Posts by John Robson
626 posts • joined Monday 19th May 2008 14:40 GMT
Posted in Lenovo joins the smartbook gang
why no corners
why not fit a decent height screen and have corners on the thing - there is a massive amount of waste at the top.
Otherwise it's a nice looking product idea - assuming 10 hours includes wifi/3g being on and possibly btooth for a keyboard
Posted in Ofcom sets 60GHz free
Bandwidth will be....
6.8GHz, as stated in the article.
Or are you asking about data transfer rate - a different beast entirely ;)
For that you need to check modulation etc, but it should be pretty high, even if you assume you can only use one frequency, and can cram no more than one bit per cycle into the data stream then 60Gbps.
Of course you actually have 6.8GHz to play with, if you can use 1000 different wavelengths without interference then 60Tbps is the basic assumption.
Posted in Honda goes NUTs for future micro-car
Good concept
Lousy design
I've been thinking about an e-commuter with a similar layout for a while, but it doesn't need to be the ugliest thing on the road.
I'm no Bertone, but that means I stick with a classic design, like the mini, in my head...
Posted in EA exec punts 96,000rpm e-car engine
Jet engines
Have long been the way to do this - glad someone's worked it out...
Servicing a jet is fairly simple - they're effectively only one moving part after all...
Posted in BOFH: Made of win
it's
The formula for the locus of a circle centered on the origin (or will be when the radius is squared too)
Basically - draw this graph and you've drawn a circle.
Gravity
Still works at that altitude - the issue is that they are in freefall.
But actually someone else has pointed out that it's not "up" that is needed, but acceleration of the fingers. If you are just doing acceleration based measurements then you need to be pretty sophisticated, I'd go for some sort of visual tracking hybrid else the haptics will trigger the motion detectors, triggering the haptics....
PS - Yes I know you specified orbit, indicating more understanding than most of the population
Posted in ICANN condemns registry DNS redirection
Browser hijacking???
That's the least of the issues - it's everything else which uses DNS that's really screwed up by these things. In a browser you get to see the crapy html they've decided to send you, if you are running any sort of a script then there's no telling what you'll get, or give, them..
By which time
you'll be out of business and they can ignore you...
Oh what a surprise...
encryption
have these guys heard of it?
podestrians
"Music-listeners were able to navigate traffic as well as the average unencumbered pedestrian"
"Talking on a cell was in fact a distraction, while trying to cross the street but that listening to an iPod was not."
Err, not around here - especially not if that traffic is quiet (yes I cycle alot)
effective
Clearly this isn't an effective technological barrier - so the mod chip can't be breaking that law...
About flippin' time
WooHoo...
balance...
I know how the harrier can balance, it has 4 exhausts, so can vary the trust to each of them to deal with the problem of balancing.
From what I can see this thing has one fan (possible vectored) and one jet (certainly vectored)
Balancing on two points is generally considered more difficult that doing the same on 3 or 4 points isn't it?
Secure
How can he vouch for the "fact" that it's secure?
Does he know where his data is now?
Facts
What are they?
Never needed them before in politics...
To be fair
The 40k was an estimate of what they expected, the 5 is what they could confirm.
I expect the truth lies somewhere between these values (I expect that criminals are vaguely competent at trafficking), but to try and categorically state any figure is just moronic.
Time
Maybe this is actually about timing - at 10pm 40dB isn't too bad, at 2am however...
Posted in El Reg's LHC visit - Deleted Scenes
head-on at almost light speed
Thought they were colliding at more like twice light speed (from our reference frame of course)
Posted in UTIT IT touts titillation
lol @ both
Excellent examples of rebranding ;) OGC should be included in their list of business contacts...
Colostomy bags...
Are cr*p, but you can carry on with one.
Attitude, rather than the lack of hope, is the key here. The others could quite easily have got on with their "bagged" lives until such a time as they might have the reconnection.
Posted in Creative whips out e-reader at AGM
Finally
A more useful tablet - now, can I hook it up to my machine as a spare text terminal?
Fraud?
"The council was losing over £100,000 a week because the machines were targeted by Cool Hand Luke-style thieves. The gangs used power saws and angle grinders to cut them in half and helped themselves to the coins inside."
That's not fraud - it's plain theft.
It's also quite funny...
Playground != Nursery
If they are offering child care then thats one thing...
If it's a play facility then parents are kind of essential part of play - or are we aiming for automons nowadays rather than people...
@davidcbull
"Isn't this the sort of thing that Microsoft used to get into trouble for? Giving away apps free with an OS"
Well, Microsoft were actually done for abusing a monopoly in one market (PC OS) to prevent competition in another (Browsers)
Since I don't think google has a monopoly position on the OS, bundling things is merely a differentiator...
Not for profit
Just to see the look on Balmers face - that's priceless!
Posted in Toyota at Tokyo: micro e-car on display
MIB
"a steering yoke that does away with the need for floor pedals"
Why not just fit a playstation controller?
Great idea
But only as an indicator - last girl I had to call an ambulanbce for (would have survived for a good while, but that's not relevant) was finding breathing sufficiently difficlut that she couldn't phone.
The "this isn't the patient" button on the operators screen would be useful.
Posted in Micron's new flash dies live longer
PCI connectivity and ExpressCard format please...
Please - How hard can it be (to quote Top Gear)
Posted in Robert Crumb begets Book of Genesis
Sex and violence in the OT...
Wow, seems on a par with "dog bites man"
The bible does have quite alot of behaviour illustrated*, not condoned. But read the bible if you want to read about some pretty poor behaviour.
It's not necessary to be so graphic* in your descriptions, if I need an image my brain is capable of providing one...
