Posts by DF118

Heroic Register reader battles EXPLODING COMPUTER

Re: For a refund, natch.

> I've seen some dangerously shoddy soldering inside some well-known brands.

Oh yes indeed.

Re: No-brand power supply

A PC that actually actually needs a 500W power supply is a rare thing indeed. Even those requiring in excess of 250W continuous load are few and far between, falling very squarely into the enthusiast category. Any enthusiast installing a no-brand PSU in such a situation* is either broke or not thinking straight. It's not so much that the continuous rating of cheapo supplies is insufficient, more that they are ill-equipped to deal with anything more than the smallest of transient peaks. And that's before you even consider the cheap components and shoddy manufacturing processes that contribute towards non-overload-related random catastrophic failures like the one in this article.

FWIW, having read up on a few PSU manufacturers' processes, the one that most thoroughly torture tests as part of production line QC is Seasonic. I believe they are the OEM manufacturers for a number of high quality PSU brands.

Apple versus Samsung: everything infringes everything

Re: That alternative battery decision, just out of spite...

"a company proven to have no ethics"

Aside from the fact that corporate entities and "ethics" never really show more than a passing acquaintance (especially so in Apple's case) can you show me this proof of which you speak? And please don't start waving the farcical US jury trial verdict around, it'll just make you look even sillier.

Google avoids tax with ‘Double Irish Dutch Sandwich’

Re: @Joe 3

Somewhat of a red herring there sir, since if proper tax dues were not being so consistently avoided (and evaded) then the overspend to which you refer simply wouldn't exist. (That does of course ignore the principle that one's outgoings tend to rise in line with income, and I wouldn't for one second attempt to argue that public spending isn't an insatiable black hole, but my point stands.)

Reader input required: review our reviews

Re: Since You Asked

Reminds me of this article on Bit-Tech: When did 8/10 become a bad score?

I like the review articles on the Reg/RH. They are generally consistent and well-informed, although there have been notable exceptions.

In particular I love your prosumer/high end camera reviews because they're a refreshing change from the usual choice of crazy in-depth multi-page tracts from the likes of dpreview or the ten-a-penny, barely-scratching-the-surface pointless guff populating the rest of the net. On that note I'd love you to do a review of the Sony A99 SLT camera*.

Other than that I'd like to see something like a "league table" for each category of gear, showing a quick blurb, review date and score, along with a link back to the review itself. I know there're currently category links available from the RH homepage, but they could be improved upon.

* If you've already reviewed it please accept my apologies - I haven't been the most dedicated follower of recent review articles.

Re: Quality writing (i.e. better proof reading), evidence for opinions and statements, more balance.

Muphry's Law in action there Phil?

"typo's" ... "myriad of" ... frequent punctuation errors, nested/unclosed parentheses.

I don't think I'd pay you to be my resident "grammar nazi" if I was the Reg. ;o)

Apple-v-Samsung $1bn iPhone fine: 'Jury foreman was biased'

@rvt

Understanding fail. Go read up some more.

@toadwarrior

Interesting question, and exactly the same one (in not so many words) that Apple asked Samsung. Apple wanted to make the point that if Samsung didn't know until after the trial then it was THEIR responsibility to have found out.

Samsung have answered that they did not know beforehand, and now they are demanding the same of Apple since either Apple did know before the trial and did not volunteer material facts, or, like Samsung, they did not investigate Hogan because - as Samsung said all along - there was no reason to. Surprise surprise, Apple don't want to answer, and now Samsung is asking the court to compel Apple to disclose the info.

The following is from Samsung's motion to compel:

"Samsung will respond in due course in its reply to this remarkable and untenable suggestion that it should have extra-judicially investigated a sitting juror’s bankruptcy despite its lack of relevance to any question asked on voir dire. But in order to have a full and fair opportunity to reply to Apple’s “waiver” argument, Samsung is entitled to know when Apple first learned of Mr. Hogan’s undisclosed Seagate litigation, including whether it knew of Mr. Hogan’s misstatements to the Court prior to Samsung’s post-trial motion and nonetheless concealed that knowledge from the Court. Apple’s answer to that question is relevant both to whether Apple complied with its obligation to disclose known misrepresentations to the Court and whether a reasonable litigant in this case should have discovered Mr. Hogan’s untruthfulness sooner than Samsung did. Apple has refused to disclose this information despite Samsung’s request. Samsung therefore respectfully requests that the Court compel Apple to disclose when it first learned of Mr. Hogan’s undisclosed Seagate litigation....

