Yes
Because I really want to send my boss pictures of my cat.
2482 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Mar 2008
I read this far;
El Reg: The convention is intrusive on individuals, and it’s onerous on ISPs. If we’re to accept those characteristics, it needs public debate. But there’s a lack of information to support that debate.
Fisher: I would say that what I’ve read and seen for Australia no different from other countries
And realised that these Unisys guys have an agenda and will spin and evade untiul they get what they want.
What Fisher basically said is "sure no-one knows what the legislation says, but all the other countries don't know either so it is OK.
What a crock.
Anyone who uses "Cyber" as many times as these twunts do in this interview is trying to massage the fears that the general public have about stuff that they don't really understand so that they can push their secret agenda through.
I don't know what Unisys agenda in all this is, but it's probably just that they they reckon they can make a lot of money supplying all the hardware and support to enable this if governments push this legislation through.
There's nothing like government mandated IT spending that gets companies like Unisys all excited.
Is it time for the Revolution yet?
This is just from the first patent in question;
"Remote retrieval and display management of electronic document with incorporated images
Abstract
A browser remotely retrieves electronic documents from a remote computer network for viewing by a user. For enhancing responsiveness, the browser initially displays an electronic document without a background image so that the electronic document is initially displayed more quickly. The browser also prioritizes downloading of embedded images of the document by their incorporation in the currently visible portion of the electronic document. Further, the browser dynamically creates additional connections for retrieving resources incorporated into the electronic document from the remote computer network. "
So basically they have patented how web browsing works. Way to "innovate" M$, no, really, your lawyers must love you guys.
"Does anyone remember when a printer was a proper tool and not just an entry point for an eco-hostile consumables revenue stream?"
Hewlett-Packard would be a long forgotten memory if it were not for their extremely lucrative printer ink revenue.
You really should consider all the ramifications before you engage your brain and question the status quo.
It's the patriotic thing to do you know . . .
I can't believe that I am about to . . . . . . . stand up for ISPs
"ISPs are cheapskates who won't send someone round to put it in and do it properly"
ISP's are businesses and they are not going to do that for free despite what you might like to think.
You have two choices;
1) Charge the user for the service directly
2) Recoup the costs indirectly by charging everyone more for their Internet service.
Now, personally, I don't need some numbnut from an ISP to come over and mess around with my network. I also don't want to be paying via my monthly bill for all the "free" onsite support calls used by thousands and thousands of other numpties who can't configure their networks properly.
The cheapskates here are the ignorant users, those people who don't want to invest (either time and/or money) in getting their home network working properly. If Joe Sixpack doesn't want to pay for the services that HE REQUIRES then why the hell should I pay it for him through higher bills?
1) Often, anti-virus causes as many problems as it solves
2) anti-virus is not even particularly effective even if it is installed and (Gods be praised!) up to date
3) I have an internet connection and no anti-virus and you can SOD OFF with your nanny state mentality
More vapourware announcements from RIM. Maybe they should, oh, I don't know, get some actual products out there rather than this ludicrous strategy of announcing stuff that does not exist. How many Playbooks have they announced? I think they are up to three now. How many have hit the shops? Well, that'd be zero.
Indeed, this is something that irritates me about business in western countries, this insane insistence on growth every single quarter. If there is no growth then they are punished by the shysters in the banking mafia.
There is no awareness of sustainability or evidence of any long term thinking at all.
It is all about making more money than last quarter, whatever it takes.
You have to understand how solicitors think, as well as the fact that they are greedy, money grubbing scumbags.
First off, be aware that while a solicitor has your file open on his desk, every time he scratches his arse he sends you a bill. Letter writing is particularly lucrative. You would be amazed at how many letters a solicitor can send out "on your behalf" and how much you are billed for each and every one.
So, when Crossley says he *spent* $750K, what he means is that he sent out X letters which, if he had have been able to bill them to an actual client, he would have cost $750K.
However, because he was his own client he didn't get to bill anyone*
It is sort of like when Microsoft pays one of their many fines with "Free software to schools". When they pay a $1 million dollar fine like that it really only costs them a few pennies but they count the cost as being the gross value of the potential sales of the licenses even though a software license is an entirely ephemeral thing that costs zero to reproduce.
* I would be shocked if he didn't slip more than a few of these letters into bills for other clients though, but this can't be proved so we will let that slide.
"various commands available for your particular TV are bizarrely presented as a long alphabetical list on your iPhone screen"
This is what happens when you let beardy engineer types design User Interfaces.
