Posts by Immenseness

MONSTROUS iPhone sales are CANNIBALIZING iPads, gabbles Apple CEO

Re: Cool

"The reason that iPads and iOS are suitable for musicians is that because corners were not cut in their development"

I thought Apple patented the process of cutting the corners (and rounding them off)?

Ok, I was getting it anyway..

Wi-Fi hotspots can put iPhones into ETERNAL super slow-mo

Another

My favourite was the old "I'm not really clever enough to write a virus, so please forward this email to all your friends, and then delete the contents of the windows folder" email I received years ago.

Brilliant.

Bulk interception is NOT mass surveillance, says parliamentary committee

Re: Nice whitewash, Hazel...

She also displayed her fine committees understanding of the issue (while laughing almost constantly throughout and generally making light of the situation) by explaining in a condescending way to those worrying that the agencies were slurping all of our data, that:

"the internet consists of over 100,000 fibre optic cables and the agencies can only access a few of those".

Well colour me reassured and relieved.

It beggars belief that these ill educated (at least in IT) people are making decisions about all of our lives.

MP resigns as security committee chair amid 'cash-for-access' claims

Re: And when they leave the service of the public...

What really got to me about this was hearing one of them yesterday being really bullish and stating vehemently that he was appalled about his disturbing behaviour, and had referred himself to the parliamentary standards committee forthwith (or words to that effect) and didn't seem to see any problems at all with joining in the indignation that everyone else was expressing, as if it were about someone elses behaviour. I wasn't sure whether to doubt my own sanity or theirs.

Microsoft: You want on-prem wares, UK.gov? We'll make you pay

"enabling our UK Public Sector customers to move to the cloud"

Isn't newspeak marvellous?

BBC: SOD the scientific consensus! Look OUT! MEGA TSUNAMI is coming

Re: The BBC science coverage is useless ...

Always presenting the "statistics" in three meaningless and incomparable forms of precision stopped me listening.

"In the 1980s, 30% of people did X, while in the 1990s it was 1 in 5. Now just 13 people do X."

That, or like the recent HRT/ovarian cancer risk increase where they scarily suggest "An extra 1 in every 1000 women will get cancer if they take HRT". The baseline, in the same piece for women already known to be at risk of breast cancer through taking HRT was "just a handful per 1000".

Mine is the one where 50% of the pockets are empty, while 1 in 2 pockets contains nothing but fluff and 1 pocket doesn't have anything in it.

Parliament face-sit-in to spark mass debate on UK's stiff smut stance

Re: Julian Huppert

"a new motion" - I'm pretty sure that is not allowed to be shown either. I'll get my coat.

Apple seeks patent for user-configurable progress bar

Bloody progress bars

I remember when progress bars started at 0 and when they got to 100% the task was complete. It provided an admittedly rough indication of progress and how far it had got along the road to completion.

Then I think it was somewhere around Windows 95 era when they wanted to make the installations look snappier. Where they used to take 10 mins of a progress bar creeping across the screen agonisingly slowly, they were replaced with new go-faster ones that got to the end in about a minute but then started again... and again... so you have no effin clue how much "progress" has been made. All you have is a little animated thing to watch that means bog all in relation to progress. Ditto with bloody java wheels. Bring back the PROGRESS bar!

</rant>

The only answer is for everyone to have a beer that automatically refills each time we empty it while we are waiting!

GCHQ and Cable and Wireless teamed as Masters of the Internet™

Re: "Vodaphone...""..has denied the GCHQ had direct access to its network"

Is it only me for whom the word "direct" leaps out and does a little dance then hides shyly amongst the other words? It is? Oh, I'll get my coat...

Ofcom snatches 700MHz off digital telly, hands it to mobile data providers

I can

"we could do away with at least 50% of the available digital TV channels without any loss"

I agree, except they won't. Don't you know consumers want choice (tm)? They will reduce the bandwidth available to each channel instead and anything remotely watchable at the moment will be youtube quality again. It is called progress. Sigh!

GCHQ protesters stick it to British spooks ... by drinking urine

Re: OOPS! Why it could or couldn't

I am fascinated by the 3 legged lady centre shot in the second link. She looks like a fun person.

