Posts by Tom Wood

Pollster predicts mega UK smart TV sales

"the next 12 months - a period which includes this coming Christmas"

You don't say?

Google, Amazon, Starbucks are 'immoral' and 'ridiculous' over UK tax

Re: A tax on a sale...

Um, that is (similar to) VAT. Starbucks, Amazon and Google all collect VAT and do pay it to the government. Note it's a tax on the value added, not the whole of the sale, otherwise anything that is bought and resold (e.g. by a wholesaler) would get very expensive very quickly.

The argument here is about corporation tax i.e. a tax on corporate profits.

This is Britain

Our laws are one thing. There are a lot of unwritten rules too.

It's like lots of things in life - they're better if everyone plays by the spirit of the law as well as the letter of it. Making some attempt to be reasonable counts for a lot.

Google, Starbucks, Amazon et al are like a greedy person who spends hours grazing at an all-you-can-eat buffet, then walks out with bulging pockets full of food. Yes, they maybe didn't break any rules, but they are certainly not being a good sport about it.

I quite like the idea of shaming companies into being reasonable - and consumers voting with their feet. With Starbucks it is easy, as coffee shops are everywhere and all provide similar products for similar prices; sadly Google and Amazon both sport "one of a kind" status which limits your ability to go elsewhere without detriment to yourself (poorer search results than Google; more expensive and reduced choice than Amazon).

Even a CHILD can make a Trojan to pillage Windows Phone 8

Re: That's why I both like and hate the Android scheme

Yes - and many useful apps ask for many more permissions than you think they probably need.

Much like clickwrap licence agreements, the temptation is just to click "OK" without actually thinking about it.

EDF: We'll raise bills 11% - but only 2% is due to energy costs!

And Profit?

Of course, their profits must also rise faster than the increases in energy costs. To keep pace with the other big energy companies, naturally.

No GPS in the iPad Mini Wi-Fi: People are right to criticise

Download maps before you go

I don't know about iOS, but for Android you can buy a satnav app like CoPilot for a few quid, which has offline mapping.

I have used this in the US several times, with mobile data turned off, and it functions OK. Didn't even occur to me that A-GPS may not work with data off - I presume it functioned OK as a standalone GPS. Maybe it took a few seconds to get a fix but provided you switch the GPS on a minute or so before you start the car you're OK (no worse than a stand-alone TomTom etc).

Save hefty Dr Who and Bond girl 'Flossie', pleads vintage computer man

Fun and historically interesting as it is

you can't keep everything for ever.

Education Secretary Gove: Tim Berners-Lee 'created the INTERNET'

Re: Hmm

" Many CompSci graduates don't understand algorithms, data representation and logic and would also be unable to teach the subject."

Not sure where these graduates are getting their degrees, then? CS graduates from any decent uni should know all this stuff.

Sanitary towel firm's 'CEO' sets traumatised man straight

PR types come up with pitch for "viral" ad, write script, select actress, get approvals etc ahead of time.

They just wait for a suitable facebook post to "respond" to, and when it comes along, kick all the wheels in motion - fill in the guy's name in the script and shoot the ad.

Of course a conspiracy theorist might say they just paid this guy to write his comments so they could run the ad.

Virgin Media's blighted SuperHub NOW comes with extra squeal (oink)

Re: Netgear...

In my experience Netgear make ace network kit. As someone else commented the fact they make this SuperHub and that is not very good is somewhat surprising.

Their "business" kit in metal boxes is superb, but even the consumer stuff I've tried has worked flawlessly.

"been woefully inadequate to do the task it was bought for."

- is that the fault of the product, or the person who bought it? Netgear publish detailed specs on their website and their stuff tends to do what it says it will.

British car parks start reading number plates

But England is a subset of the UK

Therefore a car park in England is still most definitely a "UK car park". 11 car parks in England may be described with complete accuracy (but slightly less detail) as "11 UK car parks". Would you like a Venn diagram?

Re: Parking Charge Notices - NOT fines

It's not even a "parking charge notice". (That is a term chosen only because it's confusingly similar to "Penalty Charge Notice" which is what the police give you).

It's a demand for payment, which may or may not be legally valid depending on any contract you are deemed to have entered into with the car park operator.

Re: How very "unsporting"

But similarly, no risk of paying for more hours than were necessary because you weren't sure how long you actually needed.

The same is true of the "pay on exit" type car park where you get a paper ticket from the machine on your way in.

Much better generally than "pay and display".

Tremble, operators: UK gets ACCURATE mobile coverage guide

Re: PE10

...because you don't live in Hull?

HTC profits lobbed off a cliff by rivals Samsung and Apple

Hurry up and release a decent replacement for the Desire HD

I've been generally very happy with the Desire HD over the past 18 months. It certainly seems more usable than my girlfriend's new Galaxy SIII (though maybe it's just a case of preferring what you are used to).

