Posts by DJV

Convert your iPad into a foosball table and relive the dot-com days

Re: Must...buy...iPad...

But don't buy an iPad 4 to run it until they bring out a model of the foosball with a lightning connector!

'Long Time Ago' and 'Far, Far Away' records broken by new GALAXY

Re: "has been observed 420 million years after the Big Bang"

By you and the rest of us looking at the photo?

Slideshow: A History of Intel x86 in 20 CPUs

80186

In the 1980s I worked as a Pascal/C programmer in a company that was using the Burroughs/Unisys B20 series of computers (designed by Convergent Technologies, a company that Unisys eventually bought). The B25 was powered by that rare beast, the 80186. Most PC makers skipped that one completely.

BOFH: Can't you just ... NO, I JUST CAN'T

Could you just...

Ah, that brings back memories of when I worked in this small crap-selling shop in the 1980s fixing electronics for a living. One of the salesmen was notorious for coming upstairs to our workshop and asking us if we could 'just' solder this or that (usually headphone plugs or sockets for crap walkman substitutes they and other shops sold at the time) for a customer waiting in the shop downstairs. We didn't have a magic >KZERT< but after a while we learned to put the fire extinguishers to good use on said salesman. The people who serviced the fire extinguishers always seemed to be surprised that it was often the ones in our workshop that needed refilling the most...

The genetic button that could turn a WOMAN into a CHIMPANZEE

Readability

Blimey! 7 paragraphs and a total of 9 sentences. Several gramatical errors. Did anyone actually proofread that article?

I chucked it through the readability test at:

http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp

which scored the readability as very low at 36.11.

Apple engineers 'pay no attention to anyone's patents', court told

Re: Quelle surprise...

Yes but with the American patent system you'd spend all the time sifting through tons of "obvious-should-never-have-been-awarded-patents" instead of actually developing anything!

Ballmer: Windows Phone 8 'WILL ramp quickly', god dammit

Ha ha, love the sarcasm

Er, you were actually being sarcastic, weren't you? Oh right...

Welsh council's unused mountain of 2,400 laptops

I'll take em off their hands...

...for nuffin!

NASA's long shot shows Titan glows in the dark

Code of the Lifemaker

A good SF romp!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_the_Lifemaker

Microsoft: Just swallow this tablet ... the rest will take care of itself

"Microsoft actually writes fantastic software"

Can I have some of what you're smoking?

Ballmer has plans for more Microsoft own-brand hardware

"important opportunities to set a new standard"

Well, that will make a change from important opportunities to screw up some existing standards...

Fujitsu assigns team of women to design PC for women

Re: CEO Computer

This is good enough for a CEO's use.

Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

Re: Please excuse the rant...

Excellent rant - upvoted!

Moon was formed when PLANET SMASHED INTO EARTH

Re: with that rendered photo

No, you would definitely not have survived. Not only that but back then the atmosphere (if any) was not breathable - also it was early closing day and umbrellas were in short supply.

Übertroll firm bags DRM patent for 3D printing

Re: This is evidently evil

Hopefully, unless someone manages to patent walls!

Linux on ARM breakthrough to take away Torvalds' arse pain

Re: But wait

You are Loverock Davidson and I claim my prize!

UN locks Apple, Google, Microsoft in a room for patent peace summit

Oh no!

Patent system has a large injection of common sense - sales of popcorn nose dive!

RIP Psion PLC: You're with Motorola now

Reminiscence time...

My Psion 5MX is still sitting in a drawer, damn good machine in its time. Keyboard has never been beaten, sigh...

iPad mini to go on sale in one month?

"iPad 1 not getting iOS 6 - effectively EOL'd"

or, put another way "iPad 1 owners ecstatic that they can still use Google Maps"

Windows Phone 8 stands a chance as Apple, Android dither

@Julian Taylor

"Like ... Vista?"

No, they never got that right!

Google skids car insurance comparison engine onto rivals' lawn

Of course his face was straight...

...thanks to botox!

Boffins zapped '2,000 bugs' from Curiosity's 2 MILLION lines of code

Re: "horrendously complex bondage'n'discipline language of no-one's choice"

Brainfuck - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

Processor pioneer Victor Poor dies of cancer at 79

"ROM memory"

Read Only Memory Memory?

Hmm, do I detect some redundancy!

Microsoft: It was never 'Metro,' it was always 'Modern UI'

Re: Ooooppps NSIS

Well spotted sir!

Re: My Plan

Excellent! I still refer to Virgin Media as NTL.

Doctor Who gets one-off special to mark Time Lord's 50th year on telly

Obvious

Use colourised clips of William Hartnell's face from the classic series CGI'd onto another actor of the same stature and build a story around that! The fun part would be trying to find clips where:

* they had a reasonable shot of Hartnell's face while he spoke

* there was not too much background noise

* the line/scene is relevant to the storyline

* Hartnell didn't actually fluff his lines :)

Doctor Who to unwrap new sidekick in Christmas TV special

Re: Daleks?

