Posts by Intractable Potsherd

@Destroy All Monsters

"Hell, let's outlaw being rich."

For certain values of "rich", yes, certainly.

"... el register no longer provides links to related stories"

Yes, this is irritating. Please fix it, guys!

Re: If you ask me

Except in certain situations, such as near an airport, what other "dangerous" situations do you consider GPS blockers cause? I'm also intrigued as to what you think is "antisocial" about them.

Re: PR @ Lusty

Two things worry me about your post:

1. That you *care* that they may be a difference between those three things

2. That you think anyone else cares about them

No matter how you dress it up, anything other than respectable, trusted word-of-mouth recommendation is a form of fraud.

Re: Fake Story

Ummmm ... what?

Re: Will TSA tubesters ride with you?

No, but threatening to blow it up would get attention fast. (Wasn't there a Thunderbirds episode with something similar? If not, why not?)

Re: Single login? @roomey

"Unless of course you have a different email account for each website.... But what happens if you reset them email account passwords"

I'm not sure if you are asking what I think you are asking, but I have specific e-mail addresses for certain accounts, all of which forward to another account that I monitor regularly. All password request changes go to that account too. I know about any changes without actually ever visiting the accounts ...

Re: The power of TV

"I expect that another 9/11 type event will happen on American soil so that any remaining opposition will be quashed forever."

The major highly-publicised panic about a non-event in Yemen is all part of this. The drip-drip-drip of doom-laden news is going to increase, and people like Snowden and Levinson are going to be made out to be enemies of "the people"*, as is anyone supporting them.

* without ever actually defining who "the people" actually are, of course.

Re: If I were to get a phone for my kid

I find this conversation amusing because we didn't have a fixed-line phone in our house until I was about 14!

Re: I hope so

Fortunately, BTW, no-one give a flying fuck what you hope ...

Re: What's not to love?

If the device is as awful as that website, I'll not be buying!

Re: Everything should be as accessible as possible.

This is a poor argument. You have said that your ereader assists you by allowing larger text - it is, therefore, doing what it is designed to do. What more do you want? If you want something that does text-to-speech, then an ereader is not the correct tool - you need something else. In essence, a text-to-speech device for the visually impaired would be wholly different from an ereader - no screen, for instance.

You seem to arguing that every ereader should have a speaker and software that most people will never use, at the expense of the people that will never use it. This is wrong. There is absolutely no reason that a simple device should be encumbered with stuff that the majority will never use merely because it makes the life of a small minority easier, and when reasonably-priced alternatives exist. What next - every phone has to come with giant buttons so that people with visual impairment or lack of mobility in their fingers can buy the same as everyone else?

There is a huge difference between ensuring that ramps are available for people with mobility problems, and special surfaces exist for visually impaired to help them identify crossings etc (though they cause problems for people with mobility problems). It is something entirely different to demand that the manufacturers of goods to to fit the needs of all disabled people.

Out of interest, have you read Harlan Ellison's "Harrison Bergeron"?

Re: "mobile market share" matters, "smartphone market share" does NOT

"Bit like comparing sales of Mercedes or BMW with those of Skoda. They all sell cars, but BMW and Mercedes aren't in the same market as Skoda."

True - Škoda are better :-)

Re: Data Driven?

Is there any evidence anywhere that changing a logo affects anything except for the earnings of a bunch people who want to be artists but aren't good enough at it to succeed? When do we build the "B" Ark?

Re: Some things you should know

Thanks, Christian - that's interesting, because I've been trying to make sense of the system at my wife's employer, where , upon starting, she a) had to apply for a phone for her desk, which took longer than getting a computer, and b) then had to go through a separate process to get answering-machine facility on it, for which she had to make a case or have her wages docked a silly amount for the privilege. When she calls people from the phone, it comes up with one of three or four different mobile-type (i.e. 07xx) numbers on caller display, none of which actually allow you to simply ring back. I'm not saying that it is the NSN system that you refer to, but your comment does fit with the idea I'd had that there are some really piss-poor systems in place!

Re: He got something right!

Well, if we consider "aliens from Mars" to be like those in "War of the Worlds", then yes, it is my considered opinion that the Republicans represented by Limbaugh tick all those boxes. Do his listeners realise what he called them?

Re: Why? @TonyJ

"Quite right Dave and why should they? They're a business, not an individual and businesses exist to make money for shareholders ..." and therein lies the problem with the world we live in. Companies are expected, and indeed required, to act unethically and selfishly, instead of having consideration for the society in which they operate. They attract the most predatory psycho/sociopaths into positions of power and then not only reward them for being bastards, actively encourage others to act the same. Some countries then give them the same legal standing as individuals (USA, I'm looking at you, you silly country), and expect everything to be alright.

What a mess ...

