* Posts by strum

1172 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jun 2009

Well, whad'ya know? 'No evidence' that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower

strum

Re: @Bandersnatch ... @AC Funny... but no.

>There is enough evidence in the public eye to confirm that this did occur and that Trump was spied on.

Only you haven't got any of it. Must be a conspiracy.

Pathetic.

Google's Hollywood 'interventions' made on-screen coders cooler

strum

>That Media course

I'm not sure whether it's still true, but the last time I looked, the infamous 'Media Studies' courses were one of the best job credentials of them all (i.e., more MS graduates got jobs than other disciplines).

Engineers & the like love to look down on generalists - but generalists rule the world, and always will do. Specialists go out of style, very quickly.

80% of IT projects in public sector delayed due to IR35 – report

strum

>The pea-brained idiots of HMRC and HMT believe that contractors are avoiding paying tax that by rights should be in HMRC's pocket, for the government to waste on all those super things it wastes money on.

...like paying contractors?

Tesla hit with official complaint over factory conditions

strum

And, of course, no manager/CEO was ever corrupt. Oh no!

Unions get into the news when something drastic goes wrong (and the story is then repeated, over and over again, for decades, as if it were typical).

Their boring drudgery, on behalf of exploited/bullied/mistreated workers, doesn't get reported quite so much.

China's cybersecurity law grants government 'unprecedented' control over foreign tech

strum

So, presuming that said foreign-devil company can actually identify their current source code, what's to stop them running it through a "change every tenth character to 'x'" routine, and handing it to the required bureaucrat?

Or, even better, a tweak that would make the copied tech blow up, if used?

Korea extends factory automation tax break, is accused of levying 'robot taxes' anyway

strum

“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing”

Jean Baptiste Colbert

German court reveals reason for Europe-wide patent system freeze

strum

Re: So, in other words..

>Trump was slated to lose big to Hillary Clinton by most polls, and we all know how that turned out.

And he did lose, bigly, in the popular vote.

Voyager antenna operator: 'I was the first human to see images from Neptune'

strum

Re: Unfortunately...

>So women should be encouraged into STEM so they can be nerdettes to lonely heterosexual nerds in a few years time? What an enticement!

Well - one of the reasons girls haven't (traditionally) gone in for STEM is the fear that boys won't like them, if they appear too clever.

No, the cops can't get a search warrant to just seize all devices in sight – US appeals court

strum

Re: Mess

>Sorry

No you aren't.

Microsoft president exits US govt's digital advisory board as tech leaders quit over Trump

strum

Re: One thing is missing here..

>..we are trying to make a certain religion integrate into society that doesn't believe in our values

Yes. Christianity is totally at odds with modern capitalism.

strum

Re: Boston?

>I don't care if people downvote what I write because at the end of the day I know I'm right

I'm downvoting, partly because you're wrong, but also because you're an arrogant arsehole.

strum

Re: Lets put things in to perspective.

>a misunderstanding of what is meant by 'Freedom of Speech'

Once again, you trip yourself up, without any help from us. The First Amendment doesn't apply. The misunderstanding is yours.

strum

Re: Boston?

I'm a peaceable man, who would much prefer peaceful methods to oppose those who would drag us into the gutter. But, I live on Cable Street, London (USANIANs Google it) and have regular reminders that it wasn't reasoned argument that stopped Mosley's fascists. it wasn't a vote and it wasn't a legal challenge. It was the fists of angry Eastenders humiliating Mosley's 'strongmen', consigning fascism in Britain to the margins, for the 80 years since.

Q: How many drones are we bombing ISIS with? A: That's secret, mmkay

strum

Re: Interesting stuff

>@Ledswinger It's interesting to note that, by "classical" Geneva conventions, Guantanomo was fully justified, even tame. Enemy combatants are expressly required to be uniformed, otherwise their treatment is not covered.

Not that garbage again. The Geneva Conventions have been carfully scoped so that they explicitily apply to everybody.

US cops point at cell towers and say: Give us every phone number that's touched that mast

strum

Re: @coresstore

>bingo! You probably have your perp's mobile number.

Or the guy he was shooting at.

For every problem, there is a solution which simple, straightforward - and wrong.

Defra recruiting 1,400 policy wonks to pick up the pieces after Brexit

strum

Re: Curious

>As to what policy these wonks are supposed to come up with. How to copy the standard EU farming regs into only English or are they going to reform British Agriculture to reflect that it is really British now?

There does seem to be a delusion that British agricultural bureaucracy began with the CAP. Did it bollocks.

The old Min of Ag regularly issued instructions to the nation's farmers - to spray their crops on a given day, for instance.

