* Posts by zen1

506 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Dec 2010

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Leaked Genius Bar manual shows Apple's smooth seductions

zen1
Thumb Down

but at the end of the day...

it's just an Apple iWhatever and it's fetching 30% more than a comperable competitive product.

Apple demands a quickie, aims its torpedo at 8 Samsung mobes

zen1

Re: Back to school for me

"How does one become a patent lawyer?"

Easy! Start by learning how to chase ambulances, then lose any remainder of a soul.

Customers dumping Samsung phones in wake of Apple suit

zen1

well bully for apple

While I can't rip Apple for the iPhone, they could corner the entire smart phone market and I still wouldn't waste a penny on their products.

Neil Armstrong dies aged 82

zen1

sigh

I remember watching the landing of Apollo 11 live. I was 5 years old but I still remember the images vividly. I watched every televised rocket and shuttle launch, until the TV networks couldn't be bothered to carry real historical events live, unless it was a tragedy or something. I felt a sense of pride when our Astronauts made the headlines and I cheered the Soviet Cosmonauts when they launched and safely launded.

As Mr. Armstrong said on that day, "... a giant leap for mankind". Every journy into space, no matter what country or countries are involved, is another leap for mankind. Who would have guessed that only 66 years after powered flight, we would be launching animals, men and women into the heavens, thousands of miles above us.

After my father, Neil Armstrong was a hero of mine. Also like my late father, you will be missed but never forgotten by any who knew you or of your accomplishments. God speed and good tailwinds

Google pays just $22.5m to FTC over Safari tracking blunder

zen1

Slap on the wrist?

Seriously? If Google takes in 22.5 m every 5 hours, that's not even a blip their radar. That's less than one half of one percent of its gross income. That's not a fine, it's a travesty!

Why one storage admin fears Justin Bieber

zen1
Devil

Justin Bieber?

ffs I weep for the whole of humanity

Google: Oops, we've STILL got Street View's slurped Wi-Fi data

zen1

<gasps>

OK, who honestly didn't see something like this coming?

World celebrates System Administrator Appreciation Day

zen1
Pint

Yay me!

Enjoying a nice cold pint and quietly reciting the motto of the ASR: Non ex transverso sed deorsum! Over and over in my head. I raise my mug to my brethern and sistern all over the world! May you be appreciated by even your most clueless and problematic user.

God speed and drink heavily!

Giant super-laser passes 500 TRILLION watts

zen1
Pint

great for laser pointer...

If you wanted to point out interesting sites on someting in the Oort cloud. God forbid if you accidently hit the moon, as it would probably burn half way through before the duty cycle turns off.

Why can't I get toys like that? As for the electric bill, honestly, I'm good for it... I can make $150.00 installments for the next what, 5 or 6 thousand years?

Disable Gadgets NOW says Redmond

zen1
Mushroom

Hey Ballmer!

How about making fucking OS that works, is fast; oh here's a novel thought: isn't one giant threat vector! So why don't drop all the cutesy bells and whistles and make something work, I mean you'd figure after 8 or 9 times it would much better, or am I asking too much?

Rifle-waving Yank's premature detonation ruins city's big bang

zen1

Brings a tear to my eye

Here I sit in my basement, two days after Independence Day, and I can still hear the neighbors launching what's left of their mortars off. It's inexplicable “wtf” moments chronicled by the article's author that make me proud to have been born here, because you have to admit, no matter what the circumstances were, it's damn funny...

My nephew is a licensed pyro technician for a demonstration company that usually does displays for larger cities, and I've read through some of the regulations that they have to abide by, when handling, transporting, STORING and detonating fireworks. So, methinks someone was either cutting corners, not properly licensed, or just plain dense to store them in an area like that. Combine that with the sheer genius of our real victim, the hapless shooter, who now has to live with the knowledge that he single handedly ruined the fourth of July for a number of people. If I were his lawyer I would either plead the “Hey! Watch this!” or the more famous “Hold my beer” defense.

However, what did me in was the response of the inspector. Such precision, clarity and backed up by irrefutable physics, described in three words: “It went boom”. Now who can argue with that?!?

