* Posts by Tom 15

253 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009

Page:

Brexit? Cutting the old-school ties would do more for Brit tech world

Tom 15

Prat

What a prat. Sitting in Cambridge whining about how Oxford gets all the attention...

Acer CloudMobile S500 Android phone review

Tom 15

Hmm

This would be very good if it wasn't for the Nexus 4. Better phone for less dosh.

Power to the people - if you can find a spare socket

Tom 15

USB

USB into some unsuspecting victim's PC front-ports seems to be the answer.

Google, Amazon, Starbucks are 'immoral' and 'ridiculous' over UK tax

Tom 15

Bleurgh

Can we stop talking about the amount of corporation tax paid on sales turnover? The two have no relation...

Education Secretary Gove: Tim Berners-Lee 'created the INTERNET'

Tom 15

Hmm

The most important thing for teaching is good teachers rather than good subject knowledge. A CompSci graduate is complete overkill for teaching computing to lower years.

It's bound to be better than the rubbish ICT courses that existed before though...

Sky support dubs Germany 'Hitler's country'

Tom 15

"will take any necessary disciplinary action"

Uh oh. Off to Dachau!

Copper-obsessed BT means UK misses out on ultrafast fibre gold

Tom 15

Errm...

How are ~60Mbps and sub-10ms pings not real broadband?

Health minister warns ISPs: Block suicide websites or face regulation

Tom 15

Bah

Mildly annoying that it's a Lib Dem furthering this illiberal stretch of the current censorship laws...

Ubisoft: 'Vast majority of PC gamers are PIRATES'

Tom 15

Blah

What a crock of bullshit from Ubisoft. 7% of people will spend £30 on a game and 7% will also spend 20p on an outfit so we might as well focus on the 20ps. I find the 7% figure quite unlikely in the first-place, Ubisoft flog themselves very heavily on Steam and I imagine would do well as a consequence.

NASA hands out $millions to wannabe spaceship builders

Tom 15

Re: $440 Million

You couldn't really though... it's not $21tn per year but a one-off.

Freeview EPG revamp set for September

Tom 15

Good...

The current EPG is a mess... would be nice if they could organise General Entertainment a bit better too though.

Did your iPhone 'just stop working' - or did you drop it in your BEER?

Tom 15

Errm...

Don't iPhones already have four of these?

Who runs UK? 'Tories, Lib Dems and Google' says Labour

Tom 15

Hmm

The UK economy needs to be more creative and less like Google...

Whatever your view on Google they're one of the more creative corporations of the last decade.

Samsung asks for US Galaxy Nexus ban to be lifted pending appeal

Tom 15

Wow

I know it's all legal bullshit but Apple claiming that a smartphone released 11 months ago could irreparably damage them is a funny thing to say...

Microsoft: Don't overclock Windows 8 unless you like our new BSOD

Tom 15

Errm...

What's this got to do with Windows 8? It's a study into all existing Windows PCs. And yes, most BSODs are caused by driver problems so naturally you'll get less problems with mass marketed, expensive, branded products than cheap own-brand stuff.

Be co-founder mows BT's long grass in bid for fibre success

Tom 15

Well...

The dates aren't real, they're just the estimated quarter. The best way to check it to use a site such as roadworks.org where you can see what work they're up to. My exchange went Live about 6 weeks ago on Infinity but two-thirds of the cabinets still haven't been turned on.

UK spectrum row: What we need is more national disasters

Tom 15

Hmm

Why can't the emergency services move to GSM and use the commercial networks? Would give them cheaper kit and probably better coverage.

Ministers consult public on 'opt in for smut' plans

Tom 15

Really though?

Does Google really make money from porn? I don't think porn companies can advertise with Google or receive adverts on their sites...

'Inexperienced' RBS tech operative's blunder led to banking meltdown

Tom 15

Meh

Let's be fair, we've all run a DELETE command in our time and forgotten to put a WHERE clause on... and it's one of those things you only ever do on a Live environment.

BBC uses lifted Iraq war photo to depict Syrian slaughter

Tom 15

Why, oh why...

Why are all of Andrew's stories about copyright? The right's holder wouldn't have made a penny if the BBC had done their checks, as the image was inappropriate. As a result of their cock-up he probably has made some money.

