Posts by Avatar of They

In the loop: how Halo defined a new decade of first-person shooters

Absolute crock of....

Valve hasn't followed on its successes???????

No Valve moved on and did something different instead of vomiting the same junk on people. Portal & Portal 2, Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. Team fortress etc etc.

Halo just continually pumped the same crud out in sequel after sequel adding little more than a few weapons or a new vehicle or a new location to what was the same engine. Plot moved on a bit but not much and if you play the ODST it isn't even much of a plot jump.

Even your own review just says Halo 4 is a clone of the first Halo with nicer whistle & bells.

What actually happened is a good formula from the likes of any PC game before it like Half life, was put onto a console where a captive audience of people who have no attention span and where logic and brains are not required can run round shooting everything in a linear fashion. Run jump shoot, hide, run jump shoot. (can you even crouch) Then on every incarnation since it has repeated that winning formula of no puzzles, plenty of shooting but nothing on a par with the likes of Crysis, Half life 2, Cod (choose any of them) or battlefield games.

Halo gives a you a few vehicles, so did BF2 (and planes, and boats, subs) but that was purely online game play, Halo included nothing new in Halo 2, BF2 had an entirely different skin, model list, weaponry. etc etc. Battlefield however had mods, had the vietnam with an entirely different mechanic for flying, all new profiles and skins, and a different physics engine. As did the 2142, once the bugs were sorted you could not only have different kits but the range of upgrades made those kits something completely new. Halo gave you another gun.

Every COD has a different arsenal of unlocks and upgrades, Halo 2 gave you a second hand. Halo 3 gave you an upgrade (shield, speed). ODST gave you less, Halo Reach gave you some more plot and a brief linear flight in a space fighter or VTOL. Even the plots are the same, run and jump and shoot and finally drive a car at great speeds either on a collapsing ship or on a collapsing planet.

Halo didn't define a generation of FPS, it just gave XBOX 360 owners something to play. But you can't compare Halo to anything in other formats. Battlefield 1942, Half life 2, Crysis (not the Crysis 2 port) and Cod:MW pushed and defined FPS for differing reasons.

I own all of the Halo series but each and everyone is the same. I have yet to start Halo 4, but I predict it will have exactly the same plot of run, jump and run and jump, shoot something a lot and then press a few buttons before you drive very quickly against the clock.

Genre defining, no. Peddling the same stuff and having idiots (me included) pay over the odds pricing for the next clone, yes. I also lay odds that graphics, speed, game play and longevity are nothing on a par with the new CS:GO valve have released (not that they follow on their successes) Could be the game, could be the XBOX 360 being just too old now.

KDE 'annoys the hell of' Linus Torvalds

Re: Opinions are like...

In all fairness, Linus is like schmidt of Google, or Mark shuttleworth of Ubuntu, or Gates, or Balmer, or jobs etc.

They are the leader of their chosen area or run something that affects the world. You might not like Linus or Linux but as the man who created it his opinion is valued by the world over.

Woud you dimiss the man who invented the mobile phone on his thoughts about Apple and samsung patent spats? Or the man that invented the AK47 not getting royalties for it?

Is there anyone whose opinion you would actually listen to? Joey Essex from TOWIE, Jordan, Gok Wan?

Bond fans: Test your 007 trivia, now!

That was a bit in-depth.

20 / 50 and a few guesses (maybe three) I swear some were wrong answers, I will of course now watch quantam of solace and on her majestys secret service to prove I am right and should have another three points.

:)

Nobody knows what to call Microsoft's ex-Metro UI

Oh Dear.

"We at Microsoft 90000 or so, are all behind this" - or we get sacked.

"No one mutters the M word anymore" - What about F words?

"20 billion a year on design." - To end up with the ribbon and metro.

You could buy another country for that, or get a working aircraft carrier or three, or perhaps clear out third world debt for a small country and then ask some PHD people to create a better front end experienc for the cost of living expenses.

Better luck next time Blofeld! Five Bond plot myths busted

You missed another.

What about brosnon and the korean laser, golden eye was nothing to a solid single laser being constantly emitted from a space satellite and moving while he did it.

