Posts by VulcanV5 378 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jan 2008
If you re-read the quote you've used, you'll realise it can't be attributed to an asshat CS rep. Because no asshat CS rep spends 2 years creating an Internet of Shite device and a forum for the discerning to engage in polite discourse about the opening, and closing, of garage doors.
That's what an entrepreneur does.
Or in this case, a power-crazed entrypreneur who fancies himself as an exitpreneur . . . before becoming an ex-entrepreneur.
@ TheVogon: You certainly have some odd notions about the role of the police:
"Sure, but I would also expect them to be arrested for assault and criminal damage and the court to order them to pay to fix said damage. They should have called to police to address the original issue..."
They should also have been prepared to wait for, let's say, two to six weeks whilst the police were busy dealing with other unambiguous crimes, after which time a nice community relations officer would've dropped by to say that, amazingly enough, we can't find anything in Law which stops you from blasting to smithereens the means whereby a possible paedophile gets off on viewing under-age children to their inevitable distress.
The LastPass blog referenced by El Reg is notable for the company's inability to describe how its product can be managed as well as uncritical eulogies from LastPass users oddly sanguine about the way things have gone. But perhaps they pay for the 'premium' edition.
Nothing in my LastPass 3.3.4 installation allows for updating. Nothing in the LastPass security blog article describes that installation: "please check the LastPass Icon > More options > About LastPass to check your version". But "More options" doesn't exist.
If LastPass can't even get that right in a security post, God alone knows what hope there might be of it getting anything else right of rather greater complexity. I note that The Register has re-christened this as 'LostPass'. Well said, dear vulture -- and in my case, how apt.
Wife and I had an outlook.com email address in our names. Like gmail and ymail, it was synched to deliver to us whenever called upon by our desktop client. The way Microsoft had it working was as follows:
Monday morning, outlook emails are delivered. Tuesday afternoon, they're not: no server connection possible. Wednesday lunch, everything OK, Wednesday night, oops, big red X plastered over the outlook account, no server connection possible. Thursday: no server connection all day. Friday: everything working all day. Saturday: working half a day. Sunday: big red X, 'please check your configuration'.
This state of affairs occurred throughout November. December. And January. Microsoft's considered advice was that something seems to be going wrong somewhere on your computer. Told that actually, it isn't our outlook.com address configuration on this computer which changes by the hour but Microsoft's ability to actually deliver anything which changes by the hour. Why might that be, Mr Redmond? Microsoft's response: check your configuration, re-install, re-test, blah blah etc blah. If you require further help, please visit our forum.
We no longer have an outlook.com email address, though still keep a barge-pole to ensure that any contact with any other of Microsoft's superb services is pushed resolutely aside.
Pretty freakin' useless at making hardware products, too. The Google Pixel C tablet remains so supreme an example of moronic engineering that owners have flooded the company's support threads with complaints since the day the crap was issued. Google's response has been to call upon a Partner to provide advice on Flower Arranging In The Home.
Disney's tale of the Beauty of a brave do-no-evil Internet search engine being devoured by the unthinking Beast of monetization is fun for all. And while we're on the subject of your day and your family, did you know that DuckDuckGo fucks up Google? (This isn't an ad, by the way, but news selectively sourced from one of our partners which we believe is of great relevance to you and your entire life.)
The ICO is investigating a company . . . because it read something in The Observer newspaper? Because everything anyone ever reads in a newspaper has to be true?
And especially, The Observer, sister paper of The Guardian, famous for its World Exclusive report on how Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn couldn't get a seat on a train and only afterwards realised that not only was the story entirely untrue, but that the "reporter" it so innocently by-lined on the story was actually a Corbyn aide hiding behind a pseudonym (apparently, anyone can get anything printed on The Guardian's front page; you just submit whatever you feel like, under whatever name you like, and, er, that's it: you're A Journalist.)
Ah well. The ICO's faith in the printed word is really. . . touching. It might, however, be better all round if the ICO paid less attention to crap newspaper articles and more to actual facts and actual figures -- in this instance, the facts and figures held on file by the UK's Electoral Commission, a body which -- surprise, surprise -- is the official watchdog on UK elections (as distinct from, er, The Observer newspaper.)
