Posts by JeffyPooh

Of course iPhones phone home to Apple...

The Find My iPhone* app (*and, critically, also works with wifi-only iPods) wouldn't work without the devices making themselves visible to Apple on a predictable schedule on the timescale of a minute.

Furthermore, I've seen otherwise inexplicable "Apple.com" in the browser's address bar while trying to get past hotels' Terms & Conditions pages on their free wifi hotspot. Evidence of a check-in to home base.

Based on the above, I simply assume that Apple.com is tracking my location (network, probably not GPS due to battery limits).

I like...

...funny titles.

A comment on the ultimate reference...

I went to a live symphony orchestra performance once. It was disgusting. Don't get me wrong, the sound quality was more or less perfect (by definition). What almost made me almost vomit was having to watch the entire brass section constantly emptying huge amounts of spittle out of their instruments onto the floor. They were all doing it, all through the entire performance. Gross!

Just saying...

Afraid of opening the box?

There are very few boxes that can't be opened and then resealed like new. Even if the openings are covered with anti-tamper stickers, one can very-often still get in and out without a trace. It just takes patience and skill (and luck).

The point...

Paraphrasing the too-serious ad. exec. featured in the Top Gear skit:

"It's not a Scirocco ruined with a diesel engine; it's a diesel engine improved with Scirocco style."

What's a watt?

Some of the above commentors have obviously not been formally introduced to the watt. 150 watts is *not* within the bounds of credibility. That much power would be burning holes in one's bedside table. Think: one-and-a-half 100-watt incandescent light bulbs.

Since most USB chargers are basically at room temperature, it's obvious that they're not wasting even one watt. Think: a 7-watt Xmas tree bulb will burn your hand if gripped; that's what seven watts feels like.

And No! Buying one of these (even if it did make sense, which it doesn't) does not compensate for unnecessarily driving around in a big silly SUV.

Medtronic - "To our knowledge..."

<- Utter.

Good grief. Don't you just want to smack Mr. Medtronic upside the head?

There are actually tree stumps with more common sense.

Weird - article didn't mention "ink" even once

Personally, I imposed a lifetime ban on all HP products ever since Carly Fiorina opened her idiot pie-hole. It'll be nice to get the HP junk out of Costco so I don't even have to look at them.

Sad, because I really like(d) HP test equipment.

8,600-feet needs AvGas and mods?

I had a cheap rental car and drove up Pikes Peak (14,000 + feet) without any issues whatsoever. The parking lot at the summit was chock-a-block full of various cars and trucks, and the road up was absolutely littered with precisely *zero* vehicles unable to make the grade.

Modern tech?

"It's a form of matter Jim, but not as we know it."

Carry on then.

@Raindancer

"...is all you need."

Not all mobile Apps interact only with the Internet. There are many that interact with on-board sensors.

Also, there are many fantastic mobile game apps that can also be used with or without the Internet.

Finally, even with a generous 6GB per month data package, I wouldn't want EVERYTHING to be hosted remotely.

Mensa? Did someone mention Mensa?

According to VS's book on the subject, Mensa was intended to be the Top 1%, but they screwed up the Statistics 101 and accidentally set the admission criteria to Top 2%. Oops.

True?

Follow up with Civil Actions

Hit 'em again! ...and again! ...and again! ...and again!

(At least the non-bankrupted one.)

Exhibit A in the many Civil Actions would be this finding.

Yee haw.

Lightning... Wifi makes a lovely air-gap

If he uses *only* a wifi link for the last 30 feet, then he could limit the inevitable equipment damage that will result from a direct, or even near-by, lightning strike.

Earth grounding is duh-obviously a good idea (and typically required by Code). But it's not really what some people think. Airplanes (while flying) get hit by lightning about once per year each - almost always without any damage whatsoever. That simple fact exposes many myths about lightning and lightning protection.

Remember iPhone Girl?

I wonder if one robot will stop building iPhones long enough to take a few quick snapshots of another cute, grinning robot?

