Almost hits the trifecta

This *almost* hits the trifecta - they just need to make it either a plug-in hybrid or a full-on electric vehicle, and the hisptergasm will be planet-wide.

As South Park put it - this will be the ultimate source of smug.

Network enabled: SNMP?

It's network enabled: that's good.

It requires specialized software to get it on the network: that's not good. My WiFi thermostat does this the right way IMHO: If it cannot find your network (it's down, or the unit's not set up) it creates its own network that you connect to and configure it.

It takes specialized software to use: that's not good. How about giving me a nice set of SNMP traps?, and/or a nice RESTful interface I can hook into?

Why business hate architects: architects block bullshit

I think the reason many businesses don't properly use architects is that architects have a nasty habit of blocking bullshit (or at least calling enough attention to it).

Some upper level PHB will say something like:

"I read in an execuporn magazine[1] that we should gather as much information as we can on people visiting our site as we can: name, DOB, address, sex, etc. My golf buddies and I talked about it at the 19th hole and I think we can make lots of money. Make It So - CHOP CHOP!"

The architect, upon doing any analysis, will come back:

"OK, here's the requirements you laid out. Notice that since our web site targets children, most of what you want to do is illegal. Also, you never specified how we would actually use that data to make money."

BOOM! There goes PHB's lovely bullshit fantasy of making lots of money off some ill-conceived plan.

Or:

PHB: "Here's this wonderful new product I want to have shipping in 6 months. Make It So - CHOP CHOP!"

Architect: "Here's the analysis. Here's all the risk factors. Here's the research cost to mitigate them. Here's the staffing needed to do that. Here's the time. Assuming we CAN mitigate all the risks, here is the staffing to produce that product, and here's the needed staffing. Note that it exceeds our current staffing by a factor of 5."

BOOM! Again, PHB is inconvenienced by facts.

So when it comes time to "right-size", who do you think the PHB will be looking to axe first?

What I don't understand...

Is that many of the same people who do not trust their government with the ability to tap all their communications (fearing they will use that to oppress the people) trust their government to be the only ones with weapons.

Jump start a car

OK, let's do the math.

Typical starting current for a car - somewhere between 100 and 500 amps. Let's assume 100A to make it easy.

Nominal voltage: 12V

Power to start a car: 1200W

Volume of this battery needed: 16 cm^3

So for once, the claim of a battery a few millimeters in size is almost believable (granted, it would be a few millimeters in thickness, and centimeters in width and height).

units

You have: 1200W / (7.4mW/cm*cm*um)

You want: cm^3

* 16.216216

/ 0.061666667

Python

I cannot decide if the best fit to Nokia is:

1) "I'm not dead yet!"

2) "It's just pinin' for the fjords"

3) "It's just a flesh wound!"

Several points

1) I would think a rat with a drinking problem would be more in need of a liver than a kidney.

2) This still requires you to have a kidney to provide the scaffolding. Thus, it won't stop the need for donors - only reduce the need for recipients to be on immunosuppressant drugs.

3) If we could figure out how to print the needed scaffolding, rather than needing an organ, THEN this would be great, unless....

4) Since this uses the patient's own cells, if the reason their organs are failing is a genetic issue, they will be getting an organ with the same failure, unless we can work out how to treat the cells beforehand to remove the genetic flaw.

Concordance....

I really wish Logitech would work with the Concordance guys to provide the needed drivers so that I could program my Logitech Harmony with my Linux machine.

The bulk of the programming interface is via a web site on Logitech - all the driver does is allow the remote to be accessed by the web site (as I understand it, all the driver does for the Harmony One is make a USB network connection - the actual programming is then done by the web site doing requests to the remote over that connection). The Concordance guys have most of the work done, but Logitech won't give them that last couple of bits of information they need to provide the driver.

I keep coming back to the same thing....

I keep coming back to the same thing, which is:

IF those advocating all these cuts truly feel catastrophic change is coming unless we reduce atmospheric CO2

and

GIVEN that they seem to use that as a justification to do "anything, no matter how harmful" to correct the issue (destroying the economy, restricting the ability of the Third World to improve their lot via industrialization, dramatic reductions in the standard of living of the First World, dramatic reductions in the human population, etc.)

THEN

Why aren't those people demanding the suspension of the treaties against already nuclear nations (e.g. the US) using advanced nuclear power generation (breeder reactors, etc.) to create a large number of plants to convert CO2 into easily sequesterable carbon and free oxygen, and into motor fuels to quickly convert the existing motor fleet into carbon-neutral systems. It's not like the US building breeder reactors is going to increase the size of the US nuclear arsenal, and that route clearly can lead to CO2 reductions in very short order.

No aerial APRS? I did not know that.

I did not know that OfCom didn't allow aerial APRS (my Favorite Cousin Charlie has no problems with it). Anybody know why?

