Posts by Arctic fox
1891 posts • joined Friday 6th November 2009 05:17 GMT
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Re Choice: Cupertino magical reality warp strikes again:
I have always taken the cracks about the Jobsian reality warp as examples of barbed humour until I read your post and realised that The Man From Cupertino really can warp reality for a certain type of iPhanboi.
Let us take the OFF-contract price of the cheapest of the iPhone4s at Amazon: £599
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-iPhone-Black-Mobile-Phone/dp/B003TQ3NCY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298703067&sr=8-1
Let us further take an example one of the high-end Android phones the Desire HD available OFF-contract from Amazon for: £375
http://www.amazon.co.uk/HTC-Desire-Free-Mobile-Phone/dp/B003ZDP5YK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298703126&sr=8-1
Are you seriously telling me that it is impossible to get a more reasonable deal for a Desire HD ON-contract than for the iPhone4 (16Gb, the cheapest of the two iPhones) ON-contract when the sim-free price difference between them is over 60%? Because if that is true then Apple has a deal with the carriers concerned that the competition authorities ought to be looking at on the grounds of predatory pricing or Apple is taking a hit on their *own* margins that would result in their own shareholders going absolutely berserk. I do not know what Steve has been feeding you boy but just say no, you know it makes sense.
Re: Choice: Cupertino magical reality warp strikes again:
In my previous post I referred to the Desire HD as being 60% cheaper the the iPhone4 16GB. I was of course typing too fast! What I meant to write is that the Desire HD is 60% OF the price of the cheapest iPhone4 and is therefore about 40% cheaper than the iPhone. That however does not change one iota the rest of my previous post.
@Asgard Re: Why didn't they just quietly fix it?!
They did not dare. That would have been an explicit admission that there was a hardware defect with the original release. I do not believe I have to spell out the reasons why SJ would sooner have gnawed his own leg off than concede *that* particular point.
@Ken Hagan: re "Er, but it *is* that simple"
"The horrendous infection rate within the Windows population is largely down to the fact that most end-users run as admin and willingly run EXEs that they find whilst surfing. Even *I* could crack a Windows box owned by such a user."
Thank you Ken Hagan, that indeed was, essentially, my point - although you managed to sum it up much better than I did. My point, when I referred to the (obviously ideal/imaginary situation) where Windows itself did not make the situation worse, was of course to underline exactly what you point out in your posting. The biggest threat to security is the end-user. Short of attaching electrodes to the gonads of every employee and sending X-Zilliion amperes through their reproductive equipment every time they breach security protocols I do not begin to have any idea how we tackle this problem.
@amanfromMars 1: Really? Fine. Then do us all a favour and......
.....explain in your posting what the hell you mean. Why is my posting "That is very convenient, head-in-the-sand, wishful thinking"? You have in fact said nothing at all other than that you disagree with me. Kindly, without howling, explain why. Your "reply" to my post said precisely nothing other than that you did not like what I posted, what kind of "contribution" to debate is that?
Re Trusted computing and the fate we make ourselves.
Speaking for myself I have no desire to flame you! With regard to the issue of access and who gets it one has to acknowledge that this is the heart of the problem. Let us assume (hypothetically speaking) that MS had produced an OS that was as close to perfect as ordinary mortals could possibly achieve. To what extent would this really make a difference? I do not pretend to have the answer to that but my guts tell that it would make considerably less difference than one might hope and indeed this comes back to what you were discussing. The fact of the matter is that we are all painfully aware that the biggest threat to ones system is either oneself or the plank in the office next door. One is forced to conclude that although we have to keep trying the bullet-proof OS/company system is in the absolute sense unachievable. Unless of course we try and remove the human element completely, what we can call the "Skynet approach" - and we all know what that led to!
Rememberence of things past - or in this case the present.
Fair enough - within the terms as you have defined them!
Not to nitpick and all that but should the headline not have been....
..........."Flaw in MS anti-malware engine *posed* command override risk"?
In other words using the past tense rather than the present tense? Otherwise the MicroDollarSoft brigade might be misled into believing that they had yet another opportunity to log on and begin to howl about the Great Satan from Redmond. We would not wish to expose them to disappointment, now would we?
Sometimes its the perp.......
......who needs protecting from himself!
@matware
"If Microsoft had taken 30% every time you ran your credit card through a web site on a Windows PC, people would be baying for blood."
Imagine it? The "I-cannot-spell-Microsoft-without-using-a-dollar-sign" brigade would be howling fit to be tied. They wouldn't just flame the article concerned, it would be a question of towering inferno!
iFanbois do it for free?
