Posts by Dave 126

Re: Not all exchanges are voluntary

*“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play

Re: Not all exchanges are voluntary

>If you accept Worstall's logic, burglary is just as valuable as manufacturing or finance.

Well, burglary creates work for locksmiths, glaziers, burglar-alarm installers and police officers. There isn't any moral determinism in these systems; arms manufacturers, tobacco growers and slavers are all a part of the economic system.

The burglar enriches themselves by inconveniencing others. A salesman who sells a low quality product enriches themselves by inconveniencing their customer. A company sells a frustrating and buggy OS to enrich themselves by inconveniencing their users.

So, we put locks on our doors. We educate ourselves and learn that a pricier but more durable product is actually better value*. We learn to use a different OS, or just accept that life isn't perfect.

>Never in the history of web journalism has so much empty crap been served dressed up as fake intellectual mumbo jumbo

Even if that's true, what is the harm? Nobody here would jump off a cliff just because "Mr Worstall told me to!" and his points are often debated and disputed here. If we believe him to be wrong, or has overlooked something, then we can make a counter argument.

Sometimes people who believe themselves to be fighting an ideology will appear to be ideologues themselves... this is always danger, so a bit of grown up discussion is generally a Good Idea.

For the record, I don't agree with much of Worstall says, but I think it is healthy to re-examine the things he attacks to test their sturdiness or otherwise.

Re: First time I have to totally disagree with you, Tim

Thank you itzman, maybe you could have a column or two? I have been thinking idly along similar lines in recent months, but drawing parallels to system theory and ecosystems*.

I strongly support your general gist and your raising of the subject, though you cover so much ground that it is inevitable that I can nitpick individual points:

When Bertrand Russell penned 'The Case for the Leisure Society', he wasn't equating leisure with idleness. Rather, he suggested that if we all only worked say twenty hours a week for food and shelter, we wouold choose more active leisure activioties (gardening, playing musical instruments, walking) and less passive (slump in front of a DVD-boxset with bottle of scotch)

>I think if we [The IT-Crowd, system administrators etc] exercised our power and controlled it properly, we would do a better job than politicians and economists...

Maybe. But in past times, scientists have thought similar things. Of course, if we all had more leisure time, IT experts might choose to read more history and philosophy, and financial experts and politicians might educate themselves about technology and systems. The electorate, with morew free time, would also take a more informed and active role in politics, too.

*All mature ecosystems dissipate more energy than immature ecosystems. There has always seemed to me to be an economic lesson there, but i can't quite articulate it.

Re: Shame

>The issue is that some people get massive residual incomes - being able to sell your time once and get millions for it years later kind of breaks things.

The people earning millions years later are probably the outliers, the extreme beneficiaries of systems (copyright, patents, IP) that are intended to fairly reward more people more modestly. The greater rewards can also offset the risk an individual assumes by investing their own time in an endeavour. A would-be inventor might spend months in her shed, but it isn't guaranteed that her tinkering will result in a working prototype, let alone a commercially-viable product.

Of course, real life will skew the principle.

Re: Movie OS

Movie OS

Much of the time, the movie director just wants the fictional GUI to display a nice big status bar slowly inching towards "100% complete" before the bad guys arrive.

This site goes into more detail: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ViewerFriendlyInterface

Another type of 'Movie OS' is more flashy and futuristic.... think Minority Report, or Iron Man. Not all of them are completely silly:

http://www.creativebloq.com/movies/user-interfaces-movie-history-11121389

Strange to think that these days mocking up a fiction GUI is fairly easy... however, the wireframe Death Star from the pre-attack briefing scene in Star Wars took Barry Cuba months to create. Ridley Scott's VFX team had CG wireframes on screens in Alien, and later reused them in Blade Runner to keep costs down.

