Given it's mobility constraints, I would say a space ship designed by a government committee :-)

Re: Let's talk photon counts and well sizes

True but for a given depth of field you need to increase the f stop for a larger sensor which in turn requires more light, assuming pixel density remains constant between sensors. However the required shutterspeed for handholding is an issue with larger sensors as a longer focal length is required to maintain the same fov. It's a giant balancing act. F2.8 of my 6x7 medium format is razor thin, a 110 f2.8 is similar to a 55 1.4 in 35mm terms. Large format gets much dafter. So with tiny sensors like this an f1.2 to f2.0 lens is pretty 'slow' given the relative pixel size and won't give shallow dof.

Re: other factors

I wonder what point diffraction kicks in with such a small, high density sensor?

Removing the aa filter would be a sensible move with pixels that small and should help with sharpness to some degree. Until they start talking about actual pixel pitch and we get some real world examples in varying situations we can't discredit it entirely, but it does whiff of marketing bs.

Re: Really?

I thought this was relatively well known also? Scotland is known to be rising and the South of England is sinking (perhaps due to the weight of all the wine bars?).

This must have come up during peer review??

Re: NASA computers...

If they still do the job why change? I did a stink at a county council in the 90's (some networking mostly) and their data suite still had reel to reel tape drives (sat by a wolfcreek, I guess for now and then value), kilostreams and various piles of dust with aging servers under them, it looked like it was straight from buck rodgers. They worked so nobody changed them.

Often because a change of hardware meant new software and most of it was bespoke. I learnt a lot about sane budgeting from the last place I ever expected to find it. It cost considerably less to keep a few coders well versed in cobol etc then it did to build a new system which would in all likeliness overrun, be over budget and break frequently.

Re: Never accuse Murdoch

Unless of course he is answering questions about hacking voicemails etc.

I wanted to add, Rik dropped me an email and I would like to apologise to Rik for the comment re deleting a previous article as the situation was not as it seemed. The article was deleted and comments rejected for a valid reason and I think it is inappropriate for that remark to remain uncorrected.

Re: so.what do we do....

Waspy, I am probably doing a poor job of explaining it. I have no issue with man made climate change, I think man is heavily influencing a natural cycle and I think it is something we need to understand properly and look at how we can adapt our lives to both reduce our contributions and live with the inevitable changes that will come over time anyway.

I am not saying climate change isn't being affected by man at all or even that Cook is actually wrong. I am just saying that Cook isn't brining anything to the table scientifically, what he has done isn't actually useful given how he is presenting it (i.e. an interpretation of statistics on opinion proffered as proof). The studies themselves will run the gamut between accurate and pish as many do although the bell curve is often skewed. Science is based around some kind of big game of family fortunes, it is based around what you can prove and replicate. With something like climate change it is harder to perform an experiment so they use models.

If you want to change how we live you need a significant consensus of opinion from the public. Some people will always disgree with you so forget them. Some already agree with you so we don't need to bother with them. What you are left with is the undecideds who will fall into two groups, one will believe the last thing they saw on the news and the others will sit and look at what has been said and consider it. Now there have been more than a few issues with the credibility of results in this field, models are often contradictory and politics and money seem to have played a part (Climategate in the UK for example). To get the support of as many people as possible scientists need to ensure that what they are publishing stands up to scrutiny, that it is based on fact and not biased. As I said, I believe humans are playing a very large part in the climate of our planet, this 'study' just makes me more skeptical of the results that 'prove' that. Whats they saying trust arrives by foot and leaves by horse?

Sorry you are right it is 2003. Would I have paid to upgrade if it hadn't changed, it isn't about if it changes, it's about how it changes. Create a new iteration that saves me time or gives me new functionality then I will buy it, change it for the sake of change then I won't. The change has to be meaningful.

Re: so.what do we do....

