* Posts by Annihilator

3779 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Apple sells world's most expensive flash drive

Annihilator
Boffin

@James O'Shea

By "hard coded, non-reusable", I meant the USB key.

PS check the system requirements, regardless of whether it's download or USB, the system requirements are "OSX 10.6.6" which is Snow Leopard - you can't (legally) upgrade from Leopard.

Annihilator
WTF?

Oh FFS

I could almost accept the "no physical product" sales pitch, but to whack it onto a (presumably hard coded, non-reusable) USB key instead of just pressing a DVD is just lunacy, even without the $40 overhead. Even from an environmental viewpoint, surely DVD is better??

The Snow Leopard retail pack was sensibly tiny (compared to Windows 7's big honkingly awful orange plastic box, say), being a slightly thicker than average cardboard sleeve.

Apple delays 'retina display' iPad 3 to 2012

Annihilator
Unhappy

re: delayed

I wondered that. It's almost like we've been living in a fairytale or an M Night Shyamalan film.

Instead of saying "oops, we f***ed up with that original speculation of a new iPad in 6 months" to, "ah, they really wanted to, but can't. We can't show you any proof of that though"

Microsoft begins cagey Windows 8 disclosures

Annihilator
Coat

re: Only using half your keyboard?

"Have some punctuation, it helps."

Ah, it's not his fault. Apparently the keyboard isn't compatible - I assume with Windows 7, but could have meant "with the user"...

Google's Moto move spells iPhone doom

Annihilator
Meh

Also

"Second, it's critical to remember who buys Android devices versus iOS devices: kids buy Android ("It's cheap!") while adults largely buy iOS ("Pricey, but it makes me cool with the other soccer dads!"). Guess which group will be buying devices long into the future?"

This assumes that kids will never ever changed their mind and the market won't change at all. As kids, we were all buying Nokia. I don't see many of those kids that are now grown-ups sticking with their 3310s.

Apple ups iPhone production 'by 12%'

Annihilator
Coat

Really?

"So Apple will be keeping iPhone 5 availability tight at first"

Hmm... surely that will generate hype and ramp up demand artificially? That doesn't sound like something Apple would do...

TwitPic founder tries to pull rug from under Twitter

Annihilator
Coat

Go establishment

"some are suggesting its just a complicated protest against the overriding power of the establishment"

Learn the rules people, establishment knows best:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOVaPb2nVys

Firefox 6 silently released ahead of official unwrap date

Annihilator
Unhappy

Logic

"It's a bigger number, so people will think it must be better! We'll call it Firefox 623"

Dell puts gun to Streak 5 tablet, pulls trigger

Annihilator
Boffin

Maybe

But market research (of which testing with users falls under the umbrella) only tells you so much. Quite often market research involves getting a bunch of people to try something out for financial reward (focus groups) and they're just so pleased to be there, they'll tell you what you want to hear.

Besides, unless they had to scrap a whole heap of unsold goods, I'm sure they either made some money off this, or at the very least expanded their knowledge in the mobile/tablet market.

Icebergs measured in Manhattans: Official

Annihilator
Paris Hilton

@I_am_Chris

How do you measure surface area of an irregular 3-dimensional shape from a satellite then?..

Star Wars fans offered Blu-ray deals and previews

Annihilator
Happy

@DrXym

Can I go about my business now?

DARPA drops another HTV-2

Annihilator
Coat

Hmm

Quantum weaponry, now there's an idea.. Depending on your view, it may increase or decrease their accuracy..

Hey dumbo, Facebook isn't sharing telephone numbers

Annihilator
Thumb Down

syllabub is correct

Think of it this way. If a friend of mine has my phone number and "syncs" his contacts with his phone, FB now has my phone number without my permission. Although they're not sharing it with anyone except the person who put it there, why on earth do you think that will remain the same?

Bottom line, a "friend" has technically (but probably unwittingly) given my phone details to FB, without my knowledge or consent, and FB have stored it.

BlackBerry Messenger archives open for inspection

Annihilator
Facepalm

Further

My ironometer exploded at the use of Twitter to campaign against the use of BBM for coordinating riots...

