Posts by Jason Hindle 1005 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009
So, not only do they want lower tourist numbers, they also want a lower quality of tourist? I doubt your average Daily Mail reader* is exactly the last of the big spenders, when on that annual Flori-duh holiday.
* Daily Mail reader perhaps used as a euphemism for the Nothing to Hide/Nothing to Fear brigade.
I don’t imagine there’s a massive difference in cost between FTTC and bog standard ADSL. Also, don’t forget that BT now own a massive mobile network, so wireless 4G/5G solutions (combined with microwave radio, if sufficient line of site available, or satellite if not) might be more cost effective for the most difficult locations.
Is any obligation going to be placed on major land owners, in terms of allowing equipment on (or under) their land?
Apple simply can’t escape the commoditisation of the smartphone market. There’s not a great deal you can do with the X that you can’t also do with something cheaper. There’s a strong case for buying a well supported something that does what you need fast, but the arguments for a luxury item aren’t so strong. That’s not to say Apple is doomed. I understand the 8 is delivering plenty of shareholder value.
"How will it benefit the country that farmers can get 10mbs download speed? I only get 1mbps and I live in a city centre and that's enough for Netflix, gaming etc. Don't we subsidise them enough?"
That would be Netflix in sub standard definition, I assume. I found it just about usable when we had a 3mbps connection.
"The lack of MBNA Amex is an ommision. Poundland and now Aldi take no accept Amex so no excuse to miss out miles even on the smallest transaction."
Poundland too? That is good news. My Visa card has been seeing a lot less action since Aldi started taking Amex (normal Amex issued charge card, so works perfectly with Android/Google/Whatever Pay).
“Your post leads one to beleive that we didn't have a complete, flying aircraft before getting Europeon nations involved to increase the size of the order book.“
Indeed. The Eurofighter is essentially a variant of the very British Experimental Aircraft Programme (EAP) from the 80s. It was a very early (earliest?) example of an inherently unstable aircraft design using fly by wire and computers to keep it safely up. A lot of that tech also ended up in the American F22.
The European Airlines have long been a little envious of Turkish who, thanks to their hub at IST, can cover a rather large area with 737s. Beyond Europe, there’s a market for point to point business between smaller airports. Not forgetting the possibility of an all business cabin on some routes.
And other things that might look out of place in the usually quite wholesome federation. I'm told hardcore Trekkies hate it...
For a Tarantino movie to work, it would have to have Jackson in it (and perhaps an infestation of some kind of poisonous space snake). "Pass me my phaser. It's the one with bad mother------ written on it".
What are my options? My Google Nexus 5X is pretty much everything. It''s my plane ticket, train ticket, bus ticket, tram ticket, taxi ride and method of paying for most transactions < £30 (and many other things). It also sometimes gets used a phone. I'm somewhat loathe to go back to the old ways of doing things, but are the alternatives (assuming the plural still applies) any better?
Imagine living in a city where they have an Oyster/Octopus type card, with the most ridiculous name imaginable*. Imagine then not being able to simply top that card up and use it anywhere**. Or where the card works on buses and trams, but not the train. Imagine still having to buy separate tickets for bus, tram and train, in spite of this card. Imagine a city where contactless (including Apple/Android Pay) works on some buses, but not others. Imagine Manc!
The only good thing about it is that the city ended up firing a company with a reputation of declaring dying people fit to work, because it turned out they were also incompetent at delivering IT systems.
* It's called My Get Me There. Ok, I suppose they could have called it Noel or Liam. There is an NFC card, and there's an app, but the app doesn't use NFC and works with tram tickets only.
** And it's for season tickets only, and quite useless for ad-hoc, point to point trips.
Sure, you BT Home Hub, YakYak or Sky broadband router might be working incredibly well, but you've no guarantee a problem will be resolved in any reasonable amount of time. Problems with the router, and out to the cabinet, should be easy enough to deal with, but the simplest way to deal with a core/edge network issue may well be to move provider! I've read enough horror stories of BT customers going long without service, and have my own bad experience with TalkTalk*. I have BT Infinity 2, at the moment, and (fingers/toes crossed) it works very nicely. I don't have time for a Kafkaesque customer service experience.
* Couldn't receive calls at home. They charged me for an inconclusive home visit, and the problem mysteriously fixed itself after a few days.
Really, it's fine. I use it as my default browser, on Windows 10, and keep Chrome for the things Chrome is good at (I use Google docs, for starters). However, I only see Edge taking off if Microsoft makes Windows 10 S work. Given the current state of the Microsoft App Store, I don't see that happening. Perhaps if they get the second (or is it third) coming or Windows on ARM to work out for them? Something like that (with cheap, decently performing tablets and notebooks), with a decent ecosystem, could work. Doesn't help Microsoft that the other two got there first. Now that's what I call disruption.
"Python has a couple of traits that make it very useful for those who program as a secondary function."
That would be me. I was originally a programmer by training, but it's now an occasional part of the job. Sure, I recently learned some Java for a specific set of tasks (nice enough language, btw), but Python is becoming the language I use when I just want to get stuff done.
I'm not sure if it's a good language for the beginner though. Call me old fashioned, but a good set of training wheels should be strongly typed.
Travel outside of normal working hours should probably be on the clock though. And the policy should only be covering day trips. I haven't done a one day business trip in donkeys' years, but always used to bring my own sarnies along. Travel and expenses policies have, across the tech business, been trending meaner for a long time. Absent another boom, I'm not expecting this to improve anytime soon.
I pay a relatively small annual fee for my Flickr and SmugMug sites, with no such limitation. Compared to SmugMug in particular, the Photobucket galleries aren't terribly attractive. I'm sure many long time users would pay a reasonable amount to make this problem go away, but $400 is absurd.
Airport laptop rental at the point of arrival. Choice of either Chromebook or something that comes with VirtualBox and the VMware player. Those (I assume many) of us who have a US employer will have a laptop waiting, either at the hotel, if visiting a client, or at the office if visiting the mothership. Getting the customer to store spare devices is also an option.
I don't see the point of ban. I don't see how it will make us more secure. A bomb is a bomb, and a relatively small bomb will take down a plane regardless of placement. However, I do think we'll all adapt and get on with it. No matter how onerous these regulations become, I predict a majority of us (perhaps fifty two percent) will continue to vote for morons.
Disappointed by the lack of downvotes, I'll address a random selection of responses.
“And isn't wet, and hasn't overheated.”
So no different to any other stealth aircraft? My limited understanding of stealth operations is that there's a lot more to them than simply fielding something with reduced visibility. At the moment, I'm suspecting Britain's aircraft will more likely be hobbled more by lack of access to munitions and sensor packages.
“Yes it is. But when did that ever actually work? (Other than finding out by need or accident that 'hey, look, it was only designed to do this, but it can also do that'?)”
By accident? F15. By design? F18. Two of the most successful combat aircraft ever…. British defence thinking tends to be hobbled by the MoD’s (and top brass’s) love of one trick ponies.
“These were never intended as air superiority fighters(*). That's the F22's job along with enemy ground defence supression. The "cheaper" F35 was supposed to be doing ground support work.”
So you reckon it's just a big Harrier replacement, with questionable stealth, and designed for exactly the same missions?
“The ordnance loadout is pathetic, the range is crap and the turnaround times are realistically going to be days once they begin to see real-world use.”
I'm disappointed they didn't get the A, for the RAF, but the B looks reasonable. I understand it can carry a couple of AMRAMs plus a couple of small bombs, internally.
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