Re: First Class mail

I salute (and upvote) you both for that very useful information. But what, pray, is that in Olympic sized swimming trunks?

Re: License fee

I thought that statement was a bit odd too.

There is more opposition to the Beeb than just Murdoch though. The right wing of the Conservatives haven't been keen on the BBC since at least the 80s. Also the Telegraph and Mail aren't exactly fans either (in their case probably for the same self-interested reasons as Murdoch), plus the Mail doesn't like anything that's fun and the Telegraph has become the mouthpiece of the Tory Right, rather than conservative retired colonels in Old Buffershire.

Hence the government put a medium axe to the license fee. With making the Beeb pay for the World Service and S4C, plus going without inflationary increases that amounts to cuts of about a quarter by the end of the current license fee settlement.

Perhaps this getting by without public notice has fooled the right into thinking it could axe the BBC, or radically change it? I doubt Cameron is that stupid though. Some complicated cuts, amongst many others that the Beeb didn't really fight were easy. Any serious danger to the BBC would go down like a lead balloon. And of course the BBC would be there to report it, in glorious technicolour. They do like a nice juicy media story, and even more if it's about themselves...

I think the BBC Trust's regular polling shows consistently high support for it. And they'd get awfully worried if that changed. Look at the fuss from axing 6 Music, and no-one listens to that. Try axing Radio 4 and the WI would march on Downing Street. And look what they did to Tony Blair over just one speech...

"You work when you're not being paid to."

"All I took away was that you're an idiot who doesn't know how to relax."

"If you can't say to your boss "I'm on holiday, bugger off""

Lee Dowling,

I'm tempted to be rude here, and say that all I take away from these three quotes from you is that you're an idiot who can't read. In this case, the bit about Mr Dabbs being a freelance. But leaving out the abuse I'll put it down to a sudden onset of grumpiness (causes unknown), given I see you make perfectly sensible posts regularly.

He's a freelance. It says it in his blurb. It implies it in the article - by talking about multiple clients. So by definition he works when he is being paid to. More importantly if he's not working, he's not getting paid.

When you're a contractor/freelancer, and a client phones you, the option to say bugger off is not one to be chosen lightly. They may well do that very thing. And possibly never come back.

In my business if we're not there to answer a few simple questions (for which we won't get paid) then we may not get asked the question next time, which might include the magic words 'can you do me a quote for that'. If I happen to be on holiday, I can point them at the office, or if it's quick, just answer the question. I guess a single freelance scribbler doesn't have that option.

However if they've happened to pick my mobile, rather than the office number, then I've got at least a small amount of work to do on holiday. This is balanced by the advantage of only having to carry one mobile phone for the rest of the year though - and the money I save from not having to pay a personal mobile contract.

Curse the yellow face! It hurts our eyes-es Preciousss. Yes-ss it does-ss.

Re: NYSE did not roll back trades...

This isn't a HFT system.

Knight are a market maker. Their primary business is not to make money trading. They're simply a convenient sales and order processing system for people who do. Which is why they get paid for doing something that traders could otherwise do themselves (but at slightly greater financial and time cost).

Re: Exactly right

danolds,

Thank you for the sausages.

"To me, this is a major reason why this story is so interesting and chilling at the same time. These guys aren't taking a lot of risk, not doing anything that's wildly or even mildly speculative"

In my original post I wrote than Knight don't take risks on the market, and then deleted the sentence for the obvious silliness, given they'd just lost nearly half a billion dollars. I couldn't find an elegant way of describing the position.

Their business model only involves a low risk. However they can make catastrophic errors that could lose them hundreds of millions. But this situation isn't unique to companies in the financial services industry. Toyota lost a fortune on having to fix design faults in cars, any large transport or building company can kill hundreds of people by some combination of bad management, error, carelessness, negligence or rogue employees, and that could result in similar sized losses. It's just that's a bit too much text to fit on the t-shirt...

As you say, it's pretty scary what can go wrong. I work in the water industry, and about this time every year you get a news story about how a few people have died in a Legionnaires Disease outbreak. And then a few days later you're talking to someone on the phone who wants to spend the least amount of money possible on their equipment, and you just know that their idea of a maintenance regime is to call someone when water doesn't come out of the taps in about 15 years time...

Re: 52V

Didn't Edison also electrocute an elephant in New York, to prove how unsafe AC was? Dishonest, yes - but still an amazing publicity stunt.

Not that he was a weirdo or anything...

Re: I still don't know why they started

I still don't get that bit. "Here lads, I've got a great idea! Let's sue IBM."

The correct response is not "Yes!". Approved procedure is to lob an avalanche of rotten fruit across the boardroom table. Or to force said executive to consult a pshrink. Or both.

