Posts by Random Coolzip

Facebook sad-nav: How to put depressed chums on internet suicide watch

Re: "what do I know? I'm just an idiot with a modem"

> I'm looking for the "Report Suicidal Tendencies" button

Now there's a band I haven't heard for a long time!

WHERE'S WALLY? He's in this algorithm, says developer

Re: RO RO

> So good they named him twice?

It was a big delivery room, there was an echo.

Hack hijacks electric skateboards, dumps hipsters in the gutter

Re: Is anyone going to pass judgement on an adult

If their main mode of transport is a skateboard, it's hard to consider them as an adult. Just an abnormally-old child.

Penguin porn? NO! Linux folk in #LCA2015 standoff

| And who says Linux isn't sexy?

Anyone who's seen a kernel developer.

Sony Pictures struggles as staff details, salaries and films leaked

Re: "Popped the company"

> 'pawned the company'. make more sense?

If you mean "pwned the company" then yes.

Blackpool hotel 'fines' couple £100 for crap TripAdvisor review

Re: No sympathy on either side.

"functional furniture and equipment that was edible"

Was this the Wonka Arms, then?

Bona-fide science: Which forms of unusual sex are mainstream?

RE: Canadian fantasies

Let me know when you get to the part where the warm maple syrup gets drizzled over the....

Just don't blame Bono! Apple iTunes music sales PLUMMET

Re: saturation...

> Now with a laptop and a few bits of software you can do what you like, where you like.

Most notably, GarageBand. Did one of Apple's heads slay another?

Ploppr: The #VultureTRENDING App of the Now

Re: You're right full of S**T, then

"Do you expect that some locations may have people lining up to make their poop trades?"

And the logical extension of this will be the new fast-growing field of Poop Futures. I can see it now, a burgeoning commodity market (secretly controlled by the Curry Cabal), spreading across the country.

Google's too-smart-for-own-good Nest Protect alarm is back on sale

Re: Always wondered about this.

"But coming back to Google's bloody expensive fire alarm. Who's daft enough to spend £90 on a glorified smoke alarm, when you could buy one for fifteen quid? "

Thanks to the glories of the modern nanny-state, my local council refused to grant a construction permit for some work I was having done on my home unless the smoke detectors were brought up to code. This meant adding close to a dozen new smoke detectors, which had to be hard-wired to house current and to each other. The cost for the mandated alarms wasn't that much less than a Nest, and I might have gone for those and saved at least the cost of the inter-alarm comms cabling.

Chinese iWatchers: Apple's WRISTPUTERS ALREADY in production

Re: Off the cuff

At last -- the real reason Steve Jobs wore those shirts with the 3/4-length sleeves!

Canucks' ISPs routing data through snoop heaven USA

| wouldn't they say please ?

They might not even say "sorry"!

LulzSec's Sabu hacked foreign gov sites while under FBI control – NYT

Re: So what?

Not only is it morally wrong, it violates the charter of the FBI, which limits it to domestic operations only. Foreign intelligence is the purview of the CIA (or NSA).

Look behind you, 'declining' sub-$5bn iPod. The iWatch has come... to EAT YOU

" it doesn't make sense to travel with 2 devices when you can have just 1 "

Sure it does. When the battery in your iPad dies, you can then fire up the iPod so you can at least listen to music until you get to your destination. Or you can use your phone to take pictures so you don't look like an absolute tw*t trying to do so with your tablet.

With devices getting so small, it doesn't really matter how many of them you have, they still all fit in a backpack/duffle/overcoat. It's just the chargers and cables that give me fits.

Tooled-up Ryobi girl takes nine-inch grinder to Asus beach babe

Re: Electric chainsaw?

Doesn't matter if the brushes aren't accessible. I remember buying replacement brushes for the blower motor in my car, only to find out there were no plugs holding them in, only way to get them out was to remove the armature, and no way to hold them in place while replacing the armature. Good times, good times (not!)...

Microsoft to spend $1.1bn to build Iowa data center

Re: More...

$25/hr comes to $52K/annum, which is just a touch below the national median, and actually a touch above the Iowa median of $49.5K. So this is actually a living wage for the region.

After all, we can't all be rich British techies pulling down £100K+...

AMD's 'Seattle' 64-bit ARM server chips now sampling, set to launch in late 2014

Re: Not exactly

Which leaves "cheapness" as its main selling point.

Good luck with that! :-)

Seemed to work well for Intel! The reason we got stuck with x86 originally was because they were selling for tens of dollars versus hundreds of dollars for M68K / NS32K / etc.

Look out, bankers! It's Lily Cole and her (Brit taxpayer-funded) WISH-PRINTING ATM

Unikitty sez

"Think PAWSitive thoughts!"

What an awesome movie!

Where the HELL is my ROBOT BUTLER?

Re: maybe

Instead of thinking "better batteries" would should be working on "wireless power". Sure it's less efficient, but there's plenty of it about. We waste ~40% on transmission line losses, what's another 10% to jump the last few feet? No downtime to recharge, no diminished functionality due to low power, no complicated power management code/circuitry. I'm sure some bright spark will figure out how to make transmission coils out of carbon nanotubes that can be woven into carpeting or something, if we just throw some more money at the problem.

