Posts by Martin 37
56 posts • joined Wednesday 10th June 2009 19:05 GMT
Idiot
I did see a quote from the muppet who made the thing saying "there are states all over the world where you are not allowed to have guns".
No, they actually countries and there is more than one of them.
Re: Turmoil - Probably just a rant.
You might want to invest in a carriage return key and read up on what paragraphs are. You might well have written an interesting and informative item, but after the first four inches of unrelieved text, I lost the will to live.
Phablet?
Ok, I give in, WTF is a phablet?
Re: Underrated
@Fred Flintstone - contact me offiline register@cybercontrolsystems.co.uk and I'll give you the full gen. Basically it was a homebrew in 1990 which I replaced in 2005 with off-the-shelf Dupline via Carlo Gavazzi with Red Lion HMI and commercial interface to Fronius PV inverter. There's better out there now.
Underrated
I have a home automation system - and it's real home automation, ie lights and heating, not the vastly expensive "home cinema" scenario that gets called home automation. It's wonderful, I couldn't live without it, but why is there such microscopic take up?
Some of the comments on Cringely talk about it taking off in order to meet more stringent energy saving requirements on heating.
See Cringeley
There's some interesting comments over at Cringeley:
http://www.cringely.com/2013/01/01/in-the-land-of-the-blind-krikorian-could-become-king/
Basically, what has happened or failed to happen to home automation? Why?
Re: Talk about useless security
I work there! Company initials are Hardly Profitable?
Journalist desperation
I watched the evolution of the computer magazine over that period, through Byte and PC World.
At the beginning .. there were genuinely interesting computers - Sirius, Apricot, anyone? Then along came the IBM Pc and all its clones.
I remember a review which wasn't called "Another 20 indistinguishable beige boxes" but should have been, and could hear the desperation in the writer's mind as he struggled to find something, anything to say about these boxes. Even the internal wiring came in for comment, and tiny percentage difference in the specification and performance made into column inches.
Since by then everything ran Windows, there was nothing else to distinguish one clone from another.
And yes, in those days you bought the magazines for the adverts, to compare specs and price up a new system.
While reminiscing - PCW used to run competitions that actually required thought and mathematical ability, usually involving 10 digit number so you couldn't use 16-bit ints or floating point. (Of course the BBC Micro had 32-bit ints which made it ideal for these puzzles!)
My favourite was the following:
Using the digits from 0 to 9, generate all possible permutations, and list the billionth. How long will it take take you to work this out either with pencil and paper or a 68000-class processor?
The Family
I don't see a horse head delivery service. But then again the intended could always change it for a cupcake, so the point would be lost.
Re: Please Stop
There is a big difference - your footnotes[1] were sequential, his were recursive, hence more sophisticated, amusing and generally Pratchett like.
[1] - Not supplied
a version 1 release of ARM
They should use gcc for ARM. It's quite good and used by loads of people already.
Re: "The Catholic church is, again, getting nudity confused with sex. Will it ever learn?"
Yes, I agree. In fact I prefer to get dressed up in long purple robes and carry a sceptre when I fancy a shag.
WTF is Integrity Constraint?
It has too much? Too little? What are you trying to say?
Re: Good one! -Notes
We all know that Notes is a distributed database system that does email as a side effect. I think the Y2K killed off most Notes installations?
Re: "Where do you see yourself in five years' time"
1) Permie job - standard answer is "in your seat"
2) Contract job - correct answer is "on twice what you're offering"
Re: iThings
And did you explain that she can't get pregnant as long as she keeps hold of her chips?
Re: GB > MB
Even though the typo had already been pointed out, in your experience can you fill a complete tape in 5 seconds? Thought not.
Re: Why is this worth reporting?
Slow news day? On a bank holiday weekend when it's actually sunny, (for the moment), you're posting stuff on the Register?
Get a life!
Re: Sort of reminds me of scanner applications...
Oh Christ, Canoscan.
Started everytime you booted up and ran at 100% CPU all the time. Since I scan about once per month (timesheets!) it had to go. Luckily it wasn't hard to kill, but it sounds like it made better malware than this Netweird thingie.
Re: Paperless office, anyone?
"Have you tried the Selective Sync? (Preferences > Advanced)"
Wow - thanks.
Never spotted that.
Makes me look like a nob.
