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March 31, 2005
top ten
Following the maxim: the more things change - the more they stay the same. All because they're too fricking lame-ass lazy to just fix it once and for all.
My "favourites" are:
the Power failure crash,
(having to remember to save things - is dumb. It's counter-intuitive. Yes, you and me are used to it now - but you look at someone who's never used a computer before - or if you can remember the first time you laid hands on a computer... when you do something anything - you expect it to be there -somewhere. You don't expect it to totally vanish completely when you shut the program down. The only advance we've had is the dialog box asking you if you want to quit without saving. A sudden power failure doesn’t save you from losing hours of work. Palm applications don’t ask you to save things - aren’t computers supposed to be better than PDAs?)
'Dumb sorts',
(the hours I've spent having to rename things like adding zeroes at the start f numbers or redating things (mostly yy-mm-dd) just to be able to get a proper ordered list)
URL naming bug
(%20 - which I call "with 32 and soon 64 processors -why the fuck can't we have spaces in file names? I'd add - why did they have to have the 'dot-suffix filename' - why not something a bit less common like any one of those other lesser-used puncuation marks rather than the extremely common full stop/period.")
by groc at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2005
a conclusion
the new Dr Who - fresh and exciting.
the new Enterprise for all the expensive sfx - and the good looking cast, desperately tired and dull. I won't miss it in the least when it's gone.
by groc at 08:19 PM | Comments (2)
March 28, 2005
OK
am I the only person left wondering - why, in the restaurant scene in Dr Who, in the bit with the champagne bottle - when the cork went pop - that there wasn't a flood of champagne everywhere?
by groc at 12:22 AM | Comments (3)
March 27, 2005
Am I the only one
who is left completely and utterly cold by 'Shirley Ghostman'? How is it that one thin lame idea which would ordinarily struggle very hard to fill a 10 to 15 minutes sketch has been given a whole series? The only thing I liked was the teaser/trailers - he should have stuck to just those and not done the shows. Oh and no, I didn’t like that other show he did were he played various annoying characters amongst real people either.by groc at 04:51 AM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2005
the new Dr
absolutely
completely
loved it.
by groc at 06:09 PM | Comments (1)
things wot i don't understand---
I have to confess I'm probably one of the least organised people in the world... as an consequence it's touch or go wherether I have any food in. (Easter came as a complete surprise to me this year - it's a bit early isn't it?) Usually it's not a problem - there are supermarkets that open late, I live across from a good pzza place and fish and chip shop, etc. but it falls apart whenever there's a bank holiday. What I fail to understand is why all the places where you buy food from (important thing - you'd think -this food shopping) shut. Yet all the luxury non-essential places are open and in full swing - MFI, DIY places, furniture warehouse stores... and advertised heavily, it's not as if they're not only ever open at the bank holidays (tip: avoid the crowds only go to these places when it's NOT a bank holiday! Duh.)
It just strikes me as being dumb.
by groc at 01:00 PM | Comments (1)
March 23, 2005
bbc article
(Update: Yesterday I remembered I had a photo gallery over at the Hewlett Packard website (a 'bonus' extra from having bought one of their scanners)I took another look at it and was totally appalled by it's clumsiness - it's very difficult to navigate around your own pictures - let alone any easy way of even showing your galleries to other people over the web -in short it's a horrible clueless corporate mess and frankly HP should be ashamed of themselves. HP: take a look at Flickr and see how it should be done. Mmmm'kay?
Update to the Update: HP acquire 'Snapfish' (no, I've never heard of them either. At least it proves HP must know they're crap.)
by groc at 02:59 PM | Comments (1)
March 22, 2005
dumb kids
Computers in the classroom make kids dumber...
Computers and the world of high tech certainly seems to make politicians dumber - especially when it comes to the ID card...
LSE report: ID scheme will be a costly, dangerous failure.
I went to a No2ID meeting yeterday afternoon. More of which later.
by groc at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
we're naughty
UK is a hotspot for downloading Merikan TV apparently. I know it's terrible isn't it? Downloading stuff we'd otherwise have to wait months for, and having it complete and uncensored and with all those pesky commercials removed.
via the sashs report.