TV sales PLUMMET. But no one's prepared to say what we all know

Re: Seriously how often *do* people replace their TV's?

"But basically you need to take care when buying stuff as there is so much cheap junk out there it is silly."

+1. Still using my first DVD player, which I got in 2001. I don't mind paying top dollar for high-end components, as they tend to last and work well. Still using my Carver amp and B&O turntable I bought in college too. I also like to listen to my Hallicrafters SX-101, but I didn't buy that new...

Is Apple about unleash a cheaper 8GB iPhone 5C? O2 'leak' suggests: Yes

"How's that gonna work in 8GB for 7.2/8?"

It won't. You'll buy a new phone, because you are fanboi. Resistance is futile, your cash will be assimilated.

BuzzGasm: 9 Incredible Things You Never Knew About PLIERS!

Re: complete misnomer

ITYM complete mis-noser.

Chihuahua TERROR: Packs of TINY hounds menace Arizona

Re: So what they have..

Which is exactly why we don't declare it. We just observe it.

Personally, I favor a trap-and-release program, like the one we have at the local gun club.

"PULL!"

Wireless power groups join forces: One spec to rule them all

So instead of simply buying a cheap cable, I can spend 3-4x more for a charging pad that will eat more desk space, just to save myself the exhausting labor of plugging in a cable? Sign me up!

El Reg talks beer and binaries with a boffin named Boffin

America's gone from pathetic swill to amazing varieties of all different styles of beer in the last twenty or thirty years, I'm sure Chile will have no trouble developing some amazing brews.

And let's not forget that the country most synonymous with wine (France) is pretty much a no-show in the beer world. Perhaps it's simply a matter of focus.

James Dyson plans ROBOT ARMY to take over the world

Re: In the UK?!

"Cadbury's chocolate bars contain GPS trackers"

Gastric positioning system? Who knew!

Boffins build electronic tongue that can distinguish between BEERS

Re: When US Microbreweries learn to make proper beer

You've got it backwards -- lager yeasts are bottom-fermenting (yeast tends to "drop out" or sink to the bottom at lagering temperatures). Ale yeasts are the ones that produce the big head of krausen in the vats.

And doesn't Harveys use their own private strain of yeast?

Re: American beer?

Where do you live, Utah? Non-mainstream craft brews are available at any reputable establishment and easily obtainable at most standard beer outlets (grocery/convenience stores, mega-marts, etc). Just about every state has at least one or two regional breweries, and most of the big names (Boston Brewing [Sam Adams], Anchor, Dogfish Head, Stone and Sierra Nevada, to name just a few) have large distribution networks. Take a trip to even a smallish city (pop 100K+) and I'm sure you'll find several places that sell a variety of non-BMC (Bud/Miller/Coors) brews.

It's big, it's expensive and it's an audiophile's dream: The Sonos Sub

Re: Dream? Nightmare more like.

Oxygen-free Litz wire, of course, drawn from virgin copper (although you can get "audio annealed" recycled copper, in a pinch). Wound widdershins along the signal path for best signal propagation.

Gmail falls offline, rest of Google struggles on: NO! Not error code 93!

Re: Just the social aspects?

That would be technically blue papers, surely.

You've got $60k: So, 2013 sporty Corvette, or a year of AWS's new I2 beast?

Re: I can't help but wonder...

Got my Aeron the same way -- failed startup, selling to the (rented) walls. Picked up the Aeron for $200, Wish I would have bought their server rack as well (pair of quad-CPU IBM POWER systems, IIRC), but they were running AIX (spit!) and I didn't want to spend an indeterminate amount of time trying to make them palatable.

California OLDSTER in WILD golf course SKATEBOARDING spree

New sport

Hmmm, after a few beers (probably Bud Lite, sorry CAMRA), I dare say a chukker of scooter polo might seem to be a good idea. Infinitely more interesting than golf, and probably no more divots than usual. Wonder if those batteries have a quick-charge capability, although you probably can't do much in only three minutes. Maybe some quick disconnects for full battery changes?

Wait, that's no moon 21.5-inch monitor, it's an all-in-one LG Chromebase PC

Re: On the other hand

| I'd say it's an LCD display with a built in PC.

So, kind of like a SPARCstation ELC, but with an LCD display, then?

NSA-proof Euro cloud gang: Cool idea, bro... until it turns into MARKET-EATING beast

Re: Or the Eurowhingers could just write better software.

> How is Europe going to build a "more" secure system when they don't build the chips or write the software?

Er, I think that's rather the point. What's stopping companies in the EU from building chips and writing software? If EU IT security is really an issue, I would think that any EU companies that can claim to be "US influence free" would have a marketable edge.

Gadget world's metals irreplaceable, say boffins

Re: Magnesium?

