Posts by PhilipN
99 posts • joined Tuesday 12th October 2010 11:35 GMT
Mozilla
Seem to remember the first release of Netscape had something like "Yes, this is the Mozilla" emblazoned across the top. Always thought this was a scrunched version of "Mosaic Killer".
Anyone know if Mozilla (the name) came from something else? Who do we blame for attaching "-zilla" to everything?
Perennial problem
Somebody did this with a motor car-size "motor" a few years ago and got to the stage of having a working prototype but further development collapsed through lack of funds.
The prime mover behind the technology whinged, naturally, that the vested interests did not want to get involved.
Not being an engineer though I bounced this idea of an engineer whose immediate question was "What happens when you want to go up a hill?"
Re: Say what?
Even if it were true somewhere else, it is wholly irrelevant in Hong Kong where every square inch in private hands is leasehold, except for the Cathedral, which cannot lawfully do anything but save souls.
Open layers
Free range chickens?
Re: SSL Certs - the new single point of failure
Murphy's Law
Re: A billion here, a billion there
MS 3B is 10% so total 15B gives MS + Silver Lake 50%, or 49% if it is a minority stake. Presumably Michael Dell + associates get the other 51.
MS and Silver Lake can get $ from wherever: internal resources, investment partners, banks etc. as long as they plonk down 15B to help to buy out existing shareholders nobody really cares how they finance the deal.
What's wrong with that?
Re: Ordered and will wait
That the Petronius who played soccer under Benitez?
Like to know what Dylan thinks
A Dylan fan, yes, but I am interested rather than excited. I would be much more interested in what the man himself says about this opportunistic release of material that either he or the record company did not see fit to release previously.
And "careful curation"?.... Cough! Splutter!
Re: @LarsG "An indirect form of child abuse.........." When I was a very little chap..........
Hands up those 6-year olds who had the hots for Maid Marian, but were not quite sure why.
Re: IBM bought Lotus - and never had it work hard to deliver a real OS/2 office suite
There was eventually a Lotus Smartsuite for OS/2 which I still use today. Frankly it is a nice package. The contacts/address book was derived from an even smaller package from Arcadia which I bet those who used it will have fond memories of. Also had a nifty word processor. And, if memory serves, FREE!
Tales of Woe
I remember the marketing campaign for OS/2 Warp - on TV! A bunch of giggling kids watching one of their mates doing "something" supposedly on a keyboard (but they may have been watching alligators copulating for all we knew) and spouting "I didn't know you could do that on a PC".
Then installation support. 60 days. Which sounds a lot unless you have to try umpteen times to get a new, unfamiliar OS up and running while trying to do your regular job. When I decided to give it another final try and called support the first thing the frigging IBMer said after checking my record was basically "Your 60 days are up. Eff off" whereas it had been less than 60 minutes in total. I know that is how support works but didn't IBM realize they had a fight on their hands?
Ultimately though I seem to recall the main problem was the sales guys in the Personal Compuing division (which was hardware). They wanted to sell boxes, as many as possible, and didn't give a toss about which OS. It happened that they could sell more boxes with Windows on them. Talk about the enemy within.
Work's fine
I run it all day in the office but now mainly to access Word Perfect - for DOS. I kid not.
I have still not found a setup with which you can scroll through hundreds of document previews to find something so damn fast.
Course that's the 8.3 file name system but who wants to type long file names? Ok no need to answer that.
This is on a Thinkpad T30 but OS/2 will run well on anything up to a T61.
OS/2 also has its own brew of Firefox, T'bird etc
I switched from Warp Server only recently. Thing ran so long without a hitch I don't even remember the last time I had powered down.
Networking to XP was a doddle with an add-on from IBM.
I could go on but you might be pleasantly surprised at what you find when you it around.
Oh - I installed eComstation 2 in a Virtual Box on a Mac (Xserve) and the bloody sound even works!
Ta!
Good article. I'll even forgive you the hoard pun.
Keep it up, Lewey
No, it didn't ...
..hit iTunes. At least not here in Hong Kong, where I originally became an Apple subscriber, where many apps including the Sony Reader are not available. Keerist we have been able to buy music etc only very recently.
And no need to say change my location. A UK VPN site I use doesn't fool iTunes. Change my details at Apple? Doesn't work without a UK credit card and address.