To a Beardy, putting all the controls in an alphabetical list MAKES PERFECT SENSE.
To everyone else it means FAIL
Control freakishness and arrogance aside, you have to admit that Saint Jobs would never let a product like that out the door. That is why apple are so successful and Thinkflood are not so much.
then it'll get worse too.
Assuming that you can overcome all the aforementioned hurdles, you will find it almost impossible to get in to any really interesting event and you will be forced to settle for "Laos vs Belgium" in the Womens Basketball or something equally uninteresting, but hey, at least you get to "soak up the olympic atmos, right?"
Once you get there, you find that the stadium is empty but lo!, the only seats that are in use are around the rim of the stadium, up in the nose bleed zone. You see, the seats down front are all pre booked for *every* event by corporates and VIP's and whether they intend to actually attend the event is completely irrelevant. When they choose not to attend they just sit there empty, even though there are thousands of punters out there who would love the opportunity to use them were they just give the opportunity to do so.
The whole thing is an elitist circle jerk club that is paid for by the likes of you and me but without us having the opportunity to share in in what we have paid for.
Personally, after my experience at Sydney I can no longer bring myself to show any interest whatsoever. I don't even bother watching it on TV.
So, Assange has risked the lives of operatives has he?
Which ones? Names please, after all if Wikileaks has already outed them then you shouldn't have any trouble pointing us to where they did so, right?
God some people are just too credulous for words, willing to accept any and all of the propaganda that is constantly being pushed out by the powers that be.
No wonder the Nazis had it so easy, with useful idiots like Mr AC above to help them along.
Concur with all the aforementioned problems listed and have one of my own to add to the mix.
Local multiplayer(s).
Say I want to play multiplayer with my son like I currently do with Borderlands. How does that work then? OK, I need two of these boxes and 2 TVs (Sorry, I don't do that naff split screen shit). Anyhow, that's OK cuz I'd need two PC's anyway so there is no loss there but what about the net connection?
Even if they somehow manage to make this work (just) on a consumer grade 'net connection, how is it going to cope with streaming for two (or more people?)
RIP LAN Parties?
I haven't heard that album myself so I can't comment on it. I took a look at Amazon though and the album gets an average of 4 stars from 70 reviews.
Reading the reviews are . . . interesting. I find myself wondering whether radio station DJ's are in such a good position to determine what is good or bad in music. Most of them have no compunctions with playing Lady Gaga pr Kenye West and carrying about how their "music" is totally cool and awesome.
From an Amazon review;
"Each two-part track is meant to reflect upon a different aspect of the duality of man. Of course, you don't get this effect when some radio station cues up Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds or Mr. Tambourine Man for comedic purposes; those guys never play the first half of each track, so it's impossible for the listener to know what Shatner was actually trying to do with this album"
Me? I think I will reserve judgment until I get a chance to hear it for myself.
I haven't heard that album myself so I can't comment on it. I took a look at Amazon though and the album gets an average of 4 stars from 70 reviews.
Reading the reviews are . . . interesting. I find myself wondering whether radio station DJ's are in such a good position to determine what is good or bad in music. Most of them have no compunctions with playing Lady Gaga pr Kenye West and carrying about how their "music" is totally cool and awesome.
From an Amazon review;
"Each two-part track is meant to reflect upon a different aspect of the duality of man. Of course, you don't get this effect when some radio station cues up Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds or Mr. Tambourine Man for comedic purposes; those guys never play the first half of each track, so it's impossible for the listener to know what Shatner was actually trying to do with this album"
Me? I think I will reserve judgment until I get a chance to hear it for myself.
Produced by Ben Folds (who also plays) is actually quite excellent.
Sure he talks rather than sing, but Shatner pulls it off imparting an impressive amount of emotion to the spoken lyrics.
Standouts are "Common People", "Real" and the excellent title track of course.
I'm willing to bet that you have never actually heard this album.
"Don't forget that MS was slow into the PC market (and not the best) but they eventually managed to dominate."
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by this statement because Microsoft was there at the inception of the "PC market".
If you are including what came before (apple ][, Commodore, CP/M etc) in your definition of "PC market" then you have to realise that MS were not even attempting to do operating systems back then. They had no intention of doing any such thing. They wrote a version of BASIC for CP/M and later copied VisiCalc with their MultiPlan spreadsheet and that was about it.
