* Posts by Jon Leighton

17 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jun 2007

US weather boffins fire up 'Yellowstone' 1.5 petaflopper

Jon Leighton
FAIL

Wait

153,000 square feet sure is heavy.

Amazon: Pay more for Kindle Fire, smoke ads from slabs

Jon Leighton

Turn it around

"We know from our Kindle reader line that customers love our special offers and very few people choose to opt out."

If that is so, let those that want adverts, pay for them. Solved!

Woman puts shout-out for hitman on Facebook

Jon Leighton

I don't believe it.

I cannot believe peoples can be so stupid. I'ma gonna try myself on this facebook thing an see if I can get meself a ITman.

Anon.

Terror in the Outback: Attack of the Giant Space Balloon

Jon Leighton

Throw it

When I used to launch radiosondes in a strong wind, it used to take a strong throw at 90 deg to the wind to get it to clear the buildings/ground. The occasional lucky launch resulted in the sonde going between buildings which where only 10 feet apart. Other times it might bounce along the ground for a bit but still successful data reception.

So design failure - that crane/launcher needs a throw mechanism.

FIA to oversee first e-car 'grand prix' series

Jon Leighton

Smell

In the days when I could afford to go to an F1 race the smell was one of the major hits to the senses. Perhaps they should carry around an aerosol can of burnt racing oil too.

Physicists assemble world's smallest snowman

Jon Leighton
Happy

I want one too, but

I don't have the room for it.

Lad passes gruelling 'getting on bus' test

Jon Leighton
FAIL

House of Commons

"waiting for people to get off before charging into the doorway (and not crowding around outside the doorway so there is no path for people to get off"

Our leaders fail this every time they vote in the House of Commons. I find it so irritating when they hang around the entrance to the Commons, nattering, whilst their colleagues have to negotiate a path through them. Idiots!

Grand Theft Auto IV PC debut gets SecuROM sideshow

Jon Leighton
Go

Sony DRM

I still refuse to buy anything with a Sony badge on it after their DRM debacle. I recently bought a 42" plasma and Sony would have been on the list. So those who consider using potentially damaging protection systems, consider your long-term business health.

Formula One kinetic energy recovery rigs debut

Jon Leighton
Go

Fuel

If I recall correctly, re-fuelling during pitstops is not allowed from the 2009 season.

Also, there are two types of KERS. One electric, using batteries and electric motors/generators and the other entirely mechanical using flywheel/transmission.

Govt ponders proof-of-ID law for future phone purchases

Jon Leighton

Instructions

Anyone want instructions on how to make your own mobile phone?

Sling shoots AppleTV rival into UK stores

Jon Leighton

Skip

£200 for a plastic skip (Uk for dumpster)? Noooo. I hate all sling shapes.

Barclays online banking falls offline

Jon Leighton
Go

Morgan Stanley

Could be all the extra customers from Morgan Stanley (and the others) they have just taken on moving their debts from the exhorbitant 23.9% interest rate to something cheaper.

Microsoft waves updated Maps, Hotmail at customers

Jon Leighton
Joke

Junk

My update email ended up in the Junk Folder!

Reg competition: Cisco goes isup

Jon Leighton

I can' believe ha ...

... for he onerous ask of sugesing reasons for he lack of 's on the Cisco websie ha he only remuneraion is a shie -shir which probably won' fi as I am on he peie size.

BBC Micro creators meet to TRACE machine's legacy

Jon Leighton

Telesoftware

I had a Teletext adapter and submitted several programs for transmission over CEEFAX. One of my most popular was a share downloading program which allowed you to automatically download your selection of share prices, daily and plot them out as time series. I had many letters sent on to me from The BBC to make changes to the software.

I was --- E L I T E--- too. Total geek.

There is even to this day some software I wrote in assembler, flying around the skies in a weather research aircraft, controlling an air sampling instrument.

Toshiba crams 320GB onto 2.5in HDD

Jon Leighton

Space

"All nine drives feature a Free Fall Sensor function, which Toshiba claims detects a drive falling and then parks its head before it crashes."

So they won't be capitalising on the lucrative space market since most of the time you are in free-fall.

Eden laptop theft sparks ID theft fears

Jon Leighton

Strong keyfob security

Surely, someone should have invented a strong security keyfob by now, which has to be used for a laptop to start up or read any data from the disc. You could argue that a disc can always be read using forensic software, but there must come a point where it just becomes not worth the effort in trying to hack into a disc.

There must be technology around which will render a disc unusable if it is probed too much.

Jon