Posts by Robert E A Harvey 3010 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2006
>Seriously does ANYONE use the bundled junk that comes with an ADSL connection
My next door neighbour will be, for a start. He's just been sold a talktalk service and they sent him a nice little box pre-programmed with his username, passworm, ssid, wpa key. He won't change any of it "in case they don't like me to". And why should he? This way when it goes tits up it will be their problem.
Yes, spin a desktop out of a phone/tablet OS for very little extra cost, and ship it only on hardware you understand. Absolutely great idea.
What we also need is some unique selling point, like a simple scripting/gui app generator so people can make it work for them. Or a truly transparent file sharing system, where your phone/pad/desktop use spare cpu cycles, local and internet networking, so that your music, memos, whatever exist on all of your devices without you having to do anything.
Great news, HP.
It's yer identity on yer wrist. As long as you throw away every computer in the world and replace them with HP watch-aware terminals, just sitting at a terminal will log you in and the watch will manage all your passwords and identity stuff.
Brilliant.
If only it could intercept your brainwaves and be an I/O device as well...
"There are also significant security considerations, which aren't addressed by the company's demonstration."
Like some scrote programming his Galaxy to deduct 50p from everyone he bumps into while its in his pocket? That could harvest a couple of grand just by being a nuisance on the tube.
I'll stick with cash & pin terminals, ta.
So by taking a bottle of gin a day my old Ma stove off the effects of Alzheimers, only to loose her memory because of all the booze, I can see that.
She still went gaga, but at least it wasn't the aluminium saucepans or dodgy beef that was to blame, so that's OK then.
Isn't science wonderful?
Do we want to TiVo our radio? you ask.
Well, if by radio you mean the endless random repetition of hit-factory plastic pop by stations with a play list of 150 and a worthless moron reading out the traffic, well duh.
If by radio you mean Recording R4's "News Quiz" or Kermode and Mayo's film reviews from R5 to enjoy after work, then yes, I do want to. I can use podcasts for that, but they don't podcast "Any Questions" or the Radio 3 lunchtime concerts.
This evening classic FM is running the Symphony No.2 in E minor by Rachmaninov . I will be doing something else, but Mr Linux will be time-shifting it for me.
So, there is some radio for which TIVO makes enormous sense, and an awful lot for which it doesn't. Just like the telly really.
Sounds about right. I recall demonstrating a C&P system bolted onto a cash register made by Kajaani OY.
Snag at the time was that the banks didn't want pin verification in the terminal. Their idea was that the retailer would have a terminal that only did Midland cards, another for Nat West, etc. The oil companies 7 retailers wanted one terminal that covered all banks. Stalemate.
I call this 'the Guthram Gowt effect'. It is a perfect test case: a bend in the river that goes back to the domesday book but which currently consists of 3 scattered houses, a bus stop, and a rain gauge.
So you can guarantee that any promise of 'Florists in Guthram Gowt' or 'Jobs in Guthram Gowt' is worthless. And, by simple deduction, the same site's results for any other location will be just as worthless.
I just ran the test again. Only two of the results on the first page were useful, and then not incredibly so. One from Geograph and one synthetic bus table lookup. All the others are made up nonsense. Sites that have carpet-bombed the world with the name of every place-name possible.
The first really sensible hit was "boar.org.uk/abiwxe1BournePlaces(home.htm" on page 2. Then it went downhill again. with more non-existant jobs, dates, used cars and empty 'community ' pages. The real bus timetable was on page 5.
You don't need an AI. You just need voting buttons. Ones that agregate every vote for a site, so that downvotes or upvotes for 'Guthram Gowt' hits count against hits for 'Snittlegarth' or 'High Bewaldeth'
(I'm looking at you AllTheTopBananas.com ; www.primelocation.com ; www.qype.co.uk : "User recommendations and reviews of the best things in Graby. Find the best shops, restaurants, bars, nightlife, gigs, services and more." Even Paris could not find a night club in Graby)
If someone can cure the Guthram Gowt Effect it will be a great thing.
But we are talking Devon and Cornwall here. Imagine "ASBO neighbour hell" and extend the garden fence across the peninsula and have it go on for two thousand years. That might give you half an idea.
My old navigation tutor used to say that the reason the cartographer's office was in Portsmouth was that it was as far as possible from the Tamar as possible. He used to say "Cornish fishermen get it through the titty that all the waters from the Needles to Scilly were created by the almighty for the exclusive use of the men of Cornwall. Snag is, Devonians have a similar Blind Certainty that they are theirs and theirs alone."
