Article Mistake corrections

Ahh, uncle Jan...? *cough* if I may draw your attention to your Diaspora article wherein you wrote
The server has 512MB RAM memory available to it, of which 85% - 90% is used by the time Diaspora is running.
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. Call me crazy (and many do!) but methinks "RAM memory" is redundant, you really should have stopped at 512MB RAM. I'm honestly NOT stalking you, or even laying in ambush ..you just seem to insist on dropping these gems right in my path! :D
 
bdt said:
Ahh, uncle Jan...? *cough* if I may draw your attention to your Diaspora article wherein you wrote . Call me crazy (and many do!) but methinks "RAM memory" is redundant, you really should have stopped at 512MB RAM. I'm honestly NOT stalking you, or even laying in ambush ..you just seem to insist on dropping these gems right in my path! :D
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Aww, just be honest... You love me ;-D

It is indeed redundant and was brought on by that age-old tech writer's trap of fearing your less geeky audience wouldn't understand what're on about. Regardless, 'tis now fix'd.
 
Hoo-boy: once more unto the breach, eh what old Jan-me-lad? :D So, in your Iphone (homage to El Reg..) 4 review, I call your attention to:
  • "This may change for the second batch of iPhone 4's" wherein I submit that the apostrophe in "4's" is superfluous, but I'm not excited enough to fight about it; for:
  • ..the real meat onto which I'm pouncing today is "draconic" at "While these issues, along with the draconic lock-in of the platform" ..ummm, no; sadly, not. ;) I submit, however, that it was Draconian you had in mind there. PS check the roots for those two words, it's really quite interesting how unexpectedly different they are...
Better luck next time, eh? :p Oh, the above notwithstanding, I DO actually read for content/the whole POINT of the article and, for me at least, I found that to be a well presented balanced review.
 
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Luckily I don't take your corrections personally :-)

At the rate at which I'm expected to write I'm bound to mistype (or misthink?) some things, so your feedback is always appreciated. I also have an editorial team which helps me pick up on these things, but sometimes our humanness overcomes our geekiness :P

Anyway: Fix'd :-D

EDIT: Forgot to say this... Without looking at the links you kindly provided, from my AD&D experience I'd have to say that "draconic" is the adjective related to dragons and dragon-kind. Let's see how close I am...
 
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In Ripping MP3s from CD: Legal conflict
  • "Michalsons agrees Du Plessis, adding that "while copying music may not infringe the copyright of the artists, it will always infringe the copyright of the recording studio." just doesn't scan. Should that not be "Michalsons agrees with Du Plessis ..."?
  • But whomever is responsible for "If a statute, which in this case is the South African Copyright Act of 1978, is silent about something you have to revert back to common law, said Weertman." (and I'm betting on the [-]low down dirty shark[/-] :rolleyes: lawyer), should get given a severe concussion with a BIG dictionary. Preferably one with a readily accessible bookmark to the definition of "revert"!
To elucidate (for them's that's too damn lazy to click through)::p revert already means "go back" which makes the above horror "you have to go back back to common law" ..which is clearly just nonsense.
 
bdt said:
[*]But whomever is responsible for "If a statute, which in this case is the South African Copyright Act of 1978, is silent about something you have to revert back to common law, said Weertman." (and I'm betting on the [-]low down dirty shark[/-] :rolleyes: lawyer), should get given a severe concussion with a BIG dictionary. Preferably one with a readily accessible bookmark to the definition of "revert"!
[/LIST]To elucidate (for them's that's too damn lazy to click through)::p revert already means "go back" which makes the above horror "you have to go back back to common law" ..which is clearly just nonsense.
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In mybb's defence, it is a quote - however Mr. Weerdman will be glad to hear about his appalling grammar, I'm sure...:p

/reverts forth to sleep...
 
Yar, my gut-feel is that the lawyer is the transgressor here and quotes do tend to get quoted verbatim. Besides which, poor 'revert' is HORRIBLY abused* in Big Business(tm) these days so it fits that a Big Business Hotshot Lawyer .pointedlyrollseyes. would be the source for something like that.

