Posts by Immenseness

Re: Weasel wording alarm

Voiceprints are pretty unique, so after using your phone and other home devices to work out which voiceprint ties with your identity, identifying who is in a hotel becomes fairly simple, even if you don't ultimately store the cloud data (but who believes that won't happen?). It also becomes easy to "hear" who else is there with you.

Of course you could mitigate this and maybe enhance your reputation somewhat by carefully selecting which film to watch loudly I guess!

Location permission

And of course in the later versions of Android, *allowing* location permission also *requires* you to turn on and keep turned on, GPS.

Re: Dubious

"Sorry, when you're inside my network I decide what is allowed and what is not."

This. I still think this is a long term attempt being engineered by advertisers under the thin disguise of security to stop pi-hole like setups from preventing a lot of the phoning home and tracking.

I too have seen more and more hard coded 8.8.8.8 in Internet of shite devices that think they have the right to connect to wherever they want, download and run whatever they want, and to send whatever data they want to about my network to whoever they like, whenever they like, and using my bandwidth to do so.

It wouldn't even be so bad if their code was not so badly written. For a recent example - a logitech harmony hub that if it can't get a response form 8.8.8.8 it tries thousands of times a second to do so until it can, trashing the network in the meantime for everyone else. That is now disconnected in a drawer. It is the arrogance that "there must be a connection and therefore this device must have a right to use it however the manufacture thinks fit, including purposes outside of those which the device was bought for"

Is it beer o'clock yet? Have one on me!

Re: "we paused human review of audio more than a week ago"

Is it only me that gets thoroughly wicked off at the weasel words that are so commonplace these days? "Paused" in a way that is supposed to mean we have done the right thing, but of course they haven't, and somehow think that is sufficient to appease the complaints until they just decide to carry on again when the fuss has died down.

And talking of not getting the message clearly, enough of the overly chatty and co-ercive buttons, particularly on Android apps where you get something like "Do you want to sign over the rights of your first born and all their offspring" with 2 possible replies - "Yes" (already selected and if you happen to hit return you're doomed) and "Not now" (or sometimes "Ask me later"), which just gives the illusion of choice, and really means we are going to keep bothering you with this question without giving you the option to just say no, until you either say yes, or we can trick you into saying yes". Is it beer time? (you can ask me that later!)

The cynic in me thinks that the motivation for DoH is really to stop Ad-avoiding systems like pihole which can currently be very effective.

Re: redefining words

Redefining "We can't stand the noise, it is making us sick, please stop" as "Residents in our most recent trial area have asked that we improve the sound of our drone".

This is what pisses people off. Big corporations not listening, pushing out weasel words to make it sound like they are "listening", and the added insult of assuming we are all too dim to realise this, while ignoring those affected and carrying on regardless.

which way it plugs in

What fascinates me is that for those USB sticks/plugs that can only go in one way round, there are 2 possible ways to try, so why is it when I try and plug them in they *always* seem to go in on the third attempt? Enquiring minds and all that.

Re: 21:9 ratio, you say

I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the faffing about with ratios is some perceived artistic benefit/director's vanity. TV drama is the most difficult to fathom. They create stuff for broadcast TV sets, which are mostly 16:9 receivers anyway, but they seem to make their dramas with just a half inch off top and bottom for "stylistic effect". In the same vein as "ooh, let's shoot into the light for every shot so that all the poor viewer can see is silhouettes", "make sure you get the lens flare though", "oh and make sure to have a really narrow depth of field so only a fraction of the screen is in focus, and be sure to switch the focus point suddenly while the viewer is trying to work out what's going on." and "make the actors whisper almost inaudibly, but hey, keep the background sounds nice and loud so it is hard to follow what they are saying, because it is 'edgy'", and "don't forget to map the colours to something that looks like a faulty TV from the 70s."

Sorry, but it wicks me off that I have to spend the first 10 minutes of a programme trying to find an aspect ratio that is neither a ridiculously narrow letterbox across the middle of the screen, that we all have to huddle round to see, nor a distorted mess, and then faff about with the colour/contrast/brightness/temperature to get it somewhere where I can enjoy the film and not be distracted from the story by stupidly wrong colours. I used to like to sit down and lose myself in a relaxing film. Now they are bloody hard work, both to set up, and to follow - "3 weeks earlier (weird colours, whispering dialogue while a brass band plays loudly in the background and someone shines a torch in my face), 4 days later... 2 weeks earlier (is that earlier than now, or from the beginning or end of the 4 days later than the 3 weeks earlier?)... 18 hours later (someone describing a key plot point in a hoarse whisper while using a vaccuum cleaner)"..." By the end, I'm exhausted! Beer helps, beers all round!

Re: ???

With the Dorset horse fetishist fair in town?

Re: developing developers development

"I wonder if they would be willing to apply their non-jerk attitude to management and administrative roles, too?"

I'd settle for them applying it to a "screensaver" that actually saves the screen burning rather than displaying a dim static picture with searing static white bits that never move while on pause.

Re: *Sigh*

If they sold their wares at a resonable price it would help. Someone mentioned an old 1968 film in passing and I decided I'd like to pick it up and have a watch for old times sake. Went to order a dvd - 27GBP.

27GBP for a dvd of a film that is nearly 50 years old. They are taking the mick.

It was so tempting to just stream it and be done with it. I only wanted to watch it once.

