Posts by Chris Miller

I haven't had a problem with any of my Samsung phones (one of them is over 10 years old). But when my Samsung PVR started playing up about a year or so after I'd bought it, they collected it, tried to repair it and, when that failed sent me the current equivalent model. The process did take a few weeks as you describe (it was over Xmas).

Re: "The jury reached its decision in just three days"

As I've pointed out on a previous thread, I don't understand why US courts require juries for these civil cases. In British law, the only civil cases that make use of a jury* are slander/libel, and a British judge threw Apple's case against Samsung out on its ear. While I have some sympathy for the use of juries in criminal cases, trial by one's peers and all that, I don't think they're the best method for resolving complex, technical civil issues. Of course, they offer great opportunities for grandstanding advocates.

* AFAIK IANAL

If I ever find myself in court (and have a choice)

If I'm guilty, I want trial by jury - if innocent, trial by judge. It's interesting that the High Court hearing (which dismissed Apple's claims) was in front of a judge, as are most civil cases under English law.

Re: Not all fibre is the same

Have you any idea of the cost of laying fibre to every premises in the country? If you're in the .01% of the nation that needs FTTP, you're free to pay for it yourself. If you're living in a tower block with hundreds of others (like many people in Japan or S Korea, it needn't be all that expensive.

Re: Beagle ?

Yep. That was the one that used the experimental lithobraking technique.

PS 1 Newton ~ ¼ lb (this being the weight of one apple)

Not really

An Israeli company bought the rights to the name for their PC startup in the 80s. It's now a division of Acer. You're right about them being crap, however.

Re: Ageism much?

A few of these comments are worthy of the Daily Mail. I'm pleased some people can see what's wrong with the automatic equation of age and disability in the headline, which spoiled an otherwise useful article for me; and those who can't are beyond help.

How unfortunate Rosa Parks was that Facebook was unavailable in her day. Just think of all the helpful and intelligent comments she missed out on - "you're making a mountain out of a molehill"; "get over yourself, plonker"; "the back of the bus is the right place for you". I'll treat them with the same level of contempt I'm sure she would.

Re: lazy reporting

I think ElReg has failed the conversion test (Lucy will be cross). 1.5 inches per second should be 0.085 mph (not 0.06 as stated). So about 3 hours to travel 400m (¼ mile or 2 furlongs).

Re: Interesting

No state could give such a guarantee. If a third party country with whom relevant treaties exist can produce sufficient evidence to warrant extradition (and guarantee there is no possibility of the death penalty being applied), countries are not free to say 'well, we promised we wouldn't - so you can't have him'. There isn't (despite all the paranoid conspiracy theories being promoted by Assange's media poodles) any evidence that such an application is plausible. Or that, if it were, it would be more likely to succeed in Sweden than in the UK.

Whatever reasons are behind Assange's reluctance to go to Sweden, they can have nothing to do with a reasonable fear of extradition to the US.

@AC 16:43

You're right, but that isn't what we're talking about. The OP (09:28) was saying that ships and locos use diesel-electric drive (an on-board diesel generator powering electricity motors) for efficiency. They don't - they use it because a direct mechanical drive would break under the stress, this is particularly true for rail locos where gearing is needed. A direct mechanical link from the engine to the wheels/propeller would be significantly more efficient, eliminating the conversion losses involved, and some high-power diesel locos use hydraulic transmission (similar to an automatic gearbox in a car) but this is mechanically challenging and therefore more expensive to maintain.

Brilliant spoof

But to cater for the remote chance that you're actually serious:

"If the Earth's inclination to the sun is determined by the positioning of the magnetic poles" - it isn't. The magnetic poles wander fairly chaotically and the N and S poles change places frequently (in geological time). The geographic poles are much more stable (the Earth being a very large gyroscope). There are long-term, predictable cycles, which have been known for a century to be a significant cause of ice ages - see Milankovitch cycles.

Are you sure

that you understand the difference between Buckinghamshire County Council and Aylesbury Vale District Council? (I live in one, but the other starts a couple of miles down the road.)

It's not unusual for the county to deliver IT services (such as they are) on behalf of their local districts, but I don't think this is the case for AVDC.

At a guess

The structure provides a firewall through limited liability. Losing a patent case has the potential to generate substantial costs in damages. Trolls don't want to risk being wiped out by a couple of losses.

Others may have better suggestions.

Re: Most Greens are Idiots

And among the ones that aren't are those with substantial investment in/remuneration from existing 'renewable' energy sources - mainly wind and solar. They will use their not inconsiderable political clout to block any alternatives that will cut off the source of swill from their particular trough. Tim Yeo is an outstanding example.

"What happened to the person responsible for wasting half a (US) billion pounds?"

Probably next in line to run the Cabinet Office now Mr Watmore* (can a lordship be long delayed?) has left to spend more time with his (used to be our) money.

* See El Reg passim, ad nauseam.

If I may be permitted a pedantic quibble, the UK adopted the short (US) billion in the days of Harold Wilson. The proper billion, along with the milliard, is still in use sur le continong.

@Natalie

I hear French pussies are rather partial to Cuisses de Grenouilles.

Mitchigan?

is a river in Michigan.

@Ledswinger

As ever, I think the truth lies somewhere between you and Lee. For one thing, I found at least 3 of the 'dross' you cite to be very good/funny - easily capable of comparison with today's output. I suspect others will agree with me, though we might well select different programmes from your list.

Of course, lacking modern CGI, early Dr Whos look cardboardy (as did Blakes 7, many years later) - and so did the first Star Trek series. Producing something to rival Spooks or modern Dr Who in the 70s would have taken a whole year's budget for a single programme. But ITV produced 'Jewel in the Crown' and 'Brideshead', 26-part 1 hour series - I don't think Downton Abbey is any comparison.

Nature documentaries have also benefited hugely from technological advances, but modern Horizon (even though that it's vastly improved in the last couple of series) doesn't stand comparison with the 70s version. A 1-hour 'talking heads' interview with Richard Feynman (still available on YouTube and (I think) iPlayer), anyone? 'Now the chips are down', which genuinely woke (many) people up to the potential of the microprocessor - we showed it to everyone in the IT department and I recall seeing it at BCS meetings.

Not everything was better in the 70s, but many things were, and a lot of the reduction in quality is caused by trying to fill 10x as many channels from the same size creative pool.

Re: Interesting

"I have studied their climate models and know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.

"The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That's why the climate model experts end up believing their own models."

Freeman Dyson

Re: Samsung

Or the more important question: how many of these phones had rounded corners?

@iGoto: Network congestion

I agree in principle, but if you've got a cell out in the middle of the countryside and suddenly tens of thousands turn up to watch the bikes go by, you may not be able to cope. Trees and hills are also a problem for GHz signals - living in the Chilterns, I know whereof I speak.