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* Posts by Adam Nealis

141 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Apr 2007

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Apple tops estimates with earnings leap of 118 per cent

Adam Nealis
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P/E, PEG, P/B

82 versus 420 is a lot as an absolute value. As a ratio it's not too bad.

Why would Apple start to issue a dividend before they run out of steam growth-wise and their stock price flatlines or goes into a stage 4 decline?

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics

I don't think yesterday's figures are incorporated.Still

P/E is still about 15, which is considered by many to be fairly priced.

PEG is 0.64 is pretty low.

Price/Book 5.10

Benjamin Graham thought that if the ratio of (P/E) / (P/B) < 22.5, then the company represents reasonable value.

For AAPL that is 15 / 5.1 = 3

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EU asks why credit cards are so expensive

Adam Nealis
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Re: [Written with 6 years of experience of this in the UK and EU]

Do the toll barriers not accept cash?

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Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Android Tablet

Adam Nealis

And next month's tablet is...

Wonder how it stacks up against the Toshiba Excite?

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Google merging more personal data into search results

Adam Nealis
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FAIL

Naive.

So can you please post the address of the webcam in your bog at home so we can watch you having a shit?

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Plastic semiconductor makes solar cells more efficient

Adam Nealis
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"Quantum Leap" Indeed!

You do know that a "quantum leap" is unimaginably small, don't you?

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Windows 8 fondleslabs: Microsoft tip-toes through PC-makers' disaster

Adam Nealis
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"At lest [sic] with Windows I know when the thing that I hate doing is going to arrive"

I suppose that's some consolation. But the constant, anticipated patch stream is not a sign of quality, is it?

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Greens threaten to sue over solar power cash slash

Adam Nealis
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Unhappy

And it's nice you an Monbiot can agree on something.

Irrespective the realities of Climate Change and Peak Oil, the Solar Panel and FiT idea does make those who don't install PV contribute towards the income of those who do. This is inequitable.

But when I offered to install PV on the rooves of my two brothers and sister, I wasn't thinking "Ha ha! Now I get to screw the poor!". I saw it as a way for them to attain some independence from the unregulated predatory pricing behaviour of the UK energy suppliers.

What is also inequitable is the poor are more likely to have a card-operated meter at home for which they pay a higher price per unit than someone who does not. It is also inequitable that one pays progressively less for energy the more one consumes.

It is in kind the same thing as tax payer's money going to special industrial interests and unelected "think tanks" and quangoes. This too is wrong.

Yet I'd rather individual citizens got a bite of government largesse than the usual case where subsidies are fed directly to unaccountable commercial interests whose executives often take a disproportionate slice of this "success".

The only difference is one of degree.

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Bill Gates drops $1m on laser-based malaria fighter

Adam Nealis
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Mushroom

So get some time on the ground

Is it your implicit assumption that it is EITHER mosquito nets OR non-lethal light beam?

Both can co-exist.

Looks like I'm the first to mention this

http://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_could_this_laser_zap_malaria.html

Oh no! A third option! I only do binary!

What about impregnated versus unimpregnated mosquito nets?

Oh God! A fourth option! My brain's exploding!

I won't mention the recent release of sterile male mosquitos in a secret experiment. Or the research into using certain bacteria that attack the malarial parasite inside the mosquito.

How about the problems in getting people to maintain their nets? They don't believe that mosquitos transmit malaria. They think everything causes malaria.

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Apple shouldn't bother with TV...

Adam Nealis
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What's wrong with my telly?

Perhaps not the TV per se, but as for the general activities around watching TV...

I loathe the Sky and Sky+ remotes. Too many buttons. Not obvious how to use them. Difficult to use in a darkened room. The pause/ rewind etc. is good but not unique now. For me, a context-sensitive touchpad on a display like an iPod touch/ small Android tablet/ smartphone would be an improvement...

As for the TV broadcast standards, it is sad that there still is apparently no seamless way to make sure the correct picture aspect ratio is correctly applied. Why isn't there a place for this information in the standard? Maybe there is, but it is not implemented very well by either TV sellers or set top box sellers or the broadcasters.

Do the standards allow the BBC to interleave different streams of their own (video and audio channels)? Why not?

