Posts by steve

Don't go into IT

There's less money in it than ever, and your job security is about as much as Kevin Keegan's at NUFC (for the british readers) or Marty Schottenheimer after the "Marty Ball" fiasco of last year (for the americans among us).

I can't believe i'm actually considering changing jobs. I'd have more security working for Mc D's than working in IT.

@graham t

"Yes most kids do stay on after 16 in the UK, (and start at 5, not 6) but they normally stop wearing uniform at 16, so any one in uniform would be under 16."

/fail

There are many colleges in the UK that require pupils to wear a school uniform past the age of 16. I think there are at least three within 5 miles of me right now.

"And universities don't have desk filled classrooms"

/epic fail

You haven't been to university recently, have you? I've been in several uni classrooms that actually had (shocking, i know) desks in them!

She looks like a uni girl on her way to a party, as many of my friends did at uni. I'd certainly buy her a drink, especially as she is obviously above legal age.

No companies shouldn't use sex to sell things, they do. It works. Move along, nothing to see here.

Fanbois to the left of me, fanbois to the right, here i am

Ok, i made a comment that the PS3 is a games console and therefor cannot be counted. Somehow that makes me a HD-DVD loving commie and i should be thrown to the wolves? I do own an XBOX360, do i own an add-on HD-DVD player? No, because it's rubbish. I love toshiba, i think they make great products, but this war has been won by BluR. Shame really, because Sony make lousy products. Will i buy a PS3? Yes, as a games console. That's what it is, a games console. As soon as more decent games come out for the games console, i will buy it. As a games console.

So there you go, i merely stated the PS3 was a gmaes console. I did not say "It's a games console, so HD-DVD is winning!". Stop trying to twist other people's words to fit your wishes.

Here i am, stuck in the middle with P.H. Far more charming than any fanbois.

Why is this a bad thing?

"Matthew, you think only science and logic should be used for governing? Have a read of Buckminster-Fullers philosophy. He `logically´regarded all people as units, some efficient, some inefficient and some defective and who should be removed from society as logically they would be an unnecessary drain on resources."

I would vote for any MP with enough spine to put this forward as an idea. There are many people who should be "removed from society" due to the strain they put on the state without giving anything back. I believe we do need breeding controls so we can stop those who prey on the benefits system from breeding like rats. Our country is already splitting into two halves, those who try to help society and therefore don't have much time to breed. They may produce 1-2 children. Then you get those people who do nothing except breed, with families of 5+ who do nothing but leech off the state.

I'll get my kevlar jacket on my way out, hoping to avoid a barrage of gun fire from PC jackasses.

I'm a rare thing....

A techy that still uses ME on a home laptop. So that's me blacklisted by the IT community for the next 10 years.

XP (once all the crinkles were smoothed out, and people seem to forget that there were a lot of crinkles) is a nice operating system that works well and is relatively stable. I've used Vista. I've used pre-installed on a brand spanking new machine and i've tried (and failed) to deploy it to older machines to see how it fairs. It's horrible. It has to be the worst pile of carp ever. There is no way i would buy it for home use, ME is more stable that vista. That's a horrible thought right there.

I won't hold my breath for the next version of Windows, but you never know.

"Couldn't happen in the Uk though"

Oh yes it could. They can change your contract with 4 weeks notice. This means you don't have to sign a new contract, they can just change it and you don't have to sign a thing for it to take affect. Good ol' blighty.

You NEED an ID card!

It will protect you from everything! You'll never be subject to fraud, you won't ever be mugged again and you can even use it to stop little green men from invading good ol' blighty! Hurray!

.......as another commentator put it:

DO NOT WANT

"assuming that everyone on here is a native English speaker ?"

Nope, assuming Graham T is a native english speaker and is using our correctly.

Chavs in a boot

I'm pretty sure i can fit about 6 chavs in the boot of my little punto. More if you chop them up. Not that i've tried >.>

Ban pong!

We should ban this game! It teaches kids to bounce balls off white boxes!

Also, we should ban Mario! That little shite is doing mushrooms!

Won't someone think of the children!?