Stick a 4K in them: Super high-res TVs are DONE

Re: aware of the benefits of 4K

The problem is though, now we all have (relatively) good quality TVs, what do the production companies do? "Ooh, look, we can blur the whole screen except for the lips of the person who is speaking, let's do that all the time.", or "Ooh, look we can use a depth of field 1mm deep and have someone whose face is side on with their nose in focus and their ear out of focus, let's do that all the time". Or "Let's shoot everything against a bright window/light with lens flare if possible, and no fill in lighting so the faces are grainy, if you can make them out at all"

These effects are good, and have a place, but I feel sorry for the set dressers/costumiers who take the time to make a scene authentic and then all you see in the final piece is a blurry background that could have been anything, and don't get me started on "fight" scenes/car chases that consist of people doing not very much at all, while the camera is waggled around violently - it might be cheap, but it is no match for a properly choreographed and well shot scene.

Then there is the sound - Sound effects and music really really loud - speech really really quiet and with the treble turned down so it is hard to make out, often both simultaneously. Oh, and don't forget to get the actors to mumble and whisper incoherently, especially when their faces are turned away so you can't lip read either.

Sadly, no amount of decent telly fixes those, but if they transmitted stuff that demonstrated how good things could be, rather than transmitting blurry crap that looks equally bad on anything, they may have a chance in pushing the tech. Sorry, unintentional rant over. Mine is the one you can hardly see, hanging in front of that window with the sun streaming through it.

Swell. Apple buys 'Pandora-for-talk-radio' app... for $30 meeellion

Sigh

"you don’t have to make decisions about what to listen to. Swell figures it out for you.”

I can't really be bothered to listen to it myself. When will someone make an app that figures out what I should listen to and listens to it for me as well?

</ffs>

New Bluetooth tech lets you control 4 BILLION lightbulbs at once

Re: Why?

"LED Lights are supposed to last... well forever"

They don't. The LEDs themselves might but the cheap, rubbish, built in supplies last no longer than the average tungsten bulb in my humble experience. I won't be buying any more LED lamps until the power supplies improve. I'd like to see trading standards prosecuting a few suppliers for supplying LED lamps that don't last for the claimed 60 years, or even 1 year. How they can get away with it is outrageous. They are so careful to say the LEDs (which the average person will take to mean the whole lamp) will last a lifetime while no mention of the power supplies. The should be made to state the the expected lifetime of the whole unit including both.

The Windows 8 dilemma: Win 8 or wait for 9?

Re: Time for some truly revolutionary GUIs?

Also privacy. Unless you are standing behind me you can't see what I am writing with a keyboard and mouse. It would be hard to write a confidential letter (something that happens all the time round here in an open plan office) by for example talking, without everyone else hearing it. Unless of course it was drowned out by the noise of lots of other confidential letters being spoken/shouted.

As someone said above, a variety of inputs INCLUDING a keyboard and mouse, or voice/swipey touch screen, would be the thing to strive for. People can then choose whatever is appropriate for their use. Voice might be just what someone needs at home.

207 thousand lights-out boxes are STILL hackable

Re: "risks had been heeeded"

Reminds me of "Mine's a pint pal, and put a heeed on it or I'll put a heeed on you"

Happy days!

Kickstarter cup-rattling, light-dimming Internet of Stuff upstart takes on Sonos, Bose

Re: Send 24-bit studio master to

How long before some snake oil salesman markets a system which "maintains width, speed, flavour, airiness and general bumfluff" through sending left and right channels through complete seperate wifi links on different frequencies with gold plated oxygen free antennas? I can't wait.

For your next privacy panic, look no further than vending machines

I wonder what it will make of a bare arse?

And how long it will be before it sees one?

"Hello, your arseprint has been recognised and law enforcement is on the way to review the evidence of your indecent exposure. Care to purchase a delicious drink while you wait"

Mine's the one with the big slit up the back.

'Hello? Hello? Yes, I'm calling you on my WEB BROWSER'

Re: > Does the word BLOAT mean anything to you Mozilla?

It does seem a bit of a puzzle to me that Mozilla keep changing stuff in the core browser then expecting add-ins to make it behave like it used to if folk don't like it, rather than the other way round. It would seem to make more sense (to me) to use add-ons to try out a new behaviour/style/skin and then if it is widely adopted, incorporate it into the main browser and dispense with the add-on, rather than the other way round.

In this case, adding what is essentially an extra service, but not adding it as an add-on appears wrong to me, and increases bloat for users who don't need it.

I like firefox and have used it for years, and love the customisation it offers, but I am finding the changes a bit tedious at the moment.

I accept I am only me, and my opinion is just that, but there it is.

TrueCrypt considered HARMFUL – downloads, website meddled to warn: 'It's not secure'

Re: If you were the NSA...

Yes, but anonymous groups tend to get the grammar wrong and spell things wrong, but this seems fairly well written which makes me doubly suspicious, although of what I'm not sure!

