Posts by David 132 3405 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2010
It's an animated GIF (remember them?) not a "video" per se, and the corruption seems to appear when it's scaled down, as it is embedded in the article. Clicking opens it at full size, whereupon it works.
Out of interest, I wonder if this is browser-specific? For what it's worth I'm using Firefox 114 on Windows.
Either that or it's the Reg's scaling algorithm that's wonky.
It's happened so rarely, in fact, that there's a site dedicated to chronicling such things: Web3IsGoingGreat.com. Well worth a read but only for a few minutes; the human body can only take so much raw schadendreude at a time!
Thanks for this piece. A couple of thoughts popped into my empty cranium as I read it, though...
"...and that I intended only to browse, I was advised that not purchasing an iPhone 15 today could mean I have to wait an unspecified length of time to do so as stock was in short supply..."
Mmm, yeah. For some reason this reminded me of that Apple-parody scene in Futurama where they go to buy Eye-phones, and Fry is told by the store clerk "We might have one left..." - as he reaches behind the curtain, where machines are cranking out thousands and thousands of the phones. Is it more depressing that Apple are still trying the ol' "Artificial scarcity" ploy, or that people are still falling for it?
"...Video flowed and rippled without a hint of stutter."
I should bloody well hope so. Playback of video has been a solved problem on phones for years now, hasn't it?
(This is not a critique of the article, by the way, or of your kindly-shared thoughts on the iPhone 15... rather, I'm just depressed at witnessing yet another product launch hype cycle!)
Right-click on a point on the map and select "Report a data problem".
From there you can add or delete roads - or at least, request the changes - report business-listing problems, etc etc.
I've done it a couple of times because Google is adamant that my driveway connects to my neighbors' driveway. Anyone turning onto mine in the hope of getting to the neighbors is bound for disappointment.
> One day, he got a scam call. As proof of payment, he sent the "picture of my credit card" to the scammers. The last thing the Brit heard from the scammer were "oh, no. What is going on? Why did you do that? What did you just sent me?" And the line went dead.
I like it! The biter bit. Kudos to that researcher.
ISTR reading recently that Wizz Air holds the dubious title of being the worst offender for that - as far as UK customers are concerned, at least.
I only ever flew WA once - to Budapest about a decade ago - and can't honestly say they were any better or worse than the other no-frills/no-service airlines such as Ryanair, Easyjet, British Airways...
Sadly, both Volvo and VW have succumbed to the modern fetish for touch-screen controls. Beautiful though the Volvo interiors are, they have just about everything controlled through the central touchscreen, and it’s an utter PITA to do anything as simple as adjust the AC temperature.
And of course just about every recent VW car review I’ve read makes a point of grumbling about their even more annoying touchscreen UI.
Škoda, from what I’ve heard, still have old-fashioned physical knobs and buttons for the crucial stuff like AC, and if that’s true, credit to them.
God, now I'm having flashbacks to the "Bribery and Anti-Corruption" training I was made to re-take every year in my former life at a large US company. "If you have taken this training before, you can choose to skip straight to the test. If you fail the test, you will have to sit through the whole bloody boring and patronising thing all over again, and endure it as it uses painfully staged actors taking 10 minutes each time to role-play a scenario that could be described in one 10-second paragraph. Clockwork Orange-style eyelid clamps will be provided. If you scream or whimper, the entire training will start over."
One of my few pleasures was telling my boss, when in weekly Staff meeting he asked if I'd done it, "Yes, I bribed an underage child of a North Korean government official to take it for me..." - seeing each year how many violations I could lard into one response :)
Funny you should mention Vista. I had occasion to use two different PCs yesterday - the first was my wife's old, old Core 2 Duo-based system that I built for her back in '09 or so, booting it up for the first time in maybe a decade. I have to say - and believe me, I've indulged my fair share of Vista jokes over the years - Vista 32-bit on it is surprisingly usable and familiar. At a casual glance it's just Windows 7 with a different Start button and Control Panel layout (although obviously there's a few more changes under the skin).
The other PC I booted up is an 8th-gen NUC running Windows 11 that I keep around for interop testing purposes. Again - putting my prejudices to one side for a moment - it's surprisingly slick and polished when compared to my Windows 10 daily driver. Admittedly, I have turned off & disabled as many of the annoyances as I can, but I can see its appeal from the point of view of a non-technical end-user (don't shoot me!).
Fundamentally, is there any added value between the two extremes of OS? Hmm. Pass.
I have noticed that in the more recent versions of iOS, Siri handles dictated words it can't recognize by simply ignoring them, whereas before it would at least have a stab at transcribing them. Is it better, or worse, to send texts that say (for example):
"I will be there, fuel" (current behaviour, with multiple words omitted), or
"I will be there short Lee half two git fuel" (previously)
Personally I preferred the earlier behaviour; while frustrating and comical in equal measure, it was usually at least possible to figure out what the sender was trying to say.
As others have pointed out, Siri is also completely context-unaware; if I am passing the town of "Jonesberg", for example (name tweaked slightly for purposes of example), and have typed that name in multiple texts over many, many months, why does Siri insist on transcribing it as "Jonesburgh"? Which isn't even a similar pronunciation?
Grrr.
If it's just two people traveling, then two thousand years of travel would involve 1.46 billion beers if they are only drinking one a day.
Or they’d go into stasis for the trip, leaving the ship’s computer to handle the navigation… kept sane only by his collection of singing potatoes.
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