* Posts by Khaptain

4022 publicly visible posts • joined 4 May 2008

Apple lawyers fight to silence dead Steve Jobs: 'No right' to hear him from beyond the grave

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

@Trevor

First off, thanks for taking the time to write something lucid rather than the ranting that I sat through up above. Initially all that I wished was to highlight was the power of the media, I had no intention to enter into yet another debate about 9/11 but as the internet/forums go that’s unfortunately how these things often string out.

Some of your remarks, most notably concerning Black Ops experience I can only agree with. Are Dick Cheney and his cronies capable of pulling off some nasty stunts, definitely. Do we have the technology available to fake the videos, data and coerce the media, of course we do, and we have had it for a long time already. So we definitely agree on all those points.

I will give you 1 point for your theory on foreign satellites; this is a subject that I have never seen mentioned anywhere. I presume that foreign governments are not likely to admit spying in the states though, so they have to remain quiet.

You are right, I cannot prove or disprove what was actually flown into the buildings or Shanksvilel, nor how it was done but I am convinced that it was certainly not done using the means that were publicised.

Here are some points that I will never understand that will eternally leave doubts in my mind.

• The manner in which the 2 towers and the WTC 7 fell, the statistics of this happening defy all probability. All three building fell “perfectly” to the ground….

• 7 of the hijackers are alive and well, the BBC found them and interviewed them. So ban goes the theory about 19 hijackers.

• Both “planes” hit their targets perfectly, this is a task that is apparently “extremely, read almost impossible” for a very seasoned 767 pilot and yet they would have us believe that people barely capable of flying a Cesna managed to do it with complete control. ( I have been in and tried a real flight simulator, a C-130 and learned first hand that yes it is difficult to fly a plane. I cant even begin to imagine what it means to fly a 767.... )

• Why was a 747 engine found on Murray street. AA and their 767s do not use these kinds of engines.

• When Convar recovered data some of the mainframe hard drives there was proof that more than a 100 Million dollars was illegally moved on the morning of the attack. This leads to believe that someone was aware of something was going to happen.

• Stock markets - 600% increase in “Put Options” on American Airlines on Sept 10….. No one has yet claimed the money that was maid on these transactions...

• WTC7 – Not a controlled demolition, very hard to believe. Coincidently it is well known that is was an FBI/CIA/NSA building.

• WTC6 Core – Wtf happened t here..

• The Pentagon – Why do so many pilots and even Gen. Stubblebine refuse to accept that an aircraft hit that building? There are far too many credible people refuting the facts, these are people with nothing to gain and a hell of a lot to lose. This doesn’t make sense.

• The Pentagon’s defense sensors were switched off except for the one that captued the incoming aircraft? Now this really is hard to believe...

• Flight 93 – Shanksville – Absolutley nothing to show that an aircraft hit the ground except for a hole. No parts, no engine, no bodies, no luggage, nothing… A 100 tonnes of Airfcraft + passengers etc just “disintegrated”.

• It would be easy to add many, many more but there is no point…

Please do not respond to the above points, we would be at it for weeks and neither of us would advance. I just want to convey some of the issues for which I do not see, nor have read any truly rational solution that outweighs the pro-conspiracy theory solutions thesis.

As I mentioned above, my initial goal was simply to demonstrate the power that the media have, especially with narrated video. We were immediately told that is was Al Qaeda and a terrorist attackbefore anything at all could have been established. I think this thread is a perfect example of just how powerful imagery can be. It can sway opinions very strongly, regardless of the direction.

For a long time I have read many of your comments/articles and I have some insight into your professional capacities, Cartesian spirit, capacity for rational thought and even your “aspie” view of the world. Mix all of the aforementioned traits together and it is obvious that you must be in a position to also doubt many of the “facts” of 9/11.

