... dispatched via a naff little rocket launched from a rickety metal gantry where, after ascending at about the speed of your average domestic firework, it suddenly covers several million miles to reach its target.
That's great but what happens when you simply cannot access the machine (i.e. no networking, no remote PC, X completely locked). That's a reboot for you. And hope that when X starts post-boot it doesn't freeze again.
Just managed to convert an existing Debian box into a media centre. It was more painful than I was expecting but at least the result is pretty good.
On a side note, thumbs up to:
Linux kernel, Grub (with Raid), Debian, XBMC, Subsonic
This is most likely a step in the right direction. But is it priced in a way that will tempt me away from waiting for a few months to get the DVD release cheap from play.com et al? Probably not. Just my opinion.
I had a similar story with Scottish Power. I had the usual quartely 'your meter readings are due' email reminder. Logged in to Scottish Power and noticed that the previous meter readings were unusually low (in the 00's) instead of around the 7000 mark. Turns out the previous reading was supplied by someone who turned up to read the meter.
I thought nothing of it and entered the correct readings. Scottish Power's website then proceeded to tell me that I owed them £9000. Of course you are then locked out from supplying any different readings for that day. Rang customer services, on hold for 30 minutes! (Argh) and was told politely by the operator that she was also locked out of editing my account. However, to her credit she at least rang me back 15 minutes later to say she'd had a word with her supervisor and managed to correct everything. Although she did say check the follow up bill and call them back if there were any problems. I notice this becoming more common practice these days, get the customer to do the work that the service/utility provider should be doing themselves and not allowing to happen in the first place.
"secure dns uses public key crypto to generate digital signatures of the output from strong hash algorithms like md5 and sha. 1024 or 2048 bit rsa keys are never going to be broken in "roughly 3 hours", except for the dumbest hollywood movie scripts"
Uh isn't MD5 considered reasonably trivial amongst the available encryption algorithms? And a 1K or 2K key seems good but surely if this serves as the DNS root key you would anticipate that there would be a *lot* of parties interested in breaking this key with the computing power to throw at it.
Never mind the computer games, violent films, gory books and so on.. The thing that really brings the red mist down is watching MPs with their snouts in the troughs, bankers taking huge bonuses whilst pissing the economy away and any special privilege granted to the political and social elite.
And yes, young people are smart enough to realise this also which probably helps explain why the youth of today[1] are so angry.
"A solar plant the size of one nuclear reactor will indeed produce sod all electricity. But a million solar plants, each the size of an average houses roof, will produce a considerable amout more."
And how many years will you need to generate electricity from those million solar plants to repay the initial massive outlay in emissions and materials required to manufacture them and accompanying spare parts in the first place, before you start saving the world?
To all the hippy types like Dominic above. So you're willing to cover most of the landmass and most of the coastal areas with wind turbines then. Obviously think nothing of the emission and raw materials cost of all that aluminium and steel construction and infrastructure. Think nothing of the year on year cost of maintaining and servicing all this countrywide engineering gear. Think nothing of the regular blackouts when we do actually get nice hot still summer days.
Sure, mix some wind power (amongst others) into the total energy provision but only where its appropriate, i.e. foster R&D into improving the efficiency/output of the things.
However, large scale centralised power output is most likely the only way we will be able to achieve independence from fossil fuel whilst maintaining current demand. (Ensuring every tom, dick and harry has their own wind turbine/solar power system is again a massive manufacturing effort to churn out product + spares, again something the greenies are not keen on)
As for future demand, a previous poster mentions electric cars which no doubt the hippies are raving about. Get on your exercise bike[1] + dynamo if you want to use that car in the morning.
With hindsight its a damn shame we haven't invested more time and effort into researching nuclear. Even worse that we've effectively sold it all off. Come back all is forgiven!
Oh and Dominic raising the price of electricity merely penalises those who are struggling to afford it anyway, the elite energy abusers will barely bat an eyelid.
Before CP: My 2 kids are known to me, my wife, some friends and family, GP, local hospital, local school, HMRC, child benefit office.
After CP: Any one of 300,000+ dullards who fancy an idle trawl of the database today/tomorrow.
Hmm, which one is more secure? Which one do I have at least some sort of idea of how/where my data is/being used? But then I'm just 1 out of millions of people right? Security through anonymity in that sense, nothing to hide nothing to fear right?
The great social conditioning experiment rolls on...
Is all very well and good, but until the likes of Virgin Media wake up and realise that there is a legitimate reason for upload as well as download backing up anything over 100meg is still going to take ages. USB stick for me still.
"...G rated only programs (24/7 teletubbies). As you do not have the expertise to identify suspect material they will also now select the books, internet sites and all other literature that you are able to read..."
