Posts by ADJB

How site visits work

Luser - My XXXX is broken it won't switch on

Helpdesk - Have you checked its plugged in and all switched on

Luser (about 1 second Later) Of course it is do you think I am a fool etc

Helpdesk - I'll get somebody out to look at it.

Arrive on site

What won't turn on then?

XXXXX

and its all plugged in?

Of course it is do you think ect ect

OK, let me take a look (seeing plug sitting on the floor and a new coffee machine plugged in)

Pass Luser said plug

Could you just hold that for me please

Could you just plug it into the wall please

Just try the XXXX now please

Oh, look it started working

All the above is said loud enough for the office to hear so when they plug it in you always get somebody who twigs it just needed plugging in ans says so. Luser id then mocked by fellow Lusers.

Next time a call comes from that office and they are asked to check they do check not wanting the humiliation doled out to the first Luser.

Nasty but efficient.

Plain English

Looks like the FCC press office has employed Sir Humphrey.

Faith in technology

Articles like this are what keep my faith in technology alive when your bring flooded with IOT devices and other worthless crap.

Shame Really

I suspect this would have been one of the best selling lines in the long history of dodgy Reg merchandise.

My usual response to the inevitable question of what was wrong with it is to answer in a load enough voice for all the office to hear "You have to switch it on / have it plugged in for it to work.

The making people look like idiots system works well for cutting down on repeat calls.

Kinnect and Rare

You always get more value for your cockups if you play them in pairs.

I don't know of anybody that uses or even has used the (lets copy the Nintendo Wii) Kinnect on the Xbox. It seems to have no real purpose that a gamer would want given the Xbox has always been pushed as having more "hardcore" (i.e. FPS) games than anything Nintendo would consider decent on it's consoles.

Now couple that with effectively destroying Rare as a credible Games producer by forcing them to make second rate games just to support the Kinnect.

Bingo - Two plagues on the bottom line for the price of one.

At least now Rare can, hopefully, get back to producing the quality games, of a type Nintendo would approve of and therefore attract the audience you just alienated.

Sorry, forgot, all the top talent got that pissed off by being forced to produce rubbish that they all left.

I would bet those pair of mismanagements have cost the best part of a billion.

What about Tom?...... and for that matter Jerry.

It's still true.....

Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; And The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Oh and Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

Being as even Microsoft have now admitted that gamers (and to be fair, everybody's) interest in kinnect is zero or slightly less they might actually allow Rare to start producing good games again. Shame that all the talent got that fed up of overbearing management that they left so now the company is just a shell of the company it once was.

Clouds.....

Clouds do seem to have this habit of raining on people.

Now the staff will know nothing about twice as many product lines as before.

At least he should be able to pick up some good stories from any of the expense fiddling MP's that are still partaking of board and lodging at her majesty's pleasure.

"And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractable's, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make fools of themselves in public.”

Douglas Adams

A truly gifted futurologist who foresaw the coming of Kevin Warwick and his ilk.

Pot - Kettle

Has Kevin Warwick ever managed to pass a Turing test?.

Congestion?

"The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) is planning a demonstration against Uber on 11 June, which it expects to cause severe congestion and traffic chaos in central London"

and we will be able to tell the difference how exactly?

Information as a tool

One of the most helpful tools I carry round is a Kindle.

Manuals for all the "odd" software we use, reference books for everything, more or less a full copy of our helpdesk knowledge-base and most importantly, a few novels for when I am waiting for things to happen.

Yes, I know most of this is online somewhere either internally or externally but being as the "online" thing is frequently the problem and I tend to work in a lot of places with no wi-fi / phone signal it has proved it's worth many times.

Can we apply this to printed bollocks as well as electronic bollocks?