Windows 8 unleashed! Midnight launch for world+dog

Re: Another day another dollar

Hardware design is irrelevant other than does it work without overheating, can I hold it. Camera's and SD cards are only imnportant if you use them, but every user has to put up with the interface.

IF the surface JUST had the stupid tiles / hubs / icons / metro thing. Then is might be okay, but to have both is the problem for me. The version of win8 I used had 3 installs of internet explorer (metro, 32bit, 64bit), to shutdown was four menus in two different formats. that is the problem, it has no sense of itself and fails to be both 'new and innovating' or 'supporting the old interface' (lack of start button) That is what is crud about win8.

And having windows that change their colour depending on your background is just silly.

I don't buy a desktop or laptop based on whether I can skate board and I don't use web cams, I use it so I can play games and work in 'office' with as little amount of effort as possible.

Surface tablets snapped up on pre-order, but no camping in the street

I don't understand.

Who are these people, who is actually getting them on pre-order? I have never ever met a fan boi of windows, never have I known anyone get anything preorder on windows. I would like to meet one (the only one?) and ask them questions about sanity and inteligence?

After using win8 I will be avoiding all tablet and winpho based devices.

Microsoft has no plans for a second Windows 7 Service Pack

Re: LOL...

Actually the Z is olde english, it is indeed the UK that has changed the Z to S in more recent times. The Z that Americans use is in fact the correct version, as per Stephen Fry on QI.

However they do mess with the 'u' in words.

As to Windows, well openoffice and the little penguin do me fine with a yearly update, and I don't need to update as often, so I can do the same for windows by completely ignoring everything to do with win 8 and hoping 9 is as good as 7.

Everything Everywhere prices up UK 4G

Re: ouch

I am on £10 a month, unlimited texts, data and 300 minutes. Buy your own device and don't go for a handset from them.

However for those prices, ain't going to take it up.

Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

hmmm.

Interesting article but I can't help feel annoyed by "Early reviews of Windows 8 are promising. Testers and analysts say the operating system is stable, functional and innovative."

I have used it for a few days, innovative? It's windows 7 with a stapled on front.

Stable? Well everything takes up two different installs and to shut down you have to go to the side of the screen where a menu appears, press another button to get the shutdown area and then click on shut down. Hardly time saving. (I know they don't expect you to shut down, but as it is still windows, rebooting is not only required for updates, it is also reccommended to free up memory and system state. Mine has been stable but my colleague had to do a complete rebuild after it flatlined, so stability is a mixed bag.

Promising? Steam as the biggest online gaming company said negative things about it's future windows 8 plans so that is comforting for my main use of a windows machine. And most reviews have just said the silly icons "metro" is irrelevant, you either ignore (in which case why bother with it) or you infrequently use it. (so why have it?)

As a work user no company is realistically going to replace things for touch screens (not in a call centre anyway) so a work around to remove it will be needed and then you are back with windows 7, only including a 3rd party app to give you the start button (now available on stardock). So what is the point of 8?

If you could install it without all the rubbish on a none tablet it might make sense, but you can and it is called Windows 7.

Apple breaks ground on massive Oregon data center

I don't understand

For us UK readers, how big us is a costco store? Could we have it in something like linguine or whatever the measurement is for El Reg units.

Apple loses UK 'Samsung copied us' appeal: Must publicly GROVEL

Re: Colour

We can't get Assange because of due process and the fact we honour international law and do things properly. We could follow the US and just storm the place, or we could just invade the home country, make the ambassadorial team useless and claim it back. But as we don't, he is still there. That is the point of sanctuary.

That however has nothing whatsoever to do with our courts, the logic is sound. Apple sell a symbol and then tried to claim that wasn't part of the deal. Epic fail. Glad to see reasoned argument, shame the US is very quickly becoming the only place reason is an alien concept.

Free games for all after EA discount code goes viral

EA won't care

Afterall Origin is now on many more machines, just increasing their data rape policies of being able to legally take anything they want from mobile phones, facebook, PS3, xbox and Pc. Assuming you use one of them to install their games.