"If Apple knew that Mr. Hogan’s statements were untruthful all along and stood silent in order to gain a tactical advantage from the seating of a biased juror, Apple’s misconduct would itself warrant sanction and relief and certainly must be disclosed. If, on the other hand, Apple, like Samsung, did not know that Mr. Hogan had been untruthful until after the verdict, that is relevant evidence that Samsung’s reliance on the presumptive veracity of Mr. Hogan’s voir dire responses during trial was reasonable. Apple cannot fault Samsung for not discovering juror untruthfulness while refusing to disclose whether and when Apple itself discovered this untruthfulness."

How about instead of posting snarky pish you go read some factual sources on just how much this guy has actually fucked up the trial?

Re: I rather think...

TBH I didn't actually read the article and gave the author the benefit of the doubt by assuming she was perhaps referring to this, re the latest court filings (v.interesting), since the "news" that Velvin Hogan fucked it up is so old even my mum has heard it.

Jeez Reg, this news is about a fortnight old.

20 years of GSM digital mobile phones

Navikey

The navikey first featured on the 3210, not the 3310.

Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset review

Re: 8 Page Review @AC

I don't know if you've noticed over the years but our Mr Orlowski is big on Nokia. He wants to see them do well and obviously went to a lot of effort in producing this review. Doesn't mean the review's biased or that he or the Reg is being bribed. In fact I don't think I've seen a more in-depth and honest review of a phone - either on the Reg or elsewhere - for quite some time. Orlowski's occasional Nokia analysis articles are required reading even if you're only slightly interested in the company or its products.

In summary, take your snark elsewhere.

BBC in secret trial to see if you care about thing you plainly don't

Re: So..

it is a newer technology and it takes time for these things to evolve

That's just it though - it's NOT new technology. It's old, inefficient technology with a technical spec marooned in the late 80's.

Just because someone can see a technology's failings when you can't doesn't make them a luddite.

@BadVok Re: So..

Are you serious? DAB is ridiculously power-hungry and there's nothing can be done about that, so in the end it doesn't matter what size it is, as far as I'm concerned if you can't get a day's use out of it on a single charge (and without a massive battery you can't) then it's not portable.

As an example of just how power-hungry DAB actually is, my Cowon D2 will give me about 70 hours FM listening on a single charge, or 40-50 hours of MP3s depending on bitrate (most of my stuff is 320kb/s), but the most I've ever squeezed out of it for (128kb/s MP2!) DAB is... wait for it... 6 hours.

The cartoon will tell us we should be embracing the future, rather than clinging to the past...

Too bloody right! So - remind me - why are we persisting with DAB?

Psst: Heard the one about the National Pupil Database? Thought not

Was going to pull you up on the apparent logical leap in the first few paragraphs but, if correct about the private sector doing the anonymising, that's no logical leap at all and actually pretty scary.

Apple tries to add Galaxy Note, Jelly Bean to patent slapfest

@AC 16.09

You, sir, win the 2012 George W Bush Hard-of-thinking prize for that spectacular display of analytical prowess.

Bald? Looking old before your time? Don't panic, but you might DIE

I'm still getting spots at 30-something. Does that mean my physiological age is, say, 14?

Naughty-step Apple buries court-ordered apology with JavaScript

As has been pointed out by others...

Having been catching up on the rest of the comments it seems mostly to have been pointed out by you. Many times.

Anyway, if I have my facts wrong there then I'm an idiot and I apologise, but my point still stands. Strangely enough, Google are doing their bit to make sure UK punters land on the "right" place though.

Re: Well look at it this way...

Groklaw and some recent relevant factoids thisaway.

IANAL, but I get the distinct feeling Samsung finally has Apple on the back foot. Certainly the possibility of the original ruling being upheld on appeal is looking less likely by the day.

Re: Stupid, stupid move.

Accusing someone of trolling always gets upvotes.

Especially when they're actually trolling

The Javascript trick is dodgy and runs contrary to the spirit. They probably would've gotten away with it though if they hadn't killed the regional redirect. Doing that means their "UK homepage" is, to all intents and purposes, no longer their UK homepage.

I say contempt.

Apple must apologise for its surly apology on its website on Saturday

Yeah - thought the advert had to show the Apple logo or some such. Or am I confusing one of the many comments I've read on the subject with something the judges actually said?

Publishing giants borg into Random Penguin ... But can it see off Amazon?

Re: I don't care

The deal does have to be cleared by competition authorities, it just wasn't mentioned in the story.

APPLE: SCREW YOU, BRITS, everyone else says Samsung copied us

Samsung

...should take out their own full page ads, featuring a copy of the Apple statement, corrected in red ink and with a big "F - see me after class" at the top.

Sinofsky: Surface 'best tablet, best laptop' he's ever used

Meanwhile, over at the Graun....

Their coverage of the event was pure snark. Seems the Koolaid was completely the wrong colour for their tech "journalist".

