* Posts by Armando 123

1116 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Aug 2011

Anonymous launches OpRobinHood against banks

Armando 123
Devil

They can steal from my accounts

Maybe I'll get back to 0!

Armando 123
Coat

I agree wholeheartedly

But if they want to take away the property of the politicians and lobbyists and bureaucrats who are growing fat by taking out money from us, have at it.

BTW, did you know that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the US are in the DC area, according to Forbes? Think about that: it's not LA, Vegas, Chicago, New York, .... it's near the national capital where all the wealthy ba*ds live.

Mine's the one with the reservations for Valley Forge ...

Give Osborne a shovel: UK economy stuck in deep hole

Armando 123
FAIL

Seriously, fella?

The only times in the last twelve years I've had a pay raise over 1% was when I left for another job. And I'm guessing that you in the civil service haven't been laid off in that time. (Just a wild stab in the dark.)

iOS 5.1 name-checks next-gen iPad, iPhone

Armando 123
Coat

As stated in the great documentary "Yes Prime Minister"

"Are you suggesting I leak highly sensitive information to the press?!"

"Heavens, no! This is highly sensitive DISinformation."

"Ah. That's different."

MIT boffin's 'truth goggles' probe print and pols

Armando 123

Not every one. Why, even Ted Kennedy once used the word "the" correctly.

More or less.

Armando 123
Coat

Yeah, you would say that ...

Slip of a lad to play James Bond's Q

Armando 123
Devil

And it's happening here in America, too

Though not as much. Tell someone you've gone deer hunting and they'll look at you as if you just told them you were "a long time assistant at a major collegiate sports program". (*) Even if you just enjoy shooting clay pigeons, some people (mostly overeducated urban busybody types) are ready to start a "Save the Clay" campaign. Fortunately, if they protest, I'll give them my address, then dupe them into the back yard, at which point it become legal for shooting an unauthorized intruder in this state. Or better, I'll tell them I'm herding deer for a fellow hunter (not legal here) and if they keep it up they can get arrested as well and have it ON THEIR RECORD when they try to join an animal rights group.

And honestly, WHY would you annoy someone with a gun who just wants to be left alone? Doesn't seem to be the wisest choice in the world. But I digress.

--

(*) If you don't get this, don't ask; you can't unread something.

BMW, Fiat join Connected Car Consortium

Armando 123

Glad to see GM is in there

I know GM doesn't enjoy a great reputation, but they've been steadily upping their game over the last decade. And as someone who has OnStar, they have some great information about what works and what doesn't in this area, so it's nice to see that they can bring that to the table.

Apple preps updated 11, 13, 15in MacBook Airs

Armando 123

Hope so

My Air (1st gen) and my wife's iBook are getting long in the tooth. And now that I seem to be somewhat stably employed,

And Apple often announces big things right after the new year (G4 iMac, OS X 10.1, iPhone, the first Macs w/Intel CPUs, etc). So that makes sense.

iPhone 4/4S 'self combusts' in airliner inferno

Armando 123
Coat

According to Nigel Tufnell

Thousands of iPhones spontaneously combust each year, it's just not well-documented.

Mine's the one that's size 11.

Climategate 2.0: Fresh trove of embarrassing emails

Armando 123

"Climate change is perhaps the biggest scam of the last decade."

Except for Windows Longhorn. And the Prius.

Steve Jobs had 'personal moral failures', was no role model

Armando 123

According to Bill Cosby, Hofstra used to play Temple in football, so I'm guessing they're in the eastern US. But just to be sure, I'm going to listen to "Why Is There Air?" a few times.

Armando 123

Same here. I thought about a local kosher deli, and then of corned beef, matzoh ball soup, kartoffelkuchen, ... Dang, is it lunch time yet?

Chinese £200 iPhone killer unwraps for Xmas

Armando 123
Windows

@AJ MacLeod

"What, it's possible to create a worse MP3 player than an iPod? Scary thought..."

One word: Zune.

Microsoft to offer dual upgrade path for Windows 8

Armando 123

I dunno, @Frank 2, it seems to me that people use desktops/laptops differently from mobile devices like phones and fondleslabs. Notice that Apple didn't put EVERYTHING from iOS into Lion, just things that made sense (and even then, only if your hardware, like a touchpad, made it sensible). Apple is by no means perfect, but they've shown a pretty good sense of what they can leave out to make a better device/system/etc. I haven't really seen this with MS, who have a "kitchen sink! more is better! pack it in! tighten up!" approach.

