Posts by Neil Barnes

Well, my mobile now takes between thirty and forty seconds from selecting a callee on its 'recently used' list to actually changing the display to indicate that a call is in progress, and several seconds more before I hear the ring tone. Sometimes it even allows the buttons on the app (loudspeaker, mute etc) to operate; sometimes it doesn't.

But this mechanical watch always knows the time and is dependent only on me moving my arm from time to time to keep working. Admittedly the mobile knows the time, but first I have to remember where I left it.

Obviously peoples' needs and wants from any device will be different. I rather like the idea of three hundred year old engineering that still works today (though the one on my wrist at the moment is only a few years old, I have several others sixty years old and older).

Without wearing a thermal glove, perhaps?

Re: I know it's old, and I know it's wearing out...

Well indeed - we've already done the hard stuff. I wonder where we'd be if NASA had followed on with its idea to take the shuttle external fuel tanks to orbit and park them there.

Just wistful thinking!

Re: Too pessimistic - Not always

Probably. I just bought the house next door, with a three month overlap while the rental notice on this one works itself out, so there might be a bit of careful placement of WiFi units on windowsills to stretch the signal until it all changes over.

Re: 11mph (18km/h)

Mr Barnes is sadly on the cusp of requiring a smaller wing (he doesn't want to spend the cash until this one's all worn out) but by chute is supposed to land me at 4.5m/s - at ten kilos more than I weigh.

Re: 25 <b>YEARS</b> sounds a bit long

I was contemplating whether this would be handled by requiring a bloody great pile of money in escrow for twenty-five years, or by the companies involved dissolving and reinventing themselves every twenty years?

Re: HR...

HR = people are plug-in replaceable parts.

Personel Dept = at least some pretense that we care about the people.

At what point does a company suddenly realise that it is not simply a quarterly profit and loss account but an essential part of a community?

who is responsible?

The scammers.

Who have spent - in various incarnations - centuries learning how to con people out of their money. If someone falls for it, is it their fault? If a bank has reason to believe that they're giving money to the right person, and they're not, is it their fault?

As it happens, I moved a lot of money from the UK to a foreign account recently. My bank required me to be there in person to approve it, irrespective of the fact that they pay smaller amounts to the same account every month. It was a pain, but I think a worthwhile one.

My late father was scammed years ago - in a complex scam at the time which took account of him calling the bank back and then disabling his phone line so the bank couldn't contact him. The bank refunded him fifty grand or so... (we implemented a new protocol where he would call someone he knew, like me, in future similar events).

Re: Laptop, schmaptop - I say flaptop

And parenthetically just a hundred years since flappers were all the rage!

Re: in a 3-3 economy class configuration.

It's almost as if no-one's noticed the average size of a human these days is somewhat in excess of 1.50 metres and 50kg... the people that design economy class cabins should be required to live and work in them for a month. Or more.

Re: The Asylum has shown the way

we all die a horribly stretched and spaghettificated death.

Bless his noodly appendages, quick, while there's still time!

Re: Is this not "nominative fair use"?

Like you, I have not read the book in question - but pretty much any technical book I have read in the last fifty years includes phrasing early in the introduction or colophon similar to 'trademarks are the property of their respective owners'.

Yes, a company has to defend its trademarks and branding, but when you're defending, better I think that the guns should be pointing outwards and not at your own feet...

Re: I mostly want

"A monster's work is never done..."