Posts by nematoad 1859 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Sep 2009
"Unless the EU really want to isolate themselves..."
That's a good one. Puts me in mind of a possibly apocryphal news headline "Fog in Channel, continent cut off."
27 countries, 450 million people and trade agreements with many other blocs and countries and you say that they are isolating themselves?
If they are, what the hell is the UK doing?
Did you ever use Mandrake?
If you did you might want to give PCLinuxOS a look. It has a lot of the old Mandrake tools, like Diskdrake, Hardrake, Userdrake and so on. I always found them to be pretty easy to use so when Mandrake/Mandriva went under I looked about for a replacement. I did try Mageia and Open Mandriva but could not get on with them so when I found PCLinuxOS I was very happy.
Now it might not be for everyone being on a rolling release but for personal use I find it ideal. Texstar has said many times that systemd would never be allowed in PCLinuxOS and given the track record of the team I reckon they have the smarts to cope with any systemd infiltration of the Linux ecology.
"...the vanishingly small slither..."
So are you calling those people who want a 'phone with a keyboard snakes?
Slither is what snakes do. The word you are looking for, and not finding, is sliver.
Yes, pettifogging, nitpicking and pedantic but the use of incorrect words is starting to irritate on what is otherwise an informative, irreverent and amusing site.
What I want to know is when are they going to re-introduce rods, poles and perches a.k.a 5 and a half yards?
We're British and will have nothing to do with all this decimal nonsense! Yes, yes I'm being sarcastic in case you are wondering.
The trouble is I've actually had encounters with people actually advocating going back to using pounds and ounces, feet and inches and Fahrenheit etc. I'm in my 70s and was never taught SI units of measurement but I had no trouble adapting so why all the angst?
"Oh, ok. I'd best go back to using UK of GB & NI then :-)"
Given the shit-fest that is Brexit that might not be for very long. The Scots are not happy and looking to become an independent country and with the threat of a customs border in the Irish Sea people in NI may decide that a united Ireland is a good idea. So you might have to get used to saying England and Wales. That is unless the Welsh also decide that they want to start running their own affairs.
"Reagan had the DOJ bring a few WW2 battleships out of mothballs, with modern weaponry and electronics, at a major overall cost savings..."
Yes, and what a good idea that was.
In case you have forgotten there was the appalling incident onboard the USS Iowa BB61 on the 19th of April 1989 when the number 2 turret exploded killing 47 members of the crew. It later emerged that the ship was unsafe due to its age, this was aggravated by negligence on the part of members of the crew which led to a series of events that resulted in the detonation of the propellent charges due to over-ramming in the centre gun in turret 2.
The Navy then engaged in a series of cover ups falsely blaming Gunners Mate Clayton Hartwig for the explosion until evidence emerged of all the mistakes in the turret.
For a full explanation of this sorry affair I recommend reading A Glimpse of Hell by Charles C Thompson.
"...there is a strong temptation for software providers to boost user numbers by making the process easier."
Or in other words "Our needs are greater than your needs. Sod the security of your system, we must have more money." That's certainly one way to make friends and influence people.
And I don't mean in a positive way!
"...spent time at a US technology company"
Well I don't know about spending time at a US tech. company but I did work for one of the worlds largest US companies, although thinking about it, they do dabble in hi-tech areas. Anyway, I was working as as sysadmin at a call centre in Ireland when suddenly we were told that the contract for our services had been terminated and we would be replaced on site by workers from India. As you can imagine we were not happy about this and a bit of sleuthing by our managers teased out a few of the details. It turns out that in my case we were going to be replaced by three people doing two people's jobs for half the price. Now you might say that our service company had overcharged on the original contract but think of this. My colleague and I had built the system more or less from scratch. We knew all the little quirks and had it running like a Swiss watch. Yes, the system was fully documented and all the emergency procedures listed but as many will know that's not all it takes to keep a large setup running. You have to know the system and we did.
The result was, as I found out later, the place descended into chaos and the contract was terminated and new admins were brought in.
I had returned to the UK by then and my colleague had got another job in Ireland. So for the sake of some illusionary savings the work at the call-centre was badly disrupted and in the end the owners had to go back to square one.
I lost a job that I loved in a place that I really enjoyed and my colleague had to work at a site involving a good two hours drive from his home.
"...entering into perpetual contracts is not sound management, nor is there any justification for it."
Of course there is. To the people making unjustified profits from this little earner.
