Posts by Glyn 2

Movie review: Star Trek Into Darkness

Re: The first movie of the reboot did it for me....

You're missing the more obvious problems with the way black holes are used in the first film. The original plan was to drop a black hole between the sun and romulus, what's the size of a black hole, I'm fairly sure they're bigger than the distance between the 2? Even if successful, the planet would still have died as the star would no longer be giving out enough heat and light to get to romulus once it had stopped exploding.

What are black holes capable of? Are they time and space spanning wormholes or planet crushers?

And why did they need to drill to the centre of vulcan to destroy it? Fire it in a torpedo in the rough vicinity it goes boom and even on the off chance that it doesn't expand and totally shred the planet it'll take a big enough chunk out of it to kill it.

Those are just the plot problems regarding black holes, without asking important questions like where the giant romulun mining ship hid for 20 years after blowing up poppa Kirk I went in to the film not expecting much but it was so bad I really can't see why anyone likes it. If Star Trek had been called "Space adventure film" no-one would be saying how good it is. It has no redeeming features.

People have been telling me I shouldn't be judging the new Trek against the old, but when they're constantly referencing the originals, it's a little difficult.

Windows 8 and you – So, what's next?

hmm

My main complaint with the last few Windows iterations is the lack of customisability and consistency. It's set up to work the way Microsoft think I should work, the user interface isn't consistent with what it does, whether it's the ordering of files (and the random showing/hiding of various columns) in Explorer; Control panel in category view, hiding everything, under verbose plain English headings or icons that wrap horizontally rather than an easy to read vertical detail list (that's available everywhere else); Media Player and Explorer group items as though I'm too dumb to know when the Hs in a list stop and when the Is start.

When I open Explorer in XP and before, the "Computer" tree is expanded one level and all the other trees are collapsed, in Vista and above, the first level of the library and any folders on the desktop are also expanded. Why? What improvement does showing me a load of stuff I have no earthly interest in right now bring that letting me decide what I want to do?

And before anyone says the usual, yes I can collapse those folders once I've opened Explorer, but what's more efficient, opening a window and then closing 6 (for example) trees I've got no interest in seeing every...single...time or opening a window and being able to go straight where I want to go?

In the library, why can I see a "My documents" folder that I can enter and one that if I click on it says "Access denied" (see also, "Send to", "Cookies" etc.) Why are you wasting screen space by showing me something I can do nothing with?

If Microsoft put the customisability and usability notions that they used to preach on their expensive courses back into the OS as well as acknowledging that people want to use their product in different ways, no matter whether the UI was Windows 95/7/Metro based, wouldn't it be better?

Microsoft picks October 26 for Windows 8 launch

hmm

Having spent the day showing common ordinary people to use W7 after finally moving from XP, which isn't that big a UI leap, I think that the shift to Metro will be very disruptive. Glad I don't work for PC world, geeksquad or any other home user servicing company. They'll be inundated.

Re: 101 uses for a dead OS...

Unartistic wall mural

Olympic Security cock-up was down to that DARN software

G4S nee Group4 Security

Isn't this the same company when they were known as Group4 security were given the contract to transport prisoners, but kept losing them? If they can't turn the locks on the doors to a van, are they capable of securing anything larger?

War On Standby: Do the figures actually stack up?

Re: Each to their own

My bike saves me 30 minutes on my journey, no waiting in traffic.

Re: Each to their own

Where did I spend the hour of time? Walking out of a room I turn the lights off, this doesn't take an hour...it might take *you* an hour...

Each to their own

I'm happy putting things on standby, turning lights off when I'm not using the, not using plastic bags, recycling and the like. I'm happy with the "Every little helps" school of thought. Same with petrol, trying to make my routes more efficient, drive more conservatively, ride my bike more often.

It won't save me enough to afford that gold plated ipad, but I'd rather have as much money in my pocket as I can, rather than handing it over willy and indeed nilly to somebody else.

Mine's the one with the reusable bag in the pocket.

PS3 fans buy more digital content than Xbox buffs do

Updating

I don't know what it's like on the PS3 but every other time I turn the console on to do something, it wants to update, the console, the game, the app, whatever I'm trying to use.

