Posts by christopher

Exploding core counts: Heading for the buffers

Multithreaded programming.

Help!

I want a 1000 monkeys to crank out shakespear's greatest work.

Any idea how long this will take?

Cows can't detect earthquakes: Official

Meanwhile....

In the UK, scientists are trying to figure out how a flying cow could have destroyed a windturbine.

Robo-flower wilts as power burns

I've got one of those.

My wife's face wilts everytime she has to pay the fucking leccy bill.

Google - your source for FREE Adobe gear

Missed a trick.

This sponsor is only offering support for the 30 DAY TRIAL version of the product.

Read the small print at the top of the sign in page.

Virgin Media calls foul on web speed testers

Multiple TCP/IP connections

Just install FDM(free download manager) and watch your TCP download speeds soar.

Your router might have a problem though.

Now Hollywood is chasing UK downloaders

Torrent

Cool- The file is still available for download. Thanks Tiscalli. :)

Dell hits all the wrong keys – again

Don't worry.

If you do need a replacement keyboard then contact us by e-mail.

Support"Dell.com

Quantum crypto targeted in attack of the clones

@no optical boffin but..

There is a hidden variable effect when it comes to entagled particles such as photons. If you take two photons & split them into two different directions you will then be able to recreate what Einstien called "spooky action at a distance". This is where whatever you do to one particle the other will immediately take on the opposite property

Dell touts Windows XP to 2009 - and 'likely longer'

Cheers

At last some common sense from an OEM.

Multi-threaded development joins Gates as yesterday's man

Quantum Processing.

We are nearly there. Quantum computing actually solves the linear processing problem that hinders traditional Multithreading.

Just hope someone from the quantum world is reading this & can give us an estimate as to when we will see a prototype cell.

HP settles patent row with Acer

HP Vs Acer

If I were Acer I'd probably now check my rear end for bugging devices.

Blighty admits 'national shortage' of nuke engineers

Sector 7G

I know just the man for the job.

Sorry! Just had to say it.

Virgin Media and BPI join forces to attack illegal filesharing

Brilliant!!

I can't wait to get my warning letter. Then I'll fire-off a couple of data protection requests aimed at determining exactly how they identified me.

Optical boffins cut the cost of quantum cryptography

"Spooky action at a distance"

Einstein called out a strange quantum effect which he labelled "spooky action at a distance".

The effect is this... two travelling photons of light begin their journey in an entangled state.. thats to say they are travelling in the same direction in phase & in close proximity to each other. Identical in everyway. We then use an optical splitter to split those photons up in two different directions.

The "spooky action" means that whatever we do to one particle then the other will take on the opposite property. So lets say we polarise one horizontally then the other no matter how far away will instantly take on the vertical polarisation.

This allows for ultra secure information transmission, teleportation but not FTL or time travel. Google "spooky action at distance if you want to know more.

Tories would have to compensate ID vendors

@Mark

Mark, Thats a good idea mate.

Apple unleashes monster patch batch on Mac faithful

An Apple with a hole.

Is a sure sign of a worm. :p

Mines is the one with the sizable patch on the elbows

XP daddy: go incremental on design

@XP.

Extreme Programming?

Apple fans roast Apple fans

Fan chokes on Apple Core!

Sorry - i just had to get that in there.

This notebook looks cool but its damn expensive & kinda limited,

Surely Dell & Compaq ultra portables are better value for money?

I saw a rival ultraportable compared to the MBA on TV & you could play decent games on the rival.

Seriously though,

I think Apple should ditch their lead designer for a couple of months & bring in Jeremy Clarkson.(bring back the MacIntosh)

In the meantime...I'm going to reboot my big ugly XPS thats just crashed after 2 hours of Crysis. Bloody Windows Vista. :(

UK supercomputer probes secrets of universe

Quantum Games?

When and if we do solve this mystery what are we going to do with it???

Can I play Crysis on this machine?

Invisible-shed spy beam tech detects hidden artworks

@Timothy

Your talking about tachyons.

Its still only theory as the scientists methods could not survive mathematical scrutiny.

The only thing that was proven is that a quantum particle only exists when it is observed or interacts with another object.

In the time between transmission and observation the particle can be proven to exist at all points in space at any one time or all points in time at a specific point in space(but not both). i.e it collapses into existence.

Leaked email reveals civil service laptop rules

Leaked Email???

How the hell..Doesn't this count as a restricted circular under the official secrets act?

I don't think the civil service culture can take this seriously.

Kylie wraps herself round Dalek

Kylie is hot

If I was inside that Dalek costume they wouldn't need to stick on a ray gun.

I'd also do the locomotion. :P

Virgin Media eases off bandwidth throttling

Cable is fine.

Got a 20Mbit VM cable connection.

Typically used to only max about 7.2MBits and complained a couple of times to VM but they told me that I'd only ever see max speeds at 4am.

Ioverlooked several things though. :D While studying for a N+ decided it was best to ditch my wireless Netgear rangemax and try a "borrowed" cisco switch.

