Posts by Gav
458 posts • joined Thursday 19th April 2007 09:27 GMT
Re: Tax Laws
I think the point is that no-one fully understands all muti-national tax laws. There are thousands of them, are insanely complex and can be combined in an infinite number of ways to be exploited. Close one loop hole, and you more than likely open another.
The real outrage is that many of the treasury consultants who helped designed our taxes work for companies who, simultaneously, offer advice to the likes of Google on how to avoid paying them.
So they are paid to design the maze, and then paid again to show people where they left the holes in it.
Undignified
Does the Chelsea flower show actually do "buzzes of excitement", on Twitter or anywhere else?
It all sounds rather undignified and vulgar for such a genteel affair. How about ripples of appreciation? Or does Twitter not do them?
Re: Scientific Theory
"Popular Technology blog has two of those scientists pointing out that their papers were classified as supporting AGW when in fact they were pointing out big errors in it."
What the papers were doing isn't the point. It would be folly to try to determine a simple yes/no consensus based on interpretation of papers. So the study wrote directly to the authors of each paper and asked them, directly ; "Humans are causing Global Warming: yes or no". That is what they based their results on.
And there is a huge difference between suggesting global warming, the theory, has holes in it, and proving global warming, the phenomenon, isn't happening.
Re: Scientific Theory
Simply slagging off people we disagree with is "the worst form of debate" ... but 97.1% of those in the debate are "all stupid". Hmmm....
I don't believe I did "slag off" anyone. But I generally find if 97.1% of experts in a field are agreed on one thing, and 2.9% say other things, it's very, very usual for the 97.1% to be right. Harking on about times when the majority have been wrong is a red-herring. Most of the time they are right, that's what makes the times they have been wrong particularly notable. There is nothing yet to suggest that this is one of these times.
The idea that you have noticed the effect of methane and water vapour, while 97.1% of climatologists either haven't considered this, or are wilfully ignoring it for their own selfish purposes, is insulting, ludicrous and very implausible. But I guess it might make sense if you believe they are "all stupid".
Re: Scientific Theory
There are no "two camps".
There are the vast majority of scientist who have actually studied climate and should know a thing or two about it. And then there are a number of people who haven't studied it, have no qualifications to demonstrate their opinion is of value, and base their proclamations on wishful thinking and guessing.
A recent study that looked at published climate research over the last 20 years (you know, people actually studying actual climate facts) found that 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
Pretending there are "two camps", with evenly matched opinions worth consideration, would be laughable if it wasn't so desperately wrong.
Re: "nobody thus far has taken account of that"
Amazingly, no-one is suggesting that "life" is threatened in any way by climate change.
Your life, and human life in general, however, may not find things quite so comfortable. Most think that is worth worrying about, despite it not being an apocalypse. But rest assured, "life" will be fine.
Nice straw man you have there though. Will it keep you warm and dry?
Re: Two years baby
Kies - a horrible turd of an application. It tries to be Sumsung's equivalent of iTunes and miraculously manages to be worse than even it.
I spent a month trying to get it to do what it advertised it could do, yet was totally incapable of doing. Never ever going to waste time on it again.
This is not printer ink
This will fail simply because it relies on constant refills to work.
If phone users couldn't be bothered to be constantly switching batteries for their phones to work (early battery powered phones without recharge were of very limited use), why will they be bothered to keep constantly purchasing, storing, refilling and switching smells?
I predict a few curious adopters, single use until the smells run dry, and then left in the cupboard with the other "was fun for a while" junk.
A shocking case of selfish and extravagant self-interest
I have it on good authority that Bill Gates once bought sticking plasters for a paper cut on his hand. That $2.49 he squandered on his own health care could have contributed to cancer research. So Page is not the only one whose priorities are wrong! What a couple of selfish gits!
Re: This is not a Google Glasses problem
Not quite totally against your consent. Your mother can't tag you without a Facebook account. Log into your account, go to all the photos your mother has tagged you in and remove them. Ask your mother to quit doing it.
Now upload a couple of dozen photos of random people. Tag them all as you.
There you go. Facebook now has no idea how you look.
I don't know. He speaks good sense, but I think he might find himself taken a whole lot more seriously if he didn't fill his judgements with dorky Star Trek references.
This is not a Google Glasses problem
Whether it is going to be ok or not, it's something society is going to have to come to terms with. Cameras have being getting smaller for decades. Digital storage is increasingly physically smaller and more expansive. The time will inevitably come (if it hasn't already) that people will be able to photograph/video everything that ever happens to them without giving any indication that they are doing it.
We cannot wind back the clock on this. What are you going to do? You could make it illegal to film in a private place without consent (good luck enforcing that). But unless you want to make all cameras illegal, or make it a legal requirement that you wave a big flag and announce on megaphone every time you are about to take a photo, you are never, ever going to stop this happening in public places.
