Posts by martinX

'Australia's so big freight costs are high' claims don't add up

Re: Are you Gerry Harvey by any chance

Gerry freighted me a lens yesterday for $5.95 (Nikon 50mm 1.8G). And for what it's worth, the lens itself was only $9 more expensive than Kogan the bogan wanted.

Also FWIW, the lens had a retail price sticker from the local Harvey Norman on it which was about $90 more than I paid. It seems Gerry online is undercutting Gerry shopfront. Final FWIW, I keep seeing Kogan ads for the damn lens on my iPad on half the websites I visit - why isn't there a "go away, I just bought one" checkbox?

Council wins motorbike charges case

Anti-pollution gear

IIRC, motorbikes don't run any anti-pollution gear, either. I ride a 750 cc bike, but the last thing on my list is fuel economy. And have you priced bike tyres lately...

Java bug exposes users to serious code-execution risk

Why run Java?

Good question. So I have disabled it as of now. Doesn't Open Office use it? Oh well, no loss. Maybe Steve's right when he disses Java and won't have it on the iPhone. Who am I kidding? "Maybe" - of course he's right.

Fanboi's delight - the top ten free iPad apps

War and Peas on an iPohone

"We just finished War and Peace on our iPhone". Why? A Bet?

Red Dwarf's Kryten exposes iPhone number

Blame Twitter, not Apple

"Think about it, taking a pic of new Apple product and tweeting it = FANBOI"

Blame Twitter, not Apple. Twitterers tell the world about making a sandwich, so a tweet that involves leaving the house is actually a step up.

Strap-on jetwing birdman does an Icarus into Straits of Gibraltar

Subheads

I love your subheadings. It's like reading a cryptic crossword answer and trying to work back to a question. Beautiful. Sublime.

UK telly in coke blizzard shock

Who is Frank?

Wait - you guys have a drug education program called "Frank"? What's your financial education program called? Bill?

Shop risks legal action for posting 'shoplifter' CCTV online

You could be a WINNER!

Easy. The shops post pics of "valued customers who have gone into the draw for a $50 voucher. A $500 voucher is available for anyone who can identify them for us to contact them."

Adobe sounds Apple PowerPC death rattle

Not really surprising is it?

CS 4 was only released in October 2008. I'm guessing that a lot of professionals are still exploring the creative possibilities with it and aren't butting heads against its limitations just yet. By the time CS5 comes out it will be late 2010 or 2011, and those PPC machines will be 4 or 5 years old. Any creative pro wishing to buy the latest and greatest SW would surely be matching it with new HW by that stage. You know it makes sense.

Safari 4: Apple's crash-happy shipper

Another anecdote

I have to say it's been fine for me. I went with the beta, then upgraded a week after the full 4.0 came out and it's been fine. If anything, the full 4.0 reloads pages faster when using the Back button, which is nice. The only time I have ever had trouble with any version of Safari, it was due to 3rd party plugins. Ditto Quicktime FWIW (Perian plugin was the problem, but it's all good now).

Boffins: Gigantic crustacean sperm is 'viable strategy'

Here it comes

Gulp.

Amazon, Apple dish up $300,000 to 'musical crims'

Is that a good return

Not being au fait with expected rates of returns for stolen goods, is a rate of 40% okay, or could they have done better elsewhere? Maybe it's a case of risk versus reward, and the risk seemed very low. For a while.

Man creates third-gen iPhone rumours picture

@Steven

It's when you use an Apple product that you finally get what all the fuss was about.

Excess of cola floors Oz ostrich farmer

OK, it's an emu on our coat of arms

Hey, I woke up at 3 am with a headache and sore throat and proceeded to post on El Reg. I'm sorry if our $#@#ing emu looked like a ^&%$ing ostrich in my befuddled brane :-S . What's he doing with ostriches anyway? That's un-Australian, Bruce.

To make up for my mistake, I'm using the Tux the Emu icon.

Cuppla things.

1. Australian Coke doesn't have "fructose and glucose" as ingredients. Coke is sweetened with sucrose. Sucrose is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose, but that's not the same thing.

2. The issue appears to be with the caffeine. It's not Coke specifically, nor even cola drinks but anything with caffeine. Still, we haven't been inundated with reports about obsessive Starbucks patrons dropping from low potassium. Could be diuretic effect + low dietary intake of K+, in which case it's not the Coke's fault specifically but a general symptom of poor dietary habits.

3. PAUL NAYLOR: if your GF is drinking diet Coke, she's not drinking sugary stuff. Excess phosphates may contribute to osteoporosis though.

4. He's an ostrich farmer. Out roo shooting. What does this guy have against our Coat of Arms?

5. Why is a Greek physician writing up a paper about an Australian ostrich farmer?

Video iPhone coming in June?

Video calls

But will it make video calls yet. That is the one feature I'm waiting for. Yes, I'll probably never use it but I want it anyway.

