* Posts by John Hughes

645 publicly visible posts • joined 8 May 2008

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Drought effect on rainforests is negligible

John Hughes
FAIL

Concrete results

JeffyPooh doesn't believe in AGW 'cos "they" aren't capturing CO2 from concrete manufacture.

Can't quite see your logic, old chap.

Mystic Met Office abandons long range forecasts

John Hughes
FAIL

Just couldn't stop yourself, could you...

"In place of observation, or new scientific thinking, the Met has a new £33m supercomputer. Alas this is used for climate modelling - an area that has proved even less accurate over the past decade than seasonal forecasts."

Got some kind of justification for that out of the blue claim, Andrew?

Brits blame Apple, Nokia, RIM et al for smartphone woes

John Hughes

What's a smartphone?

"a mobile phone that combines voice services with applications including e-mail and/or internet access"."

Most feature phones fit this definition these days.

Google's MapReduce patent - no threat to stuffed elephants

John Hughes
FAIL

Misleading headline

"Google's MapReduce patent - no threat to stuffed elephants".

The evidence for this is: "the general assumption is that Google wouldn't use its patent against Hadoop". Ah yes, General Assumption, the all powerful.

and:

"I don't speak for Google. But Google has lots of patents, and it has basically has no track record of using those patents offensively, either involving licensing or pursuing people for infringement," Cloudera chief executive Mike Olson tells

A guy who doesn't work for Google admits he doesn't speak for them. Nice to know. A guy who's using software that may infringe Google patents doesn't think this is a problam. Also nice to know. What did you expect him to say?

"pointing out that Google is a member in the Open Invention Network, a patent pool that grants use licenses for patented technology in an effort to promote Linux."

But not claiming that THIS patent is licensed.

More questions over biometric ID cards and national security

John Hughes

Were they biometric passports?

Do we know that they were biometric passports?

I have a valid UK passport that is not biometric.

Rootkit blamed for Blue Screen patch update snafu

John Hughes
FAIL

Hard to detect rootkit

Duh, If it's not hard to detect it's not a rootkit.

USB hack connects Droid to printers, video cams, and more

John Hughes
Boffin

Why is it so hard?

Because USB is not symmetric - the hardware and software you need to talk to a USB peripheral (printer, USB stick, keyboard...) aren't the same as what you need to talk to a USB host (computer).

With some hardware (e.g. Nokia N810) it's possible to do funny tricks with crossover cables and software. With others (e.g. Nokia N900) not all the wires are connected and it can't be made to work.

(There is now "USB to go" which allows a device to be both a host and a peripheral, but it's apparently quite hard to get certified).

John Hughes
Stop

N900 can't do USB host mode

"The N900 does this out of the box with a bit of software installed from Maemo repository!"

No it doesn't. The N900 can't do USB host mode.

Symbian shares the source

John Hughes

So, can anyone build the source and install it their phone?

"But can *any* of these users get hold of it in this open source, build it (in, say, Eclipse IDE with the appropriate compiler)"

Yes

"and then download and install the resultant firmware on their phone"

Depends on the phone, but for existing phones the answer is...

No.

(I suppose it might be possible to install it on an N900).

Also, don't forget, this is symbian the OS. I don't think it actualy comes with a phone app.

John Hughes

Fennec on symbian

Why would having the source to the OS make it easier to port Fennec?

Answer - it wouldn't.

John Hughes
FAIL

Sorry, it does have a phone app

I woz wrong.

http://developer.symbian.org/main/source/packages/package/index.php?pk=166

Steve Jobs uncloaks the 'iPad'

John Hughes
Unhappy

Bigger screen is not for shortsighted....

... it's for the longsighted.

Shortsighted people have no problem at all staring at tiny things close up.

(Having passed the half-century I now have the joys of both problems).

Google ices Android launches in China

John Hughes
Unhappy

Do no evil

"A device that tracks movements and search requests would be a boon for authoritarian governments."

