* Posts by Mikel

2643 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Oct 2008

Another new asteroid-mining firm: 'First commercial space fleet'

Mikel
Go

The race is on!

There's gold in them thar hills.

Cash-ravenous Sony will flog Manhattan HQ for $1.1 BEELLION

Mikel
Stop

Unfortunately the building is not compatible

Naturally Sony's former headquarters is incompatible with the surrounding infrastructure, traditional phone, power and water systems, and traditional office furniture. The IT infrastructure is locked down in such a way that the buyer can take possession but only Sony can truly control it. As such it will be marginably habitable but to get full advantage of their purchase the buyer will have to throw the building away and buy a new generic building from another vendor.

Swartz prosecutor: We only pushed for 'six months' in the cooler

Mikel

Listen up kid, I'm only going to say this once

We got you dead to rights on these 13 felonies here, and they're doozies. Look at -'em! Computer hacking, cracking and mayhem no jury or judge is gonna understand. Heck, the judge in your case doesn't even use a computer: he dictates his email. These are fine fat felonies that retail as much as four years each in the big time federal pound me prison full of hepatitis and AIDS and stabbings and beatings and whatnot. Now we'll probably only ask for half that if you put us to the trouble of working you through the court. Your mother will cry every day until she dies. Your family will burn every asset they have on fruitless appeals and die poor. They will be disgraced before the community.

But I like you kid. You remind me a little of my nephew - he's a bright kid too. My docket is full and we could save some time here. Besides, I've got a quota to meet and I'm having a little bit of a dry spell, so you could help me get the ball rolling again. Tell ya what I'm gonna do. I'll let you have the whole baker's dozen 4-year bigtime felonies for the low, low price of only two weeks each. That's, what, total six months easy time in the jammies and slippers recreational jail for the slightly criminally inclined. What a steal! That's one cent on the dollar! You'll be out by summer. But you gotta act fast. I got a fence I'm talking with this afternoon I can probably get to turn state's evidence and then this is all off the table. So. Whaddya say? We in business?

Mikel
Mushroom

Some words

US Attorney Ortiz "makes clear" that she decides what is reasonable and appropriate for her office and staff to do. Not you. So take your public outcry about injustice and stuff it. "I've looked into it and found that, after further review, I did the right thing."

Climate watch: 2012 figures confirm global warming still stalled

Mikel
Pint

In 1998 they stopped heating the data

Once the eyes of the world were upon them, the "adjustments" could no longer outweigh the signal.

I do love me some JibJab though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dul_hYde0nk (Hide the decline...)

Mikel
Pint

Re: Riding Up the Down Escalator

Ok, wait. Insolation is only a changing input if it supports your argument? What sort of game is this? Calvinscience?

Anger grows over the death of Aaron Swartz

Mikel
Pirate

Fair tribute

Free the data. All of it.

Bad news: PC slump worse than feared. Good news: It's Friday

Mikel
Windows

W7 is W8

If you go to HP's website and choose "advanced PCs" you will see a broad selection of PCs engineered for both Windows 8 and Windows 7, licensed for Windows 8 Pro but with Windows 7 Pro on. It's hard to even find the ones with W8 on now.

http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW-USSMBPublicStore-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewStandardCatalog-Browse?CatalogCategoryID=2XAQ7EN5tHwAAAEuvqEV2RV3

This is no different from the Vista days when Microsoft bragged they sold millions of copies of Windows Vista for PCs that never ran it, nor ever could. Microsoft needs to declare victory even if they have to pre-sell W8 with downgrade rights to OEMs selling PCs pre-"downgraded" to W7, and deeply discount it to do so. They've sold "60 million licenses" - and now OEMs can put W7 on and Microsoft can sell it as a W8 license, and probably had to discount W8 licenses to get the sale. In the Vista days I pointed in a number of comments to the fact that HP workstations nominally came with Vista, but didn't even support the software - they came pre-downgraded to XP and Vista is not even supported on that hardware still today.

But even this isn't saving PC sales. We like our iPads and Android tablets. Yes, we do.

Microsoft spin-out floats Azure for open-sourcers

Mikel
Windows

My first thoughts on Linux Cloud platforms

"Who would be the best partner for this?" I just don't know why this obvious answer did not leap immediately to mind.

