* Posts by h4rm0ny

4560 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jul 2008

iPhone 5: skinny li'l fella with better display, camera, software

h4rm0ny

"It's a little tall for my tastes and will require longer pockets."

But for someone else it will be just right. Different people have different tastes / needs (for example, I want a small phone that's comfortable to hold). It seems mysterious to me that Apple are only releasing one size of phone. Surely it would make good sense to target all sections of the mobile phone using market. Am I missing something here?

I like the battery life they report for this thing. I think the "HD Voice" thing is present on several existing phones already though and we're just waiting for more network operators to provide the service....?

Boffin named Jubb to fire whopping hybrid thruster

h4rm0ny

Re: Hard as I try

"Wouldn't it have been better if they just pointed that big rocket to the sky and launched something to space for a change?"

If someone misses a pebble on the track, it probably will.

Microsoft leads from behind on Windows 8

h4rm0ny

Re: Hmm

If you bought after SP1 was released, I think you were alright with XP. I think a lot of people had pain if they bought in before then. I personally had recently bought a laptop with WIndows ME on it, and thus began my over a decade of using Linux as my primary OS.

The iPHONE 5 UNDERMINES western DEMOCRACY: 5 reasons why

h4rm0ny

Replacable battery was one of the deciding factors in me buying a cheaper phone over a more expensive version of it. Ironic that their cheaper phone had a significant selling point over a phone a couple of hundred pounds more expensive). It's not even only that I might want to swap in a fully charged one in a hurry (though this is good), but because I don't trust longevity of batteries. Maybe someone who only plans for their phone to last a year has no problem. But batteries wear out and if I want mine to be usable three years from now, I want to know that I can replace the battery.

Unless battery technology has come on along way since the last time I bought a laptop four years ago?

Google sneaks in back door, slips YouTube onto iPhone 5

h4rm0ny

Re: Hype?

People will borrow money to buy things. So long as people keep borrowing, the US economy will keep running. If they stop borrowing, or can't keep up with the treadmill any longer, they get flung off the back.

Sounds like a silly metaphor, but in a number of ways it's actually quite accurate for how the US economy is being managed. Look at the bank bailouts. They didn't give money to people. They gave it to the banks so that the banks could make sure people could carry on borrowing from them.

Intel to turn Ultrabooks, all-in-one desktops into giant tablets

h4rm0ny

Re: Hero Products?

Replying to whichever post is top-most just so you can get more attention for your own, is not good behaviour.

Microsoft preparing for diskless Windows 8 PCs

h4rm0ny
Unhappy

I hate recovery partitions

Title says it all really. Annoying disk eating things. I would rather just re-install from a DVD or USB device and have the drive space back.

There is life after the death of Microsoft’s Windows 8 Start button

h4rm0ny

"This seems to imply random switching into Metro mode depending on file associations, is that true? That sounds nasty if it is."

If the file association is a Metro app, then yes, it will switch you to that. But it's entirely your choice what programs you associate with what file types, just as it is previous versions. The only reason the writer is having this problem is because the Metro PDF reader is probably the only PDF reader they have installed. If you install Foxit or Adobe Reader or whatever your preference is and make it the primary for PDFs, they'll open in the Desktop just as normal. Win7 didn't come with a PDF reader installed, as far as I recall, so it's really just the same as Win7 in that you need to install something, with the caveat that if you can't be bothered, there's already the ability to open them present on the system.

Profs: Massive use of wind turbines won't destroy the environment

h4rm0ny

Re: @Tom 13 It DOES necessarily follow that massive amounts need to be extracted.

Nuclear power is not considered a "renewable".

Solar and wave power are, as is geothermal. But if we're talking "powered to any large degree by renewables" then I think wind has to be a significant part of that. I suppose a big shift in biofuels technology could change that if we ditch the current disastrous version because we crack some viable algae-based version, but with current technologies, the statement appears correct to me.

h4rm0ny
Mushroom

Re: Nice

"Unfortunately, those greens who have faced up to the facts about nuclear power - specifically its actual risk to life (even when the worst happens) and its capacity to generate low carbon baseloads the world needs *today*, have found themselves largely ostracised by the green movement"

Yes we have. We very much have. I am an active environmentalist who cannot join any of the main environmental lobbying groups because whilst they'll happily take my money, they wont listen if I try to point out flaws in their anti-nuclear stance. Yes, Friends of the Earth, I am very much looking at you.

h4rm0ny

Same here - I largely agree with Lewis (this time), but when I saw him gloating over them saying half when the actual figures were 48%... that's a significant red flag. If you get excited about scoring those sorts of cheap shots, it makes the reader doubt if they have any really significant arguments.

