Posts by EvilGav 1 433 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
No, never, absolutely not.
At the current point, nobody has any idea unless I tell them what my preferences are for web browsing, which is as it should be. Anything that limits that access should have to be opt-in to get it - you don't opt-in to gani civil or human rights, they are there regardless, you have to make a conscious choice to have any of them removed (by commiting a crime or whatever).
No legislation should ever be passed that puts the onus on people to have to opt-in to gain more freedom, similarly no legislation should be passed to limit the majority on the say-so of the minority - there are more adult houses without children than there are with.
More-over, the use of the word "filter" is just a friendly way to say "censor" - anybody who is actively requesting that the web is censored for everyone in the UK is insane or possibly a sociopath.
I have an NC-10 and the main reason for buying it was because I didn't want to lug around a 3KG laptop and I wanted something that I could chuck in my back-pack for hand luggage etc.
The fact that the spec's for these machines have stayed static more or less since they were released (once we hit 10.1 screens and ~ 160GB HDD), with no major differentiation in price over the same time period.
One of the best tech purchases i've ever made and certainly not something that i'd look to replace with a tablet (even with a keyboard).
I guess once it dies i'll have to just deal with the weight (no way am I paying the price for an "ultra" book).
The more interesting point is with any children in the UK that have bought anything through iTunes - a child in the UK is not allowed to enter into a contract, without their parents consent, and even then there are various catches and trips.
They most certainly are *not* allowed to enter a contract to licence something (anything) - which means any child using a prepaid iTunes card on their own account, has been illegally sold items by Apple . . .
To all the haters because the OP mentioned he works in IT.
I too work in the industry, as a programmer and occasionally as an analyst, having had the misfortune to use iTunes on occasion I can understand the frustration - I found it to be an annoying incomprehensible pile of crap, that refused to let go control. To be honest, I can say much the same about Windows Media Player as well, although that doesn't try quite so hard to force me to use it's ecosystem.
Working in IT, I also have many friends who work in the industry, some of whom are Apple afficianados, some aren't. More than one have at times complained about iTunes and their Apple kit, most noticably the horrendous time it takes to sync your collection to the cloud (several days, according to the few people I know who've tried it with large collections).
What Apple got right, was the UI on the iPod - beyond that I cant give them any credit, since the software required on your PC is attrocious.
Same thing happened with 2G FRAND patents, Apple refused to pay the FRAND fee *every* other mobile company in the world was paying and claimed they should get a special discount - no reason, just that's what they thought they should get.
That's what happens when you're the last technology company in the world to start making phones - everyone else has masses of IP that is essential to phones and lots involved in FRANDS that the old players don't really pay that much to each other - the FRAND licences all balance out. Apple clearly didn't like the idea of paying out money and threw a strop for a number of years before finally paying up.
Since 3G and 4G are in the same boat, pretty much the same is going to happen.
If all what you said is true, why did London feel a need to further increase the congestion charge? Why does every city still have traffic issues every day? Why do I still see lots of people smoking? etc etc continue ad-nauseum.
The demand for all things that require a payment is inelastic, as price increases demand decreases. The important point is that it isn't linear. To achieve the stated goal - cutting consumer consumption - would require a significant increase, magnitudes higher than 50p.
As an illustration, think about a pay rise, most people get one annually. If the pay rise is not significant - <5% - the monetary change seems to make no difference; it takes a magnitude change - >10% - before any significant change in circumstances is witnessed. The same is true of penal taxation.
Given that the main reason for buying new hardware was/is due to the current hardware no longer coping with current needs (whether they be gaming or business), then this is hardly surprising - at home I run a quad-core machine that's nearly 5 years old and is only just reaching the point where the main components (motherboard, CPU and memory) need replacing/updating. The same is true here in my office - there still are no quad-core machines and most of the hardware is at least 2 years old.
The rapidity with which CPUs moved into a multi-core architecture, it for about the first time completely outstripped the vast majority of softwares needs.
Neither businesses nor home users are looking to replace anything that isn't already quite old. Couple this with the trebling of HDD prices, subsequently pushing up OEM PCs by a margin and it's no wonder nothing is selling from the big box manufacturers.
