* Posts by Mr Fury

36 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2007

Oops: Carphone burps up new Google phone details

Mr Fury

Swappable Battery

Yeah, a swappable battery isn't just about charge, it's about what happens when you need to kill the charge.

My old S3 would occasionally act up and freeze, and even resetting did nothing. Popped out the battery, popped it back in again, and all was fine again. If it hadn't been removable, I'd have been screwed.

Which is why my following phone was the G4. My next one won't have a removable battery though, figured I'd give the Xiaomi brand a try, a decision I'm expecting to regret when something happens that would be solved by simply removing the bloody power source.

Microsoft dangles code candy in front of iOS devs

Mr Fury

Re: Windows is becoming irrelevant

I never bother to bootcamp, as I have windows on VMs, so spinning up windows is just like opening a document, only slower - if someone finds *that* difficult then I'd suggest they'd be better off spending time with something targeting the pre-school market, perhaps something with big squeaky buttons that make a range of farmyard animal noises for them to clap to in delight.

Windows may becoming irrelevant as a consumer device, but it's still vital for plenty of business and development uses, and will be for some time to come.

I've been hearing about the death of Windows since Java flattered to deceive as The Solution to Everything. it's still here, and I still expect it to be around when I amble off into retirement.

Want longer battery life? Avoid the New York Times and The Grauniad

Mr Fury

JavaScript?

Wouldn't be too shocked to see if some of this was down to JS polling for data - a lot of places are still using setInterval (okay, I do too for internal stuff) rather than websockets pushing updates. I imagine that hitting a page every x seconds, along with the browser processing the response, will ramp up battery use.

A lot of JS development is bloody lazy too (again, guilty at times myself) with a reliance on jQuery rather than using native methods because it's easier, so loading up libraries and the extra processing from jQuery won't help.

Single/Minimal Page Applications should be *less* intensive, but that all depends on the person coding the damn thing...

'YOUTUBE is EVIL': Somebody had a tape running, Google...

Mr Fury

The BBC missing a trick?

The BBC has the same kind of "brand appeal", and has both a commercial arm and a powerful online presence including visual media.

Maybe it's time they introduced another half tonne gorilla to online video. I'd imagine we'd see a rapid reverse ferret from Google about then. That or a meeting with the UK government to try and reel it in, which would certainly be a circus.

Internet Explorer 12 to shed legacy cruft in bid to BEAT Chrome

Mr Fury

About bloody time

They've needed to split (not merely fork the code) for years - a Trident based intranet browser and another (webkit?) one for browsing the web would be more sensible - for maintaining standards compliance *and* having a proving ground for new functionality and MS specific functionality.

Hopefully they're beginning to realise there is more than one audience they need to cater to.

Whitehall and Microsoft thrashing out 1-year NHS WinXP lifeline

Mr Fury

IT in the NHS can be a joke anyway

They get a pass when it comes to scanners and the like, but back office? No excuse. Too many IT managers in the NHS are terrified of anything more complex than a couple of standard images. Go beyond the concept of "users" and "administrators" and heads start to explode.

I've been in places where they won't support source control. ZIp up a new version and save on the network... Mention virtual machines and you may as well be showing magic tricks to a kitten.

Even when buying in document management tools, you'll still find an email stating they've saved a spreadsheet on the Z drive, or hear clucks of terror because files have been deleted, meanwhile the several thousands pounds worth of SharePoint servers are busy hosting images of grinning people shaking hands and last Christmas menu for the local curry house.

When the lights went out: My 'leccy-induced, bog floor crawling HORROR

Mr Fury

Want a workable (virtually)perpetual motion machine?

Open a an entrance to wormhole in a gravity well, pointing upwards, place the exit some distance further away on the z-axis pointing towards the entrance.

Now drop a mass into the entrance...

Now I say virtually, as eventually the gravity well will be destroyed.

We just need stable wormholess that don't take require power to remain open now, see you in the 49th century ;)

On the matter of shooting down Amazon delivery drones with shotguns

Mr Fury

No Stop the Pidgeon reference?

Dick Dastardly would be sad, meanwhile Klunk sounds like I'm installing Windows 8.1 on him.

Zilly will explain it later no doubt...

And of course they were called the Vulture Squadron!

