* Posts by MrJP

49 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009

Blighty: We spent £1bn on Galileo and all we got was this lousy T-shirt

MrJP

Re: Three weeks...

Citation on the EU "army" set to replace domestic forces, s'il vous plait?

'Space bubbles' may have helped Taliban down 'copter in bloody Afghanistan battle

MrJP

I'll be using this with the Mrs...

"Sorry love, I *definitely* didn't get your calls last night, must have been a space bubble."

It's Google's no-wheel car. OMG... there aren't any BRAKES

MrJP
Facepalm

"There's no steering wheel in the way"

Wow, well, yes, for my entire driving life I've always thought, "You know what, this thing shouldn't be so in the way."

MrJP
Pirate

Priceless in video ad banner...

...for help covering funeral costs...

Ancient carving of 'first human-built holy place' = Primitive Vulture Central

MrJP

I thought for a second...

....the Turks had been inspired by the London Olympic logo.

Though I bet this didn't cost half a million quid to CARVE BY HAND!!!!

Tesco blunder prices 64GB 4G iPad at 50 quid

MrJP
Facepalm

That's right...

...just blame it on the IT guys.

Yeesh!

Samsung Galaxy S II punters get a lick of Ice Cream Sarnie

MrJP

Re: "Given that most phones are replaced in 12-18 month cycles"

Yep, I see you're first point but I don't think that's the reason the industry *expects* handsets to be replaced so frequently. I may be being pedantic but an extremely large selling point of all of these devices regardless of cost, brand, age etc is their ability to be "mobile", they are / should be designed to be just that. If my SII grinds to a halt after 18 months and I hear my insurance company tell me, "you were too mobile with it" well, how would you react?

Incidentally, like you, I also use it for a fair bit of navigation/tracking work, in the car as well as on foot and two wheels in the form of cross country, all-mountain, hiking, biking etc, that's why I chose to equip it with a double skin gimp-suit and a decent screen protector, that was just my idea of prudence I guess.

Generally speaking I have a "Use to Destruction" policy on the things I buy; clothes, bikes, boots and phones. I buy what I judge as good quality based on experience and advice I trust, then I use it until I can no longer. But that's just me.

Satnav blunders blamed for £200m damages

MrJP

I just use my Samsung SII

It uses Googles satellite imagery for mapping so you get an actual detailed photographic route of where you're going, not just some beige/red/green/blue drawing. It not only accepts postcodes but pretty much any descriptive information you could think of i.e. if you'd expect to see a map result when you search for something on Google desktop, the SII will automatically map a route there, so no more having to ask for postcodes most of the time. And if you're so inclined (which admittedly I haven't yet been, it will automatically offer you Street View navigation when you reach your destination if you need to proceed on foot) And the 4+ inch screen is more than adequate and larger than some dedicated sat nav devices I've seen. I have to say it's probably one of the biggest value adding features of a smartphone.

Life at Googleplex REVEALED in hot pics

MrJP
Thumb Up

Re: So - what do the El Reg offices look like?

Great call, come on Vultures, show us what's under your feathers!

Drew's Cookie Jar - psst. want a forum upgrade

MrJP
Happy

By the power of greyskull...

...er, what I meant to say was, could I please have super powers?

Coke-snorting cop bots to replace sniffer dogs

MrJP
Facepalm

Nooooo :(

"Sniffer dogs can get tired." Judging by the rate my dog can sniff on an average day walk I just can't really believe that particular statement. Aside from that, it's always nice to see dogs in airports and such places. AAAAAAND "[sniffer dogs] cannot act as evidence in court"? Surely that's the cocaine's job???

The Register Comments Guidelines

MrJP

Yesssssssssssssssssssss...

...my comments are automatically posted. GET IN....er....wasn't it?

RIM slashes BlackBerry PlayBook tablet prices

MrJP

It's got a terrible reputation...

...and its apparent ability to ooze blue slime will help little.

Reg hack cops a licking from the bosun's cat

MrJP
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Totes Hilare!

Fans lose grace with Star Wars MMO

MrJP

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

Mythbusters cannonball ‘myth-fires’

MrJP
Mushroom

F*cking awesome!

Cocktail Flow

MrJP
Thumb Up

Awesome...

...I'll download it the second I get back on wifi!

Virtually indestructible robostarfish penetrates tiny cracks

MrJP
Thumb Up

teehee

You said PNAS!

RIM server upgrade draws Android and iOS into the fold

MrJP
Meh

Call me naive...

...but I'd like to think RIMs last bastion in the industry will always be there tight grip on data security, their bread and butter and it's something I think they're yet to give up entirely to any third party organisation whether it be government or law enforcement so far. Let's hope they keep hold...

Ice Cream Sandwich

MrJP
IT Angle

One question...

