Chris’ Blog

… I detest Sony, more so than I despise Microsoft’s business practises. They have acted irresponsibly with regards to laptop batteries that spontaneously combust, causing massive worldwide recalls and lots of damaged laptops. Their persistence to create their own proprietary formats for as many storage mediums as possible including; UMD, MiniDisc, Memory Stick. Then there is the Playstation 3 which in the United Kingdom is being sold at absurd prices and not even as capable as the Japanese/US versions, mind you Microsoft are guilty of this (without the crippling though). How about the legal cases trying to stop people importing Sony goods into Europe from Japan, take a hint Sony we a large proportion of us don’t like being a) left behind and b) ripped off. Then of course who could forget the summer highlight of two years ago when Sony used rootkit infested DRM to prevent people copying their CD’s, and then acted so irresponsibly towards the discoveries and complaints of users.

So, what have they done now?

This, they have tried to make their DVD’s copy-protected, and failed. Causing much annoyance to customers who have purchased legal copies of the DVD’s to find they make their DVD players power cycle etc. including Sony’s own players! There is quite a bit of discussion of this over at Amazon, from some apparently very annoyed customers. Superb work Sony, please continue to shoot yourself in the foot until you miss, shoot yourself in the head and actually die, it is for the best.

Apologies for this it has kind of turned into a rant.

What more can I say about this? The remarks made about Richard Hammond’s crash on Sunday nights program were in jest a joke.

joke, n. Something said or done to excite laughter or amusement; a witticism, a jest; jesting, raillery; also, something that causes amusement, a ridiculous circumstance.

Oxford English Dictionary

Morons, I have every sympathy for anyone suffering a brain injury at the hands of others or their own for that matter (in guilty circumstances or not) but I do not see the need to be critical of anyone who makes a recovery.

Then there are the digs at young people, not all young people speed, not all young people crash, and there is certainly a lot more speeding from the older generations. This is because they can pay the fines and are not used to the more safety conscious money making road traffic enforcement.

Why oh why do people have to take things so damn literally, if you don’t agree with it turn off. Its not illegal to advertise the adrenalin rush that can be experienced when driving at speed on a track, when this is done on the road it is illegal but then again anyone that follows such an example should get there head checked. Why do people not ring in and complain about Touch of Frost because it promotes murder as something to do? Why do we not complain about Eastenders because it is shit promotes anti social behavior?

Yup, I am being sued for damages etc. along with the 14 000 other students here at the University of Exeter who are member of the Student’s Guild. Somebody from the Evangelical Christian Union have filed papers at the Hight Court against the members Guild, the Guild president and the University. Should be interesting.

If you are a British citizen, I please ask you to help scrap the proposed idea of tracking vehicles for the purpose of taxation and other sinister profiteering activities, and that is forgetting the extreme evasion of privacy. I don’t want the government where the pwnage roads are around my house, and certainly not how fast it is possible to go… So please, sign it!

While we are at it, Ban DRM as well!

More over zealous health and safety restrictions in action. One word…madness!

</rant type=”mini”>

I keep returning to this subject, once again I am back, yet I do not claim to be a brilliant driver but I try not to drive like a headless moose on speed. I may not be perfectly straight with the laws of the road, a small amount of artistic license or poetic license if something is very much to be frowned apon. It just happens somebody hogging the middle lane on the motorway doing 70MPH, what are you to do? Stay behind, on the inside (left) naturally, but you must not undertake that is bad. Overtake, well you could, but that involves breaking the speed limit doing ohh 71MPH to pass this guy (or lass) but thats gonna take a while and piss all the beemer drivers off. I cannot win. In comes the artistic license, I mean depress the accelerator some more and ‘open her up’ 80MPH maybe touching a little more. Being a fairly new driver I would be heavily frowned apon if I was caught performing such a speed and therefore I stick to the limits the rest of the time and only do it for as long as needed. Sorry for this just a random musing before tonights moan …

