* Posts by SiempreTuna

171 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Nov 2011

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Defra recruiting 1,400 policy wonks to pick up the pieces after Brexit

SiempreTuna

Re: Brexit

Which newspapers do you read? The Daily Fail? The Murdoch rags? The papers that propagated all the lies and bile spewed by the Brexit campaign, maybe? Y'know the lies and utter bollocks that started falling apart the morning of the result - literally.

How about reading something that's even remotely interested in the truth, y'know, for a change?

For anyone interested in reality, it is now certain that, best case, Brexit is an utter disaster. Unfortunately, the incompetents in charge of negotiating Brexit seem determined to turn that disaster into a calamity.

Why on earth should remainers shut up? The racist* moron's who campaigned for Brexit told everyone that they were going to keep campaigning when they though the result was going against them: why would those with decency, common and sense, intelligence, a relationship with reality and the interests of the country not do the same?

Somewhere down the line, we need to wake up and stop this nonsense before it's too late.

* I campaigned for Remain and spoke to many, many Brexit voters and racism was the ONLY thing that mattered to them.

Nokia's comeback is on: The flagship 8 emerges

SiempreTuna

Re: No wireless charging? No sale.

I guess it's whatever rocks your boat. For me, the 2 seconds wireless charging saves me by not needing to plug in a cable is totally meh. I completely fail to see the point. Like you, I also love the speed my 5X charges via USB-C.

But that's just me and I probably have different priorities to many. For instance, I'd definitely trade the split screen video and fancy sound on the Nokia for toilet-drop-waterproofing. The number of times I'm at a rock concert (zero) versus the number of times I've dropped a phone in the loo (two) makes waterproofing an infinitely (literally) more useful feature.

Reborn Nokia phones biz loses its head

SiempreTuna

Why Nokia died?

Simple: they hung on to their utterly obsolete Symbian o/s just long enough to destroy their sales and their credibility then - unbelievably - jumped into bed Microsoft and adopted the next-worst phone OS, Windows (if you think it's pants now you shoulda seen it then).

If they'd bitten the bullet and gone Android within a year of the iPhone coming out, they'd still be right up there, but they couldn't come to terms with the fact the phone o/s world had left them behind and they were never going to be able to control it again.

EU stay or leave?

SiempreTuna

Stay - Obvs. Anything else would be daft

The EU currently accounts for around 60% of our international trade and that is due to rise to 75% after TTIP is signed and the US (15% of our trade) joins along with the rest of NAFTA. We therefore have absolutely no choice but to make a trade deal with the EU.

If we want to trade with the EU, we will have to do so under the EU's terms - one it's key raisons d'etre is to give it clout in trade negotiations. Our best conceivable option would be a deal like Norway's. Norway currently has a higher compliance with EU rules and regulations than any other country - yes, including every EU country. It's also one of the biggest net contributors to the EU budget.

Why did the eejits say they want to leave the EU again ..?

The idea that we're so big and important the EU will have to give us some exceptional deal is so much baloney: we may be the world's 5th biggest economy now but we indisputably won't by the time we leave. Scotland and her oil will be long gone and the Welsh - if they have any sense at all - will be close behind.

Common sense would dictate that Northern Ireland would also leave the UK and unite with Eire but of course, this is NI: given they almost went back to war last year over a rag on a stick (sorry, flag over a council building), it would be a pretty fair assumption that one side insisting the country sign an economic suicide pact with England would kick start the troubles again.

Then there's UKIP nonsense about returning to some mythical pre-EEC economic dominance. Complete and utter rubbish. Our economy enjoyed a brief uptick after WWII because the world was rebuilding and would buy anything. That was long over by the late 60s and unlike before the war, we no longer had the world's biggest empire that we could force to buy our goods.

What people appear to forget is that our pre-EEC position was on our knees begging the EEC to let us in - as we had been for much of the previous decade while de Gaulle delighted in telling us where to go. Does anyone really think Ted Heath got the deal he did negotiating from a position of strength? Our position was so weak, the EEC negotiators were taking the mickey, throwing in last minute changes just because they could.

The only thing that's changed is that the EU is way more powerful than it was then - and is about to be joined by the world's greatest economic power, the US of A.

