Posts by John H Woods
967 posts • joined Wednesday 14th November 2007 11:44 GMT
Vanilla Windows...
... would be nice. But any cheap machine with a Win preinstall normally has all kinds of crapware on it. I object to that stuff even more. It is easy to wipe windows and do a clean Linux install. It is much harder to fix a factory-bought Windows installation so it has no vendor-crap in it.
Posted in No more dirty phone calls
Number of germs always makes me laugh ...
of course a toilet has far fewer germs on it than a dish-towel, or most food prep surfaces. But then, 90% (by number) of the cells in the blob referred to as a human body are germs. But the washability looks great. Kudos to the commenter who suggested it as a dishwasher diagnosis tool!
Posted in Sony BDP-S760 Blu-ray disc player
newer ps3s are quiet...
... i have 3 in the house. you almost can't hear the newest one, it makes less noise than the Sky HD box
Re: UKranian
... yes it's clear you need that, mainly from the perfect spelling and grammar of your comments
Firefox with Autopager...
...is what you need
Posted in Sony BDP-S760 Blu-ray disc player
I'll stick to my PS3 thanks...
... it's hard to believe that SONY can produce something like the PS3 which plays nearly eveything, (and, for a small premium, is an excellent freeview box) and then expect people to buy something like this. It's probably aimed at the 'golden eared' hifi buff.
However, I have to say I gave up on 'top-end' HiFi a long time ago, what with people trying to convince me that some CD recorders produced 'more faithful' digital-to-digital copies than others, that some digitial cables have 'a better tone' than others and that supertweeters, which produce frequencies in superaural range (where virtually no-one over 20 can hear them) make a difference to ones listening experience.
+1
This comment needs (even) more attention than it will get as a reg comment. If I were the Joel Tennenbaum I'd want Graham Wilson as my lawyer.
More nudity thoughts:
2 extra plus points: 1) it would cut down on CO2 emissions because most people would only fly when they had to; 2) religious nutters tend to have a problem with nudity anyway.
Also, how about comedy punishment to prevent martyrdom having any glamour? For instance, having to spend the rest of your life running on a treadmill to power an atheist website. Or wearing very very hot underpants for several hours a day.
...vpn cracking
... nope, can't imagine that they will go in for wholescale vpn cracking. They will focus on the 'low hanging fruit' until we are all on vpn, then they will be stuffed.
Squeezing it out of whom?
Us! of course. When are we going to be honest and admit that all these taxes on businesses are simply indirect taxes on consumers. What service do we get for this tax? Easy ... more efficient use of the spectrum. How does that benefit us? Errr....
How did we get to a stage where thousands of government departments can just make policy decisions that effectively increase the taxation burden on the public, with no public consultation, no significant benefits for the public, and no effective means for us to vote on whether we want it or not?
Modern government, in Britain at any rate, is a cancer. It just grows and grows with no benefit to the host. How are we going to get it back down to size? I don't mind paying huge amounts in tax, if we get Scandinavian public services. I don't mind getting crappy USA style public services if we pay USA size tax. But here in the UK we pay nearly-Scandinavian taxes and get nearly-American Services. Where does the rest go? it appears that it is sucked out of the economy by worthless parasites
Posted in Ferry giant refuses ID card
Be fair ....
... familiarity with travel authorisation documents is hardly a major part of the job of border control staff.
Posted in Can anyone explain the chunnel fiasco?
You won't catch me down there...
... ever. Glad my LPG car is prohibited. Thank goodness the shorted electrical systems didn't catch fire. I think a public enquiry is required, and humiliation of those responsible for this fiasco.
Posted in The Avatar storage effect
Dr
Film well worth seeing. Thin plot, shallow characterization, typical hollywood good vs evil. But visually and aurally, it will blow you away - pretty much like the original Star Wars, this is a bit of a game-changer.
@Al Jones
"It took less time to find the original statement on the Vatican website than most of your bigoted posters took to write their posts."
Yep, that's why their comments were worth reading, and yours wasn't.
Posted in Billie Piper hooks up with Belle de Jour
Empty headed ...
