Posts by Count Ludwig
90 posts • joined Tuesday 7th August 2007 10:50 GMT
Hearts and minds
"He who is not a socialist at 19, has no heart. He who is still a socialist at 30, has no brain."
Variously attributed to Churchill, Bismark and Clemenceau
Re: Being really pedantic here
Priceless!
And the fortuitous typo: "big bank" was icing on the cake. (It was a typo wasn't it?)
Of course you might be a troll, wrapped like a mummy in irony - I mean citing "half a year A level physics" as argumentum ad verecundiam to a professional comologist was worthy of Henry Root - in which case I still thank you, multifold.
Either way you owe me a new kb!
Survival of the Fittest is a tautology
Forgive me @appsdelight.com for what I am about to do:-
"It's a highly over-saturated market but like every industry the good ones will survive will [sic] the others will move on."
Definition of "the good ones" = "the ones that survive"
Search and replace in above sentence + sprinkle syntactic sugar:
"It's a highly over-saturated market but like every industry the ones that survive will survive [and] the others will move on."
Contract + sprinkle more syntactic / logical sugar:
"It's a highly over-saturated market but like every industry some will survive and others will move on."
And again, (selectively picking one of the last two assertions for emphasis):
"It's a highly over-saturated market; there will be deaths."
I couldn't agree more!
Mine's the coat that's mine.
Last lines of 'Some Like It Hot'
Jerry: Oh no you don't! Osgood, I'm gonna level with you. We can't get married at all.
Osgood: Why not?
Jerry: Well, in the first place, I'm not a natural blonde.
Osgood: Doesn't matter.
Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time!
Osgood: I don't care.
Jerry: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I've been living with a saxophone player.
Osgood: I forgive you.
Jerry: [tragically] I can never have children!
Osgood: We can adopt some.
Jerry: But you don't understand, Osgood! Ohh...
[Jerry finally gives up and pulls off his wig]
Jerry: [normal voice] I'm a man!
Osgood: [shrugs] Well, nobody's perfect!
[Jerry looks on with disbelief as Osgood continues smiling with indifference. Fade out]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053291/quotes (search for 'perfect')
Re: Wow
Moonlet, ringlet?
Uh oh - I foresee another diminuative vocabulary coming:- orblet, probelet, featurelet, debrilet, alienlet, If it docks with something that'll be a doc-let (tm).
Mine's the one with Pluto's IP address in the pocket-let.
Posted in Laptop innovator Moggridge dies aged 69
Space shuttle connection
Did you know it was used aboard the space shuttle (RIP) ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass
Where the sun doesn't shine...
I congratulate the boffins at ANUS for shining light in an area that previously lacked illumination.
Re: "More importantly, those practices were not up to the high standards we expect of ourselves."
http://www.dilbert.com/2012-05-23/
'Nuff said.
What did he say, actually?
Most of the article is spent extolling something called "more coherent service management".
My eyes start to glaze over but, ok I'll bite, so I go back and find the definition and I think this is where he laid it out:.
Problem description: "When systems are implemented and managed in isolation, it can be difficult to get an end-to-end view of how they interact.."
Solution: "What is clear is that by managing the major elements of infrastructure as a unit – across servers, storage, network devices and so on – the number of potentially conflicting variables and activities can be reduced,..."
And caveat "However, technology-level integration on its own can deliver only so much; operational >>processes also need to be modified to achieve the full potential."
So, um, my question is how are we supposed to do this?
I mean I've got my own ideas of course but I was hoping for some wisdom from the guru.
Meh.
Re: HNA, CeNA, LNA, ANA, FANA, TNA...
Keyboard sellers gonna love you!
Laws and Sausages
As Otto von Bismark *didn't* say: "I've seens laws made and sausages made - neither is pretty."
I think there ought to be a law against making bad laws - ones that have unintended effects.
... no, wait ...
Yup - that's the one
Thanks!
@AC 09:06 So does that make it OK for Duetche Telecomm to........
Can we have a "Won't somebody think of the children" icon?
Or else a straw man icon. O|-<
Or else that kiddie pronagraphic Olympic logo*
*Actually I am in favour of banning the Olympic logo - it's an effing migraine.
Iran's answer to Stuxnet?
Wouldn't it be funny if one of the controllers' PCs got infected and sent a drone to unaccountably land in Iran? Wait...
Keyboard coffee icon because I just read out the first line of the article and raised hoots of laughter from around the office.
