Re: It is sad though....
Hey, if that means idiot drivers are prevented from texting while they are driving then I, for one, am all for it.
Posts by kiwimuso
263 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Nov 2010
Netherlands Supremes squash iPad design patent
Uh-oh! Kim Dotcom is back with a brand new Megaupload site
Monday 12th November 2012 07:19 GMT
@!Psyx Re: seems reasonable
Kim is basically going to be handing people the tools to commit an offence with and then sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "LALALALA I don't know that you're breaking the law".
Quite. So when is Google cloud service (and other cloud services) being charged then?
Judge GIVES APPLE THE FINGER in multitouch iDevice patent case
Barley’s giant genome sequenced and open-sourced
Microsoft gouges Australia lightly on Surface
Monday 22nd October 2012 05:39 GMT
Re: Australians get gouged by everyone!
@gisaber Even better, in OZ & NZ Heineken is also positioned as a 'premium' beer.
In the Netherlands it's just the equivalent of your everyday quaffing beer, like VB or Lion Red.
If you want premium, you either buy Grolsch for local, or better yet, a Belgian beer!
There are other local beers in Holland, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
Icon is not a premium one, just the nearest one to hand - preferably one which has not had the flavour frozen out of existence.
Only buy Huawei or ZTE if you like being SPIED ON - US politicos
Whopping supersonic-car rocket rattles idyllic Cornwall
John Key accused of Dotcom ‘brain fade’
Friday 5th October 2012 12:09 GMT
Re: This whole government suffers from Alzheimers.
"Most people I talk to consider the way the whole affair has been handled, from the Americans, via the FBI, the NZ police and GCSB."
Whoops, I appear to have not completed this sentence.
I think I was going to say:
Most people I talk to consider the way the whole affair has been handled, from the Americans, via the FBI, the NZ police and GCSB, to have been poorly handled all round at best, and an over reaction with bullying tactics at worst.
Face palm for not proof reading properly before posting.
Friday 5th October 2012 12:04 GMT
Re: This whole government suffers from Alzheimers.
Funny. I obviously talk to different people to you. A lot of people I talk to would certainly not agree with you.
I haven't heard of anyone actually wanting Dotcom to be gone, maybe off the news, but not gone. Most people I talk to consider the way the whole affair has been handled, from the Americans, via the FBI, the NZ police and GCSB. Whether you like Dotcom or not is utterly irrelevant as to whether his arrest was a considered and appropriate action for for what in fact, should be a civil case anyway, by the various rights holders.
As for National gone, all governments outlive their 'use by date' given too long in power. They either become bereft of ideas or they start assuming that they can do anything they like without compunction or mandate.
I don't think National have quite reached theirs just yet, but the Helen Clark government way outlived theirs.
Beer, while I wait to see what the outcome will be.
325 Dicks sell for AUD$20m
Thursday 27th September 2012 12:22 GMT 
"decreed the electronics retailer was not core to its business or a likely source of future growth,"
It probably never was, which begs the question of who was the stupid fucker that thought that buying DSE was a good idea for Woollies to invest in, then ran it into the ground by alienating all the punters who normally bought their components there.
Ah, they're only small fry buying measly amounts of stuff. Lets get rid of all that fiddly time consuming stuff and just sell the big items - like every other department store around, only to make a decent profit we'll charge way more, and we won't have to spend money to train our staff to actually, you know, understand our products.
Shit, what a farsighted business plan.
Mmmm, delicious new sugar batteries keep gadgets up all night
All you need to know about nano SIMs - before they are EXTERMINATED
Tuesday 25th September 2012 03:06 GMT
Re: Take my SIM
Dear Mr Schultz,
What you want and what we, as your telco provider wants, I'm afraid, do not coincide very much.
We want you tied (permanently) into our networks for OUR convenience for maximum extraction of money.
Sincerely,
Your Telco
P.S. Without my Telco hat on, I like your concept, especially the bit about my phone automatically recognising another country's network for which I have previously signed up for.
Yes indeed, not having to worry about swapping SIMs and perhaps losing them when not in use, has great appeal.
Sadly, I don;t think it will ever happen, certainly while Apple has any say over it.
IT biz bosses are 'BIGGEST job cutters' in the US
Tuesday 18th September 2012 10:13 GMT 
What I really want to know.....
is when are CEO's jobs going to be outsourced. I'm damn sure that there are people out there who could do the same, if not better job, for less money.
The other thing I would really like to know from these 'outsourcing 'cause it's cheaper' CEOs is, who in hell do they think is going to buy their products, which are now made in the cheapest country at the cheapest price, if all the local workers are out of a job.
