* Posts by Graham Marsden

6899 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2007

New NASA theory: Moon radiation drops so HULK RIP MOON LIKE SHIRT

Graham Marsden
Headmaster

@Simon Sharwood - "cold volcanic activity to you and I"

In a sentence part like this, omit the word "you" and see if it still sounds right: "cold volcanic activity to I". If it doesn't, use the word "me" instead (unless you're from the West Country)

PS Interesting article, though :-)

We're four years away from digitising England's courts – report

Graham Marsden

Re: Already Gone Binary?

I think you've mistaken this for the Daily Mail comments page...

FCC clicks off the safety, fires at America's great cable TV box rip-off

Graham Marsden
Holmes

Anyone...

... checked their Campaign Contributions...?

MIT boffins' code scans your health claims, tunes plans for bosses

Graham Marsden

"the BST software will seek out the patterns in treatment of employees...

"...and then use that information to suggest how a company health plan could ensure that exclusions for these conditions are added when employees join to make sure that profits aren't affected..."

FT(cynically)FY.

Israeli military techies cook up security alerts software

Graham Marsden
Trollface

Re: Security?

Downvoted.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Terrified robots will take middle class jobs? Look in a mirror

Graham Marsden

It's not about jobs, it's about income...

Excuse the tangent, but when people say they're worried about robots/ computers/ immigrants "taking their jobs", what they actually mean is that they can see their income stream disappearing.

Under the current neo-liberal capitalistic setup, those who run the businesses are on a race to the bottom, driving down their business costs by getting the cheapest labour to maximise their profits which are then distributed to their share holders, meanwhile those who have lost their income have to rely on State Benefits (if there are any) or scratch out a living on a minimum wage job whilst a few at the top of the pile get richer and richer.

Douglas Adams summed this up nicely with the Magarathean Planet Builders who catered for the extremely rich "But this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of, because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of." Of course it ended up with so much wealth being concentrated in so few hands that the economy collapsed...

Naturally some (TW comes to mind) would argue that people are "better off" because goods become cheaper, but they don't become cheap enough to counterbalance the loss of income and, meanwhile, the wealth still flows upwards and does not "trickle down" to the people who will actually spend it, rather than salting it away in lucrative (for them) tax avoidance schemes.

So arguing about "professional classes hollowing themselves out" or their jobs being taken over by AIs is a bit of a red herring, what's important is whether money can be made to flow back down from the top such that the economy keeps running. If that doesn't happen, the rest of the argument is merely academic.

Five Eyes nations must purge terrorists from the web, says Theresa May

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

purge “extremist messages”

Teresa May is an idiot!

[PURGE] [PURGE] [PURGE]

Boffins' 5D laser-based storage tech could keep terabytes forever

Graham Marsden
Alert

Keep your data for 13.8 billion years...

I understand they've just had enquiries from Teresa May and Mark Zuckerberg...

UK to stop children looking at online porn. How?

Graham Marsden

@AC - Re: Here is the link to the consultation

> I aint filling that in, I'm still furious that they leaked everyone's responses on the Filtering consultation

I don't know if you're joking or not, but a) AFAIR this one doesn't ask for your personal details and b) when you provide responses to a consultation you agree that, unless you specfically state otherwise, they will be made public.

Graham Marsden

@Suricou Raven - Re: Here is the link to the consultation

> I'm actually surprised the questions are worded in a way that makes disagreement possible

Yes, that is a pleasant surprise, although the comment boxes are tiny with limited character input and, for one question, I had to tick "yes" to get access to the comment box on the next page as "no" would just have skipped it.

Graham Marsden
Childcatcher

Link to the Consultation Document

This is the link to the Consultation

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/child-safety-online-age-verification-for-pornography

I recommend everyone go to that page and point out that you disagree with a) their attempts to censor the internet and b the idea that adults should have to ask permission to look at adult content.

"Won't Someone Think of the Children" never results in good (or sensible) legislation.

Graham Marsden
Pirate

Here is the link to the consultation

Excuse the blatant piggy-back, but so far I've seen nothing that links to the actual consultation, so here it is:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/child-safety-online-age-verification-for-pornography

Go there, fill it in, explain to them WHY them demanding the moon on a stick doesn't mean that anyone can deliver it and maybe, just maybe, we can stop this nonsense.

New Monopoly version features an Automatic Teller Machine

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

Settlers of Catan...

... or Carcassonne, Alhambra, Ticket to Ride and many others are much better than the obsolete "roll and move" of Monopoly.

