Posts by poopypants

Nvidia blasts sueballs at Qualcomm, Samsung – wants Galaxy kit banned

Sue whichever company has the most money

"Samsung repeatedly said that this was mostly their suppliers' problem,"

Unfortunately their suppliers don't have nearly as much money.

Australia deflates Valve with Steam sueball

Refunds are only sought for games that are not fit for purpose (i.e. don't run)

Steam tracks the number of hours played for each game in your library.

If these records show that you have been playing the game for more than an hour, then your claim that the game does not work would be weak. If however you were not able to launch it (faulty goods - not fit for purpose) then your claim would be much stronger. In that case they should grant a refund in keeping with Australian law (and presumably disable the game in your library).

The fact that they do not already do this for all their customers reflects badly on them.

Pay to play: The hidden cost of software defined everything

Ah, memories...

I remember writing code that implemented password protected "Golden Screwdriver" upgrades to an 8085-based statistical multiplexer over 30 years ago. Gave one of our sales creatures a nice little source of extra income on the side.

Google ghostly graphics haunt Image search

Ghost in the machine?

Sony's 'Lizard Squad' battered PlayStation Network staggers to feet

Probably about time

something was done about those annoying pests.

Intelligence blunder: You wanna be Australia's spyboss? No problem, just walk right in

That's not how it works

The security clearance is not tied to employment, so termination of employment does not revoke security clearance. What does happen is that a security pass is handed in, but that only happens as part of manual employment termination procedures. Since employment was not meant to have ended, those manual procedures would not have been carried out. Possession of the pass would have enabled continued entry, regardless of employment status.

The police are WRONG: Watching YouTube videos is NOT illegal

Fascinating

If I am to take the above posts at face value, then it would appear that there is less freedom in Great Britain than in this 'ere former penal colony.

Cracking copyright law: How a simian selfie stunt could make a monkey out of Wikipedia

If I set up a camera, lights, etc. and some total stranger walks up to my camera and takes a picture, who owns the copyright?

Answer: the person who took the picture.

BAT-GOBBLING urban SPIDER QUEENS swell to ENORMOUS SIZE

This is not snow...

Spider webs after a flood in Australia:

http://cdn.twentytwowords.com/wp-content/uploads/Australian-spiders-escaping-floods-03.jpg

Microsoft cries UNINSTALL in the wake of Blue Screens of Death™

I never allow automatic updates. I figure that by the time I see the nag screen (usually several hours after the release), if the update was catastrophic it would most likely have been pulled.

Why your mum was WRONG about whiffy tattooed people

If only there was some more efficient way of harnessing the energy expended through all that pedalling.

Can't touch this! Microsoft joins OpenGL 3D graphics group

Unity support for WebGL

Of some relevance is the announcement that popular game engine maker Unity will be supporting WebGL as a target for 2D and 3D games developed using its IDE:

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/04/29/on-the-future-of-web-publishing-in-unity/

Here is an example of a game built in Unity and published to WebGL:

http://beta.unity3d.com/jonas/DT2/

(Don't forget to press escape at the start to dismiss modal message. Otherwise you'll die. Currently supported browsers for this content are Firefox and Chrome 35)

Microsoft fixes all those shaky GoPro vids nobody wants to watch

They didn't mention how much computing power was involved, but I imagine it wasn't trivial.

If NVIDIA could do something similar it might provide enough excuse to buy a GTX TITAN Black.

I imagine it could handle something like that with relative ease.

Help Australia's PM and attorney-general to define metadata

We live in interesting times

If only life was a little more boring.

Australia's metadata debate is an utter shambles

Oh dear. With regard to civil liberties, the political choice in Australia is between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. It's a sad state of affairs when there is not a single political party in this country that is fit to govern. I weep for my children.

BANGKOK-BLOCKED: Thailand's dictators 'ban dictator sim Tropico 5'

Re: Thai Problems

and... now El Reg is banned. Good one Youngone.

Games industry set for $5 BILLION haircut, warn beancounters

So what will you be playing in 2019?

Star Citizen. It should be out by then.

