* Posts by Silverburn

1609 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2011

Copper load of that: Ofcom claims HUGE jump in 'average' broadband speed

Silverburn

Re: Why are they comparing crap packages...

...as most people have prolly tried BT at some point, you may already know how bad they are...

This is what happens when you're a real-world monopoly, but not on paper. You just don't need to give a f*, because you know your market is not going anywhere. Time for some "proper" LLU and BBU to introduce some competition.

Google to pay laughably minuscule fine over Wi-Fi slurp across US

Silverburn

Re: ... and yet...

It should be noted that I was referring to this statement:

... if it were Microsoft, there would be all kinds of hell erupting on these forums.

..rather than the actual fine itself.

Silverburn

Re: ... and yet...

I don't think google are getting off too lightly here. One refreshing thing about el Reg is that blatant corporate piss taking will be slated - the vast majority will rightly twist the knife, with no brand loyalty. As it should be.

Silverburn

Re: Hmm..

More ominous is:

- the fine was for "hampering", not for slurping per se

- that they will "eventually" destroy the data

- that their staff need education on user privacy

- The project leaders never wanted this data, and didn't use it or even look at it...of course they didn't

- nobody was checking this guys work

Eric Schmidt trousers his monstrous package at Google

Silverburn

Re: Let's hear it you labor-voting lefties...

I moved to a new country to pay less tax. Is that avoidance? I pay the full amount due for my salary, but still pay less than half of the uk amount, and receive better services all round.

Which is more immoral - being tax "efficient", or a government overly taxing your people and being massively wasteful with it?

Silverburn

Re: Let's hear it you labor-voting lefties...

Once more...with feeling...

Evasion != Avoidance.

Lets all be honest - we'd do this too, if we had the massive financial buffer to do so.

*Nobody* (willfully) pays 1 pence more tax than they absolutely have to. And nobody can claim innocence...how many have bought a glass of milk *to go* from Mcdonalds, then "tasted" it (or drank it entirely) on the premises? Then you owe the VAT man 20%...you thieving barsteward...

Silverburn
Holmes

$1 salary...

...tax dodge? Or just showing off?

AMD releases new 'Elite' laptop chips

Silverburn
Coat

Elite chips...

... are "mostly harmless"

Coca Cola in the dock over illegal China GPS map claims

Silverburn
WTF?

So...they used a GPS database to map where their customers (retail shops mainly - I suspect the military base has a canteen onsite) are, so they could plan more efficient delivery routes?

They already have their customers addresses, invoices, contacts etc on file...what's wrong with tagging GPS onto that data too?

I'm not seeing what the problem is?

New Apple TV may hint at Apple-Samsung divorce

Silverburn

While avoiding the whole cause/blame of the 1bn figure fine, I'm not sure why you were downvoted. There's a very real possibility Apple (and possibly others) will face a price hike for exactly this reason. Gotta be pretty naive to think Samsung are just gonna suck it up.

It should be noted though, that the 1bn figure is very likely to come down by not insignificant amounts.

Silverburn
Gimp

Re: A5

It doesn't stutter now, even on A5, and even over wifi. This is using Apple's "low bitrate" HD movies mind you, which are less than perfect when it comes to artifacts (compared to Blu-ray sources). Inevitable, given the meagre circa 4gb file sizes.

However...it does have know timing issues with some Sammie screens with the motion plus feature activated, which causes it to skip a couple of frames every 4 second. Annoying? Very. Read into that what you will.

Starlight-sifting boffins can now spot ALIEN LIFE LIGHT YEARS AWAY

Silverburn
Unhappy

Wrong focus?

Fantastic as this is (and it genuinely is), it's pretty much worthless information if you have no means to get there - or even just communicate - in a feasible timeframe.

Until we get FTL (for travel and/or comms), the stars (and now their planets) will still just be decoration in the night sky.

Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan

Silverburn

More of a dystopia, rather than Sci-fi IMO. See also: Soylent Green.

Silverburn

Also missing

The Andromeda Strain.

Silverburn
Black Helicopters

I choose not to see the helicopters.

Silverburn
Thumb Up

Re: Primer, of course...

Alphaville....A single WTF moment that lasts 99 minutes.

Other than that...+1.

Silverburn

Re: What,

Chewing gum for the eyes. Pre-teen eyes at that - forgot the plot, just watch the effects and the explosions, and have a sock ready for the Megan Fox scenes!

Silverburn

Re: Wot, no Avatar?

I watched it last week. Again. Awesome.

In addition, I have every film here, including the missing Silent running. And all the other Ape and Trek films. And Dark Star. And Ghost in the.

