Posts by LuMan

Apple Beijing store egged in botched iPhone 4S launch

@Mondo

Yep, totally agree. We've seen it before with 'must have' Christmas pressies (remember the Cabbage Patch fights?). Safest option - lockdown.

Lenovo outs Ice Cream Sarnie telly

Smart Telly

I want a telly with another telly hanging off the side. Then, when watching a film, the other telly will automatically fire up IMDB so the missus and I can argue about who was in what other film without having to crank up the laptop!

Videogame piracy figures show decline

@AC - 17:07

"the games/music/film industry invite "piracy" by producing so much shite and robbing the consumer in the first place...."

Really? While I agree that there's a load of crap being peddled in the entertainment industry at the mo, to claim that it's "inviting" piracy is somewhat ridiculous. This is like saying that poeple are more likely to steal groceries from Farmfoods because the quality isn't as good as Waitrose.

There are all manner of ways you can try games and see movies before you buy. A number of outlets provide a rental service that delivers to your door - LoveFilm, for example, will bung you unlimited streams and films/DVDs* for less than a tenner a month. Got to be better than piracy.

Either way you look at it, piracy is theft. Most of us have done it (probably) and it'll never go away. But there's no such thing as a valid excuse.

*Yep, you can only have 2 physical discs at any one time, but the principle remains.

PayPal dispute ends in 'violin destruction'

Smashed Strat

So can we assume the smashed article never made it back to the original seller? The update from PayPal suggests that it is illegal to post counterfiet goods back to the original seller, so, even in a smashed state, sending it back would be against the law.

So, what's to say that the buyer realises he's got a good violin, smashes up a second hand, mass produced (and cheaper) instrument, and then claims he/she's destroyed the self same unit??

A mole with cataracts can see this stinks!

Quanta sues AMD over dodgy chips

Can't stand the heat..

So, basically, Quanta have made boards/units with such bad heat dissipation properties that the processors fail?

Surely Quanta should be spending their time investigating why previous implementations of the same chip worked fine instead of buck passing.

..ho-hum..

Steve Jobs action figure set for shop shelves

Close..

"Hardly uprising, as both deaths seem to cause widespread weeping in the streets by their respective followers."

Except that the ifanbois weren't paid/threatened to do so.

The Commodore 64 is 30

Listing..

10 PRINT "AC - 09:48 is a dickhead";

20 GOTO 10

run

The Best of El Reg 2011 now on Kindle

Jesus

"And even that isn't the end of the Bible!"

That's right. If it was Peter Jackson wouldn't be able to make 15 bloody sequals about it!

Santa's Xmas Caper

Not only that...

...but Amiga Format provided a coverdisk with Cannon Soccer - basically Cannon Fodder with the little fellas from Sensible Soccer as well as soldiers. In order to make it Christmassy the scene was a snowy football pitch and the nasties would through snowballs at you. There was also a couple of snowmen and presents and stuff.

NASA finds first Earth-sized planets outside the solar system

What??

"they are hot furnace-like planets completely inhospitable to any form of life."

Maybe within the conceptualisations of the mere human mind. But how do we know there isn't a race of super-being* who thrive on temperatures of this magnitude and are, as we speak, planning their despicable plan to move our own mother planet closer to Sol, so as to overthrow the human race and eat us all.

Keep watching the skies.....

*who I obviously welcome, and all that.

Sony creates paper battery

Surely this would be better suited to an energy drink of sorts?

Nissan Leaf battery powered electric car

Sound Issues

I see where AC-11:07 is coming from. Silent cars are NOT unsafe. What IS unsafe are the f*cking idiots who forget the most basic of road safety rules; Stop, LOOK, Listen. If you get Step 2 correct then you're doing well. Alternatively, feel free to use the multitude of pedestrian crossings that are springing up all over the place.

Thousands of deaf, hearing impeded and headphone-wearing folk cross the road every day without incident.

