* Posts by JP19

728 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Dec 2009

Are you for reel? How the Compact Cassette struck a chord for millions

JP19

The amazing walkman

Strangely we had a clear out and took some boxes of cassettes to the tip a few days ago.

I have a Walkman WM101 which I couldn't bear to part with. Apart from some buttons protruding slightly it is exactly the same size as a plastic cassette case.

It always made me think of the guy at his drafting board designing the compact cassette plastic case and what he would have said if he had been told in a few years someone would fit a complete auto-reversing Dobly stereo cassette player and battery in the space he was leaving.

Nissan promises to sell self-driving cars by 2020

JP19

Faith in machinery displayed here is amusing

Can we get a computer to accurately recognise voice yet? Can we get a robot to do something mundane like walk a vacuum cleaner around a room? Can we get a computer to reliably and quickly recognise a CAPTCHA?

A post in another recent thread here claimed the human brain was a million times more powerful than our computers - I don't buy that without qualification but it is certainly very powerful, good at doing the things it evolved to do, and moving the body over varied and unfamiliar terrain quickly and safely taking into account other moving bodies which it is trying to eat or avoid being eaten by is a large part of what it evolved to do.

I doubt we will ever have driverless cars without simplifying the problem which will mean making roads more like railways and restricting driverless operation to roads that can be.

Silicon daddy: Moore's Law about to be repealed, but don't blame physics

JP19

Re: Adding a Peltier cooler layer every few 'processing layers' seems doable

Lol.

Peltier devices are heaters not coolers. Just a small proportion of the heat pumped into one side comes from the other.

Microsoft: YES Windows 8.1 is finished, but NO you can't have it

JP19

Huh?

"However, it's clear that times have changed, with shifts to greater mobility and touch as well as the blurring of work and personal lives."

So that is supposed to have some influence on RTM and general availability timing how?

Do they really think manufacturers will shift more boxes because 8.1 is loaded?

Most likely it isn't fit for release and what's changed is the definition of RTM which now means a version where the first windows update session won't take more than an hour.

ISPs scramble to explain mouse-sniffing tool

JP19

The real issue is..

The real issue is not that they watch my mouse, it is they use a third party to watch my mouse and anything else they can and care to see and potentially do it across multiple web sites.

ws.sessioncam.com is another one for the block list.

Netflix dares UK freetards: Watch new Breaking Bad NOW or torrent it?

JP19

Dares?

So I could torrent a DRM free HD copy which I can watch any time I want for as long as I care to devote a few pence worth of disc space to it. I can reencode it to any format to play on any device (current and future) should I want to. The incremental cost over a net connection is almost nothing.

Or I could pay Netflix six quid a month and be able to stream likely shitty quality (I couldn't find out) to a likely shitty player (is it silverlight in a browser on PC - I couldn't find out) for as long as I pay Netflix 6 quid a month and as long as they choose to keep it available.

And that is for the limited range of content on Netflix.

No dare, no challenge - paying substantially more to get substantially less is a joke.

Paying substantially more isn't the big problem, the big problem is getting substantially less.

Chubby-chasing sex trolls ran me offline, says fashion blogger

JP19

Re: Sticks and stones

"It's not ok to be an arsehole, people who are should have this fact drummed into them."

No one is stopping you telling them they are arseholes, but, that is not what the offended are asking for is it.

They are demanding someone else silences them or locks them up.

Some people are arseholes and when you have silenced or locked up some people some people will still be arseholes. People being allowed to demonstrate they are arseholes tells us which people are, rather than having to assume everyone might be a suppressed arsehole. Tolerating demonstration of arseholeness is a price worth paying. After all what is so hard about tolerating arseholes? Do you think the offended really value their opinion or something?

JP19

The only weapon we have is the one thing that used to control this type of thing and that is "shame". The very same free speech should be used to "out" them, deride them and, in the real world, ostracise them.

That is called society and worked well enough until politicians decided they needed something else to do to appear to be a little less of a waste of space. By definition they can't replace or improve the function of a society all they can do is destroy society and turn us into a nation of individuals controlled and regulated by the state. Their talk of social and anti-social behaviour is just farcical.

Moneybags pour shower of gold on new mega-precise GPS system

JP19

$14k

Is what I don't get.

