Posts by Sam Therapy
259 posts • joined Tuesday 9th October 2007 11:02 GMT
People are forgetting the most important aspect of this story...
You don't like Apple's T&Cs? Don't damn well buy from them, then! Simples.
If everyone took that attitude, they'd change their policies pretty damn quick when they see their sales flatline.
Poor old Fry
I don't dislike the bloke but he really should grow a sense of humour. The reported story makes him seem like a complete tit. And a whingeing ninny. :)
I never bought a Microdrive
A friend had a couple of 'em and used to back them up to his Sony Betamax tapes. The drives themselves were really twitchy, though; whenever his wife switched on the washing machine, they'd go bugfuck. Seeing him frantically scrabbling to unplug the Speccy, take out the cart and try to retrieve the tape was enough to convince me to stick to cassettes.
Then I got my first Amiga but that's another story.
Keeerapp!
My ancient Iiyama happily displayed 1600 x 1200 before it rolled over and died. Why the actual fuck would I want to spend money on something that's worse?
Right now I'm using a naff Philips monitor somebody gave me, until such time as I can get the readies for a decent new monitor. The article itself was useless; the comments were a damn sight more help.
Could do better, El Reg.
Re: Christ (oops!) bloody religion again???
Or Mary Visconti, as she was at the time.
So what are the chances...
Of being killed by a shark that has the same birthday as you when there's a goat behind the door?
As stated by many others, Capita really are a shower of bastards
My wife was treated disgracefully by them when she became seriously ill and needed major surgery. She then sued them for unfair dismissal but they tried every trick in the book to get her to back down. Threats, intimidation, and finally, a feeble token payment offer to make her shut up and go away.
I'm pleased to say she won her case outright and Capita had to fork over a fair bit of readies. She signed a NDA which bars her from discussing the matter. I didn't. :)
Sting in the tail was, they then made life for me so bad I had to quit. I'm glad to be out of there but not in such a way.
Ermm, yes they do
Several brands of beer are available in Pint cans and bottles. Wife beater, for one, can be bought in pint bottles.
I hope they don't change guitar string sizes to metric
A .009 - .042 set is easy enough to remember but I'm fucked if I can remember what the metric equivalents are, even though some brands have 'em printed on there.
Still MIA from here in sunny South Yorkshire.
Even through a German proxy.
Biscuits of arse.
Here's hoping
Someone points our set of fucking idiots in the direction of this judge.
Re: Question
Privacy should be "on" by default, with an option to snoop only in exceptional circumstances*. The proposal is to set privacy to "off" by default.
* Granted, every government writes its own terms of meaning for "exceptional circumstances" but the right to privacy should be there first and foremost.
Posted in Basic instinct: how we used to code
Ahh, BASIC
For all its shortcomings, not a bad at all language. My first contact with it was on my Spectrum back in 82. Had the dead fish keyboard version first, then the hard keys Speccy + (just a re-cased 48k Speccy) when the first one blew up.
ISTR GOTO was frowned on but GOSUB was considered OK. In any event, I learned my first steps in programming on the Speccy. After that I did COBOL and later, taught meself VB. Yeah, I know but VB isn't all that bad really. It's dead easy to code and understand and for the most part, documents itself.
Once I had Speccy BASIC down, a mate taught me Z80 assembler. Was considered really funny that C5 in Z80 means "Push BC". Think about it, Sinclair's C5 was around at the time.
Programming and I went our separate ways some years later when computers finally became good enough to do serious graphics work and I went back to my first love of art and graphic design. Anyone remember Deluxe Paint? Very good app, that. Prior to that, I developed Speccy graphics using The Artist, which was arguably the best graphics app for the Spectrum. The writer, Bo Jangeborg (I think) was also the writer of a very popular Speccy Game, Fairlight. Later, he developed a graphics app for the Sam Coupe, which had a Spectrum compatible mode but could also display much better graphics, more on the lines of an Atari ST. The graphics app he wrote for the Coupe was, sadly, lousy.
Oh well, better stop me wittering and get back to doing some work.
Not so strange, really
Many of the lower cost CD players, amps and headphones use cheaper components than their more expensive counterparts. The higher end stuff tends to use higher spec tighter tolerance stuff, quite often military spec chips and hand soldered boards and wires, headphone manufacturers use Kevlar reinforcement in their cables, plugs and sockets have gold contacts and many of the components are hand assembled and soak tested. All of which costs.
A typical OEM factory will use lower tolerance components, substitute metal parts for plastic and automate as much of the assembly process as possible, or use relatively unskilled labour in sweatshop conditions. The products are housed in flimsy cases and are generally made to be thrown away, rather than repaired.
So, while it's true you can get a decent sounding CD player for next to nowt, you won't get a very good and durable one for the same price but, what with inflation and that, a £300 CD player now is in real terms quite a lot cheaper than a £300 one back then.
I got a superb deal on a CD player, speakers and amp about 15 years ago and they are still going strong.
Why not...
spell check, grammar check and stop shouting?
You give us Freetards a bad name. Er, oops. :)
Civilised?
To create an artificial situation in order to keep an employee's wages low?
You Sir, are a tit.
Wrong!
Read it twice. Once, when it was first published and last year when I received all my father's books after he died.
Twat.
You're all wrong
It's China's failed attempts to hide itself with Dazzle.
You numpties.