MYSTERIOUS Siberia CRATER: ALIENS or METEOR not involved, officials insist

It's obvious

Gaia squeezed a pimple.

YES: Scotland declares independence ... from the dot co dot uk empire

Well, if things don't work out

maybe Scotland would consider becoming part of the Australian federation. We invited the Kiwis, but they have this thing about ex convicts. Or possibly they're just jealous because we have more sheep.

We admire the Scots' outstanding achievements in the fields of alcohol consumption and fried foods - the most outstanding example of which is the fried Mars Bar.

Data retention saves Australia from TERROR says Labor MP

None of these are good ideas

A lot of Bad Things can be prevented by imposing onerous restrictions on our freedom. We could save thousands of lives by engineering cars to be unable to exceed 30 KPH. We could prevent a great deal of violence by abolishing alcohol. We could prevent a lot of diseases like type II diabetes by abolishing fast food outlets and banning the sale of junk food. We could reduce terrorism by spying on everyone. None of these are good ideas.

Prepare yourself for PlayStation pr0n: Sony shows off PS 4 beta-fest

The Order has a ridiculous aspect ratio and appalling fps. Not as ridiculous as calling it "cinematic" however, rather than the unwanted performance compromise that it is.

Girl gamers sexism row: Top e-sports federation finds reverse gear

It is better than it was

The International E-Sports Federation originally had entirely separate contests for men and women, with one set of games for men and a different, smaller set of games for women. Thus women were prevented from competing in some popular games. In reaction to the resultant outcry, they made the male competition open to everyone. They could also have dropped the female competition, but chose not to. In any case, it is an improvement over the previous situation.

Golf bloke to Richard Branson: Get on board the future bus, where there's 'NO WEATHER'

Re: I've been mislead...

No, no, no, no, he's outside looking in.

Keep monopoly or make network expensive, NBN Co warns

Currently wondering which one I'll get first: NBN or Half Life 3.

New MH370 search zone picked using just seven satellite 'handshakes'

No need for conspiracy theories

Probably the crew were overcome by smoke or fumes and switched to autopilot before losing consciousness. They never recovered, and the plane crashed when it ran out of fuel.

Probably the wreckage will never be recovered.

Content control freaks are peddling futility, says iiNet

The greatest single cause of piracy in Australia is the inability to rent or purchase copies legally.

Want to watch a movie or TV show on Netflix? Sorry, not available in Australia.

TIME TRAVEL TEST finds black holes needed to make photons flit

I have a headache.

Apple: We'll tailor Swift to be a fast new programming language

C is popular because

- performance (generated object code is fast)

- deterministic resource use

- direct access to low level hardware

- you can find a C compiler for the vast majority of embedded devices

- the runtime and generated executable are small

Keep in mind that there are far more embedded devices running C code than desktops running anything else.

Samsung, Chipzilla in 4K monitor price cut pact

Not convinced

I have a pair of 2560 x 1440 monitors. If I use a magnifying glass, I can make out individual pixels. If I don't, I can't. I'm not convinced that 4K would make a noticeable difference, and I'm absolutely certain that it would mean reduced fps in my video games.

Using email? Text messages? Congrats, you're in the 'underbelly of dark social sharing'

Dark social?

Oh, that'll just be me emailing myself a link to something interesting I saw on my smartphone so I can read it on a bigger screen. I do that a lot.

Watch Dogs: Eat, sleep, hack, repeat

Far Cry 3 in Chicago

Or illegitimate love child of Far Cry 3 and Grand Theft Auto. Whatever it is, it is a lot of fun. Sure, the UI sucks on a PC, and I sometimes accidentally draw my gun in public when pressing the middle mouse button, but I can live with that. It adds spice to the game. Some have had problems with stuttering, but fortunately I haven't (admittedly I have a Titan). Like Far Cry 3, you have the equivalent of towers and outposts, both of which have to be conquered to reveal game aspects for a particular area. Like Grand Theft Auto, you can pull people out of their cars and drive recklessly with little or no consequence (although you can lose points for running over civilians).