Just increases their detailed database and they will know who abused the system, afterall it is explicit in stating if you log in on facebook to use their service they can take all your information, it also states if you use you phone they can take your mobile number etc etc etc.

And there is also the caveat you agree that it is outside the DPA to do this, and that they use Asian servers to store it all.

Enjoy.

40,000 sign petition to oust Rep. Paul 'pit of hell' Broun

Re: An important idea here.

Your points make good sense but fall flat I am afriad.

He is a Dr, a person of respect in his community and as a Dr.

You do need to understand evolution to understand the MRSA of this world and how they have evolved and adapted and that antibiotics shouldn't be given in a lot of cases, because evolution is at play and bacteria and virus' adapt and evolve. This isn't rare, how else would you describe the difference between H1N1 and H3N5 if you don't explain the evolutionary adaptations of the different strains, or would he call them different species? H1N1 and H1N3 which are different evolutionary branches of the H1. If you don't understand that, you can't give a simple winter flu vaccine as they are tailored each year based on the genetic breakdown of the flu that is prevailent during summer. They are genetically targeted each year by science and medocial men and women who decide and make the vaccine. or does he think god creates them in a magic 'vat' to kill of another of his creations (the flu bug)

You do need to know about evolution and genetics for every baby born could and will include some kind of birth defect that is a genetic trait, not a 'gift from god'. Any worried parent will come asking such a Doctor to say why has my baby got X, Y and Z. and 'God giving it to you because he likes variety' simply isn't correct for some birth defects. And most right thinking parents wouldn't take that as a good answer (unless they too think like him)

You do need to know about evolution because how else would medical science explain so many parts of the human skeleton and internal workings no longer needed (allegedly) by humanity, cockcix, the appendix. You can't explain diet without explaining the human internal digestive system and how 100000 years ago fat was scarce and so our bodies hold evey bit it can, and obesity today is because fat is in great quantites in what we eat.

As a qualified Geographer and Geologist I am not going to explain how wrong he is and how modern science, chemsitry and physics are based on the same technology used daily. Including the same technology used to make the camera that filmed him and the technology to light the room. If a geologist hadn't mined tungsten which is laid down over millions of years in a deposit how else do you light the first light bulb, if a chemist didn't work out how to make an inert gas called argon or neon, how do you make modern pretty lightbulbs. If chemists hadn't broken oil down (after geologists found it) to make plastics for the camera case etc. Plastics which is based on something laid down from dead sea creatures over millions of years then crushed under pressure in a geological trap that acts as a sponge to keep the oil in a specific place.

Does he think god laid oil down 9000 years ago and he fills his car with magic? The pyramids are older than his view of the entire world.

The mans a tool, and a dangerous tool. He needs his doctors licence revoking and an investigation to be launched. As well as losing his position as anything to do with science or medicine.

Where is this petition?

Paul Allen: Windows 8 'promising' yet 'puzzling'

Re: IE Bookmarks and Desktop Links.....

As Paul Allen said it I would assume he knows what he is talking about (though he does mention it was not the final version), but even if it has changed. However the fact you just said if you open from the desktop it opens in the desktop apps, suggest more complexity than is needed for the average user. Far more than I can be bothered with if everything has a split personality before I use it.

Pastafarians: Get your noodly appendages off that Facebook suspect

Re: dammit typo

No there is more versses because he also said noodle doodle trees on the down beat of the chorus.

Ubuntu 12.10: More to Um Bongo Linux than Amazon ads

wtf?

I can't say I am against web apps as I use drop box and Android. But my desktop is a desktop, not a mobile device. I don't need to run web apps on a desktop, I use a desktop app for desktop stuff and it is called a program and there are a few that I use that a installed locally. I don't want to run my personal word docs and personal finances by what ubuntu think I should be doing, or google or MS. I run software to store locally and I DECIDE what goes onto the web as storage or sharing.

