Posts by John Tuffen

Isn't this just the implementation of Old News?

Some while ago (a year? Maybe more), Apple announced that they weren't going to support Java any more - after all, they were getting so much crap from 'users'** about not keeping up with the bugfixes in mainline Java this seemed like a sensible decision. Why be the middleman in such a relationship?

** When I say 'users' I mean people-who-comment-about-Apple-despite-announcing-that-they'll-never-buy-an-Apple-product as well as people who actually use OSX

Google Profile != Google Account

from Google's "About Profiles" - http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=97703&hl=en&ctx=ch_ManageAccount

"Deleting your profile won't delete your Google Account."

so, deleting a profile will not prevent you from using gmail... at the moment ;-)

Civil liberties

Civil liberties stuff looks good to me.

Can't really offer an opinion on the financial stuff (you're going to pay tax _somewhere_), and the education elements don't look too horrendous for my kids either.

Tech Support Cheat Sheet

It'd probably be cheaper to just follow this handy flowchart:

http://xkcd.com/627/

Could you use any more biased language?

There's definitely an anti-Apple feel around here these days (and anti-Google too, but let's stick to the point here).

Do you think you could use some restraint in your reporting? 'Jobsian Cult'?? How about 'Apple' instead?

I suppose that you're just going for the lowest common denominator audience here (IT workers with a Daily Mail subscription by the looks of things), but the news around here sometimes looks like it's been written by a fourteen year-old geek with serious Apple- (Google-) envy...

@Phil the Geek

... My thoughts exactly! I've been showing my children Eric Laithwaites 'The Engineer in Wonderland' recently since they expressed an interest in mag-lev/mag-propulsion (interestingly, my 7 year old son 'invented' mag-lev when he discovered magnetic repulsion, deciding that cars/trains would be much better if they hovered... hence Prof. Laithwaite's book came out!)

<splutter>

Right, Mr. Aldous: you owe me a new keyboard and monitor... my current ones are tea-soaked now:

"... it's built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance." indeed.

Photography ain't illegal, but it'll get you noticed...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8161154.stm

(About the "Harry Potter" actor done for cannabis possession)

"Police seized the camera after [Waylett] was arrested for taking a picture of officers as he and his friend John Innis, 20, drove past, the court was told."

"Waylett and Innis were stopped under the Terrorism Act in Lodge Road, St John's Wood, west London, after the actor took a photograph of a police patrol."

That pesky terrorism act coupled with shy policemen...

No Problems with crashing; however...

... there's a problem with the parental controls. You can add a site by simply pressing 'cancel' when Safari asks for an administrator password. It's annoying when it worked so well with Safari 3!

(Macbook rev1, 10.4.11)

Oh no!

Not the Lomographic Society!! Ok if you have money to burn... but materials can be bought much more cheaply - 7dayshop.com and silverprint.co.uk spring to mind. Silverprint distribute the foma stocks amongst others...

Hmmm...

Interesting. The 'old' Aluminium Macbooks (much derided for their lack of Firewire) have now become the new Macbook Pro jr. - *with* Firewire. And the prices aren't much different (can't remember exactly) from the old Aluminium Macbook either.

Sounds good to me.

Being quiet? Perhaps Apple are being cautious

Hmm... perhaps they're *investigating* the issue? Before releasing an ill-advised comment?

It's not so hard to imagine that Apple would see if the problem is reproducible before advising on a fix??

Ahhh...

.. it's *Positive* discrimination? That's alright then...

@Chris

Wow. For a 'neutral', you do a great anti-Apple impersonation.

(Sooooo tired of all these 'my OS is better than yours' playground arguments).

Green Cross Code?

"... could pose safety issues for any locals who forget to look both ways when crossing the road ..."

Well, how about pedestrians actually F***ing look before crossing the road? Or is there a plan to retrofit bicycles etc. with "a recording of a thumping big V8"?

I say run the fsckers over.

@AC? Webster...?

I presume (from the first two comments) that Webster has forgotten his password...

The postings have all the signs (incontinent rant; blinkered opinion yada yada...)

@Andy...

"...I can put my laptop in a giant envelope with a stamp, and they can't search it?"

Hmmm, I wonder if Apple knew about this before the Macbook Air was released? I mean - it's even in the advert!

Audio Compression != Data Compression

... audio compression is a huge great evil of the times; My Ipod (shuffle) has a big mix of stuff on it at the moment, and the difference between (say) a Beatles track, something from 'Stop Making Sense', and anything 'modern' (Mark Ronson's 'God Put a Smile upon your face' for example), and you have to wonder what happened to dynamic range. The older tracks tend to go LOUD, quiet, LOUD, etc. whilst the modern tracks tend to be LOUD, LOUD, LOUD.

A bit like Ms. Phreaky up there.

If you were to look at the waveforms, I highly suspect that the modern stuff would be riddled with flat-topped peaks judging by the kind of distortion which can be heard.

@dervheid

"Who is going to produce an economically viable electric car, capable of carrying the average family and their luggage the entire journey from central Scotland to Cornwall (530 miles), in reasonable, air conditioned comfort, in a journey time of just under 9 hours (not including breaks), that won't need to be recharged en-route?"

Well, surely whilst you and the family are stopping to eat/go to the loo, the car can recharge? I mean we're only talking 10 minutes after all...

Terrorist Vs. Paedophile

"I can deal with the fact someone might think I'm a terrorist, but when they start saying you're a paedophile it really hurts"

I think that the point is you can more easily persuade people that you're not a terrorist (i.e. your friends and neighbours will laugh it off), whereas once accused of being a paedo, "There's no smoke without fire" kicks in, and soon everybody *thinks* that, even though there's no damn evidence...

Are Photographers really a threat?

Of course, the "war-on-terror" angle is all cobblers too... see Bruce Schneier's Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/05/news.terrorism

Comments again.

Self-documenting code is a crock of cack.

You try to debug some, to quote a friend of mine:

”… well, weenieboy, if I’m in there fixing the code, it’s probably because it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to..."

And why is: "x++; // increment x" always trotted out as an argument against comments? I mean, really. The only peopl who write code like that are people learning a programming language. It's like banning a letter of the alphabet because it's used in some rude words and you may ultimately offend someone...

Linux proponents seem the worst offenders for 'self documented code'