The Archers was created to soften the Min of Ag's image, and to nudge farmers to do the right thing.

strum

Re: Light begins to dawn?

> It is for whatever the EU decides to spend it on.

The EU includes us (so far). Stop pretending it's something other than us.

strum

Re: brexit cost

>For skilled workers having their wages depressed and unskilled workers being put on the dole by economic migrants from eastern Europe it quite possibly is.

Except that there is no evidence that this is actually so. EU migrants are economic contributors; they create wealth (along with everyone else). That wealth creates jobs (and supports salaries).

(It's interesting that your message shows up just below one which claimed that immigration had nothing to do with Brexit.)

strum

Re: Brexit

>If you're not willing to work towards the solution, at least try not to be part of the problem. Please.

You weren't, so why the fuck should we listen to you?

strum

Re: Brexit

>Strange, they're the ones who got what they wanted, what have they to moan about?

They've been whining for forty years - why should they stop now?

They're moaning about the EU not caving in to every half-baked suggestion from HMG, moaning about legal challenges to unlawful gummint actions, complaining about the divorce bill, mithering about the impracticality of replacing all the EU standards and regulations, disgusted that we'll have to renegotiate 700 trade deals - no longer handled by EU.

Yeah. Whiners.

Space boffins competing for $20m Moon robot X-Prize are told: Be there by March 31 – or bust

strum

Re: do something that literally has never been done before

>Live streamed HD video from the Lunar surface I think they mean.

It would be annoying if they got their rover all the way there, but the best it could transmit was SD.

Read IBM CEO Ginni Rometty's letter to staff: Why I walked from Trump's strategy forum

strum

Re: Once is enough

>This is by the electoral college which is in place so that the people are represented.

Clearly you know nothing about American history. The Electoral College was created to prevent populism. There is no way it could ensure "that the people are represented". Its rationale was to represent *districts*, ensuring that city mobs couldn't be exploited by demagogues.

It didn't work, this time - but don't pretend that the EC is democratic. If the USA were a democracy, President Clinton would be in the White House.

Cloudflare: We dumped Daily Stormer not because they're Nazis but because they said we love Nazis

strum

Re: @Old Englishman

>And, as we all know, anybody the political left doesn't like is a "fascist".

No - that's only your delusion showing through.

strum

Re: I think..

This "Antifa" garbage gets my goat. The word is 'anti-fascist' - just like your grandfather, who landed on Omaha beach was anti-fascist. If you're Jewish, you've probably got relations who died in Belsen; they were anti-fascist. George Orwell, something of a hero amongst right-wingers, went to Spain to fight fascists.

To be against fascism is to be a decent human being. It doesn't warrant this negative nickname.

PayPal, accused of facilitating neo-Nazi rally, promises to deny hate groups service

strum

>national Socialism, which is left wing

Bollocks.

strum

>One you are legitimizing them.

Bullshit. They will never be legitimate. They went to Charlottesville to stir up trouble.

>Second is you are setting a dangerous precedent by restricting freedom of speech

Also bullshit. Freedom of speech carries a responsibility - to understand the effect of that speech. Many of these low-brow marchers are just spouting hate speech as IRL trolls - to provoke others. Now they know that hate breeds hate.

strum

Re: In the long run

>Confederate statues (not historical monuments, but 1920s responses to an earlier resurgence of racism in the South

Yes. This needs to be emphasised. These aren't celebrating Confederate heroes, they're celebrating Jim Crow.

Vaping ads flout EU rules, even if to promote healthier lifestyles

strum

As someone who quit a 45-year habit through vaping, I'm 99% in their favour.

That last 1%? Nicotine is a very dangerous poison, and there appear to be no controls over the people who mix it into those multi-flavour e-liquids.

I was hit with a batch of e-liquid which had a dangerous proportion of nicotine in it. I was very ill for a day or so (being generally healthy helped. If I'd had a dodgy ticker, I'd be dead.) Afterwards, couldn't even contemplate anything nicotinish (which, I suppose, was a result).

I'd like to see some level of control over e-liquid production. Beyond that, vape away.

Slurping people's info without a warrant? That's OUR JOB, Google, Facebook et al tell US Supreme Court

strum

This is a specious argument. We may not approve of the behaviour of data-grabbers, but the Fourth Amendment never prohibited nosey neighbours, peering over your fence, or store-owners keeping track of receipts, or busybodies counting cars - all 'data-grabbing', in 18th century terms.

The Fourth Amendment constrains government (and its agents).

Stick to the question.

