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User: benbean

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Comments · 159

  1. Oh dear on Slashdot Turns 15, What Are You Doing Later? · · Score: 1

    You know, if you have to bribe people to hold a party... and with t-shirts... it's all a bit sad.

    The old girl's looking pretty rough these days.

  2. Dammit on Bill Moggridge, GRiD Compass Designer, Dies · · Score: 1

    Jesus, a man who made a significant contribution to computing dies and it descends into a patent/Apple flame-fest.

    I despair of Slashdot 2012.

    Thank you to those of you making interesting and insightful comments, and thank you Bill.

  3. Apple Mail on Ask Slashdot: Handling and Cleaning Up a Large Personal Email Archive? · · Score: 1

    If you use, or have access to a Mac, the Apple Mail client has for some years had a Remove Attachments option in the Message menu. Simply select all your mail in a folder with Cmd-A and select that menu option and it'll do exactly what you want. I use it regularly to prune my database.

  4. Re:Comparison to Apple][, Atari 800, C64? on 30 Years of the BBC Micro · · Score: 2

    It was roughly contemporary to the Commodore 64 and Atari 800/800XL micros. More expensive than both of those, but cheaper than an Apple II, which were very expensive in the UK. The Apple II predated it by about 4 years if I recall. My impression at the time was that the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (Timex Sinclair in the US) was far more popular in the UK, along with the C64. The BBC was common in schools, but less common at home, mostly due to a dearth of games and pricing. A cheaper version, Electron, was released later to combat this, but too late.

  5. Them? on 'Arrested Development' Comes Exclusively To Netflix · · Score: 1

    Well, thanks a bunch.

    Love, The Rest Of The Not United States World.

  6. Re:Documentation, Documentation, Documentation. on Details About Raspberry Pi Foundation's $25 PC · · Score: 1

    Yeah probably, that's the unfortunate default these days, and in this case would ideally require a second computer with Internet access. The days when software came with thick, well-written *paper* documentation you could have open alongside your computer while you learn are long gone, sadly.

  7. Re:Documentation, Documentation, Documentation. on Details About Raspberry Pi Foundation's $25 PC · · Score: 1

    Yes, and how do you propose the home hobbyist learns to use the system he or she has just hooked up? I'm talking about a friendly, introductory book detailing the types of things the computer can do, a jumping off point, a flavour of the type of tasks people who've never gone behind the GUI before can tackle, not a bloody K&R.

    As for Mr Double The Price, yes it probably would be getting on for what the computer cost, but it's not mandatory. What's your point?

  8. Documentation, Documentation, Documentation. on Details About Raspberry Pi Foundation's $25 PC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Looks like a great project. I think a key though will be to have some well-written documentation or tutorials to go with it. For my first computer (Atari 800XL), my Dad just bought a book on BASIC and a book of type-in games, and it was going through those that encouraged me to learn and experiment. Hopefully they can get a hookup with O'Reilly or somebody to produce a companion volume.

    Reeeally pie in the sky wish would be for a BBC series to go with it, a la The Computer Programme, Making the Most of your Micro and Micro Live. Never gonna happen sadly. :-(

  9. Re:The US - behind the rest of the world again... on Microsoft's Xbox To Have Streaming TV Service? · · Score: 1

    That's for a very limited subset of channels though compared to the dish packages.

  10. Re:The US - behind the rest of the world again... on Microsoft's Xbox To Have Streaming TV Service? · · Score: 1

    Maybe, but it requires a full Sky Player-eligibe Sky account, which means you either have to already be paying extra on your base package for Multiroom or one of the Sports packages. Again, this is in addition to the Xbox Live Gold account requirement. If it was a simple, reasonable monthly fee for access to Sky channels on the Xbox without a dish it'd be a worthwhile proposition for people who aren't already Sky customers. As it is, you already need to be a Sky customer paying in the £40-50 a month region for your packages to benefit.

    What we need in the UK is a decent Netflix-style system with unlimited access to a film and television library in the £10-20 a month region, accessible on our existing consoles without any surplus requirements such as the Xbox Live membership or massively overpriced full Sky package.

