Posts by Ad Fundum

Does Gmail's tarted-up tab makeover bust anti-spam laws?

Why not just close the Promotions tab? It's optional, so just get rid of it.

Frankly if you're the sort of person that buys something because it popped up on an unsolicited email in your inbox, you get what you deserve.

Microsoft dumps Metro from Windows 8

I maintain that if they're looking for a name that is:

- in keeping with their corporate branding and colours

- reflects the structured, grid-like appearance

- also reflects the way that the public feel about their products

then surely the only possible names they can consider is "Blue Waffle"?

Microsoft kills Windows Live brand

I don't understand why they don't cut through the crap and give everything one name by which everyone knows and instantly associates with their products:

BSODmail

BSODmessenger

BSODdrive

... and so on. Instantly recognizable to everyone.

iPlayer founder launches next big TV thing-Zeebox

"People hate choice".

Really? They *hate* choice? So instead they think I want to watch the same things as my friends purely on the basis that we are friends and therefore our tastes are exactly alike?

Okay, well, good luck with that. The job centre is between Greggs and Argos when you come to look for it.

Facebook wannabe rioters cop large helpings of porridge

Further proof that facebook is mostly populated by nutters

There is - apparently (I don't have an account) - a group on Facebook called "Lesbians should be banned from using dildos, they made their choice".

Facebook growth slows in stalkerbase heartlands

Early adopter

I was an early adopter - I only signed up for it in order to look at a classmate's holidays snaps, I'd never even heard of it before. I barely touched it for a year or two til it started to get bigger.

I dumped facebook about 6-8 weeks ago. I'd been really pissed off without for a while, and had started to go 2-3 months without actually logging in quite regularly. I mostly used it as a simple way to log into sites. But now I can do that with twitter (which I much prefer) I don't need facebook.

Oddly, the thing that pissed me off most was the iPhone mobile app. Apart from being one of the shoddiest bits of coding not commissioned by a government department, the usability was incredibly poor. And once half of the timeline was taken up by the stupid dickbar telling me about more and more people I had no intention of being friends with, I deleted my account the same night as the upgrade came through.

Transition leaves frustrated corporates locked out of Google Groups

It does suck somewhat

We use GApps for work, and the service is quite crappy. It's taken three months to fix what seemed like quite a fundamental bug - once you create a form from the spreadsheet, it didn't save any changes. Well, it's not like users are going to want to change anything or save documents is it?

The forums are good because there are a number of quite outstanding individuals who spend ages helping people (Ahab I'm looking at you!) and their input, helpfulness and speed of response.

Google employees, on the other hand, have roughly the same input, helpfulness and speed of response as the Sahara desert when asked to comment upon the role that Toussaint Ouverture played in ending slavery.

Anonymous hacks Sony PS3 sites

Be careful ...

You can say "fuckwits", but you'll get a two-story ban for swearing if you do.

Judge hits police with massive bill over false Operation Ore charges

Roll 1d20 to see if the defendant is guilty ...

With a -10 modifier for non-whites, the unemployed, single mums, young people, and basically anyone who isn't friends with a senior copper.

What a fucking joke. You'd have more chance of a fair trial if you were a gay man in Uganda.

US woman @theashes gives in to Twitter, flies to Sydney

Hmmm

This is the most non-story ever published. It's worse than all the Paris Hilton ones put together.

Utterly brilliant.

Bummed-out users give anti-virus bloatware the boot

IObit

I used the IObit PCS software - until last week.

With the lastest update, it installed the Yahoo! toolbar and changed your search engine, regardless of what you selected during installation. Then rather than the two programmes that it used to be, it suddenly turned into half a dozen programmes for all sorts of crap that I never had the chance to say I didn't want.

Even for free software, I was very disappointed that it had suddenly bloated in this way.

Prosecutors kick Phorm case upstairs

CPS Quality Management System extract

[...]

1. Lift carpet.

2. Brush vigorously.

3. Wait.

4. Repeat as required.

[...]

Me, myself and Eric: Google delays social network effort, says report

Yawn, move on ...

Here's a challenge for you, Google - why don't you actually think of a new product and try that, instead of just copying what 58 other sites did a decade ago?

