* Posts by Charles Manning

3509 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jun 2007

Mystery co. sues Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle...

Charles Manning

"Overlay " might be the downfall

"Overlay" has a very specific technical meaning and no large OS really uses these any more (they're still used with some 8 & 16-bit embedded micros).

It would be like patenting a procedure using a slide rule.

If their patent depends on the use of "overlays" then it isn't worth the punch cards it is written on.

Eggheads solve England penalty-shootout crapness riddle

Charles Manning

Disruptive camoflage

My son in a hockey goalkeeper with pretty much the same problems to deal with as a football goalie. We did some experimenting with disruptive optical patterns with the idea of unsettling the striker to encourage him to make a crap shot. We printed out some of those Ouchi patterns (http://www.cfar.umd.edu/~fer/optical/movement2.html) and stuck them on his kit.

The experiment worked well, but we only used it in practices. Decided not to use it in real games because it is a bit unsporting and can apparently trigger epileptic fits.

Likely the same stuff could work for football goalies too.

Police snapper silliness reaches new heights

Charles Manning

Theft of Images

When you copy an image of the Tower etc and send it to people then those people no longer need to come to London to see the Tower etc.

This deprives the London tourism industry of income.

Shame on you photographers!

Top security firm: Default Windows 7 less secure than Vista

Charles Manning

re: No the problem is..

sudo is a really easy concept.

They can explain it to Mac users and most people find Mac easier to use than Windows.

The whole idea of sudo is to encourage people to only use elevated privs when they need them, rather than running as root.

btw you *can* still get a root terminal with "sudo -s", but that's not something that joe and jane sixpack need to do.

Mars rover faces icy death

Charles Manning

So what?

NASA are probably glad to see it die.

Spirit has been tooling around Mars for over 5 years with obsolete sensors. Science produced is not proportional to time on the ground and Spirit probably did 90% of its useful research in the first year.

Since then Spirit has been tying up ground staff for little scientific output and just setting a dangerous precedent for reliability that is going to be hard for others to live up to.

Gordon Brown declares another new era in gov IT

Charles Manning

@Martin 6

Then rewrite in COBOL for even more savings.

Google equips self for 'real-time' search

Charles Manning

"Microsoft battling"?

Please.

MS is irrelevant in search and certainly not battle worthy. If Google sneezes they'll blow MS across the room.

Webmasters fume as Google profiles signed-out searchers

Charles Manning

SEOs should spin this into more business

Tell their suckers^h^h^h^h^hcustomers that Google has changed the search mechanism and the customers need more SEO snake oil to work in the new era.

No more UFO reports please, says MoD

Charles Manning

They can't do anything anyway

No point in telling MoD because they don't have any weapons left.

You'd do better to tell the Met who seem more capable of killing people these days.

Lots of young adults still sexting shock

Charles Manning

So more kids have cameras with them all the time

When I was in my teens very few people carried cameras around with them and you'd have to take the roll of film down to the shops for processing, by which time you'd have had time to wonder whether it is wise to send that pic.

More kids have cameras with them all the time with the added benefit of being able to immediately send a picture to someone else with no cool-down period.

Anyone surprised?

Motorola's banana-mutilation ad disses iPhone

Charles Manning

re:One of the first things they teach you about advertising

This is nothing to do with products. Apple doesn't sell products as much as they sell "cool".

The un-prety ad is not pitching product against product. They're pitching at people who are sick of having to be cool.

This is the "Revenge of the nerds" phone.

Lost mobiles to pile up in taxis in run up to Xmas

Charles Manning

Comforting

I find it somewhat comforting that even taxi magazines run pointless surveys. At least it isn't just the mags I read.

Fanbois spy future iPhone in log file

Charles Manning

From the Department of No Shit Sherlock

Companies develop new models. Radial new concept.

Aus gov dredges up cuter panic-button for kids online

Charles Manning
FAIL

Kids: Get on the lawn

Hector's World is targeted at 2 to 9 year olds.

WTF are 2 year olds surfing the interwebs for?

Go outside, kick a ball, fall of bikes, fight in the sandpit, graze your knees.... Anyone wonder why the kids of today are so pathetic? We're making them this way.

