Re: and let’s just assume it’s a nice pal

"I'm really unconvinced by this concept of the internet of things. It seems to be slapping connectivity and monitoring on things that have no need - except in the eyes of the marketeers - for either..."

Thats exactly what it is. They've been trying to flog us the automated home for example since the 60s , but you know what? People are quite capable of getting off their arses and closing the curtains themselves or looking in the fridge and seeing that the milk is running out. They don't need some overpriced unreliable bit of tech to do every simple little thing in life for them.

Of course the marketeers would love us to be sitting on the soda zombified while machines do everything so we just sit and watch even more TV or online video and suck up even more of their ads for all the other crap they're trying to sell us that we don't need either.

Re: “advance the bold vision”

"They don't even need to compromise one UI with the other, they could offer 2 editions of Windows 8 ("touch" and "desktop") between which customers can choose."

Or even simply just offer the choice at install or first login of which you want as the default which you can change later via control panel. To not do something so obvious was just bloody minded and petty.

Re: What about the religious nutheads?

The 21st century is only a skin deep veneer in the deep south. In reality they're still living in medieval times in their heads. The bible bashers have the exact same inflexible unquestioning mentality as muslim fundamentalists in the arab world and are equally as unable to tolerate criticism or anyone not cut from the same cookie cutter identikit mold as them. Different religion , same primitive BS.

Re: At last

"the value of such small amounts of money being spent on science"

I'm sorry , what? You think 6 BILLION euros is a "small" amount of money to spend on an experiment for one niche area of physics that hasn't produced much in the way of usable technology in 50 years??!

You my friend are in dire need of getting a sense of perspective. Do you think newton or einstein or telsa went to went to their governments and said "give me 1% of your GDP and I'll do some really cool experiments and I'll see what I can come up with." I don't think so!

I'm not entirely sure why particle physicists seems to think they live in a bubble and are worth unlimited amounts of money spending on their pet subjects when other areas of scientific research are being cut do the bone and are left to beg for scraps but I can assure you that not everyone is of the same opinion.

Re: At last

"To give an example, the Italians alone spend more money on Tarot card, astrology and fortune teller readings EVERY YEAR than it costs to make an LHC."

If you're going to make daft comparisons you might as well say italians spend more on toilet ducks/dog whistles//whatever than on the LCH. However there's a qualatative difference that you're conveniently ignoring - one is a large number of individual people making their own unrelated decisions , another is a government body spending a large sum of money on a physics experiment - and lets not pretend its anything else - that may or may not pay dividends.

And while personally I'm all for blue sky research that doesn't mean it should be given a blank cheque. Science doesn't exist in a vacuum , its part of society and society has to foot the bill and therefor society has a say on whether its worth the money whether you like it or not.

Re: TI99/4a version...

"had more fun writing the code"

Doesn't that sum up most of the software we write as developers? Especially in a work scenario!

Re: Maybe

"You sound like my parents, who take a box of tea bags with them whenever they go abroad."

Which is obviously completely unlike all the foreign visitors bringing all their own foodstuffs and drinks into britain when they visit. I mean they're british, so obviously its being insular and xenophobic, whereas a foreigner bringing what they like with them is merely them enjoying their cultural heritage. Right?

"They also read the Daily Mail, much to my shame."

Well don't worry, when you get around to wearing long trousers you'll find out that the world isn't quite the fluffy skip down the street together multi-culti love in you obviously think it is.

Re: Kicks to the what now?

"One suspects one means dumbarse.

"Or that one can't tell ones arse from ones donkey."

Actually thats probably one of the few times the yank spelling is correct. Dumb donkey makes a lot more sense than dumb backside. Though they probably think they're talking about their backsides anyway. Or out of them. ;o)

Re: Windows Security Patches + Anti-Virus considered Harmful @Eadon

"By not actually running security software on Linux you are in effect running blind, as you don't actually know if you are running unauthorised code until it bites you"

I can't speak for other linux users but I know exactly what I download onto my machine whether its an update or just ordinary software. And for the latter I NEVER install it as root. And you know what? In 19 years running linux I've only had 1 hack - via an unpatched ftp server - back in the 90s, and no viruses or malware (unless its REALLY good at hiding itself). I wonder how many Windows users can claim the same thing?

