Re: Old meme is old
When I see him in AA I wonder what he has in the satchel.
No doubt, it includes a towel.
83 publicly visible posts • joined 18 May 2010
@John H Woods
That was my initial thought. But if you picked up two objects simultaneously - or rather put them back simultaneously on the same shelf... (It would know what was taken from the fridge and therefore already knows the previous weights.)
The scanning sounds like a lot of faff. Though I'd be up for one if, across the door threshold, the scanner was the laser mist from Alien. It would also keep the nasties inside the fridge (or the other way around - keep them out?)
Otherwise, I agree: a solution to a non-existent problem.
If your customer base is in the UK and the IP address come from somewhere else, then this is not likely to be your customer.
That's a parochial view you're adopting of how people use the Internet. Being able to order from overseas is v.handy. I ordered bottles of wine from Tesco for the folks while I was in Australia.
Don't know about Windows, but on Linux you can revert that useless and annoying Capslock key back into a Ctrl key (where the Ctrl key should normally be) by adding XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:nocaps" to /etc/default/keyboard.
Or get a better keyboard like the HHKB that, along with the Windows keys, does away with it all together.
@Lee D
I don't understand why you're sorry?
Did you read my post? The casual fault is bad EPG data. Yes, this should have been avoided by better software, both the software used by the EPG preparer - it should verify the data before committing to broadcast - and the firmware in the recorder should not trust external data even from non-belligerent sources. I reiterate, "to all involved: more testing, guys!"
Also, there appear to be a fault on your keyboard. It seems to be outputting occasional words in all-caps. Unless this is a wetware fault?
I'm one of those Sony users affected by the broadcast of out-of-spec EPG data.
It's not and has never been about a firmware update from Sony. The BBC article is factually incorrect.
Some knowledgable people have tracked the error down as corrupt EPG data from Sky, or its EPG data supplier, being broadcast on COM5. It would appear to boil down to a missing "/" in the data.
Other makes of Freeview devices gracefully handled this error; the Sony HXD boxes made by Pioneer and some Pioneer boxes (and a few others) choked when presented with this data stream.
Retuning using France as the location was a temporary workaround. They must use a different EPG ident or structure or something so the UK EPG packets in the broadcast stream were discarded and hence no recorder crash. You could select either Guide++ or digital EPG (though the EPG was still empty) to affect which timer controls to use. Selecting Guide++ while using a UK location did not help.
By Sunday afternoon, Sony, DTT and other big nobs had got together, kicked bottom and the broadcast stream was fixed. Everything seems to be back to normal now.
You can follow the whole EPG Black Friday saga here:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-ray-dvd-recorders/1795677-sony-870-all-sony-hxd-some-pioneers-dvd-recorders-no-freeview.html
As a developer I know it's the dull boring bit but, hey, to all involved: more testing guys!
That's what I was thinking. Ferrite-core (magnetic-core) memory was one of the earliest implementations for random-access memory. And gave us the term core memory.
I seem to remember many years ago, Thompson were investigating reading magnetic tape using a laser. It would have eliminated the rotating head on VCRs but DVD was already looming so it never appeared.
Put the two together...
I've always pronounced giga with a J as in giant, gigantic etc. Isn't that the logical pronunciation?
Does anyone know the pronunciation for the Latin (or is it Greek?) source for these English words? Has the sound of the first G transmuted on its way into English?
Oh yeah, GIF is a hard G - isn't JIF a household cleaning product?
@h3 "The only thing I am bothered about is focus follows mouse with no autoraise."
I'm with you on that point. It is so much more productive. Ditto for for Alt+mouse button for move, resize and raising. This should be the default behaviour on all desktops, including Windows and Macs which are unusable because of this. Also mouse middle-click for paste is something I really miss when I'm forced to use Windows.
Is there a good reason why El Reg pages are fixed-width HTML?
My complaint is that it's only using half of my monitor's screen. And it scales horribly if I attempt to make the fonts larger.
I know, from personal experience, that creating HTML that fills the entire screen and gracefully scales takes a little more effort.
Just curious. Lots of other sites do the same thing. I'm sure I've read the W3C recommends that one should not make assumptions about target screen resolutions. Yup, graphics will look smaller but I went for a hires monitor so fonts can be scaled larger and still be crisp.
I disagree. My folks are from an era where equipment had a single function per button. They fully understand this type of UI. The modern style of menus with control a cursor with direction keys and OK is an utterly alien concept.
As an example they had an old JVC VCR whose timer could be set from the front of the machine itself. Mum would have no problem setting this. She now gets lost immediately having to navigating on-screen menus and gives up. She doesn't get the concept at all. I understand where she is coming from. Simple things should be simple and complex thing should be possible. It seems things are going to get more complicated and using less buttons.
As the article says, press the red button and OK to go straight to iPlayer. Or it could even be on its own iPlayer button... (Hopefully Mum will comprehend the subsequent iPlayer pages...)