Posts by h4rm0ny

Facebook adds 50+ gender options: Stalking your 'Friends' just got more LGBT-friendly

Re: bigender

So did I.

(genuinely)

Re: WTF!

>>"Oh but gender is /so/ much more complex and nuanced than the relation between a person* and their reproductive organs - it's a social construct, doncha know."

Gender is a social role. You might be thinking of sex (you probably are), which is a biological characteristic.

And if you actually don't think social expectations based on sex make any difference, then you really have led a very sheltered life and should meet more people from different backgrounds. If you don't think gender is a social construct then how do you explain major differences in the roles sexes play in different cultures? Because it's a sure thing that there isn't a gene that says Indian women are more likely to be interested in a career in programming than Caucasian women, or which turns on and off whether pink is seen as a masculine or feminine colour between different generations.

Re: Sex is Not Gender

I doubt they'll ever put "Don't know" on the list. Americans love labels. You might get "Decline to say" if you're lucky.

Honestly, they could have five-hundred options and it still wouldn't cover everyone because gender is a fluid thing. Some people go through phases, some people might be gay but have a specific type (e.g. a man who might conceivably sleep with a masculine man if the circumstances were right, but finds effeminate and camp gay men really irritating). There aren't really a finite number of options, only a finite number of people.

WD My Cloud EX4 four-bay NAS

Re: I keep looking at these NAS devices

Even though you're essentially disagreeing with me, I cannot argue against someone who uses kumquats as a benchmark for technical ability. I think I have found my new favourite unit.

Re: I keep looking at these NAS devices

"Blimey, are you running a magical OS that comes preconfigured to your exact specification at no cost?"

More or less. I call it Ubuntu Server. Even if you don't have the experience with GNU/Linux that many of us have, the install process is remarkably easy when it comes to picking what components you want and disk configuration. Maybe not quite as easy as Windows (hard to say as I'm very familiar with Linux), but pretty darn good for free and it makes an excellent file server.

Re: I keep looking at these NAS devices

Agreed. This is something for a small business that has no in-house expertise and just wants to throw a small sum of money at a plug-and-play solution. And I'm fine with that.

But for me? I got an old case I wasn't using, threw in a cheap motherboard with pre-installed Llano CPU and fanless cooling (quiet as it gets) and then fed it hard drives until it couldn't eat any more (the motherboard has a fair few SATA ports and a PCI slot I'm not using for anything else so I can fit even more).

Ubuntu Server rounded it out. The whole thing probably came to around £450 for 6TB of RAID-1 storage. Slightly more if you count the value of the case I already had.

Object to #YearOfCode? You're a misogynist and a snob, says the BBC

Re: More challenging than it looks

>>"The fact that you need an e-how page, and that it's different in 2007 and 2010, illustrates my point perfectly, I think."

How do you think it supports your point? Office 2007 takes a whole e-how page. Modern Office is just an entirely intuitive File -> Info. Point being it no longer requires the How To. How much simpler do you need it to be?

Re: Programming is a University level subject?

>>"I disagree, I can remember kids gathered round an Apple II with a book of BASIC games and religiously typing them in"

Firstly, I didn't say no-body pre-University age is unable to study University level material. There are plenty who can and some who do. But it remains a subject best taught at University because at the school level there is so much foundational work that needs doing. Secondly, religiously copying a game program in BASIC is fine and good. But there is way, way more to programming as I'm sure you know. The problem is that at school level, all you will get is that copying of a game. (Actually worse, it sounds like all you get is some basic HTML mark-up and parrot-taught JavaScript tricks). That is useless for working as a programmer and of less benefit to someone starting a degree in Computer Science than good language and maths skills - both of which are rather poor in this country for school leavers.

If you require re-wording, then let me say this: "it is not snobbish to think that teaching programming in a useful or even slightly complete way is a university level activity".

>>"Trying to figure-out an algorithm is a form of maths."

Well, Computational Complexity is - working out that Quicksort has a worst case performance of O(n2). And Formal Specification of algorithms to prove correctness is a form of mathematics. But just trying to figure out an algorithm can as often just be puzzle solving. No more maths than catching a ball demonstrates you understand trigonometry and acceleration. You might be able to catch a ball but you can't build a catapult and tell me where the shot will land depending on the weight of the stone.

Besides the above is a strange counter-argument to something I didn't say. I never said that algorithm creation wasn't (or more precisely couldn't be) maths. But that it took away from teaching foundational subjects such as maths. The difference ought to be clear. If I teach someone logarithms, they can apply that foundational knowledge of maths to working out the Complexity of an algorithm and other things. If I dump a formula on them and say "use this" they wont fully understand it, will misuse it, and will only be able to repeat what I've done, in practice, not apply it creatively. Even though that formula I gave them for working out the complexity of an algorithm is "maths".

BBC Comments

I tried to put the same comment I wrote here on the story at the BBC. But apparently I was three-thousand characters over the limit. They restrict comments to small sound-bite length comments. Framing the dialogue in a way that allows no reasoned debate or deeper analysis than "this sucks" or "this is awesome". I gave up trying to self-edit it down as it just becomes one more partisan voice making an unsupported argument.

Re: It's all silly.