Took 20 minutes the other night to get the last.fm app running, with 6 update/restarts.

And since I cancelled my gold subscription I'm getting hassled mercilessly to sign up every other button click.

Mr Sulu causes DDoS panic after posting link on Facebook

Bwa ha ha

They can't sort out the tax rate on pasties, what chance have they got on firing the queen

Windows 8 release preview imminent

Re: Touch interface?

I'm buying shares in screenwipe companies

Re: I can wait.

With regards to the metro interface on the xbox, I believe he's on about the wretched interface. The highlight is that the currently selected box is a bit bigger than the others and you can't tell which is selected without moving the selection, which means that if you press left when you're in a box on the left hand side, you swoosh to the group on the left.

The xbox iplayer is even worse.

If it's not obvious where your cursor is, then it's bad design.

Microsoft corrects itself: 'We expect fewer people to use Windows 8'

hmm

ClassicShell???

My windows 7 looks like XP i.e. like it wasn't designed with smudgy crayons, the only windows 7 things I can't get rid of are the insane tree view and the damned useless search

And I'd kill for the "folders" button from XP to make a comeback

Ten... Star Wars videogame classics

Indeed

This is still the best FPS ever, level design, story, weapon progression, great protagonist, everything you want from a game.

The Mandolorian add on was awesome fun too

Waterstones stores surrender to Amazonian invaders

Re: Beating browsing proper bookshop

"The paper/printing side of publishing is a tiny part of the costs. Pulping trees, printing have been ground down to a fraction of the total. Authors, staff, glitzy PR and big cheeses make up the bulk. An author did a breakdown of total costs on his web site if I could find the URL. Hector takes his unworked-for 1/5th for ebooks too."

The price of books has been rising according to the publishers because of the cost of paper, manufacturing, delivery and storage. The reason the publishers now use for the high cost of ebook versions is that the author needs to get paid.

By the above rationale, the price of an ebook should be paperback price - cost of paper + cost of server space. And unless not cutting trees down, turning into paper, making a book, storing in a warehouse and all the delivering between those stages is roughly the same cost as copying to a server...they're ripping us off.

They use any excuse they can find to increase the price.

Re: Beating browsing proper bookshop

So why are a lot of ebooks the same price as their paper counterparts?

Watchdog bites bar over 'offensive' Facebook ad

hmm

Stoke's the finest place to live in this country, it's got everything you need shop wise (just the same as every other town/city in the country) it's in the middle of the country so everywhere is nearby, it's surrounded by pretty countryside, living there you've got access to jobs across the whole middle of the country from Wales to Nottingham, from Manchester to Brum.

Where do you live?

Indeed

As someone who occasionally frequents Hanley on a night out, I can inform the ASA that the advert is the least offensive thing about Manhatten that I've ever seen.

Besides everyone knows you get a better night out in Castle ;)

Queen unveils draft internet super-snoop bill - with clauses

Re: Question

Not trolling, I've just seen so many conflicting opinions that collapse into screaming matches that I was looking for the definitive answer ;)

Question

There's much hoopla over this but is it any different than the police and security forces having access to your telephone conversations and call history (as long as warrants are needed just like for phonecalls)

Hated Visual Studio 11 beta in HIGH-ENERGY colour blast

The general criticism was too bland and icons indistinguishable without study. They've responded by changing the colour of the bland and putting spots of (not high contrast) colour about the place randomly, so pretty much they have told everyone to fuck off, this time in white

Re: Use skins

Have they said that it'll be skinable?

The themes pack for 2010 doesn't let you skin it...just kinda make it greener :-S

hmm

So from largely grey to largely white with over-the-top splashes of colour

And all caps for menus WTF?

And as one of the colourblind people in the audience, making some of your dark grey buttons dark blue doesn't exactly distinguish them ( I know they're those colours as I enlarged the picture and checked out the hex codes)

And the chrome icons??? please replacing easily distinguishable-at-a-glance icons with a small grey rectangle with a tiny icon next to it?

