Posts by C. P. Cosgrove 214 publicly visible posts • joined 28 May 2008
If I was the Chief Constable of the Met and It was established that one of my departments was funding a system with a 98% failure rate I would be asking questions about how it got approved.
That's equivalent to buying myself a nice shiny new car for the daily commute and then discovering it only worked on some random seven days in the year. I think I would be back at the dealer's very quickly looking for a full refund.
Chris Cosgrove
As a keen amateur photographer I took a look at the referenced article. Some very dramatic images there. But then I ran some of the grid references through Google Earth and was left wondering why on earth some of these cameras were there. A couple of the locations looked like it would take a minor expedition to install them !
This comes back to the remark about the Park Rangers in the article - 'Because we can'. More proof, if any more was needed, that surveillance has reached ridiculous limits. I am somewhere past the age when I am interested in making out with my girlfriend in some quiet spot but images like thes would give any young couple pause for thought !
Chris Cosgrove
"Chair Rachel Reeves -
She also asked for information on when driver hour limits would be introduced in the UK, and what those limits would be, per day and per week, per driver."
They were introduced sometime in the 1930s and are known as 'The Domestic Regulations' and apply to all commercial/business vehicle driving not governed by the National Regulations which are derived from EU law. I cannot readily quote them as it is the best part of 30 years since I last had occasion to look at them but anybody using a vehicle for business related purposes - not leisure or domestic - who is not subject to the National Regulations is subject to the Domestic Regulations.
In any case is there not more recent regulation, again descending from EU law, on the subject of maximum hours working regulations ?
Chris Cosgrove
Oh Goody ! This means that as a moderator on another forum I won't have to worry about trolls, spammers, moving topics to more relevant sections, soothing ruffled feathers, finding people who know what they are talking about to respond to topics, etc., etc..
I would drink to that except that I don't expect to be still around when I get automated out of a job ! I will let everybody else worry about the logic in that statement !
Chris Cosgrove
This fear of immigrants - illegal or not - sickens me. The UK is getting totally paranoid on the subject. I've been running around Europe first as a haulier and now as a tourist since 1990 and west of the German - Czech border, with one exception, the only place I ever have a passport examined is coming into the UK. And in 36 years I have never been asked for a driving licence !
All this type of action will do is drive illegal immigrants further underground and further into the arms of criminal organisers with even bigger problems consequently.
Chris Cosgrove
OK, it's a fair cop, I'll put my hands up to it !
About twenty years ago I had a copy of 'The Anarchist's Cookbook' on a hard drive - briefly - and right at this moment I think I have two memory sticks with different versions of Linux on them on my desk at the moment..
Chris Cosgrove
In at least one sense of course this an image of child pornography. Children of whatever age and dressed or not should not be running in fear and panic from a napalm attack, they should not be subject to napalm attacks. This of course does not stop it happening in our enlightened approach to modern weapons of war. But then throughout the ages children have always suffered disproportionately in periods of warfare.
But it is also one of the most iconic and influential images to come out of the war in Vietnam and regardless of the violence inherent in the scene this lifts it to the level of an important historic document. The only other image I can think of that comes close is the one taken in Saigon at the end of the Tet offensive where a police officer executes a North Vietnam soldier. An action which in terms of the accepted laws of land warfare was entirely legal - carrying arms and out of uniform.
Certainly the image represents violence against children, but in the context Facebook were entirely wrong in trying to remove such a historically important image.
Chris Cosgrove
If you are a Squaddie coming off stag at 0 dark hundred cold, wet, miserable and, in a combat area, terrified then so long as it is hot, wet and sweet you will drink it with gratitude and without asking any unnecessary questions.
Otherwise - tea should not have milk in it at all !.
Chris Cosgrove
I always liked the appearance of the 1/4 inch series which, to my mind, had a reasonable balance between supuplying sufficient ground detail and covering a reasonable area, particularly for driving. If you were on foot then of course they were inadequate but that was what the 1 inch was designed for. And the 1/4 inch was less likely to suffer from the problem common to both the 1 inch and the 1:50,000 - everywhere you want to go to is right in the corner of the map !
I have found that there is little to choose between the 1 inch and 1:50,000, they are both excellent maps, but aesthetically the 1/4 inch had them both beat !
I too raise a glass to the OS, and to 'Liberty, Fraternity and Equality'.
Chris Cosgrove
Dear me. I have been a householder for the forty years since I got married and in all that time I have only ever looked at an electricity meter if I have been asked to provide a reading rather than have an estimated bill. I am reasonably sure that my wife knows where the electric meter is but I am equally sure that she has never looked at the array of numbers on it.
But I don't need a smart meter to keep a wary eye on electricity consumption. I get a reminder every three months - it's called an electric bill !
Chris Cosgrove
On a couple of occasions I have been phoned up by my credit card company and they have started by asking me to confirm MY identity. It always throws a spanner in their works when I respond -
"Hold on, YOU have phoned ME, therefore you know who I am. Now, how do we go about confirming who YOU are ?"
After a pause for thought, sometimes a long pause, the usual reply is "My name is ****, phone the number on your card and ask for me." And that is fair enough.
Chris Cosgrove
@ Florida1920
As I understand it, James Woods is a professional actor, therefore he gets paid to act. It's acting ! You cannot identify the actor with the character otherwise you would have to call any one who played the role of Oscar Wilde a homosexual, or Bruce Willis a cold blooded killer for his role in 'Last Man Standing'.
And who says you can say anything you want on the internet ? Certainly the British courts don't and an American based forum where I am a moderator doesn't.
Chris Cosgrove
" Good sense of just how far back things are going – and also of how little time, in evolutionary terms, we've been around for."
Creationists are going to love that bit !
More seriously, it is a pity that exhibitions like this very seldom leave London. £6.50 is an entirely reasonable price but it bumps it up a bit if you have to add in the cost of a return flight or train from Edinburgh or Glasgow !
Chris Cosgrove
By coincidence, I finished re-reading 'Witches Abroad' on the morning of his death.
I am at least theoretically banned from reading any of his books in bed, my beloved always accuses me of making the bed shake when she is trying to get to sleep. She hasn't quite managed to stop me yet.
I too will raise a glass to his memory.
Chris Cosgrove
" . . . which political party is in control of the council . . ."
Is that not a good indicator of how the Officials - at both local and national level - regard the elected Officials whether they be Councillors or MPs ?
I have to say my own local council web-site - West Lothian - has improved over the last five years. I had occasion to search for something today and what I was looking for was actually on the first page of suggestions.
Chris Cosgrove
The only reason I can think of for anybody trying to fly illicit weapons from anywhere in Belgium to anywhere in France is to test airport security.
You would just put them in the back of the car. It is after all, only 300Km from the centre of Brussels to the centre of Paris and motorway nearly all the way. I cannot remember ever having been stopped on either side of the border even when nipping over a back road to buy some beer.
C. P. Cosgrove
If this means the end of Google Earth that is truly bad news. Even the free version, with somewhat variable resolution is an extremely valuable resource. I use it quite intensively for purely private reasons. Being heavily involved in a project photographing war graves, at the least it is incredibly useful for assessing the orientation of cemeteries as a means to determine the best time of day to take the photos.
Chris Cosgrove
" Watching what happens over time"
This does imply a certain optimistic frame of mind on the part of the astronomers involved. Should they or their successors be around just how much change do they expect to see over the next, say, 100 million years ? Never mind 4.6 billion give or take.
Chris Cosgrove
Reading these comments has reminded me that I have never used Win 8 or 8.1 on a touchscreen. I teach computing as a volunteer to mainly elderly learners using as far as possible their own equipment. This has been something of a learning experience for me as until I started with this group just over a year ago i had never used a tablet of any sort apart from my Mk 1b Kindle which is purely a book reader. Now I have a working familiarity with iPads, Samsungs and various other flavours of Android - but not one single Windows tablet. None of the students I teach have one.
I have used both 8 and 8.1 on laptops and desktops, none with touch screens, and it has to be said that 8.1 is much more user friendly in this situation. There are things about it that annoy me, but I agree with remarks above that it is at heart a decent operating system.
I think it must be remembered that Win 8 was an attempt by MS to unify three quite different operating systems. This at least was the design objective laid before their programmers as I understand it. Unfortunately they have yet to achieve full success. Whether or not it is possible to do this I don't know but I do know they haven't got there yet. It will be interesting to see Win 9 in the round.
But from MS's perspective, the problem is that my present Win 7 machine is working perfectly well and has all the grunt I need to do the tasks I do - so why should I change ?
Chris Cosgrove
I am going to complain - either that or emigrate !
Every time there is something like a much better than usual aurora display or a meteor shower its either 80% + cloud or 200m visibility fog here in Central Scotland.
Last night and tonight it's the fog. It's not fair. I feel cheated.
Chris Cosgrove
To take a quote from the referenced 'Press Gazette' article -
"The Crown Prosecution Service ruled in November 2013 that it was not in the public interest to prosecute the three officers because “a jury is likely to decide that it was in the public interest for the events at the gate to be made public”."
Does this not suggest that the three constables were unfairly dismissed ?
Chris Cosgrove
I have never regretted the time spent at an illegally early age developing a liking for beer - with good English bitter ( and there is a lot of good English bitter) - well to the fore, but I have to agree with Beau, they make superb beer in Belgium.
I must point out - if only on grounds of health and safety - that the Belgians do not always choose the most appropriate times to serve their beers. On sitting down in a restaurant in Brugges once, my wife and I were asked if we would like a beer while we pondered the menu. Naturally the response was 'Yes please'.
Casteel Triple was the house choice - 11% vol ! A beautiful beer, beautifully finished, but I could hardly see the menu after that, never mind ponder it. But definitely not frozen.
Chris Cosgrove
Now that is smart !
It really should be South-West Europe in the background as so much of the garden sheddery - and even the Tabernamque - has been done there. Not for one minute I am suggesting that the support of a Spanish bar owner was an essential ingredient, but I don't think it did any harm.
Put me down for the stitch-on and the pint pot !
