Posts by Voland's right hand
567 posts • joined Thursday 18th August 2011 06:44 GMT
It was not entirely their choice
Medical software is built by muppets who always built windows only. So in a lot of cases NHS has little or no choice in using Windows.
Posted in OnLive Game System cloud gaming console
And how much does a decent PC cost?
And how much exactly does a decent PC with a decent Nvidia card to play it cost nowdays?
North of 600.
And how much exactly does a decent PC usable for daily non-gaming use cost nowdays?
South of 350.
That is without taking into account power consumption, etc.
If you do the _FULL_ math the numbers end up in favour of the onLive for anyone who plays less than 4h a day. If you are playing more than 4h a day... Well... Can you tell me who is your employer, I would like a job where I can spend 4h+ a day playing too.
So far BMW, Hyundai, and Land Rover, along with NXP and Freescale,
In other words - all the ones who do not like CanBus. Rather unsurprisingly VW group which has embraced it is not there :)
It may be less nefarious then you think
If you look at the pics it is blurred because it is spinning to produce artificial gravity in flight. You do not really want to open the window in that case as the centrifugal force will throw you out and the Mothership will depart without you.
You are in to listen
You are not in to control.
Only the video feeds were unencrypted. The control channel (IIRC) was not. So the bits from laptop in itself would not be enough to control it.
Cockpit is no place for democracy
"Averaging" between inputs is a terminally bad idea. Better to have priority in cases like this and the captain being able to flip it if need be from the back seat.
Posted in iOS finally gets Palm compatibility
Vertical markets :)
There are still some poor souls wondering around a warehouse with a ruggedized (and still working) palm pilot out there :)
If it is not, why is it written this way?
Well, if it is not "malware" why the hell does it use undocumented Android functionality which prevents removal?
Posted in Laptop bags: 15-inchers
Thule weather resistant zips actually work
I have another "soft" item from their inventory - the roofbag. I have driven in a torrential downpour where you can barely see 20-30m ahead with it and it does not leak. So if they use the the same zip tech (and some of the same materials) the bag will be weatherproof as advertised.
Propulsion?
The design omits a few details:
Propulsion? Armament? Shields? Fighter bay capacity?
Posted in NASA busts booster booster
Most of rocketry is 50 year old tech
Show me something radically new that has been done in liquid fuel rocketry since the days of Von Brown and Korolev. Do not think so. If there was we would have been using it instead of relying on the Soyuz :)
Exactly
The intended use may be as described.
The means of achieving it are hideous. It is not the first time this has happened and it is a normal result of carrier procurement which relies on "procurement specialists" nowdays and has no engineering oversight whatsoever.
When something like that is procured by a carrier you are _NOT_ _ALLOWED_ to actually look inside and say "no, we are not buying this, this is done the wrong way". As an engineer you have no right to do so. The consluttants improving business processes in the carrier have revoked it and removed it from the architectural and procurement processes as it is "bad for business".
Quote: Hard disk drives don't have encryption as a matter of course
Actuially quite a lot of the high end 2.5 inch ones do. The problem is that it has to be initialized pre-boot at BIOS level which puts it outside the control of the IT department as they have no tools to mandate it and force its usage in the field.
So I am not the only one thinking about incoming near-relativistic projectiles in a few centuries from now.
Some aliens do not like being disturbed ya know....
Posted in Asda knocks 20 quid off Kobo WiFi
Booooooooga...
I bought 2 from WHSmith for Xmas presents. Ok. Oh well, you cannot win every time. Though to be honest - I'd rather have my money go to WHSmith than Wallmart.
I have read about 10 books on mine in 3 different languages since I bough it in October. It is definitely the right choice (in preference to Kindle) if you read stuff in languages different from English.
It is also the kit to read while commuting - much easier to hold in a crowded train/tube where everyone is elbowing you for space. The embossed back helps a lot there.
Excellent bit of kit - very pleased with it :)
Thankfully Bebo is now bankrupt
Let's hope we do not spray this one with radio drivel and gibberish. Though 600 light years is 1300+ years to get back a near-relativistic projectile. We should be capable of dealing with it by that time (if we do not nuke ourselves into oblivion before that or get one from Giliese).
Depends on which Sci Fi do you read
There are at least a couple of very interesting novels about things human expeditions find on pluto. None of them particularly pleasant...
Posted in 2011's Best... E-book Readers
Read them on the tube before reviewing
The "girly" embossing of the Kobo makes it considerably more convenient then Amazon's offering for reading on a tube or commuter train because it allows for better grip. I have both the Kobo and Amazon's offering in the house and the Kobo gets more use.
In fact, everyone who sees it wants one.
Why just the SMS Api
If they are listening on nearly every Android "Intent" there may be other choices besides SMS to make this application do things that were not intended by its creator.
Posted in Samsung gets a win in Oz patent battle
Apple is anything but mad
Sony has so much IPR and in so diverse areas that it can obliterate a company like Apple. Apple has a small set of UI & Design IPR mostly picked up from BT fire sale "unused" patents. It has a very small amount of patents which are fundamental to "make things work(TM)". Compared to that Sony has a huge patent portfolio in silicon, CPU, graphics, visual displays and UI & Design.
