* Posts by Major N

159 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Nov 2008

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Score one for the bats and badgers! Apple bins €850m Irish bit barn bid

Major N

360mW? Guess it is just a single iPhone X sitting on a velvet cushioned plinth under a single spotlingt

What's silent but violent and costs $250m? Yes, it's Lockheed Martin's super-quiet, supersonic X-plane for NASA

Major N
Coat

Re: Thumping 'eck or Ecky Thump

if you manage to break the sound barrier on the M40, then you're doing something very wrong :P

OK, deep breath, relax... Let's have a sober look at these 'ere annoying AMD chip security flaws

Major N

Re: Pot and Kettle

Intel et al had been aware of the problem for at least six months at that point, so your attempted snark is both unwarranted and off target.

Text bomb, text bomb, you're my text bomb! Naughty HTML freezes Messages, Safari, etc

Major N

It seems View Source in IE11 (damn corporate restrictions) also hangs pretty hard....

BT boss: Yeah, making a business case for 5G is hard

Major N

Re: Carrier?

I think a little of both - network vendors selling basestation kit and backhaul, consumer OEMs and networks using the jump in G-number as a way of propping up falling numbers of handsets and contracts being sold, as iteration means less and less difference between phones, and people hold onto their devices for longer and switch from expensive subsidized contracts to sim-only....

Coinhive crypto-jacking increasingly pops up in top 3 million websites

Major N

No-one will be topping that, think you've earned your crust with those!

Footie ballsup: Petition kicks off to fix 'geometrically impossible' street signs

Major N

Re: Mathematically impossible...

clearly you've never driven around Derby or Swindon....

Hurricane Irma imperils first ever SpaceX shuttle launch: US military's secret squirrel X-37B

Major N

Re: Re. storms

The Hurricane Research division of the NOAA has apparently been asked enough times as to why we can't just nuke (?!) hurricanes out of existence that it's one of their FAQs....

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html

Who do you want to be Who? VOTE for the BBC's next Time Lord

Major N

Patterson Joseph.

Trump's taxing problem: The end of 'affordable' iPhones

Major N

Re: "it's difficult..."

gotta keep those damn Snow Mexicans out

Tim Cook: EU lied about Apple taxes. Watch out Ireland, this is a coup!

Major N

Re: Well, bears in the woods etc.

the way it works is Ireland won't tax the proportion of the value that is added by US Apple operation, Apple claim it is most of the value, due to the R&D, design, software manufacturing etc. taking place in the US, and thus it's taxable in the US, not Ireland. Ireland shrug and say 0.005% of a shitload of cash is better than none, and take the money, Apple ship the money to Bermuda and sit on it. Uncle Sam stares across the Caribbean, and waits.

So, Technically, it will be taxed by the US... IF they ever 'repatriate' it to the US from the Bermudan Black Hole. This is why they sit on $Bns in a tax exile while not paying dividends etc, because the instant they try to spend it, the IRS will take their rather generous cut.

A USB stick as a file server? We've done it!

Major N

Re: Sort of thing Apple used to 'evolve' (copy) into a decent product.

But then they wouldn't be able to charge you £100/32Gb premium for the larger models. and, heaven forfend, they might have to add a tenth of a millimeter onto the depth of the phone! Hear that low hum? It's Steve Jobs revolving in his grave at the very thought! If you strapped a few magnets to him, you could probably power Infinity Loop with the output...

Galileo in spaaace: France's 'equivalence principle' satellite

Major N

Re: No experimentation required

Technically, no, since what you would be doing would be accelerating the earth towards the second mass, although this would lead to a larger combinrded.velocity. also, if the mass was large enough to exhibit this in any meaningful way, you'd have a much bigger problem on your hands, that I'm not sure even Bruce Willis could save us from with nukes...

'Microsoft Office has been the bane of my life, while simultaneously keeping me employed'

Major N

Re: Difficult to describe this one

I've always found the biggest issue to be the amount of people who use select / activate far too much. You don't need to select sheets, ranges etc to perform actions on them. Just be specific.

i.e.

Sheet.Select

Range.Select

Selection.Copy

Sheet.Select

Sheet.Range.Select

Selection.Paste

Anything that interrupts that flow of selection (especially during debug) ruins your report.

If you're concise and explicit, that problem goes away.

Sheets(name).Range(Range).Copy

Sheets(otherSheet).Range(range).PasteSpecial xlPasteValues

The other one is where you open secondary workbooks. Noone ever seems to instance them into a variable, and as such rely on the filename as a handle, and when saving out date-specific versions to different places, that becomes a major issue just tracking the last name you saved it as.

I used to manage an estate of 90 reports, all run through excel vba, which were triggered through the Win2K task manager (I know, I know.. but it worked, mostly). By making the code concise and explicit, I could have 10 reports running simultaneously on the same machine, without fearing they'd screw each other up.

VBA is not evil in and of itself (the differences between versions, and even the versions used in different Office applications of the same vintage not withstanding...). Bad VBA is, however, and it is endemic, as most coders of it seem to learn only through recording macros and regurgitating what it records.