So the ICO can give a good kick in the profit margins to a company sending out 350k electronic spam messages, how come OFCOM (or somebody else) can't do the same to BT / Virgin / Sky etc for posting about the same amount of unwanted marketing material through my front door. If anything the fine should be larger because at least electronic spam is more environmentally friendly, ask a forest near you. I assume the electronic "marketing material" is no more inaccurate than the printed "marketing material" or if it is they should at least recoup some of the fine when the next Booker prize is given out.

And this is a problem why?

If this ruling applies to the EU why don't Google et al just stop using there, for example, .uk and .de domains and run everything through the .com (which I assume is based in the US) where the ruling doesn't apply?.

At the very least they could put a disclaimer up saying EU based domains will give censored results and for full results use the .com. I would assume they could also give more precedence to the fact a take down notice has been requested and refer people to chilling effects for further details.

Beware the Streisand effect.

Dangerous Stuff

The misses is going to kill me.....

25% wasted

"Retail firms continue to be the big spenders on web ads, buying a fifth of the year's total, while financial services companies bought 13 per cent of the ads and the auto industry ran a close third with 12 per cent."

I might buy a DVD off the t'internet but no way would I consider banking with Bank of Uganda or buying a car from a website advert.Those are the sort of things that need a bit more than a sidebar ad before I look at them. That means 25% of the adverts I don't see are wasted on me.

Giveaway

"They trawl through a load of old rubbish and say they'll come up with, I don't know, sales leads - and do they? No. 'Data Scientists', my arse."

That's the giveaway line, no American NSA insider would ever use the word "arse".

Faceholes?

Am I the only person that sees this as a quick route for facebook to get a product to market which is (roughly) the equivalent of Google Glass?.

Are we soon to faced with hordes of faceholes?.

Interesting way to boost your business.

Buy an exciting new* technology that a lot of gamers and gaming companies are really interested in.

Because of who you are alienate the whole of the same gamer client base.

Because of how you do business alienate all the gaming studios.

Build a new client base from people who don't even know what the product is or what it does.

Result - VR Candy Crush

*I know it's not at all new or original but you know what I mean

I think a point is being missed here.

MS don't really care about gaming on the PC, witness the gradual closing of studios and abandonment of IP's, but they do care about Xbone gaming a little bit more. At this moment it is obvious from the games released that the PS4 is the better gaming (and selling) machine and even showcase exclusives like Titanfall can't manage full HD on the Xbone. By allowing developers closer to bare metal performance will help to close this gap and help to justify more general gamers (as opposed to fanboi must have that exclusive gamers) buying the Xbone. This of course then gives MS a much better chance of making it's "Xbone as an entertainment centre" vision happen with the associated money rolling in from third party media sales.

Running games better on Windows, no matter which version, is just a bonus.

And this is censored......

At the moment I am playing through the "South Park - Stick of Truth" game which is censored in Europe but not in the US (on the consoles but not on the PC apparently). I have come across three censored scenes, one regarding anal probing by aliens and two in the local abortion clinic. All the missing material is fully described with an apology to "Europe". Given the American sensitivities around abortion especially I an surprised that this censorship wasn't the other way round - i.e. allowed in Europe and blocked in the US. As I have just taken part in a battle which ends up with my opponent being crushed by a giant breast and myself being crushed by a giant pair of testicles with the battle taking place under the heaving sweaty bodies of a couple making love I find this type of censorship laughable by Apple. Is it a case of chronic bad language, graphic violence, gratuitous sex and outright all round offensiveness is fine so long as its a game but if a real women is displayed in quite an artistic way then its banning material?

Before this latest burst of interest from the popular press I had already done a "I do not consent, sod off" letter for my GP. When I took it down to the surgery I expected blank looks from the desk staff along the lines of what are you talking about?

To my very pleasant surprise about half way through my first sentence the lady handed me an opt out form pre-printed by the surgery just requiring my name, address and signature. My trust in the practice went up no end especially when a few weeks later my other half was there and her doctor actually raised the issue and offered her an opt out form.

With that level of open defiance from the shop floor it makes you wonder who actually wants the data and what its really for? (rhetorical)