Posts by tiggity 3498 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Oct 2015
Years ago I* had a few free to download utility apps on the play store.
They provided niche useful functionality (related to areas that company was involved in and used by customers)** but a key purpose was a bit of "free" (as apps already developed for customers anyway) advertising, people might come across the company name if looking for apps with that functionality & potentially could lead to sales of systems
* Created for company I worked for & so under their account (I initially created them as part of various prototype changes (most to main existing s/w products) when tasked to show some options for potential "improvements" to our products / ways to attract interest (bosses liked to see rough & ready prototypes rather then just ideas just to see they were feasible ideas))
** Obviously cannot give too many details
And let us not forget the expense of medical treatments pre NHS (though finding a NHS dentist is a pain these days)
The "fun" of the old birthday treat of having all your teeth removed to save expensive lifelong dental costs* when you were working class
@elsergiovolador
Well a huge chunk of train, water, electricity company, etc revenue has been siphoned off out of the country since privatization so people in UK quite used to this type of shafting (though TBF, Google do at least put some investment into play store & android ecosystem, so not wholly comparable with privatization leech companies who despise making any actual investments ).
I use android & trivial to side load stuff.
I also play a game where you can get digital assets via a website* so circumventing the play store cut (things are cheaper if purchased via the website)
However for lone devs / small companies it's probably easier (and safer - do not want to make an error doing payment processing coding as could prove expensive!) just to let Google deal with payments (though I fully agree their cut is rather excessive - though nothing like bricks & mortar shop markups**)
* I don't buy stuff, but do make use of website for occasional "freebies" they make available (to try & get people to use the website)
** a relative with mobility (lower body) issues lives with us, she does various craft stuff & some of the things she produces are sold by local shops, the margin the shop makes is significantly more than 30% - just like "farm gate price" differs considerably from food pricing in the shops.
@theblackhand
"While not wishing to undervalue the investigation and recovery operation"
From my quick read of El Reg article, seems to be a lot of Deloittes saying we don't know how they did that!
..You do wonder if these accountancy companies take the same approach to IT investigations as they do with accounting (charge an arm & a leg whilst putting the most junior (cheap) staff on as much of the work as possible)
@ADJB
I would agree
Had to deal with both parents deaths & most companies / institutions have (depending on their size) a few people / a department to deal with such things
The exception being when you are the person affected by the death.
Partner & I had a trip to Rome booked, my father dies a few days before & so we had to cancel as I was his only adult, fit and well relative to deal with it (not a job for other close relatives (wife & sister) with Alzheimer's & terminal cancer respectively at the time)
Scumbag travel insurance would not treat it as a valid reason for cancellation (amongst the gazillion lines of small print some get out clause on deaths of relatives over 80 excluded!*).
*Maybe could have got legal advice & argued an unfair contract but obviously a bit busy with grief & the huge amounts of admin with death & funeral arrangements
What dev in their right mind would muse these anyway?
Google have a history of killing products / services at short notice.
Or, if they do keep them, might start charging people for API use
Plenty of cheap & cheerful device users might be excluded on hardware requirements (and quite how a browser can test if someone has unmetered / unlimited data ...?)
.. From the "AI" API pages
Operating system: Windows 10 or 11; macOS 13+ (Ventura and onwards); or Linux. Chrome for Android, iOS, and ChromeOS are not yet supported by our APIs backed by Gemini Nano.
Storage: At least 22 GB on the volume that contains your Chrome profile.
GPU: Strictly more than 4 GB of VRAM.
Network: Unlimited data or an unmetered connection.
"We're not loading the desktop wallpaper, the taskbar, or a bunch of processes that are really designed around productivity scenarios for Windows."
I would prefix productivity scenarios with decreased myself when describing Windows.
First 2 things you always need to do on a windows box is
1) Remove needless dross from running at startup
2) Go through services & disable (or maybe set to manual for a few special cases) huge numbers of services
Its ludicrous how many services are "running / on by default"
We know the UK government (of whatever colour) does not like citizen privacy & autonomy.
