Posts by Darren Coleman101 posts • joined Tuesday 8th May 2007 15:22 GMT
...but as stated already in practice there are far more metrics than just how fast you travel and how harshly you corner and brake.
There are many very capable drivers who drive in a spirited manner (i.e. not necessarily adhering to every speed limit). Likewise there are some ridiculously unobservant drivers who routinely drive below the limits.
The above said any step towards more granular assessments (the roads you travel on and times of day you travel are significant) is a good thing really. I'd be interested to know how you pay for this sort of premium - is it calculated monthly with rises and decreases according to your driving style over the course of that month? Are you penalised for driving in colder weather? Is it fully itemised so you can see what contributed towards a price rise/decrease?
If they just say "this is how much your premium is" then that's not good enough in my opinion, especially if they're basing it upon data which you've given to them willingly.
If the Met have enough evidence to prosecute the person they have in custody they will do so. If they don't, they won't. Smoke and mirrors isn't going to make them suddenly go "hold on lads, we better check the evidence *even more closely*"
Anyone else find this a bit peculiar? I mean I know it's a show but ultimately the objective is still to resign from your current job and take up a new one. It's not like it's time off to appear on Big Brother or something.
I guess Greggs figured it would be worth it in publicity (somehow?), together with this public promotion?
/me confused
.. I really don't understand this judgement.
It won't make premiums any cheaper for men.
If women are *statistically* less likely to make insurance claims, be they medical, motor or otherwise, then surely logic dictates they should pay a commensurately lower premium.
Insurance isn't a science, it's an calculated assessment of risk. If you remove a key variable from this calculation then all you're going to get is inaccurate output. You aren't going to magically make men better drivers or have them live longer just by saying "take gender out of the equation".
Anyone who thinks this will lead to men's premiums coming down is deluding themselves. The likely conclusion is that women's premiums will go up, and everyone pays a more vaguely calculated premium due to the fact the insurance companies - who still have to assess risk irrespective of any judgement - have less data to work with.
Before the Combat Update the game was imo peerless. It had an exceptional skill tree system where people could choose their own specialism instead of being forced down arbitrary "you are a Bounty Hunter, you can do nothing else" paths. Then the CU hit and dumbed down the combat, and the NGE followed which made Jedi ubiquitous (and thus neutered - can't have a starting class be any more powerful than anything else).
Raph Koster's original vision for the game was awesome, it's a shame SOE didn't have the guts to perservere with it and instead tried - as many others have - to emulate the WoW model.
"Seriously though, I'm actually curious to know peoples opinion on what time span of official support you should expect for a non-shipping device? I'm not condoning apple here because I fell into this trap when I stopped getting iOS updates for my 2g iPhone"
I'd expect any software update that COULD work on my device if it wasn't arbitrarily locked out for commercial reasons to be available.
If there was something in iOS 4.3 that could not work on 3G iPhones for technical reasons then that's fair enough, but I suspect that they are just excluded for no other reason than to encourage those people - who probably still have perfectly functioning phones - to upgrade.
Whilst the axiom that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" in this case I think it applies. Assuming the Aussies can get a hold of this from other avenues (importing - as far as I know PS3 and Xbox are region free for games, or Steam gift, etc) then this judgement is a ringing endorsement of exactly the sort of content MK fans would looking for.
Presumably the evidence would be considered tainted because it wasn't handled or stored in an appropriate manner for a criminal investigation. The fact the food was eaten was incidental I feel.
Perfect for all those Linux ISOs and free-to-distribute eBooks that apparently everyone on a 50Mb connection is endlessly downloading at all hours these days.
A millionaire 6 times over if you believe the hype.
For an entity having issues monetising it's customer base Zuckerberg has managed to find vast sums of money *somewhere*
Yeah selling things for below your cost price (if the quote is true) definitely is a sound business model.
Need a £25 p/a option to allow us to delete other peoples comments.
Also, £35 p/a option to allow us to edit other peoples comments to misrepresent their position or call them silly poo-heads, or something.
The old "my small child pressed a button on my PC/iPhone, it's definitely not me having second thoughts and/or seeing the same item listed elsewhere for cheaper" excuse. A classic.
I find it hard to believe his iPhone lasted 3 days between charges... my 2G barely lasts 1.5 days if I actually use it.
