Posts by Esskay 569 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Aug 2011
While I don't necessarily think that turning our back on nuclear power is the right thing to do (particularly in power-strapped Japan), I admire the idea of a protest *helping* rather than hindering the public. Sadly I can't see hackers/skiddies in western countries protesting by doing the same thing...
Absolutely agree - to go off on a tangent a bit, I believe this is what helped kill Top Gear Australia -a new show, that viewers were used to seeing in a 1 hour no-ads format, crushed into a 1 hour slot on commercial TV meant that viewers flicked away from the station at the first ad break and never looked back. Particularly when the station it was broadcast on is known for pumping huge amount of ads into a 1 hour slot.
Personally I prefer what SBS (used to) do - still have ads, but relegate them to a longer block every 30 mins. Probably doesn't have the same revenue raising prowess but I actually found myself *less* likely to switch channels, since I knew it'd be the only break (although I did use it for toilet breaks, checking the pc, making a sandwich, etc, I was always within earshot of the TV and usually in the same room. Except for the toilet breaks obviously.).
Everytime I see that name it conjures up an image of a scared, slightly demented man smoking a cigar in a dark office, with a belt of ammunition around his neck and a machinegun on his desk, mumbling about "precious bodily fluids" whilst scribbling "Peace On Earth" on a notepad.
Also Mary Bono Mack sounds like a raw, unadulterated nutter. ""Despite denials, the Russians and Chinese are working quietly behind the scenes – and have been for years – to exert control over Web content and infrastructure,"" Last time I checked, the UN involved more than just Commies and ex-commies - in fact China are probably more surprised than anyone to suddenly find themselves mentioned as a major part of the UN's supporters, considering how many of the UN's policies seem to be at odds with China.
Microsoft making a decision that *helps* their users?
I've no doubt that their motives are more related to stopping the slide away from IE at a consumer level, and that customer "choices" or "privacy" rates very low on their agenda - but I have to admit that they're making a fairly bold move by pissing off the people who help monetise the platform.
As for the Advertising Alliance - Fuck off. Trying to pass off ads that know who I am, where I am and what I'm doing as a method of "improving my experience" doesn't wash - it simply makes me wonder how much (or how little) payment your members would accept to sell that data off to a third party...
"628/629 - No Motor Vehicles With Even/Odd-Numbered Registration Plates"
If memory serves, there's a legitimate reason for this one - in some countries (can't remember where - maybe in asia? or south america?) In an effort to reduce traffic congestion without spending money on infrastructure, governments require that only cars with odd/even numbers on their rego can drive on certain days - effectively halving the number of cars on the road at any one time. (And results in all sorts of weird economic effects, such as black market rego plates, etc).
As someone who now wants to try and have a stab at a bit of programming (after dropping out of software design in high school due to never actually paying any attention) the Pi seems perfect - and it's at the right price point for it to essentially be a "no-risk" proposition - here's a computer that can be up and running for a lower overall price than many textbooks, and with a large fanbase already (and plenty of forums to go to for help) it seems it's almost a no-brainer to get one....
The only issue is the reported instability of the hardware, as has been spoken of both often and loudly in other articles on the subject here on El Reg. Having a piece of hardware this cheap sounds perfect, but even if it can't do *much* it needs to do what it can, *well*. If not, I forsee lots of frustration followed by an attempt to expand the functionality by attaching it very quickly and briefly to the heavy end of a large hammer.
I do hope stability can be sorted out and it succeeds though, with a dedicated fanbase I can see people doing things with it that the creators never imagined...
But Anonymous really need to work on their spelling. To mainstream media all the characters sitting behind the computers at Lulzsec et al are, for all intents and purposes, anonymous. Therefore all they can use to characterise them is the messages they leave behind - and using txtspk makes the "hackers" look immature and childish, regardless of the message they're trying to send. If defacing websites is be a serious attempt at tackling a serious issue, talking like a 15 year old chav is probably going to have the opposite effect of the one intended.
I realise your post was intended to be facetious, but (ironically?) this sort of practice is not unheard of in the car industry. Many car companies these days will allow a prospective client to "borrow" a car for 24-48 hours, drive around, see how it is (peugeot even allow you to take a car home for a weekend here in Australia during certain promotions) and if you're not happy with it, you give it back, no fees, no problems.
Sure, people aren't dictating their own price - but if the idea of "try before you buy" can apply to a product that devalues by ~15% the moment it's driven out of the dealership, why is it so difficult for digital media (which is not subject to wear and tear) to have a similar model? In fact (going back to the car example once again) an Australian manufacturer a couple of years back was giving people cars for a whole month (the Holden Epica IIRC) and allowing them to return the car at the end of it if they weren't satisfied.