...can I make it look like Gingerbread 2.3 please? My eye couldn't help be caught by the screenshots and they were left really wanting and none of your write up about the graphics appeased any of my concerns. Floating menu button? Really? Why would they do that?

I did like some of additional features and upgrades though, I find my Gallery sometimes just hangs on loading, that's frustrating, so if the upgrade could fix that, great. Also liked the idea of individually wiping all notifications and of course the facial unlock sounds fun but the overall visual redesign looks like it could be disappointing.

One big thing for me is that one of your screenshots states, 'No trace keyboard', I seriously, *seriously* hope that doesn't mean no 'Swype' keyboard, because for me, Swype kicks a$$!

Boffin's wall of bees shields farms from stampeding elephants

MrJP
IT Angle

And there must be a market for locally grown honey?

Boffins one step closer to Terminator vision

MrJP
Thumb Up

Don't bother working on the power distance...

...just embed the battery into a pair of thick, dark sunglasses, a la the Terminator, so preferably some Gargoyles ANSI Classics. Sweet.

BlackBerry nicks iPhone's UK smartphone crown

MrJP
Thumb Up

Ha...

..."abacus fondlers". I can see a spurious email to Finance being penned just so I can use this.

Boffins' PETMAN robot mimics human gym rats

MrJP
Devil

I don't know about you,,,

,,,but I've seen the video footage of that BIgDog and if I even heard that thing coming after me I'd quite happily leg it desperately the other way...

TomTom Go Live TopGear Edition

MrJP

I always coveted the TomTom whenever it came to sat-nav, as did a couple of my friends, that was until I upgraded my old nokia 6301 (that was stolen) to a SGSII and happened to come across the navigation on it. Coming from the stance that I still see and use my smartphone first & foremost as an actual phone, the fact that it happens to use excellent Google satellite imagery to plot and track your course is really quite amazing and really did turn said friends green when I used it to navigate us to and around London one weekend. I also like the way it caches your route to memory so that even though you might fall out of coverage, the imagery will automatically scale down from 'Sat' to 'Map' to just a beigey grid, all the while your blue route line is always crystal clear.

N.B. - Yes, I know battery life is woefully dismal in comparison to a dedicated sat-nav but using the incar charger is no problem and screen size is the same. Well, I like it anyway.

Ten... Freeview HD recorders

MrJP
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My two penneth...

We went for the Humax HDR-FOX T2 and am really pleased with it. The one thing that always put me off freeview was the thought of most of the really cr*ppy, clunky EPG's that come with them that look like a photo of lined A4 put through a typewriter (it's a superficial gripe, I know) but I really like how the Humax EPG looks and it also works really well. We went from VM TV to the Humax and we get far more functionality (that we actually use day to day) now. Unfortunately we're about to go back to VM for the broadband so we can plug the box in to the Internet and get even more.

RIM touches BlackBerrys together to swap content

MrJP
Facepalm

'Fraid so...

I'm reminded of a mobile advert where one young wannabe exec is trying to wow a senior client by saying he'll bluetooth him his business card...it didn't work but now he can ask the senior client to hand his BB over and he can sit there runbbing them together...

Faster-than-light back with surprising CERN discovery

MrJP
Boffin

OK, give me my PPE...

...I'll push the damn trolley into the experiment chamber!

Watchdog sniffs Rihanna's 'gently thrusting buttocks'

MrJP

WTF?

"...the photographs that were published in the newspaper were significantly more graphic and close-up..."

So why weren't approximately 2,000 complaints received against the p.o.s. paper for printing images they agreed were inappropriate in their publication which is (unfortunately) widely available to the entire country?

What a joke.

Latest boffinry: Feeding TNT to sheep

MrJP

Is it just me...

...or were there a tad too many, 'shoulds' and 'coulds' in there?

Hubble squints at most distant galaxy

MrJP
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Bravo...

no, really, bravo!

End of the line for ID cards

MrJP

Flew to Scotland...

...using my Driving Licence. Most people, myself fully included before then, naturally assume you need a passport whenever it ocmes to boarding something with wings. I was pretty sure I'd read somethintg to the contrary about internal flights and didn't fancy risking my passport on that particualr trip either. So turned up at the airport, met the rather large group of friends I was going with, sweated a little under the numerous "So, you *haven't* got your passport?" and the "Are you sure you don't need it?" and the "I probably would've bought it anyway, just in case!" comments just to feel especially superior and knowledable when I wandered on the damn thing just the same as everyone else in the end anyway.

Right, not sure where *this* is going but I'm heading to pub. Happy Friday people :)

Tablets to eclipse e-book readers

MrJP

I agree with most of the above...

...If money was no object I'd rather use a dedicated, quality (Kindle etc) e-reader to read an e-book. To paraphrase something else I once read (on my PC that time), "I don't want the book I'm reading to "ping" everytime my email account gets a new message." And in the same way, I don't want my browser to be in B&W either. I have to agree, just because they happen to have similar form factor and *some* similarities in function, this doesn't warrent a head-to-head comparison.

