Posts by MD Rackham

Re: Apple gets cluestick

Apple gets good press for appearing reasonable and Swift gets lots of positive PR because she "made Apple back down."

If I was just a bit more cynical I might think it was planned this way from the start.

Re: Pretty laughable to think...

So how do you like working at ULA?

Re: USD $24 for 10 gallons of gas

Gas prices have been down (global crude prices down), up (refinery fire, strike, maintenance, price manipulation), and back down again this year, so depending on when you were in the Valley you and the expat could be right.

Any gas station near an airport or freeway will be charging more, and California gas prices in general are higher than the rest of the country. (Just paid $1.92/gal in (very) rural Arizona.)

You'd know it was true, if not for the smart meters controlling your mind.

I rest my case.

Re: Tundra Colder?

They had a really bad habit of leaving the refrigerator door open. I think it was the tusks that got in the way.

Re: Who picks up the 'tab' when these things crash?

Since the alternative is to end up with the booster at the bottom of the ocean, I'm not sure what "tab" you're referring to.

The cost of getting the barge out to sea and repairing any damage is borne by SpaceX. The extra cost of the landing equipment on the booster and the extra fuel (and hydraulic fluid!) is built into the cost of the launch and therefore borne by SpaceX.

Now if they're successful, the savings on the next launch because they can re-use a booster all accrue to SpaceX, in which case the investment has paid off. Although realistically they'll have to offer a steep discount to get someone to be the first customer of a refurbished Falcon 9.

Re: Problemo?

If a pod breaks down, then all the pods in the tube need to also stop to avoid a pile-up. In that case you can re-pressurize the tube safely and everyone can breath outside air.

I actually came here to dispute the "desert no one cares about" line. Ahem. There are a lot of us who have been working quite hard to preserve the Mojave desert from off-road vehicle abuse and ill-considered private water schemes, to name just two threats. If you get off I-15 and actually take a look around, the Mojave desert is a wonderful place.

Re: Why land at sea?

It's Florida so it's mostly not-valuable people at risk.

Re: hacking

If they were going to read the names out from space, I suspect it would be easier to just register "Ben Dover," "Mike Hunt," and "Tyrone Shoelace" than engage in any hacking.

Even in space, some things just never get old.

Re: F.Lux

No risk of any damage, but just don't do any color correction work while it's on. The result will be spectacularly bad on computers not running F.lux.

Color correction work should always be done with the monitor set to D65 white, preferably also with the use of a good hardware color calibrator.

(Yes, there are other valid white points for specialized situations, but D65 is most common.)

Re: Untested engine?

What? They were flying with a rocket motor using a new propellant. one which had been thoroughly ground tested. So it wasn't "untested" it was just the first time they'd flown with it.

Sooner or later you have to fly with it, or should it remain "untested' forever because there is some risk?

The investigation has barely begun and yet people like you are sure you have it all figured out.

Re: Removable battery = extend your phone's usable life by years

You know you can change batteries in an iPhone, right? Takes some tools and a bit of dexterity, or you can pay someone to do it for you.

Apple would like you to buy a new phone, but you don't need to fall for that one.

I think the "head from Zardoz" theory contains more scientific rigor.

Re: I think it looks crap

Most likely because whoever did the screenshot wanted them to show up and chose large icons and/or a small screen size. Maybe because they've seen too many press release screenshots that are utterly illegible.

And perhaps, like OS X, the icon size is selectable?

Re: is that a 6+ in there or are you just pleased to see me?

Well in that case I'll have another doughnut or two. Wouldn't want to damage the new phone.

Re: A glimmer of hope

The current glued-together iPad/iPhone/MacBooks are far easier to recycle than the equivalent products held together with screws. Pop up 'em in an oven, the glue melts and they fall apart. Turn up the oven a bit and all the SMD components fall off the PCB too.

Re: How useful is this really!?

I once worked for a company who decided not to waste time on research and instead spend all its time on "real product development."

Not too surprisingly, they ended up with no ability to develop actual new products and instead spent all their time coming up with new paint schemes, minor UI tweaks, and copies of competitors features (6 months too late). From stopping all research to bankruptcy took all of three years. (It was in a highly technical/highly competitive field.)

