Incidentally, DRM and commercial control is one of the main reasons, I believe, that there are so few commercial games released for Linux.
If you're a Linux user running a Linux OS then you're probably a fairly savvy computer user, and you're running an open OS where, if something untoward is happening deep down in the OS, there's a chance you will notice it.
If you're running Windows or playing on a game console, there can be all sorts of checks and processes going on that you will never know about because your view of that system is restricted.
And, incidentally, that isn't a dig at Windows users or console users - I run Linux and XP, I also own a Wii - but I do believe there is probably some serious nasty stuff going on inside your machines that you don't know about with a lot of this game DRM stuff.
To the point of slowly migrating away from gaming. If you haven't had to tangle with DRM and you're a gamer, just wait.
But see, you've said it yourself - "slowly migrating away".
We're all of the same, we're all far too *PASSIVE* about this stuff, I am the same. What we should be doing is taking the stuff back to where we purchased it from and demanding a refund or that it's fixed immediately because it's not fit for purpose.
I really do not give a shit what games companies do to stop pirates copying their games - as long as it doesn't impact me as an honest gamer who buys all that he plays.
Games have become such huge business surrounded by such huge marketing hype that the games companies can now basically do what they like.
They don't care about the "intelligent gamers" who sit on the fence for a while after a game is released, read reviews & see what problems there are before they think about buying it - they're interested in the fanbois and the screaming kids who force their parents to queue up at midnight on release day, ultimately it's about how many copies are sold in the first couple of weeks.
Screaming kids don't care about DRM and fanbois will find a way of rationalising the inconvenience of DRM into something that is good.
I'm still disgusted with myself that even though Fallout 3 is one of the best and most absorbing games I have ever played, I still put up with having to insert my game DVD into the drive every time I play it, even though I log into Windows Live each time and have already purchased some of the DLC.
With that said, I waited about a year after release before I bought it and even then the game was suffering from some fairly bad crashes due to bugs in it.
What part of "informal forum" don't you understand? Unless you have proof that these kids are habitually breaking grammar and spelling rules in *formal* communications, you complaints are baseless.
If it's an "informal forum" then I would argue that people will type messages and communicate in the manner they are comfortable with. However, I find it highly unlikely that whilst people may speak differently to friends, family & their peers than they would in a formal situation, I don't think anyone has that level of ability to use completely different grammatical rules for each situation. Don't psychologists and their ilk employ techniques where they can tell, by grammatical structure, handwriting recognition, etc., if a single person has written two different pieces of text?
And you assume they'll do this because...? Oh, right, because you're already biased to assume the current generation are a crop of idiots.
You do realise that actually jumping to unfounded conclusions just indicates to me you're now struggling to argue rationally? I did not state "the current crop generation are a crop of idiots", those are words you are trying to put into my mouth. I have nephews, nieces and relatives' children around me, most of whom are very communicative and use good English, but they all come from families where the parents have given a high priority to education and more than likely schooling and encouraging them outside school hours.
Unfortunately, you used the term "idiot" and that indicates to me how little you understand the situation; an "idiot" implies someone who is mentally subnormal whereas the kids I'm talking about have the capability to communicate better, they just haven't been taught how to do it and encouraged enough.
And, and as an aside, is it *really* so hard to type out the word "and"? Ignoring the fact that your entire first paragraph is a convoluted run-on sentence...
So now you're struggling, resorting to semantics and personal attack - that means you're running out of intelligent things to say meaning my victory in this argument is assured. Sorry, I don't waste my time trying to have intelligent dialogue with trolls.
If that's the case then they probably need lessons in presentation & giving a good impression from their parents & teachers - because like most other people, if somebody sends me a message or some form of text that totally avoids proper punctuation & capitalisation, missing apostrophes & bad spelling, then that's immediately going to lessen what that person is saying to me due to the sloppiness of the presentation.