Facebook royal rant bishop suspended

Technically ...

Technically, I think the *supreme* boss of the Church is the beardy guy upstairs. #justsaying

Jobsian fondle-slab in SEXY FILTHGRAM CRACKDOWN

Congratulations

The phrase "Famous fruitbrand fondle-slabbery firm Apple" absolutely made my day. Wonderful use of the English language!

Miliband retains Labour line on DNA and CCTV

Seriously?

"I won't let the Tories or the Liberals take ownership of the British tradition of liberty," he said. "I want our party to reclaim that tradition."

The Labour Party are the ones who did the most to erode the British tradition of liberty!

This Miliband is just like the other Miliband, and just like all the other fuckwit wannabe fascist dictators. Come back when you have the interests of people at heart. Until then piss off back under a stone.

The BSA's fading twentieth-century piracy fight

Hypothetically speaking

Let's say - hypothetically speaking, of course - that I happened to have a slightly dodgy copy of photoshop CS3 on my PC. Now, if I didn't have that hypothetical slightly dodgy copy, I wouldn't spunk £500 on a new version. I probably would make do with GIMP or something similar, ie something free. Therefore, the hypothetical £500 that hasn't been spent on my hypothetically dodgy copy of CS3 isn't missing from Adobe's coffers - it never existed and never would. Therefore, as the article states, the BSA's conclusions are indeed false.

Not that any of this matters since the hypothetical dodgy copy of CS3 entirely fails to exist.

Boffins explain greatest ever free kick

So ...

If the point of all this study is that the technique and result can be executed and reproduced by anyone, how come Roberto Carlos spent the remainder of his career threatening glasses, noses and flasks in the third row of the second tier? He never even came close to doing this a second time.

WikiLeaks readies next release

Self-promotion?

"... self-promotion by Assange himself"

Really? The guy is so desperate for publicity that he would somehow engineer the leaf of a fabricated story saying that he was wanted for rape? What an utterly pointless and bizarre thing to say.

I don't know which outlet made that one up (almost certainly The Daily Mail) but that really is the stuff underneath the bottom of the barrel being scraped.

Police told terror ads too terrifying offensive

The ads have been running for ages

Only a variation of existing adverts has been kiboshed - in different formats these ads have been running for some time. They've been in print and most notably on billboards, which has led to some serious lampooning on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/they_must_think_were_all_morons/

Treasury turns to Facebook for cut plans

It's a lot like TALKSport ...

... in that you know that whatever they say, they just make it deliberately provocative and you can't help yourself but get involved in an argument. Well, this spending challenge site is exactly the same thing. It's a giant sounding board for people who ... well, you decide.

My fave suggestion is banning boob jobs and transgender ops on the NHS. Because that's going to make back the billions that the country owes...

Secret ancient code, basis of all modern civilisation, cracked

Thank you

Mr.

And I ought to add in the interests of full disclosure that this is supposedly a personal statement from an application form for Southampton University. My girlfriend has had a print of it pinned to the noticeboard for years. I read the doc's comments and I immediately though that this statement sounded like it could have been written by him. But thanks anyway.

define: modest

"Basically I cracked the code," adds the doc. "I have shown rigorously that the books do contain codes and symbols...

"This is a true discovery, not simply reinterpretation.

"The result was amazing – it was like opening a tomb and finding new set of gospels written by Jesus Christ himself."

"Not only that, I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Kenyan refugees. I write award winning operas and manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for 3 days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed and I cook 30 minute brownies in 20 minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love and an outlaw in Peru. Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I had trials with Manchester United, I am the subject of numerous documentaries.

When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my garden, I enjoy urban hand gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free if charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst and a ruthless bookie.

Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen yet I receive fan mail. I have appeared on Through The Keyhole and won the gold plaque. Last Summer I toured Eastern Europe with a travelling centrifugal force demonstration. I run the 100m in 9.65 seconds. <y deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles.

Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down.

I have made extraordinary four course meals using only some vegetables and a Breville Toaster. I breed prize winning clams.

I have won bullfights in Madrid, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka and chess competitions at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery and I have spoken with Elvis."