I have you now! Top 10 Star Wars Xmas presents

R2D2

"Oh, and wasn't r2d2 owned by annakin and not obi-wan?"

Technically, no. R2D2 was a lowly Astromech droid in the employ of the Naboo defense force. He (well, 'it') got a commendation for being a brave, plucky so and so, and not getting smashed off the side of a Nubian spaceship like his 3 fellow droids when Amidala's lot tried to get through a Trade Federation blockade. He (it) then managed to blag a cushy number trundling around after Annakin, Obi-wan and all that for a few more films.

Annakin actually owned the less entertaining C-3PO, which he left behind with his mum. Obviously he was embarrassed by 3PO's existence because he hid behind a black mask and voice-changer for 3 films, so as not be recognised!

Sony takes PS Vita on Blighty-wide tour

No Phone Home

I'll definitely be up for one of these. Love my PSP and my Xperia Play. Just a shame that Sony decided not to add a phone to the Vita - means I've still got to carry two devices around.

Steve Jobs' last design: New Apple HQ pics

Yep

Glad someone stated the obvious. Of all the modern buildings I've worked in (quite a few in our company) none of them have openable windows. They're all bleedin bullet-proof affairs, welded shut with some form of adamantium!

Air con and security are normally stated as the reasons, but I reckon it's also to stop stressed-out project managers from hurling themselves to freedom.

Geek seeks cash for Top Trumps-style CPU game

@Kaned

Er, you're asking that question on a tech forum where G33K T-shirts are standard issue? I think you'll find that a fair few people will.

Skyrim update makes dragons FLY BACKWARDS

Yeah, but in all fairness....

...dragons aren't real. They're mythical beings. Nobody *really* knows how they fly. Maybe these dragons are well smart and have perfected the reverse-method of dodging arrows. I know that if I'd invented dragons I'd have 'em flying sideways as well. And upside down. Just for the hell of it!

Apple: Siri isn't anti-abortion

WTF!

So, let me get this straight. A group of people went to the bother of finding out whether a new, useful gimmick on a mobile phone is guilty of pro-life behaviour, and then posted their results to either inform or (more likely) ridicule?

Aside of the fact that more people would be up in arms if it gave explicit directions to abortion clinics (and, let's face it, the US can get a bit steamed up about this topic), surely most people who are in need of discreetly finding a suitable service would not announce it clearly into a fugging mobile phone, where all manner of bystander could hear.

...or would they..?

</JEEZ!>

Jarmageddon: Marmite spill sparks biohazard threat

Dang!

Beat me to it. Well done, sir.

Hacker cuffed in job interview sting with hotel he blackmailed

It could be worse, though.

Instead of jail they could have sentenced him to 10 years in a Marriott hotel!

Don't buy my new £210 box set - Elvis Costello

Sceptic?

That last paragraph did look a bit sceptical - but that's not to say it's not true. As much as I like Costello I certainly wouldn't stump up over £200 for a bleedin' box set. I suppose the question is: does he get a percentage of the profits, or a flat-rate per unit sale? Or does he get a 'wage' for the whole deal?

Either way, I can't imagine he actually *needs* the money....

Strap-on thruster daredevil shows off Swiss peak formation

Cool

Gotta give this bloke his due - flying alongside a couple of jet 'planes with a strap-on* wing has got to be fun. I'm both impressed and envious in equal measure.

WRT ground launches - it's only got to be a matter of time before he cobbles something together. Some sort of rocket booster to get him up to speed (and altitude, probably) before opening up the turbines should do. Perhaps us commentards should design him something (like the PARIS and LOHAN projects).

Big thumbs up from me.

*heh-heh-fnaar-fnaar, etc....

Pirated software hard drive on display as art

But Is It Art??

Well, of course it's art. Because, if you want it to be, ANYTHING can be considered art. Even the written word. So, here's my artistic offering:

To put that drive on a plinth is the biggest fucking waste of time in the art world since an unmade bed and a goddam urinal. At least that huge pile of tyres LOOKED like something interesting - like a submarine! Anyone who stops to ponder the juxtaposition of the aesthetics of this device in the material world is an utter twat and needs fucking shooting!