The UK police currently essentially ignore phone theft (even if your phone tracking software can show them the exact location a stolen phone is currently located at & so they could get a nice easy arrest if they could be bothered!)
This is more about having a nice way to block "people of interest" from the cloud / screw up with their phone usage at will
If you think I am being melodramatic, read up about how terrorist legislation is subverted into big prison sentences for protesters, look at the long disreputable history of the "spycops" saga etc.
""And then major global media organizations — maybe it's silencing certain topics or disrupting them for reporting on certain things."
I think most Western media does a good job of effectively silencing certain topics / dissenting viewpoints. If I were the Chinese hacking a Western media company it would probably to make visible to teh general public some of the stuff they currently brush under the carpet
The "west", China, Russia, whoever. The people who end up running a country often tend to be amoral power crazed narcissistic sociopaths & the great unwashed are at risk from all of them (though generally most "westerners" more at risk from "our side" than our "enemies"*)
* I have no beef with the average Chinese, Russian etc. those workers suffer under a corrupt evil government, just like we do (though certainly the Chinese seem to have a far more competent government than our shower).
TBF had exactly same issue with partner new mac, so printer issues not just Linux - it would not print to an old printer connected via USB.
Put the blame where it lies, printer manufacturers being lazy & only bothering to support windows (an old printer & did not provide any drivers for recent mac OS versions).
..Ironically I did get success by setting printer up as a network printer* (as could get drivers & software for Windows) -so it sits next to the mac but not USB connected!
* a sub optimal solution, as network printer obviously makes network less secure & only partner does any printing!
Agree, though DSLR analogy a bit wrong - I have a couple of DSLR cameras: Both have the ability to tweak things massively, however both can be used without adjusting anything in default mode - so essentially point & click.
Auto mode is far from perfect, but usually gives an OK image (if I have limited time to grab a shot, often the case as I mainly use cameras to record wildlife sightings so something that is often quite mobile & may be often concealed by vegetation etc. then quite often just use auto* as, if I tweaked things to give a better image, strong chance the target of the shot I wanted could be long gone by the time I had adjusted settings)
* you can normally tell by creature behaviour if you will only get a fleeting chance, if it's obvious there is the luxury of a decent amount of time to grab shots then I do either flick to one of my "presets"** (if a suitable one exists) or, if no suitable preset, manually adjust settings for best results. Obviously my use case is a bit unusual, but I have been surprised on a few occasions on how good a job automatic mode managed.
** most DSLRs have ability for you to set up a few commonly used "favourite" settings on "presets" of some sort (depends on camera model & make how quick & easy (or not!) these are to select)
"people are clearly aware of how essential water is, but NIMBYism means they still don't want a reservoir built where they live, as anyone in the south of England can attest."
We have long had privatized water, main modus operandi of these companies seems to be to rip off the (captive market) consumers as much as possible whilst spending as little as possible (hence lots of leaky pipes, sewage discharge into rivers / sea as saves costs, especially with paltry fines so much cheaper to keep leaking & polluting).
Building new reservoirs & infrastructure in general is expensive, time consuming & only really benefits customers (it is a bottom line hit) so zero incentive for water companies to do it. There will be a few half hearted planning applications so water companies can say "look, we are trying" but you will see a distinct lack of dogged pursuit of these reservoir building applications (if all else fails you can get compulsory purchase orders for critical infrastructure such as reservoirs, which are arguably a lot more important than HS2 which pissed off lots of people with many compulsory purchase orders. However with current huge (unfixed) leakage on water networks no compulsory purchase orders likely to be granted until effort made to fix existing leaky system)
"declared the UK unprepared for an all-out war."
Except there's' no need for (or likelihood of) the UK being involved in an all out war*.
