Upsetting luvvies...
... #winning
Furious Stephen Fry blasts 'evil' Reg and 'TW*T' Orlowski
Official British National Treasure Stephen Fry has responded to El Reg teasing last week with an emotional defence of his TV voice-over work, in two impassioned audio burps this weekend. "It doesn't upset me," Fry insists. "I am a voice-over artist, I have read every one of the Harry Potter novels - and I'm proud to have done …
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Tuesday 26th March 2013 11:42 GMT Nick Ryan
Re: Upsetting luvvies...
I like Stephen Fry, but that doesn't mean that I accept what he says on technical matters as correct. Sometimes it's said in a tongue in cheek way and is plainly for comedy value, others it seems that he's just bullshitting out of habit which is more worrying as people do believe him - but then this does separate the idiots from those that might question what is said.
However he does have a lot of very valid points and is entertaining as well, which ranks him above a lot of other entertainers and miles ahead of the vacuous reality show "stars".
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Saturday 30th March 2013 00:44 GMT Dave 126
Re: None are so clearly upset ...
It's worth noting that Orlowski's response to the the genuine humble request from a comentard for him to clarify exactly what in Stephen Fry's take on Turing's contribution was "You're having a stupid moment".
Orlowski was down voted more than two dozen times, and no other commentard could provide a concise answer either, so the absence of AH's explanation means that this match defaults to Mr Fry.
Anyway, sod all this, I want the following (spoof, d'uh) to be bought to the small screen:
The Alan Turing Adventures
Mark Gatiss, fresh from the success of his adaptation of HG Wells’ The First Men In The Moon, has been given a lavish (by BBC 4 standards) budget to create this pilot for a proposed series of lavish new detective stories, in which he stars as the titular hero. Based upon a never filmed script by recently deceased BBC veteran Ted Vaaak, The Alan Turing Adventures is set during an alternate history Second World War. Turing here has been re-imagined as a dashing and flamboyant secret agent careering around behind enemy lines in a desperate attempt to steal and decode Hitler’s childhood diary, en route to which he gets locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse with Nazi rocketeer Wernher von Braun (Benedict Cumberbatch).
- http://www.essexterror.com/blog/index.php/2011/03/21/film-review-the-alan-turing-adventures/
Maybe some luvvies can be found to appear in it. Despite Nvidia's recent efforts, we still need them.
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Monday 25th March 2013 15:23 GMT Rampant Spaniel
Re: The lady doth protest too much.
It's ok it was South Bank University and it was in Software Management iirc. Thats dangerously close to basket weaving.
As for Fry, I can't remember who said it but there was a quote along the lines of "he's a stupid person's idea of an intelligent person". It's not that he isn't smart, he's probably very good at english lit, but owning an iphone and using twatter does not make you a technical expert as noted by his comments about gps (which if he stopped to think about it would be ridiculously hard to implement, gps is fairly simple as a concept) etc. You have to love someone saying they aren't upset that many times. How old is he?
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Tuesday 26th March 2013 14:31 GMT streaky
Re: The lady doth protest too much.
"if he stopped to think about it would be ridiculously hard to implement"
It's not that it would be hard to implement so much as it'd eat power for fun and profit. GPS being totally passive (unless you're dealing with the crypted signals) doesn't use much power, so you can put it in say, a mobile phone..
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Tuesday 26th March 2013 15:07 GMT Rampant Spaniel
Re: The lady doth protest too much.
Sorry, perhaps impractical would have been a better word :-) Basically, you would need a multichanel transmitter which would probably need some minimal aiming, a significant amount of computer power on the birds and also quite a bit of transmission capability between the birds. You would also have an extra margin of error in there because the data would have done an extra trip from space back down, not an issue if you are stationary but for satnav it might be an extra m or 3 out unless you factor in interial compensation, at least I think so, I don't have an Eng lit degree so I'm no expert ;-)
All rather complicated compared to a relatively simple passive system
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Monday 25th March 2013 14:10 GMT Miek
"However, he didn't seem entirely unruffled, calling your correspondent a "Twat" and The Register "cruel and vicious" during a series of Tweets, which also referred to a Mr "Orlowsky"." -- Well, I may dislike Stephen Fry, but, I can't fault his assessment and to be fair, it's the Cruel and Vicious reporting I come here for.
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Monday 25th March 2013 15:13 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Jimmies rustled - Mission accomplished
"has responded to El Reg teasing last week"
That would be a "tearing", and to be fair, the first issue of Mr. Orlowski's article just rolled over Mr. Fry in a T-34 from nowhere without explaining what the exact problem was nor giving link to reference materials [citation needed].
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Monday 25th March 2013 20:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "you can still be a twat !!"
