Posts by Zane

D-Wave disputes benchmark study showing sluggish quantum computer

Not programmable

So do I get this right: it's not programmable, i.e. it's not a computer at all, it's just a machine that is optimized for some special problem? Than what is the problem that it solves so fast?

/Zane

Supermodel Lily Cole: 'I got a little bit upset by that Register article'

Re: Nope, Sorry!

C'mon.

My Google know her well 8^)

I think she was good in "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus".

There are some really nice pictures of her on the net.

She proves that Brit girls are attractive.

You should be proud.

/Zane

'Hashtag' added to the OED – but # isn't a hash, pound, nor number sign

So what's the name in other languages?

In German, people like to call it "Schweinegatter" (pig fence), for obvious reasons.

When I was small, I was taught it is the number sign - as apparently Brits wrote #1, #2, ... meaning number one, number two,...

I always though it was called "pound sign", as it was used for British pound on typewriters that didn't have a pound sign, due to the fact it was at the same position. Well, I learned typewriting on a machine with the pound sign, which I think was however rather unusual in Germany.

Then I know people who call it "railroad crossing", I guess for obvious reasons as well.

Why it's called a hash, I have no idea. Then people call associative arrays hashes, which is confusing the specification with the implementation. So I guess people like to use the word hash when they don't know what they are talking about.

Yep, it then it seems a lot of people call it sharp, that's why C# is pronounced C-sharp, isn't it?

/Zane

LEAKED: Redmond not allowed to sell 'Nokia' smartphones after 2015

Re: Deep integration of Twaddle @ Terry 6

Yep, invaildates warranty. However, a rooted phone can normally be brought back to its original state, so hard to prove you've rooted it.

Main problem with the stuff is that they are very different levels of complexity. Some phones can be unrooted with one-click solution, others need much more work. Find your phone+provider on the net, for most flavors you get tons of how-to's. Take your time to read them - it pays out!

/Zane

who has rooted a Galaxy 2S with T-Mobile Branding and 2.3 Kernel (I'd claim it doesn't get harder).

Re: Deep integration of Twaddle

That has nothing today with your Android - it's your bloody provider who is the reason (or the manufacturer, or both).

Get your phone rooted. Don't cry about living in a cage when the door's wide open.

/Zane

Women are too expensive to draw and code – Ubisoft

So women deserve higher pay

I did not think about it before, but now it has become clear that women are just more expensive than men due to geometrical reasons. I'm so sorry for having had silly ideas about the reasons before - now I understand the poor creatures just can't do anything about it.

So consequently, women need higher pay than men.

/Zane

We're ALL Winston Smith now - and our common enemy is the Big Brother State

Good point

Very good point here.

I am not so worried about Google having my data, but then there are some plans that online access to government services is only available through a special government account, that needs to be verified blah blah. Whatever they say, what they want is control. I don't need that.

With the industry, there normally is an opt-out, and mostly its anyway an opt-in. Not scary. You should just be aware what you are giving away. Do you get money for value?

Biggest problem is: politicians have already started diversionary tactics to make the people believe Google (or whoever) is the enemy. I know too many people who believe that politcians are really here to make this a better place, so they don't get what's going on.

/Zane

Ericsson: There'll be over 9 BILLION mobe subscribers by 2019

Re: 9 Billion

The talk about "subscribers". So it's the number of subscriptions, not the number of users. Does not say anything about the terminal.

So basically it's the number of SIM cards. And for the backbone, it doesn't matter if you use a mobile or a tablet. They make profit on your usage in both cases.

/Zane

Google's driverless car: It'll just block our roads. It's the worst

> Red goes to red + amber

Not everywhere.

> You certainly don't wait for green to begin gear selection, or if you do, then please refer yourself to your nearest driving school for some further tuition.

Never heard that you must not wait for green.

But it looks like you have never been in second row before the traffic light.

There are quite some drivers who will need more than one second.

Re: Sorry to say...

Oliver,

you have no idea how precise these platoon maneuvers can be. They can be done literally without any safety gap.

You will never see a human doing this. Not even on a German autobahn. Not even if the driver is completely.

But you might be right - maybe we'll get used to it.

Re: These cars need a human level AI....on the contrary

You'd be surprised how bad the "human level AI" compares to some rather simple algorithms

for coping with the situations you mention.

Humans are not very good at driving cars.

Two simple examples:

- parking: normally, in about 30% of the cases where the car would have fit into the parking lot, the driver is too afraid it won't or thinks it will be too complicated, or just doesn't have a good 3dimensional view of the situation to get it done. The algorithms to get a car into every parking lot if it fits is pretty simple - I worked with guys who have written this kind of software, it works amazingly well.