As to the competence of those involved. It has been proven over the years that they are only good at one thing: manipulating the system to benefit themselves. So why is this such a surprise?
This is a prime example of people with the the prerogative of the harlot . Power without responsibility.
You are not comparing like with like.
On the one hand you have adults with special interests and needs. On the other you have children with a lot to take in, much of which will be of no interest, with less maturity and possibly less mental development.
When I want to do research I much prefer to have a hard copy of the reference. I find it easier to use and with the added advantage that it will never run out of power and is usually a lot more robust in the area in which I use it.
I maybe not typical but this research is on to something.
"Musk's rocket firm will also demonstrate its abort systems in-flight, something Boeing plans to skip."
Yes, I agree. There seems to be theme developing with stuff from Boeing. It's as getting the thing out the door is far more important that getting the said thing to actually work properly. It might be different if one of the top brass from Boeing was ever likely to take a trip in one of these spacecraft.
"And now I know about these particular human rights abuses, which I didn't until today."
Then you must have been living under a rock for the last few years.
Look it's been 30 years since Tiananmen Square and things have not got any better since then. The Chinese Communist Party has control of what goes in and out of China via the internet and if these comments and actions did not meet the government's approval then they would not have happened. There is a thing called plausible deniability, trouble is, as far as the Chinese government is concerned their actions speak louder than words and any protestation by them that they had nothing to do with all this fuss will be treated with scorn.
"We take action if we detect any misuse."
Fine words butter no parsnips.
Do we have any assurance that NSO is actively looking for misuse or are they complacent and trust that their customers will abide by the rules?
It seems to me as if NSO is in the business of making as much money as they can and damn the consequences. As others here have said, how do these people sleep at night?
Or is it a case of "Ignorance is bliss"?
"Those are Elves. Gnomes are small and dirty."
It depends on which author uses the name "gnome". Tolkein being a philologist and professor of language knew that gnome originally meant one who has knowledge probably from the Greek "gnṓmē".
Tolkein used gnome as an early name for the Noldor as they were always searching for knowledge and new ways of working. Fëanor was the most accomplished of the Gnomes and I would not have described him as "small and dirty". Or at least, not to his face!
Other authors of course depict gnomes in other ways.
I'm somewhat surprised that anyone would consider using oracle as part of their trading name given the disrepute that Ellison's gang have brought the name into.
Who wants to have even the merest association with a company known for its litigiousness, sharp practice and general arrogance?
For other examples of the kind of overreach shown here I recommend taking a look at Techdirt. The people there have a long list of big corporations throwing their weight about and sometimes getting their arses kicked for pulling such stunts.
I hope that Oracle get their comeuppance for filing such a flimsy and frivolous attack.
"The operating system must be Windows 10 Pro. Windows Hello and Credential Guard must be used for secure sign-in and virtualization-based security."
Looks like lock-in to me.
It seems as if EUFI wasn't cutting it as many people have managed to work with it on non MS OSs so they are having another go. Putting lipstick on a pig, i.e. patching up the basic security flaws in Windows, is one thing, trying to go back to the old, tried and trusted methods of monopoly is another.
Like Terry Pratchett's leopard MS will never change its shorts.
Well, the best of luck with that.
I have a feeling that we will all be tripping over these little "gotchas" for the foreseeable future. Remember when we were told "Let's take back control". They didn't say that we were going to lose a lot of things that have been taken for granted over the last 40 plus years. did they?
So what's is "control" worth now we seem to be heading into the clammy clutches of Trump and co?
I agree with your opinion of sudo. It is the equivalent of leaving your front door key under the mat.
As it happens I use PCLinuxOS and Texstar holds even stronger views on the misuse of sudo and will not allow it near the distro, With su you have greater control over who can run as root and surely that must be a good thing.
Though looking at the downvotes not a lot of people agree.
"Have a maximum 15 years withdrawl period"
Well it may not be called a withdrawal period but leaving the EU is not the end of the process, it is just the start. When/if we leave there will have to be talks on a new set of trade deals and that is not going to be easy. If I recall correctly the treaty between Canada and the EU the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) took over seven years to negotiate, so a new EU UK trade agreement won't be signed any time soon.
So, your statement about fifteen years may be a bit pessimistic but not by much.
Funny how Johnson, Farage and co don't mention that in their demands for a "clean break."
I remember running around all the other people in the desktop support team I was in raving about this new search engine. When I first used it it was still in beta but even then it knocked its competitors into a cocked hat.
