* Posts by frank ly

6077 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

The Register obtains covert snaps of Google's new London offices

frank ly
Unhappy

Re: It's like 2001 again..."...where money wasn't a problem ..."

Money can't buy good taste.

Tree-hugging Chinese throttle rare earth production

frank ly
Happy

Re: Su Bo

You beat me to it, with a much better post than the one I thought of.

Apple scores China store patent wins

frank ly

Confused here...

Are these patents or registered designs? Does Hong Kong recognise (and define) something called a 'design patent'? Does anybody?

N7Player

frank ly

Re: Usual over zealous permission

I decided to not install it for the same reasons. I'm also pissed off by the way installed apps offer updates that have escalated permissions from their original installed settings. I'm considering rooting my phone so I can use a fine grained permissions control app.

UK drivers' privates fondled overseas in new outsource plan

frank ly

re. "..so far always paid the congestion charge in cash."

Right, that's you on the database of suspicious people then.

Humans best crossword-puzzling computer

frank ly

And....

... if you get too many correct answers, the Patrician starts taking an interest in you.

Samsung backside-bitten by emoticon patent trollery

frank ly

Re: Question (AKA WTF?!)

I have an idea........ Samsung should sue the US patent office for false representations which led Samsung to spend money of a court case and also placed it in a position where it could be sued by Varia. Then Varia could sue the patent office for the same false representation that caused it to spend money suing Samsung. Then Apple could...... oh, wait a minute.

Victorian Taxi Directorate exposes 400+ email addresses

frank ly

Re: Just wait for Round 2 - CC

It sounds like the Assistant Manager of Communications needs to be moved to Assistant Manager of Floor Cleaning.

So, what IS the worst film ever made?

frank ly

Re: Dune

The made for TV series adaptation of Dune was quite good and true to the book(s), even if some of the acting was a bit wooden. The film looked like they'd put the book's ideas through a blender and poured it into a script.

Pope Benedict in .XXX pro-Islam cybersquat drama

frank ly

Re: catholic.xxx

I'd go with 'broad or wide ranging'; as in 'catholic tastes'. (Please; no jokes about catholic tastes.)

Sex-starved fruit flies hit the sauce

frank ly

"Humans’ equivalent, neuropeptide Y, would be harder to manipulate safely, "

I'd like to selflessly volunteer for dangerous experiments involving sex and drinking.

China's police ignore real name rules ... so far

frank ly

Er.......

They already have the ultimate in cyber bullying, by some very big trolls.

New steganography technique relies on letter shapes

frank ly

Surely ....

.... this is just a very inefficient substitution cypher?

Supersonic silent biplane COMING SOON ...ish

frank ly

".. there may be a boom in the field in the coming years"

I thought they were trying to eliminated that.

Encyclopaedia Britannica - Ah, the memories

frank ly
Happy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scams_in_intellectual_property

Your scam is not included in this Wikipedia entry. The good news is that you can include it by editing it. You know it's the right thing to do.

Watchdogs quiz Google in Safari cookie-stalking probe

frank ly
FAIL

"... that we didn't anticipate this would happen..."

... and they didn't bother to test for it, despite knowing that privacy breaches are an important concern.

Then again, maybe they knew what would happen.

Boffins build cyborg snails to generate electricity

frank ly

Re: Eww

Are you sure that you were holding it properly?

Public service plans paperless future

frank ly
Coat

@AC 02:49

I'd need pulsed power-jets, and an ultrasonic descaling probe.

Ok, on my way......

Silicon nanowires: The Next Big Thing™ in chip design

frank ly

Relative sizes .....

With a 5-8 nm diameter 'pipe', how does the physical size compare to the lattice size of silicon? I'm wondering about quantum and lattice edge effects starting to affect the behaviour.

Aussie fatties tell fewer porkies

frank ly

Re: What the hell does this have to do with the bloody useless BMI?

If you're a medical worker carrying out health screening of a large number of people and you don't have time to give each of them a detailed prodding and poking, or do further tests; then BMI is a useful indicator of the possibility of weight related health issues.

Doctors know that heavyweight boxing champions, international-level rugby players and similar types of people have a large BMI, due to the great big slabs of muscle they develop and doctors know that they have to analyse other measures and other factors besides BMI.

For the general population of 'normal/ordinary' people, BMI is a good first stage indicator of possible obesity related issues.

Death Star SUCKS PLASMA FROM SUN in NASA riddle vid

frank ly
Alien

My God; it's full of stars!

