Posts by Dig

I am a recovering Superwoman wannabee

The problem is you are trying to compete in an industry with men who on the whole enjoy the job more than being with the family and will see the job as a way of avoiding them. For them having to work extra means having more fun and not having to put up with the kids.

Samsung unveils Galaxy Note 3: HOT CURVES – the 'gold grill' of smartphone bling

Re: Superior?

"I can afford a Porche Cayenne" but apparently not fully comp with legal cover.

Torvalds: 'We're not doing Linux95 … for a few years, at least'

glad I'm not the only one having ssd troubles.

Reinstalled mint several times after unexpected shutdowns caused an unrecoverable missing file system error on an ocz drive. finally got a spinning disk and no troubles since. Do miss the speed though.

Leap Motion Controller: Hands up for PC air gestures. That's the spirit

gmail motion at last

Finally we can all benefit from the Google Gmail enhancements

https://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

Graphical front ends for PowerShell? Here's a couple for you

powershell question.

I've used powershell for non sys admin things such as creating unique build numbers on a shared project every time a build was executed. I ran into the execute script privilege problem. I found however I could run a batch file With a single line contains the whole script. Is this a security issue otherwise why prevent me executing the script in the first place.

BT Tower is just a relic? Wrong: It relays 18,000hrs of telly daily

Earthquake in London

Nice link to the panoramic picture. Didn't realise a small earthquake had hit London though.

http://btlondon2012.co.uk/pano.html?view.hlookat=-97.0579&view.vlookat=6.0491&view.fov=3.2600&imarkerath=-97.0579&imarkeratv=6.0491

Look ma, no plugins! Streaming web video with just JavaScript

Presumably the key would be based on the account details you streamed or downloaded the video with in the first place.

Another 170,000 Freeview homes to be freed from reality TV - possibly

Filters only work to a specified limit. Normally this would be the adjacent channel limit and may be specified as a number of dB at a certain frequency from the wanted frequency this may be 40db at 1mhz for instance rising to 50db at 10mhz. If an interferer is therefore 40db above the wanted signal you will have a problem. Better filters are bigger and more expensive. On top of this 4G puts out a lot of power and spreads out into adjacent channels that were once used for TV and other bands as well and this can't be filtered out so easily.

That's what I want to know. How are they simulating hundreds or thousands of handsets silk doing different things at different locations. I think the rest is fairly meaningless until there is widespread uptake by users. Perhaps it's so they can claim no one complained when we did the tests and it will be too late to claim when enough users generate enough traffic to cause an issue.

BT boss barks at TalkTalk for being 'copper Luddites'

Re: Oh Man.... I am lost for words

You obviously didn't have to wait for a line to be installed pre- nationalisation then.

Infinite loop: the Sinclair ZX Microdrive story

I actually have a microdrive cartridge in my coat pocket right now.

Its a re-purposed Psion Quill cartridge that I ought a job lot of when Dixons were clearing the stock. I have a bunch of assembly macro code on them.

I first bought the Wafadrive for the Spectrum as I liked the idea of the extra ports and cheaper cartridges. Got it home and it didn't work; apparently not compatible with version 3 Spectrums, so I went back and bought the microdrives and was amazed at the near instant loading of Ant Attack a fiendishly difficult game to learn to play at the time.

The challenge was of course to spend hours loading programs of cassette to convert to microdrive. Often having to split the program and move sections around using the screen as spare memory as the copy protection methods of the original program would load over every spare byte of memory including the microdrive extensions to the spectrum code.

I upgaded to a QL later and and i think I managed to get the two to talk over the interface one network and inbuilt QL network but I seem to remember they never really played well together.

Oh the memories they were great days, if only the QL didn't have possibly the worst screen memory layout in the world ever which made the under powered, yet beautiful to code, 68008 processor a hard time to do anything grahically entertaining.

So you won a 4G licence. The Freeview interference squad wants a word

But the you could amplify after the filter bringing back the wanted signal. Lower snr but stands a chance of having the desired affect.

Chromebook app launcher touted to Chrome browser users

deja vu

Microsoft had it right at windows 3.1 it seems with the programming manager

Samsung, LG 'lose confidence' in OLED TV tech

Re: Pricey?

About 7 years based on your £200 price 15p a unit and 9 hours a day 365 days a year and a 90W consumption by the CRT.

Dutch army digs in on spare spectrum rest of Europe could use

If Ofcom defined the usage within this band to be broadly compatible with the american 902-928 taking into account the narrower band then economies of scale would be better. The front end antenna amplifiers and matching would be the same with maybe a filter change for differing adjacent band requirements. The loss of the Dutch region would then be inconsequential.

