Posts by Tom 279 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Apr 2007
the worst thing that happens to my animals is the trip to the slaughterhouse.
They live a fairly spoilt life on my smallholding, have 20 minutes of discomfort in the trailer and walk into the abbatoir, turn a corner and buzz. So why do I put them through this 20 minutes - because according to the damn law I cant even give my meat away* unless its 'checked' by a vet. And every other piece of meat I can get has gone through that or worse.
As for halal meat: you can stun the animal and still have halal meat - the requirement is to drain the blood and that works just as well with stunning.
If the EU was really concerned with animal welfare it would stop making laws for the benefit of big business
*seems to be a problem with geeks this!
The whole point of office software is to shield you from thinking. There are thousands of companies out there with office software - what good has it done them.
Teach them IT and they wont want or need office software.
Microsoft - the red flag walking very very slowly in front of your computer.
We allow all businesses to make reasonable use of the "Debian" trademark. For example, if you make a CD of our Debian GNU/Linux distribution, you can call that product "Debian". If you want to use the name in some other way, you should ask us first.
How dare they restrict my freedoms like that!
Anyone got a use for a blank harddrive?
I use internet telphony - but I dont use a 'provider' - just the internet.
I wont be able to phone 999 unless the services provide a permanent IP address for me to dial in on.
Does this mean my ISP will have to stop me using VOIP as they provide me with the internet?
Is this the first step in taking control of the internet?
Your colleague was right - CW are not fit for purpose. Of course it doesnt help the linux image - its not meant to! I install Linux on just about anything going with very few compatability problems - you have to go out of your way to find something thats incompatible.
Though it could be that, after all these years of MS, people really dont know jack about computers any more.
I worked in IT for 25 years - I have given up due to British management.
It looks as if this is one less excuse for them not to manage any more. I used to be amazed that work I could do in a week got sent to contractors and took months to do was somehow cheaper than if I did it. Always something about liabilities which always cost less than the contractor in the end.
What is it about this country that management seems to be hell bent on preventing anyone actually enjoying their job?
So what will ultrafast boradband bring?
Just more pointless noise on the line.
I was forced to get Digital TV recently as our analogue signal seems to be mysteriously fading.
Better TV? No way.
Parkinsons law applies here. The same limited data will be padded out with absolutely pointless 'styling' - and lost in the noise.
I havent heard the podcast yet but people us Windows to say 'yeh we're computerised' but dont actually do anything other than redo the paper office on it.
Complete with all its failings - office software is the man with the red flag in front of cars in the 19th century. 'Which desktop' is arguing over the flags colour.
I've seen companies who, 15 years ago, could download several thousand orders an hour down a phone line straight into their erp system migrate to Windows and now need several hundred operators to type those same orders in document format into the same old computer system.
Most companies now are trapped in Windows - they cant get out - and will be overtaken by people who have the whit not to use office software from the start.
Of course an up to date JavaScript would mean that SilverOrdure wouldnt be 'necessary' and Open Source developers could write browser software that would make MS and Adobe pointless.
I just hope FF manages to get E4X in asap so we can bring browsers into the 1990's where they were heading before Adobe and MS got involved.
Both flash and silverlight seem to provide no new technology but merely try and force lockin.
Why bother trying to prevent computer users from copying olympic video when I can make a digital HD recording from a TV card? And with a soldering iron I can do the same from my graphics card - and I probably dont need a soldering iron.
If you think flash and silverlight provide much new technolgy then go and sue your "Technology 101 for the really gullible provided by the badly informed" trainers.
DRM - a new type of deckchair for the Titanic. It can be used to block doors to stop passengers escaping with the towels!
The US seem to be quite happy to attack their allies vehicles even if they are properly marked!
But can you imagine the carnage when they try and fire at the enemy through their own invisible troops.
And another thing - how would you find them after you got out for a slash?
reduce their overall energy usage. When you have something to sell you dont use it to light empty rooms etc.
Can anyone explain why I can get a 70 amp 12v Alternator for my car for less than £100 and yet the same thing for windpower is several hundred.
And why use windmills on your house when there are better methods of extracting wind power? This is a 3000 year old highly inefficient design and can easily be improved on - conveyour generators etc.
1,000,000 crap innefficient £300 windmills will generate more electricity than a nuclear power station that was built to provide profits for the already rich and will be a serious terrorist target* - assuming its not already under water due to climate change. And, paradoxically, reduce consumption.
