Re: Philadelphia Cream Cheese
"It's not exactly tombstone material."
Enough of it clogging your arteries and it might be.
1410 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jul 2014
Thank you for your unbiased review into Smark Jelly. I've just subscribed to a lifelong supply which gave me an incredible 30% off the normal price. I've opted for the crunchy version which has organic live beetles in the jelly. I'm so looking forward to trying this on toast. Thanks again for your recommendation.
I'd just got off a ferry and was famished. McD was handy and I wondered if, after my experience two decades earlier, they had relented in their strange menu restrictions. Turned out not.
The earlier visit to McD's was etched in my memory as the guy behind the counter, presumably the franchise owner, got quite angry when I said, "No problem, I'll get one from the burger van twenty yards away in the market." He was livid that someone else dared to sell burgers within proximity to his outlet.
"it relies on every country agreeing and implementing an effective ban."
No it doesn't. If county X bans paying ransoms then the scammers will quickly get the message and just concentrate on countries Y and Z. They aren't going to waste their time and effort in a country where they won't be paid. Other countries would be likely to follow the example if successful. As someone else mentioned, paying a ransom in country X should mean the CEO of that company goes to jail. It would be very difficult for larger companies especially to hide payments to scammers without also fiddling their accounts too, opening them up to an even bigger can of worms if their accounts are audited.
I had a similar experience recently at my doctor's surgery. I had to go in for an ECG. A nurse appeared in the waiting room, there were only two or three people there, she made eye contact with me and queried "Andy?" I followed her into a room and she was about to take a blood sample when I pointed out I was there for an ECG. She just said "OK, I'll go find the machine". A minute later a different nurse came in followed by another patient who was wondering why his nurse had attached heart sensing cables all over his chest. I said to him "Is your name Andy as well?". Yep, he was only in for a blood test.
Another data catastrophe that occurs now and then all over the world is if someone is accidentally or maliciously declared dead and the automatic data updates that follow... closure of bank accounts, cancellation of pension, benefits, credit rating, driver's licence, passport etc. Most organisations lack facilities or procedures to make someone "undead" causing considerable suffering to those affected while the bureaucrats just keep repeating "the computer says No".
I went to Boots opticians for an eye test, having not used them for a number of years. Surprisingly they found my record on their computer system from only a couple of years earlier. I was somewhat baffled, but the optician proceeded to test my sight based on "my" previous visit. I couldn't even read the first big letter at the top of the chart. I said there must be a mistake somewhere. He checked my address on their system and it was my address, but from somewhere I'd lived twenty years earlier, my ancient phone number and my date of birth but not the same medications, medical history or eye test results. The optician was convinced there must be someone living there now with the same name and DOB as me, which I thought highly unlikely. It seemed blindingly obvious to me that Boots had somehow merged two patient records into one. Not used Boots opticians since, wasn't impressed with their service either.
"But what will come after that ?"
A) Quantum powered AI blockchains.
Re the article, I was just thinking the other day that if someone does jump onto the AI bandwagon, they are sure to regret whatever hardware they buy as it will be obsolete when the latest greatest chip based AI comes out weeks/months later.
Lack of signage sent me on a merry route more than once: Leaving a holiday camp near St Ives Cornwall, I followed the road signs which were great until they took me to a T junction. No signs, had to guess turn left or turn right. Took the wrong one and ended up near Land's End instead of heading North.
I've had issues with my TomTom on occasion despite the maps being fully up to date. It managed to get me stuck in a busses-only bus station in Beeston, Notts much to the chagrin of the bus drivers. On other occasions it has tried to send me the wrong way down one-way streets. Tried a Garmin one time and it completely lost the plot and tried to send me down a narrow dead-end side street instead of my programmed destination ten miles away. Sometimes the route these devices give is too creative for their own good, instead of leaving you on fast moving dual-carriageways they can send you down narrow twisting country roads, covered in mud, following farm tractors for miles on end and dodging nutters driving too fast from the opposite direction.
"Japan".