You can't sell to the unemployed.
I have no idea what icon I should put with this. I was going to go with the Joke Alert, but sadly, I don't think it is a joke anymore. I guess the local workers will just have to wait around until the current outsourcing darlings, such as China & India are in such a state that their workers are too expensive, and the cost of workers in <your country of residence> are cheaper than the the outsourcee countries.
UK ice boffin: 'Arctic melt equivalent to 20 years of CO2'
Foxconn: We're not FORCING interns to make iPhone 5
Wednesday 12th September 2012 05:46 GMT
Re: Of course it is not @Lord Voldemortgage
Oh dear, oh dear. The chip on your shoulder is showing. Both of them.
Not everyone at parliament come from the "privileged" few, nor do the Inns of Law contain only people from the so-called "ruling classes". Similarly, not all Oxbridge graduates are from the same background. Some actually get there on their own academic merits, despite being from the general hoi-polloi.
Cheers for your view though.
(Raises glass)
New broadband minister snubs 'ugly' fibre cabinet gripes
‘Pre-bionic’ eye implanted in blind patient
Chinese boffins build brain-powered camera 'copter
Wednesday 5th September 2012 03:37 GMT 
Weird command structure
"For example, thinking “left hard” will make the drone take off and land; thinking “left lightly” will get it to rotate clockwise; and thinking “right” will make it fly forwards."
Surely it would be more instinctive to "think forward" to go forward, "think hard right" to turn right, "think up" to go up, etc
...unless I'm missing something fundamental in the way the brain works.
Otherwise, great concept.
RIP Neil Armstrong: The reluctant American hero
Wednesday 29th August 2012 10:56 GMT
Re: oh yeah
@tleaf100
Ah, hearsay. Wonderful. I might have taken notice if you had known him personally, but tittle tattle and gossip is SOOOO much better isn't it.
I really don't give a toss whether it is true or not, but MY hearsay says NOT, but he was still the first man on the moon, so tough shit to all the nasty minded USAF wannabes!!!!
Fisker Automotive probes second flaming eco car
Sunday 19th August 2012 12:34 GMT
@Henry Wertz
There seems to be a contradiction in terms here.
If you like your big engines why not just go for a big engine and forget the batteries, especially if you are relying on a 2 litre engine to power not only the weight of the car but in addition, as you say, a considerable weight in batteries.
Hardly seems worth the effort and expense.
But of course, like the Prius, the Hollywood posers, who are probably the only ones who could afford them, wouldn't be able to make out that they were "saving the planet" would they.
Thursday 16th August 2012 04:34 GMT
Re: WTF! @Andy S
If you are used to 5l plus V8 + engines then yes, I guess a 2 litre 4 cylinder engine is small, but for the average world user 2 litre is still at the larger end of engine sizes. E.g. in UK/Europe the majority of cars are in the lower 1 - 1.8 litre size engine. That is probably true of most of the rest of the world as well.
Reading their blurb, if the engine is only used to drive the generator, why does it need 2 litres?
I would have thought that a much smaller engine, even turbocharged if necessary would be more than adequate and probably a damn sight more economical and green.
BTW Points to ponder on the greenness. How long do the batteries last before needing to be replaced and what's the cost for a new set of batteries. Also what's the green cost of manufacturing and disposing/recycling of those batteries.
Iran’s ‘domestic Internet’ schedule slips
Oz regulator tells telly-makers to mind their language
Monday 6th August 2012 11:04 GMT
Re: Now how about it here
Indeed.
Now perhaps they can get at HP for selling "Photosmart" printers for which you need to buy a special "Photosmart" cartridge in order to print black and white photographs!!!
'Scuse me, but if I've got a black and a colour cartridge installed in a printer labelled "Photosmart" I shouldn't need to buy an extra special cartridge in order to use it to print photos. And then because I only do a small amount of B & W printing removing it again for ordinary printing and then presumably finding out that the next time I want to use it, it has dried up.
Scotland considers dishing out more iPads to schoolkids
Road deaths spark crackdown on jaywalking texter menace
Monday 21st May 2012 05:50 GMT
Re: Darwin rules
Oooh Fuzzy, you're waaay too sensitive.
Why is he a smug bastard? Your answer is EXACTLY the point he was making.
YOU learned NOT to be an idiot.
This is the whole point - take responsibility for your own actions. If everyone did that there would certainly be far fewer accidents in the world, but nevertheless, accidents will still happen despite the best of intentions.