But totally safe in the hands of a private company, of course.

Nokia opens Ovi Store for N900s

John Hughes
Go

Is it available sim free? - yes.

Paid about $650 at the Nokia flagship store in NY.

Costs £499,99 from Expansys UK. ($810, what a rip off).

Only £499.00 from Nokia UK.

Arise, Sir Peter of Middle Earth

John Hughes
Thumb Up

Forget LoTR and KK, watch PJ's real films

Braindead, the one with the sheep and Meet the Feebles.

They almost make up for the crap that followed.

Samsung's Galaxy stuck in history

John Hughes
Happy

And that's why I bought a N900

Having been in the same position with my E90 - nothing other than bugfix releases from Nokia, and few of them - having a largely open source phone was a must.

The only big problem is the phone app itself. Maybe one day ofono will be avaialble.

Imminent launch for mobile Firefox

John Hughes
Happy

Safari raised expectations?

"The modified version of Safari on Apple's iPhone has raised users' expectations of what to expect from web browsing on the move."

What? By not having flash?

... come to think of it, maybe that is raising expectations... :-)

Can anyone explain the chunnel fiasco?

John Hughes
Thumb Up

The met office are wrong

It was very, very fluffy snow. Very fluffy indeed.

Nokia N900 to hit Vodafone next month

John Hughes

Vodafone branding

If you don't like the vodafone branding just "apt-get look-I-want". This is a Linux computer, not a locked down thing like Android or Iphone.

John Hughes
WTF?

only those who pre-ordered...

And those who could send a pal to schlep down to 5 East 57th Street New York, NY 10022-2556 and get it for about $650 (+tax, bloody americans).

Why do the yanks pat $650 for something made in Finland when we are supposed to pay $811?

Why can they but it now when Expansys say they'll have it "in 5 working days" (right, I'll believe that).

EC needs new agency for three-headed security database

John Hughes
FAIL

Europol != Interpol

Nothing more to add.

Nokia N900 Linux smartphone

John Hughes
Thumb Up

Build your own kernel if you want to.

No DRM.

Build your own kernel if you want.

Mostly open source (some nokia provided bits still closed - in one case because they lost the source! see http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=34326 for details.)

2009's Top Solid-State Drives

John Hughes
Unhappy

And what about SLC drives for us performance freaks?

Why haven't Ingram been able to get the intel X25-e for over a month now? They've just slipped the ETA back to 11/12/2009.

Are Intel using Farther Xmas for deliveries?

Renault unveils e-car foursome

John Hughes
Boffin

Elephants in the room

"What energy source will be used to generate the electricity" whines AC/DC.

These a are French cars.

You work it out.

Bank of America demands thumbprint from armless bloke

John Hughes
Unhappy

See, this is why you need an ID card

Oh, hang on a minute...

Hands on with the Nokia N900

John Hughes
Thumb Up

yes it does have a vibe

"Virbrating alert (internal)" says http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/specifications/

(of couse that page also says "Full QWERTY tactile keyboard" which is a joke.

John Hughes
Thumb Down

Pity about the keyboard

If this thing had a decent keyboard it'd replace my e90 in a second. As it is I'll just have to wait for the e900.

John Hughes

Does it have a vibe?

Does it? (one of the major downsides of the 9300 I used to have was the lack of a vibrate - the number of calls I missed due to not hearing the ring in noisy places was amazing.)

French pass 'three strikes' file-sharing law

John Hughes
Pirate

copying == contrefacon

contrefacon == making (facon, from "faire', to make) a copy you're not supposed to (contre - against (the law)).

If it's a good copy that just makes things worse.

John Hughes
Alien

French productivity

"Productivity? Hmm.. This is France. Not sure they've heard of it..."

Uh, France has about the highest productivity per hour there is.

That's why the don't need to work long hours - they get more done when they are at work than anyone else.

John Hughes
Pirate

The Hallyday clause

The main problem with the Hallyday clause is that who on earth would want to pirate his work?

