Posts by goldcd 817 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jul 2010
I read it as you did - but didn't think it was pointless.
After only a year, there's not going to be much that's 'his' - but seems to have taken the initiatives that were floating around when he arrived and supported the good ones, and killed the less good ones (I have never seen anybody bemoaning the death of RT).
Feels like MS is thinking about making a come-back, after decades of frankly 'being boring' - I really don't mind what their long term plan for Mojang is, but it's not boring. The Surface 3 might be losing money - but first thing in a long time I picked up and thought "this is really quite clever, and I see where we're going".
Feel a bit more like google now, with interesting stuff popping up - which may or may not work out, but at least gives the impression that under the hood something is stirring and stretching.
Compare to Apple, their traditional enemy, who was always seen as the 'hip' and 'dynamic' one - new screen size, adding NFC finally and a smart watch that may eventually appear after everybody elses (including MS)
Get your average person with maybe an Android phone and a google account to go to:
https://maps.google.com/locationhistory
Can only speak for myself, other OS and search giants may vary.
I knew they were doing this. I kindof was OK with it - and it's not as if they're even trying to hide this info from you... but... there's just something about seeing it...
about me agreeing with the article.
However, should you be 'concerned' with tracking, install the Ghostery plugin.
Gives you a list of the tracking 'stuff' on each page you visit (and the option to block as you see fit).
Whilst I might have said I was 'OK' - it's quite alarming when you visit the odd site and 30 different tracking vectors come flying up in a pop-up.
I buy stuff I see advertised - we all do.
I also see many adverts for many products I have absolutely no interest in buying.
These adverts cost the seller money, which was wasted when I didn't buy, and that cost is carried by people who did see the advert and did buy the product (and annoyed the arse off me, if I didn't block it).
It's not an internet thing - think of all those supermarket adverts you sat through, for the supermarket you've not get foot in ever, nor have any intention of ever doing so (I am not going to Tesco, Somerfield, Asda - I don't even have one in my town). I am not buying perfume as a Christmas gift, and I don't want a cheap-ass scented candle to cover the smell of my filth etc.
In an ideal world every advert I see would be something I want to buy, and if I might want to buy anything, I wouldn't see an advert. ANYTHING that takes me from where we are now towards this 'goal' saves waste, could potentially benefit me, the seller and whoever's sitting in the middle skimming off a percentage.
To get towards this paradigm of market efficiency, data has to be shared. What people are selling, and what I might want to buy. Google and their ilk gives this to me for FREE, without any commitment on my side AND I get a fancy mobile OS, browser, email, mapping etc etc etc.
It's not that I don't value my information, it's that I'm enabled to trade it for services that provide me with greater value.
Only time I ever got slightly freaked out with analytics, was when I bought a diamond for an engagement ring. It's clearly a smaller, higher value market, so I spent a month with gem references hiding in the corners of pretty much every web-page I visited.
Worst defence ever.
I'm 99(.99)% sure he was DPR, and looks like I wasn't alone.
Proper defence would have been:
"Yes I was"
"Before we go any further, could you please elaborate on the legal means that brought me to this dock?"
"What law did I break, exactly?"
"This FUD about me taking out multiple hits - which people do you mean, and should you actually name somebody, why aren't they dead or at the very least assaulted?"
If you'd really wanted to show-boat, then you could have taken the millions that had cruised through SR, postulated reduction in harm compared to conventional dealing, oh ffs.
I'm not for one moment saying another lawyer could have got him off, but I can't see any other lawyer getting him a worse outcome (both in sentencing, and making him look like a pussy as he did so).
but not 'ideal'
Currently for £150 you can get yourself a no-name Chinese tablet with an x86 and a 'retina' screen that lets you run any chrome/firefox/whatever plugins there are out there.
If you want something more professional (e.g. you live in fear that your Onda warranty might not be next day, on-site) there's the proper Surface and ilk.
RT just seems to be floating the in the dead-end middle, relying on iphone workarounds.
