Posts by LoopyChew

$10,000 Ethernet cable promises BONKERS MP3 audio experience

"reduces non-linear time delays to a minimum"

Non-linear time delays? You mean cheap ethernet cables have TIME TRAVEL capability and these guys are charging us $10K to get RID of that?!

Skype to become 'Star Trek' style real-time translator, says Redmond

Shouldn't that be "les couilles du chien?"

Peak thumb drive is coming in 2016

Re: Thumb drive

UFD is an initialism but it sure ain't recursive. (For it to be recursive the "U" in "UFD" would have to stand for "UFD.")

Sony nanotechnicians invent magnetic tape that stores 148 Gb per square inch

Just imagine how much pr0n you can lose when you accidentally leave the tape next to an unshielded speaker!

Keep your quinoa, hipsters: Boffins back healthy slabs of choc

Re: Let's not get carried away

1. Eat 100% pure, and let it sit in your mouth.

2. Bite into an apple afterward. I find Gala works best for me, but you make your own call.

3. Wipe down your pants.

Darth Vader outs self as iPhone fanboi

Re: Stupid.

Come come, we know that all angst and bad poetry goes on a LiveJournal.

Men have LARGE APPENDAGES, are OXYGEN THIEVES: Science

Obvious: 'scuse me, is that your nose or did a bus park on your face?

Meteorological: everybody take cover, she's going to blow!

Fashionable: you know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore something larger, like... Wyoming.

Personal: well, here we are, just the three of us.

&c., &c.

Budget decay kills NASA plutonium drive project

Outrageous

It is unacceptable that nobody has yet proposed that NASA buy it from the Libyans in exchange for a bombshell casing full of used pinball machine parts.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield's Space Oddity ends in Kazakhstan

He is what a celebrity should be, if not what one is.

Buying a petabyte of storage for YOURSELF? First, you'll need a fridge

But will we ever need a petabyte of personal storage?

Depends on how high-resolution pr0n gets.

Or, barring that, storage will grow with perceived need as well. Eventually media enthusiasts will insist on nothing less than seven-point-one channel lossless audio and 8-to-16k video, or biometric systems will want even higher-resolution thumb- and eye-prints, or who knows what. A lot of this stuff will depend on throughput as well, but that will evolve alongside the average required capacity. Remember when 640k should have been enough for anyone? You're basically suggesting the same thing there, 30 years on.

Twin brothers nabbed for scrap over sex with 'shared' girlfriend

No sunglasses needed

I guess you could say that blows came to blows.

Skyfall makers 3D printed Bond's DB5

Actually, if you're going by the original definition of "decimation," it means Roman commanders got nine tenths of a car to destroy the remaining tenth.

Australian Police want in-house social network

"Facebook'em, Danno."

Apple updates iOS, mum on Wi-Fi, battery fixes

Re: So

Sophos suggests that despite Apple's description of the updates, there are some big problems that get fixed in this update: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/05/08/apple-offers-ios-5-1-1-update-fixes-some-serious-vulnerabilities/

EA unplugs Rock Band for iOS

Re: Hey

Consider the precedent this sets, and you'll understand why people care. People forked over anywhere from $5-$10--genuine currency--for the game, plus extra money if they wanted more songs. This is a game with--aside from the ability to purchase more songs--no need for a centralized server, and with multiplayer options restricted to local play (via Bluetooth).

By pulling something like this, they're telling us that we don't OWN any of our iOS purchases, we simply LEASE them, and they get to decide when to pull the plug. Furthermore, even after the app declared an expiry date of one month, the app was still available for sale with no caveat emptor from EA. Now if that isn't an assy move, nothing is an assy move.

iTunes fanbois outraged by Apple's sex-life quiz probe

Re: ::giggles::

That's what she said!

Steve Jobs' death clears way for Broadway star to play Woz

My personal vote: Noah Emmerich.

'Attitudes to robot sex will change'

Re: Another way for technology to fuck with you.

Isn't the point behind finding a solution to premature ejaculation to STOP coming soon?

Dad sues Apple for pushing cash-draining 'free' games at kids

Yes--when you enable restrictions, you need to set a four-digit passcode to be used when you make changes later.

The other thing that should be done, I believe, is to never give a credit card number to any services which provide their own "wallet." Purchasing gift cards and redeem codes means a much more limited amount of cash that can be spent. Someone cracked my account last year but only spent the $20 I had in it on random in-game currencies instead of however much they could have milked from my credit card; the same thing can be done for kids by giving them one gift card (with maybe $10) and creating an iTunes account with that.

This also has the added bonus of teaching kids the (very) basic concepts of financial responsibility by limiting their purchase choices. To be sure, it's not budget balancing, but at least they'll get the idea that sometimes you have to evaluate what you want more because you can't have it all, even if the money doesn't exist in "real life."