Gangnam Style beats Bieber Baby, becomes biggest timewaste EVER

Gangnam vs Minecraft

My 8 year old has found an even better way to waste more man hours

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtjdUMBBYaA

Apple removes apology-hiding JavaScript from UK website

Now you now why they wanted 14 days to change it.

Needed to outsource the proof reading to China then await the return of it on a slow boat.

'I'd buy that for a dollar': Apple on Moto phone patents

Fair reasonable Non-discriminatory.

People seem to be confusing lots of things. The cost of a chip is generally very little except when maybe first produced on a new process. The costly part is the R&D in developing that IP then getting a return for it, so a device may only cost a few $ or less but the IP may be worth tens of dollars.

If as someone says Apple wants $24 for effectively rounded corners and a mainly screen tablet then I think it is probably fair that in order to make a phone call or transfer data is worth more after all by its nature it is essential unlike rounded corners.

Non-Discriminatory does not mean that one company pays the same as another. It is appropriate that a company that uses more licenses than another gets a better discount or that a company with a poor credit rating pays more, so for example Samsung sells many more phones than Apple so may expect a bigger discount than Apple. Apple on the other hand don't have a good track record on paying licenses to Motorola so they may see them as a risk until proven otherwise.

Non Discriminatory means that negotiations should be entered into in the same manner with access not conditional on different things. For example giving one player special deals based on signing early.

Pacemakers, defibrillators open to attack

Re: Errr...

Only the Difibrilator type put supply this voltage. In this case if the patients heart stops a shock has to be given like the paddles used externally except they are even higher. The voltage has to be high enough to cause a sufficient contraction of the heart muscle to stimulate the heart into pumping again.

When CPR is given the compressions often break ribs in the patient as the pressure has to be significant enough from the outside to pump the heart.

Ice core shows Antarctic Peninsula warming is nothing unusual

Re: Nothing to see here, move along

insurance companies increase premiums because they can. their job is to make as much money as possible and latch on to any reason to not pay ir increase premiums. the number of violent storms hitting usa has decreased recently and the last drought similar to now in usa produced the dust bowl this time just increased corn prices now we adapt better.

Facebook sued by Chinese firm over Timeline

Jeeze

Picasa was doing this years ago, perhaps it has a novel and unique way of doing it, maybe based on star dates.

Sony slides expose saucy Xperia slate

Re: New Meaningful Register Units of Battery Capacity Needed

I propose the d YodaHr equivalent to 18Kwhr. so the 43.2Whr is .0024Yodahr

Courtesy of http://what-if.xkcd.com/3/

Oracle cans IBM attack ad after ticking off from watchdog

alternative

why not advertise this case study then offer twice your money back if your exadata system doesn't give you 20 times the performance. Money where mouth is and all that.

Galaxy S III dumps universal search, tries to dodge Apple's sueballs

prior art possibly.

the release of google desktop predates the filing by about 2 months. I'm sure that integrated web and local search. Is apple patenting a particular way it is performed or just the act of doing it.

Olympics security cockup down to software errors - report

Re: This one needs fingers and toes

working time directives average time over 17 week period and I thought UK had some form of exemption so working more than 48 hours a week is allowed.

Posner to Apple, Motorola: 'And don’t come back'

Who rules on what FRAND should be.

If Motorola want 2.25% and Apple want to pay 0.001cent per license and won't pay that until the FRAND holder accepts then who rules on that. Apparently you can't block the competition because your patent is FRAND if you never agree to a really small amount, then how do you get any payment.

Nintendo supersizes 3DS

Ugh

In which language do you converse. The aitch in hour is silent so an hour is correct. Or was this a class based stereotype joke thing.

Intel CEO predicts DOOM for fab industry and competitors

Re: OK

why does the os matter, most of the code will be written in a high level language with the board support package have to be written for most chip change anyway. If apple see an advantage in using atom through a combination of cost, power, speed, size I'm sure they would use it to maintain market dominance.

Virgin Media's latest throttling rules

but once you have downloaded your 5Gig file in 6 or 7 minutes won't you be playing/watching it while the next one downloads/installs or are you lot that easily distracted. I guess you all have families that each want to download their own libre office update on the same day while each watching the wealth of indie and free movies available.. Ok I admit they should probably discount patch Tuesday updates.

Cambridge boffins build laser 'unprinter' to burn pages clean

too late

but apple patented this in 2015

Drink diet pop all the time? Look forward to VASCULAR DEATH

That Old Chestnut.

Is the great Aspartame debate used by schools to teach children the type of s*#t you can dredge up on the internet if you don't do your research properly.

GAGA prepares to inhale some grass

If we are gunning for power tools

If the drill aint going to be fast enough how about a couple of circular saws or angle grinders. Maybe a bench cross cut saw canabalised, comes with a nice big blade as well and the slide action may come in usefull for covering a wider span in one pass.