My contract's up in March, please HTC release a worthy replacement to the Desire HD by then and I'm yours!

Conroy wants telcos to wear undies on heads

Re: "The antipodean nation has also recently tabled data retention proposals..."

"to put aside and pretend it doesn't exist" would be to shelve it.

Clearly American tables are stacked full of clutter.

Ofcom begged to protect minicab, other small-biz's radio spectrum

Re: Can anyone explain?

Maybe not as applicable to taxi companies, but radio is used by e.g. security teams in event venues because as well as the one-to-many reception, you're not as limited by phone network signal and capacity etc. Radio nets using battery-powered radios will keep going even in a power cut etc - important considerations in security/safety applications.

Well the current free-to-air satellite service doesn't include all the channels available on Freeview (e.g. Channel 5).

And satellite comms still require bandwidth, albeit a different part of the spectrum...

Global strategic maple syrup reserves hit in Canadian mega-heist

Re: Is there any news...

No, because they use flavoured corn syrup anyway.

Beer mats to tout tat to mobiles over wireless NFC

Re: Been in a Pub lately ?

In fact, the mats in one pub I was in recently had QR codes on them which contained the link to some competition entry or something. What does NFC do that can't be done with a barcode printed at no extra cost onto a regular beermat?

Re: Been in a Pub lately ?

There are beermats aplenty in Leeds' pubs. I reckon not having them must be a funny southern thing (like pouring flat pints).

Post-pub nosh deathmatch: Bauernfrühstück v bacon sarnie

That isn't proper bacon

Bacon butties need to be made with back bacon. British if you're being patriotic/feeling flush, Danish or Dutch if you're buying the cheap stuff.

Freeview EPG revamp set for September

Every time I re-tune

I renumber the SD channels 1, 3 and 4 to 991, 993 and 994 and move BBC One HD, ITV 1 HD and Channel 4 HD to 1, 3 and 4 respectively. Also move BBC HD to 999 so it appears next to BBC One in the EPG.

I guess it wou;n't be possible in the current standards to have the HD channels automatically replace SD versions where both are available?

(This is a Toshiba Regza TV that supports renumbering).

Dutch payment-by-bonkers bonk payments on the head

Why why why?

Pay-by-bonk, I've used (once), with my Barclaycard card, and it worked OK.

But why on earth would I want to pay by bonking my phone, which needs apps/stickers/extra hardware and lets Google or whoever else sneaks an app onto my phone snoop on transactions, when cards work OK.

I'm always going to carry three things in my pockets: keys, wallet, phone. I don't want my phone to become my wallet (I'm always going to need somewhere to put cash, identity cards, scraps of paper, postage stamps, receipts etc so I need a wallet anyway) and I certainly don't want it to become my keys.

Olympics security cockup down to software errors - report

Re: Yeah ... riiight

The £50m loss is just that, a £50m loss on the entire contract. Not a £50m reduction in contract value.

Any money they get for the staff they do provide will be wiped out by the extra costs they have to pay for the armed services, police etc they are having to rope in.

Hence why its share price has fallen so much.

Re: Yeah ... riiight

Except that they *are* going to have to pay for the troops, and will therefore make a loss on the contract.

New electronic labels squeal to spare you from food poisoning

Will every milk bottle

become WEEE?

Top spook: ISP black boxes NOT key to UK's web-snoop plan

Re: The bottom line

By "comms data" they mean "Joe Bloggs sent a message to John Smith at (date/time)". The sort of thing equivalent to checking telephone records to see that number x called number y.

This is different from intercepting the content of the communication (the equivalent of tapping the phone call).

Banks only care that the content of the messages are private, not that the details of the communications are private.

Being a skinny is much more unhealthy than being fat – new study

Re: Well, as a fatty...

The body builder is perhaps a bad example as he is probably no "healthier" (you could probably outrun him...).

A pro rugby player may provide a better example of a fairly "healthy" heavy person (if you discount sports injuries in your measurement of "health"...)

"Study based on bollocks measurement proves I'm right"

If, as the author asserts, BMI is a largely useless measurement (which I am inclined to agree with) then you can't also say "being skinny is much more unhealthy than being fat".

Firstly, body weight is NOT necessarily linked that closely to "fatness" (which is partly why BMI is a crap metric). You can be skinny and also have a fairly high percentage of body fat; you can also be heavy and have a low or normal percentage of body fat (e.g. many athletes). Further, two skinny people with the same % body fat could still have different health levels - one may exercise regularly, the other not; one may smoke, the other not, etc. The same applies to people at the other end of the BMI scale.

So yes, BMI is a fairly useless measure. And therefore the conclusion in the headline isn't really accurate.

UK is first class for train Wi-Fi in Europe

Sounds like you need...

a new job.