FWIW you can fool Sony USA from a desktop using a US VPN service. Otherwise there would be no way even to D/L Sony's Reader software.
Greetings from the rest of the planet East of Dover and West of Hawaii.
Re: And
Needs a bucket load of power to move. Plus another to get the power to the socket where you plug it in.
Not forgetting those required to dig the fossil fuel out of the ground, transport it to the power station.. Oh and the bucket loads needed to build the car...and the factory where it is built, and the power station and so on and so on.
Happy to engage with someone more knowledgeable than I to decide whether this in any way qualifies as an environmentally-friendly vehicle.
Back-of-fag packet reckoning says a Detroit gas-guzzler is more environmentally-friendly.
4,463 pounds???
Jesus H. ....
Re: you could drive the Torrey Canyon through the wriggle room
The main damage from the Torrey Canyon was the leaked oil, which must have left an unfortunate legacy lasting years, AND the massive quantities of emulsion dropped on to it intended to break up the oil slick - which did mean of course that every marine creature on top of and below the waves suffered.
Then the RAF bombed the slick with something inflammable to try to get the slick to burn.
Sounds all a bit comical today except it is very unfunny.
Cykey
Crikey is he still going?
I still have somewhere his chorded keyboard which plugged into the old (pre-PS/2) keyboard port. Hope he's improved the layout. Typing on it was a pain.
What if ...
.. the driver could not hear the screams, the guy was crushed and his torso dumped at the tip (or is that tipped at the dump) under the mountain of rubbish already inside the truck.
I know I know. This is Bootnotes, but nobody would ever have thought of searching for him there.
Re: The other first
Remember the almighty IBM would number installation diskettes 0 (or rather no number at all), then 1, then 2, etc.
Re: Woodentops!?!
Bloody hell! Who is going to explain this reference to the children here?
Next ballot is going to have to be a play-off between Bill and Ben (1) and Pinky and Perky (2).
Re: Coolness check-list
Yup - good list.
Maybe also a white scarf. You need to wrap it round your face to keep the castor oil out of your gob.
Nope - Psyx was right
The owners of the restaurant have every right to withdraw custom and deny entry - but not half way through a meal because at that point a bargain has already been made. The bargain does NOT continue every day without qualification from now until kingdom come, only on that day, when the customer sits down and starts noshing.
The restaurant is private property (1) and the proprietors are offering a limited service with conditions (2) which they are entitled to change for any casual, walk-in customer BEFORE he becomes an actual customer.
Re: Eight?
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China is not a country.
This must be what your sub-conscious relied upon to achieve the correct result.
Re: Bit disappointing, really...
Replace "ant" with "Brit" wherever it appears, and you've got it.
Dangerously close to reality.
Re: IBM
Probably Standard Oil before it was broken up. Put together today's progeny from the break-up and it will give more than a clue.
Joking, yes?
OK everything is comparative, and this is an IT site, but if Putin looks tough in that photo I ought to be auditioning for Chippendales.
To wit - gobs of fat round the rib cage, poor muscle tone in the shoulders and especially in the forearms.
He AIN'T no Popeye.
On the other hand, he would look badass if that was a Les Paul, he had front teeth missing and was wearing a headband.
Re: Incomplete article
Bug Report?
Is someone at MS taking the piss?
Turn on, tune in, drop out
Nice one Bob but you are going to have to explain this epithet for the benefit of the children here.
..figure out how babies learn to get around...
What? Do we need more scientists whose Holy Grail is the Bleeding Obvious?
Have they never seen father and son walk down the street side-by-side and be indistinguishable apart from the grey hair and midriff on one of them?
No?
OK - let me make this short and simple - We copy Mum and Dad.
Earth - planet - earth
How deep and how far apart would you bury a couple of steel plates with wires attached to get an electrical current up top?
Or was that a sci-fi story I read once?
There was an aircraft?
Didn't notice. My brain is going into meltdown trying to understand wtf "risk commitment" means.
Want the truth?
As a practising lawyer (hoping to get it right eventually) I can tell you the kebab part of the story as told to the court was bollocks. It was cooked up (err... yeah) by his brief to provide a marginally more innocent explanation than being too pissed to see straight. That would/could have been a suspended prison sentence because it's dangerous driving as well as DUI.
Shame!
To those of us of a certain age, good old British weights and measures were the staple method of learning arithmetic.