Obviously illegal downloads aren't a "right" that people have - but by the same token, the industry has left a large hole for pirates to slip through by effectively ignoring the advantages (from the consumer's perspective at least) of digital distribution for so long.
How wonderful! Now when I hear that the train from Granville to out west/the city/anywhere has been cancelled *again* (or, if I'm lucky, has been delayed 20mins and will now arrive a minute or two before the next train, which has subsequently also been delayed) I won't care at all because I was able to look at a small, shitty, screen as I walked through the gate.
Not to mention that it looks fucking horrid - they've obviously just hacked a hole in the top of the machine and dropped the plastic crap on top, where it will sit happily awaiting the first drunk bogan to punch it off the machine at 2am the day after it's installed.
Why do NSW governments (both sides, for that matter) think people give a shit about screens on the machines?! It's th same story every term - any government in power tries to push through a big transport project that either:
a) Is expensive, thus resulting in the government shitting themselves and backing out after wasting 50 million on "feasability reports".
or
b) Will take longer than the current term of government, thus resulting in the government shitting themselves and backing out after wasting 50 million on "feasability reports".
How about we fix the trains before wasting money on ticket machines simply because "they're a bit old"?
The biggest minds in IT over in the United States have to be shipped off to some boat 10 miles off the coast of California in order to continue working there... But these religious crazies get to live it up on the mainland?! Surely they've got this the wrong way around...
"Until now I'd been led to believe that their car was close to a fire bombing and, on leaving the car, they may have been able to smell the residue of tear gas."
I'm pretty sure "residue of tear gas" = tear gas. Perhaps not in the concentrations that the rioters were experiencing it, but it still probably won't be going into the tourism brochures.
I find it quite ironic that as a team leader, Bernie was more than happy to organise boycotts of GP's, and was the source of quite a lot of dissent in Formula 1 in the late 70's - and now that he's on top he's happy to race regardless of circumstance (as long as the money keeps pouring in).
It's beginning to look like a situation not dissimilar to the '85 South African GP - I wonder if governments will be willing to put pressure on teams not to compete (Which could potentially put McLaren between a rock and a hard place).
The ejection makes me think of really bad C-movie special effects... I've got this theory that when an event occurs which is mind-bogglingly massive enough in scale, my brain simply pretends it's a really low-budget special effect in order to stop my head from exploding.
Amazing footage.
"AFACT has issued a statement in which it says the decision "exposes the failure of Big Media to keep pace with the online environment ..."
The Beer is for iiNet, who have been put through the wringer and come out clean. MPAA & RIAA must be spewing - they went after one of the smallest, easiest, most vulnerable targets they could, in the hope they'd get a decision that could be used as a weapon against bigger targets.
I was going to say It's like watching a runner fall at the first hurdle, but it's probably more like watching a runner false start, run over to the official and shoot themselves in the foot with the starting pistol.
Sure, it could be the weather radar... but have you considered:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Vehicles_introduced_in_2002
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Comics_characters_introduced_in_2002
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_characters_introduced_in_2002
The Neann OBT - RAV's new Oxygen Resuscitator, introduced in 2002 http://www.colacambulance.com/colac_equipment.htm
Drug Treatments for Skin Disease Introduced in 2002 (this one at least sounds worthy of sensationalism)
http://www.skintherapyletter.com/2003/8.2/2.html
Section 79BA of the New South Wales Housing Code Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 introduced in 2002 (pdf file)
http://housingcode.planning.nsw.gov.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=HqZwDukQpyo%3D&tabid=69
the Postgraduate Education Loan Scheme (PELS) introduced in 2002
And that's just the first page of google results for "introduced in 2002"!!! There could be literally millions more arbitrarily linked events in 2002 that caused a dubious statistical rise in a "disease du jour".
Besides, I thought the favourite tin-foiltard explanation for autism was flu immunisation? Or have enough celebrities stopped endorsing that crackpot theory for it to become "uncool"?
Yeah, I'm in the "more complexity" camp - sim city 4 was great IMO, I still go back to play it from time to time. Takes a while to get in to, but the complexity made it rewarding to create a nice city.
All I've had in recent times has been the anno series - now that can be complex. I've got a 70 hour continuous game I've had going for about 18 months that i'm anxious to get back into - the only thing stopping me is the couple of hours it'll take to figure out where im at...
"Former Apollo astronaut and NEO specialist Rusty Schweickart, representing the Association of Space Explorers"
Sadly I have a feeling their numbers will be dwindling in the coming decades... I can see earth, in 2039, people screaming in the streets, looking to the sky and wailing "Association of space Exlporers, where are you?" Before some terrific voice yells out "Explorers...... UNITE!" followed by a montage and associated music, with a few men in their eighties zimmerframing their way to the nearest bus stop.
