Posts by Magnus_Pym 1112 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jan 2010
I think there is a niche for Blackberry. All other phones are trying to be all things to all people and security is bound to suffer. Look at the problems of Apple and Android with apps gaining access to privileged data. There will always be a market for a 'real' business phone that can be managed, secured and controlled centrally. Microsoft/Nokia are going to try to grab that space by being tied in more closely to Win/Office but Rim are already there. Good decision by RIM.
"The future of Britain’s economy depends largely on the digital innovations occurring among the Silicon Roundabout community,"
That's a very small group to put all that burden on. Also I'm a bit saddened to learn that my work will never amount to anything as I work in another part of Great Britain.
Historically MS could charge a premium for Windows/Office because users needed them. Users needed them because of the lock-in created by a ubiquitous OS and proprietary tools. In other words MS hasn't had to compete. They could make big profits and use these profits to hold back the competition. They have built a huge wall around their user base and work very hard to keep it strong.
They know that it it only takes a little break in this wall to let all the users out. Once a significant number of people find they can exist without Windows/Office, and that significant number is quite small, then a viable option becomes apparent. As soon as that happens MS can no longer charge a premium. If they can't charge a premium then they can't afford to pay to protect the lock in. MS has to compete on product alone. To do this it must re-invent itself: Not easy for a big spending multinational used to having it's own way.
That is the challenge that Microsoft faces. Not dealing with the threat of other OS's but dealing with itself in this inevitable future.
Not so much panic as caution.
I slow down on the motorway when I see flashing lights up ahead. This is not 'Rubber necking'. It's just so I lower the risk of mowing down an emergency worker as I pass. If I see a flashing light in the mirror I get prepared to pull over to let an emergency vehicle pass. Anyway, if a police car is coming up fast behind you there is a chance that an idiot in a stolen car is coming up a bit sooner.
I agree in a way. I would have thought even the dumbest celbretard would have heard of hacked emails by now. Everyone should be aware that if you aren't ready to publish something on the web you shouldn't put it on a computer (those without access to a tame security consultant anyway).
Surely anyone who can earn big bucks posing for lad mags would know that naked (or semi-naked) pictures of them might be worth somebody's time to get hold of.
While it is true that going open source won't save the entire cost of the licenses. It is also true that the transfer costs reduce over time and use+input improves the breed. Licensing cost just keep going up.
Also some companies like change for change's sake to keep the product looking 'fresh'. New versions proprietary products are not free from 're learning' costs and can come bundled with 'features' that the buyer doesn't want. Would anyone here bet against idea that if MS Office were open source there would be a Non-Ribbon fork of the latest release by now?
"Over the past few months, pirates have exploited these programs and systems to obtain free or lower cost genuine product and have then resold at significant profit margins"
I wonder if there is any evidence that these 'pirates' resold at significant profit margins. In my experience stolen activation keys are usually being given away.
You forgot another bit:
"Nuclear power is not a priority as it would take too long to develop the industry to a point where I can walk into a hugely salaried directorship with a suitably pork barreled multinational when I retire from politics after a few short years of feathering my nest"
The problem is not how many apps are being developed but how good are the apps being developed. This is more problematic as it requires some assessment of quality as well as usefulness and profitability. How many of these developers are writing on genuinely new stuff and how many are just repackaging? How many are breaking new ground and how many are developing a front end for an existing retailer/manufacture/advertiser/coupon pusher/etc.
The 'early adopters' on any platform will, by definition, pay more for more apps of dubious quality: those who adopt expensive stuff doubly so. As the platform matures the early adopters move on and the easy money moves with them. Of course developers follow the money. Of course there are more developers of esoteric apps looking at newer platforms; it's a less crowded selling space.
As far as I can see this is not developers leaving sinking ships but critical mass having been achieved.
I for one look forward to the days when the BBC looks and feels exactly the same as all the other channels whose only motivation is to deliver our eyes and ears to the highest bidding advertiser. I might be worth it but they certainly aren't.
The reason for the license fee rather than central taxation is to take control out of the hands of the Government. Even so they now treat it as part of the general tax revenue and rip it off to pay for vanity projects like broadband rollout. I don't remember it being called 'TV and Broadband license' last time I brought it.
The Government should fund the BBC properly and leave them to get on with it I say.
"The net has exploded the myth that we'll pay for something even if we don't use it"
Except for Broadband provision. Yes, there are different prices based on what we think we need but we still pay the same even if we don't use it. In fact if we try to use all that we paid for we can get capped for unfair use. Also Car Insurance, Council provided social services, NHS when not ill, police who don't respond, Train subsidies, Politicians G&T's at the House of Commons. etc.
P.S. Anyone else still have bad dreams about the seminal work 'Blown to Bits' (Evans.P, Wurster) I was forced to read it for my degree course. The information was good but my good did you have to work to get at.
No need to worry. It's only a spoiler product:
MS Flunky: End Users all want tablets and but can't justify the extra cost of Wintel just so they can use Office.
MS Exec: Well we will have make Windows run on ARM and make MS Office work too.
MS Flunky: Will we need to do anything else?
MSExec: Who cares? We have met user expectations.
...HMRC, in common with a lot of the public sector have had expensive IT projects that fail utterly. their 'quality' could be defined as zero. They bring the average down. Therefore if all large public sector IT projects were cancelled then average 'quality' would actually increase.
... where does it go?
I Think the most interesting part is that the MINIMUM spec for a new PC is way above a supercomputer of only a few years ago. What does it need all that power for? A lot of it is fancy (and to my mind unnecessary) graphics and a lot goes in securing the thing against attack from outside. Every operation is checked and rechecked to make sure it poses no security risk. BUT all this checking is there because user (supposedly) want their PC to do inherently risky things and most of these risky things are there to make the OS look good; ("rich content", shudder).
"Considering the 'leccy for these comes from essentially the same fuel as cars do currently"
Currently is the operative word (as well as being a bad pun). Things may change in the future. If fossil fuels keep going up and widespread nuclear power comes on line an electric car may be the only affordable option.
... The 'customer' keeps changing every few months. The 'customers ideology is liable to a complete change every few years. It's a problem of career politicians and first-past-the-post government.
Firstly career politicians have no interest in the department they temporarily head, only in how it can help raise their profile. So they all like to make a big noise as they move in and then move on quickly. Hence frequent changes to large (news worthy) projects. Secondly first-past-the-post leads to wild swings in government and cabinets that control parliament entirely. This leads to huge and costly 'reviews' of all projects that often cancel or re-define every part of a department and the work being done for that department. This leads to government projects being a very specialized part of the industry. One in which taking additional funding to cover for political stupidity and signing hard and fast contracts against vague and wooly specification is the norm.
So what's the point? The only point of a large scale government IT contract is the headline it produces when initiated and the effect that has on the politicians career. After all the cabinet minister responsible will be retired on a tax free, index linked pension and have several lucrative directorships in the sort of private industries that take on government contracts by the time the project inevitably fails.
In order to get a seat with a table it is necessary find an unoccupied seat that was booked from an earlier station. These are the seats that are automatically booked with season tickets even though the users have no intention of traveling every day. The closer your station is to London the more difficult this becomes.
I've got a Nokia N8 with Symbian Belle and it is actually quite nice. Battery life is good. I can get through the week end with occasional calls (I usually charge it up weekday mornings as I use it all day at work). Built in sat nav, quite nice apps usable app available. nice camera.
Pity it's been killed off
If they believe in a market economy, as Microsoft often say they do, then they pay the price or shut up. If there aren't enough graduates then their value should command huge salaries thus stimulating more students to look to that career option. Or maybe they only like the bits of a market economy that benefit Microsoft.
On the other hand the government could target tax payers money into higher subsidies for University courses that provide skills that the country needs and less for those that don't. i.e. it becomes cheaper for the student to do medical, core science and engineering degrees than to take politics, economics, media etc.
In the 80's it was perhaps relevant to teach classes about 'computers' in the same way that people where knew about 'cars' in the 1900's: designing, building, maintaining and driving being all much the same thing back then. It wasn't many years later that thermodynamics, automotive design, production line management, garage mechanics and driving skills became different subjects.
By all means teach the equivalent of driving skills at school; I think of perhaps typing and the theory/practice of email/spreadsheets/databases and cyber security. But, to my mind anything much beyond that is a specialist subject these days. The territory of after school clubs and college courses.
It seems to me that in order to control the spin there must be air moving over a control surface. In order for that to happen the device must be moving relative to the air around it. In other words some sort of motive power is required. Would it add too much weight to have a solar panel/electric motor/propeller combo on one end of the truss and a large rudder on the other? The motor could kick in at the upper altitudes to stabilize the rig before launch.
I also add my vote to the design where a single string hangs down from the lifting force to a single central swivel. From the swivel two strings support the truss , one at each end. One of these string s is shorter than the other in order to set the whole truss at the required angle for launch. The rocket can be slung underneath on a short launch rail parallel to the truss. i.e. pointing upwards at the required launch angle.
If the balloon was long and thin cigar shape, Zeppelin style, it would be more aerodynamic in one direction and should find a stable situation relative to the wind. The shape would help stabilize the truss by hanging it from the front at the back of the zeppelin negating the need for different launch methods.
It might even be possible to construct a lightweight net which could hold a number of smaller balloons, constraining them to the required cigar shape. The number of balloons might mitigate against a fault in a single balloon bringing down the whole operation.
I wonder if they even know where Sheffield is. They appear to show a marked lack of knowledge, concern or respect for the world outside the M25. They appear to show a marked lack of knowledge, concern or respect for the world of online security.
Perhaps it's true what they say about London weighting: Wages weighted + 25%, IQ requirement weighted - 50%.
On a purely aesthetic perspective I find the 'before' more attractive. That, however, is a moot point as the make up wearing part of the population aren't doing it for me. They are doing for the women who put them down at every available opportunity and the flirty comments being over made up attracts.
I also find the adverts that say hair should be 'shiny' a bit annoying I think it looks like barbie doll nylon hair.
Microsoft's policy on the phone is to integrate it into the Wintel ecosystem so tightly that it becomes the default business phone. If the mobile(cell) becomes an extension of the business desktop then a typical business installation becomes Windows/Office/Winphone.
Outlook has another section called calls. Your company phone is tied into your company login. then all your office stuff/settings/security is also your phone. The deskphone is obsolete. Your bosses get to know where you are, how quickly you are moving, Who you speak to and for how long. They could even record your calls remotely.
They bought Skype to integrate voice calls into the system. Intra-office calls all go through the company network and can be tracked back to your desktop. You no longer need a desk phone. The phone tracks location, Outlook knows your location and routes call appropriately. They bought Nokia to bring locked down business winphones to the market.
the last Government had an IT standards and procurement service that saved millions.
It was closed on day one of the new coalition government to save millions. They said it each department could find better, cheaper options.
Then the coalition had to tell all public sector departments to stop writing open checks to Microsoft as it was costing millions.
Now the coalition is looking into an IT standards and procurement service to save millions.
F***ing muppets.
Even if that is not what they actually wanted it for it was certainly sold to the public here as a necessary part of the WAR ON TERROR. Do you really think they would get it through parliament if they said it was desperately needed to combat UFO conspiracy theorists?
P.S. Our American friends wouldn't even allow US servicemen to be questioned in the UK during the friendly fire death inquests. So it seems unlikely they would actually allow extradition doesn't it?
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