Posts by Dave 126

Ten... Bedroom Gadget Treats

Velux BlackOuts work well (roller blinds). Can't vouch for any other brand.

To make your own black out curtains, you might sew small magnets into the edges, and place a ferrous strip in your wall flush with your plaster work. Fill, sand and repaint.

Re avoiding iPod.

Search 'Tripath Amp', have a read about. Available from different manufacturers and by all accounts are very good for secondary setups, roughly 20W. About £20 - £30. Couple with some classic British speakers out the back of your local newspaper for £10 - 20 and you have a system that will beat these iPod docks into next week for less than £50.

That said, Android device makers really should agree set up a common dock system amongst themselves... convenience counts for a lot.

Re: @Dave 126 (was: Missing item... )

Taken on board. Was half tempted to try use the 100W breakout socket of my aforementioned alarm clock thingy to heat water for coffee but... No No No!

Being simultaneously scalded, incinerated and electrocuted is not a good way to start any day!

: D

Absent from article:

Velux BlackOut blinds. 'Does what it says on the tin'

Re: I'm dubious

An older Sony PSP is very good for this purpose- has wifi and audio out. Choice of internet radio applications, my favourite having a wood-style fascia and a single knob with two positions: 'Jazz' and 'Not Jazz'. Simple!

Re: Talk about trusting the cloud

Cost / risk / benefit.

Is the benefit to you worth the cost / risk of cost?

Do you have a medical condition that can be (or yet undiagnosed) made aggravated / triggered by lack of sleep?

If you are concerned by medical data being transmitted, have a look at 'Telehealth':

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-16671656

Re: Missing item...

You're right, they do seem to have died out. Krups make some filter coffee machines with timers, but they are expensive...

Cheap solution: Prepare coffee the night before and put it in a Thermos flask. Optionally place Thermos flask on radiator (in winter) to minimise heat loss. Wake up and enjoy hot coffee with minimum of fuss and movement from duvet.

Re: I'm dubious

The alarm clocks that dim a light before you sleep, and slowly brighten to wake you are good, if seemingly pricey. I have a model made by Sunrise System with a break-out socket so you can add an (incandescent) lamp of your choice. If nothing else, the lamp on/off switch is a pleasing microswitch on the front face, easier to locate than the inline on/off switch of the attached lamp. The large time display dims and brightens according how bright the lamp is, and the unit can be used as user-controllable dimmer, in addition to dimming and brightening itself. Its one of those thoughtfully designed, fit for a single purpose products that one comes to appreciate. Found in charity shop for £2.50 but worth its £50 list price.

On a similar note, I have installed f.Lux on my PC, which adjusts your display's colour-temperature (bluer during daylight hours, warmer in evenings) to closer match ambient light: eg, 'white' on your monitor more closely resembles an adjacent sheet of white paper. It works very well, and even mitigates the Chrome White Flash Of Ow! My Eyes on iPlayer. Can be toggled off for when colour-accuracy is required.

Re: Gawd/ess. The mind boggles.

A scientist on the Australian ABC Radio National Science Show made the same point about melatonin- going from Oz to US to attend talks and wanting to be awake. Available in the US, he notes, but not Australia.

Re: I think it's safe to say

That head-band thingy may be useful for someone with a medical condition such as epilepsy. Gathering data about their actual sleep so that it can be cross-referenced against their seizures in not pointless.

But perhaps the device belongs in an ElReg Top Ten Medical Gadgets article.

Laptop computers are crap

Re: Displays and keyboards

The points you raise are valid: better windowing software can alleviate many of the issues raised (but not all)

I suspect you have been downvoted because you have underestimated the frustration that people feel at only being able to buy laptops with screens inferior to those they had a few ago. Also, I'm not sure as to how better windowing software can make up for not having a number-pad.

: D

Re: Wise article

A stick inserted to the left of the Esc key would hit the screen's bezel on many laptops, not the screen itself. However, your point still stands.

If anyone knows of some 1" long, flexible USB extension ribbon cables (that can be bent through 90º and retain said angle) I would love to hear from you.

Sorry to have banged on about them on a few posts, but they seem to be an easy, simple and cheap way to solve both one issue in the original article, and issues raised by fellow commentards.

+Protect your USB device and your computer's USB ports.

+Make use of USB ports that are too close together

+Use dongles where space is constrained, such as on a train

+Sling your laptop into its bag with having to remove your dongles or sticks

+Use dongles more easily on machines that have god-awful industrial 'design' (Older Dell Optiplex, I'm looking at YOU!)

Re: I had a marvellous on-line argument the other week

Got to agree with the ghost of Steve Jobs here - flash can be a CPU-cycle hogging PITA on a desktop (or was till a version with GPU support came out), let alone a mobile device with tighter power constraints. If websites start using something other than Flash, then good. And if it takes a company with a fair bit of clout to start nudging them that way, fair does.

