Posts by Cliff
542 posts • joined Saturday 14th April 2007 14:29 GMT
Re: Chip n Pin
>>Or allow us to order a card without a stripe
Would a bit of time with a neodymium magnet be the answer to your prayers?
Subliminals - brilliant
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/05/17/eurovision_2013_bonnie_tyler_will_definitely_win/
This could work, scope is sane
It isn't your usual world domination sprawling IT metasystem, it is a really easily defined scope, easily implemented and tested. This is exactly the kind of scope that can be delivered effectively and solve an actual specific problem. If whoever manages it rejects all scope-creep and rides the schedule and budget, this is a sensible project.
Re: For that money . . .
Or an enormous pile of several thousand calculators. Will my calculators, your tablets and the surface pro all do the same thing? Calculate sums, yes. Run Avid, no. Now we've established they have different capabilities, reasons and markets, your tablets costing is as relevant as my calculators.
The augmented reality display could be fun and even useful
But the privacy side is alarming when you deal on it.
Watching a pirate movie? The glasses know when and where you did that.
Watching a jazz movie? They were watching it too, and gave next years Prenda-like lawyers a call.
Discussing your love life? The glasses know you might need cock pills.
Want to find Lord Lucan? Crowdsource the hunt.
It all starts getting creepier the more I think about it
Re: DURIANS
The devils own fruit. They're banned from the Singapore MRT for a reason, you know ;)
Re: boris
That's the thing with Boris, he *comes across* as oafish, but is actually a smart cookie. Very disarming, people don't realise quite how his front distracts you from what he's actually doing.
Infrastructure and dick-swinging
Politicians generally think in 5-year windows, so considering the deep future is a bit alien for them
Big infrastructure projects like this have a few benefits *if done properly*
1) They create a shitload of jobs (right when we need them)
2) They show our trading partners that we're thinking of the future and aren't tied to 1900's legacy
3) They mean we can then sell expertise to Asia and the Middle East
4) They provide a bit of immortality for the governments of the day
If you can get beyond the immediate short-term objections and see the long-long-term benefits, the picture can sometimes change somewhat
They tweak the PM's search results
'conservatives popular voters 2013' just produces a single result link.
Plus, of course, google know what he searches for in those long, large evenings in the house...
Re: Better idea for currency
I wish that was more funny and less true.
It's a shame all smells can't be synthesised from a few elementals, but as molecule 'handedness' affects whether you smell mint or lemon, the software control on this will be limited to on/off, or selecting one of several premixes.
And as I recall from scratch'n'sniff, there are only half a dozen or so reliable and stable long-term scent compounds meaning all the games would need to involve cut grass, synthetic roses, chocolate, etc
Geeks act like kids...
... In other news...
OK that's unfair, but it doesn't do the Sci-fi community any favours when fringe radicals start holy wars.
Desire for a brand new combine harvester
Must admit, I hadn't considered the aspirational interpretation before, I always considered it a yearning love song.
There is more to this story?
So far it sounds like Clouseau's spy kit, and whilst I'm prepared to believe there's a lot of value in old-school tradecraft, this just seems silly.
Did the 'merkins recently exposed/expel any Russian spies? This looks more like public tit-for-tat posturing than anything remotely real. It may as well have a codebook with 'TOP SECRET - CIA ONLY' on the cover, and maybe a newspaper with eyeholes cut in it.
@orv / Linden dollars
>>Time to switch to another imaginary currency. I suggest Linden Dollars.
How about using Magic The Gathering game assets? We could even name the Online Exchange we use after it...
Posted in Live Blog: Google I/O keynote
Re: WOW, 900million.
>>one billion used to be a million million. but some point in the recent past it changed to be a
>>thousand million. no idea why.
Brought us into line with the seppo's. In fairness it has a certain logic to it.
Hopefully the judge will see sense...
...and tell them to fuck off and only come back when they can behave like grown ups.
Posted in On the hunt for a new ampere
Re: So does this mean my two multimeters that can measure down to 0.00000001A are wrong?
Yes, in the same way that the distances on road signs are wrong.
Re: The problems it causes.
'Free' as in liberty, not 'free' as in money - although in a Venn diagram there will often be a lot of overlap, they don't mean the same.
If there was one sector I'd have thought could pay its way
It's oil.
Tactics like this don't change the system, just encourage it. IT types are generally intelligent and analytical, and believe in making systems efficient - soft bribery of power-hungry politicians really isn't the techie way, I suspect this will upset more as the headlines spread.
I did it by accident
Turning the power off on my phone apparently prompts me before actually powering down, in the kerfuffle of boarding I thought I'd turned it off. Felt a bit of a Muppet when I got to arrivals and found the phone still asking me if I was sure I wanted to power down, but luckily didn't seem to kill 400 people, which is a plus.
Oh.
I'm actually a bit underwhelmed by this news. I guess I'm just not feeling what another part-finished mobile operating system is bringing to the table to tempt me away from the similarly priced Android ecosystem.
Eadon will express my share of whelm though I expect, which is nice.
Not that bad
Well, seems OK on my Note2 TBH, and slick interface.
Not that I want to watch most of their output, but having easy, free access to Minder, The Professionals, etc is worth installing it for!
How do they manage to make a loss?
They keep 50% of every voucher value - all the losses are borne by the poor sap businesses they pretend will gain new, loyal customers. It's a parasitic model, it is tough to see how they manage to lose more money than they make.
Re: Photoshoppers....
The GIMP works differently from Photoshop, but can achieve many of the same results. Not ALL the same results with the same level of efficiency of course, but many nontheless. Pretty much all the daily bread-and-butter work doesn't need those bells and whistles and advanced tools though.
