* Posts by BristolBachelor

2200 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jan 2009

Princeton solar researchers take leaf from plants’ book

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AR coating?

It sounds to me like the leaves just implement a crude form of anti-reflective coating? So what's wrong with using a standard vapour deposited AR coating as used on optics, glasses (decent monitors), etc. ?

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FAIL

Re: Well, duh...

So if you take matchboxed size solor cell with the surface area of a tenis court, how much light does it capture? Hint: It's not a tenis court's worth.

Go back to class this instant. I'll be sending a letter home to your parents.

* Advanced students may convert the units used in this example to microwales, but I fear that would've gone soooo far over the OP's head that it would've been lost :)

Apple blocking Dropbox SDK over in-app buying

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Joke

Re: So the users signs up

As long as they don't read the email on their iDevice, yeah, sure that's fine :)

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At least you don't normally do much in the banking programs.

What about the eBay and Amazon apps?

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Trollface

Re: Children

Yes, but you are missing the bigger picture. It's probably not that it can allow you to possibly navigate to another page that you might be able to use to buy something.

The fact is that DropBox competes with iCloud, and hence is to be hobbled, discouraged and eventually banned from iOS. (Remember when there were alternative browser apps in the approvals process, and Apples thoughts on this were something like "We've given the users Safari, they aren't allowed don't need anything else")

UK's new drivers now in safe hands... of laser-wielding robots

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Facepalm

Re: sticky tape ?

Funnily enough, the photo card is legally accepted in every European country, except the one that issued it!

In Blighty you also have to hand over a moth eaten, falling apart at the folds, piece of paper !

GCHQ's spy death riddle shines light on UK hacker war

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@Chris W

You forgot:

"...two live Macs, parts of a dead Mac, four iPhones..."

Star Trek's Wesley Crusher blasts Google+ landgrab

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Thumb Up

Get's my thumbs up!

(although why did I have to register here to click the thumbs up?)

Why embossed credit cards are here to stay

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Not everywhere

For example, the plastic cards issued in Spain don't have embossed numbers, and haven't for a long time. Payments have been electronic only since before the chip.

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Re: Never use credit cards.

When they say "Credit cards", I think that they mean "Plastic payment cards" however the money is taken from you (credit / debit, etc.)

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Re: A lack of proof reading?

Then you'll be wanting this link here then from the bottom of the article: Send corrections

But otherwise yes; it has got a bit worse lately. I blame the 24 hour licensing laws myself :)

Samsung unwraps 17in Ivy Bridge beast

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FAIL

Re: Resolution

"And yet *still* not enough pixels! Why is Apple the only company to make laptops with a decently high-resolution display?"

I have an HP HDX. The 16" screen is 1920x1080 resolution; fairly high, and very nice to work with (except it's glossy). My wife has a 15" MBP; the default resolution is 1440x900. We paid extra for the "High resolution" screen and it's still only 1680x1050. So go and spout your anti-anything not Apple BS somewhere else please.

Ten... two-bay Nas boxes

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@xenny

Agree totally. Got the 4-disk QNAP here. It' small and just gets on with it with little effort; I have too many other things to do that already take up all my time. Consumption is also very low, most of the time the UPS doesn't even notice that it's running.

I started off looking at the hp microservers and small some cases for a DIY system, but in the end I'm happy with what I've got.

Space-cadet Schwartz blows chunks out of Oracle's Java suit

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Re: I must be missing something

Oracle didn't want the hardware business; they wanted to conrtol the companies "giving away" competing technologies to theirs, like Java & mysql

Google Drive Issues on Mac

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Coat

Re: Dropbox has had its problems too

Why on earth would they do that? Haven't you read the T&Cs? Google Drive is their way of letting you give them all your stuff for them to have and use free. If you encrypted it, they wouldn't have anything except garble.

Oz court blows away cloud PVRs

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Re: "private and domestic use"

I don't think that it is that clear cut.

I mean if you set up your video to record a program, you aren't recording the program are you? Mr. Sony VCR on top of your telly is recording the program.

Is Mr. Sony VCR afforded the same rights as a person? If it is, what happens if you don't have room on top of your telly for Mr. Sony VCR? If it sits on a shelf instead, is that OK? What if the shelf is in another building?

I need a New Laptop!!

