Posts by sisk

Stallman: Jobs exerted 'malign influence' on computing

Stallman's smart enough, probably on par with Gates and Jobs. The problem is that he's more narrowly focused in his intelligence. That and he believes that proprietary software is inherently evil.

To be fair a lot of companies that sell proprietary software have exploitive business practices and Apple's one of the worst. That kind of thing is what helped form his opinion of proprietary software. Stallman goes too far the other direction in my opinion with his view that all software should be free. As far as I'm concerned there is a place for both FOSS and proprietary software.

Gay-bashing cult plans picket of Steve Jobs funeral

Oh, sure, let's just sink to thier level.

No thank you. You go play in the pond scum with them and protest funerals if you'd like, but I'll think the same of you that I do of them when you're done.

These particular nutcases happen to be lawyers also. Does that put them into a whole new category of being able to make things worse?

DON'T DO THAT!!!

DO NOT give these jackasses any press. I'm begging you, just ignore any WBC story that comes across your desks. You're giving them the attention that they want. They won't ever go away until the press decides to ignore them.

Ten... Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S

Be honest: A huge chunk of the people lined up to buy an iPhone would never consider buying any other phone, even if it were better both technically and aesthetically at the same price (which several, though by no means all, of the phones on this list are). It's that kind of blind devotion to a product that causes people to sneer at Apple cultists.

Don't get me wrong: some people have looked at several options and decided they like the iPhone best out of the ones they tried. I question thier judgement (mainly because I find IOS to be a pain in the arse to use compared to Android), but I don't put them in the same category as fanbois. But when you refuse to even look at other options because 'all the cool kids have this one', as many iPhone owners do, I am going to think less of you and I think I'm right to do so in that case.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56

A wasn't fond of his company or most of his recent ideas, but I'm sorry to hear about his death. He was a brilliant businessman who brought a company back from the brink to be the top tech company in the world. You have to respect that kind of genius.

RIP Mr. Jobs.

Meltemi is real – Nokia’s skunkworks Linux

I still don't hold out much hope for Nokia's future. This will probably give them a better shot at survival than WinPho, but I still think they've screwed themselves for too long to ever be a significant presence again.

Then again, I'd love to be proven wrong. They used to make very nice phones.

Google+ inertia sets in at Chocolate Factory

I logged into Google+ once. I was underwhelmed.

Here's the kicker: until my family, friends, and the few friends from high school I still keep in touch with are there there's no reason for me to be there. Since they're all on Facebook and many of them fear change (at least computer related change) I won't be spending much time on Google+. I believe that's a pretty common stance, and therein lies the problem with starting a new social network. I'm not sure how Facebook prompted us all to abandon MySpace, but it's a trick Google's going to need to replicate if they want people on Google+.

Boffins place living creature under control of brain chip

Eh....this is an old story. It was on Yahoo news early last week. What gives Reg? You guys normally pick up on this sort of thing much quicker than this.

Ten reasons why you shouldn't buy an iPhone 5

I would add 3 and 8 to your list, although I'm sure that the iPhone 5 has a better antenna than the iPhone 4 did when it came out, so maybe just 3. That walled garden model is bad for everyone except Apple. It's bad for developers, it's really bad for consumers, and Apple happily rakes in the tons of cash from it.

I echo your each to their own sentiment on an intellectual level.

On on emotional level though, given Apple's bad behaviour the last couple years (suing people for using the term 'pod', dumping apps out of the app store for no apparent reason, being a general dick of a company) I would desperately love to see them crash and burn. I suspect a lot of people share my feelings on that. As to the rest....

"How many people mod their TV?"

Um...actually....Let's just say that the big projector at the back of the room was a TV in a previous life. Maybe that's has something to do with why I prefer Android.

Check your machines for malware, Linux developers told

@AC

You mean the yawning and mehing you'd hear? Granted there's a vocal minority of Linux users who like to rub it in the faces of Mac and Windows users, but they grow up eventually. Most of us either don't care about virus outbreaks on other platforms or actively help clean them up. You'll not find many Linux geeks past college age who point and sneer at them.

As for Linux, some of us have realized for some time that we're not immune to malware. I'll be running some security scans myself when I get home from work this evening. I have the software already set up because I know I'm vulnerable to attack.

Sony: all new PS3 titles will require PSN Pass for online play

I don't think that would apply here. They're letting us know up front that the games in question are going to have this 'online play tax'. If they tried to apply it retroactively to older game they might run afoul of some laws, but I'm not certain of that.