There is an element of intertia/not wanting to retrain, there is an element of snobbery, there is an element of wanting a supported product. I do agree though, SOME Photoshop users could certainly jump ship to The GIMP and with day or so of learning the differences could carry on working.
The true costing model
The prices are deliberately opaque so they can charge what they like.
The real model is to work out how much the customer can stand before they walk away to a competitor, and charge $5 under that. The rest is smoke, mirrors, and post-rationalisation
Booze Ban
Is actually likely to be for mostly mundane reasons - AEG wanting you to use their bars instead of BYO, event licensing complications, etc as opposed to just misery-bringing
Re: Any good currency...
Exactly. Fiat currencies may not be backed by gold (which is in itself fiat - go figure as our Sherman friends might say), but are backed by faith in governments, which in turn are backed by armies. Turn up and start stealing that which underpins Sterling (the land and its governance), and loads of blokes in green or blue will politely remind you that it's a poor plan. Without them, the country is unstable, so faith in the currency low.
Do I have any faith in bc to physically defend its governance (such as it may be) if push came to shove? Not in any meaningful way, no. If a crypto flaw showed bc tokens were being duplicated through a cunning hack, it would be dropped in a heartbeat as no real sanctions could apply.
Re: Hack what, exactly
You won't be so complacent when it's your toilets turned to 'reverse!
Re: De Ja Vu?
I spoke with a driver using Hailo, it added upto £200/week to his pocket he reckoned. Seems a decent deal all round.
Re: Why would anyone use an app for that?
Having used Hailo in London, being able to hail a cab to a backstreet location, 5minutes free waiting time, having the drivers name and phone number, billed directly to my credit card with a receipt emailed to me moments later, I assure you the efficiency is there!
Re: I just don't get it
I was wondering this too - perhaps they should get a better hosting deal? Or maybe it is exec fees based on their glory days...
Where will I get my 'Mikey Mouse' knock-offs now?
Or my 'Winner of the Pool' knock-off beach balls?
Low hanging fruit
As long as most people still use abc123 or password1, you don't need staggeringly complex pass phrases. If you are in a field with a hungry carnivore you don't need to run fastest, just faster than somebody else. With enough low hanging fruit, you don't need to worry so much about the top branches. You get the metaphors.
Re: No mention if 2-step verification?
You fall back on the 10, printed, once-time emergency codes you put with your stash of other physical treasures. It's a good system, it works.
Posted in Galaxy S4 radiant, but has black holes
Re: Galaxy SII was superb! But I covet a pure Linux phone Stack!
That's nice dear.
Fashions change
Apple have a high fashion quotient, it carried them for a while, but they do seem to have lost their way when they can't retain customers like they used to. I suspect an analysis of Samsung customers moving to Apple vs the opposite would show some innovation was long overdue.
I believe they are a very decent mid-market device company charging high premium prices shored up by great marketing.
A buy back is a great idea, it will defend the share price and get rid of a bunch of cash. It will also dissuade shareholders from forcing a dividend distribution. Smart move.
Re: So. As an Aussie senator
Yeah, that'll work for sure. Perfect plan, what could possibly go wrong?
Re: Moral of the story...
Is locking down wifi really the issue? It's not like the car was wardialing AP's to try to use your piddly domestic bandwidth because Google can't afford their own.
Re: But surely
I'd imagine the spot right at the top to have far lower radiation than the sides - antenna design is spooky
On the one hand, brilliant...
On the other hand, awesome!
Not something that I would ever want to do and certainly there are other ways to spend my time, but that's my problem, hats off for a good old fashioned hack!
Re: this is why I use a *proper* email program...
How does the email get to your email client?
Just askin'
Is this a marketing pitch?
Or, to put it another way -
Is there any part of this that isn't just a marketing pitch?
In fairness, I could be interested in Office365, but having bought various bits of MSO for real money for my business, then it would seem moving to 365 would mean effectively throwing away my existing perpetually licensed products, even though the last bit is only a few months old?
As for macros, AC above me, SOME of the licensing options don't include installables, others do. If you need them, go for that license instead?
£1€1/min
How's that possible with an 020 number?
$3000
What an insulting amount! What would it have cost for a security consultancy to have found that? Three grand US wouldn't pay for the first days consulting where the coffee and biscuits would be hit hard in the meeting room.
I know the result isn't a labour for money, but a bit of proportionality would seem appropriate.
In which axis?
Something in my gut says flexible won't scale easily - the dynamic system may well stabilise itself in the plane of rotation, I can't help but think uneven perimeter mass distribution could go critical then catastrophic pretty quickly. Maybe it is having heard my washing machine spin cycle with a pair of jeans, but I suppose I'm thinking being flexible means it's more likely to be off-axis slightly, and bad things happen.
Happy to be proved wrong, of course, but I fear scaling will just amplify the problem exponentially!
Played for laughs but some nuggets in there
A bit like the BOFH, dig down and you hit some veins of universal truth!
Re: Gee Thanks Google
Imagine if you downloaded every video on youtube that there has ever been, at every resolution, then you would play that for free to however many people wanted it, at the best quality they could handle. And you did that globally, in every language, 24/7. Big ask of your datacentre. Google already do this of course, and it isn't even their core business. This is the kind of scale where you would want this.
Does it have to be blood?
Or would a modified game of public school favourite 'soggy biscuit' also be viable? Just thinking how you get a blood sample as casually as some other more freely given ones
If the Daily Mail cover this story...
...this guy will be strung from a lamppost. The messenger is always easier to kill than the message to digest.