Finally, add in that we are in a recession and the majority of companies and people are looking at every conceivable way to save money (making hardware last longer saves companies millions) and you start to wonder why anyone is even surprised by this.
I use Steam and Origin (nee EADM nee DM), cant say as i've had all the issues you seem to have had.
Over 100 games on the Steam library and any issues have been quickly resolved.
As for buying software from a retailer - i've also never had any issues. The minimum and recommended specs are almost universally listed for software, I don't buy anything where my PC spec is closer to minimum than recommended and consequently don't have any issues.
If you meet the minimum and no more, expect problems - minimum means just that, it may just about work, in an ideal world. It will not likely be a good experience though.
Finally, the worst experience i've had for buying software, is on the high-street. Rip-off pricing and a no-refund policy
"Are the console makers having a chilling effect on the the game developers?"
Actually, yes.
Games development on consoles is basically static, but because the market is more lucrative, it's the market publishers want the games developers to focus on.
For a decade gaming resolution increased every couple of years, as the predominant hardware got better - we're now in a situation where the same resolution has been used for 5+ years, as the consoles are dictating the available hardware limitations.
Creating a closed, albeit lucrative, ecosystem ultimately stagnates development - you chase money alone.
Sod laptops or tablets, where are the desktop screens? Normally you start with a big screen and high resolution and gradually shrink it - affordable desktop monitors are 1080p (horrible shape for a monitor) or 1920x1200, anything above that moves into the silly money category.
If you can make what amounts to a complete micro-PC for ~£500, with a resolution of 2500x1600 @ 11" or thereabouts, then I should be able to buy a 24" monitor of the same resolution for around half the price (it's cheaper when it's not small).
It goes further than that.
Since Intel released the Core 2 Quad 5 years ago, CPU power hasn't increased dramatically in that time, sure we have newer, lower power chips that do make *some* difference, but not enough to warrant the expense of new motherboard, memory and CPU.
The other reason, the big driver behind bigger, newer, better, faster PC's in the home was gaming and almost all AAA games titles are optimised for consoles, usually the 360 which renders most games natively at 720p and upscales. If the game manufacturers aren't pushing for the hardware, why do users need it.
You've also got the pressure on Microsoft to write an OS that *doesn't* require massive increases in hardware - after the many complaints of Vista, due to it's out the box settings requiring much better hardware, Win 7 runs on hardware not much different from XP.
So, if the drive for hardware doesn't exist, why would people buy it until the current system breaks?
What does he mean by bespoke? The addition of another table in the db structure to hold unique data for one area, with the requisite security controls to only allow them to access or a unique input/output screen for an area pulling data from various points in the db??
There also seems to be a little muddle in what he's saying - is this to be a db for creating stats or is it going to be used for data entry?? The two can be done from the same source, but it's horribly wasteful and inefficient.
Having 2 data repositories would also make releasing data much easier - an internal db with all information on it and one with external links with only statistically relevant data (so no names and no addresses below postcode). At which point the data isn't personal and can be released at any point.
"debunked" is rather a strong term - given that prior to the likes of Amazon, Play et al offering the much wider ranges than HMV et al ever managed to offer on the high street and given that these hugely diverse ranges have only really become common knowledge and simply part of the landscape over the last decade, debunked goes too far.
Even with these distribution centres, it's actually still very difficult to obtain some albums that don't fulfill the record companies' view of what we should be buying. The long-tail argument can only stand up *if* it's actually possible to buy the product - which is frequently not the case.
The other side of the argument, of course, is that if the "long-tail" is debunked, why have the media companies pushed for ever longer copyright terms in their favour? If there is no long-tail, why the need for 70 years copyright, since obviously nobody wants it after the initial rush.
Now, your argument falls apart completely on your first line. If you take a comparable laptop, it will have the same components inside it; if you compare a $2 wine to a $40 wine, they wont have the same contents, hence the price difference.
Which would be why everyone thinks Apple are even more of a rip off today than they ever were, the contents of the boxes are as close to identical so as not to matter, but the price is anywhere up to twice that of the competition. Now, the top flight stuff from Apple with it's "retina" displays *may* be able to command a premium, but thats it.
