So you were cycling at 22.5 mph then?
Yeah right ! ! ! ;-)
Posts by Johan Bastiaansen
511 publicly visible posts • joined 14 May 2007
Review: Mio Cyclo 300 cycling satnav
North Korean rocket works, puts something into orbit
'Build us a Death Star, President Obama' demand thousands
The best tablets for Christmas
Pirate cops bust LITTLE GIRL, take her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop
Adobe demands 7,000 years a day from humankind
Tuesday 4th December 2012 16:19 GMT 
Procedure jockeys
These EULA's are written by self declared very smart people who earn of money using their voodoo witchcraft to protect the company from imaginary risks. This actually is the lesser of several evils, the worst being that you let them write procedures that actually matter in they daily business of a company.
NASA: THE TRUTH about the END OF THE WORLD on 21 Dec
America planned to NUKE THE MOON
Thursday 29th November 2012 18:09 GMT 
What you guys don't realise
Back in the early days of atomic bombs (they were called nuclear weapons much later), little was know fall-out, radiation and their long term side effects. Atomic bombs were just seen as a tool that could big holes. Plans were made to make (Panama class) canals using atomic boms. To build instant harbors. To move riverbeds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosions
and for a blast from the past: http://books.google.be/books?id=ZC0DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false
What killed Motorola? Not Google! It was Moto's dire software
OS/2 a quarter century on: Why IBM lost out and how Microsoft won
Wednesday 28th November 2012 23:25 GMT
That's the problem with self declared smart people...
What we learned from this is that if you outsell your competitor, you can defeat a superior product that is "supported" by "strategists" and self declared smart people who concentrate on company politics instead of business.
Who would have thought? Well I would.
But not my boss. And neither his boss.
Boffin claims Bigfoot DNA reveals BESTIAL BONKING
Elon Musk envisions small town of vegetarians on Mars
Texan schoolgirl expelled for refusing to wear RFID tag
Swedish woman cuffed for sex with skeleton SHOCKER
Facebook's IPO was a disaster? RUBBISH, you FOOLS
Saturday 10th November 2012 16:23 GMT
The problem is ...
The problem is that there are a lot of people in the economy, finance and banking that simply don't have a clue. They talk the talk, but really they couldn't balance their own checkbook. I was looking into the Facebook IPO, just to check if it would be worth the time for a proper study. But hell, it wasn't easy to get some sound advice on it. Everybody was "excited". Well, that's hardly a rational position, so I decided to walk away from it. Of course, after the bottom fell out, everybody was shouting that they saw it coming.
It was like the weather girl forecasting yesterdays weather. She can do that with great accuracy, but it's rather useless.
Like I said, there's easy money in finance and banking and everybody is a specialist, but really they're not.
The professionals of KBC (Belgian Bank) for instance lost € 350k on the Facebook IPO. That's not a lot of money for them, but it shows they don't know what they're doing.
'I'd buy that for a dollar': Apple on Moto phone patents
A history of personal computing in 20 objects part 2
Sunday 4th November 2012 00:05 GMT
Re: What? no minis?
No no, the point is that they went from Zuse, Colossus, Eniac, Leo & Dec: hardware that could only be afforded by nations and the biggest companies to the desktop. But there was a decade where the average Joe couldn't afford a computer, but the medium company where he worked would have a Wang 2200.
In my first job as engineer I had a Wang 2200 with just 1 terminal. So it really was a personal computer.
When I started to work in IT, we were still replacing Wang 2200 with 4-8 terminals with a PC network and that was frequently used by small to midsized engineering firms with 4 to 20 employees. That was about 25 years ago.
Ah, the niakwa fingerprint. And the horror when the floppy got lost ! ! !
A decent Compaq with 386 processor and 640k would set you back around € 5.000. An extra € 1.000 for the full 1MB. An extra € 1.000 for a 287 coprocessor. Remember when you weren't supposed to want a coprocessor because you already had a 386 so what more could you want?
And if you want a 13" screen, that would cost an extra € 1.000.
And the margin on this hardware was 40-50%.
Looking back, developing software was just an excuse to sell the hardware. And most of these smaller software companies got stung when the PC became widely available and cheap.
I remember IT fairs where the visitors were packed shoulder to shoulder and they could only move forward when they guy in front of them would. And he wouldn't because he was staring in awe at your mouse and 16" color monitor.
And back at the office he would be working on a monochrome mini terminal. Probably shared by 4 colleagues.
Asteroid belts could be key to finding intelligent life
USS Enterprise sets out on its final mission
Felix Baumgartner sadly turns out to be blinkered FOOL
British judge: Say you're sorry Apple... this time like you MEAN it
'We invented Windows 8 Tiles in the 1990s', says firm suing Microsoft
No GPS in the iPad Mini Wi-Fi: People are right to criticise
Nokia puts Symbian out to pasture ... why not release it into the wild?
Slideshow: A History of the Smartphone in 20 Handsets
Wednesday 17th October 2012 16:37 GMT 
I started about 10 years ago...
with an iPAQ 3970. That was still Compaq then. And you're right, it was a PDA, not a smartphone. But I put a GSM/GPRS sleeve on it (developed by Option) and I had a TomTom GPS mouse in my car. So it had all the functionality that modern devices had, but it was quite a bit thicker. In every meaning one of the word, because it was running Pocket PC = Windows. So Microsoft was involved and it was unstable.
And it often failed to pick up incoming calls.
But it would pick up your stress levels so when you were in a hurry, you would have to wait extra long for a GPS-fix.
And it weighed a ton so you couldn't carry it around in the pocket of a summer jacket.
But I was young then ! ! !
And people were impressed when I put that brick on the table.
Foxconn: Worker who lost half his brain in accident must leave hospital
Astroboffins to search for mega-massive alien power plants
Inside the real-world Double-O section of Her Majesty's Secret Service
McFlurry McMisdemeanour costs Welsh lass McJob
Work for beer, Neil Gaiman's wife tells musicians
Neil Armstrong dies aged 82
New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD
Wednesday 22nd August 2012 22:39 GMT
Re: Yes
Yes, and what we have noticed is that this liability is somehow passed on to the general public. After all, we're all in the same boat now, no? And then they pull the rope on their golden parachute, get paid a lot of money. There's nothing to be done about that, it's in their contracts.
And when they land, they become capitalists and it's all me me me again. Untill it blow up in their faces.
And this will continue untill the politicians finally work up to courage and throw some of these people in jail.
Then throw away the golden key.
Facebook shares hit all-time low
Russian rocket fails to orbit 2 satellites after booster bungle
RBS: June's tech enormo-cock-up cost us £125m
Friday 3rd August 2012 23:22 GMT
"The probability of this type of incident is inordinately low."
Yes you're right, but only if people are sane and work to avoid this risk. If they're the mad management type, and they know "The probability of this type of incident is inordinately low" meaning "we can f*ck around like we want, this is never going to happen", than of course the risk rises astronomically. And this is upgraded to "a disaster waiting to happen".
Anonymous declares war after French firm trademarks its logo
Wednesday 1st August 2012 22:42 GMT
No, you don't understand. Because this companies managment is very smart and they know things. Because they've got lots of money and you don't. Because you are not a manager, so you wouldn't be able to understand.
It will turn out ok. Trust their managers on that. And if it doens't turn out ok, I'm sure the managers can not be blamed.
Whaahaaa, I hope they cut of their nuts and serve them on a platter. Best served cold I imagine.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