"At least they didn't want to make a new law."
No, but I doubt that fining the idiot will make any difference to the the offender or the others out there who do this all the time. Witness the last guy's comments.
VW STUNS WORLD+DOG WITH REAL HOVER-CAR!
Pirate island attracts more than 100 startup tenants
How politicians could end droughts forever But they don't want to
Sunday 6th May 2012 00:07 GMT
Re: Failfest
The other point to noted here is that leakage in water pipes does not mean the water is wasted. It merely means that TW can not charge for it as nobody is actually using it.
Water leaking from pipes will simply be filtered through the ground and either back into the aquifers or rivers from whence they came.
Admittedly it is still a cost on the consumer as it would be built into their price structure but without doing any math(s) whatsoever I would suggest that the cost of the leakage is probably fairly small when compared to the cost of digging up and replacing all the mains - although I still think that doing that work as part or ongoing normal maintenance wouldn't hurt either. I am looking at this from a purely monetary position.
I am sure that someone who has a better maths brain and can be more bothered than I, can do the sums to confirm or deny my suspicions.
And no, I am NOT going to ask for the IT angle!
Thursday 3rd May 2012 06:20 GMT
Re: JG Ballard and tilting at windmills.
"Another alternative is to build a bloody big pipe from the north and west to the south and east!"
You've already got one!!!
It was built during the war to ship petrol around the country. Clean it out and use that to ship water around the place. Dunno whether it's big enough to do the job, but it should help.
Why embossed credit cards are here to stay
Friday 4th May 2012 07:11 GMT
Re: A minor irritation with the numbers
Agreed.
Ditto for phone numbers.
Any attempt to put spaces or dashes in is liable to be denied.
I keep most of my phone numbers in international format, including the + and country code, then no matter where I am I don't have to worry about it. I don;t know if phones are clever enough to realise that when you are in the same country as the country code, and will strip it or whether the phone companies themselves do the job, but either way it works, and so I have a tendency when filling in phone numbers to use the full international number.
I thought American programmers or functional specifiers were particularly insular as far as foreign formats (expecting all postal codes to be like a ZIP) but at least most were capable of recognising said input without throwing a hissy fit.
Friday 4th May 2012 07:02 GMT
Joke? Bah! Humbug!
I'll have you know that the NZ banking system was waaay ahead of a lot of other countries and has been for some time. I couldn't believe the backwardness of the American banking system when I worked there in the late 80's, and ditto for the UK. Used to take ages for cheques to clear through the banking system there whereas NZ has had an electronic clearing system for ages. IIRC about the 70's.
Oh, is that what you meant when you were talking about backwater locations. America!
Even the smallest corner store in NZ does has an EFTPOS terminal these days. They would go out of business if they didn't, and they will nearly all also do cash back - assuming there is enough cash in the till.
Software functionality not subject to copyright: EU court
If Google's only taking a COPY of your personality, why worry?
Wednesday 18th April 2012 05:58 GMT
@Andrew Jones 2
Andrew, while I agree with most of your comment I have to disagree with your last paragraph - to an extent.
Whatever the current government of the day, it obtains information from you in order to make decisions on how best to structure and fund the services that they supply to you, such as infrastructure, health, defence, welfare etc. So yes, they do provide you a service.
The problem mainly lies that there are some people (civil service/government/whoever) who think that the information you supply could be used for other things, but this is where it becomes the thin end of the wedge.
How much scope creep do we get as it becomes ever easier to track individuals either by ANPR/CCTV/mobile phone data without permission from anyone. But of course, it's all for your own good and to prevent crime/paedophilia/whatever else comes to mind to try and scare us with. But in truth, none of the electronic gadgetry has ever done much for preventing crime, but has certainly aided solving crime, which I suppose makes it justifiable, but again up to a point.
The U.K. is virtually in the position now where any person getting into power who decides they want to stay there, would find suppressing the masses quite easy. Through scare tactics there are now virtually no guns to support an uprising should the need arise (we'll all be murdered in our beds!), ability to monitor/track vehicles/people etc. All you need is the heads of the police and armed forces on your side and you're away.
Nah, pure paranoid speculation. It'll never happen - just like people thought it would never happen in Germany, Russia and numerous other countries. Until it was too late.
Whoops, there I go again, I've been forced to resume taking the pills.
