The most recent example stems from the study that was just released on whether mobile phones cause brain cancer. The study’s official outcome was that it was inconclusive, however, this didn’t stop the scare mongers in the media getting hold of it and manipulating it their way. According to them, there’s an increase in the chances of getting brain cancer of 50% if you are a heavy user of a mobile phone. Now lets just dissect that statement, shall we? A quick search of the net found that 2 out of every 100,000 people get brain cancer. A 50% increased risk puts that figure at 3 in 100,000. When you say it like that, it seems completely irrelevant.

The vast majority of people think that a 50% increased chance means a 50% chance. Of course, the media and politicians use this kind of language because people don’t know any better. It is in this way they are able to push their own agenda while people think they are doing the right thing.

Just think about how many times someone has told you there is an increased chance for something, then you’ll realise how many times you’ve been mislead.

By far the worst experience I’ve ever had with this would have to be the mobile provider 3. They even have canned responses for their phone support. A couple of years ago, I couldn’t get to the net on my phone. I did all the normal things; reset the phone, check the APN. I then called up 3 support and told them that I was unable to access the net and what I had already done. Their response? A factory reset of the phone was required. I did not want to do this as I knew it was an issue with their network. I said that I did not want to lose all of my settings. Their response to that shocked me the most.

They told me that a factory reset will not reset all of the settings. I just sat there for about 5 seconds and hung up. Seriously, if you’re going to train your staff, at least tell them basic facts.

Funnily enough, after about 20 minutes, the net suddenly started working again. I knew it was an issue with their network, but their call centre staff were too stupid to figure that out. I decided to send an email to their complaints department about the treatment I had. I detailed everything in the original conversation so they could effectively follow it up. Try guess their response… To factory reset the phone – even after I said it was working fine now.

The reason I’m only writing this now, however, is because of this happening to me today as well. At home, I run a fairly complex network. This network has 2 subnets, one of which is fully routed to the outside world. What this means is that on the external router, I need NAT disabled otherwise it won’t route.

I recently bought a new router from my provider. This router is supposed to be their top of the line, best at everything router. However, it seems it is not. When I finally got online after waiting for 6 weeks (see the previous post), I had a chance to test out this new router. I had configured it weeks earlier so that I could just get straight online without any delays.

The first thing I noticed when I went online was that my mail server still wasn’t receiving mail. So I decided to try connect to it from outside and instead got a connection refused error.  I then thought I should check the external IP, to my surprise, it was actually the router’s IP and not the one it should be using. Of course, this means NAT is enabled. I checked the config and NAT was disabled. Obviously turning it off does nothing.

I decided to contact Belkin support (they make the modems/routers for my ISP) and tell them about the bug. Of course, they didn’t actually read the message. They just presumed I was like any other idiot who contacts them without first reading the knowledge base or FAQ. They asked me which ports I wanted to forward and whether I was trying to use DMZ.

Seriously, can’t companies just take an extra two seconds to actually read the problem instead of assuming it’s another idiot who can’t read? All this does is turn competent people away from your business. If someone sounds like they know what they are talking about, hand the message off to someone who also knows what they are talking about.

poedgirl
The simple fact that you have SSH running confirms that it is already jailbroken.

iPhoneTutorialz
its called ssh-over-usb

dee di dee… stupid

you can run file browsing/terminal over usb on any fucking device.

just cause you read some tutorial on the retard forums that says you must be jailbroken to ssh. doesnt mean its true.

you probly dont even know what ssh stands for.. and the correct term isnt SSHing … ssh means secure shell… its a secure way of browsing devices.. you can aceess the file system via usb w/out a jailbreak.. openssh just provides an sftp gateway

poedgirl
Would you mind explaining the process of installing OpenSSH on a non-jailbroken iDevice? One where you can’t edit the folders outside the BSD jail the system is in, where applications can’t modify anything outside their own BSD jail, oh, and you can’t actually execute applications that are not signed by Apple.

iPhoneTutorialz
Yah, you download DiskAid or any other USB device file browser, open it up, and OMG! Theres var, Library, and OMG.. it looks like WinSCP

poedgirl
Umm… I hate to tell you, but that’s not SSH. It may look like WinSCP, but it is not using the SSH protocol. You may very well be able to see all those folders, but you are unable to write to any of them outside the BSD jail – hence why it is called “jailbreaking”.

He then proceeded to take the abuse to private messages, as seen below:

iPhoneTutorialz
Subject: You must be retarded.
You can write outside the jail if you sign on with username root.

Ya, you might not be able to do it with DiskAid, but I use another file browser and it works fine.
You open up a terminal (you-WHATS THAT?) and sign on as root. The root user gives you full rights to write to and delete.

RETARD!

poedgirl
Subject: Re: You must be retarded.
See, you’re saying you can write to any directory without the device being jailbroken. Tell me then what the point in jailbreaking is. The root user is completely locked down on a standard iDevice. You can not log on as it, you can not run anything as it. Everything is ran as the user “mobile”. Trust me, I know a lot about the BSD and Darwin systems – which the iDevices are based on. I also know the exact restrictions Apple places on the system.

iPhoneTutorialz
Subject: Im no retard [sic]
Im not retarded when it comes to iPhone/iPod Touch BSD.

The reason I put (Will Work On Non-Jailbroken Devices) is that the mobile user can write to some directorys. For instance, you can write to the music folder.

As I may not be able to write to /var or /system, theres still a good amount of options.

So next time you wanna go running your fuckin smack, why dont you think twice.

poedgirl
Subject: Re: Im no retard
Do you even know what you’re arguing about? I was talking about the fact that he has an SSH terminal on his un-jailbroken phone. NOTHING to do with writing files to ~/Media, etc. I was saying that you can not run any applications that are not signed by Apple.

