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Comment: Re:Anyone else remember? (Score 3, Interesting) 89

by ocratato (#43365131) Attached to: HP Chairman Raymond Lane Steps Down

Many, many years ago I worked as purchasing officer for a large research organisation. HP used to publish a magazine that showcased their latest equipment, usually describing the engineering that went into it in great detail. Within days of the magazine hitting the desks of our engineers we would get requests for these new gadgets, which HP was able to provide from local stock -- in Australia. That always impressed our engineers.

Comment: Re:I just checked Amazon - (Score 1) 290

by ocratato (#43345211) Attached to: Falling Windows RT Tablet Prices Signify Slow Adoption

If you could put Linux on one it would be a sweet little machine. One of the reasons they are so expensive is the Windows requires a higher performance CPU and more memory than the other brands. This in turn pushes up the battery requirements as well as the cost. It would be nice to be able to put something more efficient on them.

Comment: Re:And yet they look expensive... (Score 1) 290

by ocratato (#43345169) Attached to: Falling Windows RT Tablet Prices Signify Slow Adoption

I was watching a couple of youngsters trying to play with a Surface in one of our local electronics stores. It must have been that the keyboard was not connected correctly since nothing worked unless you poked at the screen. Not very impressive, and WAY too expensive compared to laptop computers.

Comment: When there is an App that NEEDS 3D (Score 2) 320

by ocratato (#42934441) Attached to: Why Hasn't 3D Taken Off For the Web?

Until very recently there was very little use for 3D for most people. Those few doing CAD, and some games were the only users, and they are not enough to bring 3D into the mainstream.

However we now have relatively low cost 3D movie cameras and 3D printers are also beginning to become common. I think 3D will finally start to take off.

Comment: A Cross Application Database (Score 1) 356

by ocratato (#42934327) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Does the FOSS Community Currently Need?

Rather than yet another database application, what is needed is a database layer, much like a graphics layer. This could then be a common resource for all applications.

Part of the problem is that each application has its own database. Users want to access data from multiple applications which usually means exporting from one or more databases and importing the data into another before you can run any queries against it.

The relational model is two restrictive for the sort of things a user needs to do. Something based on RDF or OWL might be a lot more flexible and hence useful.

Comment: Re:Interesting but... (Score 1) 243

by ocratato (#41126455) Attached to: A Modest Proposal For Sequestration of CO2 In the Antarctic

Agree completely.

Once we have a means of sequestering CO2, then there is no longer much incentive to stop creating it. We will just build a lot more coal fired power stations, and probably a lot more of these plants to cope with the ever increasing demand.

Eventually all this CO2 goes back into the atmosphere, and probably very quickly.