I never said I wasn't, I also stated elsewhere what I believe (that we don't know for sure but my hunch is we are speeding up a natural cycle). Did you actually read what he did, 12000 papers and he grepped the abstracts. This isn't anything new, this isn't scientific research, this is statistics at best and subjective ones at that. This man is making his wage by flogging the idea that we are destroying the world. He could very well be right, but he is not finding out, he is working backwards from his own conclusion which you have to agree is not the way to do it. As for my other comments, yes I have no time for academics who do nothing other than court the press with headline grabbing wastes of time and people who put significance behind opinion masquerading as fact. Explain to me how what he has done proves anything? What does his study to do actually answer the question at hand? It's fluff, pure and utter fluff meant to get his name and unis name in the press. What he is doing harms real discovery and debate by clouding the issue with pseudo results and conjecture. There are scientists out there genuinely trying to model an incredibly complex system and discover the truth.

My gripe isn't about whether we are changing the climate, it is about people trying to spread their own prejudice under the guise of science. The man is a disgrace.

Re: Well

How many of those 'scientists' would be out of a job next year if climate change didn't exist? Unbiased? Perhaps the correct title should have been 97% of climate scientists are praying climate change is mans fault because they really want a google glass.

Re: Regardless

Makes perfect sense, although you may need to explain the bottom point to any Londoners.

We can certainly make many sensible changes to our lifestyles, but before we go and make huge ones to our civilizations we should probably find some actual answers based on provable facts and tested mechanisms.

Re: so.what do we do....

It exists, but the change is very slow. The question we need to answer is are we causing it and to what degree? Then we can understand how to fix it is we can at all. It could be entirely our fault, it could be nothing to do with us or a mix of the two. We need a real answer quickly, not biased opinion like Cook's little straw poll. We really do not need opinion masquerading as fact as that does far more harm than good, all this does is get Cook some brownie points with his boss for getting in the press and give vegoyuppies a semi.

The thing is I would (and do) happily use metro when appropriate. I still use the store for apps. When they first launched win 8 I picked up 2 licenses for testing. It's stayed on a laptop for messing about and general netflixing etc. I'd happily have it on a tablet or phone. On a workstation I at least need the option of switching to the old style. The net result is less exposure not more for them. Because they haven't given people a choice (that they could easily have done, they didn't need to remove metro, just add the start menu) and then people would have picked as appropriate for the task. Metro makes a lot of sense for some types of use and not for others. Forcing it on people is just a bad move and has backfired.

As for adds, you won't see them on metro but they probably will make their way onto some free ms produced apps. I doubt they would get away with adverts on metro itself unless it was for a subsidised version.

Then again Balmer has proven hes daft enough to try.

Re: Apple pay income tax?

Perhaps poor wording, they will pay payroll tax on their employees amongst a myriad of other taxes.

As for changing the law, the minute they try and do that their next campaign budget wouldn't buy you the cheapest item at a Eritrean garage sale. They are bought and sold like 2 dollar whores, not that I like Apple but Cook was vaguely right. The tax code does need a radical overhaul. It won't happen because the complexity is entirely intentional, all those special interests paid for those sweet little complexities that allow them to pay sod all tax.

"We paid all the taxes due under the rules we paid you to write for us".

To be fair in this case they not only pay a vaguely sane (although probably not when viewed as a %) amount of tax but are being reasonably sensible (if not immoral) keeping it abroad. At some point the GOP will get in and give them a repatriation break as they have done in the past and the money will come back tax free. If you invent a lower tax for no tax for repatriated funds suddenly all funds will be 'repatriated' as companies pay license dues for IP usage to sister companies in tax havens.

If the senators were serious they would just change the tax code. This isn't what their 'sponsors' paid them (and their pacs) to do so they won't.

Has to be 1 right?

2 would mean he used 100k of his own money, thats a reach for a 3rd under secretary to the janitor of the Elbonian embassy.

3 maybe but for why?

I think either 1, or he slept with his bosses daughter and the boss decided to send him on a 'covert' mission equipped with whatever he could purchase from a Rouble shop on his lunch break.

If this isn't a setup (which it seems to be) then gmail because it is more secure, not less. Think about it, why would they need to spy on their own email account?? They are more worried about it being traced by a middleman so a more secure account from a free provider would be the choice.

I forsee quite a few MS employees brake testing the google cars if google starts making boasts about number of miles without an accident!

