* Posts by Robert E A Harvey

3010 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2006

Is Microsoft brewing a Win8, WinPho code merge?

Robert E A Harvey

Violins playing

We've heard all this before. Was it WP6? I really don't care enough to remember.

Like Linux, it would be perfectly possible for them to come up with a Kernel that can run on anything from a writswatch to a supercomputer. But they won't.

Like Linux they could then install different types of user experience on top of that, for different types of Appliance. But they won't.

They won't because they can't break the legacy link, unless they are going to give us all a free XP VM to run legacy programmes.

Microsoft beaten down 16pc on software sales to NHS

Robert E A Harvey

I would be more sympathetic to the 'cost of retraining' aguement ir there was any evidence at all that they have trained anyone on MS stuff.

Word documents laid out with spaces, "databases" kept in Excel, using memory sticks to copy files between machines in the same building.

Need I go on?

Robert E A Harvey
Headmaster

so paying 100 quid for something you can get for nowt is bad, but paying 84 quid is good?

Greenland 'lurched upward' in 2010 as 100bn tons of ice melted

Robert E A Harvey

1mm a year?

We are all doomed!

Gov websites' value not at all clear despite trimming

Robert E A Harvey

It's queer thing

When the penny [post was invented, govt. departments had to deal with letters from people. When the telephone came along they started answering the phone. I don't recall anyone agonising over the costs then.

Now the internet has come along, and they'e responded. So why the costs analysis? It's something they need to have, like a roof.

Dell XPS 14z 14in Core i5 notebook

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

768?

Again with the cheap & nasty screen resolution? On a premium product? Yuk.

HP throws WebOS to open source community

Robert E A Harvey

No sensible judge would back a patent on a product so publically abandoned and whose core OS had been loudly open sourced like that.

Now we need sensible judges...

Robert E A Harvey

It does seem to confirm the Betamax effect, doesn't it.

No product, no matter how good, no matter how well designed or built, can survive incompetent management or vested interest.

Digital certificate authority suspends ops following breach

Robert E A Harvey

erk?

If penetrating a web site implies penetrating the trusted certification setup, then something is wrong. You wouldn't surely run the public-facing web server on the same iron as the authentication service? or, indeed, have any connection whatsoever?

Facebook disses Effin Irishwoman

Robert E A Harvey

Oh well

This makes a change from those two perrenials:

the Ugly women's institute

the Idle working man's club.

TV writer quells rumours of Doctor Who movie

Robert E A Harvey

nominations

I still want Emma Watson to be the doctor one day.

Viewsonic PLED W500 portable projector

Robert E A Harvey

Very tempting.

I might just wait until next year, for the 2nd gen. The Feminus Domesticorum likes the Olympics, this could be the right solution for watching them!

The TARDIS through the ages

Robert E A Harvey

who knows. I've not been well.

Robert E A Harvey

William Hartnell once had a problem with a stuck switch that took him back to the start of time.

And the line 'Oh I don't know, I've seen bigger boot cupboards' will live with me for a long time.

HP CEO to reveal fate of WebOS in two weeks

Robert E A Harvey

Yes, but I don't think they've got that yet.

Judge orders search giants: Delist Chanel rip-off merchants

Robert E A Harvey

+1 again

Yes. Remove all references to Chanel perfume from the web.

No-one will die, it doesn't matter.

Chanel survived 120 years before the invention of the web, so they must have other methods of reaching their gullible halfwit^W^W public

James Bond savages the Kardashians

Robert E A Harvey
WTF?

I just had to google them myself.

I am dissapointed. I had hoped they would turn out to be Lizard people from the Alpha quadrant.

It turned out they are rich tosspots. Mr Bond has called Tosspots tosspots, so all power to him, but apart from that /Yawn/.

Ultrabook prices to fall as manufacturers slash margins

Robert E A Harvey
Meh

HP

> HP... ultrabooks out in time for the Christmas

Time to find out what they learned from pricing the TouchPud the same as the iPud.

UK Met Office: World temperature back down to 1997 level

Robert E A Harvey
Facepalm

I thought that said 'Stobb' for a minute

Gov asks disabled users how it can make web easier

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Up

Does he take sugar?

Bit of a blinder, that. Asking disabled people what they /want/? We might be in the 21st Century after all!

We need IT to stop NHS flushing away cash - ex-Health Sec

Robert E A Harvey

'ang on a minute.

Businesses started using computers to control accounts and purchasing and stock level between the 1960s and 1980s. Is Dorrel saying that of all that money spent on NHS IT over decades and decades none of it went to the simplest, longest established, best understood use of computers?

And wasn't he in charge of it?

Orange contract price hike angers subscribers

Robert E A Harvey
Meh

Oh, give them all another 200 free texts they will never use. That will shut them up!

Toshiba readies zero Watt standby mode telly

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Up

>Now if the screen could act like a solar cell...

We would not be able to see the X factor through it...

Robert E A Harvey
Go

>Then again, a saving of roughly £2 a year was never

>going to be a major selling point anyway

I don't know. Given the propaganda that has demonised standby mode, and the apparent innumeracy of the public it could be a major advertisable feature!

Groupon shares plunge: Drain in sight

Robert E A Harvey
Happy

Can I be the first to say?

Bwahahhahhhaa!

Give Osborne a shovel: UK economy stuck in deep hole

Robert E A Harvey
FAIL

This is not a comment.

I really don't dare to comment for fear of being so abusive I get arrested

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android smartphone

Robert E A Harvey

>That assumes good coverage and a decent download speed.

and never leaving the country.

I've had 45 days in the UK this year.

