Posts by A Non e-mouse 3276 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jan 2010
Everyone knew Windows 10 was coming. We may not have known the exact release date but why didn't everyone wind down supply of Windows 8 machines? Would the loss of sales of Windows 8 outstrip the loss from inventory write-down on unsold Windows 8 machines?
I seem to recall that Apple goods start becoming harder to get hold of before product launches as they stop production of older products.
There's a post in the O2 Community Forums which claims that WiFi Calling is coming soon to O2.
We've had our account manager in multiple times to discuss the options for improving signal coverage in our urban area because the signal is so bad. The carrier has even performed their own surveys which confirmed the poor coverage. Yet the OFCOM website says I can get good indoor and outdoor signal! The map is utter rubbish.
Just hypothetically if we possessed the technology to create fusion reactions to form new stars could we postpone the heat death of the universe?
No. To perform "work" you need an energy differential. Heat death is when the energy is the same across the entire Universe. You couldn't avoid heat death by building a reactor as you wouldn't be able to get the energy to build the reactor.
Slightly shorter term, could the same technology create a new sun in our solar system? What size object would be needed to create a similar sized sun a similar distance from Earth? E.g. if we sacrifice Pluto as 'kindling' for our new sun would it be bigger than Sol is now?
According to hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/KellyMaurelus.shtml, you need something about 80 times bigger than Jupiter to form a star. And that's assuming the proto-star has the right composition for nuclear fusion. Main sequence stars, such as Sol, "burn" Hydrogen to form Helium, etc. Pluto is a rocky planet, so not much Hydrogen to burn.
The problem is the average Joe/Jo on the High Street/Mall will look at the upfront cost of the print (I.e. What comes out of their wallet there and then) and go with the cheapest. They won't think about the long term costs. Look at mobile phones: Most of us here on El Reg know it's cheaper to buy a phone separate to your mobile contract, but few people on the High Street bother because they're lured in by the low up front costs.
Although they can use Jupiter's winds to keep the craft aloft for weeks or months, what are the craft going to do for power? If they're going to be in Jupiter's atmosphere, surely solar power isn't going to cut it? And isn't Nasa running out of plutonium for deep-space probes?
I don't think certificate pinning or O/S checks are intended to prevent reverse engineering. They're there to try and ensure that someone isn't doing something nasty to the end-user. (e.g. fake Subway's servers)
Without hardware assistance, I believe it's quite hard to truly prevent reverse engineering of a software. All you can do is insert traps to slow people down,
At the end of the day, the app developers took some time and trouble to make reasonable efforts to protect the service they provide and they were slapped down by someone seeking some publicity.
To be fair, on the Apollo missions, there was a human sat right beside the computer who could take over. Also, the tech support was only a second or two radio lag away.
On these robotic missions, the humans are millions of miles away with a round-trip time of almost a day between tech support and the machine.
So Gartner are complaining that the new entrants are not competing with Amazon, Google & MS.
Could this, perhaps, have something to do with the capital cost involved in trying to compete with them? Either you need *very* deep pockets and be prepared to take a very big gamble to compete with these three, or you find your own place in the market.
Also remember that the big three aren't exactly falling over themselves to publish the financials from their cloud services. That could be (but isn't guaranteed) an indication that profits are wafer thin.
Ethical purchasing is rarely the cheap option and is usually a moral decision as to whether to spend the extra money to help workers get paid a better wage and safe(r) working conditions or not.
There is the added issue that these are selling in small quantities, so no big discounts from component suppliers.
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