Re: Oh, come on.

I do, hence I know about working with google translate to get additional languages working :-)

It's all good, I'm working on a letter explaining how I have invested significantly in myself (housing, education, food, transport, clothing) and loaned mw wife money whilst on holiday therefore I should be tax exempt! If it's good enough for a multi beeeellion pound company it should be fine for me!

Re: Alien Invasion

More likely the Canary they sent to see if the atmosphere was toxic.

Re: Don't be so quick to mock

fwiw I wasn't mocking, I just felt it was a great chance wasted. As regards the ww2 codespeakers, bing translating would negate part of the advantage of the code. Admittedly it was hard to crack even if you knew the language but as we saw with Midway, that also isn't a safe bet. Klingon has virtually no use as a cipher because anyone can learn it and there is no kauna (hidden meaning or subtext is probably the closest in English). The beauty of Navajo was that to speak it properly you almost certainly had to speak it from birth, there were a limited number of speakers and even if you captured one they were large useless because they invented and reinvented their own codes anyway. They were absolute legends, true heroes.

Without wanting to get too serious, language is a very important part of a persons cultural identity. People who feel they have lost their cultural identity and have it 'replaced' are often more prone to social issues. Language, art (music and visual) and food all form really important parts of a persons cultural identity and help shape their values. Wales is an amazing example of sustaining a cultural identity, even if it is partially to stick two fingers up at the English, I have the upmost respect for them.

Google actually does a lot to help at risk languages and once it has a large enough volume of vetted translations it includes extra languages. People can contribute to helping this happen. Yes this is done to make them more money, but they have gone a long way to engaging communities and assisting in the process.

What MS did isn't bad, I just think they could have done something very significant, especially given Bill's foundation works on education.

Re: Oh, come on.

Or you could just do something useful. Either way.

Using a genuine language would provide more chance for actually testing it properly, especially given the significantly greater library of works to source it from. If they wanted to offer a service they would find many native speakers would happily assist, just like we already do with google translate.

That would be a great start, too much food is wasted on crap like that, ethanol in petrol is plain daft, reduced mpg, increased damage to engines \ fuel pumps.

As for the league of nations II, theres something to be said for shaking it up a little, it's proven itself useless many times. Too many conflicting interests (think Russia and China vs the USA and Europe) resulting in no action on issues like NK, Syria, Rwanda etc.

The problem with food is we overthink and shirk from hard choices. GMO is 'ideal' because not only can you produce more food in a given amount of land, it's chock full of lovely stuff like formaldehyde and glyphosate which should see you off before you get round to lunch. So rather than use what we have better, we try and come up with complex solutions that cause more damage like GMO. How about reversing desertification in Africa. How about aquaponics, Hawaiian loko i'a need rebuilding and the concept replicating elsewhere, they fed hundreds of thousands in a small area without any fancy genetic enchancing. All the answers are out there and we don't need glow in the dark bacon to find them!

Re: Lampposts....

Lamposts is a great idea! If people can use them to power their pakalolo farms in their houses their has to be enough juice for a small cell station!

Not sure on the benefits re one network, tower sharing is sensible, an all in network means no competition so if you fancy a higher quality network and are ok with paying more or want a lower quality network but all you can eat data theres no chance to move. The quality of service would be set. Not a huge issue, I'm just not totally convinced, although theres a strong argument for a single shared network in rural areas. That and allowing multimode towers like Sprints in the USA, linking a license to a technology needs to go.

Re: So ...

Smaller antenna ;-)

I think we are kidding ourselves if we think the next generation of standards will be donated by some kind university. Right now companies are doing r&d into potential ways to improve. At some point they will get together, a standards group will be formed and a standard will be defined. The companies want control over that, this means owning patents that cover useful technology, and they have to sell them to anyone under FRAND terms, they key is to not find another company owning all the patents for the standard. This is no worse for us than 4g, 3g or 2g. It's basically a patent detente, they will make decent money off the patents based on volume but not exceptional amounts plus they will be able to nudge standards in a direction that suits them but not by much. I just don't understand the fuss about a company doing r&d, surely we should be more concerned about companies with patents who do no r&d??

