* Posts by Lamont Cranston

1555 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Apr 2010

Royal Mail mulls drones for rural deliveries

Lamont Cranston

I imagine it will just fly past the front door,

and drop a "you were out" card on the step.

Space fans eye launch of Lego Saturn V

Lamont Cranston
Joke

Re: "allowing grown men to play with Lego"

Play with it?! It's not a toy, it's a highly sophisticated inter-locking brick system.

Lamont Cranston
Happy

Re: model-building to a pattern

Sets like this are model-building to a pattern, yes, but that's the point - you want to build a Saturn V, but don't have all the bits you need, nor the time/money to collect them all (nor, perhaps, the necessary skill).

Doesn't matter, as once you've built the model shown on the box, you (or, more likely, your children) can smash it apart again and have lots of interesting pieces to work with - just because they're specialised pieces for building a rocket, doesn't mean they can't be turned into something else (e.g. skeleton legs make for an excellent balustrade).

Coding with dad on the Dragon 32

Lamont Cranston
Go

There's an interesting article to be written on this subject.

How does learning to code on BASIC compare to something like Scratch - are today's kids put off by the flashing cursor? For example, my eldest was somewhat disappointed to find that Python was just a text editor, compared to the rich environment of drag-&-droppables that Scratch provides, although he quickly picked up the basics of Java when it was presented as a game (making robots move about and fight, or something).

More please, Reg writers!

Get 'em out for the... readers: The Sun scraps its online paywall

Lamont Cranston

Re: Woop-de-do

No one reading at a grown-up level gives a toss about The Sun. That such a significant brand is having to climb out from behind its paywall is interesting, however.

What upgrade cycle? Tablet sales crater for fourth straight quarter

Lamont Cranston

My Nexus 7 is three years old.

Cyanogen mod (free) and a new charging port (very cheap) and it's doing everything that it's supposed to - barring some catastrophic accident, why would I buy a new one?

Wailing kiddies face Xmas Legogeddon

Lamont Cranston
Trollface

Yeah, right.

Either everything is fine, and they're just trying to whip up a bit of interest to get sales up (given that Argos has reported a dip, this would make perfect sense), or they've taken a leaf out of Apple's book and artificially induced scarcity.

Troll icon, as it has a big chin.

Wheels come off parents' plan to dub sprog 'Mini Cooper'

Lamont Cranston

Re: My mate Mr Law...

First name has to be "The", surely?

After Burner: Sega’s jet-fighting, puke-inducing arcade marvel

Lamont Cranston
Paris Hilton

Dare I ask what happens

if you fill the Climax bar?

Google's .bro file format changed to .br after gender bother

Lamont Cranston
Facepalm

Re: "minor girl and "adult male" even if she actually initiated the sexual relationship"

Yeah, funnily enough a defence of "she was gagging for it, m'lud" probably isn't going to see you acquitted.

Lamont Cranston

In this interests of equality,

perhaps you could name some of your folders as .ass?

[Insert speech from Team America, here]

Lamont Cranston
Unhappy

Re: Gendered abuse

I really want to point out that .bro isn't at all offensive to women, but "no true Scotsman" arguments are wide open to ridicule. Basically, everyone loses - common sense, feminism, catchy file extensions, all are having a bad day.

Amazon Fire HD 8: Mid-spec Nokia Lumi... er, MediaTek slab

Lamont Cranston

Re: the coin has dropped at Amazon

Any idea what the Hudl's pre-update update was for? Surprised to hear that it was so large, but I left the kids' Hudls to update overnight, each time, and so didn't notice the massive download size.

4K catches fire with OTT streamers, while broadcasters burn

Lamont Cranston

Re: "a decent fibre network connection (around 15Mbps)"

From Ofcom:

Average UK Download Speeds (% Improvement vs Prior Report)

* February 2015 = 22.8Mbps (+21.93%)

* October 2014 = 18.7Mbps (+5.06%)

* April 2014 = 17.8Mbps (+21.09%)

* August 2013 = 14.7Mbps (+22.50%)

* March 2013 = 12Mbps (+34%)

Anyone care to speculate how many homes get below average speeds? I get 30Mbps, at home, and Netflix regularly craps out on me.

Chocolate Factory plops Marshmallow on Android slabs

Lamont Cranston

Just looked on the Motorla paged linked in the article.

The M update will remove the Migrate, Assist and Connect apps that they added, as they're no longer necessary. Can someone alert Samsung to this revolutionary practice?

Lamont Cranston

Re: Old Nexus 7?