As for your final, throw-away comment, i'll give you Aldi and the bargain basement, but Skoda ? You are aware that what's underneath was originally an Audi and then a VW, before becoming a Skoda? The A3, Golf and Octavia all share a common floor pan, engines and electrics. Why wouldn't I tell someone to buy one?
CEOP themselves have actually admitted that there are no "big league criminals" involved in the kiddie fiddling game, in fact when pressed they even went so far as to admit that there is very little "new" kiddie porn appearing on a regular basis - it's apparently mostly rehashed again and again.
The why would seem to be obvious - it is an extremely emotive subject matter, almost universally condemned and there are much easier illegal activities that pay more (drugs would seem to be the obvious one).
As with everthing, follow the money - no-one gets involved without knowing how they are going to make it and how they can convert it into a legitimate source.
Given that Operation Ore managed to convict a number of people wrongly with apparently strong evidence, i'm pretty sure this endeavor is about to ruin a number of lives.
Also, we are told variously that the pedo rings exist and continue based on anonymity and obfuscation, something that rings all too true about Anonymous themselves.
The aim may be laudable, but it has a high chance of actually doing more damage than good - if the sites are known, hand them to the FBI and let them run as another honey-pot operation (again), with confirmed chains of evidence.
But that, right there, is the problem.
I take your open point that we don't know definitively the situation, but the assertion on not knowing is that the end result will be catastrophe doesn't stand up, which is the problem.
The theory (i'll not be so biased as to use "claim" or any other loaded word) goes that we're not far from hitting a feedback loop that will be inescapable in destroying the human friendly climate we currently enjoy, some have even gone so far as to posit we'd end up with a Mars like world afterwards.
I agree wholheartedly that we have climate change, I've just not been persuaded that humans have had any significant impact on it (again, note, i'm not saying we have had no impact, just no significant impact).
No, all tablets are shaped like they are because that's the size and shape screens are made. For viewing material on a screen, a rectangular shape is the most convenient shape for the screen, any curves around the edge would be wasting space.
Everything beyond that is based around how small you can make the electronics to fit behind the screen and the interface requirements of the OS.
I have a Dell Axim x51v (bought in 2006, with a 2 year old design), it required hardware buttons to interact with Windows Mobile, but beyond that it's design isn't a million miles from the iPad or how about a Dell Latitude XT, announced in 2007? Looking at only the front surface, when set in tablet mode - how different is that from the iPad?
The claim is that they look the same from a single view-point and not too close to read the name - you could do much the same with the side view of a Jaguar XK8 and an Aston Martin DB7.
Sorry, I didn't read anywhere that said it would run well, just that it was supported.
And MS *did* give you an indication of whether Vista would run, the fact that a number of manufacturers chose to be less than honest was another matter entirely - selling a machine with XP installed and a "Vista Ready" sticker, when it actually only covered minimum requirements was hardly being honest.
As with this story, there was/is a web page that will give/gave you a Vista score - if you're at the lower half, why did you upgrade?
I don't really care what OS anyone uses and the stupid baiting is pointless, use what you want/need for a given situation. All 3 have their place and uses, all have their respective positives and negatives.
It's exactly what i've been wanting - if the Kindle Fire had been released over here, i'd have got that.
I don't need a 10" display, if I want a larger display i'll use my Netbook, it's the 7"/Kindle sized display I was looking for - plus in colour for online graphic novels.
As for no 3G, why not just set your phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot and use that??
I think it's you that is jesting. I've yet to see my insurance costs decline in any significant way in over 20 years of motoring.
I had points on my licence many many years ago, it added £20 a year to my insurance.
Never been at fault in an accident - the only 2 that my car was involved in whilst I was in it were rear enders, oddly at the same round-about both times, though 10 years or so apart; the other 2 were whilst the car was parked and were hit & run. In all cases my premiums went up.
The day I see my insurance actually go down (and I mean go down without having to shop round different companies to find a better deal), I think I will actually have a heart attack.
As others have stated, you assume that the component can be made as cheap as your average Android phone*. It can probably actually be made cheaper, since it doesn't have to do anything like what your smart-phone does.
However, here's the big thing that makes it expensive - it still has to work after the vehicle has been involved in a crash at +70mph. The vast majority of items on the car do not have to do this - deform and save the occupants yes, but not still work after that sort of impact. It has to keep working no matter how badly damaged the vehicle it's in is, that means needing redundant power-sources, redundant aeriels etc etc etc.