Apple is simply not in the category to take on Death Star class adversaries. It will be many years at this rate before it can face Sony or IBM in court and win. So it would have avoided picking on Sony even if Sony tab was an exact rip-off of the iPad.
They are
UK retailers have no stock.
I was looking for one to fill up my Xmas stocking :(
Well, there is a vetting process for that...
http://wilk4.com/humor/humorp3.htm
Si senor
Una latina caliente... I suspect that if anyone hands the dog it will only result in it being stolen outright once again in order to solicit a repeat performance. At least that is what we would have done in our days in the Uni :)
First they came for the Turkey friers...
I stayed silent.
Then they came for...
The old MPAA you mean
The reason for the statute of Anne was exactly that - the publishers owned everything perpetually. Just in those days it was called the Stationers company and it did not have to buy congresscritters and MPs to get its way to prolong the life support of a certain rodent. It had its monopoly granted perpetually by Bloody Mary 200 years earlier.
Indeed
I suspect they had a disproportionate amount of Blackberry carriers in their sample. It is the phone which is traditionally handed out to the populace which is obliged to answer 24x7x365 regardless of are they bonking or not.
That's OK
Until you bring Algernon some flowers.
See the photos at the article
He is quite good actually. He should move to somewhere where his creations are used as props or appreciated instead of being harassed by the police in the middle of nowhere.
In an unlicensed band?
Anything. There is bugger all they can do if I decide to jam it.
That is why things like this should not use unlicensed frequencies.
Actually I beg to differ
Itanic _WAS_ garbage initially and I was equally vocal to you and many others saying so.
It is not garbage any more. Its IO bandwidth exceeds anything AMD or Intel's Xeon lineup can muster by 2+ times and it has very good raw compute power. The compilers have also picked up and are now generating code that can use the CPU properly.
There is a whole raft of tasks out there which are presently done on extortionally overpriced specialized processing units and ASICs which can be done on Itanic at the same perf and fraction of the price. There are also people who are looking at using it for this so it is not just HP.
Posted in CableJive DockBoss Plus
Excuse me while I yawn...
Apple doc connector already does other things which are key for a good dock.
There is the so called "Direct iPhone/iPad control" option which allows the iPhone control the media device. Now if the connector did that (+/- app on the phone) that would have been really interesting because it would have allowed some of the really cool iPhone oriented dock gadgets to work with a Droid.
Examples:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pioneer-SPH-DA01-Mechless-Advanced-AppRadio/dp/B0057EZAX6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321874119&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/JVC-KW-XR611-Double-Ready-Radio/dp/B003E6VEKW/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1321874140&sr=1-1
And so on.
They are hired not because they can cook
Half of them never did anything related to cooking back in their countries. The entire ethnic cousine backdoor in the immigration law is one big fraud.
So are the local youths trained in curry or not is of little relevance. That does not solve the problem of curry migration and does not solve the problem of unemployment (any more than any other training).
Yes indeed
Just ask some of the people with totally grey hair in UK, USA and Russia missile command from that case when our dear French neighbors did a test firing of a submarine launched ICBM from international waters west of Ireland in the general westerly direction. So far so good. However they did not tell anyone that they are doing it. Thankfully both NORAD and USSR strategic missile command held their nerve for the 5 minutes needed to identify that it is not going for anywhere interesting.
These new missiles however may actually end up even worse. They are fired on top of a launcher which is big enough to be picked up by early warning systems. At the same time it is totally unclear where the warhead is going. It can glide 200 miles or go 2000 and hit the "enemy" capital. Ugh... I am not sure I like the idea...
Water itself is not a remedy to dehydration
Drinking a large dose of plain water (bottled or not) when in a state of severe dehydration can kill you.
Once you have gone beyond a certain point you need salt.
So, in fact, Kinley Soda peddled by Coca Cola Corp which has some copious amounts of NaCl is a passable remedy to mild dehydration. It is not a very good one because you need the right proportions of Na, K to deal with severe dehydration. There are special packs to be dissolved in water sold in most pharmacies on the continent. They are seriously nasty stuff, but worth having in your medkit just in case you end up with a serious stomach upset (or something else that dehydrates you) away from civilisation.
Simple bottled water is not something you should touch if you are badly dehydrated. It will do more harm than good so Brussels is right here.
Not quite
You will find that in order to operate bits of critical national infrastructure like water, sewerage, leccy, gas, etc you need to do comply with some reqs. So in fact, the CEO and MD are liable for at least something as they are in breach of their regulatory regime. Similarly, even in the USA the government has quite enough leverage to make such companies do things.
In any case, this just goes to confirm something I have been saying for ages - SCADA security is sh*t. The scariest bit is that the same companies and people who write scada now write smart metering software. So a system with the same lousy level of security as the one on that pump (or worse) will be in every house in a few years in control of leccy, gas and water.