Careful now... our friends across the Atlantic found Teletubbies offensive 'cos they thought that Tinky Winky was a gay icon. TV channels with just 100% pure advertising are the only way to go. As long as there are no Cadburys flake adverts.
Did they take Mr. Green's DNA sample as part of the arrest? And, more importantly, will they.. er... be giving it back to him by deleting it off the database?
"I wonder if they've fixed that in this release -if you've ever tried to install packages outside of the package manager on Debian you'd know what an understatement "difficult" is."
Am I feeding a troll? Aww go on, have a little tidbit:
Yes, however this is true of any software package with dependencies that you're trying to install on any platform, not specific to Debian. It's also an 'edge' case that you're not using the package manager, surely not an everyday thing. Although specific to the .deb system at least dpkg tells you what the required packages are + their version numbers.
Ignoring the usual 'lies, damn lies and statistics' clause maybe the people running the survey were offering chocolate bars for punters who gave the 'correct' answer.
"fried steak, hot metal and even welding a motorbike"
There seems to be a link here, fried, hot, welding (specifically a motorbike though wtf?!) all suggest the astronaut is smelling their somewhat irradiated suit after coming in from out of the cold.
Maybe this geezer could try ironing spacesuits with an x-ray machine to reproduce the scent.
"It's a good thing, as would be a car that could drive itself and completely avoid all accidents."
Ah the self drive car. Now that would be cool. Given the lengthy commute these days I would be far happier reading a book or playing a game on a laptop rather than seethe at all the idiocy on the roads. Myself and all the rest of the 'perfect' drivers being included in that idiocy of course.
Lets hope we can hurry up and complete the national ID, ContactPoint et al databases. It'll make a dodgy contractor or disgruntled employee's life so much easier. At least someone will be happy.
Just spoke to a lady from VM in regard to a recent complaint letter about broadband reliability in my area[1]. I happened to ask about Phorm, having contacted them previously about it and whilst on the phone.
The good news at least is that she was very much aware of Phorm, it sounded like many other customers have also been in contact with the same concerns.
Anyway, she stated that all VM have *at the moment* is a technical adviser from Phorm but there is still no actual implementation on the horizon as it were.
The bad news is that she trotted out the same 'it doesn't store personally identifiable information about you' line. She also insisted rightly or wrongly that it does not perform interception of your web stream. (WTF? I'm sure you'll be thinking.) The final comment from her reiterated that there is nothing in the pipeline yet in terms of implementation.
So the ballet goes on.
[1] I'm apparently going to receive a sparkly new cable modem. Whoop! Shame it won't come packaged with a glittery new infrastructure too.
And there was me thinking that the newer Postman Pat series was souped up (shown on CBeebies recently)! Personally I still prefer the much older 'originals' where Pat might just about have a cup of tea before delivering a letter, or help dig Ted Glenn out of a snow drift. Old school.
Nice to see all the spittle and froth in response to my comment some weeks ago. Interesting reaction considering I don't disagree with the theory of evolution. Way to go zealots. What I was trying to say in a nutshell was "never stop questioning", maybe I should have just posted that in big crayon letters.
Anyway, @J
"Hm... what does abiogenesis have to do with evolution, exactly? That's right, nothing." Ok I hold my hand up here and say I know nothing, tell me in big crayon letters why the two are unrelated given that one follows logically from the other? Or maybe my definition of evolution is inapplicable here.
And suppose that a fossil was found that dramatically changed the way we perceive natural history (please note I'm not saying how), what then would all the absolutists do? After all we've only seen something like 3% of the total fossil record.
It does seem that there is a disparity between Google churning out software and other 'houses' churning out software. And in this respect, according to the comments above, Google can seem to only poop rainbows. If other 'houses' churn out bad software, even in a so-called benevolent fashion, they're placed firmly and squarely on the crap pile (especially our favourite bad boys: Microsoft), but not Google. Just remember, there is no definitive Kool Aid, rather a number of different flavours.
OMG!!!1one The real reason for the national identity database
So that civil servants have got an effectively infinite source of 'identities' to pretend to be whilst on t'internet.
I predict there will soon be a website called whodoyouwanttobetoday.com which at the click of a button ('I feel lucky' anyone?) will serve you a new identity chosen at random from 1 of 60 million possibilities.
Just remember I claim IP on the above and 50% of all resulting revenues.
"Since evolution has been proven beyond all rational doubt, those that do doubt it are ignorant, stupid and/ or insane."
That absolutely made my lunchtime. "Scientific theory proven beyond all rational doubt" - I'm surprised it didn't make the papers. You were there then were you? When the first molecules spontaneously began replicating themselves and mutating over generations? Hurry, the Royal Society probably would like to talk to you.
But seriously, a theory, albeit a very good theory, it remains.
"Have any of you actually tried to use it for anything important?"
