Posts by Lamont Cranston

Useless 'computer engineer' Barbie fired in three-way fsck row

Re: Not far off

Knowing how to type the correct search terms into Google, can easily get you branded as some sort of "computer wizard".

Download alert: Nearly ALL top 100 Android, iOS paid apps hacked

Paid apps?

How quaint.

Bang! You're dead. Who gets your email, iTunes and Facebook?

Re: why bother

"Bad news: your uncle has died. But, cheer up, he's left you his laptop..."

Aw, that was sweet of him. *fires up laptop, opens browser, is mentally scarred for life*

I think that's why.

Shoot to THRILL: Assassin's Creed: Unity and Halo: Master Chief Collection

I cannot read anything about HALO,

without wondering what Master Chef has got to do with it. Is Greg Wallace inside that green armour?

FALL of the MACHINES: How to KILL the Google KARATE BOT, by our expert

He can probably

be plugged in to the cigarette lighter.

UK PM Cameron says Internet must not 'be an ungoverned space'

the left think "Democracy is fine, as long as we're in charge".

The trouble with democracy, is that it lets politicians get into positions of power.

Microsoft to bring back beloved 1990s super-hit BATTLETOADS!?*

Re: Nintendo rule:

Said the actress to the bishop.

Bloke, 26, accused of running drug souk Silk Road 2.0 cuffed by Feds

Re: People often become addicted to substances to which they can not afford to be addicted.

Quite right. A good thing that we've long since outlawed sugar, alcohol, and nicotine.

Amazon: Put our ALWAYS ON MICROPHONE in your house, please. WHAT?

Re: Who the hell is going to buy...

If you can get past all the negatives (of which there are many, so you really can't), who among us doesn't want to act like Picard, and be able to bark questions at the walls? Hook it up to a 3D printer, and you could at least ask it to form a cup to hold your tea, earl-grey, hot!

One hard ghoulie: 1985's Ghosts 'n Goblins

My parents would never let me have more than a few coppers for the arcades,

so I'd look on whistfully as others played Ghost'n'Goblins, Operation Wulf, or Outrun, as I pushed my coppers into the 2p push machine.

Once I'd bought myself a PlayStation (must have been 20 years old *sigh*) a Capcom compilation was one of my first purchases. Ghosts'n'Goblins (and Ghouls'n'Ghosts)! But, wait - it's bastard hard and I can barely get past the first level. *crushing disappointment*

Nostalgia is best left in the past. I had a lot more fun playing Smash TV (with infinite continues), but that quickly got boring as it rendered it all too easy. Surely there is a middle ground?

Million Mask March: Anonymous' London Guy Fawkes protest a damp squib

Shame.

It's about time we put a Catholic back on the throne, too.

Rise of the machines: Silicon Valley hardware store to deploy ROBOTS for customer service

Unexpected item in bagging area.

How do they cope when I child attempts to hitch a ride on their back, or tip them over?

Hey, YouTube lovers! How about you pay us, we start paying for STUFF? - Google

Re: On overpaid football players

I want to downvote this, on the grounds that footballers are overpaid, but what you've written is all true.

I think professional football is a load of rubbish, and thus throw precisely none of my disposable income at it, but plenty of people feel different, and jacking up the gate prices doesn't seem to put them off.

Men who sleep with lots of women lessen risk of prostate cancer

Re: Rubbish science

Why would you post this?

KRAKKOOOM! Space Station supply mission in PODULE PRANG EXPLOSION CHAOS

Re: Won't anyone think of the scientists?!

Can't they get insurance cover for this sort of thing?

Adorkable overshare of words like photobomb in this year's dictionaries

Re: Bakeoff?

Shirley it's "bake off"?

Lords take revenge on revenge porn publishers

Re: disappearing up my own arse

Locking people up isn't primarily about punishment, it's about protecting society from those that wish to do it harm (and with the intent that they can be rehabilitated)). It's also absurdly expensive, and so would be best used only when absolutely required.

And no, I don't believe that a bit of litter picking is an appropriate response to a career criminal, but nor do I think that banging him up and forgetting about him is the answer. Oh, I know, let's just lop his hands off - that'll put an end to his schemes.

Re: Totally inadequate

Unless you represent a danger to yourself or others, prison should not be required for your rehabilitation (unless it's the only way to ensure that you attend for it). Community service should be the preferred option in most cases.

Really... an iKeyfob? Apple continues war on fanbois' pockets

Re: It's an Apple car patent

Surely, if you patent something not with the intent to make it yourself, but to prevent others from making it, you're abusing the system?

ICO warns UK broadcasters over filming using drones

I do like the suggestion that

social media be used to inform people that their privacy might be being violated.