14k isn't enough to fund development if they haven't already done it. It isn't enough to fund a volume production batch to bring the unit cost price down.

The campaign is good publicity but otherwise seems to be a bit of a waste.

UK plods cuff another bloke in Twitter violence threat probe

JP19

"for the rest of us 95% of blokes who do manage to get through our day showing respect and courtesy for other people irrespective of of their gender"

Says someone who chose the nick Amorous Cowherder.

Can't agree on a coding style? Maybe the NEW YORK TIMES can help

JP19

Braces come in pairs and should be visually paired up by putting them in matching columns

Quotes, double quotes, parenthesis, and and brackets also come in pairs do they get their own line and matching columns?

Braces are irrelevant.

Correctly indented code can be read with all braces removed. I don't need to see them at all never mind dedicate a whole line to each.

Police probe IDIOTIC Twitter bomb threats slung at journalists

JP19

A BOMB HAS BEEN PLACED OUTSIDE YOUR HOME. IT WILL GO OFF AT 10:47

"A BOMB HAS BEEN PLACED OUTSIDE YOUR HOME. IT WILL GO OFF AT 10:47"

Is not a threat it is a statement. If a bomb were placed outside your home you would be glad to be warned of it by such a statement.

If there is no bomb and no reasonable cause for suspecting there is one then it is a nuisance and a minor one which any sensible person who doesn't have any real expectation of being blown up wouldn't give a second thought to.

You would think someone who gets paid for writing words wouldn't talk such shit about words they read.

Intel's homage to Raspberry Pi: The much pricier Minnowboard

JP19

Minnowboard?

If this really is intended to compete with RaspberryPi the name is a complete fail.

To be hip and hyped you need stupid name like RaspberryPi, Jelly bean, Ice cream sandwich?

A name where most people would have no idea what you are talking about so just knowing what the name is makes you hip.

Minnowboard - it is a board and kinda like a small weak fish - They stand more chance of selling them if it were called 'Knickerbocker Fanfare'. The price is also stupid but I guess they know they will never sell the volume required to bring it to sub $50 level.

Exposed: RSPCA drills into cops' databases, harvests private info

JP19

RSPCA = wannabe police force

The RSPCA out of control. Funded by 'won't you think of the animals morons' and using those funds to find and prosecute as many people as possible with very little genuine concern about animal welfare.

I have seen a rescue centre run by a genuine animal lover raided and ripped apart by the RSPCA on strength of a couple of accusations of provision of inadequate care. Some of the sick animals were put down, some died from the stress, the rest placed in homes or other centres who could have had them in the first place if they wanted them, they were in the rescue centre because no one else wanted them.

The RSPCA employed vets gave opinionated damning testimony the centre owner broke (from running the centre) and defenceless didn't have a chance. So animals were destroyed, died, or ended up somewhere else no better off, a rescue centre closes leaving one less place for unwanted animals and the RSPCA chalk up a victory in the fight against animal cruelty - bastards.

And then the guy who ended up with a conditional discharge and paying £1500 of RSPCA costs for drowning a grey squirrel instead of putting it in a sack and hitting it with a shovel... I wouldn't donate to the RSPCA in a million years. I suggest others do likewise.

Banknote campaigner's Twitter rape threats ordeal: Bloke, 21, cuffed

JP19

Re: As a bloke I signed the petition to get a woman on a banknote

Amorous Cowherder?

Someone who gathers and controls multiple females of the species with the desire to shag them?

So did you sign the petition to promote sexual equality, or did you sign it so you can tell all your lady friends about it in the hope of getting laid?

Microsoft introduces warning on child abuse image searches

JP19

Hmm

Are these warnings there to try to prevent you from finding kiddy porn through Bing or to try to prevent you from finding out that you can't find kiddy porn through Bing and discovering what a waste of space CEOP, the IWF, Cameron and Perry are?

Only 1 in 5 Americans believe in pure evolution – and that's an upswing

JP19

Re: Let there be.....Ignorance?

"its all easily dispproved bollocks"

No it isn't. How do you disprove "God did it"? There is very little in religions which can be disproved because (amusingly) they are also the product of a natural selection process.

The value of any theory is in the ability to predict the future it gives us. God did it cos he felt like it and will do what he feels like in the future type theories no value and that is why they should not be taught.

