Posts by Ceiling Cat

'The internet's completely over', declares petulant Prince

An advance? Why? He'll just blow it on frilly lingere!

"They wont pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they cant get it."

Funniest thing I've heard from a musician in years. Proves that, for ageing transvestite relics of 1984, it truly IS all about the money.

I find it creepy that he also performs as a woman, in full drag and everything.... Not, mind you, that he ever behaved normally in the foirst place. And that whole "Symbol" thing, I won't even start on that....

Grenade, because this is one musician who definitely needs a recal-pineapple implant, stat!

Rainbow plane warps in from gay dimension

DigiView Gold?

Reminds me of trying to take color shots of nice sunsets using an Amiga, a DigiView Gold box, a consumer-grade camcorder, and an R-G-B Color splitter. Even on a relatively calm day it was, due to the capture speed, completely impossible to have all 3 passes line up properly.

Ooer, I'm dating myself a bit there . . .

Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx: A (free) Mactastic experience

Ooer, wot's this shiny thing?

"Yes, the fix is easy if you are familiar with interrupting the command line on boot. But can you imagine Grandmama trying this trick at home?"

Somehow, I can't see Granny having the tech savvy to install an OS. The day will come, mind you, when the current generation of tech-savvy folks will be old and feeble. Only when that day comes will your argument be truly valid.

(G)nome (K)DE , naming conventions make sense to me!

"Same goes for the majority of Linux apps I see - The Gimp being a prime example. I mean - it might just be me but when I hear that name I get a mental image of a fat naked German trussed up in black leather with a rubber ball in his mouth."

You sick ****!

Personally, I don't give a **** what they call the video editor/image processing app/chat software as long as it works.

"when I go to download an app I want to sync my PDA and find out it's called Slackdribble or some such shite makes me want to puke, cry and panic-uninstall all at the same time."

Why? Why such a severe reaction to the name of a program? Justify your reactions!

Adobe clutches chance to bury Steve Jobs 'hog' insult

It's a reply, it shouldn't warrant a new title!

"I recently saw a flash-based site eating >50% cpu time (on a 2.8ghz core 2), just to display a slightly fancy menu."

What I want to know is why does anyone CARE that flash uses CPU cycles? Is it currently the trend to have blisteringly fast processors, only to whine about an application using some of the power?

Badgers . . .

Shuttleworth goes Maverick with Ubuntu's 'Perfect 10'

Maverick Manatee

"Flash is a sack of shit on Linux and that really hampers adoption."

Flash is a sack of shit on ANY operating system.

Adobe mulls changes to close hole in PDF apps

Windows only?

I'm assuming that, at the moment, this only affects Windows boxen?

If so, I'm quite glad I've been moving my machines over to linux.

Penguin...... WAAAARK and stuff . . .

Pink Floyd remastered for Nintendo Entertainment System

Absolutely amazing

I've heard a lot of different Pink Floyd tributes, and I have to say that this is an excellent piece of work. If only there was a version with the "travel section" as an alternate, but that part was never made available on any official releases AFAIK.

Net downloads cause 'millions of lost jobs'

letters and/or digits.

"If someone has (say) £100 to spend in total, then they may decide to spend some of that on music purchases - but if they don't then it will be spent on something else."

For quite a few years, I pumped all my disposable income into the music industry. Then, gaming caught my attention, and my money went to the gaming companies and computer hardware manufacturers/retailers. I still purchase music on occasion, but nowadays I prefer to buy concert DVDs by older bands ('60s and '70s rock, mostly).

When I was younger, I used to attend a lot of small all-ages concerts at local community halls. I bought a lot of LPs and 45s from small bands, many of whom were actually running their own merchandise table. One band was even encouraging copying their albums - supplies were short, and they wanted as much word-of-mouth exposure as they could get, because they sure as hell couldn't afford advertising AND record duplication costs.

Badgers! icon... because.

Nerd alert: First Lucid Lynx Ubuntu beta fun

Out of the box?!?!?!?!?!111/

"He does have a point, there is quite a lot that 'doesn't' work out of the box, DVD playback anyone?"

DVD Playback works just fine out of the box, assuming your dvd uses STANDARD mpeg2 video and audio streams (not AC3).

Playback of PROTECTED dvds is only a click or two away.

