Posts by Peter Fielden-Weston

Hacked flight sim site in catastrophic crash and burn

Re : All those snearing about no backups etc

Don't know much abou the whole thing myself, so I could be totally wrong. However I understand Avsim was a hobbist site, run by an Av Simming fan. Was he an IT professional? if he was then you may have some just cause to snear at his lack of backups. However it is most likely that he wasn't an IT expert (unlike you lot) and didn't realise that the environment that had been built (wasn't it built by an IT professional for him) was structually unsound. Another IT professional worked on the site (the alleged stealing of email addys is another topic) did _HE_ tell the site owner of the dangers?

You probably know precisely how a modern PC works and what is happening in each part of the whole system. You _DO_ don't you? Most users think that a PC is filled with magic faries and you wake them up when you switch the box on. Thats why there are so many computer viruses about, the faries catch them from each other. Mention Backups to a normal user and they'll think that you're talking about getting angry. And copying the data from one machine to another is probably more than most would ever consider doing.

SO WHAT?

Snigger to yourselve about his lack of knowledge while you take your car to the garage for a service at £40 to £50 an hour labour. Because _you_ don't know how to do it. How about a bit of plastering to repair a wall? Gonna throw together a bucket of muck and slap it on the wall then? Oh look, lady over there has broken her arm and _LOOK HOW FAR THE BLOOD'S SPURTING_. What are you going to do? faint at the sight of the bone sticking out?

How about remembering that you get paid to do what you do because others don't have your skills. Just like you don't have other skills that are neaded from time to time.

Give the bloke a break. If you want to help then you offer help. REAL HELP. Go over and help setup his servers. Maintain them for him. Set up the backup routine and archives and mirror sites.

Until then STFU.

Jacqui drops central snooping database

And El Reg said...

"We have a reporter ..."

Do you?

Well, I am impressed!

US parkies in 'burrow-buster' marmot detonation campaign

Now Mr Marmot...

... can ask Mrs Marmot "Did the Earth move for _you_ honey?"

...I know, Iknow. Mines the one with the leaves sticking to the back.

US superputer nuke boffins puff mighty, arse-kicking GPU

But...

Can it understand _WOMEN_!!!!!

Most undergraduates 'show fear when asked to do maths'

Re : Arnold Lieberman

"People have been brought up to think that everything should be easy/unchallenging or it isn't worth doing."

I agree with your overall statement but not the last bit "…or it isn't worth doing."

For many years our educators (can't call them teachers because teachers would know better) have decided that children shouldn't fail. AT ANYTHING. The easiest way to do this was by not placing the kids into a competitive situation, by reducing the attainment levels so that anyone could meet them, by feeding the kids the precise knowledge required to pass a test. All of this isn't education, its just training.

While the educators have, overall, been successful in their quest at removing failure, they have also removed successes.

They have taken away the feeling of accomplishment when a difficult task or skill is learnt, they have removed a strong impetuous to improvement, they have destroyed some kids soaring achievements just because not everyone could reach the same heights. They have removed the kids pride in attainment. In their rush to prevent anyone “losing” they have prevented everyone from winning.

So now the products of our education system will be wondering why they can't walk straight from school into a well paid, exciting job, why, if they do get a job which doesn't involve smiling a lot and plastic stars on their name badge, their colleagues treat them with (almost) contempt for the first couple of years. After all they haven't ever failed before so why can't they succeed now? How are the kids going to cope in the real world which doesn’t really care about their poor bruised feelings.

Recently I have spent time talking to one of my (an honourary) grandchild. She is due to leave school soon and is expected to gain 4 or 5 reasonable GCSEs. Unfortunately she is as thick as two short planks strung end to end. An essay produced by her for her English GCSE course work was about three quarters of an A4 page in length, with poor handwriting, atrocious spelling and almost nonexistent punctuation. She expected good marks for that piece of cra^W course work. Her chances of gaining the desired gainful employment is only a little less than that of finding an honest politician. And she will have a certificate saying that she obtained a good standard in four or five subjects. Subjects that she cannot discuss to any reasonable degree. She doesn’t have the very basic skills that are needed for her to properly start her adult life. She has “succeeded” in her schooling. In business she would have been considered a failure and removed years ago.

My primary / secondary schooling ended in ’67. Though I did not sit any exams or gain any qualifications then. I could recite the times tables without thought. Read and comprehend what I was reading. Write structured sentences to communicate my ideas. And, most importantly of all, I knew how to learn. I have since gained an MSc and have since been working in technically difficult, and monetarily rewarding, areas. I have used quadratics at work, and Fourier transforms. Though the only split infinitive I know is the one from Star Trek.

Mines the one with TWO Daily Mail’s in the pocket.

Jacqui Smith pulls in another TV psych in violence probe

Re Sarah Bee

The way that this proposal is worded is sexist. Most commentators here are pointing out the fact that highlighting only one side if the problem is almost as bad as doing nothing at all. While a “Save the females” campaign will help in some small ways, it will also server to hide the damage being done to males.