Oh, but I disable my FlashBlock for ElReg, as it seems only fair.

Re: External monitor

Very true. But then it would most likely have a 16:9 screen too : D

Re: Baseless Rant

Thank you.

Re: I had a marvellous on-line argument the other week

Not the screen. Its the ARM (tablet) vs x86 (netbook) CPU architecture that's most likely responsible for the diffence in battery life.

Re: Smell the reality Mr.Writer....

Reality? 4:3 isn't square. And yes, if you trawl the interwebs, you will find an old NASA or USAF document detailing the human field of vision (approx 16:9 but curvy shaped and with fuzzy areas) but an A4 document is taller than it is wide.

As are the pages in most books and magazines you have. Its not much fun if the sentences you are reading span your entire field of view (especially since our peripheral vision is geared for movement, not sharpness). That is why magazines often employ multiple columns on one page. Don't believe me? Go watch a subtitled film at the cinema and sit right at the front. You won't thank me for it!

In addition, the actual working window on a display is often made even narrower than 16:9, because of the Taskbar, Window Title and Footer bars take up vertical space.

Your Macbook has a 16:10 resolution. No one here is trying to outlaw 16:9; we just want the option.

Re: 100% True !

-Work

+ Depends where you are. Get an external display and keyboard- if only for the better ergonomics. Cheaper than a chiropractor. For Office etc, no difference.

- play games - desktops GPUS are far better (also see below)

+ Mobile GPUs can do the job though. Not at 8x AA full details 60 fps, but hey... buy a PS3 for cheaper than the latest Geforce.

- watch films/tv (watching 1920x1080 on a large screen is so much better)

+That is what your TV is for

- controlling - touchpads are complete wank

+ Buy a mouse

- listening to music (unless you like tinny sounds)

+ Headphones are your friend. Or an external amp. On a budget? Google 'Tripath Amp'. Last I looked, my desktop didn't have ANY speakers of its own.

- upgrading

+Okay, you've got me. It does seem a shame to waste a good display just because your CPU lacks grunt. : D

External monitor

Yes, within limits though, if you only have a VGA-out socket.

It's rather hard to find out what those limits are.

I did fancy a Dell 2560 x 1600 Ultrasharp jobbie. Ho hum.

Re: It's not the same.

Apologies, did not know you were not using Windows / OSX. However:

$ sudo apt-get install xbindkeys will help you.

Unless of course your system doesn't support USB Human Input Devices.

I do agree that the implementation of the middle button on many trackpads is very poor (push L & R at the same time).

You do know that most laptops allow the trackpad to be turned off? Usually [Fn]+[an F key].

Also, you can disable the track hilst you are typing:

http://forums.bodhilinux.com/index.php?/topic/2033-disabling-touchpad-while-typing/

Hope this helps.

Re: You contradict yourself, sir!

"On that note, I never use the wheel but I do use middle button a lot. With a wheelmouse hitting that button invariably means also causing several scrolling events, with high probability."

I have felt your pain.

Solution: Buy a mouse with buttons on the side, in addition to the traditional L, R and Middle. Some Logitech rodents have a 'Zoom' button by the thumb, next to the browser Frwd /Back buttons. Using 'Setpoint' (mouse config) I set that to be the middle button, and make the [scroll wheel push down + Scroll] the 'browser zoom' button.

This is essential workaround because many CAD packages use [Middle Button + move] for rotate, and [Scroll Wheel only] for view zoom. And as you say, it is tricky to push down on the scroll-wheel without scrolling, especially on Logitech mice with the free-scrolling wheel (though it can be made to go click click click if required.

And you will probably find the extra buttons very handy. It's hard to go back to a less well-endowed mouse. I'm sure Microsoft mice are good too, I just haven't tried them for years. I hope this helps.

Re: Baseless Rant

Yeah, T60 is still available?

Readers: Please suggest 1920 x 1200 + midrange laptops. I'm aware of some pricer Lenevos and Apple of course, but they seem extinct at lower price points. Of all the points in the article, the 1st, screen aspect ratio, is the most important to me, and the hardest to rectify.

: D

Agree with article. Some suggestions / inventions.

Good article.

Regarding the USB spacing, I think that chubby flash drive makers should take some flack. Stick your sticks on a diet!

Solution: Flexible USB extension ribbon cables- 1" long. Reason: To avoid damage to either the USB device or the port when I'm being clumsy. But they would also solve the spacing issue. Also, negate need to remove devices when slipping laptop in bag. Someone, please make them!

Use a tablet as a secondary monitor. Most tablet users have a laptop, I imagine. C'mon, Samsung, Acer, whoever- this is a feature that will distinguish you from your competitors! Apple only don't do it because they sell enough tablets already.

