Posts by Ralph B 1582 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Apr 2007
I suppose I can kinda see the motivation from a "mental masturbation" point-of-view, but, really, can't they find something more useful and/or creative to do with their time and intelligence?
I mean the "crackivists", the sleazy website operators, and the sleazy website's customers, the lot of them. Go and do something positive for humanity, FFS.
(And I don't mean go and shine laser pointers at self-driving cars either. Jeez, you guys!)
> I do not see how the hell can this wonderful gizmo operate if every car will have one
An excellent point, Mr. Hand. What does happen when a Google self-driving car meets another Google self-driving car? Do they both come to a halt in a confusion of LIDAR reflections? Please say it isn't so?
But how has the non-ebook revenues of these publishers been affected by their raising of ebook prices? Probably most of them have significant investments in the dead-tree publishing sector and are willing to accept reduced ebook revenues to bolster their non-ebook sales.
Can you tell us the rest of the story Mr Worstall?
I'm not too keen on the potential progression I'm seeing here:
1) Extrajudicial killings of foreigners overseas.
2) Extrajudicial killings of Britons overseas.
3) Extrajudicial killings of Britons in Britain.
Although I suppose it could be said that we have reached 3) already, the use of drones to do the job is an unhappy escalation.
To qualify to comment on this story you must not be using an adblocker on this website.
(Should be quiet then.)
((And before you ask, yes, I have (temporarily) disabled by adblocker to comment. There's Gartner Business banner and side panel ads currently on this page as I type this.))
For a more recent example, take a look at the Zimbabwe Dollar. Apparently you'll currently need 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars to get you 1 US$.
> Apple doesn't push ads
Of course they do. It's just not their main source of revenue, unlike Google.
Apple's new content blocking tech is a gun pointed directly at Google. Meanwhile, Google are busy shooting themselves in the foot by doing nothing to prevent malvertising pushed over their infrastructure.
> No, because like with the ISPs as long as they're not acting in any kind of gatekeeping capacity
And yet they (Apple) are acting as a gatekeeper for the apps, and are reaping the profits from having a more trusted platform. If they did the same for ads they would increase that trust and thereby increase their profits.
> But that will take, labor, and most importantly money. Try getting this plan past the accountants...
But the same argument can be made for vetting the apps. Having apps that can be trusted not to contain malware is a good sales argument for the platform. Same for the ads.
Developers pay Apple for vetting for entry to the App Store. Same for the ads. (Or it will be, if content blocking makes iAds the only show in town.)
Maybe that's what we'll get from Apple after their content blocking tech comes into play. Maybe the iAds that they (presumably) won't block will be better vetted than the malvertisiing that Google currently let through.
There's hope for this, since the iOS apps are certainly better vetted than Android ones.
Google et al certainly need to get their houses in order on this. They could get away with it while no-one else is doing it better, but that time is running out. Thankfully.
I mean, why hasn't the UK's National Health Service website ever spoken up against the three years of massacres that occur in Syria?
I don't recall seeing anything on the Marks and Spencers website about it either.
Or on the Chessington World of Adventures website.
They're obviously all complicit in the World's conspiracy of silence.
Hack 'em all, I say!
</sarcasm>
Is it not unreasonable for somebody to expect a "full delete" to be exactly that? Including from whatever contact list your telesales uses?
Maybe the telesales are using the telephone directory. Should they delete you from that too?
More likely they are buying a leads database from some other 3rd party. Practically speaking, if they are to avoid pestering you in the future, they are going to need to keep a record of you to remember to do so.
> Look up Zoela
You'll have more luck with "Zoella". But otherwise you're right. She's a UK-based vlogger with a big influence in the buying (or nagging) decisions of many teenies. We in the UK can only hope to keep UK-based vloggers honest. The Rest of the World must try and tame their own vloggers.
I suppose if Ms Sugg doesn't like being required to be honest and open about who she's shilling for, she can always relocate to somewhere where they care less. I'm sure she has enough dosh to allow her to do so.
> He identified eight "compelling needs" that advertisers promise products will fulfill
You've just exploited one of those eight "compelling needs" to get me to buy the book, haven't you?
I feel so used.
> "With all the extra publicity, Ashley Madison is only going to be getting more users," Mikko Hypponen, CRO of F-Secure commented.
