* Posts by Sub 20 Pilot

199 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2014

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Why tell the doctor where it hurts, when you could use emoji instead?

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: History repeats itself

The global rate yes, but the frightening problem is the number of illiterate people in the developed West, in particular the UK. We were the leaders in tech and innovation througout the industrial revolution and invented or built most of the infrastructure in the world but now we have a huge increase in the number of people who can't be arsed to get an education - even though it is provided free by the taxpayer - unlike a lot of the so called 'third world' nations rapidly overtaking us and the US.

Vaccine dreams: A trip to Oxford to see a biscuit tin, some bed pans and ChAdOx1 nCov-19

Sub 20 Pilot

Nice reply. I really can't abide the morons and fuckwits who keep putting down the successes of UK or part UK ventures, usually while praising anything from the US.

It should be clearly shown everywhere that the Oxford AZ vaccine is being produced and distributed at almost cost price, Not something you see with US produced stuff - they seem to be charging about 9 times the price and I would assume are making a killing from the pandemic.

Some things are more important than money but the US and their followers will not understand that as it is contrary to their belief.

Glasgow firm fined £150k after half a million nuisance calls, spoofing phone number, using false trading names

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Peanuts

Not fined but have their assets seized and be put in prison. Nothing else works. For decades they have just changed to another company name and carry on without a pause. Putting money and property in a different name should make no difference.

If our esteemed gov wants to look like it is doing something useful then for fuck's sake get this done. I doubt it would have any negative fallout whatever most people's political leaning. ( With the possible exception of the Guardian readers and the BBC.)

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: How do you find them?

I would think that this type of case would be classed as criminal harrassment or threatening behaviour or whatever the Guardian readers allow us to call it this week.

If not then the system is even worse than I thought it was.

Worst case scenario, phone the police and tell them you are one of the Guardian's favoured minority groups and that this is a ''hate crime'' as opposed to a normal friendly crime against a lot of people, which can be safely ignored.

Windows 11 will roll out from October 5 as Microsoft hypes new hardware

Sub 20 Pilot

Teams !!!

Biggest joke of the article: ''...integration with..teams..''

On a Windows laptop I can and regularly use Zoom, Conflab, Ring Central, Whatsapp and G-Suite tools to initiate or join online meetings with voice / video ( not Conflab but that is why I use it when needed. ) and collaboration / screen share or document share as needed. This all works without any major issues. Might have the odd video freeze and some stutter on sound.

But when I have to use MS Teams ( MS is emphasised because it is the same fucking outfit that made the fucking OS ) I end up with nothing but problems:

The bastard thing tries to load whenever I reboot ( doesn't matter what settings you use of what you change in MSCONFIG ) and basically runs the processor and memory / HDD use at about 100 % for about 10 minutes before deciding that it will not load, in the meantime slowing everything else to a bloody crawl.

When it is eventually on and settled, trying to open it for a meeting results in more furious disk thrashing, slowing down of everything else followed 5 minutes later with a message saying it can not load because I don't have an account and why don't I open one now..even though I DO have a bloody account and I have tried to input the details when and if prompted to no avail.

Finally after 3 tries, at least, it opens up a Teams window and then I have to persuade it to look for my video camera and / or mocrophone which it invariably can not see.

During an actual meeting I can use the laptop to heat my fucking house. I have to turn up the volume by 30 percent to over ride the fan noise which does sound like it is trying to take off.

Why the merry fuck can the incompetents who make both the OS and the Teams program not work together ?

Don't like the new Windows 11 Start or Taskbar? Don't worry – Microsoft's got your back

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Tired ? Older hardware ?

Like most people who say the same thing time and time again, the answer is quite simple. I am not against using Linux, indeed I have run several different distributions on a spare PC over the yers mainly to check if I can actually migrate to it.

I need my PC to be able to do my work. There is no alternative for 4 pretty expensive software packages I have to use and emulators / virtual engines etc DO NOT work with them. Main one is AutoCAD. Others are specific BEMS, building energy efficiency programs and structural calculation software. There are no alternatives so Linux does NOT work for me.

