Posts by David D. Hagood
1107 posts • joined Wednesday 21st May 2008 17:09 GMT
Posted in Cray taps Microsoft parallel guru as CTO
Time to short Cray
Given the stellar(*) results Nokia has had with an ex-Microsoft person in a C-Level position, I'd say it's time to short Cray stock.
(*) black holes are stellar, as are supernova.
Re: Boot from USB?
"[...]a revolutionary system of booting off an IIS server."
Fix that for you.
They'd never let you use a vanilla HTTP server.
Posted in Sony 3D PlayStation TV to hit UK at last
How long until it breaks itself?
Any bets on how long this is out before Sony rams a "Upgrade to this version or else - and you know that feature you liked? Sucks for you, it's gone" down everybody's throat?
Or how long until it turns out this is reporting your every move to Sony?
I say 18 months.
Sorry Sony - never again.
If you see a set of planets
If you happen to see a set of 5 worlds orbiting a 6th in a Klemperer Rosette, it can be worth a lot of cash.
The one with the fat check from General Products in the pocket - I'm a bit forgetful recently for some reason....
There's a bunch in PA
Blue Ball, PA:
http://g.co/maps/tkttb
Intercourse, PA
http://g.co/maps/r63f9
Virginville, PA
http://g.co/maps/sff93
Then there's Toad Suck, Arkansas:
http://g.co/maps/5s79e
Re: So what's new?
It's
System Essentially Contrary to American Method.
(you do need the "E" there)
And I've heard it as:
Peace At Last.
Re: Natural business growth from email spam, eh?
"If every spam email generated a spam report to the iSP, they'd fix it quickly."
Yes, I'm sure the ISPs will put their invisible magic ponies right on that.
Spamcop does generate reports to the ISPs - that is, the ISPs that have working abuse emails and that haven't told Spamcop to bugger off because the ISP refuses to handle the reports.
Many of the ISPs then proceed to move those emails to a very special storage file called /dev/null.
No reporting system, no complaint system, no spam solution will work without some serious legal teeth behind it. If nations would adopt laws that say "IF you are located in our nation, you WILL deal with 100% of spam complaints, within 48 hours, or you will be shut down. If you are the peering partner for a spam source outside our jurisdiction, you will handle the spam complaints for that source that originate in our nation, and your WILL de-peer them within 48 hours, or you WILL be held liable as an accomplice after the fact."
And that will happen right after campaign finance reform, banking reform, election reform to allow for viable third parties, and the widespread deployment of fusion reactors.
Devil's advocate....
"Why does the current release of Google Maps need to be able to make phone calls - what do I gain from this ?"
Translating the use case scenario to English:
You: Maps, locate nearest seller of $THINGS
Maps: Here are the 3 nearest sellers of $THINGS.
You: That one - tell me about it.
Maps: Here they are. Here's the reviews. Says call for hours. Here's their phone number. You want to call it?
You: Yes.
Maps: (dials number).
So there is a valid reason Maps might need to dial a number for you.
Of course, that leaves about 9 million apps that want to access to everything for no good reason.
You will each receive an identity disc.
"You will each receive an identity disc. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disc. If you lose your disc, or fail to follow commands, you will be subject to immediate deresolution. That will be all. "
Do you really WANT your phone to be your credit card/state issued ID/subway fare card/shopping loyalty card/workplace ID card/.... ?
What, nobody making the obvious comment?
Nobody taking the obvious comment? then I shall:
Do you trust ANY government's web sites? Valid cert or no....
Exhilarating and terrifying
This must be both exhilarating and terrifying for them. Exhilarating in that their vision is taking off, and they will be able to do things they had only dreamt of before this, terrifying in that the expectations are so terribly high now, and not reaching those expectations will be heralded as "failure".
Re: Too little, too late.
First of all: the people contributing this are NOT "investors", any more than you are an investor in BP when you fill your car's tank. These are people who's only expectation for their money is the product. They may wish to support this product into the market, but unlike an investor, they aren't expecting to make any profit on their contribution.
Secondly: Who cares if the kiddeez don't wear watches? They also don't wear hearing aids, adult diapers (or children's diapers, for that matter), eat dog food, buy 747s, or many other things for which a market exists - so yes, you are sounding age-ist and your downvotes should confirm that to you. Just because your little clique doesn't want something doesn't mean the world follows in your footsteps.