They fell into the operating system market by accident when the IBM PC was launched and have completely dominated that area since day 1 (and not through technical superiority I hasten to add).
who also happen to be one of Microsofts partners.
http://www.digia.com/C2256FEF0043E9C1/0/405000918
It is not inconceivable that this is yet another attempt by MS to secretly attack open source via third party partners.
I'm not saying this is the case here, but you have to admit that MS has form in this area.
"I think Canonical is making a very big mistake in not supporting KDE as well as Gnome."
I think they are making a bigger mistake not supporting* either actually.
Of course for both Gnome and KDE you can/will still be able to apt-get them.
I certainly won't be using Unity any time soon. In fact next time I install a new system it is going to be Debian or Linux Mint Debian.
As for the future of KDE, you might have to switch to gnome now that MS own Qt**
* "Supporting" by including it in the default installation.
** Well, not really, but I'm sure MS will give it a try.
"Instead of uniting into a superhot spot, all the routers in a locality merely offer a large number of very weak spots ?"
WiFi doesn't work like that, it is not like how you can add extra light bulbs to a room to make it brighter. Your device connects to a single access point and your signal will only be the strength of whichever one you are currently connected to.
What can be done however, is that the all the access points can be aware of each other and pass you from one access point to another as you move around in a similar way to how cell phone networks work.
Lindows (a Linux distribution) had to change their name merely because it "sounded" like Windows.
This was ordered by some numpty in a court.
If MS can lay claim to ownership of words that merely sound like their trademarked despite being extremely generic word then surely apple have the right to claim a much more specific phrase.
Personally I think the whole thing is bollocks, and neither of these fricking corps should be able to do what they are doing but given MS have already set the standard when it comes to trademarking generic words it comes off as a bit rich to complain when other companies do similar in an even less egregious manner than their own.
Apple haven't even got to the stage where they are complaining about soundalikes yet!
Funnily enough, it has occurred to me recently that the usual suspects in the meejia have taken to using "Climate Change" instead of "Global Warming".
That way they can attribute all manner of natural disasters that would previously have been put down to "acts of god" as being caused by the dreaded "Climate Change".
"Global Warming" simply doesn't cover enough ecotastrophes any more.
As for people believing more in CC than GW, well of course they do. Climate change has been around for millions of years. We actually have hard evidence for that.
Even "Global Warming" is feasible, it is only when you prepend "Man Made" to either of these terms that things get dubious.
A lot of "rich" people are sociopathic narcissists who have a dog eat dog attitude towards other people. It is not just about how much money they can amass but also about where they get it from and at who's expense.
It doesn't matter how much money they have in their pocket, the fact that they are getting a freebie gets them off so to speak.
That the person who owns the card may in fact be quite poor and not able to afford to fund their narcissistic impulse purchase would not even have crossed this arseholes mind.
Microsoft saw how the completely consumer focused iPhone took the market by storm and in their typically me-too fashion decided to drop everything else and go all cargo-cult on apples ass.
It is not the first time that Microsoft has hung their users out to dry with a sudden about face (Playsforsure anyone?) and I'm sure it won't be the last.
"I remember a certain "bribe" from MS to Apple"
<cough>
Were apple forced to scrap their own software development enmasse and to replace it with selling Microsoft Windows on Macs under a licence per device arrangement?
Did Microsoft gain access to apples patent portfolio?
Did Microsoft simply *give* money to apple, or did they *purchase* a block of non voting shares and then sell them back later?
No, this is nothing like Microsoft and Apple.
"Think yourselves lucky: in France it's €90 and 1 point off for going 1kph over the limit in the vicinity of a lurking cam."
That is worse than here, we have a 5% tolerance which isn't much in a 40 zone (2Km). We just had a report that over 3/4 of fines issued (3500 every day) are for the most minor catagory of speeding.
There is little to do with "safety" in this scam, it is pure revenue raising.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/speed-fines-every-day/story-e6frf7kx-1226012595295
The AFP are a bunch of prize numpties. These are the same dipsticks that were responsible for the appalling Dr Haneef episode as well as their comically inept handling of the root-you-org incident.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhamed_Haneef
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/18/r00t_y0u_sting_backfires/
I wouldn't be at all surprised if they truly believe the hogwash they are spouting here.
"Swedish prosecutor: Er, hang on chaps, according to our constitution, we can't charge people without questioning them,"
1) The Swedish already questioned Assange and then let him go.
2) If they want to question him further they can simply hop on a plane or even <gasp> use the telephone.
3) Swedens constitutional difficulties are not the concern of HM Gov nor Julian Assange,
4) Your grasp of logic is tenuous at best Mr AC