Posts by RichyS 664 publicly visible posts • joined 22 May 2008
<quote>
So, let's get away from the pointless old "my speccy is better than your C64" argument and move on to the real business here. Which is who's users are more stupid than who else's?
</quote>
Exactly. Everyone knows that the Beeb is best!
Mines the one with the copy of Chuckee Egg in the back pocket...
@Richard:
<quote>5. If in the event you arrested for failing to comply, behave calmly and co-operatively. When you are presented to the cop shop, remind the officers there you have been arrested illegaly for a non-existent crime, and demand (politely, but firmly) that the law is checked there and then. Make sure the arresting officers stay present to hear the outcome of this. When you are let go, request that the officers are dealt with in respect to false arrests.</quote>
You forgot to mention the bit where they'll take you DNA and fingerprints, even if they have to let you go due to arresting you on a non-existent charge. You try getting your DAN out of the 'database' after that...
Paris, 'cos we'd have her DNA by now if she tried any of that drink-driving over here...
"That means automatically writing less data to the main drive to prevent undue wear on its write-limited memory cells."
They turned memory paging off then...
A sensible school will buy Acer Aspire Ones with Linux, and use it as the thin end of the wedge to push Microsoft out of the school. Now that ICT means 'using Office', OpenOffice will be fine for getting all your students A*s.
Paris, 'cos even she could get an A* these days.
Actually, Apple have a pretty long history of designing their own in-house chips. And very good they were too, working with VLSI on application specific ICs (ASICs) throught the 80s and 90s.
Admittedly, this has pretty much fallen by the wayside with the availability of cheap general purpose chips; but even as late as the 90s Apple were designing custom SCSI, audi, and graphics chips.
When Acorn spun off ARM (Acorn RISC Machine, a nice recursive acronym there!), Apple and VLSI were a couple of the original investors.
And anyway, the reason Apple bought PA Semi is exactly because designing new ICs is 'insanely difficult'. Apple got all the insanely clever employees of PA Semi too. And they *can* design a chipset!
While I agree that HTC don't design any chips, maybe you ought to take another look at Sony. Aside from a bunch of custome ASICs for their home electronics divisions, Sony (along with Toshiba and IBM) where responsible for designing the Cell chip. You may have heard of that...
Paris, 'cos she likes mayo with her chips...
Well, the unlimted issue all really comes down to semantics. Obviously Vodafone (and, indeed, all the fixed and mobile operators) do not themselves have access to unlimted bandwidth, so, by definition, their customers cannot either. So, strictly speaking, no-one has access to unlimited bandwidth.
In my view, it is fair enough to describe access to the Internet as 'unlimted' if there are no 'hard' limits to usage. Unlimited means so much more than just 'bandwidth' too. For instance, most operators data packages initially restricted users to the operators' own 'walled gardens'. So, a data package that allowed unlimited access to the Internet could be viewed as a package that allows access to all web sites/email servers/VoIP etc. 'withput limitation'.
Now, for me, they key issue is with the Fair Use Policies. Do these create hard limits? If Voda's billing systems start charging you the moment you use more than 120MB a month, then this cannot be described as 'unlimited'. If, however, they simply warn you (e.g. via SMS) if you go over 120MB in a month; and only then start charging or take away your data package if you consistently go over this limit; well, that's sort of fair enough. Remember, Voda etc. do not have unlimited bandwidth, so if some users are tkaing the piss, it reduces speed/availability to other customers under normal use.
The question you have to ask yourself as a user is 'is the FUP limit sufficient for my normal use?'. If it is, then the usage is effectively --for you -- unlimted. In my view, 120MB is too low. 1GB for a month of mobile use for me is probably fine.
Paris, 'cos she's responsible for a fair amount of bandwidth usage...
On the basis that O2 were (or were nearly) fined by Ofcom for not rolling out their 3G network quickly enough, one has to wonder just how much of O2's network runs at HSDPA speeds.
Maybe they're just beiong truthful about having by far the worst 3G network in the UK.
Paris, 'cos she's slow too.
For current Mac users who can't wait for the space savings of Snow Leopard, I can't recommend XSlimmer enough. It'll go through all the installed apps removing unwanted languages and code from universal binaries.
The UI makes it very simple to use, and it downloads a 'blacklist' of apps that can't be slimmed.
Freed up a good 15gig on my harddrive all for under a tenner. Bargain.
Paris, 'cos she's always trying to be slimmer.
@Emmerson
I too was at Nottingham Uni (at the same time as Jon Grattage -- commentor above -- I think, name seems familiar... Comp Sci 99-02?).
And, the level of acedemic rigour taught to us by the lecturing staff is pretty much summed up in Emmerson's deeply analytical approach to this debacle. Yup, that's right. We were pretty much spoon fed the facts, and expected to take them at face value.
Nottingham Uni is a once-great institution, that now appears to be more interested in attracting as many fee-paying foreign students as possible. Frankly, all students (UK-based or otherwise) were given the distinct impression that they were getting in the way.
Paris, 'cos even she could get a degree these days.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
