* Posts by G Murphy

50 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Jan 2009

UK data cops warn Optical Express to stop spamming 1000s of customers

G Murphy

Got one of these yesterday

Criminal offence you say?

*reports*

MI6 oversight report on Lee Rigby murder: US web giants offer 'safe haven for terrorism'

G Murphy

Jump on the privacy bandwagon

and miss the most salient point: "none of the major US Communications Service Providers (CSPs) regard themselves as compelled to comply with UK warrants"

This isn't campaigning for mass surveillance, it's a legitimate concern that suspected criminals under investigation will have their court issued warrants ignored by US firms.

PANDA chomps through Spotify's DRM

G Murphy

Re: The entire concept

I agree with you, but only when you're buying the music.

Spotify is a streaming service, under no circumstance are you ever led to believe you 'own' the music so why shouldn't it be protected.

How practical is an electric car in London?

G Murphy

Driving in to central london

is a pretty silly thing to do at the best of times, regardless of the propulsion system your vehicle employs. Buses, trains and tubes are all available frequently and fairly cheaply during working hours. Having to take two taxis and park in a less than ideal location is a symptom of driving anything in to central London during the week and expecting to park exactly where you want to.

Apple is KILLING OFF BONKING, cries mobe research dude

G Murphy

surprising number of people

being extremely conservative about pay-by-wave on here, hardly the tech-adopting folk I'd expect.

I've been using it on my credit card for over a year now, most larger retailers (and small stores thereof) now accept it - all the supermarkets, boots (superdrug I think), m&s and an array of sandwich-shop type chains. I think even McD's is pay-by-wave now. It's massively convenient, almost entirely removes the need for coins and is incredibly quick - quicker than chip and pin and quicker than cash.

I'd love to have it on my nexus 5 but as others have mentioned above, no support. That's not a huge surprise though - the bbc can't be bothered to support the nexus 5 for downloads yet.

Guardian lets UK spooks trash 'Snowden files' PCs to make them feel better

G Murphy

Re: Tantrum

the Grauniad is more trustworthy than no other side of the story? Tautology surely? We only have one side of the story, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, so it almost certainly needs a hefty pinch of salt.

If you know the people you are talking about can not and will not respond, then you can say what you like about them. If you happen to have a bit of an issue with said people, whether through antagonising interactions, ideological differences etc, then you not only can, but probably will say what you want. Plus issues around driving up readership and the Guardian brand.

G Murphy

Re: Tantrum

I am of course as certain as you are that the one-sided version we have of these events is a true and fair reflection of reality.

Or something.

G Murphy

Missing the point?

I can't begin to entertain the idea, as some are suggesting, that they thought destroying this copy would destroy all traces. What appears to me to be far more likely is that they are trying to lock down the data so it is in as few a places as possible, and therefore less readily accessible.

Who knows what tiny, seemingly insignificant, detail in these documents could actually be a crucial piece of information to those with ill intentions.

T-Mobile UK ordered into humiliating Full Monty strip

G Murphy

Re: same with BT

I'm on BT Inifinity and have found this to be the case too

Major blow for Apple: 'Bounce back' patent bounced back by USPTO

G Murphy

They'd be wise to let this go

it's not exactly great publicity, and by the time they're done they'll have spent more on lawyers than on any monetary gains derived from this sort of activity.

BT to end traffic throttling - claims capacity is FAT

G Murphy

Re: Seems the rabid bunch are out again

well I'm with BT on Option 2, and it's really not that amazing - throttling definitely occurs, you can visibly see the difference as the clock ticks towards 12:00am, this doesn't affect me much at all because I don't generally use the services which are throttles (p2p), but I can clearly see it occurs.

In addition even streaming services can be flaky, they are generally ok, but most evenings I'll hit a buffer or two even on iPlayer. That's on a wired network too. I assume it's because I live in a pretty densely populated area of south london and contention really is an issue, but I am paying a fair wedge for super-duper broadband, which really isn't much different to the speeds I got on my old Be ADSL.

If it's not the line, it's the homehub/modem, both of which were supplied by BT.