I spent last week working in the States, and being able to use by Three phone out there as if I were at home - no roaming charges, everything coming out of my 'near as damnit unlimited bundle. A revelation.
At home, there's no real difference any more, I'd agree - but this is one thing I'm going to need if any other operator ever wants me back.
"Not target and degrade the content or applications of specific providers"
cover the throttling of, say, a usenet provider?
Not for one moment saying that Virgin shouldn't be able to throttle - merely that they've previously been quite exceptionally opaque as to what they were up to previously.
It's all a bit of a mire - and only solution is to consider free-speech to be an absolute (right up to staging your own Nuremberg Rally).
Personally I'd prefer we just ignored this issue for a little while, and concentrated on tracking assault rifles and rocket launchers. Reasonably sure these caused more damage.
Even on my modest PC is was buttery.
Only game I ever played on the basis of a demo. I'm reasonably sure the demo was the first city with a 10 minute time limit on your game. Great fun trying to pack as much as you could into that.
Was a poverty stricken student at the time, but only game I've ever been queuing outside (HMV Dundee) to buy on day of release.
about that time.
Got a teensy little rental car at the airport, and they showed me the hidden button to press in the case of a car-jack. What does it do I ask? Oh it sets off the GPS tracker to allow us to recover the car again...
..'again?'... oh yes sir. (I didn't ask about the fate of the renter).
On driving to the office the next day and noticing the coils of razor wire by the junctions and the pretty little triangular 'hi-jack signs', I enquired on arrival if this was a real problem.
Oh yes. I although they tend to break into your garage and wait for you when you get home now.
Still - been back there a few times since - and love the place.
People are lovely. Never had any problems (but never done anything too stupid) and just have fond memories of perfect weather and the biggest bluest sky.UK never looks as dreary as when landing back in Heathrow. (Beer, Braai, Biltong etc all excellent).
I also learnt Coloured != Black, and Afrikaans != White - uniting view seems to be that it's all the fault of immigrants.
Bought this as part of wifey's Christmas present (has an oldish but serviceable laptop), mainly for sofa-based consumption.
Pitch in a nutshell is that it's:
~£150
~iPad retina size, with same screen (but with Micro-SD, HDMI, USB-OTG etc)
~Runs full-blown x86 Windows 8.1
Only has 2-gigs RAM, reasonably well built (but you're not going to confuse it with an iPad on closer inspection) - BUT for the price is pretty incredible.
some gliders, some with fairy-liquid soaked rubber band props for "take off".
I never like airfix, I never dabbled with more complex RC - but I loved those balsa-covered-in-paper machines.
I think it was the sense of 'building' you'd get. Small box. Simple stack of balsa sheets and ribbon struts (plus paper, bit of wire and a prop) - and if you put the time in, you made something incontrovertibly 3D and 'real' out of it.
Maybe it's the madelin-tinged-memory of sniffing those doping chemicals - but I'm not off to see if they're still available.
Would be to use the same data-mining they use to look for 'criminal associates', to build a web of contact each of their agents might possibly know - and then block (or flag) any data linking these people to queries from their account.
Still, as they managed to not do this for a husband, this is clearly beyond their abilities or inclination.
If you're actually going to pull the trigger on this, then do so, and tell me (I might want a PDF of your receipt, being a doubting man).
Speaking for the rest of us - why would you??
Even if you're suitably paranoid, it's not a major problem to root and lock down an android (or I guess iOS) phone, and actually end up with something useful.
You think your well reasoned view should count for more?
It doesn't. Democracy is a flawed system that allows that statement of a f'wit to count for as much as an expert in the field. Would you allow everybody to vote on what you do in your house? Your place of employment? No. Suddenly we extend this to your country and we're all supposed to go "YES YES YES!"
Democracy is an idiotic system that assumes we're all as equally capable of running a country/whatever as each other.
Still. We're stuck with it. John Oliver whipped up his own army to vote for his will - and their right was as great per-capita as any other. If you can't change the system, use it yourself.
