Posts by Douchus McBagg 100 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jan 2015
I'm just amazed I've not seen anyone mention the penguin yet, followed by a personal anecdote listing full system specs, plus brand/flavour/colour/number of their preferred version and about how it's revolutionised their life, and the lives of all those around them. finished off with an implication that any other choice is for idiots.
man up and get a proper OS. Solaris is life.
not being funny, but I'd have thought that in the consumer space, being able to bring the latest software to potentially aging hardware would have been a good thing?
so this market shrinking headline could be just a small view of the overall PC world environment?
or would we rather hear a re-run of the vista woes of "you need to buy a new pc".
at least if you did buy a new machine for vista it'd probably be at least a core2 equiv. device that it still supported in windows10.
sorry Microsoft, you're damned if you do support older kit, and dammed if you demand the latest..
meanwhile in the enterprise space, we have a 3 year life cycle, so my corporate gen3 i7 laptop and hexcore xeon "desktop" are going end of life, and are unfortunately due a visit to the shredder, and will be replaced. Plus I've just sent off the first batch of perfectly fine, just out of currency, 30" screens to be destroyed. *sad sigh*
So Dell and HP et.al and their corporate resellers that don't really care about the consumer space. its the enterprise that keeps the money flowing. crack that, and you're made. Something Lenovo seem to be struggling with and to their cost.
like the business class seats on a plane pay for the aircraft, fuel etc. with a bit of creamy profit on top, and the cheap seats are just pure profit... meanwhile the lower tier vendors scrap it out for the crumbs off the economy floor.
As for Microsoft, well, we're staying windows7 and office2010, so no more bones to the big BillyG till we start getting vendor qualified applications to roll out that demand anything else.
oh there was one... what was its name? erm... blueberry? blingberry? very popular with the working masses, awesome real qwerty or touchscreen keyboard for proper fast emails, encrypted data comms, even calls with the right software.
I think they were banned in the UAE for not allowing the gov'mint the decryption keys...
what ever happened to those guys...
(you can pry my BB Z30 out of my cold dead hands, my iphone6s is a cheap throwaway piece of consumer rubbish, which I suspect gets beaten up by the blackberry in my pocket judging by the scuffs and scratches on one and not on the other.)
windows does something similar with one drive.....
yeeeesssss. yes it does. a mate what's app'd me a photo of some Bulgarian airbags. my phone then dutifully uploaded that to my one drive, which my home pc then sync'd with, and added the aforementioned to my desktop backdrop slides.
cue a huffy missus asking who the fudge that is next time I log in to check my mails.
I like the stink of hydrocarbons on refilling. just like the smell of jet-A1 puts me into holiday mode.
I also like the swooshy wave of hexagons on the side to denote "it's the future-ture-ture-ture..." al-la lawnmowerman... welcome to 1992?
also interesting; the presence of "brown hydrogen". not really realised how prolific it is. however, only when we harness the power of "brown methane" will we be really cooking with gas, also potentially marriage saving for long road trips.
"value creating platform"
it means it's created $1B in the last 8 years :)
"that we're getting rid of, as no further value can be milked from these laurels that we've sat on."
great. so I can expect for it to be left to rot and fester with no further updates, or even if it is, "your device is not supported".
Thanks Obama.
oh god it's happening isn't it. the battle lines are being drawn and the alliances formed.
the consumerist populace is being divvied up between the corps.
I'm windows from front to back because I imagined Microsoft make enough money not to need to farm my information out for ad revenue. unlike the big G. and they are not the (quote) "wheelchair ramp to the internet for the intellectually incompetent" (end quote) like apple.
then they throw their lot in with google. dammit!
welp, there goes the farm Dorothy.
maybe ... maybe apple is the other way after all...? I can't believe I'm thinking that...
maybe IBM can come out with OS2/warp 2015 edition and save us all? sorry. I'm going to go and have a little lie down.
holy fudge. who in their right mind thinks that live control systems need to be connected to 1. meedja systems/satnav/etc, and 2. the bloody internet?!?!
not just a software patch, but a fudging class action suit needs to happen!
oh, hey, this airbus A380 thing has an internal network for all the seatback inflight entertainment systems, lets use that for the friggin fly-by-wire shiz too. DUH!
right. that BOFH from way back where the PFY filled all the panels on his mark3 Cortina with concrete is starting to make sense.
