* Posts by Sandpit

93 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Oct 2012

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Don't want to fork out for NAND flash? You're not alone. Disk still rules

Sandpit

Re: Give it time

Need to factor in the cost of powering the disks and the cost of cooling them and the cost of the larger racks in a data centre before claiming that SSDs make no economic sense there. Then there is MTBF.

Look at TCO before deciding how far SSDs are behind HDD

Polymer droplets turn smartmobes into microscopes

Sandpit

Re: Foldscope excites me more

uri should end /manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_that_folds_like_origami

these forums seem to truncate

Och aye! It's the Loch Ness Monster – but only Apple fanbois can see it

Sandpit
Coat

Re: Slow News day then?

"Or are EL crying in their spilt milk about the sacking of the Man U manager?"

I didn't know they were City fans!

Organic food: Pricey, not particularly healthy, won't save you from cancer

Sandpit

Agenda here?

That's a very biased article (so unlike the reg), it even tells us what we care about and what we don't. I eat a lot of organic food and it's not because I think it tasts better, it's not because I think it will reduce cancer and it's not because I think it's more nutritious.

This planet is going to hell in a hand cart. If you think that the best way to solve humanities problems are to hand the whole lot over to big corporate petro-chemical industries with profit motivated mono-cultures then go for it. Some of us care where we're heading and don't want to go there.

Just like if you announce you are a vegetarian, meat eaters immediately launch into attacking you, "well you eat fish don't you?", "and eggs, and milk, they are from animals". They feel threatened and have to justify their meat eating. Why? I don;t mind them eating meat, it's their choice, so why attack me for mine, very odd. And it's the same with orgainic, I choose it where available, so why do people who don't choose it feel they have to attack it all the time?

Microsoft in 1-year Windows XP survival deal with UK govt

Sandpit

Missing the point

The main reason why it is hard to move from XP is that all the software that people rely on for their business needs it. For government to move off of XP they don't just need to buy Win7 licences (or get some Linux knowhow), they need to buy, test, migrate, re-integrate ALL the software that runs on it. Sometimes that just isn't possible, whatever the cost because the vendor hasn't moved on. Even if they have, you can be sure that they want more money for the latest version.

BT Tower to be replaced by 3D printed BT Tower

Sandpit

We're going to need a bigger printer

Spin that disk drive forecast, Gartner: Watch those desktop units dive

Sandpit
WTF?

Pinch of salt

I don't know where gartner get there figures from but I don't believe their prediction. These are the guys that were predicting that nobody would use a mouse in 3-5 years back in 2008!

Molyneux: Working at Microsoft is 'like taking antidepressants'

Sandpit
Paris Hilton

Legendary?

Mr "over promise, under deliver" was once legendary but these days he is seeming more and more mythical. When was the last genuinely good game he made?

(Paris because she likes a good game apparently)

Life support turned off: NHS Direct dies silent, undignified death

Sandpit

Used to be a lot better than 111

111 justs asked a lot of questions before wanting to send an ambulance out. Last year I broke a tooth so rang to get hold of an emergency dentist. I had to formally decline, against their advice, the ambulance they wanted to send to take me to A&E because I had sustained a head injury.

BT snatches crown: Soars to top of complaints list

Sandpit
Thumb Down

Not allowed to complain

For me the biggest gripe is about BT Openreach wholesale provision that all ISPs are forced to use for FTTC. The service there is terrible and you are not allowed to complain about. All you can do is complain to your ISP (presumably bumping their stats up) while BT wholesale remain unaccountable to the end-customer

Crap flap-app flap chap yaps: Yes, FLAPPY BIRD is comin' back

Sandpit

"I got 251."

I got a life!

Sysadmins and devs: Do these job descriptions make any sense?

Sandpit
Boffin

Chiefs and Indians

One day we will start paying the people with the technical skills that actually do the work more than the upwardly mobile gobshites that think they add value in managing them.

