Posts by Charles Augustus Milverton 25 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Oct 2010
I don't think I care. The great, omnipotent, all seeing, club card computer, after 10+ years. still hasn't worked out that I have never learned to drive, and have never owned a car, and that discount vouchers for 5p of a litre of fuel is not really much use to me. Buy all the data you like about me, and I can assure you, you are buying lies !
Can I just say how flattered I feel that these people are prepared to waste so much money, and so many resources, just to show me adverts that I'll ignore, or more usually, subconsciously filter out. I'm also rather flattered that they think I am so rich that just because I bought an expensive widget yesterday, I'll be buying another one tomorrow. I wonder what planet they come from ?
I wonder what would have happened if someone had applied the same economic arguments to the building of the railway between, let's say, Croydon and London Bridge. Just imagine all those thousands and thousands who travel to London Bridge every morning having to get the bus - or walk ! Maybe there is no economic argument to keep it running today. What's the alternative - replace it with a 7 mile long supermarket ? Properly managed, railways are an asset for the future, and there in lies the biggest, and probably only argument against HS2. Politicians with short attention spans can't manage anything today, let alone tomorrow.
One area that really needs tidying up is old music. Consider this. Stadium sized band "borrows" some lyrics and riffs from a some 1950's era black musician (who was probably inspired by some earlier source), and makes a killing with it in the 1970's. Forty years later an amateur covers band plays it in a small pub, and gets someone to video it. The video is uploaded to YouTube, and some mega corporation immediately claims it as their own. Maybe that's the strict word of the law, but the law is an ass on this occasion.
It was John Clare who effectively killed off servicing by Dixon's "Mastercare" in house engineers. So much talent was wasted by that man. He almost killed off Dixons*, and now he will do his best to prevent any recovery by Comet.
*some would say this is a good thing, and mostly it is - except when they were paying my wages !
Somewhere at the back of my mind is the idea that there was one (or more) battery that was in common use before it's exact chemical workings were fully understood (lead-acid ?).
The problem that this, or any other cold fusion device, may seem to break or bend what is currently doctrine about physics should be no bar to it's use. Either it works or it's a sham. If it works, use it, and explain how it works later.
Apart from the music being digitised, that patent sounds a lot like the Post Office's Dial A Disc service. Anyone here old enough to remember dialling 160 to hear abysmal quality music (it always seemed to Free singing Alright Now whenever I tried it).
http://www.lightstraw.co.uk/ate/main/ris/16.html
If the data collected is just transmitter location and identification then I don't think there are any privacy problems. It is no different to adding marine/air navigation beacons to a map, or noting the location of a local TV transmitter.
The real problem is that WE are doing this highly useful work for free. Google, et al, should be paying us for our legwork !
If only Myspace was not laden down with so much flash and CPU pummeling crap it might get a few more subscribers.
Hell, if they just had plain texts adverts, and I had more control of what appears on "my space" I might even consider paying a small, very small, annual subscription for it.
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