*imagine how easy it is to launch a thick copper wire over pylons to take it (or indeed any large power station) off grid. The IRA nearly cut off the whole of London with a few handgrenades.
its nice to know that in two or three years time there will be an update to this which will kill every XPXO in the world. We cant have charities giving away computers - companies have a right to make profits which override all other human rights!
Or does it just seem that way?
Your thinking round turbine again!!!
Don't think round turbine with all those bits going at different speeds. Think lots of little sailing boats wired together going round.
Then go and sit on the apex of a pitched roof on a calm day and tell me theres no breeze. The winds already avoided your house - its not worried by low demands from an open fence of sails. Or try and stick your head out of a window on the edge of a tower block. No wind in urban areas - try walking between 300m tower blocks in a Chicago street in late autumn!
Dont think maximum efficiency - think bangs per buck. Think impedance matching. The wind will only get out of the way if you ask too much of it.
Take a piece of plain plastic or cloth 15m long by 2m wide and hold one end of it in a gentle breeze. Pick yourself up and tell me theres no power to be had there.
To say wind power will never work because a 3000 year old modification of a brick has not been improved on is, frankly, shortsighted. Though I do have to admint that if global warming kicks in we wont have to worry about the cost decomissioning NP stations - the sea will be doing it for us.
Well, if you live in the primitive 'windmills are round' world you might be right. However if you use other forms of wind power capture - eg conveyor belt turbines then your smallest roof will be nearer the 5KW peak ~1KW 'continuous'.
This however will not generate the important thing - profit for big business and government doesnt want to know.
Inverters are about 10 times the possible mass production costs - you should be able to make a 2.5KW mains connected inverter for £250 but patents on the bleeding obvious get in the way.
For about £1K you should be able to stick a 5KW mains connected wind generator on every domestic roof in the country bunging out about 1KW on average. Now you'd have to leave most of your eqpt on permanently to stop that being worthwhile.
You wouldnt even need grants to get those up there!
From my experience MySQL is a no-brainer to install, PostgreSQL requires all that DB knowledge that MS has taken away from SQLServer users.
Experienced SQLServer managers can move to MySQL and do a bit of work but seem to require complete re-training when confronted with something that looks and behaves like a real DB - though I must confess I've not installed PostgreSQL for a while and it may have the 'configure for someone who just wants to get on with it' option.
Anyhow triggers, procedures and foreign key enforcement are only necessary for people who dont know how to emulate them in frontends/backend scripts etc.
Its nice being an old programmer and watching new innovative technology doing what we did years ago....
- they want it to look pretty. That way they dont have to think about functionality. The IT industry has been selling style without content for too long.
As an ageing hacker it amazes me that most companies now have thousands of PC's that are millions of times faster that the first computers but very few can use them as effectively to help their businesses than Leo.
We've come a long way since then. Its prettier here - but a lot less functional.
There was someone on Radio4 this morning talking about computer users managing their Data and not their Documents. If that catches on M$ and Apple are stuffed.
The Great Vista lie is the great Microsoft Lie: "Office software is useful."
Office software is only useful to home users - in a company it becomes a one way encryption system that you will be hacking for the rest of the life of your company.
"The lack of latency, and decent speed, would lend themselves to a decent VoIP connection, but American won't be allowing that. Not only will the popular VoIP services be blocked,"
Its out of the bag, give up, you cant make money out of peoples stupidity anymore!
Oh, sorry, this is the land of the free...
Sit people in a box with curved plastic windows and the sunlight shines on your watch face - looks like a huge UFO and a small movement of your hands has it flying at speed to Devon.
UFO's are really boring - though it is fun watching the gullible panic at a photo of someones chandellier reflected off a window.
They should be coming for you any moment now - but in white suits!
I would suggest that anyone who thinks nuclear power is safe should live with a kilo of material that is the equivalent of 200,000 year old waste from a power station.
And as for the price... For the next building of nuclear power stations the company involved should be able to prove that the station and the waste disposal are covered by cast iron insurance so that the public never have to pay for todays profits.
Its not so cost effective if you actually make it pay its way.
I can get a little box and put linux on it and have a 'home'* server for less than the price of the windows home server licence.
And just what is a home server anyway - is it a disabled proper server with an expensive upgrade path?
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