Posts by David Glasgow

He should call it The Peach

An altogether more satisfying Reg headline would then arise.

LiveCode

I just love it.

Oh

:((

DVG

Why would Microsoft offer a reward?

I don't understand. We've all seen the advert. They have a huge Minority Report style room thing with touch screens and stuff. From here they can track down criminals wherever they are in the world. I feel so much safer running Windows in the knowledge that team and tech are dedicated to crime busting.

Come to think of it though, I haven't seen any reports of how many baddies they catch each week. That's a bit odd.

"Given the magnitude of our results "

Is a novel use of the word 'magnitude'

To put the results in context, if performance was expressed as a standard score (like IQs) with a mean of 100 for the no IT group, the wasters with their tablets and laptops averaged 97.

This is a good example of confusing statistical with real world significance.

Tsk.... primary school error

...confusing barn doors with shed-loads. Former area, latter volume.

The decision to use gCloud and PaaS?

... A bigger boy told me to do it.

Vorsprung durch software

I'm pretty impressed. I'd love to know exactly how the software determined a test was in progress, and what it then did. Where did the software live? Who put it there? Who ordered it? Who agreed to it? Who knew?

head first Java

acquires a whole new meaning.

Informed consent?

The text the police refer to as being consent to be recorded for the purposes of their trial would to most appear to be consent to appear in videos and photographs taken as part of the festival itself.

Most are happy with that. My daughter was delighted to see her elbow appear in crowd shot.

To use this form of words is disingenuous and exploits an obvious red herring. I don't think this would stand up as properly informed consent.

Pingit and Zapp

I wonder how much they paid what nobs to come up with such toe-curlingly bad names?

They inspire images of light hearted, trivial, 'let's hope this works' kind of financial transactions.

I much prefer the staid, boring reliable and secure kind.

How big...

Is a packet? ( in this instance?)

Windows rental like Avis rental would be great for me

Keeping a range of Win OSs going for software testing is a pain. I use 95 first and often, then Vista, then 7.

If I could rent 10 for the afternoon, that would be great. Returned unscratched and with a full tank.

... or ... oh dear, oh dear... Have I just broken the car analogy law?

Harsh punishment

seems like it ought to be a deterrent, but research on delayed punishment shows that it isn't, particularly when the odds of getting caught are relatively low. Long sentences only reduce recidivism by virtue of preventing crime during imprisonment, the costs are high, as is the post imprisonment recidivism.

Physical punishment appeals to victims, and those with coercive and authoritarian personality traits, but that confuses retribution with deterrence. The fantasy that if you can just hurt someone enough he or she will stop offending is just that, a fantasy.

I have no beef with imprisonment, although prisons are ill equipped for reducing recidivism - so let's be clear why we punish offenders, and not pretend it will reduce offending.

Phuket

Since Phuket is a transliteration, why did the h ever make an appearance? It doesn't make much sense to say Ph is pronounced P. That's why Hyacinth Bucket was funny. (Occasionally)

From the Southport Visiter...

She said: "He is very quiet young man. I don't know him very well - he stayed in his bedroom a lot.

"I haven't seen the family yet but I imagine it will be a big shock.

"His mum is really lovely.

"He was a student but I don't know if he still is."

Not a surprise, I'll bet it was, I'm sure she is and I suspect not.

I'll say one thing for Apple staff....

...ask 'em a technical question about a product, and they don't start reading off the box. Admittedly, there aren't any, so maybe that is the solution for other retailers?

Yes PC World, I'm looking at you.

Oh, and while I'm on, my theory is that disappointed apple customers tend to get extra pissy because they believe that the shiny kit is not just rather more reliable than average, but is guaranteed to be snafu free. They are actively encouraged in that belief, so who can blame them? Apple just has to man up and deliver support that closes the gap between reality and expectation.

Not saying they didn't do it....

"Whisper's editor-in-chief Neetzan Zimmermann and its CTO Chad DePue aggressively denied the allegations – but failed to provide any evidence they weren't true"

...but exactly what would the evidence that the allegations weren't true look like?