Privacy watchdog pack demands Facebook close the 'app gap'

Thought you meant the iPhone App Gap

I know it's only a mobile app, but the facebook iPhone app also leaves a lot to be desired in terms of privacy. It's nigh-on impossible to find any sort of security setting or control anywhere in it.

Home Office launches urgent review of illegal police stop'n'search

Hmmm

Well it's at least a step in the right direction - it's more than Labour were doing, so anything has to be an improvement on what it was before.

Woman sues Google after highway knockdown

Shame ...

... that she didn't become a contender for the Darwin Awards and remove any chances of muddying the gene pool any further.

Some people are so stupid that it just defies belief.

Facebook forces users to expose or remove connections

#FACEBOOKFAIL

Just tried to remove all my interests etc, because I don't want all this information paraded about and links made to other groups etc. It's a proper f*cking farce - I've removed all the info I can twice and facebook just keeps putting it back.

Microsoft's social lab does 'the impossible'

Talk about ignoring the facts

"Most people aren't really that interested what everybody else thinks, what's trending on Twitter." - so they say.

Twitter is approaching 60 million users - in other words, almost the population of the UK. So okay, statistically speaking that's 60 million people out of 6 billion on the planet, but 60 million is a hell of a lot of people to ignore when you say "Most people aren't really that interested ... what's trending on Twitter."

Typical arrogance on their part.

Megan Fox not world's sexiest woman: Official

The Olsen twins, Hermione Granger and an odd question ...

I stopped reading FHM when the Olsen twins and that Hermione bod from Harry Potter started appearing in the charts.

And here's my question: how exactly is dust 'sexy', as in "coughing in her sexy dust"? Are the readers confused as to whether they were voting for world's sexiest woman or world's sexiest dust? Or is it just the talentless hacks churning out cliche after cliche at FHM?

Met terror squad beats all complaints

Beats all complaints ...

Beats all complaints, beats all complainants, beats all foreign nationals, beats photographers, innocent bystanders, Brazilian nationals ...

One fifth of humans say aliens walk among us

Daily Mail headline ahoy

I bet the aliens have all come just to get benefits and steal our jobs, etc etc. And I bet half of them are gay and want to get married and still have the same benefits as straight married couple AND want to get David Cameron's not-quite-the-cost-of-a-pint tax benefit for being married to someone you loathe.

Penalty for silent calling goes sky high

#marketingfail

Yeah, we get them daily too, based on the fact that we took over the previous occupant's phone number. It's not unusual to get home from work and find something like 27 missed calls.

Home Office planning to brick version 1 ID cards in 2012?

ID gag ...

Do you remember that old Lenny Henry sketch?

"A policeman pulls me over, walks up to the car and puts his head through the window, which is a shame because it was closed at the time. He says, "can you identify yourself please sir?"

So I looked in the mirror and said, 'yeah, that's me'"

No obvious reason for typing that, just something that came to mind as being another joke associated with IDs ...

YouTube: Auto-captions for everyone

All those spoken words ...

... now translated into written words can now be transformed into adverts, magic! And what's even better is that the video owners can help clarify all the dialogue that is then turned into targeted advertising.

I look forward to all the Pr0n videos being accompanied by auto-generated adverts from pet stores offering cheap cats and chickens.

Google betas Flash-free YouTube sans open codec

@Dave Murray

I quite agree.

"More relevant, targetted" advertisements don't make something more of a pleasure to use either. Adverts, whether relevant or not, just get in the way.

And before I get shot down for expecting everything for free, I'm perfectly aware that I should expect everything for free. I'm speaking on aesthetic and user experience levels.

Arise, Sir Peter of Middle Earth

Hmmm

Poncing around with blokes in make-up; driving a car round in a circle; practicing the principles of CYA while blokes under you shoot innocent Brazillians - seems to me it's more difficult NOT to get nominated for some gong or other. Think I'll save up and buy one. What's the going rate for donations to secure a knighthood now?

ID card minister forgets ID card

From Wikipedia ...

"In December 2009, while trying to promote the extremely unpopular ID card program in Manchester, UK she had to admit that she had managed to forget her own, blaming the loss on baby related dementia. She thus joined a growing number of UK politicians such as Baroness Scotland who legislate to enforce behaviours they themselves can not maintain."

