Posts by Dropper 394 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jan 2011
"spies don't go out into the field and report back two months later with a new blonde"
Does this mean the terrorists have indeed won? I thought it was the duty of every spy (male or female) to be a sex-crazed, hedonistic gambler with a drinking problem. It saddens me that this might not be true.
Your comment "they experience very few fires" isn't exactly reassuring. They sell devices to people who live in homes, have families and often give these over-priced iCandies to spoiled children. I may dislike spoiled children but even I will admit setting them on fire is going too far.
Here's the thing, if you're going to sell something to millions of people, saying "They're pretty safe, you have a fair chance of this unit not burning your home to ground while you family sleeps in it.." is not exactly a resounding endorsement. We aren't talking about the occasional fire hazard here, they have enough fire-starting devices to get very, very noticed every time they sell something new. If Apple has sold it in the last decade, you can almost guarantee a larger than normal number of whatever it is has tried to kill its owner.
Being unlucky should mean that one or two devices over a multiple generations of a device explode. Getting bad batteries in the hundreds with the release of each new device you sell means QA is a concept that Apple only has a passing familiarity with. What's next? Giving the Apple QA stamp of approval on cell phones that drop their calls because of the way you hold them?.. wait..
Oh cool another Apple product that self-destructs, it must be that time of year again.. I'm assuming having all your products self-ignite is some sort of marketing scheme to encourage the purchase of extended warranties..
So far that makes the macbook, iphones 4 and 5, ipods, and now ipads. I don't care if it was an ipad 4 or ipad air, it's still another exploding idevice. I also don't care if the fault lies with the battery.. Apple has had about a decade to figure out how to buy batteries that don't blow up and so far they seem to have unusual difficulty finding some that are stable at room temperature.
You know I had forgotten about Blitz Basic. I did play around with it for a while on the Amiga, but by then I was writing everything in C. It's interesting to see they're still around. Right now I use C++ Builder XE4 for most of my projects, but it would be fun to walk down the nostalgia road and start playing with Basic.
Because the arsehats that we call parents demanded it. Remember all that complaining you did while you were in school? Someone listened. Probably the wrong someone and probably 20-30 years too late for you, but someone did listen. And they continued to listen to all the subsequent generations. Also while they were listening to you they were getting fed up with parents complaining their special little snowflake doesn't understand adding up or spelling proper-like and therefore shouldn't have to do either and they invented a new syllabus. This syllabus is all-inclusive. You don't need to know things, you certainly don't need to remember things, you just need to give a good try..
So if you're looking to blame someone for school work being too easy, for kids growing up into adults who write job application letters and CVs filled with basic spelling mistakes, for kids manning checkout registers who can't work out that the extra 3 pence you gave them means you want to avoid getting a handful of change (plus your 3 pence).. you need to look at yourself and the teachers who put your complaints in writing..
Don't worry though. We live in a world of over correction and knee jerk reactions. As soon as someone fails to set of a bomb outside the department of education (because they won't know how to read the instructions explaining how to build a bomb) the system will be changed.. and 5 year olds will be forced to learn quantum physics and write the next version of Word's spell checker.
What I loved about BBC Basic was it was a true structured programming language. You could fill your code with "gotos" but they were completely unnecessary. You could even code in a manner similar to object oriented programming if you choose, and I often did. Better yet, you could speed things up by inserting lines of 6502 assembler straight into your programs. What I usually did was write the software in 100% Basic, then if something wasn't fast enough I'd re-write the function or procedure in assembler.
That said the only reason I had a BBC Micro was my dad saved up for a year and then found a 32K version in a secondhand computer shop.
After the Amiga arrived I switched to Pascal then C.. both these languages were created by complete arseholes. There is simply no excuse for making programming that complicated. How I longed for a version of basic that could be compiled rather than interpreted but that never came to pass. Visual Basic doesnt' really count, it's just as fucked up as the original C and Pascal.
In the old days of answering machines I was always told to write down phone messages. I never did and got into trouble.. a lot.
In the new days I was told to write up my notes and explanations in tickets when troubleshooting issues. I usually get into trouble for not doing it.
Finally I've been vindicated. Never write anything down or store it on a computer. Just remember it. If you forget, consider that a failed backup and move on.
Your laptops are locked out of the network because you can't be trusted, as proven by bringing computers that are not using corporate anti-virus software, aren't configured to use corporate proxy servers for internet access and have been setup with illegal software - because whatever you have installed is violating its end user license agreement the second you started using it in a business environment.
