* Posts by Chewy

152 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jun 2007

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Bill Hicks: 25 years on from the cult comedian's big break

Chewy

Former fanboy

As a former fanboy I don't think it has aged that well. I'd take Doug Stanhope over Hicks any day - far more misanthropic. Hicks was essentially Carlin meets Sam Kinison which may be the reason why he was passed over in the US during his lifetime.

Goatboy just gives me the creeps especially going on about Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. The one timeless thing that Hicks wrote was the "Its just a ride" which isn't comedy.

This box beams cafes' Wi-Fi over 4kms so you can surf in obscurity

Chewy

Re: Self destruct?

One of Dan Brown's word based book products

Cops turn Download Festival into an ORWELLIAN SPY PARADISE

Chewy

Re: Supplies for Download festival !!!!

I would have thought corpse paint would be more in keeping with metal rather than an anonymous mask.

In all seriousness, Download is just mainstream metal anyway and having a helicopter buzzing overhead ruined Maiden's set for me when they played last. Hellfest and Wacken in mainland Europe have long been better than Download.

Celebrated Pakistani female online activist Sabeen Mahmud dies in shooting

Chewy

Re: Religion - the source of all evil

Really? What about The Quakers.

Get your special 'sound-optimising' storage here, hipsters

Chewy

I can top that

Every audiophile surely needs a cable support system like the Shunyata DFSS

It's even GRIMMER up North after MEGA SKY BROADBAND OUTAGE

Chewy

Re: Wythenshawe

Actually it is nearer Wythenshawe on an industrial estate near the hospital

Slough isn't fit for humans now, says Amazon. We're going to Shoreditch

Chewy

Re: Will Amazon invest in...

I'm pretty sure that MS and Oracle (amongst others) subsidise the free bus service to TVP in Reading so that people avoid driving and clog up the already busy road system.

White? Male? You work in tech? Let us guess ... Twitter? We KNEW it!

Chewy

Re: Please stop publishing this Frankfurt School Political Correctness nonsense already

Would you like to tell me what Marx had to do with feminism? I'll answer if for you - nothing. Don't let your anti-left bias get in the way at all will you.

The issue is not that companies should represent the racial/gender breakdown of society but more that it should not discriminate against other groups. Frequently there are articles in the IT press where women who work in IT have been harassed by some anonymous cowards threatening rape etc. If this is the case then who is to say that those anonymous cowards don't work in IT and have discriminated against women in the workplace. Perhaps they have influence in the hiring process.

In regards to "the best staff" if these IT minority groups are being discriminated against how do we know that the white and Asian men are indeed the best staff since the others may not have had a chance to prove themselves. If this is the case does this not mean that I as a white man got my position purely by luck of being the right race/gender/class. Again if companies aren't recruiting from across all socio-economic groups then how can they ensure they have the best person for the job.

Obviously this is a theory but unless companies investigate their own hiring process it is no more a wild theory than sticking your head in the sand and saying everything is fine.

NO MORE ALL CAPS and other pleasures of Visual Studio 14

Chewy

References

The article implies that references can only be added by means of nuget packages but VS 14 allows the same variety of references that existed before (GAC, COM and Browse etc).

As for the licensing, when I originally got a 3 year MSDN license the agreement was that it entitled me to use the software after the license period had expired as long as I finished the 3 year period. Now I'm on the 4th year (new agreement etc) Visual Studio 2013 told me that I needed a new license key. That implies that the software would have stopped working had I not extended the MSDN license.

Murdoch says Microsoft needs 'big clean out'

Chewy

Great advice

Coming from a man who bought Myspace

Say WHAT? ATVOD claims 44k Brit primary school kids look at smut online each month

Chewy

So

So they expect foreign companies that run the websites to apply for some kind of license. And what kind of penalties do they expect to be levied on foreign businesses that don't comply? All they'll do is block IP address ranges.

Winklevoss twins say their Bitcoins will take them to SPAAAAACE

Chewy

I'd prefer them to be fired into the sun instead

It's big, it's expensive and it's an audiophile's dream: The Sonos Sub

Chewy
Trollface

With all that power

You'd need a Shunyata Alpha Digital Power Cable to do it justice.

Snapchat: In 'theory' you could hack... Oh CRAP is that 4.6 MILLION users' details?

Chewy

Run by Troy Hunt who is a security researcher

Muslim vid protest hackers turn web-flood hosepipe away from US banks

Chewy

Re: bring back the crusades

Um it didn't work out well for the Christians last time did it?

Anonymous hacks Westboro Baptists over Sandy Hook protests

Chewy

Re: Ignore them...

