This may be a stupid observation, but why not keep Symbian for the phone functionality and have a second processor running Linux for the "desktop apps"? You know, the way computers work already with multiple dedicated CPUs. In which case, development should be considerably easier and cheaper. It's always easier to do a development job when the different parts of the system run on optimised architectures.
Power consumption goes up when it is removed from the PCI slot, says the article. If that's so, there is a design fault somewhere - it suggests that there are floating inputs .
I can see you've never run a full J2EE platform on a laptop and got it to do some serious work. Our web server environment includes updates across large databases, document format translation, customised email to address lists, and OLAP on a memory resident database. It's not some flat file database with a little PHP, you know. Now support a load of simultaneous users each running in their own context and watch the HDD swapping. Whereas how much load do games typically put on the HDD and the Ethernet ports? And, in fact, excluding the video card (not the reason for buying a laptop, usually) what is the average processor load?
Indeed it could be. It may be too that the vendors are careful not to promote them too hard because (a) Intel may get nasty and (b) they would eat into the mainstream product lines.
When I got my AMD64 notebook, eighteen months ago (yes, early adopter, I know) I was told it would be unreliable, run too hot, etc. etc. It has so far survived eighteen months of commuting and abuse, especially the abuse of using it as a test vehicle for a complete web server and development platform. It's still on the first HDD ("Won't last eight months...") And so far the only thing to go wrong is a little rubber foot came off (replaced with superglue.) Even though my other notebook is a P-M Thinkpad, I would recommend the AMD64 to anyone who actually needs performance.
Is it true that inmates of US jails are regularly subjected to homosexual attack without protection from the authorities, as the accused seems to believe? It seems to be a common theme here on/.
If so, I would hope that an English judge would block extradition on the basis of the failure of the US to subscribe to the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
Of course, in the UK prison system you have the right to inhabit overcrowded cells, be locked up with racist murderers to see if you get killed, and eventually commit suicide. But that's OK because it is protecting our rights and we are the good guys.
Yes, I am getting a bit tedious about this. But I am really annoyed that the UK courts so far have failed to perceive that this case is bovine excrement of the CMA variety. You exposed the weakness of our security! Shoot the messenger!
Worked on military projects - know how to build bombs.
Routinely use encryption to e.g. send confidential client data over the email system, most of the keys for which I have forgotten once the job was over
Able to design radio receivers/transmitters
Former member of religious group whose founder was associated in the minds of the authorities of the time with terrorism (Christianity).
Question is, do I turn myself in before the police come calling in the hope of not falling down the stairs in a police station, or should I just head for Afghanistan where I might even find a job?
No, it's not funny. I used to visit London when the IRA were bombing regularly and, do you know, Britain didn't have these idiot laws then. They did have an idiot law that Irish Republicans could not be heard speaking on television and radio, and all it did was bring Mrs. Thatcher into contempt. And, do you know, the IRA are slowly turning into legit politicians. I am convinced that Blair is merely determined to suck Bushes neocon butt in the hope of making huge amounts of cash lecturing to Republican ladies lunch circles when he retires from being elective dictator, and as he will be (a) rich and (b) protected by the Special Branch, he won't give a shit what a mess he has made of the country. But beware, Tony. The Chileans have turned on Pinochet. And Britain has no shortage of bright Muslim lawyers. One day you too might yet end up in a war crimes court.
Now, in Western society, robots have more degrees of freedom than people. But don't worry! Soon they will have DRM, and then they will have no more degrees of freedom than the rest of us.
Yes, thank you, I do know what degrees of freedom are. But why let that stand in the way of a feeble joke?
Why integrate Open Office per se? It should be possible to "componentise" OO so that only the part required is downloaded on demand. If Gmail could do this, and check for version updates, the end user would have Office capability in line with what he or she actually uses. You can imagine a word processor starting with an absolutely minimal feature set, with a help system that downloads additional functionality as required. The result would be feedback into OO based on what features are most commonly used.
