Posts by Gary Heard 78 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2007
Conflating the issue. There is a world of difference between Slavery, universal suffrage and CSAM, perhaps you would like the former laws on the statute books? Or is it fine having graphic images (however they are generated) of children published on the web?
The Brum mess happened because the people defining the RFI/RFQ weren't specific enough in the initial requirement and didn't have proper oversight/understanding of what was being implemented.
While the SI :-
1) perhaps didn't understand the scope
2) didn't lock the scope
3) allowed scope creep
and was probably one of the big SI's who throw people who haven't done any "Consulting" before and therefore don't have the knowledge or experience to push back against Local Authority officials who were possibly quite entrenched in their views and opinions. That isn't to say the officials were "Jobsworths" but where there should have been discussions, the Consultants didn't consult, they rolled over to the Officials views..
On March 31, the company said two new John Deere S770 & S760 flagship harvesters, along with Tempo sewers from Swedish agricultural machinery firm Väderstad, Perhaps a "Seed Sower" in the plural and past tense? The comment needs to be fushed down the pan into the sewers...
Obviously written by someone with no farming experience.. It can be called a "Planter" or more commonly a "Drill".
OpenSuSe user here.
Been using it and KDE since v7 (KDE3) all the way to now (Currently 15.1), KDE is a shedload better than it used to be and I stuck with KDE3 for a long time when 4 came out.
The desktop is good, IMO (much) better than Gnome. I like it, stable as a rock and it looks great
I'm not a junior and I'd be in deep do-do with the list presented there, as would my 13yo granddaughter who knows how to spin up a VM because I've shown her how to. At least I'm not in the West Midlands.
At the latest count there are 5 VirtualBox VM's on my home PC and 4 KVM VM's on my laptop
@LoucreLout Your comment hits home, too many people are fixed in their voting, so sort of "idealistic stupor" that makes them think idiots (Left or Right) are suitable for office. Back in the 70's (shows my age I know) I helped Plaid Cymru reduce Labours majority in Merthyr Tydfil from 25,000+ to under 4,000.... Result, investment in Merthyr was announced by the (then Labour) government. Now? A donkey could be the Labour candidate and he's still win. People don't learn.
Couple of things really, in the entire history of the human race, it's probably only in the last 15-20 years we've been able to look for and find these things. How many have zipped through unnoticed in the past 40 years let alone 4 million or 4 billion ( the time of the "Late Heavy Bombardment").?
The other thing is the Lucifer's Hammer (book) or Armageddon/Deep Impact (films) scenario, we are a very very small speck in the vastness of space, over geologic time something from outside the Solar System may hit us, but that scenario is very unlikely compared to something for the Oort Cloud or Kuiper belt falling in and 'nudging' the planet ( may wipe us out, but it was good while it lasted)
So the carousel was for between 8 and 11 million dollars. I still have to see where HP think the BILLIONS in overvaluation were lost.
Everything I've heard so far makes me think that, although Autonomy were probably not a nice business to work for, they were able to CONVINCE HP that they were worth buying for the price HP paid.
When you have Execs that don't even read the (limited) due diligence, serves them right.
I've had one of the Dropbox accounts {(I know, I know....) that just doubled to 2 TB} for a few years and let everyone in the house use the account, that's 6 devices, and even now only have just over 200GB,
How does anyone store that amount? as for getting it all back......
I now have a FTTC connection so no longer suffer this, however...
Back when I was running an ADSL broadband connection to the local exchange, I used to VPN into work, but if anyone called me (only incoming calls) then the vpn would drop and the system would take a few minutes to recover. As I lost any unsaved work, I became paranoid about saving and very angry as I knew my home setup was OK.
After much to-ing and fro-ing and a couple of emails to the boss of Openreach, an engineer visited, fixed a noisy connection and went to check the exchange. Came back and told me there was a known fault with the DSLAM, they all did it in small exchanges and they were all installed about the same time.
After another set of emails to ISP, Openreach and MP, the offending DSLAM was replaced. My ISP was amazed that the change happened so quickly -- and I was told that Openreach would ignore any future emails -- didn't care, I achieved what I needed to do.
Final note after all that Openreach tried to charge my ISP for the engineers time, they were told in no uncertain terms that payment would not be forthcoming
Very sloppy in fact.
Solar Radiation comes from the sun (hence Solar), while the comment "The amount of solar radiation has increased from previous solar cycles, according to new measurements made by a team of researchers." would make you think that it's the sun, the next comment "now face higher doses of radiation from the onslaught of highly energetic particles in cosmic rays "
Cosmic rays come from deep space and the increase in the number getting to us is due to the sun's cycle slowing (energetically speaking) sunspot cycle. This produces a less powerful solar wind, which, when stronger, helps prevent cosmic rays getting to far into the Sol system, currently it's weak and therefore more cosmic rays can get through to the inner solar system.