Easier said than done if your child was murdered

Apple said to have let the name of the next OS X cat out of the bag

Chewy

Snarf

Then the "child" Thundercats

Build a bonkers hi-fi

Chewy

Re: Laws, sausages, vinyl records

Yes they do still make vinyl. Obviously vinyl has its limits but I think we all know that CDs aren't indestructible - vinyl from the 80s was notoriously bad (with some exceptions) because they skimped on the thickness which made the record warp easily. Although sales of vinyl did increase during the dance music boom it has dropped off again, although quite a few classic rock albums have been re-issued on quality vinyl.

Unless the record company is being extremely lazy they aren't taken from a CD. Once the album is mastered it has post production for the CDs - volume levelling etc but that is more of a symptom of modern music i.e. a lack of dynamics. The vinyl of Pink Floyd's Pulse album definitely did have different mastering to the CD since it was delayed to long after the CD was released.

Much of the problem is down to record companies being greedy and outputting lowest common denominator music.

That new 'Microsoft GCSE': We reveal what's in it

Chewy

No objection to simple languages here

As far as I'm concerned the simpler the language the better. After all we are talking about GCSE not university and it doesn't define what languages that those who choose this profession will move onto.

Limiting the choices to a few languages makes it more likely that the teachers would be able to grade the work. Those that have already interested in programming won't be put off by having to do VB for example. The more time that can be spent learning the basics rather than having to know a language specific syntax.

With linguistics we weren't even given a choice at GCSE - French/German for the top stream, German for the middle stream, and Italian for the bottom stream.

Bradley Manning in court as lawyers wrestle over secret docs

Chewy

Re: Irrelevant you say?

Surely if the leak threatened the lives of the informers they would already be dead? The information is already out there and releasing the information to a military trial is effectively closed door so wouldn't go any further.

Microsoft makes good with a 23-fix Patch Tuesday

Chewy

Re: Another Big Patch Day, and a Week of Start Up Repair Routines

Would you rather MS didn't fix the flaws then? Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Ten... Kitchen Gadget Treats

Chewy

Re: @ A 31

I'm afraid you are both wrong. There are much better roasters here in the UK that wipe the floor with the supermarket bought varieties (Has Bean, Monmouth, Square Mile etc). A Gaggia Classic is a much better machine although it takes a while to learn, and can be tweaked. If you want to just press a button that is fair enough, but it won't give you the best coffee. The Gaggia can use those tubs but its a waste of aluminium. Then there is the Aeropress for £20 ish which you'll have to spend a lot more to beat it.

Only green beans can be kept sealed in the freezer by the way. Roasted beans should just be kept in the sealed container and have a lifespan of 3 months. Grinding your own (or bean to cup) makes a huge difference.

15in MacBook Air will go HEAD TO HEAD with MacBook Pro in April

Chewy

Re: Or

Precisions are not comparable to Macbook Pro (except in price) as the Dell have certified graphics cards for use with CAD etc, dual hard drives and had better CPUs. As far as updates are concerned I haven't updated the graphic drivers since I bought it nearly 2 years ago. The other hardware is stable (like the Pro) so really only Windows updates.

Nothing against the Macbook Pro as it was also in the running, but decided the Dell fitted my needs better despite the bulk and the power hunger.

HTC Android handsets spew private data to ANY app

Chewy

Android

Except that this isn't an Android bug but a flaw in HTC Sense

Local radio stations band together against DAB

Chewy

Local radio

Isn't it just Heart FM these days?

Christ appears in phone advert, secular authorities act

Chewy

Buddy Christ

Could have made Kevin Smith some more cash

Samsung RF711 17.3in Core i7 laptop

Chewy

Weight

If you think that weighs too much you should try cycling with a Dell Precision M6500 (and power supply) on your back.

Ballmer: Time up for 'stuck in the past' Microsoft CEO?

Chewy

RE: Time for a change?

Do you really believe it is a simple matter to write a new OS? When was the last time we saw a genuinely new OS? Both Android and OS X use existing *NIX implementations for the groundwork and the latter has been tweaked constantly for 10 years. Somehow I doubt whether Steve Ballmer would take that approach given his views on FOSS. Supposing it takes 5 years to write a ground-up OS do you really think Apple and Google will be standing still - look at how much catching up they have had to do in the mobile market. Anyway much of the work seems to be moving towards the cloud.

Despite there being reliability and security issues with Windows it remain their principle brand and it takes a brave company to change the name of their cash cow.

Feds raid home of teen fingered in DDoS on Gene Simmons

Chewy

Not frontman

That'd be Paul Stanley

Grand jury meets to decide fate of WikiLeaks founder

Chewy

I'm hugely confused

If the jihadists wanted to kill us before and they wanted to kill us after the cables were released by wikileaks what exactly has changed?