I then ditched the "mainstream" broadband testers in favour of a download manager & popular "legal" movie download site.(based in Russia although you have to pay $1.99 per movie :(...)

My next words were along the line "Holy flaking Christmas".

Downloaded a 690Mb AVI file in 4 Minutes 41 Seconds. :D That included about 20 seconds of sourcing time by the download manager.

Surely a fluke.

Tried it again with a different movie - exact same speed ~20MBits/second or roughly 2.5MBytes per second. Even during peak times.

Downloaded some MSDN software at a similar speed & just downloaded the ISO pointed out by Martin Richards above and it managed to build up to about 9Mbits/s before it finished through the download manager. I expect it could have gone higher as it found 19 sources but only managed to trigger 8 of them before the download completed(about 14 seconds).

Turns out my Netgear couldn't handle multiple connections.

Tried a belkin and it stopped responding when I sourced from 8 or more.

I thought I was tech savy but obviously I missed this one.

PC superstore unhinged by Linux

RE:This is some kind of groundbreaking news?

When a tech asks you "have your tried re-installing your operating system" it should be well within your expertise to answer with a "yes" instead of a "no".

Honestly! Your liberal use of incorrect industry terminology to describe a hardware failure also causes a problem for tech's.

The I.T. support departments in PC World,Dell,HP,Currys would do little harm in supplying online training for customers educating them in proper troubleshooting techniques. It would probably save them time in dealing with mis-informed customers.

Me - "This computer won't boot anymore, sounds like the heads have crashed - they're making a clicking noise"

Tech - "The heads have crashed? Have you got collision insurance?"

Me - "No, the disk is entirely inaccessible, given that the heads have crashed."

Tech - "Inaccessible crash you say? Have you tried calling mountain rescue?"

Me - "Well, I've already tried that and the harddrive is still clicking"

Tech - "Is it trying to communicate with you? Maybe it(the SB controller) needs a BIOS update? "

Me - "How does a software fix repair failed hardware?"

Tech - "A BIOS flash isn't the same as a software fix..you say you used to work for PCW?"

Click!

Personal Computer World.

Can't be very personal if one can't switch O.S.'s. I reckon the guy in the shop made an honest mistake..however this indicates a culture in which warranty turndowns are the norm. From my experience of PC World in Glasgow I found their repairs to be good..even on several occasions repairing things that would normally be chargable for free. Turning on the charm does help slightly & trying to find staff at the service counter is another hurdle but hey. Thats another story. :D

Reed seeks project engineer at £2k per hour

The DWP.

OMG thats over 300k just to refurbish IT kit. The DWP are certainly managing their budgets well.

Fist-sized monkey flies from Florida to New York

Movies

Has anybody seen Outbreak? What a good movie.

Jet-powered go-kart roars onto eBay

JFS-100

Starter motor.

Thrust 90~500lbs

Fuel Consumption:~12Gallons per hour Jet-A

Weight:140lbs empty.

200BHP.

Assuming nozzle type, airflow, weight & resistance of the cart its top acceleration is 0-60mph in 18seconds +/- 10 Seconds

Airflow characteristics unknown. top speed 300+/- 300mph

Spyware mum foils pervert

Legal responsibility

The legal responsibility of activities on the family computer can only lay with the owner.

The parent had every right to install key logging software on 'her' system.

This is purely by legal definition, however she would have to notify anyone in the household who she is not responsible for & uses the computer that such monitoring is in place and it its purpose.

In this case because the child is under 16 she did everything within the confines of the law.

Free and clear.

The man from New York clearly has issues. No one should resort to intercontinental travel for companionship.

Google acquires 'sandbox' technology for secure browsing

Vista & Internet Explorer 7

IE7 can already function in protected mode (AKA lorie)

This only works in Vista but works very well.

In order to escape the virtual sandbox of 'lorie' only the user of the machine can knowingly allow this to happen.

If an online app needs to write to a directory then it gets a

virual enviroment all in the temporary internet files folder which gets flushed anyway.

Vista then gives the user another 3 levels of protection.

MIC- Mandatory Integrity Control, UIP-User Interface priviledge & of course that big anoying thingy the UAC.

Even if a user is a member of the admin group and tried to run an application. It will always run as if they were in a limited account- this prevents write to places such as the registry, program files, windows folder.

It will also isolate applications from each other in memory therby reducing the risk of syphening data.

Any applcations that do run and want to embed themselves in Vista through registry entries and file plants are also restricted by the principle of least priviledge.

Finally if a virus does happen to get past all this and try to embed itself in Vista it will probably get stuck in a virtual enviroment anyway since the PCA will redirect protected write requests to a virtualstore.

Although playing dice with backward compatibility ("Microsoft's Biggest asset"-Bill Gates, March 2006)

MS are trying to enter a world where people opting for admin rights is a thing of the past & reduce the need for apps to embed themelves in the core makeup of MS Windows.

If you read this far then you are a pure geek!!!!