Posts by Britt Johnston

Top Gear isn't TV, not when it's on YouTube

Re: Regulation crazy

new regulations, and their fees, are a major source of GDP growth in an imploding financial services economy like GB.

Re: So...

Alternatively, if Ofcom charged the same fees, and spent it on solving problems, then there would be less worry about whether a problem should be outsourced or not.

Apple said to be testing 46, 55-inch big-screen TVs

Another rule

The rule I know is hat your fist at arms length should cover the screen. It probably maps closely to the other one but saves you using the TV as a ruler.

It comes from your brain being uncomfortable with too much movement if the angle of viewing is too large.

ROGUE PLANET WITHOUT A SUN spotted in interstellar space

Re: Very strange stuff, that heat

The heat is a side-effect of the Blish drives, plus the air conditioners...

Big Data's big issue: Where are all the data scientists coming from?

data science - the alchemy of the 21stC?

I appreciated the article and see the target, the terminology is secondary. I don't like the wiggle room in the bridgebuilder analogy between engineer and statistitian, though, as

1) They said that about Velikowsky between egyptologists and archeologists

2) many statistitians are mathematically competent and practical enough to run toolkits - maybe they are confining their curiosity to a currently saleable set of problems.

I'd be interested in your proposed toolkit as captured in your course - could you provide a link, please?

A history of personal computing in 20 objects part 2

Re: Hmm, iPads?

The most important contribution of the iPad was to suppress the development of 10" smartphones

Forgetting Microsoft: How Steve Ballmer's Surface could win

Cross-platform apps

It is surely only a matter of time until someone has a cross-platform compiler, or at least an appsource converter, then we move on from asking who has the most apps.

Microsoft might even be chasing that goal now.

Microsoft Surface popped open, poked, prodded

RE Bluish-Green (R97, G171, B162; #61aba2) = petrol

Fashion likes more fanciful names for colour nuances:

try searching in google.de pictures for "petrol hose"

France again threatens Google with link tax

Google could raise the stakes, and patent French on the internet.

Apple's 13-inch Retina MacBook torn asunder for your pleasure

Black Friday

< [I'm]buying one on Black Friday if Apple knock 5% off or so >

3.5% knocked off the share price this week, charge up your credit card...

Alcatel Lucent battles unions in bid to slash 5,500 jobs

can't give them away?

I smell a marketing plan here.

The US allows A-L give away their products free to save the free world from Huawei and LZE.

All producers go bust, but at least the free world is saved.

13-inch 'Retina Display' MacBook Pro to uncloak next Tuesday?

consistently reliable source at a high-profile US retailer

that'll be the bar where employees leave their prototypes?

Planet hunters double down with FOUR-STAR SYSTEM

scientists and citizens

she clearly meant ''boffins', who transcend state boundaries.

Bing is the most heavily poisoned search engine, study says

that's life

When I get too fed up, I use http://www.givemebackmygoogle.com/. I can't find an equivalent for Bing - 'one man's poison is another man's meat' seems to be the Microsoft way to strengthen immunity.

Search numbers are currently 66% Google, 28% Microsoft. The interesting thing is that the attempts to manually improve search (Yahoo, AOL) are not being honoured, as their percentages are dropping.

Democrat candidate attacked by GOP for being stabby assassin ORC

I'd like a Syria add-on, to contribute to the free world.

Any chance of real drone connects?

Will you soon be fingering your seven-incher?

Seriously, now

Excuse me for interupting the frivolity of Friday afternoon to pick out a serious point in this.

Surely Apple will get slower IT support from large firms if they don't provide timelines, betas, and coming features well in advance. These are firms now upgrading from windows XP to 7, with a turn-around of several years? And being asked to deliver apps for home log-in, KPIs on the go, cloudy teamrooms,...

Not unrelated, today a colleague rolling out HR IT modules on SAP showed me the iphone he had replaced his Blackberry with.

