Posts by ADJB 123 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Jun 2010
For a long time I have tried to figure out how Co-Pilot could increase productivity (profits) in the average workplace then it occured to me.....
Intergrate Co-Pilot into Minesweeper and Solitaire.
Co-Pilot takes care of playing the game while the cube drones are now freed up to do what they are actually paid for.
Productivity gains in a lot of the public sector would be astronomical overnight, just like we were promised.
"According to Kaspersky, 21 percent of Brits believe a magnet can erase a smartphone. (This might be true if you used that magnet to smash the device into millions of tiny pieces.) That sound you can hear is a thousand IT professionals slapping their faces with the palms of their hands."
This is the fault of the IT industry.
We had, and still have, a lot of HDD's out there which users have always been told, since the days of floppy discs, you shouldn't put anywhere near a magnet. Fair enough.
We now have a lot of Solid State Storage which as far as the average user knows is just a faster sort of disc drive.
The average user doesn't care any further than they do the same job. Nobody has explained, and why should they?, that they are compleatly different technologies and magnets arn't an issue with Solid State.
It wouldn't suprise me if 21% of Brits in the age range asked were brought up with dire magnet warnings so why should we expect any other result?.
Very very few companies do any IT training unless its for software.
If you doubt this try spending a day with your first and second line support teams and see how ignorant the majority of staff are when it comes to hardware.
Luser - My XXXX is broken it won't switch on
Helpdesk - Have you checked its plugged in and all switched on
Luser (about 1 second Later) Of course it is do you think I am a fool etc
Helpdesk - I'll get somebody out to look at it.
Arrive on site
What won't turn on then?
XXXXX
and its all plugged in?
Of course it is do you think ect ect
OK, let me take a look (seeing plug sitting on the floor and a new coffee machine plugged in)
Pass Luser said plug
Could you just hold that for me please
Could you just plug it into the wall please
Just try the XXXX now please
Oh, look it started working
All the above is said loud enough for the office to hear so when they plug it in you always get somebody who twigs it just needed plugging in ans says so. Luser id then mocked by fellow Lusers.
Next time a call comes from that office and they are asked to check they do check not wanting the humiliation doled out to the first Luser.
Nasty but efficient.
You always get more value for your cockups if you play them in pairs.
I don't know of anybody that uses or even has used the (lets copy the Nintendo Wii) Kinnect on the Xbox. It seems to have no real purpose that a gamer would want given the Xbox has always been pushed as having more "hardcore" (i.e. FPS) games than anything Nintendo would consider decent on it's consoles.
Now couple that with effectively destroying Rare as a credible Games producer by forcing them to make second rate games just to support the Kinnect.
Bingo - Two plagues on the bottom line for the price of one.
At least now Rare can, hopefully, get back to producing the quality games, of a type Nintendo would approve of and therefore attract the audience you just alienated.
Sorry, forgot, all the top talent got that pissed off by being forced to produce rubbish that they all left.
I would bet those pair of mismanagements have cost the best part of a billion.
"Although I've only introduced Spam into the equation in fairly recent years, after Plumrose Luncheon Meat [in a similarly sized and shaped, albeit green, tin] disappeared from the market."
I was using Plumrose Luncheon meat this morning and had a few nice Barbel, Chub and a couple of Eels using it. If you really want to actually eat the stuff then my normal stockist is Home Bargains where it goes for 99p a tin. There are without a doubt other stockists who don't care enough about their brand to stock the stuff.
http://www.tulipltd.co.uk/about-us/brands/plumrose
Yes.
If the quality is good enough I can see a lot of opportunities for non gaming uses especially when used with high end CAD kit (which has more or less the same hardware requirements) in training and general design work.
There isn't a massive difference between running round the industrial level in Mega Blaster XXX and using the same ideas to train people on a plant layout.
Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; And The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Oh and Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.
Being as even Microsoft have now admitted that gamers (and to be fair, everybody's) interest in kinnect is zero or slightly less they might actually allow Rare to start producing good games again. Shame that all the talent got that fed up of overbearing management that they left so now the company is just a shell of the company it once was.
A number of Dev's have been paid and had the contracts with Elite cancelled.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/30/5668382/elite-systems-kickstarter-pays-royalities
This does not of course mean all outstanding debts are paid but the above article gives quite a bit of detail on who has settled and the games involved.
This does leave a few questions.
How many people are still owed money?
What "Classic Games" will be available on launch?
Will it actually work as advertised?
........
A better solution might be that the infringing company is forced to provide whatever they have offered in the headline print of the advert.
For example - UNLIMITED Broadband for 99p a month.