Ok ok I'm feeding the MS troll but here goes. Actually yes I have used OpenOffice, I use it on a regular basis to produce newsletters with complex formatting. And yes, it works just fine thank you. I guess you're anon because you're an MS employee right? 'Get the facts' *snurk*
"Besides, how is MS giving cheap software to education a BAD THING? Or, at least a worse thing that indoctrinating them with OSS/Linux instead?"
*sigh*. So will you still be parroting this shite years down the line when the MS Office 97-2003 doc format is obsolete and no longer supported, but unfortunately for all the users they still have thousands of documents stored in this format? Ironically, I suspect that at that time the only software capable of reading the obsolete documents will be OpenOffice.
"Why don't you want to be updated without being informed?"
You must be new here. If feature X worked yesterday but no longer works today *because* the silent update introduced a bug with the new release, I am sure that you would like some clue as to what has changed in the system. Or maybe you don't :o)
Of course no one ever committed any violence before those nasty films and video games started appearing in the 20th century. Repeat the previous sentence until the end of the universe.
Having said that, lower age classifications guarantee more bums-on-seats in the cinema. After all, the rather impressionable sub twenty year olds are always the first to be targetted by the marketing crews.
El Reg, can we have a background midi file playing the Benny Hill Show theme tune attached to this comments page? At least then this thread would be entertaining... For a second or so.
To agree with one of the earlier posters I don't know anyone with a Blu-ray player, but lots of people with DVDs.
Besides, all this HD TV is a load of crap, who cares? Surely it only really makes a difference if you're a videophile with an ever expanding tardis-like lounge which will accomodate a bigger and bigger TV. Most people are not videophiles and find that DVD on their existing entertainment systems are just fine. I've got a mid to small sized widescreen TV in the corner of my lounge with a couple of SCART inputs, I bought it for about 150 quid. DVD films on it suit me down to the ground. When it dies, I'll buy another budget TV, if it happens to have HD then whup-te-doo. Who actually spends a couple of grand on a TV anyway? "I must do something with my credit card but I just can't think what". Anyone with this problem, I can help[1].
[1] That started to sound a little bit like the A-Team in my head, but I couldn't be arsed to find the actual quote.
And to add insult to injury, Google are of course based in the States so whilst they are happily sat there in front of the screen pillaging and plundering our data to generate ads, the American government can look over their shoulder. There's a good patriot, lad.
Does anyone actually *genuinely* believe that the removal of Labour from power will put a stop to the totalitarian survellience society that is steadily making its way in?
I for one will certainly be glad to see the back of Labour. It's been a while since I've actually seen or spoken to anyone that thinks that Labour is doing A Good Job [tm]. But, supposing the Tories win the next election? When they're standing there with the keys to the estate as it were, are they actually going to say 'No, we'll relinquish the power and control amassed by the previous government"? Are they going to say "We're no longer going to bow and scrape to the EU, IMF, USA, etc and fight for the good of Joe Public"?
Are they £$~%@%#
I'd like to say do a bit of spring cleaning and toss all the current politicians (and their boxes of expense claims paperwork) onto the street. It's a nice daydream. Unfortunately having read 1984 we already know just how that daydream ends, smack bang in the middle of square one again.
It's a perfectly acceptable and well-defined format for document representation
*trouser £20*
Those countries that have complained against the ISO process are just causing unwarranted delays and are blighting Microsoft's good name
*trouser £20*
We can trust Microsoft to deal with document format obsolesence as they have always served us well and looked after our electronic archiving best interests these last 20 years or so
*trouser £50*
ODF is clearly inadequate in the face of the rich content and power offered by OOXML
*trouser £20*
I've just recently discovered that OpenOffice is very poor at word processing and will be replacing it with MS Office 2007 immediately
*trouser £20*
No, Office 2003, 2002, 2000 or 97 don't have the richness I need, only 2007 can fulfill my requirements
*trouser £150*
In fact whilst I'm at it I might as well get prepared for the goodness that is Windows 7 by upgrading to Windows Vista, my productivity will leap 70%
*trouser £300*
And now I must go to the pub, via the way of the bank of course, I'm feeling a little heavy in the wallet department.
So you're on holiday, taking a break from the rat race and absorbing some of the local culture[1] and you decide, in all the wealth of things to do... to watch TV. And are willing to pay £229 to do so. "A fool and his money.." and so on. Who goes on holiday to watch the goggle box? Flames icon, 'cos no doubt somebody does.
The cat picture[1] gave me a faint whiff of icanhascheezburger.com. Cats are cool right? Kidz like teh lolcats don't they?
Maybe this is the new Nathan Barley? Then again maybe not, Nathan Barley had substance compared to this (and I mean the original TVGoHome not the TV show which I never saw).
As much as I'd like it to be otherwise. Yes Alan Sugar is a self made millionaire and yes I'm sure there is plenty of pound sign envy here. Nevertheless I think most people are not envious of having the legacy of being branded a 'tat peddler'. I guess AMS and BG have a lot in common.
