Posts by Phil Endecott
304 posts • joined Wednesday 29th November 2006 15:10 GMT
Re: Make doubly sure you...
> I live in Colchester and thought it was round here someplace!
That's Mistly secret bunker, which is also worth visiting.
Re: Great article
> Just one thought though... the £3.28 admission fee would be nearer £50 these days
> if you add inflation into the mix
£3.28 IS the inflation-adjusted price. The original price was 4 shillings, i.e. 20p.
Re: Automatic tills?
> They do their jobs perfectly from what I can tel
WHAT?
"Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area"
I can't even be near one without wanting to kick it.
Re: AMD?
AMD = Answering Machine Detection
Re: OMG really?
> Amazed ios can't (won't) do that
In the case of location data, you can turn it on and off for individual apps.
It doesn't seem to have the same fine-grained control for enabling phone calls from apps - though the apps can't do this "secretly" i.e. you will be taken from the app to the "dialer app" and (i think) have to press "call" before the call actually starts.
Re: Paid for apps
> Could I get my money back, no!
> Where was Apple's customer service?
It's in iTunes. Go to the "purchase history" page, find the problematic puchase, and "report a problem".
My experience, as an app developer, is that users do get refunds when they ask Apple for them.
Pilot skill
I would take the claims that the crew are always in control a bit more seriously if I hadn't read the details of the Air France Brazil Atlantic crash here on the reg. The pilots were presented by confusing data by the flight systems and the autopilot disengaged, and they did exactly the wrong things in response. If this sort of attack could "only" cause the crew to see wrong data, I would still be very worried indeed.
Re: UK already has an open map
> OpenStreetMap? You mean the place Apple got the data for their oh so accurate maps?
Err, no. Apple maps are much worse than OpenStreetMap where I've looked.
It's possible that Apple have used some OSM data somewhere, but it is clearly not the main source in the UK.
Wasn't the original story an
April Fool? I read the first couple of paragraphs and then remembered the date.
10 years until the first fine
These regulations have existed for 10 years, and this is the first ever fine.
How long do I have to wait before they start fining people who send me spam emails?
Re: Maybe if they bought relevant ads?
Best ever example of "you can buy anything on ebay":
http://www.lifeinbits.org/?p=123
Re: Is distance charging really such a good idea?
> My HP Touchstone wireless charger uses 0.0W when the tablet is
> not on the dock.
That's not the interesting number. What we need to know is how many W are going into the battery vs. how many W are being turned into heat in the coils at either end or in the intervening medium.
Re: ...
> presumably non-rectangular tables would be OK then?
How about adding some rounded corners....
Posted in The Oric-1 is 30
> I'm not sure I'd want to deal with a company whose director, or even a senior staff, have a
> history of bankruptcies, millions of pounds of debts, failed companies, etc
The idea is that people learn from their mistakes, or the mistakes of the people around them, and do better next time.
Would you prefer to deal with a company run by people with NO experience?
The important issue is that investors, and creditors, should be aware of the financial health of a company.
Definition of "technology"
What counts as "technology" in these stats?
Methodology?
The reports linked from the article say nothing useful about their methodology. I think these numbers are really just guesses.
Re: "Just don't tell anyone about my daughter Vista then..."
> Or my son BoB.
I do hope he's "little Bobby Tables"
http://xkcd.com/327/
Re: You're missing out on WHY corporations pay tax
> every doctor in the land will incorporate himself tomorrow and quit paying
> malpractice insurance
I would hope that the medical regulatory authorities would not allow that.
Money circulates; tax anywhere in the loop
The argument made here is that "Tax on corporations isn't really paid by corporations; it's passed on to customers, employees and shareholders who, in effect, pay it".
That seems a bit tenuous to me. Couldn't you equally well say:
"People don't really pay taxes; if you increase the taxes that people pay, it's passed on to the corporations who they buy less stuff from, who in effect pay it".
Taxation is a money-go-round. To a first approximation it doesn't matter where in the loop you siphon off the tax.
Small vs. Large companies
The aspect of this that annoy me is the huge effort required to set up these schemes, and how that makes it practical only for the largest of companies.
