Posts by Peter Simpson 1
485 posts • joined Wednesday 10th June 2009 14:14 GMT
LOHAN II
For the next flight, has the SPB considered using Hydrogen as a lifting gas rather than Helium? Far cheaper and saves the scarce Helium.
//playmonaut not a smoker, is he?
Obvious answer
Coke: "OK, we're sorry. To preven this kind of error in the future, we will henceforth be making no Coke deliveries to government facilities of any kind."
Re: rant
"Why the Westphalian FUCK do we even still have roaming within the EU?"
Because there's shedloads of dosh to be made by all concerned.
//always the explanation for things that should have been fixed long ago
Posted in Boy Scouts get Game Design badge
Boy Scout Games
When my son was doing Scouts, an indispensible accessory on all camping trips was the pack of "Magic" cards. The boys spent hours with them. No power needed (except for a light) and portable enough to go anywhere.
RADM Hopper at UMASS in the 70s
She came to speak when I was a graduate student. In full naval uniform and clearly not to be trifled with. She delivered her presentation (and nanoseconds for all) with the authority of one who has been there and done that. As a yet-to-be-employed EE, I was impressed, and the "nanosecond-a-foot" rule of thumb has been in my memory ever since.
//RIP, trailblazer.
Re: Feminism was created to destabilize society
You know how I know you're a guy?
Alternative theory:
Feminism was created because some women were sick and tired of being second class citizens. As the father of a daughter in IT, I think it was a d@mn good idea.
Re: CWMTWRCH
You can find anything on the Internet:
http://www.sttmedia.com/characterfrequency-welsh
Re: CWMTWRCH
encrypting Welsh would look like plaintext.
Wouldn't there be frequency spikes for the letters L, W and N?
Re: If you have any interest at all in the subject...
Well worth the trip. And send 'em some money as well.
Regarding the Bombes -- they used wire brush contacts, similar (if not identical) to those used in tab card machines. Don't underestimate the amount of maintenance required to keep one of those electro-mechanical beasts doing its job. When I worked with punched-card machines, one of the skills you needed to know was how to replace brushes and plugboard contacts (and to know which relay, when removed, doubled the speed of the machine -- in direct violation of your lease agreement!).
//Mum was in "the business" at Nebraska Av during the war
SR-71
Imagine being one of the designers? "You can use anything you want except nuclear. Just make it go as fast as you can and as high as you can."
Probably less fun for the camera designers: "You want *what* resolution, from *what* height at *what* speed?"
Passendale on 1st pg
Passendale on 1st pg
Should be Passchendaele.
Since so many died there, it seems important to get it right.
//sorry, not funny.
Re: Does it need pointing out.
You probably pick it up from the Embassy, it having beed delivered via diplomatic bag.
But getting stopped with it by the police could be uncomfortable...
Re: Vandalising government property?
Ohio is, of course, a "stand your ground" state. That should give him an airtight defense. He'll probably get off with a slap on the wrist.
Re: Hobo!
I'd say Bob was wasted in his current position and should have been promoted to management.
Re: How long before El Reg authors outsource their job to China?
I'm fine with that, as long as they don't outsource the BOFH.
...or the SPB!
Bloody Americans
Hey!
Not all of us!
Some of us have lived to other countries, read and listen to media other than CNN, FOX or the local "Top 40" station, and are a tad embarassed about our country's behaviour on the world stage. But we're outnumberd...by a million moms who spend their time worrying about the quality of our TV commercials (which, I admit, are not up to the quality of those shown in the rest of the world). Some of the best commercials I've seen would cause rioting in the streets if shown on US TV.
We're trying, but it's an Sisyphean task...
Disturbing
That there are a million moms offended by this stupid commercial.
//men are pigs, but are pigs men?
Very few. And they're keeping their heads down, for fear of being burned at the stake by fundies.
Gee, *thanks*, Mom!
Best birthday party, ever!
//the norm in some cultures, I guess
Re: Sweeney
Well done. Full marks!
Re: Tricky balancing act
I remember a dynamo powered flashlight (torch) we had when I was a kid in the late 50's. Palm sized with a lever that had a toothed gear section on the free end (near the bulb). You squeezed the lever and spun a generator and a flywheel inside. Keep squuexing as long as you needed light.
While I feel sorry for Mr. Bayliss, he did himself just come up with a new twist on an old idea. His contribution was a more efficient radio and power system, and lower cost to manufacture. He'll be remembered for that, if not remunerated.
Re: Miniature Surface to Air Missile system?
Trained owls.
//Purina Owl Chow in the pocket
Tape
Nothing that can't be fixed with a piece of black electrical tape.
Ads
As has been said many times before: if they were interesting (e.g.: Super Bowl), people wouldn't skip 'em.
One can only hope that the proliferation of ad-blockers and commercial skipping will result in an increase in the quality of ads.
//one can hope...
Re: Killing token-ring.
IMHO, the thing that killed Token Ring was the cost of the license for the MAC code and the fact that it couldn't run on CAT5. Whereas Ethernet was truly asynchronous and had standardised signalling waveforms carefully designed to work on unshielded TP, Token Ring never quite got to that point (as the clock jitter requirement precluded bandwith limited waveforms on the wire).
I spent much time at 3Com, trying to get 16 meg Token Ring switches to work reliably at maximum cable lengths (and then to get them to pass FCC emissions testing). IMHO, it was never to be. Meanwhile, Ethernet over twisted pair was heading for 100 megabit/sec. Game over.
//I did manage to implement a parser for the source routing field in a CPLD, so there was that, at least...
Re: Ring was too expensive
IIRC, the Token Ring cost included a license...for the MAC code, whereas Ethernet MAC code was so simple it didn't need a license. TR MACs needed all kinds of code to manage token forwarding, master election and such. Ethernet "just worked", although it worked a lot better when we got away from coax and onto twisted pair...