Please accept the fact that while you may be able to use Linux for all your needs that others can not. Simple fact. This is the one thing that pisses me off with all the smug 'why are you still using windoze' brigade.

Sub 20 Pilot

Meme merde, jour difference.

Lenovo pops up tips on its tablets. And by tips, Lenovo means: Unacceptable ads

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: to maximize end user enjoyment

Very well put Sir.

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Alldocube iPlay40, or Chuwi Hipad Plus

And this is different from the proud US 'manufacturers' that get all their stuff made in the exact same Chinese factories but charge fuckload more ? ( Assuming you are of US origin because of your spelling.)

Stop spouting Sinophobic rubbish.

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: "System App" bollocks

I am not 100 % because I do not have a W10 system but is that not full of 'advertising' shite, candy crush and similar bollocks that can not be removed, admin rights or not ?

That is my understanding - if you have a big enterprise with 100's of licenses you can over rule but any normal 'home' or 'professional' user can not.

Would be great to know it can be done without too much hassle before I have to inevitably get a W10 pc.

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: A fast one

And you think any of the eqivalent US companies are any different ?

Western Digital unveils 20TB OptiNAND hard drive, pledges 50TB to follow

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Old fart rant inside...

But that doesn't make it right - to be able to lie about the usable capacity. Even though we know this has happened for decades it does not make it right and it should be stopped as being an outright lie.

If I sell you a house with three floors and it turns out that only one of them can be used, but in some microscopic print in a 1000 page EULA or similar, I say that the number of floors may not be usable by the purchaser then you would rightly have a case against me. No difference in my opinion.

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: 20 & 50TB

Over a large number of years I used WD HDD's in an external case as part of my backup strategy. Apart from a couple of times I dropped them onto a solid floor they all worked well until they got full and were changed.

In the last 3 years or so I have had 3 fail on me for no reason ( luckily I never rely on one ) May be luck of the draw or more than likely becoming crapper to save money which seems endemic in the ICT world - PC's, phones, printers - all shite-ier quality as time moves on. ( Couldn't think of the correct multiplier word for shite..)

Tech support scams subside somewhat, but Millennials and Gen Z think they're bulletproof and suffer

Sub 20 Pilot

Obvious scams.

I get annoyed at the usual 'age bias' - you are in your later years so you must be thick as fuck. Let us not forget who invented this technology and made it simple to use for the youth who, in the main, I suspect would not be able to build a PC, sort out problems using a CLI or set up a web page. Or indeed take out a car engine and rebuild it or a whole horde of other things I have done over the last 6 decades. Oh yes, they may be brilliant at installing a new app on their phone without looking at all the crap they are signing up for.

Also I would say that anyone in the UK at least would understand that no company is there to help you but to make money off you in whchever way it can. Try contacting one of them to sort out a problem and see how quick it takes to arrive at a knowledgeable human who can help. Then consider that nobody in such a company would spend their valuable time speaking to you at their expense to make your life easier.

That is such common sense that I fail to see why it is such a surprise to most people.

The bleeding obvious:

Anything that looks too good to be true will be.

Anyone who says out of the blue that they can save you money and not make them money instead is a fking liar.

The world is not altruistic - nobody will go out of their way at their expense to do you a favour.

If everybody follwed these simple rules life would be much worse for the scammers and perhaps they would all fuck off and get an honest job.

A real go-GETTR: Former Trump aide tries to batter Twitter by ripping off its UI

Sub 20 Pilot

Litigiousness.

Living in the UK and having an interest in politics and what goes on in the world, I am stumped as to why Trump has not been sued for his public ranting claiming that he was cheated of the presidency etc.

Obviously if he had proof of the cheating going on then he would have produced it but there was none declared so I deduce that he did not have any proof.

Why has nobody taken action against him as they appear, at least to us here in the UK, to go to law for anything over there and I would assume that the democrats would have a valid case of defamation or whatever it is called over there.

Genuine question, not a troll as I would like to understand how their system works.

Hungover Brits declare full English breakfast the solution to all their ills

Sub 20 Pilot

When in my teens and twenties a solid bike ride or run for a couple of hours while still mainly drunk would do the trick.

Later on it became a few bacon rolls, with runny fried egg if really bad.