"When I started university, many moons ago, people would hand out IP addresses in numeric form. They were for muds, IRC, and BBSes, mainly, and I know, as a fact, that some didn't have DNS addresses."

Yeah , I remember that too. Good thing IP6 wasn't rolled out back then or we'd have been royally screwed!

"Sorry, could you repeat that , fe34:ab3f:c7da:22... what?"

Re: richard.cartledge@snc.ac.uk

What the hells the point of a TV in a car? You can't watch it on the move and why the hell would you sit in a parked car and watch it? Don't you have a home TV?

Re: It's whether the degree is *hard* or *soft*

"Then I suggest you need to widen your experience"

Will 20 years of experience including including working in development for 4 major investment banks do you?

"The trouble with computing graduates, at least most of those I have met (while working in minor computing firms such as IBM, Digital, HP, Fujitsu and in banking, telecoms and pharmaceuticals) is that they believe implicitly what they were taught"

This applies to any graduate. So what? Experience comes later. As for you so called examples, big deal. You should try working with english graduates trying to code if you think those are the worst things you can encounter. At least the coders you worked with knew one end of a loop from another.

"I take it you are a computer science graduate and feel mortally wounded"

I take it you're not and you're going down the standard issue Anyone-can-program argument to make yourself feel less inadequate. Well they can't. No one ever uses similar arguments for medicine just because any idiot can cut with a scalpal or in pharmaceuticals design because any idiot can spell Aspirin, so similarly, just because any idiot can write a Hello World program doesn't make them cut out for development.

"wonderful algorithms to calculate certain dates, shame the clever chap did not know about the standard C libraries, just one awful example"

Whats your problem? At least he could think up algorithms. Thats not something you can teach. You can learn a library in a day. I'd sooner have someone who has the brains to write his own code than some lego brick coder who uses libraries for everything and is stuck when he encounters a problem they won't solve for him.

"The overall best group, as a group, with whom I worked had come up, working in telecoms, through schemes that had them working with cables outside, climbing pylons, doing all the stuff, then some specialist training"

Spare us the worked themselves up from the shop floor working class heros shtick. Being able to climb a pole or dig a ditch doesn't turn you into some sort of worldy wise insightful genius ready to take on and solved all problems. This is real life, not a film.

Oh, and you really need to get rid of that everest sized chip on your shoulder.

Re: It's whether the degree is *hard* or *soft*

"In thirty years the best designers and software engineers I have worked with have been chemists, classicists, biologists (real ones, dealing with animals, plants, ecosystems, not statistical ones, though they could handle that too), neurobiologists and historians."

Really? Thats odd because I've found totally the opposite. People who've done real comp sci degrees usually have a damn site better ability at coding and understanding computers in general than non techie types who've done a 2 week course in Java or .NET and have been brainwashed into thinking that they're now up to re-writing the code for the space shuttle. Usually all they produce is inefficient sphagetti code heavily reliant on libraries and frameworks producing a slow bloated dog of a program with schoolboy coding errors and generally very little proper error checking.

Re: It's whether the degree is *hard* or *soft*

"Unlike all the formally trained lecturers who went into the minutiae of particular protocols"

Err, the minutiae of protocols is rather important if you're trying to implement them or even understand them. The same applies to most serious computer science related topics. If you wanted a course based on vague hand waving generalities you should have done a humanities degree.

"the only thing I can recall from a year long paper is a Romanian accent saying 'Multiplexing!'."

Which rather shows that you weren't really up to it. Multiplexing is pretty fucking important in networking from the hardware layer up.

Re: the nerve

"I guess sometimes it's better to shut up."

I don't know whats more pathetic - whether they assume everyone else is so stupid that they believe this PR guff or whether they're so stupid they actually believe it themselves. Either way, it must take a special kind of moron to work in a PR department.

@LarsG

Looks like you're heading for the biggest downvote in history. Not quite up there with the biggest spam attack but nontheless , quite impressive.

Re: Aaand we have the obligatory idiot

"1) 40%+ of UK power is from low carbon, relatively clean sources."

And 60% isn't.

"2) That percentage rises when you recharge off peak over night"

Actually I think you'll find its the other way around. Its the fossil fuel stations - mainly coal - that provide most of the base load at night given that we're slowly losing our nuclear ones thanks to pig ignorant hippies such as greenpeace getting hysterical about it and imagining mushroom clouds and glowing sheep everywhere.