If you want to play 'em in something that isn't a goat's dinner (I hate the default Ubuntu video player) VLC is, surprise surprise, just a click away.

Windows "ease of use" has turned most computer users into morons who can't do ANYthing unless their favorite software comes preloaded. The claim that Linux fails simply because Copy-Protected DVDs cannot be played "out of the box" is ridiculous.

If you want a DVD player, go buy one for $30 at Walmart.

@Bexley

Running 9.10 on 3 desktops and I've never once had a problem shutting down. Wish I had a laptop to test it on.

Ubisoft undone by anti-DRM DDoS storm

Settlers

It's too bad the new Settlers is going to be "protected" with this crap DRM, as I was looking forward to it as well. On the other hand, I've known about this for ages, as the issue has been discussed on the official Settlers forums. Christ, even Penny Arcade have taken a shot at this.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/19/ <-----Probably NSFW.

Either way, the system has now been proven to be a steaming load of shit. I don't agree with DDOSing the servers to make a point, but there IS a point to be made here. Anything Ubisoft do to downplay the seriousness of this is effort they could put in elsewhere.

Considering they removed the TAGES protection on Settlers 6 with the v1.7x patches, their new stance is a step backwards. Perhaps if their games were a little cheaper (Ubisoft games for PC always start @ ~$70 CAD) more people would buy them.

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx changes its spots

Well.....

Running Ubuntu on 2 of 3 boxen now. As much as I wouyld like to dribble on about making the OS ugly, I know that a nicer looking UI is only a few clicks away.

Now what *I* would like to see from the Ubuntu team is a little more emphasis on Physical Media. Net installs are great and all, but I'd really like to be able to download a DVD set like I can with Debian. Currently, afaik, Ubuntu still only has a single-DVD download containing sme extra language packs.

Real Networks rolls over to Hollywood

They should . . .

Leak the full source.

Let the freetards have a go at maintaining the package on their own.

Asus assures no more delays for keyboard-computer

[title] [/title]

"And transmitting video wirelessly at HD rates is practically impossible. Uncompressed HD for all practical purposes exceeds the bandwidth of a WiFi network."

Why, in the name of "mai green urfs" does every bloody computer HAVE to, in at least SOME people's minds, be capable of HD at all?

It's a bloody EE(EEEEEEEEEEEeeeEE!!!!!1!!111one!!) product, all it has to do is be small and (from what I usually see them being used for) play illegally downloaded anime at just good enough a resolution that the subtitles are crisp.

There's no reason at all for EVERYthing to go HD.

Bringing P2P in from the cold

All I want from "Big Music" . . .

Seriously. All I want from Big Music is for them to realize that $20+ for a new CD is not worth it.

I'll pay that for a concert DVD, but not for a studio CD.

The other problem is that they can't sell me "modern" acts. Despite all the abuse I have heaped upon myself over the years, the one thing I will NOT subject myself to is modern rock.

Personally, I don't want a new distribution model - I just want a new pricing scheme, especially for 15+ year old albums.

Mine's the one with the cassette release of Dark Side Of The Moon shedding it's ferrous coating all over the inside of the pocket.

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-180

Elite?

Elite? No tlikely.

If it's anything like my Pavilion Elite m9505f :

- The BIOS is a cut down piece of s***.

- Does NOT support fan control from the motherboard.

- Ships with inadequately cooled, buggy video card.

Mine was one of the "notorious" MSI Geforce 9500 GS (which MSI don't even list on their web-site ... Probably 'cause they're embarassed by it's crap performance and the fact that 99% of the "Mk. 1" cards had to be replaced because of defective fans. The replacement runs WAY too fracking hot.

I will be trying to rebuild my elite into a better tower, but the comment earlier about "customized" connectors doesn't make it sound like a fun rebuild.

Cheers,

CC ("")(>o.o<)("") "O Hai Dere!"

Mozilla overlooked malware-laced Firefox add-ons

Sothink?

Don't SoThink make a standalone version of their web-video downloader as well?

Either way, this is why sites offering downloads should NEVER rely just one virus scanner.

Personally, I have found that most of the "video downloader" plugins either don't work, or are spotty at best. I prefer a little command-line app called Clive (when I'm on my linux box, not sure if there's a win32/win64 port). It works with quite a few video sites, most notably YouTube. Just copypasta the addresses of the videos you want into a text file, then let Clive go through the list and download the vids you want.

