* Posts by gregthecanuck

200 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Dec 2012

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India added 240m phones/year build capacity in just one year

gregthecanuck

Re: the mind boggles

That's no moon...

'Data saturation' helped to crash the Schiaparelli Mars probe

gregthecanuck
Pint

Re: Welcome to embedded system engineering

Hey Steve - thanks for the laugh. You win LOL of the day.

Cheers!

Space crap: Flap, zap or strap? $30k from NASA for your pooper scooper

gregthecanuck
Boffin

It seems so obvious to me

Simply liquefy the entire interior of the suit. Swimming for 6 days? No problem. Just use a nice pool filter and some chlorine and you're "good to go".

Why I just bought a MacBook Air instead of the new Pro

gregthecanuck

Re: The customer is always.... a cash cow

"This far, no further...". Hmmm that sounds familiar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tleSnj4OD0g

Virgin Media users report ongoing problems delivering legit emails. Again

gregthecanuck
Trollface

Bouncy bouncy

Virgin Media said: “We apologise for any inconvenience caused whereby some Virgin Media email users experienced problems. This has now been resolved.”

The missing sentence in the above paragraph:

"We have now ensured all Virgin Media email users experience problems."

FTFY

Fleeing Aussie burglar shot in arse with bow and arrow

gregthecanuck
Happy

Re: An arrowing experience

Congratulations... LOL of the day awarded to you sir. :)

Samsung are amateurs – NASA shows how you really do a battery fire

gregthecanuck

Re: Wow. Make this a feature...

Congratulations - you win LOL of the day. :)

Keep your stick on the ice.

20 years to get Amiga Workbench 3.1 update, and only a fortnight to get first patch

gregthecanuck

There is no evidence of any legal wrangling between Cloanto and Hyperion. I expect none in future. In fact it makes no sense.

Cloanto's business appears to be selling and supporting Amiga Forever and its components/ROMs. I don't believe they have any intention of actually doing software development. They do a great job with Amiga Forever as many can attest.

Now Hyperion appears to be testing the waters on updating OS 3.1. Awesome. What I would expect is Cloanto to somehow sub-license some future worthy version of 3.1 to distribute with updated Amiga Forever packages.

So what's the big deal? Win-win as far as I'm concerned.

Regards,

Greg

gregthecanuck

Re: A small glimmer of hope

Hi Terry -

The Vampire compatibility is very good. FYI the pre-order queue for the Vampire 600 has now exceeded 1000 units! Look here: http://www.apollo-accelerators.com/orders/index.php. For their next model (the Vampire 500) they are planning to ship 200+ units per month. The demand is there.

For some programs there is a compatibility issue. This will happen when the CPU is literally hundreds of times faster than the original. ;) The next release (Gold 2) will introduce a new "turtle mode" to work with this badly written software. In addition some other software didn't wait for the blitter correctly. This issue is being solved in hardware. Any properly written software works fine.

I definitely understand your position but this new Apollo core is something special. The team building this product also works inside IBM on their Power systems so they know what they are doing.

Be patient, sit back and watch this project mature. It's a definite step in the right direction for classic Amiga fans.

Cheers!

gregthecanuck
Pint

A small glimmer of hope

There is a bit of a revival in progress on the "Classic" (680x0-based) Amiga scene. One of the reasons for the Amiga's demise was Motorola's end-of-the-line and quite expensive 68060. It was reasonably competitive with Intel chips at the time but was soon eclipsed. Amiga had lost the performance edge.

To me the most exciting part of this revival is the emerging development of a new "Apollo" next-generation 680x0 core currently in FPGA. This is being developed by a brilliant (yes brilliant!) team of designers who have spent years quietly working on a true successor to the 68K lineage. They have chosen the "68080" name and it does make sense.

There is another project in the works (Amiga Reloaded) that is another FPGA-based attempt at updating the Amiga hardware platform. Unfortunately I know less about that one but it also looks promising.

The Apollo 68080 core is being provided on a series of "Vampire" accelerator cards for classic Amiga models. The first version out is the for the Amiga 600. Upcoming versions will cover more of the classic Amiga models. Also coming in the near future is a stand-alone model. These are also ongoing discussions with the Atari community.

With all this new 68K-based hardware coming out Hyperion has appeared to realize there is a potential market for an updated "Classic" Amiga OS 3 distribution. They have taken their first baby-steps with this first update to the 3.1 system.

Some may criticize Hyperion for some historic odd behaviour but I believe we are seeing a more humble and open Hyperion. These have been some recent management changes and hopefully they result in a more logical organization.

