Posts by Ken MAC

Climate scientists see 'tipping point' ahead

My Personal island\Planet

Here's an interesting sum to do

Take the Earths surface area 510 Million sqkm divided by 7 Billion peple gives about 72,857 sqm each,

Which allowing for 70/30 split sea\land gives each of us an island about 167 m dia surrounded by a donut of sea 67 m wide..

And we haven't even allowed for mountains deserts, ice and other "uninhbitable\non-productive" land which eats into our share

Just to complete the picture if the atmosphere wasn't squidgy and was the same density from ground to space it would be about 8km or 5miles thick.

Good news is there's plenty of water cos the average sea level depth is nearly 4km

Now for the final twist population growth is about a million people every four days, which to give the newcomers an equal and fair share means my personal island (land area only) is dissapearing at the rate of about 0.78 sqm a day

or in old money just under a square inch a minute all day every day..

All corrections gratefully accepted just in case I made some dumb error...

MAC

Amazon Kindle Touch touches down early

K-Touch eReades

After the obligatory research on the Web, I realised the 'obo reader was cheaper, more open and functionally very similar to the 'indle and as the standard 'indle is £89 it was a fair bet that the touch version would be at least £90 and the 'obo Touch was £74 (pc world reserve and collect)

Another search on Ebay and I found a reasonable leather folio case with clip on LED light for £6 delivered.. (how do people make money at these levels?)

So I'm now the proud owner of a Kobo device for less than the Amazonians would have taken from my wallet for a simpler device, and a tighter lock in to their church, let alone having touch...

Yes the Kobo eco-system might not be quite so slick but as most of my intended reads will be ex-copyright classics in epub fomat who cares...

Moral :- when looking for a sutable vacuum cleaner, a Hoover is not always the best choice.

Femtocell Forum grows big – rebrands as Small

Femto User Experience

Parts of our house are in a cell black spot and as we sometimes work from home using work mobiles we needed to do something. I bought a Vodafone Sure Signal Femto box back when they had a £20 deal on them. ( £20? if it didn't work hey ho..)

It plugged and played straight into our Netgear router which was already running a VPN pass through which was a nice surprise,

Vodafone allows for 32 registered numbers with 4 concurent connections. which suits our mobiles plus a 3g\Wifi tablet. ( voda website is lousy tho')

A year on the unit has povided pretty relaible service with the handsets reporting HSDPA service levels 90%+ of the time.

My only gripe is the pricing policy. Im providing the bandwidth but the call cost is still the same. Maybe they could come up with an OpenZone style plan, giving me a rebate if I opened the femto to the passing public, with bandwidth controls of course.

LOHAN fondles substantial concrete buttocks

KARI

I recognise those Glutes It's the original Kari Byron cast form Mythbusters

Kinetic Arrestor Really Ingenious

Don't care about the 'crym I'm still remembering the original

MAC

Sony Tablet P in pictures

Clam Shell Blast from the Past

Maybe Mister Potter of 'Potter Scientific Instruments or Nothing' aka PSION should call an ambulance chasing sorry patent chasing american lawyer (just for a laugh) and send Sony a picture of his Organiser 3a, (One of which is still chugging away in my home office) and claim prior art of the case design at least.

So, what's the best sci-fi film never made?

Alastair Reynolds perhaps

The Revelation Space series could be good just give the melding plaque backdrop to any european designer but which one would you do

Pushing Ice well thought through but doesn't have a heroic hollywood ending

House of Suns now there's a possibility...

Century Rain an Alternative history in Paris, or is it!

MAC

Nokia to help WinPho outsell iOS in four years

Low End again

I agree a higher spec phone will have a longer practical service life assuming low end models can't keep pace with newly released software requirements. But one tale I heard was the Indium-Tin material used as the capacitive touch sensor, may only have a working life of a couple years ( assuming screen protector films make no diference.) due to it being relatively brittle.

So the mechanics may fail expensively before the software platform does .

We're back to the old story; you get what you pay for and if youre demands aren't too high neither is the bill...