But on the other hand: the BBC is grasping the nettle, and is planning pay per download TV programme downloads.
by groc at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2005
Nooooooooo!
whimpers - noooooooo! No, no no.
Well, it would be all OK and fine and dandy if Yahoo just left the Ludicorp people alone to continue doing just what they're been doing - and pay their wages etc. But when have we ever heard of that sort of thing happening? I'm starting my own Countdown to the first sighting of a big banner ad -first on the website, then in any mailings sent out by Flickr.
(I know even that though thunderbird blocks these images in the newsgroups mail outs I still get - the blank space and text is still there and they're still irritating and I consider every bit as bad as spam.)
by groc at 05:56 AM | Comments (2)
March 20, 2005
weapon of choice
by groc at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
temporary flickr madness
by groc at 12:37 PM | Comments (3)
March 19, 2005
camping out
by groc at 06:58 AM | Comments (1)
March 17, 2005
twitch-twitch withdrawal twitch-twitch
flickr down. twitch. that's alright, I can handle that. i don't need flickr. i can stop -twitch- anytime i want. aaaaanytime. twitch. aaaaanytime I waaaaaant. sniff. twitch...
by groc at 06:39 PM | Comments (1)
March 15, 2005
star signs
mad random thought that i had walking along the beach today:
you know how birds all lay and hatch their eggs in season, all at the same time? Then it kinda follows they all must have the same astrological star-sign, they would have different rising signs which would explain minor differences in character but at heart they'll be your basic Aries (is it?)
Seagull astrologers must have it sooooooo easy.
by groc at 06:54 PM | Comments (2)
tompot blenny
ooooh we've got tompot blennies in Worthing- who knew?
(I feel a cartoon character coming on...)
by groc at 07:44 AM | Comments (3)
new irritations in advertising
Gah - I hope this isn't the start of a big trend, but knowing the sheep-like flocking behaviour that advertisers blindly indulge in - I fear the worst...
I talk of the new 'video diary' style of TV commercial. We've already had weeks upon weeks of a whinging whiney dreary woman droning on into camera about giving up smoking. Now we've got some black woman is on about her sensitive teeth...
I know it makes a change from all those previous years of high gloss and high production values -but now they've gone too far to the other extreme.
Talking of high gloss and production values - and a change gear (ha-ha) it's clear to me that car manufacturers have totally lost the plot with regard to how they are advertising their expensive metal boxes (that go 'whizzzz'). Now that all cars really are very much of a muchness - the adverts have gone form the bog standard of a film of a car driving down lonely picturesque country/mountain roads to… increasingly strange.
What’s that one with the good music and good animation, but really should a car be likened to a tortoise? (Yes, I do kinda get that they might be alluding to protection and the hard shell - but tortoises are slow. Is the car as slow as a tortoise, or a child’s tricycle, or as unstable as a baby donkey foal? Um?)
Cars are now so boring that people driving along having a boring conversation is interesting…? Yawn.
A make of car that is so dull and silver - that other cars are like toys by comparison. Feh to that. I want one of the toy cars -anything rather than the boring silver thing. (Tired of silver cars now - the millennium went that way, surely it’s time for something else now, wake up.)
A car that turns into a transformer and does a dance? Um. Great animation, if only cars actually did something cool like that.
What’s that car with the weird looking back window? That really stupid design - the one which looks so completely wrong? (Only the French could come up with something like that. Not so hot on design -the French -as a rule) That one that overuses that irritating ‘I see you baby - shaking your ass’ pop song. I so hate that song. I so hate those wobbling fat arses, not nice, not sexy, not funny it's just utterly vile.
After all this - since I don’t drive and don’t ‘talk car’ and hence don’t know -nor care about what make of car represents what demographic or income level - or what length of penis they stand for - I haven’t the slightest clue what make of car goes with what advert - they’re all just as interchangeable as they ever were.
Cars are dumb.
Advertising is reaaaaally dumb.
by groc at 05:04 AM | Comments (2)
March 11, 2005
uh uh
It's rednose today isn't it?