However I didn't want to pirate and eventually found one on the bay with Spanish subtitles but English dialogue for 15GBP. Although I did enjoy watching it - 15GBP for a suboptimal viewing experience of a 50 year old film?

They really are their own worst enemies.

Mine's the one I bought 50 years ago that I have to pay a licence fee for every time I put it on in public.

Re: The web is no fun.

On a (slightly) related rant, what is it with the the "read more" buttons that are popping up everywhere?

I have a large screen, and more and more sites when I go to them now show 3 lines of something and I have to click to see more, often several times, when the entire thing would easily fit on the page.

I have seen the same on mobile where the entire thing will fit on one mobile screen, but no, we want you to click twice more please. It seems to be another "because we can" solution with no problem to solve. Unless it counts to tell advertisers we got clicked x number of times or some such. Bah humbug, and sod off, I'll read it elsewhere.

Beer time - click here to drink more!

Re: Prize winning security

The polished turd award?

Re: Procurement always works this wonder

"I haven't seen a Procurement Department yet that did not opt for the more expensive supplier. Perhaps they justify it on the basis of paying more for reliability."

Well if you haven't spent a huge amount on expensive IT this year, how on earth can you justify next year's massive budget request to maintain your empire? *

Mine is the one bought under a PFI agreement that I'll be making payments on for the next 35 years.

* Only half joking after years of working with government departments.

Re: Enough already!

"Netflix are practically the poster child of DevOps"

That would be the kids who wrote the netflix app for my Roku then. The Roku, with a great pause screensaver, that is suspended by the Netflix app and replaced with its own, which skillfully slowly fades the whole screen down after a couple of seconds on pause, EXCEPT for the film title and progress bar which are left in full on, brilliant white, at static locations to burn the screen. Nice one guys, way to miss the point! But I am sure it was developed quickly using DevOps. Shame they can't fix it as quickly, but despite all the complaints to them, they seem to think it is "cool" the way it is. Hint - screen savers are to save screen burn, not to practice cool fades and effects. My plasma is showing burn where the titles are displayed already and I now have to switch the damn thing off whenever Netflix is on pause now. That will be progress then.

Sorry, someone mentioned the keyword, rant off, beers all round. :-)

Re: Progress Bars

"Hurtling towards the 95% done mark then stalling for hours rather undoes the benefits."

As does moving uniformly to 100% then going back to the start! Again... and again...

Where's the beer?!

Re: Default definition @smudge

I'm waiting for some bright spark to think it is a good idea to have a second default printer, followed by another enhancement where you can have as many default printers as you choose (more is better, right?).

Lastly there will be an app to allow you to choose one of your default printers to use by default...

Re: European testing - are petrol-fuelled cars are also affected?

"There is no evidence that manufacturers cheat the cycle,"

Whenever I hear that phrase "there is no evidence that blah blah" I hear weasels. They are not saying it is not true, just that there is no evidence (yet), so if and when the evidence is later found, they can claim they didn't lie about knowing earlier.

Re: burn baby burn

Upvote for the best description ever of the interaction of modern economies!

What really bugs me though is that the super slick traders dumping the stock are effectively making the prices fall, and then they will buy it all back again at the bottom of the slump, bringing prices back up again and making a fortune in the process, for them and all the other bloodsuckers hanging onto their coat tails, who buy and sell in smaller amounts, but amounts much larger than anything any of us could afford of course, while the people running our pension funds try and second guess the well planned "crash" and whether to hold on or sell in order to not lose too much of our bloody penison pots to said bloodsuckers.

When it is all over, the world for normal people who trade in *actual* things and services, will, as usual, be much the same place as it was before, but their future pensions will be smaller, their savings if they have any will be worth a bit less, and the the rich guys will be even richer as the money once again moves from poor to rich. Marvellous.

Re: Wow - I'm worried!

Unfortunately, it follows the daily fail/BBC standard format for an article:

1. You should be scared because this is bad, really, really bad

2. It is even worse than this other bad thing.

3. It is about to get much worse than that.

So formulaic. It is almost as predictable as the format of just about any blog/supposedly informative article, for example, how do I turn my phone on:

You have come here asking the question "how do I turn my phone on"

In this article we will show you in easy steps how to turn on your phone.

Just follow our simple guided pictures or click on the link to view a video (where this all starts again but with someone with an annoying voice telling you the same things in a really patronising way over some loud and inapproriate music, with long, willy waving, intro titles and end titles)

When you have finished reading this article you will know how to turn on your phone.

Step 1: Press the button

That's it! You now know how to turn on your phone. Thanks for reading/ watching Don't forget to like us on farcebook and look at our many other helpful articles.

How are we doing? Do you mind completing a short survey before you go?

Bugger off already!!!!

Sorry, seem to have slipped off onto a rant there - beers all round to compensate? :-)

Re: Was never un-cocked before.

"It's no longer allowed. All referals have to come from a GP because it's their budget that pays for it."

I think it is worse than that, it is a side effect of the target culture. There are guarantees for minimum wait to see a specialist, say n weeks. Having the target is meant to improve service, but instead of making the wait shorter, it tends to make the wait to a see a specialist more uniformly just under n weeks for everyone. No one wants to bust their figures, so they insist on going back to the start (GP) each time, where, coincidentally, the clock gets reset.

That way, if you need to see 3 specialists, it magically takes 3 * n weeks, and hey presto, all targets are met, and the politicians can crow about success, yet the patient waits 3 times as long. The law of unintended consequences once again.