Posts by AJames 178 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Feb 2008
According to author Daniel Kahneman (Nobel price in Economics) in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, perceived "performance" in the financial industry is all an illusion based on random factors. So don't worry about those reviews, it's just a roll of the dice anyway. :)
Agree. It's easy to criticize Avira for not being ready for a change that's had a long preview cycle, especially when their software just crashes instead of warning of the incompatibility. But those who don't have the joy of managing software development projects may not appreciate that it's often slightly more difficult than waving one's magic wand. At least they straightforwardly acknowledged the problem, didn't make any excuses, and gave a time frame for fixing it. Would that all software companies did the same!
Panasonic is my personal favourite electronics brand for quality and service, based on a lifetime of experience with a lot of gear. Unfortunately being the quality leader is perhaps not the best position to be in during a recession when people are looking for the latest features at the lowest prices.
Our city and surrounding region has a mandatory vehicle pollution testing program called AirCare. It's a costly program for motorists, and it has largely outlived its usefulness since the "testing" today consists of connecting to the OBD-II data port on the vehicle to make sure that the Check Engine indicator isn't on. At the time this program was originally launched, an alternative proposal was made to use roadside CO2 monitors which would detect polluting vehicles as they pass using an infrared laser beam, and then take a photo of their licence plate just like a speed radar. This latter proposal was much less costly and more effective at targeting polluting vehicles, but needless to say, the government adopted the universal testing program instead.
Same here. All the municipal libraries in the Canadian province of British Columbia got together to offer this on a province-wide basis several years ago, and our local city library has recently started offering their own independent collection. They both use the Overdrive system, based on Adobe DRM and the ePub format supported by all e-readers except the Amazon Kindle (which uses its own proprietary format).
An issue has come up from ebook publishers though. It may sound a little far-fetched to most people, but the publishers say that they will lose money on ebooks because they don't wear out like ordinary library books. They actually want the libraries to automatically discard and re-purchase ebooks after they have been loaned out 20 times, which they claim is the average lifespan of a paper library book!
Wow, that's putting a negative spin on neutral data!
We just heard a few days ago that Android phones are selling very well, and are in fact outselling the iPhone. We already know the stats that the iPad far outsells all the Android tablets combined. So how would it be a surprise that most Android users have phones rather than tablets? Especially when the figures have a giant hole (ignoring Amazon's tablets).
This is like watching a parade of knights setting off to slay the dragon, one after another, and never returning.
I have a Nokia N800, one of Nokia's early attempts at an internet tablet. It could have gone somewhere (and they did release a few subsequent models and a phone based on it), but they failed to support it and abandoned both the devices and the Maemo O/S.
I'm listening to music from my HP TouchPad as I type this (running Pandora with the very nice Apollo app). It's been one of my most-used devices over the last year. I'd never have bought it in the first place if not for the firesale price, but now that I've used it, I'd buy another one. And I've spent freely on apps for it.
Until one of these companies gets some management with the conviction to suck it up and make a true commitment to an uncertain market like Apple did, they are doomed to be gradually fading also-rans.
The TSA is doing a good job... of what exactly? Apparently it's not preventing terrorist attacks, because the majority of people in the survey don't think they're very effective at that. More people should read Daniel Kahneman's excellent book "Thinking Fast and Slow", which tells us that people mentally substitute an easy question when asked a hard one and answer that instead. In this case I think people are answering the question of whether the TSA are doing the best job they can given their mandate. I would probably answer that question the same way. But I also think the TSA are ineffective at stopping terrorist attacks, and their operations come at a truly enormous cost in both money and inconvenience to travelers. The billions of dollars squandered on ineffective security in a vain attempt to prevent a handful of terrorist attacks could be spent saving millions of children from starvation, preventing wars, developing medical breakthroughs, promoting justice and human rights internationally etc.. Everything comes at a cost, and one must always compare the value you are getting when answering questions about whether it's the right thing to do.
I'm sure that Chinese helicopter engine developers take any chance they can to look at innovations from other countries, and then they develop their own independent version based on many sources plus their own innovation because no developer would ever use another developer's software.
The U.S. military is ridiculously over-protective in classifying things as sensitive or secret when they are nothing of the sort., so it's difficult to take them seriously in cases like this. We sometimes deliver software developed for commercial purposes to them, they slap a comment header on it and it becomes "classified". Then we can't officially use it again until we discover it posted on Wikileaks.