AND THE CAPS FOR MENUS

If this is metrofication, metro is going to be hideously difficult to use

RIP Ceefax: Digital switchover kills off last teletext service

Re: Ceefax nostalgia...

The bloke across the road from us had gone downstairs, got an axe and then bludgeoned his wife with it before calling the police to tell them what he'd done. The police came, he went quietly and no-one knew anything until ceefax told us why there was a van outside.

hmm

We went digital last year, saves me best part of £200 as now I can't get a telly signal

And judging by the shit that's on all those extra channels, I'm quite glad I don't have to pay for them.

Does tech suffer blurred vision on 3D future?

hmm

Went to watch my first 3D film last night as it wasn't being shown in 2D. Totally underwhelmed, ignoring the fact I had to hold the glasses up over my specs for the entire film, the D wasn't very 3.

Example being any scene with a group of people in, instead of seeing a sea of heads, it was more like looking at bunch of 2D cardboard cut outs moving round.

On the whole, didn't add anything to the film apart from sore arms and took from me extra cash.

Welsh factions clash over .cymru and .wales bids

You're right

But if there are enough of us who take those first steps to freeing humans from these imagined constraints, the tag along politicians will change their tune.

Gotta start somewhere, so I started with me ;)

Nationalism

It's amongst the most pointless things in the known universe. Deciding who you are based on which side of an arbitrary line drawn on a map your mum gave birth. Furthermore, basing your identity on a single factor, in Wales case, a seperate language is just daft.

Well...2 factors if you count "Not English" as a factor.

You can't be proud to be Welsh as you had no say in the matter. It's like saying you're proud to have a head or you're proud to metabolise food. Same goes for proud to be English/white/black/gay/european/whatever. It's a ludicrous statement that people need to stop saying.

One of the Welsh independence arguments is that London is too far from Wales to understand...how does Berwick-upon-Tweed feel about the distance from London. In a pub in Conwy the other week a bloke was complaining that the assembly in Cardiff was too far away to understand the problems of North Wales...WTF???

I can't wait for the inevitable independence of the Welsh, just so we can see the North split from the South, then Anglesey declaring independence and so on until each house is an independent nation where people in the kitchen moan that the back bedroom is too far away to understand the problems inherent in kitchens.

Not picking on the Welsh in particular, everyone in every group is the same.

Why can't we forget all this stuff and just all get along? We all want the same thing, nice house, good health and a job that doesn't suck too much. Come on humanity, focus on our similarites not our differences.

Server, disc glitches mar Battlefield 3 launch

hmm

Well that's saved me the money on buying the game at all, I'm not taking part in encouraging this kind of money grabbing. The creators of everything else in the world, books, cars, whatever don't have any income from secondhand goods, but games are "special" and they claim the money is for future development, not just improving the company's profits for the owners.

Terry Pratchett keeps second hand book shops going, yet you never hear him complain ;)

It's the same lie as the train operators. 15 years of travelling on trains where each fare hike was "to help improve the network" yet nothing about train travel has improved in that time, except the operators profit margins.

hmm

With the codes and whatnot will you be able to buy this second hand or is it one of those extra credits "games are special so they should be able to do what they want" things?

Microsoft's high-risk Windows 8 .NET switch

Hmm

So, like I said, you'll be developing 2 sets of apps, one W8, one Metro

"I'm done designing/building apps for XP. "

You're not done yet as

"The desktop app I build for Windows 8 will be the same desktop app used in Windows 7. "

You're still building desktop apps and as W8 is just XP (and W95) with blurry edges around the windows ... :P

hmm

@Brian

So you want some apps built for XP/7 and some for metro. If developing for both is going to be as seperated as it seems, then won't you have to build everything twice? What happens when a metro user is asked to help with work on a company's XP/7 system? They won't be used to the look or functionality so that's another impedence to productivity.

Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray disc set

It won't be the same old stuff, he'll have "re-imagined" it again by then

hmm

"Can the BS. We *know* the stories. The review of a Blu-ray copy of Star Wars should, and do, focus on the image quality and sound."

So when you read a review of a new film you ignore the stuff about character, plot, effects, etc.etc.etc. and instead want to know if the reviewer had a comfy seat in the cinema, didn't have someone with large hair in front of them and could hear over the sound of people eating crisps????

