Posts by Hagglefoot

Don't you get it Microsoft I don't want to store my intellectual property on your servers, I don't want your bots trawling through my documents and ideas and then suddenly launching them as your own, I don't want your 'we thought you might like this' ads in my face or your mate who is a tosser brought this so we thought you might like to be a tosser too. I just want a very personal stand alone, document, spreadsheet, database, publisher that I am in complete control of and where my ideas are my own to develop in my own time and compete in the marketplace if I ever get the money and time to do so.

And that goes for all you 'Cloud' or 'Fog' providers.

Computer says no

And what happens when the deliveries stop, when you click the button and nothing happens, when the will to grab a shopping bag and walk along shelves picking produce has gone, and the need to feed yourself is totally in the control of the machine, will everyone be stuck inside their houses fearing to go outside because the drone says so. As Ideological as the future might sound what seems to be happening is its turning people into mindless drones who when the machine shuts down will shutdown too.

Its not just size that matters

Lets get to the root of why perhaps the sales have plummeted.

1. Everybody has a 50" they barely watch because they are either on the internet or tapping on phone to social networks.

2. We got stung, 720 became 1080, became Smart and now 4K with 8K sitting in the wings. seeing as we are mostly doing point 1 above who wants the added expense.

3. Smart and 3D we got just enough to make a buck and nothing more. Post purchase upgrades to the smart or come to that the 3D firmware so confusing or non existant that people cant be bothered with it, most just want to utter the words make it go. And dont get me started on the slow EPGs.

4. Standard is not standard, connect the hdmi from one source to a destination and you might get lucky if its the same brand otherwise suffer in some minor technicality.

5. Interactive TV, multiview and other stuff the promise of blueray. But here we are years later and still not there, just like each mediocre release of games machine with a long list of features that never materialises.

6. And lastly Granny, Grannies got the dosh? but oh my gosh just look at all those buttons, regular calls to the son in law on how to change channels. Let alone when you switch it on and the audio auto configures with the last volume setting blowing poor old gran out of her slippers screaming take it back take it back.

Basically the people have got tired of shelling out for promises in a marketplace where they are not sure the job they have will be compatible with them. So why make the big spend. For a few who will always shell out for bleeding edge tech this may not be a problem but for the gaffaw gaffaw, edge of the crust look at what I got non technical, Next shopping, VW/Audi driving (who nearly always buy panasonic too) otherwise known as the lower think their upper middle class, which accounts for most people that close to the wherewithall to consider the purchase. Well they already have 3 generations of wide screen in their homes and have probably run out of space on the walls unless you can really really convince them its worth it.

Otherwise we would all like that 8ft screen that gives the feeling of immersion, somewhere in the home. But you know what, for a quarter of the cost you can experience the real thing. So for now, 1080p with 5.1 surround, Blueray and 3D is enough. I remember the price point being £400 now its a whopping £800 - 1200 and for that to see the same things I saw for £400 does not make me or probably anyone else feel its VFM.

Think of the people

Well its because the entire franchise model would mean that the money from the franchise to the manufacturer would dry up as would the tax, then the money from the from the reseller would dry up, so would the tax, then the money from the buyer to the reseller would dry up and so would the tax, Not forgetting the leases and and rents and again of course taxes. Get the picture if they sold direct not only would the taxes dry up but so would the army of jobs provided by the marker uppers.

And woe betide the losses the councils would face and the cleaning jobs that would go and the sales ticket printers etc etc and of course all the tax. So yes he will get banned from denying everyone their cut.

Fate acomplished

You will probably find that that the shot in the arm that Netflix is promoting is due to the fact that over Christmas all those DVD gifts that had Ultraviolet paraded all over them were installed by people because of the no choice disposition of the media.

For a while people were buying the digital versions so that they could load them on their iGadgets but with ultraviolet you were left with only once course of action, that and the supposed drop in i-Gadget sales and to get the same film on itunes download is so expensive. People have therefore in a cost saving exercise gone for galaxy III's and are watching moves over netflix while reserving the true blue hi quality playback for a cozy night in in front of the widescreen.