/s

Just what the world needs: Android in the rice cooker

Mikel

You laugh

What I want most of my modern science and appliances is that whether I am there or not, they obey me. I bought them. I own them. It is my right. If I'm bringing home a notable personage I need to be able to tell my home to light the top lights, dim the bottom lights, light the driveway strobe and turn off the farking dishwasher so we can talk. APICs are the slaves or the modern era, and we need not feel guilt about imposing on their needs.

A few years hence when AIs are given sufferance and protection, that is a different question.

Report: RIM plans six BlackBerry 10 handsets for 2013

Mikel
Devil

BB10 runs Android apps

This is a key solution others (WP?) should have tried. Hackers are now pirating Android apps and selling them in the Blackberry App store. You should be able to side-load Android apps to kickstart the BB10 ecosystem, forcing the utility into the device even without the app-maker's intent or consent. Almost all of the myriad Android apps (but nothing with NDK).

Yes, it's not Kosher. It's not legit. It's cheating. RIM will have to put a stop to it eventually when somebody legally calls their attention to it. In the mean time though, it's enough of the fine end of a wedge to get a credible product launch.

Scrappy move, RIM. I had counted you out. While I can't morally approve of this maneuver I can respect that it's what you had to do, and therefore ethical. I award you five points and move your token from "doomed" to "at risk". I'd have preferred you just made RIM quality Android handsets in the first place, and got the Google Play store. Hubris being what it is though, I understand.

Hey, tech titans! Those smartmobe sales bans? Give it a rest. NOW

Mikel
Devil

Thus ends progress

Without protection for SEP there will be no SEP. Nor standards either. Everybody gets to go back to the bad old way of making proprietary stuff that doesn't work with anybody else's stuff.

Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

Intel bets the farm on touch-enabled 'convertible and detachable' Ultrabooks

Mikel

Re: I wouldn't mind a nice 14" Intel tablet

The component cost on the high def displays isn't that much more. And the quality difference for photography is amazing. Then there's the multiple-windows thing with a real OS.

1080p on a cellphone - that's ridiculous. 400+dpi? I would need an ocular upgrade. But this rez on a 14" tablet is not uncalled for.

Mikel
Pint

I wouldn't mind a nice 14" Intel tablet

Make mine with Ubuntu though. And I'm going to want at least that 2560 x 1600 resolution.

2012 was warmest year ever recorded in USA

Mikel
WTF?

Must have been cold everywhere else

Not hearing reports of a global post-1998 record yet.

Eric Schmidt's Norks outing poorly timed, tuts US govt

Mikel

It's time

New leader. There's a chance he can still be approached. Leave it another year or two and probably not.

Google WON'T ink consent decree with FTC on search - reports

Mikel
Windows

Re: Microsoft in the article

This whole thing was Microsoft. Here, I can't be bothered to dig up the links for you so have the whole darned article:

http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-ftc-settlement-is-an-epic-fail-for-microsoft

Microsoft says Google trying to undermine Windows Phone

Mikel
Pint

Sauce for the goose

Lots to thumbs up in here.

Would worry for the users, but from what they post online they're all a bunch of jerks.

Mikel

Re: I'd be happy to lobby Google for a youtube app for ms phones

@El Zed - Oh thanks. That horror will haunt my dreams.

Mikel
Windows

Re: Ironic!

The Modern look is only one window now.

Drobo B1200i: The heavy-duty array even your mum could use

Mikel
Linux

Like a snake needs shoes

This is a headless NAS. There are only two possible reasons why instead of browser-independent web management it requires a Windows / Mac client app to be installed.

Either: the developers are incompetent. They go the long way around because it's the only way they know.

Or: they've some motivation to induce in their customers a dependency on Windows / Mac they may not already have. I.E. the main thrust is not only to provide a great product.

No sale.

NYC mayor pins crime rate spike on iPhone, iPad theft

Mikel

Re: Crime rates

Besides the fact that a third of people imprisoned are so because of simple marijuana possession, there are the network effects of criminalization including violence that we acknowledged when we decriminalized alcohol in the US. If it isn't illegal you don't have to kill or hurt people over disclosing your involvement in it, nor policemen arresting you for it. If local grow is legal, importation issues like mules are completely gone. We really do get to let go of half of our court cases and jail populations, with a concurrent savings in cost. And the decrease in street violence is just a fringe benefit.

