Posts by yeah, right. 639 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Apr 2007
If they don't want to allow me to view programs I paid for with my TV tax on the systems I use, then screw them, they aren't getting my TV tax anymore. I don't watch TV that much anyway. Maybe I'll just send the old thing to them in protest?
C.O.D., of course.
They are a PUBLIC service, not a corporate whore, and should act as such. As in, act in the public interest, not in the interest of certain foreign corporations.
Amazing how certain countries are all fired up to replace "monsters" when the country in question has lots of oil and other resources, but nothing is heard when the country doesn't have much of the above. Sorta shows the real agenda of these world "super powers".
Pity about Zimbabwe (ex Rhodesia) though. So long as the Mugabe family is in charge the people there don't have much of a chance of any sort of real improvement.
As usual, it's a javascript exploit. As usual, those of us who run with Noscript enabled are relatively immune unless we do something to shoot ourselves in the foot.
I've tried running several other browsers, but the combination of Adblock and Noscript keeps me coming back to Firefox. Between those two, my surfing is a lot more productive, and a lot less distracting.
Especially Microsoft fanboys, ready to take it up the arse for their lord and master.
Microsoft "security" is a joke, from start to Vista. Their latest version of "security" simply allows them to say "it's not our fault", when in fact they are selling their signing service as a guarantee that they have, in fact, inspected and approved anything they have signed. Yes, ATI screwed up. But Microsoft is screwing up even more by having an "operating system" that allows drivers access to areas they should not have access to. So yes, it's Microsofts fault for writing a crappy operating system. Again. Their whole "operating system" is a sad, sad joke perpetrated on a world of people who have been brainwashed into accepting truly crappy software on a daily basis.
As for Macs - they're a little better, and it's what I currently run for various reasons, but they aren't that much better. I'm still waiting for proper security on a computer. You know, something like Multics had by 1969 or 1971 or thereabouts. Surely it can't take that long to reinvent the basics?
All hardware sucks. All software sucks. The rest is personal preference. But come ON folks, there are still some things that suck the most of all choices, and we're getting a front row seat here on why it sucks.
Actually, it's "your lack of planning is not my emergency". At least, that's the poster I had at the entrance to my office when I was a sysadmin. Management regularly ignored it, of course, then learned the pitfalls of having tried to enforce company policy on me while trying to circumvent said policy to their benefit. Ah, I miss those days. Sometimes. Well, rarely actually.
BOFH rules!
Don't have to bash the yanks. They do all too well to themselves. All that needs doing is bringing attention to it.
However, those who support the death penalty as it is applied in the USA would do well to admit that it's not about justice. It's not about deterrence. It's strictly about revenge, with a large dash of racism.
The IT angle might be that it's something some sysadmins wish they could inflict on their users on a more regular basis. Strictly out of revenge, of course.
The Bretons feel the same way about Parisiens as they do about British invaders. If they try to fit in and actually participate in local life, including hiring and buying locally, it's a lot less of a problem. By bitching that all their signs were in French, in Callac of all places (heart of Bretagne, etc.) and not making any effort to write their signs in Breton, as foreign invaders they set themselves up for failure.
The Bretons had a tremendous reputation in the French Resistance for getting the job done. Just because the weak-kneed Parisiens gave up without a fight doesn't mean the Bretons were about to. That tradition still holds.
Well, that or it was the fact that there is really nothing to do in Callac other than torch the foreigners car...
amanfromMars definitely resembles some of the bot-written text I get as part of some spam messages. Perhaps the Reg hack filtering these articles is part of the crowd that thinks that since they don't understand it, it must be very deep and erudite. The other option, one that I prefer, is that if it cannot be parsed by someone with a good grasp of the language then it's probably just crap. amanfromMars falls in that latter category.
It actually reminds me of a debating tactic used against me when my opponent didn't have a clue how to proceed. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of trying to follow him into never-never land. This time I'm wiser, and I'm just going to have to say that amanfromMars, if it's not a bot, is just smoking some really bad crack.
The tit in this scenario is the one who doesn't have a clue about copyright. It's called "fair use", and DRM stops people from exercising their legal rights with works they have purchased. It also introduces perpetual copyright through the back door, especially in the USA where they've made interfering with DRM a criminal offense. Basically, it takes away copy RIGHTS (why do you think it's called copyright in the first place?) from the consumer and returns us to where we were prior to the Statute of Anne in 1710.
