Posts by Annihilator

Major blow for Apple: 'Bounce back' patent bounced back by USPTO

Bouncing Back

Am I the only one who read "Bouncing Back" and immediately thought of Alan Partridge's autobiography, heartily endorsed by Shakin' Stevens?

ROBOT COCKROACH SWARM unleashed in Sheffield lab

Re: Always looks cool but probably more flexible to do this in simulation

That's what's strange - I recall doing this sort of thing during behavioural AI lectures at Ed Uni in software/simulation back in 1998. So I'm not sure what's "new" exactly?

Re: This looks awesome, BUT...

http://dilbert.com/fast/2013-03-28/

Nuff said

USA's H-1B skilled worker visa applications open

"you can always spend the year between now and the next round of H-1B applications making yourself as physically attractive as possible "

You sure you mean "physically attractive"?

Why does our galaxy spiral?

Re: I think I hear a clock

Black and white fractal generator took hours to run on C64, let alone a colour one. When CSS was first cracked, it took 36 hours to rip and encode a DVD to divx.

And now my phone does realtime HD h264 encoding. Kids these days, etc...

Net neutrality? We've heard of it, says Ofcom

Er, what?

"While some mobile operators are blocking access to some services, the free market will sort that out"

If it *were* a "free market", then yes. But it's not. There are only so many mobile telcos (4?) out there and they all have a vested interest in offering a slightly limited service. As long as no-one breaks ranks, nothing will change.

Review: Jabra Revo Wireless headphones

Re: Gapless = correct

Not to mention live albums. Or any album where two tracks are related (off the top of my head, Green Day's American Idiot has Holiday and Boulevard of Broken Dreams)

How the iPad ruined the lives of IT architects

Re: 100% availability?

Can't tell you about the others, but online banking and ATMs certainly don't come with a 100% availability. There are maintenance windows and just general failure from time to time.

Users may *expect* 100% but the reality is very different. Highly available services (the stuff you don't want failing, ever) is only usually rated to what was previously the holy grail of "five 9's" (or 99.999%), which equates to about 5 minutes outage per year as I recall.

There's also the question of whether availability even means anything. It's a very crude tool to measure outage impact. A 30 minute outage on the ATM network is more costly to a bank at 5pm than 4am, but availaiblity stats will show the same figure.

Patent shark‘s copyright claim could bite all Unix

Re: April Fools!

Please Register, in the future, moderate your April Fools comments to remove any pointing out it is a joke, so we can have a laugh at all those comment posts that have taken it seriously."

Sadly in this case we couldn't have laughed too hard given how close to reality this was :-|

"Patent troll attempts to patent blatantly un-patentable thing" is a recurring theme these days.

Smartphone running 'Facebook OS' said to debut this week

Re: Why would a sane person buy one?

Why do people install apps on their smartphones that replicate a web page? There are many bizarre choices that users make.

Reg man bested in geek-to-geek combat - in World War 3 nerve centre

NWB

Noted to go make a trip. The phrase "somewhere less expendable" did remind me of Springfield's designation of NWB, or "Nuclear Whipping Boy", meaning that in the event of a nuclear war all friendly nations will first calibrate their missiles by bombing Springfield.

How to survive a UEFI BOOT-OF-DEATH on Samsung laptops

Re: @Annihilator

AC with the long response - it was clear it was a Samsung problem. For *any* hardware to irrevocably brick itself due to the software running on it is a faulty bit of hardware, regardless of what the trigger point was.

My point is that if this were a laptop that bricked while running Windows, the story wouldn't even mention the OS. Even if it did, it would take a special kind of leap to blame Windows.

Re: @Pete H - "Garrett was able to demonstrate an application on Windows could wreck a machine."

"Yeah. 'cos if the problem had been seen in Windows first Linux users wouldn't have been gloating."

Not to get into a game of who started what, but the entire blame and cause of the incident was Samsung and their bodged implementation of UEFI. This was patently clear to anyone reading the original article and yet it invited claims of "ooh, Linux is crap!" for spurious reasons.

This was never a Linux thing, and the only people who thought otherwise were ardent Windows fans.

Re: The brick factory....

You won't find a BIOS update on their site that would fix this. It would be a UEFI update :-D

LOHAN slips into tight rubber outfit

"Last week, the Low Orbit Helium* Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team"

*Hydrogen. Tra la la la-laa....

Breakneck star orbits black hole at record speed

Re: "out of thew [sic] main disk of the galaxy."

The speed of light... where? And even if written compared to c (which I assume you meant), did it give you any information you didn't already have?

Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC

Re: NZ Has No TV Tax

"I don't miss paying the TV license fee because to get decent TV here you HAVE to pay for Sky [...], where-as in the UK Sky truly was optional because the BBC was such a good service."

While I'll defend public broadcasting to the end, is the above statement not a matter of opinion and preference? For many the BBC doesn't offer a service they want, especially once they started losing various sports to Sky. For the first time I'm considering it after a season without full F1 coverage for example, but I accept not everyone would feel the same.