Anyway, I digress. HTF is this an issue with Solr? Solr's an indexing and search tool. Assuming the FCC managed to write a text field to a db, wtf?
As always, I take me concept of "what's possible" from what I could knock up in an evening (and I'm a numpty). If they FCC couldn't match my own cack-handedness, they're corrupt/incompetent/requiring me as CIO
Really.
More people wanted to get out, so the price went up.
Maybe if the Sidney authorities had waived public transport fees out of the centre, or more public taxi drivers had volunteered to stay on duty to participate in assisting the exodus (I've no idea if either of these things happened) - Uber could have been pointed out as not a being social player.
As it stands - a load of people wanted to get out, and could, because Uber existed.
Uber are by all accounts complete scum as a company - but have gone down even lower in my estimation for 'being sorry' for being exposed to market demands.
I'm in the same position as you, but really don't feel the urge to get annoyed over it.
Sure if something I type *should* have been resolved, and doesn't due to Virgin, I'd have a mard - but seeing a page of adverts over a 'not found' message, isn't really destroying my quality of life.
Moreover I can see there being value in gathering info on what people have tried that doesn't resolve - using this for *something* productive does appeal (basically, if I were Virgin I'd do the same, so can't blame them for doing it).
I have however plenty of actual gripes with Virgin - fucking about with caps, caching youtube badly, pandering to site blocking requests etc etc etc.
But, by and large, they're a pretty good ISP given their size. I also feel slightly guilty over my wife haranguing them over out 'internet being down' - when it turned out I'd stuffed up the cat wiring in the house. Lovely offshore support guy was very tolerant of her abuse, and resisted inflicting my deserved raking-over-the-coals as the phone was passed over to me and the penny finally dropped.
*guilt*
I'm now off to see if there's anyway I can go and give him a medal..
Still love mine, after using it for well over a year.
Strangely I prefer the original plastic one - looks like a 'pebble', whereas the metal one looks like some f'ugly 80s casio - but nothing wrong with their being choice.
I just want an updated version - higher-res screen, maybe transflective colour LCD etc. Maybe pulse meter? But, is any of these are going to hammer the battery, I'll gladly forgo them.
I just like Pebble's approach. It's not a computer. It's not designed to be used without a phone - it's just a nifty little low notification screen/controller, that happens to be on your wrist, not your phone.
I mainly just use mine to see what meetings I have coming up, who's calling me, controlling my music as I walk about.
How about for a flagship.
£20 a month in the first year, then half that for the 2nd year, then half again for the year after etc all run with a SIM only deal.
Currently have the bizarre situation where people count down the months to the end of their contract, so they can snap up whatever looks good and leap back onto another contract.
If they don't want to upgrade immediately, they then have to start negotiating on their contract price, or cough up additional cash every month (now the phone is paid off), until the new shiney model they want comes out.
Another useful thing would be to properly soak up those unwanted by the rich phones. e.g. If somebody wants to go from an S4 to an S5, after the first year they can, but remain on the £20 a month fee. Samsung refurbishes (slap it in a new plastic shell) and then offers it to maybe an S3 user. Dear Mr S3 user, you're paying £5 for a S3 today. We're about to drop the price to £2.50, or you can carry on paying us a fiver a month and we'll give you an S4
I've been using Chrome since it came out, piling more and more plugins on it - and never been anything less than faultless and butter-off-the-back-of-a-lubed-dolphin-smooth.
Not for one moment saying there can't be problems - but entirely disingenuous to state there's a major problem with Chrome.
I've asked for, voted for and even got features in the Chrome forums - I can only suggest if you think there's a problem you tell Google - and I've complete confidence they'll do their best to fix the issues.
Sure there are other ereaders out there, but if I ignored price, I'd still go with Kindle (love the worldwide 3G). Price of it's just the icing on the cake.
On my regular android phone I have my amazon app, my kindle app (and I assume there's nothing to stop there being a Firefly app in the future).
