Re: Fast charging

Interestingly, I went back in time to 1905 and attended a public debate on the introduction of motor-cars to our roads.

It was funny because there was a gentleman there who said: 'It's all very well having a fuel tank that can be refueled in a minute, but that assumes that you have big storage tanks that can hold all that petrol. You're not going to find that in a domestic setting. I doubt that many coaching inns that would pay to have these expensive fireproof tanks installed on their premises either, at least initially'

And yet, here we are....

Re: Unions, eh?

Gosh, I hope you don't take any statutory sick pay when you keel over sick, or statutory holiday or enjoy employment rights of any kind. If you do, then you have unions to thank.

Is your 6 year-old not apprenticed to the local mill? If not, then you have unions to thank.

Even if you are freelance, you benefit from all that because you can and do price in the risk of not having those, secure in the knowledge that the employer has to pay for that for a permie.

Higher productivity through capital accumulation can be a good thing, but there need to be checks and balances to ensure that those accumulating the capital don't just exploit people like slaves.

Even a cursory reading of history will show you that those at the top of the heap aren't generally very good at sharing with those at the bottom of the heap. Unions help redress that problem. You may not like them, but boy are they necessary.

Re: How I liked the simplicity of tables.

Javascript that worked?

When was that around?

Oh, you mean when NN and IE had completely different DOMs so you ended up writing each script twice?

Yeah, none of this 'standardised library' nonsense that we get from jQuery.

Sheesh. Get yer facts right.

And tables.

Tables are for the display of tabular data. Not for layout/styling. That's what styesheets are for. Y'know, so you can reskin the site in 2 years time without having to edit every line of code on every page with <font color='green'> or somesuch rubbish.

The good old days? They were shit.

mmmm....

methinks DJ2 doth protest too much. Most of the DJ-orientated stores such as beatport offer uncompressed 44.1k wavs, which are identical in quality to CD. Some places even offer 96k 24-bit files, much better than CD.

It's not just mp3s anymore.

profit

profit in the absence of turnover would be fraud in most people's book ;-)

Seriously though: profit is profit is profit. If you are profitable and you don't have shareholders, then you don't give a rats arse about % rates

press release

wow, was that a comment? Reads like a press release.

thanks for adhereing to stereotypes

See, that's why I could never vote UKIP.

None of our members are right-wing nutjobs, but we regard the BBC as extreme left-wing (cluetrain: most left-wingers regard the BBC as right-wing). None of our members are rascist, but in the extremely complex and sensitive issue of Israel/Palestine, we could never side with the a-rabs. We think its OK to say that you are a supporter of brutal dictatorships and terrorists if you are anything other than howling and frothing about the iniquities of the (democratically elected) Hamas group. Unlike Netanyahu of course, who is a paragon of truth and virtue no matter what other world leaders say. He would never kill and maim and slaughter in the defence of his side of the argument.

Thank you, Anonymous Coward, for having the courage to stand up and be counted for what you believe in. And for confirming that you *do* hold the same views that make so much of the rest of the world regard you as nutjobs.

population control

good point you make, but there is a strong correlation between mortality and birthrate. High mortality = high birthrate.

In the west, where we have very low infant mortality, the birthrate barely exceeds the deathrate, in fact we have an ageing population i.e. no growth.

In 'developing' countries, they need to have many more kids in order to have a chance of having someone to look after them in old age: so they have many more children than we do.

Saving lives lowers population growth. Counterintuitive, but true.

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=25

UK companies?

Hutchison - Hong Kong and Chinese owned.

Orange - owned by France Telecom

Tiscali - owned by Carphone Warehouse. A British firm: Yay!

One out of three aint' bad I supppose. Tiscali was originally Italian of course, although mentioning that seems churlish. But then, so does criticising a journo for sticking to facts he knew he could check (and owning up to that) whilst getting your own facts wrong. It may travel over pipes in the UK, but that doesn't make the companies British.

As you were.

Ah yes, but thumbs up to el reg for publishing the rebuttal, in full, on the front page, in a way it knew lots of people would look at (surely everyone reads FOTW).

So, I reckon the reg comes out ahead on points + as a bonus, if the guy's facts aren't right then others will point that out and then they do have a story!

If it were a UK print daily, corrections and apologies would appear at the bottom of page 93.

In 4 point type.

wossa developer?

A programmer is someone who thinks software can be finished.

A developer is someone who knows the job is never completely done.

'Finished' is a word with many meanings.

so that's why...

Every time the big man pays tax, its levels the playing field between him and homegrown entrepreneurs.

I run a UK company and employ skilled UK software engineers, but can't offshore my profits like this because I'm not big enough. My corporation tax payments subsidise my multinational competitors. They pay virtually no tax but benefit from UK services and infrastructure. This destroys UK companies by giving foreign competitors an advantage.