The Electoral Commission will be able to pass on to the ICO a detailed, audited statement of accounts received from the Leave campaign which shows that AggregateIQ, a small, specialist Canadian company based in downtown Victoria, was paid £3m for its research and marketing services.
This, of course, is in complete contrast to the firm cited by The Observer and now being investigated by the ICO: Cambridge Analytica, whose spokesperson, says The Register, told The Register:
"Cambridge Analytica did not do any work (paid or unpaid) for the Leave.EU campaign. In 2015 the company was in discussions to potentially work with them. That work did not go ahead."
So: Cambridge Analytica says it didn't do any paid work for Leave. Cambridge Analytica says it didn't do any unpaid work for Leave. AggregateIQ says it did £3millionsworth of work for Leave. The Electoral Commission confirms that. But hey: no need for the ICO to take any notice: if a newspaper says something quite different, then it must be true -- so let's go spend a few £100ks on an investigation. . . into the wrong company.
Be interesting to discover from El Reg how that investigation progresses.
Be even more interesting to learn from El Reg just what is the aggregate IQ of the UK's Information Commissioner's Office -- many of us have already made our own assessment, based on the ICO's glorious track record, but further evidence is always worthy of consideration.
Seems a bit harsh to criticise a benevolent company which here in the UK employs so many of our residents, pays a vast amount of corporate tax to the national purse, and forks out so much in the way of Employers' National Insurance contributions to help fund this country's welfare and healthcare systems.
I don't have the actual figures to hand but I'm sure they're out there. Somewhere.
Amazing that something as prosaic as a freakin' Call Center can pitch you into the world of political correctness where what you're allowed to even think, still less allowed to actually say, is governed by the code of the self-righteous virtue signallers.
I had to ring BT support once, though only once, for an entirely incomprehensible conversation with a call centre representative somewhere in India. I couldn't understand a word he was saying.
You can look at this in one of two ways: an issue of fault, or an issue of cause. The PC view is that it's all about fault, and in this case, a fault that's all mine, because I'm secretly a racist. Or maybe, not so secretly. My view is it's about cause: what possible cause could be served by any company handing over its interface comms to agents with whom customer communications are pretty much destined to be mutually incoherent? No prizes for getting the answer right.
But offshore call support isn't the only thing which leaves me open to being accused of burning crosses in my garden. Offshore email support is another, because time and again written exchanges I may be compelled to undertake turn out to be with customer reps whose gender escapes me. It's not that I'm a stickler for formality, just that it'd be nice to know if I'm dealing with a male obstructionist or a female obstructionist. But then, it's all my fault; I should be an expert on the forenames and family names of everyone resident in India.
Bringing customer comms onshore doesn't much help either, seeing as how it's which part of which UK shore that's important here. I have friends who're Scottish but from (I think) the lowlands. By contrast, very often I find myself talking to someone who must've been a dialect coach on Braveheart, the accent so broad that only one spoken word in 10 is intelligible.
But again. 'S my fault. I'm not supposed to say that I don't understand the Scots CS rep, nice person though he or she may identifiably be, any more than I'm not supposed to say, I don't understand the Indian CS rep, nice person though he or she may unidentifiably be. I'm not supposed to say any of that because what I'm exhibiting is the racist intolerance of a white English middle-aged male who should be downright ashamed of the way his ancestors subjugated the people of Scotland, the people of India.
Above all: 's my fault for being a, a. . . customer.
. . . it was said by some, in advance of the November election, that even if a complete mad man was voted into The White House, enough checks and balances existed in the form of expert advisers, experienced politicos in both parties, and the sacrosanct Constitution itself to ensure that the lunatic did not turn the country into a complete mental asylum.
'S funny. The way things work out.
. . . is only worthwhile if idle brains aren't connected to them. Yet time and time and time again, awareness of that doesn't dawn on the managers of product development in the world of software because of all the idle brains out there, theirs are the ones most likely to be inert.
