Posts by Bleu

PHONE me if you feel DIRTY: Yanks and 'Nadians wave bye-bye to magstripe

I could swear that

whoever wrote the headline had The Bloodhound Gang's biggest hit swimming about in his or her brain at the time of writing.

US Treasury: How did ISIS get your trucks? Toyota: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Hmmm

Much of Europe has ample water, by the time the oil runs out (and probably well before), it will be Eurabia, so those with trouble finding ample water will just go there en masse.

Oh, wait, they don't even need that excuse, if one notices recent events.

Re: Not really sure it takes Sherlock Holmes.

This kind of bullshit propaganda really has no place on the reg.

Since it is here, I will add:

Where did they get their huge supply of armoured Hummers?

Where did they obtain their supplies of US tanks, artillery, and anti-tank weapons?

Most telling of all ...

Why, in so many photos, do so many of them sport standard-issue US Army desert-combat boots? Usually, it is most.

Only exception is photos of their trainees, who do tend to wear sports shoes.

Sure, some of it is from Iraqi deserters, but that does *not* explain the appearance of US-made anti-tank weapons and the near-ubiquity of US-supplied boots.

Also does not explain the frequency of bits and pieces of US desert camouflage, US army trousers, in particular, appear to be very much in fashion, although not on quite the same scale as the US army standard-issue boots.

'One Windows' crunch time: Microsoft tempts with glittery new devices

This idea has been around

for years. Meaning the seamless device-to-device context and content idea.

NTT researchers published good and realistic work on it in the early 2000s, Xerox had a faint foreshadowing of it years before that.

Maybe people are simply not that interested.

... and the earlier work did not rely on the data all residing on giga-corporate tera-servers.

Kudos to MS for having a realistic try at it, probably the smartest thing they've done since OLE and DLLs, or maybe DirectX.

Will no doubt appeal to the people who stare at their phone screens around the clock, the phone interaction must be a prominent feature in their dreams.

Seriously, I think MS is on a winner here, they just need to convince a critical mass of the 'sharing everything all the time' people to think buying a phone with MS OS is 'kewl'.

If it happens, the resulting feedback process will return them to the phone business.

Personally, I'll avoid win10 as far as is possible, an OS with a perpetual version number, effectively on lease, has no appeal.

GENUINE STARSHIP as used by PRINCESS LEIA sold for just $450k

Re: Good gawd/ess ...

I was amazed by the down-vote flood (by Reg standards) for your sensible comment, so I give the first posi-vote.

I saw the film as a small child, once since, I liked and like it, but I don't even remember what that miniature looked like.

Surely, if it was so epochal, there must be plastic model kits that, with careful painting and staining, would look even better than the original?

Maybe even a cheaper die-cast metal job?

Oh well, I am off to carefully pose my huge collection of Jar-Jar Binks action figures.

Jar-Jar was the greatest!

Five things that doomed the big and brilliant BlackBerry 10

Do you have a link

to a reliable source that says that Apple and Samsung engaged in some bad behaviour to kill (or vastly reduce) the Blackberry market?

A cogent theory on the point?

The decline of RIM seems to have been a combination of lateness and press gushing about Apple.

Personally, I want a new 25-key phone, running TRON, but since the provider was taken over by other companies two or three years ago, the 'second phone for next-to-nothing contract' has vanished.

I have no doubt that you are right about the superior points of Blackberry 10, as were the many who praised Palm's last throw.

Since Blackberry is concentrating on offering its secure comms on other platforms now, their hardware will slowly dwindle to zero.

They were quite (not wildly) popular in Tokyo years ago, I have not seen anyone carrying one for, say, four or five years.

Re: My Wife will be gutted...

Why are you threatening your wife with such a fate?

Re: BB10 - not dead, worth a lot

MS did have a superior product in CE on the HP Journada, really more a Hitachi than a HP product.

I bought a Psion 5mx just before the Journada appeared.