Astronomical Unit testing?
Using a package called AUnit.
Alright, alright I'm going
Read the fine manual
http://www.mysociety.org/about/
NSFW if you're in Syria, Iran, China, Zimbabwe, Belorussia...
Mine's the one with the paranoid troll in the pocket
Unsympathetic character traits in reindeer
Indeed, it's well documented that reindeer are fickle bastards: first they laugh at poor Rudolph and call him names, then after Santa puts him on point, suddenly they all love him and shout with glee.
So, no I wouldn't have one as a friend - might make a nice stew though.
Paris - now she would make a good friend - a best friend even.
Depends what is being said
50 mins on the phone causes altered brain activity? I'm not surprised.
Could be due to what is being said - or could be due to frustration at spending 50mins in a helpline queue listening to muzak.
Israeli Mil Grade ICE Breaker
This stuff could have come straight from Burning Chrome (except there it was Russian).
Maybe The Finn will sell you a copy.
U O Me A Nu KB
Beautiful !
Seen today's Dilbert?
http://www.dilbert.com/2010-12-17/
Synchronicity or what?
Shurly I'm not the first to say...
Mine'h the one with the... (you get the rest)
How did they hack the website?
But how did the perps manage to get their code placed on the Nobel Prize website?
Probably something like:
www.nobel.org/Administrator
user: Admin
pw: Alfr3d
Posted in Robot teddy bears attack Alzheimer's
therapeutic tool
"Its interaction with real people that helps, not some silly toy."
I don't think that's necessarily true. The teddy can give consistent responses, is non-threatening, and can be used by the patient to safely try out different behaviours (such as strategies for coping with their condition, or physical exercises) that they might be reluctant to do with a human.
But I would expect they need human interaction too, although I'm not a doctor.
4Chan - help!
We need you now.
Posted in Google punts url shortener to world+dog
Comparison with TinyURL.com
Just tried goo.gl -
Great that you can see your other shortened URLs (I keep forgetting my TinyURLs)
But TinyURL let's you choose your own mnemonic (if it's not already used) - can you do same please goo.gl?
War Gamez
"OK, now we're going to pretend to disable your electricity grid Don't worry, it's only a simulated attack"
....
"Oops, sorry about that, seems we got UAT and LIVE mixed up."
What was the score?
I didn't see the match - did England lose?
Posted in ID cards poster girl laments her £30
Bulgarian airbags cause seminal moments
I can feel a new euphemism er.. coming on.
Didn't Paris have a famous 'seminal moment'?
re-re-assign its ass
Still baffled. Presumably each valuble item has an ID that was assigned to one user and has been incorerectly re-assigned (stolen) by another.
There is "of course" an audit trail for each user and item. So can't the Habbo admins simply investigate the complaint and re-re-assign ithe item back (and disable the account of the offending user for breaking the T&C)?
Actually, given an effective audit trail and an enforced time-lag, why is it possible to steal money from someone's bank account remotely? Surely the banks know the account it's gone to and can just transfer the money back. IME the time-lag is certainly there. I guess key word is "effective".
Posted in LibCons to reduce vetting and barring
CRBs are useless
The CRB system is a mess.
Ian Huntley had one.
And last month there was a BBC expose of a counsellor for abused children, who was caught on camera grooming what he thought was an underaged girl (she was an actress).
I'm not going to google this t too much because I'm at work, but there's a list of CRB vetted abusers here:-
http://socialworkexposed.blogspot.com/
Nobody knows how long these CRBs checks are supposed to last. Schools seem to think they last forever, other organisations say 2 years, but one charity I worked for (helping refugee children) wanted me to renew my extended CRB check after 6 months.
And a CRB check with one organisation doesn't necessarily apply to another - you may need to get another check.
Actually, wwhat exactly do they check?
The stage after that...
... the world gets covered in a grey goo of self-replicating nano-spiders.
Posted in AOL to sell or shutter Bebo
Neologism
There goes my neologism - "bebo-sitting": staying at your sister's place while she's away to make sure your 16 year old nephew doesn't advertise a party on Bebo and cause 200 teenagers to come and trash the place.
Mine's the one with the spare key in the pocket.
ERP by any other name
I read this article not knowing what ERP means. It still made sense if I replaced ERP with "any kind of computer system". Now I'm off to goggle ERP...
Star Trek - Prime Directive
...don't interfere with primitive civilisations. Also known as the Zoo / Interdict Scenario solution to the Fermi Paradox.
