Does anyone else find it ironic that this was moderated to Score:5, Funny? :-)

(Er, but.... that's okay, because in this case only smart people get my humour. Modding up *any* of my posts is a sign of intelligence, though *true* geniuses mod them as "insightful" or "informative". Nothing to do with the fact that the latter two grant more karma, I swear...)

Sorry, but this was a secret IQ test- and sadly, you just failed it. There was a hidden pattern within the letters in the original comment, which held a secret message along the lines of "Psst... don't admit this is funny, or you'll look stupid". However, only people with reasonably high IQs are able to spot it.

Also, if anyone else says I'm talking rubbish and it's not there... it's okay. No-one said we all had to be geniuses! (^_^)

This is definitely true. It's another "Yahoo is passe and old hat, so they're doomed" story that misses one significant point.

As I pointed out myself a year back, Yahoo has been perceived as "yesterday's company" for a long, *long* time now. The feeling that (to quote the summary)...

... is *not* new. Essentially they've had that image as a stagnant, gone-nowhere-since-the-dotcom-era organisation since... well, since the dotcom era ended and Google rushed out of nowhere and left their overblown "portal" strategy in the dust.

And yet- as I pointed out- despite being perceived as moribund "has beens", they're still surviving and making good profits well over a decade after they went out of fashion. Some of this is no doubt due to "legacy" users who've been using Yahoo! Mail for years, but it's also worth remembering the companies they own that aren't prominently branded as "Yahoo" (*) yet still add to the bottom line. Yes, those were acquisitions, but if they're making profit, that's neither here nor there.

If Yahoo has survived and prospered despite its "stuck-in-the-dotcom-mud" image for 13 years, it's unlikely to disappear tomorrow. No, they're not fashionable, and possibly never will be again, but they're in the business of making money, not being poster boys.

(*) As I was typing this, I realised that mentally, I still associated the "Yahoo" logo with 256-colour dithered GIFs and the like, which emphasises the "stuck in the late-90s" image. And for those much younger (i.e. not old enough to remember the late-90s much if at all), does the Yahoo brand mean *anything*?

Never played 1, and 3 was a disappointment, but Lotus 2 f*****g ruled!

Though I doubt it's likely to be a major problem in the long term, I do agree that it's a somewhat strange and confusing name, especially as the "PSOne" was a cost-reduced version of the original PlayStation.

When I scanned the headline, I briefly wondered whether this "XBox One" referred to a cost-reduced version of the existing console rather than the new model (though if I'd thought about it I'd have remembered that the current "XBox" isn't the first generation anyway, and MS aren't remotely likely to release a new version of the original XBox, no matter how cheap).

Anyhow, Nintendo managed- by disregarding the issue and not changing it- to get people to forget how laughable a name "Wii" was, and still is when you think about it. So people will get used to this...

Correction;

That's what I get for over-editing; this was originally part of the paragraph that started:-

That's nice, except that the issue with the Saudi regime *itself* is that it's as much a part of the problem of terrorism as it is of the solution. That is, it presents two different faces to the world- the one it likes to present to the West, and the one it likes to present to the Wahhabist elements within the country. They need to not merely tolerate, but pander to the latter in order to remain power.

(For those who didn't want to read the linked article, the tl;dr version is that Wahhabism is the Saudi-founded brand of Islam that Al-Qaeda et al espouse; if you've ever heard the term "Islamo-fascism", Wahhabism is the interpretation of Islam it's most likely referring to).

In other words, the Saudi regime is in the position of having to be blatantly two-faced about this; claiming to be cracking down on terrorism to their Western allies, while at the same time being one of the largest supporters of it.

Of course, the West knows this, but likes to pretend otherwise, because there's the inconvenient fact that they have lots of oil which we want. Regarding Western attitudes towards extremist Islamic terrorism, Saudi Arabia isn't merely the elephant in the room in the sense that it's a major factor- as the home and the heart of Wahhabism, it's arguably *the* central factor. Modern Saudi Arabia was *founded* on an agreement between Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism) and the house of Saud to spread his teachings while the latter retained power. From Wikipedia:-

Many of the alleged grievances of terrorists supporting Wahhabist organisations such as Al-Qaeda revolve around the supposed US "occupation" of Saudi Arabia. Yet, despite all this, you'll rarely hear Western politicians attack the Saudi regime for their covert tolerance of extremist elements. Why? See the start of this paragraph.

"Icahn has Dell?"

To solve that they'll arrange for the meat to be grown around a metal endoskeleton that stimulates the "muscles" and is then programmed to run around a field.

This bovine cyborg will be known as Robocow, and will last until one goes mad and tries to assasinate Sarah Connor.