Firefox is little different to any other organisation deluded by the brilliance of its own self-perceived talents into pushing out products which the customer *must* have for no other reason than the unnecessary amount of time and unnecessary amount of expenditure which the producer has incurred.
Ribbon, anyone? The vast redundant bloat of Microsoft Office? Nah. Thought not. My docs never needed such preposterous doxtoring; my Office Professional (sic) is as everyday usable now as it was from its installation in the last century.
On BBC Radio 4's well-respected 'You and Yours' programme t'other lunchtime, it was reported that a 2014 UK government initiative intended to help individuals repeatedly targeted by postal scams was failing miserably. The consumer protection scheme was created in response to findings that the names and addresses of around 10,000 individuals in the UK -- the overwhelming majority elderly, living alone, and likely to be suffering from some age-related illness or other -- had finished up on target lists bought and sold by criminal gangs, as a result of which they were being subjected to repeated, multiple scam attempts.
The initiative called upon local authority Trading Standards officers to visit local victims and set up a contact arrangement whereby the victims could provide TS with whatever scam materials they were receiving. The arrangement would not only aid investigations into the scammers, it would also reassure the victims that official help was readily to hand.
A check into how well the scheme was working showed that in the two years it has been running, only 120 victims have so far been visited. The failure was explained by a representative of the Trading Standards Institute as a case of the government on one hand making lofty promises about UK consumer protection and, on the other hand, cutting the resources upon which those promises depended for their fulfillment.
The government, said the representative, had abolished so many UK trading standards posts that the total today is exactly half what it was five years ago.
I seem to remember that a particular politician and a particular political party of recent memory made much of something called The Big Society. What wasn't made clear was that this referred to The Big Society of Scammers and Scumbags. Perhaps we should've asked.
"What is the difference between Microsoft distributing (or some other neutral word to describe what they did) and "sneaking out" a patch? One is journalism and the other is propaganda."
Nope. One is the use of terminology appropriate to a particular company's ethics, established practices, and repute.
The other is the use of terminology appropriate to a particular company's ethics, established practices, and repute.
Amazing, the way Microsoft is allowed to get away with whatever its ruling elite wish. With a financial turnover the size of a small nation's economy, there's no reason why Microsoft could not be viewed as a hostile country -- and dealt with as such. Its track record over recent years has been to:
1) Invade millions of computers worldwide;
2) Install software the content of which it refuses to divulge;
3) Place telemetry on those computers so as to monitor user behaviour;
4) Attempt by systematic fraud to replace a computer owner's OS of choice with one of its choosing (and in many thousands of instances, achieve exactly that objective);
5) Repeatedly disrupt the operation of a user's computer with secret unsought modifications;
6) Consistently lie about its practices.
This latest example is one of the most telling, because no legitimate reason exists for Microsoft to be messing around with a computer user's internet connectivity. Illegitimate reasons, however, abound. . .
Invasive. Secretive. Disruptive. And dedicated to covert surveillance . . . If Microsoft were to be treated as a hostile country rather than the hostile company it now so clearly is, there'd be plenty of talk on both sides of the Atlantic about how best to deal with it: disrupting its international trade; freezing its assets; putting its leadership on travel black-lists, etc etc.
Looking at today's mainstream meeja headlines though, all I see is yet more tut-tutting about that awful Mr Putin, that nasty Russia, and how it keeps hacking politicians' emails. I have yet to see any reportage of that malignant nation state called Microsoft, one which after hacking computers -- never mind emails -- for so long is now actually breaking 'em.
Plenty on here have said, fuck Microsoft. Seems to me, prosecuting Microsoft would be considerably more satisfying.
I actually thought this article was going to warn of the disaster that awaits when a product of and for its age is exhumed in commercial hope of it becoming a product of and for a later era. Instead, this piece is, inexplicably, a paean of praise, one which makes me think El Reg should maybe stick to matters computing and leave matters motoring to others.
That the "new" Mini does indeed reflect the vapid and the bloated so characteristic of the modern era is nothing to celebrate: it's just a bloody monstrous wagon with a late middle-age waistline, in no way resonant of an ancestor affordable by the many rather than the few and enriched with a personality that no amount of Frankensteinian engineering can ever replicate.