Review: Google Nexus 4

G Murphy
FAIL

Re: No mention of call quality

To quote: "call quality - thanks to active noise cancellation - and cellular reception gave no cause for complaint"

Inside the new climate row as Mystic Met Office goes cool on warming

G Murphy
Thumb Up

Re: Completely lost

Hooray

I thought I was the only one thinking this. The tinfoil hat brigade seem to be out above though, 'it's all the corporate paymasters fault', 'it's just a political front' etc etc etc.

If you can't tell the difference between an article that's comparing annual amounts to daily variations then I would doubt you have the statistical ability to analyse this data in any way worthwhile.

The data still shows warming over the last 30 years, regardless of cause, and it's only the forecast which has moved. Why do people assume that if global warming is occurring (i.e. man made global warming) it means that the temperature should go up each and every year anyway?

Sky gripe grounded Freeview EPG facelift

G Murphy
Thumb Up

Re: Eh?

Good, glad someone else thought the same too!

Motorola, Samsung smash Apple's touchscreen patent claim

G Murphy
Stop

Re: They did what?

No. What? How? How did you even infer that?

The court decided that a patent that had been granted was actually invalid. It was still active up till that point and Apple had (past tense) tried to sue for infringement. Doesn't appear too complicated to me. Could be wrong though...

ENCODE’s ‘junk DNA’ claims spark biological bunfight

G Murphy
Thumb Up

@AndrueC

Don't think option 2 ever occured to me before. Nice idea. Probably a substantial part of 1, some of 2 and some of 3 (left over, 'switched off', bits of DNA)

The cooler side of the Big Bang

G Murphy
WTF?

Re: Sigh.

Well anyone who can publish several papers a week on cutting edge 'physics', correct hundreds of years of 'errors' and all without a single reference except to their own non-reviewed 'papers' is clearly not in a 'hocus pocus state'.

Seriously.

Airline leaves customer on hold for 15 hours

G Murphy
Mushroom

BT

Once put me through to a department that had closed. But I was still listening to their hold music and canned messages. Eventually used the mobile to call another BT number who confirmed that indeed the department I was on hold to had closed. That was after 45 minutes. At my expense.

WTF is... WiGig

G Murphy

I felt the same up to a couple of years ago. Now though, wireless is reasonably hassle free. My home network is named reasonably sensibly and the password, whilst a bit long, is simple to communicate and type in.

That being said, all my fixed devices are cabled and I can't see that changing any time soon.

Stray SMS leads to aborted landing

G Murphy

Go arounds

Very common according to a relative who used to work as an air-hostess.

Most are caused by the runway not being clear for landing - read: pilots dawdling on the tarmac instead of clearing off.

Chinese and US military square off for cyber war games

G Murphy
FAIL

Did no one notice that this paragraph makes absolutely no sense whatsoever?

Although another exercise is reportedly scheduled for May, there is little sign that efforts – ... – to steal military and other strategically valuable information from the US mainly via advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks which are designed to go unnoticed.

Makes pedantic AC and his apostrophe's look even more stupid.

Samsung Series 3 NP300E5A 15in notebook

G Murphy
WTF?

Gosh

"To help keep the cost down there’s no discrete GPU, instead it relies on Intel’s integrated HD 3000 chip. Needless to say that gaming is more of a dream than a reality"

All PC/Laptop reviewers immediately jump to gaming as though it's the be-all of owning a computer. I, a bit like Frederic Bloggs above, just want a strong workhorse that does the job well without being filled with extra power-sapping 'features' like another GPU just so it gets better reviews from people who play games on tech sites!

More Brits desert high streets to spend £50bn online

G Murphy
Thumb Up

Without naming names

If courier companies can't sort themselves out then I wouldn't signal the end of the high street any time soon. We had some awful experiences with a certain re-branded delivery company in December, which decided to outsource it's deliveries to 'local' delivery men. Queue a two and a half week wait with no possible way of contacting the delivery man, and no wway for the courier to contact him/her and track it.

I'd rather pay 10% more to keep a store alive so that I can:

a) see the product before I purchase it - not so important with CDs/DVDs etc, but nigh on most other things you want to see, and feel, what you're getting

b) take it away right there and then

c) be able to take it back without having to repackage and stand in line at the post office on a saturday morning

d) occasionally actually get to speak to someone who's more knowledgable about the product than you are

2011's Best... Smartphones

G Murphy
WTF?

Does this even make sense?

"Sure, the 800MHz CPU can’t handle Flash video well but then neither can can the iPhone or Nokia's Lumia"

"There’s no doubt the Lumia is a fine phone: it’s superbly made ... goes like the clappers thanks to its 1.4GHz CPU"

So, in the section on the Lumia, no mention that it has problems with Flash as indicated in the section on the Monte Carlo? Seriously confused by this!

Samsung strokes big bulb that'll keep going for decades

G Murphy
FAIL

Re: Re: Drivers?

Humour fail you often?

HP unwraps Ultrabook

G Murphy
Thumb Up

agreed!

Air form factor + a bit more connectivity = a good thing. I couldn't care less if it doesn't look as pretty, I don't buy computers as a fashion accessory.

Mystery radioisotopes in Czech air are not from Fukushima

G Murphy
Mushroom

Is it a coincidence that..

This was posted just a couple of days after this incident:

Iran explosion at Revolutionary Guards military base

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15705948

Martian simnauts emerge from spaceship outside Moscow

G Murphy
Facepalm

was it you?

No, it wasn't, but now you've not only gone and ruined my idea (although it should help deflect charged particles) but you've also gone and told me it's apparently not such an original idea!

G Murphy

Solar storms...

If a vessel had a power source which generated electricity (I'm assuming nuclear powered on a voyage of this length) could it not also produce it's own magnetic field to help shield the crew from radiation?

Can a user really do BI from the desktop?

G Murphy

In my business (insurance) it's mostly the IT dept. where the problem lies, having built poorly specced data repositories and not understanding either what the data is or the importance of it to the company.

Their insular 'you wouldnt understand or you'd break it' attitude has prevented users obtaining the data they need for BI and even led to users seruptitiously obtaining the data they need without anyone in IT being aware.

My experience may be different from the majority but I think most people who really want, or need, better BI are substantially more computer literate than most IT professionals give credit for.

Play.com swallowed by Rakuten

G Murphy

This was my, occasionally unreliable, memory too

Yes, there's a Tech Bubble. But that's OK

G Murphy

"... Facebook does. I use it all day, every day"

To do what exactly? Even my missus (who seems fascinated by what someone she met once in 2002 has just put on their 'wall') doesn't spend more than an hour a day maximum.

Apple MacBook Air 11in Core i5 notebook

G Murphy

Is it just me or does El Reg appear to be reviewing every piece of Apple kit that comes out nowadays, including every single size available in the range?

Very much confused by this; does the self confessed 'Mac user' reviewer gets to keep the review models or something?

Acer Aspire 5755G 15in Core i7 laptop

G Murphy
WTF?

And yet another...

Another laptop with a numeric keypad which was "much appreciated" by the reviewer. Am I the only one that thinks this is fairly pointless? I use spreadsheets an awful lot but i rarely use the numeric pad because I'm not doing data entry and nor am I gaming. Do people like the off-center trackpad too?

It also comes with a 750GB hard drive, because that's exactly what I need in a laptop, not a fast low power drive, no I need big numbers....

I really struggle why manufacturers can't come up with viable alternatives to, say, the Air series, it's fairly light on all the 'extras' I don't need or want but you pay a premium to apple for not having them, surely this market is wide open?

Film studios thrash BT in Newzbin site-block test case

G Murphy
WTF?

@AC (12:20) I agree

--> What is actually wrong with ".....litigation, media campaigns and political means to preserve and increase its incumbent technology"? Why should they innovate "..their delivery system"?

I couldn't agree more, I think we should ban portable players, CDs, cassette tapes, even vinyl. Things were much better when people could only listen to what was played on the radio to them. That'll teach those plebs who want more from the creative arts industry.