If you're Amazon/Starbucks/Apple etc. you have such an enormous turnover that it makes sense for you to pay $millions to lawyers and accountants to set up systems that will save even some tiny fraction off your tax liability. If you're a small company or sole trader, even if you could in theory set up a network of off-shore companies it just isn't worth the cost of doing it.
Yes, there are many examples of economy of scale and this is just another one of them. But I would prefer government regulations to provide a level playing field for businesses of all sizes.
Posted in Sam Sung found in Apple Store SHOCKER
How old is he?
Is he young enough that his parents must have done this knowingly?
Forking the SDK was essential
Last time I tried to code for Androoid - which was a couple of years ago now - the official Google SDK didn't support exceptions in C++ code. Luckily, some clever bloke had made a fork of it that did, and I (and lots of other developers) used that instead. The code was entirely compatible with Google-compiled code, as logn as you didn't try to throw exceptions from one to the other.
Why on earth would Google want to stop that?
YouTube
When I first heard the name "YouView" I assumed it was something to do with YouTube. Aren't they complaining too?
Re: @The BigYin
> If there is some limitation, then that needs to be clearly documented and a proper error
> shown, not just crap like "Your address is invalid".
One major site did that to me recently. I eventually discovered that it didn't like the sequence 's','p','a','m' anywhere in my email address.
Re: Amazing
> trying to work out what could possibly have been worth the
> effort of clicking the thumbs down.
How about your suggestion that humans ought to go and interfere with pristine environments? Is your "thirst for knowledge" more important than the survival of these ecosystems?
Presumably you imagine that it's possible to explore without destroying. History doesn't support that idea.
(No, it wasn't me that downvoted you.)
Ordnance Survey
> Apple does sell mapping applications in the iTunes store, although most either use
> Cupertino's own mapping software or come from established GPS vendors such as TomTom
Dare I mention the numerous popular apps based on Ordnance Survey or OpenStreetMap data?
The screenshot in the article is from the US store; things are a bit different over here.
Transactions
Yes, this is undoubtedly the *textbook* example of a transaction:
begin
if balance < amount abort
// No-one else changes balance in here!
balance = balance - amount
commit
Presumably, their excuse will be that they're dealing with a legacy system from the 1950s that has to fall back to sending a piece of paper through the post.
Re: The eLephant in the room
> What other issues are there with Luxembourg's tax regime??
Only that its standard VAT rate of 15% is the lowest in the EU, making it attractive for some businesses (e.g. Apple's iTunes) to be based there. (This doesn't work for businesses selling physical goods.)
Of course the difference between 15% and most other country's rates is quite small, so the difference is only useful if you're large enough that you can exploit significant economies of scale.
If it sounds to bonkers to be true...
...then it probably is.
Yes, sure, the T&Cs say they can delete all your stuff. But they probably won't, and if you read "on the internet" that that happened to someone, you should be skeptical and wait for some clarification.
Like this:
@doctorow I spoke with Linn and she told me Amazon did NOT wipe her Kindle
Re: Any word of similar research on iOS apps?
> Any word of similar research on iOS apps?
> Hard to see why the results would be different.
iOS doesn't provide apps with an API where they can set options like "don't check the domain" or "accept all certs". You get Apple's choice of settings. If you really wanted to do that, you'd need to roll your own version of OpenSSL into your app. As a result, I suspect that iOS really is more secure in this respect.
Amongst other junk, I have a box of *European* IEC mains leads.
I was going to throw then out, but then the Tories got elected and I decided they would be hendy if I decided to emigrate.
Debian please
Please someone work out how to install Debian on it, then I will buy one.
Re: Thomas Crapper
Thomas Crapper is not an example of nominative determinism; the word is named after him.
Re: Tax
> > Actually, can't they pay the VAT at Luxembourgish rate?
> Not if they're selling in the UK, no.
Yes they can, on digital downloads. Not on physical goods though.
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=502578
Compare with McDonnalds
Add an extra gram of choc to an icecream: fired!
Leak loads of personal information: probably not fired!