Diablo III dev rolls 12d6, scores PC sales record

Tom 15

Errm

You can't compare a PC-only release to a cross-platform release; that's hardly fair.

How has Diablo III done compared to the biggest XBox 360 only releases or PS3 only releases?

New smart meter tells Brits exactly what they already know

Tom 15

Nonsense...

Most people I know who have installed smart meters are now sitting in the dark...

Joking aside, it does really help to cut consumption. A lot of people don't understand the relative values of a TV v PC v washing machine v kettle v lights, etc. and this will definitely help.

Dev justifies Dead Island 'Game of the Year' claim with 3m+ sales

Tom 15

Meh...

Dead Island was a bit average to say the least. Saint's Row: The Third on the other hand was bloody brilliant.

Google+ dying on its arse – shock new poll

Tom 15

Well...

It doesn't need to disentangle itself from Google+. Everyone will have it and no one will use it. Much like pretty much everyone has a Windows Live Profile with their Hotmail account but no one uses it.

Flashy mutant Ultrabooks to shove pure SSD chaps off cliff

Tom 15

Hmm...

Hybrid drives overall seem to cost more than pure SSDs at the moment?

Judge: Big Five ISPs must block The Pirate Bay

Tom 15

Hmm

How exactly are they meant to block these sites? A brand new system or the IWF?

It's either going to be a feature creep of an anti child pornography system or a brand-new censorship system.

What kind of LOSER sits in front of a PC...

Tom 15

Personally

Personally I find my Kindle to be a bit big and happy... I like reading off of my Nexus S the most. You get about 10 lines to a page.

Compulsory coding in schools: The new Nerd Tourism

Tom 15

Hmm

I'm afraid I can't agree with Andrew here... there are lots of people I know who don't program because quite honestly they have no idea what it is and who's knowledge of it sits somewhere between thinking it's 0s and 1s and knowing it has a lot of curly brackets but who would potentially have been great at it and could have had a career in it if they'd only been given the opportunity.

I'm lucky enough to be a programmer because I had a dad who always knew that computers were a good career to go into despite being technically inept. A lot of people have never had this start and that is the job of the education system, to introduce people to concepts and ideas that otherwise they might never have come across.

Let's not pretend that we're talking about showing kids some HTML... we did a bit of HTML at school along with a large dose of Microsoft Frontpage. This is about teaching kids some programming, showing them that it's something they can do if they have a logical disciplined brain. There are plenty of kids who are good at Maths but know they don't want a pure mathematical career and we should nurture their desire by showing them how they can use mathematical concepts to do cool things.

Employers' group: New comp sci GCSE driven by vendor agenda

Tom 15

Well...

The current GCSE curriculum is worse than being taught no ICT. At least if it's kept out of the school for now someone might be able to escape having any interest in ICT destroyed by the course.

Home Sec: Web snoop law will snare PAEDOS, TERRORISTS

Tom 15

Bah

The Lib Dems have been hoodwinked on this one but it's a major issue for their membership. A lot of Tories don't seem to like it either, so I expect to see a U-Turn and it quickly filed away somewhere for the next Labour lot.

Nvidia shows off first 'Kepler' GPUs

Tom 15

Errm...

Overclockers UK have the GTX 680 up for £420 inc. VAT.

The GTX 580 launched at over £500 if I remember correctly.

6,000 sign e-petition to put Turing on £10 note

Tom 15
WTF?

Errm...

No one wants to "oust" Darwin... Darwin won't be on the Series F notes as he's on the Series E. Each Series has a new person for each note (for instance see the new £50 note). The petition is simply saying let's put Turing at the top of the pile for the next selection process.

iPlayer repeat fees threaten BBC earthquake

Tom 15

Hmm

Sky and Virgin seem to be doing alright with the bundled approach?

Mass Effect 3

Tom 15

Hmm

First of all, Mass Effect 3 does not feature "multi-player". It features co-op.

Secondly, this game looks way better than Skyrim... whilst Skyrim was very good at providing nice vistas the actual textures when up close were incredibly poor. The Unreal Engine currently looks amazing and is really fine-tuned... unlike Skyrim there's no dodgy edge logic or things floating about/unrealistic physics.