If accurate, the chart shows that we have been in an era of declining temperature due to long-term natural climate cycles, which we have now managed to brake and reverse with just the beginning of our man-made atmospheric changes. The implications are frightening if the natural climate cycle turns around and begins to reinforce our man-made efforts at warming.
We just got these so-called Smart Meters installed in our Canadian province of British Columbia last year. The provincial power company BC Hydro put out some ridiculous publicity claiming that there would be no net cost in the long run because it would "help catch marijuana grow-ops" among other things (how? grow-ops bypass the meter). But subsequent investigations reveal that they hid costs of almost $1 billion, and now they want to raise our power rates by 50%! Somehow I fail to see the benefit to anyone except the company selling the meters and all the insiders they paid off.
Trend and all the other RBL services are known for their careless and high-handed blocking of innocent internet users. They make little attempt to cooperate with ISPs to avoid collateral damage to all their legitimate clients. Would you spray a crowd of innocent civilians with gunfire because a terrorist was running through the crowd? Without even bothering to yell "clear the path!"? That's the equivalent of what Trend are doing.
This is a perennial story which makes the rounds every time the U.S. government is trying to pressure the Canadian government to adopt the secret ACTA treaty provisions. But it goes all the way back to the late 1800s, when the story of the time was that Canadians were illegally copying U.S. sheet music. We've just had to learn to tune out our neighbours to the south when they show this particular blind spot, complaining about everyone else while being oblivious to their own transgressions.
Hang gliders are not subject to government regulation in Canada, so the operator was not required to meet any standards or conform to any regulations, and probably didn't have any insurance. While individuals who enjoy the sport are probably not keen to invite unwelcome government regulation, it would seem to be a serious oversight to allow the operation of a passenger-carrying business without some minimal regulation.
I still browse in bookstores even though I read most books on my e-reader these days, so I think Barnes & Noble is on the right track with their efforts to integrate their bookstore chain with their e-readers. Yes, there are many practical difficulties as others pointed out in their comments, but at least B&N are trying. Unfortunately their real weakness is that they have no international presence or strategy outside the USA, unlike all of their competitors. They're a big fish in a medium-size pond.
I have a 6" e-reader that I use 90% of the time for reading books these days, because it's small and light and I can easily carry it everywhere. I also have a 10" colour tablet that I use for reading magazines and illustrated books, because the larger screen is barely adequate for that job. I wouldn't use one device to do the job of the other. I think the 7" compromise colour tablets like the Kindle Fire are glorified video players, not suitable for either reading job, as the users are bound to discover.
Is that the new buzzword for slashing the team in half? Making them more "nimble"? I guess I'd get a little more nimble too if I were trying to avoid an axe that falls repeatedly, but I'm not sure it helps productivity. I have a fire-sale TouchPad. I like it and I've bought more apps for it than for my iPhone. I think HP didn't stick with it long enough, and they're compounding their mistakes.
The Americans of 100 years ago accepted the notion of conquering a new territory and making it a new state as their natural right. The Americans of 50 years ago were willing to put their efforts behind an impossible dream to go to the moon just to show it could be done. The Americans of 2012 laugh and roll their eyes. The bean counters are quick to point out that it's too expensive...
Tsk, tsk! Personal moral failures in one of our technology leaders? We can't have that, no more than we could tolerate it in our political or religious leaders. Thank goodness that never happens. It would be petty to say that this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
So exactly how many seconds of buffering constitutes and illegal copy? According to the court, 30 seconds is too much. Odd decision, almost as if the judge were unaware that most internet video transmission systems buffer 30-60 seconds - or as if his convoluted logic was intended to find any excuse to ban a service that the broadcast networks don't like. But let's take it to a logical conclusion. There are many buffers in a video transmission system from source to eyeballs. How many seconds of buffering is too much? Is it 10? 5? 1? 0.1? I guess the engineers will have to take this question to the courts over and over until they find the answer. Sounds like a lot of employment for lawyers!
The trains in Vancouver (Canada) are all driverless, and they have a good safety record. The trains, tracks, and stations are monitored by CCTV from a central control room, and they have automated safety systems that monitor the tracks and stop the trains in the event of a problem. Plenty of uniformed staff and transit police circulate throughout the system, and there's a good chance of seeing them on any given train or at any given platform.
and a Kobo Touch for reading. But when my mother wanted a tablet, we got her an iPad. It's all about the right tool for the job. It would be dumb to buy a $500 hammer/screwdriver/wrench/saw too and expect it to be the only tool you need to build a shed and maintain your car. Why do people think one tablet should be "the best" at everything?
