Posts by DanDanDan

Re: Only one option really...

I was right with you up until you started mentioning mathematical algorithms.

Re: I have looked

It was originally a set of patches, which have now been integrated into the core of the Linux kernel (since 2003). It's not really what I'd call a bolt-on.

Re: strange...

Gold is useful for manufacturing a number of electrical and electronic items. i.e. gold plated audio connectors, gold wire-bonding in silicon chips/devices, etc.

The fact that people also hoard them has caused these industries a huge surge in costs for no reasonable reason.

Re: I feel it in the air

"which permit anything standard and new purchased online to be returned, for ANY reason, within a specified amount of time."

The statutory period is 7 days, but it's important to note that not everything is included - e.g. Concert tickets, plane tickets, hotel reservations... there are probably many more examples.

I wish the above were covered though; my girlfriend recently selected the wrong date to fly by mistake (don't ask) and only spotted it after the email confirmation was made. She then had to pay more than the flight to get the date amended.

Re: The problem is that the current gen is still current

The problem is that if the PS4 had been released earlier, then GTAV would have been developed for the PS4, despite the PS3 being perfectly good enough for it. So the next set of games to be released, won't be available on the PS3...

Re: BBQ sauce from beer?

Watering down my BBQ sauce? No thanks...

What's wrong with Git?

I like git. It's not even difficult to use. You can even phase it in gradually (use only what you need and ignore the rest) and apply it retrospectively (with a single command in many cases!). I admit I don't use/need many of its advanced features (that I know about), but I'm yet to find anything that comes even close to its usability without totally ensnaring my entire project. If I want to leave Git at any point in the future, I'm confident it won't be an issue.

[sic]

Thank goodness for the [sic] tag; for a second there, I thought it was a genuine spelling error.

Re: Dangerous to users

The difference here is that IE6 was worse than bad. XP is possibly the best OS MS have ever made.

Re: If you get them young and you will have them for life

Your post was so well-edited that I can't tell if it's a troll or not.

1) People use what they are taught

2) Employers use what people know

3) We should teach people what Employers use

And if what the employers are using is second-rate how do you break the cycle?

I'm not sure whether it's the selling of the bitcoin or the intention to sell the bitcoin that would cause its value to crash. As with shares, it's the perceived expected value that determines the current value. This explains why markets can be so volatile.

Re: I prefer my ads...

I agree Trevor, but a good article would answer the questions you've posed and tackle the subject from both sides instead of pointing out all the pros and neglecting to mention any of the potential disadvantages. We'd be able to weigh up the pros and cons as suggested, if some of them were presented.

Re: Other ways to get a back door

Frankly, I'd be more worried if the code *didn't* contain comments as such. There's no such thing as perfect code. Sometimes what you're writing seems pretty damn good, but sometimes there's a question mark about the better approach to take to solving a problem or its organisation. "Does this belong here" is a perfectly good comment to place by code. A more experienced coder may see the comment and think "Hmmm, no, I'll move it elsewhere and explain in the commit message my reasoning". Without the comment, probably no-one is going to review it and it'll be left there forever.

Given that "perfect" code is a highly subjective affair and given that time constraints exist, the search for perfection is fairly futile and not productive. "Better" is better than "Not better", so if a clear improvement is there to be made, subject to one or two doubts, it should be implemented, with a comment explaining the doubts so it can be picked up for further improvement down the line.

Re: Why?

"it's actually handy having a setup where one part or other of BT is responsible from end to end"

It's actually preferable having a setup where no part of BT is responsible for any part from end to end, which is why I've switched BOTH my home phone and broadband away from them. If only openreach were as impartial as they should be/claim to be.

Re: spanner

LOL, sorry to burst your alternate reality bubble but Miranda had a solicitor present throughout the interview

"Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been widely criticised for giving police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable suspicion – setting it apart from other police powers.

Those stopped have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal offence to refuse to co-operate with questioning under schedule 7, which critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence."

Quotes from the grauniad article on this matter. He was offered an interpreter, which he accepted, but he never got one. "He was offered a lawyer and a cup of water, but he refused both because he did not trust the authorities."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-interview-detention-heathrow

Hi rel

Overstressing can be as simple as a temperature increase, which has been shown to be exponentially related to mean time to failure.

Re: Don't feed the trolls

Nice try... I was beginning to think you were genuine for a second there

Re: "spherically one-dimensional system"

Why do they call it one-dimensional, when in fact there are 3, but 2 are unimportant. That's quite a big distinction in my mind!

Re: Democracy is no base of success

"That'd make so many parents lives so much easier."

- Which is, after all, what education is for right? What would we do if kids were treated like kids and allowed to bond with their parents and enjoy life outside the school walls. Playing games? Pah! That's for weakling westerners!

Re: To be fair to MS...

This article is saying much the same as I said in the comments to an article back in February:

"Unfortunately, as well as eating itself, it also splits and forks itself. Web servers has always been a FOSS stronghold. Everywhere else that counts is full of crap competition: KDE vs Gnome - developer show-offs leading to no winners. LibreOffice vs OpenOffice - no winners due to diluted development.

Yes it's one of the best things that you can fork a project if it heads in the wrong direction, but it also dilutes development effort trying to do 10 things at once."

That comment received 6 thumbs up and 16 down. Diluting the developer effort is, according to this article, Microsoft's strategy. Funny that.

Re: LINUX - Server.....sure, data centre...maybe, desktop...don't hold your breath

***Yawn*** - not another "Linux on the desktop" debate.... Please go back under your bridge and wait for a Patents article - far easier to disturb the flames..

Re: The future of home computing

I'm sure this is just a satirical jibe at the met office, but something sciency in me compells me to inform you that the mathematics of chaos, not the ineptitude of the met office, is the reason they can't predict the weather.

What the met office actually do is run a large number of simulations, all with perturbations from the current weather situation and determine the probability of certain events. E.g. say they run 20 simulations and it rains in 15 of them, then they say there's a 75% chance of rain. This was taken away from our TV weather reports because people are stupid and don't what that means. So they say "It will rain today". Then, when it's bright sunshine (as predicted in 25% of the simulations), people say "blah blah, crap forcasters!" and laugh.

Re: Well, while we're being pedantic...

Well, if pedantry is the game, how about the fact that this planet is 3 times larger than earth? Since when was 3 times bigger "similarly sized"? If my clone was 3 times larger than me, someone would say the cloning process had failed fundamentally.

Re: what do you expect them to do

You can't tax sales, that's ridiculous. You tax profits. Which is what we're trying to do. But the issue is people are lying about their profits with loopholes. So we need to close the loopholes.

"Who is to say that someone won't come up with a new theory that explains the physics better and simultaneously breaks QC?"

All of modern electronics is based on the physical theories we have today. Who's to say that the new theory won't break that too? Maybe all current implementations of AES, DES, etc. will be proven breakable when implemented using our current understanding of how electrons behave?