going with this.... Has anyone seen my pants?

Re: Holding my breath turning blue

Upvote for the Techmoan link. Also, Have one ------>

Meltdown, Spectre: The password theft bugs at the heart of Intel CPUs

Re: Meltdown and Spectre - a Wake-up call for HPC

Your comment makes a lot of sense to me, even though I'm just the bloke who cleans the lavatory.

My interests are gaming, not HPC. In either, there is a need for data to be passed as quickly as possible, with a minimum of interference/pipeling lag introduced by what I'll just simplify as "security-related functions".

I only kind of understand the idea of "speculative execution" - I'm not a coder, but it feels like a cousin of a feature that Windows used to use to pre-load certain files based on the times they were most frequently used. Some kind of pre-caching whose specific name escapes me.

Being uneducated in this aspect of computing, I can't help but think that such a function is not as necessary for code which runs from a compiled state, rather than code that is runs "just in time". Or am I wrong on this?

I am only being so serious because my brain hurts from trying to figure this out : On one hand, there are explanations that are way too technical; on the other hand, there's a lot (and I mean a *lot*) of FUD, trolling, and general "Hurr Durr intel Fucked Up", and I can't really make heads or tails of this.

All I know is, If I'm patched, my performance may take a nosedive. If I don't patch, I'm at risk of ... [variable unknown]. Do either or both vulnerabilities really affect non-productivity machines as badly as HPC/Server Class gear? And will there be improvements made to mitigate the performance hit?

Can someone get me a Tylenol? As I said earlier, my brain hurts.

Re: Sigh... thanks, Reg (oh, and Intel)!

To the person who thumb-downed me, I did expect a reaction like that. I also expect that the bulk of people who thumbs-down me won't actually post why, or identify themselves.

Bear in mind that I'm not really happy with Intel at this point, nor am I trying to defend them. I had been planning to start building a new gaming rig soon, as my current one (based around an old Gateway FX-6860) can no longer take video cards capable of meeting the minimum spec for most of the current/future releases. As I am still seeing reports of AMD hardware (both CPUs and GPUs) not running games as well as similarly-spec'ed Intel-based rigs, moving to AMD seems a no-go for me.

Seems that, as a gamer (rather than a datacenter admin or IT professional), I am truly fucked for choices at this point in time.

Console Master Race For The Win!

Sigh... thanks, Reg (oh, and Intel)!

For the love of christ!

All I want to do with my PC is play games and maybe some light web browsing! Some of us AREN'T using our systems for "mission critical" work, you know.

I will NOT risk what little performance my ageing I7-2600 (not "K") offers me by applying any patch that will even potentially rob me of 20% of my system performance, whether or not an "expert" claims that I will be unaffected.

I would rather move to using my main rig for gaming, and use my Raspberry Pi 3 for web browsing.

Not happy with intel, but blowing the lid off this was a pretty dick move, El Reg. You've actually, for the first time since I started reading the site in 1998, managed to lose some cred with me - which is too bad because I generally recommend you to people (both tech savvy and not).

How much for that Belkin cable? Margin of 1,992%?

Re: How much for that Belkin cable?

This local council paid HOW MUCH for an SD card?!

I had a friend who worked as a sales rep for the Chinese company who supplies a lot of the major MicroSD/Flash market with their products. He would often quote me prices like "Sandisc 128GB MicroSD for $3.25 CDN" or "Kingston MicroSD for $1.50 CDN". Then you go and look in the retail shops, and the same Kingston MicroSD is selling for $250 CDN.

The markups mentioned in this article are similar. It's just that now that the UK is preparing to Brexit, people want to pretend they are getting shafted because of brexit itself, not because retailers ALWAYS shaft consumers.

Ex-NASA bod on Gwyneth Paltrow site's 'healing' stickers: 'Wow. What a load of BS'

Re: High level spirit

[2] Strange as it might sound, I had a bottle of Indian Whisky recently and it was rather drinkable. Can't remember the name though.

Could it have been one of the many products from Amrut?

Only Indian Whisky distiller I know of at the moment, although there may be others.

BOFH: Halon is not a rad new vape flavour

Re: cloudy snake oil

Very, very rarely are janitors ever stupid enough to plug anything into a customer's computers, and even more rarely are they allowed access to the server room at all! If your server room needs cleaning, then your filtration system is in dire need of attention. Also, techs should be smart enough and capable enough to do a quick sweep (preferably not with a static-based cleaning tool like a dust-mop or swiffer).