Big mistake. Support from Psion here vanished within a year or so, although it did last long enough to have the guaranteed-to-fail screen cable replaced once under warranty, only because it failed so quickly.

It then failed again, in short order (less than three months, only opening and closing the shell a few times a day). By then, support had vanished.

Loved the 5mx, but the design problem was unforgivable. As far as I know, they never apologised or even admitted their fuck-up.

Perhaps the total collapse of EPOC was the work of karma.

I thought about sending it to the company in Germany that did cable replacements (for one that didn't break if one opened and closed the case a few times). I would guess that service is no longer available.

Wish I'd waited a few months and bought a Journada instead.

It would still be a usable toy, unlike my dead Psion.

So, Microsoft, in collaboration with Hitachi, and under the banner of HP, did get mobile computing for the time very right at least once.

Alleged $32m Gemcoin crypto-bucks scam busted by Feds

Re: San Fran can slide

From what I read, parts of San Fran (old contraction, but I see US writers using it, so I do) slipping into the ocean would be a desirable thing for the rest of the USA.

..., and no, I am not referring to their gay scene, but the exploitative 'tech' startups and other gentrifiers. Not that I've ever visited the place (or want or could afford to now), but they seem to have destroyed what interest the place had.

Although it is not funny that the behaviour of part of the gay scene on the streets at a 'pride' event means they have to recommend that children be kept indoors for the duration.

On a lighter note, it seems the furry fandom has had a huge influence on a sector of gay men, I saw many photos of men wearing dog and other animal masks.

Perhaps this is the natural destination of a basement-dwelling furry after leaving the basement.

"refereed to"

Anyone posting from a phone has the occasional error (although mine are *very few*), but that is a howler of howlers.

What is

"they city" supposed to mean?

Definition or GTFO.

Woman makes app that lets people rate and review you, Yelp-style. Now SHE'S upset people are 'reviewing' her

"positivity app"

Positivity as in HIV-positive?

FATTIES have most SUCCESS with opposite SEX! Have some pies and SCORE

So they all

fetishize a particular rugby position?

Re: That is one angle

'Chubby', like 'curvy', a great euphemism for 'grossly obese'.

This reminds me of a conversation

with a still fondly regarded girlfriend when overseas.

I commented that so many Americans seemed to have such amazingly adventurous sex lives.

She wisely pointed out that the adventurers tend to be like those on the least desirable side of Rikki [sp?] Lake's studio audience on her TV show of the time.

MACAQUE ATTACK: Monkey plunders Florida resident's box, gobbles contents

Minkey?

Poor failure of the subs you allegedly have.

I was expecting a weasel-like creature with nicer fur, so it is just a careless mis-spelling of monkey.

Shame on those responsible.

Blighty's Bloodhound 1,000mph rocket car unveiled ahead of record attempt

Re: "it's unlikely we'll see much return from all this"

I agree, it is bizarre that you are commissioning China to make a new nuclear reactor for you.

Not to question the expertise of the nuclear engineers in China, but it is truly bizarre that the UK, mercilessly leached off by the USA for nuclear tech. cannot now make its own power-generating reactor.

Since the big earthquake, plants here are shut down, what a waste. The fuel (metal) has a half-life.

Sure, once it has been dug up and refined, it is burnt in nuclear fire, the remnants are extremely toxic and carcinogenic.

Nobody is thinking about the more efficient fuel-cycles that lead to mainly non-radioctive residues.

That is really stupid.

At least in Europe, from my reading, the more waste-making techniques are compulsory.

It is impressive

that the de-industrialised UK (oh no, they make these little pretences, like spending a fortune on US nukes that are, according to believable rumour, also controlled by US keys, ho, ho,'independent deterrent) manages to make a supersonic dragster.

The required preparation for the dragster run is interesting, removing all features from a landscape that is all but, but not entirely. featureless in the first place. Still, people are paid (poorly) to do that.

The high desert in South America may have been better, but with the lithium mining, maybe not now.

I wish the driver and team well, but something like this has litle to do with anything real, even in the nation of origin.

