Posts by Dan 55

¡Dios mío! Spain blocks DNS to hush Catalonian independence vote sites

They've tried requesting a change and they get told no.

The nation might be defined indivisible but that doesn't stop a referendum taking place, as I posted above. One of the people who wrote the constitution said it wouldn't prevent referendums. Spain won't be torn asunder the moment the result is called.

Surely the best way to do it would be to have a referendum, then decide what to do based on the result. The result based on polling data shows it would be about 41% for independence. The central government can say "okay, we've heard you, let's see what we can do about your devolved powers". Just allowing the same tax-rasing powers that the Basque Country has would probably kill the independence movement overnight.

This cycle of "We're not listening to you till you have a legal referendum - no, we won't allow you to have a legal referendum" is beyond stupid.

Still a lot of open wounds 1939 to 1975. General Franco will be turning in his massive mausoleum.

Spain just swept it under the carpet, completely different from Germany's approach.

One of the people who drafted the Spanish constitution says it does not ban independence referendums - link (in English).

Now you can either answer this in two ways:

1. You don't like the news agency... but it's only reporting what he's saying.

2. He's Catalan so he would say that... but he helped write the constitution.

What Catalonia Government is doing has a name and is REBELLION.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

And if you compare the Catalan and Valencian statues*, it turns out that articles in the Catalan statute were overturned by the constitutional court but the same articles in the Valencian statue were permitted.

Valencia is a PP-voting region, Catalonia obviously is not.

* the laws which define the devolved powers available to a region.

Re: Catalonia Government is spreading false information

But in the end it boils down to this:

- We want independence.

- The constitution forbids independence. You must follow the law. We can talk about anything you like as long as it's in the law.

- Will you change the law?

- No.

- GO TO 10.

Which is pretty stupid.

You also justified censorship of pro-referendum websites. Sorry, Spain is supposedly a democracy. Democracies generally don't blanket censor websites about self determination.

- goto fail;

Freedom of speech is a different thing to not suspending autonomy. Censoring over 140 websites and then getting all magnanimous about not suspending regional autonomy is mixing two completely different things.

Re: Survey not Referendum?

They already did that three years ago. The answer from central government was it didn't legally mean anything so they weren't obliged to do anything.

The Spanish government has said today it's DNS blocked more than 140 websites which support the referendum (link).

So when central government talk about the rule of law and Catalonia has to follow the law, as they always do when this subject comes up, forgive me if I'm a bit cynical.

The Catalan government has decided to use less blockable ways of getting the message across - a direct link to a CDN, a Telegram robot, a Twitter account, and an e-mail address (link).

As you have to enter your ID number, date of birth, and postcode to get told the polling station where you have to vote, it brings up some interesting data protection questions.

Well, didn't the government say it was illegal, but they sent it to the constitutional court to confirm it, and the answer came back a day later saying it was indeed illegal?

Very thin walls...

Re: re. Scotland had its referendum. With few problems

Actually it's more like:

- You can't hold an independence referendum, the constitution doesn't allow them so it's illegal.

- Well change the constitution.

- No.

Re: even blocking access to some websites

As it's Spain the ISP block was done with the mininum work necessary. Change your settings to OpenDNS or Google DNS and job done.

It does seem like it's going to kick off on Sunday. Think the miner's strike - police from everywhere else in the country being bussed and boated in to Catalonia... what could possibly go wrong?

On the bright side, if you're a thief elsewhere in Spain now's a good time to put in some overtime.

Ouch: Brit council still staggering weeks after ransomware bit its PCs

"Weeks"?

If they've taken everything down then weeks is plenty of time to wipe and reimage systems.

At the very worst you pay the ransomware, get the documents back, and rebuild everything.

What's going on?

Bless their hearts: Democrats want $40bn to spruce up America's bumpkin broadband

Re: IT'S FRICKIN EASY

Eight hours if you ignore speed limits and are driving KITT, yes.

NatWest customer services: We're aware of security glitch

Re: Next time, screenshot it and post it on Twitter with a link to the story

I bet it'd get allocated more time and a higher priority if PR so ordained because things were getting embarasskng on Twitter.