Hackers leak 120,000 student records in raid on world's top unis

Re: a two week course on how to use Google is just as good for 90% of jobs

Hey AC! That endangers all who still believe thinking is free. Next week there'll be a Googletax of £9000 p.a.

Reminds me of my wife, then 18, being served a bill for schooling via her parents after she skipped an East European country.

Eric Schmidt: Ha ha, NO Google maps app for iPhone 5

Re: What about iCloud?

Thanks for the partial answer. She has a website with an embedded map, that recently stopped working. I'm trying to find out if that is normal wear and tear, or if others know of a general problem, and/or whether there is anything left to fix, or better just start over.

What about iCloud?

My wife, a non-expert, is complaining about her web site, which is on a mac on iCloud.

It recently lost its link to the google map insert used to show the way to her business premises, and does not appear to have a way to get it reinstalled..

Is this an unlucky coincidence, or is there something conspiratorial going on here?

ITU suggests replaceable cables for power supplies

re “PSUs areThe main cause of failure'

More of my personal losses have been due to on/off switches.

One cause is the useful but philosophically disturbing idea of a PC controlling its own power supply, a power grab that swaps robustness for functionality.

Who cares about Big Data

example of cross-consolidation of data domains

http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/ is a database that makes me cringe. The data is clearly manually driven, and incomplete. A larger data scope, which could include data from university rolls, and publications, would stabilise the original concept and increase the usefulness of all areas.

Is anybody looking for a Friday research project?

Samsung whips out Galaxy Note II, cam-phone with proper zoom lens

a rise, by any other name

+ve: no expensive cables, no non-standard connectors

-ve: Can it do voice commands, or ring my utility co for a recharge? Does it even have a microphone or bluetooth?

McAfee puts Barnaby Jack on car-jacking hackers' case

Driver-free cars

Once Google's vision becomes accepted, we will have herds of carbots that on Zero-Day are all reprogrammed to drive to their pick-up point.

Judge begs Apple, Samsung to get a room, or trial will end in tears

Re: I'm missing an argument in all these 'copy' lawsuits

and Apple makes the gadgets with incompatible plugs

Wikipedia collapses threatening the very fabric of civilisation

freedom from data mining

Seems that someone dug up the road and hit a cable in Florida...

Interesting that Amazon and Wikipedia went on the same day though. Is that Fate or Murphy dropping a hint?

Perhaps, once a year, we should establish a net-free Sunday?

Woz: Cloud computing trend is 'horrendous'

@vic - how else can we get our data across ...?

Remember those programs that share a small amount of your CPU capacity?

Perhaps clouds will hook into spare MBs on one of your drives.

Twitter airport bomb joke conviction binned in common-sense WIN

Have you no feelings?

It's just that the official stealers of orange juice from kiddies like to be taken seriously.

'We asked firms if they were looking at Windows 8, most laughed'

What next, RetrOS?

Okay, the windows monolith is flaking. Each iteration takes longer for large firms to adapt to, as they try to control functions which add power but could be misused. Our sissies have recently recaptured the task manager - how dare users shoot down applications that are infinite-looping!

So we need a different split: a draconian low-functionality system for corporate IT security, and a modern lean OS for private users -whether screen diagonal is 4in or 115in. Could be Windows 9 and 8 respectively.

Luckily, by next time, you'll be able to run any corporate RetrOS on VMware in a corner of a mobile phone.

The Higgs boson search continues ... into ANOTHER dimension

Slightly related question

Isn't it important to track the particles' fate in detail, to pay and reclaim VAT every time they cross the French/Swiss border? Some of these particles are quite expensive.

Forget Ultrabooks and Win 8 - only fondleslabs can save us now

Vacuum cleaner model

The arguments why no more PCs are needed are similar to those for vacuum cleaners 20 years ago. Everyone has one, they work longer, etc.

The post-saturation era for vacuum cleaners has worked out as selling specialist machines - one for the car, one driven by batteries, and so on (equivalent to, say, ARM processor proliferation?). Also the cyclone technology came along (ssds?). What nobody is asking for are gold-plated Wintel machines.

