Posts by Rampant Spaniel

Re: easy solution

Half the college sports budgets would free up nearly $4bn, even just removing the subsidy would provide over $2.3bn a year (I know that's not a direct government expenditure). That should allow for some more projects.

I agree with using more cost effective private solutions for near earth 'routine' stuff as long as they are safe and that doing it in house wouldn't allow for synergies. NASA should be doing (and be funded to do) more ambitious projects. Yes they are inefficient compared to a private company but they also manage to do things private companies cannot. The shuttle would have been cheaper if it hadn't of had military requirements and how many of these (admittedly very talented) young space companies are standing on NASA's shoulders. We need NASA, we also need it to be doing bat sh!t crazy stuff like a moon base or landing on an asteroid. Not even because of what we might discover there or the technologies we might invent along the way but because we need to inspire the next generation. We want kids to aspire to be scientists who design supersonic passenger jets and Moon bases not just football players or Paris Hilton clones, that can be their fallback. What chance do we have when is not a priority for us?

Re: This t-mo CEO is rude and unprofessional

At$T's gsm is fine add they have low dial spectrum which is better for building penetration, that and they generally have a better built out network so gsm is not really to blame. Tmo is making advances with mimo which will help plus it purchased some 700 MHz lower A block spectrum from Verizon but it comes with issues (channel 51 interference in some markets for a while, not nationwide, needs new rru's and antenna at every site, will mean a move away from sharing handset design with at&t potentially = higher cpe costs). Right now sprint (when its network vision rollout completes and there's nation wide triband lte) and Verizon have the brightest future although upcoming auctions (aws & 600MHz) could change.

Legere is just creepy though. I challenge anyone to find a picture of him smiling normally. Time will tell if he can build the network he is selling, right now it's sub par.

Re: R & D

Amen to that. Throw the 13bn sammy are going to spend on marketing at R&D and they won't need to advertise in the first place. The note 3 is great but I'm not sure how much better a phone needs to be, a mild spec bump won't see me buying a note 4.

The legal and marketing budgets might just make a difference!

Re: You're banning it wrong

The s2 is still being sold quite a lot, just through mvno's and regional carriers. It's cheap and has a huge amount of aftermarket trinkets for it, plus it isn't all that bad specification wise. I think El reg has mistaken it not being sold directly by tier one cell networks for it not being sold at all.

Quite a few regional carriers sell the s2 as well. It's cheap and for ghetto pcs or mvno operations it's a good choice.

Re: The mightiest of the seven sins

Yup, you only have to look at how many people willingly hand over their life savings to help Nigerian Oil heirs. I'm going out on a limb here but it is a combination of greed and stupidity rather than wanting to help that nice ambassadors son get his inheritance that gets them on the front page of the newspaper.

Re: rm -rf /*

How about, your bitcoin is located inside the computer, it's the silver circular thing below the Cpu. Your bit coin balance is written on the front, some folks are lucky enough to have 2032 coins in CRedit.

Re: That... would suck

I'm on TMO and have been following their plans with interest (not far off switching back to sprint when they get lte here). It's pretty obvious that Legere has been buffing tmo for a sale. A lot of what he has been marketing is not sustainable in the long term. The whole hey stream video all day long is not realistic, especially as they gain subs (without enough cash to buy big in the 600MHz auction AND build it out quickly) and people naturally shift towards smartphones, average data use is going through the roof and they don't have the spectrum to deliver in the long run.

Re: Combining GSM and CDMA?

Not at all. Sprints network vision project should be able to handle this without much problem. TMO is already refarming hspa spectrum to LTE and this would basically just expand Sprints triband lte to quadband lte. Keeping legacy voice cdma and gsm around would have a pretty low spectrum cost and volte would make this go away in the long run.

It would be a multi year project but sprint is already basically rebuilding its network from scratch and doing it with an eye on flexibility. It won't be easy but it's far from a disaster. TMO is already doing the reverse with metro pcs.

AT&T's acquisition wasn't denied specifically because 4 is better than 3 (although that was a consideration) but because there were more significant worries such as being the sole gsm carrier, their refusal of many of the compromises requested re spectrum divesting etc.

AT&T didn't want tmo for any other reason than they wanted to screw customers which is why it didn't get through. It wasn't about being stronger, it was simply about killing competition.

Re: FIVE HUNDRED TONS of highly-enriched uranium

The reason it was kept quiet was because it wasa remarkably same thing to do and it wouldn't be good if people found out they could be sensible and cooperate. We might expect them to do it more often! Just imagine where that would lead us, a peaceful world and effective government that represents the people's best interests. That would get in the way of screwing with voting laws and starting wars to boost the shares you hold in arms companies. Perish the thought.

Re: Who would want to ask for a 'Small'?

True, there was an article by the BBC on their news site about that. Every so often a group of individuals would deliberately read it to get it on the most read section on the front page. They most have orchestrated quite a campaign as it 'popped up' quite often.

There is some modest variation between some ethnicities and therefore to a slightly lesser degree by location (due to increased mobility) . The actual amount isn't that much. I would also question the sample size as to eliminate all the possible variables you would have to do a lot of measuring !

Well caught :) my apologies, you are odd course correct.

Have they ever shown a movie that included any scenes of the beast with two heads? It would seem rather contradictory if they had!

Re: I think Bitcoin will die a death very soon

We abandoned the gold standard long ago, but pay off the attraction of gold and silver was always that they had limited usefulness but we're hard(ish) to obtain but people wanted them. The strength of a currency will always be determined to some degree by what people have sunk into it. Bit coins probably have some future to them as some folks have quite a lot sunk into it, even if it's just via their electric bill, they test will be how it matures, adapts to regulation etc.

Re: Subtle thinking

Oh dear dear, you really are not seeing the issue here. The 25% the nice chaps at the bank cream off is a predictable fee for a service rendered. This is entirely different to the inherently volatile nature of bitcoins. The fact that even Carol Vorderman couldn't predict how much you will normally end up paying the bank for whacking a button on the computer (which they normally graciously allow you to whack for them via internet banking) isn't instability, no, it is a representation of how complex the nature of their job is. However, lucky soul you, it is possible to mitigate some of this by, for a token fee payable to the parasites, sorry bankers, to bet against currency shifts to ensure that the value of the transaction will not fall by an unpredictable amount, but rather by the quite predictable fee levied. Any loss in value of the original transaction is then made up by whichever poor sod the banks conned into securing the transaction, seemingly of late, by refusing to loan them money unless they did so or just by using your pension funds. Then of course they extracted a fee from them for that as well.

There are days I think I chose the wrong career, then I am reminded I have a soul.

Re: How refreshing

I wonder if they are involved in this year's stupid patent case I.e. Non vs the company currently renting the name polaroid over making a camera that is also small and white.

Re: I wonder if the lawyers at Morrison & Foerster

I'm sure Apple will innovate a larger screen phone next year! Then expect a lawsuit against htc, samsung, LG et al for copying their phablet.

Re: A little late

Yup, not seen a card here with a chip yet although they may be on the way. Mind you they still use cheques a lot which speaks volumes. To many small banks, to many fiefdoms, the banks love to protect their income from selling you cheque books and charging businesses for cashing cheques. It's a pain in the backside traveling as many countries don't take non chip cards so I have to keep an account running in the UK just for the plastic.

Re: At that moment Skizz realised he was never going home . . .

It's puts into perspective what the Apollo landings achieved. Safely landing men on the moon and returning them 45 years ago. Albeit with an insane budget but without SAP!