Re: Tick boxes
Andy?! Is that you?!
See also: this sounds just like EVERY company I've worked for...
162 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Mar 2008
I see lots of reports saying about it affecting "HSBC Customers", but that's misleading.
It also affects people who's employer is an HSBC customer. My employer has had the money taken out of their account, so they no longer are part of the loop - it's the people on the receiving end (regardless of bank) who are then stuffed.
Clegg said the same thing last time the elections were coming round, when it was labour that were trying to push through the snoopers charter.
Once he got a bit of the power, he changed his tone and said that things had changed since then and that the security services needed more powers (and that we needed to raise tuition fees after all... I digress...)
Now it's election time again, guess what, he'd back to the vote winning line of banning the snoopers charter...
"What they are saying, however, is that if you are using a VPN so much and with high dl/ul then you should be flagged for further scrutiny"
Virtual PRIVATE Network. Further scrutiny just for using a VPN? That's comparable to the police doing a drugs raid because you keep the curtains shut in your spare bedroom.
<sarc>Pah, the car can't even drive through thick fog in treacherous conditions?!</sarc>
I'd expect the Google car can still "see" better than I can in thick fog...
In fact, don't BMW (or some German manufacturer) already offer a HUD that helps see through fog, and points out the last speed sign it read, state of traffic lights etc?
"HD" streaming via netflix et al is no where near as pleasant to watch (& listen to) as a plain old DVD (and BluRay knocks it out of the water). OK they may set the resolution to 1080i and call it "HD", but with an awful, AWFUL bitrate it still looks better on DVD at 576p with a higher bitrate.
I digress...
This article compares apples and oranges... You could just as easily argue that DVDs are better for the environment than going to the cinema once you factor in the staff travelling to work, cost of keeping the popcorn warm, the cinema usually being mostly empty, having to get to the cinema etc etc, but they are different beasts.
I'll happily stream a film that is mostly storyline, or catch up with iPlayer, but for a action / blockbuster, I want detail and sound quality that I can't get at the moment when streaming - until the streaming services let me download the full 4.7GB DVD, you can't compare them.
So they want me to remember a different password, made up of random letters, numbers, symbols, and I'm not meant to use the same password on other sites...
I was going to put "f*ck you ebay" as my password, but that was rejected... That's more secure than "reset1"!!!
Angers me when companies like this make lives harder for a false sense of them doing their job... More so because we know it's a load of smoke and mirrors, but my grandmother doesn't...
To be frank - if there was an option that just said "delete account" on the password change screen, I'd have been tempted.
</rant>
@Martin
"when her current PC dies"
That's the problem really... I'd have a chrome book if my 5 year old laptop (which is equal, if not higher spec) dies for surfing around on the sofa (assuming for what ever reason I didn't want a tablet), but I have no reason to get a chrome book at the moment.
There's no real lust / want aspect to a chrome book, as they just do the job, but if someone asked me recommend a laptop for them "just for emails and surfing the web a bit", I would be happy to point them in Googles direction.
"The thing with that advert is, they will find someone."
I thought the same thing - 'someone' will turn up and lie their way through the interview process - struggle along for a few months before getting caught out / moving on, then the company will need to do a bit of a knee-jerk hiring session getting someone (or two) that is - OK but paying well over the odds to fix the mistakes...
I had RGPs for a good few years, then soft lenses for a while - eventually my eyes were rejecting both (started getting severe irritation) and we'd tried every brand going ("we" being a small independent optician and myself).
Glasses weren't great - as you get hardly any peripheral vision, contacts (before they were rejected by my eyes) just spun around and with astigmatism that's no use!
I asked my optician about laser surgery and she suggested a specific surgeon rather than a brand name. I did my research on him, went for an appointment and a 2 treatments later can see darn well! He set expectations, and didn't promise perfect vision.
So I apologise for being in the statistics for people who have a DAB set. However it's in my desk drawer, and hasn't been used for years...
Bit rates are awful, so music sounds horrid. Signal strength is a real issue, so using it in the car isn't really an option as it drops out too much to a squelchy mess of noise.
DAB just seems like a pointless stopgap to me. May as well ditch radio all together an rely on streaming via 3/4G if they are determined to switch off FM.
I'm about to move to Bumpkinland, and the speed isn't such an issue for me really, I expect to get about 4mbps. The problem I have is the cost. Extra £7 a month because the exchange isn't unbundled.
I'd prefer Ofcom to be pointing their wagging fingers in the direction of BT Wholesales costs first, before suggesting 30mbps should be available in 2017.
"I can honestly say I've never once had difficulties with these self-checkouts, "
Agreed, and as you say, hold up are always by folks not using the tool properly (e.g., moving stuff out of the bagging area, on a recent visit onto the basket shelf of the kiosk next to them...).
Perhaps if they renamed "bagging area" to something that says what it actually does (verification) people wouldn't get so wound up about it?
"I just can't see someone moving into a high end living space and sleeping on an air mattress."
I did - 10 week wait for the real bed to be delivered, and given completion dates tend to slide a bit risky placing the order beforehand (seems pointless paying to remove the old knackered bed).
Perhaps he had similar circumstances...
RonWheeler, I agree.
Decent broadband speed, but quality isn't there. Audio is really muddy too, and what they class as "HD" means the resolution HD, but then so massively compressed that it looks awful.
Also tried EE's film service which lets you download rather than stream, but 450MB for a 2 hour film is never going to give you DVD quality.
I don't download torrents, and an willing to pay, but until the quality is there I'll stick to buying/renting physical discs.
"even if she wanted to without admitting she was wrong"
This is exactly the problem with the current bunch of politicians... They brainwash themselves in to defending an opinion (sometimes, as in the case, wrongly) and can't be shown a differing viewpoint. When they delve into I.T. issues (which most readers on here are highly knowledgeable of) it just highlights how little these people know, while still maintaining the IMPRESSION of having a strong/informed viewpoint.
If we can see how little they know about things in our field, yet make decisions based on their small amount of knowledge, it make you wonder what else they are making judgements on based on very little information.
Makes me sick...
I echo what Mr C Hill said.
Used to be reasonable price and reasonable service, then got cheap and crap.
Stopped using them 4 years ago after the many arguments telling them what was wrong with their servers and pointing them to various test websites to prove to them that no one outside of their building could access the servers... Got quite frustrating!