Posts by Chris Miller

And the obligatory whale song CD.

Re: First remove the engine...

I was wondering who would spot that, Wilson.

Re: Watching the watchers

The government decides what constitutes 'news'. The Party decides what constitutes goodthink.

Hmm, where have we seen that before? 1984 was written as a warning, not a bloody instruction manual.

@Adrian

I don't see that virtual faxes are much of an improvement over paper faxes.

True, but we had these annoying people called customers, and we couldn't dictate how they chose to communicate with us.

Re: Just plain embarrassing

Here's an old price list from a couple of years later, when the IBM compatible marketplace was well-established and the AT (80286 rather than 8088-based) was the new kid on the block. For those not familiar: Tandon was a second-tier plug-compatible manufacturer, so its prices were significantly lower than IBM or Compaq (and can be converted into $ at the then traditional exchange rate for computer kit of $1=£1).

For many years (almost up to the millennium), my simple rule of thumb for business PCs was: you can buy a basic system for £1k, a usable system for £2k and a high-end beast for £3k. The hardware that actually matched those descriptions changed every year or two, of course.

Re: Duh!

Twinkle, twinkle little star,

I don't wonder what you are.

You're a ball of white hot gases,

Forming into solid masses.

Anon

Re: Tax allowance for costs is a grace

Ignorant nonsense, Mr G, I'm afraid. HMRC took Starbucks to court on this very point - they lost. Any costs charged by overseas subsidiaries of a parent company must be justifiable as reasonable - if they aren't HMRC can and will challenge them.

And do you arrange your personal tax position to maximise the amount of tax you pay? If not, why not?

I think the point is that GIMPS doesn't search strictly sequentially (it can't, with millions of instances being run independently). So it's conceivable (but highly unlikely) that some as yet unchecked number could turn out to be a smaller Mersenne prime.

Everybody knows

The funnelweb spider can kill a man in eight seconds, just by lookin' at him.

Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee

@Charles 9

Yes, it's inefficient, but that's because most of the energy emitted from the charging pad doesn't reach the device. So it won't be the battery that heats up, it'll be the pad* and anything else conductive within range.

* Only slightly - you're not going to burn yourself - but it's still a waste, particularly if you think of 50 million phones in the UK alone being recharged almost daily.

Re: why do we need app stores?

You don't - it's just more convenient (for both the purchaser and vendor) to do it that way.

Re: RE:It is disgusting that Assange is held, without trial

Exactly, Jimmy - Assange is entirely free to leave the embassy whenever he wishes. Of course, he will then have to account for his actions, including failure to answer to bail, something he has shown extreme reluctance to do. Some of his former friends may wish to talk to him about the bail they put up, as well.

Re: Castration anxiety

sitting down quickly while a smartphone's in your pocket is the new Russian Roulette

This is why God gave us shirt pockets.

@big_D

Was it IBM or ICL that "upgraded" to a faster machine by removing a resistor board?

Pretty much all the mainframe manufacturers (IBM plus the BUNCH - Burroughs, Univac, NCR, CDC and Honeywell - ICL didn't appear because this was US jargon!) did this. It actually made economic sense for both manufacturer and customer, mostly because there was just a single type of system to be built rather than half-a-dozen, giving economies of scale (and making upgrades really, really simple).

Back in the day (c.1980) we ran a Honeywell mainframe, middle of a range of 5. Part of the maintenance contract (excruciatingly expensive, this was actually where most of the money was made - you could get a good deal on hardware, but there was rarely any negotiating on maintenance) was a visit every other week by an engineer to run diagnostic tests. To save himself time, he would reach inside the machine to the 'secret' microswitch that turned it into a top-of-the-range model. Of course, the operators soon sussed this out, which meant that work scheduled for an entire weekend could be accelerated to complete in under a day, leaving extra pub time ...

Re: Not Surprised

This is the principle of Chesterton's Fence:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Get rid of all your longer-serving staff and you've lost all knowledge as to why the fence was originally built.

Re: Missing from the press release -- CVV status

Latest seems to be that the data was stolen'in transit', which would account for the presence of CVV numbers.

Re: How it works:-

It isn't a 'loophole'. Employees will have to pay personal tax on the value of the shares they receive. As far as HMRC is concerned, it's swings and roundabouts.

Margaret 'Enver' Hodge should know this very well, being a major shareholder in her family business, Stemcor (which paid very little tax, despite turning over many billions, due to not making a profit) - but she prefers grandstanding.

GRBs are only threatening if they fire within a few parsecs of Earth

Not according to these guys.

Judging by the pictures of the 'dumbbell', it looks like the axis of Eta Carinae is about 40° off a direct line to us, and it's thought that GRBs spread over no more than 10°, so we're safe, as long as the axis hasn't shifted since the event that created these clouds (which is conceivable because this is a multiple system).

It's a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, subject of the Pen Test Partners hack, which the security update was designed to address.

A real Stroustrop joke*

I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.

* but was he joking?

Re: What does it mean to me?

This is much bigger deal in the US than (say) in the UK, because many USizens don't have an effective choice of ISP. If I don't like the deal that my UK ISP offers me, whether on straight price/performance or for other services that may be bundled with it, it's simple to change to another (albeit the actual signal will probably be carried over the same copper/fibre, probably owned by BT). For reasons partly historical and partly geographical, this isn't as straightforward in much of the US.

Re: "yes, they still make Teasmades"

Tea from 'coffee machines' is almost always ghastly, because they use ghastly 'leaf' with water that isn't boiling. But the operation of a Teasmade produces steam before the boiling water, which acts to warm the pot (good), so the quality of the tea is largely determined by the quality of the leaf being used.