* Posts by Jon 52

83 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009

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Boffins prove Queen ballad 'world's most catchy song'

Jon 52
Pint

footballs coming home

I think fotoball chants are a good pointer, and what is more iconic than Frank Skinenr et al "3 lions".

Just try getting "footballs coming home" out your head now. Yes, this was deliberatly written to be catchy and it succeded. So well that many of the "catchy" football songs of following years, where just utter failures compared to this monolith with fans opting to sing "its coming".

Amazon's anti-iPad arises 'in October'

Jon 52

not made by apple

My only "not made by apple" reason is price, so by adding a value for money componant I currently exclude apple, but not explicitly.

News of the World TO CLOSE

Jon 52

investigation pah

except the investigation is being run by rebekah, the ediot at the time. Conflict of interest much.

ICT classes in school should be binned – IT biz body

Jon 52

hiding functions

Yep once failed a section on an automated test in "IT" as it asked me to copy paste.

Ctrl+c ... computer gave me a fail

Ok go to edit menu as it is always there (showing my age before ribbon)... fail

I had failed my two attempts.

aparently I had to use the old toolbar and click on the icons.

Jon 52

its bollocks

When I was in high school 15 years ago they made the french teacher do ICT as she had some computer experience ( i think she had one of those word processor units). Meanwhile we had been programming our BBC micro in primary school, she asked me one day how I got the little * above the 8, so I showed her the shift key.

I stopped caring at that point and just rushed the whole years work off in about 1 week and still got top marks. A bunch of us formed our own computer "club" in lessons and taught ourselves programming and advanced office techniques from books and computer magazines. While the other half the class struggled with copy/paste.

To be fair to the teacher she recognised the status quo was rubbish and encouraged us to do this.

Kindle beats Apple's closed book on choice

Jon 52

60:1

I know about 5 people with a kindle and another 5 that read kindle books on their android or PC. I think the fact that amazon has two markets where as apple has access to one also explains the trend.

iPhones secretly track 'scary amount' of your movements

Jon 52

you gave permission

Didn't you read evreyword in the 16000 word EULA it clearly gives them permission to track you and share this info with whoever they like. You clicked the agree button or opened the shrink wrap or whatever so you did agree to this.

Wind turbine farm hack exposed as hoax

Jon 52

just cause he didn't fix it

I got to know numerous security flaws in my companies systems, when I pointed some out, the Defect Review Board decided many wern't cost effective to fix (not enough people would find them, and/or you would have to really know the code to find anyway (woo security by obscurity).

Dig deep! Radio asks taxpayers for blank cheque

Jon 52

it already wins on content

I like content on digital radio and made me go out and get a digital radio (when I don't listen online).

however this is placed in my kitchen plugged in (I had to struggle to find a location to get anything, Icould put my old FM anywhere)

reception is the problem, the digital cliff is too much, you either get it perfectly or move an inch and get nothing.

The good thing about my portable FM i take jogging is I can always hear a whole ong all the way through (yes I may get an odd hiss evreynow and then but at least it is not 10sec of silence) and the batteries never need replacing.

MythBusters: Savage and Hyneman detonate truthiness

Jon 52

confirmation bias

>If it comes out appearing to be Plausible or Confirmed, then you put out your results to Peer Review

ans somtimes you should publish the negative results, otherwise you get confirmation bias. where there are 1 study that proved x and was published and 99 studies that disporved x but were never published.

UK is a closed source 'stronghold'

Jon 52

car analogy

I like your car analogy and take it further.

An open source car is like a car in the 50s yes it would be eaiser and cheper (once learnt) for me to maintain if it had the simple mechanical parts of yesteryear.

However I drive a modern car as it has better fuel economy and is more reliable with less inteference from me. However I take the hit in the fact there are no user servicable parts in the engine and even to change a headlight virtually requries a mechanic to access it.

Channel Islands VAT loophole shut, petrol prices cut

Jon 52

The dark

You have obviously never lived in a slightly dodgy area. I would not want to be wating for a bus at night in the center of Chatham off New Road.

Dutch courts: Wi-Fi 'hacking' is not a crime

Jon 52

IP address is not identity

WARNING we do not want IP address to get precedent as a form of identity, as they really just tie up to a household not a person

How to slay a cellphone with a single text

Jon 52

acounts bidding

Two sales execs bidding for contact;

1) On crucial day of bidding process bork rivals phone

2) Have your line clear to recieve call, the other exec obvoulsy doesn't want buisness as their phone is always off

3)Get contract and profit.

Amazon is best hope of a viable alternative to iPad

Jon 52

distribution

My only problem is that it gives companies no control over distribution costs.

30% is not a trivial amount, if it is essentially free to sell on my own website but 30% in iStore, I am forced to overprice my items on my own website, just so they are not cheaper.

Jon 52

Apple dictate any price.

"But again they are not saying what the price is but that it must be the same as on the content providers site, to me this is a way to ensure Apple customers are not ripped off paying more for the use of it on their idDevice."