Having things stuck on as web apps as default is a slippery slope. Yes I shop at amazon, yes I quite like amazon, but I don't want everything I do to search via amazon. Am I to believe next time I look on urban dictionary to find out what a particular word is, that Amazon and ubuntu are both going to try and sell me something related? It will lead to very awkward searches and really dodgy results. :)

Unity was one step too far for me with ubuntu, but enforced web apps, searches with an amazon app built in. Taking the p*ss now Mr Shuttleworth.

I agree Linux to progress might need support, and money making with advertising is a possible revenue stream. Doesn't mean people want it though.

Apple 'hasn't really run out of iPhone 5s AT ALL'

Re: Ugh

Isnt' that most Apple employees?

Japanese boffins unfurl banner above newly-discovered Element 113

It's getting silly

If it is man made and horrendously unlikely to exist without massive cost or specific criteria, why is it on the table of elements? What next, compounds as well? The periodic table would never stop and all of these extra elements will never have a use in real life. Or be available to anyone in chemistry to work with to see if it can be used. Since 1940 have any of the new elements that are only man made been used to further existence, or even been recreated after the inital discovery and proof of concept tests?

As a graduate of Chemistry I am interested in new discoveries but just to get your name in the history books and proving you can is a little tedious to my mind. But I am not a chemist with access to unstable particle accelerators or reactors.

Besides what is the half life of it, what is the stable life span? Some of the newer exist for micro seconds.

McFlurry McMisdemeanour costs Welsh lass McJob

Wow the cheek

Given their cheap coke syrup costs less than 1p a litre and they sell it at around 200p a half litre. Mounsey is taking the piss.

Wow what a place to work. what a man to work for, he is in the Ryanair school of management.

Ten external battery packs

nice

I have the power monkey solar one and it is rubbish. Not the technology, that works most of the time, but the interface. It is soo complicated to just plug in and work. You never quite know when it is charging, discharging etc, so you have to keep the instructions with it all the time and even then it doesn't quite work as you don't know if you turn it on before working or plug it in etc. The instructions are poor and minimal and the kit itself is bulky, with adaptors and the box it comes in. Shame really. A recent holiday reound New Zealand and it was basically useless and I ended up use USB from my laptop or car cig lighter rechargers.

So I got the Go bat 2 and that is just 'plug and work'. glad to see El Reg' agrees with its reccommendation.

LONDON iPHONE 5 MADNESS: 'You must be CRAZY to buy Apple'

Problem is

That little black monolith isn't enough to keep them quiet, they will ooze smugness and sadness. Not to mention the same sad pathetic misfits in the queue, have real jobs where they might / will / could actually be responsible for proper things, like health care, roads, military stuff. Things we the normal people actually do need and can't have entrusted to gullible stupid morons that high five in public.

What we should be doing is photographing them and making sure they are not near anything "live", "dangerous" or "required" for the next 12 months, the little black monolith should mean they are taken out of society if it was bought while in a queue outside an apple store.

'Apple's iOS 6 maps app is SHOCKING, rushed and half-baked'

Re: Balmer

Exactly.

iPhone queue ‘superficial and pretentious’ says queuing fangirl

OMFG

The 'cult of scientology' and 'Apple' are one and the same, what a very sad and wierd video that I can only assume brainwashing is involved or something to do with pay related to creepiness. But judging by the clenched fist recognition by the guys in the queues this is American and they lap it up.

I always thought it was wierd in Apple, but that is just scary.

'Big brother icon' because the cult of scientology will try and correct my posting no doubt.

We either need a zombie icon to denote brainwashing or something defacing a picture of derren brown?

Mars rover Curiosity gets ready to blast its first rock

But...

Can we see photos of phobos passing the sun? That sounds cool.

One more try: Metro apps are now 'Windows Store' apps

Re: RE: "+1 for calling it Vista 2"

I haven't, you are not alone. I call it ME 3 as Vista 2 is Windows 7, it is what Vista should have been.

I do however agree Win8 is shaping up as ME, something that has no true identity in the market place or even in Microsoft.

Microsoft store apps? I used to download them on my HTC wizard (vario 2) from the microsoft store under Windows mobile 5 & 6.

Hardly new.