Not to mention the fact that these kids will need to apply for jobs some day and I doubt they'll get very far if they use the same sloppiness in their CVs/resumes.
Yes, but my point is that those that come out of education at 16 either don't want to continue on to higher education or don't have the skills to continue on - I fully agree that those who come out of education should have jobs or apprenticeships to go into.
But whatever age you are, the job market is very competitive at the moment and if you demonstrate to a potential employer that you don't have good written grammar skills, then you are immediately at a disadvantage.
I don't believe it's *just* computer games that are to blame for the lower education performance of these kids, it's also about parental guidance and, what I think is the biggest reason, the dropping of education standards despite constant government reports showing more kids taking GCSEs, etc.
The fact is that on entering a job centre, anyone who is serious about getting a job would be dressed as presentably as possible, would conduct themselves in a respectable fashion and would certainly not let some made up religion get in the way of trying to be a successful applicant for the job.
It's really within the past five years or so, with the rise of social networking, that a lot more kids have appeared on the Internet. Although I think kids should be policed better by their parents, I don't think it's a great issue them having access to such a great communications tool, within moderation.
However, what really shocks me is the level of their language and grammar skills. You look through comments on Facebook, YouTube etc. and aside from the large amount of swearing and abusing they seem to do, the quality of what most of them write is appalling! No capitalisation at the beginnings of sentences, no apostrophes, very little and poor use of punctuation...
I really used to think that this was just some part of their "street speak" and just a fashion thing, but it is everywhere now and I can only put it down to a huge decrease in the quality of education since I was at school between the late 60s and 1980.
It's also really disturbing that in the UK at the moment, 1 in 6 sixteen year old school-leavers don't have jobs and if the quality of the grammar I've seen is anything to go by, I can see why unfortunately.
Well, if you classify a "Daily Wail reader" as someone who is sick & tired of supporting scroungers & fiddlers whilst not actually reading the Daily Mail, then I guess I am one of those...
There are people in this country who are genuinely ill & genuinely unemployed who need support from the benefit system and, as a socialist at heart, I have no problem with that whatsoever. However, someone with a moral conscience and self worth would not feel comfortable being on jobless benefits and would therefore be going balls out to find another job - I am sure there are many many people currently doing that in this country and I wish them every success.
However, someone who uses some joke religion to act like a pratt and get thrown out of a job centre is quite clearly NOT serious about getting a job and therefore I strongly object to that person being supported through my taxes.
If you yourself lack a moral conscience to understand that from what I've written then that's your problem. The benefits system is a great thing and it's something this country should be very proud of as being caring enough to not let it's citizens suffer great poverty & hardship when they desperately need it - but at the same time, it is not there to be abused by jokers who think life is one big long joke.
When that speculation is completely without any basis in fact (as it was), and you present that speculation as if it were fact (as you did) then a lie is the only thing it can possibly be.
Crap. If you've an IQ > 100, it's easy to workout the guy was a customer in there & therefore had to be looking for a job. Further comments from you on this will be considered as arguing semantics and therefore ignored.
Which in no way suggests that he is a "shirker" trying to "stay on the dole indefinitely without needing to make any effort to make himself a good prospect for employment". You are trying to cover your previous lie with another.
I would suggest that anyone who makes their religion, particularly a made-up one, an issue in a job centre is not seriously looking for work. You are entitled to consider this a lie if you wish, but I suggest you look up the word in a dictionary as a "lie" requires there to be established fact before coming into existence - my intelligent speculation is probably correct but not an established fact.
Another baseless speculation passed off as fact. Therefore, another lie.
You like that word a lot, don't you? No, it was a shot back at you because you clearly do not understand the meaning of the word "lie" - again, go read a dictionary, then you'll have a chance of arguing with me up at my level...
Which, again, in no way suggests that he is a "shirker" trying to "stay on the dole indefinitely without needing to make any effort to make himself a good prospect for employment". This is something you made up and attributed to him. Doing so makes you a liar.