Hackers in keyless Windows 7 entry

Charles Manning

Regtard!

Freetards != pirates.

If you want to *tard a pirate then call them mateytards or something.

Freetards are respectable free software living citizens.

@@George 24: You're right. People don't rip off games because of price. They rip off games because they have been conditioned to expect not to pay for anything they can download or cut to CD or "borrow" from a mate.

Android's delicate guts ripped apart

Charles Manning
Flame

"fake gold grating"

Hard to tell from here, but that looks like perfectly legitimate RFI/EMI/ESD gasket.

Putting screws under name plates etc is also pretty standard. These are name plates are often designed to be fitted after the fact to allow rebadging for Tmobile etc without having to redo the whole casework. They are also less prone to muck ingress and also have better aesthetics (no hole in the middle of the logo).

Microsoft admits Mac was Windows 7 muse

Charles Manning
Coat

Microsoft in environmentally friendly

They added a recycling bin, not a trash can!

UK to build robot stealth raygun jet/copter

Charles Manning

'Novel payloads'

Perhaps paperbacks. Which is why they all look like paper planes.

MOD: Someone's ripping you off!

Google 'experiment' crossbreeds Python with C++

Charles Manning
Headmaster

Get off my lawn!

Just like the whole "W7 is so great coz Vista was so crap" way of viewing the world, go's compilation only looks fast because our current compilers are so awfully slow vs what we had over 20 years ago.

Anyone alive that remember the latter half of the 1980s? Borland Turbo Pascal?

The last time I tried Turbo Pascal was around 1994 on a 100MHz 486 with MSDOS 6.x. It compiled a few k lines of code so fast that the "compiling" message was gone before the video refresh had managed to paint it. I thought the compile button was broken.

I wonder how fast it would compile on a modern machine.

[ Yup, running a turbo pascal program is another matter. The speed calibration loop can't handle CPUs faster than 200MHz].

<---There being no curmudgeon icon, the pedantic bastard will have to do.

Brazilian uni readmits miniskirted student

Charles Manning

Any shorter...

and it would have been a sweat band.

World's first iPhone worm Rickrolls angry fanbois

Charles Manning

@Dr Richard

The "alpine" password is there to be used by apple developers and has been known in the wild for years. A simple password is fine, and a good thing, for on the bench development.

It really doesn't matter what the password is because:

1) If ssh is disabled it doesn't matter.

2) Whatever you make it it is going to get into the wild sometime.

3) If there wasn't a simple password then the jailbreaking would set one up.

What this highlights is a defect in the jailbreaking process. The jailbreaking process should include a step to change ssh password.

Apple under Jobs: from muck to mountaintop

Charles Manning

Bollocks!

I'm no big Jobs fan, but it is pathetic to suggest that Apple succeeds because of secrecy, paranoia and game the media. There are many secret, paranoid and media gaming companies that don't get anywhere. Apple succeed because they know how to deliver products and branding to the markets they target.

Next from Reg logic: Microsoft was a huge success because Bill Gates dropped out of college. Now that Microsoft is being run by a graduate they're going to fail.

Google: Android fragmentation not 'bad thing'

Charles Manning

re: DoI trust Google?

"Do I trust Google?" If you're going to be paranoid about that then I suggest you don't use a smart phone and don't use the the internet at all. Spend the money on tin foil.

Consistency of user experience doesn't just come from single vendors. I'll wager it is often easier to migrate between different Android phones than it is between phones within a single vendor's stables. I have 4 bottom end Nokias (1100, 1110 and 2 others). They all have completely different UIs.

Charles Manning

Little pools of innovation are not a problem

If there is no room for fragmentation then you have to get all the competitors into a room to agree to a new feature. Those who don't want the feature to proceed (eg because it would make their product look lacking) can veto others. Innovation becomes slower.

Far better is to have some pools of innovation that can rapidly bring about new features. Some with die and some will conflict but at least things move forwards.

I don't know much about the Symbian Foundation structure, but perhaps it is dominated by Nokia making it easy to get consensus.

Can Darwin help us find little green men?

