Posts by Kevin Johnston 1300 posts • joined 6 May 2007
I still remember with great fondness the Compaq Deskpro systems which were built like vaults and came with spare screws to use when adding extra discs/adaptor cards etc. My favourite version could even have the disc storage turned to be desktop or tower.
In the UK, the current Theft Act includes a critical phrase 'for pecuniary advantage'. In essence it means that they are using your property to obtain money which you should have. This came about when people started ransoming back property so they could claim they never intended to keep it or else to show it as security for loans etc before replacing it.
By making digital copies available to all for free of works without permission they are reducing the income the author receives hence theft.
Yes, lands on the Island at Binstead, oddly, which is in the midst of an area of MAMBA so no great loss if anything happens there even though it is then a nightmare by car/bike to St Mary's hospital. On the mainland they seem to be using Lee-on-Solent which gives them lots of flexibility on flight planning.
Quite impressed with the design as it seems to be very much based on the idea of goof capacity/minimal frills with an excellent view from the camera in the tailplane in case someone has to step in and take control.
There was an image on El Reg recently of a number of ladies from the far east all with masks which appeard to be printed with the lower half of someones face. Now that is the best way to beat facial recognition, does it use the lower half of Sam Smith or the upper half of Joe Soap or simply flag you as Joe Smith?
I know I shouldn't rise to this but...
"Most of the driver feels like proof-of-concept garbage that is held together by duck tape"
There is a brand name of Duck Tape but generically it is Duct Tape designed to be used when joining large hoses in ducting which need strength and flexibility at the joints.
Grrrrrr
While I fully agree with the sentiment there was a very appropriate comment I read from a photographer. He was asked which of the cameras he owned was the best and his response? Whichever one I have with me.
There is the nub of the challenge. As you say, an SLR is not readily luggable but if you are serious about your pictures you will make the effort. If you want snapshots (some of which are likely to be stunning by luck as much as by judgement) then a modern smartphone is actually very good for this and tends to be somewhere about your person at all times
I agree with your last part but since every internet presence will include .com or .org or such then the presence of such a suffix in a trademark begs the question of how widely they could enforce it. If they win the fight to trademark booking.com then would a car-hire company or a theatre be blocked from using booking.org or booking.co.uk?
Surely the cables should have a more meaningful label than just the presumed port number as that would mean the two ends would be unlikely to have matching labels and that way lies madness.
Why I was taught was that cables are labelled with a defined cable number and the purpose/connections for that cable are kept in a table as a known good state.
This wouldn't be the first time that US laws on encryption have left them using a lower grade system than the rest of the world. When they limited the encryption levels that could be sold to non-US customers a number of companies went 'Rest of the world only' and increased bitness well beyond that available in the US. Net result was the US Government caved in so they could catch up
Came in to say much the same...
Had to replace my car recently and the new one has DAB/FM unit (with other cruft) and I have been able to do some direct comparisons since I have a fairly limited driving experience at the moment. Living on the edge of a failry large town and curving round the top to get to a supermarket.
DAB - regular 5-20 seconds gaps as it reminds itself what I was listening to
FM - 2 spots on the route where I get interference passing some electrical distribution stuff but listenable from switch on to switch off
My Father taught me a similar technique when I announce I would follow in his footsteps and become an engineer.
'When it all goes wrong, and it will, get a sheet of A4 paper and explain to it in detail every step you have taken to get to the mess you now have. Before completing the sequence you will realise which step you missed out/messed up.'
I may be wrong but I seem to recall that French Law came from Napoleonic era rules which said 'forbidden unless specifically permitted' unlike UK Common law which was 'permitted unless specifically forbidden'. My favourite in UK law is from the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 which says it is an offence to have an erection on the Village Green.
Do I take the risk of mingling with the populace to get in the popcorn and is there a limit on how much I could buy as I suspect this could go on a while as it is not only money Google will want to keep but it establishes a clear precedent that they have to obey the laws of countries outside the US even if they have not had a chance to buy a lower impact version
It is probably down to 5G being shorter range and so would need a lot more masts for the same total coverage. They will want maximum return per mast and siting will be a challenge to say the least but also, will there be the interest away from the cities in making use of 5G compared to 4G?...they will probably be too busy fainting from getting a signal at all
It does seem a little perverse, the better the internet connection, the more likely you are to be in an area where drones are banned (heavily populated, has an airport etc)
Almost as if the whole idea was to make it impossible to operate a drone (unless you held an excemption from the law, such as TLA agency employees possibly)
This has the potential to be a major impact for Android but the question is which direction will it go. It could be a loosening of the controls on android allowing more options available to phone makers or it could reach the point where Google drop it and it goes into a death spiral. Extreme views maybe but it would only take a couple of the big handset makers to adopt the Huawei approach to wipe out Google's profit from Android
It's the usual problem of too few acronyms and too many uses. These days there are very few acronyms that only have one meaning and a lot of meanings are quite niche which can cause confusion/hilarity when small groups collide
Low Earth Orbit = LEO = Law Enforcement Officer etc etc etc
Hmmm...that is a very specific denial which fails to answer the question of 'Do they collect the information'? Call me fickle (cue some predictable responses) but if you are being so misleadingly precise in your denials it seems to me the accusation is accurate.
I think the PC bit is just a generic phrase as a lot of places I have been over the last few years, both corporate and home, are going the laptop route rather than a desktop because laptops are cheap enough that they can and it saves a lot on desk real estate. For corporates they can implement hot-desking with a docking station plus monitor/keyboard/mouse etc or offer less formal areas using wifi connectivity while at home you can sit anywhere with your laptop and not have trailing cables.
All in all I think the wireless connection is a lot more common these days that a decade ago.
I can see where you are coming from on that but this is not quite the same category. This is more closely related to software installed in industrial plant or suchlike as it is written for that specific purpose (can't exactly shft this onto a laptop to improve your GTA skills).
A closer parallel would be Ford/VW/etc remotely disabling the turbo if the car is not sold/maintained through their dealership chain. Doesn't stop the car working but very much reduces the driveability/resale value.
Edit: Got to learn to type faster, at least two other commenters got in ahead of me here :(
The Register - Independent news and views for the tech community. Part of Situation Publishing
Join our daily or weekly newsletters, subscribe to a specific section or set News alerts
SUBSCRIBE
Biting the hand that feeds IT © 1998–2020
