Posts by Nick Ryan
731 posts • joined Tuesday 10th April 2007 06:11 GMT
Re: Bottom line ...
Also, if it's available in analogue, or just available at all, then it's available digitally. Somehow, someone will find a way to digitise it or bypass DRM.
Posted in Windows Phone beats iOS sales in China
Sales or overall market share?
The article is misleading. Are the figures being reported:
1) sales of devices over a period of time, over what period?
2) shifting of devices to sellers (aka inventory stuffing) over a period of time, again what period is this?
3) overall market share of sold handsets - if so, over what period of time?
4) overall market share of operating handsets (i.e. handsets actually in use), again covering what period of time?
or
5) something else?
The linked article http://english.analysys.com.cn/article.php?aid=127990 is of little direct relation to this story as it relates to 2011. In other words, this "news" about WP7 in 2012 is just another weaselly worded press release unless some form of figures and concrete numbers are shown.
Re: responsible?!
IRRC it's been prohibited for a very long time to serve anybody who is obviously drunk in a licensed establishment. It only became a criminal offence recently due to Blair and his lawyer cronies making pretty much everything into a criminal offence (i.e. more work for lawyers)
Re: Digital equivalent of breaking and entering.
Thanks to nu-labour and cronies (made entirely of politicians who are/were lawyers or very closely related to them), pretty much everything in the UK is now a criminal offence and not civil.
It's those damn cows driving around in cars that are the real problem here.
...well it "works" for Adobe
Re: The Oracle cannot be all knowing then.
Oh dear, reading this, suddenly something nearly came out of my Caffeine/cookie input hole.
Posted in Microsoft kills Windows Live brand
Re: Hotmail
Agreed, that was an epic level of stupidity from MS's marketing drones. Just adding "Microsoft" to hotmail would have kept the brand intact and hotmail wouldn't have suffered so much.
...that and not knackering up the webmail user interface almost as often as yahoo.
Unfortunately MS have a track record of buying previously successful branded products and ruining them, for example multimap used to be the place to go for a map but not now. (to be fair the API for multimap was excruciating in the first place, so in some ways it couldn't have got worse).
Re: I wonder ...
+1 for honesty :) El'reg isn't exactly low profile after all...
Dell
No matter what size the rack cases are horizontally, the damn Dell engineers will doubtless still make their rack mounted kit inexplicably longer (deeper) than anything else.
The problem is not so much the horizontal width, it's the problem that in the real world every bit of kit tends to need cables attached to them to operate and it's the cable management - including suitably separating power from data that's the big issue. It doesn't matter how neat you try to be, as soon as you start to have to swap kit out the nightmares start. If this were solved acceptably, then the issue with airflow ought to be fixable as well - as in a rat's nest of cables isn't usually the best for airflow.
Re: Speaking as a developer...
Ah yes, the US Patent system and prior art - where prior art is only applicable if in the US, prior art in the rest of the world doesn't count.
Re: telling ?
...and they can take a sheet of all the formula in as well.
Next they'll be allowed calculators.
"There aren't any good movies or games anymore because of copyright infringers, so-called "pirates" (I prefer to call them Data Terrorists)"
Really? So the production companies insisting on never taking risks and just releasing the same old stuff over and over again has nothing to do with the problem then? If they had the balls or skills to spot what will be good rather than handing this task over to a beancounter first and then making it regardless then they would be more successful. Not that this selection is ever going to be an easy task, but it has been done quite successfully in the past.
This is aside from the other side of the problem:
In films there's the abject greed from the "stars" which combined with a braindead celebrity culture where no matter how poor the film is or the actor is at acting, herds will turn out and watch it anyway. As a result a huge chunk of the budget goes to these celebrities regardless of how good the end result is.
In both films and games there's the over reliance on special effects and the enormous budget that this required, thereby moving the break-even point further into the distance. But how often do these special effects actually add something rather than, in a film, countering the lack of plot, dialog and acting and, in a game, the lack of gameplay and general playability?