What Motorola and Sony missed
The thing that Motorola and Sony missed, and that Pebble get, is that I don't WANT a cellphone on my wrist - nor do I want an Android tablet. I want a watch. The goal is to have a light weight device (so that I can wear it all the time), low power (so I don't have to always be charging it), simple to use (e.g. I don't have to do the hokey-pokey to see the time) device, that serves as an adjunct to my other devices.
I don't want to use it as the audio interface for my phone (really: imagine using your watch as a phone. It's inconvenient to hold it to your ear to hear it, and if you hold it to your mouth to talk, you cannot hear it, unless it is so loud as to be a speakerphone - and then you lose all privacy.) But using it to display a subset of the information on my phone (who is this? Red Cross? Fsking vampires - I told them I was on antibiotics, they can't take a pint) and to do a simple answer/bug off, and then let my headset (or my car's hands-free) do the audio - that works!
I used to have a Timex Datalink USB (till the crown broke off the stem) - I loved having world time, multiple count down timers, a copy of my appointments that is always with me, etc. This looks like it just might fill the void.
Posted in Soup up your home network
Jumbo frames
If you are running GigE, remember to turn on jumbo frames. Going from an MTU of 1500 to an MTU of 9100 really cuts a lot of overhead on the processing of packets.
Re: Dinosaurs all the way down.
"Because no-one has yet worked out any mechanism or reason why one handedness should be preferred over another...."
Because the first complex organism used right handed RNA (DNA not yet being developed), and patented using right handed nucleic acids in life processes, so everybody else used left handed to avoid the patent.
On the brink?
On the brink of failure? So, their position has improved that much, huh?
If Nokia can pull out of this dive, then Dr. Hawking is going to have to re-write a great deal of our current understanding of black holes and the event horizons thereof.
Posted in Ten... Kitchen Gadget Treats
Re: Coffee is a serious matter
Actually, if you want the most gentle way of making coffee:
1) Grind your own beans fresh.
2) Place ground beans in container of cold water.
3) Place container in fridge.
4) Let steep for at least 24 hours.
5) Decant coffee liqueur through strainer and filter.
6) Save liqueur.
7) When you want coffee, add hot water to liqueur.
Re: The ST was 32 bits
"the 68000 was a mostly 16-bit implementation of a 32-bit ISA,"
Sorry. Dead wrong. The 68K family ALL had 32 bit data registers (D0-D7) and 32 bit address registers (A0-A7).
The only real difference was the 020 and up added an MMU to allow for virtual memory, whereas the 68000 didn't have the MMU.
Re: Those who do not learn from the past...
And with Microsoft buying a bunch of patents from AOL, you have to wonder if they noticed the similarity as well....
Posted in Renault Twizy budget e-car
There's a comment you'll not often see around here...
"I wanted one, right upon til the moment I realised it doesnt have windows."
There's a comment you'll not often see around here.
Posted in Toshiba prices up 13in monster tablet
Gi-Pad
What we need is the Gi-Pad!
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22blue%20man%20group%22%20%22gi-pad%22&hl=en
It's time to start.
Rock concert movement #1: the one-armed fist pump
Ready Go
Those who do not learn from the past...
http://verydemotivational.memebase.com/2012/04/10/demotivational-posters-history-2/
"Licensing Violation Detected!"
"
Licensing Violation Detected!
We have detected more than one person in the field of view of the sensor. Allowing more than one person at a time to use your laptop is a licensing violation of your Sony software.
Your access to the laptop will now end.
[sucks for you] [deal with it]
"
Posted in TED
Re: What does this app do for me the related web site does not?
"Also, does your podcatcher include all the further listening recommendations? Well does it?"
1) No need to be so aggressive - the second question was redundant.
2) The podcatcher will if the RSS feed does - which goes back to the web designers doing their job. Plenty of other feeds do precisely that.
And to the other poster with respect to gpodder and Python: that's why I run GPodder on my computer, and let it sync to my phone. This also saves on mobile data usage.
Posted in Renault Twizy budget e-car
Glorified Golf Cart
So, this is a glorified golf cart then? Seriously: when I visit family in Phoenix, you see this sort of use-case all over, filled by golf carts.
This may be a bit faster than a golf cart, but not much.
And sadly, the price isn't that far out of line with a new golf cart, either.
