Posts by TkH11

Apple seeks antenna engineers after 'Death Grip' debacle

@AC, Photons

Photons are NOT transmitted by electromagetic waves. It looks as if YOUR education is far worse than YOU thought.

If you're gonna take an arrogant position, at least try to make sure you're right. I expect you still probably believe that electrons orbit around atoms like planets in the solar system orbit around the sun.

The wave-particle duality of electromagnetic waves is well understood to anyone studied physics at A level, and is widely documented on the internet.

It's all tied in with Quantum mechcanics. Basically the concept says, that the light is both particles and waves at the same time. The two different interpretions are valid and indeed, necessary to fully explain the behaviour of electromagnetic waves.

Depending on what you're doing, sometimes it's more appropriate to consider light as waves, other times, particles are more appropriate. If you set up an experiment to detect light as waves, then that is what you will find waves. If you set up an experiment to detect light as particles, then that is what you will find.

In the case of antenna design, I've never come across the particle theory being appropriate, but I'll admit, I didn't study much antenna design in my degree course.

@Version 1.0

"but it's an Art backed by a good understanding of science and mathematics tempered by mechanical engineering".

You've actually left out THE most important subject in an antenna design: electrical engineering.

The basis of antenna design is electromagnetic field theory which they don't teach in science, mathematics or mechanical engineering. I will admit a good understanding of maths is a pre-requisite, but then if you have the pre-requisite electrical engineering degree, then you have the maths understanding requirement.

In fact, the amount of mech. eng in antenna design is minimal. Not exactly load bearing structures, or much in the way of forces involved, no moving parts either. Definitely no thermodynamics, so unless you're building an 80 foot radio mast, they won't be needing mech engineers for the design of an antenna in a consumer electronic product.

Naomi Campbell to appear in war crimes trial

liar

If she didn't receive a dimamond, then the answer is no. Giving any other answer can only be interpreted as a yes. And I really can't see why a friend would lie claiming she has when she hasn't. If she were smart (intelligent) , which she isn't, she'd just admit the truth: that'd do less harm to her image and reputation.

She's a good looking girl, but she's a complete b**ch. I'm not a prima donna honest...

If she lies in court then it's perjury (presumably they have the same law over there), so will be interesting to see what she says and how she fairs up under cross examination.

I hope they broadcast it.

Watching her squeam and lie under cross examination...should be bad for her reputation, hopefully.

Confidential report reveals ContactPoint security fears

@Ku...Shielding

The idea of 'shielding' data is a recognition that there are serious flaws in the security of the system, that because so many people had access to the database, some data was bound tobe leaked, that officials would conduct searches for details on children which they had no business doing. MPs were worried about their private details, the details of their children could be accessed by any of the 300,000 people (or whatever the correct figure was) with access to the database, and so the concept of shielding was born.

It's also intended to be used for the records of children whose parents are VIPS, celebrities etc.

Now, whilst MP's might like to dress it up by claiming there's a requirement for at risk children, children at risk of say one parent in a divorced family from threatening officials, from bribing officials to coerce them to search for details on their children and mother's whereabouts, I think we all know that the idea came to life as a way to give further protection to the details of MPs and their children...because they didn't trust the security of the system themselves!!

It's a recognition that the security of the system (and i mean here the people,the processes not just the security of the IT system) wasn't good enough.

@KU... Disposal

Legally mandated procedures for disposal of kit?

A) probably would never happen

and

B) if such legislation were passed I'm quite sure it wouldn't stop breaches of data by forcing the councils to follow the regulations, local government and most government departments are so fecking useless they'd continue to break the rules, the law (just as they currently do with data protection legislation) and they wouldn't be prosecuted for it.

Name me one government organisation which has been prosecuted for breaches of the data protection act? And how many serious data breaches have there been in recent years?

The incumbent government very rarely prosecutes departments/agencies of itself.

They look after and protect each other and that comes first regardless of what the law says and for whose protection the law was created for (us!) in the first place.,

House of Commons to digitise parliamentary questions

Civil service

Goverment departments lack of modernisation is legendary.

I worked for a few years for one scientific arm of the government, compared to most government departments, this would have been one of the most intelligent departments the government has in respect of the number of PhDs and other degrees staff had.

We were upgrading a national distributed system, parts needed to be ordered. (This was only around 10 years ago). In those days, it was common to place telephone orders with companies, fax orders, can't quite recall if online ordering was available them, probably was.

What was this department's processes for placing orders?

The requisitor had to hand fill in a form, that was then sent using internal mail to the head office, where it was then handed to a typing pool, the typists would type it up into a requisition form and it would be despatched by first/second class post to the supplier! F**K me!