Up your wormhole: Star Trek Deep Space 9 turns 20

Mr Fury

Re: Babylon 5 influence

B5 was far more heavily influenced by LOTR than DS9 by B5, so JMS really can't be too churlish about any filching B5 wouldn't have existed without Tolkein.

Both were excellent series, and just as I'd like to see DS9 revisited on the screen, I'd love to JMS given the chance to reboot B5 - especially as his writing has improved massively since then. You could always tell the entire plot of a JMS B5 ep before the titles rolled, 'Passing through Gethsemane' being a particularly egregious example.

His impressive loyalty to the diminishing cast will likely foil that reboot ever happening however :(

Making MACH 1: Can we build a cranial computer today?

Mr Fury
Black Helicopters

Internal vs External

The one benefit of having the computer internally, as opposed to in a phone, is that it's a bit more difficult to lose or to otherwise take from the agent.

They'd also make ideal Black Box Recorders when the technology improves, potentially making a recording of sights, sounds and even thoughts, and even have the system respond to those.

There's a nasty thought, give it another couple of decades and you could have a breed of suicide bomber wired to explode on a signal they don't even know about with explosives inside them, not sure how they'd get around the explosion being muffled by the body itself, but if there is one thing mankind is good at, it's figuring out how to blow things up effectively.

Web firms seek Royal Mail rivals with GSOH for delivery fling

Mr Fury
FAIL

Dave Murray

How about Billy Hayes, head of the CWU, 83k+ salary and just under 15k annual salary contributions?

Bet he won't be suffering during the strike, unlike his idiot supporters. Maybe he'll have a lovely expensive meal at a nice Michelin starred place in a show of solidarity?

Apple iTablet a (virtual) certainty

Mr Fury
Jobs Horns

iPhone/iPod Touch accessory?

Seems to me the best bet for Apple would be to have something you can plug the iPhone in, use that as the processor, O/S and wireless connector and have the 'tablet' act as extra storage/memory/power with a larger screen area, and maybe a physical keyboard.

Saves having to muck about building something from scratch, makes use of the data transfer aspect of the recharge coupling and extends the iPhone/Pod Touch into a netbook.

It'd drive iPhone and Touch sales, and open up the prospect of cheap desktops in the future running off the iPhone nG, merging mobile and desktop computing, and mobile and fixed telephony.

If I was an evil genius with wonderful PR, pots of cash, high-markups and a loyal install base, it's what I'd do.

Startup crafts DVD-Rs for the 31st century

Mr Fury
Go

Advertising to geeks and nerds should be easy

"Write Once, Read Forever", or WORF.

Michael Dorn, you may just have a career again.

ISP redesign unites the web in nausea

Mr Fury
WTF?

Ze goggles! Zey do nozzing!

Wow. Just needs some animated GIFs of something in 3D, a frameset and 120k picture of some middle-aged couple on a beach and we're right back to the days of IE4. They might as well have hosted it on one of those crappy old free hosting sites you used to get, just to really get in the vogue of the time.

Plus I had to temporarily add an exception for their SSL cert - now that's just added class!

Most IT pros not planning on Windows 7 rollout

Mr Fury

Useful for bootcamping

For those of us running bootcamped Macs it'll be a useful install - better than Vista, and the ability to have multiple websites in IIS without mucking about with virtual directories will make development easier.

That's going to be the *only* reason I'll be nuking my XP partition and installing Win7.

Google polishes Chrome into netbook OS

Mr Fury

They'll still have the problem of...

"It doesn't work like Windows!"

I hope it does well, but I suspect they'll hit the same wall Linux has.

Plus they'll try to do everything via JavaScript in a browser, which is just rubbish - the dumb terminal thin client model is deader than Michael Jackson, and the sooner the web 2.0 acolytes figure that one out, the sooner we'll see genuine desktop competition for M$.

Artemis Fowl scribe to pen sixth Hitchhiker's novel

Mr Fury

Adams did want to do another

Adams had planned on doing a 6th H2G2 book as 'Mostly Harmless' was somewhat influenced by a relationship going titsup, and he wanted to make it up to the fans by having a less depressing end to the trilogy.

After all, Arthur Dent had a hard enough fictional life, without his creator taking out his frustrations upon him too.