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Re: Excitement.

"Wow, this is kind of like Yahoo Answers, isn't it? Only with far fewer fundamentalist nutjobs."

I'm not sure that I'd agree that there are fewer fundamentalist nutjobs in here (especially once the Apple / Not Apple debate starts), however I think that the answers in here will at least come from people who know what they are talking about!

Web hosting

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Thanks to all commentards!

Well, I'm going to have to thank you all for your posts, and I hope that they can help others too. Drew has to get a big thumbs up for pointing everyone this way too; the number of posts here has more than doubled in a couple of hours.

To give an update on my situation; I'm happy now. I'm on a shared server because it was sufficient, cheap and didn't need me to spend time learning (remembering) how to set-up a Linux VM. The site is a fairly simple one running on WP with few page views, so doesn't really warrant even a VM yet. In addition, it is early days in a venture that has so far cost thousands and made nothing, so the hosting had to be a cheap solution. Thanks again to all.

Hanging's too good for 'em - so what do you suggest?

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Re: Put them to good use

<sick mode>

Oh, on the other hand, they could also be used to feed the homeless (the bits that are left over after the live organ harvest).

</sick mode>

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Re: Put them to good use

I think that the heart needs to still be beating when you harvest the organs, so breaking the neck by hanging means you have to be very quick. I would think that the Monty Python "live organ harvest" would make for the most viable organs. (From an entirely objective, however very unpleasant perspective).

Tim Cook rejects Apple's old business model of suing everyone

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WTF?

"Settle"

So he's saying that if people say they are wrong and give Apple everything that Apple wants, Apple will stop using the courts to try to force that situation? Is that like a mugger saying that if you give them all your money, then they won't point a gun at you and take all your money?

I don't see how Olive branches come into that at all.

comp ended

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FAIL

Re: what bit of .co.uk don't you understand?

The URL I get says: http://www.reghardware.com/2012/04/25/htc_one_x_compo/

As for UK only, it has an awful lot of stuff about down-under for UK only...

Google Currents

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Coat

Yes, but do you then find that the reg (with it's fixed width page) renders text with a line spacing of ~2mm on the note?

That global copyright crackdown: Three emails ... and carry on

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Re: As a French resident...

and as currently Spanish resident, I can tell you that I still have to pay a tax on my camera equipment, memory cards and harddisks despite the new law, and the discovery last year that the money raised (surprise) didn't go to artists, but instead to the crooks who "administered" the system.

Theresa May: No emails sniffed in web super-snoop law

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Coat

Yes, I think that is just a diversionary tactic like Paul Daniels might use. She might as well have said "While we are cutting off your gonads, we will not be scratching your car" for all the good "...not be looking into emails in real-time" does.

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FAIL

"There are new methods of communication and we wish to be able to apply what has been there with previous communications"

Tell you what then May, you can do the same to my internet packets that you do to my snail mail. What's that you say? You don't actually do anything with snail mail unless you know I am a suspect, but you want to harvest all of the internet packets of EVERYONE?

How is that "...what has been there with previous communications"

Hands on with the Nikon D3200 DSLR

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Re: Pfft

People buying entry level bodies are either really, really strapped for cash, or don't really know. If they don't really know, they buy for the bigger MP number on the spec sheet.

They will only find out afterwards that they only fit 5 images per flash card and their computer is not really up to loading/editing the pictures later. Then they will either fail to email the unedited picture because it's too big, or they will upload the image resized to 0.3Mpix to Facebook :)

Battlefield Earth ruled worst film EVER

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Re: Am I the only person that quite enjoyed

You mean the new War of the Worlds; the one with the annoying girl that practially screams through the entire film (it felt like it). For me the film was disappointing because she wasn't killed by the invaders once she started screaming.

India's new Atom-powered Xolo X900 ISN'T Intel's first smartphone

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The 9000 yes; a 386. The 9110 series used an AMD 486. And yes they ran GEOS (although there was a little app that temporarily changed a file allowing you to boot it into DOS and then run quite a few standard DOS programs). Ah I miss those days.

I'm now less than a week into my main mobile not having a qwerty keyboard for 15 years; it's hard going.

