* Posts by JeffyPooh

1244 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Aug 2007

Apple 'offered Samsung $30-per-mobe' patent licence truce

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Confusing headline...

Reading the headline, I assumed that Apple was offering Samsung $30 per iPhone (to be paid to Samsung).

LOL.

Microsoft: It was never 'Metro,' it was always 'Modern UI'

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Microsoft OS pattern

Long ago it was noted that there's a tempo to the OSes coming out of Microsoft.

Bad Bad Good Bad Bad Good Bad Bad Good Bad Bad Good...

The latest Win 7 was Good. Thus this Win 8/Metro/whatever thingy is almost certainly the first of two Bads.

Oooh-la-la! 'iPhone 5' bares all, strokes tiny nano-SIM in pics

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Travelling overseas and SIM cards

Don't bother. Just purchase a pay-as-you-go Nokia 1100 series for $20. Done.

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Re: Consider

Popping your SIM into another phone doesn't really work when each new generation of phone has a new "standard" SIM that's different than the last one. Unless of course, you purchase the latest smartphones in bulk.

Standards that only last two years are daft.

Greens wage war on clean low-carbon renewable energy

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The goal?

Hair shirts for all. Seriously.

They'd be unhappy if everyone had a cold fusion brick in the their basement, and another one tucked into their emission-free hypercar.

NASA’s new lander CRASHES AND BURNS

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Did Armstrong punch out?

See above.

82-y.o. Neil just had heart surgery. Best wishes sir.

Microsoft job ad advises 'Xbox 720' out by Feb 2014

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"720"

I get it. Xbox 360 * 2. But "720" smells like lowest-res HD video (720p). Not a good number, unless you're in the market for a cheap television.

Sony just needs to come out with the "PS3 1080p" to win by consumer confusion.

Fail.

Curiosity phones home through Amazon cloud

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Strange, NASA TV iPhone app worked for me

No complaints here; except it was in oh-dark-hundred in the middle of the damn night.

Can you really call it "Live" coverage when it's actually on a 14 minute space-delay?

Using copyright to avoid Freedom of Info law? Ha, ha, NICE try!

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Copyright .NE. Trade Secret

That is all.

British radio telescope genius Sir Bernard Lovell dies

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Radio Telescope tracking Sputnik

I guess it was used in Radar mode, since Sputnik was on 20MHz. ?

Russian rocket fails to orbit 2 satellites after booster bungle

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$7m for a satellite?

Seems cheap.

How far up did this space junk get? Low enough to fall down quickly?

Curiosity snapped mid-flight by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

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"...a couple of megabytes per second."

"...it should be able to upload a couple of megabytes per second."

Bloody hell. That's at least twice the data rate I get from my household Internet connection.

Google silences podcast app Listen, disbands Team tool

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Where is Google Internet Radio?

Don't they index the web? What about a nice front page for all the world's Internet Radio streams? I'm frankly absolutely sick and tired of the "Pay" model (e.g. Live365) being applied to a simple index of streaming audio. If Google can index the world's porn, then they should index the world's Internet Radio too.

SAP to bung Oracle at least $306m in software piracy row

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SAP = horrid

Gawd-awful software.

NASA's nuclear Mars tank prepares for high pucker-factor landing

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Re: Updating parameters during the landing

You spelled "14" incorrectly.

Speed of light from Mars is reportedly 14 minutes (I've not checked the math, but I've seen this signal delay mentioned many times).

The Curiosity rover will have been already been succesfully-alive or smashed-and-dead for about seven minutes when we Earthlings just receive the signal confirming that it has just touched the outer layers of the wispy-thin atmosphere of Mars.

They should have named it "Schrödinger's cat".

Sony delays micro-PS3 and colours current crop

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"...citing PS3 stock shortage as reasons for delay..."

Is that shortages of PS3s? If so, then it's circular logic.

