* Posts by magnetik

306 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jul 2009

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Most Americans doubt Big Bang, not too sure about evolution, climate change – survey

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Re: IMG Breaking News!!

I personally don't see how that can be considered accurate. Really you're talking about around 20 people representing the views of an entire state (on average). Would you consider a random poll of 20 people in Belgium to represent the views of the Belgians?

Yes, I know they have the same language, TV etc. but there's still a big diversity in beliefs and lifestyles and so on between states. 20 people per state just doesn't seem enough to me to be statistically relevant.

Can you tell a man's intelligence simply by looking at him? Yes

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WTF?

So which of those three boxes does Stephen Hawking fit in?

Nokia gobble: Microsoft can't get free of red-tape bondage 'til April

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Stop

He did say "22% for all end-devices that they target" - which presumably means desktops, servers, tablets and phones. Not sure if the percentage is right but it doesn't seem unreasonable when you factor mobile devices into the list of "end-devices"

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Happy

Microsoft miss a deadline? Surely you jest? :-O

Woman claims she was assaulted in Google Glass 'HATE CRIME'

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Re: The problem with Google Glass ...

I don't think it's as unfeasible as you portray. Remember Google automatically blank out millions (if not hundreds of millions?) of faces and license plate numbers in Street View images. Not much of a stretch from there to detecting things like brand logos or whatever in the frames of a video. Couple that with knowing the location where a video is shot and there's plenty of intelligence to gather, I imagine.

Bill Gates to pull a Steve Jobs and SAVE MICROSOFT – report

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Re: Billion Cash every 2 weeks

The only metric that counts is cash-flow

That's exactly the kind of attitude that does so much harm in this world. You're probably best off doing business in China where wealth trumps petty things like the health of employees and long term survival of the planet's ecosystems.

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Re: Seriously

Apple would have continued into bankruptcy if Microsoft had not chosen to bail them out. I bet Jobs was happy to have some advice from Gates then, along with cash from his company.

I guess you're talking about the $150M investment in a company that already had $1.2B in reserves for a cross licensing deal ?

The "Microsoft saved Apple" myth just refuses to die.

Pervy TOILET CAMERA disguised as 'flash drive' sparks BOMB SCARE on Boeing 767

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Re: So is this an excuse

And in the toilet too, just to be safe.

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WTF?

Reasonable assumption ? Sure, terrorists always put the triggers in places visible to all and sundry instead of, say, under their seats or in the overhead luggage compartment.

Ballmer: 'We made more money than almost anybody on the PLANET'

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"But in the last 13 years, I bet we've made more money than almost anybody on the planet."

Wow, what a legacy to leave behind, I'm sure history will remember him with such fondness.

Only a merciful BULLET can really save a RHINO, say Texas hunters

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Re: Strange Logic

(assuming some bureaucrat did not push this for purely political reasons),

What about the most common reason of all, corruption

This is Africa we're talking about, make no assumptions about decisions being made for the good of all.

Windows Phone 8 INFLATED by Microsoft ... to satisfy lonely phablets

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Stop

Re: few in their right mind want a high end Windows Phone

My (extremely non-techy) girlfriend just replaced her aging Android with a Nokia 1020 ... all the bullshit that came with her old phone (random restarts, inability to update anything due to lack of memory, sluggish performance, etc)

That tells us nothing, except that her old phone is probably a piece of junk. Most likely she'd be just as pleased if she'd upgraded to the likes of an S4.

Samsung touching up ROUNDED, CURVY plastic enhanced MODEL

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Re: WTF

"you have to go left to right and also away from you and back again to remain in contact with the screen."

Er, dunno about you but my thumb makes an arc when I move it left to right. What kinda weird thumbs do you have !?

Microsoft investors push for Bill Gates defenestration: report

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Re: "the company's audacious early goal of putting a PC into every home came to fruition"

My point was that MS didn't get ahead because their product "just worked", in fact compared to the OSes I mentioned it was junk. But they marketed that junk like hell so it got traction. IBM made the mistake of believing their product would sell on merit and failed to market it properly. (Incidentally I know several people who used OS/2 at home).

Let's not forget that MS made it very difficult for companies like Dell to sell competing OSes with their machines. I wonder if IBM / Commodore / Be had adopted Microsoft's practices of pushing their products on people just how different home computers would be today?

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Re: "the company's audacious early goal of putting a PC into every home came to fruition"

@Callam McMillan

"Microsoft put a computer in every home, because it just worked (how things have changed). Linux is [sic] only recently got there and Apple around the same time was nowhere."

Complete ignorance. You obviously never heard of OS/2, Amiga, BeOS, Solaris etc - all of which competed with DOS / Windows. And all of which were better than the junk Microsoft built.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it ... Win Phone 8? No, it's APPLE'S iOS 7

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Re: visual feedback to replace missing tactile feedback

"why waste processor cycles on this kind of thing?" because we're not in 2000 anymore…

You mean back when the battery on your phone lasted a week instead of having to be recharged on a daily basis?

