Posts by chebucto 24 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Feb 2011
To expand a bit, I imagine the design goals for space gear would change. Now, there's a huge premium on light weight, with an absolute maximum of, what, tens of tonnes? If that constraint is diminished the types of spacecraft made will change. We may see craft to get out into the solar system; flying garbage collectors to grab and de-orbit space junk; larger telescopes, etc etc etc.
I think OP means the spelling is wrong. TFA should say "royal assent".
Also Canada is indeed a sovereign country. Our head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada. She just happens to be the Queen of some other sovereign countries as well.
Regarding the bill, our current PM has a poor batting record with our supreme court. The hope now is that most of the egregious parts of this bill will be struck down in due time.
Using the cost of the research as the value of a copy of the results of that research is misleading on its face. Why, if Xbox One software is $200m worth of research, are the machines sold for hundreds of dollars?
They didn't steal $200m worth of research, they made an unauthorized copy of the results of $200m worth of research. At no time was the company deprived of anything - a fact which makes this type of crime fundamentally different from what is colloquially called 'theft'.
If the property in question was worth $100 to $200 million, did the beancounters mark that much down as a loss on the books in the time between the 'theft' and the arrest? Methinks not, given that it was copied, not stolen.
PS, note to author re: 'intellectual property'; you might find this interesting: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
Presumably there were winners in the other competitions, though it's hard to know for sure. The current store is pretty good, I got the mug and am quite happy with it.
A look at Cash n' Carrion from the golden days shows some interesting products that might sell well in the modern era, like baseball caps, more t-shirt choices, and a wide variety of keychains.
https://web.archive.org/web/20031223111516/http://www.cashncarrion.co.uk/
The clickwheel is still the best UI for portable music IMHO. The big size was a plus, too, for those want to sync their entire music library (rather than picking and choosing).
Here's hoping they (or someone) releases a clickwheel device with substantial flash memory in the future.
This is literally the phone I've been waiting for. The Q10 was too big and lacked the home row; the Q20 will probably just be too big. Still it will be miles ahead of the stonehengianly massive slab phones which all other companies seem to sell.
In the long term I suspect smaller phones and physical keyboards will regain some of their former popularity; if that happens, bb will be well placed.
The article author's insults aside, it does. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's copying the iPhone - there are clear differences. That doesn't change the fact that it has the looks the same.
I don't know if it's the width/height proportions, the diametre of the curves on the corners, the straight sides, or what, but it looks like an iPhone 4/5.
More to the point, what distinguishes channelregister.co.uk from theregister.co.uk ? Why is this particular article on Channel Register rather than The Register? Surely most of the non-Science/Odds&Sods articles on The Register have to do with 'the chain of companies linking vendors to end-users' in some way.
Trying to distinguish computer news from 'channel' news seems as foolish an errand as trying to distinguish the internet from 'the cloud'.
A cast of Cruise and Carrey is enough to seal the deal; the plot was just icing on the cake. Best worst for sure.
As for Koyaaniqatsi II, I'm all for it, with one edit: no voiceover (none in the original, IIRC), and have Fran do the song, without a trace of irony. It will leave the audience wondering what the artist's intent is: a refutation of the words of the song?, or final proof of beauty's ability to transcend ugliness? Seen in its true form, is our industrial society not fundamentally a thing of beauty; even, perhaps, a work of art?
I'm no expert in this field, and I could be completely off base, but I wonder why Google has to use Java in the first place. Or rather, would they have to use the VM if they'd established a set of standards for Android phones earlier.
My thinking is this: if the situation were more like the PC world, all phones would use CPUs with a common instruction set, and the more peripheral hardware would use standard interfaces. The, Google wouldn't have to use Java for the operating system.
Instead of that, different phones are so incompatible with each other that using Java becomes a necessity, while bringing the new version of the OS to them still requires significant custom coding.
A quick look at the wiki page on interstellar probes shows nothing that can travel the ~2m AU (30ly) in anything close to 100 years. Here's hoping that there are some breakthroughs in that field fairly soon. I have about 70 years left on this rock, I'd really like to see these worlds studied in my lifetime. At least, it would be nice to see this topic become a major field of research.
I wonder if there's some way of using the interstellar medium as the fuel?
Stallman is right again. No surprise there. No controversy, either. Nothing in this article deviates from what I already know about him; as always, he is sticking to his basic position that software freedom is important and worth fighting for. Same on El Red for trying (and failing) to pain Stallaman's essay as an irrational screed.
All points you made are understandable, but stem from misunderstanding.
The name: it's different than a doner, so it has a different name
The pita: you are quite right, this can be the worst part of the whole thing. But, a good chef will fry the pita on the hotplate with the meat; then, after it's soaked up the juices from the meat and veg, and absorbed some of the donair sauce, it is perhaps the best part. This is most obvious if you take a donair home, open it, eat it off a plate, and consume the pita seperately: it becomes a starchy, fatty, sweet, fried bit of heaven.
As for the meat, well, it is mystery meat (local rumor has it that it's grade 'F' beef'), but it does the trick and, after a few at the local bar, it does the trick.
Next time you're in Halifax, go to a good joint (KOD on pizza corner, or Uncle Buck's, or a dozen other places) and taste what I'm talking about :)
Glad to see Canadian cuisine getting proper international recognition. May I suggest that next friday you tackle that other great Canadian post-bar specialty, the Donair. A modified version of the Greek Gyro, the donair consists of spiced mystery meat sliced off a spit, diced tomatoes, onions, and a sweet garlic-y sauce.
This melange is all wrapped into a pita, double-wrapped in tinfoil, and placed in a paper takeout bag. You eat it like an ice cream cone, pealing the tinfoil down as you go. It's usually very messy (one is advised to leave both layers of tinfoil and the bag on as long as possible).
Donairs were invented in Halifax, the city with the highest bars-per-capita in the country, and they are still neck-and-neck with pizza as the most popular after-bar snack, so you know it's got to be good!
Some R&D programs do generate successful products. And intuitively, it seems like some problems are best addressed in a formal research environment. But other companies do poorly, despite huge spend. The key variable seems to be management and focus.
IBM has it - a brief look through their research websites makes it clear that for each problem they've got a very good idea of what they are trying to accomplish and often what they'll do with the knowledge gained.
The impression one gets from the Microsoft Research site, though, is of a softer focus, without a clear link from the research to product, nor even a clear description of the final goals of the research.
Great article, except for the fact that it offered no facts, no clear line of reasoning, and in substance nothing more than tired slogans.
The author's assertion that the 'accidental agents of revolution' are begin tarred with the brush of imperialism because of a speech is just that - an assertion. He overestimates the importance of State Department speeches and underestimates the intelligence of foreigners. If Twitter really is a threat, foreign governments will treat it that way; if it isn't, they won't [case in point: Iran blocked Twitter during those post-election riots a year or so ago, before any grand speechifying by Clinton].
On top of all this is the fact that promoting freedom in Middle Eastern fiefdoms was never Google or Twitter's goal in the first place; even assuming the author of TFA is right, there's still no harm to silicon valley.
Ideologues are always annoying, and libertarians are no exception.
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