* Posts by David Bird

31 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Jun 2007

Autonomy founder Mike Lynch's US extradition hearing will be in February 2021

David Bird

Politicians' names

* I give you William Williams Wynn, Conservative candidate in the 1974 general elections.

Remember those Salesforce layoffs after that bumper Q2? Yeah, forget that, SaaS player set to hire 12,000 staff

David Bird

Look at me

while (shareholders_rule and my_bonus_is_important ) {

"I'm firing - proves I can keep a lid on costs"

"I'm hiring - proves that the business is expanding and prospering"

}

UK Home Office seeks suppliers: £25m up for grabs to build database to keep track of crimelords' ill-gotten gains

David Bird
Alert

Re: I can do that!

Whoa there. Access? I think two worksheets in Excel will suffice.

British Army does not Excel at spreadsheets: Soldiers' newly announced promotions are revoked after sorting snafu

David Bird

Re: I sympathize

I copy and paste into a WSL window, where sorting is definitely understood. Also sometimes the only way to format dates.

Heir-to-Concorde demo model to debut in October

David Bird

Is the name Renishaw meant to be a secret?

They have a lovely technology demonstration centre.

Microsoft's latest cloud innovation: Printing

David Bird

Re: Café au nuage

Don't forget the regular hyper-descaling.

Brit brainiacs say they've cracked non-volatile RAM that uses 100 times less power

David Bird

Times makes things larger not smaller

The times or multiplication operator when used with a number greater than one produces a result which is larger rather than smaller than the original. Or perhaps "times less" is the operator, whatever that means. The article itself uses the correct "1 percent" terminology.

Well, well, well. Internet-of-Things speaker biz Sonos to continue some software support for legacy kit after all

David Bird

I have got a 35 year old amp (newer speakers) and a Pi with a DAC-hat. The amp is so old it has got a tape copy output that i can plug into a sub woofer. Feel no need for anything more fancy. And I have probably jinxed the amp now.

No Motorola Razr comeback orders in 2019: Costly foldy nostalgia mobe pulled back

David Bird

384 times as much? luxury!

The factor for the Honeywell Level 6 I programmed (in assembler) would be about 92,000.

Welcome to the World Of Tomorrow, where fridges suffer certificate errors. Just like everything else

David Bird

Re: Not sure the comparison is valid

I have a glass fronted drinks fridge and the booze view is never obstructed by condensation.

Pupil mental health monitor promises app rewrite after hardcoded login creds discovered

David Bird

Every company after a data leak

Profitability and bonu ... sorry, we mean data privacy and security are our top priorities.

Loss-making $15bn hipster chat biz Slack suddenly less appetising to investors as it predicts deeper losses

David Bird

Re: Investor darling Slack .... has never made a profit.

Although, unlike Twitter, people pay them to use the service. So where are all those millions in revenue going?

Lenovo ThinkPad X390: A trusty workhorse that means business but it's not without a few flaws

David Bird

Looking forward to buying one in a few years

ThinkPads make good second hand bargains, typing this on a T430 (Linux, of course).

Startup remotely 'bricks' grumpy bloke's IoT car garage door – then hits reverse gear

David Bird

Re: Re:Sounds completely - completely - pointless

An actual key? In some sort of ignition lock? That would be very old school technology for someone deploying remote control services.

Sources! say! Twitter's! after! you! Yahoo!

David Bird

"568 per cent drop", even the rules of mathematics have to be suspended to report this calamity.

This is why copy'n'paste should be banned from developers' IDEs

David Bird

Too horrible to contemplate

I wrote communications software in assembler for Honeywell Level 6 in the late 70s. I am fairly sure this isn't one of mine...

The designer of the IBM ThinkPad has died

David Bird
Thumb Up

I'm with Randall.

Facebook hammers another nail into Flash's coffin

David Bird

Re: Is HTML5 pure and saintly

"outdated site that still uses it" - that will be the BBC then, about the only site I visit these days that nags me to install it.

WORLD HISTORY in SELFIES: So AMAZEBALLS your EYES will EXPLODE

David Bird

Some sort of server mixup...

...between theregister and cracked.com ? Another downside to the cloud.

Vatican subtly shifts its position on The Blues Brothers

David Bird
Thumb Up

I had two hours to kill back in 1980...

...in the vicinity of Leicester Square. Had never heard of the film, or of Dan Aykroyd or John Belushi. Didn't recognise Carrie Fisher out of her Leia gear. Bemused doesn't begin to describe my reaction. Emerged into the daylight not being quite sure what I had just seen but convinced of its brilliance.

Wireless breakthrough: one frequency, multiple signals

David Bird

Re: History is written by the winners..

...and the web page celebrating the work of Mr Bose appears to be rendered in hundred year old HTML as well.

Dyson spouts hot air

David Bird
FAIL

By which I mean

Epoxy ... where did that spurious "x" come from ?

David Bird
Happy

Expoxy resin ...and tie wraps

My first Dyson was largely held together with expoxy resin and tie wraps before the motor finally failed. Has to be said no bits have snapped off the new one yet.

Forget Flash – content is king

David Bird
FAIL

The worst Flash site on the web has to be...

Oracle's support site. I find myself having to use this abomination in order to seek out Solaris patches (which I could only find initially after placing a technical support call, answered by someone who had braved this loathsome exercise in unnecessary complexity before me).

Green light for spooks' net snoop plan

David Bird

So what is "ordinary encryption"?

I work from home, so everything that leaves my house during the day is encrypted. Is there a red beacon flashing over my house on a big map of the UK at GCHQ?

Western Digital gears up for mighty formatting

David Bird
Coat

Another maths complaint

When did the fraction "one eighth" or "an eighth of" become "eight times fewer"? "Times" surely refers to multiplication (well it did when I was at school), making things bigger if the multiplicand is greater than one.

Street View snooptrike stalks Siena

David Bird
Headmaster

Cheating?

So Google circumvent the problem of capturing pedestrianised urban areas by deploying a wheeled vehicle? Assuming bicycles are allowed in these pedestrianised areas anybody spotting the trike should cycle along side and with luck appear in evey shot (ideally with gestures).

Brit loonies adventurers headed to Timbuctoo by 'flying car'

David Bird
Unhappy

The www.terrafugia.com web site

Did someone forget to renew the domain?

HD TV in the UK

David Bird
Happy

In defence of Virgin (re Sooty's post)

I have a V+ box and it is a great gadget. As has been pointed out you should not have to pay more than £75. I watched the cable guy install it and it did take longer than 5 seconds - amongst other things, he had to check the signal strength on each of the three tuners. On Demand has some plus points, in particular 4oD thoughtfully strip out the adverts, but has minuses (only the last 7 days of a subset of programmes) and V+ offers the invaluable "record series" option. I don't have HD TV connected to it yet, but I have thought wistfully how nice it might be to watch Wimbledon on one.

BBC HD channel gets green light

David Bird
Heart

All this talk of how to get HD into your telly

I use BitTorrent (which admittedly the BBC is unlikely to adopt). Not all your favourite American drama series maybe out there in HD, but some of mine are, e.g. Heroes, House and CSI. And even though it is only 720p it still looks luscious compared to the hideously compressed stuff that comes out of the cable box.

Evesham 26in Alqemi V and VX HD TVs

David Bird

Maybe poorly set up at the factory?

The last two TVs I bought left the factory maladjusted (both for geometry and colour). My small sample may be unrepresentative, but I would not be surprised to find that if access to the engineer set-up on the sets was available one could obtain identical and satisfactory colours on both Evesham models.