>>"The people with a natural affinity should be identified early and encouraged in that direction"

Disagree. I think over-specialization from an early age is very damaging. I had almost no interest in computers when I was a child. I was mainly interested in English Literature and History and Physics. I got into programming much later on at University and became a C/C++ programmer (though I'm rusty as Hell with the language these days, the foundation it gave me still makes me a better coder in other languages than most other people I know using them). I never found pursuing different directions at school a hindrance to later learning and believe they've actively assisted my later career.

If all school education becomes vocational (which has been the major shift in direction over the last ten years), then we lose much of our ability to progress and cross disciplines and adapt to changes in the marketplace.

Missing title.

Huh. El. Reg ate my title whilst my comment was sitting waiting for moderator approval. (What triggers that, anyway? Comment length? My other comment on another story appeared right away and I wrote it after this one). Anyway the reason for the somewhat elided start to my post was because the title said I started working in the field of programming around fifteen years ago. At which point the current people pushing this program would probably be at school. Oh dear - am I that old? :(

Re: More challenging than it looks

File -> Info.

Or here's the e-how page on finding the same information in Office 2007:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6180238_document-properties-files-word-2007.html

both down at the lowest levels (coding device drivers), at higher levels (reviewing JQuery code) and many stops in between (Python and even PHP), as well as been a project manager, I feel I at least have some credentials to comment on all this, whereas most of the people involved in pushing this appear to have little to none. Especially the person yesterday who might be a great manager and co-ordinator for all I know, but claims "coding" can be taught in an hour and yet has apparently never taken an hour to actually learn it.

And having contrasted my experience and knowledge of the industry with theirs, I would like to say categorically that what they're pushing is a bad idea.

By all means expose children to programming. Let them see what is involved in it and give them a foretaste so that they can make an informed choice about entering that profession and studying it at a higher level. Just as they should have a foretaste of a wide range of other careers. But don't waste huge amounts of time and resource teaching it as a full subject. All of this will be taught far more effectively and properly at University level. It's dishonest to even suggest that a GCSE in "coding" or whatever they choose to dress it up as, will have much real world value.

Nor am I much fond of existing ICT which focuses on using specific software packages and might as well be called a GCSE in "rapidly out of date skills".

What does have a lasting value, and which we are weak in, imo, is core subjects such as maths, language, history. These things are the foundational skills and subjects needed to then learn further skills. What good is knowing what functions are where in Excel or Calc if you lack the mathematical understanding to make use of that? And if you do have the understanding, then finding how to do what you want in those packages is just a few clicks away. I was asked to work something out for a friend. I needed to use Binomial Distribution. So I typed in "Excel Binomial Distribution" and up came the function I needed. Typed it in and had the answers my friend needed in a few moments. The reason I could do that was because I had been taught maths, not because I had been taught "spreadsheets".

And if that is the case with something like spreadsheets, how much more the case with something difficult like programming?

It is not snobbish to say that computer programming is a University level subject. I will very happily take the time to teach and encourage any child who wants to learn about programming. And there are plenty of kids who are smart enough to learn it. But that doesn't mean it is wise to try and make it a basic subject, because it isn't. All that will happen is the inevitable clash between schools and ministers and parents wanting children to do well at exams on one side, and programming being an actual difficult and very large subject on the other, will be resolved by quietly degrading the subject to a parody of actual programming (sorry "coding") which is near-useless as a professional skill, completely useless as preparation for University level study of the subject (they will spend the first half-year un-teaching what was badly taught before) and most crucially, takes away enormously from time to teach foundational subjects such as maths.

And no, I'm not a misogynist, either. There were a few misogynistic comments here yesterday based on the looks of the spokesperson interviewed. But nearly all of the comments I read against it had a solid, reasoned basis. Which is that all this is a terrible idea. There is a very small amount of very low-hanging fruit that GCSE-level "coders" could take in the business world. Minor edits of template websites, etc. That fruit has long since been gobbled up by automated tools and India which we cannot compete with in terms of cost.

Trials of 'Iron Man' military exoskeleton due in June

Re: First practical market:

Another possible use is in the care industry. In Japan there have been exo-skeletons designed to help manage bedbound patients. One small nurse in such a suit to be able to lift a patient in and out of bed, etc. I imagine there are a number of confined environments where additional strength would be useful.

Re: Another case of bullshit from the military?

>>Rather than something like, "Hey, we have this whiz-bang suit that requires X amount of energy to drive it. What do you experts out there have to fit the bill?"

Yeah, but there's a big difference between "we haven't worked this bit out yet, but the general principles are sound" and "this thing will need a battery the size of a bear but I'm sure a way round that will appear by the time we need it".

That's one of the things I liked about the Iron Man movie. It revolved around the fact that the main character had this super-powerful reactor as its energy source and that's what made everything else viable. There are very few problems you can't solve by having sources of massive, cheap power.

(Other than heat dissipation).

'Wind power causes climate change' shown to be so much hot air

Re: My usual comment...@John Robson

This is really specifically at Ledswinger. You clearly know a lot about this and I've found your comments very interesting. Let me explain the context of my original comment and see if you agree with nuclear within that context, or if it's only a disagreement with the context that causes our positions to diverge.

