Posts by slarty
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"But do you know what the service entry for bigger jobs is on the new iMacs? You take the screen off! Retailers have been issued with big suction-cup thingies as part of the service kit."
Brought a tear to my eye. I still have my extra long Torx drive, case splitter and discharge tool they gave you when you completed the Mac service training in the eighties. <sigh>
Been stuck with non-Mac stuff for years... the gear I play with now needs a bit more grunt :) [3 X quad core four way boxes and 8Tb of disk at the last count...]
One day when we're rich I'm going to throw out everything except the NAS and replace the lot with Macs.
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I would like to nominate this entire post as the epitome of all that is great about the interweb. It's the online equivalent of those conversations over a pint on a long winters evening.
Oh, and Kyle?
:p
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Always important to keep in mind clause 1 of our unwritten constitution.
"Laws of silliness, stupidity and downright unenforcibility shall be rendered void by the simple fact that the majority of the population will ignore them."
(Clause b does however state that cunning lawyers will endlessly extract many guineas from the halfwits who construct the nonsense in the first place - these legal chavs then go and spend the money on cheap wimmin and expensive wine, thereby stimulating the economy. Everyone's a winner)
Of course this tripe may simply be a gesture to a "Free" trade agreement with the land that sanity forgot.
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View time on pages - pah.
Here I am in Holland talking to some guys about AI systems to do stuff, and guess what they are developing in their spare time (actually where there money comes from)?So you wander up to one of those dynamic billboards (you know, portrait plasma screen in the airport). It's got 5 cameras that look at you. They assess the espression you make, and where you are looking on the screen. Next time you wander past a linked screen (these things are centrally managed), they try something a bit more tailored.
Got to say I'm feeling a bit freaked out. Good news is that it won't work as a biometric ID system.
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Yep - They're called "Torrents" and rely on some delightful person overseas ripping and making available shows. For example, we watched the last Boston Legal about 3 weeks ago.
To be honest the only reason I do it is to avoid the ad's. I wouldn't even mind if the advertising was targeted so it was something I'd be vaguely interested in buying... and therein lies the future model for the YouTube/Google marriage.
And there's also your answer about the burbs: if you want to know who watches TV, shut your eyes and form a mental picture of the type of person who would buy the products that are being advertised...
I think FTA will be around for a while, but frankly anyone with a bit of disposable income pays in one way or another to avoid having some half-wit insult their intelligence suggesting they would be interested in processed food or feminine hygiene products.
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"Most armed UK police have used the HK47 rifle as their weapon of choice for years."
Had another look this arvo - I didn't want to stare but they looked (from about 5 feet away) to be HK MP5's or 10's to me... scary, interesting tho'.
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I'm in London on business at the moment.
The boss called and asked if we wanted to come home... I didn't get it till he pointed out the "Critical" terror alert... but then I grew up here, and we have such an ingrained distrust of the media and the ruling classes that we simply ignore it.And the media are reveling in it. Eventually during the IRA campaigns it became largely unreported (only the big stuff you couldn't avoid). Now that was a stupid policy - the gummint applied pressure to stifle the media, so the Fundamentalist Catholics (!) had to perform bigger and bigger atrocities to get attention.
I flew out of London City Airport today. Security is no worse (or time consuming) than, say, Christchurch. But plod are carrying SMG's, which is a bit freaky. And there were snipers in the roof at Waterloo today.
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In considering whether to prosecute IRD and SFO consider the amount of money involved as part of the decision. If you add up all the DPB, WINZ and W4F fraud in NZ you'd probably get a number less than $50mil. Sounds a lot but it's trivia in the grand scheme of things. Some of it has to be chased, but at that level we're only talking about spreading the fear of being caught.
In the case of big ones like F-R, it comes down to making sure that there is at least the fear of being caught and your transaction costing you more than the benfit you received. In this case F-R are long gone, so they have no real reputational risk in NZ. They had nothing to lose. So getting $20mill was an impressive outcome.
And don't forget IRD can still go after them - you'll just never hear about it unless it goes to court (which it rarely does...) because of the very strict secrecy around tax stuff. And I reckon that's a good thing. I know people at IRD - they get very testy about their independence in operational matters (as opposed to policy!).
And the SFO? They have a morale problem at the moment due to the stuff ups over the last few years. I'm told they are one of the least respected bits of the financial regulatory area. Maybe their new Director will make a difference (but I suspect Prebble will just employ another safe public sector grey suit, so don't hold your breath... we haven't seen a public-sector-CEO star for a while have we?)
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I've sworn to ignore Coddington and Franks - I just find the stream of numbing ignorance too much. Hopefully they'll disappear with a thwok* up their respective arseholes one day.
But in the same swear I have vowed never to let an instance of ignorant destructive prejudice pass without comment in my company.
Now I'm off to randomly select some victim based on flawed interpretation of data. I'm sure the public won't mind, especially as I'm a WASP.
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* Thwok is the official sound made when full rectal inversion takes place.
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Maybe Bishop Tamaki is worried he won't be able to market a cure for homosexuality if this one gets passed?
I presume it's not a suppository.