Posts by DF118

PEAK APPLE: Fondleslab giant no longer world's biggest biz

It's what Steve would've wanted

Really.

Dubai splurges on 700hp, 217mph Lamborghini police cruiser

Somebody's been...

... playing too much Need for Speed

Facebook Home gets SMACKDOWN from irate users

Re: Is the new App compulsory?

As sure as night follows day, given a story like this there's always some smartarse commenter comes along to point out that [insert name of thing] isn't compulsory. Slow claps all round.

Hard luck lads, todger size DOES matter: Official

All well and good, but does the research have anything to say about those of us who are endowed with a face like a half-chewed toffo?

Gov report: Actually, evil City traders DIDN'T cause the banking crash

This subject's a bit of a hobby horse for you, isn't it Tim?

Steve Jobs' 'spaceship' threatened by massive cost overruns

Re: Honestly

No

Scottish SF master Iain M Banks reveals he has less than a year to live

Re: Cure for cancer

Yeah, seems he/she was typing at the same time as me.

On a related note, I see that - despite no doubt being well off enough to afford almost any level of private healthcare he desires - Mr Banks has stuck with NHS Scotland and has praised everyone involved. It's all well and good being a principled socialist type who also happens to have made a good living for himself, but I'd guess there are few in that category who wouldn't give in to the temptation to throw all their wealth at an attempt to buy more time in this life.

And anyway - who wants to go out leaving their loved ones nothing but a cloud of garlicky fart gas?!

This is the only comments thread I've read on the subject where some well-meaning sort hasn't come along with their own personal cure for cancer ("massive doses of cannabinols and a vegan diet" being the most popular so far).

A genuine good guy, Banks is a rare think among SF authors in that he is just as erudite and witty in the flesh as he is on paper.

I hope the docs are wrong and you get a few more years rather than months Mr Banks, but if not you've made this geek very happy. Thank you!

"Fuck every cause that ends in murder and children crying"

Google forks WebKit, promises faster, leaner Chrome engine

Re: definition of a fork...

> fancy fork with two trines

Tines

Muphry's Law in action there methinks.

Firefox: Use new stealth window to satisfy your wife, suggests Mozilla

"those keen to secretly splash some money"

I see what you did there. Chapeau.

Major blow for Apple: 'Bounce back' patent bounced back by USPTO

Re: Just a thought

I agree, however they seem to be doing just fine selling bland old ones for now.

'I've read all the Harry Potters - and I'm proud to have done so for adverts'

I'd take Orlowski over Fry any day. Fry is likeable and occasionally insightful, but on the whole frightfully boring. Orlowski on the other hand is an irascible shit-stirrer of the highest order, slightly beholden to Adam Curtis in style, occasionally wide of the mark, but properly analytical and never dull.

Egyptian navy captures divers trying to cut undersea internet cables

Marine cable repair co making their own business perhaps?

Re: The mystery of the mysterious operatives

I'm also curious about this but also, how do you repair one once it's been cut or more generally, how do you join two pieces of fibre optic cable?

Unsurprisingly, you do it with a specialised vessel and a metric fuckton of cash.

Video

As to the actual fibre splicing process? Dunno but I'd wager heat is involved somewhere along the line.

Osborne slashes growth forecast by half in bleak economy statement

@I ain't Spartacus Re: To fix the problem

Perhaps the voters get the politicians they deserve?

That's a bit 'chicken and egg' is it not? Which came first: the lying politician or the credulous sucker?

Microsoft begins automatic Windows 7 SP1 rollout

Ahhh c'mon the Desert Eagle bit was one of the funniest things I've read on here recently.

Yeah I admit it was pretty trainwrecktastic. Couldn't stop reading. In fact ISTR the missus having a right old go at me for reading it instead of jumping her bones and she's nowhere near as fugly as xboxzilla back there.

Lol if she ever reads this I'm so dead.

@ zmodem ... What, were you not satisfied with the number of down votes you gathered with your desert eagle nonsense?

Re: watch it they're going to throw Metro in your face

Methinks you might feel more at home in a slightly more hysterical comments forum. Engadget is thataway.

Bottomless, unsatisfied Xbox widow cuffed after boyf flees nookie

Re: sad

Sex in general, yes. Sex with a particular person whom one does not want to, no.

Samsung's new Galaxy S 4: iPhone assassin or Android also-ran?

Re: Sounds great

With the exception of its outstanding screen and build quality I too am somewhat underwhelmed by the One X.

Sticking AOKP on it (in the form of IceColdJelly) has made a difference to battery life and heat generation, but I'll still be selling this one on pretty quickly.

AdBlock Plus BLOCKED from Google Play

Re: @GBL initialiser More adverts, everywhere.

It doesn't matter how po-faced your language is, your argument is still based on a subjective assumption and therefore flawed. If the model a content provider has chosen to use to fund its services and (hopefully) turn a profit is the 'paid for by advertising' one then they are effectively in competition with other sites to provide my eyes (and clicks) to their advertisers. The tired cliché is, I believe, that I am the product. In an ideal world for the advertisers my hardware, bandwidth, browsing habits and search history is used by one vendor to sell my custom to another. There is no obligation on me to provide any of those things to anyone and on the whole I choose not to. Should my actions in so blocking this behaviour cause the content provider to fail to be able to fund and/or profit from their activities then that is a failure of the ad-funded business model, not me being a parasite, no matter how you try to dress it up. There are exceptions, which is what whitelisting is for. The Reg gets this. Ars Technica (to name but one) doesn't. Hence their occasional whiny op-ed pieces saying so.

@GBL initialiser Re: More adverts, everywhere.