Which I think leaves one argument the eejits make for leaving the EU: migration.

Here's a shocker: migration's actually really good for us. Even if you ignore the looming demographic crisis (remember that?), pretty much every serious study shows that immigration is good for the economy. Look at ours: we've had record EU immigration over the last 2 or 3 years and our growth has been among the highest of the developed countries and unemployment has been falling fast.

Then there's another short term benefit of EU migration: the effect on our current account deficit.

Our deficit means that on average, each non-immigrant costs the government £9,000 per year - i.e. the government pays out £9K more for us than it receives in tax from us.

Non-EU immigrants cost slightly more.

EU migrants though, are generally, young, well educated and hard working. Consequently, they actually CONTRIBUTE an average of £7,000 per person, i.e. they pay £7K more in taxes than they cost.

Given our current account deficit is one of the worst in the world - yes: it's now worse than the US, Greece, Spain or Eire - we can't afford not to have the EU migrants.

Staying in really is a no brainer - as just about every opponent admirably demonstrates (apart maybe from Boris, who is clearly putting self interest ahead of the country's interests - he's even said he wants to use an out vote to stay in but with a better deal - that deal being he gets to be PM, apparently).

Between you, EE and the lamppost ... this UK cell network is knackered

SiempreTuna

Appalling!

Yet another appalling outage that I knew nothing about.

They should tell me when my service isn't working - I can't be expected to notice it all by myself!

Has Europe cut the UK adrift on data protection?

SiempreTuna

Re: Democracy

"Looks like yet more evidence of how undemocratic and tyrannical the EU is"

What part of democracy do you not understand? We are in a minority of one: in a democracy, that means we lose.

Further, we're threatening to leave and our government is doing everything it can to engineer that exit, so from a purely pragmatic point of view: why waste time on us? Particularly when we're esssentially just another lobbyist for business interests with zero concern for our citizens' interests?

SiempreTuna

Losing Data Protection rights will be the least of our troubles if we leave the EU.

The world is dividing into increasingly large and powerful trading groups - next year, the EU and NAFTA will effectively join to create the largest and most powerful trading group (ironically, the EU's lead negotiators in crafting the deal have been we Brits). Leaving this new grouping will leave us out in the cold, economically and diplomatically.

The idea that we will be gifted favourable trading terms on exit from the EU is nonsense: why would EU leaders, who want to discourage other countries from leaving the EU, go out of their way to make life easy for the first high profile country to leave? Where's the benefit for them? They hold all the power in any future relationship: between them, the US and EU account for around 70% of our international trade. We account for a tiny percentage of theirs. Clearly, they matter way more to us than we do to them.

Mozilla keeps its Beard, hopes anti-gay marriage troubles are now over

SiempreTuna

Re: Mozilla Lost Me

"Then there is the issue of differentiating between gay unions and gay marriage. We had equality in the UK, but still the gay lobby pushed through legislation to call gay unions "marriage". That's not a rights or benefits issue, that's social engineering. "

If you don't agree with same-sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex. What other people choose to do is none of your f****** business.

Small minded, petty prejudice does not give anyone the right to affect the happiness of others, even if they do find them offensive. Unless of course, you're claiming a new right? In which case, if you get that right, so do i and using mine to veto the happiness of obnoxious bigots because I find them totally offensive.

Before you even go there, forget religious objections, too: marriage is and always has been a civil institution - even Luther admitted that - that pre-dates any current religion. It will doubtless be around when the current lot are but a distant memory.

Another good skill to have --- Understanding the business you work for.

SiempreTuna

I did some work for the Japanese part of global SAP roll out for a US mutlinational. Everythin ran on servers in the US. For some reason, the system kept going down around lunchtime in Tokyo .. because everything was taken down at midnight US time for backups

Not so much knowing your business as how the globe affects your global system

World Meteorological Organization says climate data is uncool

SiempreTuna

Globally, 9 of the 10 hottest years ever recorded have been in the 21st century and 2013 was 37th consecutive year the yearly global temperature was above average (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/13) .

Even if you accept that, in one country there was some marginal cooling .. so what?

It's not like that country's on a separate planet.

Really, grow up and accept reality.

SiempreTuna

Re: Ministry of Truth demand more LIES....