There - feel free to criticise as you see fit. I can't be offended by your comments as it's art. So there. Now, I'm just gonna sit back and wait for my Turner Prize to turn up......

Biology miss punts homemade smut to pupils

Is it...

..on Youtube yet?

Slip of a lad to play James Bond's Q

Believable Bond?

Shurely shome mishtake. Bond's not supposed to be believable. That's why it was so good. It all went wrong when someone thought it was a good idea to set the stories in the contemporary world.

Here's the fix - set all Bond films in the 60s, give him groovy gadgets with lasers and stuff, ensure that he humps his way through every female Soviet spy he happens across (as long as they're fit, natch), include an underwater scene (including gratuitous sub-aquatic snogging) and make sure there's at least 5 scenes where he beats up multiple assailants or a massive henchmen using a mix of ingenuity and very bad karate!

Oh yes, bring back the DB5.

If it's 'realism' you want, go and watch Bourne!

Fragged, fragged and thrice fragged! 20 years of id Software’s Doom

Port-a-Doom

True. I've seen Doom running on all manner of stuff (there's even a 'sort-of' Spectrum version). Regardless of the platform it's still a great waste of time during those long, boring conference calls.

I remember having Zhadoom on my A1200 (with 160MHz ppc) and getting a better frame-rate than my mate's P60. Still play it now.

Lapse It Pro

Video In Article

Er, have you reported that non-working streetlight to the council?

World's first biz computer was British – and sold teacakes

Brilliant!!

Utterly brilliant! Imagine listening to how the computer works to identify faults. Love it. Reminds me of some other computer audio oddities:

- Loading a speccy game and hearing it come through the little built in speaker

- The constant clicking of the Amiga DF0:

- The lovely phase shift you'd hear on an old TV when your Atari 2600 displayed a different colour

- The 'schlip-schlip' noise of the auto card reader

<nostalgic sigh>

btw - resisted the temptation to ask if it can run MW3!

Hands on with the Sony PlayStation Vita

@Thomas 4

Totally agree. I've got an extensive collection of handheld consoles and they get more playtime than even my Xperia Play (which I love). The advantage of the 'Play is that I can use it surrepticiously at work.

Handheld consoles have proper controls that are robust enough to do the job. And you can actually see what you're doing on the WHOLE screen - not the 65% that's not obscured by thumbs!

@sabroni

You're comparing a system released in 1994 (PS1) to a system released in 1996 (N64). Other than a higher bit-count (32 v 64) the N64 didn't offer much else over the PS1. Polygon counts were effectively comparable in-game, but the advantages of the N64s Reality Co-Processor (the only thing close to cutting edge on this system) were horrendously offset by the usage of cartridges. Trilinear filtering and 100 channel sound(!) were compromised because of this.

With respect to instant loading, yes, the cardridge-based media used in the N64 was much faster than the PS1's CD-ROM. So much so that Nintendo played heavily on this for its advertising campaign ("Other consoles use CD S-L-O-W"). But the cartridge format was 20 years old by the time the N64 came out - hardly current gen even in 1996.

In all fairness I play on my N64 more than my PS1 because the games are more fun - not necessarily technically better.

What price quality!

Sony have always been expensive, at least initially, but you do get cutting edge and devs have to work effing hard to keep the momentum up as the tech becomes outdated. Nintendo, on the other hand, haven't really been cutting edge since the SNES, but have that magic ingredient we call playability.

As for this handheld - yep, I'll be buying it. As good as my Xperia Play is, it's no absolute substitute for a 'proper' console. You really need something substantial for frenetic button-mashing and mobile phone buttons and touchscreens just seem too flimsy (oddly, though, the touchscreen on my DS seems perfectly robust). Here's hoping for an early price-drop!

Renault Fluence ZE

@Lee

Thanks for the rather obvious lecture on where electricity comes from. Working for an energy company I may have missed that bit!