Windows 8? Nah: Win Phone 8 should give Apple the fear

h4rm0ny

You've misunderstood. Big Ted is not saying that users will be changing the OS on their phone but that manufacturers would be able to do so if a patent problem reared its head. E.g. if Samsung couldn't sell the Galaxy SIII in the USA with Android on it, they might theoretically be able to slap WP8 on it.

h4rm0ny
Thumb Up

Re: It's the operators who will decide

@Kristian Walsh. That was one of the best posts I've read on here in ages. My only question for you is why you didn't write the article we're all replying to.

h4rm0ny

Re: Apple fears Windows 8...

"Too right my friend. This article is such a load of nonsense. It isn't like WP7.5 has given WP8 a springboard to go and succeed as you cant even upgrade your WP7.5 hardware to 8 (very silly IMHO)."

And if two years ago, Nokia had released multi-core phones with hardware far in excess of what WP7 required for the sake of meeting the requirements of a phone two years down the line, you would not have been critical of that?

"There's no game changer in WP8 from reviews and countless plays on existing WP7.5 devices. So it isn't going anywhere."

It's very nice to use from what I've seen (I have WP7 so some idea of what ModernUI is like on a phone) and seems very nice to develop for and you can simultaneously develop for Desktops, tablets and phones. I don't see why you should be so confident you know that it wont do well. Signs so far are pointing to 'yes' as it's looking increasingly well regarded the more people see of it from what I understand.

UK ice boffin: 'Arctic melt equivalent to 20 years of CO2'

h4rm0ny

Re: @AC 9:57 the AC at 08:51 on the 10th

"Secondly, you find a single current AGW supporter in the public eye who will make the nuclear argument over renewables"

George Monbiot.

There are plenty of people who believe in AGW and also believe in nuclear power. The problem is that the big environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, are dominated by older people who have serious prejudices against nuclear power and keep a lock on the voice of environmentalism as much as possible. When the media want a comment on an environmental matter, they call a spokesperson for FoE or Greenpeace or whoever. So you seldom hear from any but the Old Guard on environmental activism. Unfortunately.

h4rm0ny

Re: Nice to see that someone has their head on straight

"And I wouldn't be happy either if my house price halves as a result."

I totally would be. I could buy a nicer home for less cost because others wouldn't want to live there as much.

h4rm0ny

"With those figures in mind I say lets get fracking."

No, lets get building nuclear power stations. There's more fuel long-term, less environmental pollution (I'm not talking warming - I am an AGW-skeptic - I'm talking air pollution) and for the sake of 0.1p difference per kwh? Nuclear.

h4rm0ny
Joke

Re: This is actually quite good for the UK power wise.

"How can something that isn't a cost effective power source become even more cost effective?"

Volume.

Windows 8 to grab iPad market share wrested back from Android

h4rm0ny

Re: Pricing, pricing, pricing

"Win8RT won't make much of an impression if it's priced to compete with the iPad - the people who will pay $600 for a tablet have already bought an iPad."

If that's true, then it doesn't look very hopeful for sales of the next iPad.

WinRT devices such as the Surface RT are feature comparable with the iPad (actually, they have greater connectivity and an integrated keyboard, so it's actually more). So there's no good reason why it should not be priced to compete with the iPad save that I think tablet and hybrid prices will be coming down now all around anyway.

h4rm0ny

Re: Google buys Microsoft

"Yet the site has been up since Feb 1, 2011. Are you as vociferous in pointing out to Google this travesty, or are you restricted to merely shooting messengers?"

I'm not sure how long the site has been up is relevant, other than as an example of how old this is and how long you've been repeating it. I'm also unclear on your logic which seems to be that if someone said something incorrect and another person knowingly keeps spreading that incorrectness because it suits their bias, that no-one has a right to criticise the person knowingly repeating it. There are no comments allowed on that blog post you linked to, otherwise I would happily comment on it pointing out the flaws. You could ask them to allow people to comment if you want... :)

"hilarious squirming trying to excuse your masters"

I don't work for MS and never have. I think some telecoms software I wrote back in 2001/2 was sold to them (amongst many other clients), but it was on HP Unix 11 platform so I hope that's excusable. ;) Trying to imply that someone is a shill because you don't like what they say is a low thing to do.