[cough]bollocks[/cough]

So, what exactly defines a 'boffin'? Speak your brains...

SiempreTuna

Did I miss the mentions of Alan Turing and Stephen Hawking ..?

My brother went to a lecture by Stephen Hawking. Claims he understood everything up to and including "Can you hear me at the back?".

Klingon and Maori roar into 'mutt's nuts' dictionary

SiempreTuna

What does el Reg have against Spanish?

Cojones de Pero

I happen to be going to e-Spain tomorrow where I fully intended to confirm the precise reaction it gets. Former efforts at translating English idioms - cabeza de tortuga (requred a visual hint) and tocar algodón (self explanatory .. in context) - went down well. Not quite so confident about this one.

Our Reg reader 'mutt's nuts' dictionary is le chien's biens

SiempreTuna

Re: Wot no e-Spanish?!

Just been reliably informed that the Spanish would be 'cojones de perro' - and that it wouldn't anything to a Spaniard

SiempreTuna

Wot no e-Spanish?!

I'm guessing it would be something like cojones de un pero .. though I'm sure no Spaniard would have a clue what you're talking about.

Most Americans doubt Big Bang, not too sure about evolution, climate change – survey

SiempreTuna

Now Cameron's pushing a US-style religious agenda here, how long until a majority of Brits join the tin hat brigade. It's not like we're immune: look at how many have been taken in by the anti-climate change fruit cakes.

MIT boffins moot tsunami-proof floating nuke power plants

SiempreTuna

.. Fukishima Residents Never Allowed Home?

.. didn't el Reg have any number of articles around the time of Fukishima assuring us that it was all being blown out of proportion and that actually, it was all about as dangerous as wearing a glow in the dark watch?

Not just websites hit by OpenSSL's Heartbleed – PCs, phones and more under threat

SiempreTuna

"the real benefits of stretching what is possible from an engineering standpoint have already been realized"

From a business standpoint they need to up the payload to carry a bunch of cameras and a couple of hellfire missles - then the money'll roll in!

Gay marriage foes outraged at Mozilla CEO flap, call for boycott

SiempreTuna

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 16

Yes, marriage is a human right and has been recognised as such for nearly 66 years. And there is nothing in article 16 about the parties having to be of different genders.

If you don't like same sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex. What anyone else does is none of your ******* business.

As for Eich: his free speech rights entitle him to support bigotry, mine entitle me to boycott companies that support him.

It's not just right wing bigots who have rights - despite the current Supreme Court's best efforts.

Reg slips claws across Nokia's sexy sixties handsets, fondles flagship too

SiempreTuna

Sub Fail ..

.. again

Somebody betting a WP article wouldn't be read ..?

Dear Reg: What is a 'Lag' and a 'Jacksey'?

SiempreTuna

Re: Oh Cecilia!

I down on my knees

I'm begging you please

To STFU and stop embarrassing yourself

Plusnet goes titsup for spectacular hour-long wobble

SiempreTuna

Been with PlusNet for around 18 months and so far they've been fine. I had a few issues with a dodgy profile after they switched me to unlimited but the support was excellent and got things sorted in a couple of days.

The router they supplied is a bit basic (though still WAY better than the one TalkTalk provided) but what can expect for under £7/month for an unlimited, 12.5mbps service? I keep meaning to buy a better router but I somehow never seem to get around to it.

Woz he talking about? Apple co-founder wants iPhones to run Android

SiempreTuna

Excellent Idea!

.. my rear-wheel drive Beemer's a total nightmare in the snow!

.. re Woz: right idea, wrong company - and timing. Should have been three years ago and Nokia

Nudge Unit flies into Nesta's arms: Is the hype justified?

SiempreTuna

Re: More like the coercion unit

Err .. no.

Their biggest success - which effectively paid the cost of the unit for it's first 3 years - was looking at how to encourage people to pay their tax bill on-time. The research - which was all about what is the best 'design' so the article kinda seems to have missed the point here - looked at various methods and came up with some slightly personalised messages that pointed out the fact that 90-odd % of people in whatever location the recipient lived, pay their taxes on time.

Nothing really creepy or weird about it: it simply trying to find the least intrustive but effective way to resolve problems.