Cristoph nailed it...

"Oi! Why is my brand new PC actually just a slab of shale?"

Everyone at work has the WD TV of various versions

Heck, I've got two.

Includes the iPad in the same way it includes the iPhone

This text is not required.

I would comment on this, but...

...MY LEG REALLY REALLY HURTS.

Where's my iPhone 4GS?

I'm all confused. I don't want an iPhone 5; I want a 4GS.

"...given an incorrect initial value..."

I wasn't actually there making first hand measurements of the parameters, but I've read that there was a residual pressure in the tunnel between the CM and the LM. This unaccounted-for pressure, upon release of the LM, imparted a small excess velocity to the LM causing it to travel slightly further downrange than expected.

If this is all true, then perhaps it is a slightly more complete and accurate explanation.

Workaround...

An iphone App can't have a non-iTunes 'store/buy' button; but (obviously) an iPhone formatted webpage can have whatever buttons they want.

So it would seem to be simple to "host" the offending button off-device, on a specifically-formatted webpage being displayed in a manner that is indistinguishable from an App. Or even just a button-sized browser frame within the App.

If that's not good enough, then the App should just install a Home Page shortcut (icon) that points to a specifically-formatted webpage. Done correctly (non-trivial effort), one could make a pretty good App-looking webpage by replicating the GUI in the browser window.

@nick47

Oh. My. Gawd.

{shakes-head} {wanders-off-muttering...}

Assuming it goes ahead as planned...

...then I'll be there watching it blast off !!! Yippeeeee...

Try "DVLA SUX"

as above

Proving a negative...

It really doesn't seem like such an unreasonable request, considering the consequences if it did cause problems.

The only unresolved question is: over what distance would blockage be considered acceptable with respect to wiping-out the front end of existing GPS kits? And even that mystery item could be based on existing impacts from other sources. If existing GPS kit can be blocked 50m from a cell tower, then LightSquared can have a similar 50m exclusion zone too. It's far from rocket science.

All you need to run the test is a box of GPS gadgets and one LightSquared tower erected in the field somewhere. Plus another source of LightSquared's choosing to provide the comparison.

Easy.

Cost delta is typically negligible, nil or negative

CDs are often about the same price as the digital download. But I consider them to be slightly less risky in the long run.

Another way to look at it is that the music ends up on the flash media anyway, but it's already backed-up on a CD.

Someone had invented a gliding version a while back

Same variable bouyancy concept, except with guidance and winglets. When sinking it would glide off in the programmed direction, and then when floating upwards again it would also glide off in the programmed direction. Repeat the down and up cycle endlessly and it could cross the ocean using an AA battery [hyperbole warning].

Tuesday beer

Once upon a time, we would go out for a hamburger and beer for Tuesdays' lunches, just in case we (humans) didn't make it through until the expected Fridays' hamburger and beer. The Tuesdays were a sort-of preemptive just-in-case beer, based upon an irrational fear of asteroids between Tuesday and Friday.

Now this one comes along on a Monday evening. One can't win for trying.

@One Word: BUTTONS!

TWO WORDS: Angry Birds

Dribbling repeaters - lack of imagination...

So they carry five repeaters. What if they need twelve to close the link?

A better approach would be to use very short duty cycle, very high peak power transmissions, combined with frequency chirp and the latest CDMA spread spectrum techniques to provide even more coding gain. For low data rates, they could even stack up multiple layers of Barker Codes to achieve even more coding gain. Then add an active antenna array with MIMO to the mobile command station. These are all simple and easy off-the-shelf techniques that can be used together, but nobody (to my knowledge) has ever combined all of them into one system to achieve the maximum total system gain.

This sort of "all-the-above" approach to stacking-up appropriate technologies could add about 80dB (+/-) of system gain to the radio channel. Even if repeaters are required, it would require far fewer while providing a more-reliable system in the worst cases.