I would suggest that anyone who prioritises his science-fiction fandom over getting a job is not serious about getting the job. This is not established fact, therefore no lie can exist.
I certainly will do that next time. I do it every time, and this is why I am absolutely correct to call you a liar.
By all means, please go off and do additional research yourself in order to establish the true facts in this incident. Once you have those, report back to me and I will deem you worthy of more of my time to talk further with you.
Oh, and use a proper identity next time as well - any troll can cower behind an AC pseudonym....
It doesn't seem to have affected me - since Microsoft took the domains down around about 25th February, I have spam in my Gmail filter since 19th February and there's no change.
What is interesting is that having looked at what's in the Gmail spam filter, it does seem I am getting near-enough 15 spam emails every day; I've never realised before how evenly distributed the spam actually is.
It's short for "Waving your Hands like a Bloody Loony" at the bored student in the petrol station kiosk in order to divert his attention away from his "Media Studies" course book so he can turn the fuel pump on.
Why does something partially based on speculation automatically mean it's a "lie"?
If the guy was ejected from the Job Centre and filled out a complaint form, then this immediately indicates he wasn't an employee there because he would have gone to industrial tribunal had be been thrown out by one of his bosses.
If you bothered to read the article yourself properly, rather than sitting on the fence waiting to jump on anyone just because you've had a hard day, the "clue" was in this bit:
Following his ejection, Jarvis filled out a complaint form and within three days got a written apology from branch boss Wendy Flewers. She said: "We are committed to provide a customer service which embraces diversity and respects customers' religion."
Since he was referred to as the *CUSTOMER* then it's fairly safe to assume that his *CUSTOM* in a *JOB CENTRE* was to find a job.
So next time read something properly, engage brain, then reply.
(besides, MS Office doesn't run on my Debian box.)
Nor on my Gentoo boxes.:-)
Actually, having finally ditched the last Windows Mobile-base phone at home, I've ditched the "semi-official" work corporate license instance of MS Office running at home (I am a home worker) as I don't need Outlook and ActiveSync any more - the new Android phone will sync to anything via Gmail and Google Calendars.
said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired.
Wink, wink...
Well, being born in November 1942 would make you 67 years old now, eligible for proper retirement following your "retirement" from the public spotlight in 1970.
But come on, how about one final blast of "Star Spangled Banner" with your teeth, Jim... or should I say "Jimi"?
As I stated to the other poster, if they have a valid registered copy of the software then that's what stays on the machine.
And, no, I don't consider it as fighting piracy, it's more to do with the PCs of friends & families staying safe and not being infested with malware - there's also, of course, a selfish aspect in as much as when their PCs are working fine, they don't bother me!:-)
As I have already explained at least once, I have issue with you trying to draw this argument into a discussion about BitTorrent when this is actually a discussion about illegal music downloads, for which BitTorrent is a mechanism that is frequently used for those downloads.
Therefore, in order to stay on-topic, if you have nothing to state regarding music downloads, then this thread is closed.
You replaced MS Office and Photoshop with OpenOffice and GIMP? Are you out of your mind?
In the cases where people are using dodgy license keys of the above, then yes - the number of trojans and back doors I've found on those PCs definitely relates to the amount of hooky keygens I've also found on them. So for those people who never paid for it in the first place, the Free Software is a better alternative.
I am not for one minute denying that there people out there into VB and complex document macros, or into professional photo editing, who definitely need MS Office or Photoshop to do what they do.
But for 95% of people, including myself, a computer expert for more than a quarter of a century who just does the occasional simple document or a quick tweak to some photos he's taken, MS Office and GIMP do more than enough.
OpenOffice in no way compares to MS Office, although there are actually some people who would argue that. Your relatives are not those people.