WAR ON PORN: UK flicks switch on 'I am a pervert' web filters

JP19
Unhappy

Re: Cameron is such a dick

"Sadly I believe the majority of Labour voters will continue to vote for Labour and the majority of Conservative voters will vote for the Conservatives at the next election regardless of things like this happening."

I have always voted to try keep the most useless pack of wankers (Labour) out, the difference between the two most popular packs of wankers is now looking so narrow that it hardly makes a difference. UKIP gets my next one.

JP19
WTF?

Cameron is such a dick

Look at the same topic on the Beeb news site and see hundreds of up votes for comments saying this is a bad and pointless idea and hundreds of down votes on comments saying it is a good idea.

This won't win him votes, few think it is a good idea, but, even worse no one outside the child protection industry really cares. The economy is in tatters and our politicians think they can look good by fluffing child protection cushions on the sinking ship - what planet is he on?

Children won't remember Cameron for saving them from porn, they will remember him for censoring the internet and the mill stone of debt he left them carrying.

UK parliament presses for pardon for Alan Turing

JP19
Stop

"It is not too late for the government to pardon"

He has been dead for the last 59 years so yes it is too late - effing morons.

It is never too late to play the politically correct game grasping at an opportunity to demonstrating how much more caring, thoughtful, and tolerant you are than your predecessors of 61 years ago. They are also all dead - not much competition there.

Nissan to enter 300 kmh electric car in Le Mans endurance race

JP19

Re: It's a Garage 56 Car

"I believe the car has it's own petrol motor"

Up vote for being the only poster noticing it is a hybrid with a petrol engine which is going to be running flat out all the time.

"ZEOD" is as bullshit as the "Zero Emissions" you can have plastered on the side of your Leaf.

You stop the engine and it 'runs' for a bit on emissions already produced by the engine or a power station somewhere.

JP19

Re: Re balanced assessments of electric cars

"why don't we assess the speed, fuel efficiency, refuelling hassles, reliability, etc., of petrol-engined cars in their first few years"

People did at the time. In 1900 more electric cars were sold in America than gasoline and steam powered combined.

They turned out to be relatively crap and are not much better today.

3D printers now emitting merged manufacturers

JP19

Consumer level 3D printing is a fad with no real future.

3D printing is a viable manufacturing technique for almost nothing. Too slow, too expensive, and low quality.

It is and will continue to be used for very low volumes which can not justify the cost and time setting up more conventional manufacturing processes.

Low volumes means prototypes or objects which are almost unique. Things like personalised ear buds or dentures would be likely targets. Perhaps art or fashion items where being unique is a desirable quality. Anything with moderate and higher demand is better produced conventionally and will be. The advantage of getting something a bit sooner by printing it at home will rerely justify the costs.

Was personal 2D printing a revolution? Did books, bookshops, magazines, newspapers and all the printing presses disappear? The biggest revolution was in conjunction with digital camera technology which did make film and photographic processing and printing disappear. That had the big advantage of all the material being unique. Even now many people can't justify the cost and hassle of a colour printer and take their memory sticks to ASDA or somewhere to be printed.

Offensive, iconoclastic internet trolls will not be prosecuted, says DPP

JP19

NOT be prosecuted

So are they going to un-prosecute the ones that already have?

I read this as the law is vague and stupid, judges can't be trusted to interpret it sensibly, but, we can work around the problem by not putting cases in front of judges.

HP sacks English employees to bag Scots gov jobs cash

JP19
FAIL

Devolution

Scots hated being governed by a pack of wankers in Westminster.

So did/do the English.

The Scots had this brilliant idea to at great expense have their own pack of wankers.

So now Britain has an extra 129 wankers and pissed away £420 million just on building a house for them.

Paying HP 7 million quid to sack a load of people and hire them somewhere else is one of the great ideas these extra wankers came up with.

Jaguar to open new car-making factory in Blighty (virtually)

JP19

Vince Cable, the Lib Dem MP and Business Secretary, said he was delighted

It is over 5 years and 6 of the 10 million is from the government.

If this delights Vince we must be in far deeper shit than even I imagined.

Scientists investigate 'dark lightning' threat to aircraft passengers

JP19

Re: hundreds of chest x-rays worth of radiation (Neoc)

"At what point did anyone mention planes crashing?"

