Posts by John Smith 19

Sounds like human error of some kind.

But wouldn't such a critical process be automated?

Is loading a blank zonefile a recognised procedure to do anything?

Seems a bit draconian.

Hotel "Can we look at the manuals"

Supplier "No"

Hotel "How can we *find* out if it will do the job we want it to"

Supplier "You can ask us."

Hotel "Will it do the job we want it to."

Supplier "Absolutely"

The judge understood this is exactly what happened. The supplier ( if they are *any* kind of expert in the hospitality industry, which has had IT systems installed for at *least* the last 40 years) either *knew* the software could not hack it (so they lied when they said it could) or were so clueless about their business they did not know either way (and guessed).

Thumbs up. You've got to wonder how many other suppliers have pulled this routine in their T&C's. This stripping will continue until more customers take some *responsibility* for their purchasing decisions and give cowboy suppliers a kicking.

Has to be said

Cable, unbound and let loose on UK Banking industry.

IPS like a malignant weed

Lop off the top and it's roots continue to grow.

Needs something strong and long lasting to kill this madness stone dead.

The whole *concept* of the NIR needs to be put "Beyond use."

Now that's tricky.

But thumbs up for starting this hard work.

Compromise already seems to be happening.

Clegg scraps the mansion tax, Cameron scraps the tax break for millionaires, *both* raise the threshold on *paying* tax, leaving more money in the hands of UK tax payers.

This is starting to look like an *actual* coalition.

Darling reckoned it would cost £40m to cancel the ID cards project. A bargain versus the £10.4Bn estimated over the 10 years (does anybody think that number would go *anywhere* but up?)

Honoring the ECHR ruling on DNA should lower admin costs.

Reviewing *all* big spending projects (and when a traffic light review says "Red" it *means* no moving forward until the issues are resolved) for value for money would seem a good idea. The NHS IT project is an obvious one.

The problem is the Gordon saddled UK PLC with c£110Bn of additional debt. You need to make *big* savings and scrapping a Trident replacement would lop roughly 20% off the top in 1 go. IMHO the terms payed to operators on *all* PFI rojects are remarkably generous (Banks seems quite happy to hand them the cash for the buildings *once* they saw the repayment terms). I think re-negotiating them would save money on the kind of scale needed.

Some solid work should be possible on the Foreign and Defense departments. WTF is the MoD head count as big as the British Army?

Thumbs up for the start of (possibly) something big.

Perhaps rather obvious

but it looks like a scaled down B2 bomber. Nothing wrong with that but control issues are bit tricky.

Depends who your opponent is. The Taliban have (I presume) access to heat seeking missiles but no radar.

As always in the killware biz it's important to play the FUD card as "We don't know what the world will be like in 20 years time. It could be a (God we're hoping) Cold War".

Just a thought.

Read the abstract

It explains what happens if you make the graphene layer too thick. While you might think thicker layer -> more material to conduct heat in *fact* the thermal conductivity *drops* by roughly 1/2. They explain partly why, and why you want to operate with 2 layers (2800 w m^2) Vs 4 layers (1300 w m^2)

Incidentally this implies that their is a *maximum* power you can put into such a layer. Too much and you can't get it moved with just this bilayer.

As for all the oh so smart comments about warm laps it's also about *spreading* the heat load. That processor is what 1 inch square? That's 1/94 the area of an A4 page, The surface might be close to 150c, but there is (in theory) *more* than enough area to drop that temp right down.

BTW The idea of Asbestos just stops your legs getting warm. You still have to dump the heat *somewhere*.

I think as a super heat conductor this is a bit of a red herring. It might have other materials properties. Graphene and other "Diamondoid" materials were predicted to be *major* product of a working nanotechnological production system. OTOH work on high emissivity coatings (radiating the heat at *high* efficiency in the infra red band) *might* pay dividends.

US PTO Issues *Valid* patten

Oh wait, it was the Canadian patent office that issued one.

The US one issued to MS is worthless.

I don't like *any* software patents. But this looks remarkably like the system working *properly*.

Thumbs up for that.

I find my self wondering

Is the moderatrix a possessor of the red gene?

Better

Not brilliant. Not perfect. But perhaps the start. of some actual competition.

So far *only* kindle breaks the 10mm barrier IE the thickness of an 80 sheet pad of A4 paper.

Apple buys Palm

Build quality of hardware goes where?

Medical jobs database euthanised @ < £7m

Now that's what I call *prompt* triage.

Pity they couldn't manage to terminate a few others while they are at it.

Interesting he was described as the "architect" of the system.

Lot of experience in database design? Long track record of rolling out high volume secure browser based apps? Keen grasp of privacy issues?

The Doomday scenario

Broon declares that he can best "Serve the country" by invoking emergency powers and instituting direct rule by the cabinet as a "temporary" measure.

You just *know* he's not going to leave the No 10 bunker without a fight.

On a happier note.

It was never really likely Blunkett and Johnson would be dumped as well. A truly *clean* sweep was too much to hope for. Dumping Johnson (and 1 or 2 of his junior henchpersons) might have thrown another spanner in the ID card works however. As it stands they sound like the leads in really bad 70s cop show.

B

Amazing.

Maurice Wilkes is still *alive*

Jeez.

His paper introducing the idea of microcode was written in 1951. I thought he'd shuffled off the mortal *decades* ago.

Words are so 20th century.

The icon with a Met badge below it is all that needs saying. Go on, you know you want to.

@z0mb13e

"Anyone else get the feeling that IT folks (from sys admins to casual password guessers) are being manoeuvred into the firing line more and more these days?"

Yes and no.

This guys fall was all his *own* work. However management definitely created an environment which *allowed* and *encouraged* him to do it. This means they either don't know what they need to do about ensuring good security or don't care.

"Dog & Pony proscution"

Do you have video of this?

Available technology could do a lot of this

It's estimated half the world's population cook using very *low* efficiency (c6%) stoves burning, wood, coal, dung. Better stove designs exist which can up this 5x (to 30%).

The fumes and smoke kill an estimated 4-5million children a year.

Shifting to a shared biogas system gives clean heating, cooking and lighting (gas mantles may not be very high tech in the developed world but they are pretty effective if you've no infrastructure for *any* electricity and AFAIK last quite a long time).

Getting people to go with this is another matter.

*but* you've *got* to think of the children

And it would seem the admins were doing just that.

Still not to worry. Those pix won't show up anywhere.

Except

mmm.com

nnn.org

and traded in a few chatrooms.

"You hurt me. Give me money"

"How did I hurt you?"

"If I have to answer that question you give me *more* money."

This is the MS FUD blower running in overdrive.

Icon says it all.

AC:04:52

"What is this new urge to pass any bill that purports to do something without thinking it through?"

I think they may have been on a fact finding visit to see how the British government operates.

Possible interesting use for the rocket motor

It seems to be a solid variable thrust type using a moving pintle.

An interesting project for some of these (now surplus) motors would be to fire some of them vertically with the pintle programmed to move to compensate for the surrounding air pressure changes. A solid propellant Altitude Compensating Nozzle test.

Just a thought.