* Posts by Paul Berry

28 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Sep 2008

Guardian's Robin Hood plan: Steal from everyone to give to us

Paul Berry
WTF?

Re: Race to the Bottom

> When was the last time they ever did any investigative journalism of merit?

You either have a very short or selective memory: Nick Davies in The Guardian broke the details on the bubbling-under phone hacking scandal that eventually brought down a certain newspaper. I'm in no way in favour of the proposed funding model but I'd call that a coup for investigative journalism if ever there was one.

Steely Neelie: EU is crippled by its clueless tech-ignorant workforce

Paul Berry
Meh

Software Crisis, restated?

Isn't this simply another restatement of what we understand to be the "Software Crisis"? It's been getting on for fifty years since it was first realised there will never be enough skilled people to work in all aspects of IT. Nothing new under the sun...

RIP: Peak Oil - we won't be running out any time soon

Paul Berry
Holmes

Sustainability is ingenuity

Humanity will out because ingenuity will save the day? Maybe sustainability, far from being predicated on a false assumption (PO) is actually the very ingenuity the author is wishing for.

Pro-game MP rewrites Modern Warfare censure motion

Paul Berry
Stop

Evidence?

"There is increasing evidence of a link between perpetrators of violent crime and violent video games users."

What evidence would that be then?

Google offers opt-out from Wi-Fi router location database

Paul Berry
Stop

Don't broadcast your SSID

Obvious, really.

Amazon solves wait-at-home-for-deliveries problem

Paul Berry
Meh

Not solving a problem, but moving it

The only way Amazon (or anyone else) can truly solve the deliver-to-home problem is to have their own delivery service. This isn't it. It's just a variation on "your item couldn't be delivered and is at our (delivery partner's) depot" without even the attemped delivery first.

Most bosses monitor or block social-network use at work

Paul Berry
Meh

Not condoning it but...

Let's just say it can lead to many people's first tinkering with drivers/etc/hosts

Dig deep! Radio asks taxpayers for blank cheque

Paul Berry
WTF?

Digital doesn't degrade gracefully

Until digital radio and TV via aerial don't cut out randomly all the time, even in areas of "good reception", we might see a bigger uptake. The cheek of asking the public to pay for a system which is admittedly better in some respects than analogue, but A LOT worse in others, is staggering.

Chicken Little report: Sat-nav dependency spells DISASTER!

Paul Berry
Happy

The "Chicken Little" you speak of...

...is better known here by it's name of "Chicken Licken", which rhymes properly and everything.

UK proximity payments by phone this summer

Paul Berry
Grenade

Who takes the hit for fraudulent use?

It should be the bank/card issuer but I bet it won't be. The customer is liable for any fraudulent use of their account via online banking and I can't see that changing with contactless POS technology. We didn't see that untenable shift of responsibilities coming then, but we sure are tuned into it now.

The potential suckiness won't be a technological issue, it'll be a political one.

BT fibre-up-your-exchange poll in 6-way Mugabe style pileup

Paul Berry
Alert

Madingley

Madingley! A place where, until recently, you had to munge Cambridge phone numbers according to a bizarre rule before you could place an call from a phone box.

Sarah Palin calls for US to stand by North Korea

Paul Berry
FAIL

Democrats are too nice!

The Republicans are simply better liars, whereas the Democrats are more conscientious, so they try to avoid lying. When you're out for votes, the shameless tend to win.

At least that's what watching 3 weeks of late-night US talk shows seems to show.

Pole positions: Base station spotters scrap for prize

Paul Berry
Happy

Seems they have them just about anywhere rural

Here's a fake tree just outside Sheffield: http://tinyurl.com/3xu5r6s

I wish it'd light up at Christmas.

Baby Boomers committing suicide at unprecedented rates

Paul Berry
Stop

The generation that pulled the ladder up behind them

Hard to feel sorry for them, even if they do include my parents.

Firefox market share drops as IE makes slender gain

Paul Berry
Thumb Up

That'd be because Chrome is lean and fast

Don't get me wrong, I love Firefox. But, on older, slower machines where I just want to do a quick Google search, it's Chrome every time because I don't want to wait 15 minutes for Firefox to start. Searching by typing the address bar is a big usability win, too.

As long as Google keep Chrome lean, fast and simple, they'll keep gaining market share.

Royal Mail lawyers demand closure of postcode lookup site

Paul Berry
FAIL

Conceptual failure?

Using a postcode as good-enough shorthand for a geographcial point? It should be considered a fail. Postcodes are used to route mail, not find directions to a point. I can see why this has happened but overloading the meaning of a code with concepts it was never intended for is bound to cause trouble. Unfortunately the concept of a postcode as a geographical entity is so ingrained even the government routinely make this mistake.

I'm on my own with this one, aren't I?

Microsoft gets personal on Windows 7 "show stopper" bug

Paul Berry
WTF?

Not defending them, but...

...there's clearly a large number of users out there who are gunning for MS 24/7. If they would turn their attention to any other target, they'd find issues too.

It'll be Google's turn next.

Bucks village repels Street View spycar

Paul Berry
Thumb Down

Jacobs concluded: “This is an affluent area."

That'll be the reason for the break-ins then. Duh.

El Reg suffers identity crisis

Paul Berry
Thumb Up

The P-Word

Populist in the best sense of the word, I'd say, despite a mostly specialist audience.

AT&T Idolises promotional texting

Paul Berry
Stop

@Anon Cow

Your provider can and will contact you about offers and services. It's almost always a condition of your having a service with them. It's not spam as you're their direct customer.

And yes, companies in every industry are conspicuously ramping up the volume and aggressiveness of their marketing and sales. So expect to be contacted by any means :(

Four-year-old Diebold glitch silently drops votes

Paul Berry
IT Angle

Voting Machines

What is the problem here that only technology can solve? Is paper and pencil not good enough? Seems to be another hi-tech "solution" in search of a problem that doesn't exist, because that's where the money is.

Not news is you read RISKS anyway: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/php/risks/search.php?query=voting

Where the mechanics of the system (and here it's closed-source software) cannot be independently inspected, monitored, or supervised then it's scarcely a solid foundation for democracy.

Bombproof TV rolling-news eco bins target the City

Paul Berry
Joke

Recycled Bin?

I'd be more inclined to laugh if this didn't smell like it was inspired by a couple of features from The Day Today.

Does this mean Chris Morris is on your payroll? Hope so...

Google Maps gets gov M-way congestion overlay

Paul Berry
Coat

Functionality already present

They've had this feature for years: just tick the "avoid highways" checkbox.

How should software developers be paid?

Paul Berry
Thumb Down

Do not reward on lines of code or bugs found

Or you'll deserve everything you get: stretched-out code with lots of linebreaks and hundreds of trivial bugs.

Portsmouth seeks ISP - no net access required

Paul Berry
Stop

Always read the boilerplate

And remove if it doesn't apply. Are they recruiting for proofreaders as well? They should, etc...

Geode - the Firefox add-on that knows where you are

Paul Berry
Paris Hilton

And what's to stop you faking your destination?

And people placing too much trust in where you /claim/ to be? Can of worms here!

Paris because she knows where she's at. And we don't

Telco compares merger to Challenger space shuttle

Paul Berry
Alert

There are IT Managers who weren't even /born/ in 1986

One may be managing you now. Just cry quietly to yourself.

Ray Winstone joins Mel Gibson at the Edge of Darkness

Paul Berry
Coat

Gibson to turn into tree?

Must resist the inevitable joke about being wooden, etc.