Posts by Herby

But can it be...

...engraved with your significant other's birthday, or your mutual anniversary? Oh, and it has to look "good" to the gender that has multiple X chromosomes.

Please, tell us...

Which patents you CLAIM that android (or any other) infringes upon. If you can't tell us, then they don't exist!

p.s. Isn't the FAT32 patent due to expire soon?

Then there is ...

The screen saver I use on my Linux desktop. I (and my cubemate) look at it and wonder just who is playing the game with all the dumb decisions that are being made. It does amuse me though.

One of these days it might get close to "winning", but I don't see it as likely.

In other news...

Sun rises in the west, and moon determined to be Swiss Cheese.

etc..

Say what you will about Jobs as a CEO, at least he was no Ballmer!

And this implies that Ballmer is no Steve Jobs. Most unfortunate for Microsoft for which I shed only a small tear!

Otherwise:

+1

Any my stock is doing nicely, thank you.

So we should call today...

"Good Thursday".

Sounds good enough for me.

Simple idea:

Come up with "fake" Google Glass. Sell as fashion statements to the masses. Even better to use against police (or others) who claim being watched is a bad thing.

Of course the selling price would need to be around $10 to be useful.

Does...

Microsoft have one of these??

Just askin'

What is really needed

Is an RFID chip for every piece of luggage. Installed at a common place (like under the handle, embedded in the side of the case). Then the airport monkeys can scan these in addition to the flimsy paper tags that are attached to your bad. If you register your bag properly, it can be scanned and located much like a lost cat (or other animal).

If course the airlines would need to do some work, but data is getting cheaper to shuffle around, so it should be pretty easy. RFID tags are less than a buck a piece, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Will it happen? I doubt it, it would be too logical.

Damned if you do..

..Damned if you don't.

Who knows, she may actually KNOW something about security!

Pretty easy

to make money. At least it wasn't "malicious" just non functional.

I'd add that there are other pieces of software that are close to this in functionality. Left as an exercise for the reader to determine which ones are.

Where is the <insert platform here> police!

Maybe the problem is the "customer"?

Unfortunately for many calls to "customer service" the requests are for "really dumb" things, and the customers are a bit slow "right click" (where do I write click on my screen), and "cup holder" (recently seen on a TV commercial here) usage.

What is needed is a bit more "customer education" so that the callers will have an idea what is going on. I only suppose that the majority of people reading this are of a higher class than the typical "1D10T" person who calls support asking for instructions on how to empty the "bit bucket" that is getting full. The root of the problem is that there isn't a test involved on using a computer. Back in previous decades (see S/360 article) the people who were using the computer actually knew something about its operation. Nowdays it is hoped that it will work like a telephone. Just "pick up the phone" (see Federal Express commercial).

We've come a long way, and computer literacy hasn't come as far.

As for phone service, those #$%^%#$& voice recognition services that ask open ended questions are TERRIBLE. Oh, and I don't want to blab out my credit card number to everyone in the office either!

Seven pages (and counting)

This sure did stir up a hornets nest. One way or another people DO have opinions and will express them.

cf. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Then we have leap seconds

To deal with. You see the earth is slowing down (ever so slightly) and days ARE getting longer. To counter this, we add leap seconds every once in a while. Yes, your GPS takes this into account when it finds the big X you painted on your foot (you are here!).

Leap years are another matter. They take into account that our trip around the sun isn't exactly 365 days. We add a day (almost) every 4 years to make the spring equinox be the same day every year.

Note to others: Please use the system's day-time routines. They are much more refined than the silly ones you might try to make up. They will work correctly as well. There are too many stories of date/time calculations going haywire.

Don't get me started on daylight savings (summer) time.

They don't call it WinTel for nothing!!

"With the end of life of Windows XP around the world, we're seeing a large resurgence in desktop."

Water??

Is a "chemical" as well. Is it "organic"? Given what constitutes a chemical, it may not be. You CAN die from over consumption (it happened locally when a contest was done a bunch of years ago). As far as I know, it may even cause cancer, as most people who succumb to cancer have consumed it at one time.

Of course there is the "taste" issue. Given my diet, it doesn't amount to much.

Now where is that nice Cheeseburger I want?

One of these days a government will do...

...something similar. Need to "re-value" its currency so that the trillion dollar bill that will barely buy a cup of coffee will be reduced to only a thousand dollar bill for the cup of coffee.

Could happen, you never know.

Note: When I was growing up, a cup of coffee could be had for a measly $0.10, now it is up to $1.00. Times have changed, of course, as they had silver in the coins as well, so they were really worth something. Good luck with that now, as pennies (in the USA) now cost more than $0.01 to produce. Go figure!

Actually a solution...

IEX has a "magic box" that has 50km of fiber in it. It introduces enough latency that the advantage is wiped out. No fuss, no muss.

The "problem" is that the HFT people want the LEAST amount of latency so they can get the quote and head off to the next exchange to do their deeds (trade before you). A delay of 50km (a fraction of a msec) is enough to really put a hiccup in their program. The exchanges just want "speed". No more, no less. The other functions don't matter.

You are being watched.....

Look, my opinion: Why not. They have everything anyway, why not make use of it and earn some money. It would make the whole thing "self sustaining", and then the government wouldn't need tax $$$'s to "make it so". Aren't there lots of "CIA Fronts" lying around, why not a nice "NSA Front". OH, wait, maybe there already is one (or two).

Nice touch anyway.

Well...

"Will go towards covering people or companies that bought shares in HP between 22 November, 2010 and 18 August, 2011.". Of course those who held onto the stock during this bounce will see nothing. Oh, and the lawyers will get rich! What else is new?

Silicon Valley just IS...