Number Pad. I bought my sister a USB number pad some time ago, and she loves it. She has something to do with finance. Those of my peers who are in finance tend to be women, with little cutsey ThinkPads, sans number pad. D'oh!

Solution: Swap out the Optical drive for a retractable number pad. These ladies have DVD players under their TVs, they don't need one on a 13" lappie!

<smug mode> This is an older DELL Vostro, Core2 Duo T9550 with a 17" 1920 x 1200. Refurb. No complaints. I think I got lucky; anything older wouldn't have enough grunt, anything newer would have a godawful 1080 screen. It dodges most of the points in the article, but only because it is a big heavy bastard. It think's its a desktop. 7200 rpm etc </smug mode>

Re: Displays and keyboards

And number pads are for accountants. ;-)

In jest, I know : D

But the article was about real work. On older CAD packages, the number pad was dead handy for entering translations.

So what's the worst movie NEVER made?

Re: Why tamper with perfection?

Casablanca in colour? It's been done- and is actually rather damn good!

Bugs Bunny in Carrot Blanca:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65duqRL0UvA

Re: retelling of Heart of Darkness

@Michael H.F. Wilkinson

Perhaps it doesn't need retelling, but it is this idea of the framing ( 'we were once the savages') not present Apocalypse Now which would be fun to play with. Only from our Western perspective, it will be 'We WILL be the savages' in the proposed retelling, since the protagonists will be Asian.

I am glad we have both Conrad and Coppolla, just as both Seven Pillars of Wisdom and Lawrence of Arabia are remarkable in their respective mediums.

On this subject, the director of the Royal Shakespeare Company was on Midweek on Radio4, IIRC, addressing the issue of updating the Bard's stories.

Of course, the opposite arguments has its merits: some would ask 'Why bother even pretending you've come up with an original plot when the Greeks are bound to have already done it? - Just retell it!'

@Wojcik

Agreed.

But colonialism is as old as the hills. It gives you mixtures of cultures, battles and exotic maidens... ie box office gold! When Isaac Asimov laid down some tips for sci-fi writers, he said to read up on your history. Being a professor of the Old Testament (and of bio-chemistry) gave him a head start, though! A lesson not lost on Ridley Scott, it seems.

Now, where did I put my copy of Nostromo?

Starring: Ricky Gervais.

Directed by: " "

Screenplay by: " "

Adapted from an original story by: " "

Synopsis: [Does it really make any difference?]

Yep, I heard that. When Spike always reminded me of a gaunt Bob Dylan.

Spiegal!

Re: Titanic II

Yeah, but it wouldn't be as bad as the one where the same ship's cook helps some Native Americans fight an oil well.

Steven Seagal Juice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IId64OJdCKM

Re: OMG!

Beware the 'Springtime for Hitler' situation: If you really really try to make it bad, it might end up brilliant.

Mel Brooks' The Producers.

Re: Valiant effort for a really poor film script!!

Indeed. One part of the book that wasn't in Apocalypse Now was that the Marlow asks his listeners to consider the plight of a Roman sailor, navigating his way up the Thames. Surrounded by mists, grey skies, no wine... amongst savages. Entering the heart of darkness.

For the futuristc remake, this same framing juxtaposition could be Coppola's Apocolypse Now, and the main story (with Kurtz) could be told from the point of view of a South East Asian Marlowe, moving deeper into what had once been the USA, but now a savage wasteland. Asian trading Companies ('The Company', or the 'East India Company'!) have been sponsoring expeditions to the North American wastelands for profit, in the form of scrap metals and other resources.

Hey AC, let's get together with some pens and paper

: D

Life on Mars found – in 1976

Re: What's the betting

Not in the U.K, but in District 9 of Johannesburg

Re: My memory is hazy but...

Heck, it was only made unavailable a couple of days ago, but the BBC Horizon Guide to Mars (a clip show assembled from Horizon Mars episodes of the decades) was on iPlayer last week. Probably on a well known video site, if your scruples will allow you to watch it.

Whilst you're there, check out "To Mars by A Bomb", a BBC doc about the Orion Project (or even better, buy the book). What happens when you take some ex-Manhattan Project physicists and a former Czech resistance fighter come plastic-explosives expert, with a view to blasting a sodding big ship into orbit by dropping nuclear bombs behind it - at a rate of four every second. Freeman Dyson concludes that public perception of mad scientists might have grain of truth.

Re: Or to mangle some dead dude's quote

Re: amanfrommars 1

Arthur C Clarke's 1961 "Dial F For Frankenstein", about the world wide network of telephone exchanges achieving conciousness.

Alfred Bester's 1975 novel The Computer Connection, A.K.A. Extro. Same sorta thing, but with computer networks. And time travel and immortals, bizarrely.

