"This could be the end of the world.......of Warcraft."
Look, just because the Maw is ruled by a merciless bald tyrant who goes around with his shirt off and who plans to conquer the world doesn't mean you can compare it to Russia.
1857 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jul 2010
Ivermectin is genuinely used as a human medication, and although I can't attest to the full legitimacy of the sources, I have even heard that reputable studies have said it can provide some small benefit in treatment of COVID. However, the effect isn't certain enough or strong enough to justify prescribing it for post-infection treatment when a vaccine exists that can prevent the majority of infections before they start.
This is specifically why I mentioned horse dewormer rather than Ivermectin itself. While the anti-vaxxers can't get the human pills they want from their doctors, animal medications are much less tightly regulated. That's why they're dosing themselves with enough of the stuff to literally choke a horse.
Also the main character is Bob Oliver Francis Howard, and his junior assistant is Peter Frederick Young.
Apparently, however, Simon Travaglia is not Charles Stross despite his name translating as "Witness to Troubles". If it is true that this is not a pseudonymous false identity, it's definitely one of the strongest cases of nominative determinism that I've ever seen.
Which is worse, when you think about it. A cold call is a pain but as Aristotle's horse said above, you can just say "fuck off" and hang up. Social media advertising is like you being in the pub looking for your friends when some spiv comes up and asks if you want to buy his tat. You tell him to fuck off, but he keeps pushing. You go to the bar staff and ask them to remove him from the premises. They say no, and in fact offer to lend the spiv a megaphone because he's paid them for a pitch. The only way you can get away from him is by leaving the pub, and then you miss meeting your friends.
Not only have you been beaten to the punch on this idea, reality has actually gone in the opposite direction. Before someone came up with the idea of monetisation, the processor cycles now being used on crypto mining were used for projects like SETI@Home and Folding@Home. The latter at least is still around, and is being currently used for COVID research. Thus my original remark that crypto has negative value.
It's nothing to do with you getting old. Crypto simply has no value. In fact it has negative value, because the resources used to create it could be used instead to create something that does have value. Each crypto coin is literally just a certificate saying that the creator set their money on fire, and the people who buy crypto are paying to say that they take responsibility for it.
Come on, we can be honest with each other here. This is more "I ... had a friend", isn't it?
(I already confessed my own most heinous cock-up on The Reg, but it's been a few years so: once, I mistook the 110/230V switch on a PSU for the on-off switch. That's a noise I don't want to be within ten feet of again.)
When countries start issuing the multi-billion fines that Facebook deserve for their advertising practices, then we'll talk. There is no rule that they won't break, no invasion of privacy they won't make, if someone has paid them to force an advert on you. They'll show you adverts for things that are forbidden by their own rules - and in some cases, international law - from companies that you have blocked. They'll even cancel your decision to block a company, literally unflagging a setting and acting like you never set it.
Reports are that not only were Amazon not shutting down in the face of the storm, one of the dead workers had texted his partner not long before the storm hit to say that management had refused employee requests to leave. If that is true, then there's people who need to spend the rest of their lives in prison for this.
Two points:
1) If I have refused you consent to use my data, you cannot possibly have a legitimate interest because any legitimacy of your usage is entirely dependent on my consent.
2) If you're asking for me to make an exception to my refusal of consent if your interest is legitimate, that is a de facto admission that your original request for my data was made because you want it for illegitimate purposes.
Let's be blunt here, Ian - at the core what you're saying is that advertisers have a right to our data because they have already bought it from a third party that doesn't own or control it.
The motions in Reg Debates aren't properly formally phrased. When I debated at school and university, motions always began "This House [believes/would]" - the House being the body of people debating the issue. Thus, when you voted you were always indicating support or opposal to the content of the motion.
With that in mind, read the motion here as:
This House believes renting IT hardware on a subscription basis is bad for customers.
See how much clearer that is? If you vote For, then you are stating agreement with the belief of the House: that renting is bad. If you vote Against, then you are stating disagreement with that belief.
It would be good if the Reg would pick up this formatting going forward. It's a minimal change, adding only three short words to the motion, but it would really help out.
If almost half of the UK population really had worked out the consequences of Brexit before it happened, we'd still be in the EU. The vote was 52-48 among people who expressed a preference; as a percentage of the electorate it was roughly 37-35 with 28% not voting. We're seeing more of those 28% come off the fence on the side of Rejoin now the effects of Brexit are being seen and felt, but they were happy either way until it actually did affect them - by which time it was too late.
This is not quite true. I may indeed be interested in buying something "sponsored". It's just that after seeing your "sponsored" advert, I have absolutely zero interest in buying it from *you*. This applies even if I had previously intended to buy it from you.
This post is sponsored by beer, but please decide for yourself if you want to buy it.
What the hell even is "assumed consent"? It sounds like something a rapist would use as an excuse after putting a roofie in a woman's drink. "Well, she came home with me, so I assumed she consented to sex."
This is right up there with the "Legitimate Interest" buttons on opt-outs. If you ask for an exception to my refusal for legitimate interests, then you admit your regular interests are not legitimate. If you have to assume my consent, that is because *I have not given my consent*.
Literally 100% of the adverts I see are spam, because I don't want to see any of them. In many cases I continue to see ads that I have previously hidden from businesses that I have blocked and reported. A lot of them are for things Facebook aren't supposed to be advertising, like fake medicines and gambling sites.
If you look at why these adverts are sent, it's always "$COMPANY seeks to reach people aged 18 or over". Which translates to "$COMPANY paid Facebook to do it". They're not just complicit in the abuse; they're active participants profiting from it.
It may be even better than that. From what I have heard - unverified, so please don't take this as gospel - the Facebook engineers were unable to access the office because the security card system verifies your identity using your Facebook credentials.
If this is true, and if only for the associated amusement value I dearly hope that it is, then Facebook have managed to create the ultimate rendition of the PC support network that moves its phones to VOIP: a system where it becomes impossible for an engineer to enter the data centre if there is any need for them to do so.
They have to tick all the boxes. In this case, the selection boxes.
Or, as the "independent" investigation was internal, should that be self-selection boxes?
(Paris, because Ms Hilton knows all about hotels and probably quite a bit about chocolate.)
They're more of a paradox. On the one hand, a good ginger nut is a very tasty biscuit. On the other, everyone knows that gingers have no friends. Thus, to quote noted biscuitologist Charles Dickens:
"It was the best of snacks, it was the worst of snacks..."
And the reasons why are spelled out in the article. Apple are producing new phones that do nothing the existing phones can't. As the executive says in Tron Legacy when Alan Bradley asks what the differences are between the new version of ENCOM's OS and the old one: "We added 1 to the number". And they don't last, by design so you have to buy the new phone. 80s computers may be obsolete, but many of them still work. How many iPhone 13s will still work in 20, 30 years, even if it's just as an iPod because the phone functionality has moved on (for which Apple can't be blamed)? We already know: the answer is "none", because due to planned obsolescence none of them are likely to work in ten years. And it all uses resources that can't be replaced.
We're spinning our wheels in pursuit of maintaining an unsustainable status quo because the status quo makes money. No, I can't feel fine about that.