Posts by MrT

As I recall...

... when the iPhone originally came out, most talk was of the shift in the balance away from the network and subsidized or branded handsets (such as most of HTC's work before it developed it's own brand).

Whether the manufacturers were immediately jealous or affected by the physical device was not their first concern - it was the possible change to their position in relation to the accepted business model. Apple were treated as a special case at all points, for example having different contracts and allowances, with everyone watching carefully to see if the new content-driven revenue model would work.

Sounds like...

... a plausible Hollywood pitch to me. Sign up Arnie, Summer Glau, Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell; give it to Andrew Stanton as a project and Michael Bay as director, then see the money roll in... or out.

Re: This time we come in peace...

...armed with a laser 'cannon' just in case O;-)

Haven't seen the footage yet...

... but I bet that bit gets edited out. I'm glad to see the skycrane idea worked - and am clearly not the only one!

Re: How the hell did they get the Smart car up those step?

Driver at front, passenger at back, lift and carry. In some countries they used much heavier cars, presumably because the Smarts were being tipped over by the heavy camera gear on the roof ;-D

Re: crop report

Beef jerky time...

Re: Security updates?

... my old Desire (original AMOLED one) was a 2.1 T-Mobile device - it got one small-ish patch in the 18 months since FroYo was issued. Despite the stories about various security issues, T-M did not authorise the half-dozen or so security patches that had been issued by HTC so they didn't get applied.

If Google want to take more control then the Android model is going to have to develop a layered approach, with critical OS patches available ASAP, but manufacturer and vendor-specific layers over that. It's not an easy option to retro-engineer without a clean sweep - which 4.0 offered but the choice wasn't taken.

Re: Premium rate numbers - 0800

Back in the dim and distant when I was on BT Cellnet, they used to allow 0800 numbers as free if they were dialled as "800" - i.e. drop the first '0'. They even had a recorded message to tell anyone dialling 0800 that they should redial as 800 and use their free contract minutes instead. Shame that doesn't apply these days.

Currently, some telecos allow selected charity helplines on 0808 numbers as free calls - not sure how they are differentiated but you can find one list here

Re: white cars

That's a good observation. I picked a metallic bluish silver because it hides muck and small scratches. The last time it got washed was when it went for a service.

Mind you, I find speed cameras to be fairly colour-agnostic ;-)

Ah but it's Gartner saying it, so all the IT departments who have been saying this will now be believed.

Or more likely the company director can now use this to come up with the brilliant new idea of his/hers that Windows 8 will be avoided.

Or if the company is run like the one Clark Griswald works for in Christmas Vacation then the boss will see the words "Gartner" and "Windows 8" on the report cover and hit the button marked "Full speed ahead"...

Re: A prudent bird chooses its tree...

...usually above the newly-washed white car...

Re: Paid for Angry Birds also on Android

There's a free version and a paid one that's ad-free, with another difference for the Space Eagles - the free version only gives one per login per day (plus 10 for hitting 3 stars on sell levels). Given someone needs about 150 eagles to clear each level by that method, you can see why folk will shell out 69p (or whatever) to take a short cut in time...

Just got a Sammie GS3 so have had fun getting 3 stars in all levels on the last 'world' on Space, plus the extra Golden Asteroid level. Some things are still locked on Space Free on Samsung...

Happy birthday to me...

... I wonder of all those nice new IPv6 packets will come gift-wrapped?

Odd/even numbers...

...they tried this one in Paris as well, back in the 70's. Having a zero plate helped because most of the police weren't sure if it was odd or even...

Re: Not enough flash

Exactly - add to the list all of the network clutter on a subsidized handset and the case is made for root and installing a minimal version of Android.

Class Action...

...case in the USA had ripples out into other countries as well. They were made to replace the known-duff ones (like the thousands supplied to the likes of Dell and HP) , and although this didn't fix the unknown-duff ones, i.e the ones they didn't deliberately sell on knowing they would probably fail, it caught a lot. Had my GS7900 in an old laptop swapped out at 4.5 yrs old last year, got one with double the RAM in it's place.

But, yeah: better check the quality of the glue - at 300W, they'll probably self-solder without having to resort to sticking the graphics card in the oven for 10 minutes or so!

Yeah...

... that kind of backfired a bit, but then it is a touchy subject.

Anyway, on with the show.

Once upon a former time, back in about 2003-4, I had the privilege of meeting Mark Threadgold - he came up to the school in Leeds where I taught when my colleague invited him to talk to the ICT students about how his life had been changed by the horrific accident that resulted in total loss of vision (optic nerves cut, part of brain removed). He's an ex-serviceman, Royal Corps of Signals, and supported by St. Dunstan's Trust.

The things he had done since his accident were amazing - up to the point of his visit he'd repeated broken the blind person's water speed record (up to just shy of 100mph when we met him, in some crazy bat-boat styled craft), and he then went on to set the "Speed Record for an IOW Circumnavigation in the Blind Unlimited Class" around the Isle of Wight, and also try his hand at diving as well. Some of his fellow St. Dunstaners had done other mad stuff, mostly for things like speed or endurance records, including the guy who took the car round the Top Gear track in less than two minutes. IIRC one chap even did a solo skydive.

He told us that only 4% of all people registered as blind in the UK had total loss of vision, which means 96% of the blind people in this country can see in some way to one degree or another.

He then went on to demonstrate most of his kit, including a personalised shoulder-mounted GPS on his HP iPaq, the various things used to help him manage his kitchen and other household areas, and his screenreader using his own PC that he'd brought along with the rest. He had set it to his normal speed, roughly as fast as the squirrel on 'Hoodwinked' after having the coffee, but he slowed it down for all of us with untrained ears to hear.

Excellent bloke, and very interesting for both the students and us. Meeting someone like that beats any amount of reading or browsing about the sorts of things that can help overcome what seem like insurmountable things to the rest of us.

Self-tapping screws...

...should be enough to fix it to the bodywork... ;-)

And voice recognition that works, when wearing the full all-weather hoodie tonneau.

Jump leads from the phone for a 5 mile range boost?

Hey, there's an idea...

... a defibrillator app.

Re: Teena Charles...

... crops up a lot on those disco/party compilations, alongside more worthy stuff like "Carwash" or "Kung-fu Fighting". Like a bad memory that Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel revived with more shrill singing...

"I love to love.... but my baby just wants to leave quickly by the nearest exit", or something like that.

How about...

...Ferrell as 'Uncle' Mercutio, the man who never really grew up; Cohen as Tybalt, but played with an excruciating mid-Med accent (mostly schlock French, like on Talladega Nights but with a side of Mario Brothers).

No windows...

... then some sort of mac would be needed. Dissenters can form an orderly lineux below...