* Posts by Charles E

91 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Jul 2009

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Apple seals $66bn in Jobsian wallet

Charles E

Apple has always hoarded cash

Apple has always had monumental cash reserves. Alas, that was part of the problem that lead to Apple's problems in the 1980s. I remember when I sold Macs in the late 1980s, Apple had a cooperative deal with GMAC (I think it was GMAC) for financing and leasing computers. It added considerably to the cost of Macs (giving Microsoft and IBM an opening) but helped them acquire a huge cash hoard. Even as Apple was supposedly "dying," their cash reserves kept growing. This was one of the reasons behind Michael Dell's remarks about how he'd "liquidate the company and give all the stockholders their money back." There was a LOT of money to give back.

Hasselblad H4D-40 Stainless Steel 40Mp camera

Charles E

Contax

I wonder how these new Hasselblad-branded lenses compare to the old Contax lenses of the classic Hassleblad system. That was what really made the distinctive Hasselblad quality, the Contax lenses. They had unsurpassed sharpness and color saturation, which worked wonders for all sorts of lighting conditions, from artificial & studio flash, to available light. And since the film was 2 1/4, you could use a faster film (and even push B&W) and the graininess was less prominent than in 35mm shots on the same film.

I used to have a 45 degree angle prism viewfinder on my old 500 C/M. I always thought that was the best way to shoot a medium format camera. I'm surprised there isn't a similar product for the new Hassleblad system, this big digital camera looks like it would be hard to use when held up to the eye like a 35mm SLR.

It's the oldest working Seagate drive in the UK

Charles E

Older hard drives e.g. Corvus

I suspect older drives in working condition could be found. Corvus Systems shipped 10Mb Winchester hard drives for the Apple ][, back around 1979. They were pretty tough, I bet someone has a Corvus drive that still works sitting on a shelf somewhere. I was a Corvus tech back in the day, so if any such drive appears, I would be glad to help get it up and running (such as I am able).

Jeez, now I think back to ~1980 when 10Mb of hard disk seemed like an infinite storage space, compared to Apple ][ 140k floppies. And then I recall backing up a 10Mb Corvus disk to 140k floppies, ouch.

US Army releases new vid of Judge Dredd computer smart-rifle

Charles E
Grenade

Recoil?

This isn't a "Target Engagement System" as the DoD describes it. This is shoulder artillery. Doesn't the Academy of Law teach heavy weapons handling to cadets anymore? Recoil is nothing. Just be glad you weren't issued a Stub Gun.

The Osborne 1: 30 years old this month

Charles E
Stop

Osborne Effect

Oh Tony, you should have done more research on The Osborne Effect. There is a rather unique article in the archives of El Reg that debunks the so-called Osborne Effect. Incidentally, that article quotes ME extensively, I ran a major Osborne repair site.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/20/no_osborne_effect_at_osborne/

Jesus Phone brings the DEAD back to LIFE

Charles E

My iPhone turned me into a newt!

I got better.

Timeless principles of sales

Charles E

Sales Principles for the Lazy

I took many sales training courses and read many books back in my days as a salesman at ComputerLand. Then one day my boss and I were talking about a new research finding he just read. It claimed that salesmen have a basic "comfort level," they work at a fixed level of effort and their sales figures hovered around a specific number and did not vary much. You can motivate a salesman or improve results with training and motivational support, but the improved sales results are temporary. The salesman will gradually return to his old level of effort.

My boss figured the only solution to this was to add sales support to the rainmakers, so his immediate response was to hire sales coordinators and secretaries for his top salesmen. If the top sales guys were closers, let the coordinators do the research and come up with quotes and offers for cross-sells, upsells, etc.

Anonymous collective begins leaking Bank of America emails

Charles E

Good data but little of it

I was expecting a much larger leak. But I did read all of it and it does seem to show management orders for illegal record erasing to hide further unknown shenanigans. A lot of it is emails from the leaker who got raided by the police and is under intense pressure from the bank. I think there's more coming, the guy says he's keeping more evidence, but no sense playing your ace in the hole early in the game. There is so much illegal flim flam in the financial industry that goes unpunished, it's hard to believe they would go to the trouble to cover something up unless it was pretty serious. Where there's smoke there's fire?

