Posts by Steve Crook

Re: Great ...

It's a wormhole. Best not to travel down it, any nation that's ever been able to exert significant power has shat on its rivals and weaker neighbours whenever it could.

Oh, the other characteristic they all share is that they claim that *their* people are uniquely blessed and that, if the rest of the world had any sense, they'd all live like the people of <England, The US, The USSR, Sweden, Holland, France, Germany, Japan, China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, The Ottoman Empire, The Roman Empire, ...>

Re: Pedo-guy?

Why not. Or, perhaps, Elon 'pedo guy' Musk

Re: So many independent whitewash reports around lately

It would be because that's the way of the world.

One side doesn't want people to know where the bodies are, the other is keen to discover them. The trouble is that *all* of them are magicians, keen on making sure you're not looking where the trick is being done. They're all guilty, charities, political parties, businesses.

Re: Leasing versus sales

> In 20 years there won't be Tesla cars but a whole solar capture and storage industry.

Yes. He has plans to destroy a particularly nice part of Kent (Seasalter) with an enormous solar array and battery based storage facility as part of his world domination plans.

Re: Fixing the symptom…

> Great that you do have time to do all this. Those people would rather have code that works now, and get back to the real science.

Great that you do have time to do all this. Those people would rather have code that **looks like it** works now, and get back to the real science.

There, fixed it for you.

If the only way you've got of sharing your results is through your code & data then the code is *part* of the science. By sending out buggy code you're distracting all the other scientists who each find discrepancies, can't use your data, then have to refer back to you to find out WTF is going on. So you're probably preventing even more science from being done by wasting their time...

</rant>

Re: That's Chromebook right out of my buying list then

Years ago (2010) I purchased copilot for my then spiffy HTC Desire smartphone. Been receiving free app and map updates FOC since then. This after a brief and painful TomTom experience.

I've been amazed they've not fallen to the whole subscription thing...

Re: Brilliant?

BBC science and nature documentaries have declined in bitrate in the last couple of decades to the point where I couldn't watch them live any longer, the urge to FF through the filler is too strong.

I don't watch soaps or reality TV, and, recently, even the drama has started to test my patience. The little sport I'd like to watch has been on satellite for a decade or more.

Couldn't see the point in sticking with it.

Radio's going the same way. If I want to listen to music, there's the stuff I own, and plenty of opportunities to stream to listen to new stuff. So, no R1, R2, R3, R5. News, current affairs from R4. Occasional drama. But there's little that's worth the time and the 'Sounds' app is *still* not as good as the iPlayer Radio.

To me, the BBC isn't quite dead, but it gets a little closer every year....

Re: Why not just

You mean the button that says "Whatever you do, please don't listen to anything I'm going to say because it could be used against me"?

That's a bit like "trust me, I'm not a spy. No, honest, guv, I won't listen to a thing, no really, really I won't. Sorry, how many nipple clamps did you say you wanted. Oops..."

Re: Overlords

It's not like we'd do that sort of thing. Certainly not at Christmas. Oh, wait....

Re: He should hug off and mind his own business

Perhaps he meant "fug". I'd go for Flip, it worked well in the censored version of the original Repo Man. Or Frak.

Or, perhaps, not be a dick, and leave things as they are.

We're getting worse than the Victorians lobbing the genitals off statues. I always wondered where they stored them afterwards. In a big hanger like the one from Raiders Of The Lost Ark, but crammed full of cocks and balls cut off statues...

Re: Cancel HS2

Assuming it can be delivered anywhere near budget and on time, and there's precious little evidence that either will be the case. Also, there's the question of whether it's high speediness is actually bringing anything to the party other than cost.

Re: Amazing stuff

They're both amazing too.... Just tell me you not looked at either one and not been amazed...

Re: RE: Aladdin

Only Amazon have the i7, 16GB, 512 version and currently want a whopping £1800+. The Microsoft store in the US also stock it for $1500.

At £1800 it doesn't come even close to an XPS 13.

I'll wait.

Re: £899 - Ouch

And for a phone that'll only receive updates for a couple of years too. It's approaching the price I paid for my desktop PC and I expect to get OS software updates for that for some years to come...

Re: Recycling

It'll depend on the type of glue. It might actually be more recyclable if they can put it on a conveyor, warm it up and then jiggle it around a bit to have all the glue melt and leave the components loose and recoverable.

I remember reading about car manufacturers experimenting with plastics that deformed when heated so that it was easy to separate them from metal components for recycling.

But I'm not holding my breath...

Re: Doug Adams was right

> Aren't you supposed too be able to fit the entire population of the Earth onto the Isle of Wight?

"Stand On Zanzibar" John Brunner 1968

Actually, there's more...

The Vasa didn't start out top heavy. Marketing decided they needed new features to keep up with the cutting edge of flagship design.

They were added by reluctant developers while trying to stick within original project schedules and work with a design that wouldn't easily accommodate RFEs. Then marketing added some more. Bigger canons? Yes! More canons? Yes! Another gun deck? Damn right we will!

Familiar, no?

Which is what Stroustrup is warning against.

Re: The most amazing engineering

Yes, exactly. To have 20 or 30 concorde flights taking off and landing every day must have been hell. Oh, wait, it was what? 2 or 3?

As a kid I lived under an occasional Heathrow flight path. We got a diet of low level VC10 and Boeing 707 they weren't quiet either. But somehow, we struggled on.

Re: Forbidden Planet

Actually, I always thought it was the father of 'Star Trek' more than a descendant of Shakespeare. But I guess YMMV

Re: controversial bro-grammer ?

> Yeah, stop reading us.

In other news. 'The Register' advertising revenues declined as people took their journalists advice and stopped reading them...

Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

Incremental.

It's possible that we'll be able to squeeze more out of current battery technology, but I can't help feeling it's a bit like the days of cassette tape, with never ending incremental improvements to a fundamentally limited technology. We had to wait for the true breakthrough: CD and digital.

Similarly with batteries methinks.

What we have at the moment simply son't scale sufficiently for solving the most pressing problem, storing intermittent renewable energy. Phones and other small devices are irrelevant. As are batteries for cars if the electricity that's being used to charge them comes from fossil fuels...

Nice to know.

It'll be useful for a game in I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

Re: Hang on...

> make a jumbo jet from the VC10 - by having three fuselages flying

Had to look because it was so hard to believe. In the event, utterly awesome and very definitely Thunderbirds material if the outer fuselages detached shortly after launch. I can hear the music now...

Thanks for the link.

Re: Left

I was left sufficiently scarred that I've never wanted to go back and check. It was a long time ago 30 years I'd imagine, the detail fades, the scars remain. PI Mania (or whatever it was called) on the BBC Micro produced similar feelings of disgust (for being a waste of my time) and inadequacy (for not being able to get it right) and I put that down fairly rapidly too.

I admire your desire for accuracy (even if it verges on pedantic) and am envious that you had both the time *and* inclination to go and check your facts.

Re: There have been planes like this before.

Yup, that'd be my choice as well. Best plane from WWII by a country mile and very possibly the best combat aircraft ever built.

Great airframe design & build coupled with engines from the gods. Went to the Mosquito museum and was quite astonished at how small it was. I've built a few models of the plane, but until you see it in the flesh it's incredibly difficult to appreciate just how tiny it is.

Re: pah....

How much of a premium are you prepared to pay to not have one? You can bet that as soon as they can, they'll start to really sting those who chose not to switch to encourage them to change their minds.