Posts by fishman

Mexico mounts ROBOTIC ALIEN INVASION of US back yard

It's just

Swamp gas. From too many bean burritos.

EU telecoms to Apple, Google: 'Pay up!"

Cable TV

In the US, the cable TV companies pay TV channels to be allowed to carry them on their cable network. The cable TV companies know that if they don't carry certain channels their customers will go elsewhere. You call the content providers freeloaders, but the whole reason for using the internet is content. One could call the telco providers freeloaders because they are not paying the content providers anything.

Don't be surprised if in the future the telcos start paying the content providers.

Customers will go where the content is

If my telco cut off Google and others, I'd switch telcos. Why use any telco that restricts any of the internet? So, lets say telco "X" bans Google. And telco "X"'s competitors would start advertising that they offer the full internet, unlike telco "X". Assuming all other things are equal, which telcos will get more customers?

Verizon revives Microsoft's unhappy hipster phone

Dumping them

Looks like this is a way to dump the unsold inventory.

US may disable all in-car mobile phones

Ban front seat passengers?

How about banning front seat passengers? I see drivers talking to the front seat passengers, turning their heads towards the person and their eyes away from the road.

I doubt if the cell phone jamming will happen - It's the sort of issue that will get the current administration voted out.

Man enraged by sagging pants pops cap in teen's ass

Darn right!

Hey you! Get off of my lawn!

Sony Ericsson confirms Symbian spurning

Windows 7 Phone

While I'm no fan of Microsoft, too many people seem to have given up on them in the smartphone arena. But Microsoft knows that they must expand beyond the desktop, and they have a large amount of cash so they can afford to make a long term effort. I don't think that smartphone OS's have the same sort of "lock in" that desktop OS's have, so Microsoft still has a large window :) of opportunity left.

Assange denies 'sexual assault' allegations

No change

A new president claiming "Change". So much for that. It's not surprising considering Obama's support for the Patriot act.

Intel needs to rethink security to profit from McAfee buy

AMD?

Wonder if AMD will now be shopping for a security firm.

MOON SHRINKING FAST - shock NASA discovery

No surprise.

It's no surprise that the moon is shrinking. Take a piece of cheese, and leave it out for a few days. It will end up noticably smaller. Since the moon is just a big piece of cheese, the same thing is happening to it.

Polaroid 300 instant print camera

inkjet

What they need to do is combine a digital camera with a built in inkjet printer. That way you can select which photos to print, and have digital photos for adding to facebook, etc. Plus even with the high cost of inkjet inks, it would be vastly cheaper per print.

ACTA leaks - but secret squirrel stays secret

Nope

Bush started the Patriot Act. Now Obama supports it. Bush started ACTA. Obama continues it.

No change here!

Mozilla turns out Firefox 4 beta candidate builds

Release

I guess you could call this the alpha beta release, and the real release the master beta.

England versus Germany: Quaff real ale

Flushed away

When England plays I always think about the movie "Flushed Away".

Sony Vaio P netbook

Thanks

Thank you for testing the Vaio P with Ubuntu - you've probably saved a number of Reg readers some grief.

Google Caffeine jolts worldwide search machine

Switching to....

If google doesn't stop this stupid image background, I'm going to switch. Any recommendations?

MSI Wind U160

Live CD

Windows on a netbook is pretty much a given. What I'd like to see is if a popular live linux CD distro works ok on it.

Woman sues Google after highway knockdown

Hitting a Pedestrian

There are places that pedestrians are not allowed. And if this was one, she could be liable for any damages to the car. From wikipedia for jaywalking:

"Following the Uniform Vehicle Code, state codes often do not prohibit a pedestrian to cross a roadway between intersections if at least one of the two adjacent intersections is not controlled by a signal, but stipulate that a pedestrian not at a crosswalk must yield the right of way to approaching drivers."

Google mocks Jobs with Flash on Android

Flashy

Even if flash is dead, it will still take several years before it would be irrelevent. Of course, having smartphones that run flash would slow the decline of flash.

Soooo,

If 80% of the smartphones had flash capability, and 20% didn't, who would be hurt more, Apple or Adobe? Apple has had a big advantage with the iphone far superior to other smartphones as a web device. With Android phones becoming good enough, as good, or better than the iphone, and available on multiple carriers, Apple will either have to bite the bullet and accept flash, or become a much smaller player.

RHEL 6 - your sensible but lovable friend

Enterprise OS

Once again, someone doesn't seem to understand that RHEL is an enterprise operating system and not just a server operating system. It is used by quite a few engineers where I work as their desktop OS, and I use it on my desktop and servers at work, and use CentOS at home. It would not surprise me at all if RHEL is installed on more desktops than servers.

Leonard Nimoy in 'no more Spock' shock

Did you

Did you google it, or did you remember it? If you remembered it, maybe we could get a class action suit going - pain and suffering!

Bilbo

Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, only ??? feet tall,

Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, greatest little hobbit of them all.

I still remember that song. Haven't heard it in forty years. Can I sue for damages?

Murdoch newswire sues over 'hot news'

Murdoch

"Murdoch's UK newspaper titles will start charging for access to their websites this summer."

Murdoch's UK newspaper titles will start losing readership at their websites this summer.

Ridley Scott talks up 'nasty' Alien prequel

Alien - deleted scenes

Did anyone watch the Alien deleted scenes? In one of the deleted scenes, they show a complete view of the alien - In the released movie you never see the entire alien. And it looked so "Star Trek Original Series" quality that it was easy to understand why they deleted it. I hope that Ridley Scott does better this next time.

HP: last Itanium man standing

Unsung Zero

AC - thanks for reminding me what a disaster Rick Belluzzo was for the computer industry. And don't forget, his reward for running SGI into the ground was a job at ......... Microsoft.