'Nade, just because.

Warez backdoor allows hackers to pwn Twitter accounts

Sure, Del . . .

--[QUOTE]--

"The takeaway from this is that people are continuing to use the same email address and password (or a variant) on multiple sites," writes Del Harvey director of Trust and Safety at Twitter. "We strongly suggest that you use different passwords for each service you sign up for," he adds.

--[/QUOTE]--

Yes, people will use the same email address for multiple signups, especially with Gmail now requiring your mobe number so they can text you your confirmation code (pathetic). Still shopping around for a new freemail provider.

Apple's iPad - fat iPhone without the phone

Regarding the hype :

**WARNING** NSFW - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/1/22/

**WARNING** NSFW - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

New service hamstrings Google data hoarding

I somehow can't see...

Why you're all so worked up about this?

What, in god's name, are you all searching Google for that you don't want them to have logs of? Wait, wait, scratch that, I probably don't want to know. *shudders* I sure hope your wife doesn't catch you looking at that. Or that.... And what in My name are you doing on 4chan?

And why on "On Ceiling-Cats green urfs" would IT-Savvy/Security Minded folk like the type who frequent El Reg NOT be clearing their caches and cookies after every browsing session? I thought that kind of thing was considered "best practice" . . .

Somehow, despite the many MANY articles I read on the subject, I just cannot see what all the fuss is about.

Avatar renders this earthly life meaningless

@Andy

Wow. Nice reference.

I wish they'd showes that here in canada. Never did see anything past the first few episodes.

Canada quashes Yes Men hoax with phishing claim

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

"The problem now becomes who to vote for; none of them are any good."

And so we'll probably just do what we always do : let the morons run the show for another x years.

You know, maybe that thing the Americans have - you know, the one that prevents their Politicians from holding office for more than 2 4-year terms - is a good idea.

Top Gear tops iPlayer hit list

What ever happened . . .

To "Neighbours" . . . ?

I swear this was one of the top 3 shows when I lived in Scotland.

Mind you, that was over 20 years ago (which is also about how long it's been since I watched Cable TV).

Microsoft acted on Opera's modified browser proposal?

Opera will find . . .

That even if their browser comes up #1 in the list, most people don't WANT to pay for a browser.

IE = Free

Firefox = Free

Chrome = Free

Lynx = Free

Opera = Payware

<.<

>.>

("")(>^.^<)("")

GTA maker coughs up $20m for 'hot coffee' sex

GTA-SA with "M" Rating

I actually still own a retail copy of the "M" rated version. I haven't played it for quite a while, and when they put out the "cold tea" patch, there were some actual "bugfixes" that were included in the patch that solved a lot of problems for me.

That having been said . . .

The "coffee" was lukewarm at best in the un-patched version - Carl kept his underwear on while he was "cramming the mushroom". Surely it's impossible to "land the vicar" when he's tucked away in a pair of boxer-briefs?

Mine's the one, etc. etc.

4chan pwns Christians on Facebook

Why?

Why do you keep giving 4chan this undeserved attention?

You're just "feeding the trolls".

Fail, because "fapping" to weird Asian tentacle porn does NOT make you "1337", or a "h4xx0r", or anything else that might be considered cool.

Also, FAIL because people shouldn't re-use login credentials on multiple sites, ESPECIALLY banking sites.

Obama site smackdown spam only offers malware

@ "Precedents?"

Why must everyone glorify the chantards?

I have been to 4chan, I have seen the pathetic dribbling and insult-flinging that goes on there. Besides, everyone knows that it's a place for "weaboos" to go and "get their fap on" to bizarre asian tentacle porn.

Greenpeace unleashes Captain Kirk on HP

HP . . . UGH!

Never again!!!!

Never again will I accept a "branded" PC, even as a gift.

1) Get PC home.

2) Set PC up.

3) GPU fan dies after 5 days.

4) Contact support (actually HELPFUL support, even if it was AFAIK an "A.I." chat bot).

5) Receive replacement card.

6) Install new card

7) Suffer for 2 days as toxic-smelling fumes leech out of the plastic cowling on the new card

8) Download CASCADES demo and FURMARK, and alternate running these applications until said smell is gone.