So whilst I'm wary, I'll give it a chance.

Google: 'Even in the desert, privacy does not exist'

Mr Fury

I await with amusement

Tales of a Street View car going down some Texans private road - I suspect Mr Hecklers and Mr Kochs fine wares may trump the Restatement of Torte.

Home Office minister gets tough, then gets stuck

Mr Fury

You missed...

Labour, and particularly Gordon Brown, are doing badly - which is *tough* shit.

The FDRs of Green explain the gentle art of planet saving

Mr Fury

Cuban Agriculture!

Not to smart of the Socialist Greens to mention that, given that Cuba is now handing land over to private individuals - as they're more productive - in an effort to reduce its food imports.

Really, when *Cuba* starts abandoning the concept of The-State-Knows-Best you know the games up.

Doctor Who fans told to lay off Hamlet

Mr Fury

@Chris W

If you were trying to scare the thesps, it's MacBeth which is the cursed one, not Hamlet!

As for signing stuff, I'd much rather ask Pat Stewart why three-quarters of the TNG movies were utter bilge, and whack him upside the head for actually defending Nemesis - a film so bad it could've been an Ed Wood effort.

Apple iPhone 3G

Mr Fury

Phone=Good, Apple 'Experience'=Shit

I got an iPhone 3G and I love most of its features - I only got one because I wanted a smartphone and went for the iPhone on a whim.

The keyboards great - I have dinky hands with wide fingers and manage a high rate of success in hitting the right keys.

My only complaints is firstly the retarded iTunes activation system, which is pathetic. I stick my SIM in, I should be able to use my phone, that simple, and which has put me off getting any future versions of the iPhone - I'll wait til Nokia rustle up an iPhone killer for my next phone.

The second complaint is the crap camera. Probably the worst camera-phone I've had in years, it's actually worse than the Cocoon's.

Other than that, once O2 stopped mucking me around, its been a good experience.

Consume .NET services without Silverlight

Mr Fury

@Tom Chiverton

Why would Microsoft try to screw up their own spec?

They were behind SOAP in the first place, and whilst MS may do many evil and boneheaded things, they tend to do those things to any inconvenient competition and not to themselves. Vista being a notable exception obviously.

And lets be honest, given your average SOAP request resembles the contents of Encyclopaedia Britannica in length, if MS managed to shrink it that could only be a good thing.

Mr Fury

Surely this isn't a surprise?

If X is designed to process SOAP calls and Y makes a SOAP call to X, you sort of expect it to work, its the whole point of having a standard, even one as rabidly verbose as SOAP...

Interesting to see how its done in Flex though.

As for performance, in most cases wouldn't a HTTP Endpoint be better than creating a .NET web service?

The only thing lacking I've found in HTTP Endpoints is when trying to consume one, ironically enough, *in* .NET which throws a wobbler over the SQL XML datatype.

MoD in £1.75m rush order for SAS backpack radars

Mr Fury
Alien

Wait til Google get ahold of these...

I was wondering about mashing up this with Google Maps or Earth, then I figured that Google will eventually just extend Street View with these!

Baptist church in assault rifle giveaway

Mr Fury

@Dave

Yeah, my bad, I meant to say colonial *powers*

However, trying to see any pig-ignorant views of Yanks and sadly cannot... Plenty of British arrogance mixed in with some genuinely amusing comments though.

Gun ownership is a complex debate, but the utterly one-dimensional view of Americans and the curious lumping them as one bloc really is quite sad. We get all snotty when some American thinks Birmingham is a suburb of London, yet when we show our ignorance of their side of the Atlantic it's somehow okay?

Mr Fury
IT Angle

Be interesting to see...

How many of their kids turn into rabid killers vs, say, your average inner city London comprehensive...

Anyway, it's always amusing to see pig-ignorant views on gun ownership by my fellow Brits, nothing like a bit of ex-colonial arrogance to wake me up - its that kind of thing that made Britain what it is today!

Apple iPhone 3G

Mr Fury
Unhappy

The phone may be good, the service on the other hand...

Got my iPhone on Friday, finally managed to activate it today only to find O2 haven't actually got around to setting up everyones connectivity - by end of today apparently (so tomorrow then).

If this is this is the Apple/O2 'experience', then so far its a pretty shitty one.