Ten... fantasy swords you wish you owned

Charles E

Zatoichi's Cane Sword

That's the only fantasy sword I want.

Knife-waving knob nabs fat stack of jazz mags

Charles E
Thumb Up

Heads up

That headline is going in my collection. Even the cleverest headline writer could go his whole life without writing Surrey Shocked by Shag Sheet Snatch.

ICO pays through the nose for 'website development'

Charles E

Rigged bidding on this job.

I am sure I could have submitted a winning bid for £590.

Google founder sinks $45m in toy boat

Charles E
WTF?

Holy..

What the hell? That's not a yacht, that's a destroyer. How many gun emplacements does it have?

Vote now to name killer PARIS space cocktail

Charles E

Need more options

You should put this out to the public and collect more possible names.

My choice: "Space Junk." To be consumed while playing the DEVO song "Space Junk."

Selling Apples to Japan: Complicated as a Nipponese typewriter

Charles E

Yen

This had a lot to do with the exchange rate. Between 1985 and 88, the exchange rate doubled between the Yen and the US Dollar, making the Yen worth twice as much. That was the basis of the "bubble economy." There were a few years where it made sense for Japanese corporations (and individuals) to buy anything that could be purchased with dollars.

Charles E

CL SD

This story is a bit later than 1984. Our group merged with CL SD and became the largest retailer in the world.

How I saved the Macintosh

Charles E

RH/RR

Personally, I rely on my 1975 Pocket Pal. I kept it on my desk even when I was running Scitex equipment at a service bureau.

Charles E

BFA

I finished my BFA in 1996, majoring in painting. I had already been a professional computer artist.

Charles E

Saving Apple

We didn't lose Disney, they still bought millions of dollars worth of Macs. But they started shifting slowly towards PCs, and Macs were harder to justify. Still, with the expanding computer market, they never bought fewer Macs than before.

I think the main theme is that I was trying to save Apple from itself. Mac users and sales reps tended to know how to market the Mac better than Apple did. It is hard to realize the impact of the abysmal years just after Jobs was ousted, when the financial type people started running the show. Apple could easily have died off, but once I helped establish it into major accounts, it would never die out. And it did face that risk in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

How I invented Desktop Publishing

Charles E

re: recollections

I've used an Editwriter. It used text markup and it wasn't WYSIWYG. Soft proofing is not interactive and does not show live editing, so it's barely more useful than real proofing. And for that matter, the Editwriter wasn't a desktop, it was bigger than a desk, it took up the whole desk plus a big cabinet that sat on the floor.

You have made a good effort, but failed to show me any evidence of a true DTP system that existed before the 1980 system I described in my article. For many years, I have challenged my typesetting colleagues to show me proof of any DTP system that existed before 1980, and fulfilled the criterion I described. Nobody has ever come forward with anything even close. This is what was revolutionary about DTP in 1980, it was not the quality of output or the technical capabilities, it was the total integration of features that we now take for granted. Many high-end professional typesetting systems had one or more of the DTP-style features, but nobody put them all together as DTP. It was impossible, no suitable microcomputer existed before that time.

Charles E

re: (untitled)

I sold a lot of Zenith Z-89 CP/M systems to William C Brown.

PARIS laid bare in intimate snaps

Charles E

Flew?

I'm not actually convinced the plane actually flew. Since it was found so close to the point where it separated from the balloon, the proper term might be "plummet," "nosedive," or just plain "fall." None of those conditions are really aerodynamic flight.

I use to fly model rockets with glider payloads, the usual idea was to build the glider so it would fly in circles, so it didn't just go on a straight line into the next county. But this has to be tested before the flight, to make sure it has the ability to fly level with a slight bank. Did you actually flight test Vulture 1 before dropping it? Because the project results seem to me, to indicate the plane just dropped from the sky instead of flew. On your next attempt, I would like to see some evidence that the aircraft has aerodynamic flight properties somewhat better than a falling rock.

The terabyte iPad is coming

Charles E
FAIL

Steal This Backup

This is a ridiculous idea. An iPad is so easily lost or stolen, it is the absolute worst possible backup medium. I still remember the first review of the MacBook Air in the New York Times. The reviewer sheepishly admitted that it was accidentally tossed in the trash. He was using it at home on the weekend and left it sitting on a stack of Sunday newspapers. His wife threw away the whole pile without ever realizing there was an ultralight laptop in it.

