Posts by AB 72 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jun 2007
Alex wrote:
> may I allude that it is being trailed at the Science Museum
Writing from Pedant's Corner, I feel compelled to point out that you might assume, surmise or possibly even infer (implicitly from the article) that the trial is taking place at the Science Museum (Wroughton) but you may not allude.
Paris because she's been the subject of many allude comment...
"Unfortunately end users tend to freak out when you disable autoplay"
Have you tried telling them to shut up?
If I were you, I'd start reading the highly informative BOFH column which runs on this very web-site. For my taste, pushing people down a lift-shaft is perhaps a step too far, but it works for Simon...
Seriously: if your users understand instructions like "You have been provided with bottled water, because the local tap water may make you sick. Do not drink the local tap water, no matter how convenient it may seem or how used to may have been to this method of obtaining water in the past" then they should be able to understand why Autoplay is now gone, and they may have to use the foot-pedal to select the little icon in My Computer which... hey, it kinda looks like a CD!
To quote John Payne: "[So many writers are] ruining themselves by trying to emulate Thompson. I last tried that when I was 16, and I left it there where it belongs. Thompson was sui generis, trying to emulate his style will only lead to suffering. In my view, a writer shouldn’t consciously try to ape anyone but instead find their own voice."
Indeed. Fear & Loathing in Silicon Valley this ain't. Also, note that HST did not make a habit of attacking those who weren't capable of self-defence*
On the other hand, it's always interesting to read about the lack of perspective endemic in Silicon Valley. More, please - but next time just write it. Don't go over your prose in an attempt to make it look like someone else is sitting at the typewriter.
* for clarity: I am referring here to disparaging comments directed against Down's Syndrome sufferers, as opposed to your rather more valid observations re: self-obsessed Californians clutching Crackberries and feeding the input-only device that is Twitter...
I'm in the strange position of liking my tech managerial job (as jobs go) but wanting my boss to advertise my position, so I can transfer to another office within the company (where a position in project management I like the look of more is waiting for me).
Paris, because it's well-documented that she has experience at various types of job.
...kick it over to me and place your hands on your head. No sudden movements."
I would, but...
* One of the proprietary scripting languages I use at work has variables with a trailing dollar (I have no idea why) so M$ crops up as a variable name surprisingly often (although this may be partly inspired by "M$ non-cleverness").
* I'm not wearing protective footwear, so if I go around dropping things, corporate Health and Safety would probably drag me off for compulsory re-education.
* I think it's funny because Microsoft is often abbreviated to MS, and they have lots of dollars, so it's a clever play on words and symbols!
Microsoft's Bill, because that could potentially be abbreviated to... you know what? Never mind.
> There are also perfectly legal reasons for owning a bazooka, but common sense and society have determined that those reasons are best kept out of the reach of everyday citizens, for better or for worse.
Possibly you could use your bazooka to distribute large Linux distros to enemy combatants quickly and efficiently?
Seriously though, you are picking on BitTorrent unfairly, as AC and Jim point out. You can't modify human nature by tweaking QoS settings or packet-shaping, and banning bazookas just means people will find other ways to blow stuff up, y'dig?
This doesn't really tell us much. Some survey of 300 unidentified 'security professionals' tells us more employees are using social networking, travel, webmail at work than than are playing online poker or pocket pool... possibly because the first category seems a lot less likely to get the average office worker in trouble, as any fule no.
Did the survey co-ordinators forget to ask what percentage of users are spending time at El Reg, and what level of business threat that constitutes?
From the title, this had the look of a fairly interesting article, but stopped short of providing much to chew on. Please Sir, may I have some more?
Paris, because she's devoid of content
"we do block [all social networking sites] at work and hold raises for people who use [them]"
So you block them, and then hold raises for people who attempt to access them? Or are you h4x0r1ng their home internet connection and judging them for being pirates/ninjas on their own time?
I hope you don't work for my company! :P
I should add that I've stopped using social networking sites for anything other than occasionally finding out when/where a real-life event is taking place, as the initial thrill of receiving messages from people I didn't like at school (how are you!?!?!? it's been so long!!!!") wore off fairly fast and has been replaced with... pirates and ninjas.
Well researched and well written IMO
Completely makes up for that silly N95 maps article, really ;-)
All snide comments aside, the geek in me enjoyed reading this, even while fearing for the future of European roaming (you have to suspect that the chance for roaming revenue will act as a motivating factor to keep the possibility alive)
> Guy takes out contract without reading it and then runs up bill. Is too stupid to understand what he has done wrong and tries to make out he is the victim.
Your sweeping statement only applies if the contract is fair (and therefore reasonably enforceable).
From the DTI website:
"The requirement of good faith embodies a general ‘principle of fair and open dealing’. It does not simply mean that a term should not be used in a deceitful way. Suppliers are expected to respect consumers’ legitimate interests in drafting contracts, as well as negotiating and carrying them out."
This bill is presumably around 1000 times the size of a normal consumer bill. Is it not reasonable to expect Vodafone to be fair and open enough to check with the consumer before allowing him to use almost £30,000 worth of services ON CREDIT?! I use the word 'worth' advisedly, of course, as any fule no that the cost to Voda of providing this service (at least before this thing hits court) can't be more than a few rounds at their local in Newbury...
Rick said "at some point the common fan is going to be driven out of the market".
