Posts by Rob 1524 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Apr 2007
... if the kids want to see violence, then let them. Bring back national conscription and show them real violence, up close and personal so much so that they can smell the blood and then throw up.
In the meantime though, I blame the bloody parents, lazy gits who have no idea why they had a kid in the first place (oh yeah, cause everyone expects you to, flippin sheeple).
You need a fixed line for the Box to dial home and get it's setup done. After that it will dial home or recieve updates, you also need it to program sky+ from the web.
You can disconnect the line from the box once setup is done, but Sky would prefer if you left it plugged in for at least 12 months otherwise they inccur a cost from the contract they have setup with a telco for their set-top boxes.
Yes it is £7.50 standard rate from anyone including T-Mob and yes you can get it for £5 if you catch a promo offer or phone up their CS and beg/bargain with them, that's there standard unlimited browsing package. The packakge (WnW Pro) for VOIP and and connecting your mob to your laptop for normal broadband use is £12.50
And yes all of the above are facts at the time of writing (hopefully that clears up any confusion).
... it seems it can't be anymore than that. I used to be an NTL customer and swore my cable was better than ADSL, I left NTL as soon as they became Virgin and solely because of of the Virgin brand.
Having just got Sky I decided to give their ADSL a go as it was about £20 cheaper than NTL/Virgin, result, blown away, did some maintaince on my master socket and my speed is pretty constant even in peak times, stark difference to my cable offering which fluctuated regardless the time of day.
Yet I still want and believe cable as the better technology, what a mess the UK industry is in.
(already swatting up on how to extend the cable that BT are upgrading from the edge of the property to the house, easy if you've had NTL installed previously., jsut got to wait for the upgrade to happen now.)
... that these residents used to work in an environment which used have some nasties like asbestos etc.
My uncle used to work on the railways as an engineer when he was younger, place is full of asbestos. Died about a year back from cancer which manifested itself about 2 years before that.
So not always linked to your immediate surroundings. Wonder what jobs the unfortunate souls who have got cancer used to be?
... I've been using Vista on my laptop (use this for work, which includes video editing and such like). I run Trendmicro's Internet security fully patched and up to date, by accident one day I was editing some footage and the AV scan kicked in while I working, I experienced mild slow down but other than that everything worked fine and no viri were found. (If I'm playing World of Warcraft, I won't even know if it's done a scan unless I look at the summary page of the AV S/W)
Hope that helps with some of your woes about upgrading.
P.S. oh and forget to mention I haven't switched off the UAC feature either.
.... we have established that the iPlayer is in a Beta phase, we have also established that other OS's will be provided for after a release of current beta (no time frame mind you for that) and generally speaking it doesn't really matter if someone in another country who doesn't pay the fee is able to access it.
Which leaves me with the conclusion of, what a bunch of fools the FSF are making themselves look. In what way is this going to help the profile of the FSF and open source in general, I think that perhaps the FSF needs to pay for someone who knows PR, because at the moment they remind me of animal activists in the ineptitude of this whole protest.
P.S. @FSF, I can fit you in for some PR consultancy if you like, I have space in my calendar for the next 2 weeks.
It's a trial, so I think protesting now is just going to make them look stupid, better to do it once the software has gone gold surely?
I'm also thinking that some sort of paranoid fever has griped some people, the BBC have already annouced that whilst trialling it was going for XP and IE combatibility and would develop for later OS's afterwards, I think that's something akin to a "roll-out".
As much as I like to see a fair market with open source well and truely in there somewhere, I think the FSF don't do themselves any favours sometimes, by all means fight the good fight to be heard and make a difference, but pick your fights.
I'm a license payer and I would like to know that my fee is not paying for content non fee payers can download from other countries. If/when the BBC says it's not going to touch the other platforms then I will quite happily join the protest.
Look we know teachers are uselss nowadays and we know most kids are thick (most of the ones I had taught in FE certainly are).
When is someone going to grow some balls and address this problem at the root, the blame clearly lies with the parents, where else to kids get shaped the most, by one of their major influences, Parents.
Parents are not like gunmakers, just cause they make the gun doesn't mean they are responsible for it killing someone. Parents made the kid and they are responsible by law for them up to a certain age.
Responsibility seems to be a swear word in todays spineless society.
(climbs down off soap box, still sightly fuming over the useless people in this world that think their voice is worth hearing).
"...instead, we will log on to Second Life, and walk to the Amazon.com shopping zone and buy things from inside a virtual shop by handing over virtual money to a virtual shopkeeper."
This scenario mentioned by an earlier poster is exactly what won't happen. Why spend nigh on 15 to 20 mins navigating around a virtual shop to then navigate over to the counter and exchange money when with a BOFH style <clickty> <clack> you can make a purchase on amazon via the normal web in a couple of minutes with your real money and not the stuff you have to get converted first, it's all about buy in (sorry for repeating myself, but thought it made a good example).
It seems Lindan Labs can't see the wood for the dollar signs they think are obscuring their vision. This seems a-typical of software projects now-a-days and is exactly what the UK Gov suffers from all the time with it's IT projects, it doesn't bother with research, consulting stake holders, etc, before implementing.
