Posts by Steve Brooks

Re: Once again ...

Only got to look to the House of Lords to see that it seems to be an almost universal affliction.

Obvious init? You can tell by the trees this isn't the ground floor, the problem with Skynet was always that it was in an underground bunker, when this bleeder suddenly tries to take over the world you just open the window and shove her out, problem solved BOFH style!

Re: Telstra unaware?

Basically Telstra couldn't give a shit! The last bill I saw from telstra for where I work basically had a link on the page that said, "click here to log into your account and pay your bill," despite years of warning to not click on links in emails. Not even a suggestion to go to the website and log in, how easy is that?

The last time I received a phone call from Telstra they asked for my username and password so they could be sure they were talking to the right person. The drone on the other end of the phone must have fallen off her chair when I asked her to authenticate herself as a telstra employee and not a scammer after my un/pw. I asked for a name or employee number so that I could call back on Telstra's public number to be sure I was talking to them, nope I had to give them un/pw with no way to verify they actually were from telstra.

They are so far behind the security 8 ball it looks like a 2 ball to them, basic security measures the intelligent IT aware person adopts routinely are arcane knowledge to their CSR's, we are doomed I tells ya, DOOOMED!!!

Re: Windows 10 is fugly

Actually you've made a serious mistake, I will fix it for you;

Windows 7 SUCCESS

Windows 8 dud

Windows 9 Success

Windows 10 DUD!

So since they skipped windows 9 althogether we are aactually getting dud/dud, not dud/success

Re: And of course: To hell with the ocean environment

"We're going to hear a lot about bozo science in the coming years. This example of Short Term Thinking, Long Term Disaster has to be an historical marker for a clear beginning of The Era Of Bad Science, what I also call The Age Of Trivia."

Actually no, electricity started off as an essentially useless intellectual curiosity and nothing more, if someone had jumped up then and demanded we end all research into what was essentially a useless phenomena where would we be today? Pure research, the basic stuff, should have no thought to the end uses of its subject, however because most governments these days have now decided that research should only be conducted into areas where there is demonstrable financial return scientists are having to resort to ridiculous suggestions to continue to receive funding.

For instance supercavitation in water may have no foreseeable useful function, but it may lead to way to reduce friction and drag in other media, air for instance, but unless we do the basic research we will never know where anything will lead.

Re: Why?

And I believe it was once commented that 50% of the population of the United States were of below average intelligence. I will take your comment as sarcasm until demonstrated otherwise but will add, it's not the below average that's the problem it's the distribution of that proportion of the workers that could be the issue. If 50% of the workforce are performing below average, and 100% of those below average workers are in the one facility then you have a problem.

Re: amazon.com

"here in germany half the bag woud be air, "

You get sweets in your bags of air? In Australia finding something edible in your bag of air is a bonus only topped by actually managing to get it open without employing teeth/scissors or a plasma cutter.

Re: @Steve Brooks 01:48

Why when people like you are waiting here all agog to hear it?

But seriously, I have a facebook account because ppl were putting stuff they wanted me to see on facebook, and whenever I went to look at it facebook told me I needed an account to view it...sigh!

Now lets go to my facebook page intentionally (for the first time ever) and see what's there! Nope nothing except two people who I have never heard of want to be my friend, whoohoo, no sorry, wrong phrase, to many o's and w's and not enough u's, c's, k's and f's. Guess I am not contributing much to facebooks's business model!

So you get google to build them into your prescription lenses, so then it's illegal to drive with them, and illegal to drive without them, nooo a paradox the world is ending!!! Nah just joking the world isn't en.........

Re: Not "complying" is the crime, not the results of complying.

Actually no, the equivalent would be, "you must tell us where you hid the evidence." What this lets them do is to jail you whether they have evidence or not, simply because you refused to tell them where you hid the evidence, but more importantly, it lets them jail you whether or not any evidence actually exists. This not only saves them the bother of finding evidence, it also saves them the bother of finding criminals, since everybody can be presumed guilty simply by asking the question.

Re: re: Wagon Wheels at least a foot across.

Dustbin lid? Dustbin ld? When I were a youngen they used t'wagonwheels t'fix locomotives when a drive wheel cracked, dustbin lids, hah!

Re: WTF?

Perhaps because gold mining entails some level of risk. There's always plenty of gold miners willing to risk life and fortune in the hope of striking it rich, but the only guy with the guaranteed steady income is the one selling them shovels and gold panning gear, and when you have a family the guaranteed steady income is the one you are after.

The point here is that the way it works is a guaranteed steady income, if it worked. The other side is, if it does work, and can be demonstrated to work, keeping it secret is impossible if you are selling it, sooner or later the chinese, through some shell company, would get their hands on one and rip it apart (well actually the same goes for every country in the world I am guessing). So you can make money now selling them, and pretty soon find a thousand other manufacturers doing the same, or you could try and keep it an absolute secret by never selling any and just selling the power.

Of course this would all be illegal, breach of contract, court cases etc etc, but, if it worked, every country in the world would have an army of scientists whose only purpose would be to reproduce the process, and while you can patent a device, copyright a design, the process itself is free for everyone to take advantage of.

Re: Finally a sensible review

Agreed, I read one review last week in a local rag that was practically doing loop the loops because it was so wonderful, the reason? It had Blue Ray player, I thought WTF?

Re: The maddest real computer

More for the sake of a toilet break. I can just imagine, finally defeating the Vogons and getting into the tardis for a toilet break, shower and a long nap only to arrive instantaneously at the next mad computer (and yes I know Vogons didn't exist in the Dr Who universe, but it's time we had a mashup!)