Cheers MAC

So what's Low End?

Before replacing my aging SE walkman 'smartphone' my spec was; Touch screen, wifi, bluetooth, expandable memory, standard connectors and FM radio would be nice. Top of the software list a really good contacts app with a flexible contact record structure and free text searching.. Oh and it had to be no more expensive than my current contract.

I've ended up with an HTC wildfire running android 2.2 for £20 a month, £21 post Vat rise. (You can even buy one of these on PAYG for about £130)

What this cheap entry level device does still blows me away. It's like a swiss army knife on steroids its a Torch, Calculator, Clock, Alarm, Timer, Diary, Radio, MP3\MP4 player, Libary (Kindle), GPs, Compass, Planetarium (google Sky), Atlas, Satnav, Note Taker, Camera Stills&Video, Bar code reader, Games console, Wifi HotSpot, Internet browser, Emailer, Facebook & Ebay terminals, Inernet radio, Voice Notetaker etc etc all really easy to use and well integrated. BTW I can make a phone call on it as well

Others devices maybe faster and sleeker with hi-res screens but for all practical purposes current "low end" is light years ahead of what was "high end" a couple of years ago. So come on High End Guys what can you do for three times the price??

Apple sues Amazon over 'App Store' name

Ancient GUIs

Anybody rememer DR GEM on Amstrads.. OH I forgot Apple sued them as well.

Apple customers confused

So is it the owners of iPads who will be confused whilst trying to download Android onto iOS or Android users being a bunch of wannabees, "It's like an iPad but not an IPad" as the advert goes..

Dear Steve et al,, Either grow up or just patent\trademark the whole damn dictionary and be done with it..

Xerox Star

Yup used one of them whilst on a contract at Xerox.UK. Great bit of kit. I remember the TV ads where you dragged and dropped a document icon to a remote printer icon and it just worked...

BT Home Hub 3 ADSL Wi-Fi router

But does it backup ??

We use the BT Business Hubs in the Office and imagine our surprise when having set port forwards for remote support tools, wifi passwords etc. we went to back up the Hub and; no backup option....

So if on occasion we've had to reset the hub... we have to shout arond the office what's your machines IP as we recreate our settings..

Microsoft Kinect man enlists with Google special ops

Spec-Ops ??

Stranger than fiction maybe.. As anyone who reads Jasper Ffordes Thursday Next Books ( and you should...) knows. Spec-Ops is the organisation that handles the jobs too wierd or complex for the ordianry Police. Mainly in the Swindon area for some reason

Visit Jaspers web site and you can buy Spec-ops merchandise

PARIS concocts commemorative cocktail

Paris Cocktail

"The Van Allen Belt." You might need a couple to reach the extra altitude..)

'To Insanity and Beyond" Sorry Buzz

Reminds me of a rumoured lethal cocktail\drink from the early days of the North Sea setup in Sullom Voe. It was called a northern lights cos once consumed the 'victim' saw all the colours of the rainbow then it went black..

There used to be an upmarket bar in paris "the Opera Cafe" on quai de valmy which served great cocktails and had been the officers mess of the Royal Flying corp in WWI. Would be a great place to test fly your drink...

Hasbro unleashes 'Spastic' Transformer

Whats an "ISTON" ?

That is "ISTON" as in the gor blimey rhyming speak phase "StuntIcons". Whatever it is I bet they feel like one now...

Years ago I remember the look of blank emptiness on the face of a US software guy; He just couldn't undersand that his reports didn't work because we Yerpeans used A4 paper and not Legal, which he'd hard coded in to the system.

Our PARIS becomes GLOBAL MEDIA SENSATION

Playmonauts spiritual Grandad on R4

Now everyone's getting in on PARIS themed items.

This afternoon (Thu 11/11 14:15) The Radio 4 Drama is of Col Joe Kittingers Balloon assisted High Altitude sky dives.

Maybe the playmonaut could chill out and tune in to hear how it was in the old days .....

Cheers MAC