Posts by sandman

Of course we don't care

Why on earth should we care about the interior design of our meeting rooms. Enough plug sockets, table space and non-crippling chairs are the basic requirements, along with lighting that doesn't sear the eyeballs. Suits are entirely optional!

If you want to meet in a beautifully designed space, there is a suite at 1 Aldwych which fits the bill nicely. It has a mini conference room in a turret overlooking Waterloo bridge. This contains an octagonal table with eight high-backed chairs, more like a SPECTRE or Lord of the Rings meeting room, plus kitchenette, plus some I seem to recall. Not sure of the price per night (was upgraded to it), but say about £400. For a really posh client meeting and somewhere to sleep afterwards it's a winner!

Great article

I once had the pleasure (ahem) of working on training courses for the New York Stock Exchange an rather wish some of the writing on those had been as clear and succinct!

Oh no! Techno Lust!

Really, really, can't think of any sane justification for buying them, but really want a pair. Now I know how iPad buyers feel. Must go and scour out my mind with wire wool.

The Ad

Sony: Buy our new e-reader, it's ******** magic!

Mass and Inertia

Don't underestimate the power of inertia. Being a bit technical like, I might think Google+ is the new dawn of happy social networking (I really don't, but let's pretend). Yay, good for me. Unfortunately many of my friends are non-techies/followers of the new and shiny and couldn't give a rats, they are perfectly happy on Facebook and so are their friends. So, unless G+ comes with a magic longevity pill (or loads of free stuff), they aren't moving, so neither am I.

Huge mass of users equals huge inertia - see Microsoft. You'd need something much more disruptive to get the mass moving. While rapid movement in the technical space isn't unheard of, in the consumer space it's a little harder to achieve. Apple managed it with the iPad, but the imitators are in a similar position to Google, unless they can offer something really, really cool, whether in function, design or price terms, they'll always be sucking on hind tit.

Only way to test

Just hearing that since you can't test at much above Mach13 in a wind tunnel the only way to do so is for real. I'm quite impressed they've got it working for so long.

Hallucinatory

I believe some people lick toads to get a buzz. That thing looks like it would give you a three day trip!

Internet or web?

The internet certainly looks like being divided into a number of walled gardens from a communication point of view, however, the same doesn't necessarily apply in other areas. Speaking personally (no research done here, so it's all opinion), many of us use the <emphasis>web</emphasis> much in the way it was designed for. We research, write, publish, link, colloborate, critisise, get critisised, etc. This part is still free. Social networking, downloading and mail are not the web as such, they are part of the wider internet.

Cheap

For a luxury item, that's cheap. There's a shop in Burlington Gardens that sells stuff for people who have just about everything. How about a mobile phone case that only fits one model of phone, encrusted with small black diamonds and costing somewhere north of £30,000?

Back to the Future

I remember the guys working at IBM Hursley produced great VR back in the 90s. Trying to escape from a burning oil rig while being shouted at by the virtual Scots foreman was pretty "real".

Shurely some mistake?

What's all this, well thought-out, reasoned comments? Like most big corporates we're massive MS users, and let's face it, for most office functions, if well maintained, it just works. Google docs gets a look in around the peripheries, mostly for sharing stuff quickly on dispersed projects, etc. We're pretty platform and application agnostic, we'll use whatever is most suitable for the job.

End of the PC

I suspect a lot of people (possibly the majority) will find that they really don't need a PC at home. From personal experience I doubt that a lot of people really need them at work either. However, someone is going to have to produce all that lovely content for the consumption devices, so perhaps there will be a smaller but higher value market for PCs (a generic term).

Mandatory Training

For some strange reason I just couldn't pass the Business Ethics course.....

A happy dream

With apologies to anyone who has to go and sell stuff, but I have sometimes dreamed of treating vendor sales people in a similar manner. The time it took to convince the CEO that the latest shiny is not compatible/has enormous hidden implementation costs/doesn't fulfil the requirements in any way, etc, is time I'l never get back.

Please let us land!

With that quality of music to wake up to I'd be trying to land anywhere as fast as possible.

Just wondering

Can you be a fundamentalist atheist? Is there a definable quantity of disbelief?

And it matters how?

So, I'll be developing in HTML 5 in 2014? Nope. Since half the corporate world is still on IE6 and most of the rest a mixture of 7 & 8 (apologies to the few who are using other browsers, boy are you enlightened) I reckon XHTML + the usual tweaks and addons are all I'll need until, oh, say 2030 or possibly retirement age.

Who cares what happens afterwards?

I think it's an excellent idea. As far as I'm concerned when I've finished using this body anyone can do anything useful they like with it. After stripping out any reusable bits (unlikely given age and lifestyle admittedly) using it for heat, road repairs, fertiliser, sword tempering, Soylent Green manufacture, etc seems like a damned fine plan.

Get a better yacht

If you want some real class I'd recommend the Nero (what an excellent name for a rich person's plaything). Take a look at:

http://www.burgessyachts.com/

Saw it off the coast of Sardinia this year and thought it was someone's Royal Yacht.

Mail Strapline

I'm slightly surprised they don't use "Be afraid, be very afraid" every day.

Spread the blame

I can envisage quite a few (not suitable for a family newspaper ;-) scenarios where people of any sexuality could increase global warming. However, since our LGBT friends only make up an estimated 10% of the population they can only really be blamed for the same percentage of global warming.

One caveat. If they all have outstanding active sex lives they will demonstrate an increased energy output. In compensation they will require an increased input of calories. This in turn will lead to further warming caused by agricultural, transport and industrial (those champagne bottles don't appear from nowhere) CO2 production. Therefore, it is theoretically possible that it really is mostly their fault!

Options

Our nuclear deterrent lacks the capability to be used as a first strike weapon against a major power, but could inflict very serious damage on one, in terms of cities destroyed, infrastructure wrecked and millions of mostly civilian deaths. Most governments want a functioning state and a population to rule, so the threat of thermonuclear heck might put them off nuking us first. That's why it's called a deterrent.

It could be used as a first strike weapon against a small nuclear power such as North Korea, Iran (in the future), etc, although politically and morally we would then be pariahs. Would it deter a fanatical government from nuking us? The answer might be "probably". Even fanatics want to know they are dying for a reason and the total obliteration of their cause/country might be off-putting.

Is it worth it? If you are going to have a nuclear deterrent, Trident is the Rolls Royce option, you get what you pay for. In this case a virtually undetectable submarine and missiles that can strike anywhere on the planet with a high degree of accuracy. There are cheaper options but they all have limitations.

If you think the UK should have nukes then Trident is as good as it gets, if not, then no system is suitable.

Interesting...

The move by Oracle does seem odd, particularly when Microsoft are beginning to move heavily into the area. I'm not entirely sure Oracle are really happy when extending beyond the enterprise database space.

Not bad

Here in Surrey the show wasn't bad - five in as many minutes around 11 pm and that's with a fairly narrow viewing slot thanks to all the light pollution. The only problem is that looking virtually straight up gives you a heck of a sore neck!

Change?

Nothing much has changed in West Dorset - period.