Posts by Dave 126 10660 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010
>Colin Wilson 2
You misquoted me, you naughty man you!
I wrote "and that's grand" (meaning 'that's good and I respect your point of view'), whereas you misquoted me as writing "and that's a grand" (meaning around £1,000).
Feel free to use square brackets to indicate added text!
Cheers!
Well yeah, you choose that watch that suits you. Sounds like you want a radio-controlled, clear dialled watch, and that's grand. A diver will choose an appropriate watch, a lumberjack might use a G-Shock. Rolex made watches for physicists (Milguas), and others have incorporated slide-rules around the dial.
>Casio? Doesn't that make you a terrorist?
Worse - it makes you a hipster!
There is a weird phenomena of "I have a trust fund but I am wearing a £6 watch because I don't want you to hate me - but hey I've been travelling to exotic locations where one doesn't wear something I might get mugged for".
Jony Ive's not competing with the luxury watch market, since the Apple Watch is in the $500 - $1000 range - that's about the same as a steel and sapphire Tag Heuer with a quartz movement. The gold edition watch was a bit of fun for publicity's sake.
Ive understands the luxury watch market better than you think - at least he knows the ultra-rich don't just have one watch, they have several. At he conference last summer he said:
“I don’t see how we can compare these wonderful mechanical watches that we own and a product that has such a comprehensive functionality and capability that will grow and change beyond our imagining,”
The only area fit for comparison is the fit and finish of the watches, which even watch nerds agree is impeccable on the Apple watch. Of course Ive is 'cheating', by using ultra-high tolerance mass-production methods (such as lasers and Renishaw CMM probes) that Apple use in their previous products.
Of course, the Apple watch is a typically compromised MK I Apple product (like the first iPod, iPhone and and iPad) that is intended to be a placeholder in the market place until the technology catches up.
Jony Ive is actually a bit of a fan of mechanical watches, having designed a watch for Jaeger-LeCoultre with his colleague Marc Newson. Newson himself had his own mechanical watch brand - the Ikepod Manatee is an obvious forebear to the Apple watch.
If Sir Jony had a total lack of style or appreciation of design, he wouldn't own a black Bentley Mulsanne and an Aston Martin DB4.
He was also famous for his adjustable Tizo desk lamp, which I saw in the London Design useum years ago. We were told that a little red-tipped stalk was added to the lamp head against Richard Sapper's original design, users were burning their hands on the hot halogen bulb (or worse, leave the lamp resting on some desk papers and start a fire)
Thanks to LED bulbs, he lamp is now sold as he designed it.
If they set the standards too high, there would be very few televisions that would qualify. As it is, the only 2015 set that might qualify retrospectively (through possible firmware update) uses a combination of quantum dot and multi-point back-lighting technologies.
Note also there are two parts of the standard - one for LED sets, and one for OLED, since they traditionally have had different strengths.
@Ian Michael Gumby
Sorry mate, I didn't down vote you.
However, I am guilty of 'replying' to your post, and then failing to write what i originally meant to... mainly because I would have been mostly musing on the state-of-the-art of non-destructive-testing of used rockets as regards quality control of new units. I apologise for straying off your topic. Genuinely.
As for the first moments in orbit details, those came from the autobiography of a NASA astronaut. Apparently, all those terrestrial centrifuges give no idea whatsoever as to who will succumb to nausea in microgravity, and a jab in the arse is standard procedure (it's a larger target than the arm for the 'stabees', who are themselves floating around the gaff) for those who feel sick. The rest of the book was a reminder of how ridiculously qualified this guy was - IIRC, a full medical doctor, pilot, and he completed special forces physical training. Being jabbed in the backside was amongst the least of the physical discomforts he endured to attain his dream.
Hope you get to get to enjoy some awe-inspiring views in 2016, be them in orbit, atop a mountain or under the sea. Without the blisters, altitude sickness or odd jellyfish sting, it wouldn't feel the same!
At this stage of the game, I would still be apprehensive about sitting atop a rocket on its very first trip to orbit. SpaceX themselves have had a rocket explode before it reached orbit, though their recent success strongly suggests they correctly identified the issue (a dodgy strut IIRC).
There will come, I hope, a point at which the risk is low enough that I would decide it is worth it to experience being in orbit... even if my first minutes in microgravity include me vomiting whilst a crewmate (or rather, flight attendant) pulls down my trousers and injects a syringe of anti-nausea medication into my buttock.
