Posts by Tom 7

Re: Chromebooks

I dont think you understand Apples market. They sell things to people who pay well over the odds to buy the feeling they are special.

Re: They forgot one

Any emoji will do for that.

Re: UnaPhone?

First thing that sprang to my mind was the Unabomber. I'd imagine anyone over about 40 and almost all geeks would make that association.

Stolen code?

I doubt if any 'new' code has been written in the last thirty years. Old code for a new context perhaps but new code ... nope.

Re: Umm...

Price of a ballpark probably.

Re: Neat

Probably Very Very useful for people with limited manual capabilities!

Its under GPL so that makes it even more useful.

Re: How much cheaper than HS2?????

I'd imagine a lot of HS2 money will go on buying up land that was mysteriously bought up just before the planned route was announced.

Re: El Reg employs puppet as journalist?

Reverse Poetic Newsgarble.

@wolfetone

I'm not sure the BBC were wrong in commissioning this - just very unlucky not to know the Pi Zero was coming out.

I'd guess from the pricing of this, compared with what I've seen of the Pi, that even if they only sell a couple of hundred thousand they will be well into somewhere 'profitable'.

Re: Inevitable?

"The baby got thrown out with the bathwater."?

More like they used a pressure washer to clean the Sistine Chapel.

There may have been some good points behind the original thinking about Systemd but they were forgotten or made redundant years ago.

Re: Pocket PC

I still think the Psion5 is the best thing I've ever had in my pocket. I've love that with modern hardware and software in it.

Oh and some thing to stop it falling out of ones breast pocket while bending down,

Re: Chip & PIN or Contactless

I avoid contactless since a friend I was with managed to spend rather a lot in pub - rather more than we could have drunk and we decided it must have been a deliberate scam in the bar in question.

In the co-op yesterday a young lad bought a lot of stuff with a contactless card - his behaviour suggested it wasnt his card. If the co-op can show his parents the items bought he may well get his arse kicked.

Re: umm

I wonder how many aiming algorithms it uses? If you know them you can anticipate and avoid them.

Re: Degrees of Obsolescence

I have a 23 year old 486 that still works. I have an MK14 that must be 10 years older that still works. Anything with a gell capacitor in it over 3 years old is kaput.

Re: Always interesting

Fortunate enough to have an equally pyromaniacal bloodline. Lots of cannons (grandad had a 10lb box of gunpowder from somewhere) but the most impressive thing I saw and heard was a giant plastic bag (10' by 6' ish) filled with coal gas from the cooker and the correct amount of oxygen from a dentist.

This was bonfire night but when the flame on the paraffin soaked string reached the plastic the detonation was phenomenal (my memory still swears it had BANG! written across it). Not sure if it was deafness or the fact everyone within 5 miles was trying to work out what the fuck that was meant the silence was deafening for quite a while. Then, from the 50 or so party goers in the vicinity, hysterical laughter borne of shock for about half an hour.

East Anglian regional center

Well it would be a lot cheaper to put it in East Anglia.

I'd also wonder it the staff that were sacked were the quality ones - makes it easier to privatise if its going to the isle of dogs...

Re: "look forward to further attempts to push the envelope."

Shirley with the use of bursting balloons it should be "pushing the jiffy-bag".

Re: The plane smelt a bit funny after that.

Several people shat themselves. I was 11 at the time and found the plane dropping out of the sky fun as I had flown before and felt safe but after we passed the storm the hostess who was looking after me (I was travelling alone) spent some time getting tissues and things for the poor buggers who lost it. Luckily the flight was only about 1/4 full as I think they ran out of loo paper.

Re:Re: This is good news

My local exchange went FTTC. The village the exchange is in went from around 17Mb to 30Mb (I dont think anyone wanted to pay for 70 - they didnt need 30 anyway) .Those of us outside the village had our cabinets re-assigned. Mine was a couple of miles from my house and is now 6 miles of copper away at the exchange. So the whole area is now FTTC but those in the village are a bit better off, those outside the village are no better off. BT put in about 20 yds of fibre and got a huge wedge from the council.

Ceramic tiles?

You gonna turn it into a swanky fast food kitchen?

Re: Computer modelling is more of an art than a science

Tosh!

I spent many years knocking up microchips which were simulated using spice and digital simulators. We NEVER simulated at the quantum level which is how the devices really worked but the simulations using simplified models were accurate enough to get working devices with tens of thousands of components. I'm guessing they do similar with devices of billions of devices today.

You dont need to model convection and turbulence on micro of macro scales to model climate. Stupidly accurate weather perhaps but if you have a model that can give you reasonably accurate correlation with past events over the time data is available and it predicts temperature rises in the future only a bloody idiot would ignore it. It might be wrong but its got a far higher probability of being right than casual disinterest.

Re: Bah!

Well at least the unicorn tracker worked.

Re: Well

The brain is not just a collection of neurons and memories. Its layer upon layer of filters and simulators built from experience but also built on the ready built in models from our genes and whatever goes on in the womb.

It would be like trying to run an ARM binary on an Intel PC.

I had a friend who lost a leg and 30 years later would still sometimes get out of bed and fall over. Imagine what it would be like waking up in something that was just slightly wrong everywhere.

Re: Time for Google to pay up...

But that would imply Oracle had value.

Re: Barking in the wrong forest.

@scatter Mass production is the key - a grid connected inverter made from silicon and not lots of hand fixed parts should cost around £20 for the controller and lightning protection, £5/KW for the silicon power stuff and £30 or so per KW for the transformer that is required by law for grid connection though probably not necessary. I looked into making these myself - the upfront costs are enormous but if you are producing millions or so that is insignificant in the long run. I was informed there are designs for these already - just for now its not 'what the market is looking for'!

So for a 2kw windmill you are looking at around £100 for the inverter. A 1kw car alternator is around £50 so say £100 for a 2KW and all you need is a pole an axle and some mass produced blades. Stick it up the side of a house and it WILL produce enough juice to pay for itself in a couple of years.

Its very cost effective - just not 'efficient'. Cheap cheap electricity - what's the problem?