At some point we will have to move from Fossil Fuels. Long before they actually run out, rising costs will force a re-adjustment of the economics of power generation. We've had a major saving grace in fracking which postpones this (and lets the USA continue living large), but it's only a postponement. In addition, there's a substantial lobby which rightly or wrongly (I'm unconvinced, but I'm also not saying that they're wrong) is extremely insistent on reducing carbon output.

That's the context in which I make my "usual comment". It's not portraying nuclear as a magical elixier that cures all ills for sixpence. But as we transition away from fossil fuels, we should be progressing to nuclear, not wind. Solar has its place and the technology for that has been improving a lot recently, but primarily I think we need nuclear, not wind. I've seen no good argument for wind that persuades me of its merits over nuclear. In economic terms, nuclear may not have an advantage over fossil fuels. But in environmental terms it's better than wind and it is certainly more cost effective.

If moving from fossil is a given, is nuclear not the natural successor? And if you don't agree, then what is? And if you don't agree that we will have to move from fossil fuel, how so?

Genuine interest in your answers.

My usual comment...

Nuclear.

That's pretty much it. Whether or not wind turbines affect the global climate directly (and it seems unlikely to me), it ought to be a moot point - we have a far better option available regardless.

It's a scientific fact: Online comment trolls are sadists

Re: To summarise ....

>>"the higher their scores for each Dark Tetrad trait except narcissism."

Ah, but are such people simply more prone to post online a lot, or does spending a lot of time engaging in discussions online increase those traits.

I think the latter. I believe I've become more vicious and Machiavellian from spending a lot of time online last year. Hopefully reversible now I'm on the Internet less again.

Re: Are there really all that many trolls?

>>"I've long thought of most of those on your list as people who feel inferior and are overcompensating, looking for easy targets because it's all they can handle, or minorities because they know others like them will back them up, ultimately because the ones they're trying to fool are themselves. Hatred is the response to fear of the poorly-educated. Homophobes are afraid they themselves are gay, so by being anti-gay 'prove' themselves hetero; racists believe themselves inadequate and try to deflect recognition of their pathetic insufficiency by pointing at minority groups in an attempt to come over as 'disadvantaged' because of them. And so on."

That's an old idea that's never really correlated well with reality, ime. It's obvious why the idea has appeal - "ha ha! You're homophobic because secretly you're afraid you're gay", but save for the odd case of someone in denial or over-compensating because they are suspected of being whatever the target is, I don't think it's true.

Now they may very well often be directing their anger at an available target as a general channel for their anger or outlet for their problems. That's very common. But the whole "homophobes are secretly gay" doesn't hold up, ime.

Minecraft developer kills Kickstarted Minecraft movie

Re: Why?

>>"In summary, Windows 8 x86 runs the Windows version just fine, and Windows 8 RT has a minuscule installed base, apparently no Java (really!?) and thus would be incredibly expensive to do and lead to very few sales. That all adds up to a strong economic argument not to do it.

You seem to be ignoring that the developer himself has stated that he's not going to allow it because he dislikes Windows 8. He's on record and been perfectly clear on that point. No financial reasons given. He stated that maybe disallowing Minecraft on Windows 8 would help lose Microsoft a few sales of it. But you ignore even the developer of the software itself in favour of your own unsupported argument because you think it is easier to spin. What is your basis for saying it would be "incredibly expensive" to port? You have no idea, in actuality. And it seems that the job was actually already done because this whole thing came about because Microsoft approached Notch asking to certify it for Windows 8, so apparently pretty far along.

Once again: Richard 0: Reality 1.

You should really stop making things up and relying on sounding confident to win an argument. You just get shot down and the only reason you get any upvotes at all is because you pander to people's prejudices.

Re: Why?

>>"If I write a game, why do I have to port it to any specific platform at all?"

You don't, but if your reason not to is stupid, then people will be irritated and reasonably so.

>>"Will Microsoft port Halo to Linux? I doubt it, and they don't have to - it's entirely up to them"

Presumably MS would reply that the install base for GNU/Linux on home PCs is tiny tiny compared to Windows and that this doesn't justify the work. You see the difference - one is a reason based on economics, the other is a reason based on something petty. He doesn't have to use the Start Page if he doesn't want to. But others of us like it and don't see his dislike a good reason to refuse our money.

>>"he even sells it on Apples market as well as Microsoft xbox stores but he refuses to put it on to the Windows RT market because on principle he doesn't like the start menu!"

You're joking, seriously? Is there a source for that. Not calling you a liar, I just want to see what he actually said and how in case there's anything in there that makes it sound less stupid (benefit of the doubt, I try not to condemn based on second hand reports). How petty and selfish? I've occasionally looked in the store to see if it's available out of curiosity (never played the game) and been surprised it hasn't appeared there, yet.

So the reason I can't play it because the Start Page (which I like) is something he doesn't!

Re: Rendering on PC:s

First series of Babylon 5 and large portions of the second were done on Amigas. Which is truly impressive. After that they started to use some custom hardware but still - it shows what could be done.

Very well-written series, too.

MtGox takes heat as reasons for Bitcoin FAIL surface

Re: not chucking out the contract baby with the fraud bathwater

>>" Every transaction on the Bitcoin network is visible to the public, which makes it virtually impossible to launder money on it."

