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DontCallMeDarling

Listed below are comments made by DontCallMeDarling between Tuesday, 25th November 2008 and Friday, 27th November 2009.

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Wikipedia on the wane? 09:32am on 27 Nov 2009 I'd agree with others here about over deletionists.

Many editors do seem to be rather sad people on a power trip. In their everyday lives they are nobodies, so the power to delete in wikipedia gives them a good feeling.

I attempted to add some controversial quotes from a well known property pundit, backed up with links to newspaper articles in Guardian and Times. Time and time again the deletionists turned up and argued various reasons for deletion - that the articles were biased, irrelevant, not sufficiently important etc. All this when the name of the person's children was considered important and relevant, but apparently their views and controversial statements were not. So instead the article remained pretty much like the type of biography you'd have got from their agent's PR office. I can understand wanting to minimize such material if the article is very long, but this was on an article of just a few lines.

I tried to argue that when people turn up to wikipedia they generally aren't looking for the names of the person's children (though that of course is relevant information for the article so should not be deleted). But most people are looking for background information about the person - their views, quotes, opinions as stated in the press etc - with links to other authoritative news articles. But the deletionists consider all of this irrelevant. They don't seem to understand what is supposed to make wikipedia different from eg who's who.
A week with Windows 4:13pm on 22 Oct 2009 I always love these Mac Vs Windows Vs Linux debates.

TwelveEightyOne:

"Apple - record profits, record number of Macs sold, totally bucking the trend.
Microsoft - well let's just say if Windows 7 fails to impress the great unwashed, it will be the beginning of their end. "

You forgot to mention that Windows runs on around 90% of the world's PCs. I don't think Microsoft has any fears about this imminent rise of the Mac (which Mac fanboys have been touting since at least the first iMac). The record number of Macs sold is just puny compared to how many Windows machines are sold. Perhaps we live in a world of irrational idiots, where only a select few can see the light and buy a Mac?

The fact is that for most people (including many techies like myself) Windows does everything required of it, and some more.

Sure I could pay 3 times as much for an Apple Mac (since they rather uncompetitively won't license their OS to other manufacturers) but would I really then turn up here proud of myself - "hey guys - I paid 3 times more for my PC than you, to do the same stuff as you do". I don't think I would.

I have a Mac that I use for testing websites. Its okay - does what I want it to. But so does Windows. And the basic Mac I have cost way more than a very basic PC.

Again, Linux is fine too, and its free. But there are so many flavours of it... trying to resolve problems or get support for some software or hardware just isn't as easy as with Windows. But if it works for you, great!

The fact is that Windows is in use on 90% of the world's PCs because for 90% of people it does the job. Its widely supported, reliable (can't recall the last time I saw a blue screen of death, which wasn't always the case with older versions) and it will run on machines by numerous manufacturers... I was recently travelling so I picked up a cheap (150 quid) Lenovo netbook running XP in Dubai. Its tiny to carry around, battery lasts forever and at 150 quid I won't be crying if it gets broken or lost on my travels. Like the other 90% of PC users, for me, it does the job.

Most people aren't bothered about what is best... they want something at a sensible price that can do the job they want it for. And for 90% of people, that is Windows. For 10% its not.
Why did they do it? 11:52am on 04 Sep 2009 I'll offer another theory.

Firstly, a deal was clearly done. Al Megrahi drops his appeal in advance - he clearly knew his release was a done deal. So what's the deal?

Well he had an appeal running. Many believe it had merit. The evidence that convicted him certainly looks dodgy, with the main "witness" having been paid millions by the Americans. Other evidence pointed to Iran, not Libyra. If it were to succeed, imagine how embarrassing that would be?

We'd still have the Americans (like the FBI director) criticising Scottish justice for releasing a guilty man (since they'd stick to their line that he's guilty, whatever the courts said). Plus we'd have the embarrassment of admitting a miscarriage of justice. And we'd have to restart the investigation - if this man didn't do it, lets catch the man who did.

Everyone wanted to avoid that.

Scottish ministers perhaps wouldn't like Scottish justice to be shown to have convicted a man it now says is innocent. Likewise the British ministers. Al Megrahi is happy because he gets to go home to die. And Libya is happy because it gets to give him a heroes welcome.
The Twitter hack and the cloud 3:41pm on 15 Jul 2009 If the hack solely involved guessing gmail passwords then its hardly a condemnation of cloud computing. Most companies have their mail on server run by the ISP - protected by the same thing - a password.

