* Posts by 100113.1537

289 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jul 2009

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Microsoft issues manual on Brits to Cambridge exports

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Do Yanks really believe all that old toss about they saw about the UK in Murder She Wrote?

Do Brits believe that everyone in the States live in apartments and have friends just drop in to raid their fridge?

Having moved the the US a few years ago I can tell you that we (brits) have just as many misconceptions from watching telly programs. Seinfeld and Friends it is not, I can tell you!

Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan

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Tron...

surely has to be in there as a very early consideration of artificial intelligence and what is awareness.

I was always more into SF novels than movies and I spent too much of my youth reading about dystopian futures (which have not come to pass). As an adult working in molecular genetics, Gattaca is probably the best example of an uplifting message nicely hidden in such a way that it is not cloying. My (economist) wife was very worried about watching this with my (genetics researcher) friends as we mercilessly slagged off the ropey science in other movies, but we all left the cinema talking about the concepts not the holes in the technology.

Oklahoma woman cuffed with loaded .22 in pork holster

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A revolver?

See title

Opera joins Google/Apple in-crowd with shift to WebKit and Chromium

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Yes, but...

those messages (and the lack of operability - no pun intended) were/are dammed hard to get around. As an Opera user, there are still sites out there that I need to start IE for. And although I haven't tried Firefox/Chrome for a while, I couldn't get to these sites using those browsers either.

I am happy to admit that I use Opera because I am awkward, but I thought the point of having standards was so that different products could compete on an open playing field. If Opera drop their rendering engine and IE continues to play in its own sandbox, there is not much competition out there any more.

Can BlackBerry survive? Well, the woods are still full of bear poo

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Re: Don't know how you write a BB vs rest article without using "keyboard"

"Of the tens of thousands of apps that are in apps stores only tens have any real benefit to a corporation rather than providing warm fuzzies to those who have mingled their personal data into their work environment (thus Blackberry Balance)."

Excellent point. If I see one more person scream about the millions of apps in the iTunes Store or Google Play, I think I might just throw up. The same ten apps copied by 500 different suppliers/developers is still just 10 apps! I had programs on my Palm (before they were called apps) that I still can't find for my Android smartphone - although I am sure they might be out there if I can only wade through the thousands of (cr)apps that clutter the place up first.......

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Horses for courses

I have a Win7 notebook, an Android smartphone and an iPad. One for work, one for communication and one for entertainment. Yes, there is cross-over and when I am not at my desk the smartphone sort of fills in for the other two, but my biggest issue was getting the smartphone and the PC to synch now that everyone tells me to "keep it all in the cloud". I don't do that. I am responsible for my own data, thank you very much. I missed the ease with which Palm did that, but it has just meant that I need to have a different PIM on the smartphone so that I can still synch with my PC. Not a problem, just an expense (and not too big an expense at that).

Some people want everything in one place (and/or in one OS) and it is good that they can do that, but for those of who don't, we still have an option. I've never had a Blackberry, but I know that I could (since I am sure that there are ways to make it work the way I want it to) and I am glad that they are still a going concern as competition is generally a good thing in itself.

And, as a final note, funny how they have become TCOKARIM and LIM* these days - how the world changes!

*For anyone of tender years, previous incarnations of TCOKARIM were so fond of patent litigation that that were referred to as Lawsuits In Motion by El Reg. This was something Apple and Samsung saw as a market they wanted to capture - which they have done quite successfully.

Report: Over 1.5 million UK drivers will have hydrogen cars by 2030

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Been saying for how long?

Weren't fuel cells "5 years away" 10 years ago? Sadly this is another scream for support for something which has yet to live up to overblown promises.

I really like the idea of fuel-cells driving electric motors and I supported the development of the Chevy Volt simply because it separated the electric drive train from the means of 'leccy generation so that petrol/diesel generators could be replaced by fuels cells "when they came along". But have you seen how much they cost? And that includes a whacking great government subsidy as well

The tech I really like is fuel cells driven by methanol (a nice liquid fuel) and for a while this looked possible as well (was it Sony who had a laptop you refuelled with a cigarette lighter-sized methanol cartridge?). Another thing we were all going to be using in 5 years. How long ago was that now?

I am afraid this is one I will believe only when I see it.

Samsung: Never mind Steve Jobs, let's snap off a piece of stylus biz

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Work or play?

I think we are back to what are you doing with it!