*my reaction to email that reads "do this and revert" can't be repeated here... :o
 
bdt said:
  • Should that not be "Michalsons agrees with Du Plessis ..."?
  • But whomever is responsible for "If a statute, which in this case is the South African Copyright Act of 1978, is silent about something you have to revert back to common law, said Weertman." (and I'm betting on the [-]low down dirty shark[/-] :rolleyes: lawyer), should get given a severe concussion with a BIG dictionary. Preferably one with a readily accessible bookmark to the definition of "revert"!
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Fixed. Luckily I didn't used quotes so I can make minor changes to the paraphrase :-)
 
In the solar-powered cellphone article:
  • “Cellphones are the primary means ... a big difference,” said Shameel Joosub, Managing Director of Vodacom South ...what/where/when/how? Maybe South Africa?
  • "Vodacom says that the handset has been fitted with a high-temperature battery that can safely withstand increased operational temperatures. To prevent it from failure, an additional temperature protection is also embedded which will switch off any charging should the battery exceed the safe temperature." ..mayhap "To prevent failure" or even "to protect it from failure" as the above is just nonsense.
 
bdt said:
[*]"Vodacom says that the handset has been fitted with a high-temperature battery that can safely withstand increased operational temperatures. To prevent it from failure, an additional temperature protection is also embedded which will switch off any charging should the battery exceed the safe temperature." ..mayhap "To prevent failure" or even "to protect it from failure" as the above is just nonsense.
[/LIST]
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... or "to prevent it from failing".
 
In the Alienware article:
Alienware m11x

Display: 11.6 inches (1366 x 768); 6:9 aspect ratio.

Battery: 8 Cell Prismatic (64 whr).

Alienware m15x

Display: 15.6 inches (1600 x 900); 6:9 aspect ratio.
Alienware m17x

Display: 17 inches (1920 x 1200).
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Seriously - SIX by nine aspect ratio? ..from (one would think) a tech-aware journo? :rolleyes: Also, and this is more for consistency throughout the specs section, he should have included aspect ratio for the 17". Although, given the meal he made of the other two, maybe not!

Also, he's got a serious case of 'comma-coma' but I'll leave that to someone else to pick over.
 
bdt said:
In the Alienware article:Seriously - SIX by nine aspect ratio? ..from (one would think) a tech-aware journo? :rolleyes: Also, and this is more for consistency throughout the specs section, he should have included aspect ratio for the 17". Although, given the meal he made of the other two, maybe not!

Also, he's got a serious case of 'comma-coma' but I'll leave that to someone else to pick over.
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Typo's corrected.
 
Aaannd here we go AGAIN! This time one Fiona Zerbst poked it in the cellphone banking safety article, to wit:
It may seem obvious that you should safeguard your cellphone banking PIN number and not store it on your cellphone, but some people do this for the sake of convenience. Don’t! You should also select a new PIN regularly.
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So, being as that's a copy from elsewhere, will THIS one be corrected? Also, maybe someone can inform her of how to get TLAs right in future!
 
AirWolf said:
Doesn't PIN = Personal Identification Number? :confused:
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Zigacktly, you are ferpectly right. Hence PIN number resolves to "personal identification number number". Which, of course, doesn't work. As is talking about a round circle, two twins, reversing backwards and similar stupidities the woolly-minded (read: sheeple) inflict on those of us that know better.

And a journalist REALLY should know better ..would you trust a mechanic that didn't know how to use a spanner?
 
Patience and vigilance; just lie in wait and let them come to you! :D ..in his XP no more article Uncle Alistair flubbed a space:
Windows XP no moreIt's been delayed more than once but now finally Microsoft is pulling the plug on Windows XP.
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..gotcha! :rolleyes: Yes, I know I'm gloating here but Alastair almost never drops the ball, it's a rare treat to wrong-foot him.
 
Ah Jan, ;) nice clanger you dropped in your 100/100 supercomputer article:
While the SL170 is their most energy efficient model, the seventh generation SL390 contains three general purpose GPUs (GPGPU) and is able to deliver 1 terraFLOP (or one thousand billion floating point operations per second) worth of compute power.
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The prefix you were after there was 'tera-', the 'terra' you chose has a rather more 'earthy' association. Good one though! :p
 
bdt said:
Ah Jan, ;) nice clanger you dropped in your 100/100 supercomputer article:The prefix you were after there was 'tera-, the 'terra' you chose has a rather more earthy association.
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Happy to oblige, old bean!

I was on an 11 hour flight from Frankfurt when I wrote that one so the mistake must have been my subconscious expressing its desire to know terra firma again.
 
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