Then it became several cups of tea with sugar in ( which I normally hate.)

Now it is a whole day of pain and fucking misery.

I try to restrict those days to a few times a year where a good day's acrobatic paragliding in Oludeniz leads to wine and raki..

UK watchdog fines biz £130k for 900,000+ direct marketing calls to folk who had opted out

Sub 20 Pilot

Same shit different name..

The government can change laws at the drop of a hat when they want to do so and I ask them why do you not act on this when the same thing happens almost every time someone is fined ?

Where is the punishment ?

To be stupidly charitable, on the first offence by the director of this type of outfit, fine them personally.

If they are a persistent offender throw the fuckers off a cliff somewhere.

Covid is killing the wrong people..

Biden to Putin: Get your ransomware gangs under control and don’t you dare cyber-attack our infrastructure

Sub 20 Pilot

fucking hypocrites.

As usual.

US spies on everyone but complains when anyone else does it.

US has shitload of nukes but complains if anyone else has one.

US is happy to get cheap stuff from China and sell to the world at massive profit but does not want China to profit or indeed any other nation being able to obtain things from China when the US can sell them the same type of thing.

Time they practiced a bit of what they throw at the rest of the world.

Ot time the rest of the world start to grow a set of balls and carry on without involving them.

I know it is not easy but we must make a start.

Verity Stob is 'Disgusted of HG Wells': Time, gentlemen, please

Sub 20 Pilot

Bloody excellent.

Shows up the BBC for the utter shite it has become. I only log on to their news site now and again and within a couple of minutes I remember why.

The other day there was a news story about Bangor, about as Welsh as it gets in terms of large towns. The BBC have to intervierw someone and it ends up with an Indian / Far Eastern name who spoke English. I assume it would not be ticking enough PC boxes to actually ask a fucking Welsh person for their view.

Keep up the good work.

H.

China, Russia and Iran all attacking US elections and using some nasty new tactics, says Microsoft

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Blowback

I agree. I couldn't give a fuck if the US turns into a medieval religious clusterfuck the way they have behaved basically since the end of WW2 and in particular the GWB years and the current twat-in-chief. The problem is that my government is so far up their arse that the UK will go down with them.

Adtech's bogeymen are tracking everything - even your web visits to mental health charities, claim campaigners

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Too much javascript

I have done this for years. Usually if the site is a pig full of flashing ads and other shite and with a load of suspect JS. I will find a way to leave a message to say that they have lost a customer and why. I don't email them as I don't want them to harvest my details and spam me and I have no interest in any crap response they would have. I want them to know why they lost a customer, end of story.

Go Huawei, Android: Chinese telco biz claims it will spread Harmony OS for smartphone to devs come December

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Maybe

And do you think that the US companies and regime are better ?

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Against all odds

I would be in the market for one. If anyone is going to be stealing my data and profiting from it I would rather it were the Chinese than the tax dodging US companies, backed up with threats by the orange baboon.

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Essential?

I have been telling people this for years ( not in a ranty tinfoil hat way but when anyone asked about their new phone or similar I would tell them to take care about the shite they were installing and the information they were spewing online.)

Mostly it was dismissed or ignored but a few years ago someone I know had a fright when she went home after discussing a particular and very niche product in her place of work.

She did not google it on her iphone or do anything with the phone but just mentioned this product to a colleague, which she had heard about but never used, bought online or even searched for online.

On turning on another i-device at home, presumably on the same apple account, she saw a bunch of ads for that very product. Spooked the shit out of her and started to see how intrusive the whole ecosystem was. Still did not stop her from getting one of the spy-speakers ''because friends have them...' so like most of the sheep, she had to as well.

Even with this evidence of intrusion, spying and general creepiness I am afraid most of the population will still buy these things in their millions because they are a 'shiny thing.' I don't bother telling people any more, if they want to be sheep carry on.

'We're not claiming to replace humans,' says Google, but we want to be 'close enough' that you can't tell it's a bot talking

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Garbage in garbage out

I have yet to see an useful ''chatbot.'' In the last few months I have had , in desperation, to revert to trying out the respective option on Ryanair and SP Energy websites due to there being no other way of finding what I wanted or indeed a sensible method of contacting a bloody human. Nothing you put in the text box made sense to the algorithm.

