* Posts by Peter Johnstone

159 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Sep 2007

Page:

Microsoft says ‘hasta la vista XP’ - well, kinda

Peter Johnstone

Is the MS bloat a myth?

My wife's laptop is a 5-6 year old ASUS which shipped with windows XP Home, which it runs, albeit a bit slow by todays standards.

I thought that I could get it to perform a bit faster if I installed linux on it. I couldn't find a linux distro that would install on it and run in a mode that could display a desktop.

It did make me wonder if the MS bloat is a myth.

BT and Phorm secretly tracked 18,000 customers in 2006

Peter Johnstone

@Alexander Hanff

Well done, good reply. Its a pity we couldn't get a list of the BT users that were spied on and conact them, surely out of that lot we could find one willing to sue.

Dear ISP, I am not a target market

Peter Johnstone
Coat

Have we been asking for it?

When you take home a wage doesn't it feel like everyone seems to be queuing up to take your hard earned from you? Whether it's the tax-man, insurance companies that sell you a policy but don't want to pay out when you claim, or the financial companies that sell you products (like endownment polices) then write to you to say that they'll be unable to payout enough to cover your investments because they've invested in shares then watched the prices go down the toilet, but yet can still give their senior management humungous bonuses or pay rises!

The vultures just see the internet as another tool that can help to relieve you of your cash.

We've all contributed to attracting this attention by shopping on line.

Spammers have known for years that they can send out millions of mails at the press of a key, and that even if less than one percent result in a sale, the numbers are big enough to make this a profitable endeavour.

These guys are just providing a more sophisticated way of delivering spam, that doesn't clog up your in box, and that hopes to raise the percentages of mails that returns in a sale.

I for one refuse to purchase goods from companies that resort to such tactics.

If everyone did this then this would not be happening as there would be no profit in it for them.

I queried my ISP (Virgin media) about this and got the standard BS reply about improving the internet experience and avoiding phishing before getting on to the real purpose of this system, which is to target adds.

I for one am fairly happy with my internet experience.

I avoid phishing by completely ignoring all emails that come from banks, building societies and paypal, whether genuine or not.

I fail to see how inserting adverts that I will never dream of purchasing anything from improves my internet experience.

Let's make this a loss making enterprise for everyone involved. Boycott all online advertising. Maybe then we can turn the net into the resource that it should be.

Mines the one with the empty wallet in the pocket!

Google Sky brings the heavens to a browser near you

Peter Johnstone

Looking for Gallifrey

Can anyone tell me how to find the Kasterborous galaxy on google sky?

CPW builds wall between customers and Phorm

Peter Johnstone

Adware

Anyone who has installed anti-adware software that has been paid for should be pretty pissed of at this move. It effectively circumvents the protection that they have paid for.

The Electric Car Conspiracy ... that never was

Peter Johnstone

For F***'s sake lets see a bit more imagination and will from our politicians!

IMHO the internal combustion engine is going to be arround for a long time yet. What is needed is some more imaginative solutions to green issues.

People need to drive to get to work, get the kids to school etc. Those in this situation are not going to vote for a Green party that is perceived to be anti-car.

Mainstream politicians think that increasing road tax, petrol tax and conjestion charging will make people drive less. For the vast majority of people who fall into the group described above it doesn't. They just pay up and keep on driving.

I'd like to see some of the vast fortune screwed out of drivers in tax spent on negating the effects of car emissions, such as building sequestration plants to remove pollutants from the air (or even planing trees).

Getting decent surfaces on the roads, getting councils out of the habit of digging up almost every road in a city as the financial year comes to an end so as to use up their buggets and bring traffic to a stand still. (Yes, CIty of Edinburgh Council, J'accuse) and an end to stupid no left / right turn systems that sheperd traffic onto the busiest roads would make a huge impact on emmissions.

Decent inner city parking would also help. Limiting waitimng times to four hours so that folk with full time jobs have to go out at lunch time and move there cars to a different area to avoid a ticket is just crazy.

On a larger scale an international initiative to irrigate deserts such as the Sahara and reverse desert expansion, could turn the desert into forrest / farmland which would provide jobs / food / income might even stimulate climate change in a more positive direction, such as kick starting the water cycle by stimulating natural rainfall.

Nissan builds twirly-cab sideways electric pod-car

Peter Johnstone

Pivo?

Is this for real? Isn't pivo the word for beer in several Eastern European languages, such as Polish, Czeck, etc?

BOFH: Skip diplomacy

Peter Johnstone

Easiest way to clean a whiteboard.

I recall, when I was working for a newspaper, that some pleb had written on a whiteboard with a permanent marker. Another member of staff came up with a solution that was truly ingenious; he took the board down, turned it over and used the other side. Be warned you can only do this once!

Reference kilo shows mysterious weight loss

Peter Johnstone

How many bh's are there to a brontosaurus?

I would like to propose the bh (Baw Hair) as a universal unit of measurement lengh. Here are some examples

It's a bh too long.

I need to cut a bh off of this!

So that would make the measure of area a bh^2 and the measure of volume a bh^3 or as I like to call it a pubic cube. (A bit like a rubic cube but with all the sides covered in short curly hair).

Question is how many bh's are their to a brontosaurus?

Page: