* Posts by Robert E A Harvey

3010 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2006

Google Linux servers hit with $5m patent infringement verdict

Robert E A Harvey

Wirth

I wonder if he could give evidence?

I bet he wishes he'd patented everything in his book!

Calling all readers: Want some new icons?

Robert E A Harvey

more suggestions

"Please explain" - big question mark

"I remember" - Grandfather clock? abacus? punch card?

"I agree wholeheartedly" - Big Tick? +1? Two heads?

"Der-brain" - big head, litle brain?

Apple stuns Wall Street with 95% earnings surge

Robert E A Harvey

Apple's only declining segment was iPods

well, there can't be many more to sell - surely everyone who wants one has got one?

Hardware boom boosts IBM in Q1

Robert E A Harvey

Big contrast

oh look. http://www.reghardware.com/2011/04/12/context_uk_pc_sales_q1_2011/

'UK PC sales during the first quarter of the year were down 7.7 per cent, well below the European average of 2.9 per cent."

Looks like IBM is doing even betterer than the article suggests. Or is this another manifestation of Obama's 'spend yer way to affluence' policy?

'Fierce competition' drives Apple's iPhone 6 changes

Robert E A Harvey
Boffin

not trying hard enough

>when we have full coloUr, high resolution, roll up, flexible displays

Passe - we want direct neural connection, and we want it now!

Robert E A Harvey

@Anomalous Cowherd

The lens/camera combo sounds marginally less likely to kill you too.

Robert E A Harvey
Boffin

more suggestions

IR pyrometer,

electric/magnetic field non-contact sensors,

A load cell so you can weigh tiny tings to high resolution (what /could/ you use that for?)

anenometer

Hygrometer

ultrasonic distance measurer for estate agents

Asus N73SV Core i7 Sandy Bridge 17.3in laptop

Robert E A Harvey

buglisting this idea

I've raised https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36400 to suggest relocating controls in LibreOffice

Robert E A Harvey

vertical pixels in short supply

What is it about vertical pixels? A few years ago 1024 was the norm for vertical pixels, then people went all 900 high and now we are supposed to wet ourselves because this has 1080? Why are screens not 2048 high by now?

This shift to wide-screen TV proportions has made a lot of software with its men us, button bars, navigation bars, drawing bars, status lines all very crowded. Lets put the controls down the left hand side now that we have wide screens, and give us some workable space back on the document/maths/canvas/feature area.

Brussels threatens to name ISPs with 'doubtful' market practices

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Up

HURRAH!

At last, some value from taxes paid!

Microsoft opens Office 365 beta floodgates to the world

Robert E A Harvey

one born every minute

>equally amusing that companies such as Microsoft believe people want to

>use Cloud based "services" such as this in any sort of meaningful volumes

Can you say "Royal mail"?

Citroën lifts lid on looming diesel hybrid

Robert E A Harvey

dear god

30,000 POUNDS? Are they serious? Seems like a very expensive way to beat the congestion charge to me.

For that sort of money you can get 3-and-a-bit Citroen C1 1.4 HDi Rhythm, they are plain diesels that do 60mpg That will be 12 seats for the price of 4!

Include the lifetime carbon (build and recycle effects) and this is a very stupid idea indeed.

SCHEITERN: Scientologists want to friend schoolkids on Facebook

Robert E A Harvey

eww, creepy

right decision, mind. creepy, creepy

Oracle tests find NFC lags in execution

Robert E A Harvey

never fast enough

It will never be fast enough to persuade me to trust it. Far too far left field.

So, what's the best sci-fi film never made?

Robert E A Harvey

Dear gods, no!

>Michael Bay directing Rendezvous with Rama?

I'll not sleep now. Ugh

Robert E A Harvey

+1 for Greg Bear

Terraforming mars as a multi-film franchise.

Robert E A Harvey

Just a reminder

Don't forget that "Cold Comfort Farm" is in some wise science fiction - with video phones and private jets taken as read for the metropolitan population, to further contrast with the rural isolation.

Robert E A Harvey
Alien

Bit of a laugh

If we can have Agatha Hetrodyne, could we have Crimson dark

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Up

two remembered, one nearly forgotten

The city & the stars. Childhoods end. Clarke.

'Wild geese' Forgotten author, perhaps the commenards can help. Space ship is an Irish convent, run by a scheming Mother Superior. Wild Geese was the name for the company of lay brothers and mercenaries that ran the ship & did any fighting.

