User Conversations
posted by kaiwai on Sat 27th Jun 2009 03:32
I'm going to have a piss and moan; what is it with American companies who refuse to sell to international customers. Take Amazon for example, I looked up Windows 7 hoping to pre-order it and get a discount for my parents two computers and this is what I face: "Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S."
What is it with American business hatred of overseas customers? Isn't our money good enough? are most America business still living in an age where only a handful of countries matter?
It bloody frustrates me when I see businesses with such a myopic vision that they deliberately exclude people from purchasing a product. I don't care whether it is Amazon or Microsoft, which ever the case maybe, its a stupid policy.
What does everyone else think of it? for me, this isn't the first time I've been pissed off with US businesses refusing to ship outside of the US.
posted by kaiwai on Tue 7th Apr 2009 14:07
Here is a small copy and past from the latest post I did: http://www.osnews.com/permalink?357479
I'd like someone to please point out to be where I am trollish - for the sake of humouring me and maybe me actually understanding how this so-called 'moderation' system works. If I do one thing I get marked down, if I do another thing I get marked down, I do a completely different thing and I get marked down. Someone tell me where I am going wrong - if apparently as Thom and Adam claim that I am always wrong and the moderation system is always perfect and without fault.
posted by kaiwai on Thu 16th Oct 2008 00:52
That does it. I've sent off an email to Thom, and I've officially quit this site. Idiots from top to bottom abusing the moderation system, lack of English comprehension when replying by some members, and worse, a lack of 'balls' to engage in a debate and instead 'fly by night' moderate'. I've had people in the past go, "well, you shouldn't worry too much" - well, I'm not worrying, but I am not going to hang around in a forum filled with idiots who can't hold a decent conversation for more than 5 minutes without resorting to name calling, company bashing and avoiding the issue. Good bye, and good luck. Osnews.com used to be the haven from the stupidity on Kryo5hin and Slashdot, now it is has decended into nothing more than a pathetic concoction of digg crossed with boingboing. I've had a look at my 'good posts vs. Bad post' and I can tell you that there is a concerted effort over the last 2 weeks by people to moderate my posts down - no matter what I put in them.
posted by kaiwai on Wed 10th Sep 2008 22:06
This has been a shocking week, I've had a look through the comments, looked at the points deducted - and I don't see a single comment I have made to warrant such moderation. Quite frankly, if this keeps up, I'll be leaving. It is getting as pathetic as digg crossed with slashdot because Adam and the likes don't have the backbone to get rid of these 'drive by moderators' who have multiple sock puppets to avoid the moderation rules. Adam, provide with a contact so that I can eventually get this account deleted - because you my friend need to wake up and do something about this; this used to be my favourite website to visit, back in the good old days when Eugenia was moderating it. Now it is little more than a pathetic cesspool filled with overly sensitive fanboys.
posted by kaiwai on Wed 14th May 2008 16:40
I submitted this link: http://kaiwai.blogspot.com/2008/05/opensolaris-and-thinkpad-t61p-re...
But it hasn't appeared as a new story, so I thought I might as well post it as a conversation - basically my review of Thinkpad and my experience running OpenSolaris on it. Just a side note, yes, it does run Ubuntu 8.04 very well.
posted by kaiwai on Sat 12th Jan 2008 11:29
What is it with it? I'm sitting here with my iPod touch, hoping to post a reply, and find that my damn password and login name doesn't work - it claims I need to put my credentials in the fields provided BUT I ALREADY HAVE! come on guys, fix the damn thing up! this is pathetic!
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
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Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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