Seriously, though, as others in this forum have mentioned, there needs to be some sort of evolution and/or development. When fossil fuels DO run out, where will we get electricity from? The only options currently are 'alternative' and, althought not hugely efficient at the moment, these methods are also developing. So, ten years from now, hydo/wind/solar solutions will be vastly better than they are now and perhaps more capable of providing a real solution.

Or, we can take your lead and eschew the most obvious forward path and then stumble around in the dark when the fuel runs out.....

Blimey! This may *just* work.

I'm always interested to read about new e-cars - and the comments they garner on El Reg. But, despite the fact that those of a Clarkson disposition shudder at the thought, we all know that fossil fuels will run out and an alternative needs to gain a foothold now, while there's still time for development. Car manufacturers need to get a decent, well-priced e-car out to the masses if we don't want to revert back to horses, and they also need, at least, to have a standard for battery type/connection to enable quick swaps.

Thumbs up to Renault for this one. At least they've shown they've got the bottle tomake a decent stab.

Dating sites can be haven for sex pests, say cops

To be fair, though...

..the Police HAVE to issue warnings as blatantly obvious as this. It's OK for those of us with IQs higher than our waist size, but there are a LOT of folk in the wilderness who are less savvy. Just look at all those caught out by 419 scammers - they're still being duped now. And lonely folk will still sign up to getlovedup.com (or whatever) and be totally ignorant of the fact that some people on the site are after something other than companionship. Sadly, I reckon we'll see more of these stories in future.

Chell clips Cant to top Play School presenter slot

Sorry, but it has to be done...

How did Floella Benjamin escape from the Titanic?

Through the ROUND window!

OK, I know..

Production electric motorcycle breaks 100 mile range

Pipe Down

Got to say I largely agree with the sentiment that loud pipes save lives - my 535 Virago has straight-thru Cal slash pipes on it and you can hear it a whole town away. You only really notice how safe you are when you get on your pushbike and some tit in a tin box tries to occupy the same point in space-time!

Having said that, make the bloody driving tests harder and reduce the amount of nobheads on the roads! AND make them drive with earmuffs on so they actually learn to use their fugging EYES once in a while!

</rant> <breathe>

Feds warn 'pox party' zealots not to send viruses in post

Yeah, but.

Imagine what may happen if your kid has a particularly weak immune system and you open a package at the breakfast table that is festooned with all manner of germs. Nasty.

I agree that it's a difficult law to police, but sometimes the fear of actually performing an illegal activity is enough to stop a sizeable portion of idiots sending potentially harmful shit through the mail!

NASA tells Voyager 2 to save its strength

But how far will it go....

Perhaps, in many years, the following may happen....

NASA bloke: "Hey, Jeff. Get that Voyager thing to check out that small moon over there."

<clicketty-clicketty-click>

... 2 days later ...

NASA bloke: "Hey. We got a reply."

Voyager output: THAT'S NO MOON!

Goldeneye 007: Reloaded

Goldeneye wasn't regarded as the *best* FPS at the time due to technical brilliance, frame-rate, number of polygons or enemy AI. It was regarded as the best example of a movie tie-in with relation to a gaming genre. It actually followed the film and was bloody playable too - something that is only evident in a scant few tie-ins.

As for console vs pc for gaming - I'm sure there's a schoolyard forum you can join if you want to waste time on that argument (ho-hum).

Compact Disc death foretold for 2012

In-Car Options

Some good points about in-car options, but remember that metal boxes aren't that good for listening to music in anyway, so quality can take a back seat (hah). Anyhoo, FWIW, I have a 6CD multi-changer thing in the boot and a cassette deck on the dash (yep, and it's a 53 plate!). I got one of those magic cassettes with a jack-plug on it and use my MP3/phone/walkman* to listen to whatever I want.

Of course, the biggest problem is trying to hear the fugging thing when some twat in a 'hot hatch' pulls up next to me at the lights, gunning the bejeezuz out of his crappy 1.4 engine and vibrating my poor little Xsara to death with shitty drum and base!