Having said that, I'm not sure how many other successes they've had, but presumably as an independent body, they could now be paid on results .. they won't be, coz that would set a very bad example for government initiatives, but in theory, they could.

F*** you very much Google.

SiempreTuna

.. or use a different mail app. I have my gmail go to the regular mail app on my Nexus 4. Works fine.

Tell us we're all doomed, MPs beg climate scientists

SiempreTuna

Really people: take the tin hats off. Man made Climate Change is real. I know it's kinda scary and it will involve some costs (though also plenty of benefits), but pathetically attempting to deny reality isn't going to help. Try just dealing with it it - it's not that hard.

Data caps be damned, AT&T says providers can pay for mobile broadband

SiempreTuna

Sub Fail ..

.. or Google translate?

Somebody's clearly having a bad morning

Microsoft wields turkey knife, slices Surface to $199 for Black Friday

SiempreTuna

£122 + VAT?

Under £150? I'd buy one!

Don't really want or need a tablet - if I did, I could use the missus' iPad - but also can't resist a deal ;)

But when they demand almost double what they do in the states - suddenly start to hate 'em

Cow flatulence, gas emissions much worse than thought - boffins

SiempreTuna

Reality Denier Gas Collectors

I'm sure we can MacGyver something out of the climate change / reality deniers' tin hats that would not only capture all that hot but also cut the volume of their delusional nonsense

Hello Warsaw: Greenland ice loss will be OK 'even under extreme scenarios'

SiempreTuna

The Science IS Settled ..

.. questions remain about what the specific affects will be, but Climate Change is real.

Only fully paid up members of the Tin Hat Brigade continue to deny it and they should be dismissed with the utter contempt they deserve. Really, grow up: reality isn't going to change because you don't like it.

Goodbye cruel world: Robot 'commits suicide' in KITCHEN FIREBALL

SiempreTuna

ROTM - suicide bomber! Be scared. Be very scared.

El avión Buitre 2 rinde homenaje a nuestros amigos españoles

SiempreTuna

Re: It's all in foreign.

Actually, it's also how my Spanish mother-in-law attempts to make me understand her

Personally, I prefer the adding-'o'-to-the-end-of-the-word approach ..

Virgin Media to hike broadband prices by nearly 7 per cent

SiempreTuna

Virgin raising prices by only 7%?!

We were with them for 2.5 years on a TV/BB/phone deal and in that time they doubled the amount we were paying - and reduced the number of channels in the package. Talk about short termism: I'll never use them again.

Google's Nexus 5: Best smartphone bang for your buck. There, we said it

SiempreTuna

"If you are an existing Android user you'd be happy if Santa dropped one down your chimney"

I'd be livid: that screen's not replaceable!

None of the lucky owners have mentioned reception: the service around my way is dire and my Nexus 4 really struggles - as in: rarely gets a signal. The missus' iP5s is way better (it pains me to admit): just wondering if trading up to an N5 would help ..?

Z30: The classiest BlackBerry mobe ever ... and possibly the last

SiempreTuna

.. and all they need to do to sell boat loads is produce an Android version ..

It's completely incomprehensible - and utterly deplorable, if you're unfortunate enough to be a shareholder - that the Canucks didn't do that 4 years ago. And at this point, really: what have they got to lose?

Everything's going to be all white: Google Nexus 5 mobe expected Friday

SiempreTuna

“how often do you spot a given device on the London Underground”

Not too useful for spotting the 5s of course, given it is virtually indistinguishable from the 5 - to the extent that my missus picked up her old 5 yesterday and didn't realise her mistake until hours later when she tried to make a call and realised the phone had no SIM ..

How to spot a coders comment

SiempreTuna

I worked with a guy once who never commented code because "it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand".

His boss went completely the other way: she was converting code from one tool to another and in the middle of the most important section she had a comment "Didn't understand this bit so left it out" - so comments instead of code. What could possibly go wrong ..?

Get your mitts greasy with FREE hands-on Windows Azure training

SiempreTuna

Download - yes, please!

Y'know, for those of us who actually work for a living ..