As far as I can see from afar, UK elites are law and arts graduates.

They sneer at people with technical nous.

I was surprised to see that a British engineer-architect designed many of our classic railway buildings, of course, few remain, but I am touched by seeing one that is semi-preserved and the national treasure, one near the western coast, the ruin, but very beautiful.

Lies from VW: 'Our staff acted criminally but board didn't know'

Amusing

VW still makes interesting vehicles. One of my favourites is a mini-van, parked illegally every night a few hundred meters from where I post.

IMHO、this attack on VW is much like the attack on Toyota a few years ago.

Significant difference, the attack on Toyota was based entirely on lies.

Robots, schmobots. The Rise of the Machines won't leave humanity on the dole

Re: In business (It's a funny thing that CNC)

Alan Brown,

As you must well know, alumimium is very hungry to bond with oxygen, refining it in large quantities is one of two major technical advance of WWII mainly made by the USA.

It was a precious metal before that, too much energy taken to isolate it.

The other was the atomic bomb.

If you want to use aluminium in a mini-fabricator, you need the aluminium as ingots to be melted, or vacuum-sealed powder, with the fabricator having a hard-vacuum-sealed and very hot chamber to do the fabrication.

Like any work to do with aluminium, the energy budget would be enormous.

Re: We can always get jobs as luddites.

The luddites were smart people, not fools.

The current situation in western countries tends to absolute corruption, someone who is a talented coder in the mid-west of the USA has to make hamburgers because the government listens to people who want 41Bs (if I have the right number). I know this from a net friend in that situation.

People are shackled to their jobs for ridiculous hours, but at the many places that allow it, they really spend most of their time on Farcebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, ... or the Reg, another site where many clearly post from work most of the time, many other sites, too.

So, if you are not being paid to do propaganda on Farcebook, Twitter, the Wikipedia, or wherever, why be at work in that part of the day?

I never do or am.

Have done serious gaming and hacking time at a former employer I despised, so I do understand a little, but only if the people you work for make you hate them.

What I don't understand is employers outside the media encouraging people to do the Farcebook, Twit, in working hours:

AS LONG AS THEY ARE 'AT WORK'.

... and somebody else, performing an essential service or service service, has to slave at it throughout the shift.

Throw in a few Foxconn and similar suicides from overwork and bad conditions to make the toys.

It is a ridiculous system, everybody knows, and half answers many of the comments in this thread.

Re: Insurance

Taxi drivers here are often slobs in public parks where they have their rest breaks, but great drivers and people at work. They never fake things, either, if they are out of the area they know because of a giant fare, they say so.

As long as you know where you are, you can teach the driver the unfamiliar roads and have some pleasant chat.

Otherwise, following the nav. system will do the job, just not so well.

Overseas, I have experienced cheating after I know the roads a little, sometimes, even more obvious, you pass the same place in the same direction twice, so can see why some Regtards might prefer driver-less taxis.

Here, I have experienced an idiot driver only once, and I am sure he was not a cheat, just in the midst of his own nervous breakdown.

Re: However...

for Squander 2

I have not heard of this Ugandan genocide, unless you are talking about Idi Amin driving most of the sth. Asian people out of there to the UK. Sth. Africa, or sth. Asia, in rough order of their preference.

Would do it as a regexp, but too tired and drunk, think you are confusing Ug with Rw, Rwanda, not Uganda.

Re: Insurance

Think rental car that stinks because of the garbage, stench of human faesces and urine in the floorwells, chewing gum placed where you won't see it on the seats.

The invading wave and your own less-savoury types would make sure of it, at least in parts of Europe and other places.

I am a rail fan, one sees the occasional piggy leave the train with the garbage from what they were eating and drinking on the floor, but it is rare (here).

Have seen much worse overseas from the same types as targets of 'Welcome "refugees"', they have a picnic and leave every bit of rubbish behind, if they are fishing, they dump unused bait in rock pools and thus poison them.

