Posts by Matt 58

Remember when SimCity ABSOLUTELY HAD to be online? Not any more – fancy that!

Exactly

Lets ignore the server issues.

When it was running it was really bad, bad traffic, bad jobs, bad cargo, bad taxes, bad simulation all round. over complicated but with no real control of what goes on. once all the delivery truck went missing and there was nothing I could do about it. City lost to the cloud.

No subways, no bridges, no underpasses (although thats changed)

Your hotel has gone bankrupt to to lack of customers - bulldoze - A new hotel springs up! Who is in charge here?

Much like Spore before it, its been dumbed down for the console market and we lose another game.

SimCity 4

Re: Crashing

Yep, no one used the subways or trains for that matter. i remember it crashing on the single core when zooming, but not as much as the core 2 until i tweaked it.

Subway stations at every intersection, still lots of traffic. 10 to 20 people using the subway. virtual sim slap. a lot of shouting at the screen seemed to help.

In the new version there should be the option of "cash for land" and expand the city by paying to get some more m2 (like RCT 2) or expand on culture / some other metric (like Civ 5) 5k people gets to a few more metres towards the sea... that would work well i think.

Crashing

My problems with crashing went away when i found out it would not run on 2 cores, switched it to only run on one core and its never crashed since.

Also my version had subways. i think it always had subways, there was / is an underground view showing water pipes and subways.

having played the new version i think version 4 stands up well to version 5 in terms of playability and stability, last night i got a "your city is not processing properly" message which seems to be sim code for its all gone tits up, lets reload from an old save, see if that helps. instead of data in the data boxes there were lines of code.

I do like the "bus stops for schools" rather than the radius thing for everything in version 4, and the mining and stuff is quite fun. the cities in 5 are too small, and i don't want to be online playing a single player game. (yes global market and all that but the price seems to never change.)

I won't be un installing version 4 though.... probably keep that forever.

SimCity Classic

Tax

The original SimCity you could do that. i was always annoyed if i forgot. my version of the game looked different you the ones shown here.

SC2000 ran well on my 1200, but i did have / still have 4 meg fast ram and a hard drive and a processor upgrade, sadly the internal FDD has died but the external ones still work.

Scammers exploit wannabe demon-slayers hyped by Diablo III

Other Scams

Had this on pre order from Game since Nov 09 and just last Thursday they emailed me to tell me that the order had been canceled. This I later found out was due to my card expiring in 2011 and even though I had put my new details on the website it seems this only applies to new orders. So they have known about this for ages and done nothing to sort it out. I emailed them last year with the problem (no response) and then assumed it was just a matter of changing the card on the site. They did helpfully say I could re order it online, at 39.99. I might go to Tesco - 33 quid on the way home. No wonder they have gone to the wall.

ISS 'naut snaps Aurora Australis

Nice but..

Look what the solar flare is doing to the atmosphere...

I would not want to be up there in a little metal box with that kind of energy floating about.

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

What?

What are you doing Dave?

Commodore 64 reincarnated as quad-core Ubuntu box

Ah no.

No - not for me. I have a A1200 and a C64 with disk drive at home. Does not look anything like them.

Really though has anyone plugged one in recently? things have moved on people. I do run old games in emulators which show the game play aspect of the old school game designs but I've only ever turned the A1200 on once in recent years. I cant really recomend it.

I don't want it to look like a C64 unless its an exact copy. anything else is a pointless effort.

also it probably does not run "Amiga" since it was never a OS, It might run workbench 3.1 through an emulator, Just like my PC does.

Billionaire floats eco dream on sailing soda bottles

Oh really

I would not want to recycle that boat

Heat bonded composite (foam and sheet) would have to be de bonded and or seperated out, most extruders don't like foamed stuff being fed into them.

Not to mention the dirt ingress and uv / salt water damage done to the polymer structure and all the fittings that always get attached to boats for the rigging and all that.

Then internally there would be dirt and damage and chemical attack from oils and fuels needed on boats for cooking and fuel.

PET is a bitch to recycle, even virgin material has to be very dry to prevent degradation in the manufacturing process. most PET is recycled into fibres (with lots of colour) for clothes since its no use for bottles anymore.

Most plastics people take the view they either you recycle plastics into something like compost heap bins or other things that can be black (white or transparent recycled things... ha ha ha) or don't require special properties (street furnature) or just hidden like sewage pipe or access points. Old PVC windows can be reused as the bulk of new window frames but only the core, a outer skin of new white PVC must be used as people don't like grey window frames. (assuming of course thet the UV stabiliser used in the old frame was not toxic)

Final option, burn it, recover the energy. seen by many as better than wasting energy trying to recycle something into something else that is really low value.

