Not just hotspots

Android (and iOS for that matter) use SSIDs to improve location fix from GPS in addition to old good cell site data.

In order to have a usable database for this you have to do some slurping first and not just open APs - you slurp all SSIDs and MACs as well to distinguish between hotspots and remote offices.

I suspect that they do not need to do that any more as the phones provide enough data to keep it up to date.

Re: 4 days warning, and it's 500m across....

I had the same thought.

So much for all the effort into monitoring near earth object and so much for all the noise and panic around various 10-30m objects.

Re: So when the hard drive craps at 1yr 1day after purchase,,,

You will probably need to do that earlier because it will reboot if you connect an "unsupported" device to the wifi network.

If you try to file that as a bug WD staff will helpfully tell you in something that is supposed to be English zat zey support only Windoze and zat it is not zeir problem zat zeir device reboots the moment you connect any of the non-Windoze uPnP implementations to the network.

I have a full email trail for the above - that is not a joke. It was for their STB (WD Live) so there may be some element of YMMV.

In any case - caution is definitely advisable.

Re: "Unique to a car in this class is the City Emergency Braking system"

So it is not a bad copy of a long list of better designed, better executed and more fun to drive cars by Daihatsu and Suzuki?

We have seen only some of them in Europe and even the ones we have seen have been crippled by Toyota (Daihatsu) and GM (Suzuki) marketing. In Japan they have had ~10+ models across all manufacturers in this class at any give time for the last 30+ years. Hyundai and Kia also do cars in that category (Amica, Atoz, i10, Picanto, etc). If you want to "drawn" in a sea of cars in that category you need to go to the far east.

In any case, VW is neither original, nor the best in class. Its only redeeming feature is that it is VW which for some strange reason makes some people have a hard on and give it unjustified 0.95 reviews.

Re: One of a kind som other time

Sorry metric-imperial mis-hap, Conshelf 3 was at 100m (300 feet) which is still impressive even by today's standards.

Re: TomTom iPhone/iPad app

Tom Tom has some experience of living in a world where its licensees compete with it.

Sygic (which is probably the best navigation app for Android) uses licensed TomTom maps. It also ships it for ShinyShiny and for Nokia/Symbian. I bet it is not the only one to use TomTom maps - there are others.

Re: memory

Exactly. I have the same recollections. 25+ years ago everyone was thinking we will be going into a next (small) iceage.

Can we actually see something which goes back _BEFORE_ WW2 please (WW2 had a very clear fingerprint on temperature records too).

Re: LOL!

Krill under ice sheets is in larval form, it is not the krill which is eaten. That's how it overwinters.

Most of the food chain in Arctic and antarctic water is adapted to the krill larvae going _INTO_ open water, eating phytoplankton there, growing and swarming into adult krill swarms and being eaten there.

If krill can grow, breed and procreate under the ice without ever hitting the open ocean both polar ecosystems will be in deep sh*t...

Re: I can imagine this being *really* popular

Welcome to the world of web 3.0.

Dunno about you guys, but I will check on the schedules for the completion of my firewalled bunker with automated machine gun emplacements and hunter killer programs in the "software moat". Once the 3.0 goes into full swing I will retreat there until we go back to stone age 2.0.

Re: About time too - @Mikel

So what compiler does it support? What debugger does it support? What revision control system does it support? CVS? Clearcase? MKS on a tablet?

Can I actually write a kernel driver or some low level network code on it while on a plane from LHR to EWR (the slow-boat 757 which drags its feet for nearly 9 hours but has sockets even in cattle class)?

Well, not it does not.

Managing servers != development

Office work != development

Ssh != development

FTP != development

Ad naseum.

It is a nice consumer toy, it is a nice office work toy, it can even be a nice sysadmin toy, but a developer's toy it _DOES_ _NOT_ make. So while it can do about 66% of my work - office + syadmin (which I still do aplenty of each) it cannot do the remaining 33% where I have to write actual real code and do it in the gaps between meetings, on trains, planes and other places where I want a portable gadget. So for work I will still stick to a laptop (I may get a tablet for a car stereo/entertainment fronted at some point).

