* Posts by JDX

6847 publicly visible posts • joined 28 May 2010

Brit 'naut Tim Peake tucks into space bacon sarnie

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"brown sauce"

Get out.

Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950XL: Clear thoughts of Continuum with a snazzy camera

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Re: £400!

£400 is half the price of a top-end iPhone so if this is their top-spec then it's reasonable. Is the hardware spec comparable?

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So are these cameras better or worse than the 1020?

I got the Lumia 1020 primarily to get a decent camera, and have been very pleased with it (I never knew it had HDR!)

It's unclear from this review if the 950 has an even better camera, or if the 808/1020 still take the "best phone camera" prize?

It seems a shame about WP10, I quite like my phone OS.

Microsoft whips out PowerApps – now your Pointy Haired Boss can write software, too!

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Re: Quick solutions/prototyping

RAD is not the same as Agile. Both focus on getting something visible to users ASAP but the way this is done is different.

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Re: ColdFusion Heh?

Access doesn't fit the bill, but non-developers can put pretty sophisticated stuff together in Excel... though that's more on the modelling side in my limited experience.

Rooting and modding a Windows Phone is now child's play

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Re: Non Root

Did you by the phone at a subsidised price?

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Re: One other potential use

Really? The Lumia models have had very good reviews in terms of cost and featureset.

Of course, Android is slow and bloated so might not run as well ;) But seriously, the top-end Lumia cameras on Android could be a draw.

Suck it, Elon – Jeff Bezos' New Shepard space rocket blasts off, lands in one piece

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Re: Its the wrong way to get off this planet

You just tie a really long rope to the moon and climb up. None of this escape velocity nonsense.

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Wasn't it one of the early SpaceX tests that was far more fake looking a year or two back - it literally came down absolutely vertically. This one definitely had something of a wobble, you could see it correcting.

However I was very impressed just how fast it landed, no gentle descent, just drop it and pull on the hand-brake at the last moment!

California cops pull over Google car for driving too SLOWLY

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Re: Do they have people programming the car that don't know the highway code

Maybe you forget the speed limit is the MAXIMUM speed not the TARGET speed.

How slow is too slow is up for interpretation barring any set rules.

IT contractors raise alarm over HMRC mulling 'one-month' nudge onto payrolls

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Re: I Don't Understand The Logic ....

>>I pay the government a lot more tax ( NI, Tax, Corporation Tax and VAT) as a contractor than I would as a permanent employee on a lower salary.

The proposal isn't that you'd become " a permanent employee on a lower salary." Just that a lot more of what you earn would be taken as tax, and that it would all be very much more complicated.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 10: Uphill battle with 'work in progress'

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Re: Such a shame

I agree the WP7 underlying UI was pretty ground-breaking in modern phones - by now iOS and Android have surely copied the best bits though just as WP stole the best bits of those systems?

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Re: Just give up already, Microsoft

Yes they do. WP8.1 is pretty nice, thanks and so are many of the WP-8 generation Lumia phones. The free maps and free GPS are wonderful and lots of us don't really use apps that much.

Sadly WP10 seems to be screwing things up and I'm wondering if my support for WP will come to an end, and I should give up and get an iPhone.

Here are the graphics processors cloud giants will use to crunch your voices, videos and data

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Re: The petabytes of nonsense humanity churns out every day

What do you think the point of this software IS?

Cryptowall 4.0: Update makes world's worst ransomware worse still

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Re: They have been useful to me in one brilliant way. Convince people to get the fcuk off Windows.

And how is that useful to you, other than feeding your malnourished ego that people are paying attention to you for a change?

Windows 10: Major update on the Threshold as build 10586 hits Insiders

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Re: could be backported to 7 without too much dram?

Well sure. They could put man-decades of work in and pay all those salaries, then give it to you for free. But that's not really a sustainable business model.

TalkTalk offers customer £30.20 'final settlement' after crims nick £3,500

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Re: I'd read the contract terms carefully

The legal debate about whether they broke the contract, or whether they were breached due to criminal activity, will surely take ages to be resolved before you can legally claim your contract is breached - no?

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Re: 6 or 12 months

>>I wonder how many customers they will have left in 6 or 12 months time?

Most of them. It's long enough most will have forgotten, or will believe it's just "another security breach" like you hear about in the news "these things happen" etc.

TT customers tend not to be IT professionals (though I know some who are)

Biggest problem with virtual reality: It can be a little too real for people

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Re: Ever tried a rollercoaster?

Those virtual roller-coasters have been around for years (possibly decades) - the ones where the chairs judder and so on?

The thing there is how real it feels... maybe simply the slight movement of the chair is enough to trick the ear, because I'm not aware they normally induce sickness in the same way VR does?

Fancy flying to Mars? NASA's hiring

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Re:wait until the space programme calls for 48year old, slightly podgy

There's already a mission which wants that. But it's a round trip (you never land) and they want you to be married. And you have to bring your spouse with you.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux lands on Microsoft Azure cloud – no, we're not pulling your leg

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Re: Boring and lame

How useful is WPF on a web-server? Isn't it desktop/client-only?

We're not killing Chrome OS ... not until 2020, anyway – says Google

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Based on previous "failed" products, it's very likely that Google would throw the OS completely over to the open-source community if they decided to stop working on it themselves, I reckon.

Star Trek to go boldly back onto telly, then beam down in streams

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Re: Trek: The unrebooted series!

Voyager was fun. A strong female lead, the hologram doctor, 7/9 and 7/9 (I mention her twice because, well... you know why)

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They'll clearly sell it on.

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Re: None are reboots

The new movies reboot in the sense they replace the same characters with different actors. But true, they don't overlap TOS (which is what I expected a new show to do).

