* Posts by Tapeador

417 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Dec 2011

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Have PIXmania. In fact, have £59m with it too, Dixons tell German VCs

Tapeador

Re: No great loss

Lloyd, disputes over distance consumer sales within the EU are always triable in the courts of the country in which the consumer made the purchase. You're also covered by s75 of the Consumer Credit Act: if you paid by credit card and it was more than £100, your card provider would be jointly liable for the whole purchase price less a pro-rata deduction for use of the item based on fair expected lifetime (which is anything up to six years depending on the price paid). You may have a retrospective claim against your credit card provider - often they just cough up straight away over the phone. Alternatively, principles of European consumer law are virtually identical between major western European countries, both have to follow, e.g. the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations, and a minimum period of two years of 'conformity to contract', i.e suitability, and often durability etc are required of consumer goods across the EU.

In reality, under accepted international norms of contract law, you were owed a warranty AND the ordinary protections of the consumer law of France and the EU (as well as the s75 protections mentioned above): indeed this is precisely what you paid for, and weren't granted. These are very simple facts you can bring to a small claims court in the UK for a fee of £20. Bring the whole story. Provide the evidence you already have, and no more. And I do believe the judge will poo all over Pixmania and grant your claim against them, which you can then have fun enforcing, either through a bailiff or other means. That's if ringing your credit card provider and telling them what happened, won't work.

All of this assumes you didn't drop/abuse the camera, of course.

Nokia Lumia 1020: It's an imaging BEAST... and it makes calls too

Tapeador

Re: "Ann Frank's drum kit"

@Jemma

In addition to all the criticism levelled at you thus far, with which I thoroughly agree, I must point out that your statement

"Its a pet hate with me when people go off at half-educated-cock to protect one group of persecuted people yet usually are the same people who'll happily put the bums rush up the gypsies."

seeks to impute to the earlier commenter, hypocrisy which you have no evidence he/she possesses, based on your imagining he is probably intolerant of Roma. I wouldn't dignify such a risible assertion with even the designation of "fallacy". Being even half-educated might have prevented you from making it: alas...

Windows Phone overtakes Apple's market share ... in India

Tapeador

Re: Trolls @ Joe Montana

"Yes competition is good, but given how much microsoft have done to stifle competition in other markets there are many of us who want to avoid them ever getting any form of traction in other markets out of fear of the same things happening again."

Do you think firms engage in competition out of charitable goodwill to mankind? No! You as a commercial market actor engage in only as much competition as you must. If you could charge £10 million per year as your salary, you would. As it happens you're obliged to compete with other people presumably offering much less to provide what you do.

The only reason you're not complaining about Apple is they're a luxury goods maker. Customers of luxury goods makers queue up to be ripped off, that's the whole point. So nobody is accusing Apple of anticompetitive behaviour because they're simply not involved in markets for essential products. Their products are unless you're a graphic designer completely superfluous.

In MASSIVE surprise, world+dog discovers Nokia checked out Android

Tapeador

Re: Nokia becoming more like M$oft alredy

I'm not so sure.

You say "M$oft" but a lot of people aren't so... adolescent about things like $s. Don't you need $s? Or £s or something? Doesn't Apple need $s? We can't all be Linus Torwhatever he's called.

In reality Nokia could have gone to the wall and sacked all its staff. As it happens it's been bought by a company which has taken over its debts. Good news for people who like great Finnish tech.

Nokia's 41Mp Lumia 1020 'launches' in UK - but hoi polloi must wait

Tapeador
FAIL

Re: Game over already

I've seen a review comparing both and on detail the Nokia blows the Xperia Z1 out of the water.

http://www.tbreak.ae/features/camera-comparison-nokia-lumia-1020-vs-sony-xperia-z1

Intel reveals new Haswell-based Chrome OS kit from old, new partners

Tapeador

Does anyone know

whether it's possible to hack these things so they run Windows, and properly?

I need a lightweight Haswell Windows machine for university as only that will run the voice activated software I require in order to type more than a paragraph or two. Unfortunately the main lightweight Haswell machines thus far are nearly a grand a pop.

