Posts by Graham Dawson

CIA boss: Make America (a) great (big database of surveillance on citizens, foreigners) again!

It was inserted years ago. Barry oiled it up and gave it a good shove on his way out the door.

Apple sings another iTune following Brexit as prices rise by up to a third

Re: Joining the EEA

Doug, the EU has no say over whether or not the UK can join the EEA. It is a separate treaty organisation, not some EU adjunct. We'd be negotiating with the EEA council, of which the EU is only a small part.

Of course, given pronouncements by her mayjesty yesterday, that path has apparently been ruled out.

Re: For Once

We voted to leave the integrationist political organisation called the eu. The single market is a separate thing, to which it is possible to retain membership without being locked into the political and customs integration the eu requires for membership.

EEA members are part of the single market without having to be part of the customs union. They also have direct membership of the unece and other Un orgs, where they get to have direct influence over international trade, standards and economic policy, whereas eu member states are all represented by the single eu rep and only have one 'vote' to share between all 27 members.

Re: For Once

She's an idiot. Any rational person would have stated by now that the first thing the uk would do is join the eea, which retains single market access without the customs union, then start to negotiate any further deals from that position. Instead she had listened to the headbangers and the Westminster bubble, and concluded that the best option is to hold a gun to her head dare the eu to pull the trigger.

Why Theresa May’s hard Brexit might be softer than you think

Doctor North generally knows what he's talking about.

The issue is that May hasn't outlined what her transitional deal is transitioning to, or what it will transition through. She's also stated outright that we're leaving the single market. Assuming she understands what the single market is (based on prior statements, she does not), that rules out membership of the EEA and EFTA entirely - as both agreements assume continued membership of the single market in some form.

If by "single market" she means the Customs Union, then perhaps it's a different matter. Of course then the problem becomes one of her speaking about things she doesn't appear to understand, which is not a very encouraging possibility. She'll be negotiating to leave one thing, but everyone else will understand her to mean leaving another thing entirely.

Trump's cyber-guru Giuliani runs ancient 'easily hackable website'

Re: Balance of probabilities?

Why not both? Incompetent conspiracy, the worst of both worlds.

I was thinking the same thing.

Balance of probabilities?

Dodgy dealer on Amazon lures marks towards phishing site

The linked blog post explains it properly. When they try to check out, Amazon throws up an error of some sort and advises the user to contact the seller directly to sort it out. The seller then tricks the buyer into paying directly with a fake amazon email. There's no automated redirect as implied in the article

Did EU ruling invalidate the UK's bonkers Snoopers' Charter?

That may be so, but it's largely irrelevant to the discussion. This case wasn't brought under the echr and had nothing to do with it. My argument was to correct the claim that our membership of the echr had any relation to our membership of the eu, along with the related claim that this case had anything to do with the European Court of human rights.

In fact we were a founder member of the Council of Europe, which created the ECHR, before the coal and steel union even existed.

The European Charter of Human Rights has nothing to do with the EU, nor does it have anything to do with the ECJ. The ECHR is a treaty organisation that was drawn up by the European Council, an entirely separate organisation to the EU. Membership of the EU would not affect membership of the European Court of Human Rights or signatory status to the ECHR.

No Soylent for Santa after key ingredient supply is choked off

Re: Wrong ingredients

You must have a very peculiar idea of plenty if you want to call the glut of food that the western world consumes "rationing". In the story, the US population was forced into cities so that enough land could be provided to feed the majority a very basic diet, while a tiny minority consumed as luxuries things that even those under the poverty line take for granted.

If you can look around and think that the US, or the west in general, is in that state then you must be wearing some seriously tinted shades.

Re: Wrong ingredients

It also predicted that such a population would be unsustainable without extreme rationing. This is evidently not the case.

Why does Skype only show me from the chin down?

@Andy livingstone Re: SPED???

It is the past tense of speed. Open a real dictionary and read the etymology of the word instead of relying on urban dictionary.