If you want good films and games, then go to the "Indie" (small publisher) scene, you'll be very surprised as the quality of both films and games that you can find is staggering. There's a lot of dross, but there's a lot of dross in the big budget titles as well...
That graph really is telling.
Re: GCSEs no longer fulfil their purpose
Unfortunately it's bugger all to do with the pupils. It's down to the school getting the correct number of grades and the Education Department proving* that education is working.
* Proof in this case is massaging whatever numbers you're saddled with to produce the results that you need.
"The Dragon has already proved it can take off and land, but the software required to get the craft to pull in alongside the fast-moving ISS and dock with it is tricky stuff."
It doesn't particularly matter what speed the ISS is "moving", speed (velocity) is relative. For example the equator of the Earth rotates at roughly 1000 mph compared to the centre, the Earth rotates around the sun at roughly 67000 mph, and so on... it all depends on your reference points.
The aim is to get the rocket near the ISS and then to reduce it's velocity relative to the ISS to zero at the point when it gets within reach of the station's arm.
It's not rocket science you know. Oh wait it is...
Re: Commentards, commentards...
Just got that :)
Posted in Lenovo U300s Ultrabook
Finally... the designers at Lenovo have put the Fn key in the correct place and not hijacked the Ctrl key the very rarely used Fn key. Might be able to type on a Lenovo and move to another laptop without having to glare at the keyboad layout from now on!
Re: Is Windows Phone 7 fit for anything?
A little unfair, they could do something with it. Force the interface onto desktop PCs, for example?
Posted in Basic instinct: how we used to code
Re: If I can type through these misty eyes... @ Mike Richards
Ha! I can understand that, I certainly didn't mean "sophisiticated" by way of feaures, more by the implementation method. The lack of any form of graphics or sound functions in the language on the C64 was a permanent pain and the reason that assembly was so used (other than speed of course).
I don't think it would have been on a few extra pennies per machine, the constraint of the 8k basic ROM block probably had a big factor - IIRC there weren't much more than a few extra bytes spare, certainly not enough to introduce graphics and sound functions. Fitting a larger ROM would have doubtless caused all kinds of design issues.
Posted in Basic instinct: how we used to code
Re: If I can type through these misty eyes...
The neat thing about the speccy basic was that it cut out the tokenisation process through having the user enter the token direct as the keyboard simply produced the token as the scan code.
Other (more sophisticated systems) such as the BBC and Commodore 64 had to parse the line text and tokenise it at that point. While this was less efficient as it introduced another step, it did allow the hacking of basic on the Commodore 64 through the trick of copying the current ROM into the underlying RAM bank under it, changing the tokens (IIRC they were terminated with bit 7 being set in the ASCII string) and the token index was then used with a jump table to execute the functionality. Reverse engineering this to hack it taught me a lot about how the basic interpreter worked and good usage of subroutines, including adding my own basic commands and using the underlying standard BASIC subroutines to help process them.
Posted in Basic instinct: how we used to code
Re: Ughh... Still shudder when I recall those days
There was always JSR as well (and on some processors, conditional JSRs as well). Certainly on the 8 bit systems the use of JSR taught you well the value in stack management (very limited stack space for return points) and how to deal with passing values into these subroutines.
And just when you thought you were getting a handle on it all you then got into the ball-ache abortion mess that's x86 assembly code and were forced to waste more clock cycles juggling registers and stack pointers than doing anything that was actually useful. Unfortunately modern x86 code isn't often much better, it's just that the processors are considerably faster.
Powerpoint
"PowerPoint can be used creatively". Unfortunately it's mostly used instead of a presentation.
Alternatively they could just fix the shitty facebook apps so they actually work. Why is FB so much easier and faster to use using a web browser on a phone than the official app?
They should be forced to become politicians. It'll cut out the needless middling around before they're convicted of something if they're convicted at the start.
or...