Indiana Jones flicks out on Blu-ray this Fall

Tom 15

Errm...

Last Crusade is the best of the original trilogy... it's Temple of Doom that should be lost.

ISP Be admits crippling iPlayer demand burst its pipes

Tom 15

Errm...

I'm not sure the content of this article is 100% true as I'm a Be user and haven't had any problems with iPlayer and neither have most others I know. I was under the impression this problem was IP specific? I imagine different IP blocks are taking different routings and some were never hitting Akamai in the first place. This is also backed up by the fact that the issue doesn't seem to have affected O2 users despite them using the same network infrastructure.

iPad 3 launch news pushes Apple shares to $500bn high

Tom 15

Errm...

I know it was only a joke but Apple's not worth more than Poland... Apple's total value is $500bn whilst Poland's annual income is just under $500bn.

Labour targets Tories' Google problem

Tom 15

Yay

Good to see that Labour are sticking to the lefty authoritarian path... it certainly will make it easier for me to work out who to vote for in 2015!

BBC labels child 'recovering alcoholic' in tech slip-up

Tom 15

Hmm

If you think this is bad you should see the blunders that are regularly made on South East Today.

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Tom 15

Errm...

I'm not arguing with the bulk of the review but the whole point of FFXIII-2 is that it doesn't have any pre-rendered CGI, it's all done in-engine?

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now?

Tom 15

Personally...

Personally, I think IP should only be enforceable if the company are actively making use of it and making it available at a reasonable cost... a lot of people who torrent do so because it's the most convenient way of acquiring content.

What I'm really saying is the following:

Games Developers - 1. don't use restrictive DRM that blocks valid users, 2. don't charge twice as much for an online purchase as it costs on physical media.

Musicians - ensure your music is on services such as Spotify; if you don't want it being listened to for free, then make it premium only.

TV/Films - You all need to get together and make sure people can actually license all of your content. I'd love to use LoveFilm or Netflix but I'm not going to pay for a 60% experience where I still need to torrent or not watch the other 40%.

I know some will argue that companies own IP and therefore if they don't want it available online then that's their right but I personally don't think they can complain that people are using it online for free when they don't even offer it online.

Virgin Media broadband goes titsup for 3 hours

Tom 15

Hmm

They might have been down between those hours but there was a much larger period of time with ~20% packet loss from LINX... it was still happening up until an hour ago

Iron digi-curtain: Belarus nationalises internet

Tom 15

Hmm

How can the average wage only be $250 but the nominal GDP per capita of the country around $6k?

Mozilla, Google extend 'sweethearts' browser deal for 3 years

Tom 15

Well...

Well, when Google first negotiated the deal Firefox has around 25%. Now they still have ~25% but Chrome has ~25%. It's all good news for Google really... they're now the default search engine on over 50% of desktop systems and pretty much all mobile devices.

GCHQ spooks' code-breaking puzzle solved

Tom 15

Errm...

Does nobody quite get the concept of STARTING wage? Plus, the job isn't in London. A programmer in the South-East, fresh from Uni shouldn't expect to start on much more than minimum wage.

Gov's e-petition service cost £80k to develop

Tom 15

Well...

Well, it's a bit steep, but not too bad considering some of their other projects...

eBuyer £1 sale fail: Customers vent fury... on Facebook

Tom 15

Bah

I do feel sorry for eBuyer... what a cock-up!

The notion of it being like "gluing the doors shut" though is a bit dumb... more like the shop being full?

Jarmageddon: Marmite spill sparks biohazard threat

Tom 15

Hmm

Now all we need is for a couple more lorries to crash on the site... preferably one from Lurpack and one from Hovis... and then maybe for them to catch light and toast the area?

T-Mobile boasts budget smartphone for less than £100

Tom 15

Or...

I bought my girlfriend an Orange Monte Carlo... Orange had it for £130 including £10 credit. They were also giving away a £25 pre-paid debit card with it and I got £20 off through Quidco.

Total cost for a 4.3" Android phone: £75

Mystery radioisotopes in Czech air are not from Fukushima

Tom 15

Iran?

Is it possible it could be Iranian?

Page: