Posts by LDS
353 posts • joined Sunday 28th February 2010 14:58 GMT
Posted in Movie review: Star Trek Into Darkness
Re: The first movie of the reboot did it for me....
Think galaxies have enormous black holes at their centers and they are not swallowed by them... a black hole gravity if you're far enough (and a planet distance is far enough for a star-mass born black hole) is no different from the gravity of any other object of the same mass. What destroys a planetary system when a star turns into a black hole it's it usually happens in an explosive way - while the nucleus implodes and becomes a black hole the outer part is blown away. If you could turn a star into a black hole without having part of it blow, no planet would be "swallowed" unless it usually revolves very close to the star. The planets will just keep on revolving around the black hole, and would die of energy starvation
The risk it to kill the paying hobbyst market
This way they could get rid of most pirated copies, but they are going to kill the market of honest hobbyists who pay their copies but of course don't upgrade to each release. For them a monthly fee is a nonsense, they're not those using those products on a daily basis, the perception is "paying for something I don't use".
Sadly, we're getting back to the old Unix world were many applications were not sold, but rented for an annual fee. The PC ended these practices, and transformed the device in something really personal. Now the "cloud" looks just a way to turn the clock back and force people to rent applications - unluckily it will work only for people using them as their main tools, the others will look elsewhere.
THey no longer make useful keyboards or mice
I used Logitech keyboards for years. Than they started to change the key layout (ins/del) , shrink F Keys, very little choice of wired keyboard (I don't need a wireless one on my desktop), and quality dropped. Every time I look for a keyboard I can't find a Logitech that suits my needs. And buy something else.
Has Microsoft forgotten already the "Flight" fiasco?
MS Flight was designed to be played mostly online and keep on spending on "walled garden" DLCs. It was shut down six months after launch because no most flight simmer didn't like that model, although a lot fly online and buy add-ons. The corporate world is trying to enforce a business model users don't like. And playing is not a compulsory activity. And there will be other products when someone smarter understand what people neeeds.
Posted in Outages plague Hotmail and Outlook users
Re: I actually thought about moving
It's so clean and nice I'm actually thinking of resurrecting my green phosphor monochrome monitor to use it... it's all you need with today web interfaces. I'm against those using every 24 bit color in a single interface, but we are now at opposite side, just two colors and lack of many hints - i.e. red anyway hints at a command that can bring to data loss, and so on....
Posted in Outages plague Hotmail and Outlook users
Just try to use a password longer than 15 characters... it won't allow you.
It's funny a new service limits the length of the password. I tried to use a password longer than 15 character and it does not accept it.
Re: Is this a bit strange
Apple has the same monopoly on tablets, and Cook often says it himself - what better proof? Thereby why EU keeps on fining MS which no longer has any monopoly in the browser market is really beyond understanding. Moreover while Windows came with IE preinstalled, *it never forbade to install another one*. While Apple does that exactly, and EU doesn't complain - it's really strange....
Re: Maybe the EU will work it all out...
No, EU parliament members are too busy to surf the web on iPads paid by taxpayers to care about it.
"A clip on speaker? Almost like a Bluetooth ear piece? Except that it is bulky, everyone can hear both sides of the conversation"
Yes, sometimes trekkies don't understand what works just because of the show needs (in this case, the audience usually needs to hear both sides), and what would be really needed in the real world - after all, they are the ones who insisted to call "Enterprise" the only Shuttle that would have never gone into space...
(disclaimer: I love ST - but I can understand when something was not exactly "clever").
Re: "Blow"?
Right, especially the Pro. On one side you have a table that can run any Windows application locally, and even with no connectivity - and join a Windows domain, on the other side something strongly tied with Google online services only.
Re: Not just Macs is it..
No, if the vulnerability is used to download and run native code - as it looks, the attack was targeted at Macs, not anyone running Java.
Posted in AMD: Star Trek holodecks within reach
Holodecks appeared briefly in "Space Battleship Yamato" ("Star Blazer") before TNG
In one of the first episodes of "Space Battleship Yamato", when the robot Analyzer (IQ-9) shows the ship to Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar), he also briefly shows and holodeck for recreational activities while travelling in space. I do not remember if it was ever shown again after that episode.
I always wondered if TNG borrowed it from the japanese anime, or "invented" it independently.
Re: Miniature Surface to Air Missile system?