But I digress, this thread needs to die and as much as I would truly like to know the truth about 9/11 I am confident of one thing, we will never be allowed to learn the complete story.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

If you go back though all of the DVers comments you will notice that no-one has actually provided any links or proof as to who actually did do this ! All I have been shown is a photograph of a piece of fuselage, which after viewing the video that they screend could not have been left so fully intact. What happend to the Black Box

I have made my point, I stand by my convinction, I understand that the majority do not agree and yet all of you just blindly accept what you have been told.

It reminds me very much of the the Bible believers being told that a Deity exists and then blindly believing that that is the given truth.

Rather than tell me I'm a fool, prove your own standpoints, you never know it might actually make me change my mind.

Simple request to all the DVers: We have been told time and time again that it was OBL and yet he denied the fact but why would a terrorist deny his crowing act. The "FBI" said that they can't prove it was OBL.

Can someone please point me to some straighforward, indisputable evidence proving who really pulled of this attack.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

@Heyrick

It might be worth asking that same question to the people that created the event whereby Lee Harvey Oswald was made responsable for the shooting of a certain JFK. Absolutely amazing what some people are capable of, shooting the president of the United States, only conspiracy theorists would believe that anyone in power had anything to do with that.....

Or maybe ask this guy, he doesn't torture people, again it's a conspiracy theory, dont worry it doesn't really happen.. We dont torture poeple

( Oops I forgot to mention yesterdays news

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/10/obamas-first-comments-torture-cia-accountability

What about these conspiracy theories, it so happens that what started out as conspiracy theories actually were true.....

*Tonkin

* Operation Northwood. - Conspiracy theory stated that plans had been drawn up to create acts of terrorism on US soil in order to gain public support for a war against Cuba.

Conspiracy Theory , certainely not , proof is here "http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf".

*Operaton Cointelpro : Program to disceredit Martin Luther King

Proof : http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-2d.html

*TPPA - just another Conspiracy Theory.....

*The US Govt spies on it's people. Again just another Conspiracy Theory. ( Chelsea Manning and Snowden were just puppets, n'est-ce pas).

So what actually makes 911 any different. All of the above require lots of manpower, people in powerfull positions, carefull use of the media. Amazing the similarity with the Cuban incident.

I can't prove who organised 9/11 but then again who can.....

The official 9/11 report is full of holes, that's public knowledge not speculation. There are several generals and ex-cia who have testified but are being bullied into remaining quiet, why...

Why has the FBI never found any evidence linking the terrorists to 9/11 ?

Unbelievable Quote :

Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI responded, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.

I believe that had this been a true terrorist threat the USA would have dropped the bomb on someone but they didn't, they killed OBL and went to afghanistan to fight a war that no-one understands...Wtf and people think that I am a fool. ( Sorry, I should say "cretin" in accordance with Dan. apology accepted by the way)..

Are we supposed to believe that something good has come of all this....If so what ?

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

Since this is going to be my ultimate donwvoting day....here is a little piece of widsom for all the DVers..

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860)

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

@Sean

"The Twin Towers collapsed because their design had fundamental flaws. Contrary to popular belief, architects and engineers are not infallible. Even Isambard Kingdom Brunel made plenty of mistakes."

As much as I concur that 1 or 2 architects and engineers might make mistakes, I very much doubt that 2300 architects and engineers made the same mistake.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

Why would someone like John Lear be telling lies or be invloved in a conspirarcy theory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQBlv7sZGVE

Why the hell would these credible people take the risk of exposing themselves to such incredible theories....

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

>In amongst the mass of human debris and carnage, the last thing on anyone's mind was "hmm, where's the bits of plane gone?"

Let's surmize that it was a missile. Wouldn't you like to know if that was an American, Russian, Chinese or Iranian etc missile. If that missile was American would you not want to know why.....

The details of a crime help to understand who was responsable for the crime. When vital pieces are removed quickly then a lot of doubt can be cast, hence the reason for the conspiracy theories.

To this day, I believe that there is no formal proof that Al Qaeda ( Osama Bin Laden) had anything to do with those acts.. Care to provide proof of the contrary.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

@Don

Do you also believe that Snowden is telling lies, is he also part of the Conspiracy Theorists.