I bought one of these exact drives to replace a pair of Western Digital Raptors (widely regarded as the fastest regular HDDs around) in RAID0 configuration and there is definitely a perceptible speed boost from the SSD.
The best part is that the Crucial drives come with a 5 year warranty which is great peace of mind when you consider SSD tech is still relatively new and the drives themselves have a limited shelf life.
The only downside I've had is that the most recent firmware that was made available for the drive was withdrawn shortly after being released (not before many including myself installed it) due to reports of corruption issues in Windows 7. There is talk of a new firmware coming soon to fix this but it apparently involves a destructive reformat of the drive. Personally I just consider this par for the course for cutting edge technology but others might be put off.
How is it a revelation that a guy who buys out his mobile contract is entitled to get his phone unlocked? That's the case with *any* phone with *any* operator in the UK as well.
"I paid £600+ and I got a legally unlocked iPhone. Boy I showed them!"
Something is cheaper in the UK than the US, from a US-based company? Don't they normally just drop the dollar sign and replace it with the pound sign?
What's going on? I'm scared :(
"What the hell does it take to reach a 100%"
An unashamed Apple fanboy for a reviewer I guess?
I was surprised at how few of the rumours that had been circulating prior to the WWDC actually made it into the revised iPhone, and conversely how features noone had even thought of did.
A compass? I really don't know how relevant this is. If you're somewhere remote enough where you would actually need a compass to find where you're going then arguably an iPhone is probably not the most robust nor long-lasting life-saving device to have on your person. You could just have, I dunno, an actual £5 compass.
Most of the improvements are - as stated - in the software. We finally get copy/paste, native MMS, video recording and even voice control.... unless you own one of the obsolete models like the 2G and the 3G. 2G can't do MMS, 3G can't do video recording. Neither can do voice control despite the conspicuous lack of the "necessary DSP chip" in the 3GS.
It will be interesting over the coming months to see how the competitors respond. Apple still reign supreme in the UI department and their fanbase is partisan enough to provide a certain amount of momentum. As for the enterprise crowd though, this new revision is another dose of "meh".
Whether or not Apple will be able to keep the competition at bay for another ~12 months until the next WWDC where the real iPhone upgrade (OLED, different form factor, etc) is announced remains to be seen....
Of course whilst the idea of a watchphone sounds awesome on paper, when you actually put it into practice and find yourself having to walk around with your wrist against your ear to answer calls, then it all goes wrong.
Well spotted, I completely missed that.
In that case a doodle is a poor subtitute for a power supply. :(
People are always complaining! He got a complimentary doodle for *free* and the guy moans about it. What is the World coming to?
Paris cos, well, there's a c**k involved.
It's light shining through the button hole. Either that or she has extremely perky tits with nipples in the wrong place.
To me this is a bigger success story in terms of perceived value vs actual subtance than Facebook, Skype and other similar overhyped, underachieving, virtually impossible to monetize websites. At least with all of those technologies there is a great wealth of effort gone behind the scenes.
Friends Reunited is basically just a registry of people that are associated with one or more entities (schools, companies, etc). In terms of complexity I can't see how the database or the code can be anything that couldn't be recreated in about a week by a single developer. There is some run-of-the-mill fluff like messaging people & payment processing but again nothing that is particularly onerous.
I can only surmise therefore that approximately £174,999,000 of the valuation was for the brand itself - which in percentage terms must surely make it one of the most successful dotcom enterprises ever?
"Your not the brightest candle are you."
Ironic? It's "you're", and you're a head of operations? Jesus.
Am I supposed to be impressed that you're head of operations for some random company? I've met and spoken to plenty of people, particularly in management, who act like they are the Worlds authority on everything and yet have very little clue about the realities of their business.
Incidentally I wasn't blowing my own trumpet about what I did to make it sound like my point was more valid as a result - I just said I work for an ISP. As I said originally I have pretty good knowledge of how much IP transit costs us, our suppliers, their suppliers, etc.
I never said that VM (or anyone else) advertising a 20Mb service as "unlimited" wasn't "being creative with the truth", that said it is what it is - I'm sure if there was a meritous legal challenge to be made against their advertising it would've happened already, certainly if you believe half the armchair lawyering you see around the 'Net it's a wonder they are allowed to advertise at all.
The reality of it is that VM offer a service which - to most of their customers - ostensibly is unlimited. The fact 5% of their customer base happen to believe they are the majority voice is academic really, go on any populist forum/community on the website and they will claim to be the best thing on the Internet - doesn't make it so.
As I stated before that link I gave explains the real World situation a lot better than I can in a comment. Bottom line - bandwidth costs considerably more to provision than your regular consumer is prepared to spend. Some of the blame for that has to lay at the doors of ISPs chasing subscriber numbers and speed upgrades, after all it wasn't so long ago that there wasn't even a 0800 number for dialup connections and many of us were paying several hundred pounds a quarter for ISDN/HomeHighway, etc.
Well given I work for an ISP I have more of a clue than most how much things cost in the real World as opposed to the fantasy land where bandwidth costs £35 a month along every hop of the network.
Consumer broadband works on economies of scale, when you pay £35 a month do you seriously think you're getting your own private tunnel to the Internet? No, you're sharing with thousands of others. In any other walk of life if one person was hogging all of an available resource and leaving next to nothing for everyone else there would be outcry - how would you react if one person drank 90% of the alcohol stocked at a bar, or ate 90% of the available food at a restaurant? Now imagine that person paid the same amount of money as you. Annoyed yet?
Fact is people who earnestly believe that £35 a month does or should entitle them to 24/7 uncontested & unrestricted bandwidth is at best naive and at worse idiots. Businesses have to pay through the nose comparitively for uncontested throughput, ISPs likewise have to pay other businesses a fortune for their transit. Maybe VM and co should just absorb these costs out of the goodness of their hearts?
Educate yourself on how much bandwidth costs in the real World:
http://community.plus.net/blog/2008/02/28/how-uk-isps-are-charged-for-broadband-the-cost-of-ipstream/
Expect the usual response to this - people whining that they should get totally unlimited 20Mb connections for ~£35 a month when businesses pay thousands for unmetered leased lines, how it's perfectly possible to hit caps watching iPlayer etc as opposed to pirating music, movies & games 24/7 like a madman, people moaning that "unlimited should be 100% unlimited", etc.
Whilst I would consider myself an above-average Internet user I've only fallen foul of the bandwidth cap a couple of times that I can remember. I'd wager that the 5% that are routinely capped are the most vocal, most fickle and least likely to pay for anything that can get by other means for free. What an odd coincidence!
Curiously the Royal Mail website (www.royalmail.co.uk) is totally b0rked for me on Linux + Firefox, yet on Windows + Firefox it is fine. It's almost as if they are specifically breaking Linux support or something. Or maybe I've seen too many X-Files. Or maybe it's just my PC.
I like watching Top Gear and particularly like the irreverent mannerisms and attitudes of the presenters, I think they compliment eachother well. That said I think this is perhaps worse than the whole "Lorry drivers murder prostitutes" furore.
Whilst I don't imagine anyone would necessarily base a purchasing decision entirely on a TG review, stating something which is patently untrue about the car *would* influence peoples perceptions of it negatively. Stating that the car runs out of power before it really does is in my mind as bad as stating that the "brakes stop working after some spirited driving" on any other car they've reviewed.
I don't really understand why they would "show what happens when the car runs out of fuel" (in this case electricity), I don't buy that at all.
For shame TG! (I'll be tuning in as per usual though)
As God awful a ripoff as these things are - did anyone else stifle a giggle at how they come with a better camera (3mp) than the actual iPhone (2mp) ?
From the MET post listed above:
"We also have a policy of prohibiting any of our officers, staff and volunteers from becoming members of the BNP or similar organisations whose aims or pronouncements may contradict the duty to promote race equality."
I'm sure that statement is legally "ok", therefore I don't think it is as black-and-white (hurr) as saying "legally you can't be discriminated against on the basis of your beliefs". If your beliefs, activities or whatever are in direct opposition with the ethos, well-being or whatever of your company then I would expect them to disapprove of it.
At the very least this information being in the public domain would most likely result in these people being ostracised at work (rightfully so?) and would as a consequence affect their ability to do their job, particularly if they are in a position of authority over others, etc.
In short - there are many ways in which information like this could result in someone losing their job, either as a direct consequence of breaking terms of employment (MET) or "company well-being". Frankly whilst IANAL I could imagine people being fired for "bringing company into disrepute" with this information in the public domain.
I'm all for bashing Apple where it is appropriate to do so (let's face it there are plenty of other aspects of their business & practices that are open to criticism) but in this instance I don't think the App Store is as big an issue as the article makes out.
For one thing whilst the 30% charge has nothing to do with "system upkeep" it isn't a wholly unreasonable price to pay given what you are given access to as a developer. Think about it: you publish an app and it's available at the press of an icon to a worldwide market - instantly. There's no real need for publicity, Google Adwords or any other setup costs. The ease and speed at which apps can be installed via the App Store translates directly to more people trying out your apps on a whim.
A friend of mine who developed an app for the store which I didn't consider particularly ground-breaking is making quite a healthy sum of money from it (I believe it is priced at around £2). When I last spoke to him he told me he had about 120 downloads. Now, imagine publishing an app on a website - first off you have all of the aggro of setting up payment gateways to take payments (which will take their own fees from you), then you have to hope that people will even come across your website to buy it (advertising costs), and that when they do find your app they don't go off looking for a cracked copy somewhere. Does that headache add up to 30% revenue? Quite possibly.
Bottom line - I'd much rather have 70% of a huge pie than 100% of a small one, or more accurately - 70% of a known-to-be-huge pie than 100% of a possibly-tending-towards-zero sized pie.
Wow talk about coincidences! A senior employee of a security firm apparently finds a piece of insecure hardware on eBay which actively when plugged in proactively creates a tunnel to its previous network (never mind that the peer IP and local network subnet wouldve changed).
What are the chances?
Apple's problem with the iPhone is that they treat it like one of their Macs - a fixed spec with authorised upgrades.
Apple don't want iPhone users to have the sort of freedom that regular Bluetooth support provides. Some might argue that the userbase is better off for it, and I'm sure plenty of apologists will point out that Bluetooth is "insecure", or some other contrived excuse to explain away the unjustifiable crippling.
"Users can't brick their phones if they don't have filesystem access". True, but when has filesystem access ever allowed a user to brick their phones? Files marked as "system" is nothing new, I have full access to the "C" drive on my Nokia N95 - and try as I might I can't do anything that would irreparably damage it. The worst I could do in fact would be to wipe or otherwise corrupt the system settings and end up returning the phone to factory spec.
On the flip side of course if you stop users from being able to do things like this at all then it means less support queries. Again, is Nokia inundated with people who keep factory resetting their phones over and over? I doubt it. Therein lies the rub - Apple treats its users like children who simply cannot be given the keys to the kingdom lest they inevitably end up bricking their hardware. This is a false economy though - security through obscurity - a secure device should stand up to full access to the filesystem and implement appropriate safeguards to stop people from doing bad things inadvertently. Nokia manage it, as do Symbian, Microsoft (Windows Mobile) et al - so why can't Apple?
The scary part about things like this is how people rationalise their freedom being taken away so easily, "Apple knows whats best" is a common attitude it seems. That notion scares me. Whilst I can appreciate companies denying access for the good of the user, or to protect trademarks, or whatever, but denying access just because it doesn't fit in with a business model - and for no other justifiable reason - is not good. The irony of course is that often the same people who talk about DRM taking away peoples freedom to do what they choose with things they've legitimately bought wlil defend Apple to the death seemingly only because Apple has a "feel good" aura about it.
Apple is in my mind at least just as crafty and conniving as any of the "usual suspects" like Micro$oft (lol), Sony, RIAA, MPAA et al - the only difference is the Apple PR machine and the legion of cultists have managed to achieve what the others can only dream of: imposing draconian restrictions on their customer base and leaving them smiling.
(I own a MacBook Pro and - soon - an iPhone, before anyone chimes in about anti-Apple attitude. The difference is I see the devices (and Apple) for what they are rather than as life-changing products)
"Tell me folks, if Apple launched a brand of teabags/cofee that was 3-5 times more expensive than your regular brand would you buy just on the basis that it carries your beloved logo?"
Only if you could see the logo at the top of the cup after you'd made it, otherwise how else would you be able to make sure your colleagues knew you were drinking it?
MMS not relevant to iPhone owners - news at 11. If you've already bought an iPhone, or just happen to be a rabid Apple fanboy (see Ty's posts), then chances are MMS isn't relevant to you. This is no great surprise really - why would anyone who is a fan or owner of a device be sympathetic to features that they don't even have?
MMS isn't usually a make-or-break decision for people, but it is something which is industry standard and has been for years. Arguing about the cost of sending them, the quality of the image/video or whatever is a diversionary argument. The fact is - MMS is an instant delivery, guaranteed service which is supported by every phone I've ever seen since 2002. Email is not a guaranteed service, nor is it typically instant, and it relies upon the recipient actually proactively reading their email on their phone. There have been countless examples that people have made in these comments about where MMS *is* relevant in their lives, you can't just dismiss them out of hand because it doesn't fit with your/Apple "vision".
MMS *just works*, which - bizarrely enough - is why it is an industry standard. As I said previously - if you're going to argue against MMS by posting a whole host of contrived arguments about cost, relevance in the modern world, etc then you might as well make the exact same arguments for doing away with SMS as well and just use email for everything. I mean if some random friend can read their email and see your picture messages that way, why bother sending archaic 160-character limit txts to them either?
The big issue I have with MMS being absent on the iPhone is not so much my desire for it personally but the fact that it is something that could so easily be implemented in software. There is no excuse whatsoever for MMS not to be supported officially by Apple already on iPhones. The attitude towards MMS, copy and paste (don't tell me a company the size of Apple with the experience it has in the industry can't design or tweak a UI to support something so simple), etc is at best arrogant and at worst insulting.
It's true that people can (and should) vote with their wallet, no one is being forced to buy an iPhone. This is a review however, and an review would be remiss if it didn't point out the shortcomings in the thing it was reviewing. That's what having an objective opinion is all about - not just swallowing whatever Apple Inc put in front of you as the gospel truth without question, reason or logic.
Official apps? Ones that you don't have to jailbreak the iPhone to use? I don't think you can count aftermarket apps as part of the base featureset to be honest, otherwise I'll just point out that I can play Monkey Island using SCUMMVM on my N95....
Is there an MMS app on the Apple AppStore? Exactly.
MMS has been a base feature of mobile phones for years. Personally I can take it or leave it, though I have a number of picture messages that I've received from friends and... acquaintances - but I'm certainly not arrogant enough to state that "MMS is dead". It is widely used - statistics prove this.
What I find most confusing is the mindset of people who have upgraded from the v1 iPhone to the current one - if they could justify not having 3G and/or GPS for so long anyway why do they suddenly need it? It's not as if the current 2.0 firmware wasn't released for older devices..... it wouldn't be because they bought it as a fashion trinket and are exactly the sort of people who buy everything Apple churn out without hesitation?
Yes, I read the review. I've played on the v1 iPhone quite a lot - and I know the v2 is more of the same with some bells and whistles (3G, GPS, App Store, etc). The v2 is what the v1 should've been, but it's still missing a whole host of features that ARE industry standard.
It's no great surprise that people who have iPhones and business users "don't need MMS" - but that's a contrived argument. MMS *is* widely used, and arguing that sending images over email is just as viable - which isn't a guaranteed much less instant service - is laughable. MMS works *because* it is an industry standard, you don't have to worry about whether your recipient reads email on their phone (even assuming they know how to do this or whether it's even possible), nor do you have to worry *when* they read this message. MMS, like SMS, is presented to the recipient instantly. Frankly if you're going to argue that sending images over email is a valid alternative to MMS then you might as well do away with SMS too and use emails instead?
Apple have released an interesting phone, but I still maintain that their arrogance to the established standards, particularly in the EU markets, is frustrating. It would be trivial to add MMS (if swirlyMMS can achieve it why can't Apple?), copy-and-paste, Flash support, etc - yet Apple have made a conscious decision not to.
(FWIW I own a Macbook Pro which I use often, so I'm definitely not anti-Apple. I'm a realist and I expect phones that are billed as revolutionary to be just that, not several steps backwards technologically)
Worldwide sales figures for the first iPhone proved that Apple don't need to keep up with the competition.
Apple could re-release this same phone with a single additional hardware tweak every couple of months and it would still sell by the boatload, even to people who already owned the previous generation devices.