For play (that is, entertainment via browsing and games) the finger works fine in tablets and you don't have to keep track of where your stylus is. For work, when you have a lot of information in the screen and/or need some precision on what you are doing, then a stylus gives you that precision.

Remember, Jobs only went anti-stylus after the Apple Newton died in its infancy (it was beaten up by Palm among others which proved to be extremely popular using a very basic stylus). Yes, smartphones have since killed Palm and the other PDAs, but not because they didn't use a stylus and not for a long time.

Top Gear isn't TV, not when it's on YouTube

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Re: It appears that there are a lot of people who don't know what regulation is for.

Why is it that so many people think that Fox "News" would not be allowed in a country with "regulations"?

Apart from the fact that Fox News survives because people watch it (hence advertising revenue) as opposed to paid for by government subsidy (PBS in the US which very few people watch), the US is actually a very heavily regulated broadcasting environment. You only have to go back to the "wardrobe malfunction" during the Superbowl where hundreds (possibly thousands) of local NBC affiliates (broadcasting stations - the US doesn't have "national" broadcasters as such) were fined $25,000 EACH by the FCC because of one complaint.

For those who have not lived in the US, they have a different model of regulation from Europe, but un-regulated it is not. Using Fox News as the bogey-man for what a un-regulated UK broadcast market would look like just shows your own predjudices, I am afraid. It might be junk (well, OK, it IS junk), but it follows the same rules as all of the other junk out there.

Hm, nice idea that. But somebody's already doing it less well

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Hmmm, regulatory capture vs regime uncertainty

Interesting point, DAM. I am often to be heard extolling regulations because they give the kind of certainty that developers need to know what "hoops they have to jump though" even at the same time as I condemn the kind of regulatory creep that leaves entrenched players in the market with altogether too much power (regulatory capture). I fear there is no simple answer, but being aware of both sides of the issue is valuable.

[I don't mean to say these two concepts are antithetical - only that in applying one, you can create problems affecting the other].

Agree with Tim or not, his articles do get people thinking - and provide some nice commentary as well.

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Happy

Re: Obviously Andrew hates small businessmen and jobs

Erm, this article was written by Tim Worstall. Not sure if you are just trolling or really do have an Andrew Orlowski fixation, but try to get it right!

University of Western Sydney hands out 11k iPads

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Re: Are iPads the real story?

The paper vs e-book is very clearly explained in the original post - there are different requirements for reading and for reference. Having a number of books open and flicking back and to (what is needed for reference) is far easier with paper - and you are not carrying these around as this is being done at home or in your office etc.

Besides, with a tablet there are serious issues with multi-tasking and having multiple windows open. I have two screens and still have problems when drafting/editing and need multiple references to look up as I work. I have an iPad and it isn't useful for my work precisely because of the need to switch between programs and documents - as far as I know, the other tablets are similar (my phone is Android). Other people have different requirements so maybe it will work for them, but that's why I am not sure I like the idea of going with a single piece of technology. One size does not fit all.

'It’s called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this'

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Stop

Corporation tax is not the only tax!

Don't Google employ people in the UK? Don't these people pay income tax etc.? Don't all products sold om the UK have VAT levied? The UK govt. gets plenty of tax from Google and Starbucks and Amazon etc. This is just a case of political grandstanding.

Google, Apple, eBay shouldn't pay taxes - people should pay taxes

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Re: The

Boris, I think you are missing the point - tax systems are about raising revenue not about being fair.

Governments want to raise revenue to do spend on things they think will get hem re-elected, but they have to do this is the most inoffensive way - or they won't get re-elected. Probably the "fairest" way to generate revenue would be consumption taxes (VAT etc.) because richer people buy more stuff and will therefore pay more tax, but this has lots of other knock-on effects - the biggest of which (in the eyes of the politicians) is that the people who enact such a tax get roundly villified (although the other political parties seem awfully fond of the taxes once they get into power).

Just bought an Apple product? Need support NOW? Drop an F-BOMB

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Re: It pays to be nice

Bing nice works once you have actually got to a real person - the problem is getting stuck into the - seemingly - never-ending loops of machine responses. I used to be OK with pushing numbers on a key-pad, but then when everyone started using one-piece or cell-phones, (which meant you had to take the phone away from your ear to enter the numbers) they started getting you to use words. What a nightmare! It seems as though voice recognition is still not all it is cracked up to be....

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Trollface

My wife remembers being told to refer to Verizon when she was ringing up to complain abut service on her Nextel subscription as a way of getting a faster response. You can guess this is a few years ago now (does anyone remember Nextel?), but maybe you could say you wished you had bought a Samsung and see if you get a better response.....