Yeah, I know, I am a caveman. People in developed countries who do powerpoint are not supposed to be writing code too. So I will stick to my caveman luddite attitude and use my laptop instead :)

Re: A very welcome outbreak of common sense

No, the BIG started long ago - the so called LEGO precedent where LEGO tried to sue other brickmongers. This is just an application of the same rules to the computer domain. Expecting anything different was frankly beyond optimistic.

It has some interesting side effects.

The long standing practice by the Open Source community to "protect" against interfacing to GPL2 components through the gratuitous application of GPL headers to include files which define API has just been ruled to have no protection. GPL, MPL, etc work will still be protected against theft, however the so called element of "virality" has been removed for a lot of the possible use cases.

Re: My first thought

Same way as charcoal - dry distillation of organic matter.

1. The dry distillation produces most of the nasty stuff (sulphur, nitrogen, etc from proteins go at that stage as sulphur dioxide, etc). What is left after that is nearly pure carbon. It can burn very clean. The problem with it is that it is very porous, takes lots of space and its energy density is a bit crap. That can be solved by pressing it into small pellets ("high density coal").

2. While making biomass into coal requires some energy to start off with it can be made self-sustaining as a side project of partially burning the biomass. Just ask any of the cough, cough, national minorities stripping to bare ground the woods of Eastern Europe and making them into charcoal for sale.

3. As far as a modern steam train having efficiency on par with diesel - that is a given. Steam is not that inefficient. The problem with steam is not the efficiency - it is the maintenance bill. All that regular boiler descaling, cylinder overhauls, gasket changes, etc cost a pretty penny. Add to that having to have regular (and probably in this day and age deionised) water supply along the rail lines. Compared to that with a diesel you just change the oil and the oil filter every few thousand miles and keep filling it up with some rotten dinosaurs.

Re: Never understood...

There were missions which would not complete in both Tie Fighter and X-wing.

If you were good enough to knock out some of the key mainline ships (IIRC the STD Invincible in X-Wing) on one of the recon or early missions there was no way to complete the campaign because the ship was not there for the key mission against it. Ditto for one of the frigates.

If memory serves me right there was a calamari cruiser annoyance somewhere in Tie Fighter that had the same problem.

Now what level of skill, patience and crazyness it takes to take out an escorted imperial star destroyer all alone in a X-Wing (or god forbid Y-Wing) to trigger the bug.... That is another story...

Screw the knights

No Love for:

1. Tie Fighter - with all due respect the Imperial incarnation of the original X-wing classic was way better than the rebel one. You should not underestimate the power of the dark side (especially if you manage 60k point scores from some of the more complex missions). In fact, after the original Tie Fighter the Tie Fighter vs X-wing installment came as "downer" (though in a hindsight I simply did not have a proper machine to play it).

2. Rebellion. One of the most complex RTS-es ever (if played properly at max complexity or human against human). I still play it from time to time in a virtualbox on an XP which I keep only for that purpose (Tactical mode unfortunately breaks under Wine). Compared to that Galactic Battlegrounds was an outright joke.

Re: Breaking up something large is PATENTED?

Look earlier.

The specific reason for uuencode/uudecode was to do exactly that - deal with the perl line IO buffer being to small on many systems.

We are looking at ~ 60es to early 70es for that one, long before TCP.

Re: And so the wheel turns.

The reason for the IR profile in the 802.1b spec was that someone actually had equipment.

I forgot who it was because wireless wiped it out straight away day one. So Apricot/Sirius were not alone.

It is yet another bit of history repeating :)

Re: And my ad is

Timeo Danaes credit references ferentes...