You're not seeing through it, you're looking into it.

frank ly
Stop

Re: "alien ship fuelling up on solar plasma"

",,, probably criminal! "

Admit it; you'd done at least five assasinations. (They were exciting, we do understand.)

Seafaring robots shatter unmanned crossing record

frank ly

What about wind power?

Did they consider putting a small and robust vertically oriented wind turbine on board for electricity generation?

Android clobbers Siri in Japanese... and English

frank ly
WTF?

Now for something nearly different.....

Have a look at this:

http://www.androidme.org/news/android-clobbers-siri-japanese-well-english.html

androidme.org seems to be an Android news site that lifts articles from other sources, then runs them through a doubleback translator, maybe to disguise the source.

An alternative explanation is that Bill Ray copied his article from androidme.org and did a very good job of rewriting it - which I'm sure he didn't :)

Underwater Greek volcano brewing Lara Croft style earthquake

frank ly

GPS underwater?

Did he put the GPS monitoring devices underwater? If so, how deep can they be and still work?

Pub landlady's footie sat-TV battle moves law's goal posts

frank ly

Protection?

The purpose of copyright on the logos and 'anthem' is to prevent me (and anyone else) using it in my own production. To have the logos seen and the anthem heard by a group of people in a pub is not damaging to the holders of the copyright since it is a 'genuine' production.

The purpose of the logo and anthem is to identify the source or owner of the content to the audience, which it accurately does; so what is the (legal) problem?

Apple slams hard-up Proview for conning the courts

frank ly

... trick Proview into selling it the IPAD patents

I thought Apple bought a trademark, not patents.

Galaxies to get the Pluto treatment?

frank ly

Details

Does this mean that a large, gravitationally bound, group of stars whose behaviour CAN be explained in terms of baryons and Newton's Laws is NOT a galaxy?

Could tiny ebooks really upset the mighty Apple cart?

frank ly

"... a settlement is effectively an admission of guilt ..."

Is it? If you can demonstrate a clear cost-benefit for settling over fighting a case, then it's your duty to reach a formal settlement for the benefit of your shareholders. In the accounts, it can be noted as 'Protection payment to a bunch of Euro-trash gangsters (unavoidable cost of doing business)'

The seven types of online commenter

frank ly
Go

The next stage ....

Some analysis of our history and our posts could be used to categorise us, then we could have a little symbol by our names with a shape/colour dependent on our determined category; to let other commentards know what to expect.

Microsoft reveals low-end WinPho limitations

frank ly

@Miek - Re: Well, at least the buyer's been warned.

I still have my old, original HTC Wildfire - now usurped by an Incredible-S and relegated to 'spare phone' with a t-mobile PAYG SIM in it. It plays videos just fine with a high volume from the built-in speaker. I use Any Video Convertor to squash videos down a bit for playing on my phones.

Web trawlers may have to pay to slurp up German newspaper snippets

frank ly

Having your cake and eating it...

"... as well as stopping the Google News snippets the internet giant also stopped displaying links to the newspaper websites via its search engine results."

Which is exactly what I'd do in that situation.

"The newspapers had complained that Google had been "unnecessarily aggressive" in removing them from the search engine."

So they want free advertising and also to get paid for being advertised.

Lingerie-clad she-devils romp past watchdog

frank ly

Re: So for all you guys out there...

We'd all like that if we were gay men with a liking for tight revealing clothing on other men.

I assume that Agent Provocateur know their target market and have designed the advert to appeal to them.

Australia considers national digital archive

frank ly

Re: What on earth does the this mean?

"... if their output is considered worthy of preservation."

That makes it simple, doesn't it?

Yet another iPhone patent lawsuit

frank ly

Re: What kind of deal was that?

Yes, it does sound very strange. Without looking at it in detail, the only explanation I can think of is that Microsoft had some kind of IP input into the patent when it was first granted; or did own an interest in the patents at one time but has sold them on with a 'percentage of future yield' condition attached to the sale.

(I know it sounds weird, but stranger sounding things happen in the financial instruments markets).

NBN Co awards Geomatic Tech with three-year deal

frank ly
Coat

Those were the days

"The Victorian based company ..."

I imagine colossal racks of steampunk style servers filling a great vaulted hall. Frock-coated sysadmins rush around checking pressure guages, writing on clipboards as technicians lubricate brass valves and pistons.

Ok, I'm going; but it was too good to miss.

Audi shows off OLED-illuminated concept R8

frank ly
Thumb Up

Re: Isn't the point of an indicator light...

