Posts by plrndl 482 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Feb 2010
1. If coding were a mechanical skill, it would be done by computers, not humans.
2. Since computer use is so pervasive, and getting more so, a basic understanding of coding could be considered as important as the traditional "3Rs". After all you don't just teach writing to writers, or arithmatic to mathematicians.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
The purpose of statistics is to quantify differences. Depending on how you collect and analyse your numbers, you can get any result you want. People of integrity use statistics as an aid to discovery of new data: others use statistics to distort the truth, hence the famous quotation above.
iPads and iPhones are used almost universally by SENIOR people in business (ie those who earn over £250,000 pa) on a BYOD basis because they are tools to do business on the move. Sure they're useless for things like coding and editing, but people who do those jobs don't make that kind on money.
If you want MS Office without the ribbon, try Open Office or Libre Office. On PC, Mac or Linux.
"Microsoft will just have to cave in to the almighty dollar and give it away to keep the dollars coming from other products. "
MS doesn't have any other products that make any money, apart from its enterprise software, which is only used by a relatively small number of very large companies. That's why it's got itself into this ridiculous mess with phones and fondleslabs that nobody wants.
Most smartphone owners regard their phone as a status symbol, and flash it as often as possible to impress those of lower status. Thus they become targets of the criminal sub-set of that fraternity. People who continue to flash status symbols in public will be the targets of criminals until such time as they learn more modest behaviour, and these's nothing that anyone else can do about this.
MS change their file formats regularly to force business users to upgrade to the latest version of office (so they can read new versions of old formats). Extensibility and other capabilities of the format has nothing to do with it.
".doc" is not a format, it's a name. The format has changed frequently.
Conspiracy theorists should note that Samsung sells its phones as a brand, not a product. This means that the Galaxy XTZ you buy in London may be a different device to the Galaxy XYZ you buy in New York or Singapore, and may have a different processor, different 4G bands etc.
This may protect Samsung's margins in different territories. It also protects the naive consumer from dodgy grey imports.
God invented the tablet. "And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of speaking with him upon mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God" (Exodus 31:18) It's just taken us mortals a little time to copy the idea.
It's not for the UK to decide if an independent Scotland can remain in the EU, it's an EU decision. I personally think that the chance of Scotland being permitted to join the EU without embracing the Euro is negligible. Furthermore if they end up as oil-rich as the SNP claim, the EU will want a large slice of that to bail out Ireland, Portugal, Greece etc.
"box might just say
Tell me what you want to do?"
If that's what you want, get an iPhone.
The principal point of open source software is that it's free as in freedom. Canonical can do whatever they want with it, and so can you and I. If you don't like it, use something else, or roll your own. If Ubuntu was doing the same as Red Hat, SuZE or any other distro there would be no point to its existance.
Personally I currently prefer Mint/Cinnamon/Docky, but I keep a close eye on what Canonical are doing, because if they get it right with their PC/phone/tablet integration, they will have a dream system, unlike MS, who have got it just about as wrong as possible.
There's an excellent solution to this problem in the Vortexbox appliance. Download the free-as-in-beer ISO (based on Fedora Linux), and install it on an old PC or VM on your network. Once installed you can manage it from a browser. It rips CDs to FLAC, tags them, downloads the artwork, and makes copies to MP3 or AAC for the portable. You can do the ripping while watching TV etc. It's DNLA compliant. It plays nicely with Mac & PC. It just works.
What's the point of that (03 numbers)?
Companies should be compelled to list the real (ie standard land-line) number as an alternative to their virtual (ie premium) numbers, for customer contact. Premium numbers alone should be permitted ONLY on something that is clearly a sales line.
Smart companies should put their customer contact numbers on free call numbers, and charge the cost to their marketing department's budget. That gives them a strong imperative to handle customer queries properly (generating the highly sought-after word-of-mouth promotion), rather than trying to fob them off (or piss them off).
If the punters do their family food shopping on it, from Amazon's grocery service, they could make the cost back in weeks.
Regarding profit, when you're in business, your profit margin is your competitor's collateral. When you have almost no margin, others cannot afford to compete with you. With tiny margins on colossal turnover, the tiniest future increase in margin will reap huge profits.
Simples.
"Nokia is free to create another phone division under a different name (Microsoft licenced the Nokia name for 10 years)."
If Nokia has been paid €5 billion to lose Elop and fund the creation of their new Android division, this may turn out to be a good deal for everyone except MS, who will sink slowly with Elop at the helm.
The BPI is attempting to resuscitate the corpse of a business model that has been rendered redundant by modern technology. They refuse to recognise that the genie has left the bottle and cannot be made to return.
The government should tell them to stop whingeing and find a business model that is relevant to the 21st century. This would be in the best interests of all stake holders.
"Doing any form of serious writing, drawing, CAD, 3D graphics, music composition and recording, coding, video editing and so on needs a full blown machine."
Agreed. I do most of these things, and need a proper computer with BIG monitors for this. But most people only use a home computer for email, surfing and social networks, all of which is now moving to phone/tablet devices.
As for printing a letter, I don't remember the last time I used snail mail, and have no idea what a stamp costs these days.
If the NHS has 243 million patient visits a year, for a population a quarter of that, it clearly is not doing anything to improve the nation's health.
Maybe we should scrap the NHS, sell off the property and land, and give the money back to taxpayers (eg by paying off some of the national debt).
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