Chris Cosgrove
I must be a prophet, I wrote this on another forum a few weeks ago :
"Something that might justifiably give rise to fears in the UK is that the Customs and Excise - who are responsible for the collection of sales tax - and the Inland Revenue - who collect income taxes - were fairly recently merged into one department. Fear and trembling ! After all, one man's expenditure is another man's income, and if you can measure the bit in the middle, then anything that is missing is tax evasion, isn't it ? Except their legacy systems are incompatible, the Inland Revenue's systems are, by their own admission, about 10 year out of date and they operate the biggest XP base in the UK.
I am not for a moment suggesting that the individual Civil Servant is either lazy or incompetent, the ones I know are neither, but they are totally tied down by their departmental systems. I wouldn't quite go so far as to say the frequent reorganisation of government departments is the single biggest contributor to civil liberties in the UK, but it certainly isn't the smallest !"
If this goes through, civil liberties go into a sudden and irreversible decline. The only saving grace, as pointed out by others above, is the governments record on large IT projects.
Chris Cosgrove
With reference to the AC above, please - No Nationalisation !
We used to have a nationalised communications industry in the UK, it was called the GPO (General Post Office) and ran the mail, telephones, telegrams etc.. Those were the days !
Three months wait for a telephone line, and if you lived far back in the scenery you got to share one with your neighbours. A choice of one style of telephone (it was large, black, had a dial and the handset connected to the 'base station' by a thick brown cable). Oh, and you couldn't 'buy' a phone - you rented it along with your line, but since the design never changed, you never got a newer one.
It was only with privatisation and the introduction of competition into the industry that consumers got better service and choice. Please, do NOT bring back those glorious -happily long gone - days.
Chris Cosgrove
Brilliant, pure brilliant. I always regretted not 'acquiring' a copy in the days when it was current.
I think it was 'DownandnotOut' above that mentioned 3D Pipes. Does anyone remember the occasional joint that came up as a teapot in some versions ? I can remember spending hours watching for that bloody teapot !
Chris Cosgrove
Never mind all the jealousy and bitching in the previous comments, and indeed to a degree in the article itself.
Has anybody noticed that a female driver managed to land on grass and not up a tree ?
Perhaps the SPB should reconsider their recruitment needs. But have a beer anyway.
Chris Cosgrove
That curly headed correspondent is correct ! Much to the aggravation of one of my sisters, her junior son on his 11th birthday declared he was vegetarian. This lasted about 8 months, until one Sunday she was making herself a couple of bacon sarnies.
"Mum, can I have one of them, please?"
Instant return to omnivore status !
Chris Cosgrove
I might have a pop at this myself, but I would strongly suggest that the SPB flight crew keep this for post-flight celebrations. The mind boggles gently at the thought of trying to launch a balloon containing all these electronics and explosives after a couple of these - just to steady the nerves of course !
Chris Cosgrove
I tend to go with Cambsukguy - Win 7 is a good operating system. I find Win 8 on a non-touch screen a bloody nuisance, but Win 8.1 with its option to boot to the desktop is a good operating system. OK, some of the features are different and laid out differently, but for the little I have seen and used it for, it works quite well and it seems reliable.
Having said that, I have Win 7 on this computer and expect to keep it for at least another couple of years. Then perhaps Win 9 ?
I believe there is little doubt that it was marketing decisions that generated the negative reception that Win 8 got. Now, all i have to do is to find a screen to replace this Hanns.G that is beginning to go wobbly !
Chris Cosgrove
I have just had my first extended experience of Win 8 on a laptop I was setting up for a relative. Once I had worked out how to upgrade to 8.1 and got the desktop back - yes, I know it was always there, really - this has shown me that at least 8.1 is quite a nice operating system. It has its quirks, but so does every OS I have ever used.
My biggest criticism was reserved for the hardware. The left and right buttons are incorporated in the one piece surface trackpad. This required extreme accuracy in clicking or the cursor went shooting off, and after 5 minutes of this, I grabbed a mouse and control returned. Medium sized Sony Vaio - nice machine except for the trackpad.
Chris Cosgrove
A splendidly bare target landscape - the highest thing in sight a large bale. BUT - given the propensity of things like gliders and radio controlled models to find trees, it can almost be guaranteed that a mighty oak will spring 'full armed from the soil' just in time.
Or, as it might be put on the Disc World 'Million to one chances are dead certs.'
I wouldn't leave the ladder at home if I was you ! But I will raise a glass to a safe flight when it happens.
Chris Cosgrove
"WBT uses a custom installer, Monitor.exe, which it serves up from Amazon"
While I have no connection with Amazon other than as an occasional customer, I feel this is a little unfair to them. Unless I have completely misunderstood the Malwarebytes PDF referenced in the article, this PUP is stored on Amazon's cloud, not dished up with any software you might download from Amazon themselves.
Chris Cosgrove
To be fair to The Economist, the suggestion to try patent law cases without a jury is not a bad one. They tend to be very complex and last longer than the average case. Being a juror on such a case can create considerable hardship for the individual juror, his or her family and their employers.
The judges who try these cases are after all well paid by the state to be there.
Chris Cosgrove
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