Posts by Dick Pountain

Actually the Devil made up her name to tempt us from the paths of political correctness - get thee behind me!

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Oo look, a squirrel!

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.

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.

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.

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>

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

Five Grand?

Actually it's far more likely that it's the *sceptic* journalists who get £5000 per article - from the Koch brothers.

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.

Hmmm, I wonder if El Reg's own jibber-jabber index should be measured in US or UK?

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.

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.

"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?