Paperless office, anyone?
Sorry, I don't buy it. I use Dropbox and the major limitation on its use is that my Notebook hard disk is so small I can't keep everything I want inside Dropbox.
Dropbox is a replicator not a network drive. I wish I could tell Dropbox I don't want THAT folder on THAT device. (You could simulate the effect by having multiple logons and sharing folders between accounts but I've got one paid for account and don't see why I should have to have multiple paid accounts to make up for a product deficiency)
Time Machine also sells disks. When my Time Machine cheap USB drive is full, I label it, put it on the shelf and get another from Maplins. I've got 5 on the shelf.
Also just bought a pair of 1TB cheapo USB drives for a media server. Wishing I'd bought the 2TB ones now. Of course I can add another pair of 1TB drives but that's 4 mains sockets (and power supplies) just for the disks.
We are a Very Long Way from being able to use The Cloud as the one and only storage medium. For backup it has its uses but as a primary storage medium, no way Jose. How did it go with Chrome OS, again?
Just remembering when Office Automation meant the advent of the paperless office. As I recall the main beneficiaries of that were HP, Epson, Canon.
Engage smug mode ....
.. but I pointed it out as fake based on the thread, not the head.
It is easy in 3D software to create a helical coil, much harder to create a good sharp helical thread. And although there are machine screws with helical coil threads they are for huge things like machine tools, and not down at the size of a small casing screw.
NOW will you all believe when I say we are ruled by 6 ft lizards in human suits?
Brings back memories ..
..and not good ones. Motif - Ugh. Take it out and bury it but make sure it's dead first. The Hello World programs were about 200 lines. Even Windows can do more with less.
The colours, as you can see were grotesque. Wow! We got more than 16 colours! Lets see how many we can use at once! What do you mean turquoise and pink don't go well together? Add in orange and purple and we're good to go. That was the days of named X11 colours.
About the only good thing was that you could save sessions, so next time you logged in all your terminal windows opened up again in the same place. Something Apple has just "invented" in 2012. Of course, I never used anything except terminal windows - since you did everything serious via the command line, why would you?
Is that really a graphical calculator taking up 50% of the screen space? Real men use bc.
Thread?
That doesn't actually look like a thread.
Posted in SCO keeps dying, and dying, and dying
Learned from GNU ...
If, as the article says, they are now The TSG Group, they have learned the recursive acronym trick at least, on the basis that TSG is The SCO Group.
Posted in Why women won't apply for IT jobs
Re: seen job adds lately ?
Sitting in a chair!
Paah! Sometimes you have to go under the desk and wiggle a cable. It's hell down there, i tell you.
Innovation!
Wonderful to see Microsoft continuing their long and illustrious history of always innovating and leading the industry!
* In compliance with the Americans With Disabilities act this post has been fitted with <irony> tags for the hard of thinking.
Re: How much
There are no equivalent jobs in the UK. That's the problem.
Exactly what I'd expect of RealNetworks
It, and other products like it (AVG and so on), are what made the Web feel so grubby and commercial after the initial heady days of text browsers.
Re: Better budgetting method?
Yep, been there, done that. Most incoming circuit are 100A, so that's your limit. Just try and draw more than 23kW and see what happens.
?
This gets the prize (this week) for the most obscure, unhelpful headline. Ever.
Did it make me read the story?
Yes.
Damn.
Posted in Lego readies kit for Minecraft lovers
Diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hole ...
This seems rather pointless - a block / brick construction toy firm releases a kit to do what the block / brick construction kit they are emulating already does better.
Who's the idiot?
A tiny bit of research would have avoided you making a complete fool of yourself. Panels are indeed made in the UK (Romag), Wales (Sharp), and Europe (Shuco) to name the first examples that come to mind.
Superb!
*this* is why I still read the Register - serious and mostly researched articles - as well as Verity Stob.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
It is indeed funded by other consumers, but the amount added to bills is between £1 and £3 per household per year. There is a lot of ill-informed noise (yes, you, Andrew) about it being too burdensome on "poor people".
The price of solar equipment has dropped faster than expected, so a cut in the rate was inevitable and part of the mechanism of the scheme - but a cut of over 50% with virtually immediate effect is knee-jerk bureaucracy at its worst.