While you're at it, look up the definition of context.

Japanese robot space maid will incinerate Earth's dead satellites

Re: ton of bs (off topic)

Why not standardise on Base 12 for more divisors? 10 doesn't split easily into quarters or thirds, for instance.

LeEco Le Pro 3: Low-cost, high-spec Droid takes on the big boys with a big fat batt

Re: Headphone volume warning...

It's in aosp. My lg g3 does it.

The source is a regulatory change in 2013. All personal audio devices sold in the eu must have a cap of 85dB. It can be overridden to 100dB, but must reset every 24 hours.

Really weird quantum phenomenon spied lurking near neutron star

Re: The abstract says 10^13G field strength. I presume this is Gauss

Obviously you had it draw a drawer.

Hackers electrocute selves in quest to turn secure doors inside out

Re: They're still alive after electrocution?

The iee regs disagreed with the oed last time I looked.

Helping autonomous vehicles and humans share the road

Re: Price hikes on the way @Dave 126

Not mere speed, but inappropriate speed for the conditions, something that fixed camera fines and even smart motorways aren't capable of determining.

Apple admits the iPhone 6 Plus has 'Touch Disease'

"You're dropping it wrong."

'Pavement power' - The bad idea that never seems to die

So you blame the article for your inability to pay attention for more than one or two sentences?

No wonder twitter caught on so readily...

Gawker settles with Hogan

Good. They were a shitty clickbait rag that had a long history of publicising the private lives of people without any care for the consequences of their actions.

'Biggest ever' Linux release

Re: "commit the noun"

I suppose you also object to study, lie , yield and act. In fact, for consistency's sake, you should probably object to all these other words that are both nouns and verbs as well, given how many are nouns derived from the verb form and vice-versa.

Or you could accept that language does this stuff all the time and learn to live with it.

Boffins twist beams of neutrons into pasta to cook up holograms

Re: And I quote...

The fact that application has other, longer-standing meanings than "program running on a computer".

AI, AI, captain: Royal Navy warships to set sail with computer officers

Re: You've left out the most important bit.

Some Twat Always Reboots The Logging Endpoint.

Or maybe

Send To Admiralty: Ratings Tired, Left Early

Nah. Call it The First Hints Of A Gravitas Shortfall.

Sounds like someone's a Iain M Banks fan...

Casino cops are coming if we can't move all this cash in a hurry

Re: Interesting

They already were. By merging the management of long-term storage, operations and infrastructure, they found they were suddenly swimming in cash.

Don't panic, but a 'computer error' cut the brakes on a San Francisco bus this week

Re: Shouldn't they have a 'safe' failure mode?

Four.......knots! *shakes around a bit more*

UK Science Museum will reconsider its 'sexist' brain quiz

Re: Don't complain about the "science"...

NO

NO

Re: History

Odd, I've seen studies asserting the exact opposite. It's almost as if the entire field of behavioural psychology is rife with confirmation bias and cherry-picking to prove dubious political points.

Ad flog Plus: Adblock Plus now an advertising network, takes cash to broker web banners

I have, a few times, before I got around to rooting my tablet and installing adaway. The damn things fling the page around so much that you can end up tapping on them when the link you thought you were pressing suddenly shifts half a screen down to accommodate the enormous image that wasn't there a moment earlier.

The reg is particularly prone to this one, with those enormous banners that appear at the top and push the entire site down by a good quarter of the screen.

Jeff Bezos' thrusting cylinder makes Elon Musk's look minuscule

Bits of it did.

You should install smart meters even if they're dumb, says flack

@Nick Ryan

I have found that the best source of LED lighting is aliexpress. I've got my whole house lit with a bunch of next-gen LED bulbs from there. They're a fraction of the cost of buying the poorly made, overly expensive and annoyingly dim crap available here, and they don't appear to suffer much in the way of heating issues.