There we go mystery over. Chistmas gift channeled to netflix via Ultraviolet, I suspect the registrations will remain for rewatch purposes but the take up might drop off now after Christmas.

Computer says No!

Places like Comet are the last bastions for negotiation of a product, now Lewis and PC World will be next and then when they have too fallen by the wayside the price you pay will not be negotiable just searchable, faceless, gutless and careless. A shame that we dont care for people as well as we do money so I hope your happy cuddling your cheap electronics gear and I hope things like Siri for example provide you with the deep and meaningful company you so desire. Sorry to see you go Comet.

Wormwood - Comet

Its sad that the only thing people seem to comment on is the lack of discount. The Spiral of failure continues until as Steve Jobs put it he was/is the richest man in the grave yard. All well and good getting things cheaper, but what do Amazon pay their pickers, are they likely to buy new cars or houses. probably not because of the low salaries to 'keep the price down' they cannot afford to. Just means that the bottom of the pile just went up a level to a new bottom of the pile, till like jengo the whole pile falls down. Sometimes it aint worth that £5 saving if you get what I mean, I would rather have a neighbour in a job than the fiver discount in my pocket as at least he will potentially be putting the fiver in my pocket by buying the goods from the employeer I might work for. But I guess that was in times of yore, now its just zombie flesh eaters where ever you look.

Baaaahhh!

Baaahh baah baaaaaahhhhh! Baah! - Roughly translated 'is this the way to the butchers table'.

Moo mooooo mooo mooo mooooooo! - Roughly translated 'no this is the way to the milking shed'.

Animal farm anyone?

94k sales at launch then

So will the 94k installs figure in the accounts for number fo units shifted in first month of release?

And thats why Apple wins

Like many a phone user I dipped my toes in the Andriod world only to find on three seperate occasions that the gap between google, carrier and vendor is very wide.

In each case the fault was down to patching updates not being released by the carrier because they had not yet redeveloped and tested thier version on the base level OS or patch.

At which point its now time for phone upgrade. So the issue never gets fixed and the phone goes to recycling.

And this is why Iphone wins, its one OS and one lot of patch notes and only one interface for which if there is a frustrating bug you not on your own or pending a seperate vendor patch or fix.

The vast majorityof customers like simple one stop shopping and user experience to do their job, so until Andriod says no to vendor/carrier fiddles with the OS and make them add-on apps instead. Meaning that the base OS can always be patched directly without having to do some sort of jailbreak to load the latest OS; then i'm afriad as people tire of the experience they eventually even through Iphone hand me downs move to the apple experience.

And once you have had a bite of the apple there is no going back. I'm afraid to say that this is the hook which costs the extra bucks that eventually people end up willing to pay.

No such thing as a free launch

Surely what did people expect.

Agreed that unfortunately ads is the discount you get and books now become like magazines and news papers with an ad on every page. Is it a distraction of course it is, just like the mobile phone users in a quite cafe, the hissing sound of a ipod in the ears of a deaf sod on the train, the acoustic frequency increase everytime an advert comes on on the telly just at the good bit.

Its all geared to ensuring you get no peace and quite to concentrate on anything and in that zombie like state you have to buy the latest tech/app promoted by the ads because its going to manage or solve a problem you never actually had until now.

Give it some thought people, how long will it last before your the one thats no longer logging into the service because its not longer profitable to operate, I would estimate about the life length of the battery between 2-4 years. By then you will already have seen the advert for the next socially inept product.

What you should be doing is not paying $15 to switch the ads off, you should be being paid to have them on. I mean do you let anyone just park their car in your garage, well do you?

Prelude

Being a Dredd fan since 2000ADs release, I was yes disappointed that the backdrops were not future mega city one and that this was just shortly after the nuclear apoclypse and rebuild. Once I planted that seed in my head then I settled down.