Authorities swoop on illicit Wolverhampton SPAM FARM

Re: sizeable fine?

"Or if you can't pay, castration (you have to admit it'd be a good deterrent)."

You'd have to sew them back on first (with apolgies to Basil)

Watch: Kids slam Apple as 'BORING, the whole thing is BORING'

Gah!

I couldn't watch it as it was cut together in the dreadful "4 words at a time then switch" to someone/something else format.

My eyes, my ears, my brain! Arrggghhhh!!!

I also turn off the news when they start doing that. I'm looking at you radio 4 PM.

Beer helps, have one on me everybody!

US authorities name five Chinese military hackers wanted for espionage

Title

"For the first time, we are exposing the faces and names behind the keyboards in Shanghai used to steal from American businesses"

Presumably by using the same methods to obtain that information that they are complaining about others using? Weakens the case somewhat IMHO.

Cloud computing is FAIL and here’s why

Cloud authentication

I wouldn't touch anything cloudy with your bargepole, but this is really more about the stupidity of allowing companies to get away with having local and sometimes very expensive software that assumes you have an always on connection and that their end is always up (oo-er mussus!) and then using that as some kind of DRM sh!te control to "protect" "their" software. That's a nice piece of expensive software that your business depends on you have there. Shame if anything should happen to it or you couldn't access it... When I say allowing them to get away with it, I am looking at you big businesses. You have the clout to lobby that smaller companies and individuals do not.

They just don't understand end user requirements for reliability and that not being able to use the software for even short periods of time can be a huge loss. Sadly, a lot of end users don't realise the risk either, although they might now.

As they charge by the month, they should be offering refunds all round in my view.

I hope the affected users didn't lose out too much.

Surprise! Google chairman blasts EU's privacy ruling

Interesting struggle

Who should be in charge of interpreting what the law should be? A court with jurisdiction over the area concerned, or a commercial company based in another continent.

Popcorn and a beer anyone?

Apple, Beats and fools with money who trust celeb endorsements

Something else often overlooked

by the die-hard snake oil proponents is brain neuro-plasticity. The brain can learn and redefine what the "normal" baseline of listening is, compensating for some fairly huge errors such as room accoustics. In this sense, a person can become accustomed to whatever their setup is. If they are critical listeners, then they can detect very small changes and nuances in their own setup, because over time they have become used to it and all it's imperfections, and subconciously learned to compensate for defects.

If this is going on, and from personal experience I believe it could be, then it explains why we get the "the speakers sound great with the new crossover caps but only after 10 days of burning in" type of statements. In effect, I think it could be not the equipment, but the listener's ears, or more accurately, brain, that is burning in. :-)

On the other side of the coin, this is perhaps why in blind tests people fail to pick out changes, that they believe they *may*, and I'm putting it no stronger than may, and excluding the obviously stupid claims such as hearing >20k, be able to detect in their own setup. It is hardly practical, but I'd be interested to know what would happen if the listener could have an extended listen for a few days to just one of the blinds in order to rewire their brain to it, and then doing the blind tests. Could they pick one from the other then more consistently then I wonder?

In my own experience, I have a couple of sets of speakers and I love set A. Much better than set B. A few months go by, and I swap over to set B - hmmm, they sound better, I'll use them! I am sure that what I am really picking up on is like a difference between them, and that is what sounds "new" and different and hence "better". After a few months of B, I can connect up A and think hmmm, they sound better, I'll use them!

Of course I could just have goldfish memory, there is other evidence in this regard!

Mine's the one that oh, er, I'm sure I was wearing one when I came in...

Order and shipping woes to hit Juniper in early summer, warns distie

I thought

the idea of moving to new systems was to improve things? Must have misunderstood (again).

Quick Q: How many FLOPPIES do I need for 16 MILLION image files?

Re: ubie

Cassettes? Luxury!

I still have some 256 byte magnetic cards here. (and we used to have get up in the morning, half an hour before we went to bed and had to lick 't road clean wi' tongue)

Mine's the one resting on the zimmer, ta.

BBC hacks – tweet the crap out of the news, cries tech-dazzled Trust

Re: This:

Yes, I agree, forget about twitter etc, and stop dumbing down what you have. People are not all stupid so why treat them so?

Also, a hint to the beeb, particularly the PM news team - I don't need a sound effect to accompany every other line of the news you are reading to me. I know what a police siren sounds like, so I don't need you to read the news over the sound of one, so I struggle to hear what you are actually saying, and I don't need a song to be played that "cleverly" contains one line that vaguely matches the story being discussed to keep being faded in over the story either.

