Posts by Passing Through

Work in the tech industry? The Ukraine WAR is coming to YOU

Re: Sanctions

Long term this just makes Russia stronger. Sure, they loose some customers today, but oil and gas will still have a market in 50 yrs time when its around £1000 a barrel. The UK pumped most of its oil when it was <£30. Whos laughing now?

That's what I think about sanctions preventing Iran selling its oil, as I see it the long term effect will be to make Iran richer in the future.

Could well work for Russia too.

As for Democracy relying on the losers trusting the victors, our government wasn't even elected but that's not holding them back from privatising the NHS.

Re: Morals, ethics, principles...

I'm beginning to realise that WE are the bad guys.

NATO in particular seem to be a war waiting to happen.

Must be watching to much RT.

Microsoft in 1-year Windows XP survival deal with UK govt

Customer

And that's the problem, why on earth should a national government have to 'act as a single customer'

Surely a bit of old fashioned 'big government' could run its own IT .

you said it yourself Dave 'profit is not a dirty word' so what's wrong with PUBLIC enterprise.

after all were all in it together.

'Hello, is that the space station? NASA here. Can you put us through to Moscow?'

NATO

Three comments for now cos it's late.

Perhaps NATO should have been abolished when the USSR ceased trading.

I watched Putins speech on RT and you could see his point, Obama on the other hand said that "people should be free to choose who governs them" or something like that, unless they live in Crimea apparently.

George Galloway and Nigel Farage have both picked up on the sneaky expansionism of EU /NATO/USA/The West/

The shuttle was I suppose 'man rated' and failed twice, personally I'd rather risk unrated than die on ISS

Scotland is having a referendum, perhaps they will join Russia

Three?

Massive new AIRSHIP to enter commercial service at British dirigible base

Helium?

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Helium is a scarce and finite resource, that has unique and vauable properties.

That being so, it's probably not a good idea to use it up on an industrial scale.

Of course it's also difficult to store so maybe it'll just disappear anyway if we don't use it.

Ubuntu 13.10: Meet the Linux distro with a bizarre Britney Spears fixation

Re: @ Pete 2 - Reversing Moore's Law

"The problem with Unity and other interfaces like it is that it sabotages my ability to keep the most relevant stuff handy."

I find it very easy to keep relevant stuff handy with Unity, any application I need regularly can have its own one click launcher button, anything I've worked on recently comes up at the top of the list without inputting a search at all, although it's faster to start typing whatever it is I want.

I'm using an iPad right now so just fired up my netbook to check I wasn't making stuff up, the letter M brings up Mahjong 'te' brings up terminal and text editor, 'tex' loses terminal and adds Libreofficewriter, etc, etc,

Lots of people complain over losing their menus but there are problems with menus, what if there is no menu entry for whatever it is you want?

Also due to the tree nature of menus you have to know wheather to look under administration or preferences or graphics or productivity or whatever.

I'll admit that I found Unity strange at first and hung onto 9.10 for ages but having made the plunge I wouldn't go back.

If he likes Unity so much why is he using an iPad I hear you say, well it fires up quicker than my A1 and the screen is bigger, however pasting the bit at the top of this was frankly laborious, and would have been much quicker on the netbook.

Sad shop-shelf-clinging BlackBerry Z10 AXED ... in price, contracts

10?

as far as I can see the existing Playbook os is the same as 10, but without the phone specific stuff which would be of no use on playbook anyway.

I find the interface works well and is Playbook specific, so I am rather relieved they have decided to stick with that rather than the supposed upgrade.

Exposed: RSPCA drills into cops' databases, harvests private info

I don't like 'em for

I like many people used to think the RSPCA was a good thing, but I dislike them now for several reasons, there used to be a program on the box following their exploits, on one occasion they 'rescued' a load of cats from 'disgustuting conditions' but left the old bloke there to rot, and in another sucessfully prosecuted a chap for transporting rabbits in chicken crates, apparently their EARS could poke out of the crates, and the rabbit shit could fall onto lower stacked crates, sounds OK? well maybe, but chickens are rather taller than rabbits and they stick their HEADS out of these same crates, but do they prosecute chicken farmers? No.

As for the shit, well the chickens shit on the lower ones too, and chicken shit is less pleasant than rabbit shit not mention the fact that rabbits eat rabbit shit as part of their diet.

Basicly rabbits are fluffy and not seen as a food item and and the chicken industry is financially powerful unlike the rabbit man.