Microsoft's 'We want a Mac look and feel' UK director splits after seven years

Tapeador

@ David W Re: Can I just say

To my mind half the point of paying big money for a luxury good is to emphasise one's identity. At my law school, the lecture theatre is a sea of Macbook Airs, with some Pros chucked in. I know they're good hardware. But when *almost everybody* buys into the "I've bought an expensive creative tool and I'm therefore more unique and individual" then that almost everybody has actually divested him/herself, in equal measure, of the very individuality whose increase was sought. That's a fashion thing.

Incidentally OSX doesn't run the Dragon Naturallyspeaking software I need in order to function as an ordinary human being (massive RSI) and I returned my iPad because Apple wouldn't allow Swype install, making the tablet unusable for me. So a disutility for the disabled user on the one hand and a contempt for him on the other.

Aesthetics and utility are not coterminous, contrary to dogma doing the rounds.

Tapeador

Re: Can I just say @Tapeador

I suppose OSX interfaces might not be intrinsically hateworth, but iTunes and iOS most certainly is: replacing perfectly good text menus within apps with hip icons which obscure rather than reveal; I can think of little more inane and infuriating.

Tapeador

Can I just say

I use the "Windows 95" interface option in Windows 7's settings. As far as I am concerned Apple can fuck off and die. Obviously as far as everyone else is concerned Apple is the new Jehovah. But I can't think of a better reason to despise it.

New iPhones: C certainly DOESN'T stand for 'Cheap'

Tapeador

Re: A finger of fudge

You got there before me! I suppose the next question is how many fingers a year are lost this way. Come to think of it t the violent killing of the owner might precede digitectomy in a number of cases....

Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid: Eco, economy and diesel power

Tapeador
Windows

Re: 57mpg?

Save even more and get a petrol car and drive it gently. 1.4 VWs seem to get that at the mo. Or just get a small-engined diesel. My 1.4hdi Peugeot will get 80mpg on a run at lorry speeds.

Sony and Panasonic plan 300GB Blu-Ray replacement for 2015

Tapeador
FAIL

Re: Sony... Oh well.

Unfortunately with Sony's involvement you know that the format...

- will be priced absurdly high.

Who's pointing a gun to your head to buy it? Tell you what - when you're ready and overjoyed at working for $3 a day, then you can argue always-low prices for discretionary purchases have some positive moral content

- will be smothered with poorly implemented DRM.

Right, because who needs property rights? By the way, I'm confiscating your house. Freedom of the bricks-and-mortar superhighway, see? Enjoy.

- will arrive at least 2 years late.

Hey I thought you didn't want it anyway?

- will, 'for your protection and enjoyment', require the installation if a root kit (a 'rights management driver') if you want to play the disc on a PC.

See above.

- will have absurd amounts of non-skipable adverts, dire warnings about piracy killing kittens etc...

Because piracy only kills kittens, it has nothing to do with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs and careers in the arts, industries even, being destroyed.

No thanks.

Who cares what a cretin like you thinks anyway?

Fanbois smash iPhone 5s much sooner than iPhone 3s ... but WHY?

Tapeador

Re: Nokia!

In 2006 my Nokia E61 was on the passenger seat of my MKII VW Golf, whose rear footwells had filled with water to a depth of three inches (it happened when the air vents at the front would get blocked with leaves). Going round a bend, the phone shot off the seat and went splosh into the water. It filled up behind the screen and switched itself off :-( I took its bits off, put it in the airing cupboard for two weeks with a big pack of silica gel, and it worked. Seven years and many, many drops onto pavements later it still does. #bombproof.

Royston cops' ANPR 'ring of steel' BREAKS LAW, snarls watchdog

Tapeador

I've been to Royston and

can assure you 24hr ANPR is proportionate...

Apple drops hints about future low-cost iPhones

Tapeador
FAIL

Maybe instead of calling it an iPhone

They can call it [insert some stupid and unhelpful icon here] as with their horrible non-textual graphical interface.

Then they can lock it down good and proper so disabled users can't load UI mod apps which are standard fare on Android. Oh, wait, they did that already.

Boffins want toilets to become POWER PLANTS

Tapeador

Aaaah

piss on ya

Russian mobile operators say 'nyet!' to Apple, 'da!' to Samsung

Tapeador

Re: What surprises me is

Illegal immigration, dufus. At least according to Nijel Faraj, leader of RKIP.

