Posts by MrMerrymaker

Getting a pizza the action, AS/400 style

He didn't resign out of shame?

I guess he kneaded the dough...

Doom Eternal: Reboot sequel is cluttered but we're only here for the rippin' and the tearin'

Too much platforming

I've had it since release, but they separate many battles with jumping puzzles over bottomless pits.

No.

Minister slams 5G coronavirus conspiracy theories as 'dangerous nonsense' after phone towers torched in UK

The boss at worked asked me

If I thought this was right, with his voice all sombre and timid.

I did the only decent thing one could do in reply, which was laugh into his face, the idea so warped & dumb it tickles

US prez Trump's administration reportedly nears new rules banning 'dual-use' tech sales to China

Mr Bombastic

How long til some moron defends Trump Le Monde here?

Vietnam bans posting fake news online

Re: Why

I'm not sure we should be taking advice on safety, news or anything else, from somebody with such terrible grammar and spelling.

Remember that clinical trial, promoted by President Trump, of a possible COVID-19 cure? So, so, so many questions...

Re: Echo chamber aside

What are you, some kind of idiot?

Whoa, someone actually texted you in 2020? Oh, nvm, it's just Boris Johnson, telling you to stay the f**k at home

Re: Why is the 'full guidance' so wrong?

You are manufacturing outrage

Here is the full text of the message, no usage of House at all:

GOV.UK CORONAVIRUS ALERT New rules in force now: you must stay at home. More info & exemptions at gov.uk/coronavirus Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives.

French watchdog to take €1.1bn bite out of Apple over 'anticompetitive' practices

A percentage

A billion sounds a lot but with their profits?

Fine them ten percent of turnover.

RIP Freeman Dyson: The super-boffin who applied his mathematical brain to nuclear magic, quantum physics, space travel, and more

Dirty nuke myth

"If the United States gets attacked with a nuclear weapon, it won’t be from a government at all, but it will be a bunch of bad guys carrying a weapon in a suitcase or in a car or in a truck or something of that kind. You won’t even know where it comes from. "

While I agree with the sentiment, it's a shame such a vaunted genius is perpetuating the myth of the suitcase nuke or dirty bomb.

US hands UK 'dossier' on Huawei: Really! Still using their kit? That's just... one... step... beyond

Re: Won't make a difference

If he's joking, then the humour element - which some argue is a crucial element - is AWOL

Just seems like kneejerk paranoia to me?

Firefox 72: Floating videos, blocking fingerprints, and defeating notification pop-ups

Brave is also good

Brave renders better IMO, chrome base for ya, but Firefox is my go to.

Wish brave had better mobile addons options...

Re: I hate that Firefox is the least terrible option

Darkreader plug in renders pages in wonderful custom schemes. I have it on for all sites. Works on mobile too! Shop around...

Hold my Bose, we can do premium: Sennheiser chucks pricey wireless cans at travellers

Audio Technica or bust.

Yes, still. The wireless Ath-m50x cans are great. As you can still use them wired!

Five years in the clink for super-crook who scammed Google, Facebook out of $120m with fake tech invoices

He robbed Google and Facebook?

Seems a hero to me!

Uber forks out $4.4m to settle claims of rampant sexual harassment and retaliation in the Travis Kalanick era

Harassement all round

Passengers get harassed AND the "employees"?

What a toxic company. Hope it gets shut down SOON.

A few local firms have borrowed the general idea of Uber - book via app, anywhere! - and they're licensed and stick to their geographic area. But without the moral baggage of giving to an evil company.

Support local businesses - Uber can get fscked

Sir John Redwood backs IR35 campaign, notes review would have to start 'immediately' before new off-payroll working rules kick in

Re: none of these things

Offensive indeed!

The = oh so he's definitive?

Right = Wrong more like.

Honourable = lol

Sir = that's just wrong morally.

John = ruining it for Johns everywhere.

Redwood = a tree I usually like!

Ah yes, punish the poor.