time to investigate swapping out the front and back panels for imitations fab'd from 10mm steel filled with concrete and re'bars. at least I'll have some fun waking up noddys staring at their satnav while on the phone.
apple car? OM NOM NOM NOM
apple halo effect. produce iThingy. sell lots of iThingys. easy. what do apple care that after a few months the majority of them with sit in a draw of other oddments never to be seen again.
shiney shiney brands sell. doesn't matter what it is... hence against all better judgement, I've just taken delivery of some Porsche design blackberry's. exactly the same as a Q10, just in a different body. ergh. it's almost on par with with iphone6 for cpu performance. only without the apps. and for a grand a piece. bargain.*sigh*
I hope those grass eating animals taste nice.
this "seti thing getting urgent" has the feeling of a pre-teen being denied access to social meedja
thinking about it, maybe this will hook us into some galactic farceboook.
oh dear, that hitchhikers guide thing didn't turn out the way I'd hoped.
but but but it's apple! this is now the bestest thing since the last bestest thing they invented x number of years after it had been brought to market by someone else.
I like to think of their share price powered by the infinite gullibility of the general public. invest now, put your kids through university in a few years, or holiday or whatever...
I don't think i'll go Onkyo again since my tx-nr609 melted it's chips on the HDMI board, manifesting as sending crackles as loud as gun shots to the poor speakers before going completely dead on the audio side. the rest of the amp was blissfully unaware that anything was wrong.
gave the feeling that it was certainly "built down to a price". bless richer sounds cotton socks, they managed to get Onkyo to admit it was a known fault, ship it for free, fix it for free, and supplied me with a replacement in the mean time.
when it came back, can see the new board through the top vent, but no heatsinks on the chips to maybe prevent this problem in future. so it's working. but for how long... (un
so atmos is 5.1.2... I guess it must scale up to 7.2.4, as that's what I previously had been lead to believe as a "true atmos"(?) setup. are the "tops" separate channels, or effectively the same?
positive discrimination is still discrimination.
not being funny, but you don't need a vagina to see that IT sucks. Seems to me if you have a dick, you're dumb enough to put up with it.
Also, How would it feel to know that you got the job, not because you are either the best fit, most suited, capable for the role, but that you simply tick a box. how do your new colleagues feel that their tight budget constraints paid for you? that their time, effort, and energy is going to be spent supporting you? any resentment?
wonder if el'Reg can pull up a similar headline from when the *licks finger, holds in the air* last gov-reshuffle/minister-of-information-appointment/education-secretary-appointment/national-union-of-teachers-conference/political-party-conference happened?
I predict that this is not the last time we will see this type of headline.
used to work for a research team that had a 4096 parallel processor core machine. the main government contract they had was high resolution imaging, mapping, and processing in a unit small enough to fit in a van to analyse road surfaces for cracks, de-lamination, frost damage, all the way up to pot holes. roads could be monitored, and repaired before major problems occurred.
so while this is a step forward, I suspect this is basically getting someone else to do the data gathering using (what I suspect to be comparatively poor - but will probably get better) commodity hardware.
this idea has been around for years, and implemented in various ways, the advantage here now, is cheapness. Councils just get a bundle of data without the expenditure of money, time and effort, or having to go and get it.
http://www.netlib.org/utk/papers/advanced-computers/gamma-II.html
.
reminds me of going to visit Croften beam engines when I were a nipper.
it looks much more together now than when I were a lad. the canal was no where near completion, so could monkey about up and down the sides and in the locks.
then a picnic up on the hill overlooking it all with the railway in the background providing the occasional intercity125 for a good contrast twix'd old ant' new.
always on really sunny hot days I remember for some reason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crofton_Pumping_Station
erf.
even as an ignorant brit I still know that the "world series" is a league named after the sponsoring "world series" news corporation.
and world champions for American football... well.. yeah... just because no one gives a toss... erm, I mean, no teams are good enough to be fielded into the NFL from outside the US doesn't mean it's closed off.
a good read, and quite enlightening. lots of parallels to I.T. departments of lots of places I've worked. stressed out management just trying to keep it all afloat, employee's nailing things together with chewing gum, sweat, and bits of string, and working for the love of tech and sacrificing any attempt to make a meaningfull wage / career.
as a young boy, the Tandy store in the UK was kinda my bolthole when my parents were doing the weekly shopping trawl up and down the highstreet. they knew where I was, and I was happy poking and prodding wizzy electonic things, and hopefully not bothering anyone.
crazy to think that I could get not only my monthly computing mags, but the quickshot pro joystick mentioned in the reviews in the same newsagents, and Sinclair spectrums and accessories on the shelves.