Then I would say you've not tried OpenOffice recently because I've found it has a very high degree of compatibility. I've been testing it with a lot of my work documents and whilst the standard at work is MS Office 2003 only, I've not found any real incompatibility issues - but again, I don't get involved with documents that have much in the way of VB macros in them.
... people like me who have to work for a living in order to pay taxes so that shirkers like him can stay on the dole indefinitely without needing to make any effort to make themselves good prospects for employment.
Personally, I'd stop his unemployment benefit there and then because he's quite clearly not using it as stop-gap while he seriously looks for work... and wasting the time of Job Centre staff when there are more deserving people out there who are *DESPERATE* to get a job.
I am actually quite impressed with the amount of good feedback I've had from friends and relatives when I've done a PC repair/clean/rebuild for them.
I've taken the attitude with them that if I fix stuff for them free-of-charge then I don't want to have them come back again in a hurry.
This means they get the following:
- Firefox installed with a few good addons like Adblock, Xmarks (if they've more than 1 PC so they can sync bookmarks) and Flashgot
- If they have Norton or McAfee installed, I ask their permission to remove it and tell them not to renew their licenses; in place go AVG Anti-Virus and Spybot S&D for adware defence
- With their permission, replace hooky copies of MS Office & Photoshop with OpenOffice and GIMP
- Show them how to use CCleaner and set MyDefrag to be running once or twice a week
I've been amazed at the number of people who have come back and told me how trouble-free their PCs have been as a result.
I really don't want to be a middle-aged killjoy but the first thing I thought of when I saw this article was that there's probably more than a few kids that have starved to death over the years whose bodies just got thrown into a hole and filled in when they died - and here someone is making a coffin for a toy...
Slashdot Mirror
Incidentally, DRM and commercial control is one of the main reasons, I believe, that there are so few commercial games released for Linux.
If you're a Linux user running a Linux OS then you're probably a fairly savvy computer user, and you're running an open OS where, if something untoward is happening deep down in the OS, there's a chance you will notice it.
If you're running Windows or playing on a game console, there can be all sorts of checks and processes going on that you will never know about because your view of that system is restricted.
And, incidentally, that isn't a dig at Windows users or console users - I run Linux and XP, I also own a Wii - but I do believe there is probably some serious nasty stuff going on inside your machines that you don't know about with a lot of this game DRM stuff.
To the point of slowly migrating away from gaming. If you haven't had to tangle with DRM and you're a gamer, just wait.
But see, you've said it yourself - "slowly migrating away".
We're all of the same, we're all far too *PASSIVE* about this stuff, I am the same. What we should be doing is taking the stuff back to where we purchased it from and demanding a refund or that it's fixed immediately because it's not fit for purpose.
I really do not give a shit what games companies do to stop pirates copying their games - as long as it doesn't impact me as an honest gamer who buys all that he plays.
Games have become such huge business surrounded by such huge marketing hype that the games companies can now basically do what they like.
They don't care about the "intelligent gamers" who sit on the fence for a while after a game is released, read reviews & see what problems there are before they think about buying it - they're interested in the fanbois and the screaming kids who force their parents to queue up at midnight on release day, ultimately it's about how many copies are sold in the first couple of weeks.
Screaming kids don't care about DRM and fanbois will find a way of rationalising the inconvenience of DRM into something that is good.
I'm still disgusted with myself that even though Fallout 3 is one of the best and most absorbing games I have ever played, I still put up with having to insert my game DVD into the drive every time I play it, even though I log into Windows Live each time and have already purchased some of the DLC.
With that said, I waited about a year after release before I bought it and even then the game was suffering from some fairly bad crashes due to bugs in it.
...I just wanted to get that point across just in case our overseas friends think that we're all loonies with too much money.
Two words Richard: "TABULA RASA".
What part of "informal forum" don't you understand? Unless you have proof that these kids are habitually breaking grammar and spelling rules in *formal* communications, you complaints are baseless.