Weren't the problems with the original Nexus 7 to do with it being made using cheap flash RAM? Mine was getting a bit ropey on KitKat, and was an unusable mess with Lollipop, but reformatting the internals to f2fs and picking an android distro that supported it (started out with SlimKat, which was rather buggy, settled on Cyanogen which has been great) has brought my Nexus 7 back to life. OK, I'm on KitKat, not Lollipop or Mashmallow, but it's running really well, and so I don't need to worry about replacing it for a good while yet (unlike a PC, I can't just pop it open and upgrade the components!).

Is the world ready for a Raspberry Pi-powered Lego Babbage Engine?

Lamont Cranston
Thumb Down

Re: Waste of time

I got the Lego BTTF set, a couple of Christmases back - would it surprise you to know that it can't actually travel through time? ECTO-1 in the Ghostbusters set doesn't even have a working engine!

Lamont Cranston
Facepalm

Re: Sorry but..

It's a toy, you mug.

Doctor Who's Under the Lake splits Reg scribes: This Alien homage thing – good or bad?

Lamont Cranston

Re: "its a pre-watershed show and we cant scare the kiddies too much"

This is the trouble with watching these things as an adult. I watched in the company of 3 under 9s: 1 fled to his bed as soon as the first ghost was revealed, 1 had her head tucked under a rug any time an eyeless spook appeared, and the other was sent to bed, filled with concern over The Doctor's fate ("He's not really a ghost, is he Daddy? Why hasn't he regenerated?"). I'd say this hit just the right note of terror for the kids (Daleks and Cybermen will never be scary to today's kids, but that's not to say that they can't enjoy seeing The Doctor defeat them time and again).

Kicking myself for not spotting the glasses/wifi/farady goof, but I was too busy enjoying the episode to notice! Enjoying an episode of Doctor Who? Not something I got to do during the previous series, so I hope the current one can keep it up.

If you got Netflix for Miss Marple, you're out of luck (and a bit odd)

Lamont Cranston

Re: An alternative option that you may want to consider

Very much this. I got Netflix, thinking I'd use it for films, but it's pretty rubbish for that (just as Lovefilm was), but rather good for TV. OK, there are gaps, and sometimes only entire series are missing, but I get to watch things that I wouldn't bother buying the boxset for (most TV boxsets I've bought get watched once and forgotten about), and I can drop it once I've watched what I want.

DVDs are down in price, and £5-£10 is a fair price for something I'll watch more than once. Blu-Rays can take a hike, though (not least because my PC has no Blu-Ray drive, and thus I can't get them onto the NAS).

Man given positive pregnancy test in an Apple Watch box

Lamont Cranston

Doesn't rhyme,

but the seedless ones are reported to be more juicy.

Lamont Cranston

Re: Tasteless, and not funny.

You're not supposed to lick it.

Laminate this: Inside Argos' ongoing online (r)evolution

Lamont Cranston

Re: Dying

Argos are one of those businesses that can easily strike you as utterly pointless (when I was a teenager, I assumed they'd be gone by the time I'd grown up), until they happen to be just what you need (since I grew up, bought a house and had kids, I find Argos to be incredibly useful).

Being able to order, pay and collect on the same/following day is really bloody useful.

Ashley Madison: ‘Our site is full of women, and members are growing’

Lamont Cranston

Chinny reckon.

Jimmy Hill, etc.

Google makes it official: Chrome will freeze Flash ads on sight from Sept 1

Lamont Cranston

Re: Is there really anyone out there still browsing without an ad-blocker?

If there weren't, do you really think these ads would still exist?

Angry Birds maker Rovio takes aim at staff, axes a third of them

Lamont Cranston

Re: "focus on where we are at our best: in creating magnificent gaming experiences"

My kids went mad for the cartoons they started adding on to the games, but have never found the games themselves to be all that engaging. They're all but grown out of it now, but I don't doubt that kids a few years younger will be pestering their parents to take them to the film. With any luck, that ought to be the end of the franchise, but I suppose the extra hype will push it along for a few more years.

At least Moshi Monsters are on the way out.

Android in user-chosen lockscreen patterns are grimly predictable SHOCKER

Lamont Cranston

Re: I wasn't aware the lock pattern was for security!

I only went with a pattern screen lock on my tablet to keep the kids off it - total fail as they sussed the "follow the greasy line" method very early on. I have found that it's sufficient to keep my wife out of my phone, though!

Ebuyer MD Carlisle exits following board level bust up

Lamont Cranston

Re: I'll stick with Scan & Quiet PC

I've bought all sort of bits from ebuyer, over the years, to the point where they're always the first place I check for anything tech related. Their couriers are a bit ropey, but the one return I had to make went off smoothly.

