Posts by Adam 93 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jun 2007
When it's in the UK it does! In the UK, UK law applies along with all its proper spellings. US law applies in the US, so US (mi)spelling is tolerable there. But, if Apple is selling computers here, attempting to form legal bonds with its EULAs etc, they should have the common decency to run their prose past a native speaker of the English language. Same goes for Microsoft (what is a "favorite"?) and Google (no I did NOT mean to search for "neigbor" and "mold").
The rather potent green laser pointer I am holding in my hand uses an yttrium crystal, pumped by an IR diode. Works very well and is the perfect size to hold in one's hand, but not particularly compact or energy efficient as there is a HUGE emission line in the IR spectrum.
These new green lasers are more akin to the tiny diode you'll find in a CD player or BluRay drive.
I'm dreading the day that every teenage chav has one... So much capability to irritate us all.
I'll be more impressed when they invent the holographic projector installed in R2D2.
Seriously, who cares? Anyone who cares will already be using another browser anyway.
If you buy a computer package that includes an OS, which includes a browser, what's so bad about getting a computer with an OS and a browser? That's what you paid for!
What next, anti-competition cases because Microsoft also includes a calculator application and a couple of games? Does that really impinge on the market-share of MathCad and Rockstar Games? Should they also leave out the clock in the bottom right corner in case it upsets Accurist?
I'd like to see them force Renault/BMW/Mercedes/Ford to sell cars without engines because some people might prefer to put a lawnmower engine into their new Mondeo. Don't let the fact that most people don't know how to / can't be bothered to fit an engine into a car bother you. Most people don't know/care about Linux/FireFox/Opera/Safari/Chrome/Thunderbird/<insert name of obscure browser here> either.
If it's not profitable to put a hamlet on the next-gen network, why should a private company be obliged to make the investment? There are plenty of satellite-based broadband services out there, and plain-old half-meg ADSL is good enough for anything apart from streaming video and heavy-duty VPN use.
Rural living carries far more benefits than we townies get through our broadband. I would love to have a few acres out back, a vastly cheaper mortgage, a barn to build my projects in and the ability to have some peace and solitude from time to time.
Ah well, can't blame people for wanting everything.
People unplugging your car in the street at night... also people could cheekily charge their cars on your driveway while everyone's at work!
I suspect the answer is some sort of lock and a key - I certainly wouldn't want the charging points on my driveway just open to anyone, I guess others would be the same, so you'd have a key. I'll bet the same is true on the car - can't detach lead unless you have the car key.
Still, it will be interesting to see how long the bollards stay in place when the compensation claims start rolling in from those who've tripped on cables all over the place...
Hopefully, if released, the final version would have a spring-loaded cable reel that only has the car connector on it, tethered into the car until the car key is used to open the latch on the charging port.
"Get a MAC..."
What, from the company that claims their computer works with high-definition video... oh, except you can only burn it TO bluray, you can't actually play video FROM bluray!!!
It runs Vista, thus it is Vista capable. Can't fault Microsoft on that one can you?
Jeez, if people are this upset that they bought a cheap computer, what on earth do they do when they find their £4,000 Dacia Sandero isn't as fast as a £100,000 Ferrari?
Paris, because the same people would probably try to return their wife after finding she doesn't do everything Ms Hilton might...
Have any of the "I hate Vista" people ever actually USED a legitimate copy of Vista for any length of time? UAC only comes up when you're installing an app (oh noes, one more click!!!), runs far more stably than XP ever did (I've never had Vista crash) and, being a techy sort of guy, I do have sufficiently capable hardware to run the damn thing in the first place.
I wonder how many people who slate Vista have derived their entire experience from a downloaded beta or pirate copy?
Keep your XP, I UPgraded to Vista a couple of years ago now. :)
Now they've shifted a few boxes, will Sony do a mid-life update on the PS3 to include proper high-definition audio support? I would love to buy one, but only when it supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS:MA correctly.
(By support, I do of course mean a raw bitstream via the HDMI port, not some downmixed LPCM bitstream)
Otherwise the whole "look, it plays blu-ray!!!" pitch is lost on those of us who have invested a lot of money in decent high-definition home cinema equipment.
Depending on how it was implemented, it could be bootable from the box. If it presents itself to the system as just another storage controller card, it should be bootable.
That being said, who would use a multi-terabyte drive as a boot volume? :S In my experience, large drives are used for storage of mass data, people like to keep their boot/OS/application volumes separate from their mass data.
"While coy about his political ambitions, he is already spoken of as a future Cabinet minister."
As if that could happen!
