Posts by Jolyon 353 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Mar 2007
Where would I find a clear summary of the project goals?
As things stand it just looks like PARIS with a rocket up the backside which, although clearly an interesting idea, might not be the great leap forward for Vulturnautics we ought to be looking for.
Is a 2m wingspan necessary? Or could we return to (somewhere in the vicinity of) the launch site with small control surfaces, precision guided munition style?
Difficult to come up with any guarantees when it is going to be hard to predict the relative positions and attitudes of the balloon and the rocketplane. Not unimaginable for the balloon to be several degrees offset from the plane in the direction of the launch.
Launching near (or below) horizontal would obviously work but I guess one of the aims is to attain maximum altitude. It's a bit like the Douglas Adams trick to flying - you want to aim directly at it and miss. It seems early rockoons did just that bar the actual missing and just spurted straight through the flimsy fabric - simple and direct if a bit messy but there's no way your wide load will achieve the required penetration.
Would be much simpler to just blast your rocket straight through LOHAN's doughnut (or pair of funbags as the case may be) but then you'd need folding wings and that just suggests a bloody mess - if you're not rigid to start with then there's timings and mechanics to consider and your chances of a flop are magnified.
Still think I wouldn't bother opting out - chance that I'd want a paramedic to know what medicine I had been prescribed seems at least as great as the chance that I'd give a monkey's about world plus dog knowing the same.
Anyone know how secure medical records are currently? If I was NotW, how hard would it be for me to get hold of any given celeb's notes?
"How can that be done with windmills and cow shit exactly?"
It can't. But then those who favour that approach also want us to use far less power so it is not a wholly inconsistent approach even if it isn't likely to be as much fun or anywhere near as comfortable as things will be when we have lots of cheap nuclear power.
Models may well be completely wrong - almost certainly very wrong and definitely not 100% correct.
Interesting to see the greater enthusiasm for dissing these scientists who can't find their heat than for scorning those than still can't put their fingers on their bosons, dark matter or antimatter.
There seems to be great certainty amongst the educated non-experts (although no unanimity) about this subject compared with other avenues of scientific enquiry.
Am I the only person who just doesn't know which lobby is right?
Paris to remind us that examining even a non-professional model can be worthwhile.
£3500 is the average for "some departments".
Would need to see a full breakdown of that price to know how insane it really is.
£3500 for TCO over 3 years with software and services is not too bad, £3500 capital spend for a CAD workstation or similar might be reasonable too.
Suspect it isn't anything like that but I'm not going to start the slagging even on the say so of something so trustworthy as a British newspaper.
Microsoft PCs are a lot less trouble to deal with than Apple, in part this is because Apple products will represent a minority of the estate in most cases so benefit less from economies of scale but that's not all there is to it..
Things have improved greatly from the point where a couple of chatty AppleTalk devices could cause real problems for a network but still the Windows environment for user management, rights assignment and all the rest really is good.
It's not Apple's market; I'm not suggesting any flaw in their product, just pointing out that while I doubt many IT departments 'love' Microsoft, there are genuine business reasons why their products get used.
The post itself I don't really agree with.
Apple would not be the same company at all if it just sold hardware - the software is a key component, the branding is another as is the design (in a style sense).
Hardware innovation is not where Apple's genius is - user interfaces, product styling and brand building are what makes it superior to other PC / phone builders.
That's where this product falls between two stalls for me - it's neither the gaming machine I'd be willing to spend the money on nor the cheap browsing device I'd have kicking around for other uses.
I guess the heat would be too big a problem with that sort of processor AND higher end graphics in the tiny shell.
My next Apple purchase is more likely to be an iPad than an Air.
Or used to be at any rate.
If Adobe doesn't put the effort in to meet Apple's standards then it is in Apple's interests to smooth things over as far as possible - or could Apple now afford for users of Adobe's products to change their opinion on the most suitable platform for their use?
It's not exactly fair on Apple but short of providing a superior alternative themselves this is what they have to deal with.
Bought it again on Steam for pennies the other month, thought I'd breeze through it having finished it when it first came out; was quickly and brutally reminded how sodding difficult it is if you are too gung-ho, particularly in the early stages.