The point of a film review should be the film. Every DVD/bluray magazine review cares more about the sound and picture quality and extras which you'll watch once, rather than the actual film itself...the object of the exercise.

"The rest is subjective crap"

That's what a review is, well done

Also, you know the story but in the future there will be people born who won't know the story and they'll watch the didgeredoo playing obi-wan kenobi and wonder why it was ever popular.

Windows 8 ribbon entangles Microsoft

hmm

Why is it that anyone disliking a new technique/technology/method is a luddite?

"Actually I think I understand some of it though; I cannot help wonder if some of you are so used to your current workflow that you are basically worried that you need to learn something new again. Understandable, but I don't think it's going to be that bad."

That is just an insulting, pointless statement. New things have come through over the years with alarming regularity and have been adopted by people into their natural working methods. It's not about learning new things it's about the fundamental flaw in the idea.

Here's a new idea, why not use a diamond tipped stylus to improve the accuracy on your touchscreen phone? Because while the basic idea (a more precise pointer) is desirable, the execution is flawed.

It's new, so why aren't you using one? If "it's new" and/or "it's what we're doing now, get on with it you luddite" are both valid arguments I expect diamond tipped stylus (stlyii, stylee) to be on all your phones by the end of the week.

Indeed

You forgot magically appearing buttons and button labels.

Not to mention the clipboard panel being first on the list, which most people never, ever use as they use the shortcuts that the ribbon lovers want us to use.

hmm

I hope you weren't using the black colour scheme as black icons on a black background...

hmm

No you're not the only one, this doesn't make you right though

The ribbon is non-customisable, unintuitive and takes up a lot of screen space unlike the old menu system.

There may be a better way of doing the ribbon is not an improvement over the old toolbar. Change in and of itself is not the point. Let's change for the better or keep what we've got that worked.

indeed

If we must keep the absmal ribbon, let's have the option to put the ribbon vertically on the side. Wide screens are great if you're looking at things in landscape view but as damned near all sites and documents are portrait, let's not waste valuable screen space with 2 inches of crap options I don't need.

George Lucas defeated by Stormtrooper helmet man

hmm

Are you mad.

This is George "let's make another figure of floppy hatted Luke" Lucas, the world's premiere money grabbing bastard. Star Wars special editions, another reissue of the films on dvd, this time with 3 minutes added fluff, the fecking prequels, STAR WARS IN 3D FFS.

They sold a lit sabre figure of ObiWan Kenobi with a green lightsabre instead of a blue one because a blue LED cost 0.02 cents more than a green one. The man is an souless accountant (my apologies to accountants everywhere)

I would go on but my bile cup has run over

Signed

an ex-Star wars fan

Virgin Tweets a sorry for TiVo series link snafu

Maybe

Dunno how much you watch but buying the series on DVD gives access to all the shows and at a fraction of the cost (both in cash and to your soul )

Official: Pastafarian strainer titfer is religious headgear

Indeed

You a correct but if you refer to it as the law of evolution it annoys them more. Trolling is for real life, not just the interwebs ;)

Indeed

Non-organised religious people are the only ones I've got any time for. Does <insert deity here> need a massive ornate church/cathedral/mosque/synagogue <delete as appropriate> or do people?

My Grandad was a non-organised believer, he never went to church because "God's everywhere, he can hear me wherever I pray, so why go to a church built with money that could have been better spent helping people than showing off"

When you see the Pope in his finery, enormous cathedrals with their very expensive windows (and heating bills) mosques with very intricate pretty mosaic patterns on them, who's that for? Not God/Allah/Yahweh certainly!

Indiana Jones had it right in the last crusade, the cup of a carpenter is plain, not a frilly gold ornament. He seemed to do a lot of preaching outside to groups of people about helping people, not giving instructions on how big the church must be or the gold purity that should be used in the cups.

hmm

I think the main complaint is that muslim women can just show their face whereas you're not allowed to wear a hat or scarf in ID pictures if you're not a muslim woman.

hmm

@Michelle

"They have no proof that there is a god and I have no proof that there isn't."