The cost is that more people will sit on their couch eating Hot Pockets and drinking Mountain Dew while they play XBox, torching a bowl now and then. I'm OK with that. I don't have to pay for that.

Mikel

Crime rates

Washington and Colorado US have legalized marijuana. So you can expect a 50% drop in crime rates there.

The amazing magical LED: Has it really been fifty years already?

Mikel

Building thermals

A lot of buildings now use heat pumps. These are more efficient at warming buildings than incandescent. But they don't work as well in really cold places.

2012: The year that netbooks DIED

Mikel
Windows

Ultrabooks...

"Ultrabooks won't be a race to the bottom for manufacturers."

Snirk. Leaked a little beverage on that one. Nicely done.

The LINUX TABLET IS THE FUTURE - and it always will be

Mikel
Happy

Came here to post this

The author is still trying to declare victory in a battle that was never fought.

Cheaper, slimmer Google Nexus 7 rumored for Q1 2013

Mikel
Happy

Newer, better, faster, cheaper

Choose four.

Now that the Wintel monopoly is broken, choose four.

Ocean seeding a dead duck as carbon solution

Mikel
IT Angle

Re: Depends on the fuel

This just in: current thorium designs have nuclear weapon proliferation issues.

Mikel

Re: I wonder if there is a way to process atmospheric CO2 into graphite?

We already have plants - over 70% of the surface area of the planet converting all of the solar energy they can capture to more stable and portable forms.

Mikel
Thumb Up

Re: I wonder if there is a way to process atmospheric CO2 into graphite?

That was beautiful. It was also wrong. The plants bond the Carbon and _Hydrogen_ atoms together, having received the hydrogen from water and carbon from the air. Oxygen is thereby released, not bonded, as the H2O molecule discards the unnecessary oxygen. The plants make _hydrocarbons_.

But I give you nine points for art. Though it was wrong, it was nicely done.

Mikel

Stasis

Almost all energy received from the sun not immediately radiated away is metabolized in photosynthesis. As is heat radiated from the core of the Earth, which still has considerable contribution from infall friction. A temperature increase improves the habitat where algae grow, which is typically inhibited by cold. And so Algae will reverse this trend in time and sink all of the carbon that we produce.

It's neither a good nor a bad thing. Oil provides useful lubricants, and we should be mindful of that.

'We are screwed!' Fonts eat a bullet in Microsoft security patch

Mikel
Devil

Oh, that

1. They finally fixed the font rendering exploit bug? That only took nine years. I suppose in a few years they'll start looking at their gradient rendering engine. Or NTFS.

2. Oops, the fix broke their competitors applications but their own applications were recently patched to not be harmed in advance? Who could have expected that to happen? That's odd. I am shocked.

Analyst offers cut-price fondleslab recipe

Mikel
Happy

Re: Small Cheap Computer^W Tablet

Since Surface 2 will be around $900 and I can already get 10" Android tablets for $150, it just doesn't seem likely. Sure it's better hardware, but the software is lame. And the hardware is not 6x better to earn the 6x price. Almost all the value is in the software after all, and these Android tabs have access to over 600,000 apps.

We have finally found the road to that "impossible" $100 laptop.

Mikel
Thumb Up

Walmart doesn't deal with that type...

Funny... that's where I got my two at the top of this thread. Did you try their website? You know they have site to store, and free shipping on items over $50 right? Though they had 88 under $100 options at the time, it seems they've now sold out of all except this one: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Hot-Holiday-Tablet-Bundle-with-Your-Choice-7-Tablet-and-Accessory-Kit-Value-Bundle/22254826

And that doesn't look so different from the ones I got. It seems that these are the hot thing for under the tree this year. Bump up to $150 like the fine article does, and you can have one up to 10" with similar characteristics. Not much time left before the holiday though. It looks like all of these are selling out fast.