Charles Manning

re:m P. Lee

"getting from the big bang to humans by chance"

That implies that humans are the pinnacle of creation.

In a few hundred billion years slimebobs (just a brain in aspic) may be be arguing as to whether they were divinely created or evolved from amoeba. ... and what happened to those hairless apes that seem to have left a reasonable fossil record?

We are not "it", we're just chemical reactions like the rest....

But if you want to think about "the odds", then watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0

While genetic algorithms are not real evolution and watches are not as complex as biological entities, the model still demonstrates that unbelievably complex forms can just evolve. It also provides some ideas as to why a species can fail really fast.

Charles Manning

Writing suggestion

Hey Austin

Interesting.... but please reorder your daily activities.

First write.

Then drugs.

Apart from enhancing coherency, this ordering will also make you less paranoid while you write. You might even be able see some beauty in nature rather than worrying about the octopus crawling out of your chest and stealing your bong.

Personally I think it is quite amazing and beautiful how such a chaotic process can work out so well.

Microsoft axes another 800 jobs

Charles Manning

"Most Challenging economic climate?"

Most Challenged executives in its 34 year history more like.

Microsoft's flounderings are far more a result of executive cockups than increasing competition than economic woes.

Try plotting MSFT vs NASDAQ for the last 5 years. MSFT is just a corpse floating in the water.

Google embraces Wave's permission chaos

Charles Manning

Don't limit a new paradigm

It is probably going to be quite a while before wave takes on any serious roles and right now nobody really knows how people will use wave. Wave is going to end up being used for things nobody envisaged.

Adding restrictive features like permissions potentially prevents the evolution of some usage models.

People are creatures of habit. Add permissions now and people will quickly lock down wave to their current usage models (ie. something crap like sharepoint + IM).

Most people think permissions are wanted, if not needed, for some applications. Likely permissions will be provided at some point. But not now. Give wave a chance to do something different first.

BetOnSports founder Kaplan jailed for four years

Charles Manning

re: Half his net worth

He still has 43M. Though if his lawyers and accountants are any good his real worth will be far larger.

If he's a good boy then he's in for 2 out of the 4 years.

If he pays $10k a day protection money he should be pretty safe and emerge with his sphincters in good condition. That will cost him around $7M.

$36M + whatever was not accounted for is enough to ride out life.

I almost want to sign up.

ChiPhone fails to ignite consumer frenzy

Charles Manning

5000 official sales

And how many brought in via direct imports?

Considering the price tag, selling 5000 isn't really that bad. Sure you would not want to base a business on this alone, but you've got to keep things in context.

Scots slam Germans for 'tight-arsed' slur

Charles Manning

Why do Scots have long thin cocks?

Because they're so tight fisted.

US gov warns banks on money mules

Charles Manning

Innocent mules?

"In some cases, the mules have no idea that they're engaging in illegal activities."

I guess the yoof of today could be confused by the new internet economy where everything is free etc,, but severe mental handicaps aside, how could anyone think that everything is kosher if someone offers you 10% to do some transactions.

Google retrieves coder's Microsoft badge from rubbish bin

Charles Manning

Google hamfisted?

Skeet is the hamfisted one.

Anyone doing anything worthwhile outside of their 9-5 will often encounter these potential conflicts of interest. The reasonable thing to do is to resolve the matter in private within the company. Most companies I have worked with are reasonable if you're up front about things and I expect Google is too.

What you should not do is escalate this outside the company. You don't try to resolve things like this in blogosphere.

Apple blueprints the iShoe

Charles Manning

The start of pay per use and DRM in shoes?

Shoes as a service?

TwitterPeek - the handset that spews Web2.0rhea...

Charles Manning

The really, really sad part...

it that some twankers will actually buy this thing.

Tesla Roadster travels 313 miles on single charge

Charles Manning

@Stef 4

The difference is that you don't need to do 300-odd miles as a rush-hour commute.

Intel touts NAND-killer breakthrough

Charles Manning

Don't hold your breath

These technologies often take a really long time to become mainstream and sometimes never do.

NAND flash was invented in the 1980s but only really got going in around 2003.

FRAM never got into mainstream.

