Posts by Mahatma Coat
880 posts • joined Thursday 11th June 2009 14:00 GMT
Posted in Still buying CDs?
Re: Re: Still buying CDs?
We have tonnes of DVDs as they are so much better than our current cinema experience. The lovely Mrs Coat and I used to enjoy going to the flicks but our nearest is now a four hour round trip and the seats are like instruments of torture. They only show US blockbusters too. Our previous location had a small duplex cinema: one room for Hollywood twaddle and one for real films.
We've recently started buying Blu-rays as we now have a PS3. It was a PS2 that got us started on DVDs. Mr Sony is clever.
Beer icon cos I can drink and watch stuff at home.
Posted in Still buying CDs?
Still buying CDs?
I bought two last week. Am I alone in still preferring CDs to compressed formats?
Posted in Ok, I'll bite.
The drill?
I didn't see a drill or any other power tools, just something about a net for mums. I feel cheated.
Re: Drew's Cookie Jar - psst. want a forum upgrade
I'll give it a whirl.
Posted in Loral set to build NBN Co satellites
The upload speed figure I saw quoted in the press yesterday was 1Mbps.
I can't believe they're wasting this much money. It's supposed to service 3% of the population at a cost of AUD2 billion. A quick look for existing satellite services to the bush shows that it's already available at a reasonable price for a 6Mbps service.
The other problem is that a lot of the area covered by this is in the north of Aus, an area that is often covered by cloud for half the year. Satellite TV is hopeless during the wet season and even free-to-air terrestrial will crap out when the weather is bad.
NB Before anyone from non-tropical places chips in about clouds not being a problem I'd just like to add that where I live we can get half of London's annual rainfall in one day.
The eating babies footage is on the floor of the edit suite.
Alternatively...
"To use the examples of BPI, MPAA or PACT, we would propose that prioritisation be enabled for searches that contain any of the following key search terms: 'twat', 'pillock', 'out of touch with reality', 'broken', 'numpties', 'clueless', 'cockwombles'.
Posted in SMS emergency management goes national
We had a localised SMS warning before Cyclone Yasi...
...and it confused everyone. A text that basically said "Cyclone Yasi is coming. Evacuate now. We're all doomed" is less than helpful. Which direction should people head, north or south? Even more ridiculous is that the cyclone was so big that no one could have driven out of the area unless they were on the margins.
They really need to think this one through a bit more.
Oh, the irony....
...India is full of religious buildings covered in carvings depicting men fucking women, humans fucking animals and so on.
TIPT was down today
Telstra's TIPT service was down for several hours today and it was a nationwide failure apparently.
If you don't know about TIPT:
"Telstra IP Telephony (TIPT) can help to increase the speed and efficiency of communications to improve productivity and customer engagement. Hosted on the Telstra network, Telstra IP Telephony is a flexible subscription-based service ideal for large offices, branch offices and remote sites, or contact centres. Designed to operate with existing telephone systems, it can help to overcome the problems of managing different communication systems across dispersed sites."
The difference is that Saint Ive has produced a result
If and when the cancer researcher comes up with a cure for cancer then no doubt he/she will get a K and also a Nobel Prize.
Or looking at it another way, the researcher *may* discover something that will bring relief to cancer sufferers whereas Ive *has* designed something that relieves the gullible of their cash.
Halle-fucking-luyah
"The functionalities of a computer program and the programming language are not eligible, as such, for copyright protection," Advocate General Bot said in his opinion.
Best decision, best name.
It just goes to show...
...some people take fashion more seriously than privacy, security and flexibility. Fools.
Mozilla is the only trustworthy browser company.
One thing Aus has got right
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home
And they allow users to correct OCR errors.
Posted in Woomera: Ghosts of Britain's space past
Emptiness
@ Lester
"Although it once housed thousands of people, the only sign of life we detected was the distant sound of some kids splashing around in a swimming pool."
@ Dave 126
"The streets without cars just look great."
Many towns in the Australian bush look exactly like this even when they are fully populated. More so at midday.
Using only a hoe?
That's a bit sexist. Can't men help out too?
Jesus H
"Great is the Lord ... "
If he keeps sending all that snow he's not really all that great.
'Diwana pitched itself as “hunting out the best Australian and New Zealand TV"'
Best? That'd take about 30 seconds.
