Posts by James Howat
29 posts • joined Thursday 11th October 2007 08:52 GMT
Posted in ESA proposes 3D printing on the moon
Re: more techo-wanking
No, it's not a fashionable bandwagon, it's a potential solution to a lot of things. 3D printing, like, say, QR codes or cloud computing or electricity, is a remarkable and general-purpose technology looking for problems to solve. What's wrong in that? Nobody thinks it will solve all problems. This is not a Star Trek replicator. But it's a flexible enough idea that the general principle can be adapted to many different purposes. Some will work, some will not. But it's still ripe for research.
Re: "so the models are evidently wrong"
Nobody presents climate models as gospel, that's nonsense. What they're being presented as is the best currently possible explanation that fits the data. But don't let that get in the way of a good persecution fantasy.
"Not what you said" is not an alternative model - try coming up with something better.
That's not what HTTPS is for
HTTPS isn't designed to protect the information on your PC - it's meant to protect data as it's transmitted to another party, so that it can't be intercepted or tampered with en-route. It's just as vulnerable to being intercepted and siphoned off by malware on your PC as HTTP site traffic is.
This is extra privacy on top of what Mozilla actually needs to do.
Re: Go get a grip, Mr Braben
It's not about publishers demanding a cut. He's saying that if they got a cut, they might be able to afford to make new games, which could then be re-sold, to everyone's benefit.
First rule of being a parasite - you don't kill the host.
Surely, it matters not a jot what kind of condition CFS is, as long as you can measure the outcome of the trial? If a therapy consisting of jumping up and down with a banana on your head produces good results, then it should be considered in that light, with the clear understanding that the original symptoms are not caused by lack of head-bananas. Once we know what works, we can investigate why it works, and learn more about the causes of the condition.
Having said that, this study looks like it needs a hefty portion of salt. Any new, interesting, involving technique will generally produce better results - it doesn't matter whether the problem is psychological or physical.
Although I haven't waded through the video, if I'm reading the article and the summary right, the issue is that the hardware registers the screen press, the onscreen keyboard recognises the key activation, but the keypress isn't passed to the application.
So I don't think it can be a fault, except in the software.
Can someone with an iPad confirm - does the greying of the button that the author refers to happen when the key is lifted, or just when initially touched? Is the problem that the finger presses the key, but is sliding off before the press is lifted?
By that token, you could say that any website that relies on CSS to look good is not a website.
Your attitude is about ten years out of date.
Many, many websites rely on javascript for functionality because they are web applications. It's perfectly acceptable to have an application that cannot be accessed without javascript, as long as that restriction is clearly reported. However, missing javascript should not cripple otherwise accessible content.
Besides, here we're not talking about sites which ONLY work with JS. Whether you use JS to save page loading times, or to style elements, or to provide a full app experience, you will be equally hit by this problem.
"Because someone could go wrong with the supplier" is always a downside to using someone else's service. However "because they can provide the service faster and more reliably than you can" is still a more compelling upside, along with "without charging for it".
Posted in Dizzy: the Ultimate Cartoon Adventure
Although I don't know the CPC version, the obvious candidate would be Airwolf:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxih2tohaIk
Even if you swap around the figures, they still mean the same. Fewer people are satisfied with their iPad that you might expect. Only half of your customers think your product is good value for money? Only three-quarters of owners have a use for your product? Those are not great results.
For the record, I am an iPad owner, I use it often, and I fully expect that these results would be the same or worse for Android tablets.
Reading too much between the lines?
The moment you follow 'surely' with 'or perhaps' then maybe you should rethink the sentence, or at least stop guessing the worst.
Posted in Opera betas open source web debugger
Beta, not alpha
You may have been using Dragonfly for ages, but you were using an alpha version. This is the first release of the beta And as for pilfering from blogs - does that include official announcements?
http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2011/03/14/
Posted in iPhone to whup Sony PSP 2
A touchscreen is enough for all gamers....
... in the same way that 640Kb should be enough for everybody.
To contradict an earlier poster - Nintendo proved that there is a huge portable market for adult gamers long before the iPhone got Angry Birds.
This argument is like saying no-one needs a PS3 when they can play Solitaire on the PC.
