Posts by mike brockington

Theory

What is the minimal theoretical power drain for a device like this?

Surely to be able to see the picture on a device this size under all lighting conditions it needs pretty close to 40W even given 100% efficiency?

Scotland

Seeing as we have a different legal system up here, can anyone confirm for me the common belief that there is no law of trespass in Scotland?

And secondly, has anyone spotted an out-door pool for it to matter?

@AC

"Amazing how people get hung up on words...

By Anonymous Coward

Posted Friday 6th June 2008 11:05 GMT

Processors are hotter than hotplates,"

I would imagine that most electric cooking rings reach temperatures of well over 200 degrees centigrade / celsius, as they need to be hot enough to transfer heat to cooking oil.

I don't think many processors, or other electronic devices, can survive even 100 degrees centigrade / celsius.

Temperature != Power

/pedant

Kettle, Pot, Black: yes

Let me see if I have this right:

An OS written by Microsoft lets some random third-party application download as much crap as it wants onto the desktop.

The OS then allows the user to run an EXE that clearly isn't safe to run, without even politely asking the user if they are sure, and this has nothing to do with the OS?

Sounds to me like Apple should write an entire OS themselves, so that Safari doesn't have to depend on Windows ...

Title

Who in their right mind is ever going to use this standard, even if it does survive?

The quality does not matter, only that MS can put a tick in the box when they say that Office supports open standards, and can therefore be used by all the places that have mandated open-standards-only.

This has nothing to do with IT, and everything to do with Marketing.

Exemptions

A while back, I was a Royal Engineer. It was part of my training to blow things up. With explosives. And how to make alternatives if the normal plastic explosive wasn't available.

I was given various written material to support that training...

I seriously hope I have accidentally retained any of it. Does the copy that is in my brain count?

Chop Saw

I would recomment a standard, £50 - £100 chop saw, fitted with a solid, metal-cutting blade. Make a simple template to hold it in place on the saw bed, then I bet I could chop them faster than you could stack them.

Which one

Which one do you think SillyStar are more afraid of? Apple, with it's multi-million dollar legal budget, or a lone OpenSource dev, with all of his close friends?

What about...

Google Checkout, NoChex etc etc.

Both of the above fall into the same category as PayPal, so why aren't they allowed?

Am I the only one who suspects that the allegedly lower fraud rate by PayPal users is down to the fact that PayPal refuses to admit that fraud ever occurs?

Serial Device?

Actually, my mouse is USB!!

No, seriously, how is a mouse more of a serial device than a keyboard is? Ever tried typing two words at once? (Deliberately)

Double Standards

It is amazing how many people on this list are prepared to support a dodgy bit of patent trolling when it goes against M$, but not when it is the other way around.

I see nothing in the ruling that states they stole code from him, only that they infringed his patent. I am all in favour of M$ being fined for anti-competitive behaviour, but please don't go giving them any more precedant for their own patent wars against Linux etc. Good luck to this guy in getting every penny he can, as long as it is then used for the greater good, somehow, like giving his tool away for free?

Also available in Scotland

There's a Vulcan on display at the National Museum of Flight, at East Fortune near(ish) to Edinburgh. It made a great umbrella last September while watching the Typhoon clowning around.

Wireless

Personally I just use an RF link - cost me about £30 iirc and lets me move things around wherever I want, even out in the garden, where there is a surprising lack of 13amp sockets.

Rugged Laptop?

So what kind of laptop can survive a car-crash better than a Darwin-winner ?

Internet Update

Have I got this right - you are going to be able to buy a car with a BETA grade transmission. Then what? Plug it into the 'Net every night until you are able to download 25kgs of new gearbox? (Don't think my ADSL does matter transfer yet...)

Safari is King

Nevermind about Opera - only geeks have anything good to say about it; nevermind FireFox, which is going backwards (Text zoom is much more useful than Page zoom); Safari is the one pushing the boundaries at the moment - more support for CSS3 than anything else, and better support for CSS2 as well.

One Film?

I think you will find that there were two films, not to mention the Computer Game.

Really...

"Confusion over the handling of emails ... is costing the legal profession millions of pounds"

Somehow I don't really think so: everything is billable, right?