Posts by cheveron

You could get two custom printed Vortex Poker III mechanical keyboards for that price

I love the 12" iPad Pro. I also loved my old PowerBook 165. So I got WASDkeyboards.com to make a custom mechanical keyboard for my iPad. No batteries required and it works with the screen in vertical mode too. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2785426364831905

And if you don't win ...

a Nintendo 3DS XL with a homebrew card and Patrik Rak's excellent ZXDS emulator works just as well.

It's how you cook it

I live in Britain, but I like my bacon crispy. Most people I know cook bacon in oil, but I prefer to cut the fat off and gently heat it until it melts and then cook the bacon in its own fat. You need to get the fat really hot before you add the bacon and then adjust your cooking time depending on how crispy you want it.

You are all missing the point.

Whatever it is, at least it won't be a pointless remake of Empire.

ANSI minimal BASIC

I learned BASIC from reading the keycaps on a ZX Spectrum Plus. It got me into programming. I went on to learn C. Then when emulators took off I taught myself Z80 assembly language. When I went back to university I learned Java. I think BASIC did what it set out to do, which was to give non-technical people an easy entry point to get computing tasks done. I think the modern equivalent is probably spreadsheet programming. I don't think it's as rewarding though.

Simple DNS block?

As I understand it, the Turkish system of blocking sites is much simpler than the Chinese method, and can be bypassed without requiring a VPN. Just point your machine at a different DNS server: http://www.thesimplest.net/pc/simplest-way-bypass-dns-block

When can I get one?

Swype clone plus Nokia maps. I'm sold.

Loki

If you take a close look at the Loki specification it's basically an MSX2 with a Spectrum compatibility mode. Perhaps Sinclair could have condensed some of the design onto a ULA and cut production costs to deliver a sub £200 machine, if they hadn't already been in deep financial trouble.

Correction

The BBC didn't have an AY chip. It had the similar Texas Instruments SN76489.

Awful to type on

But the original worked quite well as an oversized game pad.

A mention for Jef Raskin would have been nice

Given that the Mac was his idea.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/28/jeff_raskin_obituary/

John Hurt

Because he's John Hurt.

corrosion

I've noticed corrosion on my V-Sabatier knives since my wife has been putting them in the dishwasher. I can't say if they are getting dulled by the process as she also sharpens them regularly with a grinder. I'm willing to believe stainless is more hygienic, but it won't hold as keen an edge as non-stainless. After sharpening with a pocket whetstone, my sailmaker's knife will cut through eight layers of flax sail cloth without much effort. I can't get the same edge on my rig knife, but then it has to deal with salt water.

Choose your own job title

Janitor. Because I'm always cleaning up other people's messes.

quantum non-determinism

I assume that if the universe is non-deterministic at the quantum level, then we have free will. Probably just not very much.

I don't wear suits to interviews as it filters out employers I don't want to work for. Alfresco was one of them. Which is a shame, because it's a good product.

I love my Nokia 700

I know Symbian is dead but my phone does at least one thing the other main smart phone don't. Swype (missing from Windows Phone and iOS) or offline HERE maps (missing from Android and iOS). As MS is not acquiring HERE, I hope the offline version makes it to Android, or that Apple or MS adds Swype to their OS.

satisfied customer

I've been using mail.ru as my primary email account since 1999 and even after they ditched English language support I sill don't have a compelling reason to change provider. If you can navigate Cyrillic, it's a really great service.

During a sojourn in New Zealand I worked at the Ministry of Youth Development (http://www.myd.govt.nz), a sub-ministry of the MSD. I was impressed by the concerted effort to engage with young people and provide them with a better future. Other nations could learn a thing or two from New Zealand. The privacy concerns are reasonable, but if relecant data sharing can improve people's lives then it's hard to argue against it.

the Doctor can take on any form imaginable...

...so they've cast a white bloke again. Capaldi's a fantastic actor but they could have been braver in their choice. It's the 14th time (if you count Hurt and Cushing).

... off its own *bat*

Please get your cricketing cliches right.

Probably TAILS (https://tails.boum.org). However, the weak link isn't the OS, it's the user.

Sinclair Loki

Oddly enough the alleged specification of the Loki 'Super Spectrum' looks pretty similar on paper to the MSX2.

or you could do a degree in meeja

I did an A-level in comp sci back in the early 1990s. We were using Xenix on a network of 386s and as there was no Pascal compiler installed on the system our tutor reluctantly taught us C. We did our editing in vi. We did a little bit of assembly coding. I remember covering CISC CPU architecture, networks and databases (I think we had an Oracle 5 site license) in a fair amount of detail. With this knowledge of UNIX, a real-world programming language and relational databases I went on to do a degree in journalism.

Idris Elba

Although he's probably too busy.

Giraffe or Jiraffe?

There is no "correct" pronunciation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation