Re: Awesomely predictable...

Awesomely predictable == predictably awesome...

...or neither you nor I would be here (well, probably we would, as El Reg does occasionally cover IT or other related stories, but I digress).

OK, so the constant warring is not awesome in the slightest*, but aren't most of us here as a brief respite from shovelling coal into some IT/project management/technology/whatever furnace? Given generally accepted theories re: small semi-frequent breaks and their positive effect on productivity, is it so far-fetched that this outpouring of vitriol might actually increase economic output somewhere, somehow...?

A stretch, probably. Either way, it seems none of us are immune to the giddy thrill of a wee dram of petulant, self-righteous, intolerant, judgemental and unsophisticated semi-anonymous judgement. I know I'm not.

* it may not be awesome, but it can be fun?

PS I'm awarding myself a FAIL for being unable to type reel gud (or proof my own comments prior to submitting them), despite my fairly complete awareness of the Preview function. Sorry for the deleted posts...

@SB

SB said: "I'd much rather ponce around on my estate cooking biscuits...

I very much enjoy the way in which you've shown your true colours here. Seems as though it's "morally reprehensible" that some people are _considerably richer than yow_... but then perhaps it is safe to assume - based, again, on your thoughtful and incisive commentary - that if you were the one with the butler, you might just find it in your heart to be slightly more "conformist".

You don't have any idea what the Queen actually does, do you?

Check her diary. I bet you wouldn't be able to manage two weeks of what she does. She's 86, and has dedicated her life to serving others. I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that you dedicate yourself to serving yourself whatever's in your parents' fridge when you get home from art college. No doubt you'll have some impressive rebuttal, but I don't really mind: I've already judged you without knowing anything at all about you... just as you seem to be doing to HRH.

So, err, has anyone...

...actually found a practical use for Siri once you get bored of amusing friends and co-workers on day 1?

Outside the US it seems to be more or less totally useless, and even with the location services available in the US I fail to see what use it is for anyone [with fingers]. Perhaps in 10 years' time we'll wonder how we did without voice-recognition services, but I'm not yet convinced.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

Risk management

@David Shaw, you bought a WP7 device to avoid bugs & exploits?

That's like moving to live in a petrol refinery because the curtains in your house aren't flame-retardant.

What, no Nokia N9?

The culmination of Nokia's 7-year, 5-step plan running a brand new and highly innovative UI which has garnered rave reviews from basically every quarter ("It's great but I'm just worried that Nokia won't be supporting it" - sigh).

No, you had to go with the changeling WindowsPhone Lumia - the replicant copycat hardware, bizarre/restrictive OS, the X-Box connectivity. I went into the Telus flagship store here in Toronto last week and asked (as neutrally as I could manage, mind you) "How are you guys finding WP?" (based on the large display in the Window).

"Oh, no-one ever asks about them. I'm not sure we've actually sold any at this location."

...and even though I don't own one, I'm as surprised as my fellow commentards at the lack of SGS2. It is a stunning bit of kit.

I just want to buy a 64GB N9...

...but as it stands I'll have to import it, if I can even find somewhere semi-reputable which is selling one.

So Meego wasn't ready, and that's why the platform had to be set on fire? Well Meego's ready now, although you'd barely know it if you weren't paying attention. Where're the WP phones? Oh right, they're coming. Eventually. But no-one cares.

No-one will fly to another country to pick up a WP anything, but that's exactly what people are doing for the N9, as John Hughes notes above.

US corporate moneygrab >> beauty, form, fashion, function, Euro-centric design, bright future that sadly will never be.

Mine's the one with the large bundle of notes burning a hole in my pocket until I can buy an N9.

Augh.

@aThingOrTwo: Windows Phone (7.5) is very far ahead of Meego right now?

<sarcasm eyes="rolling">Yeah, you're spot on there. I hear WP7 even has copy & paste now...</sarcasm>

As for your nay-saying re: N900 sales: the N900 was never intended as a mass-market consumer device, but that's exactly what the N9 has been designed to be, so your contention that the N9 won't sell well isn't really a reflection of quality of either the hardware or the software. Sadly the launch and distribution of the N9 has been thrown under the Ballmer bus.

