Posts by Deryk Barker
13 posts • joined Thursday 17th January 2008 22:00 GMT
Posted in First case of sleep emailing documented
And the evidence?
Where was the evidence that she was actually asleep? Many drugs can affect memory: why not simply assume that she wrote the emails while under the influence and then forgot.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
No one is safe?
Really? How about the Lehmann staff who shared $8.6 billion in 'bonuses' in 2006? I bet they're feeling pretty damned smug right now.
Small historical point
The Hindenburg was actually designed to use helium, but the USA, which has a virtual monopoly on the supply, refused to supply it to Germany, despite the fact that it has no strategic value and that, in any case, as the Hindenburg lost ~5% on every trip across the Atlantic, anytime the USA had wanted it could have cut off the supply.
Also worth pointing out that the Hindenburg and its predecessor, the Graf Zeppelin, provided a regularly (weekly?) service between Germany and Brazil.
Until the disaster not a single passenger had been harmed.
Had the helium been available...
The unspeakable in full pursuit...
It's perfect: the unfunny "comedian" advertising the non-functional "operating system".
Posted in Group Test: Wireless music streamers
Explains a lot....
Oh dear, oh dear!
No wonder the recorded music industry is going to hell in a handbasket.
Sound quality isn't really important? I, for one, have no intention of hoooking up anything with less-than-stellar DACs to my stereo system.
The Logitech (formerly Slim Devices) Squeezebox 3 (of which I have two) has, as the review mentioned, 24-but Burr-Brown DACs, which make it sound as good as all but the very highest end CD players.
As for simply buyiong a cheap PC - the sound cards in PCs are not "Hi Fi" and the inside of a PC is a very RF hostile environment - spelled N-O-I-S-Y.
I guess if music isn't really that important to you....
BTW, the Logitech squeezecenter software comes as standard on the Netgear (formerly Infrant) ReadyNAS+ boxes.
Trouble is, the 200MHz ARM processor doesn't have quite enough poke to run it responsively while, say, you are doing a backup.
Of course minor pilfering from employers
Of course!
So any of us who has ever taken a pencil, paperclip, few sheets of A4, is of "bad character"?
Why not simply decide that everyone is guilty of something unless they can prove their total innocence?
Eric Blair, you should be living at this hour....
Oooh , you rotten Europeans
Its not fair - we do this stuff everywhere else and nobody complains.
Maybe the EU DOES have some point after all.
Farsighted?
As Jilted John said/sang way back in 1978:
"Gordon is a moron!"
Couldn't have put it better myself.
Posted in Who will be the next Doctor?
12 regenerations
And wasn't the final regeneration the evil one who was involved in Trial of a Time Lord?
I cannot believe some of the nonsense being spouted here; RTD revived Dr Who, for heaven's sake, after it had been allowed to die off by the BBC. We have a great deal to thank him for.
And, speaking as one who can still recall watching An Unearthly Child back on November 23, 1963 (yes, the day after), I think that the revival has been great fun -and I, for one, PARTICULARLY enjoyed the meetings with great authors, especially Simon Callow's wonderful Charles Dickens.
As Alfred Hitchcock didn't quite say: "It's only a tv programme, Ingrid".
Posted in Bill Gates has gone, what's his legacy?
A 20th century disaster
Am I mistaken or has nobody mentioned the countless BILLIONS of pounds/dollars/euros and countless working hours wasted because Bill and his crowd don't understand the simplest security concepts?
My problem with "fair minded" pieces like this is that they largely ignore MS's continual contempt for legality.
Still, Andrew Carnegie bought his posthumous reputation as a philanthropist - as opposed to the robber baron he really was - so why not Gates?
Of course, even with all of his charitable 'donations', he still lives better than 99.9999999999999% of the rest of us.
And we're supposed to admire this monopolist crook?
Why am I not surprised that he is unaware that...?
The COMPUTER was invented by a Briton - Alan Turing.
The world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer (Colossus) was built by three Britons: Tom Flowers, Sid Broadhurst and W.W. Chandler.
The world's first stored-program, electronic digital computer was built in Britain (the Manchester University BABY).
The world's first production computer (EDSAC) was built in Britain (by Maurice Wilkes at Cambridge).
The world's first virtual memory system (ATLAS).....
The list goes one.
Paris, because I don't suppose she is aware either...
Posted in Cowon iAudio A3 personal media player
But can the user replace the battery?
I bought a Cowan iAudio M5(?) a few years back and was very happy with it, until time came for another trip back to blighty last year and I discovered that the battery won't hold much charge any more.
This is well-known behaviour of Lithium/whatever batteries, however Cowan consider the battery replacement an "out of warranty *repair*" and expected me to mail the player to them in California, wait several weeks for it to return, and pay a significant percentage of the original purchase price for the favour.
I informed them then that I would never buy another product of theirs until this was fixed: the SanDisk players, for instance, have a user-replaceable battery.
They, or course, completely ignored this and replied telling me once again how long it would take to "repair". Not impressed.
Considering the fuss people made about the similar battery situation with the accursed iPhone, I'm disappointed that this aspect is rarely if ever mentioned in reviews.
I'm particularly disappointed as few other manufacturers seem to want to support Ogg and FLAC formats, but I will not be held to ransom over a battery.
Enigma etc.
Amazing how much confusion there still is over this.
The Polish broke the 3-rotor Enigma in the 1930s - thanks, in large part, to the spy Hans Thilo, who provided code books. The main figure in this was Marian Rejewsky whose team worked for the Biuo Szyfrow,
The bomba was invented then.
When it became clear that Poland would not last long, the Poles - to their eternal credit - arranged a meeting with the French and British and handed over everything they had.
(Incidentally - and not much of a reflection on the powers that were - Rejewsky made it to England, but was never allowed to work on Enigma by the British...)
At Bletchley Park this work was extended, in partcular with the bombe, designed by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman.
Colossus was designed (by Max Newman, Turing's supervisor at Cambridge) and built at the PO Research Station at Dollis Hill, by Tom Flowers, Sid Broadhurst and W.W. Chandler.
It was NOT designed to crack Enigma, but to crack "Fish" a teleprinter-code used for sending strategic, rather than tactical information.
Alan Turing was NOT involved in the design of Colossus - he was in Washington DC at the time.
And, oh yes a codebook was indeed rescued from a sinking U-boat - at the cost of at leat one British life.
Put not thy trust in Wikipedia or the American notion of history. (After all, in "The Burma Story" Erroll Flynn apparently defeated the Japanese in Burma single-handed - despite the fact that no US troops fought in Burma at all).
Hell, what did Henry Ford say about history?
Perhaps more to the point is what George Santayana said...
All of this information is readily available - particularly in Hodge's magnificent biography of Turing and on Tony Sale's codeberakers' web site: http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/
