Posts by Mephistro
514 posts • joined Monday 8th October 2007 01:55 GMT
The Sopranos would love these projects.
And we would have a chance to find gold rings and small jewellery in our ice creams. What's there not to like?
(@ Alister)
"Vomiting an iPad must take some effort"
Yes, but the alternative method is even worse!
" Mexico is one of the best examples of "Gun control doesn't work" in the world" (@ sisk
If this was the only factor that differentiated Mexico from the USA, you would probably be right. But that's not the case.
It could be that Mexico is an example of a poor country that suddenly found itself receiving lots of cash for selling drugs to the USA, and that said cash ended in the hands of drug lords, that in turn used it to raise the corruption levels in the -already quite corrupt - country straight into the stratosphere. As their business model was found to be so successful, everybody and their brother in the area either wanted to be a member of a gang or were pressed into becoming one.
I don't know about "gun control", but the "war against drugs" surely is not going exceptionally well.
Re: Transphobic
When I watched that episode, I thought the joke was on the transphobics. All of them, with Reynholm leading, acted quite ridiculously.
And even if I was wrong and you`re right... C'mon, man, its a COMEDY, and in comedies the usual thing is to attack everybody and everything.
Re: Expensive reports
A new variant of the ChebwaccaDefense virus. :^)
Re: HOW DARE YOU! (@ ForthIsNotDead)
"It was also easy to copy the tapes with my Dad's Amstrad tape-to-tape deck, not so the C64 tapes with their crappy turbo loaders"
I copied dozens of C64 games with my tape to tape deck. The only one that gave me serious trouble was a game called 'StarPaws", which as I finally found out relied on the length of tape left after the first part of the program was loaded. Took me a while to figure that one, but some fiddling with scissors, a ruler and a screw driver finally fixed the issue, by cutting the excess tape. The girl got her copy, but I didn't score. :^(
Re: No way it would cost that much to disinfect
" for a cost of $150 per machine (representing the perhaps 1/2 day it might cost a contractor to fix it)"
And that is without taking in account the fact that many of those machines were grouped in the same location, so a contractor could fix several of them at the same time.
I wonder...
... what happened to the infected machines?. Were they dumped in a land fill? Sold as junk to a company owned by a friend of the fuckos who took this decision? Was some other friendly company charged with the task of recycling them, a task said company performed by reimaging the machines and selling them for a tidy profit? Did the people who made the report try to ascertain the actual whereabouts of the machines?...
Seriously, if after a blunder like this you don't see any heads rolling, something smells really, really fishy.
Re: Chickpeas trivia
I see you don't have much experience with chickpeas. :0)
Re: wrong comparison (@ graeme legget)
"And now most all smartphones do something similar."
As they were already doing long before the iPhone was even designed.
Good marketing != Innovation.
<< See icon
"Here at Vulture Towers we're not the kind to boast, but we would claim to have been a lot higher than that at a festival or two"
Re: Should be encouraged, not punished
"Where do they think scientists of the future are going to come from?"
China
I don't think it's such a bad idea
If they furnish it with a convenient handle and an external power source instead of batteries, it would be a nice and convenient machine for surfing the net while I'm watching TV with the rest of my family. I fear they are forgetting my face! :^)
Why stick to traditional designs?
A weapon with an electrical firing system and swappable barrels holding each several rounds would be far more effective. They could use some good quality standard steel tubing for the (single-use&non-rifled) barrel. This way they wouldn't need a chamber or a receiver, thus greatly simplifying the design. As for the lack of rifling, most shootings in urban areas happen at distances < 20 meters, so, together with the weapon being untraceable, this would make it an ideal tool for gangs and crims. The steel tube wouldn't pass airports metal detectors, of course, but for the rest of applications it'd be a dream (or a nightmare, depending on how you look at it).
And for those who think that we shouldn't discuss this concept publicly, for fear of giving ideas to the baddies: I'd bet good money that there are thousands of nerds and/or weaponsmiths out there thinking along the same lines, and probably hundreds making their own designs. Security through obscurity wouldn't have a friggin chance here.