On the one occasion I called the RSPCA myself when we spotted an abandoned pet rabbit with hideously overgrown teeth, they refused to come out until WE had caught the rabbit ourselves, not like on the telly where they would have expert animal catchers.

As others have said they seeem to like to milk publicity.

PC makers REALLY need Windows 8.1 to walk on water - but guess what?

W8 v Unity

Ubuntu / Canonical has had a lot of negative feedback from the move to Unity, I have to say the after a bit of a shock I now like it.

I tried Ubuntu when unity first came out and found it slower than the Mint I had been using, mainly I think due to a problem getting the Nvidia driver to work with my old card.l

I quickly gave up and went gave up and went back to Mint, and that has stayed on my desktop.

A buddy of mine asked for help getting his W7 netbook fixed "no problem" says I, expecting a quick factory reset type of fix, not so easy, the reinstall kept failing due to a recurring error, something to do with corrupted files or whatever, the upshot was by this time I'd had a few beers and the quickest option to produce a working computer was to stick in my ubuntu pen drive, job done.

Having installed the newer Ubuntu I thought it best to upgrade my own netbook to the same version as I expected to get requests for help and would need to know what to do.

I used it for a while found it a bit strange, and then having upgraded my desktop to LMDA thought I'd go the same way with my netbook.

At this point I suddenly realised that I had come round and LIKED Unity, It works like this; the main use of the netbook is surfing, Firefox is on the launcher one click and it's up,plus whatever I'm doing if I hit the "W@" key the lens pops up with the last thing I was doing, which is actually very useful.

So Unity actually works, and reason for it became clear when I saw the "ubuntu on Android" video,

In the future your phone IS your pc check it out.

==========

As for W8, well two things, first off its ugly, in Currys or wherever all the displayed desktops are the same Mondrian styled confusion, no focal point just a splat of squares, I like a nice clean desktop with my choice of mood setting wallpaper.

Secondly, when hit the "W" key all I get is back to the confusion of unattractive oblongs,with no reference point, apparently the 'start button' is being reintroduced but it only does the same as the button, no useful menus.

So W8 just looks shite, a bit like the very functional but dull front end of Linpus in a way,

and doesn't have the Unity useful 'get straght back to your last job' feature, plus its windows, so if You get the 'sorry this reinstallation has failed' message you can't just download a clean free new system.

PS. if you know how to get round the corrupted installation files problem i@d like to know the answer.

New material enables 1,000-meter super-skyscrapers

Bad idea

A high percentage of advanced projects end in disaster: Titanic, Concorde, Space shuttle x2, Hindenburg and numerous other airships, Twin Towers, various fancy bridges, very nearly Apollo 13, Comet, Bluebird, breast implants, etc etc.

Very often we get all impressed by how clever we are and then it all goes horribly wrong

Extreme high rise buildings are unnecessary, quite apart from being a pain to use, when the lift conks out, as it will, how many floors of stairs do you want to have to climb? its ok as a novelty now and then if you are fit, but for anyone not so able or anyone in an evacuation situation, not good.

Give me a few floors at most and I'm happy.

Longer cables might be useful in mines.

Ten ancestors of the netbook

Re: Too long lived... for the manufacturers

Using my Aspire1 right now. ubuntu 13.04, although the battery is getting poor.

my daughters asus 900 took a real hammering being dropped several times while running and was only killed by I think being stood on, which cracked the screen, may yet live again though.

we have an ipad in the house, several desktops and a windows7 laptop, the ipad is never used for homework as it won't drive a printer, usually its an aspire that's used, sometimes the fullsize laptop.

Ahoy! Google asks US gov't to help sink patent 'privateers'

Re: Here Here!

Here! Hear !!

Health pros: Alcohol is EVIL – raise its price, ban its ads

Re: @AC

Get lost

Zuck on it, Google: 'Public' Facebook events are dead to you

bbc, etc.

What annoys me is when the beeb, and others, actively promote facebook and twitter by suggesting that you have your say on said services. Are these two the only of their kind? and if not why should only they be promoted in this way? maybe they pay?

RIM's Heins beams: BB10 must walk the walk before we talk the talk

Playbook

I own an Ipad and a Playbook and I can say that the Playbook is pretty good on the current os, in some ways it is arguably superior to the Ipad, it multi tasks nicely, flash works perfectly, the wifi setup is neat, as is the suspend function which is entirely touch powered, in fact in normal use it's all touch, including wake-up, there is HDMI out which I have yet to use but expect to work OK, The os update is automated, free and very straight forward. google maps works great including street view which was my favourite thing on the Ipad until my daughter thought she'd help the old man and upgraded to IOS6, and although I hate all things Microsoft it does have real Word and Excel albeit "To go" . I got it because it was an absolute bargain at the current price, and I feel ok carrying it around, much as I have enjoyed my Ipad I have never taken it out of the house and probably never will.