Why did we never find the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I suppose that that was also a conspiracy theorists plot to discredit the USA/UK

.

If I am wrong about my understanding of the affair, then nothing changes, however if you are wrong what then, Business as Usual, somehow I don't think so..

I fail to believe that so many architects and engineers are wrong. I really can't believe that so many Americans, and some very prominent ones at that, would discredit their own country without reason.

This is the World Stage of Politics/Finance where no holds barred has a completely different set of rules.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

@Don Dumb

>9/11 did happen, with planes and thousands of people died, it would have been more difficult to fake.

Yes, I agree that 9/11 did happen, real people did die, I do not dispuite this fact. The difference being I do not for a moment beleive that it happened the way that media/govt portrayed it to happen..

Do you also believe that Moses parted the Red Sea, eye witness reports confirm beyond doubt that he did.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

@ Don

That is the ONLY picture of any wreckage and it has been proven that it is impossible for the wreckage to be lying in that state. All of the pieces are "sitting in top" of all other matter, which implies that they were put there after the fact. They found an engine, and showed the images of this engine, but the engine was "not" a Pratt and Whitney which is the "only" type of engine used by American Airlines. Again planted evidence.

We have huge resources documenting aircraft which have crashed into the ground or hitting building etc. and there is always huge amounts of wreckage. Why then in these incidents were no parts found.. ....... How the fuck do you make Titanium built engine parts simply "disintegrate".... Can you imagine the physics involved in such an event.

Oh and building WTC 7 just fell down....because of a fire.... pull the other one...

Statistically what are the chances of BOTH of the world trade towers collapsing after being hit by "aircraft"? I believe that statistically the chances would be 0....

Those that want to believe that these incidents were not planned will always call the others conspiracy theorists. Do you also call the scientists, engineers and architects that prove the physics as being liars and theorists...

Even those that wrote that 911 report admit that they were underfunded, pressurized and did not answer many of the questions that were asked.

http://www.911truth.org/the-911-commission-report-a-571-page-lie/

Someone needed the event to happen, I do not know if the reasons were purely financial but it certainly seems that way.

Did you ever consider what Al Qaeda gained from this, absolutely nothing? On the other hand several people/entities had a lot to gain. The following article summarises some of them

http://www.globalresearch.ca/9-11-who-really-benefited/25762

The article was written by an American just as many of the other articles of "conspiracy theorists", What possible reasons would Americans have for conspiracy theories about their own damned government other than the fact that the realise that something smells very badly in this whole affair.......

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

>Looks like a plane, smells like a plane, feels like a plane

Some very experienced engineers,architects and pilots have proven/shown that it is simply impossible to fly a plane into a building and leave a hole such as was made. The wings would have collapsed, the tail would have fallen of, An aluminium bodied aircraft cannot physically fly through concrete and steel, it's just structually impossible. Pure physics nothing else, unless of course "Al Queda" have the power to defy the laws of Physics but somehow I doubt that very much.

Don't you find it rather "coincidental" that no aircraft wreckage was to be seen on any of the 4 sites..

Obviously you want to believe the media/govt, it makes you feel better about the whole event. Now you see why the lawyers don't want to Steve Jobs video, it is indeed a very powerfull medium.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Not strange to me...

This was apparently the same reason that the media showed us so many 9/11 videos because they stick in your mind. There are several videos on the web that disprove 9/11 from an engineers point of view, it was structually impossible to fly a plane "through" a building. There is only 1, yes only 1, actual eye witness, who states that he "might" have seen what "might" have been a plane. Everyone else remembers/saw the exploisions but not the actual planes.. (In the following amateur footage it is very interesting to hear what they people said at 12:15 "Oh my god it was a military plane", they dont actually film the planes/missiles/whatevers) .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSWNZE5eFmQ

So in order to convince the public that it was normal planes and not missiles,the news agencies played time and time again the videos. We do not really know who really made the films that we saw. And these are the images/thoughts/ideas that stick in peoples minds.

