* Posts by Kevin O'Rourke

20 publicly visible posts • joined 7 May 2007

Can 4G feature phones rise again on the back of QVGA, thin clients, and remote browsers?

Kevin O'Rourke

Everything old is new again. This is just Opera Mini (from 2005). Unless their thin client is basically VNC they'll have problems with getting the modern Javascript-heavy web to work on it, which is probably why they're focusing on developer outreach and specially-designed sites.

Sweden's 'Doomsday Prep for Dummies' guide hits mailboxes today

Kevin O'Rourke

Re: The cold war made Sweden somewhat prepared already

Unfortunately they stopped making builders include shelters in new buildings since the early 2000s. So my 2008ish apartment building has no shelter.

China reveals space weather radar it claims represents a breakthrough

Kevin O'Rourke

Overenthusiastic PR?

It sounds like they've just built several fairly standard SuperDARN radars, to join the ones that other countries have been running since the late 80s. From the pictures it looks like they're using a different type of antenna compared to the older radars. That's probably good because the original antenna towers are a maintenance nightmare, especially if you're in a location with strong winds or a couple of metres of snow accumulation per year.

Maybe they're doing something exciting with the electronics or they just think they've made an important discovery in upper atmospheric physics?

Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

Kevin O'Rourke

Re: I'm actually on Musk's side on this

Nobody is forcing a union on employees who don't want to join one. In Sweden joining a union (or not) is an individual matter but it's also not up to the employer whether employees get to join one.

Since you admit you don't have the full facts maybe you should read about the Swedish model for industrial relations? It has been very successful and one of the core parts is that it's up to employers (or employers associations) and unions to negotiate, with the state only guaranteeing people's basic rights.

Tesla sues Swedish government after worker rebellion cripples car biz

Kevin O'Rourke

Re: Tesla should deal

Fortunately this is happening in Sweden, not the USA. There's no need for any votes or organising activities. Individuals are free to join the union, or not. You can't be prevented from joining a union by your employer strong-arming your colleagues into voting against unionisation.

Everyone is covered by the collective agreement (at sane companies that are part of one) regardless of whether they're a union member.

Google's browser security plan slammed as dangerous, terrible, DRM for websites

Kevin O'Rourke

Re: The Good Old Days of Opera

The problem was that it was an enormous battle to keep Opera's rendering engine compatible once websites decided that all they needed to support were Chrome and Safari. For a small company (relative to Google and Apple) it really wasn't sustainable to keep up with both accidental (bugs) and deliberate (browser sniffing) incompatibilities.

Keir Starmer's techno-fix for the NHS: Déjà vu disaster or brave new blunder?

Kevin O'Rourke

There is no national system in Sweden, every region runs its own healthcare and chooses their own patient records system. There's been some gradual standardisation as more and more regions switch to Cambio's Cosmic system and away from ones that are even worse. Unfortunately they're all heavily customised and moving records from region to region is usually still done on paper.

Beardy Branson: Wacky hyperloop tube maglev cheaper than railways

Kevin O'Rourke

Here in Sweden we have double-decker trains running at 125 mph. The French have the TGV duplex with a maximum speed of almost 200 mph.

The problem isn't the speed, it's that you need a much bigger loading gauge for double-deckers to be practical.

Vigilantes R US: Private enterprise takes over

Kevin O'Rourke
Thumb Down

Suspicion = Guilt?

There's at least one case here where they've included someone who was released without charge:

http://www.theratbook.com/Articles/Article/more_arrests_in_terror_operation

I also noticed that they don't credit the source of the articles.

3G iPhone disassembled, photographed

Kevin O'Rourke

Re: Ooooooo

"Barely a millimetre of wasted space, efficient design, amazing what they pack in."

It's nothing special, look inside any mobile phone and you'll see the same thing. Sony Ericsson phones are usually a good example of clever layout and design of the internals.

What's going to power Small, Cheap Computers?

Kevin O'Rourke

Showing your age?

"an external VDU"

I've not heard or seen the term VDU used since the 80's, thought it had died out. For me it always conjures up images of rooms full of DEC green-screen terminals.