I wonder if that area of the country has the same problem as mine, where the farmers have to paint “COW!!” on their cattle, during the first few days of deer season.

But I also have to ask the more important question: What kind of wine does one partake in, when sport shooting after midnight? Chablis? Zinfindel or something that comes in a 2 gallon box? My guess is something light and cheeky but hardly ostentatious.

At the risk of sounding serious, I truly hope nobody was seriously injured, because then it stops being funny.

Mozilla shoots down Thunderbird, hatches new release model

zen1

lovely plumage, the norwegian blue

While I have a gmail account (for all my spam) my ISP provides me with a nice smtp server that I've been using for years. Sure, there's a web client, but as another poster brilliantly put it, I can at least back up my mail to my media, and I can export my contacts to a CSV file, do whatever the hell I want with them and not worry about them getting held hostage like they did with that bastard live mail crap from M$ (Yet another brilliantly executed gaff, Mr. Ballmer). While I've never been a man of extreme violence, for the longest time I wanted to find the tool who sold that little feature to the dev team and punch him in the neck.

Oh, and not worry about them getting sucked into facebook, google+ or whatever the social fad of the day is popping at the time.

I don't have to worry about adverts pandering to the general theme of the email, popping up in the right side of the screen.

Yes the UI is annoying but at least it's not outlook! Some of us prefer a simple, spartan, utilitarian email client and not the ever changing abomination that Microsoft (et. al) evolve into every year or so.

Facebook phone app attempts to seize ALL YOUR MAIL

zen1
Pint

Re: Wow. Their deception and contempt for their users really has no bounds does it?

Jaycee,

"AND IT WORKED! 900 MILLION PEOPLE FELL FOR IT!" is simply a brilliant (albeit humorous) observation. El Reg, I'd like to nominate this for quote of the year.

Obama is best Pres 'to beat alien invasion'

zen1

sigh

but I despise Obama and the moron who's running against him. If given the choice I for one, welcome our evil alien overlords.

Google wingmen rain Project Glass on San Francisco

zen1

Nasty

"Tomorrow we want to see a bikini-clad Larry Page leaping over a tank of sharks on a motorbike."

This little visual will wake me up screaming in the middle of the night, for weeks to come. Thanks a lot.

Facebook loses face: Faced down in faceoff over face-placing

zen1

new face of anonymous

could be zuckerberg's face? While I admit I much prefer the general lack of peach fuzz on my masks, but in this case I'd be willing to pull a sparticus on herr ceo.

I'm almost tempted to buy a share of stock just so I can write "SUCK IT" on my proxy vote. That would be what, 8 bucks (?) well spent!

'Zombie bullets' fly off US shelves after wave of undead attacks

zen1

meh

Plastic tipped hollow points have existed for awhile, however I'm rather puzzled by one irrefutable fact: the 5.56 and the 7.62 Cal rounds are primarily military rounds. Signers and followers of the Geneva Convention have all agreed NOT to use hollow tipped rounds in combat, as they were deemed inhumane. I happen to agree with that and I personally own a couple of 5.56 rifles.

Now, I can understand small caliber (.17, .22 and pistol rounds), because I've narrowly avoided being accosted by gaggles of man eating, zombie Canada Geese. (I don't care what anybody says, they DO have teeth). But I would be remiss if I didn't mention Kamakazi squirrels and the occasional psychopathic raccoon.

Anything over a 9mm pistol round is overkill (pardon the pun). Generally when you hit someone with a high powered FMJ rifle round, or shotgun slug, they're down. This includes zombies, based on recent movie lore.

However, I have to give props to the Hornady marketing folks for coming up with that ploy. I haven't stopped laughing about this for at least 10 minutes.

Facebook set to file motion: Will blame NASDAQ for IPOcalpyse

zen1

um...

Any fool knows that stock speculation is nothing more than the type of gambling where you are allowed to count cards. You could be a wizard at math, but if the house over inflates the cost of the chips, you still lose. And like everybody else, you walk away from the table.

