* Posts by Piro

2311 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Nov 2008

'We hate what you’ve done with the place – especially the hate' Australia tells Twitter

Piro Silver badge

What type of "hate speech"?

Seems like definitions are hard to come by.

Opinions far from your own don't count.

Death threats and other direct threats on individuals would definitely count, and I guess you could build out a little from there.

As long as it doesn't just mean "opinions that are currently deemed unacceptable".

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

Piro Silver badge

Love it

The USB-C rule was great, forcing Apple's hand, but this is even better, as it forces the whole industry away from horrendous device construction.

It feels so sketchy heating up devices with lithium-ion batteries in them just to be able to get them apart. And then the battery feels like it's epoxyed in place. Let's get away from that.

Piro Silver badge

Re: UK specific model?

My phone has a removable back cover and a quickly swappable battery (XCover 5) but is also IP68 rated.

Don't buy the marketing crap. There was never a need to remove accessible batteries or headphone jacks to achieve the ratings desired.

Piro Silver badge

Re: UK specific model?

There are plenty of phones with trivially replaceable batteries and full IP ratings. I have one, Galaxy XCover 5.

All the way back to the Galaxy S5 in 2014 was this a standard feature.

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

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Re: Thanks El Reg...

I mean, I read it, I can comprehend it, but it hurts to read.

Actively unpleasant to read.

Thousands of subreddits go dark in mega-protest over Reddit's app-killing API prices

Piro Silver badge

Re: Reddit is nothing without its users

Old.reddit.com

I don't know how anyone uses the new interface for two seconds

Google snubbed JPEG XL so of course Apple now supports it in Safari

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Re: Google's insistence on not learning from past mistakes...

Nobody wanted to lose an SD card slot, 3.5mm jack or removable battery. Keyboard, yes, that's very niche, but there would be buyers if there were offerings.

Many decisions have been taken in the pursuit of getting you to buy extra crap (new phone because your battery died, wireless headphones because you can't plug yours in any more, more storage at a higher cost upfront because you can't expand). Don't confuse those decisions with ones people actually want.

For the record my phone has a removable battery, 3.5mm jack and microSD slot (dedicated, can still run dual SIM alongside).. but that's not an easy combo to get these days.

Piro Silver badge

Re: Webp?

OK, how about lossless compression comparison?

https://heystacks.com/doc/385/lossless-image-formats-comparison-jpeg-xl-avif-web

Piro Silver badge

Re: Webp?

But what's the source image?

Whether we like it or not, the majority of photos are spat out of phones and cameras as standard JPEG.

Further lossy compression is always going to create unacceptable degradation. The idea JPEG XL can losslessly compress a standard JPEG further, saving diskspace and bandwidth, but also can reverse the process to serve JPEG XL naïve clients with standard JPEGs is something so useful that it basically renders any other reasons as being firmly secondary.

Piro Silver badge

Re: Webp?

There's a fantastic comparison here:

https://cloudinary.com/blog/time_for_next_gen_codecs_to_dethrone_jpeg

Piro Silver badge

Re: Webp?

Have you seen the advantages of jpeg xl?

The bit about losslessly compessing standard jpegs even further, and being able to bit-perfectly reverse that process is ultra-compelling

Rackspace datacenter infrastructure took 12-hour nap in London, Sydney, Hong Kong

Piro Silver badge

Re: CDT?

I think the best is probably tyre sizes: width in millimetres, a ratio of sidewall height to width and internal diameter in inches

Who on earth came up with that?

Google Photos AI still can't label gorillas after racist errors

Piro Silver badge

Don't forget that if you're missing cigarettes, and you wish to acquire one, it can get even more risqué:

"Can I bum a fag?"

Ford in reverse gear over AM radio removal after Congress threatens action

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Re: The only question remaining is ...

Better to follow the example of their neighbouring Finland instead, where they had a DAB switchoff in 2005.

There are a fair few that have switched off DAB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting#Countries_where_FM_to_DAB(+)_radio_transition_is_cancelled/postponed

First ever 64-bit version of Windows rediscovered … and a C compiler for it too

Piro Silver badge

Maybe he uses it as a ramdisk to install the game on.

They *are* getting huge these days

Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra is a worthy heir to the Note

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Re: No expandable storage, no deal

Developer options, force allow apps on external

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Re: Shrug….

It needs to be one device, usable as a phone.

Add-ons don't come close to meeting the requirement.

Piro Silver badge

Re: Shrug….

My wife is still using hers, I just swapped the battery from a Cosmo that was faulty. Have an astro slide ordered, but Planet is very slow to deliver.

Their support is very poor and software release schedules unbelievably pathetic.

The hardware can be decent, but they just don't keep supporting it as it deserves.

Sadly, if you want a proper keyboard, nobody else is competing, so what can you do?

India calls for all mobile phones to include FM radios

Piro Silver badge

Re: still a bit bigger than I normally like them.

If you want to forget all about durability and serviceability (and dual SIMs WITH microSD, as on XCover), and you want to spend a lot more money, then there are two others the same size: ASUS ZenFone 9 (3.5mm jack) and Samsung Galaxy S23 (no 3.5mm jack).

But I'd rather not pay too much for my phone, and I'd like all the ports, with durability and serviceability. But smaller? Nope, as you said, that's the size floor these days.

Piro Silver badge

Re: Xiaomi will be happy ...

Yup, Xiaomi do some things right. I still have a Redmi 4X in daily use.

Piro Silver badge

Re: It isn't that they don't enable the FM radio

Yeah, I understand that. Options are very thin on the ground, though, so one or two things have to give, and that's up to each person to decide where that trade-off lies.