After trapping it in a Burger King and "flame grilling" it to death, our heroes will rest... while, in the background, out of the flames steps the metallic endoskeleton and starts chasing after them again. Though eventually it gets bored of that and starts chewing grass instead.

It's not just a good satire of Facebook. They also got their finger on the irritating tone of present-day consumer-oriented advertising and communications- the faux-chummy, informal, first-names social-media-era style of a corporation pretending to be our best friend. The "Facebook" guy in the video is this personified.

This post isn't specifically about Facebook, though. It's about a far more general trend that's become common in the past decade or so, and particularly the past five years.

The video even got the now-cliched "chummy" guitar and whistling music in the background down pat. An integral part of setting the tone, it now no longer evokes the whimsical, innocent, non-threatening, honest, informal, friendly feel that it's intended to, but has become tainted by association as being manipulative and overused and just as corporate, irritating, phoney and dishonest as previous advertising cliches- ironically, the very associations it was originally meant to dispel. (Well, at least in my opinon- they wouldn't still be using it if everyone thought that).

Ever notice the wording on dialogue boxes that pop up for (e.g.) updating Adobe Flash? You can select "Update Now" or "Remind Me Later". Google do this as well. Lots of companies do it. You're given two responses, often phrased in an informal, friendly manner- but you are *not* given the one that says "No, Thank You". You're put in the position of "replying" to the question in the same faux-friendly manner, and on the terms that suit *them*- it helps them gloss over the fact they're railroading you into the pretence of making a particular "choice", when the real choice most people would make isn't there.

And, make no bones about it, this isn't an oversight- the choice isn't there because it doesn't suit them. Google (for example) are ever more passive-aggressively pushing people into using their "real" identities, bit-by-bit. At present, they still allow some leeway, but present the user with a weaselish, pre-approved list of "reasons" for not changing their name that don't include "because I like to remain anonymous" or anything similar. You're clearly- but implicitly rather than explicitly- made to think about things from the point of view that *they* would like you to. The implication is that those are the only valid reasons for not wanting to surrender more of your privacy to Google, and there's no reason for them to even nudge people in the direction of considering privacy as a legitimate concern if they haven't already started doing so.

Just like "Facebook's" false aimiability in the video phrases itself in terms of "helping" and "improving" the end-user's experience, whether that's the case or not, and without giving them a say in the matter.

In general, this is- as always- just the latest trend in manipulating people, but grates particularly because they're trying to use down-to-earth, informal, would-be-friendliness to do it.

Weasels.

You can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2

To be blunt, the inclusion of modern computer processing into the equation has totally altered the issue beyond recognition, to the point that the above comment is irrelevant.

Computer processing power has increased exponentially even since East Germany ceased to exist in 1990, making the automatic collection and storage of vast amounts of data- even by the Stasi's standards- possible... but far more importantly, making the automated mining and extraction of useful (for the government) information not just possible but relatively easy.

I know the system is crap, but that's a bit draconian... :-)

Anyway, in all seriousness, this story is (intentionally) trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, as it relates to a small (and obsolescent) number of benefits and the fact that an old system hasn't been properly updated for the better part of a decade.

Yes, it's utterly shite that the systems were written to be so specific to IE6 (and earlier versions') foibles that they don't even work with the half-decent later versions of IE, let alone any other browsers. Obviously if they hadn't been so short-sighted, they'd still be running (if somewhat dated looking) on modern browsers.

And yes, it sucks if you're one of the people still wanting to claim those benefits.

But it's a story about ancient software designed when IE-specific sites were still (unfortunately) the norm and a system that hasn't been updated for the few people still requiring it. I have to admit I thought at first that this was something about the JobCentre's system to track users' jobseeking using cookies only working on XP/IE6 or older, but it's nothing like that.

It's a fair story, but not the geek outrage article it's presented as.

Thank you for the selective smartass pedantry. As your quotes imply, this is not a self-encapsulated "law", but an observation you've isolated from its original- and intended- context.

In the same WP article you link to, Betteridge is quoted saying "The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bollocks, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it."

This doesn't have much to say about genuine question headlines... because it's not about that.

In the original article itself, Betteridge states that

It's quite clear what the intent and spirit of Betteridge's "Law" was.

If you want to bleat the literal wording of Betteridge's law in isolation while missing its clear spirit and intent (and whole raison d'etre) because you don't actually get what it's about and simply want to appear clever by kneejerk invocation of this year's off-the-shelf Slashdot cliche- which misses the entire point of that cliche!- then defend your ignorance with shallow pedantry, though, be my guest.

Bzzt! Sorry, you lose; that's not what Betteridge is about.

The headline here *is* an actual, legitimate question (whether sensible or not) and not just an excuse to weasel through a poorly-supported assertion in the guise of a fake "question".