Posts by daemonoid

Feature bloat: Psychology boffins find people tend to add elements to solve a problem rather than take things away

Re: people tend to add elements to solve a problem

Colin Chapman

Astroboffins say our Solar System could have – wait, stop, what... the US govt found UFOs?

Re: The paranoid obsession with extraterrestrials

Because if alien food is half as good as Chinese food then I can’t wait for first contact...

Hackers electrocute selves in quest to turn secure doors inside out

Re: They're still alive after electrocution?

Back in the late 19th century you would've been right. As ever though, language moves on and those of us who play with electricity occasionally get electrocuted with little more ill effects than spontaneous expletives.

(OED is in agreement - injure or kill by electric shock)

Britain must send its F-35s to Italy for heavy overhauls, decrees US

Re: What a clusterfrack

"Sadly in the UK with governments of all parties in recent decades, military considerations have had lower priority than political ones with regards to our armed forces."

And yet the UK politicians still approve the 4th largest budget in the world for military spending. I'm not sure how much more committed you would want them to be...

Google may just have silently snuffed the tablet computer

I'd argue that modern tablets (not including my old handspring visor in this) came out when the tech was already relatively mature. I took the plunge at iPad 3 time and still use it to this day, the missus has some newer variation, but not once have I thought that it'd be worthwhile to upgrade. The tablet just still does the job.

It's not the need / want, rather that I've bought a mature product for which newer generations offer little to no benefit. Much like the TV or the dishwasher - it'll get replaced when it breaks.

Mobile phones have seemed to have a longer path to maturity, but I'd argue that they too are approaching the point of no innovation. I think we'll soon see the market there tail off as there's a united response of *meh* to the new offerings. Although, the 12-24 month contract/'free' upgrade cycle may prop them up for a little while longer.

Man killed in gruesome Tesla autopilot crash was saved by his car's software weeks earlier

Depends how you define fit for purpose. An AI that does the job better than the standard meat controller would certainly fit most definitions of fit for purpose.

It's a shame someone died. On the plus side, it looks like Teslas are safer than people based on very early data so maybe, instead, we should be celebrating that 4/9ths of a person haven't died!

Three non-obvious reasons to Vote Leave on the 23rd

Re: Did UK make ever something positive to make EU stronger?

"Perhaps you could explain why the UK should have accepted Schengen and the Eurozone despite them obviously not being good things."

Schengen is a rather good thing - it means that I can happily pass an arbitrary invisible line in the ground without a whole load of rigmarole just because the people in charge of one side of the line want me to pay my taxes to them rather than those on the other side of the line.

The eurozone is similarly rather useful - I buy stuff without being charged a fee / uneven exchange rate. I get to pop across the borders without pre-planning and a whole load of faffing.

'Planet nine' theory boosted by Kuiper Belt Object with odd orbit

Re: Anyone feel a pulp scifi novel coming on?

"You mean planet IX, surely?"

only in New Zealand...

Kiwi hackers crack crap algo, showcase 40c-a-litre DIY fuel discounts

Re: Refreshing Change

Yes, yes it is! I was in the UK and paid less than a pound a litre for diesel the other day. Not done that since about 10 years ago!

The fuel duty has risen in the time since 2004, as have the taxes on the oil companies (by up to 32%) - that's a particularly sneaky one as the gov gets to rake in the revenue and blame the price increases on the oil companies. The gov takes almost two thirds of the cost of fuel at the pump through duty & VAT, then takes a cut of the profit of the oil companies.

To paraphrase Clarkson... It's amazing that anyone can go out, find oil, get it out of the ground, ship it part way round the world, refine it and then deliver it to a forecourt for about 50p a litre... It's cheaper than a bottle of mineral water from Scotland.

Google says its quantum computer is 100 million times faster than PC

Re: sorry, not a geek but

'In other news, Google's new sausage making machine proven to be able to make sausages 10 billion times faster than a current state of the art espresso machine.'

Given the pressure at which an espresso machine operates, I suspect it would have a real chance of outpacing a traditional sausage maker. So long as something akin to 'meat silly string' meets the definition of sausage.

Germany loosens liability laws to promote WiFi hotspots

It's not really true either. I live on the border so often pop into Germany for shopping or a beer. There's wifi everywhere. The liability law only requires them to take reasonable steps - so a filter and a personalised signup process (normally one that texts you a code).

Germans in ‘brains off, just follow orders' hospital data centre gaff

Die luft wafters?

Ford's parallel PARCing: Motor giant tries to craft new tech just like Xerox

Nothing like flying cars! Several of the worlds largest companies are pumping barrels of cash into self driving car tech. Flying cars have been funded by the occasional wealthy eccentric...

Just WALK IN and buy an Apple Watch. Are you mad?

Re: This largely explains

Have you tried buying something at a nespresso store?

I thought I'd pick up a few boxes in person given that the minimum order for free delivery is about €80 and there's a 'store' on the way home. Never, ever, again... the grinning cult members were terrifying and insisted I joined a club before I could buy anything.

