Disqus - Latest Comments for Tom F

Re: Getting on the Property Ladder in London Impossible

Tom F — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:12:02 -0000

Why don't you move?

Re: iWant and iPhone!

Tom F — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:25:43 -0000

iThink that it's quite nice, but living without a good number of buttons may frustrate me - I know that from using a PDA, lacking 3G is a bit behind the times (although the wireless may make up for this depending on whether apple include a VOIP application at some point), and of course you can't write or install any new software for it which could be a big limiting factor in enjoyment. Maybe some people will find a way to install a different OS on it like Windows?! hehehehehe i'm so funny.

The other thing is do I want my headphones plugged into a device that is constantly emitting microwave radiation (GSM and WIFI)? That's why I've got a separate phone and MP3 player.

Re: iWant and iPhone!

Tom F — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:07:33 -0000

Re: no buttons - it makes the phone completely inaccessible for partially sighted people, means you actually have to look at it to use it as opposed to more intuitive methods such as pressing a deliberately thumb-recognisable answer button for instance, jog dials and joysticks. Also the argument for screen space is a little weak as the extra screen space you get is absorbed my on-screen buttons :). At the least they should have stuck with the iPod touch sensitive dial.

Re: VOIP, best get one of the nice new Sony Ericcsons on Three flat rate broadband if you're in the UK. Only about £30 a month, free handset, and free international Skype phonecalls! They even throw in some free buttons with the handset!

Re: radiation, I'm sure they said that about smoking a while ago. If something is emitting the same radiation as a microwave oven - albeit at a lower power (but still enough to warm your ear) then surely plugging a headphone set (read antenna) straight into your earlobes from said device is nothing if not foolhardy. Microwaves must vibrate the water molecules in your brain and heat them up like they do with your instant noodles. Also with a phone under normal use it is kept away from your head most of the time, not plugged in for hours of listening. Lastly - remember! Dogs die in hot microwaves.

Re: Sri Lanka Credit Card Fraud

Tom F — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:19:44 -0000

It seems there's not much we can do about card fraud these days other than keep an eye on our statements - I heard the other week about crime gangs planting agents in callcentres to harvest details. I suppose we could resort to cash - but then there's the whole chip pin malarky! Do you ever get the feeling that as a race we've "advanced" too far?

Re: iWant and iPhone!

Tom F — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 10:19:14 -0000

Yes i have no doubt where the followers of fashion will put there money :)

Re: iWant and iPhone!

Tom F — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:29:35 -0000

Ah well weblog is on its way.

Re: Goodbye UK (Hello China)

Tom F — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:50:08 -0000

Wow, well done old bean! You kept that quiet, or was it a last minute thing (as they often are)?

Congrats anyway!

Re: Lost in Beijing

Tom F — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 05:40:57 -0000

Does that mean they've bypassed the Vista authentication malarky?

Re: Lost in Beijing

Tom F — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 05:45:44 -0000

What's your beef with Vista, curson? Don't tell me - you're an Apple or Linux smartarse :)

Re: Lost in Beijing

Tom F — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 05:52:31 -0000

Or to put it another way, no operating system is perfect, and Windows works for 95% of the world for 95% of the time. No need to bash them just for being successful. Let's rejoice in the good that they've done

Re: Lost in Beijing

Tom F — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:48:23 -0000

I don't mind using a bit of linux now and then, but it doesn't do everything I want it to and I don't want to run more than one operating system - waste of my time.

The only way to get security is to run a CD version of an operating system, and thats pretty crappy too.

DRM-wise Apple are a huge proponent of DRM, and DRM may not be that much of a problem in the future anyway.

License fee-wise I think most computers come bundled with a license anyway.

You can't get around the fact that most software is written for Windows, most people use it, and for the vast majority of people it is stable enough, cheap enough, secure enough. The emphasis here being "enough". If i find an interesting bit of software on the web 9 times out of 10 I can run it. If it was linux 9 times out of 10 I'd be disappointed. Plus there's still the problem of finding drivers for all your linux kit.

Sure you can opt for a bit more security, a bit less cost, but what do you lose out on?

Re: Lost in Beijing

Tom F — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:11:20 -0000

Hey David, don't forget to tell your readers that you run Windows on your Mac :)

Re: Taxi Crash on Express Way in Beijing and Delicious Quanjude Duck

Tom F — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:15:49 -0000

Is it your official policy to remain pixillated at all times or just on the web?

Re: Taxi Crash on Express Way in Beijing and Delicious Quanjude Duck

Tom F — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 08:02:02 -0000

what is this case?