For the really heinous crimes, made to debate UK military spending with Lewis Page...
Posted in Panasonic DMP-BDT320 3D Blu-ray player
"The player sucked in a Java heavy copy of Goldfinger and had the 007 menu onscreen in a respectable 52 seconds. A less complicated platter reached its menu in just 31s."
And an HD ripped version of Goldfinger starts to play immediately and without all the crap and fancy effects and menus that nobody really cares for much. Oh, and you also don't have to sit and admire the "Piracy is copyright theft" lies screens as well (there is such thing as "copyright violation", but not "theft"), and in the case of much Disney tat, the unskippable trailers.
I wonder if they'll have made it usable by then?
Re: Unsure...
Doubt it.
It'll only be "fair" when all EU states receive lists, including all irrelevant personal details, of all US terrorists (i.e. everybody who happens to fly from or through the US) and are allowed to store and process these records as they feel fit. US terrorists / citizens should, of course, be allowed to apply to each individual state to ensure that their details are correct.
Posted in Stray SMS leads to aborted landing
Re: Well handled
There's a reason that some transportation systems are better covered.
When something goes wrong and you're flying, there's a very high chance that you'll hit the ground hard.
When something goes wrong and you're in a bus, there's a very high chance that the bus will stop and you can get off it.
Agreed - good summary. However you missed one point:
The CEO of instragram did a fantastic job of selling his largely worthless* company for a ludicrous amount of money - we really have to give him credit for that.
*as in no income - the real value is really what somebody is willing to pay for it.
Re: Still not getting it, are you Microsoft?
He's not describing using it using remote desktop - it's the tedious updates and other management and configuration changes that are periodically required that you need a keyboard and mouse for.
Re: Every one is an expert..
Wondered that myself in the past as well. It's an interesting question and as it's common across multiple separate locations and diverse species there's likely to be at least one common reason.
Not producing skin pigmentation is probably a good answer, as with no need to do it for mating display or protection from harsh radiation (sunlight) it's likely to cease to be a selection factor. Instead selection would favour those best able to make do in these marginal environments and if a paler specimen needs less energy and nutrients it is likely to be better able to survive and reproduce compared to others.
Re: Evolution - learn some science
A lot of antibiotics are derived from non-bacterial sources as well. Many plants (and animals) produce natural antibiotics - don't forget that one of the most famous antibiotics is derived from a fungus - Penicillin comes from the Penicillium fungi.
It's all part of ongoing battles between species - one organism produces a defence mechanism against another, the other then changes slightly to work around this and then the process starts again. The process is made considerably more "interesting" (as in complex as hell) when it involves multiple competing organisms...
Alternatively...
Just put a damn IP phone handset on the desk. You then don't need to bother with separate phone and network cabling and to make it easier many IP phones have network "passthrough" - as in they have an internal mini network switch to reduce the cabling substantially. You still need a separate power socket to power the phone unless you run PoE though.
The result? A phone on your desk that looks and works like a phone without the pain of a headset and you don't need to dick around with soft phone applications that as a horrible generalisation are pretty awful.
* PC turned off or crashed (again)? No problem, phone still works.
* Wireless dodgy (like it always is), doesn't use it.
* User acceptance? Looks and feels like a phone therefore instant familiarity even with typical office technophobes.
Usually applications can be loaded onto a PC to allow better integration with applications as well but the key point is that these aren't required for use.
Re: So is it like this?
b) It's a little wider in scope than just "These bacteria have reproduced for millennia, using humans and other species as breeding grounds"
Bacteria as a whole do not rely on humans or other animals, or more correctly just other forms of life, as breeding grounds - that's what viruses do. In broad terms bacteria can reproduce on their own, viruses use other organisms to reproduce however like all things there are various varieties that tend to bend these rules. Bacteria may happen to inhabit animals but are to be found lurking pretty much everywhere, it's just that animals produce a lot of waste of all forms and therefore can harbour quite nice environments for many bacteria to live.