@Webster Phreaky

Two things:

1) You really need to get out more. Especially as you obviously don't know much about physics. In theory, a lightsabre (don't argue spelling with me, i'm English) could be made simply by having a focused laser. You could, again in theory, have the light focused over a short distance to have a cutting effect . The light would be visible past this point, but it wouldn't cut anything. That means that a lightsabre wouldn't actually be able to cut anyting along it's entire length, and would therefore take great skill and a good memory to remember how far along the blade would actually make an impact. There have been many ideas put forwards for how we could in theory make one in years to come. Go seek knowledge, my child.

2) Proven Hypothesis: Oh, dear boy. You either need to learn what "proven" means or what "hypothesis" means. Or what "physics" means. You do realise that most of the things we take for granted (gravity, light, energy) that have been proven by physics, are actually incorrect? Or that they are only correct under certain conditions? Physics is not a completely acurate science for the most part. We know enough to know that we don't know enough. That's about it. I'm sure that i'll be flamed for saying that, but it is true. It was proven that the world was flat. Oh, wait, that's not true anymore. It was proven that the earth was the centre of the universe. No, wait, that one has gone as well. I'm sure i've been condesending enough for now.

So anyway where the hell is the pulse rifle (aliens), uzi 9mm (terminator), milligun (predator), BFG (Doom), Gauss rifle with x-ray sight (Eraser), or even Chuck Norris! At least the lightsabre made the grade, and hurrah for the sword from kill bill. I happen to own a copy of the Demon Sword from that film, signed by none other than David Caridine. Yes, i truly am a sad little man. :)

A penguin icon, cuz he's cute and fluffy. No real relation to the post, but what the hey.

@Jon Pain and Thorsten: I think we have a serious problem here

The problem being that reader's sense of humour seems to have suffered serious failure and shut itself off about 400mm above the keyboard, unfortunately they have not been able to glide themselves in to the correct terminal and thus missed the point entirely.

Erm, you don't live where i live

"doesn't really apply in the UK because regardless of what the scaremongers say, most villains in the UK don't have access to firearms."

As we have on average a shooting every two weeks in the area i live in, i would like to dispute this fact........

I'm English, so does that mean.......

I can sue hollywood, because they always use an English actor for the bad guy in action movies?

I am a Vista basher

"For everyone thats bashing vista (for whatever reason) why oh why don't you evaluate it before you write it off? a lot of guys here are IT pro's, yet throwing away a lot of good features by not even bothering to evaluate it"

That was a quote from stalker.

Now, i am an IT guy. I've been in two different companies since Vista was released. Both companies evaluated Vista and both said "no way". I'm not just bashing Vista because it's popular, i'm bashing Vista because in a secure proffesional environment it just isn't useable. The two companies i cannot name, but i can say that one was a top level University and the other is a large government run organisation. Both are wiping any new computer they buy because both realise that it is unrealistic to run this dog turd of an OS.

@Risky

"This is another reason why employers will increasingly value (and pay for) hard science degrees where wikipedia can't really help much."

Really? Are you a physics grad? All the physics grads i know cannot get a job in their field. Unless you want to do post grad, doctorate and really specialise in something (oh, and be a genius btw) you have no chance of a job.

Are you an Env. Science grad? No env grad i know has a job in any environment agency. They are all taken by English students. Most Env science grads go into teaching.

Hopefully you get the idea. "Hard" sciences are not very useful in the real world. Far more people graduate with science degrees than will ever be employed in a science discipline.

Anyway, back to the point:

The internet is actually full of information, but you have to learn to sift through all the rubbish to find useful stuff. Wiki is full of badly written, overly biased articles. You have to look really carefully to find something of use. The same goes for books however! Most books are written from one persons point of view. They can be rediculously biased and miss bits of information out that is inconvienient for the author's point of view.

Just because it's in print instead of on a computer screen doesn't make it true.

Stop with the EU vs USA bull*hit!

It's not about being "anti-american"! It's about getting the laziest corporation in history to do things the legal way and actually improve their badly made products! OOXML has to be the worst pile of &hite made in a long while. I don't agree with the IE part of it though, as there is nothing stopping you downloading and using another browser, for FREE. In order to download another browser, you need a browser to start with. Use IE to download another browser, surely that's enough irony for any IT person?

All we need is a little info given to the general public. If people stopped using IE because it is so bad and use the better products out in the world, we wouldn't NEED a lawsuit, would we?

We don't need lawsuits against MS, they are pointless. We need better information given to joe public pointing out the better ways to do things such as firefox, such as open office. We don't need linux rammed down our throats though. I've used it, (by it, i mean SUSE and red hat, haven't used ubuntu yet, but i am looking into it) and i don't like it. That's just a personal opinion. Of course, i can't stand vista either.

Erm, freetard..........

[quote]

By Steve

Posted Monday 14th January 2008 09:09 GMT I'm sure that the moral outrage feels pretty good, but there is something you are failing to account for. Many of us *want* to see the record industry collapse and therefore anything that stops people giving them money is a good thing.

If I want to give a musician money, I'll go to a gig.

[\quote]

If the recording industry collapses, there will be no gigs. Bands do not make money from gigs, they make money from records. There will be no gig bigger than a pub back room, the band will be made up of either annoyingly shouty, spotty kids or old bald men having a mid life crisis.

In future, can you change your name? I REALLY don't want people getting me mixed up with you..........

I see a pattern......

A lot of the people saying the iranians were in the wrong state their name. Most of the people saying the US is warmongering are AC's. What's the matter cowards? Not willing to put your name on your statement? I will.

The iranians were in the wrong, and it is only the proffesionalism of the navy that stopped the little toy ships from being turned into matchwood. I certainly would have quite happily authorised such action. Don't quote cr*p such as iran air 655. The truth will never be known about that incident. Whichever version of "truth" you wish to believe, the captain did his duty by shooting down that plane, in the same way the sub captain did his job by sinking the Belgrano. People harrasing warships in little boats has been happening for a long time. It's nothing but psychological warfare. No suicide bomber is going to say "i'm coming to blow you up!" while still in range to be shot before he does his job. They were just trying to shake the nerves of the USN crew by saying things like that and throwing their lunchboxes into the water. luckily (for them) the officer in charge of that warship was a smart guy. Blame the politicians for blowing things out of proportion or trying to use it for their own agendas, but American forces actually managed to do the right thing this time. Give them support, not criticism.

oh god......

*and so is human greenhouse gas emission*.

Yes it is, but not all greenhouse gases are CO2. Most of them are much better at being greenhouse gases than CO2. So can we stop talking about CO2 as if it is the worlds only f*!king problem? And if one person says "carbon footprint", i will find where you live and shove my carbon footprint right up your ass. Thanks.

So anyway, back to the sun thing. I'm guessing it'll help keep us IT guys in a job or just generally give us an excuse to do no work?

"The servers down! We need it fixed now!"

"Sorry, can't. The Magnetic waves from the sun are interfering with server and we just can't get it back up. We'll keep trying though........"

Actual uses for facebook at work

A few of my friends are allowed to use facebook at work...... because it's part of their job. They are people that work in agencies, finging people for jobs. They use it as a tool to help hunt down and contact people they wish to put forward for jobs. They also use it for scheduling meetings with companies. So there you go, actual in work hours reasons to use facebook.

As an IT bod, i would have to say i can't really think of a reason to use it for my own job. Contacting friends to help me sort out a crashed server? Getting everyone at work onto facebook so i can talk them through problems without having to use a phone/remote desktop tool/email/large house brick?

Is it so hard to track how much work people do that you need to ban this kind of site from being accessed? I mean, come on. If they are slacking off on t'internet then you can bet that their work is late or not up to scratch. You don't need to crack down on internet use if you are a decent manager. Of course, finding a decent manager nowadays is quite difficult. Maybe i should try facebook...........

Paris Hilton, the ultimate icon for slacking off work

Oh god, my eyes are melting

I can't believe i just read all these comments, i think i really need another holiday now.