BTW I think we might consider applying that scenario instead of arranging regime change in places like Iraq and Afghanistan (and Zimbabwe). It might save lives in the short term (dubious in Iraq), but they would value their new "freedom" more if they had fought for it themselves.
Of course my friends in Bosnia & Kosovo didn't agree when I suggested it to them, and neither would any Tutsi Rwandans.
@Bit Worrying @Erm...
@Bit Worrying
20 mins - that's nothing - I've watched Finns at it in Public it for nearly an hour - which coincidentally is how long it took me to casually do up my shoelaces.
@Erm...
I think it's an optical illusion - back and arm of the white plastic chair next to him, plus something behind the swing seat. But that would still make the picture an offence in UK - as a depiction of child abuse.
You didn't hear me say it
Nope, I never made any joke about a storm in a D-cup. No sirree, not me.
But I'll get my coat anyway.
The Wrong Trousers
Wallace and Gromit look down.
I once sat in akind of strap-in chair in a computer arcade and realized I was trusting some dodgy program not to suddenly whip me round and break my neck.
Would you trust this exo-skeleton not to move your leg forward at 250g when you tell it to run but, say, happen to remove remove a memory stick at the same time as it's garbage collecting?
Coat... oh mine seems to have run off
Mine's the one with the ellipsis in the title...
I expect they're wearing ear-defenders, just like any sensible rioters, who should already be wearing motorcycle crash helmets and body armour (rolled up newspapers work pretty well).
Posted in Oz firm seeks talented IT developer
Splutter!
Coincidence tthat the job is located in NSW?
BTW Phil, you owe everyone in my office a new keyboard.
Posted in Kate Winslet sports top celeb bod
What shape are most porn actresses?
That's probably the shape most men prefer.
Mines the dirty mac.
Prison governor denies responsibility
Reuters: In a press conference yesterday, prison governor O. Pensesame denied responsibility for the gaffe and put the blame on a "small criminal element" that had "somehow got into into our prisons and is intent on causing trouble."
Mine's the one with the file in the pocket.
Posted in Hackers break Amazon's Kindle DRM
Seems the fridge magnets have stuck...
...in a few people's minds, sorry if it was patronizing.
But still think this discussion is actually about business models. Giving away freebies (bribery) is one - though it seems market research is needed.
Now we agree that the model is doomed that goes: "you buy it, you sell it, you still got it (protected by DRM)". I claim it is a variant of the cash cow anti-pattern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern
And we agree that the compassion business model ("I then bought the hardcopy, simply because I thought he deserved my money.") is dubious.
My point is there is a huge market for downloadable novels and there are many business models. I believe Publisher can find one that will feed him.
Posted in Hackers break Amazon's Kindle DRM
Cash cow market model
You won't eat because you are using the bad (old) "cash cow" market model. Take a look at suggestions from @Poor market model above.
Assume that your cusomers are not all freetards, most are prepared to pay, but that they will not pay for nothing - it has to cost you too.
So think about how you can add value: a fridge magnet, a mug, access to the author, first dibs at the next book... this is your chance to get creative.
And when you "get it" you will eat better than ever before.
Posted in Doing the maths on Copenhagen
Skeptics & believers~ want to debate?
I accept the evidence for climate change and I would like to have a rational debate with a single climate change skeptic.
My objective is to convince you that anthropogenic global warming is a clear and present danger that we can and should address - yours should be to convince me otherwise. It might take a long time, at the end we either give up or agree with each other.
Could anyone who is interested please email me at the following throwaway email account (climatechange72 at yahoo dot co dot uk) telling me a bit about yourself and proposing some rules for our debate. I will pick one and we can set to using another account - maybe tell the world about it afterwards.
My proposed rules:
1) Language for debate is English
2) Debaters remain anonymous - both using throwaway email accounts.
3) No secrecy - all emails can be made public.
4) I will make or reply to one point at a time.
About me:
I've got (UK) A levels in chemistry and physics and a degree in applied maths. I work in IT.
Hey, I can also pair up a few other skeptics and believers!
El Reg is this appropriate? Should I put it on Craigslist instead?
a possible solution...
Buy redeemable tokens from Veisign or Amazon costing 10th of a cent and send one with each email. Your email client accepts these tokens and redeems them automatically. Only accept emails that contain these redeemable tokens. If mail is important attach a more expensive token. If Verisign / Amazon start overcharging then use another company (PayPal - yuk, Google?)
