Posts by jonathanb

Re: Trevor Moore

He was at Comet before those two ...

Actually there is a major problem with the current punishment regime.

A lot of people set up a new company, trade for about 2 and bit years without filing accounts until it gets stuck off, and then get away with not paying any tax on the profits, because the company no longer exists, and therefore HMRC is unable to collect the tax. The fines that Companies House levies don't get collected for the same reason.

Also, there is no legal investigation into the actions of the directors.

Re: The other shoe dropping...

The malware can contain the rooting script ...

Re: (untitled)

I can't really see how you could make the iPhone any smaller and still have a useable touch screen phone. Whereas, it is certainly possible to have a phone that is smaller than the S3. On that basis, I think there is more chance of a 5" iDevice than something smaller than the iPhone.

They could always use their super-accurate TV detectors

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/06_june/24/licensing_detector_vans.shtml

It says they have them here, so it must be true. The BBC operate to the highest possible standards of honesty and integrity. They would never make inflated claims in a press release.

Re: Oddly enough...

I guess the big difference is that over here, you can say what you like about the Peterloo Massacre, and you could even back when it happened. If you were to suggest that a similar event took place in Beijing about 24 years ago, the Chinese authorities might feel the need to block you.

Re: illegal already

It would work actually, except that HMRC would want to tax the profits on your BVI company under controlled foreign company rules. Starbucks gets round that because the offshore company isn't controlled by a UK resident.

Re: @Cyborg If you've got a TV big enough for this to make any difference,

You can compress a blu ray movie to about 5GB without any noticeable drop in quality. Quadruple the size for the extra pixels, and you still have plenty of space on a standard blu ray disk.

Re: Specs: Does it penetrate walls? Useful range?

Does it penetrate walls? Not a chance

Will it penetrate a human body standing in the way? Not a chance

Useful range in air is limited by the fact that Oxygen atoms will also get in the way, so in many ways it is probably less useful than infrared.

Re: That's the plan that sunk Kodak...

I am that niche market, but I got a Canon IP8500 to do the printing. That particular model is long since discontinued, but still working just fine for me. When it comes to replace it, I will get another Canon or maybe an Epson printer.

Re: Oh go on, I'll feed em...

On internet facing servers, the number of linux machines is around the same or a bit higher than the number of windows machines. If you are a botnet operator, those sorts of machines are much more valuable than desktops.

Yes, but you can get a pay as you go SIM for cash in a supermarket without telling anyone who you are.

Re: re. Bootnotes

Trying to think how to explain it in terms a non-musician would understand.

Beat - you should generally be able to bang the table or your foot or something at a regular speed, and the changes in notes will generally fall into that beat. In a lot of music, the drummer will do pretty much that, in classical music, the conductor will wave a stick to keep time.

You may notice when listening to the beat, that one beat in every four for example is stronger than the other beats. That stronger beat represents the beginning of the bar.

In Britain we generally use words based on italian words to describe note lengths. These are as follows, with each one half the length of the previous one in the list

Breve, Semi Breve, Minum, Crotchet, Quaver, Semi Quaver

The Americans use english translations of the german words. These are as follows, with each one the same as the equivalent position in the previous list

Double note, whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note

Re: So when do we start to see consumer SatNav

Probably quite soon. Most recent phones use both GPS and Glonass, because Russian import duty is a lot cheaper that way, and having designed the chip that does both, they may as well put it in every device. Also, while the accuracy of both systems is approximately the same, the accuracy if you use both systems together is a lot better.

Re: "ofcom was touting how its pricing methods would ensure spectrum is well utilised"

They, and before that Netvigator and Tele2 have tried to sell the concept of wireless broadband that works at around the same speed as cable based products of that time in Reading, but nobody really seems to be interested. In the past they have advertised on local radio, had local billboard adverts, stands in shopping centres, and junk mail to all the households and businesses in the coverage area. If people won't bite in Reading, I doubt the rest of the country will be any different. Maybe people in rural areas would like to have it because they have no alternative, but range that 3.5GHz offers doesn't make rural coverage particularly viable.

Re: Curious...