Next time, screenshot it and post it on Twitter with a link to the story

You'll be amazed at how they change their tune.

"We can't be arsed to do our job properly unless you hang out your dirty laundry in public on Twitter" approach to customer service really gets on my tits.

The UK isn't ditching Boeing defence kit any time soon

Another empty threat

Brexit: All UK ports should be a building sites by now.

Boeing: The government couldn't give up even if it wanted to.

Not working out too well...

Microsoft gives all staff a marked-up 'Employee Edition' of Satya Nadella's new book

Re: FN+F5

My laptop has the F key as the main key and the Fn key for selecting those very useful functions, which is nice.

Re: An 'Employee Edition' of Satya Nadella's Book...

Hopefully not as a PDF.

Microsoft removes PDF Reader on Windows 10 Mobile from July 1, forces you to use Edge

Dot-Amazon spat latest: Brazil tells ICANN to go fsck itself, only 'govts control the internet'

Re: For what?

Perhaps we really do need a "Welcome to the Internet" page to get people started, sort of like AOL.

Login screen messages

Login screen messages

Just noticed there are different error messages for incorrect email address and incorrect password.

This is not current Best Practice™.

Dyson to build electric car that doesn't suck

He's obviously beta testing 280 character tweets.

My name is Bill Gates and I am an Android user

Re: Thriller

Balmer did get MS' stance on privacy right and Office for iOS/Android were developed while he was in charge.

Then Sadnad pissed away privacy and has absolutely no idea what to do with Windows on mobiles.

Re: Thriller

Nokia just needed a CEO to stop their policy of inter-departmental competition and execute the Symbian > Meego transition.

So they brought in Elop who sent for lorries full of best Seattle guano and buried the carpet underneath that.

As for unfinished software, Lumia's release prompted lists like "125 Reasons Not to Buy A Windows Phone 7.5 comparing Symbian with WP.

Mozilla whips out Rusty new Firefox Quantum (and that's a good thing)

The new API is far less powerful than XUL. Many just can't be rewritten.

So. Should I upgrade to macOS High Sierra?

Re: Already?

Perhaps you can download it from the link given here and make a bootable installer from it using the createinstallmedia command?

New file systems are a rare treat

Unfortunately this one doesn't have checksumming. How did the geniuses at Apple manage to miss that?

I guess they think there's no need because of iDevices and SSD. Mac OS playing second fiddle yet again.

Back to ZFS then.

UK Home Office re-bans cheap call gateways because 'terrorism'

Re: All you need is . . .

Telegram's encryption is scientifically proven to be bollocks.

Re: those charged with keeping families and communities safe...

Odd really, because the Home Office has been instrumental in fomenting Skype families.

Yay for policy-based evidence making...

... because terrorism.

WDC's My Cloud Home Duo is a natty piece of kit but beware iContent

Re: Power control

What's different apart from a new name and box? They've been selling this stuff for a decade and the software still isn't exactly Synology level.

The power JavaScript: 'Gandalf of JS' Wirfs-Brock on ECMAscript 2017

JavaScript for AI

I think we've reached peak bullshit.

Time to recalibrate the scale.

HP denies rumours Elite x3 is for the axe, admits coveting neighbour's OS

Windows 10 mobile has been forked from Windows 10 desktop.

So as there is a cost in keeping it going, presumably they're keeping it going because of some as-yet-unrevealed plan.

Twitter reckons Trump's Nork-baiting tweet was 'newsworthy'

Re: Twitter

Yes, it's found its place in the world. 140 characters is just enough for a gratuitous insult, trolling, or threats against someone's wellbeing but not long enough for anything like a reasoned argument or the to-and-fro of civilised debate.

UK third worst in Europe for fibre-to-the-premises – report

The UK needs fast fibre to copy over the corporate data centre over to the new premises in France.

London’s tech elite discuss Brexit Britain with French PM

Why Uber isn't the poster child for capitalism you wanted

Oh do behave.

You know what you're doing, you've gone AC.