Federal vs. state

At the federal level, the IRS is forbidden by law to do "tax software" - even unto making smart PDFs of the various tax forms (e.g. 1040A) that can simply "do the math" for you (you fill in line 1 and line 2, and line 3, which is "subtract line 2 from line 1" gets filled in for you by the Javascript in the PDF). That law was passed due to lobbying by Intuit, H&R Block, et. al. to protect their products. So when I do my Federal taxes, if I want electronic filing, I have to use somebody like Intuit, rather than just being able to go to https://www.irs.gov.

HOWEVER: one advantage of a federal/state system like the US has is that the laws about what the IRS can and cannot do don't apply to the state revenue services, so the Kansas Dept. of Revenue can quite happily offer a web site I log in to, fill in a few lines, and file my taxes, without any need for a third party like Intuit.

So when you are complaining about how the US seems to be a hodge-podge of laws - that can often be a GOOD thing!

I want to register ht

I want to register "ht", and serve subdomains off it, so I can have:

http:://index.ht.ml

http://index.x.ml

Just to keep it away from the phishers, who I am sure will be able to use such a domain to fool stupid people.

Surprised no-one's using KSD ...

... 'cause it's one up on LTE.

Either that or MUF.

(but yes, considering LTE-A is still being worked on in the standards bodies, it's pure marketing to talk about anything beyond it. But then again, I'm surprised no-one's pull a Dilbert and started talking about 5G, 6G, or 7G).

How it always works

Politician: "You want free stuff?"

RandomPerson: "YES! Gimme free stuff - but how will you pay for it?"

Politician: "Why, I'll just tax TheyThemThoseOverThere - they deserve it, don't they?"

RandomPerson: "Damn straight they do, those bastards! Tax they hell out of them and give me free stuff!"

Politician: "Sure will - just vote for me next election!"

RandomPerson: "Deal!"

<time passes>

TaxMan: "RandomPerson, give me money."

RandomPerson: "Wha? Why?"

TaxMan: "You see TheyThemThoseOverThere? Well, Politician promised them free stuff if they voted for him, paid for by you."

Remember: YOU are somebody else's TheyThemThoseOverThere.

WIKI-fying the Bible?

Can you imagine if somebody were to link the hymns and such to a WIKI?

"The Lord is my Shepard [citation needed]

I Shall Not Want [NPOV_VIO]"

Missing the point: SOLID STATE!

Many of you seem to miss the point: this isn't a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL), or a fluorine laser, or any of the other chemical lasers that have been used in the past for this sort of thing, all of which have limits on the amount of ammunition you can carry, and all of which make some really NASTY exhausts.

This is a solid state laser at weapon-grade power levels. That is significant! That means that a nuclear powered ship can basically fire this for YEARS - the limiting factor being any wear-and-tear on the laser itself. Certainly a ship could operate for a great deal of time without resupply.

This also means that defense systems like you would want in, oh, I don't know, picking a place at random, say, South Korea against artillery barrage is just that much closer to being reality.

UEFI lockdown, and phonetics?

First question: how locked down is this unit, given that it is an X86 not an ARM - can other OSes be installed? (and to the WinShills - note I didn't ask if any other OS would be good to use here.)

Second question on the voice recognition: can you configure it to work with a proper phonetic alphabet when needed? Maybe something like the standard radio operator "floobydust I SPELL floobydust FOXTROT LIMA OSCAR OSCAR YANKEE DELTA UNIFORM SIERRA TANGO"

Face.

I think the thing to keep in mind here is the concept of saving face - quite important in that culture.

Un has put his ass on the line - he CANNOT back down without losing face. In times past, NK has pulled this sort of thing, and been thrown a bone that they could use to save face - even if that bone was along the lines of "We could have kicked your ass, but our buddy China asked us not to - you'd better be thankful for China stopping us from kicking your ass!"

But this time China isn't trying to pull them back.

I think Un is in the situation of having walked into the biker bar, proclaiming his intention to chew bubblegum and kick ass with his buddy, and finding himself alone. A rational person would realize he as ALREADY lost face, and slink out of there post haste before losing real body parts, but Un cannot do that: he loses face, he loses his cushy job as Ultimate Supreme Leader Of All Things, and he is just bright enough to know that ends at best with him hiding in anonymity and worst dancing at the end of a rope. So he will go down swinging - better dead than disgraced.

Consider the Japanese at the end of WWII - they sent their top-of-the-line battleship out, without adequate support, knowing it would be destroyed, because in their world view that was better than letting it be captured without firing a shot.

Unfortunately, I don't see a way that NK can be given a face-saving way out of this situation, save for the same face-saving way we supplied Hirohito (it is not a loss of face to surrender to an enemy that can make a whole city disappear with one plane and one bomb.).

And I can all-to-easily see Un thinking "I will go down, but I will go down as the man who nuked Honolulu!"