The only review I read complained about the on off button, the plonker must have been rebooting it every time he used it...

I do find it a bit short of things to fiddle with compared to a linux pc but it does work well.

"Mine's the one with the playbook in the pocket"

Oh, my phone Is Gingerbread and I like that too

EXTREMELY RARE never-seen-alive WHALES found (briefly) alive

Re: Amazing

If you use an iPad it is easy to down vote accidentally and not easy to unvote, has happened to me a few times.

Rivals routed by Apple, Google smartphone onslaught

Re:,Re: Futurology

sometimes with an touch screen your right thumb will select things at random or sometimes you can just hit the wrong button, I have several times voted the wrong way and been unable to change my mistake.

I thought it was funny too.

Re: Why Android and not iPhone for my sister.

"Vodafone rolling out ICS to it soon".

I would have thought as you have sold the sim you won,t be gettin g the Vodafone update.

Asus to take fight to tablets with cheap Google netbook

Small and cheap and OK

The original EEEPC really caught my attention but I found the screen too small and held out for the second generation.

When they came out I bought my daughter an Asus 900a with Linux She was delighted with it and has used it almost constantly ever since, the original xandros is still in use, there were a few issues with the EEE Store at first, in that it did not actually work, but that got fixed, not sure if its still there though, I have had to reset to the original setup once,using the inbuilt restore function and reinstalled Firefox a couple of times.

The Harware has proved to be first rate she has dropped it running several times without problems, the sound is far superior to my Acerone of the same age, she's used it so much that I have had to repair the power plug about six times but thats down to her not keeping the wire reasonably straight, no problems with the power supply though despite it being shorted out several times.

Regarding the Linux, kids did seem to want to run MS paint and the original MSN, but since Facebook has come along I haven't heard that one

All in all a good buy,

The next generation with Android should be even more kid friendly due to the improved games situation.

Asus Eee PC 1015PEM

Best Netbook

I have never actually tried one but the Mio Lightbook looks like the best netbook, it has:

32gb ssd!

Windows XP

8.9" screen

950 Grams weight

Slim dimensions

Costs only gbp189!!

Got to be the best allround spec for a true Netbook and can be bought from Maplins.

Only weak area is the battery, which I suppose is in the interest of lightness.

Some models even have GPS although Maplin make no mention of that.

If I did not already have an Aspire one I'd buy one of these like a shot.

Please test one Reg. the makers deserve a bit of promotion for producing just what people have asked for.

Report questions millions spent on NHS.crap

re: http://www.stockport-pct.nhs.uk/

Slightly off topic,nice simple flow chart on the Equality and Diversity page, all it tells me is that they spend a lot of time and money on stuff that is at best peripheral to medicine.

Carnivorous plague mice 'wiping out towns' in US Midwest

rodenater

What a marvelous invention! this must have lots of other possible uses, for example clearing aphids from greenhouses, unblocking drains, testing buildings for structural integrity, opening the car boot in case of lost keys, etc.

Rodenator 11

Seriously though, how does the user determine that the rodent burrow does not pass under the point that the user is standing on?

Not good for use in the vicinity of grain stores or fertilizer either.

Imitate Real Ale quaffers, save the economy, says biz prof

Weatherspoons

My local Weatherspoons is great, its spacious, carries a wide range of well priced drinks, and serves damned good steaks too, £7.50 for a 10oz mature Ribeye with baked potato and salad plus your choice of real ale, great!

They also introduced me to Sailor Jerry's rum and Koppaberg fruit cider, both now available elsewhere, but they had them first.

There is nowhere I know of comparable.

Oh, and they have WIFI.

Oakland green lights 'industrial' marijuana cultivation

Daily Mail

I checked out the Daily M after hearing, I think it was on, www.yourfreedom.gov,comments, that Jane Asher had been quoted as saying that "they should just go ahead legalise all drugs", I was pleasantly surprised by the tone of the comments, they were predominately in favour of the Idea with some really sensible points raised, not sure if the comentards were the usual readers or tourists like me though, and I doubt that they would reflect the editorial stance of the paper. it does seem that this idea has finally come of age though, not before time either.

Also the DM has a really nifty voting system with red down or green up arrow to record your appreciation or otherwise, no log in required.