The potential for delivering applications is enormous, from web-based accounting systems running over SSL to the ability to output preflighted data straight to a commercial printer chosen for convenience, along with the Google map of the route for when the job is collected.
I think you are thinking of aluminum.
In fact it is possible to produce sodium at low temperature by using a mercury cathode, in which it dissolves. This is an inefficient solution looking for a problem. I suspect it is a research technique for producing sodium for organic reactions, where the efficiency can be low, and they are trying to drum up investor interest by making exaggerated claims. Numerous organic reactions use sodium as a reagent including the high school demo of making ethylene by reacting sodium with pure alcohol to make sodium ethoxide.
The article suggests using the stuff as an emergency fuel supply for cars that run out of gas.
Obviously the emergency jerrycan is a technology too complex and difficult to arrange compared to a simple sodium store, water tank, reformer, purifier and additional carburetor...face it guys, most of the easily led idiot investors lost their cash in the dot-com bubble.
BTW there is an existing technology for producing "safe" sodium involving mixing it with mercury to form amalgam. This has been around for many years (it is the basis of early plants for producing sodium hydroxide from salt.) It has not revolutionised fuel cells or led to a practical mobile phone fuel cell. So explain why this should be any different?
News International (part of the Murdoch empire) avoids UK taxes and has done for many years. In fact, they are effectively being subsidised by the UK taxpayer.
And, as for tough competition, last time I looked The Guardian, a small circulation not for profit UK newspaper, had a website which has more page views than most of the rest of the UK newspaper industry put together, and competes with the BBC given far less resources. The truth is, Murdoch, Rothermere and Sullivan between them have reduced the UK newspaper industry to such low grade sensationalist crap that they cannot compete with anybody who does a half decent job, at least where the audience who can read and write are concerned.
By the same logic, Mercedes should use cheap GM engines. Like Rolls Royce did for many years. In fact, the Rolls Royce was basically a GM truck with a more carefully assembled engine and a very expensive body. And look at them now. Owned.
B F Skinner, an early poineer of psychology, did a lot of research with pigeons. One of his demonstrations was that pigeons could be trained to inspect pills (i.e. pharmaceutical pills) much more reliably than human beings. During WW2 he proposed to use pigeons as the guidance system for guided missiles by training them to regognise Japanese ship profiles from different angles. The rest of the technology was probably too primitive to work, but the issue is that neither the pharmaceutical manufacturers nor the generals took him seriously.
There is a great deal (imho) of underestimation of animal intelligence, and it's interesting how many religious people I meet are animal intelligence deniers because of their need to believe that humans have some unique status.
Anybody with a background in experimental psychology who has ever actually worked with a grey parrot, a cockatoo, a macaw or one of the more intelligent dog breeds (e.g. spaniel) will realise that, although it is possible to argue that animal behavior is in some way fundamentally different from ours, the simplest hypothesis is that, in a simpler way, they think the same way that we do. The resemblance of some aspects of behaviour of, say, a two to three year old child and a labrador or cocker spaniel is very marked.
Therefore my own view of this particular bit of research is that it acts as a pointer of how far down the human aptitude chain a bird can get in one particular skill. If you accept that animals, birds and humans have mental ability that fits on a continuum, though with different aspects at different points, this research is interesting not only in itself but in the light it could throw on aspects of human development. Which seems to be what they're saying...
Years ago, booksellers would ask for subscriptions to get a book published and when the printing threshold was reached, publication took place. If it never did, the subscribers got their money back. It actually looks like a very good model for specialist software. As someone who works for a small consultancy, I'm aware that there are many applications we would find useful that could be used by maybe twenty similar companies around the world, but would never justify the development cost for just one. And obviously no-one would buy from (or sell to) the competition. This is a possible way of developing this kind of software, though what would be ideal is some kind of trusted brokerage equivalent to the 18th century bookseller. Perhaps there's a business model for somebody there who has more spare time than I do.
