Posts by Dick Pountain
127 posts • joined Thursday 20th March 2008 17:49 GMT
Re: This is journalism?
Oh, I thought this *was* the Intel Press release. It was certainly peppy enough, except that he forgot to use the essential phrase "special sauce". Remember next time.
Question 5
Calculate the survival probability for a species whose brightest individuals would rather devote all their mental resources to quarter-assed schemes for escaping the planet than to preserving the planet. Please show your workings.
Yes indeed
"The damped pusher plate smoothed the delivery of thrust [from multiple H-bombs] to the spacecraft above."
Hmmm, yes, good idea
Re: Boo hoo
Precisely. This paranoid rant is worthy of the Tea Party. Not a word about the corruption of journalistic standards by politically-partisan, monopolistic press owners (with the power to fire or not hire dissenting journos). The regulatory body isn't to be a state agency, that's Tory spin.
Posted in Reg readers brew up the ultimate cuppa
Re: What is wrong with you all?
Absolutely right. Teapots are hardly expensive items - you can probably get a dented aluminium one in the Oxfam shop for 50p (wash before using). And you can recoup that 50p by making n cups at a time using only n-1 bags (assuming you have friends or colleagues). The teabag of choice is Fortnum and Mason's Orange Pekoe so you'll want to economise on them.
I think you guys should take this more seriously - there's a lot you can do with one bit. Or is there? (Answer Y or N)
Read The Book
If you have the physics, read Mead's book "Collective Electrodynamics". There's nothing loonie or cultish in it - he revives Einstein's side of an old argument, by proposing that the wave view of matter is sufficient and the particle view follows from it. In the the process he explains some of the paradoxes raised by the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Re: Sasanach!
I have the OiPad which has a 16-hole lace-up case made by Dr Marten
Re: Gates quote
"Giant Hate Boner", fabulous linguistic invention, may I use it for the name of my band?
Re: I have to agree with this article's title
And which step is figuring out a way to feed everyone on this planet?
Re: Name it iRock
Only if it's shaped like a round-cornered rectangle
Re: If you think living on planet Earth is a precarious existence
Absolutely right. What's more, why does the human race deserve to live for ever? Nothing else will, including the sun and the whole galaxy. Sci-fi nuts like Heinlein loved to raise such romanticised, fake concern for the future of the race in place of doing anything to help actual people, here, now.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Google have a sizable interest in Python development? They could afford to sic a *lot* of lawyers on Veber's ass.
Re: Fixed?
Me neither - tried all three and it's either fixed, never existed or perhaps only affects certain configs. Has *anyone* commenting on this thread had actually tried it?
Phew!
Does El Reg ever read user reviews on Google Play? This app has the stinkiest I've ever seen - bar chart all 1s. Time to pull it and fire the developer I'd say.
Carver Mead's been saying it for years
http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1/People/CarverMead.htm
Party's Over
The PC party is over and Microsoft is incapable of adapting - despite some clever tricks deep inside Metro, its surface sucks. Microsoft doesn't get touch, and probably never will. Intel might survive because at least it's moving in the right direction.
Mock ye not
You really shouldn't be mocking these enthusiastic kids - you might be stifling the next Edsel or Sinclair C5 <cue muffled snort, tea coming painfully down nostrils>
Posted in Google defames Reg columnist Verity Stob
Sinister
Dare I point out that Verity Stob is an anagram of Toby Strive. Mr Strive is a top-secret project currently under development at Tory HQ to replace the outdated John Bull as an icon of middle-english manhood. (He looks like a toby jug wearing a Barbour and driving a white Range Rover Evoque.) Sinister I call it.
On the other hand she's also an anagram of Tits Or Bevy.
Re: Surely I am not the only...
No you're not the only one - I used London University's Atlas around 1967 when doing post-grad biochemistry, to process readings from a scintillation counter. A lab assistant in a brown coat would take my printouts away, and 3 or 4 days later bring back another pile of fan-fold with the results. Then I'd sit down with a clockwork desk calculator to finish the job.
Playing Monopoly
The only downside of Obama's reelection is that I miss the Republican trolls. Maybe we could get them listed as a protected species? As for this story, I said my piece at
http://dickpountain.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/a-new-age-of-sabotage.html
Posted in What are quantum computers good for?
Yeti
I have pictures of a yeti using a quantum computer but I daren't show them to anyone in case they disappear.
Five Grand?
Actually it's far more likely that it's the *sceptic* journalists who get £5000 per article - from the Koch brothers.
Posted in Is lightspeed really a limit?
GET OVER IT!