Excuse me for being thick

Can you point a single moment in F***book history (or web 2.0 history for that matter) when users were not perceived as a cash cow and their private life was not perceived as a "monetizable item".

One of the many reasons why I often say that I do not want to even learn what Web 3.0 will be about. My plan to deal with it is to communicate with any Web 3.0 entitiy from a firewalled, fortified and isolated bunker. With machine guns on the physical perimeter and hunter-killer progams on the "logical" one.

Re: Check your tubing

Seconded - especially 4.

One of my first projects in the academia 20 years ago was putting a lab setup in order to actually do some work and the difference between bad old wet oil and brand new was going down from 15mm Hg to 1 straight away.

As far as 1 even if you have proper vacuum grease use as little of it as possible - it still throws volatiles.

By the way do not be surprised if the pump start burning oil once past 5mm. The oil I chucked out from the one I fixed 20 years back looked like the oil you drain from a tractor at the end of the ploughing season.

Re: And so the wheel turns.

Why Apricot/Sirius?

Anyone doing ReatTheFineSpec of the 802.11b standard will find an optical profile (unfortunately limited to 1MBit).

Re: Car Companies?

You obviously do not know what you are doing. Looking at the house "commuter vehicle fleet", I have:

Two cycles with SRAM grips working with Shimano dérailleurs, cranks and freewheels; one cycle with a MTB frame, shimano MTB derailleurs working with a 52t road crankset (also supposedly impossible) and one cycle with FSA crankset and Shimano derailleurs and shifts. All of that using SRAM chains (with none of the cranksets and freewheels being SRAM).

The supposed "incompatibility of parts across bicycle manufacturers" is vastly overrated. If we exclude the extortionate range of 100£+ per spare part and look at the sanely price bits you can make nearly anything work with anything. Worst case scenario - do not force it, use a larger hammer (cutter and a file help too).

The only thing I can think of which is really incompatible across bikes is bearings. Most other stuff can be swapped and moved around if you know what you are doing (which is exactly why a bike like this Audi will never get in my house - it is non-standard by design).

Re: Can we get Gnome and KDE to do three-point-turns, too, now?

Kde3 TO kde4 - cough sputter, cough sputter... Gnome2 to Gnome3, cough, sputter, bleah... where did the vomit bucket go.

Windows is actually late to the "let's through decades of productivity research out of the window and make everything Tablet/Phone-like" party.

KDE and Gnome tried to get there first. KDE is also the worst of the two by far because it tries to retain some backwards compatible look while replacing old UI concepts with "Activities" and other similar iPhonesque/Androidesque abominations in their APIs.

Re: Xperia Mini Pro

Replying to myself on this one:

While the Xperia (both Mini and the Arc) is a fantastic phone, its factory charger is phenomenal piece of crap. It is quite temperamental on charging from USB too (it will not charge if it is "on" from 2 of my laptops)

In any case I have seen the original charger failing to charge an Xperia mini or an Arc from low battery levels (ditto for USB to PC). In fact I have seen it discharge when connecting to its "default" charger.

I suspect that the original poster who had an Xperia never start again ran into that one. So it is not surprising that it refused to boot - it never actually charged up to do so (or maybe went to critical on battery in the process as well).

The solution for me has been to use kindle chargers. Plug in the phone, in 1h the battery is to 100% straight away.

Re: @Voland's right hand

And China Unicom is like what? 20% market share compared to 80% of TD-CDMA.

It can operate a 3G FD HSPA network as much as it likes - it is a minnow in the China mobile market.

Re: Shades of Mission Impossible?

No, shades of Apple Design (TM).

Look where the red and green buttons are wired to - these go to the unused pins on the SATA interface, the same ones Apple uses for their cursed "special thermal management" system in iMacs. I bet this drive has an entertaining compatibility problem - plug it into a reasonably new Mac and it will selfdestruct spontaneously straight away.

Re: No tricks

That is actually correct for a country where the Great Shiny does not have a suitable 3G network.