How do you expect someone is destined to be a Cabinet minister when they not only ignore the needs and wants of the people they represent, but actively pursue a policy completely contrary to these needs and wants.
Oh, wait. Now I see.
Chingford, Edmonton and Enfield aren't in London, unless you subscribe to the view that anything within the M25 counts as London. Which is incorrect.
Unfortunately I'm not covered in the first roll-out, as I live in rural Bedfordshire. But I don't really care as I've got a choice of 8mb ADSL and 50mb cable.
However, I've noticed that so many people complaining above are also from traditionally remote, sparsely-populated areas. If you want to have the amenities associated with living in a city, move to a city! (But not Birmingham, they don't have it yet!) I don't hear city-dwellers complaining about the lack of fresh air and access to horse manure.
Will they be providing grants to replace all the dimmer switches with updated compatible ones, or would they rather just wait and pay out for all the epileptic fits that will result?
Why don't they just force... I mean implement this amongst the warmer countries in the EU where this will provide savings on air-con use in summer? In most of the EU, houses are heated for much of the year so any saving on electricity use by energy-savers is balanced by increased gas useage in the boiler.
Perhaps we should just ban striking in France? That would save a lot of energy and be much better for the EU economy.
"Developers, the litmus of early adoption, are using Firefox and are excited by Chrome and even Apple's Safari thanks to the ever-sexy iPhone"
The only people I know using Safari are 1) Apple users, where it is a forced choice exactly as IE is on Windows users and 2) People who made the mistake of buying an iPod and installing iTunes on their computer...
Hey, wonder when the EU monopolies commission will get onto Apple about bundling iPhone with other browsers? I'd love to see them forced to include IE as an option!
"The fundamental problem is Microsoft's decision to allow users to continue to view billions of old pages optimized for non-compliant IE 6 and 7 that would otherwise be scrambled in IE 8."
Why is this a problem? What MS has done is what Firefox, Opera et al don't do and that is... MAKE THE BROWSER COMPATIBLE WITH THE INTERNET!!!
The Internet does NOT always conform to html standards, we all know that. It never will conform to the standards.
Anyone who wants to use a fully-compliant browser is welcome to, but it won't work properly for the user's needs and wants. Even the geekiest user just wants to look at web pages on the Internet, not "correctly formatted html".
Now, should billions of web-pages be pulled from the Internet purely because their non-compliances offend the eyes of html zealots? What if your kid has created a webpage of their own that is a bit wonky? Should the web-gestapo come along and tell your child "Nein, yor veb-site duss not comply. DELETE IT FROM ZE SERVAH!"
Yay, sue them. If Apple goes bust then I'll no longer have to endure their employees trying to drag me into their shops to do a "personality test" and check for "operating thetan levels".
Seriously, I was in an Apple store in Salisbury, and while I was there an employee tried to get me to buy a Mac Pro (which doesn't play high-def movies, go figure!). I jokingly said "Sorry, I've not witnessed enough sermons from the Mighty Job to cross over yet."... He didn't find anything odd about that comment... Oh dear.
If you don't want IE, don't buy Windows. What was that? You don't anway because you just leach it off the net? Well stop yer moaning then!
Jeez, it's like stealing a car and then complaining it doesn't have a/c.
As soon as the EU drops this ridiculous charade and lets a private company go on developing its product unhindered by ridiculous rules on anti-competition (which basically boils down to anti-Americanism), the better.
I can't wait until BluRay is invented. As soon as it is, Apple will include the drives on their computers and you will buy an Apple high-definition system that will beat all the PCs still running on standard-definition.
What? You mean BluRay HAS been invented already? And new PCs in these price brackets DO play BluRay? But Apple invents everything, don't they?
As to those who DON'T think the price is a rip-off... the £/$ rate is about as low as it will go (fingers crossed). As soon as the rate climbs ~10%, that £500 computer that is actually sold at £450 inc sales tax in the US will suddenly be worth £400. Doubt Apple will drop their figures then.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=St+John%E2%80%99s+Road,+stourbridge&sll=52.457474,-2.127056&sspn=0.050418,0.153809&ie=UTF8&ll=52.458285,-2.145488&spn=0.006302,0.019226&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addr
This is the location of the cafe, I'll be sure to stop in there next time I'm in the area...
Who am I kidding, I'll make a special trip. What's the carbon footprint of a bacon sandwich?
Paris, because I'll be sure to hold the sandwich vertically.
Consumerisation? Sounds interesting but I really can't imagine any large corporations doing this. Configuration Control is the key!