If anything is to learned from the story of the Mini it's that unless an original is going to be re-born with its charisma, character and cleverness embodied and enhanced, then don't bother; the real "lesson" here is Fiat, with its re-born and revitalised 500, not BMW's flaccid failure.
" It also becomes illegal to offer it for sale so if it's on sale from a local vendor then they get a visit from Trading Standards or whatever in that particular jurisdiction. If it's being offered for sale on eBay from China or wherever then eBay gets a visit."
In the UK, Local Authorities run Trading Standards departments. Also in the UK, central government (i.e., taxpayer) funding of Local Authorities dwindles year on year -- as do the number of staff employed as Trading Standards officers. Quite how this ever-diminishing number of consumer protection specialists is meant to visit every vendor of unsafe cheap Chinese tat, whether sold on a real-world market stall in hundreds of towns throughout the country, or the virtual auction house of eBay, is beyond me. Using Denial of Commonsense as an approach to the issue of Denial of Service ain't going to help at all.
. . . is that Alan Hely works for a small start-up tech company which lacks the financial resources to shield itself against potentially damaging publicity from giant media corporations such as Vulture Inc. Nor, because of its puny size, can Mr Hely's employers afford the staffing costs of a professionally-run Department of External Affairs, or even hire in a single individual with the faintest idea of how corporate Public Relations actually works.
Though this is all a bit distressing for those, like me, with an innate goodwill towards any little business hoping one day to be a big business, there's nothing we can do about it. Even a megabucks media colossus like Vulture Inc can't do anything either, for the well-nigh heroic benevolence shown by Kieren McCarthy has obviously been in vain.
For now, and for the foreseeable future, this frail, tremulous Californian enterprise will just have to struggle on, not only against the twin obstacles of lack of working capital and absence of communications expertise, but also against the reputational damage wrought by that unfortunate, though entirely accurate, marketing sobriquet to which it is so memorably linked:
APPLE. Frightened To The Core. ©
My wife needed a replacement for her much-loved much-used Asus Transformer 101 which, at 5½ years old, was fading fast.
Windows 10 showed just how deep is the contempt in which Microsoft holds all its customers so we've happily reciprocated by resolving never to buy anything from Redmond again. Asus has gotten into bed with Microsoft and in any event nowadays appears to be competing for a worldwide record in lousy-at-best, non-existent-most-often, customer service. So. Nix Asus. Sampling Samsung's and Sony's tablets left us mildly interested but nothing more. Finally, then, we decided on Google's "own" product, the Pixel C.
If you read the rave reviews of a tech media so far up Mountain View's hindquarters that it can barely see to write, you'll realise that the Pixel C is not merely the best thing since sliced bread, but the best thing since the creation of dough. If, however, you appreciate that you are a consumer and not a freebie-laden meeja hack, then you'll check Google's own forums to discover just how good the Pixel C is . . . and when you've done that, browse the ether for further news of its distinctive wifi capability. Or rather, distinctive incapability. And then harken to Google's . . . silence.
Kudos, then, to Samsung for reacting to a PR disaster in the best way possible . . . and none at all to Google for doing nothing in hope that its own bad news will just go away when it's actually potential customers who go away. Goodbye Google, hello Apple. The wife's iPad Pro is just the Jobs, thank you.
"Talk Talk won't be able to restore their reputation by appealing fines for data breaches." You being serious? At this stage in its life cycle,TalkTalk doesn't give a bugger about "reputation". All it cares about is fishing the moron pool to exhaustion. When there's a final irreversible decline in the number of morons signing up for its services, then and only then will it think about 'reputation' -- as in, how much value might be attached to the TalkTalk name, now that the business is up for sale. . .
You do have to wonder at what kind of alternative reality so many morally superior commentards are living in. So let's try some facts. The first duty of Business is to stay in business. The first duty of Government is to govern in its citizens' best interests. Shareholders are entitled to play hell when a company fails to legally minimize its tax burden. Citizens are entitled to play hell when a Government fails to make the country in which they live, open to business.
