Posts by Arrrggghh-otron 438 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jun 2011
Even if it is based on a PLC, it will still have some software, some memory and some processing power otherwise it couldn't do very much. The PLC would need to be configured at power up and that requires all of the above be it embedded in the PLC or an external micro processor.
The zero in "Zero Client" is just marketing speak for 'very little' in the way of client processing.
To make a (IMHO) proper Quesadilla you should coat the tortilla with spicy salsa, a few gobs of sour cream, chopped chillis and of course the cheese - also add whatever you fancy. Chicken and spring onion works really well and is a lot more substantial than just olives, avocado and cheese.
Almost as good as the legendary Breakfast Burrito!
I think most TV, that is to say the majority of what fills the schedule in any given day, is crap. Crap I wouldn't watch, but others would. I would expect this to be the same in any country.
The idea that I can watch what I want, when I want and not have to pick and choose what to record from the schedule is much better as long as it isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg.
Every time I look at signing up for a video streaming service in the UK I am put off by the cost. It also comes bundled with disc rentals by post... I don't want to rent films/TV series by post, I want to stream them for a reasonable flat monthly fee.
I'm still running the first generation Android handset on Android 2.3 and apart from the odd slowdown, it is faster than it was when new.
Admittedly the upgrades beyond 1.6 were nothing to do with either the hardware manufacturers or T-Mobile and Cyanogen is no longer supporting it (though there are still some modders who are).
While the mobile operators continue to butcher the phones they offer on their networks, the upgrades are at the mercy of both the hardware manufacturer releasing an update and then the network operators 'customising' and releasing that update, we won't see much in the way of updates unless they come from the custom ROM community. That is why the Nexus phones (which run vanilla Android) and presumably the Jesus phones too, will always have better upgrade prospects.
Try explaining to a recruitment consultant that you have spent n years coding in one language (just not the one they have on the job spec in front of them) and that the syntax of one language isn't really that different to another and that it would only take a few weeks to switch from one to the other and maybe 3 months to learn enough of a framework to be fully productive. They will tell you that they need someone with n years experience in language x.
Personally I blame the recruitment consultants for the perceived lack of skills in IT in general as they don't seem to understand the inherent flexibility that these skills imply.
"create a new in-house centre of excellence for customer management in Swansea".
--> "Turns out outsourcing isn't that cheap after all, so we'll have another go at doing it ourselves. Again..."
"There will be a thorough consultation period over the next 90 days where we will be discussing the proposals with the teams and gaining their feedback and views,"
--> "We will be telling the staff how it will be, some of them won't like it, they can fuck off"
"In Liverpool, outsourced staff will be offered the option to relocate to Swansea, or seek other employment within Virgin Media or through their current employer, subject to consultation."
--> "If you want to keep your job, move to Wales or fuck off. We might need a few of you to stay to keep the lights on but we aren't sure how this is going to work yet so we will just keep that carrot dangling for a while yet"
I wonder if they are all acutely, secretly, aware that they don't actually have much in the way of skills or talents and so when one of their number has to go they send them off with the kind of compensation that they would like to see themselves getting when it's their turn to go...
I mean if I was sitting on that board and Leo asked for several million to go my answer would be a flat and simple no, no negotiation. What kind of negotiation skills do these idiots employ?
Board "I'm afraid it isn't working out Leo, we have to let you go."
Leo "ok, Can I have $20 Mil?"
Board "I wish we could Leo, I just don't think we can get away with that much, but we might be able to find you a couple of Mil if we squeeze the shareholders, destroy some product lines and screw the proles a bit more. How does that sound?"
Leo "Awesome and can I have a bunch of the shares that I halved the value of?"
Board: "Sure, they are 10 a penny these days! <all laugh, much back slapping ensues>"
So who is outraged in this article?
Clearly anyone with a sense of fairness would be at the very least fleetingly scornful given everything that is going on with the economy, but I can't see anyone mentioned in the article as being outraged about this. Perhaps a better title would be 'HP Board are idiots: $2.4M 'Bonus''. Of course they could all be great pals and are just looking out for each other...
Prices vary by region but are also affected by the time of day and the day of the week you visit the cinema.
Prices for my local cinema start at about £3, until recently the general price of admission was a little over £5. It seems it is now just under £8 at peak times. The difference may be trifling but it is just one of many above inflation increases to take into consideration...
I was horrified at the price for a ticket to see a film that was only available in 3D. A few pence short of a tenner a ticket! Not only do they want me to sit through a film with 3D that looks like moving cardboard cutouts, is somewhat dimmer than it's 2D counterpart, requires me to purchase some uncomfortable plastic glasses and occasionally results in headaches. But they want to charge me a little less than it would to buy the film on DVD shortly after release?
I will be giving the cinema a miss thanks. I have my own at home that comes with a pause button, I can eat my own food, the seats are more comfy and don't have someone constantly kicking the back of it.
That all politicians and (political) civil servants (i.e. not the ones who do real work, you know, the ones who sit on committees and 'groups' etc) are next to face licensing and have the most stringent entry requirements, are required to face pubic scrutiny every year in order to renew their license, are held to the highest standard of ethics, face the most severe punishment for every and any professional misconduct (I don't care what they do in their personal life as long as it doesn't affect their ability to do their job), their income is capped at twice the national average and they are not allowed to have other jobs or sit on boards etc. Pay for their own pensions (above and beyond the state pension like the rest of us), pay their own travel costs unless travelling on business (i.e. they have to pay to get to work like the rest of us) etc etc...