All are watchable, but above all, Zardoz should be avoided at all costs.

A thought occurs...I have too many Sci-fi movies.

'Wireless charging' in Galaxy S4 will betray Samsung's best pal

Silverburn
Happy

Wireless charging?

...is it really that big a deal..?

<Fast forwards in the time machine>

Oh. Ok, never mind.

Uni profs: Kids today could do with a bit of 'mind-crippling' COBOL

Silverburn

Re: Let me get this straight....

Hopefully you're not in Scotland then:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21733521

A snowy ditch awaits your tired brain.

Silverburn
Happy

Timescales?

COBOL is good for another 10 years...

- 2013 6th year entering Uni to study CS (inc majoring in COBOL module) = 4 years

- Exits Uni 2017

- If lucky, gets on apprentice schemes at bank for 1 year

...leaving his valuable skills with a shelf life of 5 years.

Lets hope the rest of his Uni education can cover the shortfall of the remaining 40 years of his working life.

Caveat: I did Biology and yet worked in IT for 20 years, so pretty much all of the above is bollocks at the end of the day.

Oklahoma woman cuffed with loaded .22 in pork holster

Silverburn

Re: She's lucky she got arrested...

Depends which way it was inserted. Though neither option could be described as comfortable if it did go off.

However, given the wooden handle was visible in this case, then Darwin was definitely on standby.

Six things a text editor must do - or it's a one-way trip to the trash

Silverburn

Ha, Ha, swing and a miss.

Remember, the keystrokes for switching on humour detection is "Ctrl+F and then Ctrl+alt+U".

Era of the Pharaohs: Climate was hotter than now, without CO2

Silverburn
Flame

It's all a load of...

...bollocks.

All of it. Both sides.

Here's the $4.99 utility that might just have saved Windows 8

Silverburn

Startisback = brilliant name btw.

And at least we're seeing some developers making serious cash out of Win8...

Silverburn
Unhappy

Re: My cost effective solution that costs $0.00

In reality deleting the SxS folder would only free up a couple of gigs, not 20+.

When a bunch of aliases/shortcuts takes up a couple of gigs, I know something has gone wrong somewhere. A couple of MB, tops?

Dear Facebook: I heard the news today, oh boy

Silverburn
Happy

Re: Ponzi...

There's badges now??? Cool!

Put me down for one entitled "The Internet's biggest and most gullable loser".

Silverburn

Re: Well...

It was fun when it was new, and "free" (yeah, yeah). Just like the "good ol' days".

Now it's a boring ol' corp, and you *just know* the subscriber fees are coming, as well as the bigger ads.

Silverburn
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Google+ over Facebook any day of the week.

1/ Ha, ha, ha, ha!

2/ HA, HA, HA!

3/ RFLMAO. No please! Stop!

4/ <---

They're as bad as each other (google/facebook), frankly.

Microsoft exec selling his Surface tablet

Silverburn

Re: The buyer would be wise to check the serial number

As would the seller. There's a good chance this is "Corporate property" if he is an MS employee, and not actually his to giveaway.

Apple ordered to surrender coveted docs in iOS privacy lawsuit

Silverburn
Facepalm

Re: Discovery process

"Our Document Management System uses the same codebase and algorithms as our Maps application"

Silverburn

Re: Prove it...

Typical apple...

Typical lawyers more like. Only in Lawyer-land would this make sense.

Though I hardly see Apple resisting the use of this tactic.

Virgin Mobile doffs its cap: Web speed limit axed after outrage

Silverburn

Virgin Mobile UK has suspended its internet speed cap while it tries to get its network reliability back up to scratch

Don't rush on my behalf. Please. Leave the cap off as long as you like...so far the speed has outweighed the reliability issues.

Photoshop fakery exposed by fake Photoshop tool

Silverburn

Where is the line drawn?

Personally, I see no issue with the attached images...a bit of hue, lighting effects and saturation? Still "looks" like the same woman. It's still valid "digital enhancement". Girl in image looks "normal" before or after tweakery.

But what about a mole? One might be ok...but two? or ten? Freckles? freckles come and go naturally, depending on exposure to sunlight...can they be edited back to the "winter" setting?

And what about models who do their own "internal" modifications? Bulgarian airbags being the most notable? Is that still cheating - there wouldn't need to be any digital tweaking, so Dove's criteria could still be met?

Where you actually change the physical characteristic of the model though (digitally or surgically)...that's where the line should be drawn IMO. But I suspect regulation will be near impossible...

World's 'smallest' mobe unveiled in Japan

Silverburn
Happy

Re: £252!

But the "pounds per inch" figures are excellent.

