HP needs execution, execution, execution. Still.

Instruments and most components went out the door with Agilent, which frittered the advantages away for the most part.

HP would do well to try to actually *sell* their services. Marketing and sales for a lot of services was disconnected from those services over a year ago and the pipelines have finally run dry.

As to their laptops, yeah, the Playskool concept of design definitely rules here. The keyboards are the ten-fingered version of the great, thick pencils given to youngsters. Touch typing involves waving hands more than a Ouija board, and they're depressed into the base at an angle that makes extensive typing rough on the wrists.

They still have calculators, but other than the HP-35s there's nothing to see there, and the initiative in schools has been entirely lost to TI offerings that haven't changed much for a decade. It'd be theirs if they reached out for it, though. Heck, if they simply re-issued the calc line from 1987 with new make guts in them, they'd be way up in the market. If they put in media card slots, USB, and a modern display, but kept the old keyboards and cases, they'd be back at the top. Small change, but one good product line helps sell another.

More recently, there's Palm. Try again, this time with a tad more attention to hardware. I can't believe developing something new would be cost effective compared to bringing the OS back in new devices. Price them at the low end of Apple's price spectrum, and they'll sell--just not at the high end.

Oh wait, that is sidewalk. And behind that rise...it's...it's...

YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP!

The Hat Won't Save Him

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/258/the-vaults-of-yoh-vombis-%28adaption-by-richard-corben%29

The moment they take the tubes off that robot...straight for the brain.

They'd better hurry...

My last good portable HP device, an HP 200LX, is on its last legs!

Still cranking code on it.

Time to reconstitute the PPC group and let them do the design job rather than some white box manufacturer's sales rep.

I remember using HP's VUE, which is a lot of what you'll come into contact with in CDE. At the time I thought it was a bloated pig, compared to OpenLook. By the time CDE came together, it was just about right, weight and power-wise on newer workstations. CDE had some nice features for users, but was still a mess underneath for sysadmins.

Leadership, yeah. Like dropping Exomars from the budget, then trying to save face by taking $24M from the outer planets budget to "envision an architecture" for a 2018 or, maaaybe 2020 launch.

Yeah, that's leadership. Stand on the funding of your predecessors today, strangle tomorrow in its cradle.

And hope the voters forget yesterday:

"In essence, it is the end of the Mars program," said Phil Christensen, a Mars researcher at Arizona State University. It's like "we've just flown Apollo 10 and now we're going to cancel the Apollo program when we're one step from landing,"

All this limited ecosystem talk

has me worried about the viability of CP/M for smartphones.

PIP A: B:ANGRYBIR.COM

Munkstar + Steve I

7.85in display && smaller bezel

66% of present screen area. Total device size ~6.5 x 5 in with a bit of bezel for the thumb, or 7 x 5.5 in. to make a 7 inch iPad. Same rez as current display so no new UI and close enough nobody cares (linear image size is still >80% height/width of full size iPad.)

Dick Smith

Does the eCat use any Z-80s?

Thought not.

No Aversion to Computers Around Here

Digital radio modes were a close second to phone (voice) contacts in our local group's "Field Day" outing this year (Amateur radio emergency preparedness exercise held each year.) The people running these stations look like they're using radios out of The Matrix (but with more colours than green.)

Those on voice were using computers to log and find contacts, and to monitor and manage the power systems (solar, battery, etc.)

There is plenty of white hair at the meetings, but a good cadre of 20- and 30-somethings, too. About half.

There are more licensed amateurs now than any prior time in my life, and the number of new licensees is growing each year.

Time to update your views on amateur radio. ;)

How the Pros Do It

With the big ones, the igniter for a solid is basically a small motor that maintains both the temperature and pressure necessary to get the motor's reaction going. Normally it's at the fore end of the motor. If your motors can't accommodate a smaller, easier to light motor attached to the forward closure, putting one on the aft end with a bit of a gap between the two might do the trick. Mount it on the launch mechanism. What you're calling the igniter on the model motor does the job of our initiator (which lights our igniter.)

Going back to the sparking with liquid engines, yeah, the ones you see on the launch pads are for loose propellants. But in test, if we can't get the thing to light with its inbuilt ignition system we use other methods. Including duct taping a road flare to the aft end and opening up the propellant valves.

Clarke's Stations: Not Manned

Neither of Clarke's original papers refers to the radio relay stations being manned. It's possible you're misled by the term "Space Station", which we now use to refer to a manned satellite. At the time, the reference was to a radio station in space: space station.

While he didn't originally develop the idea of a space based communication satellite (he considered it such an obvious idea that someone else must have thought of it first, though this was true it wasn't as obvious as he considered it), his work on elaborating the idea did a lot to bring the idea to people to whom the idea of a space based radio relay wasn't obvious.

George O. Smith is documented as coming up with the idea for a radio relay in space before Clarke (being placed in a Trojan point with Venus to provide regular communications between Earth and Venus explorers in a science fiction story--Smith was also a radio engineer as well as an author). Hermann Oberth missed using radio, but suggested the idea of using an orbital mirror for signalling in 1923.

