Posts by AlanS

Rivals to Brussels: Google labelling its own stuff won't help us

Re: Build it and they will come

Upvoted: I was the same ... I started with Altavista (work related), moved to Yahoo! as its UK index was better for my searches (holiday related), and then Google appeared, better all round. As to its use of my data to produce targeted ads, it's not very good at it! Big Brother: asleep on the job.

UN telecoms talks FOUNDER as US, UK, Canada and Aussies quit

Re: Dont dis Round the Twist

Hands off PrisonerCBH!

(I also Have fond memories of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.)

How talent-spotting boffins help Team GB bag Olympic gold

RE: UN Security Council

I vote for that: the French wouldn't!

Party like it's 1999: CDE Unix desktop REBORN

Fond memories!

10 years ago I used mainly Sun and HP machines under CDE. When I had to install software on Apple Mac or MS Windows machines, they were so clumsy by comparison.

Paris, 'cos she's an icon.

Million-plus IOPS: Kaminario smashes IBM in DRAM decimation

You get what you pay for, and you DO pay!

A minute with my phone's calculator shows that a DRAM array of the same size as the disks costs over $110 million, almost exactly thirty two times as much.

Windows 8 'bad' for desktop users - Gartner's one-word review

Re: ok

I use Unix for work, Linux for pleasure, but I can usually help people when they want advice on their MS or Apple machines, even though that may be my first exposure for weeks. If a knowledgeable user can't find something, he's probably not going to roll out an office-full.

Dutch payment-by-bonkers bonk payments on the head

Re: I have a bad feeling about this.

Google have had my number for three years (in case I need a password reset or similar) and they have never spammed me.

British Gas bets you'll pay £150 for heating remote control

Would this be the BG who want me to buy a new boiler, thereby saving at least £100 pa on gas, but then they would charge me £135 for its annual service?

Post-pub nosh deathmatch: Haggis pakora v huevos rancheros

Huevas Ranchero: fond memories

Some 20 years ago, I was sent to California to debug someone else's code for a Data General machine (Eclipse IIRC - different numbers for byte or word addressing was the problem). I used to have Huevos Ranchero at my hotel for breakfast, but it also came with chilli beef and refried beans! It set me up for the day of fighting this stuff which was lucky to run on any machine...

Euro Parliament kills ACTA treaty before court can look at it

Re: Horror of horrors

I not only agree so that I upvoted your comment, I compliment you on the correct use of apostrophes!

US culture to spread worldwide by means of Kindle, not iPad

Re: How much greasing was required here.

It's locked in that the MOBI files you buy from Amazon are locked, but there's millions of free ones out there, and Calibre will convert EPUBs as required. The battery life is the killer: upwards of a week for me and I read a lot! Tablets can't touch that.

People-powered Olympic shopping mall: A sign of utter tech illiteracy

Re: Crichton

I enjoyed the chivalry-and-swords one so much that I bought the DVD.

Beer because it's a sunny Sunday afternoon ... guess where I'm going next!

Fastest-ever hydrocarb scramjet hits Mach 8, doesn't explode

Re: Backward step

The point of hydrocarbon fuel is its energy density: more per tankful. It is easily synthesised from water and atmospheric carbon dioxide - plants do it all the time.

Beer ... because it contains a hydrocarbon!

Apple, publishers and ebook pricing – what does it all mean?

Digital Research

If I recall correctly, the nub of the MSDOS v DRDOS case was that MS i. promised to undercut whatever DRDOS quoted and ii. would charge even less if the OEM didn't offer DRDOS at all. Unsurprising that Digital Research lost and that prices then rose.

As ebooks go, Apple can still compete if Amazon price aggressively; what they cannot do is cream their normal 30% off the top.

Googorola's desire for iPhone royalties will upset Apple cart

Italy?

It's Apple being fined there ... charging extra for legally mandated stiff, IIRC.

ICANN responds to smut portal antitrust lawsuit

Surely ".isapaedo"

Or do people do peas?

P2P veterans sue the Cloud ... for copying their stuff

Virtualisation patents?

I was working with VMs on IBM kit 30 years ago. Any patents they have must be of fine details, easily worked round, or fail because of prior art. Though Texas courts seem lenient with patent holders...

Paris? Just because I can!

Chinese state research unit pays $1,000 for USB stick

About nine times??? Shirley not!

I have a 4GB stick (TDK) to backup my photos etc which cost less than $100, bought in Cambridge, England.

Boffins mount campaign against France's official kilogramme

MKS vs. CGS

An important difference between MKS and CGS is the unit of work. To raise perhaps 80kg by 1 metre in a 1g (10 m/s2) gravity field uses 800 Joules; in CGS, that is 80 million ergs, and that's only enough for me to get out of bed in the morning!