Google lifts skirts, reveals Play All Access to UK market

SiempreTuna

Re: UK vs Euro pricing

I don't see how tax and consumer law justifies Google charging very nearly double in the UK (£9.99) compared to the US ($8 / £5.16) - that's daylight robbery. They clearly think Brits are too thick and / or too insular to know what the prices are elsewhere and to be able to apply the appropriate exchange rate.

Not that I would ever spend money on a music service given the vast variety of free, themed radio stations on t'interweb already.

New Google Maps colours

SiempreTuna

Not really. Noticed that it's different to what it used be, but couldn't actually remember how it was before. Also hadn't thought about it not matching other UK mapping conventions, but I guess that's hardly surprising, given it's American :D

Still struggling to see where the traffic's bad - I find the red road thing is a bit hit and miss .. but that could just be me.

'First' 3D-printed rifle's barrel splits after single shot

SiempreTuna

Re: One up the spout!

"igniting a bullet's" is a shortening of "igniting a bullet is".

Err .. so "Adam's mistake" actually mean that Adam is a mistake ..?

Android sig vuln exploit SEEN IN THE WILD

SiempreTuna

OEMs?

....its availability depends on whether the OEM has shipped the new code through carriers to end users

Err .. I have a Nexus - so my updates come direct from Google - and according to the information on the phone, it hasn't been updated since January. What happened to this update in March?

Asterix rules!

SiempreTuna

Asterix v TinTin? No Contest!

.. Asterix knocks him clean out of .. Gaul (with the help of the magic potion, of course)

Don't know how good the English translations are, but even with my very flaky French, the originals are absolutely hilarious. And they haven't dated one iota - I've been a fan since I lived in Bxl (home of TinTin) as a kid. TinTin, on the other hand is so dated it's hard to take sometimes - that sort of casual racism just doesnt' wash these days.

Insufficient Storage Available - El Reg should investigate!

SiempreTuna

Wrong Storage

Sounds like you have plenty of 'storage' (space for photos, mp3s and the like) available but not enough 'memory' (space apps install into).

It is possible to allocate more of your internal storage for apps however you will need to root your device. For more information, check out a forum like http://androidforums.com - they'll have a section for your device with lots of information on rooting and re-allocating space.

Google battery drain.

SiempreTuna

I guess they fixed this in 4.2.2 as I don't have the issue, however you could try disabling any apps that you don't want running but can't remove (Settings .. Apps)

You might also try other standard battery conservation stuff:

- turning off location services

- turning off sync and any radios you're not using (see Power Widget)

and since this doesn't cover everything:

- turn off / increase times between syncs for things like e-mail, facebook, news and weather widgets etc

- setting screen brightness to auto - or just lowering it

- reduce the screen timeout time

Galaxy S4 way faster than iPhone 5: Which?

SiempreTuna

Re: so what?

Quite. Phones have reached the stage PCs did around 10 years ago: they're fast enough for anything a regular user wants with the possible exception of high end gaming.

I have an N4 and the missus has an iP5. I find her screen way too small, she hates Android. Never noticed any difference in speed in every day usage. These numbers are going to change anybody's mind about what to buy as their next phone.

Samsung hiring students to post negative HTC one comments online?

SiempreTuna
Joke

Don't know but it sounds like fun: how do enrol? :D

Ding! Dong! —the witch is dead!

SiempreTuna

Not quite sure I would call destroying the entire industrial base in order to beat the unions 'right' exactly ..

In the 70s we at least had the real economy plus the 'invisible' economy (basically the city gamblers). The Thatcher legacy is that we now have an 'economy' that's equal parts city gamblers and property-related Ponsey scheme.

Weird interview questions

SiempreTuna

At one interview, I was grilled by 10 interviewers each firing really, really tough technical questions at me. I was doing OK-ish, then we got to one that left me totally flumoxed. I said I had no idea and asked what the answer was. They said they didn't know: all the questions were about problems they'd failed to solve. Guess the one that beat me was crucial coz I didn't get the job.

Re a question about my attitude to diversity in an interview for a govt job: I answered with a list of previous girl friends. Got that job.

Heard about the following:

Q: what would you pitch to your previous employer to increase our sales to them by 15%

A: (long meandering reply)

Q: if you were the buyer at your previous employer, would you be convinced by that?

A: No

At least they were honest.

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