Posts by John Colby

@ Anonymous Coward

You found the IT angle, then.

Why is this no surprise?

or is it?

A few days ago I posted on another story ...

That I I was pleased I was wrong in that some sense had finally come out of America.

I was wrong in that assumption.

Legal Advocates

In the aftermath, it seems that it's the lawyers that are saying this. Does money come into this as lawyers are involved? Or is that only in the UK and the US?

Mine's the one with "cynic" on the back.

Didn't think that sense came from America

But obviously I was wrong.

Not more ****ing icons!

I am sick and fed up with icons. I'm currently involved transferring the Faculty from Office 2003 to Office 2007 and we have to learn a whole new language - of pictures. Whatever the size they take up just too much screen real estate. What's wrong with text? nice, simple, unambiguous WORDS, dammit!

Why can't people just learn to READ!

Hot Dry Rock

If you type "Hot Dry Rock" into google (where else) you'll find loads of information about the technology.

And 20 years ago they got it working in Cornwall.

And the lawyers?

So SCO lost $2.5million plus costs

And Novel gained $2.5 million minus costs.

And there's some happy lawyers round there somewhere.

Other meanings

There's also http://www.wtfgroup.com/

And for the William Temple foundation (http://www.wtf.org.uk/) it says

WTF's 60th Anniversay Lecture Series - Archbishop Rowan Williams, John Atherton, Francis Davis, Bob Langley

There's the Workforce Training Fund (WTF) in mass.gov/wtf

And the Obama WTF (What's The Facts?)

Which makes me think that someone hasn't got better things to do on a Friday afternoon - just like me!

So they want me to ....

Spend more money on buying new radios at home and converting the car to listen to the same stuff? So i have more choice - but when I listen to no more than two radio stations the vast majority of the time (Radio 4 and ClassicFM) and thatm most of my listening is done in the car I relly start to question the benefit. FM is sometimes a little crackly - but my car is no hi-fi studio so I'm unable to appreciate the finer nuances of each broadcast.

DAB is a technology that has been shown to have problems - why is this inferior and more complex technology being foisted upon us.

However if they had something like Dave on DAB then that may be worth looking at (or listening to, at least)

"lessons will be learned"???

No doubt that they will, but in order to correct it next time the people who learned the lessons won't be in post, so their experience will not be available.

They'll have retired, moved into industry, been reorganised or just promoted.

If we all had ...

If we all had Professor Zyborg implants there wouldn't be a need for this anyway.

I presume that this is being done in the name of marketing. Or making money from marketing - so you can collect the data to sell as market intelligence. I favour the off switch approach.

Doesn't the standards body need to keep up?

I've been coding webpages since the early nineties and teaching web development at university since 2003. At that time I started teaching XHTML because it was then 'the future' and XHTML 2.0 was the thing to aim for so graduates wouldn't get left behind in their language usage. XHTML enforced the standards much better than HTML. The meant that I could also teach accuracy.

A couple of generations of graduates later and we're still waiting for the future. Is it any wonder that frustrations with a static language have surfaced and that people want to develop? Although the standards arguments are interesting academically we do live in the real world.

Whwther we code XML, XHTML or HTML then ther is a standard to be followed, but technology and techniques are moving on. Standards had better make the effort to keep up. They'd also better decide on a direction.

However I can already hear the arguments that manufacturers should follow standards. However if the standards do not cope with the requirement then the standards are inadequate. It would, however, be counterproductive for there to be a free for all again (remember Netscape?) so getting real and keeping up is not really an option - it's now a requirement.

PC World - the McD's of the computer industry?

I was going to write that some time ago Dixons and PC World weren't that bad.

Then I realised that I meant the better part of twenty years ago that that statement applied.

And the 'overstock because of Vista' problems shown just what you get when you believe Microsoft.

There's supposed to be a new PC world store opening...

... in New Oscott, at The Beggar's Bush (name of a pub). New Oscott is between Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield. Hasn't been much building activity there recently, from what I can tell.

What now amazes me is that how this action wasn't foreseen earlier. The Credit Crunch has been with us since last summer, the retail crisis since before Christmas, and the economic projections available since Northern Rock nearly went under.

Doesn't anyone in that company look at "the books" any more?

Is it any wonder ...

... that my next PC will be a Mac?

'cos I just want something that works!

You didn't make up their name, did you?

No, of course you wouldn't.

And somehow, reading the original, I think the term 'considerable' is relative.

Wish...

Wish I'd thought of it :)

The most swearing from our tekkies is when...

A student brings in a Vista laptop and tries to do some work with it.

And isn't an elephant a mouse with an Operating System?

Just wondering ...

... how many people actually use more than one or two stations? My listening is confined to three - the ones I have programmed into the car. At home it's mainly one - when the radio is on, which is fairly seldom.

So why the play on multiple channels? Is it really going to attract more people? Is there really an advantage in shelling out more money for the same thing?

And are there digital music centres? is there a DAB boom box? How many cars are DAB equipped from new? Why are the DAB radios around either plain 1950's style or so funky that they'd be out of place in 99% of the places they could be used?

And why is the display so bloomin' small that the those who rely on radio, blind and partially sighted people, have difficulty using them?

And in case you're wondering, no, I haven;t bought one yet.

There must be a better way.

Ah! The old days ...

And nostalgia isn't what it used to be, either.

But being serious, I'm currently writing a degree level course part that has to use the command line - what I take for granted I'm having to explain in great detail. And I;im sure that I'm missing a load of things that I'll have to explain in greater detail.

But of course, it couldn't happen in Britain ...

...could it?

@ anonymous Coward - re ...people who read tabloids deserve to be lied to.

The Times has been a tabloid for three years.

Yes, i suppose you're right.

@Mike

Congratulations - so you're the person who's made it work!

My university's not upgrading, and I don't want to be one of the ones who finds out the hard way that my machine's incompatible. It may be OK on new machines, but new machines just to run an operating system are not an option in many cases.

Applications which run normally and are central to anyone's operation should run normally on an upgraded system - after all there's all the code is in the new OS. Drivers, I agree, could be a different matter, but the bloat surrounding any new Microsoft product is enough to put many people off.

Including me - I'm saving up for an iMac.

@ Mr Larrington

However F1 car do not fly at high altitudes, are not exposed to the same sort of radiation or a highly charged electrical environment of a cumulonimbus and are replaced a lot more frequently than an aircraft. When new, the aircraft may be OK. But what happens when it's getting a little bit aged, like after six months or so?

Errors apart ...

Errors of detail apart, they are pretty good as jokes.

Just wonder how many server identities are spoofed and how many people have been highlighting the stats as 'proof' of their success in some fields of endeavour. Or how many will now disguise what they actually have.

Lowest common denominator again

Why is it that it is again suggested that we think in terms of equality? Does not excellence in engineering together with innovation and enterprise count any more? Does every playing field have to be so level that there is only one differentiator?

Sorry, Giles, it appears you're in a minority.

Some sense at last?

Praise be that we are not following America's lead on this one.

Learning from mistakes

Is no-one going to learn from Consignia?