Posts by Lamont Cranston

Dusty pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter laws will do for social media crimes

Re: Common sense prevails

Whilst I'd agree with the sentiment that it's best to not (knowingly) let anyone take compromising photos of you, I don't really hold with condoning bullying or harrasment.

Adam Afriyie MP: Smart meters are NOT so smart

We had a smart meter fitted a few months back.

Seemed like a sound idea, as it meant that my supplier could take regular readings, instead of relying on their wildly inaccurate estimates (in spite of my supplying a reading every month). That's never happened (although, I did change suppliers about a month later).

Theres a nice little touch-screen box that came with the smart meters (looks like a monochrome sat-nav), which ought to save me going out to read the gas meter, or crawling around to read the electric. Except it doesn't have an option for actually reading the meter.

Total waste of time. It's actually made reading the meters harder as, rather than just look at the counters, I have to poke some unlabelled buttons and hope that the counter shows up.

Joe Average isn't worth $10 a year to Mark Zuckerberg

Re: Now if they just charged $10 a year

Would be interesting to know how much users would be willing to pay to use Facebook. Given that Google+ exists, I suspect it wouldn't be very much.

Games industry set for $5 BILLION haircut, warn beancounters

Re: PC? Really?

Your Mrs must be thrilled by this development.

Re: Profit wouldn't slip if they wrote better games

I remember being promised human-like AI and movie-quality graphics when the PS2 was coming out. Fortunately, I didn't hold my breath.

Real soccer?

Will you be beheading your enemy to use as a ball, or have you given in to the modern convenience of purchasing a leather/synthetic substitute?

June Whitfield and EE to old folk: Would you like a nice cup of tea and some internet, dear?

"the government’s Go ON programme"

Is Spike Milligan's estate getting royalties for this?

Yorkshire cops fail to grasp principle behind BT Fon Wi-Fi network

@Khaptain

Typing out a quick letter to remind the general public of a good, basic, network security, in all likelihood did not take in excess of 30 minutes, and the reprographics/mailing costs were probably minimal.

The force most likely know that they aren't going to be able to arrest anyone for the alleged wifi theft (if it even counts as theft), and the public interest is best served by them making a minimal effort to encourage best practice amongst the populace (which, in turn, reduces the likelihood of them receiving more such complaints).

At what point are you going to berate them for "not being out catching REAL criminals"?

Re: WTF Do you lot think the police should do?

Easily the sanest comment in this thread.

@Khaptain

Is the police sending round a polite note reminding everyone to secure their WiFi really comparable with you attempting to grass up your neighbour as a sex offender?

Turing biopic with Cumberbatch, Knightley to premiere at London Film Festival

"Joan Clarke was rather plain,"

Strip away the makeup and hair spray, and I'd imagine that Keira Knightley looks distinctly ordinary, too.

Motorist 'thought car had caught fire' as Adele track came on stereo

@John Brown

I couldn't help but upvote this spectacularly smart-arsed response!

Re: Devil's advocate....

I have some sympathy for the fella (if he believed that his car was on fire, then his use of the hard shoulder was probably appropriate), but 2 things about your example bother me:

1) I'd turn the radio off, if it was distracting, not down to zero

and

2) why would I be looking at the radio, instead of the road ahead?

Lawyer reviewing terror laws and special powers: Definition of 'terrorism' is too broad

Re: @LucreLout

My mistake. It's the Soviets engaging in revolutionary struggle against the capitalist US, so the film should open with an aggressive leafleting campaign against American institutions. I'm sure that'll stir the blood of every red-(no, not in that sense)-blooded American citizen.

@LucreLout

It'd be a terribly twee "revolutionary struggle" that never involved any "unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation".

Time for another remake of Red Dawn, wherein the Wolverines write strongly worded letters to the Soviets?

PROOF the Apple iPhone 6 rumor mill hype-gasm has reached its logical conclusion

Most iPhone/iPad cases have a hole in them, to expose the Apple logo,

so this seems like a logical, if utterly unremarkable, development.

Re: "There was a time when people lived ..."

in caves, and died before they were 30. So what?

Twitter hints at messaging moves

Facebook Messenger

I recently installed this, to retrieve a message that I'd been sent. Suffice to say, I won't be keeping it on my phone.

I think Twitter are barking up the wrong tree, here - what are they going to offer that an SMS doesn't already accomplish? WhatsApp (ugh, who named that?) is a good alternative to MMS, so maybe they're chasing that?

