Posts by Blitheringeejit 469 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Apr 2008
>> economically they were very boring, very middle-of-the-road.
With the economy dependent on a huge but invisible infrastructure of slave labour...?
But I suppose you could call that "middle-of-the-road" in modern terms, given that it's quite fashionable in countries like China and North Korea - and let us not forget the US with a working prison population in excess of 2 million...
>>You know, the National Front just did well in French local elections
Don't panic Mr Mainwaring, don't panic! This happened last time there were local elections in France, and then they returned a Socialist president. And the same happened in the UK, when UKIP dominated the last Euro elections and a couple of parliamentary by-elections, then disappeared without trace in the following general election.
We'll know the 30s are really calling when someone with actual ideological commitment and proper political opinions, of any hue, is allowed to get into real power (paging Jeremy Corbyn..?). But that's not going to happen while so many rich and powerful people have so much to lose by allowing it - I'm afraid we're stuck with the corporation-serving advertising-and-spin front-persons for the forseeable future.
Which is probably better than the 30s alternatives. I hope. Meh.
> Either this was unrelated, or in fact the breach being reported here did include enough information to hijack accounts and place orders.
Or her email and password were obtained from an unrelated breach of another system, and she used the same password for both..? Isn't that the point of this whole thread?
And I can't see why you assume that her card details were harvested from HH, when all that happened was that her account was used by someone else to order food. Rider - I've never used HH so I don't know how their system works, but in most systems I HAVE used, if the customer chooses to allow the site to remember the card details, normally a login is all that's required to place an order, and the card details are not displayed in full when doing so. If I were criminally minded and got hold of someone else's card info with the intention of misusing it, I'd be buying something much more expensive than a takeaway.
Why beer? Friday!!!
Google's whole business model is "Share and Enjoy" - we share our personal data, friends, illicit habits, souls etc, and they enjoy the advertising revenue. They also have cybernetic cars, which will inevitably develop real people personalities. The final move to Sirius, for offshore tax purposes, is only a matter of time.
IIRC Nationwide is a mutual. It would be interesting to see if that means he can get away with writing himself bigger bonus cheques while being overseen only by members, rather than by shareholders - if anything relating to bankers was in any way interesting, which it definitely isn't.
And you both missed out the bit where the top civil servant who negotiated the financially disastrous contract, and/or the minister who signed it off, inexplicably end up about two years later earning a six-figure salary for two days work a week on the board of BAE.
...please could we ban the phrase "known terrorist"? It's a useful indicator, in the sense that we can be sure that anyone who uses it is a complete twat - but it's an insidious use of the passive voice, translating roughly as "Someone with whom I agree has defined this person as a terrorist, and has by implication also defined the term terrorist to mean something which they have decided it means, and is now railroading any attempt at debate by presupposing that we all agree what a terrorist is, and that this person is one."
When I were a lad, back in the day when the IRA were doing proper terrorism, a "terrorist" was often defined as "Someone with a bomb, but no air force to deliver it." But now apparently it can be used to refer to someone with a machete and an off-meds bipolar disorder.
If you find yourself tempted to use the phrase "known terrorist" here, please would you be kind enough to clarify who knows this, and on what basis and definition of "terrorist" they have made this judgement?
Thankyou.
I can't agree. The basic principles of journalism and the moral duty of the fourth estate mean that El Reg is fundamentally in the wrong here, and I cannot continue to support it when it propagates such evil falsehoods. So I shall be cancelling my subscription .... no, wait, er... I shall never buy another ... erm... oh fuck.
>>I said "running a piece", which is accurate. And if you think editorial control doesn't extend to columnists, I think you missed a memo
I think you may be confusing the Guardian group with News Corp, the Barclay Bros empire, etc etc.
It's fair to point out that the Guardian deliberately uses columnists who tend towards extreme views (see my citation of Monbiot and Osborne above), and Suzanne Moore definitely fits that description. But the point about the Guardian is that these columnists rant from a variety of positions, not from one standard position adopted by the paper. Columnists often take positions which oppose those adopted in the paper's editorials (which are the only real indications of the position taken by the newspaper as a whole).