If you want to protect copyright, you don't do that by breaking copyright law, and that's what the RIAA, MPAA and others are doing. Daily. And getting away with it.
Hewitt, Mitchell and others, try actually reading the steaming pile of rat turd called the MS OOXML spec before commenting. I have (much of it anyway, and my brain really, really hurts!! Help me!) and the damn thing is so full of non-reproducible crap it's not a standard, it's a fantasy. For starters, to implement it requires indepth knowledge of undocumented, proprietary formats that MS has NOT made public, nor will ever make public. It is NOT an "open" standard by any stretch of any definition other than Microsofts. It cannot be implemented by an independent party unless they enter into NDA agreements with Microsoft, which is contrary to EVERY definition of "standard" out there. Except, of course, the Microsoft definition of "standard".
Unfortunately, mush-for-brain idiots continue to believe the Microsoft tripe and come to their defence without actually having any facts at their disposal. Which is par for the course, as the facts point in exactly the opposite direction from where Microsoft wants all the sheep to go.
"Let me bend over so you too can violate me" says Massachusetts. It's a sad day when enough people believe the FUD and lies about the utterly non-open "standard" proposed by Microsoft and rubber stamped by ECMA. For starters, the MS OOXML requires knowledge of proprietary, undocumented interfaces to be implemented. Not very "open" of them. So yet again, Microsoft wins in their "embrace, extend, corrupt" campaign.
Politicians really are too stupid to live. Still, Ubersoft will have a good week with this one.
Sounds to me like the "must have buttons" crowd is sounding somewhat... defensive? It's amusing to watch the "it's better", "no it's not" playground mudslinging going on here and in the press. Whatever happened to IT geeks getting together a set of _personal_ requirements and then finding the toy that best meets _their_ needs, which realizing that everyone will have their own personal requirements? Sounds to me like most of those here are more style victims than geeks.
To me, the iPhone represents a choice. Finally, I have a real choice. After years of being saddled with one crippled device after another, all mostly looking and feeling the same, here comes another that's crippled in totally different ways. That's choice!
Unfortunately, "competition" in the USA is more of an illusion than a reality, and it's non-existent in Canada. The telecoms cartel has effectively divided up the continent into pseudo "non-compete" zones, with only an illusion of anything resembling real competition.
So this is basically showing us that the FTC isn't so much a watchdog as a lapdog to the telecoms interests. So business as usual then.
It's obvious from the comments above that many people don't understand the concept that Microsoft was found guilty, in court, of abusing their monopoly position. This "consent decree" is like terms of probation which were incredibly lenient in the first place. This lead to the court ordering certain remedies, one being that Microsoft wouldn't do it again. But look, in the field of business called "search engine", Microsoft is yet again leveraging the fact that they are a monopoly to squeeze out a competitor. That's what got them into court in the first place. I see Microsoft just can't bloody learn, can it? Instead of waiting until the decree was over before trying its dirty tricks again, they had to have another go as soon as possible, knowing that any "fix" would be due after the court supervision (ie: probation) was over.
Yes, Google is a competitor. So what? Microsoft still owns the desktop computer market. This means they have certain responsibilities in ensuring that their competitors can, in fact, compete. By not allowing the consumer to turn off their search and use a competing search, by making it extra difficult to even use a competitors product, they are yet again leveraging their monopoly to shut a competitor out.
The real problem is what the hell is a taxpayer funded government bureaucracy doing forcing people to purchase and use an expensive (you can't just get Windows Media Player, you have to get Vista and the computer to run it) foreign product from a convicted monopolist? Just to access content created at taxpayer expense in the first place?
Perhaps it is time for the BBC to stop getting its TV licence tax, seeing as it seems to have simply become a pusher for expensive commercial proprietary technology.
Ah, but the people doing the camping, writing the bots, and so on are also enjoying that aspect of the game. So it's one person's enjoyment vs another. The argument can go back and forth, but Blizzard has always tolerated such activities (PK, cheaters, etc.), starting with Diablo and their love of the PK clans. It really is one of those things that if a person doesn't like it, they don't have to play.