All SL appears to be is an onilne sex fantasy game and big businesses want conduct meetings in it with clients!!!!! WTF!!!!
As with all software it's about buy-in and the general population is not going to buy in, first off you need the population to all start using computers then get them onto the Internet.
Then you need to re-market 2nd life (maybe 2.1 life, one revision higher than the web at least) so it doesn't appear to be purely populated by social rejects. You also need to squash the darker habits that 2nd life has attracted, before it turns into a complete cesspit of human depravity.
And maybe thirdly we could all stop being so desperate for money that people are willing to hype a revenue out of something that is essentially virtual hot air. Did we not learn anything from the dot bust era.
And the reason we know it's over hype is the figures tell the story, you may have 8mil registered, but that's not 8mil active.
"Why hurt the normal, law-abiding citizens because of the actions of one crazed nut?"
Who are you talking about eBay or any western government.
I'm a little surprised at the reactions so far, especially the knee jerk comments that slate eBay. Let's not forget that in the land of the cowering, you can get sued for just about anything, so if I were eBay I'd do the same.
And judging by some of the comments, the only group that will really suffer are the historical collectors, so unfortunately they will have to go to a real live auction instead. The gun totting nuts have all claimed that they can source all the stuff locally just not as cheap.
"After all, can you imagine the outcry if it was a male prison guard spying on a female inmate masturbating?"
Sorry it just wouldn't happen, the aforementioned male guard would make sure no-one was around and beat one off himself, not mention it to anyone and next time make sure the VCR is ready to go at a moments notice.
A month later = Jailbirds.com
.... did she sit there and wait for him to finish (in which case she should be done for voyeurism) and if she sat that watching him do it but it was against the law, could she have not pressed the tanoy button and announced that prisoner x should stop exercising in his cell (or put on a husky voice, talk dirty and get him there faster).
Yes the European and Asian markets are a lot bigger, but also on the flip side they are also a lot more picky about their handsets.
If and only if Apple upgrade the phone to 3G will they be able to make those markets take interest in a way that will get them close to the 10mil mark. As Europe and Asia have superior networks it means offering a phone that doesn't make full use of the technology will put it on a back foot.
Another flip side though is that we have phone subsidies over here which could mean the iPhone could be available on a new contract for as little as £50-130, which in my book is not that expensive (been on the WinMob smartphone range for a while hence don't really get that many phones for free or dirt cheap anymore).
IMO I think 10mil is slightly too high a target for them to reach, just purely because the mobile phone market is extremely difficult and the only companies that survive are those that have other product strengths. A lot of the smaller companies (and even some of the big ones) decided to drop their mobile phone ambitions due to manufacturering costs, the companies that stayed did so because they had access to cheap screen technology, which was at the time the most expensive component. At least Apple have this going for them, but they will only be able to sustain the iPhone arm of the business as long other product sales keep increasing and the iPhone really does make some headway. Without that they will be like many other corporates that use their cash making divisions to support their mobile phone ambitions.
No country is whiter than white, but if your going to step in and try and resolve issues in a country you need to make sure you have the higher ground in terms of morals and conduct, otherwise the country your in will see you as no better then the issue you have come to resolve. At the moment there is a lot of double standards floating around which is doing nothing to help the images of the countries supposedly stepping in. Some good examples being, the UK was responsible for Saddam taking control of Iraq in the first place, the US is currently a sticking point for the whole Mid-east conflict.
So bearing that in mind, if the US is the world police and only when it suits the Europeans then they are a very corrupt police force.
Believe it or not, London, in particular, was under terrorist threat for a number of years before 9/11, before most of the average americans could actually tell you where Europe was even. Where was the US world police then, oh yeah they were supporting the terrorists that were trying to blow us up, thanks for that.
By the way as a Police force shouldn't you be addressing some African issues, as there's countless pointless deaths happening there at an alarming and saddening rate, but seeing as they have nothing to offer the US administration in it's quest to become an Empire through economic power, there's no point in interferring I suppose.
If history as taught us anything, it's taught the Brits empire building doesn't work and consumes a lot of resources, if we'd have listened to the Dutch we would have ditched our Empire building (which was through a combination of commerce and military, ring any bells yet, history seems to be repeating itself).
.... this maybe a useless idea for defence against missiles, but I'm sure if you got some big enough speakers and a quality DJ, a field full of ravers and then hire this bad boy laser display show to light up the sky for you, be one of the best clubbing events going wouldn't it?
Granted it would be awhile before the US would get their money back, I'm only thinking of hire cost of about £200 per hour.
... not that uncommon.
Egyptians revered cats as they are the guardians of the spirit world, to have a cat near you at the time of death is supposed to facilitate safe passage to the other side.
On a scientific note, the theory that I subscribe to is that they can pick up on the electro-chemicals we transmit while we are living, obviously getting close to death that electo-chemical field starts to wan, hence the reason cats sense death.
"Yeah, show your children how much you trust them and how much you believe they are reasonable individuals. That's the way to go."