4K video may wow vidiots, but content creators see pitfalls

Re: Back-of-napking calculations

@Rampant Spaniel - true that you can compress anything (isn't it weird that the automatic assumption is that compression = lossy whereas when I were a lad, compression almost always means lossless) but the ability to do that in real-time (and without significant lag) is part of the problem too, especially in the studio which this article was primarily about.

Samsung's new Galaxy S 4: iPhone assassin or Android also-ran?

Re: Sounds great

@Charles 9 - I hear that a lot, but know of no-one who does it, lest I'd be having to text people "I'll be on [phone] for the next 2 weeks if you want to reach me.." Or forever swapping SIM cards back and forth depending on whether I want *my* expensive phoneline, or *a* cheap phoneline.

Re: Cupertino, start your photocopiers

Much as I both agree and disagree with the sentiment (I reckon Apple and Samsung have probably taken "inspiration" equally as often from each other), I've upvoted you purely for the brilliant line :-)

Re: Sounds great

Translate sounds marvelously useful on the face of it. Until you give it some though.... The most likely and useful place to use it would be while holidaying in some foreign land, ask it "which way to the beach" and it can translate it for a helpful local to point you in the correct direction. But... when you're on holiday you'll have to rely on the hefty data roaming charges it will inevitable rack up to talk to the translation servers.

Touch screens and greasy mitts: All you need is glove

Re: Oops!

Perhaps Apple could create that image and tactile feedback for a failed jailbreak attempt on an iDevice :-)

BOFH: My HELPDESK HELL - lies, phones lines and statistics

Idea

"Projects for which the proposer had a serious workplace accident prior to implementation"

I'm considering proposing that for one of our new KPIs in the office... Would be happy to contribute to it too!

Ten pi-fect projects for your new Raspberry Pi

Re: How is that "netbook" running Windows?

Short answer - it's not!

http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/FXN/P9DX/H8RVBCHF/FXNP9DXH8RVBCHF.jpg for the full size image that shows the desktop more clearly. It's the Wheezy distro by the looks of it.

Google to pay laughably minuscule fine over Wi-Fi slurp across US

Hmm..

The oddly amusing thing is, Google would have probably paid several times that in order to buy such data. Or rather more ominously, is probably holding much more private data, which we willingly give it every day, and selling it on at enormously greater values than $7m. Hell, it's Google's business model!

Heavily armed dolphins on rampage in Black Sea

Re: Quick!

I clicked through the article and the comments just to count the references - am amazed it was no references in the article, and 7th comment!

What happened to the old memes :-(

BT engineers - missed appointments

Re: Its not the Openreach Engineers thats the problem...

Sky lied to you then. The majority of the service impacting work has to be done by BT Openreach.

Re: Statistics

It's far more likely that over-stretched BTOR engineers are being alotted an hour slot for a three hour problem, sticking around to do the job properly and missing the next two appointments. Given the rollocking they'll get for that, the simple answer is to tick the box that says "customer not home" which won't appear on the "no show" reports.

Intel's Centrino notebook platform is 10 years old

Re: Not sure why downvoted?

"Oh please how can someone be so pathetic, it's a forum for quickly commenting on an article. I could cry"

Over a meaningless voting system? Further perspective required.

Single IPv6 packet kills Kaspersky-protected PCs, fix emerges

So malicious packet causes system to lock up - should probably get a security suite to deal with tha... oh.

Apple assimilates France, Sweden and pals into iCloud

Re: Just the usual question..

"Is it a massive problem if someone finds out you bought Justin Bieber's album?"

In that particular instance, the answer is yes, very much so.

Apple CEO Cook's investor-meeting reveal: 'Dog bites man'

Re: Sideshow Bob..

As I understand it, the shareholders tricked Cook into singing the entire score from HMS Pinafore.

Microwaves thrash fibre on speed... if you like two-nines uptime

"Fastest connection"

This is why I detest using "speed" as a measure in telecoms. They didn't have the "fastest connection", they had the "lowest latency". It's meaningless without bandwidth considerations (which are meaningless on their own too - I could send terabytes/day via the Royal Mail).

Trekkies detect Spock's Vulcan homeworld ORBITING PLUTO

"One might ask why work colleague Charon and guard snake Hydra would be closer to Pluto than his nephew?"

Easy. I sadly see my work colleagues every day, and my guard snake just as frequently, coiled at my feet ready to strike at any of said work colleagues should the need arise..

My nephew, generally see him at family gatherings is the extent of it.

McAfee dumps signatures and proclaims an (almost) end to botnets

Re: Huh?

"But in the last review of anti-virus products by a web magazine, McAfee rated DEAD LAST with largest number of allowed intrusions"

"Ah, but that was the last version", said the sales rep looking nervous and sweaty, "the next version will be the best ever and will stop all botnets!"

Note though, that they're only claiming success for botnets, not every other type of virus out there.