- breaking: a lot of accidents happen because drivers are too shy to break hard enough. In fact, if you have moderately modern car, there is already a lot of software involved when you break, which will make sure that the car really stops and does not break out. Software is very good at breaking your car hard enough so it does not touch anything.

/Zane

Sorry to say...

...but you have no idea what you are talking about.

Is this a serious article, or did I miss the irony tags?

This article is so full of silly assumptions, it's the worst thing I've ever read on El Reg.

The authors have not the least idea how automatic driving works. And for theircounter arguments

they use scenarios which are stupid.

Do you really believe that the first (human) at a traffic light

always starts within less then a second after the light becomes green?

Do you even understand that everyone in the row adds to the delay when crossing the traffic light?

Just one example that is plain silly.

Automatic driving works pretty well - and it has done so for quite a time. Most things a machine can do better than a human, but it seems you want to tell me that you can cut anything better than a laser beam will.

The real problem with automatic driving will be with laws (who's in charge when an automatic car causes an accident?) and with human psychology (ever seen a car being added to a platoon at 120 mph? Looks pretty dangerous).

/Zane

The British are coming! The British are coming! And they're buying Surface fondleslabs

Yeah where are they?

It's funny with all this stuff - even with Xboxes, I know far more people with whatever non-XBox play stations than people with XBoxes (but, yes they do exist).

I know one person who owned a Zune (when still working at Microsoft 8^)

A know three people with a Windows Mobile: 2 got it from the employer, and as they are using it for email and calls only, they have not even noticed it sucks - one really bought it for himself. Well, the first time he called me we had to switch to the fixed phones (true. really really true. I laughed my ass of for the rest of the day... "Was that your Windows mobile? What was going on?"- " Err I don't know, but now, after a reboot, it works normal again")

I haven't seen anyone with a Surface yet. I know someone who knows someone who has a Surface, and he says it looks cool.

So where are all these people buying MS devices like mad? Just afraid to show the devices in public because they are so uncool?

/Zane

Hello Moto... It's the Nokia Lumia 630

Re: how does this compare to phones from a few years ago?

At least for me that's easy:

- no automatic brightness

- takes 20 secs to look up a contact

- music player WIP

That sucks, compared to my SGII.

I'll have another Android, not sure if it will be a Samsung or a Motorola.

/Zane

Concerning Windows Phone and its relevance to the larger business

Re: A couple of problems with this

The guy was talking about CEO's - and you are apparently not one of them.

/Zane

Forget phones, BlackBerry's new Project Ion is all about THINGS

Re: The trick, Saunders said, is that these days,

While QNX is quite impressive, iOS is not lightyears away from it.

In fact, QNX in a device would have been a reason for me to buy the device.

That is - was a good reason until now.

/Zane

'Microsoft Research slides' show touch-enabled Office - report

And so?

"the division works on long-term ideas that take a while to feed into products"

good to see that El Reg knows quite something about MS Research 8^)

Wonder if anyone has a number how much of the MS Research ideas ever made it into a product.

Should be a small number.

Research labs are not about driving product innovation - they're here to file patents.

/Zane

So you reckon Nokia-wielding Microsoft can't beat off Apple?

Re: Lots of great info... But...

I'd really like to know which 25 markets you are speaking of.

Maybe you should read The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/29/microsoft_nokia/

Windows Phone is starting losing on the US market - that's quite an indicator they will lose in most other Western markets as well, the US is just a little ahead.

And even if Windows Phone increases market share, there's quite a way to go in some markets.

/Zane

Job for IT generalist ...

Re: RE: 75 month CIO

No, this guy is just a good engineer.

He used months as unit when talking about the other CIOs. Months is a good choice here, as it was less than a year, but much more than several weeks.

He then re-used the unit when talking about himself. Makes it easier to compare when you use the same unit.

He could've used weeks or days instead. That would look like nitpicking, wouldn't it?

/Zane

Powershell terminal sucks. Is there a better choice?

Sad but true

Tried to work with Powershell for about 6 months.

And I was really upset with it, and thought exactly the same: there must be a better way to use this.

If there is, then nobody shares it on the internet.

Compared to Unix shell, powershell doesn't come near. The object-orientedness is a nice concept, but in practice it's not that helpful.

What I used instead:

pyshell - much nicer, but I'm not a python fan.

gitbash (needs mingw) - just feels home when you are used to Unix shell scripting. Using that now for about 18 months, and I'm happy with it.

