* Posts by Lord-a-miytee

26 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2007

FYI: That Hawaii missile alert was no UI blunder. Someone really thought the islands were toast

Lord-a-miytee

Twitter? FFS !!!!

(See title.)

Dead serious: How to haunt people after you've gone... using your smartphone

Lord-a-miytee

Swonsong: not dead yet.

According to Companies House SwonSong is alive and up to date with its filings. It's not done very well over the last year, though. Actually, it's never done very well, but over the last twelve months it's excelled itself at not doing well.

'I feel violated': Engineer who pointed out traffic signals flaw fined for 'unlicensed engineering'

Lord-a-miytee

Hold up ...

... isn't that the land where toilet cleaners are called "sanitation engineers"?

Customer satisfaction is our highest priority… OK, maybe second-highest… or third...

Lord-a-miytee

Re: Close 'em down...

In another job, long ago, one of my mature adult team habitually used mature adult language as test data in the product's database. (It's easier to spot than sample batch numbers.) A database escaped to a customer's site, as test data is wont to do. We were censured for using "unprofessional language". Having been in the profession for many years now, I think I could refute that accusation.

Lord-a-miytee

x is null

Do you mean messages like the one I get when I give up waiting for the urinal video to start? "x is null". Indeed, it may well be. The exclamation mark icon seems to indicate I should be alarmed. Actually I'm quite relieved. As it were.

How to confuse a Euro-cop: Survey reveals the crypto they love to hate

Lord-a-miytee

False economics

"a common complaint among EU countries that they don't have the money, technology, or skills to fight cybercrime"

And how will weakening cryptography decrease the cost of fighting cybercrime? Surely cybercrime will mushroom catastrophically, with increased cost to everyone. Additionally, since no data will be secure, any business on the open internet will become untenable, reversing the much vaunted cost benefits of e-commerce.

Computerised stock management? Nah, let’s use walkie-talkies

Lord-a-miytee

Re: One thing I hate

> years trying to find 28" waist 34"

Nuthin'!

29"x36". That's why my only footwear for more than twenty years has been boots.

HSBC online services still offline following 'attack' on bank

Lord-a-miytee
FAIL

Dear HMRC ...

Makes it a tad tricky to pay my tax bill, due by Sunday. If they do come back on line by then, what's the betting HSBC systems will fail to cope, due to demand from people in the same situation?

And don't blame me, blame my JIT accountant.

Big Brother is born. And we find out 15 years too late to stop him

Lord-a-miytee
Joke

Tinkerbell

I just typed 'tinkerbell' into Google maps, for a laugh. It took me to "Tinkerbell Privacy Resort", Thailand. I suppose that query is on The Database, now.

Let’s hear it for data scientists! Making our lives more and more frictionless

Lord-a-miytee

Re: overpaid, oversexed and over here

> I find the second hard to believe from my experience of people in IT

Are you kidding? An interest in bytes doesn't preclude an interest in bits, especially other people's. OK, it may correlate with an inability to get your hands on them, but that's beside the (rather uncomfortable) point.

Smartphones don’t dumb you down, they DUMB you UP

Lord-a-miytee

It's not just directions

Not so many years ago I was involved in a dispute with another driver who drove into me and made various outrageous claims about what had happened. In court, the judge finally lost patience and asked him why, in the face of road signs to the contrary, my adversary maintained that the speed limit was 50 mph, rather than 60. The answer was "because when I go over 50 the little green light on my Tomtom goes red".

I won.

I need a password to BRAKE? What? No! STOP! Aaaargh!

Lord-a-miytee

Re: windscreen wipers?

> THIS is how to drive a Volvo.

Very impressed that car claims to be lubricated with Vulvoline.

Apple Mac Pro: It's a death star, not a nappy bin, OK?

Lord-a-miytee
Stop

It's a kettle.

What's the matter with you all? Surely anyone can see that. I'll bet it even sizzles like a kettle when you fill it with water (if you can get enough Apple water).

Beijing fanboi in coma after iPhone 4 shock treatment

Lord-a-miytee

"Apple couldn’t immediately be reached for comment."

Did you try calling them?

After all, why would they not pick up the 'phone?