I don't care for the idea of being covertly filmed by some weirdo any more than anyone else. But we all have to comes to terms with it. It's gonna happen, and it may not only be the weirdo's doing it. It may become commonplace.
There is no balance or regulation
There is no "regulation". No "balance". Such silly concepts are based on the idea that there is an ideal norm that the planet's ecology strives to return to when it moves away from it.
There is no norm. There are two states that are of any relevance to us; That which suits human life, that which does not. The latter state is far larger and has much greater variations. The planet doesn't care which state it has, that's just us.
Re: When my mother died
The issue here is not the bill, it's the fine Virgin Media issued which was dumb and insensitive.
If someone is provided a service and subsequently dies, that doesn't mean the provider of the service doesn't get paid. They are still owed by the person's estate. You probably had probate on your mother's estate, so they were entirely correct to send the bill to you.
It's not pleasant during a difficult time, but it has to be done.
Re: ...was this the site...
What of the ones that have very particular and specific password requirements, for no obvious reason, that make your usual default one impossible to use?
Not that they tell you what the very particular and specific password requirements are. No. They wait until you have failed to meet the secret requirements, then they tell you off for not meeting them. And then again for the next one when you try again. And again. And again. And oops, you forgot about the first requirement, didn't you? Try again. Until you are screaming at the screen "NO-ONE IS GOING TO HACK YOUR WEBSITE TO ORDER TAKE-AWAY IN MY NAME! YOU DO NOT NEED THIS LEVEL OF SECURITY!"
Re: Call me sceptical if you will, but...
Reddit failed because anyone with half a brain knew where this would end up. The same way they have done for centuries. That's why they call them "witch hunts". They knew, but they did nothing to stop it. Probably because it was exciting and good for the hit counts.
That's why people may question the sincerity of their apology.
And as for lawsuits; give 'em time. They will come.
Re: Hmmm
"do we really need a hurt feelings police?"
Trolling can cause far more than "hurt feelings", especially of the type which is essentially online bullying. People have committed suicide. Others have live in very real fear of anonymous threats becoming real. "Hurt feelings" can be far more damaging than a physical "hurt nose". So if you can be prosecuted for punching someone in the street, then why not for mentally torturing them online? It's all hurt.
My main problem with the CPS is that they pursued the wrong people simply because they were easier to catch. Like someone saying something stupid on twitter that everyone knows is just hot air.
Re: April fools day way weeks ago.
Woohoo! I can see the automated Facebook statuses now!
Apple Fanboi ... has spent 45 minutes in a jam at the same set of traffic lights and unlocked "Who phased these b******ds?" achievement. Sent from my iBeetle.
Apple Fanboi ... has just parked across two disabled parking bays and won the "Handicap by crippling stupidity and selfishness" achievement. Sent from my iBeetle.
Apple Fanboi .. has just died in a fiery ball of flame by not paying attention to the ro@d and unloc+ed the "Game Over" ac4ievement. Se^t fr&$ m@ !i} ..... .. .
Ain't big enough for the both of them
Of course you won't get Home on the iPhone. There is only room for one overlord of your phone (and, no, one of the options isn't you). If Apple have already gone to the trouble of hooking you, they are hardly likely to hand the fishing rod over for Facebook to reel you in. These companies wish to embed themselves on your devices and monopolise any money that flows within its reach. Sharing is not part of the plan.
Re: Face it, vinyl sucks
People who believe they can hear a greater dynamic range on vinyl are either;
- deluding themselves
- concentrating so much on the sound that they're not listening to the music
And if it's the later, then they also must be hearing all the wow, flutter, warps, rumbles, crosstalk and scratches. Now they might find that part of the fun of being an audiophile, but I just want to listen to the music.
Re: Why would anyone want this?
Want to know the scary thing? Now that Facebook has done this, you can bet all the other operators/manufacturers are going to attempt to follow all the more. We can all look forward to even more compulsory crapware pre-installed on our smartphones that attempt to lock us into their share of the markets and snaffle our personal data. All to enhance your "experience", of course. Nothing to do with making them more money.
All the more reason to root your phone and ditch the stuff they force on you.
Re: Missing Windows 8 User
Oh give it a rest, why don't you?
You are not a number plate
I'm usually the first to complain about this sort of thing, but this is all a fuss about nothing.
Your licence plates are not private information. Anyone on the street can see them, and photograph them. They are under no requirement to blur/remove them if publishing these photos, any more than they are obliged if they photographed you in the street.
The crucial fact is that your licence number does not identify who you are, or where you live, or what your name is. And this website is not providing a speculative "look up a registration number" search. So all you are getting is a picture of a car, owned by no-one but the DVLA knows. No different from what you'd get if you'd hung out your window and taken the photo yourself.
