Posts by Robert E A Harvey
2414 posts • joined Sunday 8th October 2006 16:17 GMT
Page:
maybee
Some years ago I watched an episode of ST:DS9 in which a ferengi was doing his accounts with a whole table top full of PADDs, picking them up, poking them and putting them down. I've often wondered since it there was some point to that.
I now know the point. If you want to surf while watching spottify, whatever that is, you will need TWO iPads.
Clever, Apple.
aha! I've got it!
It's a colour Newton, without the clever software!
no real point but,
The bit that hissed me off about the microsoft attempts was putting the handwriting extensions in the applications (office) rather than in the OS. So you could use it for what they wanted you to use it for, not what you wanted to use it for.
I wonder how the IPaddy relates to that?
We really need a big fat ? icon
Posted in Airport scanner staff object to vetting
Schiphol
I've asked every time I've been through one of these machines at Schiphol if I can see the result. I am always refused 'for privacy reasons'. Now I know that with my weight problem It's been a while since I saw my dangly bits, but I did not realise that they really were 'private parts' even from me.
Posted in Airport scanner staff object to vetting
Another solution
Why don't we all turn up naked at airports? That'd sort out all difficulties.
Posted in Brits left cold by mobile internet
Quite right
It annoys me that my mail provider now wants to to look at 5Mb of pictures of californian celebreties before it draws the 'login' button. And that annoyance is on broadband. I wouldn't even dream of it on mobile internet.
Supposing I could get mobile internet access. I live in Lincolnshire, hardly the outer skerries of dreams, but only 5% of the county is covered by 3's mobile internet access, and the service from the other suppliers is even worse.
Quite
I never understood how they started up. Who provided the initial funding before the ad-revenue came on stream. And, given how little notice I take of the ad-links, I can't see how the revenue stream can be so great. It's always looked like a bubble to me.
We've had other bubbles - .com - global crossing - clinton's economic miracle - the military profits from the iraq war. I begin to think that Microsoft is showing signs of de-bubbling.
And Google? a bubble? are the lads cashing in before it's too late? or just because they are getting older and it's time to make provision for old age?
I've been thinking too much. I need a beer.
Quite
I have to say that those who cry most for DRM are those whose products I have least interest in. The correspondence is so high that it is an adequate indicator.
Paris 'cos she represents everything I care not for.
And
And is everyone else paying less now the seats are smaller?
so
What search engine do the paraniodista recommend?
Or
Try the Archos 5. Bit video-centric, but with other uses too.
Mayb so
But that doesn't mean I'm likely to buy the new washing powder or the new car or the new version of windows.
Nothing wrong with e-readers
The problem is with e-books. I can buy the paperback cheaper than the download in many cases, only 2-3% of titles seem to be available, and none I want to read (let me recommend: http://www.boydell.co.uk/0150386X.HTM)
When I can give an ebook I've finished with to a friend, or to oxfam for re-sale, then I might start thinking about it.
Now what about scribble-tops?
I quite like the idea, but like an expensive dunhill cigarette lighter to a non-smoker it looks like a useless if attractive gadget.
I wouldn't mind
>office 95
$MEGACORP upgraded us all from Office 97 to Office2003 two years ago, and I'm still finding things that used to work and don't any more. There are no plans to upgrade further.
Easy
1. Bring the troops home from Helmund
2. Scrap the aircraft carrier project. Carriers are to protect surface ships, and we havn't got any.
3. Scrap the arts council. Small beer, I know, but a lot of noise!
4. Scrap the Olympics. I never wanted it anyway
5. Turn remaining RAF camps in Lincolnshire into housing for asylum seekers. Stop paying rent to private landlords for them
6. Scrap the NHS IT & ID card schemes.
7. Double road tax on Lorries, to get goods back on the railways. charge a per-dieum road tax for foriegn lorries while in the country
8. Tear up the treaty of rome and tell the EU to get stuffed for their money
9. Tell the welsh and scots that if they want full independence they can have it, otherwise we are going to shut down their toy parliaments and scrap the barnett formula while we are at it.