Have a look at the Oulu neutron detector here http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/ , it's a proxy for the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere. It shows that there is always and increase in Cosmic rays as a Solar Cycle ends and the next one starts, it's just that this cycle was weak to start with so we've had a consistently higher amount of cosmic rays during the last cycle
I had a conversation with a pilot a few years ago and he made exactly that point, even some of the dials in the cabin were left in place even though they were redundant as it avoided a "Type" change. If a Type change was required full FAA testing needed, a "Note to file" on the other hand, a few tests, otherwise, easy peasy. By changing them incrementally, the dials can be removed and you end up with "Glass" cockpits, which would have been impossible when the 737 launched
The Grob? Your readers experience was in the Chipmunk, doing aerobatics near the Severn Bridge having flown out of Filton, back in the late 60's and early 70's.
As for Gliding, the Kirby T31 was what I went solo on -- flew like a brick outhouse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_Tandem_Tutor).
But I was also lucky enough to get so much height off a winch launch in a T21 Seburgh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_T.21) the pilot did a loop and a Chandelle (stick Back hard and as she starts to stall push the stick hard left and forward with plenty of left rudder -- glider ends up with wings vertical and then you use the stick and rudder to level out as you dive -- basically drop sideways on with the ailerons and rudder turning you to a recoverable position a you gain speed) in a Glider with no canopy That was FUN.
With Flight Sim, back in the day... I flew Munich to Milan in the sailplane in real time 6.25 hours I was sat there.....
As stated above, it's messier that a pig in sh1t. My wife composes and we've found out the hard way that getting something published makes the publisher rich, not the composer
Mechanical Royalties
Royalties paid to songwriters and artists when music is sold (think CD or vinyl) but also when music is streamed (streaming mechanicals) “on-demand” (like Spotify). Songwriting mechanical royalties are set by government through what’s called a compulsory license, which right now is set to about 9 cents of every dollar earned via sale.
Current copyright regulation wasn’t created at a time when services like Spotify or Beats existed, (which are kind of a hybrid of ‘performance’ and a ‘sale’) so they pay both performance royalties and mechanical royalties to songwriters and artists.
Spotify pays about 10% of its revenue to songwriters (split between mechanical and performance royalties) and about 60% to the artists. Services like Spotify don’t have to negotiate with songwriters, because the government sets the rates – through the consent decree for PROs and a compulsory license for mechanical licenses.
Mechanical royalties for songwriting are usually paid by labels or artists to a third party, (traditionally for the major publisher it’s been HFA (the Harry Fox Agency), who pay the publishers.
(Source: American Songwriter)
Ahh, the days of CDE (Common Desktop Environment) where the screen was a uniform grey and you had to figure out how to get anything to run.
The change from KDE3 to KDE4 was a real mess, but that's years ago and KDE has been good for donkeys ages, I have both KDE and Gnome on my machine, almost always use KDE, sometimes look at Gnome to see what's new, but prefer KDE.
Someone earlier mentioned Konqueror, it's a brilliant program does browsing, File Management, allows multiple split screen operation, superb program.
That said, outside of my Pis (and I have several dozen between home and work) I tend to use OpenSuse. A decent 32-bit OS might make me revive my EeePC, which was latterly running 32 bit Mint, but was retired from frontline use about a year ago.
I've used OpenSuse for years, in fact from when it was just SuSE Linux, I think the first version I installed was 6.2. Always liked it, have tried Slackware, Red Hat/Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint and several others, now it's easy to try something new, just stick it in a VM, back in the day I had an old PC I'd try a new distro on. Always gone back to Suse (OpenSuse as is now), easy to install easy to change and YaST is a brilliant "Control Panel" that works with or without the GUI
How many times have I heard a "Windowsphile" say that? It would have a greater attack vector, that I would agree with, BUT (notice it's a BIG but) the basic design differences would require MUCH more work from miscreants.
The problem with Windows are multifaceted,
1) Closed Code
2) Reused code from years gone by
3) An architecture that never had any form of Security consideration when it was conceived
as this states for XP (for win 7 and above just prepend Windows Vista/7/8/10 64 bit extensions are.....)
Windows XP 32 bit extensions are a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition.
source: http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/corporatejokes/microsoftjokes.html
"We need everyone's contribution. I'm not in favour of workfare, there should be an entirely free choice of occupation - but for the sake of everyone's self-esteem, a general perception of fairness and helping to cover all those things that commerce and the state can't, people should work."
Sorry if this sounds sarcastic, it's not meant to be. But we cannot all be Reality TV Stars (which seems to be the "Hope" of a considerable number of people now.
"BI has a big problem of perception to overcome, in that it requires a large amount of money to be shovelled through taxation and back out to the citizenry; a lot of thought needs to be given to this. Rationally, it cannot be “too expensive” as it is a redistribution scheme, where gains and losses across the population balance out."
But what it hands out is always less than it takes in, and, from that, who do you want to decide how you spend the money you earn? Politicians? Very Brave of you to believe they have your welfare at heart and that the power of being in "control" isn't their drive
Finally, I always wonder at "The Law of unintended consequences" merging with "The devil makes work for idle hands"
\surely the USO would be on Openreach as the infrastructure provider? BT as a company made sure that they got "Superfast" into areas just as competition was starting, thus killing it. A relative put a lot of work and a considerable amount of money in getting costings to set up an ISP not too far from Cambridge where -- at the time -- there was no (known) plan to upgrade the exchange. Within a month of BT being asked about the use of ducts and poles in the area, there was an announcement that the exchange would be upgraded within 18 months, after that the bank wouldn't loan to the business, whereas previously they were keen as they saw the possibility of a profit and a growing business.