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

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FAIL

Mac runs OSX, which is loosely derived from a Linux kernel

If you're gonna go around correcting people you should at least get your facts right. OS X is not based on Linux. Here, go educate yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_(kernel)

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The fact that you call it an "IOS laptop" makes me think you really don't know very much about operating systems. I'd love to know what kind of software you develop, lol.

Stylus counsel: The rise and fall of the Apple Newton MessagePad

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WTF?

Re: I've got one in brand new condition

So you've shunned an entire brand for decades based on your short experience with one of their least successful products ever?

Penguins, prepare to get SPACED OUT: Ubuntu 13.10's Mir has docked

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Re: Dinosaurs

Devices tend to diverge, not converge. Once we had only sharpened flints, now we have cutlery sets and cake stands, and even a special fork for spearing picked onions. Optimization.

Maybe but we also once had separate phones, cameras, video recorders, mp3 players, radios, handheld games consoles, GPS's etc. Now all of those have converged into a single smartphone.

session time

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session time

Reg Devs,

Could you please consider increasing the session timeout for the site? We should be able to stay logged in for at least a couple of days without having to log in again.

AJAX thread voting

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AJAX thread voting

Reg Devs, can you please change the voting on forum posts to use AJAX? In this day and age it's a bit silly to be opening another page just to register a vote ..

WAR ON PORN: UK flicks switch on 'I am a pervert' web filters

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Re: Sell it like this

So every request made will have to be checked for naughty content and then checked against the "dirty people who want to see naughty things" list before you get to the good stuff.

I think not. It's more likely to be a case of the ISP configuring a route for incoming traffic on the port your house is connected to, ie. via the content filtering system or not.

NASA-backed fusion engine could cut Mars trip down to 30 days

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FAIL

@Brad Arnold - Re: LENR emerging soon

Stop with your LENR spam, we're bored of it now.

Apple handed victory in Samsung text-selection patent case

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Ah yes, the old "hundreds of millions on R&D" argument. Even with companies making cheaper copies of their products these big pharma corps still make tens of billions in profit. They get no sympathy from me.

NASA chief: Earth is DOOMED if we spot a big asteroid at short notice

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WTF?

Re: Earth is doomed?????

Earth is worthless without humans, so if humanity is doomed, so is Earth.

So all other species are worthless because they're not human? :-S

Microsoft finally ships Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7

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WTF?

standards

"E10 brings the same leading standards support"

WTF!? When has IE ever lead in terms of standards support? What a joke!

Siri: Can you make a Raspberry Pi open a garage door?

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Happy

Re: Missed Opportunity

Hmm, maybe I should blog about this on OpenSourceame.com :-D

GhostShell hackers release 1.6 million NASA, FBI, ESA accounts

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WTF?

irony

These guys say they stand for keeping the internet free and open. And then they claim to have hacked into a bunch of high profile systems and release the info to the world while being untraceable. And that's meant to encourage governments to keep things free and open how exactly?

Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers

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Re: Fake nonsense statistics based on flawed samples

If any of this was ever true there wouldn't be so many freelance developers, startups and small software houses developing and releasing apps and games on iOS in the first place.

Er, no. People will do anything for money based on perception. That's why pyramid schemes (and MLM) work so well; people think they'll get huge rewards for their investment. The reality, however, is usually something quite different ...

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WTF?

Re: vast number of really useless

I'm not going to touch any program that wants you to buy stuff in game.

How is "pay to win" any different to stuffing arcade machines full of coins? Tablet and phone games afford us days of fun for the money we would have spent in a couple of hours at a games arcade. Lucky us!

Samsung turns screws on Apple, hikes A6 processor price 20%

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FAIL

Re: Can apple buy Foxconn or some other manufacturer?

@Bullseyed

Foxconn isn't a manufacturer. They assemble things. How do people know this little about the world and business? Scary.

I'd keep quiet if I were you, after all you did claim that "Apple only exists today because Bill Gates gave them billions in free money so that Microsoft wouldn't get 100% market share and get dismantled by the government". What a joke. MS bought $150M of non-voting Apple stock to support continued development of MS Office on the Mac, which they sold back later for a massive profit. Get your facts straight before you point fingers at others!

Steve Jobs backs Amazon from beyond grave in Apple trademark row

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FAIL

" from the fragmentation of the number of App Stores out there that people are going to pull their hair out, because they’re going to have a variety of updating methodologies, and a variety of payment methods, and slightly different derivatives"

Which is why nobody shops on the internet right? C'os it's far to tricky to figure out how to put card details into forms for all these different shops, or type your PayPal / other payment credentials in.

Governments block YouTube over that video

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FAIL

Re: He's not a deity...

"Last week a Christian tried to mug me. And the week before that I saw a couple of Christians kicking the shit out of a drunk guy for a laugh."