10. Charge parents for schooling used as child minding. Stop giving them vouchers.
11. Charge for NHS maternity care. Pregancy is not a disease.
12. Increase unemployment pay but require at least two days a week of community service organised by unemployed managers
13. Tax all bankers at 100% on earnings above 700K
14. Double the road tax for second cars in a household.
15. scrap income tax. Put it /all/ on VAT. Including local VAT for local taxes. You can't have a black economy if people aren't paying income tax.
16. Tax banks on the difference between deposit rates and loan rates
17. All able-bodied adults to be recruited into snow clearing teams in the winter. Each team resonsible for 1 day in 5 of pavement and road clearing using their own shovels. The army to do bits between towns.
18. double VAT on satellite TV subscriptions and films not made in the UK.
19. Legalise and tax all drugs
20. Legalise and tax brothels.
and next week, my plans for invading Mars!
Trust us, we know what we did wrong last time
OK, the last 13 things we sold you were crap. All your problems will be solved by giving us some more money.
So
Under the new system, what would have happened to the FOI requests for MPs expenses?
Thought so.
uk.rec.sheds please note
'The bargain price represents the estimated cost of "transporting a shuttle from Kennedy Space Center to a major airport, and for displaying it indoors in a climate-controlled building".'
So you get a free air-conditioned shed with every shuttle, then? Bargain!
re-checking bags
When you get into the USA you have to collect your bags and re-check them for onward flights.
"have these bags been with you at all times?"
'No, for the last 11 hours they've been in the hands of the airline'
Pah!
"Government personal data handling 'better'"
It could not be much worse unless they'd got some walpaper paste and started lining the tube stations with tax returns.
But
When I went out at the start of Jan. I needed the online thing AND the bit of paper filled in on the plane.
Wrong problem
I don't think we should be worried about the operators being perverts. I think we should worry about them going insane. For every lustworthy body they get to look at through smoked glass, they will have to watch 132 like mine.
But
There is a good case for the government deciding which internet browser the government should use.
And a reasonable case for them not using that one!
dumb wins again
If people had /listened/ when we told them that IE was not standard compliant, and they should stick to Opera or nutscrape/italian cheese, all the clever clogs in industry would not have written code that only runs on IE
mystery to me
... that the NHS allowed them to write non-standards-compliant code and still paid them, and is even dreaming of paying them again to put it right. It should take all its previous suppliers to court if they won't do now what they should have done then - and FOC.
Posted in Is Mandy right to cut science funding?
what?
"Is Mandy right to cut science funding?"
Can you make me a list of the last six things Mandy was right about?
Paris: she has more integrity
hang on
They are planning to burn /the atmosphere/? How will they confine combustion to the baloon, and not the whole lot?
I will admit
I removed all my mp3 files of old BBC radio shows before flying to the USA at the new year, in case they were mistaken for bittorrent downloads and I ended up in gaol.
so lets see if I've got this right
Microsoft bully computer vendors so you can't buy a computer without windoze, and they /still/ have to discount W7 to bribe people into trying it. Just how bad can it be?
Posted in Philips 40PFL9704 40in LED backlit TV
ethernet port
Can't really tell without seeing one, but it looks like the webTV access is pre-configured and won't include the BBC iPlayer. What about ITVonline? C4od? you've obviously played with it, el-reg, did you try that bit out?
and
and, indeed, contempt of court. The judge should have fined them.
Posted in Steve Wozniak, your time is up
contrdictory
"It's time to file each and every story about Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak into the circular "Who Gives a Flying Fuck?" bin." - or, indeed, to write two sides of A4 about him?
Schiphol
I too have seen robocops at the airport. They even have little flashing blue lights.
Wierd, or what?
Posted in Philips 40PFL9704 40in LED backlit TV
Umm..