Also, many front indicators on modern cars are swamped out by the intense, almost point source, light from xenon headlights (the function of which is supposed to be to illuminate the road ahead over a wide area, not to blind other road users).

Archos touts Android tablets for toddlers

frank ly
Happy

They missed the chance......

... to call it the KiddiPAD

ISP Be admits crippling iPlayer demand burst its pipes

frank ly

Local caching?

I think that Virgin Media have copies of popular BBC iPlayer content on their 'local' network and avoid similar problems in that way. Is there a reason why Be can't do something similar?

Antimatter asymmetry: new results bring solution closer

frank ly

Re: My Concept on the two-sided universe

I think this was covered in an old Star Trek episode where you passed through some kind of isolating protective corridor, that good old Mother Nature had set up to prevent mutual annihilation.

I'm sure someone will be able to give a suitable reference for this in a short time.

'Kill yourself now' - Torvalds throws openSUSE security tantrum

frank ly
Thumb Up

You're supposed to say ...

"Have you tried turning it off then on again?"

Aussie soldiers let rip on Facebook

frank ly
Happy

@Khaptain

What would be interesting would be for you to find yourself alone among a group of aggressive and violent homosexual men with attitudes matching those displayed by these Australian soldiers.

I'm sure it would be a learning experience for you. You might even learn the meaning of the word 'empathy'.

Microsoft tripped up by Blighty's techie skills gap

frank ly
Thumb Up

As I suspected

"Uden later dropped in that it tended to be the leading universities who were the most difficult to work with."

These would be the places that believe it is their job to educate their students; not train up code bashers for MS.

AT&T plan: Let content providers pay your bandwidth bill

frank ly

@YorksinOaks Re: Re: Just another attempt

If I watch BBC iPlayer, I am paying my ISP to shovel the data from the 'internet' to my house. Also, the BBC is paying their provider to shovel it from their servers to the 'internet'. What happens on the 'internet', in terms of who pays for it, is an arrangement between ISPs and higher level organisations.

If I use an app that pulls down 200MB a day, the app is working for me, installed on my PC or phone. In the operation of the app, it is me who my ISP is shoveling data to and another operator is shoveling website data (see first paragraph example). The app is not an 'end', it is me who is the 'end'

As for 'either organisation (do you mean each end?) paying their way', it is up to the provider of the service (data storage and shoveling) to adjust their charges (and organise their investment and operations) to make a profit. The problem is that they didn't think it through and didn't adapt as their initial assumptions blew up on them. Imagine a postal service that offered an 'all you can eat' deal on sending parcels; they would soon run into problems. If the ISPs want to recover the situation, they will have to think up realistic charging structures and operate in a sensible way.

Molesworth and the New Latin

frank ly

Can we have....

.. some illustrations please (in the style of...)?

Avoid flying next to blubberbeasts with seatmate-finding site

frank ly
Unhappy

"You can't reject someone who has chosen to sit next to you,..."

So the early players have guarenteed victims? If someone has chosen to sit next to you, they probably have conversation in mind (unless they saw your heigth/weight stats and you're not very tall and not very fat).

Boffins build blood-swimming medical microbot

frank ly
Facepalm

re. the simulation

If it did actually tilt when turning, as illustrated, then it would drive into the lower wall of the blood vessel. 'Experience' of fixed wing aircraft, or maybe motorbikes, does not translate into other moving devices.

Death to Office or to Windows - choose wisely, Microsoft

frank ly

Re: "ride successful coat-tails into a the big corporate tablet market"

I did say 'corporate *tablet* market' and this article is about MS putting Office onto the iPad tablet; presumably because they don't have a sucessful tablet of their own.

frank ly

What if .....?

If Microsoft want to ride successful coat-tails into a the big corporate tablet market, then why wouldn't they choose Android tablets shipping with Office as the way to go. They could form strategic partnerships with those Android using manufacturers who already pay them 'patent hush money' and maybe even produce their own version of Android (Microsoft Ice Cream anyone?)

That way, they could have influence in a crowded and fragmented market instead of getting crumbs from the massive monolith which is Apple.

They have lots of experience with 'embrace, extend and extinguish', so why not use Android like that? Hasn't Android been 'open sourced' by Google?

Hey Commentard! - or is that Commenter?

frank ly
Thumb Up

Re: Niggard

It's been a while since I bought a packet of Mr Brain's Faggots from the freezer section of my supermarket. I must go get some and gobble them down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_%28food%29