Exhibit A, IBM, the company that fought the Department of Justice to a standstill over accusations of anti-competitive practises for decades - when Microsoft folded in under 10 years. Losers! A company which has more lawyers than you could shake a stick at. Their best attack-lawyers probably employ ordinary, $500 an hour, lawyers just to put a nice shine on their shoes each morning. Talk about asking for trouble.

However, it's not over yet. While there's a twitching corpse, there's hope.

I also refer the honourable gentleman to my answer of June 2010 where I predicted that it was premature to announce the death of SCO then. There's always someone who ignores all the warnings and decides to explore the ancient tomb, and re-awaken the curse...

Other than the fact they're not a bank, and it was quite possible they could be allowed to fail* you've got everything else in that sentence right...

What do you meant there's nothing else in there? Oh dear.

*They were bailed out because they were a useful and profitable company, who happened to make one enormous fuck-up. So long as they don't connect their test software to the real world again, they can be expected to carry on doing their boring, but useful job for many years to come. They're not a risk-taking casino-banking operation. Or at least they're not supposed to be...

Re: but what if...

"Err, that's what it's designed to do. The whole point is to complete LOTS of trades at a very small profit each."

Velv,

No, that's not the point of the software. Knight are a market maker. That means their job is not to make money on the market - though they possibly do a small bit of that as I think they hold 'stock' (as it were) of some less frequently traded shares. What they do is aggregate trades for a bunch of clients, to make life easier, and cheaper. They then charge a small fee for each transaction.

So if customer a has 100 Apple shares it wants to sell, and customer Z wants to buy 90 of them, then Knight can handle both those trades, and may hold on to the spare 10 Apple shares to fulfill an order tomorrow. Or sell them on itself. Only on a rather bigger scale.

One of the advantages for their customers is that Knight will pay all the cash up front for a sale, rather than leaving shares on the market for people to buy in chunks, as they want them. So you just dump all the stock you don't want on Knight, and you've got the cash instantly to go shopping with.

So they don't make their cash from taking risks on investments, but by being useful.

Re: Stylus is Key Selling Point

Decent handwriting recognition on tablets pisses all over onscreen keyboards. Admittedly Steve was right about them being annoying for normal YI navigation. But for use as a mouse substitute when on a remote desktop, I'd suspect theyre also dead useful.

Re: Resolution Resolution Resolution

Doesn't the new Asus Transformer screen come pretty close to the iPad?

Assuming there actually are any... I'm not sure I've even seen the Transformer 2 yet. And I really want to have a play with on...

In the end, I went iPad 3. But I'm determined my next tablet will either have a keyboard or a pen.

Re: £350?

Big_Ted,

Dont know if this is helpful, but:

The MiFi can take a 32GB micro SD card, and use it as network storage. Done via a web interface I think, so may cover your needs. If so it's a £50 Pay&Go modem, plus WiFi hard drive, all in one.

Sorry I can't test mine to see how it works and clarify, but I lent it to a friend, who made the mistake of paying TalkTalk for broadband, and so hasn't got any...

Re: Has anyone here ever used those Bluetooth laser keyboards?

Shocked Jock,

Are you sure? I was also taught to type on an old manual typewriter. A giant thing made by Imperial, that probably weighed as much as I did...

If you hover your hands over the home keys, how to do know where your fingers are, without looking? I lose about 30 wpm if I even glance in the direction of the keyboard (thinking brain tries to overrule training), let along actually focusing on my finger position.

Surely you gently rest your fingers on the home keys, that's why there are blobs on the J and F keys, and then move them to where needed. Admittedly it's a long time since I used a typewriter, and I've had to re-learn my typing style to avoid the RSI I'd have got if I banged computer keys the way you had to with a typewriter, but I'm sure that you always needed to have physical contact with the keys. That's the problem that reduces me to 2 finger typing on the iPad, as it's just as quick as attempting to touch type.

"Oh and I don't need iTunes....."

No-one needs iTunes. It's the Devil's work.

Re: As an Australian.......

Ahhh... Bubble and squeak for dinner on Boxing Day. Leftover Christmas dinner veg, especially brussels sprouts fried in lovely goose fat along with lots of potato. Then serve with sausage meat and turkey plus cranberry sauce.

Finished with left over brandy butter, and Christmas pudding as a vehicle for same. With cream.

Thinks: wonder why I always put on weight over Christmas?

Re: Dangerous suggestion

Blofeld's Cat,

I used to live in Belgium. Mayo on chips is not nice. Even from a paper cone.

The paper cones would be perfect for salt and vinegar, if only it were available. However, the delicious curry ketchup is an excellent option instead. Or at least seemed to be on offer everywhere in Brussels. Yum.

