Posts by Nick Galloway

XP still working well

Like so many others, having invested extensively in software and hardware compatible with Windows XP, I still run a desktop and laptop with the system in place. Neither machine connects to the internet. It works well with the last useful incarnation of Office (2003) before the ribbon made selections harder to find, along with various TV tuner cards and software. My desktop had the network card on the motherboard nobbled during a lightning storm but the rest of the rig runs smoothly. I even went to the extreme of swapping out the original E6750 CPU for a hacked Xeon L5430.

I saw the writing on the wall in terms of internet safety and have gone down the Linux path.

XP was the pinnacle, as far as I am concerned. Windows is trying to be just a little bit too clever and providing functionality no one asked for, wanted or actually benefits from. Linux has my vote from now on and I hope it grows in popularity.

But how much does it weigh...

... in Rhinoceros'?

I thought the weight standard for really heavy stuff was now Rhinos, as per the weight of a Melbourne tram?

Transitional technology

So the practical limits of SSDs are defying Moore's law!?

SSDs might be nice a fast but I think I will persist with my spinning disks a little longer until the solid state technology matures and the interim 'solutions' are rationalised.

Selling indulgences

I think you can still buy one, if you want!

You have to remember there are some boys in Sicily who are deeply religious but have a tendency to stray from the path. They have the money and don't mind giving it to a righteous guy!

Otherwise burning books and killing your enemies seems fairly standard practice for most regimes throughout history. Picking on the church is just a case of discrimination...

Political aspirations?

This guy is wasted in IT. Let's get him elected in whatever country he so chooses. About time the hazards of Facebook were put on display and the social degradation it can cause. If you push the boundaries of social liberalism there will eventually be a conservative backlash. Get ready for some more of this as I suspect there is a silent majority support for the position this guy adopted.

Bike fitting

Stick this on an exercise bike and hook the bike into a dynamo and that powers your laptop. No exercise, no computer time fat boy!

Back up?

And when we want to back up our music files we put it all on a networked or external hard drive and some form of optical media, possibly even a CD!

The CD being dead is about as convincing as the PC being dead and that toilets are soon to be eliminated from all new house designs. If the studios kill the CD format then they are sillier than I would have given them credit.

Small iPad???

The offensive picture of the iPad on the last page would indicate that you guys have a special edition of a small format iPad or that beer glass is a little larger than your average pint. Either that or the camera you were using suffers some severe distortion at the periphery.

Things in Oz are bigger than most and the beers are similarly copious, only in the interests of keeping cool, of course!

Logic anyone

Creativity is a nice attribute but how about logic, analytical thinking, disciplioned. The 60's was full of creative types, they were known collectively as 'hippies'. They painted VW camper vans in house paint, took mind altering drugs, shagged their way around and were critical of anything the 'conventional' world was doing. Creativity is great but it needs a few other attributes to be socially or communally beneficial.

Now where is a that DOS boot disk with DOOM installed...?

Power?

To my understanding these are the same parts of the world that have either no or no reliable electrical sources. A laser wall without power is not much point.

The solution to the African disease problems lies in the reduction of corruption and the increase of individual wealth. The technology is interesting but only a temporary patch to a permanent solution.

Radio

I may be nit picking here but this great unit makes no allowances for digital radio?

Is digital radio going to be no more than a fad and we all stick to the tried and tested analogue transmissions or did I miss something?

I still want one!!!

Privacy laws???

I would love to see how this fits with privacy laws and more interestingly how quickly the civil libertarians will react. It won't work because even with the best will in the world someone will hack it and 'adjust' the data to make sure there is a swathe or incriminating evidence to condemn the entirety of the European parliament. Maybe the Chinese will do it as a way to get control in that arena, or more than they already have!?

Teenagers???

If you have had prolonged exposure to teenagers, video game addicts, mobile phone addicts, iPod addicts you will have almsot certainly witnessed zombie like behaviour. Some of them come to a zombie like nasty end by being run over by some for of vehicle while others remain enslaved by the glow of a computer monitor.

The reality is we like zombies because it probably reminds us of our own adolescence.

Apple Mac?

Isn't OS X largely built on the back of BSD. THat might throw a cat among the pigeons. Perhaps that is why they have chosen the Mad theme as perhaps that is what Apple will become following this release!?