Apple has some of the brightest and best in-house legal and taxation counsel in the world because it pays them some of the biggest salaries in the world. Governments -- in this case, the Irish Government -- can afford no such expenditure. So . . along comes Apple armed with news of loopholes which regulatory agencies have been too stupid / too lazy to close. And along comes the Irish government, which now that it has been alerted to the existence of such loopholes, must decide whether to close 'em and drive business away or leave 'em open and continue on as before.
Finally. . . along comes an unelected self-serving hubristic bunch of empire-building clowns seeking to butt in on the sovereign decisions of a sovereign state -- the self same "Commission" that, surprise, surprise, continues to do nothing about the blatant abuses institutionalised in another member state called, er, Luxembourg, which happens to have, um, a certain linkage to an obscure bloke who goes by the name of Jean-Claude Juncker.
Well: who'd a-thought it?
The sheer idiocy of the Commission's behaviour really doesn't surprise, even if it'll take some beating, not least its "finding" that Apple must repay $13 billion in back taxes to, er. . . who? Mr Juncker? Apple certainly can't pay it to the Irish Government because it has never earned anything there that's remotely like the gross qualifying figure for a $13 billion bill. The Irish Government cannot "collect" the $13 billion because under international law it has no authority to do so. The EU Commission cannot collect the $13 billion either, because though the EU elilte would dearly like the world to believe that they're in charge of a sovereign State. . . they ain't.
As one of those who voted Leave on June 23rd because I've grown sick, weary and tired of a faux country with its 'national' flag, 'national' anthem, multiple 'Presidents', multiple 'Parliaments', overseas 'embassies', 'national' currency and dreams of a 'national' army, it's delicious to see yet another nail being self-hammered into the EU coffin . . .
"What's next for Windows 10?" The Windows-9-but-we'd-better-not-call-it-that giveaway was less a marketing exercise as an experiment in materials science, the materials being millions of non-techie users, the science being all about pliability: just how far can those users be made to bend to Microshaft's will? If pressure upon them is progressively increased, will they bend yet further -- or break?
For all those who bent over fully to take their Microshafting, the next experiment will be in paid-for updates; after all, their pliability is already established, and so their wallets are within easy reach. For all those who either broke and said farewell, Redmond, or flatly refused to be experimented upon in the first place, what's next for Windows 10, or Microshaft, is of passing interest: a business so contemptuous of its customers is one to be forgotten rather than ever to be forgiven.
I never thought I'd feel sorry for Corbyn but having seen your repeated efforts on here to assist him, I now do. Given his propensity for self-inflicted disasters -- like the blatant deletion of every reference he ever made to the EU from his online blog, as well as his inconveniently still extant televised condemnation of the EU during his September 2015 leadership campaign -- the man clearly needs as many professional advisers as can be hired from all the three quids forked out by Labour Party visiting tourists. The inept bunch who arranged his Rammed Train -- "rammed" though: good God, they can't even speak English -- expose clearly aren't professionals and as for you and your idea that innocence gathers Momentum via the repetition of the same denial, well . . .
Go on then. Post the same thing for the fourth time, will you? Just in case we didn't get your propaganda piece the first time around.
Occasionally I have trouble with idiot companies and their CSs so find it necessary to email the CEO. Digging around on the 'Net to track her / him down inevitably involves the absurd self-promoting self-satisfied LinkedIn, where all those with delusions of adequacy speak unto others of similar fragility. What's notable about the aforementioned idiot companies is that their managements have some of the longest CVs on LinkedIn. Where my own company is concerned, our employment policy is liberal and fair minded, and our view that a candidate with a LinkedIn profile is most likely to be deranged, incompetent, mendacious or a complete Twatter, eminently reasonable.
Wonder when the UK will act against VAG . . . then again, nah. Apparently we're covered here by EU consumer legislation and at any minute now, Brussels is going to, is going to, is going to . . . I also wonder, how much London lost out on with VAG's cheating of its Low Emission Zone. Scum of the earth, VAG, but that's not going to stop people from buying their product or Brussels running scared of a German conglomerate.
