Re: TalkTalk blocked my site
"Can every wordpress user check their site"
I've checked my three WordPress sites, and none are blocked.
3483 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2009
"But you don't operate a radio while driving. You turn it on when you get into the car and turn if off when you get out."
Sadly, while that should be the way things are (and it certainly works for me), the reality is probably that people don't like this song, so tune to another radio station, or don't want to listen to this CD again, so fumble around ejecting that one and finding another - all while driving.
(Yes, a CD player is not a radio, but Mr Average Joe may very well call that thing in his car a radio even if he doesn't use the radio function - although stereo is more likely).
"Fantastic choice for senior citizens who might not be too computer savvy"
Exactly that.
When my step dad needed a new computer, about six or so months back, I pointed him in the direction of Chromebooks. His requirements are very simple so it's ideal for him - and it's meant I have to deal with less problems (so far, none at all).
"I used to get this sort of junk."
I get them occasionally from Domain Registry of America - one of those listed - and a number of my clients get them as well (thankfully, rather than just fall for it, each who has received one has had the good sense to ask me if it's real).
This sort of business doesn't stop at domain names, though. I'm in the process of registering a trademark, and I've already had a letter (which looks more or less like an invoice for 970euros, but states it isn't in the small print, probably enough to keep it just about legal) from "International Patent and Trademark Service" to register the trademark in their database. Again from the small print: "The registration in our database has not any connection with an official government organization".
Fecking chancers. I'm sure I can look forward to more of these over the life of the trademark.
"At the moment the robot fingers are designed to merely mimic the gripping style of the user with the same force as exerted by fleshy fingers. But in the future the team wants to add variable force to the mechanical digits and shrink the unit into something everyone could wear to make it easier to crush your enemies' skulls on a day-to-day basis."
FTFY!
It doesn't matter which one it is, because if too many people say no then at some point it will change from "Cops are allowed to keep photographs for five years before deleting them, as long as the subject agrees" to "Cops keep all photographs, forever" because there will be a new 'emergency' bill passed to protect us from the paedorists.
"And having got back through the tracks to eBay, it refused to allow my new password on the grounds that certain non-alpha characters, with which it had been perfectly happy before, were no longer allowed..."
But did their system tell you that beforehand and/or behave consistently? I had fun with Ryanair's website on this subject back in January.
"I said I preferred NOT to use the machines because not using them would annoy their management."
Last time I went into a bank to pay some cheques in, which happens very rarely, I was pounced on by some staff member to suggest I could use the machine to pay them in.
I said I'd prefer to get the paying in book stamped as evidence that the cheques were paid in (especially since they weren't mine). He pointed out that the machine would print a receipt.
Bastard!
" If you think crap movies don't make money, I refer you to the Transformers franchise."
Depressing, isn't it?
I was found the first one disappointing, so I decided against going to see the second. I eventually watched it when it didn't cost me any extra, and found it disappointing. I didn't even consider the third when it came out.
There's a cinema I use most often - I go there because it's reasonably cheap (old-style fleapit) and it's on my route home from work most days, so if there's a film on that I want to see at near enough after the time I'd go past, I'll go then. That usually means a 4:30-5:00pm start - and often has the benefit of not many other people in the screening to spoil it.
This week, the most convenient film for my times? The new Transformers film.
I spotted at the weekend that Netflix had number three, so because I wouldn't be paying any extra to see it (other than giving up my time) I thought I'd give it a chance, and if I enjoyed it I'd consider going to see number four. Either I'd forgotten just how bad the first two were, or number three is even worse than they were, because that was a truly awful experience.
Needless to say, I won't be bothering with the cinema this week.
Surge, inquit, et recesserunt a te - Up, up and away!
Id quod factum est, quo nunc ad proximum vectis - That's that done, now where's the nearest bar?
Nunc demum in mare, non quasi ultimum playmonaut! - I hope I don't end up in the sea, like the last playmonaut!
Tutum certo habes? - Are you sure this is safe?
"So by extension, *we* must bear all the cost of allowing our glorious leaders to poke their noses in where it's not required or warranted."
That's how it'll be anyway if UK Gov gets its way.
If *they* have to pay for it, you and I will actually be paying for it through increased taxation somewhere.
If they don't, and the ISPs have to cover the costs, you and I will actually be paying for it through increased subscriptions.
Heads, they win. Tails, we lose.
"And every bomb will have to have a cell phone glued to it so you can get it through security. Even more sales there."
There's a potential silly OTT comedy sketch, there. Guy going through security, security spot that there's a phone in his hand luggage. They ask him to take it out and switch it on. Out it comes, attached to some sticks of dynamite. He switches it on. Security guy looks at it and says "Okay, go on through."