If memory serves, Fukushima had backup diesel generators to keep the cooling system going in the event of mains failure, however, the tsunami also knocked out the generators leaving only the battery backups, which only had one hour's worth of power stored in them. One hour later... the rest is history. Must be a lesson or two there somewhere.
Unfortunately that won't work as Google say they will verify the number given either by sending a text message code to it, or in the case of a land line, a spoken code. I'm not overly concerned, I never trusted Google enough to use gmail for anything serious. They burned me with that once before a number of years ago after I set up POP3 on my then Gmail account and they suspended it shortly afterwards claiming it had "unusual activity". Any "free" service can be rescinded at any time, so can't be relied on.
I've been caught out with that. Bought an electrical item through Amazon marketplace that failed after a couple of months. The third party vendor more or less said tough luck as it was outside the 30 day return period. I complained to Amazon and they totally ignored me. Since then I make a point of buying such items from the high-street. Amazon have already lost out on a couple of grands worth of purchases. My relationship with Amazon has really soured over the last few months.
have ceased to be my go-to company for buying stuff. To use the new word, I'm sick of the "enshitification" of their service. Constantly shoving the suggestion of a Prime subscription in my face at each and every opportunity, to giving poor search results and poor customer service if you need to return anything, especially from a third party vendor. They ignore the UK's 12 month warranty laws and just won't respond to complaints. So feck you Amazon, I've gone back to buying stuff from the high-street, at least I can take things back if faulty and not be ignored.
"Enshitification" of the tech sector really has become a thing. I'd had a Google account for a number of years but only used the gmail account for non-important stuff and remembering my music taste on YouTube, but now they refuse to let me log in unless I give them my phone number, claiming it is for my own benefit for security purposes, bollocks, it is so you can associate more of my online activity to the profile you hold for me. Tough luck, you're not having my phone number, so my Google account will be left to rot.
Facebook can't tell the difference between legitimate posts and spam. So I got loads of shit in my feed for crap like crypto currency traders, investment scams, relationship scams, and magic incantations and spells to bewitch a lover, yet some of my own normal, group specific posts were rejected by their bots for reasons unknown. I gave up and deleted my Facebook account in the end.
As for X/Twitter, that is just an open sewer of shit from top to bottom, though I'm sure the leadership will find even more ways to increase the shit content.
As has often been said, a hacker only needs to be successful once in gaining access to your network, but a security pro needs to be successful all of the time in stopping such intrusions. It would be too much stress for me, especially if management were complacent and tied my hands with inadequate resources to defend the organisation with.
I never use my landline but it is TPS registered. I tell them I am interested in their home improvement proposal and arrange for them to visit a non-existent house number on my road. Can lead to interesting follow up calls from them on my answering machine, as they demonstrate a fluency with profane language.
I had a client like that once, a multi-million pound manufacturing company I had a good working relationship with. Did loads of software for them and they always paid on time. After a number of years they got taken over by an American firm and it became a nightmare getting paid, so many delays, hoops and hurdles to get past, imposed on them from across the pond. The next time they wanted work doing I said "No, I'm not prepared to deal with you any more."
I fully agree. Maybe there is also a case that critical infrastructure companies, hospitals etc should undergo mandatory security auditing on an ongoing basis too, with penalties of some form for those companies or organisations that are substandard, maybe financial penalties levied at the exec's bonuses or shareholder level to stimulate active effort. Such an approach wouldn't necessarily stop all ransomware attempts as there will always be human error somewhere in the organisation, but it should help somewhat to harden their security and make it more difficult for the miscreants.
Disagree with that. There would not need to be any universal ban across the world or involving the UN. If country X bans payments and the miscreants target other countries instead, you can be sure those other countries won't be far behind in individually also enacting bans. The targets across the world will diminish over time with only those remaining who are too recalcitrant for whatever reason to enact bans - but that's their problem to resolve.
I'll give that a go, but will wait a while to see if the price comes down a bit. Don't know if it is a coincidence or dynamic pricing, but a week ago I looked at Metro Exodus on Sony Playstation store and it was £28. Just had a look now while checking out Baldur's Gate 3 on there and Metro had dropped to £4.95, so snapped that up while it was such a good price. Time will tell if it's a hit or a miss for me.