Truly there is nothing new under the Sun (or under Windows for that matter).
It's clear that the name of the holding group (Can o' pee) is unlucky and affecting the court case. To change the bad luck they need to change it to something with better resonances. The Can o' worms Group?
In my first research job, and although I have an unusual name, there was someone else of my name in the company (even the same middle initial though they stood for different names.) As the other guy had a PhD and I only have a Masters, our titles became part of our namespaces. So although your idea is presented humorously, it actually makes good sense.
Was that there wasn't much for a full on geek to get on with. Galileo Galilei was at least a genius instrument maker whose day job was challenging - but he had enough spare time to get into real trouble. Newton had all that brain and nothing much to think about, so he spent time going down dark alleys like Protestant biblical exegesis, numerology and alchemy while making major contributions in cosmology, physics and mathematics, and being a successful civil servant. If someone had been able to introduce him to, say, Linux kernel development, dragster racing, or technical rock climbing, he'd have grown up a normal well adjusted individual, like similar people nowadays.
Did I just write that? Better not press the Submit button.
Not exactly. I exaggerated to make a point, but my point is this. If I click on a URL, I am effectively inviting the content provider for that URL to take up my screen space. I have invited him in. I have not invited the slimy rip-off merchant to come in at the same time, push him out of the way and stand in front of me.
I'm now about to visit the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and stick a big poster over their front door reading "For cut-price justice which is just as good, why don't you use the 3rd. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instead? Our charges are only half as high, but our court officials are just as supercilious and our judgements just as incomprehensible. Why don't you book your appeal with us to-day? American Express and bullion accepted.
And then I'm off to see how long I last parading up and down outside WalMart with a sandwich board advertising our local deli.
The real trouble with the BBC is that it's too good at what it does. Which, for those who may have missed it, is telling the truth without being told what to say by advertisers. The funding cuts are basically punishment for being right about Government disinformation over Iraq; even getting an obnoxious Northern Irish judge to run a fixed enquiry failed to convince the public that the BBC was wrong, so the BBC had to suffer.
Currently GB PLC is demonstrating that public enterprise is often better than private, contrary to the official government line. Failed privatised railways had to be rescued; private prisons are a humanitarian disaster; privatised schools are failing. So let's get the absolute flagship of public service, the BBC, and wreck it.
The amazing thing about this is that some of the British politicians who spout the privatisation nonsense - the unlamented M Thatcher among them - don't have a clue about how much the US depends on charities, not for profits, and local government at many levels, when it comes to delivering essential services. Sorry about the rant, but this whole thread is about the Government cutting BBC funds so it cannot do its job of ensuring that minority interests are heard. I guess next they'll be bringing in Fox to do the fair and balanced reporting that the BBC is famous for (but obviously getting wrong since sometimes it opposes the government...)
It was HP that would famously market sushimi (not sushi, please, round eye) as "Cold, dead,raw sliced fish".
The point was, at the time, that HP products (a) sold to engineers and (b) were world beaters, and so simply telling the truth was all the marketing that was needed. A pity that doesn't work nowadays (when, sadly, HP hardly actually makes anything any more)
I'm sorry, this is almost a troll. A decent PIII 1GHz with 512Mbytes could run Netbeans quite effectively. In fact, I used to run Netbeans away from the office with a thin and light notebook PC (700MHz ulv PIII, 320Mbytes) and it was able to run a project which included a moderate sized servlet project and a desktop Swing client. The only thing that was slow was the Swing designer, and it was liveable with. OK, both Eclipse & NB are pretty fast on an AMD64 box with a G of RAM- but actually my current lightweight, relatively slow PIIIM on which I'm typing this is quite adequate - and it's only at that same 1GHz/512Mbytes, with a slow HDD.