I mentioned it as a (possible) alternative to landing because flying through thunder storms where TGFs might be experienced risks direct lightning strikes which we know have caused multiple plane crashes.

I will assume you comment was directed at Neoc.

All photographic film is sensitive to high energy particle exposure. We have had decades of planes carrying photographic film from holiday snaps to reconnaissance photograph to just plain cargo. If planes have been experiencing huge high energy particle exposure events we would have had evidence for decades.

JP19
FAIL

hundreds of chest x-rays worth of radiation

Hmm,

You would think in all the history of flight, photography, and thunderstorms we might have noticed planes landing (or crashing) with every piece of photographic film on board having hundreds of chest x-rays worth of exposure?

TGFs might exist, they might be worth investigating, but, the 'and they will kill you' bit sure looks like utter bollocks to me.

Utter bollocks without which this 'news' would not have been reported <sigh>.

NSA: 'Dozens of attacks' prevented by snooping

JP19

"NSA's "intent" to get specific figures on the number of attacks prevent out in the next week."

Because they need a week to make them up.

Obama administration defends mass call-data slurping

JP19

Re: "There have been approximately 100 plots and also arrests made since 2009 by the FBI"

"And how many convictions...?"

Hey they got the guy who tried and abysmally failed to make Ricin from bottles of castor oil with the intention of poisoning his drug dealer to whom he owed a lot of money.

The plot was uncovered because his flatmate went to hospital with a bad cold thinking he had Ricin poisoning.

No intelligence required (or observed in the offender and his flatmate apparently) but homeland security chalked it up as a win in the fight against terror.

Google says it can predict movie box office with 94% accuracy

JP19

Re: whoda thunk it

I forgot to mention.

I have zero intention of ever visiting a cinema again.

I have a nice big plasma, nice sound system with a volume control, a pause button, comfy chairs, friends not strangers. Don't have to travel, pay parking or risk the car getting nicked or keyed. It's cheap and I can even have a fag. I really want to forgo all that because Hollywood thinks I ought to pay extra to see something once a few months earlier than otherwise?

Cinemas like the top whatever music charts are just an obsolete relic of the media industry. I don't understand why they haven't curled up and died.

JP19
FAIL

whoda thunk it

Correlation between searches for information about an upcoming film and people going to the cinema to see it?

Colour me surprised - not.

Success and what I am interested in is if people wanted to see it when they walk out of the cinema.

Hollywood learning how to better sell krud with the aid of google is going to result in more fail.

Culture Sec: You - Google. Where's the off switch for all this filth?

JP19

Re: Cutting off (most of) the air supply

"Would it not be an idea to simply require the payment processing companies to remove from any "trader" on a website where there is payment for images that are illegal"

If that were done it would reveal how non-existant the market for illegal (in the country of origin) images is and put a bit of a damper on the crusade.

Twitter, Facebook are 'a MENACE to society', says Turkey's PM

JP19

Give the guy a break

He is probably right - just for the wrong reasons :)

Microsoft's Windows 8.1 secrets REVEALED ... sort of

JP19

Re: Kids are the future an' all that

"I can see the dilemma"

That isn't the dilemma. They could put the start menu back in and make both optional. Classic shell puts the start menu back in for free - are you telling me that doing the same would stretch Microsoft's technical abilities?

TIKFAM is in Win 8 to force it on to their captive desktop market in order to promote it, apps, and their store on fondleslabs and phones - no other reason. The dilemma is how much they dare piss off their existing desktop customers for the sake of promoting TIKFAM and their answer seems to be a LOT.

Adding a graphic of a start button isn't a step in the right direction it just makes the shitty TIKFAM interface easier for the bewildered to find.

May threatens ban on 'hate-inciting' radicals, even if they don't promote violence

JP19

Re: Won't be able to post hate comments

Don't worry we will always be allowed to hate peedyfiles. They are all we have left nowadays.

Peak Facebook: British users lose their Liking for Zuck's ad empire

JP19

tried it once

Wouldn't let me create an account with a throw away email address so that is as far as I got.

I don't want to be tracked on the internet. I don't want all the information I put on the internet to be aggregated and analysed. For that reason I avoid providing keys such as a Facebook ID which make gathering that information easier.

The idea of providing Facebook with any valid information about me (especially just to have a look and see what the fuss was about) was more than I could stomach. The idea that if I had a Facebook ID I would use it to sign into other services on the internet is completely ridiculous.