"anyone even getting to the second sentence has all they need to know"

Well for anyone who fancies reading more, I was happy to provide some greater information than you did. You say "the bottom line is, these Bing results came directly from Google". No, they came from a team of twenty people (according to your link) who submitted the data from their own computers repeatedly and then found after a few weeks of deliberately associating a random string with a given page and repeatedly submitting that association to MS according to voluntary settings they had enabled, that the association stated to show up in Bing. So as you can see, sometimes it is worth reading further than the second sentence. ;)

"Jesus, and as if that's not enough we've now got to think about avs when we post let the self appointed fucking icon police get the hump."

Well it makes me feel a bit like most Americans abroad feel when some loud and ignorant person keeps waving their flag around and making people think all Americans are like that. I've been using Linux for around sixteen years and if you want to talk about "self-appointed", I see that more in you repeatedly accompanying your misinformation and FUD with a Linux symbol as you obviously want to be seen as representing Linux. It's disappointing.

h4rm0ny

Re: Google buys Microsoft

"Well, they already use the same search engine:"

You've posted that before and been corrected before, so at this point it is actual dishonesty to continue claiming that.

For anyone curious, someone turned on the feature in Internet Explorer that submits search history back to Microsoft in order to help improve their search results. They then generated a completely random string that occured nowhere on the Internet and searched for it in Google and clicked on some arbitrary random site in order to create an association between that random string and the site. Their action - as they well knew - was then submitted back to MS as per the settings they had chosen, creating a situation in which the only possible information usable for telling what sites that random string was associated with, was their own input that they had sent to MS. Then they searched on Bing which could only find the match for the string that they themselves had submitted and unsurprisingly, it found the site.

It's a low trick to represent that as the blog does. Bob's post above makes it sound like Bing is copying search results from Google. Actually, someone just created a very contrived situation and MS got the association not from Google, but from the user's action as per that users voluntary setting to send their choices back to MS.

I do wish Bob would stop accompanying every post of his with Tux. Not all of us Linux users are slathering zealots who will distort any fact in order to misrepresent "enemies". But apparently any FUD is ethical if its targetted at someone Bob doesn't like.

h4rm0ny

Regardless of technical merits, Apple have an advantage in that many people who want a tablet now already have one. But that only applies to existing userbase.

In terms of new sales, I could well see the Windows tablets hitting Apple in the pocket. After all, things like the Surface match the iPad's functionality and also add extras such as the keyboard, MS Office and better ports / interfaces. Though I think Android devices are going to be a bigger rival than this article thinks. In the West, they're on the back foot, but China is a big market and with Huwaei wading in with Andoid devices, it's got strong backing. I actually think Windows has the technical edge on Apple with Windows 8 which makes the long-term battle between Android and MS.

Apache man disables Internet Explorer 10 privacy setting

h4rm0ny

Re: Does nobody know how to administer a site anymore?

"I'm not sure I follow your argument: they use the same header but in a different way from all the other browsers, therefore it's not misleading?"

I'm not sure I follow your interpretation of my argument. (Seriously - not trying to score points. I don't think that's what I'm saying but I'm not quite sure what you're getting at). Just to re-iterate, there's no technical difference between the header being sent from IE10 and from any other browser. I don't get your premise that it is used in a "different way to all other browsers". The only difference is that the user is made aware of the choice and one is actually set. Talk of the headers is really focusing below the level of the issue. There's no way for the server to tell what the users intention is other than based on the header or its absence. As pointed out, Firefox, when you turn DNT off, actually just doesn't send the header (rather than sending DNT:0). The change to Apache means that at the web-application level (where application behaviour based on DNT should actually be placed), you can't tell what IE10 has sent because Apache has overridden it before it gets passed up to the application layer.

"I'm not really wanting to defend Fielding so much as criticise Microsoft as that's where the problem lies"

That's the thing. I don't agree that presenting the user with an actual choice when they set the system up, rather than burying the setting somewhere and deliberately keeping users ignorant that they even have a choice, is a fault on Microsoft's part.

"The Apache code is open so Fielding's change was open and transparent and easily reversed."