So, good luck with shared server-driven cars (because they are not, and will not be, 'self-driving' at the higher level, just collision avoidance, turning, speed control).

A railway line in the countryside always looks much nicer than a road, and the view from a train in the same area is always better than from a car or bus, always becomes uglier as more and bigger roads come into view (I will make a small exception for very narrow rural roads here in Japan).

I can cite many examples.

If we are thinking of industrial or humanoid robots

and the like, they are much less energy-efficient than people.

Sure, with cheap energy, they can be more capital-efficient.

Even in networking, it would be interesting to hear, say, the scale of the per-habitual-user physical server resources and how many watts required to run, say, Google maps or Apple's Siri, including the cost of cooling.

In business

in western countries, middle to upper management is full of extremely well-compensated dead weight.

In bureaucracy everywhere, most of the people who can get away with it do as little work as possible, one of the lesser-known and minor (and funnier) Wikipedia scandals was a few hundred Finance Ministry employees in Tokyo spending most of their working hours augmenting and fighting over the Gundam articles on Japanese Wikipedia. Sure, the people who have to face the public in busy places have to work hard.

Worstall is completely wrong in this article, the CNC (coordinator of numerical control?) has interesting work, but many of the lathe workers would have enjoyed their jobs and found them satisfying, particularly if making interesting parts. Lathe work still lives as a hobby because it can be interesting.

The US is an exemplar on this.

Where do the eliminated craftspeople have to turn? Crappy service industry jobs, running the production line at a MacDonalds shop if they are lucky, behind the counter if not, shitty job in an Amazon warehouse or Walmart, etc.

Applies to many types of work.

Precisely why Worstall places such value on himself is unclear, I have enjoyed one or two columns, but we could well live without most of his well-compensated brain-farts.

Game CARTRIDGES make a comeback ... for smartmobes

Re: Cassette

Anne-Lise, you are right, but for an early adopter (or receiver), some of the cartridge games were great.

Radar Rat Race may have been a copy of Rally X for the Atari empire of the time, adequate graphics, but perfect gameplay. Likewise, Miner 2049er, IIRC the first version of Pitfall was cart-only.

Action Replay, Final Cartridge were great, but couldn't work on everything, and the art of the fast-loaders was often great. One game had a version of Space Invaders as the loading screen, brilliant use of interrupts.

I never used the cheat codes, but had much fun making graphics and sounds with Turbo Assembler and Action Replay or Final Cart.

Sad that the latter-day AR cartridges were for cheat codes only.

I am sure they may get some

sales here in Japan, if they can offer some good games, doubt it can succeed.

I have never seen anyone carrying a sillyphone in a game-controller cradle, so that rules any platformer, space shooter, fighting game etc. out of contention as playable.

I doubt they will be getting licences to Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy.

Wasn't planning to go to the Game Show this year, but the BBQ I was thinking of on Sunday will likely be washed out, so maybe will check TGS and their booth.

Hats off to Nintendo’s platform supremo Super Mario Bros at 30

Re: Great Giana Sisters rip off

Nintendo was building on so many great platformers in the European (and to a lesser extent, the US, for software, mainly on arcade machines) home-computer market, it is a crime that stupid legal people pulled the plug on the Great Gianna Sisters.

On the same kind of principle, they could well have pulled the plug on Mario.

By the way, the Reg's redesign is, at time of writing, a total fuck-up on a phone.

Re: Mythical but not for all

Sonic was always about speed and timing.

Sonic Adventure was brilliant and terribly under-rated. The sub-game with the Chaos and VM, also great. The second, OK, but not as good. The seaside stage of the first one, breathtakingly beautiful.

I gather that the overseas one had more bugs, but some of them sound interesting.

Sonic Rush on the DS was much fun.too short, but yes, it is all about speed *and* timing.

Also liked the ones on GBA (except unplayable bonus stages) and Neogeo Pocket (like the originals, only better, and the bonus stages were playable).

Re: Mythical but not for all

Don't understand the attraction of platformers yet you finished Manic Miner?