Until then the industry will stay in the same retarded mess that it has been in since the 90s.

And I'm an IT manager!

Fee fie Firefox: Mozilla's lawyers probe Dell over browser install charge

Sandpit
Joke

Re: Mozillidiots

"Dell charge to take rubbish software off. Don't see why they can't charge to put decent software on."

But I thought they were putting Firefox on instead?

Beta tasting: The Elder Scrolls Online preview

Sandpit

Multi-player vs MMO

Actually most MMO tend to be just multiplayer with a world-integrated player matching lobby. Very few use the massive aspect in game play. GW2 manages this for some of it's open world/living story content, though all forms of dungeon play are just 5-player multi. Any MMO with a party system is just a multi-player game.

Not so FAST: Another discount software broker BOOTED OUT

Sandpit

Smart move

Lets raise the bar to drive anyone on the edges of legality (albeit the legal side of that edge) into the dark. That should really help FASTs cause.

Google, Apple pop a cap in that Flappy Birds crapp app flapp

Sandpit
Thumb Up

It's all about the money

I would be happy if they just banned all the ones that tried to exploit money from poor unsuspecting kids (aka parents bank acounts) and left the unimaginative freebie clones up to market forces.

I suspect Apple and Google have taken this action because of the former category rather than the latter.

Samsung flings sueball at Dyson for 'intolerable' IP copycat claim

Sandpit

but...

Does it have rounded corners?

How NOT to evaluate hard disk reliability: Backblaze vs world+dog

Sandpit

50/50

Sadly, at the consumer level deciding which drive to buy it's all 50/50, your drive either fails or it doesn't. Regardless of type, size, manufacturer etc. a hard drive failure is much more than a mechanical thing that's busted. And data backups won't safe you from downtime while you wait for the replacement drive to arrive in the post or for your system re-install.

Spinning disks will be gone within a few short years anyhow so the focus should be on which SSD to buy now to future-proof you for the life of your next box.

Jean Michel Jarre: Je voudrais un MUSIC TAX sur VOTRE MOBE

Sandpit

Tape worms

This is the blank tape argument again. As all blank tapes are ever used for is to copy music (basically piracy) then there should be a tax levied on all blank tapes (guilty without the ability to prove innocence).

Blank phones are just high tech blank tapes. The idea is as stupid now as it was then.

Maybe if a phone was sold that legally had access to ALL media.

Blocking BitTorrent search sites 'ineffective': Pirate Bay ban lifted for Dutch ISPs

Sandpit

More death throws of a zombie business model

They want to block pirate access before making viable legal service!

Has it ever occurred to them that the reason why there is sp much piracy is the absense of a viable legal alternative.

What they really want is the no-choice unviable extortion they have been pedalling for so so long.

Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors

Sandpit

What a dick

Iain Standen probably wants to turn it into a national centre for ICT, then staff it with all the poor unemployables that come out of our education system with a GCSE in that worthless crap.

Nintendo: We didn't just slay Wii Fit 'troll', we've now gobbled its patents

Sandpit
Joke

Fruity result

I hope Samsung one day gets to own Apple by the same reasoning.

(expecting the down votes despite the joke alert)

How to kill trolls and influence Apple people: A patent solution

Sandpit

You're the loser, you can pay...

This only works if there is someone slightly higher than a complete moron making the decision as to who is right. Current state of patent law indicates that no such higher life form exists in the American patent law courts.

i.e. you have right on your side but some idiot decides you lose and that you really can patent a rectangle with rounded corners

Ten classic electronic calculators from the 1970s and 1980s

Sandpit

No early casio?!?

Where is the green digitron tube featured on the great casio FX-39, 105 or my favorite the 120. Really high quality feel to these with sweet buttons and I loved the way the tube "sang" when you switched it on.