We only have to look at the effect of the “think of the children” campaign have had on the male numbers in primary and junior schooling. All males have been demonised because of the actions of a very few. It is very noteworthy that in some cases there was also a female involved in the atrocities. The females role was never hyped by the media in the same way that the males was though. Is this because all of these “little women” were terrified of the man? I doubt that that was the case otherwise the tabloids would have spread that across the front pages with great glee.

Males have suffered a huge amount of unnecessary and undeserved blame and oppression in the last couple of decades. Attitudes towards men have changed in a lot of not so subtle ways. Now it is seen as reasonable that sections of society be “protected” from men. Not just one or two men but all men. I find that unacceptable.

A cartoon depicting a woman berating a man can be published and be considered acceptable by most ‘normal’ people. A similar cartoon, with the roles reversed would not. Why is this so? Isn’t the abuse of either gender unacceptable?

TV adverts are shown almost daily depicting people in situations which would be totally unacceptable if the gender roles were reversed. Why? Is it acceptable for men to be shown as stupid but not acceptable to show women as such?

Otherwise reasonable moderators say that the bigger problem is mens violence against women and we should tackle that first. We can leave the smaller problem until later. Why, is it unimportant? Remember that the smaller problem is still part of the whole problem. It is the whole problem that must be looked at.

These are attitudes which must be highlighted if we are to bring a rational focus onto DV and equality.

It is time for the media, even a red top like el Reg, to start hammering back at the politicians demanding some balance. Don’t target DV against women, target DV. Remember when you’re calling for a new womans shelter that a DV shelter would help more. I know that DV against women is a larger problem that that against men. However I also point out that DV is a larger problem still.

Jacqui Smith has shown herself to be a sexist bigot. Now it is up to you, the media, to tell her, and others like her, that sexist bigots and bigotry of any form, from either gender is unacceptable.

</rant>

Stargazers peer into the 'Eye of God'

@LaeMi Qian

Thank you for reminding me of Terry Bisson's "Their made out of meat!"

http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

El Reg suffers identity crisis

Mr Gerard...

said that like it was a Bad Thing.

Pirate Bay prosecutors get jiggy with charge sheet - again

Two things

1) I was always under the impression that the prosecuting lawyers had to do their work _before_ the case and come to court with everything prepared. I understand that things change and new 'evidence' comes to light, but this should all have been sorted out beforehand. This changing of the charges stinks of a fishing expedition.

2) I just googled "coldplay bittorrent" and got about 345,000 hits. So if TPB would have retured 1,000 and Google 345,000 then perhaps Google is about 300 times as guilty of whatever TPB is guilty of.

Paris because... WTF it's Wednesday.

Obama says his new chopper is 'procurement gone amuck'

Hover in still air...

"it doesn't have enough power to achieve a hover in still airs with a full load of weapons and fuel*, for instance"

Isn't hovering for protracted periods part of what a sub-hunting helicopter does? And does a huge amount of.

Hours and hours of dip, listen, listen, listen, bit more listening, listen, lift; repeat.

if so, how is the Merlin so good at its primary role then?

I'm a sceptic now, says ex-NASA climate boss

@Wonderkid

Perhaps he didn't 'change' his mind, rather now that he is no longer employeed by NASA he doesn't have have to follow the prescribed NASA line. Perhaps it is an opinion that he himself holds. Perhaps.

As for the recent past I can rememberlate '50s Granny saying that the wheather wasn't as warm as it used to be before the war, and mother agreeing with her. '63 huge snow drifts, didn't prevent me from being sent to schoold though. '76 blistering hot summer, my car (an Anglia 1200) users to get a vapour lock in the petrol line if I drove it during the day. Freezing winter (a friends car radiator froze up. As he was driving it!) '80s much cooler, '90s warmer. 2006 hot again.

Over all the temperatures that we are getting now have been reached and exceeded in _my_ living memory.

German beaver escapes from Dartmoor

That's it...

Gonna get down to Cornwall and get me some beaver.

UK lists preferred occupations for immigrants

Soon

the gubberment will be issuing prefered lists of jobs for UK residents. Then specific jobs for specific people.

Role on the revolution.

DNA convictions fall as database doubles in size

Failure

The failure of the NDNAD to inprove crime detection & conviction rates, despite its increasing size shows that it has failed to provide the benefits given as its reason for being. In a commercial environment the NDNAD would not be scrapped and those employeed managing & maintaining it would be made redundant.

Should this not happen it then becomes obvious that there are reasons for the existance of this database beyond that which the public have been told. I do believe that nobody resident in the UK today would be surprised at HM Goverment concealing its true objectives, or just plain lying to us.

The US and the impossible green revolution

We need

a hundred of these people (though a thosand would be better.) Then we could collect all the hot air they produce and use that to solve the worlds energy crisis.