I never played that, but gather it was inspired by or a copy of Miner 2049er, on the C 64 and Atari 400 and 800. ... and yes, finished that.

Anybody who doesn't love a good platformer has no heart as a gamer. I thought that famicom games were too easy compared to western home-computer ones, sufami, they were more interesting, still, much of the time, too easy.

Google Adblock shock a load of cock – users mock post hoc

Apropos of nothing

... and to quote a sex pistol.

It's fucking pissing down wiv rain!

... and hasn't stopped for long for more'n ten days.

We will be needing Russell Crowe to reprise his new-age Noah!

'Help us, Obi Wan Hando!'

OTOH, I never saw that Noah film, it looked too stupid.

Being truly from Mars, this precipation amazes me, it sure becomes dull after a few weeks.

SPACE WHISKY: Astro malt pongs of 'rubber and smoked fish'

Err

... with the most subtle of bouquets d'amyl nitrate.

Wikipedia’s biggest scandal: Industrial-scale blackmail

Wanda Jackson article as an example of

bullshit on Wikipedia.

It refers to tours of Japan and Germany.

Makes it sound like they were normal tours, as a popular performer now might do.

I was surprised, never heard of that, but quickly realised the tours must only have been of US bases.

I am a great fan of Wanda, her rockabilly has the huge influence here, I am so impressed that she is still performing.

The true wording would be 'toured bases of US occupying forces in Japan and Germany'.

I sure can't imagine anyone except US servicemen at the time, having a good reaction to

Been to Nagasacky,

Hiroshima too.

and the related lyrics in Fujiyama Mama, which IMHO is a great song, but its glorification of atomic bombing is dodgy as hell.

Anybody trying to correct the lies 'toured Japan'and 'toured Germany' to the correct 'toured US bases in Japan' and 'toured US bases in Germany' on WP will be attacked there.

I checked, she never did a public show here in Japan, I do not know about Germany, but am sure it was the same.

Re: My own time

You are absolutely correct, but I cannot see what it has to do with the wikipedia, seems to lean more towards FB territory.

Upvote from me

AC, just a shame you used to GIVE MONEY.

I avoid them as much as I can, but I accidentally clicked on a link one or two months ago.

Huge banner:

GIVE US MONEY!

Sorry, Elevation Partners and others seem to be amply providing for the wikipedia's desire for cash.

Many people with a little experience of the ugly reality would, wisely, not throw one yen in the direction of the wikipedia OR the Wikimedia Foundation.

Re: I gave up on Wikipedia a while ago...

Encyclopedia Dramatica had its share of informative and accurate articles. Reality can be painfully side-splitting.

It is funny that, IIRC, the Wikipedia only recognised Dramatica after the plug was pulled on the original, and a version resuscitated (partly) shuffled into a kind of zombie existence.

Bad boy bot monster Ryan Cleary deserves much credit for the re-creation (no irony intended).

Must check some time to see if there are any good new articles. Somehow, I doubt it.

Ah, Mr. Orlowski

You have a good line of (well-deserved) cynicism towards Mr. Whales and the Wikipedian machine.

When I still enjoyed playing the wikipedia RPG, I was instrumental in the removal of two or three of their worst and most virtual-power crazed admins.

I think you did a rather good article or two on one of them, but I collected the details that got him or her unseated in the end. Fun.

Can't be bothered to play anymore, and I never use the Wikipedia if I cannot find another source for reference, preferably on paper, but any other electronic source will do.

Part of my translation from the French of Francois Marmande:

[The Wikipedia is] a parlour game, totalitarianism in a human mask, trap-laden territory, modern life, a universal religion.

I am sure that I rendered his meaning correctly, and am in complete agreement.

The rest of the translation (par moi) is available on a site that has much unsavoury content, fun in the 2005 to 2008 times.

Oh noes, I will being in the deadly danger now!!!

Re: I gave up on Wikipedia a while ago...

Your linked page is full of rubbish. Why you bothered to post anything is a mystery.