OK I expected it with Ryanair as I wanted money back from them so no fucking chance that was going to work but with SPE it was putting £20k plus their way for an upgraded supply so I would have thought that ''I want to give you money for something'' would have led to a pretty good response.

Previously in the last year I have had the same while trying to spend money with Samsung, Dell and ( in desperation ) Carphone warehouse. The end result of which none of them got my money as they couldn't be arsed to provide a human to sort out a few basic queries.

This is still roughly the same level it was years ago so what is the problem and where is the bottleneck ?

UK govt reboots A Level exam results after computer-driven fiasco: Now teacher-predicted grades will be used after all

Sub 20 Pilot

Is there anything that the succesive governments of the UK can not fuck up by bloody useless software ? And as for Kier Starmer, fuck off unless you have something constructive to say. I am sick of these idiots trying to make political capital out of everything, as though their party would not have done exactly the same mess.

Australia to force Google and Facebook to pay for news and reveal algorithm changes before they whack web traffic

Sub 20 Pilot

Useless search engines from Google and the like.

I know that this is not a mainstream case and slightly off-topic but I have found the big search engines to be useless unless you want to buy something from the larger multinationals.

It may have improved by now but a few years ago if I put something like ''Ulnar fracture'' into a search box the first page would be filled with things like ''get your next ulnar fracture from amazon'' or similar. Fucking useless for anything except the promotion of amazon..

Same if I wanted to find details on something just as specific related to my work. I may be looking for Radon Gas barriers but the top listings would be companies selling gas and electricity and wanting you to switch providers. Keywords or whatever may serve a purpose but not in most cases where ''gas'' doesn't automatically mean you want to change your gas provider.

Very similar is the propensity for any English search term to throw up loads of US sites regardless of what you put in as a search term or tried to restrict to UK English. If the searches are no good then no point trying to use them.

I use DDG when I have to or try to find details by other means but for me the search engine has been nothing but a waste of time and maybe things like this will change them for the better. ( It's Friday so I am allowed a bit of optimism...)

Keep it Together, Microsoft: New mode for vid-chat app Teams reminds everyone why Zoom rules the roost

Sub 20 Pilot

Usual MS behaviour.

Microsoft are the spoilt child at their own birthday party who have a ton of chocolate ice cream on their plate but whine because someone else has a cake and they should have that too.

If they did one thing properly, say for example produced an OS that was not an utter pile of shite ( W10 ) and spent their efforts on making it workable, stable, secure and usable without the constant fucking about with needless updates without dealing with the core problems, then I would be happy.

Instead they have to interfere in everything and produce a third rate alternative then try to foist it on everyone, even to the extent of buying the competitor and killing it ( can't be long before they do it to Zoom ?) I used Skype quite a bit before they bollocksed it up. Never used it since.

I am happy to pay a subscription for an OS as I need it to make a living. This is something which they can not achieve, sending out pointless crap under the guise of value for money. Anyone using their OS for work, which is what I have to do, is stuck with this endless load of crap.

NOTE: I don't need any smug Linux users telling me that I should use their favoured OS at this point as it will not run AutoCAD or any of the windows only structural analysis, BREEAM or heat loss modelling software amongst other things that I need to run. Believe me I have tried over the years to do this in various emulators etc but to no avail.

I have used Zoom for meetings since the lockdown and do so on a 5 year old Android phone, a newish Android tablet, a laptop running W10 and a PC running W7. I have not had a single problem in all that time with it. I had one meeting whereI was present in the same room as a colleague who was using Teams on his laptop. It was the most turgid, stuttery, problem ridden bunch of arse I have seen in years, it could well have been running on a 20 year old virus ridden plodding donkey of a pc and not a high spec W10 laptop.

I have been hoping for a resolution to MS' dominance of the pc scene in terms of what I need it to do for decades and looks like I will have retired before it improves. At least then I can be rid of the fucking pestilence and just use Android and Linux. Roll on that day.

Wallet-snatch hack: ApplePay 'vulnerable to attack', claim researchers

Sub 20 Pilot

NFC payments in general

Personally I don't think people will have to go to any great lengths to steal credit / cash from most of the public in this way. For the last few years since the upsurge in NFC credit cards and the various mobile pay services I can sit in my friend's shop and watch as about 95% if not more of customers come in and pay for fuel, fags, booze, other miscellaneous stuff on a contactless card or phone and will say ''I don't ant the receipt.''

Fucking mind boggling stupidity in my opinion. Why give the banks and card providers any more reason not to credit you a disputed claim for a fraudulent transaction ?

With this kind of stupidity in the majority it can surely only be a matter of time before someone realises that they have been stung somewhere and then realises that they can't do a thing about it. Or is it just the hipster morons with too much money / rich parents that are doing this and not really caring.

The user base I see are usually the teenagers / early 20's lot who in general seem to have no clue about reality, aided by parents who seem to fund their every whim. Others are older and seem a bit unsure when using the technology but do it anyway as it is the in thing to do maybe.

I have long given up my 'good samaritan' bit, or interfering git as most of them seem to think by advising them to at least keep a receipt of the transaction but then again for years they have probably considered me as some sort of gibbering fool when I tell them what the odds of winning the lottery against getting killed by tobacco products are..

Virgin Atlantic co-pilot dazzled by laser

Sub 20 Pilot

Why not get a fucking clue what you are talking about and post under your own name if you are going to make such statements. Moron.

Sub 20 Pilot

And when some turd does manage to bring down a plane a lot of people will be running around asking why did they not do anything...

Sub 20 Pilot

In that case get the police to bust the place once a week every week at their busiest time and make life difficult for the useless cunts running the place who are happy to aid and abet this by refusing to pass the CCTV over. Play the fuckers at their own game, that is the only way to deal with morons who know their rights but no idea of their responsibilities.

Move over, Google. Here’s Wikipedia's search engine – full of on-demand smut

Sub 20 Pilot

Search engines..

I have not used google to search for anything for a long time. I know that they are reliant on ads but to me that is no good, If I look for details on, say, thermal properties of titanium, they would fill the first page with pointless shit that said ''buy thermal properties for titanium locally for less here..'' and similar crap.

I would happily pay for a search utility, be it google, duckduckgo, wiki etc if it did away with this sort of shit and gave me relevant search results as opposed to search results that are relevant only to the people paying to push their shit. most of my need for information such as this is based on my work and is worth money to me.

Sadly, I don;t think that will ever happen as the number of people willing to pay for a better service are dwarfed by the ones that want everything for free an are to fucking stupid to realise that they are the product being sold.

Is hybrid cloud fundamental for your organisation? Tell us, readers!

Sub 20 Pilot

Yes.

Three scoops 'most reliable network' crown, EE takes every other title

Sub 20 Pilot

EE Mobile - fucking joke. Where I live, in a small town with a lot of infrastructure and a lot of public sector offices / university / hospital etc. their coverage is shit.

Outside, in smallish mountainous terrain it is even worse. One local village loses all EE connectivity for about a day every few weeks with no fix in sight.

I have what is laughably called a 4g contract. Now and again I get 3g to run for a bit before keeling over or dropping calls and data. I could leave the phone downloading data 24 hours a day and I doubt it would get anywhere near my 2gb data limit per month it is that bloody slow.

I have an android phone which has all the pointless crap removed and the rest of the useless rubbish disabled from updating so should not be down to shit going on in the background.

It would be nice to have a realistic database of what works where and not the 'coverage' statistics put out by marketing pricks.

LinkedIn sinkin': $10bn gone in one day as shares plummet 40%

Sub 20 Pilot

Waste of space

I signed up with that lot years ago and would have got a pro subscription as it would have been worth while to actually have my professional details there for prospective clients and contacts.

Their useless location procedures would only recognise part of a postcode which located me not only 70 miles away from where I am based geographically but in a different country ( England not Wales.)

I contacted them and explained the situation and told them I could provide an actual address which would have at least listed the town I live in. They were not interested and couldn't see the problem, even when I asked them if they would be happy to pay for a professional service relating to their potential employment that said the were based in Cuba or Canada and not the US.

They couldn't be arsed to answer that so I never went back to them and assumed they were only interested in flinging ads and other such crap at me with no relevance to what I wanted. People like that deserve to fail.

Rooting your Android phone? Google’s rumbled you again

Sub 20 Pilot

Like a lot of people I just want my phone to work as a phone, have good battery life and pick up emails on a large readable screen. Not interested in games, data grabbing apps, subscriptions to music or films etc.

I have no idea why anyone would use one of the google/ apple / whatever pay systems or the contactless debit cards. A huge security problem in every case and your responsibility to prove you did not make a transaction as there is no secure pin or whatever. All of this at your cost in time etc obviously.

On top of this the phone pay systems have the added benefit of all your transaction details passed on to the fucking leeches ( google / apple etc) to make money from and to inconvenience you with adverts and monetise the data even further.

I will carry on making BACS payments from my secure(ish) pc and pay by Credit Card which at least has some level of accountability and audit. It will be a sad day when I decide that the extra two seconds saved in typing in a secure password over waving a card at a small box with no way of proving that it was indeed a valid transaction.

Retailers urged to create 'CCTV-like' symbol to inform customers of mobile tracking

Sub 20 Pilot

I would suggest that a large conspicuous logo be placed prominently outside these stores so that I can avoid the fuckers like the plague. It is getting to the stage where almost no aspect of life is untainted by the turds that push ads.

Contrary to the previous poster who said that everyone is susceptible to this crap, I tend to visit shops as and when I need something and for that I will either know exactly what I want or will have a close idea. I don't think I have ever walked into a shop and came out with something I did not set out to buy.

And if these ads pushed ono your device are as useful as the crap you get sent as spam from companies when you have bought something off them, they will be worse than pointless - the number of endless ''hurry !! special offer on our laptops' emails I get for weeks after buying a bloody laptop off them is beyond comprehension.

Volkswagen blames emissions cheating on 'chain of errors'

Sub 20 Pilot

So, another week , another bunch of excuses from VAG or whatever they are called this week. Why are top people from this organization not jailed ? Is it for the same reason that the bankers who committed fraud etc got away with it ? Minor financial penalties to the company which ends up being foisted onto the customer and in job losses at the bottom end of the sca;e while the arses in charge blunder on.

Microsoft encrypts explanation of borked Windows 10 encryption

Sub 20 Pilot

I keep all of my work and personal data on a Truecrypt volume on a separate hdd to the OS (W7) As far as I can see this covers my obligations under the data protection acts in the UK and I can display due diligence if there is any data relating to my clients that is leaked online or whatever.

I know it has been shelved and that the tinfoil hat wearers are all concerned about it but for my purposes it does the job. Also means that none of my data is stored on any servers outside the UK and I am not held ransom by the usual mega corporations when they decide to change or bugger up their systems.

Any UK government agency that wants to see what I have got on my disk only needs to ask, any agency outside the UK can go fuck itself, I am not in their jurisdiction.

Edit: Also forgot to add (before I get castigated by a lot of people who presume to know my affairs better than me ) that all of this data is backed up on separate external drives, same encryption, at least 1 jumbo jet width apart. Anything bigger than that which lands on my house will make any back up redundant anyway !

Windows 10 market share growth rate flattens again

Sub 20 Pilot

Thanks for the response all. I can't afford to go on a volume licensing deal, I work as a sole contractor and I want to be earning money for myself not to support huge greedy multinationals. Also I have no faith whatsoever in MS changing their tactics again and leaving me out of pocket or with large costs. I am more than happy to pay them a fee for sensible working software as I do for my CAD and other specialist packages that cost several hundred pounds a year to maintain.

I have tried CAD in various VM configs before now but it has never been successful. Also have tried different CAD systems but as all my stuff is in DWG and DXF format I have found it difficult to find a system that just works.

May be I just have to retire early..

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: Query on W10..

Sorry,my comment was badly phrased, The laptop in question is only used for work when I travel, my main work PC is still good for a couple of years on W7. so it is not critical, I have sourced a few W7 laptops that have the grunt required and a proper screen, not the crap 1330 x 760 res ones but they will be in the £800 - £1000 range which is no problem but not what I want to spend until I really have to.

What I should have asked maybe is if there is any scope in being able to avoid this potentially expensive data transfer and risk of an unstable system when I eventually have to buy a new system and it is not possible to obtain anything other than W10.

Sub 20 Pilot

Query on W10..

A serious question for the ones who know. I have to buy a new laptop due to imminent death of my current one. I spend some time overseas during which I connect to the internet to use webmail and to generally just get on with my work.

Sometimes it will be through a wifi router but sometimes it will be through a local 3g dongle which is a fuckload of cost per mb up/downloaded.

I would be in the 'pleb; range of user, not the enterprise type so what is my options to disable automatic updates, telemetry data etc as this uses up valuable data in terms of cost and time. As I understand, it is not possible unless you just don't go online which is not what I am after.

Additionally, what is my redress when some pointless mandatory update makes my pc refuse to boot / refuse to work with the specific software I use ( Structural design and heat loss analysis along with basic CAD etc )

Please, no irrelevant comments on using Linux /Apple etc as I have specific SW that will only work on Windows ( I have used a lot of Linux disro's in the past and will be having a play with some of the latest ones as soon as I have some more time but this is independent of my work pc's )

The UNTOLD SUCCESS of Microsoft: Yes, it's Windows 7

Sub 20 Pilot

I have to use Windows for my work, having to run several stupidly expensive software packages that cost me several thousand pounds a year to keep licensed and updated. I don't have the time or inclination to learn a whole new set of shortcuts, commands or whatever just to do my work.

I am far from being stupid or dumb, before the usual commenters come up and tell me it is so easy to just learn dozens of shortcuts, install a pile of thirs party apps etc. I have several qualifications, including some very technical design stuff, a pilot's license and some medical qualifications. I have learnt how to deal with software through necessity as I am self emplpyed and don't have recourse to a huge IT department.

The change from XP to Win 7 meant I had to spend days finding and testing a variety of solutions so that I didn't have to scrap a perfectly working A1 format colour plotter. This lost me hundreds if not thousands of pounds, for no reason other than having to buy a new pc.

Microsoft are in the business of selling software, that is fine. I don't have an issue with them making billions of profit year after year if they can. I have to use their stuff for my work because so many of our governments have rolled over and let them get away with murder in their monopolistic practices in the last 20 years.

For this reason, I accept, reluctantly, that I will have to give them more money when my PC next needs replacement. The issue I have is that they are forcing me to spend thousands on unneccesary hardware or software just to keep working.

The final straw is this abortion of an OS that will cost me a small fortune in lost productivity, trying to resolve driver and hardware issues. Just make a basic OS and let me pay for it. I am happy to do so just in order to get on with my work.

If I could get all of my software to run on Linux I would have done so but currently that is not possible. Roll on an alternative OS that can work with windows based software. either that or roll on retirement so I can dump the whole lot and buy a nice cheap laptop and an open source OS for basic email and browsing.

Reg reader crafts 3-axis GoPro 'Stubilizer' for skull-mounted cameras

Sub 20 Pilot

Good work..

This has some potential and I applaud your efforts and wish you every success with it ! I use CAD all day in my job and it is really a pig when you have to try and import from various packages to others.

As other paragliders on here have said, the main issue is some kind of weak link for helmet mounting, depending on the type of flying you do.

I use a gopro on a knee mount for acro flying so that I can monitor my wing and hand positions for analysis after landing. I have used a helmet cam before but always with an elasticated tear-off strap and a long safety line to my harness strap so I don't lose the camera. If you have ever seen a fixed helmet cam getting caught up in a pile of loose lines following an asymetric collapse or cravat you know what I mean.

German frau reports for liver transplant clutching bottle of vodka

Sub 20 Pilot

Re: sad...

I would make sure that anyone who opts out would be ineligible for a transplant. Full Stop. I have been on the organ donor list since 17 when I had my provisional driving license and a blood donor since 18 and being on the bone marrow donor list since about the age of 20 ( I am now in my 50's)

Obvious exceptions would be people who are unable to donate or be on a list due to illness or such restrictions.

