* Posts by Brian Sherwood Jones

19 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Sep 2006

Humanity can defeat SkyNet with BOOKS, says IT think tank

Brian Sherwood Jones

more titles

Michael Frayn, 'The Tin Men', 'A Very Private Life'

John Sladek; many but especially 'Tik Tok'

John Wyndham 'Compassion Circuit'

Manuel De Landa 'War in the age of intelligent machines'

Stanislaw Lem 'Summa Technologiae

Lots of movies - 'Robot and Frank' is good.

Lots more to be found at http://www.technovelgy.com/

Do projects with http://fffff.at/about/

Fun, but agree with above, unconvinced of real value.

Microsoft Cortana EULA contains the Greatest Disclaimer of ALL TIME

Brian Sherwood Jones

Software ought to be goods

These EULA thingies are awful. If software were treated as 'goods' the Sale of Goods Act, Consumer Protection etc. would stop this sort of cop-out. Shows how far we are in serfdom to the Silicon Valley barons.

Selfies are so 2013. Get ready for DRONIES – the next hipster-cam-gasm

Brian Sherwood Jones

Phrone

camera-equipped drone? Surely the other way round - a drone-equipped phone. So, phrone

Apple named in criminal lawsuit over Premier League–streaming app

Brian Sherwood Jones

Tirading Thai Telly Tycoons, surely - not enraged?

Google makes Opera bloggers an offer they can't refuse: Use Chrome

Brian Sherwood Jones

El Reg already has the answer

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/28/facebook_to_buy_opera/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/facebook-opera_n_1551978.html

It looks like part of the google-facebook quest for market.

UK's first Stealth fighter in successful catapult test

Brian Sherwood Jones

Chinooks on deck probably

I'd be surprised if you could get Chinooks in the hangar. V-22's might be handy.

Fox promises all change at MoD

Brian Sherwood Jones
Coat

Too many cooks

When it comes to military procurement, Israel spends £9 billion a year and administers its purchases with 400 people. Britain spends £10 billion annually on procurement and has a staff of 23,700 to do it.

£1bn+ Royal Navy destroyer finally fires 'disgraceful' weapon

Brian Sherwood Jones

NFR90 coming on nicely then

Once the cold war is over we might need a different type of ship of course.

Microsoft: 'Prepare for 15 billion more clients'

Brian Sherwood Jones

Bunfight with Intel? Invitation to be sued?

Hos is Intel's absorption of Wind River Systems going? Could be a nice bunfight? What changes has the Beast from Redmond made to its licence conditions? It used to be the case that they could prosecute you for attempting to use windoze for safety related applications.

Dell Inspiron Zino HD

Brian Sherwood Jones

Transtec alternative

http://www.transtec.co.uk/GB/E/products/personal_computer/pc/mini_pc.html might be a better option?

Mozilla's Firefox syncer Weaves out of beta

Brian Sherwood Jones

Is this more than opera does already?

Wow.

Next they'll be launching a mobile browser. Oh, .... now I know where Mozilla gets its development plans from.

Elonex shows off second Small, Cheap Computer

Brian Sherwood Jones
Paris Hilton

Evidence of portability

All very well, but where is the visual evidence you can use it on the beach in a bikini? Asus definitely have the advantage there.

Paris, because that is what she wants to know too.

The missing five-minute Linux manual for morons

Brian Sherwood Jones
Paris Hilton

Tiddlywiki as alternative to mediawiki

Do have a look at Tiddlywiki before getting too committed to mediawiki.

Loved the article. "Wake up and smell the elephant in the room" is a classic.

Paris looking sad hearing about a tiddler.

Landmine charity: Ban the killer robots before it's too late!

Brian Sherwood Jones
Paris Hilton

Killing robots is wrong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p--dHQIeagE

Killing robots is wrong.

Paris wouldn't do it.

The OLPC XO laptop

Brian Sherwood Jones
Paris Hilton

How did you get them in the UK?

I presume you needed to get them shipped to a US address? Not seen any signs of delivery straight to the UK yet.

Yes, a lot of point-missing going on above; a sensible test would be a bunch of children working together e.g. on a squeak project.

A serious review of its innovative approach to security would be of interest.

The art of software murder

Brian Sherwood Jones

Another one for the list - Smartdraw

Smartdraw used to be lovely till they brought out Smartdraw 2007; ruined (much) 'better than visio at half the price'.

NASA denies cover-up on airline safety

Brian Sherwood Jones

Did Hansen do the analysis?

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2536 is on NASA Evasion of Quality Control Procedures.

Boots, House of Fraser not renewing IT director posts

Brian Sherwood Jones

Yes, governance is key

Good point about governance. When does IT governance become corporate governance? The "system" at Abbey (Santander) has been down for days. At what point does this poor level of IT become of interest to the FSA?

Mobile email: Let's have a heated debate

Brian Sherwood Jones

Not just devices that need to be considered

Yes, you need a full alpha keyboard like a blackberry. The blackberry user interface works - not great but infinitely better than windows mobile.

However, for a small business using POP3, the problem needs looking at end to end.

a) you need an ISP that diverts suspected spam, not just labels it; very galling to pay for spam.

b) you need a mobile phone operator that can connect your POP3 account to the device - t-mobile couldn't do that for me.

c) you do need customer service from the phone operator, which in my experience rules out Orange.

d) windows mobile only synch's properly with exchange (EU please note), so you have to pay phone rates for POP3 emails, even if you have already received them on a desktop.

e) lightweight laptop with wi-fi may be a better solution for many, perhaps in conjunction with a U3 smart USB drive. GPRS card as an expensive alternative for when it is really necessary.