(The CEO made a bundle of money on his stock holdings the first few quarters that the R&D expenses approached zero, so there is that viewpoint.)

Re: Souds good

I can't decide if I want the Rosie Greer second head, or the Ray Milland model.

Re: Prior Art?

Was the app available prior to Apple's patent filing date?

If not, it may not be in the Google Play store for long.

People who are tired of the anti-social use of that RF bandwidth?

Jammers are a bit of a blunt instrument, though. Being from the States, I'm required to favor being able to legally shoot people using their phones in an annoying fashion. Better?

Teenagers aren't going to wear any health monitoring device; they are immortal.

If the iWatch is indeed going to be focused on health monitoring, then perhaps Apple is aware of markets not made up of teens. You might want to broaden your view.

Re: On the other hand...

If you're going to tell a story, get the details right.

If they have annual CC subscription, the software keeps working for 99 days without being able to phone home. With month-to-month it's 7 days.

So except for those stuck in the middle of uninstalling/reinstalling the software, or those who rely on the few actual "cloud" features Adobe offers, how was it "not working" during the outage?

(Not to excuse Adobe (from anything)--TypeKit users were truly screwed by the outage--but most of the talk I heard about how "I can't use Photoshop" came from people using CS3 and looking for an excuse for missing their deadline.)

Re: The real difference

Says someone who apparently never actually used a STAR workstation. Nor an Alto running Smalltalk. Us old farts know better.

There's a good reason STAR never caught on, and it wasn't just the price.

Re: New OSX' always breaks audio

But what if I can't hear the cat's adorable mewing?

Re: Some people regret the lost jobs of horse carriage maintenance.

Perhaps you can enlighten us as to what the benefit of this merger is, such that it compares to the introduction of the automobile?

Indeed.

If I crane my head a bit I can see the machine room with at least 5 U-Matic (3/4") VTRs, most of which are the SP flavor.

Of course, we also manage to keep a 2" Quad VTR working, alongside all the other formats that people still have tapes for. (1/2" EIAJ reels anyone?)

"Launch Complex"

Not "launch control".

Re: Cool but not as cool as

Soon to be the US Navy that did this, at least if Hollywood has anything to say on the subject.

Re: $671 million?

I'm certainly not going to defend the US for our callous disregard for many of our citizens, but, seriously, walking and chewing gum at the same time is possible.

$671 million makes no dent in the problems of healthcare/food security/housing/etc. The US is an extremely wealthy country. If it wanted to address those problems then it would need to make hard choices about defense and subsidizing the already wealthy; that's where the money is.

The MAVEN mission actually accomplishes something useful in extending our knowledge. Another tax break so someone can buy another Lamborghini really doesn't.

Yes, but we didn't have cut/paste back then.

Re: Stop stating patently wrong facts as truth!

Late to tablets that anyone cared to use then.

Did you actually try to use the first gen tablets? We did a trial deployment with our app into a hospital. Leaving hardware reliability aside, doctors were literally (and I do mean literally) throwing them back at us because they were so frustrating to use. Hardware and UI were both a disaster. (I'm long gone, but as I understand it, the descendent of that medical software is now quite successful as an iPad app.)

If you want to do MS a favor, don't remind people about those early systems. Apple's real talent is knowing when to enter a market, which is after all the pioneers have died of arrows in their backs, and it's much clearer what the market wants. (I can mix that metaphor a bit more if you wish, sir.)

Re: I suppose...

If someone came up to me and said they wished they could spend 5 hours reformatting a PowerPoint presentation, I'd be pretty sure they were being sarcastic.

Re: That kid...

If it's running iOS 7, hell, it walks on water!

Re: Safety?

Michael Foale's book, Dragonfly, about his time on Mir is quite an interesting read. While parts of it seem pretty defensive, his description of the docking incident and the fire (a separate incident) are quite harrowing.

His career came to a screeching halt after he revealed just how close, and how often, Mir came to disaster. Astronauts are supposed to just suck it up.

Anyway, a good read, although it has to be taken with a grain of salt, or at least balanced by the Russian side of things.