Well made example, that's exactly the attitude everyone is talking about. Why parents think that children should have every right an adult has at the age of 11 is beyond me. Loco Parentis is in effect until the age of 18 in the UK, so obviously the law still thinks that they are children/young persons/people (insert any other PC term that will not offend a young'un), why don't the parents.
Don't bother with classes on safe web surfing, try parenting lessons and a licence to have a child in the first place (oh yeah damn, apparently it's a human right to create a life and then not give a monkeys about as it grows/develops into an adult).
...."and the Israelis and the Palestinians fell out a bit."
Well it tickled me a lot and it wasn't even Apple bashing :)
"Well, as soon as someone defines "we" and comes up with a suitably catchy group name." - How about Cider Makers (geddit, Apple bashers.... where's my coat gone!)
You wrote all that and still the previous arguments stand.
Yes the Internet would provide access to a large audience, but the large audience has to know about the site first (there's a pun in there somewhere about large and this story being related to the US), so that line is sensationalism.
I think most of the posters here will agree, we didn't need the FBI to tell us it was not credible, most of us sussed that out after we had wiped the tears of laughter from our eyes.
And yes he is still a buffoon, he's a misguided IT geek who just happens to be a Muslim that supports Jihad, if he wasn't a Muslim he'd probably be the IT geek you tolerate for a short period of time whilst trying to get a clear answer from, but can't wait to get rid of as soon as you have said answer.
It's not rocket science to work out that you'll need a shed load more ordnance and to at least hit every ship below the waterline and if your lucky between 2 bulkheads to get close to a risk of sinking them, so a carrier and 12 other support ships is laughable.
Unfortunately people like you only help the terrorists by trying to give this sort of thing some sort of legitimacy.. shame on you.
Nice to see you have focused on the market a bit more in this article.
Shame you mentioned the iPhone, I think with a bit of thinking you could have used another example just to avoid the distress you have caused to the Apple fanbase.
@Greg - I completely agree, someone that speaks the langauge of reality.
" I don't want Vista on my mobile any more than I want it on my desktop, and the same goes for Apple." the comment that I would consider ends all arguements.
OS's are now like politicians, there all wankers and just as bad as each other.
.... recipe, thanks for that, also made me hungry so must go for lunch now.
Oh and yeah what all the others said before, business use means you should have had a contingency plan and sorry you expect far too much from company/customer service reps, your living in 2007. Todays modern society means you aren't entitled to anything and just because you paid for something doesn't mean they have to treat you any different to a dog, wake up to the modern world, it's a crap hole and customers come 2nd from last (I think students are last and they only just rank above out of work actors/actresses who have got to be bottom of the pile).
Hmmmm... smoked turkey
... this isn't going to happen on the scale some of you mention, at most, like someone said earlier, it will probably apply to MSN type apps like they do already with Messenger. (check out the live ideas site, they have desktop mail that will probably do similiar and really not that different from what Google already does with it's mail app).
I'm pretty sure the main reason for this is IP, all the large corporates are at point where they need to get the IP portfolios in order and MS has been doing it a lot lately as they know that they have reached a type of market saturation. The division within MS that make money are things like the server and office divisions, the rest of them are supported by the money making ones. The next biggest revenue earner is Intellectual Property, HP did it awhile back which made the news.
You'll probably find a lot of patents appearing that will never actually come of anything but are there as future potential earners for any corporation IP portfolio. Although I think it will get a bit crazy and I'm still intent on filling a patent in the US for going for a piss, which means once approved I will be a very rich person (once rich I will buy a drinks company and lace all the drinks with a laxative, shortly after I filled a patent for going for a crap).
.... moving to Wales, they get all the best kit. Copshops with video conferencing, Doc surgergies with broadband before the rest of us, BT's 21CN kit in Cardiff (if I remember rightly) and the BBC studio does alright.
See this is how the Welsh and the Scots get back at the English after all these years, by shaming us with better practices and technology :)
I think that just about sums it up though, even though I mentioned Windows Mobile and I use it along with Vista, I wouldn't really call myself an MS fanboy but I do use lot of MS products and technology. I seriously wouldn't get as upset as some of these iFanbois would though if someone wanted to have a go at MS (of which they do on a daily basis, yet there doesn't seem to be as much vehmence as the iPeople have, from the MS Camp of fans, if there are any).
I think the iPhone UI is a great innovation and the screen looks great but unfortunately the lockdown on the phone and lack of some other tech on it makes me not want to buy one, probably those small reasons the Author took his back. Still early days anyway, give it a few more months then see if it measures up as a phone.
Prehaps part of the reason people like winding up iFans is that they take it all far too seriously and bite far too easily.
I now leave the floor open to more flaming (any directed at me will be water off a ducks back, but feel free all the same).
And thanks to all for helping me skip through the day with doing little or no work :)
.... RE: Not quite as a bit of a problem, WoW is actually quite good at spotting trojans itself. A friend had a Trojan buried in his root and it was WoW that kept confirming it was still there until I used a rootkit on it, all other AV software was happy to say it had removed it.
As I said to my friend, be safe when surfing porn (yes that's why he got the Trojan, have since given him safe sites to surf).
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