.. I'm aware of various political & media hype about the Russia threat in Europe, but it is all hype (unless Ukraine is biggest deception in military history) as Russia is not a viable threat in terms of conventional** military action.
* Let's get rid of this idea of UK being a major military power, that was a long time back in history, we don't emulate historic actions such as heretic burning so why bother about pretending to be a big military power.
** and if it all goes nuke, then the UK is ******* anyway!
If you know location of stolen phone UK police usually do nothing about it.
Most "small" thefts (garage / shed thefts, some house burglaries) do not get a police visit, nor does bike theft (& bikes can have high monetary value).
So theft is essentially a low risk of getting caught crime in the UK.
@MachDiamond
Definitely agree that for footwear / clothing you definitely need to try before you buy.
I suppose the only exception would be something you have already purchased previously & you were buying an exact replacement (as happened to me on walking shoes, the model I had & really liked no longer available in local shops (tedious trend to always stock the "newest kit" ) but I was able to source a pair of the discontinued shoes online*)
* like an idiot I only purchased 1 replacement pair at the time**, not found a pair of walking shoes I like as much as those (even from same manufacturer)
** I do lots of walking, so walking shoes get a lot of "hammer" & thus relatively short lifespan
"a promise that Edge will only nag users to become their default browser if they open it first."
But you typical need to open Edge on Windows once - to install another browser!
.. Unless they alter Windows install process so you can choose to not have Edge on Windows install & chose a more preferred browser instead at that early stage.
@Craig100
Plenty of devs will go along with it because of various reasons e.g..
They get well paid, wealth beats morals?
Meta can look good on their CV
Just because they are devs does not mean they care enough about user privacy* - (they may care but job matters more or they may just not care)
* Being a developer does not necessarily mean someone cares about data slurping or other "ethical" ** matters.
** I once left a role for ethical reasons, but not many people have the luxury of doing that (e.g. partner, kids, mortgage etc. may
override ethics) & when I look for roles they need to be a company I would happily work for (so many companies, including Meta, would obviously not be on my list of acceptable companies).
Huge numbers of standard domestic consumers have no incentive.
Their Win10 PC is sufficient for low impact use - bit of email, web, streaming, word processing, image tweaking etc.
An "upgrade" to Win11 is a difficult to justify expense, especially as (certainly in UK) a lot of people are struggling finacially (& often its a non trivial task for domestic users to get their new PC set up in a state they are happy with in terms of installed aps etc. so another discouraging factor).
As has been said, should have just kept wordpad AND (a proper basic version) notepad.
Notepad is handy due to ability to strip formatting (too many windows apps (esp MS ones) when you paste something in, retain any existing formatting which is often inappropriate) so an oft used intermediate on copy and paste actions. *
Wordpad was fine for basic formatted documents, & vaguely useful as it supported a simple RTF format (which was occasionally useful as used to be a few C# visual components that supported RTF to allow text with a bit of basic layout such as mix of bold, italic & normal text in "one textbox" (may still be that functionality present, a long time since I did a Windows GUI app))
* Windows is work use, not home use.
I know plenty of people working in IT who got funded through their degree by the army, with payback that they then worked for the army for a few years before being able to leave for private sector jobs.
Pros - (assuming you are not from a wealthy background) IT related studies without building up masses of debt.
Cons - a few years then working for army before you can look elsewhere for work.
And maybe develop their own training, no need for a degree if the training & skills obtained are good enough that the people would be welcome in private sector IT security roles once their compulsory military work payback stint was over
@AC
These things vary
"then there's the costs of running your home office (heating and cooling can be especially expensive"
For me, that is essentially a rounding error - as those costs incurred anyway (partner at home, plus we care for a disabled relative who lives with us, so house is heated (if needed)))
Only additional cost is power consumption of laptop & monitor (& coffee maker - but hey, quality coffee!)