I was able to play on a NES demo station (and discover arcade perfect games had made it to home console), and dick about on the music keyboards in Boots (a chemist) while my folks got their photo's developed.
then that fateful Christmas of '87 I think, when Tandy got the Amiga500 and AtariST displays put up at front of house.
that was it. game over. a half meg v1.2 rom'd A500 looping the "robocity" demo. I was blown away. I knew my destiny. *choral music* *spotlight shines down from above*
bit of a chicken and egg hardware/software situation. good hardware, but non compelling software that's already running (effectively for free) on the phone in everyone's pocket. what's the hook? the game controller?
as much as this is a good thing from Nvidia, to my mind, to release a device right now they should just suck it up, say sorry to Intel, slap an x86 core in there with their graphics silicon so we can run our existing steam libraries.
I'm sure there will be a tipping point when ARM becomes de-facto for consumer hardware, but I feel it's a bit early. maybe this will be just another device adding to that snowball rolling down the hill to become the eventual avalanche that will see x86 relegated to datacentre racks, or maybe history?
To do this, Nvidia are obviously putting money on the line. They must have market analysts paid to do research and tell them what's what, but they also have a company head who's core mission seems to be to stick it to Intel. So i'll be interested to see how this plays out...
childhood memories of mum having the TV on for ST reruns, STNG, then a hole in the schedule that got filled with Bab5, Seaquest DSV, Quantum Leap, original Battlestar, buck rogers...
not a trekkie myself per-say, but he just lent a quietly distinguished air of class and professionalism as the straight man to kirk's capers.
good memories. unexpected role model, getting kids into science and learning. lots of respect, very sad to hear of his passing. best wishes to his family - he was a good part of my growing up.
also reading this and wondering now how much influence my mum had over my development of scientific interest while she did the ironing humming along to the ST/NG opening theme tune.
while the level of disconnect is going to be a curious modifier in an actual suicidal situation, some action has to be better than none?
but my cynical me just think it's just going to get abused by a load of teens making a pouty face. poor little boo boo's and their "FML, homework" tantrums.
is usually a staple carry-on item on those doing the atlantic mule run. stop in at best buy, and pick up a few apple tvs for people at work, family etc. £100 makes you think, £60 its a bit of a no brainer.
get home, splat that front row nonsense, stick on XBMC and jobs-a-good-un.
the pie is turning that trend. even cheaper, and can run vpn so xmbc can access your home media when your abroad. provided the hotel network can take it.
yeah fine so apple sold 25m of the things, but how many are actually doing what apple wants them to do?
had a range of berry's from work
8300, 9700, 9780, 9790, 9900
then the OS10 variants
Z10, Q10, Z30 and got a passport in my work draw.
The Classic is effectively just a Q10 in a revised 9900 body. nice look and feel though
Z30 is ideal for me. ok, no keyboard, but the screen makes up for that. one of my colleagues has ditched his Q10 for a Z30 as well. you aren't going to be banging out any novels on the touch screen, but it is responsive. agree on the boot time and apps are slow to load, but once they are there, I don't worry about just flicking them into the background as it has the battery to cope.
the passport is a speed demon! apps and boot loading is very quick!
all OS10 blackberry devices don't need the blackberry add-on on your carrier's tariff. used to be a fiver a month with Vodafone. no idea now. but they use ActiveSync and your data allowance for their email and messaging transport rather than a hook back to RIM's infrastructure.
sticking with my Z30 to see if OS10.3.1 makes it over...
a colleague's "little darling" bought himself for Christmas, two ipad mini's, one mac book pro, one iphone6 on his amazon account that was only setup for his kindle. he was only discovered because unbeknown to him, his email address as an auto forward to his dad's account.
his dad started getting repeated "thank you for your purchase", "your order has been dispatched" etc. emails. panic ensued, phone calls made, swearing, stern words to offspring. admonishing phone call from wife.
much hilarity around the office.
not bad for buying your kid a cheapo ebook reader.
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