9) After 2 months, discover that NOT ONLY is the cooler on the card TOTALLY FRICKEN INADEQUATE, but the bios/drivers/satan keeps turning the GPU fan DOWN from 100% to 35% when the card hits 80 degrees celsius.

Somewhere in there, I ordered another video card, but since HP are in bed with MicroATX's inventors, I am stuck with a completely inadequate PSU, with NO option of adding one rated @ over 400w without switching cases.

Not to mention I'll have to pull my Wireless LAN card (who cares? Wired all the way) and my TV tuner card (no great loss, have any of you seen what Canadi-merican Cable calls "entertainment" these days?

Fail icon, because.... well DUH!

Metallica sticksman gloats over Napster downfall

Lars, Lars, Lars . . .

The hell with Alcoholica, and the hell with Napster.

My interest in the band died long before they released Load or Reload. I'd have to say in all honesty, my interest in them died along with their late bass player Cliff Burton.

If Cliff were alive, I'm sure he'd say :

LARS IS A COCK

LARS IS A COCK

LARS IS A COCK

LARS IS A COCK

LARS IS A COCK

Orange introduces mini-SIM

@ Crazy Operations Guy

No SIM slot? Have you checked under the battery? There might be a sliding metal cover for it. . .

The other option, of course, is that Verizon are selling ancient phones that didn't use SIMs.

Seriously though, why the hell should a person need so many SIMs? Or more than 1 cel-phone for that matter?

Give me a landline any day. I'd rather have clarity than convenience.

Opera applauds scepticism on MS browser pledge

@Simon Hobson 12-6-0 14:47 GMT

I really don't get what you're saying. It's not like MS have coded Windows to BLOCK the installation of other browsers.

What it boils down to is that Opera wants us to pay them for a browser.

Personally, I'd rather use Lynx than IE.

I could care less what the numpties use, unless it's a system that I have to take care of, In which case they use Firefox (and learn to like it).

Microsoft fans call for Opera boycott

Tards . . .

Erm... Opera is payware...

Operatards, like MSTards, are just looking to "cash in" on this whole "unfair competition" hullabaloo.

2/3 of the users I talk to use Firefox. The other third just got their login credentials for their bank/credit card/WOW account/whatever stolen through an unpatched MSIE vulnerability, but claim there's "no way they'll use anything but Microshaft's browser."

Personally, I question the whole "antitrust" thing - just because IE is "there" right out of the box, doesn't mean that you MUST be fool enough to use it. Same with WMP.

Webhost hack wipes out data for 100,000 sites

Absurd . . .

"Low-end" customers get no backup service? Since it's a VM-based structure, surely one day a week, the "low-end" accounts could be taken offline, and the directory holding each VM's files be ZIPped or RARed?

I used to run some shell boxes in VM for people, and would, upon request, backup the contents for them - even though they paid me NOTHING for the service, nor for the backup procedure. Backups were password-protected and placed in a private FTP directory for the user to "collect" within a set period of time. if the user chose not to download their backups, they were copied to an external HD, as well as burned to DVDrom for safekeeping. I once actually snailmailed a user's backups to him, as he only had a dialup connection and as such wasn't up for the large download from FTP.

Mind you, my service was a hobby, and was only accessible to a select few "trusted" friends. It hosted no "sensitive" data. It was not "important", nor was it ever advertised.

Tux, because... WAAARK! (or whatever noise Penguins make).

Hacker disrupts economy of annoying Twitter-based game

@Stevie

I think it's supposed to be so that you can tell all your friends/the whole world" that you're taking a poop, as seen in this webcomic :

[NSFW]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

[/NSFW]

Peurile, I know, but it still gave me a laugh.

Tux, because I like penguins.

Critical Windows vulnerability under attack, Microsoft warns

@ Linux Isn't The Answer

You have a point.

Of course, targeting 'nix would STILL require more work than targeting Windows boxes.

Since most "crackers" are looking for little more these days than :

1) Your credit/bank info, so they don't have to go work for a living.

2) Your online game username/pass, so they don't have to work for a living

3) Some pron, 'cos they're unemployed w*nkers..

Then they are infinitely less likely to go to the trouble of trying to crack linux, and instead will stick with their tried-and-tru methods of using the latest pre-built 'pwning' tool.

Tux, cos he's a flippin' penguin!

US lawmakers put Canada, Spain on piracy 'watch list'

Seriously?

Pathetic. Bloody pushy America.