Annihilator
Alert

@Jim Booth

Give it a week, and you'll be typing like a pro. You'll shortly after be bursting out in cold sweats if it's more than 5ft away from you too. They're deceptive like that.

Hauppauge Colossus HD PCIe card

Annihilator
Boffin

re: No HDMI or DVI out?

"Has the reviewer made a mistake? Is there not even DVI out for DVI to HDMI (which is just a connector and does support HDCP)"

You know it's not a graphics card, right? The only thing it can output (on component) is whatever it's being fed from the input - nothing from the PC. Not great not having an HDMI passthru, but not life threatening for what it's intended.

Lossless music goes High Street

Annihilator
Facepalm

F***in' ell..

"with lossless compression, you indiscriminately remove information before compressing if you want to achieve the same final size."

Dear Lord, do you actually engage the brain before spouting such nonsense, or just let it flow naturally?? Lossless = lossless. You start with the digital file, you compress it as best you can, but only in a way where you can recreate the original sound. Zip is a good example of lossless. Try zipping a text file, and unzipping it. Do you get a synopsis of the document?

Watchdog washes hands of Lush hack

Annihilator
Boffin

Walk in?

You only have to walk down the same street as their stores to start gagging..

But in their defence, you've missed the eco-friendliness of it. The reason you can smell it all is because they don't use packaging. Just because soap is strong smelling, doesn't make it a pollutant, or artificial. They also don't test on animals.

I still can't bear to walk past a store though..

LOHAN team buried under ballockets

Annihilator
Happy

re: crowdsource

If the crowd was predominantly made up of Wile E Coyote and his family, then yes.

GE brings holographic storage back from the dead

Annihilator
Stop

@Ken Hagan

"How about a RAID array of something cheap-per-megabyte?"

Repeat to yourself over and over, RAID is *not* a backup solution and is *not* an archive.

Spec set for 3D specs tech

Annihilator
Meh

Reminds me

An XKCD springs to mind..

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png

BBC bigs up iPlayer for TVs and consoles

Annihilator
Unhappy

Not holding breath..

.. does it improve upon the UI currently embedded with the PS3? i.e. the only way to really control it is through the PS3 controller, defeating the purpose of having the BD Remote that works for pretty much every other function (bar games, natch)? I'm not holding my breath..

Use found for Twitter and Liz Jones

Annihilator
Childcatcher

You missed

You missed how the only reason she had to go to the NHS was because she f**ked up with her private healthcare. She managed to piss off the "jobsworth" receptionist further by explaining that she didn't need to be registered and that they couldn't possibly require her medical notes.

Waste of oxygen, turns into an (accidental) fundraiser - I'm torn!

10-year old hacker finds flaw in mobile games

Annihilator
Meh

Hack?

As mentioned, it's not a hack. It's also not something that can ever be defended against really, unless you have a network time server for the game to check against (which this apparently doesn't). The host device's time settings are gospel.

Unfortunately, I can't say I'd have done this when I was 10. But only because my C64 didn't have a real time clock that I could manipulate like this. Do creating my own Action Replay codes to search for the "number of lives" register count??

Google fights to hide incriminating emails

Annihilator

Legelese

"with the text already public it will be a hard fight to win"

Not really, it can still be dismissed as evidence regardless of how widespread it is - common knowledge can be excluded from trials if its deemed to have been obtained. The (now) ease-of-access is irrelevant to the argument and jurists can be instructed to ignore facts they know from outside the trial. Whether they do or not, or are subconsciously influenced is another matter...

12% of UK don't carry cash

Annihilator
Boffin

re: not liking card

As pointed out, cash costs just as much if not more to handle than plastic. However, any retailer that knows what they're doing has already factored the costs of financial reconciliation into their overheads, be it cash or plastic. There is *always* a transaction fee, be it cheque, card, cash etc, it's just hidden somewhere that's quite difficult to extract and explicitly say "this is more expensive".