The PV installation (surprised?) firm I work for had been scheduling jobs into January before this announcement was made, so we already have many unhappy customers who will not be getting what they have paid their deposit for.
Monitoring is vital!
I got a system from a company in Wimborne, and it came with a little Wattsure inverter monitoring thingie that sits in the loft. It's no good waiting to read your meter every three months; you want to know how well the system is performing and more to the point if is stops working or is producing under expectation. As well as getting graphs, it notifies me if there is a sudden change in output.
Seems like all PV systems should have something like that.
And yes, SAP procedure is based on irradiation levels in Bromwhich which is where the BRE are based - the company that develops the SAP procedure. So anyone south of there should be doing better than expected, anyone north is likely to do worse.
Posted in dabs.com says sorry for delivery debacle
Artificial Stupidity
My experiences have been the same as everyone else - no order processed since 27th Feb. I used to be a loyal and frequent purchaser, but no more.
This is a genuine email received in response to trying to fill in an online contact page requesting cancellation of an order:
Dear Sultana,
Unfortunately, there was no content included within your query. Please re-submit your form via the 'contact us' link on our website, ensuring that you complete all the fields and any comments you may have and we will endeavour to get back to you as soon as possible.
Thank you in advance.
Regards,
Sultana
Customer Services
dabs.com Plc
(I have of course no idea who Sultana is)
Posted in TiVo calls time on ageing set-tops
RIP old friend.
I got one of the first Tivos in the UK - within a few weeks of introduction. It did exactly what I wanted then and still does now. I had spent some time and money trying to cobble together a PC and tuner-based alternative to a VCR, which plainly didn't work.
I have upgraded the disk from 40GB to 400; I'm on my third handset.
I never watch TV live. Even if there's a program I want to watch I'll let the Tivo get about 10 minutes ahead, so I don't have to sit through the adverts.
I paid my £10/month to Tivo and then Sky for 10 years. I was convinced the £300 (?) one-time fee was not the best deal as there was bound to be something faster/better/cheaper along in less than two years. There wasn't.
Yes, it would be nice if it would carry on forever, but whining about it isn't going to help. And I for one am not going to Virgin or Sky - the content available on Freeserve is more than enough for me, I just want a Tivo service to record it for me so I can watch what I want when I want.
So the ugly great big silver box is going in the bin, I suppose.
So long.
Posted in DEC founder Ken Olsen is dead
Snake Oil
Ken was lambasted in the trade press and by the competition for being misquoted. Unix was the up and coming thing; making its way out of academia into commercial use. Ken is stated to have preferred the undoubted reliability of the home-grown VMS and was reported as saying Unix is so much snake oil.
The full quote was that Unix of itself was so much snake-oil, by which he meant it was not a silver bullet to all problems of cost, performance, application availability. To that, I think he was right.
but his blind spot of not seeing the need for a computer in every home was a real blind spot.
Dicktionary.com
@Pete 2 - please go and look up the definition of prologue.
"I do not think that word means what you think it means"
What was it like this time?
I was in the HP premises in Bristol at the time of the announcement of Carly's departure. There was an astonishing outburst of cheering and applause. Someone had a trumpet and played something - I can't remember what.
The overall feeling was summed up in Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead. Hurd was seen as 'mostly harmless' at the time.
@Beaker's love child ..
Aaah Grasshopper - never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
Posted in Southpaws up in arms over iPhone 4
Confused
I'm a lefty but I hold a phone in my right hand. I can then type or write with my left hand, or even push buttons on the phone with my left hand.
So if I was a righty I would be MORE likely to hold the phone in my left hand and experience these signal problems?
I have a ShinyPhone 3GS and have it in a leather case to protect it from scratches. This case often interferes with the phone's ability to tell when I am trying to use the touchscreen. This is an example of hardware that Is Not Perfect. Am I ranting about it? No.
Readers, is Green right?
No. Move along.
Charge for it
I think they should charge for it, but you get a full refund if you are proven to be a terrorist by ticking the box 'are you now or have you ever been ...'.
Not quite.
@Albert (11/01/2010 10:20)
I think you'll find that Low Voltage is up to 1000Vac or 1500Vdc according to European Directive Low Voltage Directive (LVD) 2006/95/E.
Nah, it's ok, you can touch those wires, they're Low Voltage.
Like the bastard file?
@Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