It also means that if there is a Dredd II, fingers crossed, it can lift the game and introduced the fancy polished future of the comic book rather than banging its head against the edge of the bubble and then doing a reboot like a lot of the other comic characthers have had to do. And as Dredd does not remove his helmet (Hurrah!) the legend can run on.

As it is its early Judges in battered uniforms until 'The Law' can generally be established, before the tidy up to furture mega city can begin. The the film was upper okay to good. The grit was there, the fight for the streets was there and the fight to pull back from a totally drug addled future was there.

In fact if you watched this first and then watched the Stallone version you could (I say this loosely) take a veiw that the Stallone one followed on and whatever the next Dredd movie is (Hopefully introduce Judge Death and his crew) would be volume three with an even more futuristic backdrop.

So in all everything to enjoy and a lot to look forward too.

Btw was anyone else looking for the little jocky wheel on the front of the fatty.

foor in the door marketing

Cant wait for the spiv-bot that follows you from page to page enticing you with that one off, free range, special offer at a price held for this day only because its you type marketing.

The 'older generation' are right to be skeptical as its just old practices using new tech.

Ferrari looks, but mini under the bonnet.

7" = Netbook and 10" = Laptop is the way I see it and therefore I suspect the ratios of sales will be about the same. It would be nice to think it was smaller, better, faster, cheaper by design but looking at the specs and the limitations of space within the 7" form factor I cant see people being fooled into thinking they are getting anything comparable between the 10" and the 7" in fact the margins for the 7" will be higher because the marketing will no doubt appear to promise that they can do the same but the manufacturing overheads will be exactly the same, so technically you will be paying more for less. Not to mention the future sales of glasses by specsavers et al.

Just me and my shadow

The problem with dementia is I dont remember, but here are some cakes I baked earlier...

Oh! and Harvey says Hi!

Waterwheel, Spinning jennies, Ford et al. its the future man!

I dont understand whats taking so long.

When I went to school and we did the industrial age in history it became obvious that technology develops to replace people and with a bit of luck a new technology comes along to allow the next generation of development to occur. If you look back industries such as Milling, Cloth Making, Bottling, Car manufacturing have all progressed into a robotic production line so why should it be any different for data and computing.

In each case the result has always been a room full of automated machinery being maintained by a single fellow with an oil can paid a half salary or minimum wage.

So the only question really is how come its taking so long for self healing systems. Perhaps its the sheer volume of redunancy with no new tech for the mass redundant techs to jump onto.

Whats that you say? Skynet has achieved sentience...

Exclusion by proxy

I wondered how soon social exclusion by proxy might come about, I saw sentiments of this activity as soon as banks only released software for iphones to access banking accounts, now its yet another limit. Thankfully my exclusion is not to buy into the Jobsian dicatorial dream (no doubt there is a appleoser who would immediately react with well thats your choice is'nt it). So once you have been labotomised more than 2 times its dummy for life it would seem, I guess thats just the inclusive customer membership list any company could wish for, mindless clients. Well I for one am pleased not to be contributing to the sweatshop, carbon footprinting, and reckless mining that drives the need to produce a product that one might say keeps the user out of touch with reality.

I only want to do it my way

Given the level of content, normally someone like Cowell and buddies lauding how they made millions out of suckers and idiots, closly followed by the brainless football monatary sink hole. paywall might be a saviour to humanity and people will go read real news instead of the tripe they put out. Lets face it 9 times out of 10 subject and details provided by the AFP (note it always seems to read in very very small print curteousy of the AFP or others) and to quote an old saying curteousy never cost you anything. So what the papers are charging for is the Headline. So if Murdoch plans on giving the headline away perhaps you can aggregate the headline from one to the AFP articles or others and hey presto publish your own paper. Just dont forget to be curteous. Perhaps its time to move on and realise we are all contributors to the human race and news and information is just one of many free contributions. Or perhaps, just maybe you want to own it, restrict it, only make it yours and no other opinion counts and for that opinion you should be suppressed into only hearing what you want to say through your medium, your paywall, your firewall, your news. In which case bring back the boys from Afganistan because the Taliban is on fleet street.