Nokia tears wrapper off Lumia 1020 monster imaging mobe

Tapeador
Stop

Aber doch, mein freund... http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheridan01/8668783444/sizes/k/in/photostream/

Tapeador

Re: No memory card, fixed battery

I dunno, 32gb will give, oh, 700-800 shots at full resolution? Please don't tell me that's what you take in a day of casual use! Yes I suppose the battery might run out some way before the max. Then there is the clip-on battery/camera grip to help. And there are a lot of 'mobile external battery' products on the market which could extend things further. Plus Nokia have always been the masters of super-long battery life - I'd be surprised if they'd given that up just by going Windows.

Pirate Bay bod and pals bag $100k to craft NSA-proof mobe yammer app

Tapeador
Mushroom

re: safe for whom? Anyone involved in illegal activities?

Well exactly. Spot on. Those posting below are essentially paranoid fantasists: they think companies want to and will risk prosecution for listening to their phone calls and reading their texts. They think exes will hack their information and somehow use it to paint them as a worse human being than that which they actually are (or expose them for being a total bastard). They think da gubmint actually gives a monkeys about anything they have to say to one another.

And most of all, they think their petty, wrongheaded fictions more worth responding to than the imperatives of keeping us safe from actual threats, i.e. terrorism and large-scale organised crime.

States aren't built on privacy: they're built on the protection of life and property. The thieving Pirate Bay scum writing this thing may value the former over the latter two, but I'd vouch that's because they're the ones taking other people's property without paying for it, who actually ARE likely to be targeted, quite rightly, by law enforcement authorities. There is no such similar benefit for the idiots who've paid for this.

T-Mobile to let US customers swap phones twice a year

Tapeador

I just think of the old articles which said a used phone is dirtier than a bag of poo or something...

Sleek Nokia Lumia details EXPOSED ahead of Thursday's disrobing

Tapeador

Want

that one

Seven snazzy smartphones for seven sorts of shoppers

Tapeador
Stop

Re: staff unfailingly polite, helpful and eager

Ah, now the warranty Apple provides is a totally separate promise over and above some very powerful statutory rights which you possess.

Now the 2yr minimum is indeed in effect only a guideline, you're right - but falls below the protections typically obtaining within English law, which tell you that you may expect goods to work properly for up to six years, depending on how much you paid. The EU measure is that the goods must 'conform to contract' for two years, i.e. be reasonably durable etc. The measurement of reasonable lifespan applicable in English law (and likely applicable in EU law), is really how long it's reasonable to expect something to last given all relevant considerations including the price.

What isn't applicable in measuring the reasonable lifespan is the consumer's mistaken beliefs as to how little they're owed by the retailer!

However as a failsafe, it's always important to pay on a UK credit card when buying goods over £100 - as the credit card provider is jointly liable for the goods fulfilling all the above criteria: so when a £400 iPad goes kaput after a year and Apple don't want to know, then, if you don't fancy taking them to small claims court, you can just ring up your credit card provider, and they'll ordinarily pay out a refund then and there with a pro-rata deduction for usage against the expected lifespan. So your £400 iPad will probably have an expected life of three or four years, against which they'll deduct one year. So £266 or £300 as a refund.

US Navy coughs $34.5m for hyper-kill railgun that DOESN'T self-destruct

Tapeador

Erm, curvature of the earth, anyone?

Surely if you shoot something for 200 miles the curvature of the earth will preclude straight-line firing, not to mention the position of the earth changing during the projectile travel?

Labels to get, count them, 0.13 cents per play on Apple iRadio

Tapeador
FAIL

Re: RIAA are you listening?

Well, precisely.

Piracy has meant only business models with a user price near enough to zero can provide an appealing alternative to piracy to your average freetard.

Let's suppose thieves take one of your kidneys without your permission (are we getting empathetic now?) - and also a kidney from everyone in the UK, likewise. Or perhaps just from everybody involved in the film and music industries in any way. Everyone who previously needed a kidney can get one cheap because there are so many available, which their new owners didn't have to invest their lives into producing. It is so easy to get a kidney that only those who price at next to nothing can make a sale. The price of a kidney becomes $0.0013. Does this mean that the damage the thieves caused could be quantified at $0.0013?