Meanwhile in Canada, the Sony-branded 'Sony Stores' are disappearing pretty fast.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean review

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Android FINALLY catching up to iOS

No Flash plugin for the browser. LOL.

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Re: going all-in for a carrier free more expensive smart phone

Good idea. That way your phone will be satisfyingly up to date for up to about 24 months, instead of just up to about two years. Much better...

Samsung flogs 10 million Galaxy S IIIs in 7 weeks

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Re: Not bad...

To repurpose the old IBM saying, "Nobody ever got fired/divorced for buying an iPhone."

By way of comparison, I do know of a case where a colleague bought the latest state of the art (at the time) Android phone and it turned into a complete fiasco. Installing apps slowed it to useless (weird); and no OS upgrade made available. YMMV.

Disclaimer: we've got iPhones but are Android-curious.

Ocean-seeding experiment re-ignites geo-engineering debate

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Re: They'd addressed this concern already, at least for this phase.

Who said that the natural sources have "no appreciable effect"? I recall reading that the boffins first noticed all this from the plankton blooms caused by the natural dust storms.

On your other misconception: It's such a huge system that tweaking it by a fairly small ratio might completely counterbalance all human CO2 emissions. The key fact is that the natural carbon cycle (even just the annual turnover) is several orders of magnitude larger than annual human CO2 emissions. Small tweak is all that's required, such as (perhaps) spiking container ships' fuel with iron supplements.

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They'd addressed this concern already, at least for this phase.

Dust storms in Australia and such can dump millions of tonnes of red oxide dust into the ocean. As long as we keep within some reasonable ratio of what nature does, the risk is low.

'Sacrifice another goat!: iCloud is Apple's biggest failure before Google

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Apple's user interface...

I still have no idea what "sync" does on iPhones connected to iTunes. Whatever it does, I don't like it. With a 32GB iPhone and 120+GB of content on the PC, "Sync" simply Does Not Work.

Insert random mindless comments below.

Apple iOS 6 beta limits number of apps per device

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Re: Thats curious

My coworker's Sony Android phone slowed down due only to apps being *installed*. Fail. He was forced to sell it on and try a different phone.

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321 apps installed right now...

I have run into the previous hard limit where all 11 screens (pages) were full of 16 apps each - this was before Apple invented the concept of folders (<- sarcasm). 11 x 16 = 176 apps was the hard limit at that time, so I'm not sure how you can state that such limits are new.

Even now, it's 11 screens x 16 folders x 12 apps = 2112 (Rush!?), plus four more along the dock.

Build a bonkers hi-fi

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Re: Pesky no-sense-humour chekur

The copper "syncs" are used to realign the data to eliminate "jitter".

Thanks for lobbing it in there.

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Laws, sausages, vinyl records

The 'How It's Made' TV series had a segment on the manufacture of vinyl records. The machine that cuts the master disc is fed data from... ...a CD. Almost without doubt that the audio is the usual 16-bit, 44 kHz digital audio.

Cold hard and must-be-disappointing facts like these must really ruin the ultra golden ears wingnuts' day.

To be clear, 15-inch woofers and ribbon tweeters (for example) are lovely. The objection isn't even with exceeding high quality and very expensive components. The objection is when the supposed features stray way past the well established bounds of science. Then the respect for the proponents goes straight to zero. Because they're idiots.

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Re: Bonkers? oh yes.

If done correctly, yes it will. Data is data. There's no logical reason for a fancy CD transport mechanism. Good enough is perfectly good enough. Obviously I'm referring to the digital path. Analog circuitry can be more critical what with hum and noise. Don't start with "jitter"; nonsense.

What's particularly amusing is when the $100,000 component has stupid design flaws. Like audible humm from the bespoke but badly designed power supply. LOL.

Double blind tests have repeated revealed that the ultra golden ears crowd are full of it. Now they refuse to participate because they'll be sitting next to Uri Geller in the waiting room of the loonie toon test lab.

Your opinion may vary. But you'd be wrong.