You know all those free tools you like to download and install, but IT admins refuse to install? All illegal to use if installed on a business machine. But of course you don't care about the person struggling to make his mortgage payment because everyone is downloading the free version of his application and ignoring the version that actually makes him money.
iPads on the other hand are hated not because they can't be controlled, they can. They're hated because IT has no control over the use of software that once again is illegal to use in a business environment (go ahead and try to convince a corporation to pay for business license of your favourite app, interesting challange that). Mostly that's fine because beyond email, you can count on one hand the number of apps that have BOTH a true business purpose AND enough functionality that they can replace their desktop equivalents. Mostly business apps have been thrown together in around 90 seconds of shitty coding and half of what should work, doesn't. Then guess whose job it is to fix that. Not the person that wrote the shitty app apparently, but rather the person that has no control over it.
So yes, IT locks things down, and it's for two reasons. First, most of what you want to do is illegal (because you haven't paid for a business license), thus IT is protecting their company from lawsuits. Secondly, it's to protect their multi-million pound systems from the crap you'd do if you were free to run on your own. Handing an unlocked computer to a user is like organising a "run down the stairs with scissors" event for toddlers.
From what I can tell the argument appears to be "all well and good Bill, but pot, kettle, black."
While I agree with the basic argument, the reality is America's kids are (not universally, but in general) little shits, growing up to become gang bangers and wasters. Taking their money hurts no one that matters.
I suppose my opinion is biased as I have 2 of my own.. both despicable little fuckers who refuse to get jobs. At their age they're the ideal size to fit down chimneys or the small spaces in coal mines..
But the reality is the money he (and Jobs) "stole" is tax money. As no one pays taxes in America, that equates to free cash.
I'm in no way condoning things like sealed batteries and finger print sensors that will eventually wear out, but what people should know before buying any phone - iOS or Android - is that these things are built to last around 2-3 years, or in other words, the length of a contract.
OS updates and Apps will degrade the performance of your phone over the course of this time to the point where it becomes slow, laggy and in some cases unusable. My experience with the iPhone 4, Morola Razr Maxx and various other Android phones is that over a period of about 2 years the phones slow down in the same way a Windows PC will. Succesive OS updates, along with software (or app) installs are the obvious reason. Sure if you reset the phone to factory settings and managed to revert the OS to the original that came with the phone, there's no reason why it shouldn't run as fast (or near to it) as it did when you bought it. Of course this means less functionality, but that's what you have when you deal with older technology running newer software. PC life cycles used to be 2-3 years for this reason and phones are probably no different.
Like I said, this doesn't excuse poor manufacture quality, lack of upgradibility or the ability to replace broken or expired parts like batteries, but it does explain the reason manufacturers don't care. The want (need?) you to continually upgrade devices, so they're deliberately built with a life expectancy at or near the length of your contract.
"If we can figure out why Szechuan pepper produces the same response from our nerves as mechanical vibration, we may get a step or two closer to figuring out what makes us hurt"
People are so stupid now we need to tell them how they are hurting themselves and how to prevent it? Or are you really saying we need to know *why* putting your hand in fire smarts? I believe when you meet someone who just smacked a finger with a hammer, explaining why that hurts will probably get you punched in the face. I feel the same is true for most things that hurt, knowing the technical details is hardly going to make being hit in the face with a cricket ball any more desirable, and explaining why it hurts is probably going to end badly.
These prices are largely irrelevant to most of us. Even in the US your average viewer won't be seeing one of these until the prices fall to the sub $2000 range. These are for movie stars, sports stars, oil tycoons, the kind of people that carry $50,000 rolled up in an elastic band and blow the lot in Vegas in an hour. The TV I own cost $5000 at some point, or at least a version of it did. I bought it for $1000. I skipped 3D like the rest of you because it's a pointless gimmick, but 4K would be worth upgrading to once the 50" price falls within my budget. I figure the same is true for you guys in England, once 4K is realistic to own, you'll want it too.
As for 8K, my guess is economics killed this one, although I find it strange because usually a leap forward in technology usually brings a difference in quality that blows the previous generation away. Progressive scan TVs with their VGA like resolution jumped to 1080p and I expected a similar move with the next generation of HD TVs.