Went out to the cinema and get some grub dropping my friends home going along a dual carridge way with a 40MPH limit at the limit I signalled to move to the outside lane car in the distance performs the opposing motion and undertakes me. We stop about 10 seconds later at a red light (kinda surprised he stopped) him to my left looking like a moron with his crapped up Vauxhall Astra Mk 3. Traffic lights go amber, boom he is off, go green me trundles along (knowing the next set of lights are red) I get to the next set they go green as I draw closer. Muppet then cut me up, ie moved into my lane on the bend of the roundabout without a signal. I think its safe to say he then ‘floored it’ and went speeding towards another set of lights, which a car was travelling at a normal speed through with all the lights and pavements in the way he couldn’t overtake there. So, this is where the madness came in he went onto the wrong side of the road with no hope of moving back over and overtook all the traffic before cutting back in line rather abruptly. He then shot off into the night hopefully overturning and rolling into a brook somewhere or passing a copper no idea which sounds more appealing.

Personally its the “people” (I don’t wish to elevate this self centered plank to the level of civilised people) that drive like this that need prosecuting and having their license endorsed with smarties points. Even with the roads crammed with ‘Traffic enforcement cameras’ they can only catch speeding motorists, or at a push people that jump red lights (no wonder Royal Mail are in a bad financial situation.) I propose a device simply called Twat Cam but then again that sounds like it belongs in the adult entertainment industry, maybe Asshole Cam butthat has the same problem. Ohh heck Moronic Driver Cam, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring too it

Hanging around on phpBB.com a lot lately, mainly in the phpBB3 beta support forum, get some interesting conversation with weird bugs which is what I like to see. I am a problem solver by nature, by problem solver I mean something with substance, something intriguing, that works my mind. Now phpBB3 is beta right so, an amount of technical expertise is advised, the ability to read notes included within the release announcement would be a good idea, considering the documentation is very sketchy.

The release notes make clear that certain things are unsupported or will not be happening, such as custom code modifications. Betas are about diagnosis and testing, not hacking away at this viciously bubbling cauldron of code, and then screaming for help when all hell breaks loose and you get PHP all over your best suit (what a sight that would be) can you get a stain devil for ASCII art?

Another popular topic is that of upgrade paths between betas and the preceeding RC1; it is beta code which is still volatile, there is still degree of fluidity in the code, features maybe reimplemented in a different way in the worse case scenario. The big killer is database changes, which there have been a few mainly relating to the backup system, which appears to make backups fine until you attept a restore and it pukes. If the database is not fixed, somebody wouldn’t find out until the worst time … ouch. With the no custom code mods rule, an upgrade should just be a case of replacing all the files and then performing database upgrades, but then life is never straight forward. I mentioned before that beta code is still not mature, upgrading between betas unless done properly may leave behind immature traces in some obscure way and come back to plague you at a later date.

People keep asking why they shouldn’t run the beta in a live environment, simple, it is beta. (I totally ignored that but then again I take these pills, they keep me sane.*) Want a better reason, well if a security vulnerability is found and assuming it is reported through the correct methods the details of the discover will stay shrouded in mystery (or so I assume) if this is the case the only way of knowing is by studying the changes to CVS and seeing what is being changed, which I do (sad life I know), most users asking the question I expect are unable to perform this and comprehend what’s happening to the source code. So, it seems asking the question generally qualifies you for the answer of no but stereo typing is wrong, there is always an anomaly no matter how small (it is also morally wrong).

So we end up at feature requests, why the hell would we want features added now? phpBB3 is feature complete adding more features means it will be un-feature complete for a period, considering one of the criteria for reaching the beta stage was feature completeness. Conclusions drawn, fairly obvious, this is negative progress, which is worse than lack of progress (which we have watched for too many months.)

My point behind this? Why can people not read the notes provided, some people even say they have in their posts but appear to require additional confirmation as to the state of mind of the poster at the time of posting. Thing is, this is a very particular example, I imagine we are all guilty. I for sure am, I get a new gadget, game what ever, its unwrapped and tested, the manual is read when the electricity board next decide to cull our electricity. How many people read EULA’s that are packaged with software applications, the ones that state we install loads of spyware on your system in some covert legal mumbo jumbo bastardised obscure form of English? Not me, why, well I use Linux, and they bore me to death (I figure that is the intention or maybe just a side effect of them [software companies] covering their assets.) I guess this was just a hypocritical rant, maybe it was, so what.

