Posts by Tom Welsh
822 posts • joined Monday 2nd July 2007 16:10 GMT
Re: More and better support for 64-bit ARM chips
"Because no household name OEM ships GNU/Linux consumer machines."
And of course you can't buy a computer from any vendor except a "household name". Oh wait, you could buy ANY COMPUTER at all, format the hard drive, and install Linux.
Or, if you are competent and that way inclined, you could build your own. Complete instructions in your friendly local W.H.Smug (or wherever).
Re: Look at the track record
"The people with political power and weapons kill more innocent victims than the people who only have the weapons."
By 4 orders of magnitude - conservatively. As a general rule, governments are the only terrorist organizations on Earth - everything else is just background static.
Re: @Matt Bryant "Israel... has the right to self-defence"
"That must have been the reason Hitler invaded Poland. Self Defense".
Actually, truer than you may realise. Hitler personally announced that Polish forces had crossed the German border, and that was why Germany was at war with Poland. Throughout history, hardly any ruler has started a war of aggression without nobly declaring that it is a necessary defensive effort forced upon him by the overwhelming threat from merciless, inhuman, destructive enemies.
The worst of it is that, quite often, it's true. Historians are still trying to decide whether, if Hitler hadn't attacked the USSR in 1941, Stalin would have attacked Germany just a few weeks later.
Re: Israel's naked selfishness is gross to behold
Funny that, if you utter the slightest criticism of anyone Jewish, the state of Israel, or its government, you are rebuked as an "anti-Semite" and hence a racist.
Yet people like Asher Pat can reel off lists of all the wonderful things Jewish people have done, and all their unrivalled gifts to civilisation, without being accused of racism.
Isn't racism the singling out of a particular racial group (assuming that there even is such a thing) in ANY way at all?
"pendentrary"
Now that is pure gold!
Re: Israel's naked selfishness is gross to behold
"They have the backing of the US because of the strong influencial Jewish vote in America."
And, it seems, because they have America by the balls through having designed (and perhaps inserted backdoors in) all the Intel chips that keep the US government, industry, and banking alive.
Just think of all the fuss about Huawei recently...
Re: Mr Hawking, you should listen to “Palestinian academics”
"At the same time, how would you feel if your land was invaded, house bulldozed, and the invading force kept building settlements on your land?"
AND anyone who complained or resisted was shot in cold blood? (And then called a "terrorist" because, of course, the righteous Israeli forces would never harm anyone who wasn't a terrorist).
Re: Mr Hawking, you should listen to “Palestinian academics”
One more rather important contribution, jonathanb: our very word "alcohol" is of Arabic derivation.
Re: Executive orders are policy of all executive branch agencies
"It's like he's Schizo or something".
Or a skilful and shameless practitioner of the Big Lie.
"The great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil ... therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big".
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1971; original version 1925), Vol. 1, chapter 10, p.231
U-turn?
"Obama orders gov data must be 'open and machine-readable'..."
Isn't that what Bradley Manning and Julian Assange got into trouble for?
Plus ca change
"The mass of the public will never realise they've been robbed."
They never do. Classic examples include inflation (robbing those who have savings in order to favour debtors - including government of course) and the banksters' grab for cash.
Re: Use too much Leccy? We will turn you off
"If you switch off a boiler or an electric heater for a short time, the effects will be limited..."
... to the old person who then dies of hypothermia.
Re: Whilst I can see the value..... @PatientOne
"And with any private company, it always comes down to money."
Sadly, the same applies to government. Any organization lives on money, and its top priority is to secure its supplies and get more if possible.
Re: Whilst I can see the value.....@TheBig Yin
"The EU tree huggers believe that if you have a real time energy or cost display, you'll use less power..."
In my own case, that is completely untrue. My little Owl meter tells me, more or less, how much power my house is consuming every minute of the day and night - and also how much it costs. But my consumption has not falledn since I installed the meter. That's because, like any sensible person, I have never used any more electricity than I needed.
Re: Whilst I can see the value.....
"You claim that something that costs the utility company (such as a smart meter) is really costing me.
"But surely this means that something that saves a utility company money (such as not needing to employ meter readers) saves me money too?"
Wow, you really do NOT understand how business works, do you? Have you ever heard the expression, "Heads I win, tails you lose?" That more or less sums up the spirit of business.
To fix your flawed formulation: something that costs the utility companies is really costing the consumer. But something that saves a utility company money saves the utility company money. If the consumers are lucky, it won't cost them anything.
In the same way that, when banks took insane risks and raked in massive profits, they kept all the profits. But when their insane risks inevitably resulted in massive, banruptcy-scale losses... the consumer (er, taxpayer) bailed them out. There really is a pattern here.