Per pound of profit, I pay 100x as much tax as Google UK operations.

UK tax laws actively discriminate in favour of big, successful US companies at the expense of UK companies.

This is not special pleading, I just want a level playing field.

I used to think I was cynical

but the world just keeps on making me feel naive.

linux on the desktop?

*cough* Android is linux on the palmtop and it's kinda mainstream wouldn't you say?

what's hard about it?

one URL should serve to illustrate what's hard about showing your working to all and sundry.

http://search.theregister.co.uk/?q=software+patents

session cookies are not really 'allowed'

you still have to gain explicit consent.

It even applies to analytics cookies. So, to see where people go on your website, you have to gain their explicit opt-in consent. Yep, you can't watch people walking around your shop. Not allowed.

Every single site we operate will have to be changed at the cost of many thousands of pounds to my clients (a few hundred quid a pop).

I have to explain it to them and bear their wrath because they have to spend money for no 'benefit'. It's a shambles and no-one in the web dev. world seems to be grasping this nettle because it just seems like such a waste of effort and time.

meh, title

in many ways, of course, the very most offensive thing about the Dambusters is:

YAY! We killed a shitload of people! Go team!

I know, we were fighting the dark empire etc. but it's still an unpleasant thing to be involved in: killing people is not really to be celebrated.

It just feels a bit weird to worry about the name of a dog when we're talking about the coldly calculated design of a machine created by people to kill other people.

Bit depressing really.

you forgot a key subsidy.

oil/gas - regular wars to police the sorts of places that produce. Or. You could choose to believe that we are in the middle East purely to further democracy, justice and so on - and the 50,000 dead iraqis should be GRATEFUL dammit.

Try phoning 0870 from a mobile

It's more expensive than phoning from overseas.

Not eligible to use, my foot.

I'm not going to sit on hold at 25p a minute to listen to terrible music and poorly trained, overworked phone droids muck up my financial affairs.

http://www.o2.co.uk/mobilestariffs/tariffs/specialnumbers

I always, always phone the 'overseas only' number for any service.

0870 - It's only the marketing people wanting to make it look 'official'

(and I know this as I've sat in on the meetings as the web developer for a number of organisations, pleading for them to have a sensible number for mobile users, only to be overridden by the marketing muppets).

mild revisionism...

IE6 was streets ahead better than NN4.7, which was the main alternative when it came out.

NN 4.7 was a developer's nightmare. Everything would always work in IE6 and be broken in NN. That's why I, and most of the developers I knew, called it 'Nutscrape'. 'twas fookin' awful. Was like supporting IE6 now. People would *groan* when I said NN suppport by the end.

Netscape 6 was OK in comparison, but it was too little, too late. IE had won by then.

would that be?

The decade that gave us at least 5 totally new genres with whole new ways of thinking about and making music?

Starting with Hip-hop, house, acid, techno and the unstoppable rise of all genres electronic.

The KLF, Orb, Future Sound of London, Aphex Twin and on and on and on.

Where were you?

Certainly not bouncing up and down in a field with a massive shit-eating grin on your face dancing like a loon to brain-bending sounds until dee morning come.

If you were into your bleeps, it was an impossibly exciting time in music, a time when I regularly heard records that made me think: I didn't know you were allowed to do THAT with a tune!

Yer well within your rights to hate all of that, but music didn't forget the 80s: you just had your earplugs in.

Sheesh, wotta grouch.

(quite like Nick Cave. He's good.)

erm...

Happy Mondays

Stone Roses

The Fall

Morrissey

The Smiths

808 State

My mate Bill who sings down the pub occasionally.

Practically ANYONE, in fact, because of the historical enmity between the two cities.

doesn't work on the iPad? Why is that.

Could it be that the iPad is a closed platform from which steeeeeeevvvv-oh has banned flash: the most popular way of delivering video on the web?

Yeah, it's probably that.

It's your rubbish kit mate: nothing to do with the video

;-)

good vs. bad governance

Thank you wikipaedophile, repository of truthiness for defining it as:

Governance - the activity of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance.

e.g.

Germany - good governance

Zimbabwe - bad governance.

Ugly word, but useful. Not new either. Been around for at least as long as I have been aware of it (15 years+)

Carry orn.

until...

I tell them that they have to report themselves to their local police station every time they move house on pain of a £1000 fine. Suddenly they get it, saying things like 'what business is it of theirs?'

Slight bending of the truth, but only slight: nothing outrageous compared with the porkles the pro-side were spinning, certainly.

One to remember for next time though.

Every single post-war government has suggested an ID card at some point. Every. Single. One.

This time was far too close for comfort.

Usually about the same time as they go native with the civil service.

The civil service love the idea so much, you see.