"4) That large, fixed power plants can be very much more efficient than small mobile IC engines (80%+ vs 30% max)"

True , but petrol is a much less polluting fuel than coal. Also you're conveniently forgetting about transmission losses, losses when charging the battery itself and leakage of charge from the battery when its not being used. The total of which is not inconsiderable.

"5) That improving a fixed generator will effectively improve all existing EVs"

No sign of that happening anytime soon. Plus the entire national grid would need to be upgraded and it would provide a single massive point of failure. Power cuts are bad enough when you can't heat or light your house - if you couldn't even drive the car, well, you can imagine how much fun it would be.

Re: @thegrouch

"t never crossed your mind that the pollution per unit of energy released might differ between burning petrol in your car and burning coal in a power station?"

I hate to burst your bubble but burning petrol generates water and co2. Water is not a pollutant. Burning coal just generates co2. Its THE most polluting form of fossil fuel there is. I suggest you re-evaluate your argument yourself.

Re: Its just an ISP

"I can't see any of their corporates being too happy if they lost their private networks or access to their colo."

If they want to bet their company on a small ISP thats up to them. If it was me I'd stick to one of the major backbone operators for my access. As for co-location, frankly, if you can't be bothered to maintain your own systems then you deserve what you get.

Re: Brings a new consideration to the phrase

"The War on Drugs is OVER. Drugs WON. What we should do now is follow Portugal's model of treating addiction and drug use as a medical/social matter."

So you believe that if drugs were made legal usage wouldn't go up? Or what exactly?

Re: Brings a new consideration to the phrase

"You also have to keep in account the fact that some crimes are not viewed as a crime by society in large(gambling, drugs use, alcohol use etc)."

I don't know what society you live in but where I come almost everyone sees drug use as a crime.

Re: Brings a new consideration to the phrase

"Yes, because banning gambling, like banning drugs, will immediately result in the complete cessation of all such activity and no-one would ever gamble illegaly."

By the same logic why make ANY crimes illegal? After all, people will commit them anyway , right?

Why does anyone still use this fscking moronic banning-won't-prevent-it argument? No it won't but it will make it happen less.

Re: 2nd division developers who find C++ too difficult.

"And C++ is just for third rate engineers who can't do assembler properly."

Actually modern x86 assembler is virtually impossible for a human to use properly, not only because there are so MANY instructions now, but because you'll constantly having to be second guessing the pipelining and caching. Leave it to a compiler.

"Choose the right language for the job. C++ is good for some things but if you need your app to be device independent then something that runs on a virtual machine makes much more sense. "

C++ with high enough level libraries is portable between systems. And yes, java is device independant, but its not JVM version independant so it simply exchanges one set of portability problems for another.

Re: Use .Net

". See, the reason companies choose C# or Java over C++ is that by the time you've finished arguing over the right memory-management policy, we've already prototyped"

Ah , the old memory management meme. If you knew anything about C++ you'd know that these days you hardly need to do manual memory management at all if you don't want to if for example you use the STL, Boost or even just plain old stack based automatics for your object creation and destruction. And when you do use a pointer manually its usually to do something faster and quicker than Java can manage.

Re: 9 out of 10 ???

Given that there are probably 3 or 4 orders of magnitude more 3rd party apps than there are microsofts own efforts I find it rather worrying that MS still - if the report is to be believed - manages to provde 10% of these vulnerabilities.

Re: Delete Java

"Then put my feet up as I cant do a huge chunk of my job. I'll tell the directors that our multi-million pound contracts can't be supported,"

If your directors had a brain they wouldn't have any large scale projects written in java in the first place. Its a bloated memory hog and its only promoted by 2nd division developers who find C++ too difficult.

@S4qFBxkFFg Bronze badge

"This got me thinking, has anyone ever tried pirate TV?"

I think it has been done once or twice but its technically lot easier (equipment, TX power requirements and finding spare bandwidth) and cheaper to set up a pirate radio station plus any band they want to play will be available on audio but probably won't have a video to go with it so what do you show on screen?