I would rather the possibility of money laundering than knowing everything I bought and everyone I paid, could be traced.

Microsoft, Oracle name the date to consummate Azure deal

Re: Now you can buy your vendor lock in from the cloud too

Hmmm. At the time of this posting, your comment seems to have been modded up by two people who hate Microsoft and down by three people who have actually used Azure.

I run a service on Azure. The interface is lovely and support has been excellent. I wonder if you've any actual professional experience with it, AC? Did you know, btw, that MS offer Linux boxes on Azure? There's lock-in for you!

'No, I CAN'T write code myself,' admits woman in charge of teaching our kids to code

Re: @ h4rm0ny

Oh, I fully agree with introducing subjects to pupils in sufficient detail that they get a chance to see what it's about and pique their interest. But I would far rather you get a week of programming, then a week of something else, in order to introduce higher level subjects properly to children so they can make informed choices about higher education and find out that they enjoy something. But if there's a whole two years of watered down programming... that's just going to ill-serve most children and pump out bad programmers and force universities to spend more time trying to (a) undo damage, (b) repeat material for kids to get everyone to the same level.

>>"If you look at any of the media reporting it seems the whole concept is being diverted into things like basic HTML markup"

That's inevitable. Real programming is hard. Or at least takes a lot of knowledge and development of skills. It's not possible to cram all that in amongst everything else at a school environment. And yet at the same time, it is intolerable that whole years of kids might fail a subject. Therefore they must change the subject to something much easier (and less useful as a subject) and keep calling it programming. This has been doomed from the outset and I doubt the lady in this article could have changed that.

Oh, I agree. She might be a consummate organizer and manager and that's okay by me. My big issue is that programming shouldn't be taught to kids. Introduced to them - absolutely. A couple of lessons to show the basics of programming, part of a General Studies component if they still have that. But at that age, the focus should be on foundational skills - maths, language, history. You learn these first because skills like programming are about the application of your foundational skills. It's the reason I loathe ICT as a subject. Teach maths and someone can work with any spreadsheet with a little familiarization. Teach spreadsheets and you just have a pile of rapidly out of date program specific knowledge that you can't use very effectively.

Maths and English and History skills in this country are on average pretty poor, imo. Focus on those.

Re: Few CIOs or VP ITs can code

>>"If they are asking you this, it's likely that you agreed earlier you could deliver it so the fault is not with them. If they ask you to deliver something and you can't, you need to explicitly tell them you can't, and why you or anyone else won't be able to."

I agree with you and modded you up, however, reliably estimating how long a task will take is an advanced skill. I'm serious. Yes, you can give a good estimate for how long it will take you to do some small function or trivial change as a junior programmer, but once you get into larger pieces of work on existing projects or wholly new projects, it takes a lot of experience to give reliable estimates. I recall when I took on my first job writing some device drivers for a customers hardware, I was actually reasonably okay at coding (not so much in retrospect of course, but okay for a fresh new coder), but my estimates of how long it would take me were way off. If someone is project managing software development then they should have enough experience to make some educated guesses themselves. Especially given that they will be applying pressure to their developers to give answers that are spun to sound positive.

Bitcoin value plunges as Mt.Gox halts withdrawals and Russia says 'nyet'

Re: @Richard12

>>"FYI this isn't Richard. I happen to have read his post and agree with most of his comments."

There's no evidence that you're not just Richard trying to bolster his posts because you're hiding your identity. And what he's been writing has been clearly demonstrated wrong. USA, UK and Europe have no asset base? Inflation as a deliberate policy to eliminate debt (including foreign debt), non-central banks creating money (his confusion between assets and liquidity), his not knowing that the debt of the Weimar Republic was external and that hyper-inflation didn't wipe it out? Seriously - what's more likely? That you're Richard ticking the Anonymous Coward option or that there are two people on the planet who actually believe this crap?

>>"The real problem we have is people who think they know and understand - economics."

The world economy has a lot of real problems. People like Richard who think they know but demonstrably don't, are not the "real problem", they're just spreading misinformation. That has little to know impact on how governments and central banks behave, it just affects how angry or confused the public is. It's pretty weird for you to say the "real problem" with the world economy is people who think they know and understand economics. Or is that a kak-handed dig at me? In which case perhaps you should try pointing out anything I've said that is factually wrong instead of falling back to personal attacks in desperation. :)

>>"They simply don't - the reason I know? The world is in such a mess. Every country is in debt."

The world economy is a Chaotic System. There's a limit to how much can be done. The world being "a mess" (your opinion) is not a logical argument that people do not understand economics. I understand Newtonian mechanics, I can't fly, but I can tell you how quickly I will fall. Is that an argument that I don't understand F=ma ? I think you can clearly see that it is not.

>>Then you have bullshit Professors of Economics trying to make sense of something that's totally flawed.

Then why don't you get yourself a nice juicy Nobel prize by showing the fundamental flaws in modern economic theory. I've read university level Economics text books. You appear not to have since you reject Economics totally. A position I can only reconcile with ignorance.

>>Bitcoins offer transparency - something that real currencies do not. They know this and are shit scared of it - which is why they are trying to take it down.