Researchers dissect world's first Mac botnet

Like the Irish email virus

This is as much a security breach as the Irish email virus. Come on, you have to deliberately download it *from a warez site*, install it and (because it's running as root) probably put in your admin password as well.

(http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/565/)

Boffins: Atlantic temperature ruled by dust, not CO₂

Keynote, not PPT

cirby said: "You might want to back off of that "science is done" bit - even Al Gore is starting to back off of a lot of his claims. Several slides have disappeared from his famous global warming PowerPoint show, "

Al Gore used Keynote, not PowerPoint. That's why he was able to be so persuasive. But I suppose in that case he should have used Persuasion, by Aldus.

Google clones search ad machine on photo sharer

Did we expect anything else?

Google is not a search engine, nor a provider of nifty free software or free online storage. They are an advertising company. You are not their customer. Advertisers are their customer. You are the product that Google sells to their customers.

As long as you remember "I am performing an internet search/storing my documents/wordprocessing/whatever using the resources of an advertising company" you'll be OK.

NASA unveils green science commune dream

What's NASA stand for?

Isn't NASA the outfit that used to fly rockets and things into space? Seems to be an all-singing, all-dancing enviro-fest these days.

Apple Mac Mini (Early 2009)

Is that really a graphics update?

"The main change is the use of a new Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor to replace the feeble Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics used in previous models."

The new mac mini shows an improvement in the OpenGL scores (~25%), but virtually none in Quartz rendering (~3%). I would have thought that the thrust behind Apple moving to an Nvidia graphics chip would have been to prepare the way for Snow Leopard's ultra-cool graphics that will look dazzling on the lowest hardware made in the 6 months leading up to its arrival.

If that was the plan it has either failed or Apple will be improving its drivers fantastically sometime between now and Snow Leopard.

Web maven gives convicted botmaster keys to new kingdom

Passwords, pretty please

Well this is obvious. They're being nice to him up until the day he goes to prison so he doesn't screw their system. When he goes to jail, they'll say "We need to hire a temp to fill your position for, say, 4 years with time off for good behaviour. So could we pretty please have all the passwords. All of them. Yep. All. Please. Yeah, you can have your job back when you get out. Sure. Just write them all here. kthxbye"

Google Earth faces terrorist target airbrush bill

@norp

>>These photos are available from the companies that took them,

That provides a trail. Maybe not a great one, but a trail nonetheless. Even if it is after the fact.

Canadian prof: Green IT is a waste of time

Listen up, drones.

GOOD CITIZENS OF EARTH. Stay in your homes and lead cold, quiet lives. THANKYOU FOR LISTENING. CANADA OUT.

(Angelic Steve because I'm using Safari 4 Beta)

DLNA compliance testing: It ain't working

AppleTV anyone.

Guffaw guffaw, said the AppleTV owner. Not perfect, but quite resilient.

Elevator music files for Chapter 11

How could they go bust

How could they go bust? They sell other people's music. They must have some really high imput costs I haven't considered. Also, how do you let debt creep up that high? Especially when your business is just selling other people's music. Wait, it get worse: Muzak's CEO, Steve Villa, has gone on record as stating that the company has $438 million in debt coming due in 2009. (from Wikipedia). Who the hell lends a company that sells other people's music nearly half a billion dollars?

Microsoft to launch Windows mobile apps 'bazaar'

History Repeats, History Repeats

"Late to the table with a shoddy offering that shows poor understanding of the market they are trying to muscle in on. "

That sounds just like a Zune comment. Maybe we could abbreviate to:

LTTTWASOTSPUOTMTATTMIO and use that for all future MS endeavours.

We need cheap, abundant energy. Here's how

@Gianni Straniero

"Tell that to the Australians."

Tell me what? It's summer here and it's hot. Like it is every summer, and I've seen 44 of them. What we're seeing now is the rise of the air-conditioned generation who ascribe every deviation from 25 degrees C of greater than 5 degrees to some malevolent force. Mind you, I love living and working in aircon, too.

Sony demos ultra-expensive, ultra-thin OLED telly

Expensive Plasmas v Expensive OLED

"I know alot of people will cry at the £3000 price tag but its the first get of a new technology, remember when Plasma TV's were £20,000, way back, when they first come out!"

Yes but the first plasmas were BIGGER than any other TV you could buy at the time. This thing is pretty much the *smallest* TV you can buy (and it's not even portable). It would certainly be the most expensive TV per inch you could buy now or ever.

I know that thin is in, but @#$% me that's an expensive 11 inches.

What the Freetard Photo book tells us

The Oxford Project

What's good about The Oxford Project isn't the photos, good as they are. It's the stories. Without the stories, they're just photos.

Chinese walls come down for video calling

This colour or that colour?

Here's how I see videocalling being used: :Honey do you want this one, or this one? (holds up phone to view two similar doily-girly-fluffy things in the shops).