Sorry that I do not have a better answer. But I think that fellow posters show that this is as it is.

/Zane

Stephen Hawking: The creation of true AI could be the 'greatest event in human history'

It's better to improve on natural intelligence

OMG - true AI. Yes. But maybe it would be good to read a little about physics and mathematics beforehand...

The universe is not a clockwork, it's not a machine, and it's not a big computer.

Even worse, mathematics cannot ever completely model (or even explain) reality (which came as a shock when Gödel found that out in the last century)

Our mind is not a clockwork orange - there's even a good book on this.

There is quite some evidence - not only Penrose' book - that living and thinking is something that can't be built by engineers. See e.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.1791.

And anyway - Buddha knew all of this before.

/Zane

Boycott Firefox, gay devs urge as Mozilla appoints JavaScript daddy as CEO

Re: Paw Shakes Head

Have you read the article?

It's about people against using religious traditions of heterosexual marriage at a gay marriage:

"I'm not going to walk down the aisle to Mendelssohn wearing white in a church and throw a bouquet and do the first dance,"

I don't think they are gainst your right to get a Green Card for your partner in case you are a citizen yourself.

/Zane

What does people-centric IT mean, anyway?

It has been said many times...

Ah, I wanted to write something funny about MS and people-centric IT, but this forum is already full of it.

So it's easy, MS: nobody will ever buy that from you. Seems you will need to think of another hype, this one is already a nonstarter.

/Zane

Blighty goes retro with 12-sided pound coin

I like it

One of the reasons I never was fond of the Euro (yep, I'm from the continent) is diversity of coins. I always liked all these funny different ways you can shape coins, and it's more fun the more different currencies you have. So be glad you still have your pound and can fool around with it.

/Zane

BTW a 12-based system for money is better than a decimal system - but you are not going to change that in the foreseeable future, are you?

Straight to 8: London's Met Police hatches Win XP escape plan

Good news

for criminals.

Met will be busy with getting the system running for probably the next 6 montsh.

/Zane

Nokia launches Euro ANDROID invasion, quips: 'Microsoft knew what they were buying'

Where's the android?

If I get it correctly, I couldn't with a Nokia Android what I can do with my Samsung.

So what's the point?

/Zane

Minecraft developer kills Kickstarted Minecraft movie

WinCE

How I wish you were right.

But then there are still some people in this world who are forced to develop for WinCE.

/Zane

Friends don't do tech support for friends running Windows XP

Sorry for the geekery.

I propose to start here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/20079/install-linux-mint-on-your-windows-computer-or-netbook/

Should be easy to google for similar solutions.

/Zane

Do people return?

I see that many here posted the obvious: migrate your friends to Linux. Ubuntu, Mint, whatever,...

Do I get it correctly that the normal experience is that those who migrated to Linux never went back to Windows?

/Zane gladly living in a Windows-free home office since 2001.

Microsoft's new CEO: The technology isn't his problem

Re: Consumer Company?

"good stuff like ... Visual Studio."

Wow. Are you a developer? Haven't met many that like VS. Have you tried other IDEs? I know a few which are much better.

Ford says Microsoft CEO target Mulally not going anywhere

Re: cars are not computers

I think you hit an important point here: Will they last?

I claim again: my grandchildren will not know who Microsoft is or was.

Do you remember Wang, Olivetti, etc? Or even your President Nixon?

/Zane

'Daddy, can I use the BLACK iPAD?': Life with the Surface Pro 2

How typical of you

Really nice article.

And it mentions certain things not specific to the Win 8 or Surface Pro, but that have been around with Microsoft software since always: complicated to install, and inconsistent in design. Seems most people only notice now that they see that others can do better.

Zane

'Burning platform' Elop: I'd SLASH and BURN stuff at Microsoft, TOO

Why not...

..end the war with the customer and make a word processor that is able to structure text?

Zane.

The REAL winner of Microsoft's Nokia buy: GOOGLE

Re: Billion Android Phones.

Microsoft Ecosystem???

A good ecosystem comes with balance and diversity. A monopoly is not an ecosystem.

Microsoft's Nokia plan: WHACK APPLE AND GOOGLE

Re: RIP Nokia

What you mean "...just the phone division"?

As in: he still exists, they only cut out his stomach?

/Zane

YouTube Wars: Microsoft cries foul as Windows Phone app pulled again

Microsoft just can't write decent software

Seems to me that the whole thing burns down to a very simple truth - Microsoft cannot write at HTML5 compliant version of the app, while others can.

Seems we have seen this thing before. Microsoft cannot implement standards. As most programmers can, it follows that there no programmers at Microsoft.