Re: Flying Long Haul

Tom F — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:33:58 -0000

Hi David, my dad just flew to Hong Kong, at quite short notice for £400 return, then you can go by train / bus into China for not much. Can also see Hong Kong too :). He flew Air New Zealand and booked direct through their website.

Re: Back to Basics - iPhone UK Launch, Harry Potter & Chinese Human Rights

Tom F — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 06:03:23 -0000

Such an Apple fanboy :p

Re: Internet Addiction - Is there such a thing as being too well read?

Tom F — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:24:00 -0000

I see the internet as a never ending mine of information, taking the form of thousands of interconnected caves - you find something interesting in one cave, delve into it and enjoy the new knowledge, only to find it leads you off into new and exciting caves you never expected to be interested in or even knew existed.
I agree with Dilbert that it can be hard to pull away from all the news stories that flash up on my desktop from politics to technology to satirical cartoons. It's just too tempting not to click. To a certain extent newspapers must be losing ground. I tend to read newspaper articles online throughout the week, whereas 10 years ago I may have taken a Sunday newspaper. To answer the original question I don't think there is such a thing as being too well read; learning and the quest for knowledge is fundamental to the human experience.

Re: Internet Addiction - Is there such a thing as being too well read?

Tom F — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 04:35:19 -0000

Hey you don't get to chose when we argue :p. I don't think we'll see the end of printed material any time soon. It's so much more comfortable to read than present display technology. Let's see what electronic ink does for it though. On the environmental side young trees sequestrate carbon dioxide at a high rate, so if you grow a tree and turn it into paper you're taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and capturing it in the paper. I imagine this is good if you're worried about CO2 levels?

Re: Top-10 Favourite Web Apps & The Future of Operating Systems

Tom F — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:06:08 -0000

From the Bill of Rights:
Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The majority of your top ten seem to violate this right to security against unreasonable searches and seizures, and for what? Yep it's all in the name of advertising. The people making these cute and "useful" tools aren't in it to make the world a better place, they're in it to mine as much saleable data as possible and to make their targetted advertising products as attractive as possible. Their plans beyond this don't bear thinking about, what happens when this data falls into the wrong hands?

As for slimline Linux operating systems try Puppy Linux. It's so small it fits on a thumbdrive and runs completely in RAM - think fast! It's great for taking it around with you, but I still need a proper OS at home. A lot of people need the processing power on tap for things such as studio recording, video editing, 3D graphics and gaming. All of which your google docs will do sod all for.

I was interested to read in Ars Technica that although Leopard is great on the inside they've made a lot of questionable design changes to the interface. Here's how they sum up the UI:
"I was ready for an all-new look in Leopard; I was ready for Aqua's successor. That Leopard doesn't provide that is a disappointment, but hardly a sin. But a lower degree of difficulty should entail less risk. Viewed in that light, Leopard's graphical missteps are damning. If Apple is going to make mistakes, let them be made in service of a truly daring design. I'm willing to forgive, and even to look back fondly on the original Aqua UI for this reason. But to attempt a relatively tame evolution and then to willfully screw things up—things that were not broken before—that I do not forgive."

In my opinion OS X is overrated, especially when you consider the very high total cost of ownership, it's refreshing to see that some writers are starting to shake off the rose-tinted view of Apple that has been so prevalent for the last few years.

Re: Top-10 Favourite Web Apps & The Future of Operating Systems

Tom F — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:34:12 -0000

You say "Advertising is simply the means by which the likes of Google can provide services for free" - I whole-heartedly disagree. The services they provide to us are merely the carrot by which the likes of us can provide Advertising opportunities to them! The services are the lure, and we are the fish. The most obvious and annoying example of this are the so-called applications you find on Facebook. The Vampire type applications which are designed to spread throughout the population as fast as possible by challenging people to "bite" as many of their friends as possible. Each new bite gives the owners of access to the personal details and effects of one more sorry soul, sleepwalking their way into a Big Brother state.

The fact that these sites are advert supported is completely intrusive. If an email service has adverts down the side of the page you can guarantee that the service has scanned your personal communications for key words in order to target their adverts. That means everything you send and receive, details about when and where you're going on holiday, share deals you are making, job offers you are taking, shed loads of personally identifiable data is all fair game for these collosally powerful companies.