So they're basically saying "We're broke because we bailed out GM and the "Big Money" banks, so now we're going after OTHER COUNTRIES because our musicians are the only source of growth our country has left!"

Wow, way to paint (borrow) yourselves into a corner.

Blizzard ditches long-time WoW operator

The9 Goes Bye-bye?

Can't say it'll be a great loss.

Of course, they have a spin-off company that's actually doing well (they publish all kinds of console games for the S.E. Asian market, as well as hosting "free-to-play" games. They've also got almost as bad a reputation at Nexon.

Teens reject Microsoft's Zune

Creative MUVO

I chose the MUVO because it was a nice, simple player. It's a pig to load (so slooooow!) but it runs off 1 AAA battery (rechargeables are a must) and sounds great when paired with decent headphones. Not enough oomph to drive a set of cans tho.

US judge bars teen 'sexting' charges

@ wait, what?

Because it's America.

YOU have no rights in America, and THEY have responsibilities to... er.. idunno... poke through your phone for smut?

Blizzard: Game designers aren't Shakespeare

@ storng.bare.durid

Seriously, that is some of the best flavor text I have ever read.

------ON TOPIC------

I don't play WoW. However, I have seen what happens when translations cause the text to exceed hard-coded limits... I couldn't read more than half of the quest text in Granado Espada because of such limits. The same thing with in-game "broadcasts". The Koreans (Granado Espada is originally a Korean game) can say a LOT more in 80 characters than an english-speaker could.

that having been said, WoW did help set the standard for modern MMORPGs. I guess they know what they're doing.

World of Warcraft: 'The crack cocaine of the computer world'

The worst thing for this kind of problem . . .

Is the availability and (relative) ease of configuration of Private Servers.

There was a WOTLK private server available while the expansion was still in the Beta stages.

try keeping your kids off by taking away their pocket money, and you'll soon possibly find your home PC hosting their favorite server.

MS coughs to hokey-cokey IE8 option in Windows 7

Things I need windows for...

Mabinogi (MMO)

Trainz (Train simulator)

Reason (software synth and sequencer)

....

Yeah, I think that's about it really.

Metallica's Lars Ulrich illegally downloads own album

@Mike Crawshaw

At least KISS were entertaining!

Jolly Roger . . . because it's more fitting than Paris?

Microsoft aims 'non-security' update at gaping security hole

Banking? on windows?

@Steve Loughran - There's no reason anyone should do their banking on a Windows Machine. PERIOD. I personally prefer doing my banking using a Linux-based LiveCD. As I've yet to hear of any LiveCDs shipping with spy/ad/mal/haxxware installed, I'll always consider Knoppix and it's ilk as being an excellent online banking platform.

US Congress kills digital TV delay

Nice.

Now "Jonny Rabbit Ears" can't steal their precious overpriced mind-rot with his antenna tower.

@David : So that they can sell off the frequencies to "Wireless" providers. (wireless WHAT exactly?)

Deviants, perverts, 'weirdos' - who's going down?

Whew I'm from . . .

On the west coast of Canada, there was a big series of raids a few years back in which all the video rental stores in town were raided. Most of the stuff taken was not even real, it was Hentai (animated pr0n from Japan, for the uninitiated).

Nobody ever gave a reason, and as far as I know, none of the shop-owners were charged with anything. One shop-owner, who specialized in all manner of bizarre asian live-action films and rare Anime, said his was seized simply because it was not stashed in the back of the store, behind the ineffective saloon-doors along with the rest of the filth. I dunno though, "Words*Worth" was a little strange.

Mine's the one with the tentacle-monster in the pocket.

Microsoft plague threatens 30GB Zune extinction

Typical . . .

I bought a creative Muvo V100 3 years back to wear while I'm at my crappy job. For all it's weird little flaws, quirks, and f*ckups, it still manages to do the job better than most of these newer, higher-tech players.

Satan. For obvious reasons.

ArseASA rules 'Feck' non-offensive

@Mike JVX

Well, in that case, I love Santa . . .

Ooh, it's a SCYTHE . . .

El Reg seeks top net neologism

@Tony

Please return to your source material - the word spake by Bucket-standing Frog-pinners form Genoa was in fact BIBBLE.

The Pencil-snorting Undie-hatted soudier reference, however, is 100% correct.. . . . . well spotted!