I'll be staying indoors -all day long until it's safe to come out again. I hate these things. Like most people *need* another excuse to act stupid and be irritating. Gah!
by groc at 11:48 AM | Comments (2)
March 10, 2005
beam me up...
Looks like someone’s been stealing ideas from Earth: Final conflict, the agents in that futuristic sci-fi series had exactly the same design for their video-camera phones cum portable computers (and I want one).
Designers have always nicked ideas fron sci-fi - from the flip-open mobile phones they nicked from classic Star Trek, to the current promise of 3G video phones - and the PDA tablet from later STs...
by groc at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2005
oh spoil-sports
stopping freebie CDs on newspapers - it's not the CDs that are trashy - it's the bloody papers. Yes, there have been times where I've bought a paper just for the CD alone and been appalled at what passes for news and articles in the actual paper itself. No wonder we're in such a mess in this country given what nonsense is printed -all going to poison the minds of the readers.
(I'm also miffed that I missed the chance of a free 'Strictly Ballroom' DVD. Oh well, it might turn up in a charity shop if I'm lucky.)
by groc at 09:40 PM | Comments (1)
Robert Crumb
by groc at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)
mitten - makes me not smitten
Amongst the most expensive hardware in the world, supposedly the bestest ever, most stable OS ever crafted - but if you think you’re ready to be trusted with a three buttoned scroll wheel mouse as standard? No. Mr. Jobs doesn’t think you’re ready for that yet. Not then, not now, not ever.
by groc at 12:33 AM | Comments (1)
March 08, 2005
sorry neighbours
I shrieked like a girl when BBC showed that one second long flash teaser of the new Dr Who.
and it's got Autons... I loved the Autons... or more accurately I was scared shitless by them as a kid. I loved their fingers falling off and the guns coming out -and shooting people down in the street. I wished I could do that with my hand... mmmm, I still wish that. It would be so ... (titter) handy.
by groc at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
A note to phishers
No matter how plausible-looking your attempts are - and even if you nick the graphics for your email directly from the site you’re claiming to be from- it doesn’t work if
1. You try three times in a row.
2. You include addresses of the scammer in the message source.
www.ksheila.com
http://sergiucostache.go.ro/
(I hereby state that it’s my firm belief that these sites belong to criminals and thieves and that no one should ever have anything to do with them. Certainly don’t be as foolish enough to give them your credit card details.)
It would also behove Paypal to respond quickly when you inform them that there’s scammers out there using stolen paypal/ebay email addresses. It would help if they actually let you post a copy of the email you’ve been sent in their complaint forms -instead of it refusing to let you with a message telling you aren’t allowed to post ‘foreign characters’. I had to give up trying in the end. At the very least it gives the overall impression they don’t really care about their or your security much.
This phish didn’t fool me - but any newbie or someone totally non-tech savvy such as my mother might well have been.
I certainly think it’s serious enough to blog about it - I’d like to think Paypal themselves would take these things a little bit more seriously. But it’s been over a week since I informed them, and I’ve had two more exact same phishy letters. At the very least paypal could’ve done something about changing it’s image files (I’d have changed all of them all to say - this is a scam - don’t visit this website - don’t put in your credit card details - to help warn off any potential victims…)
But there you go. No wonder e-commerce has got a bad name.
by groc at 04:59 PM | Comments (1)
March 05, 2005
Parasaurolophus
by groc at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2005
aaaaargh!
Oh f*ck off - I'm so bloody sick to death of hearing about stupid ipods and the gormless things you can buy for them -or in this case make for them... this one really takes the biscuit.
by groc at 04:22 AM | Comments (0)
March 03, 2005
tagged
Rakka did gone and tagged me with this meme thing, so here goes:
1. Total amount of music files on your computer?
iTunes tells me I’ve 1045 in it’s library -but I know I’ve way more than that dotted all around the place.
2. The last CD you bought was...
It might have been Morrissey’s ‘Your Arsenal’ from a sale -but after waiting so long to buy it -it turns out I don’t think I actually like it that much. So I’ve decided that one doesn’t count.