You seem adamant to argue the fact that the user iH8sn0w does in fact have the SSH terminal on an un-jailbroken phone. I was not arguing anything else, you seem to have just searched around to try make enemies anywhere you can.

I think you really are retarded for not even knowing what you’re defending.

Yet another user who is too stupid to know the difference between SFTP and SSH. It’s as simple as this, SFTP is a SMALL part of SSH. SSH itself is mainly a remote terminal emulator, it also features network control, file transfer and a few other useful things. DiskAid is NOT an SSH or SFTP client, it is simply a file manager, one that can NOT access files outside the BSD jail it is in when it is not jailbroken.

There was one series of blogs that I thought were immune to this retardedness, but alas, no. The Gawker Media group of blogs, which include Gizmodo, Lifehacker, io9, etc, have just instituted the reverse order comments. This has to be the worst decision they have ever made with their comment system. They did it once before, but there was a big backlash and they changed it back. Now all of a sudden it’s fine? Sounds like the West Australian government regarding Daylight Savings. They say it fits in line with the way Facebook does things. Really? I have never seen comments in backwards order there. Yes, news feeds should be published with the latest at the top, comments are not and never will be news feeds.

I have to say I am very disappointed at the Gawker Media Group. As such I will not post any comments until they come to their senses. At the moment, their comment section is pretty illegible. There’s no way I’d even be able to post a comment in that mess.

When month two came around I thought: hey, what the hell, and kept playing. I then contacted Microsoft and said that I no longer wanted to be charged after this point. This is where the problems start.

Microsoft told me then that they would downgrade my account to Silver at the end of the billing period. This is exactly what I wanted. The problem is, it didn’t do that. When the billing period was up, my card was again charged. I contacted Microsoft again and they said they would look in to it, I never heard back from them. Another month passed and again, I was charged. I contacted them again, same thing. Finally my house was broken into and my purse stolen, inside was my credit card, which I then cancelled and reported stolen.

Microsoft then started sending me emails saying that if I didn’t update my payment information, my account would be suspended. I was under the impression this just meant it would be downgraded to Silver until I paid up, exactly what I wanted. But alas, no. Microsoft, in all their retarded wisdom, instead decided to completely suspend my Xbox Live account. I can no longer sign in at all. Seriously, this has to be the most retarded thing I have ever seen. You have a free option, if someone doesn’t pay, just downgrade their account to the free one, that’s the logical step.

Of course, all of this could be cured by just having a downgrade option on the account management system itself. Surely quite a few people are in the same boat as me.

I have contacted Microsoft regarding my account suspension, but don’t have any hopes of getting my account back.

The problem all stems from the fact that this specific game uses the Steam distribution method to verify if it is a legal copy. When I put the DVD in my drive, it asked me to enter my CD Key, which I did. Once I pressed the Next button, the program just sat there saying it was activating the key. A few minutes later it said it couldn’t communicate with the server. I know for a fact there is nothing wrong with my network, not to mention all other parts of Steam work perfectly fine on this same network.

I tried again quite a few times. I sent a message to Steam support, which has been ignored. I sent a message to THQ, they told me to just go to Steam support. I tried to post a message on the Steam forums, but there seems to be some secret that I have yet to figure out to be able to post on that damn forum. I signed up as normal on a forum, went to post and was told Access Denied, no idea why. It was at this point that I responded to THQ saying that if the situation wasn’t resolved before tomorrow morning, I was going back to EB Games where I bought it from and returning it. I said they can thank Steam for a lost sale.

The funny thing about this is that when I had the pirated copy, I just installed it and was ready to play, no activation, no bullshit. Seriously, these kinds of things encourage piracy more than prevent it.

A simple message to all game publishers out there, STOP USING DRM. The only thing it does is encourage piracy.

To install them on your iPhone, open up Mobile Safari and navigate to the URL that corresponds with your carrier:
http://blog.poedsoft.com/3.mobileconfig
http://blog.poedsoft.com/optus.mobileconfig
http://blog.poedsoft.com/telstra.mobileconfig
http://blog.poedsoft.com/vodafone.mobileconfig

Just for reference, I will accept all non-spam comments on this blog.

Another big problem I have with it is the fact that there is no way to make the screen display a limited amount of colours to save bandwidth. This is essential for attempting to use a proxied service over the internet. Aside from the screen update retardedness, it still goes extremely slow because it’s displaying all 16.7 million colours with no option to reduce them.

Back to VNC for me, there’s no way I’ll continue to use something so backwards.

Roundabouts are one of my biggest pet peeves with driving in Perth. People just don’t understand them, even though they are extremely simple to understand. I’ll start by explaining what the person did wrong. Upon entering the roundabout, he indicated right. He then proceeded to go straight, keeping his right indicator on until after he exited. Seriously, how the hell does anyone think indicating right when going straight is the right thing to do?

Here are the VERY simple steps for navigating a roundabout in Western Australia:

1. When approaching the roundabout, indicate your intentions (just like any other intersection):
   • If turning left, indicate left.
   • If going straight, do NOT indicate.
   • If turning right, indicate right.
   • If there are more than 4 exits, if exiting after the second exit, indicate right.
2. Give way to anyone coming from the right of where you are, including vehicles approaching the roundabout or vehicles already in it.
3. Proceed through the roundabout, if a multilane roundabout, stay in your lane – no matter what.
4. When exiting, indicate left.

And there we have it, the EXTREMELY simple rules for navigating a roundabout, yet so many people get it wrong. You’d be amazed at how many times I go through a multilane roundabout just to be nearly hit because some idiot changed lanes as well.