Also everyone understands FM frequencies whereas UHF channel numbers are meaningless to 99% of the population who probably wouldn't be able to find it on their TV. And of course nowadays with only digital TV, setting up a pirate multiplex would be way beyond the abilities of your average pirate operator and even if they managed it they'd stick out like a sore thumb and would probably be shut down within 24 hours.

"I always thought local TV was a Jeremy Hunt vanity project designed to take money and influence away from the BBC. Why not just scrap the silly idea"

Why is it a silly idea? Its worked well in the US for decades and local radio is a success in the UK so whats your problem? Perhaps all local radio stations should be taken off air and the money handed to the BBC so they can broadcast more rubbish like 1Xtra?

Re: Why

"do we still need antivirus in 2013?"

Because people still use Windows.

"I love my new win 8 machine with Metro. It does everything I want it to, quickly and easily."

You obviously don't want to do much.

Re: FAIL felt as far as Oregon

"First Direct are excellent"

Sure , as long as you never want to discuss a complicated financial problem face to face and are happy doing everything over the internet or with someone on the phone in thailand. Personally I'd sooner use a bank that has high street branches.

Re: Gosh

"For £750-£900 you are talking lower build quality and no touch capability. "

I'm sorry, but touch capability might be fine on a tablet with no keyboard or mouse, but on a proper computer its just a gimmick unless you have some really niche app that makes using a large prodding finger easier than a very precise mouse.

Re: @ Boltar

Clutching at straws? Much?

Re: @ Boltar

"Standard use of English:-

"..."Except when it's the foil-lined plasterboard or polystyrene that seems to be cropping up...""

"The descriptive 'foil-lined' refers to BOTH plasterboard AND polystyrene."

Oh right, so like when someone says "I'll go by the 12.30 train or car" one of the options is to take the 12.30 car? On yer bike son.

Re: @psyx

"""We defend the right to hold any viewpoint - so long as we agree with it." should be the motto of all lefties."

"Bollocks. I might as well argue that anyone Rightist stamps around in jackboots, taking money from poor people."

When was the last time your saw a right wing pressure group trying to prevent a guest speaker at a university from speaking? Happens all the bloody time with the left - as soon as there's something or someone they don't like its get out the placards time and lets cause trouble, democracy be damned. Yet they'll quite happily suck up to some terrorism supporting mullah paying a visit simply because of the my enemy is your enemy rule. Anything to stick it to the man. Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe them.

Re: @ Boltar

"Perhaps next time read all the words in the sentence?"

I did. It reads:

"Except when it's the foil-lined plasterboard or polystyrene"

That doesn't read like "foil lined polystyrene" to me. There's an "or" inbetween. Perhaps you people should learn to read.

@psyx

"North Korea is not Socialist in any meaningful way."

What , just like Cuba isn't? Or venezuala? Or a dozen other left wing governments who's views are nothing more than a front to control people? Socialism is all about control whether its the intolerance of liberal left in the UK to any dissent against their absurd views or a dictatorship in the 3rd world. "We defend the right to hold any viewpoint - so long as we agree with it." should be the motto of all lefties.

Re: @ Boltar

"You're an idiot."

Am I ? Oh. Well in that case presumably you'll be able to provide a link that shows that polystyrene is a significant RF absorber.

Re: AV is a malicious Peril

"If Linux were so safe, then I wouldn't be suffering incessant attempts by hackers to get any foothold on the system"

So hackers constantly attempting to get on your system - but not apparently managing it - means Linux isn't secure? Uh , what? So if a burglar tries the lock on my front door but can't open it the lock still somehow isn't good enough. What do you want it to do - scare the burglar off first? Wtf are you talking about man?

Oh , and FYI - spam isn't hacking. HTH.

"Most of the *servers* getting rooted ARE Linux boxes. "

Cite.

Re: AV is a malicious Peril

"Besides, as i and countless others have said, you're talking tripe if you believe your own dribble about viruses not being an issue on unix, linux, iOS etc etc. Have OS, will infect."

While he may be overstating his case, I'd be interested in seeing a comparison of the number of linux/unix web servers running Apache with anti virus compared with the number of windows servers running IIS with it. Given , you know, that Apache on linux is the most popular web server combination and the so old no-one-runs-linux-so-virus-writers-wont-bother argument that MS apologists always come up with doesn't hold water.