US federal transport crash investigators ditch BlackBerry for iPhones

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Re: Translation

Yep. Got it in one. If they say "I want a new shiny thing" what chance do you think they would have of getting it? But by saying it is a matter of reliability (surely more to do with the carrier than anything else) no-one will question them.

I wonder how much more iPhones cost than BBs?

'There may come a day when Hobbits promote slot machines ...'

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WTF?

A bit late...

I was playing a Lord of the Rings video slot in Las Vegas last year!

It was quite fun actually, with bonus games involving clips from the movies.

New flexible lens works like the one in your eye - and could replace it

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Re: @Scott

I feel a bit the same. With my contact lenses in I have excellent distance vision, but my arms have been getting shorter and shorter over the years, meaning I now need reading glasses. I ditched the idea of laser surgery since I can read quite well with my lenses out (good for reading in bed at night. However, I need different strength reading glasses for computer work as the screen is further away (and I have obviously lost even more flexibility in my inbuilt lenses), but without my contacts I need to hunch forward in my chair!

A flexible lens (replacing either my contacts or my own lens) would be rather useful, I think.

Apple-v-Samsung $1bn iPhone fine: 'Jury foreman was biased'

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Re: The jury

Which is why they ALL get appealed. More work (and money) for the lawyers.

Navy SEALs from Bin Laden kill unit spanked for video game work

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Alert

Didn't the US govt invite a film director in to make a movie about the actual operation that got Bin Laden and give them access to all the operational records? Seems a bit unfair to then reprimand some of the guys who did the deal themselves for a bit advice to make a computer game....

What made us human? Being armed with lethal ranged weapons

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Re: human-v-Neanderthal struggle

Not sure about evolutionary pressure on cock size, but I remember a wonderful guest lecture on inheritance of bollock size in primates. This was one guest lecture that was both well attended and got rapt attention!

Shame I can't remember any of the details anymore - memory beyond 40 years was not much of an advantageous trait when the life expectancy was 35 or so!

Widow lost savings in Facebook stock, sues all concerned for $1.9m

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Facepalm

Lost her nest-egg?

Going by her numbers, she says she lost 105k on shares that went down by 8$, that means about 13k shares. 13k shares at 42 (forgotten what they opened at, but it will do) is over half a million, but if she sold at 34 she got $452,000 back. She is hardly destitute and has hardly "lost her life-savings".

She is now looking to get 1.9 m (let's say 1.2 after legal fees and her lawyers cut) so over twice as much as she invested, plus she still has the 450k she got from selling the shares. Not a bad deal if she wins....

And we wonder why there are so many lawyers around.

Dry martini, shaken not stirred: Cracking the physics of Bond's martini

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Stirred!

Shaking vs stirring completely alters the flavour due to increased oxidation. Think about decanting red wine (or letting it breath after opening) and you can understand this effect. At the end of the day it is all personal preference - but the flavours are very different.

Google upgrades Gmail interface, now less 'drafty'

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Re: Closer to IM format ?

Absolutely! I never used Gmail - and now I know why! This is what every other email client has been doing for - well - ever.

Lenovo tops China's smartphone market in just six months

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Why $?

Because if you want to buy one, you go through their site in HK which prices things in $ - or someone like DX who price in $ or Euro's. Haven't bought a Lenovo as they are still a bit more expensive than the no-name frankenphones, but it is attractive given that they are a named manufacturer (even if not Samsung or HTC).

Tumblr and Google App Engine down as US traffic plummets

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Bit early on your estimate for Sandy....

Sandy isn't due until after the weekend, although there will be plenty of wind and rain up the coast before then.

We noticed very slow network speeds in general around 12.30 am last night here in Canada, but it is no problem now.

Hey, Third World! We know what you need: Mmm, patent wars

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Re: Bit late aren't they?

Actually, I have worked in development and tech transfer for the past 10 years and IP management is the critical factor for access to any new technology. Sorry for all of you IT-obsessed freetards, but the rest of the world still needs to protect inventions in order to get investment funds to develop them into products.

If any of you took the trouble to study and understand the IP system instead of just whinging about Apple/Samsung or whoever, you might notice that respect for property - including intellectual property - is the basis for a functional society. The few exceptions I am sure you will point to are no reason to abandon one of the bedrocks human development.

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Bit late aren't they?