I don't think they've made magnesium wheels for twenty years or more. Something about them being unquenchable if they catch fire. Plus, they're a b!tch to keep shiny -- much more effort than your typical chav would care to expend.

Inside Intel's secret super-chips: If you've got the millions, it's got the magic

Can't they do this now?

I remember the old VAX-11s used to have a writable control store that would let customers insert their own microcode for their own instructions. And IIRC IBM created a 370-on-a-card using a custom-microprogrammed 68K. Doesn't Intel have some provision for adding or modifying instructions on the x86 chips?

Cash-strapped students hungrily eye up old, unloved racks

Re: Ebay it

There's a company over in Hong Kong selling quad-CPU (AMD Opteron 8356) boxes.for under $1500. 16 cores, 2.3GHz, 16GB with a 500GB drive. Upgrade the memory to 64GB and you might have something to show. Only a single PCIe (x16) slot, though. 4 GbE ports, but since all your CPUs are on the same board you shouldn't need that much bandwidth.

Surface 2 and iPad Air: Prepare to meet YOUR DOOM under a 'Landfill Android' AVALANCHE

Re: ipad2 upgrades

Ah, the old iPhone 3G strategy -- give the OS more features until the older devices can't run it. By the time I was able to upgrade my 3G, it had become quicker to walk outside to check the weather than wait for the app to launch and connect.

Whodathunkit? Media barons slit own throats in flawed piracy crackdowns

Re: View from the other side.

Won't SOMEBODY think of the pirates?

US parents proclaim 811 'Messiahs'

Re: Ironic possibility

"A boy named "Prince" with a familly name of Albert could be amusing."

Would his nickname be "Pierce", then?

Samsung touching up ROUNDED, CURVY plastic enhanced MODEL

Re: Another day

Yes, that's the real reason they hate the 5C -- too many choices, and there's no way to distinguish which are the 1337 ones! Thank heavens for the 5S, and the shortage of gold ones.

Oh, shoppin’ HELL: I’m in the supermarket of the DAMNED

Re: Haven't you ever worked in desktop support

Indeed. I've found that simply approaching misbehaving hardware with a screwdriver (or, in extreme circumstances, a soldering iron) will often result in a spontaneous return to proper function. It also seems to help to exclaim in a loud voice that you have no idea what the problem is, but you're sure you can fix it.

The life of Pi: Intel to give away Arduino-friendly 'Galileo' tiny-puter

ISTR I paid about US$10 for an MSP430 development board. It's only sixteen bits at 16MHz, but it idles on 1 uA and has 16K of Flash and an 8-channel 10-bit ADC. Also sports a decent compliment of analog and digital I/O pins, and I've had no trouble using Arduino accessories with it. It won't run Linux, but it's chump change, so even if you just play with it for a couple of evenings and wind up sticking it in the back of a drawer it's still worth it.

Obama weighs in on NSA surveillance imbroglio

"dually elected officials"

That's right -- elected by the people and by the special interests they serve.

Amazon yoinks Dora and SpongeBob from Netflix for MEELLLIONS

Re: LoveFilm vs Netflix

IIRC, Netflix runs on AWS, so there's no capacity/bandwidth difference between them and LoveFilm. Unless, of course, Netflix has some additional QoS-enhancing voodoo code running atop AWS, which is certainly likely.

Movie review: Star Trek Into Darkness

Re: I might have thought this was a good review until I got to this bit:

| This whole "the ship nearly gets destroyed" pish is part of what killed off the TNG movies. Another couple of films and they would have run out of letters for the 1701!

Yeah, I started referring to it as the "USS Kenny"...

We've done it - we've gone and made LONG-LIFE BEER

Re: I will never understand...

It's like hot sauce -- some people think Tabasco is too hot, some aren't happy unless they sweat profusely from the first bite.

'You can keep it' - Brit's nicked laptop turns up on Iranians' sofa

Re: What about Iran's internet firewall?

The great persian firewall only prevents you from looking at fluffy cat pictures. This cuts down on approximately 40% of all intarweb traffic...

Facebook tries to stop its staff using iPhones in 'dogfood' push

Re: Can you blame them?

Funny, that's exactly why I ditched my iPhone. Was great out of the box, then did a minor release update and noticed it was a bit slower, then the update to the next major release pretty much crippled it. Finally got to the point where it was quicker to scoop the GPS off the floor of the car, plug it in and let it figure out where I was than to use the phone. Shame, really, as I liked the phone but I wasn't going to be forced into a mandatory biannual upgrade cycle.

Feds charge US firm with smuggling illegal military tech to Russia

Re: China exporting tech to the US

Yeah, the US imports so much Chinese-designed tech, it's shameful. Don't think Intel will ever recover after those Loongson CPUs flooded the market. And thank goodness Foxconn was there to design the iPhone circuitry or I'd probably be stuck with a Motorola or something. Something running Aliyun, anyway, since it crushed the Android market. Maybe I'll pick one up cheap on Alibaba, now that eBay's virtually wiped out. Hopefully I'll get one that matches my new Shenzhen TV!

(Note: Chinese tech <> Chinese manufacturing)