The only reason a title like "digital distribution platform" sticks to something like facebook is due to the volume of users. Don't forget it is only a social hub while people like it. As soon as it gets really annoying (and it did that for me a long time ago) people will start leaving, as soon as there is a better alternative people will start leaving or as soon as there is an alternative that has all your existing friends, people will leave. I'm not suggesting that it will die over night or even at all but what use is a billion accounts if they are hardly ever used?
They still spending that much on websites? I would happily have set it up on an existing provider with a good rep, put in some extra security and filled in the content for a year and given up my current job for less than that and still made more than I am making a year now... the consultants on this must be pissing themselves...
"setting up the Tech City WordPress blog cost £37,000... plus £6,756 on "security and penetration testing""
Why should anyone in this chain of command care what happens when there are no consequences and as you rightly point out, public expenditure isn't scrutinised properly?
The MPs bray and jeer until something vague gets decided, that then gets passed onto another department who outsource all the work to an empty shell of a company who outsourced all their talent already and end up having to sub contract the work and no one really cares that much about the project as no one is really vested in it. Then when it fails a committee is appointed and fingers are wagged with maybe a token repositioning of key personnel. All of it costing us money...
Lets call a spade a spade shall we? Consumer confidence?
It's got more to do with the fact that most of us are brassic and would rather save a few quid (when we have to buy something) by buying cheaper on line and waiting for stuff to be delivered rather than paying high street prices (and regardless of what they say about bringing their web and high street prices in-line, they are still bloody expensive for most things).
Monster cables anyone?
It was clear from my first post that I was thinking purely about making my fortune over night on the property market and retiring early. Now that I've been told that "The boom times for house prices are over" that dream has been shattered and I may as well give up now and go and flip burgers.
That my current property has more than doubled in value over the past 8 years and, despite the dip, continues to rise in value even today, is surely the ramblings of an idiot.
<Aww... no sarcasm icon?>
Having personally seen peoples private pensions reduced to a shade less than fuck all through no fault of their own and with little chance of anyone being held accountable or any recompense, along with other financial products sold to those who think they are doing the right thing, with those products going south also (with them left to find and pay the deficit). Couple that with the financial markets recent greed induced melt down, if my preferring to trust in actual, tangible assets makes me an idiot then sign me up!
Besides I think you are a shill for the pensions industry... I bet you cried for days when you heard the option to opt out was kept in...
Employee contributions starting at 2%, rising to 5%in 2016 and then 8% minimum in 2017 for qualifying gross income or some such ( http://www.hendersonstone.co.uk/pensions-reform-2012.html ).
So not only am I paying for a state pension that is likely to be worthless they want me to pay towards a private pension that will likely be worthless on top of rapidly rising living costs. What planet are these people living on? Oh wait they are probably pension policy lobbyists right?
I think I will stick to my plan to ignore pensions and buy another property to provide a retirement income and/or to sell should I need a large lump sum.
(I too looked at private pensions a while back and was told that I needed to pay 10% of my take home pay. I was saving for a mortgage deposit so it was too much to lose. Now I am told it is a minimum of 30%, well I don't have more than 10% spare income on a good month let alone every month!)
It would make sense just to convert the base channels all to HD and bin the crappy shopping channels to make room. However, this won't happen for a while. I suspect that 8k4k tellys will be on sale in Currys by the time 1080i HD is the dominant tv transmission format. Then we get to start all over again buying hardware that won't be fully utilised for another 10 years!
HDMI Monster cable anyone?
I've had an Android phone since late 2008.
I waited a year or so before giving up hope that it would be coming to Android any time soon.
So strictly speaking It hasn't been exactly two years since I gave up waiting. It was meant as a generalisation... an approximation. You can claim fail on that if it makes you happy. Although I guess it depends on your perspective. I mean if we are rounding to the nearest year then it would be closer to two years than one, so that would count as 'years' would it not?
That said It felt like a hell of a lot longer given that I was using Tom Tom Navigator for 'years' previously on Windows Mobile.
"Could be useful" in helping to shore up the coffers of the higher ups?
IT really is taking a battering. I keep seeing job adverts for 2nd line IT support that include duties that are more applicable to 3rd line support and the wages offered more applicable to 1st line support bods. I particularly like the ones where you need your own car as 'lots of travel' is involved and are offering £18k. I bet they are bastards to get mileage allowance from too.
Woo yay, for the IT skills shortage in the UK!
I wasn't aware that anyone was still spinning roms for the G1...
I'd recently ditched the G1 after many years of faithful service due in part to the lack of any more CM roms and also the now unbearable battery life (3 batteries later) and laggy performance in favour of an HTC Touch Pro 2 cast off work phone that I was able to get running xandroid. Not quite CM but better than the horrible, horrible windows mobile that it came with and most importantly of all (for me anyway) is the 5 row hardware keyboard!
But I may just give the G1 one last stay of execution and try the Ginger Yoshi rom.
/^v.+b$/i
These kind of announcements are starting to get really annoying. Is anyone surprised? The economy is in the toilet, prices of essentials continue to climb, pay rises are almost non existent (for us peons who seem to be getting the shitty end of a really shitty stick) so who is going to rush out and buy new kit?
Sure there is a risk installing any app. Trust is a consideration and I 'trust' Shazam not to record and use the data without some direct interaction on my part with the app itself.
There is of course the possibility that the source has been compromised and the legitimate app from reputable companies carries something that wasn't intended.
This can be applied to any software. It is a matter of estimating the risk.
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