Re: Brassed off
"Are the ammunition casings made of cream cheese, or something?"
You got a good point there. but the cartridges are smaller and easier to hide, e.g in a hollow metallic hairbrush handle. or inside a metallic toothpaste tube. And you could hide a 'proper' steel barrel camouflaging it as another metallic handle.
Re: Never mind the quality - feel the width ! (@ TeeCee)
"Er, I don't think you're supposed to dunk them."
Unless you're a female elephant.
Re: @Sulehir (@ Annihilator)
"You'd probably find it wouldn't get anywhere *near* the surface."
Both devices would need a rocket for de-orbiting, of course, but from that point on, the 'rod' is just an inert lump of metal, far less expensive -and lest prone to failure- than the scramjet.
Chickpeas trivia
When you are digesting chickpeas, they produce NO2, which acts as an aphrodisiac. The downside is that after two days of chickpeas diet, no mating companion will want to be nearer than 10 meters upwind of you. Sorry, Lester. :^D
Re: So what happens when the bonds mature? (@ AC 19:24)
"How bout Apple getting hold of some mafia style money laundering firm to broker the whole idea?"
I think they are already working with Deloitte.
Re: Problem? (@ AC, Posted Tuesday 30th April 2013 13:16 GMT)
"I believe modern installations of Linux cost the same as old ones"
You're wrong there. The price of Linux installation as been raised a 70% to compensate for inflation.
Re: Taste test
I totally agree. In the area were Lester lives people buys/barters most of their food locally from their neighbours, or from some local 'Cooperativa Agraria'. This way you get a better price and and the food is fresher and of a better quality than anything sold in a supermarket. Some winter greens, onions and garlic in your garden will also help. With good planning you could probably spend less than 1,5 Euro a day and still eat quite princely.
Re: The solution to your chickpea problem (@ Lester)
Another factor to consider is the water hardness. Soaking and boiling the chickpeas in hard water is much less effective. A possible solution is to add 1 or two teaspoons of lemon juice to the water the day before you're going to use it.
A good pressure cooker also helps a lot, and it will save you lots of energy and time. And now that I think of it, eating chickpeas for five days in a row will also help you to save a ton of cash in heating costs in this cold spring though you´ll probably have to spend more than that in air fresheners.
Re: I approve and award you hero of soviet union
' I speed-read the article as "while peeing occasionally into the bubbling broth"'
Good idea!, that would make a thicker broth without incurring in any costs :0)
A naive statement, at best
"What matters more is that the process was transparent and the fact that the finalists were selected by the public rather than the final judging panel."
It would be trivial for Klein -after knowing he would be in the jury- to have lots of friends/employees/relatives attending the event as public, or voting online if that was the case. If the contest rules didn't foresee this kind of situation, the people who made the rules are a band of noobs. So I'd say that the EC spokesperson is probably being disingenuous.
Just sayin.
Re: Not so fast (@ obnoxiousGit)
"Is that where Visa cut off Visa Iceland and leave them to pay the "your private business will do as we dictate" fines that the courts impose?"
Yes, Visa America would destroy a valuable company they own, to send a message to those pesky judges. And then, when other similar sentences from other countries arrive -as they will do- , Visa will disappear up its own corporate rectum. And good riddance. :-)
Re: Not so fast
"While the court might be able to force the vendor to process donations, Visa has the final say on processing"
No. The Law has the final word. See what happens if Visa doesn't comply with a few court orders.
Re: Good! (@ AC :22:05)
In your examples, it's the Laws that dictate what you can't do with the money, not Visa, PayPal or Mastercard.
HFT is ...
... a disaster waiting to happen, even without the help of terrorists or Facebook.
Re: Non story disguised as ad-magnet?
"Do they think we're stupid?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"
Emmm... see here...
Re: Pairs of letters
<--You forgot the icon. Please allow me to add it for you. :-0)
Re: Assyrian Archimedes screw
Was she a tourist?
