Possibly the name itself
Maybe the two 8s next to each other triggered an overzealous algorithm?...
174 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jul 2010
"“We hope that Project Amber will act as a showcase of what can be achieved by local authorities working in partnership with the supply chain to achieve lower whole life costs in highway maintenance through the use of surface treatments,”
WTF is wrong with "We hope Project Amber will demonstrate how repairs can be carried out more cheaply"? Anything has to be better than that rambling orgasm of manglement speak.
Even "Tech's cheaper, innit" leaves a less putrid taste in the mouth than that pretentious bollox.
Whilst the mucky-mucks at the FBI etc might tech illiterate and maybe only risen to the top by virtue of the Peter Principle, I am certain there is a huge army of some of the best tech minds in their employ.
Is it beyond imagination that they have actually cracked the security? What better way to slurp data from important suspects than by ensuring they use something widely known to be impenetrable?
To ensure the high profile crims use that "impenetrable" device just kick off a high profile case every now and then, which they hope to lose because it so obviously flies in the face of what the "Land of the Free" (wish we had a sarcostrophe ) stands for.
Wasn't there a tinfoil hat icon at one point?
""Notepad++ is seriously showing its age"
For example ?"
Perhaps because it has a usable, intuitive menu (a throwback to the era of usable UIs, when they reached their peak of perfection, before Ribbons messed it all up).
Perhaps because it is fast, extensible, lightweight and useful?
Or maybe just because it's not in the Cloud with built in AI and a mobile app?
"Conversely, the least safe states and cities - such as Chicago - have extremely strict gun laws."
You very much can argue with cherry picked statistics. Correlation <> Causation
I would imagine that in genteel old New Hampshire, there was little gun crime anyway, compared to the mean streets of Chicago. I suspect they have tried to tighten gun control to cut the pre-existing problem.
Disclaimer: I am not a USAian, so not personally familiar with either place. Maybe outside popular TV and movies New Hampshire is really a hot bed of gang activity and Chicago is really a peaceful garden city populated entirely by retired lawyers tending their rose gardens.
"A subscription model would do it, but how many eejits - even the sort that seem to fall for these things all the time - would fall for "pay us £5 per year per light switch"?"
A similar number to the number of eejits with more money than sense who bought the shite in the first place probably.
"Um, sorry but that's not a Windows problem, it's a hardware problem...."
Which all sounds like an ill-informed enthusiast with apparently little knowledge of all the additional processes, policies, configuration etc required in a large business.
Certainly a bog standard PC World PC will boot fast. It doesn't have to connect and authenticate potentially many disparate systems, that's what takes the time.
"And after some experience with such materials, all I can say is "They're right bastards to machine"
Amen to that, not sure what would be worse, big old turbine blades or the 3mm diameter, hollow, tapered to a razor edge metal to glass seals I used to have to machine to 5 micron tolerances in a former life.
All this "smart" shit wouldn't be quite so bad if it actually fucking worked!
I use Amazon music on my phone after being mugged into getting Prime, and it's hooked up to one of those el-cheapo bluetooth to FM transmitters in the fag lighter. So far so good.
Amazon app, "Alexa play such and such" - works ok(ish) unless it's feeling un-cooperative (try getting it to play Count Basie without it saying "can't find count bessie").
Bluetooth FM jobby mic works exceptionally well, crystal clear on a phone call, so why the hell can't I say "Alexa, play such and such" when the app is merrily playing music on my locked phone in the car. That voice control would actually be useful. WTF is the point if I have to have phone unlocked and in my hand!
Similarly, Android itself won't do anything useful by voice control when locked in the car, but mention google in conversation to a colleague when it's locked on your desk and up it chimes with "No search results" or similar.
Ill conceived, useless shiny bullshit.
I'd rather see replacements for the stock marketing images of be-suited, diverse, tie-less "professionals" smiling and pointing at a laptop in a glass-encased conference room.
These seem to appear everywhere, in every context imaginable. I want to poke the eyes out of the phony, smug, gurning imbeciles. Has anyone ever attended an IT-type meeting like that?
Sabroni, you're barking up the wrong tree with me. I have absolutely nothing against invention and progress but I despise marketing.
Foldable/bendable/rollable screen tech is genuinely groundbreaking and I salute them, it's far more advanced than most of the bullshit app, IoT etc development that is heralded as "innovative".
I can see a multitude of genuinely useful applications for the technology and I get that without marketing to drones who lap it up, the money will not be there to actually make it work well enough. So I am torn.
Personally I would not ever need one, I do still miss having a phone with a decent size screen and real qwerty buttons to type quickly, but I know I am unusual there.
"Another solution...
...in search of a problem.
Does anyone genuinely want a folding phone? "
Totally agree with your sentiment, however I am sure that very few people do actually /need/ a folding phone, but many millions will genuinely /want/ one, because they will have been told they do. That seems the general MO of any marketing these days.
When the marketing is really good, these drones genuinely believe they need it too.
"It is yet to be seen how these vendettas and relationships would impact Trump's thinking on the matter – or if they would even factor in to the President's decision making at all."
As far as the orange fascist is able to think, his gossamer-thin skin generally seems to suggest those are the only factors ever considered when any thought process more complicated than a desire for a Coke is coaxed into life.
Exactly. Recent technological advances have mainly been "soft" or incremental improvement of much older advances - hanging from the nasal hairs of giants, rather than standing on their shoulders. Especially in computing.
Materials have advanced considerably, but air transport has largely got slower, bigger and more economical, where are the huge strides like Concorde, Blackbird etc.
These days it's ALL about profit. Everything is designed down to a cost by a committee of bean-counters, visionary engineers cannot thrive.
Very occasionally there is a huge breakthrough in something, but most of the breathlessly announced "groundbreaking" tech I've seen lately have been slightly rehashed old ideas, dusted off or rediscovered by a disruptor with a flair for marketing.
If they discover an untapped wealth of useful minerals on Mars then we will see people working there in 10 years. Otherwise it's unlikely anyone will even set foot on it for 50. Unless China, or any other recently wealthy country wants to make a point.
"If he were to attempt to stay, that freedom to bear arms suddenly makes sense (although I really doubt even Trump would be stupid enough to try and stay in power)."
I was sort of thinking the same thing, that is (sort of) one of the reasons for that being in the constitution, as I understand it from here in the UK anyway.
The problem is, most of the gun-totin' fraternity, the ones with the biggest firepower anyway, are likely to be firmly entrenched in Camp Trump.
Anyway, we are likely going to have our own civil war to worry about instead soon, if the Brexit nonsense keeps up any longer.
Glad to be of assistance. It's about the only radio station I listen to now.
Always an Eclectic mix and usually interesting. I would happily pay my TV licence solely to keep Radio 4 going unchanged.
Seems to be last place where complex and emotive issues can be truly discussed without generating a Twitter storm that anyone should dare think outside or question Groupthink. The Moral Maze frequently has "did they really just say that?" moments.
Couldn't agree more. Maybe the tide will turn back soon, I would hope that the decision makers might like programmes like Radio 4's "In Business".
The episode last night mentioned research into why even open plan is a totally shit idea (they were more polite of course)
Link in case anyone wants an interesting listen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051qt