Agree wholeheartedly with the interview/argue point, and in another hint to auntie - constant interruption and haranguing alternated with sounding incredulous is not being edgy, it is just rude. I'd rather listen to a dickhead make a dickhead of himself than have some vacuous presenter interrupting constantly to prevent the true extent of dickheadedness from being seen.

And while we are about it, let's have more saying things like "Last week Fred Bloggs died suddenly and..." instead of playing of a snippet of last weeks news when the announcer reads "Fred Bloggs has died suddenly today", fading it out, and then continuing. It is just plain annoying.

Sorry, rant over!

Up to 500 GP practices to test plans to share patient data

Right to object

"patients' right to object to their identifiable data being shared"

So that will be as empowering as having the right to ask to work flexible hours and having your employer say "no" then?

You are going to share my data, but I have the right to object while you carry on and share it anyway.

I feel empowered already!

That's right, MICROSOFT is an ANDROID vendor after Nokia gobble

Re: Or maybe

"And pigs will fly"

Price of bacon is rising.

UK bank heist-by-KVM gang sent down for 24 years after nicking £1.2m

Say what now?

"possessing articles for use in fraud offences"

The list of things it is an offence to even possess seems to get longer and more vaguely sweeping by the day.

Mine is the one with empty pockets, because you can't be too careful (although possession of pockets is probably an offence because you can keep other possessions in them)

Selfies are over: Welcome to the age of 'Sleeveface'

Re: All I can say is ...

"... the Internet is full of totally useless crap."

Nonsense, it is nowhere near full. I know, coat, going...

Steelie Neelie 'shocked' that EU tourists turn mobes off when abroad

There are other reasons for not using a phone on holiday

Some holidaymakers want a holiday away from people who pester them day and night at home, and away from electronic gadgets that interrupt relaxation and pester for attention every few minutes. I quite happily choose to switch the phone off when I am on holiday and just turn it on once a day to pick up any messages.

Of course roaming charges still need to be reduced/got rid of. Coat because it is probably still cold and wet on holiday.

Anonymous means NO identifying element left behind – EU handbook

Re: Always tricky

I hope the NHS are reading this before they go full tilt into the automaticlaly opted-in care.data program that it becomes impossible to opt out of in a few weeks time.

Microsoft to Australian government: our kit has no back doors

Re: Do people have no memories at all?

But if you were Microsoft, and if there was an explanation for the key that was innocent, and people were suggesting that your software had a direct tap for the NSA, and that suggestion was harming your business, wouldn't you explain what it was and not just say nothing about it and waffle on instead using words that don't rule it out?

Android VPN redirect vuln now spotted lurking in Kitkat 4.4

Re: KitKat 4.3?

Thank goodness we have such sensible and meaningful names as jelly bean, ice cream sandwich and kitkat to help us intuitively understand our releases, rather than those old confusing and misleading release numbers eh?

Paris because she probably has fantasies about all 3.

UK.gov to Google: Kill impostor taxmen ADs hogging top spot in YOUR search results

Re: Intelligence test?

That would be true but more and more people who are not IT literate are being drawn into self assessment. They don't want to do it online as they are not that net savvy but are being encouraged to do so as it is "safe and saves money".

Then through their lack of familiarity with the process, and the fact that a paid-for ad that looks remarkably like HMRC appears at the top of the search list, in the same colours as the form they have in their hand, using weasel words like "registered with HRMC as a tax agent", which the average confusenik will take to mean "approved by HMRC", they end up with a bill for £400, which must be right mustn't it, because it is the governent and they sent me this letter, and I don't understand all this, where is my credit card? Not everyone is endowed with generous quantities of common sense, IT literacy and the ability to think logically.

They have a right to offer their services for money, but they appear try and makethemselves appear to be more "official" than they are. It may not be illegal but it makes my blood boil when they shaft and exploit the weak, elderly, easily confused and maybe just those who think they are savvy, but aren't really. Not really sure Google can do anything either as it isn't illegal. Doesn't make it right though.

Microsoft seeks patent for blade server chassis

Re: Welcome the the proprietary blades racket, circa 2003.

Stratus XA2000, early 80s (and that wasn't the first)

EE BrightBox routers can be hacked 'by simple copy/paste operation'

Re: EE?

Or just "EE!" in a broad Yorkshire accent, with a slight raising of the chin.