I was thinking the same, a new market opens, anti-drone private missile systems and window lasers to blind the cameras... with small IIR/radars sensor to track the drones and shoot 'em out. Or maybe fighter drones to take down peeping ones...,
Data are the core of *some* (and a few) company only.
Too many writers are starting to think that the "software world" is made up only by Google and Facebook. Data - big or not - are at the core of only some companies. There's still a lot of software written to perform complex tasks on little data - the wold of software is not only made of Google or Facebook. Asay shows once more he's unable to look at the BigPicture, he still looks stubbornly at BigData only.
What was MS marketing drinking when they set release dates?
Frankly, releasing now the RT affter the bad sales performance in the other countries, and when the Pro is getting much more coverage, and shows - when compared to the RT - far better performances (but battery life) is a suicide. They can just deceive the less informed customers, while those who really want a Windows "tablet" will probably wait for the Pro (I'll probably buy one to control my camera through EOS Utility on the field). This kind of marketing could have worked if and only if MS had an extremely good product, which it hasn't. The price moreover, after the unfavoureable reviews is really too high, of course they can't lower it because they will play the same game with the Pro later that could sell a little better, but IMHO this release is going to be a real disaster.
Re: It is critical that parts that wear out, such as batteries be field replaceable
"A multi-hundred dollar battery powered device whose batteries cannot be replaced is junk."
It's happening with most smartphones, tablet and slim notebooks.
Hasn't the iPad a lot of fans?
MS just ensured the Pro has at least two.
Posted in Apple refreshes MacBook Pro range
Re: Please stop moaning about transat differences
Computers prices are a factor in the cost of living....
EU won't ever do something alike...
... because higher prices means higher VAT as well.
If IE of Media Player could have been taxed, they won't have asked to remove them from Windows.
Re: FFS
Airplanes without row 13, Many softwares skip release 13. Canon went from Powershot G12 to G15 to avoid G13 and G14 because the former looks bad in the Western world, the latter in the Asian area. There are still too many silly people thinking "bad numbers" exist and could harm them.
My religion forbids me to pay taxes!!!
So the government must accept it and let me respect my deep belief that paying taxes will send me to the worst hell you could imagine and I do not want to damn my soul!
Re: Guess I'll got one - it looks great to be used together my camera.
I'd suggest the downvoter to look first at what you could do with EOS Utility and what you can do what the available iPad apps. There's no match. As long as Canon does not release an iPad or Android version of EOS Utility, whatever can run it natively on the field in a highly portable format is very welcome. And if it can also run the professional imaging software you're used to the better, sorry if iPad can't, but that's life...
Re: Guess I'll got one - it looks great to be used together my camera.
I have a suspect the downvoters are those funny people who use their iPads as cameras... and probably don't like to face the fact that no matter how good iPad can be, they are not the "definitive" device and there are tasks they are not good at, and where other devices can work better. My example was not a mainstream use, but it's a task where a device running x86 Windows, digitizer and full USB support can deliver more than devices designed to be less flexible, although smaller and with a longer battery life. Every device - including iPad - is a compromise - one has to choose the compromise that fits better his needs.
Re: Guess I'll got one - it looks great to be used together my camera.
The iPad can't run Canon original software - sure, there are some apps that try to duplicate them but I'd prefer to use the original software which can access all the camera features as designed without any need to reverse engineer the protocol and try to duplicate it.
Nor the iPad can run the full Lightroom or Photoshop - or any other software designed for Windows (or Mac). Nor the iPad has a real digitizer. An USB 3.0 port will allow to access the raw images on the CF much faster than downloading them from the camera (which unluckily has only USB 2.0 support), without the need of ad-hoc cables. The only advantage would be the Retina display, but a 1920 x 1080 is not that bad after all.
Right now I'm using a laptop, something like the Surface Pro can be a lighter alternative which you can hold with one hand.
Guess I'll got one - it looks great to be used together my camera.
Being able to run Windows software and with decent USB support I guess it's a good device to connect to my Canon EOS 5 camera, both for remote control using EOS Utility and a 5m USB cable, and to check images directly from the cards, thanks to the good screen. It looks easier to carry around than any other Ultrabook in a photo bag, the pen makes the mouse not needed even when some precision is needed, and you can get rid of the keyboard when you don't need it. The fact it can run Lightroom or Photoshop is a surely plus. Only battery life could have been better.... but I guess I'll give it a try.
