Posts by Colin Wright

Oh, I wish it could be Black Friday every day-aayyy, when the wallets start jingling but it's still a week till we're paiii-iid

Re: Plus one...

I thought it was a nice touch in a nice article.

Stanford Uni's intro to CompSci course adopts JavaScript, bins Java

Re: Biggest problem is the name.

HTML+JavaScript makes it _really_ easy to take input and display output.

No need for file io in an introductory programming course.

NASA – get this – just launched 8 satellites from a rocket dropped from a plane at 40,000ft

Re: StarGazer

After releasing the payload, the pilot radioed back to base to tell them he saw the rocket rising so he was coming here. Comms weren't good though. He had to tell them 3 times...

LOVE that song. Always thought that the orchestra must have been bored, though.

Algorithm advance alleviates AI amnesia

Re: Ladies and Gentlemen, we are DOOMED

It's a computer. You turn it on when you want it to do stuff, and you turn it off when you don't.

We have different rules for humans because we think anarchy would be bad.

OpenTV slaps Netflix with patent lawsuit

Re: Netflix and alternative platforms...

Neflix might be built on Silverlight on Windows, but I doubt they're using Silverlight on the version for my Linux-based Samsung BluRay player.

Anonymous turns on 'one man Julian Assange show' Wikileaks

Re: @TechSurfer

Yes, I got it after eventually going to an individual document.

Actually, I'd have thought Anonymous would be happy to find something that would encourage more people to disable JavaScript.

Motörheadphönes ears-in review

Re: Stone Deaf Forever!

Once Deaf joke was OK, but yours was just Overkill.

Airbus predicts catapult takeoffs and formation flying by 2050

Re: Lifecycle cost?

It's blue sky thinking. Ho ho.

Basically, it's focusing on ways to save fuel because aviation fuel is getting increasingly expensive, to the point that it has a significant effect on business. Given how much fuel is used just in take-off and landing, systems that make those much more efficient could make a big difference. 30 years of use with multiple flights each day adds up to a lot of fuel and if aviation fuel prices continue to rise the return on investment of fuel-reduction technologies will continue to increases.

But stuff like formation flying and engine-off landings won't be allowed, as much as airlines might like it.

PS Everything you read about the Prius in "Dust to Dust" (or may have heard repeated by Jeremey Clarkson) was (and continues to be) complete bullshit made up as a hatchet job (still with some lasting success, apparently).

Archos 35 Home Connect

POWER CONSUMPTION

POWER CONSUMPTION. POWER CONSUMPTION. POWER CONSUMPTION. Please, whenever you review an electronic device, please give the power consumption (and that means more than battery life) as it would help people who are trying to make efficient choices.

On top of that, an easy ability to play a looping sound would be nice for some people. My wife uses a sound machine* to help her sleep.

* Sound machine replaced a standing fan: it'll pay for itself in reduced electricity costs in about 2 years. We'd have bought a combined sound machine/clock radio but you couldn't turn off the backlight and we like the room DARK.

Ten... Valentine's Day gifts for her

Do IT guys all have girly teenage girlfriends?*

Seriously, way too much pink. It's like Victoria's Secret's gadget section.**

But at least gadgets have a use, I suppose.

My difficulty with Valentine's Day is that It's really hard to buy something when you loathe the pointlessness of the industries involved.

* No offense intended to any female teenagers reading unless you're the squealy, pink-obsessed type.

** They don't actually have a gadget section, as I recall. That's more Ann Summers' line.

Barack Obama: Bland, predictable and cheesy ... on Spotify

Jazz

I remember an interview with Two Jabs (also a jazz fan) talking about jazz, saying how it was classless. At least he was honest about his musical preference, even if he was trying desperately not to seem like he was middle class. Niiiiiiiccccce.

Euro cops cuff 112 in paedophile network raids

Boat floating

Why would somebody want to stick their penis in an anus?

Or be tie up and flogged?

Or come into a shoe?

Or watch an amputee struggle to get onto a LI-LO?

Veg rustlers hit with conditional discharge after roadside lineup

Conditional discharge

Also known as "getting away with it".

Community service at least. Thieving bastards.

On the bright side, they weren't stealing processed foods.

Fuel foolery, merger warnings and Budgetary boons

Petroleum doesn't have a use by date

When taxes make the price artificially high there should be more market stability. (Contrast that with the USA.)

Add to that the fact that our current global supply falls a little short of the required billion years and you have a more predictable return, even if it takes a little longer to get it.

New 'supercritical' generators to boost nuclear output by 50%

Damn government interference

Those DoE labs are always interfering...

A big bump in efficiency is just what's needed for coal plants: remove the last excuse for whining about the high cost of reducing pollution.

Oh noes – they've stolen the internet!

Everybody's wrong

The Americans, the English and the burgulator.

California's green-leccy price system will stifle plug-in cars

No, retarded troll

You are Art Spinella and I claim my 5 pounds.

They did a _race_ between a BMW and a Prius. Not exactly a standard driving cycle.

And who cares what a car looks like? When you're using it, you can't even see the outside. Complaining about the look of a car is like computer reviews complaining that while the monitor's great the case is boring and beige.

I get about 65mpg (Imperial, adjusted for the E10) in my Prius in a reasonably cold, hilly state. My wife would probably get about 60mpg (adjusted) if she drove it all the time and she doesn't even think of economy when driving.

And before anyone starts: we can't even buy micro-diesel; diesels that we can buy have (proper) emissions controls that hurt fuel economy; diesel is more expensive here and significantly more expensive when demand rises; diesels are all more expensive than a base Prius (except for the Golf until the tax credit runs/ran out); no, there isn't any public transport around here, otherwise I'd be using it just like I did in the UK.

Now for the usual debunking of the usual CNW junk:

The NiMH batteries are all recycled (just like the double-sized lead ones in your car); Sudbury was a wasteland long before the Prius was even conceived; Sudbury isn't a wasteland any more; the batteries don't use much nickel from there anyway (there's more nickel in a typical car body than in the battery).

If you weren't just an ignoramus or troll you'd be directing your venom at the pollution caused in China by bad mining of the neodymium used in EV motors instead of at the batteries. (Even then, I'd point out that petroleum demand causes quite a lot of damage (apparently there are wars for the stuff)).

'London black cabs to go electric in 2 weeks' – Boris Guardian

Japan

It's current-ly being trialled for cabs in Japan. If it can't work with cabs it's not going to work anywhere.

Better Place are doing their swapping thing more generally in Denmark and Israel.