We were also taught to not split infinitives (cough! cough!).
Posted in Nokia: 'hybrid' mobiles will save us
Re: Who's in charge?
This one's Hong Kong.
Not my intention to mislead but I didn't say that it is Nokia's "own" store. The shop does not do anything else, it is located in a prime shopping mall in a prime business development, and the sign over the front door is a 5- letter word beginning with "N". If there is any single outlet which ought to have the full range of products which are officially marketed here then that's the place.
Posted in Nokia: 'hybrid' mobiles will save us
Who's in charge?
Of production... Marketing ... Logistics...
You know, the 3 things that a manufacturer has to do well...?
Alongside design (can be outsourced), finance etc..
FWIW after reading yesterday's article about the Pureview I looked at the local Nokia web site. Sure enough, there it is.
Today went to the local Nokia store to see if it is in stock : Sales assistant said No.
When will they get it? Urrrm ... This year.
How much will it cost? Nervous laughter.
Poor sod.
There were more sales staff than customers.
Old point, new presentation
I admit having seen the NoW once in around 1970 and it was a nasty little rag already back then.
But a lot of this foaming at the mouth is, frankly, stupid. The NoW was the UK's largest circulation Sunday newspaper. There were lots of others which people could have read if they chose to. Millions chose to read the NoW.
CHOSE. Not like Pravda in the Soviet era. Not because they were short of toilet tissue. And not because Grandaddy Rupe forced them to.
It was because they wanted to read the bleeding thing.
Posted in 'Attitudes to robot sex will change'
Re: Long time coming
Pretty sure it was one of the American writers, because of the pre-60's sensibilities.
A youngish married couple engage a robot butler/housekeeper who turns out to be a James Bond lookalike. "He" and the lady of the house end up doing what comes naturally ..er ..yeah.
Posted in 'Attitudes to robot sex will change'
Long time coming
Read about this in a SF short story 40 years ago.
Don't boffins understand humans' prime motivation?
Ok, other humans
Mamod?
Good lord are they still going?
Confused of cricklewood
How do the glaciers thicken, pray tell, when the level of precipitation is about the same as the Sahara?
Best I can imagine is moisture laden air condensing on to the glacier surface.
Posted in Sci Fi recomendations?
Curmudgeon's View
I like some of the above particularly Iain (with 2 "I"'s you sassenach) Banks but Olaf Stapleton is a better start. The classic era of SF was the '50's and '60's with writers such as Brian Aldiss, Robert Heinlein, Algis Budrys, Isaac Asimov (before he became the World's greatest Expert on Everything) and of course Ray Bradbury .. Many others too ... Leading in to Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries.
The local library had a whole section of Gollancz SF novels which had a consistently high standard. Don't know if anyone else remembers their garish yellow covers.
These were all real SCIENCE fiction writers, not what I would call Science Fantasy of the '70's onwards. I think the pitch was queered by Star Trek and Lord of the Bloody Rings.
By way of example I read a story long, long ago (no, not in a galaxy far, far away) based on time moving sideways rather than forwards. That's the real thing. Mind boggling stuff.
They chose the wrong target
Girls who look like her do the same thing - maxing out credit cards etc - to visibly affluent blokes every day and never get arrested.
Shock! Horror!
Print media ethics comes to live media!
End of civilization as we know it!
(Yawn)
Say what?
Dear El Reg
You do know, do you not, that the Notice in the photo is way across the bleeding road from the Apple store in the background, at a location where no-one has EVER queued except when waiting for the lights to change?
Someone has been having a laugh.
You're welcome.
Posted in Kogeto Dot 360° video lens
Warning to others
I still have my old Razr with a zoom lens attachment thingy.
When I first tried it I thought Wow and Cool.
Then I realized (as most keen photographers already know I suppose) that a tripod is essential because YOU CANNOT KEEP YOUR FRIGGING HAND STEADY!
Re: "all of these conversions have WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY to many digits"
Want pedantry?
Cough! Splutter!
Write 100 times :
Hoist WITH
Hoist WITH
Hoist ...
Cultural Revolution
Hey don't knock the value of re-education.
I got it from the horse's mouth, confirmed by dispassionate observers, that for most intellectuals out picking potatoes surrounded by intrigued peasant girls, it wasn't re-education - it was Sex Edication.
Cheers (to the lucky sods).