Should mean the ISP has to provide exactly that, not 99p for the first month and then £25 p/m afterwards plus you must take your telephone line @ £14.99 a month and we charge a one off £75 for "installation" and a £2.50 router. Not of course forgetting that we charge £5 a month to allow you to pay with a credit card and £7.50 a month to send you an email invoice. ....and you must take out a 60 month contract.I wont even comment on the unlimited bit.
"And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractable's, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make fools of themselves in public.”
Douglas Adams
A truly gifted futurologist who foresaw the coming of Kevin Warwick and his ilk.
One of the most helpful tools I carry round is a Kindle.
Manuals for all the "odd" software we use, reference books for everything, more or less a full copy of our helpdesk knowledge-base and most importantly, a few novels for when I am waiting for things to happen.
Yes, I know most of this is online somewhere either internally or externally but being as the "online" thing is frequently the problem and I tend to work in a lot of places with no wi-fi / phone signal it has proved it's worth many times.
So the ICO can give a good kick in the profit margins to a company sending out 350k electronic spam messages, how come OFCOM (or somebody else) can't do the same to BT / Virgin / Sky etc for posting about the same amount of unwanted marketing material through my front door. If anything the fine should be larger because at least electronic spam is more environmentally friendly, ask a forest near you. I assume the electronic "marketing material" is no more inaccurate than the printed "marketing material" or if it is they should at least recoup some of the fine when the next Booker prize is given out.
If this ruling applies to the EU why don't Google et al just stop using there, for example, .uk and .de domains and run everything through the .com (which I assume is based in the US) where the ruling doesn't apply?.
At the very least they could put a disclaimer up saying EU based domains will give censored results and for full results use the .com. I would assume they could also give more precedence to the fact a take down notice has been requested and refer people to chilling effects for further details.
Beware the Streisand effect.
"Retail firms continue to be the big spenders on web ads, buying a fifth of the year's total, while financial services companies bought 13 per cent of the ads and the auto industry ran a close third with 12 per cent."
I might buy a DVD off the t'internet but no way would I consider banking with Bank of Uganda or buying a car from a website advert.Those are the sort of things that need a bit more than a sidebar ad before I look at them. That means 25% of the adverts I don't see are wasted on me.
Interesting way to boost your business.
Buy an exciting new* technology that a lot of gamers and gaming companies are really interested in.
Because of who you are alienate the whole of the same gamer client base.
Because of how you do business alienate all the gaming studios.
Build a new client base from people who don't even know what the product is or what it does.
Result - VR Candy Crush
*I know it's not at all new or original but you know what I mean
I think a point is being missed here.
MS don't really care about gaming on the PC, witness the gradual closing of studios and abandonment of IP's, but they do care about Xbone gaming a little bit more. At this moment it is obvious from the games released that the PS4 is the better gaming (and selling) machine and even showcase exclusives like Titanfall can't manage full HD on the Xbone. By allowing developers closer to bare metal performance will help to close this gap and help to justify more general gamers (as opposed to fanboi must have that exclusive gamers) buying the Xbone. This of course then gives MS a much better chance of making it's "Xbone as an entertainment centre" vision happen with the associated money rolling in from third party media sales.
Running games better on Windows, no matter which version, is just a bonus.
Pilots disable passengers and crew with knockout gas.
Pilots, knowing about and by now having purloined uber expensive cargo, bail out having set auto pilot to send plane to the most remote place possible.
Pilots quietly disappear and live life of luxury.
Now was that a conspiracy theory I heard or just a film / TV script I half remember. Maybe it was just a repeat of the D B Cooper episode.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/10511413/Beef-faggots-are-back-as-Waitrose-records-a-boom-in-sales-of-forgotten-cuts-of-meat.html
http://www.uptonsbutchers.com/faggots.asp
http://www.farmerschoice.co.uk/meat/buyfaggots
and many many more.....
If you ask a neutral question in the Midlands like "What do you think of faggots?" I would bet that the majority answer would be "lovely with mash, peas and a bit of gravy" and at most 1 in every 100 might even consider it to be a question about homosexuals. Like many words that have been hi-jacked over the years (Hacking for example) some people believe that the new, agenda led meaning is the only meaning and anybody who happens to use the word in it's older (or normal for many people) context is all of a sudden sexist, racist, homophobic, whatever.
However don't worry that your not being marginalised enough because not enough Midland people understand your narrow meaning of a self perceived insult, Midlanders have plenty of terms of abuse and ridicule that can and are used to insult uphill gardeners who pay with nine bob notes to travel on the other bus, just not the word "faggot".
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