Re: The ST was 32 bits
If you are going to call the 68000 a 16 bit CPU because the external bus was 16 bits, then the 386SX is also a 16 bit CPU, as the external bus is 16 bits. But the 386 would be a 32 bit CPU. Since the instruction set is the same, the core is the same, and only the bus changes, that is a nonsensical result.
Moreover, as the CPUs move to high speed serial interfaces (Hypertransport, PCIe) you move to an external bus that is 1-4 lanes wide - will you call those 1 bit CPUs?
Posted in TED
And again, why?
Once more I see an app and I ask "What does this app do for me the related web site does not?"
For TED, I will append "or that the associated Web site + a bog standard podcatcher doesn't?" - I have GPodder set up to pull down the TED talks videos, so I don't have to be online to watch them - and my podcatcher works with other sources as well.
As (one of the various interchangeable cooking show people I cannot be bother to remember with specificity) says, "I hate single-taskers in my kitchen! If it cannot do more than one thing who needs it?" Why do I need to clutter my phone with a large number of single-purpose apps when a couple of general purpose apps will do as well or even better?
Of course we must have Scotch Whiskey in space....
Of course we must have Scotch Whiskey in space - it is a critical component of warp drives!
The ST was 32 bits
The 68000 was a 32 bit processor, so both the Amiga and the ST were 32 bit computers - long before the PC was 32 bits.
Posted in WTF is... UltraViolet
What is c, e, and pi in your world?
"Secondly, if a studio decides to offer, say, 4K by 2K copies, it can do so easily. If it likes, it could provide existing customers with access to those higher resolution files simply by updating their licences."
And they will use RFC-1337, "IP over invisible unicorn ponies" to deliver it.
No, wait, they will NOT offer you this upgrade - you will have to buy a new disk, a new player, and a new level of service in Ultraviolet to get an upgrade like this.
And since Sony is involved, it will eventually be discovered that the service has installed a rootkit on your Windows computer (because That Which Is Not Windows shall not have Ultraviolet) and has disabled your Blu-ray writer and permanently enabled your webcam ("the better to monitor you, my sweetie"). Also, one day you will be given the choice to either "upgrade" your software, which will no longer work on Thursdays (because pirates copy things on Thursdays), or lose any ability to use the service.
That's why I disregard Ultraviolet, or the "digital" copies that are nothing but a waste of media. If I care to spend my money on a movie, I get a Blu-ray/DVD pack (and if there are other formats in the pack, so be it). I use the Blu-ray on my HD TV, and the DVD gets introduced to Mr. Handbrake.
I don't the case for ink jets
I just don't the case for ink jets. If you print lots of stuff, you'll go broke on ink. If you don't print lots of stuff, you go broke on ink because the cartridges dried up. If you occasionally need to print a photo, go to [Kinkos|Walgreens|WalMart|OfficeMax|Office Depot...]. If you print lots of photos, get a dye-sub rather than an inkjet. If you rarely need color, get a black and white laser printer and have one of the stores mentioned above print the color stuff. If you frequently need color, but not photographic quality, get a color laser.
And really, unless you are space constrained, having a separate scanner and printer gives you more flexibility and will likely be cheaper than buying an all-in-one.
Re: Is this why lots of asteroids are made of Iron?
Iron is the "bottom of the hill" from a fusion standpoint. For any element lighter than iron, you get energy by fusing stuff to make it.
Iron and beyond take energy to make via fusion. So as a star runs out of hydrogen, it starts fusing helium and making carbon (NOTE: this is a gross oversimplification). Then the star runs out of helium, and starts fusing carbon. Eventually, a big start has a bunch of iron. It tries to fuse that, but that doesn't make energy, and the star runs out of ooomph to keep itself from imploding. Thus - lots of iron sprayed about.
For a REALLY big star, as it implodes, it starts making antimatter (pair production catastrophe), and then it REALLY goes BOOM. Otherwise, it either makes a dwarf star, a neutron star, or a black hole, with either a fizzle, a bang, or a BANG, respectively.
Re: Blunder
It WAS a blunder, and after one of the most triumphant examples of how science is supposed to be done.
Maxwell showed the speed of light in a vacuum was fixed by 2 fundamental properties of the universe.
Michelson and Morley showed there was no absolute reference frame for the speed of light.
Based upon the evidence and the math, Einstein derived special relativity, made falsifiable predictions from his theory, and those predictions were borne out by experiment.
