Re: An exercise in pointlessness
Careful, feelings may run high, this is a highly emu-tive subject.
And yes, that's a standard el-Reg-sarcastic-pedant way of pointing out it's Chris *Rea*.
66 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Apr 2007
In school I had a friend who really should have become a QA tester, he could unfailingly find the unique combination to trigger the obscure bug in my code[1]. One time I thought I had him beaten, my program steadfastly refused to crash. Until he asked "what's that" and pointed at the screen, a centimetre-long spark went between it and his finger and the machine died.
[1] Or maybe, just maybe, I wasn't as good as I thought and my schoolboy code was littered with bugs and he just happened to find some of them. Nah, that can't be right, Shirley?
Um, so you think if it's recycled then humanity will use the resulting plastic, however if it's incinerated then we will go without rather than using virgin plastic instead? I'm afraid I don't share your optimism.
Also the people doing this care enough about it to have put together a company and created the technology, while we sit at our keyboards and comment on El Reg articles. I suspect they've put a bit of thought in to the sea-life bit as well.
I'm a lazy programmer! That means I don't want to go back and sort out messes caught by short cuts in the first implementation so stuff like this is never hard-coded.
Though I'm happy to admit to being lazy (it is one of the three virtues after all) I do my best not to be shoddy and, well, you'd have to ask my peers about competency.
It's not just the extra power. I passed my test and went from a Suzuki GS125 to a Honda CBR600F. Got to the first corner and, oh, totally different feel and experience. Still, somehow I got round it, then learned to ride a big bike properly and had lots of fun on that CBR (until some complete b*stard nicked it).
I was totally behind when they put in the progressive access / direct access licence distinctions, hopefully saved a few people doing the same as me and coming off a lot worse!
My father asked for help as the stupid new cartridge he'd put in his printer wouldn't come out at all. I eventually managed to extract the black cartridge from the colour slot. In his defence the cartridges on that printer are the same size, though slightly more damning is that he had needed to force it past the plastic part that is there to stop you putting one in the wrong slot.
I had that. Rode back from deity-knows-where in small bursts (of incredibly boring but very fuel-efficient riding) between stopping to open the fuel cap and allow some air in. I can't remember if the bike had some safety feature where I couldn't get the key out of the cap without it being closed or I was just too young and dumb to think of riding along with it open.
Yes, the vaccination should be (and is) voluntary, people can chose not to have one. However that doesn't mean the right to chose not to have one comes without any implications at all. While it shouldn't be effectively obligatory (e.g. you can't go in a supermarket without a vaccination or an exemption) it should be reasonable for e.g. mass events to insist on one.
I know at least 2 such idiots and they're not social outcasts. Though one works in sales which is pretty close. On reflection that's a good group to target as they'll meet a lot more people than us nerdy IT loners, and their grasp of science ... well let's be kind and say it is variable.
No, they don't prove you are safe, but they do show you're much safer than you otherwise would be. Seatbelts don't save 100% of lives yet we (in the UK at least, YMMV) do say they're obligatory. I wonder if when that was introduced there were arguments about people wearing seatbelts believing they are safe and likely to drive with less caution?
Mine are mostly either from Amazon or an ISP these days. I always press 1. I think the best I've managed is about 25 minutes before they realised I'm not actually following their instructions and installing a remote desktop program. Some take it gracefully, others get a bit sweary.
Keep reporting them. When enough people do then the InfoSec people can show the pointy-haireds and say "look, you're training your staff to get pwned, here are some examples of where that's cost companies millions". We haven't got the the point where all genuine company emails have the right domain etc. (it appears some people have worse turning circles than supertankers) but we do at least now have an intranet page listing the legit-but-dodgy-looking ones and nearly-all the genuine ones have a message in them about checking that page first. It ain't perfect but it's progress.
Caveat: I ain't an InfoSec expert, just a code monkey who likes pointing out where things are wrong.
Well, possibly, but it depends on the numbers and the evidence. We're in to 10s of thousands already *with* the lockdowns in place, without then projections were 100s of thousands. If there's good evidence that continuing to lock down for at least several more weeks would cause millions, or even 100s of thousands, of deaths over the next few years then yes there are 2 legitimate arguments. If it's a number plucked out of thin air by people who are distressed (and yes, there are going to be a lot of people legitimately in severe distress right now), or the calculations aren't including the number that would be caused by the financial impact of letting the virus rip through the population (as that isn't going to be trivial either), then you can't say it's a lie that there is only one sensible course of action.
Yes, there are 2 arguments, but I'm going to need to hear some convincing backup before you can convince me that both are legitimate.
As with pretty much everything, there are two sides. Most police are doing their best to get people to follow the guidelines & laws (there's a mixture of both) in a friendly, non-confrontational way. A small proportion will of course continue being complete arses. In the same way most of the general public are good-naturedly being considerate and doing what they can, a small proportion will continue being too thick and/or selfish and do whatever they want.
In my not-so-humble opinion the drone video was a massive fuck-up, a great example of wasting time and shooting yourself in the foot. Having a form to alert about people not playing nicely (and, shock-horror, one that's nice and simple so can be filled in quickly and easily - <fe>I'm sure there would have been plaudits had it been a hideous UI disaster</fe>) sounds like it might well be useful. Sure, there will be some people submitting it 'cos they're self-righteous gits, but also some helpful data to guide the police to people flaunting the lockdown and making it go on longer for the rest of us.
So yeah, it is a rant unfairly lumping a large group of individuals in to one block so as to complain about them, but it is Bombastic Kieran so I'm afraid par for the course. Try not to let it dampen your day, go for your one bit of outdoor exercise for the day and enjoy the fact that most people are doing their best in difficult circumstances.
Part of me thinks someone should point out to her that if the companies are following the law and she doesn't like the outcome then perhaps her time would be very much better spent trying to change the law (seeing as she's a politician, so that's her responsibility) rather than writing books saying how unfair it all is. Then a much larger part of me thinks that her doing anything other than modifying tax legislation is a very good idea indeed.
Indeed. I searched a few online dictionaries just to be sure. Of course in the room that wasn't available to them, so her strategy worked, but if she did that to me I'd be ready to call her on anything she came up with any subsequent times we met. If you're going to be pedantic it helps to be right.