Clue - no.

Anons: We milked Norks dry of missile secrets, now we'll spaff it online

Tapeador
Mushroom

Er...

So releasing documents which help instruct on how to build a nuke will somehow help world peace...?

Shurely shome mishtake?

Nokia Lumia 925: The best Windows Phone yet

Tapeador
Black Helicopters

Re: I don't want a US spy in my pocket.

"...without reporting back to big brother"

So you think...

Kim Dotcom victim of 'largest data MASSACRE in history'

Tapeador
Stop

Re: The feds are not going to stop themselves

"Not to defend the corrupt evil practices of the Sony's of the world"

What are those evil practices? Paying for artists to work to create joy for you? Oh yeah, really evil.

Tapeador
WTF?

Re: Accusation should not equal guilt

"Purely as a matter of interest, if you were to be accused of a crime, which country would you prefer to be in?

The UK and Sweden are out since so many cretins believe that they are both subservient to US law (Assange). Perhaps you would prefer France where you only get a jury trial if the offence carries a sentence of 15 years or more."

The UK has a European arrest warrant for Assange issued by Sweden. Not by the USA. The UK is a sovereign state in which the rule of law including the right to a fair trial is absolutely sacrosanct - much more so than the USA. That's why - unlike the American public defender system - we spend a fortune on the very best lawyers to defend the worst criminals; that's why it has taken us 10 years and running to deport Abu Qatada.

Tapeador

Re: Accusation should not equal guilt

"And at that it is only an accusation. Sure, in the United States, accusation is operationally equivalent to guilt. However, it should not be. We have both a right and a duty to demand better."

I see. So if I hold up grocery stores, the cops can't take away my guns or restrain me or keep me from fleeing or take the stolen cash off me until a jury says so?

My point is this is a case about massive harm to copyright holders which is ongoing. Then there is the matter of the criminal charges against an individual. They're linked issues but require different handling.

We want to put a KILL SWITCH into your PHONE, say Feds

Tapeador
WTF?

Re: Bad idea

"Do you trust your government?"

To do what? To carry out the primary duty of government, which is to create an environment within which we can reasonably seek a good life for ourselves, by it in part combatting crime and terrorism? Well every time I read that it's been doing this, such as by properly snooping on internet users, I trust it more; and every time I fear it may listen to people like you who would forego and protest against every protection against a Hobbesian state of nature, I trust it less. Why should an object or transmission portal being high-tech render it somehow sacrosanct as though it were some sovereign space beyond the reach of any state?

The Reg's best-looking reader reveals list of jobs for the beautiful

Tapeador

Re: Good looking on Radio

"No, I shall not sir. To do so would be ungallant!"

Was just thinking the same thing.

Although that James Naughtie bird is definitely a bit of a minger

Whitehall grants copyright pirates safe haven until 2015

Tapeador
FAIL

Still waiting for that legal alternative that is as good as the illegal offering..

You fucking what?

"I steal because those who wish to charge me haven't yet found a way to offer products to me at the same low zero cost to me of my theft".

Apple's two-factor security isn't as good as Microsoft or Google's, say experts

Tapeador
Happy

Ha ha

That is all

Belarus becomes world's top country ... for SPAM

Tapeador

Re: why not

Gas pipeline :-/

Also cutting off information flow helps its present dictatorship.

Living with a 41-megapixel 808 PureView: Symbian's heroic last stand

Tapeador

No swype-type keyboard = completely useless for me

long-term RSI means I can't do tappy-tappy on a phone without lots of pain so this wouldn't be viable. looks great otherwise (if i but had the dosh..)

BMW offers in-car streaming music for cross-Europe road trips

Tapeador

it's not spelt rara

it's spelt rah rah, dahling

O2 brushed off outsourcing 'rumour' - but it's happening ... to THOUSANDS

Tapeador
Meh

What's the purpose of O2 now anyway?

I mean, they're bloody expensive, they use half the bandwidth of other mobile providers (so making a call sounds like making a long-distance call in the 1960s in a thunderstorm), their customer service is now going to be rubbish, I'm not seeing a raison d'etre.

