Posts by Snapper

Chinese researchers make car glide 35mm above ground in maglev test

Re: Bumby rides ahead

Perhaps a large bit of black plastic fitting into a slot in the road would help guide it!

I have an idea about a hand-held speed controller if anyone is interested, although I haven't quite figured out reverse yet.

Using the datacenter as a dining room destroyed the platters that matter

Re: When I worked for Network Southeast

Specialist Apple Dealership I worked for in the 80's had their offices on the 2nd Floor overlooking the car park and Delivery Bay.

Cue a pair of delivery drivers throwing 12 boxes of 20-Inch CRT displays from the back of a large lorry onto the concrete 5 feet below.

Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth II – Britain's first high-tech monarch

Re: Not my Queen

The 'War of Independence' was mainly fought between the Rebel Scum© (about 20%) and the 20% of Americans known as 'Loyalists', and it was literally the 1st American Civil War.

As usual, the people in the middle had no influence and just kept their heads down, and the Rebel Scum© were incredibly lucky and the Loyalists/British were unlucky.

The Loyalists were violently attacked and threatened during the war and especially after it. Approximately 80,000 left America, mainly for Canada and some for Britain.

Of course, the American 'Patriots' were the ones who wrote the history of the conflict.

Re: In a world of scandals and lowest common denominatiors

No, it's only self-obsessed 'Kings of the World' who could start a new civil war.

Re: She was a good one

It was the other way round. He was a hedonist because he had nothing to do because Vicky thought he was a hedonist because....etc!

Nadine Dorries promotes 'Brexit rewards' of proposed UK data protection law

Re: the flexibility to protect personal data in more proportionate ways

I have to say that confirms my impression that not many people were paying attention, especially how the Leave claims changed as the older ones were challenged.

I'm near retirement, and my kids are just starting their careers with a mountain of student debt. Very depressing that we've managed to get ourselves into this unholy mess with little being offered by politicians of every stipe to seriously deal with the situation.

Re: UK rejoining the EU?

Voting usually means you can change your mind about what's important later.

Voyager 1 data corrupted by onboard computer that 'stopped working years ago'

1970's = Pah! Try 1870's!

My target rifle was made in 1870, but I'll bet Voyager goes faster than my bullets!

Apple's new MacBook Air: Is the jump to M2 silicon worth another $200?

8GB integrated RAM is not the same thing as old style RAM. It's part of the M1/M2 CPU and is VERY fast and VERY efficient. Hence the high speeds with low temperatures and thus battery life.

Battery life is far better than most Intel computers, and you don't get the loss of speed when working off the battery that most Intel laptops have. Compare Apples to non-Apples!

Apple to pay $50m settlement for rotten butterfly keyboards

Re: Ive

You also see the poor iteration of the M2 MacBook Air in terms of speed and heat issues, which can be fixed by a simple application of a £10 heat sink.

Is the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope worth the price tag?

Re: And the answer to the question is

'For example, Elon Musk has commented that he started SpaceX because as a youth in South Africa he watched the Project Apollo launches.'

He was born in 1971 and Apollo 17 was in 1972, so he'd be a 'youth' of 1.

Even if he means the Apollo-Soyuz in 1975 he'd be 4.

Re: And the answer to the question is

Imagine what would happen of a bean counter came in and said... "oh, why do we care if something is off by 10 nanometers".

I strongly expect that occurred more than once!

Microsoft resorts to Registry hack to keep Outlook from using Windows 11 search

Re: Borkzilla has never understood search

Simple.

Microsoft.

NOBODY PRINT! Selfless hero saves typing pool from carbon catastrophe

Anyone remember Kalamazoo Sales Sheets?

As a rep I had to make a report of any visit to clients on these multi-sheet torture devices. You had a slightly larger than A4 pad that clipped into a special bracket to keep everything aligned.

Each visit used a strip about 1.5cm high and the width of the paper. In that you had to get the clients name and who you saw, date + time + length of visit.

Then and only then could you write your report as to any issues, solutions or requests. Obviously our handwriting had to be legible on the lowest form, so tiny capitals and pressing VERY hard were the order of the day.

I hated my weekly trips to central London to see about 15 clients in a small area of the West End. I'd arrive back home fairly fresh, but doing the reports would leave my arm in a sling.

The perfect crime – undone by the perfect email backups

Re: "Delete" = "Hide"

Have you considered that he might be using a Mac.....

Totaled Tesla goes up in flames three weeks after crash

Re: "$10K over MSRP. Ran when parked. No low-ballers. I know what I got."

And this particular problem is in Sacramento, with a few metres between cars.

What would happen in a typical UK suburban junkyard with all the cars piled on top of one another?