The question is - how did they come to the conclusion that such a device would save this many lives?
* why would you use Android anyway? The generally agreed most reliable *phone* is the Nokia 3310, you don't need anything more than a 2G connection to make a call and/or send a text message.
. . . but the patent seems to be about the combination of two concepts/technologies together.
Unified search predates the Apple filing (IIRC was this not something that MS did and had all the litigation/anti-trust regarding what constitutes the desktop/OS etc etc?).
Heurisitic algorithms predate the filing (Alta Vista was doing this a number of years before the filing).
Further, i'm pretty sure that the "Search" button in Windows 98 did both of these things, pulling data from the web and from a local PC.
So, what, exactly does this facility do that is unique and new?
But Steam does allow you to transfer games now between other users, so the point is moot.
They *don't* have to create a mechanism to allow you to sell them, that is most definitely not their problem and this ruling doesn't cover that in any way - it only states that you have the right to sell on the software you paid for, not that the supplying company has to provide that mechanism.
Congratulations!!
I was reading down the comments to see if anyone mentioned this. The number of issues that are caused by a faulty PSU as opposed to any other component is astonishing.
Never, ever, ever scrimp on the PSU - if it cant hit within ~5% of the voltage it's meant to be putting out, then it's no use for OCing.
As for the big box manufacturers being more reliable - oh really? My office has exclusively HP and Compaq machines, at one point one of them were building machines with bad PSUs, any desktop problem resulted in a new PSU as they were known as the most likely cause of problems - it got to the point that the engineers carried lots of them around all the time.
Conversely I build and overclock my own machines (and those of friends). My current main machine ran for around 4 years before I saw the first BSOD (driver conflict) and has had a maximum up time of around 90 days before I needed to restart it.
In response to the varied comments of "why didn't management listen to staff?" - because they never do. Especially, it seems, not to IT staff.
I remember personally writing a report, explaining changes that needed to be made to one of our information systems, which got ignored for a number of years, right until management paid for an external "consultant" to come and decide what we needed. They more or less re-headed my report and charged £50,000 or so for the months work (this was over a decade ago).
Today, in the same company, in a different part of IT, warnings regarding off-shoring are being ignored and the cracks are beginning to show - in about 6 - 12 months quite a lot of our senior management will be out of a job (no doubt with golden parachutes) and leave behind a mess that will cost multiple times the cost to fix.
Ok, let's just cool off and remove that tin-foil hat a little.
In your little playlet, you have a number of companies (and a government agency or two) colluding and sharing data to come to that conclusion - a store card, a credit card, the DVLA, the Severn Bridge authority (whoever that is), Toys-R-Us and Apple.
Now i'm quite happy that not all companies are whiter than white, i'm also ok with using my Nectar card, afterall, that was my choice to get one and use it. And that, my friend, is the big point here - I choose to use a store card, I choose which credit or debit card I use, I choose whether to go to a petrol station and use a store card etc etc etc. I at no point chose to have a foreign company drive down my street and photograph everything and slurp data while it did so.
IIRC Z80 basic had an inverse variation of this in 1982 - it would highlight out of context code while you wrote it.
If that's not valid enough, then look at the prior art in the act of copying/pasting - you get a context relevant menu once you've hightlighted the item.
The problem in this case goes further than the broken USPTO, it's the fact that companies are getting devices banned without actually having to go to court and prove the patent - the ITC bans the items and the company who's item is banned have to start court action. If Apple really believed this patent was valid, they'd pony up and put this in a court of law an prove their point.
. . . i'm under no obligation to even tell the police my true name and address until i'm arrested, taking someones fingerprints who *hasn't* been arrested smacks to me of a breach of fundamental human rights and the right to go about your business without undue harrassment.
You want my prints? Arrest me.
It's a fairly wide band of use, 30 minutes to 3 hours and what constitutes use? Is the 20 minutes to download the grumble flick included?
As others have said (and the author admitted), it is an extremely poor survey, based on a skewed initial view - you can change what the addiction is to anything and get the same results, i.e. a number of addicted people do it to the detriment of their job and life; a number would seek help; the number of addicts is skewed towards oen sex or the other and so on.