By transparency you can only mean a lack of anonymity. People can trace the transfer history of money, correct? There is no "cash" or ability to block the tracing of transfer history, correct? Why do you think governments are scared of that? And if that's not what you mean, then what on Earth do you think makes Bitcoins more transparent than, e.g. the GBP? The statements and issuances of the Bank of England are all public record, you understand?

>>"None of your asset theories are going to cover that fact one bit."

What are "my asset theories"? Richard / You wrote that the US dollar, Euro, British pound had no asset base. I pointed out that was laughably wrong. What is it you think I'm trying to say? Are you just creating phantom arguments for me, now?

Re: @Richard12

>>"Actually it's you who doesn't have a clue. I thought Richard had it spot on -- you make it sound like you're the one who knows everything With a name that sounds like Harmony - you are promoting anything but!"

Hello AC. Is that Richard again posting anonymously? I guess we'll never know for sure. Do I make it sound like I know everything? Well the reason is that I actually know what I'm talking about to a degree and Richard does not. There's no hypocrisy in saying people shouldn't make things up.

As to the name "Harmony"? I believe when idiots realize they're idiots and stop telling people false things, then there will be greater harmony. I'm fine with that.

Re: @Richard12

>>"Now I want to correct somebody who seems to think that money now on a variant of the "gold standard", when it isn't."

I said no such thing, nor implied it. Correcting someone who says that the UK, USA and Europe have "no asset base", doesn't mean anything other than that I'm pointing out you're wrong. I know what you're trying to imply - that I say because these countries have assets to back their wealth that I'm saying they're like the Gold Standard. But I didn't say anything remotely like that and the fact that you think the one implies the other shows your own misunderstanding of what Fiat and non-Fiat currencies are. Just because a currency is a Fiat currency, doesn't mean there isn't anything backing it, it means it has no intrinsic value. Whereas gold sovereigns or similar obviously do.

>>"Net (after all money-in-bank) UK national debt is over £1,254,000,000,000 Does the UK government really have that much in physical assets?"

Did you just try and shift your position from the USA, UK, Europe "have no asset base" to 'we don't know how much precisely the asset base is so lets ignore it' and think no-one would notice? Have the decency to admit you were talking absolute shit. As to whether £1.25trn is more or less than the sum saleable value of Britain's state assets AND future taxable income, the question pretty much answers itself when you phrase it out properly. But just for you, the UK's GDP is £2.38trn. So unless you think that the UK is making nearly double its total worth annually (I wish I could buy something that would make me double what it was worth each year in perpetuity), then the answer even ignoring future taxable income is a resounding "yes". Really, your grasp of relative figures is perhaps the only thing shakier than your grasp of the underlying principles.

And if you dislike my tone, it's because you obviously no very little about this subject and should therefore have the decency not to try and sound like an expert.

>>It doesn't matter because we can keep servicing the debt and inflation means the real cost of the debt goes down over time.

In the immortal words of Lt. Ripley: "Did IQ's drop sharply while I was away?" I already said that inflation is bad because it devalues savings and is a critical disincentive to investment. Governments hate high inflation. Read some basic economics text books, for our sake if not your own.

>>"Foreclosing loses money, that's why they try to avoid it if possible. I pay my mortgage because I don't care if the bank loses money, I don't want to lose my house!"

No relation to the point I made whatsoever which was that if as you wrote banks have no asset base, what do you think your mortgage payments are? Every time you pay your mortgage, you prove your own words above wrong. Again, stop trying to shift the argument wildly and have the decency to admit you wrote something fundamentally and obviously wrong.

>>Banks don't have the assets to repay all their liabilities - they bet the company on no more than a small number of loans going bad. In 2008/9 a few of them lost that bet.

They have the assets. They're legally required to. What they don't have is the liquidity to repay them all at once. Again, you don't understand the basic terminology you are using. You're way out of your depth and still trying to talk authoritatively. I would enjoy enormously seeing you stand up in front of a room of second year Economics undergraduates and deliver your original post to them. Additionally, your understanding of the Sub-prime crisis and the events that followed are another titanic misunderstanding of what actually happened. The crisis wasn't precipitated by banks lending out more than they had. It was precipitated by them lending to people they shouldn't, those people defaulting and house prices collapsing, and then not being able to make enough money to pay their own debts. They borrowed money to lend out and then couldn't pay it back (massively simplified), which is a very different scenario to lending out money which doesn't exist (what you say was the issue when you state that they were lending out with no asset base).

>>"On a small scale, inflation means my mortgage payments get more affordable as time goes by."

Really? Got fixed interest rates in perpetuity do you? Think the banks can't calculate their own APRs? Hate to break this to you, but interest rates get adjusted to account for inflation. Your mortgage repayments get more affordable over time because you're reducing your principle (the amount you owe), not because of lovely inflation. The latter is compensated for by adjustable interest rates.

"The difference between Bitcoin and GBP is that there are hundreds of millions of people who are confident that GBP will still be valuable in 25 years time."