That having been said, I once received a call informing me that I was being re-assigned. The gentleman I was to replace was somewhere between 60 and 70 years old, and completely tech-illiterate. He had received a complaint about his dusting, and had attempted to fix the deficiency in his work - the problem is that he disconnected and moved each and every computer in the office (a government office at that) in order to complete the task properly. I didn't ever find out if any of the systems had been damaged by his meddling.

I met the man, he truly didn't understand what he had done wrong. He literally had no idea why he was being fired for doing an extra good job.

KickassTorrents kicked out again, this time by Australia

Re: Cinemas

"Pays not to think of what goes on in those places. Largely darkened area, lack of cleaning..."

I was once employed as a Janitor at a movie theater.

It's not an easy task to clean one, and often involves an electric leaf blower, a snow shovel, a huge garbage bin, and several buckets of degreaser.

The one I worked at supposedly had carpet in front of the first row of seats, but years and years of people spilling full cups of soda (doesn't matter where it was spilled, all liquid runs towards the front of the theater) had left it more resembling squishy linoleum than actual carpet.

I haven't been to the cinema since.

Farewell Unity, you challenged desktop Linux. Oh well, here's Ubuntu 17.04

Re: Petition to make Plasma (KDE) the default DE

There's already an Ubuntu-based distribution which does this - it's called Kubuntu. In fact, with the exception of my Raspberry Pi it's the distro I use on all my PCs.

Https://www.kubuntu.org

'Exploding e-cig cost me 7 teeth, burned my face – and broke my sink!'

Re: A "Twisted Vapers RDA" is just the "tank"

** Do they really call it "e-liquid"? **

I call it "e-juice", or often just "juice". I have a co-worker who refers to it as "oil", but he often gets a lot of sideways looks when he does so, as "oil" generally implies a THC-containing product.

I use a 150w Joyetech Cuboid along with "The Troll v2" RDA by MoToFo. My coils are VapeGeek clapton pre-builts @ 0.6 ohms, and my wick is Shiseido cotton. Batteries are "married pairs", my collection of which comprises Samsung, LG, and EFest brand batteries, all around 30A 2600mAh range. The "Juice" is a special blend at 1.5mg/ml, which I make from several different flavors.

I used to use mechs, but after two near-nasty fuckups caused by me forgetting to set the lock-ring on the fire button, I abandoned them in favor of regulated mods. Not because mechanical mods are "unsafe", but because I'm a fucking idiot.

Intel literally decimates workforce: 12,000 will be axed, CFO shifts to sales

Pricing

I do understand that InHell need to make a profit, but it might be a wise idea if, instead of slashing jobs, they cut their prices instead. It seems quite unreasonable for current-gen processors to cost in excess of $400 if bought on their own, but then the manufacturers somehow manage to sell a system based on said processors for $500.

Top Firefox extensions can hide silent malware using easy pre-fab tool

This is funny, because once I opted out of Whitelisted advertising through Adblock (they even tell you how to disable it in the iinstaller, ffs), I really haven't noticed a difference in operation between Ublock and AdBlock Plus.

I also opt out of the whole debate about the ethical factor of paid whitelisting. I would have a stronger opinion if AdBlock Plus were the only ad-blocker available, but it's not. As it is, I use both, depending on the install. For Example, i used UBlock on my Lubuntu install, but I can't be bothered to switch on my main machine. My wife's Kubuntu box got whatever I felt like installing (ABP, I think), and it seems to work just fine. The machine I built for my co-worker got Ublock, because he doesn't care which I put on as long as it blocks most ads.

Wish I could get ABP op UBlock for my tablet's default browser. Makes browsing the web a bit of a chore having al that extra crap on the page.

Game over, Ouya, the Android gaming console

Re: Count me out

Why would you install Razer Synapse?

Been using my Death Adder for well over a year without it.

If it enables any features, then they must not be ones that are actually useful, since I've not found the mouse lacking in any way.

Next year's Windows 10 auto-upgrade is MSFT's worst idea since Vista

Re: @Ceiling Cat

@Paul Crawford

I mean that they have broken sensors/pwmconfig so that it no longer recognizes my board as having PWM control at all. A bit of a pain, as call resources relating to the chipset appear to have been taken offline a couple of years ago.

Please Keep it up Microsoft, your continued blatant abuse of your own customers is doing FAR more for popularizing Linux on the desktop than anything the open source community could have ever achieved on its own.

Yeah, but then the open source devs do something ass-backwards and stupid, like removing fan control ability on certain models of motherboard well before all those boards are out of circulation/inoperable.