Sounds like a typical night out...
in Rotherham.
Swearing is great
I only ever do it deliberately, though. I'm more likely to say "Oh dear" if I clout meself with a hammer.
Every religion should be mocked...
...religiously.
Mine's the one with "A Brief History of Time" in the pocket.
Cracked Actor, anyone?
Yentob's feature on Bowie's uprooting to the USA, his change of musical direction and the increasingly apparent drug use makes a superb documentary.
Another vote for Anvil, too.
"Upcoming EU data law will make Europe tricky for Facebook"
Good. About time, too.
Hold on a minute...
So if he didn't implement or authorise the changes and May didn't authorise or implement 'em, who did?
Paris because she's as clueless as those two.
Oh, great!
Sounds like a fantastic idea. What could possibly go wrong?
Posted in BT gets 14 days to block Newzbin2
Arse
Whack a mole or not, it's - as stated above - a classic example of function creep and a clear cut demonstration that our current government is every bit as bad as the last lot of merkins when it comes to personal freedom.
6 Fingered?
Does he have 5 on one hand, 1 on the other, or 3 on each, or some other permutation? Or do you mean he has 11 fingers?
Anyhow, he's probably Hannibal Lecter.
Privacy and communication
Any form of communication should automatically carry a basic assumption of privacy. New methods of communication should by default have the same rights of non interference as old ones, rather than the current trend of making a special case for anything done on the interwebs.
Otherwise, you may as well give the government(s) authority to open your mail and tap your phone without warrants and/or probable cause/reasonable suspicion. I'm pretty sure that sort of thing does happen anyhow but still...
Like Mr "Nothing to hide", I have no dirty secrets but it doesn't mean I want each and every bit of my private life open to the public.
Finally, I have two small children who I love dearly and will do my utmost to protect. That does not, however, include the erosion of yet more privacy for the sake of chasing yet another spectre.
Not a perfect solution but
Better than doing bugger all, which is what the "experts" have been doing. I don't believe the line that the PTB were working on this quietly, either. Chances are, they didn't even know about it.
Anyhow, who is to say this is the end of it, or even the end product? For all anyone knows, Anon may well have worked out a way to take down these sites *and* leave the data and details intact in such a way that successful prosecutions result.
In any case, the fewer child porn outlets, the better, IMO.
Violently explode?
Not good enough. Also, in a previous paragraph, the word should be "known", not "know".
Silly bugger.
Shirley
You mean "Trampagne".
Mine's the one with the bottle of Courvoisier XO in the pocket.
And here's my list of suspected dog buggerers...
The Pope (any flavour)
Prince Philip
David Cameron
All other politicians and most civil servants
The bloke down the road
Of course, this is just a start. Feel free to add to it.
Indeed
Normally I don't upvote any AC but your judicious use of "clusterfuck" gave me no choice. Well said, that person.
I did warn you all
Cameron's Clowns would be no better than Brown's Buffoons. Anyone who thought otherwise needs taking to see a big dog.
No need for cuts if...
Their marketing division actually worked like a real life business. In fact, they'd have a surplus of cash.
The words "piss up" and "brewery" spring immediately to mind, to paraphrase a well known imbiber of Bolivian Marching Powder*
*Allegedly
Posted in Nokia offers $10,000 for new ring tone
Dead easy
Just use whalesong samples.
Where's me 10 grand?
So was I
Title says it all.
As I have said before...
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council don't even acknowledge they received a FOI or Subject Access Request.
Oh well, it's one more thing on the list of stuff they're about to get hit for.
Posted in NASA to work on approved sci-fi books
Not really
It's on my "Avoid at all costs" list, though.
Invisible friends
Anyone dumb enough to believe in an invisible friend is probably dumb enough to believe they can buy a cure for cancer from a TV show.
Old and cynical as I am, I still think it's morally reprehensible to take advantage of the stupid. It'd be nice if Ofcom actually grows a pair, gives the God bothering channel a very hefty fine and pulls their license.
IPCC
My own experience with the IPCC left me in absolutely no doubt that, for the most part, the police can do what they like and get away with it. A solicitor advised me that there's absolutely no point pursuing a complaint against the police unless there's been a death, and even then, chances of success are 50/50 at best.
The entire organization is corrupt from top to bottom.
Excuse me while I put "Copkiller" on repeat play.
Yup, you're right there.
Trouble is, our local MPs are the same political shade as the council so there's no way they'd administer a kicking, or even make suggestions to their local gov colleagues.
I hope some Beeb wonk is reading this article and the replies.
Should really piss 'em off.
My local council blithely ignores the law
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council have consistently ignored all Subject Access Requests made on my behalf. Nobody seems interested in doing anything about it, either.
Taking advantage
You're right but it's always too easy for some unscrupulous person to take advantage of another when they are extremely distressed. Things like judgement and objectivity go out the window when extreme emotions are involved. It's how most cults operate; targeting the needy and/or weak, offering "help".
I have no doubt Mrs Payne honestly believed she was doing the right thing. It's such a damn shame some heartless, immoral bastards manipulated her in order to further their own agenda.
Posted in Bug-Byte Manic Miner
Superb game
Skylab Landing Bay was the funniest room, IMO.
All the mags at the time had thousands of pokes for the game and Your Spectrum had a hack which introduced a new room - April Showers - as an April Fool's joke.