Could you just telephone the supplier and place the order? No. It was against the rules, against the process. So you spent a week waiting for your goods to be shipped whilst all the bureaucracy took place, and you sat there and twiddled your thumbs until those important parts arrived.

Welcome to the British government, welcome to the civil service where bureaucracy is king.

Hmm

So how much is this going to cost us, the tax payer? Presumably it could be done for £200K, which means it's going to cost us £10million and it still won't work. You just know it.

Duff French missiles for Royal Navy finally fixed

Testing

What I want to know is, having tested against modern missiles, supersonic ones HAVE they tested against good old fashioned Exocets?

We've been caught by those before, some of you might remember. The lesson..don't forget the old weapons that are still in use by some countries.

BT boss brands Britain illiterate

Coursework

We have the highest exam results in history, we're doing absolutely fine, brilliant even, according to Mr. Brown and his psychophants.

I soon learned, don't ever trust the government's figures. Check the international results and you will soon notice that we've fallen way down the league over the years whilst Labour were in power in Mathematics. The international results paint quite a different picture.

It's all to do with the lefty goal's of it's not fair to upset the kids by having them fail exams.

With such an ideal there are only two possible strategies:

1) Make the kids work harder, improve the teaching so the kids get better results

2) Dumb down the exams, make them easier so that more pass.

Evidentally, the Labour government chose the latter. Not that they will ever admit that. If you're lucky, it might revealed in a declassified document in 50 years time, but given Tony Blair's sofa style politics where the recording of notes of meetings was quite intentionally reduced so as to avoid leaving an audit trail of dodgy goings-on, such evidence probably won't surface unless it's in the form of someone's memoirs.

The move to coursework based exams was a big mistake. We debated this in school approximately 5 years before the government introduced GCSEs, and in class, even we children realised that coursework based exams would be easier. We were kids, and even we knew it! The people, the adults in government must have known too.

Sure, we went through the pros and cons questioning whether exams were really fair, to those people that didn't have such good memories, but we knew course work based courses would be easier.

And in later years, I undertook my first coursework based course..ahem..which happened to be in computer science...fun..but easy. We had exams too for it, but achieving nearly 30% of the final examination mark by doing the coursework throughout the year was easy.

I accept the argument that some people struggle with memory (well, repetition usually helps, and knowing the subject matter does too!), but by making courses predominantly coursework based has made them easier for everyone, and the whole of society will/has suffered just to appease a few kids that struggled with memory based exams.

When it comes to difficult subjects such as maths, physics, engineering the UK is a joke. Celebrities joke how they can't do maths, as if they're proud of it. In France they celebrate their mathematicians. Even straight names which are named after people include their profession on the sign! It's unreal. But what an attitude they have compared to us in the UK.

(Can you imagine a 3D representation of a 4D hypercube being constructed in London? Or would you find a 2D barcode painted on the wall of someone's house? Just wouldn't happen in this country would it? But they're there in Paris.)

With this national attitude towards these subjects this country has had it, we're bound to fall behind countries such as Germany, France, India.

Pakistan set to ban more web blasphemy

Re: AC and education

AC:

"It's pretty clear that usually the smarter and more educated people are, the less they're likely to be xenophobic. Though it isn't usually the brightest sparcs that end up in politics, islamists with their built-in politics/religion entanglement seem to've made an art of it."

I believe this to be true. I once saw a breakdown of the illiteracy rates for the provinces of Pakistan and trust me, it's not good. In fact, it's down right scary. 170 million people in Pakistan with illiteracy rates in some provinces around and over 50%.

That's a lot of people, a hell of a lot of people that can't even read and write.

I noticed a correlation between those lawless regions of Pakistan (Dir, Swat, North Waziristan, the Federally administered tribal areas and NWFP - North West Frontier Provinces), these are the regions where the extremism breeds, these are the areas from where the suicide bombers originate who then head into the cities to blow themselves up. It's these areas which have the highest illiteracy rates.

The Pakistani government recognises that the madrassas are a problem. They're not schools as we think of them, their sole objective is to brainwash the students with the Koran, they don't teach any other subjects.

The government wanted to take on the madrassas a couple of years ago, the madrassas responded "You try and close us down and we'll fight back", and they will. AK47s are extremely popular in Pakistan.

The mainstream Pakistani's are sick to death of the extremists, but when the extremists come into your village, town armed to the teeth with AK47's what can the civilian population do?

They kill fellow muslims, they don't care, if you don't conform to their extremist beliefs then you are a target, regardless if you are muslim or not.

Corruption

Pakistan is so corrupt, right from the top where one of the leaders is known as "Mr. ten percent", because he allegedly takes 10% commission on all government projects down to the people their selves . I witnessed a Police officer taking flowers from a poor street vendor and then refusing to pay, as if the police officer had some God (ok, Allah) given right to take these things. The person he took them from was almost considerably financially worse off than the police officer.