And you knew they were Christians because, what, you went up to them and said "S'cuse me, I notice you kicking the shit out of that guy, could I just ask what religion you practice before I walk away?"

And I guess you asked your would-be mugger too, or was he wearing a beanie with a fish symbol on it?

Google to axe IE 8 support, cuts off Windows XP lifeline

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WTF?

"Google explained the reasoning behind its decision by pointing out that it was standard procedure for the Chocolate Factory to part company with the third-oldest version of a browser."

So that'll mean docs will only work with Chrome version 20 or later, right? (For another month or two anyway)

Microsoft picks October 26 for Windows 8 launch

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WTF?

Re: Room 101

"Can you install rival OS on an Apple?"

Of course you can, where have you been the last six years?

Viviane Reding says imitate US and form FEDERAL EUROPE

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Re: I want to be like America...

"in most of Europe it is very easy to own a gun, easier than some US States."

Refresh my memory, because I can't remember which EU countries let you buy guns in supermarkets ...

" Seen the number of Range Rovers and other much-more-expensive SUVs on UK roads?"

Sure, every country has them, but the US has the dubious distinction of being, by far, the least fuel efficient country on earth in terms of fuel consumption per person.

"Yes, because the average European (UK or Continental) is just so slim and health-concious - NOT!"

Most European countries have, at most, less than half the obesity rate of the US.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity

"I suggest you need to update your prejudices."

I'd agree if those prejudices weren't backed up by facts.

iOS was SO much more valuable to Google than Android - until Maps

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Re: How long before Apple buys TomTom?

Do you think Apple wants to deal with the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of existing TomTom devices out there? If they bought them they'd still have to support all the legacy crap, I seriously doubt that would ever happen. If, however, TomTom split off the mapping part of the company Apple could consider that for a buyout.

Microsoft to devs: Don't ruin Win 8 launch with crap code

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Re: Down with MS

> MS had tablets out many, many years before the iPad and Android tablets

Yes, but they were crap.

> MS had smartphones out many, many years before iPhone and Android handsets.

Yes, but they were also crap.

> HTC made their name with Windows smartphone hardware.

Yes, but they've wised up since then.

Testicle-boiling new iPad ignites fanboi fury

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Happy

El Reg units of measure

"this discussion runs to 21 pages"

I always laugh when I see this kind of thing. Like the number of pages on a forum means anything. That 80 page discussion by Justin Bieber fans about which of his songs is best surely proves he's the greatest talent ever, right?

Fragmentation bomb wounds Android in developer war

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FAIL

Re: hah hah hah

Basically a copy of iOS? One's based on FreeBSD and apps are written in objective C, the other is a form of Linux with apps written in Java. Next you'll tell us Windows Phone is basically a copy of iOS.

New iPad: Crack open your wallets, fanbois, here's what it'll cost

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Facepalm

Re: Holy major rip-off Batman

Well the original point stands - you can get a smartphone with 3G and GPS (and a whole lot more besides) for less than the price of adding those two features to the iPad.

Ubuntu 12.04 hits beta, brings smooth Unity for marching masses

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Re: vim vs gvim

I'd like it to work intelligently like Quicksilver, ie. if I type "PISS" it matches playlists, as in PlaylIStS :-)

Windows 8: Sugar coating on Microsoft's hard-to-swallow tablet

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Re: Use of screen space

Agreed, it just looks dumb and continues Microsoft's tradition of trying, but failing miserably, with interface aesthetics.

Who's adding DRM to HTML5? Microsoft, Google and Netflix

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WTF?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Bummer.

Hmm, I have to seriously question that panopticlick site you mentioned. It says I'm uniquely identifiable because only one in 2 million browsers have the same number of fonts installed that I do, yet I've installed only the default fonts on my OS?

Daniel Craig like Connery, Skyfall helmsman suggests

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Not too keen on Craig myself. It's mind boggling that he can't drive a manual transmission car, and was slightly absurd listening to his English accent in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" when every other actor and actress made an effort to speak in a Swedish accent.

Node.js Native breakthrough: cloudy C++ on steroids

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WTF?

Re: To follow myself up

What on earth are you running your Fibonacci code on? I just tried a PHP and Python test and both generate 40 numbers in the series in under 10ms on a tiny little VPS. You must be doing something very wrong, even an old C64 would give better results than yours.

Microsoft explains bland new Windows logo

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FAIL

As crap as the Olympic logo is, it does at least get your attention. How can Microsoft sanction something so dull? And the font kerning is pretty crap, they should have at least moved the dot on the i down so that the top lined up with the top of the W.

As with the Olympic logo whatever they paid the agency was far, far too much. An intern could do a better job in MS Paint.

Laser boffins blast bits onto hard drive at 200Gb/sec

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Happy

That'd be hard dives then ..

Brazil sues Twitter over police checkpoint tweets

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FAIL

So basically you're saying while you should be allowed to say what you want, it's okay for the government to act like a bunch of crazed Hell's Angels if they find out that you said something they don't like?

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