Armando 123
Gimp

Until ...

... you can use a firewire or USB cable to enable target mode, the upgrade path is still too complicated. Apple figured this out about a decade ago.

Seriously, I've done about five or six Mac upgrades for myself + family + friends since then, and the Target mode makes this dead simple. Hook up cables, boot new computer, boot old one into target mode, choose what to transfer, and go make some coffee.

Superhero oil-burping algae will save the world

Armando 123

They've already got so much money invested in banking, etc, that it's probably not TOO much of a concern.

Armando 123
Coat

"There's loads not to like, from the environmental activist point of view."

Yes, but what if one DOES bathe and possesses a capacity for logical thinking?

Armando 123

The space mirrors would heat the atmosphere.

Armando 123

A couple things

"But renewable oil is local, and so there's no need to ship it around the world."

Ah, but there is oil, and there is oil. The 'sweet light crude' is the most desirable and getting algae to make THAT will be trickier than getting them to make oil. And even then, there will likely be refining required, and in refining the economy of scale makes a huge difference in cost.

"The 10 largest companies in the world are all oil companies – and all are privately owned."

By this do you mean "owned by one person as opposed to owned by individual shareholders and investment companies" or "not state owned"? Big difference.

Apple boots MacBook Air wannabes out of slim case fabs

Armando 123

BMW, GMC, Ford, Mercedes, Toyota, ... oh, that's five.

Or at least their suppliers. My father worked for an engine company and they were doing this (or something dang close to it) in the early 80s.

Penguin pulls its e-books off library shelves

Armando 123

Wondered when this would happen

When we heard about library loans on a Kindle, we tried it and found that the book was still there LONG after it was supposed to be gone. I figured if it happened once, inadvertently, it would be easy to subvert the protocol and it would get hacked soon. Then of course publishers would pull out, and there y'go.

Manning to get day in court

Armando 123

Sweden went on the hit list with Ikea. If that place isn't a crime against civilization, ...

Armando 123

So ...

I see a lot of people here, and from reading them they tend to be non-Americans, thinking what he did was the right thing.

However, as a member of the military, ANY military, you are not supposed to leak information. Period. When you sign up for the military, that is made very clear, and by volunteering for the military, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions of your own free will.

And while Julian Assange was likely not passing on military secrets to enemies of the state like Al Qaeda or China or Charlie Sheen, can you KNOW that? And can you KNOW that the representative in contact with you is who that contact claims to be?

This seems a pretty straightforward case. The rules say "Don't do X", the defendant was caught doing X. Not a lot of wiggle room there.

Microsoft tempts Kinect developers with bacon

Armando 123

I must say ...

that I don't add anything to bacon and think anyone who does is a philistine. I can get the maple syrup, having tasted it once with spillover from a waffle hitting the bacon. Tasty, but not quite bacon. Heck, I'll even happily devour turkey bacon at the kosher deli near the house. (Best corned beef hash in the US, BTW, and friends from New York City agree.) But adding to bacon? No thanks.

However, the chocolate added to bacon is often Nutella which is, IIRC, of Italian origin. And it tastes like nuts, not chocolate. Blech!

Armando 123

No, if you pay in bacon, you get people who love bacon: people who love life and sensory perceptions and appreciate the little things that make life worth living. Not the worst target group in the world.

San Diego Baywatch rules out exploding dead whale

Armando 123
Devil

Dave Barry

I remember reading about the Oregon whale in a Dave Barry column (back when he was funny) about twenty years ago. Just as hilarious as he said!

Thank you, el Reg, for making us laugh at love. Again.(C)

Man sues boss for 'condemning him to eternal damnation'

Armando 123
Pint

Woops

"He might also have argued that since the seven headed, ten horned beast had not apparently manifested himself in Georgia, Hyatt's fears were somewhat theoretical."

Not according to an excellent folk song documentary made by Charlie Daniels.

Armando 123
Devil

Area Code 616

Is in Michigan, specifically Grand Rapids.

Insert your own punchline here.

Armando 123
Devil

There are days when I wonder if the government-run education system is run by a cult like that. Certainly some of the teachers I know are card-carrying members. (No names or numbers, just sparkly pictures.)

