Posts by SuperTim

Apple patents NEVERSMASH iPHONE for fumbling fondlers

Re: Physics.

true, they could use one if it flipped around the long axis, but it would need to have several protective zones for that. I still don't think it would work.

Physics.

To get a 100+gram phone to rotate at the sorts of speeds it needs to between butterfingers and concrete would require quite a motor and reaction wheel. The wheel would need to be quite large, or the motor quite fast, but either way, it would need a huge impulse to work. Satellites have these systems to allow them to rotate without the need for rocket fuel, but the weights work best when they are NOT eccentric. I suspect this is to utilise the existing vibration motor.

It won't work unless they beef it up a couple of orders of magnitude, by which point they will have attracted a whole new market!

Oh, and they would need three motors/wheels.

APPLE set to Air PLUS-SIZED iPAD – claims mag

A plate of...

Chips...geddit? Chips...like silicon chips....Huh? Huh?....

I'll get me coat...

Musicians sue UK.gov over 'zero pay' copyright fix

Compensation?

For what exactly? I bought the CD, I am copying it for my own use, so still a single licencee involved. The fact it is now in two physical locations is not relevant. I bought the right to listen to it (or at least, that's how it should work).

This won't solve the issue for piracy, as that would still be illegal if I chose to make my "copy" available to others.

Also, doesn't blank media have a so-called subsidy for the assumed copying that goes on? It used to if I recall.

WATCH: Rosetta astroboffin TATTOOED with PHILAE from the FUTURE!

Well...

It is either epic win or epic fail I guess. We'll find out in a hour or so. Ballsy.

Sony borks fanboi funboxes with dodgy PS4 update

Re: Heh.

Sony have learned their lesson from the "Other OS" debacle. They now don't appear to promise that your console will actually do anything at all, just that it is "For Gamers". Presumably, this means that any bugs that don't actually stop the thing playing all games means it fulfils its advertised use. Under-promise and over-deliver (like Scotty from Star-Trek) is only good if you are able to over-deliver.

For what appears to be a capable machine, they sure are ensuring it doesn't do much.

UK smart meters arrive in 2020. Hackers have ALREADY found a flaw

Re: The questions of communications

Piggybacking off my wifi will involve having a MAC address which I specifically allow. But I dont think that will work. How will they send a "Turn On" signal to to a meter when it has switched the house supply off? My wifi wont work then. They must have a built in system that keeps working when the rest of the power is off, so that they can be remoted on again.

Microsoft fitness bands slapped on wrists: All YOUR HEALTH DATA are BELONG TO US

Actionable Insights...

Wow...Microsoft really do the whole "Warm and fuzzy" thing, don't they! Their press release sounds like the sort of thing our senior management would say in the meetings I fall asleep in!

Kip Thorne explains how he created the black hole for Interstellar

That reminds me...

I had a screensaver a bit like that on Windows 95...It simulated a system where all information was lost without the possibility to transmit that information back into the universe....and neither does a black hole (chortle)

It's even GRIMMER up North after MEGA SKY BROADBAND OUTAGE

I did appear to be affected overnight...

but a reboot of the old router at 7am and Hey Presto... my decidedly average broadband is back to its normal average self. Not sure why this would still be news.

Bono apologises for iTunes album dump

Lucky me

I managed to avoid the whole U2 enforced love-in despite having iTunes and iDevices....Not sure how I managed that. Still, Bono is a self-righteous nobend.

Put down that shotgun: Wi-Fi's the way to beat Zombies

Re: Here's Hoping

I was thinking that exact issue. Though lack of usage will extend battery life, modern smartphones in the pockets of zombies will run flat in a matter of 2 days...therefore no wifi signal to process.

Unless, due to them being zombies, they actually still automatically respond to the usual stimulii and pack out the nearest apple/samsung/*"insert name of most recent fashion label" shop when the next launch is due, to update to a newer device, all nicely charged and set up by a shop specialist bod (who they will NOT bite for fear of not getting their new shiny-shiny.

Personally, I will do a "Shaun of the dead" and wander like an undead, moaning occasionally (about the lack of 4g coverage).

OMG! With nothing but machine tools, steel and parts you can make a GUN!!

Re: Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

I think it was Chris Rock who suggested bullet control.

“You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders. Yeah! Every time somebody get shut we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something ... S**t, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass.’ And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your f***ing head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man. You’d better hope I can’t get no bullets on layaway.’ So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you wouldn't have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back, like "I believe you got my property.”

Which is probably the most sense anyone has spoken about gun control!

Vote NOW for LOHAN's arboreal avoidance algorithm acronym

Re: Hang on

I'm afraid I didn't vote for NO:PANTS due to the unnecessary presence of the colon. I admire your Celebrity related undergarment link though, so fair play to you for getting your two-penneth heard.

Tim Cook in Applerexia fears: New MacBook THINNER THAN EVER

They can keep all the ports by utilising a lightning cable adaptor for $50/£50 per port or part thereof...

XBOX One will learn to play media from USB and DLNA sources

torrents?

But surely nobody is able to utilise such torrent sites now that they have been so very comprehensively blocked by a tech-savvy court. The only MKV files out there must now surely be home-made videos compressed with DivX to save space. So I applaud Microsoft for allowing me to watch such home-made video classics.

London cops cuff 20-year-old man for unblocking blocked websites

even if he did...

He has only violated the ISPs terms of service. It is the ISPs which were ordered to block the sites.

Still, anything that gets these vile terrorism-supporting scum off our streets is a good thing for the rest of us who have to obey the law and who would never dream of visiting a site on the block list...nosireeebob!

Vulture 2 fills beak with Pi in the Sky

Re: Playmonaut Safety...

Sweet! Someone call Xzibit...That Shizzle be PIMPED!

Re: Playmonaut Safety...

That still leaves the ascent and descent under regulations (Unless he plans on entering the cabin Chuck Yeager style)

Playmonaut Safety...

The installation of the latest bit of kit is causing alarm bells to ring of anyone who's role includes health and safety at work. There are numerous razor sharp edges perilously close to the pilot which could easily snag pressure suits, bark shins or generally take the skin of knuckles (if they were actually present). Are there any plans to pad the interior to prevent our plucky plastic play pilot from having an industrial accident?

Royal Navy parks 470 double-decker buses on Queen Elizabeth

Geography...

Can someone revisit the little yellow dot of Birkenhead and move it back from Fleetwood please. Thanks muchly.

Experts suspiciously eye LOHAN's cantankerous canards

Re: I told you so...

I personally think that the efforts all have put in have been laudable. I wish I was more local to the project as I would love to have hands-on participation* to this small piece of space history. Kudos to all involved! The I-told-you-so lot may have one or two aspects right, but wrangling all of the technologies required for this groundbreaking project is always going to be tough. You may wind up designing by committee and end up trying to launch an Austin Allegro into orbit.

*I have no formal qualifications to claim any entitlement at all, but an active interest in all things space and 5 years working with delta-canard flight-sim games gives me some perspective at least. Also, I think I could bring much needed Bacon Sandwich expertise to a team that clearly craves it!

LOHAN in FIGHT to DEATH with brace of cantankerous canards

Re: Pivot point...

It is quite far forward of the centre of aerodynamic force at the moment, meaning you need to really press hard to deflect it in the air stream. moving it back a bit will make that easier. Move the pivot too far back and you actively have to manage the canard to keep it where it is as the air flow will try and force the canard to one extreme or the other. I think it should go back a bit to ease the strain on the servo, but still maintain enough force for the canard to self level back to the neutral point should the link snap.

Pivot point...

I think I would have placed it further back on the canard to reduce the force required to operate the canards under full aerodynamic stress. But that's just me....

Tor is '90 per cent of the net' claims City of London Police Commish – and he's dead wrong

Maybe...

He was just mentioning that the darknet is 90% of the internet that the MET is interested in. They don't particularly care for the rest of the kitten videos and such.

I personally am glad that the powers that be appear to be a bit slow on the uptake, internet-wise.

I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working

Jam...

I find it too sticky for use in printers...Marmalade also has the same problem.

It wouldn't matter what you tell 'em...

My wife still asks me to sort out all of the computers for her family by saying "You're in I.T.". The only problem is that I haven't been in "I.T". since I worked as a producer in a software company in the 90s. Everything I know about the modern I.T. world is entirely from outside of work and due in some part to me being the master of my own fate. I hate asking for help if I can possibly sort a problem out myself. So if my own wife doesn't actually know that I am a financial audit analyst who merely uses a computer to do the donkey work, then what chance do I have? I wouldn't mind but her CV states that she is proficient in MS office. She isn't...at all. She can use excel a little bit and can't write a letter on word to save her life. She has never used Access, Visio, powerpoint or pretty much any of the rest of the suite, but knowing that you can write =sum(A1)+sum(B1) and it comes out with the right answer, means that she has mastered excel.

I currently work for a large international mobile telco. Guess what people's first question is when they find THAT out!

You know what today's movies need? More drones

Permits...

Do Americans need them for everything? I just assumed that when America was the "land of the free", it meant you could do stuff...but everything seems to need a permit...

Amazon Prime hot air drone service goes a-recruiting

Vague job descriptions...

-- Candidates should preferably be "comfortable with dealing with ambiguity and able to form a cohesive and effective outcome from potentially incongruous facts (or lack thereof) and individual perspectives".

I have worked (and currently work) for people who have absolutely no idea what they want, short of a 3 word brief which skirts around any detail at all. They then suffix this abysmal brief with the phrase "I know I'm being challenging, but..."

So maybe I should apply. I would be comfortable with such vagueries!

Dixons and Carphone Warehouse confirm £3.7bn merger

Carphone Whorehouse...

is what many of their own employees* call themselves. It actually takes presence of mind and self control to not say it to managers during meetings, it's that natural for them.

*I live with a former opal telecom person, who are owned by carphone ware/whorehouse**

**delete as applicable.

Boeing shows off 7-4-heaven SPACEPLANE-for-tourists concept

Less than 12 parsecs?

Substantially less I hope. The ISS is only 0.0000000000119908834 Parsecs above the earth.

Traffic light vulns leave doors wide open to Italian Job-style hacks

Re: That's right.

As long as it's nowhere on the pacific rim...

Boffins demo FIVE MICRON internal combustion engine

Re: Self-powering?

I think they are suggesting that the engine can self sustain (like a car engine) until the fuel is spent, rather than need an external source of power (like a big battery).

It's BANKS v TELCOs: Mobe payments systems go head-to-head

DPA

So could I type in a mobile number and then magically be given a name associated with that number? I don't think I will register my number then thanks. Facebook do a similar thing which is well handy for stalkers.

Inside Facebook's engineering labs: Hardware heaven, HP hell – PICTURES

50's Lathe

That would be a milling machine. At last my CAD/CAE education has found a use, 22 years later!

Reg reader rattles tin for GoPro camera 'Stubilizer'

Re: Mmm.

I prefer to use an owl.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBpF_Zj4OA

This tool demands access to YOUR ENTIRE DIGITAL LIFE. Is it from GCHQ? No - it's by IKEA

All your computer data for an online tool, or...

Your soul if you dare set foot in the pallet warehouse itself!

Bottom falls out of Nokia's network rump

Philips

Made a lot more than mobile phones. Nokia used to make other stuff too, but alas their tyre division is no more either (much is the pity, their tyres were good).

Let Google's tentacles fondle your mobile's web downloads and Chrome will put the data on a diet

Re: Not just Opera Mini...

indeed. Very handy!

handy

for all those sites your friendly neighbourhood government deems unfit for your consumption.

OMG, Andrex killed the puppey! Not quilty, exclaim bog roll boys

Re: Am I the only person who still buys toilet paper?