Fanbois, prepare to lose your sh*t as BRUSSELS KILLS IPHONE dock

Sandpit

Not only but also

"particularly Apple fanbois, who currently have to pay a small fortune for an official fruity charger"

Even if it's a standard plug, fanbois will still "have" to pay a fortune for an official one.

But yes, this is all well and good talking about a charger, but these bespoke sockets don't just charge, so when are they going to mandate the universal A/V data sync etc. cable?

Picture this: Data-wrangling boffins say they have made JPEGs OBSOLETE

Sandpit

Browser support

PNG had a slow start but is now more common because broswers can render it. JPEG 2000 has also struggled because of the lack of tooling, despite it's massive advantages, browsers don't have a clue what it is, and even plugins don't take advantage of it's "only get what you need to show" nature. JP2 will keep struggling until server technology and browser capabilities align. There is a IIF initiative ongoing so maybe in a few years we'll see a lot more of JP2s, they are being used in many big digitisation projects and in medical imaging. If you want to get a new format established these days you need to start witht he browser, get it there and you have removed all the obstacles as tooling and adoption will follow.

Drawers full of different chargers? The IEC has a one-plug-to-rule-them-all

Sandpit
Joke

Apple no onboard?

They are waiting for a standard to be established so the can then paint it white and patent it.

No anon pr0n for you: BT's network-level 'smut' filters will catch proxy servers too

Sandpit

Re: I'm done

>and go back to ... playing (offline) games.

There won't be any

Sandpit
Paris Hilton

More about greed than big brother

Who stands to gain financially by this? I suspect it's more about media interests lobbying government to get proxies and anonymisers off the net so that the crusade of medial exploitation and control can continue unabated.

Nominet seeks royal approval for pisspoor .uk domain name push

Sandpit

Not new

There are already some long standing .uk domains in existence eg www.bl.uk

How the UK's national memory lives in a ROBOT in Kew

Sandpit

Dark?

I often think of Dark Archive as oxymoronic. With petabytes going in (somepoint in the future, what is it now?) and nothing coming out do we really have an archive?

Any digital archive must assume that the media WILL fail, simply because, well, it will.

Boffins devise world's HARDEST tongue-twister

Sandpit

Unique New York

I prefer the simple phrases rather than "recite half the bible ten times quickly" efforts.

'Copyrighted' Java APIs deserve same protection as HARRY POTTER, Oracle tells court

Sandpit

Re: I wan't Oricle to win

Absolutely this. The mess that will result can only further point out what a mess the legal systems have become over technology and software.

UK.gov dangles £10m sweetener over bumpkin broadband hopefuls

Sandpit

Starting to envy the folks without access to BT fibre.

How about some cash so that we can have some competition to the clowns that are Openreach. I have suffered the blight of this incompetant monoploy as I have now had three failed attempts for an engineer to connect me over the last month, hence 3 days off work. The next attempt is on Friday the 13th so I am feeling really confident about this. Oh, and I now have no internet at all.

And there is not a damed thing I can do about it as a customer. They are untouchable, with every ISP forced to use them and just as powerless as their customers..

Flash stash on toppa platta: WD's tasty Black² 1TB combo for LAPTOPS

Sandpit
Thumb Down

I don't really get it

So this is basically two separate drives in one physical space and behaves exactly like a 2 drive system?

Surely what people really want is a 1TB SSD and so hybrids pretend to be that, but this seems like a backward (and expensive) step. I can'e see any advantage except the two drives into one slot for a small form factor. If so, I don't care about (or for) it.

Star Wars exec: These ARE THE DROIDS I was LOOKING FOR

Sandpit

Smart PR move

Hiring dedicated fans to work on the film is a smart PR move that can only add credebility to the franchise, something that will add $$$ to the bottom line in the end.

Data of 42 MILLION seekers for love plundered from Aussie dating site

Sandpit

Re: Ummm

I think the forgot to exclude the 41.5 million spambot accounts, which probably also accounts for the mass poor passwords.

