Posts by Charlie Clark

Re: Relying on filters for copyright violations

As the article says, filters are not part of the law.

Current practice, via safe harbour, is that it's all okay as long as it's removed when a takedown notice is served. In other words: copyright holders also have a duty to check for abuse.

Re: On Its Merits

Most of the boffins and engineers would agree that getting back into space is a good thing, just not with space capsules filled with people. Including shielding and life-support systems is expensive and significantly increases cost with very little return. Space, it turns out, is a very dangerous place for mammals, but tardygrades seem to do ok.

Re: The sad thing is

Maybe, doesn't really matter because the sinister aspect is that the law probably gives the government, or interested parties, a way to find out what people are looking and go after them for it.

First they came for the porn fiends and I did nothing…

Re: The sad thing is

How long is it going to be before the government (of whatever party) extends to block to cover content such as fascist or communist content?

About three seconds after it becomes law. It's just another snoopers charter.

There have been loads.

Re: "a large proportion – 17.7 per cent – say they will give up using online porn"

and of these, 152 % said they had never used porn in the first place and didn't know what it was anyway.

Re: Can you blame us? @DuncanLarge

Well, you're missing the point, but at least you're aware that EEC-participation ("Norway") HAS been repeatedly proposed by the UK.

No, it hasn't and certainly not formally. Norway's deal is EU rules (including free movement of people), paying (a bit less) into the EU's budget, complying with ECJ judgements and no seat at the table when it comes to making the rules. So, basically everything the UK government said it didn't want. OK, no European Parliament so less gravy for Farage and his cronies.

The EU would have no problem with an arrangement like this, but the members of the EEA have indicated that they would be unhappy should the UK apply to join.

Re: Can you blame us?

they describe as a moral stance.

Ah, that would be the one relating to maintaining the Good Friday Agreement. What a bunch of ninnies!

Elsewhere: the Republic of Ireland does not want a hard border with the UK, but such would be consequence of the British government's red lines.

Don't go blaming the EU for this: the UK adopted a poor opening position and didn't really turn up at the negotiations for most of the first year. It would have been far more sensible for May to use the party conference in 2016 to get backing for her position, then call a geneal election based upon that and only then to invoke Article 50. As it was, she failed to adopt a clear negotiating position before invoking Article 50 and managed to fumble the general election, making her beholden to the DUP and other extremists.

Re: Can you blame us?

You know, I'm not sure. I'm unlikely to cross paths with him so it's probably moot, but I do find him despicable, loathsome and self-serving but if I did ever come near him I'd probably just seeth.

Re: Scotland/Wales want increased powers locally

The list of those responsible is long* but on becoming leader of the party Cameron did declare that "we've got to stop letting Europe tear us (the party) apart" only to cave in to the demands for a referendum. The lesson from him, but also several of his predecessors, being that you cannot negotiate with extremists: either you expel them from the party, or you let them takeover (which is what's happened to Labour under Corbyn). A lesson that, however, completely seemed to pass May by. Even now without her own majority and with around a third of the parliamentary party having no confidence in her, she has failed to seek a cross-party majority on the most important item of legislation.

* And the financiers like to be kept in the background.

Re: Can you blame us?

Even though BOTH have been elected on a mandate to deliver Brexit

Who's the BOTH you're shouting about, and what's this Brexit you're expecting? I only remember so waffle about a strong and stable or red, white and blue or one that's good for everyone. All of them seemed to involve magical pots of money for hospitals, schools, farmers, police, etc. but only the DUP ever seems to get any extra money.

Thank god Bercow put a stop to the schoolmistress' attempt to keep everybody behind until she gets want she wants. In a country where parliament is supposed to be sovereign, even the government has to play by the rules.

Can't get parliament to agree? Then hand the matter over to parliament to come up with a consensus. Need more time? Then ask for it. And if it takes another session of the European Parliament to do this, then so be it. We've all seen what happens when you try and put the cart before the horse and it's not as if parliament hasn't got other things to do.

Oh, and if anyone see's that fucker, Farage, on his walkabout, there's a free pint if you clock the self-serving publicity whore one. Or spike his beer, or fags.

Define security. There is no indication that IOS is more secure than Android. By design its security is better in some ways, poorer in others. And, can you really trust Apple more than you can trust Google?

Re: Why on earth would Google have a problem with BlackBerry Hub?

BlackBerry handed over maintenance to another company a while back, privacy rules changed.

Re: Still waiting...

Except that it suffered from Windows Mobile/Phone's Achilles' heel of not being able to run most Windows software, and Microsoft's chronic lack of commitment to its platform.

Re: But ...

Most of the non-consumption apps do all that – consumption stuff doesn't really do Copy&Paste largely because of DRM but loads of apps will store stuff on an external SD. Lots of apps will give you SMB and printing (almost invariably via the "cloud", but still it works)

But I'm not sure that people want to replicate the Windows desktop entirely on their phones. A lot of them will probably already be using something like OneDrive. What they really want is mobility.

Re: Watch out Microsoft?

Do you really think the number of displays is really likely to be a problem? I think the bigger issue is the toolkit for the different form factors. I'm pretty confident the compositors can handle converting the virtual display into signals for different ones, or, just let some kind of docking station deal with that.

I don't expect the market for these devices to be large initially but I guess the companies that should be really worried are the PC makers: the few that are left just got even more competition.

Of course, the ChromeOS boys could still attempt to nip this in the bud, because according them the Gospel of Google is that devices with keyboards must use ChromeOS.