Now count to 3 to see Tim Cook reverse his stance on supporting the TD-CDMA variety of 3G.

Re: Xperia Mini Pro

Strange, wife runs her flat regularly and it never gives problems afterwards.

In any case, it is better build and has better keyboard than half of the monstrousities in the list. It is also still on sale priced at the very reasonable ~160£ SIM free unlocked. My only gripe with it is the relatively short battery life (for an Android). You have to charge it every day (and sometimes throughout the day when used heavily).

Re: Err...

Apples and Oranges.

True, Britain is producing more "assembled units" than ever. It is _NOT_ something to be proud of.

However, once upon a time, the money from manufacturing was being spread wide around a large set of other industries from big smelters to small shops running in a single warehouse making door handles and most of that was in Britain. This "food chain" had a considerable impact on the overall GDP.

That is no longer the case. Current British car manufacturing is little besides assembly. Most of the components are built elsewhere - Germany, Spain, Portugal, Eastern Europe and Far East. The British part in it is to avoid the import duties and excise which most Eu countries still have on out-of-EU car imports. There is no food chain. It is only a "top" - the rest is elsewhere.

So the correct name should be "automotive assembly" industry, not "automotive industry". In any case, while the "size" of the car industry may look impressive on paper its impact on GDP is actually disproportionally small.

In any case, for the overall "good of the economy" it would have been better if Britain had none of the current assembly plants and let's say at least 10% of the parts manufacturing Germany (through the likes of Bosch) has nowdays. That is where all the development (and most of the margins) go and that creates a much wider and more "even" positive impact on the economy.

Re: So I guess these are all 1366x768?

Computing fonts, shapes, etc everything for more dots eats GPU and in the absense of GPU support for font scaling (which if memory serves me right is the case for Intel) CPU. In fact, that probably eats more than the display itself.

So in fact 1366x768 is pretty much optimal for 11-13 inch as long as it can support more dots on the VGA/HDMI/Whatever port it can output to. It is not that pixelated to irritate you, gives enough pixels for the desktop to lay things out and at the same time provides a good balance in terms of CPU/GPU power consumption.

Re: "poor consumer appetite for shiny gear"

"Now there's no Ericsson, there's no way I'm buying." - there are still some handsets which are SE, not Sony available at fire sale prices and I will probably buy a couple while they last. Agree - after that - no thanks.

I have had enough experience with horrid after-market support, termination of spare parts and consumables less than 2 years after model releases (Vaio Picturebooks anyone), systems especially designed to selfdestruct after the warranty expires (Vaio P3 laptops with a heatsink designed to fry the keyboard) and so on. I suspect that SE's not stellar, but generally acceptable software update policy will be going too :(

Re: The Oracle cannot be all knowing then.

There is still one more step here.

The API is an expression of the _EXPECTED_ functionality from software.

This decision discussed the functionality, not the "expectations" and not the "way of expressing them".

Re: I'm guessing Nokia saw the HTC One

You are mistaking E72 (and 71) which are the crown jewels of Nokia and Symbian for the average Symbian phone.

A good counterexample would be N95 - the supposedly super-phone/mobile computer to provide functionality on par with the original iPhone. Its software had so many memory leaks and bugs that it could not stay up for more than 10 minutes with heavy data or VOIP use. Non-working camera software, filesystems chronically corrupt - you name. The joy of Nokia "as shipped".

In any case, in terms of build quality the only thing on the market to really rival the iDevices is Sony Ericsson. Neither the HTC, nor Samsung come anywhere near. While it may not have the latest software, in terms of "well made" it is way better.

Re: What kind of...

No, Swedish actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stridsvagn_103

Re: so if APIs are copyrightable...

Just SAMBA? Think of anything and everything.

