Posts by 100113.1537

Re: Dumb companies

Good point. I know of one application which uses them as links to inform emergency services of specific conditions in buildings. For example, when the firemen rock up to a high-rise, then can get up-to-date information on which residents need help evacuating (sounds a bit basic, but I live in a high-rise and it is a surprisingly common problem). You still need to keep a list of the people somewhere, but keeping it on-line makes updating it easier.

Re: Not a new theory...

No, Tim says it was the fires that humans started that wiped out the megafauna, whereas this research suggests it was wiping out the megafauna which allowed "natural" fires to spread. This may be an academic point, but it is actually the whole point of the paper that the reduction in animals led to more grass first and then the fires as opposed to the fires which led to less grass and then a reduction in the animals.

I get two ....

batteries with every phone I buy. They come standard at no extra charge when you buy from Chinese suppliers.

Used to be I had to out up with chinese instructions/software, but now they have the last but one version of Android so they are basically the same as anything else out there, just a lot cheaper. Slap in a pay as you SIM from whichever country you happen to be in and you're good to go.

Re: "We might create guns big enough to shoot things into space"

Try Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"

Re: Stylus?

Had Palm PDAs for over 10 years now and never lost a stylus. Had a Compaq Concerto before that and never lost the stylus. Just what are you doing with them?

A stylus expands the things you can do on a small screen so not sure if I am more enamoured of a 10.1 over the 5 inch Note, but - as always - it depends what you are using it for. As someone mentioned above, to simply consume entertainment, finger is enough, but for real input you need more.

I notice that the Lenovo Thinkpad comes with an optional stylus for business use - abyone know how many are being sold without one?

You mean..

Big Sandwich...

You're also dealing with an Aussie..

... which in my experience seems to someone quite happily prepared to torture the english language to within an inch of its life!

Must be something they do to get their own back for something or other (insert appropriate shoulder-chip).

Without wishing to get into conspracy theories...

- this comment is very relevant.

To me, this is the biggest issue of the whole thing. Journo's listening to people's voicemails is hardly hacking and - while certainly an invasion of privacy - little more than going through your rubbish. Similarly, singling out the NoTW was fun for a while, but hardly relevant because it is on record that other newspapers were doing the same.

No, the way too close - and now shown to be corrupt - relationship between the police and journo's is where this investigation should really be focussed. If they are arresting people for paying for information, then the people who were paid have committed a far more serious crime and should also be arrested.

Hardware vs software issues...

I don't have experience with Palm phones, but the PDA's were (and still are) pretty solid. New (in box) Tungstens still sell at a premium on E-Bay and used ones rarely go for less than 50-60 $, which means that people are expecting them to keep on working.

I wanted WebOS to work because I have such a long history of using Palm Desktop and I wanted to continue. However, before it was cancelled I asked on an HP forum about synchronizing to Palm Desktop and was told I didn't want to do that, that cloud services were better anyway and, no, there were no plans to provide this! I was more than a bit dis-chuffed to be so patronisingly fobbed off and - the next week - the TouchPad was dumped so it became a moot point (still pissed off I didn't manage to get a cheap one!).

I am now stuck with third party software to sync with my Andoid 'phone which is painfully slow (and a bit flaky, but it gets there in the end).

I am still not convinced by an 'all-in-one' smartphone and may go back to my Tungsten E because it is way better as a PDA. I can take the strange looks I get when I have two (OK, three, no four - separate GPS and camera!) separate devices bulging in my pockets. The big problem is that they all sue different chargers.....

Spot on!

Proves Tim B-L's point exactly!

Used Compuserve for many years as it was - originally - way more useful to actually get stuff (I was very popular in getting WordPerfect printer drivers for people). But as the web developed, CServe lost the customer base to free competitors, was Borg'ed by AOL and is now only remembered (fondly) in my username.

FAIL

Sorry, Serendipity, you obviously know nothing of India, or its history of IP protection. Patents are not international and nothing in the WTO makes them so. All you have to do (to join the WTO) is have an IP protection system such that foreign companies are treated the same as local ones (i.e, you can't selectively discriminate), but other than that, you can write your own patent laws.

India did just this with pharma-patents (making them effectively impossible to obtain while its generic industry got going) and the only reason they have changed this now is to protect the new drugs which Indian firms now invent (and wish to protect within India). There was no quibble at the WTO because non-one was treated differently - foreign companies couldn't patent and neither could Indian countries.