Pakistan

In my opinion, Pakistan would be a great country, if it wasn't for the religion and the extremists.

They give the people, the country a bad name.

I think there's a lot of good in the Islamic religion, but you have to admit that there must be something fundamentally wrong with it when it generates such extremism where people are prepared to kill theirselves to protect the religion. Did Allah, did Mohammed really demand that from its followers?

Just about all Islamic terrorism in the west has strong links back to Pakistan.

Then look at the major terrorism problems around the world, and you'll notice that in most, Islam underpins them. And it goes hand in hand with poverty too.

Suicide Girls whip out iPhone 4

suicide girls

I met a real live Suicide Girl in a former job, quite overweight, not particularly attractive and a goth.

I used to know a few people from this subculture many years ago..most had emotional/psychological issues...best to avoid these kind of women I'm afraid.

Having an obsession with vampirism and death is a little bit unusual... Though I hasten to add, the PVC worked for me!

Unix beardies vs. clean shaven DBAs

Image

We have an IT support bod that sports the long pony tail and unshaven. It's the stereotypical image of a an IT geek. When was the last time you saw a doctor or lawyer with one?

We clamour to be recognised as professionals but then there are those of us that want to look like slobs. Mention IT to any female and they're instantly turned off.

We don't exactly help ourselves do we?

If you want to be a professional, treated with respect, with status, recogised as professionals by other professions then you need to look a professional, look smart.

Cobol

Cobol was written by a woman? That explains a lot!!

Leica M9 rangefinder camera

camera shake

FFS! Just taken a look at some of the night time shots. If you're gonna demonstrate a £5K camera at least put the thing on a tripod, of if it mounted on a tripod get a decent one and use a shutter release to remove the shake!

One picture is suffering from blatent camera shake. Even an amateur photographer can get this right. There is no excuse for a professional or someone purporting to write a serious review not to get this right.

Osborne hands out tax cuts - for companies

Taxing millionaires

Chris,

The point is that milionaires *do* pay the tax they're supposed to. If they didn't, it would be tax evasion and illegal and they'd risk prosecution and imprisonment.

I think what you really mean, is that it's not right that overall, they get away with paying a reduced amount of tax on their income. That's not illegal, it's within the rules, if they know what the rules are and employ good accountants to get around the rules. It's called tax avoidance. It's legal.

The way one deals with this is by introducing new legislation and making what are currently legal activities and make them illegal.

However, being rich c**nts are you so eloquently put it, they'll use their massive financial resources to try to find other ways around the rules - other legal ways, that is.

I doubt that all avenues can be closed down entirely.

And I doubt that, taxing a few hundred millionaires, given they'll seek other ways around paying tax, is really going to make that much difference to the tax income the government receives, at least not as much as taxing the other 20 million workers a little more.

And these people, can take themselves off shore, to tax havens, or move completely.

These millionaires are also business leaders, and we need these people to help our economy.

So whilst things may not be fair, at the end of the day, it's a question of being pragmatic.

I'd stop worrying about the rich and feeling jelous, and I'd try to figure out a way of making yourself rich rather than feeling bitter at those that have made it.

And incidentally, I'm flat broke..as flat broke as it is possible to be.

Fairness of the tax system

The tax allowance has increased, so low income workers will receive more in their pocket.

VAT goes up. The low income worker is still going to come out quids in. Chances are they - being low income workers - won't be spending as much on non-essentials than a middle or high income earner. So they should definitely be quids in and benefit from these tax changes.

Personally, I don't have a problem with that. Life is hard as a middle income earner, going to be even harder if you're a low income earner, so I say, let them have a bit more.

Fairness? Why is is fair that someone who earns more should pay a higher rate of tax just because of that?

If a low income earner and high income earner are taxed at the same rate, then the higher income earner actually pays more actual tax to the government. Everybody is charged at the same percentage rate. That's fairness. where something applies equally to all.

The current tax regime isn't fair. The more you earn, the higher the percentage rate of tax you pay.

If you don't like the idea that poor people get a bit more as a result of the changes, then logic also requires, that you don't agree with the tax system in general.

IR35 came about, really through jealousy. Oh sure, the big corporate consultancies lobbied for it, but the Labour government and Dawn Primarolo supported it, if they were honest, because they saw it as rich people making even more money by 'working' the system.

Low paid civil servants along side highly paid IT contractors. I encountered it personally, I think most contractors have..being ribbed about how much money they earn.

"Look Mr. Civil Servant, if you want to earn the money I do as a contractor, then *you* go out and do it". But few really did. Didn't have the right go-getter confident personality you see, happy there in their safe, cushy low paid stress free jobs, without any pressure from their manager to deliver to time and to budget, where there's no competition, where they can claim an extra 13 days holiday a year, disguised as "sick leave".