Big saving on commuting costs (and time - as would be 2 trains & a bus each way so would be a massively long day)
I could only do this job if WFH - only viable commute would be car due to location being nowhere near train stations but well served by M-Way, but health reasons prevent me doing that commute, so WFH is allowing me to keep working (& gives employer a DEI tick box for people with health issues) rather than be unemployed
"The journey is just as enjoyable as the destination. An agent filters noise aggressively. Yes, your well-honed customer experience is noise to an agent."
The "journey" of many websites is not enjoyable.
The supposed "well honed customer experience" is often slow, tedious and makes me go through many pages / steps to get the information I want (if it's even available at all!).
Travel websites do seem amongst the most badly designed in my experience, all about trying to sell ad ons* at the expense of swiftly & efficiently dealing with your booking enquiry
* Hotels, parking **, insurance etc.
** generally totally irrelevant as will typically be arriving by some train / bus combo (potentially with a taxi for last few miles if not near a station)
@klh
"anyone to claim they understand how the human brain works"
Nobody knows how it works, but it has long been known (well before MRI) that certain areas are associated with particular types of processing / functionality - as per peoples comments about brain having "experts".
A lot of this knowledge acquired "accidentally"* (pun intended) - as patterns noticed in ill effects caused by damage to localised areas of the brain (e.g. damage around Broca's area often gives the classic Broca's aphasia speech issues)
So we do know that their are specialized areas in the brain (which obviously does not mean we understand how the brain works, just that we know it does have various areas that seem to be specific to certain tasks)
* Not "expert area" related per se, but the classic "accident insight into the brain" was the Phineas Gage non fatal accident where an iron rod essentially gave him a lobotomy & the changes in his behaviour observed after the accident inspired the (extremely dubious) practice of lobotomies as a "useful" surgical procedure for some behavioural issues)
... No prizes for guessing the person who's first degree & research work was biology related before then later doing an IT related degree & career change
"Nobody flies off on vacation any more, right?"
I spent a long time limiting my flight use (flight based holidays taken about once a decade on average - as a treat for age ends in 0 years)
Recently given up limiting flights *out of exasperation at general lack of effort by most governments & people in curbing greenhouse emissions, so **** it, I will have some fun holidays as given up fighting the let the world burn majority.
* Though holidays still primarily in UK and travel method via train and / or bus. Not suddenly converted to a lots of flight overseas holiday ethos but they are now an option to consider in any given year instead of just decade birthday years.
Only applies to the poor, the super wealthy & big corporations happily avoid it*
* yes I know the rich & big companies pay some tax, but by "creative accountancy" par far less than they should do (i.e. big difference in what they pay compared to if they obeyed the intentions of the law rather than exploiting every possible loophole** to reduce the tax burden)
** Plenty of blame applies to governments for needlessly complex tax laws (so lots of loopholes) especially when (in case of UK govt.) they get "help" in formulating tax laws by the same accountancy companies who make lots of money by helping their clients reduce their tax liabilities (it's like getting a paedophile to help in drafting age of consent legislation & then feigning surprise it has somehow been altered to 1 day old)
"What all this does is accelerate the day when AI becomes worthless"
TBF, some of us have questioned the value of "AI" for a long time - although its not currently "worthless" in financial terms it's been regarded as South Sea Bubble, tulip frenzy etc. (pick your financial fad that imploded spectacularly of choice) for quite a while (i.e. massively over valued / hyped & due for a big readjustment).
I do have to say I quite enjoy some AI image generation, not because it's superb but because of the weird ways in which it gets things wrong (had some very strange prompt interpretations*) that give so many amusing WTF! moments
* probably the most bizarre was when asking it to produce something that should have been relatively fool proof - a small UK household vegetable garden image, had a bit of detail in the prompt (e.g. greenhouse) but it was generally quite a simple request
It managed some veg OK e.g. lettuces growing in the ground OK, but tomatoes were not in the greenhouse** and not even on a plant of any sort, just bunches of tomatoes on bare soil, however the pièce de résistance was the greenhouse, it produced one so immense it wouldn't have looked out of place at Kew Gardens.