In my case, it's a board based on the IT8772F chip, and it's also my main gaming machine. The bios-based fan control does not do anywhere near an adequate job of not cooking the CPU, and being an off-the-shelf model, the crippleware bios that it ships with can't be flashed with a better one, because there isn't one.

Normally I wouldn't bitch, but I really want to try Kubuntu (and a few other distros) on this machine without having to virtualize it, plus I have enough linux games in my steam collection to make it worth my while. But I can't, without either : Suffering horribly form the sound of a 4000 RPM fan screaming beside my head, buying and installing an expensive fan controller module, or replacing my CPU cooler with something much beefier and praying it doesn't just bend/snap my motherboard.

Sprint sprints away from no-throttle policy – punishes 'unlimited' network hoggers

@John H Woods : This is limited to handset/mobile data plans. Steam isn't available on phones. I know Netflix is, but do you really need to watch that many films on your phone every month? And I certainly don't understand these people who use their phone for torrenting without first connecting to a wifi hot-spot. That's just dumb.

...... says the person who doesn't even own a smartphone.

Adblock farms out acceptable ad policy to independent reviewer

In all this, people seem to be forgetting that whitelisted ads can be turned off... with one click.

Are we all so lazy these days that we can't even click one check-box? It's not even hard to find, it's right there on the preferences dialog!

AVG to flog your web browsing, search history from mid-October

Re: We wont pay for data slurping pesterware

Avast, although you'll be diving into Avast's settings fighting popups

Umm... no you won't. The only popups I see are when my virus definitions get updated, and even then that's usually only when I have just booted my machine. Technically, though, it *is* wise to actually configure software after you install it. If that's too much of a hassle, I'm sorry, but I can't help you.

As another AVAST! user suggested, Gaming Mode can help with that, too.

Don't want to upgrade to Windows 10? You'll download it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

Re: "Personal" computer no more

I do tend to agree with your rant, actually. Once I'm forced over to Win10, I'm probably going to install linux as my main OS and just use Win10 for games, with a win7 install "frozen" on a separate drive for any of those games that don't get a Win10 compatibility upgrade (which, much like when I moved from WinXP to Win7, will be about 75% of my collection).

Ubuntu Wily gaggle builds 15.10 beta beachhead

Re: Not so easy

It doesn't disable the GRUB installation, it enables the ability to choose which disc to install GRUB to during the install.

IIRC, you used to be able to do that from the standard installer, not just from the graphical installer on the live disc, but they removed that feature for some reason.

Google turns up plenty of hits on how to install GRUB to something other than the primary HD.

Windows 10 marks the end of 'pay once, use forever' software

Fact, or speculation and FUD?

Is this actually the true and proven direction for Windows 10, or is this speculation/FUD?

Just curious, as stupid cloudy buzzphrases like Software-As-A-Service get thrown around far too often these days.

I'm not in IT - I'm the bloke who cleans the bog - but I do own at least 1 windows-based PC and would like to know if this is definitely going to be a thing, or whether MS-Haters are just speculating and spreading FUD.

Relax, it's just Ubuntu 15.04. AARGH! IT'S FULL OF SYSTEMD!!!

What I really want to know . . .

Is whether or not Fancontrol/sensord finally support my motherboard? The temp sensors and fan control on my board is provided by a IT8772F chip, which is honestly a bit of a POS, but it's what I've got. If it's still not supported correctly, I can only run in a VM if I want my fans controlled properly, missing out on such goodies as proper GFX card drivers.

Nvidia's GTX 900 cards lock out open-source Linux devs yet again

Re: firmware

Nvidia has a policy to force obsolescence of older GPUs at driver level long before they need to be obsolete as hardware.

So do AMD. I can no longer use my laptop's AMD GPU with the proprietary Catalyst drivers because of the "xorg too new" scenario. Granted, it's not a great GPU to start with (4xxxHD I think), can't remember the exact specs of the laptop right now - it's an HP G-62, but there have been many differently spec'd machines under that badge. I wouldn't care much, but it's not actually dead yet, and I'd like to be able to make use of the chip's full capabilities, but no dice. THe open-source AMD driver (MESA, is it?) can't do anything, performance wise. It struggles to run RenPy-based games, let alone anything that really *needs* hardware acceleration.

As a result they are sitting in the spare parts drawer and all desktop GPUs have now been replaced by AMD.

Newer AMD parts, I hope. which they (hopefully) won't obsolete for a few years. Once I get the desktop that this laptop is replacing back in action again, I may well install Xubuntu on it and donate it to charity, or just leave it lying in the hallway of my apartment building.

Apple rats on Google to FTC: You thought WE were in-app-ropriate?