Re: Mr Robot

I greatly enjoyed Mr Robot. If you feel the lead character is too good-looking, just remember that what we the viewers see is clearly signposted as being from his point of view. It makes use of the 'unreliable narrator' device, even to the extent of playing upon any comparisons the viewer might make to Fight Club.

Hmm, writing this has reminded me of a 2007 film starring Christian Slater called 'He was a Quiet Man'. Worth a watch if you enjoyed Mr Robot.

Re: QI and unlocked phon

>I do find myself wondering how long it will be before someone thinks they'll make life easier for people and build the feature [QR code recognition] in to the camera application

With all the superfluous CP/GPU power smartphones pack these days, it can only be a matter of time. Or, more sensibly, the phone's photo gallery app automatically scans photos for QI codes and places any URL into the photo's metadata... as a user option, of course.

Re: Not what I expected from Google

The Z5 and Z5 Compact have 20+Mp sensors which are said to be very good, though by default the phones save 8 Mp interpolated images - sensible enough. Some reviews say the Sony camera software is a bit slow, I don't know the effect of using any 3rd-party camera app.

Re: Wow - Good analysis!

>Still, Im not going to by any tech device that pretty much put together with a glue gun.

No Lotus Elise for you, then!

Okay, I won't bore you with the advantages of glue in manufacturing ( and in use, and in end-of-life recycling), since I suspect your sentiments are based on one truth: Glued devices are tricky for the amateur to repair / swap out components.

In good faith, answer me this: If a device took you one hour to repair, how cheap would it have to be for you to think "Feck it, I'll just get a new one!"?

Damned decent Android and Win phones are available today for £100. If in five years time, your standard do-it-all phone cost £30, would you still spend an hour repairing it? Would you still bother, if the manufacturer offered to part-exchange it for a new one for £10?

Please, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just thinking ' out loud' about at what point scarapping is the better option.

(And I mean 'scrapping' as an efficient reclamation of materials. You could almost imagine say a Fab designing SoC to be easier to reclaim the scarcer materials... or a laptop maker using cases of a single, common and easily recyclable material- oh wait...)

Re: Slow Upgraders!

If a person has already invested money in useful Android peripherals (yeah, I know!) and apps, then no Apple phone can be its equal for that individual user.

The converse is also true.

Re: It seems to me that Apple do almost everything just a bit better than their rivals...

>Re: It seems to me that Apple do almost everything just a bit better than their rivals...

>>That'll be why they have such dominant market share in enterprise software, mobile and desktop O/S, and streaming music then.

Why would any company want 'dominant market share' for it's own sake? A large market share is only desirable if it makes money, or it gives a commercial advantage that will allow money to be made in the future.

Enterprise software: Was never Apple's game, now have deal with IBM

Mobile OS: Apple don't care cos they make most of the money that is to be made.

Desktop OS: Again, Apple don't care as long as you've bought the hardware. OSX has enough users that software developers - especially in some sectors - will continue to offer OSX versions.

Streaming music: Apple do care, very much - because it has disrupted their iTunes business. However, they only joined the race in earnest a coupla months back, so who knows.

Re: Bit of soft shoe-ing here

>But the previous model will even be better on battery life when the new iOS update happens to it.

The battery savings are more likely due to a SoC process shrink. Anandtech will probably republish a Chipworks analysis in due course.

Re: Yeah, I noticed The Register is in Apple Hate Mode

>Anyone still making buying decisions based on brand loyalty, or in the more current nomenclature, fanboyism, these days is doing themselves a disservice.

That's largely true, but if it takes an individual several days to weigh up one option against another then relying on 'track record' actually makes more sense (depending upon how much one's time is worth). Ultimately, physical products can't be completely expressed 'on paper', and trying things for themselves can take too long. If what you are used to works for you, then buying MKII or MKVII can make sense.

I don't use Apple. I use Android and Windows, Sony and Dell*. However, I don't like unnecessary snark, since it muddies any sensible discussion of useful features and good design choices.

