It didn’t seem possible to move the Adsense account to become part of my main Google account, so at some point I signed up for Adsense again with my main Google account, intending to then close the other one; that signup was rejected, because I already had an account.

I’m now left in the position where I have an account I can’t access, because the email address used for it is associated with my main Google account, so when I try to log in, I get logged in to my main Google account instead, where I am simply told of the rejected application.

Can I contact Google to get this sorted? Hah! Their ugly help pages mention I can contact them, but not how:

(From their How can I contact AdSense support? “support” page).

Seems the only way is to post on their public AdSense forum, cross your fingers and hope for the best. I tried that months ago, with no luck.

Oh well.

</rant>

EDIT: I did eventually find a link in a random forum post to a form to submit to indicate that I had no access to the old account and wanted it dropped in favour of the new account: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=noaccountaccess – I submitted the form, and fairly soon after, I received an email indicating that it had been done. So, it was eventually sorted, but the whole process was harder than it needed to be, and customer-unfriendly.

As part of the package, we get on-demand TV shows and music videos, but recently Virgin have started adding adverts (for example, for FilmFlex) to the start of the videos. Sorry, what? We’re paying a fortune for the service which includes on-demand stuff; don’t add adverts to it. If we were getting it for free and it was subsidised by the adverts, fair enough, but we’re paying for it, so just show us what we ask for, without adding crap.

Time to call them up I think.

We have blissfully obtained records of every single citizen who gave their records to the security-illiterate UK government for the 2011 census

We’re keeping them under lock and key though… so don’t worry about your privacy (…until we finish re-formatting them for release)

Myself and the rest of my Lulz shipmates will then embark upon a trip to ThePirateBay with our beautiful records for your viewing pleasure!

It’s gathered a lot of attention, including a report on The Register, SC Magazine, V3, but with nothing to actually suggest it’s true.

LulzSec’s Twitter stream disclaims any knowledge:

Looks like someone decided to make up a rumour, and it’s been circulated widely by the media.

Of course, I wouldn’t have actually been at all surprised if it did turn out to be true; this is the UK Government and Lockheed Martin we’re talking about, and LulzSec have shown their ability to hit some pretty big targets in the past…

A bit of Googling would suggest that the iPhone just silently ignores incoming vCard contact details. Seriously, what the actual fuck?

In total about 500 hard drives and 100 back-up tapes that contained the details of around 15,000 holders of the ID cards were magnetically wiped and shredded.

Even if they were going to store a buttload of data on each individual, 500 hard drives for 15,000 people? Seriously?

I’d hate to know how much taxpayer money they wasted in total on this hare-brained scheme.

The taxpayer copped a £400,000 bill for contractors to delete the data collected during the scheme, which was brought in by the previous Labour government.

Part of the cost included the Identity and Passport Service writing to those few people with an ID card to tell them that it was no longer worth the plastic it was printed on.

How much does it send 15,000 letters? I’m sure it shouldn’t cost much to safely destroy hard drives (or, better and less wastefully, securely wipe them then donate them to some computing charity or auction them off…).

10 working days later, I finally received the following response:

We do not consider volcanic ash to be “adverse weather” therefore there is no cover under the “Travel Delay and Abandonment” and the “Missed Departure” sections.

Additionally it is not a stated reason to cancel or curtail a trip and therefore there is no cover under the “Cancellation, Curtailment and Trip Interruption” section.

If the Insured is stranded abroad their policy will be automatically extended for the period the Insured is abroad provided you return on the earliest possible flight to the UK. The Insured is only covered for “Medical Emergency and Repatriation” and “Luggage”.

Additional accommodation and travel costs due to volcanic ash incident are not covered under this extension.

So, if you’re using Atlas Direct, do be aware that, if you are affected by flight cancellations from volcanic ash, they will not help you. Hopefully your airline/tour operator will, but they will not. I previously held Atlas Direct in fairly high regard and was happy to be insured with them, now I’m not so sure. (I know they’re not alone in wanting to weasel out of any claims due to the ash,though!)

The comments on that post (all 7 pages, as of last time I looked) make for depressing reading.

Now, I don’t like to make fun of people just because their computer skills might not be particularly good, but the lack of literacy, reading skills, logic and general comprehension shown in the comments is just… it’s depressing.

Some examples:

WHAT THE HELL IS GOIN ON WITH THIS FACEBOOK.. FIRST YOU WANNA CHARGE NA YOU WANNA NOT LET US LOG IN….. UGH STOP CHANGIN IT I LIKE THE OLD FB…. IF YOU ARE THE NEW OWNER YOU SUCK AND I WISH YOU WOULD CREATE UR OWN SHTY AND LEAVE FB ALONE LOSER………

wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz

This is such a mess I can’t do a thing on my facebook .The changes you have made are ridiculous,I can’t even login!!!!!I am very upset!!!

i do not like this, please go back to the old one or drop me from facebook.

My daughters&sons show me how 2 use facbook,Iwas confuse then now i’m really confuse just let me log in the old way this way really sucks!!!!!!!!

this is a waste of time, go back to the way it was!!!!!!!!!!!