They have a book, which is all most religions need

@ElReg!comments!Pierre

"I also know which one of my grandfathers *thought* he was most useful to society, and which one actually *was*. Hint: not the same."

I know people of different faith levels who do good works and the less faith-filled they are, the more good they do and the less they go on about it.

hmm

That's Pastyfarianism which is a scism based on pirates with beards, as opposed to Pastafarianism which accepts all pirates regardless of facial hirsuteness. Ultra orthodox Pastafarians if you will.

They also have slightly rounder hats.

An easy mistake and common mistake to make but you've still got a fatwah out on you now.

Sorry about that.

hmm

> Before the invention of the microscope, the germ theory of disease got a really rough ride:

> "you expect me to believe disease is caused by tiny invisible... creatures?"

> "Can't see 'em. never will see 'em. We've discovered everything we're going to.

> Move along, nothing to see here.

You can see 'em, a man in a white coat can show them to you

Science (as a belief system) is one for the open minded who know that they don't know everything and more than likely never will. That's the joy of the universe, once you understand something more questions appear and you've got to answer them, sometimes, those answers will mean the original question needs reinvestigating. Round and round we go, each time learning a bit more.

There are some like Fred Hoyle who stick with their opinion regardless of where the evidence leads, which is quite religionlike.

Religion (or rather organised religion) is for people who accept anything they're told regardless of how much it doesn't match their own experiences and how much demonstratable proof of a theory exists. Galileo and others have been punished for their theories which have only recently been accepted as true by the religious authorities. By this in a century or two evolution and the universe being more than 6000 years old will eventually be accepted as true.

Then there's the grasping at semantics. A program a few months ago had a religious tyke saying that as it's called the theory of evolution so as it's only a theory therefore isn't true. It's why I now always refer to it as the law of evolution ;)

Religion is a mental crutch we developed to cope with uncertainty and death. As a species we've just got to accept that when you die, your brain stops working and that's it. There are no reapers, pearly gates, virgins, swirly patterns or whatever other versions of an afterlife. Your time on this earth has ended.

You're only here for a while so don't be a pratt complaining that someone else has drawn a picture, eaten bacon or defaced a book, when it doesn't matter. Enjoy it and do no harm, simple rules for life I think.

Mines the white one.

hmm

Isn't faith a belief that is not based on proof? And usually it's a belief that can't be changed by any amount of demonstratable facts (flat earth society anyone). Faith's proof is a book of some form, usually written a while after the events described, transcribed from oral traditions (with all the inherent problems that brings), by people who had visions (which would now be described as madness/hallucinations/etc. David Icke!!!) which at some point has been edited or interpretted in different ways by different people.

Science's proof is a series of books written at the end of a process exactly as it happened by literate people where any changes to the belief are made by observation of the facts, not whether you believe the writers son-in-law or cousin should write the next chapter.

There is no end point to science but it moves in one direction, whereas with faith there's an endpoint, but that endpoint moves according to the person viewing it.

There may be a deity (deities) up there but I've seen nothing from any of the current world faiths that convices me. Maybe we've just not written the right book yet.

hmm

Is pointing out the ridiculousness of items of clothes as religious symbols being a dick?

Or pointing out the general ridiculousness of religion come to that?

MS to WinXP diehards: Just under 3 more years' support

hmm

So how do you turn off the address bar so it says for example (using v for drop down arrow)

C:\Users\myname\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Code Snippets\Visual C#

instead of

v Computer v Local Disk(C:) v myname v Documents v Visual Studio 2010 v Code Snippets v Visual C#

or rather where it says

v Code Snippets v Visual C#

unless the explorer window is maximised?

How do you get the columns to stay the way you set them? For example,

name, size, type, date modified

rather than either reshuffling them or adding/removing columns depending on the contents of either the current folder or the contents of it's subfolder?

Don't tell me it's Tools, options, apply to all folders, as that just plainly doesn't work.

How do you temporarily hide the folder tree list so you can see the full contents of the folder without either sliding the divider back and forth or resizing the window? A button marked "Folders" would be nice