Comprende?
Well named: it's a serious erra
First they came for the photographers...
Re: "Have you ever uploaded a photo to Facebook, Instagram or Flickr?"
"Out of interest, how much did that cost you?"
Well, you can buy a good quality 3TB hard drive for under £100. You can protect your 3TB of data with RAID for, say, under £500. Sounds a bargain to me.
Re: So in other words (warning, Heretical thinking within)
"Actually you don't know that the 'regulation failure' you've been told is happening isn't actually normal."
If you believe in Gaia or some similar theory, the "regulation failure" could very plausibly be a regulation response intended to remove the source of a disturbance to the equilibrium. Like a sleeping elephant swatting a fly with its trunk.
Re: Hide the Decline....
"http://sealevel.colorado.edu/"
If the sea level is rising in Colorado we're all in deep trouble.
Re: Let's spend our time, money and energy elsewhere
"It is discouraging how the global warming fanatics have hijacked public debate".
Don't worry, that's perfectly normal. The majority are almost always wrong about anything important, and it's the majority that defines public debate. Either directly, or through politicians who have brains but think it's smarter to echo the public mood.
In science, everyone in the world may believe that the Sun goes round the Earth, but the one man who disagrees may be the only one who is right. Likewise with antisepsis and hygiene: the medical profession hounded Ignaz Semmelweiss out of medical practice and into the insane asylum where he died; but he was right and they were wrong.
Politics, economics, sociology and those other "disciplines" are just a bagful of opinions. No one knows which are right, and we may never find out. Given how poorly some of the questions are framed, it may be semantically impossible to give answers to them.
Re: "Fallen Angels"
"Did they do any other theme to their books than "The Russians are coming to turn us into drones'?"
Your question is ill-conditioned, as Niven and Pournelle didn't ever use that theme. Let's see: "The Mote In God's Eye", "The Gripping Hand", "The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye", "The Legacy of Heorot", "The Dragons of Heorot", "Footfall", "Dream Park", "Lucifer's Hammer"... just a long string of massive, brilliant SF books with absolutely no relationship to present-day Earth politics. Of the eight books I cited, indeed, only the last three are even set on Earth.
"Fallen Angels"
For a fairly dramatic and interesting introduction to the possibility that we actually face global freezing, try "Fallen Angels", a fairly good SF novel by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn. http://tinyurl.com/d4cdonm
It's set in a not very remote future where scientists are a persecuted minority, like heretics in medieval Europe, hiding from the angry masses of people who want to kill them in unpleasant ways. Why? Because the scientists convinced governments that they should take measures to stop global warming, without which the edge might have been taken off the Ice Age which is now arriving.
Oh, and it was first published in 1991. Good SF writers look quite a long way ahead, and often get parts of the future right.
Great news
This is really most encouraging. First there was huge and lethargic scepticism about any kind of climate change. Then people began to rally around the "human induced global warming" banner. That stimulated a certain (relatively tiny, but intellectually valid) reaction among those who didn't think things were so cut-and-dried. Now we are seeing the beginnings (and I stress that word) of a genuine, increasingly informed debate which may eventually lead to an understanding of all the factors that control global climate.
Those who cling to a very understandable, very human desire to have everything clear and certain, and hope that "the authorities have everything under control", will no doubt be upset. That's a shame, but the important thing is that we currently don't have the full facts. The sooner we get them, the better.
Re: Plan 9 from Planet Obvious: XP -> Linux Mint + sandboxed XP VM
"Eadon, I know that you won't believe this, but for some people, one of the biggest factors against using Linux is you".
I don't have any trouble believing it, but... why?
You would seriously deprive yourself of what may well be the best computing solution for your needs, because someone you don't like (but presumably have never met) recommends it?
Sounds like a Darwin Award candidate to me.
Not the point
Even if the test does show people are employable, that's not the point. You can be a genius with a string of PhDs, a congenial personality, and a great team player. But if no one is offering a job, none of that helps you in the least.
@AC 1103
"Yes, because smart meters will have a massive display outside the home available to everyone".
Wireless broadcast is the electronic equivalent of exactly that. Encryption or no encryption, because any encryption will very quickly be cracked (either by software and intelligence, or more likely by human engineering).
Re: real savings?
Paul Shirley has good points, but don't forget that the climate is FAR more extreme in many parts of the USA - as in "lethal without heating or air conditioning". I've been in New Orleans when the temperature was 100 Fahrenheit and the humidity was over 95%. Believe me, entering a building - any building - and gulping down the cool breathable air felt like a beached whale getting back in the water.