British workaholics win EU opt out deal

Kevin O'Rourke

@Frederick Karno

"criminals and terrorists have more human rights than hard working people in this country"

Wrong. Everyone has the same human rights, that's the way human rights work.

You just disagree with certain people having those rights.

Swedish authorities pull plug on female Elvis

Kevin O'Rourke
IT Angle

Tax Board and choice of names

The tax board (Skatteverket) here in Sweden has a load of extra jobs as well as just dealing with taxes. Among other things they're responsible for population registration.

See (in English):

http://www.skatteverket.se/omskatteverket/allmantomskatteverket/paandrasprak/engelska.4.7856a2b411550b99fb780009630.html

GSM jumps from the pocket to the desk top

Kevin O'Rourke
Thumb Down

Definitely nothing new

Chinese companies turn these things out in huge quantities. They're very common in developing countries, either as roadside "business centres" or in offices.

The one discribed in this article seems to be distinguished only by some extra PR trying to flog the thing to the "enterprise" and an exceptionally high price. I'd guess the hardware is just a badged version of a Chinese product.

African human-powered lighting plan announced

Kevin O'Rourke

Kerosene IS that bad

@Brian Miller: You're probably thinking of pressurised kerosene lamps (aka Tilley lamps), which are fairly efficient and produce a bright white light (although they're pretty noisy and hot).

In West Africa those are seldom found and very expensive, instead you have the old-fashioned kero lamps with a cloth wick: smoky, inefficient and only capable of producing a dim and flickery light.

Mandriva bigwig (nearly) accuses Ballmer of b-word

Kevin O'Rourke
Alert

Nigerian government links with MS

It's unclear whether the Mandriva deal was with the Nigerian federal government, a state government or a local government. If it's the Federal Government then they already have a deal with MS, so they wouldn't pay any extra to install XP on those systems.

Microsoft also encourages the use of its products by providing 'free' training courses for Federal Government employees. It's likely that some money is diverted to senior officials as well, that's just the way business is done there (not too different from here, just more blatant).

There are two good reasons for using Windows in education in Nigeria:

1. Somebody is going to have to maintain those systems. They're much more likely to be familiar with Windows than some Linux distro. Local knowledge of Linux is very limited.

2. Users know what applications they want to use. In particular Microsoft Word and Corel Draw. People want the 'genuine' product, not what they regard as a 'fake' substitute. Windows apps are also what children are much more likely to encounter outside school.

I've just completed two and a half years working in IT in Nigeria. My enthusiasm for spreading Linux was rapidly worn down by the realities there.

'I Go Chop Your Dollar' star arrested

Kevin O'Rourke

It's not bed English...

..it's Pidgin. There are lots of English words in Pidgin but the grammar is completely different.

As an example, there's the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pidgin (http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/pcm.htm), which begins:

"Dem recognise say human beings get dignity wey dey with us and rights wey go make all of us friendly with each other, so tay, we all come be like one family. Na dis be di foundation of our freedom and peace wey de for di whole world."

NHS staff bemoan NPfIT problems

Kevin O'Rourke

But there are nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

NHS England is separate from NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Care NI.

Maybe you should check your facts before calling other people fools?

Biofuels are the 'next environmental danger'

Kevin O'Rourke

... the Co-op

WarrenG: maybe you should have read the article? The study was by the Co-operative Insurance Company, who don't have links to oil companies and adopt a generally ethical approach to company behaviour and investment.

Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't mean there's a huge conspiracy going on.

Nivio betas hosted Windows

Kevin O'Rourke

Not so useful for developing countries

This might be a good solution for developing countries, if it weren't for the fact that building the kind of infrastructure needed is expensive, difficult and takes time.

PCs are easily available and parts are available for repairs. Also, once you've bought it there are no recurring costs (assuming zero maintenance, which is the usual case).

For example, here in Nigeria we're stuck with erratic and slow dial up or satellite internet. Satellite has problems with latency (we're talking at least 650ms). Dial up only works when the landlines do, they're frequently off due to strikes, poor maintenance or no adequately explained reason.