I know I don't play, for the very reasons outlined by Tim. I don't enjoy getting whacked by cheaters, and there are plenty of them out there. There is, to me, zero enjoyment in paying good money and spending much of my precious time trudging through the levels, upgrading the equipment, only to get it all taken away by some script kiddie with lots of time and zero ethics. So I play games where I have some say as to who is on the server, and where my time isn't going to be completely wasted by some cheater. As a bonus, servers for such games mostly happen to be free, which is nice.
NASCAR is definitely not a poor man's sport, it being very profitable in the USA, and not being a sport. However, that doesn't stop it from being the stupid man's "sport". Meaning that it is to "sport" what Macdonalds is to fine cuisine, and only stupid people actually pay money to see a bunch of advertising banners with large engines going around an oval track hoping that the car in front hits a squirrel or a beer can.
Only in the USA? We can only bloody hope!
Hey, I'm an Apple zealot, and it's all the fault of them having to hire people who had worked on Microsoft in order to program the thing. Working with Microsoft makes the brain go soft, and makes people write crappy, bug-ridden code. Which is exactly what's happening with Safari on Microsoft.
Never had these problems with Safari on Mac. Oh, wait, I don't use Safari on Mac. I use Firefox.
Never mind.
OK, so the original email said that finding the FIRMWARE for the GS1600 was difficult. Did anyone who commented that Rufus was right actually try to GET the firmware for the GS1600? The link is dead, as in it's commented out if you view the page source. The FAQ is useless, as it points to the previously mentioned error-filled download page.
I find the original email quite normal for a frustrated customer who has to use yet another poorly designed website. Although I sympathize with Rufus, his response was totally out of line. If he's going to insult customers, he should be doing a much better job at making them feel small, stupid and useless. He should also pick targets who don't have valid complaints. I'm guessing Rufus is one of the owners of the company, and therefore has nothing to fear about getting fired.
...the whole thing doesn't take into account that their damn GMO crops propagate independently up to several hundred kilometers away, thereby contaminating previously non-GMO crops. Ask the central Mexican farmers how their crops got contaminated with Texas-based GMO corn pollen. Or the Canadian farmer who got successfully sued because his crops were contaminated with patented GMO technology from GMO fields next door, then they sued him because he wanted to keep the seeds of HIS crops for next year.
So now they can tell who owns the original? Great! I hope it also means they can be sued when their "technology" contaminates the crops of farmers who don't want to be serfs to Monsanto.
If Apple makes the classic mistake of tying themselves to one operator, then no, they probably won't make near that target.
However, from what I've seen of the iPhone, it does what I need it to do. I've been looking for such a device for several years, and have refused to "upgrade" my old Sony Ericsson T39m until then. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a lemming, more of someone who has a firm list of "must haves" in such a device, and is willing to wait until something exists that has what I need. The iPhone, despite the hype, might meet that goal. We'll see.
Guess I won't be doing any more contract work in Germany. How in HELL is a sysadmin supposed to do their work without any of the tools the ignorant, technophobic illiterates running that country have declared illegal?
I thought the US was bad with its DMCA crap, but it looks like Germany is trying hard to keep scoring points in the "stupid laws" competition.
... the fine is barely a slap on the wrist. It's what, barely one one thousandth of one percent of an hours profit for the company? Big effing deal.
Basically, an American multinational yet again flagrantly ignores the laws of the country in which they operate, and get away with it. Same old, same old.
her brother, who presumably knows her much better than any of the pundits here or in the other press, says that they went into it with their eyes wide open. Other papers, perhaps trying to be a little less sensationalist than the Register, have noted that one of her fathers last wishes was that she not be told.
So I propose that those who object to this arrangement should get their noses out of other peoples business and private lives. It's got nothing to do with Big Brother, and everything to do with how other people decide to live their lives and how they handle a long expected death in the family.
It's also obvious that most of the pundits around here don't have a damn clue about how you can't put your life on hold while waiting for someone you love to die. Especially when it could happen now or in several months. You make your peace and you live your life. Just because you don't see the person die in person doesn't make the grieving any less real when you do find out about it. If they've already said what they had to say to each other, what the hell business is it of anyone elses to second-guess their decision?
I don't know whether to be happy or depressed that so many people were thinking along exactly the same lines of "did they use the holy hand grenade fo Antioch" when they read the story? I fail to see the tech angle in this, but perhaps it was a robo-bunny (or perhaps RFID controlled?) and needs to be filed under ROTM?
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