** Tomatoes outside excusable (as plenty of warmer places where tomatoes fine to grow well outside, and you can grow them outside in UK (but results are quite poor!) so not "thinking" UK = likely tomatoes in greenhouse is no surprise as that's a leap beyond simple models) but not having the tomatoes on a plant of any sort (even with incorrect leaves / shape etc) was rather dismal (I would guess lots of "harvested" tomatoes in image training data, rather less of actual tomatoes still attached to plants).
@Pascal Monett
But, unfortunately the likes of SAP (not alone, lots of big tech companies do the same) can rely on vendor lock in effect as the cost / time / disruption for user to migrate to a different solution can be a major impediment to switching
@Rahbut
Indeed - all parties involved seem happy with it (JEJ estate have the right to do it so their choice (& extra income!)).
I'm guessing the union concern is that if actors increasingly take the approach of leaving "AI rights" to their estate after death, then it depletes, to some degree, potential job options for living actors.
Although, I'm guessing most keen fans would prefer to hear Vader with JEJ voice rather than an imitation, and the Vader character is one of a relatively small number of movie characters that could be added into a video game and are massively associated with a particular actor, so this is unlikely to be a widespread issue.
Yes.
A relative lives with us with mobility issues (we do some unpaid, "free time" care duties, as do so many people) and we have things like stairlift, grab handles in lots of places to make walking about easier etc.
A few years ago I badly damaged my ankle on a hiking trip and got a temporary disability experience* - the house modifications proved extremely useful, it would have been agony for me to ascend the stairs to our room without using stair lift & grab handles dotted around made getting about a lot easier & less painful.
* beyond the "normal" age related gradual physical deterioration that others have already mentioned & each time I go for an eye test wondering if I will lose my driving licence** (also another person who's gaming has been affected!)
** one eye already falls below the requirements, matter of rate of decline of the "less bad" eye
@M.V. Lipvig
But "borrowing" someone's phone for a few hours is a bit of a problem with phone addicted generations - you might need to ensure they were heavily sedated to stop them searching for phone for some social media etc. There's whole swathes of UK population who, if awake, would not go several hours without checking their mobile phone (& I wouldn't be surprised if they awoke in the middle of the night for a toilet visit they would probably check their phone for those few minutes of wakefulness!)
Should do the job, given they IDed a cohort of support workers accessing data they shouldn't*, then it's look for any possible communication breadcrumbs & trace further up the chain.
* and assuming at least some of them are linked to the extortion attempt.
I would be concerned about the vague wording of "Images tied to government IDs such as passports and driving licenses"
Would tend to imply attackers have got "high quality" identity theft data such as driving licence & password details
45RPM
Ages ago I set my dad up with Linux and he used it happily enough (ironically due to him having accepted Win 10 update that MS essentially forced upon users ages ago by dark patterns) - this left his PC in a constant part install / fail cycle.
As he had all the key docs, images he needed backed up on flash drives (hi used webmail anyway so that was all available) then I just fixed the windows issue by chucking on kubuntu.
He used that happily, only switching back to windows when he got a new PC just because it had windows pre-installed and so used what was there (he died in his 80s and so was in the grandad category)
He just did web browsing, email, a few docs, getting images from his camera, a bit of image manipulation then printing some of those photos, occasional video streaming. All basic home user stuff that did not need windows only software. Many home users have that same easy use case.
@Zolko
People trying to understand how the universe came to exist* & advancing human knowledge (even if many mistakes and blind alleys on the way) is, in my opinion, better than just
unquestioningly accepting whatever some book purportedly says about a magic man in the sky *** doing it all.
Questioning / investigation is why we advance our knowledge.