Re: Solution is Easy

Yay! for neo-puritanism.

I take it "John 104" refers to some ramblings in Ye Olde Book of Desert Fairy Tales (c)

"better than capcha!" Not from the point of view of the complainers, I'm afraid. It is still highly visual, and, on the demo I just took, it adds movement to the problem of very small graphics. There is no way I can see to make an audio version, for instance. And the amount of permissions I had to give to enable it to work was scary,

Personally, I find it worse than Capcha, but then I only rarely (perhaps only twice in the last 5 years) have any problems with the wobbly-text ones.

Re: This is funny

It is too much to expect an AC troll to explain their point of view, I suppose?

Re: @NomNomNom

If it were other than NomNomNom, I would have been tempted to say the same, Boris. Unfortunately, this is a commenter who has form for being as objectionably diametrically opposed to whatever is being discussed as s/he can. It seems unfair to me that Eadon got canned from the boards here when he was no worse than some others, including NomNomNom.

Re: WTF?

Why are so many people taking the word of an extremely vocal dissenter to the ITC decision at face value? Pinkert does make a case, but he does not seem to accept that the other five members of the panel disagreed with him.

Certainly, sometimes the dissenting view may turn out to be the right one in hindsight, but rarely on a 5:1 decision. What exactly makes Pinkert, and those supporting his view, think that he has some specific insight into the law that should be preferred over five other people hearing exactly the same evidence? Remember, exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence, and being the one dissenter out of a panel of six means that his view requires a hell of a lot of evidence ...

... but then, this is a country where almost a third of the population believe in creationism. What does evidence have to do with it?

Re: I'm so glad..

If you want things to "just work", then your iPhone should be replaced with:

Pencil and paper

Simple mobile

Cheap MP3 player

Portable FM receiver

Small LED Torch

GPS unit

Games console of choice

All these individual units will work better than the phone. I'll stick with Android because, if it has a problem, someone out there has a fix for it. As I've said before, some people want a Rolls Royce, others want an ancient Land Rover. I prefer the latter, because at least they have a realistic expectation of reliability, and won't get some twat telling them that such-and-such a problem can't possibly happen to this device ...

Re: Great

I'm not sure if you are joking, AC101, but I've downvoted you just in case your comments encourage Lucas et al to produce more in the same vein (though my hopes of anything good from the sequels are small ...)

"" it's an offence to wear anything that might be remotely misconstrued as a police-like uniform"

Same in the UK but the only other bunch to try it are the Sally Army"

Nope - private security staff, traffic wardens, Highways Agency staff and others dress up in quasi-police uniforms. I've long thought it should be either banned, or, if the law actually exists, prosecute under it, especially the private firms.

I'd definitely consider one if other specs were suitable (screen size, pen input etc)

A consumer electrical device without a removable battery is worthless. No changeable battery (and/or no SD card slot) and I don't buy the phone. I only just tolerate no changeable battery on my e-reader because it is not likely to affect my life desperately).

Re: I thought about filtering

Nice "Blake's 7" reference, sir!

Re: Hope this stupidity is defeated

Perhaps, but maybe that's because we aren't given the information to be other than "naive". It seems to me that we have a small set of people who have set up their idea " the operations of the world and their security", and don't actually want to see how the rest of us view the world.

To put it another way - I don't want the world run by a bunch of paranoids who think they know better what is good for the rest of us than we do. If there is significant risk from somewhere, everyone should know about it so that proper oversight can be made of political and other action. I do not consider that there is any risk from any other government or other organisation that requires action so quickly that it cannot be properly debated. I do not live in fear.

Re: Thunderbolts Project... Arrrgh.

I've just checked it out too. All I can say is "damn" ...

Re: Voting iregularities?

I think you might be suggesting that you find it strange that there are pro-fracking votes on here, and that there might be some astroturfing going on.

I would just like to go on record as saying that I am pro-fracking, I support it wholeheartedly, and, just like nuclear power plants, I'd have no concerns living near a fracking site. I have absolutely no links to the oil/gas industry at all, and never have. I also think that, based on several years' reading here, there is a large number of people that support the production of efficient, reliable energy in large amounts (i.e. not wind/solar, at least in the UK), and therefore support fracking and nuclear too. A lot of people here will go into great depth about cost/benefit analysis, and that there are far more important things to worry about than the small risk of minor earthquakes from fracking.

I find it utterly mind-numbing that there are people who are so brain-washed that they can't conceive that people don't really buy into the panic of the week ...

Re: Children are getting far more access to pornography ... and it's not doing them any good at all

As long as both enjoy it, nothing is "wrong" when it comes to sex. Who knows, we might actually be allowing girls/women to realise that they can enjoy things that they never thought of, or were classed as "wrong" by neo-puritan parents.