DIY aerial drone monitors Wi-Fi, GSM networks

Annihilator
Meh

@Dale Richards

"Upvoters, show yourselves"

I'm not sure where you think that an upvote of any of the above comments was justifying anything? Regardless, there are plenty of arguments both for and against, with "lesser of two evils" seemingly the prevailing argument for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki if you really want to find out more, but do you really think this is the place for it??

Annihilator
Boffin

@Eddy lto

"With 4G on board wouldn't it be quicker to rent some time on Amazon's servers to crack the WPA encyption? Let's face it, 5 hours is a long time to stay aloft trying to pick a lock"

That's exactly what it does - it connects to a backend server, passes the encrypted data to it and waits for the brute force to be done.

You'd never get enough power up there for a GPU powerful enough to run brute force, let alone keep the plane in the air.

NASA's Juno roars off to Jupiter

Annihilator
Paris Hilton

Not to mention

How eco-friendly does a probe in orbit around Jupiter need to be anyway? It could have a dirty great coal fire going up there and it would actually be *more* eco-friendly (less coal that could be burnt here)

E-petitions site: Death wish FAIL

Annihilator
Paris Hilton

Confused much?

Erm, the anti's are effectively requesting the same debate. A debate "for" the death penalty is effectively the same as a debate "against".

Rogue character space tripped Scottish exam results

Annihilator
Boffin

Easy

"Why did they need a send-date?"

Because it's a third party system that sends more than exam results one day a year I would imagine. Would seem a bit extreme for the SQA to have their own system specifically for this purpose.

Ofcom says no to web-blocking

Annihilator
Paris Hilton

"DPI for other purposes"

I interpreted the "other purposes" as "throttling"?

Annihilator

re: Annihilator!

It's a hangover from my Quake days, but even then none of those things were true. It's one step up from AC though..

Annihilator
FAIL

Ah... the ironies

You mock me for having a pseudonym, and use the anonymous tag. You mention stupidity taxes, yet manage to double-post. You miss the whole point of the "appeal" where it's primary reason for being is in the cases where the accusation is false.

Where do you get the impression I'm unable to help myself from downloading pirate stuff? Since when is borrowing or blagging a copy (assuming you mean it literally) a crime?

Utter, utter fail, but thanks for playing.

Annihilator
Stop

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat

So, Mr Record Exec besmirches my good name and I get to pay £20 to prove him wrong? Perhaps so, but I would expect that this should fall under the definition of legal aid. Otherwise it gives Mr Record Exec the opportunity to blow me out of the water financially (what's to stop him from giving me 10,000 warnings?)

Utterly, utterly mental. At least try and balance it slightly, say you pay £20 for a failed appeal, but equally have something to come back on Mr Record Exec - that a successful appeal results in him paying a £20K fine for a false accusation (or "libel" as a court may like to call it).

Union talks up offshoring dangers to UK economy

Annihilator
WTF?

@Michelle Knight

"Personally, wherever possible I've been shifting my alliegances to companies that employ British staff; next year I'm planning to shift my banking business to Santandair, but don't tell my current bank yet!"

Well, every bank in the UK employs British staff, just not exclusively. And if you believe that "Santandair" [sic] only employs British staff then you've not only believed the hype, but missed the fact that it's a Spanish bank.

Microsoft man saves drowning woman

Annihilator
Boffin

Not a sign of loudness

How much you can hear of a person's music is seldom an indicator of how loud the headphones are turned up, but how crap/cheap the headphones (or, normally, earbuds) are. None of the last (I'd guess) 3 sets of headphones/buds leaked audio to the outside world.

Apple iCloud pricing revealed

Annihilator
Paris Hilton

Patriot Act

Any indication of whether any potential UK customers will be subject to the Patriot Act, or has this (as ever) been glossed like pretty much most cloud offerings to date?

PCTV NanoStick T2 USB TV tuner

Annihilator
Happy

The alternative (and preferable?)

The BlackGold BGT3620 is the alternative I believe, and while it's an internal PCI express card, it operates as a dual DVB-T2 tuner. Is roughly the same price bracket I think.