If Oracle wins this practically prohibits any development of interoperable software without taking a commercial license. That will be the end of the software industry as we know it affecting both free and paid for alike. It is from the "I love the smell of monopoly early in the morning, it smells like 300% profit margin" book so Oracle will not be letting go and it will get some Amicus Curae from the usual suspects in the next rounds.

If Oracle loses on all counts it will have an interesting effect as well - mostly on open source software. Presently a lot of the "do not link", etc is enforced through the gratuitous rubberstamping of GPL notices on includes, headers, etc which are in fact API definitions. If Oracle loses, commercial software will be able to ignore these with impunity and communicate with GPL software in ways that are considered "unacceptable" at present. Ditto for the other way around which is usually less of an issue at present.

Re: Piss? Sounds like a load of shit!

Urine is much more conductive than water. If any of these laptops had a viable battery pack and the urine got inside they are pretty much dead. The only thing to save kit in this case is to wash it ASAP with lots of deionized water and let it dry.

However, there is just no way a minor can relieve himself successfully over 20+ laptops. Granted there is an obesity pandemic, but someone with "capacity" that BIG. Give me a break. Someone is seriously taking the piss here. Literally.

Re: Bought my brother in-law a mini copter for Xmas

Based on childhood recollections (circa aged 10) of chasing a cat together with my neighbor (aged 8) using his RC tank:

1. The cat will not like being shot at

2. The cat will figure out that the tank is being controlled pretty fast. You can set that to "immediate" if the cat has some siamese blood in its veins.

3. Once the cat has figured it out you will need a skin graft and a tetanus injection.

Re: So what?

Quote: "You will find some rights in the Declaration of Human Rights". You are missing the point. UK parliament is sovereign and cannot be bound.

The Declaration of Human Rights is _NOT_ fundamental as far as UK legal system is concerned. Nothing is. Any law can modify any right in any way it likes and as long as it has been voted through by the parliament that will be it.

As an example - UK had a "Declaration of Human Rights" before. It is called "The Bill of Rights of 1689". So how much of it stands today?

Re: I've seen this movie before

Not quite.

SCO never had a research department the size of Nokia research. It never had an IPR portfolio the size of Nokia either. In any case "this movie" is not likely to be "shown in theaters" for very long.

In order to collect revenue from patents you have to file them. In order to file them you have to have working engineering and research. If times gets rough this is the first thing which the management consultants rationalize as surplus to requirements.

Re: That's nice.

I love the smell of lack of competition early in the morning, it smells like revenue...

The smell of revenue after the rain (and the flood)...

Re: @voland - @kistark

Quote:

"

Teacher: Little girl, let go of that radiator at once.

Little Girl: No.

...

"

I am not going to call you an idiot, but you will never be a good teacher, you will always fail if you have to teach anyone anything and you will never be a good people manager as well.

1. She is not a little shit. She is an intelligent six year old which knows very well what she is doing with IQ well above average. She is non-violent. She may be stubborned, doing whatever she wants, etc but she is not a _LITTLE_ _SHIT_. No 6 year old is a _LITTLE_ _SHIT_. No human you are responsible for is a "LITTLE SHIT". Ever. Even if he kicks a principal. You need to understand why she has done so and deal with it. Part of the job do you like it or not.

2. The incompetent union protected dolt that was trying to herd the class into the classroom as described in the original post did not understand some of the very basics of her profession (as I said, crowd control is a key requirement both for an educator and a manager). You have to chose your battles and win them. She never bothered to actually sit down in front of the girl for 30 seconds and have a normal, human, non-"LITTLE SHIT" conversation with her. She was just running around like headless chicken, clucking, complaining and end of the day going to the principal.

3. By the way, I did a stint with the same class for a semester as a volunteer teaching assistant for an activity (they needed an extra person to take the kids swimming) and I did not have a problem with anyone in that class. Neither had their PE teacher. Neither had their "proper" teaching assistant. On the day when the "mayhem" was happening she was off sick so the actual "competence" of the teacher showed up with a vengeance.