Why must shopping be an event?

What will happen to the oil price? Look to the PC for clues

Re: Fracking

I'm not sure light and transport count as 'survival' criteria for people. They are, admittedly, rather nice to have.

Europe's top court mulls vandal's right to privacy after bloke catches thug on home CCTV

Re: what about cameras in cars and lorries

"But, even if the police receive it anonymously, they can't act on it, as it cannot be used as evidence before the court."

Ah... but, the recollection of someone who has viewed it can be used in court.

Apple denied 'App Store' trademark by Australian court

Re: What's next?

iThink they may prefer a different vowel...

Wide-ranging UK DATA SHARING moves one step closer

Re: so we're back to ID cards again ...

Any chance we can get the ID cards without the master database? Perhaps just two documents from the IPS?

Living outside the UK and travelling frequently I rely on my passport, yet its the only part of my life where I don't have a suitable disaster recovery/mitigation plan... Passport lost/stolen/damaged and I cannot effectively live or work.

Vanished blog posts? Enterprise gaps? Welcome to Windows 10

Re: Windows 7 with a flat theme

""they might have finally realized that UI weren't broke"

How can a UI be out of money? Or are you an illiterate that doesn't understand the difference between a verb and an adjective - and actually meant broken?"

My pedant sense is tingling...

Also, it's worthwhile pointing out that usage trumps 'the rules', a fact that even the OED espouses. Given that the OP was clearly paraphrasing the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" I would call the AC out as the most amusing kind of pedant... an incorrect pedant...

White? Male? You work in tech? Let us guess ... Twitter? We KNEW it!

Re: Not only Blacks and Latinos are under-represented

Maybe not... the demographics for California are 40.1% 'non-hispanic white'.

Apple iMac 27in

Would if I could...

But apple do not make a wireless keyboard with a numpad

Motorola Atrix dual-core Android smartphone

@Arctic Fox Re Re "Practical problems"

Yeah, I do see your point, I just think the PC at home will be less of what we call a PC today. More of an integration to the TV or part of the telecommunications package (think a BT home hub with better connectivity).

I think we're thinking along similar lines, I just see the demise of the traditional PC & desk in a lot of homes. The idea of a single computing device that allows you to have the convenience of a phone but the usability of a laptop / desktop when necessary really appeals to me. Family clouds could sort most of the data sharing problems, localised storage. My biggest worry about this vision of the future is the data - what happens if I lose my phone, 'the cloud' better hurry up and work properly :)

If they put their minds to it I could see apple really coming up with the goods here - airport for the storage / local backups & sharing, iPhone as the main powerhouse & a shell laptop (as mentioned before they could be positioned correctly to use the iPhone as a touchpad and for user feedback), then an apple TV / cinema display as the main livingroom display.

Re: I forsee a certain practical problem here.

You're forgetting that a PC connected to the TV is mainly an IT geek thing. TVs already have browsers etc. built in, the dlna standard (or something better in the future) allows you to watch movies etc. without plugging in.

The TV has all the basics, the phone provides computing power, the line between what services the phone supplies and what services the TV/AV system provides is a likely to move but I can certainly see solutions to all but one problem (you get a phone call inviting you to the local half way through desperate housewives and decide to leave the missus to it. Begs the question though why you have it on your phone unless you secretly love that sh*t).

Ebooks are another matter - cellphones don't compete with a dedicated reader - primarily because of the screen tech & form factor.

I can't see me switching to the phone as the only PC - I currently have 5 in the house (2 people) not including the phones and am a geek. I can see 'normal users' making the transition though. As I said in my earlier message, it's the start of something - this is likely to be the way forward but it's not quite there yet. Right now, the laptop is too expensive, needs tethering and is awkward to use - give it a generation or two for the tech to standardise and it'll be a different story. Best reason for this phone is in business setting - motoblur makes everything a lot easier than my iPhone - only one place to check all my mail / messages etc. rather than 10 different apps.

Re: Limited imagination as usual

You're not wrong. I've been using this phone for a couple of weeks now and generally it's one of the slickest bits of kit I've ever used. The motoblur accounts app is the thing that really makes the phone worthwhile.

I heartily believe that the future of computing for the majority is a smart phone and dock of some variety along with cloud data & applications. However, they've just missed the mark by making the dock cost more than a capable netbook. I've also heard from the forums that the laptop dock requires a tethering enabled contract which for me is a final nail in the coffin for the idea working this time around.

Cloud iTunes DESTROYS music business FOREVER!

Re: No, they mean "legitimate" in the eyes of the law.

Well, maybe the tracks are legit, but they were obtained through deception meaning joy of joys a fraud charge. You've just upped it from a civil matter to a criminal matter. Although I'll concede the likelihood of getting caught is low.

Steve Jobs snuffs App-Store-for-Mac rumor

Re: Beleaguered Apple

As good as your point is, you've got your numbers wrong - you actually mean $330,563

Still a good profit, but I don't get why you would exaggerate...