Amazon's unreasonable demand for registering a credit card when you sign up is the exact reason that I will not use their app store, or even buy a tablet which isn't Google Play certified. The only exception was my Polaroid PTAB-8000, and that was immediately rooted and the play store installed anyways.

Now that I'm in the market for a new tablet (the Polaroid tab turned out to be a p.o.s.), I'm being very careful to make sure that I go with one which allows you to use vouchers instead of requiring a free pass to my wallet. I really can't see why anyone would permanently store their payment details on a device that can easily be lost/stolen anyways.

Apple's 16GB iPhones are a big fat lie, claims iOS 8 storage hog lawsuit

Strangely enough, I have an Android tablet (Polaroid PTAB-800) that does it exactly the way you describe it. EXCEPT that it doesn't, as the OS and all installed apps need to fit into the dedicated space. If your apps use any extra space for app-specific data, it's stored in the OS section, not in the user section, which is brilliant unless you want to have more than two large apps installed at once. On the other hand, I still have a full 8gb of space, and can add an SD card for more storage, but can not get more app space. If you root the PTAB-800 you can *technically* run apps from the SD, but it tends to glitch badly more often than not, which cost me several months of progress in Valkyrie Crusade.

It's a first-world problem, and one of the reasons I will never buy a cut-price tablet ever again, but it also points to why Apple did what they did. I'd love to see the plaintiff's reactions when they realize that they can only have a handful of apps installed in their "separate OS partition", but they still have 16 (or 8, or 32) GB left for porn and MP3s.

Australia deflates Valve with Steam sueball

Re: Not fit for purpose...

Also, since he mentions the fact that a non-Valve entity runs some game servers in Singapore, it shows that Valve aren't necessarily responsible for providing the servers in the first place.

Also, people seem to forget that Steam is just an online shop and DRM system - Valve may publish some of their software through it, but so do many other companies.

This could also be a case of Butthurt due to someone not liking the Early Access game they bought : these are pretty clearly labeled as "works in progress". I'd also not be surprised to find out that some of the customers represented are complaining about a game not working because they don't meed the Required Specs. You'd be surprised how many people get angry because their just-barely-meets-the-minimum-spec gaming rig won't run a game at 60 frames per second, and think that's a reason to get their money back, rather than sucking it up and upgrading their machine.

Dutch firm passes the world's first e-spliff to the left hand side

My local e-juice company makes a Gummy Worms flavor, and I've recently tried a really good Orange Creamsicle flavor, too.

The thing that the haters need to realize is that vaping plain, unflavored PG/VG mix is vile. And one of the reasons that smokers move to e-cigs is that the flavors taste a fuck-tonne better than even a flavored cigarillo, without being (as) harmful to the user or surrounding innocent bystanders.

As much as I do appreciate what the e-spliff is trying to do, I do wish they hadn't. There are some cases where negative publicity is actually just that.

Beer, because eventually a company will come up with lager vape, and then we're all done for.

Chrome OS leaks data to Google before switching on a VPN, says GCHQ

Upgrading to KitKat . . .

They recommend upgrading to KitKat, but neither of the Android devices I own have even received updates past the OS that they shipped with, save for the individual app updates....

If they, or anyone else for that matter, can advise on how to update a "Gateway Tab TP-A60" (honeycomb) or a Polaroid PTAB 8000 (IceCreamSandwich on under-spec hardware) to the latest android without rooting (not possible for Gateway, already done on PTAB, but the device was not Google Cert'd to begin with so it doesn't get updates), I would appreciate the help.

Still watching DVDs? You're a planet-killing carbon hog!

Re: If there wasn't DRM...

DVDs are normally protected using CSS, a form of DRM. That's why (under linux anyways) you have to install special packages in order to view DVDs. In hardware players, the decrypting is done by the hardware (obviously). Blu-Ray are also encrypted, but it's a different encryption scheme than DVDs use, and I honestly haven't been bothered to research what type of encryption they use.

"Region 0" or "Region Free" discs of either type are very very hard to come by, and usually when you do, they'll be from grey-market sources such as Hong Kong. Not all, mind you, but most.

Regarding the article itself, they must be assuming that everyone who owns a DVD player has a 100+ watt all-in-one DVD/Hi-fi setup and a CRT TV, as opposed to the (still fairly common) standalone DVD player and flat-panel TV/Computer monitor. They also seem to assume that we all drive to the store (I don't - it's a 5 minute walk away, if even) AND leave my car (which I don't own at all) Idling in the mall parking lot while I spend half an hour or more deciding what DVD to buy.