Salad cream is acceptable on chips. Mayo isn't.

Re: HP Sauce

I know an otherwise perfectly fine American who says that 'vegetarian bacon' (SPIT!!!!) tastes as good as real bacon. I guess this is because it's impossible to get real bacon in the US. They don't seem to eat lamb either for some strange reason.

What you can buy is baconised cardboard. A bit like those bacon air-fresheners you see in taxis. Only less tasty. I guess the difference between the vegetarian and meat based version is like the difference between drinking meths and bleach. Not worth worrying about.

Do you think the USA's failure to sign up to the ICC treaties was because of their fear of being tried in the Hague for crimes against bacon?

Re: Has anyone here ever used those Bluetooth laser keyboards?

I don't see why it would be any better than the on screen keyboard really. The advantage is obviously not wasting screen space, but they for that you get the disadvantage of needing a flat, shiny surface.

However, you still don't get any tactile feedback, and you're banging your fingers against a hard surface, rather than hitting a spring loaded key. Also is it possible to touch type? Unless the software's very clever, you can't rest your fingers on the home keys, which means you've got to hover your hands in midair, and peck at the keys. Not comfortable, or good for speed. I guess this is probably less annoying for non touch-typists.

Would that be the horribly plasticky original transformer (with the buggy version of Android that Google hacked together), or the 2nd edition with so much metal in the casing that the radios didn't work?

To be fair I quite like the Transformer, and I was looking forward to escaping from Apple's walled garden come my next upgrade. But my experiences of a phone on 2.2 and playing with 3 on tablets put me off Android for a while. I still think the iPad 3 is the least flawed of all the tablets.

The latest Transformer looks nice, but I'd already caved in and got an iPad3, so I won't be upgrading for at least 2 years. At which point there'll be Windows to play with as well. I'm pinning my hopes on Samsung and their Galaxy Note range now, as if I can only have one of them, I'll probably take a nice stylus over a keyboard. It's a shame Windows won't allow a stylus on WinRT, only on the x86 versions.

Re: People still own cats?

"One day we will develop opposable thumbs and master the tin opener..."

Jog on kitties!

Re: People still own cats?

"What? Analogue ones?"

Of course they bloody do! You young people, with your digital This, and your iThat don't know you're born. Digital cats don't sound right. Their purrs are attenuated by all the sampling artefacts. The purr of an analogue cat sounds much warmer.

Re: Vacination program

I'm not sure the rabies vaccine is all that effective. I believe the vaccine pretty much guarantees that if you're infected then you can be vaccinated again (post infection) and this will work. As well as being given longer period of time between bite and the post-infection vaccination becoming ineffective.

Otherwise you've got a short window between being bitten and getting the vaccine, and even then I don't think it's 100% effective. So you'd need a decent medical infrastructure, which is harder.

Once you get the symptoms, you're pretty much dead.

I seem to remember reading about a French woman in the 1920s who survived, and there was that American teenager a couple of years ago who was bitten by a bat in church and didn't tell anyone. Her doctor decided to try every drug he could think of, plus chilling her down and inducing a coma and she survived with only major brain damage. Although she seems to have made an impressive recovery. I watched a documentary where they were trying the same techniques, and it looked like failing.

Re: @I ain't Spartacus: "rules is rules"

Didn't judge Koh dismiss a whole bunch of Apple's case earlier, until forced to accept it by a higher court? That doesn't sound like favouring Apple completely.

I'm sure a way could have been found to submit late evidence. If the judge isn't allowing it, that's either because she's biased, she's made a mistake, or she thinks Samsung are trying to pull a fast one. I'm not following the case, so I'm not expressing an opinion one way or the other. I'm not qualified to anyway...

Re: What about apeal?

I'm no lawyer, but I'd imagine "we fucked up horribly and forgot to do our paperwork properly" is not considered good grounds for appeal.

You may be able to appeal if new evidence turns up, but probably not for evidence you had in your pocket all along...

Also this is civil law, and I don't think there's the same kind of checks and balances as there is with criminal law. Private Eye didn't get their libel loss reversed, when it turned out Robert Maxwell was a crook...

Obviously they can appeal on the grounds the judge got the procedure wrong, but they don't have grounds for appeal on 'natural justice'. They're massively paid lawyers, who should get their paperwork right. If they did screw up though, Samsung may be able to win the damages back off their lawyers...

Re: Contempt ?

Both sides have to submit the evidence they're going to use in advance. This is supposed to give each side a fair chance, because they know what evidence is being used, even if they don't know what arguments will be made with it.