Alas how things have changed. I would not touch Google with a barge pole and try as far as possible to keep my data out of their clammy clutches. Though this is getting harder and harder.
Now I use Duckduckgo running under Palemoon, it may not keep Google at bay but it is a start.
"...but it's a clear improvement on dozens of text files."
Maybe, but at least with a text file you can actually read the bloody thing and see where the problem is. Or is systemd so infallible so as not to actually need human intervention?
Any thought of Linux moving to a Windows like registry system gives me the shudders, and yes when I was working I did know how the use regedit. I don't miss that at all.
We used to have a saying in the Army: " A corporal is a man who knows a little about a lot of things, everyday he learns more and more about less and less until eventually they make him a sergeant."
Seems as if it is also true within the groves of academe.
"...he got someone to open his replacement devices to see if they contained reused parts without an Apple engineer being present."
Which again begs the question: Who's 'phone is it anyway?
The next thing will be having a spy process running on the 'phone just to make sure that you are using it in a way that Apple approves of. Step outside the limits of what Apple demands and the 'phone shuts off until you have to speak to a "Genius" and probably get bollocked for breaking the rules.
Not for me.
"...the mission will place the spacecraft in a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon."
Excuse my ignorance but I thought that describing something as "rectilinear " meant that it had straight sides. Now the piece does qualify the statement as "near-rectilinear" but even so I can't see how a satellite is going to be able to turn corners in orbit without a huge expenditure of fuel.
I may be missing the point here but this does not make sense to me.
It seems as if MS has taken the old saying "You get what you paid for" to heart.
It looks to me as if the upper tiers at MS realised that there might be trouble in store when they broke the habits of a lifetime and actually gave Win 10 away for free. If there is no profit in continuing to develop Windows where is the incentive to pump money into the project?
I have never bought a new PC nor do I use Windows so I am unsure if there is still the "MS tax" being levied but if there is then I would be more than a little displeased at all the shenanigans going on with "Windows as a service."
The little bit of me that believes in conspiracies has suggested that Google might have a similar app in the works and does not want competition.
Now that is real tin-foil hat thinking and not to be taken seriously but with this sort of attitude it does get me wondering "What's in it for Google?"
Otherwise why not tell the dev. where he has transgressed and let him do something about it?
"...CA said just to pay, but TS ended up taking the company to court (for a clear breach of the law) and winning."
Ah but do remember the people at Citizens Advice are mostly unpaid volunteers who have to deal with a lot of problems like Universal Credit, housing issues and so on. When you deal with trading standards you are talking to the experts.
"Any use of similar technology in the future would be in accordance with National Museums Liverpool's standard operating procedures and with good practice guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office."
I would hope that they would also obey the law and keep within the GDPR. That little regulation seems to have slipped their mind. Must be thinking about higher things.
"It is not exactly clear how or why the consortium is using facial recognition, though."
Because they can.
It's another example of people getting all excited when they hear a new buzz-word like "blockchain". The upper management thinks "That looks like a good idea" and goes ahead with the plan without thinking. No-one seems to have given them the results of the tests on these systems though I find that strange given the fuss over the less than stellar performance of the Met's efforts. This lot obviously have more money than that they know what to do with and added this system like icing on a cake.
I do hope that the ICO gets to the bottom of this and if Argent have stepped outside the law is then given some form of punishment. I will not hold my breath waiting as it will probably be put down to "excess zeal" in keeping the place secure.
Aye, there's an old saying from I think the 19th century.
"Vote early, vote often."
Added to which you have personation where someone uses another persons vote and the good old standby ballot box stuffing.
Plenty of ways to rig an election if you want too. Alternatively you could try electing a head of government using only the votes from a tiny unrepresentative minority.
Wonder who just did that?
"Not sure about the Spitfire..."
You are right.
Some Mk.16s were stripped of paint post-war but they were left unpolished. That would have taken a lot of effort and is not needed.
What I object to is when the owners go mad with the polishing cloth and give the aircraft a finish that they would never have had. Yes, I am a purist when it comes to historic aircraft and I hate to see them end up looking like toys. It's disrespectful of their history and is more an expression of the owner's ego.
"Look, I've got shiny!"
Bah.
I have a l hatred for those aircraft that have been polished to within an inch of their lives, I detest it. These aircraft were utility and expendable, they were built to do a job and like a lot of military weapons were given the minimal amount of finish needed to protect them.
They are tools, not bloody pieces of jewellery and polishing up this aircraft is in my eyes a total travesty.
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