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Comment Because it all seems to be 'flowing' the wrong way (Score 0) 252

I have a desktop and a laptop or two running Windows. I have for decades. These are 'my machines'
I've ploughed through the odd iOS and quite a few Android devices for phones and tablets as well. Once you've hacked the life out of them, you can actually get stuff working that previously you could only do on my 'real machines'
Over the generations, what I could do has increased - I loved it. Then I saw the Surface2. It just sort of snuck up on me. Scales from my eyes and all that, but it can do whatever any other tablet I have could do, what I wanted my next tablet to do, and - well basically I'm not sure what advantage any tablet of today or the near future could offer me, that this couldn't.

Comment To be fair though (Score 2) 338

Consoles just have to render at 1080, not 1440 or the 4k you can easily pick up for your PC.
*re-reads*
Oh..

For the last couple of gens it's usually been possible to get a PC that 'looked better' - but you ended up paying a whole wedge more for the privilege. This is the first gen of consoles that have come out and I've immediately written off (and I'm reasonably sure could build a better PC for near enough the same money).
PC monitors have got better, and it's never been easier to plug your PC into a TV if you care. My old 360 controller is happily working wirelessly with my PC, despite the rest of the rig going to the charity shop. I'm really a little bemused as to what the point of non-portable consoles is any more.
Even the industry seems a little bemused and is resorting to 'dirty-tricks' - deliberately screwing up the graphics on Watch Dogs, 'consoles as a whole' getting a timed exclusive of GTA etc.
Only console I've any interest in is the WiiU (and even then just for the game exclusives I know will never come to my PC - and for some reason can mentally give Nintendo a pass on this).

Comment Indeed (Score 1) 126

With a 'normal' car you get to see the mileage and whether "it looks OK at a glance" but that's about all you can tell about what kind of life it had previously.
With a Tesla I don't see why you couldn't theoretically pull the entire black-box history.
I'd like to buy a Tesla that never exceeded the speed limit and was only driven to church on a Sunday etc etc.

Comment That is rubbish (Score 1) 107

Google are trying to protect their Android brand, from the reasonable accusations that hardware vendors leave their customers high-and-dry and stop supporting the handset when they have a new one to sell.
I don't want an iOS phone - *but* buying an Android phone for a similar chunk of cash, it never comes with any guarantee of a future update.
Google recognized this and released the 'google edition' versions of some of the high-end popular handsets. That ticks the box for the users of these phones - you're likely to get your updates for a good few more years, whatever your vendor does - but for most of these high-end phones the vendor provides upgrades anyway.
Surely what google want go do is provide some kind of ongoing support to their users of phones from the lower tier suppliers. Cyanogen is pretty good at bridging the gap between the huge numbers of phones out there, and google's latest and greatest OS.
The bit that niggles me is that I'm not quite sure what Cyanogen brings apart from providing a focus for the unpaid people actually doing the work.
If I were in Google's position I'd just pick up the community myself, and put bounties against phone/android version combos, and pay the devs directly.

Comment If I had points, I'd give them to you (Score 1) 474

I'm reasonably proud of my little island and a bit we refer to as the UK.
Punched above our weight for a couple of hundred years, and made out mark on the planet. Generally I think we've done more good than harm - but definitely not perfect and plenty of room for improvement.
Personally glad that Scotland didn't leave us - but would have happily accepted any decision they made.
Hopefully this is just tacit acceptance it's a bit shit for all of us at the moment, and we all need to ride this out together. It'll get better, it'll get worse again, we'll bitch and we'll whine about the unfairness of it all - but at least we're not France.

Comment Get a better router? (Score 3, Informative) 238

I picked up an Asus ac66u last year (there are later models and I suspect cheaper ones in the range that are similar) - and it supports VPN (amongst all manner of other stuff).
Just have an extra page on the GUI to allow you to generate an openVPN cert and account privs. Pretty useful as means when I'm travelling I can just seamlessly add my phone to the home network.
I'd thought about buying something dedicated (well was more a NAS project, I thought I could add this to) - but unless you've got some complex needs or high volume - I strongly suspect I'd make more of a mess (both function and security) trying to set it up myself.

Comment The issue isn't really net neutrality. (Score 4, Interesting) 81

It's lack of competition in the US markets.
In deregulated markets when you have competition, if your Netflix doesn't work, you shout at your ISP who either loses you as a customer, or sorts their peering out.
Problem in the states would seem to be that if your Netflix doesn't work, you don't appear to usually have an alternate/comparable ISP you can switch to that will give you working Netflix.They've got you over a barrel, and see an opportunity to make money. Asking you for extra cash to make your netflix work is what they'd really love to do, but as they can't, they'll ask Netflix for it (who'll then ultimately have to pass this onto you).
Looking at it another way - if you had a 'net neutral' google connection available to you, you wouldn't care what other ISPs you didn't use were doing.
US ISPs are currently trying to have their cake and eating it - they want the regulation that prevents the competition, but don't want regulation that makes the connection 'neutral' (whatever exactly you think that means).

Comment Maybe it's the lack of choice. (Score 1) 819

If I buy a car, or a pair of trousers, I make a decision as to what I will and won't accept.
If I buy a plane ticket, I can see the airports, the times, the meal I don't want, the films I can watch, religious meal-types available etc - there's never an absolute statement saying you'll have x many inches of space between your back and the seat infront.
If there was, I could appeal to corporate travel to black-list some options. As it stands you're already on the plane, before you realize what you're in for.

Comment Indeed (Score 1) 819

The *single* time I've ever argued on a plane (I'm British and we're big on silent compliance), was then I could only fit by putting by twisting (really not good for your back), my legs ended up in the aisle and was woken and chastised by stewardess unable to get her trolley past (after slamming it into my legs a few times).
Ended up having to stand up to let the duty-free go by.
To return to the point above. I'm not asking for luxury, I'm just wanting it not to physically hurt. I don't have a choice of airline as I have a cheap-arse employer - I can maybe choose a flight time that I think will be less popular, but that's all the say I have. Yes - maybe I should change jobs - but just seems bizarre that in my corporate world of IT, decisions have been made as to whether I should feel pain or not.

Comment Agreed. (Score 1) 819

I quite liked my Hertz Bug - I think they thought we were a gay couple though, when we were offered it, but I digress - loads of space.
Next time we got a Mini (the fuggly big one) and I loathed it.
I know you're taller than me, so don't wish to tell you what's comfortable - but for me at least: Huge cars always have space. Anything beneath that appears to be completely random whether it's comfortable or not. Some are designed for tall people, some aren't - there just doesn't seem to be any particular reasoning/pricing around it.

Comment I disagree (Score 1) 819

I'm not 'very' tall - I don't have to shop in different shops. The regular shops I go to don't charge me extra for the material required to make my clothes etc. They've determined the cost of fabric isn't economically justifiable in maintaining different price points for the clothing - we all pay the same, we all get something that fits.
What's wasteful on planes is the handing out of 'excess' legroom. If you don't need 1 inch of space, you certainly don't need 3" of space. That's a waste. An empty seat that nobody is using is an AWFUL lot of waste that could be allocated, for nothing, to other passengers.

The seats are already on tracks, how about simply just allowing them to crawl up and down the plane according to need? Sure it's not simple - but planes are reasonably complex already. Simply pitch would be - all passengers get the most legroom we can possibly provide them with.
Airlines are already trying to shift us off the peak-hour flights on cost - but I'd happily shift, for nothing (as my employer is paying), if I was actually comfortable.

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