>Does this mean we'll see an end to the moronic use of "she" and "her" in articles rather than the more appropriate gender neutral terms?
Didn't we play out this discussion a couple of months back? Just saying.
You can make a hypothetical physicist any damn sex you want, and hell, Alice and Bob stories are easier to parse for having a mix of pronouns. Example:
Andrew tripped over Bob's desk and spilt his tea over his book. Ambiguous. Whereas:
Alice tripped over Bob's desk and spilt her tea over his book.
Alice tripped over Bob's desk and spilt her tea over her book.
Alice tripped over Bob's desk and spilt his tea over her book.
Alice tripped over Bob's desk and spilt his tea over his book.
>Throw Wired in with that lot too.... I don't even bother if I see the link leads to Wired.
The only decent thing Wired has done of late is to syndicate articles from, and thus bring my attention to: https://www.quantamagazine.org/
Now I just go straight there and skip Wired.
Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent online publication launched by the Simons Foundation to enhance public understanding of science.
Our reporters focus on developments in mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical computer science and the basic life sciences. The best traditional news organizations provide excellent reporting on developments in health, medicine, technology and engineering. We strive to complement and augment existing media coverage, not compete with it.
The fashion at the moment is for large watches, 42mm or thereabouts. It might be that the people who can afford to buy a $1000+ tend to be older and thus might have weaker eyes,or it might just be that they want they expensive flashy item to be even more visible to others.
Personally, I favour a smaller watch with a rotating bezel, allowing me to see 'at a glance' the time, and the bezel allows for a very quick 'note' of the time, so I remember when to return to the car park to avoid a ticket, or when when to return to the kitchen to avoid a burnt dinner. So quick, so easy, so free of fumbling into a pocket for a phone and unlocking it and summoning up the countdown timer and then entering the desired number of minutes.
(Of course, if you still have an old Nokia, you can set a timer without needing to even look at the phone. Lets see now.... 'unlock star 5243 20'.... or was that to set the language to Norwegian, I forget. )
Function is a large part of design, they are not separate realms. It's a misconception so common that Dieter Rams prefers 'Form Engineer'.
I'm not sure why the USB port is underneath the Apple mouse, as opposed to on the 'nose' as it is on my Logitech wireless rodent. That said, the battery lasts so long I very seldom bother having the mouse plugged in whilst I am using it. This particular issue with the Apple mouse might be even less significant if the battery lasts for months on a single charge, as many mice do.
It doesn't matter to a user if a good idea is borrowed or stolen. Apple nabbed the iPod's scroll wheel from a Bang and Olufsen telephone, which made the iPod quicker to use than the otherwise superior iRiver H320 PMP. And who knows, maybe B&O themselves were 'inspired' by the jog wheel on a Sony analogue video-editing workstation? It really doesn't matter.
Apple have made some missteps, but there are enough examples of when they have included features that make life easier for the user.
Ah well. There are watches (or after marked coin-shaped devices that sit under your traditional watch) that don't try to do too much, but they aren't as widely reported as the power-hungry Apple and Android Wear efforts.
I would find great utility in being able to 'page' my phone from my watch. This function wouldn't even require a screen. Citizen and Casio make such watches, and the batteries last for over a year.
Deaf users benefit from having vibrating watch for phone notifications. Speaking of deaf users, some have had their light-bulbs connected to their doorbells for years.
Watches might have a role in solving a problem of out times - that of remembering multiple passwords.
The objects we take out of our house - bank cards and keys - effectively have the same function as each other; i.e identifying themselves to a piece of hardware, be it an ATM or a door lock.
>So if you're black and poor is OK if police treats you badly? While only if you're white and rich they should not?
He didn't say that. He first wrote "i'm hoping coming from a successful white guy it will help everyone", *suggesting* he believed that black and poor people are sometimes abused by police because society doesn't listen to them properly. Given several news stories, especially in the last couple of years, I can see why he might believe that. We don't know what he believed though, so best not to put words in his mouth.
chivo243 has a point, if your replace Computer Operator Licence with Computer Proficiency Test, much like the Bicycle Proficiency Test some children take. It is not mandatory, but generally it's a good thing.
Please do add ideas for included lessons below!
- Back up on to multiple redundant drives / media
- CAPS LOCK IS RARELY A GOOD IDEA
etc
Of course, my designer side feels that this could be made easier for inexperienced users, so:
- Every computer should be sold with removable media of equal size to its HDD, unless the buyer signs the 'I know what I'm doing, seriously' release form.