Once you start playing games like these, you'll wonder why on earth Monopoly is still going after all this time and the only conclusion you can come to is "because people don't know any better".

Seriously, play some decent Euro Games (ones that don't involve screwing everyone else over and forcing them out of the game) and you'll never look back.

Failed school intranet project spent AU$1.4m on launch party before crashing and burning

Graham Marsden
Holmes

"after he left the department, he took a job with CSG"

Ah, the good old revolving door! Step out of a job in a Government Department which has just pissed away millions of pounds (or whatever) of public money, straight into a job or "Directorship" with the company that all that money was paid to.

Of course it's just a co-incidence...

Reluctant Wikipedia lifts lid on $2.5m internet search engine project

Graham Marsden

@John Brown (no body) Re: Missed opportunity

Herbie?

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?

The Batmobile? (At least one version)

Christine

Louisville says yes to Google Fiber. Funny story: AT&T, TWC didn't want that to happen

Graham Marsden
Pirate

Re: Oh FFS...

"Fake reason"?

"Oh dear, your existing service has just had a mysterious outage (which was in no way caused by someone putting a digger bucket through a major connector). Why not swap to our brand new shiny cable service...?" - BIfH

National Pupil Database engorged to 20 million individual kids' records

Graham Marsden
Holmes

"We do this by ensuring requestors...

"...comply with strict terms and conditions covering the confidentiality and handling of data, security arrangements, and retention and use of the data.

"And when they don't and the entire database is left on an unsecured datastick in the back of a taxi or on a lap-top on a train we will definitely give them *at least* a stern finger-wagging and, if necessary, a quite sharp smack on the wrist whilst we Learn Lessons that will stop this from ever happening again (until the next time...)"

Indonesian comms ministry orders 'gay emoji' block

Graham Marsden
FAIL

@Syntax Error - Re: Emoji

The word "gay" is, unsurprisingly, *not* a synonym for "stupid" or "worthless" or "unworthy" or any other such derogatory term.

Whenever I hear someone use it in that way, I ask what their name is: "Syntax Error"? Fine, let's substitute that instead...

"Emoji are pretty Syntax Error"

"Look at that, it's totally Syntax Error"

"That post above is so Syntax Error!"

Graham Marsden
Unhappy

@cbars - Re: sorry?

> I still don't understand why this religion has so many 'followers' that can take offence from pictures.

I suggest you look at the history of censorship of paintings by the Christian Church where art showing Adam and Eve before the Fall had tree branches with convenient foliage added to conceal the "naughty bits" or male statues having their genitalia removed and stone fig-leaves added.

I don't like this any more than anyone else, but, regrettably, the more we start *telling* these people "you're doing it wrong", the more resistant they are going to be to change. Western interference in such affairs has never ended well.

Scariest climate change prediction yet: More time to eat plane food

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

@Will Godfrey - Re: A suggestion for those worried about all that extra time, fuel, CO2, ...

> the problem isn't airports, it's London itself.

Exactly! It's like a black hole, the more it grows, the more it drags in everything else around it and, more importantly, takes money away from everywhere else.

There's more to the UK than London...

Depressed? Desperate for a ciggie? Blame the Neanderthals

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

Bloody Neanderthals...

... coming over here, having sex with our women, spreading their DNA, making us all get hooked on noxious substances...

Council IT system goes berserk, packs off kids to the wrong schools

Graham Marsden

@AndrewDU

Probably better not to leave education to schools Acadamies being run for profit by the mates of those run the State...

FTFY

Net narks phishing AlphaBay drug logins in clever redirect attack

Graham Marsden

@Ole Juul - Re: Who are the "net narcs"?

That was what I was thinking: ie it's a site which has been set up by the authorities so they can get log-in credentials from crooks to allow them access to areas they'd normally find it difficult to monitor.

Confusing terminology.

Facebook-squishing Indian regulator's next move: Open source code

Graham Marsden
Go

"Any technology that is deployed for connectivity...

"...must be interoperable and the open standards framework and the principles it entails are extremely important,"

India has an incredible opportunity as an emerging market to avoid the mistakes which have come about elsewhere because of the piecemeal way the internet has grown up, provided they make sure that the big vested interests don't get their greedy hands on it and control it for their profits instead of for the benefit of the Indian people.

ADDENDUM: Oh and, PS: I have *no* objection to businesses making profits, the problem comes when the profits and dividends and bonuses are *all* they care about and screw the people they're trying to serve.