Actually this isn't as wholesome as you make it sound. For a start, this commit came out of nowhere with no discussion and was put in early in the morning right before a code freeze for a major release. To remove it they have had to actually file a bug report and it's going to take a few weeks to get it out again. Additionally, many on the Apache project feel that it was an abuse of Fielding's position to put a politically motivated change in and in a manner and timing that suggests he wanted to force it through by virtue of careful timing.

"What *should* happen is exactly the same as usually happens when MS "embrace"a standard: detect the browser in the application code and (once again) code around it."

Thing is, IE10 is compliant with the draft standard. They even changed the standard after the Win8 preview appeared in order to try and make MS non-compliant. But it didn't actually succeed because MS actually are presenting the user with a choice which is what the standard calls for. Also, it's really not the appropriate place for this to be addressed. I do not want Apache choosing to removed HTTP headers invisibly before it reaches the application layer. The standard states that relaying services for the HTTP requests should not alter the DNT header. And yet that is exactly what this code commit makes Apache do. You have it the wrong way round - IE10 is actually compliant. Fielding has actually made Apache be non-compliant. Your ire should be directed at Fielding if you care about standards.

h4rm0ny

Re: smell advertisers fear

Yes, I believe so. DNT itself is the strategy because so long as it is there, advertisers have a way of saying to the EU (or USA or others) that the tracking is voluntary on the users' part and thus okay. But yes, if the default were not off, then the strategy falls apart and will be abandoned. What I'm saying is that DNT is presented as a concession wrung from advertisers, but in actual fact, it is to their advantage. All they have to do is to make sure that it is off for the overwhelming majority of people which they can do if they can force all the major browser manufacturers to bury the setting somewhere. Firefox already does this voluntarily. What we are seeing, is arguments that IE should be forced to do so. The draft has already been changed in response to IE10, post fact.

h4rm0ny

Re: smell advertisers fear

Very well put.

Look at DNT from the advertising companies' view. They are bringing about a level of monitoring and profiling that is unprecedented in human history and more intrusive than advertising has ever been before. This is the sort of thing that can provoke legal limits on them. But if they can establish some sort of voluntary self-regulation and make this a standard and can say: "people have a choice which we respect, so legally we're fine", then that's greatly to their advantage. At least, assuming that they can also ensure that few people exercise that choice by, e.g. burying it in the settings somewhere or otherwise making it hard to maintain.

DNT is not as much an advantage to the public as it is an advantage to the advertising industry and companies such as Google. They get to say that there's already a privacy standard in place and that anyone they are tracking has the option not to be tracked. Great arguments to bring to the EU or US governments when privacy becomes too big an issue for them not to move on. But the moment it becomes easy and common for people to exercise that choice, the advantage to the advertisers is gone.

That's what people are really saying when they say that IE10 risks advertisers withdrawing from DNT. DNT is a fig leaf strategy to ensure greater monitoring. DNT is not an actual problem for Google et al. DNT is a strategic asset. Microsoft are undermining that, however.

h4rm0ny

Re: Default values

You can't really get away from a default. Not setting it is treated as if you had agreed to it. The setting is prominently displayed when you configure your PC. It's right there in front of the user and clear what it means even to very non-technical users. The simple truth is that the vast majority of people would opt not to have all their online activity monitored and compiled by private businesses. The only way you're going to get a lot people opting in is if you conceal from them the choice not to. Are some here really arguing that hiding people's choices is a good or ethical thing? IE10 lets the user know about this option in a clear and unambiguous way. Some other browsers such as Firefox (approx. revenues from "search royalties" in 2006, $60million), never show it unless the user knows to look for it and it buries the setting under tabs in the options menu. Yet some here have been looking for reasons to show that this is better, either because they are anti-Microsoft or because they would prefer a system where a very few (them) can opt out by agreeing that everyone else will be monitored.

h4rm0ny

Re: Default ON

"The server absolutely does know. If it cares, which mine (among many) doesn't.

DNT: [anything] - someone explicitly set it

No DNT header, default behaviour, noone set it."

In practice, not so much. Open up Firefox and with a proxy or Firebug or whatever you like, make a basic GET request to any given site. Make sure that "Tell websites I do not wish to be tracked" under Options->Privacy, is ticked. In the Request headers you will see DNT:1. Now untick it and request the same site. This time you will see that there is no DNT header included at all. Not DNT:0, no header. So tell me how the server can know if I have ticked or unticked that box by choice or if it is by default behaviour.