Sorry, but the Brit IP office are way too late to this party - WIPO have been doing this for years (I have myself been a small part of it) and it has been well supported by plenty of other countries (Japan springs to mind as well as the US).

As someone who has worked a lot in development, knowledge of IP is critical to inward investment - nobody will do a deal with you for technology if you cannot show you will protect it, simple as that. Just because you think the current patent wars between Samsung and Apple are an expensive joke, don't forget what IP protection is really all about - reward for invention and encouraging investment in new ideas. Even China has now moved from being the world's biggest pirate to enforcing IP laws with real vigour (they have serious criminal penalties for copyright infringement) now that they are beginning to invent/create themselves.

Skype touts FREE* Wi-Fi across the UK

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Simple enough for who?

Simple enough for you (and most people who read the Reg).

What about the people who aren't technically-experienced? How much would they pay for the kit and set-up (plus maintenance) to a third party? For a tenner a month, how many hours of technical support would you get?

My reading of this is that they (Wicoms/Skype) do all the work and for your tenner you give customers the same kind of access the big boys give. Tempting for a lot of the people I know running small customer-related businesses.

EU, US edge closer to mega-transatlantic patent system

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Forget US-EU harmonization.....

there is still no agreement on European patents yet!

Each country still has to ratify each patent application - the only common element is the review by the EPO. Admittedly, the hold-up is mostly about which languages patents have to be translated into, but so far, all patent legislation in the world in national.

All they are talking about is the classification system to make searching for prior art easier. As someone who has done a lot of searching for prior art, this probably won't make a lot of difference as both the EU and US use the IPC classification already, but let's see how it comes out in the wash. My big worry is how they will handle the existing databases - is everything going to be re-coded?

As to the various merits of the US vs EU system, I don't think either of them can claim any moral high ground and both have been guilty of stupid decisions in the past. Remember it was a German court that accepted the doctored photos as evidence of infringement in Apple's case against Samsung (which just goes to show how non-European the EU system is as other countries threw the case out).

iPad no flight risk says Federal Aviation Authority

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Happy

Re: Isn't it about attention?

I remember one flight attendant start off with "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now that I have your attention, please listen to this important safety information." It worked with a a lot of the passengers grinning and made for rather a nice atmosphere on the flight!

Shove off Prince Harry, now Norway's teen royal in fresh photo uproar

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Re: Anders Breivik

Breivik will be in solitary confinement so unlikely to suffer from fellow inmates anger, but these are images from the high security jail he will in - not quite as nice as the images linked to above:

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/22juli/Utilregnelig-Breivik-kan-bli-fire-ganger-sa-dyr-6971549.html

Designer punked fanbois with asymmetric screw

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Alien

The screw isn't the story...

it seems most of the early readers did spot the fake (according to the article), but the further from the initial posting, the greater the level of belief. This IS interesting because it shows how rumours spread and become believed. It doesn't matter how dumb the initial hoax is, once it has gone two or three steps, it takes on a aura of credibility.

I watched "Men who stare at goats" again the other day, and this was illustrated perfectly in the justification of why the US got into PSI research - it was because the Russians had got into PSI research, because they believed a fake rumour put out by the French that the Americans were already doing it.... A joke in a movie yes, but how many people watching get the feeling that it could be true? And even worse, how many people think it it true......

Finally some QUALITY apps for Android: PalmOS emulator ported

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Someone should have told HP...

I asked about this on an HP TouchPad forum when I wanted to know if I could synch with Palm Desktop on my PC. I was told I didn't need this as the Cloud was the place to store my appointments, contacts, travel itineraries and expense claims. I wrote back with a few rude words and the next thing I heard, they had killed the product anyway.

My Android phone will sync with Palm Desktop through a third party app so I probably don't need this, but I have to say it is so slow compared to my Tungsten E2 that I am tempted to give a it a try. maybe it is just the 'phone though.....

Watch out, Apple: HTC ruling could hurt your patent income

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Re: Hear, hear!

Granted patents (in some jurisdictions) do have a period under which a challenge to validity can be made without going to the extreme of a court case. I am a bit out of the loop, but I am pretty sure the US has a 12 month period for this.

In part, this represented the somewhat different philosophy in the US-PTO vs European patent offices. The US has considered that the courts should have a major say in what is patentable and so have tended to allow claims rather generously, whereas in Europe, examiners are much stricter in what claims are allowed. [This is a reflection of the whole US philosophy of generally lower regulation and relying on court cases to determine liability.]