* the aged Dell keeps trooping on, so I will overlook some of its offensive design decisions.... blue LEDs for starters.

Re: Yeah, I noticed The Register is in Apple Hate Mode

>Yeah so sorry we're not kissing the ass* of a huge multibillion dollar corporation. Funny how everyone likes our snark until we pick on their favorite* business.

'Kissing ass' is a bias, just as is 'pissing on'. Many of us here don't like any form of bias; give us straight info and let us make our own minds up. The headline suggested less battery life, whereas the article remembered that the chances are that the SoC is built on a smaller process and that the new OS version might save power. As a reader, I think it reasonale that the headline and the article agree; c'mon guys, this isn't New Scientist or Wired.com FFS!

I use a couple of Android phones, and I want them and their replacements to be as useful to me as possible... I don't see how spreading FUD about the completion helps that end. Give credit where it is due.

>it is reasonable to assume that a smaller battery means less battery life.

That's only a reasonable assumption if you haven't been paying attention to the trend in CPU power consumption for that last umpteen years. Hell, even Lewis Carroll** knew that in Alice Through the Looking Glass ( what we call the 'Red Queen Effect'). Moore's 'Law' isn't a law, but as a prevailing trend one should consider any observed exceptions to it as noteworthy. By your own admission we don't know the process size of the new iPhone SoC, and you are quite correct, but I'm curious as to why your assumption is that it doesn't fit the trend.

In Android land, the first mainstream phone to use the Snapdragon 800 SoC was the LG G2, and being first its battery life was widely applauded. SoC process size does make a difference to battery life.

* spellings that suggest the article was written by the USA branch of the .co.uk Reg site.

** Snark hunting? Frumious Bandersnatch.

Re: Slavishly Copied

>Stylus Copied from Samsung

Seriously? Don't be so flippin daft.

> (less well)

You've used this new Apple stylus, have you? Tell us please, how does it compare to the Adobe stylus released earlier this year? In use.

>People said that the surface pro was expensive well at least with a surface you get a full desktop OS not a smartphone OS.

That's a fairly arbitrary differentiation... If the UI works for the HI hardware and it runs suitable applications, who gives a damn what the origin of an OS is?

>Small point of inquiry. According to the apple presentation the GPU in the new iPad pro and iPhone 6s offer console level graphics. Exactly which console are they comparing it to, the PS One?

Between the PS2 and PS3, roughly.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/190105-does-the-iphone-6-actually-have-console-quality-graphics

http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/original/110/1100542/2644037-3674092395-Tegra.jpg

Re: Stylus is a bit understated

Adobe have already tested these waters for Apple, by releasing pen and ruler for iPod. Obviously Adobe also released iOS software to take advantage of them, too.

>How is it a good experience for users OR developers to augment the internal memory with memory that is relatively slow, unreliable, and potentially missing completely?

A good point, but as developers of the OS there is nothing to stop Apple from somehow defining data types that are more tolerant of slow speeds and unreliable presence; i.e music and video. However, even then one gets into the situation where SD cards need to be indexed before use, app developers need to define data as such (i.e game engine lives internally, big level maps live on SD) or whatever the the situation is in Android these days ( I only have an Android phone, but I haven't tested the way internal Vs SD storage works... some apps are happier than others to be on SD maybe?)

YMMV

Re: Being six foot two

And of course 6'3" Corporal Carrot was a Dwarf, and it wouldn't occur to any Dwarf (of closer to mean height for their demographic group) that he wasn't. (The Fifth Elephant).

[Oh jeeebus, I have read the book twice and only just now whilst writing the above have I twigged that it is an pun on the Fifth Element. Is there a term for when two bits of info exist within the same brain but only collide some time later?]

Re: Political Correctness Lunacy

>Indoctrinating children like this should be an offence in itself.

Whilst I agree with you that the decision of this theatre is idiotic, I have to ask "Isn't indoctrinating children the whole point of fairy tales?"