@Tom: "It will displace some of the coal and gas burnt in power stations today."
Isn't that the point of this report to actually determine whether wind power will fulfill that goal. Its a very good question, 'payback' has already been mentioned; just how long will it take to payback the emissions caused by the massive large scale manufacture of a lot of wind turbines and will they do the job? It'd be nice to have a fair idea of the answer before we spend X billion pounds on the project.
"And Brown is just a money man, bless his little cotton socks"
Ol' prudent Brown, stop it you're killing me :o)
@AC11:28 "If you create a cheap fossil free energy source that happens to be intermittent, companies and people will find uses for that don't care that it's intermittent."
Ok its not fossil free but what about the percentage of natural gas that still gets burned off whilst pumping oil? And the gas coming off landfill that also gets burned? Companies and people *will* find a use if a beancounter says that there is a viable ROI certainly not simply for the sake of the environment/children. Shareholders need Bentleys too y'know.
"Consumers have as much a part to play in this as governments and businesses. Get your consumption down, and the rest will follow. Example - I bought a new fridge freezer from an online (and high street) retailer. A + rating and it has saved me several pounds a week from day 1. Not only that, but when they delivered it, they took the packaging away with them, I never even saw it. So why use cardboard packaging at all ? Why not use proper reusable crates that go straight back to the manufacturer. When a store or warehouse gets a delivery of products, the lorry doesn't go away empty, it is full of packaging for reuse."
Irony levels off the scale. What happened to your old fridge freezer? Was it servicable (How many fixable items get landfilled simply because its not economically viable to fit a spare part)? What was the emissions cost of the manufacture of the new one?
The problem is that whilst software is never truly considered to be complete most software products reach a point where there is little more you can do to 'add value' to them. Fix bugs, improve stability of course. But, similar to Microsoft Office in particular (and maybe Vista), you get to a point where adding new features and functionality can only possibly degrade the overall product and its performance.
Unfortunately, the senior managers, shareholders and bean counters generally have no concept of this. "We've got to keep adding features" "Grow our market share" "Increase the wow factor" and so on. Maybe AVG has hit that wall?
I can see absolutely no genuine reason for SMEs to upgrade their relatively small networks to a Vista install set. All I can see is downtime and pain. Especially if the established company network is predominately used for email, sharing office files and a limited set of financial applications and that is all it is likely to be used for in the next 10 years.
The established network is secured, it works, it gets security updates as necessary, why forcibly change it. No I'm not a luddite, just trying to alleviate the problem of IT and software development often being viewed as a cost centre. 'If it ain't broke don't fix it' is the mantra. How do you justify the expense of this particular upgrade:
- Re-training needed for server admin and users at the desktop.
- Possible hardware upgrades for existing XP-based stock - to meet Vista requirements.
And the benefits to the company (productivity?, security?):
- ?
Operating systems and Office software have levelled off in the last few years. There was massive benefit to moving from Win95/98 to Windows 2000/XP (obviously again little benefit really in moving from 2000 to XP). Likewise with MS Office.
At the most I could understand that kitting out a new office might standardise on Vista. But what about established sites?
Register
142 posts • joined Wednesday 4th April 2007 11:59 GMT
Page:
Re: Red matter is bullshit
... dispatched via a naff little rocket launched from a rickety metal gantry where, after ascending at about the speed of your average domestic firework, it suddenly covers several million miles to reach its target.
I've seen that movie too.
Re: So what /should/ have been done?
That's great but what happens when you simply cannot access the machine (i.e. no networking, no remote PC, X completely locked). That's a reboot for you. And hope that when X starts post-boot it doesn't freeze again.
Just managed to convert an existing Debian box into a media centre. It was more painful than I was expecting but at least the result is pretty good.
On a side note, thumbs up to:
Linux kernel, Grub (with Raid), Debian, XBMC, Subsonic
Thumbs down to:
Alsa, Wifi setup
Am I going crazy or does that look like a good ol' red telephone box?
This is most likely a step in the right direction. But is it priced in a way that will tempt me away from waiting for a few months to get the DVD release cheap from play.com et al? Probably not. Just my opinion.
Agreed, the one at the Merry Hill complex in the Midlands was always good to browse through. Staff were even generally helpful *horror*
I had a similar story with Scottish Power. I had the usual quartely 'your meter readings are due' email reminder. Logged in to Scottish Power and noticed that the previous meter readings were unusually low (in the 00's) instead of around the 7000 mark. Turns out the previous reading was supplied by someone who turned up to read the meter.