No, the difference is the reason why people are (semi-)confident in the British pound's long term value over Bitcoins, and that's for real differences between the currencies. As already explained, the pound is a national currency and required by law for paying taxes, is used as the denomination for government bonds, etc. BitCoin has none of these. It's not just that one achieved some critical mass and this is the sole distinction between the two. Additionally, there are other major differences, such as the pound being a fiat currency and inflationary, and Bitcoin (despite having no intrinsic worth) works as a non-fiat currency in many ways and is non-inflationary. But feel free to dismiss that which you find complicated. (Again).

>>"Real currencies have gone down the toilet more than once, with hyper-inflation wiping out everything (Germany, Peru etc). A new currency was then created - the government and country still existed, but the old currency became worthless."

Funny how earlier you were arguing how inflation wipes out debt. In neither of these cases did that actually happen. The debt was foreign-owned. The Weimar Republic (Germany) collapsed in large part because of foreign debt (war repatriations) and the hyper-inflation did nothing to help them. Learnt anything from all these corrections? Or are you just going to try and sound even more authoritative next time around and try to again avoid admitting obvious errors on your part such as the USA, UK and Europe "having no asset base".

Re: Run on the bank? - read the wiki page

Your scenario is flawed. For each iteration, they are getting money back from which to lend again. The bank has not lent out £244 from an initial deposit of £100. It's leant out £90, got it all back, lent out £81, got it all back. All you've done is create a scenario in which the bank gets to charge interest many times over on their money.

Or to put it in really simple terms: It's the same chocolate biscuit

@Richard12

You don't know what you're talking about. In fact you make a habit on these forums of talking confidently whilst giving flawed information. If you like playing the knowledgeable person, first educate yourself.

>>"The 'mainstream' currencies like USD, EUR, GBP etc don't have such an asset base either"

This is crap. The USA has massive state assets. The Euro is the national currency of numerous nations and nations denominate their state bonds in euros - again state actors with major state assets. Your statement ranks alongside War is Peace and the Moon is made of cheese for its stupidity.

>>, and neither do any of the banks you store your cash in.

Odd, because I'm pretty sure collateral counts as an asset. Yep, it does. If you actually believe banks have no asset base, I presume you think you don't have to pay your mortgage? You're an idiot. You just say what you think sounds profound and to Hell with reality.

>>"All governments that have their own currency continually print more in part to fund their borrowing"

Actually, the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve are both not controlled by their host governments. Printing more is a fundamental part of the system - it's called interest rates. It's not ultimately about the Government abusing power to pay off its own debts as you make it sound. Especially in those cases where debt is foreign.

>>"as inflation is the most effective way to reduce the debt burden of a country."

You haven't got a clue. You make it sound as if governments are all keen to pump up inflation in order to reduce domestic debt. They hate doing that! Inflation devalues savings, discourages investment (why lend a million to get two million back if by the time you do, the two million is worth less than the one million), and it destroys foreign exchange rates.

>>"All modern currencies work by fiat - they work because they work"

They are fiat currencies but you make it sound as if they're arbitrary and entirely based on faith unlike Bitcoin. The fact that you can pay taxes in them and that their governments are required to use and accept these currencies gives them a foundation that no virtual currency has yet come close to matching. There are numerous interesting ways in which the pros and cons of virtual currencies can be compared to those of the mainstream currencies, but you're not interested in them - you just want to do a flawed hatchet job in favour of bitcoin.

Re: barter

>>"A bitcoin has no intrinsic worth. It is just some bits. If those bits encode music or something then it could be argued those bits have some intrinsic value."

People get overly hung up about whether individual bits have intrinsic value or not. It doesn't matter - not all crime is about property. If by taking an action (in this case moving some numbers around a network) you cause harm to another (they lose purchasing power or money they would have had), then it doesn't matter whether those numbers have "intrinsic value" or not. What matters is one person taking an action that harms another and that can be the basis for making something illegal.

It's just the same as copyright infringement. People keep shouting about how it's not theft because the numbers are just numbers, ignoring the actual harm caused / wishes of the legal owner.

France demands that Google post badge of shame on its pages

Re: Drunk

>>While I don't agree with google's actions, forcing them to display the ruling on the homepage is feels lscarily like an abuse of power. Bureaucrat willy-waving.

Why is taking someone's money (a paltry sum to Google in this instance, btw) not an abuse of power, but publically shaming someone is? They are both punishments enforced by a body with the power of coercion (a government). Why is one acceptable to you but the other not? In some cultures (including Britain in olden days), that's actually the more common punishment than fines or prison sentences. In this specific instance, any sum that was remotely proportional to the crime would be irrelevant to one as rich as Google. A parking ticket for Larry Ellison. And if you do scale up the fine just because of who does it, then you're in a whole different territory of problems. But a public notice, that can be the same punishment for anyone and it scales inherently according to the size of the perpetrator's public image without you having to change the sentence at all.

>>Presumably the French require petty thieves to walk down the street with placards round their neck detailing their crimes? if not, what is the logical difference here?

Well there isn't much of a logical difference and many cultures do use such punishment. People were once branded for serious crimes in Europe, in Britain people were locked in the stocks so people could walk past and mock them. (I think fruit throwing is exaggerated for modern humour). Again, the question is why taking someone's money (e.g. a police officer marching you to a cash point for being drunk and loud) is acceptable punishment to you but publically stating what they'd done is inhumane.