"If the Dallas PD had him contained they could settle in and wait him out. There was no indication of any hostages, so taking up positions to cover escape routes and waiting is viable. He will either try charging his way out, shoot himself, or surrender."
Absolutely. Let's respect the rights of a mass murderer who has just erased the rights of so many other people. Let's commit God knows how many officers to an effective siege. Let's cordon off a substantial chunk of the downtown area and disrupt countless businesses and the lives of all who work in 'em. Let's make an even bigger dent in the public purse for the additional cost of the law enforcement resources required to respect the aforesaid mass murderer's rights.
The glib nobility of nauseating posts like yours says all there is to say about why contemporary Society is so dysfunctional. Determinedly oblivious to the cost and consequences of what they propose, it's thanks entirely to oh-so politically correct libertarians that a mindset now exists within which the abuser and the abused, the murderer and the murdered, have equal rights.
Well done then, Dallas PD, for displaying a different kind of nobility by exercising that particular f*cker's right to a quick and humane exit.
And you were of this view *before* voting? You contacted your MP about it / wrote to your local paper / set up a special 52%_too_little blog / scribbled a thousand twits?? You were so concerned about this obvious failure to properly quantify the "expression of the people's will" that on June 23rd last you were in the deepest of deep despair?
And then you voted Remain.
Aw dear.
Fair do's: it's perfectly possible that one of the company's many hackers has revealed that its Talk2Go app is being used by people to talk other TT customers into going. From TalkTalk. If I was CEO, I too would be experiencing difficulties in restoring Talk2Go to a bunch of ingrates.
So how long will it be before M$ capitalizes on the captive nation of Win10 users it has acquired?
Nothing in the conduct of this repellent outfit and its nauseating top management points to the existence of philanthropy and benevolence; giving away a Windows OS runs counter to every stunt it has pulled, every lie it has told, every coercion it has engineered.
How soon will dawn the day then when (a) Windows 10 users can't get an upgrade because they haven't registered their credit card with M$ and (b) those stupid enough to bank with Redmond discover from El Reg the latest bilge from an MS spokesperson:
'In response to feedback from our customers about how much they would prefer their already busy lives to be free from unnecessary disruption, Microsoft has decided that the confusing range of options about downloading and installing Windows Updates is to be brought to an end and replaced by a simple automatic Updates at a nominal recurring charge.
'Obviously, as part of our commitment to ensuring our customers' computers operate as safely and as efficiently as possible, the time-consuming business of having to hide mistakenly unwanted updates will similarly be terminated. The confusing classification of updates -- currently Critical, Important, Recommended and Profiteering -- will also be abolished, substituted instead with the simple-to-read / easy-to-understand INSTALL NOW (though even this will not be apparent as everything we wish you to install on your computer will be installed on your computer. At your expense.)
'Microsoft is delighted to be able to respond to its customers' needs in this way and to continue to provide a customer experience as memorable as it is unique.'
Asked by The Register to clarify the meaning of the phrase "nominal recurring charge", the spokesperson eventually said:
'The charge will be subject to variating alternativizations of update upgrade upsell scenarios mandated by extant issue identification and remedial initiation and / or original innovatory inter-relationship activity via customer credit card account unrestricted accessibility.'
Well done, Microsoft. It's about time that a company of its size and integrity took on the scumbag outfits that target the vulnerable.
I've even heard of people winding up with an entire Operating System which they didn't want but were conned into believing they should install "important updates" to address "issues" which, of course, didn't exist.
The sooner these scumbags are put out of business, the better!
Microsoft and reputational damage have become synonymous, thanks to the post-Balmer management. Incompetence was one thing. Immorality, another. Despite the fact that I have Windows Update KB3035583 for Windows 7 x64 marked as hidden, I have yet AGAIN received a Windows Update alert in regard to this recommended Update to "install this update to resolve issues in Windows".
There are, of course, no issues to be resolved in my computer by this update. The issues are of a financial nature only, and centre upon Microsoft's corporate purse. I blame its new CEO, because mendacious marketing isn't authorised, and steadfastly perpetrated, without the man at the top knowing all about it.