'Boss from hell' knuckle-rapped for 'firing contests'

Unfortunate truth

"Do I win a prize for guessing that Mr. Ernst will be the next person to be fired?"

Unfortunately the owner of a business cannot be easily fired. Too bad.

I'm really reminded of a guy my wife used to work for. He went out of his way to belittle his employees and said it was because if he were nice to them they wouldn't respect him. It's a good thing she quit when she did because if she'd have come home from work crying one more time he and I would have had to have a 'talk'.

There really should be something you can do to deal with that kind of boss besides quitting, but when they're the owner there's really nothing to be done about it except get the word out and hope that the public decides not to let such a person have their money.

Innovatio targets Wi-Fi users with patent suits

The more of them that pop up the more I despise patent trolls. This is just simply ridiculous.

Is anyone else reminded of SCO trying to change people for using Linux?

iPhones 'excellent for doing experiments on their owners'

Why single out iPhones in the report? Surely you could replace 'iPhone' with 'smart phone' and get a much broader base group for your study. If you pick just one type of phone you're going to get the an sample that reflects the type of person attracted to that type of phone. For example with iPhones you get a huge number of people who follow trends compared to what is represented in society.

Life-size Lego assault rifle really works

Excuse me. I need to go buy some Legos.

Human 'alarm clock' enzyme discovered

Yes, but does it have a snooze button?

Don't bother with that degree, say IT pros

Couldn't disagree more

I'm a self educated programmer, and, if you'll excuse the lack of humility for a moment, a pretty good one. I have near a decade of experience and a whole lot of projects in my portfolio, but no degree. I have trouble getting HR departments to even look at my resume and I get paid about $15k-$20k less than what a programmer working in my specific field with my experience usually gets paid according to every article I've ever seen on the subject. After years of dealing with this I'm sick of it and in the process of getting my degree just so that I can get my foot in the door. You may or may not need the formal education to get the skills (after all, not everyone can effectively self educate) but you definately need the formal education if you want to find a decent job.

Apple to Oz court: ‘Our products are lame, really’

"Once the Galaxy Tab goes to a purchaser who invests and purchases apps on the Galaxy Tab, we have lost them forever in relation to apps and interactivity because they will then be Android people."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Ok, setting my fanboism aside (at least I can admit to it), why is Apple's inability to make a product good enough to win customers back from a competitor a problem for the courts? That's called competition. Are they seriously asking the court to grant them a monopoly in the tablet market just because they want one?

HTC reckons 'WinPho will give Android a run for its money'

Not likely

I haven't tried WinPho (or, for that matter, SEEN it anywhere except online), but I highly doubt this statement has any truth to it. Unseat the iPhone from #2? Possibly, if you can get rabies shots to all the fanbois and convince the rest of the iPhone users that iOS is too limited and/or fugly for them (I find it to be both, but that's just my opinion and it's obviously not shared by most iPhone users). Threaten Android's dominance? Perhaps if you manage to win a law suit on those nonexistant or laughably weak patents that it supposedly violates (I can think of no other reason that we haven't seen patent numbers associated with those claims).

Amazon accepts Kindle Fire will be rooted

Good decision

Motorola, are you paying attention? Locking (or, rather, attempting to lock) an Android device is a pointless waste of your time. It WILL be rooted whether the manufacturer likes it or not, so go spend your time on features to improve the hardware instead.

Apple, you may want to pay attention to. People who really want a rooted iOS device will have one to. They're just far outnumbered by the people who root their Androids.

US tops the class in IT competitiveness

"The US scored relatively poorly on the state of its own IT infrastructure"

That's no joke. When I read about the bandwidth available in a lot of parts of the world it blows my mind that I'm paying out the nose for 9mb.

"its strong encouragement of innovation and entrepreneurialism"

Eh? What are they smoking? For every startup that makes a profit there are hundreds that get smacked down by the likes of Apple, MS, and Google. And innovation? It's suffocating under software patents and corporate lawyers here. And speaking of lawyers...

"its well-developed legal system"

In other words, the US is a sue-happy society. No suprise there.

Stars say relativity still works

Ok, I may be way off base with this, but isn't relativity well known to break down at the quantum level? And if so wouldn't a quantum particle like nutrinos breaking light speed be not so much proof that Einstein was wrong as another bit of quantum wierdness to try to wrap our minds around? That's been bugging me ever since CERN first came out with this.

Toshiba outs 7in Android 3.2 tablet

It doesn't look ugly to me, and if it's even half as reliable as their laptops it'll be a solid piece of kit.