Re: How to improve the world.
My personal opinion of the Book of Revelations is that it supports the hypothesis that recreational chemicals were in common use in those times...
//beer, because no LSD icon
Re: helldesk
I can top that. In uni, my phone number (Centrex exchange, 5 digit numbers) was 6-6666. By the end of the first semester, we had removed the bells due to the large number of drunk-dialled night-time calls.
And anyway, Revelation says the Mark is supposed to be on the forehead or right arm, IIRC. So a literal interpretation (isn't that what these chaps are demanding?) would mean that phone numbers, W-2 forms, employee and student ID badges should be quite acceptable.
//what else?
Re: This smacks of desperation
Agreed. Microsoft, at this point, are primarily a business software supplier, who dabble in consumer hardware. Their consumer OS "business" is only due to contracts they have to supply the default OS on hardware sold by others. People buy Microsoft software because they have to, not because they want to.
They will never have the "wow" factor of Apple, because the Microsoft brand carries too much baggage. Sure, people will buy Surface, but when they find out it's inferior to the iPad (which has a 3 year head start), their friends will go back to buying Apple and Surface will go the way of Kin and Zune.
I feel rather sorry for Microsoft, because they just don't "get it"...instead of following the crowd, they should try delivering what should, by now, be the logical fruit of their years of experience: a fast, cheap, reliable OS that rejects malware like an umbrella sheds rain. But I fear internal politics and Ballmer's non technical leadership has doomed them...
Re: nice idea but..
Silverlight?
I thought it was dead...
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/silverlightarchieve/thread/991d2208-7384-497c-8719-98baac290ccc/
//ned tombstone icon
"Rest assured, the thing will fly"
Carved on a granite marker at the launch site, it will be.
//Orville and Wilbur nod and smile, knowingly
Nuclear energy's the perfect power source
Until:
- the operators screw up
- the hardware fails
- you have to get rid of the leftovers
Then, it's not so green. For tens of thousands of years.
//but that's someone else's problem, right?
Re: Tablet computer has slot for SD card
It's not just the iPad -- my Google Nexus 7 also lacks an SD slot. Happily, you can buy a cheap adapter cable which allows an SD card to be attached temporarily to the USB port.
//how else would they be able to get more money for the 32G version?
Thanks for the retro screen shots
Now, let's see some VisiCalc!
//if I'd only had spreadsheets during my uni years...
//thanks, it's the one with the slide rule in the pocket
Re: Copy protection ? Really ?
Copy II PC it was!
Ahhh...fond memories
Posted in LOHAN premieres intimate REHAB vid
Might I suggest
A bouyant housing this time? And a waterproof "If found, please return to" label?
You know, just in case the SPB recovery armada doesn't happen to be right under the vehicle when it comes down?
//recovery helicopter
The awesomely named Rick Champagne
I wonder if he has a cousin named "Max Power"?
Re: "bob" sure it wasn't "BOFH"? Oh wait, he wouldn't have been caught...
...because the investigators would be buried in the local tip, rolled up in old carpeting.
Re: brilliant
His scheme has a BOFH quality to it
Re: Hmmm
"Somebody should be able to make that stick."
Some highly paid lawyer, probably. The amount of money *you* would see would be insignificant and probably not worth all the pain.
Contrast that with the ability of large media corps to field teams of legal wranglers and you see the problem.
Their copyrighted works are valuable and will be defended from infringement at all costs -- yours?
Not so much..
Re: How many of those orphan works will actually be of value?
"Your family photo holidays might end up decorating some travel companies leaflet but, being honest, you weren't going to get any money for them anyway."
Well, I *might* have been able to get some money for them if I'd been asked...and perhaps the advertiser would have paid me.
These are the same media companies who are whining that non-commercial file sharing on bittorrent deprives them of revenue, correct?
I dunno, seems like they're proposing one set of rules for them and another set for the "consumers".
Re: How can this be viable
"You could paint it to look like a cloud..."
Henceforth to be known as "Winnie-ther-Pooh" camouflage.
Hoist
with their own petard, the Zuckerbergs are...
Merkey?
There was a guy named Merkey, a real "character", who claimed to be doing a Cherokee operating system (during the SCO we-own-Linux circus). I wonder if he's found greener pastures?
Seems like the market for a Cherokee-language OS would be rather small, but then again, what do I know about it?
Re: So why isn't the Mayan civilisation still around?
The Catholic church, or its agents, are to blame for that.
All that genocide was done in God's name...
(as it almost always is)
Re: I almost died in Australia
Australia doesn't have a lock on bad mapping data -- took me years to convince Google, TeleAtlas and Navtech to stop sending people to our house via the mudpit that masquerades as the middle portion of our road. You can only travel it end-to-end if you have an off-road vehicle!
Now that I have the data correct in the three major data suppliers' databases, I just have to wait until it gets rolled out to the in-vehicle systems.
//tired of getting calls from delivery folks unable to find my house
Posted in Linux kernel dumps 386 chip support
Re: Z-80
Nowhere near as wonderful as the 68K!
//no antique computing icon???
Re: Whatever it is up there, it's a lump...
No, it's a spy satellite.
A cabbage with a DSLR (with wi-fi card) duct-taped to it. Polar orbit so it can take pictures of the US.
Re: Licence server
My company's IT folks do just that -- they have an inventory tool that enumerates the software installed on each PC, so they know (plus or minus one or two) which PCs have what software on them. They seem to have a pretty good handle on the Microsoft products they have (and a good relationship with Microsoft regarding the licenses, from what I hear)
Maybe Microsoft sees that we have hard data to back up our claims and seeks greener, less well documented, pastures in which to graze?
