* Posts by Smudged

27 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Mar 2011

First Light says it's hit nuclear fusion breakthrough with no fancy lasers, magnets

Smudged

I wonder if this could somehow be combined with NASA's research on lattice containment of hydrogen, instead of hitting a deuterium capsule

Apple seeks patent for 'innovation' resembling the ZX Spectrum, C64 and rPi 400

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Perhaps the folding device could include another screen within the folded surfaces, and could perhaps be used on top of your lap. I think Apple may be onto something here.

Beige pencil stockists on high alert as 'Colouring Book of Retro Computers' hits the crowdfunding circuit

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Re: Data centre

Are they going to include a System25 in the colouring book though, that's the question?

Pre-orders open for the Mini PET 40/80, the closest thing to Commodore's classic around

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Does it come with Nightmare Park too ?

I remember playing that on the PET at school.

Egotistical gorilla

Stampeding unicorns

etc...

FYI: Today's computer chips are so advanced, they are more 'mercurial' than precise – and here's the proof

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Terminator

Evolution of the microchip

So Google have witnessed chips evolving to produce their own ransomware capability. What next? How far from Skynet are we?

How bad is Catalina? It's almost Apple Maps bad: MacOS 10.15 pushes Cupertino's low bar for code quality lower still

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Someone's been watching "Silicon Valley"

“How bad is this, be honest?

Is this Windows Vista bad?

It’s not iPhone 4 bad, is it?

F*&k. Don’t tell me this is Zune bad.”

“I’m sorry Gavin. It’s Apple Maps bad.”

MPs slam mandarins over failed GP IT system

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So can we look forward to these companies never being awarded another government contract, or will we get the ridiculous logic applied that having messed up this baddly this time, they must be best placed to know what not to do next time? Bizarely that seems to be how these things work.

Are you the keymaster? Alternatives in a LogMeIn/LastPass universe

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SafeInCloud

I switched to SafeInCloud (https://www.safe-in-cloud.com/en/). It is working well for me. It generally has fewer features than LastPass, but has some areas where I find it an improvement too.

Smartphones are ludicrously under-used, so steal their brains

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Battery problem

The problem is that we generally need to under-use our phones, otherwise the battery would always be flat.

Lenovo CTO: Hey, look around – we're not the only ones with a crapware infection

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Better still

"Another option is to simply ship computers without demos, trial software, pointless utilities and other bloatware"

Why not ship computers without an operating system at all. Let people choose what they install without having Microsoft Windows forced on them to begin with. If people want Windows, fair enough, go buy it, then it is up to Microsoft whether they sell an advertising subsidised version.

Gaming supremo creates maps that turn real world into Sim City

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Unfortunately London has stopped working

Doesn't seem to run on a Moto G.

Nokia Lumia 530: A Windows Phone... for under £50

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Android equivalent

My son was handed down his mum's old Nokia 710 and promptly lost it. So as to not reward stupid behaviour, I got him a £40 ZTE Kis III, thinking it would be functional but rubbish, but surprisingly that too is quite a nice phone.

It's amazing what £40 will get you these days.

Android busted for carrying Fake ID: OS doesn't check who really made that 'Adobe' plugin

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Exactly what I was going to say. You don't need a full Android upgrade to fix this, if you have Google Play Services installed, then you are already protected.

Roku flashes $50 HDMI TV web dongle at anyone sick of Google's stick

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FAIL

1$ <> 1£

No thanks

AMD's 'Revolution' will be televised ... if its CPU-GPU frankenchip Kaveri is a hit

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Bought one this morning

It is going to be part of my son's late Christmas present of a (hopefully) mid-end gaming PC. We've just been waiting on the Kaveris being released.

If I can mine a bitcoin or two on it, brilliant.

Amazon, Hollywood, Samsung: PLEASE get excited about 4K telly

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Who will buy one?

One of the people in "Benefits Street" will probably have one on their wall in next week's episode. They already seem to have bigger TVs than I have.

Ten classic electronic calculators from the 1970s and 1980s

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HP-41CV

I still have a HP-41CV at home somewhere (probably in a drawer with my Newton). I remember putting all the mnemonics and formulas I needed for my A levels into it, since no teacher at the time (1981) realised a calculator could do anything but a few sums.

Now this has reminded me, I might stick it on ebay if I can find some batteries for it.

Got a one-of-a-kind N9? Get ready to adopt Meego's baby Sailfish

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Got one

I bought one on ebay for about £95. Just waiting for delivery now. We will see whether it's a successful present for the son, or he thinks I'm just giving him some old tat.

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Happy

Christmas Pressie

My son needs a new phone, but doesn't want to go for anything that's too conventional. An N9 running Sailfish might just fit the bill. To anyone who has one currently, are they still a viable phone, or would I be better off trying to convince him to join the Android crowd and get a Moto G or Razr i?

Vote now for the ultimate bacon sandwich

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Woven BLT

What about this woven design from Lifehacker

http://lifehacker.com/5946033/get-bacon-in-every-bite-of-your-blt-with-the-basket-weaving-technique

Samsung chucks 'free' Galaxy S III at dragon sketcher

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I drew a kangaroo on a unicycle ages ago. Can Samsung please send me $1 Billion :)

Story gone

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I am a UK resident, but our corporate network appears behind a German proxy.

I always get the answers to these competitions correct, often spending litterally seconds in researching the answers, but amazingly I've never won.

Is some automated process likely to be throwing away my entries because of assuming I'm German?

UK Gov not using six million of its software licences

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It is only an issue if the product has never been used on a one off licence, or not been used since the renewal on a recurring licence fee. 30% doesn't sound too bad to me.

So, what IS the worst film ever made?

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Thumb Down

Stalker

Rated 8.1 on IMDb, supposedly a classic, and a whole 2 hours 43 minutes I can't get back.

<quote>One of STALKER's many treats is that it invites you to get carried away into your own thoughts, flowing with the images as it provides new questions to ponder...</quote>

thoughts and questions like, why am I watching this god awful film, how could so many people be so wrong.

World's Raspberry Pi supply jammed in factory blunder

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Even allowing for the idiotic American date format, shouldn't Pi day be 3/14/15 (if truncating) or 3/14/16 (if rounding), or perhaps 3/14/15 9:26:53

Fedora 16: A GNOME lover's paradise

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@Owen Carter (point 2)

<quote>2) Pressing an Application icon in the launcher opens a running instance of the app</quote>

It's another modifier key that you need. I haven't got Gnome 3 at work here to confirm, but off the top of my head it's shift (if not then it's alt).

Play.com spam points to malware downloads

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FAIL

Rubbish apology

I don't care if it was an external company, they were acting on behalf of Play so as far as I am concerned it is Play who are responsible. Plus, they don't need to tell me to be careful with my info, they need to tell themselves.