Posts by Will Godfrey

Quick Q: How many FLOPPIES do I need for 16 MILLION image files?

Pah!

I still have the approx 60 page Interword file (BBC B for those who don't know) that is the instruction manual for an adventure game generator program (text only of course). This and the game generator itself both fit on a single 5.25in floppy in Acorn DFS format.

Needs double sided or twin drives to actually run the generator unless you want to do lots of disk swapping.

Copyright minister: Those missing TWO copyright exceptions? We're still on track

If you release material under a Creative Commons license, a user doesn't owe any collection fees... except in Germany where GEMA apparently has the right to collect fees (even though the material was given away by you), but are not obliged to pass them on to you.

Traffic light vulns leave doors wide open to Italian Job-style hacks

Let me explain it to you.

In most of the country a red light means "Stop."

In London it means "Next 4 cars please."

... unless you're a taxi driver or a cyclist, in whch case it's "What red light?"

Last time I had a peek into a box that was being worked on, it was a Siemens PLC inside - you know, the vendor that thinks there's nothing wrong with having a hard-coded password.

NHS patient data storm: Govt lords SLAP DOWN privacy protections

Missing the point

They aren't even talking about any benefit to the patient any more, just selling the information to their friends commercial organisations.

If they're selling my info under pretend anonymisation I want to be paid.

50+ crowd are wolfing down tablets: Silver foxes are even migrating to the Twitters

Well I'm glad they told me that me and my chums use all this stuff

Top tip, power users – upgrading Ubuntu may knacker your Linux PC

Re: Grub problems.

Really?

I didn't have any problem upgrading a machine from debian wheezy to the current testing a couple of weeks ago.

It just worked (tm)

94% of Brit tech bosses just can't get the staff these days, claims bank

Re: My solution

Dangerous words!

You're proably on some hit list now for that outburst of reality.

Friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer – advice from US, UK, EU

Well X and V are a bit near each other

... and I thought I had fat fingers!

Re: It's OK for me!

Nice one!

Have one of these, as well as an upvote :)

That's right, MICROSOFT is an ANDROID vendor after Nokia gobble

Don't take your eyes off this for an instant.

I smell an exceedingly large and odoriferous rodent.

Microsoft's naughty Cortana NOT ALLOWED NEAR CHILDREN

Hmm.

Is that 13 real years of of age, 13 apparent years - in which case I know some born pre 1970 that would fail, or 13th birthday (sux if it's 29 Feb).

So far, so SOPA: Web campaigners to protest world's biggest ever free trade deal

Bad

Well I guess my generation will survive this without too much hardship, and our children... maybe.

Today's kids are who I really feel sorry for. I think they are destined to lifelong serfdom and I don't see any way of warning or protecting them.

Vladimir Putin says internet is a 'CIA project'

I always thought he was a bit crazy

Now I think he's dangerously crazy

Brazilian president signs internet civil rights law

Re: "From the country that gave you"...

"Brazil should be prioritising and sorting out its Real-World problems rather than its Virtual ones."

So should:

The USA, UK, Rusia, China, France...

Your point?

Judge halts spread of zombie Nortel patents to Texas in Google trial

Re: James Watt introduced many advances..........

I wan't thinking of Watt.

Re: IP Deathmatch

This is far from new. The development of steam engines was held up for years in exactly the same way.

True optical zoom coming to HTC smartphone cameras

Round about 2000 I bought a mid-range Olympus with decent size lense, 3:1 optical zoom, a whopping great 3.2M pix resolution and (now obsolete) 128MB SmartMedia cards. It has travelled the world with me and I still use it regularly.

The absolute killer feature is the fact that the body shape forms a very comfortable hand grip, but more important even than that is that this shape means it takes 4x AA battery. I have never had to be concerned about charging, battery supplies etc.

Liftoff! SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts Dragon on third resupply mission to ISS

Good Stuff

Hope Elon likes beer :)

LOHAN and the amazing technicolor spaceplane

Jolly good show, what!

Record labels sue Pandora over vintage song royalties

Re: Who Is Ripping Whom, RIAA?

They're holding the money in trust for his grand-neice's dog.

What? She doesn't have a dog?

But she might be thinking of getting one.

Opportunity selfie: Martian winds have given the spunky ol' rover a spring cleaning

Re: Are ALL THE MATHEMATICIANS DEAD?

@LordHighFixer Instead of being insulting, why not get off that pedestal you seem to be on and explain to the guy where he went wrong? As a mathematician don't you feel obliged to help others?

Indeed, I'm sure a worked example would have taken you less time than your oringinal comment.

New Facebook phone app allows you to stalk your mates

Stalking friends?