A question for the lawyers / philosophers

If I show my ID card while I'm taking photos in Westminster, will I be allowed to carry on regardless because I'll have proved that I'm not a terrorist?

I thought it in jest but I think it might actually be a serious question.

Top cop's 'stop stopping snappers' memo: Too little too late?

So they think it's not too late?

"British police risk losing the battle for the public’s consent if they win public order through tactics that appear to be unfair, aggressive or inconsistent."

Time to wake up and smell the Linda McCartney sausages, sunshine. To switch metaphors, that ship sailed some time ago.

Space firm to send Christmas Day tweets to dead people

Hmmm

Seems to me that if the phrase "fuck all use to anyone" were in the dictionary, then the definition would be precisely what this story is describing.

It's almost as though we need some sort of award - like a Darwin award for pointless use of technology.

Volcanic African 'unzipping' could see continent divided

Just like the Falkland War

For a moment there I shat myself, worrying that a huge continent was about to tear itself in two. Then - just like Adrian Mole when he realised that the Falklands weren't off the coast of Scotland - I realised that it was going to take a while and calmed down.

Amazon coughs $150k to student over lost notes

@ James O'Brien

I think you're missing the point. The fact is that Amazon removed an item that they had sold to him without his knowledge or consent. It's the fact that they behaved as though they were above the laws that protect consumers. If you came home one day and found everything that you bought on your credit card repossesed without your knowledge or consent, would you accept a book token in exchange? Or would you want to see whoever did it taken to the cleaner's for acting that way?

NO2ID beats off ad complaint

@Grease Monkey

While I agree wholly with NO2ID's principles, whether or not the complainant works for the civil service or not is irrelevant. An adevrt that contravenes the ASA's guidelines does so regardless of who the complainant is and what their motives may be. An advert cannot be simultaneously within guidelines if a member of the public complains and outside guidelines if someone with a vested interest complains.

And if you say otherwise, then you probably work for the Government :)

Xbox 360 'least reliable' console

Seems harsh ...

I bought my 360 at 8am on the day of release and I've had one fault in all that time - and that was caused by Microsoft's dashboard patch in the early days. Even though, MS returned it fixed at no cost in less than 4 days from me first picking up the phone to report it.

I've probably spent 20 hours on it this month so it's still getting good use.

Dawkins' website forum hacked to send spam

First!

Please God let me be the first to be the one to say that this is divine justice ...

Adobe tries to rub out LibDem airbrush claims

Re: I call it FALSE ADVERTISING

What's the difference between PhotoShop and ordinary cosmetics when it comes to false advertising? Wonderbras and ordinary bras? Wearing a belt on your jeans that holds in that extra quarter of an inch? Hairspray and hair grips? Flash photography, diffusers and reflectors?

These are all ways of altering your appearance. All of them will change the way that God intended you to look, for want of a better phrase. So if you're going to sue someone for using PhotoShop, are you going to sue them for putting on a bit of lippy and wearing an underwired bra? Where do you stop?

Ridley Scott signs up to direct Alien prequel

@ Marketing Hack

I would argue that Alien4 is the most underrated of the sequeks - possibly not the best, but certainly one that bears repeated viewings. David Fincher doesn't do popcorn movies, and certainly getting under the skin of Alien3 brings its own rewards. I managed to write 27,000 words of a Biblical Studies dissertation based on the themes in Alien3, and I could easily have doubled that. I certainly wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

For my part, I'm disappointed that the Xenomorphs aren't real. Stick a Xenomorph in the Big Brother house - now that would be reality TV worth watching.

From tracking sex performance to tracking sex offenders...

Can't believe Sgt Davis said that

a) It came from an American

b) It came from a policeman

c) It made sense; it was wise; it was true

Therefore logically I deduce that Sgt. Davis doesn't exist.

Prof: People reject news which conflicts with beliefs

Hmm

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I CAN'T SEE!

It must have been that blinding flash of the obvious that just caught me full-beam.

UK obscenity law: Where to now?

I'm with Dave

Coldplay and Radiohead earn my particular ire, but there are plenty of others.