Comments for simoncoles.org

Comment on Cool Unexpected Kindle Feature – Clippings by Jean

Jean — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:40:15 +0000

nice article. another thing that I also like to add is there are already available tools such as clippingsconverter.com (http://clippingsconverter.com/) to convert kindle clippings to possibly more convenient or workable formats (word or pdf).

Comment on The Arun LNG Plant in Lhokseumawe will close in 2014 by Geoff Bridges

Geoff Bridges — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:31:05 +0000

Simon,
Interesting info on the closing. That will be 40 years after I was there in 1974 doing the site investigation. There was nothing there. It was quite beautiful. A bunch of Aussies and Kiwis subbed out to Bechtel. Brings back memories – a whole career ago
Geoff

Comment on What I want in a Washing Machine by stephen

stephen — Wed, 04 May 2011 23:41:13 +0000

Yes! That is exactly what I want. I can’t believe it is not available.

Comment on Um, about this whole anti-Private school thing by rob tee

rob tee — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 08:57:46 +0000

During the time I spent at Oxford there was a disappointing proportion of privately educated characters harbouring a prejudiced sense of entitlement and ability instilled by private & crammer schools. Attitudes wrought in the fires of rote. Very few had the agility to question the process through which they had been transported and deemed trampling on their fellow a pre-requisite to fulfillment. Whilst on the one hand such manipulation is deplorable, on the other leads to the inefficiency and damage witnessed in the recent greed oriented banking fiasco.

Acknowledging such shortfall (beyond the smokescreen of ‘private=better, state=worse’) surely helps provide the workplace with a more representative cohort of the true availability of human capital?

Comment on Spot on: it isn’t the TSA’s fault by Al Dente

Al Dente — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 19:51:42 +0000

Hi Simon!

The Program to Examine Random Voyagers (PERV) has attracted some rather unsavory characters to the ranks of the TSA……SHOCKING story at:

http://spnheadlines.blogspot.com/2010/03/faa-tiger-will-work-airport-security_19.html

Happy Thanksgiving, and Peace!

Comment on iPhone-controlled Drone by Simon Coles

Simon Coles — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:06:40 +0000

Cool, you can buy them – here’s a review on Ars http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/10/the-300-quadrocopter-your-iphone-is-a-remote-control.ars

Comment on Um, about this whole anti-Private school thing by Carol

Carol — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 09:54:29 +0000

Hmm. I don’t know about the statistics in the ‘professions’ but in terms of education, the 7-8% of privately educated kids in the UK take up about 50% of the places at our two elite universities (which get an awful lot of state funds as well as using their own private money), and go on to get lots of the best and most highly paid jobs in the country. I suspect it may be similar in some professions (certainly politics, law etc have that skew). So I am pretty sure that privately educated people are not in fact discriminated against at all, rather the opposite, while I agree that it is ludicrous to try to change things with this sort of measure. (But this is all blather anyway, this ‘telling’ is more than likely just ‘encouraging’ them, not ordering them or imposing any sort of positive discrimination). It’s often difficult to sort out exactly where people are coming from in the ‘private schools’ discussion – perhaps simply being ‘anti-elite’ is not a good thing, and I know that is where I tend to come from, but I do feel that people who can pay choosing not to attend local state schools is more negative than positive for those schools – the saving of money not making up for the fact that they are missing out on the contribution and participation of that child, who as you say, might be likely come from a home where the parents are well-motivated, care about education, want, and help, their kids to do well at school (though fair enough for individual parents to not want to send your kid to a bad school where you know that it will have most of its time wasted by the teacher having to worry about discipline instead of teaching.) I am not sure that private schools do in fact teach much better, I think that the people who come out of them do better and are more confident simply because they are, and know they are, part of an elite. Feeling like that often makes people do better…

Great blog by the way, I have only just discovered it!

Comment on Child-friendly Wikipedia by Children and Social Media (and The Internet in general) | simoncoles.org

Children and Social Media (and The Internet in general) | simoncoles.org — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:57:16 +0000

[...] They generally ask if they can Google, Wikipedia YouTube etc, although they can have free access to the Child Friendly Wikipedia clone. [...]

Comment on Hitler’s reaction to the iPad by Jean-Claude Bradley

Jean-Claude Bradley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:33:16 +0000

That really is a well scripted one!

Comment on The snow of 1963 was really scary! by Peter Vijn

Peter Vijn — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:12:15 +0000

Hi Simon,
Nice reading your blog and watching these videos. This winter we’ve built an iglo in our street with my neighbour boy of 18, large enough for 5 adults (took us 6 hours). Here’s a nice video on building real iglo’s in 1921!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLERFRQl5EY
Cheers, Peter

Comment on UK iPhone Tarrifs by Karen

Karen — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:20:09 +0000

My god honey, is this what you spend your new year’s eve worrying about? xx

Comment on Dear O2, about my iPhone by O2 finally let us upgrade our iPhones – sort of | simoncoles.org

O2 finally let us upgrade our iPhones – sort of | simoncoles.org — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:36:56 +0000

[...] I tried to upgrade my iPhone and wasn’t that happy that O2’s attitude was a flat “Non!”. Now it seems O2 have finally relented and [...]

Comment on Dear O2, about my iPhone by Bill

Bill — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:57:17 +0000

It’s the same story here in the States of course with AT&T and I echo your sentiment. I imagine with all the flak they have received not only about their upgrade policies but even more so the stability of their network that AT&T will see a significant decrease in subscriptions when Apple announces additional carriers here in the States.

Comment on Amazon – they still don’t get it by T

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:36:34 +0000

The contradictions are what keeps it going for me. Why did they initially state it was a policy, when they had full awareness of what was transpiring, now they say it’s a glitch when it is in the spotlight. Perhaps they didn’t intend this policy to be applied so broadly or be discovered and that was the glitch.

Comment on Another brand crucified on the cross of social media by Simon Coles

Simon Coles — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:44:32 +0000

It's now made the traditional newspapers... e.g. The Sun here in the UK. From the Domino's PR person:

Domino's spokesman Tim McIntyre warned: "Any idiot with a camera and an internet link can do stuff like this — and ruin the reputation of a brand that's nearly 50 years old."

Ohhhh yes indeed.

Comment on BudgetSketch by Bill

Bill — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:27:11 +0000

Thanks Simon!

High praise from someone who has taught us so much about developing quality software. We hope to add support for all decimalized currencies soon. So those of you as tired of staring at the USD sign as we are need no longer do so!

Let the politicians work on the macro-economies. BudgetSketch is intended to solve the world financial crisis from the micro-economy level.

Thanks again for the kind words and encouragement.

Comment on Stock Market Manipulation by Simon Coles

Simon Coles — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:38:39 +0000

There's more here. Part 2 from about 4:00 in is the crux of it. These guys are playing a game at little or no risk to themselves, with our money, and we take the downside and they take the upside.