Or the end user to do the same? Why not?

Since I get lots of TV channels and radio channels through the same pipe to the same set top box, it would be nice to be able to set up a test match with TV video and the BBC Radio commentary.

Why can't I do this?

I expect it's the same lack of awareness of what customers want (even if they don't know it yet) exhibited by the Windows boys, Linux boys and Nokias of the world.

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Apple iPhone 4S

Adam Nealis

@Tony: Nit picking

"Its now 8Mp, which is good but not exceptional" - There's a lot more to a camera than the number of Mega pixels. Looked at the test shots int he review and the one of the wellies looks awful round the edges.

"It can still do a lot. Say Text my wife and it will. First time, of course, you have to tell it which of your contacts is your wife" - I think (not 100% sure) that you can set up relationships in the address book. Maybe not on the iPhone itself, but you can in Mac OS X. But it is neat that you can set up "wife" in the way you did.

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Solar car teams bask in Darwin sunshine

Adam Nealis
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Because non US beer is too strong for Americans.

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Apple turns the screws on reseller channel

Adam Nealis
WTF?

So live within your means.

Once a month, take the 0.5% of the money you would have used to repay Apple, and instead of giving it to Apple sell calls or puts on Apple stock.

e.g. Right now:

Sell 1 AAPL Call, expiry October 22, strike $ 430 to bring in $ 405, or 0.94% return.

Sell 1 AAPL Put, expiry October 22, strike $ 340 to bring in $ 357, or 0.97% return.

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Windows 8 secure boot would 'exclude' Linux

Adam Nealis
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Stop

Not the same thing.

There is nothing to stop you (in principle) from installing a different OS than intended on these systems.

The difference in this is case one's kernel must be signed, and the signing key recognised by the BIOS.

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Adam Nealis
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WTF?

RHEL != Unix

Linux is not Unix.

If you had said FreeBSD you would have been closer.

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RIM profits nearly sliced in half

Adam Nealis

I'll plug this article again.

<http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-really-wrong-with-blackberry-and.html>

RIM are screwed.

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Adam Nealis
Meh

Oops!

http://www.google.com/finance?q=rimm

Pre-market: 23.49 -6.05 (-20.48%)

Sell OCT11 28 Calls!

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Adam Nealis

Share Price Fell Sharply?

I couldn't find any evidence of that on NASDAQ or TO.

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Dell XPS 15z 15.6in Core i5 notebook

Adam Nealis
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Wind up the illiterates

That's "fanbois"

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Adam Nealis
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Megaphone

Please don't point it out any more.

Because you were wrong all the other times and you just look stupid.

Macs are PCs.

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Microsoft bans all plugins from touchable IE10

Adam Nealis
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"Flash ain't the only plugin people use you know. You can also call this a jihad against ad blockers. There are more reasons why these big boys want to ban ad blocks than Flash."

You may be right. But then someone will come up with an adblocker that sits on the HTTP stream before it gets to the browser. Else implement the blacklists on your home router.

HTTPS is a bit more difficult, except at the home router.

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Electric cars: too pricey until 2030 (or later)

Adam Nealis
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Infinite Substitutability.

"It'd be more irresponsible to say that in five years' time there will be commercially available teleporting units available worldwide powered by residual energy from a star in a nearby parallel dimension thus solving the energy crisis and transportation issues in a completely free and non-polluting way."

Which is more or less what conventional economists assume. Tech. will solve all our problems and anyway, all resources are infinitely substitutable. this is because energy is meaningless in economics. Price is all you need.

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Torvalds dumps Kernel.org for Github after breach

Adam Nealis
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Happy

Remember me on this computer?

"The issue is not about the safety of Linux - it is about the stupidity of sys-admins who fail up patch up their boxes... That problem is completely indpendant of OS..."

And there I was, about to say "that's what happens when you let devs admin servers." :)

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MySociety marshals griping commuters to fix UK transport

Adam Nealis
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Re: Why not Global Warming?

Idiot.

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Toshiba launches thick Thrive tablet in Europe

Adam Nealis

The Sledge

You could stick that beast that down the back of your kecks and slide down a hill!

I wonder how the gesture recognition would deal with such a journey?

Maybe that's an idea for an app.