If you want to go back to "holy books", in the bible shellfish & pork were "unclean" (for dubious religious reasons) - but real reason was (most likely) due to higher likelihood of illness from eating those foodstuffs and so banning eating them helped the health of that religions followers. **** These days we know huge amounts about huge numbers of types of food poisoning***** related to shellfish & pork... and importantly how to mitigate that risk, through many methods including food storage / preparation / cooking methods ( e.g. cold storage a huge impact on reducing food poisoning, ) , time of year / water conditions when the food is harvested (e.g. responsible oyster harvesters avoid times of year when "red tide" i.e. high incidence of organisms likely to cause paralytic shellfish poisoning )
* even if our knowledge is currently very limited and our current theories will doubtless in years to come** cause the same sort of wry smile as those estimates of the age of the earth at being a few thousand years old
** assuming we do not succumb to natural / man made issues that screw up scientific advances.
*** plenty of religions out there, not sure why you chose phallocentric, monotheistic ones only
**** religion may be heavily about coercive control, but some of that may actually have been for the well being of the followers (though cynics may say that avoiding needless deaths just serves to keep the numbers up & grow the religion faster!)
***** using generic terminology of "food poisoning" as consuming something & then at some later point ill due to it - e.g. various parasitic worms a common cause of illness quite a while after eating pork but technically not "food poisoning" per se.
I have not read any reports of all the paper records of a hospital getting stolen / copied.
.. plenty of reports of all the electronic data getting grabbed / encrypted in hospital cyber attacks.
So, depends what you regard as "secure"
In terms of internal illicit copying of data, be it paper or phone then an internal user with access can photograph it on their mobile.
Paper docs easier to photocopy, however if no audit of electronic record printing then internal user can print electronic records.
For electronic records for casual internal theft these may possibly be safer than paper, depends on what audits are made of access (though audits only of use if someone looking at something outside of doing their actual job - & that can be vague e.g. a patient had an extreme reaction to a drug, may be legitimate to check if any other patients had the same (across other wardsl, not just that persons ward) in case an issue with that batch of the drug: In many hospitals, patients frequently change ward so often staff members have access to data of wards beyond the one they are usually working on* )
* in UK hospitals often a lot of "bed shuffling" due to wards being full, so e.g. if renal wards full then someone with kidney issues may be on a different ward that has an available bed (be that acute care or a more general ward) before finally getting moved to renal ward when a space becomes free.
Only places that have my real DOB are those that actually need it e.g. banks, NHS (UK health system), driving licence & passport authorities
Everything else gets a dummy DOB value - only something that has a legitimate need for my DOB gets the proper one as DOB is classic identity theft item (never understand habit of people announcing actual birthday to all & sundry on social media either)
And potentially inaccessible to people working ... *
I have worked at a few places over the years where company network had explicitly blocked Twitter, Facebook, Reddit etc.
* and don't say phone, many a workplace where personal phone in "the office" is not allowed for security reasons **
** no point having sophisticated systems in place to stop people copying company data "off network" e.g. to USB sticks, cloud storage, via posts to the internet etc. if they can just use a device with a camera to grab the data (a bit more longwinded, but does the job)
Did it mention whether they were US eggs used?
I would assume the comparatively harsh treatments involved in commercial US egg processing would make the eggs more likely to crack.
I would be interested in comparison of commercial egg fragility vs. small scale egg production.
I live in a rural area, lost of people keep a few chickens & will occasionally have some surplus eggs for sale (technically illegal in UK, but local sellers & purchasers all happy with turning a blind eye as both benefit)
In addition to better flavour & freshness of the "small scale" eggs, the shells are noticeably thicker, whether this is due to "small scale" eggs having a better diet, or whether they lay less frequently so easier for them to keep calcium levels high (in commercial egg production, once egg laying rate consistently drops too low, the chicken is for the chop, whereas someone with a few back yard chickens often treats them more like pets & will often keep looking after them even when they are so old that laying has stopped)
I might not be the average consumer but I would like a car without so many of the needless gadgets / irritating console of (mainly) needless functionality.
