Posts by DavCrav 3894 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007
"For this kind of crap, dead the edition with toner saver on would be my preferred delivery method.
All continuous text, no formatting, divider between mails or any such frippery. Maybe add in the headers to be certain there no nursing info."
Yes, because deliberately pissing off people who write the laws you have to obey is definitely a winning strategy.
"Having taught a number of people to do complex and involved scientific procedures (including small animal surgery) it is not until you have to observe someone doing something that things they need to know but you did not until that moment think of come up."
As a quick example, I was recently at the University of Warwick, and was sent instructions for getting there. They said to follow the signs labelled reserved parking and see the person in that car park. There were indeed signs, but they forgot the last one sending you into the car park itself, so I went driving past it. Found a steward later on that road who huffily said that they didn't bother with the last sign because the car park has a massive 15 written on the side of it. Of course, you don't know that the reserved parking is in car park 15 when invited.
"you knowingly and willingly signed up for these packages. It's what 'subscription' means, and I get very tired of people who have 'forgotten' they signed up for an annual renewal, and then say 'Oh I forgot, and I've been using your service for 3 months since... I want my money back'... it isn't going to happen."
I downvoted you because the last two years I have specifically opted out of my car insurance being auto-renew, and they tried it anyway. Just because you know what subscription is, doesn't mean they don't lie to your face about it later.
This is like how I read about how mathematicians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries communicated, versus now. Now if I don't understand something in a paper someone has published I can send them an e-mail, we discuss it, might even collaborate.
In 1900, it was I'll write him (it will be a him then) a letter. Six weeks later I might get a reply, which asks a question of its own. By then I would be doing something else and have forgotten all about it.
I cannot imagine working under such circumstances, but then they could not imagine working under mine.
"Leaving aside the ethics of charging a student for a course that has such a short shelf-life (possibly shorter than the length of their degree course), isn't it a bit of a waste of time to teach stuff that will be out of date so quickly?"
One question: how else would you learn this stuff if you aren't taught it? You want everyone working in this industry to be self-taught? Or you want people to do a foundational CS course only, with no modules on modern stuff at all, so they are unemployable when they leave?
"The sovereignty of parliament has shifted to Brussels over the past 40+ years; as John Bercow likes to remind MPs, EU law trumps UK law. Ditto every other nation in the EU. The purpose of Brexit is to restore sovereignty to the UK."
No, no, no, for the love of God, no. Parliament has always been sovereign, that's why we're in this mess. If EU law were primary, then you wouldn't be able to leave. Parliament has always has the legal authority to refuse to implement any EU directive/regulation. Doing so might have meant being thrown out of the EU, or losing your voting rights, but the UK has always been sovereign. Parliament agreed to follow some other rules for expediency's sake, like with those on radio signals, for example, or the Outer Space Treaty.
What the Brexit mess shows is that it's a lot more difficult to untangle cables than tangle them. Which everyone here knows.
"Surely as a responsible news site you need to be impartial - or you need to publish it under 'Comment' rather than 'Policy' and make it clear it represents the view of the writer?"
One can be unbiased and still not be neutral. If one person is lying and the other is telling the truth, the unbiased viewpoint is "A is a liar". The neutral viewpoint is "Both A and B are saying things."
In this case, the unbiased viewpoint is that this is an outrage, the kind of thing we read about in Turkey or India (very recently) and call an outrage there.
"So the PM uses the powers that he specifically has within the constitution, in the manner that they were intended to be used (to end a parliamentary session and reconvene another setting out a new agenda for the Government), and you declare this to be 'unconstitutional'?"
Yes. Against the spirit of constitutional law, even if not the letter. Shutting down the only democratically elected branch of government because you don't like what it might do is autocratic. To pretend otherwise makes you a liar or a fool.
"Yes, what was promised can be delivered: leave. You may not like it's form but there's nothing impossible about doing what the electorate asked the government to do. What's dishonest is to pretend that all this wasn't discussed during the referendum campaign, because it was. Multiple times. And the people still voted Leave."
1) Your position is absurd. If the only way to leave were for the Army to set off all nuclear bombs and sink the UK, then it would still be physically possible to leave. Should we do it? No, obviously not. So it being physically possible does not mean it's reasonable.
So now you have to decide whether no deal leaving is so unreasonable that it shouldn't be done. I would claim that food and fuel shortages, riots, etc., is too high a price to pay for respecting an advisory referendum three years ago, where the leave side wasn't clearly explained.
2) People still voted Leave because all of the Leave politicians said that what is happening right now would never happen, and the Remain side were just making it up. How close to the cliff edge do you have to get before you put the brakes on?
"I could also mention that since Parliament has been unable to agree on any actual deal, it can hardly then demand a right of veto on no deal."
Well, they had a few rounds of indicative votes, which got pretty close (closer than 52/48, for example) to requiring customs union, and that was only after two rounds of voting, and with the Executive sticking its oar in.
Of course, the Legislature wasn't given much opportunity to do this, as May and then Johnson actively tried to prevent it from having its (constitutionally required) say,
"Bitter white male syndrome anyone?"
Conference organizer, in fact. And therefore I know of what I speak. We come up with a list of potential speakers, and then we rack our brains trying to come up with more women.
So if you are a woman invited to a conference, you cannot tell whether it's because you were on list 1 or list 2. And we try to invite the women first so that we catch them before any other conference organizers do.
The fact is that conferences are judged by the 'how many women' metric, as evidenced here, and therefore it will affect the outcome.
