Sad Ending

If I remember correctly from the story as it was published in Interzone magazine, there were some rather tragic effects of slow glass in that since it worked both ways events which you may wish to forget can resurface many days/months/years later.

</geek>

BTL

One step closer to "Better Than Life" (TM)

mythbusters

Didn't the mighty pop-science duo on Myth busters bulid something very similar?

@Steve ten Have

its called DVD rental by post. Starts at about £5 per month

True Story

Whilst at the check out at PC world buying some DVD R's the (old) lady was having some problems getting the product to scan and complete my purchase for me.

She looked at me and said:

"I hate computers I do"

CD's

Buy the CD on line, its frequently cheaper, the choice is bigger and the quality is better.

As for Appple.. i'm feeling rather smug this week after convincing my wife that there are other MP3 players apart from the Ipod and in the process saved myself quite a few quid

IR35

Being paid that much is all fine and dandy... but if the contract isn't IR35 safe then I ain't signing

Erm....!

"Yes, in the UK he'd be arrested as a terrorist!!"

and then released without charge a few weeks later, although the police will have found something else dodgy by then, suspected child porn, cc fraud etc.... to tell the press

offending

I used to work for a UK software company, when I first started they had just landed a large american company as a rather big client.

One of the first things in the project we had to do?

Change all the refences to slave-master relationships in the legacy codes to say parent-child, just in case it offended someone.

Gambling?

Good poker players don't gamble

@Bloody "Big Brother" Government

Totally agree - a more flat rate tax system would probably mean more tax revenue as loopholes would be near impossible to find.

Also, if they stopped wasting the damn money (and i won't say where its being wasted) I might feel a bit better about paying it

Cat needs a bed

Clearly the cat is just trying to get the bed before another old codger arrives

Re: Not Impressed

>Not exactly up to BOFH standard, is it?

Maybe BOFI standard :)

Along with the USB Mug Warmer...

Along with the USB Mug Warmer, this looks like something i need to buy. As it should deal with sweaty balls as well

Intelligence

Intelligence, as the article suggests, is only intelligence, it is not action and it is not decision making.

There are plenty of un-employed or poorly paid PHD holders out there who are certainly intelligent, just seem to have made some poor choices in life.

Similarly with BI, you can give a company all the facts and information in the world but if its not what they need or can use then its next to useless.

The first step always needs to be a decision on what decisions the company needs to make. Business Intelligence can then be used to cut the proverbial wheat from the chaff.

Its a tool, nothing more nothing less.

Mr Crank

"An average 1 query a second, results in timeout errors?"

This was an estimation by another commenter (not a respected database benchmark tester) based on a performance of a single website, not inspection of the database itself and certainly not taking into account how badly the database was configured.

And what's more even 1 query a year can still result in a time out error if a badly written query meets a badly designed and un-optimised database.

You seem to have completely missed the point that you cannot slate a product by one person highlighting one bad implementation.

yes the products should be benchmarked, but at the same time, database installations and configurations are not always straight forward and it would be fair to invite all vendors to send representatives along to assist with the testing.

And as for JD Power... a completely different method of assessing product function/performance through user surveys. Not really benchmarking now is it

Stupid example

"So the best, most scientific testing methodology is to find a random website that uses product X, get it to produce an error message and assume"

"Read comment 3 to understand why."

er no, any badly designed and configured database is going to result in errors, especially time out errors. That's not the product at fault, its the admin/designers/developers fault.

Next you'll be blaming every broken down car on the manufacturer regardless of how conscientious or not the owner is regarding routine servicing and checking.

Repeatable evidence

Martin Sharp,

Mike Repacholi did not dismiss the claims presented to him, he merely said that individual studies are meaningless, they need to be repeated and correlated by other independent scientists.

Whether he's in the pay of the mobile phone companies or not, that point he raised was perhaps the only scientifically strong answer given in the entire programme.

Minorities

As a public service broadcaster, the BBC is committed to producing programmes aimed at minority groups.

Last night was the turn of the luddites and hypochondriacs

20+20 could be close to 40

Joel,

The point I was making is that the energy (as calculated by 0.5mv^2) does not factor into calculating impact forces. The starting point is always momentum. This is why light, which has zero mass, can apply an impact force as it does have momentum.

Basic physics (obviously standards are still slipping)

RE:20 plus 20 isnot 40

Marvin the martian wrote"

Kinetic energy (m*V^2) scales quadratically with speed, so a head-on 20mph-vs-20mph crash is half the energy of a 40mph-vs-0mph crash."

Not true, momentum is calculated as m*V - ie directly proportional to velocity.

The severity of the impact depends on the differential change of momentum not the amount of energy expended.

So a 40-0 crash is (for the sake of the argument) the same as a 20-20 crash

Interesting fact

Boris and Ladyman have both been guests on the Top Gear "Star in a reasonably priced car" slot. Times are as follows:

Dr Stephen Ladyman 1.48.8

Boris Johnson: 1.56

So Ladyman wins

Africa is a huge continent...

...and not every child is starving, contrary to obviously popular belief many children in Africa live in houses, go to school and get regular meals but are missing out the technological revolution. The OLPC project gives them a foot hold in IT.

Other charities are already looking after those children who are starving, feel free to give them a donation if you feel your money would be better spent there.