RIM: What's all the 'bleeding' fuss about BlackBerry developers?

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News: $147M

RIM patent judgment. Not good news.

US deploys robot submarine armada against Iranian mines

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Re: Sea Fox Repurposed

300m ?

If Iran lays mines 300m deep in the Persian Gulf, they're not going to have much effect on shipping - what with being buried at least 210 m under the seabed and all.

Native Americans arrived to find natives already there, fossil poo shows

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Prediction

These Pre-Clovis batch that are now "first" will eventually be deposed by a completely different batch of Pre-Pre-Clovis that will become the next "first".

When any of these archeologist types say something about what happened thousands of years ago, they're probably more or less correct (assuming they have evidence). But when they imply that something plausible DIDN'T happen (based on LACK of evidence?), one should keep in mind that it's difficult to prove a negative and THEREFORE THEY REALLY DON'T KNOW.

An example of their defective logic would be claiming that Clovis were "first", because that implies that many plausible circumstances didn't happen.

The error of their logic is revealed by the next "first" (sic), these Pre-Clovis.

'Extreme' solar storm speeding straight towards Earth

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Aurora?

Then it'll be clouded over here. It always happens.

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

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The patent pendulum has started back...

The madness is ending. Well, it's the beginning of the end, etc.

Intel pops $4.1bn to save Moore's Law from repeal

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Coin shrinking

Warm the wafers in an oven to just the right temperature and then zap them with a huge pulsed magnetic field (à la coin shrinking). Shrink the wafer radius by half. Don't tell anyone how you did it. After the competition figure out a method to replicate the same size features, then steal their more practical method.

Being a skinny is much more unhealthy than being fat – new study

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Peer Reviewed Journals

"...19 times out of 20..." is still a common yardstick for the stats. Such studies are expected to be perfectly incorrect about 5% of the time; that aligns with what we see.

Google Nexus 7 Android tablet

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Re: Forgive my ignorance, I know nothing about Android

Didn't I read somewhere that Android 4.1 will be sans-Flash? Welcome to the Land of Jobs. LOL.

PS: for $250 I'll buy one just for laughs. Hopefully it can DLNA it's way into my NAS over wifi. I've got a backlog of videos to watch.

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Re: HDMI / Docking connector

What if someone already owns a WD TV Live, an Apple TV box, a couple of PS3s, etc. etc. etc. ? Maybe getting files up and onto the big screen is already taken care of? I mean seriously, how many people here would be buying this as their one and only media player? Incredible... The whole point of a tablet is to plug in some headphones, kick back on the couch and watch some videos ON THE LOVELY BUILT-IN DISPLAY (the rectangular area on the front surface that glows...).

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Re: "the Nexus survived 32cm fall onto a wooden floor"

I wonder if the reviewer understands that the forces involved in a drop test are not a linear function of height?

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Re: 3G a problem??

Yeah, unless they've suddenly decided to give away free 3G service, then one would be looking at an ADDITIONAL monthly expense of $30. The data plan cost would swamp out the cost of the hardware in the mid-term. Daft.

Assuming one already has a mobile phone with a rational data plan, then turn on wifi tethering. Duh. If your carrier doesn't allow this, then you've chosen the wrong carrier. Daft.

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Re: Who cares about the SD slot, can I have a car craddle please

No need for an amplifier, this puppy has a "25w" strip speaker (according to this article). LOL.

Apple 'fesses up: We broke App Store downloads

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Re: I had a bet with myself...

One could easily construct a Gödel style bet with yourself that would implode the Universe if spoken aloud.

Shuttleworth: Why Windows 8 made us ditch GPL Linux loader

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I'm beginning to actively hate Ubuntu

The twerps overwrote my PCs MBR with their defective initial 10.0 release. Major fail. I've still not forgiven them.

Every time you boot it, there's 2700 updates available. Need to be an IT weenie to sort through the meaningless names to figure out what should be updated.