Server vendors and the dead hand of commoditisation

Robert E A Harvey

me too

I think the problem is me-too management styles, where executives see an established market and want a slice of /that/. Innovation would take time, cost money, need explaining. Just photocopy what is already selling and get on with it.

You can see the same thing with compact digicams, and white goods.

Arcam FMJ AVR400 AV receiver

Robert E A Harvey

The imaging precision is pinpoint,

Umm. Care to explain? I am an old wavefront-reconstruction stereo buff, is that what you mean? But how can that possibly relate to n+1 channels? Does the supplied microphone and calibration thingy include phase delay correction? or what?

Robert E A Harvey

Internet radio

Does the internet radio include BBC radio channels? Streaming or iplayer?

It would be tragic if I could not use this for the HD stereo used during last years proms on Radio 3. Does that work?

Ellison's Oracle washes hands of OpenOffice

Robert E A Harvey

Well, that's the other shoe.

Hands up who was not expecting this.

WTF is... 4K x 2K?

Robert E A Harvey
Stop

Stop pissing about with the tellies

I won't buy a new telly every 18months when most channels are still showing shows made when 625 was the only choice.

Stop pissing about with the screens, it's the dodgy content that puts me off, not the picture.

German prangs dad's £275k supercar

Robert E A Harvey

title

Boys will be boys. At least everyone is still beathing.

BBC engineers see PLT knocking out DAB

Robert E A Harvey
Coat

@AC 10:06

So what are you saying? Someone is having a Gigle?

Robert E A Harvey

Hate

DAB is a geriatric solution to a problem that does not exist.

Originally conceived as a way of automating radio listening so that people did not have to re-tune their car radios as they drove along, or suffer fading from multipath it was also adapted to increase the number of channels available by TDM. But we are not short of FM spectrum, particularly when so many local commercial radio stations have been merged into national conglomerates. And a serious attempt to measure the artistic quality would be very disappointing. Very dissapointing indeed.

The battery consumption of portables is appalling, and the level of technology required means that cheap radio is impossible. And the abysmal bit rates drive the final nail into the coffin from my point of view.

Oh, and as early adopters, nay originators, we are lumbered with a system that the rest of the world has moved on from.

We have internet capacity enough and satellite channels that cover all the stations (although the satellite channels are under-utilised, being fed from the low bit rate DAB channel in too many cases). Our american cousins, for all their failings, have adopted satellite receivers for cars rather than DAB, and we could do the same. On the subject of internet capacity, that could be improved if ISPs put simple caching servers in the exchanges, so that multiple consumers of radio or tv could be given a single feed over the backbone, rather than multiple identical feeds occupying bandwidth.

And yes, I live in an area which is "marginal" for DAB, but then it is "marginal" for FM, DVT, rdio 5 MW, and broadband as well. If DAB were any good I'd be putting up antennae

Robert E A Harvey

"only"

Sadly, long range radio listening on HF has become pointless just as a new generation of software controlled radios was making the hobby innovative again.

I really miss listening to Strauss from Vienna on 12MHz, and one of the high points of my life was listening to the Bernstein "Ode to Freedom" performance on Deutsche Welle's short wave live coverage.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-Symphony-Freedom-Bernstein-Berlin/dp/B000001GDR

STONERS are DESTROYING the PLANET

Robert E A Harvey

Steady on!

>real work this afternoon

Don't lets go completely down the fantasy trail...

Paramount to recount The Martian Chronicles

Robert E A Harvey

Thought provoking

They were pretty clever stories for the 1950s, and fulfilled the fundamental law of SF in being abut the F, not the S. They made you think, and made you think about real life too. And, come on, is the bee gun not cool?

But the TV series was dire, because it concentrated on the S, all sets and special effects (both beyond the ability of the budget)

I don't think that melancholy air could easily be captured in a film, and as for Holywood doing it - well, no chance.

Android, Steve Jobs, and Apple's '90%' tablet share

Robert E A Harvey

Price

People prepared to pay apple prices are buying apple.

Android has to take market share fromm $299 netbooks. Its no good leaving off the keyboard, Ethernet & usb & then wanting $800

Google hits 'prove we killed no Afghans' – Assange™

Robert E A Harvey
Troll

Bush admin

>The reality is that the Bush Administration actually believed that Saddam had WMDs.

A fair number of then believe that the world was made in 4004BC by a sky fairy.

Troll, cos we don't have any other supernatural beings.

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

"He's more deluded than I thought."

>He's more deluded than I thought.

And he's a self-obsessed, self-important tosser who gets off on publicity.

Thing is, I think wikileaks is a good idea. But He's spoiling it for me.

UK PC sales plunged in Q1

Robert E A Harvey
Unhappy

UK PC sales plunged in Q1

Would this have anything to do with the market maturing? That the PC I built 3 years ago or bought 2 years ago is still more powerful than I would ever need?

Or is it, perhaps, because I can't buy a new one without buying a new copy of Windows, which I already own?

Oh no, it's because I haven't got any money. Certainly not to splash out on something I don't need.

Nokia E7 Qwerty slider smartphone

Robert E A Harvey

Nokia's famous engineering talent

>what happened to Nokia's famous engineering talent?

They were either sacked or ran away when Elop picked WP7

Apple to dominate tablet biz through 2015

Robert E A Harvey
Headmaster

Pseudomaths

I see that I don't need to make my customary disparaging remarks about futurologists, spurious precision, and wishful thinking. It's all been said.

But I'm going to post anyway in case somebody predicted I would. Wouldn't like them to get it wrong!

Level 3 pays $3bn for Global Crossing

Robert E A Harvey

soak the grannies

>the original investors get burnt and 10 years later someone gets a bargain.

Bit like the channel tunnel then. Sold off to the banks for a penny in the pound.

US Navy laser cannon used to set boat aflame

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

Time of crisis

It's interesting that they can afford to set on fire a perfectly good modern outboard. What happened to the tradition of using hulks for target practice?

Brain boffins in cortex mapping breakthrough

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Up

See, now this is proper science.

I, for one, welcome, our UCL tefal-heads. If they can connect me up to my server by the power of thought alone, I will be happy.

Intel does fondleslabs with Atom 'Oak Trail'

Robert E A Harvey

Companion Computing

"Companion Computing" == Please don't stop buying desktops, just 'cos we sold you this. Please. PLEASE!

CPS: We won't prosecute over BT/Phorm secret trials

Robert E A Harvey

unfortunately true

And, frankly, I think their introduction would help cases like this but otherwise be a Bad Thing (TM)

In theory the law is supposed to stand in for all the victims and prosecute the offender. In this case, hands have probably been shaken with infolded fingers.

Robert E A Harvey

there is the rub

>Probably the CPS are unwilling to proceed because they'll lose.

>That loss could then render RIPA unworkable

Someone very senior has decided that. I suspect this is what is meant by "not in the public interest".

personally I'd like to see RIPA torn up and go back to whatever we had in the 1960s.

Robert E A Harvey

Oh?

Out with the pitchforks, then!

Robert E A Harvey

QC

For years people have paid for an 'opinion' from a QC, and filed the resultant letters. They are taken very seriously by the courts as evidence of best efforts.

Doesn;t mean I approve of phorm, who all need to f*k off and die of something horrid [1], but lawer's opinions are routinely sought before going to court.

[1] Twice. At least.

Carphone Warehouse makes Motorola Xoom cheaper

Robert E A Harvey

yep

Even our backstreet computer store has a 7" android 1.x for 99 quid, and a 10" 2.2 for 200.

Both are a bit slow, but both have gps and usb ports.

Robert E A Harvey

But

But my Dell mini-10 has 3G, a 64Gb ssd, 3 usb plug'oles, wired and wifi ethernet, bluetooth, and a Sd slot, camera, microphone, two speakers, and 8 hours worth of batteries. Oh, and a gb of ram, and an atom cpu

And it has a hinge and a keyboard .

and cost me 199 quid. OK it doesn't have a touch screen, but it came with a fabric stuffsack. for 199 quid.

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

Yawn

20 of your earth currency units off?

Wake me up when it costs less than 250

Asus Eee Pad Transformer

Robert E A Harvey

She's over there -->

on the photo scrolling app review

Penguin chief: Linux patent and copyright FUD 'not relevant'

Robert E A Harvey

This is not a title

I am much more concerned about Google closing Android than I am about whether someone thinks they own the copyright on a few hundred lines of ascii text.

The new killer app is … MMS

Robert E A Harvey

gosh

...my cell co does actively pursue and sue text spammers....

Really? Wow! I am seriously impressed