It also fails to take into account that people these days often watch on PC, a laptop, etc. as opposed to the television.

And don't even get me started on streaming services. The best choice I have found so far doesn't stream, per se, it sells you a download of the episode/movie that you download to your device. I live in Canada, and even *I* would have to cheat and use a proxy to get access to the "proper" Netflix catalog.

Beer, because.

Batten down the hatches, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS due in TWO DAYS

Kubuntu

Personally looking forward to trying Kubuntu 14.04 . . . Not been much of a fan of standard Ubuntu since Unity appeared.

I'd try Mint, but quite frankly I've grown fond of Kubuntu over the past couple of years. I've 4 machines here running various versions of Kubuntu, and none have given me any problems that I didn't totally deserve. Even the machine that's running 12.10 (due to that being the last time the Nvidia drivers properly supported the Geforce 9500 GT) hasn't had one problem so far.

Beer, because what other bevvy is appropriate at 4am?

Google's SECRET contracts: Android lock-in REVEALED!

Bought an 8" tab made by Polaroid, who didn't bother with Google certification. Whilst it did come with a decent list of app stores that I could install, the ones that didn't seem sketchy all required a credit card and didn't offer free versions of apps. In the end, I wound up finding a one-click app which rooted the tablet and installed the play store.

Remember when SimCity ABSOLUTELY HAD to be online? Not any more – fancy that!

Ugh... Simcity 2013 :(

To be perfectly honest....

The game was crap, and te updates haven't helped. Maxis/EA roped me into a $70 purchase with promises of a decent game, and failed to deliver.

It looks much too cartoon-y. and yet, for it's lack of detail, it manages to get my video card (Geforce GTX 560 Ti) running so hot that the fan triggers my tinnitus (or a migraine) within an hour or so of starting a session.

The sound is terrible. The music in particular grates badly on the ears, whilst the older Simcity music was pleasant and somewhat relaxing. So far, the free DLC has all been pretty awful, and having it installed means that you'll always be pestered to put in a Progressive Insurance building, or build a place of worship.

My last attempt to play the game ended with me running a 4000 person mining town into bankrupcy within about 20 minutes of founding it, then quitting and playing Eufloria HD on my Playstation Vita for about 3 hours.

Pisses me off no end that a $10 game that I bought on impulse turns out to be better than a game I preordered for $70. Beer, because Beer!

Haswell micro: Intel’s Next Unit of Computing desktop PC

Re: Power Usuage

500 watts? From a laptop-style power brick? not a chance of that happening. Even my old Amiga 500 didn't draw that kind of power, and the brick was twice the size.

Someone else quoted some real-world figures. I just wish that people wouldn't jump to conclusions, especially conclusions that a little research would show as impossible.

HP: We're axing 29,000 workers? Add another 5,000 to that

HP - Never Again

I'll not start with my opinion of HP's pre-loaded software, as I found it at least all uninstalls fairly clean.

I *will* make mention of my opinion of HP build quality. It's crap. Even their Pavilion Elite line ship in off-standard size cases, with inadequate power supplies, and are built using components that are known to be faulty (MSI Geforce 9500 GS). Cable management is non existent. Their cases mount the motherboard on the wrong side, so that all the expansion slots are above the CPU rather than below - making it very hard to cool the video card. Extra cards are placed so that they trap heat (video card sandwiched between the video capture board and the (B/g only) wifi card).

I have two of these machines - one has had all it's extra cards removed and been turned in to a linux box for the missus to do her web stuff on. The other is my audio recording workstation, and has yet to give me further issues.

Here's what YOU WON'T be able to do with your PlayStation 4

Re: Commentards are xBots?

> Hands up who ever used a DVD or BD to play CD's...

Sheepishly raises hand.

Not only have I done that, I have used my DVD players and BD players to play CDs full of MP3s. I'd have used them to play DVDs full of FLAC instead, but there's a shortage of reasonably priced gear with FLAC support. Hell, there's a shortage of audiophile-centric gear that plays FLAC.

Loss of streaming support may well be no big deal - the current PS3 streaming options STILL struggle with subtitles. On last try, none of the streaming solutions could handle 1080p video with FLAC audio and "Advanced Substation Alpha" (ASS) subtitles. Hell, it was a toss-up whether or not it could manage subtitles from DVD VOBs.

This new announcement means very little to me, as I plan on sticking with my PS3 for as long as possible. There are still LOADS in the supply channel, and it would be monumentally stupid to buy a first-run PS4 as the PS2 and PS3 both suffered from overheating problems on the first run - a problem they managed to fix in later revisions of both consoles.

Beer, because breakfast.