Slap some spiffy new graphics on the top of it and re-release it - would be better than YAFPS.
Generic iPhones, and indeed fairly mediocre cameras, haven't done Apple any damage - and arguably the innovation in the Android market is doing as much harm as good.
I'm a long way from convinced by the new Windows phones but retaining control over the specs isn't necessarily a bad idea.
Stephen McPolin has:
The Second Law of Information Dynamics.
A disequilibrium in the distribution of information produces an information potential. This potential is the force which diffuses information across the internet. The internet is at equilibrium when the information potential is minimised.
Ah, so *you* started this trend!
I praise your dedication to comfort above appearance. If you've always worn your trousers this way, suffering scorn through all the times when it was not in the least bit fashionable then I can well understand why you'd be miffed to be on the receiving end of abuse even now it is trendy.
It's all the others that are mere followers, dressing this way because they have seen someone else do it; don't feel like anyone is lumping you in with those saggy-crotched slouchers. They probably don't like country at all and most likely *want* people to look at them and their conspicuously branded pants.
Reassure yourself you are better and undoubtedly more clever then them and anyone who could not describe their music taste as eclectic or wears their waistband round their waist.
Well this state believes it does have a right to interfere and the tricky thing with rights is that however much we'd like them to be universal things that sprung spontaneously into existence along with human intelligence they are in fact just privileges granted and maintained by the dominant force.
If there's some force powerful and bothered enough to bully the French state into backing down then that is what will happen, otherwise it has granted itself the right to interfere and withdrawn the right of its residents to wear these clothes.
What the 'reassuringly expensive' style "it's too good for you" line at the end?
I'm a creative (ish) professional (ish) and the review's not good enough for me to decide. I can afford one but I don't already know that I want one or want to be seen to have one.
The vital stats insert was more informative than the review text - at least from there we find out what the video card is, that there's an sdxc slot and a webcam, what the screen resolution is, that there's no Blu-Ray player (would be helpful to know if this is an option) - and I would get all that from the manufacturer's product spec.
The reviewer says the screen is like a mirror but there's no indication as to whether this means it is annoyingly reflective to the point of having to be used in a darkened room, there's nothing on how fast it boots, how much power it draws, how much (or how little) nopise it makes, what user expansion is possible (beyond the muddled, don't-do-the-hard-drive part).
In particular I'd like some comparison details with other machines Apple and otherwise.
I've used Apples on and (mostly) off since the Apple IIe I used to play breakout on - I'm not a die-hard Jobsophobe but nor am I one of the congregation so I'd like a proper, in-depth review and am slightly surprised the Register hasn't done as well as other sites which are in other respects generally inferior.
If you were being sarcastic.
A performance graph with no comparison system, no investigation of the bundled software, drivel about hard disk replacement (as I understand it at least it is the system *fans* that will spin at full speed not the *disk*) - this review is next to useless.
I can't see anyone who already has an iMac getting much from this and as someone who hasn't I'm still no nearer knowing if I want one - apart from reassuring the people who have already ordered one of these without bothering to find out the first thing about it that despite doing something silly they won't be unhappy as a result I don't see who amongst the Reg readership gains.
Maybe I've been spoiled in the past but I honestly would have expected a lot more from one of the superior Paris Hilton websites.
"Top quality input devices" or a wobbly keyboard and a mouse that the review suggests I might hate (but gives no indication as to why beyond its sensitivity which surely is adjustable - or isn't it? I'll refer to a review to find out perhaps).
Never mind the suggestion that commentards should skip the review as they've already made up their minds this whole thing seems to have skipped any actual analysis and gone straight to the lack of conclusion assuming we'll either already be buying one or we won't.
There's nothing in there to help me make a decision - skipping the OS and all included software leaves me with a review of a case, which looks nice.
Normal or not it's not very difficult - push a button to turn 3G off, push again to turn it back on.
If that's too much for you then, sure, this sort of phone won't do for you and you're better off sticking with one that you can get a week's battery life out of with the screen on all the time playing movies non-stop so you don't have to worry about ever having to switch anything off.
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