Apple would use that in their pitch (oh wait, they did...except they called it "DPI")

Amazon yanks SimCity download from store

Silverburn
Headmaster

It's sentences like this that get deleted three or four times for just these reasons. Only to be replaced with:

"Both Amazon and EA have not responded at this time."

You can never have enough pedantry. It's self-perpetuating in most cases. Including mine, probably.

'Mainframe blowout' knackered millions of RBS, NatWest accounts

Silverburn

Re: Prevented millions from accessing their accounts?

9pm at night with no card transactions and no ATM. Anyone out for dinner or drinks using RBS was knackered.

That would limit it to politicians and Traders, as everyone else in the country is too skint to eat out midweek. Then again, the politicians probably wouldn't be paying for it anyway - it's all on "expenses". So it's just the traders then. No biggie.

BRITAIN MUST DECLARE WAR on Cervinaean menace

Silverburn

Tasty indeed...but on my honeymoon I pretty much had venison every night. Chef did a spectacular job, no question there...but after 7 nights of it, I needed "a rest". Venison is not a "consume daily" food - it's quite rich.

Silverburn

Re: Lock and load

That's what you told the Austrians, Czechs and Poles.

I think they all accepted the generous offer, but something went drastically wrong in the translation if I recall...

Silverburn
Mushroom

Re: Contraceptive dart guns?

Darts? How will matches of 501 help reduce their numbers exactly?

sarcasm: on

And no shooting? So...poison, snaring, castration, habitat burning, disease introduction, germ warfare and introduction of brutal predators are probably still all ok, right...?

<-- The only way to guarantee rapid numbers reduction is this. There are a few unpleasant side affects mind.

sarcasm:off

Bacon sarnies can kill: Official

Silverburn

Re: Death

and some weird worm thing which have been found to be politically biologically immortal

Peter Mandelson?

Reg readers brew up the ultimate cuppa

Silverburn
Flame

No Fanboi war?

Wait...I thought it was traditional for El Reg threads to descend into a fanboi slagging match?

2 pages in (at time of post) and where's the cafeboi's expletive-ridden "FAIL" messages, and the resulting counter-salvo from the Teatards?

Flame on chaps!

Silverburn
Alien

Re: Not everyone wants builders tea

errm....just to be clear...the coffee and sugar killed 2/3rds of your kidneys?

Luckily that won't be a problem for me because I have 6 kidneys.

Wait...I don't?

Silverburn
Thumb Up

Re: Critical fail

Not just sugar...*lots* of sugar.

Silverburn
Happy

Critical fail

It's not tea until it's got at least six sugars in it, and I'm bouncing off the walls for an hour afterwards.

And semi-skimmed milk??? Good lord, no. Full fat please, with the "straight from the cow" cream-on-top version preferred.

'Quantum fridge' gets close to absolute zero

Silverburn
Joke

printer ports?

I'm interested in why it's got what looks like old skool LPT printer ports on the right side. The mind boggles as to how near zero temperatures will make this print server(?) work any faster.

Redmond slashing Win8, Office OEM rates for small devices

Silverburn

Re: Cut the price as far as you want

Similarly:

My main PC is an IMac

My office app is OO & iworks

My photoediting app is Apeture

My browser is firefox

My email client is imail

My current tablet is an iPad

My current phones are iphone and Galaxy Note 1.

For gaming I have a PS3

My PC runs my turbo trainer, and is win7. I have a XP VM, but haven't opened or needed it in 6 months. I don't even have an MS mouse or keyboard.

I haven't bought anything new from MS in many, many months, nor do I see any reason to in the future either. Worse still - I build my family's IT the same way, and MS won't be getting any future business from them either.

This is MS's problem - all traditional *consumer* revenue channels are drying up, as educated people (and their families) find better and/or cheaper alternatives. And with win8/TIKFAM, now the corporates are starting to think that way too.

Silverburn
Thumb Down

Re: ..verry funny article...@ Neil.

Have you used TIFKAM? particularly on a nontouch PC? There are so many fundamental interface/UI fails it beggars belief.

To extend the gas cooker analogy...TIKFAM is a gas cooker that has the main ignite control hidden down the side of the cooker, the gas control dials are hidden under flaps, which themselves have no visible means of operation, and you can only use one hob at a time, unless you lift up the cooker top surface, and attach your own hobs underneath. And there are absolutely no labels or instructions on anything.

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

Silverburn
FAIL

errr...that would be the WSJ?

Next Windows 8 version can ditch bits of Metro

Silverburn
Coat

TIFKAM

Why do I always read that as TIT CAM?

The classic, suspiciously-stained trenchcoat please.