I thought nothing of it and entered the correct readings. Scottish Power's website then proceeded to tell me that I owed them £9000. Of course you are then locked out from supplying any different readings for that day. Rang customer services, on hold for 30 minutes! (Argh) and was told politely by the operator that she was also locked out of editing my account. However, to her credit she at least rang me back 15 minutes later to say she'd had a word with her supervisor and managed to correct everything. Although she did say check the follow up bill and call them back if there were any problems. I notice this becoming more common practice these days, get the customer to do the work that the service/utility provider should be doing themselves and not allowing to happen in the first place.
crayon?
It looks like my 6 year old son has been adding 'heat lines' to the cut away graphic. That'll teach me for letting him use MS Paint.
@AC 00:49
"secure dns uses public key crypto to generate digital signatures of the output from strong hash algorithms like md5 and sha. 1024 or 2048 bit rsa keys are never going to be broken in "roughly 3 hours", except for the dumbest hollywood movie scripts"
Uh isn't MD5 considered reasonably trivial amongst the available encryption algorithms? And a 1K or 2K key seems good but surely if this serves as the DNS root key you would anticipate that there would be a *lot* of parties interested in breaking this key with the computing power to throw at it.
But then I know little about DNS so flame away.
Computer games?
Never mind the computer games, violent films, gory books and so on.. The thing that really brings the red mist down is watching MPs with their snouts in the troughs, bankers taking huge bonuses whilst pissing the economy away and any special privilege granted to the political and social elite.
And yes, young people are smart enough to realise this also which probably helps explain why the youth of today[1] are so angry.
[1] ok, ok, youth have always been angry.
@AC 13:38
"A solar plant the size of one nuclear reactor will indeed produce sod all electricity. But a million solar plants, each the size of an average houses roof, will produce a considerable amout more."
And how many years will you need to generate electricity from those million solar plants to repay the initial massive outlay in emissions and materials required to manufacture them and accompanying spare parts in the first place, before you start saving the world?
Nuclear ftw
To all the hippy types like Dominic above. So you're willing to cover most of the landmass and most of the coastal areas with wind turbines then. Obviously think nothing of the emission and raw materials cost of all that aluminium and steel construction and infrastructure. Think nothing of the year on year cost of maintaining and servicing all this countrywide engineering gear. Think nothing of the regular blackouts when we do actually get nice hot still summer days.
Sure, mix some wind power (amongst others) into the total energy provision but only where its appropriate, i.e. foster R&D into improving the efficiency/output of the things.
However, large scale centralised power output is most likely the only way we will be able to achieve independence from fossil fuel whilst maintaining current demand. (Ensuring every tom, dick and harry has their own wind turbine/solar power system is again a massive manufacturing effort to churn out product + spares, again something the greenies are not keen on)
As for future demand, a previous poster mentions electric cars which no doubt the hippies are raving about. Get on your exercise bike[1] + dynamo if you want to use that car in the morning.
With hindsight its a damn shame we haven't invested more time and effort into researching nuclear. Even worse that we've effectively sold it all off. Come back all is forgiven!
Oh and Dominic raising the price of electricity merely penalises those who are struggling to afford it anyway, the elite energy abusers will barely bat an eyelid.
[1] or attach wheels.
In summary
Before CP: My 2 kids are known to me, my wife, some friends and family, GP, local hospital, local school, HMRC, child benefit office.
After CP: Any one of 300,000+ dullards who fancy an idle trawl of the database today/tomorrow.
Hmm, which one is more secure? Which one do I have at least some sort of idea of how/where my data is/being used? But then I'm just 1 out of millions of people right? Security through anonymity in that sense, nothing to hide nothing to fear right?
The great social conditioning experiment rolls on...
online storage
Is all very well and good, but until the likes of Virgin Media wake up and realise that there is a legitimate reason for upload as well as download backing up anything over 100meg is still going to take ages. USB stick for me still.
@OpenOrifice blah - Tim J
I must congratulate you on your excellent FUD comment.
I use Office 2007 at work - from time to time it crashes or formatting goes wonky.
I use Openoffice.org 3 at home - from time to time it crashes or formatting goes wonky.
Note that the above comments are less vague and hand wavy than yours.
@Fozzy
"...G rated only programs (24/7 teletubbies). As you do not have the expertise to identify suspect material they will also now select the books, internet sites and all other literature that you are able to read..."
Careful now... our friends across the Atlantic found Teletubbies offensive 'cos they thought that Tinky Winky was a gay icon. TV channels with just 100% pure advertising are the only way to go. As long as there are no Cadburys flake adverts.
DNA
Did they take Mr. Green's DNA sample as part of the arrest? And, more importantly, will they.. er... be giving it back to him by deleting it off the database?
@AC 0756
"I wonder if they've fixed that in this release -if you've ever tried to install packages outside of the package manager on Debian you'd know what an understatement "difficult" is."