The reason it failed was because the US directors, in thier infinite wisdom, placed The Eye of Harmony inside the Tardis itself, and since The Eye of harmony is actually a black hole surrounded by a time field that stops it's decay, placing it inside the time field of the vessel it is supposed to power would lead to catastrophic consequences....hence the new series ended before it began, an eminently fitting result I would say!

Re: re: "Yes"

"presumably complete with in-flight Kool-Aid, has accelerated my vomit flow to such a rate that it can now literally split atoms." Such witty responders as utilising your vomit stream as an interstellar drive to push you all the way out to uranus poured through my head but failed to materialise into anything meaningful so I just decided to leave the toilet humour to those better equiped....(hehehe, I said Ur-anus)

Re: How to ruin a great idea

We are at that stage already, it's when they find the dunny's broke and they can't flush the resultant mess away until they are replaced by a political party they can blame it all on that the shit really hits the fan.

Re: What would be the point of Sailfish?

The point would be that you are not confined to one OS seller/supplier, and that if that OS seller/supplier decided to do something to the OS that you personally found so unethical that you couldn't possibly purchase a phone using said OS, you actually have an alternative available.

Re: Makes me proud

Yeah right. from their policies; "We will not support legislation or public debate that is divisive or disrespectful." So we are going to suppress discussion on issues we don't agree with. The entire point of democracy is that you don't suppress discussion. And also who decides if it is divisive or disprespectful?

And; "Hurts the Australian way of life or penalises the law abiding for the sake of the irresponsible minority, thus making life harder for average Australian families or takes away the right to a “fair go” That's going to be a hard one, who decides what the average australian family is, and if they aren't average does that mean it's fine to pick on them for the benefit of the priveleged "average"? They do realise that almost nothing is at that point don't they, that average's are simply the midpoints of a possibly vast range of possibilities.

Should I also point out that some preferences from said party are directed to One Nation and Pauline Hanson, and as a result these minor party preferneces Pauline Hanson is now a senator, dog save australia, the queen certainly can't.

Re: Just a thought...

Fortunately ve haf the internet at our fingertips, viscous it aint!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MxaHwpFBWk

Did no-one else here immediately type mudcanoe+youtube into google? I ask with interest because, well really, just how could you resists?

Re: "Needed in the wake of those domestic terror attacks.."

Since when?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hilton_Hotel_bombing

Sydney Hilton Hotel Bombing 1978 targetting CHOGRM, three people killed!

Re: The feds are not going to stop themselves

And you would prove this how? By examining the data of course...umm, what data? Your guess, since there is no evidence to present that can ever prove it to be correct, is very likely libelous. Want to defend yourself, just present the "evidence" in court, what? Can't? The problem with these fat sleazeballs is that they have very much the same rights under law that you and I do, including bringing court cases against people who accuse them of crimes without evidence, the data should have been preserved, if only so that you could defend yourself!

Re: Microsoft: "We're always listening to our customers"

Ah yes more fool you then, without the cheap secondhand game market there won't be platinum games editions, who did you think they were competing against? They sell the game for $109.95 until enough people have got tired of playing them and traded them in that the market for new copies tanks, then they release platinum editions at the same price of second hand games to keep the money rolling to them instead of the second hand game shops.

If they can kill the second hand game market they will never need to release cheap platinum edition copies to compete, they will just sell the games at $109.95 until the market is saturated and sales stop, then release the next piece of mindless entertainement at $109.95 etc etc. Gamers will either have to pay the $109.95 or simply never play the game.

Re: Oh, Amazon

And now how about explaining to all the people who have netflix accounts so that thier children can watch Spongebob now also have to pay for an amazon account, but they probably still have to keep thier netflix account for other stuff they watch. The problem with streaming is not really the DRM or the quality, it's the fact that you can't stream everything you want from one location. DRM and the low quality is bad enough, but having to pay multiple times for the ame service? Fail!

Re: How about "Haswell" on LGA 1156 instead of another new socket?

Actually from what I have heard the new CPU's need special low power support in the chipset and BIOS, so a new motherboard would be required anyway. Sure they could make it an LGA 1156, but all that would achieve is to allow people to stuff the CPU into boards without the low power features and BIOS and thereby fry the CPU, so it makes sense, even if it is annoying.

Re: new technology

Yes yes I know, that was slightly sexist, I realised that after posting it, it's not only men who view porn!

Re: Why legs.

Yes, the entire purpose of a pack robot, scout robot etc is to basically go everywhere a human soldier goes, whereas wheeled robots would perforce be limited to flat areas, making them and the humans with them vulnerable to attack, basically suitable only for logistics transport. Tracked would work better, except seeing a bleeding great set of steel track marks from where the scout robot was by spying on you might be a givaway, with legs they can put fake animal pads on the bottom, dress it up like a feral dog and go spy all they want.

Re: ability to discern pictures more quickly than words

It's not necessarily the ability to discern words quicker than pictures that's the issue, it's that the words never change. Delete is always delete, paste is always paste, cut is slways cut, but have two programs that do the same thing, or even two versions of the same program, and the pictures to do common functions will be in a small or large way, different, and then starts the hunt. It's even worse when you change the interface style, because then every icon has to change to match the interface, so every icon has to be relearnt, but guess what? Delete is still delete, paste is still psate and cut is still cut.

Re: the PR people need to go to the same place as all the lawyers.

Wasn't that just phone sanitizers, social documentary film makers and hair dressers?