John
* Puns deliberatly left in place (A good pun is it's own reword)
Posted in Airport rethinks strip-scanner for kids
elreg
Oh ffs - can I object to being made a porn star then?
Posted in iPhone saves woman from bear
Or did it just get frustrated by the interface?
Title says it all.
PS - penguins are more ferocious than bears
@Richard81
I imagine the sky might get quite interesting, assuming of course that we haven't drowned it out with streetlights...
Although "high speed" wrt galactic collisions is still a pretty slow collision in our timescales.
The paper on the ESA website indicates (after a very brief skim) that many of the "new, young" stars are between 1 and 100 million years old...
For reference our galaxy is ~100,000 light years across, so a pair of milky way's colliding at .9c would still take 60 thousand years to have a "midpoint" collision...
Posted in Subaru set to show stylish hybrid
Bet that door
is heavy to shut - As my wife can't manage the boot very easily, that door'll be difficult from inside - unless of course it's motorised.
Then yuo'll get 30mile range (unless you shut the doors, which takes 10 miles of battery power)
Netbooks are brilliant
But they aren't primary machines - I use them in server rooms, around the home and on the train.
My issue isn't the screen though, it's the keyboard, just fractionally too small. The psion5 was SO compact that the keyboard was a good compromise, the netbook needs a bag, so I kind of expect to be able to type.
Maybe a fold out extension of some sort?
or should I just grab one of these? http://www.gadgets.co.uk/item/USBRK/USB-Flexible-Portable-Rubber-Keyboard.html
Posted in Colt quietly offshores network ops
Long time? Two weeks was it?
Ever since the last outage
Doomed to
Fail....
Without any understanding of the issues they will legislate that we need to use friendly electrons...
And they monitor volume by what mechanism?
After all I can switch the headphones for a pair of active PA speakers at 500W each..
100db (or dbA even) is useless without mentioning some distance...
Again?
Have they at least managed to increment the firmware version this time?
We faced a similar WD bug with their RAID edition drives, which would drop out of a RAID array when they decided to run a self test.
WD eventually fixed it, but failed to increment the version number of the firmware. Took a long time to try and convince them that:
1) DOS only firmware updates were bad (especially in globally distributed data centres)
2) Firmware version numbers had to be incremented, else we can't tell which drives we've updated...
Posted in Nation's parents prepare to be vetted
CRB checks
Are useful for organisations - it's good for the boss of a nursery to have some check on the staff they employ.
Are pointless for individuals - I'd be happy leaving my daughter with any number of friends from church, I don't see any benefit in a CRB check.
Re: Oh, come on
"This little scam's been going as long as there have been paper banknotes."
But in Oz they are plastic ;)
Don't fall apart when you suf with notes in your pockets you see ;)
Posted in Home Office stonewalls ID findings
Possibly...
"We've asked the anonymous spinner when the end of the process is likely to be, and whether the people concerned will still be young. They've not got back to us yet. We'll get back to you when they do..."
You'll have retired, it'll be your successors who have to get back to us in our graves...
Posted in USB 3.0 slouches towards Bethlehem
Speed...
"Not too shabby - although no one in the right mind would ever connect to such a speedy hard drive using USB 2.0."
I would - not as a permanent fixture, but recovery from a dead machine is generally a USB function if you have the required cables...
Posted in Citroën redesigns the 2CV
No plans...
No plans for productions.
So why say anything.
Here's a car we though of over toast this morning...
Just build something, then tell us about it
Posted in T-Mobile's G2 denied the update Touch
Oh great ****ing install process.
"Slightly irritatingly for some, you need a Windows PC to install the ROM - Linux and Macs are a no-go"
Slightly irritating?
It means I cannot install it.
That's more than slightly annoying for a device I chose because with WiFi and Mass Storage support it should never require a Windows OS to do anything.
Posted in Cyclists give TV chef a Wikikicking
Dangerous driving
Looks like a clear confession of dangerous driving to me...
Get him arrested and banned
Wow
That's a nice machine...
Posted in No more premium rate numbers for docs
@Steve Loughran - NHS Car parks are optional
"You are free to not drive to a NHS hospital, you can therefore opt out of paying. If the hospitals did offer free parking, all that would happen is the car parks would be full all the time. Patients receiving long-term out-patient care that requires daily visits (dialysis, cancer treatments) can usually get rebates on all parking charges."
Yes - and while my daughter was in special care I cycled to the hospital every day. My wife however had just had major abdominal surgery (an emergency cesarean).
The 4 (I think) bus journey would have been slow, and been very uncomfortable (especially waiting for each bus) in the circumstances.
Yes we can get a rebate on the parking (at our "local" hospital ~12 miles from home):
- Anything over £150 in 6 months
- If you keep ALL car park receipts (which isn't displayed anywhere)
- With a letter from the appropriate ward matron (or equivalent)
Objections:
- By cycling I managed to keep our bill to ~£160 - still ALOT* in ~4 weeks
- I'm paranoid about receipts, but most people aren't. Why not simply have swipe machines or tokens dispensed in the wards?
- Ward seniors have better things to do than write letters confirming each of the 4 wards we'd passed through in the 4 weeks in hospital (assuming the stages of special care are all considered one, else 6 wards)
- Had we not visited each day, it would have been noted...
- Anyone requiring long term (i.e. inpatient) hospital care needs visitors for their recovery. Granting a free parking ticket to each patient, valid for the duration of their stay, is hardly rocket science.
* Without the cycling it could easily have been double or triple that...
--
Surgery phone systems are generally shocking, but there is no competition available, you get a doctor where you can...
Down - -
flicking between 50 and 100% packet loss much of the morning, our house seems to be back now though...
