Training
I love how we've been trained to think that £350 is a 'bargain' for a mobile phone.
Posts by Dacarlo
46 posts • joined 21 Sep 2017
Need next-gen connectivity but don't want to break the bank? Samsung's Galaxy A42 5G is a bin-raking £349
Marketing: Wow, that LD8 data centre outage was crazy bad. Still, can't get worse, can it? Finance: HOLD MY BEER
Nominet promises .uk owners it'll listen to feedback on plan to award itself millions... as long as it agrees with it
BoJo looks to jumpstart UK economy with £6k taxpayer-funded incentive for Brits to buy electric cars – report
Monday 8th June 2020 16:17 GMT
Perfect timing?
"Demand for EVs outstripped supply and there are long waiting list and lead times for new high-profile EVs."
If demand is outstripping supply then this plan is window dressing at best. Surely now is the worst time to buy a this type of car due to demand pushing prices up which gives poorer returns on the taxpayer 'investment'. Also who gets this money? Nissan? Renault? I'm failing to see how those foreign car companies taking tax cash benefits the uk as a whole.
UK COVID-19 contact-tracing app data may be kept for 'research' after crisis ends, MPs told
Microsoft's Bill Gates defrag is finally virtually complete: Billionaire quits board to double down on philanthropy
Saturday 14th March 2020 09:41 GMT 
Business is war...
And he fought a (good/bad) fight. Delete as appropriate. Anyone remember the Doublespace and drivespace fiasco? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_lawsuit Just one of many examples of dodgy practices.
Still. I'm typing this on a very stable Windows10 box that brings me hours of fun and productivity, so its not all bad from my perspective.
Is that a typo? Oh, it's not a typo. Ampere really is touting an 80-core 64-bit 7nm Arm server processor dubbed Altra
It’s not true no one wants .uk domains – just look at all these Bulgarians who signed up to nab expired addresses
We asked for your Fitbit horror stories and, oh wow, did you deliver: Readers sync their teeth into 'junk' gizmos
That's bang out of order: Threesome hookup app 3Fun leaked lovers' data, locations, pix – report
If at first you don't succeed, Fold? Nope. Samsung redesigns bendy screen for fresh launch in September
We don't mean to poo-poo this, but... The Internet of S**t has literally arrived thanks to Pampers smart diapers
Want a good Android smartphone without the $1,000+ price tag? Then buy Google's Pixel 3a
Friday 17th May 2019 21:53 GMT 
Exchange rate?
"...It's $399 or £399"
Is it just me who hates it when these companies equate $ to £ and screw over British consumers? I know the £ has devalued somewhat but its still pretty far off actual parity.
I also happen to think its too much for a fricken PHONE, but wouldn't begrudge someone their opportunity to fondle their slab.
The Year Of Linux On The Desktop – at last! Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 brings the Linux kernel into Windows
Tech security at Equifax was so diabolical, senators want to pass US laws making its incompetence illegal
Boffins put the FUN into fungus by rigging yeast to squirt out the active ingredients in cannabis
El Reg talks to PornHub sister biz AgeID – and an indie pornographer – about age verification
Screeech... DRAM! Weak demand hits memory-makers as they slam on CAPEX brakes – analyst
Wednesday 2nd January 2019 20:16 GMT
Completely agree.
https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Corsair-CMK64GX4M4A2400C14-Vengeance-Performance-Desktop/product/B016ORTP1M
Anywhere between £203 and £715 is a ridiculous variance even for a fairly large quantity of ram as 64Gig.
Perhaps they're skimming off of the money saved by every gamer buying Ryzen chips.
Thanks to UK peers, coming to a laptop near you in 2019: Age checks for online smut
Thursday 13th December 2018 07:10 GMT 
Idiocy
Another prime example of a nanny state not putting children's welfare in the hands of those responsible, the parents. You wouldn't let a kid behind the wheel of a car anymore than you should allow a kid with a sophisticated computer in their pocket not have 'nanny' software blocking objectionables. You'd hide the damn keys.
Perhaps this is another excuse to ban or regulate VPN use further down the road.
Blighty: We spent £1bn on Galileo and all we got was this lousy T-shirt
In news that will shock absolutely no one, America's cellphone networks throttle vids, strangle rival Skype
Friday 9th November 2018 19:49 GMT
Plan B
Perhaps providers of content could delivery shitty quality video to the networks of providers who try to squeeze them and their customers for profit. Nothing irritates a user more than a service they're using proving to be unreliable and inferior to their mates service. Or plan C, imagine...
"Dear Netflix subscriber,
Your carrier/isp charges netflix a premium to delivery our HD content to their customers advising us that if we didn't pay they would throttle our content, diminishing your experience. Unfortunately this necessitates a £1/month subscription premium to your service. Please feel free to use the affiliate links below to mobile/broadband partners who promise never to do this. All proceeds from the click-thrus will go toward <net neutrality orgs>
Sincerely
Netflix in your face Support"
Data flows post-Brexit: 'Leave it to government to make sure you've got a smooth run in.' Er, OK
Upset fat iOS gobbles up so much storage? Too bad, so sad, says judge: Apple lawsuit axed
Thursday 8th November 2018 07:35 GMT
Sony too
Sony Xperia phones are pretty bad for this. And you pay a stupid premium for the phone with less space and another brand for the same price. An 8Gig phone was screaming at me from week 1 due to me taking a few photos and having the temerity to install a few key applications. There was a load of bloatware I couldn't remove so I keep this on a shelf for a backup. Ended up with a 64gig OnePlus. Vote with your feet people and don't reward companies with your money for bad behaviour or support.