The loss of local number dialing has already happened in many other places, and an interesting reason turned out to be at the bottom of why the phone company couldn't make it optional to dial the full number with prefix within the same local. Of course modern phone computers could allow that. But as numbers run out, new customers are forced to take numbers in the new area code. Naturally they will perceive those numbers as having lesser value if people have to dial an extra prefix to reach them. In order to mollify them and keep all prices the same, the phone company forces everyone else to dial an unnecessary prefix too. Sort of like the theater making people who came early and got a seat close to the stage watch the play through the wrong end of binoculars so that they will be equal with latecomers sitting too far back
I have no doubt that some version of Android will be ported to the Touchpad, but it will never be more than a buggy, partly-functional, badly-performing "90% complete" solution. It's hard enough to get Android running properly on a device with full manufacturer support and a professional support team. The problem with a talented unofficial group doing it their spare time is that there's no motivation to do the hard stuff or to stick with it for the long term. Nobody's paying them. They get their kicks from the initial accomplishment, not from the tough, thankless slogging that gets through the last 10% to make it work properly. It's never going to happen.
I find it hard to fault Logitech for attempting to innovate. They have some fine products, and they do try to support them, unlike some other companies. The fault in this case is more Google's - they promised a lot and delivered little. It's the box plus the services that count for set-top boxes - why pay a premium price for a box with sub-par services? Especially when you can get competing boxes for as little as $50.
I have dual-boot Win7 and WinXP on my computers. I use WinXP almost exclusively, except when I really have to run something on Win7, because:
a) XP is faster
b) It's more familiar - I hate the arbitrary changes in Win7 just to be different
c) I have way more licensed software on WinXP that I would have to re-buy or replace for Win7
d) There's almost nothing I need or want in Win7
The fact is that everyone is forced to take Win7 with new computers, so eventually I'll have to reluctantly change over. But it's clear that Microsoft has switched from innovating to milking their user base for revenue. That's the beginning of the end.
Here in Canada it has always been possible to pay money directly to anyone else's credit card using online banking bill payment. Even here I think most people have never realized it, because the online bill-payment service is ostensibly for pay your own credit card bill. However there is no check on who owns the credit card account number you are paying, so it serves very well as a zero-cost way to transfer small amounts of money from one person to another.
I realized that the fight to keep private data out of the hands of U.S. security agencies was lost when I recently renewed by British passport from Canada. All British passport renewal forms from Canada now have to be sent to Washington DC. Yes, they are ostensibly sent to the British embassy in Washington, but do you really think that they are not all intercepted and copied?
I spent a lot of time working on DEC PDP-11 and VAX, even a PDP-10 system at one location. I was an accomplished RSX system programmer at one time, and I still admire features of that operating system that Windows has never gotten right.
I still remember the day that the local DEC sales staff came to our shop (a major DEC account) to put on a seminar on how Unix was the future (DEC having seen the light), after bashing Unix and promoting the advantages VMS for years. They seemed lost and uncertain, and in retrospect that was the end of DEC. The failure to launch a successful microcomputer, and the subsequent purchase by upstart microcomputer maker Compaq were just the nails in the coffin.
I'm really quite upset about this. When are we going to get this episode of Top Gear on BBC Canada or Netflix.ca? I'd like to laugh at the Mexican sports car too! We always lag behind. :(
Not only that, Jeremy hasn't insulted Canada in ages. Why the discrimination? Is it just because we don't make any genuinely Canadian cars?
While the stats about smartphone OS are interesting, an important influence is the nature of the contracts offered in each country. For example in Canada the iPhone is offered only with an expensive multi-year contract including a high-use data plan. If you get an iPhone, you're certainly going to use it for browsing! Blackberry and Android phones are available cheap, without a contract, and can be used on low-limit data plans for the more cost-conscious.
Bluetooth works fine for pairing headsets with phones. It doesn't work well for anything else, and that's why it never took off. Everybody tried to make money selling Bluetooth stacks for computers and other devices instead of ensuring universal interoperability. Have you ever tried to set up a Bluetooth network? It's frustrating and often fruitless!
SORBS is a complete waste of everybody's time. Only lazy and incompetent ISPs use it. I've seen it blocking swaths of IP addresses belonging to the biggest ISP serving a whole region because someone somewhere reported a problem with one IP address in that range.
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