Another point worth considering is compression. Most current formats for large files are already optimally compressed. If you zip a video file, you will get almost no further compression. Zip a 1.0Gb video file and you will almost always get a 0.99Gb zip. And on a slow processor as used in iPads and other low power consumption CPUs, uncompression is very time consuming.

PARIS unveils impressive box

Charles E
Alert

Cold out != Warm in

I'm not convinced the extreme insulation to "keep the cold out" (as you put it) is likely to work. You also need to warm the interior. Other similar amateur balloon lift projects have used little chemical heat pads inside their styrofoam electronics containers, to keep the batteries warm. You can probably buy something useful at any drugstore, they're little chem packs, you break the interior vial so the catalyst mixes into the pack, and it stays warm for a few hours.

Downloads are not performances, rules US court

Charles E

Logical

This is a logical, rational decision. If a download was considered a performance, it could be equally argued that the mailman delivering a CD by post was also a performance.

PARIS emerges triumphant from hypobaric chamber

Charles E

Ballast

Brilliant solution on the powder. But I'm still not clear on the concept. Why is any "ballast" needed in the tube? It seems to only be there to occupy space, to displace part of the air in the tube. It might have been easier to just use the proper length of tube, which would contain just the right amount of air to yield the proper expansion.

Also, it's good that you dealt with these temperature issues, but I still would be concerned that the rubber tube will freeze up in action. Maybe you should test it at lower temps with dry ice, see if it still stays flexible. It would probably be unnecessary to test it at both low temp and low pressure, if it passes the low temp test separately.

Microsoft gets Speedos in a twist over half-naked 'Meter Maids'

Charles E

All publicity is good publicity.

Microsoft managed to get more publicity for its dollar with this stunt. It's all over the newspapers. You can't buy publicity like that.

I personally agree with the theme of the conference that more women should be working in IT. Specifically, I want to see more women in gold bikinis working in IT.

PARIS team cracks Vulture 1-X wing

Charles E

Diagonals

Those diagonals look like they're only going to concentrate the stresses. There is no diagonal bracing between the two inmost spars, that's where the torsional stresses will end up.

Microsoft Windows glider crashes

Charles E
FAIL

Embarrassing

That was the most embarrassing Microsoft promotional stunt since the release video for Microsoft Songsmith.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/26/songsmith/

PARIS acquires visual tracking capability

Charles E

Need lasers

This is just not going to work. A better way might be to attach a "corner cube" reflector and track it by aiming a wide beam laser at it. The corner cube will always return a signal in the exact opposite of the direction it receives it, so you can "ping" it with a broad beam and it will always ping back with a tightly focused beam. This method is is used on scientific experiments like the Lunar Laser Ranging Reflector from the Apollo missions, you can put corner cubes on the moon, ping it from earth, and get a signal return from 240k miles.

PARIS pumps up a Mk 2 release mechanism

Charles E
Alert

Potential problem:

It is good that you thought of freezing, I would suggest using 100% antifreeze as the liquid. But there is one other problem you probably overlooked: rubber solidifies and becomes less flexible at extremely low temperatures. The expanding hose might crack instead of expanding. I suggest you test this apparatus in a hyperbaric chamber, AND at low temps.

Green Berets to get Judge Dredd computer smart-rifle

Charles E

Lawgiver

To match Dredd's Lawgiver, you really need Ricochet and Heat Seeker ammo. Actually, both of those would be really good real-world ammo types for this gun, if they could figure out how to do it effectively.

Volcanic Eyjafjallajökull dirt-splurt space snap

Charles E
Thumb Up

Headline

I would like to express my appreciation to the editor that wrote that headline and subhead. That was some goddam brilliant writing.

Headline writing is an art, and this example is a masterpiece. Its punchiness and general waggishness might even exceed my all-time favorite headline, "Lax Styx Wax Clicks." I would memorize this so I could cite it as a paradigm of headline writing, if I thought I could memorize "Eyjafjallaokull."

Bloke threatens BT with giant plywood cheque

Charles E

Ouch.