That's how you do science.
Then, absent any evidence, Einstein asserted an eternal and unchanging (at the macro scale) universe, and since the math conflicted with that unfounded belief, inserted a fudge factor to make the math support his unfounded assertion.
That is how you DON'T do science!
And that is why, in later years, Einstein asserted it was a blunder - because it was not supported by any evidence. Indeed, when Hubble determined the red shift constant, it disproved the assertion of a static universe.
Later, when more evidence of an accelerating, expanding universe was found, scientists began to re-examine the alteration of the equations, *because there was now evidence to back them up*.
And again, that's how you do science.
Posted in Google ads 'misleading and deceptive'
Yes
If you hired a cab driver and instructed him to break the law by running over people, and he complied, the damn straight he's guilty, just as you would be.
However, the differences are:
1) Is it truly deceptive for competitors to run ads over a search for a given subject? I like having alternatives brought to my attention, and I realize they are not associated with the main company.
2) If deceptive, is it unlawfully so?
3) If it is unlawfully so, is Google aware of it being unlawfully so?
Re: 1Gbps?
US$200/mo for 1.5M? You are either
a) paying for a business service level agreement, with five nines of reliability
b) a total fool
c) counting non-Internet (e.g. cable TV, premium movie channels) into that cost.
d) bullshitting.
I live out in the country, and I pay US$30 for 4.5Mbit DSL, truly unlimited (I've been torrenting over 10G a month for some time).
Re: Who else
"I find your lack of faith in copyright *disturbing*."
Two points:
Point #1: I think there's some redundancy in the headline: it could just as easily be
Coder's "lives sucked out" by Visual Studio.
Point #2: Why not use Eclipse?
Squirt guns are easier to automate....
Why a squirt gun?
Squirt guns are easier to automate than a poo-thrower.
Alternatively, given bonobos propensity for copulation.... Maybe the squirt gun should be full of tapioca?
They over-saturated the market....
First - there's a reason that people like me always refer to them as "Worst-Buy" : Much of what they have in terms of things like computer parts is crap, is over priced, and out of stock. Add to this "Oh, you need this special cable - genuine extra-virgin Yak Wool insulation, oxygen-free copper with iridium plating, a mere snip at $500. And you need the extra 5 year "we say we will replace this but we won't" plan. And these special surge protectors - they'll make the music sound better!" and people like me avoid them just on cost.
Then you have the idea that the shopping experience is unpleasant - here I am, trying to buy music, trying to remember what other songs I might want to pick up, and then little Billy RicerKid comes in, tunes all the stereos (both car and home) to the same crap, turns the bass to +12 and the volume up, and leaves, and the store personnel do ziltch about it. And of course, if the music I want isn't <stage_direction>puts finger in cheek, withdraws with a </stage_direction>POP-ular music they won't have it, and is it any wonder I get my music online now - even if I am buying CDs rather than downloads (because some of us like having backups, and having something without compression artifacts).
But the last thing is that WorseBuy has over-saturated the market. I live in a city of 300k people. There are 3 BestBuy full stores, plus a mobile audio store in one of the malls. All within 15 miles of each other. Does that make sense?
Re: Paging Felix Edmundovich
I initially read that as
"The rationale of trolltalitarians throughout history."
That should be a new word, IMHO.
Science is skeptical...
Science is all about being skeptical. The two most scientific words in the English language are "Prove it".
Even if I am a slavering, "Einstein was in on the cover-up! Relativity is a lie the Global Conspiracy uses to hide The Truth That The Aliens Are Here And Are Running Things!", if I re-run the Michelson-Morley experiments, with modern equipment, and can show a result that is NOT consistent with General Relativity, and publish my results, with enough information that my experiments can be independently reproduced, then it doesn't matter that I am a complete nutter, it is the duty of any phycisist to at least attempt to check my work, and if it pans out, to acknowledge that "He may be nuts, but his results check out!". NOT to say "He is one of those Relativity Deniers, we need to re-educate him and all his followers."
One of the things that worries me is that many of the people crying the loudest about climate change are insisting upon severe changes in how we live - changes that will have enormous negative effects. And rather than acknowledging the severity of those effects - going into detail how they will indeed impact us, realistically and frankly, and then showing the science of why those severe results are still better than the results of ignoring the issue - those people tend to just gloss over the negatives with "but CLIMATE CHANGE - your arguments are invalid!".