"If the IT department had a decent asset list this wouldn't happen - I guess Mike feels that admin isn't part of his job."
We were all sent an e-mail on a Monday saying that the day after there would be an inventory, and anything electrical in the office would be added to the department's IT asset list. As some people---including me---were away the whole week, all of our personal stuff like phone chargers, etc., were added to the departments assets. I peeled all their asset tags off them when I got back and carried on.
I'm not going to bother telling them their list is wrong if they are going to be stupid about making i tin the first place.
"it's also completely pointless unless you keep a record of what users passwords are (which is pretty dumb)."
Indeed, changing it to wanker is like saying 'I changed your password to something that encrypts to ASDhasf8a4rt89iASFasfd8iu'. You can reset it any time.
"I drive a hybrid which goes electric in slow creeping traffic. In these traffic queues the surrounding air quality is appalling, and I still have to breathe it but at least I’m not contributing to it."
Sorry, yes you are. Brake and tyre dust make up (IIRC) around 40% of the particulate emissions of a petrol engine car. I have been trying to confirm this number, but I'm struggling to pin down a figure with a quick Google.
Edit: according to DEFRA, brake and tyre dust will probably contribute around 10% of total UK PM2.5 emissions by 2030, presumably as emissions from other sources reduce.
You want a quick fix for local air quality? Ban log burning in houses in built-up areas, and require brake pads to be in an enclosure.
"So there are 1780 rapid chargers with the right connector and this report says we only need 54."
Use your brain. 54 EV stations in the whole of the UK? So just under a million cars per station? They said 54 stations are needed for everyone to be within 50 miles of one. Well fantastic, that is also true for supermarkets and post offices. Why do we need more than 54 phones by that argument?
"Ah, so you're conceding that the distribution network has the capacity. The cost item is, as I said, improving the generation facilities to support a baseload somewhat nearer the current peak."
He isn't conceding that. The National Grid says that the distribution network will likely need upgrading.
Quote: "Our transmission networks may need significant investment to ensure that they are fit for purpose".
"There is no possibility of charging via a smart meter unless they put a flat tax on a electric vehicles (increase road fund for instance). A reverse disincentive as it were."
Ho ho ho. Just mandate a meter on the car charging point. You can bypass it if you want, same as your normal meter, but a quick trip to jail if you do.
"Scot here. Why are you equating the SNP with being Scottish? Not all Scots support the SNP, in fact they failed to get a majority at the last election. Many of us vote for them purely as there's no real alternative up here most elections, seriously it's like voting for the least crazy person some years."
You misread the post. His point was that 99.999...% of the SNP meant that 0.00..01% of the whole population of Scotland, never mind the SNP, was less than one person.
Anecdote =/= data.
Or, how about: It's telling to see the aggressive AfD in Germany, versus the much more sedate UKIP in the UK. Maybe Germans are closet Nazis?
You see how easy it is to take a small amount of paint and dip an incredibly broad brush into it?
In reality, Germans are much more direct and less polite than British people, so the cultural difference works in the other direction.
"Well I've just fired up steam with a disabled network connection and it let me play. I got the option to go into offline mode so take from that what you will."
I think the point is that it works for a while and then slowly breaks. I don't know for sure, as my Internet has not been down long enough to have to test that theory.
"On one hand, telling someone to not flash expensive stuff is basically victim shaming"
It really isn't. Safety advice isn't victim blaming. There's a difference between 'you might want to try x, y and z', and 'it's your fault it was nicked, you should have done x, y and z'.
"Call the police, lodge a formal complaint about a breach of the Computer Misuse Act and let them find the right person at Google on your behalf."
Ah, you want to police to investigate crimes? They are too busy on their social media accounts at the moment investigate irate Twitter posts to deal with actual real crimes.
"Yes a point many anti US standards commentators have missed. We may have to accept the stuff but WE DON'T HAVE TO ACTUALLY BUY IT or eat it. Market forces etc."
1) Poor people will, because it will be much cheaper. And then as UK farms go to the wall, the remaining ones get successively more expensive until there's nothing left.
2) As the poster below says, the US will want some kind of ISDS here and there would be rules against labelling the chicken as 'not US badly treated horror-chicken'.
The one saving grace of No Deal Brexit is that Congress has stated that there will be no US trade deal. I don't want one with the US, as it will be terrible for the UK.
"And, BTW, it's not a tax. It's a surcharge. The clue is in the name."
surcharge (n): an additional charge or payment.
tax (n): a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.
No, I'm struggling to see how it's not a tax. You know, like Value Added Surcharge.
Edit: at least in this case there are victims. Who exactly are the victims when people are charged this tax on a speeding fine?
"arbitrary arrests"
I assume you are talking about the Canadian citizens arbitrarily arrested in China, but then the rest of your sentence makes no sense. Which Chinese people have been arbitrarily arrested in the US? If you mean the bent Huawei executive loafing at home awaiting the outcome of the extradition proceedings, China has sentenced to death a Canadian who cannot be executed even by China's own 'laws'.
But let's make the two sides equivalent, because it's the only way to justify the US bashing. US bad, China bad, therefore China as bad as US.
"or killed the Vietnamese people with Napalm, and made a big joke about it..."
I should point out that the Vietnam war ended when the US pulled out. They didn't nuke Hanoi.
The only thing saving the people in Hong Kong from all those APCs stationed at the border is other countries' opinions.
I assume that nobody here lives in Taiwan, Tibet or HK.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