Decades ago, computing was saved by CMOS. Today, no hero is in sight

Sandpit

The end is nigh! Really?

Rumours of the end of Moore are somewhat exagerated when we see month by month advances in size/power/energe/storage/connectivity/bandwidth/price. There are many, many interesting and promising areas of step-change technology inovations round the corner.

I don't recognise the premis of the article. If you look narrowly at one specific aspect of development you will find a tech dead-end but we have long since moved on from the single notion of cramming more transistors on a lump of sand.

CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! Dell's Android PC on a stick to ship with Santa

Sandpit

Specs?

Article a bit light on details, like any! Is this tha same as an MK808/9? If so it's dreadfully over-priced.

New wonder slab slurps Wi-Fi, converts it into juice for gadgets, boast boffins

Sandpit

Legal defense

Did they ask permission from home owners before transmitting energy across their airspace?

Need an internet antidote? Try magic mushrooms

Sandpit

Bigger risk than you think

i used to forage a lot (30 years ago) and regarded myself as a bit of an expert. One day I had an upset stomach and fearing that I may have made an error I did the thing that all responsibile advice recommends. Packed myself of to hospital together with what remains of the mushrroms I had eaten. Well it's a good job my ailement was unrelated because you will get absolutely NO help from our NHS if you do poison yourself. The attitude is "silly hippy go home".

I now never advise anyone to do this and rarely eat anything myself. Any mistake you make and you are on your own, there will be no medical help.

HP 100TB Memristor drives by 2018 – if you're lucky, admits tech titan

Sandpit

Nice for the enterprise but what about for toys?

I just want to know when we can see consumer 1-10TB devices to play with

Tape never died, it was just resting

Sandpit

Reliable?

"The reliability of tape has improved 700 per cent in the last 10 years or so”

So 700 * 0 = ???

MS Word deserves DEATH says Brit SciFi author Charles Stross

Sandpit

Seems confused

While I agree with his point that (publisher) expectation of use is a big problem he seems quite a confused bunny to me.

He complains at all the complex features M$ putrs in and then complains that some of those advances features are not advanced enough. He also seems to complain about and obsolete .doc format that Word doesn't want to use (but he/publisher seems to want to!).

Valid rants but somewhat out of date. Could be worse, think of the mess we would be in of open/libre office were to be the norm (ooh, feeling the downvotes already, heresy!)

Brit inventor Dyson challenges EU ruling on his hoover's energy efficiency ratings

Sandpit

Had two Dysons, both shit and didn't last that long, they were early models but I got fed up with them not living up tothe hype. That's a lot of plastic in the land-fill.

Now I have a Henry, it's lasted much longer than both Dysons put together and has far more power.

I do agree with his point about fair testing, but lets hope they count the amount of plastic you have to throw away when it packs up too, not to mention the oil needed to ship them in from Malaysia.

Michael Gove: C'mon kids, quit sexting – send love poems instead

Sandpit
Black Helicopters

Esiri

Just wait until Apple finds out someone is writing Apps under the name of eSiri

US court rules IP address cloaks may break law

Sandpit

Change of address

So what if they didn't use a proxy, but just changed address. Perhaps they wanted to use a cheaper host. Did this ruling make the break the law?

The ruling was that stealing the data wasn't ilegal, just they way they gained entry.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak disses Ashton Kutcher's Steve Jobs

Sandpit

I prefer "Micro Men" to all this twoddle

Shack in flat-pack bric-a-brac lack flap? Whack on this 3D flat-pack app

Sandpit
Thumb Down

What a shite title.

Go easy on the weed boys, your starting to talk bollocks

South Korea: We're 'concerned' that Obama saved Apple from ban

Sandpit
WTF?

@LPF (and LPF)

How does that stack with

"The ITC’s decision correctly recognised that Samsung has been negotiating in good faith and that Apple remains unwilling to take a license,"

?

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