Posts by BristolBachelor 2200 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jan 2009
I think that I would prefer the Squeezebox for a single room solution, but I like the Sonos & remote (iPod / phone) for multi-room. However the Sonos stuff is very very expensive, and I think that this particular unit is poor value.
BTW I thought that it was the Squeezebox that is proprietary; you have to use squeezecentre; the Sonos work using DLNA.
Sorry, but I find the screen only average. It only has slightly better than sRGB, and is very difficult to calibrate, because it always wants to be too bright. Also the 15" MBP only has slightly more resolution than my phone (the 17" is OK). However at least you can by a non-mirror finish one :)
"...Steve doesn't want you to use a dock - There would be docks with an apple logo for sale if Steve approved them"
So why is it that you can buy them from the Apple store then? (although not this one, or the henge dock, but some horrible looking "designed" dock.)
"When the lid is closed the laptop enters power saving mode unless using 3rd party hack."
No. If you have an external keyboard and monitor and are running from mains, the MBP stays working when you close it, and switches to the external monitor. There are also apps that let you close it and keep on processing but without an external keyboard and screen.
"a single communications standard, as the Wi-Fi band (2.4GHz) has done"
So which single communication standard is that?
Is it 802-11, 802-11b, 802-11g, 802-11n, Bluetooth, 802-15.4 (Zigbee), my car alarm radar, my flash remotes, my neighbour's wireless doorbell, their video sender, or my other neighbour's baby monitor?
I worked on some aircraft systems (Hardware), and I know that I am responsible for anything untoward. It is down to a court and possibly a jury to decide if I should be punished for anything that went wrong; but I can certainly be called to account.
Saying that software is somehow different; that it doesn't have to meet fitness for purpose; that any problems caused by it are your own fault isn't right, and the sooner the weasles who push that theory are hung up by their gonads the better.
...because someone would say that there is a massive fire at the new Tescos, or that a Car has crashed into BHS...
And the person in the call centre in Glasgow will ask "What is the post code?"
But, yes in theory, anyone can direct a fire service from anywhere (as long as the person phoning knows the actual address)
ISTR that the new centre to cover Bristol / Gloucester was built in a flood area, even though one of the most tasking emergencies in Gloucester recently was flooding...
Also the new system would not accept addresses like "The new Tesco", or "Opposite the Frog & Radiator pub". I wouldn't be surprised either if later the systems would be totally networked and your 999 call would be answered "Hello you are talking to Rashid, how am I helping you?" followed by "No, I am not knowing where is the Frog & Radiator, I am living in Bombay"
My overhead feed used to have 2 twisted pairs of solid copper (~26AWG), plus 3 stranded steel gold (WTF!) plated wires that seemed to be for strength, all with PVC insulation.
Living very close to the exchange I got fairly good rates on that, but not as good as what it replaced; 1 pair stranded copper (~18AWG) with rubber insulation, wrapped in cotton then twisted and within a continuous lead sheath. They don't make wires like they used to!
I don't think that there is necessarily a problem with centralised decisions, or the same major systems being used across the board. However what became known was that there was no consultation with the final users; no-one looked at what was already in place. In fact the whole systems analysis phase seemed to be done with no consideration of what was actually needed.
I'm interested to see what comes out of the cancellation. Since the "new" digital x-ray idea, my local doctors could no longer see digital X-rays on their computer, as they had done for years. Instead, the doctors either had to go to the hospital department that took the x-ray to see it on their system, or ask for a FAX (kid you not!). The old systems where each consultant could bring up the x-rays no longer worked.
Won't work. Ever.
Just like the DVD scrambling didn't work, and ditto for Blu-ray, PS3, HDCP, printer-ink cartridges, iOS, etc... People will break / leak / work around the keys.
There are already virii that tamper with the BIOS. There are already Virii that get around only signed software installs / drivers, etc.
What it will (possibly) do is make it harder for people to install any OS they want. Apple might be happy because machines won't run Mac OS X (without even more effort).