Global warming is actually good for rainforests, say boffins

Chewy

One small problem

is that we've been cutting down those rain-forests so what we've got left is a wheezing smoker's lung not working on the original capacity

Ballmer's 'lost generation' note finds resonance

Chewy

cheap Dell cr*p

You obviously aren't aware of the Dell Precisions then. Sure they look tank-like but they certainly aren't cheap nor crap.

BBC chief acknowledges DAB flop & internet radio

Chewy

actually

Most proper audiophile magazines push FM because of the crappy bitrates and compression that DAB offers

IK Multimedia iRig and AmpliTube iPhone app

Chewy

Hardly

I've yet to hear a digital setup that sounds like a proper valve amp. And presumably you have to make sure that you put the phone into flight mode in case somebody decides to ring mid gig so you don't get the Nigel Tufnell effect.

Tories put ID cards, Contactpoint on manifesto hit list

Chewy

oil and gas

Suddenly Scotland has more to offer England than poster originally thought

El Reg sparks international incident with Olympics committee

Chewy

I hope

...that you referred them to Arkle vs Presdram? Might take them a while to figure it out.

Web manhunt child abuser gets 20 years

Chewy

RE: 19.5 years...

At which point he will be 80 and living on prison food. Can't see him getting out alive can you?

Religious discrimination law may open door for decent deviants

Chewy

Actually

It sounds perfectly reasonable that these laws will defend people from minority religions - employment etc. However these laws shouldn't be used to defend the religious teaching itself.

Libel reform campaigners seek £10k damages cap

Chewy

How about

If newspapers are forced to print a decent sized retraction if they lose the case, not one that sits in the bottom corner of page 5. If the original article is front page news then the retraction also has to feature on the front page.

The change to the law has to be water-tight so that Carter F*ck et al cannot stop the media from publishing the truth. We have to stop libel tourism as well.

If it means we have to pay top lawyers to find holes in the law then so be it. This has become a national embarrassment.

Turkey whacks Google with £28.7m fine, claims tax dodging

Chewy

@Roger Pearse

Because Google earn a lot of money from advertising in Turkey. Now go back to the bridge you've been hiding under.

Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Chewy

No real problems for me

Have upgraded one desktop and one server. One issue I've encountered was the version of Tomcat I'd been using was no longer in their repository. No issues at all with the desktop even with Nvidia drivers.

Canonical rents out Ubuntu mavens

Chewy

RE: Upgrade

The six month releases are supposed to fit in with the Debian (on which Ubuntu is based) release cycle. There are the options of sticking with the LTS versions of Desktop and Server which are the most stable which are released every 2 years and supported for 3 years (5 for server).

Microsoft to encircle Google and Apple with Windows Mobile split

Chewy

ActiveSync

Possibly the only thing that WM has in its favour but now that it is supported by the iPhone it is no longer an advantage with integration with Exchange. As for the WM phones themselves, no matter how much HTC skin the interface there are parts that look like Windows 3.11 with tiny close buttons which means a stylus is a must.

MS are out of the race with Apple and Google tempting application developers. MS will need pull some pretty special tricks out the bag if they wish to claw their way back, but I cannot see that happening.

Morrissey tells netdepressives to boycott his re-releases

Chewy

Ownership

So its seems that the former coke/scag-heads of Motley Crue were smarter than Morrisey by keeping hold of their back catalogue ha ha

Texan judge outlaws Word

Chewy
Thumb Down

RE: Result!

How exactly is this a result for common sense? Surely every XSD is custom XML which means the Patents Office have granted a patent to a troll.

Metallica sticksman gloats over Napster downfall

Chewy

Perhaps

..if that no talent ass clown had spent more time trying to progress then they would have had better sales. Instead they jumped on the nu metal bandwagon.

Kent Police clamp down on tall photographers

Chewy

Electing the police

The more I hear of incidents like this the more I think that police chiefs should be elected despite their protestations.

MP asks UK.gov: Why are you still using IE6?

Chewy

RE: haha!

The reason why web based systems exist is because of deployment costs. Consider how much work it takes to deploy a new version of the application for every single user.

Microsoft goes green to win IE 8 and Bing users

Chewy

possible

"According to Microsoft, the "facts" show IE 8 beats Firefox 3.0 and Chrome 2.0 in a number of areas and features" - bugs perhaps? I've definitely had IE8 crash on me a few times now which didn't happen in IE7.

Yamaha TSX-130 iPod dock

Chewy

RE: Overpriced

You obviously haven't seen the prices that Naim charge for their kit if you think £250 is top end

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