I think I know the reason - it's because it triggers the instinct of forcing someone to say something being wrong. But that instinct comes from things like torture to recant your beliefs (Gallileo, et al.) or show trials where someone is forced to admit to something they didn't do. It is not the case here where Google did break the law and are only being told to tell people that they did. They're not being forced to renounce Protestantism or confess membership of the Communist Party or similar.

Re: french balls

Yeah. For some reason the French have never really got the message that multinational corporations are the new de facto rulers. The rest of the world kow-tows to any big company with a lot of lobbying dollars, but the French just shrug and carry on pushing companies around.

I've never really got the whole "French Surrender" thing that Americans so love. I mean it really took off because the French were one of the few nations that actually stood up to the USA in the UN over Iraq. For which the American media went beserk and started calling them cowards. Yeah, for not giving the USA what it wanted! (there's gratitude for helping out in the War of Independence).

I mean the chief surrender the French are known for historically was against a fully militarized Germany and if it's okay to be beaten by anyone, that has to be near the top of the list. I suppose you can throw in Waterloo (Germans again) and Agincourt if you like (more a technological shift than any issues of courage or resolve. I mean what are you going to do - just keep charging at longbows and dying in droves like General Haig sent British soldiers against machine guns in WWI?).

For Windows guest - KVM or XEN and which distro for host?

Re: The other way around?

>>"Thanks h4rm0ny; I've been running Linux under VMware and I'm unconvinced by this:"

I see your point. I hadn't really appreciated that you wanted protection against other people using up resources to be part of this. I actually have a set-up similar to how I described and similar intense requirements (heavy database work in my case, however). However I'm the sole user of the machine so that aspect was a bit foreign to me. Happily I think Gordon has given you excellent answers.

Re: The other way around?

Gah! There are enough people here who've already said this and it's probably doing the OP's head in that everyone is telling him the question is wrong rather than actually giving an answer. But I do the same - Windows 8 as the host and GNU/Linux (Debian in this case) as the guest. For me that gives the best of both - the friendly and well-thought-out design of Windows with the raw capability of GNU/Linux.

I use Virtualbox and I can throw as many cores and as much RAM to the guest as I like and it works pretty bloody well. I would guess the OP (understandably enough) has the view that Linux is the solid foundation and also there may be a VM-tax on the efficiency of the guest. And as they want Windows for goofing around in the GUI and Linux for furious compilation, they think that way round is best. I've found Windows 8 to be a very solid host, I don't think there's any concern there. I can't answer with certainty about a performance hit because the machine is virtual, but I'll say it performs very well for me and modern chips have special functions to support virtualization which means the virtual machine can be quite close to running on the metal. It's virtualization, not an emulator and the days of clear distinction between bare-metal hypervisors and software hypervisors are gone.

I wish I could give the OP more of the answers to their specific questions. I could using VirtualBox with Windows as host. For example, you can set up a shared disk space which is (probably) a better way of achieving what the OP wants than Samba. You can set a USB device to only be visible by the guest (though you'll need to leave said device plugged in).

Honestly, I was going to hold off on joining the "Other way round" bandwagon, but this particular part of the OP's question persuaded me to just add my own opinion that it might be a good idea:

"I'm fine to put good money into hardware, 32GB RAM and 2x Xeon are not out of question. Also happy to split resources in half - Windows does not need to have all the goodies."

Reason that this persuaded me to join in is because it shows a misconception. If you're willing to do that sort of hardware then there is no way that you need to "split resources in half". Clearly if the OP wants to do heavy compiling, then all you would need to do would be to install Windows on that set up, tell VirtualBox to give the guest (Linux) 14 cores and 28GB RAM and you're going to have a mighty powerful compiling machine. It's not going to be held back by the Windows host doing the odd bit of USB port handling, et al.

The Intel E3, E5 and E7 chips integrate the newer virtualization technology which is worth having. Really lets the host just get out of the way of the guest and the metal. It's available in some Haswell chips as well.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Mars rover Curiosity snaps 'pale blue dot' image of Earth, Moon

Re: Moment of realisation

>>I wonder if it's as bright as Venus has been this last week?

Venus has vast clouds of vapourized Sulphuric Acid giving it an albedo just shy of a polished mirror. I doubt the Earth shines half so bright, unless you're watching on radio wavelengths, in which case we probably dazzle.

Re: For Carl

>>"Forget any dream of moving out and colonizing other planets because although we are an intelligent species we are definitely not a wise one."

We as a species are capable of great wisdom and great foolishness. Your mistake is to think that they are inseparable. The foolish might remain here, but the wise will eventually shake us off in their pursuit of the stars.

Want to remotely control a car? $20 in parts, some oily fingers, and you're in command

Re: VW Has an evil defence built in.

>>"On several new AUDI/VW/SEAT etc, if you plug in an ODB Reader and read the ECU engine map out, you will immediately blow some on chip fuses and your car is then utterly immobilised."

So they've built in a way for anybody with a six quid device to completely bork any of these cars invisibly and untraceably?

>>"You would have to work pretty hard to create havoc with this kit, and it would be very, very model specific."

