Posts by Rich Woods

2012 was warmest year ever recorded in USA

Typical

They get the warmest year ever recorded and we get the wettest year ever recorded.

Top-secret US spaceplane sets off on another classified mission

"I was out star gazing last night, nothing much else to do while taking long exposure shots, and noticed a satellite rise from the north sky heading south and then change direction and set in the east. I have no idea what it was and didn't see it come around again"

Orbital speed is about 16,000mph. Changing the direction of a satellite's orbit by that degree is somewhat beyond the capabilities of even a top secret US defence project. Your sighting must have been of a good old fashioned flying saucer rather than an advanced spaceplane.

Second win for Apple as Galaxy Nexus sales banned in US

Don't think Samsung will be too upset...

Samsung produced the Galaxy Nexus on behalf of Google, primarily as a developer device. In that role it has already served its purpose. It is not Samsung's flagship product, that role has been taken by the Galaxy S3. The main result of this is increasingly bad PR for Apple as more people start to believe that they are competing in the courtroom because they are no longer capable of competing in the open market. The whole thing is a joke, imagine if cars, hi-fis or TVs had such ridiculous patent encumbrance. Apple appear to be the biggest comedians of them all.

Apple design chief Jony Ive knighted - but not by the Queen

Hereditary office

If you think that hereditary office is a bad thing, what is your opinion of hereditary wealth? Some people might argue that hereditary wealth passes power from generation to generation of the same family just as much as hereditary office does. In fact hereditary wealth is less accountable as offices bring with them responsibilities. The queen would quickly discover where real power lies if she did not perform her duties.

So if you want to abolish hereditary office, do you think hereditary wealth is any better?

If you think both are wrong then you are a communist and I defer to your moral superiority but would suggest humbly that we've yet to find a form of communism that actually works.

Just like a real computer: Android gets Android IDE

This is fantastic news and makes me very happy.

Sid Meier's Civilization

Just one more turn...

I was unfamiliar with the time '4am' until this game came into my life.

On counterfeits, fakes and Apple stores

How is it a fake story?

Not sure I understand this article. The whole point of the original story was that all the evidence points to the fact that these are not authorised resellers but that they are trading with the Apple brand and trademarks and that the staff even think they are working for Apple.

One of the shops photographed was an "Apple Stoer" (sic).

How does that make it a fake story?

Windows Phone 7 - what's in and what's out

Ignore the geeks at your peril

This is a response to the comments that say that simplifying a mobile experience is a good strategy. That's kind of correct, but you should be extremely cautious of "alienating the geek" at the same time. This is because the mass market is complex and not nearly as clearly divided into easily targeted pools as some seem to think.

Everybody knows a geek, and when they are buying a smartphone they will usually ask their opinion. The iPhone worked because all the geeks knew it was a seriously good piece of kit. When their non tech savvy friends asked them about the iPhone, they told them such, if the geeks hadn't like the iPhone it would never have been as successful as it has been.

What Microsoft seem to be doing here is putting in place a number of restrictions that throw up red flags in the minds of the geeks. No app accessible database, no inter-app communication, no apps as services, no backwards compatibility, a tightly restricted marketplace, the list seems to go on. When the average smartphone buyer asks his geek friend his opinion on Windows Phone 7 series, there's too much in the way of a simple "yeah, it's a nice bit of kit" reply.

Android native code kit apes iPhone game 3D

OpenGL ES 1.1 vs OpenGL ES 2.0

The Hero, and other Android 1.5 devices only have ES 1.1 support, the same as the iPhone 3G. This update allows the platform to use the ES 2.0 rendering pipeline, which is the same as the iPhone 3GS and the Nokia N900.

The main feature that 2.0 adds is support for hardware shaders, which make a lot cleverer 3D effects possible.

French mock British G-spot probe

To the french...

Which is the greater sexual accomplishment...

finding the g-spot

or

finding 1800 willing volunteers, including various sets of twins, who will allow you to search them for it?

Aussie gov anti-porn filter 'useless', says teen

response to John Naismith

"Why? Seriously let him look at it when he wishes and just log it for review later. "

My god man, that means parents would have to take some responsibility for the actions of their offspring. Its much better to just put some fences around them and just leave them to do their own thing. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.