Comments on: Digital Devicement: Part Two – Magical Heroes

By: doctorian

doctorian — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:56:10 +0000

Hi Stephen,
Thought this may tickle you a little – sent today.
Warmth and light.
————————————————

TO: The Editor of Mail on Sunday, C/C Mr P Morgan

17/11/2009

My dearest Piers

It is with great sadness that I must report having wasted 10 minutes of my previous Sunday, and, quite probably, my life, having read your column in Live. You may recall it; the one stuffed with half a page of venomous, self-satisfied bile about Stephen Fry.

Yes he did say he had been hurt by personal remarks on Twitter. Stephen suffers from depression occasionally, and personal taunts, when barbed and thrown at one whilst at a low ebb do penetrate much more than if they were they hurled at a self-satisfied, egomaniac crust of a personality – someone like yourself perhaps? But I very much doubt that you’d be aware, or much less care, that Stephen recently took some time to write in to a national newspaper letter page, without fanfare or name-quoting (that probably wouldn’t sound too familiar to you, I’d wager), and offer some personal advice to a woman suffering from the same ill health.

And so, without giving him a chance to comment, you did your delightfully well-rehearsed and testosterone-laded chest beating routine, like the finest silverback on the mountain, and leapt in. You didn’t even have anything constructive to say other than repeatedly comment about his “overbearing pomposity” and “epically mind-numbing tedium”. Don’t you have a bloody mirror in your office, Mr Morgan?

Anyhow, I digress, I can visualise you now tap-tap-tapping away at your anonymous keyboard, with just a hint of a vitriolic and rancorous smirk playing on your lips whilst thinking about who’s name to drop next, or which of the worlds finest restaurants had just told Obama they were full because you were going to grace them with your omnipotent presence – and, sadly, they couldn’t quite squeeze him in.

My mother once said “If you’ve nothing nice to say, then say nothing.” I’m assuming that this also extended to reading – it certainly will do in my case as from now.

By the way, I’m hardly surprised that your column, somewhat symbolically, takes its place at the rear of the magazine

Much love

Ian Sherwin

By: womanfriday

womanfriday — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:40:12 +0000

Hi Stephen,
I’m one of those bereaved Twitterers who’s been blocked by the indiscriminate hand of god from following your treasured pearls of wisdom. Can’st thou maketh me fulfilled once more and unblock me?
Yours in desolation,
Womanfriday

By: digitaldave35

digitaldave35 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:07:30 +0000

Hi Steven I have recently been reading your works and I fully agree with your comments on smart phones I’d like to add a few things myself android is an open standards, open source platform like Intel’s backed limo project. I have had the android G1 since launch and I’ve seen it evolve over the past year with the cupcake update and with each update the device improves. But each smart phone has one same weakness that’s the battery life its no diffrent than the old Compaq IPaqs in the late 90’s switch all the radios on at the same time and you drain the battery within a few hours with talk of the next gen smart phones carrying pico projectors and virtualization hypervisors I wonder how the engineers are going to produce batteries for the future when they can’t even design the correct power requirements for now, forget about the next app store battle the talk should really be about usability and building devices with low power requirements maybe a smart phone utilizing OLED Screens and Transmetta Mobile processors could help all feedback is good @digitaldave35

By: priggy

priggy — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:06:43 +0000

Can i also add, i love the way you express yourself. I’m intrigued as to how you learnt to express yourself in such a way.

By: priggy

priggy — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:01:23 +0000

have to say i don’t find the apple vkb annoying or had any near misses with it. I haven’t used a a practical keyboard on a phone but then never wanted to either because they look ugly and the buttons are way too small for the fingers so have always been a fan of apple’s touch keyboard and i don’t tend to look at another phone which has a pkb coz they don’t look right. The magic and hero phones look interesting but i don’t know if it could beat the iPhone.

By: VincentH

VincentH — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:14:43 +0000

I was watching you on the telly – The One Show- And I do hope you are well. That your loss of weight is by design.
We in Ireland call that look as being a bit shook.
Anyway, I hope you are well.

By: Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:12:13 +0000

Caroline: thanks for the comment – exceptionally touched and pleased that you like the things I do and have done… I shall certainly not judge you in any way other than as a kindly and intelligent correspondent.
I’m not sure how I know what I know – a sticky memory is one explanation, but I think a better one is sheer curiosity. If you picture the kind of a greed a starved warthog might have, or Homer Simpson when confronted with a tray of donuts – think of me having that kind of greed for history, language, science, knowledge generally… I think that’s the secret really. People know as much as they’re hungry to know.
be well
Sx

By: Caroline Lodge

Caroline Lodge — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:10:08 +0000

Although i am only 13yrs of age, i seem to admire all of your work. i am terribly intreeged by how you have come across all of this information( Please dont say reading- But I have read all of your books i ind them deeply interesting and i long to read for the rest of my life) Please dont take this as a child saying- ‘i am your biggest fan can i have your autograph!i love you, i love you!’ i will not hang on your every whim. its just because you inspire me and my mother always soliloquises about the fact of how much time i speed watching Qi, Blackadder, all of your films etc. ( i am not a stalker or a psycho)
if this is the real stephen Fry Please Could You Reply And Try To Forget My Age And Judge Me for Who I Am.
Bye, i am now off to watch anopther reply of blackadder goes forth the final in the series on dave + 1.
BYE!!

By: rebeccajoy

rebeccajoy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:45:49 +0000

excuse me for appearing and diverging wildly from the topic, but WHERE CAN I WRITE TO STEPHEN FRY?? all i want to do is send the man a letter, i know its rather archaic of me, but must it really go to some london-based agency? is there some system of testing to ensure that the chap doesnt receive his own mail if its from irrelevant commoners?
someone please direct me towards AN address, even if it is merely that of a secretary/ filter system etc.

By: Mark139

Mark139 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:36:53 +0000

I’m a developer and gave up on iphone development before I (just)got started. I must say I like Apple products, but I don’t like Apple the company’s Orwelian approach to business. It’s one thing for my government (UK) to want to store all kinds of data on me but a whole different ball game when a foreign business wants that info, including a copy of my passport (uk passport offfice recommends only doing this with trust worthy companies). No thanks. I doubt I’ll see my $99 again.
Google on the other hand happily let me develop to my hearts content and don’t require me to sign over my first born. I can write apps that amuse myself and my friends no bother. If happen to produce something worthy then I can upload it to the store. Best of all, the source is available so I can see what’s going on if the documentation is a little light.
I also develop for the Symbian platform and while I can happily code away I can’t as yet see all their source. This is a shame as the documentation was poor 10 years ago and it hasn’t changed too much.

I feel better now. I get on with the day job – writing apps for Android

Cheers