*The MD Walkman - not the cassette one. That would be just plain daft!

Manufacturers testing wider cars for swingbellies

Spot on

I was wondering who'd be first to spot the obvious. Multi-skinned doors with additional impact bars, crumple-zones and airbag deployment wotsits all add to the overall size of the car. Not to mention the fact that car manufacturers like to point out exactly how much space there is in the boot, too.

Not much of a mention for 1950s Cadillacs with 60" bench seats I notice.....

Jaguar recalls over 17,600 X-types in the UK

Shame Microsoft didn't write the code....

...you'd only need to close and open the Windows!

Yep, someone had to say it. I'm off now..

Crap alchemist jailed for poo-into-gold experiment

Argos managed it the other way...

...most of the 'gold' they sell is actually shit!

Bog builder pushes out poo-powered motorbike

Moped

Wasn't Mickey eventually fined by the courts for animal cruelty and told to stop using monkeyspunk? I'm sure the last panel I ever read was him outside a zoo asking the 'keeper if he had any leopards' fanny batter!

Either way - bloody hilarious!

iPad baby baffled by paper magazine

Doesn't Work?

I'll tell you what doesn't work. Filming in portrait mode.

World+Dog goes bonkers for iPhone 4S

@Richard81

Blimey! Has this chap upset you? I'm with you on your first statement, but the rest of your post is having an unprovoked pop at an individual. Bit unfair. So, here's a retort on his behalf (well, it's a quiet day today).

1. Maybe he saved up. Maybe he won the lottery. Maybe he worked lots of overtime. Maybe binmen in the company he worked for do, actually, earn more money than you think.

2. Because he wants to? I know some folk who spend days sat by a fugging river, watching a coloured bit of wood bobbing about. Maybe he REALLY wants an iPhone4S...?

3. Maybe he's retired and got a big handshake and pension. Maybe he no longer needs to work any more and doesn't need a job. Maybe he thinks you should just mind your own business!

There. (ho-hum)

Impressive - no, really.

As with previous stories of huge queues for iProducts, these comment pages will soon be awash with folk going on about how sad Apple Fanbois are and how pathetic it is that people will camp for up to 10 days to get their hands on one. They might be correct. Personally, I wouldn't, but I can't bemoan another man for his passion. However, you can't deny the evidence that these products are hitting the mark. I wish I could invent and market a product that gets this sort of following.

Now, where's the envy icon......

WHSmith launches e-book reader rivals to Amazon Kindle

@JDX

Not so sure...

I agree that Amazon have become synonomous with online books, but WHSmith has quite a loyal user-base (the one in my town is constantly busy). If this comes out just before Christmas (which it is) and appeals to the type of folk who normally wouldn't take a look at e-readers (which it may) and can offer over 1m publications for free, it might just do it. Add into that the fact that WHSmith can make offers inside its stores to its customers directly (i.e. not through a computer) and all of a sudden you start to get a pretty good business model.

Time will tell, I suppose.

ViewSonic intros tablet sized to strike at iPad

Expensive??

"expensive microSD card and adapter.."

You can get a 16Gb microSD card and adapter for under £15 nowadays. Adapters are about a quid and cards start at <£4 for 4Gb. Is it really THAT expensive??

Flashback: The Quest for Identity

Utterly Brilliant

I loved this on my old Miggy and played it to hell (and back). My mate had the MegaDrive version and I completed that as well (under a thinly-veiled guise of 'helping' him with it). The graphics, animation and use of sound were awesome in their day and there also a good story, too!! I was laid up with a bad back last year and couldn't move much. Within 10 minutes I had a MD emulator up and running with this on it and completed it again. Joy!

There was a sequal, Fade To Black, which was OK - completed it on the PS, but Delphine also released another game in a similar style on the Miggy called 'onEscapee' which didn't do so well. Worth checking out for the completists among us, though.