Trivial usage, but isn't a lot of what we use tech for really trivial?

Last major VHS supplier ejects from tape biz

New Pana units

I'll be upgrading/consolidating my equipment once the panasonic unit I want comes down to a reasonable price. Twin HD tuner, hard drive, blu-ray, can burn to blu-ray.Nice.

US sues to break up military and space kit acquisition

@Alien8n

I realise my comments may have sounded glib, but I do have an inkling of how hard (and how much it costs) to get these things up and running. But I still don't think it's a good idea for the word "monopoly" to be chucked about every time a customer doesn't get what they want. There is 'monopoly' and the is 'abuse of monopoly power'. There is also collusion to distort markets, which has the same effect as abuse of monopoly power.

If the options are: force a manufacturer to make a product at a price a customer wants, or allow market forces to influence prices up and down, I think we're all better off with the latter. If the US military is the only customer for this in the whole world, then they are gointg to have to get used to the idea that they are going to be at a disadvantage.

The alternative for them is to start their own fabrication plants. Competition is good, but forcing competition is a slippery slope.

What is it with their components anyway? Are they the only people in the whole world that have spacecraft or aeroplanes?

Not anti-competitive

There's nothing wrong with a monopoly. It's the abuse of monopoly power that is the problem. Microsemi buying Semicoa isn't a problem. Microsemi raising prices isn't a problem. It would only be a problem if Microsemi used its monopoly position to quash or prevent competition.

By raising prices, Microsemi has actually made the market more favourable to a competitor. Since they aren't the only semiconductor maker in the world, this leaves the door open to another maker (example, National Semiconductor) to manufacture military grade components.

Another competitor enters the market, prices come down, the market rules again.

Anti-competitiveness would be if Microsemi convinced its most-likely competitor not to enter the market, in return for concessions from Microsemi.

Steve, because Gil Amelio (or John the Baptist as we call him) used to head National Semiconductor.

Intel trumpets world's fastest silicon photonic detector*

Austin Powers Quote

It's frikkin' laser beams, not friggin'.

LG FA163DAB 160W iDock micro hi-fi system

Scroll wheel on unit.

I took one of these for a spin and hated the control on the front. It's supposed to be touch-sensitive but its sensitivity left a lot to be desired. When I want to turn the volume up, don't make me try and figure out exactly how I'm supposed to place my finger in order to get the system to respond. Pity, because otherwise it was an OK system. I ended up getting a Panasonic.

Batman sues Batman over Batman

News Up Date

In other news, the mayor of Batman is thought by locals to be an idiot. Opens mouth and removes all doubt.

Fadell gets $300,000 golden handcuffs Apple deal

Big Blue iPods?

I'm not sure what IBM's worried about. IBM makes big things, not teeny iPod-sized things. If Mr Papermaster (what a great name) was to put IBM's secrets to direct use in the iPod division, expect to see "the iPod Macro - three cubic feet of music-playing wonderment". Maybe he's just a smart guy and nerdy IBM is upset he's gone to play with the cool kids.

Is the internet going down down under?

It's all illegal content

The problem with filtering out "illegal material" here in Oz is that every form of pr0n is illegal. Read that again: Explicit willy in explicit taco (that's 'explicit' as in 'obvious', not extreme)is rated X and is only available for purchase in the territories, not the rest of Australia. Therefore, filtering 'illegal material' would result in wiping out half the net. Mind you, it would be an interesting experiment...

Ohio elections website hacked as vote scuffle gets ugly

Hands off the public service

I can't understand why USians, who seem to get the whole 'separation of church and state' thing, don't get the 'separation of powers' thing when it comes to the public service (aka Civil Service).

Here in Oz, politicians (i.e. anyone voted into office) are supposed to have a completely hands-off approach to how the public service carries out its functions. It doesn't always work but it's salient to note that all of the voter frauds I can think of have been carried out by political party members outside the Australian Electoral Commission. No-one has ever accused the AEC of voter fraud.

Another thing, what's with the obsession of signing up as a Democrat or Republican (or something else) from age 18. All that does is firmly ensconce people into one of two opposing camps (be quiet, Libertarians). I think it discourages swinging voting and encourage a team mentality with respect to how people view political parties ('my team is better than your team') rather than an examination of policies.

Unfortunately, politics in Oz is heading the US way and getting nastier all the time.

Apple surrenders the Pink (to Microsoft)

The Mac, Xerox, the joke

Andrew Moore: Apple's engineers (and Steve Jobs) toured Xerox precisely to see what they were doing. This was with Xerox's blessing. Xerox got Apple stock as payment. Win-win, as they say. The article referenced also says "Of course, there were some ex- Xerox people in the Lisa and Mac groups, but the design point for these machines was so different that we didn't leverage our knowledge of the Xerox systems as much as some people think. "

Secondly (everyone), Cade's article is a joke. A funny. Laugh. Or don't. But don't take it seriously.