"I have a hard time not liking Neil Gaiman."
I used to feel like that (especially after all the Sandman, Good Omens and of course the delightful Coraline and The Graveyard Book).. then Amanda Palmer happened. The epitome of an entitled, whiney hipster, le gag. Sadly, I am unable to look past this rather unpleasant carbuncle whenever his name is mentioned.
Hopefully, he will come to his senses and kick her to the kerbside sooner rather than later.
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Monday 25th March 2013 23:37 GMT Sorry that handle is already taken.
Re: "you can still be a twat !!"
I like it too.
Richard Porter occasionally calls his @sniffpetrol twitter feed "sniff twat". I don't mind an immature giggle from time to time, and it seems neither does Richard Porter.
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Monday 25th March 2013 14:15 GMT bonkers
GPS
BTW, on GPS, "nor does the process involve any relaying of signals from satellite to satellite." - sure it does, absolutely, they constantly renegotiate their local time and local position between each other, and with respect to the ground stations. Oh and it is this process that relies on the atomic clocks mistakenly attributed to the internet.
As I said in the previous comments, the latest outrage regarding Turing's machine was not very far at all off the mark, and love or hate his voice-over earnings, he does have the humility to mention he knows nothing of Riemann's conjecture, or the Zeta function. ~The fact that he is interested enough in these things to introduce them to a mainstream unfed consciousness is a big plus point, even is it goes a little wonky in the translation.
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Monday 25th March 2013 14:31 GMT NinjasFTW
Re: GPS
~The fact that he is interested enough in these things to introduce them to a mainstream unfed consciousness is a big plus point, even is it goes a little wonky in the translation.
And I applaud him for that. The problem is that if you present something as fact then please make sure you get it right! Especially as he puts himself forward as a knowledgeable chap. Said mainstream unfed consciousness now may be fed but its just gorged itself on the equivalent of a 2am kebab that isn't going to really do anybody any good :)
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Monday 25th March 2013 15:01 GMT Terry Barnes
Re: GPS
" if you present something as fact then please make sure you get it right!"
I'm not convinced it matters all that much. Using Stephen Fry as a factual source on technical matters is a couple of rungs down the ladder from Wikipedia and no-one who intends to actually use the information in any kind of even vaguely important fashion is going to do that.
No DBA is going to make some kind of monumental cockup and then blame it on Stephen Fry sending a factually incorrect tweet about how database backup technologies work.
He mentioned Turing in the context of some thing that he wanted people to vote for. It's not a thesis on the development of multi-purpose machines, it's a bloody tweet saying 'vote for Turing, he was clever'.
I'm not sure how well any of us would stand up to writing a novel, presenting a TV show, or doing voiceovers and I'm reminded of that thing about people who live in glass houses....
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Monday 25th March 2013 14:32 GMT SkippyBing
Re: GPS
Not true, all the time synching is controlled by the master ground station in Colorado Springs (two doors down from Stargate Command, on the left). The satellites are told the time, the almanac and their exact orbit from there and have it transmitted to them by one of the ground stations, there's no renegotiating going on. The atomic clocks are to allow them to maintain the exact GPS time with minimal correction (and they're adjusted to allow for the effects of special and general relativity).
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Monday 25th March 2013 14:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: GPS
While he isn't completely wrong, neither is he completely right.
Problem is, he is sufficiently wrong to sound like a complete tosser to anyone who has an inkling of how whatever it is works, while (due to his self-proclaimed position as a "techie") passing off the same not actually correct information as "fact" to the general public - who deserve a better explaination of "how stuff works".
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Monday 25th March 2013 21:00 GMT BinkyTheHorse
@hplasm
I distinctly remember there being something mentioned about usefulness of those "lies". In this case, said usefulness would stem from the ability to create understanding of the subject matter at hand in the audience.
Please look at the choice quotes ridiculed by the Reg and rate them for comprehensibility on a scale from 1 (utter technobabble) to 10 (Feynman-level clarity). To be honest, I would give them 3 *tops*.
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Monday 25th March 2013 19:11 GMT Naughtyhorse
Re: GPS
absolutely agree, and anything with Fry in it is worth at least a ten minute chance to see if it's any good (mostly it is) and his books are great. Certainly the closest this media obsessed age will get to a true renascence man...
but apple, and twatter????
sorry steve, but you are a bit of a bellend - but a long way from making it only my list of 'ten people not to get stuck in a lift with'
(alan sugar, lindsay buckingham, jedward, cowel, cowel, that twat that does arts stories on C4 news, cowel, matt lucas, and mick hucknall - if you must know) - i know cowel made the list a few times, but i really really don't want to get stuck in a lift with that wanker. I mean with this face, a 20 year prison sentence would be hard time indeed :-D
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