On a more serious note, I think you've entirely missed the point, the writer wasn't asking for sites like NewzBin to innovate, he was asking for the media industry itself to, thus making sites like NewzBin superfluous to all but a marginal section of society (piracy always occurs to some extent)

UK will obey Euro unisex-insurance rules from 2013

G Murphy
Facepalm

Re: The insurance con...

"every year, yet another above inflation increase"... except that's not true in the slightest, 'inflation' in insurance terms isn't the price of bread at your local supermarket, it's the price of paying claims, which have sky rocketed over the last ten years.

A little bit of research will show you that in fact the motor insurance industry in particular has barely made a profit over the last 15 years due to increasing claim costs (bad) and rampant competition (good).

You seem to be coming from a point of view that insurers make ridiculous profits at the expense of joe bloggs. Where on earth have you got that from? Have you confused banks for insurance companies?

Panasonic TX-P65VT30 65in plasma 3D TV

G Murphy

EPG...

Guide Plus EPG is a complete pain in the ass, I nearly took back my Sony Bravia because of it, before I realised there was a (much nicer) alternative in the options menu.

No such thing on the panny I assume? In which case I totally agree with AC@10:31 - you can't really justify 90% for something which is awful and is a fundamental part of the tv.

Google Chrome extension detects dangerous websites

G Murphy

What?

Link please?

Anonymous vows to attack Federal Reserve

G Murphy
FAIL

Wow...

What a fantastic demonstration of economic insight in that video. Combine that with tactics such as 'let's DDoS that website' and you must have an average Anonymous age of what, 14?

Or is that too generous?

Facebook growth slows in stalkerbase heartlands

G Murphy
Facepalm

But...

How many people have an account but barely ever actually use it? I probably login about 4 times a year (usually after I find out someone has decided to organise an event solely through facebook). You can have lots of users, but how many of them are actually hitting that minimum 'monthly active' target...

Who'd have thought that it would start to tail off as the fad died. Zuckerberg should go public and start selling his shares while he can!

'Leccy price hike: Greens to blame as well as energy biz

G Murphy
WTF?

Except...

Generally major shareholders of utility companies are institutional investors, either directly or indirectly through investment funds, who are very interested in a steady income stream so that they can provide for things such as your endowment policy, life insurance policy and, most importantly, your pension. Blaming shareholders when they are representing your future financial security is a little odd.

That's not to say I think it's right that they encourage ever larger dividend payments but I do understand why they do it!

Amazon's profit disappoints, thanks to Apple's iPad success

G Murphy
Coat

Anyone heard of economics?

A stock will be priced not just with next quarters earnings in mind but the entire future earnings of that company. It's not that investors are 'disappointed' so they sell it, like a computer game they're bored with, but rather that a slowdown in the rate of sales growth has implications for the future earnings which is therefore reflected in the price of the stock. It is also likely to affect the dividends paid, if any, which will also form a substantial part of the valuation.

In short, it's not really a shock when stocks go down because companies underperform. All this nonsense about speculators bringing about the end of the world is just bs frankly.

Wikipedia: Efficient Market Hypothesis

Sony reveals slim PS3, drops price

G Murphy
Go

So what about existing stock

Is there a bargain to be had, I read on ArsTechnica that in the US the price drop was effective immediately on old stock.... can I pick up an 'old' style 'fat' PS3 in a £250 bundle now?

Helium hole hiccup halts Hadron

G Murphy
Grenade

Pull the plug...

Pull the plug on our funding of this, and put the entire load in to ITER and fusion research, something which may alter our lives forever versus an experiment which might show us that there really is a gravity boson. whoop.

Blears is latest to scurry away from Brown's Cabinet

G Murphy
Go

Blears and Wacky Jacqui?

I'm tempted to hop skip and dance, getting rid of these two (particularly wacky jacqui, who I'm pretty sure read the Daily Mail every day and used it as some sort of bible) is the best thing that could have happened to Labour at the moment.

Gordon should be thaking the heavens.

In truth they are all probably resigning so that they don't have the disgrace of being dumped out of the cabinet by Brown. you know it's true...

UK2 brings support back to Blighty, culls execs

G Murphy

@ Paul Murphy

Actually, in the long term, in a gloablized world, it makes perfect sense to use cheaper workers no matter where they are in the world.

The problem is that it makes no sense in the short term: customers want support staff that can communicate fluently and identify with them and a significant proportion of foreign support staff aren't up to scratch yet [although the indian call staff at BT apologise more sincerely than most UK call staff ever have, still nothing ever seems to get sorted so what's the difference?]

Tory 'terror' affair shows danger of ubiquitous surveillance

G Murphy

@Jeff & @Oz

Jeff, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I agree with you, but your argument is in hindsight. Unless you know differently there was absolutely no way the Home Office would have known whether matters concerning national security were being leaked or not.

As far as 'counter-terrorism' goes; there wasn't really any, I don't know where this has come from, as I said before, the police are the counter-terrorism unit, but this is just the new name for special branch and no powers under anti-terror legislation were used...

@Oz

Oz, like with any orgsanisation if you think the ship is sinking don't say you sided with the captain, I don't think you can infer much from rebel MPs. I've yet to see any indication that the actions the police took were unlawful, they are allowed to enter premises without a warrant if you let them, it really is that simple.

G Murphy
Stop

What on earth is this all about?

"The "national security" justification offered by Jacqui Smith for the warrantless counter-terror police raid on a fellow member of Parliament's offices was trumped up by officials embarrassed by a series of leaks, we've now learned."

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and what a lovely government-bashing bandwagon the majority of the media (including the el reg) has jumped on.

I'm no labourite or tory-boy (currently just confused about who the hell a sane person would vote for...) but can we please have some perspective on this:

You're in charge of the Home Office. For the last few months there have been a number of leaks to the public regarding internal documents. At this point you:

a) Suspect there is a mole - this is embarassing and you'd like them to stop

b) Don't know what else they are leaking or who to - this is a genuine national security concern. If you don't know who the leak is, how exactly do you know in advance that this isn't a national security issue at all?

So, you call in the cops. Now, whether they were right to go after Mr Green IS a good argument, given that they had found the source of the leak and could thus ascertain his access rights and no doubt a 'confession' regarding what he'd leaked, this probably should have ended here as far as the police go.

It didn't however and the police went in to see Mr Green. WITHOUT A WARRANT. Oh my. That's awful, the police can't do such horrible things in this country.

Unless the police ask to come in, and you let them, and then they ask to search, and you let them.

Which is what happened.

This isn't a political scandal, it's a non-event as far as I can see. The only question to be asked is did the Met need to take this further than the mole they had found and for what reasons.

Have I missed something fundamental to this story or this is just an excuse to bash the Labour party that everyone seems to have jumped on?

P.s. 'Anti-terrorism' police are just special branch by a different name, the same people who would and should be investigating internal home office security breaches.

Put down your pens: Cartoons next on censor block

G Murphy
Unhappy

@kosmos

...an excellent quote indeed!

Unfortunately there's not much hope for this country because whichever bl**dy party wins the next general election, they'll still put through the same populist daily hate mail legislation to keep the majority happy in the short-term.

When you combine this with an inevitable increase in taxes to pay for the bail-outs and ever increasing age of population (public pension burden) I personally think we'd all be best off buggering off and leaving this country to rot. How sad.

UK.gov backs ISPs on charging content providers, throttling P2P

G Murphy
Stop

Bad bad bad, unless...

...there are provisions for minimum quality of service in legislation.

I have no problem with charging people more for heavy bandwidth use/guaranteed bandwidth and QoS, as long as it doesn't affect the consumer in any way other than positively. As far as I can see, this is what we should be going for, a legal minimum service which must be provided by consumer (and business) users.

I would suggest a distinct lack of throttling and all broadband contracts to have a guaranteed 24/7 minimum bandwidth, e.g. 200kbps download on a 2mb line etc.

Exclamation because this will need a lot of public pressure, but why should it always be the large companies that get their way, where is the upside for us!