Unlike Firefox, which by default never presents the user with a choice, IE10 actually does so. Are you really going to argue that presenting users with a choice is a bad thing? And if so, do you really think that most users would chose to have private corporations track and compile data on every site they go to? If not, then surely both presenting that choice and suggesting no as a default are more inline with what most users would want.

"And of course, noone has committed a code patch to apache."

There is a commit to the code base here: Commit or are you arguing that because the specific change to the code base is to a config file, that it is not a change to the CODE base? The article states that a change was committed that disables IE10 privacy settings, which is an accurate claim.

h4rm0ny

Re: What a prat...

"I installed Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation (Build 9200) on my test machine. At no point during the installation was I prompted for anything about "Do Not Track". When I launched IE 10 for the first time, it never asked me about this, either."

Then I'm pretty sure you just don't remember it because it is most certainly in there. Here is a screen shot:

Settings This comes up when you are setting up Windows 8. As you can see it, lists what the default settings are for everything and has a clear button allowing you to change any of them. Also, you can click for more information and detailed explanations.

h4rm0ny

Re: Does nobody know how to administer a site anymore?

"IE10 presents a misleading header, the server ignores it."

No. The HTTP header is the same whether it is sent from Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE10, whatever. It is the same header. The only difference is that the user is presented with an option to choose whether or not to enable it when they set up Windows 8 as opposed to, e.g. Firefox, where the user is not asked and if they want to enable DNT they have to firstly know about it and then bring up the Options panel, go to the Privacy tab and locate the option for it.

"The best fix is to IE10 but I'm guessing that Apache don't have access to that source code."

If they did, then no doubt Fielding would be making unilateral decisions on how it should work over the heads of most of the other developers as he has with Apache. A lot of Apache developers are pretty pissed off about this, looking at all the ire on the commit log and that his change is now an official bug in the project.

h4rm0ny

Re: Does nobody know how to administer a site anymore?

"Why is this hard?"

Well it wasn't until someone committed a patch to Apache that meant your web application wouldn't be able to tell if a user had DNT on or not. But it is now.

h4rm0ny

Re: Default ON

"tell me how does a piece of software or programme on a server somewhere know whether it has been turned on by the user or turned off by the user or is on or off by default?Can you explain in normal language what the differance,if any,is."

The server doesn't know and cannot know. It's just a HTTP header sent by the browser. So if a user of IE10 deliberately and legitimately chooses to turn on Do Not Track, Apache with this commit will disregard the user's preference and remove the Do Not Track preference. In effect, what Fielding has done is commit a code patch that removes any user of IE10's ability to use Do Not Track because he thinks it shouldn't be enabled by default.

h4rm0ny

Re: What a prat...

"Microsoft -- Is it so f-ing difficult to simply ask the user about their DNT preference the first time they launch IE 10? Despite your company's belief, most users actually can think for themselves."

You either haven't installed IE10 or possibly don't recall this (I had to go back myself just to be sure), but a page comes up with configuration options upon install and "Enable Do Not Track" is clearly displayed there. You can also click for an explanation of this.

h4rm0ny

Re: it's pretty obvious how to turn it off

"You could say that but you'd be wrong. Windows 8 will be loaded down with Bing apps which will be analogous to Google apps on Android. They'll be tied into a single sign on through Live.com in much the same way too and will be tracking your location, searches and all the rest."

Actually it's pretty easy to see what information a ModernUI app is asking for and grant it or refuse it. I've been using Windows 8 for a while and it's pretty good about this sort of thing. Microsoft and Google have fundamentally different business models. Google sells your behaviour to advertisers to make their money. Microsoft ask for the money from you. You're the customer with Microsoft. With Google, the advertisers are their customers.

h4rm0ny

Re: Shades of Scott McNealy

"P.S. Please follow standards Microsoft, not morph them into your own perverted self serving lock everyone else out dictates."

Would you similarly object if you realize that the draft was added to after the Windows 8 previews appeared and someone somewhere realized that IE10 could hit ad revenues so they "morphed" the draft to try and make IE10 non-compliant?

Or does your objection to people manipulating standards for their own benefit only apply in one direction?

h4rm0ny

Re: Did I interpret the article correctly?

"The setting in IE for disabling tracking is problematic and might not prevent people from being tracked"

This part is not really right. DNT works on sending a HTTP header to the server as part of the request. This header is the same whether it's IE10, Firefox or anything else. I.e. it's all the same to the website regardless of your browser. So there's nothing wrong with the way IE10 does this. The issue Fielding has is that IE10 has a default of it being on rather than allowing users to be tracked until they say they don't want to be. I.e. it's opt in to tracking, rather than opt out. Fielding seems to think that this is wrong and so has arbitrarily decided to disregard any preference at all from IE10. Your reading is correct except that the first sentence seems to imply that it is a technical problem when it isn't. IE10 handles DNT fine. The issue is that it encourages users to use it.

h4rm0ny

Well they could have written "individual who arbitrarily decides to affect the behaviour of millions of web servers around the world without consultation or approval and in defiance of what the W3C guidance", but 'wanker' is shorter.

h4rm0ny

Re: A despot that is not mature enough to work on a standard committee

I don't know that he should resign from the comittee, but he should undo this change and admit that its not his sole choice to make to violate the (proto-) standards. The comments on the commit log are scathing.

h4rm0ny

Re: it's pretty obvious how to turn it off

"It's not a case of being obvious, it's a case of the power of the default. If DNT is enabled for everybody then marketing networks will simply ignore the preference altogether claiming quite rightly that it does not reflect the user's choice. This in turn renders it a worthless setting."

How is a user actively turning it on less of an expression of choice than a user actively turning it off? It isn't unless one has a subjective bias.

And the choice is fully presented to the user during IE10's installation or first use. It just happens that it explains in unambiguous language what that choice is and has it off by default. The user is given plenty of opportunity and information to turn it on if they want to. The choice requirement has been fulfilled. The issue is that advertisers were hoping the choice would be something users remained unaware of, in some buried setting somewhere.

h4rm0ny

Re: Its easy to fix.

Actually the set up screen for IE10 does tell the user about DNT and does so in pretty clear and ambiguous language and does offer a choice. Quite honestly, what proportion of people, when they understand what it is, are going to say: "yes, please, I do want private corporations to track me"? It's going to be pretty low. So really, Fielding's objections seem to basically be that Microsoft are making people a little too aware of the choice. He seems to prefer that it should be tucked away like in Firefox, left there only for the people who read forums like El. Reg. Anything else, he seems to think, will only anger Saruman the advertising companies and provoke their wrath upon Rohan us. Better to keep buying them off as Grima Wormtongue counsels.

h4rm0ny

Re: Well now I've seen everything!

"Microsoft aren't the good guys. They're just trying to stick it to Google by shutting them out of Windows 8. I bet if you were to read the shrinkwrap that comes with your Windows 8 / RT device that Bing / Microsoft would be exempt from honouring DNT themselves for one reason or another."

Assuming you think advertising corporations not following everything you do online is a good thing (which I do), then we the public benefit from having DNT on. Whether MS also benefit from that or not doesn't change the benefit to me. And it's not the place of some individual in the Apache foundation to decide whether or not W3C standards should be followed. (And IE10 does follow the standards in this - the choice is clearly presented to the user with clear and unamigiuous language).

And you'd better be sure about your comment that MS ignore DNT themselves because otherwise you're just creating groundless FUD which would be unethical. Though I'm not really sure what you mean. Are you saying that MS might somehow reach across the web and turn it off for particular sites or that microsoft.com doesn't honour DNT or what? Because DNT is something that exists between the browser and the web server. It's not something that gets routed via Microsoft HQ. I don't think IE10 contains a secret list of MS's friends that it doesn't send the DNT header to.

As to your comment about "sticking it to Google" in general, Mozilla get hundreds of millions of dollars from Google for making its search engine the defaults for their browser. Do you also object to Google "sticking it to Microsoft?"

h4rm0ny

Well now I've seen everything!

Microsoft are the good guys and Apache the villains.

What is the good of a choice if you're only allowed it on the condition that you choose what the other party wants you to choose? What the advertising industry is saying is that sure, you can have your token gesture of privacy so long as only a statistically tiny handful of people use it and all their friends, family and everyone else they know continue being tracked. Some people think that it's fine to have it off by default because they themselves will turn it on. Well I find that rather self-centred. If one thinks that privacy is a good thing (and rather obviously from my post, I do), then why should it be the preserve of the technologically aware only?

