Posts by Ian Tresman

£32m Income tax on £72m salary

If I earned £72m, I'd have to pay £32m in income tax.

Unacceptible

10M may have been acceptable a decade ago, but they government should be looking at making Gigabit broadband available to 100% of the population. Putting fibre-optics into the home is both affordable and future-proofed. It would also provide good competition to satellite and cable TV.

Facebook moderation is useless

Facebook moderation is useless. There are regularly fraudulent adverts, and it is not even possible to report them.

Jobs change

Jobs are not just destroyed, they change. If we have Internet-based shopping, people are still needed to work along the delivery chain.

Nice one Jack

Jack loved his new pocket-sized smartphone... until he noticed the battery and charging dock.

Gigabit broadband require

We need Gigabit broadband, not the government's 2Mb joke. A typical family of 5 may each want a couple of their own 4K stream, each person watching their own programme of video, plus a separate screen for video conferencing, previewing etc.

Security framework

Isn't there a security framework that developers can use to help them build secure apps? How about a security test suite that developers can use to make sure they have done the job correctly?

Gigabit fibre optic broadband

This is why we all need Gigabit fibre optic broadband.

4K to show HD plus additional content

A 4K screen could be useful to show both an HD picture, plus additional content, such as a couple of thumbnail channel preview channels, a Skype video call, news headlines, and Twitter feed.

No science

If climate change was decisive, scientists would point us to "smoking gun" evidence in peer-reviewed papers. Instead, they resort to insults, inconclusive papers, and bullying tactics. That is not science.

Everyone should contact Samsung UK and ask for confirmation, before telling them that you intend to buy elsewhere.

And how many hacks have retrieved nothing?

And how many email accounts have they hacked that have revealed nothing because the victims are completely innocent? Is there a public interest to hack Sky's own email, or only of it proves fruitful?

If anyone has suspicions of wrong-doing, then they should get a warrant. This is how the law works, and Sky should be fined.

Outdated aerial imagery

I've found that much UK Google aerial imagery is over 5 years old, which is a great shame as there are many missing roads and developments, but on the other hand, it is completely free.

I'm surprised that Google doesn't create its own aerial imagery, and sell some of it to commercial interests.

One license for two devices

I'd let people run one copy of Windows 8 on two devices, a desktop and a mobile device, which lets them use the Windows they are use to (with Start button etc), and lets them try it on their mobiles, so they get use to it.

No more AP

I used to print the occasional news headline on my own site. I also thought that a headline was a permissible extract "for the reporting of current events", and that I was doing them a favour in driving traffic to their site.

At least it will save me visiting their site, and I'll send the traffic elsewhere.

Free

Where there are no residual fees to pay performers per broadcast, programmes should be free to licence holders. The costs should be more than covered by non-license fee holders (ie, overseas viewers).

Where there are fees to be paid, lets estimate costs could be up to £10,000 (over estimate) for broadcasting to 100,000 viewers (under-estimate), which I calculate is no more than 10p per person per broadcast. I'd be happy to pay that, rather than the estimated £1-£5.

The cost is very important. 10p per programme is only about a £1 for an entire series, where as £2.95 per program is nearly £30 which is very unaffordable.

Bag of Fruits

Soon you'll be required to pay a royalty on every golden delicious apple you buy, and kindergarden books will have to be changed to read: A is for iPod.

Cheaper bulk purchasing

A single supplier should be able to offer cheaper prices than anyone else, due to bulk purchasing. At the very least, they should offer to refund the difference, if items can be found cheaper elsewhere, or double the difference, if they need an incentive to do so.

If they can't offer this simple and obvious guarantee, they contract should be given to a company who can, and I am sure there are many who would like to be given the opportunity to do so.

£261,000 !!!

Who designed the site, the Russian Mafia? I would ask for a breakdown of how my tax was spent.

Great news

This is not just about phone hacking, but a culture of muck-raking, muck-spreading, and pretending that invasion of privacy is in the public interest. Suggesting that all celebrities and politicians were fair game, is like shot-gunning a crowd of people, and justifying that you hit one bad person.

Let's hope that the rest of media doors-steps those responsible.

Obviously

Most software patents are "too obvious". Can you think of any software features that were new and innovative?

Good deal

If it costs the public nothing to scan, and nothing to access the scans, then it looks like a good deal. Google will offer the option to produce on-demand books, and if you don't like, print your own, or look at the originals. Looks good all round.

No privacy issue

There is no privacy issue, cookies are stored on the users own machine, and usually contains no private information anyway.

I would be more concerned about the megabytes of HTML and scripts that a website runs on a user's machine, and are stored in the user's cache.

Multiple heads per arm

I've always wondered why you can't have multiple heads per arm that read the data in parallel. Ideally you'd want a fixed solid-state "arm" bridged across the platter with one pick-up per track.

Who cares?

100 years is too long anyway. In the USA, the length is 70 years, which seems fair, and a huge help to genealogists.

Of course all the other censuses that are released online, are sent off for scanning before the statutory time has expired.

Very poorly thought out

This is the worst Website law I have seen in a long while, based on a complete misunderstand of cookies and privacy.

My websites store NO personal information about visitors. On the other hand, a visitor's Browser may store some information in cookies, on their Browser, but it is not personal information, and no private information is involved.

For example, a cookie called "javascript" may contain the value "true", and be related to the Web site www.example.com. When you visit the site again, rather than go through a relatively length process of detecting whether you have Javascript, it simply checks the cookie for the site, giving your a smoother and quicker visit., But as can be seen, there is no private information stored, and the site www.example.com can not check cookies from other sites.

I checked through the 3000+ cookies stored by my Browser and found the number that contain personal information, such as my postcode: none. Or contain my telephone number: none. Or my name: 6 sites where I had provided my screen name.

In other words, there is no privacy issue. And anyone with a modern Browser can block cookies if they wish.

Ditch the touch boards

Ditch the 2-inch thick touch boards, and replace with zero-thickness infra-red beam sensors, or resistivity-sensitive mesh painted on the ends. This looks like a trivial problem with a trivial solution.

MS should be prosecuted

MS should be prosecuted for this "scam". I ordered my son's XBOX live account on our credit card, and did not give permission for any other purchases (regardless of terms and conditions) . Yet my son has "accidentally" made several purchases. I get no warning, no option, and no receipt. This is wrong.

While MS have been helpful in refunding the money, this is too little too late. A minor is not legally able to use a credit card, regardless of how the account is set up.

I recommend that people contact Financial Services Authority, to ensure that MS fix this problem.

Water vapour is far worse

Water vapour is at least twice as bad a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Great product, but no steering wheel

Drupal is great, and it can be made to do anything. But out of the box, you can't upload a couple of images, give them a caption, and place them where you want. That's the problem.

Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill |

A great example of legislation that needs to be repealed, so that it is completely unambiguous as to what is legal. See:

The Freedom Bill

http://freedom.libdems.org.uk/the-freedom-bill/

The Great Repeal Bill

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Great_Repeal_Bill

Costs

It costs Brightsolid a fair bit of cash to digitize several million newspaper pages. Is there anyone else stepping forward with a better offer? The library told me that:

"When our 10-year contract with brightsolid expires the British Library will retain the digitised copies and be free to make them freely available online through the British Library website."

Not ideal, but you'll get free access in a decade, and it won't have cost the taxpayer a penny.

Animated image

"The tiger, according to Mr Holland, was an animated image"

Are the police and prosecution blind too?

Scanned but not available?

I didn't think that Google made scanned copyright book freely available, but just searchable and findable? People still have to buy the book to read it.

The solution is simple. Remove such publications from Google Books, and potential customers will never know that they exist.