You have to laugh...
....when a site that claims to be improving privacy uses Google Analytics to track visitors.
Re: She bought & shot it just for the pics...
...in a certain country only a few miles from the UK they do far worse to horses. They kill them and then eat them.
btw, 32 is pretty old for a horse. They probably did it a favour.
Er, not everyone has it...
...I live 18 degrees south of the equator. What use is seasonal clock changing to me?
<-- Nearest icon to a midday sun for mad dogs and Englishmen.
Govt makes ensures your privacy...
...by sharing your data with 26 additional entities.
Dear UK gov and Google, what part of "get the fuck our of my private affairs" don't you understand?
Posted in Krebs nabs ‘RSA attack’ list
I guess you didn't read the list either...
...the names I mentioned are the UK-based operations of those companies. They carry data in the UK. There's a clue - "UK" - in the names hence them popping up when I searched the list for "UK".
Hutchison 3G UK
Orange Business Services UK
Tiscali UK
If I could be arsed, which I can't, I could probably give you their UK company registration info.
There are other big UK names in there too: Vodafone, Easynet, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
You also omitted to mention that I listed BTnet UK Regional network. I'm pretty sure they have some kind of office in the UK.
As you weren't.
"Also, is there any such thing as a "Bing enthusiast"? That sounds quite sad to me..."
Better to be an enthusiast than a fanboi.
Is it just me...
...or is the US govt the most hypocritical on the planet?
Compare this from Michael Posner:
"Today we face a series of challenges at the intersection of human rights, connected technologies, business, and government. It's a busy intersection – and a lot of people want to put up traffic lights"
With this:
"The demands formed part of a 70% rise in takedown requests from the US government or police"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/25/google-transparency-report-released
We need an "arsewipes" icon.
Posted in Krebs nabs ‘RSA attack’ list
Re: Re: UK companies
Free tip: I just hit Ctrl-F in Firefox, typed "UK" and found BT. Keeping hitting F3 and you'll find Hutchison, Orange and Tiscali too.
Posted in Krebs nabs ‘RSA attack’ list
UK companies
"The Register’s scan of the list for Australian companies..."
Plenty of UK companies on the list but it doesn't seem to merit a mention in a UK publication.
I've been to Egypt...
...and there is definitely no shortage of men that look like Saddam Hussein. This bloke must be a really good lookalike.
Look at that guest list...
...pure evil.
"Unfortunately, we had no internet connection"
Welcome to life in rural Australia.
Re: for ducks
Thanks for the info. I've never been to the southern half of the country during the summer. Up here in the tropics it's cloudy for most of the six month summer wet season. Last dry season was cloudy and wet for the best part of six months too so we had 18 months of almost constant cloudy and wet weather. It was like being back in Blighty.
I'll get me raincoat.
Nice for weather for ducks...
...in air-conditioned asbestos suits.
Why do they hold it at this time of year? The middle of the Aus winter is 99% guaranteed sunshine, low humidity and cool. The opposite is true for the next six months.
Flame icon cos that what their pants will be feeling like.
Re: Re: Mahatma
"I do think it would be somewhat odd for someone who works for Dell, for example, to be carting around an HP laptop just the same as I would think it is odd for someone who works for Ubuntu to do his work on Windows or OSX - that's all."
Upon reflection it's not that odd. Back in the early 80s I recall talking to a senior Rank Xerox exec who told me he had a tiny Canon personal photocopier in his office to remind him of how good the competition is. Having said that, he did only have one. Mr Assay has six Macs so my original post stating my puzzlement still stands :-)
In reply to all the above comments
You seem to think or imply that Matt Assay uses Ubuntu on Mac hardware. The article said:
"I'm not a fan of Windows as a technology, being a longtime Mac user"
The clear implication there is that he's talking about Microsoft vs Apple operating systems. He's not comparing hardware. This should be obvious enough for anyone that has mastered basic English.
Let the fanboism and downvoting continue. I am indeed the Spawn of Satan (language comprehension department).
Re: the key word
The key word is "reading" the article:
"being a longtime Mac user"
Matt Assay is Mac user?
"was formerly chief operating officer of Ubuntu commercial operation Canonical."
Not quite sure what to make of that.