The only possible person you'd identify would be those with a known personalised vanity plate. And they only have themselves to blame if people recognise them. That's what happens if you insist of drawing attention to yourself and your property.
Re: Hate speech not the best indicator
"What happened in Rwanda was as much caused by vast numbers of people who couldn't even afford to be tenant farmers, as it was by racial hatred."
Sometimes cause and effect works the other way around from what you might expect. Racial hatred is a symptom, not a cause.
Re: facepalm!!
So... having all these sites tagged and easy to locate through google, SourceForge has now told everyone how to access them. They don't say they fixed the file permissions, so until the owners of the sites do anything they are effectively wide-open to anyone.
Perhaps not a good idea. Hmm?
Here's your "Get Out Of Jail Free" card
"To those who ask "why should they", the answer is simple: it would save time and cost less money"
I don't think you follow how the law works. This special shortcut, saving time and money in this case, would become a precedent that could be used to challenge all future extraditions. Pretty soon anyone charged with any crime at all in Sweden could flee to the UK, and then demand that a condition of their return is that they are not allowed to be charged for anything else that they may, or may not have, done in the past.
No legal system is going to grant that privilege to anyone.
Re: What about our copyrights?
It's not rocket science people. If you do not want people to take a copy of your website content then do not put it on a publicly accessible website. It's how browsers work. They have caches, they take copies.
Copyright has nothing to do with it, as no-where is it said that the British Library will be re-publishing your website. It has a copy. It will let others see that copy, just like it already does for millions of books.
Re: THE HONEY TRAP @AC 8:15
"No, that should be a punishment reserved for Child mollesters and rapists..."
Did your mother never teach that two wrongs don't make a right?
Rape is a horrible crime. Rape as a implicit punishment included with jail time is inhuman, has no place in any civilised society and makes everyone involved accomplices. Barely better than the criminal themselves. Is that the person you want to be?
Re: Facebook, google+, the gubermint...
You do realise your data pollution tactic doesn't work when you post as a Anonymous Coward?
And I *am* the Information Commissioner (as far as you know, sometimes, prove me wrong), so quit doing that!
Re: THE HONEY TRAP
I don't follow "Bubba"'s involvement in this. He's not mentioned in any legislation or penal system I know of, so I'm unclear how prosecuting him could ever ensure he shares a cell with Assange.
You're not saying he *deserves* institutionalised rape, I hope? That would be illegal, and you claim to be very concerned about laws and justice.
Posted in Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC
Re: NZ Has No TV Tax
"I charged you a tax for using my washing machine regardless of whether you used it or not? Sound fair? Sounds ludicrous?"
Sounds fine. You get charged for schools whether you use them or not. The police, whether you use them or not. The NHS, whether you use it or not. The RAF, whether you use it or not. You have no choice. You are paying for a service that everyone benefits from being there, whether you use it directly or not.
Without the BBC the entire broadcasting media in the UK would be run by commercial companies for profit, dominated by the multi-national behemoth that is Sky. Do you really have no idea how bad that would be?
Posted in Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC
puerile TV
Puerile TV, like "Strictly Come Dancing", has always been on BBC TV. Unfortunately a great many people who pay their TV licence *like* puerile TV, and they have as much a right to get programmes made for them as anyone else. If you don't like them, don't watch them. There's plenty other BBC output you've paid for that you could be watching.
The BBC is not perfect, and the way it is funded is not perfect, but it is streets ahead of the alternatives.
"Strictly Come Dancing" - I don't mind the dancing, which can be moderately entertaining, it's the aeons of banal chat that surrounds it that makes me want to slit my wrists.
Sure a script-kiddy could have done this
Sure a script-kiddy could have done this: badly and in such a way that it would have failed to work on half the targeted boxes, or broken them, or made its presence obvious. And they'd also have it all traceable back to their bedroom.
Doing it so no-one noticed, over such a long period. Well it's maybe not brilliance, but evidence of an excellent professional who really knew what they were doing. Ethically however.... dodgy ground indeed.
Me right
This error is second only in my list of annoyances to the polar opposite of people who say things like; "Me and <friend's name> went to the pub."
Take out the "and <friend's name> and you're left with "Me went to the pub." They sound like a self-centred 4 year old, in which case they shouldn't be getting served at the pub.
Just because I'm a Grammar Nazi doesn't mean I'm not right.
Re: Ancient news.
This has to cut both ways; French mobiles picking up English masts. Yet somehow the French manage.
One can only conclude that the Daily Mail thinks its South English readers are too thick to know how to turn off roaming on their phone.
Re: 35 Kms
And the last time you checked would have been 1950.
Re: PFE?
And it's a big cheery wave back to the 20th century! Seriously, the main page explains why it'll not suffer from the Y2K bug.
I tried PFE way back then. It was ok.