It isn't just making the stuff more reliable. It has to be cost effective too.

NAND and DRAM flash will be with us a long time still.

Clock stopped for McKinnon extradition

Charles Manning

Useless poms

How is it that out of a country of 60M odd people the best you can choose are Blair and Brown? I would advise you all to drown yourselves except you'd probably cock that up too.

Suzuki unveils fuel cell e-scooter

Charles Manning

re:S'alright actually

If you had to do 220 miles at 20mph you'd soon throw the crappy bike under a truck and start hitch-hiking.

Perhaps 20mph is fine for gridlocked commutes, but then you'd not need 220miles worth. If it is designed for that sort of use then 100miles would be more than enough and they could store a far smaller/lower pressure bomb between your legs.

Greenpeace wags finger at eco-laggards

Charles Manning
Jobs Halo

Al God on the board

How can Apple do any wrong?

http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/gore.html

IBM boffins unfurl mobile browser reading map

Charles Manning
Flame

The internet isn't designed for screens

Perhaps websites are.

If you want to be pedantic, the Internet was designed to move data. Screens mean nothing. Even email does not imply screens (or internet fro that matter).

Think you're tech savvy? You won't be when you're old

Charles Manning

I call Bullshit

There are lots of older people who are very tech savvy. Look at the Lejos project that makes Java run on the Lego NXT. Most of the programmers making the stuff work (ie. writing/tuning Java C and assember and discussing JVM features etc) are older. Last I checked the average age of developers on that project was over 60.

There are really two types of "tech savvy". Users of latest "oooh shiny" features might be getting younger and younger, but the actual makers of technology are getting older and older.

While we're making sweeping generalisations, the kids of today just don't have the ability to concentrate for long enough to learn how the stuff actually works.

Prof: Extremists tend to dominate debates

Charles Manning

... and most drivers think they are better than average

Perception != reality. Since when has that been news.

Brother creates direct retinal imaging specs

Charles Manning

10cm image @ 1m?

So it's all kiddy porn then?

Windows 95 to Windows 7: How Microsoft lost its vision

Charles Manning

The OS aint done till WinFS is cut

Never take a Microsoft plan seriously while it still has WinFS on it. For nearly 20 years WinFS has been trotted out during developer conferences etc but it has never shipped.

Microsoft thinks it can sell one copy of Windows 7 for every four people

Charles Manning

re:"perhaps even more importantly, with the arrival of Google in the OS arena"

As phones and netbooks become more capable and more stuff gets integrated into TVs and game consoles, what do people want "real computers" for?

"real computers" are starting to go the way of the mainframe.

Google isn't trying to make inroads into desktop PCs because there is no point. Microsoft can have the last of the old generation.

Blogging vicar casts Tina Turner into hell

Charles Manning

re: Tina Turner is a Buddist?

No, I think she drinks Sam Adams.

As for calling in the Vicar at the end... well it's a bit like hedging your bets.

Religion has typically been most important to people when the Great Unknown threatens. In the past that was pretty much a daily event and you needed the shamans to keep wolves away or piss on the field to induce healthy crops. Now we can control most aspects during normal life and it is just that messy bit at the end where we still have some problems.

Toilet texting not a faux pas, declares Intel

Charles Manning

re:Toilet texting

"Best time to check facebook. When theres nothing else more interesting going on."

Taking a dump has to be more interesting than trawling FB.

West Antarctic ice loss overestimated by NASA sats

Charles Manning

@The BigYin

I too am concerned about the environment, but highly skeptical of this climate change hoo haa.

Unfortunately far too many environmental groups have forgotten about other factors and thrown themselves in with climate change because it is so much easier. Backing climate change is the lazy option.

I was a Greenpeace supporter/contributor for 16 years but gave up when Greenpeace announced their black pixel project. http://www.greenpeaceblackpixel.org/#/en which is completely useless and wastes money.

My biggest fear in all this is that as the climate change "evidence" erodes and the public finally accept that it was bollocks and not science, that all environmentalism will be tarred with the same brush, setting back environmental efforts by some years.

Neanderthal woman could whup Schwarzenegger

Charles Manning

Cool!

A chick that can open jam jars herself!