Stray SMS leads to aborted landing

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Boffin

Re: Oops

I'd be interested to know which inflight system that was on. The GMIS inflight entertainment system I worked on (early 777) was immune to EMC levels far, far higher than your iPhone could emit (especially WiFi). Similarly, the flight control computers on the A320 family.

If this story were true, it would possibly mean that the inflight system used WiFi itself and your phone was stealing bandwidth.

Punters want BBC iPlayer in TVs, not 3D

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OptionalFreeview survey

So since this was a freeview survey, I guess that it didn't include the options:

1. That the picture doesn't break up into a hundred little mozaic tiles when there is fast movement on the screen.

2. That graduated images such as the sky show a gradual change from one colour / brightness to another, rather than 4 solid bands of completely different colours with zigzaggy lines at their boundaries.

OK, I'll get off my horse. I've already got my jacket, thanks.

NHS IT fiasco workers threaten lunch-hour revolt over job cuts

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Facepalm

Better than that; they're doing it in their lunchbreak!

Ten... smartphone survival accessories

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Re: Top ten smartphone survival accessories…

No Adblock here. However, no Flash either, so the annoying adverts stay away anyway, the others I don't mind, and may even find useful (although I don't think I'm likely to want to chat to whatever her name is in Russia - WTF!)

Apple screws UK disties, punts just 13,000 iPads to channel

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Re: 16GB most popular?

Yes. A few of the shops that we went to all had the 16GB model in stock, but NOTHING at all of the 32GB or 64GB. In fact most of them admitted that they had never recieved the 32GB / 64GB. (Maybe this is why the 16GB was most popular; maybe there were hardly any of the others to go around.)

Didn't try the 4 hour round trip to the local Apple store, and by the time we got home the impulse to buy had subsided so haven't ordered one online either :)

Toshiba Regza 46YL863 46in Smart TV

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Thumb Up

Re: Motion sensor

Yes, but then at the office, it's pure pleasure when the "keep the inmates in line" lights switch off and I get glorious contrast on my screen. When that happens, I try to keep still to avoid the things switching on again.

However, at home I want to just veg on the sofa and watch a film without having to do star jumps every 15 minutes!

Nordic region, Ireland adopt new 'connected telly' standard

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Stop

Re: The point of this article was

"The usual I'd expect. Custom firmware, fewer models, higher prices..."

Hold your horses. As someone who's just been bitten by this, I disagree. I bought a Panasonic MDR-BWT700 twin tuner recorder, Bluray burner to go with my Panny Plasma TV. It was reviewed on El Reg HERE, and it is quite good.

However, Panasonic don't tell you that there are different versions of it with the same basic model number, and most places (including the Panny websites) don't tell you the whole model number. Bought it in the UK from Amazon for £339 only to find out that the UK version doesn't receive channel 69, which is needed in Spain (all other digital TVs & receivers from the UK seem to receive channel 69 OK though). The Spanish version which is the same unit except a 250G HDD instead of 320G HDD and slightly different firmware, allowing you to receive channel 69, will set you back €700. (No they won't let you change the firmware)

Go on, tell us again how disadvantaged the UK is.

NASA brainstorms with John Q Public for 2018 Mars mission

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Re: Mars met station

Don't know about a set (I believe that it takes a fair bit of hardware for each landing site), however the MSL does have a weather station on it.

Daily online Mars weather reports comming up soon

Hitachi spins up 'leccy fan motor sans rare earths

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Megaphone

Re: Disingenuous

"Add the fact that the profit-driven US industry drops out of any business as soon as it can be acquired more cheaply from China, and it's no wonder that China is now responsible for over 95% of the world rare earth production."

Thank you. That is the reason that 'rare' Earth's are produced in China. It's the same reason that iPhones are produced in China; The mega corp doesn't want to do anything if it can outsource it for less elsewhere. Everyone collectively outsourced RE production to China by closing or ignoring local solutions, and now teh same are complaining about it.

I also see lots of people complaining that "all the manufacturing jobs have gone to China", but they are all the people who are so proud of all their material things that they could only afford BECAUSE they were made in China, and it is these people buying the cheaper Chinese things that is pushing production there.

Soup up your home network

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Re: Another good one for troublesome wireless

"I'm not aware of any technology which allows a generic wi fi client (e.g. a laptop) to roam completely seamlessly between access points as it moves into range of each one - the protocol simply wasn't designed with that in mind, unlike say GSM."