There's both a t-shirt and a very near-the-knuckle joke in there somewhere!
The small print in your iLease old chap.
Where its says "you are only renting your iPhone from us, it remains our property not yours".
Let me see now...
Deep-level tube tunnels, connectivity, iPhone. Why am I beginning to giggle?
Don't you just love semantics?
"For years, Google told the world that its search engine was completely objective, and only now is the company beginning to freely explain that this is not the case."
They lied, repeatedly. What else can we really call it? I do not in fact have a problem with the company having to intervene to prevent external attempts to manipulate the search results. Indeed I expect them to do what they can to keep the bell ringers from getting away with that kind of crap. What I really do not understand is their unwillingness to admit it. If they are worried that we will believe that *they' are manipulating the search results in an unethical manner then they have contributed big time to giving us that impression by lying about what they are doing!
Posted in The Doctor Who Experience
It is a strange thing, how a tv program could have that effect.
I still remember the feeling of excitement on Saturday evening in the early sixties as we sat waiting after tea for Dr Who. To this day I still get a faint reminder of butterflies in my stomach if the old Radiophonic Workshop mix of the theme tune is played damn near fifty years after dear old William Hartnell first brought the Doctor to our screens.
Posted in Nokia: free phones for developers
@It has started even sooner than I thought
I am not surprised that you posted that as an "ac". Especially in the light of the fact that the E7 is not due to launch in the UK until April.
There is an awful lot of certainty on this thread.
I do not claim to be a greater seer than the next guy and frankly no idea how this is going to turn out. However, what if Nokia actually make this work? Hmm? A large number of people on this thread and several other threads are going to have to eat a large number of their own words, pan-fried and heavily seasoned to make them palatable.
I am no fan of the fruit company but they are not.......
....idiots. At least I don't think so. The iPad is a premium product - well at least the prices are premium at any rate. Were Apple to release iPad 3 only six months after their "geniuses" were leading large queues of customers in community dancing and singing outside fruit emporia all over the known world on the launch day of iPad 2, customers who had on that day parted with a reasonably large amount of their hard-earned only to discover six months later that their coolness rating had been sent south by the aforementioned greengrocer would be (we shall say cautiously) fucking pissed off. I do not think that The Man From Cupertino can be that stupid. What is Apple's usual sort of release cycle? I think we are far more likely to see something along those lines.
Bandwidth!
The more that gets parked "up there" (which in a certain sense is centralisation of *your* data in *their* hands) the greater the demands on bandwidth to get it up and down. Given that we are now facing a situation where smart-phones are/will be out-selling pcs where the hell are we going to get the bandwidth on the necessary scale? When the world, his missus and their dog are down-loading high-res video, playing on-line games via their pocket shiney etc, how the hell is the rate of growth of the required infrastructure going to keep up?
Not speak of course of the way that "certain folks" are going to find ways via downloaded apps and the like to piggy-back on that bandwidth with all sorts of consequences for the individual punter, the loading on the system and of course, security.
Posted in Now, Nokia, what about the hardware?
Speed of development?
Another year and Microsoft's minimum specs will be no more than medium end in the smart-phone market given the rate of hardware development. It is difficult for the producers to differentiate their products *now*, certainly - but in a year's time?
Posted in Now, Nokia, what about the hardware?
Statements which are not qualified can bite one in the rear.
Although the N8 does not have an optical zoom it does have a digital zoom. One really ought to be a touch more precise.
What this thread has to do with antenna-gate I really do not know - unless of course some iPhans are still so sensitive on the issue that they feel the need to introduce the subject into any and every thread regardless of whether it is relevant or not.
Very interesting acount.
The role of the carriers in Europe and the States in the background to all this was not something (I have to admit) that I had taken fully into account. They would certainly regard it as in their interests for several reasons to have at least three major players in the game in both Europe and the US. It is also indisputable that the only source of such a "third force" was going to be a link-up between MS and Nokia. Whether or not this third force works is another issue entirely - I do not claim to have a better crystal ball than the next chap.
*My* next phone? I'm going to wait and see want Nokia release as that Meego device by the end of the year before I make any decisions.
@The Big Yin Whilst I entirely agree with your assertion that such.........
......companies are seeking to de-rail competition I fear that you misunderstand political history if you believe that such behaviour can be labelled/dismissed as "communistic". It is also as natural to capitalism as breathing to seek to achieve monopoly. Big fishes eat smaller fishes and if and when a Big Fish wins (by fair means or foul) you will have a monopoly. This is of more than theoretical interest because it illustrates the crucial importance of competition authorities in ensuring that we have a genuinely free market. Given the chance Big Fish form cartels, engage in predatory pricing and so on and so forth. Ie The phenomenon known as "corporatism" and if we are to look at political history for a creed that based its economic politics on corporatism I suggest that you read up on Mussolini's Italy or Franco's Spain and fascism.