And it's precisely because of this that I rate the Guardian as the most intelligent read in the British press frame at the moment. I don't want everything I read to be subject to one proprietor or committee view, and I want to hear the left-field contributions from nutters just as much as I want to hear the centro-sensiblist view, whatever the subject.**
And referring back to my original post, that's also why I'd like to see the odd El Reg article on climate science written by someone other than Lewis Bloody Page. It's not that I don't agree with him, it's that he only has one thing to say, and I'm bored of hearing it - I want to hear differing views from time to time. And given that this is a slightly science-aware publication, and climate science is, err, a science, perhaps something written by (or which reflects the views of) an actual climate scientist might be appropriate?
** Though if I'm being totally honest, I really get the Guardian for the Steve Bell cartoons.
You're entitled to ask, but would you also be good enough to provide a link to the piece you're asking about?
I'm not saying the Grauniad never carries stupid pieces (their contributors include folks from a wide spectrum of bonkers political postures, from Georges Monbiot to Osborne), but I've just had a quick scan of today's online and paper editions, and I can't find the word "sexist" in any of the stuff they've published about Corbyn's election. Please enlighten?
...The Guardian has a rather different interpretation of the Met Office's view from that of ol' faithful Lewis.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/14/2015-and-2016-set-to-break-global-heat-records-says-met-office
Perhaps El Reg might consider having at least one climate science story per month written by someone other than Lewis - just for balance's sake? I'm no Lewis-basher, but I do wonder why he gets to do all the climate stories when he's known for being opinionated on the issue, and is no better qualified to be writing about it than any of your other journos..?
Or is there something in his killer-robot-correspondent training which makes him uniquely qualified?
>>My attempts at writing serious applications came unstuck because I ran out of memory. I used two different Modula-2 compilers, neither of which really worked properly because of this.
Correct diagnosis - my company wrote and published some quite sophisticated PCW software, including WYSIWYG graphics stuff, but it was ALL written in assembler - and not by me, but by a man with a very nimble if rather strange brain.
Pint for reminding me of times past - and of the boxes of 3" discs still gathering dust in far-flung corners of the office. Really must have a clearout...
Now that I've read this excellent summary of a leadership course, I am presumably properly qualified and thus excused from going on any such courses for at least 5 years.
Now that's the kind of service I (don't) pay my Reg subscription for - pint for Mr T!
(And that's T for Travaglia, not the other much less scary one.)
I fundamentally agree, it's unreasonable to hold execs responsible for the criminal activities of those who would do harm to the execs' businesses. Modern blame/litigation culture has left us somewhat fuzzy about who the bad guys actually are.
But there is a real issue to be tackled around security and IOT, and sales pitches are (as ever) quick to crow about the convenience of IOT while failing to make customers aware of the risks which might accompany this convenience.
So perhaps we need to instigate a baseline security spec which designers have to sign up to before they are allowed to sell ANYTHING which connects to the internet. Of course there will be problems - for example, putting a firewall in a fridge might adversely the performance of both. But if there is a baseline, then at least users know how far they can pursue the designers/manufacturers on some basis of negligence when they get hacked, and when they should drop their class action and just go after the hackers with a pointy stick. It's all about clarity.
If anyone's interested, I also have in my coat pocket a similar programme of baseline tests and qualifications which I believe should be a prerequisite for people being allowed to have children.
The issue at hand is firefighting and interfering with rescue operations. A demonstration does not come anywhere near these terms and there is no way to confuse the two.
You've clearly not been following how police powers and public order legislation has been used in the UK in recent years. Powers granted to public officials under anti-terrorist legislation are routinely used to monitor individuals suspected of (among many other trivial offences) fly-tipping or failing to clear up after their dog.
Not that I'm against this, you understand - I think inconsiderate dog-owners should be shipped off to Gitmo without trial - but the point remains that "to confuse the two" is extremely easy if you're suitably empowered at your own discretion, and it serves your purpose to do so.
And of course the areas of real concern are where this gets entangled with freedom of speech or assembly. In London at least, the situation with regard to the use of discretionary police powers is very scary, and the local force is considered by many who live there to be out of control.
Note - I'm not anti-police either, I live in a rural part of England well away from London, and the police here are absolutely brilliant. But the Met (the London force) scares the crap out of me.
Having watched the lovely launch video, I'm intrigued as to how the reusable bits all come down nicely on the same site, and I wonder where that site might be.