Was she a 'he'? with those damn Greeks one never knows Sometimes with ancient names it's difficult to know for sure.
I´m not against a little bit of St Steve´s bashing now and then, but...
... aren't we taking it a little too far? I mean, come on! It's an article about Archimedes, and most of the posts are discussing Steve Jobs. Seriously, there should be an option in Elreg to disable the subheading.
Having said that... all right, I'll join the fray. :o)
It seems to me that Archie was a prototypical nerd, being good at science and technology, either by discovering new things or by integrating old knowledge and explaining it mathematically, while Steve was good with people, understanding their needs and desires and the ways to manipulate them. Probably both were geniuses, each in his way.
Another difference is that Archie didn't patent his discoveries. Lucky for Egyptians, that had been using block-and-tackle pulleys for thousands of years before Archimedes, and would have had to pay Archie tons of cash, and probably suffer a court order banning them from exporting their pyramids. On the other hand, Jobs...
Re: Only quoting the bits where Steig agrees with you?
Egg, meet Lewis' face. Again.
<b>"ring 'em up and ask"</b>
<== See icon
Re: It's a culture thing..
IMHO it's more of a chicken-or-egg problem. The mere existence of these scamming 'free apps' puts pressure on honest developers to give their work for free, and the only way left for them to be paid for their work is either to go rogue, or at the very least to allow in-game ads, which in turn are often rogue themselves.
I think that the problem is the system itself. Premium numbers shouldn't be accessible without a security code and a signed written contract. And allowing phones to keep your credit card data and use it automatically whenever an app asks for it, is just suicidal.
The solutions would be a mix of legal and technical ones. Several examples follow:
-ISPs and telcos shouldn't allow the user access to premium services unless they have a copy of a written contract between the user and the owner of the premium service.*(note)
- Phones shouldn't allow any transaction involving the user's credit card number nor access to a premium service without asking for a password from the user, every time the phone tries to access one of these services or send the credit card's data.
- Payment to the premium services by the telcos and ISPs should be delayed until the user receives the invoice, plus one month for complaining/contesting it/whatever.
- ... (add your own)
I don't see these solutions being put in place any time soon, thanks to the usual issues: lobbying, pressure from the telcos on the phone makers and generalized ignorance amongst the public.
* Note: Yes, that alone would mean the disappearance of premium rate services. What's there not to like? :-)
Re: @ LarsG (@ AC 08:32 GMT)(@ Thing)
I think that you are -quite elegantly- sidestepping my point. And my point is that no matter how much talent a FB user has, the constant peer pressure to 'keep in touch' and send updates will, in the end, have most of said updates being inane junk.
Re: @ LarsG (@ AC 08:32 GMT)
"Remember, you can be friends with whoever you choose, if you choose those people, then more fool you."
From what I've seen in friends and acquaintances FBs, even if you only befriend interesting people, Nobel prices and porn actresses , 99.99% of their updates end up being junk, leaving you in a big stream of crap with only the very occasional pearl. The culture of being always 'in touch' that is inherent to FB seems to suck human brains dry in a short time.
My hope is that this 'always in touch' shit is only a temporary fashion.
Re: They bought a stolen laptop. (@ NomNomNom)
Mr. NomNomNom: Your fourteen downvotes prove once again that the <sarcasm> tag should be made mandatory. :-)
"We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter."
This is one of the weakest denials of all time, together with "We didn't do it, and we'll never do it again".
Re: Nope!
"Feedback loop, It'll only end one way."
Not necessarily. There are several ways to interrupt this particular feedback loop. One would be using a GPS receiver included in the smartphone, other would be to stop the signal when a certain, fixed amount of course change had happened, or after a fixed amount of time.
Nevertheless, it might well be the case that the terrorists wouldn't be too interested in preventing the plane from crashing. Just sayin'.
The PC and laptop sales slump, again...
Other factors to consider, aside from tablets and mobes:
- Mature technologies: A decade ago when you bought a desktop or a laptop, it was assumed the machine would be obsolete in ~4 years. Nowadays it's more like six or seven years. That probably accounts for most of the sales slump.