I support MS's on by default approach and if that leads to advertising companies being forced back to the negotiating table, so be it. I do not favour a policy of keeping feeding the tiger so that it doesn't bite you. The tiger just gets bigger and more comfortable and demands more. If the whole world ends up giving up its right to not be tracked and monitored on everything they do, then eventually, even those that are technologically competent will find themselves out-manoeuvered at some point and there will be no legal recourse of chance of drumming up popular opposition to when the ISPs decide they're going to record all your habits at their level or the next Phorm, because society will have reached the point that it is a given you are monitored and tracked by corporations.

A choice you're only allowed because you don't exercise it, is a false choice. A choice you are allowed on the condition you leave the rest of society to deal with consequences you dodge, is not an especially ethical choice, imo. I understand the Mozilla foundation criticizing it - about 85% of their income comes from funding from Google, basically "search royalties" - but I'm very disappointed in the Apache Foundation.

HTC's 4G patent beef could get iPhone 5 BANNED in US

h4rm0ny
Joke

"I find YOU personally OFFENSIVE, you don't hear me whinging on like a woman on her bloodies."

I think we just did. ;)

h4rm0ny
Joke

Re: Come on bios

"True. But it would be damned funny."

Okay, I admit it would be funny given recent history. But when I'd stopped laughing, I would be looking at a less competitive market.

Laughter is passing. Patents are forever. (Or is that copyright?)

h4rm0ny

Re: Come on bios

"Fandroids sharpen your knives, sharpen your wit because this is being served up to you on a plate. Don't let me down now."

Android can compete on technical merits. Please, let companies compete because this is good for all. Apple, Windows Phone 8, Android... It's ridiculous for anyone here to be cheering when a product is banned or suspended or fails for non-technical reasons. At least it's ridiculous unless you happen to have a lot of shares in their rivals. For the rest of us, we should cheer every time a good new feature comes out whether that's for WP8, iPhone or whatever. I have a Windows phone and am getting a Win8 tablet. Was I dismayed when Apple produced the Retina display? No - it moves things on.

Companies are not football teams. Wanting the iPhone to be banned in the USA is not a good thing.

Everything Everywhere 'to stuff Santa's sack' with 4G Lumia 920s

h4rm0ny

Re: 4G

Not at all. I'm not too bothered by 4G right at the moment (it's something I want, but its one feature amongst many) but I really like the look of these devices. I'm unlikely to upgrade any time soon as I'm happy with my Lumia 710, but depending on what additional options come with W8 phones, I might get one. I want to be able to handle digitally signed / encrypted emails on my phone and I'd like to see what I can do in terms of VoIP on W8 as well.

Climate denier bloggers sniff out new conspiracy

h4rm0ny
Facepalm

Re: This could've been an interesting take on the story...

Oh, and I guess while I'm dealing with the absurdities of your attack on my integrity, I might as well ask you if you yourself read the entire 33 page paper before commenting here? Because the point that I was making was a basic and uncontroversial one about sample size, for which simply downloading and looking at the actual raw data (which I did), was sufficient. You are the one that claimed to have evaluated and found flaws in the paper itself. I have skim-read it and pretend no more than that. But if you're going to write accusations like "you haven't even read the paper" or suggest that you have greater insight into it, then I want to know if you're actually claiming to have read those 33 pages of small-size text before telling me I'm wrong. Because if not, you just sound like you're trying to argue by sounding knowledgable, rather than actually pointing out anything that is wrong in my argument.

h4rm0ny

Re: This could've been an interesting take on the story...

Oh, and amusingly in an earlier post of your own you write:

"1100 responses is a perfectly reasonable number for a survey like this"

So it's okay for you to round off 47 respondents, but the moment someone you disagree with writes the same thing, they are are lying and it shows what they write is flawed? I don't suppose you're going to apologise, are you?

h4rm0ny

Re: This could've been an interesting take on the story...

"The sample size wasn't 1100. You haven't read the paper. I genuinely don't know why you are pretending that you have."

There were 1,147 respondents. If you think someone using common short-hand of knocking off a couple of digits to make a more human-readable number is grounds for accusing someone of lying, then I pity you. Yes, it's quicker to say: "eleven hundred" than it is to say "one-thousand, one-hundred and forty-seven" and I type as I talk, typically. I gave easily understandable criticisms and explained in layman's terms why your comment about sample size was misleading. And you choose to respond by saying because I wrote 1,100 instead of 1,147 I am "pretending".

Insulting and contrived.