Enjoy your Mango tiles.

Mine's the one with the N9 in the pocket.

Duly noted

Thanks for the followup. Interested to see if there's any further updates on this; particularly if there's any discussion of the suspect's alleged motivation for the attack.

Looking at the HK police website, this may actually be one of the least depressing stories on there (no-one got killed).

Didn't Nokia used to make phones?

...or something?

Burning platform etc. etc. Elop conspiracy, WP7 sucks, Microsoft trojan buyout...

Ah, I don't even have the energy any more. Nokia's done.

Trading system unaffected

So unless I'm missing something, this is not a very exciting story. It's still news, but only just.

When did Elop decide to burn the platform?

"Last year, Nokia made Windows Phone its strategic smartphone operating system of choice, dumping Symbian."

No, the Elopcalypse was this year, not last year.

I know it seems impossible that one CEO could mangle so much strategy and spread so much FUD while pursuing a strategy that - to me at least - makes little or no sense, all in the space of a few months, but Elop has managed it.

To save the apologists some trouble, I should here acknowledge that Nokia management was failing at many things before Elop, but that does not reduce the significance of:

the Burning Platform memo

the 'hey, no cameras' leak of the WP7 device mere hours after the N9 announcement\

the "will we/won't we release/support our MeeGo phones properly" Helsingin Sanomat interview

any of the other stunts he has pulled.

I'm not sure he's a trojan horse (my tinfoil hat is in storage), but surely he is MS-blinkered and failing to understand the value of the assets he has/had at Nokia. You cannot force an 'ecosystem' into existence by willpower (or even M$ money). People need to want to buy what you're selling. Let's also not forget that 'ecosystem' is in any case a fantastic bullshit term which is being flung about very freely by marketing types and pitiful 'industry analysts' - who often have no idea what they're talking about and/or have commercial interests in seeing the market move one way or another.

Hang on... cancel all the above. I get it. You mean he had decided to dump Symbian and MeeGo last year (but only announced it this year?)

<Various talking heads> putting the anal back in analyst

Is it just me who's sick of hearing tech analysts trash-talk that which they barely understand? One reason that things are sometimes hard to sell is a load of simplistic quotes from Gartner et al.

...of course, Nokia haven't helped themselves much these last 10 years either. But still: the N9 has fantastic potential. And I am gonna buy one.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!

That is all.

Who in their right mind would actually buy a WP7 device after Maemo/Symbian?

The title was conveniently auto-completed for me by my browser, as this isn't the first article spewing FUD as well as just bizarre statements about the 'unique' live tiles, which are demonstrably not unique in any way, shape or form.

Who are these hordes who are champing at the bit to get their hands on a WP7 phone?

Why on earth did Nokia kill MeeGo? Because it wasn't ready for primetime. Yeah, right. So why can't the hordes get their hands on the WP7 holy grail live tile-spewing device? Because WP7 isn't ready for pri...

Oh.

Follow the money.

If only...

...he could have been happy drooling over Skype and left Nokia alone.

@Paul 125

"All these hacking incidents actually vindicate Sony in wanting to sue the ass off GeoHotz"

Oh yes. That's abundantly clear.

Wait... what?!

Care to explain your PoV, ideally using a combination of facts and logic?

I'd trade all of this...

...for the Nokia MeeGo phone which was supposed to be in my pocket right now.

Because I'm not a MSFT shareholder...

...I don't think they deserve a positive article written about them for this one, Paul 117.

Assuming that you're not one of the astroturfers who have been working hard across Nokia Conversations and the tech blogs since Friday, what exactly is it that you like about "WinPho 7"? If it's noodle soup, I'm in. Otherwise, I remain to be convinced.

@thdunn: Moblin was Intel's. Maemo is what Nokia promoted, mostly developed and then abandoned before merging with Moblin to form Meego (which they have now abandoned).

@Mark Jan: I'm with you on this. Until Black Friday, I also couldn't imagine how Nokia's management could do more to prevent their own innovators from delivering a world-beating phone (N900 slipping through the cracks and onto the market notwithstanding). Now, thanks to Elop and Big Daddy Ballmer, I don't have to imagine it any more.

