Posts by Captain Hogwash

BANG and the server's gone: Man gets 8 months for destroying work computers

I'd always assumed...

...it was pronounced with a hard C. When I discovered that it wasn't it seemed like a missed opportunity.

BlackBerry: Aaah, Microsoft, we meet again.. for another deathmatch

Re: Indochina

I'd like to send this letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4:30 autogyro?

Axed staffers hijack HMV Twitter account: 'We're tweeting LIVE from HR'

Re: Acronym

Wrong! The set of all acronyms is a subset of the set of all abbreviations.

Zuck on it, Google: 'Public' Facebook events are dead to you

Re: this is so not fair

Somewhat hard of thinking are you? I know I shouldn't be feeding the trolls but I'm in a swashbuckling mood. The third party running a competition will not be locating Richard Gray 1 within an actual social network and thus inferring (and possibly allowing others to infer) a great deal of information about him based on this location. He isn't trying to insult anyone from behind a veil of anonymity either.

Dead Steve Jobs tried to KILL Ashton Kutcher from beyond the grave

Re: Pirate of Silicone Valley

You mean Silicon Valley which is near San Francisco. Silicone Valley is in the Los Angeles area and is famous for an entirely different kind of product.

VIA bakes a fruitier Rock cake to rival the Brit Raspberry Pi

Re: licensing the name Spock is going to be expensive

Why? Do you think the descendents of Dr Benjamin Spock will be awkward about it?

Here we go again: New NHS patient database plan sets off alarm bells

Re: Once medical records are in the cloud

I think that's the point. Drug and insurance companies are likely to be first in the queue. Obviously they won't admit it though and need to sell it on how it will make the NHS save more lives/save more money.

iPhones, tablets... Pah: By 2020, we'll froth over hot new SOFTWEAR

Re: Resistance is futile

And refuseniks will suffer the fate of...John Savage or Winston Smith? I don't know which way it will go but I'm expecting the current cat and mouse game played out by tech/ad companies and hackers/modders to get ever more intense. Sadly tinfoil hats are likely to become ever more fashionable items of wearable tech. This is a bit of a disorganised stream of consciousness post so it's probably not too clear but basically I'm agreeing with you nevstah.

Time has already run out for smart watches

Some of us like watches...

...because of the huge variety in how they look (the jewellery factor I suppose) AND in the technology they use. I have a 70s style LED, 80s style LCD, kinetic analogue and automatic analogue. I'm interested in other technologies and smart watches are just another thing to consider adding to my little collection. But I realise it's a minority interest and so they won't become mainstream without much better battery life and probably better thought out interfaces/functionality.

All your audio, video kit is about to become OBSOLETE

Re: advisory

Best advisory ever:

"This stereo record cannot be played on old tin boxes no matter what they are fitted with. If you are in possession of such equipment please hand it into the nearest police station."

Re: BTO

I bought some BTO bird feeders to attract birds to the piece of waste ground I call my garden. Apparently that's the British Trust for Ornithology but it may as well be Bachman Turner Overdrive because they've been out in the garden for ages and I ain't seen nothing yet.

Just what the world needs: Android in the rice cooker

Re: ...latest version serves it up in little square shapes...

They're called waffles.

Re: As for a rice cooker being simple...

Agreed. Also, they can be set like alarm clocks to ensure the rice is ready when you want it. I wouldn't be without my Zojirushi cooked rice at 7:00 each morning.

Nokia chief Elop: 'Android? Hey, anything's possible!'

Anything is possible

Even Firefox OS, Ubuntu or bringing back the Jolla folks? I do hope so.

Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet creator Gerry Anderson dies at 83

surely Japan...

Is the supermario nation.

Re: L.P. was nothing...

I always preferred Atlanta.

PGP, TrueCrypt-encrypted files CRACKED by £300 tool

Re: pull the power cord

On a laptop? With some juice still in the battery?

Ten... tech stocking stuffers

Pong Cases

For when something smells a bit fishy?

Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei 'likes' Facebook despite ban

Re: Surely...

Thanks for reading my post earlier :-)

Re: A trap?

Or Farsibook in this case?

A trap?

Round up anyone in the country daft enough to 'like' his profile and thus identify them self as having flouted the ban? Just a thought.

Forget about fondling that slab... within 2 years, it'll fondle YOU

Re: Oh boy....

Indeed. Also, if such gurgles were properly understood then the baby would have no incentive to learn the language of its parents.

Goldman Sachs: Windows' true market share is just 20%

Re: "I don't have to ... give up my privacy"

@Trevor_Pott I don't know what it does if you use a Facebook or Twitter ID, but use a Google one and it will send you straight to Google Play. Sideloading works if you can get hold of the APKs but that's what's proving impossible (Google won't let you download them to a PC.) As I said in an earlier post, many legitimate software providers only make their stuff available via Google Play. A case in point is Sonos. I once did manage to find an APK in a third party store but it was well out of date and so wouldn't work until it had updated itself....via Google Play - GRRR! If only the developer would allow the APK to be downloaded from their own site there would be no problem.

Re: "I don't have to ... give up my privacy"

To anyone else thinking of investigating these suggestions, don't waste your time. You can't use these other stores without a Google, Facebook or Twitter ID.

Re: "I don't have to ... give up my privacy"

Hmmmm. Worth a look I suppose so thanks for the tip. Hopefully neither of those require any sort of ID that can be tied to the device. Otherwise it's just kept the sharp object digging into my soft bits but moved it to another pocket.