Ten iPhone 5 challengers

Only good feature with HTC X

Is you can turn off Sense. No SD card slot in this day and age is a crime, really is a shame HTC dropped the ball on that, but Samsung picked it up. The S3 should be an editors choice but at least you were honest in saying you like and are bias to HTC.

I like them, but this one (desire HD) will be my last in a long line. Sense is just bloaty and horrible now.

Microsoft preparing for diskless Windows 8 PCs

MS FUD

Wow USB stick Windows runs really hot, just shows how much hammering the Windows OS does to HDD's and how appalling it is at managing itself or looking after hardware. But as articles go MS has overcome their own limits. Yay!!!!

4 partitions, well that is one way to limit dual booting with a better OS (fruit or penguin based) If you can't beat them make it so techincally complicated and difficult that you can't.

HTC's 4G patent beef could get iPhone 5 BANNED in US

Re: Why Apple fans assume people don't buy Apple is because they can't afford it:

GS3 has more features and is bigger, that would explain to me why it costs the same. Having seen colleagues with the Iphone 4s and GS3 the fact two of the Apple fanbois traded them in for the GS3 and it's improved features is proof (to me at least) the difference are significant. And easily identifable to Apple fanbois.

I don't have either as my current phone is okay, but things like removable battery, sd card and then all the sofware stuff seem to make up for the price hike over the S2, and there isn't fruit anywhere near it.

I wish HTC all the luck in the world, but the US is bias in favour of home industries so I think only Google will really stand a chance, until the US patent farce is sorted out.

iPad no flight risk says Federal Aviation Authority

Means nothing to me

I am too busy clutching the seat in fear of imminent explosive death to care about take off or landing procedures or whether my phone is on or off.

As long as the pilot or planes CPU knows what's going on I don't care to be honest.

Ten digital radios to suit all budgets

eh?

To suit all budgets?

As long as they are above £100? My budget for DAB is £0, because I don't need one. And with prices that high for a good one, I don't see the tempation to save up. £100 on a radio or a weekend drinking, or a new SSD, or 12 month car tax.

Too many things are better value, so lets review £20 DAB radios next time...

Listen up, Nokia: Get Lumia show-offs in pubs or it's game over

good article but it just highlights how it won't sell.

I agree that the people hub has been oversold, but the article still goes on about the killer feature being a camera and what the camera can do in taking photos in dark, light, sunshine, rooms or while moving. The other article on them faking what the camera can do. It's all about camera's... For a phone.

People don't by phones for cameras (quick straw pole of the twenty in my office and none bought their based on camera HTC, Samsung and iphone mostly), they buy phones on the most part to be good at a few things and camera's are not the main one, they are usually a third or fouth feature behind calls, texts and sometimes internet access.

So Lumia's are sold the first time round as allowing me to connect to twitter and facebook, (I use neither) and now as a camera (I have an SLR and the photos I take on my phone are few and far between) so again what use to me is an oversized phone from Nokia?

I know I am biased as Nokia burned me with the N900, I am also biased because I don't like the UI because you can't change background, remove hubs etc. And it is rubbish landscape in portrait design. It's locked down tighter than Apple's offerings.

But Nokia won't convince many people based on how good their camera is, when at the end of the day all the other features are still Windows and still nothing like the Samsung S3 or the Iphone.

Edgy penguins test-fly Ubuntu's Quantal Quetzal

Re: Shame

The fact people are having to explain it, is the reason the Unity UI fails.

I like Linux, all my machines are Linux but Ui's should be functional and 12.04 removed the simple tick box for getting rid of it, and I just can't be bothered hunting google when the time taken to install ubuntu 12.04 is the same time it took to install MINT 12.

And as I like to try new flavours every now and then, MINT didn't have the issues and still had a functional UI.

- Granted I had loads of graphic issues in MINT to start, but then in 12.04 I had loads of network issues (you still need to install SAMBA, really? It isn't default yet?) to solve, so it balances out.

Shame

It still has Unity, won't be coming back to ubuntu for this one then.

Nokia apologizes for faking Lumia 920 ad

Re: So...