Re: let the shafting begin

Good man for the Private Eye shout out! The Tory treasurer is dodgy, having been in a business with a man described as "Putin's wallet", by... Their third business partner!

Ask if you're happy that the Treasurer of the government's party is.

1) not a British national (doesn't bother me personally, but some might take umbrage)

2) Not in any sense elected (this one is not good)

3) hired to drum up funds when he has proven in court links to Russia

Naturally, he's already been knighted.

My eyes thank you, Google: Android to get dark mode scheduling in future update

Swift Installer

You're welcome.

Xbox Series X: Gee thanks, Microsoft! Just what we wanted for Xmas 2020 – a Gateway tower PC

Re: Groovy, man

Watts liked a drink but his lectures were sober and he only tried LSD once under lab settings.

Elon Musk gets thumbs up from jury for use of 'pedo guy' in cave diver defamation lawsuit

Unbelievable... Almost

What a miscarriage, you almost couldn't see this coming.

Almost.

That jury couldn't judge their way out of a paper bag.

Buy Amazon's tiny $99 keyboard so you can make terrible AI music for all your friends

"Generate Melodies"

Yuck.... I suspect it's a massive part of modern music production, but some things are better left in-box *taps head*

We strained our eyes with Lenovo's monster monitor: 43.4 inches for price of five 24" screens

Re: Vertical space rules

That would involve supporting the evil Walmart

Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC: Howdy buck do you get a solid 60FPS in Rockstar's masterpiece?

Re: 60FPS here.. albeit not always and not in St Denis

Please do! It made all the difference for me.

Annoyingly, every time the game updates (so far for me, anyway) it resets it back to Vulkan, which in turn resets your graphics options. Sigh...

60FPS here.. albeit not always and not in St Denis

The trick is to use DirectX and not their rotten Vulkan API. Also be careful with what anti-aliasing options you choose... everything else is on high or ultra

Also there's a bug with, specifically, Nvidia graphics cards causing pauses. Yikes.

I've got a brand new Ryzen CPU and AMD graphics card to match, so suspect that's why I'm getting smooth-as-butter performance.

Even started to mod it - put in a basic trainer, and spawned a load of dogs in the camp. I went to bed - woke up - and the dogs were still roaming the camp! Now that's GOTY material.

Why can't passport biometrics see through my cunning disguise?

I renewed my passport 2 months ago and the guidelines explicitly stated no glasses (and I am a habitual glasses wearer)

UK political parties fall over themselves to win tech contractor vote by pledging to review IR35

Re: There are an estimated 4.6 million contractors in the UK.

Hi there. I don't use IR35 as I work through an umbrella company.

As do a fair few of my colleagues.

So you don't need a limited company to be a contractor. Hence the term "umbrella" company.

So your maths is therefore faulty.

Christmas in tatters for Nottinghamshire tots after mayor tells them Santa's too busy

Re: Geez I wonder what's up Squire?

Could be that Atheist is a definite belief: "No"

No religion could be "don't know (agnosticism), "don't care"...

Granted, it would make more sense to lump it ALL under No Religion, but yes, atheism is distinct simply because it is a definite "belief" in an answer vs not knowing / caring / identifying as something.

Three distinct groups then:

Is there a God:

Yes

No

Arsed, mate.

Labour: Free British broadband for country if we win general election

This idea aside you're voting for further deaths, be it Grenfell again or homelessness or Universal Credit or the NHS being sold off.

Vote for who you want, but do weigh up everything.

But you're not being straight with us, as you think the Tories aren't getting us in massive debt! You're too partisan to trust, even if calling New Labour "socialist" wasn't enough of a clue.

No ghosts but the Holy one as vicar exorcises spooky tour from UK's most haunted village

Re: In a complete about face...

Bet they made a clean prophet!

Call-center scammer loses $9m appeal in stunning moment of poetic justice

Good news about scammers, for a change

That's all!

I couldn't possibly tell you the computer's ID over the phone, I've been on A Course™

Two reasons his revenge sucked

1) Petty and pointless

2) It's going to trigger a password reset call!