But that means that non-iDevice people need ripping off. If companyA needs to sell its thing at £7 to make profit, they would have to sell it for £10 on iStore. But could afford to sell it for £7 on their own website. Now they have to charge evreyone £10.

Fukushima on Thursday: Prospects starting to look good

Jon 52

quake vs tsunami

The quake didnt do that much damage so the arguemnt 8.2vs 9.0 is slightly less important than the tsunami predicion. It was 7m not the 6.5m in spec, it was the basement flooding that meant loss of backup power (a lot of switch gear in the basement.)

If they had thought to put the generators higher in the building to prevent flooding it would have been better

HBGary's nemesis is a '16-year-old schoolgirl'

Jon 52

based on what

Your basing that asumption it was dad on what, the fact she is a she? If it was a 16y/o boy you would not be saying it was farja.

Jon 52

yep

I retired from hacking at the age of 16 when I left school. I was a pretty good little script kiddie back in the day.. scourge of school admins (not hard when they barely knew how the shift key worked)

O2 tries to explain its new prudish nature

Jon 52

yep payg want address too

When you first connect they ask for an address although one is not needed, to get a top-up card they ask for an address, to top up online you have to enter an address, to benfit from oranges "phone fund" where orange give you a small amount each top up to get a new phone you have t ogive an address.

Sheila's Fails? The statistics of biological risk

Jon 52

type of car

I disagree that type of car could become protected on gender bounds.

As a man I drive a "womens" car (even the toyota yaris ads sell it as such ("her yaris")). I chose this car as it is cheap to insure (and has excellent fuel economy). I have free choice over the type of car and can make that choice, and probably by the fact I make that choice shows I am less likily to cause a high value claim caring more about cost than performance. Where I cannot change my gender to get cheaper insurance (I assume sex change does not matter to insureres?) I can change my car.

Euro court slaps down insurers over gender risks

Jon 52

national insurance

So should national insurance start to charge more for smokers, or fat people in the NHS

Or perhaps people from Hull should pay more as they are more likily to be unemployed?

Google threatens Chrome address bar with death

Jon 52

F11

press f11 fullscreen and bar hides if mouse is not near top or page is not laoding

Press f11 normal service is resumed

on my netobook use it all the time as the screen is not quite full height.

never seen the need for it on desktop

(i hope websties now won't use this as an excuse to be even more fullscreen, i already NEED F11 on some websties that wern't bothered to test on anything other than 1280x1024)

Boffins demand: Cull bogus A-Levels, hire brainier teachers

Jon 52

fagsnbooze

The market forces in this case are majority A-level school leavers who want a blast at university and just have a simple life doing somthing fun. I think less than half of all students will actually seriously look at job markets before going off to Uni and base their decisiion on that, even less will make this decision at 16 when choosing A-levels and less than that at 14 when you choose triple or only double science.

Sony tweets 'secret' key at heart of PS3 jailbreak case

Jon 52

marketing

The marketing department should now evreything going on with their comapany and what people are saying about it. If they hadn't heard about the recent cases of their company being hacked, they arent usefull to the company.

Microsoft finally says adios to Autorun

Jon 52
Gates Horns

Nuclear Vessles

They have known about this for years, yet it is only once conficker has done its dirty work on Iranian Nuclear Facilities do they finally close the loophole. The tinfoiler in me thinks it was left open on purpose...

Bold as brass metal thieves disrupt rail, comms, electric

Jon 52

its not a case of £44 unit

If they had laid 2 wires along the track for a cost of £88 then the theives would have just doubled their profits.

When our signalling cable was stolen they got it working again in less than a day. That is Discover fault in morning, run some tests remotely, find send crew out to see why failed, crew measure how much wire is missing crew call back that wire is missing, send another crew with skills and materials to fix wire, fix wire, test wire, check safety, get trains and crews back to where they should be.

Also should not just look at cost. If I took six £0.20 bolts of the hub of your car even with triple redudency then your car would be useless until you fix it.

I hate train ompanies as much as the next guy being on southeastern, but this is one fault that should lie with the theif not the network.

Jon 52

units

It is more accurate to use the native figures as you do not need to apply exchange rates of the exact time the figure was quoted. If you want to look up the excahgne rate go ahead. But the costs were to Britain, and orignally calculated in £. The market rates are always in $ and in some ways are a different unit.

US Wikileaks investigators can't link Assange to Manning

Jon 52

why?

If someone was wrongly acused of doing somthing I know they didn't know, yet i couldn't say who did, then I would probably give them some help

'Porn lock' heralds death of WikiLeaks, internet, democracy, universe

Jon 52

coalition agreement

The Libdems negotiated to be allowed to Abstain on the fees issue, to keep their pledge not to vote for higher fees. However as tory back benchers also hated the fees certain lib dems were needed to vote for, so they were whipped into voting for a policy they pormised they would not.

Windows 7 really was some girl's idea, rules ASA

Jon 52

decitful microshaft

I'd always asumed the same the advert models were represnting people who had left feedback to microsoft (or microsoft had some sort of Focus Group event and got ideas from idiots who have time to spare to attend focus groups)

Then it turns out microsoft are saying that the ideas were deceitfully stolen from other people and put into windows 7, same old microshaft... buy 'em out boys!