You say "“What happens when the data falls into the wrong hands?” Why would it?". I say why wouldn't it? When in the history of the universe have human beings shown themselves to be trustworthy? Give me some examples. History has shown time and time again that people are out for number 1, people (although not all of them) crave power and money - it is part of life, and I can't see how you can completely dismiss the aspect of data falling into the wrong hands, or even the right hands turning into the wrong hands. Only very recently AOL accidentally released the search histories of 500,000 members, showing amongst other things a priest who spent his time online between the local Diocese web pages, and child porn.

Regarding online versus offline storage of data - yes you could argue that Windows and local storage may be more prone to invasion than say Linux, but at least it is relatively easy to take precautionary measures. I for one use Linux - Windows annoys me in many ways. At least though with local storage you are not DEFINATELY giving your data away. At least there is SOME CHANCE that your data is private. You can run live CD operating systems and save to removable media, you can choose when to be offline or online. The trouble with all these online applications is that the majority of web users have no idea what kinds of things are hapening to them when they use them. Going back to the priest example - would he be looking at child porn if he knew his service provider logged all his searches indefinately, used them to build up a picture of him, and could link them to him through credit card / address details? Do the average webmail users know that all their data is contributing to some advertising companies pot of saleable data? Does anyone bother to read the terms and conditions, or indeed can they understand them without a crack lawyer and a spare few weeks.

The plain and simple truth is that if you want to maintain your right to privacy don't use these tools. Make sure that you get your browser to treat search engine's cookies as session cookies or not accept them, and be very careful about what you sign up for. You have a choice!

Re: Top-10 Favourite Web Apps & The Future of Operating Systems

Tom F — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:09:44 -0000

Take a look at this page http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/11/ph...
It's about HyperSpace - a small operating system that lives in the BIOS and allows instant-on use of things like email, browsing etc. This is a great example of David's idea of a bloat-free, barebones operating system, with the added advantage of not having to wait for the operating system to boot.
If i was designing it I would give it a browser, an email client, a note taking app, a media player and a password management app.

Re: Much a Twitter About Nothing

Tom F — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:21:13 -0000

I tend to agree with your former assessment of micro blogging tools :p. Please don't degenerate into 9:32am visited 13th floor toilet, noted was less clean than usual, mental note to use toilet at home from now on. hehe

Re: Love Your Earth Design Competition & UK iPhone Launch

Tom F — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:33:14 -0000

You should really have a look at this link.. enlightening:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/al_gore_ca...

Re: Top-10 Favourite Web Apps & The Future of Operating Systems

Tom F — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:40:03 -0000

Closing reference: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40076

Re: Downgrading from Windows Vista to XP

Tom F — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:38:02 -0000

I've tried clean installs of both XP and Vista on my Athlon X2 4200 based pc, and I don't know why but Vista seems to run considerably faster. This isn't just a guesstimate, but the frame rates are much higher in a given game with Vista. The same thing happened on a different motherboard / CPU / RAM combo.
I know you're involved in a holy war against Vista, but I've found it to be generally ok.
Also I find it amusing that you chastise it for unnecessary eye candy, while at the same time waxing lyrical about the eye candy in the latest Ubuntu release and Leopard. If you're that offended by it turn it off!

Re: Downgrading from Windows Vista to XP

Tom F — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 05:36:49 -0000

Yep I had the latest drivers. It almost felt as though my pc was allergic to XP, as I say, even on clean installs.

Linux-wise I feel Ubuntu is slightly over-rated as the best Windows replacement, and that it really pays to look around a bit for a distribution to fit you like a glove. I tried several and finally settled on PCLinuxOS 2007. I like that fact that everything is clean and simple and works well. I had problems with wireless in Ubuntu even on a bog standard Intel chipset. PCLOS also has the 3D eye candy used in Ubuntu but I tend not to bother with it.

Re: Downgrading from Windows Vista to XP

Tom F — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:09:10 -0000

"the fundamental problem - Vista is built on top of an OS (Windows Server 2003) which itself was built on top of an even older version (2000) etc."

Let us not forget that Mac OS X was built on stuff developed in the late 80s. Then Mac OS X was released in 1999 (Server version) and 2001. Since 1999 there have been 7 major releases of Mac OS X. I wouldn't call that starting from scratch.

Looking at it that way you could argue that Windows is actually newer than OS X. In any case I don't think it's the age of the operating system that defines how good or bad it is - much more important is what they've done in that time. I would say a benefit of *nix based systems such as Linux and OS X is that over that long period they have been honed. With Windows it is less a case of honing and more a case of enlarging and complicating.