It is worth noting that it is year on since the 7^th July tragedy, may the 52 victims rest in piece.

* I am pulling your leg, no no, not literally please don’t sue!

Well everybody is busy or otherwise engaged on AIM/MSN and I dare not venture to IRC (it will consume me) so, the blog has drawn the short straw to receive my latest rant. The subject, Chavs, specifically one and his driving ability (or lack of.) For more information on the Chav, checkout my best friends blog (don’t bother bookmarking it, it is rather static (subtle hint SJ ;).) Before I get started this I don’t want to sound like I am the best driver in the world, that claim is quite often a sign of coat hanger man, I have had my share of scrapes but nothing in the last 5 months.

Well off I went in need to a beverage to tide me over the impenting maths test, which was cancelled but this is another story, so, off I wondered to thy trusty steed, in the form of a ‘96 VW Polo 1.4L equiped with pwnage music and a single working speaker (not quite the chav.) I started the vehicle and strapped myself in, never know what is going to fly towards in school car park, off I went. Trundled out of the sixth form car park (I mean overflow car park, which sixth form should use), and into the main car park. Proceeded with caution around the blocks of cars parked at varying angles, rarely parallel to the parking space or the car next door. Out of the main body of the teacher parking and through to the middle where the entrance sits and the bus bays to the left, to the right we have the visitors parking (lazy sixth form and chav parking.) This is where the encounter began.

Watching out for cars merging into me after they entered the car park and head towards reception, I noticed a car come into a space about 3 spaces down from me with great hast, I anticipated idiocy. Saw continued momentum so braked rather quickly, eventually meeting the year 12 driver *ahem chav ahem* with a bunch of morons in the back, he stopped too (omg). He gave me the “wtf you doing? uh ur mum” look, I gave him the “awww special” look, realising he had no intention of going I hastily checked mirrors and sped off. Only to notice him emerge from the parking space and follow me towards the speed bumps. Yup you guessed it, he tailgated me over speed bumps, not the most clever thing to do, but heck this is moronicity at its absolute maximum here. So I proceeded over the speed bumps and an over cautious, unambitious, and damn right slow speed (cannot be too careful, but then we would never get anywhere *sigh*.) Used a bit of throttle and pulled away and headed onto the exit junction, bless he caught up and managed to follow.

Seeing nothing was there I pulled away in adventurous mode, got to 30MPH (the limit) and stuck there. Glaring into the rear view mirror, I saw him performing an attempt at pulling away, and then predicatably ending up sat on my ass again. Well I thought this is not good, increase the safety of the situation I slowed down a bit, down to 20MPH now. Let him follow suite and then dropped down to 2nd and got back to 30MPH, when he began to follow I slammed on the anchors, just a little hint I don’t mind using them when you are too close to stop (it is his fauly period) never know what bugs I might spot. I arrived at the Stop junction (blind looking right due to protruding house) I observed clear right, left and over the road so I pulled out. Chav followed again, without a glance right (wow he trusts me so bad.) Anyway I was back up to 30MPH quickly and soon he reappered on my tail, this time he didn’t like my tactics so. He overtook, in a 30MPH zone when I was doing the speed limit, there was a car coming towards him and a traffic island ahead. Yes this is the best example of irrational thought ever, broken logic supreme, or maybe everyone in the car was suicidal (or just the driver, the rest had brown trousers.) He managed to pull back over about 5 seconds before hitting the traffic island, if I had continued at ~30MPH I reckon he may have had it, but fearing for my own safety and predicting big cockup with slippery road surface I slowed down. I was expecting him to try and move over then brake to loose speed and lock his wheels up, what a cool site that would have been (not wishing death here.)

Thankfully nobody was hurt just my respect for him, ohh wait I had none, he had a sign above his head saying tosser. So, all is well in the world of me

I could populate this blog with dumbass things spotted on the road but, alas, I think my database would scream

What could possibly be wrong with one of the most popular Internet Security products on the market? Surely it is the most popular for a reason? Yes, PC World and other places marketing it very strongly and lots of badware being produced by … umm … bad people.
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If anyone knows why drag and drop makes Firefox 1.5 eat my CPU on Linux let me know, its getting rather annoying.