Problem is Nokia is always about camera's, can't remember anything ever in a nokia and about other features, always the camera. At least Samsung mentions different things and Apple used to go on about all the different things you could do then it was retina display. Nokia is cameras... they should just make cameras, it would be far better for them.

Google's stats show few Android tablets in use

Google play is rubbish.

Problem with Google is google.

The OS is still in it's infancy. I had my transformer prime away from the internet for a week in July and very quickly it becomes unstable, in less than a day updates were required to make it run, three (file explorer, mobo player, docs to go full) apps broke including the office apps and needed reinstalling. So as a business tool it just isn't there, or remotely stable enough to warrant replacing laptops. Whether app writers haven't updated to 4.0 or whether the OS just can't live without touching Google servers, either way my eee PC of four years is still the favoured choice for functional work.

I have to have 2 office apps installed (so they work) but to copy and paste between documents, you can't copy and paste from 2 docs inside dosc to go for example.

Android 4 doesn't do sound via usb so you can't do any of the add ons or peripherals that Ipads have, or that I have for my eeePC. As a result my Transformer Prime is limited to crap speakers (stereo speakers on the same side of the machine is not stereo). Google turned off the feature but the code is there and they are ignoring the 100s of people pleading on their bug / feature list.

Most of the lower spec systems don't do google play at all. you have to really be keen to install it on some.

15 minutes refund period is a joke when you consider half the rubbish that is in there. And market forces are not a good a good way to run a business of that sort. I have been scammed a few times buying fake apps and so don't trust anything on there now.

Most apps are just money grabbing exercises and I have stopped looking, One game (can't remember which but it is a recent) is commented as needing £300 if you buy all game purchases, and strike fleet omega is around £200. Anything from Glu mobile is a scam for cash and that is the norm, so who would seriously go looking for apps for any length of time.

Quite a lot of apps now have started grabbing phone details, privacy is a joke. Why else would elemental need to know your phone details? It is sodoku, what reason would it need contacts and phone details? The whole thing is fishier than Whitby.

Too many devices don't work with apps from google play, too many devices are listed as problems in app comments. Newer ones are not supported yet and apps quite frequently no longer support the older ones because dev's move on. (HTC desire is no longer supported for example in some apps that I have)

I like my transformer prime (Despite it being crap away from the internet) and hate all things Apple, but as a fondle slab I only use google play rarely to update my apps, I haven't got a new one in months because the whole site is filled with junk and viruses that just want your money or personal details. And my foray into the Amazon site is that it is slow and clunky and not very easy to navigate, so it is easy to see why Apple still leads by a mile.

The world's first Windows Phone 8 hands on – what's it like?

Eh?

Your pictures still look to show the god awful 'landscape in portrait' design, where you can see half images because it requires you to slide it sideways.

Still no background or modifying for the user, still stuck with hubs and tiles or bricks or whatever windows call them nowadays in the "not-metro" world.

I always said I would steer clear of Nokia after the N900 and how they left people high and dry, but winpho 8 doesn't seem like something I should look at. No SD card? Really?

You'll be on a list 3 hrs after you start downloading from pirates - study

No

Gordon 'Stalin' Brown, 'Lord of the Sith' Mandelson and Jacquie (Jack boot) Smith passed the digitial economy bill 1 week before the last election at 11PM and that that allows it. Actually it requires it of ISP's.

NASA captures mind-bogglingly gorgeous solar video

Wow.

I for one like our atmosphere that little bit more. (Well the resistant / defensive qualities it has)

Torvalds bellows: 'The GNOME PEOPLE are in TOTAL DENIAL'

I think you miss the point of the post.

MS is learning, win 95 users can do tons on their PC, DOS was still there and clever people could use it to do stuff in the background, while dumb users can trundle along with windows and double clicks.

XP, now has admin rights and you need to be an admin to do things because dumb users could do too much in win 95 and 98. DOS is reduced to a shell like "thing" with some commands missing and some functionality gone. Compatibility mode is introduced and the legacy of support and bloat is well and truly up and running. Control Panel has gone from useful icons to classifications but you can still go back to the useful ones instead of 'dumb' pictures.

