* Posts by Andy Fletcher

407 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jun 2007

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Climate change even worse than you thought: It causes war and murder

Andy Fletcher

And here's me

hearing that hotter periods were (in the past) more economically productive. So you had the cash to raise big armies, and because you didn't have language or culture in common with other countries you picked fights with them.

Whereas now, the language and cultural barriers are being erroded and will eventually disappear. So we can spend our money trading with each other. Basically, I don't see it.

Hundreds of UK CSC staff face chop, told to train Indian replacements

Andy Fletcher

This happened to my brother in law

He helped train developers off shore prior to his redundancy. He has a masters in computational mathematics.

One year later the company rang him and begged him to come back. He did. I told him he might consider telling them where to stick it.

Boffins: We have FOOLED APPLE with malware app

Andy Fletcher

So you should only really use an Apple© charger

Apple will be pissed to hear that I'm sure.

Kids LIE about age on Facebook, gasps Brit ad watchdog

Andy Fletcher

Shopkeepers?

I got served in the pub at 13 (I was 6 feet tall at that age and my mate even taller). Same pub and a lot of pints later they actually got around to asking for some ID on my 18th birthday, so I popped home and got it. The guy's face was priceless when he uttered "you're joking....today?". Lied about my age to start working a year earlier too and that meant I got into the company's management program at 17 which wasn't supposed to happen.

My kids on the other hand I don't think ever managed to buy alcohol underage. My daughter still gets challenged at 21.

BOFH: Don't be afraid - we won't hurt your delicate, flimsy inkjet printer

Andy Fletcher

Our bookkeeper....

...came in with one of those £20 violations of reason made by Lexmark. You know, the ones that cost less than half the price of the cartridges they need. I think cost per sheet of A4 it produced worked out about a tenner.

He comes upstairs and gets his stuff of the laserjet these days.

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

Andy Fletcher

Re: Hm

Stopped buying Sony Ericsson for this very reason. Had two, broke two, both within 6 months. Never had any trouble with Nokia's of course (still have two in a drawer somewhere). Treat my Nexus like a new born baby, but know at some point it's going to fall off/in/out of something.

ISPs: Relax. Blocking porn online won't really work

Andy Fletcher

Doubt it

The indications seem to be no-one in government can even spell "ISP". They probably refer to G as "one of the internets".

Andy Fletcher

I thought about filtering

and couldn't think of anything that could go wrong. Then I decided not to give up so easily and thought of about 200 things.

Prohibition has never, and will never, be an effective means of modifying human behavior.

The fact it's a waste of time & money most certainly does not mean the government should do it anyway. Who's logic is that? This is my money we're talking about. Please do something worthwhile, or stop taking it.

Burger-rage horse dumps on McDonald's: Rider saddled with fat fine

Andy Fletcher

My son works at McDonalds

Customer asked him (with a manager in earshot) whether horsemeat had been found in the burgers. He (quite honestly I thought) replied "Not yet". The manager was a tad upset about it.

WAR ON PORN: UK flicks switch on 'I am a pervert' web filters

Andy Fletcher

Since when

has censorship been proven an effective way of modifying human behavior. Fuck this shit.

UK parliament presses for pardon for Alan Turing

Andy Fletcher

Re: Turing is a national hero ... but I don't agree

@ JimmyPage Completely agree. Doing this so we can feel better about ourselves is an insult to the victim.

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

Andy Fletcher

Desperate times...

always seem to make vendors believe screwing their own channel partners will get them out of a hole. Don't Apple have anyone with an economics qualification working for them?

Unreal: Epic’s would-be Doom... er... Quake killer

Andy Fletcher

Anyone who never managed...

The strafe jump from the Rocket Platform to the Railgun Platform on Q3DM6 can lick my balls.

Google loses Latitude in Maps app shake-up

Andy Fletcher

Re: Google Maps? What Google Maps?

Unclear as to why paying for a product getting you something better than a free one is confusing.

I use navigation on my phone offline - if I set my destination before setting off (while I'm still on WiFi) it works just fine. Just don't get the voice prompts.

Put up your ... err ... hand for free vasectomy streamed online

Andy Fletcher

Re: Sadly, a decade to late

@ James12345 you big girls blouse! I had local for mine. They even gave me a top up when I screamed during the first incision so it all worked out.

No problems afterwoods. Highly recommend getting one.

Oh and over population? Myth. In any case, if we're going to control it with vasectomies we'll see all the economically productive and higher IQ people die out. Not sure how that's supposed to be helpful.

OFFICIAL: Humans will only tolerate robots as helpful SLAVES

Andy Fletcher

Mark my words

Robots are just after our jobs and our wimmin.

Hitch climate tax to the actual climate, says top economist

Andy Fletcher

Re: A better formula that makes more sense to me....

"Forests absorb greenhouse gas! "

No they don't.