Re: Making Windows 8 look like Windows 7 isn't a climbdown?
Not a split infinitive, but the "seriously" is misplaced in such a way that it confuses what was meant. . As quoted the one who should at least read a book on grammar, should do so "seriously". However, what was meant is that the person urging them to read a book is being serious. i.e.
"seriously, at least read a book on grammar"
Re: Totally missing the point
"Helpless twits will find a way to be helpless regardless of what OS they run."
And there you have the root of the problem. Too many Linux forums and the like are filled with people who respond, when faced with a problem with Linux;
* The problem is not the OS. The problem is you. You are an idiot.
* I am not going to answer the question because it would be a waste of my time. I am instead going to explain why you are wrong to ask it in the first place. You are an idiot.
Fact is that Linux has been available on desktops for years, for free. People love free stuff. Yet still very few use it. Why is that? If your answer to this is "People are idiots" then you aren't clear on what a desktop OS is suppose to do; i.e. be used by people. If people can't/won't use the OS then the problem is the OS. People aren't going to change any.
Re: Linux Desktop ? Yes
"For that matter, I could probably count the number of times I've compiled anything just on one hand."
Why bother going that far? Once would be enough to indicate once too often.
Totally missing the point
"I have a 4 year old using a Linux desktop for a year now ... blah... blah..."
I love it when people totally miss the point about criticism of Linux. Sure, you have your entire family using and loving Linux. But that's because you install it, you maintain it, you upgrade it, you fix it when it goes wrong. You are an IT geek happy to spend your time doing this. I am very happy for you all. But it can't be emphasised enough; ***the rest of the world is not like this***.
Miguel is just saying what occurs to many people who give Linux a shot; he's got better things to spend his time on. I came to the same conclusion. I can, but don't chose to, spend hours fixing things when my audio drivers refuse to work, yet again. I could, but don't want to, spend hours trawling through Linux forums finding the one person on the planet who is using the same version of the same distro with the same hardware as me. Only to discover that they too have got nowhere configuring the damn things to work together. I choose not to spend hours trying to follow laughable "user" documentation written by a Linux coder for other Linux coders. My interests are in using a computer, not in compiling OS kernels.
So I fully understand Miguel de Icaza when he decides that he'll use something that just works.
Posted in Jimmy Wales: 'I'm Wikipedia's monarch'
Re: Wikipedia as a reference? ...
The English language Wikipedia currently consists of 4,175,200 articles. Just how big was your sample size that you based your conclusion on?
When you say "unorthodox facts", you mean, of course, unverifiable stuff that no source can be found for, other than some anonymous guy on the internet who edited Wikipedia. Of course that'd be "expunge".
why not now?
And even if we could see it coming, what would we do? The article suggest we'd "put our affairs in order", I more expect that our affairs would go it quite the opposite direction.
What isn't explained here is why he is so confident it won't happen for billions of years. What's stopping it happen now?
Because their mates are.
If you think back to when you were 13, "because your mates are/do/will/can" is the best reason in the world, bar none. Peer pressure and the desire to fit in is absolutely everything at that age.
Why get back in the car?
Also consider that he claims it had happened before, almost exactly the same, and nothing wrong had been found and nothing modified on the car.
If I had been taken on a trouser-filling 200km/h ride by my car, and then been told to go back out in it because nothing was wrong, I would be taking the bus, train, walking, anything rather than getting back in that demon vehicle.
Time to regress back to childhood.
The difference with this "Think Of The Children" argument is that no-one seems to care about the grown ups. What if an adult doesn't want stalked by a "friend of a friend"? What if an adult has friends who also have "friends" they don't know and/or don't trust? Tough luck, if you are over 16 Facebook reckons you're not deserving privacy.
Think it's time to become a child on Facebook, not to be a creepy molester, but because it's the only way to have Facebook limit how they use your information. I quite fancy being born in the 21st century.
Re: LibreOffice user here
"who needs MS Office these days, when people don't use Windows so much?"
I see you belong to the "if I say it often enough it starts to become true" school of discussion.
What are you basing your statement that people don't use Windows so much on? A dream you had?
Re: Sentence
I wouldn't go as far as killing them, but you do make a good point. Where's the £3 million? There's no mention of it being seized, so it looks like these two have made £1.5 million each at a cost of 4 years in prison. Probably out in 3, from a cushy low security prison. Some would say that's a good deal.
Lock them up until they hand over every penny.
Re: If you were a bad guy i a film
Which all kind of demonstrates one of three things.
1 - Anonymous have never seen Die Hard.
2 - Anonymous are none too bright and haven't thought of this.
3 - Anonymous are bluffing big time and everyone knows it.
Which do you think is most likely?
Re: 2000 followers
That's what I thought. Who the hell follows an energy company's tweets? Why?