Samsung fined $14 million for misleading smartphone water resistance claims

Re: Common sense...

As an IT consultant I can assure you that most people nowadays know jack-shit about technology.

I've been asked to make a visit and change a fuse in a UK plug and bleed a radiator in a large room full of 160 millennials who had no fornicating idea!

Mars Express orbiter to get code update after 19 years

Re: Astounding

Based on Windows 98.........

Crikey!

Unbelievably clever: Redbean 2 – a single-file web server that runs on six OSes

I had to check the date!

We sat through Apple's product launch disguised as a dev event so you don't have to

Re: We're long past peak tech

Really?

You don't think things like AirDrop are highly useful in the right settings?

That time a techie accidentally improved an airline's productivity

Back in the early days of Macs around '87, the desktop Macintosh II had two floppy drive slots (Super Drives) on the front. The drives were behind the front casing of the computer and just showed as a floppy-sized slot (I can't believe I just typed that).

Any road, there was a single drive supplied with the computer, and the second slot was blanked off unless or until the client required a second floppy drive. Trouble ensued when the blanking 'plate' (a thin strip of plastic) was pushed into the computer, which happened a lot.

The result was inevitable, as floppy disk after floppy disk was inserted into the computer and 'lost', requiring the top of the case to be lifted off and the disk, or more usually, disks, to be retrieved.

Most of my clients were graphic designers and, as such, barely knew which end of a hammer to use. Got a lot of chargeable call-outs and nearly always didn't have a tube of glue on me. Happy days!

Amazon investors nuke proposed ethics overhaul and say yes to $212m CEO pay

At the same time can you tell them to fuck right off with the drop down box that wants you to add insurance (for an ink cartridge) that's the same colour as the 'add to basket' box you've just clicked!

Re: Inevitability

Oh I've seen a LOT of good companies run by accountants. Run into the ground that is!

Lawyers say changes to UK data law will make life harder for international businesses

Re: Any business experience in government?

I love democracy, and Smoggie is one of the biggest purveyors of malicious misinformation in this gubmint.

Tech pros warn EU 'data adequacy' at risk if Brexit Britain goes its own way

There is a big difference between 'less' and cutting to the point of causing serious issues with other groups requirements.

I strongly suspect this gubmint will do whatever it pleases and f**k business.

Thinnet cables are no match for director's morning workout

Re: Full names please.......

I worked at a HiFi shop before Uni, and the go-getting ambitious manager was called Hugh James.

Supercomputer lab swaps lead-acid UPS batteries for alkaline gear

Re: Welcome to the Li-on's den

Oi!

This is a chemist. Not a jokers' shop!

'Bigger is better' is back for hardware – without any obvious benefits

Re: These monsters need to be tamed, trained, and put to work

The CPU is but one part of a desktop or laptop computer. Change it and you only change the cost of that one part, ergo you would very quickly hit the point where that computer is not profitable to sell.

The only way round that is to reduce the quality of the remaining parts, and looking at some of the fragile examples out there now I don't think we have too far to go before they only last three years and ........oh!

After deadly 737 Max crashes, damning whistleblower report reveals sidelined engineers, scarcity of expertise, more

America The Beautiful!

Free to screw with people's safety the world over in search of the almighty dollar.

Unfortunately the example has resulted in a lot of greedy people at the top following your example.

Run Boing, get fired for 2 crashes of planes your company badly built, and get 64 Million dollars. Fuck me!

European Right to Repair resolution headed for vote

Re: (Yet) another regulation the UK will need to abide by

It's a EU decision that was signed into English law as required when we were members of the EU. Scotland is five years for a reason I don't know.

'Way ahead of Europe'! ODFO

Apple patched critical flaws in macOS Monterey but not in Big Sur nor Catalina

Re: There is an official update available from Apple

Officially, these are not supported after macOS Catalina 10.15.7

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012)

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)

iMac (21.5-inch, Early 2013)

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013)

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)

Mac mini (Late 2012)

Mac mini Server (Late 2012)

MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012)

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012)

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012)

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012)

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012)

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013)

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013)

The march of Macs into the enterprise: Demand is on the increase

Re: In the 2020s you need to get business done, you use a Mac

'And just because it doesn’t have ‘Adobe’ plastered all over it, doesn’t mean that it isn’t great'

There are much better modern and cheaper alternatives to Adobe's buggy baggage. Just take a look at Affinity Software's equivalents of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

Re: 36 Months?

I frequently upgrade Macs over 15 years old, and last month I got the gig to replace 10 x G4 PowerMac towers from 2002/2003. They'd had their original CRT displays replaced with Apple 30-inch Cinema Displays about 2008.