Microsoft BEATS Apple, Google ... to accepting limited Bitcoin payments

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Welcome to the Darkside

So why bother transferring bitcoins if you will end up paying in another currency, what would be the advantage ?

Khaptain Silver badge

Welcome to the Darkside

What's next, an inbuilt TOR client, a inbuilt bittorent client and just to top it of live porn feed. All you need to do is fill up your Bitcoin wallet from an accredited MS Bitcoin provider....

Sarcasm aside, I am extremely surprised to see MS taking this so seriously. What I don't understand is how they, MS , Apple or Google etc will ensure the stability of Bitcoin. When dealing with illegal drugs, guns or whatever that was being sold on the Silk Road is one thing, if you get ripped off then it's your own fault, but when we are talking about a major software house/shiny shiny maker or Googletastic Google then the games changes quite a bit ( pun intended).

This week a game will cost your 0.2 bitcoins, next week 0.8 bitcoins and then the week after back to 0.4 bitcoins. How will they stop the Yoyo effect or don't they care.

Microsoft says January Windows 10 build will excite sysadmins

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: choice

The funny thing with me and Linux is that I always end up choosing interfaces that are very close to Windows 95/XP. I presonally find them to be the least distracting/easiest on the eyes. ( In my case Linux is not soley run through a cli, I need applications too.)

Hell, I even dumb down W7 to make it look closer to XP and alsmost systematically use a solid darkish blue or black desktop.. I really don't care about Aero or eye candy.

Khaptain Silver badge

Suggestion even before I see it

Keep the W7 interface, keep a reasonable 3d theme, (do not add those damned flat and very white interface themes), mix in the W10 Kernel and voila you have won my heart...

We do not need interface changes, they already work and we know how to use them, changing the engine is fine as long as it doesn't break things. We don't need cloudy, cloudy, shiny, shiny either, honestly we don't, as an option Ok why not, as the default definately not.

I am happy with a mouse and keyboard, they work just fine. You can add the touchy feely interface but please make it optional, unless on a tablet or phone. We also don't mind if the interfaces are different between desktops, tablet and phone, its Ok, we are intelligent enough to deal with it.

And FFS leave the Server interfaces completely alone..... I want consistency between servers interfaces, the alternative means lost time trying to find the same things that I have been doing for years and no added benefit.

Google+ to offer 'infinite' gender identity options

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: ?

>Both times it has been where an unknown emergency patient was involved in an accident of sufficient severity that their gender could not be determined.

I can skin and gut deer without problem but your description sounds as though I would still be a bit swayed for a few days after.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: ?

@Chicken Marengo

Ok,after reading that list I could probably make some further suggestions

Undecided.

Switched.

All.

Varying.

A la mode.

I must admit that "Unknown" is a little but worrying.

Khaptain Silver badge

?

So outside of Male, Female, Androgyne, Hermaphrodite what else actually exists in the physical form?

Your data: Stolen through PIXELS

Khaptain Silver badge

Next Stage

Definately dangerous technlogy due to it's lack of requirement for OS interfacing.

So the obvious next stage would be to intercept what is being sent to the screen and to modify it in such a manner that tricks the target into believing that they must re-enter/change their password for example.

Égalité, Fraternité - Oui, peut-etre. Liberté? NON, French speedcam Facebookers told

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Google Waze

@John

Ok merci, je vais de nouveau etudier la Coyote... ZAR ou ZARM zat is ze question....

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Google Waze

@Robert.

>Swiss, et cetera have it right in matching the penalty to the goal of decreasing dangerous and unwanted behavior.

All that this creates is a situation whereby the rich people are the ones doing the speeding because they can afford it and also because they have very nice, very fast cars.

Almost every week in the "20 Minutes" a free local Swiss newspaper, you read about someone in a fast expensive car breaking the speed limit and getting severly fined.