Posted in Sony HMZ-T1 3D head mounted display
Focus adjustment is your friend
Focus adjustment is your friend, unless you are severely astigmatic of course.
By the way - the price is not so nuts. It delivers a similar (if not better) experience to a 50 in TV at a comparable price point. So if you have enough money to shell on a 50 in monster without the space to put it they may be just the right Xmas gift for you :)
Posted in Sony HMZ-T1 3D head mounted display
Depends on the game too
This will be a total killer if bundled with a good joystick and a good flight simulator. You can combine it with Move and some on-helmet acceleration sensors and pick up head moving left/right/up/down to match cockpit view to it.
Ditto for a FPS - you will just see your "in-play" gun instead of your controls.
It will require LOTS of investment, but I can actually see someone like Sony having the resources to deliver on this. It will not be easy as it will variable viewpoints/angles for the player which has to be incorporated into the game day one, but it is doable.
There are possibilities to use this, it is simply a case of them not being utilized just yet.
The news are worst for operators
Here comes someone who _REALLY_ knows how to monetize "the shopping experience" and they are definitely not going to be doing it via any of the operator frameworks. There could be some grounds for discussion with Google, Apple and MIcrosoft. There are none with Amazon - there the operator is the bitshifter and there is no doubt about it.
The carriers have seeded control only temporarily
In a year or two Apple will have to do LTE. LTE mandates IMS implementation which nicely gives the operator back the billing and service control interface.
So unless Apple manages to kill IMS completely and switch completely to a VOIP framework of its own for LTE it will have no choice but to give the operators the keys to chains that yank it in the correct place along with other phone vendors. Ditto for Google.
Granted Microsoft (skype), Apple (facetime), Google (gtalk) have all prepared themselves for that battle, but it is yet to be fought. The fat lady has not sung its last song yet for the operator model.
Posted in Rambus tumbles in antitrust reversal
WTF it continued in the first place
The case should have been closed, won by Micron by default and Rambus found in contempt of court there and then.
Is it me being thick
Is it me being thick or all of your "pros" read like a list of "Windows Specific Problem"?
The robot is the least of your problems
The whole thing is one HUGE tangle of problems.
Unless the solar batteries are positioned on top of something really really really heavy like let's say the moon they will be pushed by the solar wind out of their orbital positions. In addition to that all the "easy" positions in stationary orbit are already occupied so there will be some very entertaining logistics in terms of jumping from one receiving station to another and doing something with the surplus energy while the jump takes place (OK, that can be solved by multiple antennas but this means more weight, complexity, etc). Add to that that the energy beam will ionize the atmosphere and generate enough ozone and nitrous oxides to kill anyone for miles downwind...
Why do I suddenly think that nuclear is such a good idea...
Exactly
Watch "First Contact". Contemplative my a***
While does not reach the level of Warf's most famous quote from the same movie ("Perhaps it is a good day to die. Prepare for ramming speed") he is definitely not far off. In fact compared to "First Contact"'s Picard, Kirk is soft and contemplative.
Posted in Motorola Razr Android smartphone
Not entirely impossible
Now that MotoBleah is gone (that is the MOST important review item for me) an update may be possible.
With my Nokia E71 in need of yet another battery I will be looking for a new phone in the next year though probably I will stick with the new Xperia pro. Shiny, shiny and proper keyboard.
AMD Neo has ECC scrubbing by the way
Neo has ECC scrubbing funnily enough. I could never understand why AMD undermarkets it. It can run circles around Atom without even breaking a sweat (or to be more exact lifting off its measly base 800MHz in QnQ mode).
It is not even Bobcat core, it is Athlon 64 if memory serves me right :)
Too late
Bag in box already does that. It also keeps wine in better shape once opened because there is no "new" air intake when pouring out so the wine does not oxidize. If you like a glass once in a while it is definitely a better choice than a bottle because you can drag out the bag (in the box) for a month and will not go bad (especially if it is in a fridge).
You just got your machine hijacked, congratulations
Dude, with people like you around security will never be out of work.
And your point is
How is this worse than a person with dementia in control of them during the cold war when the nuclear powers were "officially" in trigger happy mode?
Posted in Logitech Wireless Touchpad
Is the problem with the touchpad or with the OS?
Have you tried the same under let's say the latest ubuntu (IIRC it supports multitouch). It may be the case with the pinch-to-zoom erratic performance is not down to Logitech after all...
Posted in Gamers stuff Nvidia's pockets with cash
BIGGER does not necessarily mean BETTER
Servers like fast threads sometimes, and server applications these days usually need more than the 4GB of main memory
Do they? Let's not mistake Vmware and Xen needs with applications. If the 64 bit arm retains the power envelope of its 32 bit predecessor we will most likely see more physical servers or physical nodes in a multi-server chassis like the SeaMicro AtomSmasher. An arm server node in its entirety is likely to cost a fraction of the cost of the licenses for running the same workload on a Vmware partition.
So it depends whose market will arm/nvidia decide to eat. They may go for Intel's jugular and I honestly wish them luck on that one. They may however go for the low hanging fruit of re-physicalising the virtualised installations.