I'd love to say how good the phone is, but currently its functionality is pretty much down to dicking around with the touch screen. The phone itself may be good - I'll find out when O2 pull their fingers out - but I would in no way recommend it to anyone, there are just too many hassles and too much jumping through hoops in order to get a sodding phone to just work.

Never had such hassles with a phone before, and when I upgrade from the iPhone in a couple of years I can guarantee it won't be to another Apple product after this - I want something I can stick my sim into and have it work straight off, no having to wait for iTunes to activate it or anything, but just work.

O2 buckles under 3G iPhone demand

Mr Fury
Jobs Horns

Slight problem activating....

Got mine in the post - seems I need iTunes to activate. Which doesn't support XP 64bit. Which I have.

*sigh*

How to be an instant Web me-2.0 developer

Mr Fury
Thumb Up

You missed one important thing!

That Web 2.0 is the art of getting the browser to do a job it wasn't designed for, with little or no thought for what the end user may or may not actually want, whilst the tools that already do what we keep trying to get browsers to do - only quicker, neater and without need for Photoshop - either gather dust or are used to make horrible looking desktop solutions by people who think Pringle sweaters are in vogue.

Definition of Web 2.0 RAD: Really Aggravating Development

Who will be the next Doctor?

Mr Fury
Alien

RTD does great cliffhangers...

...But lousy resolutions.

It'll all be solved with some deus ex machina, probably involving glowing lights, whilst the Doctor stands around gawking.

It'd be nice to be proved wrong, but not betting on it.

And is anyone else disappointed we didn't get to see Martha meet Agatha Christie? 'So Agatha, what the new book called?' 'Ten Little Ni.... Oh look a big wasp'

ICANN approves customized top-level domains

Mr Fury
Gates Horns

I want the TLD...

exe!

I can start my own online word processor at word.exe, my own online spreadsheet at excel.exe...

The Casey Report: Putting your mouth, not brain, in charge

Mr Fury
Flame

The people ignore the stats because they're rubbish

Not sure I like the tone of the article any more than I like all the 'findings' of the report - if you don't trust peoples opinions so, I can only assume you prefer genial dictators over democracy? The Casey report does give a small representation of people opinions, and rather than dismiss them there should be found ways to assuage them through both education and an improved justice system.

The crime stats are for *reported* crimes, and for many smaller crimes, such as vandalism or minor assault, there's no point reporting them as the police tend to do sod all, or - as what happened to a friend of mine - suggest the victim was to blame.

As for punishments, yes we're too soft. The argument for any punishment acting a pre-deterrent is a false one - criminals don't commit crimes in expectations of getting caught. The risk part of the risk vs reward equation is capture rates, not punishments.

That shouldn't stop punishment being used to deter recidivism or moving to greater crimes - in some cases corporal punishment should be brought back. A private switching followed by some counselling and follow-up help in terms of home-life and education would do a lot more than sticking a teenager into a youth detention centre to learn how to be a better criminal.

I do like the map of crimes though, it might upset estate agents, but tough titty - people should have all available information when purchasing a property. If I paid 6 figures for a property with a high crime rate I'd hardly be too chuffed.

CherryPal out sweetens Apple with 2W, ultra-cheap PC

Mr Fury
Paris Hilton

I hate their website so much I want to incinerate an orphange with fiery puppies

I sat through a tedious flash animation to be given diddly squat information, that always gives me a sunny disposition to a company.

And their logo resembles a freshly whipped pair of testicles.

Paris - because she's flashy, devoid of useful information and has doubtlessly seen reddened testicles.

eBay slams UK.gov touting ban

Mr Fury
Thumb Up

Ebay correct for once!

Ebay's spot on for a change. If you're not going to let customers return unwanted tickets for a refund, then you can't stop them selling them on without looking like a bunch of jerks - although that does appear to be the image Labour's after these days.

And when you look at places like viagogo, ebay and the touts seem almost to be legitimate in their pricing.

Apple lobs $100 credit at iPhone buyers

Mr Fury

Apple has the worst whores...

So the Macolytes got shafted like the good little numpties that they are, and what? We're *not* supposed to laugh?

The iPhone was always a tool for Macolytes and people with more cash then sense, so suck it up!