Posts by Nic Brough

Hope...

We can only hope it turns out better than the Hollywood remake.

<exits left, wondering how they're going to set "you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off" to music>

Title

Our favourite icon is proof that you can turn out any old tripe and some idiot will pay for it.

@AC 21:05

>Police arresting over a breach of the Data Protection Act??

>I thought that enforcement of the Data Protection Act was the sole responsibility of the Information Commissioners Office. Does anyone know for certain?

<sigh> No, it's a lot more complex.

"Enforcement" is a very vague term that generally encompasses three different things. Briefly and very simply, plod nicks people who +might+ be bad. The court systems decides whether they are bad, and then what to do about it. The ICO acts as a complainant and evidence gatherer in most DPA cases (for other potential crimes, replace the ICO with a relevant body or individual)

There are some exceptions to this structure - for example, HMRC officers act as complainants in tax cases, but also have powers of arrest and investigation that plod have (well, actually, significantly more. Seriously, if you're going to pick a fight with the government and you have a choice between a copper or a VAT man, pick the copper. Their tasers, pepper spray and size 12 DMs have a much lower chance of causing you pain)

>Is this plod trying to extend his reach (again)?

Well, probably. Where's the 1984/Jacqui Smith icon?

Oh, and...

Where's JIMTHEBOSS with the follow up entertainment? I have loaded the freezer up and cranked it to maximum cooling...

Title?

My productivity took a huge jump when I did courses on human-computer interaction and information theory. I realised that the tools that the managers (note, not "the business", but the managers) wanted us to work with were a massive hindrance to productivity, and we ended up replacing them with faster lightweight tools that had been written by people who would have to use them day-to-day.

The most obvious change was binning ClearCase in favour of SubVersion and Perforce (depending on whether the business unit wanted a "proper support" license). Similarly for issue tracking and collaberation software - dumping the "big name" stuff in favour of smaller, lighter and (most importantly) friendly software almost always resulted in huge increases in productivity.

There were also a lot of free beers, as users came to us saying "Thank you for replacing that horrible system with one that works for me". To be fair, most of the replacements were done because we had someone (often me), who would sit with the end-user and see the way they wanted to work. It's not so much about the software itself, but it is about choosing software that is good for the people who are going to be using it, and that does usually mean stuff that "just works" instead of having a "big name".

@AC

>Can someone point me towards the right place to buy fraudulent credit cards? I need some xmas shopping

Look for "Verified by Visa" and help yourself.

SP?

Too little, too late.

Unless it's just an XP disc set to install over the top, in which case, it's just 6 months too late.

Lamont?

Oh dear. He gets trotted out on Newsnight every now and then, as an authority on finance.

Joining the board of Phorm is a clear indication of total cluelessness (unless you're the administrator brought in to sell of the remains). I just hope Paxo shreds his credibility on-screen next time...

An oldie

Actioned.

Makes my skin crawl. Also, "leverage", but others have mentioned it already.

Paris has better grammar than most of the managers using words like this

I hate

Mobe

Lappy

First (and Frist)

Cloud

Use of text speak (except on 'phones, where there is a good reason for keeping it short)

I'm in two minds about *tard as well, but it (they) should be on the list so we get to vote.

@Ralph B

You owe my client a new monitor, there's coffee all over this one ;-)

>> "their long hair makes it difficult to distinguish, especially when the bears are young".

>Ah, like IT workers then.

Yeah, but it's safe to let the bears breed.

Title

I fell off the podium and hurt myself and I have a bloody knee.

The ASA do have a use, but sometimes, they're idiots. Rather than have a swipe at mild swearwords, I'd prefer them to have a go at real lies in adverts, such as my train company touting it's new timetable as "improvements" when it's cutting services by 50%

Muppets

Why aren't they using an open standard?

FFS, I'm not anti-MS, but there is no excuse for a government to be using proprietary standards - they are supposed to be running my country on my behalf, so that data is mine, and I want a guarantee that it will be readable without resorting to proprietary software to read it. Even if it's secured, confidential, or hidden for whatever reason (there's a long debate to be had there!), it shouldn't be inaccessible just because it's held in wubble-46 format and someone lost the last machine that could read it. </rant>

Tux, cos he's Open Source and I can't be bothered comparing MPs to Paris, her decision making is so much better than theirs.

Is "Evil Overlord" a good title?

Sky are lying. I know of two cases of this affecting unmodified boxes. One of my friends might not be 100% accurate, so I wouldn't hold that up as evidence, but the other one is a neighbour who wouldn't dare do a mod. She rings the TV repair man to change the batteries on the remote FFS and just doesn't get that taking the lid off something doesn't necessarily break it.

I can't say I'm surprised though. Sky seem to be a mixed blessing in my house - excellent service for ages, then totally unable to organise a simple house move. Their credit card is good, but you try to use their web services to deal with a simple query and you find out their front-line support is run entirely by people called "Carol Beer". But, if you can get past her, they're absolutely fine.

Title

Don't think the VAT helps that much either.

A lot of SMEs are on flat-rate VAT. They charge 17.5% and then hand over a lower %age to the government (Depends on the nature of their core business). For an IT business they pay 14% (apologies if that's wrong, I'm not a taxman), and pocket 3.5%. Other businesses get bigger discounts. If VAT drops to 15%, then they only get to trouser 1%, so that's a cut in their net income. Well done Darling.

Unless I've missed the bit where he reduces the take by the same amount?

Title

Meh.

Well, that's what it said on Roy's shirt once, and it was around the time I rang C4 to complain about them stealing my wardrobe. My friends are taking bets on which one of our t-shirts will be on tonight.

Sadly, I hear that Richmond will not be in this series, but it'll be good to have Chris Morris back on screen again. I just hope they don't do what most British Sitcoms do in the third series and crap out.

Mine's the one with Meh spelt out in those screws you always have left over after reassembling a computer...

Meh

With the number of people being hit by bullets in the US, combined with the number carrying mobile 'phones, this was going to happen sooner or later.

So "divine intervention" is cobblers as always.

But I do like the Shellphone monicker, I hope Mr Richard's bruising is not too bad and he gets a replacement 'phone and a very humble apology from the shooter!

I wanna emigrate

>Members of the Scottish Parliament decided the cards would not deter crime, would not add to security and would do very little for civil liberties as well.

What is it about Scottish MPs? When they're at home, they seem to actually understand reality, as clearly demonstrated by this story. But Scottish MPs in Government in Whitehall are failing miserably to do a damn thing to stop the IDiots pushing ID cards (let alone erosion of my civil rights and trying to tax me to death). Is there some sort of moron field at the border?

It's a crying shame the Scottish Parliament can't block them. The day they become independent and then get the power to dump Whitehalls more moronic ideas, I'm there (assuming they want any middle-aged IT geeks)

and as a sidebar

this is absolute proof that there are too many managers with too many dumb ideas running hospitals.

Unlike many, I honestly don't care if a home, or even office user wants to use Windows for their own stuff, as long as that stuff can't hurt me. But there is no way on this planet that I can trust anyone who thinks that Windows is acceptable in hospitals with my medical information, let alone running the place.

When are the managers being sacked? And the manager/director/minister who bought Windows?

Title

So, can I sue my local library for letting people borrow books that discuss TCP/IP networking applications and how to code stuff (possibly including p2p clients?)

The rest of my opinions have been vehemently and accurately expressed by others here, so I'll lay off the swearing and insults. ;-)

Suprisingly quick

Given that I've been wearing the t-shirt for 5 years. Heck, it's even been on "the <logo> crowd"

Title

Ok, so they are scared about numbering every single thing. Ignoring the baleful gaze of the Flying Spaghetti Monster pointing out that his is the only true religion, I have a question about this "numbering".

Who is going to number the termites (or ants, I can't remember which)? I understand that there's around 40 metric tonnes of them for each human on the planet, and that's a lot of small insects to number.