Along came IR35., and what a f**k up that was. And we told them it would be..and we were proved right..but you see, too embarassing to overturn legislation that doesn't work isn't it Mr Brown? Not big enough to admit they got it wrong. Total a*holes.

I'm sure most people would have had more respect for them if they admitted they got it wrong and simply put it right. That would have been the right thing to do.

They had IT professionals, accountants and lawyers, business leaders all telling them they'd got it wrong.

Utah Attorney General tweets execution go-ahead

5 bullet thing

4 bullets and 1 blank. So all the shooters can go away knowing that probably their bullet *did* kill him (unless they're a useless marksman). Chance of the marksman being the one that killed him? 4 out of 5.

Ok, the marksman can walk away with some doubt as to whether he killed him, but would't it have been even better to load simply one live round and 4 blanks?

The guy still gets killed (unless the marksman's useless), but the probability of any individual marksman being the killer is reduced from 4/5 to 1/5, that is from being almost certain he was the killer to almost certain he wasn't.

Surely this is going to be better for the mental state of the marksman?

Or why not set up a gun using a stand, fixed aim, and automatically fired by a computer using a random time.

Law and Politics

He was a mission for the Church of the Latter Day Saints - you know the ones - the ones that collar you in the town's shopping centre, dressed very smartly and talk for an hour and won't let you go, then try to get you to go along to one of their meetings.

Gonna be very hard with such strong religious beliefs to keep that out of politics and not influence his judgements...gonna be very hard.

Google hits coder G-spot with Linux command line tool

If carlsberg did orgasms they're probably be the best orgasms in the world...

F**k me! Think I'm going to spend my spare time writing software?! I know we're all geeks but people need to get a life and get out more. At least try not to act like geeks.

Hybrid CD vinyl unites warring tribes

@NaughtyHorse

You really are talking twaddle, thinking you know it all.

I worked in professional audio for one of the biggest manufacturers of studio equipment used to record music many years ago.

I grew up with CDs, the tail end of vinyl, didn't own a turntable for 25 years.

The people I worked with were recording engineers that had worked with some very famous recording artists. My colleagues all concurred that vinyl sounded better than CDs, that CDs really came into being not because they sounded better but because they didn't suffer the wear and tear of vinyl and production costs could be made lower.

Fairly recently after 25 years of CDs I purchased a semi-decent turntable, played through professional studio gear, my conclusion? I was blown away, the instruments sounded more real and I was quite frankly amazed at the quality, the definiton of what was there.

In some ways vinyl was definitely better, but I admit, it didn't sound as clean, there was always a bit of background noise to the vinyl. Pros and cons of both, but in terms of real sonic performance, the vinyl scored slightly better.

Before, you start slating vinyl, I'd suggest you go out and actually listen to some decent recordings though a decent hi-fi system first.

There are inherent limitations in 16bit 44.1KHz PCM sampling.

So much so that newer standards were developed, higher sampling frequencies and higher number of bits per sample, and it has been proven that they do sound better, SACD for example, but I bet you haven't got SACD have you? Probably not, not many people have, it's all but died.

There are performance issues with CD, so would you mind getting off the high horse until you really do know it all please. Some of us pros really do know it all :)

Acid Test

You're saying the acid test isn't which sounds better, but which is most accurate when compared to the original?

So why are we spending all our hard earned money on hi-fi if it doesn't sound better than the next bit of hi-fi kit?

Sure, bring out the THD+N figures, the S/N noise ratio, intermodulation distortion, but any professional designer in audio knows they're a load of b**cks, they serve as a guide to work towards in design, but the figures don't truely represent how music sounds, you can't judge the audio performance of hi-fi using the classic set of metrics the manufacturers provide.

On paper, in tech specs CD is better than vinyl. But those in the know, know full well it isn't.

I'm saying this and I've been a life long user of CDs who has only recently "discovered" vinyl.

People saying that CD has better frequency response, better dynamic range...I say, kiss my proverbial rear, go talk to the pros that make the high end recording gear used in all the top studios.

Pakistani lawyer petitions for death of Mark Zuckerberg

utter tripe

Let them investigate.. blasphemy last time I looked wasn't a crime in the USA..which means he can't extradited to Pakistan.

if Pakistan could extradite someone for violating the laws in their country even though no crime has been commited in their country and it's not an offence in the country the guy resides in then they'd be able to arrest and extradite (and presumably kill by firing squad or stoning to death) literally hundreds of thouands of British men and women for committing adultery, for having sex without being married. And probably the odd million Americans too...and Europeans....

If Pakistan wants to be taken seriously then it needs to start behaving sensibly, pragmatically, show respect for the laws and cultures of other countries and pull it's head out of it's religious a**se!

And yes, I have spent time in Pakistan.

Oracle sued for alleged fraud against US gov

this don't smell right

if everybody gets a discount on the price of a product then it's not a discount, it's the normal selling price.

If a company doesn't offer a discount that's not fraud. Failing to disclose details of what other clients have paid for the product isn't fraud either. That's good comercial sense., and even privacy. You don't go disclosing what your other customer have paid for your products.

At the end of the day, the DoJ paid the price it did because it was willing to do so. They didn't have to go with Oracle, there's plenty of other large relational database products out there.

If the DoJ bargaining team isn't up to the job of good negotiations over the price they paid, then that's their fault, and given they're a government agency with government money to burn, I very much doubt the employees in the DoJ could have cared less about what price they're paying..it's someone elses money..the tax payer, and it's easy to make the tax payer cough-up...just increase taxes.

This sounds like a personal grudge on the part of an ex-Oracle employee that for some reason wants to get his own back on his former employee , either that or he wants to impress his new employer so much and justify his over inflated salary.

this don't smell right

if everybody gets a discount on the price of a product then it's not a discount, it's the normal selling price.

If a company doesn't offer a discount that's not fraud. Failing to disclose details of what other clients have paid for the product isn't fraud either. That's good comercial sense., and even privacy. You don't go disclosing what your other customer have paid for your products.

At the end of the day, the DoJ paid the price it did because it was willing to do so. They didn't have to go with Oracle, there's plenty of other large relational database products out there.

If the DoJ bargaining team isn't up to the job of good negotiations over the price they paid, then that's their fault, and given they're a government agency with government money to burn, I very much doubt the employees in the DoJ could have cared less about what price they're paying..it's someone elses money..the tax payer, and it's easy to make the tax payer cough-up...just increase taxes.

This sounds like a personal grudge on the part of an Oracle employee that for some reason wants to get his own back on employee (soon to be ex-employee?)

Feds block sale of crooks' favourite messaging client

hmm

Israel & passports anyone?

Burger van busted offering free takeaway porn

What law is violated?

I'm trying to understand what the offence committed is..other than the operating a burger van without a license. That'd be down to environmental health to prosecute over.

But, if someone's giving away porn, and if it happened to be videos of the guy's wife, then there's no copyright issues - which is usually what the coppers get them on. It's also not being sold..so does that constitute "trading without a license"? Street traders need a license.

If someone offers you something for free, it's up to you whether you accept it or not.

Can't see any crime being committed there.

And, as for giving it to children, they'd have to prove that it was given to them..you can't prosecute someone for a crime in case they might commit the crime, you can only prosecute them when that crime has been committed.

I suspect, they'll find some weird law to do them under, and it might be: making and distributing home videos without a British Board of Film Classification certificate being applied.

It's well known the coppers and the judiicary are the worst culprits of visiting dominatrixes....(probably 'cos the judges are the only ones that can afford £150 per hour session!)

Microsoft sneaks Firefox add-on into Patch Tuesday update

Microsoft

Why is Microsoft such a shit company? For donkey's years they've had completely the wrong attitude, just complete arrogance in all sorts of domains.

From Browser wars to java incompatibility, to deliberately stifling the competition. They know it's morally wrong, and in some cases illegal.

We all know (any professional in the IT industry) not to ever trust Microsoft products. Such a shame that it's come to that. But it's entirely their fault for their stupid, selfish arrogant attitude.

Where is the ethics in Microsoft?

Links to blog in email made sender liable, says US court

Law is an ass

The problem here is so often what happens, the judges try to apply a law that wasn't written for the modern day electronic age.

And most judges aren't even IT literate anyway, so how can they be tasked with writing laws that relate to the use of information technology when they don't understand or use the medium frequently.

@Mike Holden

I disagree with your analysis.

The person who should be subject to the defamation claim is the person that wrote the original text, whether that be an email, a paper document, or an online article.

They're the one's that wrote the text and they should be responsible, accurate in what they say.

If someone hands me a document written by an author that slanders someone, I don't, I can't hold the person who acted as the mailman, to account, he didn't write the document. Surely the resonable thing here is that I sue the guy that wrote the document in the first place.

Is it not the same with web links? If some guy sends me a few links, he's acting as that post man, and it's my choice whether or not I go to those links.

If i find defamatory content on the webpage whose link is in the email, surely, the logical approach is that I sue the guy who wrote the original text on the website?

It matters not what was in the mind of the guy sending me the web links in the email. We're then getting into the area of speculation and what was in his mind when he sent me the email.

You can only sue the guy that wrote the original article. Or that's how it should be in my opinion,

Sarah Palin 'boob job' debate dominates US right - and left

Food for thought

If she offered you a feel, would you say no?

Thinking about it, think that it's Sarah Palin, I'm not even sure of the answer myself.

BCS civil war heats up ahead of crunch general meeting

President's background

I've looked at the career and qualifications of the president of the BCS, and she hasn't done much in the way of techy work, and her qualifications don't really lend themselves to a really good through understanding of computers in a way someone with a degree in computer science or a degree in electronics can.

But then, is being a techy or ex-techy good qualifications for the leader? I personally, would feel more comfortable if the leadership had a more technical basis and I could feel they understood what is *I* actually do. I'd have liked them to have done some software development, some testing, to write a bit of embedded code, to run a software development project. But I just don't get the feeling she has done any of that.

IET

I wasn't too impressed with what the IEE when it merged with the lower grade technicians institution.

The IEE was known through out the world, and the name told you exactly what engineering discipline it's members were in.

Merging with an organisation with lower grade technicians in my eyes was a dilution of the organisation and lumping us professional graduate level engineers with people with non grads. Ok, to some of the readers on here, that may seem a bit snobby.

But we professional graduate engineers have suffered for literally decades with low status, little regard by other professions, little recognition, merging us with a bunch of technicans from manufacturing industry I didn't think helped that.

One of they key justifications was that by merging the new body, the iET would have much a much larger membership and significantly increased influence in society, in government, promoting our interests, a bigger voice.

I'm not convinced this has happened, I'm not convinced that the British Government is more willing to listen to us now than before.

iPad's brain not so unique

Chips and all that Jazz

I'm not surprised by this. In fact, it's right thing to do.

I worked in chip design back in the 1990's, when 0.5 micon CMOS and Gallium Arsenide came into being. With such a small feature size a lot more logic gates could be integrated onto the chip (or die to use the correct terminology).

With so many logic gates available, the complexity of the logic circuits increased hugely, the traditional idea of creating the design from scratch, designing every aspect of the circuit would result in very long design cycles,,so something was needed. And hence was born,SoC, system on chip.

The idea was simple, have a predefined logic circuit that the designers could buy from another company, pay a license fee and incoporate into their design.

These were termed macro's. Two types existed. Hard macros and soft macros.

The soft macros were just the logic design, the netlist specifying how all the logic gates where connected. The hard macros contained this,but also contained physical placement information and routing information. The macro would be represented as a rectangle in the chip design tools, the position of the logic gates within that rectangle/within the macro were defined and the electrical routing tracks connecting the gates together was also predefined and incorporated.

The chips had to go through a design cycle of: design the circuit, create test data, simulate it, place and route the chip, re-simulate, send the design off to the manufacturing facilities (Fabs - wafer fabs) for engineering samples to be produced and performance evaluated.

The soft macro had to have its logic gates placed and routed and therefore its performance was not well defined at the pre-layout logic simulation phase. The design could be placed and routed and not deliver enough performance, and hence an iterative development cycle could result.

The hard macro had the advantage that it had already been placed and routed, and was delivered as an entity from the vendor with timing characterised, specified.

in the 1990's simple devices, UARTs and basic 8 bit microprocessors existed as macros.

Since then I imagine the entire field took off.

Manufacturing of chips is another interesting subject in its own right. If anyone's interested I can describe how things were done years ago, it will be very similar today, but they use different materials particularly for the metal interconnect layers on the devices.

BT reaches deadlock with union

Engineers

BT faces a strike ballot after it failed to reach an agreement in a pay dispute with engineers by today's noon deadline.

Some 55,000 members of the Communication Workers Union at BT

if they're members of the Communication Workers union then they're unlikely to be engineers. They're more likely to be technicians.

We in this country are one of the few countries that respect the the title "Engineer".

As a professional engineer, I find it insulting that I am lumped in with guys that make a few wire connections to a Krone rack in a street side distribution cabinet.

Bangladesh cuts off Facebook

@SmallMind - Creator of the Universe

As you will have realised from my previous post - if it's published - that I don't have much time for this religious nonsense. Yes, I acknowledge that religion does have its uses, but the idea that there is a creator of the universe, is just farcical.

The idea that there is a God, that there is a creator is simply a mechanism developed by mankind to try to explain what used to be inexplicable. Hundreds of years ago, people needed a way to explain where the universe came from, where Earth came from and where we, mankind came from.

With all the advancements we've made in the last 100 years, I''m quite frankly amazed, dumbstruck even, that you can believe blindly n the concept of a creator.

There are still many unanswered questions but we have gone a long way to answering them.

Physics, quantum mechanics, we've discovered some very strange things which we've been able to explain (to some degree), surely this has opened up the possibility, or near certainty that a creator does not exist! - but there are things which are simply beyond our comprehension, but the fact we can't explain them fully does not prove the existence of a creator! The fact we can't explain them means that as a species we haven't yet evolved far enough, discovered enough, learned enough to be able to explain them. That is NOT proof of the existence of a God.

