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* Posts by Britt Johnston

439 posts • joined Tuesday 11th April 2006 15:28 GMT

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Britt Johnston

Strange units

@Howe - while you're at it, we need a rewrite of Grimms (replace ell with 50cm) and Stevenson (pieces of ten).

Maybe I shouldn't mention money, the Talers, Dubloons, Batzen, Kronen, Libra and of course Drachmas are well unified under the Euro, and that just made the real problem more transparent: that is too many politicians addressing the wrong problem too late.

Britt Johnston
Headmaster

Re: Personality Datastructure

Why should an unsuccessful product require anti-trust action?

Britt Johnston

Percentages for comparison, please

I can't follow the thread of the article enough to work out what percentage of milk is wasted. At a guess,a low one, as milk is probably turned to butter, cheese and yoghurt before it is thrown away.

Now, 25% of water is wasted on the way to consumers. I believe and hope that the figure for petroleum fuels is considerably lower, in the ppm range. Which one should I compare the percentage milk loss to?

Britt Johnston
Facepalm

Re: Toshiba AC100 fate

I loved the case, but never heard of anyone who configured it into something useful.

I was wondering if it is possible to replace the mainboard with a RasPi?

Britt Johnston
Thumb Up

timely info - thanks

Thanks, newsworthy - I've been searching for information on this to know how optimise the guarantee costs on my current laptop.

Britt Johnston

Re: What does "function" mean for sound?

"completely reproduce the sounds of some music" = another band playing the same tune.

I think thats pretty clear, all loopholes covered.

Britt Johnston

running on adrenalin

I'd compare it with Cable and Wireless.

Nokia is a piggybank bleeding cash, searching for a new trough.

Britt Johnston
Happy

Re: Uses for a chopped shiny LCD

Try building it into a case to hold a raspberry pi.

This post has been deleted by its author

Britt Johnston
Happy

Software price control

The software pricing was another key aspect: since too few good games came out, Sinclair commissioned some. They also managed game distribution, and on the way imposed a price standard - Standard games cost £5, SW-house games like The Hobbit or Scrabble were maybe 2-3 times that.

Britt Johnston
Thumb Up

Re: use AMD APUs?

I agree, but haven't seen one with an SSD yet, do they exist?

Britt Johnston
Pirate

Comparison of Internet with Wild West

The difference is that the marshals, unable to instead of chase down the outlaws, are monitoring their citizens instead.

Britt Johnston
Angel

luddites?

Luddites were a group who broke machines to slow down progress. I think the non-users are blameless here, and certainly no comparison to spammers, malware makers and intrusive business practicians.

Who really broke the internet, anyway?

Britt Johnston

Re: common sense

It may be Britain's most valuable resource, but it is becoming increasingly hard to extract.

Britt Johnston
Facepalm

no need for bigger batteries

just plug in to your electric car.

Britt Johnston
Headmaster

"burn off actinides"

not in the chemical sense, I hope. Does this mean separation and disposal of the highly radioactive segment of the waste by nuclear fission? Or don't the physical details matter that much?

Britt Johnston
Holmes

mtbf

easy - look for the chinese component maker that copied Nortel and went bankrupt.

Britt Johnston
Big Brother

long term solution

Copyright is about preserving existing privileges in a world changing too fast.

The safest way would be to write something, then wait 70 years before performing, lest it be similar to anything else. All other artists add nothing to GNP, and are to be treated as grafitti sprayers.

This approach will also solve the problems of culture moving too fast, for this century. I love classical music and 19thC books.

Britt Johnston

tax on jet fuel ?

As far as I and Wikipedia know, jet fuel is not taxed, not even VAT in the UK. This helps to reduce the airline bancrupcies. This is also handy for people with their own jets, but that probably wasn't considered in the good boffin's rich vs poor calculations.

Britt Johnston

its more a root&branchkit

see title

Britt Johnston
Coat

Re: change our real identities ?

I don't want the bother of being born again.

Britt Johnston

I may be antiquated, but...

I remember the days when you bought a game as a CD and played it, no DRM.

Where is the advantage to anyone in having to sign on via a hackable middleman?

Sorry, no stonehenge icon.

Britt Johnston

cheap energy or free beer?

Interesting article revealing the pressure on politicians to favour the next big cash cow.

I don't agree that the political aim should be to keep energy prices low. Yes, there is probably a long-term correlation between cheap energy and growth, but this is not an argument to keep prices low, rather one to use energy sources wisely, also over long periods. Clearly, European growth is not related to the different prices given in the table, nor were energy price increases a major factor in the current lack of growth in Europe.

Finally, earthquakes are expensive: not because I spilt my beer when the last one came around, but because people sue for damage to buildings. This is true whether the cause is fracking for gas or a green geothermal project. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/science/earth/11basel.html

Could it be that part of the lobbying is for indemnities from such side-effects?

Britt Johnston
Alien

beyond human

I have noticed that my dogs pay more attention to a TV with HD screen, and even our cat is will occasionally have a flutter at films with birds flying around.

So maybe they are aiming at the predicted market for animal lovers

Britt Johnston
IT Angle

1.6 clarity

1) Does "the company is performing well" mean "are you making a ton of money?" or "is your business infrastructure as good as it could be?"?

2) The question on knowledge workers is related to the knowledge/security balance. Our new sharepoint environment is great for versioning and archiving, for instance, but poor at searching for similar ideas in neighboring groups.

Britt Johnston

more than wiretap

It is more like wiretap plus house search, since they can access data.

They may also have more difficulty in prosecuting cases where the use of the trojan to collect evidence is known to the court, to prove that they didn't plant files containing incriminating information.

Britt Johnston
Pint

good life

When the man spent half his life getting fron the Baltic to the beach, finding a species is icing on the cake.