I guess I'm in a minority when I prefer the vehicle control scheme of Borderlands, which uses analogue input from the mouse to steer instead of digital input from the A and D keys. In fact, given that the cars don't have guns, they could have used the left and right mouse buttons instead of W and S when driving.

Is it the start of a franchise? Maybe. It worked for Grand Theft Auto, but I get the feeling that in this game they were unsure that they had compelling content and threw a whole bunch of different side quests against a wall and are watching to see what sticks.

Still, overall, I think it is worth buying.

Asus Z97-A puts Intel's 9 Series chipset through its paces

Is this one of the reasons why PC sales figures are down?

Because people are building them?

The Internet of Things helps insurance firms reward, punish

I am so glad

that I am getting old and won't be around to see the glorious future. I feel sorry for my children, though.

Wolfenstein: The New Order ... BLAM-BLAM! That guard did Nazi that coming

Re: PS4 best platform to play this on.

I have no problem playing it at 2560 x 1440 on my Titan.

China to become world's No 1 economy. And we still can't see why

Re: Delusions and Dreams. An Economic Know-Nothings in the FT

And then there's this.

Everyone has their problems.

Telstra asks users to be its next backhaul network

"The average Australian fixed broadband user consumes 46 GB per month".

I read that, then glanced across at my other screen where I am downloading the 40.7 GB Wolfenstein: The New Order, which according to Steam should be done in 3 days.

Next week's download will be Watchdogs. I wonder how big that will be?

Google is tech industry and world's most valuable brand as Apple rots

$US1589bn?

From which orifice do they extract these numbers?

Gigabyte Brix Pro: You don't need no steenkin' Xbox... when you have 4K-ing amazing graphics

Meh

Seems horribly underpowered. It wouldn't have a hope of running Crysis at max settings, let alone that upcoming torture test Star Citizen.

Comcast and EA said to be planning streaming games service

Re: Quelle surprise . . .

Not to worry, there are a lot of Indie PC games out there such as Minecraft, The Stanley Parable, Kerbal Space Program and Star Citizen to name a few. There is no need to buy anything from EA and other big name game publishers.

Microsoft: You know we said NO MORE XP PATCHES? Well ...

Re: Well ...

Yes, but weren't Microsoft fond of claiming that IE was heavily integrated into the OS and could not be separated?

"Microsoft has held that this is not meaningful; that in Windows 98 and newer versions, "Internet Explorer" is not a separate piece of software but simply a brand name for the web browsing and HTML rendering capacities of the Windows operating system. In this view, the result of removing IE is simply a damaged Windows system; to have a working system without IE one must replace Windows entirely."

- from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Internet_Explorer

Fix capitalism with floating cities on Venus says Charles Stross

Having spent far too many hours on internet forums

I am far from convinced that "continuation of the species" is a desirable goal.

Chinese iWatchers: Apple's WRISTPUTERS ALREADY in production

More consumer guff that is surplus to requirements

I certainly won't be watching for it.

10 PRINT "Happy 50th Birthday, BASIC" : GOTO 10

Re: C

Real programmers enter programs in binary using front panel toggle switches to set address and data.

Set address, hit EXAMINE, set data, hit DEPOSIT.

DreamWorks CEO: Movie downloaders should pay by screen size

I stopped watching movies a couple of years ago

I now spend my spare time playing computer games instead. Much better value for money and the resolution is 2560 x 1440. As for the TV, the only time I turn it on is to watch Doctor Who (I've been watching that since the first Doctor).

FCC seeks $48K fine from mobile phone-jamming driver

Re: Decision time?

@Neoc So it's not reasonable to inconvenience a lot of people to save the lives of a few? OK. I guess we should stop checking aircraft passengers for bombs, etc.

Decision time?

There is a balance here, and perhaps society should make a collective decision.

One one hand there is the freedom of passengers in cars, trains, etc. to use their mobile phones without restriction. On the other we have the death, injury and associated personal and societal costs of accidents caused by drivers being distracted by mobile phones.

Automatically disabling the transmitters and receivers in mobile phones that are travelling more than, say 30 kph is trivially easy, and would without doubt save lives. The question is whether the convenience of passengers is more important than human life.