Posts by poopypants

Full Steam Ahead: Valve unwraps plans for gaming hardware

Re: Watching with interest

That is a valid point, and one that I'm sure Valve will be trying to address.

I assume there will be some kind of certification process, which results in each different off the shelf Steambox being given a grade. You then only buy games that will run on certified machines of your grade, and game creators will have a much better idea of the range of machines they need to target. That will remove any risk that a given game might not run on your machine, while allowing you to upgrade your machine later with more powerful components, should you wish.

A winning combination of it just works with I can make my machine more powerful as technology evolves and components become cheaper.

The use of a dedicated OS potentially allows for graphics drivers and possibly even scheduling algorithms that are fine tuned for game playing, an advantage that standard Windows machines do not offer.

Amazon Kindle Fire HDX: Bezos dives into tech-support MONEY PIT

Doesn't matter

Most of the features (including movie downloads) aren't available where I live. Again. Sigh.

Apple blings up new iMac with latest Intel chips, next-gen Wi-Fi

Re: Can we PLEASE get to grips with this "Apple are expensive" line?

I have a PC with core i7, 16GB RAM, 2x2TB hard drives and NVIDIA Titan GPU.

Cost me well under AU$3,000. That's less than £1700.

Sometimes it's worth spending a little extra for a great deal more performance.

It won't run OSX, but it dual boots Windows and Linux.

I'll let you decide whether that's a failing or a feature.

Greece ends extra hols for civil servants forced to use hated computers

@The First Dave (Re: our Western financial institutions)

Everywhere not actually on the North or South Pole is to the west, if you travel far enough.

Re: Turning up for work

In Australia people get normal pay plus a 17.5% bonus while they are on leave. It is called a Leave Loading.

'I shot the sheriff': Turnbull asked for NBN Co board scalps

I'm not really fussed what they end up doing

provided it is the most cost effective solution. Given my current 400GB cap, I have no need for 100Mbps, since that would cause my children to hit our monthly cap in under 9 hours of downloads.

Frankly, I have no wish to pay more for something I would rather not have.

Great Fall of China: iPhone 5C sales lag as blinged-up 5S sells out

Re: So long as we are quoting articles via Google Translate ...

I like Google, but let's face it - Google Translate has always been shit*.

*Not the shit, meaning good, just shit, meaning execrable.

Valve shows Linux love with SteamOS for gamers

Two more announcements to go

I shall wait patiently as the big picture* emerges, and form an opinion then.

*(sorry)

Grand Theft Auto V: Violent, sweary and amazingly ambitious

I swear

The Register is getting more like Reddit every day.

Mobile broadband 'fastest growing technology in history' says ITU

Good luck

getting the Amish online.

ENTIRE NBN BOARD offers to walk the plank: report

Re: Not shocked

"...handed to us by the old, white racist baby boomer demographic

Using bigotry to attack bigotry. I'm surprised you didn't overdose on irony.

Chaos Computer Club: iPhone 5S finger-sniffer COMPROMISED

At least with a swipe pattern

you can be reasonably sure that a thief will not be able to guess your pattern in the three attempts permitted.

On the other hand, your iPhone is most likely covered with your fingerprints, so the probability of a successful break in is high.

Deep inside the iPhone 5s lurk a few surprises

I wonder what

20 year old me would have thought of all this. That was 40 years ago.

Nokia Lumia 1020: It's an imaging BEAST... and it makes calls too

I wonder how this compares

with the Sony DSCQX10 and DSCQX100? (These are separate no-display cameras that are linked by WiFi to your Android or iOS phone - although they connect more quickly to Android by using NFC as well).

The Nokia is definitely more convenient, but on the other hand the Sony cameras don't force you to get a new phone with a different OS.

.

First look: Apple iPhone 5S and 5C

@08:19 Anonymous Coward (Re: Incremental?)

Are you making fun of my affliction?

Re: Incremental?

I've been using pattern swipe to unlock my Android phone for years, and it takes less than two seconds.

Serious question: how long does the iPhone fingerprint scanner take?