Am I feeding a troll? Aww go on, have a little tidbit:
Yes, however this is true of any software package with dependencies that you're trying to install on any platform, not specific to Debian. It's also an 'edge' case that you're not using the package manager, surely not an everyday thing. Although specific to the .deb system at least dpkg tells you what the required packages are + their version numbers.
And 45% are in favour!?
Ignoring the usual 'lies, damn lies and statistics' clause maybe the people running the survey were offering chocolate bars for punters who gave the 'correct' answer.
Link
"fried steak, hot metal and even welding a motorbike"
There seems to be a link here, fried, hot, welding (specifically a motorbike though wtf?!) all suggest the astronaut is smelling their somewhat irradiated suit after coming in from out of the cold.
Maybe this geezer could try ironing spacesuits with an x-ray machine to reproduce the scent.
Title
Do you get the feeling that Wacky Jacqui sleeps with the light on, maybe she's just a frightened little girl inside. awwww!
Of course, there are other players at work in this ridiculous parade.
Agree with 'luddites'
"It's a good thing, as would be a car that could drive itself and completely avoid all accidents."
Ah the self drive car. Now that would be cool. Given the lengthy commute these days I would be far happier reading a book or playing a game on a laptop rather than seethe at all the idiocy on the roads. Myself and all the rest of the 'perfect' drivers being included in that idiocy of course.
Yep
Lets hope we can hurry up and complete the national ID, ContactPoint et al databases. It'll make a dodgy contractor or disgruntled employee's life so much easier. At least someone will be happy.
But
Was the wool turned to nylon?
Y'know as in:
Mary had a little lamb;
She tied it to a pylon,
ten thousands volts shot up its ^&*^
and .. so on.
We need to know. If someone has already posted this elsewhere, that means there are *2* really sad gits in the world.
Virgin Media update with regard to Phorm
Just spoke to a lady from VM in regard to a recent complaint letter about broadband reliability in my area[1]. I happened to ask about Phorm, having contacted them previously about it and whilst on the phone.
The good news at least is that she was very much aware of Phorm, it sounded like many other customers have also been in contact with the same concerns.
Anyway, she stated that all VM have *at the moment* is a technical adviser from Phorm but there is still no actual implementation on the horizon as it were.
The bad news is that she trotted out the same 'it doesn't store personally identifiable information about you' line. She also insisted rightly or wrongly that it does not perform interception of your web stream. (WTF? I'm sure you'll be thinking.) The final comment from her reiterated that there is nothing in the pipeline yet in terms of implementation.
So the ballet goes on.
[1] I'm apparently going to receive a sparkly new cable modem. Whoop! Shame it won't come packaged with a glittery new infrastructure too.
Bah what's all the rush
And there was me thinking that the newer Postman Pat series was souped up (shown on CBeebies recently)! Personally I still prefer the much older 'originals' where Pat might just about have a cup of tea before delivering a letter, or help dig Ted Glenn out of a snow drift. Old school.
Heh
Nice to see all the spittle and froth in response to my comment some weeks ago. Interesting reaction considering I don't disagree with the theory of evolution. Way to go zealots. What I was trying to say in a nutshell was "never stop questioning", maybe I should have just posted that in big crayon letters.
Anyway, @J
"Hm... what does abiogenesis have to do with evolution, exactly? That's right, nothing." Ok I hold my hand up here and say I know nothing, tell me in big crayon letters why the two are unrelated given that one follows logically from the other? Or maybe my definition of evolution is inapplicable here.
And suppose that a fossil was found that dramatically changed the way we perceive natural history (please note I'm not saying how), what then would all the absolutists do? After all we've only seen something like 3% of the total fossil record.
Carry on Flaming. Oooh saucy.
@Lee 15:06
Now that made me laugh, have you been reading TVGoHome recently?
Heh
It does seem that there is a disparity between Google churning out software and other 'houses' churning out software. And in this respect, according to the comments above, Google can seem to only poop rainbows. If other 'houses' churn out bad software, even in a so-called benevolent fashion, they're placed firmly and squarely on the crap pile (especially our favourite bad boys: Microsoft), but not Google. Just remember, there is no definitive Kool Aid, rather a number of different flavours.
OMG!!!1one The real reason for the national identity database
So that civil servants have got an effectively infinite source of 'identities' to pretend to be whilst on t'internet.
I predict there will soon be a website called whodoyouwanttobetoday.com which at the click of a button ('I feel lucky' anyone?) will serve you a new identity chosen at random from 1 of 60 million possibilities.
Just remember I claim IP on the above and 50% of all resulting revenues.
@Why the fuss?
"Since evolution has been proven beyond all rational doubt, those that do doubt it are ignorant, stupid and/ or insane."
That absolutely made my lunchtime. "Scientific theory proven beyond all rational doubt" - I'm surprised it didn't make the papers. You were there then were you? When the first molecules spontaneously began replicating themselves and mutating over generations? Hurry, the Royal Society probably would like to talk to you.