It's always been argued that Microsoft needed Apple so they could claim there was no real monopoly on the desktop. Transmeta failed, VIA doesn't really make general purpose PCs. So now there will be a 100% X86 architecture monopoly, and much stricter oversight of business practices should be taking place. It could be not so much monopoly-controlling as trust-busting.
In fact, it is a pity that AMD has to litigate in what is, strictly, the public interest. I know nothing about this, but wouldn't this be more a suitable case for the FBI? Or at least, it might have been when it was we the people that elected governments, and not we the corporations and we the PR agents.
I've traveled twice in an ex-Soviet military helicopter. The second time, only because the alternative if I wanted to get back was even worse. I understand these are pretty reliable as helicopters go. And twice was enough to last me the rest of my life. So my reaction to this achievement is, perhaps unadventurously, Dangerous, ludicrously expensive and environmentally unfriendly form of travel made even more excitingly dangerous,ludicrously expensive and environmentally unfriendly. Wow.
I can't help adding that Lord MacAulay practically wrote the Indian legal system himself, and that anyone who gets past his nineteenth century writing style will discover, as I did, that far from being some stuffy legal figure he was a serious progressive. He argued for greater democracy, for the abolition of the privileges of the aristocracy, and (although he had to be very careful how he wrote in those days) he would clearly have supported the abolition of the monarchy and the introduction of a republic. He also attacked the use of religion to exclude groups from society. Even his popular stuff, like his Lays of Ancient Rome, need rereading. The last of the Lays is an attack on the aristocracy in support of popular democracy, and they are supposed to represent the evolution in understanding as the Roman empire developed. My English teacher at school rubbished the Lays because, she said, they contained many errors and were unrealistic. It was only years later that I read MacAulay's own commentary where he explained that he had deliberately tried to write them from the standpoint of someone knowing no more than a Roman of the time, and with the exaggerations that a verse writer would put in. MacAulay 2, English teacher 0.
It's a pity he's not around today when some of his targets are getting to be so big again.
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This may be a stupid observation, but why not keep Symbian for the phone functionality and have a second processor running Linux for the "desktop apps"? You know, the way computers work already with multiple dedicated CPUs. In which case, development should be considerably easier and cheaper. It's always easier to do a development job when the different parts of the system run on optimised architectures.
Power consumption goes up when it is removed from the PCI slot, says the article. If that's so, there is a design fault somewhere - it suggests that there are floating inputs .
I can see you've never run a full J2EE platform on a laptop and got it to do some serious work. Our web server environment includes updates across large databases, document format translation, customised email to address lists, and OLAP on a memory resident database. It's not some flat file database with a little PHP, you know. Now support a load of simultaneous users each running in their own context and watch the HDD swapping. Whereas how much load do games typically put on the HDD and the Ethernet ports? And, in fact, excluding the video card (not the reason for buying a laptop, usually) what is the average processor load?
When I got my AMD64 notebook, eighteen months ago (yes, early adopter, I know) I was told it would be unreliable, run too hot, etc. etc. It has so far survived eighteen months of commuting and abuse, especially the abuse of using it as a test vehicle for a complete web server and development platform. It's still on the first HDD ("Won't last eight months...") And so far the only thing to go wrong is a little rubber foot came off (replaced with superglue.) Even though my other notebook is a P-M Thinkpad, I would recommend the AMD64 to anyone who actually needs performance.
If so, I would hope that an English judge would block extradition on the basis of the failure of the US to subscribe to the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
Of course, in the UK prison system you have the right to inhabit overcrowded cells, be locked up with racist murderers to see if you get killed, and eventually commit suicide. But that's OK because it is protecting our rights and we are the good guys.
Yes, I am getting a bit tedious about this. But I am really annoyed that the UK courts so far have failed to perceive that this case is bovine excrement of the CMA variety. You exposed the weakness of our security! Shoot the messenger!
- Worked on military projects - know how to build bombs.