Oooo that smell

Windows software

An' brand new phones

Winphone you're a fail

There's too much hype

And too much fud

Look what's going on around you

Ooo that smell

Can't you smell that smell

Ooo that smell

The smell of death surrounds you

No angel investors' fund you

Stick a Windows on your ARM

(you fool you)

So tank another phone

Take a blow to your stores

One more fail fool will drown you

(Hell Yeah)

Ooo that smell

Can't you smell that smell

Ooo that smell

The smell of death surrounds you

So they hired you, Elop

Can't speak the truth when you're full of lies

Say you'll be profitable tomorrow

But tomorrow

might not be here for you

(Yeah you!)

Ooo that smell

Can't you smell that smell

Ooo that smell

The smell of death surrounds you

It sounds to me like a good thing

This sounds to me like it could lead to a very good thing, and that is making the code more modular. Why should the scripting interpreter be so tightly coupled in the code? Define the interface between the rendering system's DOM and the scripting engine's event interface, and let both sides work in terms of that interface - pick the Javascript engine (or indeed whatever other scripting language you want), plug the interfaces together, and go.

So, will the new JS interpreter....

Obviously, Moz will have a new (new new) Javascript interpreter for this effort.

So, will the new JS interpreter be called

Crow?

Gypsy?

or Cambot?

200 moneys? Where is the active noise cancelling?

For 200 moneys(1) I would expect the headphones to have active noise canceling.

Also: I don't know about any body else, but on-the-ear headphones get quite uncomfortable for me - give me in-the-ear or over the ear, not on-the ear.

(1) Since these are likely to follow the standard pattern of being US$200, or UK£200, or €200, depending upon where you are, so 200 moneys. 400 moneys for the poor folks in Australia.

And the idiocy begings once again

And once again, the idiocy begins, as people with little clue try to make something "funny" for the first, and fail, miserably.

Poor April: between the first and the 15th, it just cannot catch a break.

"The Haircut Song" by Ray Stevens

Whenever this sort of thing comes up, remember the lines from Ray Stevens' "The Haircut song"

It was a macho barber shop.

Hair dryers were mounted on a rifle rack.

Wasn't no mirrors.

The barber chair was a Peterbilt...

Barber walked in;

He was huge, seven feet tall,

three hundred pounds of spring steel and rawhide.

Wearin' a hard hat, chewin' a cigar,

had a t-Shirt on -- said,

"I hate musicians."

Threw me in the chair, sneered and said,

"What'll it Be pal?"

Now a lot of people would be intimidated in a situation like this...

I was not. I am what I am, play my piano, and sing my little songs.

I looked him right in the eye and I said,:

"'m a logger - just up from Coos Bay, Oregon. Been toppin' trees - quite

Possibly the toughest man in the entire world."

So remember: when asked what you do, you say "I'm a logger."

Or an insurance actuarial adjuster.

Ah, an almost perfect Web 2.0 idea

Ah, an almost perfect Web 2.0 idea. It has the core right" "ME! It's all about my favorite subject, ME! I'm measuring everything about ME, so I can tell everyone around ME about ME! Aren't I wonderful?"

But it lacks the most important feature of a Web 2.0 ideas - how do you sell advertising, and how do you sucker other people into it? If they cannot work that out, it will never fly. They need to have a QS social web site, with achievements, games, competition between members, and of course targeted ads based upon all that lovely data QS people are gathering about themselves and sharing free of charge.

Whoooosh!

======The Point=====>>>>>>

.o

---

.|

| |

All the previous posters.

These bulbs are not about The EEEEVIIILL 'LECTRIC COMPANY TURNING OFF R LIGHTS! These are LED bulbs; they don't use enough power to be a blip on the scope at the power company.

This is about YOU controlling the lights in your house - dimming the lights before you start a movie on TV, or having your bedroom lights slowly ramp up in the morning when you should be getting up, or fading to hot pink when it detects you start your Barry White on the bedroom media player.

This is about having a standard protocol to control them, rather than some custom BS.

The odds that you would be controlling your lights across this Internet at large is almost nil. These lights will likely never have anything but a link-local address, not a routable address. This is about not having to screw around with fiddly things like DHCP and 192.168 addresses for these things - or rather, the average user not having to screw around with those things (because as a Reg reader YOU might be able to set that up, but do you really want your parents/neighbor/PHB worrying about it (read: worrying YOU about it)?)

Has Microsoft's PR firm been working for NK on the side?

Has Microsoft's PR firm been working for North Korea on the side? Recent releases from both have been equally bizarre.

Ergot

Does anybody else wonder if, once the (hopefully non-radioactive) dust settles, if we will find that all the North Korean food supplies have been contaminated with ergot fungus, and this nonsensical North Korean behavior all was the product of an unintentional acid trip?