I pay for the adverts as part of the price for the things I buy. If I want not to see ads that is my choice. It is not parasitic behaviour to block them any way I see fit, especially if I would never have clicked them anyway. Your logic is flawed.

Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan

Re: Sunshine vs Solaris

Came out of the cinema after Sunshine and said to my brother: "well that was a real one star movie".

A trifle harsh (I'd give it maybe three out of five) but worth it for the gag.

Solaris would have to be pretty poor sci-fi to be any worse than Sunshine. It's basically Event Horizon without the suspense, and EH itself is basically a haunted house movie set in space (albeit a fairly good one).

Amazon yanks SimCity download from store

Re: First rule of corrections - you will make an error in your correction.

Indeed. Muphry's Law in action :)

At the time of writing neither Amazon or EA had responded to El Reg's requests for comment.

Either... or

Neither... nor

Splendid, that's easily a while day's worth of pedantry in one fell swoop. I can get on to other things; like pretending I know what I'm talking about in pointless meetings.

SimCity 3000

@Tom 38 Re: Dons cynical hat

Yep - bit-tech is at it too.

Farewell, Reg: This hack is hanging up her Apple jacket

Re: Boo!

Being an iFan is all about the butthurt.

Apple: OK, we tracked your every move... but let's call it a caching bug, m'kay?

Re: No. Let's call it "Tracking your every move,"

Uh? What ads? I don't see any ads.

Re: No. Let's call it "Tracking your every move,"

> In the eyes of this website's "journalists" and myriad Fandroids, Google is incapable of malfeasance in perpetuity, because Android.

If that were true, why even bother telling us? Oh, because butthurt.

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

I'm all for it

As long as it's part of an overall rebalancing of drugs policy and not just Yet Another bunch of fuckwits who believe that we can legislate for common sense.

Oh, it isn't and they do? Well in that case I'm against it.

Happy birthday, LP: Can you believe it's only 65?

Is it just me...

...or was this article a bit lacking in substance? The entire thing felt like plot explanation for the thickos.

Next HP CEO is already working at HP, says Meg Whitman

Re: old-fashioned "HP way

Wonder if they get away with the same price gouging/device hobbling with their missile guidance systems etc.

Google misses privacy-policy deadline, incurs EU wrath

Re: Sieg Heil, Mein Sad Little Napoleans says Herr Schmidt

I've finally figured it out. You're Kevin Kelly, aren't you?

Wikipedia's Gibraltar 'moratorium' - how's it going?

Re: Not actually fussed about Gib either way but...

Ah, the "it's free so why are you complaining?" defence. A brilliant suggestion, marred only by two tiny fallacies. One, nobody is complaining and two, nobody is complaining.

Go and read the back story.

Earth escapes asteroid flyby, boffins want lasers aimed at next one

Re: Funny, but...

Good point, however I'm not a physicist and even I know never to let the word "amount" anywhere near a discussion involving verifiable units and values.

Beat me to it.

Recipe for a bad day: 'State-backed hackers are attacking your PC'

@Eadon

Okay, you're officially starting to get on my tits now too. Change the fucking record.

Re: I wonder...

Well shucks I hadn't thought of that.

I wonder...

Would they do the same if the "state-sponsored" attackers in question were sponsored or directed by the USA?

Rivals to Brussels: Google labelling its own stuff won't help us

This isn't (or at least shouldn't be) about Microsoft vs Google.

Microsoft was punished for its monopoly abuse (not nearly enough IMHO) but just because the complainants in this case are backed by Microsoft doesn't mean their case is without merit.

Google Play privacy SNAFU sends app buyers' details to devs

Re: I can see the use for some of the info

Well said.

I only hope your optimism regarding regulatory intervention turns out to be justified. From everything I've read so far, I get the distinct sugary whiff of fudge being made.

Samsung laptops can be NUKED by ANY OS – even Windows: new claim

@AC 16:26 Re: I'm not Eadon...

You could've just said maybe he's a sockpuppeteer.

Billionaire baron Bill Gates still mourns Vista's stillborn WinFS

Re: XP Search Function

Yes.

Sort of.

FUD flies as Raytheon reveals social media analysis tool

Thank you Reg

I read that hysterical Graun piece the other day with a slowly-curling upper lip, thinking the whole time that the way to frustrate RIOT or any other such data analysis tool is not to make public such information you don't want "them" (regardless of who that may be) to know. It's pretty damn simple. If you're running around making public posts/tweets of the minutiae of your daily life complete with a geotagged photo stream then you shouldn't be surprised that anyone with a bit of knowledge and a computer will eventually come along and put it all together either for money or just for shits and giggles.

I actually like the Graun. Despite its myriad failings it at least tries to be a newspaper of record. It is however very guilty of repeatedly publishing badly-researched bogeyman stories like this whilst proselytising almost non stop about the brave new techno utopia being created by the likes of Apple, Google etc.

BSkyB to flick switch on network-level smut-'n'-violence filters

Re: Parental controls: Computer level -> ??? -> DPI

Neither of which are not insurmountable problems.

Yer picklin' ma heid wi yer triple negatives man!

The truth on the Navy carrier debacle? Industry got away with murder

SDR

Regarding the carrier project, the original wording in the conclusion of Labour's Strategic Defense Review (the one that set the ball rolling on the new carriers) was pretty unequivocal when it came to their purpose:

"...an ability to operate the largest possible range of aircraft in the widest possible range of roles."

Kinda fucked that one up.

Analyst says vendors offer pretend reference customers

Wot...

No Northwind?

Schmidt slams China as world's most prolific hacker

America's sense of fair play

Hmmmm....