Re: Excellent article, but...

> Have you seen the prices on those goddamn' things?

Seen the sticker price on a Panaflex?

Re: I disagree... on one (slightly OT) point

News out today www.blackmagic-design.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera/

2.5K resolution for < $3K and a lot better workflow and usability than a Red or a Phantom or Arri

Re: I don't understand

The iPhone is pricey because it includes a phone!

iPads are pricey because people will pay that and because bigger screens cost

A replacement for the ageing iPod touch priced at a point that stops anyone else entering the market sounds like good sense. And it drags in nice profitable appstore and iTunes customers who couldn't afford a $500 iPad and might be looking at Androids

Re: WP8 compatibility

Different in the small screen world - new releases of Windows CE regularly broke backwards compatibility

Re: Too little, too late.

Precisely - why this isn't a watch.

The problem with a watch is that it only told the time, and you only needed to use it when you needed the time, which was less often than you used your phone.

Now that your phone demands your attention every 2secs for SMS, twitter updates, facebook pokes or all the other stuff those young people do nowadays with their social networking - you need a quick glance dashboard to manage all the data.

A wrist mounted display seems the ideal solution. It's a more rugged, cheaper, easier and more practical version of the google glasses.

Re: Costs too much :-(

I think this is MSFT's marketing tactics. Give away free Nokia hardware at Developer Shows, and then charge all the developers to use the free phone.

Re: Naive and wishful thinking....

I have an idea. What about some government office to manage and examine patents, staffed by experts in the field to judge whether the invention is obvious or has been done before and reject it. The application could also describe the implementation in such a way that somebody 'skilled in the art' could reproduce.

The same office, with technically proficient judges, could then asses any violations of the patent.

Alternatively you could leave it all upto who has the most lawyers and what a jury of 12 East Texans with nothing better to do that day, think

Re: Wah?

When there are patents on "comparing online data and presenting a decision based on the data" or "collecting money for an online service" it's pretty difficult to use our new idea

Anyway - I have a patent on claiming that patents stifle innovation so Woz will have to pay up as soon as I can get to East texas

Re: Apple made new products?

Yes but taking a tablet and make it a smoother user experience doesn't give a patent on the rectangle

Re: Whatever.

But even so, it's a reasonable precaution that all visiting Americans be held in quarantine for 6 months

Re: This cant work

"produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal."

So if the image was produced solely for the purpose of making money or getting the z-list celeb some publicity it's OK?

Whereas a cricketer would have taken 2days of foreplay before even taking their jumper off.

Re: And it makes it more dangerous for the police

Found the link to the story. He was put in the local police station holding cell was rather than prison, where the other inhabitants stole all his clothes before attacking him.

His point was that ( risk of detection * sentence) for cop killing is less than punishment for mouthing off to a traffic cop. So you should logically shoot the cop.

It's like the mandatory life sentences under "three strikes", if you face the same punishment for killing all the witnesses as you do for a minor theft - why not use a gun?

Re: Lol

>Nice try by the defence. 617 = opportunistic?

Obviously just an example of the diligent hardworking meticulous nature of the Singaporean.

Re: Empty bottles are highly dangerous...

Surely you aren't allowed to take a young child on a plane?

Remember those safety-ads for car seats? The ones saying an un-restrained child had the energy of 100 charging bull elephants or some such rubbish. A small child could be hurled down the aisle of a plane as a weapon.

Of course a balastic small child could also be thrown to incapacitate a hijacker, which is why sky marshals are now present on many flights armed with a baby. When you next see a women with a crew cut, a mustache and badge breast feeding a child at an airport you will now why.

Re: Ship of Fools

It doesn't have zero effect.

Remember the last "we must fight the terrorists" data act? The one that was used by local councils to check which schools your kids should goto or who was letting their dogs crap in the park?

This same data is going to the same local councils. Complain about the potholes in the road and the council can do a quick check of which porn sites you have been visiting before writing you a letter suggesting you apologise before the list gets sent to your kids school or your employer.