That would be EX friends then

Red-faced LOHAN team 'fesses up in blown SPEARS fuse fiasco

Re: Public Inquiry

Not over-reacting at all.

Of course, following the public enquiry, an objection will be raised as to the selection of the members of the enquiry panel.

A judicial review will then be demanded.

I'd be inclined to go for a resettable polyfuse, esepecially if the igniters are known to go S/C sometimes.

German space centre endures cyber attack

I suggest you look in a mirror mr(s) A/C

Parent gabfest Mumsnet hit by SSL bug: My heart bleeds, grins hacker

Re: My Mumsnet password

Best so far - have an upvote.

Audio fans, prepare yourself for the Second Coming ... of Blu-ray

I was going to 'Meh'

But I see you've all 'Meh'd first.

The one with the memory stick in the pocket.

Excellent!

"Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don't have any surface noise. I said, "Listen, mate, *life* has surface noise.""

I may steal this.

Re: Not interested.. But I am.

What is the blue ray you speak of?

Windows 8.1, which you probably haven't upgraded to yet, Already obsolete

Re: Who at Microsoft is making up the names... and why do they still have a job?

So when is the year of Windows on the drektop? <- that's humor, that is.

Re: No

I emphatically fail to disagree with these comments.

Ex-Tony Blair adviser is new top boss at UK spy-hive GCHQ

Is this a train wreck I see before me?

Expect reports of CyberWeaponsOfMassDestruction any time now.

Dropbox defends fantastically badly timed Condoleezza Rice appointment

So many nails in the cloud coffin...

Yet still they come!

So you invent a wireless network using LEDs, what do you do next? Add solar panels. Boom

This has whiskers

I remember an article in Practical Wireless around the middle 1960s where they were modulating a neon indicator as the transmitter, and sensing with an OC71 transistor with the paint scraped off. They used car headlamp reflectors as (nearly) parabolic mirrors. This was not for data, but audio with a bandwidth of something like 10kHz.

Never did get round to trying it myself.

France bans managers from contacting workers outside business hours

In principle I think they are absolutely right. Implimentation too clunky.

Just because other people are tied to their employer whether they like it or not, doesn't make it right. Everyone needs to be able to get away from work stresses if they are to lead a healthy life. You shouldn't need to fear some form of retribution if you don't answer the phone out of hours - and that is the position far too many people are in. The more connected systems become, the worse this gets.

LOHAN spaceplane 'Punch and Judy' test flights live online

Ta Muchly.

What happened?

Scandal-hit Co-op Bank's CIO hits eject button after one year

Very Sad

I was thinking of transferring to the Co-op bank just before all this surfaced. Good job I didn't, but it's a great shame when an institution standing for integrity gets trashed like this.

Alphadex fires back at British Gas with overcharging allegation

Re: Reminds me

That's nothing. There was a report some years ago where they sent the baliffs round to a farm that was about a mile away from the nearest gas pipe! Seems like they haven't improved much.

Death of data retention directive: What it means for OTHER data laws

It's a sad day when we need the Euorpean parliament to protect us... from our government

Solar-powered aircraft unveiled for round-the-world flight

Fascinating

Good luck to them

LOHAN's Punch and Judy show relaunches Thursday

7AM!

What kind of time is that? It's physically impossible to set my alarm for less that 9.

Final Windows XP Patch Tuesday will plug Word RTF vuln

Re: Re - "We are all gonna DIE ! ! !"

We know they're going to die too, hopefully after their parents, but did you have to be so brutal about it?

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells

Re: "Windows XP is a thirteen year old operating system .." @Hans 1

Good Lord! That girlfriend of ours has the constitution of an Ox - and, it seems, the stubbornness.

Furious MyCloud users descend on WD website as borkage continues

Bad WD, bad.

I have considerable sympathy for ordinary users.

How are they to know any better when they have cloud remote servers thrust at them from all angles, and the meeja strangely silent on the problems.

Business on the other hand...

Torvalds rails at Linux developer: 'I'm f*cking tired of your code'

Seems to me Linus has been remarkably patient and restrained. If it had been me in charge I'd be throwing things by now (not chairs though)

LOHAN's Punch and Judy show is GO for Saturday

Hmm didn't se a launch time.

White House blasts Samsung for tweeting Obama-Ortiz selfie

Translation

We didn't think of it first and make an exclusive deal with the highest bidder for the photo.

123-reg shrugs off customer complaints over stealth domain transfer charges

Re: Out of order.

Exactly my thought. Move quickly and they don't have a leg to stand on. Maybe they were hoping enough time would pass before anyone noticed for them to say 'but that was ages ago', although I'm not sure even that would save them if someone put up a detirmined fight.