What I remember about vinyl, film and most things analogue is how shit they were. To replicate the completely shite sound of vynal, just get a knife and scratch the crap out of your CDs, or take a paper bag and crinkle it in your ear as the music plays. For cameras, just print your photos with no ink.. thus replicating the two most common fails with that redundant media, which were inserting/pulling out the film in broad daylight or mangling the process of loading the film in so it doesn't feed or is otherwise irrevocably damaged. For movies, again just take a knife and scratch the crap out of your DVD/Blu-Ray disk or convert your media file to an 128x64 resolution MP4 whilst overlaying the video with some scratches. If you really want to experience the analogue experience, you can remove a few seconds from random scenes in your ripped version to replicate bad editing. Finally you can take your media file and just delete it or take your disk and smash it into pieces to give you the nostalgic "my VCR ate my movie" experience.
I don't know why people think old crap is good. I was born in 1968, things were not better in the old days. Roads were fucking crap, football players killed each other and analogue was shite.
Interesting way to miss the point entirely.
I don't own a Mac and like you think they're overpriced for what they offer. But if someone does choose to run a Mac for whatever reason, having the option to run additional operating systems is a bonus rather than a spending fail. The point here is someone who normally uses the Mac OS out of choice, has the ability to use that Mac in a work environment where Microsoft products dominate, without having to wait for a version of Office to be released.
More importantly, as developers remove support for alternate platforms - they may only develop for Linux, Unix, Windows, etc - having the option of running a second OS in parallel is an extremely useful feature. Even having the option to run it exclusively could be important, especially if there are Mac specific application you must use along with say Autocad or Maya.
This isn't the direction I would choose myself, but that doesn't make it any less valid.
"I'm grateful to Steve for his excellence in the i-era, and his contribution to my own life of enjoying great products, but this movie portrays him having had those skills in earlier times,"
I believe this is the result of some perfectly understandable confusion, Kutcher was clearly portraying this year's JobS.
"the smart money was on a horizontally sliced industry"
Everyone knows the correct way to cut a sandwich is diagonally.. Blackberry understood this, as well as the importance of sandwiches generally. It's success can be reproduced, and if diagonally sliced sandwiches no longer produce the winning formula they could always fall back on the old faithful.. cutting them vertically and slapping on a piece of bacon.. because literally any sandwich is better with bacon, try it if you don't believe me.
My own experience raising kids (in Alaska, where hunting and fishing are a way of life) is that the really, really important thing is making sure you don't let them fall behind on Algebra. Because it's an absolute fucking nightmare trying to figure out how to fix your kid being mathematically challenged if you have any hope of them not being consigned to a career flipping burgers and washing dishes. Shooting rats in a field might appear to be an important lesson to some, but failing to leave school with whatever qualifications your country bestows is possibly a worse outcome than missing consistently and blowing the fuck out of the carrots.
No one uses Outlook because they want to.. they use it because they have to. Unless they're deranged. It has absolutely no redeeming features over any other mail/calendar product. Even the original hotmail was a better, more useful email client than Outlook.
The largest mistake MS made was thinking that they could break into the tablet market without something to offer that Android and IOS don't already provide. An updated version of Quick Office is something that could have made a serious impact. Unfortunately the half-assed decision to tie any such app to a MS Office 360 subscription killed any chance of acceptance.
Personally I think this whole porn thing can be fixed with a simple sign you could hang on your front door. Mine is a tasteful golden oak sign, weathered and suitably decked with flashing red lights. It reads "Porn is readily available on multiple connected devices within this building. Fuck off and take those delinquent little shits you call kids with you if that's a problem."
"There was talk of nuclear bunkers and a secret way from the Park to the the M1 motorway, which passes by just a kilometre away."
Here let me fix that for you..
There was talk of nuclear bunkers and a secret way from the Park to the the M1 motorway, which passes by just 0.625 miles away.
My household usually holds one of each new console, just because it gives the best flexibility. Over the last year, however, we're all getting fed up with Microsoft's insistence on charging for network services. I particularly love the way your account gets frozen and requires a call to Microsoft to get it re-activated if you don't keep it funded. Paying a fee to Microsoft so I can access Netflix is nothing more than a rip off.
So we've come to the conclusion that with the exception of a superior online gaming network, XBox offers nothing worthy of investing in a new generation console. We also harbour the suspicion that DRM-based games will return as soon as enough consoles have been sold.
Sony are hardly angels, witness the rootkits they included with music CDs not so long ago. But until they start charging for the privelege of accessing content you've already paid for using a broadband service you've also paid for, I will stick with their products.