This is not to deny that many American corporations (and households) abuse the privilege of heating and air conditioning by grossly overusing them when they don't need to.
Re: Owl?
I completely agree with Graham Marsden. There are, broadly, two classes of electricity consumers:
1. Those who care about how much they spend on electricity, and take care not to waste it.
2. Those who don't care about either, and wouldn't care any more if they had a second-by-second colour chart of how many watts every single gadget was using. (Which they wouldn't bother looking at anyway).
Incidentally, who on earth voted Graham's comment down? I can't imagine how any sentient human being could disagree with such logical, sensible remarks.
Owl?
I don't understand what Smart Meters will do that my £30 Owl meter won't. I put batteries in both parts, clipped one part over my input mains cable in the meter box, and put the other in my study where I can see it. Now I know exactly how much electricity the household is using at any moment, how many kilowatts the shower, dryer, oven, etc. tend to consume, and how many KwH we use each day, week, etc.
Why does any new spectrum have to be released? Why do the power companies need to splurge intimate details of our power consumption to everyone in the neighbourhood? Stop the insanity! And what is all this rubbish about "power management"? Another meaningless piece of management drivel. We don't use electricity unless we really want to, and have decided to bear the cost of doing so. I know there are some people who don't, but that's a different issue - they do it because they don't care, mostly. (And the main reason they don't care is that someone else is paying).
The irony is that, once the novelty of my Owl meter wore off a few years ago, I stopped paying much attention to it. So consumption rises by about 460 watts when I turn on my grandpa box (on which I am writing this) - so what? The shower dissipates about 8 Kw - so what? (No silly puns, please).
Hits the nail on the head
"Pay isn’t just driven by supply and demand but by a general feeling of what a job is worth".
Damn straight. In other words, everything economists have been telling us about "the free market" is untrue. Bosses in the UK believe a programmer is worth about the same as a gardener or a bricklayer - after all, they do the same kind of work, don't they? Many of them would rather die than pay any software expert, no matter how skilled and experienced, as much as half their own salaries.
When I was working at DEC - one of the kinder, more decent multinationals - we were always told at review time that "money doesn't motivate". To be more precise, it only seems to motivate those who already have far too much of it.
For some background on the economics racket, consider reading "Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards" by Haring and Douglas.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857284592/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Re: Windows Security Patches + Anti-Virus considered Harmful
"Most Linux users are more tech savy [sic], due in part to all the command line pissing about to get it working properly..."
Slightly out of date. On the same basis, one could criticize Windows for being layered on top of MS-DOS.
So many questions
Your headline alone raises so many questions...
- "They"? How many of them do you expect there to be???
- Oh yes, I remember now: that's "gender-neutral" language. Mustn't rule out the possibility that the "hottie" is a nice young bloke.
- Blood???? Which subset of your readers is this aimed at - Dexter?
Is it just me...?
...or does "No Ethernet" pose a problem? I know everything has to wireless nowadays, but when working in an office or at home there is a lot to be said for wired networking. Security, for one thing. How much would it cost to add an Ethernet port?
I stopped thinking about buying one of these when I read that, anyway.
Re: "Plugs holes in IE10"
"When everyone posts with their own name, I will too."
Amusingly paradoxical!
Re: Updates
'Windows 7/8 will be "so much faster than XP is (now)"'
Yes indeed; mainly because the computers it requires to run are about ten times as powerful.
Air?
If governments could tax breathing, they would. One day, they may.
Stick around (until the day the confiscate your oxygen, that is).
Unpleasant
"Martin McMahon, Jr., a tax-law professor at the University of Florida..."
Ah, a parasite on the parasites!
"So nat'ralists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em.
And so proceeds Ad infinitum."
- Jonathan Swift
Re: Windows XP was considered a failure when it was first introduced
Today's best Linux distributions (of which there are many) can do a good job of replacing Windows 7. They can replace Windows XP very easily indeed, and probably thrill users with all the new and better features they offer. As well as running even more comfortably on what is now low-end hardware.
Re: practicalities
"hey are not getting copies. Just because it exists on a computer doesn't mean it has been "published"; some of the things have been read by three people on the entire planet (and I'm one of those people). If they are going to take that approach, then everything that exists with words in it (even private stuff, doctors reports and such) can be considered a "publication" and will need to be collected and archived".
The people who are proposing this ridiculous, half-baked nonsense almost certainly agree that Bradley Manning and Julian Assange committed dreadful crimes and must be severely punished.
Irony? They haven't even heard of it - and if they did they would think it was an industrial process.
Re: practicalities
"What bunch of idiots wrote these regulations? Names should be attached to this sort of garbage to they can be sued for stupidity".