- Caps Lock should be placed by keyboard manufacturers in a different location, perhaps next to Esc.
Okay, most people might have data that is potentially socially embarrassing - pictures from Bob's party that got out of hand, or a catty email about Aunt Clara. You don't want it made public, but no-one is going to any great lengths to get at it.
A significant chunk of users are required by law to ensure the data on their machines is safe from 3rd parties, or else face fines. Y'know, professionals like doctors, researchers or lawyers - anyone who has information about other people, basically. Laptops do get left on trains and in pubs, or stolen from cars, so encryption that is safe from thieves and blackmailers is a must. To comply with the law they do not need to think about the resources of Nation State security agencies.
Then you get people who have commercially sensitive information, trade secrets and the like, and are a real target for industrial espionage. In a larger organisation, these users will have their machines administered by professionals.
Then you have journalists, civil rights activists and the like. Not only do they need the right hardware and software, but they need be educated and apply what they have learnt consistently. That's the hard bit.
>Also if someone manages to hack into your Microsoft account and change the password then you could be locked out of your files.
Could you provide more detail? I'd assume that the encrypted data on your local machine would keep the same key - the data would still be accessible if the machine owner had the encryption key, which is not the same as the MS Account login details.
For the user to be locked out of their data, the data would have to re-encrypted.
>Consumers do not get to decide how secure their product is when they purchase Microsoft software.
Eh? There is nothing stopping educated users from using encryption of their choice.
For uneducated users, they now have encryption on by default (a step forward) AND have a means of recovering their data should they forget / lose their key (which let's face it, is going to happen to some people).
The real paranoid are going top use some specialist Linux dstro anyway. People with jobs that require they safeguard their clients data (doctors, lawyers etc) will find this MS system good enough (since they are complying with the data protection laws to avoid a fine in case they lose a laptop.... they aren't in fear of the NSA. )
I think this article is spot on, and its main criticism of MS is in their communication.
During WW2, the British parachuted with mules into Burma. To avoid the braying mules giving their position away to the Japanese, they were 'devoiced' under anaesthetic. After each drop, the floor of the aircraft would have to be taken up and cleaned, to stop the mule urine from corroding the aircraft's wiring. Well, if I was a mule and shunted into an aircraft, I'd probably wet myself too.
https://spotlights.fold3.com/2012/03/05/mules-in-burma/
It is easy to grasp what they mean by 'warfighter', but it is the suggestion of euphemism that might people wary of it. It doesn't sound quite as fierce as 'warrior', which brings to my mind images of large bearded men wielding axes and swords, a la Beowulf. However, as someone has said above, it is better than 'peace keeper'.
'Friendly fire' - what is friendly about it?
'Crash landing' - um, okay.... though we could just call it a crash.
'Department / Ministry of Defence' - hahahaha
Exactly. User reports of prior hoverboards (the magnet types that run on copper tracks) suggest they are be akin to trying to steer a snowboard that didn't have the sharp edge for cutting into the snow. i.e rubbbish.
This one might be slightly different, if some of the fans are vectored away from vertical, but still it doesn't seem great.
'Canine dog' in the article was in a quote from a police officer... if he was speaking aloud at a press conference, he may well have meant (and said) 'K-9 dog' - to distinguish a trained police dog from Mrs Trellis-next-door's canine of uncertain ancestry.
It seems 'K-9' is often used in the US to refer to police dogs.
Indeed. See:
An open-access “predatory” academic journal has accepted a bogus research paper submitted by an Australian computer scientist titled Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List.
- http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/25/journal-accepts-paper-requesting-removal-from-mailing-list
The PDF is here. Actually worth looking at to see the diagrams:
http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~dm/home/papers/remove.pdf [NSFW as it contains bad language writ large]
Maybe. But it can't hurt that Tim Cook was bloody good at his job as COO. Jobs knew his days at Apple might be numbered, and his ways of doing thing may be reflected by the people he left behind there.
Certainly the times are uncertain... whilst Apple are as well placed as any company (what with having mountains of cash to buy start-ups and talent, and having a carefully managed, consumer-friendly image) to get a lead in The Next Big Thing*, we know that incumbent companies can often let their position go to waste**. Apple are at least aware of this, and have demonstrated some agility in the past.
*I don't know what that might be. Anyone here who thinks they do will be busy with NDAs and research, and won't be daft enough to post their ideas here.
**Easy example: Sony could have made an iPod-like device before Apple, if only they had seen which way the wind was blowing. They had years of research into suitable UIs and portable audio to draw upon.