Google after six-year tax foot-drag: No they're fine about the fine. We're fine. No fine

Graham Marsden

@maffski - Re: Ah

It has nothing to do with bullying or hatred, it has to do with some tax affairs being "more equal" (oh, the irony!) than others...

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

Re: Ah

"It is very difficult to establish they took insufficient care."

So HMRC have to prove that Google "took insufficient care", whereas the rest of us would have to prove the *we* "took sufficient care".

The Golden Rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules...

No, HMG, bulk data surveillance is NOT inevitable

Graham Marsden

@Velv - Re: They've won already

> they'd be the first against the proverbial wall!!!

The media or the politicians? Hmm, it's a big wall...

Graham Marsden
Childcatcher

"if you are looking for a needle in a haystack...

"... and you make that haystack massively bigger, it will mean that sometimes you won’t find that needle."

Something I've commented many a time in here.

Of course that doesn't mean that you won't *find* a needle (or, at least, someone^H^H^thing that *looks* like a needle) and you'll spend lots of resources dealing with that False Positive and probably ruining someone's life in the process until it turns out you made a mistake...

Graham Marsden
Alert

Re: They've won already

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." - Cardinal Richlieu

Health and Safety to prosecute over squashed Harrison Ford

Graham Marsden

> if anyone is actually injured by a Christmas party hat then they will prosecute. That's why people are scared into making silly rules.

No, the HSE requires businesses to take "reasonable steps" to prevent accidents or injury.

See http://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/index.htm

They will only prosecute if there is evidence of, or reasonable grounds to suspect negligence.

Cricket can get nasty: India v Pakistan rivalry boils over into cyber-war

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

Just watch out...

... for any white robots...

Amazon's Lumberyard invaded by zombies

Graham Marsden

@Darryl - Re: Beers all round

Are you kidding? They couldn't afford how much it costs for him to get out of his tomb in the morning (evening?)

Joint Committee on UK Snoopers' Charter: Make like a dictionary and give a definition

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

" The formal minutes show failed attempts...

"...to ask the Government to consult on ways to protect British citizens from GCHQ's bulk snooping and hacking powers, which are intended to be limited to “overseas-related” communications, and on ways to increase the Judicial oversight and decrease the Executive power when it comes to surveillance."

How, exactly, does this Committee "fail" to ask such important questions, unless there are members with a specific brief of "Make sure the Committee doesn't start asking awkward questions that will highlight what we're actually trying to do..."

Women devs – want your pull requests accepted? Just don't tell anyone you're a girl

Graham Marsden

Re: Peer review

What I'd have liked to have seen is for them to create two contributors (let's call them Alice and Bob, as is traditional) and get them to both submit the same code (with appropriate modifications so they're not obviously identical).

Do this a few times and in random order and see which gets accepted more often.

Hollywood gives up speculative invoicing attempt in Australia

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

Bravo Federal Court Justice Nye Perram!

At least *someone* gets that the sort of scam is a waste of everybody's (except the lawyers') time!

Fine, let the companies sue for the *real* cost of their loss (ie what they'd get from a sale or rental of their product, but not get to parlay that into a shake-down with claims of "distribution" or other such nonsense.

Andreessen stokes the Facebook Free Basics ‘colonialism’ row

Graham Marsden
Unhappy

Re: Nice spin...

EDIT ERROR IN THE ABOVE POST...

"that giving it all to FB would cripple any local attempts to do the same thing since FB could give it away for free for long enough to bankrupt any competition."

I managed to miss out a few words in the above after a cut-and-paste:

"that giving it all to FB would be a great idea, even though that would cripple any local attempts to do the same thing since FB could give it away for free for long enough to bankrupt any competition.

Graham Marsden

Nice spin...

"The venture capitalist and Facebook board member Marc Andreessen"

That pretty much sums up what is going on here, Mr Andreessen, for all his fine words and logical fallacies is really only interested in the bottom line. He and Zuck have seen a lucrative market which is just ripe for the fplucking with lots of customers who they want to get hooked on their product with a "free sample" knowing that if they can get in first, they'll have an almost guaranteed monopoly which they can exploit and sell to their advertisers.

This has *nothing* to do with benefitting the Indian people, nor is it that "Western activists" are "seeking to prohibit any free data services, which they consider fails their politically-correct definition of ‘net neutrality’", that's a total red herring, it is people who can see the risks of letting them control it and want to prevent that from happening.

