* Posts by Franklin

17 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jul 2007

Microsoft challenges IBM to Websphere duel

Franklin
Linux

@lennie

"I stopped reading."

If only you'd not "ever so slightly force[d] you views on the reader", and just not commented.

Met Office: Global warming sceptics 'have heads in sand'

Franklin
Thumb Down

1 step solution to the global warming "debate"

1. Everyone who believes it matters quits emitting carbon dioxide.

This will save us:

2 tanker ships

8 or 9 thousand trips to the middle of the ocean

20 or 30 years of the honourable martyrsen time who would have to pilot the tanker ships to drown all the skeptics

Howevermuch evil, fozzle few-L that'd all take, anyway.

Timberland pays $7m to settle SMS spam lawsuit

Franklin
Heart

Settlements

Ugh, you don't stand to receive 150usd if you apply for the settlement.

A typical cheque to the wronged will be somewhere between 0.45usd and 15.00usd. The lawyers will get about 40%, the escrow fund managers (generally the same lawyers) will get about 40% (for the taxing work of accepting a giant cheque and writing a bunch of tiny cheques). The remainder will be split between the 8 people who write back and can document in triplicate (notarised, please send us the actual equipment violated, as well) the harm done to them, and a "fee settlement fee" (and probably a, uh, 1000 dollar leaving town tax).

Of course, if you don't accept, you will have to file suit on your own.

Marketing body condemns 'draconian' Olympic law

Franklin
Boffin

London Summer Gold futures

GoldBronze child actor Games London spot prices, Sponsors runup in Gold futures while Silver haired warherokerry pitches Medals at whitehouse in bid for Twenty-Twelve presidential Run.

21Juneto21Sept, CityontheThames, CopperZincAntimonyLead! Au! Ag!

Am unsure of the love atop his own hair into of the scene in front because of random guy's x builds on the two Notes: jwz usenet Re; select whether or, non existent cables, and my opinion. Save the feathers came out immediately upon Us, a place to mean. Then another thing you a new. These get a list.

Two-Thousand Ten and Two!

Miracle airship tech sustained by DARPA pork trickle

Franklin
Thumb Down

Silly DARPA

Wasting my time with these nutty notions of large scale peer networking, lighter-than-air-craft . . . Hay! what if, instead of compressing the He, they just liquified a bit of N2 into ballast tanks? Or is diatomic nitrogen to dangerous for humans?

IBM gets virtual and cloudy with 22nm chips

Franklin
Boffin

@Toby

But! But! But! v in water is smaller (c might be a constant, but the velocity of light isn't) and that affects the relationship of λ(wavelength) to f.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength has a shockingly lucid (considering the medium) breakdown.

Climate change blows out eco-boss's record bid

Franklin
Heart

Renewable energy

is a bit of a misnomer, anyway. The generators will be replaced on a statistically regular basis (wear, damage, etc) which makes them the non-renewable consumable. Current "carbon trading" theories of cost put these on rather unfavourable footing with the stored solar energy (in the form of petroleum and coal (and peat, if you're in Ancient Scotland)) we use now, and not much (if at all) better than a combination of good ol' fashioned "doing without" and drudgery.

The EU is out to get you, after all

Franklin
Alien

@ einMenschvonMars

"They can gather as much as they will, but there is no Defence against a Stream of Random Coordinated Information"

The same techniques used in spam filtering a couple of generations (technologically) from now combined with Our Friend Gordon E. Moore and they'll be able to "calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard". Keeping tabs on a few billion (relatively predictable) humans will be child's play.

Obama: McCain can't email, remembers Rubik's Cubes

Franklin
IT Angle

@ Talbot

I strongly doubt the economy of any country on Urth is "totally dependant on [e-mail]". It might be useful for some high Knob to send a funny picture of a cat licking its penis to the "administrative assistant" pool, but in the real world there are telephones, letters, and actually conversing in person.

Boffinry bitchslap brouhaha: Higgs and Hawking head to head

Franklin
Boffin

Re: data retention . . .

. . . is not a big deal if they are doing science, since that (ostensibly) requires repeatability, no?

McAfee SiteAdvisor sued over 'spyware' tag

Franklin
Heart

Re: Confused

Transparency, for one thing. A product review lives or dies on its (ostensible) merits, whereas this is a blind, "example.com si dANgirous!" without supporting evidence provided. Sort of like a product review as a single line: "Hello. It's Crap.".

Not that I disagree with McAffee (or care. They're Crap!) in this case, but there is a dif'rence.

AVG cries wolf at Adobe Reader

Franklin

Maulwear?

Until it starts identifiing (that's for "viriiiiii" or however you savages pluralise virum, let alone pronounce it) bILLG aTES monstrous and fetid carcois as a trojan, and how do you know itself does not phone home your banking details, the barcode tattoo on your forehead? War veterens need not apply, unless otherwise handicapped, the rest of us will take it on the back of the hand.

Blogging: made in England?

Franklin

.plan

Since the invention of fingerd

( HISTORY

The fingerd utility appeared in 4.3BSD. )

"blog" has just been a neologism awaiting some life form with a sufficient surplus of cerebrospinal fluid for coinage and this article is like some disgusting nerd fight over whether a roll of <3 for cha results in a ginger or not.

In the World of Real, Honest Things, the hairless post-card has served as ample warning of the potential to abuse any device for banal folderol, doubly so when cheap, trebly so when attached to semi-anonymity and Meret knows the hair.

UniquePhone answers sceptics with video

Franklin

Tripods!

I just knew that letting them land

In the first place was a bad idea,

Now this.

If A(H5N1) don't get you

Then the left one will.

'I Go Chop Your Dollar' star arrested

Franklin

Re: What an article.

"Hello, it's not called Nollywood because of the plots and dialogue but because it's Nigeria's Hollywood. Surely, it's not so hard to make the connection."

I thought that was the point?

Robot brains? Can't make 'em, can't sell 'em

Franklin

2 (3?) things to make learning possible (maybe 4)

1) pain

1.b) and its converse, pleasure (I actually think I do mean "converse" here)

3) forgetting: you must have the ability to discard unimportant or detrimental (to learning) information (and feedback).

And embarrassment (as a sort of self inflicted fear/pain) is an important part of the "learning to forget" feedback loop. Until then, the memory and microcode constraints will tend to mire the whole world of automatons in a sort of 1950s backwater of, "Computer, everything I say to you is a lie." nonsense.

Google embarasses MapQuest

Franklin

Several years ago

. . . I suggested they include VIA (loc1, loc2, . . .). Upon further pondering, they need to include a WITHOUT command as well:

FROM Hoboken, NJ TO Petaluna, CA VIA Calgary, AB WITHOUT I-80

or something.

Anyway, us cyclists might enjoy excluding interstate expressways.