I am just completely bemused as to why Amazon even attempted to make this phone. There's absolutely nothing unique about this I want, and mediocre specs and insane price..
We've discovered the government malware.
You click through to comment upon it - and then you see a post that distracts you, and causes you to write something else.
Who benefits from this distraction? Who might have caused it? Surely you don't believe there's really anybody quite so retarded?
*raises eyebrow*
I'd always assumed that finally Apple had realized a bit bigger basic size was a good idea (the 6) and the 6+ was simply to stop anybody who might have been pondering leaving the ecosystem for a Note (or whatever).
I'm an Android user, but looking at the 6 hardware/size (and the iOS tweaks like choosing a decent keyboard), suddenly realized that most of my previous criticisms/blockers to buy, had all been neatly tidied away.
Still don't like the UI much - but that's more a personal preference, and as most people seem to like it, I don't feel it's really a complaint. Plus Android seems to be becoming annoying more and more locked down (yes, I had to root my damn phone to allow my file manager of choice to write to the SD card).
Speaking for 'Android'
We don't have to jail-break to install our own apps - but you have to specifically enable the option to allow this.
I thought on iOS you could also do it with a corporate license (i.e. your company puts a cert on your phone, they sign their custom apps, they can be installed on your phone directly).
I've no idea what the big deal here is though. If you run random code on your machine, it can do all manner of things (which is why you don't run random code on your machines). Just on phones, you have to jump through some hoops to do this (which simply makes it even more stupid).
Not *just* default passwords.
Normally if I plug something random into my home router if I leave stuff defaulted, then it's stupidly configured, but only accessible to me, in my house.
Can only speak for the Foscam cameras, but these 'helpfully' expose themselves to the external world by punching through my router, and assigning themselves a guessable dynamic IP domain.
AFAIK it's an app you install on your devices, and it uses your resources.. not quite sure what I'm getting for my yearly payment over a premium bit of the same software.
Still, I use it today (it's free) and it works quite nicely. Install on PC and choose a share dir, get it to generate a QR code and take a snap from your phone, point it to a folder there and boom - two folders in sync.
It's currently pretty-lightweight, but does seem to work pretty well.
but mission boundaries aside, I quite like getting rewarded with weapons, for exploring early.
That's that I like about open world games - messing about. I'll wade through the 'missions', sure, but bluntly I realize I have no interest in them being hard.
I always saw this as being an active design decision. Some people will hammer through these games, mission to mission, ignoring the side-quests and "that interesting thing" I turned back to have another look at. They probably like their balanced missions.
Favourite of mine in this genre was the original Crackdown - MS pulling a decent version of that out the bag is pretty much the only thing that'll get me coughing up for an XBone.
Go to to Amazon website and "Manage Your Content and Devices", and it's available from the 'actions' against your books.
Couple of books/or maybe latest kindle update seem to have a 'bug'. Hyperlinks to the footnotes take you to later in the book, but 'back' dumps you back to the book selection page.
Personally, I don't like them 'runny' at the end, but do like them to be a bit 'gooey'
This works if you simply don't boil them.
When boiled, you get the gradient inside the egg (outside of yolk cooked, centre runny) - and if you cook them longer, you get completely hard-boiled.
If you turn down the heat, the whole things cooks as one.
Things like this http://www.lakeland.co.uk/3158/Egg-Perfect are quite nifty as it does show you the state of the egg.
But putting all of that aside.
Black-pudding works, but I prefer it not all black-pudding.
Biggest crime though was not serving the quarters with a bit of mayonnaise or aioli.
Still more cooking projects, please.
If you want to feel like you're living in the future, have a google for Onda.
Couple of hundred quid, you can get something that looks similar to (and has the retina screen of an ipad mini), with full blown windows 8 running on it.
I spent years trying to get my 'portable stuff' to do what was simple of my 'proper' machine.
My next decision isn't going to be iOS or Android. It's going to be Android or Windows ('proper' windows)
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