If it's an "informal forum" then I would argue that people will type messages and communicate in the manner they are comfortable with. However, I find it highly unlikely that whilst people may speak differently to friends, family & their peers than they would in a formal situation, I don't think anyone has that level of ability to use completely different grammatical rules for each situation. Don't psychologists and their ilk employ techniques where they can tell, by grammatical structure, handwriting recognition, etc., if a single person has written two different pieces of text?
And you assume they'll do this because...? Oh, right, because you're already biased to assume the current generation are a crop of idiots.
You do realise that actually jumping to unfounded conclusions just indicates to me you're now struggling to argue rationally? I did not state "the current crop generation are a crop of idiots", those are words you are trying to put into my mouth. I have nephews, nieces and relatives' children around me, most of whom are very communicative and use good English, but they all come from families where the parents have given a high priority to education and more than likely schooling and encouraging them outside school hours.
Unfortunately, you used the term "idiot" and that indicates to me how little you understand the situation; an "idiot" implies someone who is mentally subnormal whereas the kids I'm talking about have the capability to communicate better, they just haven't been taught how to do it and encouraged enough.
And, and as an aside, is it *really* so hard to type out the word "and"? Ignoring the fact that your entire first paragraph is a convoluted run-on sentence...
So now you're struggling, resorting to semantics and personal attack - that means you're running out of intelligent things to say meaning my victory in this argument is assured. Sorry, I don't waste my time trying to have intelligent dialogue with trolls.
Thanks for your time and have a nice day.
If that's the case then they probably need lessons in presentation & giving a good impression from their parents & teachers - because like most other people, if somebody sends me a message or some form of text that totally avoids proper punctuation & capitalisation, missing apostrophes & bad spelling, then that's immediately going to lessen what that person is saying to me due to the sloppiness of the presentation.
Not to mention the fact that these kids will need to apply for jobs some day and I doubt they'll get very far if they use the same sloppiness in their CVs/resumes.
Yes, but my point is that those that come out of education at 16 either don't want to continue on to higher education or don't have the skills to continue on - I fully agree that those who come out of education should have jobs or apprenticeships to go into.
But whatever age you are, the job market is very competitive at the moment and if you demonstrate to a potential employer that you don't have good written grammar skills, then you are immediately at a disadvantage.
I don't believe it's *just* computer games that are to blame for the lower education performance of these kids, it's also about parental guidance and, what I think is the biggest reason, the dropping of education standards despite constant government reports showing more kids taking GCSEs, etc.
It's actually irrelevant.
The fact is that on entering a job centre, anyone who is serious about getting a job would be dressed as presentably as possible, would conduct themselves in a respectable fashion and would certainly not let some made up religion get in the way of trying to be a successful applicant for the job.
It's really within the past five years or so, with the rise of social networking, that a lot more kids have appeared on the Internet. Although I think kids should be policed better by their parents, I don't think it's a great issue them having access to such a great communications tool, within moderation.
However, what really shocks me is the level of their language and grammar skills. You look through comments on Facebook, YouTube etc. and aside from the large amount of swearing and abusing they seem to do, the quality of what most of them write is appalling! No capitalisation at the beginnings of sentences, no apostrophes, very little and poor use of punctuation...
I really used to think that this was just some part of their "street speak" and just a fashion thing, but it is everywhere now and I can only put it down to a huge decrease in the quality of education since I was at school between the late 60s and 1980.
It's also really disturbing that in the UK at the moment, 1 in 6 sixteen year old school-leavers don't have jobs and if the quality of the grammar I've seen is anything to go by, I can see why unfortunately.
Well, if you classify a "Daily Wail reader" as someone who is sick & tired of supporting scroungers & fiddlers whilst not actually reading the Daily Mail, then I guess I am one of those...
There are people in this country who are genuinely ill & genuinely unemployed who need support from the benefit system and, as a socialist at heart, I have no problem with that whatsoever. However, someone with a moral conscience and self worth would not feel comfortable being on jobless benefits and would therefore be going balls out to find another job - I am sure there are many many people currently doing that in this country and I wish them every success.