Five bods wrongly cuffed thanks to bungled comms snooping in UK

Lord-a-miytee

"Intercept product"???

Is nobody else disturbed that the concept of evidence has been expressed in the language of commerce and marketing? It's the most telling sign I've noticed of the recent movement towards 'commoditising' justice and liberty.

The bunker at the end of the world - in Essex

Lord-a-miytee

Re: 4 minute warning

Never mind the beer. If there's a barmaid to serve it I can think of something much more interesting to do with my last four minutes. In fact, in that time I could probably do it twice.

White wine stains your teeth too

Lord-a-miytee
Joke

Erm, dental research?

By Mr. Wolff?

Am I pointing out the elephant in the room?

Big TV flips ad blockers the bird

Lord-a-miytee
Unhappy

Advertisers are stealing from us.

If you foist adverts and advertising video on me you are stealing from me. Your are forcing me to pay the bandwidth for something I never asked for, and never wanted.

If, by blocking adverts, I 'hurt' the 'revenue model' then GOOD. Get another 'revenue model' that's acceptable.

EU squeals over US pre-flight personal data grab

Lord-a-miytee
Black Helicopters

Re: I stopped visiting Bushland ...

Interesting. i've *also* told my employer i'll not go to the USA. i felt oddly like a 'conscientious objector' as i did it. My manager's fine with this. Funniest thing is that my employer is a USA company. (They didn't hire me, by the way. They bought me. Along with half the company i worked for. In that truly democratic tradition we've all come to know, we had no vote.)

sis.

Running queries on the HMRC database fiasco

Lord-a-miytee
Coat

ID cards, Unique Identifiers.

So ID cards make data easier to tie together because they use a unique identifier, eh? What a spiffing idea. Especially as i've already got one of those. It's called a "National Insurance Number". In fact, i have another unique identifier. It's called a "National Health Number". Now i'm going to get a "National Dupe Number" too?

i'm leaving this farce of a country as soon as i have the wherewithal.

Oz barmaid fined for crushing beer cans between jubs

Lord-a-miytee

@Paul

i've lived in Aus. Even in the downtown bars of Kings Cross, Sydney, the bars had dustbins filled with cans in iced water. No taps. No optics. And the fascists charged a dollar to open one. It was cheaper to get into conversation with a hooker - the barman would open cans for her for nothing.

Fantastic country. Sadly i'm too old to emigrate now.

NASA gives jet-setting Googlers the presidential treatment

Lord-a-miytee

Page and Brin have "unusually-large Boeings"?

Really? Why? Do they have unusually small penises?

i hold telephone conferences from England to USA every day. Is the USA phone system so bad they have to put in a physical appearance? Perhaps they think their 'presence' is of such magnitude that nobody should be deprived of it. Are they so important to the world that they're allowed to destroy it?

To quote Vilos Cohaagen, "F*** 'em". From now on i use Yahoo.

Ah! Hang on ...

Google, Yahoo! and Amazon sued over email patent

Lord-a-miytee

Oh for Duck Steak ...

Isn't it time someone patented breathing?

Second Life will dwarf the web in ten years

Lord-a-miytee

Dreams within dreams

“In 25 years, robotics will be so good, we’ll have no more manufacturing jobs". Ah, Utopia! How long have i lived without your caress? How long has your dead breath staled mine ear?

Another one to file with the "paperless office", "the world of leisure", and "return to your constituencies and prepare for government".

i don't know Lanier's sense of humour, but i wish i'd been there to see if he really (thought) he believed it. Are you sure this wasn't uttered by his mendacious 'avatar' in a fictitious 'world'?

BTW, how long would it take to do something actually useful with "hundreds of millions" of computers? Like, say, finding a cure for cancer. Just a thought.

Rivals torture consumers via Microsoft

Lord-a-miytee

MS search works?

Have none of you used SharePunt? MS couldn't find their own rear entrance.

German Flickr censorship causes web outcry

Lord-a-miytee

Re: Wrong target?

Daniel,

Individuals do not affect government, commerce does. The only way for people to influence government is to put pressure on those who *can*. i.e. corporations, who can afford to 'lobby'.