You're right though, the T2 devices are expensive, as in the case of all new tech. My original DVB-T (single tuner) cost £100 way back when. In fact I recall my analogue Win-TV card costing upwards of £80 in the late 90s.

Good news: A meltdown would kill fewer than we thought

Annihilator
Coat

Clue in the name

"The report was obtained under a freedom-of-information request by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which remains unconvinced by the draft report"

One would presume that they'd have to change their name if they weren't unconvinced?

Fanboys find way to NFC an iPhone

Annihilator
Coat

Further correction..

"What's more interesting is that if a couple of geeks are prepared to go this far to get limited NFC functionality, then it's obviously something that a couple of geeks feel they need in their handset and to extrapolate any further would clearly be dodgy science/journalism."

Annihilator
Pint

Ah, good old hardware mods

But really, isn't this just one step up from Sellotaping an Oyster card on to the back of your phone? (Hmm... idea, where's the Sellotape..)

AT&T: 'Eat too much data and we'll strangle you'

Annihilator
Boffin

Reasoned argument coming your way

Well, for a start, unlimited means unlimited, check a dictionary. But as you say, put that aside..

Why are only the top 5% "mickeytaking freetards"? What about those that are only in the top 6%? Are they lovely honest paying people? Why is it OK to make a throttle applicable to a moving target? Put it this way, if July's top 5% all go on holiday for a week (could happen), suddenly Mr Reasoned Downloader in the top 6% moves up into the bad-boy category, without changing his own behaviour. Sound measured or fair? Try arbitrary and unpredictable.

I'm all for charging based on bandwidth consumed. But why not just move to an actual model where you can pay for a proper unlimited package? ISPs already understand there's no such thing as unlimited, even when they claim to truly offer it. Sky is the one example I can think of, that for the moment is able to sell a truly unlimited service. But everyone knows that at some point it will become problematic and they'll reintroduce a similar solution - by which point they potentially have people under contract. They're effectively moving the goalposts once you're playing, and quite often you're trapped on the pitch.

Murdoch muscles BBC out of Formula One driving seat

Annihilator
Boffin

@Velv

"Over 40 countries currently take the BBC feed as their licensed coverage - don't fix something that isn't broken!!!!"

Which countries are these? The "feed" is generally created by FOM and is the same the world over - the BBC get the same feed as everyone else.

World first: UK boffins print out working 3D aeroplane

Annihilator
Happy

Voice over

Has the woman doing the voice over just learnt how to speak or something?

Camera Prime

Annihilator
Coat

Vanity

"After taking some really rubbish photos at a friend’s birthday recently, I decided I needed some sort of timer app for the camera on my iPhone"

The implication being the photos were rubbish by virtue of you not being in the photos? ;-)

Russia: 'We'll dump the ISS into the sea after 2020'

Annihilator
Boffin

@Stuart Duel

"the ISS is massive"

Compared to you perhaps, but compared to the planet it's a blip.

"remember what happened to Skylab"

Skylab was an uncontrolled re-entry (a "natural orbital decay with random reentry") - a more comparable event is the Mir de-orbit which was planned and used an RCS burn to do it, much like they're eventually planning with the ISS. They can aim at a patch of ocean roughly 1500km x 100 km with an RCS burn. Pretty much the same as any Soyuz landing. The break-up doesn't really change the physics much.

Space scope spies soggy, stupendous Saturnian doughnut

Annihilator
Boffin

Shifted question

"The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory has discovered just where the water in Saturn's upper atmosphere comes from"

It's just shifted the question to "where does the water on Enceladus come from" :-)

UK Govt refuses to ban shale gas 'fracking'

Annihilator
Unhappy

Hmm...

Although I've no firm opinion one way or the other, to state:

"the citizens reported that they could not light their water on fire before the drilling. And after the drilling they could light their water on fire"

does seem a bit disingenuous. How many people try to light their water on fire on a regular basis and are able to show a causal link? Post hoc ergo propter hoc for a start. It's hardly a surprise, an increasing amount of journalists tends to highlight the facts that support their theory and ignore the rest (or give it a small caveat near the end).