Posts by Amorous Cowherder

Google: Now your mom will try to sell you toilet paper

Re: I am willing to pay to be freed from this madness

Because my pretty you and more importantly your habits, are believe or not worth a hell of a lot more than 40 quid a year to the marketing-droids!

Re: a side-effect I can see

Right, I'll start by not trusting your opinion for s start and form my own!

Re: whatever will they do next...

"The gran plan it seems is to elimnate our privacy and anonyminty."

What are you stupid? That was the plan since the day Messrs Serge and Brin first had an idea at college. I accept that when I use Google every keystroke I put through to them is monitored and collated for later use, it's the price we pay to use their services. Don't want to pay? Don't use it but you'll be hard pushed to find any search services that are not paid for in this way.

Simply shove in AdBlock+ and FlashBlock and that will stop the cack on screen, then only submit to the engines exactly whatever you need to to get the info you want back.

Facebook RIPS away your veil of privacy, declares NO MORE HIDING

Exactly!

When are people going to wake up and realise the days of the internet being a free wild-west, last frontier of freedom are long gone! It got owned by the corps many moons ago and they've got your "number" well and truly marked and catalogued in one of their neat little categories. If the marketers haven't got you yet then PRISM has the backups just in case!

Nothing wrong with Facebook....

.,...just like the rest of the internet, don't share anything you wouldn't share without your worst enemy!

Canadian operator EasyDNS stands firm against London cops

Stolen IP eh?

I wonder if next time some scumbag decides to clone one of my photos as their own will the Plod leap into action demanding takedowns and such like? I mean my taxes to the HMRC pay their wages, unlike the modern day robber ( medja ) barons who are so wronged by these torrent sites, so surely I'm entitled to some service from Mr Plod when I'm wronged?

Microsoft store staff to hold all night vigil for Surface 2

Re: Who would queue up at midnight for this?

I remember when they opened the one in Thurrock, we happened to wander in on the day and they scared the crap out of my little girl ( I think she was 5 or 6 at the time ) and she bawled her eyes out, then she when they offered her a balloon she hid behind us from them! Ha ha! Should have made a big enough fuss could have got my name in the Daily Fail, "Apple Employees in Child Abuse Shame Shocker!"!

MI5 boss: Snowden leaks of GCHQ methods HELPED TERRORISTS

Why?

So Mr MI5 if you have no desire to look through the personal info of everyday bods, let me ask you one simple question. Why on earth do you need to collect it in the first bloody place?!

I'll be honest Johnny lad, if you really want to know what my Aunt and cousins think of my photography skills on Facebook, help yourself! However as a seriously pissed-off tax-payer I think there are too many old people going cold, too many homeless kipping on street corners and too many mothers and kids being kicked about by abusive fathers for you to go squandering my money on this all this info gathering and achieving absolutely bugger all from it!

Be prepared... to give heathens a badge: UK Scouts open doors to unbelievers

Call the Police!

"Surely the Police should investigate the recruiting of kids into this junior pro-Christian para-military training organisation, purely on the grounds of anti-terrorism!", I jokingly said to my wife when our daughter joined Beavers. I just got the rolling eyes from my wife and a blank look from my daughter! Ha ha!

Microsoft watches iPads flood into world's offices: Right, remote desktop clients. It's time

Re: I'm still baffled as to how anyone can do proper work on a tablet.

You can't do anything serious but I always thought Citrix did a pretty good job on my Android tablet. When I get caught on the hop while on-call I can drop into systems and do the odd bit of DB work to keep things ticking along, especially useful when the family clan and I fancy a day out at the seaside I don't have to lug a laptop.

4 Brits cuffed after shutdown of internet drug shop Silk Road

Re: They can take my drugs...

Now our all powerful overlords in the UK Gov have bloody good excuse to start trying to have TOR shut down 'cos of all this Silk Road malarky making it into the Daily Fail and upsetting the Middle England crowd!

Billionaire dumps Apple stock because Steve Jobs was 'really awful' guy

Re: @tkioz jerks we have known

When are people going to get it?

Like I say to everyone, especially my kids who think Apple, Nike, etc are great, these are companies, not bloody charities! Their sole purpose for existence is to make money for their owners. You don't get squillions of dollars in the bank by being Mr or Mrs Nice-Guy. You get to own whole islands, flipping huge houses and boats by offering the minimum you can get away with paying the plebs you employ and ultimately by being a mean, hard-nosed bastard. The way you see it from the top is that everyone you employ is taking the bread from your kid's mouths and you owe them absolutely nothing more than you have to by law. This is the way it always been since the dawn of commerce! It was only during the industrial revolution, when mass production took off and these hard-nosed nutters realised just how stinking wealthy they could get off the labour from us plebs.

That's why it's obvious that all this brand loyalty is absolute bull-crap dreamed up by marketers employed by company owners to get sales. When are people going to learn that SONY, Apple, NIke, MaccyD, give less than a rat's fart about them and more about the fact that you love the products, recommend them and thus they can make more money!

Apple iMac 27-inch 2013: An extra hundred quid for what exactly?

It was nice to have a Mac but when it got too long the tooth after 5 years use I went back to Windows and I must say I am actually enjoying Windows again now using Windows 7. Sure the clean design of OSX and the gorgeous screen on my iMac are nice to have but I simply can't afford the silly premiums Apple want on their kit, so Dabs and Billy Gates got my money.

Congrats on MP3ing your music... but WHY bother? Time for my ripping yarn

Re: CD's are nothing

Me and my ever so patient wife spent the best part of 2 months working through our CD collection, in the end we got a grand total of around 45,000 MP3s in two libraries, hers ( all Coldplay, Micheal Bolton and Mel & Kim ) and mine ( Iron Maiden, Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel )!

We also spent 5 months ripping our DVD collection too ( inlcuding all out youngun's DVDs too ). I spent a week with dozens of Handbrake command line options finding a suitable format that would work on Mac, PC, Apple TV, iPad, iPod, iPhone, Android tablets and phones! We ended up around 7TB of movies and TV shows stored across 2 mirrored NAS boxes. You know what? I sit down on a Saturday evening flick through the library and invariably give up and utter the acursed phrase, "I can't find anything to watch love!".

Once you commit you just have to see it through to the bitter end! It's way better now, the house has no physical media on show as it's all piled 7ft high in lots of teetering towers in the spare room. Out of sight, out of mind!

All rivers flow into the sea: Apple holds TEN PER CENT of corporate America's dosh

The thought that springs to mind is Mr Adams' famous line about the little green pieces of paper and their happiness!

NSA's Project Marina stores EVERYONE'S metadata for A YEAR

Re: How stupid does the NSA think we are?

"they actually are naive enough to think the media will lie and just parrot what they say"

Yes, they do. The US government blackmailed all the media outlets they could during the various recent wars they were in. If you didn't toe the government line, your agency got frozen-out, no special treats for you media corp like having reporters in the units going into battle.

Do yourselves a favour and watch John PIlger's documentaries.

Google: Thanks for the billions in revenue, UK. Here are your taxes, that's ... £11m

Comical

It's so stupid, only paying £11m, to be comical. I would say it's gone beyond a joke but sadly it hasn't got that far yet!

Watch BLUBBERING BILLION-DOLLAR BALLMER: Microsoft goodbye love-gush leaks

Sorry, but when I see Ballmer I think Del-Boy!

"Gawd blimey darling. What I have 'ere is all kosher, no don't laugh love! It's all pukka stuff, no not made in Japan or China but the technology manufacturing captial of the world, Uzbekistan! Now I'm not askin' a pony, a donkey or a zebra, to you darling...a fiver! Go on, you're robbing me blind!"

Apple iOS 7 makes some users literally SICK. As in puking, not upset

Re: A split personality release

I can't watch 3D TVs, I tried two types and within around 30 seconds my eyes start to hurt, my vision goes slightly blurred and it gets quite uncomfortable.

Looks like I'll be sticking with Android when my contract comes up for renewel next month!

Full Steam Ahead: Valve unwraps plans for gaming hardware

Re: Watching with interest

"modern games have to be deliberately dumbed down"

I'm glad someone else has raised this point. When a company writes and released a multi-platform title is has to work on the lowest common demoninator, ie the controller with the least number of buttons. Add to this the need to ensure that the title reaches the widest audience possible because the company is beholden to the shareholders.

The Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim is a fine and fun game but the reward and interaction systems have been toned down in order to a) be multi-platform portable and b) reach an audience that may not have played RPGs before.

EasyJet wanted to fling me off flight for diss tweet, warns cyber-law buff

Re: What a tw@

Right, so no one is allowed to complain, regardless if they think they're right or wrong? Bollocks! If I wish to make a complete bellend of myself in public then I have the full weight of "public free speech" behind me! You think we should all simply bow down, toe the line and behave like good little automatons and do as we are told, never complain, never step out of line?

There may well be consequences to actions such as an argument or being hauled away to calm down but attitudes like yours are exactly why fecking jumped-up security guards are full of it, their tiny addled brains barely able to cope with putting a leg in leg-hole of their trousers in the morning but give them a high-viz jacket with SECURITY written on the back and they think they're the last bastion of order in a world of lawless chaos! To them, they are always right and you are always wrong. If you like that way then I suggest you move yourself to a country that excels in curtailing freedom of speech, you'll feel right at home.

Google tentacle slips over YouTube comments: Now YOUR MUM is at the top

Google+ ?

Is that still running or available?!

Report says PRISM snooped on India's space, nuclear programs

Is there anything PRISM didn't get?!

Perhaps they have something useful like a list of all my mate's birthdays as I'm useless at remembering to write them down somewhere.

Great Britain rebuilt - in Minecraft: Intern reveals 22-BEEELLION block map

I do occasionally like a little play with MC, some great maps ( especially the Game of Thrones jobbie! ) and it's good laugh for my kids to have a virtual "LEGO" kit to play with rather than playing some mindless dress-up/sweet-crunching rubbish on their tablets!

Rotten Apple iOS 7 fury: Glitchy audio or is today's music really that bad?

Re: "GET A LIFE!!!"

"Do you not think perhaps that some of those tweets were taking the piss?"

Sadly no because there are people out there who do genuinely think that way, so trying to sort the "wheat from the chaff" in huge pile of dickheads that the internet attracts is just to damn arduous to contemplate!

I bet a few ladies will have something to say about the first twat! *shakes head*

Oh and the worst day ever is death or a friend, parent or partner or even your own death. This is a fucking firmware update on a mobile phone.

I, for one, welcome our robotic communist jobless future

Anyone ever seen animated Matrix films? Robots took over, Humans fought back and then robots beat the cack out of us and turned us into living slaves to power them. Alright we all know the flaws in the story but I can well imagine a future with riots where lots of modern luddites(*) smash the modern "looms" to assert control.

( Point of interest the Luddites weren't against mechanisation, they simply wanted to ensure workers weren't exploited by company owners and that people got a fair wage for fair work. )

Bill Gates again world's richest, tops in US for 20th straight year

"Money can't buy you friends, it just buys you a better class of enemies."

It's official: The iPhone 5S bling-mobe IS chavvy. OR, Burberry isn't

Re: Crap clothes + crap cameras = crap photos

I've no real axe to grind with the Instagram mob, it's good bit of fun but that's all it will ever be. However too many marketing droids seem to think that square format, blurred, low res pics off a mobe equals hip, youthful and trendy avant-grade photography, not what it really is which is cheap, piss-poor and "live to regret that you have no decent pictures in 10 years time" 'cos you used the lowest piss-poor kit to get them.

iPhone 5S: Apple, you're BORING us to DEATH (And you too, Samsung)

"The stark truth is that smartphones, like computers, were only ever a means to an end – and once the services and apps markets matured, the smartphone itself became less ... important. It didn't really matter what access device you were carrying. "

That's the money shot! The novelty has worn off, so long as we can get a browser, Faceslap, Twatter, mapping, MP3 and MP4 apps on our smartphones it's completely irrelevant who makes it these days.

You thought NFC tags were Not For Consumers? Well, they're in Maplin's

I suppose if you have some sort of hobby that involves bits of kit being lent out on a regular basis this might have some use there somewhere but like most things, could end up being tech for tech's sake.

I could put them inside my young kids clothes so I can find them when they claim they have no idea where the hell they've left them this time?

"Where's your jumper/shoes/PE kit?"

Cue blank expression from said child!

First rigid airship since the Hindenburg cleared for outdoor flight trials

Re: Rigid Airships have a place

I remember living near the Cardington hangers in Beds., back in the 1980's when the secret airship trials were going on. The number of UFO stories went up but then 6 months later it all came out and no more UFO sightings reported.

Parallels pledges roll-back fix after silent 'trojan' freebie install triggers punter outrage

Re: What I really don't understand...

I believe Virtualbox only allows you to emulate 128MB video card memory, good enough most app emulations but not so good for games or graphics based apps. I love VirtualBox, I once built a 3 node Oracle RAC clustered database using a 16GB OSX host machine and Virtualbox with Oracle's RHEL spin-off.

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

Re: Affordability my arse

No but I thought they might have more sense than to treat their customers like 8 year old kids, "Oooh look you can have nice green one, yellow one or pink one! Ooooh!". FFS!

Can't wait for the first arsehole who will get his mug on the frontpage 'cos he had to have all the colours, some people simply have too much damn free time and money to waste....

Dyson takes Samsung to court in UK over vacuum cleaner

Re: I really dislike dyson

Like others we've had Electrolux cleaners that have fallen apart after 8 months, the stubby little Dyson we have now has lasted for 4 years so far, granted it only comes out 2-3 times a week but it's not needed any new parts and is working as well as the day we got it.

David Attenborough warns that humans have stopped evolving

I don't think we stop "evolving" or finding tiny little ways to try to ensure survival of our species. How many little things do we take for granted that keep pushing our species forward, something as simple as brushing our teeth? Dental hygene ensures we don't get abcesses, leading to blood-poisoning and early death.

Evolution and survival of the species as the whole is a continuous process of small, what appear to be almost insignificant steps. The UK implements the NHS to ensure better health for the UK population, we in turn live longer, contribute more and offer more to the outside world. More people living longer in the first-world ensure we raise the standards and aspiriations of the third-world which has seen a huge rise in life-expectancy over the last 50 years to point where some places are starting to get on a par with the first world. We've gone too far in the first-world and we now have it too good, we take it for granted and such problems as too may old people for the young to support and an explosion in obesity.

There is already a wealthy class strata in China, well to do. upwardly mobile, relatively well-off people who don't want to make the mistakes of their parents and do not want to follow the decadent ways of the west, they will most likely overtake us in terms of living standards in the next 25 years. An example of cultural evolution, learning the mistakes of a past. The west got fat and decadent, bad example. Take the good bits, leave out the bad. Evolution, with natural and cultural selection at work and in time periods that are observable.

Canadian family gives up modern tech to live like it's 1986

Re: iPhone and iPad?

What's wrong with that? Humans like playing with toys, no matter what toys they are. Providing you offer kids a balanced "diet" of toys, some tech, some tactile classics like fluffy toys and bricks, etc, where's the harm in a little tech time for a two year old? Sooner or later they will have to learn to use them as they are the norm, so it's better they have some experience. My 10 year old had enough savings to buy her own iPad so she did, but we limit the time she can use the iPad, the computers and the TV. She still plays with LEGO, reads paper books, swims and plays outside. Balance and a foreign idea these days, parenting!

Parenting has changed, as parents we have roll with it or our kids will get left behind but it has to be done carefully. First computer I had was at the age of 9 back in 1981, they were clunky but incredible tech miracles. Now there's nothing special about them and there's at least 10 times the power in my pocket and I take it for granted but I got introduced to tech at a young age so I managed to get into a well paid tech job due to my parents seeing the benefits. My father loves playing with technology, so if a 70 year old bloke can change with the times I'm sure the rest of us can make an effort.

Hands on: Panasonic bakes a 20-INCH tablet for big biz to swallow

Could be interesting in a tethered, studio photo shoot environment. Instant display of the raw image, pull out the pen and try a few non-destructive adjustments to see if the shoot's going as planned.

Beat the UK's incoming smut filter: Pre-censor your grumble flicks

Re: And now

Sounds more like what the late, great Bill Hicks described of his experiences of motel porn channels, "It's fantastic! This is porn with all the porn removed! They've taken all the ladies out and what do we get to see? The guy's hairy ass! I went down to reception to pay my bill the next day, the clerk says to me, 'Ah so you're the guy buying all them hairy-bobbing-man-ass films.' "!

'But we like 1 Direction!' Rock gods The Who fend off teen Twitter hate mob

"Now all you need is your team of marketing and PR people, stylists, song writers, etc.,"

Have you been a rock club night in the last 2-3 years? You'd be surprised at just how many talented kids there are out there willing to still work a music career the "old-fashioned" way, ie by actually learning to play and write music, then work their arses off gaining a proper dedicated fan base the hard way. They will take a shitty 15 min slot at the bottom of a 250 seat club to play in front of 20 people, usually for free to gain proper experience. Even as an old fart of 40+ years I still love going to club gigs seeing young bands learning to make music career the hard way.

