Posts by cheveron

Apple asked me for my BANK statements, says outraged reader

They've been doing this since at least 2006

I remember them asking for some private information they didn't have any reasonable reason to ask for when I ordered a MacBook through the online store. I cancelled the order and went through a reseller instead.

'Liberator': Proof that you can't make a working gun in a 3D printer

Over 100 posts and no-one has asked...

when are they going to do a 3D-printed light saber?

"This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age."--Kenobi

ZX Spectrum cassette player lost? There's an app for that

"I remember Codemasters putting out a CD... that was basically [a] recording of a load of their games... so it still took just as long to load."

Well no. It used a much higher data rate than cassette and came with a special adapter that had to be plugged into a joystick interface. Unsurprisingly they didn't sell many.

Retro-tech fan seeks cash for Commodore 64 clones

Raspberry Pi dooms all such projects

There's a lot to be said for a computer in a keyboard that plugs into a television that can run all your old 8-bit software. So when is someone going to build a Raspberry Pi into a Happy Hacking Lite2 keyboard?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41NX93T7DZL.jpg

Good news: Debian 7 is rock solid. Bad news: It's called Wheezy

Great for legacy systems

My desktop computer is a G4 Mac mini. It's been nearly four years since Apple released an OS update for it (10.5.8). I've been dual-booting Debian 6 and modified version of MacOS 10.3.9 (which I use for running GarageBand 2) for a while now. I managed to upgrade the system to Debian 7 without too much trouble. I appreciate that Debian still counts 32-bit PPC as a tier-one supported architecture. Gnome 3 was a bit of a shock though.

Student falsely IDed by Reddit as Boston bomber found dead

Re: Better left to the authorities

They screw up all the time, but unlike vigilantes they are accountable for their actions.

Wales slams Amazon over lack of Kindle support

Wasn't Amazon supposed to democratize publishing?

You can get self-published crud on Kindle but you can't get Welsh language books from an established publisher? The size of the market is irrelevant. I can understand a small independent bookseller being reluctant to keep a lot of Welsh stock, but these are eBooks and Amazon has plenty of server space. The default view that everyone should just speak English is anti-free trade. If people want to buy Welsh books on Kindle (and plainly they do as they bought them last year) then they should be permitted to do so.

Furious Stephen Fry blasts 'evil' Reg and 'TW*T' Orlowski

Quite Interesting

I like Stephen Fry. But I'd rather take IT advice from Alan Davies.

Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC

Don't forget radio

The TV licence also pays for BBC radio, and on that basis I don't mind paying it. However, there's very little on BBC TV that's of any interest to me. About the only thing I'm looking forward to this year is the new series of Luther.

Gnome cofounder: Desktop Linux is a CHERNOBYL of FAIL

As a Mac user I'm grateful for Linux

I'm still using an 8-year-old Mac mini. Although it will run MacOS 10.5 I've stuck with 10.3 because it's not such a resource hog. However, I dual boot Debian. Most Linux distros seem to have downgraded PPC support, but Debian has not. Having Debian installed enables me to run modern software without having to buy new hardware.

Mind out, Apple: Ericsson leads charge against the SIM

Re: Good ol'SIM

The SIM may be secure but GSM communications used to be trivial to intercept. When I lived in Australia I had a CDMA phone which did not have a SIM and was seriously non-trivial to listen in on (being packet based). Also got much better reception on the outback than GSM. However it was less popular and I think Telstra ended up dismantling the CDMA network.

Which qualifications are worthwhile?

You can do a degree in London at night at Birkbeck

http://bbk.ac.uk

Also if you're considering a change of career I'd recommend professional career counseling.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum FAILS latest radio noise rules SHOCK

This isn't news.

When Timex were looking to sell a US version of the ZX Spectrum they put it through the FCC tests, which it failed in 1983. That's the main reason they ultimately came up with the TS2068.

WWII HERO PIGEON crypto message STUMPS GCHQ boffins

one time pad

So does anyone know if the British Army were using one-time pads for pigeon couriered messages at this time? Could save a lot of people a lot of time trying to break the code if it could be said for certain that it's unbreakable.

APPLE reveals complete updated blueprints of SPACESHIP JOBS

Re: Never a good sign

There's certainly an adage in the valley that you should always move into someone else's vacant building rather than building your own. Maybe Apple is hoping to avoid that fate by building on an old HP site. Only time will tell.

Dell starts up 'Top Gun' for channel hotshots, leather jackets and all

flight jacket

That's an A2 army type flight jacket he's sporting in that pic. USN pilots wear the G1 type which are easy to distinguish by their shearling collars.

Word wonks insist GIFs are really JIFs

It's a good thing I didn't mention the dirty fork.

All this fuss over the pronunciation. It doesn't matter how you pronounce words so long as you are understood. Pronunciations change over time. If you want a proper argument, let's talk about punctuation. Don't you just hate people who leave the apostrophe out of let's?

Sorority girls gone wild: '1 to 3' casual sex 'hookups' every month

Hope

The university of Rhode Island is well known as a party university. This may have skewed the results somewhat, assuming the study was conducted there.

Pristine WWII German Enigma machine could be yours

unbreakable

My understanding is that the Germans knew the code was breakable, they just didn't think anyone would put the kind of resources required into doing it. And obviously the German navy didn't consider three rotors sufficiently secure.

Guardian's Robin Hood plan: Steal from everyone to give to us

Auto Trader

Didn't the trust recently sell off Auto Trader after having already got rid of the Manchester Evening News?

Windows Phone 8 stands a chance as Apple, Android dither

challenge accepted

"I challenge you to get past a dozen, counting Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office as one app apiece."

1) Adobe Creative Suite

2) Microsoft Office

3) Autodesk AutoCAD

4) Mindjet MindManager

5) Real Software Real Studio

6) Claro ClaroRead

7) Quark QuarkXPress

8) ABBY FineReader

9) Kaspersky Anti-Virus

10) Avid Media Composer

11) Steinberg Cubase

12) NewTek LightWave 3D

13) Pixar RenderMan