Google smacks Surface with free Quickoffice for Android, iOS

Heating up

The cold war between Google and Microsoft appears to be heating up. This can only be good for consumers, provided they both keep their lawyers out of it.

New ransomware strain forces hapless users into becoming Bitcoin miners

@Don Jefe (Re: 10%)

Provided you can convince the NSA to give you their copy, then yes.

(Or if you use something like gmail. My account currently says "3.59 GB (3%) of 96 GB used", and has emails and attachments going back several years stored in various servers somewhere. Great for audit trails, and making sure any ads that manage to fight their way through AdBlock are of some interest to me.)

A sound observation. Do you think it's possible that they might have allowed their behavio(u)r to be directed by greed? Surely not.

Final preview of IE11 for Windows 7 uncanned

@JDX (Re: If is crashes like IE10 then I'll pass)

You must work in Quality Assurance.

Mach 8 Scramjet flies but sends no data

Re: Parsing...

"expected to return three seconds' worth of data"

So, it looks like it was expected to survive at mach 8 for at least 3 seconds. I did not see anything about it reaching mach 8 in 3 seconds.

Google fluffs DEATH DEFEATING startup Calico

You are going to die

So is everyone else. Accept it, and make the best use of the short time you have.

(Hint: nobody on their deathbed ever wished they had spent more time in the office).

Telstra to DNS-block botnet C&Cs with unknown blacklist

Probably on balance a good thing

...but not without some expected collateral damage.

Microsoft relents: 'Go ahead, install Windows 8.1 on clean PCs'

@mike_ul

Cut them some slack, you say? I currently have Windows 7 Pro installed. The only permitted upgrade path that preserves my installed software is to Windows 8 Pro - a cost of AU$399.99 (=US$374).

If I choose to upgrade to the cheaper Windows 8, Microsoft will helpfully remove all of my installed software.

Am I supposed to believe there is some technical reason for this? Yeah. Sure.

Nope

"And even Windows 7 customers should expect to re-install all of their applications after upgrading using the Windows 8.1 retail media. Only their files will be preserved."

Well that's a couple of days wasted re-installing dozens of software packages, chasing up licence keys, sorting out potential problems with software vendors, and generally tearing my hair out.

Oh wait... I could just stick with Windows 7. Sorted!

Peak Apple: Has ANYONE at all ordered a new iPhone 5c?

Apple forgot why they are popular

People buy Apple phones because they look expensive. For some reason they have now made one that looks cheap. Phones that look cheap are only of interest to people who are trying to save money, or who are more interested in function than form. Those people are already buying Android phones, and are not going to switch.

Boffins demo on-chip entanglement at macro scale

I didn't understand a word of that

Then again, I'm 60 years old and (so others keep telling me) past it. What's your excuse?

Bill Gates again world's richest, tops in US for 20th straight year

If it makes you feel any better

It is impossible to have a billion dollars without that fact in some way helping others.

If you buy something, you boost employment.

Ditto if you invest it.

If you rake it into a huge pile of cash and set fire to it, you reduce inflation.

Feel better now?

No, me neither.

KVM kings unveil 'cloud operating system'

Oh, I get it

It's like a medieval knight getting a performance boost by not wearing armour.

London Underground cleaners to refuse fingerprint clock-on

If your life is so shitty that all you have left is a tenuous grasp on a few remaining shreds of dignity, then conceivably that dignity becomes your most precious possession.

Paypal not sure if its bargepole is long enough for crowdfunding

Or we could return to a simpler time when people took responsibility for their own informed decisions.

Microsoft mocks Apple and new iPhones in vids it quickly pulls

Apple makes consumer products

They have been doing it for a long time, and they are good at it.

Microsoft is more business oriented.

They don't really "get" consumers (I'm looking at you Kin, Zune, Games for Windows Live, etc...).

TWO can play this 64-bit mobile game, says Samsung, crossly

Why oh why

does a mobile phone need a 64 bit processor? Someone? Anyone?