Google risks everything if it doesn’t grab Android round the throat

Major N

Re: Rubbish

when the iPhone came out. App is also the first syllable of 'apple'. You can blame their marketdoids for that particular monstrosity.

These Chicago teens can't graduate until they learn some compsci

Major N
Pint

That sub-headline. Pure genius. I raise a glass to you.

Cyber-terror: How real is the threat? Squirrels are more of a danger

Major N

Re: Education

Are these 'safer outlets' 230v?

Terror in the Chernobyl dead zone: Life - of a wild kind - burgeons

Major N

Re: Fukushima photos

What renewable disaster was that?

Apple VICTORY: Old Samsung phones not sold any more can't be sold any more

Major N

Re: Bugger

This only stops them being imported into the US, and I'm not sure but I think shops are allowed to still sell remaining stocks....

Let's NUKE MARS to make it more like home says Elon Musk

Major N

Re: Ridiculous

Settling underwater is less likely than you'd think, mainly due to decompression.. would you want to live somewhere where you have to spend a day in a hypobaric chamber just to go to the surface?

What Ashley Madison did and did NOT delete if you paid $19 – and why it may cost it $5m+

Major N

Re: But... do people *really*

Or, log the most recent co-ords on login, so if you're out in a city, it can show you users 'in your area'. IIRC Tinder did something like this...

Rock reboot and the Welsh windy wonder: Centre for Alternative Technology

Major N

50kW to run a personal computer? that's some overclock!

Why do driverless car makers have this insatiable need for speed?

Major N

CBT, a couple of hundred most likely, although you need to redo them every 2 years. a 125... you can get Chinese ones new for <2k easy, and a good Japanese one second/third/nth hand for under a k.

Perhaps middle-aged blokes SHOULDN'T try 34-hour-long road trips

Major N

Re: Lane merging

Yep, just mentioned that in another reply. Bredbury Scissors is an example of grand plans that never came to fruition. The M60 goes through a big right; this was originally meant to be a slip road for traffic coming off the M63 to merge onto the M66; heading south, the M66 would have continued straight to become the A6(M) Stockport/Hazel Grove bypass (which means it would not have been A road traffic merging into the outside lane, but motorway traffic). The M634 would have continued straight on to Hattersley, which would have joined the M67, which originally would have run both all the way into Manchester (which is why the A57 is so wide most of the way into town East of Manchester; space reserved for the motorway) to what is not the A57(M)/A635(M) Mancunian Way,. and all the way across the Pennines to meet the M1, either in Sheffield, or near J35A I believe, depending on who you talk to.

If you actually care, look up SELNEC, or go to Pathetic Motorways, which is fascinating if you care about the history of British Roads and bureaucracy, and what might have been, as well as the peculiar relics spattered about this isle of ours.

Major N

Re: Lane merging

Just like the M1 when it hits the M621 at the south of Leeds - reason for that being the M1 used to BE the M621 heading into Leeds, until they extended it North.

And the M60 at Bredbury in Stockport, where it hangs a sharp right, and the joining traffic comes in on the outside lane from an A-road roundabout. this used ot be the joining of the M63/M66, with the A-road merge originally being slated to be the A6(M) Stockport/Hazel Grove bypass, until it was binned.

There's myriad examples, usually they're due to roads being planned but never built. OR just pure bad expansion policy (see the centre of Derby for an example of how NOT to do roads.)

Playing with graphene? All the cool kids are using TIN – atom-thick sheets of stanene

Major N

Re: Snapple...

Snap!(ple)

Major N

Re: Picking Nits: TIN versus Tin

by 'eventually' it could have several stages of intermediate unstable isotopes before finally settling down', I guess...

Doesn't everything (that does decay) eventually decay into something stable?

Major N

Re: Picking Nits: TIN versus Tin

I believe any isotope that has a half life (i.e. will eventually decay) is unstable. IIRC, Bismuth is technically unstable; It has a half-life of something in the order of a billion billion years, but because it has one, it is unstable.

The Breakfast (Table) of Champions: Micro Machines

Major N

I used to play it at my friend's house on the NES, many hours lost battling it out. Good times.

It also nicely ties us to an article earlier this week since Codemasters were producing unlicensed NES cartridges (as well as the almighty Game Genie)

Neat but narky at times: Pebble Time colour e-paper watch

Major N

Re: I see the usefulness, but not at full price

bought one second hand, the screen started tearing pretty much immediately. Contacted Pebble support, and after giving them the serial no, and pictures to prove I had that pebble, they sent me out a new one. Didn't even ask for the old one back. It took 6 weeks to arrive, but their customer service is great - they obviously decided that the financial hit for replacing them was worth more, as positive PR and increased consumer loyalty - than the negative press that would be generated by ignoring it.

Contact them - i'd be very surprised if you got nothing.

UK.gov makes total pig's ear of attempt to legalise home CD ripping

Major N

Next there will be a levy on flour in case you format shift it into cake.