/Zane

So, who here LURVES Windows Phone? Put your hands up, Brits

There's no alternative...

This might be true for Windows Phones.

It's not true for Android. Just google for it.

/Zane

German guardsmen growing mono-boobs from drilling with Nazi-era rifles

Subtitle

I guess what you wanted to say in your subtitle was "Weltkriegsmacht"

Just my 2p from a German know-it-all.

/Zane

Microsoft caves to Google, pulls YouTube app from WinPhone Store

Re: ..how ironic

"Outlook is a pretty decent email client".

Hm. Can you give me a reason for this. I need to use it at work, and I normally need to restart it several times a day. Calendar cannot handle repetitive appointments, when details are changed a lot of colleagues need to delete the old appointment and make a new one.

My favorite Outlook feature is that it is unsure about the exchange connection. I try to access my emails, and it tells me that I should reconnect, as it is not connected to the exchange server. Nevertheless, it displays "connected to exchange server" in the status bar.

I think I have used around ten different email clients in the last years, and none of them was that bad.

/Zane

Microsoft: YES! You can have your desktop back again for FREE!

Re: “advance the bold vision”

Any evidence for your claims? I still want to meet someone who likes ribbons or metro 8^)

Microsoft taking risks? I have no idea what you mean. They are stuck with an OS that is still single user focused with lousy networking capabilties, slow and resource hungry.

So the only the risk they are taking is "let's see if people pay for low quality". Surprisingly, a lot do.An in that, it's not a risk then anymore 8^)

/Zane

Microsoft honcho pleads with media: 'Stop picking on us!'

Re: "Microsoft honcho pleads with media: 'Stop picking on us!'"

What you say is probably true - "the best windows experience ever". Just try something like OS X or Linux Mint and you will find out that others are lightyears ahead.

Zane

Microsoft 'poised' to SPAFF A BEELLION on e-book also-ran Nook

Re: MSFT the Value Destroyer

My thoughts 8^)

But on the positive side, we must that M$ did not ruin those like they did in so many other cases.

And we have no idea what they lost on the Skype and Hotmail deal. Amazing how much money they seem to be making in the few success areas. But this will work for a limited time only.

/Zane

Coke? Windows 8 is Microsoft's 'Vista moment'. Again

Re: Instead of

So you think a Mac is to a PC what a BMW is to a Vauxhall?

More like what a plane is to a car...

Had to switch back to WinWhatever after years on a Mac, first reaction is: why is the mouse frozen? Huh, is the machine dead? Working on a Mac is so fast and swift...

Too bad it's too expensive for me to use it at home. But my archlinux is also much more responsive than Win7. So yes, I can't afford the plane. Neither the BMW (too posh anyway). But their affordable solutions as well 8^)

/Zane

Only Kinect: Microsoft boffins build Minority Report-style tools

“looking at pixels in the air without a screen” - will be the “next big thing”

Nope.

Next big thing are time machines. And I know that Apple is already putting a lot of effort into it.

Nokia Lumia 820 WinPho 8 review

Re: Too little, too late

Well not sure where the Wall Street Journal gets its information, but when I look at the Amazon best sellers list, there's Android, and Android, and iPhone, and Android. Yes there is also the Lumia true - but not as high up as Wall Street Journal claims

Texan schoolgirl expelled for refusing to wear RFID tag

Re: Christ (oops!) bloody religion again???

Thanks - must admit I always thought her name was Hopkins.

So I learned something today.

Do do do do do do Waiting for the gift of sound and vision

Habitable HEAVY GRAVITY WORLD found just 42 light-years away

Re: EE 'Doc' Smith? Larry Niven?

Never EE Doc Smith nor Larry Niven might be thought of as "literature". But I'd say you're a moron if you haven't heard their names - and as tech person you should have read at least one of their books.

Microsoft: Just swallow this tablet ... the rest will take care of itself

Re: "Microsoft actually writes fantastic software"

It would even more be interested in the list. I'd guess that Age of Empires is on it, but what else?

Information is the UI in Windows 8, says design guru

Re: The flaw is in the very words "information people need to consume"

Good point.

But that was the problem of Microsoft from the beginning.

Word and Excel are just computer-versions of the paper-and-pen versions.

Probably that is the reason of their success: you can use a "new" technology without learning anything new.

That's on the other hand also their problem: Microsoft users stay computer illiterates.

Windows Metro Maoist cadres reach desktop, pound it flat

Deconstructivism

Now is this deconstructivism, or just plan destruction?

Is there any reason left to look at Win8?

Zane