Corel re-animates zombie brand for patent case

Strange tactics

Why would they start by attacking someone who obviously has more than enough money to fight back?

I think they are destined for a hiding.

US plaintiffs can seek damages over Street View data slurp - court

What damages?

Oh right, this is the United States we're talking about. Severe emotional trauma. That should do it.

Apple's no-news Beijing event leaves it adrift in China

Isn't it a bit rude

to charge more for something in the country where it is built?

First rigid airship since the Hindenburg cleared for outdoor flight trials

Here's a thought

Perhaps they could be used to bring high bandwidth internet via long distance microwave connections to outback Australia. (There is already a microwave connection over 580 km between Adelaide in South Australia and Broken Hill in New South Wales, using towers.) In that scenario they would be fully automated to remain at specific latitudes and longitudes, with height maintained through the use of COSH.

Intel reveals 14nm PC, declares Moore's Law 'alive and well'

Intel reveals 14nm PC

That's a really, really, tiny PC. How big is the keyboard?

Should Nominet ban .uk domains that use paedo and crim-friendly words?

Does anyone remember

Pen Island? (http://www.penisland.net/)

Five SECRET products Apple won't show today

@AC 07:12 (Re: Who the hell cares?)

Android is built on top of Linux, and a large portion of it is written in C. There are also swaths of code written in C++. It is only the application framework (the stuff you see on screen) that is written in Java.

(This comment has been brought to you by the Please Use Google to Avoid Demonstrating Your Ignorance Society).

Turnbull floats e-vote, compulsory ID

I have a problem with Mr Turnbull

Firstly he wanted to ditch Her Majesty, which was bad enough.

Now he wants to destroy our cherished tradition of being able to draw crude penises on our ballot papers using government supplied pencils.

The man is obviously some kind of anarchist.

Google scrambles to block backdoors

This is the reason for my strange hobby

Every so often I send an email full of random numbers to a throwaway email account. I like to think that I am helping to promote the sale of supercomputers, and thereby helping to boost employment.

Interesting hypothesis: for every non-trivial collection of random numbers, there exists an erroneous key that will cause some decryption algorithm to convert it into a jpeg of a cat.

Microsoft to unveil new Surface slabs at September 23 event

Simple test

A 2012 32GB Nexus 7 costs $299. The previous Surface Pro (before mad discounting) starts at $799.00.

If you are going to charge more than twice as much for something, it should be more than twice as useful.

For some, this will be the case. For the vast majority, it won't. Therein lies Microsoft's problem.

Kamikaze Moon mission on track as NASA grips its tumbling LADEE

Re: 622Mb/sec. From the Moon.

Yeah, but NASA's ISP bill is astronomical.

NSA slides reveal: iPhone users are all ZOMBIES

Interesting...

I always wondered why Apple wouldn't let you remove the battery.

When they remotely activate your microphone, and listen in on your conversations, does the data transfer go on the bill from your ISP?

Smartwatch news: Sleek-but-vaporous timepiece promised by... NISSAN?

This is awesome!

When driving distractions cause you to inadvertently become the latest addition to an impromptu motorway sculpture, it can relay your pulse rate and strength to an approaching ambulance.

Amazon DENIES launch of iPhone-killing freebie smartphone

Re: Free = very locked down?

Yes. There is no such thing as a free launch.

Google Nexus 7 2013: Fondledroids, THE 7-inch slab has arrived

It looks amazing

but I already have a two year old tablet that spends most of its time running the Kindle app. It's good enough, which makes it hard to justify an upgrade. If sufficient others are thinking along similar lines, then I'm guessing that tablet sales from all manufacturers will soon level off.

In any case I'd rather save for an NVIDIA GTX 790. Now that's exciting.

Assange fails in bid for election to Australian Senate

Re: Makes me proud

It was a joke, Steve. I guess it's my fault for not using the joke icon. My bad. Also, I think you take politics way too seriously, but that's a whole different issue.

Makes me proud

"it appears this system may result in a candidate from the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party winning a seat"

Finally, a genuine representative of the proletariat.