
Re: Hologram you say?
You owe me a new keyboard :)
106 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Sep 2011
You were lucky and right.
To my shame - I had completely forgotten I had used them many moons ago and at the time they wanted to pay the money for my stuff direct into my bank account. Which I foolishly gave them. I recieved the email this morning.
Had no idea I even had an online account with them (which I have never used). I reset my password so I could log in and rather frightening event though my address information isn't there my bank details are! I don't remember giving them permission to put that information online...
Bollocks is all I can say.
Hi all,
Quick question - would you guys use the technology if it didn't dial out over the web and was a closed loop? (Putting phone remote control to one side for the moment). If you could buy a "magic controller box" and install it where all the commands / requests stay there and which all of the various devices hook into would that be acceptable?
I'd be much happier if that was the case. I want a home with a Jarvis like in Iron Man but I want it to be my Jarvis not some else's which I'm renting at best / or paying for through my personal data being sold. Its funny how we've gotten to the point where we pay for things and but we don't own them or we pay twice.
I bought an Echo out of curiosity during prime day. Must confess I've stopped using it except to play music. Turning the lights on is still easier by pressing the light switch. I found I don't have to repeat the action :)
I don't disagree with you sentiment about children that could do with help but parenting is a complex issue both biologically,emotionally and socially. Its not case of simple substitution of the biological withe adopted.
I think its a sign of progress that we are able to do this. In the same way that any medical advance can improves the life of an individual. Just before Christmas, a statement was made in the news that there are more women now with narrower pelvises having children; which means natural birth is more difficult/unlikely. It was even followed up with most women in this category would die in childbirth. Whilst these things maybe true...I'd rather not have folks die if we have the means to save them.
I do disagree with the notion we have "far too many people in the world". I haven't seen any evidence for that. I mean how many is too few or too many? The only fact we can see is that we have more people alive than we have in the past and its possible to make the hypothesis that populations aren't distributed in the most effective and efficient manner uniformly across the world. I.e. high population density in some areas causing a strain on available resources or low density in other areas the same albeit in a different manner.
Well its evolved over the last thirty years...has there been a revolution though?
I mean smaller, faster, more cores, more bits, greater efficiency and few to no jumper setting. (Goodness that was fun/ball ache). The move to local power from mainframes and now in certain situations its becoming distributed again.
A move to quantum computing would be a leap... Sorry I'll get my coat.
The article talks about the internet but I think its missing context. The web, internet and social media are often used interchangably in common parlance.
I mean someone may have responded they cut themselves off but then watch something on Netflix...
I share a similar sentiment. We compromise for convience. With Google I know I'm the product. But maps is sooo handy. Still quite scary to see that location graph of everywhere I've been for the last few years even if its not paticularly exciting.
Where it gets tricky however and what a lot of talk skims over this - we all give our data quite willingly to our family and friends to communicate with them. I went out to Regent's Park on Sunday with the parents for father's day. Mum went straight on FB and checked the family in. *sigh*.
She is a silver haired social media queen. Happily installed and using Twitter, Facebook apps et al. All of which have kindly vacuumed out her contacts. I have tried informing her about what it all means but you get that distant look...As is thats nice but so what.
Oh my brother runs Owncloud too. Looks cool. Doesn't help that his little brother, mother and father have kindly compromised him to stay in touch.
This a comment and question for my fellow Commentards... Warning rambling ahead...
Why the windows 10 update annoys...
Putting Mac's to one side for the moment, with PCs we buy the hardware. Now, the hardware may come with a pre-installed OS or not. We have the option of using that OS or replacing it if we choose.
This is unlike most electronic products we buy where the software and hardware come hand in hand. E.g. set top boxes, we don't expect Pace to let us put other brand firmware on the device.
MS are trying to take ownership of hardware that isn't theirs. I haven't bought a "Microsoft PC", I bought a PC that I chose to run Windows on unlike say an Xbox One where you've bought a product and bought into an ecosystem.
Which leads me to my other main grievance. Forcing an ecosystem upon us. Its not about buying an operating system anymore, its about my data being the resellable product to an ever increasingly data hungry marketing machine. I already have that with Google.
How do you guys feel about it?
Well it does,
What you're refering to is privacy, not security. Individuals offer FB this data up. The tricky bit is when an individual not only offers their own personal data up but also those of their peers.
The product FB sells is the data and the advertising space, the service it provides is a personal data collection tool offered for free which many consumers want to participate in. FB have a massive interest in keeping people's data secure as that is their product which they sell in various forms.
* Please note this post isn't about the pro's and cons of FB's business model. Thats a whole other kettle of fish.
That would be terrible if that were the case, for those of us that run vpns then. Gosh its all deeply upsetting.
Especially the paradox of "we want good strong encryption which is to keep our citizens safe but we must be able to unlock it with a skeleton key".
