Posts by Andy Dent

External Silicon the problem?

I've noticed the iPod Touch get warm depending on what I'm playing but I don't have a wrapper on mine. I wonder if there is any correlation between external case design and the problems?

cop a ...?

Surely the larger version of an iPod Touch is an iPod Feel?

Mine's the one with the fake left arm that leaves me one hand free...

How about a decent Starship Troopers?

c'mon, someone, please before I die make a movie that R.A.H wouldn't have sneered at.

Failing which, John Ringo's "A Hymn Before Battle" would be a very nice substitute to avoid treading on IP which is sadly still locked up.

Lasers are the answer

Lasers everywhere, poised to disintegrate geese in midflight.

That yields a tidy "civilian" fleet which can deployed to take on the incoming ICBMS, neatly solving the problem of rapid response.

Mine's the one with the dalek-melting souped-up "pointer" in the left pocket.

Third approach - 2D + Depth

A very lean third approach for transmitting 3D is to send a 2D movie plus a "depth map" which is used to render the 3D version. This has the advantage of being able to switch off 3D at any time and see an original resolution movie plus being able to choose a range of 3D render styles and depth scaling.

I wrote the Quicktime plugins for Dynamic Digital Depth to do this, which are sadly no longer available. They have concentrated since on other delivery formats - see http://www.ddd.com/about/News/newsarticle_pr_0102.html for a discussion of the conversion and packing process.

Cheaper to have Marines holiday all over

Seems to me, given the cost of something like this hardware, it would be vastly cheaper to go through a massive expansion of personnel and keep them "deployed" by holidaying all over the globe.

That should also do wonders for recruiting and provide a nice rotation out of the sandbox.

Paris 'cos she knows how to have a good time all over and is in the hotel business.

BTW if you want a really good update on Starship Troopers, read John Ringo's Posleen war series, the first two of which are free at Baen - http://www.webscription.net/c-1-free-library.aspx - "A Hymn Before Battle" and "Gust Front"

Sustained or Suspended?

I can't believe I'm the first to read that article and think "wow - suspended from only a drinking straw and a catheter". Take that, Stelarc!

Mine's the one with the full body-harness and stuntman wire attached...

Upper body development

OK-Cancel said it all, when they saw Minority Report

http://www.ok-cancel.com/strips/okcancel20031003.gif

I have a (painful) dim memory of working with HP touchscreens back in the mid-80's where the infrared-based screen was quickly rejected in favour of using a conventional mouse due to executives pains in neck.

@Camera Phones

Why? White boards.

I would estimate about 80% of the meetings I've been where anything useful has been worked out on the whiteboard have resulted in someone taking a photo with a camera, even when printing is available.

It's a lot easier to email a photo around or put it up on a wiki than to do something with crap thermal-printed paper which is probably only black and white.

Bike Helmets, Compulsion and Benefits to Society

As an Aussie with compulsory bike helmet laws and an argumentative brother in the UK, I actually went and looked up the BMA article when he raised the issue.

The BMA studied the effects of introducing compulsory helmet laws into Perth, Western Australia. Yes, we were the source of stats for our former colonial masters' quacks.

As an overall health isssue - the general population suffered because wearing helmets was a factor discouraging a large number of adults from riding who failed to take up an alternative form of exercise. This is a good example of how individual traumatic incidents total up to cost less than the overall health cost of a decreasingly fit population.

However, bike helmets here are light-weight and relatively cheap due to being compulsory. I'm not sure where the arguments about them contributing to accidents come from but am reminded of all those cases of people who would have been saved by being thrown from the car, that were cited when seatbelts were being made compulsory.

Simple Financial way to assure data safety

For every breach the ministers responsible, (all of them from day 1 of the project), and top 3 tiers of management are fined 10% of their pension/superannuation and 10% of their gross income for the current financial year.

I am *certain* such an agreement would lead to

a) vastly better security than ever before

b) a cost blow-out when they start getting realistic about security and managing individual access.

Praise for GoDaddy

I just wanted to chime in and say I've been very happy with GoDaddy support turnaround and their services both hosting and their basic domain redirection.

I've not had any spam problems traceable to them.

drawing parallels

"Parallels in particular tries to allow Mac users to run Windows apps as if they were native applcations rather than apps running on Windows running in a Mac OS X window."

Umm, why Parallels in particular?

The Unity mode in VMWare Fusion seems to do a pretty good job to me of making the Windows apps in my Dock just run as another app.

Free Wikipedia

Read about the device before slanging off based on this author's somewhat biased article!

One of the most significant things about the Kindle is the free access to Wikipedia. No connection charges, no volume charges...

What's to stop Project Gutenberg amalgamating and putting its content on Wikipedia?

BTW Baen books aren't free. Yes they have a sizeable free library but they also sell a lot of books ebooks. Thanks to them using Mobipocket format, these will be readable on the device.

When it comes to reading books on phones, laptops etc. - anything without e-ink is a non-starter for outdoor reading in brighter climates. The best device I have for outdoor reading currently is an old LCD Palm IIIxe.

Cops clean up after speeding accidents!

I used to work in a startup where the CEO was an ex-copper.

Amongst his other harrowing tales was the description of the first accident scene he was called out to at the age of 19 - a "bucket job".

When you've had to pick small pieces of a young driver off the road, you might develop a more intolerant view of speed.

Powerlines and Schools underneath - epidimiology and toxins?

Regarding the oft-raised stories of increased cancer rates from kids on schools built underneath Powerlines in the USA, the thought just occurred to me - I wonder if anyone did a deep analysis of what chemicals they may use when clearing the land for the powerline run?

I can even, donning conspiracy-theorist cap here, see a savvy lawyer for the power companies seeding the rumours about the powerlines themselves being the cause, knowing it's refutable, so as to divert attention (literally) away from the ground!