The US system worked quite well when the onus was on a patent holder to prove in court that someone had infringed their patent, but recently there is a tendency for courts to place the burden of proof on the defendant - i.e. to prove that you have NOT infringed! This gives the patent holder the benefit of the doubt twice over (in both granting and suing for infringement) and has led to the recent blow-out in patent filings which in turn has led to more pressure on examiners to grant patents to get them off their desk!

Door creaks and girl farts: computing in the real world

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CD vs USB - please infect me!

Try infecting me with a virus when I transfer files around a room full of computers on a CD, whereas a USB stick......

Some of us work in the real world that means outside the North America and Western Europe and where the chance of an meeting an infected computer is about 1 when you have a room containing more than 2 computers. And yes of course you can make your USB stick non-writeable and then one of the participants flicks the little switch to turn this off while they are waiting for their turn.....

There is a big world out there people and it is not populated by the latest and greatest, but by the cheapest and most easily fixed.

iOS was SO much more valuable to Google than Android - until Maps

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Unhappy

Re: "Phones"

I just wish my android phone was actually as good a PDA as my old TungstenE!

The 'phone is much slower to do the PDA things that was the main reason to get it and I have to use a flakey 3rd party app to synch with my PC calender and address book (I don't do cloud storage - I may be a dinosaur, but I am a dinosaur who likes to take responsibility for his own data).

Turns out I can still buy new a new TungstenE2 on eBay - for 2-3 times the price of an unlocked android 2.3 smartphone! Hmmmmmmm

Study: The more science you know, the less worried you are about climate

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WTF?

Pots calling kettles black?

What I find interesting is that whenever Lewis Page writes an article here in El Reg, he is accused of being paid by someone (since he only seems to write on climate change and defence contracts, perhaps he is in a somewhat polarized area). However, since he is a paid journalist, his whole point is to get people to read his work and thus why should anyone get upset about his rhetoric - that is what journalists do (and I personally find his work enjoyable to read so well done Lewis).

However, the people most keen to accuse him of this horrendous bias of being paid to write then go on and quote all kinds of other stories by other journalists with never a care about who pays THEM! Almost everybody in this debate is paid for their work on it in some way or another. Some people are paid directly and some indirectly, but to castigate anyone on this basis is hypocrisy of the highest order.

Get off it and look at what is written and use those supposedly skeptical faculties on that rather than shooting the messenger. Lewis writes interesting articles - enjoy them, but if you want to know the science, read the links he always includes with his articles and make your own mind up.

Facebook IPO plunge sparks tidal wave of lawsuits

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Re: Stock and shares are naturally risky.

The issue seems to be that until the IPO, this was a private company with no requirement to inform all investors at the same time. It would probably be considered morally wrong, but not against the rules to release information to some parties and not others.

To do what is alleged NOW (when the shares are being traded) would be in clear breach of SEC rules, but to refer to this as fraud is missing this distinction. As many people are reminding us in previous comments, IPOs are the epitomy of buyer beware as you have very little information to go on and if you believe the hype from the seller, then you pretty much get what you deserve.

SpaceX Dragon, first private ship to the ISS, launched successfully

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Pint

Re: "within spitting distance of the ISS"

Hmmm, by the time you have opened your sealed helmet to spit, I can imagine the force of the air rushing from your lungs in to the near vacuum of space would impart a pretty good initial velocity to your sputum. After that, being pretty cold in space, I would imagine the frozen gob could do quite a bit of damage, adding to the various bits of space junk flying around up there.

I think we need to develop a new metric for space-spit, but I haven't had enough beer yet to come up with one. Please help...

Facebook's Eduardo Saverin: I'm not a tax-dodger

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The IRS wants YOU!

If you have ever been a US citizen, or held a green card then you must file a US tax return every year. If you have not earned any income in the US then you may not be liable to pay any tax, but you will pay tax at US rates on any US-earned income which includes capital gains tax. Eduardo Saverin knows this as his reply quite clearly states - what is very sad is that the two US senators who are complaining apparently don't know this.......

Cameron's F-35 U-turn: BAE Systems still calls the shots at No 10

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Re: Heard Lewis on BBC R4 this morning

That was priceless! The interviewer was crapping it when Lewis went on about BAe and you could hear his relief when Lewis also mentioned that the RAF might have been involved - he latched onto that so quickly Lewis barely had time to finish his sentence. The interview finished very quickly after that.....

Anything more you would like to add Lewis? I am not sure they will invite you back on to Today for a while anyway so you might as well dish the dirt.