It also has nothing to do with colonialism or nannying or thinking the Indian people are too stupid to understand, it's about making sure that the politicians and regulators don't decide (based on generous "campaign contributions" or any other such things) that giving it all to FB would cripple any local attempts to do the same thing since FB could give it away for free for long enough to bankrupt any competition.

Personally I don't think that's a good thing and Indian businesses should be allowed to develop their own products for the benefit of their own people.

Met Police wants to keep billions of number plate scans after cutoff date

Graham Marsden

Re: I'm more worried about the cost....

> The recent Hatton Garden investigation relied heavily on CCTV and ANPR footage,

Good job it didn't rely on the burglar alarms that were switched off...

> Let's say in 3 years time that suspect is arrested on an unrelated crime but a vehicle registered to him for the past 5 years (after searching the database) shows he was at or near that scene at the time, whilst not conclusive it gives the Police the indication that it is worth investigating him further for that particular crime. Surely people see that too - no?

You (like many others) set up a hypothetical situation where, obviously, the "right" answer is the one that supports your position.

However that still does not justify speculatively holding on to all that data for all that time *just in case* it might be useful at some unspecified point in the future when there is the danger of all that data being *ab*used in ways that threaten our privacy and civil liberties.

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" - Sir William Blackstone 1755

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

Re: @TRT - This data is increasingly useless...

> (1) If a track of number plates from an ANPR camera helped locate an abducted child, yay!

This sort of speculative argument is a main plank of the Police's excuses explanation for why they want to keep all that data and snoop on us all.

But, like all the other such hypothetical scenarious and wiith all the ANPR data that's been collected already, has this *ever* happened...?

"Well, it's never happened yet, but it *could* possibly, one day"

It's not very convincing, yet people keep falling for it.

> There are far more erosions of privacy and infringement of human rights going on without worrying about this.

But each one *needs* to be highlighted and opposed and every time someone says "I don't have a problem with it", let alone "I have nothing to hide..." it's another victory for those who feel that only a 100% Surveillance State will make their little empires us "safe".

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

Translation...

... "We could, but we're not going to because it's too difficult and we *like* having lots of data about you..."

US Congress locks and loads three anti-encryption bullets

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

Paging King Cnut*...

... there's another bunch of cnuts here who think they can hold back the tide...

* Yes, I know he was doing it to prove to his Court that his powers were nothing compared to that of God, but don't spoil it, ok?!

Crims unleashed IRS-stabbing malware in bid to rob 464,000 people

Graham Marsden
WTF?

Re: A Solution

> replacing them with excise and other consumption taxes

So your solution would be to tax practically *all* the income of the lowest paid (who cannot afford to save and need to spend most of what they earn just to keep a roof over their head and eat) whilst the highly paid get taxed on only a tiny fraction of their income whilst the rest of it gets shuffled off abroad into tax havens...

TTIP: A locked room, no internet access, two hours, 300 pages and lots of typos

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

You know...

... when I used to play Traveller and Elite, I always wondered what those "Corporate State" governments would actually be like.

Now I know and it doesn't look like a good thing :-(

Graham Marsden

@rtb61

> in the end, all the idiotic plotting a scheming for naught

Would that that was definitely the case, but the fact that such an illiberal and clandestine power grab has already managed to get so far makes me think that whoever is behind this has already planned for this and will ensure that the votes go the "right" way for them.

Japanese boffins fire up 100Gbps wireless broadband connection

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

"Yes, we can get you 100Gbps wireless, but..."

"But what?"

"Err, but only in the same room..."

How one of the poorest districts in the US pipes Wi-Fi to families – using school buses

Graham Marsden
Happy

Re: On the Bus

> if there was ever a good rationale for taxation to benefit the poor, this is it. You can't avoid SOME positive effects on a population newly exposed to big pipes, right? Beats most other social spending anyway.

I can hear your teeth gritting from here on the other side of the pond...

London seeks trials of Google's robo-cars

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

@Roland6 - Re: @Lost all faith... - Have they decided on the ethical issue of life presevation?

But will the computer voice start singing "You'll Never Walk Alone"?

Firemen free chap's todger from four-ring chokehold

Graham Marsden
Alert

@Jimmy2Cows - Re: Why *4*?

WARNING: VERY NSFW!!

If you *really* want to know...

(The 5th ring has a 2" internal diameter, so probably would be easily removable)

Hold the miniature presses: Playmobil movie is go

Graham Marsden
Coat

Re: And the zen question may be

Lego, of course!

Graham Marsden

@Simon Harris - Re: Lego movie and lego batman, star wars etc

But will it be 187.5% better?