They've given up
There's nothing wrong with novelties, but when you only have novelties to make yourself stand out from Google Navigation, time is running out for your company.
1018 publicly visible posts • joined 16 May 2011
...since this Gary McKinnon thing started. If it is the case that it is unjust to extradite people to America, why is the focus just on him and his mother? Why does she deserve an award, and not some lawyer trying to stop his client from being extradited?
Could it be that the Gary is represented by Bell Yard Communications, the very people who managed to make the 'Natwest Three' look like saints, rather than greaseball bankers later convicted of fraud? This is why GM is constantly in the news, and why he gets Chrissie Hynd et al to song songs about his plight.
Bell Yard are very good indeed. I would want them on my side if I were in Gary's situation. But everyone who supports him, and thinks the extradition treaty is wrong, should maybe look at other cases that aren't quite so high profile.
http://www.bell-yard.com/mckinnon.php
For the record, I do not think the extradition treaty is wrong, but you may think different. I'm just asking: why not support other people being extradited to the states?
...the cheap unbranded tablets sold on Amazon for sometimes less than £100? I suspect these maybe don't make it onto official figures. In any case the iPads will still dominate in terms of value, if not numbers. I have no axe to grind in the pitiless eternal war between Apple and Android, by the way.
Had he done the same thing against UK computer systems, he would have been convicted under section 12 of the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990, for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment. This comes from House of Lords judgement here: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2008/59.html
"To force extradition by definition implies that they consider our justice system substandard or too lenient, and to implicity make that assertion is in diplomatic terms rather an insult that no serious nation should be levelling against another."
It implies no such thing, whether by definition or otherwise. Extradition did not begin with Gary McKinnon, and won't end there. It has been a lawful way for nations to ask other nations for suspected criminals on their territory to be returned to face trial. Where extradition treaties do not exist or are otherwise difficult to enforce, injustice is seen to prevail - e.g. Costa Del Crime.
With the exception of the extradition stuff, your post is on the money.
After reading the screw ups Voda have made recently on this website, it's high time they focussed on the stuff they should be doing, rather than this rubbish. It was clear that Voda 360 was a failure ages ago, with much of the software not working correctly.
...I used to email round an entry from the Profanisaurus every Friday afternoon to select people in our firm (i.e. most of them), typically without self censorship. I dare say in other companies it would have resulted in instant dismissal. Most of the entries are indeed about masturbation, excretion and anal sex.
...a few years ago, or seeing it on the telly. Was it Horizon or something? Anyway, the people creating the theory did explicitly link it to the deaths of the dinosaurs and all that.
Wouldn't it be cool (if terrifying) to live when humanity is being destroyed Sci-Fi style?
A degree acts as a credential that says 'I learned something' - a degree from a big name uni counting for a lot more than one from a newer uni.
In general, I think too much focus is placed on degrees these days. A lot of people could go into certain jobs without a degree and be just as good. But employers insist on them (irrationally), so everyone must trot along to university or be judged a waste of space.
It always got on my nerves when I typed a web address and it turned out it ended in '.net' rather than '.com' or something. Nowadays, I just google a website and I get there without hassle. I can't see the point of this. Maybe there are opportunities for companies to sell Scottish produce abroad, and the '.scot' lends authenticity? Whatever.
...in that (allegedly), money from new depositors was going to people making withdrawals; what should have happened is that everyone's money should have been segregated and on deposit so there were no issues.
By the way, Full Tilt were regulated by Alderney, which to my knowledge had a good reputation.
But the reality is, the people cable of giving Microsoft their day of reckoning would be a considerable degree worse than Microsoft. Considerably more calculating and more evil.
It would be like somebody hating the coalition and so cheering on Nazis as they whip David Cameron and Nick Clegg through the streets - satisfying to watch, until the implications are realised.
Yes, wouldn't competent IT be a good thing? 'Can't be arsed' sums up our IT team in our office, and I'm not just moaning around. The spam filter we use is so old it does not, I believe, use Bayesian filtering. Aside from e-mail, saving large spreadsheets, or copying stuff on the network takes an age because of some stupid configuration issue that nobody can be arsed to fix.
But I stopped caring ages ago, so what does it matter?