That's not really true. As much as you or I might hate it, the price for tickets in a free market is whatever that market will bear. Whether or not the market should be free is a matter for discussion. The Pats have scarcity power, and presumably they don't want the scalpers profiting from the margin of their scarcity power they're not using (i.e. the difference between the price the Pats charge and that people buying resold tickets are willing to pay). If the team could get away with it, I don't doubt that they'd charge the same as the scalpers.
The people driven out of the market are those with less money. That's a shame, but it's the way it is.
"That means firms will have to collect a lot more information on orders and how they were executed for clients - and that means they are going to need more IT systems and data storage."
Hah! Anyone starting their MiFID prep on the 19th of October is most likely in for a nasty shock. We've been worrying about this for about 2 years now. Old news.
iCommandment #1: Thou shalt not defend that which is shiny and overpriced merely because you feel that failure to do so might lead to buyer's remorse and consequent expulsion from the choir of iSeraphim angels which, verily, do praise Steve Jobs.
or, in the interests of fairness:
iCommandment #2: Thou shalt not extract the Michael from Apple fans, if only because skewering the easy target demonstrates low levels of wit and skill.
On the other hand, iCommandment #2 was made to be broken...
"Turning doesn't work with the list of on-board videos or a movie that's being played - these resolutely remain in portrait and landscape orientation, respectively, no matter what you do."
Just because I haven't spent 24 hours a day cuddling my iPhone since I bought it doesn't mean I'm incapable of considering the issue at hand; certainly it's within my power to read an article and note inconsistencies. Also, I'm not offering you any tech advice... all I'm offering are my reasons why the body of this review didn't seem to me to bear out the the conclusions drawn at the end of it.
Even assuming that what I wrote about the lack of rotation displays a basic lack of understanding about the video playback functionality on the iPhone (which I concede as a possibility), you've only countered the weakest of my points. Let me withdraw the video rotation comment and replace it with this: "The iPhone has no 3G."
So, I remain confused as to why the reviewer prefers the iPhone to the N95, because there is precious little reason in this review to support that preference. Similarly, your statement doesn't support the reviewer's conclusion either, even if I wasn't impulsive enough to rush out and buy an iPhone.
Well done... a sop to all the Applistas who have been complaining about el Reg's anti-fruit bias.
Trouble is even the reviewer doesn't seem that convinced in a factual way that this device is any good. Tony Smith starts out by stating that the iPhone is "bloody marvellous", but then fails to come up with many reasons why it deserves this strong boost.
I concede that the screen is large and lustrous, as he points out; he also mentions:
The locking: sure, you can unlock, but Joe Consumer probably isn't up to the task.
The lack of an option to send music and videos directly to the device
The world clock (if this really amazes you in 2007 - or even 1997 - I've got some shiny beads which I'll trade for your house)
Maps functionality (but no built-in GPS)
No video rotation (potentially reducing the value of the big screen quite a bit)
An unnecessarily recessed headphone jack preventing the use of any non-iPhone headphones... wtf!? This to my mind is the biggest sin yet
No A2DP profile
No built-in VoIP
All of which leaves me wondering why the reviewer prefers this device to the N95, which equals or [in most cases] beats the iPhone on all of the points above.
To be fair, he also mentions Safari (I agree it's better than the built-in browser on the N95). Oh, and you get a free screen-wipe cloth.
Between the list above, however, and the usual Jobsian markup which makes the N95 so much cheaper, I'm left wondering what, exactly, is so bloody marvellous about the iPhone, as Tony, after a strong start, doesn't seem to be too sure.
I'm guessing that writing the "Apple rocks!" afterthought review is now punishment detail at Vulture Central. Please, think of your hacks' self respect and just have them put some money in the beer fund next time...
@Dave, who said "Windows Recorder (cheap utility comes with the OS, can record wavs for 1 minute)". You can actually make Windows Recorder record more than a minute... load a longer sound file, record over the top, then Save As. Only useful when you can't get any other software onto the machine, but it's come in handy for me once or twice.
Also, so as to be less completely off topic: how are the RIAA responsible for this lockdown on the iPhone when other phones don't have this craptacular 'feature'? I don't really care what Apple do because they're getting none of my money because they have no respect for the intelligence of the consumer.
However, I do I reserve the right to laugh at the iVangelists on this board and elsewhere. if you're going to blindly lash out at anyone who dares criticize Steve 'Look into the eyes, not around the eyes' Jobs by using such a patently false defence, you might as well not bother...
As a terminal cartoon nerd, I can't help but be reminded of the Family Guy episode where Death twists his ankle and stays at the Griffin house...
...because when I read this, I laughed. And laughed. Then laughed some more.
Apple has shown that...
No, wait. I'm not done holding my sides!
With this blatant disrespect for...
Nono! That was a good one! Ahahahahahahaha!
My N95 has never felt better... yesterday I switched off dual mode searching, so it no longer looks for UMTS (3G) networks all the time. This fixes the short battery life problem (now lasts ~2x as long), which was prettymuch the only thing which I found faintly embarassing about it.
Even after this hilarious (to those of us who remain free-thinkers) price drop, I still think the iPhone is garbage at $399. Why on earth would I want a device with rich media capability (albeit no 3G... wtf?) but locked down so I can only do what Steve Jobs says is cool? After all, he told us a $599 iPhone was a good deal. What does he know?
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