Reentry Breakup Recorder (REBR)

You missed one of the most interesting tidbits...

Kepler is equipped with a REBR that will record some data during the destructive reentry breakup. Then, when the recorder finally breaks free of the flaming fireball of debries, at about 18km altitude, it's supposed to make an Iridium telephone call to send the data back to headquarters (presumably in a dormant volcano somewhere).

Cool.

It's wonderful...

It's wonderful that all of the truly major problems in and around France have been completely solved and they've finally gotten down to this trivial item near the bottom of the 'Société Parfaite To Do' list.

Fabulous. Just Fabulous!

Unless, of course - oh my gawd, you don't suppose? - it's just an intentional distraction designed to deflect attention away from far-more-serious matters.

Idiot public. Les moutons.

Puh. Time stamp the files in the local cache.

Time stamp the files/frames in the local cache using a heirarchical approach. Then starting at the top, compare the time stamps. This can even be rolled out to the nodes along the network to act as a whole-web accelerator for all the most popular webpages. Implemented correctly, this technique would also eliminate stale pages (because the time stamps would always be compared without assumptions).

The present architecture loads and reloads and reloads again and again and again. Tedious.

"...future-proofing its software..."

Why?

That's dumb.

There would be at least a half dozen updates between now and when the larger files would actually be required, so why would they include them early? They could roll the larger image files out when they're actually required. Doing so early is simply a waste. Dumb, not smart.

I need some sunspots...

Oh-noes...

My 10m band (28MHz) ham radio has been sitting unused for many years. I was kinda-sorta hoping that I could press it into service again within the next year or so. Just last evening I was rummaging around for my 4-foot whip antenna. Now this - no sunspots, no propagation. Sniff...

"...allow doubt to be subtly cast on the theories generally accepted..."

The Short Earth Society. They're stark-raving of course... But that bit about 'allowing doubt' - that is supposed to ALWAYS be true. No matter how well founded a scientific theory may be, it is ALWAYS subject to change or improvement.

In a similar way, I've detected that the arguments about AGW have started using the language of faith. Bad.

Where do I complain about the Daily Mail?

I'm afraid I have to repeat it to make the point, so here it comes: <<I’m afraid I have to repeat it to make the point, so here it comes: ‘It’s the Tories who have put the “n” into cuts.’>>

10 GOTO 10

Well golly-shucks...

Sarah Palin.

She's Sandy the squirrel from SpongeBob Squarepants. Except lacking the intellectual capabilities of a cartoon squirrel.

Hey Dad...

"... My game is lagging again. Is your iPhone still turned on? When are we getting fibre?"

Inevitable pun...

They shouldn't be Russian these new elements into the Periodic Table.

To the News Quiz crew!

Cheers.

One of my favourites.

Birds

Reminder...

Requirements := Requirements + Surviving A Bird Strike*

* Canada Goose, fired directly into the frost-proof helium-powered super-beer-cooler thingy at Mach 6-ish. If they can handle that, then that's A Very Good Thing (TM).

Hmmmm...

Maybe they should stop painting a bulls-eye on themselves. Root-kitting everyone's PC and then taking legal action against those that figured out the keys, these are red flag PR blunders. Some simple common sense in PR approach might eventually make them slightly less of a protruding nail that needs hammering down.

DNA

Now that they can read and write DNA, all they need to do is speed it up a bit.

...

Of course, the entertainment industry will want to apply a levy on PCR (DNA replicators) equipment.

Extraploation with a holistic view

"...several orders of magnitude less mass than required to make up the missing mass."

If they can just-now, just-barely detect just-some of just-the-biggest-ones (using gravitatinal lensing), then how many undetectable smaller ones must there be?

Assume some reasonable distibution (fewer biggies, vastly more smallies, all the way down to atoms...), then perhaps we can get within an order of magnitude or so of the 'missing' (now partially found?) Dark Matter.

My guess? They just found 32.75% of the Dark Matter. Worth celebrating.