Doctor Who's Flatline: Cool monsters, yes, but utterly limp subplots

Re: What we learnt...

Looked like Lemarchand's box, to me!

Re: Who is the target audience?

You're spot on, here - Doctor Who is a kids' show, always has been, always will be. It's going wrong because it's trying, and failing, to appeal to adults, rendering it incomprehensible to children (quoth my youngest: "THIS IS BORING!").

I think it might also be suffering becuase the stories are crushed into 35/40 minutes, and thus have a hurried resolution - I don't necessarily want a return to the 4 cliffhangers + 1 resolution, of my childhood, but the decent stories of the past 2 episodes have had very rushed conclusions ("it's a flag, he's a soldier, I'll salute him and he'll fall apart" / "I'll leap out of my tardis, brandish my magic wand*, and they'll fall apart"), so maybe it ought to be split over 2 nights (Fri/Sat or Sat/Sun)? It's in the wrong timeslot, anyway - it should come before Strictly!

*about time the Sonic Screwdriver went, too - occassionally well used, mostly just a crutch for lazy writing

Red Bull does NOT give you wings, $13.5m lawsuit says so

Re: Really?

Much as this case seems to scream "I'm an idiot, please give me money", I'm always slightly surprised that Lynx haven't been done for false advertising - it's ludicrous to claim that smelling like a teenage boy will make you more attractive to the opposite sex.

Is living with Dolby Atmos worth the faff?

So,

what noise does a football make as it flies through the air?

HBO shocks US pay TV world: We're down with OTT. Netflix says, 'Gee'

@Ledswinger

It's about time we implemented The Great British Bake Off, the way Norman Tebbit wanted a Cricket Test - if you're shown the Bake Off and don't enjoy it, you're promptly deported to somewhere far less British.

Same old iPad? NO. The new 'soft SIMs' are BIG NEWS

I read the article, and thought "what a good idea!"

Then I read the comments, and realised that it is a terrible idea.

Still, would be nice to do away with SIMs, entirely.

Watersports-friendly e-reader: Kobo's Aura H2O is literary when wet

If the touchscreen packs up in the wet,

does it have physical buttons, for page turning purposes?

Will.i.am gets CUFFED as he announces his new wristjob, the PULS

Re: Bling bling

About time Flava Flav got into the wearable tech market. I can see it now...

The flavWatch redifines the concept of the watch, as it is suspended from the users neck. It also emphaises its form, by being much larger than competitors' devices. Rather than incorporating WiFi, 4G, or fitness monitoring, it is a single function device - it tells you the time, upside-down.

Yeah, boieee!

Aboard the GOOD SHIP LOLLIPOP, there's a Mobe and a Slab and a TELLYBOX

Re: Philip K. Dick

I ordered my Nexus 6 from John Lewis. Good thing they have such a good returns policy, as I was shocked to find that it wasn't a Replicant.

Forget passwords, let's use SELFIES, says Obama's cyber tsar

"Your face has expired, and must be changed"

What if I need to authenticate in the dark?

Radiohead(ache): BBC wants dead duck tech in sexy new mobes

Re: The state is the failure

IP is not the solution to replace FM. Anyone can have FM for a one off, minimum cost, and it'll work pretty much anywhere. Not so IP.

DAB isn't the solution, either, mind.

I didn't invent Bitcoin! Send Bitcoin to help me fight this slur – Dorian Nakamoto

I didn't invent the Pound Sterling.

Granted, no one is saying that I did, but they might, so please send me as much Pound Sterling as you can afford, so that I can keep a legal team on retainer.

Lights off, nappies on! It's Alien: Isolation and The Evil Within

Re: Best Alien game I've ever played

Although Doom/Aliens becomes a lot less scary when you can pop in a cheat code and shotgun/chainsaw/punch everything to a messy death!

Zippy one-liners, broken promises: Doctor Who on the Orient Express

These reviews are just about spot-on (unless we want to quibble details).

This week's Who was the best of the current series, to date. Plenty of "hiding behind the sofa", from my brood, and, whilst the story didn't make a huge heap of sense, it was quite fun (the 66 second countdowns were a good source of tension).

The whole "I teleported everyone to the Tardis, then took them home while you were sleeping" device was a bit cheap, but I can forgive that, as Doctor Who is supposed to be cheap! What really let the whole thing down was Clara not leaving. She has a ready made happy ending (Rose and Amy both got tragic send-offs, we don't have to have another one), and everyone is sick of her - she was Matt Smith's Doctor's companion, and that story is done, so just let her go and have the new Doctor pick an appropriate companion. Even Mel wasn't this grating.