If you have no more than two or three different models available, then any issues with hardware and firmware become far easier to overcome. Driver issues are generally the same across all your stock. If someone needs a specific piece of hardware, you know your starting point and won't find that the 3G modem that works perfectly well on the Dell laptop doesn't work on the HP.
"the tin cans you call cars in Europe are not available in the USA because they don't meet the crash test requirements and they don't meet the emission requirements"
Obviously you've not heard of EuroNCAP, nor have you heard of the death-trap known as the Chrysler Voyager. I believe that was made in the USA!
The reason that mainstream European cars have never been successful in the USA is quite simply because 1) fuel economy has never really been an issue in the US until recently and 2) you're used to driving cheap and huge (but shoddily-built) SUVs, pick-up trucks, large sedans and musclecars. Thus a Renault Clio or Vauxhall Corsa is never really going to generate much interest, especially when it costs the same as a US-built full-size sedan.
So when does she actually SEE her friends or TALK to her friends? If she's constantly "TxTiNg lol rofl" or whatever the cretins call it nowadays, when does she actually physically interact?!
And do such people realise it's quicker to phone someone and say "Do you want to come to the pub? Yes? See you there in half an hour!" than to have 10 texts back and forth?
Textards? No? Or is that too long to write in an SMS?
It is surprisingly useful to have two screens to work on. Have one document on each screen, or stretch big things across both.
I set my laptop up at work for dual-screen useage with an external monitor and couldn't do without it now. Within a month almost everyone else in the office had done the same and looking around most people have an application open on their secondary monitor.
"with the speed dropping off dramatically the further a subscriber lives from their local telephone exchange"
In my experience, ADSL of any flavour should not be sold on what it could theoretically do if your house was nearer the exchange with a new piece of shielded cable with... etc.
1mbps seems to be about de rigeur round these parts on ADSL. Any ISP that advertises a speed of "Up to" should only be allowed to charge customers "Up to" their standard rate. I.e. if it's £20 a month for 20mbits, if you only get 10mbits you should only pay £10. That'll sort them out.
@Bert Plucker
Seeing as this was done in the UK less than 2 decades ago with coax for cable TV, what makes you think it would be so hard to deploy fibre, at least in the purely physical sense of digging up the road and running it up to people's gardens? What about in areas with overhead phone lines? What about in areas where the VM fibre runs up the street cabinet? Sure it's not cheap to look at it as a total cost, but per address it isn't as expensive as many would have you believe.
In my experience at school, many teachers didn't believe they had to learn anything themselves and were quite happy with the knowledge they had when they left teacher training.
The good teachers are those who recognise that they need to keep on learning and will strive to do as much. How can you teach such a fast-evolving subject as IT when you have no current understanding of it?
FWIW, when I was at school I learned first on BBC Masters, then Acorn Archimedes, and at uni I used Windows NT and Linux. Along the way I learned BASIC, C++, Assembler and VBA. Just as with any form of language, it never hurts to know one more.
Remember that in the corporate environment, the end-user doesn't have the option to update, and usually wouldn't have the inclination to update if they could! I've had one of these applications constantly bug me to install updates, when I can't. So, it involves a call to IT to log into my machine and fanny about.
Remember also that overnight managed updates are preferred where possible (i.e. on any desktop machine as it remains plugged into the network after everyone's gone home). IT need to retain the ability to schedule updates for different times as needs change and to dynamically balance out network traffic.
So, an auto-update feature built into an application is useless on the first count, and inflexible on the second count. Centralised updating is the only sensible option, and for this, these apps fail.
So she wants to sue for $5M. For a broken telly?
Or is she suing for something that hasn't happened, but possibly might happen at some point in the future?
No TV is worth $5M, and if she's that worried perhaps she shouldn't use the Wii? It's not something she NEEDS... it's a games console, not a kidney dialysis machine fer chrissakes!!!
The sooner this stupidity is ended, the better. If you knowingly buy a laptop with Windows installed, but don't want Windows, why should you get a refund? Why should a consumer be allowed to get a refund for PART of a purchase, which they bought knowing that they didn't want!
If I go into a shop and buy a tin of baked beans with hot dogs in it ("because there's no plain tins of beans available" - to use the normal justification here) and then take it home, fish out all the hot dogs and send them back to the manufacturer with a demand to be refunded the value of the sausages, would I get it? Would I bo**ocks.
Could I buy a Ford Focus and then send the engine back because I wanted to put a V8 in it? No.
Could I buy a package holiday and then demand a refund on the cost of the flight because I decided to drive and just stay in the hotel? No.