As one who has grown up here, I've seen it all. Things come and go, but there are LOTS of garages here and lost of people willing to try things. It is pretty convenient to be able to go down to Fry's (it used to be Zack Electronics in Palo Alto) and pick up the pieces needed to make up something. It must be in the water or the air that things sprout up here. Sure things and people move around as well as being bought and sold, but that's the way it is.

Then again, in my experience, the faltering of a company doesn't have to do with its ideas, but rather with its management. It is the people in the suits that hold the string of the Yo-Yo and make it go up and down. If they don't get it right, things are doomed. If they do get it right, everybody wins. It is the classic MBA vs. EE problem.

So, life goes on. It really doesn't matter where the magic happens most of the time, but if you are close the the "action" more and more things do happen.

For an example: Try to make a movie outside of the Hollywood sphere. Sure it can be done, but it takes a LOT of patience.

But I don't want...

A silly "hopper". I just want the TiVo service I get with DirecTV to continue like it always does. The customer service for Dish network just isn't that good (I do know a friend who switched).

Please don't let the silly people of Dish (not known for their great management practices) to screw up DirecTV.

The (dis) wonders of market consolidation.

Need to add the DogCow as well.

Now this should be a proper thing for Apple to do. See technical note 31 for specifics.

I'm probably showing my age here.

Note to banks:

Please use (very) custom hardware/software when you build ATMs. Oh, and please put in some logging features that do checksums of vital parts and report them back to "central". You don't need to verify them at the ATM, let your center do that and raise alarms.

p.s. Keep those $20 bills on coming! Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

Lots of things to protest about these days.

Of course when you think about it, everybody has an opinion, and (hopefully) they can express it. Just don't beat me over the head if I don't share it.

Then there is the saying:

Calling a dog a cat doesn't make it so!

Dust??

Just remember, if IBM hadn't used the Intel parts (used a proper chip, like the 68000), Intel might well have been reduced to dust, probably making ram or rom chips.

Of course for the PC JR they might have used the 68008, which does have an 8 bit buss, but works quite well. As I remember, it could only address 1Mbyte of memory as well. I also note that the 6845 CRT chip is a Motorola chip, as is the CMOS memory chip used in the AT (and all that follows). I suspect that most "bridge" chips have an implementation of the 6818 in them, with the DST transitions that date back that far (and in the USA been changed twice since).

Life goes on.

Next time...

Three words:

Thumb drive. Mail.

Please pay attention now!

A simple addition...

Go buy a Raspberry Pi, and give it a nice 32+ GB SD card. It will have lots of room to be a "server" and you CAN make good use of it. It can hold all sorts of images of various software releases, and for the most part be quite quick. An investment of less than $100 or so and you have a VERY complete backup. If you want, you can make up USB keys and swap them out at will. Given that power is likely to be erratic, it can be a godsend.

If you want, you can make some of the machines do netboots and go from there if necessary. The nice thing about a solution like this is that it WILL be stable for a while, and have little (if any) malware problems.

The images you put on this "server" can be varied, but having all the files that would normally be fetched from the "internet" there (and those of your new operating system) ought to make things easier.

This is a pretty reasonable investment for $100 (or less).

Now THAT is what you call

Global Warming. Caused by our nearest star, not man made. Pretty obvious.

Of course, others will call it "weapons of mass destruction" and they may just be right.

Then again, if it hits at night will anyone notice? Ohhh, Aurora!!

Dick Tracy??

Fifty years later. Two-way wrist TV. We thought it was pure fantasy when it was in the comics back then. Reality, what a concept.

p.s. Does it have a position sensor so it will change "up" depending on which way you hold it?

"In memory" database.

Seems typical. For performance upgrade, buy more hardware to make system run. Microsoft has been doing this for years.

I had a W98 laptop that (originally) came with 32MB. Good luck trying to run anything on that small of memory these days!

Microsoft upgrades: Please upgrade your hardware first!

Back to the future...

This just in: Met Police now downgrade laptops to Windows 7, citing "ease of use" problems. Details to follow.

You heard it here first.

Original "E-ticket"

Relates (as said in a previous note) back to the rides at Disneyland. In the older days you bought a book of tickets, ranging from the A-Ticket (used for the merry-go-round, all the way up to the E-Ticket used for the Matterhorn Bobsleds. The E-Ticket rides were the most costly and usually the most exhilarating. So, if you wanted someting exciting, it was always an E-Ticket ride.

Of course this is the definition of my youth. Nowdays it may have a much different meaning, often relating to flying on an airplane.

Times change!

Pardon me sir...

You are mistaking me for someone who actually gives a damn.

As said in previous comments the term "MaxiPad" has other meanings. Never mind.

This begs the question...

Will these flaws actually get fixed?

This is the more pressing issue.

Desperate times...

Call for desperate measures.

One can infer from this that Microsoft is indeed desperate!!

Other uses...

I got my wife a pair of needle nose pliers so she can remove the bones from the Salmon Fillets she cooks. This is a VERY good use.

Sometimes you CAN use side cutters as pliers. It depends upon the material and how hard you grip it. In fact if your task is to turn a round object (that just happens to fit in the jaws of said side cutters) they may just be THE tool to use.

Yes, I own several pliers. At times they mate and produce more. The gestation time usually is a trip to the delivery room (hardware store).

Block Diagram...

Seems to describe an iphone in all its glory. Maybe that is the "prior art".

Now if the patent office had the public do its search for "prior art" patents might be worth something. To be sure, there is lots of non-patented "prior art".

Water, Water...

Everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

Seems fitting now.

Some of this makes me want for "simpler" times.

Like when the information was "plain text" and you subscribed to Usenet newsgroups.

Unfortunately these are close to obsolete, but in their day, they were THE thing.

Now where is the alt...... newsgroup I (never mind)