Biennial boner blights Beemer biker

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But, but, but..

The typical reaction to bicycle seats is lack of erection because of the pressure-induced numbness, not priapism. This guy is claiming the opposite of the common effect and the scientific rationale given (interruption to the blood flow) would decrease not increase his erection.

Seems like he was just embarrassed to admit his bike gives him a hard-on!

Ex-BP engineer cuffed 'for deleting Deepwater spill texts'

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FAIL

Is that it?

Seriously, is that it?

After all the millions spent on investigations, all they can do is charge one guy with deleting text messages? Oh sure, this is just the start etc. etc., but - I have to say it again - is that it?

What a farce. Somebody should point out that shit happens. Of course you don't want it to happen, nobody plans for it to happen and - often with hindsight - you can see what you could have done to stop it happening, but shit happens! The only way to stop it happening again is for people to be honest about what happened - and who the hell is going to do that when some poor bloody engineer gets threatened with 20 years for deleting some text messages?

As was said previously, he could have just dropped the phone in the water - and I am sure he will next time - along with everyone else the next time something like this happens!

Educating Rory: Are BBC reporters unteachable?

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Re: I haven't heard any comment from any teachers

It is less about what you have got, more what you do with it!

Access is a great way to get into Visual Basic because you can't just 'record macros' like you can in Excel etc. and when you are asked (or 'tasked') to do more than just enter data you get to learn the power of programming (making it do what you want instead of what it tells you you you can have)

I don't know about OpenOffice etc. but that would just be the same as MS if you don't go beyond what it gives you. Getting a Linux installation to work can be educational, but is also not really programming - and is getting easier and easier now anyway (isn't that what the various distro's claim now one-click installs?). Even website building is point and click now as content management systems have taken away the need to write your own php code.

As noted by a few people above, programming comes from a need to do something which you can't do currently. It can (and should) start with problem formulation and then go through research into solutions and then experimenting with code writing. It is a set of skills which is much more than just knowing the programming language and - just like the mathematics from which computing is derived - teaches a great deal of life-skills, not least grammar! (Oops, time to turn off the rant mode.)

The issue seems to me that we have replaced attempts to teach problem solving in schools with simply imparting information and training people to use existing tools. That is great for turning out people who can do todays mass-market jobs, but just seems so limiting in the long run.

'I'm no visionary': Torvalds up for $1.3m life-changing gong

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Alert

Linux vs stme cells, hmmmmm

Given that Linux is here and now (or rather, has been for 25 years) and stem cells are still 99% vapour-ware, I think I'd give it to Linus on this occasion. Besides, what Dr Yamanaka has done is more of an enabling step (using non-embryogenic sources for stem cells) rather than paradigm-changing (I guess many argue the same with Linus).

Interesting that George W's witholding of US Federal funds for embryogenic stem cell research didn't turn out to end the development of this technology the way it was promised. I think we should remember this point in the various "end of the world as we know it" scenarios are presented (climate change, renewable energy, health care reform). I guess "most of you won't notice" isn't as good a headlines as "we're all going to die".

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Re: Is it 'cos I is Finnish?

" Linus renounced his loyalty to "foreign princes" when he accepted his u.s. citizenship "

But that was the Finns insisting on that - the US is happy to have have dual-nationality citizens and he wouldn't have needed to renounce his Finnish citizenship if the Finns (like the Norwegians) would also accept it.

Shale gas fracking ruled safe, but must stop at drop of a hat

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How many?

There are more than 4,000 wells in the Marcellus shale in the US alone.

Laptop computers are crap

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Re: Bloody 16:9 screens GRRRR!

I don't see why people think there is a choice between desktop and laptop. I do nearly all of my work from home, but because I also travel regularly, I have a notebook. No compromise on grunt (Corei5, 6GB RAM) and when sitting on its docking station I have external keyboard, drives etc. I don't need 500GB of storage on the machine itself - when I travel the 160GB SSD has more than enough.

I have two screens on my desk, and yes, when I travel I find working on a single screen tedious (and I agree that 16:9 is sop to playing movies - which is not why I buy a high-end business laptop), but plugging in a monitor wherever I am working is actually not all that much hassle and I am already planning for the third screen at home (my wife already has this and , damn, it useful for big spreadsheets).

For sitting watch TV with something on my lap - guess what - I have a tablet, but there is really nothing I need a "desktop" machine for that I don't get from my notebook. Plus I have everything with me when I travel. It is the desktop market that should be worried, not the notebooks.

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