Vista, now users are too stupid to not infect and break their machines the UAC is introduced, which tells users if they are about to make a stupid decision. In a reallllllllyyy annoying way of upto 3 pop ups. DOS is not even DOS and an extra 'pretty' layer is now in place so you have one extra layer of pop ups to get passed before you can actually find that network driver or check your network settings.

Win 7, most functionality is gone from users, buried under upto 9 layers of hidden windows and renaming so you can't find it even it you work in IT. Conflicting and often changed registry settings bury thingss under fluff so you can't actually find anything as a user. (probably for good reason) Now the control panel can't be changed back and you have to really want to search for anything remotely useful, a nice search facilty relies on you knowing the name and even then it isn't great. This isn't functional change, this is change for changes sake as when you dig through it all, the same screens exist that you had in XP.

Windows 8, ever more layers because the "not-metro" has now added a gay layer of buttons on top of the very well layered and hidden win 7 (not really 6.1 vista upgrade - honest)

MS are learning and their dominance will change, My family don't use windows, we are linux and android people because technology now isn't suited to a bloat ridden nightmare. Most friends are now Apple or Android users and MS is a third place, also ran for the home desktop. That and MS have bought their dominace, like the eeePC with linux on an SSD, so MS paid to have the HDD instead and linux drive up leaving only MS?

Linux has a 'do it and it runs, or you sudo it and it runs as admin', in four years that is all it has ever done. The terminal hasn't changed and neither have the screens (until ubunti cocked it all up with unity)

After working in IT for 12 years I have plenty of dumb users that we lock down to limited functionality for one simple reason, they are dumb users. If they were loose on linux, geeezzzzz I am scared of the results. But on a locked down XP and Win7 we can keep them safe from themselves. (Well one still unplugged network cables then logged call to say network no longer worked, one rebooted the monitor instead of her desktop etc etc)

At least I now know the name of the moron who runs Gnome.

Amazon flings open doors to Android Appstore in Europe

I am all for choice, but

I agree with Mark c Casey, too little, too late.

But I installed the Amazon App store anyway (more to test out my QR reader than anything else), found it slow and jerky to move and navigate, even though Google play has gone the awful look of 'tiles' and 'hubs' or whatever crap Winpho 8 is called nowadays. The Amazon store is clunky, took me ages to get it to side scroll so for five mins I though you only had 3 apps to choose from, and I have the desire HTC Desire HD, not really a slow poke. God help those with less specced stuff.

And the app' choice was pants. Pay for angry birds space? I already have it. Some apps are like 6 quid for rubbish.

'iPhone 5' released by Chinese Apple copycat

Re: Well..

That would be funny. Goophone have every right to take Apple and the iphone 5 to court for infringement as they came out first and no apple official photos exist. And in China (Home of anything from China wins automatically - just ask BMW)

Arctic ice shrinks to ‘smallest in satellite era’ - NASA

It is all irrelevant.

The water cycle (rain) is the carbon dump, takes the CO2 out the atmosphere the quickest and puts it in the sea. So it is slowly becoming carbonic acid, very slight acidity which will infect and kill most life that can't adapt over the coming years.

As the biggest source of O2 on this planet is sea algae, and not the amazon rain forest. We are all f00ked if that algae can't adapt to save us.

Ubisoft: 'Vast majority of PC gamers are PIRATES'

Idiots.

I use steam, 100% legal games and fully supported by the nice devs at steam (most of the time anyway)

That is a DRM process and it works nicely.

DRM kills games if done badly because it saps resources and you have to be online, which means you can't stick on a laptop and play on the train / plane / holiday. So people pirate just to get a game to work half the time. And because EA especially make such poor sequels that people want to try before they buy.

And Ubisoft haven't made a good game for ages, so no wonder they don't sell.

Creepy skull find proves Man penetrated Asia 60,000 years ago

Nah, evolution isn't like that all the time.

We have evolved, after the 'thumb' helped us the main evolution was to brain power, usage and size. that has allowed us to think our way through things and not muslce our way. So body mass has dropped and even the strongest man today is 10% less muscled than ancient women, we just don't need it when we have tools.