Recommendations and Big Media
Hmmm, not much of a trust problem there, eh?
But, but, but...
...Susan in Accounts really needs all her email in pink Comic Sans with a 100kb animated gif in the sig. She insists life as we know it would end.
Someone isn't happy...
...my very good friend Mr Reginald Security is mightily pissed off that you stole his Twatter account.
Posted in Obama+world pays tribute to Steve Jobs
Re: not "much of the world"
I think you may be making a bit of maths error there.
I believe there are at least four iPhone models and two iPad models. Many Apple fanbois will have owned more than one of each model and possibly a Mac too so the total number of humans is likely to be far fewer than you think.
And even if I'm wrong, which I doubt, a mere 2% is not "much of the world" in the slightest. I'm sure a considerably larger group of people discovered via TV or radio news that Big Jobby had died. A larger group doesn't give a flying f**k and an even larger group still probably has no idea who he was.
The latter two groups are made up of people more worried where their next meal is coming from, concerned that they may get shot for belonging to the wrong social/religious minority or whether they'll ever get electricity and fresh water in their village.
But hey, don't let me ruin the enjoyment you get from owning your precious shiny toys.
Posted in Future Firefox to slurp updates silently
*sigh*
Baker said that Mozilla "erred on the side of caution".
No, Mozilla didn't err at all. Users err on the side of "What the fuck is that annoying dialogue box doing. Oh fuck, I'll just click it to make it go away. Why do these software companies insist on making me think about important things when all I want to do is update my status on Arsebook?"
Posted in Obama+world pays tribute to Steve Jobs
Obama needs new research staff
Jobs wasn't an innovator. He plagiarised the ideas of others and packaged them in shiny boxes for the gullible. Worse than that, he then sued those companies whose products were too close to Apple stuff for his liking.
Apparently Obama also said "“There may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented". Er, what? According to the stats I read today there have been 128 million iPhones sold. That's not "much of the world" by any stretch of the imagination and I'm sure Obama learned of Jobs' passing on his BlackBerry.
Someone please wake me up when this madness and hype has subsided or when Jobs resurrects himself in a couple of days.
Posted in Chrome browser 'is becoming Number Two'
Re: Same here
I'm guessing that a fresh installation of Chrome is faster than an ageing installation of Firefox.
I'd also guess that many Firefox users are still using a browser profile first created a few years ago.
I'm guessing too that the aforementioned profile has dozens of extensions running and the detritus of quite a few more that are no longer in use.
I do know that a fresh install of Firefox without extensions runs very quickly indeed.
Oh, and I trust Mozilla. I don't trust Google.
Beer icon because in the browser world there is such a thing as a free beer and it has Firefox on the label.
Posted in October 14 declared 'Steve Jobs Day'
Yes, I can name another CEO
Simon Hackett, CEO of Internode. Not only did he reply to my email but also did so whilst on holiday. And he solved a pressing problem for me. Top geezer.
Posted in October 14 declared 'Steve Jobs Day'
They got the wrong day...
...25th of December, surely.
"As for Oz-made tv, "Spirited" is worth checking out though."
I'm a big fan of Aus current affairs programmes made by the ABC but that's about it. As for the commercial channels rehashing American Idol into Australian Idol when the former is a rehash of Pop Idol...just don't get me started :-)
Remakes of UK comedy such as HIGNFY -> Good News Week or Buzzcocks -> Spicks and Specks...words simply fail me (except for the ones I just typed).
The BBC is like Marmite to Pom ex-pats in Aus. You need to know where to get it from under the counter.
"I have to say that although I agree, UK television isn't that much better either"
If it wasn't for the ABC the TV here wouldn't get switched on. There are enough good UK comedies or docos from the BBC or C4 to keep me happy.
And if anyone from the Big Media is reading this, I buy tonnes of TV and film DVDs to assuage my guilt. I even bought Downfall, FFS. I'd just rather have a fair, legal and affordable way to watch TV from the mothership.
"Oh, and I expect Top Gear to be available in HD with 'the news'. Channel 9 hacks the bejesus out of it and makes it near unwatchable, plus they only offer SD."
I timed it once. They cut 26 minutes out for ads and trailers. They should at least make two series out of it instead of losing all that content. Tossers.