Similarly companies hosting their own servers might run eg remote desktop - protecting the machine with just a password.

If the hack was mere password guessing then its not a weakness in the concept of cloud computing - that same weakness exists in pretty much any IT system connected to a network.
Bosses' pay and WPP 4:40pm on 02 Jun 2009 A great blog post as ever.

It seems to me this is just another facet of the general problems that have surfaced in the MPs' expenses scandal. For years the British public has been quite happy for those who rule us (including those at the top of big companies) to fleece us, because of the illusion that Britain was booming. It was an illusion built on a mountain of debt used to inflate house prices.

It seems that now that boom has unravelled, all of a sudden the public is beginning to wake up to what has been going on for many years.

I don't have a private pension and I have no intention of having one. Why pay a bunch of wideboys to gamble with my money, and take commission if they lose, and even more if they win? I've invested my money in my own company, in bonds and in gold. As the value of pension funds run by experts has crashed, my own stash is significantly up (largely due to the significant holding of gold).

Of course those managing pension funds also get rewarded handsomely even when the value of their fund drops - so I very much doubt they'll be making too much noise about WPP or other executive pay. These chaps are all in it together - if they make too much noise about others being rewarded for failure, they know its only a matter of time until the spotlight lands on them.

We need a fundamental change in the way politicians, executives and employees in general are remunerated - but those in power aren't likely to bring in a system that links their pay to their performance.
Microsoft's bada Bing 01:05am on 29 May 2009 Sure Microsoft's Internet Explorer overturned Netscape - but that was because
1) it was cheaper (free) to all users
2) they bundled it with Windows - so every Windows user has it installed.

Any user would therefore need a pretty good reason not to use Internet Explorer. It wasn't until the advent of Firefox, combined with well publicised security holes in Internet Explorer that someone began to eat into Internet Explorer's lead - but IE still reigns supreme in terms of usage.

With respect to search Microsoft finds itself in the same situation as those competing with Internet Explorer - Google is free to use, easily available to all, and most users are quite happy with it. So how to convince people to switch?

Microsoft first has to convince satisfied Google users that Google isn't delivering, and then convince them that Microsoft can offer something better. I think they'll struggle on both points.
A cuckoo in the stock market? 11:01am on 06 Apr 2009 This seems an overly optimistic view of things.

The secondary effects of the recession aren't even being fully felt yet - mass unemployment, reserves of cash being exhausted etc. Companies can "make do" for a while when business is quiet, but sooner or late they use up their reserves and would have to borrow (difficult in current market) or start firing people.

This will create a new wave of secondary effects, which will feed back into the market.

The fractional reserve system always has been a house of cards, akin to a pyramid scheme, that persisted purely because enough people thought it was sound. Now our leaders would have us believe that real wealth can be created with a printing press and a big bottle of green ink. They appear to not even understand the basics of why the system has broken.

Gold price is currently down - looks like an excellent time to buy.
Ministerial veto 6:32pm on 24 Feb 2009 That was an excellent use of Parliamentary time.

Our cabinet thoughtfully gave us the right to inquire in the decisions of all sorts of people in public life, except the those of the cabinet! Fancy that.
Bank of England: wrong and powerless 2:42pm on 22 Dec 2008 Giving the clowns on the MPC further tools won't help avoid such a situation again.

I and many others were warning of reckless lending and the effect of the inevitable house price crash from 2002 onwards. Others denied it was a bubble and argued there would not be a crash.

Even if the MPC had the tools to restrict lending it would not have done so - because it didn't see that a problem existed.

Kate Barker (a fellow member of the MPC) wrote a report largely putting down rapidly rising house prices to a shortage of houses, lack of building and restrictive planning. The MPC pointed out it didn't target asset bubbles, and in any case because all that lending was secured agains property that was rising in value, it wasn't really a problem. This is classic bubble mentality.

If a member of the MPC couldn't see that house prices were ballooning in value because banks were giving money away by the bucket load, then how on earth can believe that they would have used additional powers to prevent a lending splurge or house price bubble that they weren't really concerned about?

This all comes across as someone who was pretty bad at his job blaming his tools rather than the incompetence of him and his colleagues.
Chinese Democracy 2:53pm on 25 Nov 2008 There is some irony to the choice of album title - Axl Rose was accused by the rest of the original members of Guns N'Roses of being a dictator.

Having heard the album, I think some of the songs are rather good!

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