@Credas
Yes, the first stage will require more fuel, but fuel is only a tiny part of the cost of the launch. I was amazed when I learnt how little of the launch cost is fuel. Musk's approach is neatly outlined by this:
Musk reiterated the origin of the SpaceX production model, saying fuel is only 0.3 percent of the total cost of a rocket, with construction materials accounting for no more than 2 percent of the total cost, which for the Falcon 9 is about $60 million.
So, the obvious cost savings are to be made by i, making the vehicle more cheaply, and ii, reusing it.
Musk has made the vehicle cheaper to build by:
-using the same propellant in the upper and lower stages means that operationally, you only need to have one set of fuel tanks. If you can imagine a situation where you have a kerosene first stage, hydrogen upper stage, and solid rocket side boosters, you’ve just tripled your cost right there.
- the upper stage of a Falcon 9 is simply a short version of the first stage. That may seem pretty obvious, but nobody else does that. They tend to create upper stage in a totally different way than they create the first stage.
- The Merlin engine — we used it on the upper stage of Falcon 9, on the main stage of Falcon 9 and on the first stage of Falcon 1. So we get economies of scale in use of the Merlin engine.
-Our tanks are friction stir welded, [aluminum] skin and stringer designed as opposed to machined aluminum, [giving us] a 20 fold advantage in the cost of materials, and our stage ends up being lighter …because geometrically, we can have deeper stringers.
- https://www.pehub.com/2010/06/elon-musk-on-why-his-rockets-are-faster-cheaper-and-lighter-than-what-youve-seen-before/
Speaking of XKCD, after Bezos' Shepard landing, Elon musk tweeted a link to Mr Munroe's website:
- "Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster"
- "It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space" and "orbit", as described well by https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ "
[ https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/669129347555430400 ]
He wasn't snarky, either.
>How many mainstream laptops have 2k screens?
A few, from Lenovo and Toshiba amongst others. However, the Surface, and the Surface Book, have 3:2 aspect ratios which for some will be reason enough to buy them over the near ubiquitous 16:9. The only other option is 16:10 from Apple. Again, if I am wrong here, please pretty please post a link to a non 16:9 laptop!! Thanks!
Windows was a bit behind OSX in the way it dealt with UI scaling on very high res screens, but apparently it's good now. The issue is that some 3rd party software for Windows isn't fully civilised yet (Photoshop, I'm looking at you). This chicken and egg situation (why buy a pricey high res laptop if the software isn't ready, why rework the software if there are few customers) might explain why high-res Windows laptops aren't yet common.
I can understand how those of you who write software or manage massive storage systems are dubious about things like the Surface Tablet. However, my car mechanic has been using touch-screen PCs since WinXP Tablet Edition. A lot of the automotive diagnostic software has had the option of a touchscreen interface for years.
I've read 'em. I still choose the 'Orbital' variant of the concept because the topic was a reason to rearrange the mass of a planet.
A Ringworld is roughly described by the orbit of the Earth, and provides about 300 million times the habitable surface area.
An Orbital doesn't encircle a sun, and provides around a 100 times the habitable surface of the planet whilst using less matter.
And Banks alludes to what can happen if those self-repair mechanisms go wrong (like cancer) - resulting in pesky swarms of tiny machines that would if left unchecked turn all available matter into replicas of themselves. The culture assign some ships to 'pest control' duties.
As others have noted, he didn't originate the concept.
In Star Wars, people live on planets. In the Culture books, the matter of a planet would support far more life if it were re-arranged into a ring-shaped Orbital habitat.
...Self Hemogenizing Swarms, as Iain M. Banks dubbed them? He also used the word 'Smatter' (Smart Matter, IIRC). Other people have used the terms 'Grey Goo', or 'Von Neumann Machines'.
I confess, I didn't read the article - I haven't seen the Force Awakens movie yet, and was scared off by the spoiler warning.
To others who haven't seen the movie, you should avoid Wired.com, since they have spoilers in their headlines.
... let's take five minutes and imagine a near future, a speculative fiction. Let us imagine a near-future in which the whole idea of encryption is irrelevant.
A future in which encryption doesn't matter because so much cctv and drone video footage is collected that the location and behaviour of every citizen is known in real time. In such a scenario the authorities would learn very little from reading (broken) encrypted messages over what they already knew by observing subjects directly.
If this fictional authority has a MagicTechnolgyMachine that stopped all bombs from exploding or guns from firing, it wouldn't need to read the emails of any potential terrorist.
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