  11. Re:The US - behind the rest of the world again... on Microsoft's Xbox To Have Streaming TV Service? · · Score: 1

    For which you have to already have a full monthly Sky subscription, meaning your TV already has a Sky box on it perfectly capable of showing these channels, and an Xbox Live Gold account. Hardly a great deal.

  12. Could be worse... on Workers Will Smash Their PCs To Get an Upgrade · · Score: 1

    I suspect often times a bit of extra memory, or a software cleanup would be the solution, and a bit of proactivity on the part of the employer would help. Still, could be worse, I recall my Dad, a journalist, telling me that when he started work in the 60s his typewriter was supplied by the newspaper up front, but he had to pay it off in weekly instalments from his salary. Of course, it was decades rather than months/years before it was obsolete.

  13. Tabloiddot on British ISPs Could 'Charge Per Device' · · Score: 1

    Is it rampant speculation week on Slashdot? First the ridiculous "Apple's handcuffing web apps!" nonsense from the Reg, and now this completely speculative nonsense? /. standards are really slipping. Can we link to some proper journalism please?

    Yes, I must be new here.

  14. Re:Declaration, in preparation... on Using War Games To Make Organizations More Secure · · Score: 1

    Hmm, need an edit option. I started with int, decided that wasn't going to be enough and made it a long, and wound up submitting longint. Grr.

  15. Declaration, in preparation... on Using War Games To Make Organizations More Secure · · Score: 2

    longint WarGamesMovieReferenceCount;

  16. Re:Apple's response? on Sony Adopts Objective-C and GNUstep Frameworks · · Score: 1

    Then you would have performance issues, particularly for games.

  17. Re:Apple's response? on Sony Adopts Objective-C and GNUstep Frameworks · · Score: 1

    Hmm, got logged out there. I'll try that again:

    6502 -> Mototola 68k -> PowerPC -> Intel.

  18. Re:Apple's response? on Sony Adopts Objective-C and GNUstep Frameworks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is absolutely zero technical reason for this, it's all to force developers to code to Apple's APIs.

    One technical reason for this is to make sure that everybody is on the same playing field when it comes to things like architecture changes.

    If you know anything about Apple history, they have been able to make successful transitions between chipsets on more than one occasion. By requiring everybody to use the same development tools, any significant architecture changes are just a recompile away in an updated Xcode.

    Just one of several reasons, along with UI consistency and performance amongst others, but one of the most important.

  19. Re:NeoOffice on Gosling Reacts To Apple's Java Deprecation · · Score: 1

    Fair enough, but I'd argue that NeoOffice is a pretty niche install, and doesn't LibreOffice have a native UI now?

    There are excellent native torrent clients in uTorrent and Transmission. Vuze is also a pretty good example of why Java apps on OS X are a bad idea. All in all, I doubt any of those examples would be missed.

  20. Re:Antitrust lawsuit? on Gosling Reacts To Apple's Java Deprecation · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is about treating Java-in-general as a second class citizen on MacOS.

    It is and has for a long time been a second-class citizen on Mac OS X. I can think of no major (or even many minor) applications for the OS X platform that are written in Java. It hasn't proven itself necessary. It's costly and difficult for Apple to maintain for no tangible benefit when they can simply provide the hooks for the actual owner of Java to implement their own package if they so desire.

    Where's the beef?

  21. Re:It's all in the name on OpenOffice.org Declares Independence From Oracle, Becomes LibreOffice · · Score: 0

    Which is all very noble. I'm just saying OO already had a mountain to climb without its supporters attaching heavy weights to its backpack. Or, erm, something.

  22. It's all in the name on OpenOffice.org Declares Independence From Oracle, Becomes LibreOffice · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Well that's bollocksed up what little name recognition it had then. Well done OSS community. Shot itself in the foot with infighting again.

  23. Re:Twas ever thus on UK ISP TalkTalk Caught Monitoring Its Customers · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that works. :-)

  24. Twas ever thus on UK ISP TalkTalk Caught Monitoring Its Customers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Doesn't really sound any different to what the search companies store. Sans encryption, nothing you do on the Internet is private. Caveat Browsor. Or, erm, something.

  25. Re:Oh good! The trolls are out in full force! on iOS 4 Releases Today · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    No mod points today, but +1 sir, +1.