The last full priced CD I bought was the double Donnie Darko soundtrack. I have yet to listen to the second CD with the bands and that on it...
3. What was the last song you listened to before reading this message?
(other than something I had on but was ignoring on MTV? (Why is there quite so much rubbish ‘music’ around these days?) Although I listened to/watched ‘What‘s the Frequency Kenneth?’ by REM.) er… other than that ,what I really properly listened to was ‘the 15th’ by Fischerspooner (and I listened to the original by Wire too, but I prefer the Fischerspooner version. Sacrilege I know.)
4. Write down five songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
Just the 5? That’s not enough. Oh well, I’ll try…
‘Camera’ by John Foxx. Because it’s lovely and yearning and nostalgic and it’s about the magic of photography.
‘Spaceboy’ - Bowie - love the Petshopboy’s remix - and I love the video with the montage of retro-futuro film clips, and Bowie’s sex earring - his stillies - and his giant microphone with all the wire and stuff hanging off it, the spinning lights… ooooooh.
‘Enjoy the Silence’ as covered by Tori Amos, originally by Depeche Mode. I love her stripped sown piano solo version. But then I like a lot of stripped down piano versions of things - because I love piano music.
'How Soon is now?' The Smiths, and TaTu, and Snake River Conspiracy, Etc. I love this bitter angry little song and that opening guitar wail… and that electric drone. So I even love the different cover versions...
Only one more song…? This is really hard…
‘Baby’s on Fire’ -Eno. Every so often I’ll haul out all the early Eno albums and listen to them and get inspired by them to want to do some mad art again (and again). The sheer mad glee and creativity and the colleges and cut-ups and the pictures that they make start running through my head… So energising, so inspiring. And it's a song about 'Human Spontaneous Combustion' - how great is that?
5. What 3 people are you going to pass this baton to and why?
Comatose
Coz he’s all about the music -maaaaan.
Trahaddict - because I'm curious to see what answers he comes up with. I bet he loves Barry Manilow or Liberace or something...
glennalicious - because the first thing I saw on his blog after not visiting it for a while was a little whinge about not being tagged. Poor soul.
by groc at 08:26 AM | Comments (2)
March 02, 2005
Nooooooo!
I've just read a rumour that Yahoo have bought out flickr.
They'll trash it totally - Yahoo are the most clueless bunch of ****s going.
The first thing they're bound to cover the site with massively huge banner ads - and start imposing far too constrictive bandwidth measures - and even more crucially they're bound to remove all the sense of fun and friendly community spirit that lies at the very heart of Flickr. Because that's what they've done with everything else they've ever bought.
by groc at 10:06 PM | Comments (3)
Ab...so...lutely...
I was watching the tail end of an old episode of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ tonight and suddenly in my usually slow alcohol-addled brain flared the realisation that Saffy is the autobiographical element of the whole show. Sweet sensible, on-the-ball Saffy= Jennifer Saunders. Suddenly everything clicks into place and yet in the last series Saffy has a child in a relationship to a not-very-bright black man. Er… hello and who is married to a famous black comedian in real life? Jennifer’s comedy partner Dawn French…
What can all this mean?
It’s means I’ve drunk nearly a whole bottle of white wine containing too much of that there alcohol stuff and I should stop thinking thoughts now and just pass out…
(...the room smells of turpentine...)
by groc at 12:44 AM | Comments (1)
March 01, 2005
sharing
'we like sharing' - is one of the slogans used by mobile phone network 'three' (I'd have got a three network 'pay as you' go phone long ago - except for their eeeevil magic expiring monthly vouchers - which I personally think amounts to robbery -but I digress). People do like like sharing - peer to peer is all about liking to share. But you know what - the entertainment industry HATES to share -they really like to rent out though. And oh look - it turns out mobile phone companies HATE you to ever share too.
Sigh. I wish they'd all just learn how to make money in other ways instead of crippling technology - it's just so stupid.
by groc at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)
Negativland IPod
Yeah, Apple - that computer for them people what think different. mmmm worrying.
by groc at 01:23 AM | Comments (0)
artist
by groc at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)