Furthermore, for patents to be valid, they have to be filed in a country before they are public knowledge - effectively meaning that if you haven't filed in India within a couple or three years after filing in the US (or wherever) you cannot gain patent protection retrospectively in India. Exactly what patents cover Android etc. in the rest of the world seems to be pretty ropey just now, but if they weren't filed in India, then they don't have any jurisdiction in India.

Take your $35 fondle-slab and try to sell it in the US and you may arouse Google's ire, but chances are in India, they haven't got a leg to stand on.

Highly appropriate..

Tanking your share price prior to things like share buy-backs (or screwing someone's option pay-out as suggested above) is illegal and a very good way to get shareholders to sue, but would have been hard to prove were it not for the monumentally inept way they have behaved recently.

If they tried a buy-back now, they would be screwed so hard by pissed off shareholders that I guess they will just have to suck it up and keep on going.

It gives a new CEO a great chance to earn his bonus by getting the share price to increase - even if it is still less than it was a few months ago.

I still say they should have kept Carly..

(ducks quickly)

Absolutely - coffee-table browsing is major use!

Have an el-cheapo e-book reader (Kobo, I think) that we use for the same stuff - IMDB is probably the home page! Why spend $4-500 when you can get most of the same functionality for $100.

Still wish I'd been able to snaffle a TouchPad for that price - I was hoping to use my old Palm applications on WebOS, but $500 was way too much. I can still get a (boxed) Tungsten E2 on EBay for about $250.

Ha ha ha ha

Boom-boom!

So it's not for you - who cares?

What about when I am only in the UK for a hour between flights? And then in Paris for another hour? What about Tokyo?

It might not make sense for you, but it sure as **** makes sense for me and I have been using it for a couple of years now. Massively cheaper than mobile roaming rates (dollars per MB) and I can use the PC directly instead of having to read emails on my 'phone.

Since I never travel without my PC not sure how much I will need it on an i-Anything, but once again, that's just me - I'm sure people who have dumped their PC for an iPad while travelling will love it.

Thanks for this

Not quite what I expect from reading El Reg comments - but thank you for this information and the link.

beliefs not relevant to science

Paul, his beliefs are irrelevant, but his record and affiliations are unquestioned. Roy Spencer has headed the UAH satellite program for many years and has published widely on remote sensing and atmospheric energy transfers. The paper provides the data and methodology behind the analysis and doesn't make any claims or hyperbole (sadly, the same can't be said the press release or other press reports). He has pointed out a serious discrepancy between the actual measured data and all of the models used to predict the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.

In terms of what he "hopes to achieve" you are ascribing a motive based on your own viewpoint that everyone has to have an angle and will use any means to further it. Yes, Dr Spencer has beliefs and he is quite happy to expound on them, but not in his published papers in which he sticks closely to what the data reveal.

Your own beliefs are quite clear with phrases such as "extreme weather effects" and "tipping points" which are still only found in computer models, not in the data. So am I safe to assume that what you "hope to achieve" in your comment is to detract from the data by smearing the messenger?

I'm sure they will find something else

Even if they are boiling any lobsters, I'm sure the anti-everything brigade will find something else to scream about. People tried this at Cornell University about 10 years ago and the green-meenies were up in arms about warming up the finger lakes. Didn't matter how many calculations showed the heat input to be negligible in contrast to the diurnal changes (let alone seasonal), it was "the end of the world".

Personally, I think they will use more energy pumping the various streams of water around than they would have done with chillers.

And a 7.5 mile pipe out into the sea is probably right - to get deep enough to avoid most of the surface level sea life (including possible jelly-fish). That is probably the original tunnel from the paper mill which would have been discharging some nasty smelling stuff previously. Even been close to a working paper mill?

And exactly why..

this crazy old uncle refuses to sign up to Facebook or any other social networking site!

Hmmmm

The Met Commissioner was just taken to task for suggesting that the emergency services shouldn't be forced to follow the same health and safety rules after criticism of the 7/7 bomb response. The Police Federation (cops union?) were screaming about safety on the job when the inquiry was criticizing the slow response time of actually getting people into the Underground to deal with casualties.

In NZ there was similar critizism after a mining accident when rescue crews were denied access by the police. The "better safe than sorry" argument is getting a bit of a battering just now.

[Big Brother - obviously]