I am so confident....

I am answering the questions without looking at them

1) Dead Flesh

2) Wafadrive

3) Bugaboo the Flea

And the answer to the tiebreaker is "yes, of course".

Now, where do I collect?

Not Paul the Octopus

There is an astonishingly high correlation between my predictions of Apple product success and what actually happens. Sadly it is negative. I am almost always exactly wrong.

I loved the cube. I thought the iPod was a pointless kids toy. I knew with great certainty that no one would pay silly money for a phone, even with an 'i' in front of it. I could go on.

The principle also applies to major technology decisions made by Apple over the years. I got them all dead wrong - although .... maybe choosing BeOS would have lead to even greater success?. See? I am the Anti-Paul the octopus of Apple.

What is the point of all this? Well. I think the Apple watch is a great product , and that the Health SDK thingy is a brilliant strategy. I really like the looks of the new iPhones. Pay by bonk (how it should be done) and many other iOS 8 features look excellent in my eyes.

Oh dear.

Terrible infographic

Please don't think I am ignoring the horror and tragedy of this event.

However, that infographic is seriously misleading. In what way is the 25% circle 25% of the whole? (Don't respond with the correct answer. The fact that there is an answer is not the point)

Edward Tufte would be turning in his grave if he was dead.

El Reg tiightwads?

Or did the good folks of Ars also decline to buy a stockie of the correct gecko species?

While my tablet gently weeps

When they did the iPad Air, they had lots more guitar picks closely placed around the seam. So maybe an insufficiency of guitar picks on this one, boys?

What's the difference between

A crocodilian and a crocodyliform?

So basically.....

Eadon the now Unperson was right all along?

He should be airbrushed back into the digital history of El Reg, and be rehabilitated from whatever Gulag to which he was banished.

Er wha?

The UK has 1.5 times the reserves of the US? Really? What does that work out per capita? Or per square Kilometre?

What has it got on its serverses?

It's mines. Nasty dirty NHSICes. Master tricked us, nasty tricksy NHSICes.

But NHSICes is kind, and wants best for us, makes us all more healthy helps research

NO. They messes it all up. Master will sell us all and they don't know their arses from their elbowses.

STOP IT NOW!

I thought my marching days were over

..... Not since the Thatcher years have the old legs started twitching against social injustice. Not that there isn't any, just I've been leaving to the younger generation.

If they start doing bad things to Mr Snowden, I do believe I would get the old walking boots on again. Would there be other grey haired geeks out on the streets, I wonder.

In my book we owe Snowden a great debt, and not just for filling quiet news days.

Mere tissue of a story

How do you do it, el Reg? I read it, and enjoyed shaking my head at various points.

And yet...... this 'story' ..... if it merits the term, is concocted around a thing that a few strange people thought was going to happen, but it wasn't. To most of us, it wasn't even a very important thing, and one of the head shakes came as a result of learning the thoughts of some to whom it was apparently very important. Or would have been, if it had been going to happen.

The headline promised dead puppies. Or at least one, threatened, or bumped off by a heartless corporation. To demand my pound of puppy flesh would be very, very wrong. Yet, surely there has to be some correspondence between the headline and the facts of the case?

And another thing. Am I alone in suspecting the whole thing is a marketing ploy? Designed to get the playgrounds of England abuzz , like it was when we all had to work so hard to save Tony the Tiger. Or was it the tiger in our tanks? I can't bloody remember.

So some arsehole runs software which harvests all the mentions of puppies and toilet paper on the interweb post 'story', converts that into an advertising value, generates a report which goes to an executive, who smiles.

Our only weapon is to make sure we wipe our arses on something else, and I resent having to take time to think about that.

Fart app graph please

After 8 years the rate of release really ought to be reaching an asymptote on iOS. Unless there is something really weird going on. What kind of thought processes are involved in a developer now deciding that a fart app is the way to go?

Unless of course there are new challenges and frontiers in the field of fart apps that my blind prejudice has prevented me from appreciating. Any aficionados out there who can ... Ahem.... spill the beans?