Brit folk STILL not getting advertised broadband speeds – survey

strum

The gummint should legislate to require ISPs to charge only the percentage of the fee, relative to the percentage of claimed speed, actually delivered.

So "£30 for 50Mb" becomes £3 for 5Mb actual.

Think the ISPs might change their tune then?

TalkTalk fined £100k for exposing personal sensitive info

strum

Re: £100K

> that Harding woman

Well, that's a revealing phrase.

Er, Ofcom, please tell us more about Murdoch's £11.7bn Sky bid

strum

The Sky buyout dispute is entirely political.

FTFY

Your top five dreadful people the Google manifesto has pulled out of the woodwork

strum

Re: Ad hominem

>Claiming people are biased because they're white is an ad hominem.

No it fucking isn't.

Mediocre Britain: UK broadband ranked 31st in world for speed

strum

Re: Yep pretty much says it all

>Planning? What's that?

It's what people complain about when they can't build an eyesore where they want to.

strum

>Other countries had absolutely no problem being sure how popular data would be.

Only countries that started digitalisation much later than us. When the UK did it, faxes were cool.

strum

>The correct context for this discussion is 30 years ago when data was the new kid on the block and no-one was really sure how popular it was going to be.

Indeed. We need only remember how many times BT had to renumber the London network, to realise how little clue they had about the uses to which those lines would be put.

Tech giants warp eco standards to greenwash electronics, rake in cash

strum

Re: Repair != Green

>But that's not recycling apparently.

No. It isn't. It's re-using.

You only need to recycle when you can no longer re-use.

Dems fightin' words! FCC's net neutrality murder plot torn apart

strum

Re: Huzzah

> If some citizens have more information to ship and they can pay extra, why not let the providers build those extra 'lanes" with some of that profit?

What profit? Oh - you're assuming that anyone with anything to say is making money out of it? How quaint.

>In other words, leave the market alone and it will accommodate all levels of custom.

Ideology like that makes the commies look moderate.

strum

Re: "Taking direction from president Trump"

>Back when Wheeler took direction from Obama

When you start with a falsehood, the rest of your message can safely be ignored.

Re-identifying folks from anonymised data will be a crime in the UK

strum

>In fact, we could just get rid of Westminster altogether,

Fine by me. Strasbourg is much more democratic.

London Mayor slams YouTube over failure to remove 'shocking' violent gang vids

strum

>Most parents don't take care of their kids

What!!!. A tiny, tiny minority of parents neglect their kids (and a few more try but fail). Don't generalise from the few to the many.

strum

Re: All they have to do...

>If the content of these videos contravene any current laws, then Mr Khan or the police should prosecute the individuals concerned

Which should, perhaps, include those making money out of them - like Google?

The Next Big Thing in Wi-Fi? Multiple access points in every home

strum

>If Comcast's support people can control wifi following a script, surely software would be able to do a better job automatically?

Surely the script kiddie next door will be able to play merry hell with my WiFi?

WannaCry-killer Marcus Hutchins denies Feds' malware claims

strum

Re: Proportionality? We've heard of it.

> This is what happens to a country after eight years of radical community organizing.

The US "Justice" system was pants, long before Obama's election. Your derangement explains why.

WannaCrypt victims paid out over $140k in Bitcoin to get files unscrambled

strum

Re: The most worrying comment is ...

>The NHS is a massive Leviathan monster, stumbling around, blindly consuming unbelievable amounts of money

The NHS is a collection of hundreds of entities, delivering high-quality health care at a fraction of the cost of other nations.

Trump-backed RAISE Act decoded: Points-based immigration, green cards slashed

strum

Re: "Muh Russia Investigations ... will yield something any time now ... any time!"

>It's been about 12 months now.

It took two years to bring down Nixon.

Revealed: 779 cases of data misuse across 34 British police forces

strum

PE

Thing is - every fictional private eye in history has had a 'friend' (usually female) with access to police records, who will hunt down a car reg/phone no./address, for the promise of a swanky dinner.

And we all took that in our stride.

Take that, gender pay gap! Atos to offshore hundreds of BBC roles

strum

Re: I have always supposed the idea of the BBC, but...

>Correct, but it is by definition beholden to the state that owns it.

The 'state' doesn't own the BBC.

Got some pom-poms handy? UK.gov seeks a geography cheerleader

strum

Re: Other things the UK government needs to learn

> you do know that the UK isn't in (or on) a continent, don't you?

We're on the shelf (in more ways than one).

Amazing new algorithm makes fusion power slightly less incredibly inefficient

strum

Re: Here are some free ideas

>We got rid of steam trains for a reason.

And that reason was coal.