Dungeons & Dragons relaunches with 'freemium' version 5.0

Re: "I'd have to go for Space Hulk"

I found Space Hulk to be a great way to alienate my friends: set up board (quite slow), explain rules (quite slow, will need revisiting in-game), they pick Space Marines (decent rationale: they have firearms and armour), game starts, Genestealers quickly massacre the Marines, game is put away.

By the time I knew more people inclined to such pursuits, Magic: The Gathering was the big thing, and I wasn't tragic enough to be playing that.

British cops cuff 660 suspected paedophiles

Re: Good work

Is your downvoter a) pro kiddie porn, or b) anti family photos?

Child diagnosed as allergic to iPad

Obviously, the child was holding it wrong.

Seriously, though, does anyone not have their tablet encased in some sort of protection, particularly if they're handing it over to a child?

Running the Gauntlet: Atari's classic ... now and then

Re: Ah, fun...

A friend and I slogged it out on the Speccy version, making it all the way to the end of Side 2 of the tape, expecting some sort of epic reward for our efforts. Being told to turn the tape over, and having nothing happen (as the first part of Side 1 isn't level data) was crushing...

Bezos house 'on FIRE': Amazon in-app kiddy megabuck charge storm

Re: Don't blame parents

Actually, scratch my comment further down. I've lost all sympathy with the "I gave [app store] my credit card details and then they started charging it" crowd.

I'm generally quite sympathetic to people who get stung by their kids racking up charges like this,

but we'll have to draw a line under it sometime, surely? Hopefully, once the FTC (or whoever is heading this) gets done with all the big providers, the refund processes will stay in place and this problem will go away (and the wilfully ignorant can carry on neglecting their kids in peace).

Samsung rebrands store as Galaxy Apps, eyes up Google Play customers

"Galaxy Essentials" ... you have to ask yourself why they were left off the phone to begin with

If Samsung could leave all of their apps of the phone, it'd make a more pleasant experience for all concerned - particularly those with a Galaxy Ace (hasn't it been called that for quite a while, now?).

Insecure AVG search tool shoved down users' throats, says US CERT

Re: Democracy

If I knew where to find what I was looking for, why would I Google/Bing for it?

Doctor Who season eight scripts leak online

Re: Pathetic

Unless they're going door to door, searching out dedicated Whovians, and then shouting all the spoilers in their faces, this is utterly harmless. Most likely, it's just generating more buzz around the new series, which the BBC is probably very grateful for.

Brit celebs' homes VANISH from Google's Street View

Re: But, but, but...

People walk past my house all the time, so I've bricked up all the windows. Next week, I'm having an opaque, perspex dome installed to cover everything. You can't be too careful!

Girl gamers sexism row: Top e-sports federation finds reverse gear

e-sports:

for when darts is just too physically demanding.

Spanish struggle to control spelling of 'WhatsApp'

If it's a brand name, and therefore a Proper Noun (or Proper Name),

surely it'd be correctly written as "WhatsApp" in any country that uses the Latin alphabet, regardless of local pronunciation conventions?

Nike and Sega have unusual spellings, by the conventions of British English, yet we've not disolved into a quivering, linguistic mess.

PANDA chomps through Spotify's DRM

Re: Use spotify myself

I have Deezer on my phone - music I obtain that way is effectively trapped on my phone, unless I go jumping through a number of hoops to free it. CDs play on any CD-player I choose to use, and DRM-free mp3s (legitimately obtained, or ripped from the CD*) play everywhere else.

If Tesco sold me a steak, but insisted I could only eat it in-store, with a knife and fork rented from them, I don't think I'd buy that steak**. I've never purchased anything through Deezer, and I would think twice about paying for their service if I wasn't getting it free with my sim contract.

*I'm reasonably sure that home-taping hasn't killed music

**I'm quite aware that this is a crap analogy - restaurants are a fine thing, and food only gets eaten once.

Indie labels: 5 reasons why we're hauling YouTube before Euro antitrust watchdog

"YouTube does not control the market for music videos"

It's easily the dominant player in that field.

Re: Message for the labels

But, if the indie labels start working together, and build their own YouTube, then they'll cease to be independant...

Microsoft compliance police to NHS: We want your money

@ Ken Hagan

If I wasn't laughing, I'd be crying. All NHS IT projects should come with that icon.

Re: So MS are threatening the sacred cow of British life?

