Posts by Intractable Potsherd

Re: It's simply amazing... @AC moron

If your employers at the various IP protection agencies haven't made their case successfully to someone like me - law degree (including an IP module), MA (including a great deal of IP), and a PhD in the social effects of governmental involvement in social goods, then they really are failing. My considered, educated opinion is that the media industry is as relevant to the modern IT-enabled world as leech-breeders are to modern medicine.* Certainly in music, what I see is a bunch of middle-men trying to maintain their ability to make money from both people who can do something** and the people who want to buy it in a market where it can all be done in a direct way. The film industry may be a slightly different case, but the principle still applies.

It is clear I am not the only one who thinks the same, and yet you insist on ad hominem attacks on our education, intelligence, and honesty. You really are a twat, aren't you?

* I know there are some edge-cases where leeches have been re-evaluated for some conditions, but that only reinforces my argument.

** In general - I am yet to be convinced that anything in the charts is being done by people who have any clue what music actually is.

Re: bibles @ an it guy 11:28

It is a bad thing when there is semi-official approval of hassling people simply for having a copy of a book of fiction, regardless of what it is. Almost as bad as semi-official approval of hassling people for NOT having a copy an approved book of fiction.

"You get exactly what you pay for in this world."

@Regtard - the thing is, people want different things "in this world". I can almost guarantee that whatever you think is "the best" in any category of goods, I will disagree with you because I *do* consider the initial purchase price as relevant. As I've asked you before, do you drive only Bentley and Rolls-Royce?

A few years ago, whilst driving in a South Yorkshire town, I saw evidence that the DVLA aren't too assiduous about checking plates - how would DO51 FKR have got through otherwise?

Sanctimonious pair of pricks ...

Re: @AC

"The only thing seperating the behaviour of each nation is the size of the budget."

Yes, and the US and UK budgets are obviously too big - what's your point?

And I, too, think you are Matt.

Re: iNnovation?

If kit* keeps getting any thinner, they certainly will be "cutting edge" ...

*Not being partisan - the gallop towards thinness is bizarre and counter-productive. Give me kit with some heft that I can hold securely.

Re: Useless

Whilst I have several blockers running, my wife has trouble with just No-Script. She runs out of patience really quickly, and then fires up another browser (I caught her browsing the university server on IE the other day, ffs!) If Mozilla take the route they propose, they are certainly going to show that FF is more secure, but only because users like Mrs P will abandon it because of the nag-boxes.

I don't know what the answer is, but it isn't this.

Re: I won't say "Sorry" for stepping on your face.

Don't worry - the idiots not paying attention will be incapacitated by their gadgets smacking them in the face as the emergency landing happens. I *never* have anything harder than a newspaper in front of me whenever the seatbelt sign is on.

However, if you survive being smacked in the face with your mobile but try to take your luggage off with you, I *will* make you a casualty ...

I agree with mark: the fault seems to lie with Qualcomm. A purchaser of equipment checking each and every licence for compliance with new markets would be an unusual level of diligence - the word of the supplier would usually be taken.

However, the way that these things run, in the UK at least, is that X sues Y, and Y sues Z after the judgment. I'd be surprised if there is any injunctive relief granted - that is unusual in the UK on this scale - but the damages could be significant. It is these that HTC would sue Qualcomm for in the next round of litigation (and lots more lawyers make fuck-tonnes of money).

Re: Well done for the plastic back

Pointless selling point. Slightly bigger with a larger battery would have been a better selling point, though. I don't think I've ever read or heard anyone saying that a modern phone is "too thick".

Re: Not that old humbug again?

Do you seriously think that companies don't look at market share - of course they fucking do! Apple wants to take market share from Samsung, Lenovo wants to take market share from them both. BMW and Mercedes want to take market share from Ford and Vauxhall.

However, deciding as an individual what to buy based on market share only counts as far as working out if there is likely to be support for your purchase towards the end of the time you intend to keep it. Otherwise, if it works for you, buy one (where "one" is whatever suits your actual needs or desires). I don't have a tablet because I can't see a use in my life for one - a laptop, a Very Large Phone(TM)*, and an e-reader seem to fill all the uses I have for screened technology at the moment. However, it might well be that, since I rarely buy new tech (preferring second-hand), at some point I go out looking for an iPad1, since they seem to proving to be very robust.

*That isn't, these days.

That has sent me back a few decades! I still tend to call a cricket bat "clicky-ba" :-)

I rarely use taxis, but last week I was in a strange city* on a tight schedule, so I got a cab from outside the railway station (I could claim expenses, so didn't worry). Cost for about 2.5 miles across the centre of the city - £7.00.

Later, I found out that some other delegates were going back on the same train, so we asked the organisers to book us a taxi. Same journey in reverse in roughly the same traffic - £5.00 (though it was a private hire rather than a cab, and, the organisers, being a hospital, probably have a contract rate). This caused some discussion amongst the other three, who had got a taxi at the same time(-ish) as me (they had been on the same train). Their journey had taken ten minutes longer then mine (they didn't recognise any of the streets taken on the return trip) and cost £20! The point? Yes, there are some robbing bastards in taxis.

However, in Prague the taxi drivers are so powerful they have effectively blocked an extension of the tram system to the airport because it would eat into their ability to gouge tourists to the tune of up to 300%. We could have it worse!

*Glasgow - a very strange city!

Re: evil? @Dogged (sigh)

And here is the root of the problem - what is advertising? Where are the limits on it?

Whilst the phone book is a form of advertising, it is unobtrusive and under the control of the person looking for whatever goods or services s/he requires when s/he requires it. It does not send data back to the publisher or others about when and where it is opened. It is also exactly the same as the phone book my neighbours get. I'd say the same about newspaper, magazine and TV ads - even though they are more obviously "advertising", they are passive and in the control of the reader.

Now contrast this with online "advertising", which is, quite frankly, creepy, and go beyond the limits of what should be allowed in the pursuit of flogging things. The entire concept puts the control in the hands of the advertisers, which is definitely where it shouldn't be. It erodes privacy and moves the active role into the wrong place. It needs to be stopped, not just controlled.

Re: Hush you rant-o-tards

Have you?

It's amazing how anything that involves some effort being put into protecting privacy always brings out the "But it is bad for [my] business!"

Well, cry me a river. If it is bad for your business, you are doing something that you shouldn't be. The law is there to stop you.

Re: Finally @NomNomNom

First of all, you do realise that Singapore is mainly Buddhist, and Christians form a small fraction of the population, don't you? It is unlikely they are standing up for the 10 commandments.

Second, why do you think a set of arbitrary conditions (not commandments) thought up by a particular group in a particular place with a particular environment at a particular time should necessarily be followed by our society? After all, it isn't as if other ways haven't been adopted by other successful civilisations over the centuries, is it?

Religion - the last resort of the hard-of-thinking ...

Re: BMX Wheels

"I think the screen itself will be obsolete soon. I see a walkman-style phone you never have to take out of your pocket unless you specifically want to watch a thing or surf the web. It'll all be watches, bluetooth stuff, and head-up/AR displays soon."

Not for me, it won't.

Re: @reg editors

Type a combination of the words "Megan", "Fox", and "Superwoman" into the search engine of your choice - it will be fairly high on the list.

Re: Techie in the meeting.

Anyone taking two hours for a presentation should be ignored until they learn how to do things properly. There is almost nothing in the world that needs that amount of time to put across.

Re: No War

BRAVO! Well said, Maharg!

Scorchio!!!, Charles9 and others, please take note.

Re: Two for one

Nice Genesis* reference there!

*Pop group, not opening chapter of Ye Olde Booke of Desert Fairie Tayles.

Re: Throwing screwed up paper into the bin! Basketball style.

I agree. I doubt that any nurses these days would dress one of them up in a scary costume and then put them in a bed with another "specialling" them. At handover, a suitably odd report on the new patient would be given, and then, when the new "specialler" took over, the "patient" would do something ... unusual.

I loved psychiatric nursing!

Re: So nobody told this judge that the word 'hacker' has several different meanings?

@DAM: Upvoted for saying "Having skills in the 21st century US brands you a suspicious person."

However, what do you mean by "A liberal paradise"? Are you suggesting that "liberal" means "stupid" or "uneducated"?* If so, what do you base that on?

*Actually, that is a rhetorical question - I've read enough your posts to know that you are very right-wing in your politics, and you think anyone that doesn't agree with you is stupid.

Re: Diversify

"Mercedes also has a wide range of cars and trucks and their top end sales remain quite strong thanks."

Well, I tend to view Mercedes as a company with too much diversification, and, as such, assume they don't do anything very well. A company that makes (relatively) small hatchbacks (A-Class), a range of saloons that are used as taxis in many countries, executive mile-munchers, luxury models, Chelsea tractors, genuine off-roaders from car size to serious beasts (Unimog), vans, trucks and buses strikes me as jack-of-all-trades, and master of none. I think they may be the only company with such a spread of interests under the same badge, thought there are others with the same impression (Renault, for instance), and I wouldn't buy one of those, either.

Re: Don't be a shill for ifixit @ AC

Ironic, then, that you come across as a shill for Microsoft ...