With this, perhaps. I don't know. But unless there are actual hardware compatibilities which appears to not be the case, surely it's a very small step from this to something you could run from a computer or smartphone and use with almost any car that uses this system. I'm picturing a generic app that you just load up the appropriate make and model of car you want to work with. What's wrong with my understanding here?

It's Satya! Microsoft VP Nadella named CEO as Bill Gates steps down

Re: Signs of failure

>>"YoY growth is a useless statistic when comparing to other manufactures."

But not a useless statistic. It shows that a product is establishing itself and not going anywhere. And given all the crap people kept talking about WP in its first couple of years about how it was a dead end, would die off, lack of support, could never become a real contender, Year on Year growth is a counter argument to all that hate. Because so long as it keeps growing in a market that is slowing (there is less and less low-hanging fruit of people who don't have a smartphone every year), then it is establishing itself and it is doing well.

Re: Cowboys & Indians

>>"And the rest is used for astroturfing Windows 8 in the comment section."

You know what would be the first and most effective tactic at undermining those saying positive things about Microsoft if I were a shill hired by one of their competitors? To immediately start making statements about how other people were shills.

So, guilty conscience or just paranoia. Heaven forbid that some people should actually like what one of the leading software companies in the world produces. Clearly they are in that position because everyone hates their products!

Re: Ain't nothing going to change

>>He realized that monopolizing access to "The Interwebs" via a proprietary and "enhanced" portal application fused to the underlying OS like a facehugger would make sure that Microsoft would stay a factor in the age of interchangeable commodity browsers and standards as people would need to have Windows to get the "enhanced" Internet.

You realize that the "portal application fused to the underlying OS like a facehugger" was simply ahead of its time? What do you think ChromeOS, is? What about Firefox OS or the latest Ubuntu desktops or how tablets and phones now integrate HTML / CSS rendering and JavaScript directly into the OS for performance reasons? MS was its usual victim of coming in too early. But the Active Desktop was actually an early ancestor of what we see today.

Re: Not Elop then.

>>"Has Microsoft said what patents Android violates? Have they been challenged in court?"

They've said it to the companies involved which are the relevant parties. They've not been challenged in court which gives you a pretty clear idea of how slim the paying organizations think their chances of victory are.

>>"Or has their just been a letter to Samsung/Sony/Lenovo etc saying "call it $5 per tablet and you won't suddenly find your OEM licence to sell copies of Windows on your PCs and Laptops cut off."

Microsoft couldn't legally do that. It would be shot down easily in court under anti-trust laws. Which shows how very little you actually know what you're talking about. As to a court case over the patents themselves (the more plausible scenario), we're talking Samsung here. Not a company known to be shy of lawsuits. And Sony. And Lenovo. Do you have the remotest idea how big these players are? Or do you just have a mental map in which Microsoft is this giant evil colossus that dwarfs all others? Hell, Google has a higher market-cap than Microsoft! Do you really think that between all these huge companies, they wouldn't turn over MS's patents if they weren't valid?

TL;DR: You're a partisan idiot.

Re: Welcome to Toyland!

"Gates's point of course is that there's no *commercial* value in allowing other companies to release components that can replace your software - quite the opposite in fact."

Gates has since witnessed how it is possible to be open and yet still have subtle soft control over the market. Look at Google. Technically open, and dozens of tiny little barriers to going against the way they do it. Watch for MS to follow Google's lead with a lot more 'soft' control in the future. Gates wasn't wrong about stopping people being able to leave. He just didn't realize you could do it without overt force.

Tell us we're all doomed, MPs beg climate scientists

Re: Thing is, we *are* all doomed.

>>"As far as I can see, we need several generations to die en-masse (disease and hunger are good, less destructive than war and more <span color='red'>Darwinesque</span>) to keep our numbers down-something has to."

Ouch. Not sure if I'm more bothered by your sociopathic lack of empathy, your terrible grasp of demographics or the fact that you don't know the word 'Darwinian'.

People are dying all the time. You don't need to have massive disasters, just reduce the birth rate. (And for you to call disease and famine 'good' is monumentally bone-headed and for you to imagine its a positive thing because of evolution, staggeringly simplistic).

All you require to lower the birth rate in a humane and voluntary fashion, is available birth control and greater educational and career opportunities for women. That's as close to proven as anything in Sociology gets. What sort of primitive advocates for plagues and famine over a contraceptive pill and career equality?

Re: Garbage In Garbage Out

>>"the suns energy output is remarkably steady regardless of solar flares, sunspot cycles and such."

Oh for Pity's sake. Seriously? How can you just say something like "regardless of solar flares, sunspot cycles and such" with a straight face. The Sun's energy output is remarkably steady regardless of frequent and pseudo-random events that produce significant variation? Hanibal Lecter is a well socialised human being regardless of the occasional murder and eating people? Just because you identify the weaknesses in your own argument and name them, doesn't mean you get to dismiss them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle

Look at variation in energy output over time. There are semi-predictable cycles but we still don't have the degree of that variation down to anything like predictability.

Things like your post are what push people away from agreeing with AGW, because they see themselves being told they're wrong by people who clearly don't have a good grasp of the science themselves and are just arguing from an a priori belief in AGW.

Everytime someone posts an obviously false counter-argument to a query or question by a skeptic, that skeptics distrust of AGW proponents increases.