Unlimited CRB checks may fall away

Jon 52

crb fail

The other problem with a crb certificate is it is only valid at the point the check was made. There was plans for a new system, a photocard with a reference number on. This ref could then quickly be checked by any organisation to do a search at that point, then register their interest to recieve updates if anything happened. However this was too costly to implement.

Angry Birds tweet fury at Redmond

Jon 52

perhaps rovio could make a buck

in the console world microsoft paid developers to transfer to xbox platform. Perhaps roxio think they can be paid to develope for win mobile. Or perahps Nokia even gave them some funding to appear with them at the ovi bash.

New 'iPhoD' can 'adjust the speed of light by turning a knob'

Jon 52

like the 500 mile email

http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html

Jon 52

anything on the elctromagnetic spectrum

from beyond long range radiowaves to beyond gamma rays.

iPhone users get more sex than Android fans

Jon 52
Jobs Horns

new model

It's obvious Iphone users have to get the latest shiney model as soon as it comes out, if its 3 months old it is past it. If it apllies to phones it applies to partners.

Apple spews Judas Phone signal bar 'fix' to world+dog

Jon 52

Emperor Jobs new cloths

This little article (old) explains why this "fix" will work

http://www.theonion.com/articles/apple-claims-new-iphone-only-visible-to-most-loyal,2772/

Google blames developers for lousy Android battery life

Jon 52

biggest batttery use

I find the biggest battery use by far to be the screen (backlight). If you leave this on auto I could last 4 hours of web browsing/ gaming. However If I turn it down (even to lowest setting when inside) I could use the phone but got about 6hrs constant use.

Canadian mobe firm sued over disappearing husband

Jon 52

Ok how about jsut a house share

When I started working I couldn't afford to live on my own and knew noone where I was moving to. I got a house share. 4 months later the I found out the livin landlord had not been paying any bills on the house for about 15months (even though the other 3 of us had been paying her money each month we had been there (bills were in her name only). What if our bills had been bundled with hers, we could then be listed as "linked" in any credit record and would probably be liable to pay more of her debt.

Mucky private chat could be illegal soon

Jon 52

airport wimp

I read somewhere that the even the airport MD said at the trial that they had not taken it seriously. Only the police were pressing on for conviction (presumbly so their conviction rates are met)

Android tops iPhone in US (no thanks to the Nexus One)

Jon 52
Jobs Horns

bias much

Some good news for for Android and you mostly bury it in a rant against the nexusone. Android should celebrate its victory over the overpriced closed shop of the iphone.

Javascript guru calls for webwide IE6 boycott

Jon 52

ban ie6 to boost the economy

We should ban IE6 to provide a boost to the economy. If people with net access at work can't get to their favourite sites like friendface or constantly check their Yahoo! mails or read and comment on el reg allday because they are stuck on 6 (and cannot give legitamate rason to upgrade) then we will actaully have to do some work and be profitable to the company, it will save companies millions, of course unemployment will climb as companies realise cubicle farms can actually run on 2/3 of the staff.

Of course sites like amazon and ebay will lose out in sales to high street chains as people shop outside on thier lunchbreaks)

Jon 52

mcdonalds

If I show up to mcdonalds in my horse and cart I am probably too high to reach the window so your saying they should build a special high window just for us few horse and cart users, and have someone on permanant standby to shovel up all our shit.

NFC/Bluetooth sticker goes into production

Jon 52

manual switch

Call me old fashioned but I quite liek a manual switch to turn somthing that is going to take money from me on and off. We get all these skimming stories from time to time for rfid.

iPhone users suffer summer appointment chaos

Jon 52

TIMEZONES

Time zones are even trickeir whan the device itself moves, at least flight book people and airports stay still. I have ships moving accross the globe (crossing the dateline is fun) with local to ship time, local to port time and UTC.

I can't wait for worldwide decimal time in UTC, just go to bed at 4am in USA and 8am in Australia.

Computer glitch prompts 50 raids on elderly couple's home

Jon 52

Obligatory simpsons reference

It was not 123, Fake Street by any chance!

Google vows to delete Chrome's unique client ID

Jon 52

try this

May i suggest another google search alternative.

duckduckgo.com

.com celebrates 25th birthday

Jon 52

.co.uk

On the other hand when shopping for physical goods I tend to look for .co.uk so I know I will actaully be able to get the goods.

Intel investigates after retailer sold fake CPUs

Jon 52

pics it did happen

Those wanting better pics

http://www.neowin.net/news/newegg-ships-counterfeit-intel-i7-processors-to-customers

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/news/web-business/newegg-ships-counterfeit-core-i7-920-cpus/

Ofcom wades into UK 'Net Neutrality' row

Jon 52

Danger

The main worry for ISPs is if they lose net netutrality they change from a service provider to an editor and therefore liable for evreything sent over their network.

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