Empty headed eh? Like the protagonist? I think your prejudice is showing.
+1
That is all.
but...
... how much of that discontent is stirred up by the tabloid media whose proprietors stand to benefit most from the BBC being given a hard time? Remember, most citizens are so thick their opinions can't really be held to account for much. They just repeat the drivel spoon fed to them by the disgusting portion of the british press and think they know about stuff.
The good stuff is still there...
... you just have to find it. Anyway the licence fee is IMHO worth it just for R3, R4, BBC4 and the website. There are too many here moaning about the populist programmes on the populist channels. If this garbage wasn't on, the beeb would be letting down the majority of its viewers - now that WOULD be a waste of tax(licence) payers money. But watch (or better, record) stuff that is on outside peak times or on channels that are intended for the <10% of people with >50% of a brain, and there is certainly enough content there to justify 50p a day.
Oh, and producing news is more expensive than you think, unless you are just mashing up what has been reported elsewhere ...
PS: I have an idea for a populist yet useful programme - live coverage of a campaign to hunt down and sterilize anyone who has appeared on Jeremy Kyle. Or watched it, come to that.
WFM
In the six months after I got a Wii Fit, I lost over 1st, without ANY other changes to my lifestyle. In the six months after my (launch-day) Wii broke down, I put over 1st back on. Probably something to do with using it at least 30 mins a day. It's not rocket surgery, is it? Getting a new Wii for xmas, obviously.
Posted in Scammers scrape RAM for bank card data
re: alarmist opaque article
"The title might imply that fraudsters are obtaining payment details from discarded RAM memory or sold-on memory (ebay sellers beware) and that this can be done when there is no power to the RAM"
Errm, surely if they are only kept very *very* cold? :-)
Posted in MPs to go clubbing in cocaine inquiry
@whomever
NHS is the worlds 4th largest employer I believe ... I read that the Walmart acquisition of Asda meant they overtook the NHS.
Weak password policy
Many organisations almost insist on weak passwords: by irrational devotion to password expiry, which has to be one of the most overrated security policies. The more important you are 'technically', the more passwords you have to remember. And quite often the IT support services will give the same person the same username on different environments, meaning that using similar passwords is more risky. Add a frequent expiry policy and you have a recipe for disaster: either passwords get too simple, or they get stored.
Can we have a campaign to bury password expiry please?
Posted in EFF seeks answers from Facebook police
Merkins
Of course, if he'd been holding a 9mm semi-auto that would have been fine, but a beer can? OMG. Good job he wasn't showing a nipple as well.
Posted in Freeview HD goes live
PS3 + Play TV?
"As of today ... there aren’t any receivers available to buy."
I may have misunderstood, but I thought Sony had updated its PlayTV add-on for the PS3 so it is already HD capable? I can't test it till 2010 as I am in the Midlands ... anyone know for sure?
OFB: PlayTV on the PS3 is one of the best Freeview receivers you can get. Well it will be when they have series linking properly working :-)
Posted in Beeb iPlayer blocked by Xbox velvet rope
Shhhhhh.........
A "complete media hub" ... can you even hear the sound of your TV or Music over the jet engine that appears to be in the XBOX 360? There's also a serious pricing issue here ... the PS3 only looks more expensive in the shops because online services are a hidden cost on the XBOX.
The PS3 slim is nearly quiet enough but older PS3s are too noisy for this job. For the last god knows how long MS and Apple have been trying to get the computer into the living room as a media centre but without making it as quiet and visually unobtrusive as necessary.
Even now, the best solution is to buy a laptop (broken screen ones from Ebay are ideal), and use that ... almost the only way (apart from a custom build) to get a box that can comfortably sit in the living room when you are watching iPlayer.
@anonymous john
... oh yes you have
@AC 18:41
I think the idea is that its core solidified, it lost its magnetic field, and the solar wind stripped the atmosphere off. But I may be wrong ...
crazy ...
... they should see what the girls (don't) wear at british unis
Placed my first test order already...