Nexus 1 put in orbit to prove 'in space, no one can hear you scream'

Re: no screams, just explosions...

That's what I thought - they just ignored it. That and fireballs that fall back into the center of the explosion despite the no gravity, and debris that doesn't shoot off into oblivion at the explosive speed.

Razzie voters drive stake through Twilight

Re: probably closer to the actual public's view of the commercial film scene

" the Razzies are deliberately set up to mock and criticise and as such will get a very non-typical demographic... cynical sarcastic fault-picking types."

Much like the Reg forums :-)

Re: probably closer to the actual public's view of the commercial film scene

"The actual public's views are measured by bums in seats and pounds in tills. Therefore in the public's view, those twilight films are worth watching even if we think they suck."

I take issue with that assumption - you pay your money before seeing the film to judge it well. Bums-in-seats is a measure of the hype assigned to a film.

As for the "public" decreeing the Twilight films worth watching, it's fair to say that they could just put a One Direction music vid on loop and show it at the local Odeon and achieve similar ratings. It's just swoon-worthy tosh.

Unwearable tech: Five ways IT garb's gone HORRIBLY WRONG

Re: OMG it never worked before, why still try?

"Then again, I'm the type of guy who has always despised people who wear sunglasses after sundown, so I guess it's a matter of taste."

For those who often have their picture taken, you can understand the appeal. Otherwise, bright flashes in the face in darkened room = headlines the next day of "Joe Celebrity drunk!" featuring picture with glazed, half-open, dilated eyes.

For everyone else, they're just pretending that the same applies to them and I share your aversion.

Bees use 'electrical sixth sense' to nail nectar-stuffed flowers

Re: Sixth sense? @Annihilator

"Your 'all is electrical signals' may confuse the detection (the sense) with the transmission to the brain (via nerves)."

Na, was thinking down at atomic level below all that. Our sense of touch is, on the basic level, detecting the electromagnetic fields?

Re: Sixth sense?

Agreed wholeheartedly. And while we're at it, aren't all senses based on electric eletrical signals?

Happy birthday, LP: Can you believe it's only 65?

"And what's the limit of the info you can store in the comment section of an mp3 track? a matter of a few bytes? Hardly count as extensive liner notes."

Limit of the info in a comment (or lyrics) section is huge with ID3v2, in the region of MB without checking the details, so put what you like in there. There's also APE.

Re: Diamond Rio PMP300

Rio was a cracking player, limited to 32MB IIRC which is insane to imagine! I had the next generation 500 and loved it (a heady 64MB). Not convinced by the claim of inspiration of the iPod though, Jobs wanted to do a portable player, Rubenstein said it couldn't be done yet, until he saw Toshiba's 1.8" hard drive. It was more a combo of the PMP500's form-factor, and the Creative NOMADs capacity if I recall the presentation.

Re: Introducing a new definition of "a few"

> >Also the iPod wasn't originally flash - it had a 2.5" HDD in it until (I think) the iPod Mini in 2004.

>The iPod had a little 1.8" Toshiba disk in it

Aye, and the iPod mini had a 1" microdrive in it

I was so excited with my first tape-to-tape deck. It was very advanced and featured "fast dub", 5-band equaliser and detachable speakers! Oh my giddy aunt, memories...

SimCity Classic

Re: Donuts

"Is there anything they can't do?"

Over 100,000 sign White House petition for handset unlocking

"Erm, people who buy *initially* subsidised mobile phones still have to pay for them over the term of their contract. Exactly what, I wonder, is the potential loss that they are talking about?"

^ That. 100x that. You'd think that unlocking the phone was equivalent to the act of not paying your contract. Why on earth do they care what you do with the phone, as long as you're paying them. The only thing they can possibly be aiming for is effectively locking you in beyond the contract term, as the only option you have of leaving after contract expiry is to buy a new phone.

Curiosity Mars rover flashes pics of GREY drilled powder sample

Define "drilling"

"Curiosity bored into the planet nearly two weeks ago, making a 2.5-inch (6.4cm) hole in the Martian bedrock, the first time any rover has ever drilled into a rock beyond Earth."

Not quite true, the Mars twins Spirit & Opportunity had the Rock Abrasion Tools and allowed them to drill 5mm into rocks. Granted this is the first time anything's analysed the rock fragments (Spirit/Opportunity just analsyed the layer of rock that was exposed), but let's ditch the hyperbole - Curiosity is impressive enough without the made-up records.

Sony promises PC-based PlayStation 4 for Christmas

Re: Sony have dropped the ball

I have never, ever bought a console based on what it looks like. That is all.

Microsoft: Office 2013 license is for just one PC, FOREVER

Re: So if the PC dies

"You have a license to install, not a license to use."

Interesting point... does that mean that Office won't come with an End User License Agreement anymore, and will be an End Machine License Agreement? The machine is licensed, but not the user?

I can kind of understand it if the software comes installed OEM, in the same way that you usually can't transfer a Windows license from a PC you buy in a shope, but it appears this is wider than that.