Of course if it had happened today then there would definitely be a committee formed to address the question of adding icebergs to the scheduled list of items to avoid in a statement of principles in navigational best practice.

In addition there would probably have been a new safety branding throughout the White Star line and, if the number of deaths was high enough, probably id card lanyards with a new "safety first" motto. If it was really considered serious then there might have been mouse mats.

Re: I'm an atheist.

Depends - are you in the United Atheist Alliance, United Atheist League or the Allied Atheist Allegiance?

otherwise just use Hitch-Hikers or Monty Python

Re: YwetfoysatfoydL2630ish

It's a pity all those quoting Leviticus 18:22 don't seem to remember that

Re: So

At least with this lot you only get pointless PR releases based on some imaginary info found on the internet - with the last lot you got wars

Re: This is a frickin' joke

Although to be fair, any outfit that picked rswww.com as its web site does need a visit from the clue fairy

Re: South East News Bias ? - Nahhhhhh.......

At least we have decent chips in Yorkshire - not just McDs french fries.

Re: sadly

If you are a front line police officer and feel threatened simply because a member of the public uses an anglo-saxon derived term rather than a latin alternative.

Perhaps it's time to consider a less demanding career - something in the tea shop waitress industry?

Re: Ahh, capitalism.

Because the Chinese it wouldn't be able to enforce the same level of control over online gambling, pornography and other naughty stuff on the internet that the US can.

Re: Pointing down?

Reflection - cheap low efficency panels reflect some of the incoming light, especially at low angles of incidence. In this configuration any light that bounces off the main panel is absorbed by the

other.

If the signal is worth more than the detector it's a common way of making high efficiency photodiodes - putting a larger one facing back at the main receiver to catch any reflection losses.

Re: Seems he was inspired.....

Remember God hates German but loves Latin

Shit, Piss, Fuck = makes God cry

Fæces, Micturition, Copulation = doesn't bother God one tiny bit

Re: I don't really expect to see another successful airline hijacking in my lifetime.

There is an old military cliche that generals are always prepared for the last war.

I suspect the TSA is screening Japanese passengers arriving in Hawaii for any hidden torpedo bombers.

Re: false security theatre

So the highly trained government security specialists at the screening with access to all the databases, high tech screening machines and so on, can't confirm that somebody is a pilot.

But when they walk upto the aircraft they are allowed to walk straight into the flight deck with perhaps an air hostess glancing at their badge?

Makes you wonder about the air marshals. "You can't take that gun through security". "I'm an air marshal" "Well we don't know that".

Actually in practice it's probably - "I'm an air marshal"

"Well then you can keep the gun but you have to take your shoes off and hand over any liquids"

Re: false security theatre

>no easy way to tell the difference between a pilot and someone in a pilot's uniform, with a fake id

So safest not to let them on the flight deck then ?

Re: Departmental Budget Infighting?

Or conceivably the only reason for manned spaceflight is PR and they don't want somebody who looks like a chinese version of stig of the dump plastered all over their posters.

Same reason that Gagarin was chosen - his family was suitably working class and US astronauts were picked from married crew-cut test pilots

Re: It's not the first time.

To be fair - the polygraphs were rigorously tested.

The hooked up the salesman and asked "does this thing work" and it said yes.

What more could you want?

Re: false security theatre

And pilots being made to eat with plastic knives, with an axe on the door behind them.

And Congressional medals of honor being confiscated from Generals, it had sharp corners.

And penknives being removed from DHS agents who were still allowed to carry their gun

And nail clippers being confiscated from a US marine returning from Afghanistan - on a plane with 330 other marines - in case he used them as weapon to take over the plane.

Either it's a conspiracy by makers of video conferencing software to stop people flying - or the lizard people have taken over

Re: if someone offers me a job, I am obliged to take it

There did used to be a rule about accepting work in your own field.

So if anybody needs any llamas 'warmed up' for IVF you could be in trouble !

That's just what the brain rays want you to think !

Re: Who has the authority?

Same thing that normally happens.

The politicians make a lot of noise and get on telly.

The lawyers make a lot of money arguing the point

Nobody else gives a flying *************