Mikel
Pint

There are already sub-$100 tablets

Seriously I bought two of them. They are all over the place. There are a lot of models to choose from at that price, but I got the "SuperSonic Matrix SC-72MID". 7" capacitive touchscreen, dual cam, 1.4Ghz processor, Android 4.0 with Google Play. USB, USB OTG cable included, uSDHC. Flash Player. At 4GB the onboard storage is a little light - only 1.7GB to spare out of the box, though this version of Android lets you move most apps to a cheap SD card. 8 or 16GB really should be the minimum though. Touch could be more responsive. Viewing angles and color are ok but not great. Web browsing is fine. $89 each delivered. It could be a little snappier overall.

But for $89? Come on! That's ridiculous already. The cooler thing is that next year is going to be even better. The pace of progress in these mobile devices is simply astounding.

Asia’s chip giant MediaTek reveals quad core SoC

Mikel
Thumb Up

Good for competition

$100 Quad Tabs for Christmas next year would be really sweet.

AMD bites bullet, slashes chip orders

Mikel
Unhappy

I've got an uneasy feeling about this

Paying somebody to *not* make your products doesn't sound like the kind of decision you like to make. If they're making calls like this, what else is going on?

IDC: Windows tablets won't hit 10% market share until 2016

Mikel

Re: Four year projections are worthless

Well since it's old home week, here's IDC forecasting 30 million Windows Phone sales in 2011. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/update-idc-30-million-windows-phone-7-handsets-to-be-sold-by-end-2011/8451

This wasn't four years out. It was next year at the time.

I'm pretty sure they whiffed that one, but Microsoft used it to intimidate a lot of people to do things based on that fantasy - to their detriment.

Mikel

Re: Four year projections are worthless

Different whore.

Mikel
Flame

IDC always inflates the Microsoft number

Usually they give Redmond a 20x bonus in their mobile forecast for some reason. So if they say 10 percent, expect 0.5.

Qualcomm aims its latest chips squarely at China

Mikel

China bought an ARM license

It's going to be hard to sell into there after that.

Badges for Commentards

Mikel

2000 thumbs up for silver? Going to be a year at this rate

I guess my input isn't as popular as some. Ah, well. I try to give truth, not be popular. That's not going to change.

IETF bakes Google's SPDY protocol into HTTP 2.0

Mikel

Re: Someone explain this to me:

Missing an "at least" or an "up to". A page like forbes.com articles would doubtless be halved. El Reg's simpler layout and such more like 15%.

Of course, that's in optimal cases. Nothing SPDY can do about latency introduced by must-load ad affiliate networks blocking page rendering, and not responding for ten seconds at a time.

Mikel

150% increase?

You want the page three seconds before you request it?

Microsoft braces for Surface RT feedback storm

Mikel
Facepalm

Re: le sigh...

Some of us are aware that an 800lb gorilla beating up everybody in our neighborhood for 30 years does affect us personally. We would like to be rid of that gorilla, and it's starting to look possible. Already he's more of a Baboon, and we'd like to see him shrunk to about a spider monkey at least.

Mikel
Windows

No impact? It tanked PC sales. Down 20% from Year Ago

That is a huge impact. And now the astroturfing campaign seems shifted to "Wait for RT PRO - A Full Wintel tablet is our only hope!" Without a thought to the whole "Santa thing" or the fact that Wintel tablets have not ever moved significant units after being available for fifteen years.

If they're counting on a Wintel tablet to save them - and at that launched into the January post-Christmas inventory blowouts, they may as well give up hope right now.

Meanwhile Apple and Samsung are singing "I'm in the money..." as their supply chains churn out hundreds of millions of units to eager customers the world over with ready cash. Android and iOS devices are flying off of shelves effortlessly.

Then they have the gall to suggest macro-economic issues, as if we aren't laying out technology budget bigger and faster than ever before - just not on their stuff. Nonsense!

Hearts, minds and balls: Microsoft's Windows 8 Surface gamble

Mikel
Meh

Re: Not getting either RT or Surface Pro

The primary advantage of each new version of Microsoft Office is that it isn't compatible with anything. Not even older versions of Office. So people get it, make documents others can't read, and then demand that they buy it too. It helps us early adopters feel better about ourselves to know we can make others follow us in this way.