Technorama

Saturday 30 October 2010

Email overload

I've been thinking about how I could avoid my huge unread email list in inbox. Seems like an "auto archive" feature for "general" emails older than a week would make sense. Just like my Facebook Wall. Hopefully GMail will feature this soon.

Labels: Future, Tech

posted by 東京  # 20:07 0 Comments

Mars is not a red planet

Myth busting, Mars is not a red planet. Use the NASA colour calibration primary colours included on the landers can be used for reference. Australia and Orange County in the states are more red!

Labels: MythBusting, Tech

posted by 東京  # 19:44 0 Comments

Tuesday 26 October 2010

BBA fails to support better bank statements

Great article on the BBC today, highlighting from Which? banks failing to display interest rates on bank statements.

The British Bankers' Association should be ashamed! This is one reason why voluntary industry bodies and codes of conducts don't work. FSA should step in and sort out the mess. Will the coaliton do the ask the FSA to do the right thing?

Labels: Economy, UK

posted by 東京  # 17:51 0 Comments

Friday 22 October 2010

Direct debit mandates on closed accounts

I'd like to see Financial Regulators require companies like British Gas to delete Direct Debit mandates automatically when customer accounts are closed.

I just had a look at my current account and found three out of date mandates that the utility companies had not removed when I closed my accounts with them!

Labels: Future, UK

posted by 東京  # 21:40 0 Comments

Online shopping credit card reader

I'm surprised credit card issuers are not distributing card readers for online shopping yet.

I've got one for each of my online current accounts, but for credit card purchases the issuers just make do with the likes of "Verified by VISA", which is just another password which can be logged.

For online shopping, we'd just enter our account number, purchase code and the result code from the card reader. Cutting out a lot of fraud opportunities!

Labels: Future, UK

posted by 東京  # 21:33 0 Comments

Monday 11 October 2010

Give us more sunshine!

I've written about this before, but the difference is that now others are realising the benefits for the environment and the saved lives. An article in Positive News: Give Us More Sunshine! brought this to my attention.

The Lighter Later campaign is run by 10:10, the climate change organisation. Great tag line, "what a difference an hour makes..." !

Labels: Future, UK

posted by 東京  # 18:50 0 Comments

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Should ISPs cut off bot-infected users?

Should ISPs cut off bot-infected users? Yes.

Labels: Spam

posted by 東京  # 21:39 0 Comments

Monday 4 October 2010

Political Revival of Cornish

Appears to be in full swing, the council are now joining in and adding signs in Cornish as well as the language everyone speaks! Telepgraph article. The BBC even wastes money preparing a local programme in Cornish. I'm sure the CNP (Cornish National Party) must be pleased!

Labels: UK

posted by 東京  # 21:53 0 Comments

Ofcom ban 12 month land line contracts

While the likes of BT are allowed by Ofcom to only offer 12 months contracts, I recommend purchasing from Post Office HomePhone. Only one month rolling contract, perfect !

Labels: UK

posted by 東京  # 21:49 0 Comments

Sunday 3 October 2010

When + why do companies go open source?

I'm thinking about the circumstances which lead an enterprise to decide to release their source code as a free software product.

Are their significant instances of companies going free when they're not losing market share or going bust ? Consider Netuscape and Open Office falling into our lap. Likewise Blender when the company went bust and the user community bought the source code from liquidator.

Most free software appears to be built from scratch. The kernel, GCC, X, Gnome, GIMP etc.

posted by 東京  # 22:16 0 Comments

Debugging is fun!

If you''re in software development you'l have experience with debugging. It's tracking the cause of a problem down and reproducing, implementing and testing a fix.

It's a steady, deliberate process of discovery. Investigating makes it possible to vary one thing a time to reproduce, also isolating causes from casual effects!

posted by 東京  # 19:53 0 Comments

No More Pot Holes

I've noticed around Berkshire and Buckinghamshire that many of the pot holes and bumpy areas of roads coincides with utility company man holes and trenches.

There are regulations the council should be enforcing to get repairs inspected and certifed, however pot holes will always re-appear in dug up sections of road.

Therefore, my conclusion is that for all new roads, or repairs to existing roads, trenches and man holes should not pas through a road. Leaving the tarmac (asphalt) safe and flat!

Any cabling from telephone or internet companies should pass overhead.

For any drains or water supply that really must cross a road the best solution is to allow these to pass at single specific locations in special chambers in the road. Therefore, no disruption to the surface along the whole length!

Labels: UK

posted by 東京  # 19:19 0 Comments

Friday 1 October 2010

Time for Metric Time

Why is a second the length it is currently I ask my self? Because it is roughly the speed at which we would count. It's a great way to measure.

There are 86,400 seconds in a current day. I think we can adjust this to be metric and clearer for use.

Nudge that 86,400 up to 100,000. Set 10 hours per day, 100 minutes per hour, 100 seconds per minute.

So would arrive at work around 04:00:00, and take lunch at 05:50:00,
and come home from work at 07:00:00. Puuurfect ;)

A quick search online reveals this was implemented back in the French Revolution decree 1794. Metric Time. Someone's blog. French Calendar looks interesting too.

Labels: Metric

posted by 東京  # 21:24 0 Comments

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