If there is a substantial market for non-Windows laptops (which there isn't, besides Macbooks), then the manufacturers will make them. Why wouldn't they? It's more profit for them! At the same time, why should a manufacturer be forced into providing something it doesn't want to provide? Where does it end? Can I buy a PC from Dell and send the hardware back because I only wanted the software?!
If you want a fully-customised computer, build it yourself. Anyone who has enough nouse to use Linux should be more than capable of slotting together what is essentially digital Lego.
Wait... is this the same "FON" which you gain access to if you share your own internet connection? Does this mean anyone with an iPhone can come along and start using any FON member's broadband for free, without actually contributing anything in return?
I'm no utopian freetard, but that sounds like freeloading to me... Is there a way to programme your router to reject connections from iPhones (and any other freeloading devices).
Noting that an electric motor is usually rated in terms of peak and mean, I'd be interested to see which the 70kW figure refers to...
A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals that an 800kg car (not including any passengers or luggage) at 60mph has 292kJ of kinetic energy. Dividing that by 6 seconds reveals a mean input of 48.6kW, assuming 100% efficiency. I don't know what the efficiency in terms of tyre rolling resistance and body drag coefficient would be, but it seems reasonable that an average 70% efficiency should be achievable between 0mph and 60mph.
Electric cars are usually limited to relatively low speeds, either due to technology limitations (direct-drive transmission) or to save energy. The 75mph top end will be imposed by one of these factors.
I agree with your solar panel calculations, looks like panels will be of little use here.
The Simpsons is way more sweary AND it's targeted at children.
Watching The Simpsons at 6pm one day on C4, I witnessed an Irish character call someone a "w***er". I've also heard bu**er and a**e on the Simpsons on multiple occasions.
I don't give a toss, personally... Big hairy willies.
Just looking at the transmission display on the left... a LOW-RANGE setting on the transmission? On an eco vehicle? Why?
The car already has sensors to assist in traction control and stability control. The engine management can sense engine load. I'd be surprised if it doesn't have tilt sensors but to add them would cost another few pence on the price of the car. Presumably, as it's eco, it's using a CVT rather than a nasty old torque converter.
Between that little lot, there shouldn't even be a need for low-range as the car can detect when it's going uphill, downhill or towing. And you can still have a kick-down mode for those moments when you need to floor it.
Why do freetards get so indignant about this? If you're not using a stolen copy, then you won't have a problem! Sure MS is a profitable company, but so is Tesco and I'm sure you wouldn't try to justify shoplifting.
If you want Windows, pay for it. If you don't want to pay for Windows, don't have it. Don't download a warez copy and then piss and whine because MS make a very minor inconvenience out of using stolen software! There's plenty of decent Linux distros out there, freetards.
Much as I love the mathematical elegance of a RAID, you'd be barmy to rely on its redundancy... redundancy is not backup! Optical disc longevity is a lot better with good discs in optimal conditions (i.e. not just the cheapest CD-R you could find, thrown onto the desk after you've burned a disc).
So, 100GB discs with a >1gbit/s write speed could be rather useful. If you've got massive data sets that need to be frequently back-up up, then a blu-ray drive, discs and a van is cheaper than a 1 gbps leased line to back-up RAID to RAID in another location.
As is frequently said, "never underestimate the bandwidth of a truckload of discs"!
Remember that in this instance, stealing the memory cards DOES result in a loss of sale. Someone won't randomly say "Hey, black-market memory cards. I'll buy one on impulse!".
No. In this case, someone will be offered a dodgy memory card, and this will mean they don't buy a legitimate one at the shop. Personally, I think Game could easily put together a case to sue for loss of THEIR profits too.
This is a tangible piece of hardware that is generally a planned purchase. There are no parallels with the record industry here (although try telling Sony that!)
Yup, experienced all the same myself today. Got into the site carrying a large brown non-descript box, with NO pass, wasn't stopped. Later on decided to get my exhbibitors' pass... Secretary couldn't get through to badge office due to VOIP saturation. So I had to walk all the way to the badge office (a 30-minute walk each way)... tried to pick my badge up on Saturday but was told "We've run out of badges, come back on Monday!". Other than that, very nice... Typhoon followed by F-22 followed by Russian jet. All trying to go one up on the preveious pilot!
The fuss is... these SSDs can be used exactly as one would use a traditional rotating glass platter hard-drive. Your CF card or OCZ "SSD", formatted to NTFS and running Windows 2K with swap-file et al would not last a reasonable amount of time.
Using a CF card as a hard-drive is only a viable option if you plan to customise your system sufficiently that you won't knacker the flash card after a few months useage. I would certainly consider that option for running a more specialised system such as an in-car computer (CF more rugged) or an HTPC that streams media from more traditional hard-drives elsewhere.
