Posts by Dale

@Rhyd

Some card companies do maintain a list of allowed delivery addresses, but I didn't realise this either until I ordered something on a site that would only deliver to the registered card billing address which is inconveninent for me (card registered at home address but I'd prefer to have packages delivered to me at the office). Helpfully the site pointed out that some card companies do allow you to register an alternative delivery address. So I rang up AmEx to enquire and the very cheerful chap on the other end was happy to oblige, like it was a very common thing to do. I don't know why they don't publicise it more.

ObTerrorism joke

Donkey terrorism effectively neutered. I feel safer already. Bring on the ID cards.

It would have been ok

if he had been carrying a certificate proving the gun had been permanently deactivated.

Digital radio will beat pirates

Not. Even after the country has officially switched to exclusively DAB (assuming it actually happens), there's nothing to stop pirates from continuing with analogue broadcasts in exactly the same way they do now - listen for an empty channel and switch on the carrier. The UK may be embracing digital in a big way but there are many areas in the world that simply aren't, so analogue equipment - both transmitters and receivers - will still be readily available for a long time to come. People who want to listen to pirates will just Ebay for a cheap receiver (or even easier, head on down to the Brick Lane market).

@11% of people...

Maybe we need an annual spam Day, when all ISPs switch their filters for a day so that instead of blocking spam emails they let them through and just change the subject line to "Buying products advertised in spam emails is why there is so much spam." Or leave it like that permanently. People who know how to set up their own local filters based on the subject line are probably more likely to know not to buy from spammers anyway.

@Curtis Crowson

Ah, that would be the migratory backslash, as I like to call it. Although most of the other keys tend to stay put*, in my experience I have encountered the backslash key in no less than six different locations on various different keyboards. I remapped the keyboard on my work PC so that backslash would be where I like it. Confuses my colleagues when it doesn't match up with the labels on the keys, and confuses me when I have to type on someone else's PC. But I like it.

* Excluding UK/US differences, non-English systems and, apparently, Vostros.

Even numbered version

There was a time in the industry when the rule was to avoid Microsoft operating systems with even-numbered version numbers (remembering MS-DOS 2, 4 and 6). If the next Windows to come is version 7, Vista must be 6 and apparently the rule still holds.

Blocked pipe

Works great until someone sends a Roto-Router down to clear out a blocked pipe.

Security by obscurity

All security is by obscurity. As long as there is, by necessity, a key to open the thing being secured, then it is only secure as long as that key remains hidden. This is true for both physical locks and mathematical algorithms. Whatever algorithm you choose is just a complicated way of hiding the key amongst lots of other keys that don't work. Some algorithms are weak which means there are ways to rule out a lot of the keys without actually trying them, but in the end, all security can be defeated by brute force (try every key until you find the right one). The only thing that stops this is the time it would take. Technology moves on; what today would take a billion years to brute force might take minutes one day in the future. It's secure today, but only because it takes so long to find all the hiding places.

Funny maths

"They claim ... able to hold up to 50 per cent more energy."

"That ups the capacity by 20-30 per cent."

Energy storage is up 50% but capacity is only up 30% so presumably these new batteries are less efficient than the old ones. I hope that doesn't mean the extra energy is turned into heat. We know what happens to that!

And then:

"Battery capacity is also proportional to cell size ... not only offer higher capacities ... but also with a smaller-sized cell."

If capacity is proportional to cell size and your device now has a smaller-sized cell, you've just offset the benefit of 50% (or is that 30%) more capacity. Admittedly it means a smaller, lighter device, but with the same useless standby time as your old device.

More cameras are less effective

There must be a point at which adding more cameras actually makes them all less effective at doing whatever it is they are supposed to be doing, because there would be so many pictures for someone to have to watch, most of them would go unwatched or get a cursory glance at best.

@Paul Young

"I don't see anyone moaning about rising petrol or bread prices!!!"