I know that I find using Gmail a far nicer experience than using my crappy Outlook based system at work. Reasons include:
- the spam filter works;
- I can log in anywhere;
- it is easier and quicker to search for old emails.
I believe Gove and others should be allowed to use Gmail, provided they know about the importance of keeping old emails and of using proper passwords. Truthfully, Outlook is rubbish.
"Balsillie said that sales of the BlackBerry 7 phones have cut into PlayBook sales for the quarter, since demand for the new smartphones was strong."
What a load of crap.
I wonder if they told shareholders before releasing the Playbook that they would expect strong smartphone sales to translate to slow tablet sales, and vice versa.
Everything the BBC do is seen is viewed as biased for whatever reason. To the right, they are biased to the left. To the left, they are viewed as biased to the right. To Scottish nationalists, they are viewed as inherently Unionist. To Rangers fans, they are Celtic through and through, and vice versa. Every utterance is seen as furthering their evil agenda, whatever it is. Spend any time on an internet chat forum with a singular purpose and the bias of the BBC is self-evident - indeed they are part of the 'plot' against whatever cause the chat forum is for!
This does not mean that sometimes the BBC gets it wrong, but I am now automatically sceptical whenever somebody suggests the BBC are always biased.
Nothing has convinced me that anything is better than Netbooks for very portable computing when you take into account the low cost of them. The low cost is a problem for the manufacturers, though. The profit margins, once the Microsoft cut is taken into account, are minimal. So 'Ultrabooks' must be invented.
The major stupidity in this wasn't the sending of the email but the pitiful attempt to blame it on hackers. Many commentators believe that if he apologised for this email he would have kept his job, noting that Dr Onuoha hasn't behaved impeccably either. The fact that he blamed it on hackers cost him his job - and really he was fundamentally thick if he thought that explanation would not be found out.
...the point still stands. How do they know if the emails were sent to foreigners? And if they can know if an email is sent to a foreigner, does a red bulb start flashing at an FBI workstation?
"Code Red! An American is sending an email to a Liechtensteinian! There can be no good reason for this - fetch a pair of pliers and a blowtorch!"
"It's high time for politicians and industry leaders to confess to this simple truth: that we don't need all this crap, and that we should focus on the things that define us as human beings; not buying the next iPad or iWhatever, not watching a screen for more hours than you spend sleeping, but connecting with other people and the world around you (final referral: Adam Curtis's 'Century of the Self')."
Yes, crass materialism is wrong and silly, but I just need one or two details about how this world where people 'we should focus on the things that define us as human beings'. It sounds lovely, but I suspect it is a nice code for 'a much lower standard of living'. A world where food and basic consumer goods, as well as expensive gizmos like iPads, cost a lot more relative to incomes. If that is what you meant, so be it, but don't dress it up with nice terms.
"But the biggest benefit of an immediate reduction in household bills would be an instant electoral dividend. There are few other measures – I can't think of one – that can make a household a thousand pounds a year better off at a stroke, and yet are fiscally neutral. There are certainly politicians opportunistic enough to make the promise."
I can't believe nobody (from my reading of this discussion) has noticed this humdinger. A thousand pounds a year better off simply by getting rid of green subsidies? Given the average annual household gas and electricity bill is about £1,000 a year, I seriously doubt it.
Ah, what rubbish. This excuse is always trotted out when your enterprise is falling apart. I once heard John Cleese on the radio, after ticket sales for his new stage show were crap, patronisingly declare on that the 'downturn had hit everyone hard'. He didn't want to admit his show was not good.
The times I've used the SatNav on my phone, I have been happy with it. Maybe if I needed a SatNav everyday, it might be worth investing in one - but I don't and see no need.
Something atonal is needed. Somebody blowing on a trumpet, and somebody else banging on a drum - without any apparent coordination. Ending with cymbal crash.
Seriously, why are Nokia bothering with this rubbish? All of their marketing efforts in the last few years have been lamentable.
Everything I read about that suggests it was management making an arse of things that lead to the bankruptcy of the developer. Except here, the spending must have been even more out of control. For Team Bondi to go tits up, the debts the game accumulated in development must have been incredible, especially considering the game sold well.