Oh, and how many bacteria are there on my colleagues five-year-old unwashed, lunched over, coffee-ridden keyboard? (Ick, I can't even look at it. It growls when I go past)

I am no lawyer, but I reckon that demolishes the central "it's the beginning of the scheme" argument. What's the next joke from the US legal system?

Title

I wish the BofH would stop reading my mind - my S&S box set arrived yesterday...

Mine's the one with "neither is steel" written on the back. In nice jet and diamond sequins.

Poink

I have nothing to add, except to those who might want a copy.

Try Blackwells

<I can hear Travolta and Cruise in the approaching 'copters...>

Socks?

So what about the cat? Surely far more important than the mutt, as most of the last 8 years documents have probably been written in Lolcat. With a crayon.

Paris, as a stand in for Palin

Hardly news

I'm terrified that it's taken these "boffins" so long to work out that a magnetic shield around a ship will provide some of the protection that the Earth's magnetic fields provide us groundhogs. It's mind numbingly obvious that our magnetosphere and 67 miles of atmosphere protect us from a lot of the high energy radiation out there.

But it's nowhere near enough, and doesn't even begin to answer the problems of radiation exposure in space. Ships are going to need more than just a magnet for defense, and colonies are going to need a lot more again. At the moment, our only viable option for colonies on the moon or Mars are going to involve heavy layers of shielding, meaning metres of rock or water or slabs of heavy metal. Magnetic fields can help, but we've a long way to go.

Shame though, I would like to see humans established on other planets, before we wipe ourselves off the face of this one.

Grr

>"Windows 7 won't slip"

Spell check or proofreading fail on their part - "slip" instead of "ship"

Ok, wishful thinking, but I think I'm with all the other posters - if it's got the DRM of Vista, the shoddy approach to drivers, the abysmal performance chewing up CPU time for stuff I don't need and probably a shed load of other stuff (I went back to XP before I found any more "do not want" items), then this announcement is just the usual pile of stinky stuff that's quite good for the garden.

@RotaCyclic

>If you want to earn good money in IT there are only two ways to do it: Contracting and Investment banking

I wouldn't bet on that either - with the Inland Revenue going after contractors under IR35 (it effectively turns them into permys, but without the benefits like sick pay, holiday pay, p/maternity pay, redundancy payouts, job security, share/health/pension schemes and so on), and investment banks cutting costs or imploding...

Anyway, paying developers by performance would be nice, but it's incredibly difficult to actually measure - as noted above, most of the reward schemes are wide open to abuse. Number of lines? Padding. Bugs found/fixed? Collusion between dev&test.

Maybe "user satisfaction" needs to be taken into account, but it's not often we see a user say "thanks" when things go well, they usually remain quiet until things go wrong.

No surprise

They closed down the site because they asked a simple question, and got an overwhelming response that they did not like. All that does is tells us that the government is still not "listening", and the attempt to hide the results just makes them look even more ignorant and autocratic than they did before.

If they really want to stand any chance of re-election, they really do need rid of Jacqui Smith - we, the people you are supposed to represent, are overwhelmingly against almost everything she suggests - 42 day detention, ID cards, or massive tracking databases.

As one of the posters on the site put it so succinctly - "Do Not Want" (and no kitteh in sight!)

@AC @AC

>In defense of Imperial

I don't know if I misread AC1s posting, but I'm afraid I tend to agree with it. To me, it seemed like (s)he was saying "Imperial is better than metric", which, despite the flaws you've pointed out, is still fundamentally a much better system than metric. I'm not even sure it wasn't a joke - I had to look up what weight a "dram" was.

I absolutely agree with your points about base though - metric is good in that it sticks with 10. 12 is a much better base for measurements, but Imperial fails by using it inconsistently.

I thought metric was better until I read "About the Size of it: The Common Sense Approach to Measuring Things" by Warwick Cairns.

Anyway, back to the point - I have a Roomba, and it has two massive problems when it comes to warfare - first, it can barely carry a cat, let alone a decent weapon payload. Second, it doesn't do stairs.