There is only one forum on the internet where I use my real name. A software support forum where the company (in Facebook wannabe style) decided access and ID on the forum is tied to licensing of the software - at least it is still currently a closed forum, but, I fsking hate it.

STROKE this mouse to make apps POP, says Microsoft

JP19

Re: Well, I love Windows 8. There, I said it.

Lol, you know

type "Windows N O T E Enter"

Also works in Win 7.

I have just shy of 600 items in my start menu "multiple layers of embedded folders" Are you seriously suggesting that scrolling sideways through 600 tiles on a full screen is a good way to organise or find any of them?

JP19

The only thing this mouse will pop....

Is itself into the $1 bargain basket in a few months.

TIFKAM is shit but if people really do want to use it on the desktop with mouse then I can't fathom why Microsoft didn't implement a mouse gesture recognition scheme for which a mouse with a dedicated gesture button would be useful.

It is effectively a single touch interface without the stupidity of having to flail your arm around.

Woolwich beheading sparks call to REVIVE UK Snoopers' Charter

JP19

"it would take "some huge tragedy""

No it takes huge media and political hype and hypocrisy.

One squaddie getting knifed in London is a "huge tragedy" while the 444 squaddies and uncounted 'insurgents' that have been killed in Afghanistan so far is just business as usual.

David Cameron asks UK biz to pay their low, low taxes

JP19

in return for lower taxes, companies should really pay the tax they do owe

Hmm Dave, if they are not paying the tax they owe shouldn't you be prosecuting them? Isn't that what the laws you made are for?

Also if your taxes are so low why do international companies choose to pay taxes in Ireland or Luxembourg or where ever instead of here?

Last time CO2 was this high, the world was underwater? No actually

JP19

Re: Scientific Theory

"mankind has a built-in superiority complex that makes us believe we must be responsible for everything"

The complex is not about mankind being responsible it is about others being responsible. Talking the talk and making a few pathetically ineffective gestures allows you to point the finger of blame at and feel superior to anyone who isn't doing the same. Saving the entire planet - what better subject for a willy waving contest.

Mankind's other big problem is the propensity to believe any old shite as long as enough others believe it - the foundation of all religion and look how popular that is.

Half of youngsters would swap PRIVACY for... cheaper insurance

JP19

Re: Understandable

"Do the thumb downers really want to die because someone else caused an accident?"

No they want to live because someone else didn't cause and accident.

Not having an accident doesn't hurt at all and is really inexpensive.

JP19

Re: Understandable

"Power to weight restriction"

Sure because we know how well that worked wiv youfs and gutless 50cc mopeds. The most important consideration being never to slow down because it takes so long to speed up again.

On the other hand sticking a metal spike instead of air bag in the middle of the steering wheel would be good - I'll have one if everyone else gets one too.

Mobile tech destroys the case for the HS2 £multi-beellion train set

JP19

Re: Great article

"Shame el-reg has sharing options from 2005"

I wouldn't +1 or 'like' anything without being given the option to -1 or 'dislike' so take a downvote - dickhead.

JP19

Wow

The country can save 28.7 billion quid just by people not going to Birmingham - what a fsking bargain!

Microsoft: YES! You can have your desktop back again for FREE!

JP19

"get it right from the Windows Start screen through the app store,"

Funny, the app store was the first thing I tried to delete from TIKFAM.

UK.gov blows a fuse at smart meter stall, sets new 2020 deadline

JP19

Re: Luddites

"there are some genuinely interesting possibilities arising from replacing existing meters with smart meters."

When I am forced to pay 300 quid for something I expect to be assured of more than "genuinely interesting possibilities".

The reality is the main driving force behind smart meters is the desire to equip us all with personal guilt meters and the farcical notion that if only we knew how much energy we were using we stop using it.

JP19

Yay for government

Can't piss away our money fast enough

UKIP say

"We believe in the minimum necessary government which defends individual freedom, supports those in real need, takes as little of our money as possible and doesn’t interfere in our lives."

What is not to like?

What kind of pirate are you: Justified, transgressor or just honest?

JP19

Re: Concert spending

"overall effect is negative"

Or positive depending on your position being screwing more money out of people for some stuff is a plus or more people getting to consume that stuff for the same amount of money is a plus.