Comment Blocked on O2 (Score 2) 132
It's blocked on O2.
My contract is up on 19th January. I will vote with my feet. I'll switch to Andrews & Arnold who publicly state that they don't censor, filter and track. It's a whopping £4 a month more.
It's blocked on O2.
My contract is up on 19th January. I will vote with my feet. I'll switch to Andrews & Arnold who publicly state that they don't censor, filter and track. It's a whopping £4 a month more.
Why did you insist on integrating Amazon searches into the product despite users' concerns and complaints to the contrary? A large body of users including myself consider this to be abhorrent and a step back to the dark ages of sponsored software (remember Bonzi Buddy)?
Considering the economic model drives the social outcome, particularly where capital is pushed to controlling class, I'm pretty much on the dot. I did economics back in the distant past, so I'm not ignorant of how everything slots together.
These firms are very quiet about what they really do. The job description, company web site and agent were all pointing to something different. They were also pretty much avoiding trying to tell me what the job involved as well.
Oh the shock of the moral high ground.
Well not strictly true. I'm not sure the Western propaganda is "fit for purpose" and derives from the cold war paranoia. They did some horrible things (just like the US and UK governments for example and the whole perpetual state of war), but they were mostly quite reasonable apparently[1]. My father, an ex East German shouted much worse things than that at them in 1976 after pissing up the side of a Stasi vehicle and getting arrested. As a repeated offender, he was gently booted over the border to West Germany then to the UK and lived in relative comfort until I came along and ruined it for him! He's always bitter that they kept his television as it took him 5 years to save up for it.
[1] My comment towards the prospective employer was to rile them up about it rather than be factual.
Yes. I can see the religious programming now:
"Looks like Bin Laden" - HRESULT_FULL_CAVITY_SEARCH
"Has hook instead of hand" - HRESULT_FULL_CAVITY_SEARCH
"Darker than a bag of flour" - HRESULT_FULL_CAVITY_SEARCH
"Has Koran instead of Bible" - HRESULT_FULL_CAVITY_SEARCH
"Has Casio F91-W watch" - HRESULT_STRAIGHT_TO_GITMO
In a capitalist society, a divide develops and society falls into those who control and those who are controlled. This software exists to enable and reinforce that divide by criminalising people.
Regarding maturity, do you find it unacceptable that someone should be principled and express that verbally? Sometimes "fuck you" is the best answer.
A couple of years ago I went for an interview for one of these companies rather naively. Their product wasn't described as profiling, surveillance or monitoring but "adaptive security". After I finally cut through all the bullshit and worked out what they were actually selling, I bailed on it (with a proverbial "fuck you stasi bastards" and loss of the job agent). However I couldn't help noticing one thing:
The management staff were utterly convinced that this was the best way to go and that the entire world's problems were going to be solved by profiling in this way. I'm not talking about it being the marketing pitch, but actually some kind of crazy psychopathic paranoia about their own mortality in the hands of terrorists. I cannot fathom how these guys actually operate with this mindset at all. It was rather shocking actually and has permanently destroyed my acceptance of capitalism. It was literally like OCP or Weyland corporation were real for a few minutes.
Someone needs to legislate this out of existence because we're fucked if society ends up at the hands of nutjobs like them.
It has been proven recently that the whole WinTel PC thing and the associated lock in is on its way out as UEFI Secure Boot would be as well. ARM and Linux is where everything appears to be heading. Look at all the Android tablets and phones, Chromebook, Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard etc. Even Apple is rumored to be looking at ARM for newer laptops and are throwing their own cores together.
It's only a matter of time...
In the UK at least, they've been paying for various celebrity trolls to say "OMG WINPHONE8 IS TEH WIN" all over advertising. I assume this is the same forces at work trying to undermine the intelligence of the masses.
A more realistic assessment is walking into my local Currys/PC World shop (like a UK version of Best Buy which is less interesting) and watching the various people milling around. One guy was buying a Samsung Smart TV, another guy a dryer, some woman was buying a USB internet dongle and asking if it worked on her MacBook and another guy was buying a Galaxy Tab and some overpriced HDMI cables.
Windows 8 love? Absolutely sod all. No one gives a flying fuck.
Now I could be considered to be a Microsoft shill. I work for a well known Gold Partner in the UK, are a certified Microsoft software dev, have used every MS OS from DOS5 and know their shit inside out, but fuck me no one cares about them any more, me included. I'm even jumping ship with my vested and historically expensive interest in them and leveraging the 15 years of Linux experience I've picked up on the side.
If all else fails, lower your standards.