We need something other than fossil fuels, does every one agree? They are going to run out, soon. Once we run out, your hummer will get extremely good mpg. It will only run down hill, but that's still great efficiency! Electric cars........ are a good start. I don't think they are the answer, but you have to start somewhere. You need a starting point, then you can improve. Don't even think about diesel being green, it isn't. New research is starting to show just how bad it is for the environment and for a human being's health. It contains nasty stuff, and when burnt and inhaled can bring about a human's downfall.

We need public transport to be good, on time and clean. (not that any of that is likely to happen any time soon) We have to let go of the idea of each of us having a shiny car. That's going to be hard (i love my car and the freedom that comes with it) but we don't really have a choice.

My final comment will be in response to this post:

By Will Leamon Posted Wednesday 2nd January 2008 15:12 GMT

Africa just called and asked if you, the Dutch, and the French wouldn't mind cleaning your shit up there before bitching about what the Americans do to their spot on earth.

Oh and the Americans said they would love to address this situation but still haven't quite cleared up the mess from 400 hundred years of slave economics that they were born with.

Cheers.

Erm, Will, do some history lessons please? Americans were quite happy to help out with the slave trade until the point the North realised it needed extra soldiers to fight on the front line in there pathetic struggle with the South. Then it was "Fight for your freedom!" to get slaves to enlist so they could be used as shock troops/meat shields. Please step down from your high horse before you make and even bigger idiot of yourself, k?

@Duncan Lundie

I'll add my "well spoken, sir!" to Matt's "Nail on the head mate!"

I'm still waiting......

The winner has been declared every week for the past 2 months, i'm still waiting to see who the winner is. I don't have a hd-dvd player or a blueray. If BluR wins, i'll buy a ps3. Hopefully by then they'll have a few decent games. If hd-dvd wins, i'll probably buy a stand alone player, rather than the extra drive for my 360. It's still going to be at least 12 months before this is over and done. Don't care about drm. Don't care about regionless. Just sort it out.

One final comment:

@Lickass McClippers - Your a dick.

@Svein

How about "I've always used windows, i can't stand macs, Vista still sucks"?

Vista install

While working a university IT support team, we decided we should install vista on a machine, just so we could get to grips with it before we had to support it. We spent a whole day installing it on a machine including trying to get all the hardware to work with it due to unsupported drivers. At the end of the day we had a meeting with the head of procurement, the director of IT and the corporate business manager. We told them in no uncertain terms that we would not be supporting Vista. They asked for how long, we replied "You don't understand, we won't be supporting Vista. Full Stop". They weren't too happy with that answer, but do you think we care?

Pedanticity

"If you got electrocuted, then I assume there is e-mail access beyond the grave, because electrocuted means executed!"

I think you mean internet access beyond the grave, as you don't need email to post a comment.

@PIB

Wow, hey now. Fanboyish? I support all three consoles, so which one am i a "fanboy" of, exactly? I pointed out that the 360 has great games. I also pointed out that the ps3 is an astonishing bit of kit, is lacking games at the moment but one of it's games is an absolute stand out (fall of man). I should have added "at the moment" to my "no hardcore gamer will buy a ps3" comment. When it has more decent games, i'm sure gamers will flood to it.

A fanboy is someone who expresses an over-the-top love for one console (and generally, only one console) with no real reason other than "mine is best, yours sucks".

So get back in your box, petulant school boy.

Having worked in a NOC.......

I can happily say that of those 20 guys, 3 will be managers running around like headless chickens trying to organise things that they know nothing about, 2 will be senior engineers sitting at their desks grumbling about how things were easier in their day while trying to find where they put all there DR info, 8 will be NOC techs scrambling about switching things on, fetching backup tapes and praying that everything comes up, 6 will be off site phoning in with helpful comments such as " i still can't see the server from here" and "have you tried power cycling the box?" and finally there will be a guy like me, NOC team leader sitting in a corner being ever so helpful with comments such as "i don't think you want to do that" and "are you sure you don't want to turn that box on first?" as well as "why haven't you gotten me a coffee yet?". Ah, those were the days........

@P.Lee

"America founded by Puritans?