Google Maps takes shelter from the British summer

works just fine

I typed in "hershey bar" into Google maps, and the nearest one is 200 km away in Munich.

Apple's iPhone 5 connector said to be a control freak

re: Conspiracy theory, like iTunes

Apple are planning to monetise, then take over the electricity suppliers - 500mA/h at a time?

Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show

Looking in the wrong place

All the melted ice from Antartica is in the Maldives.

Flame gets suicide command

honey swat key...

That is really friendly of them to tidy up afterwards.

Still buying CDs?

Back-up

I recently lost a computer and the back-up drive. However, I was able to restore my transcribed records from my mp3 player.

Microsoft backsteps Azure from platform to infrastructure cloud

Mit Basic in den Mac App Store

According to Heise you can easily port Real Basic programmes as applets, too.

http://www.heise.de/ct/inhalt/2012/13/176/

Who needs anything more?

(Aside: The title of the German article displays the state of linguistic decay in the IT area).

How to put "Stuxnet author" on your CV

Re: What do you call 'malware' working for the good guys?”

White-hattery?

NASDAQ offers $40m to Facebook IPOcalypse investors

Coupons, not cash

Give a replacement, not a refund is the trade dogma.

How much are a million likes on Facebook worth?

AMD crashes Windows 8 tablet party with ultrathin hybrid

Re: Trinity powered Ultrthins will sell like hotcakes

I expect so, too. I'm interested in reasonable laptop performance, good battery life and price. Also, as my last laptop got fried by the graphics chip, low heat build-up is an issue. The thinness/lightness is not a key selling point for me, otherwise the HP dm1 would be good enough.

Pints under attack as Lord Howe demands metric-only UK

Strange units

@Howe - while you're at it, we need a rewrite of Grimms (replace ell with 50cm) and Stevenson (pieces of ten).

Maybe I shouldn't mention money, the Talers, Dubloons, Batzen, Kronen, Libra and of course Drachmas are well unified under the Euro, and that just made the real problem more transparent: that is too many politicians addressing the wrong problem too late.

Google+ dying on its arse – shock new poll

Re: Personality Datastructure

Why should an unsuccessful product require anti-trust action?

UK milk wastage = 20,000 cars = actually completely unimportant

Percentages for comparison, please

I can't follow the thread of the article enough to work out what percentage of milk is wasted. At a guess,a low one, as milk is probably turned to butter, cheese and yoghurt before it is thrown away.

Now, 25% of water is wasted on the way to consumers. I believe and hope that the figure for petroleum fuels is considerably lower, in the ppm range. Which one should I compare the percentage milk loss to?

Best and the Rest: ARM Mini PCs

Re: Toshiba AC100 fate

I loved the case, but never heard of anyone who configured it into something useful.

I was wondering if it is possible to replace the mainboard with a RasPi?

AMD's Hondo APUs ready for Windows 8 Q4 launch - report

timely info - thanks

Thanks, newsworthy - I've been searching for information on this to know how optimise the guarantee costs on my current laptop.

Software functionality not subject to copyright: EU court

Re: What does "function" mean for sound?

"completely reproduce the sounds of some music" = another band playing the same tune.

I think thats pretty clear, all loopholes covered.

Nokia still has a patent business

running on adrenalin

I'd compare it with Cable and Wireless.

Nokia is a piggybank bleeding cash, searching for a new trough.

Commentards! Know a good hosting firm? Recommend a good laptop?

Re: Uses for a chopped shiny LCD

Try building it into a case to hold a raspberry pi.

Happy 30th Birthday, Sinclair ZX Spectrum

Software price control

The software pricing was another key aspect: since too few good games came out, Sinclair commissioned some. They also managed game distribution, and on the way imposed a price standard - Standard games cost £5, SW-house games like The Hobbit or Scrabble were maybe 2-3 times that.