However, someone who uses some joke religion to act like a pratt and get thrown out of a job centre is quite clearly NOT serious about getting a job and therefore I strongly object to that person being supported through my taxes.
If you yourself lack a moral conscience to understand that from what I've written then that's your problem. The benefits system is a great thing and it's something this country should be very proud of as being caring enough to not let it's citizens suffer great poverty & hardship when they desperately need it - but at the same time, it is not there to be abused by jokers who think life is one big long joke.
When that speculation is completely without any basis in fact (as it was), and you present that speculation as if it were fact (as you did) then a lie is the only thing it can possibly be.
Crap. If you've an IQ > 100, it's easy to workout the guy was a customer in there & therefore had to be looking for a job. Further comments from you on this will be considered as arguing semantics and therefore ignored.
Which in no way suggests that he is a "shirker" trying to "stay on the dole indefinitely without needing to make any effort to make himself a good prospect for employment". You are trying to cover your previous lie with another.
I would suggest that anyone who makes their religion, particularly a made-up one, an issue in a job centre is not seriously looking for work. You are entitled to consider this a lie if you wish, but I suggest you look up the word in a dictionary as a "lie" requires there to be established fact before coming into existence - my intelligent speculation is probably correct but not an established fact.
Another baseless speculation passed off as fact. Therefore, another lie.
You like that word a lot, don't you? No, it was a shot back at you because you clearly do not understand the meaning of the word "lie" - again, go read a dictionary, then you'll have a chance of arguing with me up at my level...
Which, again, in no way suggests that he is a "shirker" trying to "stay on the dole indefinitely without needing to make any effort to make himself a good prospect for employment". This is something you made up and attributed to him. Doing so makes you a liar.
I would suggest that anyone who prioritises his science-fiction fandom over getting a job is not serious about getting the job. This is not established fact, therefore no lie can exist.
I certainly will do that next time. I do it every time, and this is why I am absolutely correct to call you a liar.
By all means, please go off and do additional research yourself in order to establish the true facts in this incident. Once you have those, report back to me and I will deem you worthy of more of my time to talk further with you.
Oh, and use a proper identity next time as well - any troll can cower behind an AC pseudonym....
It doesn't seem to have affected me - since Microsoft took the domains down around about 25th February, I have spam in my Gmail filter since 19th February and there's no change.
What is interesting is that having looked at what's in the Gmail spam filter, it does seem I am getting near-enough 15 spam emails every day; I've never realised before how evenly distributed the spam actually is.
Yep, they've done Wipeout here in the UK also - I should have figured it was Japanese-inspired all on my own.
I know it takes all types to make a world but, I'm sorry, you Japanese are just plain "weird"... and, yes, I am referring to Takeshi's Castle.
I have a great one for you:
"WITNESS"
or
"Where Is The Nearest Electronics Super Store" on the basis you will need to buy some kind of adapter so the charger fits your car.
"WaHaBLo".
It's short for "Waving your Hands like a Bloody Loony" at the bored student in the petrol station kiosk in order to divert his attention away from his "Media Studies" course book so he can turn the fuel pump on.
Why does something partially based on speculation automatically mean it's a "lie"?
If the guy was ejected from the Job Centre and filled out a complaint form, then this immediately indicates he wasn't an employee there because he would have gone to industrial tribunal had be been thrown out by one of his bosses.
If you bothered to read the article yourself properly, rather than sitting on the fence waiting to jump on anyone just because you've had a hard day, the "clue" was in this bit:
Following his ejection, Jarvis filled out a complaint form and within three days got a written apology from branch boss Wendy Flewers. She said: "We are committed to provide a customer service which embraces diversity and respects customers' religion."
Since he was referred to as the *CUSTOMER* then it's fairly safe to assume that his *CUSTOM* in a *JOB CENTRE* was to find a job.
So next time read something properly, engage brain, then reply.
Mistyped? I assume so.
Yep, thanks for picking that one up.
(besides, MS Office doesn't run on my Debian box.)
Nor on my Gentoo boxes. :-)
Actually, having finally ditched the last Windows Mobile-base phone at home, I've ditched the "semi-official" work corporate license instance of MS Office running at home (I am a home worker) as I don't need Outlook and ActiveSync any more - the new Android phone will sync to anything via Gmail and Google Calendars.
said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired.
Wink, wink...
Well, being born in November 1942 would make you 67 years old now, eligible for proper retirement following your "retirement" from the public spotlight in 1970.
But come on, how about one final blast of "Star Spangled Banner" with your teeth, Jim... or should I say "Jimi"?
As I stated to the other poster, if they have a valid registered copy of the software then that's what stays on the machine.
And, no, I don't consider it as fighting piracy, it's more to do with the PCs of friends & families staying safe and not being infested with malware - there's also, of course, a selfish aspect in as much as when their PCs are working fine, they don't bother me! :-)
As I have already explained at least once, I have issue with you trying to draw this argument into a discussion about BitTorrent when this is actually a discussion about illegal music downloads, for which BitTorrent is a mechanism that is frequently used for those downloads.
Therefore, in order to stay on-topic, if you have nothing to state regarding music downloads, then this thread is closed.
You replaced MS Office and Photoshop with OpenOffice and GIMP? Are you out of your mind?
In the cases where people are using dodgy license keys of the above, then yes - the number of trojans and back doors I've found on those PCs definitely relates to the amount of hooky keygens I've also found on them. So for those people who never paid for it in the first place, the Free Software is a better alternative.
I am not for one minute denying that there people out there into VB and complex document macros, or into professional photo editing, who definitely need MS Office or Photoshop to do what they do.
But for 95% of people, including myself, a computer expert for more than a quarter of a century who just does the occasional simple document or a quick tweak to some photos he's taken, MS Office and GIMP do more than enough.
OpenOffice in no way compares to MS Office, although there are actually some people who would argue that. Your relatives are not those people.
Then I would say you've not tried OpenOffice recently because I've found it has a very high degree of compatibility. I've been testing it with a lot of my work documents and whilst the standard at work is MS Office 2003 only, I've not found any real incompatibility issues - but again, I don't get involved with documents that have much in the way of VB macros in them.
... people like me who have to work for a living in order to pay taxes so that shirkers like him can stay on the dole indefinitely without needing to make any effort to make themselves good prospects for employment.
Personally, I'd stop his unemployment benefit there and then because he's quite clearly not using it as stop-gap while he seriously looks for work... and wasting the time of Job Centre staff when there are more deserving people out there who are *DESPERATE* to get a job.
Sometimes I despair at people these days...
I am actually quite impressed with the amount of good feedback I've had from friends and relatives when I've done a PC repair/clean/rebuild for them.
I've taken the attitude with them that if I fix stuff for them free-of-charge then I don't want to have them come back again in a hurry.
This means they get the following:
- Firefox installed with a few good addons like Adblock, Xmarks (if they've more than 1 PC so they can sync bookmarks) and Flashgot
- If they have Norton or McAfee installed, I ask their permission to remove it and tell them not to renew their licenses; in place go AVG Anti-Virus and Spybot S&D for adware defence
- With their permission, replace hooky copies of MS Office & Photoshop with OpenOffice and GIMP
- Show them how to use CCleaner and set MyDefrag to be running once or twice a week
I've been amazed at the number of people who have come back and told me how trouble-free their PCs have been as a result.
I really don't want to be a middle-aged killjoy but the first thing I thought of when I saw this article was that there's probably more than a few kids that have starved to death over the years whose bodies just got thrown into a hole and filled in when they died - and here someone is making a coffin for a toy...
Yep, strange times...