Apple in shock public attack on Adobe

Phone speeds

@Joe - Any new phone that competes directly with any new Iphone will be fast enough to run flash. I don't care if an older smartphone isn't fast enough to run flash if I'm buying a new phone - I only care if the new phone I'm buying is fast enough.

Adobe is claiming that 10.1 will be out in the first half of 2010.

While html5 might eventually replace flash, 2 years from now (the point that many replace their current smartphone) flash will still be significant.

Western Digital laps Seagate

WD

Congrats to WD - over the last few years they have really turned around and put out high quality drives. I've bought 12 of their drives over the last 3 years with no failures - which is much better than what I was getting with Seagate. And I've got more than a dozen of the infamous "Deathstar" drives dead in a cabinet somewhere.

Cameron promises yet more Avatar

No 3-D

Might as well wait for the 3-D version to come out on BD. So I'll wait until I get a 3-D compatable BD player, and a 3-D compatible HDTV. With extra 3-D glasses for the whole family. $$$$$$$$$$$$

McAfee false positive bricks enterprise PCs worldwide

McAfee is a virus

Several times over the last couple of years I've had to get the BOFHs at work to fix McAfee inflicted damage on the pc in my office that runs windows. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other times where McAfee screwed up but the BOFHs fixed it before I found out.

Apple leaves profits on table for 'huge' iPad future

iphone - ipad

The iphone is priced competitively for it's market when it is part of a phone plan. The iphone can also act as an ipod replacement. But between the ipad and an android pad, a consumer may see a $100-$200 difference in price up front.

My prediction? Apple will do well, but not dominate this segment.

iPhone and Mac boost Apple by 94%

Ipod

It's not surprising that ipod sales are down - many buy an iphone as an ipod replacement + smartphone. Why spend $150-$200 for an ipod when you can get an iphone for $200?

McAfee sued over third-party pop-up pitches

McAfee

Last week, my computer at work would no longer connect to the internet. It turns out that it was caused by the McAfee AV software.

Microsoft launches iPad-happy website for wimmin

Shoes

I'm a lucky man - my wife isn't interested in shoes, and the only shoes my teenage daughter cares about are soccer shoes.

Is iFlorist the greatest website in the universe, ever?

OK!

Sounds legit to me. And as soon as my new found friends from Nigeria make me rich, I'll use Iflorist to send flowers to my wife.

US couple jailed for TV shoplifting brag

Jail time?

In many places, "good behavior" cuts the jail time to 1/2 to 1/3 of the original sentence. So I expect the man to serve less than a year, and the woman to serve less than 6 months.

Since they were already suspects before the TV show, and it still took a year after the TV show before they were arrested, I'd expect the police spent at least $50K on them. Then the cost of the trial was probably several multiples of $10K. No wonder local governments are going bankrupt.

Hobbit cameras start rolling in July

Sounds good to me

I like the idea of ten foot tall blue women in thongs in the middle earth. Sounds like a great movie.

US National Broadband plan goes to Congress

Costs

As the US deficit goes out of control, these bozos are continuing to spend like crazy.

Crap Scottish weather favours ginger hair

Ginger Or?

I'll take Mary Ann

SCO's Linux litigation architect angles for SCO's mobile biz

Fraud?

A year ago, Darl claimed that this part of SCO was wor\th millions. Now he is buying it for $35,000. And SCO spent more money trying to find a buyer for it than what Darl is paying.

US plans crewless automated ghost-frigates

Failures

No crew on board to fix or override any system that breaks down. I can see the ship now floating out in the middle of the ocean dead because the "Windows on Warships" operating system had a blue screen of death.

Adobe heats up iPad Flash bash

Flash back

Maybe having more devices that don't run flash is a *good* thing - it might slow down the excessive use of flash on websites.

Euro astro biz: It's time for solar panels in Spaaace

@oldcodger

Two advantages I see - the first is that it would be easy to align the panels to the sun for better collection, and second, you don't have to worry so much about cloudy days - you just "burn" a hole in the clouds. :)

Apple trawling networks for tablet subsidies?

Not much from Microsoft

On one hand, Microsoft paying to have Bing as the default search engine on the islate would help drive traffic to Bing. On the other hand, a cheaper islate would lower any windows-slate sales, where Microsoft would make money from the OS payment and still drive traffic to Bing. So I don't see a big chunk of change from MS.

Microsoft admits Win 7 tool violated GPL

Lawsuits

If the code that had been misappropriated had been closed source, Microsoft could have had a $400 million dollar lawsuit thrown at them. They were lucky that it was GPL'd.

Bill Gates plants (wetter) smooch on Steve Jobs

Apple

NeXT buying Apple was the best possible outcome for Apple.

(Yeah, I know Apple bought NeXT. But who is running Apple? And Mac OS X is like the NeXT OS with a more Mac-like UI).

Baying mob turns on miniskirted Brazilian uni student

Hypocracy

Those brasilian bikinis are pretty minimal - the only way you could (logically) make a miniskirt more extreme than their bikini is if they didn't wear any panties.

Mozilla's SeaMonkey 2.0 exits cryptobiosis

Another Seamonkey user

I use seamonkey - does that make me the lucky 13th?

What if you had a launch party and nobody came?

CentOS

Today CentoS released the update to CentOS 5.4 - I guess they are also directing a stream of piss at MS.

NewsNow tells newspapers: Lay off the legal action

Drudge

There was an article a couple of months ago about how some UK newspaper sites had jumped up in popularity thanks to links on the Drudge Report.

When I follow a link to a news or newspaper site I check the sidebar for other stories. So a single link may have me reading a number of articles there.

Greens more likely thieves and liars, says shock study

It explains

It explains why Al Gore says one thing, and actually does something different.