But seriously, a theory, albeit a very good theory, it remains.
@Open office is crap.
"Have any of you actually tried to use it for anything important?"
Ok ok I'm feeding the MS troll but here goes. Actually yes I have used OpenOffice, I use it on a regular basis to produce newsletters with complex formatting. And yes, it works just fine thank you. I guess you're anon because you're an MS employee right? 'Get the facts' *snurk*
"Besides, how is MS giving cheap software to education a BAD THING? Or, at least a worse thing that indoctrinating them with OSS/Linux instead?"
*sigh*. So will you still be parroting this shite years down the line when the MS Office 97-2003 doc format is obsolete and no longer supported, but unfortunately for all the users they still have thousands of documents stored in this format? Ironically, I suspect that at that time the only software capable of reading the obsolete documents will be OpenOffice.
Repeat argument ad infinitum
@Never cross the streams... By AC 02:00
"When standing at urinals with strangers..."
But you do this with people you know right? Whatever butters your bread eh.
@Rik Hemsley
"Why don't you want to be updated without being informed?"
You must be new here. If feature X worked yesterday but no longer works today *because* the silent update introduced a bug with the new release, I am sure that you would like some clue as to what has changed in the system. Or maybe you don't :o)
Bumbling idiots
'"We don't have to pay for wind power - it just comes to us naturally," BWEA chief Maria McCaffery'
You my dear are certainly full of it. Wind power isn't going to cut it, may I be one of the 'I told you so's when the lights do go out.
yawn
Of course no one ever committed any violence before those nasty films and video games started appearing in the 20th century. Repeat the previous sentence until the end of the universe.
Having said that, lower age classifications guarantee more bums-on-seats in the cinema. After all, the rather impressionable sub twenty year olds are always the first to be targetted by the marketing crews.
In other news, it rained in Britain today.
What we need
El Reg, can we have a background midi file playing the Benny Hill Show theme tune attached to this comments page? At least then this thread would be entertaining... For a second or so.
Good enough
To agree with one of the earlier posters I don't know anyone with a Blu-ray player, but lots of people with DVDs.
Besides, all this HD TV is a load of crap, who cares? Surely it only really makes a difference if you're a videophile with an ever expanding tardis-like lounge which will accomodate a bigger and bigger TV. Most people are not videophiles and find that DVD on their existing entertainment systems are just fine. I've got a mid to small sized widescreen TV in the corner of my lounge with a couple of SCART inputs, I bought it for about 150 quid. DVD films on it suit me down to the ground. When it dies, I'll buy another budget TV, if it happens to have HD then whup-te-doo. Who actually spends a couple of grand on a TV anyway? "I must do something with my credit card but I just can't think what". Anyone with this problem, I can help[1].
[1] That started to sound a little bit like the A-Team in my head, but I couldn't be arsed to find the actual quote.
Its probably an old joke but...
Lucasfilm should be sued for making those damn awful prequels. I want ~4 hours of my life back, thankfully I never did see the third one.
@Here we go again
You sir are Steve Ballmer and I claim my 5 pounds[1].
[1] This joke is as tired as your complaint.
@Trevor Pott
Well said.
And to add insult to injury, Google are of course based in the States so whilst they are happily sat there in front of the screen pillaging and plundering our data to generate ads, the American government can look over their shoulder. There's a good patriot, lad.
Spring cleaning
Does anyone actually *genuinely* believe that the removal of Labour from power will put a stop to the totalitarian survellience society that is steadily making its way in?
I for one will certainly be glad to see the back of Labour. It's been a while since I've actually seen or spoken to anyone that thinks that Labour is doing A Good Job [tm]. But, supposing the Tories win the next election? When they're standing there with the keys to the estate as it were, are they actually going to say 'No, we'll relinquish the power and control amassed by the previous government"? Are they going to say "We're no longer going to bow and scrape to the EU, IMF, USA, etc and fight for the good of Joe Public"?
Are they £$~%@%#
I'd like to say do a bit of spring cleaning and toss all the current politicians (and their boxes of expense claims paperwork) onto the street. It's a nice daydream. Unfortunately having read 1984 we already know just how that daydream ends, smack bang in the middle of square one again.
Look everyone
Stop complaining about OOXML
*trouser £20*
It's a perfectly acceptable and well-defined format for document representation
*trouser £20*
Those countries that have complained against the ISO process are just causing unwarranted delays and are blighting Microsoft's good name
*trouser £20*
We can trust Microsoft to deal with document format obsolesence as they have always served us well and looked after our electronic archiving best interests these last 20 years or so
*trouser £50*
ODF is clearly inadequate in the face of the rich content and power offered by OOXML
*trouser £20*
I've just recently discovered that OpenOffice is very poor at word processing and will be replacing it with MS Office 2007 immediately
*trouser £20*
No, Office 2003, 2002, 2000 or 97 don't have the richness I need, only 2007 can fulfill my requirements
*trouser £150*
In fact whilst I'm at it I might as well get prepared for the goodness that is Windows 7 by upgrading to Windows Vista, my productivity will leap 70%
*trouser £300*
And now I must go to the pub, via the way of the bank of course, I'm feeling a little heavy in the wallet department.