Sorry, but I must question Mr Hypponen's thinking skills.
The "publicity" includes revelations that:
1) 95% of their userbase are men;
2) They don't permanently delete user information that users have paid them $19 on the promise so to do;
3) They can't keep their user database private.
How could he possibly think that such publicity would encourage more users to enrole?
That's not a rocket. That's Hotblack Desiato testing a smoke machine for the next Disaster Area concert.
And, as if to prove Muphry's Law, the link I should have provided is actually this one.
(The EE spokesman was not refuting any suggestion that safety concerns were ignored (since the suggestions were not proved false), neither was he rebutting the suggestions (since, as far as I am aware, no counter evidence was offered). He was merely denying the suggestions.)
The spoketard's incompetent use of English gives me no confidence that their handling of safety issues is done any better.
> The irony is that the Franklin quote is used out of context
I now see what you mean. Thanks. I shall mentally move that quote from the "obligatory" list to the "deprecated" one.
> Terrorism of all sorts must be stopped.
Any ideas on how to achieve this, beyond more of those tried already, which haven't worked, and are slowly tipping us towards being a police state?
Obligatory Ben Franklin quote. “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Of course there are already bacon subscription services. Try this one or google others.
Sometimes I wonder if The Reg are losing it.
> 4. Nadella is replaced by Cortana.
Now that actually would be a great idea. Imagine all company management replaced by AI. It's as wonderful a prospect as self-driving cars.
Imagine management making rational, fact-based decisions, rather than the mad, drunken, macho posteuring, self-interested, insider-trading, and random brain-fart-based management performed by our current meatsack masters-of-disasters.
Just give the AI management rules to find a sane balance between share-holder and public benefit: a fixed percentage of profit to R&D; no raiding of pension-funds; maybe efficient co-ordination with other companies rather than effort-duplicating competition; with clear goals to improve tech based on open-standards.
Sounds good to me.
I for one welcome our silicon-based managebot masters.
It'll be just a matter of time before we have a Patch Tuesday for Cars. Or Recall Tuesday, perhaps.
When the self-driving cars have taken over, we'll just notice that the roads are rather empty, because all the vehicles have taken themselves off to the workshops. And your car-ordering app will just sit there showing a spinning wheel for a few hours.
I just hope they limit their 4G signal to be within their internationally-recognised territorial waters, otherwise there might be problems. (Although I'm not sure if Vodafone UK have the wherewithall to put a basestation on a battleship.)
This sort of thing has been going on for the last 1000 years.
I think Assange's barrel of leaks must be nearly empty.
> If I pay for the whole book
In this case you are not paying for the book. As the article states: 'It will affect self-published authors on the Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners' Lending Library." So, only books you are lending or renting from Amazon, not those that you buy. Remember, Kindle Unlimited users are free to download as many books (on the list) as they want, for a fixed monthly fee.
> To me, this just looks like another money grab by Amazon on the backs of the authors.
Amazon are not reducing the size of the royalties pie, they are just changing the way it is distributed. Authors who write books that users read will receive more, whilst authors who write books that users don't read will receive less. Personally I can't see this as anything other than a Good Thing.
Of course, if you think Amazon is using some (other) trick of false accounting to screw the authors, then this is quite another (unrelated) matter.
Thanks for the explanation, Swarthy. In either case, I see some opportunities to game the system, but much more easily in the former case.
Previously, the "author" would need to hire a sweat-shop to repeatedly download his "book" to ensure an unfair slice of the Amazon pie. Now he (or she) will also need to get the sweat-shop to pretend-read the "book" too. Which will hopefully be enough to make such trickery economically unviable.
So, well done Amazon!
It was only 3 months ago that they announced the shutdown of their Google Code project hosting service and now they are opening another one. WTF?
> I have to continue this chain, not as good as amazon.amazon.amazon then.
My research suggests that we could keep this exchange going for another 289 to 294 iterations before we get to the very best possible amazon domain name.
Or we could stop here. :-)
Since the Amazon River is actually called "Amazonas" in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries of South America where the river flows, maybe they could have the .amazonas TLD, leaving .amazon for the so-named Seattle-based ecommerce company. (Although, why .amazon.com shouldn't suffice, I do not understand.)
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