Posts by anentropic

So why the hell didn't quantitative easing produce HUGE inflation?

"Most of the money they are lent by savers they lend out again to people who need it for some purpose"

In fact they don't just lend out 'most of the money' they are lent by savers... they lend out many times *more* money than they are lent by savers

the amount of actual savings on the books versus the larger amount lent out is the reserve ratio

there is no minimum reserve ratio in UK (expressed as percentage it's typically low single digits)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement#United_Kingdom

Game designer spills beans on chubby-fancying chap with his stolen Mac

Hidden

I can't help wondering how useful is the Hidden app if he had to wait for the crook to "accidentally release the lock controls" as described in the article?

Apple iOS 5's hidden 3D revealed

WebGL not interactive...?

"WebGL is today's attempt to get 3D objects into web pages, using JavaScript this time around. It's not as interactive as the HTML-based VRML was"

um, this is nonsense. people are writing games with WebGL. Being as it's used via Javascript I think it's fair to say WebGL is a lot *more interactive* than VRML, which was just a markup language.

Highest point on the Moon found: Higher than Mount Everest

out of the trenches

'but the moon has no seas' was also my first thought... but equally it's unfair measuring the height of Everest from the bottom of Mariana Trench.

The trench is a localised feature. Ideally the depth of trenches and height (or rather 'tallness') or mountains should be measured from the mean surface elevation (which itself I suppose is measured from the gravitational centre of the planetoid?)

in other words the depth of a trench shouldn't count towards the tallness of a mountain

I wonder if NASA have already done that in this case, since they talk about a 'lunar surface' which is a rather vague term

Apple buys out $1bn data center squatters

Ping Pongs

"Is he cooking up a Facebook challenger, with his new and improved "social networking for music" effort, Ping, as his testbed?"

Dear god I hope not, Ping is a massive FAIL so far.

Firefox 4 second beta hits minor delay

Um

"Underlying code in that beta included an HTML5 parser, called WebSockets,"

I don't think 'WebSockets' is an HTML5 parser. It's one of the new technologies under the 'HTML5' banner.

I guess you meant something like "...included an updated HTML5 parser and support for WebSockets..."