"Users outside the UK may be able to take advantage of the MPEG4 decoding, and the CI+ slot too, but for those of us in Blighty, an external source of some sort will be needed if you want to watch HD programming."
Does that mean I can buy one at Schiphol and watch HD freeview when it launches? I don't understand this paragraph at all. Are you saying a chunk is left off the tele in the UK, or that the decoder it has is the wrong one for us?
At this point I need the blue tefal-head icon, but upside down.
Odd
When I was alive ACPO was an acronym for Assosciation of Chief Police Officers.
So now we have investigations being run by a trades union for placemen and timeservers?
What's next? The Grand Lodge organising fraud enquiries?
I'm sorry, but I expect policing to be done by County forces, Scotland Yard, or perhaps MI5. Not the Masters of Foxhounds Association, or th Angler's federation.
Posted in LG publishes bendy 19in e-newspaper
paper
why pretend to be somerthing else?
I'd like a 19" screen if it dould be stowed in a walking stick, but just being a bit floppy is needless parody.
Newsprint is fine. Leave it alone. It can be used to line bird cages, crumpled up for packaging, or used to light a fire.
Oh look
132 comments, nearly all the same. I DO hope you will be sending Messrs Bach and Ballmer a transcript!
and...
"One in 20 Britons think Steve Jobs is a Division II footballer, six per cent think a virtual hard disk (VHD) is a sexually transmitted disease, and 10 per cent believe a wireless dongle to be a sex toy."
and 9 out of 10 like messing with people asking them daft questions.
real time
I think this is a far comment of lowest-common-denominator Linux, and would be equally (more) applicable to Windoze.
As others have said there are real-time extensions or alternative kernels for Linux. For windows, there aren't.
Bwhhhaaaa
That's the funniest thing I've seen for months. Microsoft taking the high ground of windows phone quality?
I've had 3 windows [mobile][phone] phones in 5 years. Every one of them needed at least one warm start a day and generally two cold starts a week. The HP ipaqw one cold started to factory conditions, and I had to retrieve the apps and addres book from the ipaq backup on the SD card. Twice a week.
/Linux/ will fail the quality test? Bwhhhaaa ha ha ha ha eh he ha ha ha. <dires eyes>. Oh deary me.
Paris. because she believes what she is told.
or
Ban photography, drawing, and painting?
or
or indeed stick to 2003. it puts words on a page, spell checks them, and does excel calculations. What more do you want?
Posted in Nokia Booklet 3G
'ow much Ggggranville?
It looks nice, big battery, lots to recomend it. But no ethernet jack and a silly price.
I hope it is cheaper on contracts, that's all I say.
Posted in Blu-ray capacity to increase by a third
The Carrot connection
Jasper once said he would not but a DVD until 'they promised never to invent anything else'. This is the second post-dvd idea, and Jasper 'Betamax man' Carrot was right.
3D? HD? not demanded by the public. Things they want to sell me, not things I want to buy.
Posted in Oz firm seeks talented IT developer
odd
Quite a lot of my bosses have /been/ a tight tw@, especially in the bar. Never heard of anyone advertising for one, though.
Posted in Microsoft sees its chance in Googlephone
Idea
Memo to Microsoft:
If you want to be big in phones, try making an OS that is quite good.
Mastery of the problem.
I flew to the US on the 4th of Jan, held up by the panic at Newark. I was told to expect more searches and pat-downs, and someone did just that as we entered the gate before boarding.
No such extra security took place on the internal USA flights, or on the return flight to the UK.
Oh, and no-one took any interest in my underpants at all.
The Gillette model
You are suggesting that this is the shaver, not the blades, to be sold once at a loss and then subsidised by the repeat business?
But Gillette made the blades. As far as I know, PL is not a publisher, news operation, or collective of authors.
Posted in Palm fishes for devs with $1m lure
'ang on a mo?
So appp writing is open to everyone, but the phones are tied to one network?
Some mistake, shirley?