Perhaps as a species, we simply lack the brain power to ever understand how the universe came into being, much like a cat or a dog could never understand the idea that energy levels are quantised.

I'm sure the believer's response would be: We haven't proved that God exists, but then we haven't disproved it.

I'd rather believe in something *when* it's been proven to exist thank you. if you want to adopt the alternative position, then you will automatically lose my respect.

I'm baffled by the absolute and total belief that many people have in the existence of something which hasn't been proved and when certainly there's some weighty evidence to indicate it would be disproven. I can conclude that you know little of Physics.

@SmallMind

"My basic point is that I don't think Islam (replace with the religion of your own persuasion) really needs 'protecting' - as this is the religion laid down by the creator of the universe"

Do you not understand that this is one of the key problems in Islam?

This position that has been indroctinated in to you from the age of 5 that Islam is the best religion there is and that it is perfect and so beyond question.

It is this attitude that leads to arrogance and intolerance. Because Islam is perfect - it must be perfect because it was created by God himself - it must not be challenged, criticised and this leads its followers to taking it so seriously.

I'll be blunt, it's all BS! It's time you woke up to what causes the problems.

I have one question for you. You've made quite a claim, it's a huge claim. You said, " this is the religion laid down by the creator of the universe"

My question? Where is the evidence that proves that Islam was created by God him/herself?

Mankind can't even prove the existence of God! And yet, here you are, in your arrogance, proclamining that God created Islam.

Do you not have any understanding of the problems that result from this arrogance?

They don't get it

This whole thing pokes the finger of intolerance at Islam, ridicules its followers for taking things so seriously.

How does Islam respond? By showing its intolerance!

A muslim ex-colleague of mine in Saudi Arabia decided personally to stop using FaceBook and questioned "Why do they do it to us?". They just don't get it do they.

But then, if you geninuely have believed throughout your entire existence that Islam is the best religion out of the lot, then I suppose, you're just not going to get it.

I long for the day when religion is banished from this earth.

ISPs told to keep filesharer naughty list

Labour still got their hand in

Who runs this quango called Ofcom? They're a joke. Probably someone who has close links to Labour.

Alt rock diva's nude snap 'leaked' to tweetosphere

tweeting

I've never taken any kind of interest in tweeting, with 20 years professional IT experience under my belt you'd have thought I'd know something about this technology. I don't.

I have no interest in reading completely useless messages posted by celebrities or some other Tom, Dick, Harry, Peaches, Paris or whatever useless name weird parents can choose for their pretentious kids.

To show that lack of ignorance of the technology (if you can really call it technology?), I understood tweeting was about short messaging, getting information out in difficult circumstances where people have limited bandwidth on their internet connections, so what the heck is this idea of tweeting photographs all about? Doesn't it go complete against the idea of small message sizes (measured in bytes)?

But I really can't be bothered to even go look it up. Haven't people really got better things to do with their lives than read up on the drab and dreary offings of some wannabe celebrity that's got as much talent as my dead mouse?

Well, actually, I haven't got a mouse, neither a live one, or a dead one. Said for dramatic effect.

Someone, someone in the know, please tell me, this tweeting lark, am I missing something?

UK.gov issues death warrant for ID cards

Running Costs

The estimate running costs by Labour of 800milion over 10 years and that its self financing from the public are complete pie in the sky.

Here's my reasoning:

800million over 10 years = 80 million per year.

To raise 80 million quid from £30 cards = 2.6 million cards issued per year.

Now, let's make an assumption: that it takes 3 hours of effort to process the paperwork, do the biometric scans and print the card.

Total man effort required to process 2.6 million applications: = 7.6 million man hours.

Number of man hours per person in one year is: 1800. (48 week year , allowing 4 weeks for holidays)

In practise, it will be a lot lower than this because sick rates of civil servants are much higher than private industry, (the 1800 figure assumes 0 sick days). And, the actual effective utilisation rate of civil servants is very low, typically 50%, whereas for private industry, 75% is a typical figure. The 1800 figure assumes 100% utlisation.

Therefore, number of people required to process 26 million applications in one year is:

7.6million / 1800 = 4222

4222 people required. Assume a salary of 18,000 per year gross to the employee. The actual cost to the company of paying an employee could be twice the basic salary because of the overheads of employers national insurance, pensions etc.

So cost of employing one person: £36,000

4222 people at £36,000 cost is: £151.9 million

The figures just don't add up. There is no way the £800 million can be self financing. Yet more blatent lies from the Labour (ex)government.