Personally, I blame the idiot who cast the deciding vote on setting the "great idea" IPO price. Secondly, Yes, Facebook attracts a LOT of users, but is it's revenue model truely viable long term?

For every attempt to cram revenue generating advertising or collecting of user info, there's someone who's working on ways to hide or evade FB, thus causing twitchy advertisers to become shy. Besides, web 2.1 is just around the corner.

Oracle staffer accused of sex-for-favours in Singapore

zen1

Hell finally has frozen over!

Two words I never thought I'd hear used in the same sentence: "Sexy" & "Oracle".

zen1

Almost worked?

Wait, do you work for CSC?

Hit upgrade on Symantec Backup Exec, and unleash Hell

zen1

Twisted Irony...

I wonder if it's intentnional? I mean given that Symantec Enterprise Protection (SEPA) product's transition from v11 to v12 actually did more damage than most of the viruses it was to supposedly protect you from? Or the fact that it would randomly lock remote users out of VPN sessions. My personal favorite is when we were able to consistently replicate these problems to their technical support, only to be told "It's not our upgrade that's the problem, it's because Cisco hasn't updated their code to reflect our changes".

Here's where it gets funny, after months of denying any problems, they quietly release a patch that magically fixes all of our problems. Wonder if that's how they're going to address all the bitching and anger from the Backup Exec customer community?

But, to the individual who commented on the similarities between CA and Symantec: Brilliant, however at this point it's down to arguing which is worse, a kick to the balls from the front or from behind, by someone wearing steel toed boots.

Top Facebook exec begs students: 'Click on an ad or two'

zen1

Re: Facebook users have *never* been seen as "members"

What's this "we" shit, roundeye?

Smoke-belching flash drive self-destructs on command

zen1

We secretly...

switched the "red button" with Jim's 'e' key. Let's watch as the hillarity ensues.

I wouldn't be so presumptious to speak for most 'institutionalized' IT professionals, but I know I for one would abuse the piss out of the red button, just out of principle. Another evening of unpaid overtime? zap. Being asked by boss "how to open excel spreadsheet"? zap. Crude, elaborate practical joke perpatrated on unsuspecting coworkers who built home made taser and wired it to my mouse "for their amusement"? zap.

Think of all the possibilities of remote detonation: User: "I can't get to the internet and I can't understand why you guys are just sitting around looking at your screens?" Zap (note to self: for extra negative reenforcement, get said coworkers taser mouse deployed to the masses, immediately!)

Receive lol cats email from relatives or friends? zap. Receive FB friend request from, well, anybody? ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP zap zap ZAP!!!

New SGI CEO builds firewall around unprofitable sales

zen1

27 teraflops? Utility?

Make one hell of a game server...

Redmond revamp: Bing gets social bling

zen1
Devil

seriously?

Some of us don't use bing, like me, and some of us haven't bought into the hype of social networking (also me), could honestly give a rats backside.

Microsoft kills Windows Live brand

zen1

Oh dear

methinks it's Microsoft who's having the identity crisis, with the mass rebranding & all. Some of their products are rather nice, others not so much. I happened to think that the whole "Live" brand was a bad idea from the get-go. I liked OE over the live mail fat client, because it was straight forward AND there was limited third party support, in the form of reg hacks and various quasi-plugins. Live mail looks like they ripped the user interface out of Microsoft Works (which is a big fat lie, unto itself) and merged it with a lite version of outlook.

Thanks, but no thanks Steve & co. I'll stay with my xp/win 7 box & office 2003.

Oh, and the new version of office... Whomever was the person who said "This is a great idea" should be fired.

As another learned individual stated, some of us don't want glitz and shiney bells & whistles, some of us just one something that works, that's intuitive and helps us be more productive.

Google Street View Wi-Fi data slurper named

zen1

@ Tim - Re: Oh how times have changed

Tim,

I'm going to give you a thumbs up for that one, because you do raise a couple of very valid points. Yes, I admit that the evidence is purely circumstantial at the moment, and if it's proves to be incorrect, I will be the first to come back here and formally apologize for and admit my mistake.