Probably because people don't buy petrol and bread on eBay. In a discussion about food and transportation you might see people moaning about petrol and bread prices. In a discussion about eBay you likely won't see those people moaning because it would be considered off-topic.

Make your own Oyster Mobile

You can make your own Oyster mobile phone right now. Just glue your Oyster card to the back of your phone. No battery, no security concerns, 100% compatible, and best of all that's one less thing to remember to pick up in the morning.

Mainframe computing

So we're back to the era of the mainframe computer where everything runs and is stored centrally - albeit on a global scale. Anyone doing anything new today?

It does kind of vindicate Thomas Watson's fabled (mis)quote, "there is a world market for maybe five computers."

@Fraser

Trolley buses with overhead power lines are nice, but they completely spoil the fun of wildly diverted bus routes every time Thames Water needs to dig up the roads to proudly stop thousands of olympic swimming pools from leaking away.

How do the artists get paid?

Presumably the organisation responsible for collecting this blank-media-artist-compensation levy, sends out regular cheques to all the artists whose work may have been copied. How do I get on their mailing list? I reckon I could knock out a couple of tunes - now that musical talent is no longer considered a prerequisite - and claim my share for my imagined losses.

Verified by Vista

I would have though the "Verified by Vista (sic)" logo would have been a dead giveaway that there was trouble.

2 year warranty

So the manufacturer will only give a 2 year warranty. That means potentially having to replace your passport every two years even though the document is supposed to be valid for 10, if that is all the confidence the manufacturer has in its product.

Presumably there will have to be provisions for faulty passports at airports. How long before the passport forgers realise all they have to do is make sure their fake passports go prematurely "faulty", then they're just as good as a fake ordinary paper passport?

VAT vs Sales Tax

VAT (value added tax) is supposed to reduce fraud (specifically, non-payment) although clearly it has problems of its own. To answer Kain Preacher, the problem with sales tax, which is only charged to the end purchaser, is that it is easily exploited. One way is for the retailer to simply say, "pay me in cash and we'll forget about the tax".

VAT is supposed to help discourage this by spreading the tax liability down the whole chain, from customer to retailer to wholesaler to manufacturer, the idea being that a customer might be willing to pay cash when he buys a single item but the retailer is less likely to be willing (or able) to pay cash to a wholesaler for an entire consignment of goods, and the wholesaler is even less likely to be able to pay cash to the manufacturer. Thus they are more or less forced to pay by trackable means (electronic, cheque, etc) which can be inspected by HM Revenue. The amount of tax ultimately received by HM is the same, but it is spread out across the chain. This is why it is called Value Added Tax. Each person in the buyer-seller chain pays the full tax rate over to HM when he sells the item on, but claims back from HM the full tax rate of the cost of the item; the difference between what he pays and what he claims back is effectively the 17.5% tax rate on his profit margin. In the end all the payments and reclaims partially offset each other and HM is left holding 17.5% of the final retail price, having received little portions of it from each of the people along the chain.

That's how it's supposed to work to stop tax avoidance at the point of sale. It doesn't eliminate it, just reduces the impact. And as we have seen, some people have figured out how to exploit the complexity of the payment/reclaim mechanism to basically claim back from HM money that wasn't due to them.

Carry two phones

One on the Blyk network for sending free texts and making calls, with the incoming text alert set to silent, and another phone with a cheap PAYG SIM to receive texts from people you actually care about. Seems too much of a bother really.

"Fast" bag drop

The "Fast Bag Drop" counter is just the same old check-in counter with a different name. Unless you're travelling with hand luggage only, the only advantage of online/mobile check-in is you can try to bag your favourite window seat a few hours earlier - saving all of ten seconds at the counter after waiting in a twenty minute queue. The downside is no opportunity to try to charm your way into a free upgrade.

Tax advantage

There might be a tax advantage for MS if they donate software directly to charities instead of doing it through third party refurbishers. The charity still gets the software very cheaply, and there's nothing wrong with MS getting a tax advantage for doing so, if that is the case.