Finally, for anyone who hasn't read it: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2008/01/11/microsoft-beware-stephen-elop-is-a-flight-risk/

pan2008: details please

Why is Meego a noGO? You've seen some videos which "didn't look great"? What videos? What didn't look great? How would abandoning their almost-complete roadmap "save [Nokia] more money"?

Actually, why am I even asking these questions? You stated (presumably without irony?) that "WP7 is the best consumer mobile platform right now". Does anyone actually believe that? Why is it "the best"?

At least you're not blindly promoting Android.

AC @ 17:19

Your list would be great if it happened. I'm still waiting to see how the the Meego user experience works out (I will be buying the N9).

Other AC @ 17:13 - I also agree with you (this is weird, as I usually tend towards the opinion that the majority of AC comments are complete and utter bollocks). N900 is by far the best device I've ever had in my pocket.

Nokia: please no Winmo7 and please no Android (for the above-mentioned donkey-related reason).

Where's aManFromMars?

Evidence suggests that he's helping the Natural Law Party with their website. Please note the following from the NLP page linked in the article [http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk/misc/m_effect-yogic-flying.htm]:

DiS inT egrated inCohEReNt diSHarmOnioUs SoC iEtY

This is just a glimpse. Full election coverage required from the maestro, I reckon.

Oh noes!

All those business-critical, live-saving... err...

Face it: Twitter is useless. It's not even fun.

I've had bigger parties in my halls room at Uni

_Advertised_ on the Internet? Was the birthday boy promoting the event to people he didn't know? 15 people!? Really? 15? Why would the event have needed policing at all? Were they trespassing? What laws were broken?

Oh crap... now I look, I see that this story is so ridiculous that I'm actually agreeing with comments posted on the Daily Fail's readers' comments section. Ouch.

Andrew Poole, you have my sympathy - I'm sorry your birthday party was ruined by plod wanting an excuse to try on their riot gear (not much call for that in Devon, one imagines?) On the other hand, look on the bright side: you'll be dining out on this story for years to come.

@rixt

> I expect to be one of the first scheduled to be sent to the "Political Reeducation Camps" that will no doubt soon be opening up.

Really? *Really?!* Do you actually think this is going to happen, or are you just here for our amusement? It's statements like the one you've just made that cause the rest of the world to equate American conservatism with an urgent requirement for coats which buckle at the back, which isn't totally fair as not every conservative is completely without a link to reality.

Having said that, I don't understand why the feds are going after these posters - as others have pointed out, they're not great death threats, and comments of that type are hardly exclusive to the LVRJ.

@Mark Wills

Classic straw man/Aunt Sally. AC never actually indicated approval or otherwise for "everyone [ripping] off music companies, film studios, and software houses as they see fit".

Paris, because whenever she goes down she emerges stronger...

@Alex

Alex wrote:

> may I allude that it is being trailed at the Science Museum

Writing from Pedant's Corner, I feel compelled to point out that you might assume, surmise or possibly even infer (implicitly from the article) that the trial is taking place at the Science Museum (Wroughton) but you may not allude.

Paris because she's been the subject of many allude comment...

@David Wilkinson

"Unfortunately end users tend to freak out when you disable autoplay"

Have you tried telling them to shut up?

If I were you, I'd start reading the highly informative BOFH column which runs on this very web-site. For my taste, pushing people down a lift-shaft is perhaps a step too far, but it works for Simon...

Seriously: if your users understand instructions like "You have been provided with bottled water, because the local tap water may make you sick. Do not drink the local tap water, no matter how convenient it may seem or how used to may have been to this method of obtaining water in the past" then they should be able to understand why Autoplay is now gone, and they may have to use the foot-pedal to select the little icon in My Computer which... hey, it kinda looks like a CD!

@amanfromMars

Your posts are always an interesting read - and often cut straight to the heart of the matter - but I didn't have to use a decoder ring this time. Is everything OK?

Paris, because you don't need to show her a ring to get the benefits...

Bob a job ;-)

I'm in the strange position of liking my tech managerial job (as jobs go) but wanting my boss to advertise my position, so I can transfer to another office within the company (where a position in project management I like the look of more is waiting for me).