The Apple fanbase is a breed apart from regular consumers - they don't care about DRM, missing industry standard features like front-facing cameras on 3G phones, stereo Bluetooth, MMS, memory card support, copy and paste, etc. It's slick, shiny and it has the Apple logo on it - where do I sign up for my 18-month contract?
(I've used the iPhone and whilst the browser is awesome I have a strong distaste for Apples featureset-arrogance in the marketplace)
Is it possible to just create a US account on the PS3, use this movie store and buy whatever you want to watch using Entropay as you can for the regular US Playstation store content?
A high-profile carpetbagger it would seem.
Why isn't there more of a fuss being made about this here in the UK?
eBay bans Google Checkout for tenuous reasons and no one really seems to bat an eyelid. eBay abuses it's position to force sellers to offer a specific online payment method simply because they own the company providing it (Paypal) - and there's no real big fuss made about it.
I don't understand why they haven't already been taken to task over these shady anti-competitive practices in the UK already.
I have a fundamental problem with ads in games.
Unlike television channels like ITV, Channel 4, etc that are subsidised by ad revenue - games are paid for by the consumer. If I pay for something I don't then expect to be bombarded by adverts, especially when the sole purpose of these adverts are to make the publisher *even more money*.
The only exception I make to this are ads that are situated in game locations where it would break continuity for them to be deliberately excluded. For example, a city scene with billboards is perfectly acceptable and immersive. That said I'd rather these ads were static.
Now if the games were free and financed by the ads they showed, that's a different thing entirely.....
The most significant thing to note is that Apple has ditched it's model of allowing consumers to buy the handset and take it home to unlock, now they're not even going to be selling it in Apple stores at all - you'll have to go to O2 or Carphone Warehouse (CPW) and sign the contract instore.
On balance therefore unless you're one of the minority of people who are looking to take out a brand new contract with O2 (and pay at least £35 a month, the £30/pm 75 mins/125 txts contract isn't even worth thinking about) you'll end up paying more for this than the first one.
If you were thinking of buying one to take home and immediately jailbreak/unlock to use on the operators network of your choice are s**t outta luck.
Buy handset for £100, unlock, use any SIM you like. Simple!
I think you've got confused somewhere.
No one is stopping you from modding equipment you've purchased (as a point of note most set top boxes are subsidised by a subscription and if you read your contract you don't own it until after 12 months), but these guys were advising people on how to defraud VM and BSkyB and "obtain services by deception".
Your analogy, besides being entirely illogical, doesn't work.
Anyone who hasn't got this yet needs to beg, borrow or steal their way to get a copy - it really is that good.
Compelling story, incredible attention to detail both visually and in terms of subtle touches, it's well worth the purchase price in pure entertainment value.
I like Daniel_K, without his modded drivers my Audigy 2 ZS card would be floundering more than it already does in Vista.
That said I don't entirely agree with this position and think he is being a little bit juvenile about the whole affair. Creative - idiots that they are - not only have the right but also the obligation to persue copyright infringement cases.
However, like most monolithic companies, they approached the whole thing with little tact; publically calling out Daniel_K and covertly threatening him with legal action. It never ceases to amaze me how even in this day and age there are still companies out there who seemingly have no clue as to how quickly and incisively the Internet can move against them when people perceive a wrong-doing taking place. It's classic David & Goliath - no one roots for the big guy, they see a corporate giant picking on a indie developer and mobilise en massé to cut the company to shreds. And oh boy have Creative been hoisted by their own petard.
Creative's big mistake in this whole affair wasn't so much stating that Daniel_K had illegally bundled in binaries not intended for older SKUs (i.e. financed as part of the cost of the newer units), but in stating that - in so many words - they consciously cripple older hardware in newer operating systems by virtue of purposefully inadequate or buggy drivers. What's worse is that the features withheld from Vista users are ones that the cards were originally sold on as having, at least in XP. There is no excuse for this at all, and to come out and basically admit to this practice on a public forum is corporate suicide.
Anyway, Daniel's reaction to his own press has itself got a little out of hand. Whilst he admits he shouldn't have bundled in binaries that Creative had decided (as is their right) to be part of a new SKU, he seems to be in danger of disappearing up his own backside. Creative seem to be on the back foot, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to take them up on an offer of collaborating on driver builds, or even a job offer. It wasn't so long ago after all that Daniel_K was soliciting donations from the public so he could - in his own words - buy a soundcard to work on.