You'll be thrilled to know that a large chunk of taxpayer funds has just been allocated to a new life support project - we're keeping XP going for a bit longer.

True fact: Your CAT wees ... like a racehorse

"wider urethra results in faster flow"

So, more fluid can fit in a big tube, than can fit in a small one? Thanks, science!

He should get out more - there's many an activity worse than changing a baby's nappy.

'World’s dumbest' suspect collared in Facebook sting

Re: Elephant in the room

I'm suddenly reassured by the fact that all the IT gear in my house is old, dusty, and crappy looking.

As someone else pointed out, above, our experience of burglary was also of the "force the front door, grab the nearest available, easily carried, item, and leave". In our case, they took my wife's handbag (later retreived from a bin at the end of the road) and a set of car keys (which we'd got back from the garage the same afternoon, and so had the Make, Model and Reg No. on an attached tag), but they didn't take the car. Police response didn't go beyond "yeah, probably crackheads looking for an easy fence for their next score. Get a better front door." CSI it was not.

WORLD CUP TRAUMA? Just Streaming Stick a Roku in it

Unless anyone can recommend an alternative

that will offer the usual catch-up services, Netflix, and XBMC (or similar, for NAS playback), I can see this making its way onto my x-mas list.

Average chump in 'bank' phone scam is STUNG for £10,000 - study

Nice!

I let my kids do this, too. All cold-callers read from scripts, so are virtually indistinguishable from pre-recorded auto-diallers, and thus don't get to say very much before being told to "shut up, stupid robot!" and being disconnected. Quite satisfying, really.

Dutch firm passes the world's first e-spliff to the left hand side

Re: So when will CRACK start up

Mashed out on e-joints, a group of 6 year olds might sit quietly on the carpet for the afternoon - must run this past the school governers...

@ Steven R

Are you saying that a ban on WKD would be a bad thing?

BlackBerry's Passport will be the WEIRDEST mobe of 2014

All those keys, and none of them have numbers on.

How will we make phone calls?

No shift key, either - SHOUTY EMAILS ONLY?

Tetraplegic keyboard aside, I quite like the design - different from the competition, which must be a good thing.

S is for SMACKDOWN: Samsung takes Galaxy Tab slab war fruit-side

So, we can look forward to Iron Man being kicked off the Avengers

after using his arc-reactor to charge up his tablet, instead of powering his armour? That'll make for an exciting film (still better than watching Nick Furty shill for Sky Broadband, though).

Occupy Google: Protesters attack ad giant as I/O gets underway

I'm sure that the "I'm being evicted by your arsehole lawyer" protester

was thrilled to be sharing a stage with the "Google are building killer robots" loon.

DISPLAY DESTRUCTION D'OH! Teardown cracks Surface Pro 3 screen

I dropped my Nexus 7, once, without a case on it, and the back cover popped off.

I was worried, at the time, but feel pretty smug about it, now!

Re: Planned obsolescence

At least you can take a car to an independant garage and have it serviced for a reasonable fee, rather than being restricted to taking it back to the dealer, once the warranty expires. I doubt they'll be very many unauthorised service agents capable of repairing your Surface outside of the warranty period.

Microsoft ups OneDrive storage, slashes prices to match Google Drive

Re: Watch the lawsuites fly...

I've never really understood the animosity toward drive letters. I've had Linux in regular use for a couple of years, now, but the Windows method still seems preferable. Can anyone enlighten me on the benefits? Documentation that I've read described the Linux method as "more robust" but I've yet to notice any benefit (after getting my file storage drive to mount automatically in Mint, I had to correct the links to it under XBMC, which was a less than slick experience).

Re: Microsoft silently tried to shove OneDrive on my PC

Surely only a matter of time before OneDrive becomes the new IE, and the EU slap them down for anti-competitive behaviour?

San Francisco issues SMACKDOWN on parking spot sale software

Re: Explain please!

I'm confused, too. If it's an allocated, on the road space, that only you can park in, then offering your permit to others for the times when you're out isn't a bad idea. If it's just uncontrolled space on the highway that you happen to be parked in, then you've absolutely no business selling it on.

Mozilla dev dangles Chromecast clone dongle

Re: Strange description of Chromecast

Quite agree, joe. I still think the Chromecast is most likely to have more of the big services on it, though (experience of the 4oD client on Raspbmc - constantly being re-written as its feed gets cut off - bears this out). An "open" option for the more technically minded/curious is always welcome, however.