Here are some links for more information on the Apollo core and Vampire accelerators:

wiki: http://apollo-accelerators.com/wiki/doku.php

forum: http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=0

US judge rubber-stamps Volkswagen's 'Dieselgate' settlement

gregthecanuck

My business partner has one and really likes the car.

My guess is that VW will refit/modify the cars and put them back on the market somewhere. South America?

IBM Australia didn't stress-test #censusfail router and blocked password resets

gregthecanuck
Trollface

Fail Whale

"IBM and the ABS managed to put in place another howler of a misconfiguration: “Island Australia” (which only partially worked) was designed to block traffic from outside Australia, but IBM was hosting the Census password reset facility offshore."

OMG - I laughed so hard my wife was like "WTF?".

Today the web was broken by countless hacked devices – your 60-second summary

gregthecanuck

ISP - do they have the tools...

Does any ISP have the capability to detect when their users are hosting a "floodbot"? To me this would be a good first step. If Joe/Jane homeowner gets hacked they get blocked until their offending device is taken down.

Surely there must be tools for this?

AMD is a rounding error on Intel's spreadsheet and that sucks for us all

gregthecanuck

If you have been following Phoronix lately it appears AMD is getting their sh!t together WRT their open source drivers.

I suggest you give AMD on Linux another chance. Cheers!

gregthecanuck

How Zen will likely play out

When Zen does finally ship Intel will re-price their equivalent processors. Their tactic in the past appeared to be charging about a 5 to 10% premium for equivalent performance.

Part of the premium has been accounted for by the fact that Intel chips have generally been more power-efficient than AMD for the same performance. That 5 or 10% premium is more than offset by long term power savings. Enough to make an AMD or Intel decision difficult because the large price savings for AMD won't be there especially in the data centre market.

So AMD better be deliver something that Intel doesn't, or be prepared for ongoing squeezed margins.

Will be interesting to watch the market.

What will happen when I'm too old to push? (buttons, that is)

gregthecanuck

Re: NooooooooMannnnnnn!!!!!!!

Saw him live in Vancouver decades ago. Was a cool show.

Google's hardware extravaganza: Ad giant takes on Sonos, Roku, Linksys, Amazon, Oculus... you name it

gregthecanuck

Re: Sometimes I wonder...

No you aren't the only one. My Sony 34" tube TV packed it in only recently. Was a good set and at over 100lbs guaranteed to be there when I come home. :)

Luddites of the universe united we stand.

High rear end winds cause F-35A ground engine fire

gregthecanuck
Flame

Dear F-35 first wave purchasers:-

We at Lockheed Martin would like to extend our thanks to you, our venerable team of beta testers.

That is all.

Flame on!!

Korean cargo line bailout saves Christmas for tech companies

gregthecanuck
Happy

I wonder if the interest on the loan...

... was at a floating rate.

My God, I've got nothing on! Microsoft's $200m Wunderlist is down

gregthecanuck
FAIL

Looks like Wunderlist's database...

... acquired a case of wanderlust.

Florida Man's prized jeep cremated by exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7

gregthecanuck
Happy

Re: Unusual dog

That's it. You win the chuckle of the day award. :)

Cheers!

Lose a satellite? Us? China silent on fate of Gaofen civilian/spy sat

gregthecanuck
Trollface

"You're lost another .... "

https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/43a9feda-7898-479c-95c1-7317a4f7b179

Hollywood offers Daniel Craig $150m to (slash wrists) play James Bond

gregthecanuck
Holmes

Who?

Captain Jack Harkness

Daniel Tenant

Watch SpaceX's rocket dramatically detonate, destroying a $200m Facebook satellite

gregthecanuck
Mushroom

RUD

To quote from one of Musk's comments on a previous incident:

RUD = Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly

Astronauts sequence DNA in space for the first time

gregthecanuck
Alien

All I can think of looking at that photo is...

"Someone should paint/stitch/draw alien faces on the brown covers on the spacesuits!"

Amazon now renting cloudy desktops for $0.22 an hour

gregthecanuck

Re: Difficult to see AWS winning on this one

They are working with Citrix right now - did you miss the announcement? Or else I missed your sarcastic tone?

Register article here

'Flying Bum's' first flight was a gas, gas, gas

gregthecanuck
Happy

Re: Look up there, a Kardashian

Thanks for that. You win the LOL of the day award. :)

Brit network O2 hands out free Windows virus with USB pens

gregthecanuck
Mushroom

Oh dear...

Gives new meaning to "The pen is mightier than the sword" .

Your 'intimate personal massager' – cough – is spying on you

gregthecanuck

Re: Maybe I'm being naive (again!)