England used it as a large prison"

Please tell me you're joking/young english person therefore bad education/american from the south half/person with no knowledge of history, so makes things up as you go along? (delete as appropriate)

Either way, i think you're full of shit...........

.....promised myself i woldn't say that. Taxi for one, please.

On your marks, get set........

Flame on!

(it's a console realted thread, my money says it devolves into "You shoulda bought ps3 noob!" or "i got a 360 and it roxxors!" type thread in about 5 posts)

I learnt something new!

I thought all the trolling and flaming was in the console threads, guess not.

I thought the IE problem could be sorted by just downloading a different browser and using that instead? No? IE has to be unbundled? I still haven't seen an answer to that question that didn't boil down to "M$ is teh d3v1l!". MS cause problems when they use there clout to stop innovation and destroy an opponent in the courtroom. They failed to do that, so let's just be happy and USE A DIFFERENT BROWSER. I think opera is an aweful browser, but other people love. It's available, so use it. Any other arguement is pointless. They are not forcing you to use it, they are not stopping you from using something else, so build a bridge and get over it.

As for the grammer nazis who are enjoying moaning at the english teacher, maybe you should tell the government to allow the teachers to actually TEACH grammer. It is currently not part of the curriculum and hasn't been for over 5 years.

Grumbles from an ex-english teacher. Now i'm an IT technician, which is why i can no longer spell or conjugate verbs. :)

I do this everyday.......

I turn up to work dressed up like an IT technician, pretend to do some work but actually do nothing all day. It's fun!

The winner of hte console wars will be.......

No one. There will be no winner. There was no winner last time. There will be no winner this time. There is only ever a loser (sega dreamcast, panasonic 3d0, atari jaguar) and this time around i don't think there wil be one. If the Wii keeps getting supplied with innovative, fun games it will keep selling. If the 360 keeps getting supplied with solid, good looking action games (bioshock, halo3, GoW) it will keep selling. If the PS3 drops in price and has good games made for it, it will sell bucket loads. As long as BluR doesn't drop out of the market, cuz then sony would be buggered.

In conclusion, we have three good consoles. Fanbois, keep your hands to yourself and walk out the building. You are not required.

@pete

You really are a wet blanket, aren't you? I've been lucky enough to see several meteor showers over the years from places such as Cornwall, Scotland and even a little village about 10 miles outside of Brumigum and they are always fantastic. Sure, normally there is too much cloud, (did you know that a meteor storm will actually ADD to the cloud cover, therefor making it harder to see? Extra particulate matter in the atmosphere don't you know....) and all the light pollution means you have to be in the right place at the right time, but i think they are always worth trying to see. Let your inner child be free!

Will we ever know?

I mean, did anyone "win" the last round of console wars? I don't think so. Unless one company completely pulls out of the race, i don't think anyone except nintendo will "lose". Of course, they will have made a big pile of money by then, so they probably won't feel to bad about it. As for ps3 vs 360, i own a 360 (halo edition, yes i am that sad) and will probably buy a ps3 when the price drops some more. I'll leave the "but ours is better!" ranting to the fanbois. 360 good now, PS3 good later. At least that what i think.....

I use wiki!

.....but only to look up pictures of animals. Want to know what a tasmanian devil looks like? Wiki. Want to know want a kiwi bird looks like? Wiki. Want to know anything remotely scientific with actual, fact based research quoted? Maybe by the scientist who did the experiment rather than some gimp who thinks he knows the subject? Library.

If a kid comes into a class room quoting wiki and only wiki, that's an F right there. Not even going to read his research. If he comes in quoting wiki AND other sources of info, then we'll see.

It was a pile of carp when it started, it's still a pile of carp. Who knew?

Ugh..........

I hate the whole idea of carbon footprint. My other half is an environmental scientist and she visibly twitches everytime someone uses it. It's nothing more a PR tool to make people feel like they are actually doing something to save the planet. We are currently telling companies to use it in their PR speel, but to keep an eye out for when joe public realises it's a load of carp. Of course by then we'll be on to something else.

Calculating your "Methane Cowpat", that's the new black.