I like thr old way to sign in this sucks big time let me in

this is not a good thing i just don’t think u have thought this thru. I haven’t made a decision yet but i might give facebook up this is too much trouble

I hate this bring the old facebook back. Cannot login.

HELL,WHERE IS THE FACEBOOK PAGE.DAM!SOON AS YOU LEARN ONE THING HERE WE CHANGING SHIT.

i dont like this new changes i like the way was before and now is a disaster at list live the page the same of before i dont’ care if they change the owner.ok?bye now hope you go back the same of before

Ok If I have to I will comment,I love facebook so right now just want to log in if thats ok with you..lol Keep up the good work…

OK, that’s enough examples of epic fail.

It makes you wonder how some of these people survive in general life, and how they managed to get on the Internet in the first place.

The Australian arm of the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken has had to withdraw an advertisement after accusations of racial insensitivity.

[...]

When the advertisement reached America via the internet there were complaints.
It was accused of reinforcing a derogatory racial stereotype linking black people in the American deep south with a love of fried food.

Picked up by the American media, the advertisement immediately stirred controversy, because it was alleged to have perpetuated the racial stereotype that black people eat a lot of fried chicken.

[...]

It is the second time in three months that something broadcast in Australia has caused a racial stir in America.

Dear America: the world does not revolve around you; please pipe down and shut the fuck up about things that don’t concern you. Kthx.

Um – they already are cattle-class, at best, during rush hour. How the hell could it get any worse?

Christmas wallpapers, already? Sheesh, we’re not even half way through October yet, FFS. Why do Christmas preparations seem to get earlier and earlier every year?

Anyway, since apparently someone is looking, I posted one last year – maybe I’ll get round to making some more this year, nearer Christmas!

Facebook groups he objects to include ones like:

Muppet.

Edit: I should add that this guy was permanently disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court after it ruled he “abused the legal system by submitting numerous, frivolous and inappropriate filings.”

They seem to overlook the fact that Paul is in the UK, and pastebin.com is hosted in the UK, so throwing DMCA notices around is a little pointless, acheiving nothing more than making themselves look bad.

In fact, the Streisand Effect pretty much guarantees that such attempts backfire, and result in nothing more than causing the material they desire to censor to be more widely distributed.

In fact, with information leaked to wikileaks, it’s a lost cause already.

When will companies learn that attempting to artificially control what people can do with their devices which they bought and legally own needs to stop, and that the Internet routes around censorship attempts?

Thanks, for being a Vodafone customer, we'd like to give you £1 free credit. Just text REWARD to 97888 for free by 24Sep09. To stop texts send STOP to 9774

This made me immediately suspicious, as it’s trivial to fake the sender of a text message to appear to have come from “Vodafone” or whatever name/number you like, and it sounded like a reverse-billing SMS scam.

However, I recognised 9774 as the number Vodafone really use to stop receiving texts, so if it was a scam, they’d at least done their homework.

Googling reveals that the shortcode 97888 is indeed a Vodafone number, used, among other things, to request their “Vodafone Passport” deal, and turns up a forum thread on the subject.

(Amusingly, the forum thread includes a nice little rant:

I GOT NOTHING and its annoying i cannot believe voda sending these messages then again , yes i can..
its like the annoying canvassing phone calls.
can we do anything to stop them ? from voda.
one annoyed voda customer.

Um, what? The clear, simple “To stop texts send STOP to 9774″ at the end of the message too hard to understand, perhaps?)

Recently, FAIL Blog posted a story with a screenshot of the Guinness World Records website, showing the record for “Most Individuals Killed In A Terrorist Attack”. Underneath details of the record, was a link cheerily inviting the reader to “Break this record!”.

It’s clearly a standard part of their site template, but was amusingly unfortunate appearing on that particular record.

However, in a show of complete lack of humour and PR, Guinness World Records Ltd decided to send the owners of FAIL Blog a legal bluster email stating that the GWRL logo is trademarked and demanding that it be removed from the page in question.

I’d like to think that use of a company’s logo when talking about them would be covered by fair use, but fair usage is increasingly murky and hard-to-define legally.

FAIL Blog have decided to comply by blurring out the GWLR logo, but I can’t help thinking GWRL have really shot themselves in the foot by bullying FAIL Blog into removing the logo (even if the GWRL name wasn’t mentioned, you’d easily guess).

This is how *not* to do PR in the Internet age, folks.

But, what’s with the number of his songs in the charts?

I don’t understand this – the real fans who will really miss him will already *have* his albums, so why are his singles now suddenly selling so much? Who are these people who presumably didn’t think much of him when he was alive, but now want to buy his music so much now he’s passed on?

Granted, it’s good to see the quality of the music in the charts inproving, but how’s this for mad (this is looking at the chart for the week of 2009-07-06):

That’s just those within the top 50 – there’s a few more between 50 and 75 too.

It’s a fitting tribute to a great entertainer, but it still puzzles me.

Ryanair passengers could soon fly for free – if they want to stand for their journey

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary told Sky News the low-cost airline was considering ripping out the back few rows of seats on some flights.

Um, what? I’m pretty sure that won’t fly.

The FAA regulations definately require suitable seats with safety belts:

Sec. 121.311 – Seats, safety belts, and shoulder harnesses.

(a) No person may operate an airplane unless there are available during the takeoff, en route flight, and landing –

(1) An approved seat or berth for each person on board the airplane who has reached his second birthday; and

(2) An approved safety belt for separate use by each person on board the airplane who has reached his second birthday, except that two persons occupying a berth may share one approved safety belt and two persons occupying a multiple lounge or divan seat may share one approved safety belt during en route flight only.

(b) Except as provided in this paragraph, each person on board an airplane operated under this part shall occupy an approved seat or berth with a separate safety belt properly secured about him or her during movement on the surface, takeoff, and landing. A safety belt provided for the occupant of a seat may not be used by more than one person who has reached his or her second birthday.

Pretty sure the CAA/JAA will have similar rules.

My first instinct was to check whether this story was published April 1st, but clearly not.

Now, does someone think this will really work, or is it just a PR stunt to get people talking about Ryanair again (much like previous suggestions on charging to use toilets etc)?

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which is responsible for producing national curriculum assessments and the security of papers, said it was worried that normal procedures for removing illegally posted copyright material online were not fast enough.

“Previous instances of unlawful publication of QCA copyright material have demonstrated that the usual public routes for the notification of a copyright breach (which may be sufficient for dealing with post-exam publication of papers) may not react swiftly enough to limit the damage in an emergency pre-test publication,” the QCA wrote.

To help speed up the process, the authority has asked hosting firms to supply it with an emergency hotline phone number, staffed by employees authorised to take down pages. It also asked for the hotline to be manned outside working hours.

So, they can’t manage to prevent information being leaked, but expect UK web hosts to have staff on call 24/7 ready to jump into action to remove any pages they want removed?

What planet are they on?

The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, an Israeli health official has said.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.

Just fuck off, how pathetic can you get?

What an incredibly stupid idea. Removing a very useful feature, just because a few people use it incorrectly? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

If people were CC’d on a mail you receive, then that mail was relevant to them, and contained info they needed. There’s a good chance your reply will also be something they should read; if that’s the case, you hit Reply All. If your reply is only relevant to the original author, just hit Reply. Really not that hard, is it?

I’m saying that, like a real eviction, there should be practices in place. When you open your doors to hosting user content, you should have rules in action that, unless it’s a complete and total fire sale and you have no hope of even staying open that long, then you should be required, yes by law, assholes, to make the data available to customers for an extended period of time.

I’m sorry, but I think that’s a terrible idea. If a site or hosting service is free, you have no rights to demand things from it. If the site/service owners cannot afford to continue running it, or do not want to do so, it’s their prerogative. It would be nice and polite of them to do whatever they can to help you retrieve any content you had submitted there, but bollocks should it be a legal requirement.

Making laws like this will achieve one thing: dissuading people from knocking together valuable sites, for fear of the hassle of having to follow these laws if they ever want to shut it down. It’s not at all uncommon for sites which are huge these days to have started out as a one-person operation hacked together in their spare time.

At the end of the day, if a site/service becomes unavailable, the very most you should be legally entitled to is a refund of the amount you paid (pro-rata for the remaining paid-up service term). Morally, if the site owners are able to keep the data about for a while for people to download, that’d be a very nice gesture, but should certainly not be required.

The author of the posts above cites a few “heartbreaking” comments by people who used AOL Hometown, which shut down. AOL provided four week’s notice of the closure. Who the hell treats data placed online as their only copy? I’ve uploaded a fair number of photos to Flickr and Facebook, but the originals stay on on my hard drive (RAIDed and backed up to another drive also). If Flickr or Facebook had to shut down for whatever reason, I’d not have lost anything, and wouldn’t consider them responsible for my data.

The remodelling of the concrete tower block, next to St James’ Park in London, cost £915 a square foot to complete – around 18 times more than a standard refurbishment would cost in the private sector.

How the hell can these clowns possibly justify this kind of wastage? There’s much better things my tax money could be spent on than this kind of crap.

They apprently spent £2,745,000 on new furniture and fittings for the offices, and £290,000 on artwork. Over £290 on fucking artwork? Seriously now, WTF? That’s probably 10-15 years of an average person’s salary, just on artwork.

How the hell were these idiots able to even get on the runway? Surely there should be enough security to prevent them from being able to reach the runway.

More puzzling, the article says:

“Due to this event the runway is closed and will continue to be so until further notice. The advice to passengers is to contact their airlines directly who can advise them but we are expecting delays.”

How bloody long does it take to get the police in to haul them off the runway and off to a cell? It certainly shouldn’t take long!

They make me sick. Am I being a muppet by working my damned arse off to earn money, so that a sizeable portion of it can be taken off me by the government to give to lazy fuckers like those two?

Ugh.

Seriously, WTF?