No need - start with the Cabinet and move on down to the civil servants who attempt to put their ridiculous ideas into practice.
It doesn't occur to a politician that there might be any more to his superficial knee-jerk vote-grabbing reactions than he thinks of. That makes it easier to blame the people who have the thankless/impossible job of "delivery".
@Sandpit
"Did they think this through?... This is enabled by an act of parliment [sic]..."
OK, so they DIDN'T think it through. Silly us for asking.
Re: Wayback machine
"It's important for people in 200 years to have access to the the day-to-day publications of the 21st century..."
If you believe for a single moment that Web sites scraped by copyright libraries and stored with today's technology will be legible in 200 years, I have $1 trillion worth of hybrid HD/SSDs to sell you.
Re: What about our copyrights?
"I'll believe in this relationship when Cameron dies from a surfeit of peaches and cider and Miliband is found drowned in the Butt of Ramsey. Or wherever he has been brownnosing this week".
Somewhere, Messrs Sellers and Yeatman are laughing heartily. They must have come up with some jokes the publishers wouldn't print.
But there is something in it. After all, wasn't King Gordon faced down by the banking barons?
Re: Thoughts THEREin lies the problem
"If a author writes a story, publishes it, and people pay for it (assuming it is that good), then, if government wants a copy, does it then get in line and PAY for a copy just like anyone else paying for a legit copy?"
For the same reason that, if a government wants £100 billion to give to corrupt banksters or to render some remote country uninhabitable, it doesn't tell its ministers to roll up their sleeves and do some honest work to earn the money. It just passes a law compelling the rest of us to give it the money.
I'm always amused by people who maintain that "violence never solves anything" or that we live in an essentially peaceful society. Everything government does is founded solidly on an indispensable foundation of almost unlimited violence. If I don't wish to pay taxes, they will take them out of my bank account. If I withdraw the money and hide it under my bed, they will send policemen to take it from there. If I resist, the policemen will arrest me. If I won't let them, they will threaten me with weapons. If I defend myself with a weapon (using an appropriate level of force) they will, at some point, kill me - or wound me severely enough to stop me resisting. Then (if I survive) they will send me to prison and keep me there by more violence.
That is how government works. But don't take my word for it. Would you believe the first president of the freest, most democratic, most wonderful nation the world has ever seen?
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire: a dangerous servant and a terrible master".
- George Washington
Re: Beano
"...they got a letter from one of the copyright libraries saying that as they were entitled to a copy of the book and as this seemed to be the only copy available then they'd be sending someone to collect it!"
Think of all the fun they could have had by informing the other copyright libraries of the situation, and then watching them fight it out.
Re: What about our copyrights?
"I didn't realise we're still a bunch of serfs under the feudal system".
Most people don't realise that. Congratulations on waking up and noticing reality. (Matrix, anyone?)
Consider. As Walter Bagehot said, Parliament can do anything except change a man into a woman. (And with modern technology I'm not sure that restriction applies any more). Parliament is an assembly of our elected representatives, which therefore expresses our collective will - right? Wrong. Parliament is an assembly of self-seeking jobsworths a majority of whom do exactly what the Prime Minister tells them to - if they want to go on enjoying their cushy lifestyle.
So far, we have established that David Cameron can do anything he wants, with the possible exception of sex changes. There is no essential difference between his power and that of a medieval king such as, perhaps, William the Conqueror or John. So yes, actually, we are serfs - except that serfs had more concrete and enforceable rights than we do. And didn't have to pay as much tax. (See, for example, https://sites.google.com/site/stevenburgauer/essay03).
Re: What about our copyrights?
"Its not something that naturally exists, its a collection of laws passed by HM Government".
Er, and other governments. The UK government can pass laws overriding the copyright it grants, but not that granted by the USA, France, Germany, China...
"Interesting"
Interesting that PwC reckons the "cost of capital" is 9%.
Anyone think they can get 9% on their savings, right now, in the UK? (Without chucking their savings away by lending them to wide boys, that is).
We all have small amounts of capital, and in the old days the big chunks needed to build infrastructure were composed of millions of those small amounts. Yet today, small investors barely get any interest at all, while the huge banks charge 9% minimum - to lend OUR MONEY.
Re: "Name and shame" campaign
"It's funny how they can get away with that for convicted paedophiles."
Or, indeed, unconvicted (indeed unarrested, uncharged, and untried) *alleged* paedophiles (such as J Savile).
The Big Lie Lives!
"There's just one problem: there was no evidence to suggest that any journalists at any paper had done any such thing."
So, a Reichstag Fire job then...