For one thing, the launch supposedly takes place from Canaveral, and presumably heads east, in the normal rocket-heading-for-orbit way. This means that the first stages would detatch somewhere over the Atlantic - so after they detach and spin round, in order to return to what appears to be a land-based landing platform, they must be carrying enough fuel to burn off all the eastward velocity and then fly all the way back west to Florida. That's in addition to the fuel they need to burn off the westward return velocity when they reach the landing site, and the fuel they need for the soft descent.
Hmmm.
Even wierder is that the middle reusable stage burns for much longer than the outer two, so it detaches waaay further downrange - yet it returns to the same landing stage.
I guess we're not supposed to get picky about something which is essentially a sales video, but they must realise that anyone interested enough to watch this stuff must have at least the most basic acquaintance with them pesky laws o' physics.
Either I'm a total muppet, or they are...
If they are going to boycott the insane trend to enable bank account access from horribly insecure mobile devices over which we have no admin control, as far as I'm concerned that's an upvote for them.
Of course it barely registers against the massive downvotes they get for money-laundering and generally being a bunch of bankers - but as there's no real option for ethical banking left since the Coop went titsup, I might as well stick with the devil I know...
Interesting to note that in designating the i/o ports, the designers have decided to be up-front about the confusing-to-civilians fact that the computers start counting at 0, not at 1. Even if that's all that the yoot learn from using this device at school, it could save millions in bug-fixing and patching over the next 50 years or so.
Various commentards have correctly pointed out that rail privatisation is widely regarded as a failure because the rail system continues to receive massive public subsidies, while services don't improve.
But the same is true of all the utility privatisations. Public subsidy may not be so clearly evident, but it certainly delivered in spades via the welfare budget. Most people who are in receipt of benefits (NB not just the unemployed, but also the tax-credited, the winter-fuel-allowanced etc) use a substantial chunk of those benefits to pay their water, gas and leccy bills. The big difference post-privatisation is that this money is now flowing into the back pockets of the privatised company's executives and shareholders, instead of back into the public coffers. The privatised utilities are deliberately configured to siphon money from the taxpaying public to the corporate elite.
For those reading the news, the same dynamic is very much at work in Cameron's stated plans for cutting the welfare budget. In his fundamentalist monetarist zeal, he overlooks what nobody mentions but every sensible person knows - that the main objective of tax credits which subsidise the low-paid is to enable their employers keep wages unrealistically low. This keeps costs down and profits up - so tax credits are really just another subsidy paid by the taxpaying public to the corporate elite.
It's a well-worn axiom of every TV cop show, but it's true - if you want to know why stuff happens and who is making it happen, you follow the money.
One small life-regret is that I've never made it to the Far East to experience any of this stuff in its native form.
But as with any Japanese soup/broth with noodly option, I'm sure you can feed your meat frenzy by adding slices of pork, and/or use chicken stock - I haven't tried it, but it shouldn't affect the magic.
To acquire full wisdom on these matters, Tampopo is compulsory viewing.
Amidst all the bacon, potato and deep-fried options on offer here, there seems to be a subtle prejudice that people who might enjoy healthy food, and even (whisper it softly) your actual vegetablarians, are far too worthy to enjoy a punishing night out, so never have to deal with the consequences. I beg to differ (see icon) - my body is a not a temple but a playground (it's my wallet that's a temple). So for those who share my tastes and want to feel better the morning after an extended session on whatever intoxicants float their boat, may I present "magic" miso soup, so-called for it's remarkable curative properties. Amounts of everything to taste, it's more a framework than an application...
WHAT:
Dashi stock made with kombu if you can be bothered, otherwise water;
Mix of fresh veg such as spring onions, carrots, celery (including green tops) - all sliced quite finely, aim for about 3mm thickness at thinnest point, carrots best done as sticks if your knife skills are up to it;
Mushrooms (shitake if your consultancy dayrate can stand it, otherwise chestnut), in larger chunks;
Spinach - fresh or frozen, if frozen thaw in microwave before adding (or use lettuce, mizuna, or other greenery of choice);
Tofu - some like it silken, I prefer the chewier ones;
Dark miso of your choice - I like barley but rice is fine, guess at about 2tbsp per litre of soup;
Other dried Japanese seaweed of choice - hijiki, arame etc - if you wish;
A sheet of nori seaweed, toasted but not burnt under grill or over flame (the only difficult bit in this recipe, watch it like a hawk - the window of toasted but not burnt lasts about 250ms).
