@Ashlee
"One need only find a Tasmanian schoolchild and mention 1912 to get the full story."
As my company's head office is Down Under I accept your challenge sir.
Thanks for the gen.
34 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Aug 2007
"We're reminded of the Grim War where Tasmania beat China into submission by constantly sinking its own boats."
Can someone tell me what this is a reference to? Obviously there's never been an actual war between Tasmania and, well anyone really. I've looked everywhere and asked everyone but got nowhere with it.
Paris because she's as stoopid as I am.
Half way through the article I was thinking they don't have a case if anyone can see their property from the street but if the Google folk actually went down what was clearly marked as a private road, took photos and then published them on the web then good luck to them. I wouldn't be happy if it happened to me either.
Complain about the lack of an IT angle and you get more stories unrelated to IT.
Complain about the number of Paris Hilton stories and you get more stories about Paris Hiltion,
Complain about the use of freetard and...Spotted a pattern yet?
By the way, speaking as someone who has recently switched their entire home network over from Windows to Linux, if the likes of my Dad decided to install it I'd be running for the hills before the phone calls started. Everyday luser's replacement desktop OS it is not.
How many more patent trolls are going to come out of the wood work every time someone releases a new device that attracts a lot of publicity. Show me one (1) other mobile phone made since 1995 that doesn't feature a caller ID feature. There are even a hell of a lot of land line phones that will do that. Why doesn't this bozo go after Nokia or Samsung or even BT?
Why? You can just download it all again. +1 for being a fan of subscriptions but Napster lost me due to their crappy client software losing all my DRM certificates every month resulting in constant re-installs. The web based client sounds good but I haven't done any research into it's UK availablity yet.
I haven't understood this Daily Mail-esque campaign to ban patio heaters since it was first mooted. Never mind the wrong end of the wrong stick the MEPs have grasped as pointed out in the article, but what's to stop me - in light of not being able to purchase said patio heater - from just lighting a bonfire in my garden? I would imagine the pollution from a smokey fire would be worse than a gas heater and it wouldn't be nearly as efficient as I wouldn't be able to direct the heat to a specific area unless I built some kind of reflective hood to go over it.
These people need to start worrying about the real problems in this world - crime, wars, bigotry, poverty etc, not people who want to have a drink and a fag in their back garden on a chilly winter evening.
Rubbish, I just watched the clip on youtube and there's a guy getting what looks like a harpoon through the neck about 10 seconds in.
Banning this was a good call. As others have pointed out, you get advanced warning over violent programmes or films so you can clear the room of ickle kiddies, not so with adverts.
"I was worried for a moment then realized that this primarily only affects those poor saps that insist on running mission critical stuff on Windows/IIS."
Um, as much fun as Windows bashing is, make sure you at least sound credible:
"They don't use the same web host, and while most use web serving software from Apache, the versions vary widely, making it unlikely that attackers are exploiting a vulnerability in that program."
I hope you're joking. Otherwise you're suggesting someone offer a service where I can pay them to only receive the adverts they want me to, as opposed to the current setup where I can receive the adverts people want me to for free. And who the hell is going to pay for an ad-blocking service over free solutions like Ad-block, Hosts files, Noscript etc. Crazy.
So if I ring up MS and give them 1 (one) piece of information, they will provide me with the address of that account. I see they are taking lessons from our government with regards to data protection.
On a side note, when I had an Xbox I played it online about three times because I found (contrary to my experiences playing PC games online) that Xbox Live players were a bunch of cliquey, unfriendly twats.
Back when he was chancellor Gordo killed off the HCI because, he claimed, there was no longer any need for it as everyone now had access to cheap computers. Now all of sudden there are more than a million children who might need to have one bought for them out of my tax money.
Bloody idiots in New Labour.
Well it's his own fault for being so foolish but at least he's seen the error of his ways. To be honest, I've always thought the whole "identity theft" thing was scaremongering by the government and media. The child benefit CD balls up really made me concerned though (mainly because I know my details are on it :( )
Given that there are parents struggling to put food on their children's tables and clothes on their back I would suggest these idiot ministers put the country's resources into something a bit more worthwhile. Especially as the cheapest of cheap broadband packages are already fairly affordable.
"HSBC head of corporate banking technology Ray O’Brien said Intel should use its position to bring "companies outside of Intel" to heel, and sort out issues beyond the CPU."
This won't get read now but here goes -
As I am forced to download a file from Ray O'Brien's bank on a daily basis via dial-up because they're unable to provide my company with a faster method I wonder how fast he needs his computer components to be. A Windows 98 box could handle that.
Idiots.
I wish these idiots who seem desparate to shove adverts into every part of our lives would just fuck off quite frankly. The influence advertising has on people must surely be over exaggerated by marketing types who believe their own spin. I can't remember the last time I was influenced by an ad, although I am coming over with an overwhelming urge to buy a Sony Vaio and maybe get some Crucial memory to upgrade it with...
"The plan has been drawn up by French retail exec Denis Olivennes. It will see signatory ISPs - including France Telecom, which owns Orange in the UK - hand over information on heavy users of file-sharing networks to a new enforcement body which will formally warn them to stop. If they persist, their connection will be cut."
And will it be up to the file-sharers to prove they haven't been sharing copyrighted material or the the authorities to prove they have been? Also, how does this figure into data-protection laws? I would imagine it's quite at odds with it but IANAL.
The thing about the Wii remote is that it's cunningly designed so as to be usable in a practically infinite number of ways - use it as a gun, a steering wheel, a dildo, whatever. If every game I bought for the Wii came with it's own controller I wouldn't bother - waste of resources, waste of money. Why didn't these dudes release a universal controller that works with all the games? I can't see it being any more in breach of whatever patents Nintendo might hold than the controllers they're releasing, especially as things like the Wii Sports Pack let you turn the Wii remote into a golf club or tennis racquet etc.
Legality aside, their claims to be DVD quality are laughable. All the films I had a look at so far are at resolutions of around 664x268 when DVDs are 720x576 (for PAL). I wouldn't pay for that any more than I'd pay the same price as a physical DVD for a DRM'd download. I don't use bitorrent or newsgroups but it doesn't surprise me that others do when these are the only legal/questionably legal options.