What I find kind of frustrating is that I could find out pretty much everything about an iPad by just watching the TV ad breaks a couple of times. Then one day I saw 35 seconds of absolute non-sensical, flashing garbage that p*ssed me off only to see "Kindle by Amazon" splashed on the final screen...w...t...f...No voiceover, no dialogue whatsoever, no shots of the actual product, no spec, nothing, aaarrrrggggghhhhh. I know Apple are one of the greatest marketing machines on the planet but I really could have done much, much better for the Kindle than Amazon did. Shame!

Indonesian smut vid star's arse hauled into court

MrJP
Thumb Up

"enacted in 2008 after considerable debate"

So, I suppose you could say that was *mass* debate?!?!

I've got my coat, scarf and hat, thanks!

Three new 'nauts head off to ISS

MrJP
Unhappy

Lester, I'm disappointed...

No mention or headline pun about Anna Chapman being there to watch the launch?

"Hot Russian Spy Enjoys Three Astronauts"

Drunken employee pops cap in server

MrJP
Grenade

Personally...

I was just *praying* for some Server Room Cam footage, ah well, my imagination will just have to do, as normal with these kind of things.

Withings Wi-Fi bathroom scales

MrJP

But...

...how does it look covered in mildew and suspicious black hairs???

Met lab claims 'biggest breakthrough since Watergate'

MrJP

I must've missed something somewhere...

"Over a short time they form a *unique* signature of the electrical frequency at that time, which research has shown is *the same in London as it is in Glasgow*."

How does 'unique' = 'same in London as it is in Glasgow'?

Also, how good would this work if said ne'er do well simply stood in the middle of a rather large, very empty, very much disconnected, disused warehouse to make those all important phone calls. I can imagine these often make suitable venues for such nefarious activities.

UK.gov issues death warrant for ID cards

MrJP
Thumb Up

"Best...

...take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure!"

Woman loses Bebo privacy case against lad mag

MrJP

IIRC...

...there's a great paraphrase of a previous court ruling somewhere concerning who "owns" a photograh of you, it goes a little like, "You do not own the light that bounces off of your face!"

To go a little further, you don't own the light, or the lens it hits unless the camera is yours, in which case the photos are your responsibility. Some people should examine that word closely sometimes too, *responsibility*.

'R2' robot to join space station crew, says NASA

MrJP
Terminator

CHRIST!

Why not just call it AMEE and inform the loved ones of the poor astronauts on board?

May God (and more usefully, it) have mercy on their souls.

Bogged-down Mars rover may be doomed to chilly death

MrJP
Unhappy

It...

...must be the inner geek in me but every time I read on the progress (or lack thereof) of poor little Spirit I get an overwhelming sense of empathy and visions of this lopsided Wall-E take off, wheezing and spluttering in the dusty sand whilst it slowly and helplessly sinks...oh man...here I go again :'(

Tech-savvy UK kids = (over)confident writers

MrJP
IT Angle

www.findagrave.com?

OMGYG2BK...

West Midlands cops to roll out Mitsubishi EVs

MrJP
Thumb Up

Nice little article...

...you managed to crow-bar a Photoshop disaster *and* a Withnail&I quote in there.

Many, many thanks

Street View stalks Swiss data protection bureau

MrJP
Thumb Up

It's good to see....

...that at least somewhere has an information/data commissioner with some bite.

Italian Job sat nav driver cops £900 fine

MrJP
FAIL

It was a tragic combination of...

the fact that he was driving through or near Todmorden which is basically a town in a valley that forms a cess-pit of the freaks, wraiths and strays of society (I can only assume they have an urge to gather at the lowest point around). I imagine the collective aura of these weirdos probably emit some sort of noxious gas or other air-bourne emission which can temporarily effect outsiders, particularly those who are of the mental disposition to drive for long enough that there's only "seven miles of diesel remaining", those who "drive for a living" yet don't have a cheap (or otherwise) in-car mobile phone charger and those who are diabetic and have "no insulin" with them!

I'm also really fighting the urge to slurry what I think is a sound argument with the stereotype that he also owns a god-damn BMW....PRICK....oops!

Windows XP Mode digs deeper into Windows 7

MrJP

Didn't HP...

promise to optimise all their new machines for Vista, and that optimisation went as far as and included putting a 'Windows Vista compatible' sticker on, then getting rollocked for essentially lying and selling mis-advertised products? Or am I wrong?

Two jailed for online racism after US turned down asylum bid

MrJP
Thumb Up

Bad rubbish...

...good riddance!

Of course, this won't really stop them from being poor unfortunate racists but still, nice to know their stupidity landed them in the clink.

BOFH: Stick this

MrJP
Heart

Love it...

...jolly good work old boy!