Fonts, face-tagging and false frequencies

Who's the SirCam winner this week?

Letters Roundup Microsoft thinks rival web servers are equally vulnerable, but many of you think their comparisons are bunk.

Find out why here.

The ID card debate hots up too. The funniest comment on the topic comes from an Australian contractor:-

"That Larry Ellison is such a warm caring person offering to give the US Govt a freebie. I only hope he repeats the offer here in the land of Oz," he writes. "My card carrying Communist Party member wife says that I'm just thinking of new contract terms (new Oracle work is bit light on at the moment), but she's always been a cynic. And let's face it, you can't fill the tank on the Saab with integrity."

Plenty more of your comments can be found here.

Odds and ends...
Far too many of you mailed us to point out that the "spidery font" we referred to here, and used in so many academic papers is Donald Knuth's Computer Modern, the standard font of the LaTeX/TeX system.

"The spidery font problem arises because 'dvips' is configured to produce Postscript with Type 3 bitmapped fonts rather than the Type 1 outline fonts favoured (and anti-aliased) by Acrobat Reader. The bitmapped fonts are typically at a resolution suitable for printing, and you end up with the spidery font when Acrobat Reader tries to scale them to the screen resolution. Reconfiguring 'dvips' to use Type 1 fonts or using 'pdftex'/'pdflatex' would fix the problem," explains Corin Pitcher.

And just as we beating our bonce of ignorance with the heavy stick of enlightenment, Peter Honeyman who co-authored the report dropped us a very nice note to say they'd revamped the font. How about that?

AMD get plenty of opprobrium for its new naming convention:-

"I make no judgement about whether the comparison is fair or accurate, but I do take exception,
(as will many many more people), at being told lies by marketing bunnies. AMD were more than happy to crow about clock speed when they reached 1GHz first, but now they tell us, ( 9 months later), that processor speed does not matter!" writes Mark Newman.

And IT publisher VNU's decision to swing the axe brought this brave defence of their management from one reader, who signed himself 'Abusive Punter':

"I've just read your article about VNU and I have to admit it sounds like a complete load of shit! You have no fucking clue what you're talking about.....probably why this Brin bloke said your stories are gobshite,"

"Insted of getting your mis-informed reactionary views from staff that have been made redundant (different to being fired you dick) why not get a view from a reader like me, who understands the IT market, better than you obviously, and who can understand whats going on.

"If I hadn't been forwarded this news item by a friend who works at VNU [it's always a friend, isn't it? - Letters Ed.] I wouldn't have bothered reading this pile of shite."

Er, thanks Brin.

Finally, SirCam of the Week is won by a Mr August Mrakuzic, for his attachment "When Charles De Gaulle" - very interesting, August.

It bested stiff competition from Charis Sun's "Combo prize structure comparison", Champ's "Airport" and a clutch of hopefuls with their "New Microsoft Word Documents".

No more please. ®