Good for him.

Britt Johnston

Statistics research would be an interesting field to support, a lot of the methods are old (Fisher's cornfields) and simplistic (expecting the real world to be normal). I understand from statsmen that there has been real progress in the last 20 years.

But other areas are still real topics. As are whether universities will become a privatised privelege in Britain within a decade, or whether twens should study, repatriate or go straight on the dole.

Britt Johnston
Windows

different understanding

I read this twice, but could find no reason against making linux the standard for PCs, and then loading a VM-windows OS only when windows is needed.

Wouldn't this reduce the Microsoft hold on PCs?

Britt Johnston
Happy

re other uses

If you switch into reverse, it saves washing the car

Britt Johnston
Windows

terrible global development model

1) Apple comes up with any idea

2) Everyone drops what they are copying for the new big thing

3) No real improvements for 18 months

4) Intel declares the Apple design is the official platform standard

5) 12 months later, the new standard reaches the market

6) in version 3.0, someone implements a previously unnoticed benefit built into the standard

What happens when Steve leaves the ship and Apple becomes as defensive as Microsoft?

Britt Johnston
Thumb Up

Sloppy reckoning?

Well done, this isn't even in the Swiss press today.

First reaction is that the idea could be to motivate the UBS interns by sharing the pain. 210 in the HQ admin are to go, of 400 Swiss cut-backs according to a statement of a week ago.

Second, as Chris W points out, if there are foreign contracts in CHF, this has risen in value over 10% this year against major currencies, maybe nobody is losing, and it could come out of the currency gains.

Third, there will be a lot of post-2008 bank regulation projects in the late stages of IT implementation. That's a poor time to force IT wage cut proposals through at any bank.

Britt Johnston
Holmes

description please

The section on the police form entitled <detailled description of lost or stolen goods> is required.

I'm sure it contains more info than "one icon may be different"

Britt Johnston
Holmes

Black hole geoeconomics

There is a square mile in London which makes 15% of GB revenue: and an acre in Westminster that decides how to spend 40%

enough Scot-bashing, Scotland is only the tail on the donkey.

Britt Johnston
Pint

man bites dog

What if the news was

WIFI FIRM OFFERS FREE BEER...?

Britt Johnston
Unhappy

already started

They just closed down the last GB consulate in Switzerland. Now we may apply to an outsourcing centre in Paris. Payment has to be sent by guaranteed cheque, in CHF, which doesn't work across borders and currencies. Biometrics on a postcard to...?

I can't complain though - they also just closed the honorary consul's office.

Britt Johnston
Joke

Dover tea party?

"..pushing new shipments into the channel.",

which fixes the disposal side, but is bad for the sole.

Britt Johnston
Pirate

either/or

Who needs productivity when they can have outsourcing?

Britt Johnston
Megaphone

stiff upper lip

Bernie is doing a good job. He is bringing as much money into motor racing as possible, adjusting the rules to make things more exciting, and berating the stables to reduce spending. But several such expensive sports are going this way on national coverage, for F1 even in Germany and Britain where participation is highest. Note that PayTV Eurosport can't afford to pay for F1 and MotoGP like it used to.

AC12:46 has it right, we must tighten belts and get use to British superbikes, lawn bowls, F2, U17 and ladies football, pram-pushing and other sports that can fit a limited budget.

Britt Johnston
Pirate

go for the jugular

If there is a weakness to the Apple appletstore, it is the percentage profit model. Zero-Price applets bring Apple no money: and high-value applets and customers won't accept the cost of the service. Either or both of these customer types could be wooed by any adequate applatform with a different pricing model.

Britt Johnston
Unhappy

Spartacus is not available

I tried to be Spartacus but Youtube only offered spartacus47619

Britt Johnston
Alien

wild west

People complaining about the sheriff's cut should consider both the bandits and the low quality of life back east. Things will eventually get better, and taxes will go up, even if higher taxes aren't the cause of any improvement.

Britt Johnston
Holmes

space mariners

Something odd about this talk of pools, weak tea and hosepipe bans. I'd guess it was vapour, except the stars-to-be, which must have first compressed into snowballs. So, water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

Britt Johnston
IT Angle

cryptic clue

gravity without IT is just brown sauce.

Britt Johnston
Angel

Italian rules would fix this

All media belongs to the head of government, who cannot be deposed and is exempt from prosecution while in office.

Justices are removed, one way or another, if they show signs of competence.

Journalists are tolerated if they are young, female and scantily clad.

Britt Johnston
Unhappy

patents with no product

This is not possible, because small companies looking to collaborate with a big one need some protection from having their ideas absorbed. A patent delivers this protection - but only if the patent is not going to be overturned when challenged. The overgenerous approvals in the IT area is one reason why patents support large companies at the expense of small inventors.

Britt Johnston
Thumb Up

thanks for the explanation

I was convinced that it took inside connections to do something like this, especially as hacking MPs should be safeguarded against by technical staff in Westminster. But as I understand you, it is more likely that these politicians were also unaware how easy it is to open other people's voicemail.

Britt Johnston
IT Angle

whatever happened to globalisation?

Every country has a gutter press, but only England has journalist hackers? Murdoch's empire extends to the USA, why does the method they are (still) using only work in one country?

Britt Johnston

re: well thought out

Actually, I'd expect the government plan to answer this question.

But yes, one solution could be to use energy more efficiently, and build less or no plants.

Britt Johnston
Mushroom

Wow, strong winds from nuclear fans!

I don't intend to change any mind made up, more to point out that the UK government spendthrift plan-of-the-week is for eight new nuclear plants, when their bottom line is about reducing debt.

The German government will end up spending plenty of their taxpayers money to close nuclear plants. This commentard is suggesting to save UK some money by not rushing to build more.

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