Also in relation to deciding who gets a liver, there is the 'Triage' system as used in emergencies such as a crowded casualty ward, a huge accident with multiple casualties and similar, where the casualties are put into a 'queue' depending on various conditions.( Need urget treatment to keep alive, no chance of survival, will be ok for a while.)

That is the very simplified version we would use in casualty care situation in a multiple casualty situation with a SART team.

May not be politically correct and may annoy the Guardian readers but it works.

Margaret Hodge, PAC are scaring off new biz: Treasury source

Sub 20 Pilot

My simple answer. If all the multinational tax dodgers, leagl or not, were told to fuck off or pay tax, they will pay tax. I suppose 75% of a few billion is still better than 100% of nothing. If they threaten to leave, shedding jobs, then those openings would be taken by small local companies, employing locals and paying tax as they could not afford the top accountants that find loopholes.

If starbucks and the like were all told to piss off I doubt that people will stop buying takeaway coffee etc. They will just use the local shops that sell the stuff.

Does anyone here think that we will ever have a government who will grow enough of a backbone or set off balls to do this ??

Spam drops as legit biz dumps mass email ads: Only the dodgy remain

Sub 20 Pilot

Spamming emails

It would be good if every company had the same processes in place as Graham Marsden. In my experience, some sites are like this but others will make it as difficult and as confusing as possible to avoid a spam deluge. ''tick here if you want to be sent marketing emails' and 'tick here if you want us not to add you to our mailing list''. Inconsistent and confusing wording..

I will look over as much of the site as I can before buying or ordering anything to make sure I never have emails sent to me unless it is directly connected with that particular order. Sometimes it works, other times I find I missed a tiny tickbox on some obscure page that means the company think they can bombard you with crap and sell your details on.

I really can't see how a reputable company thinks that it will be a good idea emailing me every day or every week with a 'HURRY !!!! BUY NOW!!!! email listing a pile of laptop details when I have just bought a laptop off them. Do they employ morons in their marketing departments ?

I have also come across companies that will tell me, upon asking them why they don't stop sending me emails, that they have a 'relationship ' with me as a customer that means they can do so. One of the worst for this was Dell. I once bought a laptop from them and got an email with 'special offers' on every couple of days and at least two paper flyers a week to my home address even though I had told them to stop on several occasions, by email, by telephone and even in writing by registered post. It took the threat of legal action and trading standards to finally get them to stop. Who the hell in their right mind thinks that this will make me buy anything else off them ever again ?

Facebook will LOSE 80% of its users by 2017 – epidemiological study

Sub 20 Pilot

Death of FB

I use FB for keeping in touch with friends (People I actually know) in various parts of the world and across different timezones. I use it to serve my purposes when I pass comment etc on various things that go on locally or in the world. I have enough intelligence to know that posts are monitored etc etc and this is why I do post a lot of stuff. Because I need it to get to the people who I am aiming it at.

If teens are leaving in droves, great, if people who are only interested in trendy shite are leaving, great. I would be happy if all the chavs, bad spellers, inane drivel posters, people who suck up bandwidth by reposting stuff, people who post thousands of cat photos, dog photos and other crap and spam posters all dropped out and found an alternative way of annoying people.

I use it to post dates and photos that my contacts and I are interested in and for that I would pay a monthly fee so that I do not have to see pointless adverts and crud such as 'trending articles' that I have no interest in.

I have never and will never spend my money with someone who spams or cold calls me. When I need anything, I will look online for it. I do not need ads to try and persuade me that I need a new pair of shoes or a pointless article telling me that a celebrity has had a new haircut.

I do not expect stuff for free hence my offer to pay FB, Google and others for a valid and useful service. I use a number of utilities to cut out adverts, flash rubbish and other stuff that interferes with my browsing. I do this as I have no other option but if these people offered a 'premium' ad free, crap free service I would go for it.

I stopped using Google, Bing and the big names for searches as they are only interested in what ads they can push at you rather than giving (or selling) you the information you need. It may not be for everyone but would work for me and I would pay a reasonable sum for it.

It is doubtful but if all the morons and hipsters leave FB then they might have to do what the rest of us want or die.

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