Certainly, KB3035583 can be dealt with (by those not daft enough to allow Microsoft to automatically install whatever updates it feels like) and yes, it's easy enough to set icon management such as to prevent that Windows 10 nagware from waving its flag. But that's not the point. The point is that Microsoft is a proven liar. Proven time after time after time. It couldn't care less about how blatant is its contempt for computer users, so really, it's not going to be that much of a surprise when that contempt is turned back on Redmond's managerial elite.
Back in the 1920s they came up with a slogan for the then emergent seaside resort of Morecambe: "Health Abounds, Beauty Surrounds." Yeah. Snappy. Morecambe is dead nowadays with only druggies, alcos and dole hogs imported from elsewhere staggering around. None have much energy to get up off the floor still less to climb into someone else's bed. These "surveys" show only how pointless PR is: dreamt-up stats for clumsy fictions that are easily disproved when it's realised that Barnsley is more sexually sophisticated than Paris. 'S true. I read it somewhere.
There's also a limited company employing wannabe policemen behaving as if they're employed by an official body. "Port of Tyne" has no legal authority. It has a Board of just three people comprising two directors, one of whom is Chief Exec, and a Secretary (actually, a business service.) Not only does it not have a clue about Public Relations -- hence the employment of such high-calibre individuals as seen in the photographer's video -- it hasn't a clue about marketing, either, the biggest sell on its website being how brilliant it has been in flooding the UK with cheap coal from abroad. Clearly, from Chief Executive down to wannabe policemen, this limited company is very much home to individuals of unlimited sensitivity.
What a vacuous bunch of self-justifying morons the "Port of Tyne" is, paying out for the creation of signs for people to look at but not to photograph. If anyone there had a functioning brain cell then they would long since have ensured that every sign, every paving stone, every brick in the wall, every tree and every leaf (if there are trees in Newcastle) has a notice attached to it: "DO NOT TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS". It's the way any asylum would organise things, so why not the Port of Newcastle? As for the local police not having the balls to say the Renta Uniform Cops are a right Laurel & Hardy, no surprise there . . .
As if Apple needed the FBI to be its PR department when it's already a religion to all The Faithful now busily congregating outside the several Temples of Jobs. At least here in the UK we don't seem so gullible as to believe (a) in religion (b) in 'patriotism' and (c) in Jobs. We have that nice Mr Cameron instead.
Argos in the UK was until recently retailing a Nikon 55-200mm zoom lens at a not inconsiderable price. It was also posting on that item's website page questions from potential buyers who weren't sure if the lens came with Vibration Reduction or not. Argos had provided its own response but it was ambiguous. I therefore responded myself, even though I'm not an Argos customer. I explained that the lens Argos was selling was in fact a very old model, and that Nikon had brought out not one but two newer versions. Argos thanked me for helping out with the customer's question and then a day later published my answer in full. The effect of what I'd written would have been to put anyone off buying that particular Nikon lens from Argos at that price. . . and Argos would have known that.
People like you who come along with such obviously glib denunciations are as bad as those on review sites who post their obviously fake commendations. If you've evidence of Argos running a shilling operation then say so. Oh, and no: I have no connection whatsoever with Argos, other than admiring its openness.
QUOTE: "The suit goes on to note that a number of American's competitors, including United, JetBlue and Virgin America, as well as Wright Brothers Airways, Ryanair, Thomson Holidays, British Airways, Thomas Cook and Wigan-Shetland International all provide a better passenger service than that offered by American Airlines."
Just thought I'd better provide that amendment in the interests of accuracy.
Suspended for two years in 2012 (rather than banned for life) by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority, Andrew Crossley, of the eponymous ACS:Law -- much missed by all at El Reg -- is now, presumably, back at work. Though perhaps not in Australia. The guitar playing, Ferrari owning, Monaco resident Crossley (allegedly) did so much to bring the legal profession into the lime light that it's a shame there appears to be no trace of him nowadays, otherwise El Reg could surely have rung him up for a quote?
PS: Speculative invoicing is in for a hard time of it in the UK nowadays, as this informative reportage explains:
https://acsbore.wordpress.com/
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