Given that this was a number of years ago, I looked up to Marius, because of the work he did and for the consistent interaction and tone of the messages he posted, in the forms on his website.

As for perception of my reaction to this revelation, well sir, I happen to be one of the folks who find Google's blatant disregard for the law somewhat reprehensible, as it's compairable to illegally connecting to a wired LAN and capturing data that you're not authorized to do so.

You can question my reaction, I neither mind ror really care, for all that matters, I fail to see what gain Google expects by mapping the location of WLAN's, other than just being nosey. Furthermore, while it's not a crime to correlate your position, in relation to where you pick up and lose the signal of a given WLAN, the fact that Google has admitted to holding a large amount of personal data (information stored within the data frame), which technically violates a number of state and federal wiretapping laws.

So reguardless of what you think of me or my reaction towards any individual(s) that have alegedly participated in this, is completely your perrogative, as it is my perrogative to be extremely angered by the actions of named and unnamed individuals working for Google.

zen1

Oh how times have changed

I used to correspond with Mr. Milner, back when he moderated his own website (netstumbler.com). And at the time, he was rather blunt about the differences between simply collecting ssid's and using someones network without their consent. Wow, how times have changed. I looked up to Marius, even donated some old equipment to him to test on, so he could develop an application that didn't need to rely on the Orinoco adapters.

I'm stunned.

I remember the long threads about the ethics of stumbling, vs. capturing actual data, and at the time, and between him and a gentleman named "Thorn", they worked damn hard to pursuade people against the latter. But this was how many years ago? Back when netstumbler was pretty much the only gig in town, and he had to beg for donations (because he wouldn't charge for it).

Peoples values, icons of certain segments of the technical society suddenly lose any ethics and then they fall. By their own hand or by someone elses.

Marius, I thought you knew better. You sir, are a hypocrite and have sold out. After this sad affair gets settled, your 15 minutes of fame and any good contributions you made to the wireless network community will be forgotten, or with the stigma of disgrace associated with it.

Google: STOP BREAKING THE LAW, ASSHOLES!

Biennial boner blights Beemer biker

zen1

@Stoneshop Re: BMW drivers...

There's a different?

Steve Jobs' death clears way for Broadway star to play Woz

zen1

Um

I'm still having problems getting past "adored".

'Geek' image scares women away from tech industry

zen1

mars needs women

Mars happens to be the knickname of my datacenter

Report: Microsoft tried and FAILED to offload Bing on Facebook

zen1
Mushroom

Re: NYT lost relevancy about 10 years ago

Honestly, I think the National Inquirer has more journalistic integrity that NYT, because they are equal opportunity offenders and not a bunch of partisan hacks.

Apple sued for every touchscreen device by Flatworld prof

zen1

Re: The USPTO

Isn't that up to pattent attornies?

From the Department of WTF: New USB tampon flash drive

zen1
Pint

Re: Flash, but no Camera?

That will be in the v2 product, which will be conveniently shaped like a large phalic "massager"

zen1
Pint

Re: Could be considered an appropriate gift....

<insert thunderous applause here>

'Searching staff emails would be time-consuming'

zen1
Pint

Larry vs. Larry

Yanno, I could actually see Ellison suing himself. As for the rest of em all, I wish OS community would do the world a favor by writing a small shell script to replace the CEO's.

Austrian village considers a F**king name change

zen1
Pint

Re: So, er, what about selling the signs?

No kidding, think of all the revenue it would generate for that little town. Hell, I'd buy one. I say we vote on it: Aye if they should keep the name and tell the rest of the world to go fu... er.. screw off, or Nay, to bend over, grab the collective ankles and give in to political correctness.

Long live fucking, may your rich heritage not be sullied by such a trivial complaint.

Dad sues Apple for pushing cash-draining 'free' games at kids

zen1

Re: When will parents learn

I can understand both arguments, but it all boils down to this, in my opinion:

1) The guy is an idiot for not supervising such a young child, when using ANY internet accessible device.

2) Apple are taking advantage of the legal sysem by, on one hand, encouraging developers to write such software, but on the other say it's not our problem.