Re: Trainspotting, Otaku Culture & Useless Trivia

Tom F — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:07:42 -0000

If you've gone North to the East Anglia area then it is more dull than other areas, however this does NOT apply to all of the country, and I'm sure you can find a plethora of trainspotters in London. All you've done in this post is to highlight your own snobbery. Whilst London may be a large centre for the arts, business etc, I think you'll find large swathes of the population are snobbish towards London, content in their ability to visit it for a day at their leisure, but eternally grateful that they spend the majority of their lives either in a pleasant town, pretty village, or one of the Isle's delightful coastal areas. Is it any wonder that Londoners are oft heard plotting their escape from the grimy city,to some out-of-town idyll?
Anyway, hope you're having a good time in Amsterdam!

Re: The North Face - Never Stop Expanding

Tom F — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:49:47 -0000

Well well, not content with being a futurologist, you've now lent your hand to international fashion commentary. Bravo! Isn't The North Face used by the British Army?

Re: How To Ruin A Design Classic ~ The New London Underground Tube Map

Tom F — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:21:08 -0000

completely agree

Re: Vote America! (Please)

Tom F — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:48:33 -0000

Hey it's not stupidity, everything they do is by design. It just appears stupid to people not bent on perpetual global war and hegemony

Re: The Evils of Online Marketing

Tom F — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:30:59 -0000

This is what my marketing profile looks like:

* I sometimes click on sponsored links, I may hover over them to get the URL then use this directly so the company doesn't get paid for the click (I don't like wasting peoples advertising budgets, and in any case the Yahoo/Google etc have enough money)
* I do buy special offers in supermarkets if it is something I will use and it represents a significant saving
* I don’t window shop, I know what I want before hand (the exception to this rule is last minute gift shopping)
* I don’t follow fashion, I use things until I'm bought new ones
* I will occasionally skim through a spam message but 90% of the time just delete it
* I don’t have much experience of personalised advertising, but I assume I wouldn't find it that useful

I particularly dislike adverts aimed at lower income / lower IQ consumers where they can take on even more debts, at a higher rate, and get a free mystery gift.

I do see value in taking advantage of supermarket offers where I'll use it and make a genuine saving. So yes to cheaper pasta, but no to chocolate/crisps if I wasn't going there to buy it.

I find sponsored links at the top of search listings can be useful. Speaking as someone who's paid for per-click advertising in the past they are good for launching a company when you have no prior exposure to the market or search rankings.

With respect to the content question, I completely agree that content is the only thing that matters in most cases. The problem comes when you are deciding how to monetise the website / fund the production of the content. Do you slap on some ads? Do you charge a subscription? Do you provide some kind of other service? Referrals to retailers? Tricky business..

Re: The Wanderer Returns to East Asia

Tom F — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:30:40 -0000

Just read your first 12 Twitter posts. Inspirational stuff! Particularly this:
10:00 PM January 4, 2008 watching tv

hehehe

Re: The Wanderer Returns to East Asia

Tom F — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:41:23 -0000

I apologise for my sarcasm, but I am a bit skeptical about the value of twitter :). As long as you make sure the posts are longer than "12:14 I am visiting the zoo", "13:58 Eating a hotdog in the zoo", and add at least some critique and description to each post then I might read it :p

Re: Meat Shortage Leads To Forced Vegetarianism In China

Tom F — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:50:27 -0000

Those environ-mentalists don't help, with their crazy biofuel ideas pushing up human and animal food prices.
They should think twice about biofuels until they can produce them without causing food shortages. I heard mention that they are trying to use wood as a biofuel, which is better in that it doesn't use e.g. corn, as long as they don't start turning food growing areas into wooded areas en masse.

Re: Chuncheon (춘천시) & Soyang Dam, South Korea

Tom F — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:13:09 -0000

The food photos you've posted look fantastic. Have you been able to find any recipes, and if so have you tried them and sorted the wheat from the chaff, ready for Randomwire's Korean Cookery Page?

Re: The Great Helmsman Requires Attention

Tom F — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:52:46 -0000

Solar powered traffic lights! Very green... and amber and red :). Interesting photos, the level of smog is hard to believe! Like playing a computer game with a very short draw distance. What does it feel like to breathe? What is the main cause of it - factories?

Re: New UK Coin Designs Revealed By Royal Mint

Tom F — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:01:03 -0000

They do look quite swanky. Perhaps you could send me some for a closer inspection? I'm not so interested in the coppers, but I reckon I could sample a few hundred of the pounds

Re: New UK Coin Designs Revealed By Royal Mint

Tom F — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:20:42 -0000

Aaaaaargh no - not the euro!

Re: Attached to a Captcha

Tom F — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:57:35 -0000

I see dog, dog, duck, crocodile, fish, whale.