The buggers even have the whole of St George's Channel to disgree about as well.
You didn't REALLY think this was about pasties, surely?
What the English call Swede, the Scots call neeps and the Cornish call Turnip. And often the other way around. It is a good question.
Away from the celtic fringes, Swede (once 'Swedish turnip') is the faintly orange root vegetable, not the white one with a green scalp. Known in some places as Kohlrübe and others as rutabaga it is properly Brassica napus
Astonishingly, oil-seed rape is Brassica napus subsp. rapifera and the rape and swede crops have been hybridising happily in the margins of European farms, presumably trying to turn into something that can fry itself.
Under the new legislation I'd better call these 'YellowBelly pasties'
Case:
150g lard
100g beef suet, finely grated
450g strong plain flour, perhaps a touch more
30ml cold beer (Batemans?)
rosemary leaves, chopped
chive leaves, chopped
Filling:
400g beef skirt
medium onion
half a swede
600g main-crop potatoes
small garlic clove
1 egg whisked with splash of milk
Butter
fresh lime
salt, black pepper, dried ginger
Dice the vegetables into bits about 4mm cubed. Crush the garlic and mix in. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Cut the meat into similar size bits
Sift flour,salt,ginger into a mixing bowl.
dust the meat in the flour and remove.
Finely chop the lard and mix roughly into the flour. Add the suet, and work into a pastry with the beer. Work in the chives and rosemary. if too wet, add a little more flour
Divide into 6 pieces and roll each out into a circle, on a floury board. You can scrub the beer bottle to use as a rolling pin.
Put a layer of onion and swede bits onto one side of each circle. Then a layer of the meat, then a layer of potato. put a few tiny knobs of butter around the top. squeeze a little lime juice over each one.
brush some beer glue round the edge, fold the top over and crimp it down. Use a fork or something to make a pattern. I use my wedding ring.
make a tiny hole in the top for the worst of the steam to escape - not too big as you want to steam the veggies, this is just a pressure relief valve.
Glaze the outside with egg/milk. If you want a pattern, score the pastry surface slightly.
Put on a greased tray and put in a preheated oven for 15 minutes at gas 6/200C then reduce to gas 2 for about 40 mins. Fan ovens should have a small bowl of water and the pastry covered until the last 15 mins.
Variations:
Paprika or Nutmeg instead of ginger.
Oysters in the beef.
Venison. Omit the garlic, marinade in red wine & olive oil. Dry off before dusting with flour
The Stilton listing has done nothing but good, with other cheeses being sold as 'British blue' or (better yet) finding their own identity, like the superb Blackstones.
We already have the 'west country' company selling generic pasties, and no doubt someone will come up with a Somerset name soon, like 'Somerset duffs'
This is good news, except for Ivor Dewdney, although I just checked their web site, and they already comply.
About time this was sorted out.
I worked in a company that counted each boxed set of MSoffice as an "asset", and didn't even depreciate it year on year (It can't wear out, can it?). I suggested to the director responsible that he take half a dozen of them and try selling them. He got about a penny in the pound. Then I showed him the licence. People have been spending money on something they don't own for years, and it is time that a few company directors got smacked in the face with a cluebat over it.
Personally I think that usedSoft were always taking the piss, and knew it all along. What they were doing is just plain not allowed. (it might not be /wrong/, but it is not allowed).
My idea is that this will stir this particular shit-pool and people will finally recognise the stink.
>This in turn would knock likely shipments this year down from 30.6 million to 23 million.
Not, you notice, from 30.4 million or from 30.65 million.
Plonkers.
"Something that no-one has promised might be a bit later than the bloke who didn't promise it made up last week and that means people won't be able to buy something that doesn't exist until a bit later, always supposing it exists then." And, I suppose, without any reference to whether it will be worth buying.
No wonder the bloody weather is changing with all this hot air going on.
By the sounds of it then, forget that it's Android - the OS is no more accessible than in a sony walkman - and the rest of the review was of a media player.
This is as things should be. Buy the product, not the development route. Wide range of formats, clunky menus. But by the sounds of the review the audio quality is good, which is what I would expect from Cowan. 21 hours battery life is not bad for something with a big screen, I think I might be tempted.
How do you get music on and off it? USB storage mode in Linux?
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