Re: @Boris (was: hmmm)
Oh well, Apple's first implementation of a truly multitasking OS was directly lifted from BSD. But of course if Apple does that is good, if MS gets some code is bad... and OSX as well is not a free/open source OS.
No one charges for an operating system?
Geez, iOS is one of the most expensive OS around, and to get it you have to pay for the device also. What's wrong in buying an OS and install it on the device you like?
Re: You'd think the NY Times could afford an *actual* IT department
Most companies don't realize how much their operations, data and IPs are strongly tied to IT now. IT is just a cost and the cloud will solve all issues, so management can give themselves a raise <G>.
New features may cripple your daily tasks - often in subtle ways - and people will disable them
When we installed the "endpoint security" from a well-known AV vendor - some internal applications stopped to work. Tracing what was happening, we found that the tool was blocking HTTP connections (to internal servers) without notifying the user. Most notifications are turned off by default, and simply the applications seemed to stop working. Moreover its "reputation" system when attempting to download some tools that can be classified as "hacking tools" but may have legitimate uses by sysadmin, was damaging downloads once again without notifying the user, we got corrupted zip files only instead of a message telling what was really going on. These behaviors by default are really stupid - people will just find the computer is running slower, application that was working now don't, and downloads gets corrupted. Without a proper explanation on what's happened, the average user will just think the "endpoint security" is just crapware, and disable it. Software vendors should stop to think they are smarter and they can outsmart the user. This way they are just delivering silly solutions users are not going to use because of that.
Gartner - as usual - got it worng. People are using new tablets along old PCs - not replacing them
The guys at Gartner, as usual so busy to please their customers, got it wrong again. Most people are not replacing PCs with tablets, they are using new tablets along old PCs which they feel no urge - now - to replace. From a PC maker short-term perspective that's alike if PCs are replaced - you don't sell much new ones - but in the long term unless tablets turns into an hybrid form able to replace PCs really for those who do something more than browsing, play some silly games, and updating their facebook profile, those PCs will require to be upgraded anyway. Sure we'll see changes in PCs form factors and structure from the actual ones, but those who believe Gartner & C. too much have usually a good chance to get the wrong direction wholly.
Re: Are you joking?
That would work only if you're a pure IT company. If you're not, and you manufacture/sell products the real world, it may be not that easy.
Re: Maybe Dell just doesn't understand customers anymore?
The desktop PC is declining or simply upgrade cycles are getting longer, especially when economy is in trouble? If you're a single user, or a very small company, you can build/upgrade your own PCs. If you're a bigger company, you can't - because you can't let your employees put their hands inside company equipment (not everybody is able, moreover you may be liable if something bad happens and the employee was not qualified to perform the task),and you may not want to hire technicians to perform that job. My home computer is custom built, but my office one is a Dell Precision - we have a good deal with Dell so prices are not so bad.
You should understand why laptops don't use standard, affordable, off-the-shelf parts: there's no way to build one such way and make it small and light - you would end up with a large, heavy, ugly laptop - and no one would but it.
Re: They waited ....
As soon as he left the country they announced plans to hit the US with their missile, coincidence? Maybe the puffy leader hoped he brought in some chocolate from the Chocolate Factory - that's why he was allowed to enter - and when there was none the puffy leader got angry and asked a missile to hit Google...
Re: Instructions for enjoying Sci Films
Good sci-fi is what makes your brain turns on at high-speed. I'd suggest you to start reading very good sci-fi books - Bradbury, Dick, Asimov and others - and you'll discover sci-fi is not about starships, lasers and monsters.... is a way to look at ourselves from a very different viewpoint, and question... but Star Wars and tons of videogames turned sci-fi into just a show for people who want to turn off their brains...
Don't waste your time trying to explain them - people now are too used to videogames, sci-fi became just "zap around in a strange ship, blaste you laser around and kill the horrible monster - and add some kung-fu here and there, please, and yes, some scantily dressed women so nerds and not so nerds are aroused...".
Whatever needs a brain connected to undestand the plot and say "hey, it's an interesting point of view challenging mine", and not just a stomach full of popcorn is too much tor the director, the producers, and the target audience. Abrams is the perfect director for such kind of movies.
Re: Save me from the old days please !!!