Actually it was Remembrance of the Daleks (damn, my geekiness is showing now).

Microsoft Surface slate: Acer, resellers predict a riot

Re: Whilst one can of course have various opinions about both the new os and............

Totally agree. I've experienced the "pleasure" of having to deal with the crap they nail into computer cases before. Just the once mind, it arrived faulty, it was sent back with a note with the fault fully described. It came back with the same fault, money was (eventually) refunded.

Opera updated following unexplained Outlook.com lockout

Standards

Microsoft follows its own 'standards'. Often those standards are there to completely bork anything else that's non-MS.

Daily Mail group boss spoof tweeter fights to protect anonymity

Re: This is obviously a spoof or parody

It probably is until the "wrong" (i.e. rich, powerful, self-important or close friends with someone in gubberment) people get spoofed. One rule for us, one... etc.

Gabe Newell: Windows 8 is a 'catastrophe' for PC biz

Gabe Newell

"producer on the first three releases of Windows"

What? Windows 1.01, 1.02 and 1.03? He must be proud!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0

Microsoft Azure goes titsup across Western Europe

Re: Is it just me...

Yes, the sky is falling! PANIC!

(or maybe just carry on using local/personal storage like most people with sense)

Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion review

Snow Lion?

No, it will have Mountain Leopard installed instead, just to confuse you!

Brooks, Coulson to be CHARGED over phone-hacking

G4S? Blue towel?

Probably not... With G4S' lack of staff she would have to drive the prisoner van herself!

HTML 5 gets forked up

enjoy?

"Redmond has, of late, been much more interested in standards and has even made sure its own applications can be enjoyed using third-party browsers."

Is this a new meaning of the word "enjoy" with which I have yet to become acquainted?

CentOS penguins maul Oracle's Linux migration pitch

Oracle...

...a Microsoft for the 2010s!

Avoid.

Watching Olympics at work? How to avoid a £1k telly-tax fine

"I think the batteries have to be internal."

You have EAT the batteries now? Jeez!

Apple Store staircase flagged as Peeping Tom black spot

Re: Happens a lot.

Though you'd have to be pretty desperate to be a peeping tom here: http://www.interestingengineering.com/2012/03/terrifying-glass-skywalk-on-side-of.html

Apple unveils tightened Mountain Lion requirements

Re: Puma redux

I'm wating for "Cheezburger"

Microsoft sets October date for Windows 8 release

@mittfh

If you look at the version number that Windows 8 puts in the IE10 User Agent string then you will find that it's 6.2, not 7 or 8! I have never come across Windows 7 with an internal version number of 7 - where did you find that? I suspect Windows 9 will have an internal number of 6.3 - looks like MS are adding the digits together to get the 'public' number!

Revealed at last: Universe's intergalactic dark matter skeleton

bronotosaurus?

Duh! Spel chekcer, wheer are yuo wen u are nedeed most?

<-- that's a self fail!!!

if you happened to be asleep that day in your astrophysics class

Yes, I was! So please explain this in simple measurements I can understand such as standard London double decker bus or bronotosaurus lengths!

Door creaks and girl farts: computing in the real world

Re: Once a Moth Is Often Enough!

Yes, but how often are Moths? Is there a timetable? Do they only come out at night? Are they compatible with Butterflies?

We must be told!

Euro Parliament kills ACTA treaty before court can look at it

Yeah

What he (above) said!

UK.gov proposes massive copyright land snatch

Fuck, fuck and more fuck!

Do those fucking idiots in 'power' have ANY idea what they're doing (other than screwing the general populace over and over until we finally cave in)? Don't they realise that SNAFU is NOT supposed the way things should be? AAARGH!

The only person who entered Westminster with the right idea was a certain Guido Fawkes!

More fuckity fucks...

Nexus 7 and Surface: A bonanza for landfill miners

Rantometer

Well, that article certainly rates highly on the ole Rantometer! Not surprised it's getting the thumbs down on the ratings.

Chick-lit naughty girl MP Mensch starts own web-jabber service

Re: Ban politicans on twitter

Agreed, but let's take it a bit further and ban politicians from the whole planet instead - they can have one of the icy bits of crap out in the Oort cloud.

Windows Metro Maoist cadres reach desktop, pound it flat

In a word...

U............U.........GGGG.........H...........H

U............U......G............G.....H...........H

U............U......G............G.....H...........H

U............U......G....................HHHHHH

U............U......G......GGG.....H...........H

U............U......G............G.....H...........H

..UUUUU...........GGGGG......H...........H

Ethiopia to send Skype users to the slammer

In that case...

...the whole country should be cut off from the rest of the internet until they repeal this idiotic law.