I was also thinking "Scutter", just like everyone else, but that gave me a shudder of dread - there was an episode where the Scutters bred. I don't mind robots breeding if all they do is housework, watch John Wayne movies and swear at smegheads, but when one is carrying weapons, that's a different story...

I still don't think we should arm the machines, any more than we should arm the humans!

Oh Oh Oh!

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease let it be the "boy band" advert. It's brilliant (and definitely better than the X factor)

<where's the sarcasm tag?... oh, gottit...>

Thanks

Now I need to get a clean "wipe coffee off the screen" cloth.

On a serious note, this sort of thing is why I reckon the US needs to re-evaluate it's gun-toting amendment. It's pretty clear that it needs to be changed to something like "you have the right to bear arms once you have demonstrated a full understanding of how to use and look after weaponry" (I'm not getting into the pro/anti thing, it's not relevant here)

Some samples of lessons:

Do not look down the barrel to find out if a round is in it, and do not try to work it loose with the trigger.

Do not point a weapon at someone unless you are prepared to kill them

Do not play "duck season" "wabbit season"

Those nice little metal things that go on the inside go bang if you burn or heat them

Do not play Russian Roulette with automatics

On the other hand, we'd be sadly deprived of some fantastic Darwin Awards nominations...

Much as Google's world domination galls me

I do use Facebook, and if I needed a search something I've seen there, been happy to pop a new tab on the browser and head to google. So, I thought I might as well give the live search a go.

Useless results, too much garbage on screen, and oh, useless results. It's a load of old <rounded male gamete containers> Anyone know if Greasemonkey has a script to obliterate the link completely? I don't want to click on it by accident ever again.

Paris, because she would have more luck finding something useful...

@Dale

>This is why Iran wants nukes.

This is why Iran *should have* nukes.

"A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but tactical thermonuclear weaponry is a man's best friend". Mine's the one with the Thorium bomb in the pocket. S'right.

Recommended reading

I'd like to recommend some required titles for the library at the college

* Distributing Clue to users

* Windows NT User Obliteration

* Box set of "The IT Crowd"

* Conducting Black Operations in the Corporate IT Theatre

Thinking about it though, if the government is serious about this, then the list should start

* Security Engineering

* The Art of Deception

* A big poster of Bruce Schneier

* A Ubuntu CD

Yep

I'd have bailed out after the makeover too. Sensible chap.

so

"We want to make it [licensing] as friction-free as we can"

Might I suggest the GPL for the software? Ok, it'll take a few years for us to stop laughing at the quality of the code, but it's simple, effective, and putting a good dent in your market...

Tux, because I watched Madagascar last night, and despite being reasonably sober, still loved the penguins.

Hah

I'm half surprised they didn't sue to try to prevent incursion from the plane of Xen, or the risk of having Yob-Soddof turning up and devouring our souls...

Black Helicoptors or Black Mesa?

UK/Euro figures?

I'm curious, I mean the US consumer is finally seeing sense (i.e. Vista is a steaming pile of stuff that simply can't be polished), but what about the UK and Europe?

The figure in my family 5 years ago was 1 Linux, 1 Mac and 6 XP boxes, but it is now 2 Linux, 5 Mac and 1 XP. I can confidently say that most of the shift to Mac has been as a result of "my XP box is old, I need a new computer, but Vista is so bad...", and I can't see them turning back. But I'm curious about the rest of Europe.

Question

As I understand it, they're layering adverts over spaces in videos which effectively alters what the users see.

Is this not effectively modification of content? Can the authors of the original opt-out so that their users see what the authors intended them to see?

Also, if someone would be kind enough to write me some sort of black list, so that I, as an end user, can choose to ignore things that have been adulterated by unwanted and irrelevant adverts? I don't mind adverts that don't get in the way (banners and boxes on websites), but you stick something in an "empty" space in a video, or popup/under, you can count me as one less customer, whatever the product.

Mine's the one with Adblock Plus, a Tivo and a pair of scissors in the pocket.