Stupid — Tag

Apparently PS3 kiosks around the states keep freezing up and there are annoyed store clerks having to reset them. A story appeared on Slashdot today that says that they are freezing on purpose.

I’m totally confused at this point, completely stunned at what I’m being told because it’s the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. I let him rattle on for a while, trying to convince me (and probably himself) that yes, Sony went out of their way to have their consoles lock up so that the masses will not spend hours upon hours basking in all its glory.

Most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. A nice cover-up that any dimwitted person would just go “Oh yeah,” and not pass judgment. But, gamers are far from that - well, most of them.

The comments on the linked article are well worth reading, especially the ones from gamez1.

YOU STUPID FUCKS - PLAYSTATION BROUGH SOME OF THE GREATEST GAMES OUT - STOP WHINNING PUSSIES

WHO EVER MADE THAT COMMENT IS A NINTENDO LOVER AND TAKES IT IN THE BUTT

Once you find it, read down. Delightful.

Of course, a demo-mode may have been planned but scrapped because it was getting much too close to the deadline, but seriously, freezing up? That could put anyone off who did not know that it was “on purpose.”

Clearly afraid that it won’t be needed anymore, Symantec had complained to the EU that wants security features from Vista removed. Basically, make Vista so idiotically dumbed down so then Symantec can continue to line its pockets.

One of the complaints is the Security Center in Vista they want to be able to replace with there. This is despite the ability to fill it with all their own icons and logos throughout the control panel. Next thing they want is kernel protection removed. Malicious software can patch the Windows kernel to do their bidding, and Symantecs products can fix this by patching it again. So, now that it is impossible to patch the kernel, and hence not have any malicious software lurking there, they want Kernel PatchGuard removed.

So, Symantec is a business, and now they are seeing a threat from Vista because it features built in security. These are the right moves that Microsoft are taking - you shouldn’t need to pay someone else to have a secure computer. Quite frankly, Symantec are just being idiots.

In other news, Adobe is also trying to bundle its crap in the OS as well. As a new XML format called XPS (XML Paper Specification) is built into Vista, and will compete with PDFs. I don’t see a problem with this, as there are lots of programs that make PDFs for free anyway. Adobe have already stopped Microsoft from having a publish to PDF function in future versions of Office. Now they are just being silly.

Well, it seems NZ Idol has finally had the last nail in the coffin banged into it, as several prominent New Zealand artists, including Boh Runga, Neil Finn and Dave Dobbyn, refused to be on the show.

Boh had apparently said that she’d rather “lick the inside of a toilet bowl than appear on Idol.”

Ouch.

The judges of the show, Frankie Stevens, Ian Stables and Megan Alatini then went and insulted them all. From Stables,

The attitude of these guys is that to go on something mainstream might seem a little uncool, because they are not being seen in the right place at the right time, and they are trying very hard to be overly intelligent and articulate and savvy, when really they’re just boring idiots

So, after insulting the people who you wanted on the show, what do you do next?

You place an open invitation!

Memo to Dave Dobbyn, The Feelers, Shihad, Evermore and Boh Runga: “You are cordially invited to appear on NZ Idol, where we will pay tribute to your vast musical talent. Please RSVP to Frankie Stevens, Iain Stables and Megan Alatini.”

Ha! I’m sure all of these artists are now seething.
(Tip: Russell Brown)

A couple of days ago, AOL released search data upon the world. Not just any random old search data, but data by 650,000 AOL users, each with their searches “anonymized” by putting a number next to them (as in, you can still identify the user, just not which user). It a somewhat strange “slip up” by AOL (they later retracted the data and said it was a mistake to release) it revealed search queries over three months.

Some of the more interesting have been thrown into a flash animation.

The problem is with their apparent “anonymizing.” It doesn’t really do a fat load of good. The New York Times was able to track down one of these people who made this list. Her search terms were all read out to her, and she confirmed they were hers. You could still basically track what these people were doing over these three months, a “snap shot” of their lives if you will.

But, that said, would releasing the data without any identifier at all made the situation any less worse? Probably not.

It is going to be some time before AOL is trusted again by many. Of course, from the sounds of it, not many did in the first place!

• More searches, this time from someone scary (though can’t top that killer).

Despite AOL taking it off their servers, it doesn’t prevent people already with the data from spreading it. There are many numerous servers and torrents to download this data from.

Even the “intelligent” people are so stupid sometimes. Recent news reports are that a video has appeared on YouTube which shows these kids go on a round-a-bout and spin it round using a motorbike. The kids that do this thought it’d be great to put it online on YouTube.

Then the news agencies picked it up.

I saw tonights TV3 report (which was really UK’s ITV report) and they had this guy saying how the internet should be regulated by the government and that it is the fault of the ISPs. Clearly a moron, but more on that later.

I like to point out how they jump around the real issue here - why were these kids doing this at the playground? Where are the parents or supervisors? Clearly these kids were idiots! What were they thinking in the first place? They deserved to have been thrown off that roundabout for being such dolts in doing it.

Back to the moron, he clearly doesn’t know how the internet works. I cannot be bothered explaining it, I’m sure my blog audience is more intelligent than he is.

• The ISPs only see the bits and bytes that go through. It isn’t like they are going to trawl through the internet, inspecting every file we ever send and receive.
• The internet cannot be regulated by a single government. How can it? It is international. What one government will put into law, won’t affect the rest of the world. That’s why all that net neutrality stuff is not going to work. At all. It is once again America thinking that it controls the world. But wait, it doesn’t.

Any kid that copies this stunt clearly is an idiot in the first place and should seek medical help.

Also in the ITV report, they said how they reported earlier on kids recording school ground fights and putting them on the internet. Big whoop! Kids fight on the playground all the time! It’s a fact of life! Get used to it!

They are so worried about kids copying this stuff. So, here’s a guide: how bout you watch your kids on the computer? Eh? Limit their time on the internet? What? Do you need a book written out for you? How about you learn to use Google for a change?

And that is my rant for the day. Seeing idiots do this, then watching everyone else who had no cause for blame get blamed, real riled me up tonight. What happened to personal responsibility?