Eh
So you're on holiday, taking a break from the rat race and absorbing some of the local culture[1] and you decide, in all the wealth of things to do... to watch TV. And are willing to pay £229 to do so. "A fool and his money.." and so on. Who goes on holiday to watch the goggle box? Flames icon, 'cos no doubt somebody does.
[1] Just the one *hic*
hur
The cat picture[1] gave me a faint whiff of icanhascheezburger.com. Cats are cool right? Kidz like teh lolcats don't they?
Maybe this is the new Nathan Barley? Then again maybe not, Nathan Barley had substance compared to this (and I mean the original TVGoHome not the TV show which I never saw).
[1] http://imtalkathon.com/archive/2008/07/04/is-it-just-me-or-are-all-cats-aloof.aspx
In summary: Good business != Good quality
As much as I'd like it to be otherwise. Yes Alan Sugar is a self made millionaire and yes I'm sure there is plenty of pound sign envy here. Nevertheless I think most people are not envious of having the legacy of being branded a 'tat peddler'. I guess AMS and BG have a lot in common.
</belt level="below">
Title
@Tom: "It will displace some of the coal and gas burnt in power stations today."
Isn't that the point of this report to actually determine whether wind power will fulfill that goal. Its a very good question, 'payback' has already been mentioned; just how long will it take to payback the emissions caused by the massive large scale manufacture of a lot of wind turbines and will they do the job? It'd be nice to have a fair idea of the answer before we spend X billion pounds on the project.
"And Brown is just a money man, bless his little cotton socks"
Ol' prudent Brown, stop it you're killing me :o)
@AC11:28 "If you create a cheap fossil free energy source that happens to be intermittent, companies and people will find uses for that don't care that it's intermittent."
Ok its not fossil free but what about the percentage of natural gas that still gets burned off whilst pumping oil? And the gas coming off landfill that also gets burned? Companies and people *will* find a use if a beancounter says that there is a viable ROI certainly not simply for the sake of the environment/children. Shareholders need Bentleys too y'know.
It looks to me like
This comment thread has had one too many during the liquid lunch hour *hic*
@Alan
"Consumers have as much a part to play in this as governments and businesses. Get your consumption down, and the rest will follow. Example - I bought a new fridge freezer from an online (and high street) retailer. A + rating and it has saved me several pounds a week from day 1. Not only that, but when they delivered it, they took the packaging away with them, I never even saw it. So why use cardboard packaging at all ? Why not use proper reusable crates that go straight back to the manufacturer. When a store or warehouse gets a delivery of products, the lorry doesn't go away empty, it is full of packaging for reuse."
Irony levels off the scale. What happened to your old fridge freezer? Was it servicable (How many fixable items get landfilled simply because its not economically viable to fit a spare part)? What was the emissions cost of the manufacture of the new one?
Don't necessarily blame the AVG developers
The problem is that whilst software is never truly considered to be complete most software products reach a point where there is little more you can do to 'add value' to them. Fix bugs, improve stability of course. But, similar to Microsoft Office in particular (and maybe Vista), you get to a point where adding new features and functionality can only possibly degrade the overall product and its performance.
Unfortunately, the senior managers, shareholders and bean counters generally have no concept of this. "We've got to keep adding features" "Grow our market share" "Increase the wow factor" and so on. Maybe AVG has hit that wall?
Small business
I can see absolutely no genuine reason for SMEs to upgrade their relatively small networks to a Vista install set. All I can see is downtime and pain. Especially if the established company network is predominately used for email, sharing office files and a limited set of financial applications and that is all it is likely to be used for in the next 10 years.
The established network is secured, it works, it gets security updates as necessary, why forcibly change it. No I'm not a luddite, just trying to alleviate the problem of IT and software development often being viewed as a cost centre. 'If it ain't broke don't fix it' is the mantra. How do you justify the expense of this particular upgrade:
- Re-training needed for server admin and users at the desktop.
- Possible hardware upgrades for existing XP-based stock - to meet Vista requirements.
And the benefits to the company (productivity?, security?):
- ?
Operating systems and Office software have levelled off in the last few years. There was massive benefit to moving from Win95/98 to Windows 2000/XP (obviously again little benefit really in moving from 2000 to XP). Likewise with MS Office.
At the most I could understand that kitting out a new office might standardise on Vista. But what about established sites?
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