Amateur hour.

PS: No, I'm not interested in solutions. I'm just grumbling. ;-)

War On Standby: Do the figures actually stack up?

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Re: Heat pumps aren't that efficient

If they also provide cooling in the summer, then your energy consumption may increased (if you previously didn't have air conditioning - common around here). Worst case: your total energy consumption might increase. Although you'd be more comfortable.

CERN catches a glimpse of Higgs-like boson

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Re: Gives mass via drag... ...somehow...

It is not unreasonable to expect that sound-bite explanations offered up on internationally syndicated TV channels should be self-contained and make sense to the average viewer. If the explanation relies upon unmentioned and not-referenced YouTube documentaries so that it makes sense, they they completely fail as a sound-bite explanation. Might as well just provide the YouTube URL. A complete waste of expensive airtime and Brian Cox's otherwise valuable breath. Thus: Worst. Explanation. Ever.

My post stands. My point is valid. So there. :-P

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Gives mass via drag... ...somehow...

Anyone else bothered by the sound-bite explanations (they're all over the media) that the Higgs field somehow creates mass by adding drag? Mass? From drag? Huh?

Worst. Explanation. Ever.

Europe's prang-phone-in-every-car to cost €5m per life saved

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Re: One more thing...

Me again.

My car (Mercedes E class) has this sort of airbag triggered SOS call feature built in. It's not a cheap and cheerful $50 option as some have suggested. As a guess, it's probably many hundreds of dollars (difficult to separate it out) - there was an update a few years ago to make it work with network changes (for previous model years) as the older cell phone network was turned off.

It would also require a monthly fee for the service, which is why I can't be bothered paying extra for it. It's similar to the GM OnStar service. Includes concierge services if you wish.

As far as I know, the system has some sort of built in back up power supply so that it'll still make the call after a massive crash. The main battery is in the trunk, so maybe that helps. I'm not sure if it'll still work after a 250 kmh crash... ...I don't plan to try.

Cheers.

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One more thing...

Such a mandate would only accelerate the assignment of telephone numbers thereby using them up faster. Thus Europe would more quickly find itself being forced to revamp their entire telephone network to introduce 27-digit dialing for local calls (perhaps a slight exaggeration). It could cost hundreds of billions to accommodate a telephone number in every vehicle.

Also, phones embedded in cars typically incur a monthly charge. The telcos don't normally provide service for free. This is one reason why the trend has been away from embedded car phones and towards BlueTeeth links to one's one-and-only mobile phone carried in one's pocket (one monthly bill vice two).

Also, such systems will have a requirement that they keep working even after a major crash. Those that suggest that this can be done with cheap hardware are not accounting for this type of technical requirement that would obviously be defined and imposed.

Did your iPhone 'just stop working' - or did you drop it in your BEER?

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Re: They've done this for ages, haven't they?

There's a third possibility. After being outside in -40° winter temperatures and then entering a warm and humid environment, liquid water will condense out of the air onto cold surfaces. This may include an iPhone, both inside and outside surfaces. If once doesn't do it, repeat the process.

Apple in warm California almost certainly failed to account for this 'false positive'. False in the sense that the customer perhaps did not dunk the phone in liquid. This may explain at least some of the complaints.

Google makes Opera bloggers an offer they can't refuse: Use Chrome

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Switch away from Blogger? OMG!!!

Next thing you'll be telling me to switch away from Google's Adsense and do without the $36 *per century* of income it provides. LOL.

Computer error triggers mass rocket launch

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Re: Last time...

That doesn't make any sense. If the time format was assumed to be HH:mm then the plan would have a temporal resolution of one minute. That would make for a rather boring show. So it's a non-starter as a possible explanation.

TiVo plunges into Swedes after penetrating Virgin Media

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Faultline = boring

I'm not sure why, but articles presented by Faultline are written in a style that would make the imminent arrival of The Doomsday Asteroid seem like a boring and tedious topic.