Posted in Now, Nokia, what about the hardware?
I agree. The N8 is gorgeous,,,,,,,,,,
..............and the best equipped camera-phone on the market bar none. It is basically a very nice compact camera you can make telephone calls with. In fact I have just ordered one for Mrs Arctic Fox's birthday. You know something? I feel like the main character in one of those wonderful old H E Bateman "The Man Who......." cartoons. You know, as in: "The man who ordered an N8 the day they cancelled the Symbian os"!
@The Indomitable Gall. Thank Sir. at last a voice of realism.
Let us not forget we are a tech-website. The large majority of our fellow earthlings REALLY do not get this stuff when they are signing up for this that and the other online.
Posted in Texting teenager plunges to his death
On the saftey issue.
It surely would not cost the earth or torch the constitution if we said minimum height for such barriers (where such barriers are mandated by law anyway) should be a tad higher than 1 meter? Without speculating about the causes of this particular incident it IS possible to be distracted under dangerous circumstances without it meaning that you are a total dickhead. One can in fact imagine any number of legitimate and understandable scenarios that do not include "driving an iPhone without due care and attention" or similar sins against the Great Deity of common sense who none of us here posting at Reg ever sin against. Do we? No of course we don't. Not once, ever.
Arctic calling, arctic calling.....
You will find that my homeland takes consumer protection very seriously. I do not claim that Sony cannot possibly win this one but they are really going to have to prove that what they did was reasonable. The implicit assumption in much of our consumer protection law here (although it is not so explicit as that) is that the producer is almost certainly trying on and it is up to him to prove differently. If it is the case that what Sony did was basically say we will partially cripple your machine with regard to another feature or features if you do not agree to this then they are on very dodgy ground indeed legally speaking here in brassmonkey land.
Very interesting article
Much to ponder on. Changing the direction/refocusing/managerial culture of a company the size of MS is a fairly eye-crossing task and the chances of success (regardless of which company one is talking about in that kind of situation) are rarely better than 50/50. It will certainly be interesting to watch!
PS. Now cue a shit load of postings howling about Microsoft spelt with a dollar sign from the usual suspects.
PPS. Can't I please have an icon where BG has *both* halo *and* horns?
Win8 for ARM folks?
Unless Steve Ballmer was merely whistling Dixie recently Win8 is being developed for both Wintel and ARM architecture and the softies are busily compiling Office to run on the ARM version of the os. Given that we are now only at the beginning of 2011 and the rate of hardware development for slates/pads is accelerating at a ferocious pace if MS and their industrial partners cannot produce something that really rings a lot of people's bells in the best sense then they will have no one to blame but themselves. Having _full_ functionally and power for content _creation_ rather than largely content consumption on a slate and that it does _not_ keel over crying for its wall socket after a handful of hours would be a major step forward. I must admit that I look forward to it. Well. I am at any rate hoping!
Posted in Man stabbed to death by chicken
Cockfighting, bearbaiting, bullfighting etc. Perhaps if we could arrange things......
.......so that those in the audience for these events died at least a frequently when they watch as the poor bloody animals do we would discover that these "sports" would die a natural death. One can always hope.
Posted in PSP playing boy plunges onto railway
@AC re: Lucky Kid. Surely you mean drummed into them........
.........at an early age? Though now I come to think of it that doesn't sound much less brutal either!
Posted in PSP playing boy plunges onto railway
Playing in the traffic?
Wandering around on a railway platform or for that matter by the side of a busy main road whilst you are distracted playing a computer game is about as stupid as it gets. Oh and yes, it is his parent's fault. They after all were allowing him to use the bloody thing under those circumstances, were they not? Message to all parents: Indulging your little angel can under certain circumstances get him/her killed. Try a little common sense and discipline, hopelessly old-fashioned I know but, hell, it may actually work. Your little wonder may even survive to become an adult capable of walking straight and chewing gum at the same time.
Posted in Mindjack
I bet that lots of people think that being a reviewer on a site like El Reg.......
........must be a great job given that you get lots of lovely shinies to play with and to write about. This however, shows the downside of the job! Sometimes you have to watch/use and review something that does not even deserve half marks. Thanks for the warning - I will of course avoid this game like the plague.
Interesting how carefully they express themselves.
So, everything in the garden is generally lovely with just some small niggles. I may of course be over-interpreting but am I the only one here who got the feeling that most of those guys were walking on eggshells? I.e. Very bloody carefully.