Therefore you're not allowed to introduce new evidence in a dramatic courtroom surprise (like they often do on TV). Otherwise you'd hide your best evidence and there'd be no way for the opposition to counteract your argument. Even if they could disprove it easily, if only they had the time to dig out the incriminating emails...

So the kindest interpretation is that Samsung have been a bit slow to put together all the stuff they needed for the case to submit to discovery, maybe Apple handed over some documents at the last minute, or they made an error? In which case tough luck, rules is rules.

In the worst interpretation, Samsung deliberately tried to screw over Apple, by not revealing vital documents they should have done. Then compounded that by releasing them to the press, after several attempts to get teh judge to admit them had failed.

I usually tend towards cock-up rather than conspiracy, until strong suggestions otherwise. But the judge may be less forgiving, particularly as they've seriously pissed her off by doing this.

Re: Evidence

The judge hasn't said it's not evidence, but that they're not allowed to use the evidence. In this case (according to the article) that's because they submitted the evidence too late in the discovery process. Which would mean that they didn't give Apple enough notice that they were going to use it, so Apple would have time to prepare counter-arguments.

Re: It just works!

Dan55,

It may be too late to save this now, but iTunes should keep 3 backups. When you put on a new phone, you should be able to choose to back up from the last but one, to get most of the stuff from the old phone. I can't remember how to do it now though.

Not that I'm saying iTunes is good, or this aspect of it isn't crap - because it's awful at handling multiple devices.

Re: Bad for Nokia

I'd imagine what Nokia gets in return is marketing. Firstly, one of their problems seems to be the salespeople pushing the latest iPhone/Samsung Galaxy III. So if they do an exclusive deal they can hope that one network provider will be on your side, pushing your phone a bit harder than others.

Secondly you can give them a rebate, based on sales volumes. Which should encourage them to try harder.

Thirdly, it allows Nokia to focus their marketing cash. Lots of joint marketing with the network, so you can get them to add some of their cash to yours. Nokia are getting $200m per year support from Microsoft, not sure how much of that is in free licenses and how much in marketing help though.

Of course the disadvantage is the loss of sales. Assuming people interested in WinPho won't care enough to move networks to get it. But they're struggling to get sales now, so I think the extra sales push (if it happens) from the networks, might be a better bet than just putting the phones on sale and hoping. How many people actively choose their phones, compared with those who take what the best offer is? I can't see them winning at the top-end, but maybe they can get some good sales in the mid and low ends of the market? Once they've got a bit of market share and better apps, maybe they can make a move at the top end. If they can last that long...

Re: Microsoft have Windows Phone fans left?

I'm not sure Microsoft screwed over Lumia buyers, so much as Nokia. I strongly suspect Nokia knew it was no dice with upgrades as I don't think MS made a secret of it.

Also, to be fair to MS, there are still upgrades happening. Google abandon most Android users without even supporting them to get the bugfixes and security updates. You might just get to 4 ICS, but that doesn't mean your manufacturer/network will even get you to 4.06, let alone the next point upgrade. There are still even mid-price phones being sold with Android 2.3, which is now very very very very very very old...

Whereas Win Pho 7 has been out for 2 years, and has had about 3 major updates, with one more promised in the Autumn. So you can't exactly call that abandoning their customers. Although I guess they must have known it was an interim product, and they were planning to change the kernel.

I'm happy, but then I knew what I was getting, and at the £100 mark in Android you don't get updates either. Plus I don't really use apps on my phone. Well apart from Nokia Drive.

Re: There isn't even a decent torch app in the WinPho app store

Which one?

The one I've got takes about 5 seconds to turn the light on. 2 others that I tried didn't work. Half of them on the store only turned the screen on, and there were a couple that had decent reviews which were either pay-for or wanted required internet access or other unneccesary data access.

I'm happy to pay for my apps, but since a torch app is simply a home screen shortcut and a function call, I'm not handing over money for that.

I've used Android for a year, iOS for 2, and Win Pho since April. The WinPho appstore is nowhere near as good.

Re: "expand the number of phone models available from major partners like Nokia and Samsung"

'Jonah' Baines,

I agree, more models doesn't necessarily mean more sales. Just getting right ones. It's the marketing that's important. If the phone company/shop staff don't point the users to it, then why would they buy WinPho. In the shops I've seen it in, there's been a WinPho display, but it's been shoved in an unloved ghetto of the shop, and so the users have probably missed it.

Like you, I may be bad luck as well. My last (Android) handset was paid for by the company. The 2 smartphones I've paid money for have been the Sony Ericsson P800 (they soon gave up on UIQ Symbian) and the Nokia Lumia 710. WinPho 7 got superseded by 8, 2 months later. I wonder if we could both buy iPhones and bankrupt Apple?