This is hilarious. Usually these stories go the other way. There's a famous story about a guy who repeatedly tried to collect a debt, the debtor refused to open the door whenever the collector knocked. One day the debtor got fed up and took action, but he was ignorant of the law. He wrote a check onto a wooden door and dropped it from a second floor window onto the collector's head. The debt collector took the door to the bank and they cashed it.

US Marine robot supply skyhook compo: Enter the A160T

Charles E
FAIL

Acronym FAIL

Ah, the Marines have squandered an opportunity for a wonderful acronym. Instead of

ICUAS: Immediate Cargo Unmanned Aerial System

They could have called it something like

ICARUS: Immediate Cargo Aerial Resupply Unmanned System

Seems more fitting for a helicopter system that struggles to fly in thin air at the highest mountain altitudes in Afghanistan.

Experts rubbish iPhone for health use

Charles E

Battery whine

Yeah, I used to hear this sort of complaint quite often from one source, Guy Kawasaki. What a prat. He would constantly whine on his blog about how terrible the battery life was on his PowerBook and it wouldn't last through long airplane flights. I finally couldn't take it anymore, I told him directly, "STFU and buy a a second battery. You can afford it."

I think it worked, he did STFU.

Dadaist user manuals - a call for submissions

Charles E
FAIL

The ultimate manual

Oddly enough, I found the ultimate Dadaist manual, right under to your article in my RSS feed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdUDxfZ4Qe4

This is brilliant! I think I'm going to print a few dozen of those myself, when I get ahold of a printer with a folding and stapling unit.

Google open-source boss comes clean on Android

Charles E

I need new eyeglasses

When I read this story's lede, I could have sworn it said Google "acknowledged that the company's freewheeling approach to building a monopoly..."

Upon reading the full article, I think I inadvertently read it correctly the first time.

Student boffins take on iTunes' not-so-smart Genius

Charles E
WTF?

Genius, Idiot-savant, or just Idiot?

@Johnny Mosrite

My iTunes collection is almost all old school punk. I pick almost any song in my library, and the Genius can never find any recommendation. Oddly enough, on the rare occasions it can find a match, it always recommends the same Ramones song, "Somebody Put Something In My Drink." I think the Genius had something slipped into its drink.

Blogging vicar casts Tina Turner into hell

Charles E

It's The Bishop!

I think the Vicar is just offended because Tina Turner is a Buddhist.

Tokyo battles monstrous murder of crows

Charles E

Crow hunting

I recall reading a wonderful story about crows when I was a language student in Hakodate, Japan, the southernmost city in Hokkaido. I looked it up and will quote verbatim from the account of Mr. H. T. Snow, as he described events in 1876:

"Upon the occasion of the visit of the Emperor to Hakodate, a crow, when flying over the imperial carriage, so far forgot himself as to commit an indignity on His Imperial Majesty. The people of Hakodate were very angry, and a price was set, not upon the head of Mr. Crow, but upon his feet, the authorities paying four cents per pair for all crow's feet brought in to the police. I was in Hakodate during the winter when this regulation was in force. It soon had the effect of reducing the number of crows."

The local historians noted that children hunted with slings and became so good at hunting crows that they were almost extinct in the Hakodate region. So the bounty was eliminated, and within a couple of years, the crow population was back to previous levels.

BTW, I should note that Japanese crows are not like European crows. They're quite different animals, they're much larger and they have big sharp bills that look like a parrot's. Their beak can tear through metal cans and bite through wires. In Tokyo, crows are notorious for stealing wire coat hangers and bending them into nests. They can bend wire like a European crow bends straw.

Users claim iPhone 3.0 GPS mis-map mishaps

Charles E
FAIL

2 Blocks Off

I noticed this problem quite a while ago on my 1st generation iPhone. It was very accurate, even with the fake-GPS cell tower triangulation. It could spot my home to within about 50 meters. Then an upgrade came along, (2.1 I think) and suddenly, whenever I search for a street address, every location is about 500 meters northwest of its actual location, about two city blocks away. This makes it absolutely useless for searching street addresses and using directions, I always get directions to the wrong spot.

BTW, this is in the US midwest, I have converted to metric for you poor post-Imperial Measurement users.

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