New gov.uk site hits beta, flashes SINGLE typeface to punters

Web fonts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Open_Font_Format

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_OpenType

Typeface

doesn't look like Cabin (http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/Cabin)

Looks very like the Transport font used on roadsigns. Which is great on roadsigns (which is what it was designed for) but is not so good for paragraphs of text on a web page. It makes the whole thing look a little like a book designed for toddlers.

Other than that, the layout looks nice.

Who runs UK? 'Tories, Lib Dems and Google' says Labour

The past is the past

If all politicians adopted "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" then they'd all be sat around silently and not doing anything at all.

Actually.....

Google Maps takes shelter from the British summer

Re: Olympic...?

It is quite daft, the whole "don't mention the Olympics unless you're a sponsor" thing, and has led to a whole new set of euphemisms.

There's dozens of adverts referring to "the Games". The most obtuse I've come across is the radio advert asking you to give blood before "this summer's big event".

Natwest, RBS: When will bank glitch be fixed? Probably not today

Pro tip

Have two accounts, at different and unrelated banks, so you can always get some money somehow.

Mobile device enslavement a plague on British workers' health

six to seven hour days?

Every job I've ever worked has had nominal day somewhere between 7.5 and 8 hours. Where are all these slackers working?

Gov mulls ban on wallet-draining charges for card payments

Re: Paypal might be screwed too

"is any less than" should of course be "is any *more* than"

Re: Paypal might be screwed too

No it doesn't - have you ever used Paypal? They charge the retailer a fee, which the retailer normally absorbs/incorporates into their list price. The gov't isn't saying that banks and card payment providers can't charge a fee to retailers, rather that the retailer can't pass a surcharge to the customer which is any less than the amount the card payment provider charges the retailer...

Re: What's the problem?

These fees prevent a free market - one in which goods and services are easily compared - because they are normally hidden in the small print or not shown until you are somewhere in the checkout process. So the "headline" price of the item can't easily be compared.

That new 'Microsoft GCSE': We reveal what's in it

Anyone with a proper education in computer science

can program competently in several different languages, and is not afraid to learn another (and can quickly do so).

Of course a GCSE level course isn't going to teach kids that much depth, but it's still important to realse the distinction between "learning the basics of how to program in <insert language>" and "learning the basics of how to develop software". If they are taught the *reasons* for why they are doing what they are doing, rather than simply being allowed to bash together chunks of code until they have something that seems to work, then they will find it much easier to adapt to other languages in the future.

Aga cooks up phone-controlled 'iOven'

Re: Confused

Lots of ovens (maybe only electric ones) have time switches, the expectation being you put your tea in the oven and time it to come on at the appropriate moment for it to be perfectly cooked at the time you get home.

Unless you put something inappropriate in the oven it's perfectly safe.

BBC shrinks Red Button: Loses 8 channels after the Olympics

Re: As an old fart...

The "normal" channel IDs are, on freeview at least, 301 and 302. They do show in the EPG: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pressred/2009/03/epgfor301and302.shtml

UK milk wastage = 20,000 cars = actually completely unimportant

So, if I drink MORE milk

less will be wasted?

Carriers, prepare to bleed: EU pops a cap on data roaming

How about the rest of the world?

I'm currently roaming in the US with my UK T-mobile phone.

My phone has selected T-mobile US as the network.

Calls still cost me £1.20 a minute to make or receive. Yikes!

I know this is less of a concern for the EU but they could still regulate EU networks somehow.

Re: Text prices

With rates getting lower you could be better off using a foreign PAYG mobile than a domestic one!

Telly is becoming moving wallpaper for constantly online Brits

"engaging" TV

Is not "interactive" crap that you can tweet along to.

It's decent, well-made, well-scripted drama; interesting, exciting and well-presented documentary (about things of actual interest rather than Channel 4 freak shows); actual in-depth current affairs rather than soundbytes and shouting; and so on. Proper telly - like what we used to have before it was diluted with channels full of nothing.

Interestingly the Americans at least find the budgets for decent drama, even if their first-run viewing figures are less than the typical episode of Corrie in the UK...

iTunes fanbois outraged by Apple's sex-life quiz probe

Create a scheme

Choose a password e.g. "carrot"

What is your favourite car? carrotcar

What is your dog's name? carrotdog

Where were you first kissed? carrotkiss

etc.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS: Like it or not, this Linux grows on you

Maybe there is a plan and they are "working towards it each release".

Back in the real world, some of us want an OS we can use day in, day out without too many problems. Ubuntu pre-Unity was great. Since Unity it's been much less great. Maybe they do have a grand plan and it'll be wonderful eventually but why should we endure so much pain in the meantime? Using an OS shouldn't feel like you're driving through miles of 40mph contraflows on a motorway while they do maintenance work.

Re: Shame, really

Oh look you've just re-invented the text terminal. And pipes.