Windows / OEMs may change the keys from one generation of Windows to the next or between OEMs, etc. No putting new windows on old H/W; you have to buy new H/W. No putting that HP OEM Windows on a home-build or Dell box.
Maybe even stop people putting old Windows on new HW. Enforced upgrade cycles are good for everyone (except the customers).
But it would still boot off a signed CD (e.g. Windows).
If you don't want anything unauthorised booting it, turn off the boot from CD (floppy, usb, etc. etc.) options.
Even better, don't have a CD drive; lots of attack vectors suddenly disappear, and you don't want admin people walking around with CDs anyway; store them all on an admin only share.
If windows was still behaving itself to open a file from the filesystem, get the date and time and various other information, write an entry to the file, close the file and make sure that the buffers are flashed and that the filesystem was updated, then there would be no need for BSOD.
The reason that the BSOD is simple text is because it needs very little of the system to do that. Once the system if FKd, you can't do high-level things like fancy graphics and intensive file-system operations.
I see BSODs too often, and there is unsually very little help in logfiles including eventviewer. They are normally caused by code running close to the metal like kernal drivers, and the BSOD is often the first/only clue of where to start looking.
I did coding for both; I think that 14-16 was called "computing", but 16-18 was called "Computer science". I can't rember when, but we covered Cobol (shudder), Pascal, Fortran and possibly C. We also did wordprocessing using Tex in greenscreen. WYSIWYG meant that when you looked at the printout, that was what you got!
I think I still have some Cobol coding sheets with the margin at column 7 that you hand-wrote code on for someone to type it up onto punched cars to run over the weekend at the local insurance company. After than it was RM 380Z / 480Z. We weren't supposed to do any machine code, but given that the thing had a built-in memory editor of course we played :)
I can't believe that they don't even teach coding in schools?
Well I'd imagine that you or your staff would have to servise the auditors, meaning that you wouldn't be doing your normal job. In addition, you would probably have to provide a number of extra reports that the auditor could review, which someone would have to spend time producing.
Next; you'd have to justify to someone that time (=money) is being spent on this audit, and that outsiders would have to be let in to see things, or internal things will have to be relased to outsiders.
But then the kicker; What do we get out of it? How much does it improve the shareholder dividend?
Then add in some fear; how much do you like someone looking over your shoulder? What happens if they say that something is bad; how is that reflected in your pay packet (no pay-rise / P-45)? Do you not have enough problems already with users, managers, etc?
Maybe, maybe not, but that doesn't stop someone claiming that you need a license to join their party.
ISTR that HDCP also uses the keys to verify that the device connected at the other end is OK to talk to? If his box is in the middle, and convinces the source to talk to it because it is a valid receiver then I'm sure some lawyer can wangle something. After all, if they can claim that executing a program is copying, because the content is read out of a ROM chip into the processor, then they can claim anything.
I suggest that you install Flash and then you will find out.
Warning: If you use a laptop, you may have to wear ear-defenders to prevent the noise of the fan from causing deafness when Flash starts trying to calculate pi to an infinate number of decimal places, while also simulating the entire universe at the level of individual quarks.
"then it the research suggests modern CPUs (and GPUs) should be using *less* power than a 286"
Ah, but you are forgeting about BristolBachelors Law (or observation) that software requires 2x as much processing power to do the same thing every 2 years (except MS Word).
If for example you are running MS Word 2010 compared to the absolutely perfectly fine Word 6 for MS-DOS that was around when the 286 was in it's day; then yes the processor now needs 1000W to display a title on the screen in bold font, whereas the 286 version would almost run on the power from a postage stamp sized solar cell. (Perhaps in that Intel demonstration they were running old MS software?)
I'm all for a "fair reward for their creativity" and that is why I look at some of these people and ask how they justify earning as much as everybody who lives in my town put together.
And don't say that lots of people benefit from their "acting" or "promotion" skills. There are lots of people who without you wouldn't have flights, satellite TV and lots of other things that benefit more than CDs and DVDs, but they don't earn anywhere near as much.
Oh and as a note, I am not holier than thou, but I did pay for the CDs and DVDs in my media collection.
Yes, That's kind of what I wanted to say. BT will only get a monolopy if they install this Fibre and no-one else does.
Talk Talk is free to install it's own fibre. Hell they should just be thankful that they will be able to resell the stuff that BT puts in; I'm sure than Virgin wouldn't let them do that!
I don't like long-term contracts at all. In some cases, the telco actually provides something and the fixed-term effectively pays for it, but if you don't get this thing supplied (or replaced every 2 years like a handset), you get robbed blind with no get-out.
I'm more for you pay for your handset/router/installation/whatever, and there is no fixed term. If something changes you can leave at the end of the month.
I may just about accept something like the telco sells you the kit/installation and you pay for it monthly as a separate item on the bill for 12 months. If you leave early, you pay the remainder; when you've paid for it, the extra payments stop.
I have a Vista laptop and an XP desktop migrating to Win7, and at home a MBP. I have applications that didn't work moving from XP to Vista (including Acrobat!). I have applications that won't run on Win7 (They will be hosted on Server2003 using citrix / rdp). Also the Intel Office suite doesn't run on the Intel Macbook (in OS X).
Seriously, does this "won't run on ARM" really matter?
If MS does this right, they will even have a layer so that the more-powerful x86 machines can run ARM apps, and then people can even get ARM apps and upgrade to an ARM portable later.
...is the tool that ships with Lion that will migrate Windows users to OS X.
Only no-one can get it to work properly, including the geniuses and "Engineering support".
(Funnily enough the idea of using Thunderbird to read all the emails from Outlook and then importing them into Apple mail had a side-effect; Thunderbird was more usable so is actually staying as the mail reader!)
The main problem with Lithium Polymer cells was that the solid electrolyte didn't really start to work until the temperature was about 70° which was a little hot for domestic stuff, and you had to work out how to get it to that temperature before you got juice out of it.
Shaped Li-Ion batteries of the type in lots of phones, etc. are quite easy it's just the same as round cells, but instead of making a "jelly roll", they are laid flat and sealed in a "coffee pack" (just like the bag that ground coffee comes in).
When you subtract the number allowable to be discounted under regulation 6.1.3-0175 (b) sub-clause 15 note g:
-3 bean counters.
This actually means that employing the beancounters made the research cost less (sort of, effectively, almost), and hence justifying their positions (and Mercedes company cars)
Not just that, but it claims "highly conductive" but only nanometers thick. The cells I worked with had copper electrodes that were ~25 microns thick, but the conductivity was so poor that if the temperature at the start of discharge was above about 35°C, the self-heating meant that it switched-off before it was flat if you tried to use it in one go!
Yes indeed; atheists are evil witches and spread their words directly from the Devil. I am from the one true god, and he says that we must find all those non-believers and burn them. We will call it the great inquisition. I will be starting my crusade to other lands to ensure that only the truth is known, and kill those who stand in the way of it.
All hail the followers of the loving god and the world will be a better place.
</sarcasm>
Everyone seems to think that because Greece and Italy are struggling to repay their debts, and they use Euros, that everyone else who uses Euros should help pay.
Well I use Pounds. Lots of other people use Pounds, why aren't they helping to pay my debts? Why is it that I can go bankrupt and the bank loose money on me, but Greece and Italy can't?
Especially since it's the bank's fault for lending so much money to Greece when they had no hope of being able to pay it back (or is it the fault of those people in USA who said; yeah this is a safe bet, buy, buy, buy just like all those mortgages?)
Oh and to be on topic, Lester could've done better :)
The same here; the LAN won't talk to anything it doesn't know or isn't up to stuff. The "customer" LAN gives you the world, but nothing internal. I've also got no interest in connecting my HP HDX monstor or MBP to the company LAN or having any of the company files on my kit.
However, the fact that either can run a full system simulation in LT Spice or Mathcad in 10 mins what takes 2 hours on my Dell desktop means that they get brought in when the shit hits the fan. And since I personally built the models in my own time, it makes no odds if I run them on my own kit or the comapnies.
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