Only 4 % of the oil produced worldwide is turned into plastic, the rest is burnt in some way or another, so use it as plastic products first, recycle it if its feasable, then burn it.

Nokia 6303 Classic

I have one of these

Works ok,

camera does well considering its got no moving parts on the out side.

i've taken some very nice shots with it.

cant seem to uninstall any games on the card despite the fact that the trial period ran out as soon as i turned the phone on.

actually can't remove any pre installed stuff from the phone, vids, music, ring tones etc.

also the cover for the usb port is a bitch to open, i have to use a mini screw driver.

one of the most annoying things is the "W n W" button, top right in the picture, cant be reassigned and i don't want to use it, so since it is also the back button in the menu system i'm always pushing it too many times and turning on the web which then loads up, i press cancel and it goes away again.

other than that though, phone is clear, texting is good, many options for tweeking. camera is good enough for what i want, i.e. i did not really want one but when in rome...

screen takes up most of the front so difficult to see how it could be bigger.

UK gets final warning over Phorm trials

joined up government thinking

Phorm man: Damn it, its all gone wrong.

Government man: Oh really?

Phorm man: Someone noticed what we were doing and told some one else, now its all over the net.

Government man: I see - *backs away*

Phorm man: Yes well, someone is going to have to carry the can for this.

Government man: Sorry, can’t hear you.

Phorm man: Might be a fine, look like it may have been illegal.

Government man: Shit, really… OK.. Ok wait… ok no money left.. I’m thinking TAX.. I’m thinking TAX to raise money on something internet related.. OK 50 p tax on all phone lines in the UK, sound good to you?

Phorm man: Genius.

Government man: I’ll put mine on expenses.

Phorm man: I’ll quit, it’ll be someone else’s problem then.

Government man: Genius.

Robot nuclear windjammer to sail patio-gas oceans of Titan

Not water...

I've no doubt the probe will eventually float but won't hydrocarbons at -180C be quite sticky? after all methane melts at -182C so its only just melted, Ethane -183C etc. its not like water 0C solid, 1C liquid. and we are assuming its -180.. what are the errors in this measurement. could it be -190.? A solid surface awaits the probe in that case.

One cellphone for every ten lags in UK prisons

Charging

While i can see them slipping a phone where the sun don't shine what about the 3 pin charger?

access to sockets not a problem in prison then? what with the TV's playstations and what ever else they have inside these days. friends of mine are officers, they say its no deterent at all these days. might as well be inside if there is nothing for you on the outside.

AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 and 5850 DirectX 11 GPUs

Still waiting

I'l still waiting for some DX10 games that look much better in 10 rather than 9, ok they look better but not "good lord look at that" better. Personally I don't think DX 9 has had its limits pushed, DX10 games need some work.. so DX 11???? no need other than to make DX10 cards cheap as chips for your average gamer.

Ballmer pumps Windows 7 up to thrifty customers

So...

Are we vista users getting a free "upgrade" or what. I seem to rember buying an OS not something that randomly pauses for a few second every 10 seconds or for no reason looses connection to the web (a reboot in knoppix says that the net connection is fine) requiring a uninstall / reinstall of the network card drivers. I ticks me off all the little faults in it add up to something quite annoying. I run XP on the same hardware, no issues there. even xp in virtual PC in vista runs faster then vista its self.

DVLA pledges investigation over Castrol spy posters

Hmmmm

They should use the system to flag up uninsured, written off and non taxed cars as they go past. That will get the drivers attention and those around them.

US 'grooming robot' to reduce navy bottom-fouling

I see

This looks like a robot wars entry. 4 wheel drive pushing type robot with some extra fighting gear located in a hidden compartment.

Adobe tries to rub out LibDem airbrush claims

Hold On

What has this got to do with Adobe? might as well finger the national gris and power generators for supplying the power that runs the computers that run photoshop. while agree with her piont its not Adobes problem.

BT brings jobs back from India

Not going to be better

Remember that PC World people are mostly english... does not mean they know what they are doing.

Should be said I dont have anything against indians, except myself positioned against my indian girlfriend a few years ago now.

Best BT one i has was when my power brick for the hub died, smoke etc....

Random mumbers - eventually ----

BT - Hello,

Me - Hello, yes the power supply on my hub has died can you send me a new one.

BT - You have a problem with your Hub?

Me - Yes the power supply has exploded.

BT - Ok can you plug in the home hub so i can check the connection.

Me - WHAT? THE P O W E R S U P P L Y HAS EXPLODED.

BT - Yes sir i need to check the connection to see what is wrong with your Hub.

After a while he decided there was a hardware fault and i should call the other department.

other department decided it was a tecnical issue for the help desk.

eventually i got someone who knew what was going on and the out come was, its blown up, out of guarantee and no they don't sell or supply spares. at which point i went to maplins.