Re: Nice work!

He was floating in a most peculiar way.

Re: Why this wont work.

They eat snails as well (they're actually really popular in Africa as well), but I guess that is France so point taken :-)

Re: Happy with mine

@nuclearstar

Please explain how it was free? You might not have paid for it immediately but I doubt it was free. Possibly 'free' in the same way the NHS is 'free' i.e. you pay for it but not so directly.

As for the benefits and knowing how much it costs, I can concur, living as a student with an electricity key I knew exactly how much everything cost so there possibly is some educational element for some folks.

This fad will last until some MP gets their meter hacked.

Re: Didn't get one

So basically we need to fit some shielding to the inside of the cuoboard under the stairs and its all golden then? I remember seeing some wallpaper marketed at hotels that blocked mobile signals. I predict strong sales for them, until you get branded a terrorist for subverting national infrastructure and get shipped off to orange jumpsuit land.

and lots of families have an interest in what they eat. That explains the decline in shyte supermarket own brand foods like 69p horse lasagne and gmo crap. You'll find many people who purport to have an interest in these type of things do right up to the point it involves thinking / spending more money or having to actually do something about it at which point they lose interest.

Re: Why this wont work.

In all fairness bugs are eaten routinely in many cultures already.

Well said! Now if we can get his replacement to proclaim he's a real russian hero....

I can't believe the ISS has been getting stick. Thinking back to my school years, the shuttle, concorde, the chunnel and the ISS (in later years) were massively inspiring and had a very real effect on my attitude to the sciences and engineering. It is absolutely imperative that the ISS is looked upon as another step towards the stars rather than allowing our endeavours in space to come to an end beyond a few sats in LEO.

Re: Technology to hide poor education

Sorry, you are making far too much sense. This will not be tolerated!

Re: But...

I feel your pain, and I think stuff like skype etc is a bit beyond the pale but planes are hardly quiet to begin with. I don't think me doing post processing on a shoot is worth it. Sure I could do it at home, or I could do it in the air and spend time at home with the family. Mouse clicks and emailing shouldn't cause much distraction, the problem lies with 'those people' who are barely aware that they share the world with others.

Re: When was the last time your employers judged you on a piece of handwritten work?

Not meaning to contradict you, just curious, but my 4 yr old can write (American education) whereas I was a couple of years behind that (a decent UK state education). Perhaps it varies largely state to state?

Congratulations of teaching yourself however, I know the effort it takes from working with my kids, it must be more so for a lefty.

Re: Graham Walker - who he?

So never had a real job in his life and is now trying to screw up kids education and the countries future. People like this need to be sent to do something productive with their lives, like landmine clearing.

So many things could fill that gap. Burger flipping, unemployment, looking for someone to marry who had a relative in the civil service. Seriously, how are any of the things listed actually jobs? Especially his current job given we are cutting nurses, police and firefighters? Yet this chump has a job?

Re: And how would this actually be possible?

The noise from 500 keyboards would be off putting to say the least!

Re: How are they going to stop cheat-sheets?

I agree here, open book exams and a viva, irrespective of how we approach writing vs typing in exams we should definitely switch to all open book exams and a viva for every student. I have never been in a meeting for work that anywhere neared the intensity of a viva at uni.

Re: FFS

Exactly, every lab I ever worked in and often every researcher in it has a physical log book, detailing all work for that day, methods, results and thinking cross signed each day. Sure you probably could actually make a more secure way using ipads or something like that, but honestly what do we gain by actively trying to eradicate any need to write. Writing is a very useful skill, one many people find a need for during their careers and life outside work.

We seem to be on this ridiculous trip about making exams easier. Modular exams, byod, reducing the syllabus etc. Exams are supposed to be hard. If you want kids to do better, teach them better. Teach them coping methods for exams, teach them revision techniques. This is nothing more than fiddling the books to make the sales look better. Getting better results takes work, both from teachers (who need better support from the government and from some parents) and from the pupils. We need to stop kidding ourselves and taking the double glazing route, these kids will be paying our pensions, unless we really love baked beans on toast we should do a decent job of it!