I'm confused. Either you don't believe trees are made of carbon, or you don't believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Can't tell which though. Do think setting tax levels based on the number of trees has a Golgafrinchan ring to it.

UK data cops to Google: You've got three months to sort out privacy

Andy Fletcher

I don't get it either

They made the terms simpler and clearer. I actually understand them now, which I didn't before, by dint of the fact that (like I assume 99.9% of people) I wasn't going to read several pages of legal jargon before using their search engine. Making things more complex hardly ever improves them.

And yes, that cookie nonesense is simply ridiculous. Complete waste of a lot of time.

Droid X2 plus ActiveSync equals DATA SLURP

Andy Fletcher

Re: Of course

@Confuciousmobil find myself agreeing. I like my Nexus 4, but I'm bitterly disappointed it's not possible to install apps on the phone (the conditions of use are ALWAYS unacceptable).

D-Wave IS QUANTUM, insist USC scientists

Andy Fletcher

After purchase discussion

Larry Page: "When can I see this quantum computer we spent all that money on then?"

BOFH: "We're not sure, but we are certain where you can see it."

Nominet resurrects second-level namespace plan: 'Before you say no...'

Andy Fletcher

As a testament to the fact a .uk address has nothing to do with credibilty

I happen to own one.

Schwarzenegger says 'I'll be back' for Terminator 5 reboot

Andy Fletcher

I have a complaint

The usage of the word "script" seems wildly inappropriate.

Yahoo! announces last hurrah of ancient AltaVista search

Andy Fletcher

I laughed

When Yahoo! shut down their directory. Then someone clearly realised taking $300 from the gullible was actually a pretty good idea and re-opened it.

iOS7 headshaking interface revealed

Andy Fletcher

Android face unlock - staring for a few seconds?

Mine works faster than I could swipe to unlock or enter a pin. Someone's "doing it wrong". I thought that was just for Apple stuff ;)

Even Microsoft couldn't crack it, but eHow daddy still wants to try it

Andy Fletcher

I own some websites no-one's heard of as well

Haven't managed to sell any for $94m though. Hats off.

ASA bans Samsung's 'misleading' free Galaxy Tab 2 ad

Andy Fletcher

Re: Advert Speak and meanings

My favourite

90% fat free - 10% fat

Boffins create tabletop ANTIMATTER GUN

Andy Fletcher

Next story

New Zealand police attempt to ban the downloading of anti matter weapons for use with 3d printers

UK telcos chuck another £1m at online child abuse watchdog

Andy Fletcher

illegal for anyone to actively seek child pornography

Presumably not everybody. If you want to spend all day looking at it presumably the IWF would be your employer of choice.

And when did pron become illegal?

MPs demand UK rates revamp after Google's 'extraordinary tax mismatch'

Andy Fletcher

Re: why in God's name would anyone bother?

You know that's rubbish right there. The company would spend the $9b in both and make $3b. No-one walks away from $1bn in profits no matter how loud they cry that they would.

I'm with the "just abolish it" crowd on corporation tax. They can't fix it and they know it so just stop doing it. UK businesses can stop suffering this completely unfair system. Google won't need to offshore, so ther'll be more jobs here - where they should be - serving the UK market.

So, who ought to be the next Doctor Who? It's up to YOU...

Andy Fletcher

Boris Johnson

Obviously.

Google nuke thyself: Mountain View's H.264 righteous flame-out

Andy Fletcher

Re: Google not evil enough

"too concerned with scraping the pennies"

I like how Google can't win with you no matter what they do. From my perspective they went with what was best for the user - something they are embarrassingly good at on a lot of fronts. I'm not too sure you managed to argue that that's a bad way to do business.

'Nothing will convince a kid that's never worn glasses to wear them'

Andy Fletcher

The youth of today

Really? I remember our first colour TV set and people saying that was a gimmick that wouldn't catch on. Holy shit I am old.

Drupal hacked, resets passwords after millions of accounts exposed

Andy Fletcher

Re: Somewhat annoying

For me as a user it's not a biggy - I can use Drupal's CMS without having to have an account on their site.

On the other hand, core and module developers at Drupal clearly have permissions that enable them to change core and module code. If either suffered a compromise that's a lot more serious. I'm going to be following the story for sure.

Andy Fletcher

Somewhat annoying

Within an hour of getting the e-mail from Holly my mailbox started to collect SPAM at quite an alarming rate. The Drupal forums appear to be beset with users requesting their accounts be closed and deleted.

Shit happens, I'm certainly not going to stop using the platform for one incident.

62,000 fewer shops: Welcome to the High Street of 2018

Andy Fletcher

Re: Classic government

Mate of mine closed his retail business this year. 18 people lost their jobs.

I don't normally drop links, in fact never have before now but if anyone wants to really raise their blood pressure, have a read. I was totally horrifed - he literally built the business with his bare hands.

May threatens ban on 'hate-inciting' radicals, even if they don't promote violence

Andy Fletcher

Less freedom eh?

I'm fairly certain this is the goal of the Jihadists. I thought we DIDN'T cave into terrorists - seem to remember hearing that last week.

Boffins' brilliant plan: CONCRETE COMPUTERS

Andy Fletcher

I'd like to see some evidence please

Guess which kind.

Oi, butterfingers! Drop your mobe in a pint? Hope it's not an iPhone

Andy Fletcher

Destruction tests

When I was at Bell, a rep from Panasonic turned up one day to punt Toughbooks. To show just who was boss he invited us all out to the car park and promptly drove his BMW over his own Toughbook. It was in a pretty bad state when he was done, but blow me down the thing still booted.

'Catastrophic failure' of 3D-printed gun in Oz Police test

Andy Fletcher

Couldn't agree more

Whether we like it or not, society makes a choice with those 5% of road deaths where speed is a contribtor. We could eliminate them completely if the speed limit was zero. We don't do it because the economic consequences would be so dire we'd kill more people (because we'd be poor). A lot more people.

We can remove the threat of a killing with a printed gun if we like. That's not an answer for me - we'll miss out on the economic benefits of the technology.

Ed Miliband brands Google's UK tax avoidance 'WRONG'

Andy Fletcher

Re: Easy, just abolish corporation tax

I'm not sure why I don't hear this more often. As far as I can tell it's the only way to fix this issue so domestic business can compete, which surely means more jobs, which surely means more PAYE.

Microsoft reveals Xbox One, the console that can read your heartbeat

Andy Fletcher

Re: What a terrible name

Apple? "Introducing the iPhone5 - the 6th iPhone". I'm amazed any of these big tech firms pay their marketing people anything at all.

Chocolate Factory chucks out Checkout

Andy Fletcher

Glad it's closing

It's been awful - nowhere near the quality I expected it to be, and no-one seemed to want to use it.

My firm had a pitiful quantity of customers use it, and of those over 50% resulted in chargebacks. This despite the assurances from Google that the payments were good and we should ship the goods. It's been an expensive exercise in futility.

Give porno danger classes to Brit kids as young as FIVE - parents

Andy Fletcher

Please leave the Internet alone

Letting a five year old loose on the net is essentially the same thing as letting them wander the streets alone. Some streets may be safe, but not all of them worldwide. I'm not into parent bashing really but this is down to them. I took/take responsibility for what my kids did online while they were growing up.

Climate scientists agree: Humans cause global warming

Andy Fletcher

Bored

Hearing about it. It was vaguely amusing when they changed the name from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change" so all bases are covered (temperature changing in any way up or down can be used as a stick).

AFAIK I'm ALREADY paying 30-50% of my utility bill towards supporting so called green policies that I have no faith in and would not fund had I the choice.

Regardless of what any poll says, I'm still going with Lomborgs figures. $1 spent on CO2 reductions yields 20c in benefits. $1 spent on HIV prevention & research yields $20 in benefits. Making ourselves poorer is the WORST way to cope with a changing climate. Telling Africa it can't burn coal (making it stay poor) is a horrific thing to do.

Why UK slid £150m to tax-exempt phone-mast master Arqiva

Andy Fletcher

Maybe it's just me

But it feels like we sold all our utilities to private companies, but we continue to fund them with public money.

There's something inherently wrong here. The whole point of privatising is surely that private companies will invest in things that are economically viable and will net them some profits. Public funds shouldn't be used at all. If they don't make money, that's their bloody problem, not mine. If the service they are providing is truly in the national interest, we probably should have hung onto the damn thing in the first place.

Android is a mess and needs sprucing up, admits chief

Andy Fletcher

Don't see anything new

My Vodafone Sony Ericsson phone was a piece of shit till I put Sony's firmware on it and suddenly it just "worked". Same with pretty much all the handsets I've had actually. I don't see Samsung messing with the OS any different to a network operator doing it. And it always ends up crappier than it should be by definition.

This was one of the reasons I got a Nexus. Haven't had cause for regret so far.

German govt DUMPS 170 NEW PCs riddled with Conficker

Andy Fletcher

Can we have the location

of their bins please.

How smart does your desk phone need to be?

Andy Fletcher

Re: I have an IP phone on my desk.

Damn, I thought it was only my boss who rang and asked "did you get the e-mail I sent you".

Google's Schmidt calls for 'DELETE from INTERWEBS' button

Andy Fletcher

Re: I'm sorry?

Not sure what you are driving at. There are pages older than 10 years beyond counting that are still well worth seeing. No way is Google going to de-index content based on age. And rightly so.

US Labor Dept website serving malware to innocent visitors

Andy Fletcher

CMS?

Be nice to say a little bit about what platform the site is running on if we're talking about a vuln which presumably we are.

@Eadon - for pity's sake, I thought we all knew many attacks appear to come from China because of the abundance of insecure machines out there. The "hackers" can be anywhere, and are more than likely right here or in the US or Germany.

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