Kicking in the door

When you have the habit of blowing the doors open, you should not be surprised when others put bomb proof doors up and keep you locked out of their systems. Assange is very handy with a whip but complains when someone turns up with a gun (I am thinking Indiana Jones here).

If he is so dedicated to the cause perhaps he might go out and get a real job to fund his personal crusade. Otherwise he needs to find a new hobby like carving his initials on a Swedish prison wall...!

Heath Ledger

They both have something in common...

What about Woz?

It seems that the 'other' Steve (Wozniak) gets left out of the Apple picture. Without Woz, and Turing, and Whitworth and the team that invented the transistor and a few others BEFORE Jobs, there would not be this consumer giant called Apple. I agree wjholeheartedly with the article, Jobs did some good things in the computer industry but it is not and was not world making.

Jobs on a peprsonal level also was subject to human vulnerability and did some unpleasant things to a few others. He shouldn't be pilloried for those weaknesses but he isn't the messiah. Remember him as you will but he could be likened to Howard Hughes as an off beat visionary entrepreneur.

Radio programming included?

The Goon Shows are still being played on the ABC and to have access to all that material on demand would be worth paying for.

programming & maintenance?

So who will qualify as the new Miss Lovelace & Mr Whitworth?

When all else fails...

If the big boys pull out their razors to intimidate this guy, I would recommend he gives the technology away, allowing every man and his dog to really keep the legal eagles busy!

I am still stuck on DVDs so it really doesn'y impact me, I would just like to see the innovator stick one to the megaliths of creative suppression.

Sun drives weather

Without the sun and planetary rotation we wouldn't have the weather that we do. If there is variation in the suns activity we have variations in our weather. Minor variations in atmospheric CO2 has significantly less influence.

The climate is changing, it does that. Don't try to stop it as that isn't going to work. Just get ready for the change as that is an inevitability!

Name change

Perhaps they could re-release this handset and call it the 'eulogy'?

Richard Branson

Look how the Virgin man made his first money. Selling vinyl at a lower cost in simpler packaging. All legit and he has done quite well since...

I would like to know how the film industry justifies the DVD/BluRay zoning system for their products. If that doesn't have a certain moral defect and the ability to discriminate pricing mechanisms for different countries, then I don't know waht does. Sounds similar to the root cause of the original Bosotn Tea Party.

Then again American foreign policy is a demonstration that historical learning is not a strong trait in that part of the world!

Homogenous

The styling seems a step into the mainstream industry design. Land Rovers are about being chunky, robust, flexible and getting you to your destination irrespective of the environment. They are supposed to have a bullet proof reputation. This one looks like it has a skirt with matching hand bag accessories. Bring back a retro version than can be dismantled in the field with the included tool kit.

Invaders beware

This shows why the Australian military doesn't need all of its smart weaponry as the mix of local inhabitants and the wildlife are enough to create havoc for a ground force invasion. I wonder if Gaddafi has been importing Kangaroos and Australian pensioners???

Recurring history

I think Mr Jones is not too far wrong when he speaks of journalists being lazy, el Reg being the exception!

The media is more attentive to reporting rather than journalism and journalists are supposed to be sceptical or least challenge the material they receive. I wonder what the position would have been had the braodcaster been established at the time of Galileo. I suppose he would have been classified an Aristotelean sceptic and simply wrong. The accepted knowledge was the sun went around the earth and that was that!

Debate is not balanced and generally those providing challenge to the accepted wisdom require more time to illustrate their point. I thought democracy was all about allowing people to have a voice, in much the same way the trade unions seem to get a greater amount of air time than business leaders.

Make reporters into journalists and don't try to stop climate change, just get ready for it!

Wallaby farming

Rather than bugger about getting cows and sheep to stop being 'heavy polluters', let's just farm and eat wallabies!

Otherwise let's just get real and tell the chicken little's in the climate change lobby that the sky isn't falling and getting a cow to hold its breath is not going to solve or change anything. As an aside, decaying vegetation in fields generates methane and other greenhouse gases. Starvation here we come!

Can't find a coat

Did the police continue their search?

If this 'lady' can hide a mink coat for three days then what else has she got tucked away?

Lost pygmy tribes!?