I'm looking at a person with an 'A' in their name.. could be first or last name.. no? No one with a loved one that had an A-name.. what about 'B'.. getting a 'B' now.. could be a 'C'.. sometimes wore green, red, brown, orange.. the month of December was special, always had a big celebration at this time of year.. sometimes at the beginning of January too.. still nothing? It's a man, boy, girl or woman.. especially fond of dogs or cats.. wait.. our plant in the audience, I mean the person sitting at the back has raised his hand..
I remember as a kid being told if you said "bomb" during a telephone call GCHQ would immediately send in the black helicopters and start recording your call. It was of course a childish myth, but the fact remains we've known GCHQ monitors our communications for as long as GCHQ existed. The fact they also vacuum up internet communications should come as a surprise to precisely no one. I don't pretend that I left the country because of this.. my reasons were far more prosaic.. but I've long held the belief that a country like Britain or the US has the government (and therfore the laws) it deserves, as a very simple method of change can be put into practice every 4-5 years. Don't like what you've got, don't vote for anyone that currently holds office. Personally I stopped voting for the party I though I believed in as soon as I realised they're all just as bad as each other. Every time I cast my vote, it's for someone who has never held office before and will repeat this process until elected officials understand they're only getting one term unless they're willing to write legislation that is consistent with living in a free society. My actions might be pointless, but I still hold out hope that a revolution-by-ballot can occur if enough people get fed up enough to do something about it.
I find the whole thing weird because we've known they've been doing this for about a decade. I mean, this is not a surprise, I believe the Reg itself reported various law enforcement agencies (and possibly the NSA) where vacuuming up cell phone records, internet traffic, etc from US citizens. Also the "we'll get a warrant later" wiretaps have also been reported on. There's no surprise this hasn't stopped with a change of President, these things have always had broad bi-partisan support. Left or right, governments don't trust the people that elect them and are supposed to be represented by them.
Interestingly these things are actually completely illegal in the US. The US Constitution specifically states a search warrant can only be granted to investigate a person suspected of committing a crime (talking to someone from a different country is not as far as I know a criminal activity) and can only be awarded by a judge. This was to counter exactly what is happening now. Back in the good old days of British Colonies, British soldiers would write their own search warrants then invade people's homes without warning. Secret warrants issued by secret courts granted after the search has been executed seems to fall outside of these requirements.
Congress is not allowed to simply create a law that bypasses this, it would require a re-write of the Constitution, possibly by creating an ammendment. No small thing given this is one of the document's founding principles.
Basically anyone that engages in this practice is breaking the law, any law that permits it is unconstitutional and therefore invalid, and the legislative bodies that created, voted on and passed these laws have violated their oaths of office (to protect the Constitution), including the President at the time (G.W.). I'm not sure what punishments are suitable for willfully violating your oath of office or violating constutional law, but it ought to be every bit as final as leaking very well known non-secrets to the press.
I've lived in Anchorage for 15 years.. there are a few wrinkles to deal with when living in place surround by volcanoes, has suffered the worst recorded US earthquake in modern times, snows a bit for 6 months at a time every year and surrounded by areas that light up like a christmas tree when forest fires consume several 100s of thousands of acres, but hey.. the volcanoes look really cool when they're not spewing ash, avalanches only kill people that insist on standing under them and the trembling ground is simply a reminder to make sure your stuff is securely nailed to walls. Also bears don't eat people that don't feed them ribs from their barbecue (yes that actually happened) and if you wear a good hat, coat and gloves negative 30 F won't kill you.
On the plus side our international airport doesn't close just because frozen water is falling out of the sky and the view is amazing.. always. Plus we have moose and bears in our back yards, literally. Sure things might get a little out of hand if one of a hundred things that could go wrong, goes wrong.. but that's the gamble.
The issue here is whether other people should pay for the risks you're taking. In my opinion, no, they should not. If we get another tsunami (like the one that cheerfully accompanied the nations largest ever earthquake) that's our problem not yours. If the ground folds up on itself like it did about 50 years ago, again our problem. If we have to wear a mask for a week every 3 or 4 years to prevent our lungs from being shredded by glass-like volcanoe ash, again our problem not yours. It's all about perspective and not putting your hand out to the rest of the nation if you insist on living somewhere are little more interesting.
NASA (probably tongue in cheek) felt the need to issue an advisory stating that the super large moon would *not* drive everyone crazy or cause extreme tidal conditions, presumably meaning we won't all need boats to get to work next week.