Paris, because it's well-documented that she has experience at various types of job.

"Drop the M$ non-cleverness...

...kick it over to me and place your hands on your head. No sudden movements."

I would, but...

* One of the proprietary scripting languages I use at work has variables with a trailing dollar (I have no idea why) so M$ crops up as a variable name surprisingly often (although this may be partly inspired by "M$ non-cleverness").

* I'm not wearing protective footwear, so if I go around dropping things, corporate Health and Safety would probably drag me off for compulsory re-education.

* I think it's funny because Microsoft is often abbreviated to MS, and they have lots of dollars, so it's a clever play on words and symbols!

Microsoft's Bill, because that could potentially be abbreviated to... you know what? Never mind.

@Bazooka Butler

> There are also perfectly legal reasons for owning a bazooka, but common sense and society have determined that those reasons are best kept out of the reach of everyday citizens, for better or for worse.

Possibly you could use your bazooka to distribute large Linux distros to enemy combatants quickly and efficiently?

Seriously though, you are picking on BitTorrent unfairly, as AC and Jim point out. You can't modify human nature by tweaking QoS settings or packet-shaping, and banning bazookas just means people will find other ways to blow stuff up, y'dig?

Where's the Paris angle?

This doesn't really tell us much. Some survey of 300 unidentified 'security professionals' tells us more employees are using social networking, travel, webmail at work than than are playing online poker or pocket pool... possibly because the first category seems a lot less likely to get the average office worker in trouble, as any fule no.

Did the survey co-ordinators forget to ask what percentage of users are spending time at El Reg, and what level of business threat that constitutes?

From the title, this had the look of a fairly interesting article, but stopped short of providing much to chew on. Please Sir, may I have some more?

Paris, because she's devoid of content

@Solomon Grundy

"we do block [all social networking sites] at work and hold raises for people who use [them]"

So you block them, and then hold raises for people who attempt to access them? Or are you h4x0r1ng their home internet connection and judging them for being pirates/ninjas on their own time?

I hope you don't work for my company! :P

I should add that I've stopped using social networking sites for anything other than occasionally finding out when/where a real-life event is taking place, as the initial thrill of receiving messages from people I didn't like at school (how are you!?!?!? it's been so long!!!!") wore off fairly fast and has been replaced with... pirates and ninjas.

@Sarah Bee

> Oh Ishkandar, how your double exclamation marks with preceding space hurt my eyes.

Thank you. I was afraid I was the only one.

:-)

Great article

Well researched and well written IMO

Completely makes up for that silly N95 maps article, really ;-)

All snide comments aside, the geek in me enjoyed reading this, even while fearing for the future of European roaming (you have to suspect that the chance for roaming revenue will act as a motivating factor to keep the possibility alive)

@Simon Painter

> Guy takes out contract without reading it and then runs up bill. Is too stupid to understand what he has done wrong and tries to make out he is the victim.

Your sweeping statement only applies if the contract is fair (and therefore reasonably enforceable).

From the DTI website:

"The requirement of good faith embodies a general ‘principle of fair and open dealing’. It does not simply mean that a term should not be used in a deceitful way. Suppliers are expected to respect consumers’ legitimate interests in drafting contracts, as well as negotiating and carrying them out."

This bill is presumably around 1000 times the size of a normal consumer bill. Is it not reasonable to expect Vodafone to be fair and open enough to check with the consumer before allowing him to use almost £30,000 worth of services ON CREDIT?! I use the word 'worth' advisedly, of course, as any fule no that the cost to Voda of providing this service (at least before this thing hits court) can't be more than a few rounds at their local in Newbury...

The market

Rick said "at some point the common fan is going to be driven out of the market".

That's not really true. As much as you or I might hate it, the price for tickets in a free market is whatever that market will bear. Whether or not the market should be free is a matter for discussion. The Pats have scarcity power, and presumably they don't want the scalpers profiting from the margin of their scarcity power they're not using (i.e. the difference between the price the Pats charge and that people buying resold tickets are willing to pay). If the team could get away with it, I don't doubt that they'd charge the same as the scalpers.

The people driven out of the market are those with less money. That's a shame, but it's the way it is.