Here is a link to what I believe is the current record breaker. 300 000 Chf for doing 140Kmh in a 100kmh zone.. The driver, a german, who has already been fined for the same thing multiple times, is a multimillionaire...... Does it stop people driving fast, not in the slightest.

http://www.20min.ch/ro/news/suisse/story/Un-exces-de-vitesse-a-300-000-francs--24794610

Here is another, this time a Swiss driver

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Swiss_millionaire_gets_record_speeding_fine

There really are examples of this kind of thing, albeit smaller fines but similar speeds, every week.

(It's quite common to see bikes).

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Google Waze

@John are you in GB or France.

The other problem with Coyote was a monthly fee was required , whereas Waze if, for the moment, is still free.

Do you have a link to those undocumented features. ( just for information purposes of course)

Khaptain Silver badge
Flame

Google Waze

Intially I had a GPS which I could update with the locations of all the SpeedCams, they got banned.

Then I bought a Coyote, which alerted me in real time about those damned SpeedCams, Coyote were told to stop the dynamic updates or go out of business, Coyote followed the rules, wimps.

So now I use Waze, I hate the cartoon style characters but the application is actually pretty good. It doesn't just warn me about speed traps but it also includes accidents, stopped cars, traffic jams, weather alerts etc etc .. I just wonder how long it will be before they ban it too....

Here in France they are have now started doing tests to limit the 90 Kmh B roads down to 80 Kmh. You can be sure that this will give them yet another excuse to increase the number of Fixed SpeedCams/Mobile Speedcams...

The Pirate Bay SUNK: It vanishes after Swedish data center raid

Khaptain Silver badge
Pint

Courageous dudes

I honestly admire the tenacitity of the TPB guys, regardless of what they are doing, whether it be right of wrong, they stand their ground and fight for their beliefs.... ( I do not know if it is just about money but I really don't believe that that is the primary motive).

Just a shame that some of todays MP's and decision makers don't have the same balls.

Put me through to Buffy's room, please. Sony hackers leak stars' numbers, travel aliases

Khaptain Silver badge

What got hacked exactly.

What actually got hacked, was it a Salesforce account, a local lan, someones email account or what ? The reason I ask is to try and understand where or on what that kind of information would be held.

I can't imagine that they all of these "stars" private details are made globally available on their networks. I also presume that Sony network encompasses a little bit more than 2 PCs, our company network is large and finding precise information, without being in the know, is difficult simply due to the amount of information that is stored there.

Buy Your Own Device: No more shiny-shiny work mobe for you

Khaptain Silver badge

The importance of seperate

When you have two seperate phones, you can always switch one of them off. Guess which one gets switched of during the weekend.

A nation of CODERS? Yes, says UK.gov, and have some cash to do it

Khaptain Silver badge

Very poor rhetoric

"David Cameron said today: "There’s no secret to success in the modern world. If countries are going to win in the global race and children compete and get the best jobs, you need mathematicians and scientists - pure and simple. So today, we commit to deliver more maths and science teachers.""

Success in the modern world comes from people with outstanding ideas which are then put into action. But those outstanding ideas must first be nurtured and the nanny state is not the most appropriate environment.

Can someone please give this Cameron character a sharp slap to the ear in the hope that it will shake him out of his rhetorical bubble...

Cameron seems to be dropping down to the George Bush level of intelligence.

Home Wi-Fi security's just as good as '90s PC security! Wait, what?

Khaptain Silver badge
Coat

Re: begin flaming

When a Paedo Terrorist Wife Beating Police and Government Hater hacks your home network and starts downloading/uploading some nasty child/woman/torture pics and or terroristic bomb making instructions using your email address and details, along with photos of your wife/children/dog all having an intimate moment and then uses your personal banking details to pay for some underage drug dealing prostitute to come over to your house in a stolen Mercedes, then you might start to realise how important your Wifi password truly is.

Yes, Sir, that truly is a daily, nigh hourly, occurence in some parts of Britain. We really do live in dangerous times.