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Mobee mods Magic Trackpad into virtual keyboard

Adam Nealis

Probably Referring to Microsoft Bob

Probably Referring to Microsoft Bob.

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Seven lessons from the HP Touchpad fire sale

Adam Nealis
WTF?

Of course people are that "dumb".

"But surely people aren’t so dumb as to buy a device when they don’t know what the future holds for it?"

Of course people are that "dumb".

"Normal" punters don't give a flying proverbial about backwards compatibility, OS updates, security, etc. That's how consumer electronics works. They don't think about it.

Why do we techies not understand this simple observation? It explains so much.

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After Jobs: Apple and the Cult of Disruption

Adam Nealis

I hope "paradigm shift", "quantum leap", "user experience" and "innovat(e/ion)" are on the list too.

I hope "paradigm shift", "quantum leap", "user experience" and "innovat(e/ion)" are on the list too.

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Neato Robotics XV-15 vacuum cleaner

Adam Nealis
Go

If I was Dyson ...

... I'd get one of my upright DC models, and attach some sort of robotic cleaner to it.

Maybe modify the cylinder so the pipe attachment is a 360-swivel thing on the top.

Would need a sensor to help it get over the power cable.

Then I would have a mains-powered robotic cleaner that had the dust capacity of a proper vacuum cleaner. smaller and lighter becuase no need for batteries or a dust receptacle.

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HP chief bows to Jobsian cult

Adam Nealis
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The long-term growth ... accounts for most secular trends in economic phenomena.

> ... a slow, underlying trend ...

> And I've seen economists use it in much the same way.

I think you nailed it:

From http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/secular

5. Continuing over a long period of time, long-term.

The long-term growth in population and income accounts for most secular trends in economic phenomena.

on a secular basis

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The curse of Google?: Android licensees fail to cash in

Adam Nealis

The operators long to "fork" Android

Before Google "forks" them?

The race to the bottom continues ...

The h/w manufacturers who maintain your OS by requiring you buy a new unit shouldn't be too peeved.

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Nokia E6 smartphone

Adam Nealis
FAIL

I thought it was a Crackberry at first.

Complete and utter FPOSPhone!

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Nintendo: no DVD, BD playback for Wii U

Adam Nealis
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..and if Nintendo wanted to be really brave → #

They already do in the form of DS*, and did in the form of GB* handhelds and the cartridges for SNES, etc.

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Adam Nealis

Keeps costs down. Reduces duplication of functionality.

Sounds sensible to me. If I was a shareholder I'd be happy.

Unlike Sony and MS, Nintendo like to make money on their hardware as well as the games. It can lower the price point for Wii U.

Apple disrupted the smart phone market by selling a smart phone that didn't do C'n'P.

M$ produced mail clients that didn't do SMTP.

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Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

Adam Nealis
Alert

Maunder Minima and LIAs

A definition of The Little Ice Age (TLIA).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/little-ice-age-lia/

Be careful. The sun spot stuff as covered is fine. Mr Page brought in the implications of a possible Ice Age, not the solar scientists. As an Orlowski acolyte, perhaps he couldn't help himself. But don't let that detract from the solar sunspot part which is interesting in its own right.

The link between a Maunder Minimum and TLIA only works if you select a narrow enough definition of TLIA.

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Antarctic ice breakup makes ocean absorb more CO2

Adam Nealis

Presumably the increased CO2 absorption is not offset by increase in oceanic pH?

It would be a nice change to get some good news about a feedback potentially alleviating climate change.

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=119058&org=NSF&from=news

"After ten days, the scientists observed increased concentrations of chlorophyll a and reduced concentrations of carbon dioxide, as compared to nearby areas without icebergs. These results are consistent with the growth of phytoplankton and the removal of carbon dioxide from the ocean."

That seems to be a PR piece from NSF. I don't subscribe to Nature, etc. Would be nice if someone posts a scientist's evaluation of the paper that is not behind a paywall.

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RIM BlackBerry Bold 9780 smartphone

Adam Nealis
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CHF 100 for the Orange San Francisco

> £100 for the Orange San Francisco

Or CHF 100 for the same thing in Switzerland.