Microsoft staff savage Ballmer at company confab

"They have stopped innovating and started imitating"

Er....when DIDN'T they imitate? They bought DOS off another company for chump change and Windows was nothing more than a cheap ripoff of MacOS. Office, for all it's domination in the market, really doesn't offer anything more than any other office suite (except a fugly interface). Even the XBox isn't really all that innovative. It's just an underpowered PC dedicated to video games.

Ancient auto: still running, up for sale

Very nice car.

Personally I'm holding out for one of the few still-running Doble Series Es to pop up for sale. Built in the early 20s and the things outpreform a lot of the cars on the road today. 0-75 in 10 seconds, top speed of 90mph, 30mpg (burning kerosene)...As if I could actually afford to buy one should it go up for auction.

I guarentee Jay's bid on it already, unless he hasn't yet heard it's for sell. The oldest still-running car in the world would be the perfect addition to his collection.

Verizon: Samsung 4G ban not in our, er, public interest

Aren't all software patents counter to the best interests of consumers? We've gotten to the point where you can't build anything that needs software without tripping over someone's patent. Innovation, the thing patents were supposed to be protecting, is being killed off by them. They're little more than a way to enfore a legal monopoly now, which, as we all know, is not good for anyone except the company that owns the monopoly (and perhaps the politicians that get 'campaign contributions' *coughbribescough* to protect it).

Red Hat engineer renews attack on Windows 8-certified secure boot

They can try that, but they'll have no more luck with that than Apple did with making iPhone rooting a DMCA violation. Lobbyists aren't allowed to petition the Library of Congress folks who get to make that decision or their superiors for several steps up the chain, so they tend to let common sense rule DMCA exceptions. They seem to be insulated from bribes to (that or Apple is squeemish about offering them). Anyway the precedent is already in the law for "It's my hardware so I can do what I want with it" thanks to them.

MS denies secure boot will exclude Linux

@ AC

If Apple couldn't pay off enough people to prevent a DMCA exemption for the iPhone I sincerely doubt MS will be able to. It won't be a DMCA or a copyright issue to the FOSS community. It'll be an 'It's my machine, I'll do what I want with it' issue, just like jail breaking phone.

As for it not being accepted into any reputable distro, how many distros lack libdvdcss2 or aacskeys? It'll be the same thing.

Won't fly

I've sad it before, I'll say it again. If this hits the market (and make no mistake: it'll do so in such a way that it's not easy to disable if it does) it'll be cracked open within a couple months. Within a year the crack will be integrated into the installers for every major distro so that they don't become as hard to use as MS fanboys say they are. And then, of course, the rootkit authors will sleaze in behind them, pick up their work, and use it to make rootkits immune to the restrictions as well.

In the end, nothing will be accomplished other than Microsoft further alienating a group of people who collectively never liked them to begin with.

45% of Android users to upgrade to rival phone OSes

I see a lot of people complaining about the time it takes to get updates on Android. Don't take this wrong as it's pure curiosity, but why don't you just grab the update from the web and update yourself? You don't have to have root for that. I haven't run a stock ROM since about a week after I got my Droid, so maybe my viewpoint's scewed a bit, but updating from a zip on a stock phone only takes about 5 minutes, and with decent bandwidth it only takes a couple more to download the zip yourself. If they're not pushing it out fast enough for you why not do it yourself?

I could understand if it was my parents, but El Reg caters to a tech savy crowd. Surely holding a button while you power on the phone and then selecting 'update from zip' is well within the capability of 99% of the readers here.

Nope

I don't know how you came up with that line of drivel, but there's no kernel of truth to it. A quick peek at Verizon's website lists the iPhone 4 at $199, the Droid Bionic at $299, and most of the rest of the Android phones at $199 (all with contracts of course). A few are less and some of the older Android models get below $100, but you can see that the top Android phones are actually more expensive than the iPhone. Unlike the iPhone, though, you get what you pay for with them. More memory, better processors, bigger screens, same price, better user experience (imho, of course)....

Maybe things are different over in Britain, but here in the States the only reasons I can see for buying an iPhone are fanboism, market hype, and personal preference. I suspect that last one is the deciding factor for a vast minority of iPhone users.

Clunky? What phone have you been using? My Droid is anything BUT clunky. A little out dated, sure, but not at all clunky.

Faster-than-light back with surprising CERN discovery

I would imagine that the scientists in question understand and have already taken into account the speed of light in a vaccuum vs the speed of light in an atmosphere. I mean we're talking about world class boffins here. Do you really think they'd make mistake on something that even a high school physics student understands?

