Posts by John Taylor

Taking a first bite out of Wolfram Alpha

potential

I think wolframalpha has a lot of potential, sure it doesn't have all the data sets it needs yet, but given time, i'm sure it will manage to provide meaning to structured data...I look forward to seeing this project evolve...

It's not google, and to be honest I don't think its even trying to be google, it's trying to provide clear answers to questions using its own knowledge banks.

Google is a search engine, and is still my favorite search engine. Wolframalpha is a different beast entirely, and will probably become my favorite 'computational knowledge engine'...think both of them will exist side by side quite nicely.

My 2c ;)

Novell dishes up OpenSUSE 11.1 details

It's a shame...

It's a shame to see a good distribution such as OpenSuSE sidelined because of its association with Microsoft...I guess its commercially attractive for Novell to get into bed with MS, but I can't see the distribution really getting any more love amongst the open source crowd now that it lacks the EULA....

The other competing and comparatively unsullied distro's such as Fedora and Ubuntu have successfully avoided any need to sign patent deals with MS and seem to have not suffered from that decision and have probably built a much stronger development community around them because of that decision...

I've thought about installing OpenSuSE in the past, but the thought of letting anything tainted by MS onto my system that I've tried so hard to get rid of over the past couple of years stops me from doing it...

Virgin Media to dump neutrality and target BitTorrent users

50Mbps my backside...

Well as I'm a person who can influence the type of connection people obtain for broadband purposes I can confirm I will no longer be recommending Virgin Media...

The fact they are now resorting to deep packet inspection so that they can claw back bandwidth confirms that there recently announced 50Mbps connection is nothing but a publicity stunt and they can't really deliver that figure without screwing over there locked in customers.

Thank god I didn't go with VM for my connection, and I'm going to make sure noone else I know does either.

'Faith-based' investment firm fingers holiday's most sinful games

excellent...

...thanks for doing all the donkey work for me, now I know which games to buy ;)

I had a parent complain bitterly to me the other day that one of the games she got her child was full of violence etc (it was Dead Space)...

Is it really that hard to say 'no' to your child? Is it really that hard to read the ratings system on the bloody box?

A dyslexic chimp could have easily found out that the game was not suitable for her child by simply glancing at the box (lets face it, the severed hand on the cover of the game pretty much says it all)!!

I honestly shook my head in disbelief...she seemed a bit shocked at my look of total confusion and dismay...

IT career virgins need a cherry on top

@ debaser

classic job advert ;) gave me a chuckle :)

Amazon launches self-cloning experiment

competition

its about time ebay caught a kick up the backside, this might be it ;)

Sun's JavaFX debuts with familiar cast

Taking note of sun

Hmmm I've recently started using NetBeans and to be honest its starting to become a nice environment for working in, actually using the little UML tool they have included in it for a project of mine and found it to be quite good for organizing my thoughts on its design.

It appears to be a tool that is branching out from its 'Just Java' roots and I think that should be encouraged :) Not sure about JavaFX though, but a competitor for adobe can do no harm.

Sun is doing some quite good stuff these days and I'm starting to rate them as a 'non evil' entity...

I think i will give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Terry Pratchett donates £500k to Alzheimer's charity

good on him

Good on him...would your rather the charity didn't have an additional £500k to spend? He has done good here and he should be recognized for it..well done Mr Pratchett :)