Still all working, and I usually visited about once a month to do general maintenance.

Their business is changing direction due their market disappearing with Brexit, so an intended major revamp in 2025 has been brought forward.

Wing launches drone deliveries in the US where people actually live

Re: Mixed emotions

And the African Swallows, cos dey is musclin in bruv!

Help, my IT team has no admin access to their own systems

Re: Forget the turtles...

You must be in middle-management!

Apple's Mac Studio exposed: A spare storage slot and built-in RAM

The M1 powered Macs use RAM far more efficiently. 8GB on a M1 MacBook Air is roughly equivalent to 24-32GB on an Intel powered MacBook Air.

Apple M1 RAM should not be compared to slotted in or soldered RAM, it's a different ball-game and it's just the start.

Perhaps if you looked at impartial tests that showed the M1 powered Macs run far cooler and therefore far longer on batteries your mind would be changed, or is that a tad difficult?

We won't mention what happens to high-end PC's when running off battery will we, spoil the fun!

Re: Bloody hell...

It doesn't have 'soldered' RAM, so do you actually know what you are talking about?

The CPU has the RAM as part of the architecture of the SoC, so very different from the Intel CPU's of yore. Watch all the other CPU builders >cough< realise that their hot and power-hungry ageing designs are going to need a serious amount of work to keep up.

Do Apple get it right all the time? Hell no, I really hated the 2013 Mac Pro (trashcan/spittoon) and the 2016-2020 MacBook Pro's for their soldered storage and RAM.

But hell, unplug a top-of-the-range windows laptop and see it do battle with an M1 powered MacBook Pro for speed and battery life when doing something really heavy!

Re: Reasonably priced Mac Pro

Do you think you might be a bit biased?

Re: Reasonably priced Mac Pro

Still upgrading Mac Pro's from 2006 here. 2009 to 2012 cMP's running off NVMe drives with Thunderbolt and macOS 12 Monterey.

I've upgraded over 100 cMP's (classic Mac Pro's) since 2013.

Guess how many power supplies I've had to replace? 4, with 2 of those due to a mains power spike.

Guess how many backplanes/logic boards? 1

I think your comment is vindictively inaccurate, and basically shows you don't know what the hell you are whingeing about.

Germany advises citizens to uninstall Kaspersky antivirus

Re: Just don't use ANY anti-virus

Agree, it sets my teeth on edge. Bit like the old Windoze or Winblows, although they are not just laziness.

114 billion transistors, one big meh. Apple's M1 Ultra wake-up call

Re: Rambling

Yes, Tim said so.

Re: I saw the reveal presentation, and, while I'm no fanboy, I was amazed

The Unified RAM, effectively part of the CPU, is far more efficient and why people are able to do professional level video editing with 'only' 8GB of RAM in the M1 Mac Mini with far lower CPU temperatures and power consumption. If you have an M1 laptop that's a big bonus compared to a high-end PC unhitched from the grid..

Apple have said a Mac Pro with M1 or M2 CPU's will be with us by the end of this year. I expect to see a cut down version of the current Intel Mac Pro, plus a slightly redesigned Super Mac Pro that will last the user 15 years.

The hint is in the name, Mac (not MAC, it's 2022! WHEN are you going to notice?) Studio.

This is for people in Studio's.

Graphic Design.

Publishing.

Music.

Photography.

Video.

3D Animation.

Etcetera!

Think of it as a very powerful iMac with screens you can choose yourself. Oh, and 10GBE.

Plans for UK rival to Silicon Valley ditched

Re: Regardless of what you call it (harvesting, culling, slaughtering....

Fairly obvious this government doesn't realise/care that the Farmer loses money when pigs are culled, and gets paid when they are slaughtered.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel green-lights Mike Lynch's extradition to US to face Autonomy fraud charges

Re: It seems simple to me

Yup, it was Guinness.

UK government responds to post-Brexit concerns and of course it's all the fault of those pesky EU negotiators

Re: Bored by Brexit?

I get the impression that more than a few Tory MP's think that might be an easy solution.

God knows where they find them.

Re: .....but in the "sunny uplands" this sort of c**k up never happens, does it?

You forget the almost utter destruction of our touring music and events industry. Not only musicians lost out, it was the whole touring industry of specialist hauliers, lighting engineers, sound engineers, stage builders and all the other back-stage experts.

Most musicians don't make money from record sales, it's the tours that bring in the money. New bands got experience touring Europe and the damage to one of our main 'soft' influences has been utterly tragic.

I dunno, I've got a friend who lives in Portugal and all the other turkey's voted for Christmas as it were.

Now they are complaining mightily, especially about the advice given by Gove.