* Posts by Dark Horse

25 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Aug 2008

Unbelievably vast quasar cluster forces universe-sized rethink

Dark Horse
Joke

Re: Buses, huh?

So THAT'S how starts are born!

Curiosity finds organics on Mars, but possibly not of Mars

Dark Horse
Joke

terrestrial or martian carbon?

In the "graph" picture, it mentions that it's indeterminate that the carbon from the chlorinated carbons could be martian or terrestrial and that further analysis is required.

I thought carbon is carbon. How would you tell if it was from Earth or not? "Made in China" labels on the protons?

First eyes EVER SEEN (by definition) appeared 700 million years ago

Dark Horse
Coat

The Holy Jellyfish?

God was a jellyfish?

Arduino barebones board upgraded with 32-bit ARM

Dark Horse

Re: The title is too long!

<quote>

I'm sure you know more about this than I do, but I'm struggling to understand how an 89MHz ARM CPU is better suited to realtime operation than a 700MHz ARM CPU. I'm assuming that it's the connectivity (Arduino pin selection vs the Pi GPIO header) that makes the distinction?

</quote>

There is a difference between embedded and real-time.

A real time system is a system that will guarantee a response within a set time to an event. You don't want commands to a nuke reactor cool down to be delayed a few milliseconds because the linux kernel decides to spend too much time sorting out its memory paging or something. :)

You can get customised versions of the Linux kernel that can be realtime.

But, the arduino would be coded for a specific task, and only that task. You don't expect to run bittorrent in the background. :) Plus, a 89MHz processor would be cheaper than a 700MHz, for a washing-machine control board.

New electronic labels squeal to spare you from food poisoning

Dark Horse

food prices

Are food prices extortionate enough?

75,000 Raspberry Pi baked before August

Dark Horse

Here we go again... :-)

It made me laugh when the Pi's were being bought on ebay for 100+ quid. Nutters! You could've bought a much better platform (beagleboard, pandaboard, cubox, snowball, etc) for not much more with more memory, faster processor (even with hardware floating point!) and more on-board peripherals.

As for the arduino vs pi argument, I definitely agree with the sentiment that they're different tools for different jobs.

Depending on the project, you could use the Pi as the main processor with the arduino (or the leaflabs maple, or even a bare-bones ATmega with arduino bootloader) as an "intelligent" I/O daughter board powered and communicated via the Pi's USB host.

Leaked Twitter accounts 'mostly banned spammers'

Dark Horse

Re: Failing Passwords 101?

Quote from the article: "It's unclear how the credentials were obtained, although one strong possibility is that hackers slurped the data from a phishing website that tricked users into revealing their login details."

Spotify dances onto iPad

Dark Horse

Re: Why is it only for premium users?

The premium is so you can cache/pre-download the music so you don't need to stream over the airways when you want to listen.

Ex-NASA space shuttle to touch down on aircraft carrier

Dark Horse

Don't jest!

Have you seen the state of the state of our roads?

With all the pot holes from the last two or three year's worth of winters and the councils not wanting to fix them, we'll be back to horse and cart before we know it!

Has Steve Jobs killed the consumer hard disk industry?

Dark Horse

PVRs? IDTVs?

There will always be needs for HDDs.

Just because mobile applications are going cloudy, and maybe documents too, don't forget that there are other uses for HDDs.

More and more TVs and STBs (Freesat+, Sky+, Virgin with TiVo, etc) are being built with internal hard-drives for recording purposes.... and I'm guessing a lot more people have TVs than PCs...

Popular gamers 'should play for free' – Valve boss

Dark Horse

hmmm

So... basically, it'll be a pyramid scheme?

The Sun still not shining on Nintendo's 3DS

Dark Horse

probably a case of..

it's probably a case of:-

doctor: "subject has high pulse after playing the game. as expected, due to adreneline, etc"

reporter: "pulse is high. gotcha. what would be the effects of resting pulse was that high, normally?"

doctor: "not good."

reporter, writing headline: "playing 3DS makes your heart go boom!"

Reg hack celebrates happy event

Dark Horse

And there was me thinking...

Before I read the story, I thought it was going to be about the two Hilton sisters...

Blighty to get mobe-download barcode rail tickets

Dark Horse

flat battery

I hope my phone battery doesn't die before the ticket inspector comes along.........

Technisat HDFS Freesat HD receiver

Dark Horse

no Ethernet?

What's the LAN port on the second photo used for, then?

One in four UK schoolkids admits hacking

Dark Horse

coolness factor?

1 in 4 kids admit to something that sounds cool? Hmm...

Atlantis crew gears up for Monday launch

Dark Horse

Countdown?

Is there a countdown of the number of launches left before the (currently planned) end-of-life for the Shuttle?

DH

3 to offer iPhone next year

Dark Horse

2 years?

Has it been two years already? bloody hell. that went quick!

ContactPoint goes live despite security fears

Dark Horse

okiedokie

I'll have no problems with this database as long as I personally receive the following information:-

The names, addresses, telephone numbers, photos, and fingerprints of every person that has access to the database information collected about my children.

Hmmm...

School to hand out e-textbooks

Dark Horse

"Sorry, miss..."

"Sorry, miss. I couldn't do my homework because the battery on my electronic reader ran out and I left the charger in my locker."

Hmm...

David Tennant quits Who

Dark Horse

Dr Who's daughter?

Oooh.. what about the lass from the episode where she was Dr Who's daughter? Can she take over the reigns? I'd enjoy that!

Hadron boffins: Our meddling will not destroy universe

Dark Horse
Go

Go for it!

Switch it on, and watch those billiard balls fly... and crash... and do strange physical weirdness...

If it all goes pea-soap-like, at least I won't be subjected to any more X-Factor / Pop Idol crap or listen to any more impending financial doom.

UK punters scowl at webmail ad targeting

Dark Horse

webmail and spam

So, if the webmailers scan emails to create a targeted ad campaign, would a lot of spam generate targeted ads for viagra and pr0n?

IBM solves world's 'paper or plastic' crisis

Dark Horse

time saved?

If only they came out with a system to stop those annoying screaming kids at the checkouts...

Or a system to reduce the amount of time taken for the nice old dears that spend at least five minutes trying to find the right money off coupon in her purse...

Stormtrooper helmet sales still legal in Britain

Dark Horse

@ Money For NOTHING

only 5 year copyright?

Ye gods! That won't stop Hollywood reproducing crap.. it will just encourage tens or hundreds of nearly identical crappy clones from everyone else!