That's the insane part.

Justification - if you don't pay your taxes you don't deserve the protection of the institutions paid for by other peoples taxes. That part sounds good to me. Let's extend it. Next time we hear about some rich bastard avoiding his taxes - just mug him.

Nokia E75

John Hughes

Could this be the end of the Communicator?

Uh, no?

"The 2.5in, 320 x 240, 16m-colour screen doesn't measure up to the E90's 800 x 352 beast"

UltraDNS back online after DDoS assault

John Hughes
Unhappy

And what happened to register.com?

http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2009-April/009115.html

Ofcom insists on emergency roaming

John Hughes
Flame

999? What is that?

Do you mean 112?

Vulcan appeal in emergency tin-rattling

John Hughes
Thumb Down

Black Buck - bang for the buck?

@Dave, did you maybe forget that the Black Buck raids didn't actually work - the Argentinians continued using the runway till it was overrun by ground troops.

Superworm seizes 9m PCs, 'stunned' researchers say

John Hughes
Linux

@Huw Davies - $IMPORTANT_BIT_OF_BUSINESS_SOFTWARE

Tried Wine?

Hands-free kits make drivers even more dangerous

John Hughes
Thumb Down

Who wrote the headline?

The headline: :"Hands-free kits make drivers even more dangerous"

The last paragraph of the article: "Driving while talking on the phone is clearly dangerous, and one mitigates the risk by using hands-free equipmen"

Ah. Hands-free kits make drivers even more dangerous and one mitigates the risk by using hands-free equipment.

?

ARM to fuel netbook, internet gadget drive with Ubuntu

John Hughes
Linux

What's to port?

Debian already runs on ARM. Ubuntu is just a careful selection of Debian packages.

Asus Eee PC 1000 10in Linux netbook

John Hughes
Boffin

Re: what is the point of 1024 x 600

1024 * 9 / 16 = 576

Obvious innit.

'I've cracked Nokia S40 security', claims researcher

John Hughes
Dead Vulture

@dervheid

"Intelligent customer contacts bank immediately to cancel D.D. arrangement"

followed by

"Idiot bank forgets to do it, denies ever receiving the request to cancel and slaps you with massive penalty charges".

Like banks are any more trustworthy than phone companies.

Wikimadness XVII: The Return of Byrne

John Hughes
Flame

Google without wikipedia

Just add -site:wikipedia.org to the end of your query.

That was hard, wasn't it.

The Top Ten 3G iPhone beaters

John Hughes
Alien

E90

= N95 + big screen (800x400!) + keyboard

+ self defense mode (Hit your attacker with it, he doesn't get up).

Navy sonar dolphin 'massacre' - the facts

John Hughes
Black Helicopters

Iranian "stealth submarine"

@Dodgy Geezer sez:

"However, Iran launched a new 'stealth' submarine last year, so another attack may come sooner than we think..."

Uh, all submarines are "stealth". That's the whole point.

And if you're talking about this http://bubbleheads.blogspot.com/2005/05/new-iranian-submarine-not-quite.html

Then it may not be time to panic yet.

Funny, no black submarine icon, have to go with the helicopter. (With a sonar buoy?)

Intel: future iPhone to be Atom powered

John Hughes
IT Angle

The author is an idiot

For Apple to make an atom version of OSX they just use a the -mcpu=atom flag to gcc instead of the -mcpu=arm one they use for the current version.

No emulation needed.

Bournemouth floats UK's first 100Mbps sewer broadband network

John Hughes
Paris Hilton

This [wont] be the world's largest single fibre deployment

Look, I know the fact that France is superior to the UK in all ways embarrasses all right thinking brits, but "This will be the world's largest single fibre deployment" is ignorant even for someone from Bournemouth.

A small town called Paris started installing 100mbps fibre last year. Using the sewers even. With that amazing capitalist invention known as competition to keep the prices down.

I can't imagine how to choose the little icon thingy.

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