Posts by Faceless Man

Dual-booting has its uses

Being able to load up a minimal OS and app suite if one were, say, forced to power up your computer at a security checkpoint, such as one of your fine International Entry Points. Or maybe getting the hardware repaired by a local tech services company, and you don't want to give them root access to your system, or let them go through your personal data.

Also, you can use it to totally isolate environments (although VMs these days are pretty good at doing that, too).

Re: "Auckland to Sydney"?

Auckland looks a lot closer to Sydney if you're in Bondi on a Friday night.

It's important that Gary Numan be recognised for his innovation in discovering that in a car, you can lock all the doors.

Re: It's always great entertainment

Used to be it wasn't a real Microsoft event until Windows crashed. People used to run a pool on what minute of the presentation it would happen in.

Re: Reminds me of a story

It reminds me of one of our "top" programmers back in the day, when I did desktop support, he'd decided that to avoid Occupational Overuse in his arm from his mouse, he'd put it on the floor and use his foot. He attached little foam pads to make it easier to tell where the buttons were, and everything.

Of course, it made it difficult for anyone else to work on his computer, made the mouse gunge up even faster than normal, and he eventually got told off by our Workplace Health and Safety people for basically being an idiot.

Re: Adelaide?

Adelaide is the closest state capital to Woomera, which is in South Australia. If you watch old footage of rocket launches there, you'll notice they start at a fairly significant angle.

As a bonus for non-Australians, Woomera was also the site of one of our "state-of-the-art" immigrant detention centres. (The "art" being locking people up to no great purpose in sub-human conditions for long periods. An art we no longer practise in this country, we outsourced it to small islands.)

The fact that Christopher Pyne and a few of his South Australian colleagues are sliding in popularity may also have something to do with the decision.

Re: Snopes is a Damaged Brand....

What's that saying? Reality has a left-wing bias?

I'm not a big fan of Snopes getting into political fact checking, because I just want an urban legend checking site. Let PolitiFact et al do the politics stuff.

I can see why they're doing that, though. It's a natural step from debunking that stupid story about the guy who put his RV on cruise control, took a nap, and is suing the manufacturer to debunking the claim that Hillary said something once that kind of looks like something Hitler might have said (the truth is that neither of them made either statement attributed to them).

I know of a couple of people on the right who've found it inconvenient, like the guy on Facebook who posted a thing about how people should fact check before they post (mentioning Snopes as a useful resource by name) and then got upset when I linked to the Snopes debunking of the aforementioned Hillary/Hitler comparison that he had shared.

Re: Hmmmm...

And it looks like he got the crack in his screen fixed.

About lunchtime round here. And many people see lunch time on Friday as being "beer o'clock" anyway. Not a lot gets done on Friday afternoons.

Re: "Let's start with a classic: the Apple Newton"

You forgot - convinced ARM to create a low-power mobile version of their struggling RISC platform, which is now being used as the basis for every mobile device.

The biggest problem the Newton had was that the handwriting recognition system had to learn your handwriting, and people were disappointed it was confused by unusual words. Even so, it was impressive for what it could do straight out of the box.

Plus, it survived for a really long time if it was that much of a failure. After all, they were still making them 5 years after introduction when Steve came back and killed off the line.

Re: I feel and share your pain

You must miss her terribly...

Re: Don't accept it, act on it

"BYOD is dead. It's pushing up the daisies. Pining for the fiords. Didn't you get the memo?"

Not before time. Unfortunately, it is before my workplace implements it, and I don't see them changing their plans. It's all about making their poorly compensated employees front up for basic IT infrastructure rather than the organisation paying for it.

Backhaul

Which is another argument for either nationalising the infrastructure, or at least stopping Telstra from pulling that kind of stunt. It's almost the definition of Monopolistic Behaviour.

Re: Helium!

I think the problem is the materials used in the external housing. We should probably be using aluminium or even some kind of composite, rather than a thin layer of latex. On the other hand, it does come in a wide range of colours.

Re: Is that Jesus's middle name?

I thought it was "Haploid".

Re: All's fair and good, but

Because the Coalition needed to be seen as having a different policy to the ALP. And by coming up with the FTTN model they could fudge the figures to make it look like they were saving money.

And when I say "fudge the figures" to a certain extent I mean "outright lie about costs".

Still waiting to hear if/when my building will get NBN, and what form it will take. Last document I heard had us changed from the FTTP we were promised would be installed by the end of 2013 to FTTN with work starting before the end of this year. No word from anyone about it, and no sign of any work going on.

Re: Buying The Porn?

Because, of course, the alternative is that people behave like decent human beings and respect other people's privacy, and we all know that's too hard.

Might as well argue that if you don't want to be robbed, you shouldn't have any possessions, because theft is just one break-in away.

Re: Duct tape...

"lying in bed pleasuring youself with a cup of hot chocolate and an old episode of 'The Good Life' on DVD"

That sounds like it might be painful. And somewhat messy. Still, takes all kinds...

(Oh, you mean like *that*. My apologies. Still, you shouldn't have said it that way, you might confuse a stupid person...)

Users abusing it...

"You know, we offered them free, unlimited space, and some people actually had the temerity to think they could store as much as they liked on it..."

Re: Is it just me

Eighth class, they actually land the plane.

Re: I'M SUPRISED THAT NO ONE HAS MENTIONED THE CUMBERBATCH!

Thank goodness for that.

I like Cumberbatch. He's my favourite Holmes, and he's a fine actor.

But, really, we need a break from him. He's turning up everywhere. I'm looking forward to him as Doctor Strange, but I still can't help but feel maybe they should let someone else do the acting.

Whose fault is that, then?

Ultimately, the responsibility for public scrutiny lies with, well, the public. If we're not happy with the level of openness, then we should elect people who are more open.

There are obstacles put in place to protect the two party system that limit our ability to do so. And far too often the alternatives to the major parties are even less palatable, but it is ultimately our responsibility to hold the parliament to account. The current press don't seem to want to do it. What we need is better organisation.

Re: "This copy of Windows is not genuine"

I first encountered that error on the Windows PC Lab at MS TechEd 2008 in Sydney. As you'd expect, it was a network issue causing all the lab PCs to periodically declare they weren't genuine, but you'd expect that MS might have tried to ensure that their PCs at their big Tech Conference worked properly.

Re: Connect the dots yourself, author

Well, in a number of suburbs, including mine, scheduled FTTP installs were stopped and have not been resumed since the 2013 election.

To be specific: Torrens Street in Braddon was on the NBN plan for 2013. The Body Corporate of my building had been in talks with NBN Co about the rollout plan, and the impact on residents, particularly having to install Fibre to each unit in the building. Someone had been down the street marking the pits out with spray paint (could have been for a number of reasons, but they seemed to particularly mark comms pits.) Shortly thereafter a federal election was called, there was a change of government, and the remainder of Braddon disappeared off the NBN schedule. Information on the NBN website suggests that when work does recommence (now saying Q4 2016, over three years later) it will be FTTN.

Maybe having the work scheduled, discussions with the management of the residential properties on the street, and surveying work don't count as "meaningfully planned", but up until the Federal Election in 2013, we were being assured that we would be getting FTTP by the end of that year, and now we're being offered FTTN.

Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

What about the Stump-Jump Plough?

Re: The French Connection

That might explain why it was harder to find somewhere to get a decent cuppa in France than in the US. I suppose I should have been suspicious when the waitress was polite.