Women, your 'superpower' is ... NOT asking for a raise: Satya Nadella

Re: re: Not as easy-peasy as it may seem at first.

@Pierre

Unless employers aren't sure what they're hiring people for, recognition and performance measuring shouldn't be all that difficult - appraisals can be a pain in the arse, but they're not really as arduous as we all think. I don't think experience isn't relevant to remuneration, rather it's taken into account during the recuitment phase.

Maybe I'm just lucky to be working in the public sector, where we have clearly defined (and published) pay scales, and tend to progress up them in an orderly fashion?

@ A Twig

No, if the effort, challenges and responsibilities are going to be very different, I'd set this out in the job descriptions, and set the two positions at different points on the pay scale. They may start at the same company, at the same time, working the same number of hours, and both do a "good job," but they would not be working the same job. It might be as simple as paying a higher hourly rate for the unsociable hours of the evening shift.

I'm going to regret this when someone pulls out the relevant piece of legislation that shows my solution to be somehow illegal, but it's surely a fine principle?

re: Not as easy-peasy as it may seem at first.

It's a lot easier than your making it sound. Established pay-scales, and regular reviews to ensure that employees have the opportunity to progress up their pay-scales. 2 people, doing the same job, will be on the same pay-scale, at points determined by their respective experience/performance.

(Icon is sarcastic - this really isn't rocket science)

Get NAS-ty: Reg puts claws to eight four-bay data dumpsters

Re: Or alternatively...

Using Openmediavault on a collection of reclaimed hardware (old tower PC, various hard-drives approaching end of life), here. Genuinely curious if there's much advantage to splashing out on a dedicated box, or saving the money to spend on better drives?

Shift up, gran! Microsoft turns living room into AR game 'space'

I remember total immersion gaming, from my childhood.

We'd run around outside.

UPGRADE your CHILDREN with KANO: All you need in one box

Thanks, ThomH - that's more like it!

And thanks to malfeasance, too, for the detail on the software..

I thought this was going to come with

the keyboard as a large case that the Pi was then fixed into, giving something resembling a BBC Micro, with the ports accessible round the back (remember when computers looked like computers?).

I'd promised my eldest one of these but the self-assembly element is gone, and he's already started learning Scratch at school, so I can't see the point, now. Shame. £100 seems a bit steep for a Pi+keyboard, too. Will they be offering the software seperately and, more importantly, is it any good?

How much is Microsoft earning from its Android taxes again?

Ah, so I'm poor.

Ho hum.

Xperia Z3 Compact

currently sells for the better part of £400 - did you mean to reference the Xperia E3 as Sony's budget model, or am I just poor?

Revenge smut bullies who send 'grossly offensive' messages WILL be prosecuted

@silent_count

Children can't give consent to having explicit photos taken (because they're children, and are protected against this sort of thing by existing laws); adults can give that consent (because they're adults), but that does not equate to consenting to have those same photos splurged over the internet.

Nothing sexist in that.

Focus is being placed on women, I expect, because they're more likely to be victims of this sort of thing, but it wouldn't necessarily follow that this would be women-only legislation.

Our Vultures peck at new Doctor Who: Exterminate or, er ... carrion?

Re: Michelle Gomez

I didn't think much of Green Wing, but The Book Group was great. Revealing her to be The Rani would be rather wonderful (if a tad predictable, I suppose).

If we're lucky, they'll have something special in store; if not, well, at least I'll be able to impress the kids by knowing more about the character than they do!

I'd like to moan about how bad the current Doctor Who scripts are,

but they've probably always been that way. I've only noticed it post-relaunch, as I've been watching them as a grown-up, not a (easily pleased) child.

That said, they really ought to decide who the market is, as they seem to be slightly too difficult to follow for children (and now in too late a timeslot, for some reason), and slightly too crap for adults. Shame, really, as Capaldi and co. are doing their best with what they've been given.

SHOW ME the MONEY: Payment code spied in Facebook Messenger

Re: It's things like this

It's always important to comment on articles like this, so that you can register your disinterest.

Re: How to use the Facebook Messenger app

Excessive permissions seem to be the standard, but there's usually a good reason for having call access (making calls from the app, as has been mentioned above). I got more cross with the default behaviour of facebook messenger, where it splurts "chat heads" all over the screen, obscuring anything and everything. Shitty, shitty app that did not need to be a standalone entity.

Take THAT, hated food! It's OVER, tedious chewing! Soylent strikes back with version 1.1

Re: Mixed up humans?

Gasp! What a faux-pas!

Re: What Marketing Needs To Do Is...

Nigella would probably shove it up her nose.