Apple's founding contracts sold for $1.59 MILLION

perhaps the shares have been diluted over time so what was 10% back then is now only 1%.

Greens threaten to sue over solar power cash slash

ffs

if you don't give incentives why would anyone bother. If it is a requirement to have a broad range of renewables, possibly because someone couldn't' get their arse into gear about nuclear and everyone complains about everything else, solar panels seem to be one of the best.

Nuclear - don't build that near me I might get sun burn if its hit by a 40ft wave.

Wind- great but oh don't build it where its windy it may spoil the view and think of the birds.

tidal barrier - think of the birds, coastline fishes.

shale gas - think of poor old Blackpool tower it might fall down.

clean coal, is that an oxymoron, they tried to replace a coal burner with a clean version near me but the greens shut that idea down so now my wife with c.o.p.d has to breathe the particles that there are (presumably because clean coal isn't as someone mentioned "perfect").

if only the generators could afford to build solar farms they would be huge to get the efficiency so it would be back to either don't put it on the hillside because it spoils the view and don't put it on the fields as we need food this leaves distributing it over roofs, maybe not efficient but who can complain about that. Oh wait a minute think of the poor.

if its going to be on peoples roofs otherwise planning permission will be tied up in endless court proceedings, human rights appeals, judicial reviews (all the rage now I hear), European courts etc. Then why shouldn't the roof owners get a cut. An alternative would have been micro wind generation I guess and the population would have been reduced as neighbours shot each other over the noise.

who do you class as poor as well, many of those will think of nothing paying 35 pounds a month for the latest bling mobile, but 300 for some installation which would pay back in a couple of years, couldn't possibly do that. I know a sweeping generalisation but I was venting.

Before the spelling and grammar Nazi jump in can I say 2 things. 1 I'm an engineer. 2 bloody HP touchpad.

Apple gets patent for ‘unlock gesture’

too late

"I'm going to patent a revolutionary idea - I call it a "personal power management cycling system", with multi function capability:

A single activation of the PPMCS causes electricity to be diverted from the battery of the device to the main operational areas, such as the CPU and screen.

A second activation causes a temporary interrupt to the electricity diversion system for all non-critical device functions, such as the screen.

A long activation of the PPMCS causes a gradual cessation of the electricity diversion function, allowing all active device functions to cease operation in a controlled manner."

unfortunately you will have violated this patent in doing so

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/low-power-design/2011/09/a-closer-look-at-power-managements-problematic-power-patent.html

Two Larrys to go head-to-head in Google-Oracle case

"1: Page.."After careful and thorough discussion and negotiation we could reach no common ground or reasoning, so instead we finally settled with Paper Scissors Stone""

Surely it would be Paper Scissors Stone Lizzard Spock

Kodak wins round in Apple patent brawl

Me thinks Kodak pre-dated them as well as being bl**dy obvious.

>The first patent (filed in 1996) describes using the same memory for unprocessed and processed images (i.e. raw sensor data, and jpegs). This is as opposed to having separate dedicated memory (usually as part of the sensor chip) to store the unprocessed images. The main thrust of the claim was that the unified system could better support features such as burst-mode, since it did not have a limited space for unprocessed image data. Additionally, the system could process images at the same time as taking new ones.

From my reading of the patent they have patented the idea of taking the data from the sensor into DRAM through whatever means possible( CPU, DMA, ESP ) and then the CPU processing it there before passing it on to the non volatile storage device. The process of data comming from one peripheral device be it a CMOS sensor or a 485 transceiver and being placed in a buffer in the processors own memory space before being sent on to another peripher ( the storage device ) must be as old as the hills, at least as old as using tape recorders to record data anyway. In addition Kodak relased the DCS420 in 1994 two years prior to the patent, this used 8MB of DRAM for storage so it could take multiple pictures without waiting for the previous image to be stored.

So are Apple just patenting the procesing of the data by the CPU ( big woopy doo ) or are they patenting the use of a ram disk. None of which I can see as particularly ground breaking even in 1996. It seems just another case of patenting the patently obvious, lets take how everybody normally does stuff ( peripherals/cpu/memory ) add on a differnt peripheral that seems to be taking off ( a digital sensor) and saying we have created somethin novel and amazing. Now if they had use the sensors memory to perform the task by somehow having more memory on the sensor than the sesor pixels themselves it might have been a more worthwhile patent.

Car immobilisers easily circumvented by crafty carjackers

is it easier the second time around

most crypto algorithms are known. the key to them is the key. of course there are week algorithms and using the vin as the key is just stupid. hiding the algorithm is just an extra layer. knowing the key used for one car should not help with the next. again shorter keys will be easier to brute force as technology moves on, but then fob tech will move on.