Armando 123
Mushroom

It seems like the sort of thing you'd do with kids who have to wear bike helmets all the time, even on their short bus.

Then again, given this employee's reaction, ...

Armando 123

Get the masses to vote?

You could argue, with the help of some adult beverage, that that's where things went wrong.

Everyone tells us to be tolerant, but I've never understood why I should tolerate such complete, utter, manic, raging, rot-inducing idiocy. Then again, that seems to be the most common state of humanity.

Armando 123
Coat

That's what I'd thought, too.

And I heard it on an NPR podcast, and they are NEVER wrong.

Chief rabbi: Steve Jobs' Apple lust spreads misery, despair

Armando 123
Devil

He may have given men free will, but most of them don't use it.

At least that's what the newspaper tells me to say

Armando 123

Mmmm, no, it goes way past that. Ready Saki for examples, and I suspect it was not new then.

Armando 123

Correct me if I'm wrong

But didn't certain prophets in the Bible (if one believes in sufficient historical accuracy in the Bible) warn the Jews about their selfish ways, including such rampant consumerist items like fancy sandals and jewelry, before they were overrun and enslaved in Babylon?

Microsoft seeks patent on employee spy system

Armando 123
Coat

"growing up in this shitty world where a corporation simply owns your ass."

Absolutely! Afterall, @ss-owning is the government's job.

Armando 123

Plus, with MS, the high-end version of the software will throw chairs at the slackers.

Well, the rank and file slackers, of course. Not the management slackers; they'll get promotions.

Armando 123

Funny you should say that.

Once upon a time, I worked on a contract at AT&T. For legitimate reasons, someone there put certain tracking software on certain workstations and confirmed a suspicion about someone getting into financial systems where they didn't belong. Using someone else's workstation.

That this involved a contracting company associated with the Enron fiasco will surprise no one who ever dealt with them or their IT consulting spinoff, may they rot in bureaucratic hell.

Kindle Fire: An open letter to Jeff Bezos

Armando 123
Coat

Quite right, Windrose!

If you can't trust mature, level-headed people like the Google founders, you might as well not trust journalists and politicians.

Armando 123

Or possibly google.

Google opens Android music store in iTunes' face

Armando 123

Just thought of something

Is it me, or is Google becoming a 'me, too' company like MicroSoft? They see something successful out there -- facebook, itunes, etc -- and come out with their own version that seems rather me-too-ish. I might be wrong, there may be B2B things they're doing that are mind-blowing, but the consumer-facing ones seem a bit ... derived, for lack of a better term.

Armando 123

old flexi singles

Oh, man, I think I still have my old Billy and the Boingers flexidisc somewhere in a box. Dagnabbit, now I need to dive into the attic again.

Swearing doesn’t help pain if you do it too much

Armando 123

[STANDING OVATION FOR MIME-PUNCHING]

Obama says his birthplace is 'in Asia'

Armando 123

What?

The Hawaiian Islands aren't part of any continent. Did he learn his geography from the previous president?

Armando 123

@JC_, I went to grad school with Ivy Leaguers, and believe me, an Ivy League degree does not mean you aren't stupid in some ways.

Stripper nicked for 'nicking knickers' with kids in tow

Armando 123

Bit of a shift

When I was growing up, it was thought that people who left the Midwest went to the East Coast if they were smart, or West Coast if they were dumb. Now it seems the dumb people are going to Florida.

If I had to hazard a guess, the cold winter weather kills off or re-invigorates bad brain cells. In LA and Florida, the rot just keeps spreading.

Bagged salad contained decomposed AVIAN CORPSE

Armando 123

I thought

... it might be some froo-froo continental thing some celebrity [sic] chef had thought up.

They pay an extra $75 in LA for that thing.

Apple elects new chairman, cosies up to Mickey Mouse

Armando 123
Devil

Wait a minute

Shouldn't they have rehired some idiot CEO from some other behemoth, preferably one that was run into the ground? I mean, the number of HP alumni alone must be in the hundreds!

Naked vegans target Prince Harry over meaty 12-incher

Armando 123

environment r*pe

Have you ever seen wolves attack an animal? Yeesh. I've seen a half-eaten bison calf, still alive (barely) after a wolf attack when I was elk hunting, and as cruel as industrial farming may be, they aren't THAT cruel.

Sorry, I still get nightmares and cold sweats about that calf. And as I said, I'm a hunter, I've cleaned and dressed animals.