Not all evolution is things like extra limbs or armour and 60k years in evolution terms is small fry. Sharks haven't evolved in millions of years, so adaptation is subjectve to a species and it's evnironment, Why change if you don't need to. Humans change our envinronment to our needs, not adapt to it. Or we move to environments we like, just like millions of other species who migrate

Facebook facepalm: US judge tosses out 'sponsored stories' deal

Re: Non-FB user question

It depends. The EULA for Electronic Arts has a caveat declaring quite openly that your information will be taken outside an area of the DPA and by signing it you agree that this can happen. (Getting round your point of both parties agreeing)

It also quite clearly states that you CANNOT launch a class action suit or jury trial against EA for letting all your data go.

It ALSO states that if you login via facebook it can trawl your facebook account and if you agree on your mobile if can trawl that as well, including phone number etc. By 'trawling' I mean it can copy, take, read and save anything it wants.

As I have nothing to do with Facebook the caveat of DPA falls on it's arse if they have something similar (won't surprise me if they add one very soon), as does the caveat of both parties knowing. Because you agreed to it, and there is enough press and internet articles about how crap face book is with regards privacy. (you don't have any privacy, they own it all)

Given Facebook publically telling you what it is doing from the start I am note sure why they even made it to court, shouldn't be able to sue facebook as they signed up for it.

More fool them.

Scientists find safer way to store hydrogen

Re: Exhaust temperature?

Didn't the japs design a home fuel cell, looked like a server rack but mounted outside the house and would provide 50000 hours to the average home.

Pretty sure they were stable and almost ready for production a few years back, afterall in a home you won't have movement and likely bumps, jolts and crashes.

A quick google and found this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8563928.stm

So pretty sure they understand it enough.

Office 2013 to eat own file-format dog food

Re: "Office Open XML"

Didn't they bribe half the nations on the planet to get it passed? I seem to remember plenty of evidence about their dodgy dealings.

MS don't know the meaning of the word 'open source' or following 'standards'. Well not in the sense that the world understands, they do follow the MS dictionary* definition of 'open source' and open 'standards'.

*The same dictionary that was released in a new version recently where 'metro' doesn't exist.

Ten Android games

Missing a few points.

Some goodies on the list but your review missed massive factors.

Strike fleet omega is a freemium game, impossible to progress after a while because upgrades cost. You have to unlock mega credits (cube like things) and you get maybe 2 or 3 in later levels, if you are quick and good. However you need 40 or so to buy chepaest upgrades (try an artillery ship to level 3, or buy the advanced fighter carriers)

It is only thanks to peer pressure that replaying early levels unlocks 'material' allowing a replay value, otherwise you wouldn't be able to progress or upgrade either. And replaying early leavels actually require you to spend mega credits on the doomsday weapo as a demonstration on how to use it. Seriously bad game if you don't want to spend real money on a suppodesly free game.

Now I support free games, but I worked it out that it would be over 20 quid if you want to be able to upgrade and but enough to get the all the ships.

Radiant HD as well is a must purchase or you will struggle, half those turrets you show in your screen shot are a purchase only affair with unlock packs. Only a quid each or so, but there are 5 or 6 of them.

Curiosity's new OS upgrade ready to go live

Re: I have to say that the "valley's" entering the crater ...

Actually it does look like a fluvial system and that can and does include sand dunes to a leyperson.

It doesn't prove water per se, but does prove air currents. However the 'clast' and visual aspects of the photos are very similar to evidence found on Earth so an assumption they were formed the same way is a fair estimate based on a 2d image. It could be water, but could also be just air formed.

The clast composition and formation however could well prove water as that is how they can be formed. Given the 'blast' effect ony cleared a small area and there isn't much top surface would suggest there is either really strong winds (not much depostion of sediment) or not much dust around to settle (what is deposited is a thing layer), or just not much movement by wind which might suggest more water formation than wind.

Just a few images and you can use existing knowledge to determine tons of stuff, I bet geologosts and geographers will be wetting themselves over the next few months, very exciting stuff.

I base my assessment on a Dual honours degree in Geography and Geology, including a semester on Martian topography and geophysics.