Clarke's work is how the idea of a communications satellite got out into the wild, so he deserves plenty of credit for both the basic communication satellite as well as the geostationary ones. The earlier people didn't get their voices heard.

I thought planets and politicians were dark matter. MACHOS, in the old naming of dark matter types. They're not exotic dark matter, but dark matter all the same.

The Point

When does Ringo's little allegory get the Blu-Ray treatment?

A Socket 1155 Mobo with Parallel and Serial Ports

ASUS P8P67-M PRO

They need to be brought out from IDC headers, but they're there.

Good for CNC, at least (Gecko G540)

Personally, I'm looking forward to market bifurcation that sends the consumers out of the real computer market. The low prices on hardware have been nice, but not worth hassles like having hardware "standards" become non-standard after a couple rapid release cycles and hardware product lifetimes shorter than a mayfly's.

Bring on the fondleslabs for consumers, leave computers to those that compute.

1 year training = liability reduction

The participants are trained for a year so that when the trial comes Excalibur/Almaz can claim the deceased were capable of "informed consent".

Let's strangle space tourism in its cradle, why don't we?

Glad you're not my kid. Try one of these:

1.Macallan 18 yr.

http://www.themacallan.com/shop/detail.asp?pid=841614

2. Wireless TV headphones, so I can watch loud movies without bothering your mum. RF not IR so I can turn my head without losing the signal. Sony or Sennheiser, don't worry about the sound fidelity, worry about any delay to the sound. Music headphones I'll buy for myself, because you'll foolishly try to anticipate my tastes for "retro" for a time you never lived through.

3. Propellor Starter Kit

http://www.parallax.com/

4. Samsung Galaxy Tablet 10.1 preloaded with Jack Vance ebooks:

http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxytab/10.1/index.html

http://www.jackvance.com/

5. A pan of brownies, first one served up warm with ice cream.

Think JDBC for the cloud.

A programming framework for data analysis that, to a large degree, hides the fact that it's distributed through the underlying tech it uses to do its job. Inaccurate, but it might be a useful mischaracterization. ;)

Smelly Movement

I remember the stuff about the cosmetics industry creating demand for their own products that was around then, too. Theory was that the soaps sold would cut your natural skin oils and actually make you stink so that you needed to keep using deodorants and antiperspirants. Literally wash-rinse-repeat-profit. Plus the overall effect was supposed to be to cause skin problems that required powders, cover-ups, etc.

As cyberelic says, "recovery" from the use of soaps, antiperspirants, etc was supposed to take a week or two, after which your body's natural cleansing processes were supposed to take over. You'd have a body odor, but it was claimed that it wouldn't be unpleasant and would be even better than the artificial scents--making you a hit with those you wished to bed.

A lot of people found that an attractive idea, for lots of reasons (money, effort, emotion, etc.)

Never subscribed to it, personally, but heard plenty of it. I only went so far as to give up antiperspirants and shower twice or more each day.

I remember a woman at one workplace who couldn't even use the shower/bath at her home. She'd filled it with her plants. One day, she was given the key to the room at a local hotel room the company kept for visiting source inspectors and such and told to not come back till she'd washed and put on fresh clothes.

Not if they just followed their star out of the galaxy. Think of the view from a bit above and outside of the galactic disk.

They'd live longer at that speed, too, though they wouldn't necessarily realize it, with everything locally travelling at the same pace.

Balloon Restraint Apparatus needed

To share lift, and separate orbs for passage of thrusting vehicle between.

Karateka...

Beach Head 2

Manic Mansion

Jumpman

Make everyone who voted play a selection of top games from 1972 to present then vote again.

Bring Back Scott McNealy

As title. We need his commentary back at the forefront of the business. But this time we want him without the pony-tail guy.

...and more.

This is clearly all in support of laser-bearing sharks:

The ZPBC could also be used to provide in-water optical data to enhance models for underwater visibilities, [for sharks] laser penetration depths [and distances], diver and target vulnerability assessments [vulnerability too laser-wielding sharks], electro-optical system performance predictions [lasers], and refining numerical models [size/weight/number of sharks with lasers].

The subscript here is clear as can be.

CDs make better gifts

A CD is a gift that shows some care for the recipient's taste in music.

An iTunes card or the like is just another gift certificate. Money thrown into a particular till that you'll have to throw more into to get the full value already spent. Even cash is a better gift.

A CD is a gift that I know I really appreciate getting. I've received several this last year, in fact many more than for several years--perhaps CD is making a comeback along with vinyl?

This 3 year old data wouldn't show it.

Eclipse, Netbeans, Vim, and BlueJ

Each one has its place. I use them all.

Two thumbs up for the Lens

Once I wasn't sure which I'd want more--a Lens or the powers of the Mule/Second Foundation.

Things missing from the list:

Foundation shield belt.

Dune shield belt (are they compatible?)

Tantalus Field

Slidewalks.

And I'll second the Larry Niven teleportation pads and Krell mind device (suitably modified for humans.) Add to that the Krell power plant and my personal id monster.