HOW:
If using dried seaweed, soak in water according to instructions;
Bring water/stock to a simmer, add veg, shrooms, seaweed etc in vague order of hardness. Max boiling time for any of it shouldn't exceed about 6 minutes - this is foreign food, so no Brit-style mush-boiling (though if you're using shitakes they may need a bit longer);
Dilute miso in jar/mug with hot (not boiling) water, so it can be easily poured;
Turn off heat, then add diluted miso progressively, stirring and tasting as you go until it no longer tastes like you need to add salt;
Ladle into bowl, then crush and sprinkle toasted nori on top;
Consume, and be magically revived.
Option - if you need carbs to aid your recovery, cook noodles and place in bottom of bowl before adding soup.
>> Why would the New Openreach board be less willing to invest in broadband infrastructure than the current BT board is
Because the current BT board has decided that it's sexier and more profitable to be a pay-per-view content provider than a connectivity company. They answer a question about Openreach with a comment about their sport TV revenues, carefully avoiding any mention of their well-documented failure to deliver their promises on (taxpayer-subsidised) rural broadband rollout. (And please note that in my case, "rural" means "less than a mile outside the boundaries of a unitary authority" - we're not just talking about remote Scottish islands here.)
Given that the money's coming out of the taxpayer's pocket anyway, I'd rather we nationalised Openreach than just forced BT to sell it to some other capitalist bastard. I realise that talk of nationalisation is pissing into the current political wind, but stop and think for a moment - how much cheaper would it be for the government to intercept all our communications if the government already owned the communications infrastructure! Think how many more nurses/tridents/ministerial Jags (delete according to your political leanings) we could buy with the money we'd save!
Our local cabinet is listed by BT as "imminent" for FFTC conversion.
At the time of writing it's been "imminent" for about 18 months.
Meanwhile they're spending all the money the taxpayer gave them to improve rural broadband on football rights.
For those of us old enough to remember the promised benefits of privatisation in the 80s, BT was, is and ever shall be a pertinent lesson - and on election day, perhaps it's one we should bear in mind vis-a-vis the NHS.
Double-GRRR!!! with knobs on.
They didn't say they were the first to fly by each individual planet, just that they were the first to fly by *all* of them. This is true - if slightly confusing when stated in the context of a Pluto fly-by: one could wish that they would make up their minds.
One thing which puzzles me about the ever-increasing military horrors being visited on almost everyone in the region, from Aleppo to Aden - who is making and selling all that ordnance?
I know who supplies Saudi, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar etc - that would be "us", the UK, US, France, Sweden and the rest of the "West". Given that all the regimes we're selling to are despotic, this is blatantly hypocritical in terms of anything we might call an "ethical foreign policy", but it's irresistably lucrative, because that's a LOT of hardware, with accompanying profits and jobs, and it's politically acceptable in the supplier counties because none of their folks are being shot at.
But who makes and sells the bullets that ISIS, the Houthis etc are firing back? What are the manufacturer's stamps on that ordnance? There seems to be no shortage of supplies, so if it's us selling to them too (albeit via circuitous and anonymised routes), how immoral is that?
And if it isn't "us", how rubbish are "our" arms salesmen?
Morality makes my brane hurt.
Likewise, my biggest speed problems are in areas which aren't really rural (like Cornwall or the Hebrides, where I understand connectivity is excellent) but are on the edges of urban areas - say places with a ~5Km copper run to the exchange. At one site I work with, BT have listed the cabinet down the road as "Imminent" for FFTC, which should make a world of difference - but this "Imminent" status has been in place for over a year, with no sign it actually happening. Grrrr...
"Osbo was tight-lipped about exactly how the government would bring in broadband download speeds of up to 100Mbps for most Brits if re-elected in May."
We already know - from what they did with rural broadband strategy. He'll throw taxpayer's meeellions at BT, who will say they'll use it for broadband rollout, but will actually spend it on shareholders dividends, executive bonuses, and foopball rights.
But at least that puts urban broadband strategy on an equal footing with rural broadband strategy - "we're all in it (=fucked) together".
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