Posts by Number6

Eight Bits

I miss the simple days of the 8080/Z80/6502/6800/6809 where the layouts weren't critical and the instruction sets were easy to use at the machine level. Every clock cycle and every byte counted back then, with memory limited by cost and the address bus.

Seeing a Z80 emulator run on a 686-class machine or better and claiming to be the equivalent of a Z80 with some fantastic clock speed does bring home the huge performance gains.

Meanwhile, I'll stick to programming my embedded 8051, another processor that dates back to simpler times.

Playmobil

So where's the Playmobil reconstruction? Especially as on this comment page is an ad for El Reg's 'Playmobil Perversions'.

Damage?

Is that a euphemism for 'legal fees'?

Wind

Perhaps he ought to cut the wind-power subsidy, given how poor value for money that is, and how generally useless wind power is for reliable electricity generation.

Bonus Point...

...for the gratuitous mention of Tarl Cabot. I wonder how many people even know who he is?

Up to a point

Having worked in a development environment where the sysadmin had locked down all the machines very well (can't fault his security), it was very time-consuming for the development team who needed very non-standard machine set-ups (FPGA tools and various other bits of design software aren't part of a common roll-out that includes the non-technical personnel) when we'd have to justify each bit of software on a per-machine basis with someone who didn't always respond quickly. We lost hours of productivity due to lack of tools, so there's definitely a middle ground.

I can fully appreciate locking down machines used by people who are likely to click on the link in the dodgy email, but others do have a legitimate need to install other software and are mostly clued-up enough to be careful about it. When your whitelist defines what will even run, that wrecks it for most people writing software because they won't be able to run their own programs.

And the Third...?

Given that these things always seem to come in threes, who's next? Anyone who's contributed in a big way to computing had better be really careful crossing the road and avoid aircraft.

What case?

If the current owner is just hosting a crap competition/scam and is in no way attempting to pass himself off as Google, I don't really see that they've got a case. Of course, he might have given them one if he's effectively agreed that whatever Google had cooked up with the previous owners of the domain is still in effect and he can be shown to have breached it.

Too many

It's becoming a pain in the arse with the frequent updates. I'd rather have a slower cycle with properly-tested new features and bugfixes, with the occasional security fix if they do screw up.

Useful?

Many recent patents are only of real value to lawyers. They often patent the bleedin' obvious[*] and serve only to generate litigation because several others have also independently arrived at the same solution.

Perhaps if patent offices were a bit more rigorous in their procedures and raised the bar then patents might still be useful. However, the original purpose of a patent to encourage innovation has now ended up doing the exact opposite, where innovation is being stifled due to the threat of expensive litigation. As an individual, a patent does not protect me against large companies choosing to ignore my patent because I couldn't afford to take them to court.

[*] If you pose a technical problem to a bunch of engineers and they all independently and swiftly come up with the same solution then it's obvious. There is some merit in the argument that asking the question in the first place is the non-obvious bit, but not in most cases.

Hardware Key

So the way to do it is to add an extra connector to the board so that a dongle can be attached that contains a small EEPROM with the custom key in it. That way the HW manufacturers get to sell the little boards as well, so more $$$ and it requires more than just software to add an extra key (or more than one) to a system. The dongle board would have a write-protect link on it so that it could be plugged in, have a key written to it by a small program (using a freely-available API) and then the write-protect would be enabled. As a one-off step this could be done for a Linux distro, after which the distro maintainer could distribute kernels signed with the key. By having more than one key possible, individuals could add their own keys as well, so that they could sign and boot their own kernels.

Once Every Two Weeks

I think this is a cryptic way of saying they want to see how many of the original shipment arrive in working condition (or at all) before committing more stock to the route.

BTDT

I trust that they'll have to show that their programs are equal opportunity, conform to health and safety laws, do not significantly increase global warming and all the other crap that seems to infest the modern science curriculum.

I did computer science A level back in 1982 which had a programming element, so obviously things have gone seriously downhill since then.

Dart

A dart is a small object that is inherently unstable in flight and requires great skill and a bit of luck (or several pints of beer) in order to get it even close to the desired target.

https access

At least if you've taken the trouble to enable ssl, it makes the monitoring bit harder. I'd rather be blocked than monitored, anyway.

I've been known to handle work email from home, and home email from work - it generally balances out and the job gets done and we're all happy.

What is green?

The problem with pretty much any available now 'green' option except tide power is that it's intermittent and unpredictable, which is no use for a reliable system.

The whole of the UK's wind power was generating a few tens of megawatts on some of the UK's peak demand days (cf the 500+ megawatts from a single typical power station generator set), which is not a lot of use. Solar power only works during the day and produces less output when it's cloudy. Geothermal would be nice, but do we have anywhere in the UK that would produce enough to be worthwhile? At least tidal power has regular movement of water while the moon is in orbit, and can probably be predicted for neap tides and storm surges.

Wasting public money on subsidies to companies erecting wind turbines should be stopped, and that money used to research useful and workable alternatives.

Playmobil?

I guess the reconstruction of this one is boring - a character in a saucy maid's outfit and another sat in a chair reading a newspaper and ignoring her.

Retro Games

Obviously one for your old game series - Asteroids. I seem to remember in that, shooting an asteroid resulted in it breaking into lots of smaller ones.

Passing the pain threshold

If you charge too much or apply restrictions then you encourage your customers to spend more money on developing a cheaper alternative. The trick is to keep your cost just below the level at which they decide it's worth doing this, and I guess Apple didn't quite manage that with the FT or Amazon.

Coming up with the jokes

Presumably when making the turn, the bus mounted a kerb?

Reconstruction

Get the Playmobil squad on the job at once!

Parting with cash

I find Sky Movies to be quite cheap, possibly because I don't subscribe. I choose to spend my time and money elsewhere.

Input Validation

With apologies to XKCD (#327), has anyone tried using the name Robert'); DROP TABLE Users;

John Cleese

Anyone else remember the pilot sketch:

"This is your captain speaking. There is absolutely no cause for alarm" and then steadily downhill from there...