GPS, but no compass
It has a GPS, so you can do some interesting location-related things - but sadly no compass, so you can't try to tag landmarks in the images. Maybe the next model.
Takes hours to retreive
The blurb says it takes 3 to 4 hours to retrieve an object from the "vault". That sounds more like a tape library than a disk system. Or at least, it sounds like it's spec'd so that they could implement it on tape, even if the initial deployment (to test the market) is on top of their existing disk storage system.
Re: I guess the problem is the investment
> its brethren are now sent out to scan remote area for lost skiers, hikers etc and drop aid to them,
The best example of this is space exploration. Looking back, it's pretty clear that the development of "peaceful" rockets in "space race" era of the 50s and 60s was a way to get skilled engineers to work on ICBMs without having to worry their conscience.
Network of local outlets...
What a fabulous idea! Let's have a network of small shops that sell newspapers, confectionery, etc and also provide services to send and receive letters and parcels; put one in every village and larger ones in towns. Now what shall we call them? How about.... "post offices"?
The fact that someone considers it worthwhile to do this just shows how utterly screwed the P.O. is.
Experts
Why should I care what 1,014 ordinary people think? Ordinary people are not qualified to assess the effectiveness of the TSA. I'd be much more interested to hear the views of 12 experts, or an experiment to see how often a gun or bomb could actually be smuggled onto a plane.
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap is a great example of a "something everyone can edit" that started in the UK.
Not sure what it tells us in the context of this story. I suspect that to a large degree it's a matter of luck or random chance ("butterfly flaps its wings" etc) whether it's Linux Torvalds and Jimmy Wales and Facebook who succeed rather than some other Tom, Dick & Harry.
Backdoors
> RIM has resolutely resisted informal requests to create a back-door in their software
How do you know that? Have you seen the source?
Posted in The Dragon 32 is 30
Re: Missed opportunity.
> looked a bit shonky compared to other offerings.
You're right; in particular, the lack of lower-case made it look more like a ZX81 and less like a BBC.
Does this screwup matter to the bottom line?
The question that interests me, and I suspect many high-ups at RBS and other banks, is how much damage will this ultimately do to their bottom line? I.e. how many customers will move their accounts etc.
For years, telecoms companies obsessed about getting the reliability of their systems up e.g. 99.9999% uptime on your landline. Then along came mobiles and VoIP, which were popular because they were more ubiquitous and cheaper respectively, despite being much less reliable. Companies like AT&T were looking the wrong way and were too big to change when they realised what was going on; they were optimising the wrong thing.
So, do bank customers really care enough about problems like this to actually close their accounts? If most of them don't care and stay with RBS, then RBS got it right by making their IT less reliable. What do customers care about enough to change banks? I suspect that no-one really knows....
Posted in Never mind Azure: They BROKE Twitter!
BBC
This was #3 on the BBC New website a few minutes ago, after (1) Olympics (2) Natwest snafu.
Rare to have two-out-of-three top headlines about tech glitches. Especially when there's no shortage of othe stuff happening in the world today.
Backups
I bet that the user who says they've not used a CD for a year has also not made a backup for a year.
For me, CD/DVD is primarily a write-only archiving medium.
Last time...
Last time I read something like this, the twits had entered a whole load of timing data thinking the format as hh:mm, when it was actually mm:ss. Hence a display 60X faster than expected. Seems about the same speedup as this incident.
Re: Delta updates?
> It downloads and installs only the changes made by an update
I wish it did, but no, each app update still downloads the whole thing.
Re: storage
> I don't know how big iOS apps are, but the biggest app on my
> phone is Google+, which is 28MB installed
The Android Marketplace (as was) had a limit on app sizes of 50 MB. Apple's limit is 2 GB or so. As a result, apps with lots of data tend to download it when they first run on Android devices but have it built-in on the iOS versions. So it can be misleading to compare the "advertised" sizes of the apps.
Re: Curious...
> I don't play games, so a lot of the 25% that doesn't work could be games.
In particular, I suspect those implemented in OpenGL & C++. I'd be interested to know how many of those just don't work, and how many attempt to work under the ARM emulation and fail due to slowness.