Now I may be wrong, but I'm sure I've seen a network where all the APs pretend to be a single AP, and the clients just think they are always talking to a single AP, and the individual APs do all the handover between them.

Softphones strangled by smartphone battery life

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Re: Interim Tech?

Why VOIP?

Because my incoming number is VOIP. Not only that, but at the same time I can have the little PBX log into it, my PC and my mobile. If a call comes in, all ring until one of them answers, or it goes to voicemail. If I make a call, the outgoing telephone number shows as my VOIP number. Also especially handy is that I don't have to be where the number is registered (in fact I can be in any country in the world).

As for softphones; the VOIP client that came with my Nokia seems to work OK-ish, but that isn't much of an indicator about softphones; the whole mobile is a bit "meh".

OnLive goes legit with licensing downshift for virtual Windows

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Re: "Connect to your computer"

That's good to know, thanks. When they eventually get around to actually having iPad 3s to sell here I'm going to get one, and I wasn't looking forward to having install iTunes & the rest of the stuff just to turn the thing on for the first time.

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Thumb Up

Re: Downgrade?

Indeed. Can I get something to skin Win7 as 2008R2 or XP?

I'd also like to skin Office 2010 as Office 2003 too.

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Joke

Re: Close enough

"to eliminate many people's need to buy a PC"

So presumably, they can plug their new iPad into this "Virtual PC" to get it to work and get rid of the message that says "Connect to your computer" (or has that gone away and they now work straight out of the box?)

'As seen on TV' claims can't be made about unbranded props

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Re: 'As seen on TV'

'award winning'

God, yes I hate that one. What award? Given by whom? (Perhaps the wooden spoon award by Which magazine?)

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Joke

Re: Why should they be able to claim it at all

"weasel words, misleading statements, pseudo scientific jargon, dubious computer animations, and phony baloney survey results"

Isn't that the dictionary definition of Advertising anyway?

Mega-star HD 10180 could have more planets than the Sun

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Joke

Re: Trolls

"Can nothing be done about the sudden influx of trolls like Big Dumb Guy 555?"

It depends. In one of the user forums, there was talk of HTML5 standard browsers possibly having a feature where we can give electric shocks to posters of stupid comments (Thankfully for me, I don't have HTML5 compatible browsers :)

By the way, strange posts are nothing new. AManFromMars has been entertaining us since 2007 (although it's been quiet since he went back to Mars)

Facebook's facial recog bots can't eat your face without your say-so

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Re: One tiny problem

"What happens if this processing and data storage occurs on US soil..?"

I don't know if this would cut it, but I would argue that if the data was input in Europe, and then transferred to the US and processed there, then the transferring of the data is part of the processing (after all; data processing is only moving data from 'register' to 'register' and making additions, etc. on the data on the way through).

I would therefore argue that data input into Facebook's systems in Europe must be handled according to Facebook's rules.

But what do I know? I think that the ICO should have teeth...

WTF is... UltraViolet

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Joke

Re: Remind me?

"This *will* work with Linux, right?"

It says right there, in the article:

"Any device with a web browser will be able to stream that content"

So yeah, so long as you have a web browser, it will work on Linux.

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FAIL

@Lord Elpuss

"And Vladimir, key revocation and reissuing means that any *new* discs would be able to force the player to seek alternatives to a compromised key. A disc I already own, which is encoded to look for the (e.g.) 09F9 encryption key, will continue to do so until the disc physically degrades."

Oh yeah? Well someone gave me the Sherlock homes film on bluray. It wouldn't play on my player so I had to do a firmware update on it. Now, I suppose that it does still play the old disks (although there is no guarantee that it has to), however, the digital audio output has been disabled playing them.

No, there is no way to go back to the old firmware version, so there is no way I can play my old disks with digital audio. Also if this firmware "update" had disabled some of my older disks, there would be no way for me to play them again.

On the other hand, I have loads of CDs going back 24 years, and somewhere I still have a CD player from then. The CD player still plays disks, including the newest, and the oldest CDs still play (even with digital output!). I can't say that for Bluray.

Apple flooded with iPad 3 wireless connection complaints

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Trollface

Re: ok

I know 7 people who have never died. Dying must be a myth. It must never happen...

</troll> :)