Posts by Pypes

Everything Everywhere ponders discrimination by packet

"Capitalism" at work

Isn't the free market meant to push us ever closer to commodity data tariffs, with healthy competition driving prices downward until they are a mere fraction more than the cost of providing the service? Id have said that both the UK mobile and fixed line data markets are pretty dam healthy and yet we keep moving further away from the "dumb pipe" commodity data of yesteryear and ever towards complex bundles and traffic shaping under the guise of consumer choice and responsible network management.

I wouldn't be surprised if ISP's started thinking that "you get 10 gig a month data allowance, but unlimited access to anyone who happens to have co-located with us" looked like a hell of an easy idea to market, and all of a sudden unrestricted internet access becomes a premium service.

Three bumps up mobile broadband contract charge

but what about the fiscally retarded?

A lot of people nowadays (I'm going to suggest these are primarily 'young' people) have come to expect that they will be able to get the latest bells-and-whistles smartphone, generous voice, text and data allowances AND a playstation 3 when they sign up for their mobile contract, and all for the low low price of £29.99 / month for 24 months ("24 months, well that like not even a year")

Won't you please think of the (technically 'adult') children.

Diary of a Not-spot: One man's heroic struggle for broadband

Parabolic reflectors much?

2 prime focus satellite dishes and some off the shelf USB dongles and I would like to think a 5km link with LoS would be relatively easy, I've read of people doing similar things over much longer distances. If attenuation isn't an issue with 5.8 Ghz I would have thought you'd be fine at 2.4.

Captain hindsight to the rescue.

Russia wins World Cup bid in parrot-sickening travesty

We were never going to win

It just feels so much classier taking a bribe of a high class Russian prostitute than some English bloke in a business suit, we didn't have a cat in hells chance.

Axl Rose sues Activision

I really don't know how to feel about this

I can't decide who I hate more tbh, Axl Rose or Activision. I suppose I best just sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

Virgin demands ISPs end broadband speed 'con'

@ AC

The implication being that people aren't already doing so, or are prepared to do so. VM broadband is far from the cheapest on the market, and their 50 meg customers are already paying a premium (£35 /month according to the website) for a premium pipe, only now they are being subjected to the same "oh, you didn't actually think you could use it how and when you wanted did you?" traffic management / shaping as everybody else. I think they are perfectly entitle to complain about not getting what they were paying for.

UK.gov ignores 'net neutrality' campaigners

Technical incompetence again

Im sure the ISP's sold this to ministers in a nice abstracted fashion that somehow made it look like they were acting in the best interest of their customers. But surely even a technical dunce can see that the only alternative to "best effort across the board" is "slow down everything we aren't getting paid twice to transport" and adds another layer of excuses between poor performance for the end user and lack of investment in network infrastructure,

"You can't stream HD because google is too cheap to pay for prioritized bandwidth, it's got absolutely nothing to do with chronic oversubscription"

Is a society where the people tasked with making policy have some basic technical understanding of the areas for which they are responsible really a dream too far?

3 starts killing off 2G coverage

What 2G only handsets?

I brought the cheapest unlocked handset <large supermarket> stocked in order to replace my phone from 3 after their insurance refused to pay out ( apparently having your phone insured against theft doesn't actually mean they will replace it when your jacket gets stolen from work)

I got a text off 3 soon after firing up the new phone telling me I couldn't use a none-3g phone on their network, a few days it just stopped working. Lets just say I won't be signing any more contracts with them.

'Pervy' private chat case springs back into life

Thanks guys

I just love how my taxes are being used to erode my civil liberties while violent criminals are walking the streets, and in an in a period of austerity too. Great jobs there lads.

Virgin Media begins 100Mb upgrades

They ain't laying cable no more son

Ive heard a lot of anecdotal tales (I work in construction BTW) that VM just flatly refuse to lay cable in new build estates, to the extent that some firms have stopped bothering to ask them.

If you consider that VM brought up all the HFC infrastructure along with a metric fuckton of debt then I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that they are either unwilling or fiscally unable to lay any new cable. If this is the case then is essentially doing an extended liquidation, they may be lording it up over ADSL now, but when BT or whoever start rolling out FTTH then they are pretty boned, DOCSIS tops out at 300Mbps IIRC.

Blockbuster winds itself into Chapter 11

Chin up mate

Ive got a friend who lives in the arse end of nowhere and her local spar (pretty much the only shop in the village apart from a chippy and a pizza place) carries quit a good library of DVD's / Games to rent and buy. I wouldn't be surprised if there are local retailers just gagging to fill the gap left by blockbuster, especially considering your average gamer is now in his mid 20's and has deep pockets.

What is the point of continuing?

Blockbuster brought out it's only real highstreet competitor in the UK - Choices, years ago and then proceeded to shut 90% of them down. Since then they have transformed themselves into an overpriced video games / dvd retail outlet that just happens to have a sideline in rentals.

If they can't turn a profit from rentals despite having what essentially amounts to a monopoly on the bricks-and-mortar rental market, and they are either unwilling or unable to compete with places like HMV or Game on price then why bother continuing to run the business? I know this may not be the case for their presumably much larger US arm, but here in the UK I would say liquidation is the only (fiscally) responsible option.

HDMI tunes into 3D TV broadcasts

fuck me

I forgot about my AV receiver, things just got expensive. This 3d shit can wait a few years.

Apple's mini DisplayPort added to Vesa standard

I will own something that uses this exactly when?

I still don't even own a monitor that has a DVI input, despite having just brought a nice 22'' 1080p one from LG. My TV's are quite content with the usual collection of HDMI and component sources and I'll be dammed if I'm buying another one until they are long settled on exactly how 3D TV is going to play out (Here's me with a nice newish 50'' 600Hz plasma thinking they are going to support peoples existing tech and go frame progressive, but then everyone seems to be shifting towards polarized LCD's, I'll be dammed if I'm going back to an LCD TV)

I can't see people shifting from HDMI any time soon seeing as how it's now the de-facto connector for there considerable investment in high def AV equipment, and is widely supplied on PC's and laptops. DVI was a joke and wouldn't even support the resolutions of it's day unless you used weird dual link leads. It's also a bit ironic that in these days of digital everything it's the analog (15 pin D sub VGA, component HD etc) that seem to "just work"

Nokia N86 8Mp cameraphone

Another camera designed by the marketing department

When will phone manufacturers learn that you can't put OMGWTF8MEGAPIXEL CCD's behind pound-shop quality optics and expect the photos to be anything but shit. If you want to market a phone to people who desire something other than a utility camera then your going to have to be content to make it considerably larger.