Personally I don't either party has clean hands in this and both should be smacked upside the head with a 2x4

Peeling back the skins on IBM's Flex System iron

zen1

Is it just me?

Or does that thing look like a Borg ship? your ass will be laminated by IBM

General Dynamics, HP fluff up $249.8m Army cloud

zen1

Re: Huh?

GD outsources most of their internal IT to CSC... Talk about a match made in hell...

Prehistoric monster snake crushed prey under 1.5 Brooklyn Bridges

zen1

wtf

what the conversion for weight in funbags? Now I'm all confused.

zen1

Re: Now they've done it

Hello Kitty (who has no mouth, mind you) destroyer of worlds. I do have to give the Japanese credit where credit is due: After being bombed, burned, nuked, washed away, as well as the point of origin of some of the wierdest shit the world has ever seen, they are tough and will probably out live us all.

Yahoo! countersued! by! Facebook! in patent! spat!

zen1

I call dibbs

on the copyright, patent, service mark and trade mark, as well as brand name rights of the letter "O/o" (both upper and lower case). To Yahoo and Facebook: that will be one nickel for every time it's used on your websites. Pay up bitches!

Shareholder flings class action lawsuit at Groupon

zen1

Seriously?

Nobody else saw this one coming?

Feathered Tyrannosaurus uncovered in China

zen1

OK

I get that it probably didn't fly, but hypethetically, imagine for one moment that it did. And it pooped on your car. I shudder to consider all of the ramifications

Arizona bill makes it illegal to 'annoy or offend' online

zen1
Mushroom

Politicians..

When will it filter through their myopic pinheads that you can't legislate: good sense, common sense, taste, humor or manners. My question is how do they plan to enforce this because at least 3/4's of the internet is offensive to someone. Fucking morons.

Visa and MasterCard warn of credit card data breach

zen1

ahem.. anybody remember Heartland Processing?

A large scale assault like this doesn't simply happen without serious intelligence of the innerworkings of the target. As in the case of Heartland Processing, after all of the process improvements supposedly implemented by the PCI, and based on all the crap I've personally witnessed in small and midsized data thefts, it's always fairly well organized externally and includes one or more people on the inside willing to sell out. Cheaply...

Here's a novel thought: Screen your people, institute penalities on personnel and management if there are data breeches and ffs encrypt the snot out of everything on the INSIDE!

Also, I'd seriously crack down on the companies that develop POS terminals and their associated systems. Here's another freebie idea, why not just do away with the third party processors all together? Card is issued by a bank and that bank interacts directly with the card companies.

This kind of shit, in my opinion, is completely avoidable and is inexcusable.

Also, while we're at it, why not just institute more severe penalties on financial institutions that are lax with their security as well as the individuals and the organizations they work for, that are convicted.

So, what IS the worst film ever made?

zen1

I do believe

Highlander II was more of a pathetic cry for help!

Windows 8: Sugar coating on Microsoft's hard-to-swallow tablet

zen1

I dunno

Maybe I'm just old school, but the touch tablet concept is still a novelty, until the cloud service providers can prove that nobody is able to crawl my data. I mean there is absolutely no way in hell I would PAY to store files with all of my personal details "in the cloud". If I were a large corporate entity, who might indirectly compete with MS, Google or Apple, there's no way I'd let my employees bring any of that crap into the office and use it for real work.

What about government departments? Mark my words, you'll get some minister/secretary or some elected idiot, who gets that "oooo shiney" look in his/her face, loads gigs of citizen data into the cloud, only to have it become available to the masses because of some xss spoof.

Perfect the SSD so it doesn't self destruct and allow me the choice to control the destiny of my data, and then I'll be impressed. Until then, that crap won't be anything more than a novelty.

Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards

zen1

While going through an old box of clothing..

I stumbled across one of the T-Shirts I received from the good folks who published this App, Sierra, if I remember correctly. And at the time was one of those games that had the best graphics.

On the front, the shirt read Liesure Suit Lary.. On the back, it read "what do you want, good graphics or good taste?"

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