Posts by Mark Daniels 65 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jun 2007
Why not ?
Because as far as I can see, 98% seems to be utter cheap sh1te telly, second rate american 'drama's, soft porn stuff, sky self promoting shows purporting to be 'science' programmes and some football.
True, the beeb do some pretty good stuff, and there are some radio channels, but, i can get radio channels on a radio.
This seems to be a technology push for the sake of the technology, NOT for the sake of the benefits of technology.
That is all.
I have to say, the amount of dis-information by retailers, including DSG is pretty appalling.
To suggest the analogue TV's will not work after a certain time 2011 in my case, is, to say the least, very disingenuous. Or, if the language were stronger, I could say, it was a lie. The TV will work. It is as simple as that. The source signal will be different, but the tv will work. A simple 30 quid box will sort out the issue, I have one now, a supermarket special and I now watch a combination of analogue and digi telly. The ceefax service is far far better on the old service, there is much less of it on the new service.
So why are DSG doing this ? Because they want to flog us all over priced digi telly's that they think provide a better user experience.
But, buying a 750quid digi telly does not make Skys dire output any better, or C5s' any less trashy, it just means the crap is just a little more crisp. Whoopy f%£$%^2ing doo.
I'll stick with my pretty god Tosh analogue telly and cheap as chips digi box for as long as the cheap chinese bits inside keep working.
That is all.
this is a bit rich coming from PCWorld.
PCWorld, the concept of IT shopping is great, until you actually get there and you realise, the execution is, er, shocking.
I'm not going to get into a Linux / MS debate [but Linux IS better] but this 'linux is crap' attitude from PCWorld is symptomatic of the closed off mindset that allows MS to keep it's near 100% retail monopoly.
PCWorld : pah.
I have a Nokia 6600. Pretty good 'phone. It is however a 'phone, not a 'mini computer/ PDA thingy. But, with a small application, it will play OGG files and MP3 files.
A ring tone can be any 'sound' [aka : file] ont he device / memory card and it will play for as long as the phone is ringing or, if it is a short clip, will loop. In my experience, this is pretty much how phones work.
Now, I don't have an Iphone, and nor am I likely to get one, and certinaly not at those prices [and because it is of course latched, which is a real bummer when you travel and you need to stick a local sim in the phone for those cheaper local calls] but am I right in assuming that that this Apple thing does not do what normal 'phones do, as described above ?
Seems to me then that even if the 'music biz' is at least partly to blame [and they are] Apple are equally culpable in the debate, the designed the bloody thing in the first place.
It will be interesting to see, when o2 start flogging the thing at over priced values, and after the initially frenzy of 'must have overpriced Chinese tat' just what impact this Apple thing has in europe, where mobile users are, in my experience, just much more savvy than the colonial cousins state side.
MD
From the OED :
country
n noun (plural countries)
1 a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory.
principality
n noun (plural principalities) a state ruled by a prince. (the Principality) British Wales.
So, Andrew. Wales is not a country.
Have a look at the history of wales. At no point ever, EVER, has it been a country. Wales is more like Durham than Yorkshire, Andy. Ruled by a Prince, [the Prince Bishops] hence the name, principality.
Cheerio and have a good weekend.
MD
D Bevan wrote : The posted article contains offensive statement targeted at a small country and countrymen.........
Just to clarify, wales is not a country.
Wales is no more a country than Yorkshire [any or all of the Ridings] and there are lots of parallels : both have their own dialect, both were invaded by the Angles, the Saxons, the Norms, the Romans.... [anyone missing?] both have their government in London with the Pound as the currency, both are green and hilly and NEITHER ARE COUNTRIES.
The welsh do receive large amounts of unnecessary money to keep their dialect alive, have a TV station disproportionately subsidised by the Government and have a very large and totally pointless County [no 'R'] Council, sitting in Cardiff.
Oh, and D Bevans house, one very VERY large soap box and no sense of humour.
MD
this is the bit that made me smile :
"It's unreasonable for employers to try to stop their staff from having a life outside work, just because they can't get their heads around the technology."
I was not aware employers *were* trying to stop a life outside work, just trying to get ppl to to organise the outside work life, outside work [he said while using his work laptop in the office on the office lan to type this...... pot and kettle i know.....]
P.
The problem with articles like this is that it looks at one project in isolation. The truth is, we need alternative energy research and [more importantly] implementation.
If you took a power station and did a cost / payback analysis, you probably would not bother. Cost / benefit yes. Wave, wind, solar, methane et al, all fall into this category.
We need alternatives, so, bite the bullet and pay the bill.
P.
I was interested in the 'traditional Networks / told you so' comment.
I spend 80% of my time away from home, often away from the UK, in hotels, airports and, even every and then, actualy at work.!!
Hotels charge huge amounts of money for 'phone calls, mobile romaing charges are often very high too, even with a massive corporate discount.
BUt, find a hotel that throws in some broadband [I am in the Hilton in Algiers right now, using free broadband] and a voip client is perfect.
The tradtional networks have a small point, but, in reality, most ppl have more than one voip client [ I have four : skype, sipgate, voipstunt and oovoo] so the fact one of them drops off every now and then, is not, despite the claims of some, then of the world....... no porn in the hotel..... THAT is the end of the world.!!!
I've been using a pc for, oh, a long time. The first computer I ever had was an Acorn Electron. Elite is probably the best game ever.!!
I've been using Linux for about five / six years. My laptop right now is a dual boot XP/ Fedora7 machine.
About a year ago I bought my folks a new laptop. I dual booted it, suse and xp. They had a while to play with it and finally settled on xp.
Why ? Is XP more stable ? Does it have more features, is it more flexible ? The answer to these and other questions is, always NO.
So why did they choose to stick with xp and remove the suse partition ?
It is simple. XP was designed for my folks, linux is designed for me. Plug in a camera, xp finds it. Shove in a dvd, it plays. USB memory sticks, scanners, printers, all just appear.
Sure, you can add them all to Linux, but who wants to /mount every time you want to look at a picture on your external HD ?
Who wants to 'build' software when you simply want to 'load' it?
Who wants to spend hours researching the best 'xxxx' product only to find that there are no 'open source' drivers for it and you end up having to but 'the runner up product xxxx' ?
Well, the answer to that is, not my folks.
This is an old chestnut, but one worth repeating.
Linux will not replace commercial OS's until the open source ppl realise that sometimes, simplicity is what is needed.
I understand WHY dvd's dont play on Linux 'out of the box', but my folks don't really care about that.
Commercial will always win out, or at least until EVERYTHING is open source, and that will never ever happen.
This is hardly 'new'. Nicola Tesla did the same thing 150 years ago. Hence the Tesla coil and that excellent White Stripes cameo in Coffee / Cigarettes from four years ago.
Still, Americans 'invent' everything. After all, Turing was Texan, the Enigma code was cracked in the Bletchley CA and the all american apple pie is German.
P.
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