Posts by Tim Wolfe-Barry

"It's incredibly hard to take a very diverse group of people and then expect them all to have compatible values, work nicely with each other and sing from the same hymn sheet"

Very true; BUT it's worth the effort.

BBC published an article a while back (here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49582852) pointing out the ways that the US (Western) Intelligence Establishment completely underestimated Bin Laden in the lat '90s, arguably leading directly to the 9/11 attacks. The premise is that a more diverse community working for the US government might have understood the message and prevented the attacks...

I work in a team that is incredibly diverse in background, nationality, skin colour, sexual preference, age etc, etc and yes it IS sometimes hard to agree on things; but generally people listening to each other and working from a basis of good-will tend to get to the right answer in the end.

Even if it takes us a bit longer to get to our answer than a cluster of 50yr-old white men might, I feel pretty sure that 9 times out of 10 we get to a better answer than any monocultural group would; and that is the benefit of having (and listening to) all those points of view.

**(Notwithstanding the above; I agree both that box-checking Diversity Surveys are a waste of perfectly good electrons and that any group of Old Etonians (or similar cadre of over-privileged representatives of the establishment education system of your choice) are probably a monoculture of thought no matter how apparently diverse they may appear!)

Re: Ballistic Delivery

Makes it all the more amusing for those hacks still slaving to a deadline whilst their colleagues in the Social columns have their feet up...

Re: "non-geeks have shown little interest in the security of their IoT gizmos "

Couldn't agree more.

Responsibility here has to fall on manufacturers and, since much IoT stuff is for utilities, regulators.

If, to take an easy example, my electricity company want to move me to a "Smart" meter, then it should NOT be my responsibility to ensure that the dumb thing is secure and maintains my privacy adequately both to the Internet as a whole *and* to the supplier.

For consumer gadgets and whizz-bangs there should be some minimum standard (akin to the CE mark on electrical and/or wireless devices) that certifies a level of compliance and security. Of course that won't stop the criminally negligent (or simply criminal), but it would give responsible manufacturers a standard to comply with and enforcement authorities something to work with, like when you find toys painted with lead

Re: Eh?

If I'm THAT thirsty, I can use a device called a "telephone" to let my local know I'm coming - They'll pull it and have it on the bar waiting when I get there (45 seconds after leaving the house - I need to call before putting on my shoes, otherwise I'm there before the beer!)

My question about going cash-less: If there's no cash; how can I send my 8 y.o. to the corner shop to buy milk/bread/coffee when we run out? He doesn't have a bank account or even a phone (Mpesa)...

Re: Not sure if being British is a requirement, but ...

VC AND BAR

Nuff Said...

Re: Probably a stupid question

(all comments posted here based on theoretical knowledge only - I have not personally rooted my current device or deployed recent versions of any OS or other software mentioned here. Caveat Lactor applies...)

Not really stupid...

Lots of ways round the lock-in problem; simplest is probably to get an Android device and then root it and install whatever alternative Android-derivative you favour. Cyanogenmod is good, apparently.

For a full-linux experience, something like this may be interesting: http://www.ubuntu.com/phone

And then there are others out there, like Mozilla with FireFox Phone, who will say they're doing something similar.

"why can't I just install whatever I like" will fall down, I suspect, due to driver issues - no smartphone (I assume) runs a desktop chipset, so you can't just deploy your current-favourite wintel build as that simply won't boot.

Options are more limited, I understand, if your hardware is an iThing; you can unlock it but there won't be the choice of alternative OS that there seems to be if your starting point is a 'droid.

See my own post below - this sort of idiocy has persuaded me to pre-order a v0.1 device from an unknown supplier; here DEFINITELY be Dragons!

In my experience; when you move fast and break things, what you're often experiencing is a car-crash!

Re: Lack of customer service...

Clearly no-one commenting here has flown into the US.

I now avoid traveling there if at all possible (working for a US company, curiously, means I travel there less!). An hour's wait for immigration is routine or even quite good - I've several times stood in line for 3 hours - and this at very major hub airports (Chicago O'Hare is particularly bad for some reason...).

I think the *only* time I went through quickly was at Minneapolis when we landed about midnight and were the last flight in that night.

The only consoling factor is that they treat US citizens just as badly as foreigners!

Re: But why are we translating it literally?

Snerk, Splutter!

Just snorted my bedtime coffee onto the keyboard!

I just want to add that this conversation is absolutely spiffing (now translate that!) and quite a lot more interesting than writing emails to colleagues in California which is the usual reason for being on-line at this point in the day...

Thank-you

Re: The Big Question

I'm in a similar position at work with my much-loathed BB Bold being replaced. Choices were all BB apart from the 5s and the SGS4.

Since my personal phone is an HTC OneX+ I've chosen the SGS4, at least that way I get a common eco-system and I don't have to learn (much) new stuff.

What I *really* want is to have ONE device - I have to carry a work phone 24x7, and don't want to put work to my personal line, so what I really wanted was the HTC One Dual - a proper top-end smartphone (forget 4G; I live amongst sheep and cows, so there's no danger of actual coverage for years) with dual-sim sockets, active/active.

Sadly not available through work and I'm a bit loath to spend £500 to buy it outright myself...

Re: You do have a choice...

Really; you don't.

Sure if you happen to live in a city somewhere where LLU is economic or where Sky or Virgin have fiber in place then you have a choice.

Unfortunately I don't. My local exchange has about 900 connections and we're 7 miles from the nearest town; so I'm stuck with ADSL and 'up to' 8 mbps. Despite the fact that Virgin's main fiber trunk passes within a mile or so of here it's still not worth their while to put connections in.

Any moment now someone is going to say that I should move house to somewhere there is FTTP if I care that much; unfortunately I can't afford the £20,000 it would cost (in fees and taxes) to move, even if I did think that having better broadband was more important than a garden for the kids to play in.

The point is that we shouldn't HAVE to choose like that, and that people living in farms and villages shouldn't find themselves cut off from the rest of the world just because rotten ADSL connections don't have the capacity to get them on-line.

Re: Dells are Cheap

My work LT is a Dell E6240 with quad-core i7, 256GB SSD, 1600x900 screen and 8GB RAM. No idea what it costs, mind.

I've also had good experience with Lenovo - previous model was an N200 with the same screen but Core Duo processor and only 4GB (and a spinning disk); that was about 700 GBP but over 4 years ago.

At home we have an Acer Timeline which is lovely, again it's getting a bit long in the tooth but they've really done magic with the battery life - still gives 6 hours ++ on a full charge, even after about 4 years!

If style is your thing (and you *really* don't want an Apple) then Sony's Vaio range might be worth a look, although you do pay a premium...

All of these suppliers have websites that let you review and (mostly) update the specs and all (last time I looked - 2011, YMMV) allow you to spec-up to the sort of components you want.

Where you may find difficulty is if you expected to buy something off the shelf at PCW or DABS that meets the spec...