Told them as much in the comments (in a jokey innocuous fashion) but they didn't like the criticism and nixed it within 20 minutes. Up until that point I had only been half serious about the Koolaid.

BBC's Incurious George vows to 'calibrate systems' after Savile affair

Should've put Conrad Black in charge

Curiosity scoops up SHINY BITS from the RED SANDS of MARS!

Andromeda Strain

That is all

HSBC websites fell in DDoS attack last night, bank admits

Re: I don't need no bloody DDoS, I've got a SecureKey which ...

The site was neither breached or hacked.

Either/or

Neither/nor

</pedant>

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

Re: Arial? How gauche!

Daaaamn youuuuu comiiiiiic saaaaaans!

A lesser-known new feature in iOS 6: It's tracking you everywhere

@DougS Re: @mickey mouse

I don't recall the challenge being whether or not "typical buyers" would do it, just whether or not it was possible in the first place. Besides, the technique described by Mr. mouse is just one among quite a diverse selection.

I will agree however that Android is a privacy nightmare. I'd still rather be there though than be in a situation where all my base are belong to Cupertino.

Dishonored game review

Re: First person. Ugh.

Used to be the same until I played HL2. Now 3rd person seems so clumsy in comparison.

OFT writes volley of stern letters to naughty web retailers

Re: Just take them to the small claims court

+1

The only thing that really irks me there though is that the vast majority of retailers with whom you get to that stage will capitulate at the very last minute, but only after causing you no end of grief with timewasting bullshit and outright lies.

They will also invariably attempt to couch their eventual capitulation as them somehow doing you a massive favour.

@Alister Re: Do what?

Eh, no.

There is at least one perfectly good obfuscation method which will cause the majority of scrapers not to see an email address which is presented in plain text (and even as a clickable mailto: link) on the user's screen. I know this as I have used it for several years and received not one spam message to the many (inbound only) webmaster addresses concerned.

Re: Original Packaging

> If I have to destroy packaging and find that the device is faulty...

The reference was to being allowed to inspect an item and decide you didn't want it after all even when not faulty.

Paid secur-o-ware is generally better than free, but not always by a lot

Somewhat of a fail in the number of products tested.

One might, on a hurried reading of this article, be given to believe the results mean certain products are the best money can buy when in fact that may not quite be the case. [/understatement]

Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight e-reader review

I'm not a fan of touch-screen e-book readers. They add weight to an e-book reader and increase its thickness. They’re less responsive than phone or tablet capacitive sensors, and I feel constantly made aware not only of the need to press harder to trigger a scroll, a button press or a page turn, but notice the lag between the tap and the action.

Couldn't disagree more. The need to press harder is a red herring - 99.9% of all touch actions on an eBook is swiping to turn the page and a simple brush of the screen accomplishes that perfectly. Agreed they're less responsive, but there is zero need for fine control and the OS buttons etc. are adapted in size to match the comparative lack of responsiveness anyway. Sure there's lag, but there's lag when using hardware buttons on an eBook. It's nothing to do with the touchscreen and everything to do with the display.

I've owned a few e-readers and the touch screen I currently have is by far my favourite.

Anonymous turns on 'one man Julian Assange show' Wikileaks

@JimmyPage Re: Ding !

Took the words right off my fingertips there. I'm amazed it has taken them this long.

Judge goes postal on Kim Dotcom extradition appeal

Re: Not to put a damper on your post...

None of which changes what AC said. In fact you kinda have to take all that as read otherwise OP would be pointless...

Astroboffins to search for mega-massive alien power plants

Danger

As long as nobody lets the Primes out we should be ok

ReDigi fights for right to sell used digital music

Bruce Willis

...didn't sue to be able to sell his collection. He sued to be allowed to leave it in his will.

I hereby cancel my subscription etc.

From Dr No to Skyfall: The Reg's one month of Bond

@Stacy Re: Surely that should be...

Sure, you can gauge how good any particular actor's Bond is/was by trying to discern which one gave gave the closest representation of Fleming's character, but that's like trying to decide what type of cheese to eat by asking which is closest in character to a house brick.

Re: Surely that should be...

Dalton > Brosnan? Gimme a brek!

Goldeneye opens with Bond bungee jumping off a dam hundreds of feet above a munitions factory, grappling on to the roof of said factory and breaking in with a laser torch. The first ever close up of Brosnan's Bond is as he knocks out a henchman with the line "sorry - forgot to knock".

Dalton's first close up? Getting a fright. From a monkey.

Huawei: Inside the lair of the not-so-hidden dragon

If it does have back doors as standard, the only difference in that regard between Huawei kit and yesterday's stuff, like System X, is the people making it. Interesting how this suddenly becomes an issue when the boot's on the other foot.

Good article though Reg - more like this please!