Still, it always pays to shop around. Can't see why they'd want a high street presence, although I'm sure it would draw me in from time to time (probably just for a browse!).

Vodafone UK rocks the bloat with demands for vanilla Android

Lamont Cranston

Better late than never, I suppose.

Can someone please make sure that PC manufacturers/vendors get the memo, too?

Feeling a physical present: Ten summer games and gadgets

Lamont Cranston

I used to really enjoy Space Hulk,

but the disparity between setup time and the time taken for the Genestealers to devastate the Terminator Marines, made it a hard sell to my friends.

Budget UHD TVs arrive – but were the 4Kasts worth listening to?

Lamont Cranston
FAIL

Re: Sky and UHD

HD was pretty much a waste of time for any sensibly sized TV. HD is a little sharper and brighter, but not so much that it's worth paying the extra for. Ever notice that the Freeview EPG relegates the HD versions of channels to the hinterlands? It's almost certain that everyone is merrily watching the SD broadcasts on their HD tellies, and they don't care.

UHD will surely be a big hit with the mugs who think their TV needs to be the size of a wall, though - I'm sure the SD Freeview signals will look great when blown up to 50 or more inches.

Stop taking drug advice from Kim Kardashian on Twitter, sighs watchdog

Lamont Cranston

And I thought that talking meercats giving financial advice was the daftest marketing technique.

The human race never ceases to amaze.

Windows 10: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE to Microsoft's long apology for Windows 8

Lamont Cranston

Re: Shit shit shit

My dad's PC is Windows 8 - my fingers are crossed for Windows 10 being slightly less shit.

Apple and Samsung are plotting to KILL OFF the SIM CARD - report

Lamont Cranston

SICK FILTH

^ BAN THIS

Police investigate strange case of doughnut-licking pop singer Ariana Grande

Lamont Cranston

Re: doughnut

Am I the only person who thinks that "Krispy Kreme" sounds really unappestising?

Reddit scrubs up: Child abuse? Gone. Drugs? Cool. RACISM? FINE

Lamont Cranston

@Symon

That's a very interesting and highly laudable approach - treatment/rehabilitation should always be preferred over retribution. I do have to wonder what happens to the victim of abuse, in cases where the perpetrator confesses his crime to his doctor, though.

In the case of reddit, I suppose they need to draw make a distinction between openly discussing a criminal acts and inciting others to commit them.

Game of Thrones: Where to now for headless Nintendo?

Lamont Cranston

Re: Pretty offensive article.

Glad you like your WiiU, Steve, but I must take issue with a few of your points:

4. WiiU games work properly at launch instead of requiring massive day zero critical patches

Not entirely true. Of the half dozen WiiU games that we own, only 1 has not gone online and downloaded stuff on its first run (it's a console, I expect all of the games to work out of the box - the kids certainly don't want to sit there and watch a progress bar fill up).

5. Lack of third party support is a blessing not a curse [...] no gamer would ever buy one of these 'games'

"Third party" doesn't have to mean shovelware. I certainly enjoyed Arkham City on the WiiU, and I don't think that was developed by Nintendo.

7. There's no fees for online WiiU gaming, Splatoon + all it's dlc has been free

All the Splatoon extras might be free, but this isn't true of, say, Mario Kart. I can't say I was particularly put out by paying for the extra tracks/karts/characters, but there's no point in pretending that Nintendo are just giving this stuff away. They'd like you to by some amiibos, too. Still, it is nice that there's no charge for the privilege of online play.

9. Most games for the WiiU are half the price

High street prices are around the £40 mark for new releases. I do hope PS4/Xbone players aren't paying the best part of £100 for their games?

I don't think it's offensive to the dead to consider the fortunes of the company he was running.

Lamont Cranston
Unhappy

@ Tim Jenkins

I would agree with this, but I picked up a copies of Nintendoland and Marion Party 10 recently, and the kids went ape for them (so did I, if I'm honest*). I think the real tragedy is that only Nintendo have any idea what the gamepad / wiimote+nunchuck can be good for, hence the lack of 3rd party titles.

*Was playing the Metroid game with my eldest, the other night, and it played like I wish the Wii had - smooth control with the nunchuck, and aiming with the wiimote actually worked (used MotionPlus, I think, which should have been there from the start). Really well done, just a shame it's relegated to a minigame.

The fact that Splatoon doesn't have 4 (or 5) player local multiplayer speaks volumes as to how underpowered the WiiU is, though - it'd be on my "must have" list, otherwise.