Faster, more private, easier to read: My 2014 browser wishlist

My personal gripe

Is related to the rendering of pages in time. Web site designers, eye candy is not the reason I visit your site. Please stop it now. Yes, it is kew-ul to have little bits of image floating about all over the page, and I understand that you are trying to make it eye catching by having constant movement, but when I visit a site and I want to click on something, I find it really frustrating that the thing I want to click on is rendered first (rightly) but then I waste another 2 seconds of my life chasing the sodding thing round the screen with the mouse trying to click on it as the rest of the overbloated page renders and shimmies to allow other, (and to me) sometimes artistic, but mainly irrelevant seasick-making bloody carousels to load. It is equally irritating trying to read an article while the page is still adjusting itself and the text is moving about.

So I'd like the browser to make an effort to do some pre rendering analysis and try and get things roughly in position before displaying anything to me. Personally, I'd rather a second delay then a page that stays as it is initially rendered, rather than having things shoved on screen as they arrive and jiggled about to make room. (yes, I know how it works, this is a comment just on the user experience)

Also agree 100% with the article re using a tiny bit of screen estate for the thing of interest and huge tracts of empty space either side. (the huge tracts of land should of course always be centre stage and maximised! :-) )

I know, mine is the one with grumpy old sod on the back!

'Leaked' iPhone 6 pics will make cool fanbois WEEP - it's a PHABLET

Re: highly dubious

"but the point about the lightening connector makes sense, no?"

For some reason I read that as "but the point about the lightning conductor makes sense, no?" which threw me for a minute.

Must be lack of beer, beers all round, cheers everyone!

I've seen the future of car radio - and DAB isn't in it

Re: Well....

I actually hate the overcompressed sound that DAB produces (IMHO) when compared to FM, but I have a DAB/FM radio in the car, and in fairness, despite the appalling compressed/low bit rate sound, I haven't actually had many occasions when I get the DAB reception disappearing/bubbling mud. I suppose that depends where you live. I do much prefer the sound quality of FM though.

Again, in fairness to the technology, if only the broadcasters were not intent on making it sound as loud as possible (hint: I have a volume control to adjust that to personal taste, thank you) by compressing the stream to death, and reducing bandwidth to squeeze in more crap channels, it might be decent.

But then there is the power consumption and the varying delay vs FM to consider too I suppose.

Twitterers rally round #CensoredUK - to demand more porn

Re: Also extremist....

"AFAIK the filter is at least "opt-in" and not "opt-out""

Yes, it is - in the sense that you have to opt into opting out. Isn't language marvellous? (and don't the gubbermint love wrapping themselves and us up in it to make us feel all fluffy and warm?)

Firefox reveals new look: rounded rectangles

Stop, I want to get off!

"post Gingerbread, and pre Kit-Kat"

What was wrong with good old numbers? You may not have remembered exactly what was in release 4.1 but you knew it came after 4.0 and before 4.1.1. Jelly bean? Ice Cream Sandwich? Give me strength...

SourceForge responds to GIMP grump with crowdsourcing caper

Cynical

Maybe I am over thinking but it strikes me that a nice list of users who have emailed the site in response to an advert (look - proof that our adverts are read) would be very handy to convince potential advertisers to part with their cash.

Helium-filled disks lift off: You can't keep these 6TB beasts down

Re: Wouldn't a vacuum be better?

No, because the heads are spring loaded and pressed against the spinning platter. The fact that they are shaped like mini aeroplane wings causes them to fly above the surface of the disk on a cushion of air (or helium in this case). If there is more vibration or shock than the air cushion can absorb, the head "crashes" into the surface of the disk and bits of the surface that are dislodged stick to it spoiling the air flow (both of that head and any others that the little bits of debris get wafted towards) which causes it to have less lift and so it hits again and again until it can fly no more, and that is a head crash.

So there has to be something in there for the heads to fly in.

Firefox's plugin-blocker slams into beta - but don't jump for joy, Flash haters

Re: Useless

Happy medium? You'll be suggesting they apply common sense next! :-)

Digital radio may replace FM altogether - even though nobody wants it

My tuppence worth

I have a couple of DAB radios and several FM. I listen for hours to the FM and find it is easy on the ear. I listen to the same programs on DAB and the over compression and poor quality actually make it fatiguing to listen to. You should be listening to the program (FM) not noticing the compression/artifacts/noise that it is making (DAB). There is plenty of unused space on the FM band that could host some more of the "desirable" channels at decent quality (leaving DAB still there as a choice - I'm not saying ditch it) but no one seems to want to do that when there is a quick buck to be made by flogging off the FM frequency band and as someone else has pointed out, when you have designed lots of nice digital DAB gardware you can lobby for that sale, dangling carrots of financial windfalls right left and centre to our elected elite.