On a more serious note, is it wrong to hope that there will be a collision just to see what happens? The rate of "OMG ASTEROID" headlines is only increasing, it's going to be a massive anticlimax if nothing ever happens. El Reg needs a collision or two to get the strike rate up.
But this is at the point where it becomes *less* convenient to use the stuff.
If I'm preparing a meal, I'm already going to be *in the kitchen* - surely it's easier to walk the 1-2 metres over to the oven and press a couple of buttons? Rather than try to find where I left the phone (probably not in the kitchen, but given that there are recipes on the app I'll give them the benefit of the doubt there), then I'll have to wash all the crap off my hands that they're inevitably covered in by this point, navigate through menus to the correct function, and hope that everything works properly (can you tell I'm a Fandroid?). It just seems like a massive kerfuffle.
I'd rather just mash my fingers against the front of the oven, twist some knobs, cover the whole thing in flour and not really give a shit.
Personally I've always wanted to see an amputation performed with a spoon. Horrifically messy, and would probably require some ingenuity, but god, what a spectacle! Obviously the lawyer themselves would be expected to perform the procedure, no point having them waste anyone else's time.
To stop bullshit like this, how about everytime a frivolous lawsuit gets filed (or *any* lawsuit involving software patents), each offending lawyer loses a finger. And the defendant gets to choose the method of removal.
Awesome to see the timezone database get out of trouble, but I shudder to think what would have happened had they not had the EFF at their back...
As an Australian, and therefore someone who spends most of his time insulting his best friends, I personally don't mind the term commentard (or any other -ard) - but it still depends on context. Most "-ards" terms are used by authors as an almost endearing term - a way of converying the informal tone of the article, or poking light fun at an extremely broad group without any serious connotations attatched - one which the author doesn't hold any animosity towards, but is just lightly taking the piss out of.
It's only the instances where the term is used in an attempt to deliberately belittle or provide weight to a personal opinion about a group of people that it becomes inappropriate, particularly where an author has an obvious and pervading dislike for the subject which permeates all of his writings (ie. Orlowski).
I'd like to think that a site as technical as el reg doesn't need to belittle it's opponents with insults - that's what we're here for.
As I read it, Kodak have tried to sue Apple, who have turned around and said "you can't sue us, you're bankrupt". Kodak have dismissed this, saying its a load of crap, and Apple has turned around and said "fine, how do you like them apples" and sued them back. Kodak doesn't really have a leg to stand on, - claiming immunity due to bankruptcy can arguably cause them to win one case but lose the other.
I'm not an Apple fan, and I think their lawyers are the scum of the earth, but they appear to have constructed a decent riposte to the initial filings, which has a 50/50 change of being successful (AFAICT all patent lawsuits are determined by flipping a coin - it results in a greater chance of an appeal, and more opportunities for lawyer scum to suck dollars from their employers).
Involves the term "hologram" - check
Is cube shaped - check
Requires use of a device called a "Spatial Light Modulator" - check
stores ginormical amounts of data, with ultrafast read and write times - check
sounds like the future to me!
Sadly it'll probably still sound like the future in 10 years time, before it suddenly starts to sound like bankruptcy...
100% agree that the injunctions could be extremely damaging for Samsung - and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. I expect Samsung to see things the same way and try and get a hefty amount of damages for the whole kerfuffle, although from everything I've read there's a bit of a streisand effect going on - everyone is talking about getting one because Apple don't want anyone to get one. Either way, a boost to income looks to be on the horizon for Samsung (as long as talk turns into action - and as it looks to be one of the best android tabs on the market, I'd say there's a good chance they'll be selling a lot of them in the coming weeks - sles will tell the final story though).
As for building up unrealistic expectations, it could be worse - at least Samsung aren't billing the thing as being "magical and revolutionary".
But at what cost? At the end of the day Samsung has lost huge amounts of profits, Apple huge lawers fees, and as stated, in six - twelve months, both devices will be being pulled off shelves to make way for the Next Big Thing (tm).
All in all, both of them look like kids at the end of a schoolyard brawl - and all because of a few rounded corners...
It'll be interesting to see if Samsung tries to get damages out of Apple.... I hope to god they don't Im getting sick of reading these stories and realising *any* result from *any* development in the case effectively means *nothing* to the consumer.
The large circular structure is just multi-level security to stop the worker drones from leaving the walled garden. Presumably aided by some story of the world ending when His Jobsness ascended into heaven to take over the place, and that everything outside the Walled Garden is poisonous and evil.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