- Recession: We haven't left it behind yet, and it obviously affects IT spending both for companies and individuals.
I´ll concede that a small part of the sales loss for desktops and laptops comes from the rise in tablets sales, but it's not by far as big as these 'analysts' will make us believe.
It beats me how companies and individuals that should know better are willing to purchase expensive tablets when a far cheaper laptop would allow them to do the same job faster and far more comfortably. The power of fashion and shiny shiny, perhaps?
And don't get me started on BYOD...
This! (Re: Startups need to stay lean)
And:
" I don't understand why they price them so high"
That's what monopolies/oligopolies and consumer lock in are for. And the current sorry state of -or even the existence of- software patents also help.
Re: Orion Mk 2? (@ Neil Barnes)(@ Yag)
"Unfortunately, fusion is also included in the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and you strangely forgot the point of the fusion products - which may not be as inoffensive as the base materials."
From reading the article I've found no reference to this engine being used in the atmosphere. I don't think it would make much sense, as A: it's a pulsing engine, providing impulse for a few microseconds every minute and B: the operating environment - hard vacuum vs. Earth's atmosphere- is so different that an engine designed to operate in one would be highly inefficient in the other.
The engine and the fuel would still need to be sent as cargo in a traditional rocket to reach LEO, but even so it would be hundreds or thousands of times safer than sending traditional fuels to orbit, due to the smaller mass and volume, and the inherent stability of the propellants needed by the FDR.
Orion Mk 2? (@ Neil Barnes)
" it could get sunk by the same thing that sunk Orion - the nuclear atmospheric test ban..."
Emmm... no. It's not fission, and the elements and materials needed -hydrogen isotopes and lithium- are quite inert and inoffensive -compared to standard rocket fuels- unless you apply energy to them in the quite controlled environment of the engine. It's orders of magnitude safer than sending rocket fuel to LEO to power the trip to Mars. I hope they succeed with this.
Re: "200KW of solar panels .. about the same as .. the panels around the ISS"
"To achieve this, we will need a solar array of just over 3300m2 in area."
Or a huge but very thin mirror/sail to concentrate sunlight in a smaller surface, saving loss of mass and weight from the solar panels and raising efficiency. They could keep several of these 'sails' neatly folded in case something goes wrong and the sail is damaged/lost , and for deploying a new sail for the return trip.
Such a ship would be a bitch to steer, though.
Re: From now on - Down votes (@ Eadon)
WOW! A post by Eadon without the word 'Windows' in it! The Second Coming is near!!!
:-D
Re: Maybe not so bad...maybe? (2)
I forgot to add that Lee-Anne Berns seems to agree on the reasons why Apple is trying to copyright the terms "iPad mini", as suggested by this paragraph in the article:
"In addition, and as in the earlier ruling, she requires that Apple amend its trademark application to include a disclaimer that it doesn't seek to trademark the term "mini" per se, and that it makes no claim on that term other than in the product-identifying term "iPad mini".
It seems that the USPTO has at least someone who understands the issue. Kudos to Mrs. Berns.
Re: Maybe not so bad...maybe?
Sorry to disagree. The term iPad is already registered, so nobody except Apple could name a product "iPad mini". Why this redundancy, then? My guess is that they want to use this registration as a stepping stone for legally harassing any manufacturer who dares to use the word 'mini' in their products. Yes, if the case ever goes to court chances are that the case will be dismissed or ruled against Apple, but most companies just lack the money to fight Apple in a court.
IMHO, the only thing Apple is getting better at lately is at gaming the system. :-(
Re: Regretfully this may well become...
"...analysing patient DNA so that insurance companies can screw you."
Then it would be the duty of %Government% to ban such practices from insurance companies, and make sure that results taken using this technology are not used for discriminating their patients.
And it would be %Citizens% duty (our duty) to put pressure on our governments to carry out their duties.
I understand that won't be an easy task, though. :-(
