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eastern_thracian

Listed below are comments made by eastern_thracian between Friday, 22nd August 2008 and Monday, 24th August 2009.

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Read the manual? Never! 6:01pm on 24 Aug 2009 As it's been pointed out, an operating manual is NOT the same as a maintenance manual. I do agree that operating manuals are largely useless, we all know how to use electronic gadget interfaces, or we all know how to drive cars.

The problem is, what do we do when something goes wrong. Most of the modern day consumer products are different than the old cars. Electronic products, including software are designed as "closed boxes". If something goes wrong, we do not have the means to open the box and fine tune its components. That's why consumer products do not come with maintenance manual.

Even the modern day cars are the same. My dad knew his way around the carburetor and its settings. We don't have carburetors anymore, the injection is electronically controlled by an ECU. How do you adjust the settings of an ECU?

Maintenance manuals are for professionals only, and the operating manuals are somewhat pointless.
Teenage hackers: Making a better world 5:48pm on 24 Aug 2009 Well, no offense to the teenager hackers, but the projects described in this blog are hardly rocket science. I would expect a competent programmer to do all those without much difficulty.

On a more positive note. It is good to see teenagers involved with the "engineering" side of technology.
The Facebook fizzle 2:36pm on 31 Jul 2009 I was going to mention Messenger Live, but someone has already mentioned it. I wonder what Mr Gates thinks of MS products, does he think they are "time wasters" as well? Every single time I log onto hotmail (shall I call it Live?) through IE, the Messenger is started by default. I've disabled auto-login, so I don't actually log into the chat client, but you can see how an ordinary user is made to login without wanting to use any of the chat services.

As for Facebook, when used correctly it is a good product. I only use it to send messages to my friends and share the odd picture. It's a very good way of keeping in touch with friends and family.
Making apps for Android 6:36pm on 17 Mar 2009 #9: I used to work with some mobile application developers, they always had high hopes, but as far as I know they haven't made any money. TBH, I can't see them making any money in the near future.

Their main income was from writing mobile applications for companies and not from direct sales.

I wouldn't invest any money or time into mobile applications just yet. It could be a good hobby, but nothing more.

#2: Android is basically a Java machine running on top of a Linux kernel. Why would you want to have an OS consisting of nothing but Java? Android for PC doesn't make sense, I wouldn't use it.

There is already an X server, display managers, etc for GNU/Linux. I mean, the Linux world is miles ahead of Android. Besides, my understanding is that the business model of Android is not compatible with the objectives of GNU/Linux.

Android for PC will not happen.
Google, Microsoft and calls of 'web bully' 6:00pm on 17 Mar 2009 Let's get one thing straight. Google is the de-facto search engine in Europe, 90% market share, but in my book dominance!=monopoly. Other search engines are one click away, our access to them is not restricted in any shape or form. We can't accuse Google of being a monopoly. Occasionally, I try other search engines, but they just don't do it for me.

I do agree that Google is making it difficult for small start-ups to enter the market. I think it's pretty much pointless to expect to get rich with a brand new web technology at the moment, Google will implement the same or a similar idea and they will get all the customers. However, I wouldn't describe them as a "bully". They are in the business of making money out of the Web, and we can't blame them for increasing their range of products. We can argue all day long that they are hurting smaller companies, but I can't see anything illegal.

Re #10: Google or any other company couldn't just go shopping and buy Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a non-profit organisation financed with donations. How do you buy a charity? Buying Wikipedia would be like buying Free Software Foundation. I'm afraid you got that one wrong. Those organisations aren't for sale...
Apple's "brave" price rise 6:47pm on 09 Mar 2009 I've always been a PC user. I run both XP and Linux. I'm interested in at least trying Mac, and I want my next computer to be Mac. In other words, I'm a potential costumer.

The problem is, when I look around, the economics of it don't make sense to me. I have owned PCs for 15 years now, and I never had any major reliability issues. My dirt cheap notebook runs everything and does everything I want.

I'm still open to the idea of buying my first ever Mac in the near future, but not at the current prices. If Apple are looking to increase their market share, they need to attract people like me.
What happened to the $20 laptop? 05:28am on 08 Feb 2009 I actually think $20 laptop/mobile computer is a possibility. The cost of materials in a computer is small, the real expense is in the intellectual property and R&D costs.
Copyright - the empire strikes back 1:01pm on 22 Dec 2008 I believe file sharing is a fact of the digital revolution and the content creators can't really do much to stop it. The proposed policing will work by filtering a certain type of traffic, but I really can't see how that could be implemented. ISPs will be aware of the high data transfers but they wouldn't know what the file being transferred is, so the only way to filter traffic would go through banning any present or future p2p network. That would be like banning cars because they may be used to transport drugs.

Rather than introducing new laws to stop piracy, the music industry needs a new economic paradigm. Sharing music and paying for music are two different concepts. One may decide to listen to a particular song and get it illegally, but that doesn't mean he/she would have paid for it if it wasn't available for free.
Five grand for Sock And Awe 00:42am on 22 Dec 2008 Quote: (It must be a testament to Fubra's marketing skills that it manages to sell housing finance ads on a site devoted to the folly of investing in property).

Having made it to the BBC they will score a few more hits and make a few extra pounds. Their marketing strategy must be working.
Who do you think you are example1 00:46am on 22 Aug 2008 I didn't like the part of the programme where they were talking about the "Turkish Independence War". I feel for Boris Johnson, and I am sorry that one of his ancestors was a victim of the war, but I had members of my family vanish in Gallipoli as well. The story misrepresented history by romanticising a person that was against the Turkish Independence War. If the likes of Ali Kemal had their way, modern Turkey would have been much different, even maybe a British colony like Iraq.

I think Boris should have made more effort to understand the conditions of the time. With half the country gone, the national movement lead by Ataturk was trying to re-organise what's left of the population and re-gain control of the country. Unfortunately, Boris' great grandfather was part of the government that later on signed The Treaty of Sevres, which practically gave up control of the country. Ali Kemal wasn't in the government at the time, but when he was in office he did sign a document ordering a stop to the independence movement. Anyone can see why such a person could have been seen as a traitor at the time.

As Boris said, Ali Kemal might have thought that a war was going to end in a pointless bloodshed and he might have had his reasons, but history proved him wrong. Unfortunately, his strong opinions cost him his life. With quarter of the population falling victims from 1915 to 1920, I don't think people had much patience left. I'm not trying to justify the death of Ali Kemal, but the programme makers were wrong to romanticise him as well.

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