You're entirely correct. It's always the person attacked who is to blame. I was once walking down the road in shorts and flip-flops (in other words, dressed up in a HIGHLY AGGRESSIVE OUTFIT), when I decided I would use The Force to attract a large, adult male Alsation from the other side of the road. I then proceeded to force my forearm into his mouth, and closed his jaws around it so the teeth went into the flesh. Yup, all my fault.
Ass.
I don't bear a grudge against the dog, as far as I'm concerned the dog was brought up badly (make obedience school a legal requirement and bring back the dog licence), and was angry because of its owner.
The owner's stupidity put me in a difficult ethical quandry: 1) report the dog, and have its death on my conscience or 2) not report the dog, and risk it killing a human child.
To automatically send out the letters, they must automatically know which traffic is illegal. As the data is constantly flowing through, the speed of data processing must equal the rate of data input. Thus, they SHOULD be able to do this in real time.
Therefore, why don't they just block the illegal downloads, thus solving the problem? If they HAVE the ability to prevent crime, why don't they USE it?
I'm sure VM would rather do that than lose business due to disconnecting customers.
Unless... it's a load of bo**ocks and they're just posturing to prevent industry fines whilst still (over)selling the 20mbps service that gets 20mbps only when you're next to the cable cabinet, you're dl'ing from the Virgin server and it's a leap year where the moon is in the constellation of Pisces on the 18th of July.
Only I've had the XL service for coming up to a year, and the only times I see anything close to 20mbps is when I'm running one of those ISP speed-test websites with a mirror on the Virgin network. Every other time I generally see 1mbps downloading (through http and ftp, no torrents here)
Or am I to believe the propaganda that this is all because of some kids downloading some MP3s or DVD-rips? Do people really do much of that when the Virgin broadband service comes with FREE video-on-demand anyway?
Retractable bollards do a pretty good job of stopping unwanted passage by vehicles... just look at all the youtube vids of idiots trying to sneak into "no entry" areas behind buses!
1) it's a proven technology
2) it isn't going to impale anyone unfortunate enough to slip on a diesel spillage nearby (all to common with so many diesel cars on the road)
3) the driver can see if the bollard is up or not, thus reducing claims against garages where someone has unwittingly driven over the spikes despite paying (due to system or operator error)
4) with spikes, what happens if the car queueing behind accidentally drives too far fowards, or having driven forwards decides to back-up? In the case of bollard, the car behind is a barrier until the point the bollard is clear and THAT pops up and becomes the barrier.
The spikes are a knee-jerk reaction... obviously someone who has lost earnings due to bilking will feel emotional about it and will not consider the risk of harming innocents.
"Considering George isn't actually a saint anymore and hasn't been for years, I think a lot of people are getting excited over nothing..."
Hmmm, I think you're getting confused. In 1969 the Roman Catholic Pope revised the Roman Catholic church's list of saints days. For Roman Catholics, St George's day is an "optional" celebration, but St George is, nonetheless, a saint.
I doubt any downgrading would have been observed in England anyway, even by Roman Catholics.
So, unfold your arms, get out of your huff and enjoy yourself!
"Disable USB ports in the BIOS and then password protect the BIOS? Ban flash drives?"
I'm yet to work somewhere that doesn't password the BIOS, but I wouldn't be surprised if some companies neglect that first line of defence. Admittedly, they usually have a standard password across the company so once an IT guy has let it slip to one employee...
There are many ways to improve the security of flash drive use, all available and all used by any company that has any inkling of data security.
1) Use software to prevent use of anything except your company's drives - several packages available.
2) Use company-issued, registered, encrypted flash drives - they're not that expensive.
3) Keep a log of all file transfers to/from said drives - easily achieved by network admins.
If I were to lose my flash drive, IT have a record of what's on it anyway so a decision can be made as to whether I had lost anything worth worrying about. Assuming the drive's finder can crack the encryption, of course.
"It's not as though weed makes you relaxed, passive, giggly and somewhat hungry..."
... paranoid, irritating to those around you, generally antisocial...
Oh wait, the guy drove whilst intoxicated, with no thought for anyone's safety, hit three cars, then claimed Area 51 was involved?
Not able to say which drug caused the biggest problem for this astronaut, but I'm 99% certain that the guy's a dick.
And that's the real reason drugs are illegal. Nothing to do with health or tax, it's purely that weed turns you into a whiney dick, cocaine turns you into an irritating dick and heroine turns you into a Glaswegian. I've seen Trainspotting.
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