Goodbye Vulcan: Blighty's nuclear bomber retires for the last time

Major N

They used to keep one at Woodford in the 80s/90s... growing up on the flight path, it was always a sight when this lovely beast came in.

Ready to go again, soldier? Final Fantasy VII remake revealed

Major N

20th anniversary release, I bet ya. Just hope the initial PS exclusive doesn't leave me waiting a year for the PC release like with the original

Don't panic. Stupid smart meters are still 50 years away

Major N

Re: Madness

IIRC British Gas units use Vodafone. Other vendors may vary.

Long, sticky summer ahead: Win 10 will be with OEMs by 31 August

Major N

well,i rebooted my 8.1 machine an hour or so ago and a new icon has appeared in my taskbar, so i can sign up for the upgrade when it is available, so expect actual information from MS soon

A good effort, if a bit odd: Windows 10 IoT Core on Raspberry Pi 2

Major N

You're probably right, thank you. Clearly I needed more coffee

Major N

"Windows 10 IoT Core is an oddity in that while it does have a GUI stack, it is limited to Microsoft’s Universal App Platform (UAP)"

"Note that IoT Core is not limited to UAP apps."

Anyone else confused?

Citizens denied chance to vote in local-government IT cockup

Major N

My partner didn't receive a polling card; we spoke to the council who told us that she was registered and to just turn up; fortunately she is on the list at the station. We aren't in London, but it seems similar issues have occurred elsewhere, but our council was switched on enough to deal with it...

Who thinks Microsoft Edge sucks? Erm, Microsoft

Major N
Coffee/keyboard

Re: WHAT DID YOU FUCKING SAY TO ME???

" I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it"

You owe me a new KB

Apple Watch WRISTJOB SHORTAGE: It's down to BAD VIBES

Major N

Re: Obsolete? Upgrade?

More than that, it requires an iOS device to work. You won't still be using your iPhone 6 in a decade. And I suspect that when the iPhone 8 comes out with iOs 10 or whatever,. it will have dropped support for the first gen Watch, to force the cultists to upgrade anyway.

Major N
Coat

Re: NTP - to correct "wrong kind of heart"

Would that be the Nookie Transmission Protocol then?

REVEALED: The 19 firms whose complaints form EU's antitrust case against Google

Major N

if that were the case, why listen to US companies?

I also find it interesting that 6 of the 19 are German..

Never heard of Foundem either..

This all strikes me as 'My product isn't good enough to beat the 'Merkin company,waah, daddy EU legislate me some market share' whining by a bunch of also-rans, whereby there will be court cases for years, there will be a fine, google will have to add 'did you mean to search with bing?' labels on their search listings, the EU bureaucrats all shake hands with each other and pontificate on what a great job they did, while the consumers all continue using Google because it is good enough, but now more annoying due to the extra crap they're forced to add. So they use a non-eu TLD version instead, like with the right to rape kids and have it deleted^w^w^w^w^w^wbe forgotten charade.

TL:DR; its total shit that will do nothing but annoy consumers slightly and make lawyers rich while demonstrably changing nothing.

Acer: 'We will be the last man standing in the PC industry'

Major N

Re: A.C.E.R

Where do you put the /good/ excrement, an iMac mini?

Major N

Re: All in 1366x768!!

I think the 16:9 ratio is due to the panels being mass produced for TV use, which makes them cheap to procure

Celebrated Pakistani female online activist Sabeen Mahmud dies in shooting

Major N

Your algebra is flawed

R+G=2(Bn)

R*G=Bn^2

Ex-Windows designer: Ballmer was dogmatic, Sinofsky's bonkers, and WinPho needs to change

Major N

Re: Sounds like a Mental Health Institution

"I like OSS, but I don't believe that it is immune from "Ego, politics, and lies"."

See: Linus Torvalds

Google drives a tenth of news traffic? That's bull-doodie, to use the technical term

Major N

Re: How many of these are using Google as their address bar?

I had to google that phrase. Your comment is already tagged (and the only hit, too) :P

Oh no, Moto! Cable modem has hardcoded 'technician' backdoor

Major N

Re: What you have to remember

in my day, we called em 'Null Modem Cables'...

Want a more fuel efficient car? Then redesign it – here's how

Major N

Re: @ ChrisZ Advanced Motoring

"I believe they call it defensive driving to always assume everyone else outside of your own vehicle might an idiot."

Having spent years on a motorcycle, I live by that creed, albeit in the slightly elongated form "Assume everyone else on the road who is an idiot who is trying to kill you"

Riding a motorcycle makes you much more aware of what is going on in the road ahead of you; you're typically looking further ahead, aware of that person coming to the junction who may just pull out in front of you, or that car parked near an intersection so visibility of both parties at said intersection cannot see each other.

My pet hate is people in these ridiculously long vehicles who actually nose out into traffic just so they can see; I dread to think how many cyclists have been caught out by these... (though don't get me started on cyclists; red lights are for all road users, including you, don't blindly cycle through them like you own the road!). Is there a competition between german car manufacturers to a) sell to the biggest douches; b) see how close they can egt to getting the driver sitting in the boot?

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