They'd have to more than double the price of the cards and dramatically improve civil servant productivity but cutting out all the admin, training, meetings and buracratic nonsense they get involved with on a day to day basis. Not a cat's chance in hell of achieving that.

And this whole basis has been done on new applications, not the call centres that would need to be set up and hundreds, thousands of additional staff required to keep the scheme running.

Israelis build floating electric hover platform

electricity

They've got plenty of fuel to generate the electricity for this, they can dismantle their nuclear arsenal and use the Uranium/Plutonium from that.

HMRC mails wrong private info to 50,000 taxpayers

fire them

Until someone senior in HMRCC is fired for these errors they will keep on making mistakes, irrespective of whatever government is in power.

The government changes, but unfortunately, they don't really know what's going on much lower down in the hierarchy, they don't see the lack-of quality control processes.

The elected politicians may be accountable, but none of the civil servants are. Civl servants don't get fired. They don't even get punished. I've worked for them..I know.

Blunkett threatens to sue for £30 ID card refund

Financial Saving

So scrapping the ID card system isn't worth it because it wil only save 86million quid?

Given the state of the country's finances, we're going to have to save every quid wherever we can, sure, cutting large capital projects will gain us a few quick wins to eat into the mountain of debt, but we'll soon be scratching around trying to save the odd million here there and everywhere. We will have to.

Saving 86 million quid when you're almost bankrupt is necessary. Perhaps Blunkett doesn't understand money to well. Not to mention the year on year savings in running costs

Perhaps Labour didn't understand money too well and is the reason why we are in the serious financial mess we are in. What they did to this country was dispicable. The truth is now starting to come out as the new government uncover what has really been going on behind those closed doors in Whitehall.

Admittedly, the ID card issue isn't just about money, it's about putting right the gradual erosion of our civil liberties which Labour inexorably dug away at, quite intentionally, as a way to monitor and control the people in a form of Stalinism but dressed up deceivingly as anti-terrorism. Because that's exactly what it was. Why else would ContactPoint database need to store records on every child in the country when all that is needed are records for those that are on the at-risk register with social services?

Bad design

The ID card was a complete joke. Take a look at it. The card itself is plastered with information on the front and reverse sides of the card with biometric information stored within.

By placing information on the outside of the card which can change you immediately create a requirement to re-issue the cards when the information goes out of date.

The cost of this whole mechanism would have added tens of millions to the running costs of the scheme, most of which I'm sure would have been paid by Joe Public in direct fees to have the card re-issued and the rest would have also been paid by Joe Public in the form of taxes which are then paid to the not so-civil civil servants being gainfully employed in handling the changed information.

Ah, so not everyone has a card reader and they need the information on the outside of the card?

Rubbish. Card readers are everywhere these days, even battery powered and portable with wireless connections.

Stick one in your cop car, stick one in your benefits office, stick one in your local hospital, stick one in the immigration office and in Customs at the airport..

Let's face it, Labour didn't understand technology and never ever will.

Personally, I think the problem is the lack of technical people in the political classes. Too many lawyers, accountants and not much else. And far too many people with degrees in History that ran this country into the ground.

Government yet to set ContactPoint closure date

@AC

AC is obviously a leftie.

Saving hours

The idea that ContactPoint saves millions of hours of time is a complete lie.

Yes, it saves time of the professionals working with children, the doctors, the police.

But, the database is complete overkill, there's a considerable amount of effort on the part of the councils in uploading the records and keeping them up-to-date.

In principle ContactPoint is a good idea, it is little more than a glorified address/telephone book. To that end it serves a very useful purpose.

What Labour did wrong was to insist on putting records of every child in the country onto it where the alternative was to simply upload records of children that at risk.

I wouldn't like to guess what the difference is between those two figures but I'd bet is quite literally millions, many millions.

That's the problem!

Either a)Labour were completely stupid and couldn't understand this, or b) they've got alterior motives and wanted that data for other purposes.

For b), Labour would try to claim it's part of the "Every Child Counts" idea, the framework., which in reality was nothing other than a scheme to track almost everything about children and I suspect with the goal of keeping tabs on every individual in the country - every adult was once a child.

Trust Labour with that? Never.

Laws puts brakes on gov IT spending

unions

Wait for the strikes as the Unions start baring their teeth.

Dell begs ToryDems to keep NHS IT project

alternative strategy

I wouldn't like to comment on whether we should keep or reject the NHS IT system, there may be parts sufficiently mature to be useful.

They've been far too ambitious, and isn't that often the way, which then leads to the failure of the project.

My own view is that the UK would have been better allow the regional NHS authorities (or trusts as they call them now) to purchase off the shelf software products such as used by the Americans and standardize on an interface to enable the different regional trusts to exchange medical records.

Not so hard is it? Would have been a far lower risk approach.