Re: "I don't have to ... give up my privacy"

Calm down Trevor. The hard work is not in rooting the phone or installing the custom ROM. It is in having to manage without the apps available only from the Google Play store. Because I have decided not to add a Google account to the phone, most of these are unavailable to me. Many legitimate suppliers only make their software available this way. You say Google doesn't track you and perhaps this is true. But how can you be sure? Furthermore, if you install apps via Google Play, Google knows what apps you have installed and is able to make some (though possibly very crude) inferences about you. This is more information than I believe they should have about me - hence my choice to adopt this modus operandi. Everyone else is free to act differently but as I said originally about not having to give up privacy, on Android you kinda sorta do....unless you act to severely limit the capabilities of the device.

Re: "I don't have to ... give up my privacy"

Android? Er, you kinda sorta do. Unless you haven't infected the device with a Google identifier. I've gone this route on a phone with a custom ROM but it's bloody hard work staying free of the snooping when F-Droid has so few apps.

The best smartphones for Christmas

Re: "a phone to be...moistly desired"

Erm, you're talking about salivation right?

Big Data in creepy hook-up with big-game whales

Re: "I can't help but be concerned about this dark side to Big Data"

Erm, isn't this basically the raison d'etre of Big Data? If I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected.

Patrick Moore: Lived with cats, accompanied Einstein on the piano

WTF?

What? No mention of his sterling contribution to Birr Castle as a disembodied tour guide?

Parliament to unleash barrage of criticism on Snoopers' Charter

Charles Farr

Or, Chuck Farr, if you will. It's not a name it's an instruction.

'UK DNA database by stealth' proposed in £100m NHS project

Re: GATACA

Because the meaning of 100 IQ would change over time as you got rid of the 'defectives' to include 'acceptables' for termination.

This is out of hand now: Apple attempts to trademark the LEAF

Re: Is anyone else completely bored of this?

Seriously, it's not oval. Ovoid perhaps, but not oval.

Home Sec: Let us have Snoop Charter or PEOPLE WILL DIE

Do as I say...

...or the puppy gets it. Is that really the best she can do?

Children increasingly named after Apple products

Android?

People have been called Marvin for a long time now.

Who's using 'password' as a password? TOO MANY OF YOU

Re: Ashley & Michael

Really? I've met a few people called Ashley but none called Jesus. Maybe it depends on where in the world you are.

Motörheadphönes Motörizer rock 'phones review

Re: I wonder when Stacia will pop up advertising stairlifts.

She probably could have used such assistance to get them things up a flight of stairs even back in the day.

Android users: More of them than fanbois, but they don't use the web

I'm a reluctant Android user who limits surfing via the phone due to:

i) there are few times during any given day when I don't have something more suitable available such as a desktop or laptop PC.

ii) I don't know what data is being slurped by Google and it's much harder to find out/control it than on a PC. (Feel free to debunk this point if you can - I'd love to replace the tinfoil hat with something in felt.)

However, I know other Android users who know nothing much of the web capabilities of their phones. They use them for calls/texts but don't have data plans. Many are on PAYG and won't use data services because of the (perceived?) high cost. Often they chose the phone on the basis of camera quality and just happened to get Android by default. Hell, a lot of them don't even know they have Android - as far as they are concerned they have an HTC or a Sony or whatever.

German city dumping OpenOffice for Microsoft

Re: You mean the town shortly to be renamed...

berg = mountain

burg = castle

Do you know a chimp who's feeling doleful? Mid-life crisis, probably

RE: "50-year-old men ... absconding with waitresses"

Less than 4 years to go. I can't wait.

Dr No, Thunderball, Casino Royale? Vote now for the best Bond film

Re: Diana Rigg was memorable

...in everything she did.

Plus Japan, Helga Brandt and a hollowed out volcano. What's not to like?

Better luck next time Blofeld! Five Bond plot myths busted

engobblement

Worth it just for that. By the way, it's twoc - not twock.

Wonder why you live longer than a chimp? Thank your MOTHER IN LAW

Re: That's way to simple...

I've always been more scientifically than commercially minded.

Interesting

But just about every animal species that has had examples kept in captivity by humans has seen greatly extended lifespans in those examples. Could the cause of our own relatively long lives be not the same as that of our captives? What I'm suggesting is that our big brains have allowed us to figure out things about how we live (e.g. shelter, heating, sanitation, medicine etc) which have contributed to our longevity and then to that of our zoo inmates as we applied it to their living conditions. Just a thought - I'm no expert on this stuff.

Apple's iPad Mini mishap: scratching out the retina screen

Re: @A/C 21:21

Wide is fine if she has height to match. It's all about aspect ratio.

Craig, Connery or ... Dalton? Vote now for the ultimate James Bond

Re: to sweat in Jane Seymores shadow

I painted her tennis court in 1986 and got pretty sweaty doing it.

Connery...

...as it was he who starred in the first Bond film I saw. At ten years old I fell in love with Japan and Helga Brandt. Thirty six years later nothing has changed. Where's the icon for wistful?

Sanitary towel firm's 'CEO' sets traumatised man straight

Re: Marketing...

"breathless and sweaty" has it's place :-)

Re: Marketing...

We're not talking about a product. We're talking about the motivation behind a moderately amusing internet video.