Posts by The Axe

Dont' trust any scientists

When scientists in a national organisation (National Academy of Sciences in the US) says that the sea level on the western cost of the US will rise by a foot in 20 years when over the last 160 years it's risen by 8" then you know that there is some seriously dodgy science going on. You want a hockey stick, go look at the graphic that shows what the 1' rise would look like over at WattsUpWithThat. The NAS say that the sea level could rise by 1m when you take into account a drop in ground level due to a major earthquake. A quake that hasn't done that mcuh change to ground levels in any history.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/23/the-national-academy-of-sciences-loses-the-plot/

Just wait for the nutters to start popping out of the woodwork complaining that the energy from these charger devices is causing them headaches, nausea, dizziness, and other weird and wonderful psychosomatic symptoms. Next you'll have them campaigning for them to be made child-proof, such as no charger to be allowed in primary schools 'cause their "waves" can propogate through things so they must be able to travel some distance and into young kids heads.

Ohh, I just thought of a nice line in protective headgear for these people. Just hand me my coat, it's the one with the tin foil in it.

Employers NI

That marginal rate of 32% does not include Employers NI which is money that the company pays to the state on behalf of the employee instead of using it elsewhere such as paying it to the employee. So it's effectively part of the tax grab. That takes it up closer to 40% for basic rate tax payers.

3 mile

So Neil's code will work 3 miles below the surface as well as 3 miles above the surface. Pretty good going in my books from a fellow embedded firmware engineer

Already there are many results to the search "how to get round ISP blocking of pirate bay". So major fail.

Serious backpeddling here. I can see a time in some months where the case will just quietly peter out. Bit by bit, different parts of the case will be dropped until eventually the case no longer exists, but there won't be any annoucement saying this.

Annoying

I'm already mighty pissed of with the directive causing lots of pop ups on just about every she I visit. Effing irritating. Another nail in the coffin for the eu as people find out how much its laws actually affect them - for no real benefit.

Not cheap

Software is not cheap to produce. It takes a number of programmers months and years to produce some software. That has to be amortised across the production run. For Windows(TM) with it's millions of copies it's quite cheap. My software which has taken two of us two years to write and we sell probably a thousand a year is a signficant cost on each item.

ASA powerless

The ASA are a joke. A group of jumped of liberals picking up on any complaint that has tends towards those that are accepted by the liberal left but ignores any from the right. So complaints by gays looked into more favourably than complaints by Christians.

Just look at how they attempted to silence Archbishop Cranmer (@His_Grace) when he showed a Campaign for Marriage advert. It's pretty much exploded in their face as they frantically backtrack after Cranmer published his correspondence with them. They say they weren't investigating and he had no compulsion to reply but the emails say otherwise.

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/asa-semantics-and-lies.html

Anyway, the ASA can ask advertisers to stop showing adverts but they can't force them to. It's only because Google and other agencies follow ASA rulings that the ASA have any power.

Lots of tech to solve a non-existant problem

So because a few pieces of technology don't quite fit the muster we must add loads more sensors, computers, and other pieces of electronics to control traffic. Why not step back for a second and think about the processing power in the vehicle. Yep, the drivers' brain. A lot better at working out how to cross a road than dumb computers. Will you have speeders racing through junctions? Probably, but they do so already. By removing signs and lights and other indicators drivers will have to think and they naturally slow down and cross a junction carefully.

James Bond

Is it me or does the Ice Cube Observatory look like it's come straight out of a James Bond film? Looks like a classic evil henchman's lair.

Article rating

Am I the only one confused about the purpose of the article rating system. I get confused as to whether it is about the quality of the writing or the topic itself. In other words are we rating the journalistic skills or the topic covered.

Do we down vote an article because we disagree with the journalist or do we down vote because it's crappily written churnalistic output?

The email address is only incorrect because CheckPoint didn't check that the email address was correct. It was noone's fault except CheckPoint. Trying to imply it was Network Solutions fault is not a nice thing to do. Be big and take the blame.

Oooo Look!

Look a hockey stick!

Not good

Sounds like a stealth tax. Make it sound good by removing complex rules but actually it's bad because it will mean paying more tax.

Does the government really mean a tax on turnover rather than a tax on profit. Unless the percentage is tiny it'll be a negative for all small companies.

Funny, wierd

I thought it a bit funny that the police seized all his property considering he was only being arrested for extradition and not for a criminal case in NZ. And even then, I'm sure they could only sieze property that was going to be used as evidence in a criminal case or could be proved to be from the proceeds of a crime. With extradition there is no need for property seizure since the crime would have been committed outside of NZ. But then I'm no lawyer.