Posts by Snapshot

Green recycling goals? Pending EU directive could hammer used mobile market

Not just the the EU

It may be worth pointing out that India is adopting the same rule from next June and that's a market over three times the size of the EU.

Microsoft decides it's a good time for bad UI to die

Good grief. The Fat Hippy has gone senile!

Lapsus$ teen sentenced to indefinite detention in hospital for Nvidia, GTA cyberattacks

Not in secure units like Broadmoor. As it says in the article, he will need to be assessed by a Mental Health Review Tribunal. The patient may appeal to be reviewed or may be referred by the DoH (IIRC) on the recommendation of those treating the patient. The tribunals are chaired by a solicitor; the other members are a GP and a layman. The tribunal's decision is absolute - if they think the patient is fit to be released then he/she/it is released. If not, he stays in.

First ever 64-bit version of Windows rediscovered … and a C compiler for it too

Re: Actualy came across a 64-bit XP on a customer site.

I have two OEM copies of it here so it can't have been that rare.

Pager hack faxed things up properly, again, and again, and again

Re: what fun it was writing configuration scripts in the Hayes ‘language

Officially it was the International Consultative Committee for Telephony and Telegraphy but in French which accounts for the order.

But, according to a friend who was European Support Manager at Hayes and on the committee, it was the Cosy Club for International Talk and Travel.

I worked for Wang from 1985 to 1994 so can answer both questions.

The company founder, Dr An Wang, put too many of his cronies in positions they weren't up to. He also wanted his older son, Fred, to take over but Fred wasn't interested. As a result, the company missed the switch to open systems. There was also insufficient marketing input to R&D which was happily making solutions for questions that hadn't been asked. So sales dwindled until the company went into Chapter 11 from which it never really recovered. UK staff levels dwindled from a peak of 1250 to 250 when I left. The UK decline wasn't helped by the appointment of a marketing manager who wanted telesales to be low volume, high margin when the whole industry shifted to high volume, low margin but his previous experience had been selling advertising.....

The US support operation was named Wang Cares and we had to explain to them very gently why they couldn't call it that here. It didn't stop one of our customers referring to the hardware as Wang Kit.....

Airbus and Rolls-Royce hit eject on hybrid-electric airliner testbed after E-Fan X project fails to get off the ground

Re: Electric planes?

I haven't looked into the benefits of converting fuel to electricity on-board but they must be real as diesel-electric trains replaced diesel a good while ago and shipping is also doing the same.

AI of the needle: Here's how neural networks could detect nighttime low blood-sugar levels using your heart beat

Re: A bit out of date

I'm an IDDM Type 2. My treatment is identical to a Type 1 but because I started as a Type 2 my Libre costs me £100 per month. Snarl....

Section 230 supporters turn on it, its critics rely on it. Up is down, black is white in the crazy world of US law

A bit of a contradiction

"It believes that Section 230 is sacrosanct and should be messed about with."

How to make a sentence completely meaningless by leaving out one short word. I am rather surprised by how often I see 'not' omitted these days, completely reversing the writer's (or writers') intended meaning.

Chocolate Factory exudes Nougat as Android 7 begins rollout

Re: Ever increasing hardware demands

Well, even Microsoft can manage that. For all (despite?) its many faults, Windows 10 is faster than W7 & W8 on the same hardware.

Model's horrific rape case may limit crucial online free speech law

Would this make eBay take action against those selling fakes?

If there's enough feedback saying a product is a fake, would eBay (and Amazon) be forced to actually do something instead of sitting on its hands as it does now? There might be a bright side to this after all.....

Halifax's '24/7' online banking service is down YET AGAIN

The Halifax online statement system was FUBAR again too. For the last week it's been telling me my card account was inactive for March instead of offering me March's statement. Seems to have been fixed by the 'reboot'......

On Nov 12, a human-made space lab will try to HARPOON a COMET and land on it

I thought it was Hot fudge sundae....

Haribo gummy bears implicated in 'gastric exorcism'

Maltitol really is nasty in excess

I've had a couple of run-ins (sorry!) with maltitol and it certainly can be unpleasant. The main one was a box of Thornton's diabetic choccies and half a dozen were enough to cause me problems. It's easy to see that a whole catering pack of bears would cause major, well-deserved, problems.