The difference is that activesync is far superior to the open alternatives and is much better supported by mobile devices (other than Blackberry), whereas docx and xlsx don't really offer any benefits over doc and xls and are also proprietary formats.

That is essentially geothermal energy, which provides most of Iceland's electricity requirements.

Re: i have to use outlook.com

There is an outlook.com app for Android which is basically the same as the hotmail app with different branding.

Re: mike@plokta.com

O2 of course did just that to switch some of their 900MHz spectrum over to 3G use.

Re: "Protest the funerals"?

I can assure you that out of the 1 billion or so Christians in this world, 999,999,900 or so of them absolutely deplore what the Westboro Baptist Church is doing, and there is plenty of material in the bible that says that what they are doing is totally against God's teachings. This is absolutely not how Jesus would have done things.

Secondly, it is not entirely clear that the word translated in the bible to "sodomy" refers specifically to gay people. It covers sexual deviance in general such as rapists, paedophiles and so on. Words change their meaning over time, and when you translate, there is never a perfect 1:1 relationship in the meanings of words in different languages. Take the word "gay" for example. 200 years ago, it would have meant "happy, carefree'. 100 years ago, it got the connotation of loose morals. 50 years ago, it referred to someone of homosexual tendencies. Now it is increasingly being used to describe an inanimate object that doesn't function as it is supposed to. Eg Windows 8 is gay, or Apple iOS 6 maps is gay.

Re: The conference broke down for good reason

Well if for example I attempt to visit http://thepiratebay.se , I am informed that I'm not allowed to visit that page, so this sort of thing is already happening.

Re: What a deal

Darty actually paid them money to take the company off their hands. The money was to cover pension liabilities, but I suspect that will be dumped on the pension protection fund.

Re: Let's do it.

The UK isn't big, but it is connected to a grid that covers Europe and North Africa, which is quite big. We quite often import electricity from France at the moment, and that won't change.

Re: No real bar to a trial in London

Yes it was

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/1

Causing damage makes it a more serious offence

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/3

Which makes the difference between a maximum of 2 years in jail and a maximum of 10 years.

Realistically, it is going to be a few months at most, and that would be covered by the time he spent on remand, so he would walk free.

Re: This can only be a good thing

If I was Microsoft, I would focus on the mobile worker rather than compete with Apple and Android. For example a field engineer that has a laptop to manage his appointment book, access reference material, order parts and record the work he did at each of the jobs. The travelling salesman who needs access to the CRM database and to record orders and sales leads. The breakdown recovery person who plugs his laptop into the car to access engine management data. The surveyor who needs to record measurements and store photos relating to a site visit.

This is where Microsoft is strong at the moment, and the App Store model of Windows 8 doesn't really work for these sorts of customers.

Re: So...

Yes, but you would need an extremely fast camera to be able to spot it.

Re: Source?

Mine works out about the same as you. £15 per month for "unlimited" data on my phone. £30 per month for broadband and home phone. That is one of the more expensive plans available, I could get the broadband cheaper elsewhere, but I prefer to pay more for a better service.

Works fine on my iPod touch. No iPad version though.

Re: I have an idea

You want to have a bus with loads of them travel through some of the not so nice parts of London? And wait while people count them at some of the busier stops?

Re: Vaporware

Maybe you could cut the networks out of the loop altogether?

News and sporting events benefit from being live, and I suppose things like The X-Factor benefit from being live as well, at least after the audition and judges house stages. For everything else, you probably want to watch a program rather than a channel, so maybe you could subscribe to a vodcast for the likes of Eastenders.

Of course it is worth bearing in mind that lots of people have tried to make money out of broadcasting English premier league football, and only Rupert Murdoch has succeeded, but still, I definitely don't think current smart TVs reach anything like their full potential.

Re: 1600x900

You might have problems with Windows with a resolution that high. Windows itself will be fine, but not some of the programs written for it.

Re: Source: Google StreetView

Yes, and that is what Apple will need to do if they are to match Google for accuracy of their maps.

Re: Well gosh

I would say the light is gravity powered. The unit has a store of gravitational potential energy which it converts to light. Yes, the unit is "charged up" using muscle power, but that is no more sensible than saying that my wireless mouse is steam powered because the batteries in it where charged up using electricity from Didcot Power Station.