Humous (intentional mis-spelling) is pretty boring.

Everything in the cuisine has Greek roots, with contributions from the eastern citizens and subjects of Rome, also no doubt from Egyptian traditions.

Turks copied their pide from the Armenians they so dislike. However, I can't complain about the spiced meats and interesting cheeses they use, very tasty. OTOH, I avoid their sellers here, they don't bother to do a decent job. I will also boycott for politico-cultural reasons, with the Turkey of now.

I hear about 'Israeli restaurants' which are serving what sounds like lebanese cuisine, sounds nice, but nothing like what the parents of jewish acquaintances served when overseas.

Also to avoiding 'Israeli' cuisine places in Tokyo, overpriced.

Why Nobody Should Ever Search The Ashley Madison Data

Re: Wrong recipient?

... but you are posting as AC for no discernable reason.

How can you expect anybody to take anything you say seriously?

Can I have some ideas please

My guess is that

Mr_Pitiful was full of shit in the first place.

Very stupid user name.

Re: Can I have some ideas please

Question poster seems to leave much in the dark. We regtards want to give helpful advice (I try, as you do, below) but the account does not add up.

Re: Can I have some ideas please

If you have your own business, it is going well, and are apparently happily married, why are you even thinking about this?

Where is this distant island, are the people offering some big multiple of what your own business (which sounds profitable yet relaxed) brings you and your family? Having your own in-demand business is a precious thing.

Is it a tiny island where you will enjoy the first few months but end alienated?

Your wife, you say, says 'just do it', sorry, makes your description of the situation you have seem partial at best.

Reg reader shares AshMad blackmail email about which he gives 'zero f***s'

Re: If he was already in the process of a divorce

I did read the article and headline, however, conditioning by all of the horror stories and a few drinks made me just repeat 'Dave's' conclusion, one cannot also help but wonder if 'Dave's' story is the whole.

Perhaps the same thinking that led him to sign up for Madison in reaction was behind the start of the nasty divorce or if the sign-up or similar behaviour was a pre-existing thing and part of a pattern leading to the divorce?

If he was already in the process of a divorce

I cannot see how 'Dave' has a problem. Surely any of the people the database querier threatens to tell would think nothing of it?

Re: The Golden Cow?

To be fair, the reg. was ad-free or without noticable ads for a looong time (not counting some reviews). Seeing them at the top of the page is a little disconcerting, but nobody is forcing you to click on the links.

Japan's 'White Stork' soars heavenwards to ISS

'Almost losing count'

Almost losing count at three that are almost always (Progress) or may be from the few occasions they've flown (ATV and Stork) reliable?

Count to three.

One, two, three.

Lost count yet?

Falcon 9 fireworks display grounds SpaceX

Re: Ha, ha, ha

Roscosmos had a lower price for a circumlunar flight some years ago.

Re: Ha, ha, ha

For Gary and the other poster

Predictably, I get the flood of downvotes for any word questioning Scaled or Space X.

In the case of Scaled, the lifter aircraft (White Knight) was based on a project for the US military. If you bother to read about their history, it is perfectly clear.

Cross-subsidies for the ridiculously named 'Space Ship One' clearly flowed from their military projects.

Various other teams were trying to do genuinely independent designs, but it all came to nothing for the massively subsidised success of Scaled, completely defeating the purpose of the prize.

Win for the US military-industrial complex, loss for innovations in space engineering.

I was excited by the video of the flight, saw it at a big electronics shop, but don't try to tell me that they had anything but a negative effect on the contest.

Will agree that Space X is more interesting than ULA, but the OP's or your '$20 million' (from a state govt.) is bullshit, the subsidies are in the many hundreds of millions, already well over a thousand of them I would think, and Musk seems very shy about spending any of his own gargantuan fortune on the project.

The information is readily available, so I won't be spoon-feeding it to you and other besotted Scaled and Space X fans.

Apart from the one or two successful supply flights, Space X has delivered nothing so far, ergo, is receiving massive subsidies.