Google-backed research fights review spam

One thing this process won't be able to catch

While this is great for ridding the world of spambots, the next issue then becomes paid shills/astroturfers. Those will probably be much more difficult to suss out. On the plus side, paid shills are a lot more expensive and as such won't be nearly as frequent.

WTF is... UltraViolet

One edge of this sword is significantly sharper than the other--the edge pointed at the consumer

"Crucially, though, UV makes it possible to add higher resolutions or simply better copies - there's an audio drop-out in the current version, say - of existing files, easily and without troubling the customer."

...which also means they can seamlessly edit the movie and not notify the consumer. Unlikely to happen to anything but soundtrack replacements (music licenses, for example), but still, ultimately pretty not-nice.

I liked the idea of UV at the start, because I thought there would be a permanent repository of digital movies online. Now that I'm hearing more about things like "available online for a limited time," it's sounding less shiny. I could get paying minor increments to upgrade to a higher-resolution version of the video, but beyond that, Ultraviolet needs to work like a cloud-based locker to be something worth investing in, not a year-long rental service.

No-strings nookie radar tugged offline in stalking backlash

Apparently you could filter by either.

Vote now for the WORST movie EVER

The poll results

are TEARING ME APART, LISA! *milks the giant cow*

Florida man 'fesses to naked Scarlett Johansson outrage

Re: Fit punishment...

Ensmallment is a perfectly cromulent word.

(I think you're looking for "reduction.")

Re: Oh but you were! : D

Mila Kunis, aka the girl who made out with Natalie Portman in The Black Swan.

Super-boffin Stephen Hawking to star in Big Bang Theory

Stephen Hawking also made a "surprise" phone call to Jim Carrey during an interview on Conan O'Brien, too. I remember that because awesome.

Knowing his sense of humor (from lectures and his appearances in media), I'm not surprised at this in the least, and am happy for TBBT fans. (I watch and occasionally enjoy, and I think I'll enjoy this.)

CRACK made by quakes FOUND ON MOON

Somewhere between "moon," "graben," and "cracks," there's a butt joke to be made. I SHALL NOT REST UNTIL IT IS FOUND!

System Shock

Ultima engine

I'm fairly certain Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, which used a precursor version of this engine, also had sloping walls and floors. It was certainly fully 3D and allowed for non-rectilinear walls.

This game was the bee's knees back in the day. For some reason I remember some of the robots towards the end indicating their presence by uttering robotic garbage that sounded like "the world is a big headband" to me.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine pirate caged

I'm holding a book about Scarlett Johansson and feeling disappointed. Tried with two books, too, still not satisfied.

UltraViolet: Hollywood's giant digital gamble is here

On the other hand, Steam in the gaming industry is proof positive that DRM, when applied in the right manner, can be something people will turn out strongly in favor of. I understand the concept of DRM-free, but sometimes people don't care that there are fences if the field is large enough. That's what UV is shooting for, and we'll see if it hits its target.

It probably needs more advertising if it's going to survive, though. As is, if it crashes and fails, I can't imagine Hollywood trying again anytime soon. Which may be the point.

Mars rover Curiosity autographed by Obama

Mars beware!

The world's first serial Martian cat killer is on its way!

Open 'Facebook killer' survives on cash donations

Facebook killer still on the loose, film at eleven

As I have attempted to demonstrate with the topicline, "Facebook killer" sounds more to me like a serial murderer whose MO is seeking victims out on Facebook than it does a rival website.

Has your account been pwned? New website will tell you

One day I will create a site like this where they are asked to submit an e-mail and password, and have it direct to a page that just says "Yes."

Pay Jobs due respect - by crushing the empire he created

You're talking to the wrong people

If Apple consumers were never supposed to be satisfied with Apple products, Apple would never be as successful as it is today.

No, you should be telling this to the companies manufacturing the devices. As consumers, our end of the deal is to purchase products and enjoy them. It's up to the companies to innovate and not be happy with their current lineup.

HTC sinks $309m into audio tech from Dr Dre

One of the forefathers of modern rap.

As evidenced in the following riddle:

Q.: What's brown and rhymes with Snoop?

A.: Dre.

EMF notches up another health-scare

EMF causing health scares *again*?

It's unbelievable.

World needs needs Tequila power: report

So the devil's drink will now be the devil's fuel?

Looking forward to the day that people load their cars with the stuff, then wonder how the cars managed to end up in a cheap motel in Tijuana the following Sunday.

Kindle Store awash with auto-generated crap 'books'

The price

Maybe, but at least you're not being charged for it in anything but time. On Amazon it's time AND money.

Fine for major publishers, not so much for the indies

The problem with this then becomes its unattractiveness to legitimate independent novelists who would then have to resort to raising funds (like with Kickstarter), and only if they think they're actually going to make that money back. £10,000 is a lot. I'd think £50 would be enough to throw off the bottom line for spamovelists and make it unprofitable.

Biodegradable products are often worse for the planet

Along these lines

Would it be possible to divide existing landfills into smaller "pockets" for methane to be collected more efficiently?