This is aside from a lot of symbiotic relationships that have developed between bacteria and higher forms of life - for example humans can't survive without any bacteria and some of those that live in or on us are so specialised that they're largely unique to humans. This doesn't necessarily mean that they rely on us to survive just that we're their preferred environment - after all they need to be able to survive outside their animal environment hosts to spread.
Ouch. At least they fessed up though and immediately tried to fix the problem.
Even more impressive is just what was done in the Space Race era, with moon landings and more without the sophisticated computing power and manufacturing and materials available today. Those buggers were planned and launched with just valves and transistors.
Re: Those stats sum up how shuttles never lived up to the sales pitch
"nor allowed by law, to carry commercial satellites"
Didn't realise that! Typical from a government perspective but just seems short sighted - of course it wouldn't recoup its costs if it can't make any money at all...
Re: Damn that is expensive even by Canon's standards
If our (make believe) astrologer friends like this, I wonder how astronomers feel about it?
:p (and it's not even a Friday)
The green movement did more damage to environmental causes with their rabid, blinkered hatred of everything nuclear than any other damage. How? Because in place of nuclear power stations, coal and oil ones were built which are much more damaging to the environment.
As a result many countries, including the UK, are facing impending energy shortages and have no viable plan to ramp up energy production to keep up with demand.
So... can these devices print the entire surface of a sheet of paper (i.e. without non-printing margins)? The (photoshopped) imagery for most of them appears to imply that they can.
"heightened hydrogen-alpha sensitivity"
Oh dear, initially it sounds like some marketing drones from cosmetic companies have found a new job at Canon spouting pseudo-science...
However hydrogen-alpha is a specific frequency of the spectrum - point this at the sun with some appropriate filters and you could get some interesting photos.
Good - never did understand the idiotic "shinier than hell" screen tech fad. Admittedly, colours can look more vibrant on these screens... but only on the rare occasions that the damn thing isn't working like a mirror and reflecting the lights from windows, lights, clothing or just other systems (also as a rule, useless outdoors, but so are many displays).
Posted in RIM to exit the consumer phone market
Will be interesting to see what happens to RIM now, with more and more corporates supporting Android and iThings and both of these systems steadily becoming a little more corporate friendly. Nothing yet compared to how friendly BB devices are for corporates but with the consumer backing of these already very strong their continued move into the corporate environment is inevitable.
Maybe RIM will just go back to throwing patent based lawsuits around...
Posted in Angry Birds Space
So far it is quite enjoyable and different while keeping the quality of the originals while adding a bit more polish. Yes, the same old game tends to get tiresome after a while but taken into context of being a casual game that you can play for a few minutes at a time it works well.
Interplanetary billiards using flying birds and pigs and bubbles? Just why smartphones were invented...
Re: Elite
The Micro-G-Free Flyer REX certainly has a lot of similarities to the Elite ASP II.
Re: Flight conditions
If I remember correctly, the pressure is kept intentionally somewhat lower than normal atmospheric sea level - as in they then need less air (= less weight) and the capsule doesn't need to be so strong in the opposite direction to when in the atmosphere (again, less weight).
Apparently the extended stay in low pressure can cause fillings to erupt due to pockets of much denser air in cavities in the teeth. No idea whether this ever really happened or not, but I'd also read somewhere that prospective US astronauts had any fillings they did have drilled out and refilled very carefully to reduce this risk.
Price...
"the price of new games would have come down a long time ago if the industry was getting a share of the revenue from used game sales"
or alternatively:
...more games would have been sold if they hadn't been such greedy b'stards in the first place and priced the games at a more sensible price. Falling revenue is rarely countered effectively by upping the sales price.
...if the games actually had replay value then gamers might keep the games and not return them after completing them in 6 hours
...95% of the budget wasn't be spent on visual effects, instead producing games that a gamer might want to play for longer as once you've watched a movie you tend not to need to watch it again. (similar to the above point admittedly)