If you're going to exact revenge, try not to do something that causes more work for yourself :)

Breaker, breaker. Apple's iOS 12.4 update breaks jailbreak break, un-breaks the break. 10-4

Apple should take the hint

Take the walls down from the Walled Garden just a bit.. Loosen it up and take the need for jailbreak away by adding what it's most popular features are (I'm android these days but I know I used to love theming)

Negate the NEED to do it!

... Pigs need to fly for that though!

My MacBook Woe: I got up close and personal with city's snatch'n'dash crooks (aka some bastard stole my laptop)

Re: That's horrible.

I remember in 30 Rock they showed Macbooks in the writer's room, and the credits said Furnished Courtesy of Apple

Suggesting if you show off their kit they will give you it

He said, and this is right: it could have been worse

So why attack that when it's true?

Microsoft Chrom... Edge hits beta as new browser prepped for biz testing

Re: Vivaldi

I'll stick to Firefox.

Lenovo ThinkPad X390: A trusty workhorse that means business but it's not without a few flaws

Re: Looking forward to buying one in a few years

Seconded. Even down to the model! I replaced the screen on this refurbished one and it's clocking along brilliantly with Mint.

While I'm nominally glad to see Thinkpads still coming out... The real joy is in picking up a classic and proven model for a fraction of the price.

Take two cornerstones of British life, booze and queues, then squirt them with face scans: AI Bar

Re: Meh - Spoons have it sorted

Me and a pal, still putting em away the morning after, used the app to circumvent the whole Getting Served When Hammered thing.

He's tech phobic, so my round was getting a couple of bottles of Kozel or whatever to the table. His was getting refused for being drunk.

Interesting..

As many as 100,000 IBM staff axed in recent years as Big Blue battles to reinvent itself from IT's 'old fuddy duddy'

As an ex employee, the saddest thing is..

Laid off in 07 for Indian jobs

Laid off as a contractor in 2015 (fool me twice) for ... guess

Nothing against India, I went there to train but they're on less than £4k a YEAR each with no expertise and have to follow scripts..

But the saddest thing? Apart from the mistreatment issues..

LOTUS NOTES HAS OUTLASTED ME

LOTUS NOTES HAS OUTLASTED SO MANY

FUCK LOTUS NOTES

I've Been Moved (offshore)

People of Britain: You know that you're not locked into using the same ISP forever, right?

Re: Tip for VM customers - go business

That's a good tip. I actually cut my teeth in the Telewest days on tech support where we'd explain to the usual customers that only business customers get guaranteed uptime or certain compo.

Worth enquiring about at least.

Virgin Media on NL/TW cable with staff deal

Even though I've not worked there for like a decade...

If it can be beat I'd like another company name if I "should" move.

Giffgaff goody-baddy-bag billing faff: Ofcom fines operator £1.4m for overcharging folks by almost £3m

We might, but as a Giffgaff customer, this was actually refunded to us ages ago. Surprised it didn't seem to make much news then.

So should this advert happen, of course, blame the predatory firms who would advertise that, and blame whatever site carries such an ad.

City-obliterating asteroid screamed past Earth the other night – and boffins only clocked it just 26 hours beforehand

What, predicted and prepared for but never turning up so you get the Tube instead? :)

Hey, Windows Insiders! Sorry about that whole 20H1 build thing. Won't happen again – honest

Re: Windows Insider programme has three (sometimes four) rings.

Explains the deep stench of dung...

FTC fines Facebook $5bn for making users believe they actually had control over their data

Re: So who gets the money?

Civil suits welcome I'd imagine... If I used the damn thing I'd consider suing, although my money is on nobody doing it

Man arrested over UK's Lancaster University data breach hack allegations

I actually went as a student and found it lovely. Handsome varied buildings - not all of em great, but some of them nice.

And what you see as being "isolated" I found as open and rolling and natural.

Can't comment on a perceived student population issue as I went in the early 2000s and I'm northern anyway

British ISPs throw in the towel, give up sending out toothless copyright infringement warnings

Ah, Get over yourself - the ultimate rhetorical insult!