Focussing on smut is pointless, studying addiction and addictive behaviours in general might be a better idea. For example, why are some people more prone to being addicted than others?
Should probably remember that blu-ray was always going to be the next generation, but Toshiba threw the spanner in the works and created the competing HD-DVD format after they didn't like some aspect or other of BD (I forget now exactly why they didn't like it).
Sony weren't the ones going for spoiling tactics, Toshiba were.
I've owned loads of Sony kit over the years - all the Playstations (my first generation PS3 fat, with the 4 front USB ports and a flash card reader is still running smoothly), a Trinitron TV (which was only replaced when I went flat-screen, it's still working fine in a shared flat with some friends, after 15 years or so), home cinema system (again, still working after I sold it to a mate, which is more than can be said for my Marantz amp that is barely 3 years old). Plus more, but you get the idea.
That was fine, right up to the DMCA got involved, now it's a little murkier.
If jail-breaking in any way (N.B. I don't own an iThingy and have no intention of) requires the use of anything Apple decide is proprietary and secret, you fall foul of DMCA and they can quite happily void your warranty.
Also, the warranty and/or guarantee is based on using the device in the manner it was meant to be used or in a manner you were advised it could be used (the latter to cover people in shops who say "can I use x to do y", if the shop says you can and in reality you cant, you're covered). Arguably, given the iThingy doesn't have a big button on it that says "Jailbreak here", you aren't using it as intended and voiding the warranty may be applicable.
However, all this depends on precisely why you want to use your warranty - if it's because the device caught fire whilst you were making a phone call, arguably the warranty should still apply, irrespective of what you had done to the thing (unless what you did was to set it on fire whilst making a call).
Warranties worked very well when devices were one use items.
As many have said, the problem is rather more complicated than has been suggested.
The price isn't just for a connection speed, it's for all the fixed costs associated with having the hardware available to even make a connection - not including the line itself, which is frequently a seperate charge ~£11 (for ADSL based lines, Virgin is obv different).
Those fixed costs are mostly the same, wherever you are in the country and actually make up the bulk of the monthly cost - QED the monthly fee remains constant and is not based on the actual speed you get.
The other fixed costs include the payment for the backhaul, which is divided amongst all customers evenly also - should you also pay less if everything you access is on servers local to you and therefore you don't use the wider web ?
The analogy with calling it "up to 1KG of sugar" or some such doesn't work, simply because, in rural areas where this argument is trying to get traction, you pay *more* for the sugar than you would in a town with multiple hyper-markets competing.
Hang on, before the world of internet sales, the choice for the vast majority of people was a trip to the local book-shop, where you always paid the price on the back of the book.
Today, those local book-shops are few and far between (especially outside major metropolitan centres), but even where they do exist, they still mostly charge the price on the back of the book.
So, given that Amazon have all but killed off the compeition, why are the prices still as low as they are? Why aren't they doing the fleecing that everyone seems to expect?
No, I don't know the answer, but normally we only call out an evil corporation once it's actually doing something evil. Amazon have brought the cost of books down for most people and even provided a platform for smaller booksellers to sell out of print books (I know, i've bought a few of those) - all at lower than retail price.
Forgive me if I don't weep for those that Amazon closed down, they fleeced me for years on book pricing.
This being one of the OEMs that have raped the supply chain to the extent that the likes of Scan, eBuyer, Aria etc etc etc have at least doubled their prices.
Panic buying has caused the massive price rises - panic buying by OEMs so that their prices aren't overly afftected.
This is profiteering of the worst kind.
Or if we actually bother to learn our history, rather than spout "it was in the 80's therefore Thatcher was to blame", we should note that this amendment was originally raised by Lord Halsbury in 1986 and promoted in the Commons by Jill Knight.
It then went to a vote to be passed into law, which duly happened in the Commons in December 1987.
As for "not being able to talk to a teacher about sex", I never felt a need to do that and I was a teenager for a large proportion of the 80's. If the reasoning behind talking to a teacher was due to a lack of parent/child interaction, then the issue lies with your parents, not with the establishment (whether that be school or government) and not with anyone who did or didn't support this outdated law.
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