I should have phrased it a little differently as in.....
....I find it difficult to regard the NHS here in the UK, for example, as some kind of offence against human liberty.
I was not saying the "Obamacare" is like the NHS although I was implicitly referring to the reaction of a particular section of the right-wing in the US who have made it quite clear that they regard ANY form of universal health regardless of how it is funded as communism/nazism all rolled into one.
Ok then let us, by this gentleman's "logic", repeal all laws........
.........we do not feel like obeying. There may be good arguments against "Obamacare" (objectively speaking although I have difficulty regarding the NHS as some kind of offense against human liberty) but this grandstanding crap is not one of them.
Android 3
I think that part of the issue here is that the pad market is still a young one and the total customer base contains a relatively high proportion of people with a bit more tech familiarity than is typical in other markets. To take an extreme example the average punter on the lookout for a pad probably is a bit more tech-aware than the average punter looking for a new telly. Thus the proportion of punters who are aware that there is some very good kit on the immediate horizon PLUS are aware that Android 3 is the os to have if you are in the market for a pad is probably quite high. The Sammy is quite an attractive piece but it will soon be superceded hardware wise, it does not have Android 3 (and if I know Samsung it either can't run or they wouldn't upgrade you anyway) and it is overpriced. There is likely to be a lot of good stuff this year and next but (IMO) the tab is not it - not at that money.
Posted in iPhone crashes car stereos, Toyota warns
Are you sure?
Are you sure that it did not say:
"The crash appears to be total: the unit displays nothing but "load.of s**te.." on the screen."
I really think old chap that you should learn the difference between........
.....hating something and not being especially impressed with something. I do not hate the iPad, I am simply unimpressed. In order to hate something it has to be (in the negative sense) important to you. The iPad is not important. That it gives many people a lot of pleasure I think is fine, it is just irrelevant to me. You see?
Posted in Reg Hardware Reader Awards 2010 Winners
If you have not already seen it I suggest......
..........you take a look at this article from Reg Hardware:
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/01/28/autistic_boy_did_cheat_on_xbox/
MS can actually prove their case on this occasion. Always a mistake to react when one has not heard both sides of the story.
Posted in UK a 3D TV nation? Not half
I will buy a 3D telly the day I hear......
......."Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi" and can see Princess Leia from all angles. Until then, don't call me before I call you.
Enig kompis (I agree mate)
If the iPhone does not cope with Scandinavian conditions Apple should stop selling here or accept that they are going to get more returns if they _do_ market here.
In general I agree but it would be nice if a certain fruit company......
.....made it clear in rather larger type that these restrictions exist. Then we who live in the upper half of the northern hemisphere would not bother to buy the iPhone. That of course is why a certain greengrocer does not exactly go out of its way to alert the aforementioned geographically challenged customers to this problem.
Posted in Vodafone confirms Egypt lock-down
Where then is the limit?
Are you saying that if it is commercial there are no moral limits?
Posted in Vodafone confirms Egypt lock-down
@crowley: Thank you, I appreciate your point.
Apart from anything else a response based on constructive intelligence is always welcome!
Posted in Vodafone confirms Egypt lock-down
Next somebody says that the "free"market is coequivalent with....
...........human liberty I will remind them of how BigCoporate behaves the moment that anything threatens their profits. My best wishes to the Egyptian people - God knows that between their own ruling class and Western corporations they have enough to cope with.
Which is why I said in my previous posting that Mr Jobs is quite right......
.........Apple's warranty is "magical" - now you see it, now you don't.
@Syren Baran: Textual analysis is clearly needed here.
When Mr Jobs used the description "magical" he was in fact talking about the warranty not the products.
I've got an old Nokia from 2005.....
......can we count that as well? Just who is trying to boost who here and why? This "reclassification" has bugger all to do with how you define a pc. I smell somebody on earners.
@thecakeis(not)alie
What you are saying is that Canada has a very different gun culture from the US. Indeed there are many nations where the inhabitants own a lot of guns. Where I live (Norway) there is a very high level of gun ownership, shotguns and rifles (max three rounds without reloading, two in the mag, one up the spout) - ie hunting weapons. One of the biggest selling magazines here (the type you read!) is "Jakt og Fiske" ("Hunting and Fishing"). The very idea that it is some kind of human right to own frakking big guns auto or semiauto with humungous magazines and your choice of "special" ammo is regarded as ridiculous and is of course illegal. A totally different cultural attitude towards guns - here guns are a hunting tool first and foremost, not some kind of cultural/political image/fetish gig like you know where.
