Posts by h4rm0ny

Re: Yeah right

Java is pretty fast these days. The slowness you are complaining about is probably the time it takes to start up the VM. Compare performance of two applications once they are actually running and it's good. Compare start-up time and it's often bad.

Re: ?

>>"Privacy's a bitch, eh?"

>Huh?

Facebook wanted to keep their estimates private. The court says Facebook has no inherent right to do so. GP finds this ironic given that Facebook is one of the foremost reducers of privacy in the world.

Re: how does it compare to...

Like the parent, I have not used SAP so cannot comment on that, but I once in my career came across Agresso. You'd be better off sitting in a corner poking yourself with a sharp stick 24/7 than even *watching* someone use that shit.

Re: relevant?

There are huge economic advantages of a state being able to manage its currency. BitCoin, if it manages to establish itself, will provide an excellent parallel system to state currencies. But as a sole replacement, it would have terrible implications. Look at what happened to Greece recently when it was tied into a single currency with the economic powerhouse that is Germany. Yes, corruption in Greece was institutionalized, and fraud was endemic - these were the biggest factors - but being unable to adjust the economy to suit its own needs rather than joined in a three-legged race to Germany, was also a large issue.

Bitcoin is essentially a non-fiat currency (which is hilarious as technically it's about as fiat as you can get), and making it the sole currency of a country would cause very major problems. It does, however, have amazing potential as an international and moderating currency.

Thing is, as you can see here - the normal slow-on-the-uptake state of governments when it comes to technology implications are reversed where currencies are concerned. There are few greater threats to a government than a currency it does not control. China's response was as inevitable as it was predictable. There are no "guns" backing BitCoin. It can either be stomped out or co-opted. Co-opted I am fine with - I think it has great potential. But I wonder how the starry-eyed zealots will deal with it when governments start properly taxing and interfering with it.

@amanfrommars1

Seriously? You think that's Bruce Schneier posting under a pseudonym suggesting El Reg hire him? Have you ANY idea who Bruce Schneier is and how influential and respected he is? Calling him "dead wood" has single-handedly relegated any future posts by you to the "probably doesn't know what he's talking about" pile, in my mind.

Go read his website for a little while and then admit you don't know what you're talking about.

Re: There is nothing evil about the military

"Though I can only speak for the RAF where you will find a thoroughly decent bunch of people who are only nasty to our enemies - and that's a good thing"

Why is a brown person in Iraq my enemy?

>>"And Cameron and Osborne are right fucking Einsteins aren't they?"

Honestly, they're evil but reasonably competent. My opinion on New Labour is that they are simply downright evil, hypocritical, self-righteous scum who do nothing well except play to the crowds. Ever since Tony "quick - make up a reason to bomb Iraq" Blair took power, they have become a pettier and more small minded version of the conservatives.

This whole story made me want to cry. I did some work in the Public Sector during New Labour's tenure. I fled back to industry. Pure, completely pure, gravy train. Pigs in a trough doesn't come close to how things were under New Labour. Not sure what it's like now - probably not much difference. But I can tell you hand on heart that under New Labour, the corruption was institutional and started right at the top.

It's not the ads that bother us. It's the tracking.

I don't really object to ads. I think most people don't really. It's the tracking we loathe and oppose.

"Man, I bet you're a riot at parties."

Well, probably more fun than the person who keeps pulling out their phone and txting.

>>>"Consume at current (and even increasing) and destory the planet, or, limit our power consumption and your kids live a decent quality of life"

Or choose door number three - build nuclear power stations.

81 is obviously a symbolic figure (Windows 8.1) but if you have a family with more than five devices in it, you can use any of them under your account and have your purchased apps available. Families with more than five devices are a minority I would imagine, but I'm sure that there are plenty of them. Remember, we're talking phones, tablets, laptops and desktops here as MS are working on unification of the stores.