Don't lump all young modern musicians together, there are still a hell of a lot of young musicians with integrity and drive, doing the right thing.

Apple erects measures to stop app-happy kids splurging parents' dosh

I still don't see how it's Apple/Google's fault if you don't learn to use the kit you bought. Want to demand your money back? Ask the game manufacturer, they own the damn software that caused the problem! Even more so with the new mobile rental software model we all agree to use these days. The tablet/phone is just a platform for the game. If you're so inclined to make a fuss, then start suing some of these game makers, I bet you'll soon see some serious work done on education and in-app procedure tightening if a few software houses start having to give back the money they made!

Microsoft DMCA takedown requests targeting OpenOffice

Make it more accurate?

What using something like "%ppen%office%" as opposed to simply "%office%"?

Hmmm, tricky stuff!

Microsoft to fund Blake's 7 return as Xbox Live exclusive

Re: Nooooooo

Oh no, here we go another lot of people complaining that "They'll kill it!", "They're ruining my memories.".

Listen, they're not making it for your benefit, you have the original series to be fond of, they don't give a rat's arse about the fans of the original series. They're making it for a new, younger audience who have never seen it and wouldn't, in a million years, bother watching the original.

Yes before you start calling me a whipper-snapper, I do fondly remember the original as a kid born at the start of the 1970's, to the point that my Mum and I named our dogs ORAC and ZEN in honour of the show!

Possessed baby monitor shouts obscenities at Texas tot

Re: Hacker

Agreed but please don't honour this sort of scuzzbag with the title "hacker". Just call him what he is, an obnoxious, nasty little c....

Re: Not a baby monitor?

"We put our baby's monitor inside a clown mask so baby thinks the clown is talking to it."

And so begins a life-long fear of clowns, especially ones mimicing family members and with slightly metallic and robotic voices!

Re: British or European @ Captain Scarlet

Playing the part of a nasty villain requires some acting ability and a pompous air, something your average low-grade RSC thesp can knock out without really trying. Playing the part of a good guy in US film requires that you can recite verbatim a load of tired cliches while firing a large gun and grinning inanely at some token bimbo who needed saving from her own stupidity!

OWN GOAL! 100s of websites blocked after UK Premier League drops ball

Saw some bunch of nobs in the Metro letters page the other day banging on about banning by IP. "Easy to identify these trolls by their IP address, we all have them, trace them by that!".

You want to get through to these people, liken IP addresses to those numbers printed on cards you pin to your shirt when you do a running event, they're easily faked, easily lost and easily swapped!

Brits: We can stop trolling if we know where they live - poll

Mass media makes choices obvious shocker!

What a crock!

"NEWSFLASH! All bread is tainted with too many magic beans!"

3 days later..."Excuse me sir. Do you think that bread as a) too many magic beans b) not enough magic beans or c) I don't care."

Results: 80% of people said bread has too many magic beans!

"NEWSFLASH! Dog shit smells like shit!"

4 days later..."Excuse me sir. Do you think that dog shit smells a) too much like shit b) not enough like shit or c) I don't care."

Results: 80% of people said dog shit smells too much like shit!

People are easily influenced by anything that's doing the rounds in the mass media. At the moment social media websites and their responsibilities are a hot topic, they're in all sections of the mass media of course people will have strong opinons. Wait at least another 12 months when the frenzy has died down then ask people what they think.

Starwing: Nintendo, Argonaut's Brit boffinry and the Super FX chip

"Never the same again." Say that again, the games market is full of FPS clones all basically DOOM knock-offs. Don't kid yourselves, it's linear gameplay, you shoot anything that moves, it's a DOOM knock-off!

Superstar cluster-Zuck as Facebook tries out celeb-only edition

Hey I'm famous..sort of!

Alright not in the conventional sense but I have 350 followers for my photography on Deviant Art, I'm more famous there than my brother-in-law or my Dad!

What a right load of cack! At which point exactly does someone become "famous" then Zuck? Number of stalkers? Number Twatter(tm) followers? Don't tell me it's the number of FB likes, I know of plebs like me with way too much time and way too many likes!