Posts by sprouty76

Shuttle Discovery to buzz Washington DC at 1,500 feet

Re: Those stats sum up how shuttles never lived up to the sales pitch

It used to, but that was changed after the Challenger disaster.

Robotic surgeon successful in first prostate snip

Re: It's not a robot.....

Came here to say that.

Raspberry Pi Linux micro machine enters mass production

Well played, sir

Well played.

Lovefilm dumps Flash, BLINDS Linux fans with Silverlight

"Simply put: without meeting their requirements, we’d suddenly have next-to-no films to stream online."

When I gave them a trial a few weeks ago, they already had next-to-no films to stream. Cancelled the trial the same day.

NASA mini-sat parachutes to a halt in space, prangs into atmos

Slightly faster

Sadly, a slightly faster orbit also means a slightly higher orbit. And anything else orbitting in that slightly higher orbit will also be travelling that little bit faster.

(Assuming circular orbits, of course)

Ice Cream Sandwich

Baffling

Why do they think I want to search from every screen? Especially as it's such a wide widget.

I could actually understand it more (I wouldn't like it more, but I'd udnerstand it more) if they just stuck a rotating advert on every screen.

Punters even more dissatisfied by Virgin Media's package

Except you need the phone line if you want their TV service... I'd quite happily change broadband supplier but I'm not paying for 2 phone lines, neither of which I need. And I can't put a dish up, so I'm stuck with them for the TV too!

SHARKS tempted by BIKINI CLAD Thanksgiving BABES

"Doing little sharky things" is an excellent description of what sharks do.

World's first biz computer was British – and sold teacakes

"30,000 Watts of energy"

That would be power, surely?

Mm, Silverlight, what's that smell? Yes, it's death

Ironman Triathlon coverage

The live streaming coverage of Ironman Triathlons unfortunately uses it - and more annoyingly (as a Linux user), it uses a version not supported by Moonlight.

45% of Android users to upgrade to rival phone OSes

Came here to say this

Following the maths in the article, 55% of Android users will switch to an Android device from another manafacturer, and 45% will switch to a different OS. And therefore 0% will stay with an Android device from the same manafacturer?

Surely the conclusion should be that (for example, in the HTC case) - 39% will stay with HTC, 55% * 61% = 33.55% will move to another Android manafacturer and 45% * 61% = 27.45% will move to another OS. And therefore, 72.55% of HTC users will stay with Android. The figures difer for different Android manafacturers. obviously.

Rogue kangaroo floors broom-wielding 94-year-old

That's not a big stick,

*that's* a big stick

Terrafugia flying car gets road-safety exemptions

I can imagine...

...that trying to land on 2 wheels would be interesting, especially with a crosswind.

FSF to Google: Free Gmail's JavaScript now!

D'oh

For everybody downvoting me, can I suggest the aquisition of some type of calendar?

But...

Ohhh...

Hardware keyloggers found in Manchester library PCs

Not in Greater Manc

For the record, neither Wilmslow nor Handforth are actually in Greater Manchester - despite being essentially up-market suburbs, they're both in Cheshire (and always have been).

Official: Android rules OK

Apples & oranges

Some of these figures aren't directly comparable - "Smartphone OS sales" would sometimes include anything running iOS i.e. iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch etc, depending on whose figures they are. That doesn't compare directly to sales of smartphones.

Google: Oracle doctored that 'copied Java code'

But...

Releasing GPL'd code under an Apache License isn't Patent Infringement. Oracle would have to sue for infringing the terms of the GPL copyright.

Vodafone moves 360 goalposts

Wrong

I paid £165 up front for a HTC Desire from T-Mobile, and pay £10/month for 24 months. That's a total of £400.

At the time I bought it, the handset alone cost more than £400 - and that doesn't include paying for any calls, texts or data (which are included to a degree on the £10/mo contract)