I felt though, this failed to answer all questions, so I responded by asking them if satellites would be in danger of being knocked out of the sky and if planes would need to fly lower to avoid crashing into the moon.. for some reason they refuse to adequately address those questions.. I can't imagine why unless they've all been driven crazy by the huge moon or are too busy ordering boats to save themselves from tidal waves.
I wonder how long it would have taken before they gave up if I'd been interviewed by them..
Q. "How many gold balls do you think would fit inside an airplane?"
A. "Why would anyone give a shit?"
Q. "How many gas stations could you fit in Manhatten?"
A. "Are you just trying to be funny, or did my previous answer fail to get across how stupid these sorts of questions are? I mean, did you take acid this morning or do you really think this shows you were adequately prepared for this interview? When are you going to ask me something that matters?"
My guess is I'd last about 3 minutes.
Just pop over to my home town of Anchorage, there is no sales tax so the price listed is the price you pay. Other sales-tax free zones may exist in the US, but most have a figure of around 8% or so.
Of course you'll have to factor in a small 700-800 quid airfare, hotel costs and so on, but you'll get the added benefits of 1/being allowed to drive on the wrong side of the road, 2/driving in snow in a fun vehicle if you go during winter 3/frostbite if you go during winter without the appropriate common sense to not stand outside in shorts because you're "on holiday" 4/see cool wildlife then get eaten by it 5/meet people who are actually pretty friendly in a foreign place for a change. Also the food is good.
/advertisement over.
Don't bother to tell me why I'm wrong, I don't need to be confused further.. but from my perspective this is happening.
P1 entangles with P2, transferring information and is then destroyed.
P2 entangles with P3 and then P4.
So you pass a letter to your neighbour, jump off a cliff and then someone is surprised when your neighbour is able to deliver your message to a person who was born after you died.
I think it's been pretty obvious to everyone that knows how to tie their own shoe laces that everything comes with a price, even air conditioning and driving really fast. You want Google server farms to dish up your porn really quick? Fine, but it's going to get hot outside.
However there are still too many questions left unanswered.. chiefly if we are going to be the cause of our own demise.. is it truly our fault that apes will take over the world, consigning humans to the role of pack animals, despite the fact their long held disbelief in flying can be defeated with a paper airplane?
I don't really understand the logic. I understand the desire to watch something we all like, I get that. I understand it's frustrating that some people get to watch a good TV show or movie before others. I also understand why releasing something early on a single format/platform is a poor choice that excludes many people.
But what I don't understand is how any of this makes it ok to just take it. As far as I'm aware "I really want it" hasn't been a very solid defence for stealing something. Should we blame your parents for over indulging you as children? The author of the books and the creator of the TV show are fully entitled to decide where and when their product airs or is made available on various media formats. That's their choice because it's their product. Acting spoiled and shouting "it's not fair" doesn't change this even if their choices aren't good or don't include you. And no, just because someone charges a price that exclude many people doesn't mean they've self-funded and fully expect piracy. Even if that were the case it still doesn't excuse stealing. Someone has to pay, but apparently not you? Awesome reasoning for picking someone's pocket.
Does it make a difference if you've *already* bought something, but can't watch it because it isn't feasible to bring it with you? That's a little more fuzzy. The argument would hold zero water in a court, but morally it seems okay.
Does that mean because you have no iDevice that makes it okay to steal it, rather than wait for it to be released in other formats? Cool, so you'd be okay if I grabbed a TV from your house if I don't happen to have one of those.. After all its wrong of you to have something I want and not give it to me for free. BTW I like your car better than mine too, I'm taking that as well.
So what I get from this is T-Mobile aren't exactly the devil, but they did lie a bit. So if the wording was corrected their plan does have a contract, but it's a much better contract than you normally get from a US carrier because you're getting your phone at 0% interest instead of the more usual 200%-300% the rest build into their premium phone contracts. Most of us can't afford the extortianate prices built into phones, apparently a 4G LTE chipset costs $400 a pop if the price difference between an iPod and iPhone can be used as a rough comparison. So given that we don't all walk around with $600-$1000 burning a hole in our pockets, we need some sort of financing if we want shiny and new. Financing comes with restrictions and their restriction is the same as everyone elses, you stop playing with us you pay the balance on your loan. The only difference is that the overall monthly charge is lower because you aren't paying the extra $15-$20 in finance charges.
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