Gartner: Apple rivals can't touch iPad

Re: rpd9803

I never said that iPads weren't outselling every other tablet on the market combined. The point I was trying to make is that particular trend has little or nothing to do with the comparitive quality of the products. More sales does not always equate a better product. Sometimes it's just better marketing or, in the case of iOS devices, just a whole lot of hype, or any of dozens of other factors. In fact I would go so far as to say that the best selling product in any given field is rarely the highest quality one.

They may have the right prediction, but their reasonning is WAY off.

"This, she reasons, is because Apple has built better tablet hardware, software and content"

Unless you're comparing the El Cheapo Android tablets the hardware is more or less the same. As for software and content, Android is the clear winner. Seriously, I've tried to use an iPad. The thing is limited as hell.

And content? I can't imagine a less user friendly process for getting apps than what Apple has put together. To get one app I had to put in my iTunes password twice AND THEN confirm. I've done this for every single app I've gotten. On top of that there are far more apps available in the Android market. And that's without having to go to any of the various third party markets for Android.

And on price, what Android tablet costs more that the iPad2?

All in all I'd say this was a very biased report

Facebook suggests sharing everything all the time

That's nice.

It's so kind of Zuckerberg to give Google+ a helping hand by driving away his customers just as it's getting started. That's gotta be the goal here, right? Because otherwise the deafening screams of "WE HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK" yesterday would have been a sign to stop and reconsider the changes, not a sign to go ahead with the rest of the plan.

Work begins on radical Gordon super flash-computer

That was probably the whole point of calling it GORDON. It's a nice nod to classic sci-fi.

Really I'm getting more milage out of the 'Bang for your x' headers in the article. Anyone else have images of cuncussion grenades go through their head at that one?

CERN's boson hunters tackle big data bug infestation

Is it just me or does everything we hear from CERN make it sound as though the existance of the Higgs Boson is absolutely certain even though they haven't yet been able to prove it? Until they find it doesn't the possibility exist that there is no such thing as a Higgs Boson?

Samsung may try to block next iPhone in Europe too

Re: Giles Jones

Actually, Apple started it by faking pics that make it look like the Galaxy is a knock off. Seriously, walk into a store and put the two side by side.

Windows 8 secure boot would 'exclude' Linux

So it'll be impossible to run Linux on new Pcs? Like it's impossible to run Linux on PS3s, Xbox360s, and Wiis? Oh, wait a minute....

Yeah, nothing to worry about. We always have Linux bootloaders for consoles within a year of them being released and that's with just a small subsection of the Linux community working on it. When you start talking about PCs and give all of the Linux community a vested interest in making it work, I'm guessing you'll see this cracked wide open within a month or two of it hitting the market.

Netflix: How to completely screw up

We actually did the math for dropping the DVD service when this was first announced. Our DVD queue is 20ish long so we turn the DVDs around just as fast as they can get them to us, usually watching them that night and getting them back in the mail the next day. Except in Feburary it's still cheaper for us to go with Netflix than to rent as often from RedBox. As for the streaming, we use that constantly. It's literally the only way TV shows come into our house since we have neither cable nor a decent antenna.

Silverlight's a fail though. They need to go back to Flash. I stream to my game consoles, but still there has to be a better option than Silverlight.

Microsoft milks Casio for using Linux

If Mircosoft would just disclose which 235 patents are being violated the kernel guys would work around them (or in some cases, I'm sure, laugh the claims off...a patent for deleting a file anyone?). But I suppose it's more profitable for them to be the schoolyard bully ("Whatever's in your pocket is mine! Hand it over or I'll pound you!")

Blue Screen of Death gets makeover for Windows 8

Re: So?

Actually it was a company computer. If it were his own I'd have just facepalmed and told him what an idiot he was. Since it was NOT his to destroy, though, I had to fix the thing.

They're less common than they used to be, but I still see them from time to time. Usually it's either hardware or ID10T errors. One guy had deleted every dll he could find because he felt they were taking up too much space. That was one of those times when I wished we were allowed to tell someone they aren't allowed to touch a computer ever again.

Online gamers strike major blow in battle against AIDS

And to think, my mother tried to tell me growing up that video games were a waste of time. Kudos to the completely awesome brains behind and in Foldit. I'll be looking that game up now.

Nigerians panic over killer calls

And they say Americans are gullible....

After hack nightmare, Sony bars lawsuits with new TOS

My wife clicked through the EULA while I was at work so I never got to read it. Excuse me, it seems I have a letter to write....Now where did I used to keep those envelopes?