I too have fond memories ... bought 10s of 1000s of pounds worth of stuff from these peeps over the years. I recommended them to everyone ... they seemed to be able to talk to noobs and experts alike. Sometimes the kit was D.o.A. but when it was new kit arrived the next day. I bought a v. cheap LCD display off them when it was a rarity and they happily exchanged it for a 1-pixel defect.
I talked to some new peeps there already and they are certainly making the right noises. I have placed a small test order to see how it goes.
@dabooka
Funny, succinct and accurate. N1ce.
Ecstacy no worse than riding a horse...
... which is blinking dangerous. That said, nothing is safe. And why should it be? The one irresolvable danger we are all facing is a growing and ancient population supported by a tiny minority of over-burdened taxpayers. Until they can solve ageing, they have no business trying to make us live longer. And I would agree with the Prof, that a lot of ADDITIONAL harm comes from drugs being illegal - it makes gangsters rich, and turns low level users into thieves, muggers, prostitutes and dealers because they have to pay well over the odds for a cheap organic material.
@AC 2009-10-16 10:56
I do my online banking from McD. But I vpn into my company server first. I figure I can trust them as they already have all my bank details!
CVV -- what's the point
I understood the point of the CVV to be to ensure that the card is actually present. And yet all websites require you to say what it is. And all telephone purchases ask you to reveal it. So what is the point, exactly? Just that it's not on the magstripe?
@Zbfgbe Nfgenxna
a1pr!
but ...
... that model looks yummy to me.
B*gger
... wish i'd seen this story earlier. Hasn't anybody noticed that the little animated characters from Planet Cook are the FOUR tastes, sweet, salt, sour and bitter.
What about Umami? This is just racism against the eastern-looking guy, I reckon.
Posted in Toyota Prius fourth-generation e-car
@sulphur man
Absolutely agree. I drive an R-reg land rover which cost 3k, including a high efficiency LPG conversion. 4.6V8, but only 20p/mile. Even on petrol it only costs 3 pounds to drive 7 people to town and back (>20 quid on the bus). Let's be honest, the scrappage bonus is to help rescue the economy, not rescue the planet.
But ...
...what percentage of scientists who do crap research to get their schlock results into the press should be considered criminals?
if you are greedy...
... they will torrent it. I mean, I like TORCHWOOD as much as the next geek but $10 an episode? When will these idiots learn?
No need for FUD
It has always mystified me why the demands for TV licencing are so menacing. All the beeb need to do is devote one day a week to 'US style programming' (the average, not the creme-de-la-creme of the US imports) with the same poor quality of programmes and the huge number of - very boring - adverts.
Then all they need to say is 'this is what you will get when the licence fee stops'.
I personally would pay 15 / month just to be able to listen to Radios 3 and 4. I think surveys have previously discovered that for many people the problem is not the relatively low cost of the licence, but the heavy handed and error-prone way in which it is enforced.
PS - why no sale of iPlayer programmes abroad? I know plenty of people who would pay to use the service from abroad!
@Tom 11
DO NOT TURN OFF THE PAGE FILE, however much memory you have. Thanks.
Posted in First prison sentence for extreme porn
Horse death
Off-topic but I feel strongly about it ... however humane the slaughter, the problem most people have with it is the prolonged inhumane treatment in transport to slaughter. If the French want to eat our horses that's one thing, but they should be going in pieces in clingfilm in refrigerated trucks, not in concentration camp transport.
make, model, pah
Of course if you can see a plate, you can see a make and model. Having a service to check it out is fine. What isn't fine is the DVLA giving out personal information to people claiming to be parking companies. This will change the first time someone sees an attractive woman driver, and gets the DVLA to help in tracking her down. I can see a big compensation case on the horizon.
Posted in Orange gets UK iPhone deal
Oi you!
Greg D says:
"Vodafone having spectacular coverage isn't going to matter one bloody jot if I can't get coverage in my house. Who relies upon getting coverage in every corner of the UK? No-one. You pick the network with the best coverage *in your area* based around what you do with you life. For me, that's O2 by a fair margin. Tried Orange and Voda, never got reception in my living room, one bar upstairs in the bedroom. Useless!
True true. But I think you'll find it's MY HOUSE. No wonder my leccy bill is so high.
