Posts by davcefai 218 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2007
In my distant youth I used to build balsa wood planes skinned with tissue. The tissue was somewhat stronger than the stuff you buy at the newsagent and there was a special solvent based dope for it.
You skinned the plane, sprinkled a little water on the tissue to shrink it and then doped the skin. The result (most times) was a tight, tough, wrinkle free skin. The dope added a lot of toughness.
"One can "do business" with The Register?"
Well, yes, sort of. They have in the past published their rates for posting good reviews of a product .
Or I suppose one could buy advertising (which could then be filtered out by adblock).
Have I got time to get my coat? Please note: green icon)
Are you sure that your victims want the effects? Personally I find that my nod-off time is dependent on the darkness of the room and the amount of time I have to wait while the screen updates with all sorts of "fancy" manouvers.
Problem is that nobody ever asks "Do you want the facts or the effects?"
My first "real" as opposed to "home" computer was a Morrow II bought in 1983. Also was the first computer at work. It cost £1999.40 with a Dot Matrix printer.
Within 2 months, finalising the departmental monthly accounts was taking 2 hours instead of the 2 weeks we were allowed. Suddenly everybody wanted one!
Incidentally the machine had 64K of RAM and 2 180K floppy drives. A 5MB Hard Drive would have cost another £1000.
Reg authors get more and more like the uncle who cracks the same joke every time you meet..
If a journo cannot tell the difference between a "pirate" downloader - which, I believe, is what the word first meant - and a free software user then should we be reading his drivel?
Personally I stopped reading when my eyes saw "freetard". Is there a reason that the Reg is trying to alienate the open source community?
IIRC The US has not ratified the treaty under which McKinnon can be extradited to the US. So in a reciprocal case a US cracker could thumb his nose at the UK Gov.
I love the way that when the US says frog the Labour Government doesn't even ask "How high". It just jumps as high as possible.
they* own the content, so *they* decide how you watch it.
I own my computer, I decide what I want to see.
I installed adblock because I wanted to block out those intrusive flashing adverts. Any others being blocked are roadkill.
I appreciate that sites need the money and I have no problem with unintrusive ads. The marketeers have shot themselves in the foot with their intrusive ads. Now they are turning the advertising racket into a challenge. Very much like "No user servicable parts inside" which I treat like a red rag to a bull.
There's something called the Scientific Method.
First you postulate a theory. Then you design an experiment to prove it. You forecast the results, then you perform the experiment.
The downside of course is that this means hard work, not sitting in an office playing with a spreadsheet.
Frankly, as soon as I get to the part of an article which says "data was collected from..." I stop reading, mutter "Junk Science" and move on. After all, next week another chair warmer will publish contrarian "results".
Mine's the one with the lab keys in the pocket.
Why would a Linux Novice be bothered about the number of partitions?
1. You would normally have *more* than three on a Linux machine.
2. There is no "C", "D" etc. partitions are mounted on directories so that, in fact, a Linux Filesystem always seems like a flat one. Mine extends over 4 drives on 2 computers - not counting the optical drives - which are also mounted as directories.
My comment meant precisely what it said and and was about precisely what I quoted.
We're talking about Science and therefore precision counts. We already have an emotional, totally screwed up situation with Global Warming (or is it cooling, or possibly isothermia?) because a lot of people and politicians have embraced the concept without knowing - or caring about - the science thereof.
In the case of Biofuels we have a chance for rational debate now that the politicians and the "fuzzy feelers" have been (temporarily?) derailed.
In fact we have a chance for rational debate about energy in general, and I include battery power in this. maybe those people driving Priuses will understand that they are polluting a hell of a lot more that the marketing bods have misled them into thinking.
The fire icon 'cos I feel strongly about this,
"intensively farmed crops draw carbon from artificial fertilisers,"
Incorrect. Fertilisers are sources of, primarily, Nitrogen and Phosphates. Never Carbon. Plants fix Carbon from Carbob Dioxide. Any Carbon entering the plant via the roots, from the soil, is negligible.
I agree that Biofuels are taking food out of the food chain but this argument, if it is not being misquoted, doesn't hold water.
If this is typical MS fanboy logic then no wonder MS are getting away with whatever they want to.
I have documents extending way back to 1981, the year I got my first (CP/M) computer. Guess what? Some machinery installed then is still operational. Some data gathered then can still be relevant to future projects. Some correspondence may still need to be looked up.
I can survive MS's user-violent policies because my chaotic archiving system includes isos of the installation media. No doubt the average user who finds Windows so easy to use doesn't keep any old files. After all Joe Average formats his hard disc every 6 months as part of his virus and spyware control regime and only uses a CD writer to burn MP3s.
From what I read earlier today the trivial workaround is not to use their software.
However how can one retain any trust in a company that pulls off a stupid stunt like this one? WD's business is supposed to be selling disc drives. The RIAA's is suing grandmothers who do not own computers.
I doubt that, even in the US, selling disc drives could be considered to be facilitating "piracy", at least not in any sane courtroom. (OOPS! Are there any left?)
Doesn't all this boil down to the ability to buy a bare machine OR one with <OS of the manufacturer's choice> installed.
Nobody has ever floated the idea that manufacturers must install and support all OSes. However it makes perfect sense that they should offer a bare machine.
The price of the machine is something else entirely.
To all our US friends: In Europe we tend not to like the "all customers are potential pirates" argument that seems to be an acceptable standard in the US
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