Posts by JohnFen

I recently noticed that something went wrong on my Windows work machine, and it hasn't installed any updates for over a year.

This pleased me, and I'm certainly not going to volunteer this fact to our IT department. :)

Re: Not defending Excel but

"In point of fact, most spreadsheets make perfectly usable SMALL databases"

Indeed. This is primarily what I personally use spreadsheets for (I'm not a bean-counter, so they aren't much use to me in their primary role).

I know how to use a real DBMS -- I use a variety of them daily in my work, and use them personally at home. But for a lot of things, a spreadsheet is just as good and a whole lot more convenient. The right tool for the right job, and all that.

The only body that can actually fix this is Congress, not the White House, no matter who the president is.

Re: Prior art

"given many hospitals have been using the older system for decades..."

Yes. I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that hospital using pneumatic tube systems are legacy, but just in case, I'd like to point out that a huge regional hospital was built in my area relatively recently, and it included an extensive new pneumatic tube system. The hospital is very proud of it and everyone I know who works there thinks it's great.

Re: "move items [..] faster than a human runner could manage"

All of the hospitals in my area use pneumatic tubes to quickly move things from one area to another.

Re: I've got one too

That could be... I forgot about the S5. I never moved to that because at the time it was released, nobody had figured out how to break the security to allow the installation of third-party ROMS.

Re: If only I could tell you how much I miss this on modern phones.

It doesn't have a removable battery, though.

Re: Settlement fund

In all class action settlements, most people who are eligible never bother to collect. The amount set aside likely anticipates this. Also, the amount had to be approved by the judge.

Re: False equivalents

It was a lot egregious. That gaming benchmarks is common practice doesn't take away form that at all.

Re: S4 still running fine here :)

Replacing the stock ROM was literally the first thing I did with my S4 when I bought it. I selected it in part because I already knew that I could do that.

Re: I've got one too

"For at least the last couple of years, I haven't seen another phone that I would want to have."

This. For my wants and needs, the S4 appears to be the pinnacle of smartphone development.

Re: I bought one at that time!

True, but not really worth the bother.

Plus, when I bought the thing, I didn't pay attention to (or even know about) these benchmarks -- so I can't honestly say that I was deceived by Samsung's practice, so it didn't harm me. Ethically, in my view, this means that I'm not really entitled to the $10.

Re: Actually...

I use and love Classic Shell too, but on Windows 10. It's one of the things I consider mandatory in order to make Win 10 more tolerable.

Re: Old search engines

Now that I think of it (this was a long time ago, my memory fades)...

Altavista was my main go-to. But more often than not, I'd use multiple search engines when looking for something, as each search engine seemed to have a different pool of websites in their databases.

This was what made Google so attractive to me when it came around -- it could come up with the results I'd otherwise need to use 4 or 5 search engines to find.

Re: Seduced, betrayed, and Sold to the Highest Bidder

"Also Google News, which was once quite good."

Yes, it was quite sad when Google effectively destroyed Google News. But it got me to stop using it, which was probably for the best anyway.

At this point, the only Google service I use anymore is YouTube -- and even with that, I only use it on a tablet that is not used for anything else. Google is a company that is best kept at arm's length.

"I think we're lucky that Page and Brin maintained so much control of the company."

I do think that their control delayed the decline of Google for a long time, but in the end, I don't think it mattered. I don't think Google now is any better than it would have been if the VCs had control.

Re: Old search engines

Lycos was alright, but not as good as Alta Vista, in my opinion.

Re: I remember

Indeed.

I remember when that acquisition happened. Doubleclick was a pretty awful company, and I actually thought that it might be possible that Google could do it better. And, for a while, they did -- but it didn't last. It's almost as if Doubleclick's corpse was infectious and Google caught the disease.

Re: Old search engines

You don't have to believe me. But my experience with Google search is the exact inverse of yours. In the older days, I usually found what I was looking for on the first page. Now, I usually need to go three or four pages in.

Re: Old search engines

Perhaps, but I personally saw the search results drop noticeably once Google started "personalizing" search results, and it has continued declining ever since. I haven't seen other search engines suffering a drop in search result quality (in fact, they're mostly improving, albeit slowly).

As a result, I'm not so sure that this has much to do with the size of the web.

Re: Ever thus

"I first came to google as a search engine for Usenet, 'cos they bought dejanews."

The bloom was already well into falling off Google's rose by that time.

Re: I remember

"We might have a decade or more before Google grows up."

I have a hard time seeing Google ever "growing up". They'd have to completely change their business model.

Re: Old search engines

"the real magic was the accuracy of the results Google produced back then"

I fondly remember that accuracy. Google search result quality has fallen a great deal from those heady days.

Re: I remember

That certainly could be. In fact, I edited out a portion of my comment alluding to that possibility.

Fortunately, it's easy to game polygraph tests.

Re: A less biased system

Yes,"relevance" is the worst sorting method that Amazon has.

Re: It's the camera and screen size

This is a serious question, not snark: why are smart light bulbs attractive to you? What is the benefit you'd get from them?

Re: 5G is not for you

"Self-driving cars for example cannot manage without a constant mothership connection."

They certainly could. That companies are deciding to tie those cars to the net has more to do with surveillance than technical need.

"Cleaning robots. Auto-delivery drones."

Neither of which need anything like 5G. My cleaning robot doesn't require any network connection at all (and, honestly, I have a hard time understanding what benefit it would bring).

"Fixed wireless is the "killer app" for 5G"

I suppose, in a roundabout way. Existing, mature technologies exist to do high-speed fixed wireless (without requiring massive subsidies to the telecoms), so it's not really that part.

What 5G really brings is the ability to service more endpoints. In very congested areas, cell providers have been hitting this limit for a long time now.

Re: Lease <> PCP

""Car-as-a-service" would be more akin to a short term hire car"

Yes. It's just car rental by another name.

Re: Perhaps

I don't think that 5G will bring significant speed increases to most smartphone users.

Re: Desktop

"Poettering has complained that Torvalds is too brutally abusive with language, lacking sensitivity."

Hmmm, that reminds me of something about a pot and a kettle...