- Routinely use encryption to e.g. send confidential client data over the email system, most of the keys for which I have forgotten once the job was over
- Able to design radio receivers/transmitters
- Former member of religious group whose founder was associated in the minds of the authorities of the time with terrorism (Christianity).
Question is, do I turn myself in before the police come calling in the hope of not falling down the stairs in a police station, or should I just head for Afghanistan where I might even find a job?No, it's not funny. I used to visit London when the IRA were bombing regularly and, do you know, Britain didn't have these idiot laws then. They did have an idiot law that Irish Republicans could not be heard speaking on television and radio, and all it did was bring Mrs. Thatcher into contempt. And, do you know, the IRA are slowly turning into legit politicians. I am convinced that Blair is merely determined to suck Bushes neocon butt in the hope of making huge amounts of cash lecturing to Republican ladies lunch circles when he retires from being elective dictator, and as he will be (a) rich and (b) protected by the Special Branch, he won't give a shit what a mess he has made of the country. But beware, Tony. The Chileans have turned on Pinochet. And Britain has no shortage of bright Muslim lawyers. One day you too might yet end up in a war crimes court.
Yes, thank you, I do know what degrees of freedom are. But why let that stand in the way of a feeble joke?
The potential for delivering applications is enormous, from web-based accounting systems running over SSL to the ability to output preflighted data straight to a commercial printer chosen for convenience, along with the Google map of the route for when the job is collected.
I think you are thinking of aluminum.
In fact it is possible to produce sodium at low temperature by using a mercury cathode, in which it dissolves. This is an inefficient solution looking for a problem. I suspect it is a research technique for producing sodium for organic reactions, where the efficiency can be low, and they are trying to drum up investor interest by making exaggerated claims. Numerous organic reactions use sodium as a reagent including the high school demo of making ethylene by reacting sodium with pure alcohol to make sodium ethoxide.
Obviously the emergency jerrycan is a technology too complex and difficult to arrange compared to a simple sodium store, water tank, reformer, purifier and additional carburetor...face it guys, most of the easily led idiot investors lost their cash in the dot-com bubble.
BTW there is an existing technology for producing "safe" sodium involving mixing it with mercury to form amalgam. This has been around for many years (it is the basis of early plants for producing sodium hydroxide from salt.) It has not revolutionised fuel cells or led to a practical mobile phone fuel cell. So explain why this should be any different?
And, as for tough competition, last time I looked The Guardian, a small circulation not for profit UK newspaper, had a website which has more page views than most of the rest of the UK newspaper industry put together, and competes with the BBC given far less resources. The truth is, Murdoch, Rothermere and Sullivan between them have reduced the UK newspaper industry to such low grade sensationalist crap that they cannot compete with anybody who does a half decent job, at least where the audience who can read and write are concerned.
By the same logic, Mercedes should use cheap GM engines. Like Rolls Royce did for many years. In fact, the Rolls Royce was basically a GM truck with a more carefully assembled engine and a very expensive body. And look at them now. Owned.
There is a great deal (imho) of underestimation of animal intelligence, and it's interesting how many religious people I meet are animal intelligence deniers because of their need to believe that humans have some unique status.
Anybody with a background in experimental psychology who has ever actually worked with a grey parrot, a cockatoo, a macaw or one of the more intelligent dog breeds (e.g. spaniel) will realise that, although it is possible to argue that animal behavior is in some way fundamentally different from ours, the simplest hypothesis is that, in a simpler way, they think the same way that we do. The resemblance of some aspects of behaviour of, say, a two to three year old child and a labrador or cocker spaniel is very marked.
Therefore my own view of this particular bit of research is that it acts as a pointer of how far down the human aptitude chain a bird can get in one particular skill. If you accept that animals, birds and humans have mental ability that fits on a continuum, though with different aspects at different points, this research is interesting not only in itself but in the light it could throw on aspects of human development. Which seems to be what they're saying...