No can do here in my building. It's all in those big plastic anti-pilfer dispensing systems. Also, it is cheap and non-absorbent. I do try to ablute in work, as I am being paid for it, but security would get suspicious if I tried going home with a massive roll of tracing paper.

I did live in a shared house with a bloke who made a point of never buying bog-roll. Not sure what was so embarrassing to him about it but I ended up having to keep my own stash so he wouldn't nick it. He was a short-arms, Long pockets type who was first out the taxi, last to the bar...

Boffins devise world's HARDEST tongue-twister

Boffin?

I think her work is flawed if her only check was " some people gave up halfway through". Everyone here thinks this so-called tongue twister is far easier than the local classic "Ken Dodd's Dad's Dog's Dead"

Bring Your Own Disks: The Synology DS214 network storage box

Home server/NAS

If this had been available while I was building my home server, I may have considered it. It costs about the same as my server did (sans disks), but uses less juice and is quieter. Stuff like this is getting cheaper and more usable quicker than I care to think about.

I don't recall MS ever making their home server OS available to individuals, just to systems builders, so not sure about the whole "old PC retask", unless you are taking about the Beta version. I use win 7 on my server so can use it with all the online content options, it also has esata, USB 3, gigabit ethernet AND Wireless N connectivity (should I suddenly cut through my cables) , and a blu-ray writer in there to allow both BD playback and archive of the more vital files. For the money it is good and I like my solution, but it was build out of a lack of other affordable solutions at the time. I would have considered a NAS like this one though.

SILENCE of the OWLS may mean real-life 'Whisper Mode' for Black Helicopters

Cavitation.

That is a problem that owls don't have to contend with, so I don't see how they will help make submarines quiet. Unless there are owls I don't know about...

Digital radio may replace FM altogether - even though nobody wants it

Re: 30% seems high to me

I only know one. He listens to Radio 4 and Classic on it, so it doesn't need to be a DAB. he also moans because the sound quality is terrible (maybe because it is between his router and a fridge freezer in his man-cave). He could use FM, but he cant work out how to tune it due to the combination of him being old and the instructions being in Changilsh.

I would use DAB, but only in the car, and I aint paying £100+ to get a dab installed. If FM disappears, I will Bluetooth stream internet radio (or my own mp3s) on the £50 bluetooth enabled head unit I have now.

'Microsoft Word is a tyrant of the imagination'

A tard...

A WWII fighter pilot could have died at any point after the start of the war. Presumably Jobsy thought he was one because of his urge to pull back on the wheel and fly his car, though how he arrived at this being from WWII I don't know. To my knowledge, no fighter planes of the second world war had a two-handed wheel or yoke. Most had a joystick and the spitfire had a round one-handed wheel (on the end of a joystick). Two hands on the wheel would be more akin to a bomber or transport, which is why Jobsy "sexed it up" to make it sound more exciting...

Torrent site isoHunt to close

Re: "Remained faithful"?

I doubt that anyone remained "faithful". Pirates will get their content where they can, and there are a LOT of other sites out there. A bit of a pyrrhic victory closing a site that hasn't linked to anything useful in 2 years...

Assange: 'Ecuadorian embassy staff are like my family'

Re: Even assuming the Swedish allegations are false and are dropped...

explain how pointing out an opportunity means that the US are definitely going to take it. I was merely suggesting that the UK requirement for evidence is so flimsy that the US only has to ask and we would happily hand him over (unless he claims to have aspergers, in which case a 10 year fight will ensue).

I think that if they had wanted him, they would have got him long before he decided to imprison himself. I personally think he is unhappy at rape thing.

Re: Even assuming the Swedish allegations are false and are dropped...

Indeed. What he did, in fleeing to the embassy, will require him to be investigated by the British police (no doubt under caution). This will give the US ample opportunity to "suggest" that he needs to be handed over. I don't know if he is a rapist or not, but his self-imposed exile can only end two ways. Death or arrest.

Apple brings iCloud bookmark sync to Windows

Apple Chrome cloud bookmark sync?

Doesn't Chrome already sync bookmarks anyway? Mine does between my PC my media server and my phone already. I am confused....