Acherontic \Ach`e*ron"tic\, a. Of or pertaining to Acheron; infernal; hence, dismal, gloomy; moribund.
So, somewhat predictably, the adoring, unquestioning (read: wilfully ignorant) Trumpists are a bit sad (sorry. Sad! With a capital and an exclamation mark) about all the protesting against their thin skinned narcissistic Crybaby-in-Chief, and the ridiculing and haranguing of the small handed small minded predatory POTUS (Piece Of Turd Under Shoe).
“You damn liberal babies! he won, get over it! He’s your president whether you like it or not! There’s nothing you can do by whining about it!” [...] read more
“This was not a corporate decision, This was something individuals did.â€
“a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reason.â€
— Michael Horn, head of Volkswagen’s American unit, before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing
Even if this were the tiniest bit believable, it MUST have been common knowledge that the engines VW built were outputting up to 40 times the legal emissions limits, and that somehow, magically, mystically, they all passed their emissions tests, and no one at VW questioned that? [...] read more
I rarely recommend anywhere, because I rarely get good service from anywhere. And this is no exception! Shit service from a shit company, just for a change!
I get games from a variety of sources, usually dependent on where they’re cheapest. It usually results in a Steam key anyway, so the end result is usually the same. I hadn’t come across this particular site before, called IndieGameStand (no, I’m not linking to it. This is an advice to AVOID them!), but having now dealt with them, I would suggest avoiding them like the plague. Namely because I paid my money (via Amazon Payments) and got absolutely fuck all for it. Except a response to a support ticket some time later saying that they couldn’t see any games assigned to my account. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock… that was exactly the fucking nature of my complaint. Today I will be mostly raising a dispute with Amazon Payments. [...] read more
The BBC is inevitably in the news today, since the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee have published a report ahead of the debate over the renewal of the BBC’s Royal Charter.
Here’s a fairly typical set of quotes from one such article, in this case, from the Daily Mail. With my own commentary below them, obviously! :p
“The BBC is a profligate and inept organisation that has lost public trust after a series of scandals, MPs will say today.”
Yup. Absolutely true. Couldn’t agree more. Although it’s fucking hilarious for MPs to be accusing ANYONE else of being inept and having lost public trust. [...] read more
Todays big talking point, following publication of an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, is that more than 9 out of 10 people are losing out by not constantly switching energy suppliers. The findings are that the ‘big six’ energy companies charge long term customers more than new customers, and therefore we should be switching regularly to maximise our savings.
Isn’t that rather missing the point, though?
What it says is what I’ve been saying for some time; companies have forgotten what customer loyalty is about, and the importance of retaining customers. It’s the same all over, in every industry. Look at the latest ads from Virgin or BT or Sky or whoever, and you’ll be promised some shiny incentive for signing up; ‘3 months free’ or something of that ilk. And then after that initial honeymoon period, your costs double. Well of course they fucking do. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Or a free premium movie channel. Or free broadband. They are now going to gouge you to recover the costs of your ‘free’ period! And then they will continually ‘readjust’ their pricing structure for existing customers, putting a few pence on the price of phone minutes or text messages or whatever. Or in the cases of the energy companies, just blatantly overcharging in the first place. British Gas are offering the ‘incentive’ of ‘Fixed fees for 12 months’. Great! Guaranteed to pay the highest tariff in years for your energy needs, since they are now getting gas dirt fucking cheap but not passing those savings on to customers! [...] read more
The Greek people seem to have a real sense of entitlement, huh? And no real grasp of politics. They voted in an anti-austerity party on the promise they would get a new deal on their bailout debt… despite the fact that every indication was that Europe had zero intention of budging.
They went to Europe with a shitty attitude and no realistic proposal… and a request for an interim loan while they get back on their feet! Which, it seems, they intend to do by spending their way out of debt. Their new leaders have started a spending spree, including putting up the minimum wage and rolling back austerity measures previously in place. Which is in direct contravention of the terms of the bailout agreement. [...] read more
One thing guaranteed to piss me off are shops that make a regular practice of lying to their customers – and getting away with it. Lidl have this down to a fine art.
Every weekend in Lidl they advertise 3 or 4 items that will be half their normal price. At least a couple of times a month this will be some staple grocery item – meat, cheese, veg or something. Great! Except that it really doesn’t matter what fucking discount price you advertise if you never actually stock that item at all! And that’s apparently how they get away with it; ‘while stocks last’ is a one size fits all disclaimer that lets them legally lie and get away with it. [...] read more
Due to some russian comment spamming scum sucking mother fucking twat who was too pigshit thick to even manage to do that correctly, I received the following into my comment spam (I don’t auto-purge them cuz I like to add them to my ban list first).
It’s the raw template that would be automatically adapted (or maybe just completely randomised, who knows?) in reply to comments on websites. It’s very long, and only for the very interested, but for anyone who ever wondered why they bother doing these things and how they do them, the answer is that they don’t…software does it all for them… assuming they’re not too fucking stupid to use it, like this guy. In fact, I’m introducing a new tag to my blog in his honour: ‘Too Stupid To Live’. Which I guess could be retro-actively applied to 90% of the subjects of my previous rants. [...] read more
Every day my IP and domain ban list gets that bit bigger as 50 or so spammers attempt to post comments on my human moderated comments sections and are automatically added to the huge pile of assholes who get a rude message when attempting to access this domain (and 29 others I own and get submitted to several dozen spam black lists).
So this morning I decided to consolidate a few of the ip patterns of persistent offenders with wildcarded ranges. To be honest, I *think* I just banned the whole of China. Ah well. I’m pretty sure they weren’t my target demographic anyway. [...] read more