Prankster 'Superhero' takes on robot traffic warden AND WINS

Tapeador
Devil

@TeeCee Re: Get yourself issued with two notices for two different car parks at the same time

No you can't be "done" for attempting to pervert the course of justice if you tell the truth, because the burden is on the prosecution to prove their claims to an extremely high level of certainty (i.e. "beyond a reasonable doubt"), not on you to prove your innocence - Woolmington v DPP (the famous "golden thread running through the criminal law"). Given your claim is true, the prosecution cannot prove it is not. If law enforcement agencies don't have the means of distinguishing such cases from those in which an individual is being dishonest, the principle of habeas corpus tells us that's a problem for the agency (and society) but not the defendant.

However in this instance, insurance policies are all centrally recorded: there would be a record of the Aussie's insurance for the period concerned. If they didn't have insurance, an affidavit would suffice. Car icon for obv reasons lol

Apple chief Cook: You - senators. Get in here and redo this tax law

Tapeador

They're not rebranders of Foxconn,

they're rebranders of Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, Ltd.

Murdoch Facebook gloat: You're like my $580m, 'CRAPPY' MySpace

Tapeador

It's not a Gerald Ratner moment

because Ratner owned Ratners, whereas Mudcrock doesn't own MySpace.

British LulzSec hackers hear jail doors slam shut for years

Tapeador

Re: "endangerment of life"

How is it not endangerment of life to divert to repairing vandalism, resources which would otherwise be spent on looking after the public?

Tapeador

@ David WilsonRe: Crime != Punishment

Agreed.

Not just stupid because forbidden. Forbidden because wrong. What those advocating such attacks - indeed all of those attacks for which the lulzsec-ers were convicted - seem not to realise is the government isn't just some autonomous organisation. It *IS* the people. Agent, representative, protector, and personification.

What kind of pirate are you: Justified, transgressor or just honest?

Tapeador

Re: They missed "Impatient Bastard"

"I'll usually order a CD online and then fire up bitTorrent and download it. I know I could probably use a service like iTunes for more instant gratification, but I do prefer having a physical backup of my property."

The "honesty-box" market model you describe, i.e. individuals voluntarily deciding to pay for things, is not a market model at all. Markets require individuals to have to pay if they want their desire to be fulfilled.

Politically-correct 'Fairphone' goes on pre-sale next week

Tapeador

I say fraud

These things don't exist yet. The history of 'invest in our amazing not-yet-in-existence and yet soon-to-be-mass-produced cheap laptop/tablet/etc' is a history of massive cost and time over-runs, bankruptcies, and outright frauds.

If you're selling a mass-produced consumer item which doesn't exist yet, you sell it to resellers or rebranders or investors. If they don't want to buy then it's probably for a good reason.

If you sell to end-users, that's a whole new business entirely.

You as retailer have to spend the same money again for marketing, customer service, sales, aftersales, repairs, replacements. The sheer unaffordability of that alone should put off anyone from buying a phone from a clearly soon-to-be-bankrupt company.

Barnes & Noble bungs Raspberry Pi-priced Nook on shelves

Tapeador

Re: alternatively...

"a lifetime ban from Amazon (plus immediate revoking of rights to acces all exisitng kindle "purchases")"

while they can do the former, they could be estopped from doing the latter (legal term meaning 'prevented by a court, under its 'fairness-related' jurisdiction, from going back on a promise which you relied on to your expense/detriment'). that would be expensive for them both financially and reputationally. alternatively it could be an unfair term per the unfair terms in consumer contract regulations, and again they'd be dragged through the courts and lose.

Tapeador

android apps

actually yes, mine has opera mini installed and a few other bits

http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/NOOK-Talk/How-to-root-a-new-Nook-Simple-Touch-running-1-2-1/td-p/1429199

Huawei preps new mobes to overhaul Apple

Tapeador

Re: I've said it before, but I still think it's funny

lol it's not "haway" as in "haway the lads". it's wah-way. which ok i suppose is similar. pet.

Tapeador
Facepalm

Re: Pronunciation

it's not hooaway u fule ;-) it's "wah - way".

8 in 10 small UK firms hacked last year - at £65k a pop: Report

Tapeador

Re: I expect more from the Register than this

Quite so. 80% of SMEs paying £35-65k - nonsense.

Probably 50% of SMEs don't even have that as TURNOVER.

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