Minister blows away plans for more turbines
US Trade Rep criticises tech trade barriers in Oz, NZ
Thursday 12th April 2012 12:49 GMT
Re: I'm betting on the Southern Pacific vassals (otherwise known as NZ and Oz)
Yeah, well we certainly followed orders re Mr Dotcom. Well the police did. It would appear that some of our judiciary have a bit more common sense and have decided, in a back handed sort of way that just because the U.S. might be interested in a person, they are not necessarily guilty - yet!
It will be interesting to see whether extradition goes ahead considering that what he has been accused of is apparently (so I have read) not illegal here, so the question arises that if it ain't illegal here why was he even arrested in the first place.
But that's a whole different rant best left for another time.
Thursday 12th April 2012 05:20 GMT 
"I fail to see why if I have no criminal record I should be treated by a criminal"
Whoops. A Freudian slip maybe. Of course it should read "treated AS a criminal"
Oh, and the outburst to which I referred in the Title was of course the U.S. outburst, the subject of the article. Certainly not any of the exemplary comments of the preceding commentards.
Thursday 12th April 2012 04:07 GMT
There is just SO much wrong with this outburst it's hard to know where to begin!!!!
{it remains critical of foreign investment limits on the incumbent carrier, Telstra.}
Oh yeah, and how much foreign investment is permitted in U.S. companies. I'm thinking of airlines in particular here, but there are numerous others that can not be bought into or are severely curtailed as to percentage of foreign ownership.
{The offshore hosting debate in Australia centers on two concerns: that cloud providers in other jurisdictions may accept lesser privacy and security controls than would be required in Australia; and that the data may become subject to laws in other jurisdictions. The USTR says the notion that data may be “scrutinized by foreign governments” appears “based on misinterpretation of … the Patriot Act and regulatory requirements”.}
So the U.S. wants to control ALL data? Come on, if you think this is not a concern to Australia, how's about the U.S. complete their outsourcing of all their industries and putting a few cloud database server farms in other countries. Oh, you wouldn't? For security and privacy issues?
Dearie me, that is a concern, then. Oh, and misinterpretation of the Patriot's Act? No, just past experience of U.S. agencies wanting to gobble up all the information that it can force out of other countries. The day they brought in fingerprinting and photographing visitors was the day I swore I would never visit the U.S again, and I have lived and worked there (legitimately) in the past . I fail to see why if I have no criminal record I should be treated by a criminal, and to say that it's to stop terrorism, I ask the question. When did any of this techno babble ever foil a terrorist plot? They've either been found by on the ground intelligence or purely by accident.
I'm going to stop now before my blood pressure gets REALLY out of control, and yes, I know there's one or two generalisations in there, but the sheer hypocrisy of most things U.S. these days is unbelievable. Free trade? On yer bike, we've got to protect our manufacturers/producers from the dreaded Australian steel/beef & NZ sheep meat and no doubt there are other countries who have suffered at America's idea of "free trade".
Let the down-voting begin!
All-optical RAM to clear comms bottleneck
Child abuse suspect won't be forced to decrypt hard drive
Wednesday 7th March 2012 09:45 GMT
Re: I don't get it... Except........
Except of course, if your car has been photographed by a speed camera, you are then compelled to name the driver or face punishment as severe as for a speeding charge.
So if you are the driver you are forced to incriminate yourself by admitting that you were the driver rather than plod having to photograph you at the wheel of your car at the time.
So if you have a poor memory, and are the 'registered keeper' (what an odd phrase) of the car, you are done for either way.
I was horrified when I found this out as I always thought that the UK was the bastion of 'innocent until PROVEN guilty'. A bit like the DVLA automatically issuing a fine if their "infallible" data base shows you have failed to re-register your car by the due date.
Well yer honour, as it happens, at the time I was in intensive care following a stroke several weeks before. Too bad, yer busted.
Coming to a continent near you: America
MasterCard joins Visa in pushing PINs into America
Intel bags $120m patent hoard from RealNetworks
Friday 27th January 2012 07:37 GMT
Real Player
Dunno what you other buggers are doing to incur their nagging, but I use Realplayer all the time and haven't noticed any nagging, nor do I have any problems with the way it operates.
Certainly prefer it over Win Media although even that has it's place at times.
If you don't use RP, what software DO you use, and why is it better? I really want to know
Virgin Oz plans onboard WiFi rollout
Tuesday 20th December 2011 09:42 GMT
Or.........
To put it another way, we can save money by not providing seat-back entertainment systems in future aircraft.
They probably won't save money either as they will have to provide noise-cancelling headphones for the rest of the passengers, who will complain about having to suffer being disturbed by inconsiderate dick-heads shouting on their phones as well!!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