I agree,
Tablets/phones are good enough for a lot of people. Email/Web browsing and social media. Why do you need a computer for home use unless you have a need to do something other than above etc. My mother in law had a laptop, couldn't stand it because she found it too difficult. She recieved an iPad (she has an Android phone too) a couple of Christmases ago and she loves it.
The second thing, is computer hardware from a performance point of view hasn't dramatically improved over the last five years - Unless you're into 4k. I have a really crappy laptop from 2010 that is able to run windows 10. Imagine trying to put XP or Vista on hardware that was five years old when they came out...
I remember my early days of the 486...the changes seemed more dramatic back then. It has gotten much more energy efficient though which is good as I;m now older and a bill payer. :o)
Would it be fair to say computers have reached the washing machine/microwave commodity plateu?
I have to agree with the grumble about maximum password length on being imposed by sites.
Especially after reading that XKCD thing on password length being more important that complexity. It inspired me to read a pretty good (its explained entrophy to me and I understood it) blog post on it which I think someone here linked.
Twitter client does this aswell; lots of friends have come on Twitter and I recieved emails letting me know x is now on twitter...do you want to follow.
I guess most social media & contected companies with social media aspirations have realised that the direct tap into a person's phone gives the richest data for building a more accurate web of who is really connected with whom. I assumed this is why FB bought Whatsapp. Plenty of people on my FB who I don't actually talk with or see which generates noise.
Agree, hours of fun and frustration was had...I remember arguing with my older brother about who got to be Spyder. He made me be Dwane..Older brothers are cruel at times...Still I beat him at it...
The Mega Drive was an amazing system...or most likely I'm now old...and just remembering it fondly with rose tinted glasses. :o)
Truthfully I missed it, I don't know where I was at the time...it passed me by completely.
So from my point of view...it seems Gamergate whilst it may have started off about corruption it got conflated with lots of social issues, such as how certain people can behave on the net to one another. i.e. pretty damn vile.
Problem is whilst some folk were trying to discuss corruption/ethics, other folk* where threatening to rape/kill women. Didn't help the orginal debate at all.
Which is why Gamergate has many meanings depending on who you speak to.
*The same folk who did that are probably the same sort who think its funny/acceptable to call SWAT teams on those that they lose to in video games.
Anyway, above is entirely my opinion based on something I've tried to interpret. Either way, the whole thing from what I read didn't seem when taken collectively a shining example of rational human debate. But then its the internet, most things on it aren't rational ;o)
Reminds me of Spooks. I'm sure in one of the episodes, Harry tells Tom after he starts having a fling with US agent "End it, you know there are no allies in this game."
Not saying its right, but echoing others here, its natural. Spying is what spy agencies do. Citizens, allies and corporates, everything is a potential threat. 'Threat' is broadly defined after all.
All this has done, is to illustrate (I'm was going to say prove) what a lot of people already asssume to be going on.
Fink,
Thanks for the put down, it has left me feeling enriched for it. So have a cookie.
I do confess however you are quite correct in pulling me up over that comment. It was rushed and generally not very good. I hereby so apologise to you all. I've let myself down, my family down and all of you.
I am concerned however that the message of the PSA you so graciously provided is wrong. It should be "Kids, here's why you need to spend more time on the comments that you post. If you rush them or otherwise not put adequate effort in, a fellow commentard will rip it to shreds along with your self-esteem at the first opportunity.
I do like it that I'm not the least bit sensitive*.
Jonny
*I do say above in good fun and have taken your comment with good humour. It was legit.
Wow, from his own home? Obviously never watched the film Hackers.
To quote Phreak and Cereal:
"What are you, stoned or stupid?
You don't hack a bank across state lines from your house, you'll get nailed by the FBI.
Where are your brains, in your ass? Don't you know anything?"
"Stupid, man. It's universally stupid"
If its true that all those accounts were accessed from one place..One wonders why that level of activity didn't trigger some sort of flag.
Erm,
<begin snark>
Well, I pin the apps I want to use regularly, in either the start menu or the task bar. I mean who repeatedly searches for the same thing...
</end snark>
Everyone has their own way of doing something, all because you do it one way doesn't mean all other ways are less valid or wrong. Besides if you've been using the start menu since Windows 95...old habits die hard and all that. I was that guy who used to to turn off Aero just to make it 'classic' looking. I don't like change - he sobs rocking in the corner.. :o(. I've got over that now with a lot of love and theorapy.
Hi Johnny,
Ignore the harsh commentard, I also didn't think it was a real word. So I looked it up. Words are cool.
I'll admit I havent cross checked this but according to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/impliedly
It means:
involved, indicated, or suggested without being directly or explicitly stated; tacitly understood
So yes it is indeed a real word, one that is also quite old too; goes back to the 1500s.
Jonny
Hi Zog,
I see what you mean but "discounters" in this context is actually considered a legitmate retailing channel by the Food and Grocery industry. In the same way Online is. Its not meant as a pejorative or slight.
Example given here: http://ra.igd.com/Hub.aspx?id=113&tid=11