The SF is a bit rough (but it's Android, so what do you expect?), but it's damn good value for money. Especially compared to an iPhone or a Blackberry.

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What sealed Nokia's fate?

Adam Nealis
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Could have sold some OTM puts. Amounts to almost the same thing.

"I wanted to short sell SCO back when it was $15 a share but alas it not trivial to setup your investing account to do so."

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HTC 7 Trophy smartphone

Adam Nealis
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WTF?

Bit like an iPhone then, but cheaper?

Posted Thursday 20th January 2011 14:42 GMT

Those things will never take off without a card slot you know!! :)

In homage to the poerson who posted the exact same comment above.

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Android bites big chunk out of Apple iPad market share

Adam Nealis

Whay are hacks innumerate?

Do you do this to wind us up, waste our time, or both?

"The world's computer makers shipped 17.6m tablets during 2010, 9.7m of them in Q4 alone."

OK. That's 17.6m units shipped in 2010.

"Android came equally out of nowhere to capture 2.3 per cent of the market with total shipments of 2.3 units, by far the majority of them being Samsung Galaxy Tabs."

Is that 2.3% of 2.3m units? Maybe not. because that would mean 1% = 1m, so 100% would be 100m units. But apparently only 17.6m units were shipped.

2.3m units is (2.3 / 17.6) * 100% = 13% percent.

If the writer had provided a link to his source data, at least one could work out what was meant.

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Ion readies book scanner for e-book buffs

Adam Nealis
FAIL

I could scan my genome faster ...

... than it would take to scan Jonathan Livingstone Seagull with that contraption.

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'London black cabs to go electric in 2 weeks' – Boris Guardian

Adam Nealis

Run them on water.

Or at least a combination of water and petrol.

http://hyway1.com/products.html

This is not perpetual motion, by the way.

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Google speeds Chrome JavaScript engine with 'Crankshaft'

Adam Nealis
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Have you been to Orange's web site at all?

I know it's probably not a JS problem, just a really sucky app server backend.

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iPad 2 to arrive around Valentine's Day - Taiwanese reports

Adam Nealis
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Or a Galaxy Tab

"... but who would want to buy an iPad now if the replacement is likely to be only 3 months away?"

Or a Galaxy Tab for that matter.

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Microsoft badmouths Google over fed contract win

Adam Nealis

Will Google therefore data encrypted at rest?

Assuming the GSA have done due diligence, then their cloud data must be protected, even from Google's prying eyes.

I tried to find some evidence of this in Google's T&Cs, but instead found lots of forum comments about how vague Google was.

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Apple Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server

Adam Nealis
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7 posts before derailment began.

"For that price... #"

Where were you? 6 sensible posts before you stuck your oar in.

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Oracle whacked by DoJ complaint

Adam Nealis

I wonder which way my firm will go?

Solaris looks like it might become another VMS. Like VMS, Solaris is now owned by a company who have little interest in SPARC because their major installed base is on x86.

Remaining VMS customers are a small, but happy-to-be-milked hard core. VMS even migrated from Alpha to Itanium(!).

Our installed Unices are Slowaris and Linux. AIX on power is no bad thing. Having worked with all three, I can say that AIX on high-end IBM hardware kicks arse. Linux still comes across as too disorganised.

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Firefox 4 'feature complete' beta debuts after Jager shot

Adam Nealis
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Tabs on Top?

> back to 3.6.12 where all things work and the tabs are in the right place BELOW the address bar...

From the video I found here http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/beta/features/ all you need to do is right-click on the toolbar and uncheck "tabs on top". "Tabs on Top" start about 1:14

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'HULC™' robot exoskeleton war-walker suit 'at gen 2.0'

Adam Nealis
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I want one. My pregnant wife would love it!

Where can I get one?

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Bechtolsheim races Arista to zero latency

Adam Nealis
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It was "the race to zero latency"

"This guy most know something about the speed of light that Einstein didn't. Unless he's managed to construct space/time worm holes in a data centre, "

Like trying to get to absolute zero.

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Gov axes £35bn Severn Barrage tide-energy scheme

Adam Nealis
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Re: £35bn

"how? is it made of solid gold encrusted with diamonds?"

No. It's made of government swill for the corporate porkers.

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