Baldur's Gate 3 looks interesting. I haven't played a turn based RPG since the days of the Commodore 64 and that is going back just a tad. I just hope there isn't too much to remember as my memory isn't as good as it once was. I got a bit fed up of Witcher 3 due to needing to remember all the weird and wonderful weapon moves, dodges etc and all the charms and potions needed and ground to a halt playing it when I hit a big Gollum boss, just lost interest at that point. May go back to it again at some point.
Games always seem to be pot-luck whether I enjoy them or indeed am capable of playing them. As an older gamer in my 60’s with slower mental responses and less nimble, slightly arthritic fingers I often get stuck when facing a boss. If the boss must be eliminated to progress the game then often that is game over for me. Options to play at “story level” are critically important for me, even then I sometimes really struggle. My fingers seize up a couple of minutes into a boss fight.
Someone on here recommended Rage 2, which I thoroughly enjoyed on PS4. A vast open world game.
I recently finished Assassin's Creed Mirage on PS5, a great game in the series albeit smaller open world than previous offerings.
I’m currently half way through Horizon Call of the Mountain on PS5 VR2. The virtual reality adds a lot to the game and is very enjoyable, though much of the time is spent climbing mountains and structures which can get a bit tedious. My stomach gets a little queasy after an hour playing at a time due to some VR related motion sickness. Still it is worth the effort.
The Evil Within 2 was a brilliant game and had options to make the game easier for those of us less able. On the back of that I bought Evil Within (1) but it was spoiled by the lack of a valid easy level and I abandoned the game half way though as it became unplayable.
Similar problem playing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Brilliant and very different and atmospheric game ruined by the lack of disability features. Game abandoned half way through, couldn’t get past the bosses.
Same for Batman: Arkham Asylum. Couldn’t get past the boss Poison Ivy when she was inside the giant flower. Had to abandon the game despite playing on so called “easy level”.
Far Cry Primal: Game up half hour in as it was too boring and I got fed up of hunting for animals to skin.
Bethesda Fallout 76 Wastelanders (PS4). Great open world game.
As already mentioned, the biggest issue I face is games released without proper easy levels. Surely it isn’t rocket science to add easier levels, just give the player numerically higher health and weapons and give the opponents, especially bosses lower health and lower power to their weapons. Little extra needs to be added to the game functionality and these values could be held in a simple lookup table?
Long gone are the days when I used to comfortably play the original Doom on DOS at Hurt Me Plenty level.
Anyone got any new recommendations for open world RPG that aren’t limited to young and physically nimble players?
I was annoyed when keyboards introduced the Windows key, right in the way of the keys I used when playing Doom. Took some time to relearn the required muscle memory, but it definitely reduced my gaming speed. Don't think I've ever even used the Windows key in all the years since... Just pressed it now... it brings up the menu on Linux Mint. :-)
"Argos, but they have very poor inventory"
I gave up on Argos years ago, they only seem to sell bottom of the range cheap tat that fails a few months after purchase or doesn't even work when you get it home. Even something as basic as a self-assembly bookcase was useless - it couldn't take the weight of books, so the shelves sagged badly in the middle. Utter rubbish.
I stopped shopping at Argos after three items bought from there in a row had to be returned... a mobile phone because the clasp was badly installed and so bent it couldn't accept a SIM card, a tall lamp had a piece missing and an electric razor that wouldn't charge up.
I'll just add that I've stopped buying electronic/electrical items from Amazon anyway due to their crap returns policy. If you buy something from their marketplace and it fails after 30 days then you are reliant on the goodwill of the 3rd party supplier. If they ignore you or refuse to accept the UK's 12 months warranty laws then you are stuffed. Amazon just ignores pleas to resolve the problem. For that reason I've started buying such items from the high street and Amazon have lost out on several £k of sales to me. At least I can take them back to a physical store within 12 months and they can't just ignore me.