There are many FTP clients that let you use your remote FTP server as if it is a disk or folder, c'mon. I rarely today use command line FTP. And we could talk about WebDAV as well. When Google released GMail, there were utilities to use it as a remote disk as well. The success of DropBox now is just because people start to have more devices all connected, something you didn't have a few years ago and thereby no need of remote shared storage.
Mainframes in the '60s had the equivalent of today "millions of user" - that was the computing power and bandwidth available. But the model is the the same, you have more computing power than you need, thereby you rent it to somebody who needs it to make money, and if you make money you add more to get more users and so on. And the end user has little hardware to pay for and manage. Nothing new under the Sun - and everything mostly running on some *nix still... sure, it can work, you can make a lot of money, but please, don't tell me it's a big innovation, it's just an old model with some updated technology in it. The same thing SAP, Oracle, etc. are doing, add some updated technology to their actual products and rent them through the Internet. Especially since actual products are usually so powerful - hardware and software - that most users have much longer upgrade cycles, and thereby it's better to rent something in a cloud for a yearly fee that wait users to upgrade and get no money meanwhile...
And they're doing over more confusion releasing Surface RT in other countries in February
While they will be releasing the Pro in US, they will also be releasing the RT in other European countries - this will add a lot of confusion if people read about the Pro specs (Full HD screen, 10 pint multitouch, digitizer, full windows application support) and then find the RT only in shops. If they believe Pro reviews will boos RT sales in the other countries they're wrong, it just risks to fool some customers in buying the wrong one. I may understood they need time for localizations - but Windows 8 is already localized - so what?
The whole cloud is the old "time-sharing" systems repackaged with a sexy name
The whole cloud is just the old "time-sharing" systems repackaged with a sexier name. Often running on that "legacy old rubbish" Unix repackaged as Linux - by companies like those Asay worked for. So where''s the innovation and the innovators?
It's just the actual small players in the cloud business are very afraid the heavy gorillas are entering their market - and kick them away.
Apple knew iPhone and iPads wouldn't have cannibalized its Mac market that much - I can't see any heavy Photoshop or Illustrator user starting using an iPad for that... Apple wasn't bold, it was just smart enough to understand there was a new market to cover. Let's see when Apple will be bold enough to enter the low margin server market... and build its own cloud on them.
Someone who thinks Ozzie knows about software...
... should not be trusted when he talks about what CEO MS needs. Ozzie may have had the idea of groupware tools, but Notes was (and I guess it still is although I've been lucky enough to have not being using it for years) a dreadful implementation of it, and eventually brought Lotus to death (hey, we can make a lot of money from this, who cares about the other software we have? Just deliver some crappy releases to those who didn't migrate to Office yet!). And when Ozzie joined MS, it just tried to reinvent his wheel over and over. Sure, MS lacks someone with a "vision", but you he (or her) is not someone like Ozzie.
Where VC comes from?
Today the "startup" model is used to develop and test new technologies without letting failures being traced to a big company, for which shareholders could ask explanations of the money spent...
But where VC comes from? Those big companies... which later will acquire successful startups and let the failed one in the dust, without taking the burden of the failure.
Meanwhile the huge R&D departments of those companies keep on working on the products that bring in revenues - and eventually fund VC. Sure, some startups may grown on their own, but that depends on the product - a web one could afford it, but many can't. Probably Asay forgets the acquisition of Fingerworks by Apple... or how its "web giants" came out from a little innovative idea from CERN, they built nice packages around it.
Anyway some big companies still perform basic R&D for technologies that requires money and especially long term results, something a startup can't perfrom because of its very nature. Many fundamental IBM researches were used by others before IBM, but sure, don't expect IBM deliver Instagram or some stupid Google protocol like websockets (aka TCP over HTTP....)
Re: MASSIVELY IMPROVES SECURITY: End Of Windows
And of course that will protect you from bad passwords management implemented in a PHP/Postgres/Apache site running on Linux...
Here in Italy they were sold out for xmas
Here in Italy Kobo sales were very good for xmas, I was looking for a black Glo and it was impossible to find one, all sold. Tablets may be good enough to read a whole book now - maybe - but for example when I'm at seaside I prefer to bring with me a $120 e-reader than a $800 tablet and leave it in the bag while I'm swimming... and e-ink is still better than any LCD screen to read at late evening when my eyes had spent a whole day in front of a monitor.
Yes, we developers don't like to be paid.
We just want people like Asay to become very rich on open source software while we keep on living in basement and eat pizza only.