Re: Intermittency of Solar

"The thing is, we can always find uses for excess power (think desalination, aluminium smelting, research into synthetic hydrocarbons). It's a lot better to have too much power than too little. We can find ways to deal with too much."

Not sure you understood my point. Our best way of producing power is nuclear power. If you want more power, you build more nuclear capability. The issue is variance. We don't need the same amount consistently throughout the day. Nuclear power doesn't vary easily. It likes to sit at a steady output. Solar however rises naturally in the day which is when our own needs rise. So they go well together.

Yes, you can mitigate this by spreading out the energy needs - e.g. you run your aluminium plant at night. These things are already done. But it's more efficient, in theory, to actually be able to adjust your power output according to need rather than try to shuffle everything around (like running factories at night) to keep need fixed. Solar plus Nuclear achieves this quite well. Assuming you get the ratios right.

Re: "the Americans obsessive fear of communism"

Regardless of conditions over there, don't you think it was irrational of Americans to think that the USA was going to be overthrown by communists?

Re: Obligatory Dr Evil reference

Upvote for the use of 'circumfluous'. Will be using that.

Re: Nice debuugger

"In my time, oh so many years ago, I used Softice, which undoubtedly some of you know."

Ahhhh, memories! :D

Re: Colourblind

>>>>Animals do not pray, they are prey.

>>Conversely, priests do both.....

So do mantids.

Re: I think Torvalds is losing it

"But that's their industry, they electrocute each other for fun..."

Which conversely a lot of office workers or programmers would try to do them for assault for. :D Different people have different ways of communicating. I kind of resent this insufferable choking culture of tissue paper softness that is being forced down from above. I'd far rather Linus's transparent position than a lot of the nicey-nicey double-dealing I've had to put up with from others.

Re: Linus might be related to Eadon?

"The only thing Linus is good at is preaching to the choir"

Well that and being a Hell of an engineer and hard worker.

I used to argue with Eadon all the time - a complete PITA who did more damage to the image of Open Source than any detractor of Open Source usually managed. Linus? I have nothing but respect for. Don't confuse an opinionated bigot with a very talented person who has a sense of humour and speaks his mind.

"The RT version of Office is far from what I would consider a full version. Why even the most remotely complex macros aren't supported is beyond me"

It has the new Office Web Plugin system instead of VB macros. That's a good thing for security and impacts most users on their non-Work Provided machines not at all. That's the one difference in functionality with Office on RT. You can't believe that makes it "far from a full version".

"Elop killed any potential for long term independant growth. Completely gutted R&D"

Nokia had barely any money before the cash injection by MS. They had to sell of their own head quarters! And you think Elop is responsible for shutting down some thriving R&D division? Facts are against you.

And an Appeal to Authority argument has never been as flawed as just now, when you use opinions of posters on these forums as your authority! You may have noticed just the teensiest bit of bias around these parts.

Then again, you may not. ;)

Re: Give Nokia WP

You're suggesting taking a VERY large and established project (the WP OS) away from ten teams that have created it and still manage it and giving it to an entirely different company. On what planet does that make financial, technical or managerial sense? You're insane.

Re: Anonymity

"Did anyone really think that anonymity Tor could be guaranteed?"

I think one of the main things it does is that even if it can ultimately be compromised, it shifts the scenario from a few quick commands on a keyboard to considerable effort and resource. The more people who use TOR or GPG, etc., the less that casual and speculative searching can take place.

It changes the scenario from 'scan all the people who visited X' or 'search all emails for references to Y', to 'we suspect this specific person - start the machinery up and get back to me'.

That's a big win for privacy.

My own view of TOR, though, is that however much I approve of securing privacy and building measure to resist abuse of power by the state, the moment I contribute by setting up a TOR node, I've no idea whether what I'm actually helping is the distribution of child porn and people pirating movies. So I don't.

Re: Firefox 32.0?

"Ah - I get it. The old Firefox versioning joke. That used to be funny - never."

I thought it was funny when I first heard it, around the time of version 12 or 13.

But that was months ago.