Pirate radio = drug dealing and municipal broadband is anti-competitive censorship
Top AI conference NIPS won't change its name amid growing protest over 'bad taste' acronym
Microsoft promises a fix for Windows 10 zip file woes. In November
UK.gov to press ahead with online smut checks (but expects £10m in legals in year 1)
Samsung Galaxy A9: Mid-range bruiser that takes the fight to Huawei
Devon County Council techies: WE KNOW IT WASN'T YOU!
Saturday 11th August 2018 21:38 GMT
Not to mention...
Printing error? Bollocks probably. Pathetic certainly. Perhaps not quite as pathetic as the 'tax' that is now acceptable to pay because a week earlier holiday is vastly cheaper than a week later. It's a bit like the congestion charge. If those levying these 'fines' were truly looking out for kids or congestion, the fines and charges would be astronomical so as to make paying them unthinkable. Hence nothing less than a money generating exercise.
Nah, it won't install: The return of the ad-blocker-blocker
Saturday 28th July 2018 08:01 GMT
What gets my goat...
...is the gigantic "We value your privacy"* popup that covers up the content until you tell it to feck off. That and the in your face button to "Enable all purposes" button followed by a ream of much smaller switch off this reason to rape your privacy buttons. I don't want to view the vendor list. No I don't want to see the list of companies. What I want is a giant feck off I don't accept or disable all purposes permanently. Sure I can click through all of the tiny buttons and view the page with impunity, however if I have the temerity to click on another page it loads up the same bullshit to click through a the list again. It's a tactic to wear you down so you eventually click sod it, enable all.
I even tried to use uBlock to remove these specific elements which appeared at first to work. Alas it also blocked the scroll bar, so I end up with a portion of the underlying page and no way to scroll.
The final solution is to simply not use sites that force-feed irritating content down your throat.
*Which is an even more gigantic lie. They're forced to pay lip-service by gdpr or something.
/rage
Open plan offices flop – you talk less, IM more, if forced to flee a cubicle
Europe dumps 300,000 UK-owned .EU domains into the Brexit bin
Virtual reality meets commercial reality as headset sales plunge
Your F-35s need spare bits? Computer says we'll have you sorted in... a couple of years
IBM bans all removable storage, for all staff, everywhere
Thursday 10th May 2018 06:25 GMT 
It's not rocket science...
Our company introduced this policy recently. It's a unix-esque "Assume no access" and if someone specifically requires USB access they can request it. The line manager of that person then makes the case to the security team. A lone field engineer uploading an image for a customer isn't going to bring down IBM.
Perhaps this notion is too complex for a multinational monster.
Facebook admits it does track non-users, for their own good
US, UK cyber cops warn Russians are rooting around in your routers
UK.gov told: Draw up code of practice for cops bulk-slurping car plates
Brexit in spaaaace! At T-1 year and counting: UK politicos ponder impact
EU lawmakers seek coordinated hand-wringing over AI ethics
Sunday 11th March 2018 18:41 GMT
A starting point...
https://www.therobotreport.com/isaac-asimovs-3-laws-updated/
1 An A.I. system must be subject to the full gamut of laws that apply to its human operator.
2 An A.I. system must clearly disclose that it is not human.
3 An A.I. system cannot retain or disclose confidential information without explicit approval from the source of that information.
Microsoft won't patch Edge browser content security bypass
Crunch time: Maplin in talks to sell the business
Friday 23rd February 2018 10:39 GMT
I'd really miss the opportunity to buy overpriced electronics if I'm desperate or spend some time browsing without the intention of buying.
A friend of mine who worked there said "High paid management who made nothing but bad decisions based on ideas that worked years ago.
Not listening to ideas that would work.
Knowing how financially bad things were but still spending well over half a million on a radio campaign which brought in very low returns
Trying to purchase and (re)brand poor quality audio and gaming equipment from the far east at stupid prices... And sell it for an even higher price.
And not realising that online shopping sites such as amazon were their main competitors rather than brick and mortar stores like argos, John Lewis etc. "
Forget Sesame Street, scientists pretty much watched Big Bird evolve on Galápagos island
UK Prime Minister calls on internet big beasts to 'auto-takedown' terror pages within 2 HOURS
Thursday 21st September 2017 09:24 GMT 
Suggestion for the Prime Sinister...
Take a leaf out of imgur's approach to 'bad' content. If something is 'bad' people down vote it to the point one has to click to view and most probably don't bother. Moreover if it were heavily downvoted it could trip a metric trigger and alert the platform.
Ah crap there I go again trying to think of practical things to accommodate the whims of impractical politicians.
p.s. Prime Sinister is feckin genius.