Jesus - people still whingeing about not being able to travel faster than light? In a couple of decades we're more likely to be back riding donkeys than travelling to Alpha Centauri.
Re: except
If you like DP Review then you ought to love The Imagining Resource (http://www.imaging-resource.com/) which has the greatest innovation in camera reviewing, the Comparator. This interactive app lets you view test pix from any two or more of the cameras they've reviewed, side-by-side. A pixel peeper's wet dream.
Re: Next iPhone accessory?
There's no need to wait for Apple, go Blue Peter style. Cut an ordinary bog-roll tube in half and dip it in matte black stove paint. When dry attach to the lovely shiny aluminium back of your iPhone 5 with Locktite superglue. Sorted.
Hmmm, I wonder if El Reg's own jibber-jabber index should be measured in US or UK?
Re: Take it easy Dick
That would only be a loan
Re: Take it easy Dick
To clarify, I was in the shop to top up the 3G deal for my Windows laptop - which I need for work, and which has many scratches on its lid. I own no Apple products, and no, you can't have any of my organs.
God save us from scratches
I just waited 20mins in a Telecom Italia Mobile shop while the assistant was affixing an anti-scratch film to the back of a kid's iPhone 4S, with all the devotion and concentration of a brain surgeon. Then the kid took the phone and put it into a case! The whole world is going OCD, these gadgets are making people crazy.
No joke
This may be the best news we've had in years. So much of today's tech depends on Li Ion batts that it's frightening.
Posted in How hard is 3D printing?
Christmas crackers and cornflake packets
It's a great technology for making small plastic gewgaws very slowly and very cheaply. I await with interest the developments that will enable it to work with steel, light alloy, titanium, tungsten carbide, and do it faster than casting or forging can do. (Wow, I've just printed my own oil tanker!)
Yes Please
Something like this is inevitable, so bring it on soon. It also provides a way to destroy the roaming charges monster.
Merch alors
"Merch" sounds like it might be the word for "shit" in some language I'm not familiar with.
Re: "Your butt hurt amuses me."
Is this "intimidatingly large" thing an Apple product?
"Jesus Phone is set to account for a large chunk - perhaps the majority - of US economic activity"
That would make a lot of sense if Apple Inc takes over the whole country and everyone becomes an employee. Then all the fanboiz could finally get to wear silver collarless suits and carry cattle prods.
Orcs v Trolls
This madness will never cease until somebody journeys to Mordor and throws an iPad and a Samsung Galaxy into the maw of the volcano.
A Rose By Another F**king Name
How many names is that Palm has been through now? I've lost count.
Both, dammit!
"Insisting humans are not creative but imitative is an argument that comes from a very, very dark place".
Humans are quite obviously *both* creative and imitative (but that doesn't make for such good rhetoric). Without the imitative bit we'd never even learn to speak, or bicker on internet forums. The creative bit happens more rarely, which is why I agree with Orlowski that it deserves some protection. Once an innovator has been rewarded though it's in everyone's interest for other people to copy it - think about the arrangement of foot pedals in a car, the piano or QWERTY keyboard.
Finding the right balance between the two is vital: whether the Apple-Samsung verdict helps that is the real question. My gut feeling is that it points toward an Apple monopoly and higher prices for some years, as it will deter investment in iPad competitors. What would we have said had IBM done the same with its PC design back in the 1980s?
Drool
Are they allowed to present a tissue to customers who start dribbling?
Well Fucked
There seems to be general ignorance about gastropod sex in this forum. The link is that when you've been fucked by a snail you know you've been fucked (look it up)
Does anyone else think the "Modern UI" looks like an early 1960s Wimpy Bar?
Re: Cough...
Every ful kno that mentioning Apple twice on every page makes you COOL. Ask the Guardian...
Re: I am thoroughly confused by it all
It seems to me that the law - which has only recenty come to terms with software patents - hasn't yet got to grips with the effects of object-orientation and information hiding. The whole point of OOP is that the precise coding of a function is hidden and not relevant to other users: only the interface or API matters to use that function. That should make the API a crucial part of the intellectual property of any software system, in addition to the detailed source code. It will take decades (if ever) to explain this to lawyers.
Re: People talk about the inaccuracy of Wpedia...
Especially when reading El Reg about climate change or Wikipedia. It's good on Paris Hilton though.
What no denial? Is Lewis on holiday?
Re: Oh.. alright..
"CERN scientists have a few burning questions about the spotted particle"
It isn't too small to see - they can see the spots on it. Some of the others have stripes. It's all a cosmic game of pool.