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Re: Reboots vs Extended Continuity

I really like Enterprise although it doesn't really feel like ST (the theme tune for a start!)

But this hatred for the reboot is silly. ST feature films and ST TV series are quite different beasts.

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Re: Reboots?

I have to agree that DS9, TNG, Voyager and Enterprise are all firmly in the same universe (continuity errors aside).

I would've expected (and would like to see) a new series to take the same cast as the new films, not reboot all over again with another new cast.

We are due another new ST spin-off but unless they use the film cast, I want a spin-off not another re-boot please.

Linus Torvalds fires off angry 'compiler-masturbation' rant

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MS spends huge amounts of money reviewing their code. Their process is FAR more rigorous than some angry git personally checking all the code ;)

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Re: He's right.

Sometimes he's right, sometimes it's subjective personal opinion.

Ad networks promise to do something about the awful adverts you're all blocking, like, real soon

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"the only ad that isn't annoying is one you don't see or hear"

I don't agree. Many ads are clever or funny or creatively interesting, a few even brighten up your day. I suppose the odd one even provokes people to buy something.

UK drivers left idling as Tesla rolls out Autopilot in US

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"We’re not totally clear how the car intends to deal with being rear-ended"

Maybe blame the car behind, like a human driver would do?

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@AndrewDu

Jeez, you should probably apply for a job at Tesla. They could do with someone to point out those things, I doubt any of them have eve driven a car or spent time thinking about such unlikely things.

Google Chromecast 2015: Puck-on-a-string fun ... why not, for £30?

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Re: Ugly

Now you're just boasting. Or should visit the doctor.

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Re: How cables look hanging behind my TV is a real concern for me as well.

Good job nobody has TVs with HDMI sockets on the side then

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Ugly

It looks neat enough on its own but as soon as you plug it in it just dangles like a limp phallus. Add a power cable and you have a weird loop arrangement.

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Streaming devices need to be wired and come with a proper remote IMO

So buy one that does, and let other people make their own choice.

Some people don't like having 7 remote controls... if a phone could replace ALL of them that'd be kind of neat really.

Tear teardown down, roars Apple: iFixit app yanked from store

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Big deal?

Apple seem not to have an issue with the tear-downs. Merely that iFixit gave out privileged information from a DEVELOPMENT unit.

If you break an NDA or whatever, this is what happens... try leaking details of a MS/Sony devkit and see if your license to develop for those platforms gets revoked.

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Re: It should not be the case that companies 'own the market', that's not healthy

Supermarkets choose if they'll stock your product, isn't this broadly similar though? Tesco can decide on a whim to stop selling your stuff (perhaps with some notice period based on your contract).

Don't enterprise developers get the ability to run their own private app-stores... not sure if these can also be pulled or not?

We saw the future: Apart from the bath apps it looks like the past

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Only as an optional feature where you realise you don't want/need/have time for the bath after all.

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It's mostly so useless I end up coming out the other side and like it.

Although I would genuinely love an automated bath - so many times I go to check my emails while it's running, then come back and find the back is luke-warm because it's overflowed all the hot water down the drain.

Although a bath that simply stops the tap when it's full would solve this, temperature control and the ability to start it running while I'm still on the exercise bike would be sweet.

Bill Bailey: The man, the musician, the comic, the troll, the legend

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Black Books

Still one of my very favourite shows, although I think Moran has as much to do with that as Bailey. Maybe more - a near-perfect combination.

Blighty's Bloodhound 1,000mph rocket car unveiled ahead of record attempt

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Re: "It's unlikely we'll see much return from all this" - WHAT?

Measurable return. Indirect return is very hard to gauge.

Reg Xmas lectures tackle transhumanism, driverless cars and life as a hostage

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Re: Driverless cars v kids.

What does a human driver do in similar situations? It's hardly a common occurrence.

Man given positive pregnancy test in an Apple Watch box

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I'm assuming this is some rhyming slang rather than racist slang?

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I don't really want an iWatch (since I don't have an iPhone) but I absolutely don't want a baby.

So I'll take the watch (back to the nearest Apple store for a refund)

Amazon reveals $50 Android-ish Fire tablet it will axe in two years

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Amazon Underground

What now?

Who on earth buys 6 family-focused tablets? A well-off Catholic?

Sharp's new TV has over 7,000 lines of pixels – but there's NOTHING TO WATCH

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Re: Alternatively...

I doubt your shooting will be as good as in those videos. How close can you get to a killer whale as it chases a seal?

Jeremy Corbyn: My part in his glorious socialist triumph

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Re: and even before that

The UK has never been socialist. People parroting quotes should perhaps look at the facts.

And saying "X never works"? Well...

- "a coalition government will never last a full term"

- "printing money always leads to runaway inflation (QE)"

Intel's 6th gen processors rock – but won't revive PC markets

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Re: Nothing is going to revive the desktop market

>>PCs will be replaced at the same rate as they wear out

Which is EXACTLY the same as "Nothing is going to revive the desktop market". Revive means sell more of them, claw back some market from laptops/tablets. I cannot see this happening, and I cannot really see the desktop managing to avoid losing more market share to laptops when you no longer have to spend a more to get a laptop that's adequately specced for normal home use.

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“There are over 500 million computers in use today that are four to five years old or older.”

“There are over 500 million computers in use today that are four to five years old or older. They are slow to wake, their batteries don’t last long, and they can’t take advantage of all the new experiences available today,”

My desktop PC is ~6 years old and only cost ~£400 new. After I put in an SSD, it boots in 10-20s and awakes from hibernation in ~5s with no sluggishness.

The CPU has not been the limiting factor for some time in desktops. However the power-saving is excellent news for laptops.