William Gibson's Neuromancer. Ditto. But with Rastafarians in space (to keep the Babylon away from their hydroponics)

Ghost in the Shell, feature-length anime. Ditto. But with walking tanks and invisibility cloaks.

Iain M Bank's Feersum Enjinn, though the construct appears designed, rather than emergent. Contains steam locomotives and talking ants.

Re: Or to mangle some dead dude's quote

Mangled Disraeli Gears

Re: Is it too soon to launch a preemptive strike?

Send them a pot noodle? That would be just cause for them declaring war!

Raspberry Pi?

@Joeman

I hope that the reason you retrospectively come up with to justify your purchase gives you more utility, satisfaction and fun than the project you were thinking of when you originally ordered you Pi.

Bacteria isolated for four million years beat newest antibiotic

Re: Every one is an expert..

Well, in a pitch dark cave there would be no selection pressure to keep the skin dark and UV proof. Any albino-like mutations would remain uncorrected. And that is assuming there is merely zero cost to having pigment.

If there is a cost to producing pigment that gives zero benefit, no matter how small a cost, the pigment will be lost over the ages.

For example, experiments on guinea pigs show that the pigmented areas of their skin is more susceptible to frost bite, thus supporting anecdotal observations regarding soldiers in the Korean War. Melanin is the pigment common to most animals other than spiders.

Much of evolution is about tiny advantages over many, many generations.

Starck brewing 'fairly, if not very, revolutionary' Apple THING

One theory:

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/04/13/philippe-starcks-project-with-apple-is-steve-jobs-yacht/

Some millionaires go by "If it flies, floats or fornicates, rent it. It's cheaper in the long run". Billionaires, it seems, don't have to worry!

Oh, and just to show that Starck can be more sober:

http://www.starck.com/fr/design/categories/design_industriel/bagages.html#zab

Re: Ummm....

Not if you're French! : D

Re: form over function

Possibly, I haven't tried enough of them.

However, the Zab backpacks he designed with Samonsite were absolutely superb, functionally. Understated and slender, but could expand to about 25 litres. Little unfussy details. The straps were retractable, like seatbelts. I don't go out of my way for designer man-bags, but spotted it in TK Max.

***

Hmm... don't know what to make of this story. Can't see why he would voluntarily dent his reputation by claiming something that is demonstrably false.

If true, it might be a collaboration with Apple for the sake of charity- like the Product RED range. Or something daft, like the U2 iPod.

Maybe Cook thinks we've all got a bit too used to Sir Jonny's efforts - and Jonny himself might be getting bored - so maybe a step away from the minimal is more plausible that at first it seems.

Printers SMASHED to bits in Office Space copycat revenge vid

Re: What?

Hmm, or some sort of trebuchet

(Northern Exposure, with a piano, action starts at 1:50)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJgt-HO0_kY

Re: Did no-one think to go...

Yep, industry standard technique is to close eyes and turn away before hammer hits target.

Developer leaks Microsoft product plans for next two years

Yep, I had a perfectly serviceable word processor and DTP program on a 486 SX 25 or Mac LC III, either with 4MB RAM. Autosave was a nice touch on some Win2k system, when my swinging legs caught the power cable, but what have you done for me lately?

By 'lately', I mean the last decade.

Dear Microsoft...

... about your Ribbon Interface or whatever the f*&^ it is. As schoolboys we were taught that it was good practice to run the old old system concurrently with the new. Y'know, with a view to ironing out user issues and bugs.

You might have heard of this hot tempered geezer who took his company from what looked like a terminal decline to being worth more than Exxon, FFS. Guess what? Menus are mandatory on his system. Menus- those things your users have been using for 20 f*&^ing years. I'm sure you have a reason for making users choose between paying for a version of your software that is shit + your OS, and a good version + your competitor's OS. But please tell us what it is.

I appreciate that you have a webpage that tells me where to find a Ribbon command for a given menu selection- why the f*&^ you couldn't link it to the command in question in the f*&^ing UI is beyond me.

Yours faithfully

(faith so sorely tested over the years its beyond a joke)

Re: HOORAH

Yeah... about your caps-lock key: it appears broken. This has already been pointed out to you in another post, politely and in an in a friendly manner.

Please fix it.

Emirates wedges national ID cards inside NFC phones

Yep

like some parking ticket machines in London... mobile phone required!

(not the best example, I know, but true)

Re: In a better world...

Agreed.

Hence the 'off' switch, and option to leave ring/wristwatch at home.

But this gives option to leave handset at home and use whatever handset I find.

Also 'medical only option', giving paramedics pertinent information such as known allergies to drugs, blood-type etc.

Naked gyrating iPad vid exposes truth behind Apple's billions

1/4 million people? Sheeeeeeeiiiit!