Web devs griping about iPhone X notch: You're rendering it wrong

Re: I don't get what the problem is...

You obviously don't understand. You couldn't put the newspaper logo in the top-left corner and a drop-down menu in the top right corner. It wouldn't surprise and delight the user (or whatever Apple blingware does nowadays).

Microsoft: We've made a coding language for a quantum computer that may or may not exist

Re: Bing for Business – don’t laugh

"What for Business? What's that?"

This box right over here behind us – nothing!

So the same thing they unveil every year. Windows, Office, Exchange, SQL Server lately Azure, and some nebulous nothing unveiled to great fanfare and then disappears shortly afterwards.

Docs ran a simulation of what would happen if really nasty malware hit a city's hospitals. RIP :(

Re: The lessons will be costly in money and lives

The problem is that there are many people who are not in their right mind, for whatever reason.

That'll be lack of mental healthcare.

Welcome to the future: Bluetooth jackets you can only wash 10 times. Gee, thanks, Google

Maybe they could pretend by wiping their nose on the sleeve, although if they do that jacket might need more than 10 washes.

iPhone 8: Apple has CPU cycles to burn

Re: Wasn't this fantastic GPU allegedly made...

"A lot of people. Many people. Imagination's lawyers! I don't know folks, but when there's Imagination's lawyers involved and they've said Imagination is in dispute with Apple, and they've started an... official... dispute... resolution... process, official process, well, some people would say there's no smoke without fire. And if they said that, they'd be right to say that. And the smart lawyer people are saying that too."

Wasn't this fantastic GPU allegedly made with Imagination's stolen IP and poaching their employees?

The six-core CPU A11 is now complemented, for the first time, by an Apple-designed GPU.

Apple can now support 4K at 60 frames per second (fps) and 1080p video at 240fps. Top consumer camcorders costing around $1,000 from Sony and Panasonic can't match either frame rate. They don't even come close.

While the Californian juggernaut carries on regardless, yet another supplier ended up as roadkill. GT took two years to come out of bankruptcy, the remains of Imagination got picked up off the tarmac by Chinese investors after MIPS was offloaded.

Spanish govt slammed over bizarre Catalan .cat internet registry cop raid

Re: jltallon

There's something called the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Cataluña (Catalan High Court of Justice). There's one for each autonomous region and they never knowingly rule against central government.

Re: Curious Spanish attitude

Should the rest of the UK have voted on Scottish independence or the rest of the EU voted on Brexit?

Re: Curious Spanish attitude

There has never been an independence referendum in Catalonia because Article 2.

There have been referendums held by town councils with no legal standing, a region-wide referendum which was rebadged a consultation after it was declared illegal, and elections where the parties said that if they're elected they'll carry on the independence process.

This is the first one where Catalonia has said it's a referendum on independence, it's going ahead, and they'll declare independence if there is a majority vote for it.

While we're here, you might also want to change puntoCat to puntCat as "punto" is a Spanish word.

Re: Scottish one

Well, they're already arresting regional politicians for sedition and fining them €12,000 per day.

The local police run by town councils and regional police are loyal to Catalonia, the national police and civil guard are loyal to central government. If the referendum does go ahead, I'm guessing there's going to be lots of videos of what's happening at polling stations floating round social networks.

Want to keep in contact with friends and family without having to sell your personal data?

Re: Who handles the video streams and pictures, and how?

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may change this privacy policy. If we make any changes, we will change the Last Updated date above.

There is no Last Updated date, either above or below.

It really needs to be sold globally.

If not, um, what's the point.

The advantage is it's granny proof.

But for everyone else, we just need the software, instead of having yet another device kicking round taking up space and eventually landfill.

Perhaps they could bundle the device with a year or two's service and access by software only from x other devices. Someone could pay a subscription after that to keep the devices going. Grannies with Loops would always have access, they just couldn't talk to anyone else with their own devices if they don't keep the subscription going... how's that for corporate emotional blackmail.

Shock! Hackers for medieval caliphate are terrible coders

People who want to kill other people for stupid sky fairy reasons are not clever

Who knew?