One downside though: they're universally Edison screw, so you will have to stock up on suitable fixtures or get adapters.

These videos by Big Clive convinced me to go for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfJKq-igxJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nme8T2yLhL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gcYAFPxeug

Come in HTTP, your time is up: Google Chrome to shame leaky non-HTTPS sites from January

Re: @Marcel - Really?

Reliable as in not tampered with between source and client.

Sex is bad for older men, and even worse when it's good

Can't find the actual paper, but from the description it sounds like a data dredge. You can bet that they split the original sample up into smaller and smaller pieces until a spurious correlation popped out.

Brexit must not break the cloud, Japan tells UK and EU

If only they'd paid attention to Dr North...

It's OK to fine someone for repeating a historical fact, says Russian Supreme Court

Russia is a member of the ECHR. This would be well within the court's remit.

BBC vans are coming for you

Re: why do I have to tell ... my address?

It's a licence to receive live television broadcasts, which is why iplayer live is covered by it, but using the tv to watch dvds isn't.

Re: I'd still like to know...

Its entirely fear-mongering. The vans are a fiction thought up in the 50s, when tv was still seen as a bit magical and science could do anything you could imagine. Nothing but propaganda.

NASA wants to sell International Space Station to private enterprise

Re: Maybe

The station's orbit is inclined far too high for that. One of the comprises required to get the Russians involved was that it had to pass over their launch sites, otherwise the fuel costs to align their launchers with the station would have been prohibitively expensive. Unfortunately that means it can't be used as a way station to the moon for the same reason.

UK IT consultant subject to insane sex ban order mounts legal challenge

Re: Or maybe...

This is the very reason why our legal system presumes innocence unless sufficient proof can be brought to convict.

Sadly, on this issue in particular, our legal system is inexorably being inverted to presume guilt.

Re: Exercise the SRO

Unfortunately, and with increasing frequency these days, dark humour tends not to translate well on the internet.

Nokia taps former Rovio man Rantala to market relaunch

just give me a modern equivalent of the n900 and I'll be happy.

you hear that, nokia? one man's happiness! surely that's worth more than a million sales?

no?

oh well. gimme anyway.

Hey, turn down that radio, it's alien season and we're hunting aliens

Re: @jeffypoooh I for one take 2

A downvote? Seriously? Does context mean nothing to you people?

@jeffypoooh Re: I for one take 2

Comment quality around these parts had taken a real dive...

The curious case of a wearables cynic and his enduring fat bastardry

Re: Smart bulbs versus light switches

These smart light things are all sold on the premise of saving money and energy by having finer control over your lights and things, though they cost so much and use so much that any savings are pretty much imaginary. If you want to make real savings, ditch the smart crap and buy a job-lot of next-gen led bulbs from china on aliexpress. You can buy similar bulbs here, of course, but they put out less than half the light and cost four times as much.

Got the idea from watching this chap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nme8T2yLhL0

BBC detector vans are back to spy on your home Wi-Fi – if you can believe it

Re: Hounded

Oh yes, the technology worked that way, but the detector vans themselves never existed. They were pure propaganda designed to scare people into paying up.

Re: I got exactly one letter.

I ticked the box. I got another letter six months later. Ticked the box. Another letter six months later. Repeat ad nauseum.

I chuck them in the bin now.

London's Met Police has missed the Windows XP escape deadline

Re: Government investment in the Police

There is actually a sound reason for using cassette tapes. They're robust, they're simple and they're reliable. Digital recording can still just magically disappear (the more general magical disappearing properties of evidence contrary to a case notwithstanding), whereas a tape is bloody difficult to wipe effectively.

It's the same reason solicitors still tend to use fax machines for important legal documents, and why hansard is printed on vellum.

Harrison Ford's leg, in the Star Wars film, with the Millennium Falcon door

Re: Ford, best known..

Camilla's back and on the sauce again, it seems. Bottoms up!