Signed

The Daily Mail Reader Club President

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: MAC address whitelist filter

I went and googled "buffer overflow home router", it came back with some scary results....

Khaptain Silver badge

@TRT

But aren't those routeurs also the ones that provide the 16 character random Wifi keys, they are not so easy to attack using rainbow/dictionary attacaks. They would actually require a much more determined attack in which case user home security is not a major problem for the hacker anyway.

Khaptain Silver badge

Hacking into the Wifi won't give you access to the router, it will only give you access to the LAN. There is no relation between the PSK Wifi key ( WPA or whatever) and the Admin/Password of the router.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: HomeHub 5 is the most secure system in the WORLD

@Yugguy

So how do add new devices, do you have to eliminate an existing one first ? How do you protect against IP Spoofing ? Are MAC addresses also locked down ?

Why, hello there, Foxy... BYE GOOGLE! Mozilla's browser is a video star

Khaptain Silver badge

34 is a big number.

34 major releases, really, or is that just 3 major releases and a few minors for each. After some brainstorming and serious butt scratching, I would suggest dividing everything by 10. Let's call it FF 3.4, there now doesn't that sound a little more serious.

Firefox version 35 new feature/change log which states "Changed the font in a hidden T&C s disclaimer".

C'mon guys , let's stop the version number wars. They are not really fooling anyone, if anything it just sounds amateur..

.

PlayStation Network blasted offline AGAIN. Just not Sony's decade

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Sony do actually have the means to spend 10 Million of finding the perps

Sony, like all other major players have the difficult position of not knowing in advance how, when or from where hacks are going to take place. They are in effect defending themselves against the known and also the unknown.

Hackers on the hand have lots of time, the advantage of surpise, can selectively choose what they do and how they do it.

Cyber security is an endless PITA when you are on the receveing end. Personally I would not like to be responsable for the Cyber security of any of the major players, it must honestly be a tough role to play.

There is another element in the equation, I intially mentioned "script kiddies" but it might have been far more devious fingers that were a tapping in the keyboards... [Silently reachs for his industrial conspiracy cap]

Khaptain Silver badge

The Lizard Squad

I think if I was hacking a multi-nationale, who have huge spending power, I would be a little bit more reticent in announcing my name.

Sony do actually have the means to spend 10 Million of finding the perps.... How long it will take them doesn't really matter. I am sure that after making a donation to their local security agency they will quickly get some help...

The Lizard Squad better learn to become The Chamelon Squad and disappear into the background very quickly.

I never understood the script kiddie desire for "publicity", it's kind of paradoxical.

Virgin Media customers suffer YET MORE YouTube buffering blues

Khaptain Silver badge
Devil

Proxy Caching

So someone tinkered with adjusted the proxy cache size... ie increased it's size, but forgot to check if there was enough disk space available. oooppps

Misty-eyed Ray Ozzie celebrates 25th birthday of Lotus Notes by tweeting about it ...

Khaptain Silver badge

Celebrating since 3 years already

That's how long ago it was since we moved to Exchange....

I do not know anyone in my company that can honestly say that they miss Lotus Notes and especially that silly "desktop - welcome back to 1989 interface".

Lotus Notes was never intentionally designed solely as a mail client and it truly showed.

Vendor lock-in is truly a TERRIBLE idea ... says, er, Microsoft

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Server Licenses

@MajorUsa

Hence the reason that large companies have private offsite backups. The cloud belongs to someone else, you do not have control over that environment.

Private offsite backups are just that, private...

When the cloud goes down, you truly are in the shit.. and between you and the cloud there are a multitude of people not willing to take the blame.

The internet is less free than last year. Thanks a bunch, Snowden

Khaptain Silver badge

Don't shoot the messenger

Snowden was merely the vector that allowed for confirmation of what various "security" agencies were up to.

If the internet is becoming less free it is become the governments are becoming worried about something...and I doubt very much that terrorism is the real issue in hand...

GOOGLE is COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN

Khaptain Silver badge
Coat

Re: If they want to make it child friendly ...

