Posts by barfridge

Dell takes aim at Apple with upmarket pledge

7" too small?

That is absolute bollocks, how big is the screen on the iphone again?

BOFH: Pepper-packing bot plot

Imparting Spin

That's easy, you just put some kind of wear plate alongside the path of the shuriken, so the friction of rubbing against it gets transmitted into spin.

Oz eyes Chinese cane toad market

Toad Golf

Is a wonderful pastime. The real secret lies in the club selection.

A driver (or 1 wood if you prefer) will give you an impressive impact, but no loft, the toad just skittle around the ground.

Something around the 5 iron works best, giving the best compromise between distance and loft.

A 9 iron or wedge is good for slicing them in half and leaving toad entrails everywhere, and is best reserved for the yard of somebody you don't like.

/beer, for Australia day yesterday.

Steve Wozniak, your time is up

I was never really a fan

Never gave a shit, to tell you the truth. But reading that article, I'm starting to like the guy, and really dislike the author of the tawdry article.

So what if he's tubby, socially-awkward and yet comfortable with who he is? Isn't that a good thing?

Aiptek MobileCinema D10

Complete rubbish...

and still worth a score of 50%?

You guys obviously don't score on a bell curve. Even something that is mediocre or has glaring fatal flaws seems to be good for 70% around here.

Why even bother scoring out of 100?

Here is a new proposed format

<70 = don't bother

70 = poor

80 = decent

90 = good

Robert Crumb begets Book of Genesis

He just gave them what they asked for

Quote: "The Bible is a very important text to many many people and should be treated with the respect it deserves."

Isn't that exactly what the esteemed Mr Crumb has done?

HP invites you to touch its PCs

Who wants touchscreens?

Not me, that's for sure.

They are ergonomically hazardous (try waving your finger at your screen for an hour)

Who wants to try to read a screen covered in greasy smears?

There are no killer aps developed to take advantage of it. As much as MS loves showing off it's surface gear, it's yet another gimmick only fit for James Bond movies.

Vegemite unscrews lid on iSnack2.0

Everyone is missing the point

Vegemite has a very strong flavour, so you only need to use a tiny bit on your bread. This is obviously no good for sales, as a jar lasts weeks if not months.

So some smart marketing droid came up with the idea of diluting it, so you need to use more and empty that jar more quickly.

Claiming that people want something different when they have been happily eating it for 80 years is dangerous spin. It's right up there with breweries claiming people want beer in a smaller bottle for the same price, as it fits their needs (somehow???).

Second Life slapped with counterfeit sex toy suit

A new record?

Second Life would have to have the highest articles written vs actual players out of almost any online game. I've never met anybody who has ever played the game, yet I hear stories about it all the time. How is it so?

Facebook acquires 300 millionth user

It's the people, not the software...

...that keeps me using facebook. It is a great tool for communicating with friends, when it works, which seems to be less and less often these days.

The clunky interface and horrible layout don't do much for me, but it had achieved critical mass with my group of friends, so I'm stuck with it by default. And their attempts to become more like Twitter are also annoying me. If I wanted to be a twat, I'd use twatter

Doctor investigated for posting inkblots to Wikipedia

Utter Nonsense

I was talking to a psych friend of mine the other day about how much of a farce these tests are. They are the equivalent of a lie detector - very dubious scientifically, but if people believe in the supposed power of these tests then they will answer honestly.

So now they will just have to invent some new mumbo jumbo to take advantage of the placebo effect. There is no rocket science involved at all

Microsoft to encircle Google and Apple with Windows Mobile split

re: MS Innovation?

That my friend is an oxymoron.

From day 1 they have acquired, purchased or misappropriated most of their tech, by any means necessary

/beer, cos it's 10am here on a Thursday.

Canon Selphy CP780

re: Frank Bough

35mm film, and subsequently DSLR cameras have always been 3:2 aspect ratio. Most consumer P&S cameras also let you adjust the aspect ratio, with 3:2, 4:3 and 16:9 being popular.

Fujifilm confirms 'world's first' 3D stills and films compact

Not use to me

I've got a serious case of bung eye, so when one eye is looking north, the other is looking NNW. This means I have no stereo vision, bad depth perception and can't see 3D effects.

Apart from that, this camera manages the unlikely combo of looking cheap and being stupidly expensive. No thanks. For 700 quid you should be able to get 2 entry level SLR's and a bit of angle iron.

Engineer commits suicide after losing iPhone prototype

A glimpse of the underbelly...

Lit in the cold LED light of an ipod.

This is yet another reason for me to avoid apple products. As others have said, if they had any ethics, they would be more proactive than "while it is sad that this lttle Chinese peon died, there are still a billion more of them".

BT brings jobs back from India

re: accents

I think you're onto something with the idea of hiring us Aussies. We're an easy bunch to get along with.

"G'day, this is Bruce, owsitgoinmateorrite?"

"This is Reginald Fotherington-Smythe. I seem to be having somewhat of a problem with my internet connection"

"Strewth cobber, that's a bit rough. But don't worry, we'll have yer fixed up before you can say Gulargambone*"

(* small town in the middle of nowhere, NSW. Most famous for being closeish to Coonabarrabran).

Child protection groups undermine Aussie Firewall

Take one step back...

The whole idea of blacklisting illegal sites is absurd. Why not just shut them down?

Imagine if the police had a serial murderer on their hands, and made no attempt to arrest him, and instead bans people from associating with murderers. Sure in theory it accomplishes the same thing, but it is completely arse-about backwards.

Dell Studio 15

Also a fan

Dell included software aside (I nuked it and installed windows7), it's a huge leap forwards over my last machine.

Takes a lot of the stuff from the XPS series, and puts it into a decent midrange machine. I get over 5 hours runtime with the 9 cell battery, the 1920x1080 screen can get a bit squinty at times, but being LED backlit it's pretty damn good colour wise, easily good enough to process photos.

Samsung smartphone keyboard takes wing

3 hands?

I come equiped as standard with opposable thumbs, they really are a fantastic feature.

With these I can cradle the phone using my fingers, and use my thumbs to type on the keypads.