I don't want stuff like "automatic lane control" (which seems to consist of trying to position the car dangerously whenever it gets slightly confused by a road (which was often when I had misfortune of driving a relatives car with this functionality))
I just want a "basic" car, sadly about the only way to get that is to find an old car * - all the recent vehicles I have seen in UK are stuffed to the gills with irritating bells & whistles
* an old car also has the bonus of CD player, instead of expecting you to connect a phone to your car to play music
"Joining OpenAI at this critical moment is an incredible privilege and responsibility. This organization has the potential of accelerating human potential at a pace never seen before and I am deeply committed to shaping these applications toward the public good," Simo said in a canned statement.
Whereas mine would be a bit more truthful.
Make hay from the modern day tulip frenzy / South Sea bubble, whatever. Bug pay check, I'll soon have the net worth of a tiny country.
I will use my "skills" from FaeceBook and monetize those mug punter small consumers (big business will soon realize ROI for AI sucks coupled with it being too hallucinatory unreliable for anything mission critica, so your average Joe is increasingly the way to go whilst the gravy train hype is still in full flow)
If you are using "AI" with any vaguely sensitive personal information then (assuming not self hosting the LLM so do not control it) then you would have a proper contract with hwatever LLM provider you decide to use.
You would need to ensure that data was not stored by the LLM provider, not used in LLM training etc i.e. basic confidentiality / never mind sensitive data safeguarding
This would all be in a contract as you would need to prove to potential customers that privacy & data security was paramount.
Given LLMs often have various censorship regimens, if the data to be processed was in any way likely to contain material likely to be "lost" due to censorship then your contract negotiations would also have made sure that your data would not be subject to any censorship.
You would definitely not be using an unstable preview / experimental release and (it would appear) had no agreement with the LLM provider on data privacy / censorship before implementing it in a product
you sell!
A cat of ours managed (by pure luck on its random paw interactions with the keyboard) to hit one of the ctrl alt combos to change "screen orientation" on partner laptop when it went for a keyboard walk (can't remember now if it was 90 degrees or full upside down as many, many years ago, before partner switched to Macs (that cat long deceased), but partner had no clue how to sort it out & I had to fix it for her)
And using notepad anything you copy and paste ends up as plain text (WTF is it with Windows text copy/paste that also copies/pastes any formatting of the source??).
I use notepad as a handy sanitizer for copy / paste text in addition to editing simple text files such as .ps, .sql, .css etc. ... where I don't want the distraction of a "clever" editor trying to mess about with what I type.
@42656e4d203239
Do try and avoid companies when the online ads have been irrelevant and persistently flung at me (not that I see that many with ad block active on many sites)
Advertorials are a different thing, so long as they are clearly marked as advertorial I am all in favour - it gives the website, newspaper, whatever some income & it may even be of interest to me* especially if it is in a themed "publication" & related to the content **
* e.g. I have actually found some of the advertorial content on El Reg an interesting read
** Subscribe to a few wildlife related dead tree magazines, have been on holidays with companies that advertised in those & booked accommodation in B&Bs that advertised there. Relevant ads can be a good thing (unlike website "targeted ads" - I much prefer ads based on the content of the website I am browsing, not some (usually poor***) guess at what I am interested in: If I am on a website that is "themed" in any way (i.e. not a general news / comment web site, then a fair guess I have an interest in the content e.g. El Reg indicates interest in some areas of IT).
*** As I have ad and / or script blocking running to some degree on many sites then the ad profilers do not get a full picture of me, hence "targeted" ads generally do not reflect my interests at all & context based ads would be far better.
@IGotOut
Indeed, beat me to it, Google has been an increasingly dismal search engine the last few years, it long since lost the "go to" search engine crown, now surviving on inertia where people have not lost the habit of using it it & also by being default search engine on many browsers / devices..
I tend to use dogpile a lot as it queries a few search engines for its results so (though far from perfect) it gets around some of the skew of just using one single search engine without the hassle of going to multiple engines.
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