Piro Silver badge

Re: It isn't that they don't enable the FM radio

The XCover 5 is the first Samsung phone I've had, I go where my requirements are met. If that happens to be Samsung, so be it.

Piro Silver badge

Re: It isn't that they don't enable the FM radio

I can recommend the Samung XCover series. Headphone jack, sd card, removable battery and waterproof, and 5 years of updates after launch.

Yeah, I was shocked that such a thing existed too. I now own an XCover 5 (as it's not too huge).

Piro Silver badge

Re: Still waiting for DAB+ in my smartphone

It'll surely be bad for battery life. DAB isn't known for.. well, anything good.

I'd be much more up for a DAB switchoff than FM.

Piro Silver badge

Re: It isn't that they don't enable the FM radio

Perfect, they'll be forced to bring back the headphone jack universally. Flawless victory.

Elon Musk finally finds 'someone foolish enough to take the job' of Twitter CEO

Piro Silver badge

Re: Facts, please

"MAP" is some new, overly friendly and fluffy term for nonce.

YouTube's 'Ad blockers not allowed' pop-up scares the bejesus out of netizens

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Re: The internet is in it's death throws.

Sabroni's comment could be read both ways, to be fair. The original, not so much.

Piro Silver badge

Re: ..

ublock origin still delivers.

If you want to get rid of ads in the videos (as part of the video) then SponsorBlock

Piro Silver badge

Some fun you must be during an ad break on the telly.

No kids, you MUST glue your eyes to these commercials, no toilet breaks!

No! Mrs AC, don't make me a cup of tea, savour every second of this bog roll ad!

Piro Silver badge

I have yt-dlp to download videos all the time using scheduled scripts, good tool

There's also freetube, a desktop programme that allows you to browse youtube but bypassing youtube's ui

Of course newpipe×sponsorblock on android can't be recommended highly enough

Ubuntu 23.04 welcomes three more flavors, but hamburger menus leave a bad taste

Piro Silver badge

We have bigger screens than ever on the desktop

Thus a menu bar is fine.

Cisco: Don't use 'blind spot' – and do use 'feed two birds with one scone'

Piro Silver badge

Re: "English has more words than any other language, , by a factor of two or three"

Eh, it's a weird dick-waving contest. Languages that make heavy use of smashing words together to make new ones will sweep to the top.

I find it funny that that list has Swedish above English - there's only one word that means "snail" and "slug". Just a little fact :)

No more feature updates for Windows 10 – current version is final

Piro Silver badge

That's correct, iot 2021 is the one to use, not an old 2019 build. I've got the iot 2021 one on 3 of the machines in my house.

I missed out that small detail but yes, windows 10 enterprise IoT ltsc 2021 is the correct one. (word order is probably wrong)

Piro Silver badge

Re: Truly, certainly not

Typing in the start menu came wïth Vista, and stopped giving good results quickly in 8. A replacement like open shell is markedly more responsive.

Piro Silver badge

Re: Truly, certainly not

The best way to achieve that is Stardock Curtains. Very lightweight compared to Windowblinds.

Piro Silver badge

" Although the Start Menu is the entry point for any task you need to accomplish, it's not the only thing the OS is about, and for power users (like the audience of The Reg) it's probably something secondary to typing on it instead of clicking things on it"

Except typing in the start menu to search has been largely broken since Windows 8. It does work perfectly in Open Shell though.

Piro Silver badge

Re: Truly, certainly not

Open Shell can have a Windows 7 appearance.

Open the settings, and go to Skin, and choose Windows Aero.

Piro Silver badge

Newest ltsc win 10 is 2021 and has updates to 2032

US EV latest: GM, Hyundai compete – in battery plant announcements

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Re: Bolt EV

The automotive industry lately has been pushing prices up and up, messing up interfaces with touchsreens, and building crossovers and "SUVs" at a great rate. For some reason people like the last one, but it doesn't help efficiency. All these trends need to be rolled back.

Samsung to cough up third of a billion bucks for ripping off patent

Piro Silver badge

Oh, it wasn't RAMBUS?

OK. Never heard of Netlist before.

More ads in Windows 11 Start Menu could be last straw for some

Piro Silver badge

Re: You don't have to use the native start menu - there are better alternatives

Search in the start menu has been largely broken since 8. That's reason enough to use a replacement.

The newer start menus actively waste your time, even if you just want to type to launch.

UK government scraps smart motorway plans, cites high costs and low public confidence

Piro Silver badge

Just stop. Motorways are restricted access roads, designed with hard shoulders. Removing them is a mistake. They didn't spend all that time and money building hard shoulders for a laugh.

Piro Silver badge

People who think engineers in the past must have overlooked an optimisation, or just didn't have the technology.

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Re: Variable speed randomness

It's an attempt to reduce the incidence of "ghost" traffic jams, which form after actual traffic jams, which is fair enough I suppose, on the face of it

Piro Silver badge

We need to stop thinking we know better than past engineers

There was a reason for a hard shoulder. Let's keep it.

Google to kill Dropcam, Nest Secure hardware next year

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Re: Its all well and good

Then the everyman is doomed. Nothing new, the churn of unnecessary new kit is the mainstream business model. That's very deliberate.

Piro Silver badge

Re: Why would anyone with half a brain buy anything from Google?

Home assistant is the way to go. Stitch disparate systems together cohesively

Intel ships multi-die chips ahead of schedule – to the US military

Piro Silver badge

But Intel, I thought that..

.. glue was bad? Oh, only when your competitors use it? Ok.

Australian bank stops handling cash at the counter in some branches

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Re: SAY NO TO PROGRAMMABLE CBDC.

Some people will think you're paranoid, but you're really not.