Remember that old AT&T advertisement? "Reach out and touch someone"

Seems they knew more than they let on at the time.... ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OapWdclVqEY

http://thephonebooth.com/booths/booth-cards/reach-out.html

Windows 10 Anniversary Update is borking boxen everywhere

gregthecanuck
Facepalm

Bork bork bork

A while back Microsoft laid off a large number of experienced testing/QA staff in USA. I believe a lot of that was 'outsourced' to overseas locations (if at all).

This is the obvious result. Save a few pennies, pay out another penny in dividends, but in the long term you fu@!#! the product.

Harrison Ford's leg, in the Star Wars film, with the Millennium Falcon door

gregthecanuck

Harrison Floored

See title.

Nitwit has fit over twit hit: Troll takes timeless termination terribly

gregthecanuck
FAIL

LEFT$("TWITTER USERS IN GENERAL", 1, 4)

Harvard gives solar batteries performance-enhancing vitamins

gregthecanuck
Trollface

Oh no, not again

OK, I think it's time we came up with a new acronym for all these improved battery technology articles. I propose:

- Yet Another Better Battery Article

- Describes Amazing Breakthroughs Beyond Assumptions

- Droning On and On

Yup, it's YABBA DABBA DOO!

What's big, blue and red all over? IBM. Profit, z Systems down, cloud up

gregthecanuck

Are we getting close to the day when someone says "Remember when IBM made hardware?".

We'll smash probe into comet 300 million miles away for kicks, er, sorry, ... for science

gregthecanuck

You are the sunshine of my life, that's why I'll always be around...

- Wonder

'I urge everyone to fight back' – woman wins $10k from Microsoft over Windows 10 misery

gregthecanuck
Pirate

Re: Let the lawsuits begin

I think my dad got burned by this one. Panicked phone call a few weeks ago because his computer was upgraded - swears he didn't consent.

This upgrade process is overly aggressive. MS should be taken to task for this one so they don't try anything as stupid as this again. Unleash the Kraken!

Magnetic, heat scanners to catch Tour de France electric motor cheats

gregthecanuck
Angel

Re: I love Bluetooth

Hey Mike - you win the LOL of the day award. ;-)

Have a good one!

Computerised stock management? Nah, let’s use walkie-talkies

gregthecanuck
Linux

Re: Feet like flippers?

Count me as another fan of Clarks extra wide sizes. They "get it" and the shoes are very well made and durable.

Paddle on dear traveller, paddle on.

Jaxa's litany of errors spun Hitomi to pieces

gregthecanuck
Trollface

They should have called the spin-doctors.

US power grid still fragile in the face of EMP threat: GAO

gregthecanuck
Mushroom

THIS is the biggest threat the US should be concerned with. One good solar blast and it's game over.

Microsoft phone support contractors told to hang up after 15 minutes

gregthecanuck

Oh man, what scars do we both bear having recognized the incorrect file name?

Salesforce.com crash caused DATA LOSS

gregthecanuck
Angel

Staffing realignment

A rolling head gathers no moss...

Who you callin' stoopid? No excuses for biz intelligence's poor stats

gregthecanuck

Re: A BI-pusher writes...

I cannot upvote your comment enough times.

Watch: SpaceX finally lands Falcon rocket on robo-barge in one piece

gregthecanuck

Re: BEAM - lack of ports

USB = Universal Space Bus?

SAP insists no license changes after user's multi-core arm twister

gregthecanuck

Re: Single CPU licences

<off-topic rant>

Maybe by 2037 Crystal Reports will support vertical alignment of text fields... mustn't have received enough license fees to cover the incredible expense of that feature...

<as-you-were>

Oracle confesses to quietly axing its UK software support centre

gregthecanuck

Re: The reason?

Thanks needed that laugh!! :)

Game of Photons: Boffins make ICE with FIRE

gregthecanuck

Nooooo....

This makes me think of Arnold as Mr. Freeze... make it stop!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkTHtWX7CCY

Microsoft Band 2 wrist watchers in pay-first-ship-much-later rage

gregthecanuck

Unbearable

It's obvious - you are hitting the polar bear behind you directly on the head with your vigorous backswing...

Ice volcanoes just part of Plutonic pandemonium

gregthecanuck
Devil

Fact check on aisle 7

Had to look up the term hummocky:

Hummocky (Adj.) "Rocky or bumpy terrain traversed by Hummer or other suitably equipped vehicle".

Ad networks promise to do something about the awful adverts you're all blocking, like, real soon

gregthecanuck

Radical suggestion

I understand that there exist some previously standardized file formats that, after sufficient evaluation, testing and pilot studies may provide a suitable cross-platform industry-standard solution.

These are lean formats that require no plug-ins, Flash, HTML5, JavaScript, JAVA, or any other technologies.

GIF and JPG files you bloody wankers!!

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