BT? Too keen to watch their bottom line and crush small business
I was lucky enough to go to Electric Mountain in a work related capacity. I still have a hand drawn diagram of the way it works and a (very) professional document detailing what the generators are capable of. The turbine hall sports 2 X 200T overhead cranes that have to be used in tandem to remove a turbine (weighing 350T).
It is also one of the grids "Black Start" power stations, used to restore the grid if there is a regional or national blackout. The generation of the AC phase (50Hz) is very precise as other stations coming on need to be "pulled" into phase by the reference station.
Fantastic bit of kit and amazing engineering
It's very erratic, working, gone, working again, gone again.
I think DDOS is the most likely cause, and if I was looking to bring the "Mighty" BBC down, I'd try it in the Christmas holidays. Some sysadmins on duty, but the majority I imagine will be off preparing for the change of the year.
Don't envy those working or those on call, I would imagine they are up to their necks in the mire.
+1 for that.
Openreach is a cash cow, the costs of renting their ducts and space in exchanges is much higher than it would be if Openreach did not have to pay its way (and more ) as part of BT
Interestingly BT are trying to put in fibre in my locality, it's (surpise surprise) behind schedule. Why? Many of the ducts carrying the current cable have collapsed (due to lack of investment). others are up to 10 meters away from where the BT maps show them to be
I remeber Demon in the old days swinging from great service to crap to good again as the servers and lines were improved. Was still with them until Thus just destroyed them.
Since then have both my phone and BB with ICUK, they aren't perfect, but they helped me resolve a problem in the BT (Tier 1) exhange that ended with the DSLAM being changed to something modern and, I think, speeded the change from 20 to 21CN. Just waiting for my "Superfast BB" now, programmed for March -- we shall see
As El Reg is so opposed to Network roaming (and I still do not buy the reasons they put forward) how about something slightly different?
Let's assume you are a country dweller like myself. My phone is on all the time, the networks can see what the capability of the mast I'm connecting to is. If I pay for a 3G plan, but the network is incapable of providing it, the network should rebate some of the (Network not Phone) charges associated with the account, that would mean that there is at least some incentive to upgrade services in rural areas
If you have a Suresignal or a Boostbox (Voda or O2 other suppliers exist) then you have a pseudo 3G connection using a picocell and your own broadband, but at least you have a signal, so, in places where there is minimum 2Mb broadband, the networks should be persuaded (forced) to give out the picocells free of charge, they should also allow the registration of any (same Network) mobile the contract owner wants ( usually fiends or family who pay their own way) irrespective of whether they are PAYG or Contract
Pulling together a couple of other memes on this thread.
I switched to Suse at Suse 7.0, had a few problems getting it going but been with it since. Just gone to Opensuse 13.2 and it's very, very good. There are a few things I have to run in Windows, as a result I've just virtualised my Windows using Virtualbox (pre Oracle) and still use it tothis day, but quite a bit less than I used to.
The good things? It's pretty if you want it to be, but you still have the power to control every part of the system at the command line if you want to.
The bad things, Sound -- PulseAudio is only just getting there, but at least it works out of the box now.
As a "bumpkin" that owns a smartphone (actually 2 on different networks) I think UMA is a wonderful idea, however, we end up back at the problem where a Mobile "Not Spot" is also a broadband "Not Spot".
Someone's suggestion of making the "national" MNO's actually be national is a good idea
How do my smartphones work? by sucking 25% of my broadband capacity -- Voda Suresignal and O2 Boostbox, but at least I can make a call.
Apparently next year BT will finally let me get a BB connection in excess of 20Mb
Is a good tool, but to bet the best out of it you need t add the extpack (otherwise only USB1.1 will work) and Box once installed you need to add the Virtual Tools on the distro, should have all resolution screens then.
But I use windows in OpenSuse, not OpenSuse in Windows.
I still think it's a great distro ( and 12.3 was one I had problems with)
I've used openSuse as my primary desktop (and laptop) since openSuse 11.0, had a couple of problems early on, but has been rock solid for years. I will admit to being slightly underwhelmed when I installed 13.1, looked exactly the same, then I noticed the increase in speed, quite a bit faster.
I have to use windows 7 for my work environment and running that in Virtualbox has been as easy as pie.
Great distribution, I'd recommend it to anyone, both for Desktop and Laptop
b) for the population it is better to have a service that works, even if it is slightly more expensive to make it more efficient (so that our telecoms companies aren't all providing 1g services, while hoarding spectrum, because there is no incentive to invest to do stuff with that spectrum)...
I'm one of the people who choose to live in the country, a 1G service would mean a usable mobile signal from any of the big carriers (O2, Voda or EE). Is there one? No there isn't, O2 Boostbox or Voda Suresignal systems work, but use your own Broadband (at 3Mbps) to connect. Compare this with Albania where I got a 3G signal when "Out in the sticks" on a day trip this year.
The Telcos are all laughing at us
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