Oh, and Dan55 is spot on about media player functionality. Our old Wii was hacked to play DVDs and stream across the network (although it wasn't particularly good at this), which was a real boon. Sony recognised the value of this when the PS2 came out (DVD playback was a major selling point), but Nintendo don't. OK, there's Amazon Prime / Netflix as standard, but no chance of any other media player getting added to it, so it'll never be the entertainment hub that it should have been - a real missed opportunity (and the presence of the TV remote functionality of the gamepad suggests that it had occurred to someone at Nintendo).

Your security is just dandy, Apple Pay, but here comes Android

Lamont Cranston
Thumb Down

I put all my eggs into the one basket. Far more convenient that way.

No worries for me - the basket weaver assures me it's drop-proof.

Kobo Glo HD vs Amazon Kindle Paperwhite: Which one's best?

Lamont Cranston

I can't help thinking that,

in a sane world, you'd be able to buy the device of your choosing, then buy the books from the stores of your choosing. If, say, Sony were to restrict their Blu-Ray players to only play films from their own studio, everyone would think them mad.

As a side note, I've put a few books on my android tablet, and found Adobe Digital Editions to be a steaming heap of poo.

Uninstalled Google Photos? Thought your pics safe from slurping? WRONG, bozo

Lamont Cranston

The way I read it

was that he'd been taking photos using the Google Photos app, which was automatically saving them to Google's cloud, which was as he expected, but then he uninstalled the Google Photos app and assumed that this would take the cloud backup element of the app with it. Which it didn't, and so photos taken with a different app (maybe the stock Android app, maybe whatever Samsung had foisted upon him) were still being backed up by the remnant of the Google Photos app.

I've never used the Google Photos app, although it is installed on my Moto G (just seen the pinwheel icon in the app tray), but a check of the Google Settings shows no entry for Google Photos, so I'll (naïvely) assume it's not slurping my pics. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if you go to the bother of uninstalling an app, it uninstalls completely?

On yer bike: Hammerhead satnav for cyclists – just don't look down

Lamont Cranston

Re: More and more people expect to be spoonfed

I only cycle at night, so I can navigate using the stars. I'll bet you've got a sextant installed on your handlebars, like some sort of cissy.

Lamont Cranston

Re: Rules are for you too.

Normally I'd see a comment about cyclists, pedestrian crossings and red lights, and immediately summon the waaahmbulance, but I see you're talking about Cambridge, so you're concerns are fully justified.

Someone at Subway is a serious security nerd

Lamont Cranston

Quite agree.

This nonsense is why I'm locked out of the Just Eat and Hungry House apps. All for the best, though, as those companies are useless parasites on small businesses, and the man in my local curry house is a lovely chap to chat with on the phone.

BT issues formal whinge to Ofcom over Sky dominance in pay telly

Lamont Cranston

Competition is usually great for consumers,

but the way that the football gets carved up is laughable.

I assume they're fighting over the sport, as that's where the money is?

Florida cops cuff open-carry, balls-out pirate packing 'operational' flintlocks

Lamont Cranston
Happy

Re: "There is no reason to coddle criminals like you do over there"

I've always been quite proud of the fact that we don't generally* allow summary executions, over here.

*Yes, the police are authorised to shoot to kill in certain circumstances, but arrest, conviction and rehabilitation are the general aim. Granted, we've yet to perfect the rehabilitation element. And the conviction element. And the arrest element. Still preferable to having petty criminals shot to death in the streets, though.

NHS trust's crack IT squad claims its first digital upgrade hits

Lamont Cranston

Paperless by 2018?

Is it April Fools Day again?

Chinese takeaway, hold the Google: Xiaomi Mi4 LTE Android

Lamont Cranston

Re: USB

My cable draw is awash with mini-Bs. I live in hope that it will one day come back into fashion and displace the popular micro-B (of which most of mine seem to be falling apart).

Lamont Cranston
Joke

Fixed battery, no SD slot,

and a dodgy version of the Google apps APK? Shut up and take my money!

Apple Pay's Brit biz bashed by banks planning to Zapp it out

Lamont Cranston

Re: "it's still faster"

I've not been given an NFC card, yet, but I'd assumed that I'd be able to just move my wallet towards the contactless payment terminal, without bothering to take the card out - does it not work like that? Obviously this wouldn't work with multiple contactless cards in one wallet, or one of the metal enclosures that the paranoid have, but I've seen plenty of people who keep their credit card in a holder with their mobile, too.