And I ask this: IF the results of not changing our ways are so severe that we all must be asked to suffer, THEN how come the people who are the most strident about this are not INSISTING that we do a Big Project, a la the Apollo Project, to design a state of the art, type accepted, mass produce-able nuclear power plant, and start building them and replacing every combustion power plant on the planet? We know how to do this, we know it can provide base load that wind and solar cannot, we know it will at least buy us several decades to work on the other solutions, and it will reduce the pain and suffering needed to achieve the goal of reversing any anthropogenic element of climate change. Logically, it is the highest probability of success action we can take at this time. Yet, it is curiously absent from the discussion - so is the real goal other than reducing anthropogenic climate change?
.world? EarthFemaleDog, please!
.world? Which one?
.mercury
.venus
.earth
.mars
.jupiter
.saturn
.neptune
ICANN has missed a big gravy-boat here - after all, you simply CANNOT allow somebody to create $YOURBRANDNAME.jupiter, now can you?
Sign up now, and we will throw in a 50% discount on all Kuiper belt objects, all asteroid belt objects, all Oort cloud objects, and all Trans-Neptunian objects (each sold separately).
Posted in New Google tool lets you PROBE YOURSELF
What if I want a one-off?
I am immediately made uncomfortable with the "opt in for this" - does that just mean I am opting-in for the mails, or does that mean opting-in for them to begin accumulating a bunch of information they aren't already accumulating?
If the opt-in is just for the email, how about giving me the ability to get a one-off report? Just let me go to a web page, sign in (so they know I'm me) and give me the report on me.
If that won't work, then it sounds to me like the reason is "we need permission to track a bunch more about you to generate the report".
Re: Remains the property of NASA....
I'm not sure this is correct - Liberty Bell (Liberty 7) is owned by the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space center, and is, in fact, the only flown, manned US space capsule NOT owned by the Smithsonian, precisely because KCSC and Discovery Channel salvaged it from the ocean.
Re: Fascinating. The thought strikes me that some people are probably............
"crapping themselves in the face of this kind of evidence. I.e. Religious fundamentalists"
Quite the contrary. I suspect that within days of scientists announcing they've spotted life on other worlds, the various televangilists will be in full voice:
"Friends! Do you want to spread The Word Of Our Lord Jaaaaysuuuus to those poor unfortunate souls out there? Of course you DO! We need a bazillion dollars to build our Ark Of The Word, the spaceship Of The Lord Our God! Send your donations to 'Mission(ary) to the Stars!'"
(I'm not afraid of alien overlords - if they are hostile we are screwed. I am far more frightened of an alien ship opening, and them saying "Have YOU accepted GLORB as your personal saaaaviooooor?")
Now say "Peter Piper Picked a Peck..."
Apple: Here's our design....
Nokia: No. Our way or nothing.
Me: Damn, Mr. Ballmer, you're getting good at not moving your lips! Now have Nokia say "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers".
As the Brunching Shuttlecocks said
When I was in school, I could carry a knife and aspirin, and my life outside school was my own.
My feelings on these over-zealous school folk can best be summed up with a line from Brunching Shuttlecocks:
"... Or, as almost every word in a sentence:
FUCK THE FUCKING FUCKERS!
"
Limp - OBJECTION!
The FTC, limp? OBJECTION - you have to have one for it to be limp.
The FTC is like an old tabby cat: toothless, clawless, neutered, and basically wants to do nothing but lay in a sunny spot all day.
Posted in Microsoft takes down ZeuS botnets
it was indented
It was more readable when indented, but the Reg undid that....
Re: No "Choices", No "Options", No Tracking or Datamining ever.
"...it MUST work just like the Do Not Call Registry for telephones."
You mean, "not at all?" - Do Not Call is weaker than a toothless tiger - a toothless tiger can still rake you with his claws. I receive (and report) numerous violations on a weekly basis, all on my cell phone, which was registered on the DNC list within an hour of my getting the number - and yet I constantly get:
* abandoned predictive dialer calls
* calls that "conveniently" have the required "name of company who called" given while the voice mail announcement is being given (so I never hear it)
* calls that invite my voice mail to "press 1 to stop these calls"
* calls that would require me to spend my money to call them back.
You may want a Do Not Track that works like Do Not Call.
I want a Do Not Track that works, period.