It actually looks like a very good model for specialist software. As someone who works for a small consultancy, I'm aware that there are many applications we would find useful that could be used by maybe twenty similar companies around the world, but would never justify the development cost for just one. And obviously no-one would buy from (or sell to) the competition. This is a possible way of developing this kind of software, though what would be ideal is some kind of trusted brokerage equivalent to the 18th century bookseller. Perhaps there's a business model for somebody there who has more spare time than I do.
Truly there is nothing new under the Sun (or under Windows for that matter).
It's clear that the name of the holding group (Can o' pee) is unlucky and affecting the court case. To change the bad luck they need to change it to something with better resonances. The Can o' worms Group?
In my first research job, and although I have an unusual name, there was someone else of my name in the company (even the same middle initial though they stood for different names.)
As the other guy had a PhD and I only have a Masters, our titles became part of our namespaces. So although your idea is presented humorously, it actually makes good sense.
Did I just write that? Better not press the Submit button.
Not exactly. I exaggerated to make a point, but my point is this. If I click on a URL, I am effectively inviting the content provider for that URL to take up my screen space. I have invited him in. I have not invited the slimy rip-off merchant to come in at the same time, push him out of the way and stand in front of me.
I'm now about to visit the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and stick a big poster over their front door reading "For cut-price justice which is just as good, why don't you use the 3rd. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instead? Our charges are only half as high, but our court officials are just as supercilious and our judgements just as incomprehensible. Why don't you book your appeal with us to-day? American Express and bullion accepted.
And then I'm off to see how long I last parading up and down outside WalMart with a sandwich board advertising our local deli.
Currently GB PLC is demonstrating that public enterprise is often better than private, contrary to the official government line. Failed privatised railways had to be rescued; private prisons are a humanitarian disaster; privatised schools are failing. So let's get the absolute flagship of public service, the BBC, and wreck it.
The amazing thing about this is that some of the British politicians who spout the privatisation nonsense - the unlamented M Thatcher among them - don't have a clue about how much the US depends on charities, not for profits, and local government at many levels, when it comes to delivering essential services. Sorry about the rant, but this whole thread is about the Government cutting BBC funds so it cannot do its job of ensuring that minority interests are heard. I guess next they'll be bringing in Fox to do the fair and balanced reporting that the BBC is famous for (but obviously getting wrong since sometimes it opposes the government...)
The point was, at the time, that HP products (a) sold to engineers and (b) were world beaters, and so simply telling the truth was all the marketing that was needed. A pity that doesn't work nowadays (when, sadly, HP hardly actually makes anything any more)
I'm sorry, this is almost a troll. A decent PIII 1GHz with 512Mbytes could run Netbeans quite effectively. In fact, I used to run Netbeans away from the office with a thin and light notebook PC (700MHz ulv PIII, 320Mbytes) and it was able to run a project which included a moderate sized servlet project and a desktop Swing client. The only thing that was slow was the Swing designer, and it was liveable with.
OK, both Eclipse & NB are pretty fast on an AMD64 box with a G of RAM- but actually my current lightweight, relatively slow PIIIM on which I'm typing this is quite adequate - and it's only at that same 1GHz/512Mbytes, with a slow HDD.
In fact, it is a pity that AMD has to litigate in what is, strictly, the public interest. I know nothing about this, but wouldn't this be more a suitable case for the FBI? Or at least, it might have been when it was we the people that elected governments, and not we the corporations and we the PR agents.
I've traveled twice in an ex-Soviet military helicopter. The second time, only because the alternative if I wanted to get back was even worse.
I understand these are pretty reliable as helicopters go. And twice was enough to last me the rest of my life. So my reaction to this achievement is, perhaps unadventurously, Dangerous, ludicrously expensive and environmentally unfriendly form of travel made even more excitingly dangerous,ludicrously expensive and environmentally unfriendly. Wow.
It's a pity he's not around today when some of his targets are getting to be so big again.