There is no "one size fits all" open source model. Some projects may live happily without a corporation backing them, others won't. Some developers will be happy to contribute because they have enough free time and/or find their pay adequate for their needs, others will work only if a company gives them the time and a pay they find adequate.
But of course Asay would like developers who are paid by someone else to happily present code to his company so he can make millions... but other companies who have invested heavily on open source should have no right nor control on their projects. I would assign him a "Stallman award".
Re: They don't have anything better to do?
There could be an even simpler reason why the didn't use wheels. They were working on sandy beach to take advantage of the winds, and probably of the softer ground if something went wrong. With the power available, and narrow bycicle tires, it would have been very difficult to take off and land. The rail/skid could have been an effective and simple solution - after all the X-15 used skids too - and it was not alone. After all it was true science: remove everything not critical to the experiment and focus on what you need to test. Aviation records are another story - you could look for records, or really improve the aeronautical science without pursuing them. The latest hypersonic test may not obtain certification, but who cares? That's science, not the bext Sector/Redbull-sponsored silly attempt to do something strange...
Re: They don't have anything better to do?
The Flyer didn't had wheels but didn't use a catapult - catapults to launch planes where made later! The Flyer did use a rail for its takeoff run (and a skid to land) - but the power came from its own engine. Why they didn't use wheels? Maybe to save on weight and keep the plane on track while taking off despite the wind. What was important is the Wright were able to control the plane while in flight and bring it back to land, and make longer and longer flights. Santos-Dumont made a 60m flight in 1906, in 1905 the Flyer did already a 39min 24mi flight, a huge difference. Sure, not every Flyer solution was the best one (they had no ailerons but warping wings, and the controls were very different from modern ones), but they worked while in flight and showed how a plane could and should be controlled. Others introduced better ways to achieve it later. There were some short flights even before 1903, but the Wrights were the first to be able to perfom them repeatedly and improving each time.
The term "parsec" is not from sci-fi, it's from real science.
The word "parsec" does not come from sci-fi. It is a term made by astronomers when they were first able to measure star distances using the "parallax" method - measuring the position of a nearer star relative to much more distant ones six months apart (when the Earth has moved to the other side of its orbit) - near stars appear to have"changed" position, the lines Earth-star-Earth makes a triangle, angles can be computed and trigonometry gives you the distance. A star whose parallax angle is one second is said to be a "parsec" away. Actually no star is within one parsec, even Proxima Centauri is farther. Astronomers use the parsec in their computations much more often than light years, because of its geometrical definition.
Re: They don't have anything better to do?
The contribution of Wright brothers to engineering was how to control actually a flying machine before trying to fly on it to avoid to get killed and thereby never learn how to fly one. That's why most pre-Wright flight failed often killing the "pilot" while Wright Flyer succeeded. The problem was not just taking off - the real problem was to keep the "flying machine" stable, and under control, make it turn, and bring it back to land safely.
Re: Funny thing is
Unless Einstein is wrong, there's no chance to send a probe to another solar system and back - unless your aim is to build a probe able to work for hundred thousand years. Sending humans to Mars is achievable - the other would just stimulate sci-fi business.
Re: Powershell is nice, but creating GUIs on powershell scripts is really stupid
If you publish the same APIs through a cmdlet or GUI you can always perform the same task either way. What it is stupid is having a GUI that instead of calling the API directly calls a script engine that executes a script and then have to capture and parse output to understand what happened instead of being notified of errors by exception handling directly. It's why I always hated Oracle that does the same, often spawning a shell to invoke an executable that runs Java to invoke a Perl script.... it just make everything slower and when an error occurs usually the only way to understand what's wrong is to read tons of logs. Just publish those damned APIs, and call them directly. That's why sysadmin buys later better management applications...
Re: Powershell is nice, but creating GUIs on powershell scripts is really stupid
Yes, and Exchange administration, and WSUS, and so on.... they are all slower and more cumbersome than the old non powershell based applications. It gives me the same sense of slowness Oracle has always given me when its tools starts to invoke SQL*Plus or some external utility to perform something, and then have to parse the output to find out what's happened... as a software developer I really think that's just wasted CPU cycles and gives a far less good "user experience". What worries me is that technical skills at MS are going down the sink, and if core parts looks good, the whole "shell" experience is getting worse and worse. Probably they too are outsourcing those applications to some part of the world where they don't understand anything about a good GUI app.