Robert E A Harvey

@AC 14:23

At least 4:

This year's prom concerts/ Choral Evensong / Beethoven / Handel etc.

Mark Kermode's film reviews/In Our Time/ 100 objects/Pienaar/Jodcast/Poetry Please etc.

Bellowhead/Spiers-Boden/Demon Barbers/Tull/Fairport/Carthy/Steeleye/Anahata etc.

Big Band/Swing/Jazz/Bepop/Glen Miller/Art Tatum etc.

and perhaps Manuals/IEC standards/Drawings/Customer config files for work.

And I change them in my sansa clip+ because you have to take the battery out of the phone to get to the slot & that looses date & time.

Having (at least) a slot is on my buying list for a phon

Robert E A Harvey

and it is time for our old friend: "Ow much Granville?!"

what happened to things getting cheaper over time?

Future of computing crystal-balled by top chip boffins

Robert E A Harvey
Coat

>Intel's first strained silicon processor was the "Prescott" Pentium 4 of 2004.

That's the effect of poor code name choice for you!

Beware the software security scare silly season

Robert E A Harvey

by-pass sheds

One of the by-pass sheds (I really could not be bothered to notice which) was advertising Android tablets on the idiot box last night, ending with a splash for anti-virus (brand similarly forgotten) to run on Android.

My first thought was 'Yuk, exploiting the gullible again'

Tablets need permanent Black Friday price slash to triumph

Robert E A Harvey

Yawn

I would have thought that said analysts only needed to read the comments at el reg, engadget, etc. to come up with such a statement of the bleeding obvious

What should a sci-fi spaceship REALLY look like?

Robert E A Harvey
Happy

I had a lot of time for B5.

It was written like a novel, with a start, a whole bunch of middles, and an end.

The spaceships were variously feasible or deeply cool, and sometimes both.

I just think they must have regretted the silly hairdos & cloak clad oddities by the end.

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Up

I'll give you an answer.

Only one answer really. Anastasia, Dan Dare's private spaceyacht

http://www.dan-dare.org.uk/anastasia.htm

http://spaceshipaway.org.uk/centre-spreads/centrespreads-4.htm

Robert E A Harvey

Yep

Assuming that the ship has to contain an atmosphere of some sort then the sphere makes good sense. Then, if there is any sort of radiation hazard from the engines a 10KM open frame pylon with the engine at the other end...

And we are back to 2001.

Robert E A Harvey

>perhaps the impulse drives' thrust vector goes precisely through CoG...

That will be why voyager's nacelles fold up?

Robert E A Harvey

Does it matter?

Once you reach the sophistication of 'The Culture' you can make your ships look like anything you want. I'd go for an LMS streamlined pacific and coaches.

Ofcom: ISPs can cripple the web as much as they please

Robert E A Harvey
Unhappy

I think that making ISPs own up to traffic shaping or throttling in a way that makes competitive comparison easy would be a really good idea.

But I can't see them doing it and I can't see FailCom making them do it.

How digital audio ate itself and the music industry

Robert E A Harvey

I recall going to Mullard conferences in London where they talked about CD design choices. 44.1KHz was the Lowest figure they wanted to use. The original engineers wanted something like 100KHz, but the marketing guys put on two constraints:

* The disk had to fit into a machine that would go in a DIN car radio cutout

* The disk had to hold a one hour duration

Given that they were going to be pressed on modified record presses, and the properties of the then laser heads, which determined the bit rate in the plastic, they had to squeeze down to 44.1KHz

Apple MacBook Pro 13in Core i5 laptop

Robert E A Harvey

Expensive?

Just looking at the ones you compared it to:

Travelmate £678.21

Sony £1,239.97

Ethos £999.97

I don't reckon its a bad price for what you get.

Boffin's wall of bees shields farms from stampeding elephants

Robert E A Harvey

>Who cares about honey yields.?

The Bees?

I suspect half the hives could end up empty if they can't make enough.

Superhero oil-burping algae will save the world

Robert E A Harvey
Headmaster

indeed. A system that produced more than it absorbed would have to answer some pretty stern questioning

Robert E A Harvey
Headmaster

@dr2chase

Nah, that's easy. We merely need to apply 'population pressure' to make the production of oil adventitious. The obvious solution is some aggressive growing medium where the aggression is mitigated by secreting 4* petrol.

Then Darwin will work to improve, rather than reduce, yield.

Apple one-day-only sale plans for Macs, iPads leaked to web

Robert E A Harvey

To be fair the Ford Mundaine is a perfectly usable vehicle.

But I'll stick with my Alfa

Robert E A Harvey

Bargain

I reckon, at list price, the macbook air is a bargain compared to the proposed prices of ultrabooks.

Inside the BBC's R&D Labs

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

yuk

Is that inspired by W8, do you think?

Poll: One in six interrupt bonking to answer mobile

Robert E A Harvey

Oh dear.

Did it not occur to them that asking a stupid question often yields a stupid answer?

HP's server, PC, and printer businesses stumble

Robert E A Harvey

Not rocket science

The previous CEO was touting the PC hardware business round car boot sales, and telling everyone who would listen that they were a software services company. And at the car boot sales no-one was buying.

If you were buying medium iron, or even printers, you might pause and think 'but will they be there in 5 years time'?

Tablets mean tubby HDDs must get thinner - A*STAR

Robert E A Harvey

I'd like to patent...

...the idea of using the disk platter as the rotor in the motor

SQUID calls 'virtual photons' into real existence

Robert E A Harvey

'clearly not observed'

Áh.

Rather like the various 'virtual' returns of Christ in the last century?