Zero emissions
The premise of this article is ludicrous. When they say a car is zero-emissions, that's exactly what it means. It means that the car emits no exhaust fumes.
I don't see how you can conclude that this means that someone is claiming that it gets energy for free.
I agree, but for different reasons
Whereas the switch from B/W to colour, or from SD to HD, made things more engaging and pretty, it didn't really change the way you interact with the TV in the way that 3D does. Whether done well or not, it asks for a lot more attention and immersion, and so is probably better suited to things you don't dip in and out of.
Regression to the mean
I love their criteria for success - "if the accident rate goes down, it's obviously the work of dark forces and we'll take credit. If it doesn't work, then it's obviously the work of dark forces and we'll keep coming back."
Looks like the old witch-ducking logic still works, eh?
As an ex-TVTV user on EyeTV...
The one thing I miss is being able to go to the tvtv.co.uk site, or desktop or mobile, and being able to schedule recordings remotely. I don't want to have to buy a Sony Ericsson mobile to be able to do that. If they incorporate that feature into the update, then I'd be happy to pay for the upgrade.
On the subject of the charge, I would suspect that it's more to cover the cost of TVTV than anything else. If they could allow you to choose whether you wanted to pay for that feature or not, I suspect most would be happy.
Why not Android?
The Opera Core is designed to be portable, but it's in C++. To port it to Android it would need to be re-written in Java, which is a massive effort. Since the browser side of Opera Mini is already a Java codebase, it's much easier to port.
Posted in Sony launches 'WiiMote for PS3'
Aiming with a mushroom is never a good idea
Forget the actual motion controls - if it means I can actually aim properly in a shooter, then I'm all for it. It's amazing to see how long it's taken for console manufacturers to catch on to point-and-click being a good input mechanism for games, when PCs have been doing it for decades...
Almost killed any chance at success?
Seriously, Opera Mini is the most-used mobile browser in the world today. Opera is not a small player here, and they're making plenty of money of the back of it.
Posted in (Back) into The Valley
ZX81 Poster Programs
Had this one for the ZX81 - my dad spent a long time with the hexadecimal assembler codes, and I still don't think we ever got it working perfectly. At the time I had no idea it even existed for other platforms until I uncovered some of my dad's old Computing Today magazines with adverts...
That game had such an influence on me, and I think the poster did too....
http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/generated/bookinfo/p/PosterPrograms1.html
How old are you, exactly?
'Hur hur Opera is still around?' was mildly amusing six years ago, now it's just boring.
As for (badly) arguing a Javascript application should definitely be using a PHP or Ruby-based web framework for pages, that's just hilariously bad.
Posted in Microsoft fans call for Opera boycott
And what have we learned today, kids?
All together now, children - if the biggest boy in class is always picking on the little kids, it's the one with the guts to stand up and tell an adult that gets his head kicked in.
Success?
I think getting paid to shut up again generally counts as success in these cases, yes.
Posted in Opera Dragonfly emerges from pupa
Remote debugging
The basic idea is that Opera has built a protocol called Scope for communicating with the browser process, getting the DOM information, etc. This protocol is now built into the Opera core, so it can be connected to from remote machines by TCP/IP. So your first guess was correct.
It also means that if other browsers develop Scope server add-ons, you will be able to debug all of them with one tool.
Posted in Opera Dragonfly emerges from pupa
Yeah, a bit like Firebug
Only more of it, officially supported, available in the latest betas, and can attach to remote instances of Opera, such as on mobiles and consoles.
Posted in WaSP gives browsers 'fail' grade
Isn't that the point?
The whole idea behind the Acid tests is that it tests things that are currently badly implemented - so there's clear info on what needs done. If browsers worked successfully, there'd be no need for the test.
Posted in HTC to release handset video 'fix'
You get what you pay for...
Yes, leslie, I'm sure that rushing out a half-baked set of drivers will make the problem go away...
Thing is, the device works. It has the functionality it's supposed to. Unless the customer was promised hardware-accelerated video (as opposed to just 'good' or 'working' video), I can't see how the users have a case here.
Fragmented?
Sure, bringing in your own propietary plug-in technology to the web will definitely make it less fragmented...