Yes definately, beccause we all know that those pedia files are not good for childre.

Blast-off! Boat free launch at last. Orion heads for space

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Typo? No, they use Farhenheit

>This would have cost the US trillions

Wrong way round, it would generate trillions in new business.

Use Windows software on Android – Microsoft couldn't be app-ier

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Erm..

>What's the difference between basic and standard aside from price?

Just as you are bending down to get shafted they politely ask if you would prefer the basic or the standard.

Apparently the basic lasts for slightly less time the standard..

Khaptain Silver badge

Not cheap at all

>Microsoft has two packages; Basic and Standard. Basic is aimed at people who are light users and costs $10 a month for 40 hours access, with overage charges that are capped at $17 per user per calendar month.

17 * 12 = $204 per year or $612 over a 3 year Office lifecycle. Pretty much on par with actually purchasing the software.

That is neither cheap nor wonderfull at least not whilst free alternatives are available and certainely not when considering that this is a "rental" scheme whereby you have nothing in your possession at the end of it.

MS Office is one of those applications that hasnt changed in years, I would hazard a guess that 95% of users are still using the same 99% of functionality that we have been using for the last 10 years.

If I had bought Office 2003 in 2003 I would have paid around $300 at would still have had access to the same funcitonality that I use today.

If I had rented Office 2003 since that date I would now have paid $2244.....( Ok it would have been a bit cheaper at the time but the comparison still stands).

Which of these 2 models do you believe MS prefers...

Feast your eyes: 10 'fortysomething' smart TVs

Khaptain Silver badge

Some of these televisions are probably a lot smarter than the meatbags sitting in front of them.

( I don't have a TV so it is easy to scorn those that do, the opposite is a bit more difficult )

Boffins unearth the ultimate antique art - 500,000 years old

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: "If you don't know the intention of the person who made it, it's impossible to call it art,"

And today that might read "Might contain some traces of natural food".

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: 'Calling it "art" is stretching things a bit though.'

>not been to a gallery lately then?

In that case, and since it's Friday, it might actually be the very first represention of the PHB, quickly scribbled down by the PFY as he awaited the BOFH to finish telling the local police that he had seen someone sodomising a wooly mammoth and that they had managed to do a quick artists impression on this inside of a shell.

Khaptain Silver badge

Shark tooth huh.

How do they know that this particular shell wasn't actually eaten, or at least rolled around in a shark's mouth,hence causing the scratches and was later picked up by Homo Erectus as he strolled along the beach looking for shiny things.

The story does appear to be a little bit far fetched.

VCs say Uber is worth $41bn... but don't worry, we're not in a bubble

Khaptain Silver badge

$41 Billion of nothingness

It appears today that investors are prepared to invest in nothingness. If UBER goes titsup, then there is no product left behind which could be used to at least cover a tiny part of the losses, nope all that is left is nothingness.

The lawyers and the traders will be happy as they never lose, they always get their commision regardless of the outcome.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that most of these deals have no other intention other than to make a quick buck, ( lots and lots of quick bucks) at the expense of the investors. When looking for a culprit begin to look at who profits from the crime !!

I would not consider this as capitalism at work but more likely as organised theft.

Crack open more champagne, Satya, XP's snowballing to HELL

Khaptain Silver badge

W7 is the winner

So Windows 7 is actually the real winner with a more than a 3 point increase. Win8 is obviously only being "installed" throught the pruchase of preinstalled machines..

Microsoft wins regardless but it does show the confidence that business has with MS at the moment.

MS cannot continue for ever with this MO, I am not convinved that Satya is the man to take them out of this situation though.. Satya is more of a puppet figure, he will please the shareholders for a short time but they will soon become bored and want some real action to take place.

It will take a major visionary to change things, definately not a Steve Ballmer or a Tim Cook , more of a someone with the business acumen of Bill Gates, a squeezing of Jony Ive and the balls of Rocco Siffredi.