"Seems they were doing that at least 5 years ago for domestic flights. I was always asked to turn on the cell phone and laptop to verify they worked. So Stateside, we were doing something that wasn't done outside the States?"
Several years ago I was asked by security (at Bergamo, Italy) to switch my laptop on before I could carry on through to board my flight home to the UK.
Ah, okay. I'll take a good long look for it tonight.
I've not long had the TiVo - I had a V+ box until about a year ago when it broke. Rather than get it fixed I just took the TV out of the equation (and my bill), but when I upgraded my broadband they offered me prices that meant I'd be paying less with the TiVo than without.
Until the contract term runs out, at which point the discount will disappear - and I'll probably cancel the TV again.
"Back at the watershed, meanwhile, Ofcom admits it has to address the issue of on-demand television. The watchdog's Claudio Pollack said: "Ofcom recognises that the growth of on-demand TV is posing new challenges for parents and regulators. "
Here's a challenge - not for either of them, but for bloody Virgin Media.
Add an option to your silly telly-boxes so that users who do not have kids don't have to enter a sodding PIN to watch a recorded program because it's being watched before the watershed, but was recorded after it.
"Then again, I'm tolerant (and a frequent user) of what most other people call "swearing" so maybe I'm just one of the witless."
Someone once said to me, because I swore, that it showed I had a limited vocabulary. I pointed out that my vocabulary consisted of all the 'acceptable' words, as well as the swear words, meaning my vocabulary was less limited than his. He didn't have an answer.
...also James and Vincent.
Who's Vincent? :(
A truth, that we might not want to acknowledge, is that it takes less than half the time to teach a pupil to use an iPad compared to an Android tablet.
Well my mum had no real problem learning to use the Samsung - she manages quite well, really, apart from two things. Firstly, the unnecessary powering down I've already mentioned and, secondly, that she doesn't really 'get' the idea of lightly tapping icons, rather than pressing hard with her finger.
Other than that, she's fine with Android.
"I got my mum a tablet a few months back thinking it'd be pretty foolproof and I'd get some peace from this sort of thing. Within a month she'd lost the wifi login, installed about 50 different copies of Mahjong and put the tablet into Safe Mode - even I don't know how she managed the last one."
You too, huh?
I've since looked it up. With the Samsung Galaxy Tab (which is what my mum has) it's done by holding the volume control while switching on.
I keep telling her there's no need to fully power it down - and if she didn't do that, she wouldn't be accidentally putting it in safe mode when switching on - but she continues to do so.
""but with a blog post or newspaper article, these only ever show the headline and first paragraph. The commenter can't logically have been the complainant."
Not necessarily. If you look at the actual BBC blog post in question, some of the commenters have real names displayed. The top one is Peter Dragomer. A Google search for this guy links to the blog post, shows the blog post's title, but then shows part of his comment in the snippet"
Exactly - one of the comments I was going to make was that the snippet is usually contextual based on the search term.
Another was that the search term suggested by the Guardian bloke demonstrates a lack of understanding of how to search on Google anyway.
His suggested search term: "Dougle McDonald Guardian" - which now shows a number of links on this subject.
A slightly better search term: "Dougie McDonald" +site:guardian.co.uk - which shows the three 'missing' results from his original search term, right there at the top.
I take Andew's point that Google may be re-linking such articles1, but I note their little caveat that some things may have been removed is still present.
This is all getting silly.
1. We won't really know until we hit on a search that definitely has links missing, and not just assumed to be missing, which then magically reappear for the search term later. In the meantime, knickers are not for twisting.
"No wonder those girls in the video need a bit of DIY - their voices are so annoying!"
Yeah, but at least they provided a good comedy moment for the day:
"Ultimately, all of these apps are limited by the capabilities of the iPhone itself."
"Yeah, like, come on Apple..."
"I know, we didn't need an iPad mini, we needed a vibrator."
"This is what happens when Steve Jobs passes away."
Paris. Just because, okay?
"You're the entity who said it was easy to do."
Please feel free to point out where I said that, because I can't see it.
What I can see is you saying that the Virgin crap and many other devices don't provide the option, and me countering that with an if - if you were referring to the Superhub, and [if] the user has a decent router; if those are true, the option is there.
You then moved the goalposts by referring to normal people - which in the context of what I said is irrelevant; I didn't say "normal people who don't understand this stuff can do it easily,", merely that "the option is there" - which it is in the situation I described.
I therefore made the moving goalposts comment because of those moved goalposts.
I suppose I could give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your claim that I said it's easy is also goalpost relocation, but I suspect the real reason might be more fundamental.
"When you are next to your computer with your phone, and you are at home, you will be able to set your policy such that the computer will simply be unlocked. When you are out and about and have your phone (with e.g. touch ID), your MacBook in bluetooth range will similarly also unlock. You might set it such that that only occurs at known locations like home or office. Wherever you want the policy to apply really."
So if Mr Ne'erdowell (or Mr NSA/GCHQ/Whoever) wants to access what's on your computer, all he needs to do is steal your phone - perhaps sneakily while you're otherwise occupied, perhaps in the gym or whatever, and nip around to your house with it.
Nice.
"In its patent, the fruity firm wrote: "To provide a reliably pleasant and secure experience for a user operating a mobile device, it can be desirable to modify security settings or other device behavior based on a detected location."
I can understand how this makes the device a touch more secure, but I'm not sure how that can be described as a 'secure experience' unless, for example, this extra level of security somehow prevents muggers from attacking the user to steal their device - and if that happens, I'm sure it won't be pleasant.
Cynically, I can't help but think if you can persuade users that this will 'provide a reliably pleasant and more secure experience' and they must therefore allow apps to use the device's ability to get their location, be that via GPS or network stuff, then be sleight of hand they've allowed other apps to gain access to that location stuff.
How granular are these things on Apple devices? Can you enable an option like that for just one app/feature, or is it all or nothing?
"So could someone google every name mentioned in the comments until the "some results have been removed" message comes up... ?"
Probably not. As I pointed out in the comments on another article on this subject, that message comes up if I search for myself - even using my full, exact name, which is probably unique - and I haven't asked Google to forget anything about me. I therefore infer that the message doesn't come up to effectively say "This person's asked us to de-index something about him" but instead is (eventually) going to come up more generally when searching for a name.
What you'd have to do, therefore, is search for every name in the comments, and then go through all the results for all those names trying to see if the article in question is there. When you find a name for whom that article isn't listed, you've found the person.
I don't disagree with any of that, per se, but what you appear to be suggesting/criticising in the previous comment is that Joe Bloggs asked for an article about Stan O'Neal to be de-indexed, and Google complied, notifying Preston (well, the Beeb) of this because it's his article.
I'm merely pointing out that isn't, on the face of it, what happened - which is more likely that Joe Bloggs asked for a web page in which Joe Bloggs is mentioned to be de-indexed.
Whatever the real story, it does highlight a massive flaw (another one) in this right to be forgotten silliness.
> "He" (Stan O'Neal) didn't actually make the complaint.
So the complaint should have been rejected at the first hurdle. Only the individual or someone with delegated authority can complain, not some random third party.
Note Preston's comment at the end:
"The implication is that oblivion was requested not by anyone who appears in the blog itself (O'Neal is the only person I mention in my column) but by someone named in the comments written by readers underneath the blog. "
The people who commented on the post have this same 'right to be embarrassed about something they once wrote on the internet forgotten' as the subject of the blog post itself - so if one of them, who posted under their own name, manages to get Google to forget their embarrassing comment, then searches for that person's name won't include that particular piece that Preston has written - and it won't (just as it appears not to have done) affect searches for O'Neal.
And if that's what's happened, it is not a random third party; it's Joe Bloggs asking for this comment by (or mentioning) Joe Bloggs to be removed.
Just to confirm, searching for Stan O'Neal currently brings up quite a lot of articles about this nonsense, but adding +site:bbc.co.uk shows the 'removed' article half way down the first page.
And the weather forecast for that teacup is: Stormy.
"I'd never realised that they were separate words. Curse you dyslexia! Or damn the English language, or possibly both."
It's easy to remember:
discreet - adjective: Careful and prudent in one's speech or actions, especially in order to keep something confidential or to avoid embarrassment.
Versus:
discrete - verb: To make negative or derogatory comments about a Greek island.
Mine's the one with the dictionary in the pocket.
Quite - I'm seeing a good example of its stupidity this morning: I'm being CC'd in on an argument between two companies that has absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever. The first couple of emails were1 entertaining reading, but it soon became tedious.
The reason I'm seeing it is almost certainly because whoever sent the first emailed intended for someone else to see it, but my address was filled in by autocomplete, and they didn't notice.
1. I've set a filter now to bin anything pertaining to that discussion. I was tempted to send an email to (politely) say I don't want to see any of this shit, but I suspect the blood pressures are high enough on both sides that bringing the error to their attention would probably spark another aspect to the argument ("WTF did you CC a third party..?" or something).
"The level at which FTC does not have a point is that all Amazon purchases result in an immediate email report in the account holder inbox and are clearly visible on his device."
That immediate email report is still after the fact - the purchase has been made.
The immediacy of it is also rendered irrelevant by the fact that the parent may not see that email 'immediately' if they don't happen to be using or be able to access their device for any number of reasons. They will see the emails eventually not immediately - and between the time of that purchase and eventually arriving, any number of additional purchases can be made.